“And that thing was small—very small. Yet we felt its Influence.”
“Telepathy!” Kenworth said. “It sent out thought-impulses to capture us . . . but an ameba?”
“Yes. It’s a unicellular creature—Janna told me—an alien life-form, developed along lines unfamiliar to us. It has no need to seek food—it draws food to it by means of its powerful thought-commands. Vakko!”
But the Martian was gone—racing across the creater floor toward the glistening mound. They watched, fascinated, as Vakko approached the creature—and was engulfed. A thin, scream came to them. Then silence.
“What are we waking for?” Ken-worth snapped. “Come on!”
But he did not move. Astonishment showed on his face.
The Raider laughed grimly. “Because we can’t get away. I’ve been trying . . . the thing’s holding us with its thought-commands—dragging us to it, one fey one!”
6. In the Crater
DESPERATELY Kenworth struggled, He could move, he found, but only in one direction—toward the shining blue mound. He could almost feel the thought-commands pressing a blanket upon his brain, slowing his movements, pulling at him—like a snake holding a bird with its hypnotic glare, drawing it closer to the gleaming fangs!
He felt Thona move, struggle to escape from his arms. He said sharply, “Thona!”
A film seemed to be over her eyes. Abruptly this vanished, and she stared at him fearfully. He held her closer.
The Raider said, “Janna—the scientist—was quite enthusiastic—wanted to study the thing closely. He nearly did for us, too. Luckily I set the controls on the ship before I lost consciousness. When I recovered we were nearly past Phobos. And that was scarcely a tenth as large as this creature!”
Arn said, “The ray-tubes——”
“We tried them,” the Raider reminded him. “Don’t you remember? We couldn’t hurt it. Even the ship’s ray-tubes failed. Janna said the thing built up some sort of resistance that shunted off the rays. The powers of such a creature!” he cried, and for the first time Ken worth heard emotion in the Raider’s voice. “It’s destroyed all animal life on the Night Side!”
Am moved forward swiftly. The Raider ran after him, seized his arm. For a moment the, two moved together toward the crater’s center; then the Raider released Arn. Perspiration dewed his gaunt face as he turned back, but he could not retrace his steps. He stood facing Kenworth, his mouth a tight line. Abruptly he pointed.
Kenworth turned, saw a faint glow in the sky, far beyond the crater’s rim.
“There!” the Raider said. “My light-tube. I dropped it by the ship. If we could escape, we could find our way back by that——”
He turned, shrugging. Arn was quite close to the blue mound now. His arm was outstretched, and Kenworth caught a glance of light on metal. Arn was raying the monster.
Useless! A little sparkle showed that the tube had fallen from Arn’s hand. He sprang forward—and was engulfed!
The blue light brightened. Sparkling threads of radiance shot through the mound. It pulsated more swiftly.
The Raider looked over his shoulder, Janna said it—eats—not so much for food as for—emotion. It can draw its food from the soil, like a plant, he said. He thought it gets some sort of unearthly pleasure from what it devours.”
Incredible . . . and yet—mankind’s development was both mental and emotional. Why could not this ameboid thing have developed its sense of emotion at the expense of intelligence? A mindless entity, sending out its thought-commands by instinct, as a pitcher-plant exudes its luring fluid to attract victims . . . it was possible, Kenworth knew. The blue light had flared brighter when Arn was engulfed than when the octan or the Martian had been—was that because Arn’s brain was more highly developed, had given the creature more pleasurable sensations?
The creature was as far removed from an ameba as man was. On earth the ameba had changed, evolved from a unicellular being to a creature of many cells.
But if the cell had not divided? Its evolution would have been far different! And an ameba had no intelligence, had but the urge of hunger. Might not a creature descended directly from a single-celled ameba be an entity living for sensation alone, its hunger urge taking the place of all other pleasurable sensations? Sex? The thing was sexless!
But that the monster could be accounted for scientifically did not lessen its deadly menace. For suddenly Thona tore herself from Kenworth’s arms, went racing toward the blue mound.
For a moment Kenworth stared, unmoved. Then he sprinted after her, shouting her name. Could he catch her in time?
