The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper Page A

last flowers of Earth …
    Now why should that phrase come into his mind?
    Idris Hamilton sat down on the chair by his desk, sweating, shaking. There was a whole heap of crazy notions tied up in a sack somewhere in a dark room in his head. He knew they were there, alive, struggling to get out. He didn’t want them to get out. Because if they did, nothing would make sense any more.
    He decided to use the intercom, talk to somebody—Orlando, Leo, Suzy. Any damn fool who would listen. There was a lot to tell them. The bloody nightmares, the grotesque thoughts, were busy cutting a hole in the sack. He didn’t want to know about them. He really didn’t. Pride stopped him from using the intercom. He might say things he would never want anyone to hear.
    “But they are dead,” he said aloud in a matter-of-fact voice. He had a sudden, dreadful vision of Orlando, choking, sucked out of the navigation deck into a wilderness of stars. “I am dead also.”
    Now he knew he was mad because, demonstrably, he was alive.
    The mad can make their own laws. He decided to explore his madness.
    “I am dead, and the
Dag Hammarskjold
was destroyed by sabotage. Also, I am alive and locked in the master’s cabin. Also the
Dag
has touched down because I experience G.”
    The sack was torn open. Zylonia, Manfrius de Skun, theplanet Minerva, a brain in a life-support tank.
    Not realities. Sick imaginings only. He bit his finger, felt the pain, saw the blood come.
    No brain in a tank. The brain in Spain can’t feel much pain …
    And then he heard the cuckoo clock. He had been trying not to see it all the time. He had succeeded. He had not felt it was necessary to avoid hearing it. Even madness has its limitations.
    But the cuckoo—lost bird of Earth—popped out twelve times and said “Cuckoo!”
    And the bulkhead clock showed that it was indeed twelve o’clock.
    Idris remembered his calculations—remembered everything—and screamed.
    The cabin door opened. Zylonia came in.
    Idris Hamilton fell backwards out of his chair, hit the bond-fuzz, curled up in the womb position and began to suck his thumb.

14
    “C ATATONIC SHOCK ,” SAID Manfrius de Skun. “It was our fault entirely. I must apologise. A miscalculation. I judged that you would probably adjust to the new situation better if you were allowed to be alone for a while. It was a bad mistake. I hope you will forgive me.”
    Idris lay in his bunk, not looking at Dr. de Skun, staring at the ceiling.
    “I don’t feel a thing,” he said calmly. “I suppose you shot me full of happy juice.”
    “You are under sedation, yes. You will not need it much longer. You have a very resilient personality, Captain Hamilton. Or, if I may put it in a less clinical way, you are a brave man.”
    “Yes.” Idris gave a weak laugh. “I screamed. I cried like a baby. That is a sign of courage?”
    “Captain Hamilton, courage manifests itself in peculiar and divers ways. You have passed through the trauma of death, you endured a twilight existence as a brain in a life-support system, and your sanity has survived the transference of that brain to a new body. By any standards, a man who can survive multiple trauma of such magnitude is exceptionally courageous. If we had a hundred such as you on Minerva we would …” He stopped, confused.
    “What would you do?”
    “Nothing. Forgive me. I am tired. I talk stupidly. Sinceyour crisis, I have had little sleep.”
    Idris was silent for a while. Then he said: “It was the clock—the damned clock. It said ‘Cuckoo!’ twelve times, and the bulkhead clock showed the same time. And I blew my main circuits … Do you know what a cuckoo is?”
    “A mythical bird of Mars,” said Manfrius de Skun.
    Idris laughed. “Wrong. A real bird of Earth.”
    Zylonia spoke. He had not been aware of her presence.
    “I am sorry about the clock, Idris. I left it in the cabin because I thought—”
    “Because you thought it would remind me of a girl who took off her