Then they were dismounting in the great courtyard of a ruler’s house of houses. Small laughing boys took the reins they dropped, led the snorting, rearing steeds away with a boisterous swift haste that was a strangely silent boisterousness. Grayson could not get used to the fact that sound was here replaced by another sense, which had none of the familiar extraneous impacts of noise, but only meaning or nothing at all.
His flashes of seeing normal life-shapes and then again seeing strange transparent ghost shapes of alien matter were coming more and more closely, so that alternately he was sure of solid matter about him and next moment afraid to move for fear of sinking into the pale translucent soil beneath his feet, immaterial as cloud surface. Which was the true vision, and which some affliction due to his transition from his universe to an alien one?
‘Multiple-universe frame’ mused Grayson, following the proud steps of Istar into the wide-thrown doors of the ornate palace. His flash of seeing inside and through things came this time as if in answer to his will to see what Istar was feeling, and Grayson was struck with sympathy at the sadness and sting of defeat mingled through the noble emotion-matrix of this strong-fibred man. Sadness at the loss of thousands of his crew-men in the fleet. The sting of inability to outwit and out-maneuver his opponent. A dull, hurt wonder that the enemy seemed to know his every plan and trick before he used it. A suspicion that some one on their side had given the enemy vital information, and a casting about in his mind, mulling over this man and that of his officers who had vital information in their possession—wondering which was the traitor. Who had told the enemy their thought-pattern formulas? Such intricate information to convey to them, how had it been done?
Abruptly the inner seeing left him, and again the strange world had taken on a more normal appearance. This time Grayson knew that his odd new power of penetrative vision and mental seeing was not the possession of the others about him, but that the sight which seemed more normal to him was to them the usual and accepted thought-frame of their world. Something in his transposition had left him with a power of mind not possessed by these natives of this amazing new universe!
EVEN YET he was not sure that his more normal sight was not in truth an illusion produced by his own mind’s thought habits attempting to convince him that this world was like his other—was normal to his other world’s ways and laws, operative with the same physical order, possessing the same elements. That seeing flesh-and-blood men where he knew were only phantasmal force-beings—was in truth a protective functional illusion fostered by his sub-conscious mind to keep him from insanity. That in truth this universe was one of force;—a fluid, differently-organized matter existed here, and that his mind refused to recognize the fact and substituted instead this illusion of solidity and ordinary reality through which he walked as a blind man through a garden of jewels, refusing their existence even as his other senses told him of the wonder about him.
But within Istar’s mind was a similar set-up of apparent reality! He had seen the thought-pictures of his thought forming and dissolving, he knew that Istar thought of himself as a four-limbed being and not any shimmering, weird organization of fluid force-vortices! Could it be that both sights were as true as anything could be true? Could it be that here he could see what they could not? Could see the inner, greater reality of life even as these natives accept-the superficial, apparent reality as all of reality?
If he could control the coming and the going of this new power—then he would have, even here in his helpless disorientation, a hidden advantage over these people, a protection against their natural enmity to the stranger!
Grayson resolved to learn to control this new thought power. And even as he so resolved, he remembered the mind of Istar busy with immensely complex designs he called “thought-pattern formulas”, and the plans for new “menta-beam” projectors—and he did not even understand what the man was thinking about though he could see the thought in detailed clarity.
The group of men with Istar numbered around fifteen, of whom Grayson made one. They passed through a number of wide halls, crossed great chambers of brilliantly tinted glasslike walls. The swimming, scented, misty air was a caress here within this haven. The details of the place escaped Grayson, they were too varied and too different from his experience, no man could absorb the myriad art details of this master work!—It would have been like learning chess at one sitting to have taken in all the little delicate subtle scrollings depicting alien beauty upon the walls, the door lintels; the very floor itself swam with the shimmering carvings overlaid with transparent material tinted delicately to life-like color made to move by subtly varied changing light rays from an undetectable source!—Or did they move alive?
