Short Fiction

The party was dull. I had come too early. There was a preview that night at Grauman’s Chinese, and few of the important guests would arrive until it was over. Indeed, Jack Hardy, ace director at Summit Pictures, where I worked as assistant director, hadn’t arrived⁠—yet⁠—and he was the host. But Hardy had never been noted for punctuality.

I went out on the porch and leaned against a pillar, sipping a cocktail and looking down at the lights of Hollywood. Hardy’s place was on the summit of a hill overlooking the film capital, near Falcon Lair, Valentino’s famous turreted castle. I shivered a little. Fog was sweeping in from Santa Monica, blotting out the lights to the west.

Jean Hubbard, who was an ingenue at Summit, came up beside me and took the glass out of my hand.

“Hello, Mart,” she said, sipping the liquor. “Where’ve you been?”

“Down with the Murder Desert troupe, on location in the Mojave,” I said. “Miss me, honey?”

I drew her close. She smiled up at me, her tilted eyebrows lending a touch of diablerie to the tanned, lovely face. I was going to marry Jean, but I wasn’t sure just when.

“Missed you lots,” she said, and held up her lips. I responded.

After a moment I said, “What’s this about the vampire man?”

She chuckled. “Oh, the Chevalier Futaine. Didn’t you read Lolly Parsons’ write-up in Script? Jack Hardy picked him up last month in Europe. Silly rot. But it’s good publicity.”

“Three cheers for publicity,” I said. “Look what it did for Birth of a Nation. But where does the vampire angle come in?”

“Mystery man. Nobody can take a picture of him, scarcely anybody can see him. Weird tales are told about his former life in Paris. Going to play in Jack’s Red Thirst. The kind of buildup Universal gave Karloff for Frankenstein. The Chevalier Futaine”⁠—she rolled out the words with amused relish⁠—“is probably a singing waiter from a Paris café. I haven’t seen him⁠—but the deuce with him, anyway. Mart, I want you to do something for me. For Deming.”

“Hess Deming?” I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. Hess Deming, Summit’s biggest box-office star, whose wife, Sandra Colter, had died two days before. She, too, had been an actress, although never the great star her husband was. Hess loved her, I knew⁠—and now I guessed what the trouble was. I said, “I noticed he was a bit wobbly.”

“He’ll kill himself,” Jean said, looking worried. “I⁠—I feel responsible for him somehow, Mart. After all, he gave me my start at Summit. And he’s due for the D.T.s any time now.”

“Well, I’ll do what I can,” I told her. “But that isn’t a great deal. After all, getting tight is probably the best thing he could do. I know if I lost you, Jean⁠—”

I stopped. I didn’t like to think of it.

Jean nodded. “See what you can do for him, anyway. Losing Sandra that way was⁠—pretty terrible.”

“What way?” I asked. “I’ve been away, remember. I read something about it, but⁠—”

“She just died,” Jean said. “Pernicious anemia, they said. But Hess told me the doctor really didn’t know what it was. She just seemed to grow weaker and weaker until⁠—she passed away.”

I nodded, gave Jean a hasty kiss, and went back into the house. I had just seen Hess Deming walk past, a glass in his hand.

He turned as I tapped his shoulder. “Oh, Mart,” he said, his voice just a bit fuzzy. He could hold his liquor, but I could tell by his bloodshot eyes that he was almost at the end of his rope. He was a handsome devil, all right, well-built, strong-featured, with level gray eyes and a broad mouth that was usually smiling. It wasn’t smiling now. It was slack, and his face was bedewed with perspiration.

“You know about Sandra?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry, Hess.”

He drank deeply from the glass, wiped his mouth with a grimace of distaste.

“I’m drunk, Mart,” he confided. “I had to get drunk. It was awful⁠—those last few days. I’ve got to burn her up.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Burn her up. Oh, my God, Mart⁠—that beautiful body of hers, crumbling to dust⁠—and I’ve got to watch it! She made me promise I’d watch to make sure they burned her.”

I said, “Cremation’s a clean ending, Hess. And Sandra was a clean girl, and a damned good actress.”

He put his flushed face close to mine. “Yeah⁠—but I’ve got to burn her up. It’ll kill me, Mart. Oh, God!” He put the empty glass down on a table and looked around dazedly.

I was wondering why Sandra had insisted on cremation. She’d given an interview once in which she stressed her dread of fire. Most write-ups of stars are applesauce, but I happened to know that Sandra did dread fire. Once, on the set, I’d seen her go into hysterics when her leading man lit his pipe too near her face.

“Excuse me, Mart,” Hess said. “I’ve got to get another drink.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, holding him. “You want to watch yourself, Hess. You’ve had too much already.”

“It still hurts,” he said. “Just a little more and maybe it won’t hurt so much.” But he didn’t pull away. Instead he stared at me with the dullness of intoxication in his eyes. “Clean,” he said presently. “She said that too, Mart. She said burning was a clean death. But, God, that beautiful white body of hers⁠—I can’t stand it, Mart! I’m going crazy, I think. Get me a drink, like a good fellow.”

I said, “Wait here, Hess. I’ll get you one.” I didn’t add that it would be watered⁠—considerably.

He sank down in a chair, mumbling thanks. As I went off I felt sick. I’d seen too many actors going on the rocks to mistake Hess’s symptoms. I knew that his box-office days were over. There would be longer and longer waits between pictures, and then personal appearances, and finally Poverty Row and serials. And in the end maybe a man found dead in a cheap hall bedroom on Main Street, with the gas on.

There was a crowd around the bar. Somebody said, “Here’s Mart. Hey, come over and meet the vampire.”

Then I got a shock. I saw Jack Hardy, my host, the director with whom I’d worked on many a hit. He looked like a corpse. And I’d seen him looking plenty bad before. A man with a hangover, or a marijuana jag, isn’t a pretty sight, but I’d never seen Hardy like this. He looked as though he was keeping going on his nerve alone. There was no blood in the man.

I’d last seen him as a stocky, ruddy blond, who looked like nothing so much as a wrestler, with his huge biceps, his ugly, good-natured face, and his bristling crop of yellow hair. Now he looked like a skeleton, with skin hanging loosely on the big frame. His face was a network of sagging wrinkles. Pouches bagged beneath his eyes, and those eyes were dull and glazed. About his neck a black silk scarf was knotted tightly.

“Good God, Jack!” I exclaimed. “What have you been doing to yourself?”

He looked away quickly. “Nothing,” he said brusquely. “I’m all right. I want you to meet the Chevalier Futaine⁠—this is Mart Prescott.”

“Pierre,” a voice said. “Hollywood is no place for titles. Mart Prescott⁠—the pleasure is mine.”

I faced the Chevalier Pierre Futaine.

We shook hands. My first impression was of icy cold, and a slick kind of dryness⁠—and I let go of his hand too quickly to be polite. He smiled at me.

A charming man, the Chevalier. Or so he seemed. Slender, below medium height, his bland, round face seemed incongruously youthful. Blond hair was plastered close to his scalp. I saw that his cheeks were rouged⁠—very deftly, but I know something about makeup. And under the rouge I read a curious, deathly pallor that would have made him a marked man had he not disguised it. Some disease, perhaps, had blanched his skin⁠—but his lips were not artificially reddened. And they were as crimson as blood.

He was clean-shaved, wore impeccable evening clothes, and his eyes were black pools of ink.

“Glad to know you,” I said. “You’re the vampire, eh?”

He smiled. “So they tell me. But we all serve the dark god of publicity, eh, Mr. Prescott? Or⁠—is it Mart?”

“It’s Mart,” I said, still staring at him. I saw his eyes go past me, and an extraordinary expression appeared on his face⁠—an expression of amazement, disbelief. Swiftly it was gone.

I turned. Jean was approaching, was at my side as I moved. She said, “Is this the Chevalier?”

Pierre Futaine was staring at her, his lips parted a little. Almost inaudibly he murmured, “Sonya.” And then, on a note of interrogation, “Sonya?”

I introduced the two. Jean said, “You see, my name isn’t Sonya.”

The Chevalier shook his head, an odd look in his black eyes.

“I once knew a girl like you,” he said softly. “Very much like you. It is strange.”

“Will you excuse me?” I broke in. Jack Hardy was leaving the bar. Quickly I followed him.

I touched his shoulder as he went out the French windows. He jerked out a startled oath, turned a white death-mask of a face to me.

“Damn you, Mart,” he snarled. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and swung him around.

“What the devil has happened to you?” I asked. “Listen, Jack, you can’t bluff me or lie to me. You know that. I’ve straightened you out enough times in the past, and I can do it again. Let me in on it.”

His ruined face softened. He reached up and took away my hands. His own were ice-cold, like the hands of the Chevalier Futaine.

“No,” he said. “No use, Mart. There’s nothing you can do. I’m all right, really. Just⁠—overstrain. I had too good a time in Paris.”

I was up against a blank wall. Suddenly, without volition, a thought popped into my mind and out of my mouth before I knew it.

“What’s the matter with your neck?” I asked abruptly.

He didn’t answer. He just frowned and shook his head.

“I’ve a throat infection,” he told me. “Caught it on the steamer.”

His hand went up and touched the black scarf.

There was a croaking, harsh sound from behind us⁠—a sound that didn’t seem quite human. I turned. It was Hess Deming. He was swaying in the portal, his eyes glaring and bloodshot, a little trickle of saliva running down his chin.

He said in a dead, expressionless voice that was somehow dreadful, “Sandra died of a throat infection, Hardy.”

Jack didn’t answer. He stumbled back a step. Hess went on dully.

“She got all white and died. And the doctor didn’t know what it was, although the death certificate said anemia. Did you bring back some filthy disease with you, Hardy? Because if you did I’m going to kill you.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “A throat infection? I didn’t know⁠—”

“There was a wound in her throat⁠—two little marks, close together. That couldn’t have killed her, unless some loathsome disease⁠—”

“You’re crazy, Hess,” I said. “You know you’re drunk. Listen to me: Jack couldn’t have had anything to do with⁠—that.”

Hess didn’t look at me. He watched Jack Hardy out of his bloodshot eyes. He went on in that low, deadly monotone:

“Will you swear Mart’s right, Hardy? Will you?”

Jack’s lips were twisted by some inner agony. I said, “Go on, Jack. Tell him he’s wrong.”

Hardy burst out, “I haven’t been near your wife! I haven’t seen her since I got back. There’s⁠—”

“That’s not the answer I want,” Hess whispered. And he sprang for the other man⁠—reeled forward, rather.

Hess was too drunk, and Jack too weak, for them to do each other any harm, but there was a nasty scuffle for a moment before I separated them. As I pulled them apart, Hess’s hand clutched the scarf about Jack’s neck, ripped it away.

And I saw the marks on Jack Hardy’s throat. Two red, angry little pits, white-rimmed, just over the left jugular.

It was the next day that Jean telephoned me.

“Mart,” she said, “we’re going to run over a scene for Red Thirst tonight at the studio⁠—Stage 6. You’ve been assigned as assistant director on the pic, so you should be there. And⁠—I had an idea Jack might not tell you. He’s been⁠—so odd lately.”

“Thanks, honey,” I said. “I’ll be there. But I didn’t know you were in the flicker.”

“Neither did I, but there’s been some wire-pulling. Somebody wanted me in it⁠—the Chevalier, I think⁠—and the big boss phoned me this morning and let me in on the secret. I don’t feel up to it, though. Had a bad night.”

“Sorry,” I sympathized. “You were okay when I left you.”

“I had a⁠—nightmare,” she said slowly. “It was rather frightful, Mart. It’s funny, though, I can’t remember what it was about. Well⁠—you’ll be there tonight?”

I said I would, but as it happened I was unable to keep my promise. Hess Deming telephoned me, asking if I’d come out to his Malibu place and drive him into town. He was too shaky to handle a car himself, he said, and Sandra’s cremation was to take place that afternoon. I got out my roadster and sent it spinning west on Sunset. In twenty minutes I was at Deming’s beach house.

The house-boy let me in, shaking his head gravely as he recognized me.

“Mist’ Deming pretty bad,” he told me. “All morning drinking gin straight⁠—”

From upstairs Hess shouted, “That you, Mart? Okay⁠—I’ll be down right away. Come up here, Jim!”

The Japanese, with a meaning glance at me, pattered upstairs.

I wandered over to a table, examining the magazines upon it. A little breath of wind came through the half-open window, fluttering a scrap of paper. A word on it caught my eye, and I picked up the note. For that’s what it was. It was addressed to Hess, and after one glance I had no compunction about scanning it.

“Hess dear,” the message read. “I feel I’m going to die very soon. And I want you to do something for me. I’ve been out of my head, I know, saying things I didn’t mean. Don’t cremate me, Hess. Even though I were dead I’d feel the fire⁠—I know it. Bury me in a vault in Forest Lawn⁠—and don’t embalm me. I shall be dead when you find this, but I know you’ll do as I wish, dear. And, alive or dead, I’ll always love you.”

The note was signed by Sandra Colter, Hess’s wife. This was odd. I wondered whether Hess had seen it yet.

There was a little hiss of indrawn breath from behind me. It was Jim, the house-boy. He said, “Mist’ Prescott⁠—I find that note last night. Mist’ Hess not seen it. It Mis’ Colter’s writing.”

He hesitated, and I read fear in his eyes⁠—sheer, unashamed fear. He put a brown forefinger on the note.

“See that, Mist’ Prescott?”

He was pointing to a smudge of ink that half obscured the signature. I said, “Well?”

“I do that, Mist’ Prescott. When I pick up the note. The ink⁠—not dry.”

I stared at him. He turned hastily at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Hess Deming was coming down, rather shakily.

I think it was then that I first realized the horrible truth. I didn’t believe it, though⁠—not then. It was too fantastic, too incredible; yet something of the truth must have crept into my mind, for there was no other explanation for what I did then.

Hess said, “What have you got there, Mart?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly. I crumpled the note and thrust it into my pocket. “Nothing important, anyway. Ready to go?”

He nodded, and we went to the door. I caught a glimpse of Jim staring after us, an expression of⁠—was it relief?⁠—in his dark, wizened face.

The crematory was in Pasadena, and I left Hess there. I would have stayed with him, but he wouldn’t have it. I knew he didn’t want anyone to be watching him when Sandra’s body was being incinerated. And I knew it would be easier for him that way. I took a shortcut through the Hollywood hills, and that’s where the trouble started.

I broke an axle. Recent rains had gullied the road, and I barely saved the car from turning over. After that I had to hike miles to the nearest telephone, and then I wasted more time waiting for a taxi to pick me up. It was nearly eight o’clock when I arrived at the studio.

The gateman let me in, and I hurried to Stage 6. It was dark. Cursing under my breath, I turned away, and almost collided with a small figure. It was Forrest, one of the cameramen. He let out a curious squeal, and clutched my arm.

“That you, Mart? Listen, will you do me a favor? I want you to watch a print⁠—”

“Haven’t time,” I said. “Seen Jean around here? I was to⁠—”

“It’s about that,” Forrest said. He was a shriveled, monkey-faced little chap, but a mighty good cameraman. “They’ve gone⁠—Jean and Hardy and the Chevalier. There’s something funny about that guy.”

“Think so? Well, I’ll phone Jean. I’ll look at your rushes tomorrow.”

“She won’t be home,” he told me. “The Chevalier took her over to the Grove. Listen, Mart, you’ve got to watch this. Either I don’t know how to handle a grinder any more, or that Frenchman is the damnedest thing I’ve ever shot. Come over to the theater, Mart⁠—I’ve got the reel ready to run. Just developed the rough print myself.”

“Oh, all right,” I assented, and followed Forrest to the theater.

I found a seat in the dark little auditorium, and listened to Forrest moving about in the projection booth. He clicked on the amplifier and said, “Hardy didn’t want any pictures taken⁠—insisted on it, you know. But the boss told me to leave one of the automatic cameras going⁠—not to bother with the sound⁠—just to get an idea how the French guy would screen. Lucky it wasn’t one of the old rattler cameras, or Hardy would have caught on. Here it comes, Mart!”

I heard a click as the amplifier was switched off. White light flared on the screen. It faded, gave place to a picture⁠—the interior of Stage 6. The set was incongruous⁠—a mid-Victorian parlor, with overstuffed plush chairs, gilt-edged paintings, even a particularly hideous whatnot. Jack Hardy moved into the range of the camera. On the screen his face seemed to leap out at me like a death’s-head, covered with sagging, wrinkled skin. Following him came Jean, wearing a tailored suit⁠—no one dresses for rehearsals⁠—and behind her⁠—

I blinked, thinking that my eyes were tricking me. Something like a glowing fog⁠—oval, tall as a man⁠—was moving across the screen. You’ve seen the nimbus of light on the screen when a flashlight is turned directly on the camera? Well⁠—it was like that, except that its source was not traceable. And, horribly, it moved forward at about the pace a man would walk.

The amplifier clicked again. Forrest said, “When I saw it on the negative I thought I was screwy, Mart. I saw the take⁠—there wasn’t any funny light there. Look⁠—” The oval, glowing haze was motionless beside Jean, and she was looking directly at it, a smile on her lips. “Mart, when that was taken, Jean was looking right at the French guy!”

I said, somewhat hoarsely, “Hold it, Forrest. Right there.”

The images slowed down, became motionless. Jean’s left profile was toward the camera. I leaned forward, staring at something I had glimpsed on the girl’s neck. It was scarcely visible save as a tiny, discolored mark on Jean’s throat, above the jugular⁠—but unmistakably the same wound I had seen on the throat of Jack Hardy the night before!

I heard the amplifier click off. Suddenly the screen showed blindingly white, and then went black.

I waited a moment, but there was no sound from the booth.

“Forrest,” I called. “You okay?”

There was no sound. The faint whirring of the projector had died. I got up quickly and went to the back of the theater. There were two entrances to the booth, a door which opened on stairs leading down to the alley outside, and a hole in the floor reached by means of a metal ladder. I went up this swiftly, an ominous apprehension mounting within me.

Forrest was still there. But he was no longer alive. He lay sprawled on his back, his wizened face staring up blindly, his head twisted at an impossible angle. It was quite apparent that his neck had been broken almost instantly.

I sent a hasty glance at the projector. The can of film was gone! And the door opening on the stairway was ajar a few inches.

I stepped out on the stairs, although I knew I would see no one. The white-lit, broad alley between Stages 6 and 4 was silent and empty.

The sound of running feet came to me, steadily growing louder. A man came racing into view. I recognized him as one of the publicity gang. I hailed him.

“Can’t wait,” he gasped, but slowed down nevertheless.

I said, “Have you seen anyone around here just now? The⁠—Chevalier Futaine?”

He shook his head. “No, but⁠—” His face was white as he looked up at me. “Hess Deming’s gone crazy. I’ve got to contact the papers.”

Ice gripped me. I raced down the stairs, clutched his arm.

“What do you mean?” I snapped. “Hess was all right when I left him. A bit tight, that’s all.”

His face was glistening with sweat. “It’s awful⁠—I’m not sure yet what happened. His wife⁠—Sandra Colter⁠—came to life while they were cremating her. They saw her through the window, you know⁠—screaming and pounding at the glass while she was being burned alive. Hess got her out too late. He went stark, raving mad. Suspended animation, they say⁠—I’ve got to get to a phone, Mr. Prescott!”

He tore himself away, sprinted in the direction of the administration buildings.

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. It was the note I had found in Hess Deming’s house. The words danced and wavered before my eyes. Over and over I was telling myself, “It can’t be true! Such things can’t happen!”

I didn’t mean Sandra Colter’s terrible resurrection during the cremation. That, alone, might be plausibly explained⁠—catalepsy, perhaps. But taken in conjunction with certain other occurrences, it led to one definite conclusion⁠—and it was a conclusion I dared not face.

What had poor Forrest said? That the Chevalier was taking Jean to the Coconut Grove? Well⁠—

The taxi was still waiting. I got in.

“The Ambassador,” I told the driver grimly. “Twenty bucks if you hit the green lights all the way.”

All night I had been combing Hollywood⁠—without success. Neither the Chevalier Futaine nor Jean had been to the Grove, I discovered. And no one knew the Chevalier’s address. A telephone call to the studio, now ablaze with excitement over the Hess Deming disaster and the Forrest killing, netted me exactly nothing. I went the rounds of Hollywood night life vainly. The Trocadero, Sardi’s, all three of the Brown Derbies, the smart, notorious clubs of the Sunset eighties⁠—nowhere could I find my quarry. I telephoned Jack Hardy a dozen times, but got no answer. Finally, in a “private club” in Culver City, I met with my first stroke of good luck.

“Mr. Hardy’s upstairs,” the proprietor told me, looking anxious. “Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr. Prescott? I heard about Deming.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Take me up to him.”

“He’s sleeping it off,” the man admitted. “Tried to drink the place dry, and I put him upstairs where he’d be safe.”

“Not the first time, eh?” I said, with an assumption of lightness. “Well, bring up some coffee, will you? Black. I’ve got to⁠—talk to him.”

But it was half an hour before Hardy was in any shape to understand what I was saying. At last he sat up on the couch, blinking, and a gleam of realization came into his sunken eyes.

“Prescott,” he said, “can’t you leave me alone?”

I leaned close to him, articulating carefully so he would be sure to understand me. “I know what the Chevalier Futaine is,” I said.

And I waited for the dreadful, impossible confirmation, or for the words which would convince me that I was an insane fool.

Hardy looked at me dully. “How did you find out?” he whispered.

An icy shock went through me. Up to that moment I had not really believed, in spite of all the evidence. But now Hardy was confirming the suspicions which I had not let myself believe.

I didn’t answer his question. Instead, I said, “Do you know about Hess?”

He nodded, and at sight of the agony in his face I almost pitied him. Then the thought of Jean steadied me.

“Do you know where he is now?” I asked.

“No. What are you talking about?” he flared suddenly. “Are you mad, Mart? Do you⁠—”

“I’m not mad. But Hess Deming is.”

He looked at me like a cowering, whipped dog.

I went on grimly: “Are you going to tell me the truth? How you got those marks on your throat? How you met this⁠—creature? And where he’s taken Jean?”

“Jean!” He looked genuinely startled. “Has he got⁠—I didn’t know that, Mart⁠—I swear I didn’t. You⁠—you’ve been a good friend to me, and⁠—and I’ll tell you the truth⁠—for your sake and Jean’s⁠—although now it may be too late⁠—”

My involuntary movement made him glance at me quickly. Then he went on.

“I met him in Paris. I was out after new sensations⁠—but I didn’t expect anything like that. A Satanist club⁠—devil-worshippers, they were. The ordinary stuff⁠—cheap, furtive blasphemy. But it was there that I met⁠—him.

“He can be a fascinating chap when he tries. He drew me out, made me tell him about Hollywood⁠—about the women we have here. I bragged a little. He asked me about the stars, whether they were really as beautiful as they seemed. His eyes were hungry as he listened to me, Mart.

“Then one night I had a fearful nightmare. A monstrous, black horror crept in through my window and attacked me⁠—bit me in the throat, I dreamed, or thought I did. After that⁠—

“I was in his power. He told me the truth. He made me his slave, and I could do nothing. His powers⁠—are not human.”

I licked dry lips. Hardy continued:

“He made me bring him here, introducing him as a new discovery to be starred in Red Thirst⁠—I’d mentioned the picture to him, before I⁠—knew. How he must have laughed at me! He made me serve him, keeping away photographers, making sure that there were no cameras, no mirrors near him. And for a reward⁠—he let me live.”

I knew I should feel contempt for Hardy, panderer to such a loathsome evil. But somehow I couldn’t.

I said quietly, “What about Jean? Where does the Chevalier live?”

He told me. “But you can’t do anything, Mart. There’s a vault under the house, where he stays during the day. It can’t be opened, except with a key he always keeps with him⁠—a silver key. He had a door specially made, and then did something to it so that nothing can open it but that key. Even dynamite wouldn’t do it, he told me.”

I said, “Such things⁠—can be killed.”

“Not easily. Sandra Colter was a victim of his. After death she, too, became a vampire, sleeping by day and living only at night. The fire destroyed her, but there’s no way to get into the vault under Futaine’s house.”

“I wasn’t thinking of fire,” I said. “A knife⁠—”

“Through the heart,” Hardy interrupted almost eagerly. “Yes⁠—and decapitation. I’ve thought of it myself, but I can do nothing. I⁠—am his slave, Mart.”

I said nothing, but pressed the bell. Presently the proprietor appeared.

“Can you get me a butcher-knife?” I measured with my hands. “About so long? A sharp one?”

Accustomed to strange requests, he nodded. “Right away, Mr. Prescott.”

As I followed him out, Hardy said weakly, “Mart.”

I turned.

“Good luck,” he said. The look on his wrecked face robbed the words of their pathos.

“Thanks,” I forced myself to say. “I don’t blame you, Jack, for what’s happened. I⁠—I’d have done the same.”

I left him there, slumped on the couch, staring after me with eyes that had looked into hell.

It was past daylight when I drove out of Culver City, a long, razor-edged knife hidden securely inside my coat. And the day went past all too quickly. A telephone call told me that Jean had not yet returned home. It took me more than an hour to locate a certain man I wanted⁠—a man who had worked for the studio before on certain delicate jobs. There was little about locks he did not know, as the police had sometimes ruefully admitted.

His name was Axel Ferguson, a bulky, good-natured Swede, whose thick fingers seemed more adapted to handling a shovel than the mechanisms of locks. Yet he was as expert as Houdini⁠—indeed, he had at one time been a professional magician.

The front door of Futaine’s isolated canyon home proved no bar to Ferguson’s fingers and the tiny sliver of steel he used. The house, a modern two-story place, seemed deserted. But Hardy had said below the house.

We went down the cellar stairs and found ourselves in a concrete-lined passage that ran down at a slight angle for perhaps thirty feet. There the corridor ended in what seemed to be a blank wall of bluish steel. The glossy surface of the door was unbroken, save for a single keyhole.

Ferguson set to work. At first he hummed under his breath, but after a time he worked in silence. Sweat began to glisten on his face. Trepidation assailed me as I watched.

The flashlight he had placed beside him grew dim. He inserted another battery, got out unfamiliar-looking apparatus. He buckled on dark goggles, and handed me a pair. A blue, intensely brilliant flame began to play on the door.

It was useless. The torch was discarded after a time, and Ferguson returned to his tools. He was using a stethoscope, taking infinite pains in the delicate movements of his hands.

It was fascinating to watch him. But all the time I realized that the night was coming, that presently the sun would go down, and that the life of the vampire lasts from sunset to sunrise.

At last Ferguson gave up. “I can’t do it,” he told me, panting as though from a hard race. “And if I can’t, nobody can. Even Houdini couldn’t have broken this lock. The only thing that’ll open it is the key.”

“All right, Axel,” I said dully. “Here’s your money.”

He hesitated, watching me. “You going to stay here, Mr. Prescott?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You can find your way out. I’ll⁠—wait awhile.”

“Well, I’ll leave the light with you,” he said. “You can let me have it sometime, eh?”

He waited, and, as I made no answer, he departed, shaking his head.

Then utter silence closed around me. I took the knife out of my coat, tested its edge against my thumb, and settled back to wait.

Less than half an hour later the steel door began to swing open. I stood up. Through the widening crack I saw a bare, steel-lined chamber, empty save for a long, black object that rested on the floor. It was a coffin.

The door was wide. Into view moved a white, slender figure⁠—Jean, clad in a diaphanous, silken robe. Her eyes were wide, fixed and staring. She looked like a sleepwalker.

A man followed her⁠—a man wearing impeccable evening clothes. Not a hair was out of place on his sleek blond head, and he was touching his lips delicately with a handkerchief as he came out of the vault.

There was a little crimson stain on the white linen where his lips had brushed.

Jean walked past me as though I didn’t exist. But the Chevalier Futaine paused, his eyebrows lifted. His black eyes pierced through me.

The handle of the knife was hot in my hand. I moved aside to block Futaine’s way. Behind me came a rustle of silk, and from the corner of my eye I saw Jean pause hesitatingly.

The Chevalier eyed me, toying negligently with his handkerchief. “Mart,” he said slowly. “Mart Prescott.” His eyes flickered toward the knife, and a little smile touched his lips.

I said, “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I⁠—heard you. I was not disturbed. Only one thing can open this door.”

From his pocket he drew a key, shining with a dull silver sheen.

“Only this,” he finished, replacing it. “Your knife is useless, Mart Prescott.”

“Maybe,” I said, edging forward very slightly. “What have you done to Jean?”

A curious expression, almost of pain, flashed into his eyes. “She is mine,” he shot out half angrily. “You can do nothing, for⁠—”

I sprang then, or, at least, I tried to. The blade of the knife sheared down, straight for Futaine’s white shirtfront. It was arrested in midair. Yet he had not moved. His eyes had bored into mine, suddenly, terribly, and it seemed as though a wave of fearful energy had blasted out at me⁠—paralyzing me, rendering me helpless. I stood rigid. Veins throbbed in my temples as I tried to move⁠—to bring down the knife. It was useless. I stood as immovable as a statue.

The Chevalier brushed past me.

“Follow,” he said almost casually, and like an automaton I swung about, began to move along the passage. What hellish hypnotic power was this that held me helpless?

Futaine led the way upstairs. It was not yet dark, although the sun had gone down. I followed him into a room, and at his gesture dropped into a chair. At my side was a small table. The Chevalier touched my arm gently, and something like a mild electric shock went through me. The knife dropped from my fingers, clattering to the table.

Jean was standing rigidly near by, her eyes dull and expressionless. Futaine moved to her side, put an arm about her waist. My mouth felt as though it were filled with mud, but somehow I managed to croak out articulate words.

“Damn you, Futaine! Leave her alone!”

He released her, and came toward me, his face dark with anger.

“You fool, I could kill you now, very easily. I could make you go down to the busiest corner of Hollywood and slit your throat with that knife. I have the power. You have found out much, apparently. Then you know⁠—my power.”

“Yes,” I muttered thickly. “I know that. You devil⁠—Jean is mine!”

The face of a beast looked into mine. He snarled, “She is not yours. Nor is she⁠—Jean. She is Sonya!”

I remembered what Futaine had murmured when he had first seen Jean. He read the question in my eyes.

“I knew a girl like that once, very long ago. That was Sonya. They killed her⁠—put a stake through her heart, long ago in Thurn. Now that I’ve found this girl, who might be a reincarnation of Sonya⁠—they are so alike⁠—I shall not give her up. Nor can anyone force me.”

“You’ve made her a devil like yourself,” I said through half-paralyzed lips. “I’d rather kill her⁠—”

Futaine turned to watch Jean. “Not yet,” he said softly. “She is mine⁠—yes. She bears the stigmata. But she is still⁠—alive. She will not become⁠—wampyr⁠—until she has died, or until she has tasted the red milk. She shall do that tonight.”

I cursed him bitterly, foully. He touched my lips, and I could utter no sound. Then they left me⁠—Jean and her master. I heard a door close quietly.

The night dragged on. Futile struggles had convinced me that it was useless to attempt escape⁠—I could not even force a whisper through my lips. More than once I felt myself on the verge of madness⁠—thinking of Jean, and remembering Futaine’s ominous words. Eventually agony brought its own surcease, and I fell into a kind of coma, lasting for how long I could not guess. Many hours had passed, I knew, before I heard footsteps coming toward my prison.

Jean moved into my range of vision. I searched her face with my eyes, seeking for some mark of a dreadful metamorphosis. I could find none. Her beauty was unmarred, save for the terrible little wounds on her throat. She went to a couch and quietly lay down. Her eyes closed.

The Chevalier came past me and went to Jean’s side. He stood looking down at her. I have mentioned before the incongruous youthfulness of his face. That was gone now. He looked old⁠—old beyond imagination.

At last he shrugged and turned to me. His fingers brushed my lips again, and I found that I could speak. Life flooded back into my veins, bringing lancing twinges of pain. I moved an arm experimentally. The paralysis was leaving me.

The Chevalier said, “She is still⁠—clean. I could not do it.”

Amazement flooded me. My eyes widened in disbelief.

Futaine smiled wryly. “It is quite true. I could have made her as myself⁠—undead. But at the last moment I forbade her.” He looked toward the windows. “It will be dawn soon.”

I glanced at the knife on the table beside me. The Chevalier put out a hand and drew it away.

“Wait,” he said. “There is something I must tell you, Mart Prescott. You say that you know who and what I am.”

I nodded.

“Yet you cannot know,” he went on. “Something you have learned, and something you have guessed, but you can never know me. You are human, and I am⁠—the undead.

“Through the ages I have come, since first I fell victim to another vampire⁠—for thus is the evil spread. Deathless and not alive, bringing fear and sorrow always, knowing the bitter agony of Tantalus, I have gone down through the weary centuries. I have known Richard and Henry and Elizabeth of England, and ever have I brought terror and destruction in the night, for I am an alien thing. I am the undead.”

The quiet voice went on, holding me motionless in its weird spell.

“I, the vampire. I, the accursed, the shining evil, negotium perambulans in tenebris⁠ ⁠… but I was not always thus. Long ago in Thurn, before the shadow fell upon me, I loved a girl⁠—Sonya. But the vampire visited me, and I sickened and died⁠—and awoke. Then I arose.

“It is the curse of the undead to prey upon those they love. I visited Sonya. I made her my own. She, too, died, and for a brief while we walked the earth together, neither alive nor dead. But that was not Sonya. It was her body, yes, but I had not loved her body alone. I realized too late that I had destroyed her utterly.

“One day they opened her grave, and the priest drove a stake through her heart, and gave her rest. Me they could not find, for my coffin was hidden too well. I put love behind me then, knowing that there was none for such as I.

“Hope came to me when I found⁠—Jean. Hundreds of years have passed since Sonya crumbled to dust, but I thought I had found her again. And⁠—I took her. Nothing human could prevent me.”

The Chevalier’s eyelids sagged. He looked infinitely old.

“Nothing human. Yet in the end I found that I could not condemn her to the hell that is mine. I thought I had forgotten love. But, long and long ago, I loved Sonya. And, because of her, and because I know that I would only destroy, as I did once before, I shall not work my will on this girl.”

I turned to watch the still figure on the couch. The Chevalier followed my gaze and nodded slowly.

“Yes, she bears the stigmata. She will die, unless”⁠—he met my gaze unflinchingly⁠—“unless I die. If you had broken into the vault yesterday, if you had sunk that knife into my heart, she would be free now.” He glanced at the windows again. “The sun will rise soon.”

Then he went quickly to Jean’s side. He looked down at her for a moment.

“She is very beautiful,” he murmured. “Too beautiful for hell.”

The Chevalier swung about, went toward the door. As he passed me he threw something carelessly on the table, something that tinkled as it fell. In the portal he paused, and a little smile twisted the scarlet lips. I remembered him thus, framed against the black background of the doorway, his sleek blond head erect and unafraid. He lifted his arm in a gesture that should have been theatrical, but, somehow, wasn’t.

“And so farewell. I who am about to die⁠—”

He did not finish. In the faint grayness of dawn I saw him striding away, heard his footsteps on the stairs, receding and faint⁠—heard a muffled clang as of a great door closing. The paralysis had left me. I was trembling a little, for I realized what I must do soon. But I knew I would not fail.

I glanced down at the table. Even before I saw what lay beside the knife, I knew what would be there. A silver key⁠ ⁠…

The wharf-side tavern was a bedlam. The great harbor of Poseidonia stretched darkly to the southeast, but the waterfront was a blaze of bright lanterns and torches. Ships had made port today, and this tavern, like the others, roared with mirth and rough nautical oaths. Cooking-smoke and odor of sesame filled the broad low room, mingled with the sharp tang of wine. The swarthy seamen of the south held high carnival tonight.

In a niche in the wall was an image of the patron god, Poseidon of the sunlit seas. It was noticeable that before swilling liquor, nearly every man spilled a drop or two on the floor in the direction of the carved god.

A fat little man sat in a corner and muttered under his breath. Lycon’s small eyes examined the tavern with some distaste. His purse was, for a change, heavy with gold; so was that of Elak, his fellow adventurer. Yet Elak preferred to drink and wench in this brawling, smelly tavern, a prediliction that filled Lycon with annoyance and bitterness. He spat, muttered under his breath, and turned to watch Elak.

The lean, wolf-faced adventurer was quarreling with a sea captain whose huge, great-muscled body dwarfed Elak’s. Between the two a tavern wench was seated, her slanted eyes watching the men slyly, flattered by the attention given her.

The seaman, Drezzar, had made the mistake of underestimating Elak’s potentialities. He had cast covetous eyes upon the wench and determined to have her, regardless of Elak’s prior claim. Under other circumstances Elak might have left the slant-eyed girl to Drezzar, but the captain’s words had been insulting. So Elak remained at the table, his gaze wary, and his rapier loosened in its scabbard.

He watched Drezzar, noting the sunburnt, massive face, the bushy dark beard, the crinkled scar that swept down from temple to jawbone, blinding the man in one gray eye. And Lycon, called for more wine. Steel would flash soon, he knew.

Yet the battle came without warning. A stool was overturned, there was a flare of harsh oaths, and Drezzar’s sword came out, flaming in the lamplight. The wench screamed shrilly and fled, having little taste for bloodshed save from a distance.

Elak crouched catlike, his rapier motionless in his hand. A glint of angry laughter shone in the cold eyes.

Drezzar feinted; his sword swept out in a treacherously low cut that would have disemboweled Elak had it reached its mark. But the smaller man’s body writhed aside in swift, flowing motion; the rapier shimmered. Its point gashed Drezzar’s scalp.

They fought in silence. And this, more than anything else, gave Elak the measure of his opponent. Drezzar’s face was quite emotionless. Only the scar stood out white and distinct. His blinded eye seemed not to handicap him in the slightest degree.

Lycon waited for a chance to sheathe his steel in Drezzar’s back. Elak would disapprove, he knew, but Lycon was a realist.

Elak’s sandal slipped in a puddle of spilled liquor, and he threw himself aside desperately, striving to regain his balance. He failed. Drezzar’s lashing sword drove the rapier from his hand, and Elak went down, his head cracking sharply on an overturned stool.

The seamen poised himself, sighted down his blade, and lunged. Lycon was darting forward, but he knew he could not reach the killer in time.

And then⁠—from the open door came the inexplicable. Something like a streak of flaming light lashed through the air, and at first Lycon thought it was a thrown dagger. But it was not. It was⁠—flame!

White flame, darting and unearthly! It gripped Drezzar’s blade, coiled about it, ripped it from the seaman’s hand. It blazed up in blinding fiery light, limning the room in starkly distinct detail. The sword fell uselessly to the floor, a blackened, twisted stump of melted metal.

Drezzar shouted an oath. He stared at the ruined weapon, and his bronzed face paled. Swiftly he whirled and fled through a side door.

The flame had vanished. In the door a man stood⁠—a gross, ugly figure clad in the traditional brown robe of the Druids.

Lycon, skidding to a halt, lowered his sword and whispered, “Dalan!”

Elak got to his feet, rubbing his head ruefully. At sight of the Druid his face changed. Without a word he nodded to Lycon and moved toward the door.

The three went out into the night.

“I bring you a throne,” Dalan said, “but you must hold it with your blade.”

They stood at the end of a jetty, looking out at the moonlit harbor waters. The clamor of Poseidonia seemed far away now.

Elak stared at the hills. Beyond them, leagues upon leagues to the north, lay a life he had put behind him. A life he had given up when he left Cyrena to gird on an adventurers blade. In Elak’s veins ran the blood of the kings of Cyrena, northernmost kingdom of Atlantis. And, but for a fatal quarrel with his stepfather, Norian, Elak would have been on the dragon throne even then. But Norian had died, and Elak’s brother, Orander, took the crown.

Elak said, “Orander rules Cyrena. Do you ask me to join a rebellion against my brother?” An angry light showed in the adventurer’s cold eyes.

“Orander is dead,” the Druid said quietly. “Elak, I have a tale to tell you, a tale of sorcery and black evil that has cast its shadow over Cyrena. But first⁠—” He fumbled in his shapeless brown robe and drew forth a tiny crystal sphere. He cupped it in his palm, breathed upon it. The clear surface clouded, misted⁠—and the fog seemed to permeate the entire globe. The Druid held a ball of whirling gray cloud in his hand.

Within the sphere a picture grew, microscopic but vividly distinct. Elak peered closely. He saw a throne, and a man who sat upon it.

“South of Cyrena, beyond the mountains, lies Kiriath,” Dalan said. “Sepher ruled it. And now Sepher still sits upon his throne, but he is no longer human.”

In the globe the face of Sepher sprang out in startling clarity. Involuntarily Elak drew back, his lips thinning. At a casual glance Sepher seemed unchanged, a black-bearded, bronzed giant with the keen eyes of a hawk, but Elak knew that he looked upon a creature loathsome beyond anything on earth. It was not evil, as he knew it, but a thing beyond good and evil as it was beyond humanity or deity. A Presence from Outside had touched Sepher and taken Kiriath’s king for its own. And Elak knew this was the most horrible being he had ever seen.

Dalan hid the crystal. He said coldly, “Out of the unknown has come a being named Karkora. What he is I know not. I have cast the runes, and they say little to me. The altar fires have whispered of a shadow that will come upon Cyrena, a shadow that may spread over all Atlantis. Karkora, the Pallid One, is not human, nor is he a demon. He is⁠—alien, Elak.”

“What of my brother?” the adventurer asked.

“You have seen Sepher,” Dalan said. “He is possessed, a vessel of this entity called Karkora. Ere I left Orander, he, too, had⁠—changed.”

A muscle twitched in Elak’s brown cheek. The Druid went on.

“Orander saw his doom. Day by day the power of Karkora over him increased, and the soul of your brother was driven further into the outer dark. He died⁠—by his own hand.”

Elak’s face did not change expression. But for minutes he was silent, a deep sorrow in his gray eyes.

Lycon turned to look out across the sea.

The Druid went on, “Orander sent a message to you, Elak. You, in all Atlantis, are of the royal line of Cyrena. Yours, therefore, is the crown. It will not be easy to hold. Karkora is not defeated. But my magic will aid you.”

Elak said, “You offer me the dragon throne?”

Dalan nodded.

“The years have changed me, Dalan. I have gone through Atlantis a vagabond and worse. I put my birthright behind me and forgot it. And I’m not the same man who went from Cyrena years ago,” Elak said softly, laughing a little bitterly, and looking over the jetty’s edge at his face reflected in the dark swell of the water, “Only a king may sit on the dragon throne. For me⁠—it would be a jest. And a sorry one.”

“You fool!” the Druid whispered⁠—and there was rage in the sibilant sound. “Blind, mad fool! Do you think the Druids would offer Cyrena to the wrong man? Blood of kings is in your veins, Elak. It is not yours to deny. You must obey.”

“Must?” The word was spoken lightly, yet Lycon felt a tenseness go through him, tightening his muscles. “Must?” Elak asked.

“The decision is mine, Druid. By Mider! The throne of Cyrena means much to me. Therefore I shall not sit in it!”

Dalan’s toad face was gargoylish in the moonlight. He thrust his bald, glistening head forward, and his thick, stubby fingers twisted.

“Now am I tempted to work magic on you, Elak,” he said harshly. “I am no⁠—”

“I have given you my answer.”

The Druid hesitated. His somber eyes dwelt on Elak. Then, without a word, he turned and went lumbering off into the night. His footsteps died.

Elak remained staring out at the harbor. His cheeks were gray, his mouth a tortured white line. And he whirled, abruptly, and looked at the hills of Poseidonia.

But he did not see them. His gaze went beyond them, far and far, probing through all Atlantis to the kingdom of the north⁠—Cyrena, and the dragon throne.

Elak’s sleep that night was broken by dreams⁠—flashing, disordered visions of many things. He stared up at the white moonlit ceiling of the apartment. And⁠—it was changed. The familiar room was gone. Light still existed, but it was oddly changed⁠—grayish and unreal. Unearthly planes and angles slipped past Elak, and in his ears a low humming grew. This changed to a high-pitched, droning whine, and died away at last.

The mad planes reassembled themselves. In his dream Elak saw a mighty crag upthrust against cold stars⁠—colossal against a background of jagged mountain peaks. Snow dappled them, but the darkness of the crag was unbroken. On its top was a tower, dwarfed by distance.

A flood seemed to lift Elak and bear him swiftly forward. In the base of the crag, he saw, were great iron gates. And these parted and swung aside, yawning for him as he moved through.

They shut silently behind him.

And now Elak became conscious of a Presence. It was stygian black; yet in the tenebrous darkness there was a vague inchoate stirring, a sense of motion that was unmistakable.

Without warning Elak saw⁠—the Pallid One!

A white and shining figure flashed into view. How tall it was, how close or distant, the man could not tell. Nor could he see more than the bare outline. A crawling, leprous shimmer of cold light rippled over the being; it seemed little more than a white shadow. But a shadow⁠—three-dimensional, alive!

The unearthly terror of Karkora, the Pallid One!

The being seemed to grow larger. Elak knew he was watched, coldly and dispassionately. His senses were no longer dependable. It did not seem as though he beheld Karkora with his eyes alone⁠—he was no longer conscious of his body.

He remembered Dalan, and Dalan’s god. And he cried silently upon Mider for aid.

The shuddering loathing that filled him did not pass, but the horror that tore at his mind was no longer as strong. Again he cried to Mider, forcing himself to concentrate on the Druid god.

Once more Elak called out to Mider. And, silently, eerily, a wall of flame rose about him, shutting off the vision of Karkora. The warm, flickering fires of Mider were a protective barrier⁠—earthly, friendly.

They closed in⁠—drew him back. They warmed the chill horror that froze his mind. They changed to sunlight⁠—and the sunlight was slanting in through the window, beside which Elak lay on his low bed, awake and shuddering with reaction.

“By the Nine Hells!” he cursed, leaping up swiftly. “By all the gods of Atlantis! Where’s my rapier?” He found it, and whirled it hissing through the air. “How can a man battle dreams?”

He turned to Lycon, slumbering noisily nearby, and kicked the small man into wakefulness.

“Hog-swill,” said Lycon, rubbing his eyes. “Bring another cup, and swiftly, or I’ll⁠—eh? What’s wrong?”

Elak was dressing hastily. “What’s wrong? Something I didn’t expect. How could I know from Dalan’s words the sort of thing that’s come to life in Atlantis?” He spat in disgust. “That leprous foulness shall never take the dragon throne!”

He slammed his rapier into its scabbard. “I’ll find Dalan. I’ll go back with him. To Cyrena.”

Elak was silent, but deep in his eyes was a black horror and loathing. He had seen the Pallid One. And he knew that never in words could he hope to express the burning foulness of alien Karkora.

But Dalan had vanished. It was impossible to find the Druid in teeming Poseidonia. And at last Elak gave up hope and determined to take matters into his own hands. A galley called Kraken was leaving that day, he learned, and would beat up the western coast. In fact, by the time Elak had hired a boatman to take him and Lycon to the vessel, the galley’s oars were already dipping into the swells.

Elak’s cockleshell gained its side, and he clambered over the gunwale, hoisting Lycon after him. He tossed a coin to the boatman and saw the man depart.

The sweating backs of slaves were moving rhythmically under the lash of the overseers. One of these came forward at a run, his bronzed face angry.

“Who are you?” he hailed. “What do you seek on the Kraken?”

“Take us to your captain,” Elak said shortly. His hand touched the heavy purse at his belt, and coins jingled. The overseer was impressed.

“We’re putting to sea,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Passage to Cyrena,” Lycon snapped. “Be⁠—”

“Bring them here, Rasul,” a gruff voice broke in. “They are friends. We’ll give them passage to Cyrena⁠—aye!”

And Drezzar, Elak’s opponent in the tavern brawl, hastened along the poop toward them, teeth gleaming in his bushy beard.

“Ho!” he yelled at a nearby group of armed seamen. “Seize those two! Take them⁠—alive!” “You dog,” Drezzar said with cold rage. He stood before Elak and lifted his hand as though to strike the captive.

Elak said stoically, “I want passage to Cyrena. I’ll pay well for it.”

“So you will,” Drezzar grinned, and ripped off Elak’s purse. He opened it and ran golden coins through his thick fingers. “You’ll work for it, too. But you’ll not reach Cyrena.”

“Two more oarsmen for you, Rasul. Two more slaves.

“See that they work!”

He turned and strode away. Unresisting, Elak was dragged to a vacant oar and chained there, Lycon shackled beside him. His hands fell in well-worn grooves on the polished wood.

Rasul’s whip cracked. The overseer called, “Pull! Pull!”

The Kraken sped seaward. And, chained to his oar, straining at the unaccustomed toil, Elak’s dark wolf-face bore a smile that was not pleasant to see.

They drove down along the coast and skirted the southern tip of Atlantis. Then the galley crept northwest, up the long curve of the continent, and all the while the days were cloudless and fair, and the skies blue as the waters of the Ocean Sea.

Elak bided his time until the Kraken dropped anchor one afternoon at an uninhabited island, to replenish the water supply. Drezzar went ashore with a dozen others, leaving only a few men in charge of the ship. This was apparently safe enough, with the slaves chained. Moreover, Drezzar had the only keys. But, at sunset, Elak nudged Lycon awake and told him to keep watch.

“What for?” Lycon’s voice was surly. “Do you⁠—” He broke off, staring, as Elak took a tiny twisted bit of metal from his sandal and inserted it delicately in the lock of his ankle-cuff, “Gods!” Lycon cursed. “You had that all the time⁠—and you waited till now!”

“These locks are easy to pick,” Elak said. “What? Of course I waited! We’ve only a few enemies aboard now, instead of more than a dozen. Keep watch, I tell you.”

Lycon obeyed. Footsteps creaked upon the deck occasionally, and there were lanterns here and there on the ship, but their illumination was faint enough. The lapping of water against the hull drowned the soft scrape and click as Elak worked. Presently he sighed in satisfaction and opened the cuff.

Metal clicked and scraped. Elak was free. He turned to Lycon⁠—and then hurrying footsteps sounded on the raised deck. Rasul, the overseer, ran up, dragging his long whip. He peered down⁠—and dragged out his sword, cursing. With the other hand he swept the whip in a great singing blow, smashing down on Elak’s unprotected shoulders.

Lycon acted. In one swift motion he flung himself forward, guarding Elak; the lash ripped skin and flesh from Lycon’s side. And then Elak’s sinewy hand closed on the tough hide; he pulled mightily⁠—pulled it from Rasul’s grasp.

“Ho!” the overseer shouted. “Ho! To me!” His voice roared out over the dark sea. His long sword was a pale flickering light in the glow of the lanterns.

Two more men, armed, came running up behind Rasul. They spread out and closed in on Elak. He grinned unpleasantly, as a wolf smiles. The whip was coiled in his hand.

It sprang out suddenly, like a striking snake. The fanged, vicious tip hissed shrilly. In the dimness the lash was difficult to see, impossible to dodge. Rasul roared in pain.

“Slay him!” the overseer shouted.

The three ran in, and Elak gave way, his wrist turning as he swung the whip. A thrown dagger brought blood from the Atlantean’s shoulder. And a man staggered back, screaming shrilly, clawing at his eyes that were blinded by the tearing rip of the lash.

“Slay me, then,” Elak whispered, cold laughter in his eyes. “But the dog’s fangs are sharp, Rasul.”

He caught a glimpse of Lycon, bent above his bonds, busily manipulating the bit of metal that would unlock them. Voices called from the shore. Rasul shouted a response, and then ducked and gasped as the whip shrieked through the dark air.

“ ’Ware my fangs, Rasul!” Elak smiled mirthlessly.

And now the two⁠—Rasul and his companion⁠—were in turn giving way. Step by step Elak forced them back, under the threat of the terrible lash. They could not guard against it, could not see it. Out of the gloom it would come striking, swift as a snake’s thrust, leaping viciously at their eyes. The slaves were awake and straining in their chains, calling encouragement to Elak. The man who had been blinded made a misstep and fell among the rowers. They surged up over him; lean hands reached and clawed in the lantern-light. He screamed for a time, and then made no further sound.

Lycon’s voice rose, shrill and peremptory, above the tumult.

“Row!” he yelped. “Row, slaves! Ere Drezzar returns⁠—row for your freedom!” Alternately he cursed and threatened and cajoled them, and worked at his bonds with flying fingers.

Elak heard a whisper at his side, saw a slave thrusting a sword at him, hilt-first⁠—the blade the blinded one had dropped. Gratefully he seized it, hurling the whip away. The feel of the cool, leather-bound hilt was grateful. Tide of strength surged up Elak’s arm from the sharp steel.

It was not his rapier⁠—but it would do.

“My fangs, Rasul,” he said, laughing⁠—and ran in. His two opponents spread out, but he had foreseen that move. He turned his back on Rasul, cut at the other, and almost in the same motion whirled and leaped past, dodging a thrust by a hair’s-breadth. And now Rasul only faced him. The other man was down, tearing at a throat sliced through to the spine.

Lycon shouted, “Row, slaves! For your lives!”

The long oars clacked and moved in confusion; then habit stepped in, and rhythmically, slowly, the blades dug into the sea. Lycon yelled a chant, and the slaves kept time to it. Gradually the galley gained way.

On the deck swords flamed and clashed. But Elak was not fated to slay Rasul. The overseer stumbled, dropped to one knee⁠—and hands reached for him out of the dark. Shouting, he was dragged down among the slaves. Voices rose to a yelping crescendo of hate. Rasul screamed⁠—and was silent.

Lycon leaped up, free from his chains. He cursed the rowers; their momentary inattention to their duty had caused confusion. An oar, caught among others, splintered and broke. The butt bent like a bow, snapped back, and smashed a slave’s face to bloody ruin. From overside came cries and commands.

The face of Drezzar rose above the rail, hideous, contorted, the scar flaming red. He gripped his sword between his teeth. After him armed men came pouring.

Lycon, a captured blade bare in his hand, ran toward them, yelling objurgations at the slaves. The oars moved again, tore at the sea, sent the galley through the waves once more. A slave had long since cut the anchor-rope.

A dozen armed men, swords gleaming, were ringed about Lycon, who, his back against the mast, was valiantly battling and cursing in lurid oaths. A few steps away Drezzar came catlike, and murder was in his eyes. He saw Elak stir, and ran in, blade ready.

Elak did not stoop to recover his sword. He sprang forward, under the sweep of the steel, which Drezzar had not expected. The two men went down together, rolling on the blood-slippery deck.

Drezzar tried to reverse the sword in his hand and stab Elak in the back. But Elak’s supple body writhed aside, and simultaneously his lean, sinewy fingers closed on Drezzar’s, above the hilt of the blade.

Drezzar tried to turn the blow, but could not. Elak continued his enemy’s thrust. And the sword went smoothly into Drezzar’s belly, without pausing till it grated against the backbone.

“My fangs, Drezzar,” Elak said very softly, and with no expression on his wolf-face⁠—and then drove the sword further in till it pinned the captain, like a beetle, to the deck. Drezzar’s mouth opened; a roaring exhalation of breath, fraught with ghastly agony, seemed torn out of the man. His hands beat the deck; his body doubled up and arched like a bow.

He coughed blood, gnashed his teeth till they splintered and cracked⁠—and so died.

Elak sprang up. He saw a heavy iron key hanging at Drezzar’s belt. This he tore away and cast down among the slaves. A grateful clamor came in response.

Lycon called frantically for aid. Elak responded. But now the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. One by one the freed slaves passed the iron key to their neighbors and came springing up to add their numbers to Elak’s cause. And, presently, the last of the ship’s masters lay dead on deck, and the oarsmen⁠—no longer in chains, no longer slaves⁠—sent the galley plunging through the dark sea to the north.

They came to a forbidding, bleak coast that loomed high above the galley. The cold winds of Autumn filled the sails and let the weary oarsmen rest. The sea turned smoothly gray, surging in long, foamless swells under a blue-gray sky. The sun gave little heat. The crew turned gratefully to the ship’s stock⁠—oil and wine and woven stuff, finding warmth and comfort in it.

But Elak was chafed by inaction. He longed to reach Cyrena; endlessly he paced the decks, fingering his rapier and pondering on the mystery of the thing called Karkora. What was this Pallid One? Whence had it come? These problems were insoluble, and remained so till, one night, Elak dreamed.

He dreamed of Dalan. The Druid priest seemed to be standing in a forest glade; before him a fire flickered redly. And Dalan said:

“Leave your ship at the red delta. Seek Aynger of Amenalk. Tell him you seek the throne of Cyrena!”

There was no more. Elak awoke, listening to the creaking of the galley’s timbers and the whisper of waves against the side. It was nearly dawn. He rose, went on deck, and searched the horizon under a shielding palm.

To the right, breaking the gray cliffs, was a gap. Beyond it⁠—an island. And on the island a castle loomed, part of the rock, it seemed, growing from it.

The galley swept on. And now Elak saw that a river ran between the broken cliffs. At its mouth was a delta, made of reddish sand.

So, in the cold, lowering dawn, Elak and Lycon left the galley. Willing oarsmen rowed them to shore. The two climbed the northern cliff and stood staring around. Inland the plateau stretched unbroken by tree or bush, windswept and desolate. To the west lay the Ocean Sea, chill and forbidding.

“Perhaps this Aynger of your dream dwells in that castle,” Lycon said, pointing and shivering. “One of the men told me this is Kiriath. To the north, beyond the mountains, lies Cyrena.”

Elak said somberly, “I know. And Sepher rules over Kiriath⁠—Sepher, whom Karkora has taken for his own. Well⁠—come on.”

They set out along the edge of the cliff. The wind blew coldly, and brought to them a thin, high piping that seemed to come out of nowhere. Sad, mournful, weird, it murmured half-heard in the air about the two.

And across the plateau a man came⁠—a great gray man, roughly clad, with unkempt hair and iron-gray beard. He played upon a set of pipes, but put these away as he saw Elak and Lycon. He came closer and halted, with folded arms, waiting.

The man’s face might have been chipped from the rough rocks of this land. It was harsh and strong and forbidding, and the cool gray eyes were like the sea.

“What do you seek here?” he asked. His voice was deep and not at all unpleasant.

Elak hesitated. “Aynger. Aynger of Amenalk. Do you know of him?”

“I am Aynger.”

For a heartbeat there was silence. Then Elak said, “I seek the throne of Cyrena.”

Laughter sprang into the gray eyes. Aynger of Amenalk reached out a huge hand and gripped Elak’s arm, squeezing it painfully. He said, “Dalan sent you! Dalan!”

Elak nodded.

“But it is not me you seek. It is Mayana⁠—the daughter of Poseidon. You must seek her there.” He pointed to the distant castle on the island. “Her power alone can aid you. But first⁠—come.”

He led the way to the cliff’s edge. A perilous, narrow path led down the jagged face; Aynger started along it with surefooted ease, and Elak and Lycon followed more gingerly. Far below, the breakers tore upon the rocks; seabirds called shrilly.

The path ended at a cave-mouth. Aynger entered, beckoning to the others. The cavern widened into a high-arched chamber, obviously Aynger’s home. He gestured to a heap of furs, and gave each of his guests a great horn of mead.

“So. Dalan sent you. I had wondered. Orander is dead. Once the Pallid One has set his seal on a man, there is escape in death alone.”

“Karkora,” Elak said musingly. “What is he? Do you know, Aynger?”

“You must seek your answer from Mayana, on the isle. Only she knows. Mayana⁠—of the seas. Let me tell you.” The gray eyes grew bright with dream. A softness crept into the deep voice. “This land, on the western shore, is Amenalk. Not Kiriath. Once, long ago, Amenalk stretched far to the east. We were a great people then. But invaders came conquering, and now only this bit of land is left to us. Yet it is Amenalk. And I dwell here because in my veins runs the blood of kings.”

Aynger flung back his gray, tousled head. “And for ages the castle on the isle had existed. None dwelt there. There were legends that even before the Amenalks held this land, an ancient sea-people made it their home. Sorcerers they were, warlocks and magicians. But they died and were forgotten. So, in time, my own people were scattered through Kiriath, and I dwelt here alone.

“Sepher ruled, well and wisely. One night he walked alone on the cliffs of Amenalk, and when he returned to his palace, he brought a bride with him. The bride was Mayana. Some say he found her in the island castle. Some say she rose from the waves. I think she is not human. She is one of the old sea-race⁠—

“A shadow fell on the land. Out of the dark, out of the unknown, came Karkora. He took Sepher for his own. Mayana fled here, and dwells now in the castle, protected by her sorcery. And Karkora rules.”

Aynger’s gray beard jutted; his eyes were lambent pools. He said, “My people were a Druid race. We worshipped great Mider, as I do now. And I tell you that Karkora is a foulness and a horror⁠—an evil that will spread through all the world if the Druids fail to destroy him. Mayana holds his secret. Mayana knows. You must go to her on her isle. For myself⁠—” A mighty hand clenched. “I have king’s blood, and my people live, though in bondage. I shall go through Kiriath and gather men. I think you will need armies, ere you sit on Cyrena’s dragon throne. Well, I have an army for you, and for Mider.”

Aynger reached behind him, brought out a huge war-hammer, bound with thongs. Laughter touched his grim face.

“We shall fight in the old way, woad-painted, without armor. And I think Helm-Breaker will taste blood again. If you get aid from Mayana⁠—well. But with you or without you, man of Cyrena, Amenalk will go forth to battle!”

The great gray man towered against the cave-mouth, a grim, archaic figure, somehow strong with primeval menace. He stood aside, pointing.

“Your way lies there, to the isle. Mine lies inland. When we meet again, if we do, I shall have an army to give you.”

Silently Elak moved past Aynger and went up the cliff path. Lycon trailed him. On the windy, treeless plateau he stood unmoving, while the gray giant passed him without a word and strode away, his war-hammer over one muscular shoulder, beard and hair flying in the wind.

Aynger grew small in the distance. Elak nodded to Lycon.

“I think we have a strong ally there. We’ll need him. But now⁠—this Mayana. If she can solve the riddle of Karkora, I’ll find her though I have to swim.”

“You won’t have to,” Lycon said, wiping his mouth. “Gods, that mead was good! There’s a bridge to the isle⁠—see? A narrow one, but it will serve. Unless she’s set a dragon to guard it.”

From the cliff’s edge a narrow bridge of rock jutted, a natural formation worn by wind and rain. It ended on a jagged ledge, at the back of which a black hole gaped. Elak said, “Lycon, wait here. I must take this road alone.”

The little man disagreed profanely. But Elak was firm.

“It will be safer. So we won’t both fall into the same trap. If I’m not back by sundown, come after me⁠—you may be of aid then.” Lycon could not help but realize the truth of this. He shrugged fat shoulders.

“Very well. I’ll wait in Aynger’s cave. His mead was potent; I’m anxious to sample more. Luck, Elak.”

Nodding, the Atlantean started along the bridge. He found it safer not to look down, but the surging roar of the breakers sounded disquietingly from beneath. Seabirds mewed and called. The wind tore at his swaying body.

But at last he was across, and felt the firm stability of the rocky ground under his sandals. Without a backward glance he entered the cave-mouth. Almost immediately outside sounds dimmed and quieted.

The road led down⁠—a natural passage, seemingly, that turned and twisted in the rock. Sand was gritty underfoot, with bits of shell here and there. For a time it was dark, and then a greenish, vague luminous glow appeared, apparently emanated by the sand on which he trod.

It was utterly silent.

Still the tunnel led down, till Elak’s feet felt moisture beneath him. He hesitated, staring around. The rocky walls were dewed and sweating. A dank, salty odor was strong in his nostrils. Loosening his rapier in its scabbard, he went on.

The green glow brightened. The passage turned; Elak rounded the corner, and stood motionless, staring. Before him a vast cavern opened.

It was huge and terrifyingly strange. Low-roofed, stalactites hung in myriad shapes and colors over the broad expanse of an underground lake. The green shining was everywhere. The weight of the island above seemed to press down suffocatingly, but the air, despite a salt sea-smell, was fresh enough.

At his feet a sandy half-moon of a beach reached down to the motionless surface of the water. Further out, he could see far down vague shadows that resembled sunken buildings⁠—fallen peristyles and columns, and far away, in the center of the lake, was an island.

Ruined marble crowned it. Only in the center a small temple seemed unharmed; it rose from shattered ruins in cool, white perfection. All around it the dead and broken city lay, to the water’s edge and beyond. A submerged, forgotten metropolis lay before Elak.

Silence, and the pale green expanse of the waveless lake.

Softly Elak called, “Mayana.” There was no response.

Frowning, he considered the task before him. He felt an odd conviction that what he sought lay in the temple on the islet, but there was no way of reaching it save by swimming. And there was something ominous about the motionless green of the waters.

Shrugging, Elak waded out. Icy chill touched his legs, crept higher about his loins and waist. He struck out strongly. And at first there was no difficulty; he made good progress.

But the water was very cold. It was salt, and this buoyed him up somewhat; yet when he glanced at the islet it seemed no nearer. Grunting, Elak buried his face in the waters and kicked vigorously.

His eyes opened. He looked down. He saw, beneath him, the sunken city.

Strange it was, and weird beyond imagination, to be floating above the wavering outline of these marble ruins. Streets and buildings and fallen towers were below, scarcely veiled by the luminous waters, but possessing a vague, shadowy indistinctness that made them half-unreal. A green haze clothed the city. A city of shadows⁠—

And the shadows moved and drifted in the tideless sea. Slowly, endlessly, they crept like a stain over the marble. They took shape before Elak’s eyes.

Not sea-shapes⁠—no. The shadows of men walked in the sunken metropolis. With queer, drifting motion the shadows went to and fro. They met and touched and parted again in strange similitude of life.

Stinging, choking cold filled Elak’s mouth and nostrils. He spluttered and struck out, realizing that he was far beneath the surface, that, unconsciously holding his breath, he had drifted into the depths. He fought his way up.

It was oddly difficult. Soft, clinging arms seemed to touch him; the water darkened. But his head broke the surface, and he drank deeply of the chill air. Only by swimming with all his strength could he keep from sinking. That inexplicable drag pulled him down.

He went under. His eyes were open, and he saw, far below, movement in the sunken city. The shadow-shapes were swirling up, rising, spinning like autumn leaves⁠—rising to the surface. And shadows clustered about Elak, binding him with gossamer fetters. They clung feathery and tenacious as spiderwebs.

The shadows drew him down into the shining depths.

He struck out frantically. His head broke water once more; he saw the islet, closer now.

“Mayana!” he called. “Mayana!”

Rustling movement shook the shadows. A ripple of mocking laughter seemed to go through them. They closed in again, dim, impalpable, unreal. Elak went under once more, too exhausted to fight, letting the shadows have their will with him. Only his mind cried out desperately to Mayana, striving to summon her to his aid.

The waters brightened. The green glow flamed emerald-bright. The shadows seemed to pause with odd hesitation, as though listening.

Then suddenly they closed in on Elak. They bore him through the waters; he was conscious of swift movement amid whirling green fire.

The shadows carried him to the islet, bore him up as on a wave, and left him upon the sands.

The green light faded to its former dimness. Choking, coughing, Elak clambered to his feet. He stared around.

The shadows had vanished. Only the motionless lake stretched into the distance. He stood amid the ruins of the islet.

Hastily he staggered away from the water’s marge, clambering across broken plinths and fallen pillars, making his way to the central temple. It stood in a tiny plaza, unmarred by time, but stained and discolored in every stone.

The brazen door gaped open. Unsteadily Elak climbed the steps and paused at the threshold. He looked upon a bare room, lit with the familiar emerald glow, featureless save for a curtain, on the further wall, made of some metallic cloth and figured with the trident of the sea-god.

There was no sound but Elak’s hastened breathing. Then, abruptly, a low splashing came from beyond the curtain. It parted.

Beyond it was green light, so brilliant it was impossible to look upon. Silhouetted against the brightness for a moment loomed a figure⁠—a figure of unearthly slimness and height. Only for a second did Elak see it; then the curtain swung back into place and the visitant was gone.

Whispering through the temple came a voice, like the soft murmur of tiny, rippling waves. And it said:

“I am Mayana. Why do you seek me?”

Elak’s wet hand crept to his rapier. There had been no menace in the whisper, but it was strangely⁠—inhuman. And the silhouette he had seen was not that of any earthly woman.

Yet he answered quietly enough, no tremor in his voice:

“I seek the dragon throne of Cyrena. And I come to you for aid against Karkora.”

There was silence. When the whisper came again, it had in it all the sadness of waves and wind.

“Must I aid you? Against Karkora?”

“You know what manner of being he is?” Elak questioned.

“Aye⁠—I know that well.” The metallic curtain shook. “Seat yourself. You are tired⁠—how are you named?”

“Elak.”

“Elak, then⁠—listen. I will tell you of the coming of Karkora, and of Erykion the sorcerer. And of Sepher, whom I loved.” There was a pause; then the low whisper resumed.

“Who I am, what I am, you need not know, but you should understand that I am not entirely human. My ancestors dwelt in this sunken city. And I⁠—well, for ten years I took human shape and dwelt with Sepher as his wife. I loved him. And always I hoped to give him a son who would some day mount the throne. I hoped in vain, or so I thought.

“Now in the court dwelt Erykion, a wizard. His magic was not that of the sea, soft and kindly as the waves, but of a darker sort. Erykion delved in ruined temples and pored over forgotten manuscripts of strange lore. His vision went back even before the sea-folk sprang from the loins of Poseidon, and he opened the forbidden gates of Space and Time. He offered to give me a child, and I listened to him, to my sorrow.

“I shall not tell you of the months I spent in strange temples, before dreadful altars. I shall not tell you of Erykion’s magic. I bore a son⁠—dead.”

The silver curtain shook; it was long before the unseen speaker resumed. “And this son was frightful. He was deformed in ways I cannot let myself remember. Sorcery had made him inhuman. Yet he was my son, my husband’s son, and I loved him. When Erykion offered to give him life, I agreed to the price he demanded⁠—even though the price was the child himself.”

“ ‘I shall not harm him,’ Erykion told me. ‘Nay, I shall give him powers beyond those of any god or man. Some day he shall rule this world and others. Only give him to me, Mayana.’ And I hearkened.

“Now of Erykion’s sorcery I know little. Something had entered into the body of my son while I bore him, and what this thing was I do not know. It was dead, and it awoke. Erykion awoke it. He took this blind, dumb, maimed man-child and bore it to his home in the depths of the mountains. With his magic he deprived it of any vestige of the five senses. Only life remained, and the unknown dweller within.

“I remembered something Erykion had once told me. ‘We have in us a sixth sense, primeval and submerged, which can be very powerful once it is brought to light. I know how to do that. A blind man’s hearing may become acute; his power goes to the senses remaining. If a child, at birth, be deprived of all five senses, his power will go to this sixth sense. My magic can insure that.’ So Erykion made of my man-child a being blind and dumb and without consciousness, almost; for years he worked his spells and opened the gates of Time and Space, letting alien powers flood through. This sixth sense within the child grew stronger. And the dweller in his mind waxed great, unbound by the earthly fetters that bind humans. This is my son⁠—my man-child⁠—Karkora, the Pallid One!”

And silence. And again the whisper resumed.

“Yet it is not strange that I do not entirely hate and loathe Karkora. I know he is a burning horror and a thing that should not exist; yet I gave him birth. And so, when he entered the mind of Sepher, his father, I fled to this my castle. Here I dwell alone with my shadows. I strove to forget that once I knew the fields and skies and hearths of earth. Here, in my own place, I forgot.

“And you seek me to ask aid.” There was anger in the soft murmur. “Aid to destroy that which came from my flesh!”

Elak said quietly, “Is Karkora’s flesh⁠—yours?”

“By Father Poseidon, no! I loved the human part of Karkora, and little of that is left now. The Pallid One is⁠—is⁠—he has a thousand frightful powers, through his one strange sense. It has opened for him gateways that should remain always locked. He walks in other worlds, beyond unlit seas, across the nighted voids beyond earth. And I know he seeks to spread his dominion over all. Kiriath fell to him, and I think Cyrena. In time he will take all Atlantis, and more than that.”

Elak asked, “This Erykion, the wizard⁠—what of him?”

“I do not know,” Mayana said. “Perhaps he dwells in his citadel yet, with Karkora. Not for years have I seen the sorcerer.”

“Cannot Karkora be slain?”

There was a long pause. Then the whisper said, “I know not. His body, resting in the citadel, is mortal, but that which dwells within it is not. If you could reach the body of Karkora⁠—even so you could not slay him.”

“Nothing can kill the Pallid One?” Elak asked.

“Do not ask me this!” Mayana’s voice said with angry urgency. “One thing, one talisman exists⁠—and this I shall not and cannot give you.”

“I am minded to force your talisman from you,” Elak said slowly, “if I can. Yet I do not wish to do this thing.”

From beyond the curtain came a sound that startled the man⁠—a low, hopeless sobbing that had in it all the bleak sadness of the mournful sea. Mayana said brokenly:

“It is cold in my kingdom, Elak⁠—cold and lonely. And I have no soul, only my life, while it lasts. My span is long, but when it ends there will be only darkness, for I am of the sea-folk. Elak, I have dwelt for a time on earth, and I would dwell there again, in green fields with the bright cornflowers and daisies gay amid the grass⁠—with the fresh winds of earth caressing me. The hearth-fires, the sound of human voices, and a man’s love⁠—my Father Poseidon knows how I long for these again.”

“The talisman,” Elak said.

“Aye, the talisman. You may not have it.”

Elak said very quietly, “What manner of world will this be if Karkora should rule?”

There was a shuddering, indrawn breath. Mayana said, “You are right. You shall have the talisman, if you should need it. It may be that you can defeat Karkora without it. I only pray that it may be so. Here is my word, then; in your hour of need, and not until then, I shall send you the talisman. And now go. Karkora has an earthly vessel in Sepher. Slay Sepher. Give me your blade, Elak.”

Silently Elak unsheathed his rapier and extended it hilt-first. The curtain parted. Through it slipped a hand.

A hand⁠—inhuman, strange! Very slender and pale it was, milk-white, with the barest suggestion of scales on the smooth, delicate texture of the skin. The fingers were slim and elongated, seemingly without joints, and filmy webs grew between them.

The hand took Elak’s weapon, and withdrew behind the curtain. Then it reappeared, again holding the rapier. Its blade glowed with a pale greenish radiance.

“Your steel will slay Sepher now. And it will give him peace.” Elak gripped the hilt; the unearthly hand made a quick archaic gesture above the weapon.

“So I send a message to Sepher, my husband. And⁠—Elak⁠—kill him swiftly. A thrust through the eye into the brain will not hurt too much.”

Then, suddenly, the hand thrust out and touched Elak upon the brow. He was conscious of a swift dizziness, a wild exaltation that surged through him in hot waves. Mayana whispered:

“You shall drink of my strength, Elak. Without it, you cannot hope to face Karkora. Stay with me for a moon⁠—drinking the sea-power and Poseidon’s magic.”

“A moon⁠—”

“Time will not exist. You will sleep, and while you sleep strength will pour into you. And when you awake, you may go forth to battle⁠—strong!”

The giddiness mounted; Elak felt his senses leaving him. He whispered, “Lycon⁠—I must give him a message⁠—”

“Speak to him, then, and he will hear. My sorcery will open his ears.”

Dimly, as though from far away, Elak heard Lycon’s startled voice.

“Who calls me? Is it you, Elak? Where⁠—I see no one on this lonely cliff.”

“Speak to him!” Mayana commanded. And Elak obeyed.

“I am safe, Lycon. Here I must stay for one moon, alone. You must not wait. I have a task for you.”

There was the sound of a stifled oath. “What task?”

“Go north to Cyrena. Find Dalan, or, failing that, gather an army. Cyrena must be ready when Kiriath marches. Tell Dalan, if you find him, what I have done, and that I will be with him in one moon. Then let the Druid guide your steps. And⁠—Ishtar guide you, Lycon.”

Softly came the far voice: “And Mother Ishtar be your shield. I’ll obey. Farewell.”

Green darkness drifted across Elak’s vision.

Dimly, through closing eyes, he vaguely saw the curtain before him swept aside, and a dark silhouette moving forward⁠—a shape slim and tall beyond human stature, yet delicately feminine withal. Mayana made a summoning gesture⁠—and the shadows flowed into the temple.

They swept down upon Elak, bringing him darkness and cool, soothing quiet. He rested and slept, and the enchanted strength of the sea-woman poured into the citadel of his soul.

The moon waxed and waned, and at last Elak awoke, on the further shore, by the cavern mouth that led to the upper world. The underground mere lay silent at his feet, still bathed in the soft green glow. In the distance the islet was, and he could make out the white outline of the temple upon it. The temple where he had slept for a month. But there was no sign of life. No shadows stirred in the depths beneath him. Yet within himself he sensed a secret well of power that had not been there before.

Pondering, he retraced his steps through the winding passage, across the rock bridge to the high ramp of the plateau. The plain was deserted. The sun was westering, and a cold wind blew bleakly from the sea.

Elak shrugged. His gaze turned north, and his hand touched the rapier-hilt.

“First, a horse,” he grunted. “And then⁠—Sepher! A blade for the king’s throat!”

So within two hours a mercenary soldier lay dead, his blood staining a leathern tunic, and Elak galloped north on a stolen steed. Hard and fast he rode, through Kiriath, and whispers were borne to his ears on the gusting winds. Sepher was no longer in his city, they said. At the head of a vast army he was sweeping north to the Gateway, the mountain pass that led to Cyrena. From the very borders of Kiriath warriors were coming in answer to the king’s summons; mercenaries and adventurers flooded in to serve under Sepher. He paid well and promised rich plunder⁠—the sack of Cyrena.

A trail of blood marked Elak’s path. Two horses he rode to death. But at last the Gateway lay behind him; he had thundered through Sharn Forest and forded Monra River. Against the horizon towered a battlemented castle, and this was Elak’s goal. Here Orander had ruled. Here was the dragon throne, the heart of Cyrena.

Elak rode across the drawbridge and into the courtyard. He cast his mount’s reins to a gaping servitor, leaped from the horse, and raced across the yard. He knew each step of the way. In this castle he had been born.

And now the throne room, vast, high-ceilinged, warm with afternoon sunlight. Men were gathered there. Princes and lords of Cyrena. Barons, dukes, minor chieftains. By the throne⁠—Dalan. And beside him, Lycon, round face set in unaccustomed harsh lines, for once sober and steady on his feet.

“By Mider!” Lycon roared. “Elak! Elak!”

The Atlantean pushed his way through the murmuring, undecided crowd. He came to stand beside the throne. His hand gripped Lycon’s shoulder and squeezed painfully. The little man grinned.

“Ishtar be praised,” Lycon murmured. “Now I can get drunk again.”

Dalan said, “I watched you in the crystal, Elak. But I could not aid. The magic of the Pallid One battled my own. Yet I think you have other magic now⁠—sea-sorcery.” He turned to the mob. His lifted arms quieted them.

“This is your king,” Dalan said.

Voices were raised, some in approbation, some in angry protest and objection. A tall, lean oldster shouted, “Aye⁠—this is Zeulas, returned once more. This is Orander’s brother.”

“Be silent, Hira,” another snapped. “This scarecrow Cyrena’s king?”

Elak flushed and took a half-step forward. Dalan’s voice halted him.

“You disbelieve, Gorlias?” he asked. “Well⁠—d’you know of a worthier man? Will you sit on the dragon throne?”

Gorlias looked at the Druid with an oddly frightened air; he fell silent and turned away. The others broke into a renewed chorus of quarreling.

Hira silenced them. His lean face was triumphant. “There’s one sure test. Let him take it.”

