Inheritors of Earth.

Gordon Eklund and Poul Anderson.

One.

Happily humming one of the few really melodic popular tunes of the day, Alec Richmond rode the gently moving walkway down the corridor toward his office door. He was in such a good mood, so happy and contented with the whole world and every soul in it, that he felt almost shameful. But there was no way of changing his attitude, not unless he somehow managed to forget what had happened only a few hours earlier. His employer, Theodore Mencken, had finally signed a government contract both he and Alec had been strenuously laboring to land for six months or more. That contract meant money-several hundred thousand new dollars-but Alec knew the reason for his good mood was not money alone. It was the power and success and prestige that went with the contract and the fact that his accomplishments nearly required his promotion within the ranks of the Superiors. Alec didn't see how Astor or any of the others could expect to keep him out of the Inner Circle a day longer. Heretic or not, he had done what he had set out to do. Weren't there few others-very few-who could claim the same?

Nor was the contract the only excuse he had for feeling pleased. Outside for an hour of lunch, he had discovered a uniquely glorious spring day, bursting with real sunshine, blue sky, fresh air, clean clouds. As soon as he ironed out a few minor details with Ted Mencken, he would be free to begin a month's vacation. He was really looking forward to that. The only problem was that he wanted to go back east-to New York-where he could confront the Inner Circle face-to-face, while Anna said no. She thought the Inner Circle-the Superiors who sat on it, at least-a dreadful bore. She said she wanted to go someplace else, to Mexico or Central America or Free Brazil, any place with real sunshine. Alec shook his head, wishing he had time for play and sunshine. Maybe later-in a few years- when he was settled.

The office door was closer. Alec read the simple block letters printed in the air:

THEODORE MENCKEN.

Agent

The walkway brought him to the brink of the office door. Bracing his knees to withstand the sudden cessation of velocity, Alec jumped off. He removed a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. He turned his hand.

The door opened without resistance.

Alec swore and stepped hastily inside. He had given Ted strict orders never to leave the front door unlatched. It didn't matter if he was inside or not. The door must always be locked.

Shutting the door, Alec took a step forward. As soon as he did, he knew that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

He felt Ted Mencken, and Ted Mencken was dying.

A wave of agony swept across Alec's mind and sent him down to his knees. He grabbed his head in his hands and screamed, trying to bite down on his tongue to shut off the cries. "Good God," he moaned, as wave after wave of suffering ran through his mind. He knew he was weeping like a baby with the secondhand agony he was forced to endure. "Ted, Ted, Ted," he whispered, unable to make himself heard. Mechanically, without thinking, his knees swiveled toward the door, but his muscles seemed frozen stiff-turned to ice by some dreadful magic-and he could not move an inch forward. "Ted, Ted," he whispered again. They had come. The others. Today of all days. They had come and got Ted.

He wanted to call out and tell Ted that he was coming. Bit by bit, he erected a tenuous shield around his mind, attempting to hold back as much of the agony as possible. At least he could think now. He managed to stop weeping but the desire to flee-to get out of this room and away from the pain and leave Ted to die-remained so powerful he had to waste precious energy trying to subdue it. At last, he began to crawl forward, moving on his hands and knees. He was glad the office was soundproof; at least he didn't have to worry about people, attracted by the sound of his own cries and Ted's, interrupting and finding him this way. But that had been a blessing for the others too, he realized. When they had come to do their dirty work, no one had interrupted them either; no one heard a sound.

But Ted heard. He was calling out now, his voice faint, more like an animal than a man, barely an indecipherable whisper. Crawling, Alec tried to reply:

"Ted...hold on...it's me-it's Alec...I'm coming...try to-"

A whimper rose in answer: "Alec, oh, Alec... please ...please..."

"I'm coming," Alec called. He tried to crawl faster. The office consisted of three identically sized rooms, each opening into the next. The farther he progressed, the more difficult it became to withstand the agony. When he entered the second room, he forced his fingers under his jacket and removed the revolver he kept holstered there. Pausing briefly, he flicked off the safety, then checked to ensure a bullet was resting in the proper chamber. Then he went forward, holding the gun ahead of him. Ted's agony continued to burn inside his mind. Outside, in the open world beyond, it was a simple process to prevent stray, unwanted thoughts and feelings from intruding into his own mind. But Ted was not simply thinking and feeling; he was dying. And there was no way Alec could prevent those awful thoughts from penetrating way down to the very core of his own being.

He made it. Finally. The door leading into the third room. The light was not burning. He was grateful to them for that. The last thing he needed now was to have to look at Ted Mencken as well as kill him. Feeling him was horrible enough-seeing might well force Alec past the precarious edge of madness. He crawled into the dark room. Stopping, he tried to concentrate upon the source of the agony, attempting to discern its exact direction. His hand moved carefully, raising and lowering the revolver, gauging and estimating the shot. He didn't try to say a word. He thought Ted was silent too. Both knew this must be the end.

Alec fired. The gun exploded with a tremendous heaving sigh. Ted screamed. Alec dropped the gun, then fell forward, hurling his cheek against the cold bare floor. His body shook and trembled. His hands opened and closed spasmodically.

But it was over.

