diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-04 05:41:19 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-04 05:41:19 -0800 |
| commit | d3be6eb77fef0fe25318a46a33a21c7af5e7c017 (patch) | |
| tree | 3cb825c40e7ac49cd6e4c046d8b3651940c3e2b7 | |
| parent | d985e0cf35011cacd382e5bcc7021626be1d31ea (diff) | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123-h.zip | bin | 443842 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123-h/63123-h.htm | 1346 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 247003 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123-h/images/illus.jpg | bin | 173513 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123.txt | 1245 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63123.zip | bin | 23280 -> 0 bytes |
9 files changed, 17 insertions, 2591 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..948aa7c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63123 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63123) diff --git a/old/63123-h.zip b/old/63123-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 65ce739..0000000 --- a/old/63123-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63123-h/63123-h.htm b/old/63123-h/63123-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 91b6cd4..0000000 --- a/old/63123-h/63123-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1346 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Eyes of Thar, by Henry Kuttner. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of Thar, by Henry Kuttner - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Eyes of Thar - -Author: Henry Kuttner - -Release Date: September 4, 2020 [EBook #63123] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THAR *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>THE EYES OF THAR</h1> - -<h2>By HENRY KUTTNER</h2> - -<p>She spoke in a tongue dead a thousand years,<br /> -and she had no memory for the man she faced.<br /> -Yet he had held her tightly but a few short<br /> -years before, had sworn eternal vengeance—when<br /> -she died in his arms from an assassin's wounds.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Fall 1944.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>He had come back, though he knew what to expect. He had always come -back to Klanvahr, since he had been hunted out of that ancient Martian -fortress so many years ago. Not often, and always warily, for there -was a price on Dantan's head, and those who governed the Dry Provinces -would have been glad to pay it. Now there was an excellent chance that -they might pay, and soon, he thought, as he walked doggedly through the -baking stillness of the night, his ears attuned to any dangerous sound -in the thin, dry air.</p> - -<p>Even after dark it was hot here. The dead ground, parched and arid, -retained the heat, releasing it slowly as the double moons—the Eyes of -Thar, in Klanvahr mythology—swung across the blazing immensity of the -sky. Yet Samuel Dantan came back to this desolate land as he had come -before, drawn by love and by hatred.</p> - -<p>The love was lost forever, but the hate could still be satiated. He had -not yet glutted his blood-thirst. When Dantan came back to Klanvahr, -men died, though if all the men of the Redhelm Tribe were slain, even -that could not satisfy the dull ache in Dantan's heart.</p> - -<p>Now they were hunting him.</p> - -<p>The girl—he had not thought of her for years; he did not want to -remember. He had been young when it happened. Of Earth stock, he had -during a great Martian drought become godson to an old shaman of -Klanvahr, one of the priests who still hoarded scraps of the forgotten -knowledge of the past, glorious days of Martian destiny, when bright -towers had fingered up triumphantly toward the Eyes of Thar.</p> - -<p>Memories ... the solemn, antique dignity of the Undercities, in ruins -now ... the wrinkled shaman, intoning his rituals ... very old books, -and older stories ... raids by the Redhelm Tribe ... and a girl Samuel -Dantan had known. There was a raid, and the girl had died. Such things -had happened many times before; they would happen again. But to Dantan -this one death mattered very much.</p> - -<p>Afterward, Dantan killed, first in red fury, then with a cool, quiet, -passionless satisfaction. And, since the Redhelms were well represented -in the corrupt Martian government, he had become outlaw.</p> - -<p>The girl would not have known him now. He had gone out into the -spaceways, and the years had changed him. He was still thin, his eyes -still dark and opaque as shadowed tarn-water, but he was dry and sinewy -and hard, moving with the trained, dangerous swiftness of the predator -he was—and, as to morals, Dantan had none worth mentioning. He had -broken more than ten commandments. Between the planets, and in the -far-flung worlds bordering the outer dark, there are more than ten. But -Dantan had smashed them all.</p> - -<p>In the end there was still the dull, sickening hopelessness, part -loneliness, part something less definable. Hunted, he came back to -Klanvahr, and when he came, men of the Redhelms died. They did not die -easily.</p> - -<p>But this time it was they who hunted, not he. They had cut him off -from the aircar and they followed now like hounds upon his track. He -had almost been disarmed in that last battle. And the Redhelms would -not lose the trail; they had followed signs for generations across the -dying tundras of Mars.</p> - -<p>He paused, flattening himself against an outcrop of rock, and looked -back. It was dark; the Eyes of Thar had not yet risen, and the blaze of -starlight cast a ghastly, leprous shine over the chaotic slope behind -him, great riven boulders and jutting monoliths, canyon-like, running -jagged toward the horizon, a scene of cosmic ruin that every old and -shrinking world must show. He could see nothing of his pursuers, but -they were coming. They were still far behind. But that did not matter; -he must circle—circle—</p> - -<p>And first, he must regain a little strength. There was no water in -his canteen. His throat was dust-dry, and his tongue felt swollen and -leathery. Moving his shoulders uneasily, his dark face impassive, -Dantan found a pebble and put it in his mouth, though he knew that -would not help much. He had not tasted water for—how long? Too long, -anyhow.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Staring around, he took stock of resources. He was alone—what was it -the old shaman had once told him? "You are never alone in Klanvahr. The -living shadows of the past are all around you. They cannot help, but -they watch, and their pride must not be humbled. You are never alone in -Klanvahr."</p> - -<p>But nothing stirred. Only a whisper of the dry, hot wind murmuring up -from the distance, sighing and soughing like muted harps. Ghosts of -the past riding the night, Dantan thought. How did those ghosts see -Klanvahr? Not as this desolate wasteland, perhaps. They saw it with the -eyes of memory, as the Mother of Empires which Klanvahr had once been, -so long ago that only the tales persisted, garbled and unbelievable.</p> - -<p>A sighing whisper ... he stopped living for a second, his breath -halted, his eyes turned to emptiness. That meant something. A thermal, -a river of wind—a downdraft, perhaps. Sometimes these eon-old canyons -held lost rivers, changing and shifting their courses as Mars crumbled, -and such watercourses might be traced by sound.