He turned to Elak. “The lords of Cyrena have fought like a pack of snarling dogs since Orander’s death. Each wanted the throne. Baron Kond yelled louder than the rest. Dalan offered him the dragon throne, in the name of Mider, if he could hold it.”

From the others a low whisper went up⁠—uneasy, fearful. Hira continued:

“Kond mounted the dais a month ago and sat on the throne. And he died! The fires of Mider slew him.”

“Aye,” Gorlias whispered. “Let this Elak sit upon the throne!”

A chorus of assent rose. Lycon looked worried.

He murmured, “It’s true, Elak. I saw it. Red fire came out of nowhere and burned Kond to a cinder.”

Dalan was silent, his ugly face impassive. Elak, watching the Druid, could not read a message in the shallow black eyes.

Gorlias said, “If you can sit on the throne, I’ll follow you. If not⁠—you’ll be dead. Well?”

Elak did not speak. He turned and mounted the dais. For a moment he paused before the great throne of Cyrena, his gaze dwelling on the golden dragon that writhed across its back, the golden dragons on the arms. For ages the kings of Cyrena had ruled from this seat, ruled with honor and chivalry under the dragon. And now Elak remembered how, in Poseidonia, he had felt himself unworthy to mount the throne.

Would the fires of Mider slay him if he took his dead brother’s place?

Silently Elak prayed to his god. “If I’m unworthy,” he told Mider, with no thought of irreverence, but as one warrior to another, “then slay me, rather than let the throne be dishonored. Yours is the judgment.”

He took his place on the dragon throne.

Silence fell like a pall on the great room. The faces of the crowd were intent and strained. Lycon’s breath came fast. The Druid’s hands, hidden under the brown robe, made a quick, furtive gesture; his lips moved without sound.

Red light flashed out above the throne. Through the room a cry rose and mounted, wordless, fearful. The fires of Mider flamed up in glaring brilliance and cloaked Elak!

They hid him in a twisting crimson pall. They swirled about him, blazing with hot radiance.

They swept into a strange, fantastic shape⁠—a coiling silhouette that grew steadily more distinct.

A dragon of flame coiled itself about Elak!

And suddenly it was gone. Lycon was gasping oaths. The others were milling about in a confused mob. Dalan stood motionless, smiling slightly.

And on the dragon throne Elak sat unharmed! No breath of fire had scorched or blistered him; no heat had reddened his skin. His eyes were blazing; he sprang up and unsheathed his rapier. Silently he lifted it.

There was a clash of ringing blades. A forest of bright steel lifted. A great shout bellowed out.

The lords of Cyrena swore allegiance to their king!

Now, however, Elak found that his task had scarcely begun. The armies of Sepher were not yet in Cyrena; the king of Kiriath was waiting beyond the mountain barrier till he had gathered his full strength. But he would march soon, and Cyrena must by then be organized to resist him.

“Karkora didn’t invade Kiriath,” Elak said to Dalan one day as they rode through Sharn Forest. “He invaded the mind of the king instead. Why does he depend on armies to conquer Cyrena?”

Dalan’s shapeless brown robe flapped against his horse’s flanks. “Have you forgotten Orander? He tried there, and failed. Then there was no single ruler here. If he’d stolen the mind of Kond or Gorlias he’d still have had the other nobles against him. And conquer Cyrena he must, for it’s the stronghold of Mider and the Druids. Karkora knows he must destroy us before he can rule this world and others, as he intends. So he uses Sepher and Kiriath’s army. Already he’s given orders to slaughter each Druid.”

“What of Aynger?” Elak demanded.

“A message came from him today. He has gathered his Amenalks in the mountains beyond the Gateway. They wait for our word. Barbarians, Elak⁠—but good allies. They fight like mad wolves.”

Cyrena rose to arms. From steading and farm, castle and citadel, city and fortress, the iron men came streaming. The roads glittered with bright steel and rang to the clash of horses’ hoofs. The dragon banners fluttered in the chill winds of winter.

Rise and arm! In the name of Mider and the Dragon, draw your blade! So the messengers called; so the word went forth. Rise against Kiriath and Sepher!

The defending swords of Cyrena flashed bright. They thirsted for blood.

And Sepher of Kiriath rode north against the Dragon.

The first snows of winter lay white on the Gateway. All around towered the tall, frosted peaks of the mountain barrier, and a bitter wind gusted strongly through the pass. Within a month deep snow and avalanches would make the Gateway almost impassable.

The sky was cloudless, of chill pale blue. In the thin air everything stood out in startling clarity; voices carried far, as did the crunching of snow underfoot and the crackle of rocks deep-bitten by the iron cold.

The pass was seven miles long, and narrow in only a few spots. For the most part it was a broad valley bounded by the craggy cliffs. Canyons opened into it.

Dawn had flamed and spread in the east. The sun hung above a snow-capped peak. South of a narrow portion of the Gateway part of Cyrena’s army waited. Behind them were reinforcements. Upon the crags were archers and arbalesters, waiting to rain death upon the invaders. Steel-silver moved against a background of white snow and black grim rocks.

Elak was astride a warhorse upon a small hillock. Hira rode up, gaunt old face keenly alert, joy of battle in the faded eyes. He saluted swiftly.

“The bowmen are placed and ready,” he said. “We’ve got rocks and boulders into position to crush Sepher’s army, should it get too far.”

Elak nodded. He wore chain-armor, gold encrusted, with a close-fitting helm of gleaming steel. His wolf face was taut with excitement, and he curbed the steed as it curvetted.

“Good, Hira. You are in command there. I trust your judgment.”

As Hira departed Dalan and Lycon arrived, the latter flushed and unsteady in his saddle. He gripped a drinking-horn and swilled mead from it occasionally. His long sword slapped the horse’s flank.

“The minstrels will make a song of this battle,” he observed. “Even the gods will eye it with some interest.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” Dalan said, and turned to Elak. “I’ve a message from Aynger. His savage Amenalks wait in that side canyon⁠—” The Druid flung out a pointing hand⁠—“and will come when we need them.”

“Aye,” Lycon broke in, “I saw them. Madmen and demons! They’ve painted themselves blue as the sky and are armed with scythes and flails and hammers, among other things. And they’re playing tunes on their pipes and bragging, each louder than the other. Only Aynger sits silent, fondling his Helm-Breaker. He looks like an image chipped out of gray stone.”

At the memory Lycon shivered and then gulped the rest of the mead. “Faith,” he said sadly, “the horn’s empty. Well, I must get more.” And off he went, reeling in the saddle.

“Drunken little dog,” Elak remarked. “But his hand will be steady enough on the sword.”

Far away a trumpet shouted shrilly, resounding among the peaks. Now the foreguard of Sepher’s army was visible as a glitter of steel on casques and lifted spearheads. Along the pass they came, steadily, inexorably, in close battle formation. The trumpet sang and skirled.

In response drums of Cyrena snarled answer. They rose to a throbbing, menacing roar. Cymbals clashed resoundingly. The banners of the dragon flung out stiffly in the cold blast.

Kiriath rode without a standard. In silence, save for the clashing of metallic hoofs and the angry screaming of the trumpet, they came, a vast array that flooded into the valley. Pikeman, archers, knights, mercenaries⁠—on they came, intent on conquest and plunder. Elak could not see Sepher, though his gaze searched for the king.

And slowly the invaders increased their speed, almost imperceptibly at first, and then more swiftly till through the Gateway Kiriath charged and thundered, lances lowered, swords flashing. The trumpet shouted urgent menace.

Dalan’s gross body moved uneasily in his saddle. He unsheathed his long blade.

Elak looked around. Behind him the army waited. Everything was ready.

The king of Cyrena rose in his stirrups. He lifted his rapier and gestured with it. He shouted:

“Charge! Ho⁠—the Dragon!”

With a roar Cyrena swept forward down the pass. Closer and closer the two vast forces came. The drums roared death. From the icy peaks the clamor resounded thunderously.

A cloud of arrows flew. Men fell, screaming. Then, with a crash that seemed to shake the mountainous walls of the Gateway, the armies met.

It was like a thunderclap. All sanity and coherence vanished in a maelstrom of red and silver-steel, a whirlpool, an avalanche of thrusting spears, speeding arrows, slashing blades. Elak was instantly surrounded by foes. His rapier flew swift as a striking snake; blood stained its length. His horse shrieked and fell hamstrung to the ground. Elak leaped free and saw Lycon charging to the rescue. The little man was wielding a sword almost as long as himself, but his pudgy fingers handled it with surprising ease. He lopped off one man’s head, ruined another’s face with a well-placed kick of his steel-shod foot, and then Elak had leaped astride a riderless steed.

Again he plunged into the fray. The brown bald head of Dalan was rising and falling some distance away; the Druid roared like a beast as his sword whirled and flew and bit deep. Blood soaked the brown robe. Dalan’s horse seemed like a creature possessed; it screamed shrilly, blowing through red, inflamed nostrils, snapped viciously and reared and struck with knife-edged hoofs. Druid and charger raged like a burning pestilence amid the battle; sweat and blood mingled on Dalan’s toad face.

Elak caught sight of Sepher. The ruler of Kiriath bronzed, bearded giant towered above his men, fighting in deadly silence. Smiling wolfishly, Elak drove toward the king.

From the distance came the thin high wailing of pipes. Out of the side canyon men came pouring⁠—barbarous men, half naked, their lean bodies smeared blue with woad. The men of Aynger! At their head ran Aynger himself, his gray beard flying, brandishing the hammer Helm-Breaker. The gray giant leaped upon a rock, gesturing toward the forces of Kiriath.

“Slay the oppressors!” he bellowed. “Slay! Slay!”

The weird pipes of the Amenalks shrilled their answer. The blue-painted men swept forward⁠—

From the ranks of Sepher an arrow flew. It sped toward Aynger. It pierced his bare throat and drove deep⁠—deep!

The Amenalk leader bellowed; his huge body arced like a bow. Blood spouted from his mouth.

A battalion charged out from the ranks of Kiriath. They sped toward the Amenalks, lances lowered, pennons flying.

Aynger fell! Dead, he toppled from the rock into the lifted arms of his men. The pipes skirled. The Amenalks, bearing their leader, turned and fled back into the valley!

Cursing, Elak dodged a shrewd thrust, killed his assailant, and spurred toward Sepher. The hilt of his rapier was slippery with blood. His body, under the chain armor, was a mass of agonizing bruises; blood gushed from more than one wound. His breath rasped in his throat. The stench of sweat and gore choked him; he drove over ground carpeted with the writhing bodies of men and horses.

Down the valley Dalan fought and bellowed his rage. The battle-thunder crashed on the towering crags and sent deafening echoes through the Gateway.

Still the trumpets of Kiriath called; still the drums and cymbals of Cyrena shouted their defiance.

And still Sepher slew, coldly, remorselessly, his bronzed face expressionless.

Kiriath gathered itself and charged. The forces of Cyrena were forced back, fighting desperately each step of the way. Back to the narrowing of the pass they were driven.

High above the archers loosed death on Kiriath.

With ever-increasing speed Sepher’s army thrust forward. A gust of panic touched the ranks of Cyrena. A dragon banner was captured and slashed into flying shreds by keen blades.

Vainly Elak strove to rally his men. Vainly the Druid bellowed threats.

The retreat became a rout. Into the narrow defile the army fled, jammed into a struggling, fighting mob. An orderly retreat might have saved the day, for Kiriath could have been trapped in the narrow pass and crippled by boulders thrust down by the men stationed above. As it was, Cyrena was helpless, waiting to be slaughtered.

Kiriath charged.

Quite suddenly Elak heard a voice. In through the mountains. Above the call of trumpets came the thin wailing of pipes. Louder it grew, and louder.

From the side canyon the blue barbarians of Amenalk rushed in disorderly array. In their van a group ran together with lifted shields. Upon the shields was the body of Aynger!

Weirdly, eerily, the ear-piercing skirling of the pipes of Amenalk shrilled out. The woad-painted savages, mad with blood-frenzy, raced after the corpse of their ruler.

Dead Aynger led his men to war!

The Amenalks fell on the rear of the invaders. Flails and scythes and blades swung and glittered, and were lifted dripping red. A giant sprang upon the shield-platform, astride the body of Aynger. In his hand he brandished a war-hammer.

“Helm-Breaker!” he shouted. “He⁠—Helm-Breaker!”

He leaped down; the great hammer rose and fell and slaughtered. Casques and helms shattered under the smashing blows; the Amenalk wielded Helm-Breaker in a circle of scarlet death about him.

“Helm-Breaker! Ho⁠—slay! Slay!”

Kiriath swayed in confusion under the onslaught. In that breathing-space Elak and Dalan rallied their army. Cursing, yelling, brandishing steel, they whipped order out of chaos. Elak snatched a dragon banner from the dust, lifted it high.

He turned his horse’s head down the valley. One hand lifting the standard, one gripping his bared rapier, he drove his spurs deep.

“Ho, the Dragon!” he shouted. “Cyrena! Cyrena!”

Down upon Kiriath he thundered. Behind him rode Lycon and the Druid. And after them the remnants of an army poured. Hira led his archers from the cliffs. The arbalasters came bounding like mountain goats, snatching up swords and spears, pouring afoot after their king.

“Cyrena!”

The drums and cymbals roared out again. Through the tumult pierced the thin, weird calling of the pipes.

“Helm-Breaker! Slay! Slay!”

And then madness⁠—a hell of shouting, scarlet battle through which Elak charged, Dalan and Lycon beside him, riding straight for the bushy beard that marked Sepher. On and on, over screaming horses and dying men, through a whirlpool of flashing, thirsty steel, thrusting, stabbing, hacking⁠—

The face of Sepher rose up before Elak.

The bronzed face of Kiriath’s king was impassive; in his cold eyes dwelt something inhuman. Involuntarily an icy shudder racked Elak. As he paused momentarily the brand of Sepher whirled up and fell shattering in a great blow.

Elak did not try to escape. He poised his rapier, flung himself forward in his stirrups, sent the sharp blade thrusting out.

The enchanted steel plunged into Sepher’s throat. Simultaneously Elak felt his back go numb under the sword-cut; his armor tore raggedly. The blade dug deep into the body of the warhorse.

The light went out of Sepher’s eyes. He remained for a heartbeat upright in his saddle. Then his face changed.

It darkened with swift corruption. It blackened and rotted before Elak’s eyes. Death, so long held at bay, sprang like a crouching beast.

A foul and loathsome thing fell forward and rumbled from the saddle. It dropped to the bloody ground and lay motionless. Black ichor oozed out from the chinks of the armor; the face that stared up blindly at the sky was a frightful thing.

And without warning darkness and utter silence dropped down and shrouded Elak.

He felt again the dizzy vertigo that presaged the coming of Karkora. A high-pitched, droning whine rang shrilly in his ears; he felt a sense of swift movement. A picture came.

Once more he saw the giant crag that towered amid the mountains. The dark tower lifted from its summit. Elak was drawn forward; iron gates opened in the base of the pinnacle. They closed as he passed through.

The high whining had ceased. It was cimmerian dark. But in the gloom a Presence moved and stirred and was conscious of Elak.

The Pallid One sprang into view.

He felt a sense of whirling disorientation; his thoughts grew inchoate and confused. They were slipping away, spinning into the empty dark. In their place something crept and grew; a weird mental invasion took place. Power of Karkora surged through Elak’s brain, forcing back the man’s consciousness and soul, thrusting them out and back into the void. A dreamlike sense of unreality oppressed Elak.

Silently he called upon Dalan.

Dimly a golden flame flickered up, far away. Elak heard the Druid’s voice whispering faintly, out of the abyss.

“Mider⁠—aid him, Mider⁠—”

Fires of Mider vanished. Elak felt again the sense of swift movement. He was lifted⁠—

The darkness was gone. Gray light bathed him. He was, seemingly, in the tower on the summit of the crag⁠—the citadel of Karkora. But the place was unearthly!

The planes and angles of the room in which Elak stood were warped and twisted insanely. Laws of matter and geometry seemed to have gone mad. Crawling curves swept obscenely in strange motion; there was no sense of perspective. The gray light was alive. It crept and shimmered. And the white shadow of Karkora blazed forth with chill and dreadful radiance.

Elak remembered the words of Mayana, the sea-witch, as she spoke of her monstrous son Karkora.

“He walks in other worlds, beyond unlit seas, across the nighted voids beyond earth.”

Through the whirling chaos a face swam, inhuman, mad, and terrible. A man’s face, indefinably bestialized and degraded, with a sparse white beard and glaring eyes. Again Elak recalled Mayana’s mention of Erykion, the wizard who had created the Pallid One.

“Perhaps he dwells in his citadel yet, with Karkora. Not for years have I seen the sorcerer.”

If this were Erykion, then he had fallen victim to his own creation. The warlock was insane. Froth dribbled on the straggling beard; the mind and soul had been drained from him.

He was swept back and vanished in the grinding maelstrom of the frightful lawless geometrical chaos. Elak’s eyes ached as he stared, unable to stir a muscle. The shadow of the Pallid One gleamed whitely before him.

The planes and angles changed; pits and abysses opened before Elak. He looked through strange gateways. He saw other worlds, and with his flesh shrinking in cold horror he stared into the depths of the Nine Hells. Frightful life swayed into motion before his eyes. Things of inhuman shape rose up out of nighted depths. A charnel wind choked him.

The sense of mental assault grew stronger; Elak felt his mind slipping away under the dread impact of alien power. Unmoving, deadly, Karkora watched⁠—

“Mider,” Elak prayed. “Mider⁠—aid me!”

The mad planes swept about faster, in a frantic saraband of evil. The dark vision swept out, opening wider vistas before Elak. He saw unimaginable and blasphemous things, dwellers in the outer dark, horrors beyond earth-life⁠—

The white shadow of Karkora grew larger. The crawling radiance shimmered leprously. Elak’s senses grew dulled; his body turned to ice. Nothing existed but the now gigantic silhouette of Karkora; the Pallid One reached icy fingers into Elak’s brain.

The assault mounted like a rushing tide. There was no aid anywhere. There was only evil, and madness, and black, loathsome horror.

Quite suddenly Elak heard a voice. In it was the murmur of rippling waters. He knew Mayana spoke to him by strange magic.

“In your hour of need I bring you the talisman against my son Karkora.”

The voice died; the thunder of the seas roared in Elak’s ears. A green veil blotted out the mad, shifting planes and angles. In the emerald mists shadows floated⁠—the shadows of Mayana.

They swept down upon him. Something was thrust into his hand⁠—something warm and wet and slippery.

He lifted it, staring. He gripped a heart, bloody, throbbing⁠—alive!

The heart of Mayana! The heart beneath which Karkora had slumbered in the womb! The talisman against Karkora!

A shrill droning rose suddenly to a skirling shriek of madness, tearing at Elak’s ears, knifing through his brain. The bleeding heart in Elak’s hand drew him forward. He took a slow step, another.

About him the gray light pulsed and waned; the white shadow of Karkora grew gigantic. The mad planes danced swiftly.

And then Elak was looking down at a pit on the edge of which he stood. Only in the depths of the deep hollow was the instability of the surrounding matter lacking. And below was a shapeless and flesh-colored hulk that lay inert ten feet down.

It was man-sized and naked. But it was not human. The pulpy arms had grown to the sides; the legs had grown together. Not since birth had the thing moved by itself. It was blind, and had no mouth. Its head was a malformed grotesquerie of sheer horror.

Fat, deformed, utterly frightful, the body of Karkora rested in the pit.

The heart of Mayana seemed to tear itself from Elak’s hand. Like a plummet it dropped, and fell upon the breast of the horror below.

A shuddering, wormlike motion shook Karkora. The monstrous body writhed and jerked.

From the bleeding heart blood crept out like a stain. It spread over the deformed horror. In a moment Karkora was no longer flesh-colored, but red as the molten sunset.

And, abruptly, there was nothing in the pit but a slowly widening pool of scarlet. The Pallid One had vanished.

Simultaneously the ground shook beneath Elak; he felt himself swept back. For a second he seemed to view the crag and tower from a distance, against the background of snow-tipped peaks.

The pinnacle swayed; the crag rocked. They crashed down in thunderous ruin.

Only a glimpse did Elak get; then the dark curtain blotted out his consciousness. He saw, dimly, a pale oval. It grew more distinct. And it was the face of Lycon bending above Elak, holding a brimming cup to the latter’s lips.

“Drink!” he urged. “Drink deep!”

Elak obeyed, and then thrust the liquor away. He stood up weakly.

He was in the pass of the Gateway. Around him the men of Cyrena rested, with here and there a blue-painted warrior of Amenalk. Corpses littered the ground. Vultures were already circling against the blue.

Dalan was a few paces away, his shallow black eyes regarding Elak intently. He said, “Only one thing could have saved you in Karkora’s stronghold. One thing⁠—”

Elak said grimly, “It was given me. Karkora is slain.”

A cruel smile touched the Druid’s lipless mouth. He whispered, “So may all enemies of Mider die.”

Lycon broke in, “We’ve conquered, Elak. The army of Kiriath fled when you killed Sepher. And, gods, I’m thirsty!” He rescued the cup and drained it.

Elak did not answer. His wolf face was dark; in his eyes deep sorrow dwelt. He did not see the triumphant banners of the dragon tossing in the wind, nor did he envision the throne of Cyrena that waited. He was remembering a low, rippling voice that spoke with longing of the fields and hearth-fires of earth, a slim, inhuman hand that had reached through a curtain⁠—a sea-witch who had died to save a world to which she had never belonged.

The shadow was lifted from Atlantis; over Cyrena the golden dragon ruled under great Mider. But in a sunken city of marble beauty the shadows of Mayana would mourn for Poseidon’s daughter.

Prologue

The stratoship from Cairo was late, and I was wondering whether the newsreel theatre or a couple of drinks would make time pass faster. It was early dusk. Through the immense, curved wall-window of the Manhattan Port Room I could see the landing field, with a silvery ship being rolled over the tarmac, and the skyscrapers of New York beyond.

Then I saw Arnsen.

It was Steve Arnsen, of course. No doubt about that. No other man had his great breadth of shoulders, his Herculean build. Ten years ago we had been classmates at Midwestern. I remembered rakehell, laughing, handsome Steve Arnsen very well, with his penchant for getting into trouble and out of it again, usually dragging Douglas O’Brien, his roommate, along with him like the helpless tail of a kite. Poor Doug! He was the antithesis of Arnsen, a thoughtful, studious boy with the shadow of a dream lurking always in his dark eyes. An idealist was Douglas O’Brien, as his Celtic ancestors had been. Strong friendship had existed between the two men⁠—the mental communion of laughter and a dream.

Arnsen was looking up into the darkening sky, a queer tensity in his posture. He turned abruptly, came to a table near me, and sat down. From his pocket he took a small box. It snapped open. His gaze probed into the unknown thing that was hidden by his cupped hands.

I picked up my drink and went to Arnsen’s table. All I could see was the back of his sleek, massive head. Then he looked up⁠—

If ever I saw hell in a man’s face, I saw it in Arnsen’s then. There was a dreadful longing, and an equally horrible hopelessness, the expression one might see on the face of a damned soul looking up from the pit at the shining gates forever beyond his reach.

And Arnsen’s face had been⁠—ravaged.

The searing mark of some experience lay there, branded into his furrowed cheeks, his tightened lips, into his eyes where a sickness dwelt. No⁠—this was not Steve Arnsen, the boy I had known at Midwestern. Youth had left him, and hope as well.

“Vail!” he said, smiling crookedly. “Good Lord, of all people! Sit down and have a drink. What are you doing here?”

I sought for words as I dropped into a chair. Arnsen watched me for a moment, and then shrugged. “You might as well say it. I’ve changed. Yeah⁠—I know that.”

“What happened?” There was no need to fence.

His gaze went beyond me, to the dark sky above the landing field. “What happened? Why don’t you ask where Doug is? We always stuck together, didn’t we? Surprising to see me alone⁠—”

He lit a cigarette and crushed it out with an impatient gesture. “You know, Vail, I’ve been hoping I’d run into you. This thing that’s been boiling inside of me⁠—I haven’t been able to tell a soul. No one would have believed me. You may. The three of us kicked around together a lot, in the old days.”

“In trouble?” I asked. “Can I help?”

“You can listen,” he said. “I came back to Earth thinking I might be able to forget. It hasn’t worked. I’m waiting for the airliner to take me to Kansas Spaceport. I’m going to Callisto⁠—Mars⁠—somewhere. Earth isn’t the right place any more. But I’m glad we ran into each other, Vail. I want to talk. I want you to answer a question that’s been driving me almost insane.”

I signalled the waiter and got more drinks. Arnsen was silent till we were alone once more. Then he opened his cupped hands and showed me a small shagreen box. It clicked open. Nestling in blue velvet was a crystal, not large, but lovelier than any gem I had ever seen before.

Light drifted from it like the flow of slow water. The dim shining pulsed and waned. In the heart of the jewel was⁠—

I tore my eyes away, staring at Arnsen. “What is it? Where did you get the thing? Not on Earth!”

He was watching the jewel, sick hopelessness on his face. “No⁠—not on Earth. It came from a little asteroid out there⁠—somewhere.” He waved vaguely toward the sky. “It isn’t charted. I took no reckonings. So I can never go back. Not that I want to, now. Poor Doug!”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” I asked.

Arnsen looked at me strangely as he closed the box and slipped it back into his pocket. “Dead? I wonder. Wait till you know the story, Vail. About Doug’s lucky charm, and the dreams, and the Crystal Circe.⁠ ⁠…”

The slow horror of remembrance crept across his face. Out there, in space, something had happened. I thought: It must have been frightful to leave such traces on Arnsen.

He read my thought. “Frightful? Perhaps. It was quite lovely, too. You remember the old days, when I thought of nothing but raising hell.⁠ ⁠…”

After a long pause, I said, “Who was⁠—the Crystal Circe?”

“I never knew her name. She told me, but my brain couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t human, of course. I called her Circe, after the enchantress who changed her lovers to swine.” Again he looked at the darkening sky. “Well⁠—it began more than two years ago, in Maine. Doug and I were on a fishing trip when we ran into the meteorite. Little fishing we got done then! You know how Doug was⁠—like a kid reading a fairy tale for the first time. And that meteorite⁠—”

It lay in the crater it had dug for itself, a rounded arc visible about the brown earth. Already sumac and vines were mending the broken soil. Warm fall sunlight slanted down through the trees as Douglas O’Brien and Steve Arnsen plodded toward the distant gurgling of the stream, thoughts intent on catching the limit. No fingering tendril of menace thrust out to warn them.

“Mind your step,” Arnsen said, seeing the pit. He detoured around it and turned, realizing that O’Brien had not followed. “Come on, Doug. It’s getting late.”

O’Brien’s tanned young face was intent as he peered down into the hollow. “Wait a bit,” he said absently. “This looks⁠—say! I’ll bet there’s a meteor down there!”

“So there’s a meteor. We’re not fishing for meteors, professor. They’re mostly iron, anyway. Gold, now, would be a different matter.”

O’Brien dropped lightly into the hole, scraping at the dirt with his fingers. “Wonder how long it’s been here? You run along, Steve. I’ll catch up with you.”

Arnsen sighed. O’Brien, with his vast enthusiasm for everything under the sun, was off again. There would be no stopping him now till he had satisfied his curiosity about the meteorite. Well, Arnsen had a new fly he was anxious to use, and it would soon be too late for good fishing. With a grunt he turned and pushed on toward the stream.

The fly proved excellent. In a surprisingly short time Arnsen had bagged the limit. There was no sign of O’Brien, and hunger made itself evident. Arnsen retraced his steps.

The younger man was sitting cross-legged beside the crater, holding something in his cupped hands and staring down at it. A swift glance showed Arnsen that the meteorite had been uncovered, and, apparently, cracked in two, each piece the size of a football. He stepped closer, to see what O’Brien held.

It was a gray crystal, egg-sized, filled with cloudy, frozen mists. It had been cut into a diamond-shaped, multifaced gem.

“Where’d you get that?” Arnsen asked.

O’Brien jumped, turning up a startled face. “Oh⁠—hello, Steve. It was in the meteorite. Damnedest thing I ever saw. I saw the meteorite had a line of fission all around it, so I smacked the thing with a rock. It fell apart, and this was in the middle. Impossible, isn’t it?”

“Let’s see.” Arnsen reached for the jewel. O’Brien showed an odd reluctance in giving it up, but finally dropped it into the other’s outstretched hand.

The gem was cold, and yet not unpleasantly so. A tingling raced up Arnsen’s arm to his shoulder. He felt an abrupt, tiny shock.

O’Brien snatched the jewel. Arnsen stared at him.

“I’m not going to eat it. What⁠—”

The boy grinned. “It’s my luck piece, Steve. My lucky charm. I’m going to have it pierced.”

“Better take it to a jeweler first,” Arnsen suggested. “It may be valuable.”

“No⁠—I’ll keep it.” He slipped the gem into his pocket. “Any luck?”

“The limit, and I’m starving. Let’s get back to camp.”

Over their meal of fried trout, O’Brien fingered the find, staring into the cloudy depths of the gem as though he expected to find something there. Arnsen could sense a strange air of withdrawal about him. That night O’Brien fell asleep holding the jewel in his hand.

His sleep was troubled. O’Brien watched the boy, the vaguest hint of worry in his blue eyes. Once Doug lifted his hand and let it fall reluctantly. And once a flash of light seemed to lance out from the gem, brief and vivid as lightning. Imagination, perhaps.⁠ ⁠…

The moon sank. O’Brien stirred and sat up. Arnsen felt the other’s eyes upon him. He said softly, “Doug?”

“Yes. I wondered if you were awake.”

“Anything wrong?”

“There’s a girl.⁠ ⁠…” O’Brien said, and fell silent. After what seemed a long time, he went on: “Remember you said once that I’d never find a girl perfect enough to love?”

“I remember.”

“You were wrong. She’s like Deirdre of the Tuatha Dé, like Freya, like Ran of the northern seas. She has red hair, red as dying suns are red, and she’s a goddess like Deirdre, too. The Song of Solomon was made for her. ‘Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.⁠ ⁠… I sleep, but my heart waketh; it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh.’ Steve,” he said, and his voice broke sharply. “It wasn’t a dream. I know it wasn’t. She exists, somewhere.” He stirred; Arnsen guessed that he was peering at the gray jewel.

There was nothing to say. The frosty brilliance of the stars gleamed through the laced branches above. A curious breath of the unearthly seemed to drop down from the vast abyss of the sky, chilling Arnsen’s heart.

In that moment he knew that his friend was ensorcelled.

Superstition⁠—foolishness! He shook the thought away. But all the blood of his Northern ancestors rose up in him, the Vikings who had believed in Queen Ran of Ocean, in trolls and warlocks and the water-maidens who guard sunken gold.

“You’re dreaming,” he said stubbornly, more loudly than he thought. “It’s time we got back to the city. We’ve been here long enough.”

To his surprise, O’Brien agreed. “I think so. I’ve an idea I want to work on.” And the boy shut up like a clam, relaxing almost instantly into peaceful slumber.

But Arnsen did not sleep for a long time. The stars seemed too close and, somehow, menacing. From the black void, eyes watched⁠—not human eyes, for all their loveliness. They were pools of darkest night, and stars glimmered within them.

He wished that O’Brien had not found the meteorite.

There was a change in the boy after that. The dream in his eyes did not fade, but he worked now with an intensity of purpose that had never existed before. Previously, the two had held routine jobs in a huge commercial organization. Without warning O’Brien quit. Arnsen followed suit, feeling the necessity for staying close to the younger man. Yet in the days to come, he amounted to little more than excess baggage.

O’Brien had plans. He borrowed money, scraped together enough to equip a small laboratory, and there he worked long hours. Arnsen helped when he could, though that was not often. He seldom knew exactly what the boy was trying to accomplish.

Once O’Brien said a queer thing. They were in the laboratory, awaiting the result of an experiment, and Arnsen was pacing back and forth nervously.

“I wish I knew what was up, Doug,” he said almost with anger. “We’ve been at this for months now. What do you expect, anyway? You’ve had no more than an ordinary training in physics.”

“The jewel helps,” O’Brien said. He took the gem from its suede bag and stared into the cloudy depths. “I catch⁠—thoughts from it.”

Arnsen stopped short, staring. His face changed.

“You kidding?” he demanded.

O’Brien flushed. “Okay, try it,” he said, thrusting the stone at Arnsen, who took it rather reluctantly. “Shut your eyes and let your mind go blank. That does it, sometimes.”

“I⁠—all right.” Arnsen squeezed his eyes closed and thought of nothing. Instantly a sick, horrible feeling swept through him⁠—a terrible yearning such as he had never known before. So might the Assassins feel, deprived of the magic drug that took them to Paradise. An Assassin exiled, cast into outer darkness.

A face swam into view, lovely and strange beyond imagination. Only a glimpse he had, blotted out by rainbow, coruscating lights that darted and flashed like elfin fireflies. Then darkness, once more, and the frightful longing⁠—for what?

He let go of the gem; O’Brien caught it as it fell. The boy smiled wryly.

“I wondered if you’d get it, too. Did you see her?”

“I saw nothing,” Arnsen snarled, whirling toward the door. “I felt nothing!”

“Yet you’re afraid. Why? I don’t fear her, or the stone.”

“The more fool you,” Arnsen cast over his shoulder as he went out. He felt sick and weak, as though unnameable vistas had opened before him. There was no explanation for what he had felt⁠—no sane explanation, at least.

And yet there might be, he thought, as he paced about the yard, smoking an endless chain of cigarettes. Telepathy, thought-transference⁠—he had simply caught what was in O’Brien’s mind. But it was horrible to know that Doug was feeling that soul-sick craving for the goddess-girl who could not exist.

O’Brien came out of the laboratory, eyes aglow. “It’s done,” he said, trying to repress his triumph. “We’ve got the alloy at last. That last treatment did the trick.”

Arnsen felt vague apprehension. He tried to congratulate O’Brien, but his tone rang false to his own ears. The boy smiled understandingly.

“It’s been good of you to string along, Steve. The thing will pay off now. Only⁠—I’ll need a lot of money.”

“You’ll have a lot. Plenty of companies will be bidding for the process.”

O’Brien said, “I want enough to buy a spaceship.”

Arnsen whistled. “That’s a lot. Even for a small boat.” His eyes narrowed. “Why do you want it?”

“I’m going to find Deirdre,” the other said simply. “She’s out there, somewhere.” He tilted his head back. “And I’ll find her.”

“Space is pretty big.”

“I’ve a guide.” O’Brien took out the gray gem. “It wants to go to her, too. It wants to go back. It isn’t really alive here on Earth, you know. And I’m not just dreaming, Steve. How do you suppose I managed to make this alloy⁠—the perfect plastic, tougher than beryllium steel, lighter than aluminum, a conductor or nonconductor of electricity depending on the mix.⁠ ⁠… You know I couldn’t have done it alone.”

“You did it.”

O’Brien touched the jewel. “I found out how to do it. There’s life in here, Steve. Not earthly life, but intelligent. I could understand a little, not much. Enough to work out the alloy. I had to do that first, so I could get money enough to buy a spaceship.”

“You don’t know how to pilot in space.”

“We’ll hire a pilot.”

“We?”

He grinned. “I’m going to prove my point. You don’t believe in Deirdre. But you’ll see her, Steve. The jewel will guide us. It wants to go home⁠—so we’ll take it there.”

Arnsen scowled and turned away, his big shoulders tense with unreasoning anger. He found himself hating the imaginary being O’Brien had created. Deirdre! His fists clenched.

She did not exist. The major planets and satellites had been explored; the inhabited ones held nothing remotely human. Martians were huge-headed, spindle-legged horrors; Venusians were scaled amphibians, living in a state of feudalism and constant warfare. The other planets⁠ ⁠… the avian, hollow-boned Callistans were closest to humanity, but by no stretch of the imagination could they be called beautiful. And Deirdre was beautiful. Imaginary or not, she was lovely as a goddess.

Damn her!

But that did no good. O’Brien was not to be turned from his purpose. With relentless, swift intensity he patented the alloy process, sold it to the highest bidder, and purchased a light space cruiser. He found a pilot, a leather-skinned, tough, tobacco-chewing man named Tex Hastings, who could be depended on to do what he was told and keep his mouth shut.

O’Brien chafed with impatience till the cruiser jetted off from the spaceport. The closer he came to achieving his goal, the more nervous he grew. The jewel he kept clenched in one hand most of the time. Arnsen noticed that a dim brilliance was beginning to glow within it as the ship plunged farther out toward the void.

Hastings cast quizzical glances at O’Brien, but did what he was told. He confided in Arnsen.

“We haven’t even bothered with charts. It’s screwy, but I’m not kicking. Only this isn’t piloting. Your friend just points at a star-sector and says, ‘Go there.’ Funny.” He scratched his leathery cheek, faded eyes intent on Arnsen’s face.

The big man nodded. “I know. But it isn’t up to me, Hastings. I’m supercargo.”

“Yeah. Well, if you⁠—want any help⁠—you can count on me. I’ve seen space-madness before.”

Arnsen snorted. “Space-madness!”

Hastings’ eyes were steady. “I may be wrong, sure. But anything can happen out here. We’re not on Earth, Mr. Arnsen. Earth laws don’t apply. Neither does logic. We’re on the edge of the unknown.”

“I never thought you were superstitious.”

“I’m not. Only I’ve been around, and seen a lot. That crystal Mr. O’Brien lugs around with him⁠—I never saw anything like that before.” He waited, but Arnsen didn’t speak. “All right, then. I’ve known things to drift in from Outside. Funny things, damn funny. The Solar System’s like a Sargasso. It catches flotsam from other systems, even other universes, for all I know. One rule I’ve learned⁠—when you can’t guess the answer, it’s a good idea to stay clear.”

Arnsen grunted moodily, staring out a port at the glaring brilliance of the stars.

“Ever heard any stories about jewels like that one?”

Hastings shook his closely-cropped head. “No. But I saw a wreck once, Sunside of Pluto⁠—a ship that hadn’t been designed in this System. It was deserted; God knows how long it had been out there. Or where it came from. Inside, it wasn’t designed for human beings at all. It came from Outside, of course, and Outside is a big place. That jewel, now⁠—” He bit the end off a quid of tobacco.

“What about it?”

“It’s an Outside sort of thing. And your friend isn’t acting normal. It may add up to trouble. It may not. My point is that I’m going to keep my eyes open, and you’d be wise to do the same thing.”

Arnsen went back to the galley and fried eggs, angry with himself for listening to Hastings’ hints. He was more than ever uncomfortable. Back on Earth, it had been easier to disbelieve in any unknown powers that the gray jewel might possess; here, it was different. Space was the hinterland, the waste that bordered the cryptic Outside. The forward step in science that threw open the gates of interplanetary travel had, in a way, taken man back in time to a day when he cowered in a cave, fearing the powers of the dark that lurked in the unknown jungle. Space travel had broken barriers. It opened a door that, perhaps, should have remained forever closed.

On the shores of space strange flotsam was cast. Arnsen’s gaze probed out through the port, to the red globe of Mars, the blinding brilliance of the Milky Way, the enigmatic shadow of the Coal Sack. Out there anything might lie. Life grown from a matrix neither Earthly nor even three-dimensional. Charles Fort had hinted at it; scientists had hazarded wild guesses. The cosmic womb of space, from which blasphemous abortions might be cast.

So they went on, day after day, skirting Mars and plunging on into the thick of the asteroid belt. It was uncharted country now, a Sargasso of remnants from an exploded planet that had existed here eons ago. Sounds rang loudly in the narrow confines of the space ship. Nervousness gripped all three of the men. But O’Brien found comfort in the gray crystal. His eyes held a glowing light of triumph.

“We are coming closer, Steve,” he said. “Deirdre isn’t far away now.”

“Damn Deirdre,” Arnsen said⁠—but not aloud.

The ship went on, following the blind course O’Brien pointed. Hastings shook his head in grim silence, and trained his passengers in the use of the spacesuits. Few of the asteroids had atmosphere, and it became increasingly evident that the destination was an asteroid.⁠ ⁠…

They found it at last, a jagged, slowly revolving ball that looked incredibly desolate, slag from some solar furnace. The telescope showed no life. The ball had hardened as it whirled, and the molten rock had frozen instantly, in frigid space, into spiky, giant crags and stalagmites. No atmosphere, no water, no sign of life in any form.

The crystal O’Brien held had changed. A pale light streamed from it. O’Brien’s face was tensely eager.

“This is it. Set the ship down, Hastings.”

The pilot made a grimace, but bent toward the controls. It was a ticklish task at best, for he had to match the ship’s speed to the speed of the asteroid’s revolution and circle in, describing a narrowing spiral. Rocket ships are not built for maneuverability. They blast their way to ground and up again through sheer roaring power.

She settled bumpily on the iron-hard surface of the asteroid, and Arnsen looked through the thick visiglass at desolation that struck a chill to his heart. Life had never existed here. It was a world damned in the making, a tiny planetoid forever condemned to unbearable night and silence. It was one with the darkness. The sun-glare, in the absence of atmosphere, made sharp contrasts between light and jet shadow. The fingers of rock reached up hungrily, as though searching for warmth. There was nothing menacing about the picture. It was horrible in its lifelessness; that was all.

It was not intended for life. Arnsen felt himself an intruder.

O’Brien met his glance. The boy was smiling, rather wryly.

“I know,” he said. “It doesn’t look very promising, does it? But this is the place.”

“Maybe⁠—a million years ago,” Arnsen said skeptically. “There’s nothing here now.”

Silently O’Brien put the crystal in the giant’s hand.

From it a pulse of triumph burst out! Exultation! The psychic wave shook Arnsen with its intensity, wiped doubt from his face. Invisibly and intangibly, the jewel shouted its delight!

The glow within it waxed brighter.

Hastings said abruptly, “Time to eat. Metabolism’s higher in space. We can’t afford to miss a meal.”

“I’m going out,” O’Brien said.

But Arnsen seconded the pilot. “We’re here now. You can afford to wait an hour or so. And I’m hungry.”

They opened thermocans in the galley and gulped the hot food standing. The ship had suddenly become a prison. Even Hastings was touched with the thirst to know what awaited them outside.

“We circled the asteroid,” he said at last, his voice argumentative. “There’s nothing here, Mr. O’Brien. We saw that.”

But O’Brien was hurrying back to the control cabin.

The suits were cumbersome, even in the slight gravity. Hastings tested the oxygen tanks strapped on the backs, and checked the equipment with stringent care. A leak would be fatal on this airless world.

So they went out through the airlock, and Arnsen, for one, felt his middle tightening with the expectation of the unknown. His breathing sounded loud and harsh within the helmet. The tri-polarized faceplates of the helmets were proof against sun-glare, but they could not minimize the horrible desolation of the scene.

A world untouched⁠—more lifeless, more terrible, than frigid Jotunheim, where the Frost Giants dwelt. Arnsen’s heavily-leaded boots thumped solidly on the slag. There was no dust here, no sign of erosion, for there was no air.

In O’Brien’s hand the crystal flamed with milky pallor. The boy’s face was thin and haggard with desire. Arnsen, watching, felt hot fury against the incubus that had worked its dark spell on the other.

He could do nothing⁠—only follow and wait. His hand crept to the weighted blackjack in his belt.

He saw the hope slowly fade from O’Brien’s eyes. Against his will he said, “We’re only on the surface, Doug. Underground⁠—”

“That’s right. Maybe there’s an entrance, somewhere. But I don’t know. We may be a thousand years too late, Steve.” His gaze clung to the crystal.

It pulsed triumphantly. Pale flame lanced joyously from it. Alive it was; Arnsen had no doubt of that now. Alive, and exulting to be home once more.

Years too late? There was not the slightest trace of any artifact on this airless planetoid. The bleakness of outer space itself cast a veil over the nameless world. The three men plodded on.

In the end, they went back to the ship.

The quick night of the tiny world had fallen. The flaming corona of the sun had vanished; stars leaped into hard, jeweled brilliance against utter blackness. The sky blazed with cold fires.

Lifeless, alien, strange. It was the edge of the unknown.

They slept at last; metabolism was high, and they needed to restore their tissues. Hours later Arnsen came to half wakefulness. In his bunk he rose on one elbow, wondering what had roused him. His mind felt dulled. He could scarcely tell whether or not he was dreaming.

Across the ship a man’s head and shoulders were silhouetted against a port, grotesquely large and distorted. Beyond, the stars blazed.

They moved. They swirled in a witch-dance of goblin lanterns, dancing, whirling, spiraling. Blue, yellow, amethyst and milky pearl, streaks of light golden as the eye of a lioness⁠—and nameless colors, not earthly, made a patterned arabesque as they danced their elfin saraband there in the airless dark.

The dark swallowed Arnsen. Slumber took him.⁠ ⁠…

Slowly, exhaustedly, he came back to consciousness. His head ached; his tongue was thick. For a moment he lay quietly, trying to remember.

Dream? Arnsen cursed, threw his blankets aside, and sprang from the bunk.

O’Brien was gone. Tex Hastings was gone. Two spacesuits had vanished from their racks.

Arnsen’s face twisted into a savage mask. He knew, now, what had been so wrong about his vision of the night. The man he had glimpsed at the port had been outside the ship. Doug?

Or Hastings. It did not matter. Both men were gone. He was alone, on the mystery world.

Arnsen set his jaw, gulped caffeine tablets to clear his head, and wrenched a spacesuit from its hooks. He donned it, realizing that sunlight once more was pouring down from the distant sun.

Soon he was ready. He went out of the ship, climbed atop it, and stared around. Nothing. The bleak, light-and-shadow pattern of the asteroid stretched to the sharply curving horizon all around. There was nothing else.

Nor were there tracks in the iron-hard slag. He would have to search at random, by pure guesswork. In the low gravity his leap to the ground scarcely jarred him. He gripped the billy at his left and moved forward, toward a high pinnacle in the distance.

He found nothing.

Worst of all, perhaps, was the horrible loneliness that oppressed him. He was too close to Outside now. He was the only living thing in a place never meant for human life. The ghastly bleakness of the asteroid sank like knife-blades into his mind, searing it coldly. There was no relief when he looked up. The distant sun, with its corona, was infinitely far away. The rest of the sky held stars, remote, not twinkling as on Earth, but shining with a cold intensity, a pale fury relentless and eternal. In the light the heat seared him through his armor; in the shadows he shivered with cold.

He went on, sick with hate, seeking the unknown thing that had taken Doug.

The boy was a poet, a dreamer, a fool, easy victim for the terror that haunted the asteroid.

Exhausted, he turned back. His air supply was running low, and there was no sign of either Doug or Hastings. He headed for the ship.⁠ ⁠…

It was further than he had thought. He sighted it at last, beneath a towering stalagmite that thrust up into the harsh sunlight, and his steps quickened. Why hadn’t he thought to bring extra cylinders of oxygen?

The lock stuck under his gloved, awkward fingers; he wrenched at it savagely. At last the great valve swung open. He went through the airlock, opened his visiplate, and took great breaths of the fresher air. Oxygen cylinders were racked near by; he swung several into position on his back and clamped them into place. He gulped more caffeine tablets.

Some instinct made him turn and look back through the port. Over the uneven ground a spacesuited figure was staggering, a quarter of a mile distant.⁠ ⁠…

Arnsen’s heart jumped. In one swift motion he clamped shut his visiplate and leaped for the airlock. It seemed an eternity before he was outside, leaping, racing, straining toward the man who had fallen helpless, a motionless shadow amid the glare. Doug? Hastings?

It was O’Brien, his young face gray with exhaustion and flushed with oxygen-thirst. For a moment Arnsen thought the boy was dead. He thrust one arm under O’Brien’s back, lifting him; with the other hand he fumbled at an auxiliary air-hose, thrusting it into the valve in O’Brien’s chin-plate as he ripped away the useless hose. Oxygen flowed into the boy’s suit.

His nostrils distended as he drank in the precious air. Arnsen watched, teeth bared in a mirthless grin. Good! Color came back to O’Brien’s cheeks⁠—a healthy flush under the deep tan. His eyes opened, looked into Arnsen’s.

“Couldn’t find her,” he whispered, his voice hollow through the audiophone. “Deirdre⁠—I couldn’t find her, Steve.”

Arnsen said, “What happened, Doug?”

O’Brien took a deep breath and shook his head. “I woke up⁠—something warned me. This.” He unclasped his gloved hand and showed the milky crystal. “It knew⁠—she⁠—was close. I felt it. I woke up, went to a port, and saw the⁠—the lights. Hastings was out there. She’d called him, I guess. He was running after the lights.⁠ ⁠… I had sense enough to put on my suit. Then I followed. But Hastings was too fast for me. I followed till I lost him. Miles⁠—hours. Then I saw my oxygen was low. I tried to get back to the ship⁠—”

He tried to smile. “Why did she call Hastings, Steve? Why not me?”

Arnsen felt cold. “We’re getting off this asteroid. Right away.”

“Leaving Hastings?”

“We⁠—I’ll look for him myself. There’s life here, malignant life. Plenty dangerous.”

“Not evil. No. Beyond evil, beyond good. I’m not going, Steve.”

“You’re going if I have to hog-tie you.”

O’Brien’s gloved hand tightened on the milky crystal. “Deirdre!” he said.

And, in the emptiness above them, a glow brightened.

There was no other warning. Arnsen tilted back his head to see⁠—the incredible.

Deirdre, he thought. Then, unbidden, another name leaped into his mind.

Circe!

Circe of Colchis, goddess of Aea⁠—Circe, Daughter of the Day, who changed men to swine! Circe⁠—more than human!

For this was no human figure that hovered above them. It seemed to be a girl, unclad, reclining in nothingness, her floating hair tinted like the rays of a dying sun. Her body swept in lines of pure beauty, long-limbed and gracious. Her eyes were veiled; long lashes hid them.

There was tenderness in her face, and aloofness, and alienage. There was beauty there⁠—not entirely human beauty.

Rainbow crystals garmented her.

Some large, some small, multifaceted gems danced and shimmered against the blackness of the sky and the whiteness of Circe’s body. Moon-yellow, amber-gold, blue as the sea off Capri, green as the pine-clad hills of Earth⁠—angry scarlet and lambent dragon-green!

With some distantly sane corner of his mind, Arnsen realized that it was impossible for any living being to exist without protection on the frigid, airless surface of the asteroid. Then he knew that both air and warmth surrounded the girl.

The crystals protected her. He knew that, somehow.

O’Brien twisted in his arms. He saw the girl, tried to spring free. Arnsen gripped him.

The boy swung a jolting blow that jarred the giant’s helmet. His mailed glove smashed against the metal plate. Dazed and giddy, Arnsen fell back, clawing at O’Brien. His fingers slipped along the other’s arm; he felt something drop into his hand, and clutched it.

Then O’Brien was free. He wrenched an oxygen-tank from Arnsen’s shoulders, whirled, and took a step toward the girl. She was further away now.⁠ ⁠…

Arnsen staggered up. His head was throbbing furiously. Too late he realized that, in the scuffle, his air-valve had fouled. He fumbled at it with clumsy fingers⁠—and fell.

His helmet thudded solidly against hard slag. Blackness took him.⁠ ⁠…

It was dark when he woke. Oxygen was once more pouring into his suit; he had managed to open the valve before falling. Far above, the distant, corona-crowned sun flamed against the starry backdrop. The ship lay beneath its crag.

But of O’Brien there was no trace whatever.

After that, something akin to madness came to Arnsen. Again the utter loneliness of space crushed down on him, with suffocating terror. Doug was gone, like Hastings. Where?

He searched, then, and in the days thereafter. He grew haggard and gaunt, drugging himself with stimulants so he could drive himself beyond his limit. Hour after hour he searched the tiny world, squinting against sun-glare, peering into black shadow, shouting O’Brien’s name, cursing bitter, searing oaths that sounded futile to his ears. Time dragged on into an eternity. He had been here forever. He could not remember a time when he had not been plodding across the asteroid, watching for a glimpse of a spacesuited figure, of dancing jewels of fire, of a slim white body.⁠ ⁠…

Who was she? What was she? Not human⁠—no. And the crystals, what were they?

He returned to the ship one day, shoulders slumping, and passed the spot where he had seen the girl. Something on the ground caught his eye. A pearly, shining gem.

He remembered his scuffle with O’Brien, and the thing that had dropped into his glove.

The jewel, of course. It had lain here, unnoticed, for many revolutions of the asteroid.

He picked it up, staring into the milky depths. A pulse tingled up his arm, fingering into his mind. A pulse of longing⁠—

The girl had appeared when O’Brien summoned her.

Perhaps it would work again. There was no other hope.

But he could not call her Deirdre. He gripped the hard crystal. His thought probed out, forceful and summoning.

“Circe!”

Nothing. The eternal silence, the cold blaze of the stars.⁠ ⁠…

“Circe!”

The gem in his hand leaped with eagerness. In emptiness above him a rainbow glitter of coruscating light flamed. The crystals⁠—and, within them, the girl!

She had not changed. Lovely and alien, she lay among her dancing, shining gems, and her lashes still veiled the cryptic depth of her eyes. Arnsen stumbled forward.

“Where’s O’Brien?” His voice cracked, harsh and inhuman. “Damn you! Where is he?”

She did not look at him. Her body seemed to recede. The jewels swirled into swift motion about her.

Arnsen lurched on. His mind felt on fire. He whipped out his elastic billy and plunged toward the girl.

She was not there. She had drifted back amid the rainbow crystals.

Arnsen could not overtake her. It was like following a will-o’-the-wisp, a torch of St. Elmo’s fire. But he did not take his eyes from the girl. More than once he fell. She was leading him away from the ship, he knew. That did not matter. Not if she also led him to Doug.

What had she done with the boy? He hated her, hated her relentless inhumanity, her incredible beauty. Teeth bared, red-rimmed eyes glaring, Arnsen plunged on in a nightmare race across the face of the silent asteroid.

Hours later, it seemed, she vanished in black shadow under a thrusting pinnacle of slag. Arnsen followed, reeling with fatigue, expecting to cannon into a rock wall. But the darkness remained intangible. The ground sloped down beneath his leaded boots. Suddenly light shone through a cleft at his side.

Pale, warm, liquid light, it drifted up from a slanting corridor in the rock. Far down the passage Arnsen could see the cloud of dancing flames that marked the girl’s crystal attendants. He stumbled on.

Down he went, and down, till at last the passage turned again in the distance. He rounded the bend⁠—and stopped, blinded and dazed.

As his vision adjusted itself, Arnsen made out a pillar of fire that rose from floor to ceiling of the cavern before him. Yet it was not fire. It was something beyond human knowledge. Pure energy, perhaps, wrenched from the locked heart of the atom itself, silently thundering and pouring up like a geyser. The pillar shook. It wavered and rocked, coldly white, intensely brilliant, like a living thing blazing with a power inconceivable.

Walls and floor and roof of the cavern were crusted with jewels. The rainbow crystals clung quivering, thousands of them, some tiny, others huge. They watched.

They were alive.

The girl stood near Arnsen. A score of the jewels pressed against her lovingly. They caressed her. The veiled eyes did not meet Arnsen’s. But she lifted her arm.

There was a movement in Arnsen’s gloved hand. The milky gem stirred; a pulse of eagerness beat out from it.

It leaped free⁠—raced toward Circe.

She caught it, flung it at the shaking tower of flame.

Into the pillar’s blazing heart the crystal darted.

The fires sank⁠—rose again. Spewed forth the jewel.

No longer milky⁠—no longer dulled. It blazed with fantastic brilliance! Vital energy streamed from it; it whirled and danced joyously with sheer delight. It was like a sleeper suddenly awakened.

It spun toward Circe, pulsed madly with the intoxication of life.

The girl rose, featherlight, without gravity, drifting across the cavern to a passage-mouth that gaped in the wall. The jewels clustered around it swayed toward her. Some broke free, rushing in her train.

She vanished into the portal.

The spell that held Arnsen broke. He flung himself after her, too late. Already she was gone. But along the corridor jewels floated, bright, shining, alive.

And suddenly strong arms were around Arnsen. The face of O’Brien was before him. O’Brien, no longer wearing his spacesuit, haggard, and yet aflame with a vital something that glowed in his dark eyes. O’Brien⁠—laughing.

“Steve!” His voice shook. “So you followed me. I’m glad. Come in here⁠—it’s all right.”

The energy went out of Arnsen, leaving him weak and exhausted. He cast one glance up the empty corridor and followed O’Brien through a cave-opening into a little room cut out of solid rock. He felt the other’s fingers loosening his helmet, removing the bulky spacesuit. Some remnant of caution returned.

“The oxygen⁠—”

“There’s air here. It’s a place of wonders, Steve!”

There was air. Cool, sweet, and refreshing, it crept into Arnsen’s lungs. He looked around. The little cavern was empty, save for dozens of the rainbow crystals clinging to the walls.

They watched alertly.

O’Brien pressed him back, made a quick gesture. A jewel floated forward, hovering over Arnsen’s face. He felt water trickling between his lips, and, too exhausted for wonder, swallowed gratefully.

“You need sleep,” O’Brien said. “But it’s all right, Steve. It’s all right, I tell you. You’ll hear all about it when you wake up. Time enough then. You’ll see Deirdre.”

Arnsen tried to struggle up. “I won’t⁠—”

O’Brien signalled again. Another gem drifted close. From it a gray breath of cloud floated, perfume-sweet, soporific. It crept into Arnsen’s nostrils.⁠ ⁠…

And he slept.

The room was unchanged when he woke once more. O’Brien sat cross-legged, looking into space. His face had altered, had acquired a new peace and maturity.

He heard Arnsen’s slight movement and turned.

“Awake? How do you feel?”

“All right. Well enough to hear explanations,” Arnsen said with a flash of temper. “I’ve been nearly crazy⁠—looking for you all over this damned asteroid. I still think I’m crazy after all this.”

O’Brien chuckled. “I can imagine. I felt pretty upset for a while, till the crystals explained.”

“The crystals what?”

“They’re alive, Steve. The ultimate product of evolution, perhaps. Crystalline life. Perfect machines. They can do almost anything. You saw how one created drinkable water, and⁠—well, look here.” He beckoned.

A jewel floated close. From it a jet of flame shot, red and brilliant. O’Brien waved his hand; the gem drifted back to its place.

“They can convert energy into matter, you see. It’s logical, when you forget about hidebound science. All matter’s made up of energy. It’s simply locked in certain patterns⁠—certain matrixes. But inside the atom⁠—the framework of matter⁠—you’ve got nothing but energy. These crystals build patterns out of basic energy.”

Arnsen shook his head. “I don’t see it.”

O’Brien’s voice grew deeper, stronger. “Long ago⁠—very long ago, and in another galaxy, light-years away, there was a civilization far beyond ours. Deirdre is a child of that race. It was⁠—mighty. It passed through our culture-level and went far beyond. Till machines were no longer needed. Instead, the race made the crystals⁠—super-machines, super-robots, with incredible powers locked in them. They supplied all the needs of Deirdre’s race.”

“Well?”

“This asteroid doesn’t belong to our family of planets. It’s from that other system, in the neighboring galaxy. It drifted here by accident, I think. I don’t quite know the facts of it. It came under the gravitational pull of a comet, or a wandering planet, and was yanked out into space. Eventually it settled into this orbit. Deirdre didn’t care. Her mind isn’t like ours. The crystals supplied all her needs⁠—made air, gave her food and water. Everything she desired.”

Arnsen said, “How long has this been going on?”

“Forever, perhaps,” O’Brien said quietly. “I think Deirdre’s immortal. At least she is a goddess. Do you remember the crystal I found in that meteorite?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“It came from here. It was one of Deirdre’s servants. Somehow it was lost⁠—wandered away. Cosmic dust collected on it as it moved in an orbit around the sun⁠—for thousands of years, perhaps. Iron atoms. At last it was a meteorite, with the crystal at its heart. So it fell on Earth, and I found it, and it wanted to go home, back to Deirdre. It told me that. I felt its thoughts. It drew me here, Steve⁠—”

Arnsen shivered. “It’s unbelievable. And that girl isn’t human.”

“Have you looked into her eyes?”

“No⁠—”

“She isn’t human. She is a goddess.”

A new thought came to Arnsen. “Where’s Tex Hastings? Here?”

“I haven’t seen him,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know where he is.”

“Uh-huh. What have you been doing?”

“She brought me here. The crystals took care of me. And Deirdre⁠—” He stood up. “She’s summoning me. Wait, Steve⁠—I’ll be back.”

Arnsen put out a detaining hand; it was useless. O’Brien stepped through the portal and was gone. A dozen crystals swept after him.

Arnsen followed, refusing to admit that he, too, wanted another glimpse of the girl. Down the passage he went in O’Brien’s trail, till the boy vanished from sight. Arnsen increased his pace. He halted on the threshold of the cavern where the pillar of flame swept up to the roof.

He had thought it thundered. It did not⁠—it rushed up in utter silence, shaking and swaying with the surcharged intensity of its power. The walls were crusted with the dancing, watching crystals. Now Arnsen saw that some were dull gray, motionless and dead. These were sprinkled among the others, and there were thousands of them.

O’Brien paced forward⁠—and suddenly Circe was standing with her back to Arnsen, the gems clustering about her caressingly. She lifted her arms, and O’Brien turned.

A great hunger leaped into his face. The girl did not move, and O’Brien came into the circle of her arms.

So swift was her movement that Arnsen did not realize it till too late. The slender arms slid free; Circe stepped back a pace⁠—and thrust O’Brien toward the tower of flame!

He stumbled, off balance, and the crystals leaped from Circe’s body. They were no longer a garment. They pressed against O’Brien, forcing him away, thrusting, pushing. Arnsen cried out and sprang forward⁠—

O’Brien reeled, was engulfed by the flame-pillar. The pouring torrent swallowed him.

Simultaneously from the farther wall a gray, dead jewel detached itself and shot toward the tower of fire. Into the blazing heart it fled and vanished.

The pillar sank down. It pulsed⁠—thundered up again, silently streaming like a torrent toward the roof. And out of its depths the jewel came transformed.

Sentiment, blazing, shining with a myriad hues, it swirled toward Circe. Scintillant with delight, it hovered about her caressingly.

It was alive!

Arnsen cried out, flung himself forward. Circe turned to face him. Still her eyes were hidden; her face was aloofly lovely and inhuman.

The crystal swept toward Arnsen, cupping itself into his outthrust hand. From it a wave of mad delight rushed into his brain.

It was Doug⁠—it was Doug! Frozen with sick horror, Arnsen halted, while thoughts poured from the sentient crystal into his mind.

“The⁠—the gray jewel⁠—” His tongue fumbled thickly with the words. He looked up to where the dull gems clung among the shining ones.

“Machines, Steve.” The thought lanced into him from the living thing he held. “Robots, not energized. Only one thing can energize them⁠—life-force, vital energy. The flame-pillar does that, through atomic transmutation. It’s not earthly science⁠—it was created in another galaxy. There, Deirdre’s race had slave people to energize the crystals.”

“Doug⁠—she’s killed you⁠—”

“I’m not dead. I’m alive, Steve, more alive than I ever have been. All the crystals⁠—Martians, Venusians, beings from other systems and galaxies that landed on this asteroid. Deirdre took them for her own. As she took Hastings. As she has taken me. We serve her now⁠—”

The jewel tore free from Arnsen’s grip. It fled back to Circe, brushing her lips, caressing her hair. The other gems, scores of them, danced about the girl like elfin lovers.

Arnsen stood there, sick and nauseated. He understood now. The intricate crystal machines were too complicated to work unless life-force energized them. Circe, who took the minds of living beings and prisoned them in silicate robot-forms.

They felt no resentment. They were content to serve.

“Damn you!” Arnsen mouthed, and took a step forward. His fists balled. His fingers ached to curl about the girl’s slender neck and snap it with sharp, vicious pressure.

Her lashes swept up. Her eyes looked into his.

They were black as space, with stars prisoned in their depths. They were not human eyes.

Now Arnsen knew why O’Brien had asked if he had looked into Deirdre’s eyes. They were her secret and her power. Her human form was not enough to enchant and enslave the beings of a hundred worlds. It was the soul-shaking alienage that looked out of Circe’s eyes.

Through those dark windows Arnsen saw the Outside. He saw the gulf between the stars, and no longer did he fear it. For Circe was a goddess.

She was above and beyond humanity. A great void opened between her and the man, the void of countless evolutionary cycles, and a million light-years of space. But across that gulf something reached and met and clung, and Arnsen’s senses drowned in a soul-shaking longing for Circe.

It was her power. She could control emotion, as she could control the crystals, and the power of her mind reached into Arnsen and wrung sanity and self from it. Only in outer semblance was she even slightly human. Beside her Arnsen was an animal, and like an animal he could be controlled.

She blazed like a flame before him. He forgot O’Brien, forgot Hastings and Earth and his purpose. Her power clutched him and left him helpless.

The grip upon his mind relaxed. Circe, confident of her triumph, let her eyelids droop.

And Arnsen’s mind came back in a long, slow cycle from the gulfs between the stars, drifted leisurely back into the crystalline cavern and the presence of the goddess⁠—and woke.

Not wholly. He would never be whole again. But he felt the crowding vibrations of the countless prisoners in crystal who had gone the way his own feet were walking now, bewildered, drunken and drowning in emotions without name, sacrificing identity without knowing what they sacrificed. Flung into eternity at the whim of a careless goddess to whom all life-forms were one.⁠ ⁠…

She was turning half away as realization came back to Arnsen. She had lifted one round white arm to let the crystals cascade along it. She did not even see him lurch forward.

What he did was without thought. The emotions she had called up in him drowned all thought. He only knew that he must do what he did⁠—he could not yet think why.

The breath hissed between his lips as he stumbled forward and thrust Circe into the flame.⁠ ⁠…

From the roof a gray jewel dropped. The tower of fire paused in its rhythm⁠—beat out strongly again. From it a crystal leaped. It hung motionless in the air, and Arnsen seized it with shaking fingers. He felt great, racking sobs shake him. His fingers caressed the jewel, pressed it to his lips.

“Circe!” he whispered, eyes blind with tears. “Circe⁠—”

Epilogue

Arnsen had not spoken for a long time. Through the window I could see the Cairo stratoship being wheeled into place. Beyond, the lights of New York glowed yellow.

“And so you came back,” I said.

He nodded. “And so I came back. I put on my spacesuit and went back to the ship. The crystals didn’t try to stop me. They seemed to be waiting. I don’t know for what. I blasted off and headed Sunward. I knew enough to do that. After a while I began to send out SOS signals, and a patrol boat picked me up. That was all.”

“Doug⁠—”

“Still there, I suppose. With all the others. Vail, why did I do it? Was I right?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but cupped the little shagreen box in his hand. He didn’t open it.

“No,” he went on, “you can’t answer me; nobody can. Circe took the soul out of my body, and I’m empty now. There’s no peace for me on Earth, or in the spaceways. And out there, somewhere, on that asteroid, the crystals are waiting⁠—waiting for Circe to come back⁠—

“But she will never come back. She will stay with me till I die, and then she’ll be buried with me in space. In the meantime⁠—Circe doesn’t like it here on Earth. So I’m going out again. Sometime, perhaps, I’ll take her back Outside, to the unknown place from which she came. I don’t know⁠—”

An audio announced the plane for Kansas. Arnsen stood up, gave me a smile from his ravaged face, and without a word went out.

I never saw him again.

I think that beyond Pluto, beyond the farthest limits of the system, a little cruiser may be fleeing into the void, controls set, racing, perhaps, for the darkness of the Coal Sack. In the ship is a man and a jewel. He will die, but I do not think that even in death his hand will relax its grip on that jewel.

And the ship will go on, into the blackness which has no name.

I

Earth Consul, Goodenow, tossed a packet of microfilms to Vanning, and said, “You’re crazy. The man you’re after isn’t here. Only damn fools ever come to Venus⁠—and don’t ask me why I’m here. You’re crazy to think you’ll find a fugitive hiding on this planet.”

Jerry Vanning, earth state investigator, moved his stocky body uneasily. He had a headache. He had had it ever since the precarious landing through the tremendous wind-maelstroms of the pea-soup Venusian atmosphere. With an effort he focused his vision on the micro-projector Goodenow handed him, and turned the tiny key. Inside the box, a face sprang into view. He sighed and slid another of the passport-films into place. He had never seen the man before.

“Routine checkup,” he said patiently. “I got a tip Callahan was heading here, and we can’t afford to take chances.”

The consul mopped his sweating, beefy face and cursed Venusian air-conditioning units. “Who is this guy Callahan, anyway?” he asked. “I’ve heard a little⁠—but we don’t get much news on the frontier.”

“Political refugee,” Vanning said, busy with the projector. “Potentially, one of the most dangerous men in the System. Callahan started his career as a diplomat, but there wasn’t enough excitement for him.”

The consul fumbled with a cigar. “Can you tell me any more?”

“Well⁠—Callahan got hold of a certain secret treaty that must be destroyed. If he shows it in the right places, he might start a revolution, particularly on Callisto. My idea is that he’s hiding out till the excitement dies down⁠—and then he’ll head for Callisto.”

Goodenow pursed his lips. “I see. But you won’t find him here.”

Vanning jerked his thumb toward a window. “The jungle⁠—”

“Hell, no!” the consul said decidedly. “Venus, Mr. Vanning, is not Earth. We’ve got about two hundred settlements scattered here and there; the rest is swamp and mountains. When a man gets lost, we wait a few days and then write out a death certificate. Because once an Earthman leaves a settlement, his number’s up.”

“So?”

“So Callahan isn’t here. Nobody comes here,” Goodenow said bitterly.

“Settlers do,” Vanning remarked.

“Bloody fools. They raise herbs and mola. If they didn’t come, Venus would be uninhabited except by natives in a few years. The North-Fever⁠ ⁠… You’d better watch out for that, by the way. If you start feeling rocky, see a doctor. Not that it’ll help. But you can be put under restraint till the fever passes.”

Vanning looked up. “I’ve heard of that. Just what⁠—”

“Nobody knows,” Goodenow said, shrugging hopelessly. “A virus. A filterable virus, presumably. Scientists have been working on it ever since Venus was colonized. It hits the natives, too. Some get it, some don’t. It works the same way with Earthmen. You feel like you’re cracking up⁠—and then, suddenly⁠—you go North. Into the swamp. You never come back. That’s the end of you.”

“Funny!”

“Sure it is. But⁠—ever heard of the lemmings? Little animals that used to make mass pilgrimages, millions of them. They’d head west till they reached the ocean, and then keep going. Nobody knew the cause of that, either.”

“What lies north?”

“Swamp, I suppose. How should I know? We’ve got no facilities for finding out. We can’t fly, and expeditions say there’s nothing there but the usual Venusian hell. I wish⁠—”

“Oh-oh!” Vanning sat up, peering into the projector. “Wait a minute, Goodenow. I think⁠—”

“Callahan? No!”

“He’s disguised, but⁠ ⁠… Lucky this is a three-dimensional movie. Let’s hear his voice.” Vanning touched a button on the box. A low, musical voice said:

“My name is Jerome Bentley, New York City, Earth. I’m an importer, and am on Venus to investigate the possibilities of buying a steady supply of herbs⁠—”

“Yeah,” Vanning said tonelessly. “That’s it. Jerome Bentley⁠—nuts! That’s Don Callahan! He’s disguised so well his own mother wouldn’t know him⁠—best makeup artist in the System. But I’ve studied his records till I nearly went blind and deaf. I don’t make mistakes about Callahan any more.”

Goodenow blinked. “I’ll be blowed. I’ve seen the man a dozen times, and I’d have sworn⁠ ⁠… well! If you’re sure⁠—”

“I’m sure.” Vanning referred to the records. “Staying at the Star Palace, eh? Okay, I’ll be pushing off.”

“I’ll go with you,” the consul offered, and lifted his bulky body from behind the gleaming desk. Together the two men went out into the muggy Venusian day, which was now fading to a slow, blue dusk.

Venus did not revolve; it librated. There was no such thing as sunrise and sunset. But there was a very regular thickening and fading of the eternal cloudbanks that writhed overhead, approximating day and night. Despite the continual frantic disturbance of the atmosphere, the clouds were so thick that it was never possible to see the Sun.

Only the ragged, eye-straining movement of the grayness overhead, and the warm, humid wind that gusted against your sweating skin. And the sulphurous smells that drifted in from the jungle⁠—odors of stagnant water and rottenness and things that grew unhealthily white.

Frontier town, Vanning thought, as he glanced around. Chicago must have looked like this, in the old days, when streets were unpaved and business was the town’s only reason for existence. But Venus Landing would never grow into another Chicago. A few thousand souls, working under terrible handicaps, always fearing the North-Fever that meant death.⁠ ⁠…

Muddy streets, wooden sidewalks already rotting, metal buildings, of two stories at most, long, low hydroponic sheds, a dull, hot apathy that hung over everything⁠—that was Venus Landing. A few natives shuffled past on their snowshoe feet, looking fat and wet, as though made out of wax that had begun to run.

The Star Palace was a down-at-the-heels plastic building, stained and discolored by the damp molds. Goodenow jerked his head at the clerk.

“Where’s Leester?”

“North-Fever,” the man said, worrying his lower lip. “This morning⁠ ⁠… we couldn’t stop him.”

“Oh, hell,” the consul said hopelessly, turning to Vanning. “That’s the way it is. Once the fever hits you, you go crazy. Do everything and anything to get away and head north. Leester was a nice kid. He was going back to Earth, next Christmas.”

Vanning looked at the clerk. “A man named Jerome Bentley’s staying here.”

“He’s somewhere around town. Dunno where.”

“Okay,” the consul said. “If he comes in, phone my office. But don’t tell him we were asking.”

“Yup.” The clerk resumed his vague scrutiny of the ceiling. Vanning and Goodenow went out.

“Where now?”

“We’ll just amble around. Hi!” The consul hailed a ricksha, drawn by a native⁠—the usual type of vehicle in Venus Landing’s muddy streets. “Hop in, Vanning.”

The detective obeyed. His headache was getting worse.

They couldn’t find Callahan. A few men said that they had seen him earlier that day. Someone had glimpsed him on the outskirts of the settlement.

“Heading for the jungle?” Goodenow asked quickly.

“He⁠—yeah. He looked⁠ ⁠… very bad.”

The consul sucked in his breath. “I wonder. Let’s go out that way, Vanning.”

“All right. What do you figure⁠—”

“The fever, maybe,” Goodenow grunted. “It strikes fast. Especially to non-natives. If your friend Callahan’s caught North-Fever, he just started walking into the swamp and forgot to stop. You can mark the case closed.”

“Not till I get that treaty back,” Vanning growled.

Goodenow shook his head doubtfully.

The buildings grew sparser and ceased at the edge of the pale forest. Broad-leafed jungle growths sprang from moist black soil. The ricksha stopped; the native chattered in his own tongue.

“Sure,” Goodenow said, tossing him a coin. “Wait here. Zan-t’kshan.” His burly figure lumbered into the translucent twilight of the jungle. Vanning was at his heels.

There were footprints⁠—many of them. The detective ignored them, moving in a straight line away from Venus Landing. Here and there were blazed mola trees, some with buckets hung to collect the dripping sap. The footprints grew fainter. At last only one set remained visible.

“A man. Pretty heavyset, too. Wearing Earth shoes, not sandals like most of ours. Callahan, probably.”

Vanning nodded. “He didn’t come back by this route.”

“He didn’t come back,” Goodenow said shortly. “This is a one-way trail.”

“Well, I’m going after him.”

“It’s suicidal. But⁠—I suppose I can’t talk you out of it?”

“You can’t.”

“Well, come back to town and I’ll find you an outfit. Supplies and a hack-knife. Maybe I can find some men willing to go with you.”

“No,” Vanning said. “I don’t want to waste time. I’ll start now.” He took a few steps, and was halted by Goodenow’s restraining grip.

“Hold on,” the consul said, a new note in his voice. He looked closely into Vanning’s face, and pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

“You’ve got it,” he said. “I should have noticed before.”

“Got what?”

“The North-Fever, man! Now listen to me⁠—”

Vanning’s headache suddenly exploded in a fiery burst of white pain, which washed away and was gone, leaving his brain cool and⁠ ⁠… different. It was like a⁠—like a cold fever. He found his thoughts were moving with unusual clarity to a certain definite point.⁠ ⁠… North. Of course he had to go north. That was what had been wrong with him all day. He had been fighting against the urge. Now he realized that it should be obeyed, instead.

He blinked at Goodenow’s heavy, worried face. “I’m all right. No fever. I want to find Callahan, that’s all.”

“Like hell it is,” the consul said grimly. “I know the symptoms. You’re coming back with me till you’re well.”

“No.”

Goodenow made a movement as though to pinion Vanning’s hands behind his back. The detective writhed free and sent a short-arm jab to Goodenow’s jaw. There was power behind that blow. The consul went over backwards, his head thumping against a white tree-bole.

He lay still.

Vanning didn’t look at the motionless body. He turned and began to follow Callahan’s trail. But he wasn’t watching the footprints. Some instinct seemed to guide him.

North⁠ ⁠… North!

His head no longer hurt. It felt strangely cool, numb and stinging almost pleasantly. The magnetic pull drew him on. Deeper and deeper into the jungle.⁠ ⁠…

Distantly he heard Goodenow’s shout, but ignored it. The consul couldn’t stop him. But he might try. Vanning ran for a while, lightly and easily, till the wilderness of Venus had swallowed him without trace. Then he slowed down to a walk. He would have been grateful for a brief rest, but he could not stop. Not now.⁠ ⁠…

The fog closed in. Silver mist veiled the strange, ghostly forest. Then it was torn away as a gust of wind drove down from the upper air. Above, the clouds twisted in tortured writhings; but Vanning did not look up. Not once did he turn his head. He faced north⁠ ⁠… he plodded north⁠ ⁠… he slogged through mushy, stinking swamp that rose at times to his waist.⁠ ⁠…

A sane man would have skirted the bog. Vanning floundered across, and swam when he could no longer walk. Somewhere to the left he heard the coughing mutter of a swamp-cat’s engine, but he did not see the machine. His vision was restricted to a narrow circle directly ahead.

Dimly he felt pain. The clinging, soft nettles of Venus ripped at his clothing and his skin. Leeches clung to his legs till they fell off, satiated. Vanning went on. He was a robot⁠—an automaton.

In silence the pale forest slipped by in a fantastic procession. Lianas often made a tangled snare where Vanning fought for minutes before breaking through. Luckily, the vines had little tensile strength, but soon the man was exhausted and aching in every limb. Far above, the clouds had thickened and darkened into what passed for night on fog-shrouded Venus. But the trees gave a phosphorescent light of their own. Weird beyond imagination was the scene, with the bloody, reeling figure of the man staggering on toward the north⁠—

North. Ever north. Until overtaxed muscles refused to bear the burden longer, and Vanning collapsed into exhausted unconsciousness.

He did not know when he awoke. Presently he found himself walking again. Nothing had changed. The jungle was denser, and the cool light from above filtered down once more. Only the light was cool. The air itself was sticky and suffocating.

He went on into hell.

Days and nights merged into a fantastic pattern of dull torture. Some distantly sane portion of his brain held back and watched, but could not help. Days and nights. There was no food. There was water, for as Vanning splashed through shallow pools he would bend his head to drink of the foul liquid. Once his feet crunched on the green-moulded bones of a human skeleton. Others had taken this way before him.⁠ ⁠…

Toward the end, a fleshless, gaunt thing that had once been a man dragged itself laboriously toward a range of mountains that lifted from the swamp toward the north. They extended to left and right as far as he could see, and seemed unscalable. But they were V-shaped, and Vanning headed toward the point of the V⁠—the inner point. The terrible drive within him drove him on relentlessly.

