by Anthology
"One more gone," he said. "That was Oakley. Well, he never knew what it was that hit him--and it looks as if we'll all get the same."
Through it all, Rawson had clung to his flame-thrower; unconsciously his hand had held fast to the bent handle of the cylindrical weapon. Now he set it down slowly upon the floor, then straightened his aching body laboriously.
Loah's light was still gleaming. He saw her eyes searching for his, half in terror, half in wonderment. Strange men with strange thundering weapons--he knew she was wondering if they still dared hope, wondering if these warriors of Rawson's race might be able to work further magic.
Dean put one arm tenderly about her and drew her close and his other hand came to rest upon Smithy's shoulder.
"It's the end, dear," he told the girl softly. "It's the end of our journey. You've been so dear and so brave. Pretty tough to lose out when we'd almost fought clear." Then, to Smithy: "Loah came back to save me--refused to go when she could have got away and been safe."
* * * * *
Already the air was stifling. The tunnel beyond the mouth of the cave was hot, though only at its end, where the invisible ray struck the rock surface squarely, was there red, glowing heat. Rawson suddenly saw none of it. He was seeing in his mind the world up above, his own world of great, free, sunlit spaces. Suddenly he was hungry for some closer link, no matter how slight, to bind him to that world.
"What day is it?" he asked. "Have you kept track of time?"
Smithy looked at him wonderingly. "Yes," he said, then added: "Oh, I see. You want to know what day this is when we die. It's the twentieth, Dean"--he looked at the watch on his wrist--"just two o'clock, the afternoon of the twentieth."
Within him, Rawson felt a dull resentment. He was being denied even this last trifling solace. "You're wrong," he said sharply. "You slipped up on your count."
"It doesn't make any real difference," Smithy said. But Rawson went on:
"We left the inner world on the nineteenth. At noon on the twentieth Gor was to cut loose the flame-throwers, melt a hole in the floor of the ocean. But it didn't work. I had hoped I could wipe out the mole-men, turn a solid stream of water down a shaft for over six hundred miles. It would have gone through the Zone of Fire, come flooding up into the mole-men world and spread out all over down deep where it's hot. It would have hit the Lake of Fire--all that!"
"I don't know what you are talking about, Dean." Smithy's voice was intentionally soothing; he knew Rawson was talking wildly. "But I know I am right on the time. We've kept track of it every hour since--"
Rawson's talk had sounded like insanity in Smithy's ears. He would have gone on--he didn't want to see Dean Rawson go out like that--but now he stopped. The rock was quivering beneath his feet.
And now Rawson, with a wild wordless cry, threw himself toward the flame-thrower on the floor. His voice rose to what was almost a scream. "It's worked!" he shouted in a delirium of joy. "It's the end of the brutes!"
* * * * *
Then, in words which the others could not comprehend but which somehow fired them with his own emotion: "Gor has cut it loose! Water, millions of tons of it! The Zone of Fire--steam!..." He threw himself flat on the floor as close to the hot mouth of the cave as he dared go, and the green flame of his weapon ripped outward and up as he aimed it.
From the passage, where it sloped downward toward the source of the heat ray, the sound of shrill, whistling voices had swelled louder. The whole tunnel now glowed green from the flames of an advancing horde. They were bringing their ray projector with them, Rawson knew, not that its beam was visible, but the white, dazzling glow from the end wall where the tunnel turned was still there.
"Shoot above me!" Rawson shouted. "Don't stick your guns out into that ray, but aim as straight down the tunnel as you can. Keep 'em busy. Keep 'em from coming too close."
Above his head he heard the beginning of rifle fire as the men crowded close to aim at the opposite wall at as flat an angle as they could. The air grew shrill with the sound of ricochets as the bullets glanced, but still the enemy came on, as their screeching voices told.
His own weapon was aimed up above. The roof of the tunnel was rough and broken. He directed the flame against the top of a great black granite block. In one place it was fractured. If he could cut it off above, make it fall to the steeply slanting floor.... He worked the full force of the blast methodically along the line he had chosen.
