After the recession of the water—what? Would he continue as the attendant of the Brain, always obeying orders, to have no thought of His own? The prospect didn’t seem very attractive. True; the Brain was a worthy leader—but what could it accomplish without him, Vastine? He had enabled the Brain to flee from the meteoric swarm, had he not? After all, the Brain, despite its wisdom and knowledge of future events, must have a physical being through which to act Up to that time, since the death of his parents, he had been the Brain’s body—but what of the future?
The Brain would probably rule the surviving remnants of the human race after the waters were gone, as it had before—through him possibly, since no other possessed as much scientific knowledge as he.
But why should he not rule without the Brain? Like a flood of brilliant light the idea came to Vastine. His mind and heart quickened at the thought. Why not? Supreme ruler! If he could be ruler with the Brain, why not without?
It was the birth of ambition in the mind of Vastine. Gradually it became an obsession, this thought of ruling—and because his mind had never been particularly strong, it gave way under the strain. He became a monomaniac. Musing on the thought of his future power, he passed through the days that preceded the coming of the meteor swarm.
CHAPTER VIII
Vastine’s Revenge
AND finally it came. Vastine was awakened from sleep by a dull, rumbling sound that seemed to permeate the air all about him, a heavy shuddering of the walls and floor as though the building shook with fear. A momentary lull—then a deafening crash, followed by a series of minor roars and rumbles revealed that the tower above him had been the target of a heavenly missile. After that, the thing was incessant. In spite of his distance from the actual meteoric bombardment, and in spite of the vast pile of masonry that lay between him and the decomposing water, he could hear the groan of falling buildings, the thunder of crashing meteors, the roar of steam and exploding molten matter. All this came with comparative faintness, but it was nevertheless terrifying.
Outside, it must have been a tremendous spectacle—a deluge of fire balls from the heavens—but Vastine could only imagine the outside.
For three days and nights, so the Brain told him, the shower of meteors continued; then as Earth passed through the heart of the swarm, it dwindled rapidly, until by the end of the fourth day the last straggler had fallen, and Earth was free!
Trebly free! Freed of the meteors, freed of the flooding waters, freed of the marine monstrosities that had started the trouble in the first place!
Then at last there came a day when the Brain told Vastine that it would be safe for him to open the portal and go into the outside world. He had been awaiting permission to leave the place ever since the Brain had told him that Earth had passed through the meteors; eagerly he grasped the opportunity.
The curved metal door of the room had not been opened for centuries; it did not open easily now, but finally after strenuous effort on the part of Vastine, it slid aside. A sudden rush of water almost swept him from his feet—water that had gathered on the sloping runway that led into the pit in which the great dome lay. Vastine staggered, then regained his footing, and after seeing that the floor was only covered to a depth of a few inches, he continued through the doorway.
Everywhere was evidence of the effects of the water. A heavy, viscous scum covered the floor; strange sea plants grew all about in wild profusion, though now they were withering and dying. Thick, green slime hung from the walls. Here and there lay the remains of dead creatures of the sea. Many days would pass before the lower levels would be habitable, thought Vastine.
Finally he came to the end of the hall, passed through a wide, high-ceilinged room, and stepped out into what had once been the freight level of the civilization that now seemed so remote. And as he gazed about, a gasp of horror burst from his lips. He had had no teal conception of the extent of the destruction.
On every hand were the marks of the searing, liquid fire, the battering, corroding sea, the crashing meteors. Segments of broken buildings hanging perilously, sagging like drunken things; dangling girders from twisted, aerial bridges; decrepit, tumbledown wreckage of formerly majestic architecture—an ugly, battered skeleton of a city! And everywhere hung the inevitable sea slime, the marine flora; and everywhere were rotting carcasses of hideous creatures of the deep, befouling the atmosphere with their fetid odors.
