Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Little Pets of Arkkhan by Garson Bill Vestal Herman B Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 165 lines and 11247 words, and 4 pages
The Little Pets of Arkkhan
BY VASELEOS GARSON
Lovable little balls of fur, incongruous on this bleak asteroid, forlorn and lonely ... who could be blamed for picking one up to take along--or for what happened thereafter?
At first, it was only a spider thread of sound. It was so soft, so caressing that it was like some healing unguent to the throbbing, burning boil that was Kent Knight's brain.
Tender and soothing as a wind-wafted melody in the first hush of evening, his grateful mind whispered. Then his mind was screaming as the spider thread grew jagged edges that clawed open the first pain wounds and tore them wider.
Knight lay on the hot rocky plain of the asteroid, sprawling convulsively where he was thrown when the first sharp hurt slashed at his mind.
That faint wondering thought whispered through the pain. But it was flung from him as his pain-frantic brain raged at his nerves, knotted and twisted his muscles.
There was too much agony for his mind to absorb. Knight sensed the waning of his mind's last resources with relief. The mental shocks ceased, his nerves and muscles quieted, and he drifted into a gentle darkness where there was no pain....
Knight drew his lean, rawboned frame erect. His muscles didn't hurt any more, he realized. He ran his strong fingers--which were shaking now--through his brown hair, ruffling the rock dust out of it. He looked toward the green oasis on the far side of the rocky plain where his friends were.
"You are whistling in the dark, fool. Have you not wondered why you crashed on this wandering asteroid? We Arkkhans willed you here. There was nothing wrong with your ship--we willed you to crash because we wanted weak creatures like you.
"You are the first we found whose minds are strong enough to contain us without destroying the motor impulses."
The Thing filled Kent Knight's mind with a thousand scenes and chuckled as the horror spread like wildfire through the little that was left of Kent Knight.
"No!" Knight cried, the muscles in his lean throat convulsing.
Suddenly, Kent Knight began to run. He didn't want to, but his long sinewy legs drove him across the rocky plain at reckless speed, and his mind would not answer his frantic orders to stop. His lungs burned and screamed as they sucked in the asteroid's thin air, and his heart was a writhing, sobbing thing within his straining chest.
One ankle caught between two rough hands of rock and broke, but he did not stop running. Each time the weight of his body fell fully upon that fractured bone, it splintered a little more until the shards were sharp daggers biting into what mind still belonged to Kent Knight.
Then the other foot--the right one--stepped on a razor-edged rock that cut through flesh, bone and sinew, but still Kent Knight ran on. The Thing was chuckling at the stabbing pain signals.
"I hate you, Thing." Knight's deadly thought reached for the Thing within his mind. Then Kent Knight cradled his head in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably, his shoulders shaking convulsively, his whole body trembling with rage and agony.
"Why rebel, Earthling? You cannot prevail against us. So simple it was to hurt you. If you but accept your destiny as our hosts, it will be pleasant. Like this!"
The sense of peace which flooded through Kent Knight then was so deep and so full, he wanted to cry again--this time because he was happy and free of pain. For the agony in the broken ankle and the slashed foot was gone. The throb of the bruises, the aching loss of his individuality, of his will, the horror of his and mankind's destiny with the Arkkhans--all these were gone.
He stood up slowly and, for the first time since he picked up the strange furry little creature from its hiding place in a rock crevice, he felt like Kent Knight.
He lifted his dirty face, streaked with tears, to where he knew Earth must be circling its familiar old sun. He whispered, "Thing, all my life I have feared pain. Ever since I was a kid back on Earth and my pup dug his needle teeth in my hand, I have hated and feared it.
"But peace at your price is not for me. If you don't mind," and Knight's full, almost sensual lips which loved pleasure so well twisted wryly as he spoke, "I'll take the pain."
He got it....
It was Sammy's hoarse breath, saturated with liquor fumes, that was his first sensation when he finally crawled wearily back the molten road from his hell of pain.
His mind listened avidly, reaching out tenuous fingers, searching every nook and cranny of Kent Knight's brain, seeking out the Thing. The fingers grew surer, swifter as they worked through the brain, finding only pain. Then his desperate mind relaxed. Pain was something it understood; it could take care of that.
