The Door to Saturn

by Clark Ashton Smith

  Many of the metal people were passing to and fro; the scene was one of perpetual activity; and certain air-vessels of novel types were continually embarking or disembarking their passengers on the pavement about the edifice, or upon the roof of its atlantean balconies. These vehicles were flat discs or oblong platforms of varying size, some of them large as the decks of ocean liners, which sailed through the air at any required speed with no visible enginery or ascertainable mode of levitation or locomotion.

  After a large portion of the park had been inspected, one of the air-vessels was chartered by the guides, who motioned Volmar and his crew to accompany them. A lever was pressed, and the huge machine arose with unbelievable buoyancy, and floated through the cloudless, glaring atmosphere toward a horizon remotely dentilated with prodigious towers. The platform flew at no great elevation, apparently in order that the earth-men might view the topographical details of the landscapes above which they were journeying. But the speed which the air-vessel attained, and the ease, comfort, and lack of atmospheric resistance, was most amazing.

  The scene below shifted and changed with a kaleidoscopic rapidity. Everything, even to the wide spaces of uncultivated and wholly barren soil or stone, was marked by a perfectly symmetrical arrangement of squares, diamonds, ovals, triangles, and other geometric forms, like tessellations in a mosaic floor of transtellar giants. There were canals that ran in straight lines or systematic meanderings, from lakes and seas of an artificial regularity. And even certain jungles in which the primitive plant forms of the red world were recognized by the earthlings as they passed, were laid out within metes and bounds like vast botanical gardens.

  They were skimming the very top branches of one of these jungles, when a singular incident occurred. Though the air was utterly still and windless, a small area of the foliage below was oddly agitated as the platform neared it. Trees crashed down, there was a wild tossing of leaves and branches; and then, with fearful expedition, the foliage began to disappear and was interspersed with formless crawling masses of a loathsome livid grey mottled with black and red. Soon, in a spreading tract of devastation, these masses had devoured and supplanted all the vegetation, and were steadily increasing in size and number.

  Volmar and his men were astounded by the living masses, and also by the actions of their conductors, who had brought the platform to a full halt in mid-air as soon as they sighted the area of tossing foliage. Then, as the monstrous crawling creatures began to replace the obliterated jungle with their swelling and multiplying bulks, the earth-men heard a clangorous gong-like sound of intolerable acuity which was being emitted from the concave disks on the cerebral antennae of their guides. The sound was connotive of alarm and warning, and doubtless had a vibratory range like that of radio; for a few minutes later, as if in response, a score of air-vessels appeared from all sides and gathered above the spreading patch of devastation. All of them were crowded with Tloongs, and carried weapons emitting visible or invisible rays of deadly potency, which were turned upon the growing masses, causing them to dissolve one by one like vapor.

  As if for the edification of the earth-men, their guides flew lower still, where the monsters could be studied in detail ere all of them were wiped out by the lethal rays. They possessed no visible organs except the round, sucker-like mouths with which they were entirely covered; their substance was extremely elastic and without any rudiments of a bony framework; and they took from minute to minute a multitude of forms, turning themselves into gibbous globes, or lengthening like serpents, or developing numerous projections like the trunks of elephants, or flattening themselves along the ground in horrible mats. They were ineffably weird and hideous, their vitality was more than sinister, and their activity was supremely terrifying. Their innumerable mouths dripped continually with a colorless semi-viscid fluid; and the plants to which they applied themselves seemed literally to melt away beneath the assiduous suckers.

  These organisms were impossible to classify; for, apart from their animal traits, there was something about them which suggested a swift-growing fungi. It would seem that they propagated themselves by means of a spore which developed with infernal celerity; for even when most of them were seemingly blotted out of existence, new organisms began to spring up. It was seen that the ray-weapons could achieve only a temporary victory; for time after time, when the infested area had been wholly cleared to all appearance, another horde of monstrosities would leap to life.

