by C. L. Moore
-
UNDER Brekkir's blunt fingers a picture flashed upon the screen. Alan watched with less than half his mind. He could see only the Carcasillians, blind and helpless and deadly dangerous, marching on the Terasi.
But as the pictures changed on the screen he found himself watching involuntarily. The world's surface, smooth and lifeless, slid past in panorama. He saw gigantic ruins, like nothing man's world had ever known. He saw death and desolation everywhere.
Once, he caught a glimpse of the great abnormal asymmetries of the citadel lifting against a misty sky, and curiosity suddenly burned in his mind about what lay inside it, but he knew he would never learn that now.
And once he saw the flash of a deep gorge, bottomless, vertiginous, its far side hidden in fog. And far away along it a moving white wall that drew nearer. Alan thought of a flood bursting down a dry arroyo. But this chasm was immeasurably vast, and the flood was deluge. Prismatic rainbows veiled it. Boiling, crashing, and seething like a hundred Niagaras, now, the mighty tide swept toward them, brimming the chasm.
Alan felt a faint tremble shake the floor. Sir Colin nodded.
"The sea-bed—what's left of it. The moon's verra close now, and its drag is tremendous. In a million years, it's cut a gorge across the planet. This is all that remains of the ocean. It follows the moon around the earth."
"That thunder we heard when we first left the ship," Alan remembered. "That was it?"
"Aye. Watch."
Vision after vision shifted across the screen. Desolation, ruin. And yet there was life here. Gigantic worm-shapes slid through the mists, and once one of the flying half-human things drifted down the slopes of air above the tidal chasm.
"No intelligence," Sir Colin murmured, pointing. "They follow the water and eat weeds and fish. They are no longer human."
More scenes changing on the screen. Gray dust, gray death ... And then, unexpectedly, a forest—green, lovely, veiled in silvery fog. A shallow pool where a fish rose in a ring of widening ripples. A small brown animal raced out of the underbrush and fled beyond the scanner's range.
Alan leaned forward, suddenly sick with a passion of longing for the past he would never see again. Green earth, lost springtime of the world! He could not speak for a moment.
"It is the past," Sir Colin said gravely. "A part of history, but a history we never saw. Perhaps a thousand years ago, perhaps more. It is the planet Venus." .
"The Aliens went there?"
"Aye. But they didna stay. No human life to feed them. They came back to earth and died here. But do ye na see it, Alan—Venus is habitable! Humans could live there!"
"A thousand years ago—"
"Or more—nothing in the life of a planet. We have records of the atmosphere on Venus, the elements, the water and food. Humans can live there, I tell ye, laddie! And now, perhaps will!" He lifted bony shoulders. "If what we hope is true. And if we live to prove it."
It was Karen who answered.
"The Aliens destroyed their space-ships, toward the end. Used up the metal for some other purpose, maybe, or maybe for the energy in them. For a long time the Terasi have known they could live on Venus if they had a ship and a power-source. Now there's a ship. The one that brought us here."
"Well, the ship's big enough to carry us all—Terasi too, I think. We could go to Venus and rebuild the race on a new world, if we had any power."
"It is a second chance for mankind," Sir Colin said gravely. "But—no power. No power in all the world. The Terasi checked that long ago. Only little scraps like those that keep these scanners going. Till I saw you, Alan, I had no idea that there might be a power-source left on earth."
"The fountain!" Alan said.
"Aye. The Terasi knew no Carcasillians until you came. They never guessed about the fountain. But there it is, and there must be a source to keep it burning. Enough to take a ship to Venus! That I know." Sir Colin struck a gnarled fist into his palm. "I have searched and studied here, and I'd stake my soul on that. If we could only take it out—power the ship with it!"
"What is the source?"
"I dinna quite know. Radioactivity, perhaps, yet something more. The Aliens brought it with them from the stars, and it's a strange stuff. I know a little from charts the robot-humans left here. A glowing little nucleus that consumes itself slowly and sends out radiations. Will ye bet there isn't one of them under that fountain in Carcasilla?" His voice shook as he spoke.
