by Earl
Homo Sapiens must be pressing at all sides. Asgard, a tiny island of Cro-Magnon in the heart of sub-man territory, must be an object of bitter hatred to the Giants and Dwarfs. For Cro-Magnon, with slight variation, was Homo Sapiens—modern man.
The Asgardians knew nothing of such larger issues. To them, all the world seemed filled with the Frost Giants and ugly Dwarfs, seeking their extinction. Knowing the hopeless odds against them, they spoke of Ragnarok, the day of doom.
The Twilight of the Gods, as it had come to be known in fable.
“It’s terrible!” Eve whispered more than once. “Why must this beautiful castle go? Why must these people die out? Adam, isn’t there anything we can do to help them—to prevent the tragedy?”
“Against destiny?” I shook my head slowly. “Fable—or its core of history—decrees Asgard’s fall. I doubt anything we might try would do any good . . .”
CHAPTER VI
The Frost Giants Attack
I WAS interrupted by the clarion blast of a trumpet that rang through every room of the castle.
Loki started.
“The alarm blown by Heimdal, our guard on the bridge!” he cried. “It means the Giants are attacking again. They have been pressing us savagely of late.”
He darted away, to help in the defense of their castle. I followed with Eve. I wanted to see the legendary Frost Giants—or Heidelberg sub-man of the snowy north regions. What would this ancient battle be like?
The Asgardian forces were streaming from the castle over the Bifrost Bridge. It was their first line of defense. To see closer, I stepped on the bridge and began walking. At close quarters I saw that the structure was rickety, from great age. It swayed as the Asgardian warriors rushed along. At my rather ponderous tread, the bridge actually began to vibrate and rattle.
A hand pulled me back. It was Loki again.
“You can’t use the bridge, Adam Link!” he snapped. “You’ll shake it down, with your heavy steps. Go back. What business have you here, anyway? You are only in the way.”
I stepped aside as a dozen men leaped along the narrow span. I nodded at Loki’s wise judgment that the bridge could not stand my weight.
“The time-ship!” I said to Eve, pulling her toward the courtyard. “I still want to see this battle.”
In the time-ship, we took up a position just over the head of Bifrost Bridge, where its cables attached to the mainland in great blocks of hoary-old concrete. The congregating Asgardians hardly noticed us, in their excitement. A man still stood blowing tempestuously on a great curving horn.
Heimdal and his horn that could be heard around the world! Heimdal, the Watcher of Bifrost Bridge, who had trained himself to hear grass grow, and could see all around him for a hundred miles, in dark as well as light, and who never slept! Such was the Heimdal of fable.
Heimdal, the man, was simply a guard who had spied the enemy sneaking near for attack, and had blown his horn which could be heard a mile, anyway, if not around the world.
I looked now for the enemy.
They appeared charging from behind big boulders and knolls of the rocky country, streaking toward Bifrost Bridge. Several hundred of the Frost Giants. Heidelberg Men they obviously were, seven feet tall, built in proportion. Their shoulders were hulking, their long arms knotted with gorilla-like muscles. They were not hairy, like Neanderthal, but their leathery hides showed they could resist cold and bruises almost like an elephant. They wore hide breeches and belts as scanty clothing.
Their faces were not particularly brutal. They were close to human, and inferior to him only in the telling scale of mentality. It was apparent in their weapons, for instance. They had great knotted clubs, stone-headed maces, bows-and-arrows, and fire-hardened spears. But no swords. They had never solved the secret of metal-smelting. They were true Stone Age citizens, at the peak of their development.
But they were a formidable fighting force.
I LOOKED at the Asgardian forces, clustered before the bridge-head in a grim semicircle. Not more than a hundred men, all told. They wore slight, but helpful armor—leg-guards, chest-plates and visors. Odin stood at the head, in armor of copper-hardened gold. His golden helmet was surmounted with the carven image of an eagle. This picture of him had gone down unerringly in fable, if nothing else. His one eye gleamed ferociously at the enemy.
The Frost Giants charged in a body, yelling bestially, and the battle began.
