Arnsen felt cold. “We’re getting off this asteroid. Right away.”
“Leaving Hastings?”
“We—I’ll look for him myself. There’s life here, malignant life. Plenty dangerous.”
“Not evil. No. Beyond evil, beyond good. I’m not going, Steve.”
“You’re going if I have to hog-tie you.”
O’Brien’s gloved hand tightened on the milky crystal. “Deirdre!” he said.
And, in the emptiness above them, a glow brightened.
There was no other warning. Arnsen tilted back his head to see—the incredible.
Deirdre, he thought. Then, unbidden, another name leaped into his mind.
Circe!
Circe of Colchis, goddess of Aea—Circe, Daughter of the Day, who changed men to swine! Circe—more than human!
For this was no human figure that hovered above them. It seemed to be a girl, unclad, reclining in nothingness, her floating hair tinted like the rays of a dying sun. Her body swept in lines of pure beauty, long-limbed and gracious. Her eyes were veiled; long lashes hid them.
There was tenderness in her face, and aloofness, and alienage. There was beauty there—not entirely human beauty.
Rainbow crystals garmented, her.
Some large, some small, multi-faceted gems danced and shimmered against the blackness of the sky and the whiteness of Circe’s body. Moon-yellow, amber-gold, blue as the sea off Capri, green as the pine-clad hills of Earth—angry scarlet and lambent dragon-green!
With some distantly sane corner of his mind, Arnsen realized that it was impossible for any living being to exist without protection on the frigid, airless surface of the asteroid. Then he knew that both air and warmth surrounded the girl.
The crystals protected her. He knew that, somehow.
O’Brien twisted in his arms. He saw the girl, tried to spring free. Arnsen gripped him.
The boy swung a jolting blow that jarred the giant’s helmet. His mailed glove smashed against the metal plate. Dazed and giddy, Arnsen fell back, clawing at O’Brien. His fingers slipped along the other’s arm; he felt something drop into his hand, and clutched it.
Then O’Brien was free. He wrenched an oxygen-tank from Arnsen’s shoulders, whirled, and took a step toward the girl. She was further away now . . .
Arnsen staggered up. His head was throbbing furiously. Too late he realized that, in the scuffle, his air-valve had fouled. He fumbled at it with clumsy fingers—and fell.
His helmet thudded solidly against hard slag. Blackness took him . . .
CHAPTER FOUR
Circe the Immortal
IT WAS dark when he woke. Oxygen was once more pouring into his suit; he had managed to open the valve before falling. Far above, the distant, corona-crowned sun flamed against the starry backdrop. The ship lay beneath its crag.
But of O’Brien there was no trace whatever.
After that, something akin to madness came to Arnsen. Again the utter loneliness of space crushed down on him, with suffocating terror. Doug was gone, like Hastings. Where?
He searched, then, and in the days thereafter. He grew haggard and gaunt, drugging himself with stimulants so he could drive himself beyond his limit. Hour after hour he searched the tiny world, squinting against sun-glare, peering into black shadow, shouting O’Brien’s name, cursing bitter, searing oaths that sounded futile to his ears. Time dragged on into an eternity. He had been here forever. He could not remember a time when he had not been plodding across the asteroid, watching for a glimpse of a space-suited figure, of dancing jewels of fire, of a slim, white body . . .
Who was she? What was she? Not human—no. And the crystals, what were they?
He returned to the ship one day, shoulders slumping, and passed the spot where he had seen the girl. Something on the ground caught his eye. A pearly, shining gem.
He remembered his scuffle with O’Brien, and the thing that had dropped into his glove.
The jewel, of course. It had lain, here, unnoticed, for many revolutions of the asteroid.
He picked it up, staring into the milky depths. A pulse tingled up his arm, fingering into his mind. A pulse of longing—
The girl had appeared when O’Brien summoned her.
Perhaps it would work again. There was no other hope.
But he could not call her Deirdre. He gripped the hard crystal. His thought probed out, forceful and summoning.
“Circe!”
Nothing. The eternal silence, the cold blaze of the stars . . .
“Circe!”