</p> - -<p>Well—he knew Klanvahr.</p> - -<p>A half mile farther he found the arroyo, not too deep—fifty feet or -less, with jagged walls easy to descend. He could hear the trickle of -water, though he could not see it, and his thirst became overpowering. -But caution made him clamber down the precipice warily. He did not -drink till he had reconnoitered and made sure that it was safe.</p> - -<p>And that made Dantan's thin lips curl. Safety for a man hunted by the -Redhelms? The thought was sufficiently absurd. He would die—he must -die; but he did not mean to die alone. This time perhaps they had him, -but the kill would not be easy nor without cost. If he could find some -weapon, some ambush—prepare some trap for the hunters—</p> - -<p>There might be possibilities in this canyon. The stream had only -lately been diverted into this channel; the signs of that were clear. -Thoughtfully Dantan worked his way upstream. He did not try to mask his -trail by water-tricks; the Redhelms were too wise for that. No, there -must be some other answer.</p> - -<p>A mile or so farther along he found the reason for the diverted stream. -Landslide. Where water had chuckled and rustled along the left-hand -branch before, now it took the other route. Dantan followed the dry -canyon, finding the going easier now, since Phobos had risen ... an Eye -of Thar. "The Eyes of the god miss nothing. They move across the world, -and nothing can hide from Thar, or from his destiny."</p> - -<p>Then Dantan saw rounded metal. Washed clean by the water that had run -here lately, a corroded, curved surface rose dome-shaped from the -stream bed.</p> - -<p>The presence of an artifact in this place was curious enough. The -people of Klanvahr—the old race—had builded with some substance that -had not survived; plastic or something else that was not metal. Yet -this dome had the unmistakable dull sheen of steel. It was an alloy, -unusually strong or it could never have lasted this long, even though -protected by its covering of rocks and earth. A little nerve began -jumping in Dantan's cheek. He had paused briefly, but now he came -forward and with his booted foot kicked away some of the dirt about the -cryptic metal.</p> - -<p>A curving line broke it. Scraping vigorously, Dantan discovered that -this marked the outline of an oval door, horizontal, and with a handle -of some sort, though it was caked and fixed in its socket with dirt. -Dantan's lips were very thin now, and his eyes glittering and bright. -An ambush—a weapon against the Redhelms—whatever might exist behind -this lost door, it was worth investigating, especially for a condemned -man.</p> - -<p>With water from the brook and a sliver of sharp stone, he pried and -chiseled until the handle was fairly free from its heavy crust. It was -a hook, like a shepherd's crook, protruding from a small bowl-shaped -depression in the door. Dantan tested it. It would not move in any -direction. He braced himself, legs straddled, body half doubled, and -strained at the hook.</p> - -<p>Blood beat against the back of his eyes. He heard drumming in his -temples and straightened suddenly, thinking it the footsteps of -Redhelms. Then, grinning sardonically, he bent to his work again, and -this time the handle moved.</p> - -<p>Beneath him the door slid down and swung aside, and the darkness -below gave place to soft light. He saw a long tube stretching down -vertically, with pegs protruding from the metal walls at regular -intervals. It made a ladder. The bottom of the shaft was thirty feet -below; its diameter was little more than the breadth of a big man's -shoulders.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He stood still for a moment, looking down, his mind almost swimming -with wonder and surmise. Old, very old it must be, for the stream -had cut its own bed out of the rock whose walls rose above him now. -Old—and yet these metal surfaces gleamed as brightly as they must have -gleamed on the day they were put together—for what purpose?</p> - -<p>The wind sighed again down the canyon, and Dantan remembered the -Redhelms on his track. He looked around once more and then lowered -himself onto the ladder of metal pegs, testing them doubtfully before -he let his full weight come down. They held.</p> - -<p>There might be danger down below; there might not. There was certain -danger coming after him among the twisting canyons. He reached up, -investigated briefly, and swung the door back into place. There was a -lock, he saw, and after a moment discovered how to manipulate it. So -far, the results were satisfactory. He was temporarily safe from the -Redhelms, provided he did not suffocate. There was no air intake here -that he could see, but he breathed easily enough so far. He would worry -about that when the need arose. There might be other things to worry -about before lack of air began to distress him.</p> - -<p>He descended.</p> - -<p>At the bottom of the shaft was another door. Its handle yielded with -no resistance this time, and Dantan stepped across the threshold into -a large, square underground chamber, lit with pale radiance that came -from the floor itself, as though light had been poured into the molten -metal when it had first been made.</p> - -<p>The room—</p> - -<p>Faintly he heard a distant humming, like the after-resonance of a bell, -but it died away almost instantly. The room was large, and empty except -for some sort of machine standing against the farther wall. Dantan was -not a technician. He knew guns and ships; that was enough. But the -smooth, sleek functionalism of this machine gave him an almost sensuous -feeling of pleasure.</p> - -<p>How long had it been here? Who had built it? And for what purpose? He -could not even guess. There was a great oval screen on the wall above -what seemed to be a control board, and there were other, more enigmatic -devices.</p> - -<p>And the screen was black—dead black, with a darkness that ate up the -light in the room and gave back nothing.</p> - -<p>Yet there was something—</p> - -<p>"<i>Sanfel</i>," a voice said. "<i>Sanfel. Coth dr'gchang. Sanfel—sthan!</i></p> - -<p>"<i>Sanfel ... Sanfel ... have you returned, Sanfel? Answer!</i>"</p> - -<p>It was a woman's voice ... the voice of a woman used to wielding -power, quiet, somehow proud as the voice of Lucifer or Lilith might -have been, and it spoke in a tongue that scarcely half a dozen living -men could understand.... A whole great race had spoken it once; only -the shamans remembered now, and the shamans who knew it were few. -Dantan's godfather had been one. And Dantan remembered the slurring -syllables of the rituals he had learned, well enough to know what the -proud, bodiless voice was saying.</p> - -<p>The nape of his neck prickled. Here was something he could not -understand, and he did not like it. Like an animal scenting danger he -shrank into himself, not crouching, but withdrawing, so that a smaller -man seemed to stand there, ready and waiting for the next move. Only -his eyes were not motionless. They raked the room for the unseen -speaker—for some weapon to use when the time came for weapons.</p> - -<p>His glance came back to the dark screen above the machine. And the -voice said again, in the tongue of ancient Klanvahr:</p> - -<p>"I am not used to waiting, Sanfel! If you hear me, speak. And speak -quickly, for the time of peril comes close now. My Enemy is strong—"</p> - -<p>Dantan said, "Can you hear me?" His eyes did not move from the screen.