* * * * *
The air of the tunnel had been blowing gently, but now it came in sharp gusts that whipped in through the mouth of the cave, while it brought an unending growl and roar like distant gunfire from deep within the earth. The breeze had swelled to a steady blast when the rock crashed down.
"But that's no use," Culver had shouted, when the deafening sound of its fall had ceased. "They'll melt it in a second with their ray." Even as he spoke the great mass of granite softened and rolled downward as the enemy shot their ray on its lower side. The heat of it struck blastingly into the entrance to their retreat, yet still Rawson kept on, sawing doggedly with the weapon of flame at other great blocks above.
Now that distant thunder grew hugely in volume, and again the rocks trembled beneath them. The wind in the tunnel grew suddenly to a wild blast. It brought to them from a thousand other passages, the shrill, demoniac shrieking of air that was torn and ripped on projecting ledges of rock. Mingled with it was the sound of voices that screamed in terror, and the echo of feet running in mad flight down the tunnel.
The mass of stone, that had been melting under the invisible ray, cooled to red, then to black. Outside, the tunnel, now a place of roaring winds, was lighted only by the single flame of Dean's weapon.
"They've gone!" Culver shouted. "The ray's off. Get outside! Now we'll run for it!" And, with the others, Rawson sprang to his feet and leaped out into the tunnel which was no longer a place of death.
* * * * *
He heard the sound of their hurrying feet and a voice that cried: "Look out for the turn--the rock's hot," but he did not look after them. He was standing squarely, bracing himself in the blast of air, still directing the flame upon a block that hung stubbornly and would not let go.
He knew that Loah alone stood near. He heard other feet; someone was returning. Then Smithy was upon him, almost jarring him from his careful pose. Smithy was shouting.
"Come back, Dean!" he cried. "Are you crazy? Don't you know they'll be after us again?"
Rawson sprang as the big rock let go. It, too, crashed deafeningly upon the floor and rolled sluggishly downward beside the high hummock of glass that the first rock had become. They bulked hugely in the passage. They were eight or ten feet high, reaching across from one wall to the other.
Above them was still a space of four feet; Rawson estimated it carefully while he looked at the ceiling above. Then he shook off Smithy's hand that was dragging at him and returned to the attack; for now, above the top of the barricade he had built, white ribbons of vapor were streaming. He had to shout to his utmost to make Smith hear above the shrill shriek of the blast.
"Steam!" he screamed into Smithy's ear. "Live steam! We could never make it--before we got to the top we'd be cooked to a pulp. I've got to block it, got to seal it off." A whole section of the ceiling tore loose as he spoke, and the wind raised its voice like the scream of a wounded animal--or the cry of an overwhelmed and stricken people--as it tore through the space that remained.
* * * * *
It whipped the molten drops as they fell and made of them a deadly rain. Rawson, staring through the clouds of hot steam that now wrapped him about, called to Smithy to take Loah to safety, and kept the flame where it should be--until at length the last aperture was closed, the last gap in the wall filled in. And even after that Rawson kept the flame still playing above that wall till he had melted rock and more rock that flowed down to make the barrier a single heavy, solid mass.
Steam was coming now from the narrow cleft where the green light had flas
hed out to bar their way. But that was simple, and he sealed the gap shut with his flame.
He was gasping. The radiant heat from that molten mass had been torture that his naked body could never have borne but for the desperate necessity that drove him.
Smithy and Loah were again beside him. "Now," he choked, "we can go, but if there are any cross passages I'll have to block them too."
"There aren't," said Smithy, and added: "I thought you were crazy. You've saved us all, Dean; we never could have made it to the top. That steam was getting hot--hot as if it had come right out of hell."
"It did," said Rawson. Then the flame-thrower fell from his nerveless hand. He was swaying; his knees were trembling with weakness when Smithy and Loah, on either side, took his burned arms tenderly and helped him on where the others had gone.