  More of the air-ships appeared, and the Tloongs on some of them began to drop a sort of vegetable pulp which was eagerly devoured by the organisms. It must have contained a virulent poison; for the masses withered and blackened immediately, and lay dead without renewing themselves in their former manner. It was now seen that they had emerged from a large hole in the ground beneath the jungle; the last of them was slain as it crawled forth; and the hole was carefully sealed by means of atom-integrators which filled it with an adamantine material.

  The legion of air-vehicles now dispersed, and the conductors of the earth-men resumed their journey. Soon the platform approached a building larger than any that Volmar and his crew had yet beheld, and landed on a midway terrace higher above the ground than any skyscraper. From this the men were led through numberless doors and unending corridors to an immense room at the heart of the edifice.

  Here, on a high seat of some dazzling crystalline mineral wrought with arabesques that suggested the signs of an unfamiliar transcendental algebra, a being was enthroned who bore upon the gigantic orb of his head a superimposed sphere which afforded the sole illumination of the room. He held in one of his members a cone-shaped object which was probably a vessel of some Polarian chemical use; and other vessels, having a vague, fantastic likeness to retorts and cupels and test-tubes, were arranged beside his throne on lofty tables.

  Making gestures of profound obeisance, the guides addressed this being with a long and curiously modulated form of salutation in which the word koum was repeated several times. Volmar and his men surmised that this term was perhaps equivalent to “king” or ‘‘emperor.”

  In a voice more musical than a finely keyed and chorded dulcimer, the seated being began to question the guides, and a long dialogue ensued. The earthlings were thrilled by the celestial tones, and awed by the gaze of this entity, behind whose many-faceted diamond eye they felt the workings of a colossal brain embued with incalculable knowledge and illimitable power. And they were somehow conscious that a decision was being made concerning themselves, and that their ultimate fate was now in process of determination. And when, at the close of the conversation, the throned being uttered after a significant pause a sentence of terrible and thrilling melody, they knew with a sense of esoteric fear and marvel that their fate was sealed, though what that fate might be they could not even conjecture.

  The sentence had probably included, or implied, their dismissal. They were led back through the eternal corridors to the balcony where the flying platform had been left, and were then borne through mid-air above the retrograde horizons to the roof of that edifice on which the Alcyone had been drawn down. Here they were suffered to re-enter the space-vessel, and were even permitted to close the man-hole. The guides then departed; and though a throng of the metal people passed continuously about the Alcyone, or paused to stare and confer among themselves regarding it, the earthlings were not disturbed for several hours.

  V

  They were extremely glad to be back in the Alcyone; for their peregrinations in the red world had consumed the major part of a day; and they were hungry and thirsty, and were more than fatigued by their novel experiences and sensations. No food had been offered to them; and it was likely enough that no substances edible by human beings were to be found on the red planet.

  “Perhaps,” said Volmar, “the Tloongs realize our need of rest and nourishment, and have brought us back to the spaceship for that reason. But I don’t think that they are going to let us depart in a hurry; something tells me that the Koum, or whateve
r they call him, has other intentions regarding us.”

  There was much discussion anent the unique wonders and prodigies they had witnessed. The corporeal organization of the Tloongs and their virtual immortality, their mechanical and biological masterdom, and their amazing racial and planetary history, were enough to stagger not only the human reason but also the human imagination. Then too, there was the Tloongs’ disposition toward the crew of the space-flier, the meaning of their capture and detention, and their conjectural destiny—all of which were problems that defied solution.

  Time passed in this manner; till the throng of metal-bodied beings around the flier began to disperse. Soon all of them had vanished from sight in the cupolas covering the shafts of ascent and descent. Then, abruptly as the going out of a lamp, the light faded from the ruddy sky and darkness fell upon the world. In half an hour, however, the vaulting luminescence returned as suddenly as it had departed; and some of the Tloongs re-appeared on the roof shortly afterwards. It was learned later that the half-hour of darkness was artificially induced by the use of a black ray which occluded the light; and that this time of occultation was the space required for sleep by the people of the red world.

