Part 7 (1/2)

Still the same. I'm still the same-but so tired-why am I so tired?

He touched his face. ”Same face.” But it was more deeply marked and harsh now.

His hair ”like always.” Is that a streak of gray?

His eyes: ”They see.” What do they see? What? What?

And then, for the first time, his tightly held mind barrier let down and he admitted the dreams and the long sleepless periods to himself. Remembered them for what they were. Knew he could no longer fool himself.

Insects crawling on him; a great gray rat with canine teeth at his throat, while bats eyed him evilly-and curious women who plied their trade around a bubbling pot, their thin-edged voices plotting more horrors. And always the shadows, shadows that leaped and tore at his unprotected body, shadows that had a definite form-shadows which faded disconcertingly just as he seemed to be able to make out the faces that were sickeningly familiar.

The nightmares became real to him.

Quite suddenly, the nightmares came close to him as he sat at the plastic desk and together they planned the ghastly joke, while they laughed together. He nicked, with surgical care, the arteries in his wrists and groins and smiled as he bubbled away on the metal desk.

”Goodby, Doctor,” said a voice.

Goodby, Voice. And the sound echoed while the uniform became discolored, the boots greasy with death, the face too white-smiling and staring.

And the others-the many others-soon.

For three sleep periods the machines sighed as the carnage went on. The captain put out directives and took the guns away. After that they found other ways.Crewmen jumped out the escape hatches and into the atomic convertors-or smashed their heads against the steel bulkheads.

For three sleep periods.

Each time he heard the clicking of the guard's heels, the captain almost screamed.

In his imagination, he was seeing the Arcturian Regents. They were pointing accusing fingers at him, while the extermination chambers waited.

”Your s.h.i.+p,” they said.

”My s.h.i.+p,” he admitted.

”The doctor, half of your crew dead. How-why did they die?”

”Suicide.” He trembled under the blanket.

”It's against the rules, Captain,” the voices said calmly, convicting him.

”I told them.”

”But you are the captain. The captain is responsible. The rule says that.”

”Yes-the doctor said it was the prisoners.”

The Regents laughed. ”For the good of the race, we have no choice but...”

The captain pulled the covers tighter over his aching head and lay stiffly on his cot. He drowned the voices in a sea of his own making, smiling as he saw each hand disappear under the stormy waves. For a while he lay that way, while the juggernaut shadows slippered carefully about the room, hovering and watchful.

And then, once again, he could hear the whine of the great engines. He sat up.

The old man-the one listed on the rolls as Adam Manning, one of the specimen Earthmen-sat on one of the stiff chairs by the captain's desk.

”h.e.l.lo,” the old man said.

”Guards!” screamed the captain.

But no one answered. Only the machines roared on, replying softly in their unhearing way.

”Guards!” the captain screamed again as he watched the old man's face.

”They can't hear you,” the old man said.

The captain knew instinctively that it was true. ”You did it!” He strained to leap from his cot at the old man. He could not move. His hands clenched as he fought against invisible bonds.

He began to cry. But the Regents' voices came, stopping it. ”Crying's against the rules,” they said stiffly, without pity.

The old man smiled at him from the chair. The shadows murmured softly, conferring in myriad groups, dirtying the aseptic bulkheads. They drew closer to the captain and he could only half-stifle a scream.”What are you?” he managed.

”Something you've trained out of your people. You wouldn't understand even if we told you, because you don't believe that there ever was anything like us.” The old man smiled. ”We're your new Regents.” The shadows smiled hideously, agreeing, and revealing their long, canine teeth.

”It was a wonderful attack, Captain,” the old man said softly. The shadows nodded as they formed and faded. ”Nothing human could have lived through it-nothing human did. Some of us were deep underground where they'd buried us long ago-the stakes through our hearts-they knew how to deal with us. But your fire burned the stakes away.”

He waved a scaly hand at the shadows. They came down upon the Captain relentlessly.

The captain began to scream.

Then, there was only the automatic sound of the machines.

The s.h.i.+p roared on through s.p.a.ce.

Not all scientific vampires live in the distant future, or even today. History is filled with bloodthirsty rulers, as well as scientists who refused to accept the superst.i.tions of their times. British author and critic Brian Stableford mixes vampires with an intriguing alternate history in this story, which he later expanded into his acclaimed novel The Empire of Fear.

The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady.

BRIAN STABLEFORD.

A man who loves a vampire lady may not die young, but cannot live forever.

(Walachian proverb).

It was the thirteenth of June in the Year of Our Lord 1623. Grand Normandy was in the grip of an early spell of warm weather, and the streets of London bathed in sunlight. There were crowds everywhere, and the port was busy with s.h.i.+ps, three having docked that very day. One of the s.h.i.+ps, the Freemartin, was from the Moorish enclave and had produce from the heart of Africa, including ivory and the skins of exotic animals. There were rumors, too, of secret and more precious goods: jewels and magical charms; but such rumors always attended the docking of any vessel from remote parts of the world. Beggars and street urchins had flocked to the dockland, responsive as ever to such whisperings, and were plaguing every sailor inthe streets, as anxious for gossip as for copper coins. It seemed that the only faces not animated by excitement were those worn by the severed heads that dressed the spikes atop the Southwark Gate. The Tower of London, though, stood quite aloof from the hubbub, its tall and forbidding turrets so remote from the streets that they belonged to a different world.

Edmund Cordery, mechanician to the court of the Archduke Girard, tilted the small concave mirror on the bra.s.s device that rested on his workbench, catching the rays of the afternoon sun and deflecting the light through the system of lenses.