They stood at last before a throne:—The majesty and power of an empire of space, an empire that had stood for a time uncountable in Grayson’s earth-thought symbols, was here displayed in the trappings of that throne. Displayed too in the breeding of that Monarch, upon that throne, a breeding self-evident and redolent of of an antiquity of descent unthinkable, and antiquity of line of which no member had been less than noble, less than regal, less than adequate. He fit, sitting in that throne. Whatever admiration Grayson had felt for Istar, the leader born and cultured and bred up to his job; was lost now in admiration for his Lord upon that throne.
How could such life exist upon the plane in which such as Marduc moved unseen and unapprehended as a natural enemy? Or was this an illusion bred of some magic, and this Ruler but an ordinary man? Grayson reserved judgment, fought off the awe and admiration that swept him at the regal dignity of the mighty man-form on the great throne of smooth black stone. A throne shaped in the form of a gigantic black flower of four petals, one petal the seat—two the curved arms, and one the great round back outlining the mighty head and shoulders of the monarch.
HE WAS big, with fine muscular development and incongruously pallid face and white hands restless upon the incurving round petals of stone. Two great burning eyes above a nose high-bridged and thin-nostriled. A broad expanse of too-white brow above which a mass of brown curls lay unruly, close cropped about the hidden ears. Metal links covered the sinewed arms and wide, warrior shoulders; and about his waist a wide belt, the only ornament, set with round gold bosses. In the belt was thrust a weapon strange to Grayson, as what was not here? It was a curved handle built to fit the hand, with finger grips incut, and on the thing gleamed a red ruby. Like a red eye the big ruby glowed as the only spot of color in the black and white of firm-muscled flesh and dull metal and black stone. The rest of the weapon curved down like a scimitar. But it was no scimitar, for the end of it was a bell-mouth in which some power lay chained, giving off a dim flickering threat in little gleaming moving lights of a blue intensity.
The wide generous mouth of the ruler did not smile on the defeated space admiral, did not pick out any face for favor, but only looked down on them silently, grimly, and with a sorrow as if they had betrayed him, these men whom he had loved. It was a thing to hurt the heart of any loyal man, that face of the monarch looking down on his returned warriors; a thing Grayson himself could not face, but turned his eyes away as did the others, from the hurt in those great eyes.
Istar stepped to the first wide round step that led up to the dais, and put one foot upon it, and leaned upon his knee with one wide hand, and looked up into the great hurt eyes.
“I feel betrayed myself, Lord Nardan. Azura falls unless we catch us a traitor and learn a new way of war within two fals. They had every formula before I used it, I pierced not one force-shield, they pierced each one soon after they ranged us! We have an enemy among our trusted officers! Who can it be, Monarch who must learn or be trod beneath Gyron’s heel?”
Behind Grayson, Marduc pressed suddenly forward, turned and pointed finger at Grayson, speaking rapidly and he thought with an intent to turn the talk at once away from any search for traitors.
“We have brought with us another spy, one who claims he is from another universe! This
one at least we can dispose of before he gets an opportunity to do us harm.”
The monarch turned those deep eyes beneath the broad bony brows upon Grayson, and for a long minute there was a silence.
“Who are you, stranger?” asked the man on the throne.
Grayson moved from among the men ringing the throne, and his voice rang strangely as he forgot the way of projecting fluid thought-force which was here the speech. Then he caught himself, and formed the images of his tale slowly and carefully, explaining fully,—
“I am Paul Grayson, a research scientist and inventor upon a world of another universe, I think. I discovered a new and terrific source of power, and in trying to harness that power, blew my body into space. It was picked up by your fleet, and that is all that I can tell you. I do not know where I am, or even how to tell you where I come from.”
THE GREAT eyes shifted to Marduc, and at once Marduc said: “In all that battlefield of space, there were only men of Karnia and men of Azura. For ten sares in all directions space was empty of craft except our two fleets. He is not of our Azura, and he admits it! He must be of the enemy, a liar and a spy!”
