Intrigued by that faint haze, he climbed up onto the altar, stood there, hands on two rods for balance, peering deeper into the center of the abstraction. Odd! Where the shimmer was, he heard a faint hum as of distant machinery. The haze must be a doorway or perhaps a key that opened a pathway for the blue fire. By smashing the abstraction and its shimmery middle, he would be preventing only the building of the temple
The stabile was only a part of the riddle which was Rhythane. It would do little good to destroy it. It might be better to seek to communicate with it. If it proved dangerous, there would be time enough to smash the thing.
Craig remained in the temple for another half an hour, memorizing as much of the wiring and rod-work as he could. If this thing were by design an instrument from a greater intelligence, by which it communicated to the Toparrs, there might be a way to build one of his own.
It was a small hope, but better than none. He was halfway across the floor and moving toward the closed doors, when the voice touched his mind. It was arrogant, cold.
Prisoner! Attend me!
He whipped around, tense with surprise. There was no difference in the abstraction, yet it had spoken to him.
There is no escape from Rhythane. There is no need to attempt the impossible. Remain where you are.
Yes, John Craig. Remain where you are and be caught by the Toparrs. Be the dumb brute they think all Empire men must be, to toil like animals for the greater glory of the god Rhythane. A grim chuckle lifted to his lips.
"Not likely,” he said softly. He wasted no time trying for the doors. The Toparrs would be outside them in a little while—he was positive the thing in the abstraction could telepath its commands to them as well as to himself, he angled his run toward one of the high windows.
Just below it was a quantity of building materials, left over from this day's work. Among the tiles and discarded tools were coils of strong rope for the binding of struts and supports. A length of this in his hand and—ah, yes—one of these metal clamps which could be screwed closed to form a metal circle.
Swiftly he worked, tying rope to metal and closing the clamp. He whirled the metal weight about his head slowly, looking up at the high windows, gauging height and distance. One good throw should do it.
Something thumped against the doors at the far end of the temple, There was the turning of a key, a metallic scratching and the doors crashed inward. Half a dozen yellow half-men came racing across the floor tiles toward him.
He swung the weight, watching it soar high and curving, arching toward a stone hook a little above the window, where a heavy bronze votive lamp was to be hung when the temple was completed. The clamp seemed to climb slowly through the air on its upward flight. The drumming of the yellow feet made a pounding in his ears. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Ah, there!
The clamp dropped onto the hook. His hands tested it, then swung him off the floor. Service boots against the wall, his hands gripping that strong rope, he climbed. Just below him, yet growing smaller as he went upward, he saw the upturned faces of the Toparrs. There was no expression on them, but he felt anger pulsing at him from their telepathic brains.
"Beast-man, you shall suffer!"
“Come down at once!”
"You are in the presence of the god Rhythane!”
He put a hand to the hook, swung sideways a little until the toe of his boot touched the stone windowsill. He lurched forward, letting go the hook but keeping his grip on the rope. His body teetered and then stood erect on the ledge.
There were no panes in the window, it was open to the night winds and the cold black vault of sky.
Dimly, Craig could make out the city extending beyond the temple for the distance of a mile, and further on, the wide expanse of plain which bordered the cluster of buildings.
He put his eyes over the ledge, looking back into the temple. The Toparrs were still clustered below, still staring upward. Soon now, one of them would think of going to the materials pile and making his own climbing rope. Craig decided not to wait for that to happen. He could not see the city street below along the outside wall of the temple, but he must make his run for it.
The clamp was still about the stone hook. His fingers played out the rope, he stepped over the outer edge and swung down into blackness. There was no moon, no stars, no light by which he might be seen. He dropped downward swiftly, the rope burning his palms at times. When he sensed he was close to the street pavings, he jumped.
He landed catlike, surprised that there were no Toparrs here to grab and grapple with him. The cold air felt good to his lungs. He turned his head to study the street, Empty!
Craig could not believe his good fortune. It was too much to expect. The yellow beings were not fools They must possess intelligence! Why were they letting him run free? Then he grinned, mirthlessly. They knew he would go back to the compound where he had left Fiona, where his friends the spacemen lived, where his weapons waited for his hands.
He ran, swiftly. His feet barely touching the paving stones.
Ah, and then—
He saw them, up an intersecting street. There were five, maybe six of the Toparrs, advancing toward him. His eyes flashed along a second street. Half a dozen more, there. And up a third street, and a fourth, all of which converged on the temple square, came still more yellow half-men.
Craig felt the sweat ooze from his forehead. Sly, sly were the Toparrs. They had made a band of living men on all the streets up which Craig must come, they had sent men into the temple to flush him out, as beaters flushed out game for the hunters. He was hunted, he was the quarry, and the trap was snapping shut upon him.
Had he worn the Halo, he would have formed a gun and used it. But the Halo lay with The Imp and the black box in his sack at the compound. His fists were his only weapons; even his sword had been left behind.
Well, he had been in tight fixes before. He began to run again, and now he went like a solath player, partly bent over for greater hitting impact when he struck. He whipped through the blackness, gathering speed. The Toparrs saw him coming. They fanned out, which was a mistake on their part.
