More Than Human

Anti-gravity: a fantasy, a dream. Anti-gravity, which would change the face of the earth in ways which would make the effects of steam, electricity, even nuclear power, mere sproutings of technology in the orchard this device would grow. Here was skyward architecture no artist had yet dared to paint; here was wingless flight and escape to the planets, to the stars, perhaps. Here was a new era in transportation, logistics, even the dance, even medicine. And oh, the research… and it was all his.

The soldier, the dull-witted Pfc, stepped forward and yanked the lever full back. He smiled and threw himself at Barrows’ legs. Barrows kicked free, stood, sprang so his knees crackled. He stretched, reached, and the tips of his fingers touched the cool bright underside of one of the cables. The contact could not have lasted longer than a tenth of a second; but for years afterwards, for all the years Barrows was to live, part of him seemed to stay there in the frozen instant, his fingertips on a miracle, his body adrift and free of earth.

He fell.

Nightmare.

First the breast-bursting time of pounding heart and forgotten breathing, the madness of an ancient ruin rising out of its element, faster and faster, smaller and smaller into the darkening sky, a patch, a pot, a speck, a hint of light where the high sunlight touched it. And then a numbness and pain when the breath came again.

From somewhere the pressure of laughter; from somewhere else, a fury to hate it and force it down.

A time of mad shouting arguments, words slurred into screams, the widening crescents of laughing eyes, and a scuttling shape escaping him, chuckling. He did it… and he tripped me besides.

Kill…

And nothing to kill; racing into the growing dark and nothing there; pound-pound of feet and fire in the guts and flame in the mind. Falling, hammering the uncaring sod.

The lonely return to the empty, so empty, so very empty hole in the ground. Stand in it and yearn upward for the silver cables you will never see again.

A yellow-red eye staring. Bellow and kick; the detector rising too, but only so high, turning over and over, smashed, the eye blind.

The long way back to barracks, dragging an invisible man called Agony whose heavy hands were clamped upon a broken foot.

Fall down. Rest and rise. Splash through, wallow, rise and rest and then the camp.

HQ. Wooden steps, the door dark; hollow hammering; blood and mud and hammering. Footsteps, voices: astonishment, concern, annoyance, anger.

The white helmets and the brassards: MP. Tell them, bring the Colonel. No one else, only the Colonel.

Shut up, you’ll wake the Colonel.

Colonel, it’s anti-magnetron, to the satellite, and freight; no more jets!

Shut up, ROTC boy.

Fight them then and someone screamed when someone stepped on the broken foot.

The nightmare lifted and he was on a white cot in a white room with black bars on the windows and a big MP at the door.

‘Where am I?’

‘Hospital, prison ward, Lieutenant.’

‘God, what happened?’

‘Search me, Sir. Mostly you seemed to want to kill some GI. Kept telling everybody what he looks like.’

He put a forearm over his eyes. ‘The Pfc. Did you find him?’

‘Lieutenant, there ain’t such a man on the roster. Honest. Security’s been through every file we got. You better take it easy, Sir.’

A knock. The MP opened the door. Voices.

‘Lieutenant, Major Thompson wants to talk to you. How you feel?’

‘Lousy, Sergeant. Lousy… I’ll talk to him, if he wants.’

‘He’s quiet now, Sir.’

A new voice – that voice! Barrows pressed down on the forearm he held over his eyes until sparks shone. Don’t look; because if you’re right, you’ll kill him.

The door. Footsteps. ‘Evening, Lieutenant. Ever talk to a psychiatrist before?’

Slowly, in terror of the explosion he knew must come, Barrows lowered his arm and opened his eyes. The clean, well-cut jacket with a Major’s leaves and the Medical Corps insignia did not matter. The man’s professionally solicitous manner, the words he spoke – these meant nothing. The only thing in the universe was the fact that the last time he had seen this face, it belonged to a Pfc, who had uncomplainingly and disinterestedly hauled his heavy detector around for a whole, hot day; who had shared his discovery; and who had suddenly smiled at him, pulled the lever, let a wrecked truck and a lifetime dream fall away upward into the sky.

Barrows growled and leapt.

The nightmare closed down again.