Not twenty feet from the mound he seized her, held her tightly. She fought him furiously, and he was forced to prison her arms to her sides. She kicked him, but his tough boots saved him from injury.
And now within Kenworth’s mind the blackness began to grow again. The thought-command grew more powerful, usurping his brain. He fought frantically, but still the summoning call dragged at him. He began to move toward the blue mound, still clutching Thona to him.
One half of his mind seemed to hold aloof, watching, while the other part, obeying the thought-summons, dragged him forward. Helpless bird moving toward a hungry snake’s fangs! His breathing was harsh in the dead stillness.
HIS foot struck something, the ray-tube Arn had dropped. Somehow he bent over, scooped it up. But Thona pulled free, moved toward the waiting mound. It was nearly twenty feet high, pulsating, shot with glowing veins. Kenworth managed to lift the tube, although he felt as though he was lifting an impossibly heavy weight.
But he could not ray the monster. Thona was in the path of the beam. Moreover, Arn had tried the ray’s power, and had failed. The monster had dragged him forward inexorably.
The thought flashed into Kenworth’s mind, and he acted swiftly. He touched the button on the tube that adjusted the ray to half-strength, seat that paralyzing beam darting out. The blue mound was not troubled; but Thona stopped, crumpled in a limp heap to the ground. Paralyzed—unable to obey the monster’s thought-command!
Kenworth turned the tube, sent its beam tingling through his body. Ice gripped him. He fell.
There was a queer numbness in his head, and the sense of movement within his brain grew more pronounced. But he could not move. He was safe—until the effects of the ray wore off!
He looked for the ray-tube. It was beside him, and he knew that when the paralysis wore off he could seize it, send the ray through Thona and himself again. But eventually the tube would become exhausted. Death had not been avoided—it had merely been postponed.
Pacing into view came the Raider. Almost at Kenworth’s side he stopped, Veins ridged his forehead with the tremendous effort he put forth. He remained like an image of stone, and Kenworth saw sweat running down his gaunt cheeks, dripping from his chin.
The terrible, silent battle went on, Still the Raider fought, glaring straight ahead at the blue mound.
It was a conflict that could have bat one ending. Suddenly the Raider moved, made a hasty clutch for the ray-tube at his feet. But before he touched it he stiffened. His mask-like face turned toward the mound.
The Raider stood up.
He took a few slow steps—and rushed forward. A hoarse bellow of defiance roared out from his throat. He leaped upon the mound! The shining blue substance surged up around him in swift ameboid movement, engulfing him.
For a moment there was no change in the monster. Then, very suddenly, the blue light brightened. The sparkling veins gleamed coldly brilliant. The thing pulsated more swiftly.
The blue light shone brighter. The little veins were like white-hot threads of metal, and the pulsations became more rapid. The mound surged up! It rose into a great pillar of blazing blue light, and a core of intolerable brilliance began to shine within it. It throbbed and rocked with ecstasy! It shuddered with infinite pleasure!
And Kenworth remembered—the Apia!
A year’s supply of the drug, gathered from hundreds of farms, had been i
n the lube-belt about the Raider’s waist. A drop of the substance would last a man for months. What had the Raider called it? “Pure emotion . . . days of almost unendurable ecstasy.”
And the belt had held a year’s yield of elysia!
Throbbing, the mound rocked, blazing radiance poured from it. The core of light in the pillar was incandescent, flaming with cold fire. It streamed out blindngly.
And the light snapped out and vanished!
Utter darkness filled the crater. Flashing light images still played on Kenworth’s eyes, but these faded swiftly. He linked experimentally.
The paralysis was leaving him. The ay-tube must have been almost exhausted. Life flooded back into his veins, he fumbled in a pocket, found the light-tube he had thrust there just before the engulfing blackness had blotted out his senses. He heard Thona stirring.
“Dal!” Her voice was frightened. He clicked on the light, saw her. on her feet. His eyes widened as he stared past her.
For there lay the blue mound—no longer blue, no longer—living! Pale and translucent it lay in a shapeless pile, and within it Kenworth saw the filaments—black threads now.
Thona said, unbelievingly, “It’s—dead!”