"That fountain—the Carcasillians live by it," Alan reminded him slowly.
"Aye, a sterile life. They'll never rebuild civilization. But the Terasi, now—they're strong enough to face hardships on the new world. And they have fine minds. If we could get back to Carcasilla—we canna be sentimental about this, Alan, laddie. That may be the last power-source on earth, and we maun use it to save mankind."
Alan nodded without speaking. Yes, they must take it if they could. There was nothing the Carcasillians could do to prevent them. All over the city, that violet light dying, the fountain of life fading, the delicate folk who were made for toys tasting mortality at last—hunger and thirst and death. The bubble city shivering in the cold winds from outside, its floating castles shattered, its colors dimmed. And Evaya in the gathering shadows—Evaya, with her eyes blank mirrors, through which the Light-Wearer stared!
Alan said harshly, "All right. What's the plan?"
It was Karen who laughed. "The plan? Why, keep the gongs going while we can, until the Alien breaks through and gets us." Her voice was brittle.
Sir Colin said evenly, as if she had not spoken, "The plan would be to get back into Carcasilla, I suppose—now, while the people are gone—and try to find what lies beneath the fountain and see if we can use it."
Alan said suddenly, "Flande! Flande won't be gone! Flande's no fragile toy for the Light-Wearer to command. And the Carcasillians aren't quite as helpless as we thought, not while Flande's alive. He'll prevent our taking away the power source, if only for his own safety!"
"Aye, Flande," Sir Colin said heavily. "I'd forgotten him. Flande's a force I haven't reckoned with. He's too enigmatic to fit in anywhere until we know who he is, or what. But Karen's right, laddie." The big shoulders of the older man sagged.
"We've got another problem here and now," he said, then. He nodded toward the screen upon which the flutter of gossamer garments was passing. "They must be nearly here. The Alien's making his last bid, you know. He'll have something—"
The brazen note of a gong thundered out from the cavern below them, cutting off his words. The echoes spread shuddering through the whole great space of the cave, and another gong answered them, deeper-toned, vibrating. And then another. A diapason of quivering metal, like the striking of shields, rose and bellowed and rent the air within the cavern with a mighty crashing.
Mike's hand went to his gun. "This is it."
Brekkir sprang to the stairway. They followed him dizzily upward, around and around, until the sloping roof opened before them. Far below lay the machine-city and the cavern floor.
-
THE deafening vibrations of beaten metal roared out, echoing and reechoing from the walls and the arched roof. Around them, on rooftops, in the streets, knots of Terasi were gathered about heavy plates that gleamed like brass. Crude sledges swung and crashed with resounding force against the gongs.
Booming, roaring, bellowing, the Terasi thundered their defiance to the last of the living gods.
Brekkir pointed. In the cracks that split the cavern walls, figures stirred. Pale figures, gossamer-robed. The Carcasillians, clambering like hundreds of ants above them.
Mike jerked out his pistol and fired, but Karen struck down his arm.
"Hold it! Save 'em, Mike. We haven't got too much ammunition."
Mike looked at her, paling. Karen shrugged. Then she looked up quickly as a thin lance of light shot down from the distant cavern wall. It touched a platform nearby, where Terasi were swinging their measured blows heavily against the bronze plat
e.
The Terasi jumped aside, startled. But the ray did not seem to harm them. It went through their bodies like x-rays made visible. But on the surface of the metal it exploded in white fire. Broke there, and crawled, like a stain.
The Terasi lifted their hammers again and struck savagely. No vibrating thunder followed the blows. The gong clanked dully, like struck lead.
Sir Colin grimaced.
"Heat-rays that don't harm living organisms," he said.
"What is it?" Karen asked.
"After a bell's been heated in a furnace, it won't vibrate. Same principle, I think. The Carcasillians can silence every gong here with those. See, there goes another. Now, where the Alien found such weapons, I'd give a lot to know."
