Prison of a Billion Years - Stephen Marlowe

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Prison of a Billion Years by C. H. Thames. Adam
Slade crushed the guard's skull with a two foot length
of iron pipe. No one ever knew where Slade got
the iron pipe, but it did not seem so important.
The guard was dead, that was important, and Slade was

(00:20):
on the loose with a hostage that was even more important.
The hostage's name was Marcia Lawrence. She was twenty two
years old and pretty and scared half out of her wits.
She was before she became a hostage. A reporter for
Interplanetary Video. She had been granted the final pre execution

(00:41):
interview with Adam Slade, and she had looked forward to
it a long time, but it had not worked out
as planned. It had not worked out as planned because Slade,
only hours from the execution chamber, with absolutely nothing to lose,
had splattered the guard's brain around the inside of his
cell and marched outside with a frightened Marcia Lawrence outside

(01:08):
outside the cell block, while other condemned prisoners roared and
shouted and banged tin cups on bars and metal walls
and judas hole grills outside the prison compound and across
the dome and closed city, which served the prison. Then
outside the dome. Outside the dome, there was rock, rock,

(01:30):
only twisted and convoluted and thrusting and gigantic, like monoliths
of a race of giants. Rock alone under the awesome
gray sky, steaming rock. For some of the terrestrial waters
were still trapped at great depths, and the sea far off,
booming against rocky headlands, hissing tidily and slowly in an

(01:54):
age long process pulverizing the rock. The sea far off
a clean sea, not sea smelling sea, A sea whose
waters must evaporate countless times and be borne up over
the naked rocks in vapor and clouds, and come down
in pelting, endless rain and rush across the rock, frothing

(02:17):
and steaming. A sea which must do this countless times
in the eons to come, and would do it to
bring salinity to its own waters. It kind of scares
the hell out of you, doesn't it. Adam Slade said
he was a big man with a thick neck and heavy,
sleepy looking eyes, and a blue beard shadow on his

(02:38):
stubborn jaw. He said those words as he climbed out
of the prison tank with Marcia Lawrence. The tank's metal
was still warm from overheated travel. I didn't think anything
would scare you, Marcia Lawrence said she had conquered her
initial terror in the five hours of clanking tank flight

(02:59):
from the prison. They had come a great many miles
from the prison dome, paralleling the edge of the saltless sea,
and then, finally, when their fuel was almost gone, clanking
and rattling down toward the sea. She was a newspaper
woman that above all now she must not be afraid.
She had a story here, a story. Get moving. Adam

(03:23):
Slade said, I've got nothing against you, lady, he told
her for the tenth time. But you try anything, you're dead.
You get that. I got nothing to lose. One time
is all. They can kill me, But first they got
to find me, and they won't be able to take me.
As long as you're here. Just stay meek and you'll

(03:46):
stay alive. How long do you think you can hold out,
Marcia Lawrence asked. Practically they had begun to walk away
from the now useless tank. Adam Slade was carrying the
dead guards in the crook of his bent left arm
and walking with long, easy, ground consuming strides. Marcia almost

(04:07):
had to run to keep up with him. As they
went down a stretch of slightly sloping black rock toward
the steaming, hissing, pounding, roaring, exploding surf. Slade smiled. Plenty
of water, he said, but no food, mister Slade, there
is absolutely no food on earth now, and no possible

(04:29):
way of getting food unless you went to stick around
for a few million years. You think I came out
here without a plan, Slade asked, with some hostility. I
don't know you were desperate. As long as you're with me.
I figured they might follow, but they won't rush me.
They might even send over a copter, but it won't

(04:51):
try anything. Not with you here, desperate. I'm not desperate,
And don't you forget it. Desperate? You don't think so?
Once is all they can execute me. I stayed behind,
they'd have done it. If they catch me, they'll do it.
What's the difference? You said you had a plan. They

(05:15):
reached the edge of a thrusting headland, an enormous beak
shaped cliff of beetling black rock, which leaned out over
the young, still saltless ocean. Slade paced back and forth
quickly with a powerful leonine grace, until he found a
fault in the rock. The fault tumbled jaggedly, steepily down,

(05:36):
almost to the edge of the sea. Down there, Slade said,
we'll follow the sea coast back to the prison. Back
Marcia said, in disbelief. Hell, yes, back, you said it yourself.
There's no food out here, since there ain't no life,
of course, there's no food. Oh, it's a great place

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for a prison, all right. Whoever thought of it ought
to win a prize a prison a billion years in
the past. What's the word archaeozoic, she supplied, Yeah, archaeazoic
and archaeozoic prison. You can escape to your heart's content.

