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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78948 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                 KILLER
+
+                            by James E. Gunn
+
+                          Illustrated by Freas
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  =He came to me from the stars, spewed out from his own world by his
+  hates. I found him, I gave him all he could ask for, and I made him
+  mine. But in the end, there was still his hate, and the killer drive
+  within him....=
+
+
+
+
+He was a killer. He came to me from a distance so great that it
+was meaningless. He descended to me riding on a tail of flame. We
+loved--how could we help it? But I knew him too well, and he did not
+know me well enough. And that is the stuff of tragedy.
+
+_Green_, was his first thought, pleased and incredulous. _Beautiful,
+beautiful green!_
+
+It was implausibility and wonder. It was the impossible happy ending
+to the long chase and the longer hopelessness. It was the haven after
+the fleeing into space with metal bloodhounds hot on a trail of fading
+ions in the empty vaults, after the hurried Jump and the fantastic
+mechanical failure which turned an alien universe into a hungry mouth,
+snapped shut, after the expectoration into sane space like a rejected
+seed. It began with death and ended with life.
+
+For green is the color of life. Green is the color of growing things,
+of energy becoming useful, of plants doing the countless things that
+make life possible for animals. Green is the color of Earth.
+
+_Another chance_, he thought. _Unless this is dream or delusion or a
+cosmic jest--another chance. I’m black-and-blue from pinching myself--I
+don’t feel crazy--though after a week of Nowhere who can be sure?
+Unless some vital little thing is out of balance down there--A jewel
+like that? Twin sister to Earth. Surely fate would not go this far and
+then leave out some little essential_....
+
+The green world turned lazily in the yellow light of the Go-type sun.
+
+“What are you waiting for, Sam,” he said aloud, “an invitation? Kick
+her down and find out!”
+
+There was only enough fuel for one landing. The Jumper had eaten up a
+lot when it went crazy, and the yacht had only a quarter fuel load when
+he took it. It was here or nothing.
+
+_I’d rather die with my feet on the ground. If I’m lucky--maybe
+something alive I can communicate with in time. I thought I’d die in
+there with no one to talk to. Just to be with something else alive_--
+
+And that was rather strange, because it was murder that brought him
+here.
+
+Sam Newman had been a commercial pilot. It was a good job, but contrary
+to public opinion, pilots are not fabulously overpaid. What with
+automatics and navigational tapes and such, the skill of the early
+pilots is no longer essential. The computers do the work, and pilots
+are mostly supernumeraries. But the glamor has not yet vanished, and
+competition is keen.
+
+Yet, that Sam had got as far as he had was something of a triumph. His
+appointment to the Academy had been due to a political concession which
+established a quota for poor children. Sam had worked for it, and his
+eventual position as pilot of a passenger liner was proof of how hard
+he worked.
+
+Then had come Fran and love--the two together, inseparable. Sam had had
+a long time to think about it. But still he couldn’t decide whether
+they had really been in love or only in love with the feeling of being
+in love. What had attracted him to Fran was obvious: her dark-haired
+beauty, her slim, curved figure, and her casual acceptance of things he
+had always coveted, like position, security, luxury. For Fran had been
+wealthy.
+
+What had attracted her to him was, in a sense, the same things. He had
+been called handsome; he was tall and well-built and blond. He was
+everything that Fran was not--ambitious, imaginative, intense like the
+keen, shining edge of a knife.
+
+Differences had attracted them, and differences split them apart when
+marriage threw them into constant companionship. His pride rebelled at
+the use of her money, and she could not understand. He was ill-at-ease
+in her world, and she seemed condescending in his. What had seemed
+entrancingly different under the silver light of romance became ugly
+and irritating under the merciless, glaring sun of living together. And
+finally came the quarrels and the arguments and the jealousy--on his
+part, anyway. Fran was casual in other things--why not in morals? God
+knows, she had opportunity enough when he was away.
+
+And whispers reached his ears and nasty rumors and Fran only shrugged
+her slim shoulders and looked down at him from an unassailable pinnacle
+of sophistication. Innocence of inherited position or excuse for
+license? She was spoiled, he knew, spoiled with liberty that did not
+understand “I shouldn’t.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then the blind, red day when the crewmen had snickered as he passed
+on his way down the ramp, when he had learned what everyone seemed
+to know--that she was divorcing him, when he had faced her with his
+suspicions and accusations and she had laughed, laughed as his face
+grew hot and red and heavy and his hands reached for her throat and
+squeezed, squeezed until the laughter was all gone, and the beauty and
+the life....
+
+He took the yacht down by hand. He did not trust the automatics,
+and besides, it was the last time, the last trip, and he wanted to
+do it himself. The way the ship responded to the light pressure of
+his fingers on the keys gave him an acute feeling of pleasure. He
+brought it down only a mile or so from the ocean, where a broad river
+emptied into it; rivers and seas are natural places of habitation. He
+brought it down lightly, gently, on its tail absorbers so that the
+ship hesitated for a moment and then sagged as the power cut off, and
+everything was quiet. He sat there with his hands on the keys for a
+moment, and he would have liked to have taken her up again and landed
+it once more, but the needle of the fuel gauge flickered at empty.
+There was only enough to provide light and heat for a few months.
+Fran’s yacht had come to her last port.
+
+Sam sighed and lifted his hands from the keys and dropped them into his
+lap. The hands clutched each other for a moment, and then relaxed. They
+were good hands for piloting a ship and bad hands for loving. They were
+killers, but now there was to be no use for either function any more.
+
+Sam got up and walked to the port. He hesitated and then punched the
+button. There was no use testing the air. If it was poisonous he might
+as well find it out now; the air regenerators in the ship would not
+last long.
+
+The heavy disc swung outward, slowly, with a slight squeal. The air
+came in. It was warm, fresh with the odor of green, growing things. Sam
+breathed deeply once and again. It was good air, life-giving air. He
+let down the ladder and climbed down its tubular metal rungs. He stood
+on the soil of this alien planet and filled his lungs once more as he
+looked around.
+
+The grass beneath his feet was short and springy, more like
+well-cared-for lawn than wild meadow. Here and there flowers sprang up.
