Dawn of the DemigodsGallun, Raymond Z. (Raymond Zinke)
Science
Dawn of the Demigods
Gallun, Raymond Z. (Raymond Zinke)
Science fiction
I went back to the pallid thing that had been I, and did what was
necessary, after I had cached the parchments I carried, and most of my
equipment, in a groove in the molding on the wall. I allowed myself
to be inhaled. Deep in the lungs, I cut my way into a capillary with
a diamond splinter. It was an insignificant wound, really. Then, in a
rushing flood, while dim, reddish light penetrated to my eyes, I was
borne along. I knew by a violent turbulence that I passed through the
heart. Then there was a sense of rising. Absolute gloom meant that I
was inside the skull. There I lodged myself in as small and unimportant
blood vessel as I could find.
The rest was simple after that. I merely relaxed. It seemed that I went
to sleep. But I was in my own brain. Encouraged by a natural affinity,
the little energy-node or whatever it was that was my awareness and my
ego, went home. It was, shall we say, a wanderer's return.
When I awoke it was mid-morning. The mental pictures of recent events
remained vivid, yet they had assumed almost the character of a dream.
Beyond my window were maples and pines. A robin was scolding. It was
very pleasant, indeed, until I thought of Jan and Doc.
"Mr. Harver, you're awake!" a nurse exclaimed. "We knew from last
night's tests that you were suddenly much better! There had been
a message written in an impossible way...." Here, the girl looked
frightened.
"Never mind!" I growled. "How is my wife? And Dr. Lanvin?"
"Mrs. Harver is still asleep. But even her color is far better, and she
smiles to herself. Dr. Lanvin is much improved, too, though he is still
very weak, and has not regained consciousness."
I sighed with relief. They'd gotten back just as I had. Yet, with
what we'd brought back, this was not an end but a tense and wonderful
beginning. The android secret. Improved man, large or small. A
revolutionary fact to be thrust on our mortal race, with all its doubts
and enthusiasms and prejudices; to be pushed into the age-old familiar
sequence of birth, death, happiness, suffering, and decay of our kind!
It was monumental in its possibilities for triumph and disaster; and
for a weak moment I had a mighty wish not to disturb the peace, and to
let all of this sleep forever.
Of course doctors and newscast men talked to me that day:
"... The message? 'I have returned....' Just what, in plain language,
did that mean?... What did you find in your explorations in miniature?
There is a story from somebody named Scharber on the way to Earth
from the Jovian system, now. A yarn about a race that made itself
unbelievably small. Yes--to hide itself, I suppose."
"You might like the story when and if you hear all of it," I answered.
"Let Dr. Lanvin, my superior, talk, when he is able."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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