That night a sulphurous crimson glow lit the sky beyond the mountains. Vanning did not see it. He slept.

By morning he was on his way again, staggering into the funnel of the peaks. They were bare rock, eroded by eons of trickling water from the clouds. He could not climb them, even had he possessed the strength. He went on, instead, into the narrowing valley.⁠ ⁠…

It ended in a sheer cliff of weathered stone. Vanning reeled toward the barrier. He could not return. The North-Fever drove him on remorselessly. He had to climb that wall of rock, or die. And he could not climb.

He fell, rose, and fell again. In the end he crawled. He crawled to the foot of the cliff and dragged himself upright. He fell forward, as though trying to press his body against the towering wall that lifted to the writhing grey clouds⁠—

Fell⁠—through the stone!

He toppled through the rock curtain as though it were nonexistent! Instantly intense blackness closed around him. Hard stone was under him.

His mind was too dulled to wonder. He knew only that the way north was still open. He crept on through darkness, leaving a trail of blood behind him.⁠ ⁠…

The ground dropped from under him. He crashed down on a mound of moulded vegetation.

Before the shock had passed, the living dead man was moving again. He crawled forward until his way was blocked by a perpendicular wall. Gasping dry-throated sobs, he clawed at the barrier with broken, bleeding fingertips.

To left and right, an arm’s length away, were other walls. He was in a pit. The sane part of his brain thought: “Circle around! There may be some way out!”

But Vanning could not circle. He could only move in one direction. That was north. He fumbled blindly at the wall, until unconsciousness came at last.⁠ ⁠…

Twice again he awoke, each time weaker, and twice again he slept. The fever, having passed its peak, dwindled swiftly.

At last Vanning awoke, and he was sane. No longer did he feel the relentless urge to turn north. He lay for a little while staring into the blackness, realizing that he was once more in full command of his traitorous body.

There was little life left in him. His tongue was blackened and swollen till it filled his mouth. He was a scarecrow, nearly naked, his bones sharply defined through his skin.

It was an effort even to breathe. But death would not be long in coming⁠—now.⁠ ⁠…

II

Dying is an uncomfortable business, unless a man is drugged or insensible. Vanning found it so. Moreover, he wasn’t the sort of man who would give up without good cause. Weak as he was, nevertheless he was still too strong to lie in the dark, waiting.

Laboriously, he got to his hands and knees and commenced a circuit of the pit. He expected nothing. But, at the southern end of his prison, he was astounded to find a hole in the wall easily large enough to admit his body.

Feeling into the blackness, he discovered the smooth floor of a passage. Good Lord! It had been there all the time, during his tortured imprisonment in the pit. If he had only searched before⁠—

But he could not have done so, of course. Not with the North-Fever flaming in his veins.

The tunnel might lead anywhere. All the chances were against its leading to safety. Sooner or later, there would probably be a dead end. Nevertheless, there was a chance. That chance grew brighter as Vanning’s fingers discovered that the walls bore the marks of tools.

The tunnel had been made by⁠—perhaps not humans, but at least by some intelligent race!

It grew higher as he went on, but Vanning was too weak to rise. He realized dimly that the passage made a sharp hairpin turn.

Through the dark the distant clangor of a bell roared.

Vanning hesitated, and then resumed his weak crawl. There was nothing else to do.

The ground dropped from beneath him. He went rolling and slipping down an inclined slide, to stop with a jolt against a softly padded surface. The shock was too much for his exhausted mind and body. He felt consciousness leaving him.

But he realized that it was no longer dark. Through a pale, luminous twilight he caught a glimpse of a mask hovering over him⁠—the mask of no human thing. Noseless save for tiny slits, gap-mouthed, round-eyed, the face was like that of a fish incredibly humanized⁠—fantastically evolved. A patina of green scales overlaid the skin.

The gong thundered from nearby. The monstrous mask dissolved into the blackness that swept up and took Vanning to its heart. Nothing existed but pain, and that, too, was wiped out by the encompassing dark.⁠ ⁠…

He was very sick. Complete exhaustion had almost killed him. He was lying on a soft pallet, and from time to time the stinging shock of a needle in his arm told him that he was being fed by injection. Later, water trickled down his throat. His swollen tongue resumed its normal shape. Sleep came, tormented by dreams. The mask of the fish-like thing swam at him from gray shimmering light. It gave place to a great bell that roared deafeningly.

Then the face of a girl, pale, lovely, with auburn ringlets clustering about her cheeks. Sympathetic blue eyes looked into his. And that, too, was gone.⁠ ⁠…

He awoke to find⁠—something⁠—standing above him. And it was no nightmare. It was the thing of his dreams⁠—a being that stood upright on two stocky legs, and which wore clothing, a shining silver tunic and kirtle. The head was fish-like, but the high cranium told of intelligence.

It said something in a language Vanning did not know. Weakly he shook his head. The fish-being launched into the Venusian dialect.

“You are recovered? You are strong again?”

Vanning sought for words. “I’m⁠—all right. But where am I? Who⁠—”

“Lysla will tell you.” The creature clapped its huge hands together as it turned. The door closed behind its malformed back, opening again to reveal the auburn-haired girl Vanning recognized.

He sat up, discovering that he was in a bare room walled with gray plastic, and that he was lying on a pallet of some elastic substance. Under a metallic-looking but soft robe, he was naked. The girl, he saw, bore over her arm a bundle of garments, crimson as the kirtle she herself wore.

Her smile was wan. “Hello,” she said, in English. “Feel better now?”

Vanning nodded. “Sure. But am I crazy? That thing that just went out⁠—”

Horror darkened the girl’s blue eyes. “That is one of the Swamja. They rule here.”

“Here? Where’s here?”

Lysla knelt beside the bed. “The end of the world⁠—for us, Jerry Vanning.”

“How do you know my name?”

“There were papers in your clothes⁠—what was left of them. And⁠—it’ll be hard to explain all this. I’ve only been here a month myself.”

Vanning rubbed his stubbly beard. “We’re on Venus?”

“Yes, of course. This is a⁠—a valley. The Swamja have lived here for ages, since before Earthmen colonized Venus.”

“I never heard of them.”

“None ever return from this place,” Lysla said sombrely. “They become slaves of the Swamja⁠—and in the end they die. New slaves come, as you did.”

Vanning’s eyes narrowed. “Hold on. I’m beginning to understand, a little. The Swamja⁠—those fish-headed people⁠—have a secret city here, eh? They’re intelligent?”

She nodded. “They have great powers. They consider themselves the gods of Venus. You see⁠—Jerry Vanning⁠—they evolved long before the anthropoid stock did. Originally they were aquatic. I don’t know much about that. Legends⁠ ⁠… Anyway, a very long time ago, they built this city and have never left it since. But they need slaves. So they send out the North-Fever⁠—”

“What?” Vanning’s face grayed. “Lysla⁠—what did you say? The fever’s artificial?”

“Yes. The virus is carried by microscopic spores. The Swamja send it out to the upper atmosphere, and the great winds carry it all over Venus. The virus strikes very quickly. Once a man catches it, as you did, he goes north. These mountains are a trap. They’re shaped like a funnel, so anyone with the fever inevitably heads into the pass, as you did. They are drawn through the mirage, which looks like a wall of rock. No one who wasn’t⁠—sick⁠—would try to go through that cliff.”

Vanning grunted, remembering. “Keep talking. I’m beginning⁠—”

“There isn’t much more. The victims fall into the pits, and stay there till the fever has run its course. The Swamja run no risks of being infected themselves. After the sickness has passed, it’s easy to find the way out of the pits⁠—and all the tunnels lead to this place.”

“God!” Vanning whispered. “And you say this has been going on for centuries?”

“Very many centuries. First the natives, and now the Earth-people as well. The Swamja need slaves⁠—none live long here. But there is always a supply trickling in from outside.”

Thousands of helpless victims, through the ages, drawn into this horrible net, dragged northward to be the slaves of an inhuman race.⁠ ⁠… Vanning licked dry lips.

“Many die,” the girl said. “The Swamja want only the strongest. And only the strongest survive the trip north.”

“You⁠—” Vanning looked at Lysla questioningly.

She smiled sadly. “I’m stronger than I look, Jerry. But I almost died.⁠ ⁠… I still haven’t completely recovered. I⁠—was much prettier than I am now.”

Vanning found that difficult to believe. He couldn’t help grinning at the girl’s very feminine admission. She flushed a little.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’re not Venusian, I can see that. How did you come to get sucked into this?”

“Just bad luck,” Lysla told him. “A few months ago I was on top of the world, in New York. I’ve no parents. My father left me a trust fund, but it ran out unexpectedly. Bad investments, I suppose. So I found myself broke and needed a job. There weren’t any jobs for unskilled labor, except a secretarial position in Venus Landing. I was lucky to get that.”

“You’ve got nerve,” Vanning said.

“It didn’t help. The North-Fever hit me, and the next thing I knew, I was⁠ ⁠… here. A slave.”

“How many Earthmen are there here?”

“About a hundred. Not many are strong enough to reach the pass. And about the same number of Venusian natives.”

“How many Swamja?”

“A thousand, more or less,” Lysla explained. “Only the highest classes have slaves. Most of the Swamja are trained for the military.”

“So? Who the devil do they fight?”

“Nobody. It’s a tradition with them⁠—part of their religion. They believe they’re gods, and the soldiers serve as the Valkyries did in the Norse Valhalla.”

“Two hundred slaves.⁠ ⁠… What weapons do the Swamja have?”

Lysla shook her head. “Not many. A paralysis hand-projector, a few others. But they’re invulnerable, or nearly so. Their muscles are much tougher than ours. A different cellular construction.”

Vanning pondered. He could understand that. The human heart-muscle is much stronger and tougher than⁠—say⁠—the biceps.

The girl broke into his thoughts. “Rebellion is quite useless. You won’t believe that now, but you’ll understand soon.”

“Maybe,” Vanning said tonelessly. “Anyhow⁠—what’s next on the program?”

“Slavery.” Her voice was bitter. “Here are your clothes. When you’re dressed, you’ll find a ramp leading down outside the door. I’ll be waiting.” She detached a metal plaque from the wall and went out. Vanning, after a scowling pause, dressed and followed.

The corridor in which he found himself was of bare plastic, covered with a wavy bas-relief oddly reminiscent of water’s ripples, and tinted azure and gray. Here and there cold lamps, using a principle unfamiliar to the man, were set in the walls. Radioactivity, he theorized, or the Venusian equivalent. He saw a ramp, and descended it to enter a huge low-ceilinged room, with doors at intervals set in the curving walls. One of the doors was open, and Lysla’s low voice called him.

He entered a cubicle, not large, with four crude bunks arranged here and there. The girl was fitting the metal plaque into a frame over one. She smiled at him.

“Your dog-license, Jerry. You’re 57-R-Mel. It means something to the Swamja, I suppose.”

“Yeah?” Vanning saw a similar plaque over each of the cots. “What’s this place?”

“One of the dormitories. Four to an apartment is the rule. You’ll be lodged with three men who arrived a little while before you did⁠—two Earthmen and a Venusian.”

“I see. What am I supposed to do?”

“Just wait here till you’re summoned. And Jerry⁠—” She came toward him, placing her palms flat on his broad chest, her blue eyes looking up into his appealingly. “Jerry, please don’t do anything foolish. I know it’s hard at first. But⁠—they⁠—punish rebellious slaves rather awfully.”

Vanning smiled down at her. “Okay, Lysla. I’ll look around before I do anything. But, believe me, I intend to start a private little revolution around here.”

She shook her head hopelessly, auburn curls flying. “It isn’t any use. I’ve seen that already. You’ll see it, too. I must go now. And be careful, Jerry.”

He squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Sure. I’ll see you again?”

“Yes. But now⁠—”

She was gone. Vanning whistled softly, and turned to examine the room. Sight of his face in a mirror startled him. Under the stubbly growth of beard, his familiar features had altered, grown haggard and strained.

A razor lay handy⁠—or, rather, a sharp dagger with a razor-sharp edge. There was a bar of gray substance that gave a great deal of lather when Vanning moistened it in the metal bowl that served as a washbasin. He shaved, and felt much better.

His weakness had almost entirely gone. The medical science of the Swamja, at least, was above reproach. Nevertheless, he tired easily.⁠ ⁠… That would pass.

Who were his bunkmates in this cubicle? Idly Vanning scrutinized their effects, strewn helter-skelter on the shelves. Nothing there to tell him. There was a metal comb, however, and Vanning reached for it. It slipped from his fingers and clattered to the plastic floor.

Vanning grunted and got down on his knees to recover the object, which had skidded into a dark recess under the lowest shelf. His fumbling fingers encountered something cold and hard, and he drew it out wonderingly. It was a flat case, without ornament, and clicked open in his hands.

It was a makeup kit. Small as it was, it contained an incredible quantity of material for disguises. Tiny pellets were there, each stamped with a number. Dyestuffs that would mix with water. There was a package of isoflex, the transparent, extraordinary thin “rigid cellophane” of the day. There were other things.⁠ ⁠…

Vanning’s eyes widened. Two and two made an unmistakable four. Only one man on Venus would have reason to possess such a kit. That man was Don Callahan, whom Vanning had vainly pursued from Mars to Earth, and thence to Venus.

Callahan here!

But why not? He, too, had fallen victim to North-Fever. He had simply preceded Vanning in his drugged trip to this hidden kingdom.

“Who the hell are you?”

The harsh question brought Vanning to his feet, instinctively concealing the makeup kit in his garments. He stared at the man standing on the threshold⁠—a husky, broad-shouldered specimen with flaming red hair and a scarred, ugly face. Squinting, keen eyes watched Vanning.

“I’m⁠—your new roommate, I guess,” the detective said tentatively. “Jerry Vanning’s my name.”

“Mine’s Sanderson. Kenesaw Sanderson.” The other rubbed a broken nose thoughtfully. “So you’re new. Well, get this straight. Don’t try any tricks with the Swamja or get any ideas.”

Vanning tilted his head to one side. “I don’t get it.”

“New guys,” Sanderson said scornfully. “They’re always figuring it’ll be easy to escape. They try it, and we all suffer. The Swamja are tough babies. Take it easy, do what you’re told, and everything’s okay. See?”

“Not quite.” There was a roughness in Vanning’s tone. “How long have you been here?”

“A few weeks, about. I don’t recall exactly. What of it?”

“You don’t look yellow. It just seems funny that you’d give up so easily. You look pretty tough.”

Sanderson snarled deep in his throat. “I am tough! I’m also smart. Listen, Mr. Jerry Vanning, two days after I got here I saw the Swamja punish a guy who tried to escape. They skinned him alive! You hear that? And his bunkmates⁠—they weren’t killed, but one of ’em went crazy. Those Swamja⁠—it’s crazy to try and buck them.”

“They’ve got you out-bluffed already, eh?”

Sanderson strode forward and gripped Vanning’s shoulder in a bruising clutch. “You talk too much. Troublemakers don’t go here. Get that through your head.”

Vanning said gently, “Let go of me, quick. Or⁠—”

“Let him go, Kenesaw,” a new voice broke in. Sanderson grunted, but released the detective. He nodded toward the door.

“Got off early, eh, Hobbs?”

“A little.” The man in the doorway was as big as Sanderson, but his face was benevolent, gentle, and seamed with care. White hair bristled in a ruff above his broad forehead. “A little,” he repeated. “Zeeth and I must go back tonight for the festival.”

“Sta. We must go back tonight,” said Zeeth, in the Venusian dialect. He appeared from behind Hobbs, a native of Venus, with the familiar soft plumpness and huge feet of the race. His doglike eyes examined Vanning. “New?”

The detective introduced himself. He was secretly puzzled. One of these three men, apparently, was Callahan⁠—but which one? None of them resembled the man Vanning had seen on the micro-projector back at Venus Landing. But, still⁠—

III

On impulse, Vanning took out the makeup kit and held it up. “I found this under the shelves. Yours, Hobbs? Or Sanderson?”

Both men shook their heads, frowning. Vanning glanced at the Venusian.

“Yours, Zeeth?”

“Esta, it is not mine. What is it?”

“Just a case.” Vanning stowed it away, and sat down on one of the cots, wondering. As he saw it, he had two objectives to reach. First⁠—escape. Second⁠—bring in Callahan.

Not merely escape, though. He thought of Lysla. A slave⁠ ⁠… damn! And the other two hundred slaves of the Swamja⁠ ⁠… He couldn’t leave them here.

But what could he do? Conquer the Swamja? The thought was melodramatically crazy. Perhaps alone he might contrive to escape, and bring a troop of Space Patrolmen to wipe out the Swamja. An army, if necessary.

The others, he saw, had seated themselves on the cots. Hobbs kicked off his sandals and sighed. “Wish I had a smoke. Oh, well.”

Vanning said sharply, “Callahan!” His eyes flicked from one to another, and found nothing but surprise in the faces turned to him. Sanderson rumbled,

“What the devil are you jabbering about?”

Vanning sighed. “I’m wondering something. When did you boys get here?”

It was the mild-faced Hobbs who answered. “A couple of weeks ago, I believe. Within a few days of each other. Just before you arrived, in fact. But we recovered long before you did. It was only a miracle that saved your life, Vanning.”

“And before you three got here⁠—any others come from outside? Lately, I mean.”

“Not for months,” Hobbs answered. “So I heard. Why?”

“Why? It proves that one of you is the man I’m after⁠—Don Callahan. I’m a detective; I came to Venus to find Callahan, and⁠—by accident⁠—I followed him here. It stands to reason that one of you is the man I want.”

Sanderson grinned. “Don’t you know what the guy looks like?”

“No,” Vanning admitted. “I’ve recognized him before by certain tricks he’s got⁠—the way he walks, the way he jerks his head around suddenly. Before he came to Venus, I found out, he went to an anthro-surgeon and got remodeled. A complete new chassis, face and body complete. Even got skin-grafts on his fingertips. In time the old prints will grow back, but not for months. Meantime, Callahan’s pretty well disguised.”

“Good Lord!” Hobbs said. “One of us⁠—”

Vanning nodded. “When he came to Venus, he put a disguise over his new, remodeled face. That’s gone now, of course. One of you three is Callahan.”

Zeeth, the Venusian native, said softly, “I do not think the usual laws hold good here.”

Sanderson roared with laughter. “Damn right! You expect to arrest your man and ask the Swamja to imprison him for you?”

Vanning shook his head, smiling crookedly. “Scarcely. I’m getting out of this place sooner or later, and Callahan’s going with me. Later, I’ll bring back troops and clean out the Swamja. But I’m not forgetting about Callahan.”

Hobbs shrugged. “It isn’t me.”

“Nor me,” Zeeth said. Sanderson only grinned.

Vanning grunted. “It’s one of you. I’m pretty sure of that. And I’m talking to you now, Callahan. You’ll be able to disguise your walk and your mannerisms, and I can’t recognize your new face or fingerprints. But sooner or later you’ll forget and betray yourself. Then I’ll have to take you back to Earth.”

“You will forget,” Zeeth said. “In a year⁠—five, if you live, you will forget. Our people have legends of this land, where the gods live. Our priests taught that the North-Fever is sent by the gods. We did not know how true that teaching was.⁠ ⁠…” His bulbous face was grotesque in its solemnity.

Vanning didn’t answer. His hope of tricking an admission from Callahan had failed. Well, there would be time enough. Yet obviously one of these three was the fugitive. Hobbs? Sanderson? Certainly not Zeeth⁠—

Wait a bit! Suppose Callahan had disguised himself as a Venusian native? That would be a perfect masquerade. And the diabolical skill of the anthro-surgeon could have transformed Callahan into a Venusian.

Vanning looked at Zeeth with new interest. The native met his glance with stolid calm.

“One cannot argue with fate. Those who died on the way here are luckier. We must live and serve.”

“I’ve got other ideas,” the detective growled.

Zeeth gestured vividly. “Your race does not accept destiny, as ours does. We have from birth a struggle for existence. Venus is a hard mistress. But some of us live. Yet even then there is the shadow of the North-Fever. At any time, we know, the sickness may fall upon us. If it does, and we are not kept close prisoners, we go into the jungle and either die or⁠—come here. My brother was very lucky. He had the fever three years ago, but I held him and called for help. My tribesmen came running and tied Gharza tightly, so that he could not escape. For ten days and nights the fever made him mad. Then it passed. The threat had left him forever. The North-Fever only strikes once, so Gharza was immune. I, too, am immune⁠—but I consider myself dead, of course.”

“Aw, shut up,” Sanderson snapped. “You give me the leapin’ creeps. Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got to attend the festival tonight.”

“What’s that?” Vanning asked.

The mild-faced Hobbs answered him. “A religious ceremony. Just do what you’re told, and you’ll be all right.”

“Just that, eh?”

“Our people have learned to bow our heads to Fate,” Zeeth murmured. “We are not fighters. Pain is horrible to us. You call us cowards. From your standards, that is true. Only by bowing to the great winds have we managed to survive.”

“Shut up and let me sleep,” Sanderson ordered, and relaxed his heavy body on a bunk. The others followed his example, all but Vanning, who sat silently thinking as hour after hour dragged past.

The door opened at last, and a Swamja stood on the threshold. He wore the familiar costume of the race, but there was an oddly-shaped gun in a holster at his side.

“Time!” he barked in the Venusian dialect. “Hasten! You⁠—” He pointed to Vanning. “Follow me. The others know where to go.”

The detective silently rose and followed the Swamja into the huge room. It was filled now, he saw, with natives and with Earthmen, hurrying here and there like disturbed ants. There were no other Swamja, however.

One of the Venusians stumbled and fell. He was a thin, haggard specimen of his species, and how he had ever survived the trip north Vanning could not guess. Perhaps he had been in this lost city for years, and had been drained of his vitality by weeks of arduous servitude. He fell.⁠ ⁠…

The Swamja barked a harsh command. The native gasped a response, tried to rise⁠—and failed.

Instantly the Swamja drew his gun and fired. The Venusian collapsed and lay still. Vanning took a step forward, hot with fury, to find himself drawn back by Hobbs’ restraining hand.

“Easy!” the other whispered. “He’s dead. No use⁠—”

“Dead? I didn’t hear any explosion.”

“You wouldn’t. That gun fires a charge of pure force that disrupts the nervous system. It was set to kill just now.”

The Swamja turned. “I must attend to this carcass. My report must be made. You, Zeeth⁠—take the new slave to Ombara.”

“I obey.” The native bowed and touched Vanning’s arm. “Come with me.”

Followed by Sanderson’s sardonic grin, Vanning accompanied the Venusian into a corridor, and up a winding spiral ramp. He found it difficult to contain himself.

“Good God!” he burst out finally. “Do those devils do that all the time? Plain cold-blooded murder?”

Zeeth nodded. “They have no emotions, you see. They are what you call hedonists. And they are gods. We are like animals to them. The moment we make a mistake, or are no longer useful, we are killed.”

“And you submit to it!”

“There was a rebellion two years ago, I heard. Twenty slaves died to every Swamja. They are like reptiles⁠—nearly invulnerable. And we have no weapons, of course.”

“Can’t you get any?”

“No. Nor would I try. Venusians cannot endure pain, you understand. To us, pain is worse than death.”

Vanning grunted, and was silent as they passed through a curtained arch. Never would he forget his first sight of the Swamja city. It was like⁠—

Like an ocean world!

He stood upon a balcony high over the city, and looked out at a vast valley three miles in diameter, scooped out of the heart of the mountains as though by a cosmic cup. Overhead was no sky. A shell of transparent substance made a ceiling above the city, a tremendous dome that couched on the mountain peaks all around.

Gray-green light filtered through it. An emerald twilight hazed the fantastic city, where twisted buildings like grottos of coral rose in strange patterns. It was a labyrinth. And it was⁠—lovely beyond all imagination.

“Those⁠—things⁠—built this?” Vanning breathed.

“They knew beauty,” Zeeth said. “They have certain senses we do not have. You will see.⁠ ⁠…”

From the exact center of the city a tower rose, smooth and shining as metal. It reached to the transparent dome and seemed to rise above it, into the clouds of Venus.

“What’s that?” Vanning asked, pointing. “Their temple?”

Zeeth’s voice held irony. “Not a temple⁠—a trap. It is the tube through which they blast the spores of the North-Fever into the sky. Day and night without pause the virus is blown upward through that tube, far into the air, where it is carried all over the planet.”

The air was darkening, thickening. Here and there rainbow lights sprang into view. Elfin fires in an enchanted world, Vanning thought.

Through the grotesque city equally grotesque figures moved, to be lost in the shadows. The monsters who ruled here⁠—ruled like soulless devils rather than gods.

“Come. We must hurry.” Zeeth tugged at Vanning’s arm.

Together they went down the ramp into one of the winding avenues. It grew darker, and more lights came on. Once Vanning paused at sight of a corroded metal structure in the center of a well-lighted park.

“Zeeth! That’s a spaceship! A light lifeboat⁠—”

The Venusian nodded. “And it is well guarded, too. It crashed through the dome a century ago, I was told. All the men in it were killed. A space-wreck, I suppose.”

Vanning was silent as they went on. He was visualizing what had happened in that distant past. A wreck in space, a few survivors taking to this lifeboat and setting out, hopelessly, for the nearest world⁠—believing, perhaps, that if they reached Venus, they would be saved. And then the tremendous atmospheric tides and whirlpools of the clouded planet, in which no aircraft but the hugest could survive.⁠ ⁠…

Vanning whistled softly. Suppose he managed to get into that space-boat? Suppose there was still rocket-fuel in the tanks, and suppose it hadn’t deteriorated? Couldn’t he blast up through the dome to freedom?

Sure⁠—to freedom and death! No ship could survive in the Venusian atmosphere, certainly not this light space-tub, of an antiquated and obsolete design.

At one of the twisted buildings, Zeeth paused. The structure was larger than Vanning had imagined from above, and his eyes widened as he followed the Venusian up winding ramps, past curtained arches, till at last they stepped into a luxurious chamber at the top. Seated on a low tussock was a Swamja, fat and hideous, his bulging eyes glaring at the intruders.

“You are late,” he said. “Why is that?”

Zeeth bowed. “We came as swiftly as possible.”

“That may be. And this slave is new. Yet errors are not permitted. For your mistake, this⁠—” A malformed hand rose, clutching a gun. “And this.”

Instinctively Vanning tensed to leap forward, but a blast of searing fire seemed to explode in his body. He dropped in a boneless huddle, gasping for breath. Beside him he saw Zeeth, similarly helpless, fat face twisted in agony. Venusians, Vanning remembered, were horribly sensitive to pain; and even through his own torture he felt anger at the Swamja for meting out such ruthless justice.

But it was over in a moment, though that moment seemed to last for eternities. Zeeth stood up, bowed again, and slipped from the room, with a warning glance at Vanning, who also rose.

The Swamja raised his gross body. “Carry this tray. This flask and goblet⁠—for my thirst. This atomizer⁠—to spray on my face when I demand it. This fan for the heat.”

Vanning silently picked up the heavy metal tray and followed the lumbering, monstrous figure out. He had an impulse to bring the tray down on the Swamja’s head. But that wouldn’t solve anything. He’d have to wait⁠—for a while, anyway. A show of temper might cost him his life.

Along the twisting avenue they went, and to a many-tiered amphitheatre, where the Swamja found a seat in a cushioned throne. Already the place was filled with the monsters. Many of them were attended by human or Venusian slaves, Vanning saw. He stood behind the Swamja, ready for anything, and looked down.

In the center of the pit was a pool. It was perhaps ten feet square, and blackly opaque. That was all.

“The spray.”

Vanning used the atomizer on the scaly face of his master. Then he looked around once more.

Not far away, standing behind another Swamja, was Sanderson. The red-haired man met his eye and grinned mockingly.

Neither Hobbs nor Zeeth was visible. But Vanning could not repress a feeling of pleasure as he saw, several tiers down, the slim figure of Lysla, her auburn curls bare in the cool night air, a tray similar to his own held strapped to her slender neck.

Vanning’s pleasure was lost in resentment. Damn these fish-headed Swamja!

“Fool!” a croaking voice said. “Twice I have had to demand the spray. Put down your tray.”

Vanning caught himself and obeyed. The Swamja turned and leveled his gun. Again the blazing, brief agony whirled sickeningly through the detective’s body.

It passed; silently he resumed his task. From time to time, he tended to the Swamja’s wants. But he also found time to glance at Lysla occasionally.

When the ceremony began, Vanning could not tell. He sensed that the assembly had grown tenser, and noticed that the eye of every Swamja was focused on the black pool. But there was nothing else. Silence, and the deformed figures staring at the jet square in the center.

Was this all? It seemed so, after half an hour had passed. Not once had the Swamja he tended demanded attention. What the devil were the creatures seeing in that pool?

For they saw something, Vanning was certain of that. Once a shiver of pure ecstasy rippled through the Swamja’s gross body. And once Vanning thought he heard a musical note, almost above the pitch of audibility. It was gone instantly.

Zeeth had said that the Swamja possessed other senses than those of humans. Perhaps those strange senses were being used now. He did not know then, nor was he ever to know, the nonhuman psychology of the Swamja, or the purpose of the black pool. Yet Vanning unmistakably sensed that here was something above and beyond the limitations of his own humanity.

He grew tired, shifting from foot to foot, but it seemed the ceremony would never end. He watched Lysla. Thus he saw her bend forward with a filled goblet⁠—and, losing her balance, spill the liquid contents into the lap of the Swamja she tended.

Instantly she shrank back, her tray clattering to the floor. Stark panic fear was in her posture as she cowered there. There was reason. The Swamja was rising, turning, and in his huge hand was a gun.⁠ ⁠…

He was going to kill Lysla. Vanning knew that. Already he was familiar with the Swamja code that did not forgive errors. And as he saw the stubby finger tightening on the trigger-button, Vanning acted with swift, unthinking accuracy.

His hand closed over the flask on his tray, and he threw it unerringly. The fragile substance crashed into the face of the Swamja menacing Lysla, shattering into glittering shards. The being blinked and pawed at its eyes. In a moment⁠—

Vanning jumped clear over his own Swamja and hurtled down the steps. His shoulder drove into the blinking monster beneath Lysla, and sent the creature head-over-heels into the lap of another of its race below. Vanning caught up the gun the Swamja had dropped. He turned to look into Lysla’s frightened eyes.

“Jerry⁠—” Her voice was choked. “Oh, no!”

Abruptly a crash sounded from above. Vanning looked up to see Sanderson swinging his metal tray like a maniac. The man’s red hair was like a beacon in the strange light. He drove his weapon into the snarling face of a Swamja and yelled down at Vanning:

“Amscray! There’s an oorday on your eftlay!”

Pig-Latin! A door on the left? Vanning saw it. With one hand he caught Lysla’s arm, and with the other smashed the gun-butt viciously into the mask of a Swamja that rose up before him.

The creature did not go down. Its arms closed about Vanning. He reversed the gun and squeezed the trigger-button, but without result. Apparently the things were immune to their own weapons.

The amphitheatre was in an uproar. In a flashing glance Vanning noticed that the black pool far below was curiously disturbed. That didn’t matter. What mattered was the devil that was seeking to break his back⁠—

Lysla tore the gun from Vanning’s hand, firing it twice. The gnarled arms relaxed. But the two humans were almost hemmed in by the aroused Swamjas.

A burly body dived into the mob, followed by another one. Hobbs yelled, “Come on, kid! Fast!”

Hobbs and Zeeth! They, too, had come to the rescue. And none too soon!

The unexpected assault broke the ranks of the Swamja for an instant, and then the Earth-people were through, racing down a slanting corridor. They emerged outside the amphitheatre. Lysla gave them no time to rest. Footsteps were thudding behind them.

“This way. They’ll kill us now if they catch us.”

She sped into an alleyway that gaped nearby. Vanning saw Hobbs and Sanderson racing in pursuit. So Sanderson had got through, too. Good!

Zeeth?

The Venusian reeled against Vanning, his fat face contorted. “I’m⁠—hit. Go on⁠—don’t mind me⁠—”

“Nuts,” the detective growled, and hoisted the flabby body to his shoulder. Zeeth had more courage than any of them, he thought. Weak of physique, hating pain, yet he had not hesitated to join his companions in a hopeless battle.⁠ ⁠…

IV

Vanning sped after the others, who had waited for him. After that it was a desperate hare-and-hounds chase, with Lysla leading them through the labyrinth of the city, her slender legs flying.

“You okay?” Vanning gasped as he ran shoulder to shoulder with the girl for a moment.

Her white teeth were fixed in her lower lip. “I⁠ ⁠… I shot at that Swamja’s eyes. Blinded him. It’s the only way⁠ ⁠… ugh!”

“Where now?” Hobbs panted, his white hair rippling with the wind of his racing. Sanderson echoed the question.

“Lysla? Can we⁠—”

“I don’t know. We’ve been heading north. Never been there before. Can’t go south⁠—gates are always guarded.”

Hobbs panted, “There are only two ways out. The way we came in⁠—guarded, eh?⁠—and another gate at the north.”

“We’ll try it,” Vanning said. “Unless we can get to that spaceship⁠—”

Zeeth wriggled free. “Put me down. I’m all right now. The spaceship⁠—that’s guarded too. But there aren’t any soldiers at the north gate. I don’t know why.”

Through the city a rising tumult was growing. Lights were blazing here and there, but the party kept to the shadows. Twice they flattened themselves against walls as Swamja hurried past. Luck was with them; but how long it would last there was no way of knowing.

Suddenly a great voice boomed out, carrying to every corner of the city. It seemed to come from the dome high above.

“Attention! No slaves will be permitted on the streets unless accompanied by a Swamja master! No quarter is to be given to the fugitives who blinded a guard! Capture them alive if possible⁠—they must serve as an example. But show them no quarter!”

Lysla’s face had paled. Vanning glanced at her, but said nothing. Things were bad enough as they were. Only Sanderson chuckled sardonically.

“Nice going, Vanning. How about Callahan now?”

The detective grunted. Zeeth panted, “I would⁠—have preferred a⁠—peaceful death. I do not⁠—like torture.”

Vanning felt a pang of sympathy for the fat little native. But he couldn’t help him. Escape was the only chance.

“Here,” Lysla gasped, pausing in the shadow of a tall building. “These outer houses are all deserted. There’s the gate.”

Across a dim expanse of bare soil it loomed, a wall of metal rising high above their heads. Vanning stared.

“No guards. Maybe it’s locked. Still⁠ ⁠… I’m going out there. If there are any Swamja, they’ll jump me. Then run like hell. Don’t try to help.”

Without waiting for an answer he sprinted across the clearing. At the door he paused, staring around. Nothing stirred. He heard nothing but the distant tumult from within the city. Looking back, he could see the faint elfin-lights glowing here and there, and the shining tube rising to the dome⁠—the tube that was pouring out the North-Fever virus into the atmosphere of tortured, enslaved Venus.

And these were the gods of Venus, Vanning thought bitterly. Devils, rather!

He turned to the door. The locks were in plain sight, and yielded after a minute or two to his trained hands. The door swung open automatically.

Beyond was an empty, lighted tunnel, stretching bare and silent for perhaps fifty yards. At its end was another door.

Vanning held up his hand. “Wait a bit!” he called softly. “I’ll open the other one. Then come running!”

“Right!” Sanderson’s voice called back.

An eternity later the second door swung open. Vanning gave the signal, and heard the thud of racing feet. He didn’t turn. He was staring out across the threshold, a sick hopelessness tugging at his stomach.

The door to freedom had opened⁠—mockingly. Ahead of him was the floor of a canyon, widening as it ran on. But the solid ground existed for only a quarter of a mile beyond the threshold.

Beyond that was flame.

Red, crawling fire carpeted the valley from unscalable wall to granite scarp. Lava, restless, seething, boiled hotly down the slope, reddening the low-hanging fog into scarlet, twisting veils. Nothing alive could pass that terrible barrier. That was obvious.

Zeeth said softly, “It will be a quicker death than the Swamja will give us.”

“No!” Vanning’s response was instinctive. “Damned if I’ll go out that way. Or let⁠—” He stopped, glancing at Lysla. Her blue eyes were curiously calm.

“The cliffs?” she suggested.

Vanning scanned them. “No use. They can’t be climbed. No wonder the Swamja left this door unguarded!”

“Wonder why they had it in the first place?” Hobbs asked.

“Maybe there was a way out here once. Then the lava burst through⁠ ⁠… I’ve seen lava pits like this on Venus,” Sanderson grunted. “They’re pure hell. This isn’t an exit⁠—except for a salamander.”

“Then there’s no way?” Lysla asked.

Vanning’s jaw set. “There’s a way. A crazy way⁠—but I can’t see any other, unless we can get out by the south gate.”

“Impossible,” Hobbs said flatly.

“Yeah. They’ll have plenty of guards there now⁠ ⁠… I mean the spaceship.”

There was a momentary silence. Zeeth shook his head.

“No ship can live in the air of Venus.”

“I said it was a crazy way. But we might get through. We just might. And it’s the only chance we have.”

Sanderson scratched his red head. “I’m for it. I don’t want to be skinned alive⁠ ⁠… I’m with you, Vanning. You a pilot?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll have to be the best damned pilot in the System to get us through alive.”

Lysla said, “Okay. What are we waiting for?” An indomitable grin flashed in her grimy, lovely face.

“Good girl,” Hobbs encouraged. “We’d better get out of here, anyway. Back to the city.”

They returned through the valve, without troubling to close the doors. “The Swamja might think we tried to get through the lava,” Vanning explained. “We need all the false trails we can lay. Now⁠—we’d better hide out for a bit till the riot dies down.”

“Good idea,” Sanderson nodded.

“These outer buildings are deserted⁠—I told you that. We can find a hiding-place⁠—”

Lysla led them into one of the structures, and into a room below the level of the street. “They’ll search, but it’ll take a while. Now I suppose we just wait.”

Since there were no windows, the light Lysla turned on would not attract attention. Nevertheless, Vanning subconsciously felt the urge to remain in darkness.

He grinned mirthlessly. “I’m beginning to know how you feel, Callahan. Being a fugitive must be pretty tough.”

Nobody answered.

The silence ran on and on interminably. Finally Sanderson broke it.

“We forgot one thing. No slaves are allowed on the streets tonight without a Swamja along.”

“I didn’t forget,” Lysla said in a low voice. “There wasn’t any other way.”

“But we haven’t a chance in the world to get through.”

“I know that, too,” the girl whispered. “But⁠—” Abruptly she collapsed in a heap, her auburn curls shrouding her face. Under the red tunic her slim shoulders shook convulsively.

Sanderson took a deep breath. A wry smile twisted his mouth.

“Okay, Vanning,” he said. “Let’s have that makeup kit.”

The detective stared. Curiously, he felt no exultation. Instead, there was a sick depression at the thought that Sanderson⁠—the man who had fought at his side⁠—was Callahan.

“I don’t⁠—”

Sanderson⁠—or Callahan⁠—shrugged impatiently. “Let’s have it. This is the only way left. I wouldn’t have given myself away if it hadn’t been necessary. You’d never have suspected me⁠ ⁠… let’s have it!”

Silently Vanning handed over the makeup kit. Lysla had lifted her head to watch Callahan out of wondering eyes. Hobbs was chewing his lip, scowling in amazement. Zeeth was the only one who did not look surprised.

But even he lost his impassivity when Callahan began to use the makeup kit. It was a Pandora’s box, and it seemed incredible that a complete disguise could issue from that small container. And yet⁠—

Callahan used the polished back of it as a mirror. He sent Lysla for water and containers, easily procurable elsewhere in the building, and mixed a greenish paste which he applied to his skin. Tiny wire gadgets expanded his mouth to a gaping slit. Artificial tissue built up his face till his nose had vanished. Isoflex was cut and moulded into duplicates of the Swamja’s bulging, glassy eyes. Callahan’s fingers flew. He mixed, painted, worked unerringly. He even altered the color of his garments by dousing them in a dye-solution, till they had lost the betraying red tint that betokened a slave.

In the end⁠—a Swamja stood facing Vanning!

“All right,” Callahan said tiredly. “I’ll pass⁠—if we keep out of bright lights. Now go out and help Lysla do guard duty. I’m going to disguise you all. That’ll help.”

Vanning didn’t move as the others left. Callahan took an oilskin packet from his belt and held it out. “Here’s the treaty. I suppose you came after that.”

The detective opened the bundle and checked its contents. He nodded. It was the vital treaty, which would have caused revolution on Callisto. Slowly Vanning tore it into tiny shreds, his eyes on Callahan. It was difficult, somehow, for him to find words.

The other man shrugged. “That’s that. And I suppose you’ll be taking me back to Earth⁠—if we get out of this alive.”

“Yeah,” Vanning said tonelessly.

“Okay.” Callahan’s voice was tired. “Let’s go. We haven’t time to disguise everybody⁠—that was just an excuse to give you the treaty. A private matter⁠—”

He shuffled to the door, with the lumbering tread of the Swamja, and Vanning followed close at his heels.

The others were waiting.

Vanning said, “Okay. Let’s start. No time to disguise ourselves. Stay behind⁠—”

In a close group the five moved along the avenue, Callahan in the lead.

The outlaw’s disguise was almost perfect, but nevertheless he did not trust to it entirely. When possible, he moved along dimly-lighted streets, the four others keeping close to his heels. Once a patrol of Swamja guards passed, but at a distance.

“I’m worried,” Callahan whispered to Vanning. “Those creatures have⁠—different senses from ours. I’ve a hunch they communicate partly by telepathy. If they try that on me⁠—”

“Hurry,” the detective urged, with a sidewise glance at Lysla. “And for God’s sake don’t get lost.”

“I won’t. I’m heading for the left of the tube-tower. That’s right, isn’t it?”

Zeeth nodded. “That’s it. I’ll tell you if I go wrong. Careful!”

A Swamja was waddling toward them. Callahan hastily turned into a side street, making a detour to avoid the monster. For a while they were safe.⁠ ⁠…

Lysla pressed close to Vanning, and he squeezed her arm reassuringly, with a confidence he could not feel. Not until now had he realized the vital importance of environment. On Mars or barren Callisto he had never felt this helplessness in the face of tremendous, inhuman powers⁠—against which it was impossible to fight. Hopeless odds!

But luck incredibly favored them. They reached their destination without an alarm being raised. Crouching in the shadows by the square where the spaceship lay, they peered at the three guards who paced about, armed and ready.

“Only three,” Lysla said.

Vanning chewed at his lip. “Callahan, you know more about locks than I do. When we rush, get around to the other side of the ship and unlock the port. It may not be easy. The rest of us⁠—we’ll keep the Swamja busy.”

Callahan nodded. “I suppose that’s best. We’ve only one gun.”

“Well⁠—that can’t be helped. Lysla, you go with Callahan.”

The blue eyes blazed. “No! It’ll take all of us to manage the guards. I’m fighting with you.”

Vanning grunted. “Well⁠—here. Take the gun. Use it when you get a chance, but be careful. Zeeth? Hobbs? Ready?”

The two men nodded silently. With a hard grin on his tired face, Vanning gave the signal and followed the disguised Callahan as he walked toward the ship. Maybe the guards wouldn’t take alarm at sight of one of their own race, as they thought. But the masquerade couldn’t keep up indefinitely.

The sentries looked toward the newcomers, but made no hostile move. One of them barked a question. Callahan didn’t answer. He kept lumbering toward the ship, his masked face hideous and impassive. Vanning, at his heels, was tense as wire. Beside him, he heard Zeeth breathing in little gasps.

Twenty paces separated the two parties⁠—fifteen⁠—ten. A guard croaked warning. His hand lifted, a gun gripped in the malformed fingers.

Simultaneously Lysla whipped up her weapon and fired. Once⁠—twice⁠—and the Swamja cried out and dropped his gun, pawing at his eyes. Then⁠—

“Let ’em have it!” Vanning snarled⁠—and sprang forward. “Callahan! Get that port open!”

The masked figure hesitated, gave a whispered sound that might have been a curse, and then sprinted around the side of the spaceship. Vanning didn’t see him. His shoulder caromed into the middle of the second guard, and the two went down together, slugging, clawing, kicking.

The Swamja was incredibly strong. His mouth gaped at Vanning’s throat. With an agile twist, the detective wrenched himself away, but by that time there was a gun leveled at his head. A wave of blazing agony blasted through Vanning’s body⁠—and was instantly gone. The weapon had not been turned up to the killing power.

The Swamja twisted the barrel with one finger, making the necessary adjustment. But Vanning hadn’t been idle. His hands crossed over the gun, wrenched savagely. There was a crack of breaking bone, and the Swamja croaked in agony, his fingers broken.

He wasn’t conquered⁠—no! Ignoring what must have been sickening pain, he threw his arms around Vanning and squeezed till the breath rushed from the human’s lungs. The detective felt himself losing consciousness. It was impossible to break that steel grip⁠—

Once more the fangs gaped at his throat. Vanning summoned his waning strength. His left hand gripped the monster’s lower jaw, his right hand the upper. Sharp teeth ripped his fingers. He did not feel them, nor the foul, gusting breath that blew hot on his sweating face.

He wrenched viciously, dragging the creature’s mouth wide open⁠—and wider yet!

A hoarse roar bubbled from the Swamja’s throat. There was a sharp crack, and the malformed body twisted convulsively. The mighty arms tightened, nearly breaking Vanning’s back. Then⁠—they relaxed.

The Swamja lay still, his spine snapped.

Vanning staggered up, hearing a roaring in his ears. It wasn’t imagination. Across the square, monstrous figures came racing, shouting harshly⁠—Swamja, dozens of them!

“Vanning!” Hobbs’ voice croaked.

On the ground, three figures were wrestling in a contorted mass⁠—Zeeth and Hobbs and the remaining Swamja. The monster was conquering. His bulging eyes glared with mad fury. Great muscles stood out on his gnarled arms as he tore at his opponents.

With a choking curse Vanning snatched up the gun his late enemy had dropped and sprang forward. His aim was good. The Swamja’s eyes went dull as the destroying charge short-circuited his nerves.

The racing Swamja were dangerously close as Vanning bent, tearing at the monster’s mighty hands. Useless!

He pressed his gun-muzzle into the Swamja’s armpit and fired and fired again. Presently one arm writhed free. Vanning seized the two men, literally tore them from the creature’s grip.

“The port!” Vanning gasped. “Get into⁠—the ship!”

Hobbs lifted Zeeth and staggered around the bow. As Vanning turned to follow, he saw the slim body of Lysla lying motionless on the ground, in the path of the racing Swamja.

He sprinted forward, scooped up the girl in one motion, and swerved back, running as though all hell were at his heels. A croaking yell went up. Sickening pain lanced through Vanning, and he nearly fell. But the shock, though agonizing, wasn’t permanent. Legs afire, the detective rounded the ship’s bow and saw a circular hole gaping in the corroded hull.

He flung himself toward it. Through a crimson mist the masked face of Callahan swam into view. The man leaped out of the ship, caught up Lysla from Vanning’s arms, and scrambled with her back through the port.

As Vanning tried to follow, he saw Callahan crouching on the threshold of the valve, an odd hesitancy in his manner. One of Callahan’s hands was on the lever that would close and seal the ship. For a brief eternity the eyes of the two men met and clashed.

Vanning read what was clear to read. If Callahan closed the port now, leaving Vanning outside⁠—he would be safe from the law. No doubt the man knew how to pilot a spaceship⁠—

A shout roared out from behind Vanning. Callahan snarled an oath, seized the detective’s hand, and yanked him into the ship. As a Swamja tried to scramble through the valve, Callahan’s foot drove viciously into the monster’s hideous face, sending him reeling back among his fellows.

Then the port clanged shut!

The port clanged shut, and the sudden silence of the ship was nerve-shattering in its instant cessation of sound.

Vanning managed to get to his feet. He didn’t look at Callahan. Lysla, he saw, was still motionless. Hobbs was kneeling beside her.

“Lysla⁠—she all right?” the detective rasped.

“Yes.” Hobbs managed a weak grin. “She got in the way of a paralyzing charge⁠—but she’ll be all right.”

“Okay.” Vanning turned to the controls. They were archaic⁠—in fact, the whole design of the ship was strange to him. It had been built a century ago, and rust and yellow corrosion was everywhere.

“Think it’ll blast off?” Callahan asked as Vanning dropped into the pilot’s seat.

“We’ll pray! Let’s see how much fuel⁠—” He touched a button, his gaze riveted on a gauge.

The needle quivered slightly⁠—that was all.

Callahan didn’t say anything. Vanning’s face went gray.

“No fuel,” he got out.

There was a clanging tumult at the port, resounding from the outer hull.

“They can’t get in,” Callahan said slowly.

“We can’t raise the ship,” Vanning countered. “When we’ve used up all the air in here, we’ll suffocate. Unless we surrender to the Swamja.”

Hobbs gave a croaking laugh. “Not likely. There aren’t any weapons here. The ship’s been stripped clean.”

Callahan said, “If we could break through the dome⁠—”

“There might be enough fuel for that⁠—if it hasn’t deteriorated. But then what? We’d crash. Certain death. You know that.”

Vanning clicked another button into its socket. “Let’s see if the visiplate works.”

It did. On a panel before him a dim light glowed. It gave place to a picture, clouded and cracked across the middle. They could see the square, with the Swamja swarming into it in ever-increasing numbers, with the twisted buildings rising in the background, and the tower-tube shining far away.

Vanning caught his breath. “Listen,” he said. “There’s still a chance. A damned slim one⁠—”

“What?”

The detective hesitated. If he took time to weigh this mad scheme, he knew it would seem utterly impossible. Instead, he snapped, “Brace yourselves! We’re taking off for a crash landing!”

Callahan looked at Vanning’s set, haggard face, and whirled. He picked up Lysla’s limp body and braced himself in a corner. Zeeth and Hobbs did the same. Before any of them could speak, Vanning had swung the power switch.

He was praying silently that there was still a little fuel left in the chambers, just a little, and that it would still work. His prayer was answered instantly. With a roaring thunder of rocket-tubes the lifeboat bulleted up from the ground!

The bellow died. There was no more fuel.

Vanning stared at the visiplate. Beneath him the city of the Swamja was spread, the elfin lights glimmering, the coral palaces twisted like strange fungus growths. Automatically his hands worked at the corroded guide-levers that controlled the wind-vanes on the ship’s hull.

The space-boat circles⁠—swept around⁠—

The shining tower-tube loomed directly ahead. Jaws aching, teeth clenched, Vanning held steady on his course. The ship thundered down with wind screaming madly in its wake.

The tube loomed larger⁠—larger still. It blotted out the city. One glimpse Vanning had of the metal surface rising like a wall before him⁠—

And the ship struck!

Rending, ripping, tearing, the space-boat crashed through the tube, bringing it down in thundering ruin. Briefly the visiplate was a maelstrom of whirling shards. Then the glare of an elf-light raced up to meet the ship.

It exploded in flaming suns within Vanning’s brain. He never knew when the ship struck.

V

He looked up into Zeeth’s eyes. Blood smeared the Venusian’s fat face, but he was smiling wanly.

“Hello,” Vanning said, sitting up.

Zeeth nodded. “The others are all right. Still unconscious.”

“The crash⁠—”

“Hobbs has a broken arm, and I cracked a rib, I think. But the ship’s hull was tough.”

Vanning stood up. His eyes was caught by the movement on the visiplate, which had incredibly survived the shock of landing. He moved forward, bracing himself against the back of the pilot’s chair.

The city of the Swamja lay spread beneath him. The ship had lodged itself high on one of the towers, smashing its way into a sort of cradle, and then rolling down till its bow faced north. In the distance the jagged metal of the tube stood up forty feet above ground level. The rest of it wasn’t there, though gleaming, twisted plates of metal lay here and there in the streets.

And through the avenues shapes were moving. They were the Swamja, and they moved like automatons. They moved in one direction only⁠—away from the ship.

As far as Vanning could see the Swamja were pouring through their city.

Zeeth said softly, “You are very clever. I still do not understand⁠—”

Vanning shrugged, and his voice was tired. “The only way, Zeeth. I broke the tube that shot the North-Fever virus into the upper air. The virus was released within the city, in tremendous quantity. You know how fast it works. And in this strength⁠—”

“Yes. It strikes quickly.”

“Once you’ve had the fever, you’re immune to it ever afterward. So the slaves won’t suffer. Only the Swamja. They’re getting a dose of their own medicine.”

“They go north,” Zeeth said. “Out of the city.”

It was true. Far in the distance, the Swamja were pouring toward the north gate, and vanishing through the open valves there. Nothing could halt them. The deadly virus they had created was flaming in their veins, and⁠—they went north.

The did not walk; they ran, as though anxious to meet their doom. Through the city they raced, grotesque, hideous figures, unconscious of anything but the terrible, resistless drive that drew them blindly north. Through the north gate, into the pass⁠—

Through the pass⁠—to the lava pits!

Vanning’s shoulders slumped. “It’s nasty. But⁠—I suppose⁠—”

“Even the gods must die,” Zeeth said.

“Yeah.⁠ ⁠… Well, we’ve work to do. We’ll get food, water, and supplies, and head south for Venus Landing to get help. A small party will do. Then we can commandeer troops and swamp-cats to rescue the slaves from this corner of hell. We can get through to Venus Landing all right⁠—”

“Yes, that will be possible⁠—though difficult. Vanning⁠—” Zeeth’s eyes hooded.

“Yeah?”

“Callahan is not here.”

“What?”

The Venusian made a quick gesture. “He awoke when I did. He told me to say that he had no wish to go to prison⁠—so he was leaving.”

“Where to?” Vanning asked quietly.

“Venus landing. He left the ship an hour ago to get food and weapons, and by this time he is in the southern swamps, well on his way. At the Landing, he said, he would embark on a spaceship heading⁠—somewhere.”

“I see. He’ll reach the Landing before we do, then. Before we leave, we’ll have to get things in some sort of order.”

Both Hobbs and the girl were moving slightly. Presently they would awaken⁠—and then the work would begin. With the city emptied of the Swamja, it would be easy to organize the slaves, get up a party to march to Venus Landing⁠—

Vanning’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. So Callahan was gone. He wasn’t surprised. Callahan would never know that the detective had awakened from the crash before any of the others⁠—and had shammed unconsciousness till the fugitive had had time to make good his escape.

Vanning shrugged. Maybe he was a damn fool. Getting softhearted.⁠ ⁠…

“Okay,” he said to Zeeth. “Let’s get busy. We’ve got a job ahead of us!”

I

Despite the blazing heat of the hot Indian night, this air-conditioned room in the palace was cool and comfortable. It was a bit too luxurious for a business office; otherwise, it might have been any New York suite. Three men sat at a small glass-topped table, on which stood a Gladstone bag.

They rose as two Indians entered, bowing respectfully to the Rajah. The latter was a small, weak-faced man with a straggling moustache and lips too large and red for his sallow face. He barely acknowledged the greetings, his gaze riveted on the leather bag.

“You have the Earth Star?” he asked.

“Yes,” said one of the three Europeans. He opened the bag, unlocked a metal case built into it, and withdrew a jewel-case. This he opened and placed flat on the table.

The Rajah’s mouth went dry. He could not repress a little shiver. “The Earth Star⁠ ⁠…” he whispered.

On black velvet the great gem flamed. It was lens-shaped and supernally lovely, with rays of living light flaming out from its heart. The colors latent within it changed and shifted under the soft illumination. It was like a diamond⁠—yet no diamond had ever possessed the wonder of the Earth Star.

The Rajah’s secretary breathed deeply. “Carbon,” he murmured. “A tree-fern some million years ago⁠—”

One of the Europeans interrupted, though he did not look away from the jewel. “A little more than that, sir. It took unusual pressure to make the Earth Star. It came from the new cavern mines under the Atlantic, you know, when they were taking cores to test from immense depths. A tree-fern made the Earth Star⁠—but that fern was somehow buried deeper than man has ever thought possible. It’s immensely harder than diamond, though it’s carbon, of course. And the only one in existence⁠—”

The Rajah said softly, “There is an Earth Star in the crown of your ruler.”

A subdued smile went the rounds of the group. “So there is, and an excellent imitation, too. I repeat: you will be the owner of the only Earth Star in existence.”

The Rajah placed his slim hand, glittering with invaluable jeweled rings, flat on the tabletop. “Then it is a bargain. My secretary will give you a check.”

Abruptly the moonlight was blotted out. The figure of a man seemed to rush out of the night, leaping in through the open window to land lightly on the deep carpet. And that window overlooked a sheer abyss, reaching down to the river gorge far below.

The sudden movements of the Europeans, and the quick gesture of the Rajah’s secretary, were arrested at sight of an oddly shaped pistol in a gloved hand. The intruder stood motionless, one hand gripping a light metal ladder that extended up through the window and out of sight. He wore ordinary flying togs, but his face was hidden by a black silk mask.

“Don’t move,” he said, in a low voice that was obviously disguised. “No⁠—don’t do that!” The pistol jerked slightly; otherwise there was no indication that the trigger had been pulled. But one of the Europeans cursed softly as his arm dropped to his side, paralyzed.

“A neurogun,” the masked man observed pleasantly. “It can kill, you know.⁠ ⁠… I’ll thank you not to move. Now⁠—” He hooked the flexible ladder across a chair and moved warily to the table. “The Earth Star, eh?”

“Don’t be a fool,” the secretary said. “You can’t hope to sell that. It’s unique.”

The intruder did not answer, but his quizzical gaze was amused. The tallest of the Europeans snarled, “Sell it? Jackass⁠—haven’t you ever heard of the Merlin?”

As he spoke, his foot moved slightly toward the chair to which the ladder was attached. He froze as the Merlin turned toward him.

“You recognize me?”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“Good!” The Merlin’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Then listen! I have ways of finding out what I want to know. I discovered that certain powers ruling your country had decided to sell the Earth Star to our friend the Rajah. The price I don’t know, but it must be fabulous. If that money were to go to needed purposes, I’d not have come here tonight.”

The tall European kicked the chair gently. The metal ladder slipped off, slid across the carpet, and vanished out the window. The Merlin apparently did not notice, though his retreat was now cut off.

He went on: “But the money is to be used for armaments. And you gentlemen, and those behind you, are trying to foment a new war. As for you⁠—” He glanced at the Rajah. “You are a degenerate moron. Don’t move! It’s probably the first time you’ve ever heard the truth, but you’re going to hear it now. You’re the wealthiest man in the Orient, and you inherited your fortune, as well as your powers. You won’t buy the Earth Star out of your own treasury, though. It’ll mean taxes for your people, who are starving already. Another reason why I’m here.”

The Merlin glanced down. “This bit of carbon is causing trouble, I think. So I’ll take it along. The imitation that was made to replace it won’t interest the Rajah. So⁠—”

He slipped the jewel in his pocket and moved back toward the window. The others watched him narrowly. The Merlin apparently did not notice the absence of his metal ladder.

The gun was still steady in one hand, but in the other he now held an object like a small flashlight. “You may be interested in knowing how I evaded your guards and alarms. I came in a gyroship.”

“But⁠—my motor-killing rays⁠—” The Rajah’s eyes were wide.

“They extend up only 300 feet. I hovered well above that point and came down a ladder. And here it is.”

The ladder swung in from the darkness. The Merlin’s voice was amused as he slipped the “flashlight” into his flying suit.

“A clever trick⁠—but I have a very powerful magnet. I’ll leave you, gentlemen⁠—”

For an instant his attention was distracted as he put one foot on the windowsill. Simultaneously the tallest European acted. With a deep-voiced oath he sprang forward, seized the Merlin, and clamped one hand over the outlaw’s gun-wrist.

“Hold him!” the secretary shrilled. He dived for an alarm buzzer. The other Europeans closed in.

The Merlin fought in silence. His opponent was trying to drag him back into the room⁠—and that would be fatal. The outlaw dropped his weapon and gripped the ladder, with both hands now.

He pulled himself up, putting all his weight on his arms. Inevitably the European was lifted too. Overbalanced, the two went arcing into the night as clutching fingers missed their mark by a fraction.

“Shoot!” the Rajah screamed. “Shoot him!”

Guns blazed from the window. Dim in the moonlight two figures were struggling on a frail metal ladder, suspended above nothingness. A scrap of cloth went fluttering down.

“His mask⁠—”

Out of the dark came a voice, sharp and clear.

“Martell!”

It rose in a scream. One of the figures went plunging down.

The secretary was at the window, a flashlight in his hand. He focused the beam on the quarry, a man in flying togs who kept his face turned from the light. Now other rays shot out from the roof, bathing the Merlin in merciless brilliance. A shot cracked sharply.

“They’ll get him,” the Rajah said. “I’ve sub-machine guns on the roof.”

The Merlin’s hand lifted, fumbled over the ladder. And⁠—suddenly⁠—he was gone! Ladder and outlaw vanished!

The Rajah stared in blank amazement. “How⁠—”

“Automatic winding device in his plane. It just wound him up.” The European who spoke looked at his empty gun. “Better get your planes after him.”

At a nod from the Rajah the secretary hurried from the room. “We’ll get him,” royalty remarked.

“No, you won’t. The Merlin’s got a fast plane. He’s pulled off these things before. But this time⁠—well, he lost his mask.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“Stone did, before he fell. He screamed a name. Remember? Martell.”

“A common name,” the Rajah frowned.

“Stone and I worked closely together. He knew no Martells. He recognized the name and the face from elsewhere. Newsreels⁠—newspapers⁠—everybody knows Seth Martell and his sons. I’ll get in touch with my government immediately. May I use your televisor?”

“Yes. Recover the Earth Star, and I’ll buy it.”

“That,” said the European grimly, “is a bargain.”

Seth Martell’s craggy, strong face was set in harsh lines as he sat staring at a folded paper on his desk. Sunlight came warmly through the windows of the penthouse apartment above New York, silvering Martell’s iron-gray hair and clipped moustache. He looked hard as nails⁠—till he lifted his lids and gazed at the three young men before him.

Seth Martell was one of the biggest men in America. Connected with the military, high up in the government, his honesty had never been questioned, nor his devotion to his country. Always he had been unswerving in serving his own ideals, no matter what self-sacrifice it entailed. Now⁠—

Now there was pain in his gray eyes.

He looked at his three sons and hesitated, tapping the folded document with stubby, calloused fingers.

“Well?”

None of the three spoke.

Martell reached for a buzzer, and then drew back his hand. He looked at the tallest of the three.

“Tony. Are you the Merlin?”

Tony⁠—a dark, lean young man, with very keen black eyes and a thin eager face⁠—cocked up a quizzical eyebrow. “I, sir? The⁠—”

Martell’s restraint failed for an instant as he snapped, “Answer me!”

Tony sobered. “No, sir,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”

“Phil.”

The second youth, blond and stocky, took a stubby pipe out of his mouth.

“No, sir.”

“Jimmy.”

The third of the trio looked somewhat like Tony, though a less matured man. The eagerness in Tony’s face was enthusiasm in Jimmy’s, boyish and pleasant. He shot a quick glance at the others, hesitated, and finally said, with a little frown, “I’m not the Merlin, sir.”

Martell sighed. “All right. Go in the sunroom and wait, boys. The investigators will be in presently.” He sat steadily regarding his nails till his sons had departed.

Tony left them at the door. “Be with you directly,” he murmured, and hurried off along the corridor. The others went into the room, and ten minutes later the oldest of the three came in, his face blandly impassive. He went to the window and stood staring out over the skyscrapers of New York, waiting on the verge of the 21st century. He began to whistle ruminatively.

“Seth insisted on interviewing us before the detecs. Good of him.”

Young Jimmy, nervously lighting a cigarette, nodded. “Damn good. But all this.⁠ ⁠… I don’t understand it.”

Phil’s serious eyes were questioning. “Are you sure? There’s no doubt the authorities think one of us is a crook. I wonder⁠—”

There was a little silence. Finally Jimmy asked, “Who is this Merlin, anyway?”

“Cleverest crook in the world,” said Tony, turning. “At least, he’s been kicking around for two years. That means a lot these days. He’s pretty much of a Robin Hood. Only kills in self-defense⁠—and never for personal profit.”

Phil broke in, “Plenty of criminals have evaded capture for years, but they’re the small fry. Not important enough to attract attention. But the Merlin⁠—everyone thinks he’s had years of experience. Remember when Janison died? The governor? The Merlin killed him, and nobody knew why till they found out Janison was one of the biggest political racketeers in the country. He’s a Robin Hood of sorts, but the law won’t stand for Robin Hoods.”

“And,” said Tony sardonically, “one of us is the Merlin. So they say.”

Phil grinned. “Which one?”

“Oh, they’ll find out. They’ll chart our psychology⁠—our character patterns⁠—and check it with the analysis of the Merlin’s activities. Their lie-detectors will tell them which one of us is the Merlin. That’s positive identification, you know.”

Jimmy crushed out his cigarette, lips working. He swung suddenly on the others.

“You’re damn flippant about it! What if it’s true? What if one of us is this crook⁠—d’you know what that’ll mean to Seth? His son shown to the world as a thief and a murderer. Seth will stick by us; I know that. But I know what his honor means to him. He got that silver plate in his skull because he thought more of honor than his life. And now⁠—”

“Shut up, Jimmy,” Phil said quietly. “We know all that. But what can we do about it?”

Tony murmured, “Our youngest brother is about to suggest that the Merlin confess. A touching sentiment. Headlines all over the world announcing the news. Seth resigning all his offices immediately⁠—he’d do that. Everyone knowing that a son of Seth Martell was⁠—the Merlin.”

Phil said, “The Merlin might⁠ ⁠… disappear.”

“He’d have to disappear for good. Suppose I’m the lad, Philip, and suppose I disappear. A signed confession would be just as effective. The moment I disappear, it proves I’m the Merlin. No one has ever watched us. As Seth’s sons, we’re above the routine character-checks. We reported to Seth once a month. Otherwise we were free, all of us, with plenty of time to do as we pleased. Including brigandage!”

Phil grunted. “Anyway, people can’t simply drop out of sight in this day and age. Not with television, specialized wireless, telephotography, and so forth. Where the devil could a man hide for years?”

“In the Foreign Legion,” Tony said, and waited. His gaze searched the faces of the other two.

Surprise, astonishment, and incredulity showed. And vanished. Into Phil’s eyes came a look of dogged grimness. And Jimmy’s face showed⁠—excitement.

“The Legion?” he asked.

“Yeah. No extradition. Since 1960, when the company started. No government has a hand in the Legion. They rent its services from the company, just as the Hessian dukes used to sell their soldiers to fight for other countries. When there’s a job to be done too dirty for anyone else, they ask the Legion⁠—and waive extradition. The Polar fortresses. The Sub-Sahara. The Canal Patrols on Mars. Dangerous space-lane patrols. It isn’t like the ancient French Legion. This one’s privately owned, and, once you get in, nothing on Earth or Mars can touch you. As long as you’re in the Legion. Men don’t live long in it, as a rule.”

“Cheerful thought,” Phil grunted, puffing at his pipe. “By the way, which of us is the Merlin?”

Tony smiled. “I’m the guy, lads. And that’s what I’ve been building up to. I’m going to drop out of sight. Head for the Legion. And⁠—well, I wanted you two to know about it. I can’t tell Seth, of course. But⁠—”

“I’ll be damned,” Phil said in blank amazement. “You’ve got the Earth Star?”

“That’s right.”

“Odd. I happen to have it myself. In a hollow tooth.”

“You’re both crazy,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got it.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s no use. There’s no point in the three of us going into the Legion. One’s enough. So⁠—”

Phil said, “Wait a minute. Suppose all three of us disappear? Nobody’d press a charge against three men, when obviously two were innocent. I happen to have the jewel myself⁠—”

“Yeah,” Tony grunted. “But slow down. You’re both going off the deep-end. I’m leaving now. Heading for the Legion, and you’re both staying here.”

Jimmy said, “We’ll meet you there.”

The argument kept on⁠—with no result. Jimmy and Phil were adamant. Each one insisted he had the stolen gem. And, if they didn’t accompany Tony, they’d simply go after him on their own hook. “So we’d better stick together,” Phil said at last. “We’ll have a better chance that way.”

Tony’s lips were compressed. “You crazy fools! You’d do it, too⁠ ⁠… well, stay here. I’m going after an amphiplane.”

“What if the investigators get here first?” Phil asked.

“Stall ’em. And keep your eye on that window.”

Jimmy was chewing his lip. “How do you expect to get out? If there are guards⁠—”

Tony’s grin flashed. “You’ll find out.” He turned to the door⁠—and was gone, apparently unruffled. But as he hurried along the passage there was a gnawing uneasiness in his mind. Guards would no doubt be watching to prevent just such an attempt at escape as this. Only blind luck could help now.

He went into the big, gleaming kitchen, a bare room with murals on its walls. Every appliance had been built-in, so that stove, tables, and so forth, could be swung out from their cubbyholes by the pressure of a button. The room was empty.

Tony’s sharp eyes flickered about, resting at last on a panel near by. He went to it, swung it open, and revealed a black hole beyond. The dumbwaiter. A glance upward informed him that the little car was below, though how far he did not know. Deftly Tony swung his legs through the hole and seized the ropes in strong fingers.

He closed the panel behind him.

It wasn’t entirely dark. A diffused pale glow filtered down from above, and gently, carefully, Tony let himself slip toward the shaft’s bottom. It was a long chance. Unless he found footing on the dumbwaiter car soon, his fingers would inevitably lose their cramped grip. For this was a penthouse apartment in a skyscraper.

Down he went into the shaft. Skin scraped from his hands. It grew darker, and below him was only unfathomable blackness. Tony hooked his legs about the rope and rested for a few moments, though he dared not delay long. Time was vitally important.

Then down he went again. He was in pitch darkness now, every muscle strained and beginning to ache. His hands stung painfully. His shoulders were throbbing.

Tony’s feet thumped softly upon the peaked top of the car.

Gasping with relief, he relaxed, keeping the ropes wound about his wrist so that his weight would not carry the car to the bottom too suddenly. But a moment later he was plummeting down, occasionally checking his speed when caution grew stronger than the imperative need for haste. Up in the penthouse Jimmy and Phil were waiting, perhaps being questioned even now by the investigators. And Seth⁠—unseen in the darkness, Tony’s face grew grim. Seth was suffering. The old man’s devotion to his ideals, to humanity was pitted against his genuine love for his three stepsons. And one of those three was the Merlin.

Finally the car thumped against the bottom of the shaft. A little crack of light indicated the panel opening into the porter’s cellar. Tony used his knife-blade to open it, easing the door outward little by little till he discovered that the room was vacant.

The rest was surprisingly easy. A pair of overalls and a cap in a closet made a satisfactory disguise, and, carrying a can of rubbish, Tony walked blandly past the service man posted on guard outside. He deposited his burden on the sidewalk, and without a pause began to hurry toward the corner. A hail stopped him.

“You, there! Wait a minute!”

Tony turned. The guard was following him, gaze probing. A thick finger thrust out suspiciously.

“Where’re you going?”

The street was almost empty. Tony didn’t wait for the guard. He hastened toward him, arms hanging loosely at his side⁠—until the last moment. Then, as recognition came into the man’s eyes and as his hand dived into a pocket, Tony brought up his fist in a vicious uppercut. The blow was delivered at such close quarters that it went unobserved by passersby. The dull thwack of bone against bone was the only sound. Tony caught the guard as he fell, pulled him swiftly back into the cellar, and left him there. The man was out for the count.

There were no other guards. Tony’s progress was not halted again. He reached his destination, secured a small, swift amphiplane, equipped with gyros, and lifted it through the port in the roof. Luckily, he had plenty of money in his pocket⁠—enough to buy the plane instead of renting it, had he desired to do so. But, like most ships of this type, the instrument board was fitted with a “homing pigeon” device, by which the plane could be set to return to its garage along a radio beam whenever desired.

Tony’s fingers flickered over the controls. The ship was a honey⁠—small and swift, built like a thick cigar, with retractable wings and props. He swung up in a wide arc that presently brought him directly over the penthouse that was his goal.

Briefly he wondered what had happened there, and whether Phil and Jimmy were still waiting. Well⁠—fast work was vital now. The investigators were already on guard. Sight of an approaching plane would warn them of trouble. Tony checked his controls, took a few deep breaths⁠—and dropped faster than was safe. The wind shrieked up into a high-pitched whine past the ship, almost beyond the threshold of hearing.

The skyscraper leaped toward him like a driving lance. Its top seemed about to impale him. But the controls had been expertly set, and the craft fled down safely to one side, stopping with a bone-wrenching jolt as the automatics took hold. Tony fought back giddiness and stared out through swimming eyes. His blurred vision focused. Too far to the left⁠—

He slid the ship forward. This was the window. Inside, he could see Phil’s broad back, and one hand extended in a sign of warning. So the investigators had already arrived. But where was Jimmy? Tony couldn’t be sure.

A voice he didn’t recognize was talking. One of the investigators⁠ ⁠…

“Well, we’ll find him. And the lie-detectors will give us the information we want. Trying to frame Seth Martell is the dirtiest thing the Merlin ever did.”

Jimmy said, “You’re nuts.”

“Yeah? One of our men saw it. The Merlin was opening Martell’s safe⁠—trying to put the Earth Star in it and throw the blame on Martell. But he didn’t have time. Our man was too close, and the Merlin had to scram in a hurry. Now⁠—which one of you was it?”

Tony’s eyebrows lifted. A new element had entered into the affair. Trying to throw the blame on Seth⁠—yeah, that was a hell of a lousy trick. So⁠—

Tony whistled softly, and saw Phil jerk aside, crying out something. A slim form came hurtling toward the window. Tony got a glimpse of Jimmy’s pale young face; then the boy was hurtling out into space, almost overshooting the mark in his eagerness. Tony seized his arm and pulled him back as he swayed on the ship’s edge. The craft dipped slightly under the additional weight, and then lifted again as compensatory stabilizers went into action.

From within the room came a crash, and a sharp cry of pain. Phil appeared, his face stolid and expressionless. He jumped, landing accurately, and immediately whirled. In his hand, Tony saw, was a bronze figurine he had snatched up from a table.

“Run for it!” he snapped. There were faces in the window. A gun snarled viciously. Phil hurled the figurine with deadly aim, shattering the glass above the group, and the investigators dodged back as shards and splinters showered them. Almost immediately they were back⁠—but Tony’s hands had found the controls.

The ship fled up. As it fled it curved southward, till far below could be seen the shining waters of Long Island Sound.

Jimmy said tautly, “They’re coming after us. I can see planes⁠—”

Phil touched a lever. The upper framework of the plane was instantly sheathed with transparent walls, making it more than ever resemble a fat, shining cigar.

Tony sent the craft rocketing down. Almost at the surface of the water, he pulled out into a glide, swooping almost without a splash into the Sound. The light was blotted out by green translucence that grew darker as the ship slanted into the depths.

“Not too deep,” Phil suggested. “The hull won’t stand a crack-up.”

Tony didn’t answer. He was fingering the controls, trying to get every possible bit of speed out of the ship before the pursuers located it with their search-rays. If they could reach the outer Atlantic, they’d be safe⁠—barring accident. But they were not safe in the Sound.

Abruptly the water ahead sizzled and bubbled with heat. An aerial torpedo had been launched. Tony shot up and then almost immediately dived again, shifting sharply to the left. Before his companions could get their breath, the ship was rushing back along the way it had came, retracing its path. Jimmy said sharply, “What the hell⁠—”

Phil’s fingers dug into the youngster’s arm. “Good idea, Tony.”

The latter nodded. “Maybe. We’ll dig in at the mouth of the Hudson. They’ll never look for us there. Then tonight we can slip out, take the air again⁠—and head for the Company.”

Jimmy said, “Once we’re there, we’re safe. There’s no extradition from the Legion, eh?”

“Only to Hell,” Tony remarked, grinning.

“So,” said the fat little man with the shaved head, “so you want to join the Legion. Eh?”

Tony looked him over. The dingy office in the outskirts of the North African city was unimpressive. But, somehow, the little man was not. He wore dirty white tropical linens, his face glistened with sweat, but to the three brothers he represented fate. On his decision their destiny would depend.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “We want to join. Well?”

The little man smiled, tapping pudgy fingers on the crowded desk. “Well. Let’s see. You passed the physical examination. Your names are⁠—Anthony. Phillips. Jameson.” The pale blue eyes sparkled maliciously. “Better remember ’em. Sometimes it’s hard at first, but you’ll get used to them. I’m sure I don’t know why everyone who enters the Legion changes his name. There’s no extradition. However⁠ ⁠… You are joining for a term of five years. If you wish to leave before then, you can buy your freedom if you have the money. If you have not, you must serve your term.

“You may try to escape. You may succeed. You may fail, and in that case will be assigned to the guards in the uranium pits of Mars. No one has ever escaped from there. It is not advisable⁠—” The blue eyes were hard as steel now. “It is scarcely wise to attempt escape. Aside from all else, when you leave us, you are no longer under the Company’s protection.”

He passed a plump hand over his shining head. “Anything more?”

Tony glanced at his brothers and shook his head. “Not a thing. What happens next?”

“The Sub-Sahara post needs men. It’s an easy job for recruits, keeping the Copts in check and seeing they don’t go outside raiding. Here!” A buzzer rang, and soon a man entered, clad in the dull gray uniform of the Legion. He saluted casually.

“Sir.”

“Captain Brady,” said the fat little man, “these three are assigned to Sub-Sahara. Rookies. Anthony, Phillips, Jameson. Break ’em in.” He immediately became engrossed in the papers piled high on his desk.

Tony looked at the officer with interest. He saw a spare figure, and a worn, tired face, deeply lined, with sunken eyes and a clipped moustache. An adventurer gone to seed, he thought⁠—grown tired.

Brady said, “Come along,” and led the way out of the room. They emerged in blazing white sunlight. A helicopter stood a few rods away, and the captain gestured toward it.

“’Ntre. We’ll fly, and talk as we go. Discipline needn’t begin till we reach Sub-Sahara, so if you’ve any questions⁠—I’m at your service.”

He pointed toward the plane, and followed the brothers into it. With quick, familiar motions he lifted the craft into the air and sent it winging southward.

“I’ll stop at Azouad. That’s an oasis on the way. You can get smokes and equipment there⁠—personal stuff you may want. That is⁠—if you have any money.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed, but he merely said, “We’ve a little.” He shifted on the worn leather seat, glancing aside at Captain Brady. The man’s haggard face was immobile, the eyes mere slits as he squinted into the flaming sunlight.

From the rear of the plane came Jimmy’s voice. “Just what is Sub-Sahara?”

Brady’s voice went dull with routine. “Well⁠—twenty years or more ago a labyrinth of caverns was discovered under the Sahara. It was inhabited by survivors of prehistoric Egyptians⁠—Copts. They were trapped underground in some ancient catastrophe, and got along there, gradually growing accustomed to their environment. Matter of fact⁠—there was a sort of colony in the old pre-dynastic days down there. The Copts worked mines, and there was a⁠—well, a city of miners under the Sahara. When the entrance was blocked, the miners couldn’t get out⁠—so they stayed there.”

“What about food?” Jimmy asked. “And oxygen?”

“There’s a lot about that Copt tribe we don’t know. Food⁠—well, fish and mushrooms are staples. The Midnight Sea lies under the Sahara. Ages ago the water in it made the desert itself a sea, but it drained underground at last. As for oxygen, there must have been outlets before we blasted some, though they’ve never been discovered. Possibly through river caves that drain into the sea.”