The gem in his hand leaped with eagerness. In emptiness above him a rainbow glitter of coruscating light flamed. The crystals—and, within them, the girl!
She had not changed. Lovely and alien, she lay among her dancing, shining gems, and her lashes still veiled the cryptic depth of her eyes. Arnsen stumbled forward.
“Where’s O’Brien?” His voice cracked, harsh and inhuman. “Damn you! Where is he?”
She did not look at him. Her body seemed to recede. The jewels swirled into swift motion about her.
Arnsen lurched on. His mind felt on fire. He whipped out his elastic billy and plunged toward the girl.
She was not there. She had drifted back amid the rainbow crystals.
Arnsen could not overtake her. It was like following a will-o’-the-wisp, a torch of St. Elmo’s fire. But he did not take his eyes from the girl. More than once he fell. She was leading him away from the ship, he knew. That did not matter. Not if she also led him to Doug.
What had she done with the boy? He hated her, hated her relentless inhumanity, her incredible beauty. Teeth bared, red-rimmed eyes glaring, Arnsen plunged on in a nightmare race across the face of the silent asteroid.
Hours later, it seemed, she vanished in black shadow under a thrusting pinnacle of slag. Arnsen followed, reeling with fatigue, expecting to cannon into a rock wall. But the darkness remained intangible. The ground sloped down beneath his leaded boots. Suddenly light shone through a cleft at his side.
Pale, warm, liquid light, it drifted up from a slanting corridor in the rock. Far down. the passage Arnsen could see the cloud of dancing flames that marked the girl’s crystal attendants. He stumbled on.
Down he went, and down, till at last the passage turned again in the distance. He rounded the bend—and stopped, blinded and dazed.
AS HIS vision adjusted itself, Arnsen made out a pillar of fire that rose from floor to ceiling of the cavern before him. Yet it was not fire. It was something beyond human knowledge. Pure energy, perhaps, wrenched from the locked heart of the atom itself, silently thundering and pouring up like a geyser. The pillar shook. It wavered and rocked, coldly white, intensely brilliant, like a living thing blazing with a power inconceivable.
Walls and floor and roof of the cavern were crusted with jewels. The rainbow crystals clung quivering, thousands of them, some tiny, others huge. They watched.
They were alive.
The girl stood near Arnsen. A score of the jewels pressed against her lovingly. They caressed her. The veiled eyes did not meet Arnsen’s. But she lifted her arm.
There was a movement in Arnsen’s gloved hand. The milky gem stirred; a pulse of eagerness beat out from it.
It leaped free—raced toward Circe. She caught it, flung it at the shaking tower of flame.
Into the pillar’s blazing heart the crystal darted.
The fires sank—rose again. Spewed forth the jewel.
No longer milky—no longer dulled. It blazed with fantastic brilliance! Vital energy streamed from it; it whirled and danced joyously with sheer delight. It was like a sleeper suddenly awakened.
It spun toward Circe, pulsed madly with the intoxication of life.
The girl rose, featherhght, without gravity, drifting across the cavern to a passage-mouth that gaped in the wall. The jewels clustered around it swayed toward her. Some broke free, rushing in her train.
She vanished into the portal.
The spell that held Arnsen
broke. He flung himself after her, too late. Already she was gone. But along the corridor jewels floated, bright, shining, alive.
And suddenly strong arms were around Arnsen. The face of O’Brien was before him. O’Brien, no longer wearing his space-suit, haggard, and yet aflame with a vital something that glowed in his dark eyes. O’Brien—laughing.
“Steve!” His voice shook. “So you followed me. I’m glad. Come in here—it’s all right.”
The energy went out of Arnsen, leaving him weak and exhausted. He cast one glance up the empty corridor and followed O’Brien through a cave-opening into a little room cut out of solid rock. He felt the other’s fingers loosening his helmet, removing the bulky space-suit. Some remnant of caution returned.
“The oxygen—”
“There’s air here. It’s a place of wonders, Steve!”
There was air. Cool, sweet, and refreshing, it crept into Arnsen’s lungs. He looked around. The little cavern was empty, save for dozens of the rainbow crystals clinging to the walls.