It was simply a free-for-all, man to man, without thought of strategy on either side. Arrows from the Asgardians had dropped a few of the Giants, but the rest came close and began swinging their ponderous clubs and maces. At the first brunt of meeting, the Giants, superior in men and weight, had driven the defenders back.
But the Asgardians brought their swords into play. Cleverly they feinted and stabbed and leaped nimbly away from the clumsy Giants. The struggle was about even. Two Giants fell with ripped vitals for every Asgardian with a cracked skull.
“Horrible!” came Eve’s whisper in my ear. “The Asgardians are so noble in contrast to those ugly, monstrous sub-men!”
Each time an Asgardian fell, she shuddered, as the women of Asgard must be shuddering back at the castle.
“Every man they lose,” Eve continued, “brings their Ragnarok that much nearer—the Twilight of the Gods. Adam—”
I shook my head again, for what could we do against immutable fate? And there was another consideration.
“Eve, stop it!” I snapped. “I know how you feel. I feel the same. We have a kinship with these doomed people, for they are the ancestral stock of the race that created us—in the future.
But you also know how I feel about using our robot powers in warfare of any kind. How I’ve sworn the robot must never be used in the destruction of human life.”
I had destroyed eight brother robots, only a few months before in California, because they wanted to conquer Earth—fight humans. Robots must not earn the name Frankenstein, whether in this age or the next, by taking human life.
“Human life!” Eve shrilled at me. “But those Heidelberg men aren’t human!”
I jerked. A bomb seemed to burst in my brain. No, they weren’t human after all, in the strictest sense of the word! And in turn, they were killing off true humans, Homo Sapiens, my creator race.
“Good Lord, Eve,” I said. “At times I’m really a fool.”
I flicked the ship to the ground, opened the hatch. “Stay here, Eve,” I told her. “If anything happens to me, you can find your way back to the 20th century.”
I STRODE toward the battle area.
No, I ran. And as I ran, I let out a furious bellow. The full tide of rage flooded through me, to think of brute sub-men killing members of a race so much nobler and finer.
The battle almost stopped. Asgardians and Giants both looked around, at the thunderous cry. Surprise came into the Giants’ eyes—surprise but not fear. They took me for a belated Asgardian warrior, one dressed more completely in cowardly armor. The battle resumed. Two Frost Giants leaped at me, swinging their knotted clubs.
I let them come close. I caught one club and hurled it a mile out into the sea. I took the other club and snapped it in half like a twig. The two Giants were impressed, but still no fear rose in them. With snarls of anger, they grasped my body. One tried to choke me. He pressed till his finger-joints cracked, grunting in amazement. The other grasped me around the back and heaved.
I was amazed, in turn. For I was lifted clear off the ground and hurled with stunning force to the rocky ground. No human could ever have such strength. One of the Heidelberg Men would easily be a match for a gorilla.
I heard Eve’s shriek, and twisted aside just in time. One of the Giants had picked up a boulder three-feet in diameter and hurled it down at my supine form. It would have crushed even my metal body.
I bounced to my feet. I wasted no more time. I took them both by the scruff of the neck and banged their heads together. I had to bang three times before they went limp. I think the
fossil skulls of Heidelberg Man found in the 20th century attest to a thickness unknown in human skulls.
I didn’t underestimate the Frost Giants after that. I exerted most of my machine-powers. I waded into the thickest of the melee, punching my metal fist at each Heidelberg head I passed. Short-arm punches with the power of a steam-driven piston behind them. Frost Giants dropped like stones.
I reached Odin’s side, in the center of the most violent fighting.
“Out of my way, Odin!” I roared, brushing aside a club. “Let me handle these prehistoric thugs!”
He didn’t know what I meant—but he saw what I meant.
A dozen Giants converged on me, as I rammed into their ranks. At least ten blows of clubs and maces rang on my metal body. One blow against my skull-piece even made me reel a little. But I had a harder skull than any Heidelberg Man.
I had two weapons—my two balled fists. I went down the line, punching, and the Giants stretched out almost in a row. Odin lowered his sword, as suddenly he was free from menace. He couldn’t understand it.