Colonel Culver and a rescue party met them halfway. The Colonel had seen his men safely to the bottom of the volcanic pit. Others had run from their station beside a field gun to meet them; then Culver had called for volunteers and had gone back. And now there were plenty of willing arms to help.
* * * * *
The big lift, with its platforms of metal plates, awaited them at the tunnel's end. There was room on it now for all who were left; there was no crowding of men's bodies as there had been on the downward passage. Rawson was stretched on the floor-plates, whose touch was cool to his tortured body. Loah was seated that his head might rest in her lap on that absurd little fragment of skirt. She bent above him, whispering brokenly: "Dean-San--my dear--my own Dean-San! We live, Dean-San. I can scarcely believe it, but I know that we live, for I still have you."
But Dean was able to stand when that journey was done. First, though, there were men who placed him carefully on a stretcher and carried him, when he commanded, to the crater's outer rim. On the ashy floor of the crater a big transport was waiting with idling motors, but Dean would not let them put him inside. He wanted to look out across the world, to see it in reality as he had seen it in his own mind when all hope was gone. He wanted to look out once more across Tonah Basin and let his eyes rest upon country he had known.
Loah and Smithy walked beside him, as the first-aid men carried him toward that distant rim. The rocks there were cleft--it was the place where he first had seen the inside of the crater's cup. There he had them put him down; and, with the help of Loah and Smithy, he got slowly to his feet. While they lifted him, he wondered at the sound in this desert world where no sound should be. A terrific rushing, an endless roar--and then his eyes found the clouds of steam.
* * * * *
Below him was the Basin, the tangled wreckage of his camp. And there, where the derrick had stood, was a tall plume of white. It did not begin close to the ground--superheated steam, until it cools and condenses to water vapor, is invisible--but a hundred feet above the sand. And, from there on up, two thousand feet sheer into the air, was a straight shaft of vapor, rolling up for another thousand feet into billowing clouds that the afternoon sun turned to glorious white.
"Power!" gasped Rawson. "Power--and it will be like that indefinitely!" Then he laughed weakly. "I had to go down there to do it, to make Erickson richer, but it was worth it. In there the ocean will slowly subside. Gor and his people will find their lost lands; the column of water in the shaft will hold the back-pressure of steam. And here, I have Loah, and that's all--but that's enough!"
He put one arm, still with the bandages of the first-aid men, about the girl. "I hope you'll be happy, dear," he said softly, and turned back. But Smithy barred the way.
"That isn't all," said Smithy jubilantly. "You see, Dean, Erickson fired you--Erickson thought you had run out on him. Instead of backing you up, he quit. So I bought them all out. Whatever is there, Dean--and it's worth more millions than I dare to think about--you own half of! Now get back on that stretcher. Just because you've saved all our necks up here on top of the earth, you mustn't think you can keep an Army ship waiting all day!"
* * *
Contents
PAGAN PASSIONS
by Randall Garrett and Larry M. Harris
The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece and Rome had returned to Earth--with all their awesome powers intact, and Earth was transformed almost overnight. War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery--no change was more startling than the face of New York, where, for instance, the Empire State Building became the Tower of Zeus!
In this totally altered world, William Forrester was an acolyte of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, and therefore a teacher, in this case of a totally altered history--and Maya Wilson, girl student, evidently had a totally altered way of grading in mind--but what else would a worshipper of Venus, Goddess of Love, have in mind?
This was just the first of the many Trials of Forrester, every bit as mighty and perilous as the Labors of Hercules. In love with Gerda Symes, like him a devotee of Athena, like him a frequenter of the great Temple of Pallas Athena (formerly known as the 42nd Street Library)--dedicated, in short, to the pleasures of the mind--Forrester was under the soft, compelling pressure of soft, compelling devotees of Venus, Bacchus and the like, and in need of all the strength that he and his Goddess, the beautiful and intellectual Athena, could muster to save him from the endless temptations of this new Earth.
And into this sensuous strife strode Temple Myrmidons--religious cops sworn to obey orders without question or hesitation--with a pickup order for William Forrester.