They watched alertly.
O’Brien pressed him back, made a quick gesture. A jewel floated forward, hovering over Arnsen’s face. He felt water trickling between his lips, and, too exhausted for wonder, swallowed gratefully.
“You need sleep,” O’Brien said. “But it’s all right, Steve. It’s all right, I tell you. You’ll hear all about it when you wake up. Time enough then. You’ll see Deirdre.”
Arnsen tried to struggle up. “I won’t—”
O’Brien signalled again. Another gem drifted close. From it a gray breath of cloud floated, perfume-sweet, soporific. It crept into Arnsen’s nostrils . . .
And he slept.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Jewel-Folk
THE room was unchanged when he woke once more. O’Brien sat cross-legged, looking into space. His face had altered, had acquired a new peace and maturity.
He heard Arnsen’s slight movement and turned.
“Awake? How do you feel?”
“All right. Well enough to hear explanations,” Arnsen said with a flash of temper. “I’ve been nearly crazy—looking for you all over this damned asteroid. I still think I’m crazy after all this.” O’Brien chuckled. “I can imagine. I felt pretty upset for a while, till the crystals explained.”
“The crystals what?”
“They’re alive, Steve. The ultimate product of evolution, perhaps. Crystalline life. Perfect machines. They can do, almost anything. You saw how one created drinkable water, and—well; look here.” He beckoned.
A jewel floated close. From it a jet of flame shot, red and brilliant. O’Brien waved his hand; the gem drifted back to its place.
“They can convert energy into matter, you see. It’s logical, when you forget about hide-bound science. All matter’s made up of energy. It’s simply locked in certain patterns—certain matrixes. But inside the atom—the framework of matter—you’ve got nothing but energy. These crystals build patterns out of basic energy.”
Arnsen shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
O’Brien’s voice grew deeper, stronger. “Long ago—very long ago, and in another galaxy, light-years away, there was a civilization far beyond ours. Deirdre is a child of that race. It was—mighty. It passed through our culture-level and went far beyond. Till machines were no longer needed. Instead, the race made the crystals—super-machines, super-robots, with incredible powers locked in them. They supplied all the needs of Deirdre’s race.”
“Well?”
“This asteroid doesn’t belong to our family of planets. It’s from that other system, in the neighboring galaxy. It drifted here by accident, I think. I don’t quite know the facts of it. It came under the gravitational pull of a comet, or a wandering planet, and was yanked out into space. Eventually it settled into this orbit. Deirdre didn’t care. Her mind isn’t like ours. The crystals supplied all her needs—made air, gave her food and water. Everything she desired.”
Arnsen said, “How long has this been going on?”
“Forever, perhaps,” O’Brien said quietly. “I think Deirdre’s immortal. At least she is a goddess. Do you remember the crystal I found in that meteorite?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“It came from here. It was one of Deirdre’s servants. Somehow it was lost—wandered away. Cosmic dust collected on it as it moved in an orbit around the sun—for thousands of years, perhaps. Iron atoms. At last it was a meteorite, with the crystal at its heart. So it fell on Earth, and I found it, and it wanted to go home, back to Deirdre. It told me that. I felt its thoughts. It drew me here, Steve—”
Arnsen shivered. “It’s unbelievable. And that girl isn’t human.”
“Have you looked into her eyes?”
“No—”
“She isn’t human, She is a goddess.” A new thought came to Arnsen. “Where’s Tex Hastings? Here?”
“I haven’t seen him,” O’Brien said. “I don’t know where he is.”
“Uh-huh. What have you been doing?”
“She brought me here. The crystals took care of me. And Deirdre—” He stood up. “She’s summoning me. Wait, Steve—I’ll be back.”
Arnsen put out a detaining hand; it was useless. O’Brien stepped through the portal and was gone. A dozen crystals swept after him.
ARNSEN followed, refusing to admit that he, too, wanted another glimpse of the girl. Down the passage he went in O’Brien’s trail, till the boy vanished from sight. Arnsen increased his pace. He halted on the threshold of the cavern where the pillar of flame swept up to the roof.