+They seemed familiar, but he was no botanist. The trees nearby--weren’t
+they elms? Overhead the sky was blue, the soft, mild blue of summer,
+with small, drifting white clouds.
+
+Sam felt strangely uneasy, as if he had walked into a room expecting
+it to be unfamiliar and found he knew it almost by heart. Parallel
+evolution? Nowhere had the explorations found anything so much like
+Earth--or, rather, like Earth should look like. If so, then perhaps
+there were--men. Sam longed for someone to talk to. Anyone. He
+shrugged. He had been lucky so far; he should not press it.
+
+He took out a pocket compass. The needle trembled and then swung into a
+fixed position. There was his north, and the ocean lay to the east of
+him, the river to the northeast and farther away. Sam struck out toward
+the ocean.
+
+There was something wrong. Sam sensed it and then knew it without
+being able to pin it down. A moment later it came to him. It was so
+quiet; there was no life, no sound except the lazy rustle of leaves
+in the light breeze. _There should be birds_, he thought, _and bees_.
+A few steps farther on he caught sight of both. _They must have been
+frightened by the landing of the ship._
+
+He had been walking among the trees for several minutes. It was easy
+to keep moving steadily in the direction he had set for himself; the
+trees were well spaced, and there was no brush or debris of dead leaves
+and branches--only the crisp green turf beneath his feet. Fragmentary
+thoughts skipped through his mind.
+
+_No signs of inhabitants ... nothing artificial ... unless this
+impossibly perfect turf ... or the trees_ ... Sam had the uneasy
+feeling that something was watching him--perhaps with an emotion
+stronger than curiosity. He walked on a few steps and spun around.
+There was nothing but the trees and the turf and the birds and the
+bees. Slowly his hand let the gun slide back into the holster at his
+hip. _Nerves? But surely there should be some animal life._
+
+Sam started. He had turned back toward the ocean, and scarcely
+twenty-five feet away a half-grown fawn, spotted white and brown,
+lifted its head from the turf it had been cropping daintily. He walked
+toward it, and the fawn held its ground, looking at him without fear.
+He put his hand on the fawn’s neck, and the fawn nestled toward him and
+its coat was silky.
+
+Wonderingly, Sam rubbed its neck and shoulders gently, and the fawn
+looked at him with brown eyes, big and trustful. Sam gave it a final
+pat and walked on. Behind him the fawn hesitated for a moment and then
+started to trot along behind.
+
+After a few minutes Sam reached the coast. It was as peaceful and
+beautiful as a South Sea island. The trees stopped and a little farther
+on the grass stopped and white sand stretched down to a gently foaming
+surf and blue water. Sam stood looking at it for a long time, his hand
+resting on the fawn’s head.
+
+He sat down and took off his shoes. He walked through the warm sand to
+the edge of the water. He knelt and put his hand into the surf. It was
+just cool enough to be invigorating. Sam stood up abruptly and sprinted
+through the surf down the gently shelving beach until the water was
+deep enough to swim in. It was foolhardy. Even around South Sea islands
+there are sharks. But somehow Sam couldn’t distrust this world. He swam
+and floated in the water for half an hour. Finally he waded toward the
+shore again. The fawn was curled up on the sand, sleeping peacefully in
+the sun beside his pile of discarded clothing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Sam came out of the surf, dripping, the fawn awakened and slowly
+got to its feet. The sun and breeze dried Sam’s body quickly, and he
+began to put his clothing back on.
+
+“Well, boy,” Sam said softly, “this is something, eh? All we need now
+is another castaway. Maybe a beautiful blonde, huh?”
+
+The fawn lifted its head and snuffled through velvet nostrils. Then it
+turned its head toward the line of trees. Sam looked too. Out from the
+trees came the beautiful blonde. And she was perfect. The light breeze
+lifted her long ashen hair and pulled it back from the clean-cut lines
+of her face. Her blue eyes were clear and friendly, and the corners of
+her generous mouth were quirked up a little. The thin summer dress she
+wore clung to the planes and curves of her body.
+
+Sam stared and swallowed.
+
+“Hello,” I said, as if we had met on an Earth beach which was countless
+millions of parsecs away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“He--hello,” Sam said, and swallowed again. “You speak English!”
+
+I smiled. “I should. I came from Earth.”
+
+“But how--” he stammered. “I can’t believe--it’s--”
+
+“I started my Jump just outside the orbit of Mars exactly ten days
+ago,” I said. “But the Jumper failed or something. I came out here and
+landed. I’ve been here three days.”
+
+“The same thing happened to me,” Sam said. “Then it couldn’t have been
+mechanical failure--I’ve heard theorists talk about space warps....”
+
+“We might as well introduce ourselves. My name is Louise.” I held out a
+hand to him.
+
+He took it. His hand was hot and strong. “Sam--Sam Newman. That was my
+mother’s name.”
+
+“Sam?” I asked. “Or Newman.”
+
+“Newman--I mean Louise.”
+
+I laughed. “I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out.”
+
+“Last name?”
+
+I shrugged. “What does it matter?”
+
+“But your ship,” Sam said. “Where is it?”
+
+“Back there.” I waved a hand toward the trees. “Miles. I thought of the
+advantages of the ocean too late.”
+
+“Any fuel?”
+
+I shook my head. “That’s why I left. I thought I might find some
+inhabitants here, if anywhere, so I started out. Then, today, I saw
+your ship land.”
+
+Sam’s jaw dropped. “You saw me land? But why--?”
+
+“I wanted a little time to think, to make up my mind,” I said. “I’ve
+been watching, trying to decide. If you had been some men I’ve seen--or
+even some I’ve known--well, a planet is a pretty big place. And
+loneliness is preferable to a lot of things.”
+
+Sam shuddered. “God!” he said. “You might have--” The thought that he
+had been on trial struck him with a sudden sickness. “You might have
+decided to go away....”
+
+“Would that have been a tragedy?” I made it light.
+
+“Louise”--Sam’s voice was husky and low--“trite as it seems, you were
+the answer to a prayer. Just before you stepped out from the trees, I
+thought that just one thing was needed to make this paradise complete.
+You.”
+
+“But you didn’t know me,” I objected.