Where he was taken, what happened to him, the truly fantastic discoveries he made about himself and the Gods and Goddesses--here are the ingredients that make up this science fiction novel of suspense, intrigue, mystery and danger. For science fiction it is, with the supernatural making complete sense, and fun too, despite the Sword of Damocles hanging by a thread over Forrester's head!
CHAPTER ONE
The girl came toward him across the silent room. She was young. She was beautiful. Her red hair curled like a flame round her eager, heart-shaped face. Her arms reached for him. Her hands touched him. Her eyes were alive with the light of pure love. I am yours, the eyes kept saying. Do with me as you will.
Forrester watched the eyes with a kind of fascination.
Now the girl's mouth opened, the lips parted slightly, and her husky voice murmured softly: "Take me. Take me."
Forrester blinked and stepped back.
"My God," he said. "This is ridiculous."
The girl pressed herself against him. The sensation was, Forrester thought with a kind of awe, undeniably pleasant. He tried to remember the girl's name, and couldn't. She wriggled slightly and her arms went up around him. Her hands clasped at the back of his neck and her mouth moved, close to his ear.
"Please," she whispered. "I want you...."
Forrester felt his head swimming. He opened his mouth but nothing whatever came out. He shut his mouth and tried to think what to do with his hands. They were hanging foolishly at his sides. The girl came even closer, something Forrester would have thought impossible.
Time stopped. Forrester swam in a pink haze of sensations. Only one small corner of his brain refused to lose itself in the magnificence of the moment. In that corner, Forrester felt feverishly uncomfortable. He tried again to remember the girl's name, and failed again. Of course, there was really no reason why he should have known the name. It was, after all, only the first day of class.
"Please," he said valiantly. "Miss--"
He stopped.
"I'm Maya Wilson," the girl said in his ear. "I'm in your class, Mr. Forrester. Introductory World History." She bit his ear gently. Forrester jumped.
None of the textbooks of propriety he had ever seen seemed to cover the situation he found himself in. What did one do when assaulted (pleasantly, to be sure, but assault was assault) by a lovely girl who happened to be one of your freshman students? She had called him Mr. Forrester. That was right and proper, even if it was a little silly. But what should he call her? Miss Wilson?
&n
bsp; That didn't sound right at all. But, for other reasons, Maya sounded even worse.
The girl said: "Please," and added to the force of the word with another little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now only one thing to do, and he did it.
He broke away, found himself on the other side of his desk, looking across at an eager, wet-lipped freshman student.
"Well," he said. There was a lone little bead of sweat trickling down his forehead, across his frontal ridge and down one cheek. He ignored it bravely, trying to think what to do next. "Well," he repeated at last, in what he hoped was a gentle and fatherly tone. "Well, well, well, well, well." It didn't seem to have any effect. Perhaps, he thought, an attempt to put things back on the teacher-student level might have better results. "You wanted me to see you?" he said in a grave, scholarly tone. Then, gulping briefly, he amended it in a voice that had suddenly grown an octave: "You wanted to see me? I mean, you--"
"Oh," Maya Wilson said. "Oh, my goodness, yes, Mr. Forrester!"
She made a sudden sensuous motion that looked to Forrester as if she had suddenly abolished bones. But it wasn't unpleasant. Far from it. Quite the contrary.
Forrester licked his lips, which were suddenly very dry. "Well," he said. "What about, Miss--uh--Miss Wilson?"
"Please call me Maya, Mr. Forrester. And I'll call you--" There was a second of hesitation. "Mr. Forrester," Maya said plaintively, "what is your first name?"
"First name?" Forrester tried to think of his first name. "You want to know my first name?"
"Well," Maya said, "I want to call you something. Because after all--" She looked as if she were going to leap over the desk.
"You may call me," Forrester said, grasping at his sanity, "Mr. Forrester."
Maya sidled around the desk quietly. "Mr. Forrester," she said, reaching for him, "I wanted to talk to you about the Introductory World History course."