Never Come Midnight(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)


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作者:Grimm, Christopher

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Never Come Midnight

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版权信息书名:Never Come Midnight作者:Grimm, Christopher排版:Cicy出版时间:2018-01-30本书由当当数字商店(公版书)授权北京当当科文电子商务有限公司制作与发行。— · 版权所有 侵权必究 · —Across the void came a man who could not everhave been born—from a world that could neverhave been conceived—to demand his birthrightof an Earth that would have to die to pay it!I

Jan Shortmire smiled. "You didn't know I had a son, did you, Peter? Well, neither did I—until quite recently."

"I see." However, Peter Hubbard knew that Jan Shortmire had never married in all of his hundred and fifty-five years. In that day and age, unmarried people did not have children; science, the law, and public sophistication had combined to make the historical "accident" almost impossible. Yet, if some woman of one of the more innocent planets had deliberately conceived in order to trap Shortmire, surely he would have learned of his son's existence long before.

"I'm glad it turns out that I have an heir," Shortmire went on. "Otherwise, the government might get its fists on what little I have—and it's taken enough from me."

Although the old man's estate was a considerable one, it did seem meager in terms of the money he must have made. What had become of the golden tide that had poured in upon the golden youth, Hubbard wondered. Could anyone have squandered such prodigious sums upon the usual mundane dissipations? For, by the time the esoteric pleasures of the other planets had reached Earth—the byproduct of Shortmire's own achievement—he must have already been too old to enjoy them.

At Hubbard's continued silence, Shortmire said defensively, "If they'd let me sell my patents to private industry, as Dyall was able to do, I'd be leaving a real fortune!" His voice grew thick with anger. "When I think how much money Dyall made from those factory machines of his...."

But when you added the priceless extra fifty years of life to the money Shortmire had made, it seemed to Hubbard that Shortmire had been amply rewarded. Although, of course, he had heard that Nicholas Dyall had been given the same reward. No point telling Shortmire, if he did not know already. Hubbard could never understand why Shortmire hated Dyall so; it could not be merely the money—and as for reputation, he had a shade the advantage.

"That toymaker!" Shortmire spat.

Hubbard tactfully changed the subject. "What's your boy like, Jan?" But of course Jan Shortmire's son could hardly be a boy; in fact, he was probably almost as old as Hubbard was.

Such old age as Shortmire's was almost incredible. Sitting there in the antique splendor of Hubbard's office, he looked like a splendid antique himself. Who could imagine that passion had ever convulsed that thin white face, that those frail white fingers had ever curved in love and in hate? Age beyond the reach of most men had blanched this once-passionate man to a chill, ivory shadow.

For once, Hubbard felt glad—almost—that he himself was ineligible for the longevity treatment. The allotted five score and ten was enough for any except the very selfish—or selfless—man.

But Shortmire was answering his question. "I have no idea what the boy is like; I've never seen him." Then he added, "I suppose you've been wondering why I finally decided to make a will?"

"A lawyer never wonders when people do make wills, Jan," Hubbard said mildly. "He wonders when they don't."

"I'm going on a trip to Morethis. Only one of the colonized planets I've never visited." Shortmire's smile did not reach his amber-hard eyes. "Civilized planets, I should have said. It isn't official government policy to colonize planets that have intelligent native live-forms."

Not even the most besotted idealist could ever have described Jan Shortmire as altruistic. And for him to be concerned about Morethis, of all planets—Morethis, where the indigenous life-forms were such as to justify a ruthless colonization policy ... it was outrageous! True, the terrestrial government had been more generous toward the Morethans than toward any of the seven other intelligent life-forms they had found. But this tolerance was based wholly on fear—fear of these remnants of an old, old civilization, eking out their existence around a dying star, yet with terrible glories to remember in their twilight—and traces of these glories to protect them.

How was it that Shortmire, who had been everywhere, seen everything, had never been to Morethis? Hubbard looked keenly at his client. "What is all this, Jan?"

The old man shrugged. "Merely that the Foreign Office has suggested it would be wise for travelers to make a will before going there. Being a dutiful citizen of Earth, I comply." He smiled balefully.

"The Foreign Office has suggested that it would be wiser not to go at all," Hubbard said. "There are people who say Morethis ought to be fumigated completely."

"Ah, but it has rare and precious metals on which our industries depend. There are herbs which have multiplied the miracles of modern medicine, jewels and furs unmatched anywhere. We need the native miners and farmers and trappers to get these things for us."

"We could get them for ourselves. We do on the other planets."