</p> - -<p>Out of that blackness the girl's voice came, after a pause. It was -imperious, and a little wary.</p> - -<p>"You are not Sanfel. Where is he? Who are you, Martian?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dantan let himself relax a little. There would be a parley, at any -rate. But after that—</p> - -<p>Words in the familiar, remembered old language came hesitantly to his -lips.</p> - -<p>"I am no Martian. I am of Earth blood, and I do not know this Sanfel."</p> - -<p>"Then how did you get into Sanfel's place?" The voice was haughty now. -"What are you doing there? Sanfel built his laboratory in a secret -place."</p> - -<p>"It was hidden well enough," Dantan told her grimly. "Maybe for a -thousand years, or even ten thousand, for all I know. The door has been -buried under a stream—"</p> - -<p>"There is no water there. Sanfel's home is on a mountain, and his -laboratory is built underground." The voice rang like a bell. "I think -you lie. I think you are an enemy—When I heard the signal summoning -me, I came swiftly, wondering why Sanfel had delayed so long. I must -find him, stranger. I must! If you are no enemy, bring me Sanfel!" This -time there was something almost like panic in the voice.</p> - -<p>"If I could, I would," Dantan said. "But there's no one here except -me." He hesitated, wondering if the woman behind the voice could -be—mad? Speaking from some mysterious place beyond the screen, in -a language dead a thousand years, calling upon a man who must be -long-dead too, if one could judge by the length of time this hidden -room had lain buried.</p> - -<p>He said after a moment, "This place has been buried for a long time. -And—no one has spoken the tongue of Klanvahr for many centuries. If -that was your Sanfel's language—" But he could not go on with that -thought. If Sanfel had spoken Klanvahr then he must have died long -ago. And the speaker beyond the screen—she who had known Sanfel, yet -spoke in a young, sweet, light voice that Dantan was beginning to think -sounded familiar.... He wondered if he could be mad too.</p> - -<p>There was silence from the screen. After many seconds the voice spoke -again, sadly and with an undernote of terror.</p> - -<p>"I had not realized," it said, "that even time might be so different -between Sanfel's world and mine. The space-time continua—yes, a day -in my world might well be an age in yours. Time is elastic. In Zha I -had thought a few dozen—" she used a term Dantan did not understand, -"—had passed. But on Mars—centuries?"</p> - -<p>"Tens of centuries," agreed Dantan, staring hard at the screen. "If -Sanfel lived in old Klanvahr his people are scarcely a memory now. And -Mars is dying. You—you're speaking from another world?"</p> - -<p>"From another universe, yes. A very different universe from yours. It -was only through Sanfel that I had made contact, until now—What is -your name?"</p> - -<p>"Dantan. Samuel Dantan."</p> - -<p>"Not a Martian name. You are from—Earth, you say? What is that?"</p> - -<p>"Another planet. Nearer the sun than Mars."</p> - -<p>"We have no planets and no suns in Zha. This is a different universe -indeed. So different I find it hard to imagine what your world must be -like." The voice died.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And it was a voice he knew. Dantan was nearly sure of that now, and -the certainty frightened him. When a man in the Martian desert begins -to see or hear impossibilities, he has reason to be frightened. As the -silence prolonged itself he began almost to hope that the voice—the -implausibly familiar voice—had been only imagination. Hesitantly he -said, "Are you still there?" and was a little relieved, after all, to -hear her say,</p> - -<p>"Yes, I am here. I was thinking.... I need help. I need it desperately. -I wonder—has Sanfel's laboratory changed? Does the machine still -stand? But it must, or I could not speak to you now. If the other -things work, there may be chance.... Listen." Her voice grew urgent. "I -may have a use for you. Do you see a lever, scarlet, marked with the -Klanvahr symbol for 'sight'?"</p> - -<p>"I see it," Dantan said.</p> - -<p>"Push it forward. There is no harm in that, if you are careful. We can -see each other—that is all. But do not touch the lever with the 'door' -symbol on it. Be certain of that.... Wait!" Sudden urgency was in the -voice.</p> - -<p>"Yes?" Dantan had not moved.</p> - -<p>"I am forgetting. There <i>is</i> danger if you are not protected from—from -certain vibration that you might see here. This is a different -universe, and your Martian physical laws do not hold good between our -worlds. Vibration ... light ... other things might harm you. There -should be armor in Sanfel's laboratory. Find it."</p> - -<p>Dantan glanced around. There was a cabinet in one corner. He went over -to it slowly, his eyes wary. He had no intention of relaxing vigilance -here simply because that voice sounded familiar....</p> - -<p>Inside the cabinet hung a suit of something like space armor, more -flexible and skin tight than any he had ever seen, and with a -transparent helmet through which vision seemed oddly distorted. He got -into the suit carefully, pulling up the rich shining folds over his -body, thinking strangely how long time had stood still in this small -room since the last time a man had worn it. The whole room looked -slightly different when he set the helmet into place. It must be -polarized, he decided, though that alone could not account for the -strange dimming and warping of vision that was evident.</p> - -<p>"All ready," he said after a moment.</p> - -<p>"Then throw the switch."</p> - -<p>With his hand upon it Dantan hesitated for one last instant of -wariness. He was stepping into unknown territory now, and to him the -unknown meant the perilous. His mind went back briefly to the Redhelms -scouring the canyons above for him. He quieted his uneasy mind with the -thought that there might be some weapon in the world of the voice which -he could turn against them later. Certainly, without a weapon, he had -little to lose. But he knew that weapon or no weapon, danger or not, he -must see the face behind that sweet, familiar, imperious voice.</p> - -<p>He pressed the lever forward. It hesitated, the weight of milleniums -behind its inertia. Then, groaning a little in its socket, it moved.</p> - -<p>Across the screen above it a blaze of color raged like a sudden shining -deluge. Blinded by the glare, Dantan leaped back and swung an arm -across his eyes.</p> - -<p>When he looked again the colors had cleared. Blinking, he stared—and -forgot to look away. For the screen was a window now, with the world of -Zha behind it.... And in the center of that window—a girl. He looked -once at her, and then closed his eyes. He had felt his heart move, and -a nerve jumped in his lean cheek.</p> - -<p>He whispered a name.</p> - -<p>Impassively the girl looked down at him from the screen. There was no -change, no light of recognition upon that familiar, beloved face. The -face of the girl who had died at the Redhelm hands, long ago, in the -fortress of Klanvahr.... For her sake he had hunted the Redhelms all -these dangerous years. For her sake he had taken to the spaceways and -the outlaw life. In a way, for her sake the Redhelms hunted him now -through the canyons overhead. But here in the screen, she did not know -him.