The Metal Monster

by Abraham Grace Merritt

  We found it; then the precipices hid it. Silently we streamed through the chasm, through the canyon and the tunnel—speaking no word, Drake's eyes fixed with bitter hatred upon Norhala, Ventnor brooding upon her always with that enigmatic sympathy. We passed between the walls of the further cleft; stood for an instant at the brink of the green forest.

  There came to us as though from immeasurable distances, a faint, sustained thrumming—like the beating of countless muffled drums. The Thing that carried us trembled—the sound died away. The Thing quieted; it began its steady, effortless striding through the crowding trees—but now with none of that speed with which it had come, spurred forward by Norhala's awakened hate.

  Ventnor stirred; broke the silence. And now I saw how wasted was his body, how sharpened his face; almost ethereal; purged not only by suffering but by, it came to me, some strange knowledge.

  "No use, Drake," he said dreamily. "All this is now on the knees of the gods. And whether those gods are humanity's or whether they are—Gods of Metal—I do not know.

  "But this I do know—only one way or another can the balance fall; and if it be one way, then you and we shall have Ruth back. And if it falls the other way—then there will be little need for us to care. For man will be done!"

  "Martin! What do you mean?"

  "It is the crisis," he answered. "We can do nothing, Goodwin—nothing. Whatever is to be steps forth now from the womb of Destiny."

  Again there came that distant rolling—louder, now. Again the Thing trembled.

  "The drums," whispered Ventnor. "The drums of destiny. What is it they are heralding? A new birth of Earth and the passing of man? A new child to whom shall be given dominion—nay, to whom has been given dominion? Or is it—taps—for Them?"

  The drumming died as I listened—fearfully. About us was only the swishing, the sighing of the falling trees beneath the tread of the Thing. Motionless stood Norhala; and as motionless Ruth.

  "Martin," I cried once more, a dreadful doubt upon me. "Martin—what do you mean?"

  "Whence did—They—come?" His voice was clear and calm, the eyes beneath the red brand clear and quiet, too. "Whence did They come—these Things that carry us? That strode like destroying angels over Cherkis's city? Are they spawn of Earth—as we are? Or are they foster children—changelings from another star?

  "These creatures that when many still are one—that when one still are many. Whence did They come? What are They?"

  He looked down upon the cubes that held us; their hosts of tiny eyes shone up at him, enigmatically—as though they heard and understood.

  "I do not forget," he said. "At least not all do I forget of what I saw during that time when I seemed an atom outside space—as I told you, or think I told you, speaking with unthinkable effort through lips that seemed eternities away from me, the atom, who strove to open them.

  "There were three—visions, revelations—I know not what to call them. And though each seemed equally real, of two of them, only one, I think, can be true; and of the third—that may some time be true but surely is not yet."

  Through the air came a louder drum roll—in it something ominous, something sinister. It swelled to a crescendo; abruptly ceased. And now I saw Norhala raise her head; listen.

  "I saw a world, a vast world, Goodwin, marching stately through space. It was no globe—it was a world of many facets, of smooth and polished planes; a huge blue jewel world, dimly luminous; a crystal world cut out from Aether. A geometric thought of the Great Cause, of God, if you will, made material. It was airless, waterless, sunless.

  "I seemed to draw closer to it. And then I saw that over every facet patterns were traced; gigantic symmetrical designs; mathematical hieroglyphs. In them I read unthinkable calculations, formulas of interwoven universes, arithmetical progressions of armies of stars, pandects of the motions of the suns. In the patterns was an appalling harmony—as though all the laws from those which guide the atom to those which direct the cosmos were there resolved into completeness—totalled.

  "The faceted world was like a cosmic abacist, tallying as it marched the errors of the infinite.

  "The patterned symbols constantly changed form. I drew nearer—the symbols were alive. They were, in untold numbers—These!"

  He pointed to the Thing that bore us.

  "I was swept back; looked again upon it from afar. And a fantastic notion came to me—fantasy it was, of course, yet built I know around a nucleus of strange truth. It was"—his tone was half whimsical, half apologetic—"it was that this jeweled world was ridden by some mathematical god, driving it through space, noting occasionally with amused tolerance the very bad arithmetic of another Deity the reverse of mathematical—a more or less haphazard Deity, the god, in fact, of us and the things we call living.