Shortmire grinned. "On Morethis, somehow, our people can't seem to find these things themselves. Or, if they do, we can't find our people afterward. Which is why there is peace and friendship between Morethis and Earth."

"Friendship! Everyone knows the Morethans hate terrestrials. They tolerate us only because we're stronger!"

"Stronger physically." Shortmire's smile was fading. "Even technology is a kind of physical strength."

New apprehension took shape in Hubbard. "You're not going metaphysical in your old age, are you, Jan? And even if you are," he said quickly, while he was still innocent of knowledge, hence could not be consciously offending the other man's beliefs, "what a cult to choose! Blood, terror and torture!"

Shortmire grinned again. "You've been watching vidicasts, Peter. They've laid it on so thick, I'll probably find Morethis deadly dull rather than just ... deadly."

Certainly, all Hubbard knew of Morethis was based on hearsay evidence, but this was not a court of law. "Jan you're a fool! A third of the terrestrials who go to Morethis never come back, and mostly they're young men, strong men."

"Then they're the fools." Shortmire's voice was low and tired. "Because they're risking a whole lifetime, whereas all I'll be risking is a few years of a very boring existence."

Hubbard said no more. Even though the law still did not condone it, a man had the right to dispose of his own life as he saw fit.

Shortmire stood up. Barely stooped by age, he looked, with his great height and extreme emaciation, almost like a fasting saint—a ludicrous simile. "My wine palate is gone, Peter," he said, clapping the younger old man's shoulder, "women and I seem to have lost our mutual attraction, and I never did have much of a singing voice. At least this is one experience I'm not too old to savor."

"Death, do you mean?" Hubbard asked bluntly. "Or Morethis?"

Shortmire smiled. "Perhaps both."

So Peter Hubbard was not surprised when, a few months later, he got word that Jan Shortmire had died on Morethis. The surprising thing was the extraordinarily prosaic manner of his death: he had simply fallen into a river and drowned. No traveler on Morethis had been known to die by undisputed accident before; as a result, the vidicasts devoted more attention to the event than they might have otherwise. But the news died down, as other news took its place. In so large a universe, something was always happening; the dog days were forever gone from journalism.

Going through the old man's papers in his capacity as executor, Hubbard came across an old passport. He was startled to discover that this trip had not been Shortmire's first to Morethis. Why had he lied about it? But that was a question that no one alive could answer—or so Hubbard thought.

Almost two years went by before the will was finally probated on all the planets where Shortmire had owned property. Then the search for Emrys Shortmire began. Messages were dispatched to all the civilized planets, and Peter Hubbard settled back for a long wait.

Five years after Jan Shortmire's death, the intercom on Peter Hubbard's desk buzzed and his secretary's voice—his was one of the few legal offices wealthy enough to afford human help—said, "Mr. Emrys Shortmire to see you, sir."

How could a man come from so many light-years' distance without radioing on ahead, or at least tele-calling from his hotel? Dignity demanded that Hubbard tell his secretary to inform Shortmire that he never saw anyone without an appointment. Curiosity won. "Ask him to come in," he said.

The door slid open. Hubbard started to rise, with the old-fashioned courtesy of a family lawyer. But he never made it. He sat, frozen with shock, staring at the man in the doorway. Because Emrys Shortmire wasn't a man; he was a boy. He might have been a stripling of thirty, except for his eyes. Copper-bright and copper-hard they were, too hard for a boy's. Give him forty, even forty-five, that would still have made Jan Shortmire a father when he was nearly a hundred and twenty. The longevity treatment produced remarkable results, but none that fantastic. Though health and strength could be restored, fertility, like youth, once vanished was gone forever.

Yet the boy looked too sophisticated to have made a stupid mistake like that, if he were an imposter. More important, he looked like Jan Shortmire—not the Shortmire whom Hubbard had known, but the broad-shouldered youth of the early pictures, golden of hair and skin and eyes, almost classical in feature and build. Plastic surgery could have converted a fleeting resemblance to a precise one, yet, somehow, Hubbard felt that this was flesh and blood of the old man's.

"You're very like your father," he said, inaccurately: Emrys was less like his father than he should have been, given that startling identity of physique.

"Am I?" The boy smiled. "I never knew him. Of course, I know I look like the pictures, but pictures never tell much, do they?"

He had many papers to give Peter Hubbard. Too many; no honest man had his life so well in order. But then Emrys' honesty was not the issue, only his identity. The birth certificate said he had been born on Clergal fifty-five years before, so he was ten years older than Hubbard's wildest estimate. A young man, but not a boy—a man of full maturity, but still too young to be, normally, Jan Shortmire's son. Then Hubbard opened Emrys Shortmire's passport and received another shock.