"You won't know," Mike told him, with a faint echo of hysteria in his voice. "We'll never know. Look—another gong has gone!"
The worst thing, thought Alan, was the fact that the heat-rays did not harm human flesh. The Alien was saving his humans alive.
"And we can't do anything!" raged Karen, striking the rail before her with both hands. "We've even got to save our ammunition for the noise—or for each other."
The delicately colored carriers of doom were creeping closer now, ignoring the Terasi arrows. Now and then Alan saw one find its mark and a gossamer-robed denizen of the city that never knew death fell silently among the rocks. But the Carcasillians crept on, and long fingers of light went probing out before them, seeking and silencing the gongs. That tremendous swelling bellow of sound still rioted through the cavern, but just perceptibly it was lessening now. One gong, or two or three, made no real difference that could be measured. But the toll inevitably was mounting.
Helplessly Alan watched the fragile army advance. How incongruous it seemed, that these doll-like creatures could bring doom upon the savage Terasi, creeping down the walls in their floating garments, firing as they came. Evaya would be somewhere among them, fragile and lovely and blind. Unless an arrow had found her already ...
(It had been like holding life itself in his arms, to hold that resilient steel-spring body, so delicate and so strong. He had been near to forgetting that latent strength in her, which would never matter to him now. He thought of the dizzy moment of their kiss, while the bubble city rocked below them. He must forget it now and forever—for whatever time in eternity remained.)
And he knew that this way of dying was perhaps as good as any, and easier than some. For now he would not have to watch Carcasilla shattered and ruined and dark.
Also, he knew, suddenly, as he heard the gongs falling silent one by one below him, that he would never have left Evaya in a dying Carcasilla while the Terasi set sail for the future, even if Flande had let them rob the fountain of its power. He knew he would have gone back to the ruined city and taken that fragile, resilient body in his arms and held her, waiting while the darkness closed around them both.
In the end, he knew now, they must have died together, one way or another. This was quicker and so perhaps it was easier.
He looked up and saw a pale shimmer far back in a chasm of the walls, and a hard shudder of revulsion shook him. Easier? Easier to die in the Light-Wearer's terrible embrace?
He watched it, fascinated, glimmering far back in the darkness, waiting and urging its puppets on.
The pale light lanced down from all around them. And the cavern was no longer bellowing with shaking sound. Here on the rooftop they had no need to shout to one another any more. Alan saw Karen take a firmer grip upon her gun, saw her shoulders square beneath the ragged blouse.
"Well, it won't be long now," she said grimly. "This is it, boys. Too bad—I'd have liked to see Venus."
-
THIS had happened before, Alan thought. And it had happened in his own lifetime—in the familiar world of the Twentieth Century, before an unguessable flood of years had swept him to the end of time. Below the sloping rooftop where they stood watching, the little army of the Terasi stood at bay, their bull-thews and savagery useless now against the weapons that struck from far away, fingering out like swords of living light.
In the past such scenes had happened many times. In Tunisia, he remembered, at Bataan and Corregidor, wherever the armadas of sea and sky and land had met in conflict, such hopeless battles had been fought. But this, he thought, was the last battle of all.
These were civilization's last defenders—these brutish, iron-bodied men—and this little group of less than a hundred represented all that he had known of the world that was gone. The towers of metropolitan New York, the gray cathedrals of London, the white ramparts of Chicago lifting above the blue lake—these were the symbols of a race that built and aspired—a race that had gone down to defeat.
All over the earth was darkness. Civilization's last sparks were being crushed out here, where mankind fought savagely and hopelessly in its last remaining fortress. The thunder of the brazen gongs was fading imperceptibly as the heat rays licked out to splash in white fire across them.
Alan glanced around at the tense little group on the rooftop. Sir Colin, a tattered, scarecrow figure squinting down at the battle with a look of cold, impartial, scientific interest on his face. Mike Smith, half-crouched, hand nervous on his gun, his quick eyes raking the walls where Carcasillians moved like gaily colored moths in the crevices. Mike was afraid. Not of the Carcasillians, not even of death—but of death in the embrace of the terrible shadowy thing that waited in the darkness, watching.