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But what the hell's the difference. There's no life back here,
not yet. The Earth's just a baby. So you escape
and you starve to death. It makes every maximum security
jail before this one look like a kid's piggybank. There
hasn't ever been an escape, Marcia said hopefully. As they

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made their way down to the sea. She in front
and Slayd behind her with the m gun. There ain't
never been a hostage before. No, there's a hostage now, Marcia.
Lawrence took a deep breath and asked, suddenly, are you
going to kill me. Well, I don't know. I got

(07:03):
no reason to unless you make me. We're going back there.
We're double tracking along the beach, get me back to
the prison dome. But Adam Slade won't starve to death
out here. We'll double back to the dome and the
time machine. Oh, she said. They began to walk along

(07:25):
the edge of the sea, its waters sullen, gray, mirroring
the sky. Here on this dawn earth, the sky has
yet never been blue, for the primordial waters were still
falling falling. It rained almost all the time, and the
air was thick with moisture. And every night, when the sun,
as yet unseen by the dawn earth except as an

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invisible source of light, went down and darkness came, the
mists rolled in from the sea. In the morning, whether
rains had fallen or not, the ground was soaked, and
tiny freshets rushed down to the sea. Returning to it
look out, he cried suddenly and shoved her against the
base of the cliff which overlooked the water. The cliff

(08:11):
top thrust out over them umbrella eyes. The base of
the cliff was thus a concavity, and they pressed themselves
against it now in a shadow. The waters of the
infant Sea were a hundred yards away, surging and booming
against the rock. She heard it soon after he did
a helicopter. She wanted to scream. She wondered if they

(08:34):
would hear her scream, but she looked at Adam Slade's
face and did nothing. Soon the helicopter came buzzing low
over them, searching. It circled a great many times because
the abandoned tank was there. It circled and came down
on the beach, and two uniform figures got out. Now

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she really wanted to scream one sound, one sound, and
they would hear her. One quick filling of the lungs
and Adam Slade hit her suddenly and savagely, and the
black loomed up at her. But she did not remember
striking it. When she awoke, the helicopter was gone. Sorry

(09:18):
I had to pokey one, Slade said. He did not
seem sorry at all. He said it automatically, and then added,
you ready to walk? She nodded. She got up and
staggered a few steps before her legs steadied under her.
Then with Slade, she walked down along the rocky beach

(09:39):
this she thought was a story. It was the only
big story she had ever had, and probably she would
not live to write it. As a woman, she was
almost hysterical with fear, But as a video cast she
was angry. The story was hers. If she lived to
tell it, then she had to live time prison sure,

(10:05):
she thought, utterly, escape proof, unless someone like Slade could
take a hostage double back to the prison dome, the
hermetically sealed dome, and somehow trick or overpower the guards
who watched the time traveling machine outside the prison dome outside.
Naturally it would be outside that way, the prisoners couldn't

(10:29):
get at it unless, like Slade, they too were outside,
outside where life had not yet been born, outside the
infant earth. Let a man escape, what did his escape matter?
He would live exactly as long as it took a

(10:49):
man reasonably healthy to starve to death, unless he had
a hostage and a plan. She became aware of rain
when they left the cliff overhang. There was almost no wind,
and the rain came down slowly at first, huge slow drops,
which splattered on the black rock. If it gets any harder,

(11:12):
Slade said, we'll have to duck under the cliff. For protection.
You don't know what a rain can be like back here.
I've seen them through the dome. But they couldn't go
under the cliff for protection, not if they wanted to
keep going. For The cliff dropped suddenly in a wild
jumble of rocks, and then there was nothing but the

