John Rackhan

by Ipomoea

  Even so, it was a fantastic creation, and Eklund must be some kind of genius, even if Venner had never heard of him. On the other hand it was unlikely, to say the least, that such a man would be content to bury himself away like this. Or was it? If Eklund really did have delusions of becoming some kind of absolute dictator, a demagogue . . . ? Sam gave up the hopeless muddle, ordered the thing to take him to the salon, and followed meekly.

  This was another room entirely, and by the time Sam had reached it he felt convinced that he was, surely, within the bulk of the mountain itself. Here, again, slave-shapes were arranged around the walls, each holding aloft a rose-tinted isotope-lamp, and here, too, the floral motif was repeated endlessly in the wall and floor ornamentations. But Sam had time for only a brief glance at the scene before his eyes were drawn to the long, low table at the far end.

  There, lolling beside it on a stuffed couch, was Max Brandt.

  "It is good to see you again, Hutten," Brandt called, sitting up and bobbing his head in greeting. "We did not

  expect you back from Zera so soon!"

  "Come and sit by me," Eklund called graciously from his

  place at the head of the table. "You must be hungry now." He looked more Caesar-like than ever, Sam thought, as

  he made his way to the seat. And where did Brandt fit

  into the picture? Boss-man of packaging and processing.

  Venner had been investigating part of his plant. And got

  himself caught and brought here?

  He sat, uneasily, in the space indicated, and alongside

  Corinne. She at once slid her slim arm affectionately around

  him.

  "You must help yourself to whatever you want," she instructed. "Here, have some wine to begin with."

  The board was piled high with a profusion of roast meats and fruits; some he recognized, others were unfamiliar to him. Platters that looked like silver. Goblets and finger bowls in glittering crystal. Jugs of wine. All the Roman trappings. Or did Eklund really believe this was Greek? Here and there were low vases supporting a spray or two of the same flower that formed the ever-present motif of the decorations.

  Corinne poured him a generous helping of a pale amber fluid, then one for herself. His hand shook as he reached for it, but he saw her sip daintily and felt reassured that, at least, it wasn't poisoned. It had a clean, slightly astringent taste.

  "I've no palate," he confessed, "but this could be a reasonable sherry and I wouldn't argue."

  "A home-produced equivalent. Max can tell you more. He's the one who processes all our products and prepares them for marketing."

  "It's true." 3randt gulped at his wine and nodded. "We all work as a team here. You grow things. Our host rears them. On Zera they extract and refine them, and on Ophir they look and find—but it all comes to me to be put into shape for selling. We are a team."

  "I would have thought that rather obvious," Sam remarked, wishing inwardly that the girl on his right would stop caressing his neck with her cool fingers. He had enough on his mind without that.

  "It is obvious," Eklund said. "It is also obvious that if anyone desired to sabotage our unity, to strike a blow at our whole system here, the key place would be Max's part of the operation. You agree?"

  "Sabotage?" Sam queried, almost able to guess what was coming now.

  "Indeed so. That is the reason why I am here." Brandt put down his goblet and sat up straighter. "That is, apart from the pleasure of being here anyway. My watch^ople have observed and caught an Earth agent who was trying to break into a part of my processing plant. Of course he denied that he was an agent, that he was trying to break in, that he intended sabotage. But what would you expect? I held him. I did not know what to do for the best, so I called my very good friend here, for advice. And I received a surprise. You tell him, Gunnar."

  "I told Max, as I now tell you, Hutten, that I too had been intruded upon by unwelcome eyes. A young woman. She was apprehended interfering with some sacks of cattle food, some rather special seeds which I receive from you. Not you personally, of course, but from Northwheat. Rare and unusual seeds, which grow nowhere else—but I will tell you about those later. The point is, here was another person up to no honest purpose!"

  Sam instructed his face to look innocent and bewildered.

  He .said, lamely, "You're sure they are both crooks? I mean, couldn't they just be over-inquisitive tourists?"