At last, slowly, he regained control of himself. His mind was free. His forehead throbbed with pain, as if struck by a powerful hammer, but a headache was nothing compared to what he had already been forced to endure. He tottered to his feet and staggered toward the nearest wall. He struck the resilient plastic a brutal blow. From above, soft light began to flicker into existence.

Theodore Mencken stood against the farthest wall. Alec saw the bullet hole in the man's chest. From the silence, he knew Ted was dead. There was no need to check for breath or pulse or heartbeat.

But the bullet-the damage it had done-was nothing compared to what had been done before. Alec could barely recognize the agonized, twisted features of his employer.

Why? he thought, searching desperately for some answer, some solution. Wasn't there any other way?

His mind finally comprehended what his eyes were seeing and he felt sick. Gagging, he turned and rushed out of the room. Halfway to the bathroom-set aside from the first room-he began to giggle. He couldn't stop himself. It seemed so funny. The monsters, he thought-the cold, heartless monsters. Why had they done it that way? Was it the cross that Ted, a devout Catholic, wore? Or was it the photograph of Ah Tran, the so-called new messiah, that decorated that same wall? Were they trying to make some statement? Was the horror merely some simple exercise in monstrous irony? What kind of people could they be? How could they be so...so inhuman?

Like a three-dimensional tape sculpture suddenly materializing in the middle of the air, Alec saw that horrible sight again. Ted. Bent. Twisted. Dying. Nailed to the wall-spikes glinting in the light-blood surging from the wounds in his hands, feet, neck.

Theodore Mencken-agent-crucified.

The vision made him sick again. He reached the bathroom just in time and, once inside, he never wanted to leave.

Two.

It seemed to take hours before Alec finally managed to wrest a free seat on the transbay hovercraft but, almost as soon as he had, the craft set down in Oakland and waited there an hour because of essential military maneuvers being conducted in the area. He hung onto his seat, twitching with nervous impatience. An elderly woman sitting across the aisle tried to sound him out about the possibility of war but he refused to answer, pretending instead that she was directing her remarks to the small boy who sat beside him.

By the time he at last reached the terminal gate down the road from his home, it was well past midnight. Stepping into the clean air that remained from the day, he turned and silently regarded the view, a stream of directionless lights flickering upon the placid remnants of San Francisco Bay. His home was located high in the hills behind Berkeley. He turned away from the lights and trudged up the narrow gravel walk that led to his door. Along both sides of the path, stands of gnarled oak-twentieth century anachronisms - stretched toward and partly concealed the sky. A chilly wind whipped at his long hair. Crickets sang and an occasional mosquito buzzed.

Alec was oblivious to all this. Instead, his mind-capable of juggling a dozen or more separate lines of thought - raced along a multitude of complex and interwoven paths. But even that many possible alternatives were not sufficient to contain the entirety of his thoughts tonight. Too many things had happened to him all at once. What could he do?

Reaching the door with shocking suddenness-no light shined upon the porch-he struggled to let himself in. But he had barely begun to twist the knob when the door popped open, revealing the chiseled features of Eathen. Alec stepped back. The last thing he needed to see tonight was this android. "Get out of my way."

"Yes, sir," Eathen said.

Alec brushed angrily past him, entering the living room. It was dark, silent, uninhabited. He turned on a heel and confronted Eathen, who had followed.

"Where is she?"

"In the garden, I believe."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What's she doing out there? It's nearly one o'clock."

"I wouldn't know, sir."

"No," Alec said, realizing the futility of insulting a creature that wasn't even human but unable-after today-to restrain himself. "No, I suppose you wouldn't."

"I'm sorry, sir."

For a moment, unable to choose, Alec stood rooted in the half-light, half-darkness between the living room and the corridor. This house was a vast structure-built some fifty years before-thirty rooms arranged in a doughnut square; a central garden a quarter-acre in size occupied the middle, the eye. They had moved in less than two months ago. Alec was attracted by the ostentation of the place, the sense of the past it contained, while Anna liked the idea of the garden. She knew the common and scientific names of every plant and flower out there.

"Stay here," he told Eathen, then set off down the corridor. A glass wall-transparent-the lighted garden showing beyond-rose to block his path. He stepped easily through the wall, his feet coming down upon moist dirt. Trees and bushes crowded around him. He sprang forward, finding a faintly visible path.

"Anna! I'm home! Are you here?"

He hadn't expected her to answer-nor did she-but he thought he knew where she would be. In the center of the garden a tiny creek emerged briefly from the earth, flowing for perhaps a dozen meters before sinking once more beneath the soil. A high arched bridge spanned the stream. He found Anna here, seated upon the crown of the bridge, her long legs dangling past the edge, eyes remotely fixed upon the ribbon of water below. Alec halted at the foot of the bridge and stood without speaking, preferring her to recognize him first. He glanced above, where a transparent dome sealed the garden off from the rest of the world and kept the often deadly fumes of the air from penetrating to infect the more exotic foliage. Dozens of tiny lights had been carefully arranged upon the surface of the glass to resemble the pattern of the nightly stars. There was a big yellow light too-a constantly full moon.

"Hello," Anna said, at last. But she did not look at him.

"I'm home," he said. A soft artificial wind filtered through the high branches of the nearby trees. Listening closely, he could hear the faint pulse of distant music.