+
+Sam’s voice was so soft I could scarcely hear it. “I’ve known you all
+my life.”
+
+I knew how he felt. I felt the same way. I knew what it was to
+be alone, completely alone, waiting throughout eternity for one
+personality to shatter your loneliness and bring life into an aching
+void.
+
+“You said you’d been watching me,” Sam said. “I thought I felt eyes on
+me back there in the trees.”
+
+I nodded, smiling. “I know. I thought you were going to shoot me.”
+
+Sam’s jaw tightened and the muscles rippled. “The second shot would
+have been for me.” He looked down at his feet. He noticed that his
+feet were bare and his shirt was open. He closed the shirt hastily and
+looked up at me. “You’ve been watching. Then you saw--” He turned red.
+
+“That’s when I made up my mind,” I said, laughing. “I decided that no
+man who loved swimming and animals could be altogether bad.”
+
+Sam looked down. The fawn was rubbing against his leg, looking at
+Louise. Sam knelt. “Louise,” he said, “this is Bambi. Bambi, this is
+Louise.”
+
+“Hello, Bambi,” I said.
+
+Then, for a little while, we didn’t say anything. We stood there in
+the silence and it wasn’t embarrassed but somehow thoughtful and
+peaceful with the only sound the soft surf breaking against the silver
+shore. For one person is all the loneliness there can ever be, but
+two persons--a man and a woman--is loneliness shared, which isn’t
+loneliness at all but a world, entire and complete.
+
+Sam looked up finally. “No inhabitants?”
+
+I shook my head. “Only us. We’re the inhabitants.”
+
+Sam got to his feet and held out his hand to me. I took it and we
+turned and walked to where the grass met the sand. We sat down and Sam
+put on his shoes and we looked at the sea and the surf and the sky.
+
+“We’re all alone,” I said. “Forever and ever.”
+
+We talked and fell silent, but we never said anything more important
+than that and the things we said were unimportant because we were both
+thinking the same thing and we were both hoping it would be tender and
+sweet and wonderful and lasting. And it was.
+
+The sun went down and the stars came out and the night was just a
+little cooler than the day but not uncomfortable. Neither of us thought
+of food. When it got very dark we lay warm beside each other looking up
+at the stars. Sam couldn’t recognize any of the constellations or any
+of the stars.
+
+“No one will ever find us.” He said it with a kind of joy, trying to
+hide it from me that he was glad, as if he could ever hide anything
+from me. He rolled over on his side to look at me. “Louise--were
+you--married or anything?”
+
+I shook my head. “Not married or anything.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I put a finger over his lips. “It doesn’t matter,” I said softly.
+“Nothing matters that happened before. I don’t want to know. We were
+born again here, and all the past is gone--so far away that we could
+never find it if we searched a million lifetimes. It never happened.
+There’s just--us.”
+
+He kissed me and there was no passion in it--only wonder and happiness.
+“Louise--” His voice was almost lost in his throat. “I love you,
+Louise.”
+
+“I love you, Sam.”
+
+But when he slept, the name he muttered was “Fran.”
+
+In the morning life begins again. In the morning we walked back to his
+ship. Food was no problem. Fruits and berries were plentiful--apples
+and peaches and pears and plums and cherries--every day we discovered
+something new but familiar. From the ship’s stores we got canned meats
+and vegetables--we never saw any other animals than Bambi, although Sam
+insisted that obviously there must be others. Bambi wandered in and out
+of camp, but he was always there when Sam wanted him. Sam liked to play
+with him, and Bambi enjoyed it.
+
+The first day Sam built a shelter--a bower was what he called it--at
+the edge of the clearing where the ship was, under the trees. I didn’t
+want to sleep in the ship or even go inside it.
+
+“That’s the past,” I told Sam. “It’s as dead and meaningless as a
+monument. The sooner we forget what it is and what it stands for the
+happier we’ll be.”
+
+Sam agreed with me. The next time he went to the ship for food he
+returned without his gun. He built the bower, and he took a long time
+at it, lacing limbs together and thatching it with leaves to keep off
+the occasional showers. He was good with his hands, and he liked to
+keep busy.
+
+That night he slept peacefully.
+
+The second day we explored a little and looked over our supplies. We
+had the ship’s stores and fruit was plentiful, but there was nothing
+growing that would keep. Sam worried about it.
+
+“If it gets colder we might be in for something,” he said. “We could
+weather one winter in the ship, I suppose, but the next--”
+
+I shook my head. “I don’t think it will get any colder. I think it will
+always be like this.”
+
+He talked about wobbles and ecliptics and temperate zones, but it
+didn’t mean anything. The weather wasn’t changing, and it wasn’t going
+to. I was sure of that.
+
+He stirred a little in his sleep that night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+The morning of the third day we went to look for my ship. I tried to
+talk Sam out of it, but I knew it wasn’t any use. There might be fuel
+left, he said, maybe even enough to make an exploratory trip, and we
+could use the supplies. Maybe we could even locate some inhabitants.
+
+All that day we walked away from the ocean, and we saw nothing
+new--nothing at all. Trees identical with those that grew around our
+camp, spaced out on soft green turf. No animals. We walked slowly but
+steadily, eating fruit picked on our way. Sam began to get restless.
+Sometimes he would peer far ahead or swing around and stare back the
+way we had come.
+
+Toward evening we were walking up the side of a low hill. Suddenly Sam
+stopped. He looked toward me, his eyes vague and thoughtful.
+
+“You know,” he said, his voice low and tense-sounding in the quietness,
+“I have a strange feeling that maybe we’ll come to a place where all
+this ends, where it stops being and there’s nothing. Like maybe we’ll
+climb to the top of this hill and we’ll look down and there won’t be
+any trees and turf or anything. Like it’s being created before us,
+rolled out like a green carpet, and just beyond where we can see, it’s
+something else entirely, something unimaginable.”
+
+“You and all the other horizon-chasing explorers.”
+
+I smiled and a moment later he smiled and shook his head and took my
+hand and we climbed to the top of the hill. As far as we could see
+there were the same trees and turf.
