Short Fiction by Algis Budrys (good story books to read .txt) 📕

were more than a cloak, and Greaves had to look hard to see that when he smiled his lips stretched but no teeth showed.

“Well, Man in all your pride. Are you ready?”

“Ready as any man. How do you propose to go about this?”

“Adelie didn’t tell you?”

“She told me as much as I asked. I didn’t ask much. Could you suggest any way I could have refused the conditions, no matter what they are? That loses the fight right there. Wasn’t I supposed to understand that? Do you think politics is a recent invention?”

“Fierce, fierce,” Mayron murmured. “Well spoken.” He chuckled. “When I was a man, I would have liked you.”

“Get to the business, Mayron.”

The Shadow held up his hand. “Not so fast. Perhaps we can arrive at some⁠—”

“Arrive at nothing. Put up or shut up. Vigil no longer has that monstrous gun and there’s no point in this for you today. But there is for me, and you don’t have much time to realize that.” He glowered at the Shadow, feeling the rage, feeling the onrush of the bright white exaltation when the body moves too fast for the brain to speak, when what directs the body is the reflex founded on the silent knowledge of the brain’s deep layers, where the learning has no words.

Mayron frowned. His head was cocked to one side. If he had had eyes, he would have been peering at Greaves’ face. But he said nothing; he had lost the moment, and now Greaves used it.

“You scum,” Greaves said, his voice booming through the Temple square for all the Shadows to hear. “A weapon that drains the power of this continuum! You leech⁠—you would have had that doddering old man put all my stars out!”

And now the moment was at its peak, and Greaves screamed with rage, so that the faces of the towers were turned into sounding boards and the shout crackled in the air like thunder. He jumped forward, one sweeping arm tossing Mayron out of his way and flailing for balance, while Greaves sprang into the Temple and charged the Chamber of Shadows.

And now the fear⁠—the great devouring fear that came like fangs in his belly but did not stop him. Now the fear as he burst through the acolytes and into the black, light-shot sphere that quivered at the focus of Mayron’s machine. And he stood there, feeling the suck not of one voracious universe but many⁠—all the universes that had eaten the overcurious Mayron and sent back a Judas goat in his skin to conquer what belonged to Man. Feeling the icy cold, and the energy-hunger that could suck Man’s Universe dry and still leave a hunger immeasurable.

But the rage⁠—the rage that came to him, that came to the god uncounted generations of men had made while David Greaves lay sleeping but his deepest mind lay awake, feeling, feeling the faith, knowing the splendor of what Man had done⁠—The rage that could make a god, that could give a creature like David Greaves the power to create, to dream a man⁠—to make a David Greaves who would lie waiting, ready to become a god.⁠ ⁠…

That rage went forth.

And in parallel continuums of life unimaginable, the dawn of Apocalypse burst upon suns unnameable and worlds unheard-of⁠—upon all the universes which were the true Shadows. The god who was David Greaves again, when the rage had passed⁠—that image which Man himself had made stood blazing his fury in the Chamber of Shadows, and the Universe of Man was free and safe. But in the places of the Shadows there was no hope, no joy, no place of refuge. Mankind was come forth, and galaxies were dying.

One last snap of the fangs⁠—one moment when the death-spurred Shadows almost had their greatest prize of all⁠—and then it was over. Greaves turned and strode out of the blasted Chamber, and the acolytes cowered, covering their eyes, not yet realizing that once more they had eyes.

David Greaves appeared on the temple steps, and began walking slowly down, his legs shaking with exhaustion. Adelie watched him coming toward her. Around her, Shadows that had once been men were men again, but at her feet Mayron lay without his skin, and though her father had fled, she did not dare go without learning what the look on David Greaves’ face meant for her.

Colophon

Short Fiction
was compiled from short stories published between 1953 and 1963 by
Algis Budrys.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2007 and 2020 by
Greg Weeks, David E. Brown, Stephen Blundell, Mary Meehan, Bruce Albrecht, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg.

The cover page is adapted from
The Strengths of a Street,
a painting completed in 1911 by
Umberto Boccioni.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
November 7, 2015, 9:40 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/algis-budrys/short-fiction.

The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.

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