  "It had no mission; it wasn't at all out to do any reforming; it wasn't in the least concerned in rectifying any of the inaccuracies of the Other. Only now and then it took note of the deplorable differences between the worlds it saw and its own impeccably ordered and tidy temple with its equally tidy servitors.

  "Just an itinerant demiurge of supergeometry riding along through space on its perfectly summed-up world; master of all celestial mechanics; its people independent of all that complex chemistry and labor for equilibrium by which we live; needing neither air nor water, heeding neither heat nor cold; fed with the magnetism of interstellar space and stopping now and then to banquet off the energy of some great sun."

  A thrill of amazement passed through me; fantasy all this might be but—how, if so, had he gotten that last thought? He had not seen, as we had, the orgy in the Hall of the Cones, the prodigious feeding of the Metal Monster upon our sun.

  "That passed," he went on, unnoticing. "I saw vast caverns filled with the Things; working, growing, multiplying. In caverns of our Earth—the fruit of some unguessed womb? I do not know.

  "But in those caverns, under countless orbs of many colored lights"—again the thrill of amaze shook me—"they grew. It came to me that they were reaching out toward sunlight and the open. They burst into it—into yellow, glowing sunlight. Ours? I do not know. And that picture passed."

  His voice deepened.

  "There came a third vision. I saw our Earth—I knew, Goodwin, indisputably, unmistakably that it was our earth. But its rolling hills were leveled, its mountains were ground and shaped into cold and polished symbols—geometric, fashioned.

  "The seas were fettered, gleaming like immense jewels in patterned settings of crystal shores. The very Polar ice was chiseled. On the ordered plains were traced the hieroglyphs of the faceted world. And on all Earth, Goodwin, there was no green life, no city, no trace of man. On this Earth that had been ours were only—These.

  "Visioning!" he said. "Don't think that I accept them in their entirety. Part truth, part illusion—the groping mind dazzled with light of unfamiliar truths and making pictures from half light and half shadow to help it understand.

  "But still—SOME truth in them. How much I do not know. But this I do know—that last vision was of a cataclysm whose beginnings we face now—this very instant."

  The picture flashed behind my own eyes—of the walled city, its thronging people, its groves and gardens, its science and its art; of the Destroying Shapes trampling it flat—and then the dreadful, desolate mount.

  And suddenly I saw that mount as Earth—the city as Earth's cities—its gardens and groves as Earth's fields and forests—and the vanished people of Cherkis seemed to expand into all humanity.

  "But Martin," I stammered, fighting against choking, intolerable terror, "there was something else. Something of the Keeper of the Cones and of our striking through the sun to destroy the Things—something of them being governed by the same laws that govern us and that if they broke them they must fall. A hope—a PROMISE, that they would NOT conquer."

  "I remember," he replied, "but not clearly. There WAS something—a shadow upon them, a menace. It was a shadow that seemed to be born of ou
r own world—some threatening spirit of earth hovering over them.

  "I cannot remember; it eludes me. Yet it is because I remember but a little of it that I say those drums may not be—taps—for us."

  As though his words had been a cue, the sounds again burst forth—no longer muffled nor faint. They roared; they seemed to pelt through air and drop upon us; they beat about our ears with thunderous tattoo like covered caverns drummed upon by Titans with trunks of great trees.

  The drumming did not die; it grew louder, more vehement; defiant and deafening. Within the Thing under us a mighty pulse began to throb, accelerating rapidly to the rhythm of that clamorous roll.

  I saw Norhala draw herself up, sharply; stand listening and alert. Under me, the throbbing turned to an uneasy churning, a ferment.

  "Drums?" muttered Drake. "THEY'RE no drums. It's drum fire. It's like a dozen Marnes, a dozen Verduns. But where could batteries like those come from?"

  "Drums," whispered Ventnor. "They ARE drums. The drums of Destiny!"

  Louder the roaring grew. Now it was a tremendous rhythmic cannonading. The Thing halted. The tower that upheld Ruth and Norhala swayed, bent over the gap between us, touched the top on which we rode.