He hit them like an exploding shell, ramming shoulders into a belly, snapping a quick left and right to a face. The Toparrs went down. He was through
Then the others hit him. One took him high, arms wrapping about his neck, his body a weight on his spine, another caromed into his legs, a third belted him about the middle. Craig staggered. He bucked, he twisted, he tried to shake them loose. One of the half-men he had floored crawled on his knees to band his legs around his ankles.
Craig stumbled and went down. He dropped to his side, and he was fighting. His fists hit faces and bellies, they rammed hard, they hit so often that the knuckles split and blood oozed out. Craig was in good condition, but inside a few minutes he was panting. The Toparrs were not hitting back, they were squeezing with their arms, tightening them as the extinct boa constrictor of ancient Earth was said to have throttled its victims.
After a little while it was hard to breath, harder still to throw a punch. Craig stiffened, battling for breath more than he battled the Toparrs. After a moment he felt the cold night seeping into his body through his eyes and his nostrils, through all the damp and open pores of his body. The blackness was stifling: It folded all about him and cradled him gently until he knew no more.
After that he was vaguely aware of being lifted, carried. He felt weightless, only partially alive. His head lolled, his body was limp except where the yellow beings gripped it, Dimly, he wondered what they would do to him.
There was a nighttime darkness, then there was light, yellowish light from a number of big lenses set in a stone wall. The lenses looked at him like eves without pity as his wrists were seized and clamped in metal rings.
His arms were high above his head and Craig was dully surprised. He had not raised his arms. Oh, God The pain of wrenched muscles. His wrists burned with an unholy fire.
Dead weight though they were, his eyelids lifted.
He hung suspended from a wooden beam, metal manacles about his wrists, holding him up so that the tips of his toes could just reach the stone floor, no more. His clothes were gone, he saw them lying in a limp puddle off to one side of him, just beyond the stool where along leather whip rested.
The sweat ran down his face, his chest. It made little streams along his muscular thighs. Torture! Well, he had known it would come. The Toparrs must have realized he was different from the others; his clothing would not tell them that, but the Thing in the abstraction might.
There was a deep silence all about him so that it seemed he could hear the hum of many voices, muted, hushed. He looked upward between his arms, seeing the chains high above him, suspended from an iron hook in the ceiling beam. Ten feet of chain in all, he guessed, five feet up to the hook, five feet down to his manacles.
They were letting him sweat. Psychological Warfare. When he had reflected long enough about what they would be likely to do to him, he would be half ready to break.
He told himself he would not break, but this was sheer bravado. He was alone here, unutterably alone. Empire, with all its battle fleets, with its Alert Command and all its Ordnance weapons, was far away, almost in another universe. Johnny Craig would have to depend on Johnny Craig. And he was out of hope. They came at last, a Toparr larger and more intelligent than the others, and wearing part of a Fleet Commander's uniform. Craig smiled faintly. Apparently the campaign ribbons, the medals, the heavy gold braiding of epaulettes and loops, appealed to something in the Toparr's soul. As trappings of authority, as ornaments to the body, it made no difference. It did make him seem more human, however. The came came to a stop before him.
You shall tell me things, man of Earth. The thought boomed in his head. Craig pretended not to hear it, looking past the right shoulder epaulette at two of the Toparrs staring back at him.
"I shall speak, then, since you pretend not to hear my mind, the uniformed humanoid said.
There are four classes of Toparrs, Craig reflected. The workers who command the slaves, who speak; the warriors who go out to fight and bring in more slaves, who telepath; the lanths or priests who summon up Rhythane, and now this leader or chieftain, who both speaks and telepaths. It was interesting to know, but not likely to help him in any way.
"Now, then: from whence do you come?”
Craig said, "From beyond the black enigma.”
The man scowled, “What is this black enigma?”
Craig explained, vaguely aware that the man was seething with anger and indignation when he was done. He was a brutal humanoid with a low brow and thick lips and puffy eyes, yet there was a native shrewdness in the slyness of his gaze. At the moment, his cheeks were mottled with purple.
"Fool! I shall not tolerate impertinence!”
The back of his hairy hand took the major alongside the cheek, drove his head to one side. That hand was like a small ham, and it had the power of a lion's paw. Craig shook his head, stiffening his will against the pain of his wrists where the manacles bruised them.
“Now speak!”
“I'm telling you—the truth. All around this sector of space is a great black cloud which we call the enigma. And beyond the enigma are many suns and many worlds like this, where men and women live under the banner of the Empire worlds.”
The hand doubled itself up, struck as a fist. Craig rocked back, felt his skin tear where the manacles cut into it. It was beginning, the pain, the red haze of agony, the silent scream of tortured nerves. He dangled helplessly.
“Speak again!”
“What do you want me to say?”
The fist struck again and then again.
“The truth! You must tell me the truth!”
Craig stared out of glazing eyes. Those fists had been inordinately strong; he could not have taken many more of such blows, delivered with anger and the weight of bulging muscles. He wondered dimly if enough of them would cause his wrists to pull free of his hands, where the metal circlets held them so tightly.
