The Starcomber by Alfred Bester Read Free Book Online Page A

howled down Fifth Avenue, and at the comer of Fiftieth Street he saw a human being.
    She was alive, breathing; a beautiful woman. She was tall and dark with cropped curly hair and lovely long legs. She wore a white blouse, tiger-skin riding breeches and patent leather boots. She carried a rifle. She wore a revolver on her hip. She was eating stewed tomatoes from a can and she stared at Halsyon in unbelief. He ran up to her.
    â€œI thought I was the last human on earth,” she said.
    â€œYou’re the last woman,” Halsyon howled. “I’m the last man. Are you a dentist?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I’m the daughter of the unfortunate Professor Field whose well-intentioned but ill-advised experiment in nuclear fission has wiped mankind off the face of the earth with the exception of you and me who, no doubt on account of some mysterious mutant strain in our makeup which it makes us different, are the last of the old civilization and the first of the new.”
    â€œDidn’t your father teach you anything about dentistry?”
    â€œNo,” she said.
    â€œThen lend me your gun for a minute.”
    She unholstered the revolver and handed it to Halsyon, meanwhile keeping her rifle ready. Halsyon cocked the gun.
    â€œI wish you’d been a dentist,” he said.
    â€œI’m a beautiful woman with an I.Q. of 141 which is more important for the propagation of a brave new beautiful race of men to inherit the good green earth,” she said.
    â€œNot with my teeth it isn’t,” Halsyon howled.
    He clapped the revolver to his temple and blew his brains out.
    *
    He awoke with a splitting headache. He was lying on the tile dais alongside the stool, his bruised temple pressed against the cold floor. Mr. Aquila had emerged from the lead shield and was turning on an exhaust fan to clear the air.
    â€œBravo, my liver and onions,” he chuckled. “The last one you did by yourself, eh? No assistance from yours truly required. Meglio tarde che mai. But you went over with a crack before I could catch you. God damn.”
    He helped Halsyon to his feet and led him into the consultation room where he seated him on a velvet chaise longue and gave him a glass of brandy.
    â€œGuaranteed free of drugs,” he said. “Noblesse oblige. Only the best spiritus frumenti. Now we discuss what we have done, eh? Jeez.”
    He sat down behind the desk, still sprightly, still bitter, and regarded Halsyon with kindliness. “Man lives by his decisions, n’est-ce pas?” he began. “We agree, oui? A man has some five million two hundred seventy-one thousand and nine decisions to make in the course of his life. Peste! It is a prime number? N’importe. Do you agree?”
    Halsyon nodded.
    â€œSo, my coffee and doughnuts, it is the maturity of these decisions that decides whether a man is a man or a child. Nicht wahr? Malgré nous. A man cannot start making adult decisions until he has purged himself of the dreams of childhood. God damn. Such fantasies. They must go.”
    â€œNo,” Halsyon said slowly. “It’s the dreams that make my art . . . the dreams and fantasies that I translate into line and color. . .”
    â€œGod damn! Yes. Agreed. Maître d’hôtel: But adult dreams, not baby dreams. Baby dreams. Pfui! All men have them. . . . To be the last man on earth and own the earth . . . To be the last fertile man on earth and own the women . . . To go back in time with the advantage of adult knowledge and win victories . . . To escape reality with the dream that life is make-believe . . . To escape responsibility with a fantasy of heroic injustice, of martyrdom with a happy ending . . . And there are hundreds more, equally popular, equally empty. God bless Father Freud and his merry men. He applies the quietus to such nonsense. Sic semper tyrannis. Avaunt!”
    â€œBut if everybody has those dreams, they can’t be bad, can