  Gently the two were plucked up; swiftly they were set beside us.

  Came a shrill, keen wailing—louder than ever I had heard before. There was an earthquake trembling; a maelstrom swirling in which we spun; a swift sinking.

  The Thing split in two. Up before us rose a stupendous, stepped pyramid; little smaller it was than that which Cheops built to throw its shadows across holy Nile. Into it streamed, over it clicked, score upon score of cubes, building it higher and higher. It lurched forward—away from us.

  From Norhala came a single cry—resonant, blaring like a wrathful, golden trumpet.

  The speeding shape halted, hesitated; it seemed about to return. Crashed down upon us an abrupt crescendo of the distant drumming; peremptory, commanding. The shape darted forward; raced away crushing to straw the trees beneath it in a full quarter-mile-wide swath.

  Great gray eyes wide, filled with incredulous wonder, stunned disbelief, Norhala for an instant faltered. Then out of her white throat, through her red lips pelted a tempest of staccato buglings.

  Under them what was left of the Thing leaped, tore on. Norhala's flaming hair crackled and streamed; about her body of milk and pearl—about Ruth's creamy skin—a radiant nimbus began to glow.

  In the distance I saw a sapphire spark; knew it for Norhala's home. Not far from it now was the rushing pyramid—and it came to me that within that shape was strangely neither globe nor pyramid. Nor except for the trembling cubes that made the platform on which we stood, did the shrunken Thing carrying us hold any unit of the Metal Monster except its spheres and tetrahedrons—at least within its visible bulk.

  The sapphire spark had grown to a glimmering azure marble. Steadily we gained upon the pyramid. Never for an instant ceased that scourging hail of notes from Norhala—never for an instant lessened the drumming clamor that seemed to try to smother them.

  The sapphire marble became a sapphire ball, a great globe. I saw the Thing we sought to join lift itself into a prodigious pillar; the pillar's base thrust forth stilts; upon them the Thing stepped over the blue dome of Norhala's house.

  The blue bubble was close; now it curved below us. Gently we were lifted down; were set before its portal. I looked up at the bulk that had carried us.

  I had been right—built it was only of globe and pyramid; an inconceivably grotesque shape, it hung over us.

  Throughout the towering Shape was awful movement; its units writhed within it. Then it was lost to sight in the mists through which the Thing we had pursued had gone.

  In Norhala's face as she watched it go was a dismay, a poignant uncertainty, that held in it something indescribably pitiful.

  "I am afraid!" I heard her whisper.

  She tightened her grasp upon dreaming Ruth; motioned us to go within. We passed, silently; behind us she came, followed by three of the great globes, by a pair of her tetrahedrons.

  Beside a pile of the silken stuffs she halted. The girl's eyes dwelt upon hers trustingly.

  "I am afraid!" whispered Norhala again. "Afraid—for you!"

  Tenderly she looked down upon her, the galaxies of stars in her eyes soft and tremulous.

  "I am afraid, little sister," she whispered for the third time. "Not yet can you go as I do—among the fires." She hesitated. "Rest here until I return. I shall leave these to guard you and obey you."

  She motioned to the five shapes. They ranged themselves about Ruth. Norhala kissed her upon both brown eyes.

  "Sleep till I return," she murmured.

  She swept from the chamber—with never a glance for us three. I heard a little wailing chorus without, fast dying into silence.

  Spheres and pyramids twinkled at us, guarding the silken pile whereon Ruth lay asleep—like some enchanted princess.

  Beat down upon the blue globe like hollow metal worlds, beaten and shrieking.

  The drums of Destiny!

  The drums of Doom!

  Beating taps for the world of men?

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  THE FRENZY OF RUTH

  For many minutes we stood silent, in the shadowy chamber, listening, each absorbed in his own thoughts. The thunderous drumming was continuous; sometimes it faded into a background for clattering storms as of thousands of machine guns, thousands of riveters at work at once upon a thousand metal frameworks; sometimes it was nearly submerged beneath splitting crashes as of meeting meteors of hollow steel.