  "Tourists, however inquisitive, are not in the habit of carrying offensive devices. Moreover, as soon as Max described certain of these devices to me I was able to see similarities, enough to establish that the pair were associated in some way. Working together!"

  Sam clung desperately to his pose of innocence, tried gently to push Corinne away, and said, uneasily, "I suppose you've called in the law?"

  "We are the law, here," Eklund stated firmly. "Max brought his captive here to me. We now hold them both."

  "What do you plan to do with them?"

  "That is something we will decide, when we are ready. But I must now warn you to prepare yourself for something of a shock, Hutten."

  "A shock?" Sam braced himself, grabbed Corinne's hand as it started to wander again. "What kind of shock?"

  "We have had time to examine this man, to investigate something of him. From various articles in his possession, and other means, we gather that he is, in fact, some kind of a cent for some Earth organization; that he calls himself Orbert Venner, with some title he is probably not entitled to. Further, that he arrived here on Verdan in a privately owned spaceship registered as Vcnncr Three. And"—Eklund leaned forward portentously now—"that you reached Verdan as a passenger in that same ship. Am I to assume that this man is a friend of yours?"

  Sam quailed at the thrust. Out of the chaos came a memory, a hint he had read long ago. When telling a lie, keep as close to the truth as is possible. He tried it now.

  "I met Dr. Venner on Mars, when I was transferring ships. I have never seen him before that moment in all my life. I had a rather unfortunate experience on the trip from Earth. Corinne can tell you about that. Can't you?" He turned to her, and she took this as an invitation to snuggle close.

  "I already have. You remember, Father, the strange acci-, dent with the emergency door?"

  "On account of that, hearing me tell it, Venner offered me a lift in his own ship, since he was headed for the same place. Incidentally, he helped a lot with the difficulties over my father's unexpected death—and he has just loaned me the use of his ship for my trip to Zera and back. I don't want to disagree with your findings, but isn't it possible that you might be mistaken about this man? He has been very good to me!"

  "Is there any reason why he should be? Isn't it just as likely, my young friend, that you have been hoodwinked by a rascal? Why would a total stranger be so ready to offer you help in this way? However, we shall soon see who is right. I have my own methods . . ."

  "Father!" Corinne sat forward suddenly, a finger to her lip. "It has just occurred to me. You said Orbert Venner, didn't you? And that man who came with you last time, Sam, his name was Orbert, wasn't it?"

  "Now you come to mention it." Sam was in too deep now. All he could do was follow the way the conversation was leading. "I understood that he was Dr. Venner's assistant. And pilot."

  "And a gemmologist?"

  "He certainly gave me to understand that he knew a lot about the subject. I'd no reason to doubt him."

  All at once, and by nothing more than some subtle alteration in the way he sat, Eklund seemed to grow, to dominate the entire room. His frosty blue eyes bored into Sam's as he leaned forward and asked, quietly, "What have you done with the pretty stone I gave you, Hutten?"

  "Eh? Oh, that! I'm sorry, I don't know where it is, offhand. I must have mislaid it somewhere." It sounded pitifully feeble as he said it. Eklund kept his sword-like stare for a long moment.

  "I see," he murmured, still very quiet. Then he rose majestically. "Come. We will settle this thing n
ow. We will talk with the captives and you shall see, Hutten, how I deal with those who try to interfere with my affairs. You shall see. Come this way."

  XIII

  Corinne seemed to find nothing at all to worry about as Eklund led the way, moving still deeper into the heart of the mountain. She tripped blithely along beside Sam, holding his hand as if they were out on a moonlight stroll. Over all his inward fear and apprehension, her sublime indifference struck him as peculiar. EitheT she had a remarkable insen-sitivity to atmosphere, or she was simpleminded, or something. Then a chance glimpse of the fire-red bauble at her breast made him think something that chilled the nerves in his spine. He had said it himself: "Give a man one of those damned fire-balls, and youVe got him!" Like a zombie. She was conditioned. So, too, was Brandt.

