Anton York, Immortal

by Eando Binder

  "Who are you?" he asked. "How did you happen to come to this forgotten chamber?"

  York told their story. At mention of the Three Eternals, Kaligor started and seemed to listen with rapt interest.

  "The Three Eternals!" he burst out, when York had finished. "They are the same three who imprisoned me here!. It came about in this way. I am of Mu, not Atlantis. I discovered the life-elixir, independently, partook of it, and in my utter zeal, decided to house my already immortal brain in an indestructible body, so that even accidental death could not claim my life. I would live forever! Ah, it was a foolish aim, not knowing at the time how palling life can become."

  For a moment Kaligor radiated the same ultra ennui of the Three Eternals. York and Vera realized that perhaps someday they too would long for escape.

  Kaligor went on "We had skilled surgeons in our civilization, and one of these I had transfer my living, immortal brain into this robot housing. I had previously devised a solution surrounding my brain that drew energy from space itself, which pervades all things. I had spent two centuries constructing my robot body. It is not metal, as it appears to your eye. It is not matter at all, for matter can be destroyed. I wanted something absolutely indestructible. This body of mine is made of—what shall I call it?—interwoven energy. A sort of fibroid cloth of fundamental warped space time. When you destroy an atom, what is left? Its energy, which cannot be destroyed—ever. Of this is my body made."

  York faintly understood. "I see why my brain wave stopped so suddenly when it struck your form. I was commanding pure energy to vanish, with pure energy. A figure telling its mirror image to be gone!"

  Kaligor waved a stumpy hand, in dismissal and went on.

  "Thus finally and truly immortal, I began to think of the future. Plans of leading Mu's civilization to astounding heights formed. And then, before I could begin, Mu crashed' down into the sea, in that Titanic struggle for mastery with Atlantis, our bitter enemy.

  "Tons of masonry fell on me, with no effect, of course. I found myself at the bottom of the sea, eventually, all my people drowned, murdered. Walking over the sea bottom to the shores of Atlantis, filled with horror, I was prepared to wreak vengeance. But Atlantis went down of itself, and civilization was done!"

  His psychic tones were dull. "I must have sat on a mountain top, overlooking the broad seas that covered Mu, for a century, brooding, thinking I was the only human mind alive. But one day, in this newly arisen continent, I saw human forms. Some had survived! I questioned them. Though half savage, and the sinking of Mu and Atlantis already a legend to them, I found they were descendants of Muan - survivors. My own people! My spirits sang and I began teaching them, building a new Muan civilization in place of the old."

  He paused, his thoughts darkening. "Then the Three Eternals came. I met them for the first time. They had been in space, as they told you, and had come back to find their land and mine in limbo. Being Atlantides, they hated the thought of Muans inheriting the new world. We battled. I' could not vanquish them, without weapons, nor could they destroy me, though they blasted me with every hellish force of their devising.

  "At last, chaining me, they took me down to this chamber, buried me forty miles below Earth's surface in a solid, metal block, knowing that as long as Earth existed, I would live and think and never be free. Even insane, I could not die! Their last words to me were that they were going above to hunt down the Mu-descended savages. Every last one. Rather an Earth peopled only by dumb animals than Muans, was their bitter text."

  "They obviously failed." York smiled grimly. "Since human life went on and civilization rose again, in time—Egypt, Sumeria, Maya, and so on.

  Kaligor's bright mirror eyes looked at them strangely.

  "And you, Anton York, are of my race. We have a bond between us, linking us across an age of time. And we have a common enemy,--the Three Eternals. You can see what their present plan means—to destroy once and for all the second Muan race and civilization. They will be forced to use Muan stock in their proposed civilization, but inculcated with the ancient Alantide ideology, which was ever a belief in rule of the many by the favoured few. We of Mu believed always in communal cooperation."

  York nodded.

  "We will go to the surface and fight the Three Eternals," he said, glad to have an ally of such merit. "At present, they think we are dead and—"

  York stopped short.

  Vera gave a vocal cry, feeling the delicate mental probe of the Three in her femininely sensitive brain.