Kenworth echoed her. “Dead. The elysia did it—the Raider saved us, Thona, though he didn’t know it. The creature lived on sensation—but there’s a limit to everything. A dozen drops of elysia will kill a man; and that tremendous dose of the drug simply burned out the thing’s life! It was like sending a billion volts of electric current through a copper wire—it burned out the nerve-tissues. It’s dead, Thona!”
Her eyes were very bright as she looked up at him. He drew her close, flung out an arm toward the crater’s rim where a pale glow shone in the sky.
“And there’s the light-tube the Raider dropped. It’ll guide us to the ship.”
For a brief space they stood silent, two tiny figures lost in an immensity of blackness that pressed in from all sides—like the race of Man, on three little worlds lost in the vastness of infinity, staring out into the unknown. Then, together, they began to walk forward—symbol of man—unafraid—conquering!
THE JEST OF DROOM-AVISTA
A brief, poetic story about an alien city and a metallic doom
THERE is a tale they tell of voices that called eerily by night in the marble streets of long-fallen Bel Yarnak, saying: “Evil is come to the land; doom falls on the fair city where our children’s children walk. Wo, wo unto Bel Yarnak.” Then did the dwellers in the city gather affrightedly in huddled groups, casting furtive glances at the Black Minaret that spears up gigantically from the temple gardens; for, as all men know, when doom comes to Bel Yarnak, the Black Minaret will play its part in that dreadful Ragnarok.
Wo, wo unto Bel Yarnak! Fallen for ever are the shining silver towers, lost the magic, soiled the glamor. For stealthily and by night, under the triple moons that hurtle swiftly across the velvet sky, doom crept out inexorably from the Black Minaret.
Mighty magicians were the priests of the Black Minaret. Mighty were they, alchemists and sorcerers, and always they sought the Stone of the Philosophers, that strange power which would enable them to transmute all things into the rarest of metals. And in a vault far below the temple gardens, toiling endlessly at glittering alembics and shining crucibles, lit by the violet glow of ocuru-lamps, stood Thorazor, mightiest of priests, wisest of all who dwelt in Bel Yarnak. Days and weeks and years he had toiled, while strange moons reeled down to the horizons, seeking the Elixir. Gold and silver paved the streets; blazing diamonds, moon-glowing opals, purple gems of strange fire, meteor-fallen, made of Bel Yarnak a splendid vision, shining by night to guide the weary traveler across the sandy wastes. But a rarer element Thorazor sought. Other worlds possessed it, for the intricate telescopes of the astronomers revealed its presence in the flaming suns that fill the chaotic sky, making night over Bel Yarnak a mirror reflecting the blazing scintillance of the city, a star-carpeted purple tapestry where the triple moons weave their arabesque patterns. So toiled Thorazor under the Black Minaret all of glistening jet onyx.
He failed, and again he failed, and at length he knew that only with the gods’ aid could he find the Elixir he sought. Not the little gods, nor the gods of good and evil, but Droom-avista, the Dweller Beyond, the Dark Shining One, Thorazor called up blasphemously from the abyss. For Thorazor’s brain was warped; he had toiled endlessly, and failed as often; in his mind was but one thought. So he did that which is forbidden: he traced the Seven Circles and spoke the Name which wakens Droom-avista from his brooding sleep.
A shadow swept down, darkening over the Black Minaret. Yet Bel Yarnak was untroubled; glorious and beautiful the shining city glowed while thin voices called weirdly in the streets.
Wo, wo unto Bel Yarnak! For the shadow darkened and encompassed the Black Minaret, and midnight black closed ominously about the sorcerer Thorazor. All alone he stood in his chamber, no gleam of light relieving the awful darkness that heralded the coming of the Dark Shining One, and slowly, ponderously, there rose up before him a Shape. But Thorazor cried out and hid his eyes, for none may look upon the Dweller Beyond lest his soul be blasted for ever.
Like the groaning tocsin of a Cyclopean bell came the voice of the Dweller, rumbling terribly under the Black Minaret. Yet only Thorazor heard it, for he alone had called up Droom-avista.