  The passageway went on and on, and now the very character of it became sinister and weird. There were still the everlasting tiles on roof, walls and floor, and still more permutations on that same flower design, but these tiles glowed with a chill greenish light. And the shape of the passage itself became different, with in-slanted walls and a peaked roof. Again the notion of something alien came to shiver in Sam's mind. This place had all the patina and smell of immense age, of something other than human.

  The passage ended abruptly in a ninety degree comer that brought them out into an immense chamber, so vast that the sound of their steps went away and was lost in distance. The green light was brighter now, but not bright enough to reveal the high vault of the roof, somewhere up there. There was something of the feel of a church, but no human church would ever need the grotesque yet somehow functional shapes that were to be seen here and there about the floor space. Whether they were statues, works of art, or devices, Sam couldn't guess, not at first sight. All he knew was that they were utterly unlike anything he could define. As Eklund led on still, pacing steadily around the looming objects, Sam stared up at them in wonder. Some had patterns of light which moved and changed, others had protruding rods and tubes. Machinery of some kind? Now, as they kept on walking, he saw they were coming to an open space, a kind of amphitheater. Across it on the far side was a structure that could have been either an altar or the bar of judgment, and beyond that again was something that had to be a seat of power, a throne.

  Sam paused, his knees beginning to give under him as the strangeness of the place became more apparent with every passing second.

  "What kind of place is this?" he demanded. "Where are we?"

  Eklund halted and spun around to glare down with those piercing blue eyes of his, now glowing darkly in the green glare.

  "You are about to learn, Hutten. Stand there!"

  He pointed a finger, and power seemed to flow from him like a tangible thing. Sam stood, quaking, while the big man strode on and up the stone steps to the throne, and seated himself. Brandt and Corinne followed, to seat themselves on either side, on the steps level with his feet. Eklund reached down to his side and brought up a curious object, all glittering wire and points of light from cut gems, and it was a headdress, some kind of crown. Sam caught his breath and started forward to protest. Eklund leveled a commanding finger, and it was as if an invisible hand had clamped itself around Sam, holding him rigid, as if he had suddenly been frozen inside a great block of transparent glass.

  "You will remember that I told you," Eklund boomed, "that this planetary system had once been occupied by aliens? You asked if I had any hard evidence. I had. I have. This is it."

  "How do you mean, aliens?" Sam argued unsteadily. "You mean the original inhabitants, don't you?"

  "I do not. The people who built the devices you see all around came from a far distant star, in toward the hub of the galaxy."

  "How can you know that?" Sam was babbling now, talking for the sake of it, anything to fend off further horrors, to keep Eklund talking.

  "I know. I was an academic like you once, Hutten. Ancient history, lost civilizations of the past, archaeology, those were my subjects. But I was a frail and sickly man, unfit for the struggle of competition. I had a little money. I came here with my wife and child in search of open air and health, hoping to raise enough livestock to keep myself solvent. And I found this—all of it—by accident, when I was building my villa. I knew at once that it was alien. I also knew instantly that it was immense, magnificent, superior to anything we could show. And I determined to keep it to myself, at least for a while. But then, as I investigated, I found records, diagrams and pictures—and I learned to read and understand them well enough to have most of the wisdom of these people right here in the palm of my hand!"

  "Weren't you scared they might come back?"

  "Not at all. One of the first things I learned was that this is unthinkably ancient, this establishment. I cannot be certain as to the exact time scale, but it must be on the order of several hundreds of thousands of years since they departed, leaving this behind. They took away their fantastically powerful planet-modifying machines. I suspect they were incorporated into their ships. But they left this."

  "What was it all about? Why did they come here, and what made them go away again?" Sam offered the questions off the top of his mind, and all the while he kept straining to move just so much as one muscle of his arm, or leg, but in vain.