  After eating, and after the discussion that accompanied and followed the meal, the earthlings snatched a few hours of much needed slumber. When they awoke, another delegation of the Tloongs was standing outside the space-flier and was evidently trying to attract the attention of the occupants with flashes of light projected through the ports from some sort of ray-apparatus. These flashes, they realized, had served to awaken them. This time, doubtless through consideration for the respiratory needs of the earth-men, the Tloongs had not opened the man-hole. But it was obvious that they wished their visitors to come forth again, so, donning their masks and air-tanks, Volmar and his crew complied with the signalled request.

  Their conductors took them on an air-platform to another of the great Babelian-piles, lying at a considerable distance on the shore of a bright purple sea whose environing cliffs were like builded walls. Indeed, it was afterwards learned that they were really such, and that the waters of the sea had been created, or at least replenished, by means of a chemical process.

  The building on which they now landed, and through whose various apartments they were systematically conducted, was plainly a scientific laboratory. Hundreds of the Tloongs, with the aid of unsolvably strange and recondite machinery, were engaged in all manner of mystifying labors or experiments, many of which seemed to involve the creation of protoplasm and its development into numberlessly varied forms. The earthlings shuddered at the masses of pulsing life which crawled or lumbered in crystalline cages. Some were without limbs or verifiable organs, and others were extravagantly equipped with a myriad eyes, ears, mouths, members, and sense-organs whose use was not to be apprehended by any being with so limited a range of sensation as man.

  In another section, the earth-men saw for the first time certain bodies preserved in a clear solution, which they recognized from the historic thought-pictures they had previously seen, as being the original plasmic bodies of some of the Tloongs. Later, they found out that most of these people had retained their own physical envelopes, and kept them about their households even as others might keep statues or family portraits. But some had been donated to the laboratories, where they were held as specimens for study, and were used as reference in repairing any of the metal organs and members which might have suffered damage. Tloongs engaged in such labors of restoration were to be seen toiling like plastic surgeons; and ever and anon a new subject for their ministrations entered, displaying injuries of mysterious origin, which occurred oftener about the head than any other part, and were like the ravages of some corroding acid. Also, new frames were being made for those who had tired of the old ones; and new heads of enormous capacity for brains that had outgrown their former tenements.

  Here Volmar and his crew underwent one of the strangest of all their experiences in the red world. They were led before certain of the beings in this section of the laboratory, who forth with made an incredibly minute examination of their bodily structure. These beings differed from most of the Tloongs in that they possessed two sets of eyes. One of the sets was dull and lifeless during the first half of the examination but lit up with a blinding luster when all the external parts had been examined closely. Numerous life-size drawings and diagrams of each man were made on huge sheets of a parchment-like material; and when the drawings began to reveal every bone, muscle, nerve, and internal organ, it was clear that the second set of eyes owned by the examiners was similar or superior to the X-ray in its visual powers. It was a weird ordeal, and the men felt as if they were being dissected. They surmised that the Tloongs were merely gratifying their biologic curiosity regarding the formation of beings who differed so basically from themselves. The true reason was beyond the wildest dreams and maddest theorizings of the earth-men.

  After the examination was completed and the drawings were all made and filed away in special cabinets, the men were shown through other parts of the laboratory, where they saw the chemical genesis of new plant-growths, and the minerals that grew visibly beneath rays designed to promote the integration of the required atomic patterns. Their guides continued, as on the previous day, to instruct them in the language by naming every object and class of person encountered; and in this way their vocabulary was materially enriched, despite the difficulty of simulating the flute-like or horn-like intonations of the Tloongs.

  After this tour of inspection, the earthlings were taken back to the Alcyone once more, and were permitted another term in which to eat, sleep, and otherwise recuperate. Every day, during the weeks that followed, they were conducted on other tours, some of which were quite extensive and were made possible in one diurnal period only by the use of passenger-bearing projectiles drawn by magnetic force through underground tubes. They were even shot through the great shaft which penetrated the world, and saw the multiform wonders of the antipodes. They soon formed a general idea of the conditions of life among the Tloongs, and, after weeks of linguistic study, were able to converse in a limited manner with their hosts.

