Short Fiction Ray Bradbury (always you kirsty moseley TXT) đ
- Author: Ray Bradbury
Book online «Short Fiction Ray Bradbury (always you kirsty moseley TXT) đ». Author Ray Bradbury
Brandon kept him there, crucified on a fist.
âI told you. Let me search for my own sonâs body in my own way. I donât need your tongue.â
Loganâs eyes were losing their shine, were getting blind and glazed. Brandon stepped back, releasing the little assistant. Logan bumped softly against metal flooring, his mouth hungry for air, his nostrils flaring for breath. Brandon watched the little face of Logan over the crouched, gasping body, with red color and anger shooting up into it with every passing second.
âCoward!â he threw it out of himself, Logan did. âGot yellowâ âneon-tubingâ âfor your spine. Coward. Never went to war. Never did anything for Earth against Mars.â
Brandon said the words in slow motion. âShut up.â
âWhy?â Logan crept back, inching up the metal hull. The blood pumps under the skirts of the tables pulsed across the warm silence. âDoes it hurt, the truth? Your sonâd be proud of you, okay. Ha!â He coughed and spat. âHe was so damn ashamed of you he went and signed up for space combat. So he got lost from his ship during a battle.â Logan licked his lips very carefully. âSo, to make up for it, you signed on a Morgue Ship. Try to find his body. Try to make amends. I know you. You wouldnât join the Space Warriors to fight. No guts for that. Had to get a nice easy job on a morgue shipâ ââ
Lines appeared in Brandonâs gaunt cheeks, his eyes were closed, the lids pale. He said, and tried to believe it himself, âSomeone has to pick up the bodies after the battle. They canât go flying on forever in their own orbits. They deserve burial.â
The bitterness of Logan struck even deeper. âWho are you tryinâ to convince?â He was on his feet now. âMe, itâs different. I got a right to running this ship. I was in the other war.â
âYouâre a liar,â Brandon retorted. âYou hunted radium in the asteroids with a mineral tug. You took this Morgue Ship job so you could go right on hunting radium, picking up bodies on the side.â
Logan laughed softly, but not humorously. âSo what? Least Iâm no coward. Iâll burn anybody gets in my way.â He thought it over. âUnless,â he added, âthey give me a little money.â
Brandon turned away, feeling ill. He forced himself to climb up the rungs toward that airlock, where that fresh body lay, newly stillborn from space by the retrieving-claw. His palms let wet shining prints on the rungs. His climbing feet made a soft noise in the cold metal silence.
The body lay in the cold airlockâs center, as thousands had lain before. Its posture was one of easy slumber, relaxed and not speaking ever again.
Brandon took in his breath. Numbly he realized it was not his son. Every time a new body was found he feared and yet hoped it would be Richard. Richard of the easy laughter and good smile and dark curly hair. Richard who was now floating off somewhere toward some far eternity.
Brandonâs eyes dilated. He went to his knees and with efficient darts of his eyes, he covered the vital points of this strange uniform with the young body inside it. His heart pounded briefly, and when he got up again he acted like he had been struck in the face. He walked unsteadily to the rungs.
âLogan,â he called down the hole in a numbed voice. âLogan, come up here. Quick.â
Logan climbed lazily up, emitting grunts and smoke.
âLook here,â said Brandon, kneeling again by the body.
Logan looked and didnât believe it. âWhere in hellâd you get that?â
Lying there, the face of the body was like snow framed by the ebon-black of the hair. The eyes were blue jewels caught in the snow. There were slender fingers reclining against the hips. But, most important of all, was the cut of the silver metal uniform, the grey leather belt and the bronze triangle over the silent heart with the numerals 51 on it.
Logan held onto the rungs. âThree hundred years old,â he whispered it. âThree hundred years old,â he said.
âYes.â The Numerals 51 were enough for Brandon. âAfter all these centuries, and in perfect condition. Look how calm he is. Most corpse faces arenâtâ âpretty. Something happened, three hundred years ago, and heâs been drifting, alone, ever since. Iâ ââ Brandon caught his breath.
âWhatâs wrong?â snapped Logan.
âThis man,â said Brandon, wonderingly, âcommitted suicide.â
âHow do you figure?â
âThereâs not a mark of decompression, centrifugal force, disintegrator or ray-burn on him. He simply stepped out of a ship. Why should a Scientist of the 51 Circle commit suicide?â
âThey had wars back there, too,â said Logan. âBut this is the first time I ever seen a stiff from one of them. It canât happen. He shoulda been messed up by meteors.â
A strange prickling crept over Brandon. âWhen I was a kid, I remember thumbing through history books, reading about those famous 51 Scientists of the Circle who were doing experimental work on Pluto back in the year 2100. I memorized their uniforms, and this bronze badge. I couldnât mistake it. There was a rumor that they were experimenting with some new universal power weapon.â
âA myth,â said Logan.
âWho knows? Maybe. Maybe not. But before that super weapon was completed, Earth fell beneath Marâs assault. The 51 Scientists destroyed themselves and their Base when the Martians came. Theâ âmythâ âsays that if the Martians had been only a month laterâ âthe weapon would have been out of blueprint and into metal.â
Brandon stopped talking and looked at the long-boned, easily slumbering Scientist.
âAnd now he shows up. One of the original 51. I wonder what happened? Maybe he tried to reach Earth and had to leap into space to escape the Martians. Logan, weâve got history with us, pulled in out of space, cold and stark under our hands.â
Logan laughed uneasily. âYeah. Now, if we only had that weapon. Baby,
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