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sloping black beach, sloping down to the sea. Then, all
at once someone opened the sluice gates and the rain
bombarded them. It slapped and bounced off the rock like
pistol shots. It struck them like hammers. They staggered under
its weight. We'll have to go back to the cliffs,

(11:56):
Marcia cried. She yelled it again at the top of
her voice, because she realized Slade would not hear her otherwise.
As the rain cracked and exploded and splattered and crashed,
there were no droplets of water, for each one had
the size and shape and weight, swift, falling, hammering weight
as it came down. Each one, Marcia thought, wildly, struggling

(12:20):
to keep her feet, was the size of your clenched
fist there in the gray dawn of earth the cliffs.
She cried again, but Adam Slade shook his head, grabbed
her arm above the wrist, and pulled her after him.
He pointed ahead in the direction they had been going.
He said nothing. There was no need to talk. They

(12:44):
were going forward, and if it killed them, probably Adam
Slade did not care much. He wanted that prison time
machine for his escape, and he was either going to
get it or die in the attempt. They went on slowly.
First one would fall and then the other. And when
it was Slade who had fallen, she would wait patiently,

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hopefully if he ever released his hold on the emgun.
But if it were Marcia who fell, Slade would yanchor
to her feet, savagely, yelling words which she had heard
at first, but which after a while, after an eternity
of the storm, seemed to merge with the sound of
the rain and the far booming of thunder out over

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the water, And then, as if by magic, she was
walking again, and stumbling along with Slade. Drenched and beaten
and half drowned, she hardly remembered when night came, but
presently she was aware of the darkness and the mist
over the sea and over the rock, and now engulfing

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them with its white ectoplasmic tendrils. In the mist, she
knew she could escape Slade, and yet she did not.
Without Slade. Now now in the middle of nowhere, there
by the sea, on the shores of the young Earth,
she would die in the storm with Slade, at least,

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for now was life. And she went on. The thunder
followed them and came closer. In the middle of the night.
It sounded like artillery at a distance of half a mile,
like a barrage of big atomic shells, just out of sight,
behind a black ridge line which wasn't there. In through

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the deeper rain, wet darkness of early morning, through the mist,
tearing the mist to tatters, shredding, it came the spears
and forks and lances of lightning. It was, Marcia thought,
a nightmare of a storm, and she must remember it,
for it would make a story, a real story, if

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ever she lived to tell it. By morning, the air
smelled of ozone, it reeked of ozone, and around them
as the gray a light seeped out of the wet sky,
and the rain suddenly slackened, as if the weak daylight
dispelled it. The black rocks were blasted and broken where
the lightning had struck in the dawn's first light. Another

(15:14):
helicopter came get down. Slade shouted, and they dropped among
the blasted black rocks, hiding there, not moving. The helicopter
came on through the slackening rain, buzzing a few hundred
feet over them, but not circling. It was heading for
the abandoned tank. Marsha thought it wasn't looking for them here,

(15:37):
But suddenly the rain came down in all its savage force, again, blinding,
bounding off the rocks, pounding relentlessly overhead. The helicopter seemed
to pause, like a bird stricken in flight. The rotors
whirled a silver shield against the rain, the great drops
splattering off the shield, and the helicopter came down under

(16:00):
the weight of the rain. It landed one hundred and
fifty yards from them down the beach, and Marcia watched
breathlessly while three men got out and looked at each
other and at the rain. The dawn light was still
only a dim gray, and Marcia could not see the
men clearly. But abruptly, a jagged spear of lightning blasted

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rock midway between where they were hiding and the helicopter,
and in the afterglare, through the wet and almost crackling air.
The men were very clear, and clearer still when other
lightning came down around them, wringing them in, it seemed
like a tent. There was now so much lightning it
looked more like an aurora than an electric storm, the

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dawn earth before life, spending itself in fury all at once.
Marcia was running down toward the edge of the water
where the helicopter was. She ran, screaming and shouting, but
the thunder swallowed her her puny voice. At every moment,
she expected Adam Slade to kill her, to merely stand

(17:06):
up with the em gun and shoot her. But he
did not, and perhaps her unconscious mind, in the instant
she had fled, had instinctively known he would not. For
if Adam Slade killed her, he had no hostage. If
he killed her and they found him, he would have
absolutely no chance. She turned and looked behind her. There