He tried to sound calm. "I see you were on Morethis the same time your father was!"

Emrys' smile widened. "Curious coincidence, wasn't it?"

A surge of almost physical dislike filled the lawyer. "Is that all it was—a coincidence?"

"Are you suggesting that I pushed my father into the Ekkan?" Emrys asked pleasantly.

"Certainly not!" Hubbard was indignant at the thought that he, as a lawyer, would have voiced such a suspicion, even if it had occurred to him. "I thought you two might have arranged to meet on Morethis."

"I told you I'd never seen my father," Emrys reminded him. "As for what I was doing on Morethis—that's my business."

"All I'm concerned with is whether or not you are Emrys Shortmire." Distaste was almost tangible on Hubbard's tongue. "It does seem surprising that, since you were on Morethis at the time your father died, you should not have come to claim your inheritance sooner."

"I had affairs of my own to wind up," Emrys said flatly.

Hubbard tapped the papers. "You understand that these must be checked before you receive your father's estate?"

"I understand perfectly." Emrys' voice was soft as a Si-yllan cat-man's, and even more insulting. "They will be gone over thoroughly for any possible error, any tiny imperfection, anything that could invalidate my claim. But you will find them entirely in order."

"I'm sure of that." And Hubbard knew, if the papers were forgeries, they would be works of art.

"You'll probably want me to undergo an equally thorough physical examination for signs of—ah—surgical tampering. Yes, I see I'm right."

Ungenerous hope leaped inside Hubbard. "You would object?"

"On the contrary, I'd be delighted. Haven't had a thorough medical checkup for years." On this cooperative note, Emrys Shortmire bowed and left.

Hubbard sighed back against the velvet cushions of his chair—real silk, for he was a very rich old man. Unfortunately, he could not doubt that this was Jan Shortmire's progeny. But—and Hubbard sat upright—no matter how much Emrys resembled his father, that was only one parent. Who had the young man's mother been?

Quickly, Hubbard searched through the papers for the birth certificate. The name was Iloa Tasqi. The nationality: Morethan.

No wonder the affair had been kept so secret. No wonder Emrys seemed so strange and that Jan had lied about his previous visit to the dark planet. Small wonder, too, that he'd had a son he was not aware of. Who would have believed that human and Morethan could breed together? For the Morethans, although humanoid, were not at all human.

So Emrys Shortmire was only half human. The other half was—well, the vidicasts called it monster, and, now that he had met the young man, Peter Hubbard was inclined to agree.II

Outside the office building, Emrys Shortmire paused and inhaled deeply. Say what you would about the atmospheres of some of the other planets' being fresher and purer, the air of Earth, being the air in which Man had evolved, was the air that felt best in his nostrils and filled his lungs to greatest satisfaction. And, after the fetid atmosphere of Morethis, this was pure heaven. Gray sky and violet dying sun against blue sky and radiant golden sun. No wonder the Morethans were what they were, and Earthmen were what they were.

Well, the golden sun of Earth would set somewhat sooner than the physicists—or the sociologists—had prognosticated. But all that would be long after he himself had died. It was no concern of his, anyway. He was Emrys Shortmire, born out of Jan Shortmire and no mortal woman; and nothing else on Earth, or in the Universe, mattered.

Disdaining the importunate heli-cabs that besieged him with plaintive mechanical offers of transportation, he walked down the street, enjoying the pull of the planet upon the youth and strength of his body, delighting in the clarity of his vision and the keenness of his nostrils. He was so absorbed in his thoughts and so unaccustomed still to Earth's traffic that he did not look where he was going. The groundcar was upon him before he knew it. Of course something like this would happen, he thought bitterly, as darkness descended upon him and he waited for the crushing impact. It was always like that in the old stories, always some drawback to spoil the magic gift.

But then it was light again. The car had passed over him and he was unharmed, to the amazement—and disappointment—of the avid crowd that had gathered.

"Pedestrians should look where they're going," the voice of the car observed petulantly. "Repairs cost money."

Being part human, Emrys was shaken by the experience. His eye caught the brilliant sign of a bar. Here, he thought, would be syrup to soothe his nerves. And he went inside, eager to try the taste of ancient vintages of Earth—unobtainable on the other planets, since fine wines and liquors could not endure the journey through space.

He sipped a whisky and soda, trying not to feel disappointed at the savor. As he drank, he felt eyes upon him—the bartender's. Yet the long Qesharakan reflecting glass above the bar showed him nothing unusual about his appearance. Did the bartender know who he was? How could he?