+
+We slept under the sky that night, and Sam muttered but it never turned
+into words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day we reached a point farther than the distance Sam estimated
+I could have walked, and we searched in circles the rest of that day
+and the next. In the middle of one I finally stopped and shook my head
+bewilderedly.
+
+“They all look the same,” I said. “I don’t know where I put it down.
+Let’s give it up, Sam. It isn’t important now. Later we can map this
+area with landmarks and things and search for it, but I want to get
+back to our--home. Funny, isn’t it? We’ve only been here a week, and
+already there’s a place I think of as home.”
+
+Sam argued. He really wanted to search some more, but he finally gave
+in. We started back.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At our camp, life fell into a regular pattern. We woke. We ate. We
+swam in the impossibly blue sea by the silver sands. We fished. We
+ate and talked. We made love. We slept. It should have been paradise,
+and it was. But Sam was restless. He needed something to do, and here
+there was nothing that needed doing. He began to talk about building a
+sailboat, and he did work at it now and then, but he never seemed to
+get very far with it. And in the night he had begun to moan and say one
+name over and over again.
+
+One evening we were sitting together after our meal. The sun was still
+shining through the trees and I knew it was building up in him and
+there was nothing I could do but hope.
+
+“Fran,” he said, “I think we should search--” He stopped. _Fran_, he
+thought. _What a stupid thing to say. What a horrible thing to say._
+He glanced at me to see if I had noticed, and I sat there with the sun
+on me, not moving, not looking at him, feeling his eyes. _And yet_, he
+thought, _there is a resemblance. The dark hair, the mouth_ ... _The
+dark hair!_ He cast his mind back and I saw myself in his mind as he
+had seen me when I stepped forth from the trees with blue eyes and a
+generous mouth and ash-blonde hair. And it was something I couldn’t
+help because he wanted it so hard.
+
+He moved away from me a little. His thoughts churned. _Dark hair!_ He
+looked around him slowly and suddenly scrambled to his feet and ran to
+the ship and climbed up the ladder. I knew what he had gone for and I
+waited for him to come back and I hoped. Because there was nothing left
+but hope.
+
+When he came back he had his gun hanging at his hip again.
+
+“Stand up,” he said harshly. He towered above me, his feet spread
+apart, his face dark and angry.
+
+I stood up. “What are you?” he said.
+
+“I--”
+
+“I’ll tell you what you aren’t. Human, for instance. You aren’t human!”
+His mouth curled as if he had tasted something disgusting and horrible.
+“No wonder we couldn’t find your ship. There wasn’t any ship. You
+belong here. You’re a native. You can change. You can change the color
+of your hair and the shape of your mouth. Maybe you can change more
+than that. And I’ve been making love to you and I’ve been in love with
+you and I didn’t know--What are you?”
+
+His voice had been rising steadily. Now it cracked and broke in a
+thousand brittle pieces.
+
+“You,” he said. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And maybe you
+aren’t even female. Maybe they don’t have male and female here.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m female.”
+
+He didn’t hear me.
+
+“It’s all been a game--a horrible, deadly game. What’s real and what
+isn’t? You aren’t. I know that. Where are the rest of your kind? What
+kind of foul monster have I been making love to? _What are you?_”
+
+His voice ended in a shriek. He pulled out his gun and whirled, peering
+into the woods, pointing it here and there, the fat barrel trembling.
+
+“Come out!” he sobbed. “Come out, damn you! Come out!”
+
+“There’s only me,” I said quietly. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”
+
+He didn’t hear me. He didn’t understand me. Nothing could penetrate
+the thunder of blood pounding through his brain. But suddenly he swung
+around to face me again, suddenly aware that his back had been exposed
+to me.
+
+“God!” he said. “God! And I thought this was paradise!”
+
+He shook and the gun trembled and his finger tightened on the trigger.
+I knew what was coming, and I shrank back with horror. The trees
+trembled and the ground writhed.
+
+“It was, Sam,” I whispered. “It was.”
+
+“Change, damn you!” he shouted. “_Change! I want to see you as you
+really are!_”
+
+His thoughts--mad, violent, powerful--wrenched at me, twisted me,
+tortured me. I changed. Hatred, terror, and horror were in his eyes as
+he stared at me and thought he saw me, and I could not tell him that
+he saw only what he had willed to see. I could not tell him that I did
+only what he willed me to do.
+
+“God.” He whispered. “God.”
+
+I came toward him, my clawed hands outstretched. His finger tightened
+convulsively on the trigger. A wave of heat crisped my body, but it was
+nothing to the pain in my mind. He could not stop me, of course. He
+could not stop me with his gun, and it was too late for anything else.
+I was close to him now, and my hands were reaching for his throat and
+squeezing, squeezing....
+
+The last thing he ever heard--I know he heard it--was a low whisper
+that might only have been the wind sighing through the trees.
+
+“I love you, Sam.”
+
+He was dead. He was gone. And now that he was gone the reality that
+had been created for him--that he had created out of his desires--went
+back to another reality, no more real and perhaps not as much. With the
+fulfillment of his desire the trees melted back into the ground and the
+turf was no longer grass and I drew back into myself too the part of me
+Sam had called Louise and there was nothing but unending stretches of
+flat, featureless plain which from a great distance looked green.
+
+One thing remained. Not far from where the blue sea lapped the edges
+of the plain stood a tall, slim spire, like a monument. Nearby was a
+mound, at one end of it a small, flat slab of stone. On the stone were
+three words:
+
+                               SAM NEWMAN
+
+                                _Killer_
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+
+  This etext was produced from Rocket Stories, September 1953 (Vol. 1,
+  No. 3). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+  copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
+  minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+
+  The illustration has been moved to better fit the eBook format.
+
+  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
+  public domain.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78948 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78948 ***</div>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="01" style="max-width: 46.875em;">
+  <img class="w20" src="images/01.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+    <p>Transcribed from Rocket Stories, September 1953 (Vol. 1, No. 3).</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+<h1>
+KILLER
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="f15 center">by <strong>James E. Gunn</strong></p>
+
+<p class="f15 center">Illustrated by <strong>Freas</strong></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><b>He came to me from the stars, spewed out from his own world by his hates.