</p> - -<p>He knew that this was not possible. Some outrageous trick of vision -made the face and the slender body of a woman from another universe -seem the counterpart of that remembered woman. But he knew it must be -an illusion, for in a world as different as Zha surely there could be -no human creatures at all, certainly no human who wore the same face as -the girl he remembered.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Aside from the girl herself, there was nothing to see. The screen was -blank, except for vague shapes—outlines—The helmet, he thought, -filtered out more than light. He sensed, somehow, that beyond her -stretched the world of Zha, but he could see nothing except the -shifting, ever-changing colors of the background.</p> - -<p>She looked down at him without expression. Obviously the sight of him -had wakened in her no such deep-reaching echoes of emotion as her face -woke in him. She said, her voice almost unbearably familiar; a voice -sounding from the silence of death over many chilly years,</p> - -<p>"Dantan. Samuel Dantan. Earthly language is as harsh as the Klanvahr I -learned from Sanfel. Yet my name may seem strange to you. I am Quiana."</p> - -<p>He said hoarsely, "What do you want? What did you want with Sanfel?"</p> - -<p>"Help," Quiana said. "A weapon. Sanfel had promised me a weapon. He -was working very hard to make one, risking much ... and now time has -eaten him up—that strange, capricious time that varies so much between -your world and mine. To me it was only yesterday—and I still need the -weapon."</p> - -<p>Dantan's laugh was harsh with jealousy of that unknown and long-dead -Martian.</p> - -<p>"Then I'm the wrong man," he said roughly. "I've no weapon. I've men -tracking me down to kill me, now."</p> - -<p>She leaned forward a little, gesturing.</p> - -<p>"Can you escape? You are hidden here, you know."</p> - -<p>"They'll find the same way I found, up above."</p> - -<p>"The laboratory door can be locked, at the top of the shaft."</p> - -<p>"I know. I locked it. But there's no food or water here.... No, if I -had any weapons I wouldn't be here now."</p> - -<p>"Would you not?" she asked in a curious voice. "In old Klanvahr, Sanfel -once told me, they had a saying that none could hide from his destiny."</p> - -<p>Dantan gave her a keen, inquiring look. Did she mean—herself? That -same face and voice and body, so cruelly come back from death to waken -the old grief anew? Or did she know whose likeness she wore—or could -it be only his imagination, after all? For if Sanfel had known her too, -and if Sanfel had died as long ago as he must have died, then this same -lovely image had lived centuries and milleniums before the girl at -Klanvahr Fortress....</p> - -<p>"I remember," said Dantan briefly.</p> - -<p>"My world," she went on, oblivious to the turmoil in his mind, "my -world is too different to offer you any shelter, though I suppose you -could enter it for a little while, in that protective armor that Sanfel -made. But not to stay. We spring from soil too alien to one another's -worlds.... Even this communication is not easy. And there is no safety -here in Zha either, now. Now that Sanfel has failed me."</p> - -<p>"I—I'd help you if I could." He said it with difficulty, trying to -force the remembrance upon himself that this was a stranger.... "Tell -me what's wrong."</p> - -<p>She shrugged with a poignantly familiar motion.</p> - -<p>"I have an Enemy. One of a lower race. And he—it—there is no -word!—has cut me off from my people here in a part of Zha that -is—well, dangerous—I can't describe to you the conditions here. We -have no common terms to use in speaking of them. But there is great -danger, and the Enemy is coming closer—and I am alone. If there were -another of my people here to divide the peril I think I could destroy -him. He has a weapon of his own, and it is stronger than my power, -though not stronger than the power two of my race together can wield. -It—it <i>pulls</i>. It destroys, in a way I can find no word to say. I had -hoped from Sanfel something to divert him until he could be killed. I -told him how to forge such a weapon, but—time would not let him do it. -The teeth of time ground him into dust, as my Enemy's weapon will grind -me soon."</p> - -<p>She shrugged again.</p> - -<p>"If I could get you a gun," Dantan said. "A force-ray—"</p> - -<p>"What are they?"</p> - -<p>He described the weapons of his day. But Quiana's smile was a little -scornful when he finished.</p> - -<p>"We of Zha have passed beyond the use of missile weapons—even such -missiles as bullets or rays. Nor could they touch my Enemy. No, we can -destroy in ways that require no—no beams or explosives. No, Dantan, -you speak in terms of your own universe. We have no common ground. It -is a pity that time eddied between Sanfel and me, but eddy it did, and -I am helpless now. And the Enemy will be upon me soon. Very soon."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She let her shoulders sag and resignation dimmed the remembered -vividness of her face. Dantan looked up at her grimly, muscles riding -his set jaw. It was almost intolerable, this facing her again in need, -and again helpless, and himself without power to aid. It had been bad -enough that first time, to learn long afterward that she had died at -enemy hands while he was too far away to protect her. But to see it all -take place again before his very eyes!</p> - -<p>"There must be a way," he said, and his hand gripped the lever marked -"door" in the ancient tongue.</p> - -<p>"Wait!" Quiana's voice was urgent.</p> - -<p>"What would happen?"</p> - -<p>"The door would open. I could enter your world, and you mine."</p> - -<p>"Why can't you leave, then, and wait until it's safe to go back?"</p> - -<p>"I have tried that," Quiana said. "It will never be safe. The Enemy -waited too. No, it must come, in the end, to a battle—and I shall not -win that fight. I shall not see my own people or my own land again, -and I suppose I must face that knowledge. But I did hope, when I heard -Sanfel's signal sound again...." She smiled a little. "I know you would -help me if you could, Dantan. But there is nothing to be done now."</p> - -<p>"I'll come in," he said doggedly. "Maybe there's something I could do."</p> - -<p>"You could not touch him. Even now there's danger. He was very close -when I heard that signal. This is his territory. When I heard the bell -and thought Sanfel had returned with a weapon for me, I dared greatly -in coming here." Her voice died away; a withdrawn look veiled her eyes -from him.</p> - -<p>After a long silence she said, "The Enemy is coming. Turn off the -screen, Dantan. And goodbye."</p> - -<p>"No," he said. "Wait!" But she shook her head and turned away from him, -her thin robe swirling, and moved off like a pale shadow into the dim, -shadowless emptiness of the background. He stood watching helplessly, -feeling all the old despair wash over him a second time as the girl he -loved went alone into danger he could not share. Sometimes as she moved -away she was eclipsed by objects he could not see—trees, he thought, -or rocks, that did not impinge upon his eyes through the protective -helmet. A strange world indeed Zha must be, whose very rocks and trees -were too alien for human eyes to look upon in safety.... Only Quiana -grew smaller and smaller upon the screen, and it seemed to Dantan as -though a cord stretched between them, pulling thinner and thinner as -she receded into danger and distance.