The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7

THE LONG NIGHT by Ray Russell

This short sad story of the last days of Argo III — as lost a soul as ever lifted jets — is included (along with some happier interludes in the Emperor’s early life) in Mr. Russell’s collection, Sardonicus and Other Stories (Ballantine, 1961). The author, who was executive editor of Playboy for most of its first seven years, has now turned full-time writer. Besides the short-story collection, and the movie of the same name, he has recently published a novel. The Case Against Satan (Obolensky, 1962).

The once young Argo III — now gnarled by age and debauchery — was on the run. After a lifetime of atrocities, all committed in the names of Humanity, Freedom, Fair Play, The Will Of The Majority, Our Way Of Life, and The Preservation Of Civilization As We Know It, an aroused populace led by his son, Argo IV, was out gunning for him. He raced from asteroid to asteroid, but his enemies followed close behind. He tried elaborate disguises and plastic surgery, but the infra-violet, ultra-red dimension-warp contact lenses of his son’s agents saw through all facades. He grew so weary that once he almost gave himself up — but he blanched at the thought of what he had made the official and now sacred mode of execution: a seven day death in the grip of the Black Elixir.

Now, his space ship irretrievably wrecked, he was crawling through the dark on the frozen gray sands of Asteroid Zero — so named by him because it was uninhabited, had no precious metals, and was even unvegetated because sunless through being in the eternal shadow of giant Jupiter. Argo’s destination, as he crawled, was the cave of The Last Wizard. All other wizards had been wiped out in Argo’s Holy Campaign Against Sorcery, but it was rumored one wizard had escaped to Zero. Argo silently prayed the rumor was true and The Last Wizard still alive.

He was: revoltingly old, sick, naked, sunken in squalor, alive only through sorcery — but alive. “Oh, it’s you,” were the words with which he greeted Argo. “I can’t say I’m surprised. You need my help, eh?”

“Yes, yes!” croaked Argo. “Conjure for me a disguise they cannot penetrate I I entreat, I implore you!”

“What kind of disguise might that be?” cackled The Last Wizard.

“I know for a fact,” said Argo, “because wizards have confessed it under torture, that all human beings are weres — that the proper incantation can transform a man into a werewolf, a weredog, a werebird, whatever were-creature may be locked within his cellular structure. As such a creature, I can escape undetected!”

“That is indeed true,” said The Last Wizard. “But suppose you become a werebug, which could be crushed underfoot? Or a werefish, which would flip and flop in death throes on the floor of this cave?”

“Even such a death,” shuddered Argo, “would be better than a legal execution.”

“Very well,” shrugged The Last Wizard. He waved his hand in a theatrical gesture and spoke a thorny word.

That was in July of 2904. A hundred years later, in July of 3004, Argo was still alive on Zero. He could not, with accuracy, be described as happy, however. In fact, he now yearns for and dreams hopelessly of the pleasures of a death under the Black Elixir. Argo had become that rare creature, a werevampire. A vampire’s only diet is blood, and when the veins of The Last Wizard had been drained, that was the end of the supply. Hunger and thirst raged within Argo. They are raging still, a trillionfold more intense, for vampires are immortal. They can be killed by a wooden stake through the heart, but Zero is unvegetated and has no trees. They can be killed by a silver bullet, but Zero can boast no precious metals. They can be killed by the rays of the sun, but because of Jupiter’s shadow, Zero never sees the sun. For this latter reason, Argo is plagued by an additional annoyance: vampires sleep only during the day, and there is no day on Zero.