Then Emrys noticed that the man glanced from him to someone else—a girl sitting at the other end of the bar. As she met Emrys' eye, she smiled at him. Absently, with remote appreciation of her good looks, he smiled back, then returned to the contemplation of his drink. The bartender's expression deepened to amused contempt.

Emrys realized what was wrong and he could hardly keep from laughing. So intent had he been on the pursuit of his goal that he had almost lost sight of the goal itself. Deliberately, he turned his head and smiled at the girl. She promptly smiled back.

He sat down at her side. Now that he was close, her aquamarine hair showed dark at the roots, and, through the thick golden maquillage, the pores stood out on her nose. Also, she was not so very young. He laughed then, and, when she asked why, bought her a drink. After he had bought her several more, they went to her apartment—a luxurious one in a good section of town. She was not going to be cheap, but, he thought with rising anticipation, he could afford her.

However, the night was curiously unsatisfactory. For him—apparently not for the girl, because the next morning she indignantly refused his money. Evidently the experience had been something out of the ordinary for her. He could not feel it was her fault that it had been nothing for him; the lack was in him, he thought, some almost-felt emotion he could not recapture.

Promising to call her, he left, went back to his hotel room and flung himself upon the resilient burim-moss couch.

His body wasn't tired, but his head ached wearily. The liquor, naturally, on an empty stomach ... after all those years of Morethan qumesht. And then the trip. Even with the Shortmire engines—standard equipment now, of course—it had taken a long, tiring time, for Morethis was the most distant of all the civilized planets. Anyone would be exhausted after such a trip. Added to all this, the accident. There were no bruises on his body yet, but later, he knew, they would be visible.

At last he slept, or seemed to, and dreamed he was on Morethis again—or Morethis was there with him. The air thickened about him into the tangible atmosphere of the dark planet—the swirling aniline fog that never cleared. And in the midst stood Uvrei, the high priest, robed in amethyst and sable. The term high priest was vulgar as applied to him, but the nearest terrestrial equivalent to what he was.

The lips in the shockingly beautiful face parted. "How goes it, son of my spirit?" the familiar greeting rolled out, in the familiar voice, deep yet sweet, like dulcet thunder.

"My head hurts, father of my soul." Emrys knew his voice was a petulant child's, yet he could not stop himself. "I was promised—"

"You have not taken care," the ancient one said.

How ancient he was, Emrys did not know. The priests of Morethis were, they said, immortal. And they did live for a long, long time, far longer than the common people, whom they resembled only vaguely. Terrestrial scholars said the ruling class was a variant of the Morethan race, inbred to preserve its identity, probably closer to the original world-shaking Morethans than their debased followers. The members of this group seemed young, as coin faces seem young, also old, like coins themselves.

"I warned you it takes time for the final adjustments to be made. Wait, my son; haste means nothing to you."

"But I've waited so long," Emrys complained.

"Wait a little longer, then. You have all the time in the world."

The fog swirled shut about him, and Emrys sank into his personal miasma of sleep. When he woke up, late that afternoon, he knew from the dank odor clinging to the bedclothes that it had not been a dream, that the priests, the "gods," the "immortals" of Morethis could, as they professed—and even he had not believed them in this—project their minds far through space ... though, fortunately, not their bodies, or they would not have needed him. He remembered then the vial of tiny golden pellets Uvrei had given him before he left Morethis, and took one. Perhaps that was what the ancient one had meant. At any rate, Emrys thought he felt better afterward.

He examined his body in the mirror to see if bruises had come, but the tawny, muscle-rippled flesh was unmarked. At length he put on his clothes and, leaving the hotel, went to a jeweler, where he bought a costly bracelet to be sent to the girl of the night before. Such a grandiose gesture relieved him—he had always felt—of all further obligation.

He did not wish to repeat his experience with the liquor, so he did not go to a bar. He had no friends on Earth—nor could he have acknowledged them if he had. He did not wish to repeat his disappointment of the previous night, so he did not seek female companionship—although it was obvious from the eyes of the women he passed that he would have no difficulty whenever he changed his mind. But what should he do? What did young men do with their leisure, he tried to remember, when they had nothing but leisure?

He dined alone, finally, on a variety of rare terrestrial foods that did not taste quite as he expected, and went to the theater. The play was one he had seen a hundred times before under a hundred different names on many different planets. He went then to a nightclub, but it was crowded and noisy, and the girls did not excite him. Going back to the hotel, he found that sleep, at least, came easily.

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