Spiked globes, too, he saw, with their monstrous cargo of dead, scaly flesh. And there were other things, half-consumed bodies that had once been men and women, human skeletons hanging hideously from twisted ruins—Vastine tried not to see them. But death, complete and terrible, was on every side; it could not be avoided.
About to turn back, his nerves shaken, sick with horror, Vastine paused at the sight of what he thought was motion some distance away. He watched tensely—then he was sure. Men were approaching! Men, fighting their way slowly through the miasmic slime and filth. They must be refugees from one of the towers.
Eagerly now he watched their approach—for these were to be his subjects, were they not? Of course! His subjects—come to thank him for deliverance!
When they had almost reached him, he drew himself up in what he imagined was the posture of a ruler, and waited. An instant later the body of slime-bedaubed men halted before him.
“Boy,” a pompous individual in the lead exclaimed, “where is the Brain?”
“The Brain is inside . . . But—but don’t you recognize me? I am the man who told you of the coming of the meteors.” He emphasized the word “man.”
“Yes, yes,” the other replied, brushing past him, “But we seek the Brain; we need guidance, a leader.”
“I’ll be your leader,” Vastine cried.
A short laugh burst from the men, and without paying further attention to Vastine, they swept into the tower.
VASTINE’S face grew crimson; then it faded into a chalky white, and a look of dogged determination came into his eyes. He would be their ruler!
Those had been representatives of the business men; he’d wait for the musicians, the artists—they’d remember him.
But the representatives of the musicians came, some singing their maddening song, “Prais’d be the Brain,” and they would have none of him. They sought the Brain. And the artists, when they arrived, similarly ignored him—like the others, they sought the Brain.
And Vastine drew sullenly back into a remote corner of the Science Tower, and with his mind that was not quite normal, he brooded over his fancied grievances. He, the rightful ruler of Earth’s human survivors, had been ignored, had been scorned! Without exception, they had flocked to the Brain. And since the Brain was the cause of his being rejected by the men from the towers, the Brain must die! He would show them who was the more powerful! That very night he would destroy the thing.
Anxiously he waited for darkness. There would be no light to betray him then; the lighting systems had not survived the deluge. And none would seek to bar him from the Chamber of the Brain, for was he not its attendant? As for the lights in the room—they could be extinguished from the outside if one knew how—and he knew.
Ah, yes! His plan was feasible—it could be carried out with ease. He had but to move stealthily through the utter blackness of the hallway, extinguish the light in the room, then creep silently into it, toward its center, and crush the crystal sphere with a metal bar—and the Brain would be destroyed!
Then they’d have to concede that he was master!
And when darkness came he put his plan into effect. Though he was not thoroughly familiar with the long hallway, he traversed it without mishap, the latter half of the journey in darkness, since he had extinguished the light in the domed chamber. He paused at the top of the short runway that led into the room of the Brain. Then he descended, his feet swishing almost inaudibly through the water—and he was in the chamber!
Cool, cool, he must remain cool—yet Vastine could not keep his breath from quickening, and he felt h
is heart thudding violently in his breast. Gripping his metal bar nervously, he moved stealthily toward the Brain.
Would he never reach it? With almost childish petulance the question came to him. He had been moving forward endlessly it seemed, yet he had touched nothing. If only there were some sound to guide him! But the mechanical body of the Brain functioned silently—there was no sound. And—and it was so utterly dark! Not that he feared darkness—that was absurd—it was only that it made his task more difficult. Yet for some strange reason his throat was dry, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and a spasmodic trembling shook his body. He—he’d be glad when this night’s work was done!
Ah! His outstretched hand touched a length of metal tubing. A little farther over now—and he felt a smooth, curving surface at his fingertips. He had but to raise his bar—and strike . . .
What was that? Involuntarily Vastine staggered back a pace. His heart seemed to have stopped. With a curious fascination of horror he stared through the blackness. Two strange lights glowed over there—two glaring discs of phosphorescent, crimson fire! They seemed to stare—filled with a madness of hate—or was this some ugly phantasy that he was dreaming—some nightmare conjured out of the blackness?
