A vast, broken, sky-blue plain from which jutted countless spikes and spires, Titanic domes and arches, gigantic pyramidal masses of masonry with flattened tops; sparkling ribbons of light that were the streets, one rising above another, five ten, twenty aerial thoroughfares—that was Cosmopolis! And above it rose the four great towers—the Tower of Science, the Tower of Business, the Tower of Art and the Tower of Music. The terraced Tower of Science—this tower—was the center of all, like the hub of a Titanic wheel. And like a wheel, the great avenues, its spokes, began at the Science Tower and led out in straight lines, with other streets crossing like the glowing strands of a spider’s web. And at carefully planned intervals at the city’s edge, the three other towers projected into the sky—lesser towers housing industries of lesser importance. For high above even these three rose the Tower of Science—the dwelling place of the scientists of the world.
CHAPTER V
The Triumph of the Brain
CLAVERING’S lips twitched into a sneer. A great city, a tremendous city—yet the super-men had made every external part of it either dark green or blue, because it appealed to their sense of beauty, and because they said that blue and green were restful to the eyes!
It was almost silent up here; only a faint hum of sound reached him—so far below were the noises of the business levels. Silent . . .
“I am ready, Clavering!” It was the silent voice of the Brain!
Clavering turned from the window and limped toward the opening into the domed chamber.
He reached under his jacket and grasped his weapon—and suddenly he realized that he was no longer as self-possessed as he had been. Now that the goal of his hate was within his grasp, his mind was in a state of turmoil. Almost idly he had gazed out over the city—yet all the while, subconsciously, his mental unrest had been marshalling its forces. Emotions, the gamut of them, assailed his brain like vultures swooping upon their prey; his mind began suddenly to stumble. What was wrong?
Then abruptly he was in the Chamber of the Brain, without a conscious knowledge of how he had gotten there. His jaw sagged dumbly; his eyes widened in unbelief.
Ranged in a half-circle before him, between him and the Brain, were members of the Guard! Mechanically he counted them—twelve—thirteen—and they were tall and strong—and it was a trap, a trap set for him!
Something seemed to snap—audibly—in his mind; he felt his muscles grow taut as steel; and a madness of hate seized him. Curse the Brain! Curse the handsome faces before him!
The hand holding the platinum flask drew back, and the heavy thing flashed through the air. It crashed against the forehead of one of the men; he slumped to a motionless heap—and Clavering laughed wildly.
They were closing in upon him now, the Guards; and he was vaguely aware of the thought of the Brain urging them on. The Brain! He had forgotten! His weapon flashed up, and he pressed on the little knob at its back. His aim was good—but one of the Guards leaped between him and the Brain . . . And then reason left Clavering completely.
The domed room, the Guards, everything before him whirled around in great, red, pulsing circles. A fury that shook him to the depths of his being took possession of him. He knew nothing, was moved by nothing save an overwhelming lust for vengeance. With a mad cry he tore into the Guards.
The fight could not last long—nor did it. In a moment Clavering, biting, kicking, and clawing like some ravenous beast, went down under the superior numbers and strength of his attackers. Something struck his head—and blackness descended.
A telepathic command from the Brain brought back Clavering’s senses. The Guards were holding him powerless before the crystal globe. He stared with fearful fascination at the Brain, with its countless convolutions; and he continued staring when the Brain addressed him.
“Where is the flask of that fluid you were to bring to me, Clavering? Oh, yes; it lies close beside you. You thought it might be the elixir of life, did you not? And were tempted to drink it? You thought wisely, Clavering—I saw to that. It is the solvent of death; and your impulse to drink it was only natural—since I had you make it for yourself! You will be the first man to use it! Think of it—eternal life, as I have eternal life!”
A Guard stooped at the command of the Brain and secured the somewhat dented flask. Removing the cap, he held the vessel in readiness.
“Because you might attempt to frustrate my plans, and refuse the honor I am conferring upon you,” the Brain continued, “the Guards will hold you while they force you to drink. After that you will be released; for I regret to say that your body will become rigid and lifeless, literally petrified. Your brain alone will have eternal life. It is merely justice; you must forfeit physical life for the mental. Always I’ll have you with me. And our friendship will grow and grow!” The taunting thought ceased.
Clavering’s mind was a seething vortex of fear. Eternity with the Brain, his body a rigid, helpless thing—his reason froze at the thought. He screamed in a flood of madness.
And then despite his struggles his head was forced back, his jaws pried open; and they were pouring the sparkling liquid down his throat. Involuntarily he swallowed—and then he was free.
His body was afire—yet he was frozen by a blast of feeling colder than ice. He staggered back a step, clawing at his throat. His eyes closed—and opened again to stare wildly around. He gasped—an instant’s pause—then suddenly a quivering, an uncontrollable tremor possessed him. Quickly it was gone, and in its place Clavering became aware of a strange, cold numbness that was creeping over him.
The Guards were watching him intently—and there was the Brain—and eternity lay before him. Eternity with the Brain? God, no! There was one way of escape—only one.
With a sudden, wolfish howl he whirled, fighting against the numbness. He dashed through the door; and none moved to stop him. The windows—there lay escape!