Karen—he had respected her even in the long-gone days when she had been in the German espionage, and he an American Army Intelligence officer fighting her with every weapon he knew. It seemed ludicrous now to think in those meaningless terms, but he realized suddenly that she had never been intrinsically a Nazi; she was an adventurer, playing for high stakes and ready to take the consequences if she failed. Yes, he could respect Karen. There was a suggestion of a grim smile on her face as she met his glance.
Alan did not think of Evaya. She was up there somewhere, a slim, fragile, steely creature who was no longer human. And she would accomplish her inhuman purpose very soon now, and the demon that possessed her would come sweeping into view, leaping like a hound to the kill, ravening with the hunger of a million years.
The arrows of the Terasi still lanced up toward their besiegers. Now and then a Carcasillian fell, gossamer garments streaming, to death on the rocks below. And death was so new, so strange to these toy-like immortals from an immortal city led by the fountain of life! The city fed by—power!
And power would save the Terasi—if they could reach it. If it were not as hopelessly far away as power on another planet.
Save them? Would it?
What was it Sir Colin had said about great mechanical gongs, built by the rebel race to fight the Light-Wearers? Alan reached out suddenly and gripped the Scotsman's shoulder.
"Those gongs," he said in an urgent voice. "The big ones. Where were they?"
Sir Colin gave him an abstracted glance. "Inside the machine towers. Some of them underground. Why? They were power-driven, remember. You can't—"
Alan struck the parapet triumphantly. "If we had the power, then, the heatbeam couldn't reach 'em! Sir Colin, I'm going to get you the power!"
The Scotsman's face came alive, but with a startled distrust that surprised Alan.
"Anyhow, I'm going to try. We can't be worse off than we are right now. The gateway to Carcasilla's open now—you saw that in the scanner—and nobody's left there but Flande. There must be a way back from here that wouldn't lead through the Carcassillians. Tell me what to look for and I'll try the fountain."
The distrust on Sir Colin's gaunt face had changed to a desperate sort of hope. "You're right, laddie. It's worth a try—by God, it is! But we'll have to hurry."
"We?"
"I'm going, too."
Mike shouldered forward, sweat shining on his bronzed cheeks. "So am I."
Sir Colin frowned. "Your gun's needed here, Mike."
"The hell with that
! I'm not going to stay. That—that thing—" He broke off, showing the whites of his eyes as he glanced up at the crevice where a pale shimmer flickered now and then as the Alien urged its puppet army on.
"There's no assurance we may not meet it ourselves," Sir Colin said dryly. "Still—Karen?"
"I'm staying. I can help here. Fighting's one thing I know a little about."
"Good lass." The Scotsman touched her shoulder lightly.
Brekkir, watching their sudden animation in bewilderment, grunted something that only Sir Colin understood. They spoke together in gutturals. When the scientist turned back to Alan his ruddy face was alight with new enthusiasm.
"Brekkir says there are ways out, if we're reckless enough to leave the noise of the gongs. He'll find us a lead box, too. We'll need something to carry that—that dynamite-pill without the radiation destroying us all. What the thing is the good God knows, but I suspect something like a radioatomic energy—perhaps a uranium isotope ... Aye, it's a risk, lads, but think what it means if we win!"
The timeless current that flowed whispering along the Way of the Gods swept them weightlessly toward Carcasilla. They talked little, in hushed voices, as they drifted through the dimness. Alan thought of Karen, pale under the tousled red curls, saying good-by at the tunnel entrance. They might never meet again. He thought of Evaya, moving like a soft-winged moth against the craggy walls, blind and terrible, raking the Terasi village with a beam of death. He thought of the way light kindled behind her exquisite features when she smiled, like an ivory lantern suddenly glowing. He thought of the springing resilience of her body in his arms. And he knew that there was no risk too great to face if it might mean her awakening.