  These people, they found, were exempt from all the ordinary biological needs and desires. In their pre-metallic stage, they had respired, eaten, drunk and propagated themselves in a fashion not so widely dissimilar to that of other animal types. But now they needed nothing more in the way of nourishment than the mysterious ruby-colored fluid in which their brains floated; and through which they could seemingly convey the impulse of any desired action to their metal members, and could receive most if not all of the sense-impressions transmittable by physical nerves. Indeed, it appeared that some of them were the owners of faculties which implied a radio-like extension of hearing, sight, and tactility.

  Their lives were devoted wholly to invention and research. The infinite grotesqueries which they devised and created, the vast gardens and forests which they tended, the animal monstrosities which they bred in prodigious numbers, were seemingly a source of both intellectual and aesthetic gratification. They had a written literature which was mainly concerned with problems of science and algebra; and also a pictorial art which was used for the representation of historical scenes and events, and the making of anatomical designs. They possessed musical instruments, many of which were played by invisible force-waves; but all their compositions were meant to express mathematical or even astronomical symbolisms, rather than any melody or harmony appreciable by human ears.

  The machines they had builded were inexhaustibly diverse and ingenious. Their astronomical instruments, as well as others resembling microscopes, were based on a principle of television. Their air-vehicles were run and levitated by means of magnetic dynamos similar to those by which the vault of metallic atoms was maintained about the planet. By the use of the same principle, they could move their towers from place to place at will, or could transport entire mountains and huge masses of soil or stone. They had harnessed the few remai
ning volcanoes as a source of power, and also for aesthetic displays, like a sort of fire-works. All the elements were under their control; and the rare storms of rain or snow, and other meteoric phenomena, were induced only for spectacles.

  It would seem, from the knowledge and supremacy they had attained, that their existence should have been free of anything in the way of trouble, danger, or disease. Such, however, was not altogether the case. Some of them, of later years, notably the eldest and most learned among their savants, had been seized by a strange form of madness—a madness which did not affect their general powers, but was marked by anti-social impulses and actions. In particular, the inventive experiments of these beings had assumed an absolute license from which the Tloongs had heretofore refrained. Certain rapidly multiplying forms of animal, plant, or even mineral life devised by the madmen, had been loosed upon the red world at various times; and had taxed the ingenuity of their confreres ere a means of retardation and destruction could be devised. None of these menaces, however, had defied eventual control; till one of the most revered and fertile-minded of the Tloongs had himself gone insane, and had created a new type of monster, half-vegetable, half-animal, which multiplied with more celerity than any other; and had turned some specimens of it loose in the inner caverns of the red planet, where it had increased to a countless horde ere it was discovered by the fellow-savants of the mad experimentalist. The monster, by reason of its odd physical organization, was supremely difficult to destroy; for, even if blasted into a million pieces, the fragments would reunite; and any single atom, if not resolved into its constituent electrons and protons, could become in time the center of a new organism. Also, it was omnivorous to a phenomenal degree, and would devour even stone and metal, eating its way through the surface of the world from the caverns that had been sealed by molecular walls as soon as its presence was known. It was continually escaping in some new spot, often in unpeopled areas, where it would muster by hundreds and thousands and invade the cultivated portions, devouring everything that fell in its way. The Tloongs who came to the laboratories with damaged bodies or members, had all sustained their injuries in conflict with this monster, which was called the Murm. It preferred their brains to any other food, and would attack the Tloongs with unparalleled ferocity. Several had been borne down and utterly destroyed by its onslaughts. The only thing that could combat the Murm was a rare element, extremely difficult and expensive to prepare, which acted like a fatal poison when eaten by the monster. It was impossible to make a sufficient amount of the element at any one time; and therefore the red world was suffering more and more from the outbreaks of the cavern-imprisoned creatures.