“Now my sleep is troubled,” the god cried. “Now my dreams are shattered and I must weave new visions. Many worlds, a mightier cosmos, have you ruined; yet there are other worlds and other dreams, and perchance I shall find amusement in this little planet. For is not one of my names the Jester?”
Shuddering and fearful, still hiding his eyes, Thorazor spoke.
“Great Droom-avista, I know your name; I have said it. By the doom even upon you, you must obey one command of him who calls you up.”
The darkness throbbed and pulsed. Ironically Droom-avista assented. “Command, then. O little fool, command your god! For always have men sought to enslave gods, and ever have they succeeded too well.”
Yet Thorazor heeded not the warning. One thought only had he: the Elixir, the mighty magic that would transmute all things into the rarest of elements, and to Droom-avista he spoke fearlessly. He said his desire.
“But is that all?” the god said slowly. “Now this is but a small thing for which to disturb my slumber. So shall I grant your desire—for am I not named the Jester? Do thus and thus.” And Droom-avista spoke of that which would transmute all things into the rarest of metals on Bel Yarnak.
Then the god withdrew, and the shadow lifted. Again Droom-avista sank into his dreaming sleep, weaving intricate cosmogonies; and speedily he forgot Thorazor. But the sorcerer stood in his chamber, trembling with exultation, for at his feet lay a jewel. This had the god left behind.
FLAMING, blazing, streaming with weird fire the gem illuminated the dark chamber, driving the shadows back into the distant corners. Yet Thorazor had no eyes for its beauty; this was the Philosopher’s Stone, this the Elixir! A glory was in the wizard’s eyes as he prepared a brew as Droom-avista had commanded.
Then the mixture seethed and bubbled in the golden crucible, and over it Thorazor held the shining jewel. The culmination of a lifetime’s hopes was reached as he dropped the gem into the frothing brew.
For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then, slowly at first, but with increasing swiftness, the golden crucible changed in color, slowly darkening. Thorazor cried out, blessing Droom-avista, for the crucible was no longer golden. It had been transmuted, by the power of the jewel, into the rarest of metals.
The gem, as though lighter than the bubbling mixture, lay lightly on the liquid surface. But the metamorphosis was not yet complete. The darkness crept down the pedestal that supported the crucible; it spread out like a fungoid stain across the onyx floor. It reached the feet of Thorazor, and the sorcerer stood frozen, glaring down at the frightful transmutation that was changing his body from flesh and blood into solid metal.
And in a flash of blinding realization Thorazor knew Droom-avista’s jest, and knew that by the power of the Elixir all things are changed to the rarest of elements.
He shrieked once, and then his throat was no longer flesh. And slowly, slowly, the stain spread across the floor and up the stone walls of the chamber. The shining onyx dulled and lost its sheen. And the hungry stain crept out through the Black Minaret, out upon Bel Yarnak, while the thin voices cried sadly in the marble streets.
Wo, wo unto Bel Yarnak! Fallen is the glory, dulled and tarnished the gold and silver splendor, cold and lifeless the beauty of the magic citadel. For outward and ever outward crept the stain, and in its path all was changed. The people of Bel Yarnak no longer move light-heartedly about their houses; lifeless images throng the streets and palaces. Immovable and silent sits the Sindara on a tarnished throne; dark and grim looms the city under the hurtling moons. It is Dis; it is the damned city, and sad voices in the silent metropolis mourn for lost glory.
Fallen is Bel Yarnak! Changed by the magic of Thorazor and by Droom-avista’s jest, changed to the rarest of all elements in that planet of gold and silver and shining gems.
No longer Bel Yarnak—it is Dis, the City of Iron!
H.P.L.
Here in the silent places, and the caverns beneath the world,
On the great black altars carven from the stones that the gods have hurled,
Where the gray smoke coils and shudders through the eery purple gleam,
And the shadows of worlds beyond our worlds fall over a dreamer’s dream—
Reddened with blood from an alien flesh, pallid as vampire thing,
Dark with the glimpse of supernal night and brushed with an ebon wing,
Pageants of awful majesty pass in a saraband
Like the shadows of Egypt’s Titan gods far-flung on the changeless sand.
Only a few may taste the cup that none but the gods can drain;
Collected Fiction Page 18