No! No! They were real—were coming nearer—nearer! He felt his face muscles tighten. He fell back another step, then halted, a curious paralysis creeping over him. Eyes—that’s what they were—baleful, hungry eyes yes of crimson flame—devilish eyes that were fixed on him with terrible intensity. Eyes—of what?
Then abruptly, in a wave of horror, he knew. They were the eyes of the monster that the Brain had driven from the globe, the monster that he had kicked across the room—and now it had come to life, revived by the water, probably—and it—it was creeping toward him! He heard it splashing through the water, heard the rasp of its scales against the floor. He shuddered.
He—he’d have to set out of here—but the dreadful fascination held him motionless.
Suddenly by the light of those terrible eyes he saw a writhing, slithering tentacle . . . There were others . . . The place was alive with them—snakelike things that waved sinuously in the air. They were feeling out—feeling out everywhere—for him! He lashed out with his weapon, felt it torn from his grasp! He screamed madly as a scaly arm rasped across his cheek; staggered back; overbalanced; and collapsed with a great splash into the water.
Only an instant he lay there—it couldn’t have been more—yet in that instant a heavy weight had leaped upon his chest—those eyes were directly above him, glaring hideously—and that forest of tentacles was twining about him to crush out his life!
Vastine screamed, and screamed again. In a frenzy of fear he tore at the contracting bands that were burning into his body—tore and tore and tore—and screamed again. Then a writhing cord encircled his throat—and only an ugly, choking cough came forth.
Steadily his struggles grew weaker. His entire body was held as in a vise—and a searing, burning pain was eating into his breast. His throat was on fire, and his mind was aflame with a thousand agonies.
Slowly, slowly all was fading. He, Vastine, was dying; dully he realized it. And then the Brain sent forth the last thought that Vastine was to receive. Unintelligible in part, yet strangely horrifying, it flooded his mind.
“Dying, Vastine? You have to die. You—and the others like you. You sought to destroy me—but you are being destroyed. And I live. Justice—only justice!” And there followed a thought of boundless mirth—the Brain laughing amusedly!
Then blackness, utter blackness, merciful blackness cut off his thought, his life . . . Vastine the Attendant lay motionless in death, while a horrible monster squatted on his body.
THE sagging body of Dr. Leo Koszarek stiffened; he straightened slowly. He saw a faint glimmer of light piercing the oppressive blackness that lay upon his mind like the folds of a pall. A glimmer of light—but that light seemed loath to become more than a glimmer; his mind seemed numbed, to be waiting somehow for the return of consciousness. Was this consciousness that was returning, this dull, monotonous pain? Was it that deadening fear that was urging up in his thoughts? Or were they merely the results of returning consciousness?
Slowly his brain cleared; and as it did so, his eyes, widened with dread, fixed themselves on the Brain. His body, sinking back, cringing, trembled. And his mind, when the last stupefying veil of unconsciousness had gone from it, dwelt on his fear, the Brain—and himself.
It was diabolic, the manner in which the Brain had worked to accomplish its purpose; and that purpose was the complete control over his, Koszarek’s, mind and will.
Those visions of his existence in the future had been given to him with the sole thought of permanently bending his will by suggestion to that of the Brain. And though he knew this to be so, though it seemed to be an unquestionable fact, he could do nothing about it—for his will was already subject to that of the Brain; his mind was not his own!
If only there would be no more visions; if only he could avoid seeing any more of the future—then perhaps he could regain control of his will! But he placed no hope in that; the Brain would follow up its advantage.
And at that moment in answer to his unspoken thought, a message came from the Brain. Behind the thought seemed to be a cold, hard, triumphant note.
“One more vision, Koszarek, only one! Vision of the world of the remote future when Man is approaching the nadir of his decadence. Vision of yourself in that world as Koz, the Demented, Kos, the Outcast!”