His muscles were rapidly growing cold—soon it would be too late—and the Guards were after him now. With a final, frenzied effort he leaped, was on the window sill. A cry arose from the Guards; he sensed the thought of the Brain, chuckling amusedly; and then he leaped far out with all his waning strength.
And turning end over end like a lifeless thing, he hurtled down, down—rapidly down—endlessly down, in an eternity of falling—until there was a tremendous crash, a flood of absolute blackness—and the oblivion of death.
Clavering the Deformed was no more!
DR. LEO KOSZAREK slowly opened his eyes. What—what had happened? He was conscious of lassitude and fatigue, as though he had been upon some long journey that overtaxed his strength; and his body was trembling; his mind seemed to be in some mental maze that had entrapped him, a maze from which there was no escape. What—
The Brain! There it was—the accursed thing—directly before him! But—but he had leaped from the window; had fallen horribly down, down . . . Then in a flash he understood. That had been Clavering, the crippled scientist of the future, whose adventures he had experienced through the agency of the Brain—but he, in the present, was Leo Koszarek! That, after all, had only been a vision; this was reality.
“God, but it seemed real!” he exclaimed in a shaken voice as he arose from his chair. “I still can feel my body—or Clavering’s body—growing numb and cold and—and can still feel that terrible, endless falling!” He shuddered at the thought.
“Seemed real!” the Brain replied. “It was real. You saw what is happening in one small part of the fourth dimension—in the great, all-inclusive now. But that was nothing compared with your next phase of existence!”
Koszarek seemed not to have sensed his thought.
“But your knowledge, whence came the knowledge that enabled you to accomplish all you did in the future world?”
“From the even more distant future, of course—a time when Man, after sinking to the lowest depths, has climbed again to incredible heights. Since I see all that is occurring in every age, I have but to choose what I wish from Time�
�s store of knowledge, and transmit it to others for execution. There is no paradox in this; I am in no wise changing the future—for in the fourth dimension all is the present; and in certain portions of that present I exist.
“But come; I shall show you your next reincarnation, if we may call it that—your existence as Vastine, attendant of the Brain, in the year 3660.”
Involuntarily Koszarek shrank back. Fear of the Brain was upon him again—though that fear was not so inexplicable now. For the Brain was a thing of tremendous power; and he was terrified by that power. He—he had seen enough of the future. Better for him and the world if this entity were destroyed! He’d destroy it himself—but—but—he couldn’t! It had existed in the future; and he could not possibly destroy it now, thus interfering with future events . . . Careful! the Brain knew even his present thoughts!
“Come, come, why do you delay? You wanted to see the future, did you not? Through me you may see it. Think—that world of the supermen that you saw, laid in ruins, the result of an invasion of the monstrous inhabitants of a planet in a distant galaxy. Mankind almost obliterated by the invaders. Think, Koszarek, of yourself as Vastine, the one through whom the world is saved from the invading hordes! Of course you want to see it!”
Koszarek felt an almost irresistable curiosity sweeping over his mind. He wanted to see the world of the future; of course he did! What ridiculous thoughts those had been that had made him fear the Brain! Fear the Brain? There was no reason for fear, for his creation was a kindly, benevolent thing—at least, something seemed to be telling him that it was . . .
Abruptly Koszarek shook his head. His mind seemed to be in an incredible state of disorder, seemed to be possessed of thoughts that did not belong there!
He shrugged his shoulders. He was certain of one thing, at any rate; he wanted to see the world of 3660, indeed, must see it!
“Of course I want to see it,” he said to the Brain, replying in the exact thought of the latter.
“Remember,” the Brain admonished, “that all you have seen and will see is unchangeable. The invasion of the world—I knew—or know—it is to take place, yet it cannot be avoided, because it already has taken place—in the future. I can do nothing that lies beyond the natural course of events.
“And now—complete concentration on me.”
Koszarek relaxed in his chair; and for the second time he experienced that strange merging of himself with the Brain; and again his mind, in experience, was transported to the remote future wherein he lived and moved, a part of the future life.
CHAPTER VI
Monstrosities From the Sea
“THEY come, Master, they come!” The alarmed cry echoed through the great chamber of the Brain as Vastine the attendant darted through the portal and sped toward the crystal globe and its occupant. He cast furtive, terror-stricken glances over his shoulder as he ran. Panting with nervousness and cringing fearfully, he paused before the mass of apparatus in the center of which was the Brain.
Quietly, dispassionately, unruffled, came the thought of the Brain: “Do not fear; I knew they were coming; they will do no harm.”
“But they can read the thoughts of men; and they will know that I have some scientific knowledge, and because of it, they will destroy me, as they have all the other scientists that they’ve discovered! And—and I cannot hide.” Again the thought came: “Do not fear. My thoughts they cannot read, for though their minds are great, mine is greater. You will yield yourself completely to me, and I will replace your intelligence with mine. Then, when they strive to read your thoughts, they will learn only that which I desire to have them learn.”
With an effort Vastine composed himself and thought only of the Brain—and in an instant his mind was blank, and his intelligence was gone, dispossessed by a greater.