</p> - -<p>It was unbearable to think that the cord might break—break a second -time....</p> - -<p>Far away something moved in the cloudy world of Zha. Tiny in the -distance though it was, it was unmistakably not human. Dantan -lost sight of Quiana. Had she found some hiding place behind some -unimaginable outcropping of Zha's terrain?</p> - -<p>The Enemy came forward.</p> - -<p>It was huge and scaled and terrible, human, but not a human; tailed, -but no beast; intelligent, but diabolic. He never saw it too clearly, -and he was grateful to his helmet for that. The polarized glass seemed -to translate a little, as well as to blot out. He felt sure that this -creature which he saw—or almost saw—did not look precisely as it -seemed to him upon the screen. Yet it was easy to believe that such a -being had sprung from the alien soil of Zha. There was nothing remotely -like it on any of the worlds he knew. And it was hateful. Every line of -it made his hackles bristle.</p> - -<p>It carried a coil of brightly colored tubing slung over one grotesque -shoulder, and its monstrous head swung from side to side as it paced -forward into the screen like some strange and terrible mechanical toy. -It made no sound, and its progress was horrible in its sheer relentless -monotony.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Abruptly it paused. He thought it had sensed the girl's presence, -somewhere in hiding. It reached for the coil of tubing with one -malformed—hand?</p> - -<p>"Quiana," it said—its voice as gentle as a child's.</p> - -<p>Silence. Dantan's breathing was loud in the emptiness.</p> - -<p>"Quiana?" The tone was querulous now.</p> - -<p>"Quiana," the monster crooned, and swung about with sudden, unexpected -agility. Moving with smooth speed, it vanished into the clouds of the -background, as the girl had vanished. For an eternity Dantan watched -colored emptiness, trying to keep himself from trembling.</p> - -<p>Then he heard the voice again, gentle no longer, but ringing like a -bell with terrible triumph, "<i>Quiana!</i>"</p> - -<p>And out of the swirling clouds he saw Quiana break, despair upon her -face, her sheer garments streaming behind her. After her came the -Enemy. It had unslung the tube it wore over its shoulder, and as it -lifted the weapon Quiana swerved desperately aside. Then from the coil -of tubing blind lightning ravened.</p> - -<p>Shattering the patternless obscurity, the blaze of its color burst out, -catching Quiana in a cone of expanding, shifting brilliance. And the -despair in her eyes was suddenly more than Dantan could endure.</p> - -<p>His hand struck out at the lever marked "door"; he swung it far over -and the veil that had masked the screen was gone. He vaulted up over -its low threshold, not seeing anything but the face and the terror of -Quiana. But it was not Quiana's name he called as he leaped.</p> - -<p>He lunged through the Door onto soft, yielding substance that was -unlike anything he had ever felt underfoot before. He scarcely knew it. -He flung himself forward, fists clenched, ready to drive futile blows -into the monstrous mask of the Enemy. It loomed over him like a tower, -tremendous, scarcely seen through the shelter of his helmet—and then -the glare of the light-cone caught him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>It was tangible light. It flung him back with a piledriver punch that -knocked the breath from his body. And the blow was psychic as well as -physical. Shaking and reeling from the shock, Dantan shut his eyes and -fought forward, as though against a steady current too strong to breast -very long. He felt Quiana beside him, caught in the same dreadful -stream. And beyond the source of the light the Enemy stood up in stark, -inhuman silhouette.</p> - -<p>He never saw Quiana's world. The light was too blinding. And yet, in a -subtle sense, it was not blinding to the eyes, but to the mind. Nor -was it light, Dantan thought, with some sane part of his mind. Too late -he remembered Quiana's warning that the world of Zha was not Mars or -Earth, that in Zha even light was different.</p> - -<p>Cold and heat mingled, indescribably bewildering, shook him hard. And -beyond these were—other things. The light from the Enemy's weapon was -not born in Dantan's universe, and it had properties that light should -not have. He felt bare, emptied, a hollow shell through which radiance -streamed.</p> - -<p>For suddenly, every cell of his body was an eye. The glaring -brilliance, the intolerable vision beat at the foundations of his -sanity. Through him the glow went pouring, washing him, nerves, bone, -flesh, brain, in floods of color that were not color, sound that was -not sound, vibration that was spawned in the shaking hells of worlds -beyond imagination.</p> - -<p>It inundated him like a tide, and for a long, long, timeless while he -stood helpless in its surge, moving within his body and without it, -and within his mind and soul as well. The color of stars thundered in -his brain. The crawling foulness of unspeakable hues writhed along his -nerves so monstrously that he felt he could never cleanse himself of -that obscenity.</p> - -<p>And nothing else existed—only the light that was not light, but -blasphemy.</p> - -<p>Then it began to ebb ... faded ... grew lesser and lesser, -until—Beside him he could see Quiana now. She was no longer stumbling -in the cone of light, no longer shuddering and wavering in its -violence, but standing erect and facing the Enemy, and from her -eyes—something—poured.</p> - -<p>Steadily the cone of brilliance waned. But still its glittering, -shining foulness poured through Dantan. He felt himself weakening, his -senses fading, as the tide of dark horror mounted through his brain.</p> - -<p>And covered him up with its blanketing immensity.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He was back in the laboratory, leaning against the wall and breathing -in deep, shuddering draughts. He did not remember stumbling through -the Door again, but he was no longer in Zha. Quiana stood beside him, -here upon the Martian soil of the laboratory. She was watching him -with a strange, quizzical look in her eyes as he slowly fought back to -normal, his heart quieting by degrees, his breath becoming evener. He -felt drained, exhausted, his emotions cleansed and purified as though -by baths of flame.</p> - -<p>Presently he reached for the clasp that fastened his clumsy armor. -Quiana put out a quick hand, shaking her head.</p> - -<p>"No," she said, and then stared at him again for a long moment without -speaking. Finally, "I had not known—I did not think this could be -done. Another of my own race—yes. But you, from Mars—I would not have -believed that you could stand against the Enemy for a moment, even with -your armor."</p> - -<p>"I'm from Earth, not Mars. And I didn't stand long."</p> - -<p>"Long enough." She smiled faintly. "You see now what happened? We of -Zha can destroy without weapons, using only the power inherent in our -bodies. Those like the Enemy have a little of that power too, but they -need mechanical devices to amplify it. And so when you diverted the -Enemy's attention and forced him to divide his attack between us—the -pressure upon me was relieved, and I could destroy him. But I would not -have believed it possible."</p> - -<p>"You're safe now," Dantan said, with no expression in voice or face.</p> - -<p>"Yes. I can return."</p> - -<p>"And you will?"