With a superhuman effort Koszarek aroused himself from the numbing apathy that held him. “No! no!” he cried in a voice that was quavering, dominant with terror. “No more—I—can’t bear it! What have I done to merit this ordeal; why must I experience death again and again? Be merciful!”
He fell to his knees and raised his ugly face in pitiful supplication to the machine, the mass of grey matter in its crystal sphere.
“Mercy!” Scornfully the thought came from the Brain. “What mercy did you show to John Ovington? You robbed him of his discovery, his reputation, and finally his life. You showed no mercy to Ovington; I, the Brain of Ovington, can show you no mercy. Justice—only justice!”
Koszarek’s face was gray and drawn when he arose. His shoulders sagged, and his entire body seemed to be drooping. Listlessly, at the command of the Brain, he sank into his chair. And then, for the third time his mind seemed to merge with the Brain; the laboratory vanished; the throbbing of the motors in the apparatus of the Brain ceased; and Koszarek, in thought, lived as Koz, an outcast of a future world.
CHAPTER IX
Koz, the Outcast
A SMALL, ugly, misshapen figure crouched beneath the shelter of a twisted mass of corroding metal, half-concealed by luxuriant vines and creepers—metal that, centuries before, had formed a great aerial street over which countless human feet had passed. Close-set, little eyes, alight with hate and fear, gleamed in the crouching man’s face. Furtively, those eyes darted here and there, searching—and suddenly they saw that which they sought. Men, twelve, fifteen of them, were rapidly forcing their way through the tangled thicket forming a roughly defined road that had once been a wide thoroughfare—men, the Priests of the Mighty One!
With a muffled curse, Koz the Demented turned and wormed his way deeper and deeper into the wilderness.
Steadily, incessantly, the thought beat at the mind of Koz: what a fool, what an utter fool he had been! If it had not been for his folly, even now he would be safe in the midst of the Clan, rather than a miserable fugitive, fleeing into the beast-ridden jungle. He had blasphemed against the Brain, the Mighty One, the god of the Clan, so they said; and the Priests had tried to seize him. He had escaped, but now they were on his tracks.
He had blasphemed, according to their ideas, for he had said that the Brain was a creation of Man. But—the thought asserted itself doggedly—his statement was correct, and they were wrong! There was nothing divine about the Mighty One; somehow he knew it was so.<
br />
Suddenly the reverie of Koz, as well as his forward progress, ceased. A few feet before him a huge pile of shattered masonry and debris blocked his way, rising to meet the towering wall of a great building—wall now blotched as with leprosy where masses of stone had fallen away from the steel framework. To left and right it extended, cutting off his escape—to left and right, meeting those other walls between which he had been moving. The way was blocked; he could go no farther!
Like the demented creature that men said he was, Koz tore through the thicket. The length of the barrier he dashed, and back again; but there was no way of escape. Suddenly his strength seemed to desert him, and he sank to a seat on a huge, fallen girder. And there the Priests found him, an expression of dull resignation on his face.
Back over the way he had come, they led him, through the matted undergrowth, until they reached the inhabited part of the gigantic, ruined city. Here, too, were signs of ruin and decay, but the lower stories of the buildings had been repaired, the streets were clean, and throngs of people moved about.
As Koz and his captors entered the throng, a chorus of derisive jeers greeted them. Small boys ran before them crying in their shrill voices:
“Here comes the madman! Crazy, crazy Koz!”
And Koz with lowered head, looked neither to right nor left. But in his heart there burned an undying hatred for the race that scorned him; a fire of rage smoldered in his mind.
In a comparatively short time Koz and the Priests halted before a great tower whose shattered top lost itself far up in the clouds. As though a rebuking hand had been clapped over their mouths, the screaming children fell silent. Quickly they dispersed. For this was the Temple, the dwelling place of the Mighty One, the Tower of the Brain.
Forgotten Fiction Page 29