+I found him, I gave him all he could ask for, and I made him mine. But
+in the end, there was still his hate, and the killer drive within him....</b></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<p>He was a killer. He came to me from a distance so great that it was
+meaningless. He descended to me riding on a tail of flame. We loved—how
+could we help it? But I knew him too well, and he did not know me well
+enough. And that is the stuff of tragedy.</p>
+
+<p><i>Green</i>, was his first thought, pleased and incredulous. <i>Beautiful,
+beautiful green!</i></p>
+
+<p>It was implausibility and wonder. It was the impossible happy ending
+to the long chase and the longer hopelessness. It was the haven after
+the fleeing into space with metal bloodhounds hot on a trail of fading
+ions in the empty vaults, after the hurried Jump and the fantastic
+mechanical failure which turned an alien universe into a hungry mouth,
+snapped shut, after the expectoration into sane space like a rejected
+seed. It began with death and ended with life.</p>
+
+<p>For green is the color of life. Green is the color of growing things,
+of energy becoming useful, of plants doing the countless things that
+make life possible for animals. Green is the color of Earth.</p>
+
+<p><i>Another chance</i>, he thought. <i>Unless this is dream or delusion or a
+cosmic jest—another chance. I’m black-and-blue from pinching myself—I
+don’t feel crazy—though after a week of Nowhere who can be sure? Unless
+some vital little thing is out of balance down there—A jewel like
+that? Twin sister to Earth. Surely fate would not go this far and then
+leave out some little essential</i>....</p>
+
+<p>The green world turned lazily in the yellow light of the Go-type sun.</p>
+
+<p>“What are you waiting for, Sam,” he said aloud, “an invitation? Kick
+her down and find out!”</p>
+
+<p>There was only enough fuel for one landing. The Jumper had eaten up a
+lot when it went crazy, and the yacht had only a quarter fuel load when
+he took it. It was here or nothing.</p>
+
+<p><i>I’d rather die with my feet on the ground. If I’m lucky—maybe something
+alive I can communicate with in time. I thought I’d die in there with
+no one to talk to. Just to be with something else alive</i>—</p>
+
+<p>And that was rather strange, because it was murder that brought him
+here.</p>
+
+<p>Sam Newman had been a commercial pilot. It was a good job, but contrary
+to public opinion, pilots are not fabulously overpaid. What with
+automatics and navigational tapes and such, the skill of the early
+pilots is no longer essential. The computers do the work, and pilots
+are mostly supernumeraries. But the glamor has not yet vanished, and
+competition is keen.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, that Sam had got as far as he had was something of a triumph. His
+appointment to the Academy had been due to a political concession which
+established a quota for poor children. Sam had worked for it, and his
+eventual position as pilot of a passenger liner was proof of how hard
+he worked.</p>
+
+<p>Then had come Fran and love—the two together, inseparable. Sam had had
+a long time to think about it. But still he couldn’t decide whether
+they had really been in love or only in love with the feeling of being
+in love. What had attracted him to Fran was obvious: her dark-haired
+beauty, her slim, curved figure, and her casual acceptance of things he
+had always coveted, like position, security, luxury. For Fran had been
+wealthy.</p>
+
+<p>What had attracted her to him was, in a sense, the same things. He had
+been called handsome; he was tall and well-built and blond. He was
+everything that Fran was not—ambitious, imaginative, intense like the
+keen, shining edge of a knife.</p>
+
+<p>Differences had attracted them, and differences split them apart when
+marriage threw them into constant companionship. His pride rebelled at
+the use of her money, and she could not understand. He was ill-at-ease
+in her world, and she seemed condescending in his. What had seemed
+entrancingly different under the silver light of romance became ugly
+and irritating under the merciless, glaring sun of living together. And
+finally came the quarrels and the arguments and the jealousy—on his
+part, anyway. Fran was casual in other things—why not in morals? God
+knows, she had opportunity enough when he was away.</p>
+
+<p>And whispers reached his ears and nasty rumors and Fran only shrugged
+her slim shoulders and looked down at him from an unassailable pinnacle
+of sophistication. Innocence of inherited position or excuse for
+license? She was spoiled, he knew, spoiled with liberty that did not
+understand “I shouldn’t.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Then the blind, red day when the crewmen had snickered as he passed
+on his way down the ramp, when he had learned what everyone seemed
+to know—that she was divorcing him, when he had faced her with his
+suspicions and accusations and she had laughed, laughed as his face
+grew hot and red and heavy and his hands reached for her throat and
+squeezed, squeezed until the laughter was all gone, and the beauty and
+the life....</p>
+
+<p>He took the yacht down by hand. He did not trust the automatics,
+and besides, it was the last time, the last trip, and he wanted to
+do it himself. The way the ship responded to the light pressure of
+his fingers on the keys gave him an acute feeling of pleasure. He
+brought it down only a mile or so from the ocean, where a broad river
+emptied into it; rivers and seas are natural places of habitation. He
+brought it down lightly, gently, on its tail absorbers so that the
+ship hesitated for a moment and then sagged as the power cut off, and
+everything was quiet. He sat there with his hands on the keys for a
+moment, and he would have liked to have taken her up again and landed
+it once more, but the needle of the fuel gauge flickered at empty.
+There was only enough to provide light and heat for a few months.
+Fran’s yacht had come to her last port.</p>
+
+<p>Sam sighed and lifted his hands from the keys and dropped them into his
+lap. The hands clutched each other for a moment, and then relaxed. They
+were good hands for piloting a ship and bad hands for loving. They were
+killers, but now there was to be no use for either function any more.</p>
+
+<p>Sam got up and walked to the port. He hesitated and then punched the
+button. There was no use testing the air. If it was poisonous he might
+as well find it out now; the air regenerators in the ship would not
+last long.</p>
+
+<p>The heavy disc swung outward, slowly, with a slight squeal. The air
+came in. It was warm, fresh with the odor of green, growing things. Sam
+breathed deeply once and again. It was good air, life-giving air. He
+let down the ladder and climbed down its tubular metal rungs. He stood
+on the soil of this alien planet and filled his lungs once more as he
+looked around.</p>
+
+<p>The grass beneath his feet was short and springy, more like
+well-cared-for lawn than wild meadow. Here and there flowers sprang up.
