The Hills of Home | Page 4

dreamed.
He dreamed of that summer when the river lay still and deep under the hanging willows. He dreamed of his sisters, thin and angular creatures as he remembered them through the eyes of a nine-year-old----
And his mother, tall and shadowy, standing on the porch of the rented cottage and saying exasperatedly: "Why do you run off by yourself, Kimmy? I worry about you so----"
And his sisters: "Playing with his wooden swords and his radium pistol and never wanting to take his nose out of those awful books----"
He dreamed of the low, beamed ceiling of the cottage, sweltering in the heat of the summer nights and the thick longing in his throat for red hills and a sky that burned deep blue through the long, long days and canals, clear and still. A land that he knew somehow never was, but which lived, for him, through some alchemy of the mind. He dreamed of Mars.
And Steinhart: "What is reality, Kimmy?"
* * * * *
The hours stretched into days, the days into months. Time wasn't. Time was a deep night and a starshot void. And dreams.
He awoke seldom. His tasks were simple. The plastic sac and the tender care of the ship were more real than the routine jobs of telemetering information back to the Base across the empty miles, across the rim of the world.
He dreamed of his wife. "You don't live here, Kim."
She was right, of course. He wasn't of earth. Never had been. My love is in the sky, he thought, filled with an immense satisfaction.
And time slipped by, the weeks into months; the sun dwindled and earth was gone. All around him lay the stunning star-dusted night.
He lay curled in the plastic womb when the ship turned. He awoke sluggishly and dragged himself into awareness.
"I've changed," he thought aloud. "My face is younger; I feel different."
The keening sound of air over the wings brought a thrill. Below him, a great curving disk of reds and browns and yellows. He could see dust storms raging and the heavy, darkened lines of the canals.
There was skill in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand; slowly, the internal fires died.
* * * * *
Kimball stood in the control room, his heart pounding. Slowly, the ports opened. Through the thick quartz he could see the endless plain. Reddish brown, empty. The basin of some long ago sea. The sky was a deep, burning blue with stars shining at midday at the zenith. It looked unreal, a painting of unworldly quiet and desolation.
What is reality, Kimmy?
Steinhart was right, he thought vaguely. A tear streaked his cheek. He had never been so alone.
And then he imagined he saw something moving on the great plain. He scrambled down through the ship, past the empty fuel tanks and the lashed supplies. His hands were clawing desperately at the dogs of the outer valve. Suddenly the pressure jerked the hatch from his hands and he gasped at the icy air, his lungs laboring to breathe.
He dropped to one knee and sucked at the thin, frigid air. His vision was cloudy and his head felt light. But there was something moving on the plain.
A shadowy cavalcade.
* * * * *
Strange monstrous men on fantastic war-mounts, long spears and fluttering pennons. Huge golden chariots with scythes flashing on the circling hubs and armored giants, the figments of a long remembered dream----
He dropped to the sand and dug his hands into the dry powdery soil. He could scarcely see now, for blackness was flickering at the edges of his vision and his failing heart and lungs were near collapse.
Kimmm-eee!
A huge green warrior on a gray monster of a thoat was beckoning to him. Pointing toward the low hills on the oddly near horizon.
Kimmmm-eeeee!
The voice was thin and distant on the icy wind. Kimball knew that voice. He knew it from long ago in the Valley Dor, from the shores of the Lost Sea of Korus where the tideless waters lay black and deep----
He began stumbling across the empty, lifeless plain. He knew the voice, he knew the man, and he knew the hills that he must reach, quickly now, or die.
They were the hills of home.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note and Errata | | | | This etext was produced from "Future Science Fiction" No. 30 | | 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that | | the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. | | | | The following errors have been corrected: | | | | Error Correction | | cooly coolly | | fantasic fantastic | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hills of Home, by Alfred Coppel
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