I WENT for the next nearest cluster, where Tyr and Frey held off six Giants. Tyr’s great sword slashed at a Giant and missed—but the Giant gave a clipped groan and fell. He never saw the lightning blow from my fist. When Tyr turned to stab at the next Giant, he was down too. And the others. I moved faster than the reflexes of the human mind could follow.
It penetrated into the collective thick skulls of the Giants finally that something was wrong. Who was this terrible Asgardian warrior who roared like thunder and smote like lightning? They quite suddenly decided not to stay and find out. With half their number laid out cold, the rest fled.
I pelted them with boulders as they ran. I dropped Giant after Giant this way, with an accuracy that left the watching Asgardians gasping. The last retreating Giant was just vanishing behind a knoll, a mile away, finally. Allowing for the wind, I cast a rock weighing about ten pounds. It caught the Giant fair and square on his skull, sending him asprawl.
Yet he lay stunned only a moment, then picked up and staggered to safety. And now the Giants I had knocked out came to, and began loping away. I had swept down their ranks too swiftly to deliver killing blows—at least to their powerful frames. Besides, subhuman or not, I still felt a repugnance at the thought of actually killing them. I was satisfied that I had driven them away.
“After them, men!” Odin now yelled, like a true opportunist. “The Giants are dazed, helpless. Stab them while they flee!”
“No!” I roared, not liking that at all. “Let them go. Let them return and tell of how they were defeated so quickly. It will do more than anything to keep them away.”
Odin glared at me.
“Adam Link,” he snapped, “I am King of Asgard. My word is law. I say—”
Loki interrupted. “Adam Link is right, brother Odin. Let the beaten Giants take back the tale of a mighty warrior who guards Asgard and cannot be defeated!”
Odin now transferred his one-eyed glare to his half-brother.
“Anything to spare your step-race, eh, Loki? You fought only half-heartedly for Asgard. I did not see you bring down one Giant.” He shrugged then. Loki had after all been the son of Odin’s father.
Odin nodded to me. “You have spoken well, Adam Link. Let the Giants go. Perhaps they have learned a lesson.” Suddenly his eyes shone. “You are a mighty warrior, Adam Link! I invite you into my war-councils hereafter!”
CHAPTER VII
In Defiance of Time
THERE was a war-council held that same day. Before my coming the Giants had attacked periodically at the bridge. It looked ominously like an attempt to wear down the Asgardian forces, in preparation for a larger assault soon.
“With you to fight for us, Adam Link,” Odin said eagerly, “we may hold them off indefinitely!”
“One moment,” I said hastily.
“That’s a lifetime job. I cannot accept. Remember I am here only to find Thor, or some clue to his existence in your past—or future.”
“Future?” Odin said vaguely. “There is only one future facing Asgard. Ragnarok, the day of doom! It has been settling about us like a cloak for centuries. It is not far off. Unless—unless you become our champion, Adam Link. Your mighty powers will save Asgard from extinction!”
I hesitated. How could I refuse that solemn, tragic appeal? How could I explain that I did not wish to tamper with destiny—and destiny had decreed the fall of Asgard? And yet how could I coldbloodedly refuse help, as if my heart were made of stone—or metal?
I drew up, as a thought came to me. I asked a question first. “Why didn’t you use the flame-gun to blast your enemies?”
“Because there are only a few charges left in it,” Odin replied, sadly. “We do not know how to make more charges. It is a secret lost in the past before the Great Cold. We must save the few shots for a real emergency, when the Giants attack in full force.”
“Then I’ll do this much for you,” I said. “I’ll examine the gun, and try to make more for you. Perhaps I can build many, so that you can surround your castle with them and hold off attack indefinitely.” To myself I said: “If your Ragnarok comes even then, it will be your own doing.”
“More guns?” Odin’s eyes lit. “Yes, they would save us. And with them we might even go out against the Giants, on the offensive, and clear them away from this region!”
I noticed that Loki started, hearing this. I could see that though he was loyal to Asgard, he didn’t like the thought of his step-race being exterminated like vermin. I decided then and there to make the guns so heavy that they could be used only as stationary defense.
