by Hal Annas
The end of man. The beginning of a new age, a new life, another trial of evolution in search of some nebulous destiny.
Man had failed. In the midst of war he had failed. Instead of preparing against the unknown—the danger that he’d always known lurked within his Shadow—he’d devoted his energies to the destruction of himself.
These thoughts, Moxol knew, came out of his tender years. Long forgotten, now remembered. He recalled hearing his mother Aleta talk hopefully of the day when men would no longer kill and destroy. Tales of her own youth, and the ravage of war between Earth and its colonies, came back vaguely.
How easily they’d been forgotten in the adventures of raiding! Not that he was sweltering in vain regrets. He’d learned in the school of rugged experience that man was but a step removed from the jungle creature from which he sprang. Thirty millennia of conscious culture were but a moment beside the billions of years crawling up from the sea and in the shadow of unconscious survival by strength.
But this was no time for philosophizing. In that school he’d also learned that an enemy could be outwitted. Not every move was a move of strength. At some point man’s cunning had to come into use. He’d made good use of this quality against Earthmen. There was reason to believe it would be equally successful against any intelligence.
He tried his blade against the invisible force that restrained him, then examined the point. The dark crescent had been there more than two years. He’d first noticed it after killing the man who tried to bar his entrance to the witch. It never ceased to bring memory of her and her dire prophecy.
“Break the mantle. Burn it with your gun. Avoid her as you would avoid falling into the hands of Earthmen.”
The words, he knew, were an allegory. But a very real mantle of force restrained him now. Restrained him within view, in the next room, of deeds too horrible to bear. He could not remain here and watch while living flesh was cut and torn by ungudded metal.
He aimed his gun at Evela and fired. There was a blinding flash. It seemed to go out and out and out. Into the depths of infinity. And then it recoiled back against him. It swirled about him in a brilliant shrinking circle. It seemed that it would burn him to a cinder.
And then he grasped what had happened, what was happening. As the explosion occurred some cellular change took place in the force about him. It passed on this change to his body. The explosion itself was attenuation. In the recoil his body attenuated. He was now, he realized, many times his normal size in volume, but far less dense.
The girl was a tiny figure within the wall. The screams of protests were from rodent-sized creatures tortured by microscopic instruments.
The explosion had not touched them.
Stopping through the field of force, he instantly began decreasing in size, and had returned to normal before he reached the wall.
From behind him a clamoring rose. Turning, he saw pointed weapons leaping toward him. His own blade parried with the speed of light, but could not turn them all aside. Energy from his photon gun lashed out, struck something, exploded, but failed to halt the spearlike weapons.
They pricked his flesh, drove him against the wall. Before he could draw a deep breath he was bleeding from a score of wounds.
Twisting and turning, his blade moving like a maddened live thing, he parried or evaded point after point, but knew that he was doomed. He couldn’t survive against such numbers. And there seemed to be nothing into which to drive his own point.
A point passed through his forearm. His own blade fell clattering from nerveless fingers. Another caught him in the left side, close to his heart, and the pain of it ran up into his shoulder. His photon gun dropped beside his blade. He struggled for breath, felt his senses reel.
Other points passed through his stomach, through his right side, smashing ribs, and still others jarred, and twisted him grotesquely as they struck hipbones, shoulderbones, and the bones in his face.
Still he didn’t lose consciousness.
One lung, he knew, had been punctured, and his insides ripped apart, but consciousness remained, a gasping consciousness, an eternity of waiting for the soothing blackness that would mean the end and relief from the red hell of agony.
It was as if time had ceased, as if the spearlike weapons would go on and on stabbing him through time without end. His body, it seemed, was being chopped to pieces, his bones broken and shattered.
But at some point, he knew, he had lost consciousness. The knowledge came as be looked up at the blinding light, as he glimpsed the surgical instruments working at his midriff, as his bleeding back pressed against the high table.
The pain was unbearable and at times consciousness faded into excruciating flashes of fire through his brain and nerves. And each time greater pain, searing a more sensitive nerve, brought him back to awareness.
Out of reddish brown eyes that ached in sympathy with the torn nerves and muscles in his face he saw the dark girl, still inside the wall, her lips moving in rhythm with the movements of the instruments that cut into his body.
“Witch!”
The word came tinkling back from dim remoteness.
“Burn her mantle with your gun. Avoid her . . .”
He’d done all but the last. On Mallika he’d tried to do that. Again, he knew, he’d had his opportunity when his course lay close to the sun. But he had not succeeded in avoiding her.
And the gates at last were wide open.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN the distance a visicom voice sent its resonance vibrating along his tortured nerves:
“Since his treacherous attack on Earthforces in the Eg System, a few hours after he had agreed to a truce, Moxol’s murderers are suffering unparalleled losses. It is believed that his entire armada will be destroyed.
“Between Sol and Eg, already far beyond SYZ, a titanic battle rages as Rahn Buskner strives to break through the bulk of the Earth fleet and go to Moxol’s aid.
