Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 11 (1949).pdf/45

 The din of metal, the crash of sword, the conflict, the battle, the fight, the war. All of it exploding, his mind fiercely torn apart!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!

He leaped up, screaming. The landscape melted and flowed.

A voice said, “I am Tylle of Rathalar. Proud Tylle, Tylle of the Blood Mound and the Death Drum. Tylle of Rathalar, Killer of Men!”

Another spoke, “I am Iorr of Wendillo, Wise Iorr, Destroyer of Infidels!”

The chorus chanted. “And we the warriors, we the steel, we the warriors, we the red blood rushing, the red blood falling, the red blood steaming the sun—”

Leonard Sale staggered under the burden. “Go away!” he cried. “Leave me, in God's name, leave me!”

Eeeeeeeeeee, shrieked the high sound of steel hot on steel.

Silence.

He stood with the sweat boiling out of him. He was trembling so violently he could not stand. Insane, he thought. Absolutely insane. Raving insane. Insane.

He jerked the food kit open, did something to a chemical packet. Hot coffee was ready in an instant. He mouthed it, spilled gushes of it down his shirt. He shivered. He sucked in raw gulps of breath.

Let's be logical, he thought, sitting down heavily. The coffee seared his tongue. No record of insanity in the family for two hundred years. All healthy, well-balanced. No reason for insanity now. Shock? Silly. No shock. I'm to be rescued in six days. No shock to that. No danger. Just an ordinary planetoid. Ordinary, ordinary place. No reason for insanity. I'm sane.

Oh? cried a small metal voice within. An echo. Fading.

“Yes!” he cried, beating his fists together. “Sane!”

Hahahahahahahahahah. Somewhere a vanishing laughter.

He whirled about. “Shut up, you!” he cried.

We didn't say anything, said the mountains. We didn't say anything, said the sky. We didn't say anything, said the wreckage.

“All right then,” he said, swaying. “See that you don't.”

Everything was normal.

The pebbles were getting hot. The sky was big and blue. He looked at his fingers and saw the way the sun burned on every black hair. He looked at his boots and the dust on them. Suddenly he felt very happy because he made a decision. I won't go to sleep, he thought. I'm having nightmares, so why sleep. There's your solution.

He made a routine. From nine o'clock in the morning, which was this minute, until twelve, he would walk around and see the planetoid. He would write on a pad with a yellow pencil everything he saw. Then he would sit down and open a can of oily sardines and some canned fresh bread with good butter on it. From twelve-thirty until four he would read nine chapters of War and Peace. He took the book from the wreckage, and 81