Captain Brady rubbed his eyes with the back of one mahogany hand. “A lot we don’t know about the Copts. Savage, ferocious⁠—but marvelous miners. The Legion’s posted there to keep order. Prevent raids on the surface tribes. The Copts worship Isis, or the Moon⁠—I dunno which. Probably they’re the same. Keep clear of them unless you’re armed; don’t monkey with their religion; and don’t enter any passages engraved with the emblems of the Moon and the sistrum.”

“Why not?”

“Religion, youngster. No white man has ever seen the Kaaba⁠—the Black Stone⁠—at Mecca. It’s sacred to the Muslim, just as the Alu⁠—the group of deepest caverns⁠—are sacred to the Copts. They say Amon-Ra is down there.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows lifted. “Amon-Ra? The ancient Egyptian god?”

“Right. ‘The Hidden Light.’ We have a sort of armed truce with the Copts, provided we don’t interfere too much. When they get out of line, we whip them back. Figuratively, of course.” Brady’s hand touched the buttoned holster at his thigh.

“What did you say the sacred caves were called?” Phil asked suddenly.

“Alu.”

“What does it mean?”

“The Land of Light.” Brady looked around. His face was alight with interest. “Have you studied Egyptology?”

“No⁠—afraid not.”

The captain’s eyes lost their glow. “Um. Bit of a hobby of mine. Land of Light⁠—Hidden Light⁠—Isis, the Moon goddess⁠—I’ve always wondered what exists in Alu. Never found out. Never expect to. But I shouldn’t be surprised if there’s the wreckage of a civilization down there.”

He chuckled. “Not that the commander agrees with me⁠—Commander Desquer, you’ll be under him. But he can’t tell me how the Pyramids were built, or the explanation of so many mysteries of Egypt. In my opinion, space travel was understood ages before Europeans achieved it. Yes⁠ ⁠…” He nodded thoughtfully. “A puzzle. A nomadic civilization on the Nile, and then, without warning, a civilization full-blown and decadent. Where did it come from? It was decadent when it reached Egypt. I wonder⁠ ⁠…”

He turned to the controls. “Here’s Azouad. Half an hour. You’ll find plenty of shops. Don’t buy any wines⁠—they won’t keep in Sub-Sahara. Brandy’s good. And pipes wear better than cigarettes in the Legion.”

Below the gyro was a patch of gray on the brownish, rolling Sahara plain. Small dots of faded green were visible, trees struggling desperately for moisture and life. In a clearing Captain Brady set down the ship.

“All out,” he grunted. “Parte! Half an hour, remember.”

The brothers watched the lean figure move briskly across the sunbaked square, to disappear into the depths of a cantina. Then they looked at one another.

“Well!” Jimmy murmured. “So we’re in the Legion!”

“Sub-Sahara. Um. Come on; we’ve only half an hour. Let’s look over Azouad.” Tony hesitated, gripped Phil’s arm, and glanced up. “That a plane?”

“Yeah.” Phil squinted aloft. “Wait⁠ ⁠… not a government plane. Private. Anyway, so what? There’s no extradition.”

“I know,” Tony said softly. “But the Earth Star’s plenty valuable. Somebody might have⁠ ⁠… ideas.”

“Maybe I’d better mail it back home,” Jimmy grinned.

Three glances crossed. And, curiously, at that moment a shadow drifted across the brothers⁠—the shadow of a plane, chilling them momentarily after the blast of the African sun. It was like an omen.

Phil said, “I wonder which of us really has it?”

“I have,” Tony remarked. “Come along. I want a drink.”

He led the way, shouldering through a crowd of assorted riffraff, the usual scum of a bordertown. Odors of sesame, oils, and less familiar stenches were sickeningly strong. Dozens of mongrels roved hungrily about; the flies were countless.

They bought smokes and entered a cantina, dark and muggy. A fat native served them squareface gin, waddling toward the dim corner where they sat. Behind them, Tony noticed, was a door, half opened less to permit fresh air to enter than to allow foul to emerge. He pushed it shut with a casual foot.

The gin wasn’t good, but it was strong. Also, it was inordinately expensive. Jimmy made a wry face.

“Hell of a lot of good money will do us now. We’ve ten minutes. Think we’ll like Sub-Sahara?”

“It sounds⁠—interesting,” Phil said slowly. “Captain Brady’s certainly hipped on his Land of Light. I wonder what sort the Copts are?”

“Tough hombres,” Tony grunted. There was a brief silence. The waiter appeared, refilled glasses, and departed. Then⁠—

“Merlin!” a soft voice whispered.

Tony’s fingers tightened around his glass. Phil sat perfectly motionless. Jimmy’s head jerked slightly; then he was immobile.

Tony looked around, and the others followed his lead.

Standing beside them was a small, round-faced man, his beady dark eyes glinting beneath a sun-helmet, his tropical whites looking freshly laundered. His gaze swiveled sharply from one to another of the trio. A shadow of disappointment flickered over his features and was gone.

Tony said, “Who the devil are you?”

The stranger flashed white teeth. “The private secretary of a certain Rajah. One of you has seen me before. I do not know which one. However⁠—”

“He’s crazy,” Phil grunted. “Batty as a bedbug. Drink up, boys.”

“My name is Zadah,” the man went on without heeding the interruption. “I know that one of you is the Merlin and has the Earth Star. I want it.”

Tony looked at the man. “Do you think anybody’d who’d stolen a jewel would be fool enough to keep it on him?”

“The Merlin would. Because he’d want to make certain that a certain⁠—deal⁠—wouldn’t ever be completed. An imitation of the stone was made, so perfect that the deception can be discovered only by comparison with the original. Someone might try to sell the imitation as the original jewel⁠—and the Merlin could block such a transaction only by producing the real Earth Star. He won’t get rid of it. Not unless⁠—he’s forced to.”

Tony drank gin reflectively. “There’s an offensive odor in this place,” he remarked. “Notice it, anybody?”

Zadah said, “I do not want the police to find you or the Earth Star. If I recover it myself, the Rajah will pay me any price to have the jewel⁠—and the original owners can prove nothing. My private operatives have traced you this far. Now⁠—” He took out a small gun. “You will stand up and walk one by one through the door behind you. Stay in single file. My plane is just near by. We will fly to my country, and there⁠—” Again the teeth flashed. “There I think it will not be too hard to learn which of you is the Merlin.”

Tony hesitated, remembering the plane he had seen in the sky. Zadah held the gun almost hidden under his coat, but of its deadliness there could be no doubt. The brothers exchanged glances.

“Stand up!” Zadah whispered.

Tony obeyed. He turned toward the door, opened it, and stepped out into sunlight. The others followed. Zadah said, “To the left.”

They moved slowly through an alley, littered with refuse and foul with odors. Not a soul was visible⁠—only a stray cur that ran past, tail between its legs.

“Across the square. The gun is in my pocket, but I have my finger on the trigger. Make no suspicious move.”

Tony’s lips were white. He guessed well enough what would happen once he and his brothers were captives aboard the plane. Zadah would not stop at torture to achieve his ends. If only⁠—

But there was no sign of help. Across the square they went, toward a small gyro in its center. Loungers in the shadows of the low buildings eyed the group incuriously as they passed. They walked on, toward a cantina, past its door⁠—

Captain Brady came out. He hesitated, his sunken eyes intent on the spectacle. Then he moved like an uncoiled spring.

Zadah sensed danger. He started to whirl, dragging his gun from his pocket. But Brady’s hand chopped down viciously, the edge of the palm smashing against the secretary’s spine, at the nape of the neck.

A little grunt came from Zadah. He went down like a wet sack of flour. Casually Brady bent, picked up the gun, and pocketed it. His humorless eyes were without any hint of emotion.

“Time to go,” he said. “Come along.”

Silently the brothers followed Brady to the latter’s plane. Without a word they took off, speeding south until the desert-stain of Azouad was lost beneath the horizon.

And not once, during the journey, did Captain Brady refer to the affair in which he had played Saviour. Tony, grinning to himself, remarked in an undertone, “There’s no extradition from the Legion.”

“Yeah,” Phil nodded. “The devil protects his own.”

Jimmy said nothing. He was too busy peering out at the rolling dunes and endless plains of the Sahara.

Sub-Sahara! Underground labyrinth⁠—an oasis under a burning, lifeless expanse of wilderness! To the three Martells it was, at first, a relief, after the flaming heat of the desert. Though even in the beginning there was a feeling of oppression as the metal car sank down into its shaft and the weight of earth overhead was felt almost tangibly.

It seemed hours later when the car stopped and a panel in its bare side slid open. Pale radiance flickered in through the gap, lighting the men’s faces eerily. The glow seemed to come from the walls itself.

“Phosphorescent paint,” Brady said, nodding. “Saves trouble. We spray the walls and ceiling once a year, and it’s bright enough for our needs. Come along.”

The four stepped out into a passageway. It wasn’t long. It ended before a metallic door; Brady took a rod from his pocket and held it briefly pointed at the lock. The panel opened.

Beyond the threshold lay a cavern.

Huge and dim and alien as a distant world it seemed, a gigantic hollow hemisphere in the solid Earth. It was, as far as Tony could judge, about two miles in diameter, with a jagged floor that had been cleared in a few spots. The dim light filtered down from the ceiling, as sunlight through heavy cloud. When Brady spoke, his voice was incongruous in this place of silvery soft grayness.

“There’s the fort. Over there⁠—” He pointed. “That’s the entrance to the Coptic tunnels. We guard the entrance to the surface. Though the Copts haven’t tried to make any surface raids for a long time.” He swung out along a rough path, the others following. “They hate the Bedouins, just as the ancient Egyptians did. They don’t especially dislike us, unless we get in their way. If the mineral deposits the Copts work weren’t valuable, though, they’d be left to themselves. But the Legion’s paid to make sure the mines are kept active.”

Tony didn’t answer. His eyes were slowly accustoming themselves to this strange light. He glanced up at a ceiling that was both visible and invisible. No details could be seen. A veil of shining cloud seemed to obscure the rock far above. The vault of a world, Tony thought. A world created here, perhaps, when the Sahara was a sea instead of a desert. What had Brady said a while ago? Something about a prehistoric, mighty civilization in ante-dynastic Egypt⁠ ⁠… and, far and far below, the Copts still worshiped Isis, in the hidden caverns of Alu where no white man had ever penetrated. “The wreckage of a civilization down there,” Brady had said.

In this eerie cavern-world it was easy to believe in almost anything. A scrap of half-forgotten verse drifted through Tony’s mind:

“But you have seen the hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have walked with hippogriffs⁠ ⁠…”

They were at the fort. Nothing could be seen beyond a palisade of strong, dully-gleaming metal. But a bell rang sharply; a gate opened, and a man in legionnaire uniform appeared.

Even in the odd light his face seemed strangely pallid⁠—drained of all color, like bleached papyrus. He was gaunt and fleshless almost to the point of emaciation, so that his eyes and mouth were black hollows. It seemed as though a skull wore the rakish Legion cap atop its dome.

He saluted, and Brady responded.

“Hello, Jacklyn. Tell Commander Desquer I’m here.”

Jacklyn stood aside to let the others enter. Tony discovered that within the palisade were a dozen metal shacks, prefabricated, and without sign of life. So this would be their home from now on!

Brady said, “Well? Didn’t you⁠—”

Jacklyn’s voice was strained. “Glad you’re back, sir. The commander left for the surface an hour ago. He got a message.⁠ ⁠… There’s trouble, sir. The Copts⁠—they’ve kidnapped Ruggiero.”

Captain Brady looked at his fingernails. “It’s full moon, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. I need four men. Completely armed. We’ll leave as soon as they’re ready.”

Jacklyn hurried away. Tony asked, “Is this⁠—the usual thing, down here?”

Brady shook his head. “No. At full moon the Copts choose a victim to represent Osiris. The Husband of Isis. Usually it’s all done quietly, and the sacrifice is a Copt, of course.”

Jimmy inquired rather weakly, “What sort of sacrifice is it?”

“Degenerate form of Egyptian religion. According to legend, Seth, the evil god, was jealous of Osiris. He put him to death, tearing his body into fourteen pieces. The Copts are⁠ ⁠… literal-minded.”

Brady sucked in his breath. “I wish I knew more of their mythos. The ceremony glorifies Isis of the Moon. A Copt has always served before. But now⁠ ⁠…” He pulled at the clipped gray moustache. “Ruggiero has been taken to Alu to be sacrificed. This means trouble⁠—plenty of it.” But there was no fear in the sunken eyes; only excited anticipation. “Alu! The Land of Light!”

And suddenly Tony understood. For years Brady had wondered about the half-mythical cavern world below, a place forbidden to him by rigid rules. Now, in the absence of the commander, it was Brady’s duty to rescue the kidnapped legionnaire. His duty⁠—and his chance.

Tony said, “Let us go with you, captain. Eh?”

Jimmy and Phil exchanged surprised glances. Then Phil nodded. “Yeah! How about it?”

Brady hesitated. “You’re untrained. You don’t know the ropes⁠—”

“We know how to handle guns.”

“Carbon-pistols?”

“We can learn easily enough.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… they’re simple. But⁠—all right,” the captain said with sudden decision. “You’re new, and that means you’re not scared stiff of Alu. The three of you and Jacklyn. Right!”

He bawled for the skull-faced man. “Jacklyn! Get equipment! I’m taking these three recruits. Allons!”

Tony grinned at his brothers. Their introduction to the Legion was to be exciting, after all⁠—if not fatal!

Jacklyn said, “Fifty years nearly I’ve been here. It never changes. First time I’ve ever seen the Copts get out of hand. Sure, they’d try to get out once in a while to butcher the Bedouins, but they never had anything against us. Funny.”

The group was marching swiftly through a dim tunnel, Captain Brady in the lead, the others trailing. They had been moving for an hour, in a labyrinth of passages through which the captain unerringly found his way. Now he looked back and remarked:

“That’s right. I know this maze pretty well, but Jacklyn knows it blindfolded. He’s practically a Copt himself. Hasn’t been above ground for fifty years.”

“You must like it here,” Jimmy remarked.

Jacklyn said, very softly, “It’s hell. You been in New York lately? Yeah? How does the old burg look now?”

“It’s changed in fifty years,” Phil said. “But you know that already.”

“Times Square, though⁠—that’s there, eh? I remember I used to feel empty whenever I got out of the old town. God, I’d like to see it again⁠—but not on a televisor. In fact,” he went on slowly, “I’d like to smell fresh air again. Not this artificial ventilation. See starlight and green growing things.”

“And the Sun,” Jimmy nodded understandingly. He glanced at Jacklyn⁠—and then caught his breath at sight of the expression on the legionnaire’s pallid face. Horror⁠—and hate!

It was gone immediately. Jacklyn ignored the remark. He said, “I was one of the first spacemen. There’ve been plenty of improvements since my time, what with liquid fuels instead of powder, and those new magnetic induced-gravity screens they’re working on. But it’s like shipping, I guess⁠—steam or sail, it’ll never really change. There’ll be the sea under you, or space around you. We⁠—”

“Sh‑h!” Brady held up a warning finger. “Hold it!”

They paused, but no sound came. The captain relaxed.

“Thought I heard an explosion. Guess not. Well⁠—by the way, are you sure you know how to use the carbon-pistols?”

“It’s not hard,” Tony said. He took out his weapon, resembling an oversized revolver with a cup-shaped hollow where the hammer should have been. From his pocket he withdrew a bit of coal, slipped it into the cup, where prongs held it firmly in place, and hefted the gun. “Not so easy to sight as a Colt, but the force-charge scatters, doesn’t it?”

Jacklyn said, “Right. Watch the recoil, though. Ease the trigger-button down. And don’t run out of coal.”

“Funny,” Tony remarked. “Coal doesn’t seem much good in a pistol.”

Captain Brady laughed a little. “The thing’s based on atomic force⁠—liberation of quanta, though I don’t understand the scientific principles of it myself. Works only on carbon. Coal’s carbon⁠—and cheap. So, if the Copts get out of hand, we fight ’em with the coal they dig for us. Rather unfair, but it’s all in the Legion’s work.”

“Practically everything is,” Tony said dryly. “How much farther, captain?”

“We’ve been going down steadily⁠—wait! Here’s someone. Don’t touch your guns unless I give the word.”

Tony stared ahead. For a second he saw nothing; then abruptly the tunnel was filled with a dozen bizarre figures. Clad in skin-fitting garments of unfamiliar texture, white-skinned, with blue veins showing plainly through the flesh, the men’s faces were aquiline and strong, with beaked noses and abnormally large eyes, in which the pupils nearly eclipsed the irises. The Copts’ hair⁠—they had none on their faces⁠—was like bleached straw, tightly curled. They seemed unarmed, yet Brady’s whole body subtly tensed as he stood waiting.

The foremost of the Copts, taller than the rest, and wearing a tapering headdress, came forward, hand lifted. He spoke in English.

“Captain Brady, why are you here?”

Brady said, “If any harm comes to a legionnaire, it will not be well with the Copts, priest.”

The man nodded. “I understand. That was a mistake. Some of our younger men⁠—they have already been suitably punished for meddling in affairs beyond them. Your legionnaire is back in the fort, Captain Brady. You will find him there if you return.”

Tony detected a half-veiled glance the priest sent at his fellows. Brady saw it also, and tugged at his moustache.

“You are speaking true words?”

“I speak true words.”

“Suppose we do not believe. Suppose we⁠—go on.”

A stir shook the Copts; they looked at one another askance. The priest said, “The Moon passages begin not far from here. Those you may not enter.”

Brady seemed undecided. “We shall go back. But if our man is not safely in the fort⁠—”

The priest’s smile was apparently guileless. “He will be there.”

“All right. About face! Allons!”

Tony turned with the others. But before a foot was lifted there came an interruption. The priest’s voice was raised in an urgent command in an unfamiliar tongue. He, with the others, had seen the bloodstained, tattered, huge figure that sprang out from concealment behind a rock.

“Kill those men!” a bull voice shouted. “Blast ’em down!”

“Commander Desquer!” Brady clipped⁠—and then⁠—

“Out guns!”

For from the ranks of the Copts a pale ray had lanced, striking full upon Desquer’s bison chest, bared by a tattered tunic. Another ray touched Tony; he felt a wave of intolerable heat as he snatched out the carbon-gun at his belt.

Cr‑rack! Brady’s weapon snarled viciously, and the heat-ray left Tony. He slipped a coal-cartridge into the cup and triggered almost without aiming. The deadly little guns worked havoc. But there were almost a dozen Copts, and for a few moments the tunnel was a chaotic Maelstrom of battle, dominated by Desquer’s deep voice roaring commands.

“Get them! All of them! Aim at their bellies!”

Smoke drifted away. The Copts lay in helpless huddles amid red stains. Tony lowered his gun and stared around anxiously. Jimmy was painfully rubbing his arm where a heat-ray had cindered the cloth. Phil was apparently untouched, and so was Jacklyn, but Captain Brady was rubbing his thigh and cursing quietly. As for Commander Desquer, it was impossible to judge whether he had been injured in the conflict. He was already wounded in a dozen places.

Tony’s fascinated gaze clung to the man. The mighty body was thewed like an auroch-bull, the matted, deep chest heaving convulsively with exhaustion. The commander’s head was shaved, but nevertheless there was something leonine about his face. Shaggy, tufted eyebrows overhung glittering small eyes, and thick, sensual lips were pressed tightly together. Desquer reminded Tony, somehow, of a Nero or a Caligula⁠—a degenerate Roman despot.

Now Desquer flung back his huge head in an arrogant gesture. “Jacklyn! See if the priest’s got a healing-ray. We need it.” As the legionnaire hurried forward the commander turned his eyes to the others. Tony felt a curious shiver ripple down his spine as the cold gaze touched him. Desquer looked long and intently at Tony, and not until he had stared equally long at Phil and Jimmy did he turn his attention to Brady.

“The fort’s gone,” he said. “The Copts smashed it and massacred every man. They blew up the shaft to the surface just after I reached Sub-Sahara. I just managed to get away⁠ ⁠… the cavern’s overrun with ’em.”

Jacklyn came back with a small flat box, in which a lens was set. He touched a button and turned the lens to focus upon Brady’s thigh.

“Thanks⁠ ⁠… up a bit⁠ ⁠… You know they kidnapped Ruggiero?”

Desquer nodded “Yes. I found a Copt alone and induced him to give me a little information.” He glanced at his hands, took out a small knife, and began to clean his nails. “What this means I don’t know. A jehad⁠—a holy war, possibly. Though it’s without precedent.”

The captain lifted his hand. “Enough, Jacklyn. Tend to the commander.”

But Desquer shook his head impatiently. “No time.” He drew Brady aside, as Jacklyn turned to the others. The two officers withdrew a few steps and lowered their voices.

Tony stared at the lensed box as Jacklyn used it on Jimmy’s arm. “What the devil’s that?”

“A gadget the Copts have. Nobody knows how it works. They don’t themselves. It was handed down⁠ ⁠… it’s a ray that increases cell activity. Builds up cell tissue. Prevents infection⁠ ⁠… how’s that?”

“Swell,” said Jimmy, touching his arm. “It still hurts a bit, though.”

“It won’t for long⁠—”

Desquer said, “You three recruits⁠—listen to me. We’re going down. Into Alu. Jacklyn, you’ll go for help.”

The skull-faced legionnaire’s body jerked convulsively. He stared at the commander.

“For⁠—help?”

Desquer nodded. “Right. You know these caves. There are other openings to the surface. Get help. We’ll hide out and wait for you. The Copts won’t expect us to go right to their headquarters, so that’s just what we’ll do.”

“But⁠—” Jacklyn moistened dry lips. “I’ll have to go to the surface?” There was a curious note of horror in his voice.

“Don’t argue. Move! You’ll have a better chance alone than with companions, so⁠—allez!”

Jacklyn moved a pace away, stopped, and turned back. He said woodenly, “I can’t go to the surface, Commander.”

Desquer said very softly, “Why not?”

“Sunlight will kill me.”

There was a little silence.

“Why?”

“I was space-burned. That’s why I joined the Legion. It’s a kind of allergy, you know⁠—I was so badly burned in space by direct solar rays that even filtered sunlight will kill me now in a few hours.”

Tony felt his stomach move sickeningly. So that was why Jacklyn had remained in Sub-Sahara for fifty years. A prison with its mockery of freedom⁠—

“Let one of the others go, sir!”

“I’ll go,” Jimmy offered⁠—but Desquer snarled at him.

“Silence! You know these caves, Jacklyn⁠—”

“The captain knows them!”

“He’s badly burned. That heat-ray touched the bone. He couldn’t stand a long trek. Here!” Desquer bent over the dead Copts and rapidly began to strip them of their garments. “If sunlight will kill you, stay out of it.”

“In the desert?”

“Bandages, you fool⁠—bandages! Wrap yourself up in these. Travel by night if you have to, after you reach the surface.”

Silently Jacklyn began to don the garments. He said without expression, “It will kill me.”

Desquer threw him an armful of clothes and grinned. “You’ll live long enough to get help. If the Copts break out of Sub-Sahara, it’ll be like rounding up a thousand fleas. Besides, I don’t know what’s back of this⁠—but it’s nothing small, I can promise you. If⁠—”

He leaped like a panther. His shod foot came down with a sickening crunch on flesh and bone. Tony, startled by the sudden movement, saw that Desquer had sprung upon the Coptic priest, from whose hand a ray-projector had dropped. The priest’s blood-smeared face, twisted in agony, lifted toward the ceiling as he cried out.

“Not dead, eh?” Desquer whispered, his voice taut with savage fury. “Well⁠—you soon will be.”

He drew back his foot. But the priest’s lifted arm somehow halted him. The Copt dragged himself half erect. His thin voice shrilled, “Go down to Alu, fools! But you will be too late. Isis has risen⁠—and with her the gods who dwell in Alu. Before the opening to the outer world can be cleared again, we shall have triumphed⁠—and the Earth will tremble before the power of the Ancients! Aye⁠—the Ancients who ruled over the Four Rivers before their sons fled to Egypt!

“Go down to Alu, fools! You shall find death!”

The priest fell back⁠—and died.

Hours had passed. The legionnaires, headed by Commander Desquer, were encamped by a small, rocky inlet on the Midnight Sea, a fathomless lake of inky water that stretched beyond the limit of vision. A pallid glow came from the cavern roof far above, rippling over the surface of the tideless, sluggish sea. It was a scene fantastic almost beyond belief, and Tony, on guard at the mouth of a crevasse where the others slept, could scarcely realize that he was still on Earth, and not beneath the surface of some alien world.

They had come far and fast, slipping stealthily past the guards the Copts had posted, taking advantage of every unused tunnel, guided more by instinct than by knowledge. The city of the Copts they had skirted, descending ever deeper to the forbidden gates of Alu. And now, on the shore of the Midnight Sea, they were ready for the plunge into the unknown.

“We can’t stay here,” Desquer grunted. “They’d find us sooner or later. But in Alu we have a chance. The element of surprise will be on our side, at least.”

He was right. Tony knew. He shifted uneasily, glancing at the carbon pistol and checking its load. His thoughts went back to New York, and the civilization of a world that seemed a billion miles distant. A world lost to him⁠—and his brothers⁠—forever. And in exchange they had gained⁠—this!

A hand fell on Tony’s shoulder. Desquer said, “All right. We’re marching.” The commander’s heavy jaw jutted as he stared out over the water.

The others appeared one by one, ragged, disheveled, and unshaved. Brady was wincing with the pain in his stiffened leg as he walked. Jimmy’s face was haggard; he had not the stamina of the others. But Phil seemed as sturdy and untroubled as ever.

Desquer turned; his cold eyes took stock of his command. “All right. March!”

He led the way. Brady behind him. The brothers followed. Tony caught a wink from Phil, and lagged behind somewhat, till the officers were out of earshot of a whisper.

“Yeah?”

Phil’s hand touched his tunic pocket. “Somebody searched me while I was asleep. I thought I was dreaming, but when I woke up, this pocket was unbuttoned.”

Tony’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh-oh!” He squinted ahead. “Who⁠—”

“Dunno. But⁠—somebody. Just thought I’d tell you. We’d better keep our eyes peeled after this.”

Phil exchanged a meaningful glance with Tony and increased his pace. The latter frowned, trying to figure out what this new development meant. The Earth Star? It was scarcely probable that anyone in Sub-Sahara would know the details of the theft and its aftermath. More likely the motive was merely petty robbery⁠—unless, indeed, Phil had actually dreamed it. But in his heart, somehow, Tony sensed impending danger. The baleful fires of the Earth Star still burned far below the surface of the planet.

Desquer? He could scarcely know anything of the jewel. Brady? Perhaps the encounter with Zadah, the Rajah’s secretary, had aroused the captain’s suspicions. Or⁠—Jimmy? Was he searching for the Earth Star, trying to learn which of his brothers carried it? That might have been more plausible had not Jimmy kept insisting, with his brothers, that he himself had stolen the gem.

Tony’s face did not change, but his hand touched the butt of the carbon-pistol. He felt safer with the weapon at his thigh. For a time he plodded on, every sense alert for sign of danger. The immediate peril was from the Copts, of course.

None of the underground race appeared as the group skirted the Midnight Sea. They came at last to a tunnel mouth where Desquer paused, hesitating, to confer with Brady. The latter pointed to a sign cut out of the rock above the entrance⁠—a full moon surmounted by a crescent.

“Moon and sistrum,” the captain nodded. “This is one of the forbidden gateways. A door to Alu.”

Desquer grunted. “Very well. Come along. Watch out for traps.”

They entered the tunnel. It was darker, though a vague illumination filtered from the walls and roof, due, perhaps, to some sort of radioactivity. The passage slanted down steeply. It was apparently little used, and in spots almost blocked by debris, where the legionnaires had to crawl through painfully. Desquer’s bull strength came in useful there. The giant commandant was untiring, and there came a time when he was almost carrying Brady along as the captain’s weak leg grew weaker.

“Wonder if Jacklyn will make it,” Jimmy muttered to Tony.

“God knows. If he doesn’t, we’re in the soup.”

Phil grinned. “What if he does? We’re still in Alu!”

The tunnel grew steeper. Now half-obliterated carvings were visible on the walls, symbols that bore the trace of immeasurable antiquity. One sign puzzled Tony; it was a cross within a circle. It reminded him, somehow, of the dying Coptic priest’s words⁠—“… the Ancients who ruled over the Four Rivers before their sons fled to Egypt.” The circled cross struck a chord of memory in Tony’s mind, and he knew, somehow, that the cross was supposed to represent four rivers. But⁠—try as he might⁠—he could recall no more.

There were other carvings, most of them showing the sistrum and the lunar disk. They had been cut out of the rock, Tony felt, long before the Pharaohs had reigned in Egypt, before the uraeus crown had come to represent a dynasty. A little chill touched Tony as he thought of the endless centuries that had ravaged the world above and left the road to Alu untouched.

Before Egypt⁠—a civilization. And in Alu⁠—what?

No premonition troubled Commander Desquer. His great frame marched on untiringly, practically carrying the exhausted Brady. Down and down they went. Tony’s legs began to ache, and Jimmy was drooping with fatigue. Phil’s stolid face showed no emotion, but there were lines of strain about his mouth.

Down⁠—and down! Into Earth’s secret heart⁠—into the forbidden land. And what caused Tony the most uneasiness was the fact that they went on unchallenged. Perhaps the Copts had not discovered the intruders. Or, perhaps, the Copts knew that there was no need to guard the road to Alu.

Occasionally Tony would intercept a glance from Desquer, who would impartially stare at the three brothers as though in puzzled curiosity. But the commander said nothing, till at last they came out in a large cavern from which three tunnel-mouths opened, besides the one on the threshold of which they stood. Desquer paused, his gaze searching.

“We’ll camp here,” he said shortly. “In the middle. That way, our retreat won’t be cut off if the Copts find us. That middle passage is our road. Eh, Captain?”

Brady nodded. “Yes. The Moon and sistrum is over it.”

In silence the five moved wearily to the center of the cavern and dropped rather than relaxed on the rock floor. They were tired out. Desquer alone sat straddle-legged, his gun ready in his hand, icy eyes flashing about.

“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll guard.”

Tony gratefully obeyed. Stillness closed over the cave. But⁠—it was broken.

Very faintly, as though from an infinite distance, came a rhythmic chanting. Muffled and scarcely audible it whispered, almost below the threshold of hearing.

Brady’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Hear that?”

Desquer said, “Well?”

“The Chant of Set. Somewhere they’re beginning the ceremony of Osiris, where they’ll sacrifice Ruggiero.”

Tony said, “That’s where they tear the victim into pieces, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Commander⁠—” Brady didn’t finish. One look at Desquer’s grim face was enough.

“Don’t be a fool, captain. Get your rest⁠—and the rest of you, too. You’ll need it. You know well enough we can’t rescue Ruggiero.”

That, Tony thought as he relaxed, was true; but nevertheless he had a curiously unpleasant feeling at the base of his spine. Somewhere amid these caverns a white man was being horribly sacrificed, and it was not a thought conducive to sound sleep. Yet Desquer was right. The legionnaires’ only chance was to remain hidden⁠ ⁠…

Once Tony roused sleepily to find the Commander lying down and Captain Brady on guard. Brady was wandering about the cavern, staring up at the carving of the Moon and sistrum. He was a gaunt, scarecrow figure in the dim light. As Tony drifted off again to sleep he realized that the faint chanting had grown louder⁠—

That it was different now in tone⁠—triumphant!

And then Desquer was shaking Tony’s shoulder, his hand pressed over the legionnaire’s lips. The commander’s eyes were glittering brightly.

“Sh‑h! Not a sound! Rouse the others.”

Silently Tony obeyed. There was no sign of Captain Brady, he realized.

On cat feet Desquer led the three into the tunnel. Hidden by the first turn, he whispered, “Brady’s gone. When I woke up⁠—”

Jimmy asked, “What happened to him? The Copts?”

“Perhaps.”

“But wouldn’t they have killed us, then?”

Desquer passed a hand over his shaven head. “Not necessarily. They may have other plans.” He smiled, not pleasantly. “So Brady’s gone. That leaves the four of us.” There was an oddly secretive look in the cold eyes. “Come on. We’re still heading for Alu.”

“What’s the use?” Tony asked. “If the Copts have discovered us⁠—”

“They may not have. Brady may have gone off to try and save Ruggiero. I doubt that, though⁠—but we mustn’t overlook any chances. Alu is our destination. So⁠—allons!”

The three brothers exchanged glances. One by one their number was being cut down. First the entire garrison of the fort; then Jacklyn; now Captain Brady. Tony felt a twinge of sympathy for the weatherbeaten old soldier. Whatever had happened to the man, Brady would have gone down fighting.

“He didn’t try to warn us,” Jimmy muttered.

Desquer grunted. “We don’t know all the weapons of those Copts. Where they get them God knows. Every once in a while they’ll pop up with some super-scientific device far beyond their power to manufacture. It’s a mystery. Maybe we’ll find the answer in Alu.”

That, to Tony, was a strange paradox. A search amid the ruins of a forgotten past for the super-science of the future. And yet⁠—whence had come the mighty civilization of Egypt? What mystery lay behind the cryptic powers of the Copts?

There could be no answer, as yet. The four men marched on, down into the depths. They were beneath the Midnight Sea now, Tony decided, since the tunnel had curved in a long loop. Not only beneath the Sahara Desert, but under a sunken sea as well.

Endlessly the road stretched before them. But the end came unexpectedly. So exhausted were the four that they scarcely realized that the silvery radiance of the tunnel had given place to a reddish glow, brighter and reminiscent of volcanic activity. Desquer lifted his hand in warning. He went on to reconnoitre, and presently beckoned the others. His burly figure was rigid, Tony saw.

And, as he went on, he saw something else. The tunnel ended. It opened upon a cavern.

A cavern that was a world!

A world beneath a desert and a sea! Alu, the Land of Light, lay before the adventurers, and human eyes had never gazed upon a stranger sight. A metropolis of antiquity, with the wrecks of mighty buildings and fallen pillars strewing the flat floor of the cave. It was like Pompeii, and far older than Pompeii. It was grander than Karnak, more alien than crumbling Angkor-Wat. In the distance a pyramid rose toward the roof of the cave⁠—touching it, supporting it as the fabled tree Yggdrasil is supposed to support the Earth.

Red light flamed from beyond the pyramid.

Alu! Old beyond imagination, cradle of a race that had ruled long and long ago! Alu, which the Egyptians had incorporated into their mythology as their heaven.

The sheer, overwhelming majesty of the panorama struck the men dumb, as a hand might strike an impious lip. Huge and desolate and dead the lost world stretched before them, holding its secret fast, as it had held it since before the Pharaohs reigned. No wonder the pyramids were a mystery⁠—built by some alien science. The same science that had reared the colossal structures of Alu!

A hundred feet away a square white marble building towered, Doric pillars on either side of its open gateway. Some indefinable urge drew Tony’s eyes to it.

Desquer said, “Hear that?”

The others listened, but detected no sound. The commander grunted.

“It came from that temple. Get your guns ready. We’re going in. If there’s trouble, shoot first.”

The four moved softly across the flat rock of the floor. Halfway to the door of the building Jimmy clutched Tony’s arm. He pointed, his face chalk-white.

“Look at that!”

Tony followed his brother’s gaze, as did the others. Far away were two structures connected by an arched span. Across this span figures were moving.

Figures with human bodies⁠—but inhuman heads!

At the distance it was impossible to make out details, but it was plain that there was something definitely abnormal about the beings who walked across the span. They moved in stately file and were gone. Jimmy whispered:

“Remember what the priest said? The gods live in Alu!”

Tony thought of the Egyptian gods, men with the heads of beasts and birds and reptiles. Could some monstrous hybrids have survived in this cavern? He shrugged off the thought.

“Masks, Jimmy! Don’t be an idiot. Come on.”

Desquer urged them toward the square building. “Quick! We can hide here, until we know more about this place. Keep your guns ready.”

The commander’s icy eyes were searching the gloom of the temple as they crossed the threshold. The symbol of Osiris, sign of the horned bull, was carved everywhere. Crumbling, broken pillars made the interior of the temple a labyrinth. The floor was littered with smashed blocks of stone.

It was very dim here, but one ray of red light flamed like a sword-blade through a gap in the wall and fell directly upon the throne that stood on a dais at the farther end of the room. Tony and the others looked down a long aisle toward the throne and the statue upon it⁠—the statue of a man, clad in stylized flowing robes, with the head of a bull upon the human shoulders.

“Come on!” Desquer whispered. He gripped his gun. Tony felt the butt of his own weapon cold against his palm as he walked on. The approach to the dais seemed endless. Incredible journey amid the wreckage of a forgotten civilization! So might a lost soul have journeyed to Osiris⁠ ⁠… A scrap of verse came unbidden to Tony.

“Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s altar day and night,
Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon’s carven house⁠—and now
Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone to stone
For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith!”

Desquer stopped. His figure stood rock-still for a moment. The gun swung up, aimed at the statue on the throne.

And now Tony saw what the commander had already realized. It was no statue that faced them. The being was alive!

Only one thing could have stopped Desquer’s finger on the trigger⁠—and that thing happened. The monster on the throne spoke. Thick and almost unintelligible, its voice poured out from the inhuman muzzle, as the hands twitched on the arms of the throne.

“Don’t!” the bullheaded creature moaned. “It’s Brady⁠—Brady!”

Sheer amazement petrified Desquer. He lowered his gun at last, shaved scalp shining with sweat. Tony swallowed a lump in his dry throat, glaring at the hybrid on the dais.

Brady? Captain Brady?

“Those devils did this to me,” the thick voice went on. “Surgery, commander⁠—super-surgery. Remember their healing ray? They grafted the flesh and skin of a bull on to my head and speeded up the cellular activity tremendously with their ray. I⁠—I don’t dare move. This head is so heavy it would snap my spine if⁠—if⁠—”

Desquer said in a low voice, “Are we in danger now?” His eyes searched the shadows.

“You’re doomed,” Brady mouthed. “Thotmes told me the hellish plan behind all this. Thotmes is the high priest. He’s one of the very few that know the secret of Alu. He told me⁠—almost everything. It tickled his ego, I think, to gloat over his triumph⁠ ⁠…”

The bull head lolled forward and came back into place again abruptly. Brady said, “Maybe there’s a chance. I don’t know. Your guns⁠ ⁠… Listen! If you can get to the pyramid and blast the machine out of existence⁠—”

“What machine?” Desquer asked.

“The machine that will destroy Europe! The same kind of machine that created Earth’s Moon, ages ago! The machine that sank Atlantis!”

Tony’s breath caught in his throat. Atlantis? Now he remembered the significance of the sign of the cross-and-circle. It was the symbol of Atlantis, the four rivers on the island continent. Softly he whispered, “The Ancients who ruled over the Four Rivers before their sons fled to Egypt.”

Brady said, “Yes. That’s the secret of Egypt, and its civilization. Men have guessed at that before now. Ages ago, when Europe was filled with nomadic tribes, Atlantis was a continent of culture and science. It was unstable⁠—volcanic activity went on endlessly beneath it. And the land began to sink. Thotmes told me how the scientists of Atlantis planned to prevent their doom.

“They made a Moon. Out of the bed of the Pacific Ocean they tore part of the Earth and sent it driving out into space. They thought that would release the pressure under Atlantis and save their civilization.

“They failed. The forces they controlled were too mighty. Atlantis sank, taking with it a science such as the world has never known and perhaps may never know again. But before the deluge, a few Atlanteans fled eastward, through the Pillars of Hercules, to Egypt.”

The bull head nodded. “They were the ancestors of the underground Copts. They found Sub-Sahara centuries before the Pharaohs, and they found Alu. There they built a city such as had existed in the Atlantean valleys. They sent forth some of their number to civilize the Nile peoples, and those Atlanteans became the high priests of the gods. They created the gods!

“As they created me⁠—they made gods with heads of bulls and crocodiles and jackals, to terrify the superstitious tribes that needed tangible gods to worship. And then the road to the surface was closed by some ancient cataclysm, so that the Atlanteans were trapped here. Some few of the priests kept their culture. The others degenerated. They became⁠—the Copts.

“But the priests still kept the old religion alive, using their surgery and their healing-rays to make new gods, and ruling the Copts through fear. Now they plan to make a second Moon, and to raise Atlantis; they wish to rule the Earth as they did once, long ago.”

Brady’s thin hands clenched into fists. “They caught me in the cavern where I was standing guard⁠—used some sort of paralyzing ray on me. They brought me down here and told me what they intend. There’s a machine that’s capable of ripping all Europe from the face of the Earth and sending it out in space, to be another Moon.”

Tony said, “But that would wreck the world!”

“That is part of their plan. They have lost all their science, possessing only a few machines and devices that have come down since the days of the Atlantean exodus. And these are gradually losing their power. In sunken Atlantis Thotmes and his followers can find weapons and secrets that will enable them to rule the world. But first they plan to make another moon⁠—to destroy Europe⁠—and to wreck most of the Earth with quakes, tidal waves, and storms. They’ll be safe here in Alu. They’ll emerge after the Atlantic has drained into the great abyss that will be left by the destruction of Europe, and they’ll return to Atlantis, west of the Canary Islands.”

“A machine to make a Moon!” Desquer’s voice was almost scornful. “Unbelievable!”

“It was done once. The principle is that of vibration. A file of men marching in unison can shake down a bridge⁠—you know that. The right vibration can wreck a building. Sonic waves can disrupt the molecular framework of the Earth, and Thotmes has a machine that can be focused through the body of the planet. There will be little temblors in Europe at first, then heavy quakes. They will grow stronger. And finally the entire continent will be ripped away, and centrifugal force will carry it out to its orbit. Thotmes explained it in detail⁠ ⁠…”

The bull head jerked forward suddenly. There was a sharp, brittle snap. And, slowly, the body of Captain Brady leaned and bent. It toppled.

Desquer sprang forward with a curse. He touched the monstrous muzzle, jerked his hand away, and then felt for Brady’s heartbeat. After a moment he shrugged.

“Well, he told us enough. Now⁠ ⁠…” The commander stood up, his gaze traveling slowly from face to face. “Now we must find that machine and destroy it⁠—eh?”

He seemed vaguely displeased when the three brothers nodded as one. But his words were commonplace enough.

“We need information. Bon. First, we must find someone who can supply it. Preferably this Thotmes⁠—but we cannot pick and choose, I suppose.”

Jimmy said on impulse, “You believe Captain Brady’s story?”

For answer Desquer waved his hand around. “Look at this. No modern civilization built it. I’ve lived in Sub-Sahara for a long time, and⁠—well, at least I’ll verify the story before I act. Let me remind you that it is not your business to ask questions.” His cold gaze held the youngster.

Tony said quickly, “I’ll get the information, commander.”

Desquer nodded. “Very well. I need tell you nothing you do not already know. Most of the Copts know English; if not, bring your captive back here. We shall wait.”

Tony looked once at the sprawled, terrible body that had been Captain Brady, waved casually to Phil and Jimmy⁠—and went out. Along the shadowed aisle of pillars he hurried, pausing only when he emerged from the temple. There, crouching in the dimness, he paused, looking about.

There was no sign of life. In the distance loomed the tunnel mouth by which they had entered Alu. Tony slid along the side of the building and peered gingerly around the corner. He could see the arched ramp along which the “gods” had passed, but it was vacant now. What was the logical course to pursue?

The lost city stretched about for miles, an apparently tenantless ruin. Yet it was peopled, Tony knew, by Thotmes the high priest and his servitors⁠—perhaps by Copts, though probably not, since the latter were confined to their own city above. At the thought Tony involuntarily glanced up. Beyond the cavern roof was the Midnight Sea, above that the Coptic city, and still further above, Sub-Sahara itself. The weight of innumerable tons of Earth pressing down on him was almost suffocating. However⁠—

Tony shook off the feeling and set out at random, after taking careful bearings. He had a compass, but it was useless in this environment, as he found after brief experimentation. But he could gauge direction fairly well from the great pyramid, which was visible from almost any point in the city of Alu.

He kept in the shadows, which were concealingly dark where the flickering red light did not shine. What caused that volcanic glow Tony did not know, though he hazarded a few guesses. He went toward the pyramid.

It was a metropolis of the dead. Eons ago it had been inhabited, by the survivors of sunken Atlantis, but now only the dust of ages filled it. Silence, and everywhere the symbol of Isis, Moon-goddess, carved upon the stones. Silence⁠ ⁠…

The pyramid drew nearer, and Tony was amazed anew at its hugeness. It towered up and up to the very ceiling of the cavern, seeming to support it like a pillar. Perhaps it did⁠—he could not tell. But as he came closer he saw that the pyramid was hollow, for there were lighted embrasures here and there in the sloping expanse of its sides.

And still there was no sound, no movement, no trace of life.

Tony grew more cautious, though there seemed no need. An arched opening loomed in the side of the pyramid near him, and he slunk toward it watchfully. No guards were posted. He hesitated near the threshold. Should he take the risk of entering what might be a stronghold of his enemies? To search the deserted city was seemingly a vain task, and, shrugging, Tony walked boldly toward the opening. But his gun was in his hand, and a coal-cartridge in its cup, ready for instant use.

A passageway sloped upward within the pyramid. It was lighted dimly by gleaming bars like neon-tubes that ran the length of the ceiling. In the vague glow Tony went stealthily on.

The corridor was featureless and without doors⁠—at first. But, suddenly, he noticed what had at first evaded his attention, a series of panels set in the walls. The secret of their locks was beyond him, until at last one seemed simpler than the others. Tony pressed a spring that was not too deftly hidden⁠—and the panel opened.

He looked through metal bars into a great cage.

Briefly he thought of a menagerie, and then went sick and dizzy with nausea. This was, indeed, a “zoo”⁠—but it did not hold animals. It held⁠—gods!

The artificial monsters created by Thotmes and his servants roamed within the cage, men with the heads of teratological mythos. Here, indeed, were the gods of Egypt, jackal-headed, ibis-headed, bullheaded, even some with the heads of crocodiles set hideously upon the human shoulders. So brightly lit was the cage that the beings did not see Tony, and he drew back swiftly, closing the panel. Obviously he could get no information here. He suppressed a strong impulse to use his carbon-gun to put these pitiful beings out of the unending nightmare of their existence. If this was a sample of Thotmes’ power, it would not be well for the Atlantean to rule over Earth!

Tony went on along the corridor. From his slight knowledge of Egyptology, he knew that not all of the gods were malevolent, like Set. Both Osiris and Amon-Ra were benevolent, and so, indeed, was Isis. Perhaps in the beginning the whole religion had been a good one, and had become decadent and degenerate with the passage of ages in this hidden cavern-world. The obvious parallel was Satanism⁠ ⁠…

Yet this wasn’t a question of superstition. It was one of logic and science, of cold facts in which the mythology of a race had been rooted. Behind the veil of so-called “magic” lay an alien and powerful culture, born in Atlantis long before Ur and Akkad had risen in Sumeria, along the Tigris and Euphrates.

On and on Tony went, a cold uneasiness rising within him. No one appeared to bar his path. More than once he glanced at the carbon-gun⁠—but he was unprepared when the floor dropped beneath him, and he fell, writhing and twisting, into darkness.

He landed heavily on a hard surface, and went down with a grunt and an oath. Before he could rise, he felt the weight of muscular bodies upon him. Handicapped by the darkness, he fought doggedly, but the gun was torn from his grasp almost at the outset of the struggle. He was not in complete blackness; there was a vague dim glow, but Tony’s eyes were not conditioned to it, as those of his enemies were. At last he lay prostrate, held motionless by iron hands that gripped him.

A deep voice murmured a command. The light grew brighter. Tony blinked, staring up from his position spreadeagled on a stone floor. He discovered that he was in a bare chamber, with a barred door of metal grating set in one wall. Five strong-thewed Copts held him⁠—but almost immediately Tony saw that they were not Copts. Their faces lacked the degeneracy of the underground mining race. They were cruel instead of stupid. Cruel⁠—and arrogant, proud! Proud with the knowledge of a culture that stretched back into the mists of a lost antiquity.

One man stood against the wall⁠—and he was a giant. He wore a short spade beard, and soft, glossy black hair fell in curled, oily ringlets about his face. He was handsome with the beauty of a sword-blade, strong and powerful and deadly, and his beaked nose was hooked like a scimitar. Pale blue eyes watched Tony unwinkingly.

In not-quite-perfect English, he said, “I am Thotmes.” Tony could not repress a slight movement, and the blue eyes narrowed; but the priest merely smiled. “You know me? That is strange. Perhaps you have spoke to⁠ ⁠… Osiris!”

He nodded to the priests, who relaxed their grip on Tony. The legionnaire sprang up, but made no hostile movement. He stood silent, watching Thotmes.

The Atlantean stroked his beard. “You are wise. This will be your prison, and, if you cause no trouble, you can live for a time. We do not murder unnecessarily.”

“Only nine-tenths of the world’s population,” Tony said gently.

“That,” Thotmes smiled, “is necessary. We are a handful, against billions. Not even the powers we shall recover from Atlantis would enable us to conquer Earth⁠—unless Earth is already conquered, her navies and aircraft and weapons smashed by cataclysms.”

“You actually expect to make a second Moon?” Tony’s voice held skepticism. But the priest was not offended.

“Yes. Such a thing was done once before. The machine that made the Moon was built in Atlantis, and we have built a duplicate here. It took centuries, but at last it is finished. In the heart of the pyramid it lies⁠—and already it is in operation.”

“In operation?” Involuntarily Tony glanced around. “I don’t⁠—”

“You feel nothing here and now, of course. Later you may, though we are safe in Alu. The machine sets up vibration and molecular disruption in certain strata under Europe, and gradually the intensity of the vibration will be increased⁠—until Europe shakes itself literally to pieces. In a week or even less the final cataclysm will take place. Europe will vanish, leaving an abyss into which the waters of the Atlantic will pour. And Atlantis will rise again!”

“That,” said Tony, “will be Old Home Week, eh?”

Thotmes didn’t answer. He turned to the others and gestured. One of them slid open the barred grating, and the group filed out. The door slammed.

Beyond it, Thotmes smiled at his captive. “Your companions will join you soon. We shall not trouble to search for them. They will walk into our midst soon enough, and then you will have company.”

“Look out you don’t get your head blown off by one of them,” Tony remarked.

Thotmes lost his smile. He tugged at his spade beard and said, “Few men jest in Alu. There is always a need for new gods⁠—and you would look well with a jackal’s head on your shoulders.”

“You’d look lovely with a rat’s,” Tony agreed, “only you already have one.”

The high priest said something indistinguishable, glared and departed. Tony was left alone. He shrugged and took stock of his possessions.

He had been searched completely. His pockets were empty. Carbon-gun and coal-cartridges had been taken from him. He had no tool by which he might leave the cell.

On the other hand, there might possibly be a concealed panel somewhere. It took an hour for Tony to convince himself that none existed. Finally he sat down and waited. There was nothing else to do. He had got the information for which he had come. The machine of the Atlanteans was in the heart of the pyramid. But he was unarmed, and had no way of conveying a message to Desquer or his brothers. Briefly he wondered what was happening to Phil and Jimmy, and how long they would wait. And when they got tired of waiting⁠—what would they do?

What could they do⁠—trapped in Alu, city of science and fathomless antiquity? Four men, Desquer and the brothers, against the mighty powers of the greatest civilization Earth had ever known. Four against the might that had made Egypt an invincible empire.

Four against the gods!

A thump from above brought Tony from his crouching position to stand rigidly erect, gaze riveted to the ceiling. He was in time to see a section of it swing down on hinges, letting the body of a man, with arms and legs flailing, drop into the prison. Tony sprang forward, breaking the man’s fall. It was Phil.

Phil’s blond hair was disheveled, a stubble of yellow beard on his face; but his stocky body was as steel-muscled as ever. He still gripped the carbon-gun he had been holding, and his eyes met Tony’s with relief.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” There was no need for more, so deep was the understanding between the brothers. Tony said swiftly, “Anybody after you?”

“Didn’t see anybody.”

“Took ’em by surprise, perhaps. But they’ll be along. We’ve got to work fast while we’ve a chance of getting out of here.” He glanced at the barred door. “We could blast out there with the carbon-gun, but I don’t know the road. Hop on my shoulders, kid. We’re going out through the ceiling.”

Phil handed his brother the gun and climbed deftly onto Tony’s shoulders as the latter knelt. Slowly he rose, steadying Phil with one hand.

“Got⁠—got worried about you when you didn’t show up. I went after you.”

“See if you can open the panel⁠ ⁠… Jimmy all right?”

“He’s okay. The kid’s pretty tough⁠ ⁠… Got it!”

The hinged panel slid down as Phil’s stubby fingers closed over the edge of the opening. Tony heaved up strongly. For a second Phil hung there; then his body wriggled up, and his weight was gone from Tony’s shoulders.

Simultaneously a cry came from beyond the barred door.

A pale ray lanced out. Tony felt a twinge of agony in his side. Involuntarily he flung up the carbon-gun and fired. The metal door vanished in a blaze of white fires. Whoever had been beyond it had also disappeared without trace.

But there were others coming. Tony traded shots with them. He heard Phil’s voice and risked a glance up. Phil was lying flat, his arm extended down.

“Jump for it!”

“Can’t,” Tony said. “They’d wing me⁠ ⁠…”

“You’ve got to. I can hear them coming up here, too.”

“Beat it. Get back to Desquer. Tell him the machine’s in the base of this pyramid. I’m going out this way; there’ll be a better chance of one of us getting through if we take different routes. Beat it!”

There was a pause, punctuated by the snarl of the carbon-gun. Then Phil said, “Okay. Luck!”

His feet scraped on the stone above. The panel slammed shut. Tony made a wry face, realizing that Phil was unarmed. But he had a better chance of escape than Tony himself, for a dozen or more of priests was blocking the passage that led⁠—perhaps!⁠—to freedom.

Tony fired again. The foremost of the priests went down, and the others hesitated. The gun crackled savagely. One priest broke and fled⁠—and the others followed.

Tony hurried after them, every sense on the alert. The passage was apparently bare, and silent save for the dying thump of flying feet; but he guessed that there might be traps. Would this road lead to escape? And⁠—had Phil escaped safely? There was no way of knowing⁠—yet.

The passage stretched empty before Tony. He gripped the gun, feeling in its cold metal a reassurance against even the danger of Thotmes and his powers. There was no limit to the weapon’s potentialities. The stronger the charge, the more effective the results. With a powerful enough charge, Tony thought sardonically, he could bring down the whole pyramid. Unfortunately he had no ammunition, save for the clip in the gun’s butt.

At a side passage he hesitated, realizing that the new tunnel led up. The priests would not expect him to take this path⁠—so he did so. And, as it turned out, he was wise.

He came out on a little balcony overlooking the sloping ramp of the pyramid. Beneath him the massive piles of masonry fled down like gigantic steps, and Tony hesitated as he glanced down. A noise from behind him, along the passage, helped him make his decision.

It was almost too late. A priest burst into view, mouth open in a soundless scream, raising a short metal rod in one hand. Tony flung up the carbon-gun and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

The ammunition was exhausted.

Tony’s reaction was involuntary and instinctive. He flung the gun straight at the priest’s face and ducked, diving in at his opponent. A beam of light lanced out over Tony’s head. Then he crashed into the priest’s knees and brought the man down heavily.

There was no time for ethics. Tony struck low and hard. He left the priest unconscious and vaulted the balcony’s rail. Down the slope of the pyramid he sprang, leaping along the huge steps made by the giant blocks, risking his neck at every jump. But⁠—he made it.

Once at the base of the pyramid, he was comparatively safe. Out of the red glow the shadows were heavy, and Tony took advantage of them to slink away toward the wall of the cavern he could see far ahead of him. But before he did so he made a brief scouting trip, hoping to find Phil. It was useless. Either Phil had already made good his escape, or else he had fallen victim to the priests of Thotmes.

There was no sign of excitement. Tony wondered why. Perhaps the escape of prisoners was of little importance to the Atlanteans. They were too self-confident⁠—with good reason, it might be. Science that could rip the Earth asunder was not easily to be conquered.

Near the door of the Temple of Osiris Tony quickened his pace. The sound of hoarse breathing and shuffling footsteps came to his ears. On the threshold he hesitated, staring, but saw nothing in the dimness of the interior. Wait! Far down beneath the dais were two motionless bodies. One was that of Captain Brady, of course. But the other⁠—

Tony broke into a run. Yet he retained caution enough to move as silently as possible, though he could hardly repress a shouted question. Had the Atlanteans found the intruders in Alu? Was the body that of Desquer, or⁠—Jimmy?

It was neither! Tony stumbled over a carbon-gun, snatched it up in one motion, and simultaneously saw that beside the figure of Brady lay Phil, unconscious and bloodstained, red fluid seeping from a gaping hole in his chest. But Tony could spare only one glance at his brother. Beside him, between the pillars that towered to the roof, two men were locked in conflict⁠—Jimmy and Commander Desquer!

Jimmy was getting the worst of it. He was weaponless and trying to hold on to the hand in which Desquer held his gun. The commander was slowly breaking his opponent’s grip. No expression showed in the Legion officer’s face, but his eyes were black and deadly as wet velvet. Jimmy was gasping and bleeding from a cut over one eye, almost exhausted.

Tony said, his voice like a whiplash, “Drop that gun, Desquer!”

The commander’s reaction was unexpected. All in one swift motion he released Jimmy and flung himself back. Hidden in the shadow of the pillars, he fired at Tony.

The shot missed. Tony lifted his own weapon⁠—the one Jimmy had apparently dropped⁠—but Desquer was fleeing, dodging in and out like a phantom. Why the devil⁠—! Then Tony knew why. Desquer was no coward. But, on the other hand, he was no fool. He had run out of ammunition. A cartridge belt on the floor, its buckle torn off, explained the reason. In the fight Desquer had lost the belt.

He vanished through the door of the temple and was gone. Tony stared at Jimmy. “What the hell?”

The boy was white and gasping. “Phil got back. He’d seen you in the pyramid⁠—told us where the machine was. But he’d been wounded⁠—”

“Yeah. Keep talking, kid.” Tony was kneeling beside the unconscious form of Phil, rendering such first aid as he could.

“Desquer sent me outside to keep guard. I heard Phil yell, and came running in. I was just in time to see Desquer⁠—” The boy swallowed. “He killed Phil, Tony. Shot him through the chest. I tried to stop him⁠—and then you came in.”

Phil’s eyelashes flickered. Tony gave Jimmy the gun. “Okay. Run along and keep guard again. Watch out for Desquer. If he shows up⁠—”

“I’ll use the gun.” There was deadly grimness in the young voice. Jimmy’s hand closed over the weapon; he hurried off down the dark aisle.

Phil was looking up at his brother, a wry grin twisting his lips. “So you got out of the pyramid too, eh? Good.”

“What happened, boy?” Tony was futilely trying to stanch the flow of blood.

“Nothing much. Desquer didn’t bandage me up after I got here. He searched me, instead. Found nothing, of course. But⁠—he asked me where the Earth Star was.”

There was a little silence. Tony whispered, “How⁠—”

“I don’t know. Desquer found out something. He’s after the gem. Thought I had it, and when he couldn’t find it on me, he tried to make me talk. His methods weren’t very⁠—nice. That’s when I yelled, I guess. I jumped at Desquer. Found out I wasn’t as badly wounded as I’d thought. He shot me through the chest.”

Phil coughed. “Might as well stop trying, Tony. I’m the first of us to go. I’ve a hunch there’ll be another. But one of us three ought to pull through.”

“I’ll get Desquer,” Tony said very softly. His thin, dark face was a grim mask of copper.

“Thanks. And keep an eye on the kid, will you? I⁠—I⁠—” A gush of blood came from Phil’s mouth. He coughed rackingly. Tony hurriedly ripped off his shirt to improvise an additional bandage.

But it was useless. Ten minutes later Tony stood silently beside the body of his brother, looking down at the stolid features, relaxed utterly now in death. The shadows of the temple of Osiris pressed in heavily. It was, in a way, fitting that death should have come for Phil in Alu, the asphodel land where Egyptians thought the souls went to roam endlessly.

Tony turned and walked slowly along the aisle. At the threshold of the temple he turned and looked back. Phil would rest there forever, perhaps⁠—and it was such a sarcophagus as few men have ever possessed.

“Don’t move,” a low voice commanded. “Not an inch! Careful!”

But Tony’s reaction was involuntary as he whirled. Almost beside him, but out of easy reach, was Commander Desquer. In his hand was a carbon-gun, and another was in his holster. The man’s glittering eyes watched Tony icily from under the shaggy penthouse brows.

“Careful!” Desquer repeated. “Your brother wasn’t.”

“Where is he?”

“There.⁠ ⁠… He isn’t hurt. He’ll wake up in a few minutes. Just stunned. My gun wasn’t loaded, but his was. So⁠—”

Desquer grinned and passed his palm over his shaved scalp. “Revive him. Quick!” he barked as Tony hesitated.

The latter silently went to where Jimmy lay huddled against the wall of the temple. He knelt beside the boy and began to slap his cheeks. He glanced up once to see the Commander watching him narrowly.

Desquer said, “Where’s the Earth Star? You got it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tony grunted.

“No? Then let me explain. That televisor call that took me to the surface⁠—it was from a man named Zadah, the secretary of a certain Rajah. He told me all about you. Offered me a fortune if I got the jewel back for him. Well⁠—I intend to. I’m sick of the Legion, and this is my chance to buy my way out and live like a prince. So⁠—where’s the stone?”

Tony told him, but his remark was unprintable. Desquer’s thick lips twisted in a sneer.

“Very well. But I’ll get it, remember that.”

“A lot of good it’ll do you now.”

“I’ll get out of here. But first we’re going to destroy that machine of Thotmes. Your brother’s waking up. Bring him along. We’re heading for the pyramid.”

Grimly Tony hoisted the half-unconscious Jimmy to his feet and supported him. “We’re unarmed. There are scores of priests⁠—”

“You’re going to stay unarmed,” Desquer snapped. “I can handle a gun better than any three men. Allons!”

Tony grunted and started out, carrying most of Jimmy’s weight on his shoulders as the boy slowly recovered from the blow that had stunned him. His lips were a tight, pale line. Both he and Jimmy were completely in Desquer’s power, and the man was so completely an egotist that he had not hesitated to carry out his own plans even in the face of a doom that threatened the entire Earth. Ruthless Desquer was⁠—but of his icy courage there could be no doubt. Nor of his greed! Tony sensed something of the driving power within the man, the desolate years of loneliness in Sub-Sahara, a prison worse for Desquer, perhaps, than for any other man there.

They moved toward the pyramid, keeping to the shadows. Tony and Jimmy preceded their captor, conscious always of the gun leveled unerringly at their backs. There was neither sign nor movement to indicate the presence of the Atlanteans.

“How do you expect to get to the machine?” Tony asked finally. “It’s guarded.”

“I can outshoot a dozen Copts,” Desquer said confidently. “We’re going straight in. We’ll find a guide⁠—make him guide us. If anyone gets in our way, he’ll regret it. We’re going in, smash the machine, and come out again. And then⁠—I’ll find out which of you has the Earth Star.”

Tony didn’t reply. He went on, his mind desperately searching for a plan. But it seemed hopeless. There was no way out.

Finally only a broad plaza separated them from the pyramid. At its edge the trio paused. Desquer said, “We’ll skirt around to that building⁠—see it? It juts into the open space⁠ ⁠… I don’t see any guards, but there may be some.”

The three were standing in the shadow at the corner of a tall stone obelisk. And without warning a score of figures dropped down upon them, in utter silence⁠—and with murderous fury.

Desquer’s guns were in his hands. The snarling crackle of the carbon-pistols rapped out, awakening echoes in the dead city. Tony could not see the commander; he was borne down under a press of bodies, struggling furiously. Beside him he heard Jimmy cursing and striking out weakly. The Atlantean priests were not using their ray-projectors, perhaps because they depended on weight of numbers. That was their mistake!

It was Desquer’s fearless savagery turned the tide of battle. His guns bellowed without ceasing. Thrice he went down, rising at last a gargoylish, hideous figure, dripping with blood from a dozen wounds, his bare scalp shining blackly in the red light. One by one and two by two he killed, mercilessly, viciously, finally clubbing his pistol to dispose of the last of the priests, who was atop Tony.

“Can’t waste ammunition,” he growled. “Get up! Both of you! Hurry!”

Tony stood up, Jimmy beside him. A few of the priests had escaped, he saw, and were even now fleeing toward the temple. Desquer raised his gun, hesitated, and lowered it.

“Come on!”

Tony stared. Scores⁠—no, more than a hundred priests were pouring from the pyramid, forming a phalanx massing itself to guard the threshold. In the lead stood Thotmes, his spade beard making him easily recognizable. The fleeing priests joined their companions, and the little army stood in silence.

“Not using their ray-projectors,” Tony said. “Guess they’re good only at short range.”

Desquer snarled, “Come on!” His guns snouted forward, urging his captives on. Slowly they moved across the plaza.

The commander fired. A priest fell, screaming. The ranks closed in, hiding him from view.

Again and again Desquer fired. His gun clicked on an empty chamber; he emptied the other one. Then he reached for his belt⁠—and Tony heard him curse.

“Dieu! Those damned Copts! The priests⁠—they got my ammunition belt in the fight!”

Tony stopped, turned. Desquer was standing straddle-legged, the carbon-pistols, futile without coal, pointing at the priests. His face was set into rock-hard lines.

Thotmes shouted something and lifted the missing ammunition belt in one hand. He raised it tauntingly.

“Got any coal?” Desquer rasped. The other two men shook their heads.

The priests began to move forward.

Tony said, “You can’t destroy the machine now, Desquer. You’ve doomed the world⁠—and yourself.”

Desquer’s knuckles were white; he stood as though carven from granite. His jet eyes squinted at the oncoming mob.

Jimmy started to laugh. “How do you like it, Desquer?” he mocked. “You’re not the commander now. You’re just a guy with an empty gun. And⁠—you’re going to die, Desquer. You’re going to die!”

The tension grew unendurable. The priests were advancing slowly, as though assured that their quarry could not escape. In the lead Thotmes was smiling and stroking his beard with one hand.

“Surrender,” he called out. “No harm will come to you⁠—for a while. Not till we need new beast-gods!”

Desquer’s face went a mottled red. But still there was no fear in the man. He faced the throng, still holding his guns⁠—and suddenly sheathed one and began to search his pockets. His low voice rapped out.

“Quick, you fools! See if there’s anything on you we can use for ammunition. It doesn’t have to be coal⁠—carbon will do.”

Tony shot one hurried glance at the mob of priests. Desquer gave a little cry of triumph and brought out a single coal-cartridge from his tunic pocket. “Good! Only one, but⁠—” He slipped it into the gun’s firing cup.

There was a queer look, almost of amusement, on Tony’s dark face. He gripped Jimmy’s arm and whispered, “Wait!”

Desquer stepped forward. He raised his gun and called, “Halt!”

A flashing smile came from Thotmes. The high priest did not reply. He kept on.⁠ ⁠…

And Desquer fired.

Thotmes seemed surprised. He paused, lifting his hands to a chest that was a gory mass of red ruin. He stared at his bloodstained fingers.

From the priests went up a whisper of terror⁠—as Thotmes fell! The high priest of Alu was dead!

Desquer did not pause. He took one step forward, and another, as though expecting his enemies to give back. But they did not.

They massed together grimly⁠—and advanced.

This time the commander paused, his thick lips twisting. His hand dived into his tunic pocket in a futile gesture. But there was no more ammunition.

Tony was smiling. He touched Desquer’s arm.

“I’ve a bullet for you, commander.”

“Eh?” The glittering eyes widened. “Where⁠—”

Desquer’s gaze focused on what Tony held in his palm. Lens-shaped and lovely the great gem lay there, flashing in the red light of Alu. Like a diamond it was⁠—but it was not a diamond.

Jimmy said breathlessly, “Tony! You⁠—”

“The Earth Star!” There was sweat on Desquer’s face.

“Go on,” Tony whispered. “Take it, commander! It’s carbon. You can use it as a bullet. A coal-cartridge will kill a man. This jewel’s much harder than stone. There’s no limit to the power of a carbon gun. You can bring down the pyramid with this⁠—commander!”

Desquer still did not move, and Tony deftly slipped the jewel into the gun’s cup. It rested there in its strange setting, beautiful beyond imagination, holding within its fiery heart fortunes and grandeur and death. A jewel⁠—but it was carbon, too. And Desquer’s eyes did not move from the great gem.

“Shoot,” Tony said. “If you do, you lose the Earth Star. If you don’t⁠—it means death.”

The commander’s face was shining with sweat. He glanced up once to the mob of priests, very close now. His gross frame shook with the agony of indecision. To possess the Earth Star⁠—and to know that its possession meant certain doom! He had only to squeeze the trigger, and his enemies would be blasted out of existence. But if he did that⁠—

He would lose the Earth Star!

He snarled at Tony, “So you were the one! The Merlin⁠—”

“Fire!”

Almost involuntarily Desquer brought up the gun and aimed it. He was whispering curses under his breath, putting off until the last moment the decision that must be made sooner or later. And he dared not wait too long. The priests came closer.

The flickering red glow made Desquer’s features scarlet and black; his eyes burned balefully, tortured and terrible. He said, “Damn you! I⁠—I’ll⁠—”

His finger tightened on the trigger. And⁠—stopped.

For the priests had paused. They were staring at the Earth Star. They, too, were frozen motionless.

One cried, “The jewel! The jewel!”

The tableau held. Abruptly the priests gave back, hesitating. Tony heard Jimmy’s gasp. He, too, was wondering what this meant.

He was never to know. Perhaps, in long-forgotten ages, another Earth Star had been dug out from beneath the Atlantic, to form part of the religion of Atlantis. Tony could not know. But he realized that the priests recognized the jewel, or thought they did. They bowed before it!

Instantly Desquer realized his opportunity. He said quietly, “Come on. We’re going into the pyramid⁠—and smash the machine.”

Tony said, “You’re crazy. The priests won’t stand for that!”

Desquer grinned unpleasantly. Without warning the other gun was in his hand; he clubbed it and swung. Tony felt a crashing blow on his head as he ducked. Gasping with pain, he reeled in and closed with the giant commander.

Jimmy had hold of Desquer’s arm but with one sweeping motion the officer sent the boy sprawling. Desquer and Tony went down with a crash on the stones. Soft cries came from the priests. They began to move forward again, their superstitious terror gone.

Desquer’s stubby fingers were sunk into Tony’s throat; he squeezed viciously, his tiny eyes glinting. Though he lay undermost, he was getting the better of the battle. Tony pumped blow after blow at the commander’s face, but apparently without effect. He felt Jimmy at his side, saw the boy try to tear the iron fingers from his brother’s neck.

And, too, Tony saw the carbon-pistol lying on the stones near by.

“Jimmy!” His voice was a cracked wheeze. “Gun⁠—pyramid⁠—”

Into Desquer’s eyes sprang murder-light. The fingers contracted, sending agony down Tony’s spine. Jimmy understood, though, and dived for the pistol. He snatched it up, leveled it at the pyramid and the oncoming priests.

Desquer yelled like a beast. His fingers relaxed. Somehow he writhed free, sprang up, plunged toward Jimmy.

“Don’t!” he bellowed. “Don’t⁠—”

From the gun’s muzzle burst a raving blast of searing flame. The incredible pressure that had made the Earth Star was released. Straight through the ranks of the priests it bored an aisle, into the heart of the pyramid, melting and wrecking solid stone with the terrific power of its thrust. The volcanic fires of Earth itself seemed to be latent in that⁠—bullet!

Over the cries of the priests came a rumbling, crashing thunder. A block fell, clattering down the pyramid’s side. The structure buckled. Its whole side was torn out. The summit toppled and came thundering down, amid clouds of smoking dust and ruin.

Tony staggered erect, staring up. Something was happening to the cavern roof. The pyramid had been a pillar, supporting it. And now the support was gone⁠—

Rocks fell from above. Cracks ran out like a great spider web. Something silvery flashed down from above, glinting red in the crimson glow. Tony remembered that above Alu was⁠—the Midnight Sea!

And that sunless, tideless ocean was pouring into the cavern world through the crevasse that had been torn in its floor!

The falling water became a column, a torrent, a bellowing Niagara. It drowned the wreckage of the pyramid. Down the flood came thundering, and icy tides lapped at Tony’s feet. He seized Jimmy’s arm, pushed him along.

“We’ve got to get out of here!”

“How⁠—how can we?”

“We can try⁠—”

Their voices, raised to shouts, sounded like thin whispers above the mighty rush of the ocean that was pouring into Alu. The priests ran about aimlessly, and among them, Tony saw, was Commander Desquer. A knot of the Atlanteans surrounded the officer. They were trying to pull him down, like wolves surrounding a bison. Unarmed, Desquer yet was stronger than his opponents.

Silently Jimmy pointed. Tony’s teeth showed in a mirthless grin.

“So what?” his lips formed. He was remembering Phil⁠ ⁠…

The brothers plunged along the street, already knee deep in surging black water. A louder thunder came from behind them. A new sound filled the cavern⁠—a deep hissing, like steam. Beyond the wreck of the pyramid, Tony saw with a quick glance, crimson clouds were lifting. So the red light of Alu was actually due to volcanic activity. And now the icy waters of the Midnight Sea were finding the molten fires of lava⁠—

More rocks fell thunderously. Looking back, Tony saw a single figure charging after them⁠—Desquer, a battered, bleeding giant who splashed on through the water amid a hail of stone that dropped from the vaulted heaven of Alu. All about him that deadly hail dropped. One glance Tony had of Desquer rushing on, heavy shoulders hunched, teeth bared in a mirthless grin⁠—

Then he was gone! The avalanche from the cracking skies buried him. A pile of rocks showed for an instant where he had been, and that, too, vanished as the rising waters seethed past.

Tony said nothing, but as he fought past the temple of Osiris where Phil’s body lay, he lifted his hand in a queer, quick salute. Perhaps Phil would know, now, that his death had been avenged⁠ ⁠…

Already the dark tides were seething at the tunnel-mouth that led to the upper world. On the threshold Tony paused, to take one last look at ruined Alu. The red light was darker now, and somber. The flaming clouds boiled up endlessly; the rock shook and quaked underfoot. The Niagara that poured from the roof of the cave looked like a solid obelisk, and an odd thought came into Tony’s mind.

“A pillar of cloud by day⁠ ⁠… and a pillar of smoke by night⁠ ⁠…”

Alu, daughter of Atlantis, was dying as the mother continent had died. Earth-fires and deluge were slaying her, wiping out all life, wrecking the culture that had survived from the misty, unknown eons before Egypt was. The huge temples, half submerged in seething tides, were falling in ruin. All over the vast cavern darkness was falling.

The arched ramp they had seen on entering Alu was still visible, far away. And now Tony saw that there were figures upon it, as there had been at first. Figures with strange, misshapen heads⁠—

The pitiable, terrible beast-gods of Alu, created by dead Thotmes’ science!

One glimpse Tony had of those far figures, outlined blackly against red smoke. Then⁠—the ramp fell.

Over Alu the roaring desolation of death and ruin held sway!

Tony turned to the white-faced Jimmy. Already the water was tearing at their thighs.

“Come on,” he shouted. “We’re getting out of here. Fast!”

They fled up the tunnel⁠ ⁠…

The rest was sheer nightmare. Somehow they found their way, following always the passages that led up, hiding from terrified, frantic Copts, fleeing through corridors whose walls shook with the grip of earthquake. Up and up they went, finding at last a frightened Copt who agreed to guide them to the surface. His own world was falling in pieces about him, and he wished only to escape. A cave-in crushed him not long after, but the passage stretched unbroken before the brothers. They toiled on⁠ ⁠…

Daylight filtered in yellow brilliance through a crack in the rock. Exhausted, haggard, filthy scarecrows, the two squeezed through into blazing sunlight. About them lay rolling dunes. They were in a rocky little valley.

They dropped to the sand and lay there motionless for hours, scarcely conscious of the burning sun.

The soft mutter of a gyro motor woke them. Tony sat up, blinking. He was in time to see a plane land softly not far away, and a figure in flying uniform step out.

Jimmy was still sleeping. Tony lurched forward to greet the new arrival. His eyes were misty with sleep, and he did not at first recognize the pilot⁠—not till the latter took out an automatic and held it ready.

Then he saw it was Zadah, the Rajah’s secretary.

Tony stopped, swaying a little, his arms hanging limp at his sides. Zadah’s round face was triumphant. The beady eyes shone with triumph.

“Luck,” he said. “I’ve been cruising about for hours just on an off chance. I just happened to sight you⁠—”

“The Copts.” Tony said thickly. “They⁠—”

Zadah nodded. “I know. Your legionnaire got through⁠—Jacklyn. There’s an army of troopers at the mouth of Sub-Sahara. But⁠—where’s the Earth Star? If you escaped, that means Desquer didn’t get it.”

“It’s gone. Desquer got it⁠—and used it. The Earth Star’s destroyed, Zadah.”

The other hesitated. Something he saw in Tony’s eyes made him realize that the latter spoke truth. Abruptly baffled rage sprang into Zadah’s round face.

“Gone! Then⁠—”

He lifted the gun, his lips white with fury at the wreckage of his plans. “Maybe! If you’re lying, I’ll find the jewel on your bodies.”

Tony tensed himself for a spring that he knew in advance would be futile. But, before he could move, another figure hurled itself forward. Jimmy’s slight frame dived at the killer.

Zadah’s gun barked. Jimmy cried out; the Oriental swung his weapon back to Tony. But he was too late. His wrist was held in a grip of iron. Tony’s dark face was close to his own, and there was death in the somber eyes.

Zadah screamed.

Tony said not a word. Very slowly, very carefully, he bent Zadah’s hand back. The latter’s finger was still on the trigger. The gun pointed at last at the killer’s heart.

Then Tony smiled⁠—and the muscles of his hand contracted.

The report was shatteringly loud in the desert stillness.

Tony let the limp body slide down, and turned back to Jimmy. The boy was dead. Zadah’s bullet had made a neat little hole in the brown shirt.

After a moment Tony carried the body of his brother to the plane and put it aboard. He followed. He sent the gyro winging up over the desert.

Beneath him the Sahara stretched, a white wilderness under the flaming heat of the Sun. To the north could be seen an encampment, the troopers that had arrived, too late, at the mouth of Sub-Sahara. Tony set the controls and fled beyond them.

The desert gave place to the Mediterranean, and that, in turn, to the Pacific Ocean. The cool blueness of night folded down. Moonlight silvered the waves.

Tony opened a trapdoor in the floor and let the body of his brother slide through. Phil rested in the temple of Osiris⁠—and Jimmy would lie beneath the waves that hid Atlantis.

He went back to the controls, staring ahead at an empty horizon. Westward lay New York. He could go back there now; the motive for keeping hidden had vanished. No one would know who the Merlin was. Some men might guess, might be convinced that either Phil or Jimmy had stolen the Earth Star⁠—but they would never dare make an accusation, and Seth Martell would need make no compromises with his honor and his ideals.

Only Tony would know that the Merlin had been his brother Phil.

For ten minutes he had been alone with Phil in the Temple of Osiris. And, before the youth died, he had told Tony the truth⁠—that he was the Merlin. He had given his brother the Earth Star to keep. But no one would ever know that now.

Tony’s throat was tight. He stared at the dim horizon of sky and sea, knowing that beyond it lay New York, and a life he could take up again where he had left it. A life he must live⁠—alone.

A faint glow brightened to the west. The tallest towers of Manhattan were pillars of light against the sky.