He had thought it thundered. It did not—it rushed up in utter silence, shaking and swaying with the surcharged intensity of its power. The walls were crusted with the dancing, watching crystals. Now Arnsen saw that some were dull gray, motionless and dead. These were sprinkled among the others, and there were thousands of them.
O’Brien paced forward—and suddenly Circe was standing with her back to Arnsen, the gems clustering about her caressingly. She lifted her arms, and O’Brien turned.
A great hunger leaped into his face. The girl did not move, and O’Brien came into the circle of her arms.
So swift was her movement that Arnsen did not realize it till too late. The slender arms slid free; Circe stepped back a pace—and thrust O’Brien toward the tower of flame!
He stumbled, off balance, and the crystals leaped from Circe’s body. They were no longer a garment. They pressed against O’Brien, forcing him away, thrusting, pushing. Arnsen cried out and sprang forward—
O’Brien reeled, was engulfed by the flame-pillar. The pouring torrent swallowed him.
Simultaneously from the farther wall a gray, dead jewel detached itself and shot toward the tower of fire. Into the blazing heart it fled and vanished.
The pillar sank down. It pulsed—thundered up again, silently streaming like a torrent toward the roof. And out of its depths the jewel came transformed.
Sentiment, blazing, shining with a myriad hues, it swirled toward Circe. Scintillant with delight, it hovered about her caressingly.
It was alive!
Arnsen cried out, flung himself forward. Circe turned to face him. Still her eyes were hidden; her face was aloofly lovely and inhuman.
The crystal swept toward Arnsen, cupping itself into his outthrust hand. From it a wave of mad delight rushed into his brain.
It was Doug—it was Doug! Frozen with sick horror, Arnsen halted, while thoughts poured from the sentient crystal into his mind.
“The—the gray jewel—” His tongue fumbled thickly with the words. He looked up to where the dull gems clung among the shining ones.
“Machines, Steve.” The thought lanced into him from the living thing he held. “Robots, not energized. Only one thing can energize them—life-force, vital energy. The flame-pillar does that, through atomic transmutation. It’s not earthly science—it was created in another galaxy. There, Deirdre’s race had slave people to energize the crystals.’ !”
“Doug—she’s killed you—”
“I’m not dead. I’m alive, Steve, more alive than I ever have been. All. the crystals—Martians, Venusians, beings from other systems and galaxies that landed on this asteroid. Deirdre took them for her own. As she took Hastings. As she has taken me. We serve her now—”
The jewel tore free from Arnsen’s grip. It fled back to Circe, brushing her lips, caressing her hair. The other gems, scores of them, danced about the girl like elfin lovers.
ARNSEN stood there, sick and nauseated. He understood now. The intricate crystal machines were too complicated to work unless life-force energized them. Circe, who took the minds of living beings and prisoned them in silicate robot-forms.
They felt no resentment. They were content to serve.
“Damn you!” Arnsen mouthed, and took a step forward. His fists balled. His fingers ached to curl about the girl’s slender neck and snap it with sharp, vicious pressure.
Her lashes swept up. Her eyes looked into his.
They were black as space, with stars prisoned in their depths. They were not human eyes.
Now Arnsen knew why O’Brien had asked if he had looked into Deirdre’s eyes. They were her secret and her power. Her human form was not enough to enchant and enslave the beings of a hundred worlds. It was the soul-shaking alienage that looked out of Circe’s eyes.
Through those dark windows Arnsen saw the Outside. He saw the gulf between the stars, and no longer did he fear it. For Circe was a goddess.
She was above and beyond humanity. A great void opened between her and the man, the void of countless evolutionary cycles, and a million light-years of space. But across that gulf something reached and met and clung, and Arnsen’s senses drowned in a soul-shaking longing for Circe.
It was her power. She could control emotion, as she could control the crystals, and the power of her mind reached into Arnsen and wrung sanity and self from it. Only in outer semblance was she even slightly human. Beside her Arnsen was an animal, and like an animal he could be controlled.
She blazed like a flame before him. He forgot O’Brien, forgot Hastings and Earth and his purpose. Her power clutched him and left him helpless.
Collected Fiction Page 268