THE MEN RETURN
By JACK VANCE
Illustrated by ENGLE
Alpha caught a handful of air, a globe of
blue liquid, a rock, kneaded them together....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity July 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Only rarely will the Infinity-plus symbol—INFINITY's award ofunusual merit—appear on an individual story. (For a typical exampleof the way it will be used, see "Tales of Tomorrow" elsewhere in thisissue.) The Men Return is an exception by virtue of being one of themost unusual stories ever written. We do not guarantee that you willlike it, but we are sure that you will either like it tremendously orhate it violently. And we're very anxious to learn your reactions!
The Relict came furtively down the crag, a shambling gaunt creaturewith tortured eyes. He moved in a series of quick dashes, using panelsof dark air for concealment, running behind each passing shadow, attimes crawling on all fours, head low to the ground. Arriving at thefinal low outcrop of rock, he halted and peered across the plain.
Far away rose low hills, blurring into the sky, which was mottled andsallow like poor milk-glass. The intervening plain spread like rottenvelvet, black-green and wrinkled, streaked with ocher and rust. Afountain of liquid rock jetted high in the air, branched out into blackcoral. In the middle distance a family of gray objects evolved witha sense of purposeful destiny: spheres melted into pyramids, becamedomes, tufts of white spires, sky-piercing poles; then, as a finaltour de force, tesseracts.
The Relict cared nothing for this; he needed food and out on the plainwere plants. They would suffice in lieu of anything better. Theygrew in the ground, or sometimes on a floating lump of water, orsurrounding a core of hard black gas. There were dank black flaps ofleaf, clumps of haggard thorn, pale green bulbs, stalks with leavesand contorted flowers. There were no recognizable species, and theRelict had no means of knowing if the leaves and tendrils he had eatenyesterday would poison him today.
He tested the surface of the plain with his foot. The glassy surface(though it likewise seemed a construction of red and gray-greenpyramids) accepted his weight, then suddenly sucked at his leg. In afrenzy he tore himself free, jumped back, squatted on the temporarilysolid rock.
Hunger rasped at his stomach. He must eat. He contemplated the plain.Not too far away a pair of Organisms played—sliding, diving, dancing,striking flamboyant poses. Should they approach he would try to killone of them. They resembled men, and so should make a good meal.
He waited. A long time? A short time? It might have been either;duration had neither quantitative nor qualitative reality. The sun hadvanished, and there was no standard cycle or recurrence. Time was aword blank of meaning.
Matters had not always been so. The Relict retained a few tatteredrecollections of the old days, before system and logic had beenrendered obsolete. Man had dominated Earth by virtue of a singleassumption: that an effect could be traced to a cause, itself theeffect of a previous cause.
Manipulation of this basic law yielded rich results; there seemed noneed for any other tool or instrumentality. Man congratulated himselfon his generalized structure. He could live on desert, on plain orice, i