by Anthology
The reason for it could not be discovered at first. Quade only realized that the attackers were failing to press their advantage. Previously, when one sphere had been destroyed, another sprang immediately into its place. But now the ranks were thinning, almost imperceptibly at first, but with steadily increasing speed. An alleyway opened toward the door, and Quade caught a glimpse of something entirely unexpected.
Through the door poured an army of red globes.
Red spheres and blue met in furious battle. The chamber was a seething, raging mass of bubbles, curiously lovely, tumbling and darting viciously in all directions. In dead silence, without visible weapons, the opposing groups pitted their strength against each other. And blue and red globes were deflated one by one.
"You were right," Strike gasped, swaying on his feet. "Those two gangs are down on one another. Boy, is that lucky for us."
"Yeah. If they're not both down on us."
There was enough time to take inventory. None of the men had been injured, save for minor contusions. The strong, flexible helmets had withstood all blows.
"No weapons," Strike said. "They don't use any, apparently. But they're committing mayhem anyhow."
Quade lifted his gun and then lowered it without firing.
"No visible weapons, Strike," he amended. "Don't forget, these creatures are utterly alien to us. Their weapons may be purely mental. They might kill by sheer thought-force."
"Then why doesn't it work on us?"
"Were not of the same species. We're of entirely different chemical composition," Quade pointed out. "Say, this fight looks like it'll keep up forever. There're more spheres now than when they started. They keep coming out of empty air."
"I noticed that," Strike grunted. "Hadn't we better make a run for it?"
"I think so."
The movie man issued orders. In a compact body, bearing Gerry's body between them, the group moved forward, guns lifted. The spheres paid little attention until the Earthmen were almost at the door. Then the bizarre comet creatures realized that their prisoners were escaping. Blue monsters and red joined forces to attack Quade and his companions.
This time results were somewhat different. Under the onslaught, most of the men went down, fighting gamely but uselessly. Quade was knocked flat beside Gerry. He twisted his head, trying to rise, saw the woman's eyes open and the light of consciousness spring into them. She recognized Quade.
Her lips moved, but her dead audiophone failed to respond. Nevertheless the movie man managed to read some of the words.
"Out of here … quick… Save the others later. Only chance…"
There was still a gun in Gerry's hand. It blasted. The woman began to roll over and over. After a brief hesitation, Quade followed.
It wasn't easy. The thought of deserting his men was far from pleasant. But he realized that Gerry was seemingly deserting Strike, and he knew that she would never have done that without good reason. Moreover, two might escape where seven couldn't. Most of the globes were occupied with Strike and the other men.
By luck, skill and murderous aim, Gerry and Quade managed to reach the outskirts of the struggle. There they rose. Gerry gripped Quade's mittened hand and both ran frantically up the slope toward the nearest ridge.
Some of the spheres pursued. The next ten minutes were a chaos of gunfire and collapsing red and blue globes.
Chapter XXIV.
The Seven Sleepers
When no more of the things appeared, Gerry sank down in the gravel, dragging Quade beside her.
"My audiophone," her lips formed. "Can you fix it?"
Quade had an emergency repair kit with him. Hastily he repaired the device. It wasn't long before Gerry's voice came to him.
"Keep your eyes open," she said breathlessly. "I don't know how much time we have, but it won't be long. We've only got the Proteans to contend with for awhile, but pretty soon all hell's going to break loose."
"Proteans?"
"That's what I call them. You'll know why when I tell you what's happened. Meanwhile, have your gun ready."
Succinctly Gerry outlined what had happened to her up to the time of her capture. She went on: "Those creatures are intelligent. They communicate by pictures — thought-images — projected on their outer membrane. They communicated with me, all right. I found out plenty. Quade, what I'm going to tell you is going to seem unbelievable. Do you know how many Proteans there are?"
"A few thousand?" Tony hazarded.
"Seven," Gerry said. "Seven Proteans, and that's all. Seven sleepers!"