+They seemed familiar, but he was no botanist. The trees nearby—weren’t
+they elms? Overhead the sky was blue, the soft, mild blue of summer,
+with small, drifting white clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Sam felt strangely uneasy, as if he had walked into a room expecting
+it to be unfamiliar and found he knew it almost by heart. Parallel
+evolution? Nowhere had the explorations found anything so much like
+Earth—or, rather, like Earth should look like. If so, then perhaps
+there were—men. Sam longed for someone to talk to. Anyone. He shrugged.
+He had been lucky so far; he should not press it.</p>
+
+<p>He took out a pocket compass. The needle trembled and then swung into a
+fixed position. There was his north, and the ocean lay to the east of
+him, the river to the northeast and farther away. Sam struck out toward
+the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>There was something wrong. Sam sensed it and then knew it
+without being able to pin it down. A moment later it came to him. It
+was so quiet; there was no life, no sound except the lazy rustle of
+leaves in the light breeze. <i>There should be birds</i>, he thought, <i>and
+bees</i>. A few steps farther on he caught sight of both. <i>They must have
+been frightened by the landing of the ship.</i></p>
+
+<p>He had been walking among the trees for several minutes. It was easy
+to keep moving steadily in the direction he had set for himself; the
+trees were well spaced, and there was no brush or debris of dead leaves
+and branches—only the crisp green turf beneath his feet. Fragmentary
+thoughts skipped through his mind.</p>
+
+<p><i>No signs of inhabitants ... nothing artificial ... unless this
+impossibly perfect turf ... or the trees</i> ... Sam had the uneasy
+feeling that something was watching him—perhaps with
+an emotion stronger than curiosity. He walked on a few steps and spun
+around. There was nothing but the trees and the turf and the birds and
+the bees. Slowly his hand let the gun slide back into the holster at
+his hip. <i>Nerves? But surely there should be some animal life.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sam started. He had turned back toward the ocean, and scarcely
+twenty-five feet away a half-grown fawn, spotted white and brown,
+lifted its head from the turf it had been cropping daintily. He walked
+toward it, and the fawn held its ground, looking at him without fear.
+He put his hand on the fawn’s neck, and the fawn nestled toward him and
+its coat was silky.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderingly, Sam rubbed its neck and shoulders gently, and the fawn
+looked at him with brown eyes, big and trustful. Sam gave it a final
+pat and walked on. Behind him the fawn hesitated for a moment and then
+started to trot along behind.</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes Sam reached the coast. It was as peaceful and
+beautiful as a South Sea island. The trees stopped and a little farther
+on the grass stopped and white sand stretched down to a gently foaming
+surf and blue water. Sam stood looking at it for a long time, his hand
+resting on the fawn’s head.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and took off his shoes. He walked through the warm sand to
+the edge of the water. He knelt and put his hand into the surf. It was
+just cool enough to be invigorating. Sam stood up abruptly and sprinted
+through the surf down the gently shelving beach until the water was
+deep enough to swim in. It was foolhardy. Even around South Sea islands
+there are sharks. But somehow Sam couldn’t distrust this world. He swam
+and floated in the water for half an hour. Finally he waded toward the
+shore again. The fawn was curled up on the sand, sleeping peacefully in
+the sun beside his pile of discarded clothing.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When Sam came out of the surf, dripping, the fawn awakened and slowly
+got to its feet. The sun and breeze dried Sam’s body quickly, and
+he began to put his clothing back on.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, boy,” Sam said softly,
+“this is something, eh? All we need now is another castaway. Maybe a
+beautiful blonde, huh?”</p>
+
+<p>The fawn lifted its head and snuffled through velvet nostrils. Then it
+turned its head toward the line of trees. Sam looked too. Out from the
+trees came the beautiful blonde. And she was perfect. The
+light breeze lifted her long ashen hair and pulled it back from the
+clean-cut lines of her face. Her blue eyes were clear and friendly, and
+the corners of her generous mouth were quirked up a little. The thin
+summer dress she wore clung to the planes and curves of her body.</p>
+
+<p>Sam stared and swallowed.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello,” I said, as if we had met on an Earth beach which was countless
+millions of parsecs away.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>“He—hello,” Sam said, and swallowed again. “You speak English!”</p>
+
+<p>I smiled. “I should. I came from Earth.”</p>
+
+<p>“But how—” he stammered. “I can’t believe—it’s—”</p>
+
+<p>“I started my Jump just outside the orbit of Mars exactly ten days
+ago,” I said. “But the Jumper failed or something. I came out here and
+landed. I’ve been here three days.”</p>
+
+<p>“The same thing happened to me,” Sam said. “Then it couldn’t have been
+mechanical failure—I’ve heard theorists talk about space warps....”</p>
+
+<p>“We might as well introduce ourselves. My name is Louise.” I held out a
+hand to him.</p>
+
+<p>He took it. His hand was hot and strong. “Sam—Sam Newman. That was my mother’s name.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sam?” I asked. “Or Newman.”</p>
+
+<p>“Newman—I mean Louise.”</p>
+
+<p>I laughed. “I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Last name?”</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. “What does it matter?”</p>
+
+<p>“But your ship,” Sam said. “Where is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Back there.” I waved a hand toward the trees. “Miles. I thought of the
+advantages of the ocean too late.”</p>
+
+<p>“Any fuel?”</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. “That’s why I left. I thought I might find some
+inhabitants here, if anywhere, so I started out. Then, today, I saw
+your ship land.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam’s jaw dropped. “You saw me land? But why—?”</p>
+
+<p>“I wanted a little time to think, to make up my mind,” I said. “I’ve
+been watching, trying to decide. If you had been some men I’ve seen—or
+even some I’ve known—well, a planet is a pretty big place. And
+loneliness is preferable to a lot of things.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam shuddered. “God!” he said. “You might have—” The thought that he
+had been on trial struck him with a sudden sickness. “You might have
+decided to go away....”</p>
+
+<p>“Would that have been a tragedy?” I made it light.</p>
+
+<p>“Louise”—Sam’s voice was husky and low—“trite as it seems, you were
+the answer to a prayer. Just before you stepped out from the trees, I
+thought that just one thing was needed to make this paradise complete.