  "Alas!" Eklund sighed. "They were a great and wonderful people, very much like us, humanoid to judge by the pictures they left—but they had their problems too. Their home world, like ours, was strained and sickened with discontent and strife, and they were constantly being plagued by the attacks and enmity of other races. They came here as an expedition, to find some new place to start again. They had completed the major alterations. They threw Zera into an orbit that would rapidly petrify and preserve its rich carbon complexes; they changed the orbit of Ophir as a counterbalance to that. They cleared this planet of several undesirable life forms, and they had begun the next stage—but then they had word that their home planet was in mortal danger. And they had to return. That was long ago, Hutten. I can only think that they were too late."

  "So they couldn't have been all that superior, after all?"

  "Fool!" Eklund roared. "They were masters at the one subject which really matters, the one subject we know so little about. They—and I have contrived no name for them— were supreme masters of the mind, of mental power. From the lowliest living form to the very highest, they had control. And it is all here. I have it. I hold you powerless now by only a slight exercise of my power. If I wished, which I do not, I could strike you dead where you stand as easily as crooking my finger. I can, and will, bend you and shape you to my will, just as I have done with so many more. I hold the secret of complete rule, Hutten."

  "You're mad!" The exclamation came to Sam's hps before he could censor it out. Cringing, expecting to be annihilated at any moment, he tagged on the afterthought. "I mean— you said you were keeping all this to yourself, a secret. But you've let me in on it, and those two!"

  "And others." Eklund smiled expansively. "But it is still my own secret, and it will be. When you leave here, Hutten, you will be mine!"

  Now Sam strained even harder to break free of the invisible clutch that held him, but to no avail. AD his struggles were as futile as dream running. Corinne rose from her graceful crouch at her father's feet and came to stand in front of him, to undulate and turn, deliberately exhibiting the elegance of her perfection before him.

  "There is nothing to be afraid of, Sam," she sang, sheer joy of life infusing her tone, "in the promise of wonder. My father is not a tyrant. He is a benefactor. What he did for me he can and will do for you too."

  "What do you mean?" Sam's throat went dry.

  "I have the power." Eklund intoned it regally. "I told you that I was a sickly man when I first came here. You see me now! The aliens knew many things about life. They came here prepared to breed and develop the perfect people, and they could have done it. Once you have the secret of mental power, all else is simple. I learned their methods, their secrets of true health and
abiding beauty. I used them on myself. What better evidence do you need? I used them on my daughter. Look at her, Hutten, and tell me if you have ever seen woman more fair? I would have taught my wife"—he lowered his voice to a somber note—"and I would have had sons. But I learned from her what the aliens had known and could not cure—that some minds are stiff and stubborn, not amenable to new ideas. This is found only in self-aware minds, not in the lower animals. It is one of the penalties of being human, that some minds are stiff, like hers. She died!"

  "You killed her, you mean!" Sam was too far gone in fear to have any caution left. "You killed her!"

  "No." Eklund was massively patient. "I had the killing power. I have it now. All power is double-faced, for good or evil, but I did not kill her. Listen to me. The aliens had to abandon this place and return to their home planet because it was being threatened by barbarians. There is a familiar note for you. We, too, have our barbarians ready to pounce. Their enemies hated them, just as our stupid ones hate us, because we have the power to change our values, to adapt and progress. When the aliens tried to bestow their gifts on their barbarians all their skills could not overcome the rejection of stiffened minds. The barbarians could not learn. They suffered and died rather than learn. Because, Hutten, this is one of the laws of the mind: once it has become set it will break rather than yield, and the person dies through his own fanatic resistance. That was how my wife died. That, too, was how your father died, Hutten."

  "You killed him, too!" Sam spat it defiantly. "And you tried to kill me, through her, your daughter. Didn't you?"

  "I could not allow anything to stand in the way of my plan. As soon as that ethergram was sent—and I knew about it, of course—I made arrangements to have you investigated. You are not quite the nonentity you would like people to believe. As I've said, I was academic myself, once. I knew that you tended to be independent in your thinking, that you would reinforce your father's mental attitude. I had hopes of winning him over, even then, to my cause. You threatened that. But you escaped, and he is dead, and you are here now, no longer any threat. Soon you will be one of my people, fit to associate with my daughter, right for my kingdom, my new world."