Foreword

Late in the Twentieth Century Man, for the first time, burst through the invisible barrier that had always kept him chained to his planet. A new and almost uncharted ocean lay before him, its vastness illimitable, its mysteries as yet unexplored. Magellan, Columbus, Leif Ericsson⁠—these primitives expected great wonders as the searoads opened before the prows of their ships. But the first spacemen thought⁠—mistakenly, as it proved⁠—that the airless void between the worlds could hold little unknown to them.

They did not foresee that actual experience of a thing is far different from abstract knowledge of it. They did not foresee the death that leaped upon them from the outer dark, the strange, enigmatic horror that killed men without leaving trace or clue. The ships came back, crews decimated. Out there lay a menace that slew with blind, ravening fury.

For a time space held its secret. And then the Varra spoke to us, warned us, told us why space was forbidden.

The Varra⁠—glowing balls of light that hung in the void, vortices of electromagnetic energy, alive and intelligent. For generations, they said, they had tried to communicate with us. But they could not exist except in airless space, or under specialized conditions. They were not protoplasmic in nature; they were beings of pure energy. But they were intelligent and friendly.

From them we learned the nature of the menace. A race of beings dwelt on Pluto, so different from both humanity and the Varra that they were almost inconceivable. This race had never mastered space travel; it had no need to leave its dark world. Only the immense power of the Plutonians’ minds reached out through the void, vampiric, draining the life-energy from living organisms over incredible distances. Like medieval robber-barons they laired on their planet, and the tentacles of their minds reached impalpably out for prey. Vampires of energy.

Vampires of life.

But the Varra they could not touch or harm. The peculiar physical structure of the Varra rendered them safe from the Plutonian creatures.

A World Fleet was sent out to subdue Pluto, against the advice of the Varra. It did not return.

In the end we made a pact with the Varra. They conveyed us through space, protecting us, as far as they were able, from the Plutonian vampires, though they did not always succeed. Each man who ventured into the void was guarded and guided by a Varra, and therefore many lived who would otherwise have died. No ship went beyond the orbit of Neptune; even that was dangerous. No ship ever landed on Pluto.

Only those guarded by the Varra were permitted to leave Earth. For the rest⁠—space was forbidden.

The Arctic blizzard swept needles of stinging ice against Saul Duncan’s face. Doggedly he plowed on, head lowered, heavy shoulders hunched against the fury of the winds. Once he heard the drone of a heliplane overhead, and flung himself flat till the sound had been swallowed by the gale. Then for a few moments his body refused to obey the grim demands of his mind. Deceptive warmth was stealing over him, inviting him to rest. But that, he knew, meant death then and there.

If he kept going, there was a chance of safety and freedom⁠—not much of a chance, though, for few men ever escaped alive from the Transpolar Penitentiary. Situated within the Arctic Circle, the grim, guarded fortress of stone and metal and tough plastics was safer than Alcatraz had been a century and a half ago. Yet Duncan had escaped.⁠ ⁠…

His bitter lips twisted in a harsh smile. Escape! Into a polar blizzard⁠—but that was the only possible time when a prisoner could evade the guard planes that patrolled the frigid waste. And Duncan could not have made his escape without aid from outside.

With stiff fingers he fumbled out a compass-like instrument that had been smuggled to him in the penitentiary. The needle held motionless, pointing directly into the teeth of the gale. If he kept on in that direction, sooner or later he would reach Olcott’s plane. But how long it would take he did not know.

Still, even dying in the blizzard was better than another five years in Transpolar⁠—five years that had ravaged and embittered Saul Duncan, hardening his no-longer-youthful face, putting ice into his glance and hatred in his heart. But physically he had thrived. If a prisoner survived the first year at Transpolar, he grew tougher, harder⁠—and more dangerous.

Duncan trudged on, shaking with cold. Ten years for murder⁠—second degree murder. Well, he hadn’t been framed. He’d wanted to kill Moriarty. And he had succeeded, in a moment of blind, crimson rage that had flooded his brain and sent his fist smashing into Moriarty’s face with the impact of a piledriver. The man had put his filthy hands on Andrea.⁠ ⁠…

Damn him! Even now Duncan’s muscles grew tight at the memory. He recalled how he and Andrea had fought their way up, slum-bred, facing a future of poverty and crime, and how they had seized a chance of escaping from that dark future. It meant arduous work, years of training, for learning to pilot a spaceship is no easy task. But he had done it, and Andrea had been willing to wait, scraping along on just a little more than nothing, in preparation for the day when Duncan could draw the pay of a first-rate pilot.

But Moriarty had been Duncan’s superior officer. And there had been no witnesses except Andrea and Duncan. The verdict was murder, with extenuating circumstances. A recommendation for mercy.

Mercy⁠—ten years in Transpolar, of which Duncan had already served five! Five years of knowing that Andrea, ticketed as a jailbird’s wife, could scarcely earn enough to keep alive. Five years, and there were patches of iron gray along Saul Duncan’s temples.

He had grown bitter. He hated the society that had sent him to a living hell, and when Olcott offered escape.⁠ ⁠…

At a price, of course. But Duncan was ready to pay that price. His gray eyes were savage as he marched on, staggering sometimes, snow crusting on his lashes so that he could scarcely see.

So well was the plane camouflaged that he almost lurched into the white hull before he realized that he had reached the end of the march. Sudden weakness overtook Duncan, and he found it difficult to move the few steps to the cabin’s door. He pounded on the alloy with fists that had no feeling.

There was a click, and the panel slid open, letting a gust of warm air play about Duncan’s cheeks.

Brent Olcott stood there, tall, dark-haired and arrogantly handsome. He was a big man, like Duncan, but so well proportioned that his movements were tigerishly graceful. His teeth flashed under a well-kept mustache as he extended a hand.

It was impossible to speak above the gale’s shriek. Not till the panel had been shut, cutting off the uproar, did Olcott say tersely, “Glad you made it, Duncan. I didn’t count on a storm like this.”

“I made it. That’s the important part.” It was difficult to articulate with almost frozen lips. Olcott looked at him sharply.

“Frostbite? Can’t have that. Strip down and rub yourself with that.” He nodded toward an auto-refrigerated bucket of chopped ice on a shelf. “If we’re ordered down, I’ve a secret compartment you can slide into. Crowded quarters, but you won’t be found there. Now⁠—” He turned to the controls as Duncan, shivering, peeled off his wet garments.

It was a difficult takeoff, despite the triple-powered motor. Only a gyro-equipped plane could have made it. The ship lurched and rocked dangerously in the blast.

Duncan fought his way beside Olcott. “Got rockets?”

“Auxiliaries, yes. But⁠—”

“They won’t be seen in this storm.”

Olcott spread his hands in a meaning gesture. Few atmosphere pilots could handle the tricky manipulations of rocket-tubes. They were for emergency only, but this, Duncan thought, was an emergency. He thrust Olcott away and slid into the cushioned cradle-chair. His fingers, still stiff, poised over the keys.

Then his old-time skill came back, the intricate series of what were really conditioned reflexes that made a pilot capable of handling a bank of tube keys. Split-second thinking wasn’t quite enough. Reactions had to be almost without thought. The ship spun down, and Duncan’s hands flashed into swift movement on the studs.

The sudden acceleration hit him in the pit of the stomach. Olcott had braced himself, but was almost torn loose from his grip. For a moment the plane bucked and jolted madly, rocket fighting rocket, both fighting the gale. Then, without warning, they were above the storm, in air almost too thin for the prop, leveling off at an easy keel.

Duncan set the course due south and turned to Olcott for instructions. The latter was at another keyboard, carefully studying a visiplate before him. It showed the sky, dark blue and empty. After a moment Olcott made a few adjustments and came back to take over the controls.

“Nice work. You’re a better pilot than I’d hoped. But you’ll need to be⁠—” Olcott didn’t finish.

Duncan was rubbing his skin with ice. “I know rockets. Say, isn’t this dangerous? We may be spotted from below.”

“We won’t. This plane’s a chameleon. The man we’re going to see invented the trick for me. We’ve a double hull, and the outer skin’s transparent plastic. The space between the skins can be filled with certain colored gases⁠—I’ve a wide range of colors. On the snowfield I used white, to blend with surroundings. Here it’s a blue gas. From below we’re invisible against the sky.” Olcott rose to make an adjustment. “I’d better lighten the color a bit. We’re going south fast, and the sky’s not so dark now.”

Duncan nodded appreciatively. He had heard stories about Brent Olcott, few of them savory, but all hinting at the man’s intelligence and power. He was one of those who, in the Twenty-first Century, made money without being too scrupulous about his methods. Technically Olcott owned a firm named “Enterprises, Ltd.” Unlimited would have been more suitable. His finger was in plenty of pies, but he had always managed to pull out plums without getting his hands soiled. Legally his record was clean.

But he was dangerous. When Duncan had accepted Olcott’s offer of help, he had known what that meant⁠—a job, and a dirty one. Nevertheless, it would pay plenty⁠—and it would mean freedom from Transpolar, and being with Andrea again.

Duncan dressed in the clothes Olcott had provided, an unobtrusive dark fabricoid blouse and trousers, gathered at the ankles in the conventional fashion. In the heated cabin no more clothing was necessary.

“There’s a bottle over there,” Olcott suggested.

Duncan gulped whiskey, feeling the hot tingling of the liquid spread out from his stomach. He felt better, though there was a curious air of unreality about the whole thing. A port, showed him the storm cloud, below and behind now. Somewhere in that troubled darkness lay the grim fortress of Transpolar Penitentiary, the hell that had swallowed five years of Duncan’s life, and drained him of hope and ideals.

There was hope again. But ideals⁠—

He upended the bottle.

Olcott looked up from the controls. The air was clear, and the tremendous power of the engines hurled them southward at fantastic speed.

“Sit over here, Duncan,” he invited. “I want to talk to you.”

“Okay. Let’s have it. You’ve got a job lined up for me, I know that. The question is⁠—why me?”

Olcott picked his words carefully. “There aren’t many qualified space pilots in the system. And those are well paid; I couldn’t get at any of ’em. I tried, I’ll admit⁠—but not after I heard about you. Would you like to make half a million credits?”

“Keep talking.”

“With that many credits, you’d never need to work again. I know a good surgeon who’d remold your face and graft new fingers on your hands, so you wouldn’t have to worry about prints. You probably couldn’t be convicted even if they arrested you⁠—not without complete identification.”

Duncan didn’t answer, but his lips had gone pale and thin. One is seldom transported instantly from hell to heaven. Yet Olcott’s offer was⁠—well, it meant everything, including Andrea.

“Go on,” Duncan said hoarsely. “What d’you want me to do?”

Olcott’s cool, watchful eyes met his own.

“Go into space,” he said, “without a Varra Helmet.”

The plane thundered on, and miles had been left behind before Duncan spoke again.

“Suicide.”

“No. There’s a way.”

“When I was piloting, no one was allowed to space-travel without a Helmet. Even with the Varra convoys, people were sometimes killed by the Plutonians. I remember a few screwballs tried to slip out without the Varra, but they didn’t live.”

Olcott said, “I’ve found a way of leaving Earth without a Helmet, and without being detected by the Plutonians. It isn’t sure-fire, but all the chances are in your favor. Shall I go on?”

“Yeah,” Duncan said tonelessly.

“I need money. I need it bad, just now. And there’s a ship heading for Earth now that’s got a pound of Martian radium aboard.”

“A pound!”

“A hell of a lot, even considering the big radium deposits on Mars. With my connections, I can sell the stuff. You’re going to hijack the Maid of Mercury, Duncan, and get that radium.”

“Hijacking a spaceship? It’s crazy.”

“It’s never been done, sure. Nobody’s dared go into space without a Helmet. And the government issues the Helmets. But look at the other side of it. We’ve got a few patrol boats⁠—the Interplanetary Police. Which is a loud, raucous laugh. Rickety tubs with no real armament. You won’t have to worry about them.”

Duncan took another drink. “It still sounds like suicide.”

“Hartman will explain⁠—the man we’re going to see now. Take my word for it that you can go into space without a Helmet and be safe. Fairly safe.”

“Half a million credits⁠—”

“The only danger,” Olcott said carefully, “is that the Maid might send out an SOS. The I.P. ships are rickety, but they’re fast, and they might stay on your trail. We can’t have that. So we’ve planted somebody on the Maid who’ll smash the radio apparatus just before you make contact. You can pick her up with the radium and head back to Earth.”

“Her?”

“You know her, I think,” Olcott said quietly, his eyes impassive. “Andrea Duncan.”

Duncan moved fast, but there was a gun in Olcott’s hand covering him.

The latter said, “Take it easy. You killed one man with your fists. I’m taking no chances.”

A tiny scar on Duncan’s forehead flamed red. “You rotten⁠—”

“Don’t be a fool. She’s wearing a Varra Helmet. Of course she’ll take it off when she joins you, or she’d have a Varra en rapport with her, one who’d spill the beans completely.”

“Andrea wouldn’t⁠—”

“She doesn’t know all of my plans. And she was willing to help me⁠—as the price of your freedom. Listen!” Olcott spoke persuasively. “The girl’s already on the ship. She’s got her instructions. Tomorrow, at three p.m., she’ll smash the radio. If you’re not on hand to pick her up⁠—and the radium⁠—she’ll get into trouble. Destroying communications in space is a penal offense. She might go to Transpolar.”

Duncan snarled deep in his throat. His face was savage.

Olcott kept the gun steady. “Everything’s planned. Be smart, and in a couple of days you’ll be back on Earth, with Andrea and half a million credits. If you want to be a damned fool⁠—” the pistol jutted⁠—“it’s a long drop. And it’ll be tough on the girl.”

“Yeah,” Duncan whispered. “I get it.” His big fists clenched. “I’ll play it your way, Olcott. I have to. But if anything happens to Andrea, God help you!”

Olcott only smiled.

Rudy Hartman was drunk. An overturned bottle of khlar, the fiery Martian brew, lay beside his cot, and he stumbled over it and cursed thickly as he blinked at tropical sunlight. The gross, shapeless body, clad in filthy singlet and dungarees, lumbered over to a crude laboratory bench, and Hartman, blinking and grunting, fumbled for a syringe. He shot thiamin chloride into his arm, and simultaneously heard the roar of a plane’s motor.

Hastily Hartman left the godown and headed for the island’s beach near by. The camouflaged amphibian was gliding across the lagoon⁠—a quick flight, that had been, from the Polar Circle to the South Pacific! Hartman’s eyes focused blearily on the plane as it slid toward the rough dock.

Two men got out⁠—Olcott and Duncan.

“Everything’s ready,” Hartman said. His tongue was thick, and he steadied himself with an effort.

“Good!” Olcott glanced at his wrist-chronometer. “There’s no time to waste.”

“When do I take off?”

“Immediately. You’ll pick up the Maid this side of the Moon, but it’s a long distance.”

Hartman was blinking at the convict. “You’re Saul Duncan. Hope you’re a good pilot. This is⁠—um⁠—ticklish work.”

“I can handle it,” Duncan said shortly. Olcott was already moving toward a trail that led inland from the beach. The other two followed for perhaps half a mile, till they reached the dead-black hull of a small cruiser-type spaceship, camouflaged from above with vines and pandanus leaves. The boat showed signs of hard usage. Duncan walked around to the stern tubes and carefully examined the jointures.

“Crack-up, eh?” he said.

Olcott nodded. “How do you suppose we got our hands on the crate? It was wrecked south of here, near a little islet. There weren’t any survivors. It cost me plenty to have the ship brought here secretly, where Hartman could work on it. But it has been put in good shape now.”

“She⁠—um⁠—runs,” the scientist said doubtfully, blinking. “And she has strong motors. Unless they’re too strong. I spot-welded the hull, but there is⁠—um⁠—a certain amount of danger.”

Olcott made an impatient gesture. “Let’s go in.”

The control cabin showed signs of careful work; Duncan decided that Hartman knew his job. He moved to the controls and examined them with interest.

“Made any test-runs?”

“Without a pilot?” Olcott chuckled. “Hartman says it’ll fly, and that’s enough for me.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I see you’ve painted the ship black. That’ll make it difficult to spot. I’ll have only occlusion to worry about, and a fast course with this little boat will take care of that.” Duncan pulled at his lower lip. “I noticed you put rocket-screens on, too.”

“Naturally.” Rocket-screens, like gun-silencers, were illegal, and for a similar reason. The flare of the jets are visible across vast distances in space, but a dead-black ship, tubes screened, would be practically invisible.

“Okay,” Duncan said. “What about the Plutonians.”

It was Hartman who spoke this time. “Just what do you know about the Plutonians?”

“No more than anyone else. No ship’s ever landed on Pluto. The creatures are mental vampires. They can reach out, somehow, across space and suck the energy out of the brain.”

Hartman’s ravaged face twisted in a grin. “So. But their power can’t break through the Heaviside Layer. That’s why Earth hasn’t been harmed. Only space travelers, unprotected by a Varra convoy, are vulnerable. Even with Varra Helmets, men are sometimes killed. All right. How do you suppose the Plutonians find their victims?”

“Nobody knows that,” Duncan said. “Mental vibrations, maybe.”

Hartman snorted. “Space is big! The electrical impulses of a brain are microscopic compared to interplanetary distances. But the ships⁠—there’s the answer. A spaceship is visible for thousands of miles⁠—reflection, and the rocket-jets. It’d be easy for the Plutonians to locate our ships, if they have any sort of telescopes at all. So, we have here a ship they cannot find. Therefore, we do not need a Varra escort to protect us from the Plutonians.”

“It would have been safer if we could have hired a Varra,” Olcott said. “Still, that was impossible. They’re hand in glove with the government.”

“I know. They’ve convoyed me, in the old days,” Duncan grunted. “Let me go over it again. I take this ship out, pick up the Maid, Earthside of Luna, and get the radium⁠—and Andrea.”

“Right,” Olcott nodded. “Then back here, and I hand over half a million credits.”

“Going into space without a Helmet is risky.”

“You will not be near Pluto,” Hartman put in. “There is danger, yes, but it is minimized.”

“But there is danger. I’m thinking of Andrea. When I pick her up, she’s got to leave her Helmet in the Maid.”

“Naturally,” Olcott snapped, his lips thinning. “If she continues to wear it, she brings a Varra back to Earth with her⁠—a spy.”

Duncan looked at Hartman. “What armament are we carrying?”

“Six four-inch blaster cannons, fully charged.”

“Okay.” Duncan turned again to the controls, slipping into the cushioned basket-seat. “Everything oiled and clean, eh? Doors?” He touched a stud; the valve of the door closed silently.

“Everything is ready,” Hartman said.

“Air-conditioning?” Duncan tried it. “Good. Course?” He checked the space-chart before him. His back to the others, he said quietly, “You’re asking Andrea to take a big risk, Olcott. You too, Hartman, going into space without a Helmet.”

Olcott moved uneasily; Duncan could see him in the mirror above the instrument panel. “Hell! It was her own choice⁠—”

“You blackmailed her into it.”

Olcott’s lips thinned. “Backing out? If you are, say so.”

“No,” Duncan said, “I’m not backing out. I’m going into space. But you two are going with me⁠—right now!”

His poised fingers shot down on the instrument board. Olcott’s oath and Hartman’s startled yell were both drowned in a sudden raging fury of rockets. In the mirror Duncan could see the gun that flashed into Olcott’s hand, but at the same instant terrific acceleration clamped hold of the little ship.

Olcott’s gun was never fired. The three men’s senses blacked out instantly, mercifully, as the stress of abnormal gravities lifted the cruiser bullet-fast from the islet. Three figures lay motionless on the plasticoid floor, while the rockets’ bellow mingled with the shrieking of the atmosphere. The insulated hull scarcely had time to heat before the ship was in free space, shuddering through all its repaired beams and joists, the dull, heavy thunder of the screened tubes vibrating like a tocsin of doom in every inch of the cruiser.

The hull was dead black, the jets screened. No eye detected the swift flight of the ship. Toward the Moon it plunged, rockets bellowing with insensate fury.⁠ ⁠…

Duncan was first to awaken. Space flight was nothing new to him, and his body had been hardened and toughened by five years at Transpolar. Nevertheless, his muscles throbbed with pain, and he had a blinding headache as he dragged his eyelids up and tried to remember what had happened.

Realization came back. Spaceman’s instinct made Duncan look first at the controls. The chronometer on the board told him that he had been unconscious for many hours. Watching the star-map, he figured swiftly. Fair enough. They were off their course, but the cruiser had been traveling at breakneck speed. It was still possible to keep the rendezvous with the Maid. Duncan readjusted the controls.

After that, he turned to Olcott and the scientist. Neither was seriously injured. Duncan relieved Olcott of his gun; Hartman was unarmed. Then he took a drink and sat down to wait.

Presently Olcott stirred slightly. His lashes did not move, but without warning his hand streaked toward his pocket.

“I’ve got your gun,” Duncan said gently. “Stop playing possum and get up.”

Olcott obeyed. There was a streak of blood on his cheek, and he swayed a little as he stood, straddle-legged, facing the pilot.

“What’s the idea?”

Duncan grinned. “I’m carrying out your orders. I just thought I’d like company.”

Olcott fingered his mustache. “You’re the first man who ever played a trick like that on me.”

For answer Duncan stood up and waved negligently at the controls. “Take over, if you like. Head the ship back to Earth.”

The irony was evident. In free space, almost anyone could pilot a cruiser. But emergencies and landings were different matters. Years of training in split-second, conditioned reactions were necessary to make a pilot⁠—and only Duncan had had that training. Olcott could easily turn the ship around, but he probably could not control it in atmosphere, and he certainly could not make a safe landing. Olcott was in a prison, and Duncan held the only key.

“What do you want?”

“Not a thing. I’m going through with the job. I’ll get the radium for you, and pick up Andrea. But if the Plutonians harm her, without a Helmet, she won’t die alone. We’re all in the same boat now.”

Olcott came to a decision. “All right. You’ve got aces. Later, we can settle things⁠—not now.”

Duncan turned to the star-map. “Fair enough.”

In the mirror he watched Olcott kneel beside the unconscious Hartman and break an ammonia capsule under the scientist’s nose. Yes, fair enough. He had Olcott in a trap. Dangerous as the man was⁠—and Duncan made no mistake about that⁠—he would scarcely be fool enough to cause trouble till his own safety was assured.

It wouldn’t be assured till the cruiser was back on Earth. Meanwhile, they were in free space⁠—without Varra Helmets. Duncan shivered a little. His eyes sought the enigmatic blackness where Pluto swung in its orbit, invisible and menacing. The Plutonian mind-vampires. Apparently Hartman’s trick had worked. The creatures had not yet discovered the blacked-out cruiser.

Not yet. But the scope of their powers was unknown. After all, the Plutonians were the reason why space was forbidden.

Instinctively Duncan’s teeth showed in a snarl of savage defiance.

There was hilarious excitement aboard the Maid of Mercury. The big passenger-cargo ship had just crossed the Line⁠—Luna’s orbit⁠—and that entailed a ceremony involving those who had never crossed before. An officer, grotesquely costumed as the Man in the Moon, presided from a makeshift throne in the main salon, and Andrea Duncan, smiling a little, watched the victims each get their dose of crazy-gas. She’d already had her initiation, and the effects of the mildly intoxicating gas were wearing off.

It was difficult to believe that outside the hull lay empty space, dark and limitless. Andrea turned her mind away from the thought. But another came⁠—Saul⁠—and she bit her lip and caught her breath in a tiny gasp. Saul! Had Olcott managed the escape? Was Saul Duncan free from Transpolar?

He must be. Olcott wouldn’t fail. That meant that in a few hours Andrea must destroy the communication system. Olcott had told her the best way. Yes, she was ready. It would mean freedom for Saul.

If she failed, Olcott had said, her husband would be sent back to Transpolar, with an additional heavy sentence⁠—ten more years, perhaps. Well, she wouldn’t fail.

A man brushed past her. “Your hair’s mussed up⁠—”

Instinctively Andrea lifted a hand, only to be checked by the hard plastic curve of her Helmet. It was an old gag, but she forced herself to smile. The necessity of wearing Helmets in space had become a joke to most of the passengers. Probably only the officers realized the true danger of the Plutonian mind-vampires.

Everyone in the salon, of course, wore a Helmet⁠—even the Man in the Moon, under his disguise. Cumbersome as they looked, they rested lightly on the wearers’ shoulders, and were actually so light that one easily became accustomed to them. Andrea studied her reflection in a nearby mirror. Her small, heart-shaped face seemed dwarfed by the Helmet. Experimentally, like an interested child, she pressed a stud and saw the transparent, airtight shield slide into place an inch from her nose. Within the ship the shields were not necessary, nor were complete spacesuits. But the Helmets were vital.

Andrea knew little or nothing of the technical details. The secret of the Helmets lay in the luminous, intertron knob atop each one. It was this that provided a two-way hookup with the Varra. She remembered what an officer had told her, when she had first donned a Helmet at the Atlantic Spaceport.

“Never done it before, eh, miss? Well, don’t be frightened. Let me help you.” He had adjusted the bulky Helmet. “The power won’t be turned on till we hit the Heaviside Layer. The Varra can’t safely enter our atmosphere, you know.”

“I didn’t know. It seems so strange⁠—”

The officer chuckled. “Not really. It’s like being in radio communication with somebody. You see, when the juice is turned on, a Varra instantly hooks itself up to your Helmet. You can even talk to him⁠—it⁠—if you like. They’re intelligent; nice people, in fact.”

“Can they read thoughts?”

“Everybody asks me that. No, they can’t. The idea is that without a Helmet, you’d be exposed to the Plutonian mind-vampires. As it is, the Varra throws up a mental shield that protects you.”

Andrea hesitated. “It doesn’t always work, though, does it?”

“Almost always. You were warned of that⁠—” His manner became officially rigid. “You signed a release blank, in case of accident. But there’s no danger to speak of. Space flight is exhausting; you’ll feel pretty bad by the time we hit Mars. Somehow there’s an energy drain that even the Varra can’t neutralize.”

“The Plutonians?”

“We think so. But without the Helmets⁠—” He grinned in a comforting fashion. “You’ll be okay, miss.”

Later, at the Heaviside Layer, the power had been turned on in each Helmet. There was no apparent change, except for the sudden luminosity of the intertron knobs. But a voice, friendly despite its curious alienage, had spoken wordlessly inside Andrea’s brain.

“I’m taking over now. Don’t remove your Helmet or turn off the power till you’re in atmosphere again.”

“Atmosphere⁠—” Andrea had spoken aloud without realizing it. The Varra answered her.

“Each planet has a Heaviside Layer, an electronic barrage that disrupts mental-energy vibrations. We find it dangerous to pass that Layer, but so do the Plutonians.”

Another passenger had told Andrea somewhat more⁠—that the Varra, even before space travel, were not unknown to science. Charles Fort had been one of the first to collect data about them⁠—inexplicable balls of fire appearing on Earth, with their life-forces warped and harmed by the Heaviside Layer, moving at random out of their native element.

Two hours after crossing the Lunar Line Andrea slipped noiselessly into the radio room. The long space trip had told on her; like all the others, she was conscious of exhaustion and mental drain. Glancing at her chronometer, she realized that in a few minutes Saul would make contact with the Maid.

She clicked off the power in her Helmet. She wanted no Varra spying on her now.

The radio operator did not turn. He had not seen her or heard her silent approach. Andrea’s hand poised over an intricate array of wires and tore the cables free.

A lance of cold fire plunged into her brain. It was too quick for pain. Her terrified thought, The Plutonians! was cut off instantly. Her mind drowned, as in dark water, chill and horrible.

The radio operator whirled, startled, at the thud of Andrea’s falling body.

“C.Q.X.! C.Q.X.! Calling Maid of Mercury!”

Saul Duncan looked up from the mike. “No answer. Their radio’s dead.”

“Your wife did her job,” Olcott grunted, fingering his mustache. He had regained his usual impassivity, though Hartman, in the background, had not. The scientist, without his daily quart of khlar, was a nervous wreck, puffing cigarette after cigarette in a vain attempt to calm himself.

“There she is.” Duncan nodded at the visiplate, where the bulk of the Maid lay, occulting stars. “We’ll use visual signals. First, though, we’ll have to⁠—”

His fingers moved swiftly. A four-inch blaster cannon sent its bolt of electronic energy ravening through space, across the Maid’s bow. Lights on the cruiser’s hull blinked into rainbow colors.

Paralleling the Maid, steadily drawing closer, the smaller ship kept on its course.

Duncan said, “They noticed that. They’ll be watching the visiplate⁠—”

“What are you telling them?”

“To send over the radium, or we’ll blast ’em to hell.”

“Good!”

But Duncan’s lips were tight. He was bluffing, of course. Blasting an unarmed ship full of passengers⁠—well, if it came to a showdown, he could not do it, even if Andrea had not been on board. However, the Maid’s captain couldn’t know that. He wouldn’t dare take the risk.

Answering lights flashed on the larger ship’s hull. Duncan read them aloud with the ease of long practice.

“No radium aboard. Is this a joke?”

“Send another blast,” Olcott suggested.

Duncan’s response was to fire a bolt that melted two of the Maid’s stern tubes into slag. That didn’t harm anyone in the passenger ship, but it showed that he was presumably in earnest. And he had to get Andrea aboard now. She had smashed the radio, and probably was already under arrest. Well⁠—

“Sending radium. Don’t fire again.”

“Send one of your passengers also. Jane Horton.” Andrea was booked under that alias, Olcott had said.

There was a pause. Then⁠—“Jane Horton victim of Plutonians. Must have turned off power in Helmet. Found dead in radio room just before you made contact.”

Saul Duncan’s fingers didn’t move on the keys. Deep within him, something turned into ice. He was hearing a voice, seeing a face, both phantoms, for Andrea was dead.

Andrea was dead.

The words were meaningless.

He became conscious of Olcott at his side, talking angrily.

“What’s wrong? What did they say?”

Duncan looked at Olcott. The dead, frozen fury in the pilot’s eyes halted Olcott in mid-sentence.

Automatically Duncan’s hand moved over the keyboard.

“Send the body to me.”

Then he waited.

On the visiplate was movement. A port gaped in the Maid’s hull, the escape-hatch with which all ships were provided. Based on torpedo-tube principle, powered by magnetic energy, the projector was built to hurl crew or passengers out of the ship’s sphere of attraction. Sometimes the rockets would fail, in which case the vessel would crash on any nearby body. If that danger threatened, a man in a spacesuit, equipped with auxiliary rockets, could survive for days in the void, provided he was not dragged down with the ship. The projector took care of that.

Now, tuned to minimum power, it thrust a bulky object out into space, pushing it toward the cruiser. Gravitation did the rest. The spacesuit dropped toward the smaller vessel, thudded against the hull. Duncan threw a series of hull magnets, one after another, till the suit was at an escape valve.

Five minutes later the space coffin lay at Duncan’s feet.

Through the bars that protected the transparent faceplate he could see Andrea, her long lashes motionless on her cheeks. Duncan’s face was suddenly haggard. Olcott’s voice jarred on his taut nerves.

“What happened? Did they⁠—”

“The Plutonians killed her,” Duncan said. “She turned off her Helmet, and they killed her.”

Hartman was staring at a lead box attached to the spacesuit. “They sent the radium!”

Duncan’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. With a quick movement he went to the controls and turned the cruiser into a new course. On the visiplate, the Maid began to draw away.

Olcott said, “How long will it take us to get back to Earth?”

“We’re not going back.” Duncan’s voice held no emotion.

“What?”

“Andrea’s dead. The Plutonians killed her. You and Hartman helped.”

Olcott’s big body seemed to tense. “Don’t be a fool. What good will it do to murder us? What’s done is done. You⁠—”

“I’m not going to murder you,” Duncan said. “The Plutonians will take care of that.”

“You’re crazy!”

Briefly a flash of murderous fury showed in Duncan’s eyes. He repressed it.

“I’m taking this boat to Pluto. I’m going to blast hell out of the Plutonians. They’ll get us eventually, all of us. That’ll be swell. I don’t want to live very long now. But before I die, I’m going to smash as many of the Plutonians as I can, because they killed Andrea. And you two are going with me, because you got Andrea into this mess.”

Hartman said shakily, “It’s suicide. No ship can get within a million miles of Pluto!”

“This ship can. It’s dead black, with rocket screens. And the Plutonians haven’t found us yet⁠—which proves something. Hold it!” The gun flashed into Duncan’s hand as Olcott jerked forward. “I’ll kill you myself if I have to, but I’d rather let the Plutonians do it.” He motioned the others to the back of the cabin as a light flashed on the board. After a moment Duncan nodded.

“That was the Maid. They managed to repair their radio. Andrea didn’t have time to smash it thoroughly before. They’re talking to a patrol boat.”

Olcott’s teeth showed. “Well?”

“We don’t want to be stopped⁠—now.” Duncan fingered the controls. The bellow of rockets grew louder. A shuddering vibration rocked the little cruiser.

“Not too fast!” Hartman said warningly. “This ship crashed once. It’s still weak.”

For answer Duncan only increased the power. The thunder of the tubes grew deafening. Already they had crossed the Lunar Line, heading outward in the plane of the ecliptic.

Duncan rose and went to the spacesuit that held Andrea’s body. He wrenched the intertron knob free from the Helmet.

“We want no Varra spy here.” The knob was not glowing, and, without power, the Varra was not en rapport with the Helmet, but Duncan was taking no chances.

Grimly he went back to the controls. Hartman and Olcott watched him, vainly trying to fight back their fear.

The heavy, crashing roar of the rockets mounted to a deafening crescendo.

Named after the Greek god of the underworld, desolate, lifeless and forbidding as Hell itself, Pluto revolved in its tremendous orbit, between thirty-seven hundred million and four thousand million miles from the Sun. Such distances are staggeringly inconceivable when we attempt to use human yardsticks. Men cannot stand the strain of such voyages without special precautions. Suspended animation is usual on the long hops, and Duncan had made use of the cataleptic drug he found at hand in the cruiser’s emergency supply locker.

For a long time the three men had been unconscious as the ship, with increasing acceleration, hurled itself toward Pluto. Duncan had carefully measured the Sherman units of the drug, calculating so that he would awaken hours before the others. But he forgot one thing⁠—the terrific resistance khlar builds up within the human body.

So it was Rudy Hartman who first opened his eyes, groaned, and stared uncomprehendingly about him. He was strapped in a bunk, Duncan and Olcott near by. Memory came back.

Sick and weak from the long period of catalepsy, Hartman nevertheless forced his aching limbs into motion. Staggering, he presently reached Duncan and took the latter’s gun. That done, he searched for a means of binding his captive securely.

The bunk-straps were of flexible metal⁠—not long enough, but they might serve a purpose. Hartman, scarcely conscious of his actions, fumbled at a panel and slid it back. Within the cubicle spacesuits were stacked, each with its Varra Helmet, Olcott had ordered them removed when Hartman was repairing the vessel, but the scientist had not obeyed. He had not felt entirely certain that the cruiser would not be detected by the Plutonians, and perhaps he had felt a twinge of compunction at the thought of sending a helpless man to possible suicide, if his theory proved wrong. So he had concealed the Helmets behind a panel. Now he blessed the lucky chance that had made him do so.

Duncan was still unconscious. Hartman rolled him out of the bunk and dressed him in a suit, fitting the Varra Helmet in place. With the flexible straps he bound Duncan’s arms to his side; a makeshift job, but it would serve. Finally he pried the intertron knob from the Helmet and sighed with relief.

Hesitantly he went to the controls. The star-map told him little, except that they were approaching Pluto. Should they begin deceleration? Hartman’s fingers hovered over the studs⁠—Damn! He dared not alter the course. He wasn’t a pilot, and it took trained hands to control a spaceship.

Well, that didn’t matter. There was another way⁠—with the Varra Helmets.

He broke an ammonia capsule under Olcott’s nose and applied artificial respiration. After a time Olcott stirred.

“Hartman?” His tongue was thick. “Where⁠—what’s happened?”

“A great deal. Lie still and get back your strength. I’ll tell you⁠—”

But Olcott struggled to rise. “Duncan!”

“He’s safe.” Hartman nodded toward the bound figure. Then he sucked in his breath and sprang up. Duncan’s eyes were open.

“Stay where you are,” Hartman said, showing the gun. “I won’t hesitate to kill you, you know.”

Duncan grinned. “Go ahead. You can’t pilot this ship. I can wait.”

Olcott got up unsteadily. “You’ll pilot it⁠—back to Earth. Damn you, Duncan⁠—”

“I’ll pilot it to Pluto. Nowhere else.”

Hartman intervened. “Wait. Listen, Duncan. We have several Varra Helmets aboard. You didn’t know that.”

“So what?”

“We do not need you as a pilot. If we make connections with the Varra, we can chart a course back to Earth by letting them instruct us.”

Duncan’s eyes changed.

He said, “You’re crazy.” But his voice lacked conviction.

“The Varra!” Olcott scowled. “But⁠—”

Hartman whirled on him. “I know! It will mean giving up the radium. But there’s no other way. We’re near Pluto. The Plutonians may detect us at any moment. If they do⁠—” He shrugged. “We can keep the radium and die here. Or we can use the Helmets, summon the Varra, and have them guide us back to Earth.”

“Can they do that?”

“Easily. If they had tangible bodies, they could pilot spaceships as well as Duncan, or anyone else. As it is, they can tell us how to handle the controls.”

“We’ll lose the radium. It’ll mean prison too.”

“Not necessarily. Our lives are worth more than the radium⁠—eh? And the Varra can’t read minds. Suppose we have a convincing story to tell? We planned this spaceflight as a scientific expedition, nothing more. We didn’t know Duncan was an escaped convict. We didn’t know he planned to hijack the Maid⁠—”

Olcott rubbed his mustache. “Plenty of holes in that. But you’re right. We can fix up some sort of story. And there’ll be no legal proof⁠—”

He looked toward the helpless Duncan. “Except him. We don’t want him talking.”

Hartman touched the gun, but Olcott shook his head. “No. Listen. Duncan. You’re licked. We can get back to Earth, with you or without you. But if we get the Varra to help, we lose the radium. Why not be smart? Play along with us, and you’ll still get your half a million credits.”

“Go to hell!” Duncan suggested.

Hartman said, “We’ve no time to waste. We’re not far from Pluto⁠—” He didn’t finish, but there was a suggestion of panic fear in his voice.

“Right. This ship’s got an escape hatch, hasn’t it? Good.” Olcott hurriedly began to don spacesuit and Varra Helmet. At a gesture, Hartman followed his example.

“Don’t use the power yet. Help me.” Olcott picked up Duncan by the shoulders. Grunting and straining, the two men carried their captive into the airtight bow chamber, sealing the valve behind them. The magnetic projector, looking like an oversized cannon, faced the circular transparent port through which they could see the starry darkness of empty space.

“Know how to work one of these?”

“They’re simple,” Hartman said. “This switch⁠—” He indicated it. “Obviously it closes the circuit. Yes, I can operate this.”

Duncan remained silent as he was roughly thrust into the projector’s gaping muzzle, feet-first. Olcott bent over him.

“You’ve got auxiliary-suit rockets and enough oxygen. And you can untie yourself, if you work fast, before you hit Pluto. You can make a safe landing⁠—till the Plutonians find you. Well?”

Duncan didn’t answer.

Olcott said, “Don’t be a fool! You’ll die rather unpleasantly on Pluto. You know that. Will you take us back to Earth?”

There was a long silence. Abruptly, with a muffled curse, Olcott snapped Duncan’s faceplate shut, and then his own. Hartman did the same, and, with a wry face, touched the power-button on his Helmet that would summon the Varra.

In a moment the intertron knob began to glow, with a cold, unearthly brilliance. Olcott hastily turned the power on in his own Helmet. Now there was no time to waste. Soon the Varra would come.⁠ ⁠…

Cold eyes dark with fury, Olcott gestured. Hartman, in response, swung the projector’s muzzle into position; both men closed their faceplates. The transparent shield of the bow port slid aside, and the air within the escape hatch blasted out into space.

Hartman moved a lever. Electromagnetic energy blasted out from the projector, blindingly brilliant. One flashing glimpse the men had of Duncan’s bound, spacesuited body hurtling into the void⁠—and then it was gone, racing toward Pluto at breakneck speed.

Hartman closed the port and pumped air back into the tiny chamber. Abruptly a voice spoke within his brain.

“Who are you? Why do you summon the Varra? And why are you so near to Pluto?”

Olcott had heard the message too. He framed the thought: “You are a Varra? We need help.”

“We are Varra. What help do you require?”

Olcott explained.

He had fallen for many minutes. Beneath him the jagged darkness of Pluto lay, cryptic and forbidding. It was time to use the rockets, but still Duncan hesitated, though he had freed himself from his bonds. The flares would certainly attract the attention of the Plutonian mind-vampires, and then⁠—

A shadow occulted the stars. For a moment Duncan thought it was a meteor; then he recognized the cruiser. Jets screened, almost invisible, it was still driving on its course toward Pluto!

He did not stop to ponder the reason. Instinct sent his gloved fingers to the studs built into his suit. The tiny emergency rockets burned white in the darkness of space. Duncan was hurled toward the cruiser. Involuntarily he held his breath, looking downward at the vast circle of Pluto. Would he die now?

The rockets had flared only briefly; perhaps they had not been noticed. He did not use them again. Instead, he waited, moving steadily onward with no atmosphere to slow him down by its friction. The gravitation of Pluto pulled at both man and ship, but each fell at the same rate⁠—no! The cruiser was pulling away! That meant its masked tubes were still on.

Duncan risked another jet. This time his space-boots thumped solidly on the hull. He levered himself toward the side port, which could be opened from without, unless it had been locked. True, when the valve slid aside, the ship’s air would be lost in space, and anyone within the cruiser would die. Duncan grinned savagely. Bracing himself awkwardly, he tugged at levers.

The port opened. Duncan was almost flung away from the ship by the blast of air that gusted out. He recovered his balance, swung himself across the threshold⁠—

At his feet lay two spacesuited bodies, Olcott and Hartman. The faceplates of their Varra Helmets were open, but they had not died of lack of oxygen. That was evident. The frozen, strained whiteness of their features told a different story that Duncan read instantly. The Plutonians had brought death to Hartman and Olcott; they had died in the same manner as Andrea.

Duncan closed the port behind him, his face expressionless. Inwardly he was tense as wire, in momentary expectation of cold fury striking at his brain. He stood waiting.

The star-map on the instrument panel flared. That meant atmosphere ahead. Duncan was at the controls in two strides. His number might be up, but he had no intention of dying in a crash⁠—not while there was still a possibility of revenging himself on the Plutonian creatures.

He checked the ship’s course, decelerating as much as he dared. So keyed-up were his nerves that he jumped sharply when a voice spoke inside his brain.

“Who are you, Earthman? Why are you here?”

Before Duncan could frame a response, he felt a thrill of sudden urgency flame through him. Something, cold and deadly as space itself, reached into his mind. There was an instant of sickening giddiness⁠—

It was gone. The sky-screen flamed crimson. The cruiser was within Pluto’s atmosphere blanket.

Duncan gasped for breath. He was scarcely conscious of manipulating the cruiser, leveling off into a long, swooping glide. Death had touched him very nearly⁠—and had been avoided miraculously by a fantastically small margin. The implications of what had happened turned Duncan white with incredulous shock.

For the thing that had been en rapport with his mind had tried to kill him. And that thing had been not a Plutonian, but a Varra! Duncan was certain of that. In his space-piloting days he had been in close touch with the Varra, and had learned the distinctive feel of the creatures⁠—there was no other word⁠—within his mind.

But the Varra were friendly to Earthmen!

The rough terrain of Pluto lay below. A cold, bluish radiance, almost invisible, seemed to flicker here and there. Duncan set the ship down with trained skill, landing on a broad plateau at the base of a high range of alps.

He was on Pluto, shunned and feared by Earthmen for a hundred and fifty years. He was in the very lair of the mind-vampires.

And nothing happened.

Slowly Duncan rose and turned the valves on the oxygen tanks. He divested himself of his spacesuit and made a careful examination of the two bodies. Both Olcott and Hartman had been killed, apparently, by the Plutonians. They had the stigmata.

But Duncan was thinking a rather impossible thought⁠—that there were no Plutonians.

With half of his mind he made tests. There was atmosphere, almost pure chlorine. Nor was it unduly cold. An electroscope gave him the answer. Pluto was a radioactive planet, warmed from within by the powerful radiations of the ore.

Duncan took the dead Olcott’s helmet and adjusted it upon himself. Turning on the power made the intertron knob glow, but there was no other result. The Varra, of course, could not safely venture within the Heaviside Layer of any planet, and Pluto had a Layer, since it had an atmosphere. Chlorine⁠—radium⁠—Duncan shook his head, trying to fit the puzzle together.

There were no Plutonians. Why, then, had the Varra fostered the legend of the mind-vampires? Creatures composed of pure energy could not exist on a radioactive planet; the radiations would be fatal to their complicated electronic structures.

Duncan thought for a long time. At last he had the answer, so astoundingly simple that he found it difficult to believe. But it checked. And that meant⁠—

He rose and went slowly to where Andrea’s body lay, still in the spacesuit, her face composed and lovely in death. Duncan’s lips twisted. He knelt.

“Andrea⁠—”

She was trying to tell him something, he thought. What?

“Tell Earth what I’ve found out? Is that it?”

He hesitated. “It’s no use. We’re forty thousand million miles from the Sun. The radio won’t carry that far, even if it’d get through the Heaviside Layer on Pluto. There’s no way to send a message back.”

There was no way. Nor could the cruiser retrace its course. There was not enough fuel left. The jets would be exhausted before Saturn’s orbit was reached, and the speed would increase as the ship plunged Sunward, increase to a point where deceleration would be impossible.

“There’s no way, Andrea. I can’t send the message⁠—”

Duncan stopped. There was a way, after all, though it meant death.

He seated himself before the radio-recorder and adjusted it to automatic-repeat. His message would be imprinted on metal wire-tape, and continue to be sent out into the void till the ship itself was destroyed.

Duncan pulled the microphone toward him. His voice was coldly emotionless.

“C.Q.X. C.Q.X. Recorded on Pluto. All ships copy. Relay to proper authorities. Pluto is uninhabited. Its atmosphere is pure chlorine. No life-form known to science can exist in a chlorine atmosphere or on a radioactive world. The Plutonian mind-vampires do not exist. The legend was created by the Varra for their own purposes. The actual mind-vampires are the Varra themselves.”

Now it would be theorizing, but Duncan was certain that his guess was correct.

“The Varra live on life energy. When man conquered space, they foresaw danger to themselves. They are vulnerable, and if Earth suspected their motives, they’d be relentlessly destroyed. So⁠—as I see it⁠—they pretended to be friendly, and blamed the mind-vampirism on imaginary creatures living on Pluto. The Varra can communicate with us without the need for Helmets. They can kill too. But they seldom do that. Instead, pretending to protect space-travelers from the Plutonians, they drain a certain amount of life-energy from each person wearing a Helmet. We’re like cattle to them. We think they’re friendly, and so far we haven’t suspected the truth. As long as we didn’t suspect, the Varra were safe, and could keep on vampirizing us, without our knowledge. Once in a while a Varra badly in need of energy would drain too much, which would kill its host.”

That was what had happened to Andrea. The Varra had tried to stop her from wrecking the Maid’s radio, and⁠—Duncan’s teeth showed.

He went on telling his story, explaining what had happened. He made no excuses; there was no need for them now.

Finally he said: “The Varra can be destroyed. And we can protect ourselves against them. That’ll be up to the scientists. If this ship gets through, it will mean that the Varra couldn’t stop me. I’ve got radium aboard. So I’ll put a Heaviside Layer around the cruiser⁠—and blast off Sunward.”

Duncan clicked the switch. No need to say more. Earth would understand, would believe.

But now⁠—

He opened the port, after donning a suit and Helmet, and let the ship fill with the chlorine atmosphere. It would be better than oxygen, for his purposes. Iodine vapor would be even more effective, but he could not create that. If only he were a scientist, a technician, he could probably discover some other way of creating an artificial Heaviside Layer.

But it didn’t matter. This way was surest and quickest, and there would be no machinery to fail him.

Sealed within the ship once more, Duncan found the shipment of Martian radium, hijacked from the Maid, and removed it from its thick leaden container. He left it exposed, and went to the controls.

The cruiser lifted from the surface of the plateau. It slanted up through the chlorine atmosphere, rockets bellowing.

There was no need for split-second timing or unusual accuracy⁠—within certain limits. He was heading Sunward. Nothing more was necessary. Except power⁠—

The tubes thundered with ravening fury. The cruiser blasted up, acceleration jamming Duncan back into his seat. Then they were out of the air-envelope, in free space, controls locked. There was nothing more to do now but to drive on. The rockets would blast their fury into the void till the fuel was exhausted. Even then, the ship would speed on, into the tracks of commerce and the orbits of the inhabited planets.

On the visiplate specks of light glimmered, resolving themselves into a nebulous cloud⁠—the Varra.

It was the final proof. Duncan was the first man who had ever landed on Pluto. The Varra intended to destroy him, giving him no opportunity of telling what he knew to Earth.

Duncan checked the radio. It was repeating his message, sending it steadily into space. At this distance from the Sun there was no chance that it would be picked up. But later⁠—

He clicked the power on in his Helmet. There was no response. The Varra, as he had thought, could not penetrate his artificial barrier, his pseudo-Heaviside Layer.

It was nothing, actually, but a blanket of ionization. But the Varra could not break through it. Duncan glanced at the exposed radium on the floor. A pound of it, sending out its powerful emanations, gamma, beta and electrons, ionizing the chlorine even more effectively than it would have affected oxygen⁠—invisible armor, protecting Duncan from the Varra.

They were massing ahead, determined to stop him. Thoughts began to penetrate his mind, furtive, random, but indications that the group power of the Varra was stronger than he had expected.

Duncan seated himself at a panel, the one controlling the blaster cannons. His face, haggard and strained, twisted in a bitter smile.

“Okay, Andrea,” he whispered. “I’m taking the message back for you. But I’m doing this⁠—for myself! Because they killed you, damn them⁠—”

The chill tentacles probed deeper into Duncan’s brain. He swung a cannon into position, pressed a stud, and watched a streak of electronic energy go blasting across space, silent thunder in the void, smashing relentlessly at the Varra. It struck in a maelstrom of flame.

“Vulnerable!” Duncan said, “Yeah, they’re vulnerable as all hell!”

The Varra closed in. Through their massed ranks the cannon blazed and pounded, till space seemed afire. The rocking recoil of the blasts, mingled with the booming of the rockets, thudded in Duncan’s ears even through the Helmet.

And he fought them. There were no witnesses to that battle, none to see the black cruiser plunging on through the cloud of attackers, belching Jove’s lightning, shaking with the vibrations of its murder-madness. For the spaceship was mad, Duncan thought, a relentless, destroying avenger, a dark angel bringing the terror of Armageddon to the Varra. And the energy-beings never paused; their life and their future was in the scales. If Duncan broke through, they were doomed. He must be stopped.

They could not stop him! Almost blind with the agony burning within his brain, Saul Duncan nevertheless hunched over the controls, while the cannons thundered their demoniac message into space. By dozens and hundreds the Varra died, their energy-matrices wrenched and broken by the electronic bolts. Duncan and the ship were one⁠—and both were mad.

He got through. He had to. Nothing could have stopped Saul Duncan, not even the Varra. In the end, the black cruiser raced Sunward, cannons silent, for the Varra were scattered.

Duncan got up wearily. He stood above Andrea’s body, watching the still features, the long lashes that would never rise.

“It’s done,” he said. “Finished. Earth will get the message⁠—”

Earth would get the message. The Varra could not stop the cruiser now, and the radio would continue to send out its signal till the fires of the Sun swallowed the black ship.

Duncan knelt. His legs were weak. The radium, of course. His suit could not protect him from the fatal radiations of a pound of the pure ore. But the stuff had served its purpose. It had kept the Varra at a distance till Duncan could fulfill his vengeance.

And now it would kill him⁠—unless he replaced it in the leaden casket. But even that might not work now.

Duncan shrugged. It was better to die of radium burns than by the power of the Varra.

He would be dead long before then.

But the Varra would be hunted down, ruthlessly slain, their power broken forever. Earth-science would destroy them, as they themselves had slain so many, as they had killed Andrea.

The bellow of the rockets died. The ship held true to its course, plunging on faster and faster toward the sunlit worlds where men knew joy and laughter and happiness. It would go on, to the funeral pyre of the Sun.

But it would leave a message in its wake.

I

Icy water splashed into Ed Garth’s face and dripped down his tattered, grimy shirt. It was a tremendous effort to open his eyes. Fumes of the native Ganymedean rotgut liquor were swimming in his brain.

Someone was shaking him roughly. Garth’s stocky body jerked convulsively. He struck out, his drink-swollen face twisted with frightened fury, and gasped, “Ylgana! Vo m’trana al-khron⁠—”

The hand on his shoulder fell away. Someone said, “That’s it, Paula! The Ancient Tongue!”

And a girl’s voice, doubtful, a little disgusted.

“You’re sure? But how in the System did this⁠—this⁠—”

“Bum. Tramp,” Garth muttered, peering blearily at the pale ovals of unfocused faces above him. “Don’t mind me, sister. Beachcomber is the word⁠—drunk, right now. So please get the hell out and let me finish my bottle.”

More water was sluiced on Garth. He shook his head, groaning, and saw Tolomo, the Ganymedean trader, scowling down at him. The native’s three-pupiled eyes were angry.

English hissed, oddly accented, on his tongue.

“You wake up, Garth! Hear me? This is a job for you. You owe me too much already. These people come looking for you, say they want a guide. Now you do what they want, and pay me for all that liquor you buy on credit.”

“Sure,” Garth said wearily. “Tomorrow. Not now.”

Tolomo snorted. “I get you native guides, Captain Brown. They know way to Chahnn.”

The man’s voice said stubbornly, “I don’t want natives. I want Ed Garth.”

“Well, you won’t get him,” Garth growled, pillowing his head on his arms. “This joint smells already, but you make it worse. Beat it.”

He did not see Captain Brown slip Tolomo a folded credit-current. The trader deftly pocketed the money, nodded, and gripped Garth by the hair, lifting his head. The bluish, inhuman face was thrust into the Earthman’s.

“Listen to me, Garth,” Tolomo said, fairly spitting the words. “I let you come in here and get drunk all the time on the cuff. You pay me a little, not much, whenever you gather enough alka-roots to sell. But you owe plenty. People ask me why I let a bum like you come to my Moonflower-Ritz Bar⁠—”

“That’s a laugh,” Garth mouthed. “A ramshackle plastic flophouse full of cockroaches and bad liquor. Moonflower-Ritz, hogwash!”

“Shut up,” Tolomo snapped. “I let you run up a bill here when nobody else would. Now you take this job and pay me or I have the marshal put you in jail. At hard labor, in the swamps.”

Garth called Tolomo something unprintable. “Okay,” he groaned. “You win, louse. You know damn well no Earthman can stand swampwork, even with bog-shoes. Now let go of my hair before I smash your teeth in.”

“You do it? You guide these people?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Garth reached fumblingly for the bottle before him. Someone thrust a filled glass into his hand. He gulped the fiery purplish liquor, shuddered, and blew out his breath.

“Okay,” he said. “Welcome to Ganymede, the pleasure spot of the System. The worst climate outside Hell, the only world almost completely unexplored, and the nicest place for going to the dogs I’ve ever seen. The Chamber of Commerce greets you. Here’s the representative.” He pointed to a six-legged lizard with the face of a gargoyle that scuttled over the table and leaped into the shadows where the light of the radio-lamp did not reach.

Captain Brown said, “I can offer you fifty dollars to guide us to the ruined city⁠—Chahnn. And, maybe, I can offer you ten thousand bucks to do another little job for us.”

The shock of that was more effective than cold water had been. Garth jerked back, for the first time looking at his companions. There were two of them⁠—a man and a girl, their neat tropical outfits looking out of a place in this grimy dive. The man was thin and bronzed, looking as though all the moisture had been boiled out of him by hot suns. He was made of tough leather, Garth thought. His face was the most expressionless one Garth had ever seen⁠—pale, shallow eyes, a rattrap mouth, and the general air of a tiger taking it easy.

The girl⁠ ⁠… sudden sick pain struck through Garth. She looked like Moira. For an incredible moment he thought, with his liquor-dulled mind, that she had come back. But Moira was dead⁠—had been, for nearly five years now.

Five years of living death⁠—hitting the skids on Ganymede, where men go down fast. Garth’s ravaged face hardened. He forced himself to look squarely at the girl.

She wasn’t Moira, after all. She had the same look of sleek, clean femininity, but her hair was golden-red instead of brown, and her eyes were greenish, not blue. The softness in her face was belied by the stubborn, rounded chin.

“Ten thousand?” Garth repeated softly. “I don’t get the picture. Any native could take you to Chahnn.”

The girl said, “We know that. We’re interested in⁠—something else. Could you use ten grand?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I could,” Garth said.

“What would you do with it? Go back to Earth? We might swing it so you could get a job there. There’s been a shortage of men ever since the Silver Plague started.”

Garth laid his fingers gently around the glass and squeezed, till the transparent plastic was bent out of shape. He didn’t look at the girl.

“I’m through with Earth. If I could collect⁠—ten thousand?⁠—I’d commit suicide, in a very funny way. I’d go into the Black Forest. The money could get me the men and equipment I’d need, but⁠—well, nobody gets out of the Black Forest alive.”

“You did,” Captain Brown said.

“Eh? You heard about that?”

“We’ve heard stories⁠—plenty of them. About how you came out of the Black Forest six years ago, raving with fever and talking in a language nobody could understand. And how you’ve been taking trips into the Forest ever since. Just what happened? I know you tried to get up expeditions to rescue a man named Willard⁠—he was with you, wasn’t he?”

Garth felt again that sick deadness in his brain⁠—the monstrous question that had been tormenting him for five years now. Abruptly he slammed his fist on the table. Tolomo’s face appeared behind a curtain and vanished again as Brown waved him back.

“Forget it,” Garth said. “Even on Ganymede, men mind their own business⁠—usually.”

Brown stroked his cheek with a calloused thumb. “Suit yourself. Here’s the setup, then. It’s strictly confidential, or the deal’s off. You’ll know why later. Anyhow⁠—we want you to guide us into the Black Forest.”

Garth’s laughter rang harsh and bitter. Brown and the girl watched him with impassive eyes.

“What’s so funny about it?” she asked, scowling.

Garth sobered. “Nothing much. Only for five years I’ve been sweating blood trying to get into the Forest, and I know the place better than anybody on Ganymede. See this?” He rolled up his sleeve and exhibited a purplish scar along his arm. “A cannibal-plant did that. I couldn’t get away from the thing. Bullets and knives don’t hurt the bloodsucker. I had to stand there for two hours, helpless, till it got all the blood it wanted. After that I managed to pull away.”

“I’ve picked up a few scars myself,” Brown said quietly.

Garth glared at him. “Not in the Black Forest. The only way to get through that pesthole is with a big, armed expedition. Even then⁠ ⁠… you ever heard of the Noctoli?”

“No. Who⁠—”

“Flowers. Their pollen works funny⁠—plenty funny. They grow in the interior, and they give you amnesia. Not even gas-masks help. The stuff works in through your skin.”

“Doesn’t it affect you?” the girl wanted to know.

Garth shivered and drank again. “It did⁠—once. Later I managed to work out an antitoxin. And I’ve built up immunity, anyway. But it’s quite a laugh. The two of you wanting to go into the Black Forest!”

Brown’s face was emotionless. “With an expedition, well armed. I’ll provide that.”

“Oh. That’s a bit different. Just the same⁠—what are you after?”

“Just sightseeing,” the girl said.

Garth grinned crookedly. “Okay. I know the stories. Everybody on Ganymede’s heard of the Ancients.”

Captain Brown’s eyes hooded. “What about them?”

“The lost race? That they lived on Ganymede thousands of years ago, and had the greatest science ever known to the System. That they died, nobody knows how, and the secrets of their civilization were lost. Chahnn’s only one of their ruined cities. There’ve been a dozen others found. And full of gadgets and robots that nobody knows how to work. There was a central power-source, but Earthmen have never figured out how it worked or what fuel was used. The inscriptions found in the cities didn’t tell anything.”

“Fair enough,” Brown nodded. “Except you forgot one thing. You know the Ancient Tongue. You speak it.”

Garth chewed his lip. “So what?”

“Where did you learn it?”

“I don’t know. In the Black Forest, I suppose. I don’t remember.”

The girl made an impatient gesture. She quieted as Brown glanced at her.

“From the Zarno, Garth?”

“I don’t know! There’s no proof the Zarno even exist!”

“If you’ve gone far enough into the Black Forest⁠—”

Garth said angrily, “Remember what I told you about the Noctoli? The effect of the pollen? When I got back to Oreport here I had amnesia. I⁠—” He hesitated. “I don’t remember. I never did remember what happened in the Black Forest.”

“Um‑m.” Brown rubbed his cheek again. “A lost race of savages no outsiders have ever seen⁠—a race speaking the tongue of the Ancients. How could they live around those Noctoli flowers of yours?”

“Natural immunity,” Garth said. “Built up over a period of generations. I didn’t have that⁠—then.”

The girl leaned forward, ignoring Brown. “Mr. Garth,” she said swiftly, “I think I’d better explain a bit more. Shut up, Carver!” She frowned at Brown. “There’ve been too many mysteries. Here’s the setup. I’ve got half of a⁠—a map. It shows the location of something in the Black Forest that’s immensely valuable⁠—the greatest treasure the System’s ever known. I don’t know what it is. The original inscription, in the Ancient’s language, is cryptic as the devil. But the Ancients thought this treasure important enough to be worth hiding in the Black Forest. They set the Zarno to guard it. See?”

Garth grunted. “So what?”

“Well⁠—I’m Paula Trent, archaeologist. Not that it matters. For months Carver and I have been waiting our chance to fit out an expedition and come on here. We didn’t have the money, at first, and when we did get it, the government refused us permission. We had no proof, they said, and the Black Forest is impenetrable. So we waited. A month ago we got wind of a research ship, the Hunter, coming on here to investigate Chahnn. The same old stuff⁠—digging around in the ruins, trying to find out what made the machines and robots tick, trying to make sense out of the inscriptions. Trying to find a cure for the Silver Plague.”

Garth said, “No cure’s been found yet, then.”

Paula shook her head. “No. Since it started on Earth ten years ago, it’s wiped out one-twentieth of the population, and unless it’s stopped, it’ll destroy all life on our world. But that’s old stuff. Except the government’s sending out their best men to Ganymede, because it’s known the Silver Plague existed here once and was conquered. The inscriptions in Chahnn show that. But they don’t say what the treatment was, or give any hints. However⁠—” She brushed red-gold hair from her forehead. “Carver and I have planted men in the Hunter crew. Tough, good men who’ll strike out with us into the Black Forest. With equipment.”

“Desertion, eh?”

“Technically, sure. But the only way. Nobody will listen to us. We know⁠—we know⁠—the Ancients hid their most valuable treasure in the Black Forest. What it is we don’t know. We’re hoping it’ll solve a lot of problems⁠—the mystery of what powered their machines, what happened to the Ancients⁠—all that.”

“No planes can be used,” Garth said. “There’s no place to land in the Forest.”

“That’s why we want you. You know the Forest, and you know the Ancient Tongue. Guide the Hunter crew to Chahnn. Then, when we give the word⁠—head for the Black Forest with us.”

Garth said, “On one condition. You can’t go.”

Paula’s eyes narrowed. “You’re in no position to⁠—”

“Men might get through. A woman couldn’t. Take it or leave it,” Garth repeated stubbornly.

Captain Brown nodded to the girl. “All right, it’s a deal. Sorry, Paula, but he’s on the beam. Here’s ten bucks, Garth. Balance when we get to Chahnn. We leave tomorrow at Jupiter-rise.”

Garth didn’t answer. After a moment Paula and Brown rose and went out through the mildewed tapestry curtain. Garth didn’t blame them. The Moonflower-Ritz smelled.

Presently he found Tolomo and gave him the money. The Ganymedean hissed worriedly.

“Only ten?”

“You’ll get the rest later. Gimme a bottle.”

“I don’t think⁠—”

Garth reached across the bar and seized a quart. “Hereafter I do my drinking out-of-doors,” he remarked. “I’ll feel cleaner.”

“Sfant!” Tolomo flung after him as he headed for the door. Garth’s cheeks burned red at the word, which is Ganymedean and untranslatable; but he didn’t turn. He stepped out into the muddy street, a cold wind, sulphurous and strong, stinging his nostrils.

He looked around at the collection of plastic native huts. Till the Hunter had arrived, he’d been the only Earthman in Oretown. Now⁠—

He didn’t feel like talking to natives. The Tor towered against the purple sky, where three of Jupiter’s moons were glowing lanterns. At the base of the Tor was Garth’s shack.

Swaying a little, clutching the bottle, he headed in that direction. He had waited five years for this moment. Now, when at last he might find the answer to the problem that had turned him into a derelict, he was afraid.

He went into his hut, switched on the radiolite, and stood staring at a door he had not opened for a long time. With a little sigh he pushed at the latch. The smell of musty rot drifted out.

A lamp revealed a complete medical laboratory, one that had not, apparently, been used for months at least. Garth almost dropped a bottle as he fumbled it from the shelf. Cursing, he opened the rotgut Ganymedean whiskey and poured it down his throat.

That helped. Steadied somewhat, he went to work. The Noctoli pollen antitoxin was still here, but it might have lost its efficacy.

He tested it.

Good. It seemed strong, the antibodies having a long life-cycle. It would work.

Garth packed a compact medical kit. After that he stood for quite a while staring at two blank spaces on the wall, where pictures had once hung.

Moira and Doc Willard.

Damn! Garth snatched up the liquor and fled the house. He fought his way along the steep path that led to the Tor’s summit. The physical exertion was a relief.

At the top, he sat down, his back against a rock. Beneath him lay Oretown, yellow-blue lights winking dimly. In a cleared field some distance away was the ovoid shape of the spaceship that had brought Paula and Brown⁠—the Hunter.

To the west, across sandy desert, lay Chahnn, dead city that had once housed an incredibly-advanced science⁠—lost now, its people dust. Northwest, beyond distant ridges, was the Black Forest, unexplored, secret, menacing.

Six years ago Dr. Jem Willard had come to Ganymede with his intern, Ed Garth. Willard was trying to discover the cure for the Silver Plague that was wrecking Earth. He would have found it⁠—he had got on the track. But⁠—

An emergency call had come in one night. A native needed an appendectomy. Willard couldn’t fly a plane. He had called on Garth, and Garth had been drunk.

But he had piloted the plane anyhow. The crack-up happened over the Black Forest.

That was the last thing Garth remembered, or almost the last. It would have been more merciful if the oblivion had been complete. Months later he staggered out of the Forest into Oretown, alone. The Noctoli poison had almost erased his experiences from his mind. He could remember a bare cell where he and Willard had been prisoned⁠—that, and one other thing.

A picture of Doc Willard stretched on an altar, while Garth lifted a gleaming, razor-sharp knife above his friend’s breast.

He remembered that, but no more. It was enough.

The question burning in his brain had nearly wrecked his sanity. He had tried to get back into the Black Forest, to find Willard, dead or alive, to learn what had happened⁠—to discover the answer to his problem. He had failed.

A year later he learned that his fiancée, Moira, had died of the Silver Plague. And he knew that Willard might have saved her, had he lived and continued his research.

After that, Ed Garth hit the skids. He went down fast, stopping only when he reached the bottom.

He killed the bottle and threw it out into emptiness, watching yellow light glint on glass as it dropped.

Well, he had his chance now. An expedition going into the Black Forest. But Garth was no longer the same husky giant who had fought his way through that deadly jungle. Five years on the skids had played havoc with him. Stamina was gone. And the Black Forest was as terrible, as powerful, as ever.

Garth wished he had brought another bottle.

II

Jupiter is a ball of luminous clouded marble, gigantic in the sky of Ganymede. Its light is a queer, pale glow that lacks the warm brilliance of sunlight. When the titanic planet lifts over the horizon, gravity seems to shift, and the ground feels unstable beneath your feet.

Jupiter was rising now. Oretown lay ugly and desolate in the strange dawn. Across the plain where the spaceship had landed a string of truck-cats, big silvery desert freighters, stood motionless, ready to start the trip. There were signs of activity. At the central port of the Hunter stood a lanky, gray-haired man with a clipped, stiff Van Dyke. Behind him was Captain Brown.

Garth, his medical kit strapped to his back, ploughed through the light film of snow that lay over the sand. He was shivering in his thin garments, wishing he had a drink. Neither Brown nor his companion saw Garth’s approach. The gray-haired man was speaking.

“⁠—time to start. If this guide of yours doesn’t show up, we’ll have to wait till we find another.”

“He’ll show up,” Brown said. “I only gave him ten bucks.”

Garth reached the foot of the ramp leading up to the port-valve. “ ’Morning. Am I late?”

There was no answer. He climbed the slope, slippery with snow despite the skid-treads, and stopped before the two men. Brown nodded at him.

“Here’s our guide, Commander Benson.”

Benson scowled incredulously under tufted brows. “What the devil! You⁠—you’re an Earthman!”

“Sure,” Garth said. “What about it?”

The Commander glanced at Brown. “I expected a native. I didn’t know⁠—” He left the sentence hanging. “You can’t wear those rags, man. Captain, break out some clothes for him.” Without another look at Garth, Benson hurried down the ramp, shouting orders to someone below.

Brown grinned at the other. “Come on inside,” he urged, and, in a lower tone, “He’s the big shot. You know enough to keep your mouth shut⁠—eh?”

Garth nodded. Brown peered at him sharply.

“You need coffee. I’ll lace it. Come along.” He took Garth to the galley, and, presently, supplied food, drink, and clothing. He lit a cigarette, idly watching the smoke sucked into the air-conditioning grill.

“Benson’s a tough egg,” he said at last. “If he had the slightest idea we were figuring on⁠—what we’re figuring on, there’d be trouble. The Commander never takes chances. We’ve got to give him the slip, somehow.”

Garth gulped coffee. “How many men do you have?”

“Ten.”

“Not many.”

“Fully armed, though. There are sixty in the expedition altogether, but I could only feel sure of ten. Some of them I planted myself.”

Garth took the cigarette Brown handed him. “Thanks⁠ ⁠… I know Chahnn pretty well. Once we get there, we can get away from the others.”

“How?”

“Underground passages⁠—not well known. We’ll come out about thirty miles from Chahnn, and from there it’s another twenty to the Black Forest.”

“The last lap on open ground?”

“Yeah.”

“Not so good. If Benson misses us, he’ll have planes out scouting. I’ve a hunch he’s suspicious already.”

“If he catches up with us, so what? There’ll be other chances.”

“That’s what you think,” Brown said grimly. “I told you Benson was a tough egg. He’d clap us all in the brig and we’d end up with prison sentences on Earth⁠—hazarding the success of a planetary expedition, they call it. So you see why we’ve got to find this treasure, whatever it is.”

“Then you don’t know either, eh?”

“Maybe I’ve a few ideas.⁠ ⁠… Finished? Let’s go, then.” Brown came to his feet.

Garth followed Brown out of the ship, pondering. The Ancients had, admittedly, been an incredibly advanced race. Any treasure they thought worth guarding would be plenty valuable. Gold? Gems? They seemed trivial, compared to the tremendous scientific powers of the Ancients. And unimportant as well, while the Silver Plague raged over Earth.

They moved along the string of truck-cats, each loaded with the necessary equipment, and reached the first. Commander Benson was already there, talking to the pilot. He looked around.

“Ready? What’s your name⁠—Garth? All right, get in.”

The front compartment of the truck-cat was roomy enough. Paula Trent, Garth saw, was already there. She gave no sign that she noticed him. He shrugged and found a seat, and Captain Brown dropped beside him, impassive as ever.

The pilot came in. “Sit up here, next to me, buddy,” he ordered. “I’ll need your help wrestling this tank through the arroyos.”

Benson himself was the last man to enter. He slid the door shut and nodded.

“Warm her up.”

Beside the driver, Garth could not see the others, nor could he hear their conversation as the motors coughed and snarled into life. The truck-cat lurched forward on her caterpillar treads. The pilot looked inquiringly at Garth.

“Where’ll I head? West? What about these quicksands I’ve been hearing about?”

“Steer for that mountain peak ’way over there,” Garth told him. “It’s easy to see the sinkholes. They’re big grey patches on the sand, with no snow on ’em.”

The roar of the engine died into a monotonous murmur. It was possible to hear the conversation in the rear of the compartment. Commander Benson was talking.

“⁠—atomic power. It must have been that; there’s no other answer. All we need to know is the nature of the booster charge.”

“I don’t get it,” Paula said. “Booster charge?”

“As far as our physicists know, atomic power’s possible if there’s a known way to start it and control it. Earth’s reserves are nearly exhausted. Oil, coal⁠—used up almost completely. And Earth needs power plenty bad, to maintain civilization.”

“The other planets have fuel.”

“Spaceshipping’s too expensive. It’s prohibitive, Paula. Unless a new power source is found very soon, Earthmen may have to migrate to another world⁠—and our civilization’s so complex that that’s nearly impossible. Maybe we can find the answer in Chahnn this time. It was one of the biggest cities of the Ancients.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Captain Brown said.

Benson grunted. “I did, once. Years ago. Tremendous! The scientific achievements they must have had! And nobody knows what happened to the Ancients. They just vanished, and their machines kept running till they’d used up their power⁠—and stopped. So there’s no trace left. We’ve located the fuel chambers, but in every case they’ve been empty. Experiments have been made⁠—unsuccessfully.”

“You still think my translation of the Harro Panel was wrong, eh?” Paula put in.

“I do,” Commander Benson said. “It was a variable cipher. No one else agrees with you that it was a code map.”

“Ever heard of a double code?”

“I’m sorry,” Benson said shortly. “We’ve settled all this. The Black Forest is impassable. We can’t risk our chance of success on a wild goose chase.”

Beside the pilot, Garth’s mouth twisted sardonically. He had an idea, now, what Carver Brown and Paula were after. The secret of the Ancients’ power-source. Well, it might be found in the Black Forest. Anything might. Including the lost race of the Zarno, and.⁠ ⁠… His eyes went hard. Not yet would he let himself believe Doc Willard was still alive. The most he could hope for was an answer to that question⁠—the tormenting problem of whether or not he had killed Willard.

Lost in his absorption, he snapped out of it scarcely in time as the truck-cat skidded on slick ice.

“Hard left! Sand the treads!” Instinctively his hand flashed to the right lever, releasing a sprinkling of sand that provided traction. He held it down while the pilot fought the wheel. They lurched, swung half around, and found level surface again. Through the window Garth could see a twenty-foot-wide funnel, sloping down to a black hole at the center.

“What was it?” the pilot asked.

“Creethas, the natives call ’em, but that doesn’t mean much. Six-foot insects. Poisonous. They dig traps like antlions on Earth, pits with sloping sides. Once you skid on the ice, you slip on down to the hole at the bottom.”

“Dangerous?”

“Not to us, in here. But we might have damaged the engine.”

“Keep your eyes open after this, Garth,” Commander Benson said sharply.

“Okay.” Garth was silent. The truck-cat drove on, leading the procession.

The vehicles were fast. On level ground they raced, hitting eighty m.p.h. sometimes. By Jupiter-set they had reached Chahnn. Paula, for one, was disappointed.

“I expected a city,” she told Garth as they stared around at the mile-square block of black stone, raised a few feet above ground level, its surface broken by a few structures oddly reminiscent of the subway kiosks of two centuries ago.

“It’s all underground,” Garth said. He was feeling shaky, needing a shot or two of liquor. But there was none. In lieu of it, he borrowed a cigarette from the girl and idled about, watching the men make camp.

The roomy truck-cats provided accommodations for sixty men without crowding. It wasn’t necessary to set up tents. Indeed, in that icy air, only “warmer” tents, heated by induced current in their metallic fabric, would have been feasible. The trucks, however, could be heated easily and were air-conditioned. Garth walked over to a kiosk and peered into the black depths. Chahnn lay below, the gigantic, complicated city of the Ancients.

Through Chahnn was the road to the Black Forest⁠—the only road they could use, under the circumstances.

Garth shivered and went in search of Brown. He was feeling shakier than ever. Vividly in his mind was a picture he did not want to remember⁠—a man stretched on an altar, a knife at his breast.⁠ ⁠…

He found Brown beside one of the trucks, looking into the darkness.

“Captain⁠—”

“Huh? Oh, Garth. Say, Paula⁠—Miss Trent took a flashlamp and went down into Chahnn to do a bit of exploring. I was thinking of going after her. Any danger down there?”

Garth shook his head. “It’s a dead city. She’ll be okay.”

“Unless she gets lost.”

“She won’t. There are markers pointing to the outlets. How about a drink? I could use one.”

Scowling, Brown nodded and pushed Garth into the truck. “I bunk in here, with the Commander. You’ll have to find a place with the men, somewhere. Oh, by the way⁠—” He pushed folded slips into Garth’s hand. “Here’s the rest of that forty. And here’s a drink.”

Garth gulped brandy better than any he had tasted in years. He didn’t bother with a glass. Brown watched him with an almost imperceptible curl of the lip.

“Thanks.⁠ ⁠… When do I get that ten thousand?”

“When we’re back here. I don’t trust you quite enough to let you have it now.”

Garth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, considered, and drank again. “I won’t run out on you. You’re after that Ancients’ power-source, aren’t you?”

Brown’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Any of your business?”

“Not in the way you mean. But I know the Black Forest. I might be able to give you some ideas, if I’m not left too much in the dark. Still, I can guess a little. I know you expect to run into the Zarno.”

“Yeah?”

Garth made an impatient gesture. “Hell, why did you want me as a guide? It wasn’t only because I knew the Forest. I can speak the Ancient Tongue⁠—the same language the Zarno are supposed to use. You’ll want me to palaver with them.”

“Maybe.” Brown went to the back of the truck and found a fresh pack of cigarettes. “We can talk about that later.”

“We ought to talk now. I know what sort of equipment you’ll need in the Forest. If you run out on Benson half-equipped, it’ll be just too bad.”

The door swung open, admitting a blast of frigid air. Commander Benson stepped in, his lips tight and hard, his eyes blazing. Brown, at the end of the chamber, swung around, a sudden, surprised tenseness in his attitude.

“I don’t think you’ll do any running out on me, Captain,” Benson said.

Brown flashed Garth a glance. “Damn you,” he half-whispered. He took a step forward, tigerishly menacing.

Benson pulled a gun from his pocket. “Don’t move,” he said. “Hold it⁠—right there. I thought you’d given up that crazy idea you and Paula had, but apparently⁠—” He shrugged. “Well, I’ll have to put you and the girl under guard. No one in this outfit’s heading for the Black Forest if I can help it.”

Brown’s hand hovered in midair.

“Don’t try it,” Benson said. “Keep your gun where it belongs. The sound of a shot wouldn’t help you any.” He stepped back, his mouth opening in a shout that would summon others.

Brown, at the other end of the truck, could not have reached him in time, but the Commander had forgotten or ignored Garth. That was a mistake. Garth was only a few feet from Benson, and he galvanized into unexpected action. He sprang, one hand clamping over the gun, the other, clenched, driving in a hard, short jab at Benson’s chin.

There was strength in that punch, and it connected at the right point. Had Garth not been gripping the Commander’s hand, the latter would have gone backward, out of the truck.

“Knockout!” Brown said tonelessly. He was suddenly beside Garth, yanking Benson forward. “Shut the door. Quick.”

Garth obeyed. Turning, he saw the Captain kneeling beside Benson’s motionless form. After a moment Brown looked up.