Knight opened his eyes. Sammy's blood-flecked black ones, popping as usual from his flushed face, stared into his eyes from only inches away.
"Cripes," muttered Knight. "Sammy, you're stinking drunk again!"
Sammy pulled his face back far enough so Knight could focus his eyes. He rubbed a huge blunt paw on his shiny pate, transferred the paw to his broken nose, tried unsuccessfully to straighten the sharp curve it made to the right before he answered, very slowly and very distinctly.
"You know, Kent, I do believe that you have made a highly astute and highly correct observation. I think, however, that you are guilty of an understatement when you say only stinking drunk. I have never in my binge-ridden life been as intoxicated as I am at this present moment."
He waved his paw at Knight.
"But, Kent, there is something very definitely wrong. Something is lousing up the usual beatific feeling I have after three quarts. Honest to gosh, Kent, I have been drinking for three days and three nights, but I can't go to sleep. I can't pass out. I can't get happy." He shook his bald head, and the wall-light made it gleam like a highly polished egg.
"Hell, Kent," he exploded suddenly. "All I do is drink and, honest to gosh, it gets tiresome lifting and dropping a bottle all the time, day and night. But I can't stop. My mind keeps nagging at me to stay drunk. It's just like there was somebody in me with me." He was shaking his head like a puzzled child.
Kent Knight stood up slowly, warily, fearing that the Thing would make his muscles flaccid, limp, uncontrollable by the wee bit of mind that still was his.
He looked around the sleeping cubicle he shared with Sammy. He looked at Sammy's bald pate, the harried black eyes, remembering.
"Asteroid time?" he asked. That wouldn't be so bad but....
Kent Knight delved through his memory.
Sammy coughed. "You nervous, Kent? Want to participate in a little snort?" Sammy took a swig out of the bottle and offered it to Knight.
"No, Sammy. That's what put me on this hellish little ship, remember? Five years of exile from Earth." Sammy nodded owlishly, and said, in the cruel honesty of men who have been broken by the same thing, "It's man's great curse, but women are worse, and you had them both."
"Not women, Sammy, a woman--but she loved another guy so I just walked out."
"Correction, please," Sammy said. "You floated out." Sammy looked sad. "That was the trouble, Kent. You should have never stopped floating. Look at me. I'm happy and I stay that way because of liquor. But you stopped, and now look at you. In the three years I've been on this ship with you, you never have smiled once. Come on, have a drink."
Kent Knight shook his head. Sammy took an extra long snort. "Honest to gosh, Kent, there must be something wrong with this stuff. It's sobering me up."
"I know everything, Kent Knight," It chuckled. "I could tell you what your mind is trying to tell you but hide from me."
"Do you?" Knight's thought was listless. "Yes." The part that was still Kent Knight, though smothered by the Thing's presence, sighed, and Knight felt himself sigh almost in relief.
"No," Kent Knight said, and his lips were smiling. "You don't know what it's trying to tell me, Thing. We'll beat you. It will let me know and you won't know it."
When it was gone, leaving only the echoes behind, Kent Knight raised himself to his feet, walked slowly toward the tiny spring where Captain Hansen was still tasting the water.
Captain Hansen, his seamed face beaming, looked up as Knight approached. His blue eyes were sparkling. "We can make millions on this water, Kent! It's the fountain of youth that Ponce de Leon sought! Why, look, I've sipped only about three ounces and look at my old hands. They're smooth and young as yours! And my face--see the fresh new skin!"
But he said, and he actually put feeling into the words, "Why, you look like that picture of your son on your desk, Ike. But hadn't you better be careful? You don't know that water's strength. It might cause irreparable damage to you."
"That's right," Captain Hansen agreed. "I'm young enough now, don't you think?"
Knight twisted his lips into a smile he didn't feel, turned back toward the ship. Captain Hansen followed him, dancing.
"Do you see now how impossible it is, Earthman? We Arkkhans are so vastly superior to you, there is nothing you can do but bow to us? And you will be unutterably happy," his Thing thought.
He was remembering....
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page