“So hard pressed are Earth’s forces in this sector that Christopher Darby, whose successes have made him the warrior of the ages, has been called to command the combined Earth forces. His first act was to issue an order to all reserve elements of the SYZ fleet, and the first line units of the Home fleet, to move at all speed against Rahn Buskner’s flank.
“As a countermove, Rahn Buskner ordered all elements of the third armada, not actually engaged in or near the Eg System, to proceed at maximum velocity to protect his flank.
“The order went out over Strak in the Novakkan leader’s own roaring voice as soon as reserve elements and the Home fleet began to move out from SYZ. It ordered all Novakkans, and all populations owing allegiance to them, to ignore the charge that Moxol was guilty of betraying Novakkan honor. It was followed by the firm, tense, restrained but resonant voice of Aleta, whom the Novakkans honor as Queen of Unor, who said that monitorings of orders going out from the command ship of the second” armada were not in her son’s voice. She pointed out hesitations, intonations and inflections which she said were alien to the firm, crisp, positive manner of Moxol and to most Novakkans.
“The Unorian girl, Aline du David, half-sister to Moxol, is reported to have made a similar statement, but this cannot be confirmed. She has vanished, and it is believed that Commander Darby, fearing for her safety, has placed her under the protection of a strong guard somewhere in the Eg System. Complications may arise from this.
“The earlier rumor of romance between the tall, dashing commander and the beautiful auburn-haired girl, sometimes referred to as the Princess of Unor, has not been confirmed, but it is known that he summarily rejected suggestions that she be held as a prisoner of war, and used as a lever for bargaining, and spirited her away from officials not directly responsible to the armed forces. He further refused to reveal her whereabouts.
“The matter has caused disturbance in the Council and spread subrosa speculation as to his loyalty. The commander himself, somewhere in space, refuses to answer any questions but those concerning strategy a
nd disposition of forces in the raging battle which, when all forces are brought to bear, will engulf the better parts of the galaxy.
“Insurrections are reported in the colonies and on the outlying planets.
“Some madness appears to have seized all mankind and thirty millennia of civilization may vanish in a twinkling and leave to the survivors the long task of rebuilding on new planets which have not been made uninhabitable by unparalleled destruction.
“Rumors of new and more terrible weapons continue coming out of the Eg System.
“As an example of the desperation, even in high circles, Strak is constantly repeating what is termed Survival Orders. They call for conscription of every man, woman and child, owing allegience to Earth, to build plants, ships and weapons; to dig in and prepare to defend themselves and every square foot of soil on their planets.
“The orders, unique in Earth history, call for the slaying on sight of Novakkans, Dexibonians, Xnorians, Unorions, Singuellians, Andamites, and others under Novakkan domination. They further issue an ultimatum to Septonites, Arcadians, Arklites, Wekellians, Lexnii, and the inhabited systems in the vicinity of the Twins and Razor, who have sought to maintain neutrality, to give assurance of their friendly attitude toward Earth to provide sanctuary and repair bases for Earth warships crippled in battle arid in danger of falling prey to raiders still coming from the fringes of the galaxy.
“In summary, the galaxy is aflame with war. The Grim Reaper moves in every sector of space, on the surface of every planet, and a thousand years will not be time enough for man to dig out from beneath the smoldering wreckage and death.”
The visicom voice paused, then added, “The reward for Moxol, dead or alive, has again been increased, this time to fantastic proportions in the hope that it will move Novakkans embittered because of their betrayal. It promises to the man or group or whole populace delivering him or his body wealth equivalent to that produced in the fabulous SYZ System in a single decade. It promises further to make habitable an entire system toward Andromeda and to place the person or persons in possession and charge, to enjoy privileges accorded none other, and this wealth, power and right to be passed on to his or their descendants for five thousand years, or so long as Earth shall remain the dominant power in the galaxy.”
Whether all of this followed in a single sequence was something Moxol couldn’t determine. Consciousness came with unbearable pain, faded, returned again and again. He was helpless to move. At times he saw the girl near at hand; at other times she seemed to have vanished.
It seemed unreasonable to him that he should go on living. He had suffered enough wounds to kill ten ordinary men. But, he knew, he was not ordinary, and he gathered that the work of the seemingly unguided instruments sustained life in his body. Life that he no longer wanted. In his own agony, in the knowledge of the death and destruction he had directly or indirectly wrought, he felt that he no longer had a place among mankind.
The realization came slowly. He was no longer precisely a man. He’d survived things that a man couldn’t survive. A sense of almost unlimited power remained with him. He’d heard the talk of mystics and neither credited it nor discredited it. He shipped them because their philosophy was accepted by many. Now he suspected something greater than the reality of life as he’d lived it. He suspected something within himself.
It was not something greater than he. It was the ultimate greatness of himself in the life stream common to all men, suspected only at the final depth.
The table on which he lay moved. It went along passages and through solids. It sank into the depths, and at some point gravity eased off until his back was barely touching the surface.