“He’ll come out of it soon. Maybe too soon. Get me those straps from the corner.”

Garth did that, and then had another drink. He felt lousy. He watched Brown bind the Commander and thrust the lax figure out of sight, under a bunk.

“That does it,” Brown said, rising. “We’re in the soup now. But⁠—it was lucky you hit him when you did.”

“What now?”

“We start for the Black Forest before Benson wakes up. I’m second in command. I’ll get my own men, and we’ll jump the gun.” Brown’s eyes were excited.

“Equipment?”

“We’ll take what we can. Weapons, mostly. Stay with me.”

They went out of the truck into the soft light of four moons, two large, two tiny. Fourfold shadows paced them over the icy slick. Garth hurried off to find his medical kit. By the time he returned, Brown had mustered his men and was waiting. He gave Garth a brief glance.

“Okay. Morgan⁠—” He turned to a giant in uniform. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. As soon as we find Miss Trent. Bye.”

“Bye, sir.”

Garth led the way into one of the kiosks. Lamps were flashed on. A spiral ramp led steeply down.

In an undertone Brown said, “I told Morgan Commander Benson sent me to find Paula Trent⁠—that she was lost in the city. So we’re safe till⁠—”

“We’re safe till we leave the underground passage,” Garth said. “After that, twenty miles across open ground. Has Benson got planes?”

“Portable ones, yeah.”

“Then we’d better do that twenty miles at night.”

The ramp ended. Before them was a gigantic room where their tiny lamps were lost. Here and there enigmatic shadows loomed, the dead, fantastic machines of the Ancients that had once made Chahnn alive and powerful.

Garth went directly to an opening in the wall, Brown and his ten men following, and entered a short tunnel. At one spot he paused, ran his finger over a panel of smooth metal, and pressed. A black oval opened silently.

“Here’s the way. They won’t follow us beyond this point.”

Brown nodded. “Sampson, get the men inside. Wait here for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

A burly, beak-nosed fellow with a cast in one eye and flaming red hair saluted casually. “Right. Come on, boys. Hop through. Mind your packs.”

Garth stared at Brown. “What d’you mean? Where⁠—”

The Captain said, “We’re taking Paula Trent with us.”

“No! It’s nearly suicide for us⁠—she couldn’t make it at all.”

“She’s tougher than you think. Besides, she’s got the map. And she’s an archaeologist. I can’t read the Ancients’ lingo. Can you?”

Garth shook his head. “I can speak it, that’s all. But⁠—”

“If we find what we’re after, we’ll need Paula Trent. She’s down here somewhere. Let’s go find her.”

“I tell you⁠—”

Brown brought out a gun and leveled it.

“Find her. Or I’ll find her myself, and we’ll head for the Black Forest without you. Because you’ll be dead. I haven’t come this far to let you stop me. And chivalry looks a bit funny on a guy like you.”

Sudden murder-light flared in the pale eyes.

“Find her!” Brown whispered. “And⁠—fast!”

III

Garth knuckled under. There was nothing else to do. He knew Brown wouldn’t hesitate to kill him, and, after all, what the devil did Paula Trent mean to him? Her life was unimportant, compared to the hopeless quest that had quickened in his mind, despite himself.

For Doc Willard might still be alive. Even if he wasn’t, there was that notebook the Doc had always carried around with him⁠—a book that contained the medico’s theories about the Silver Plague. Even if that ghastly dreamlike memory were not merely delirium⁠—even if Garth, witless and unknowing, had killed Willard⁠—there was always that dim, desperate chance that the cure for the Plague might be found in the Black Forest.

So⁠—damn Paula Trent! She didn’t matter, when the lives of millions might depend on Garth’s penetrating the jungle that had baffled him for five years.

Without a word he turned and started back, Brown keeping close beside him. The huge chamber loomed before them, filled with its cryptic shadows. There was time now to see what they had missed in their quick flight a few moments ago⁠—though not much time, for pursuit might start at any minute.

Dead silence, and darkness, broken by the crossing beams of the brilliant lamps. Garth listened.

“Hear anything?”

Brown shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“Okay. We’ll try this way.”

Then went into a passage that sloped down, ending in a vaulted room larger than the first. Brown swung up his gun abruptly as a figure seemed to leap from blackness in the ray of the lamp. Garth caught his arm.

“Robot. Unpowered. They’re all over the city.”

The robots⁠—slaves of the Ancients, Garth thought, who had died with them, lacking the fuel that could quicken them to life. No Earthly scientists had ever been able to analyze the construction of the machines, for they were built of an alloy that was apparently indestructible. Acid and flame made no impression on the smooth, glittering black surface.

This one, like all the others, was roughly man-shaped, nearly eight feet tall, and with four arms, the hands extended into limber jointed fingers almost like tentacles. From the mask-like face complex glassy eyes stared blankly. It stood motionless, guarding a world that no longer needed guardians.

With a little shrug Garth went on, his ears alert for sounds. From the walls bizarre figures in muraled panels watched. Those murals showed a world of incredibly advanced science, Garth knew. He had seen them before. He spared them not a glance now.

The machines⁠—

What were they? They loomed like dinosaurs in the endless chain of high-domed vaults. They had once given Chahnn power and life and strength. The murals showed that. The Ancient Race had used antigravity⁠—a secret unknown to Earthmen⁠—and they had created food by the rearrangement of atomic patterns, not even requiring hydroponic tank cultures. They had ruled this world like gods.

And they had passed with no trace, leaving only these silent monuments to their greatness. With the power of the Ancients, Earth’s lack of fuel-reserves would not matter. If the secret of atomic power could be found again, these machines would roar into thundering life⁠—and machines like them would rise on Earth.

Power and greatness such as civilization had never known! Power even to reach the stars!

And⁠—Garth thought wryly⁠—a power that would be useless unless a cure for the Silver Plague could be found.

He was almost running now, his footsteps and Brown’s echoing hollowly in the great rooms. Silently he cursed Paula Trent. There were other levels below, many of them, and she might be down there⁠—which would make the task almost impossible.

A distant flicker of light jerked Garth to a halt. He switched off his lamp, motioning for Brown to do the same.

It came again, far away, a firefly glimpse.

“Paula?” the Captain said.

“Guess so. Unless they’re after us already.”

“Take it easy, then.”

They went on, running lightly on their toes. The light had vanished, but Garth knew the way. Suddenly they came out of a short tunnel into one of the great rooms, and relief flooded Garth as he saw Paula’s face, pale in reflected light, a dozen feet away.

Simultaneously a faint sound came rhythmically⁠—like dim drums.

Garth said sharply, “Hear that? Men coming down a ramp. Get the girl and let’s go!”

But Paula was already coming toward them, blinking in the glare. “Who’s that? Carver? I⁠—”

Brown gripped her arm. “There’s no time to talk now, Paula. We’re in a jam. Keep your mouth shut and come along. Garth, can you get us back to that secret passage?”

“Maybe. It’ll be blind luck if we make it. Turn your lamps out and link hands. Here.” He felt Paula’s firm, warm palm hard against his, and remembrance of Moira was suddenly unexpectedly painful. He had not seen an Earthgirl for years.⁠ ⁠…

What of it, now? Garth moved cat-footedly forward, leading the others. He went fast. Once or twice he clicked on his light briefly. They could hear the noise of the search-party now, and a few times, could see distant lights.

“If they find that open panel⁠—” Brown whispered.

“Keep quiet.”

Garth pressed them back into an alcove as footsteps grew louder. Luck stayed with them. The searchers turned off at another passage. After that⁠—

It was like a nightmare, a blind, stumbling race through the blackness of Chahnn, with menace hiding everywhere. Garth’s hand was slippery with perspiration against Paula’s by the time he stopped, his light clicking on and off again almost instantly.

“This is it,” he said. “The panel’s shut.”

“Good. Sampson must have had sense enough to close it. Unless⁠—”

Garth found the spring and pressed it. He flashed his light into the darkness, to see the familiar faces of Brown’s men staring at him. The Captain thrust him forward. Paula was instantly beside him, and then Brown himself was through the oval gap.

“They’re coming,” he murmured. “How in hell does this work?”

“Here.” Garth didn’t use his light. Under his deft fingers the panel slid back into place, shutting off the noise of approaching steps. He gasped a little with relief.

“Okay,” he said in a natural voice. “These walls are soundproof. We can use our lights. We’ll have to.”

“What happened?” Paula’s voice said. “You said we were in a jam, Carver. Well?”

“We’ll talk as we go. Garth, you first. Paula, stay with me. Sampson, bring up the rear, will you?”

Garth obediently set out down the sloping tunnel, scarcely listening to Brown’s explanation. There were side branches to the passage here and there. He had to use his memory, which seemed less accurate than he remembered. Once he almost blundered, but caught himself in time.

Brown said, “Garth, we’ve got thirty miles of tunnel and twenty more above ground till we hit the Forest. Right? This is rough going. We won’t get out of here till daylight. So we’d better camp in the passage, at the other end, till tomorrow night.”

“We don’t have to do that,” Garth grunted. “This isn’t Earth. Jupiter won’t rise for thirteen hours.”

“The men have heavy packs.” Brown shifted his own big one uncomfortably. “Fifty miles is quite a way. Still, the quicker we reach the Forest, the safer we’ll be.”

“There’s a river.” Garth’s voice was doubtful. “We might use that.”

“Would it help?”

“Yeah. But it’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Spouts. Geysers. The water’s apt to explode under you any time. And there are big lizards⁠—”

“Would it take long to make a raft?”

Garth shook his head. “Lata-trees are better than balsa, and they grow on the banks. Plenty of vines, too. But⁠—”

“We’ll do that, then,” Brown said decisively. “Speed it up. We’ve got thirteen hours. We can make it, all right.”

Garth didn’t answer.

After that it was pure monotony, a dull driving march through a bare tunnel, up slopes and down them, till leg muscles were aching with fatigue. Garth dropped into a state of tired apathy. He had no pack to carry, but nevertheless his liquor-soaked body rebelled at the unaccustomed exertion. But he knew that each step brought him closer to his goal.

The thoughts swung monotonously through his brain. Doc Willard. The notebook. The cure. The Plague. Maybe⁠—maybe⁠—maybe!

If he got through⁠—if he found the notebook⁠—if it had the cure⁠—that was what he wanted, of course.

But suppose he also found the skeleton of Doc Willard on an altar, with a knife-hilt protruding from the ribs?

He couldn’t have killed Doc consciously. That was unthinkable. Yet the damnable influence of the Noctoli pollen did odd things to a man’s mind.

Doc Willard⁠—Moira⁠—the Silver Plague⁠—

Half asleep, aching with exhaustion, he slogged ahead, moving like an automaton. And, whenever he slowed his pace, Brown’s sharp voice urged him on faster.

Grudgingly the Captain allowed them rest periods. But by the time they reached the tunnel’s end the men were panting and sweating, and both Paula and Garth were near exhaustion. Thirty miles at a fast pace, with only occasional rests, is wearing work.

They emerged from the passage to find themselves on the slope of a rocky hillock. Low ridges rose around them, silhouetted in triple-moonlight. A whitish haze hung close to the ground, filling the hollows like shining water.

Instinctively Brown looked up. A meteor, drawn by the immense gravity of Jupiter, flamed across the sky⁠—that was all. And that was a familiar enough sight.

Garth, reeling with fatigue, nodded. “River⁠—down there. Half a mile. The fog’s thicker⁠—”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

This lap of the journey was nearly the hardest. But the low roar of the river steadily grew louder as they stumbled on, the luminous mist lapping their ankles, their knees, their waists. It closed above their heads, so that they moved in a ghostlike, shadowless world in which the very air seemed dimly lighted.

Trees were visible. Garth, almost spent, searched for a shelving beach, found it, and dropped in a limp heap. He saw Paula sink down beside him. The men threw off their heavy packs with relief.

Brown⁠—the man was made of rawhide and steel!⁠—said, “I’ll need help to make a raft. The boys that feel tired can keep their eyes open for pursuit planes. I don’t think the Commander would send out truck-cats at night, but he’ll use searching planes.”

“They can’t see us in this fog,” Paula said faintly.

“They could hear us, with their motors muffled. So we’ll work fast. Garth!”

“Yeah. What?”

“What trees do we want?”

Garth pointed. “Lata. Like that one, over there. They’re easy to cut down, and they float. You’ll find tough vines all around here.” He forced the words out with an effort. Brown mustered eight of his men, including the red-haired Sampson, and led them away. The sound of ringing axes presently drifted back.

Two others had been stationed on hillocks, above the low-lying fog, to watch for planes. Garth, alone with Paula, was almost too tired to be conscious of her presence. He heard her voice.

“Cigarette?”

“Thanks.⁠ ⁠…” Garth took one.

“Sorry I can’t offer you a drink.”

“So am I,” Garth grunted. He could feel her eyes on him. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs, exhaling luxuriously.

“Got a gun?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh⁠—things come out of the river sometimes. Hunting water-lizards, carnivorous. You learn to sleep with one eye open on Ganymede.”

“It’s a funny world,” Paula acknowledged. “Once it was highly civilized. Now it’s gone back to savagery.”

“Conditions are bad here. Too vigorous. Jupiter gives light but not much heat. Animals and plants have to be tough to survive. This is summer-season, but it’s plenty cold.”

“How much do you know about the Zarno?” she asked abruptly.

Garth blinked. “Not much. Why?”

“Not many people have ever seen them. I’m wondering. I managed to translate some inscriptions from Chahnn.⁠ ⁠… The Zarno aren’t human, are they?”

Garth didn’t answer. Paula went on.

“The Ancients knew them, though. They tried to educate them⁠—like Rome colonizing savage races. That’s probably why the Zarno are supposed to speak the Ancient Tongue.”

“They do.”

“And then the Ancients died out⁠—somehow. The Zarno were left. They became barbarous again. I wish I knew what they were like. Natives who’ve seen them don’t seem able to describe the creatures. They wear shining armor, don’t they?”

Garth closed his eyes, trying to remember. A vague, dim picture was growing in his mind⁠—manlike figures that glowed, faces that were craggy, hideous creatures.⁠ ⁠…

“I’ve seen them,” he said, “but I’ve forgotten. The Noctoli poison⁠—it wrecked my memory.”

“You don’t recall anything?”

“I⁠—” Garth rubbed his forehead. “Not human⁠—no. Creatures like living statues, shining and moving.⁠ ⁠… I don’t know.”

“Silicate life?” Paula theorized thoughtfully. “It’s possible. And it might evolve on a planet where conditions are so tough for survival. Such creatures wouldn’t be affected by the Noctoli pollen, either, would they?”

“No. Or they’ve built up resistance. The virus is active only in daylight, when the flowers are open. I don’t know why. Before we go too far into the Black Forest I’ll have to give everyone antitoxin shots⁠—everyone but me. The pollen doesn’t work on me any more.”

They were silent, resting. It seemed only a moment before Brown appeared, announcing that the raft was ready.

“It’s a makeshift job, but it’s strong,” he said. “Listen, Garth, what about the planes spotting us on the river? We’ll be an easy target.”

“They wouldn’t fire on us?”

“No. But they’d use sleep-gas, and nab us when we drifted ashore. We don’t want that.”

Garth rose, his muscles aching. “It’s a chance. Most of the time there’ll be fog on the river. That’ll help.” He found his medical kit and shouldered it. “I’m ready.”

The men were already on the raft, a big platform of light, tough lata-logs bound together by vines. Garth took his place near the pile of equipment in the center. “Keep to midstream,” he cautioned. “Watch for bubbles breaking ahead. Swing wide of those. Waterspouts.”

The raft slid out from the bank, long poles guiding it. Water washed aboard and slipped away as the platform found its balance. Presently they were drifting downstream in the dimly-lighted fog, the black river murmuring quietly beneath them.

Garth kept his gaze ahead. It was hard to see in the faint, filtered light of the moons, but a ray-lamp would have been betraying to any planes that might be searching above.

“Swing left. Hard,” he called.

The men obeyed. Oily bubbles were breaking the surface. As the raft moved toward the bank, a sudden geyser burst up from the river, a spouting torrent that tipped the platform dangerously and showered its occupants with icy spray.

Garth met Brown’s eyes. “See what I mean?” he remarked.

“Yeah. Still, if that’s all⁠—”

The river flowed fast. Once or twice the plated back of a giant saurian was visible, but the water-reptiles did not attack, made wary, perhaps, by the bulk of the raft. There were other waterspouts, but the men soon became adept at avoiding them.

Sometimes they drifted through fog, sometimes the mists were dissipated by winds, though not often. During one of the latter periods a faint droning drifted down from above. It was the worst possible timing, for the two larger moons were directly overhead, blazing down on the river. The stub-winged shape of a plane loomed against the starry sky.

Brown said sharply, “Drop flat. Don’t move.” He forced Garth and Paula down. “No, don’t look up. They’d see our faces.”

“They can’t miss us,” Sampson muttered.

“There’s fog ahead.”

The sound of the plane’s motors grew louder. Abruptly there was a splash. Another. Something shattered on the raft.

“Hold your breath!” Brown snapped.

Garth tried to obey. A stinging ache had crept into his nostrils. His lungs began to hurt. The plane had spotted them⁠—that was obvious. Sleep-gas works fast.

Another soft crash. Garth scarcely heard it. He saw a stubby, cruciform shadow sweep over the raft, as the plane swooped, and then the wall of silvery fog was looming up ahead. Paula gave a little gasp. Her body collapsed against him.

The fire in Garth’s chest was blazing agony. Despite himself, he let breath rush into his lungs.

After that, complete blackness and oblivion.

IV

Garth woke in reddish, dim twilight. Instantly he knew where he was, even before he sat up and saw the black boles of immense trees rising like pillars around him. The Forest!

“About time,” Captain Brown’s toneless voice said. “That sleep-gas put you under for hours.”

Garth rose, glancing around. They were camped in a little clearing among the gigantic trees, and some of the men were heating their rations over radiolite stove-kits. From above, the crimson light filtered vaguely from a leafy roof incredibly far. The trees of the Black Forest were taller than California sequoias, and Jupiter-light reached the ground faintly, through the ceiling of red leaves that roofed the jungle. Paula, Garth saw, was lying with her eyes closed not far away.

“She all right?”

“Sure,” Brown said. “Resting is all. We got away from Benson’s plane⁠—hit that fog-bank just in time. You’d passed out, so I took a chance and kept going. After we reached the Forest, I landed the raft and headed inland a bit. So here we are.”

Garth nodded. “That was wise. The river goes underground a half mile further. Any⁠—accidents?”

Brown looked at him oddly. “This might be Yosemite, for all the danger I’ve seen so far. It’s a picnic.”

“That,” Garth said, “is just why it’s so bad. You don’t see the trouble till after it’s happened.” He didn’t explain. “Where’s my kit?”

“Here. Why?”

“Before we go any further, we’ll need shots. Antitoxin against the Noctoli pollen. The flowers don’t grow on the edges of the Forest, but the wind carries their poison quite a ways sometimes.” Garth rummaged in his kit, found sealed vials and a hypo, and carefully sterilized everything over a radiolite stove he commandeered from one of the men. After that, he administered the antivirus, first to Paula and last of all to Brown. He took none himself; he had acquired a natural immunity to the pollen.

There was barely enough to go around. Brown’s shot was slightly less than the regular dosage, which vaguely worried Garth. But the Captain, annoyed by the delay, was anxious to talk about immediate plans.

“Benson might land at the edge of the Forest and come after us a mile or so. Not further. But we’d better start moving.” He led Garth over to where Paula sat. “It’s time for you to see the map.”

The girl nodded in agreement. She took out a folded flex-paper and extended it. Garth squinted down in the red twilight.

“Map?”

“More like a treasure hunt,” Paula explained. “There’s a series of guide-points, you see. So far we’re okay⁠—narva means west, in the Ancient Tongue, doesn’t it?”

“Narva.” Garth gave the word a slightly different pronunciation. “Yeah. Well⁠—three sallags northwest to the Mouths of the Waters Below⁠—”

“Mouths of the Singing Below, I made it.”

Garth shook his head. “I can’t read the stuff. I just know the spoken language. Read the whole thing out loud, so I can get it.”

Paula obeyed. Her pronunciation made some words unfamiliar to Garth, but by experiment he found what was meant.

“Uh-huh. A sallag is less than three miles, as far as I can judge. I think I know the place. It’s a hill honeycombed with little caves. You can hear water running underneath it.”

“That fits,” the girl agreed. “This won’t be so hard, after all.”

Garth grunted. He turned to Brown.

“I want a gun. And a knife. I’ll need both.”

“Sampson!”

The red-haired man approached, squinting. “Yeah?”

“Rustle up a knife and gun for Garth.”

“Check.”

Paula was staring at Garth. “You expect trouble, don’t you?”

“I do.”

She made a gesture. “This all seems so peaceful⁠—”

“Listen,” Garth said, “the Black Forest is the worst deathtrap in the System. Here’s why. The struggle for existence is plenty tough here. Brute strength isn’t enough, nor agility. A tiger or a deer wouldn’t last long here. In the Forest, the survival of the fittest means the plant or animal that can get the most food. That sort of thing has been going on here for a million years. The beasts developed super-quick reactions. They could smell danger a mile away. So they had to have strength, agility, and something else⁠—to get close to their prey.”

Brown stared. “What?”

“Invisibility. Or its equivalent. Ever heard of protective coloration? Camouflage? Well, the creatures of the Forest are the most perfect camouflage experts that exist. They don’t simply trick your eyes, either. They trick the other senses. If you smell perfume, take it easy, or you’ll find yourself asleep, while your head’s being chewed off by a lizard that looks as nasty as it smells good. If you see a path and it feels solid, don’t walk too far on it. Things have made that path. A carnivorous moss that feels exactly like smooth dirt underfoot⁠—till their digestive juices start working. If you hear me yelling your name, take it easy. There are birds like harpies here that imitate sounds the way parrots do.”

Garth’s grin was tight. “You’ll find out. It’s camouflage carried to the last degree, for offense and defense. I know the Forest pretty well; you don’t. You haven’t developed a sort of sixth sense⁠—an instinct⁠—that tells you when something smells bad, even though it looks like a six-course dinner.”

“All right,” the Captain said. “This is your territory, not mine. It’s up to you.”

It was, Garth decided later as he led the way through the black columns of the trees, very much up to him. Brown and the others were tough, hard fighters, but they didn’t know the subtleties of this hellhole, where death lurked everywhere disguised. He had got a drink from Sampson and his nerves were less jagged, but physical exhaustion still gripped him. He’d been on the skids for a long time, and was in rotten bad shape. But if the girl could stand it, he could.

It was warmer in the Forest; the trees seemed to exhale heat and moisture, and there was no snow on the ground. Great ebony pillars of giant trees, rising hundreds of feet into the air, made the place a labyrinth. And the deceptive reddish twilight made walking difficult, even to Garth’s trained senses.

There was trouble, though. When a gorgeously-colored butterfly, flame-red and green, fluttered down toward Paula, Garth hastily slapped at the insect with a thick leaf he was carrying. “Watch out for those,” he told the girl, nodding toward the crushed body. “They’re poisonous. Bad medicine.”

And once, as Brown was about to seat himself on a rounded grayish boulder, Garth whirled the man away just in time. A hole in the rock gaped open, and a pair of fanged mandibles snapped out, clicking together viciously. Garth put a bullet in the thing. It heaved itself up on spidery legs, revealing that the “rock” was a carapace covering an insect-like body. And it took a long time to die.

There were other, similar incidents. They had a bad effect on the men, even Sampson. The crew Brown had picked was tough, but the Black Forest was like distilled poison. It was easier to face a charging rhino than to travel through this ebony jungle where silent, secret death lurked concealed, in a diabolic masquerade.

That was the first day. The second was worse. The trees were thicker, and sometimes it was necessary to use machete-blades to hew through the tangled undergrowth.

Another day⁠—and another⁠—and another, following the clues on Paula’s cipher map. They found the first guidepost, the hill honeycombed with caves, and from there went on to the east, camping at the edge of a ravine that dropped away into unplumbed darkness.

Camouflage-moss grew here, looking deceptively like solid ground. One of the men ventured too close to the edge of the cleft, and the moss crumbled beneath him, dropping him into a nest of the roots⁠—twining, writhing cannibalistic serpents with sucker-disks that drank blood thirstily.

They got him out in time, luckily. But the men’s nerves were jolted.

After that, day after day, constant alertness was vital. The party walked with guns and knives in their hands. Their footsteps rang hollow in the dead, empty silence of the Forest.⁠ ⁠…

It was only Garth’s knowledge of the dark wilderness that got them through to the interior. After a week, he was further in than he had ever penetrated before, except when he had crashed the aircar with Doc Willard five years ago.

But they were getting closer⁠—nearer! More and more often Garth remembered the black notebook that might hold the cure for the Silver Plague. For some indefinable reason he had come to feel that Paula’s goal was also his.

It was logical enough. They were searching for a lost treasure-house of the Ancient Race, guarded, perhaps, by the Zarno. And Garth was certain that, during that period of partial amnesia, he and Willard had been captives of the Zarno. He had been drugged with the Noctoli poison by day, but at night he had wakened in a bare cell with his friend⁠—a cell with walls of metal, he recalled. It had been windowless. Lighted by a faint glow from one corner.

It checked. A ruin, once built by the Ancients, now inhabited by the Zarno.

If he could find that notebook⁠—

He always stopped there. He knew what he might also discover⁠—the skeleton of Willard, stretched on an altar. That picture always made his stomach go cold and tight.

That night Brown complained of a splitting headache. They camped near a stream, and Garth accompanied the Captain down to the bank, with canvas pails. Jupiter was invisible⁠—they had not seen the sky for a week⁠—but the red light was fading.

“Not too close,” Garth cautioned. “Let me test it first.”

Brown stared at him. “What now? I’m getting to expect anything here.” The man’s expressionless face showed signs of strain and exhaustion. He had no nerves, apparently, but the gruelling journey had told on him nevertheless.

Garth used his knife to cut down a sapling. He impaled a leaf on its point and extended it gingerly over the dark water. After a moment he felt a shock like a striking fish, and the pole was nearly wrenched from his hands. And he wrestled with it, Brown’s hands gripped the sapling.

“What the devil! Garth⁠—”

“Let it go. I was only testing, anyway.” The pole was dragged into the water, where it thrashed about violently for a few moments.

“What is it?”

Garth was searching through the underbrush for something. “Water-snakes. Big ones⁠—perfectly transparent. They wait for some animal to come along and take a drink. Then⁠—bang!” He nodded. “Here we are. We’ll find a lot of the Noctoli flowers from now on.”

He brought out a bloom nearly a foot in diameter, with leaves of pulpy, glossy black, a thick powdering of silver in its cup. “This is Noctoli, Captain. Looks harmless, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Brown rubbed his forehead. “The pollen gives you amnesia?”

“In the daytime, when it’s active. It’s phototropic⁠—needs light. Jupiter can’t have set yet, so this ought to work.” Garth found another pole, speared the flower on its tip, and extended the blossom over the water. He shook the silver dust into the stream.

“It works fast. The snakes will be paralyzed in a few seconds. The current carries off the pollen, we dip up the water we need⁠—and that’s that.”

Paula appeared through the bushes, glancing around warily. In the last week everyone had learned to be alert always. Lines of fatigue showed on her pale face. Red-gold hair was plastered damply on her forehead.

“Carver⁠—”

“What’s up?”

She glanced at Garth, “The men. Sampson’s talking to them.”

Brown’s rattrap mouth clamped tight. “That so? Sampson shoots off his mouth too much. What’s the angle?”

“I think they want to go back.”

Garth, dipping up water in the canvas buckets, said, “We’ve only three more days to go, unless we run into bad country.”

“I know. But⁠—they’re armed.”

“I’ll talk to ’em,” Brown said quietly. He lifted two of the pails and started up the path, Paula and Brown trailing him. Presently they reached the clearing where camp had been made.

The men weren’t cooking. Instead, they were gathered in a knot around Sampson, whose blazing red hair stood up like a beacon. Brown put down his burden and walked toward them.

They broke up at sight of him, but didn’t scatter. Sampson’s hand crept imperceptibly toward his holster.

“Trouble?” Brown asked.

Sampson squinted at him. “No trouble. Except we didn’t know the Forest would be as bad as it is.”

“So you want to go back?”

“You can’t blame us for that,” Sampson said, hunching his heavy shoulders. “It’s only dumb luck that’s kept us alive so far. We didn’t bargain for this, Captain.”

“I told you what to expect.”

“All you said was that it’d be dangerous. None of us knew the Forest. Those damn bloodsucker plants are the worst. They reach out at a guy everywhere he turns. And the other things⁠—we can’t get through, Captain! You ought to be able to see that yourself!”

“Nobody’s been killed so far.”

“Blind luck. And Garth, too. He knows this country. If we didn’t have him, we wouldn’t have lasted a day.”

“We’ve got him,” Brown said crisply. “So we’re going on. Only three more days, anyhow. That’s enough. Start cooking your rations.” He turned his back on Sampson and walked away. The red-haired giant hesitated, scowling. Finally he shrugged and glanced around at the others.

That broke the tension. One by one the men scattered to prepare food.

Only Garth was gnawed by a persistent, deep-rooted fear. He didn’t admit it, even to himself. But he watched Brown closely that night, and finally unpacked his medical kit and carefully searched it for something he knew wasn’t there.

He was dreading the next morning.

V

Slow reddish dawn brightened over the Forest. Garth felt someone shaking him. He grunted, stirred, and opened his eyes to see Paula’s white face, and, behind her, Sampson.

“Yeah. What’s wrong?” He scrambled out of his blankets, blinking. The girl, pale to the lips, pointed toward a recumbent figure.

“Carver. Captain Brown. He’s⁠—I don’t know!”

Sampson said gruffly, “Looks like he’s dead. The men on guard duty said he didn’t move once all night.”

Icy bands constricted suddenly around Garth’s heart. Without answering he got his kit and went over to examine Brown. The man lay motionless, his breathing normal, but a deep flush on his brown cheeks.

“It isn’t the Plague, is it?” Sampson asked, his voice not quite under control.

Garth shook his head. “Hell, no! It’s⁠—” He hesitated.

Paula caught his arm. “What? Some insect poisoned him⁠—one of those butterfly-things?”

Garth carefully repacked his kit. He didn’t look up.

“He’s got a dose of the Noctoli pollen. That’s all. It’s not fatal. He’ll come out of it after he leaves the Forest, or after he builds up immunity.”

“How long would that take?”

“A month or more.”

Garth bent over the apparently sleeping man. “Get up, Brown,” he said insistently. “Hear me? Get up?”

The Captain stirred. His eyes opened, blank and unseeing. He drew himself from his blankets and rose, looking straight ahead. Paula shrank back with a little gasp. There was a flurry of movement among the men in the background.

“He’ll be all right tonight. The poison only works in the daytime⁠—I’ve told you that.”

“We can’t march at night,” Paula said. “Not⁠—here!”

“I know. It’s impossible. Our lights would attract the butterflies⁠—and plenty of other things.”

Sampson whirled on the others. “Pack your equipment! We’re getting out of here, fast!”

They hurried to obey. Paula got in front of Sampson as he turned, and the giant stopped, blinking at her.

“You can’t leave the Captain here, Sampson.”

“We’ll carry him, then. But we’re getting out.”

Garth moved to Paula’s side. “You won’t need a litter. He can walk. Noctoli poison works like hypnotism. You’re semiconscious, but your will’s in abeyance. If anyone tells Brown to follow us, he’ll do it.”

Paula was biting her lip. “We can’t go back now. We’ve only three days to go.”

“Look,” Sampson said grimly, “why in hell should we commit suicide? Suppose we head on for three days. We reach this lost city of yours, or whatever it is. What then? We’re in the middle of the Black Forest. Another thirteen days to get out! It’s too much of a gamble. We’re leaving now, and you can come along or stay here⁠—suit yourself!” He turned away.

Left alone, Paula looked helplessly from the motionless, staring figure of Brown to Garth.

“Carver!”

He didn’t move. Garth grinned wryly.

“He’ll obey commands, that’s all. He won’t wake up till tonight.”

Paula clenched her hands. “We’ve got to go on! We’ve got to! If we go back now⁠—”

“Commander Benson will clap us in the brig, eh?”

She looked at him angrily. “It isn’t only that. We’d lose our chance. You were right, Garth⁠—we’re after the power-source of the Ancients. The secret’s hidden here, in the Black Forest. That cipher from Chahnn proved that⁠—to me, anyway. Earth needs power, more than you can imagine. Without it, civilization will collapse⁠—soon, too.”

“Suppose we go on,” Garth said slowly. “I didn’t tell you this, but the reason the poison hit Brown was because my antitoxin was too old. He had a short dose, too. The other men⁠—well, they’ll go under themselves in a day or so. You, too.”

Blue smudges showed under the girl’s eyes. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “So it’s like that.”

“Just like that.”

Paula’s stubborn chin tilted up. “I don’t care⁠—there’s still a way. We’ll be all right at night, you said. Well, we’ll do our traveling and fighting by night.”

“Fighting?”

“The Zarno. Garth, we’ve got to do it, somehow. Once we find that power-source, we can use it! There’ll be weapons the Ancients left, I’m sure of it. The murals at Chahnn showed they had weapons, strong enough to conquer the Zarno. If we can get those⁠—”

“You’re crazy,” Garth said. “Plain crazy. What the hell do you expect me to do about it? Sampson would knock my block off if I tried to stop him now.”

But he was thinking: we’re losing more than a chance to find the Ancient’s power-source. I’m losing my chance to find the cure for the Silver Plague.

“No,” he said stubbornly.

Paula’s lip curled. “I should have known better than to ask you for help. I’ll handle this myself.” She unholstered her gun.

Garth looked at her. She’d fail. She couldn’t handle these ten hard-shelled fighters, headed by Sampson. She’d fail. And, in the end, she’d go back to Earth, in the brig, back to the certain death of the Silver Plague. Oh, it might miss her, of course. But it might not.

Paula would die as Moira had done, years ago.

Garth shrugged and slapped the girl’s weapon down. “Stay out of this,” he commanded, and turned away, walking across the clearing to where Sampson and the others were shouldering their kits.

The red-haired giant looked up at Garth’s approach. “Step it up,” he said. “We’re in a hurry.”

“I’m not going.”

Sampson’s furry brows drew together. “The hell you’re not. We need you!”

There was a band of ice around Garth’s middle. “I know that. You can’t get through without me. You’ll never get out of the Forest alive. That’s tough. Paula and I are going ahead, with Captain Brown. We’re finishing what we started.”

“You lousy so-and-so!” Sampson roared. His big hand reached out, clutching. Garth stepped back, drawing his pistol.

“Take it easy,” he said under his breath. But there was a gun in Sampson’s hand now. Behind the giant, the other men stirred angrily.

“You’re coming with us!”

“Not alive. I won’t be much good to you dead, will I?”

After a moment Sampson re-holstered his gun. He looked around at the others.

Someone said, “We can get along without that son.”

Sampson growled at him. “Shut up. We can’t. You’d have been sucked dry by that spider-thing yesterday if Garth hadn’t seen it in time. He knows where to walk in this hellhole.”

Garth didn’t say anything. He waited, holding his gun with casual lightness.

Sampson glared. “What do you want, then?”

“I want you to keep going⁠—finish what you started.”

“Then what?”

“We may find weapons⁠—and other things.”

“Suppose we don’t?”

“Then we’ll come back. I got you in here, and I’m the only man on Ganymede who can get you out.”

Sampson’s eyes narrowed. “Suppose we say yes. You can’t keep a gun on us all the time. We might jump you. There are ways of making a man do things he doesn’t want to do.”

“Sure,” Garth admitted, “you could torture me. Only that wouldn’t help.”

Sampson’s gaze flicked past to the girl. Garth said quickly, “That wouldn’t help either. Here’s why. The antitoxin I gave you was too old. It isn’t working the way it ought. Captain Brown was the first man to go under. But within three days, at the latest, every damn one of you will have Noctoli poison!”

Garth thought Sampson was going to shoot him then and there. A yell went up from the men.

Sampson’s lifted hand quieted them. The giant was pale under his spaceburn.

“Is that straight?”

Garth nodded. “It’s on the beam. Yeah. It’ll take you a week to get out of the Forest, and you won’t last that long, even if you force me to guide you. I don’t think you can do that, anyway. But even if you did⁠—within three days you’ll be like the Captain. Walking dead men! You’ll be okay at night, but you can’t travel at night. By day you’ll be living statues, sitting in the Forest waiting for the bloodsucker plants to come along and drain your blood, waiting for the poisonous butterflies to paralyze you and lay their eggs under your skin, waiting⁠—you’ve seen what sort of things live in the Forest. Every day you’ll be helpless. You can’t run. Some night you’ll wake up with your legs chewed off, or the butterfly maggots eating you alive. Like that? Well, that’s what you’ll get⁠—and I’m the only guy that can save you!”

The faces of the men told Garth that his shots had gone home. The deadly menace of the forest, lurking always in the background, had worked into their nerves. Sampson’s big hands clenched.

“Damn you!” he snarled. “You can’t⁠—”

Garth went on quickly. “I’m handing this to you straight. We’re in a spot, sure, but we can get out of it. I can make more antitoxin, but it’ll take a while. I can’t do it while we’re traveling. I need equipment. Here’s what I’m proposing⁠—we all keep going, the way we started. I’m immune to the pollen. If we move fast, we’ll reach the lost city, or whatever it is, before you go under. Then I can start making antitoxin. We’ll have to trap some small animals and allow time for incubation. But I’ll be able to make fresh shots and neutralize the Noctoli pollen.”

“It’s too long a shot,” Sampson said.

“Okay,” Garth told him. “Suit yourself. Play it my way, or commit suicide.” He turned and walked toward Paula, who had not moved from Brown’s side.

Her eyes were steady on his. “Thanks. That was nice going⁠—plenty nice, if you pull it off.”

“It’s suicide either way,” Garth grunted. He began packing Brown’s kit and his own.

Footsteps sounded. Garth didn’t turn. He heard Sampson’s deep voice, hoarse with repressed fear and rage.

“We’re playing it your way, Garth. God help you if you make any boners!”

Sudden relief weakened Garth. He tried not to show it, though he realized that his hands were trembling.

“Fair enough,” he said. “We’ll march in ten minutes. Get the men ready.”

Sampson muttered something and retreated. Garth slipped the pack on Brown’s shoulders. The Captain, looking blankly ahead, didn’t seem to notice.

“Keep your eye on him,” Garth told Paula. “He’ll be between us. He’ll keep marching till we tell him to stop. See?”

She nodded, moistening her lips. “Y‑yes. Is⁠—that⁠—going to happen to all of us?”

Garth said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say.

But he knew, as he led the party away from the camp, how long a gamble he was undertaking. There were so many chances that he might fail! The odds were plenty tough⁠—yet the stakes were equally high.

Had he known how difficult those odds were, Garth might not have risked it. For the Noctoli poison worked faster than he had guessed.

Meantime he guided ten sullen, fearful men, a walking corpse, and a girl deeper into the unexplored heart of the Black Forest. The Noctoli flowers breathed their poison from the underbrush, deadly and relentlessly.

VI

That day they met a new enemy: jet-black lizards, five feet long, that clung to the black tree-boles, perfectly camouflaged, till the party came close. Then the reptiles flashed toward them, fanged jaws gaping. Constant alertness was all that saved them⁠—that, and the blazing guns that killed the monsters.

Presence of the lizards was no respite from the other perils. The bloodsucker plants were more numerous, and the camouflage-moss made deceptively inviting paths through the red gloom. By dark, everyone was nearly exhausted, nerves worn to rags. Garth knew it would not take much for the men to explode into furious resentment against him.

Luckily, an hour after they had made camp, Captain Brown woke from his drugged trance, perfectly normal. But it took a while to make him understand what had happened.

For the first time Garth saw Brown lose his iron self-control, and then it was only for a moment. A flash of stark horror showed on the Captain’s lean, hard face, to be gone instantly.

He lit a cigarette, his eyes brooding on Paula and Garth. Briefly he glanced past them to the men, preparing their rations.

“Uh-huh. Not so good. I suppose it’s useless to think of traveling by night.”

“It’s impossible,” Garth told him.

“You can make more antitoxin?”

“Sure⁠—but not here. It’s too dangerous. We’ve been safe so far because we’ve moved fast, camping at a different spot every night. If we holed up, we’d have a gang of monsters down on us in no time.”

Brown considered. “It’s a nasty business, having my own body go back on me. A bit of a shock. Well⁠—” He let smoke drift from his nostrils. “Two more days ahead of us, eh? Then we reach the lost city.”

“If it is a city. We don’t even know that.”

“But we do know there may be Zarno around. We’ll have to arrive there soon after dark, so I’ll be⁠ ⁠… conscious. If there’s a fight, I want to be in on it. Why the devil didn’t you test that antitoxin, Garth?” His voice was harshly angry.

Garth didn’t answer. Brown had given him the rush act, but he wasn’t making any excuses.

Paula said, “This isn’t the best time to quarrel. You’d better talk to the men, Carver, so there’ll be no trouble tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so.”

Even the rebellious Sampson was convinced by Brown’s well-chosen remarks.

They slept uneasily, with guards replaced every two hours, and the next day woke to find Captain Brown once more sunk into his Noctoli-trance. A few of the men complained of headaches.

By midmorning Paula succumbed to the poison. Garth did not realize at first what had happened. Then, turning, he saw the girl’s blank face and wide eyes fixed straight ahead as she marched along, and knew that she was entranced by the Noctoli till nightfall. The exercise of walking, speeding metabolism, had hastened the action of the virus.

They went on. An hour later another man went under. Then another. By noon only five men, including Garth and Sampson, were still conscious.

Their difficulties increased proportionately. They had to be on guard every second. The Noctoli victims walked quietly in line, but they did not react to danger. If the tentacles of a bloodsucker plant flashed out, they wouldn’t try to escape. Their instinct of self-preservation had been dulled and blanketed.

The afternoon was pure hell. Garth, Sampson, and one other man had to guard and lead the rest. Their guns crashed incessantly, it seemed.

When they camped at the onset of darkness, Sampson and Garth alone remained.

The red-haired giant, swaying on his feet, squinted at Garth, his face haggard with exhaustion.

“Nice going,” he said sardonically, after a time. “What now? Maybe we’d better cut our throats.”

Garth managed a shaky grin. “We’re still okay. And there’s only one more day left. Tomorrow⁠—we’ll make it then. We’ve got to.”

Unwilling admiration showed in Sampson’s eyes. “You’re dead on your feet. I don’t see how the hell you keep up this pace. Anyhow⁠—we can’t go back now. That’s settled, anyway.”

“Yeah. The others will wake up after a while. We’ll have to stay on guard till then.”

They did, guns drawn, peering at the silent depths of the Forest around them, while the rest of the party lay motionless, helpless against attack.

After a time Sampson spoke. Garth could not see his face in the heavy gloom.

“What are you after, Garth?”

“Eh?”

“I had you ticketed wrong. A beachcomber.⁠ ⁠… There must be something plenty important where we’re going, or you wouldn’t be so anxious to get there. What is it? Treasure, of course, but⁠—jewels? Or what?”

Garth chuckled. “There may be. I don’t know. Don’t care.”

“Hm‑m.” Sampson was silent, baffled. Garth’s mind swung back to that ever-present question. Had he killed Doc Willard? Very soon, now, he might know the answer.

But that was important only to him. The vital point was the black notebook Doc had with him.

After a time Captain Brown stirred and sat up. Then the others. The men were a little panicky, but the presence of Brown and Sampson calmed them.

Garth, relieved of guard duty, had fallen asleep almost instantly.

He woke at dawn. Red twilight filtered down from above. The others were lying motionless in their blankets. Sampson’s big body was huddled at the base of a tree.

Wearily Garth got up and went over to the giant. “Sampson!” he called. “Wake up! We’ve got a job⁠—”

He stopped. Sampson’s eyes were open, fixed and blank, and his dark cheeks had a significant ruddy flush.

The Noctoli poison⁠—!

Garth stepped back, white to the lips. A sudden, horrible sense of loneliness pressed down on him. In the jungle things seemed to move, closing in menacingly.

He was alone now.

Alone⁠—with twelve helpless companions to guard!

Somehow⁠—somehow!⁠—he had to get them through. One more day, and they would be at their goal. They could not stay here, that was certain.

Garth searched Sampson’s pack till he found a half-empty whiskey bottle. He poured the burning stuff down his throat, though it rocked him back on his heels. But he needed artificial stimulation; it was the only thing that could keep him going now.

It helped. Garth took Sampson’s gun and stuck it in his belt. If his own jammed or ran out of ammunition, today, it would be unfortunate.

One more day.

One more day!

Somehow, he got Sampson, Brown and the others lined up. They would march when he gave the word. The hypnotic trance of the Noctoli pollen had turned them into robots.

Garth put Paula directly behind him. The sight of her wan, drawn face made him feel a little frightened, though not for himself. He was remembering Moira, who had died on Earth years ago.

Eleven men and a girl⁠—and he was the only one who could save them.

Garth made sure that the packs were in place on the men’s shoulders. He took another drink, pulled out one of the guns, and gave the command to march.

Like automatons the line followed him.

If the day before had been hell, this was double-distilled hell.

Within an hour, Garth’s nerves were scraped raw. He had to be constantly alert. The wrenching strain of watching for camouflaged menace made his eyes ache. When movement came, he had to be ready. Ready to squeeze the trigger.⁠ ⁠…

He had to have eyes in the back of his head. For Sampson, at the tail of the procession, was as helpless as the others.

Liquor kept Garth going. Without it, he would have collapsed. By noon he was forced to call a halt, his eyes throbbing with the strain. But even then he could not relax. Danger waited everywhere.

He never remembered what happened that afternoon. He must have acted automatically, through blind instinct. But he got them through, somehow.⁠ ⁠…

It was like awakening from deep sleep. Garth was abruptly conscious that he was marching forward, his head moving rhythmically, his eyes searching the jungle. The red twilight was almost gone.

He whirled, to see Paula directly behind him, unharmed. The others were strung out in single file⁠—all of them, with Sampson’s red head at the end. None was missing.

Garth shivered. His body was aching like fire. A quick glance showed him that his clothes were ribboned, his skin scratched raw, a long slash along his ribs. It had been treated with antiseptic, he saw, though he did not remember administering first aid, nor what had caused the wound.

What had wakened him? He peered through the gloom, making out a dark bulk, regular in outline, ahead and to his left. A few paces further gave him the answer. It was a building, of black stone or metal, no more than twelve feet high, and with an archway gaping in the nearest side.

Somehow it struck a chord of memory. They must be near their goal. No savages had built this structure. The Ancient Race?

The Zarno⁠—they might be near by. It would not do to encounter them now, while the men were in their Noctoli trance. And here, in the Forest, they were without cover, at the mercy of the Zarno should they appear.

Garth reconnoitered quietly, leading the others, for he dared not leave them alone. The black building seemed untenanted. He could vaguely make out a flight of steps leading down into darkness, and, more important than that, the threshold itself was thick with dust and mould. The⁠—temple⁠—was empty.

Which made it a good place to hide. Garth was beginning to realize he could not keep going much longer, at least without collapsing. But soon after dark the others would recover from their trance.

He stepped warily across the threshold, into the gloom of the temple. Simultaneously the flooring sank almost imperceptibly beneath his feet, and a deep, brazen bell-note boomed out, hushed with distance, as though it came from underground.

Indecision held Garth motionless for a moment. That clang was a signal of some sort⁠—a warning against trespassers? A warning to whom?

He was answered quickly. A low cry came, harsh and oddly familiar. It was the first of many. Garth, hesitating on the threshold, uncertain which way the danger lay, instinctively reached out his arm and dragged Paula close. She came obediently to his side, her eyes seeing nothing. The others⁠—they stood like frozen statues.

Something flashed amid the underbrush. The scarlet tangle of vines and leaves was torn aside, and a figure leaped into view.

A figure, manlike⁠—yet not human!

At first glance it seemed to be a man in armor, more than six feet tall, and proportionately broad. Its body gleamed with reflected light. Neckless, its head was a hairless, shining ball whose only features were two oval, jet-black eyes. They were uncannily menacing.

A statue come to life! For the creature’s body was obviously not flesh⁠—it was hard, rough and shiny as translucent glass. Silicate life!

Sprung from a silicon chemical base, as Earth life comes from carbon⁠—but sentient, intelligent, and dangerous!

Others like it raced into view, pausing as they saw Garth and his companions. The first stepped forward. He had no mouth, but a circular diaphragm below and between his eyes vibrated rapidly, forming recognizable words.

“Al-khron ghanro ssel ’ri⁠—”

It was the Ancient Tongue, which Garth had learned five years before, and never forgotten. It came back to him easily now. He was beginning to remember other things, too. These creatures⁠—he had seen them before. The Zarno⁠—

“We come in peace.” He raised one hand, his nerves jolting, waiting for the answer. Presently it came.

“You are not a god. The others with you are not gods. We are the Zarno; we destroy. We guard the house of the gods till they return.”

Another of the silicate creatures pushed forward. “Do you not know this being, Kharn? Eight ystods ago he came here with another like him. Do you remember?”

Kharn nodded slowly. “That is true. We did not slay them then, for we thought they were messengers from the gods. They pretended to be⁠—we were not sure. This one escaped. The other went into the Darkness.”

The other? Doc Willard? Garth felt his throat tighten.

“The⁠—Darkness? What is that?”

“The place from which only the gods return,” Kharn said slowly.

Did he mean⁠—death? Before Garth could ask, the second Zarno spoke.

“They must be taken and sacrificed, Kharn.”

Garth took out his gun. “Wait,” he said sharply, as the Zarno moved forward. “We have weapons. We can destroy you.”

“You do not speak the truth. Only the gods can destroy us. Ages ago they came here and built their temple and taught us to be wise. When they left us, we stayed on, to guard the sacred places.”

Garth’s mouth felt dry. “We are messengers from the gods⁠—” he declared.

“It is not true.” Kharn began to walk forward. “Take them!”

Garth knew he had lost.

It was like a nightmare, the steady, relentless approach of the monstrous beings. Garth held his gun leveled. His arm tightened around Paula’s shoulders.

“Keep back,” he commanded, conscious of the uselessness of the words.

Instead, Kharn and the others walked on. The creature’s shining arm lifted, clamped on Garth’s shoulder. He fired.

Kharn did not seem to feel the bullet, though it had not missed. Garth squeezed the trigger again. The pistol jolted against his palm.

The Zarno were⁠—invulnerable!

Garth fought, nevertheless. He could see the silicate men lifting his companions like sacks of meal, hoisting them to gleaming shoulders, and carrying them, unresisting, through the forest. Paula was torn from his grasp. Cursing, he struck out at Kharn’s impassive, inhuman face with the revolver-butt. Useless! Nothing could harm these creatures of living stone.

Ignoring his struggles, Kharn prisoned Garth’s arms and lifted him. Helpless, Garth was carried after the others. He forced himself to relax. A fury of impotent rage flooded him.

He battled it down. Better wait. A chance might come later; just now, there was none. Wait⁠—

Through the forest they went, a score of the silicate creatures, striding like armored giants in the darkening red glow. Not far. A pillar of black metal loomed before them soon, broken by an archway. Two of the monsters guarded it. For a moment Garth mistook the monolith for one of the ebony trees; then he realized his error as they crossed the threshold and began to descend a spiral ramp.

Now there was light, a cool, silvery radiance that seemed to come from the walls. Kharn’s footsteps thumped hollow, tirelessly. Sudden weakness made Garth dizzy. He caught a glimpse of a well around which the ramp wound, a pit dropping away to the heart of a world, it seemed.

Utter exhaustion struck him like a physical blow.

VII

He remembered, dimly, what happened after that. It was like a series of fantastic visions, nightmare flashes of memory. At the bottom of the spiral was a cave, reminiscent of Chahnn and the other cities of the Ancients Garth had seen. Enigmatic machines loomed here and there. Unlike Chahnn, this city was lighted with the pale glow that came out of the walls and high-domed ceilings.

Cavern after cavern⁠—peopled with the silicate creatures, filled with the dead machines of the Ancients! And, finally, an immense cave, its floor slanting up to a raised dais at one end. On the platform a throne of black metal stood, and seated upon it was a gigantic four-armed robot, larger than any Garth had ever seen before⁠—standing, it would have been twelve feet tall, he judged.

Garth got only a glimpse of this. He was carried on swiftly to a smaller cavern where metal doors lined the walls. One of these was unlocked. He, with the other Earthmen, was carried within and dumped unceremoniously on the floor. The Zarno departed, clanging the door shut after them.

Then⁠—silence.

Garth staggered to his feet, staring around. The cell was oddly familiar. He had been in it, or one like it, five years ago with Doc Willard. The silvery light came from the wall, and there was a grating in the door. That was all.

He reached the grating and peered out. Two Zarno were on guard not far away. The lock⁠—it might be possible to pick it, Garth thought, but the silicate creatures were invulnerable. So that would do no good.

Captain Brown’s clipped voice said, “Where the hell are we, Garth?”

“Huh? Oh, you’re awake.” Garth laughed harshly. “You should have waked up half an hour ago. Not that it would have done any good⁠—”

Brown stood up stiffly. “What d’you mean? What’s happened?”

The others were waking now. For a few moments the cell was a babble of questions. One of the Zarno came briefly to the grill in the door and looked in. Shocked quiet greeted him.

After he had gone, Garth took advantage of the silence to say, “I’ll tell you what’s been going on, and then I’m going to sleep. I’ll go to sleep anyway, unless I talk fast. I’m dead beat.”

Sampson squinted at the door. “Tough customers. Shoot, Garth. I’ve got a hunch we’re in a bad spot.”

“We are. Listen⁠—” Briefly Garth explained what had happened.

There were questions and counter-questions.

“You can speak their lingo, eh?”

“That won’t help, Brown.”

“They can’t be invulnerable.”

“They are⁠—to our weapons. Silicate life!”

“When will they⁠—sacrifice us?” Paula asked, a little shaken, though she tried not to show it.

Garth shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I can talk ’em out of it. God knows. They worship the gods⁠—the Ancients, I suppose⁠—but they know we’re not gods. So that’s that.”

“Well⁠—”

They talked inconclusively. Sampson casually wandered over to the door, found a twisted scrap of wire, and used it on the lock. After a while he called softly to the others.

“This thing’s a snap. It won’t keep us in here.”

Garth came over. “There are guards. It’s no use.”

One of the Zarno approached and peered in through the grill.

“Kharn has said you will not be hungry long. Tomorrow you will all die. You eat, like the creatures of the forest, do you not?”

“What’s he saying?” Sampson muttered.

“Nothing important.” Garth switched to the Ancient Tongue. “It will be dangerous to kill us. We are messengers of the gods.”

“We will believe that,” the Zarno said, “when one of the gods tells us so.” He nodded impassively and retreated.

Paula touched Garth’s arm. “Isn’t there any way⁠—”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“There’s light here. There’s none in the other cities of the Ancients. That means the power-source still works here. If we can find it⁠—”

Garth couldn’t look at her, knowing they were doomed to die the next day. He shrugged, turned away, and found an empty corner. Ignoring the others, he tried to relax on the hard floor. His brain just wasn’t working now. It was fagged out. He had a vague hunch that there might be a way out⁠—but he was too exhausted to follow it up now. A few hours’ sleep was vital.

But he slept past dawn. When he awoke, he saw the others lying motionless, their eyes fixed in the blank stare of the Noctoli trance.

Glancing at the chronometer on Brown’s wrist, Garth figured swiftly. It was past dawn. That meant there was little time left in which to act⁠—provided action was possible. But sleep had refreshed him, though his muscles still ached painfully. He was beginning to remember what his hunch had been.

When he and Doc Willard had been captives, there had been guards only at night. During the long Ganymedean day, none was necessary, for the Noctoli poison had been active then. By day, the Zarno thought, men of flesh were tranced and helpless. Unless⁠—

Garth moved quietly to the door. Through the grill he saw the cave, empty of life. There were no guards. He was glad he had slept past dawn, so that the Zarno were able to believe him entranced like the others.

But what now? Escape? To where? There was still power in the lost city; perhaps the weapons of the Ancients still existed. Weapons stronger than guns to conquer the Zarno! But, regardless of that, it was necessary to find a hiding-place. This was the day of sacrifice.

Ironic thought⁠—a hiding-place in an underground city teeming with the Zarno!

Garth shrugged. The door was locked, he discovered, and it took time to find the twisted wire Sampson had used. Even then, Garth was unable to manipulate the intricate tumblers. He scowled, chewing his lip, and eying the wire. Sampson’s skilled fingers were necessary.

He roused the red-haired giant and led him to the door. Sampson looked straight ahead, his eyes dull. He obeyed when Garth spoke⁠—but that was all. Was his skill sufficiently instinctive to be used now?

There was only one way to find out. Garth put the wire in Sampson’s hand.

“Unlock the door.”

He had to repeat the command twice before Sampson understood. Then the big man bent, fumbling with the lock, working with agonizing slowness.

Hours seemed to drag past before Sampson straightened.

Garth tried the door. It opened. The first step was accomplished, anyhow. The others would be more difficult. He was unfamiliar with the underground city. How the devil could he evade the Zarno and find a hiding-place? Alone, he would have a better chance. But he had twelve companions to take with him.

He spoke to each of them. “Follow me. You understand? Follow me till I tell you to stop. Move as quietly as you can.”

Then he led them out of the cell.

The city, as he speedily learned, was a labyrinth. Luckily there were innumerable cross-passages. And all the cities of the Ancients had been built along a similar plan. Garth knew the layout of Chahnn, and that helped him now. But there were times when he had to move fast, and the others walked as though striding through water.

“Quick! In here! Fast!”

And they would follow him, into a side tunnel, while the heavy, metallic foosteps of the Zarno approached like the drums of doom.

But there was no place to hide permanently. Worst of all, a distant clanging sounded presently, and Garth guessed what that meant. The escape of the captives had been discovered.

Gingerly he skirted the huge cave where the dais was, glimpsing the giant robot in the distance, and shepherding his charges along a twisting corridor that led down. But the footsteps were growing louder. Garth was almost certain that they were following.

He increased his pace, with wary glances behind him. Unless he found a side passage soon, the swift Zarno would speedily overtake them.

“Faster! Move faster!”

The Earthmen tried to obey. Like automatons they ran, their eyes fixed and staring, while the clamor of pursuit grew louder. Looking back, Garth saw a flash of shining movement The Zarno!

“Faster!”

There were no side tunnels. They came out into a small cave, completely empty. It was a cul-de-sac. Light was reflected brightly from three walls.

The fourth wall was dead black⁠—neither rock nor stone. It was like a jet curtain, blocking their path. Garth jerked to a halt, knowing the utter hopelessness of futility. They were trapped now.

The Zarno were pursuing, unmistakably.

Garth took out his useless gun. His face was set in grim lines. What good were bullets against the silicate creatures?

But waiting helplessly was far worse. At least he could try to fight.

He had forgotten to command his charges to halt. Glancing around, Garth saw something that made his eyes widen in incredulous amazement. Paula was walking toward the black curtain⁠—the wall⁠—

She stepped through it and vanished.

Brown followed her. Then another man. And another.

Last of all, Sampson, disappearing like a ghost through the blackness!

Heavy footsteps whirled Garth about. Down the corridor he could see the flashing gleams that heralded the Zarno. His tight grin was a grimace.

“The hell with you, pals,” he said softly⁠—and turned again. He raced in pursuit of the others.

Leaped through the dark curtain!

There was an instant of grinding, jolting shock that left him blind. He staggered, caught himself, and saw that he was in a passage that led toward a distant brightness. Silhouetted against the glow were the moving figures of his companions.

He sprinted after them. But he did not overtake them till they had emerged in a cavern unlike any he had seen before.

“Okay! Stop! Stop, that’s right.”

They halted, motionless. Garth looked behind him, but there was no trace of the Zarno.

This cavern was lighted like the others. But there were fewer machines. Row after row of the giant four-armed robots stood like an army on the dark-metal floor. The walls were jeweled, thousands of pearly disks studding them. A low humming came from a machine nearby, a tripod with lenses surmounting a square box.

Garth walked through it. He hesitated, glanced around again, and then peered through the lenses.

A voice seemed to speak within his brain.

“⁠—invoked the rule of silence. After that, Genjaro Lo declared that space travel was inevitable and might solve the natural problems of our civilization⁠—”

It had spoken in the Ancient Tongue. And, at the same time, Garth had seen a picture of a huge, four-armed being with a bulging, yet oddly symmetrical head, standing on a rostrum addressing a multitude⁠—

“Ed!” The voice rang through the silent cavern. “Ed Garth! You made it!”

Garth whirled. A man had emerged from a cavern-mouth nearby, a short, slight man with white hair and a lined, tired face. He ran forward, his ragged garments flapping, his eyes shining.

Garth said, in a voice like a prayer, “Doc Willard. You’re alive!”

VIII

Willard gripped his friend’s hands. “Alive, yes. If you can call it that. I’ve been living for only one thing. I knew you’d come back, with help, if you got through. And you did!”

The cavern was spinning around Garth. He braced himself, staring at the man.

“Doc! I’ve been going crazy for five years. I thought I⁠—I’d killed you.”

Willard stared. “Killed me? But⁠—”

“That altar!” The words tumbled out of Garth’s mouth. “I couldn’t remember much. That damned Noctoli poison⁠—I lost my memory. But I knew I’d tried to knife you while you were stretched out on an altar⁠—”

Sympathy showed in Willard’s eyes. “Good Lord, Ed! And you could remember only that? You must have gone through hell.”

“I did. I didn’t know what⁠—”

“But we planned it. The whole thing. A fake ceremony, to impress the Zarno and give us a chance to escape. They thought we might be messengers from their gods⁠—the Ancients⁠—and we told ’em so, after we’d learned their language. The sacrifice⁠—it was a fake, that’s all. And it went through as we planned. You pretended to stab me, and while the Zarno were bowing and genuflecting, we got away. At least you did. They recaptured me.”

Garth shook his head. “Tell me. I don’t know, really.”

Willard glanced at the Earthmen, curiosity in his eyes. “You’ve a bit of explaining to do yourself, Ed. Are they⁠—Noctoli?”

“Yeah. I worked out an antitoxin, but it was stale.” Quickly Garth explained what had happened.

“I see. Well⁠—got a cigarette?” Willard sucked the smoke luxuriously into his lungs. “That’s good. Five years since I had one of these. Sit down and let’s talk. No chairs, but try the floor.”

“Okay. What happened to you?”

“Nothing much. When we staged our fake ceremony⁠—the Zarno are plenty religious⁠—I headed for that little black temple in the forest. Know the place?”

“Yeah. That’s where they caught us.”

“Well, it leads to freedom. There’s an underground tunnel that takes you out in a camouflaged hangar. The Ancients had antigravity. I found out later, and their flying-boats were hidden there. They’re still good, Ed. They still work. I’d have got away if the Zarno hadn’t been right on my heels.”

“So?”

Willard nodded. “The controls are easy. A couple of push-buttons and a steering-lever. I’d got a few feet off the ground when a couple of Zarno jumped into the boat with me. They heaved me out and followed. The flying-boat went off to Mars or somewhere, I suppose⁠—it kept on going straight up. But there are others. Only I’ve never been able to get at them. If I could have, I’d have headed for Oretown, pronto.”

Garth’s eyes were glowing. “If we could reach that hangar, Doc, we could escape⁠—all of us.”

“Sure. Only we can’t. Too many guards. It’s impossible to get out of this city. I’ve tried often enough. The only way I managed to survive was by entering the Darkness.” His voice trailed away.

“That black wall?”

“It’s a vibration-barrier. None of the Zarno can pass it. It shakes them to pieces⁠—destroys them. The Ancients made it, I suppose, to guard their library.” Willard extended his hand in a sweeping gesture. “This is it. All the knowledge of the Ancients⁠—tremendous knowledge⁠—compiled here for reference. If we could only get it out to the world!”

Garth remembered something. “Does it mention their power-source?”

“Sure. I’ve had nothing to do for five years but study the library. I could put my finger on the wire-tape recording that explains the process. It’s an intricate business, but we could duplicate it on Earth easily enough.”

Paula would be glad to know that, Garth thought. The secret of the Ancients’ power, that could replace oil and coal⁠—a vital secret to Earth now.

Willard was still talking. “I ran when I heard you coming. I’d been studying one of the recordings, but I thought the Zarno might have got through the barrier somehow.⁠ ⁠… It doesn’t harm humans, luckily, or the robots. I learned a lot in five years.”

“How did you manage to keep alive?”

“I found food. The Ancients had stocked up this place. Pills!” Willard grimaced. “They kept me alive, and there was a machine for making water out of the air. But I’m hungry for a steak.”

Garth scowled. “Doc⁠—one more thing. You know what I mean?”

Willard sobered. “I get it, Ed. The cure. Whether or not I⁠—”

“Whether or not you’ve found the cure for the Silver Plague. It hasn’t been checked yet. It’s still killing thousands on Earth.”

“So. I wondered a lot about that. Well⁠—the answer is yes, Ed. I know the answer.”

“The cure?”

“Yes. I worked it out, completely, with the aid of the Ancients’ library. They were studying it too, but they didn’t have quite the right angle. However, they were able to supply the missing data I needed.” Willard took from his pocket a small notebook. “I had five years to work on it. So far, of course, it’s theoretical, but everything checks. It’s the cure, all right.”

Somehow Garth didn’t feel much excitement. Five years ago, he thought, that notebook would have saved Moira’s life. Now⁠—well, it would still save life. It would save Earth. But⁠—

He shrugged. “Two good reasons to get back to civilization. The cure, and the secret of the power-source.”

Willard nodded. “The Ancients died of the Silver Plague, indirectly. They tried to escape by changing their bodies. The library told me that.”

“Their bodies? How?”

“Well⁠—you’ve seen the robots in Chahnn and here. Originally they were the servants of the Ancients.”

“Intelligent?”

“No⁠—not in the way you mean. They could be conditioned to perform certain tasks, but usually they were controlled telepathically by the Ancients, who wore specialized helmet-transmitters for the purpose. The robots had radio-atomic brains that reacted to telepathic commands. Then when the Silver Plague struck, the Ancients tried to escape by transplanting, not their physical brains, but their minds. I don’t quite know how it was done. But the thought-patterns, the individual mental matrix, of each Ancient was somehow impressed on the radio-atomic brain of a robot. Their minds were put into the robots’ brains⁠—and controlled the metal bodies. So they escaped the Plague. But they died anyway. Human, intelligent minds can’t be transplanted successfully into artificial bodies that way. So⁠—in a hundred years⁠—they were dead, all of them.”

So that was the secret of the Ancients’ disappearance from Ganymede. They had taken new bodies⁠—and those bodies had killed them through their sheer alienage.

Willard crushed out his cigarette-stub. “All the knowledge of the Ancients at my fingertips, Ed. You can imagine what research I’ve done!”

“I should have thought you’d have looked for a weapon against the Zarno,” Garth said practically. “The Ancients were able to conquer them.”

“I did⁠—first of all, after I’d learned how to work the recording-machines. A certain ray will destroy them⁠—a vibrationary beam that shakes them to pieces, disrupts their molecular structure. The only trouble is⁠—” Willard grinned sardonically. “It takes a damn good machine shop to build such a projector.”

“Oh. We couldn’t⁠—”

“We couldn’t. The Ancients left plenty of apparatus here, but not the right kind. Mostly records, and a lot of robots. Sorry, Ed, but unless you brought good weapons with you, you’re stuck here with me.”

Garth looked around to where his companions were standing motionless. “Yeah. Looks like it. Unless we can break through to that hangar of antigravity ships⁠—”

“We can’t. The city’s full of the Zarno, day and night. And there are always guards outside.”

Garth sighed. “The trouble is, unless we get out, nothing can stop the Silver Plague. Not to mention the fuel shortage. Wait a minute. You said the Zarno were superstitious⁠—we tricked them once with a fake ceremony. Couldn’t we try that again?”

“I did,” Willard told them. “It didn’t work. The Zarno know what human beings are like now. Only the gods would impress them⁠—those robots who once were their masters.”

Garth stopped breathing for a moment.

“There’s a way,” he said.

Willard looked at him. “I don’t think so. When I saw you’d come back, I hoped for a minute⁠—but it’s no use. The Zarno are invulnerable to any weapons we can create here. We can’t get out of the city!”

“You said the gods would impress them.”

“The gods are dead⁠—the Ancients.”

“Suppose one of them came back?”

Willard caught his breath. “What do you mean?”

“Originally the robots were controlled telepathically. Why can’t that work now⁠—for us?”

“Don’t you imagine I thought of that? But it’s no use, without one of them helmet-transmitters. And there aren’t any.⁠ ⁠…” Willard sucked in his breath. “Hold on! I’d forgotten something. There’s one transmitter left⁠—just one. But it’s not a portable.”

“Swell!”

“Wait a minute. Come over here.” The older man led the way to a tripod-projector, found a cylindrical black object, and slipped it into place. “Look at this.”

Peering through the eyepieces, Garth recognized the great cavern with the dais at one end. The scene shifted, showing the gigantic twelve-foot robot sitting on its throne, a solid block of black metal.

“Watch,” Willard said.

A voice spoke in Garth’s mind, in the Ancient Tongue. “It was necessary to impress the superstitious Zarno. Thus we created this robot god and placed it on its throne. Its radio-atomic brain can be controlled telepathically by means of a transmitter concealed within the throne.”

The scene changed, showing the back of the ebony block. A hand, inhuman, six-fingered, came into view⁠—the hand of an Ancient. It touched a concealed spring, and the throne’s back slid open, revealing a compartment easily large enough to hold a man.

“Here is the transmitter. It is placed on the head and the will focused on issuing telepathic commands to the robot god on the throne.”

There was more, but now Garth watched with only half his mind. He scarcely saw the details of the ritual ceremony with which the Ancients had impressed the Zarno. When the vision vanished, he swung about, a new light in his eyes.

“That’s it, Doc! That robot god’s going to come to life!”

Willard frowned. “Um‑m. The gadget isn’t difficult to operate⁠—I’ve learned that much from the recordings. You just think hard, that’s all. But⁠—”

“The god will come to life and summon the Zarno⁠—all of them. The rest of you can escape while I’m keeping ’em busy.”

“Hold on!” the doctor snapped. “Why you? It’s my job, if it’s anybody’s.”

“Sorry,” Garth said. “It doesn’t work out that way. You’re the only guy who can cure the Silver Plague. Unless you get out safely, it’s the end of Earth.”

Willard didn’t answer. Garth went on swiftly.

“You could reach the hangar if it weren’t for the Zarno. Well, I’ll get inside that throne and start the ruckus. That’ll give you time.” His voice was emotionless.

“How do you know you could reach that temple-cave? The city’s full of Zarno.”

Garth shrugged. “It’s a chance we’ve got to take. The only one.”

Willard chewed his lip. “Why the devil do you have to be the one?”

“Because I know the Ancient Tongue. The robot can talk, can’t it? Well! It’s between you and me, Doc, and you’re the boy who can cure the Silver Plague. You can’t get away from that.”

“I⁠—I suppose so. But⁠—”

“You know the way out. Give me time to reach the temple and begin the ceremony. Then lead the others out. They’ll obey you; they’re in the Noctoli trance. Get ’em to the hangar and light out for Oretown. Be sure to take the recording of the power-source with you.”

“You crazy fool,” Willard said through stiff lips. “What about Moira?”

Garth’s face went gray. “Moira died years ago,” he said carefully. “It was the Silver Plague.”

Doc didn’t reply. But he nodded as though he had unexpectedly learned the answer to a problem that had been puzzling him.

“Okay,” Garth said. “You know what to do. Give me time enough to make it. Then get out of here with the others, fast.”

Willard’s hand gripped Garth’s. “Ed⁠—”

“Forget it.”

He moved toward the tunnel-mouth. Paula, he saw, was lying near by, her red-gold hair cascading about her pale, lovely face.

Garth stood looking down at her for a long moment. Then he went on, into the tunnel that waited for him. He did not look back.

Cautiously he stepped through the black curtain, ready to retreat at sight of any Zarno. But the cavern was empty.

If he could make it⁠—!

Noiselessly he stole up the passage. Once he froze against the wall at the sound of distant footsteps. But they faded and were gone.

He came out at last into a corridor he recognized. Far away, he saw the flashing gleam of the Zarno’s silicate skins. They were approaching, but apparently had not seen him yet.

He raced for the archway that led into the temple-cavern. If there were any Zarno there, it would be fatal. But luck favored him. The immense room was empty. At the far end the huge robot sat on its jet throne.

Garth sprinted across the floor. He could hear voices growing louder in the distance, and the thumping of the Zarnos’ footsteps, but he dared not risk a glance behind. Could he make it?

He jerked to a halt, springing behind the throne, its bulk temporarily hiding him. The Zarno were in the temple-cave now; he could tell that by their voices. Hastily he sought the secret spring.

A panel opened in the ebon block. It was exactly as he had seen it on the tripod-recording machine, a fair-sized cubicle with light coming faintly through a vision-slit in one wall. Garth wedged himself in and slid the panel shut behind him, gasping with relief. Peering through the slit, he found he could see the entire cavern. Three Zarno were approaching.

The robot, seated on the throne above him, was, of course, invisible. Garth stared around, trying to remember the details of the Ancients’ recording. A helmet transmitter⁠ ⁠… there it was, attached by wires to the low ceiling. Warily Garth slipped it upon his head.

What now?

A flat black plate, like a diaphragm, was set in the wall slightly above his head as he crouched. This hiding-place, he realized, had been built for the larger bodies of the Ancients.

Closing his eyes, he tried to concentrate. Doc Willard had said the helmet-transmitters worked that way. Telepathy⁠—willpower⁠—

“Stand up!” he commanded silently to the unseen robot above him. “Stand up!”

There was a stir of movement. Garth, peering through the slit, saw the three Zarno jerk to a halt.

One of them cried, “The gods return! Kra-enlarnov! The gods!”

Garth put his mouth close to the diaphragm. His words, amplified, rolled out through the cavern in the Ancient Tongue.

“Yes⁠—the gods return! Summon the Zarno! Let none fail to obey the summons!”

Shouts went up. The Zarno whirled and raced away. For the moment, Garth was alone.

He concentrated on the transmitter again, commanding the robot to move forward to the edge of the dais, till he could see its back.

“Raise your arm. Step back. Forward again. Back.”

It worked. The robot obeyed his mental commands, awkwardly, but⁠—it obeyed.

“Back. Sit on the throne.”

A jarring crash deafened Garth momentarily. He had forgotten how huge the robot was. No doubt the creature should lever itself down gradually into its seat, instead of dropping a ton of metal solidly on the black block.

Footsteps again. The Zarno were beginning to pour into the cavern. Huge as it was, they almost filled it. They flung themselves flat, crawling toward the dais, nodding their misshapen heads in awkward rhythm. Their voices were raised in a deep-throated chant.

Garth concentrated. At his mental command, the robot rose and paced slowly forward.

“Kra-enlar!”

Garth put his mouth to the diaphragm. His voice crashed out.

“The gods have returned! Hear me, O Zarno!”

“We hear!”

“Let no Zarno fail to come to the temple of the gods. Have the guards left their posts?”

“Nay⁠—nay!”

“Summon them,” Garth roared. “When the gods speak, all must hearken. Let every Zarno come to me now, or die!”

Some of the creatures raced away and returned with others. The chant continued.

“Have any Zarno failed to heed my summons?”

“None⁠—none! We are here⁠—all!”

Garth nearly shouted with relief. There were almost two thousand Zarno in the cavern, he judged, all genuflecting before the dais. And that meant that the city was unguarded⁠—that Doc Willard could lead the others to the antigravity hangar.

If he could hold the Zarno here!

Garth shook his head, feeling oddly dizzy. He tried to concentrate. At his mental order, the giant robot lifted its arms in symbolic, ritualistic gestures he remembered from the tripod-recorder.

But the dizziness persisted. Garth realized that his lungs were hurting. He found it difficult to draw a deep breath.

Air⁠—he needed fresh air! The inhuman lungs of the Ancients probably were able to endure lack of oxygen far better than the human organism. In any case⁠—Garth realized that the air was getting stale.

He investigated the vision-slit. It was barred by a glassy, transparent pane that seemed as hard as steel. Well, it would be necessary to open the panel behind him⁠—a few inches, anyway. Garth’s hand sought for the spring. It was in plain sight; there was no need to conceal it within the throne’s compartment.

He pressed it. There was a low grinding that stopped almost immediately. Garth tried again.

Useless. The mechanism, somehow, was jammed. Probably its mechanism had failed when the huge robot had crashed down on the throne.

That meant⁠—

Garth’s fingers tried to find some purchase on the smooth surface of the panel. He failed.⁠ ⁠…

A Zarno called a question. Garth turned back to the eye-slit, trying to fight back his dizziness. Heads were lifted, he saw, watching him inquiringly, as though the silicate creatures expected something. Well⁠—

He made the robot move again, its arms reaching out in ancient ceremonial gestures. A gasp of awe came from the Zarno.

Their chant thundered out, deeper, sonorous and inhuman.

Garth felt the beginning of a throbbing ache in his temples. He was trapped here. How long could he stand it? He was human, not one of the Ancients. He needed air⁠—

He held the Zarno, but not for long. Once more bulbous heads were lifted, oval eyes watching him inquiringly. They were expecting something⁠—what? Garth tried to remember what he had seen in the recorder.

More heads were lifted.

Garth made the robot step forward, raising its metal arms. He had to say something⁠—anything that would hold the Zarno quiet for a while, long enough for Doc and the others to escape. Words he had forgotten since childhood came suddenly unexpectedly to him. The English phrases meant nothing to the Zarno, but the sonorous, powerful chant kept them silent.

“He shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter; and from the noisome pestilence.⁠ ⁠… Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.⁠ ⁠… A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.⁠ ⁠…”

The agony flamed up again in Garth’s brain, consuming, terrible. The huge robot body of the dais swayed, caught itself, and the chant thundered out again through the great cavern.

“If I take the wings of the morning; and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me.⁠ ⁠…”

The distant, harsh clangor of a bell sounded. Garth had heard it before, when he had crossed the threshold of the black temple in the forest. At the sound the Zarno stirred, and a few of them sprang up.

Garth thrust out his hand, fighting back the pain that tore at him like white flame.

His voice held them⁠—

“The floods are risen, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voices; the floods lift up their waves.⁠ ⁠… The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly: but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier⁠—”

He held them. He held them, speaking a tongue they did not know, while his mind shook under the impact of sanity-destroying pain. A slow, sick bitterness crept into his soul. Was this the end⁠—death here, prisoned on an alien world, so far from his home planet?

Death⁠—and for what?

He closed his mind to the thought. Mentally he paced Doc and the others through the tunnel, from the black temple to the hangar. Surely they must have reached it by now! Paula⁠—

That first glimpse he had had of the girl, in Tolomo’s drinking-hell⁠—Moira, he had thought then, for an incredible instant. Yes, she had been like Moira. If the paths of destiny had led elsewhere than to the Black Forest of Ganymede, the result might have been far distant. He would not be dying here alone, horribly alone. Moira⁠—Paula⁠—

They were the same, somehow. And Garth knew he had to keep going, till he had saved Paula Trent. A little time⁠—a few moments more, to keep the Zarno in check.

He and Moira had been cheated of their lives, their futures in some way he could not quite understand. But there remained Paula. She must not die. She and the others must get through.

“Ed.”