</p> - -<p>"Of course I shall."</p> - -<p>"We are more alike than you had realized."</p> - -<p>She looked up toward the colored curtain of the screen. "That is true. -It is not the complete truth, Dantan."</p> - -<p>He said, "I love you—Quiana." This time he called her by name.</p> - -<p>Neither of them moved. Minutes went by silently.</p> - -<p>Quiana said, as if she had not heard him, "Those who followed you are -here. I have been listening to them for some time now. They are trying -to break through the door at the top of the shaft."</p> - -<p>He took her hand in his gloved grasp. "Stay here. Or let me go back to -Zha with you. Why not?"</p> - -<p>"You could not live there without your armor."</p> - -<p>"Then stay."</p> - -<p>Quiana looked away, her eyes troubled. As Dantan moved to slip off his -helmet her hand came up again to stop him.</p> - -<p>"Don't."</p> - -<p>"Why not?"</p> - -<p>For answer she rose, beckoning for him to follow. She stepped across -the threshold into the shaft and swiftly began to climb the pegs toward -the surface and the hammering of the Redhelms up above. Dantan, at her -gesture, followed.</p> - -<p>Over her shoulder she said briefly,</p> - -<p>"We are of two very different worlds. Watch—but be careful." And she -touched the device that locked the oval door.</p> - -<p>It slipped down and swung aside.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dantan caught one swift glimpse of Redhelm heads dodging back to -safety. They did not know, of course, that he was unarmed. He reached -up desperately, trying to pull Quiana back but she slipped aside and -sprang lightly out of the shaft into the cool gray light of the Martian -morning.</p> - -<p>Forgetting her warning, Dantan pulled himself up behind her. But as his -head and shoulders emerged from the shaft he stopped, frozen. For the -Redhelms were falling. There was no mark upon them, yet they fell....</p> - -<p>She did not stir, even when the last man had stiffened into rigid -immobility. Then Dantan clambered up and without looking at Quiana went -to the nearest body and turned it over. He could find no mark. Yet the -Redhelm was dead.</p> - -<p>"That is why you had to wear the armor," she told him gently. "We are -of different worlds, you and I."</p> - -<p>He took her in his arms—and the soft resilience of her was lost -against the stiffness of the protective suit. He would never even know -how her body felt, because of the armor between them.... He could not -even kiss her—again. He had taken his last kiss of the mouth so like -Quiana's mouth, long years ago, and he would never kiss it again. The -barrier was too high between them.</p> - -<p>"You can't go back," he told her in a rough, uneven voice. "We <i>are</i> of -the same world, no matter what—no matter how—You're no stranger to -me, Quiana!"</p> - -<p>She looked up at him with troubled eyes, shaking her head, regret in -her voice.</p> - -<p>"Do you think I don't know why you fought for me, Dantan?" she asked in -a clear voice. "Did you ever stop to wonder why Sanfel risked so much -for me, too?"</p> - -<p>He stared down at her, his brain spinning, almost afraid to hear what -she would say next. He did not want to hear. But her voice went on -inexorably.</p> - -<p>"I cheated you, Dantan. I cheated Sanfel yesterday—a thousand years -ago. My need was very great, you see—and our ways are not yours. I -knew that no man would fight for a stranger as I needed a man to fight -for me."</p> - -<p>He held her tightly in gloved hands that could feel only a firm body -in their grasp, not what that body was really like, nothing about it -except its firmness. He caught his breath to interrupt, but she went on -with a rush.</p> - -<p>"I have no way of knowing how you see me, Dantan," she said -relentlessly. "I don't know how Sanfel saw me. To each of you—because -I needed your help—I wore the shape to which you owed help most. -I could reach into your minds deeply enough for that—to mould a -remembered body for your eyes. My own shape is—different. You will -never know it." She sighed. "You were a brave man, Dantan. Braver and -stronger than I ever dreamed an alien could be. I wish—I wonder—Oh, -let me go! Let me go!"</p> - -<p>She whirled out of his grasp with sudden vehemence, turning her face -away so that he could not see her eyes. Without glancing at him again -she bent over the shaft and found the topmost pegs, and in a moment was -gone.</p> - -<p>Dantan stood there, waiting. Presently he heard the muffled humming of -a muted bell, as though sounding from another world. Then he knew that -there was no one in the ancient laboratory beneath his feet.</p> - -<p>He shut the door carefully and scraped soil over it. He did not mark -the place. The dim red spot of the sun was rising above the canyon -wall. His face set, Dantan began walking toward the distant cavern -where his aircar was hidden. It was many miles away, but there was no -one to stop him, now.</p> - -<p>He did not look back.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of Thar, by Henry Kuttner - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THAR *** - -***** This file should be named 63123-h.htm or 63123-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/2/63123/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/63123-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/63123-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 38af3e2..0000000 --- a/old/63123-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63123-h/images/illus.jpg b/old/63123-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6d3053f..0000000 --- a/old/63123-h/images/illus.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63123.txt b/old/63123.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 80f013c..0000000 --- a/old/63123.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1245 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of Thar, by Henry Kuttner - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Eyes of Thar - -Author: Henry Kuttner - -Release Date: September 4, 2020 [EBook #63123] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THAR *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THE EYES OF THAR - - By HENRY KUTTNER - - She spoke in a tongue dead a thousand years, - and she had no memory for the man she faced. - Yet he had held her tightly but a few short - years before, had sworn eternal vengeance--when - she died in his arms from an assassin's wounds. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Fall 1944. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -He had come back, though he knew what to expect. He had always come -back to Klanvahr, since he had been hunted out of that ancient Martian -fortress so many years ago. Not often, and always warily, for there -was a price on Dantan's head, and those who governed the Dry Provinces -would have been glad to pay it. Now there was an excellent chance that -they might pay, and soon, he thought, as he walked doggedly through the -baking stillness of the night, his ears attuned to any dangerous sound -in the thin, dry air. - -Even after dark it was hot here. The dead ground, parched and arid, -retained the heat, releasing it slowly as the double moons--the Eyes of -Thar, in Klanvahr mythology--swung across the blazing immensity of the -sky. Yet Samuel Dantan came back to this desolate land as he had come -before, drawn by love and by hatred. - -The love was lost forever, but the hate could still be satiated. He had -not yet glutted his blood-thirst. When Dantan came back to Klanvahr, -men died, though if all the men of the Redhelm Tribe were slain, even -that could not satisfy the dull ache in Dantan's heart. - -Now they were hunting him. - -The girl--he had not thought of her for years; he did not want to -remember. He had been young when it happened. Of Earth stock, he had -during a great Martian drought become godson to an old shaman of -Klanvahr, one of the priests who still hoarded scraps of the forgotten -knowledge of the past, glorious days of Martian destiny, when bright -towers had fingered up triumphantly toward the Eyes of Thar. - -Memories ... the solemn, antique dignity of the Undercities, in ruins -now ... the wrinkled shaman, intoning his rituals ... very old books, -and older stories ... raids by the Redhelm Tribe ... and a girl Samuel -Dantan had known. There was a raid, and the girl had died. Such things -had happened many times before; they would happen again. But to Dantan -this one death mattered very much. - -Afterward, Dantan killed, first in red fury, then with a cool, quiet, -passionless satisfaction. And, since the Redhelms were well represented -in the corrupt Martian government, he had become outlaw. - -The girl would not have known him now. He had gone out into the -spaceways, and the years had changed him. He was still thin, his eyes -still dark and opaque as shadowed tarn-water, but he was dry and sinewy -and hard, moving with the trained, dangerous swiftness of the predator -he was--and, as to morals, Dantan had none worth mentioning. He had -broken more than ten commandments. Between the planets, and in the -far-flung worlds bordering the outer dark, there are more than ten. But -Dantan had smashed them all. - -In the end there was still the dull, sickening hopelessness, part -loneliness, part something less definable. Hunted, he came back to -Klanvahr, and when he came, men of the Redhelms died. They did not die -easily. - -But this time it was they who hunted, not he. They had cut him off -from the aircar and they followed now like hounds upon his track. He -had almost been disarmed in that last battle. And the Redhelms would -not lose the trail; they had followed signs for generations across the -dying tundras of Mars. - -He paused, flattening himself against an outcrop of rock, and looked -back. It was dark; the Eyes of Thar had not yet risen, and the blaze of -starlight cast a ghastly, leprous shine over the chaotic slope behind -him, great riven boulders and jutting monoliths, canyon-like, running -jagged toward the horizon, a scene of cosmic ruin that every old and -shrinking world must show. He could see nothing of his pursuers, but -they were coming. They were still far behind. But that did not matter; -he must circle--circle-- - -And first, he must regain a little strength. There was no water in -his canteen. His throat was dust-dry, and his tongue felt swollen and -leathery. Moving his shoulders uneasily, his dark face impassive, -Dantan found a pebble and put it in his mouth, though he knew that -would not help much. He had not tasted water for--how long? Too long, -anyhow. - - * * * * * - -Staring around, he took stock of resources. He was alone--what was it -the old shaman had once told him? "You are never alone in Klanvahr. The -living shadows of the past are all around you. They cannot help, but -they watch, and their pride must not be humbled. You are never alone in -Klanvahr." - -But nothing stirred. Only a whisper of the dry, hot wind murmuring up -from the distance, sighing and soughing like muted harps. Ghosts of -the past riding the night, Dantan thought. How did those ghosts see -Klanvahr? Not as this desolate wasteland, perhaps. They saw it with the -eyes of memory, as the Mother of Empires which Klanvahr had once been, -so long ago that only the tales persisted, garbled and unbelievable. - -A sighing whisper ... he stopped living for a second, his breath -halted, his eyes turned to emptiness. That meant something. A thermal, -a river of wind--a downdraft, perhaps. Sometimes these eon-old canyons -held lost rivers, changing and shifting their courses as Mars crumbled, -and such watercourses might be traced by sound. - -Well--he knew Klanvahr. - -A half mile farther he found the arroyo, not too deep--fifty feet or -less, with jagged walls easy to descend. He could hear the trickle of -water, though he could not see it, and his thirst became overpowering. -But caution made him clamber down the precipice warily. He did not -drink till he had reconnoitered and made sure that it was safe. - -And that made Dantan's thin lips curl. Safety for a man hunted by the -Redhelms? The thought was sufficiently absurd. He would die--he must -die; but he did not mean to die alone. This time perhaps they had him, -but the kill would not be easy nor without cost. If he could find some -weapon, some ambush--prepare some trap for the hunters-- - -There might be possibilities in this canyon. The stream had only -lately been diverted into this channel; the signs of that were clear. -Thoughtfully Dantan worked his way upstream. He did not try to mask his -trail by water-tricks; the Redhelms were too wise for that. No, there -must be some other answer. - -A mile or so farther along he found the reason for the diverted stream. -Landslide. Where water had chuckled and rustled along the left-hand -branch before, now it took the other route. Dantan followed the dry -canyon, finding the going easier now, since Phobos had risen ... an Eye -of Thar. "The Eyes of the god miss nothing. They move across the world, -and nothing can hide from Thar, or from his destiny." - -Then Dantan saw rounded metal. Washed clean by the water that had run -here lately, a corroded, curved surface rose dome-shaped from the -stream bed. - -The presence of an artifact in this place was curious enough. The -people of Klanvahr--the old race--had builded with some substance that -had not survived; plastic or something else that was not metal. Yet -this dome had the unmistakable dull sheen of steel. It was an alloy, -unusually strong or it could never have lasted this long, even though -protected by its covering of rocks and earth. A little nerve began -jumping in Dantan's cheek. He had paused briefly, but now he came -forward and with his booted foot kicked away some of the dirt about the -cryptic metal. - -A curving line broke it. Scraping vigorously, Dantan discovered that -this marked the outline of an oval door, horizontal, and with a handle -of some sort, though it was caked and fixed in its socket with dirt. -Dantan's lips were very thin now, and his eyes glittering and bright. -An ambush--a weapon against the Redhelms--whatever might exist behind -this lost door, it was worth investigating, especially for a condemned -man. - -With water from the brook and a sliver of sharp stone, he pried and -chiseled until the handle was fairly free from its heavy crust. It was -a hook, like a shepherd's crook, protruding from a small bowl-shaped -depression in the door. Dantan tested it. It would not move in any -direction. He braced himself, legs straddled, body half doubled, and -strained at the hook. - -Blood beat against the back of his eyes. He heard drumming in his -temples and straightened suddenly, thinking it the footsteps of -Redhelms. Then, grinning sardonically, he bent to his work again, and -this time the handle moved. - -Beneath him