Quade wrinkled his brow. "I don't —"
"They're a decadent race. Ages ago they had an entirely different form, I don't know just what. They've lived on this comet for unimaginable eons. They evolved along lines totally alien to ours, reached the summit of their culture, and began to slide back. This barren body won't support much life. In time, only seven Proteans were left. They were highly evolved intellectuals, chained to this barren world because they hadn't mastered space travel. Know what they did?"
A red sphere materialized twelve feet away. It rolled toward them, expanding as it moved. Quade blew it to fragments. The fragments dissolved into nothingness.
"They built the black tower," Gerry went on. "It's a machine, Quade, and what it does is something almost impossible. It materializes — dreams!"
The man didn't laugh. "On first thought, it's crazy," he said thoughtfully.
"I know. But it's a fact that all living tissue has a sort of electric halo, a field of energy. Isn't that so?"
"Yeah. Why back in the nineteen-thirties, two chaps named Nims and Lane made a gadget sensitive enough to detect that field and record its patterns. But what has that got to do with a dream?"
"Dreams take electric energy, the same as conscious thought," Gerry explained. "I figured it out, as well as I could, from what the Protean told me. Ever have a nightmare where you run and run but get nowhere? Ever wake up covered with perspiration, exhausted? That proves dreams take energy. Listen, if corporal life has a measurable electric field, it's only a step further to record the energy patterns of a dream."
For a few moments there was silence, while Quade digested the information.
"I'm getting the picture," Quade said. "I think I follow you. If the energy pattern is recorded, why not change these patterns back into the electric waves that produced them, thus recreating the living issue, or the dream, that created them? The human voice was recorded in visible patterns long before Edison. But Edison's phonograph retraced those visible patterns with a needle and made the sound come to life again.
"Sure," he continued. "Even now images can be recorded as sound tracks. They sound like squeals and grunts, but an experienced movie engineer can identify them. I've done it myself. It's not such a long step to playing them back as three-dimensional images."
"More than images," Gerry put in. "The tower does just that, without the intermediate step. Nothing is actually recorded. The towers just take the electric dream-pattern of the seven Proteans and recreate it, broadcast it, in the precise positions and motions that the dreamer wishes."
"You mean all those spheres were dreams?" Quade asked. "Dreams that had acquired the attributes of matter?"
"Yes. They were real. Or, maybe, one-tenth real. Real enough to fight and die and communicate with me."
"But why?" Quade asked. "Scientifically, it's possible, though screwy as hell. But logically, there's no reason for it."
"It's logical enough," the woman declared, shifting her position uneasily on the hard gravel. "I told you there were seven bored intellectuals left on this comet. Blue and red — four of one, three of another. They couldn't leave their world. They were faced with an unending monotony of existence. What would you have done?"
"Go crazy," Quade admitted frankly.
"There was another way out. They had to create some interest in life. And they did. A deadly sort of chess game, three on one side, four on the other. It's logical enough. Chess is an
intellectual pastime, and this is super-scientific chess. Here's what the Proteans did.
"They made this tower to materialize their dreams. They changed their shape, though I'm not quite sure about that. And they materialized their thought-patterns in the form of duplicates of themselves. Half of their brains are asleep and dreaming, while the other half is conscious, directing operations. We ourselves use only half of our brains, you know."
Quade nodded curtly. "Right. But you actually mean there are only seven real Proteans on the comet?"
"That's all. All the others are dream-images, plenty real enough though, because they're given the energy and attributes of matter by the black tower. For centuries this murderous chess game has gone on. It might have gone on eternally, if we hadn't introduced a new factor into the game."
"Wait a minute," Quade interrupted. Swiftly he told the woman of the bizarre creatures they had seen on the way to the tower — the Venusian whip, and the freak with Strike's head.
"Sure." Gerry smiled wryly. "I was delirious, feverish. And I was inside the tower. My proximity to the machine simply made my hallucinations materialize. And that's the crux of the matter. The Proteans realized that I was valuable to them."
When Gerry stated her value to the Dreamers, Quade fell silent. His tanned face was suddenly grim and worried as he realized the potential danger.