Garth’s heart answered that soundless call. His lips formed the name Moira.

She was there, beside him, and he did not question, did not even wonder. It was enough that she had come back. Her brown ringlets curled about the pale face as he remembered, and the blue eyes held love and⁠—something more.

A message.

“What is it, Moira? What⁠—” He reached out hungry arms.

“Ed. It isn’t only us. It’s Earth. Don’t stop now, Ed. A few more minutes to hold the Zarno back; that will be enough. Be strong. A little time more⁠—such a little time, and then you can rest.”

A phantom born of his delirium, Garth knew, but she was no less real for that. He tried to speak and failed. His chest constricted with pain. Outside the altar, the Zarno were stirring uneasily.

“I⁠—I can’t⁠—”

“You must.”

Anger swept through him. “Why? We’ve been cheated of everything, Moira! Our heritage⁠—”

She smiled at him, very tenderly. “The grass is still green on the hills of Earth, my lover. Have you forgotten? The little streams that go laughing down the valleys, and the ocean surging up to the white beaches? There are still sunsets on Earth, and men and women will see them for ages to come. Men who might have been our sons; women who might have been our daughters. And they are our children, Ed, as surely as though we had given them birth. For we are giving them life. There will be a future for mankind because of us. We have given up our own lives that our children may live, and go on to glories we can never know ourselves. It is Earth that needs your help now⁠—and that is something greater than either of us.”

Something greater.⁠ ⁠…

The Zarno were beginning to move forward, and some of them were sidling toward the passage. Garth, gasping for breath, summoned all his reserve energy. He seemed to feel Moira’s cool hand on his shoulder, silently urging him on.

Something greater⁠—

“The days of man are but as grass,” he croaked, and the amplified sound went thundering through the temple, halting the Zarno where they stood. They turned again to the altar.

“For he flourisheth as a flower of the field⁠ ⁠… for as soon as the wind goeth over, it is gone⁠—”

He held them, somehow, knowing that Moira stood beside him. Toward the end, Garth was no longer conscious of his surroundings. The Zarno swam before his eyes, changing, altering, and abruptly they vanished. In their place was⁠—was⁠—

He saw Earth, as he remembered it, the loveliest planet of all. He saw the heartbreaking beauty of flaming sunsets over the emerald seas, and the snowy purity of high peaks lifting above baking deserts. He felt the cold blast of Earthwinds on his cheeks, the stinging, exciting chill of mountain streams against his skin. There was the warm smell of hay, golden in the fields; the sharpness of eucalyptus and pine; the breath of the little bright flowers that grow only on Earth.

He heard the voices of Earth. The chuckling of brooks, and the deep shouting of the gale; the lowing of cattle, the sound of leaves rustling, and the crash of angry breakers. The soul of Earth spoke to the man who would never see it again.

He listened, while he chanted the majestic, rolling syllables that kept the Zarno in check. Beside him was Moira. Beneath him, his own world, green and beautiful.

And across the emerald planet men and women came marching, sunlight making a golden path for them as they moved out of darkness into the unknown brightness of the future. They were like gods, great-limbed, lovely, and with eyes fearless as a falcon’s filled with laughter.

Before their marching feet the road of the ages unrolled. Mighty cities reared to the blue skies of Earth, and ships swept out beyond the stars, binding the galaxies and the universe with unbreakable chains of life. Outward and ever outward the circles of humanity and civilization rippled.

Men and women like gods, unafraid, knowing a life greater than ever before⁠—

And they turned questioning eyes on Garth, asking him the question on which their existence depended.

“Will you save us? Will you give us life? Will you give us the future you yourself can never know?”

Garth answered them in his own way, with Moira beside him. For now it did not matter that he was dying; he had found something greater than he had ever known before.

Through the temple his voice rang like brazen trumpets.

“—the wind bloweth⁠ ⁠… and the place thereof shall know it no more.⁠ ⁠…”

A panel in the wall by his head lit up, making a square of brightness. He strained his eyes at it, discerning a picture. A scanner of some sort. It showed a transparent ovoid slanting up through the black trees of the forest, a ship with Doc Willard at the controls and eleven men and a girl in the vessel with him⁠—a girl with red-gold hair, going back to Earth, with the knowledge that would save a world from destruction.

He had not failed.

The picture on the scanner darkened. The burning ache in Garth’s lungs grew worse. If he could breathe⁠—

On the dais, the robot swayed, its metal legs giving beneath its weight. The crash of its fall brought the Zarno to their feet, frozen with amazement for a moment. Then they moved forward like a wave.

Garth saw them, dimly, through the vision-slit. A white curtain of pain blotted them out. He was dying; he knew that. The shouts of the Zarno came to him faintly.

“⁠—the wind bloweth⁠ ⁠… and the place thereof shall know it no more.⁠ ⁠…”

But in that place the seeds of the future would grow. Once more Garth saw the children of Earth’s unborn generations, and this time the question in their eyes was answered. They would live and go on, to the stars, and beyond.

Moira was beside him. Her cool hand touched his; she came into his arms.

And the white curtain flamed agonizingly for the last time.

Then, mercifully, there was no more pain. Under the black throne Garth’s body lay motionless in its strange tomb.

The Zarnos’ cries filled the temple as they mourned their dead god⁠—but the man who had saved Earth did not hear them.

I

The man running through the forest gloom breathed in hot, panting gusts, pain tearing at his chest. Underfoot the crawling, pale network of tree-trunks lay flat upon the ground, and more than once he tripped over a slippery bole and crashed down, but he was up again instantly.

He had no breath to scream. He sobbed as he ran, his burning eyes trying to pierce the shadows. Whispers rustled down from above. When the leaf-ceiling parted, a blaze of terribly bright stars flamed in the jet sky. It was cold and dark, and the man knew that he was not on Earth.

They were following him, even here.

A squat yellow figure, huge-eyed, inhuman, loomed in his path⁠—one of the swamp people of Southern Venus. The man swung a wild blow at the thing, and his fist found nothing. It had vanished. But beyond it rose a single-legged giant, a Martian, bellowing the great, gusty laughter of the Redland Tribes. The man dodged, stumbled, and smashed down heavily. He heard paddling footsteps and tried, with horrible intensity of purpose, to rise. He could not.

The Martian crept toward him⁠—but it was no longer a Martian. An Earthman, with the face of some obscene devil, came forward with a sidling, slow motion. Horns sprouted from the low forehead. The teeth were fangs. As the creature came nearer, it raised its hands⁠—twisted, gnarled talons⁠—and slid them about the man’s throat.

Through the forest thundered the deep, booming clangor of a brass gong. The sound shattered the phantom as a hammer shatters glass. Instantly the man was alone.

Making hoarse, animal sounds in his throat, he staggered upright and lurched in the direction from which the sound came. But he was too weak. Presently he fell, and this time he did not rise. His arms moved a little and then were still. He slept, lines of tortured weariness twisting the haggard face.

Very faintly, from infinite distances, he heard a voice⁠ ⁠… two voices. Inhuman. Alien⁠—and yet with a warmth of vital urgency that stirred something deep within him.

“He has passed our testing.”

Then a stronger, more powerful voice⁠—answering.

“Others have passed our testing⁠—but the Aesir slew them.”

“There is no other way. In this man I sensed something⁠—a little different. He can hate⁠—he has hated.”

“He will need more than hatred⁠—” the deeper voice said. “Even with us to aid him. And there is little time. Strip his memories from him now, so that he may not be weakened by them⁠—”

“May the gods fight with him.”

“But he fights the gods. The only gods men know in these evil days⁠—”

The man awakened.

Triphammers beat ringingly inside his skull. He opened his eyes and closed them quickly against the sullen red glow that beat down from above. He lay motionless, gathering his strength.

What had happened?

He didn’t know. The jolting impact of that realization struck him violently. He felt a brief panic of disorientation. Where⁠—?

I’m Derek Stuart, he thought. At least it isn’t complete amnesia. I know who I am. But not where I am.

This time when he opened his eyes they stayed open. Overhead a broad-leafed tree arched. Through its branches he could see a dark, starry sky, the glowing, ringed disc of Saturn very far away, and a deeply scarlet glow.

Not Earth, then. A Saturnian moon? No, Saturn didn’t eclipse most of the sky. Perhaps the asteroid belt.

He moved his head a little, and saw the red moon.

Aesir!

The message rippled along his nerves into his brain. Stuart reacted instantly. His hard, strong body writhed, whipped over, and then he was in a half-crouch, one hand flashing to his belt while his eyes searched the empty silence of the forest around him. There was no sound, no movement.

Sweat stood on Stuart’s forehead, and he brushed it away impatiently. His deeply-tanned face set into harsh lines of curiously hopeless desperation. There was no blaster gun at his belt; that didn’t matter. Guns couldn’t help him now⁠—on Asgard.

The red moon had told him the answer. Only one world in the System had a red moon, and men didn’t go to that artificial asteroid willingly. They went, yes⁠—but only to be doomed and damned. From Venus to Callisto spacemen spoke of Asgard in hushed voices⁠—Asgard where the Aesir lived and ruled the worlds of Man.

No spaceships left Asgard, except the sleek black cruisers manned by the priests of Aesir. No man had ever returned from Asgard.

Stuart grinned mirthlessly. He’d learned a lesson, though he’d never profit by it now. Always before he’d been confident of his ability to outdrink anyone of his own weight and size. And certainly that slight, tired-eyed man at the Singing Star, in New Boston, should have passed out long before Stuart⁠—under normal circumstances.

So the circumstances hadn’t been quite normal. It was a frame. A beautiful, airtight frame, because he’d never come back to squawk. Nobody came back from Asgard.

He shivered a little and looked up warily. There were legends, of course. The Watchers who patrolled the asteroid ceaselessly⁠—robots, men said. They served the Aesir. As, in a way, all men served the Aesir.

No sound. No movement. Only the sullen crimson light beating down ominously from that dark sky.

Stuart took stock of his clothing. Regular leatheroid spaceman’s rig; they’d left him that, anyway. Whoever they were. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened after the fifth drink with the tired-eyed man. There was a very faint recollection of running somewhere⁠—seeing unpleasant things⁠—and hearing two oddly unreal voices. But the memories slipped away and vanished as he tried to focus on them.

The hell with it. He was on Asgard. And that meant⁠—something rather more unpleasant than death, if the legends were to be believed. A very suitable climax to an unorthodox life, in this era when obedience and law enforcement were the rigid rule.

Stuart picked up a heavy branch that might serve as a club. Then, shrugging, he turned westward, striking at random through the forest. No use waiting here till the Watchers came. At least⁠—he could fight, as he had always fought as far back as he could remember.

There wasn’t much room for fighters any more. Not under the Aesir rule. There were nations and kings and presidents, of course, but they were puppet figures, never daring to disobey any edicts that came from the mystery-shrouded asteroid hanging off the orbit of Mars, the tiny, artificial world that had ruled the System for a thousand years.

The Aesir. The inhuman, cryptic beings who⁠—if legend were true⁠—once had been human. Stuart scowled, trying to remember.

An⁠—an entropic accelerator, that was it. A device, a method that speeded up evolution tremendously. That had been the start of the tyranny. A machine that could accelerate a man’s evolution by a million years⁠—

Some had used that method. Those were the ones who had become the Aesir, creatures so far advanced in the evolutionary scale that they were no longer remotely human. Much was lost in the mists of the past. But Stuart could recall that much⁠—the knowledge that the Aesir had once been human, that they were human no longer, and that for a thousand years they had ruled the System, very terribly, from their forbidden asteroid that they named Asgard⁠—home of the legendary Norse gods.

Maybe the tired-eyed man had been an Aesir priest, collecting victims. Certainly no others would have dared to land a ship on Asgard. Stuart swung on, searching the empty skies, and now a queer, unreasoning excitement began to grow within him. At least, before he died, he’d learn what the Aesir were like. It probably wouldn’t be pleasant knowledge, but there’d be some satisfaction in it. And there’d be even more satisfaction if he thought he had a chance of smashing a hard fist into the face of one of the Aesir priests⁠—or even⁠—

Hell, why not? He had nothing to lose now. From the moment he had touched Asgard soil, he was damned anyway. But of one thing Stuart was certain; he wouldn’t be led like a helpless sheep to the throat-cutting. He wouldn’t die without fighting against them.

The forest thinned before him. There was a flicker of swift motion far ahead. Stuart froze, his grip tightening on the cudgel, his eyes searching.

Between the columnar trees, bright amid the purple shadows, a glitter of sparkling nebulae swept. A web of light, Stuart thought⁠—so dazzling his eyes ached as he stared at the⁠—the thing.

Bodiless, intangible, the shifting net of stars poised, high above his head. Hundreds of twinkling, glittering pinpoints flickered there, so swiftly it seemed as though an arabesque spiderweb of light weaved in the still, dark air⁠—web of the Norns!

Each flickering star-fleck⁠—watched. Each was an eye.

And as the thing poised, a horrible, half-human hesitancy in its stillness, a deep, humming note sounded, from its starry heart.

Star-points shook and quivered to the sound. Again it came⁠—deeper, more menacing.

Questioning!

Was this one of the⁠—Watchers? Was this one of them?

Abruptly its hesitancy vanished; it swept down upon Stuart. Instinctively he swung his cudgel in a smashing blow that sent him reeling forward⁠—for there was no resistance. The star-creature was as intangible as air.

And yet it was not. The dazzling web of light enfolded him like a blazing cloak. Instantly a cold, trembling horror crawled along his skin. Bodiless the thing might be⁠—but it was dangerous, infinitely so!

Pressure, shifting, quicksand pressure, was all about him. That stealthy cold crept into his flesh and bones, frigid icicles jabbing into his brain. Gasping with shock, Stuart struck out. He had dropped the club. Now he stooped and groped for it, but he could see nothing except a glittering veil of diamonds that raced like a mad torrent everywhere.

The humming rose again⁠—ominously triumphant.

Cursing, Stuart staggered forward. The star-cloak stayed. He tried to grip it somewhere, to wrench it free, but he could not. The thousands of tiny eyes raced past him, glittering with alien ecstasy, shining brighter and ever brighter as they fed.

He felt the life being sucked out of him.⁠ ⁠… Deeper stabbed the gelid cold⁠ ⁠… louder roared that throbbing tone in his ears.

He heard his voice gasping furious, hopeless oaths. His eyes ached with the strain of staring at that blinding glitter. Then⁠—

The heart of the Watcher. Crush the heart!

The words crashed like deep thunder in his brain. Had someone spoken them⁠—? No⁠ ⁠… for, with the command, had come a message as well. As though a thought had spoken within his mind, a telepathic warning from⁠—where?

His eyes strained at the dazzle. Now he saw that there was a brighter core that did not shift and change when the rest of the star-cloud wove its dreadful net. A spot of light that⁠—

He reached out⁠ ⁠… the nucleus darted away⁠ ⁠… he lurched forward, on legs half-frozen, and felt a stone turn under his foot. As he crashed down, his hand closed and tightened on something warm and living that pulsed frantically against his palm.

The humming rose to a shrill scream⁠ ⁠… frightened⁠ ⁠… warning.

Stuart tightened his grip. He lay motionless, his eyes closed. But all around him he could feel the icy tendrils of the star-thing lashing at him, drinking his human warmth, probing with avid fingers at his brain.

He felt that warm⁠—core⁠—writhe and try to slip between his fingers. He squeezed.⁠ ⁠…

The scream burst out, an inhuman agony in its raw-edged keening.

It stopped.

In Stuart’s hand was⁠—nothing.

He opened his eyes. The dazzling glitter of star-points had vanished. Only the forest, with its purple shadows, lay empty and silent around him.

Stuart got up slowly, swallowed dry-throated. The creatures of the Aesir were not invulnerable, then. Not to one who knew their weaknesses.

How had he known?

What voice had spoken in his brain? There had been an odd, impossible familiarity to that⁠—that mental voice, now that he remembered it. Somewhere he had heard it, sensed it before.

That gap in his memory⁠—

He tried to bridge it, but he could not. There was only a quickening of the desire to go on westward. He felt suddenly certain that he would find the Aesir in that direction.

He took a hesitant step⁠—and another. And with each step, a queer, unmotivated confidence poured into him. As though some barrier in his mind had broken down, letting some strange flood of proud defiance rush in.

It was impossible. It was dangerous. But⁠—certainly⁠—no more dangerous than supinely waiting here on Asgard till another Watcher came to destroy him. There were worse things than the starry Watchers here, if legends were to be trusted.

He went on, the curious tide of defiance rising higher and ever higher in his blood. It was a strangely intoxicating sense of⁠—of pure, crazy self-confidence such as no man should rightfully have felt on this haunted asteroid.

He wondered⁠—but the drunkenness was such that he did not wonder much. He did not question.

He thought: To hell with the Aesir!

The forest ended. At his feet a road began, leading off into the purple horizons of the flat plain before him. At the end of that road was a thrusting pillar of light that rose like a tower toward the dark sky.

There were the Aesir.⁠ ⁠…

II

Every spaceman has an automatic sense of orientation. In ancient days, when clipper ships sailed the seas of Earth, the Yankee skippers knew the decks beneath their feet, and they knew the stars. Southern Cross or Pole Star told them in what latitudes they sailed. In unknown waters, they still had their familiar keels and the familiar stars.

So it is with the spacemen who drift from Pluto to Mercury Darkside, trusting to metal hulls that shut in the air and shut out the vast abysses of interplanetary space. When they work outship, a glance at the sky will tell a trained man where he is⁠—and only tough, trained men survive the dangerous commerce of space. On Mercury the blazing solar corona flames above the horizon; on clouded Venus the green star of Earth shines sometimes. On Io, Callisto, Ganymede, a man can orient himself by the gigantic mother planet⁠—Saturn or Jupiter⁠—and in the Asteroid Belt, there is always the strange procession of little worlds like lanterns, some half-shadowed, others brightly reflecting the Sun’s glare. Anywhere in the System the sky is friendly⁠—

Except on Asgard. Jupiter was too far and too small; Mars was scarcely visible; the Asteroid Belt not much thicker than the Milky Way. The unfamiliar magnitudes of the planets told Stuart, very surely, that he was on unknown territory. He was without the sure, safe anchor that spacemen depend upon, and that lack told him how utterly he stood alone now.

But the unreasoning confidence did not flag. If anything, it mounted stronger within him as he hurried along the road, his rangy legs eating up the miles with easy speed. The sooner he reached his goal, the better he’d like it. Nor did he wish to encounter any more of the Aesir’s guardians⁠—his business was with the Aesir!

The tower of light grew taller as he went on. Now he saw that it was a cluster of buildings, massed cylinders of varying heights, each one gigantic in diameter as well as height, and all shining with that cold, shadowless radiance that apparently came from the stone⁠—or metal⁠—itself. The road led directly to the base of the tallest tower.

It ran between shining pillars⁠—a gateless threshold⁠—and was lost in silvery mists. No bars were needed to keep visitors out of this fortress!

Briefly a cool wind of doubt blew upon Stuart. He hesitated, wishing he had at least his blaster gun. But he was unarmed; he had even left the club back in the forest.

He glanced around.

The red moon was sinking. A heavier darkness was creeping over the land. Very far away he thought he saw the shifting flicker of dancing lights⁠—a Watcher?

He hurried onward.

Cyclopean, the tower loomed above him, like a shining rod poised to strike. His gaze could not pierce the mists beyond the portal.

He stepped forward⁠—between the twin pillars. He walked on blindly into the silver mists.

Twenty steps he took⁠—and paused, as something dark and shapeless swam into view before him. A pit⁠—at his feet.

In the dimness he could not see its bottom, but a narrow bridge crossed the gulf, a little to his left. Stuart crossed the bridge. Solidity was again under his feet.

With shocking suddenness, a great, brazen bellow of laughter roared out. Harsh mockery sharpened it. And it was echoed.

All around Stuart the laughter thundered⁠—and was answered. The walls gave it back and echoed it. The bellowing laughter of gods deafened Stuart.

The mists drifted away⁠—were sucked down into the pit. They vanished.

As though they fled from that evil laughter.

Stuart stood in a chamber that must have occupied the entire base of that enormous tower. Behind him the abyss gaped. Before him a shifting veil of light hid whatever lay behind it. But all around, between monstrous pillars, were set thrones, ebon thrones fifty feet tall.

On the thrones sat giants!

Titan figures, armored in glittering mail, ringed Stuart, and instantly his mind fled back to half-forgotten folklore.⁠ ⁠… Asgard, Jotunheim, the lands of the giants and the gods. Thor and Odin, sly Loki and Baldur⁠—they were all here, he thought, bearded colossi roaring their black laughter into the shaking air of the hall.

Watching him from their height⁠—

Then he looked up, and the giants were dwarfed.

The chamber was roofless. At least he could see no roof. The pillars climbed up and up tremendously all around the walls that were hung with vast stretches of tapestry, till they dwindled to a pinpoint far above. The sheer magnitude of the tower made Stuart’s mind rock dizzily.

Still the laughter roared out. But now it died.⁠ ⁠…

Thundered through the hall a voice⁠ ⁠… deep⁠ ⁠… resonant⁠ ⁠… the voice of the Aesir.

“A human, brother!”

“Aye! A human⁠—and a mad one, to come here.”

“To enter the hall of the Aesir.”

A red-bearded colossus bent down, his glacial blue eyes staring at Stuart. “Shall I crush him?”

Stuart sprang back as an immense hand swooped down like a falling tree upon him. Instinctively his hand flashed to his belt, and suddenly the red-beard was shouting laughter that the others echoed.

“He has courage.”

“Let him live.”

“Aye. Let him live. He may amuse us for a while.⁠ ⁠…”

“And then?”

“Then the pit⁠—with the others.”

The others? Stuart slanted a glance downward. The silver mists had dissipated now, and he could see that the abyss was not bottomless. Its floor was fifty feet below the surface on which he stood, and a dozen figures were visible beneath.

They stood motionless⁠—like statues. A burly, leather-clad Earthmen who might have been whisked from some Plutonian mine; a slim, scantily clad Earthgirl, her hair powdered blue, her costume the shining sequin-suit of a tavern entertainer. A stocky, hunch-shouldered Venusian with his slate-gray skin; a Martian girl, seven feet tall, with limbs and features of curious delicacy, her hair piled high atop that narrow skull. Another Earthman⁠—a thin, pale, clerklike fellow. A white-skinned, handsome Callistan native, looking like Apollo, and, like all Callistans, harboring the cold savagery of a demon behind that smooth mask.

A dozen of them⁠—drawn from all parts of the System. Stuart remembered that this was the time of the periodic tithing⁠—which meant nothing less than a sacrifice. Once each month a few men and women would vanish⁠—not many⁠—and the black ships of the Aesir priests sped back to Asgard with their captives.

Not one looked up. Frozen motionless as stone, they stood there in the pit⁠—waiting.

Again the laughter crashed out. The red-beard was watching Stuart.

“His courage flags,” the great voice boomed. “Speak the truth, Earthman. Have you courage to face the gods?”

Stuart stubbornly refused to answer. He had an odd, reasonless impression that this was part of some deep game, that behind the mocking byplay lay a more serious purpose.

“He has courage now,” a giant said. “But did he always have courage? Has there never been a time in his life when courage failed him? Answer, Earthman!”

Stuart was listening to another voice, a quiet, infinitely distant voice within his brain that whispered: Do not answer them!

“Let him pass our testing,” the red-beard commanded. “If he fails, there is an end. If he does not fail⁠—he goes into the pit to walk the Long Orbit.”

The giant leaned forward.

“Will you match skill⁠—and courage⁠—with us, Earthling?”

Still Stuart did not answer. More than ever now he sensed the violent, hidden undercurrents surging beneath the surface of this byplay. More than he knew swung in the balance here.

He nodded.

“He has courage,” a giant repeated. “But did he always have courage?”

“We shall see⁠ ⁠…” the red-beard said.

The air shimmered before Stuart. Through its shaking his senses played him false. He knew quite well who he was and where he stood, in what deadly peril⁠—but in that shimmer which bewildered the eyes and the mind he was a boy again, seeing a certain hillside he had not seen except through his boyhood’s eyes. And he saw a black horse standing above him on the slope, pawing the ground and looking at him with red eyes. And an old, old terror came flooding over him that he had not remembered for a quarter of a century. A boy’s acute and sudden terror.⁠ ⁠…

Who had opened the doors of his mind and laid this secret bare? He himself had long forgotten⁠—and who upon this alien world could look back through space and time to remind him of that long-ago day when the vicious black horse had thrown an inexperienced boy rider and planted a seed of terror in his mind which he had been years outgrowing? But the fear was long gone now, long gone.⁠ ⁠… Was it?

Then whence had come this monstrous black stallion that pawed the floor of the hall, glaring down red-eyed at him and showing teeth like fangs? No horse, but a monster in the shape of a horse, a monster ten feet high at the shoulder, wearing the shape of his boyhood nightmare that woke in Stuart even now the old, unreasoning horror.⁠ ⁠…

It was stamping down upon him, shaking its bridled head, snorting, lifting its lip above the impossible teeth. He saw the reins hanging loose, he saw the saddle and the swinging stirrups. He knew that the only safety in this hall for him was paradoxically upon the nightmare’s back, where the hoofs and fangs could not reach him. But the terror and revulsion which the boy had buried long ago came welling up from founts deep-buried in the man’s subconscious mind.⁠ ⁠…

Now it was rushing him, head like a snake’s outthrust, hissing like a snake, reins flying like Medusa-locks as it stretched to seize him. For one instant he stood there paralyzed. He had faced dangers on many worlds to which this nightmare was nothing, but he had never since boyhood felt the paralysis of horror that gripped him now. It was a child’s horror, resurrected from the caves of sleep to ruin him.⁠ ⁠…

With a superhuman effort he broke that frozen fear, snatching for the flying reins, whirling as the monstrous thing swept past him in a thunder of terrifying hoofs. Desperately he clung to the reins, and as the thing rushed by he somehow got a clutching hand upon the saddle-horn and found a stirrup that swung sickeningly when it took his weight.

Then he was in the saddle, dizzy still with the terrors of childhood, but astride the nightmare.

And now, with a sudden intoxicating clarity, the fear fell from his mind. For an instant he sat high on the back of the incredible fanged thing, an old, old terror clearing from his mind. Confidence which was, he knew, his own and no bodiless reassurance drawn from dreams, such as he had felt in the jungle, flooded warmly through him. He was not afraid any more⁠—he would never be afraid. The festering terror buried deep in his childhood had come to light at last and was wiped away. He caught the reins tight and flashed a sudden grin around the hall⁠—

Brazen laughter boomed through the building. And beneath his knees Stuart felt the horse’s body alter incredibly. One moment he was gripping a solid, warm-fleshed, hairy thing whose body had a familiar pitch and motion beneath the saddle. Then, then⁠—

Indescribably the body writhed under him. The warm hairy flesh flowed and changed. Cold struck through leatheroid against his thighs, and it was a smooth, pouring cold of many alien muscles working powerfully together in a way no mammal knows. He looked down.

He was riding a monstrous snake that twisted its head to look at him in the moment he realized what had happened. Its great diamond-shaped head towered high and came looping down toward him, wide-mouthed, tongue like a flame flickering.⁠ ⁠…

It laid its cold, smooth cheek against his with a hideous caressing motion, sliding around his neck, sliding down his arm and side, laying a loop of cold, scaly strength around him and pressing, pressing.⁠ ⁠…

His hands closed around the thickness of its throat, futilely⁠—and the throat melted in his grasp and was hairy with a hairiness no mammal ever knew. The motion of the body he bestrode changed again and was incredibly springy and light.

He rode a monstrous spider. His hands were sunk wrist-deep in loathsome coarse hair, and his eyes stared into great cold faceted eyes that mirrored his own face a thousandfold. He saw his own distorted features looking back at him in countless miniatures, but behind the faces, in the great eyes of the spider, he saw no consciousness regarding him. The cold multiple eyes were not aware of Derek Stuart. Behind the shield of its terrible face the spider shut away its own arachnid thoughts and the memories of the red fields of Mars that were its home. With dreadful, impersonal aloofness its mandibles gaped forward toward its prey.

Loathing ran in waves of weakness through Stuart’s whole body, but he shut his eyes and blindly struck out at the nearer of those great mirroring eyes, feeling wetness shatter against his fist as⁠—as⁠—

As the horror shifted and vanished, while rippling waves of green light darkened all about him. Now they coagulated, drew together into a meadow, cool with Earthly grass, bordered by familiar trees far away. Primroses gleamed here and there. Above him was the blue sky and the warm bright sun that shone only upon the hills of Earth.

But what he felt was horror.

Twenty feet from him was a rank, rounded patch of weeds. His gaze was drawn inexorably to that spot. And it was from there that the crawling dread reached out to him.

Faintly he heard laughter⁠ ⁠… of the gods⁠ ⁠… of the Aesir. The Aesir? Who⁠—what were they? How had he, Derek Stuart, ever heard of them except as a name whispered in fear as the spaceships streaked through the clouds above that Dakota farmstead.⁠ ⁠…

Derek Stuart⁠ ⁠… a boy of eleven.⁠ ⁠…

But⁠—but⁠—that was wrong, somehow. He wasn’t a child any more. He had matured, become a spaceman⁠—

Dreams. The dreams of an eleven-year-old.

Yet the hollow, dreadful laughter throbbed somewhere, in the vaults of the blue overhead, in the solidity of the very ground beneath him.

This had happened before. It had happened to a boy in South Dakota⁠—a boy who had not known what lay concealed in that verdant clump of weeds.

But now, somehow⁠—and very strangely⁠—Stuart knew what he would find there.

He was afraid. Horribly, sickeningly afraid. Cold nausea crawled up his spine and the calves of his legs. He wanted to turn and run to the farmhouse half a mile away. He almost turned, and then paused as the distant laughter grew louder.

They wanted him to run. They were trying to scare him⁠—and, once the defenses of his courage had broken, he would be lost. Stuart knew that with an icy certainty.

Somewhere, very far away, he sensed a man standing in a cyclopean hall⁠—a man in ragged spaceman’s garb, hard-faced, thin-lipped, angry-eyed. A familiar figure. The man was urging him on⁠—telling him to go on toward that clump of weeds⁠—

Derek Stuart obeyed the voiceless command. His throat dry, his heart pumping, he forced himself across the meadow till he stood at his goal and looked down at the bloody, twisted corpse of the tramp who had been knifed by another hobo, twenty years before, on that Dakota farm. The old nausea of shocked horror took him by the throat and strangled him.

He fought it down. This time he didn’t run screaming back to the farmhouse.⁠ ⁠…

And suddenly the laughter of the gods was stilled. Derek Stuart, a man once more in mind, stood again in the tower of the Aesir. The thrones between the monstrous pillars were vacant.

The Aesir were gone.

III

Stuart let out his breath in a long sigh. He had no illusions about the vanishment of the Aesir; he knew he had not conquered those mighty beings. It would take more than human powers to do that. But at least he had a respite. All but the most stolid spacemen develop hypertension, and there seems to be a curious mathematical rule about that; it increases according to the distance from the Sun. Which may be explained by the fact that environmental differences also increase as the outer planets are reached⁠—and alien environments breed alien creatures. A great many men have gone insane on Pluto.⁠ ⁠…

This was not Pluto; it was nearer Sunward than Jupiter, but the utter alienage that brooded over Asgard was almost palpable. Even the solidity under Stuart’s feet, the very stones of the planetoid, were artificially created, by a science a million years beyond that of his own time. And the Aesir⁠—

Unexpectedly his deep chest shook with laughter. The inexplicable self-confidence that had first come to him in the Asgard forests had not waned; it seemed to have grown even stronger since his meeting with the Aesir giants. Now he stared around the colossal hall, his eyes straining toward the spot of light far above where those incredible columns converged. His own insignificance by comparison did not trouble him.

Whether or not he could have the slightest hope of winning this game⁠—at least he was giving his enemies a run for their money!

A sound from the pit roused him. Stuart walked warily toward the edge. The dozen motionless figures were still there, fifty feet below, and among them was one he had not noticed before⁠—an Earthgirl, he thought, with curling dark hair framing a white face as she tilted up her chin and stared at him.

At this distance he could make out few details; she wore a close-fitting green suit which left slender arms and legs bare.

“Earthman⁠—” she said, in a clear, carrying voice. “Earthman! Quick! The Aesir will be back⁠—go now! Leave their temple before they⁠—”

“Don’t waste your breath,” Stuart said. “This is Asgard.” Whoever the girl was, she should know the impossibility of leaving the taboo world. “If I can find a rope⁠—”

She said quickly, “You won’t find one. Not here, in the temple.”

“How can I get you out of there? And the others?”

“You’re mad,” the girl said. “What good would it do.⁠ ⁠…” She shook her head. “Better to die at once.”

Stuart narrowed his eyes at the dozen frozen figures. “I don’t think so. Fourteen of us can put up a better fight than one. If your friends wake up⁠—”

The girl said, “On your left, between the pillars, there’s a tapestry showing Perseus and the Gorgon. Touch the helm of Perseus and the hand of Andromeda. Then go carefully⁠—there may be traps.”

“What is it?”

“It will lead you down here. You can free us. If you hurry⁠—oh, but it’s hopeless! The Aesir⁠—”

“Damn the Aesir,” Stuart snarled. “Wake up the others!” He whirled and ran toward the distant wall, where he could see the Perseus tapestry, brown and gold, a huge curtain between two columns.

If the Aesir saw, they made no move.⁠ ⁠…

Stuart’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. The crazy confidence had not left him, but he was conscious of a reassuring warmth; at least he was no longer completely alone. That would help. Between the worlds, and on the desolate planets that swing along the edge of the System, loneliness is the lurking terror, more horrible than the most exotic monster ever spawned by the radioactive Plutonian earth.

He touched the tapestry twice; it swept away from him, and a staircase was visible, leading down through stone or metal⁠—he could not tell which. Stuart fought back the impulse that urged him to race down those curving spiral steps. The girl had spoken of traps.

He went warily, testing each tread before he put his weight upon it. Though he did not think that the snares of the Aesir would be so simple.

At the bottom, he emerged into a vaulted chamber, tiny by comparison with the one he had left. It was oval, domed ceiling and walls and floor shining with a milky radiance⁠—except at one spot.

There he saw a door⁠—transparent. Through it he looked into the pit. He was on a level with the floor of that shaft now; he could see the dozen figures still standing motionless in a huddled group, and a few feet beyond the glassy pane was the Earthgirl. She was looking directly at him, but her dark eyes had a blind seeking, as though the door was opaque from her side.

Stuart paused, his hand on the complicated mechanism that, he guessed, would open the portal. His hard, dark face was impassive, but he was conscious of an unfamiliar stirring deep within him. From above, he had not seen the girl’s beauty.

He saw it now.

She couldn’t be an Earthgirl⁠—entirely. She must be one of those disturbingly lovely interplanetary halfbreeds. Earth-blood she had, of course, and predominantly, but there was something more, the pure essence of beauty that blazed through her like a flame kindled in a lamp of crystal. In all his wanderings between the worlds, Stuart had never seen a girl as breathtakingly lovely as this one.

His hand moved on the controls: the door slid silently open. The girl’s eyes brightened. She gave a little gasp and ran toward him. Without question she sought refuge in his arms, and for a moment Stuart held her⁠—not unwillingly.

He thrust her away gently.

“The others.”

She said, “It’s useless. The paralysis⁠—”

Stuart scowled and stepped across the threshold into the pit. Uneasiness crawled along his spine as he did so. The Aesir might be watching from above, or⁠—or⁠—

There was nothing. Only dead silence, and the uneven breathing of the girl as she stood in the doorway watching. Stuart stopped before the leather-clad Earthman and tested a burly arm. The man stood frozen, his flesh cold and hard as stone, his eyes staring glassily. He was not even breathing.

So with the others. Stuart grimaced and shrugged. He turned back toward the girl, and felt a pulse of relief as he stepped into the shining chamber. He might be no safer here, but at least he wasn’t so conscious of inhuman eyes that might be watching from above. Not that solid stone might be any barrier to the Aesir’s probing gaze.⁠ ⁠…

The girl touched the mechanism; the door slid silently shut. “It’s no use,” she said. “The paralysis holds all the others. Only I could battle it⁠—a little. And that was because⁠—”

“Save it,” Stuart said. He turned toward the door by which he had entered, but an urgent hand gripped his wrist.

“Let me talk,” the quiet voice said. “We’re as safe here as anywhere. And there may be a way⁠—now that I can think clearly again.”

“A way out? A safe way?”

There was a haunted look in her dark eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve lived here for a long time. The others⁠—” she pointed toward the door of the pit. “The sacrifices were brought to Asgard only yesterday. But I’ve been here many moons. The Aesir kept me alive for a bit, to amuse them. Then they tired, and I was thrown in with the others. But I learned a little. I⁠—I⁠—no one can dwell here in the Aesir stronghold without⁠—changing a little. That’s why the paralysis didn’t hold me as long as it holds the others.”

“Can we save them?”

“I don’t know,” she said, with a small, helpless shrug. “I don’t even know if we can save ourselves. It’s been so long since I was brought to Asgard that I⁠—I scarcely remember my life before that. But I have learned a little of the Aesir⁠—and that may help us now.”

Stuart watched her. She tried to smile, but not successfully.

She said, “I’m Kari. The rest⁠—I’ve forgotten. You’re⁠—”

“Derek Stuart.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“We haven’t time,” Stuart said impatiently, but Kari shook her head.

“We’ll need weapons, and I must know⁠—first⁠—if you can use them. Tell me!”

Well, she was right. She had knowledge that Stuart needed. So he told her, very briefly, what he remembered.

She stared at him. “Voices⁠—in your mind?”

“Something like that. I don’t know⁠—”

“No. No. Or⁠—wait⁠—” He tried to focus his thoughts upon a far, faint calling that came from infinite distances. His name. An urgent summons⁠—

It faded and was gone.

“There’s nothing,” Stuart said finally, and Kari moved her shoulders uneasily.

“No help there, then.”

“Tell me one thing. What’s the Aesir’s power? Hypnotism?”

“No,” Kari said, “or not entirely. They can make thoughts into real things. They are⁠—what the race of man will evolve into in a million years. And they have changed, into beings utterly alien to humans.”

“They looked human⁠—giants, though.”

“They can assume any shape,” Kari told him. “Their real form is unimaginable. Being of pure energy⁠ ⁠… mental force⁠ ⁠… matrixes of electronic power. They were striking at you through your mind.”

Stuart said, “I wondered why they didn’t set some of their Watchers on me.”

“I don’t know why they didn’t,” Kari frowned. “Instead, they hammered at your weaknesses⁠—old fears that hung on to you for years. Experiences that frightened you in the past. They sent your mind back into that past⁠—but you were too strong for them.”

“Too strong⁠—?”

“Then. They have other powers, Stuart⁠—incredible powers. You can’t fight them alone. And you must fight them. In a thousand years no one has dared⁠—”

Stuart remembered something. “Two dared⁠—once.”

Kari nodded. “I know. I know the legends, anyway. About John Starr and Lorna. The great rebels who first defied the Aesir when the tyranny began. But they may have been only legendary figures. Even if they were real⁠—they failed.”

“Yes, they failed. And they’re a thousand years dead. But it shows something⁠—to me at least. Man wasn’t meant to be a slave to these monsters. Rebellion⁠—”

Kari watched him. Stuart’s eyes were shadowed.

“John Starr and Lorna,” he whispered. “I wonder what their world was like, a thousand years ago? We’ve got all the worlds now, all the planets of the System from Jupiter to the smallest asteroid. But we don’t rule them, as men owned their own Earth in those days. We’re slaves to the Aesir.”

“The Aesir are⁠—are gods.”

“John Starr didn’t think so,” Stuart said. “Neither do I. And at worst I can always die, as he did. Listen, Kari.” He gripped her arms. “Think. You’ve lived here for a while. Is there any weapon against those devils?”

She met his gaze steadily. “Yes,” she said. “But⁠—”

“What is it? Where?”

Abruptly Kari’s face changed. She pressed herself against Stuart, avoiding his lips, simply seeking⁠—he knew⁠—warmth and companionship. She was crying softly.

“So long⁠—” Kari whispered, her arms tight around him. “I’ve been here so long⁠—with the gods. And I’m so lonely, Derek Stuart. So lonely for green fields and fires and the blue sky. I wish⁠—”

“You’ll see Earth again,” Stuart promised. At that Kari pulled away. Her strange half-breed loveliness was never more real than then, with tears sparkling on her dark lashes, and her mouth trembling.

She said, a catch in her voice, “I’ll show you the weapon, Stuart.”

She turned toward the wall. Her hand moved in a quick gesture. A panel opened there in the glowing surface.

Kari reached in, and when she withdrew her arm, it was as though she held a torrent of blood that poured down from her grip. It was a cloak, Stuart saw, made of some material so fine that it rippled like water. Its crimson violence was bizarre against the cool green of Kari’s garment.

“This cloak⁠—” she said. “You must wear it if we face the Aesir.”

Stuart grimaced. “What good is a piece of cloth? A blaster gun’s what I want.”

“A blaster wouldn’t help,” Kari said. “This is more than a piece of cloth, Stuart. It is half-alive⁠—made so by the sciences of the Aesir. Wear it! It will protect you.”

She swung the great, scarlet billows about Stuart’s shoulders. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp at his throat. And then⁠—

She lies!

The desperate urgency of the thought roared through Stuart’s mind. He knew that soundless voice, so sharp now with violent intensity. His hands came up to rip the cloak from him⁠—

He was too late. Kari sprang back, wide-eyed, as the fastenings of the cloak tightened like a noose about Stuart’s neck. He felt a stinging shock that ran like white fire along his spine and up into his brain. One instant of blazing disorientation, a hopeless, despairing cry in his mind⁠—a double cry, as of two telepathetic voices⁠—and then, his muscles too weak to hold him, he crashed down upon the floor.

It was not paralysis. He was simply drained of all strength. There was pressure about his throat, cold flames along his spine and in his brain, and he could feel the texture of the cloak wrapped about him, striking through his spaceman’s garb⁠—tingling, sentient, half-alive!

He whispered an oath. Kari’s face had not changed. He read something strangely like pity in her dark eyes.

From the gap in the wall whence she had drawn the cloak came a figure, cloaked in black, a jet cowl hiding its head and face completely. It was taller than the girl by a foot. It shuffled forward with an odd, rocking gait, and paused near her.

Stuart whispered, “I⁠—should have remembered. The⁠—the Aesir can change their shapes. Those giants I saw weren’t real. And neither are you⁠—not even human!”

Kari shook her head. “I am real,” she said slowly. “He is not.” She gestured toward the black-cloaked figure. “But we are all of the Aesir. And, as we thought, you were sent by the Protectors. Now your power is gone, and you must walk the Long Orbit with the other captives.”

The cowled creature came forward. It bent, but Stuart could see nothing in the shadow of the hood. A fold of cloth writhed out and touched Stuart’s forehead.

Darkness wrapped him like the shroud of the scarlet cloak.

IV

For a long time he had only his thoughts for company. They were not pleasant. He felt alone, as he had never felt so utterly lonely and deserted before anywhere in the System. Now he realized that even since his landing on Asgard, he had had companionship of a sort⁠—that the twin voices murmuring in his brain had been more real than he had realized. A living warmth, a sense of⁠—of presence⁠—had been with him then.

But it was gone now. Its absence left a black void within him. He stood alone.

And Kari.⁠ ⁠… If he saw her again when his hands were free, he would kill her. He knew that. But⁠—but her shining smile lightened the darkness that engulfed him now. He had never seen loveliness like Kari’s, and he had known so many women, so many, too many.⁠ ⁠… A man who has fought his way Sunward and back again by way of Pluto’s chasmed midnight is not so easily misled by the smile of a pretty woman.

Kari was no ordinary woman⁠—God knew she was not! Perhaps not even human, perhaps not even real at all. It might be that very touch of alienage that had stamped her shining image upon his memory, but he could not put the image aside now. He saw her clearly in the darkness of his captivity and the deeper dark of his loneliness, now that the voices were stilled. Lovely, exotic, with the eyes full of longing and terror⁠—what lies they told!⁠—and that lovely, that dazzling smile.

Bitterness made a wry taste in his mouth. Either she was one of the Aesir, or she served them. Served them well. A knife in the heart was the only answer he had for her, and he meant to give her that edged answer if he lived. But she was so very lovely.⁠ ⁠…

Slowly the veil of darkness lifted. He saw a face he had seen before⁠—the harsh, seamed features of the burly Earthman in the pit. And beyond him, the slim Martian girl. All motionless, standing like statues beside him⁠ ⁠… beside him! For Stuart was one of them now. He was in the pit, with the other captives.

Sensation came back slowly. With it came a tingling, a warm vibration along his spine⁠ ⁠… about his throat⁠ ⁠… inside his brain. He could not move, but at the corner of his range of vision flamed a crimsonness⁠—the cloak. He still wore it.

He wondered if the other captives could see him, if their minds were as active as his in their congealed bodies. Or whether the chill of deathlike silence held their brains along with their frozen limbs.

A slow, volcanic fury began to glow within him. Kari⁠—traitor and murderess! Was she Aesir? Was she Earthborn? And that black-cloaked, cowled creature⁠ ⁠… which was not real. Another projector of the Aesir, as the giants had been?

You were sent by the Protectors.

Memory of Kari’s phrase came back to Stuart now. And with it, as though he had somehow unbarred a locked gate, opened it a mere crack, came a⁠—a whispering.

Not audible. Faint, faraway, like the shadow of a wind rustling ghosts of autumn leaves, the murmur rose and fell⁠ ⁠… calling him.

The scarlet cloak moved⁠ ⁠… writhed⁠ ⁠… flowed more closely about him. Fainter grew the voices.

Stuart strained after them. His soul sprang up⁠ ⁠… reaching toward those friendly, utterly inhuman whispers that came from nowhere.

A dull lethargy numbed him. The cloak drew tighter.⁠ ⁠…

He ignored it. Deep in the citadel of his mind, he made himself receptive, all his being focused on that⁠—that strange calling from beyond.

And, suddenly, there were words.⁠ ⁠…

“Derek Stuart. Can you hear us? Answer!”

His stiff lips could not speak, but his thoughts formed an answer. And, rising and falling as though the frequency of that incredible telepathy pulsed and changed continually, the message came⁠—

“We have lost. You have lost too, Stuart. But we will stay with you⁠—we must stay now⁠—and perhaps your death will be easier because of that.⁠ ⁠…”

“Who are you?” he thought, oddly awed by the personality he sensed behind that voice that was really two voices.

“There is little time.” The⁠—sound?⁠—faded into a thin whisper, then grew stronger. “The cloak makes it hard for us to communicate with you. And now we can give you none of our power at all. It is a monstrous thing⁠—a blasphemy such as only the Aesir would create. Half-alive⁠—it makes an artificial synapse between the individual and outside mental contacts. We cannot help you⁠—”

“Who are you?”

“We are the Protectors. Listen now, Stuart, for soon you must walk the Long Orbit with the others. We removed some of your memories, so the Aesir could not read your mind and have time to prepare themselves⁠—we hoped we might destroy them this time. But⁠—we have failed again. Now⁠—we give you your memories back.”

Like a slowly rising tide, Stuart’s past began to return. He did not question how this was done; he was too busy lifting the veil that had darkened his mind since⁠—since that night at the Singing Star in New Boston. A few drinks with the tired-eyed man, and then darkness⁠—

But the curtain was lifting now. He remembered.⁠ ⁠…

He remembered a tiny, underground room, with armed men⁠—not many of them⁠—staring at him. A voice that said, “You must either join us or die. We dare run no risks. For hundreds of years a tiny band of us has survived, only because the Aesir did not know we existed.”

“Rebels?” he had asked.

“Sworn to destroy the Aesir,” the man told him, and an answering glow burned briefly in the eyes of the others.

Stuart laughed.

“You have courage,” the man said. “You’ll need it. I know why you laugh. But we don’t fight alone. Have you ever heard of the Protectors?”

“Never.”

“Few have. They aren’t human, any more than the Aesir are. But they are not evil. They’re humanity’s champions. They have sworn to destroy the Aesir, as we have⁠—and so we serve them.”

“Who are they, then? What are they?”

“No man knows,” the other said quietly. “Who⁠—and where⁠—they are is a secret they keep to themselves. But we hear their messages. And once in a lifetime, not oftener, they tell us where we may find some man they have winnowed the planets to discover. In our lifetime, Stuart, you are the man.”

He gaped at them. “Why? I⁠—”

“To be a weapon for the Protectors⁠—a champion for mankind. The Protectors are so far beyond humanity they cannot fight our battles in their own forms. They need a⁠—a vessel into which they can pour their power. Or⁠—call it a sword to wield against the Aesir. They have searched the worlds over for a long while now, and you⁠—” The man hesitated, looking narrowly at Stuart. “You are the only vessel they found. You have a great destiny, Derek Stuart.”

He had scowled at them. “All right, suppose I have. What do they offer?”

The man shook his head. “Death⁠—if you’re lucky. No man before you has ever won a battle for the Protectors. You know that⁠—the Aesir still rule! Every chance is against you. In a thousand years no man has won the gamble. But this is greater than you or us, Derek Stuart. Do you think you have any choice?”

Stuart stared the other man in the eyes. “There’s no chance?”

The leader smiled. All mankind’s indomitable hope was in the smile.

“Would the Protectors have spent all their efforts, and ours, to find you if there were no hope? They have mighty and terrible powers. With the right man for their vessel, they could be stronger than the Aesir. No man could stand alone against the Aesir. The Protectors could not stand alone. But together⁠—sword and hand and brain welded into one⁠—yes, Stuart, there’s a chance!”

“Then why have the others failed?”

“No one has yet been quite strong enough. Only once in forty years⁠—fifty⁠—is a man born who might, with luck, have the courage and the strength. Look at us here⁠—do you think we would not offer ourselves gladly? Instead, the Protectors guided us to you. If you are willing to let them establish contact with your mind, enter it, possess it⁠—there’s a chance the Aesir can be destroyed. There’s a chance that man’s slavery may be ended!” His voice shook with that mighty hope.

Stuart glanced around at the ardent, fanatical faces, and something in him took a slow fire from the fire in theirs. A deep and vital purpose, as old as humanity⁠—how many times before in Earth’s history had men of Earth gathered in hidden rooms and sworn vows against tyranny and oppression? How many times before had Earthmen dedicated themselves and their son’s sons, if need be, to the old, old dream that though men may die, mankind must in the end be free?

Here in this crowded room the torch of freedom still burned, despite the hell of slavery under which the worlds toiled now.

He hesitated.

“It won’t be easy, Stuart,” the man warned. “A sword⁠—blade must be hammered on the anvil, heated in flame, before it’s tempered. The Protectors will test you⁠—so that your mind may be toughened to resist the attacks of the Aesir later. You will suffer.⁠ ⁠…”

He had suffered. Those agonizing, nightmare dreams in the forest, the phantoms that had tortured him⁠—other trials he did not want to remember. But there had been no flaw in the blade. In the end⁠—the Protectors had been satisfied, and had entered his mind⁠—maintaining the contact that still held, though thinly now.

And the voices he heard still whispering within him were the voices of his mentors.⁠ ⁠…

“We took your memories from you. So that the Aesir could not read too much in your mind, and be forewarned. Now that does not matter, and you will be stronger with your memory restored. But when you let the girl clasp the cloak about you⁠—that was failure.”

“If I could move,” Stuart thought. “If I could rip it off⁠—”

“It is part of you. We do not know how it can be removed. And while you wear it, we cannot give you our power.”

Stuart said bitterly. “If you’d given me that power in the first place⁠—”

“We did. How do you think you survived the first testing by the Aesir? And it is dangerous. We must gauge it carefully, so that we do not transmit too much of our mental energy to you. You are merely human⁠—if we let you draw on a tenth of our power, that would burn you out like a melting wire under a strong current.”

“So⁠—what now?”

“We have lost again. You have lost, and we are sorry. All we can do is give you an easy death. We possess you now, mentally; if we should withdraw from your brain, you would die instantly. We will do that whenever you ask. For the Aesir will kill you anyhow now, and not pleasantly.”

“I’m not committing suicide. As long as I live, I can still fight.”

“We also. This has happened before. We have chosen and possessed other champions, and they have failed. We withdrew from their minds before the Aesir⁠ ⁠… killed⁠ ⁠… so that we could survive to try again. To wage another battle. Some day we will win. Some day we shall destroy the Aesir. But we dare not cling to our broken swords, lest we too be broken.”

“So when the going gets tough you step out!”

Stuart sensed pity in the strange twin voice. “We must. We fight for the race of man. And the greatest gift we can give you now is quick death.”

“I don’t want it,” Stuart thought furiously. “I’m going to keep on fighting! Maybe that’s why you’ve always failed before⁠—you were too ready to give up. So I’ll die if you step out of my mind? Well⁠—it’s a lousy bargain!”

There was no anger, only a stronger overtone of pity in the still voice.

“What is it you want, Stuart?”

“Nothing from you! Just let me go on living. I’ll do my own fighting. There’ll be time enough to take a powder when the axe falls. I’m asking you simply this⁠—keep me alive until I’ve had another crack at the Aesir!”

A pause. “It is dangerous. Dangerous for us. But⁠—”

“Well?”

“We will take the risk. But understand⁠—we must leave you if the peril grows too great. And will⁠—inevitably.”

“Thanks,” Stuart said, and meant it. “One thing. What about Kari? Who is she?”

“A hundred years ago she was human. Then she was brought here, and the Aesir possessed her⁠—as we possess you. She has grown less human in that time, as the alien grows stronger within her. She has only faint memories of her former life now, and they will vanish soon. Contact with the Aesir is like an infection⁠—she will grow more and more like them. Perhaps, eventually, become one of them.”

Stuart grimaced. “If the Aesir should withdraw from her⁠—”

“She would die, yes. Her own life-force has been sapped too far. You and she are kept alive only as long as the bond of possession holds.”

Nice, Stuart thought. If the Aesir were destroyed, Kari would die with him. And if he faced doom, he too would die, as the Protectors withdrew to avoid sharing his fate.

Hell⁠—what did he care whether Kari lived or died? It was only the glamor of half-alienage that had drawn him to the girl. A dagger in her throat⁠—

Besides, he was certainly facing doom now.

“All I can do⁠—” he said⁠—and stopped abruptly. He was speaking aloud. Patiently the twin voice in his brain waited for him to continue.

Slowly he flexed his arms. He tilted back his head, staring up at the rim of the pit fifty feet above him. He could see the titan pillars rising toward the roof of that mighty tower, incredibly far above. But there was no sign of life.

“I can move,” he said. “I⁠—”

Struck by a new thought, he gripped the folds of the cloak. It was nauseously warm and vibrant. It seemed to move under his hands. He jerked at it, and felt a twinge of agonizing pain along his spine and about his throat, while a white-hot lance stabbed into his skull.

“If I could get rid of this⁠—you could help me?”

“We could give you our power, to use against the Aesir. But we do not know how to remove the cloak.”

“I don’t either,” Stuart growled, and paused as a movement caught his eye. The muscular Earthman near him was stirring.

He turned slowly. Beyond him the Martian girl swayed her feathery-crested head and lifted supple, slender arms. And the others⁠—all about Stuart they were wakening to motion.

But no life showed in their dull eyes. No understanding. Only a blind, empty withdrawal.

They turned, trooped toward the wall of the pit⁠ ⁠… toward an arched opening that was gaping suddenly.

“The Long Orbit,” said the voice in Stuart’s mind.

“What’s that?”

“Death. As the Aesir feed. They feed on the life-force of living organisms.”

“Is that the only way out?”

“The only way open to you. Yes.”

Stuart went slowly after the others. They had crossed the threshold now, and were pacing along a tunnel, lit with cold blue brilliance, that curved very gradually toward the left. Behind him a panel closed.

The cloak swayed like a great bloodstain behind him, moving in a motion not entirely caused by Stuart’s movements. He tried again to unfasten it, but the clasp at his throat only drew tighter. And the tingling sensation increased along his spine.

An artificial synapse⁠ ⁠… blocking his nerve-ends so that he could not draw upon the Protectors’ power.⁠ ⁠…

At his left was an alcove in the tunnel wall. It was filled with coagulated light⁠ ⁠… bright with glaring flames⁠ ⁠… flame-hot. Within that white curtain stirred swift movement, like the leaping of fires. Above the recess a symbol was embossed in the stone. The sign of Mercury.

“Mercury,” said the voice in Stuart’s mind. “The Servant of the Sun. The Swift Messenger. Mercury, that drinks the Sun’s fires and blazes like a star in the sky’s abyss. First in the Long Orbit⁠—Mercury.”

The crowd of prisoners, dull-eyed, swayed to and fro, a ripple of excitement rustling through them. Abruptly the Martian girl darted forward⁠—

Was engulfed in the milky flames.

Stood there, while curdled opalescence veiled her. On her face sheer horror, as⁠—

“The Aesir feed,” the voice whispered. “They drink the cup of her life⁠ ⁠… to its last dregs.”

The captives were moving again. Silently Stuart followed them along the tunnel. Now another recess showed in the wall.

Blue⁠ ⁠… blue, this time, as hazy seas of enchantment⁠ ⁠… misted with fog, with slow shifting movement within it.⁠ ⁠…

“The sign of Venus,” said the voice. “The Clouded World. Planet of life and womb of creation. Ruler of mists and seas⁠—Venus!”

The Earthman was drawn into the alcove. Stood there, while azure seas washed higher and higher about him. Through that glassy veil his face glared, stiff with alien fear.⁠ ⁠…

The sacrifices went on.

There was no alcove, no symbol for Earth. The Aesir had forgotten the world that had been their place of birth.

“Mars! Red star of madness! Ruler of man’s passion, lord of the bloody seas! Where scarlet sands run through Time’s hourglass⁠—Mars, third in the Long Orbit!”

The crimson glow of a dusty ruby⁠ ⁠… the face of a Venusian, strained, twisted in agony⁠ ⁠… the hunger of the Aesir.⁠ ⁠…

“The Little Worlds! The Great Belt that girdles the Inner System! The Broken Planet⁠—”

Tiny goblin lights, dancing and flickering, blue and sapphire and dull orange, wine-red and dawn-yellow⁠—

The hunger of the Aesir.

“Jupiter! Titan! Colossus of the Spaceroads! Jupiter, whose mighty hands seize the ships of man and drag them to his boiling heart! The Great One-fifth in the Long Orbit!”

The hunger of the Aesir.

“Ringed Saturn light-crowned! Guardian of the outer skies! Saturn⁠—”

Uranus⁠ ⁠… Neptune.⁠ ⁠…

Pluto.

The hunger of the Aesir.⁠ ⁠…

Beyond Pluto, dark worlds Stuart had not known. Until finally he was alone. The last of his companions had been drawn into one of the vampire alcoves of the Long Orbit.

He went on.

There was another recess in the wall at his left. It was filled with night. Jet blackness, cold and horrible, brimmed it.

Something like an invisible current dragged him forward, though he fought with all his strength to resist. Instinctively he sent out a desperate call to the Protectors.

“We cannot aid you. We must leave you⁠ ⁠… you will die instantly.”

“Wait! Don’t⁠—don’t give up yet! Give me your power⁠—”

“We cannot. While you wear the cloak.”

The edge of blackness touched Stuart with a frigid impact. He felt something, avid with horrible hunger, strain forward from of the alcove, reaching for him. The cloak billowed out⁠—

Sweat stood out on Stuart’s face. For, suddenly, he had seen the way. It might mean death, it would certainly mean frightful agony⁠—but he could go down fighting. If the cloak could not be removed in any other way⁠—perhaps it could be ripped off! He gripped the half-living fabric at its bottom, brought his arm behind him⁠—and tore the horror from him!

Stark, abysmal nerve-shock poured like a current of fire up his spine and into his brain. It was like tearing off his own skin. Sick, blind, gasping dry-throated sobs, Stuart stumbled away from the black alcove, tearing at the cloak. It tried to cling to him⁠—

He ripped it away⁠—hurled it from him. And as it fell⁠—it screamed!

But he was free.

For an instant sheer weakness overwhelmed him. Then into him poured a racing, jubilant torrent of strength, of mighty, intoxicating power that seemed to heal his wounds and revivify him instantly.

Into him surged the power of the Protectors!

From the alcove a finger of darkness tendrilled out. He was borne away from it⁠ ⁠… along the passage. Dimly, through drifting mists, he sensed that he was moving up a ramp⁠ ⁠… through a wall that seemed to grow intangible as he approached it⁠ ⁠… up and up.⁠ ⁠…

He was in the hall of the Aesir.

Above him the cyclopean pillars towered, dwarfing the thrones set between them. Before him hung the shifting wall of light.

He was carried toward it⁠—through it.

He stood on a black dais. Facing him was the cloaked, cowled figure he had last seen with Kari.

And beside the Aesir stood Kari!

The creature lifted its arm⁠ ⁠… a red flame spouted toward Stuart. Sudden, mocking laughter spilled from his lips. He no longer fought alone. The tremendous power of the Protectors blazed within him, power and energy and force that could smash suns.

In midair the fiery lance failed and died. The Aesir drew back a step, drawing its cloak about it as if in surprise. And Kari⁠—Kari shrank back, too, and something strangely like hope flashed for a moment across her dazzling, her more than mortal loveliness. Hope? But she was of the Aesir now. And if they failed, she died. Then why⁠—

The Aesir’s cloak flickered, and a second gush of fiery light fountained toward Stuart.

Up surged the tide of power in him again. Blind and dazed with his own tremendous energy, Stuart felt a curve like a dim shield flung up to meet that lance. The Aesir’s fire struck⁠—and flashed into blazing fragments on the Protector’s shield. Each droplet sang intolerable music as it faded and winked out. And behind the Aesir, more dazzling than any immortal fire had been, Stuart saw Kari’s sudden, shining smile.⁠ ⁠…

She would die if the Aesir failed. She must know she would die. But the brilliance of her smile struck him as the Aesir’s spear of fire could never strike. He knew, then. He understood.⁠ ⁠…

The Aesir’s cloak whirled like a storm-cloud, in dark, deep billows. The Aesir itself grew taller for a moment, as if it drew itself up to a godlike height. And then it did for Derek Stuart what no Aesir had ever done for a mortal man before. No Aesir had ever needed to. It cast off the hampering cloak and stood stripped for battle with this primitive manling whose forebears immemorially long ago had been the Aesir’s forebears. There was in that stripping something almost of kinship⁠—an acknowledgment that here at last in the hall of the Aesir stood an equal, sprung of equal stock.⁠ ⁠…

Naked in its terrible power, the Aesir stood up to face the man.

Not human. Not ever human, except in the mysterious basics which these people of a thousand millenniums in the future had chosen to retain. The flesh they had cast off, and the flesh the Aesir stood up in to face his forebear was pure, blazing, blinding energy. Twice as tall as a man it stood, shining with supernal brilliance, terrible and magnificent.

The great hall rang soundlessly with the power of the Protectors.

And then from above a streak of light came flashing, and another, and another. And were engulfed in the one Aesir who stood shining before its adversary, growing ever brighter and more terrible. The rest of the Aesir, coming to the aid of their fellow, forming a single entity to crush the champion of mankind.

Stuart braced himself for the incredible torrent of energy that would come blasting through him from the Protectors. And in a split second⁠—it came!

Mind and body reeled beneath the impact of that power as force flared through him and struck out at the tower of lightning which was the Aesir. But the force which was trying his human body to its utmost was not force enough to touch that blinding column. Energy lashed out from it, struck him a reeling blow⁠—Stuart dropped to his knees, the hall swimming in fire around him.

But what he saw was not the terrible, blazing image of his adversary, but Kari’s face beyond. His falling meant her life⁠—but when she saw him go down the brilliance dimmed upon her features. The hope he had seen there went out like a candle-flame and she was once more only a vessel of human flesh which the Aesir had possessed and degraded.

In his despair and his dizziness he cried soundlessly, “Help me, Protectors! Give me your power!”

The still double-voice said, “You could not hold it. You would be burned out utterly.”

“I’ll hold it long enough!” he promised desperately. “One second of power⁠—only that! Enough to smash the Aesir. Then death⁠—but not till then!”

There was one instant when time stopped. That cataclysmic horror that had risen a thousand years ago and raged through the worlds like a holocaust stood blazing before Stuart’s eyes. It stooped toward him, poising for the hammer blow that would smash him to nothing⁠—

Then a power like the drive of galaxies through space thundered into Stuart’s mind.

He had not expected this. Nothing in human experience could have taught him to expect it. For the Protectors were not human. No more human than the Aesir themselves. And the unleashed energy that roared soundlessly through Stuart rocked his very soul on its foundations. He could not stir. He could not think. He could only stay upon his knees facing the Aesir-thing as galactic power thundered through him and wielded him like a sword against man’s enemies.

Higher and higher rose the crashing tides of contest. The citadel shook ponderously upon the rocks of the god-made little world. Perhaps that world itself staggered in space as the titans battled together on its rocking surface.

Faster spun the core of radiant light which was the Aesir. Faster raced the tides of power through Stuart’s blasted body, seeming to rip his very flesh apart and blaze in his brain like hammers of cosmic fire.

Terribly, terribly he yearned for surcease, for the end of this unthinkable destruction that was tearing his brain and body apart. And he knew he could end it in a moment, if he chose to let go.⁠ ⁠…

Grimly he clung to the power that was destroying him. Second by second, counting each moment an eternity, he clung to consciousness. The crashing lances of the Protectors drove on upon the armor of the Aesir, and the cyclopean pillars of the great hall reeled upon their foundations, and the very air blazed into liquid fire around him.

He never knew what final blow of cosmic violence ended that battle. But suddenly, without warning, the vast column of the Aesir pulsed with violent brilliance and the whole hall rang with a cry too shrill and terrible for ears or the very mind to hear, except as a thrilling of despair.

The tower rocked. All the bright tapestries billowed and flowed against the walls. And the radiant thing that was the Aesir⁠—

Went out like a blown flame. Stuart saw it darken in the quickness of a heartbeat from blinding brightness to an angry, sullen scarlet, and then to the color of embers, and then to darkness.

There was nothing there at all.

And Stuart’s brain dimmed with it one last glimpse he had of the shining smile on Kari’s face, triumph and delight, in the instant before the cloudiness of oblivion blotted her features out.

He was not dead. Somewhere, far away, his body lay prone upon the cold pavement of the Aesir’s hall, a hall terribly empty now of life. But Stuart himself hung in empty space, somewhere between life and death.

The thought of the Protectors touched him gently, almost caressingly.

“You are a mighty man, Derek Stuart. Your name shall not be forgotten while mankind lives.”

With infinite effort he roused his mind.

“Kari⁠—” he said.

There was silence for a moment⁠—a warm silence. But the voices, speaking as one, said gently, “Have you forgotten? When the Aesir died, Kari died too. And you, Derek Stuart⁠—you can never go back to your body now. You remember that?”

Sudden rebellion shook Stuart’s bodiless brain. “Get out of my mind!” he raged at the double-voice. “What do you know about human beings? I’ve won for mankind⁠—but what did I win for myself? Nothing⁠—nothing! And Kari⁠—Get out of my mind and let me die! What do you know about love?”

Amazingly, laughter pulsed softly.

“Love?” said the double-voice. “Love? You have not guessed who we are?”

Stuart’s bewildered mind framed only a voiceless question.

“We know humanity,” the twin voices said. “We were human once, a thousand years ago. Very human, Derek Stuart. And we remembered love.”

He half guessed the answer. “You are⁠—”

“There was a man and a woman once,” the voices told him gently. “Mankind still remembers their legend⁠—John Starr and Lorna, who defied the Aesir.”

“John Starr and Lorna!”

“We fought the Aesir in the days when we and they were human. We worked with them on the entropy device that made them what they are now⁠—and made us⁠—ourselves. When we saw what they planned with their power, we fought.⁠ ⁠… But they were five, and strong because they were ruthless. We had to flee.”

The voices that spoke as one voice were distant, remembering.

“They grew in power on their Asgard world, changing as the millenniums swept over them, as entropy accelerated for them. And we changed, too, in our own place, in our different way. We are not human now. But we are not monsters, as the Aesir were. We have known failure and bitterness and defeat many times, Derek Stuart. But we remember humanity. And as for love⁠—”

Stuart said bitterly:

“You know your love. You have it forever. But Kari⁠ ⁠… Kari is dead.”

The voices were very gentle. “You have sacrificed more than we. You gave up your love and your bodies. We⁠—”

Silence again. Then the woman, serene and gentle-voiced, “There is a way, John. But not an easy one⁠—for us.”

Stuart thought, “But Kari is dead.”

The woman said, “Her body is empty of the Aesir life-force. And yours is burned out by the power we poured through it, so that no human could live in it again unless⁠—unless one more than human upheld you.”

“Lorna⁠—”

“We must part for awhile, John. We have been one for a long while. Now we must be two again, for the sake of these two. Until the change.⁠ ⁠…”

“What change?” asked Stuart eagerly.

“As we changed, so would you, if our lives upheld yours. Entropy would move for you as it moved for the Aesir and for us. And that, too, I think, is good. Mankind will need a leader. And we can help⁠—John and I⁠—more surely if we taste again of humanity. After awhile⁠—after millenniums⁠—the circle will close and John and I will be free to merge again. And you and Kari, too.”

Stuart thought, “But Kari⁠—will it be Kari?”

“It will be,” the gentle voice said. “Cleansed of the evil of the Aesir, supported by my own strength, as you by John’s. You will be yourselves again, with the worlds before you, and afterward⁠—a dwelling among the stars, with us.⁠ ⁠…”

The man’s voice said, “Lorna, Lorna⁠—”

“You know we must, beloved,” the softer voice said. “We have asked too much of them to offer nothing in repayment. And it will not be goodbye.”

There was darkness and silence.

Stuart was dimly aware of cyclopean heights rising above him. Painfully he stirred. He was clothed in his own body again, and the battle-blasted hall of the dead Aesir towered high into the dimness above him.

He turned his head.

Beside him on the dais a girl, lying crumpled in the shower of her hair, stirred and sighed.

I

Nicholas Martin looked up at the robot across the desk.

“I’m not going to ask what you want,” he said, in a low, restrained voice. “I already know. Just go away and tell St. Cyr I approve. Tell him I think it’s wonderful, putting a robot in the picture. We’ve had everything else by now, except the Rockettes. But clearly a quiet little play about Christmas among the Portuguese fishermen on the Florida coast must have a robot. Only, why not six robots? Tell him I suggest a baker’s dozen. Go away.”

“Was your mother’s name Helena Glinska?” the robot asked.

“It was not,” Martin said.

“Ah, then she must have been the Great Hairy One,” the robot murmured.

Martin took his feet off the desk and sat up slowly.

“It’s quite all right,” the robot said hastily. “You’ve been chosen for an ecological experiment, that’s all. But it won’t hurt. Robots are perfectly normal life forms where I come from, so you needn’t⁠—”

“Shut up,” Martin said. “Robot indeed, you⁠—you bit-player! This time St. Cyr has gone too far.” He began to shake slightly all over, with some repressed but strong emotion. The intercom box on the desk caught his eye, and he stabbed a finger at one of the switches. “Get me Miss Ashby! Right away!”

“I’m so sorry,” the robot said apologetically. “Have I made a mistake? The threshold fluctuations in the neurons always upset my mnemonic norm when I temporalize. Isn’t this a crisis-point in your life?”

Martin breathed hard, which seemed to confirm the robot’s assumption.

“Exactly,” it said. “The ecological imbalance approaches a peak that may destroy the life-form, unless⁠ ⁠… mm‑m. Now either you’re about to be stepped on by a mammoth, locked in an iron mask, assassinated by helots, or⁠—is this Sanskrit I’m speaking?” He shook his gleaming head. “Perhaps I should have got off fifty years ago, but I thought⁠—sorry. Goodbye,” he added hastily as Martin raised an angry glare.

Then the robot lifted a finger to each corner of his naturally rigid mouth, and moved his fingers horizontally in opposite directions, as though sketching an apologetic smile.

“No, don’t go away,” Martin said. “I want you right here, where the sight of you can refuel my rage in case it’s needed. I wish to God I could get mad and stay mad,” he added plaintively, gazing at the telephone.

“Are you sure your mother’s name wasn’t Helena Glinska?” the robot asked. It pinched thumb and forefinger together between its nominal brows, somehow giving the impression of a worried frown.

“Naturally I’m sure,” Martin snapped.

“You aren’t married yet, then? To Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina?”

“Not yet or ever,” Martin replied succinctly. The telephone rang. He snatched it up.

“Hello, Nick,” said Erika Ashby’s calm voice. “Something wrong?”

Instantly the fires of rage went out of Martin’s eyes, to be replaced by a tender, rose-pink glow. For some years now he had given Erika, his very competent agent, ten percent of his take. He had also longed hopelessly to give her approximately a pound of flesh⁠—the cardiac muscle, to put it in cold, unromantic terms. Martin did not; he put it in no terms at all, since whenever he tried to propose marriage to Erika he was taken with such fits of modesty that he could only babble o’ green fields.

“Well,” Erika repeated. “Something wrong?”

“Yes,” Martin said, drawing a long breath. “Can St. Cyr make me marry somebody named Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina?”

“What a wonderful memory you have,” the robot put in mournfully. “Mine used to be, before I started temporalizing. But even radioactive neurons won’t stand⁠—”

“Nominally you’re still entitled to life, liberty, et cetera,” Erika said. “But I’m busy right now, Nick. Can’t it wait till I see you?”

“When?”

“Didn’t you get my message?” Erika demanded.

“Of course not,” Martin said, angrily. “I’ve suspected for some time that all my incoming calls have to be cleared by St. Cyr. Somebody might try to smuggle in a word of hope, or possibly a file.” His voice brightened. “Planning a jailbreak?”

“Oh, this is outrageous,” Erika said. “Some day St. Cyr’s going to go too far⁠—”

“Not while he’s got DeeDee behind him,” Martin said gloomily. Summit Studios would sooner have made a film promoting atheism than offend their top box-office star, DeeDee Fleming. Even Tolliver Watt, who owned Summit lock, stock and barrel, spent wakeful nights because St. Cyr refused to let the lovely DeeDee sign a long-term contract.

“Nevertheless, Watt’s no fool,” Erika said. “I still think we could get him to give you a contract release if we could make him realize what a rotten investment you are. There isn’t much time, though.”

“Why not?”

“I told you⁠—oh. Of course you don’t know. He’s leaving for Paris tomorrow morning.”

Martin moaned. “Then I’m doomed,” he said. “They’ll pick up my option automatically next week and I’ll never draw a free breath again. Erika, do something!”

“I’m going to,” Erika said. “That’s exactly what I want to see you about. Ah,” she added suddenly, “now I understand why St. Cyr stopped my message. He was afraid. Nick, do you know what we’ve got to do?”

“See Watt?” Nick hazarded unhappily. “But Erika⁠—”

“See Watt alone,” Erika amplified.

“Not if St. Cyr can help it,” Nick reminded her.

“Exactly. Naturally St. Cyr doesn’t want us to talk to Watt privately. We might make him see reason. But this time, Nick, we’ve simply got to manage it somehow. One of us is going to talk to Watt while the other keeps St. Cyr at bay. Which do you choose?”

“Neither,” Martin said promptly.

“Oh, Nick! I can’t do the whole thing alone. Anybody’d think you were afraid of St. Cyr.”

“I am afraid of St. Cyr,” Martin said.

“Nonsense. What could he actually do to you?”

“He could terrorize me. He does it all the time. Erika, he says I’m indoctrinating beautifully. Doesn’t it make your blood run cold? Look at all the other writers he’s indoctrinated.”

“I know. I saw one of them on Main Street last week, delving into garbage cans. Do you want to end up that way? Then stand up for your rights!”

“Ah,” said the robot wisely, nodding. “Just as I thought. A crisis-point.”

“Shut up,” Martin said. “No, not you, Erika. I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Erika said tartly. “For a moment I thought you’d acquired a backbone.”

“If I were somebody like Hemingway⁠—” Martin began in a miserable voice.

“Did you say Hemingway?” the robot inquired. “Is this the Kinsey-Hemingway era? Then I must be right. You’re Nicholas Martin, the next subject. Martin, Martin? Let me see⁠—oh yes, the Disraeli type, that’s it.” He rubbed his forehead with a grating sound. “Oh, my poor neuron thresholds! Now I remember.”

“Nick, can you hear me?” Erika’s voice inquired. “I’m coming over there right away. Brace yourself. We’re going to beard St. Cyr in his den and convince Watt you’ll never make a good screenwriter. Now⁠—”

“But St. Cyr won’t ever admit that,” Martin cried. “He doesn’t know the meaning of the word failure. He says so. He’s going to make me into a screenwriter or kill me.”

“Remember what happened to Ed Cassidy?” Erika reminded him grimly. “St. Cyr didn’t make him into a screenwriter.”

“True. Poor old Ed,” Martin said, with a shiver.

“All right, then. I’m on my way. Anything else?”

“Yes!” Martin cried, drawing a deep breath. “Yes, there is! I love you madly!”

But the words never got past his glottis. Opening and closing his mouth noiselessly, the cowardly playwright finally clenched his teeth and tried again. A faint, hopeless squeak vibrated the telephone’s disk. Martin let his shoulders slump hopelessly. It was clear he could never propose to anybody, not even a harmless telephone.

“Did you say something?” Erika asked. “Well, goodbye then.”

“Wait a minute,” Martin said, his eyes suddenly falling once more upon the robot. Speechless on one subject only, he went on rapidly, “I forgot to tell you. Watt and the nest-fouling St. Cyr have just hired a mock-up phony robot to play in Angelina Noel!”

But the line was dead.

“I’m not a phony,” the robot said, hurt.

Martin fell back in his chair and stared at his guest with dull, hopeless eyes. “Neither was King Kong,” he remarked. “Don’t start feeding me some line St. Cyr’s told you to pull. I know he’s trying to break my nerve. He’ll probably do it, too. Look what he’s done to my play already. Why Fred Waring? I don’t mind Fred Waring in his proper place. There he’s fine. But not in Angelina Noel. Not as the Portuguese captain of a fishing boat manned by his entire band, accompanied by Dan Dailey singing ‘Napoli’ to DeeDee Fleming in a mermaid’s tail⁠—”

Self-stunned by this recapitulation, Martin put his arms on the desk, his head in his hands, and to his horror found himself giggling. The telephone rang. Martin groped for the instrument without rising from his semi-recumbent position.

“Who?” he asked shakily. “Who? St. Cyr⁠—”

A hoarse bellow came over the wire. Martin sat bolt upright, seizing the phone desperately with both hands.

“Listen!” he cried. “Will you let me finish what I’m going to say, just for once? Putting a robot in Angelina Noel is simply⁠—”

“I do not hear what you say,” roared a heavy voice. “Your idea stinks. Whatever it is. Be at Theater One for yesterday’s rushes! At once!”

“But wait⁠—”

St. Cyr belched and hung up. Martin’s strangling hands tightened briefly on the telephone. But it was no use. The real stranglehold was the one St. Cyr had around Martin’s throat, and it had been tightening now for nearly thirteen weeks. Or had it been thirteen years? Looking backward, Martin could scarcely believe that only a short time ago he had been a free man, a successful Broadway playwright, the author of the hit play Angelina Noel. Then had come St. Cyr.⁠ ⁠…

A snob at heart, the director loved getting his clutches on hit plays and name writers. Summit Studios, he had roared at Martin, would follow the original play exactly and would give Martin the final okay on the script, provided he signed a thirteen-week contract to help write the screen treatment. This had seemed too good to be true⁠—and was.