  In a split second of time, before the probe had focused, she warned her husband and Kaligor to close their minds.

  York commended her with his eyes, and they forced their minds in a telepathic short circuit.

  Kaligor had caught on instantly, and likewise stood mentally inert.

  8

  VERA heaved a sigh an hour later. The probe had gone. "Lead the way," Kaligor said to York. "Up to the surface world, with your brain wave excavator."

  It took them a month, York and Vera alternately forming the tunnel slanting upward. They became skilled in producing, food, water and air, when needed. Kaligor stalked after them silently, needing none of these necessities of life. Deathless he truly was.

  As they neared the surface, he betrayed increasing excitement. To see the Sun again, the bustle of life, after twenty thousand years of caged dreams! At times, however, Kaligor seemed wrapped in a mental fog-. The artificial vocal cords with which he was equipped murmured his ancient tongue. York and Vera caught the tailings of their mental origins—brief flashes of a Strange, incredible Universe, peopled with non-existent beings!

  Once the robot-bodied man stopped, confused, and it was an hour before York could convince him it was Earth, and not the dream stuff of Wolkia. Kaligor shook his head sadly.

  "I live in two worlds," he murmured. "I will never be sure which is real! Too long, too long have I dwelt in that other land!"

  Vera was invaluable as their sentinel against discovery by the Three Eternals' periodic, suspicious probings with their long-range mental detector, from their laboratory on Mount Olympus. Her quick mind detected instantly what the two blunter male minds might have noticed seconds too late. At her signals, they locked their minds instantaneously.

  They emerged in Australia, as York had carefully planned, for it would have been disaster to burst through into the Pacific's watery bottom. York and Vera breathed free air thankfully, exulting in the warn sunlight that bathed their skins.

  Kaligor leaned against a rock, his strangely flexible body trembling. Free at last of his horribly entombed fate, his was the emotion of a resurrected soul, mistakenly buried, a million times intensified.

  Their thoughts expanding, free of the underground, they were not on guard.

  "The mental probe!" Vera screamed suddenly.

  They closed their minds--but a second too late. The mental gimlet became a battering force, trying to pry further. It was all they could do to resist. Kaligor waved silently and began running. After a mile, the force slipped away, off focus.

  "Lost the range," panted York. "I don't think they found exactly where we are, in that short time. Only that we're somewhere in Australia. But now they do know we're alive! We must get to my space ship, in Sol City, as soon as possible. At least in that, if they find us, we can fly away."

  Constantly on guard now, they set out. In a week they had crossed jungle and desert, reaching a busy seaport. Not disclosing their identity, passing -themselves off as explorers and Kaligor as a mechanical robot little different from those in use for menial labours, they boarded a strato-liner for Sol City. Lacking the necessary paper "money"--units of work based on a technological system—York employed hypnotism to delude the officials into believing he had paid for the passage.

  But such details were trivial in dealing with the world of mortals. The burning thought before them was the coming battle to save civilization from the merciless hands of the Three Eternals.

  Arriving in Sol City, t
hey hastened to York's space ship, parked in a drome. Once Inside, York drew his first easy breath in all those days. He sailed the ship out of the drome, up into the sky. Motioning Vera to the controls, he told her to set a course for the South Pacific, while he set down from memory the data of his subterranean exploration of geological stresses.

  "The first thing to do is explode the key island that will counteract the rise of Atlantis and Mu," he said "After that, we will reckon with the Eternals."

  Kaligor nodded, his manner charged with anticipation of soon facing the Three who had thought to bury him for all eternity.

  Vera was thoughtful. "I wonder why they haven't probed for us in the past few hours," she murmured, quizzically.

  "Tony, it's ominous."

  They knew the answer a few hours later, as they slanted down toward the tiny atoll that must be blasted. There, waiting for them, glinting in the sunlight, was a greenish-hulled ovoid ship.

  "The Eternals!" gasped Vera.

  York stopped his ship and snapped on his electro-protective screen, expecting immediate battle. But instead, the clear telepathic voice of the Three Eternals sounded.

  "So, Anton York, you managed to escape your rockbound prison. We again deplore our underestimation of you. How did you do it?"