(17:28):
was Slade, silhouetted against the lightning, running covering the ground
in huge strides, gaining on her. She did not look
back again. The whole world was lightning and thunder, and
her legs striking earth under her, up and down, up
and down, pounding, running, fleeing, and the rain, Slade's ally

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beating her, buffeting her, exploding against her. She stumbled and fell,
but she was up and running again in a moment.
Now Slade was very close, but the helicopter was close too.
She did not think the men there had seen them yet.
She waved her arms and screamed, although she knew the

(18:10):
screams would not be heard. And then Slade was on her.
They went down together, and she knew she was frail
and helpless before his great strength. He grabbed her, his hands,
angry hands on her throat, and lightning struck. It bounded
and bounced off rock a dozen feet from them. It

(18:32):
shook the earth and blasted the rock, and pieces like
shrapnel cluttered all around them and struck them too, And
Marcia felt hot blood on her arm, and it was
her own blood. But Slade had been momentarily stunned, and
she was running again, away from him, but away from

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the helicopter too. At first she did not realize that,
but when she did realize it, it was too late.
If she doubled back now she would rush into Slade's arms.
She ran into the sea. It was suddenly, unexpectedly calm,
It merely eddied around her ankles, as if waiting for something.

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The storm seemed to be waiting too, lightning holding back,
the thunder stilled, even the rain hanging there in the black,
heavy sky waiting. Slade came after her, stalking through the surf.
A single bolt of lightning glanced down at them, and
a great engulfing roar lifted. Marcia carried her, stunned her,

(19:37):
and then the rain pelted down again, and the sea
was an angry sea, and the air was supercharged with
ozone and another smell like seared flesh. She saw Adam Slade.
Then Slade was down in a foot of water, face down.
He was not moving, and the water lapped around him,

(19:58):
over him, went to him, walking slowly. The men from
the helicopter were there too. They had seen in that
final flash of lightning. Are you all right, miss, One
of them shouted, yes, Slade. They turned him over. They
looked at him dead. One of them said dead. She echoed,

(20:22):
She would have collapsed, but they caught her. Then the
rain really came down, not as it had come before,
which was hard enough. It came in huge globes of water,
and each globe was as big as your head. And
if it hit it could stun you. Slade, someone cried,

(20:43):
as the globes exploded violently in the surf around them.
He's dead, He'll keep And they went back to the
helicopter with Marcia to await the end of the storm.
There when it was over, when the sky was not
black but merely the color of lead, they were turned
down the beach for Slade's body. But Slade wasn't there.

(21:05):
But he was dead, Marcia said, incredulously. One of the
men smiled. He didn't go any place under his own power.
He was dead, all right. The storm took his body
out to sea as all They stood there for a moment,
gazing out across the black, troubled water of the infant Ocean,

(21:25):
on the infant Earth a billion years ago. Slade was
out there, Slade dead, out there with the tides and
the waters and the frequent electric storms, out there, with
a million bacteriological parasites on his dead body and in
his dead body, which he brought with him. Marcius said, dreamily,

(21:51):
what are you talking about, miss out there in the
electric dawn of Earth, with the bacteria which lived in
his as they lived in all other bodies out there
with them dead, food for them, food and water, and
air heavy with ozone, and the electric storms. Marcia laughed hysterically.

(22:16):
It was a story she wanted to write, but she
wouldn't write it. Slade was a killer, condemned to die.
But Slaide dead out there with his bacteria, slayd evil
to man and human society, but not necessarily evil in

(22:36):
the implacable ways of nature, or perhaps grimly terribly evil.
Slaid out there, dead on the bosom of the primordial waters,
slaid back in time, a billion years before life had
been born on earth. She laughed hysterically. As they led

(22:57):
her away from the water. They slapped her face gently
at first, then harder. I'll be all right, she managed
to say. She would be all right, She could live.
To forget it. But Slade out there, Slade, Slade, fathering

(23:17):
all life on Earth, there in the sea with his
dead body, Slade, who had sinned and was taken back
here to die for his sins so that life could
be borne. Slade, whose first name was Adam. The End
of Prison of a Billion Years by C. H. Thames