"Think of our memories," Gerry whispered in horror. "The monsters we've seen on all the planets, the weapons we've used. The Proteans intended to put me asleep, control my brain, and induce me to dream of things I'd experienced. A Venusian whip. What a weapon that would be in the hands of the blues against the reds. We're invaluable to them as fodder. Our brains are storehouses of dreams. And the Proteans can materialize dreams!"
"Lord, oh Lord," Quade groaned. "What a mess. This is just about the damnedest thing I've ever run up against. How the devil can I photograph a dream? It just isn't real."
"It's real enough to be filmed," Gerry said. "And a Protean, a real Protean, not a dream — can be captured. But there's another handicap. These things are above the minimum level of intelligence. By Interplanetary Law, no intelligent being can be taken from its home world against its consent."
"Well, that can wait," Quade said. "The main problem is to save Strike and my men. Wonder if the ship's ready yet?"
He used the audiophone. Morgan responded worriedly. The engine wasn't repaired but work to repair the ship was proceeding rapidly.
"We can't stay here," Tony said. "And we can't go back to the tower. Let's head for the ship."
"We'd better hurry," Gerry observed. "Once Tommy and the others are put to sleep, their dreams will start to come true. And Tommy has a vivid imagination."
Quade arose painfully, assisted Gerry to her feet. The woman was still weak, but she pluckily shook off the man's arm and started plodding forward.
"Keep your gun handy," she advised.
The Proteans seemed to be lying low. But once the two caught sight of a whip lumbering over a rise to the left. It did not menace them, however, and soon went out of sight.
"The main problem," Gerry mused, "is to awaken the seven sleeping Proteans. It'll do no good to kill the others. New ones will materialize faster than we can shoot."
"Where are the real ones?" Quade asked.
Gerry laughed bitterly. "Oh, they're not tucked away in a private dormitory. That's where the fun comes in. They're mixed in with the others. They're only half asleep, you know. Half of their brain is still conscious. And it's utterly impossible to tell a real Protean from a fake one."
"Can't we simply keep shooting till we kill off all the real ones?"
"It'd be like cleaning up the Asteroid Belt with a bucket," Gerry said in a hopeless voice. "We've got to identify the real ones and — well, I don't want to kill them unless it's necessary. They'd be no good to either of us dead. If we can awaken them —"
"We can't wake 'em up without identifying them," Quade said. "And we can't identify 'em without waking them up. Lord."
"Well, you can be sure this isn't a real Protean," Gerry said, as a shaggy, apelike figure lumbered over the rise toward them. "It's a Hyclops! Where's your rifle?"
The Hyclops, native to Ganymede, stands more than twelve feet high, is terrifyingly covered with hair, and has four arms. Its three one-eyed heads bear murderous fangs that protrude from a slobbering, loose-lipped mouth. "Get the eyes," Gerry yelped, scurrying to one side. "We haven't any super-explosive bullets, but — aim at the eyes."
"You're telling me," Quade grunted, dashing in the other direction. He whirled, crouched on one knee, pumped bullets at the monster. The Hyclops charged on, foam frothing from its slavering mouth. The huge, shaggy arms clawed at the air.
One bullet found its mark. The right head lost its eye and lolled uselessly on the fatty neck. The creature let out a soundless bellow of agony and whirled toward Quade. If this was a dream, the man thought, it was certainly one hell of a nightmare!
Quade scampered away. He caught a flashing glimpse of the monster towering above him, huge as a colossus, the mighty arms clutching. Quade dived between the pillarlike legs, shuddering at what might happen if a taloned hand closed on his space suit. In that cyanogen atmosphere, he'd die almost before the Hyclops crushed him.
Gerry's bullet found the center head. The huge monster shrieked silently and jerked erect. The remaining head lifted. Gerry fired again.
The Hyclops collapsed. Like a bag of deflated skin, it slumped down and fell on Quade. The man had only time for one frantic thought of impending destruction before he was smashed flat. He tried to roll aside —
And the Hyclops vanished. It disappeared into thin air. It was gone like the figment of a dream that it was.