  York was silent.

  "No matter," came the unruffled tele-voice. "After detecting you with our mental probe, in Australia, and failing to pick you up again, we came here, knowing this would be your destination. We have one thing to thank you for—you have made things interesting for us, lightening our age-long ennui. If only you could oppose us further, give us a stirring fight, we would be grateful for the diversion!"

  Mockery? Not exactly, it came to York. There was a core of sincerity behind the ironic words.

  The Eternals went on. "But, of course, you cannot oppose us: Our twenty thousand years of science will crush your two thousand. We—" The psychic voice stiffened a little. "There is a third person, or mind, aboard your ship. Who—"

  'Canoes flexible body had been trembling at this time, listening to the words of his ancient, bitter enemies. Now he took an unnecessary step forward.

  "It is I, Kaligor!" boomed out the Muan's tele-voice. "Do you remember me?"

  "Kaligor!"

  It was a startled chorus from all three Eternals. A moment later a queer ultralight flicked into the cabin, from the other ship. It moved about and finally centred on the robot. Like a detached eye, it roved up and down his body, and it seemed to express amazed bewilderment.

  Finally the Eternals broke their shocked silence.

  "Yes, it is you, Kaligor. Our tele-eye shows you on our screen. It cannot lie. You were freed by Anton York?"

  Taking evident delight in the telling, Kaligor briefly recounted his rescue.

  "Thus I face you again, Three Eternals, like a ghost from the past!" he challenged.

  "Kaligor—with Anton York!" The involuntary thought of one of the. Eternals, barely perceptible, was a betrayal, as though the combination struck fear. Then hastily: "But no matter. We are about to destroy your ship, and you, Anton York. Kaligor, though indestructible, you will fall to the bottom of the sea. We will capture you again, seal you at the center of Earth perhaps, where no one will blunder in to set you free. You will lie there, spinning your endless dream further, while up here we will snuff out this Mu-spawn civilization and build the second Adantide era."

  "You are senile, mentally if not physically," taunted Kaligor. "Atlantis, and all it stood for, are things of the past. Muan principles and culture will endure. I, Kaligor, say it and—'

  At that moment, the Three Eternals opened fire. A sound- less blast of energy sprang against York's electro-screen. The screen held, but succeeding blasts began to send a warning needle higher and higher toward the red danger mark of penetration. One touch of the disintegration beam on the hull and the ship would fall together like a rotten gourd.

  York wasted no time firing back, remembering the last encounter where his gamma-sonic weapon had been so ineffective. He fled toward open space, before they brought their paralysis beam to bear.

  "Fool!" he cursed himself. "I should have suspected they'd be waiting here. We should have thought of armament first."

  Up the ship arrowed. In free space, York tried his best acceleration, but the green ship of the Eternals clung on the trail relentlessly and drew steadily closer. Any principle of super-velocity York had discovered in his two thousand years of research must be known to the Eternals. And more.

  "Tony, what can we do?" Vera moaned.

  "Kaligor!" York appealed, in turn. "Can you think of anything?"

  There was no answer from the robot, slumped in a corner of the cabin.

  "Kaligor!" yelled York frantically.

  The Muan started, raised his faceless head.

  "What? Is that you, Binti? No--no—what am I saying? Her name is Vera York! What is this world? Tell me. I'm confused"

  "Earth, Kaligor!" groaned York. "Come out of your dream world. The Three Eternals--"

  A flash of blinding light, as the enemy's gas-ray rammed into, their screen, brought Kaligor to full awareness.

  "The brain wave, York! Use that. Command their screen to fall away!"

  York tried it, wondering how he had stupidly failed to think of it himself. Vera took the controls. York stared fixedly out at the enemy ship, concentrating. He threw every ounce of his brain power into the mental command for the Eternal& protective screen to break down, then fired his gamma-sonic weapon.

  But the telekinetic force that had moulded hard stone like putty failed to crush the super-powerful screen of the Eternals. It was pure energy battling pure energy, again. The only noticeable effect was that the green ship fell back for an instant, as though it had struck something.