The great lips of the big man on the throne smiled at this, and the strong white teeth parted as the smile became a chuckle. “If he knew our customs, would you be so bold as to chance his wrath, my brave Marduc? It seems to me you forget we have perceptors to know if he is in truth of Karnia or not. Why are you so anxious to accuse this stranger? No spy would depend upon such a wild tale for his life. I would give him time to prove himself.”
The grave, proud face of Istar gave out a golden flow of approbation, and Grayson knew his life had been spared, and Marduc rebuked. The man stepped back, his face a mask of unreadable emotion barely controlled. Istar’s meaning-flow became English words in Grayson’s mind:
“He has no guilt sense, no apparent realization of the nature of this universe. I have looked into him and found strange things, strange unreadable thoughts. He had great difficulty in understanding me at first, now he has learned our way of speech more quickly than seems possible. He is either a very intelligent man or a man with strange powers, and if he is a spy he is a brand of scoundrel to me before unmet in life.”
The Monarch nodded, his smile gone now, and he beckoned with one hand toward the shadows that half hid the wide reaches of the vast chamber. From the near shadows stepped a form that brought a gasp to Grayson’s lips, and again he was startled by his own voice in the eerie silence which was this world’s atmosphere.
For a beautiful young Goddess of a girl had stepped forward to answer the ruler’s beckoning hand, and bowed her head meekly before the giant male on the throne. She stood there like an angel, her hair a golden glory about her shoulders, an air of innocence and youth mingled with profound depth lay upon her an aura of virginity and studious repression of natural desire for the sake of advancement—Here was an ambitious child who had reasons for her ambition and a will to suit. Her gown was a pale gold transparence upon the white flesh, floating about her slender form; and as she raised her head Grayson knew that he knew nothing of this world! For a mystery lay in her eyes, smiled upon her curving, well carved lips, dimpled her cheek. A mystery of character beyond him!
Yes, Lord of Azura, God of the reaches of Nether, agent of the light, I come to obey.”
“Take this maligned ‘spy’ and ascertain if he can be of value to us within two fals. Unless we discover a new weapon and a traitor within that time, we will all be ground beneath Karnian cruelty. If he proves to be a spy as Marduc hastened to assume, have him slain. If he be a scientist of another universe, as he maintains, why his mind will contain many alien concepts of energy forms which we may construct even here, by our massed thought projection into pseudo-materiality, just as we do the weapons and tools of the lower Azura planets of material life. Learn from him what you can, and above all study how to use his differences of warfare concept to suggest a new weapon against the Karnian horde. Tell no one, if you learn from him anything of use, keep it for my ears alone.”
This speech of Lord Nardan’s was couched in mental pictures hard for Grayson to follow, particularly his mention of a Lower Azura, and the use of material weapons in this the Higher Azura. Then these people recognized their immaterial nature, and yet at the same time it seemed to Grayson they did not fully realize it, but were deluded as he was himself by the seeming materiality of themselves and their works about them.
WITHOUT answering, the girl turned to Grayson, measuring his lean alien face; the slender, strangely strong body; the deep grey eyes that looked on her fascinated by her cold bright beauty, yet repelled by the virginal, repressed way of her will. Her hand touched a peculiar crystalline object suspended from her waist, it hung there on a gold chain, glittering and turning, with chained fires within it pulsing, half alive. To Grayson it seemed that she relied upon the object to frighten him, for protection for herself against any harm he might plan to do her. He knew from the short abrupt thoughts she threw at him that she considered herself able to handle a spy if he proved so to be, and was warning him in case he planned any subterfuge.
She turned back to the Lord Nardan, and her thought flashed proud and bright, almost visible to his eyes.
“I will perceive, Majesty. I will inform. And I will make haste, for I do not like Karnian men nor wish for slavery to them.”
Nardan looked into the cold bright eyes of the girl for a long second, as if measuring the depth and the strength of her with a sensation of pleasure such as a warrior who touches a bright and well balanced weapon.