+You.”</p>
+
+<p>“But you didn’t know me,” I objected.</p>
+
+<p>Sam’s voice was so soft I could scarcely hear it. “I’ve known you all
+my life.”</p>
+
+<p>I knew how he felt. I felt the same way. I knew what it was to
+be alone, completely alone, waiting throughout eternity for one
+personality to shatter your loneliness and bring life into an aching
+void.</p>
+
+<p>“You said you’d been watching me,” Sam said. “I thought I felt eyes on
+me back there in the trees.”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, smiling. “I know. I thought you were going to shoot me.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam’s jaw tightened and the muscles rippled. “The second shot would
+have been for me.” He looked down at his feet. He noticed that his
+feet were bare and his shirt was open. He closed the shirt hastily and
+looked up at me. “You’ve been watching. Then you saw—” He turned red.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s when I made up my mind,” I said, laughing. “I decided that no
+man who loved swimming and animals could be altogether bad.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam looked down. The fawn was rubbing against his leg, looking at
+Louise. Sam knelt. “Louise,” he said, “this is Bambi. Bambi, this is
+Louise.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, Bambi,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for a little while, we didn’t say anything. We stood there in
+the silence and it wasn’t embarrassed but somehow thoughtful and
+peaceful with the only sound the soft surf breaking against the silver
+shore. For one person is all the loneliness there can ever be, but two
+persons—a man and a woman—is loneliness shared, which isn’t loneliness
+at all but a world, entire and complete.</p>
+
+<p>Sam looked up finally. “No inhabitants?”</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. “Only us. We’re the inhabitants.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam got to his feet and held out his hand to me. I took it and we
+turned and walked to where the grass met the sand. We sat down and Sam
+put on his shoes and we looked at the sea and the surf and the sky.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re all alone,” I said. “Forever and ever.”</p>
+
+<p>We talked and fell silent, but we never said anything more important
+than that and the things we said were unimportant because we were both
+thinking the same thing and we were both hoping it would be tender and
+sweet and wonderful and lasting. And it was.</p>
+
+<p>The sun went down and the stars came out and the night was just a
+little cooler than the day but not uncomfortable. Neither of us thought
+of food. When it got very dark we lay warm beside each other looking up
+at the stars. Sam couldn’t recognize any of the constellations or any
+of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>“No one will ever find us.” He said it with a kind of joy, trying to
+hide it from me that he was glad, as if he could ever hide anything
+from me. He rolled over on his side to look at me. “Louise—were
+you—married or anything?”</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. “Not married or anything.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>I put a finger over his lips. “It doesn’t matter,” I said softly.
+“Nothing matters that happened before. I don’t want to know. We were
+born again here, and all the past is gone—so far away that we could
+never find it if we searched a million lifetimes. It never happened.
+There’s just—us.”</p>
+
+<p>He kissed me and there was no passion in it—only wonder and happiness.
+“Louise—” His voice was almost lost in his throat. “I love you, Louise.”</p>
+
+<p>“I love you, Sam.”</p>
+
+<p>But when he slept, the name he muttered was “Fran.”</p>
+
+<p>In the morning life begins again. In the morning we walked back to his
+ship. Food was no problem. Fruits and berries were plentiful—apples
+and peaches and pears and plums and cherries—every day we discovered
+something new but familiar. From the ship’s stores we got canned meats
+and vegetables—we never saw any other animals than Bambi, although Sam
+insisted that obviously there must be others. Bambi wandered in and out
+of camp, but he was always there when Sam wanted him. Sam liked to play
+with him, and Bambi enjoyed it.</p>
+
+<p>The first day Sam built a shelter—a bower was what he called it—at the
+edge of the clearing where the ship was, under the trees. I didn’t want
+to sleep in the ship or even go inside it.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the past,” I told Sam. “It’s as dead and meaningless as a
+monument. The sooner we forget what it is and what it stands for the
+happier we’ll be.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam agreed with me. The next time he went to the ship for food he
+returned without his gun. He built the bower, and he took a long time
+at it, lacing limbs together and thatching it with leaves to keep off
+the occasional showers. He was good with his hands, and he liked to
+keep busy.</p>
+
+<p>That night he slept peacefully.</p>
+
+<p>The second day we explored a little and looked over our supplies. We
+had the ship’s stores and fruit was plentiful, but there was nothing
+growing that would keep. Sam worried about it.</p>
+
+<p>“If it gets colder we might be in for something,” he said. “We could
+weather one winter in the ship, I suppose, but the next—”</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. “I don’t think it will get any colder. I think it will
+always be like this.”</p>
+
+<p>He talked about wobbles and ecliptics and temperate zones, but it
+didn’t mean anything. The weather wasn’t changing, and it wasn’t going
+to. I was sure of that.</p>
+
+<p>He stirred a little in his sleep that night.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+
+<p>The morning of the third day we went to look for my ship. I tried to
+talk Sam out of it, but I knew it wasn’t any use. There might be fuel
+left, he said, maybe even enough to make an exploratory trip, and we
+could use the supplies. Maybe we could even locate some inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>All that day we walked away from the ocean, and we saw nothing
+new—nothing at all. Trees identical with those that grew around our
+camp, spaced out on soft green turf. No animals. We walked slowly but
+steadily, eating fruit picked on our way. Sam began to get restless.
+Sometimes he would peer far ahead or swing around and stare back the
+way we had come.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening we were walking up the side of a low
+hill. Suddenly Sam stopped. He looked toward me, his eyes vague and thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>“You know,” he
+said, his voice low and tense-sounding in the quietness, “I have a
+strange feeling that maybe we’ll come to a place where all this ends,
+where it stops being and there’s nothing. Like maybe we’ll climb to the
+top of this hill and we’ll look down and there won’t be any trees and
+turf or anything. Like it’s being created before us, rolled out like
+a green carpet, and just beyond where we can see, it’s something else
+entirely, something unimaginable.”</p>
+
+<p>“You and all the other horizon-chasing explorers.”</p>
+
+<p>I smiled and a moment later he smiled and shook his head and took my
+hand and we climbed to the top of the hill. As far as we could see
+there were the same trees and turf.</p>
+
+<p>We slept under the sky that night, and Sam muttered but it never turned
+into words.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The next day we reached a point farther than the distance Sam estimated
+I could have walked, and we searched in circles the rest of that day
+and the next. In the middle of one I finally stopped and shook my head
+bewilderedly.</p>
+
+<p>“They all look the same,” I said. “I don’t know where I put it down.