Further than that I would not go, against the written script of history, or fable.
IN the following days, I spent most of my time with the flame-gun. Its principle escaped me, at first examination. It was some form of atomic-energy, I was sure, but how was it released? Stepped-up radioactivity? Breakdown of Uranium-235 into barium, as in 20th century research? A miniature cyclotron trigger knocking out high-speed electrons?
The core of the machine was a box encased in age-adamant iridium, like my iridium-sponge brain. In there lay the secret. If I forcibly opened the case, however, I might ruin the internal mechanism. The Asgardians would then be without a flame-gun at all. I would bring Ragnarok closer!
I needed an X-ray. I began constructing one, seeing that I had a job ahead of me. I collected bits of metals from odd corners of the castle’s debris—platinum, tungsten, molybdenum. I devised an electric-furnace with a clay pot and battery-power from my reserve batteries in the time-ship. I made wire and filament. I fused glass, unknown to these Asgardians with their lost knowledge.
All this took time. I was a scientist building my laboratory and its tools of science as I went along. Eve helped me as much as she could. But at times, striking a snag, I would snap at her irritably, and she knew when to leave me alone.
She spent these times with Loki, who seemed fascinated with us. He had an inquiring turn of mind. He asked many questions about us, of Eve, and I think he alone of the Asgardians fully understood just what we were and where we had come from.
Eve, in turn, mingled with the Asgardians and learned much of them. She recited the things to me. She talked with Baldur and his wife Nanna. And Tyr, Hodur, Bragi the poet, Njord the mariner, Skirmir, Hoenir, Frey, and Freya, his beautiful sister. Names of undying legend!
Reminiscently, Loki in his rambling talks told many tales of their life in Asgard castle. How Frey and Skirmir had once adventured in Jutenheim, land of the Frost Giants, and captured one of their girls whom Frey married, the girl being surprisingly lovely for her race. This was the legend of Frey losing his “magic” sword in quest of a wife.
How Odin in his youth had hunted for game in the Giant territory, and stopped at a cool well for a drink. A Giant, Mirmir by name, had attacked him, and Odin lost his eye. According to the fable, he had traded his eye for wisdom. In reality, the only wisdom he had gained was experience
in keeping on better guard when outside the safety of Asgard’s ramparts!
LOKI also told defensively of a time not long before when Iduna had been captured by the Frost Giants. In his version, he had simply invited her to walk over Bifrost Bridge, to pick apples on the mainland. We gathered from that, Eve and I, that Loki secretly yearned for Iduna’s love. Giants had captured Iduna, and driven Loki away. Or had Loki delivered her, in rage at being spurned perhaps? At any rate, angry Odin had told Loki, his half-brother, to either rescue her or never come back to Asgard. Loki, through his half-kinship with the Giants, had lulled their antagonism, slipped Iduna away, and brought her back. The pursuing Giants had chased them right to Asgard, but had been shot down by the flame-gun. In the legend a Giant, in the shape of an eagle, had tried to fly into Asgard, but a “ring of fire” scorched his wings and he fell!
“We’re seeing legends in the making, Adam!” Eve would say. “The adventurous doings of these unique people will be embellished with ‘magic swords,’ ‘wisdom wells,’ ‘enchanted eagles,’ ‘rings of fire,’ and all the other paraphernalia of superstition. Lindbergh, too, in 20,000 A.D., may be credited with having flown the ocean in a ‘magic chariot’ that roared with the voice of a demon!”
“Yes, yes,” I said testily, my mind laboring to make a vacuum-pump without one lathe to machine the parts. “Don’t bother me, Eve. Can’t a woman ever understand when a man’s busy?” The next moment I looked around. “But what about Thor? Have you heard anything of him?”
I had not forgotten my original quest.
Eve looked puzzled. “There is a complete absence of tales about Thor, the thunder-god, or his wife Sif. Either we’re too early for him, in Asgardian history, or he has been a sheer invention by the later tellers-of-tales about vanished Asgard.”