Not a moment too soon had the Brain taken over the control of Vastine’s body, for suddenly in through the portal of the domed chamber drifted the objects of Vastine’s fears. Six great globes of transparent crystal, fully four feet in diameter, they floated toward the Brain. Globes of crystal whose shining surfaces were constantly flashing the manifold hues of iridescence—and globes from which protruded at regularly-spaced intervals a series of long, needle-sharp, metal-capped spikes. And behind each spike, within the spheres, hung a minute metal mechanism.
But none of this had inspired fear in Vastine’s breast; his was fear of the repulsive monstrosities floating in the almost colorless liquid that filled the globe. Unlike any creatures of Earth, were they, though they resembled to a slight extent deformed octopi whose tentacles had shrunken and shriveled to a small fraction of their normal size.
Roughly circular, their bodies were, covered with a sheathing of minute scales that gleamed like burnished copper. On opposite sides of the things gleamed two, unwinking discs of crimson fire, their eyes. And between those eyes, in a cincture that completely encircled the monsters, protruded countless, thin, scaly, snakelike feelers that seemed always to be in motion that seemed never to cease their nervous twitching and darting about.
When the spiked globes reached Vastine and the Brain, they paused, floating in midair. Then one of them separated itself from the main body of globes and arose to a position directly above Vastine’s head. A tremor passed over the man’s frame; then he was motionless, rigid, as though chained. And from one of the globe’s metal-capped spikes leaped a wide-spread beam of utter blackness, a funnelshaped, ebon veil that was the complete cessation of all light. It covered the man completely for long moments—then was gone.
Into Vastine’s mind—the mind controlled by the Brain—came the thought, strangely reptilian:
“Not much of knowledge have you—weak is your mind—and it is well for you. For in your ignorance you can do naught to impede the progress of our plans—else would we destroy you. Even so would you die were it not that you are the watcher of this—Brain you call it—and at our leisure we desire to study this strange thing. See you that you watch it carefully until we return! And see you that you remain within the confines of this tower—for on the lower levels lies only death for you and your kind.” The thought ceased and the monster in the spiked globe joined its fellows.
For an instant they hovered motionless—then without warning six beams of the uncannily solid blackness leaped out toward the Brain, completely encircling it. Somehow it seemed to be probing deep, deep. Then, as though in anger, baffled, the beams of gloom vanished. The globes, one after another, sped through the portal, out into the great, circular hallway, and from thence through a window into the open.
For a fleeting instant after they had gone, Vastine remained immobile; then, with the withdrawal of the Brain from his intelligence, and with a rush of knowledge of what had occurred, he sprang in the monsters’ wake. Upon reaching a window, he leaned far out and watched the spheres flashing rapidly downward, until they plunged into the waters that lapped the sides of the Science Tower a half mile below.
And then, as he had done countless times before, Vastine gazed out over the desolate scene that lay below him. And as his eyes swept in a wide panorama over an inundated world, a heavy weight of hopelessness, of futility settled on his heart.
Water—everywhere! An endless green expanse that lost itself far away in the blue-grey of a somber sky. Mile upon mile in every direction the solemn waste of water stretched, a boundless ocean that covered all of Earth, that swallowed up both the creations of nature, and the structures of man, save only the highest mountains and the tallest buildings.
F all the structures that had constituted the gigantic city of Cosmopolis, only the four towers—the Towers of Science, Business, Music, and Art—remained above the surface of the water. Here and there the waves swirled white and seething about the top of some great structure that almost reached the surface—but aside from that all sight of Cosmopolis was gone.
And ever, unceasingly, the sea warred on all that remained above her surface, battering with her tides and currents, corroding with her
salts, beating and crashing with her tempests—until eventually nothing but water must remain—until eventually nothing of man would appear on the face of the deep—until Earth would become an aqueous world!
With his mind the prey of an unredeemed dreariness of thought, Vastine drew back from the open window, and returned to the chamber of the Brain. He crossed to the apparatus in the center, pausing before the living entity that it held, and looking up at it as though expecting some communication that would dispel the gloom in his mind. But no message came.
After waiting a few moments, Vastine turned away and moved over to a long, narrow bed which had neither head or foot-board, and which rested on legs that raised it about six inches from the floor. He cast himself on this, stretching to full length, and yielded his mind to gloomy retrospection.
He was afraid—deathly afraid—and he knew it. All this must end very soon, with the sea and the marine monstrosities victorious, and man and his works totally obliterated—and he, Vastine, must die! It must be so; it could be no other way! All the men of science were gone—though even while they had lived they had been able to do nothing to save humanity—so no hope lay in that direction. There still remained the Brain, and himself—but he could do nothing; and the Brain had done nothing up to this point, at least. Hope! There was none.
After a time Vastine’s mind reverted to the coming of the invaders two years before his birth. Numerous were the tales of their arrival that he had heard as a boy. A great horde of black metal spheres had fallen from the sky at night, flashing downward into the sea. Their coming had been seen by men on a floating airport on the breast of the Pacific. One had struck a corner of the great metal plain—and had been captured. The men had forced the metal sphere open, killing the monstrosity within it—but not before it had sent forth to its fellows a telepathic plea for aid.
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