+Let’s give it up, Sam. It isn’t important now. Later we can map this
+area with landmarks and things and search for it, but I want to get
+back to our—home. Funny, isn’t it? We’ve only been here a week, and
+already there’s a place I think of as home.”</p>
+
+<p>Sam argued. He really wanted to search some more, but he finally gave
+in. We started back.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At our camp, life fell into a regular pattern. We woke. We ate. We
+swam in the impossibly blue sea by the silver sands. We fished. We
+ate and talked. We made love. We slept. It should have been paradise,
+and it was. But Sam was restless. He needed something to do, and here
+there was nothing that needed doing. He began to talk about building a
+sailboat, and he did work at it now and then, but he never seemed to
+get very far with it. And in the night he had begun to moan and say one
+name over and over again.</p>
+
+<p>One evening we were sitting together after our meal. The sun was still
+shining through the trees and I knew it was building up in him and
+there was nothing I could do but hope.</p>
+
+<p>“Fran,” he said, “I think we should search—” He stopped. <i>Fran</i>, he
+thought. <i>What a stupid thing to say. What a horrible thing to say.</i> He
+glanced at me to see if I had noticed, and I sat there with the sun
+on me, not moving, not looking at him, feeling his eyes. <i>And yet</i>, he
+thought, <i>there is a resemblance. The dark hair, the mouth</i> ... <i>The dark
+hair!</i> He cast his mind back and I saw myself in his mind as he had seen
+me when I stepped forth from the trees with blue eyes and a generous
+mouth and ash-blonde hair. And it was something I couldn’t help because
+he wanted it so hard.</p>
+
+<p>He moved away from me a little. His thoughts churned. <i>Dark hair!</i> He
+looked around him slowly and suddenly scrambled to his feet and ran to
+the ship and climbed up the ladder. I knew what he had gone for and I
+waited for him to come back and I hoped. Because there was nothing left
+but hope.</p>
+
+<p>When he came back he had his gun hanging at his hip again.</p>
+
+<p>“Stand up,” he said harshly. He towered above me, his feet spread
+apart, his face dark and angry.</p>
+
+<p>I stood up. “What are you?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I—”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you what you aren’t. Human, for instance. You aren’t human!”
+His mouth curled as if he had tasted something disgusting and horrible.
+“No wonder we couldn’t find your ship. There wasn’t any ship. You
+belong here. You’re a native. You can change. You can change the color
+of your hair and the shape of your mouth. Maybe you can change more
+than that. And I’ve been making love to you and I’ve been in love with
+you and I didn’t know—What are you?”</p>
+
+<p>His voice had been rising steadily. Now it cracked and broke in a
+thousand brittle pieces.</p>
+
+<p>“You,” he said. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And maybe you
+aren’t even female. Maybe they don’t have male and female here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m female.”</p>
+
+<p>He didn’t hear me.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s all been a game—a horrible, deadly game. What’s real and what
+isn’t? You aren’t. I know that. Where are the rest of your kind? What
+kind of foul monster have I been making love to? <i>What are you?</i>”</p>
+
+<p>His voice ended in a shriek. He pulled out his gun and whirled, peering
+into the woods, pointing it here and there, the fat barrel trembling.</p>
+
+<p>“Come out!” he sobbed. “Come out, damn you! Come out!”</p>
+
+<p>“There’s only me,” I said quietly. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”</p>
+
+<p>He didn’t hear me. He didn’t understand me. Nothing could penetrate
+the thunder of blood pounding through his brain. But suddenly he swung
+around to face me again, suddenly aware that his back had been exposed
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>“God!” he said. “God! And I thought this was paradise!”</p>
+
+<p>He shook and the gun trembled and his finger tightened on the trigger.
+I knew what was coming, and I shrank back with horror. The trees
+trembled and the ground writhed.</p>
+
+<p>“It was, Sam,” I whispered. “It was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Change, damn you!” he shouted. “<i>Change! I want to see you as you
+really are!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts—mad, violent, powerful—wrenched at me, twisted me,
+tortured me. I changed. Hatred, terror, and horror were in his eyes as
+he stared at me and thought he saw me, and I could not tell him that
+he saw only what he had willed to see. I could not tell him that I did
+only what he willed me to do.</p>
+
+<p>“God.” He whispered. “God.”</p>
+
+<p>I came toward him, my clawed hands outstretched. His finger tightened
+convulsively on the trigger. A wave of heat crisped my body, but it was
+nothing to the pain in my mind. He could not stop me, of course. He
+could not stop me with his gun, and it was too late for anything else.
+I was close to him now, and my hands were reaching for his throat and
+squeezing, squeezing....</p>
+
+<p>The last thing he ever heard—I know he heard it—was a low whisper that
+might only have been the wind sighing through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>“I love you, Sam.”</p>
+
+<p>He was dead. He was gone. And now that he was gone the reality that
+had been created for him—that he had created out of his desires—went
+back to another reality, no more real and perhaps not as much. With the
+fulfillment of his desire the trees melted back into the ground and the
+turf was no longer grass and I drew back into myself too the part of me
+Sam had called Louise and there was nothing but unending stretches of
+flat, featureless plain which from a great distance looked green.</p>
+
+<p>One thing remained. Not far from where the blue sea lapped the edges
+of the plain stood a tall, slim spire, like a monument. Nearby was a
+mound, at one end of it a small, flat slab of stone. On the stone were
+three words:</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+  SAM NEWMAN<br>
+  <br>
+  <i>Killer</i>
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note">
+    Transcriber’s note:
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>This etext was produced from Rocket Stories, September 1953 (Vol. 1,
+No. 3). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
+minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p>
+
+<p>The illustration has been moved to better fit the eBook format.</p>
+
+<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
+public domain.</p>
+</blockquote>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78948 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+
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+[Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook [#78948](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78948)