Free Captain Future 26 - Earthmen No More (March 1951) by Edmond Hamilton Page A

little sharp pain somehow managed to bridge a colossal gulf and make him aware that he had a body.
    His brain oriented itself with a dizzying lunge. The mists tore away. He woke.
    It was a full awakening. The exploding nova resolved itself into a light-tube, glowing against a low ceiling of metal. The countenance that had loomed so hugely above him became the face of a man. A lean face, deeply bronzed with the unmistakable burn of space, topped with red hair and set with two level grey eyes that looked straight into Carey’s and made him feel somehow safe and unafraid.
    “Lie still,” said the red-haired man. “Get your breath. There’s no hurry.” He turned aside and his hands, very strong but delicate of touch, busied themselves with a vial and a gleaming needle.
    Carey lay still. For the moment he had not the strength to do anything else. The room was small. It was fitted as a laboratory, incredibly compact, and many of the objects that his wandering gaze passed over were strange to him.
    One of these objects was a small cubical case of semi-translucent metal, resting on a table. The surface nearest Carey was fitted with twin lenses and a disc, so that it bore an unsettling resemblance to a face. Carey thought vaguely that it must be some sort of a communicator.
    Suddenly he said, “I’m in a ship.”
    The red-haired man smiled. “How can you tell? We’re in free fall.”
    “I can tell.” Carey tried to struggle up. “But there are no ships beyond the Belt! How...” Then he began to tremble violently. “Listen,” he said to the stranger. “Listen, I was killed, trying to reach Jupiter. A meteor hit us and I was blown clear, out into space with no armor. I’m dead. I’m a dead man. I...”
    “Steady on,” said the red-haired man. “Easy.” He set the needle into a place already swabbed on Carey’s naked arm. Carey flinched. He sobbed a little and then the trembling quieted.
    “I was dead,” he whispered, again.
    “No,” said the red-haired stranger. “Not really dead. What we call the space-death isn’t true death but cold shock — an instantaneous stoppage of all life processes. There’s no time for deterioration or cellular damage, no possibility of decay. The organism stops short. It can, by certain means, be started going again.”
    He looked thoughtfully down at Carey and added, “Many lives are restored that way, lives that would have been considered ended in your time.”
    Carey said numbly, “Then you found me, floating in space, in frozen sleep? You — revived me?”
    “Yes. Space law requires that any ship-wreckage encountered on radar must be investigated. That’s how we found you.” The stranger smiled. “Welcome back to life, Carey. My name is Curt Newton.”
    It was only then that it penetrated Carey’s stunned mind, the phrase that had been used so casually a moment before.
    “You said, ‘In my time’,” he repeated. “How long...” He stopped. His mouth was dry. He tried again, forcing out the words that did not wish to be spoken. “How long was I asleep out there?”
    The man who called himself Curt Newton hesitated, then asked, “What year was it when you met disaster, Carey?”
    “It was nineteen ninety-one. It was June, nineteen ninety-one, when we left Earth.”
    Newton reached for a calendar pad, held it up. He did not speak and there was pity in his eyes.
    Carey saw the date on it, and at first it was too incredible to touch him. “Oh, no,” he said. “Not all that time, all those generations. No, it’s not true.”
    “It is.”
    “But it can’t be...” His voice trailed off. The numbers on the pad, the awful sum of years blurred and darkened before him. Once more he began to tremble and this time it was for fear of life, not of death. “Why did you bring me back?” he whispered. “I have no place here. I’m still a dead man.”
     
    ABRUPTLY, from beyond the closed bulkhead door, there came the sound of footsteps. Strange steps, ponderous