The Toparr commander stared back at him, seeing the pain deep inside Craig's eyes. He nodded, permit ting himself a smile. He bent, searched for and found the little stool, lifted off the whip and tossed it through the air toward another half-man.
He pulled the stool forward and sat directly in front of Craig, that he might see the pain come into his face. He smiled, expectantly.
"Whip him!” he ordered.
The Whip, was a thick wooden handle wrapped around by lacquered leather thongs knotted at their ends and plaited to form seven long, thick lashes. There were knots tied at varying spaces in the lashes, too. It was the old Russian knot, the cat o' nine tails, the ancient Roman ferula.
The plaited leather thongs sang before they hit him, whirling through the air. They landed, cutting into his skin as they wrapped themselves about his back. He could not help it; Craig groaned, biting down against the scream he stifled.
He had nothing against which to lean, nothing to help his body absorb of those blows. They landed on him full force as the Toparr plied his whip with a robot-like efficiency. The first pain was the worst; after that the others blows fell onto a body already numbed. Not that they did not hurt; they did, but it was a pain Commander Craig felt as from a distance.
splaaat splaaat splaaat
The sound came to his ears as his body shuddered steadily to that terrible beating. He hung like a dead man, suspended from his bleeding wrists. His head lolled and his lips were slack. After a time the Toparr commander gestured with his hand and the lashes fell and dangled as the whip-man lowered his arm.
“He is unconscious. Throw water over him, then let him hang for a while. I shall be back after I have eaten.”
They went away and there was silence once again in the big room. It was as if Craig dangled in a dead world, where his pain-wrecked body was the only life. The minutes came and went.
His eyelids quivered, opened.
He stared dully at the end of the room, at the ceiling beams and at the walls, without moving his head, only his eyes; it hurt to move his head. Memory came back with a rush, and with it came the pain.
His body shuddered. He was unable to control this muscular spasm which was an answer to the beating he had taken. He retched, but his stomach was empty and so he only contracted and gagged; yet as he did, the manacles at his torn and bloody wrists made him aware of them. His eyes looked upward.
Chains on a hook. Metal rounds linked together, held by an iron bar hammered into wood. If it were not for that chain, he would be free. His head dropped and he dangled limply. After a moment he grew aware that he was looking at a stool. There was something different about it.
Oh, yes. The whip was gone. The whip was over near his clothes, and there was a red like paint on the plaited thongs; only it was not paint but his blood. Craig sighed, and looked at the stool again.
There was something else about the stool that—
Of course. It was nearer to him than it had been when the whip was on it. If he stretched out his foot, he might touch it, now. He thought about that, hanging there, and only slowly did the hope build inside
Gently his bare foot lifted, went outward and under the edge of the stool. His big toe lifted, hooked at the wood. The stool tilted.
Now hope was alive and his toe jiggled the stool, bumping it close. He let the stool rest on its four short legs as he pushed his big toe across the underpart of the seat until it hooked the far edge. It was easier now. The stool slid nicely, nicely, until he could put a barefoot on its top.
God! It was good to stand, to take the weight of his bleeding wrists. He shivered, feeling the pain stab into those wrists as his body weight was taken off them. His legs bent, as if by that movement he could ease his agony.
This is no time for indulgence! The Toparrs are beyond this room. Any moment they will be back to whip me again
Biting into his lower lip he put his full weight on the stool and felt the chain slacken above him as he wrap
ped his fingers about it. Gently he shook the chain, bringing its links closer to the end of the big hook driven into the ceiling beam. A little more, just an inch or two.....
The chain fell free. He caught it before its links could do more than rasp together. Commander John Craig straightened up, and the chain was a great length of cold metal in his hands. His wrists were bleeding but he would be able to forget his pain in the more exciting lust for vengeance.
Clinging to his chain, he stepped down off the stool.
He walked catlike to the door and put his ear to it. There was no sound. Then he looked about the room. This was the only door, there were no windows. His fingers wrapped tighter about the chain.
He opened the door.
There was no one in the corridor outside. Naked, Craig walked along the corridor until he came to a small room. There was a Toparr in it, sitting relaxed in a chair with his head back against the wall. He wore a thick black-belt, as all the Toparrs did. He was not a fighter, for there was no weapon in a holster.
Craig swung up the chain and brought it flailing down across his head. The yellow half-man made no sound, he only slumped deeper into the chair and the blood came out upon his head.
The commander whispered, "It was you—or me and Empire.”
He went out of the room and along the corridor until it ended at a large room which was an arsenal, to judge by the many weapons hung on wooden pegs along the walls. Craig grinned coldly and reached both hands out for two Toparr weapons called taraths that fired the white balls of energy. Holding them in his hands, he studied them a moment, remembering how the Toparr had fired at him in the Now—city of Uphor. These studs, here. If he pressed one, a little of blazing fury would leap out and disintegrate what ever it touched.
He hungered to test the gun. His chance came almost as fast as his desire. There were footfalls in the adjacent corridor that was at right angles to the tunnel along which he had come. Craig grinned and lifted the tarath in his fingers.
The Toparr commander in his Empire uniform was the first one in the corridor. He shouted at sight of the raised weapon and tried to dodge, Craig pressed the studs.
Beyond the Black Enigma Page 9