And then it came out in a city such as had never been seen on the surface of a planet. There was no horizon. On every side the ground rose gradually until in the distance it towered at ninety degrees. The effect was of being in a valley with mountains all around.
But the scale was too vast. It was apparent that he was on the inside of a hollow planet. The pull of gravity, what there was of it, was toward the surface, the direction from which he’d come.
In his rising interest his pain eased. He was still held immobile, but was aware of the healing and knitting process in his flesh and bones. He could feel it going on as a faint itching, sometimes a light tingling, as the pain lost intensity.
He was aware of the life about him. There were no tall buildings, but sectioned off places where the workers worked. The workers were not human in shape or action. They were metal of the most intricate design which changed as they moved.
Precisely what they were accomplishing was not clear, but he gathered that they were bringing pictures from the surface, from remote planets, from space. And it came to him with force that they were struggling to interpret the scenes and to communicate intelligibly with the life there.
And as the table paused in the center of one of these groups he grasped why he’d been brought here.
He was to function as interpreter between the living metal and other life.
The metal prodded him, vibrated in various keys, performed antics, “but how it interpreted his protests, expressions and helplessness was something it didn’t communicate back to him.
The effort went on and on, futilely. The metal had no eyesight, no organs of hearing or speech, and gave no evidence of understanding him.
But one thing was clear. The metal was sending out some form of energy or intelligence. And the pictures showed that it was received. Not only by metal outside, but by human life. Both metal and humans responded to it.
He grasped that the response of metal was consistent and could be predicted, but human response was not. The energy or intelligence was received by humans apparently on a subconscious level and it seemed to reduce their awareness of metallic activities about them.
Relief from the prodding came only when creatures resembling Arnbod appeared. They moved him under lights which flickered and changed colors and raised his internal temperature. Outwardly he remained cool and no perspiration came from his body, but inwardly he soon felt as if he were burning to a crisp.
The creatures resembled men and women, but whenever they touched him all doubt vanished that they were partly metal.
One stood over him and spoke in his own language. “Others perish quickly here,” he said. “We use their pineal, frontal lobes, reproductive and other glands, some organs and parts of their brain and bodies to hasten awareness in sub-awareness metal. The girl who came with you has unusual knowledge and power in her subconscious. By drawing on a doctor’s subconscious knowledge of surgery in your time she directed a successful operation on him. So successful in fact that we are able to influence him, as inferior sub-awareness metal. He has taken command of a ship and induced those under him to believe he is its true commander. We hoped she would also be successful here. So far you are the only survivor.”
But Moxol was not certain he’d survived. At some point, he believed, he’d died or been so near death that time had reversed for him.
“You will soon join your friend,” the metal man added. “The rays work quickly. In the interim you must give us whatever knowledge you have that may aid us in subjugating your kind of life in your era.”
The thought that they might resort to torture failed to move Moxol. There was no pain, physical or mental, that he hadn’t endured.
“It isn’t a matter of telling us,” the man went on. “What we wish to learn is the nature of your mental make-up. We can reach your kind subconsciously, but they are self-guided, individual, and don’t respond in a manner that can be predicted. We hope to find some common denominator. We’ve been partly successful. By using the doctor we’ve set man against man and spread chaos. By stirring sub-awareness metal to haphazard acts we’ve destroyed many and brought terror to others. But we aren’t yet able to proceed on an intelligent coordinated plan, We may have to work through someone like you. That will involve sharing our power.”
As the healing p
rocess continued, as time went on and on, the metal men studied him, made innumerable experiments, questioned him on many subjects, showed no discouragement when he refused to answer, seemed to feel they were getting the information they Wanted.
They told him of general happenings in his era, but seemed unable to grasp their meaning. They mentioned vast conflicting forces in a triangle, but the significance seemed lost to them. They failed to grasp the meaning of disturbances on planets. At times they seemed puzzled and worried.
And then it dawned that some of this was the result of his own thinking. He’d pictured the battle in space, with more and more ships converging until it stretched virtually from star to star. He also grasped, when they mentioned the movement of the conflict, the enormous losses, both in ships and men.
“The ships,” he declared aloud, “are mostly metal.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HIS strength returning, Moxol was moved into a marble room from which opened many corridors. The restraining bands were removed from about him and the heavy door closed and fastened.
Alone, he moved about, stretching his muscles and prodding his brain for an idea of what course to take.
Other metal men came from the corridors, told him they were also prisoners.
“We opposed those who wish to subjugate life in your time stream,” one explained. “We believe successful crossings and matings will lead to immortality. Combining the knowledge of both time streams might provide the answer to ultimate cause and effect, might even cast light on the purpose of life.”
From them he learned the energy used to stir sub-awareness metal in his time stream, and to influence conscious life there, came from the dark star. It appeared to be at the confluence of two time streams and, they believed, inaccessible to either.
They taught him how to control inferior metal by thinking in terms of vibrations appropriate to an act. By this means he recovered his blade and photon gun. Where they’d been kept and how they got to him through the locked door remained an unanswered question.