"This is doing me no good," Quade said, rising unsteadily to his feet. "Suppose I'd wanted that head — or those heads, I mean — for my mantelpiece."
Gerry laughed somewhat bitterly. "Imagine how a real big-game hunter feels. Come on. Let's hurry, before Tommy uses his imagination again."
A new phase entered the situation. Mirages seemed to dance indistinctly all about them. Vague, half-seen images flickered in the distance and were gone — flashing pictures of alien worlds Tommy Strike had once seen — bizarre monsters, strange faces, some that were recognizable.
On they went, under the strange white sky of the comet. The seething, colossal tides of flame roared and swept above them. It was weird beyond all imagination. The two might have imagined themselves the last humans in the Universe, tracking a barren waste beneath the cosmic fires of creation.
Once they saw, or thought they saw, Gerry herself running rapidly but getting nowhere. This, too, dissolved.
"If I meet myself," Gerry said unhappily, "I'll go crazy. How much farther is it?"
"Not far," Quade comforted. "What's this, now?"
Apparently Tommy Strike had once more had delirium tremens. At least, the monster approaching looked like nothing that ever existed anywhere. It was a sea-serpent, twenty feet long, writhing rapidly toward them with vast jaws agape. But luckily it disappeared before guns could be drawn.
Quade and Gerry reached the ship without further mishap. Morgan greeted them, helping them off with the bulky suits.
"That engine's still giving trouble," he observed. "We strained it badly, getting through the coma. And another motor's in need of overhauling."
"Has to be done," Quade said grimly. "We want to get off the comet alive. I need a drink."
He took Gerry to the control cabin. For some time they pondered, between pouring and drinking. But they did succeed in calming their battered minds to coherence.
"We can't move the ship," Quade said at length. "That's certain. Will any of those traps and snares of yours work on the Proteans?"
"You can't hypnotize a sleeping person," the woman said. "So the hypnotic lure wouldn't work. That's the toughest part of it. My traps are designed for living monsters, not dreams and dreamers. The heavy-range guns might work, but we c
an't drag them all the way to the tower. Also" — she glanced at a chronometer — "time's getting short. We're nearing the Sun. This comet is traveling plenty fast."
Quade lit a cigar of greenish, aromatic Lunar tobacco.
"Let's think. We've got to figure out a way of waking the seven sleepers so their phantom legions will vanish. Um-m. What is sleep, anyway?"
"There's more than one theory. The brain varies between the states of excitation and relaxation. The greater the excitation, the sooner comes relaxation, or sleep. The seven Proteans are half awake and half asleep. Super-development of the brain causes that."
Quade nodded. "If we could irritate them enough to cause wakening — Let's see. These creatures are highly evolved. Their outer membranes are composed of specialized cells. That means their nerve-endings must be extremely sensitive. And they live in a cyanogen atmosphere."
"Cyanogen," Gerry said, drawing a comb through tangled red hair. "If we could release a gas or a liquid chemical spray to change the cyanogen into something irritating, something that would wake up the sleepers —"
"We can't use the ship," Quade pointed out. "It would have to be portable. Um-m." He reached for a pad and pencil and made hasty notations.
"(CN)2 Plus 02 yields nitrogen and carbon dioxide," the formula read. He showed it to Gerry.
"The Proteans are used to a cyanogen atmosphere. The carbon dioxide would be poisonous or suffocating to them. Maybe. It'd destroy all life on the comet, except us."
Gerry started convulsively. She snatched up the pad and figured quickly.
"Hold on. I think I've got it. Ammonium oxalate. Yeah. Look at this."
She showed Quade her notation. It read: "(CN)2 Plus H20 yields ammonium oxalate."
"Water?" Quade asked.
"Cyanogen plus water in the form of a simple spray would form ammonium oxalate. That salt isn't cyanide and would be a tremendous irritant to creatures living in cyanogen and its compounds. And the effect would be local. That's the answer. We've got it!"