Martin’s downfall lay partly in the fine print and partly in the fact that Erika Ashby had been in the hospital with a bad attack of influenza at the time. Buried in legal verbiage was a clause that bound Martin to five years of servitude with Summit should they pick up his option. Next week they would certainly do just that, unless justice prevailed.

“I think I need a drink,” Martin said unsteadily. “Or several.” He glanced toward the robot. “I wonder if you’d mind getting me that bottle of Scotch from the bar over there.”

“But I am here to conduct an experiment in optimum ecology,” said the robot.

Martin closed his eyes. “Pour me a drink,” he pleaded. “Please. Then put the glass in my hand, will you? It’s not much to ask. After all, we’re both human beings, aren’t we?”

“Well, no,” the robot said, placing a brimming glass in Martin’s groping fingers. Martin drank. Then he opened his eyes and blinked at the tall highball glass in his hand. The robot had filled it to the brim with Scotch. Martin turned a wondering gaze on his metallic companion.

“You must do a lot of drinking yourself,” he said thoughtfully. “I suppose tolerance can be built up. Go ahead. Help yourself. Take the rest of the bottle.”

The robot placed the tip of a finger above each eye and slid the fingers upward, as though raising his eyebrows inquiringly.

“Go on, have a jolt,” Martin urged. “Or don’t you want to break bread with me, under the circumstances?”

“How can I?” the robot asked. “I’m a robot.” His voice sounded somewhat wistful. “What happens?” he inquired. “Is it a lubricatory or a fueling mechanism?”

Martin glanced at his brimming glass.

“Fueling,” he said tersely. “High octane. You really believe in staying in character, don’t you? Why not⁠—”

“Oh, the principle of irritation,” the robot interrupted. “I see. Just like fermented mammoth’s milk.”

Martin choked. “Have you ever drunk fermented mammoth’s milk?” he inquired.

“How could I?” the robot asked. “But I’ve seen it done.” He drew a straight line vertically upward between his invisible eyebrows, managing to look wistful. “Of course my world is perfectly functional and functionally perfect, but I can’t help finding temporalizing a fascina⁠—” He broke off. “I’m wasting space-time. Ah. Now. Mr. Martin, would you be willing to⁠—”

“Oh, have a drink,” Martin said. “I feel hospitable. Go ahead, indulge me, will you? My pleasures are few. And I’ve got to go and be terrorized in a minute, anyhow. If you can’t get that mask off I’ll send for a straw. You can step out of character long enough for one jolt, can’t you?”

“I’d like to try it,” the robot said pensively. “Ever since I noticed the effect fermented mammoth’s milk had on the boys, it’s been on my mind, rather. Quite easy for a human, of course. Technically it’s simple enough, I see now. The irritation just increases the frequency of the brain’s kappa waves, as with boosted voltage, but since electrical voltage never existed in pre-robot times⁠—”

“It did,” Martin said, taking another drink. “I mean, it does. What do you call that, a mammoth?” He indicated the desk lamp.

The robot’s jaw dropped.

“That?” he asked in blank amazement. “Why⁠—why then all those telephone poles and dynamos and lighting-equipment I noticed in this era are powered by electricity!”

“What did you think they were powered by?” Martin asked coldly.

“Slaves,” the robot said, examining the lamp. He switched it on, blinked, and then unscrewed the bulb. “Voltage, you say?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Martin said. “You’re overplaying your part. I’ve got to get going in a minute. Do you want a jolt or don’t you?”

“Well,” the robot said, “I don’t want to seem unsociable. This ought to work.” So saying, he stuck his finger in the lamp-socket. There was a brief, crackling flash. The robot withdrew his finger.

“F(t)⁠—” he said, and swayed slightly. Then his fingers came up and sketched a smile that seemed, somehow, to express delighted surprise.

“Fff(t)!” he said, and went on rather thickly, “F(t) integral between plus and minus infinity⁠ ⁠… a-sub-n to e.⁠ ⁠…”

Martin’s eyes opened wide with shocked horror. Whether a doctor or a psychiatrist should be called in was debatable, but it was perfectly evident that this was a case for the medical profession, and the sooner the better. Perhaps the police, too. The bit-player in the robot suit was clearly as mad as a hatter. Martin poised indecisively, waiting for his lunatic guest either to drop dead or spring at his throat.

The robot appeared to be smacking his lips, with faint clicking sounds.

“Why, that’s wonderful,” he said. “AC, too.”

“Y‑you’re not dead?” Martin inquired shakily.

“I’m not even alive,” the robot murmured. “The way you’d understand it, that is. Ah⁠—thanks for the jolt.”

Martin stared at the robot with the wildest dawning of surmise.

“Why⁠—” he gasped. “Why⁠—you’re a robot!”

“Certainly I’m a robot,” his guest said. “What slow minds you pre-robots had. Mine’s working like lightning now.” He stole a drunkard’s glance at the desk-lamp. “F(t)⁠—I mean, if you counted the kappa waves of my radio-atomic brain now, you’d be amazed how the frequency’s increased.” He paused thoughtfully. “F(t),” he added.

Moving quite slowly, like a man under water, Martin lifted his glass and drank whiskey. Then, cautiously, he looked up at the robot again.

“F(t)⁠—” he said, paused, shuddered, and drank again. That did it. “I’m drunk,” he said with an air of shaken relief. “That must be it. I was almost beginning to believe⁠—”

“Oh, nobody believes I’m a robot at first,” the robot said. “You’ll notice I showed up in a movie lot, where I wouldn’t arouse suspicion. I’ll appear to Ivan Vasilovich in an alchemist’s lab, and he’ll jump to the conclusive I’m an automaton. Which, of course, I am. Then there’s a Uighur on my list⁠—I’ll appear to him in a shaman’s hut and he’ll assume I’m a devil. A matter of ecologicologic.”

“Then you’re a devil?” Martin inquired, seizing on the only plausible solution.

“No, no, no. I’m a robot. Don’t you understand anything?”

“I don’t even know who I am, now,” Martin said. “For all I know, I’m a faun and you’re a human child. I don’t think this Scotch is doing me as much good as I’d⁠—”

“Your name is Nicholas Martin,” the robot said patiently. “And mine is ENIAC.”

“Eniac?”

“ENIAC,” the robot corrected, capitalizing. “ENIAC Gamma the Ninety-Third.”

So saying, he unslung a sack from his metallic shoulder and began to rummage out length upon length of what looked like red silk ribbon with a curious metallic lustre. After approximately a quarter-mile of it had appeared, a crystal football helmet emerged attached to its end. A gleaming red-green stone was set on each side of the helmet.

“Just over the temporal lobes, you see,” the robot explained, indicating the jewels. “Now you just set it on your head, like this⁠—”

“Oh no I don’t,” Martin said, withdrawing his head with the utmost rapidity. “Neither do you, my friend. What’s the idea? I don’t like the looks of that gimmick. I particularly don’t like those two red garnets on the sides. They look like eyes.”

“Those are artificial eclogite,” the robot assured him. “They simply have a high dielectric constant. It’s merely a matter of altering the normal thresholds of the neuron memory-circuits. All thinking is based on memory, you know. The strength of your associations⁠—the emotional indices of your memories⁠—channel your actions and decisions, and the ecologizer simply changes the voltage of your brain so the thresholds are altered.”

“Is that all it does?” Martin asked suspiciously.

“Well, now,” the robot said with a slight air of evasion. “I didn’t intend to mention it, but since you ask⁠—it also imposes the master-matrix of your character type. But since that’s the prototype of your character in the first place, it will simply enable you to make the most of your potential ability, hereditary and acquired. It will make you react to your environment in the way that best assures your survival.”

“Not me, it won’t,” Martin said firmly. “Because you aren’t going to put that thing on my head.”

The robot sketched a puzzled frown. “Oh,” he said after a pause. “I haven’t explained yet, have I? It’s very simple. Would you be willing to take part in a valuable sociocultural experiment for the benefit of all mankind?”

“No,” Martin said.

“But you don’t know what it is yet,” the robot said plaintively. “You’ll be the only one to refuse, after I’ve explained everything thoroughly. By the way, can you understand me all right?”

Martin laughed hollowly. “Natch,” he said.

“Good,” the robot said, relieved. “That may be one trouble with my memory. I had to record so many languages before I could temporalize. Sanskrit’s very simple, but medieval Russian’s confusing, and as for Uighur⁠—however! The purpose of this experiment is to promote the most successful pro-survival relationship between man and his environment. Instant adaptation is what we’re aiming at, and we hope to get it by minimizing the differential between individual and environment. In other words, the right reaction at the right time. Understand?”

“Of course not,” Martin said. “What nonsense you talk.”

“There are,” the robot said rather wearily, “only a limited number of character matrices possible, depending first on the arrangement of the genes within the chromosomes, and later upon environmental additions. Since environments tend to repeat⁠—like societies, you know⁠—an organizational pattern isn’t hard to lay out, along the Kaldekooz time-scale. You follow me so far?”

“By the Kaldekooz time-scale, yes,” Martin said.

“I was always lucid,” the robot remarked a little vainly, nourishing a swirl of red ribbon.

“Keep that thing away from me,” Martin complained. “Drunk I may be, but I have no intention of sticking my neck out that far.”

“Of course you’ll do it,” the robot said firmly. “Nobody’s ever refused yet. And don’t bicker with me or you’ll get me confused and I’ll have to take another jolt of voltage. Then there’s no telling how confused I’ll be. My memory gives me enough trouble when I temporalize. Time-travel always raises the synaptic delay threshold, but the trouble is it’s so variable. That’s why I got you mixed up with Ivan at first. But I don’t visit him till after I’ve seen you⁠—I’m running the test chronologically, and nineteen-fifty-two comes before fifteen-seventy, of course.”

“It doesn’t,” Martin said, tilting the glass to his lips. “Not even in Hollywood does nineteen-fifty-two come before fifteen-seventy.”

“I’m using the Kaldekooz time-scale,” the robot explained. “But really only for convenience. Now do you want the ideal ecological differential or don’t you? Because⁠—” Here he flourished the red ribbon again, peered into the helmet, looked narrowly at Martin, and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” the robot said. “I’m afraid this won’t work. Your head’s too small. Not enough brain-room, I suppose. This helmet’s for an eight and a half head, and yours is much too⁠—”

“My head is eight and a half,” Martin protested with dignity.

“Can’t be,” the robot said cunningly. “If it were, the helmet would fit, and it doesn’t. Too big.”

“It does fit,” Martin said.

“That’s the trouble with arguing with pre-robot species,” ENIAC said, as to himself. “Low, brutish, unreasoning. No wonder, when their heads are so small. Now Mr. Martin⁠—” He spoke as though to a small, stupid, stubborn child. “Try to understand. This helmet’s size eight and a half. Your head is unfortunately so very small that the helmet wouldn’t fit⁠—”

“Blast it!” cried the infuriated Martin, caution quite lost between Scotch and annoyance. “It does fit! Look here!” Recklessly he snatched the helmet and clapped it firmly on his head. “It fits perfectly!”

“I erred,” the robot acknowledged, with such a gleam in his eye that Martin, suddenly conscious of his rashness, jerked the helmet from his head and dropped it on the desk. ENIAC quietly picked it up and put it back into his sack, stuffing the red ribbon in after it with rapid motions. Martin watched, baffled, until ENIAC had finished, gathered together the mouth of the sack, swung it on his shoulder again, and turned toward the door.

“Goodbye,” the robot said. “And thank you.”

“For what?” Martin demanded.

“For your cooperation,” the robot said.

“I won’t cooperate,” Martin told him flatly. “It’s no use. Whatever fool treatment it is you’re selling, I’m not going to⁠—”

“Oh, you’ve already had the ecology treatment,” ENIAC replied blandly. “I’ll be back tonight to renew the charge. It lasts only twelve hours.”

“What!”

ENIAC moved his forefingers outward from the corners of his mouth, sketching a polite smile. Then he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

Martin made a faint squealing sound, like a stuck but gagged pig.

Something was happening inside his head.

II

Nicholas Martin felt like a man suddenly thrust under an ice-cold shower. No, not cold⁠—steaming hot. Perfumed, too. The wind that blew in from the open window bore with it a frightful stench of gasoline, sagebrush, paint, and⁠—from the distant commissary⁠—ham sandwiches.

“Drunk,” he thought frantically. “I’m drunk⁠—or crazy!” He sprang up and spun around wildly; then catching sight of a crack in the hardwood floor he tried to walk along it. “Because if I can walk a straight line,” he thought, “I’m not drunk. I’m only crazy.⁠ ⁠…” It was not a very comforting thought.

He could walk it, all right. He could walk a far straighter line than the crack, which he saw now was microscopically jagged. He had, in fact, never felt such a sense of location and equilibrium in his life. His experiment carried him across the room to a wall-mirror, and as he straightened to look into it, suddenly all confusion settled and ceased. The violent sensory perceptions leveled off and returned to normal.

Everything was quiet. Everything was all right.

Martin met his own eyes in the mirror.

Everything was not all right.

He was stone cold sober. The Scotch he had drunk might as well have been spring-water. He leaned closer to the mirror, trying to stare through his own eyes into the depths of his brain. For something extremely odd was happening in there. All over his brain, tiny shutters were beginning to move, some sliding up till only a narrow crack remained, through which the beady little eyes of neurons could be seen peeping, some sliding down with faint crashes, revealing the agile, spidery forms of still other neurons scuttling for cover.

Altered thresholds, changing the yes-and-no reaction time of the memory-circuits, with their key emotional indices and associations⁠ ⁠… huh?

The robot!

Martin’s head swung toward the closed office door. But he made no further move. The look of blank panic on his face very slowly, quite unconsciously, began to change. The robot⁠ ⁠… could wait.

Automatically Martin raised his hand, as though to adjust an invisible monocle. Behind him, the telephone began to ring. Martin glanced at it.

His lips curved into an insolent smile.

Flicking dust from his lapel with a suave gesture, Martin picked up the telephone. He said nothing. There was a long silence. Then a hoarse voice shouted, “Hello, hello, hello! Are you there? You, Martin!”

Martin said absolutely nothing at all.

“You keep me waiting,” the voice bellowed. “Me, St. Cyr! Now jump! The rushes are⁠ ⁠… Martin, do you hear me?”

Martin gently laid down the receiver on the desk. He turned again toward the mirror, regarded himself critically, frowned.

“Dreary,” he murmured. “Distinctly dreary. I wonder why I ever bought this necktie?”

The softly bellowing telephone distracted him. He studied the instrument briefly, then clapped his hands sharply together an inch from the mouthpiece. There was a sharp, anguished cry from the other end of the line.

“Very good,” Martin murmured, turning away. “That robot has done me a considerable favor. I should have realized the possibilities sooner. After all, a super-machine, such as ENIAC, would be far cleverer than a man, who is merely an ordinary machine. Yes,” he added, stepping into the hall and coming face to face with Toni LaMotta, who was currently working for Summit on loan. “ ‘Man is a machine, and woman⁠—’ ” Here he gave Miss LaMotta a look of such arrogant significance that she was quite startled.

“ ‘And woman⁠—a toy,’ ” Martin amplified, as he turned toward Theater One, where St. Cyr and destiny awaited him.

Summit Studios, outdoing even M.G.M., always shot ten times as much footage as necessary on every scene. At the beginning of each shooting day, this confusing mass of celluloid was shown in St. Cyr’s private projection theater, a small but luxurious domed room furnished with lie-back chairs and every other convenience, though no screen was visible until you looked up. Then you saw it on the ceiling.

When Martin entered, it was instantly evident that ecology took a sudden shift toward the worse. Operating on the theory that the old Nicholas Martin had come into it, the theater, which had breathed an expensive air of luxurious confidence, chilled toward him. The nap of the Persian rug shrank from his contaminating feet. The chair he stumbled against in the half-light seemed to shrug contemptuously. And the three people in the theater gave him such a look as might be turned upon one of the larger apes who had, by sheer accident, got an invitation to Buckingham Palace.

DeeDee Fleming (her real name was impossible to remember, besides having not a vowel in it) lay placidly in her chair, her feet comfortably up, her lovely hands folded, her large, liquid gaze fixed upon the screen where DeeDee Fleming, in the silvery meshes of a technicolor mermaid, swam phlegmatically through seas of pearl-colored mist.

Martin groped in the gloom for a chair. The strangest things were going on inside his brain, where tiny stiles still moved and readjusted until he no longer felt in the least like Nicholas Martin. Who did he feel like, then? What had happened?

He recalled the neurons whose beady little eyes he had fancied he saw staring brightly into, as well as out of, his own. Or had he? The memory was vivid, yet it couldn’t be, of course. The answer was perfectly simple and terribly logical. ENIAC Gamma the Ninety-Third had told him, somewhat ambiguously, just what his ecological experiment involved. Martin had merely been given the optimum reactive pattern of his successful prototype, a man who had most thoroughly controlled his own environment. And ENIAC had told him the man’s name, along with several confusing references to other prototypes like an Ivan (who?) and an unnamed Uighur.

The name for Martin’s prototype was, of course, Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Martin had a vivid recollection of George Arliss playing the role. Clever, insolent, eccentric in dress and manner, exuberant, suave, self-controlled, with a strongly perceptive imagination.⁠ ⁠…

“No, no, no!” DeeDee said with a sort of calm impatience. “Be careful, Nick. Some other chair, please. I have my feet on this one.”

“T‑t‑t‑t‑t,” said Raoul St. Cyr, protruding his thick lips and snapping the fingers of an enormous hand as he pointed to a lowly chair against the wall. “Behind me, Martin. Sit down, sit down. Out of our way. Now! Pay attention. Study what I have done to make something great out of your foolish little play. Especially note how I have so cleverly ended the solo by building to five cumulative pratt-falls. Timing is all,” he finished. “Now⁠—silence!”

For a man born in the obscure little Balkan country of Mixo-Lydia, Raoul St. Cyr had done very well for himself in Hollywood. In 1939 St. Cyr, growing alarmed at the imminence of war, departed for America, taking with him the print of an unpronounceable Mixo-Lydian film he had made, which might be translated roughly as The Pores in the Face of the Peasant.

With this he established his artistic reputation as a great director, though if the truth were known, it was really poverty that caused The Pores to be so artistically lighted, and simple drunkenness which had made most of the cast act out one of the strangest performances in film history. But critics compared The Pores to a ballet and praised inordinately the beauty of its leading lady, now known to the world as DeeDee Fleming.

DeeDee was so incredibly beautiful that the law of compensation would force one to expect incredible stupidity as well. One was not disappointed. DeeDee’s neurons didn’t know anything. She had heard of emotions, and under St. Cyr’s bullying could imitate a few of them, but other directors had gone mad trying to get through the semantic block that kept DeeDee’s mind a calm, unruffled pool possibly three inches deep. St. Cyr merely bellowed. This simple, primordial approach seemed to be the only one that made sense to Summit’s greatest investment and top star.

With this whip-hand over the beautiful and brainless DeeDee, St. Cyr quickly rose to the top in Hollywood. He had undoubted talent. He could make one picture very well indeed. He had made it twenty times already, each time starring DeeDee, and each time perfecting his own feudalistic production unit. Whenever anyone disagreed with St. Cyr, he had only to threaten to go over to M.G.M. and take the obedient DeeDee with him, for he had never allowed her to sign a long-term contract and she worked only on a picture-to-picture basis. Even Tolliver Watt knuckled under when St. Cyr voiced the threat of removing DeeDee.

“Sit down, Martin,” Tolliver Watt said. He was a tall, lean, hatchet-faced man who looked like a horse being starved because he was too proud to eat hay. With calm, detached omnipotence he inclined his grey-shot head a millimeter, while a faintly pained expression passed fleetingly across his face.

“Highball, please,” he said.

A white-clad waiter appeared noiselessly from nowhere and glided forward with a tray. It was at this point that Martin felt the last stiles readjust in his brain, and entirely on impulse he reached out and took the frosted highball glass from the tray. Without observing this the waiter glided on and presented Watt with a gleaming salver full of nothing. Watt and the waiter regarded the tray.

Then their eyes met. There was a brief silence.

“Here,” Martin said, replacing the glass. “Much too weak. Get me another, please. I’m reorienting toward a new phase, which means a different optimum,” he explained to the puzzled Watt as he readjusted a chair beside the great man and dropped into it. Odd that he had never before felt at ease during rushes. Right now he felt fine. Perfectly at ease. Relaxed.

“Scotch and soda for Mr. Martin,” Watt said calmly. “And another for me.”

“So, so, so, now we begin,” St. Cyr cried impatiently. He spoke into a hand microphone. Instantly the screen on the ceiling flickered noisily and began to unfold a series of rather ragged scenes in which a chorus of mermaids danced on their tails down the street of a little Florida fishing village.

To understand the full loathsomeness of the fate facing Nicholas Martin, it is necessary to view a St. Cyr production. It seemed to Martin that he was watching the most noisome movie ever put upon film. He was conscious that St. Cyr and Watt were stealing rather mystified glances at him. In the dark he put up two fingers and sketched a robot-like grin. Then, feeling sublimely sure of himself, he lit a cigarette and chuckled aloud.

“You laugh?” St. Cyr demanded with instant displeasure. “You do not appreciate great art? What do you know about it, eh? Are you a genius?”

“This,” Martin said urbanely, “is the most noisome movie ever put on film.”

In the sudden, deathly quiet which followed, Martin flicked ashes elegantly and added, “With my help, you may yet avoid becoming the laughing stock of the whole continent. Every foot of this picture must be junked. Tomorrow bright and early we will start all over, and⁠—”

Watt said quietly, “We’re quite competent to make a film out of Angelina Noel, Martin.”

“It is artistic!” St. Cyr shouted. “And it will make money, too!”

“Bah, money!” Martin said cunningly. He flicked more ash with a lavish gesture. “Who cares about money? Let Summit worry.”

Watt leaned forward to peer searchingly at Martin in the dimness.

“Raoul,” he said, glancing at St. Cyr, “I understood you were getting your⁠—ah⁠—your new writers whipped into shape. This doesn’t sound to me as if⁠—”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” St. Cyr cried excitedly. “Whipped into shape, exactly! A brief delirium, eh? Martin, you feel well? You feel yourself?”

Martin laughed with quiet confidence. “Never fear,” he said. “The money you spend on me is well worth what I’ll bring you in prestige. I quite understand. Our confidential talks were not to be secret from Watt, of course.”

“What confidential talks?” bellowed St. Cyr thickly, growing red.

“We need keep nothing from Watt, need we?” Martin went on imperturably. “You hired me for prestige, and prestige you’ll get, if you can only keep your big mouth shut long enough. I’ll make the name of St. Cyr glorious for you. Naturally you may lose something at the box-office, but it’s well worth⁠—”

“Pjrzqxgl!” roared St. Cyr in his native tongue, and he lumbered up from the chair, brandishing the microphone in an enormous, hairy hand.

Deftly Martin reached out and twitched it from his grasp.

“Stop the film,” he ordered crisply.

It was very strange. A distant part of his mind knew that normally he would never have dared behave this way, but he felt convinced that never before in his life had he acted with complete normality. He glowed with a giddy warmth of confidence that everything he did would be right, at least while the twelve-hour treatment lasted.⁠ ⁠…

The screen flickered hesitantly, then went blank.

“Turn the lights on,” Martin ordered the unseen presence beyond the mike. Softly and suddenly the room glowed with illumination. And upon the visages of Watt and St. Cyr he saw a mutual dawning uneasiness begin to break.

He had just given them food for thought. But he had given them more than that. He tried to imagine what moved in the minds of the two men, below the suspicions he had just implanted. St. Cyr’s was fairly obvious. The Mixo-Lydian licked his lips⁠—no mean task⁠—and studied Martin with uneasy little bloodshot eyes. Clearly Martin had acquired confidence from somewhere. What did it mean? What secret sin of St. Cyr’s had been discovered to him, what flaw in his contract, that he dared behave so defiantly?

Tolliver Watt was a horse of another color; apparently the man had no guilty secrets; but he too looked uneasy. Martin studied the proud face and probed for inner weaknesses. Watt would be a harder nut to crack. But Martin could do it.

“That last underwater sequence,” he now said, pursuing his theme. “Pure trash, you know. It’ll have to come out. The whole scene must be shot from under water.”

“Shut up!” St. Cyr shouted violently.

“But it must, you know,” Martin went on. “Or it won’t jibe with the new stuff I’ve written in. In fact, I’m not at all certain that the whole picture shouldn’t be shot under water. You know, we could use the documentary technique⁠—”

“Raoul,” Watt said suddenly, “what’s this man trying to do?”

“He is trying to break his contract, of course,” St. Cyr said, turning ruddy olive. “It is the bad phase all my writers go through before I get them whipped into shape. In Mixo-Lydia⁠—”

“Are you sure he’ll whip into shape?” Watt asked.

“To me this is now a personal matter,” St. Cyr said, glaring at Martin. “I have spent nearly thirteen weeks on this man and I do not intend to waste my valuable time on another. I tell you he is simply trying to break his contract⁠—tricks, tricks, tricks.”

“Are you?” Watt asked Martin coldly.

“Not now,” Martin said. “I’ve changed my mind. My agent insists I’d be better off away from Summit. In fact, she has the curious feeling that I and Summit would suffer by a mésalliance. But for the first time I’m not sure I agree. I begin to see possibilities, even in the tripe St. Cyr has been stuffing down the public’s throat for years. Of course I can’t work miracles all at once. Audiences have come to expect garbage from Summit, and they’ve even been conditioned to like it. But we’ll begin in a small way to re-educate them with this picture. I suggest we try to symbolize the Existentialist hopelessness of it all by ending the film with a full four hundred feet of seascapes⁠—nothing but vast, heaving stretches of ocean,” he ended, on a note of complacent satisfaction.

A vast, heaving stretch of Raoul St. Cyr rose from his chair and advanced upon Martin.

“Outside, outside!” he shouted. “Back to your cell, you double-crossing vermin! I, Raoul St. Cyr, command it. Outside, before I rip you limb from limb⁠—”

Martin spoke quickly. His voice was calm, but he knew he would have to work fast.

“You see, Watt?” he said clearly, meeting Watt’s rather startled gaze. “Doesn’t dare let you exchange three words with me, for fear I’ll let something slip. No wonder he’s trying to put me out of here⁠—he’s skating on thin ice these days.”

Goaded, St. Cyr rolled forward in a ponderous lunge, but Watt interposed. It was true, of course, that the writer was probably trying to break his contract. But there were wheels within wheels here. Martin was too confident, too debonaire. Something was going on which Watt did not understand.

“All right, Raoul,” he said decisively. “Relax for a minute. I said relax! We don’t want Nick here suing you for assault and battery, do we? Your artistic temperament carries you away sometimes. Relax and let’s hear what Nick has to say.”

“Watch out for him, Tolliver!” St. Cyr cried warningly. “They’re cunning, these creatures. Cunning as rats. You never know⁠—”

Martin raised the microphone with a lordly gesture. Ignoring the director, he said commandingly into the mike, “Put me through to the commissary. The bar, please. Yes. I want to order a drink. Something very special. A⁠—ah⁠—a Helena Glinska⁠—”

“Hello,” Erika Ashby’s voice said from the door. “Nick, are you there? May I come in?”

The sound of her voice sent delicious chills rushing up and down Martin’s spine. He swung round, mike in hand, to welcome her. But St. Cyr, pleased at this diversion, roared before he could speak.

“No, no, no, no! Go! Go at once. Whoever you are⁠—out!”

Erika, looking very brisk, attractive and firm, marched into the room and cast at Martin a look of resigned patience.

Very clearly she expected to fight both her own battles and his.

“I’m on business here,” she told St. Cyr coldly. “You can’t part author and agent like this. Nick and I want to have a word with Mr. Watt.”

“Ah, my pretty creature, sit down,” Martin said in a loud, clear voice, scrambling out of his chair. “Welcome! I’m just ordering myself a drink. Will you have something?”

Erika looked at him with startled suspicion. “No, and neither will you,” she said. “How many have you had already? Nick, if you’re drunk at a time like this⁠—”

“And no shilly-shallying,” Martin said blandly into the mike. “I want it at once, do you hear? A Helena Glinska, yes. Perhaps you don’t know it? Then listen carefully. Take the largest Napoleon you’ve got. If you haven’t a big one, a small punch bowl will do. Fill it half full with ice-cold ale. Got that? Add three jiggers of creme de menthe⁠—”

“Nick, are you mad?” Erika demanded, revolted.

“⁠—and six jiggers of honey,” Martin went on placidly. “Stir, don’t shake. Never shake a Helena Glinska. Keep it well chilled, and⁠—”

“Miss Ashby, we are very busy,” St. Cyr broke in importantly, making shooing motions toward the door. “Not now. Sorry. You interrupt. Go at once.”

“⁠—better add six more jiggers of honey,” Martin was heard to add contemplatively into the mike. “And then send it over immediately. Drop everything else, and get it here within sixty seconds. There’s a bonus for you if you do. Okay? Good. See to it.”

He tossed the microphone casually at St. Cyr.

Meanwhile, Erika had closed in on Tolliver Watt.

“I’ve just come from talking to Gloria Eden,” she said, “and she’s willing to do a one-picture deal with Summit if I okay it. But I’m not going to okay it unless you release Nick Martin from his contract, and that’s flat.”

Watt showed pleased surprise.

“Well, we might get together on that,” he said instantly, for he was a fan of Miss Eden’s and for a long time had yearned to star her in a remake of Vanity Fair. “Why didn’t you bring her along? We could have⁠—”

“Nonsense!” St. Cyr shouted. “Do not discuss this matter yet, Tolliver.”

“She’s down at Laguna,” Erika explained. “Be quiet, St. Cyr! I won’t⁠—”

A knock at the door interrupted her. Martin hurried to open it and as he had expected encountered a waiter with a tray.

“Quick work,” he said urbanely, accepting the huge, coldly sweating Napoleon in a bank of ice. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

St. Cyr’s booming shouts from behind him drowned out whatever remark the waiter may have made as he received a bill from Martin and withdrew, looking nauseated.

“No, no, no, no,” St. Cyr was roaring. “Tolliver, we can get Gloria and keep this writer too, not that he is any good, but I have spent already thirteen weeks training him in the St. Cyr approach. Leave it to me. In Mixo-Lydia we handle⁠—”

Erika’s attractive mouth was opening and shutting, her voice unheard in the uproar. St. Cyr could keep it up indefinitely, as was well known in Hollywood. Martin sighed, lifted the brimming Napoleon and sniffed delicately as he stepped backward toward his chair. When his heel touched it, he tripped with the utmost grace and savoir-faire, and very deftly emptied the Helena Glinsak, ale, honey, creme de menthe, ice and all, over St. Cyr’s capacious front.

St. Cyr’s bellow broke the microphone.

Martin had composed his invention carefully. The nauseous brew combined the maximum elements of wetness, coldness, stickiness and pungency.

The drenched St. Cyr, shuddering violently as the icy beverage deluged his legs, snatched out his handkerchief and mopped in vain. The handkerchief merely stuck to his trousers, glued there by twelve jiggers of honey. He reeked of peppermint.

“I suggest we adjourn to the commissary,” Martin said fastidiously. “In some private booth we can go on with this discussion away from the⁠—the rather overpowering smell of peppermint.”

“In Mixo-Lydia,” St. Cyr gasped, sloshing in his shoes as he turned toward Martin, “in Mixo-Lydia we throw to the dogs⁠—we boil in oil⁠—we⁠—”

“And next time,” Martin said, “please don’t joggle my elbow when I’m holding a Helena Glinska. It’s most annoying.”

St. Cyr drew a mighty breath, rose to his full height⁠—and then subsided. St. Cyr at the moment looked like a Keystone Kop after the chase sequence, and knew it. Even if he killed Martin now, the element of classic tragedy would be lacking. He would appear in the untenable position of Hamlet murdering his uncle with custard pies.

“Do nothing until I return!” he commanded, and with a final glare at Martin plunged moistly out of the theater.

The door crashed shut behind him. There was silence for a moment except for the soft music from the overhead screen which DeeDee had caused to be turned on again, so that she might watch her own lovely form flicker in dimmed images through pastel waves, while she sang a duet with Dan Dailey about sailors, mermaids and her home in far Atlantis.

“And now,” said Martin, turning with quiet authority to Watt, who was regarding him with a baffled expression, “I want a word with you.”

“I can’t discuss your contract till Raoul gets back,” Watt said quickly.

“Nonsense,” Martin said in a firm voice. “Why should St. Cyr dictate your decisions? Without you, he couldn’t turn out a box-office success if he had to. No, be quiet, Erika. I’m handling this, my pretty creature.”

Watt rose to his feet. “Sorry, I can’t discuss it,” he said. “St. Cyr pictures make money, and you’re an inexperien⁠—”

“That’s why I see the true situation so clearly,” Martin said. “The trouble with you is you draw a line between artistic genius and financial genius. To you, it’s merely routine when you work with the plastic medium of human minds, shaping them into an Ideal Audience. You are an ecological genius, Tolliver Watt! The true artist controls his environment, and gradually you, with a master’s consummate skill, shape that great mass of living, breathing humanity into a perfect audience.⁠ ⁠…”

“Sorry,” Watt said, but not, brusquely. “I really have no time⁠—ah⁠—”

“Your genius has gone long enough unrecognized,” Martin said hastily, letting admiration ring in his golden voice. “You assume that St. Cyr is your equal. You give him your own credit titles. Yet in your own mind you must have known that half the credit for his pictures is yours. Was Phidias noncommercial? Was Michelangelo? Commercialism is simply a label for functionalism, and all great artists produce functional art. The trivial details of Rubens’ masterpieces were filled in by assistants, were they not? But Rubens got the credit, not his hirelings. The proof of the pudding’s obvious. Why?” Cunningly gauging his listener, Martin here broke off.

“Why?” Watt asked.

“Sit down,” Martin urged. “I’ll tell you why. St. Cyr’s pictures make money, but you’re responsible for their molding into the ideal form, impressing your character-matrix upon everything and everyone at Summit Studios.⁠ ⁠…”

Slowly Watt sank into his chair. About his ears the hypnotic bursts of Disraelian rhodomontade thundered compellingly. For Martin had the man hooked. With unerring aim he had at the first try discovered Watt’s weakness⁠—the uncomfortable feeling in a professionally arty town that moneymaking is a basically contemptible business. Disraeli had handled tougher problems in his day. He had swayed Parliaments.

Watt swayed, tottered⁠—and fell. It took about ten minutes, all in all. By the end of that time, dizzy with eloquent praise of his economic ability, Watt had realized that while St. Cyr might be an artistic genius, he had no business interfering in the plans of an economic genius. Nobody told Watt what to do when economics were concerned.

“You have the broad vision that can balance all possibilities and show the right path with perfect clarity,” Martin said glibly. “Very well. You wish Eden. You feel⁠—do you not?⁠—that I am unsuitable material. Only geniuses can change their plans with instantaneous speed.⁠ ⁠… When will my contract release be ready?”

“What?” said Watt, in a swimming, glorious daze. “Oh. Of course. Hm‑m. Your contract release. Well, now⁠—”

“St. Cyr would stubbornly cling to past errors until Summit goes broke,” Martin pointed out. “Only a genius like Tolliver Watt strikes when the iron is hot, when he sees a chance to exchange failure for success, a Martin for an Eden.”

“Hm‑m,” Watt said. “Yes. Very well, then.” His long face grew shrewd. “Very, well, you get your release⁠—after I’ve signed Eden.”

“There you put your finger on the heart of the matter,” Martin approved, after a very brief moment of somewhat dashed thought. “Miss Eden is still undecided. If you left the transaction to somebody like St. Cyr, say, it would be botched. Erika, you have your car here? How quickly could you drive Tolliver Watt to Laguna? He’s the only person with the skill to handle this situation.”

“What situa⁠—oh, yes. Of course, Nick. We could start right away.”

“But⁠—” Watt said.

The Disraeli-matrix swept on into oratorical periods that made the walls ring. The golden tongue played arpeggios with logic.

“I see,” the dazed Watt murmured, allowing himself to be shepherded toward the door. “Yes, yes, of course. Then⁠—suppose you drop over to my place tonight, Martin. After I get the Eden signature, I’ll have your release prepared. Hm‑m. Functional genius.⁠ ⁠…” His voice fell to a low, crooning mutter, and he moved quietly out of the door.

Martin laid a hand on Erika’s arm as she followed him.

“Wait a second,” he said. “Keep him away from the studio until we get the release. St. Cyr can still outshout me any time. But he’s hooked. We⁠—”

“Nick,” Erika said, looking searchingly into his face. “What’s happened?”

“Tell you tonight,” Martin said hastily, hearing a distant bellow that might be the voice of St. Cyr approaching. “When I have time I’m going to sweep you off your feet. Did you know that I’ve worshipped you from afar all my life? But right now, get Watt out of the way. Hurry!”

Erika cast a glance of amazed bewilderment at him as he thrust her out of the door. Martin thought there was a certain element of pleasure in the surprise.

“Where is Tolliver?” The loud, annoyed roar of St. Cyr made Martin wince. The director was displeased, it appeared, because only in Costumes could a pair of trousers be found large enough to fit him. He took it as a personal affront. “What have you done with Tolliver?” he bellowed.

“Louder, please,” Martin said insolently. “I can’t hear you.”

“DeeDee,” St. Cyr shouted, whirling toward the lovely star, who hadn’t stirred from her rapturous admiration of DeeDee in technicolor overhead. “Where is Tolliver?”

Martin started. He had quite forgotten DeeDee.

“You don’t know, do you, DeeDee?” he prompted quickly.

“Shut up,” St. Cyr snapped. “Answer me, you⁠—” He added a brisk polysyllable in Mixo-Lydian, with the desired effect. DeeDee wrinkled her flawless brow.

“Tolliver went away, I think. I’ve got it mixed up with the picture. He went home to meet Nick Martin, didn’t he?”

“See?” Martin interrupted, relieved. “No use expecting DeeDee to⁠—”

“But Martin is here!” St. Cyr shouted. “Think, think!”

“Was the contract release in the rushes?” DeeDee asked vaguely.

“A contract release?” St. Cyr roared. “What is this? Never will I permit it, never, never, never! DeeDee, answer me⁠—where has Watt gone?”

“He went somewhere with that agent,” DeeDee said. “Or was that in the rushes too?”

“But where, where, where?”

“They went to Atlantis,” DeeDee announced with an air of faint triumph.

“No!” shouted St. Cyr. “That was the picture! The mermaid came from Atlantis, not Watt!”

“Tolliver didn’t say he was coming from Atlantis,” DeeDee murmured, unruffled. “He said he was going to Atlantis. Then he was going to meet Nick Martin at his house tonight and give him his contract release.”

“When?” St. Cyr demanded furiously. “Think, DeeDee? What time did⁠—”

“DeeDee,” Martin said, stepping forward with suave confidence, “you can’t remember a thing, can you?” But DeeDee was too subnormal to react even to a Disraeli-matrix. She merely smiled placidly at him.

“Out of my way, you writer!” roared St. Cyr, advancing upon Martin. “You will get no contract release! You do not waste St. Cyr’s time and get away with it! This I will not endure. I fix you as I fixed Ed Cassidy!”

Martin drew himself up and froze St. Cyr with an insolent smile. His hand toyed with an imaginary monocle. Golden periods were hanging at the end of his tongue. There only remained to hypnotize St. Cyr as he had hypnotized Watt. He drew a deep breath to unlease the floods of his eloquence⁠—

And St. Cyr, also too subhuman to be impressed by urbanity, hit Martin a clout on the jaw.

It could never have happened in the British Parliament.

III

When the robot walked into Martin’s office that evening, he, or it, went directly to the desk, unscrewed the bulb from the lamp, pressed the switch, and stuck his finger into the socket. There was a crackling flash. ENIAC withdrew his finger and shook his metallic head violently.

“I needed that,” he sighed. “I’ve been on the go all day, by the Kaldekooz time-scale. Paleolithic, Neolithic, Technological⁠—I don’t even know what time it is. Well, how’s your ecological adjustment getting on?”

Martin rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Badly,” he said. “Tell me, did Disraeli, as Prime Minister, ever have any dealings with a country called Mixo-Lydia?”

“I have no idea,” said the robot. “Why do you ask?”

“Because my environment hauled back and took a poke at my jaw,” Martin said shortly.

“Then you provoked it,” ENIAC countered. “A crisis⁠—a situation of stress⁠—always brings a man’s dominant trait to the fore, and Disraeli was dominantly courageous. Under stress, his courage became insolence. But he was intelligent enough to arrange his environment so insolence would be countered on the semantic level. Mixo-Lydia, eh? I place it vaguely, some billions of years ago, when it was inhabited by giant white apes. Or⁠—oh, now I remember. It’s an encysted medieval survival, isn’t it?”

Martin nodded.

“So is this movie studio,” the robot said. “Your trouble is that you’ve run up against somebody who’s got a better optimum ecological adjustment than you have. That’s it. This studio environment is just emerging from medievalism, so it can easily slip back into that plenum when an optimum medievalist exerts pressure. Such types caused the Dark Ages. Well, you’d better change your environment to a neo-technological one, where the Disraeli matrix can be successfully pro-survival. In your era, only a few archaic social-encystments like this studio are feudalistic, so go somewhere else. It takes a feudalist to match a feudalist.”

“But I can’t go somewhere else,” Martin complained. “Not without my contract release. I was supposed to pick it up tonight, but St. Cyr found out what was happening, and he’ll throw a monkey-wrench in the works if he has to knock me out again to do it. I’m due at Watt’s place now, but St. Cyr’s already there⁠—”

“Spare me the trivia,” the robot said, raising his hand. “As for this St. Cyr, if he’s a medieval character-type, obviously he’ll knuckle under only to a stronger man of his own kind.”

“How would Disraeli have handled this?” Martin demanded.

“Disraeli would never have got into such a situation in the first place,” the robot said unhelpfully. “The ecologizer can give you the ideal ecological differential, but only for your own type, because otherwise it wouldn’t be your optimum. Disraeli would have been a failure in Russia in Ivan’s time.”

“Would you mind clarifying that?” Martin asked thoughtfully.

“Certainly,” the robot said with great rapidity. “It all depends on the threshold-response-time of the memory-circuits in the brain, if you assume the identity of the basic chromosome-pattern. The strength of neuronic activation varies in inverse proportion to the quantative memory factor. Only actual experience could give you Disraeli’s memories, but your reactivity-thresholds have been altered until perception and emotional-indices approximate the Disraeli ratio.”

“Oh,” Martin said. “But how would you, say, assert yourself against a medieval steam-shovel?”

“By plugging my demountable brain into a larger steam-shovel,” ENIAC told him.

Martin seemed pensive. His hand rose, adjusting an invisible monocle, while a look of perceptive imagination suddenly crossed his face.

“You mentioned Russia in Ivan’s time,” he said. “Which Ivan would that be? Not, by any chance⁠—?”

“Ivan the Fourth. Very well adjusted to his environment he was, too. However, enough of this chitchat. Obviously you’ll be one of the failures in our experiment, but our aim is to strike an average, so if you’ll put the ecologizer on your⁠—”

“That was Ivan the Terrible, wasn’t it?” Martin interrupted. “Look here, could you impress the character-matrix of Ivan the Terrible on my brain?”

“That wouldn’t help you a bit,” the robot said. “Besides, it’s not the purpose of the experiment. Now⁠—”

“One moment. Disraeli can’t cope with a medievalist like St. Cyr on his own level, but if I had Ivan the Terrible’s reactive thresholds, I’ll bet I could throw a bluff that might do the trick. Even though St. Cyr’s bigger than I am, he’s got a veneer of civilization⁠ ⁠… now wait. He trades on that. He’s always dealt with people who are too civilized to use his own methods. The trick would be to call his bluff. And Ivan’s the man who could do it.”

“But you don’t understand.”

“Didn’t everybody in Russia tremble with fear at Ivan’s name?”

“Yes, in⁠—”

“Very well, then,” Martin said triumphantly. “You’re going to impress the character-matrix, of Ivan the Terrible on my mind, and then I’m going to put the bite on St. Cyr, the way Ivan would have done it. Disraeli’s simply too civilized. Size is a factor, but character’s more important. I don’t look like Disraeli, but people have been reacting to me as though I were George Arliss down to the spit-curl. A good big man can always lick a good little man. But St. Cyr’s never been up against a really uncivilized little man⁠—one who’d gladly rip out an enemy’s heart with his bare hands.” Martin nodded briskly. “St. Cyr will back down⁠—I’ve found that out. But it would take somebody like Ivan to make him stay all the way down.”

“If you think I’m going to impress Ivan’s matrix on you, you’re wrong,” the robot said.

“You couldn’t be talked into it?”

“I,” said ENIAC, “am a robot, semantically adjusted. Of course you couldn’t talk me into it.”

Perhaps not, Martin reflected, but Disraeli⁠—hm‑m. “Man is a machine.” Why, Disraeli was the one person in the world ideally fitted for robot-coercion. To him, men were machines⁠—and what was ENIAC?

“Let’s talk this over⁠—” Martin began, absently pushing the desk-lamp toward the robot. And then the golden tongue that had swayed empires was loosed.⁠ ⁠…

“You’re not going to like this,” the robot said dazedly, sometime later. “Ivan won’t do at⁠ ⁠… oh, you’ve got me all confused. You’ll have to eyeprint a⁠—” He began to pull out of his sack the helmet and the quarter-mile of red ribbon.

“To tie up my bonny grey brain,” Martin said, drunk with his own rhetoric. “Put it on my head. That’s right. Ivan the Terrible, remember. I’ll fix St. Cyr’s Mixo-Lydian wagon.”

“Differential depends on environment as much as on heredity,” the robot muttered, clapping the helmet on Martin’s head. “Though naturally Ivan wouldn’t have had the Tsardom environment without his particular heredity, involving Helena Glinska⁠—there!” He removed the helmet.

“But nothing’s happening,” Martin said. “I don’t feel any different.”

“It’ll take a few moments. This isn’t your basic character-pattern, remember, as Disraeli’s was. Enjoy yourself while you can. You’ll get the Ivan-effect soon enough.” He shouldered the sack and headed uncertainly for the door.

“Wait,” Martin said uneasily. “Are you sure⁠—”

“Be quiet. I forgot something⁠—some formality⁠—now I’m all confused. Well, I’ll think of it later, or earlier, as the case may be. I’ll see you in twelve hours⁠—I hope.”

The robot departed. Martin shook his head tentatively from side to side. Then he got up and followed ENIAC to the door. But there was no sign of the robot, except for a diminishing whirlwind of dust in the middle of the corridor.

Something began to happen in Martin’s brain.⁠ ⁠…

Behind him, the telephone rang.

Martin heard himself gasp with pure terror. With a sudden, impossible, terrifying, absolute certainty he knew who was telephoning.

Assassins!

“Yes, Mr. Martin,” said Tolliver Watt’s butler to the telephone. “Miss Ashby is here. She is with Mr. Watt and Mr. St. Cyr at the moment, but I will give her your message. You are detained. And she is to call for you⁠—where?”

“The broom-closet on the second floor of the Writers’ Building,” Martin said in a quavering voice. “It’s the only one near a telephone with a long enough cord so I could take the phone in here with me. But I’m not at all certain that I’m safe. I don’t like the looks of that broom on my left.”

“Sir?”

“Are you sure you’re Tolliver Watt’s butler?” Martin demanded nervously.

“Quite sure, Mr.⁠—eh⁠—Mr. Martin.”

“I am Mr. Martin,” cried Martin with terrified defiance. “By all the laws of God and man, Mr. Martin I am and Mr. Martin I will remain, in spite of all attempts by rebellious dogs to depose me from my rightful place.”

“Yes, sir. The broom-closet, you say, sir?”

“The broom-closet. Immediately. But swear not to tell another soul, no matter how much you’re threatened. I’ll protect you.”

“Very well, sir. Is that all?”

“Yes. Tell Miss Ashby to hurry. Hang up now. The line may be tapped. I have enemies.”

There was a click. Martin replaced his own receiver and furtively surveyed the broom-closet. He told himself that this was ridiculous. There was nothing to be afraid of, was there? True, the broom-closet’s narrow walls were closing in upon him alarmingly, while the ceiling descended.⁠ ⁠…

Panic-stricken, Martin emerged from the closet, took a long breath, and threw back his shoulders. “N‑not a thing to be afraid of,” he said. “Who’s afraid?” Whistling, he began to stroll down the hall toward the staircase, but midway agoraphobia overcame him, and his nerve broke.

He ducked into his own office and sweated quietly in the dark until he had mustered up enough courage to turn on a lamp.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, in its glass-fronted cabinet, caught his eye. With noiseless haste, Martin secured Italy to Lord and opened the volume at his desk. Something, obviously, was very, very wrong. The robot had said that Martin wasn’t going to like being Ivan the Terrible, come to think of it. But was Martin wearing Ivan’s character-matrix? Perhaps he’d got somebody else’s matrix by mistake⁠—that of some arrant coward. Or maybe the Mad Tsar of Russia had really been called Ivan the Terrified. Martin flipped the rustling pages nervously. Ivan, Ivan⁠—here it was.

Son of Helena Glinska⁠ ⁠… married Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina⁠ ⁠… private life unspeakably abominable⁠ ⁠… memory astonishing, energy indefatigable, ungovernable fury⁠—great natural ability, political foresight, anticipated the ideals of Peter the Great⁠—Martin shook his head.

Then he caught his breath at the next line.

Ivan had lived in an atmosphere of apprehension, imagining that every man’s hand was against him.

“Just like me,” Martin murmured. “But⁠—but there was more to Ivan than just cowardice. I don’t understand.”

“Differential,” the robot had said, “depends on environment as much as on heredity. Though naturally Ivan wouldn’t have had the Tsardom environment without his particular heredity.”

Martin sucked in his breath sharply. Environment does make a difference. No doubt Ivan IV had been a fearful coward, but heredity plus environment had given Ivan the one great weapon that had enabled him to keep his cowardice a recessive trait.

Ivan the Terrible had been Tsar of all the Russias.

Give a coward a gun, and, while he doesn’t stop being a coward, it won’t show in the same way. He may act like a violent, aggressive tyrant instead. That, of course, was why Ivan had been ecologically successful⁠—in his specialized environment. He’d never run up against many stresses that brought his dominant trait to the fore. Like Disraeli, he had been able to control his environment so that such stresses were practically eliminated.

Martin turned green.

Then he remembered Erika. Could he get Erika to keep St. Cyr busy, somehow, while he got his contract release from Watt? As long as he could avoid crises, he could keep his nerve from crumbling, but⁠—there were assassins everywhere!

Erika was on her way to the lot by now. Martin swallowed.

He would meet her outside the studio. The broom-closet wasn’t safe. He could be trapped there like a rat⁠—

“Nonsense,” Martin told himself with shivering firmness. “This isn’t me. All I have to do is get a g‑grip on m‑myself. Come, now. Buck up. Toujours l’audace!”

But he went out of his office and downstairs very softly and cautiously. After all, one never knew. And when every man’s hand was against one.⁠ ⁠…

Quaking, the character-matrix of Ivan the Terrible stole toward a studio gate.

The taxi drove rapidly toward Bel-Air.

“But what were you doing up that tree?” Erika demanded.

Martin shook violently.

“A werewolf,” he chattered. “And a vampire and a ghoul and⁠—I saw them, I tell you. There I was at the studio gate, and they all came at me in a mob.”

“But they were just coming back from dinner,” Erika said. “You know Summit’s doing night shooting on Abbott and Costello Meet Everybody. Karloff wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I kept telling myself that,” Martin said dully, “but I was out of my mind with guilt and fear. You see, I’m an abominable monster. But it’s not my fault. It’s environmental. I grew up in brutal and degrading conditions⁠—oh, look!” He pointed toward a traffic cop ahead. “The police! Traitors even in the palace guards!”

“Lady, is that guy nuts?” the cabbie demanded.

“Mad or sane, I am Nicholas Martin,” Martin announced, with an abrupt volte face. He tried to stand up commandingly, bumped his head, screamed “Assassins!” and burrowed into a corner of the seat, panting horribly.

Erika gave him a thoughtful, worried look.

“Nick,” she said, “how much have you had to drink? What’s wrong?”

Martin shut his eyes and lay back against the cushions.

“Let me have a few minutes, Erika,” he pleaded. “I’ll be all right as soon as I recover from stress. It’s only when I’m under stress that Ivan⁠—”

“You can accept your contract release from Watt, can’t you? Surely you’ll be able to manage that.”

“Of course,” Martin said with feeble bravery. He thought it over and reconsidered. “If I can hold your hand,” he suggested, taking no chances.

This disgusted Erika so much that for two miles there was no more conversation within the cab.

Erika had been thinking her own thoughts.

“You’ve certainly changed since this morning,” she observed. “Threatening to make love to me, of all things. As if I’d stand for it. I’d like to see you try.” There was a pause. Erika slid her eyes sidewise toward Martin. “I said I’d like to see you try,” she repeated.

“Oh, you would, would you?” Martin said with hollow valor. He paused. Oddly enough his tongue, hitherto frozen stiff on one particular subject in Erika’s presence, was now thoroughly loosened. Martin wasted no time on theory. Seizing his chance before a new stress might unexpectedly arise, he instantly poured out his heart to Erika, who visibly softened.

“But why didn’t you ever say so before?” she asked.

“I can’t imagine,” Martin said. “Then you’ll marry me?”

“But why were you acting so⁠—”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Erika said, and there was a pause. Martin moistened his lips, discovering that somehow he and Erika had moved close together. He was about to seal the bargain in the customary manner when a sudden thought struck him and made him draw back with a little start.

Erika opened her eyes.

“Ah⁠—” said Martin. “Um. I just happened to remember. There’s a bad flu epidemic in Chicago. Epidemics spread like wildfire, you know. Why, it could be in Hollywood by now⁠—especially with the prevailing westerly winds.”

“I’m damned if I’m going to be proposed to and not kissed,” Erika said in a somewhat irritated tone. “You kiss me!”

“But I might give you bubonic plague,” Martin said nervously. “Kissing spreads germs. It’s a well-known fact.”

“Nick!”

“Well⁠—I don’t know⁠—when did you last have a cold?”

Erika pulled away from him and went to sit in the other corner.

“Ah,” Martin said, after a long silence. “Erika?”

“Don’t talk to me, you miserable man,” Erika said. “You monster, you.”

“I can’t help it,” Martin cried wildly. “I’ll be a coward for twelve hours. It’s not my fault. After eight tomorrow morning I’ll⁠—I’ll walk into a lion-cage if you want, but tonight I’m as yellow as Ivan the Terrible! At least let me tell you what’s been happening.”

Erika said nothing. Martin instantly plunged into his long and improbable tale.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Erika said, when he had finished. She shook her head sharply. “Just the same, I’m still your agent, and your career’s still my responsibility. The first and only thing we have to do is get your contract release from Tolliver Watt. And that’s all we’re going to consider right now, do you hear?”

“But St. Cyr⁠—”

“I’ll do all the talking. You won’t have to say a word. If St. Cyr tries to bully you, I’ll handle him. But you’ve got to be there with me, or St. Cyr will make that an excuse to postpone things again. I know him.”

“Now I’m under stress again,” Martin said wildly. “I can’t stand it. I’m not the Tsar of Russia.”

“Lady,” said the cabdriver, looking back, “if I was you, I’d sure as hell break off that engagement.”

“Heads will roll for this,” Martin said ominously.

“By mutual consent, agree to terminate⁠ ⁠… yes,” Watt said, affixing his name to the legal paper that lay before him on the desk. “That does it. But where in the world is that fellow Martin? He came in with you, I’m certain.”

“Did he?” Erika asked, rather wildly. She too, was wondering how Martin had managed to vanish so miraculously from her side. Perhaps he had crept with lightning rapidity under the carpet. She forced her mind from the thought and reached for the contract release Watt was folding.

“Wait,” St. Cyr said, his lower lip jutting. “What about a clause giving us an option on Martin’s next play?”

Watt paused, and the director instantly struck home.

“Whatever it may be, I can turn it into a vehicle for DeeDee, eh, DeeDee?” He lifted a sausage finger at the lovely star, who nodded obediently.

“It’s going to have an all-male cast,” Erika said hastily. “And we’re discussing contract releases, not options.”

“He would give me an option if I had him here,” St. Cyr growled, torturing his cigar horribly. “Why does everything conspire against an artist?” He waved a vast, hairy fist in the air. “Now I must break in a new writer, which is a great waste. Within a fortnight Martin would have been a St. Cyr writer. In fact, it is still possible.”

“I’m afraid not, Raoul,” Watt said resignedly. “You really shouldn’t have hit Martin at the studio today.”

“But⁠—but he would not dare charge me with assault. In Mixo-Lydia⁠—”

“Why, hello, Nick,” DeeDee said, with a bright smile. “What are you hiding behind those curtains for?”

Every eye was turned toward the window draperies, just in time to see the white, terrified face of Nicholas Martin flip out of sight like a scared chipmunk’s. Erika, her heart dropping, said hastily, “Oh, that isn’t Nick. It doesn’t look a bit like him. You made a mistake, DeeDee.”

“Did I?” DeeDee asked, perfectly willing to agree.

“Certainly,” Erika said, reaching for the contract release in Watt’s hand. “Now if you’ll just let me have this, I’ll⁠—”

“Stop!” cried St. Cyr in a bull’s bellow. Head sunk between his heavy shoulders, he lumbered to the window and jerked the curtains aside.

“Ha!” the director said in a sinister voice. “Martin.”

“It’s a lie,” Martin said feebly, making a desperate attempt to conceal his stress-triggered panic. “I’ve abdicated.”

St. Cyr, who had stepped back a pace, was studying Martin carefully. Slowly the cigar in his mouth began to tilt upwards. An unpleasant grin widened the director’s mouth.

He shook a finger under Martin’s quivering nostrils.

“You!” he said. “Tonight it is a different tune, eh? Today you were drunk. Now I see it all. Valorous with pots, like they say.”

“Nonsense,” Martin said, rallying his courage by a glance at Erika. “Who say? Nobody but you would say a thing like that. Now what’s this all about?”

“What were you doing behind that curtain?” Watt asked.

“I wasn’t behind the curtain,” Martin said, with great bravado. “You were. All of you. I was in front of the curtain. Can I help it if the whole lot of you conceal yourselves behind curtains in a library, like⁠—like conspirators?” The word was unfortunately chosen. A panicky light flashed into Martin’s eyes. “Yes, conspirators,” he went on nervously. “You think I don’t know, eh? Well, I do. You’re all assassins, plotting and planning. So this is your headquarters, is it? All night your hired dogs have been at my heels, driving me like a wounded caribou to⁠—”

“We’ve got to be going,” Erika said desperately. “There’s just time to catch the next carib⁠—the next plane east.” She reached for the contract release, but Watt suddenly put it in his pocket. He turned his chair toward Martin.

“Will you give us an option on your next play?” he demanded.

“Of course he will give us an option!” St. Cyr said, studying Martin’s air of bravado with an experienced eye. “Also, there is to be no question of a charge of assault, for, if there is I will beat you. So it is in Mixo-Lydia. In fact, you do not even want a release from your contract, Martin. It is all a mistake. I will turn you into a St. Cyr writer, and all will be well. So. Now you will ask Tolliver to tear up that release, will you not⁠—ha?”

“Of course you won’t, Nick,” Erika cried. “Say so!”

There was a pregnant silence. Watt watched with sharp interest. So did the unhappy Erika, torn between her responsibility as Martin’s agent and her disgust at the man’s abject cowardice. DeeDee watched too, her eyes very wide and a cheerful smile upon her handsome face. But the battle was obviously between Martin and Raoul St. Cyr.

Martin drew himself up desperately. Now or never he must force himself to be truly Terrible. Already he had a troubled expression, just like Ivan. He strove to look sinister too. An enigmatic smile played around his lips. For an instant he resembled the Mad Tsar of Russia, except, of course, that he was clean-shaven. With contemptuous, regal power Martin stared down the Mixo-Lydian.

“You will tear up that release and sign an agreement giving us option on your next play too, ha?” St. Cyr said⁠—but a trifle uncertainly.

“I’ll do as I please,” Martin told him. “How would you like to be eaten alive by dogs?”

“I don’t know, Raoul,” Watt said. “Let’s try to get this settled even if⁠—”

“Do you want me to go over to Metro and take DeeDee with me?” St. Cyr cried, turning toward Watt. “He will sign!” And, reaching into an inner pocket for a pen, the burly director swung back toward Martin.

“Assassin!” cried Martin, misinterpreting the gesture.

A gloating smile appeared on St. Cyr’s revolting features.

“Now we have him, Tolliver,” he said, with heavy triumph, and these ominous words added the final stress to Martin’s overwhelming burden. With a mad cry he rushed past St. Cyr, wrenched open a door, and fled.

From behind him came Erika’s Valkyrie voice.

“Leave him alone! Haven’t you done enough already? Now I’m going to get that contract release from you before I leave this room, Tolliver Watt, and I warn you, St. Cyr, if you⁠—”

But by then Martin was five rooms away, and the voice faded. He darted on, hopelessly trying to make himself slow down and return to the scene of battle. The pressure was too strong. Terror hurled him down a corridor, into another room, and against a metallic object from which he rebounded, to find himself sitting on the floor looking up at ENIAC Gamma the Ninety-Third.

“Ah, there you are,” the robot said. “I’ve been searching all over space-time for you. You forgot to give me a waiver of responsibility when you talked me into varying the experiment. The Authorities would be in my gears if I didn’t bring back an eyeprinted waiver when a subject’s scratched by variance.”

With a frightened glance behind him, Martin rose to his feet.

“What?” he asked confusedly. “Listen, you’ve got to change me back to myself. Everyone’s trying to kill me. You’re just in time. I can’t wait twelve hours. Change me back to myself, quick!”

“Oh, I’m through with you,” the robot said callously. “You’re no longer a suitably unconditioned subject, after that last treatment you insisted on. I should have got the waiver from you then, but you got me all confused with Disraeli’s oratory. Now here. Just hold this up to your left eye for twenty seconds.” He extended a flat, glittering little metal disk. “It’s already sensitized and filled out. It only needs your eyeprint. Affix it, and you’ll never see me again.”

Martin shrank away.

“But what’s going to happen to me?” he quavered, swallowing.

“How should I know? After twelve hours, the treatment will wear off, and you’ll be yourself again. Hold this up to your eye, now.”

“I will if you’ll change me back to myself,” Martin haggled.

“I can’t. It’s against the rules. One variance is bad enough, even with a filed waiver, but two? Oh, no. Hold this up to your left eye⁠—”

“No,” Martin said with feeble firmness. “I won’t.”

ENIAC studied him.

“Yes, you will,” the robot said finally, “or I’ll go boo at you.”

Martin paled slightly, but he shook his head in desperate determination.

“No,” he said doggedly. “Unless I get rid of Ivan’s matrix right now, Erika will never marry me and I’ll never get my contract release from Watt. All you have to do is put that helmet on my head and change me back to myself. Is that too much to ask?”

“Certainly, of a robot,” ENIAC said stiffly. “No more shilly-shallying. It’s lucky you are wearing the Ivan-matrix, so I can impose my will on you. Put your eyeprint on this. Instantly!”

Martin rushed behind the couch and hid. The robot advanced menacingly. And at that moment, pushed to the last ditch, Martin suddenly remembered something.

He faced the robot.

“Wait,” he said. “You don’t understand. I can’t eyeprint that thing. It won’t work on me. Don’t you realize that? It’s supposed to take the eyeprint⁠—”

“⁠—of the rod-and-cone pattern of the retina,” the robot said. “So⁠—”

“So how can it do that unless I can keep my eye open for twenty seconds? My perceptive reaction-thresholds are Ivan’s aren’t they? I can’t control the reflex of blinking. I’ve got a coward’s synapses. And they’d force me to shut my eyes tight the second that gimmick got too close to them.”

“Hold them open,” the robot suggested. “With your fingers.”

“My fingers have reflexes too,” Martin argued, moving toward a sideboard. “There’s only one answer. I’ve got to get drunk. If I’m half stupefied with liquor, my reflexes will be so slow I won’t be able to shut my eyes. And don’t try to use force, either. If I dropped dead with fear, how could you get my eyeprint then?”

“Very easily,” the robot said. “I’d pry open your lids⁠—”

Martin hastily reached for a bottle on the sideboard, and a glass. But his hand swerved aside and gripped, instead, a siphon of soda water.

“⁠—only,” ENIAC went on, “the forgery might be detected.”

Martin fizzled the glass full of soda and took a long drink.

“I won’t be long getting drunk,” he said, his voice thickening. “In fact, it’s beginning to work already. See? I’m cooperating.”

The robot hesitated.

“Well, hurry up about it,” he said, and sat down.

Martin, about to take another drink, suddenly paused, staring at ENIAC. Then, with a sharply indrawn breath, he lowered the glass.

“What’s the matter now?” the robot asked. “Drink your⁠—what is it?”

“It’s whiskey,” Martin told the inexperienced automaton, “but now I see it all. You’ve put poison in it. So that’s your plan, is it? Well, I won’t touch another drop, and now you’ll never get my eyeprint. I’m no fool.”

“Cog Almighty,” the robot said, rising. “You poured that drink yourself. How could I have poisoned it? Drink!”

“I won’t,” Martin said, with a coward’s stubbornness, fighting back the growing suspicion that the drink might really be toxic.

“You swallow that drink,” ENIAC commanded, his voice beginning to quiver slightly. “It’s perfectly harmless.”

“Then prove it!” Martin said cunningly. “Would you be willing to switch glasses? Would you drink this poisoned brew yourself?”

“How do you expect me to drink?” the robot demanded. “I⁠—” He paused. “All right, hand me the glass,” he said. “I’ll take a sip. Then you’ve got to drink the rest of it.”

“Aha!” Martin said. “You betrayed yourself that time. You’re a robot. You can’t drink, remember? Not the same way that I can, anyhow. Now I’ve got you trapped, you assassin. There’s your brew.” He pointed to a floor-lamp. “Do you dare to drink with me now, in your electrical fashion, or do you admit you are trying to poison me? Wait a minute, what am I saying? That wouldn’t prove a⁠—”

“Of course it would,” the robot said hastily. “You’re perfectly right, and it’s very cunning of you. We’ll drink together, and that will prove your whiskey’s harmless⁠—so you’ll keep on drinking till your reflexes slow down, see?”

“Well,” Martin began uncertainly, but the unscrupulous robot unscrewed a bulb from the floor lamp, pulled the switch, and inserted his finger into the empty socket, which caused a crackling flash. “There,” the robot said. “It isn’t poisoned, see?”

“You’re not swallowing it,” Martin said suspiciously. “You’re holding it in your mouth⁠—I mean your finger.”

ENIAC again probed the socket.

“Well, all right, perhaps,” Martin said, in a doubtful fashion. “But I’m not going to risk your slipping a powder in my liquor, you traitor. You’re going to keep up with me, drink for drink, until I can eyeprint that gimmick of yours⁠—or else I stop drinking. But does sticking your finger in that lamp really prove my liquor isn’t poisoned? I can’t quite⁠—”

“Of course it does,” the robot said quickly. “I’ll prove it. I’ll do it again⁠ ⁠… f(t). Powerful DC, isn’t it? Certainly it proves it. Keep drinking, now.”

His gaze watchfully on the robot, Martin lifted his glass of club soda.

“F ff ff f(t)!” cried the robot, some time later, sketching a singularly loose smile on its metallic face.

“Best fermented mammoth’s milk I ever tasted,” Martin agreed, lifting his tenth glass of soda-water. He felt slightly queasy and wondered if he might be drowning.

“Mammoth’s milk?” asked ENIAC thickly. “What year is this?”

Martin drew a long breath. Ivan’s capacious memory had served him very well so far. Voltage, he recalled, increased the frequency of the robot’s thought-patterns and disorganized ENIAC’s memory⁠—which was being proved before his eyes. But the crux of his plan was yet to come.⁠ ⁠…

“The year of the great Hairy One, of course,” Martin said briskly. “Don’t you remember?”

“Then you⁠—” ENIAC strove to focus upon his drinking-companion. “You must be Mammoth-Slayer.”

“That’s it!” Martin cried. “Have another jolt. What about giving me the treatment now?”

“What treatment?”

Martin looked impatient. “You said you were going to impose the character-matrix of Mammoth-Slayer on my mind. You said that would insure my optimum ecological adjustment in this temporal phase, and nothing else would.”

“Did I? But you’re not Mammoth-Slayer,” ENIAC said confusedly. “Mammoth-Slayer was the son of the Great Hairy One. What’s your mother’s name?”

“The Great Hairy One,” Martin replied, at which the robot grated its hand across its gleaming forehead.

“Have one more jolt,” Martin suggested. “Now take out the ecologizer and put it on my head.”

“Like this?” ENIAC asked, obeying. “I keep feeling I’ve forgotten something important. F (t).”

Martin adjusted the crystal helmet on his skull. “Now,” he commanded. “Give me the character-matrix of Mammoth-Slayer, son of the Great Hairy One.”

“Well⁠—all right,” ENIAC said dizzily. The red ribbons swirled. There was a flash from the helmet. “There,” the robot said. “It’s done. It may take a few minutes to begin functioning, but then for twelve hours you’ll⁠—wait! Where are you going?”

But Martin had already departed.

The robot stuffed the helmet and the quarter-mile of red ribbon back for the last time. He lurched to the floor-lamp, muttering something about one for the road. Afterward, the room lay empty. A fading murmur said, “F(t).”

“Nick!” Erika gasped, staring at the figure in the doorway. “Don’t stand like that! You frighten me!”

Everyone in the room looked up abruptly at her cry, and so were just in time to see a horrifying change take place in Martin’s shape. It was an illusion, of course, but an alarming one. His knees slowly bent until he was half-crouching, his shoulders slumped as though bowed by the weight of enormous back and shoulder muscles, and his arms swung forward until their knuckles hung perilously near the floor.

Nicholas Martin had at last achieved a personality whose ecological norm would put him on a level with Raoul St. Cyr.

“Nick!” Erika quavered.

Slowly Martin’s jaw protruded till his lower teeth were hideously visible. Gradually his eyelids dropped until he was peering up out of tiny, wicked sockets. Then, slowly, a perfectly shocking grin broadened Mr. Martin’s mouth.

“Erika,” he said throatily. “Mine!”

And with that, he shambled forward, seized the horrified girl in his arms, and bit her on the ear.

“Oh, Nick,” Erika murmured, closing her eyes. “Why didn’t you ever⁠—no, no, no! Nick! Stop it! The contract release. We’ve got to⁠—Nick, what are you doing?” She snatched at Martin’s departing form, but too late.

For all his ungainly and unpleasant gait, Martin covered ground fast. Almost instantly he was clambering over Watt’s desk as the most direct route to that startled tycoon. DeeDee looked on, a little surprised. St. Cyr lunged forward.

“In Mixo-Lydia⁠—” he began. “Ha! So!” He picked up Martin and threw him across the room.

“Oh, you beast,” Erika cried, and flung herself upon the director, beating at his brawny chest. On second thought, she used her shoes on his shins with more effect. St. Cyr, no gentleman, turned her around, pinioned her arms behind her, and glanced up at Watt’s alarmed cry.

“Martin! What are you doing?”

There was reason for his inquiry. Apparently unhurt by St. Cyr’s toss, Martin had hit the floor, rolled over and over like a ball, knocked down a floor-lamp with a crash, and uncurled, with an unpleasant expression on his face. He rose crouching, bandy-legged, his arms swinging low, a snarl curling his lips.

“You take my mate?” the pithecanthropic Mr. Martin inquired throatily, rapidly losing all touch with the twentieth century. It was a rhetorical question. He picked up the lamp-standard⁠—he did not have to bend to do it⁠—tore off the silk shade as he would have peeled foliage from a tree-limb, and balanced the weapon in his hand. Then he moved forward, carrying the lamp-standard like a spear.

“I,” said Martin, “kill.”

He then endeavored, with the most admirable single-heartedness, to carry out his expressed intention. The first thrust of the blunt, improvised spear rammed into St. Cyr’s solar plexus and drove him back against the wall with a booming thud. This seemed to be what Martin wanted. Keeping one end of his spear pressed into the director’s belly, he crouched lower, dug his toes into the rug, and did his very best to drill a hole in St. Cyr.

“Stop it!” cried Watt, flinging himself into the conflict. Ancient reflexes took over. Martin’s arm shot out. Watt shot off in the opposite direction.

The lamp broke.

Martin looked pensively at the pieces, tentatively began to bite one, changed his mind, and looked at St. Cyr instead. The gasping director, mouthing threats, curses and objections, drew himself up, and shook a huge fist at Martin.

“I,” he announced, “shall kill you with my bare hands. Then I go over to M.G.M. with DeeDee. In Mixo-Lydia⁠—”

Martin lifted his own fists toward his face. He regarded them. He unclenched them slowly, while a terrible grin spread across his face. And then, with every tooth showing, and with the hungry gleam of a mad tiger in his tiny little eyes, he lifted his gaze to St. Cyr’s throat.

Mammoth-Slayer was not the son of the Great Hairy One for nothing.

Martin sprang.

So did St. Cyr⁠—in another direction, screaming with sudden terror. For, after all, he was only a medievalist. The feudal man is far more civilized than the so-called man of Mammoth-Slayer’s primordially direct era, and as a man recoils from a small but murderous wildcat, so St. Cyr fled in sudden civilized horror from an attacker who was, literally, afraid of nothing.

He sprang through the window and, shrieking, vanished into the night.

Martin was taken by surprise. When Mammoth-Slayer leaped at an enemy, the enemy leaped at him too, and so Martin’s head slammed against the wall with disconcerting force. Dimly he heard diminishing, terrified cries. Laboriously he crawled to his feet and set back against the wall, snarling, quite ready.⁠ ⁠…

“Nick!” Erika’s voice called. “Nick, it’s me! Stop it! Stop it! DeeDee⁠—”

“Ugh?” Martin said thickly, shaking his head. “Kill.” He growled softly, blinking through red-rimmed little eyes at the scene around him. It swam back slowly into focus. Erika was struggling with DeeDee near the window.

“You let me go,” DeeDee cried. “Where Raoul goes, I go.”

“DeeDee!” pleaded a new voice. Martin glanced aside to see Tolliver Watt crumpled in a corner, a crushed lampshade half obscuring his face.

With a violent effort Martin straightened up. Walking upright seemed unnatural, somehow, but it helped submerge Mammoth-Slayer’s worst instincts. Besides, with St. Cyr gone, stresses were slowly subsiding, so that Mammoth-Slayer’s dominant trait was receding from the active foreground.

Martin tested his tongue cautiously, relieved to find he was still capable of human speech.

“Uh,” he said. “Arrgh⁠ ⁠… ah. Watt.”

Watt blinked at him anxiously through the lampshade.

“Urgh⁠ ⁠… Ur⁠—release,” Martin said, with a violent effort. “Contract release. Gimme.”

Watt had courage. He crawled to his feet, removing the lampshade.

“Contract release!” he snapped. “You madman! Don’t you realize what you’ve done? DeeDee’s walking out on me. DeeDee, don’t go. We will bring Raoul back⁠—”

“Raoul told me to quit if he quit,” DeeDee said stubbornly.

“You don’t have to do what St. Cyr tells you,” Erika said, hanging onto the struggling star.

“Don’t I?” DeeDee asked, astonished. “Yes, I do. I always have.”

“DeeDee,” Watt said frantically, “I’ll give you the finest contract on earth⁠—a ten-year contract⁠—look, here it is.” He tore out a well-creased document. “All you have to do is sign, and you can have anything you want. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“Oh, yes,” DeeDee said. “But Raoul wouldn’t like it.” She broke free from Erika.

“Martin!” Watt told the playwright frantically, “Get St. Cyr back. Apologize to him. I don’t care how, but get him back! If you don’t, I⁠—I’ll never give you your release.”

Martin was observed to slump slightly⁠—perhaps with hopelessness. Then, again, perhaps not.

“I’m sorry,” DeeDee said. “I liked working for you, Tolliver. But I have to do what Raoul says, of course.” And she moved toward the window.

Martin had slumped further down, till his knuckles quite brushed the rug. His angry little eyes, glowing with baffled rage, were fixed on DeeDee. Slowly his lips peeled back, exposing every tooth in his head.

“You,” he said, in an ominous growl.

DeeDee paused, but only briefly.

Then the enraged roar of a wild beast reverberated through the room. “You come back!” bellowed the infuriated Mammoth-Slayer, and with one agile bound sprang to the window, seized DeeDee and slung her under one arm. Wheeling, he glared jealously at the shrinking Watt and reached for Erika. In a trice he had the struggling forms of both girls captive, one under each arm. His wicked little eyes glanced from one to another. Then, playing no favorites, he bit each quickly on the ear.

“Nick!” Erika cried. “How dare you!”

“Mine,” Mammoth-Slayer informed her hoarsely.

“You bet I am,” Erika said, “but that works both ways. Put down that hussy you’ve got under your other arm.”

Mammoth-Slayer was observed to eye DeeDee doubtfully.

“Well,” Erika said tartly, “make up your mind.”

“Both,” said the uncivilized playwright. “Yes.”

“No!” Erika said.

“Yes,” DeeDee breathed in an entirely new tone. Limp as a dishrag, the lovely creature hung from Martin’s arm and gazed up at her captor with idolatrous admiration.

“Oh, you hussy,” Erika said. “What about St. Cyr?”

“Him,” DeeDee said scornfully. “He hasn’t got a thing, the sissy. I’ll never look at him again.” She turned her adoring gaze back to Martin.

“Pah,” the latter grunted, tossing DeeDee into Watt’s lap. “Yours. Keep her.” He grinned approvingly at Erika. “Strong she. Better.”

Both Watt and DeeDee remained motionless, staring at Martin.

“You,” he said, thrusting a finger at DeeDee. “You stay with him. Ha?” He indicated Watt.

DeeDee nodded in slavish adoration.

“You sign contract?”

Nod.

Martin looked significantly into Watt’s eyes. He extended his hand.

“The contract release,” Erika explained, upside-down. “Give it to him before he pulls your head off.”

Slowly Watt pulled the contract release from his pocket and held it out. But Martin was already shambling toward the window. Erika reached back hastily and snatched the document.

“That was a wonderful act,” she told Nick, as they reached the street. “Put me down now. We can find a cab some⁠—”

“No act,” Martin growled. “Real. Till tomorrow. After that⁠—” He shrugged. “But tonight, Mammoth-Slayer.” He attempted to climb a palm tree, changed his mind, and shambled on, carrying the now pensive Erika. But it was not until a police car drove past that Erika screamed.⁠ ⁠…

“I’ll bail you out tomorrow,” Erika told Mammoth-Slayer, struggling between two large patrolmen.

Her words were drowned in an infuriated bellow.

Thereafter events blurred, to solidify again for the irate Mammoth-Slayer only when he was thrown in a cell, where he picked himself up with a threatening roar. “I kill!” he announced, seizing the bars.

“Arrrgh!”

“Two in one night,” said a bored voice, moving away outside. “Both in Bel-Air, too. Think they’re hopped up? We couldn’t get a coherent story out of either one.”

The bars shook. An annoyed voice from one of the bunks said to shut up, and added that there had been already enough trouble from nincompoops without⁠—here it paused, hesitated, and uttered a shrill, sharp, piercing cry.

Silence prevailed, momentarily, in the cellblock as Mammoth-Slayer, son of the Great Hairy One, turned slowly to face Raoul St. Cyr.