  But always the drumming persisted, rhythmic, thunderous. Through it all Ruth slept, undisturbed, cheek pillowed in one rounded arm, the two great pyramids erect behind her, watchful; a globe at her feet, a globe at her head, the third sphere poised between her and us, and, like the pyramids—watchful.

  What was happening out there—over the edge of the canyon, beyond the portal of the cliffs, behind the veils, in the Pit of the Metal Monster? What was the message of the roaring drums? What the rede of their clamorous runes?

  Ventnor stepped by the sentinel globe, bent over the tranced girl. Sphere nor pointed pair stirred; only they watched him—like a palpable thing one felt their watchfulness. He listened to her heart, caught up a wrist, took note of her pulse of life. He drew a deep breath, stood upright, nodded reassuringly.

  Abruptly Drake turned, walked out through the open portal, his strain and a very deep anxiety written plainly in deep lines that ran from nostrils to firm young mouth.

  "Just went out to look for the pony," he muttered when he returned. "It's safe. I was afraid it had been stepped on. It's getting dusk. There's a big light down the canyon—over in the valley."

  Ventnor drew back past the globe; rejoined us.

  The blue bower trembled under a gust of sound. Ruth stirred; her brows knitted; her hands clenched. The sphere that stood before her spun on its axis, swept up to the globe at her head, glided from it to the globe at her feet—as though whispering. Ruth moaned—her body bent upright, swayed rigidly. Her eyes opened; they stared through us as though upon some dreadful vision; and strangely was it as though she were seeing with another's eyes, were reflecting another's sufferings.

  The globes at her feet and at her head swirled out, clustering against the third sphere—three weird shapes in silent consultation. On Ventnor's face I saw pity—and a vast relief. With shocked amaze I realized that Ruth's agony—for in agony she clearly was—was calling forth in him elation. He spoke—and I knew why.

  "Norhala!" he whispered. "She is seeing with Norhala's eyes—feeling what Norhala feels. It's not going well with—That—out there. If we dared leave Ruth—could only, see—"

  Ruth leaped to her feet; cried out—a golden bugling that might have been Norhala's own wrathful trumpet notes. Instantly the two pyramids flamed open, became two gleaming stars that bathed her in violet radiance. Beneath their upper tips I saw the bla
sting ovals glitter—menacingly.

  The girl glared at us—more brilliant grew the glittering ovals as though their lightnings trembled on their lips.

  "Ruth!" called Ventnor softly.

  A shadow softened the intolerable, hard brilliancy of the brown eyes. In them something struggled to arise, fighting its way to the surface like some drowning human thing.

  It sank back—upon her face dropped a cloud of heartbreak, appalling woe; the despair of a soul that, having withdrawn all faith in its own kind to rest all faith, as it thought, on angels—sees that faith betrayed.

  There stared upon us a stripped spirit, naked and hopeless and terrible.

  Despairing, raging, she screamed once more. The central globe swam to her; it raised her upon its back; glided to the doorway. Upon it she stood poised like some youthful, anguished Victory—a Victory who faced and knew she faced destroying defeat; poised upon that enigmatic orb on bare slender feet, one sweet breast bare, hands upraised, virginally archaic, nothing about her of the Ruth we knew.

  "Ruth!" cried Drake; despair as great as that upon her face was in his voice. He sprang before the globe that held her; barred its way.

  For an instant the Thing paused—and in that instant the human soul of the girl rushed back.

  "No!" she cried. "No!"

  A weird call issued from the white lips—stumbling, uncertain, as though she who sent it forth herself wondered whence it sprang. Abruptly the angry stars closed. The three globes spun—doubting, puzzled! Again she called—now a tremulous, halting cadence. She was lifted; dropped gently to her feet.

  For an instant the globes and pyramids whirled and danced before her—then sped away through the portal.

  Ruth swayed, sobbing. Then as though drawn, she ran to the doorway, fled through it. As one we sprang after her. Rods ahead her white body flashed, speeding toward the Pit. Like fleet-footed Atalanta she fled—and far, far behind us was the blue bower, the misty barrier of the veils close, when Drake with a last desperate burst reached her side, gripped her. Down the two fell, rolling upon the smooth roadway. Silently she fought, biting, tearing at Drake, struggling to escape.