She touched Grayson upon the shoulder, pointing to the door at the side. He moved off, loath to leave the conference about the throne. But even as he moved away, the Monarch rose, and several officers followed him to another door set in the dark wall behind the throne.
“What is your name, golden maid?” Grayson asked impulsively.
“I am called Sareen, a subordinate of the intelligence staff of the Lord Nardan. And what are you called?”
“Paul Grayson. You can call me Paul, since we are to be together. I am a stranger to your customs, so you must forgive me if I offend what you consider polite niceties of your life.”
“I will forgive, Paul. Do you likewise for me,” she answered, unsmiling, grave.
“If I knew whether your science here was similar to my own, we would have a common ground, Sareen. But this world of yours, I am not sure I can see it in truth. There is a changing about my sight and one minute I see seeming solidity and real men’s bodies, and the next, I see inner forces of life, a vague whirling mist-force body instead of matter!”
At his meaning-flow of complaint upon the strange affliction of double-sight, she stopped suddenly, putting out a hand to the transparent wall to support her, as if he had startled her off her balance.
“You can see the inner forces? Without artificial aid, you can see the flux of vi-flow within even my body?”
“I do not know what I see, but at times I see strange mist-shapes of vorticial force instead of flesh and blood, and the very ground melts into insubstantial mist . . .”
“I am naked! Before you I am seen! This . . . this is unprecedented!”
Her face became suffused with a deep blush of sudden embarrassment. What she meant by being “naked,” Grayson half, knew. For what was revealed to him in his moments of strange sight, he knew was really inner-force even as she had said. And the seeing did reveal much of a person’s nature, he was swiftly realizing. And naked beauty of a new and to him vastly more revealing naked beauty than any nudity.
“It is only at times that this seeing comes on me. At other times all seems normal!”
“Promise me you will turn away your perception from my soul when it is revealed! I am an unwed maiden, this cannot be!”
“I will try not to pry, Sareen. But you are very beautiful, and I am very weak!”
“If you had told the Lord this, I would not be exposed to your alien eyes!”
&nbs
p; “He would have given me a male tutor, I gather?”
“Of course,” cried Sareen, “Do you think he would have so exposed me?”
Grayson said. “But why does this power disturb you so? I do not understand.”
“We can have such seeing only by the use of delicate instruments, materialized by our specialists with great effort. Perceptors see with their use, and then only vaguely, not with real clarity. You are an exceptional being, to have such sight! Have you other powers?”
“I do not know, Sareen. Remember I am a stranger to your world. I have not had time to know what I may be compared to you. If you could see me as I do you, you could learn my differences, know more of my powers. Had you not better use the instruments you speak of?”
“I had not thought to use such prying devices unless you showed intents that aroused suspicion. It is not among us considered right to look into the under-forces of life in those about us. It is—indecent!” I do such work only officially, one must be virgin, and keep the mind above sin, to be allowed to do this work.”
“Oh! I am sorry that I told you of this, then. Yet, I give you permission to so look upon me, turn about is fair play, you know!”
“I will not reveal it! It will be our secret, until I know more of you and your mind. Come, we must hasten, there is so little time. But that you reveal this power does much to confirm your integrity in my eyes. I will not fear your eyes, Paul.”
SHE HAD made a difficult decision, Grayson knew. She must stay by his side, knowing that to him every inner truth of her was exposed, while to her eyes he himself was an almost opaque mystery. Grayson was vastly amused at her maiden embarrassment, but if he had known truly what her decision implied, her own future being now in his hands, he would not have been amused, but full of admiration for her courage, and her solicitude for himself, a stranger.
Even as Grayson puzzled about Sareen considering herself naked because he could sometimes see through her—thinking that perhaps the solidity of this world was an illusion engendered by a kind of mutual agreement not to see too much:—implied by her words—a mutual agreement which with the passage of time had become a physical trait in a world where truth of seeing responded to the will itself if one knew how . . .
The 47th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 13