  York tried again and again, his mind reeled with the draining effort. Each time the enemy ship faltered a little, but its screen held. Staggering, York slipped the brain wave concentrator out of his ear and handed it to Kaligor.

  "You try it!" he gasped.

  Kaligor held the tiny instrument before his forehead. York and Vera could not see on his featureless face the mental concentration brought to bear, but the ship of the Eternals bounced back a minute later after each repeated blow of telekinetic force.

  "Their screen is adamant," said Kaligor. "They'll win out in the end, unless—"

  Rapidly, he outlined a plan. York nodded and waited tensely.

  9

  KALIGOR once more faced the oncoming ship, through the port window. York and Vera could almost feel the tremendous mental forces he was concentrating, second by second. Kaligor released a blast of telekinetic force, a minute later, that hurled the green ship back and back until it vanished in the blackness of space.

  At the same time, as they had planned, York shot their ship sideward at a prodigious pace. Then, in successive arcs, he warped their course at a random angle to the last position.

  "Enough!" barked Kaligor, five minutes later. "Shut off the motor, the screen, every generator—and close your minds!" Obeying, the three now drifted in a silent, dark ship as inert as any meteor in space. They felt the mental probe of the Eternals, trying to locate them, but an hour later it ceased. A broadcast telepathic voice rolled over them.

  "You have escaped for the time being, Kaligor and Anton York," admitted the Eternals. "But we have won. We will go back to Earth, and set up a headquarters on the very island you would have to destroy, to save the Muan civilization.

  We will wait, on guard. If you return, we will destroy you.

  When the ancient lands have arisen, and we have constructed Atlantide civilization, we will search you out, in whatever remote corner of the Universe—for the final reckoning!"

  Vera signalled the two men to keep their minds locked, when they were about to relax. Understanding, for it might be a ruse to discover them, they waited. It was not till three hours later that they cautiously opened their minds. No mental probe greeted them.

/>   "They've gone back to Earth," sighed York, "as they said." He went on heavily. "They have won. We know now that we can't penetrate their screen. They can ours, in a longer battle."

  "But, Tony, why can't we build a better screen, and find some force to penetrate theirs?' suggested Vera.

  York shook his head. "It would take years—centuries! In that time, civilization will be destroyed, the very thing we're trying to save. Don't you see, Vera? The Eternals are eighteen thousand years ahead of us. Ahead of Kaligor, too, for he lay impotent, dreaming, for that long time while they crawled up on the scale of science."

  "Impotent! Dreaming!" Kaligor gave a mental sigh. "Yes, dreaming. Ah, if I could only use some of the science of my dream world! Mirbel and Binti, that time they fought the triple minds of Kashtal, had a wonderful weapon. . But it is no use. Their science was of the six-dimensional Universe, useless in ours. All dream stuff, all?, all—-"

  York and Vera almost pitied him, as he faded away into his dream world again, where all harsh realities could be solved.

  "There's only one hope," pondered York. "Developing the telekinetic force. If we made a larger concentrator, one for all three of our minds at once, we might get a large enough blast out of it to smash their screen, instead of just pushing them away. What do you think of that, Kaligor?"

  But Kaligor was lost in his dream, and Vera firmly silenced York's half angry shouts to awake him.

  "Tony," she said softly, "waking from a beautiful dream 'is the worst feeling in all the world. Let poor Kaligor break into waking life gradually. He has been twenty thousand years in that other world—only a few days in ours!"

  A week later, after a slow, careful cruise lest the Eternal' detect them with long-range finders, they landed on an isolated section of the Moon, away from mining outposts.

  Despite their grim situation, it amused them to tune into the radio news from the world of mortals.

  "A dozen more ships have now docked, with burned-out instruments, and reported the same mysterious occurrence of last week, out in space somewhere between Earth and Moon," said one announcer. "Without warning, loose energy of some sort surged in that area, burning out all radios, lighting systems, and intership phones. Dr. Emanuel Harper, famous physicist, estimates that some forty-five trillion ergs of energy were expended in a few minutes, at some point thousands of miles away from his particular ship.