the door slid down and swung aside, and the darkness -below gave place to soft light. He saw a long tube stretching down -vertically, with pegs protruding from the metal walls at regular -intervals. It made a ladder. The bottom of the shaft was thirty feet -below; its diameter was little more than the breadth of a big man's -shoulders. - - * * * * * - -He stood still for a moment, looking down, his mind almost swimming -with wonder and surmise. Old, very old it must be, for the stream -had cut its own bed out of the rock whose walls rose above him now. -Old--and yet these metal surfaces gleamed as brightly as they must have -gleamed on the day they were put together--for what purpose? - -The wind sighed again down the canyon, and Dantan remembered the -Redhelms on his track. He looked around once more and then lowered -himself onto the ladder of metal pegs, testing them doubtfully before -he let his full weight come down. They held. - -There might be danger down below; there might not. There was certain -danger coming after him among the twisting canyons. He reached up, -investigated briefly, and swung the door back into place. There was a -lock, he saw, and after a moment discovered how to manipulate it. So -far, the results were satisfactory. He was temporarily safe from the -Redhelms, provided he did not suffocate. There was no air intake here -that he could see, but he breathed easily enough so far. He would worry -about that when the need arose. There might be other things to worry -about before lack of air began to distress him. - -He descended. - -At the bottom of the shaft was another door. Its handle yielded with -no resistance this time, and Dantan stepped across the threshold into -a large, square underground chamber, lit with pale radiance that came -from the floor itself, as though light had been poured into the molten -metal when it had first been made. - -The room-- - -Faintly he heard a distant humming, like the after-resonance of a bell, -but it died away almost instantly. The room was large, and empty except -for some sort of machine standing against the farther wall. Dantan was -not a technician. He knew guns and ships; that was enough. But the -smooth, sleek functionalism of this machine gave him an almost sensuous -feeling of pleasure. - -How long had it been here? Who had built it? And for what purpose? He -could not even guess. There was a great oval screen on the wall above -what seemed to be a control board, and there were other, more enigmatic -devices. - -And the screen was black--dead black, with a darkness that ate up the -light in the room and gave back nothing. - -Yet there was something-- - -"_Sanfel_," a voice said. "_Sanfel. Coth dr'gchang. Sanfel--sthan!_ - -"_Sanfel ... Sanfel ... have you returned, Sanfel? Answer!_" - -It was a woman's voice ... the voice of a woman used to wielding -power, quiet, somehow proud as the voice of Lucifer or Lilith might -have been, and it spoke in a tongue that scarcely half a dozen living -men could understand.... A whole great race had spoken it once; only -the shamans remembered now, and the shamans who knew it were few. -Dantan's godfather had been one. And Dantan remembered the slurring -syllables of the rituals he had learned, well enough to know what the -proud, bodiless voice was saying. - -The nape of his neck prickled. Here was something he could not -understand, and he did not like it. Like an animal scenting danger he -shrank into himself, not crouching, but withdrawing, so that a smaller -man seemed to stand there, ready and waiting for the next move. Only -his eyes were not motionless. They raked the room for the unseen -speaker--for some weapon to use when the time came for weapons. - -His glance came back to the dark screen above the machine. And the -voice said again, in the tongue of ancient Klanvahr: - -"I am not used to waiting, Sanfel! If you hear me, speak. And speak -quickly, for the time of peril comes close now. My Enemy is strong--" - -Dantan said, "Can you hear me?" His eyes did not move from the screen. - -Out of that blackness the girl's voice came, after a pause. It was -imperious, and a little wary. - -"You are not Sanfel. Where is he? Who are you, Martian?" - - * * * * * - -Dantan let himself relax a little. There would be a parley, at any -rate. But after that-- - -Words in the familiar, remembered old language came hesitantly to his -lips. - -"I am no Martian. I am of Earth blood, and I do not know this Sanfel." - -"Then how did you get into Sanfel's place?" The voice was haughty now. -"What are you doing there? Sanfel built his laboratory in a secret -place." - -"It was hidden well enough," Dantan told her grimly. "Maybe for a -thousand years, or even ten thousand, for all I know. The door has been -buried under a stream--" - -"There is no water there. Sanfel's home is on a mountain, and his -laboratory is built underground." The voice rang like a bell. "I think -you lie. I think you are an enemy--When I heard the signal summoning -me, I came swiftly, wondering why Sanfel had delayed so long. I must -find him, stranger. I must! If you are no enemy, bring me Sanfel!" This -time there was something almost like panic in the voice. - -"If I could, I would," Dantan said. "But there's no one here except -me." He hesitated, wondering if the woman behind the voice could -be--mad? Speaking from some mysterious place beyond the screen, in -a language dead a thousand years, calling upon a man who must be -long-dead too, if one could judge by the length of time this hidden -room had lain buried. - -He said after a moment, "This place has been buried for a long time. -And--no one has spoken the tongue of Klanvahr for many centuries. If -that was your Sanfel's language--" But he could not go on with that -thought. If Sanfel had spoken Klanvahr then he must have died long -ago. And the speaker beyond the screen--she who had known Sanfel, yet -spoke in a young, sweet, light voice that Dantan was beginning to think -sounded familiar.... He wondered if he could be mad too. - -There was silence from the screen. After many seconds the voice spoke -again, sadly and with an undernote of terror. - -"I had not realized," it said, "that even time might be so different -between Sanfel's world and mine. The space-time continua--yes, a day -in my world might well be an age in yours. Time is elastic. In Zha I -had thought a few dozen--" she used a term Dantan did not understand, -"--had passed. But on Mars--centuries?" - -"Tens of centuries," agreed Dantan, staring hard at the screen. "If -Sanfel lived in old Klanvahr his people are scarcely a memory now. And -Mars is dying. You--you're speaking from another world?" - -"From another universe, yes. A very different universe from yours. It -was only through Sanfel that I had made contact, until now--What is -your name?" - -"Dantan. Samuel Dantan." - -"Not a Martian name. You are from--Earth, you say? What is that?" - -"Another planet. Nearer the sun than Mars." - -"We have no planets and no suns in Zha. This is a different universe -indeed. So different I find it hard to imagine what your world must be -like." The voice died. - - * * * * * - -And it was a voice he knew. Dantan was nearly sure of that now, and -the certainty frightened him. When a man in the Martian desert begins -to see or hear impossibilities, he has reason to be frightened. As the -silence prolonged itself he began almost to hope that the voice--the -implausibly familiar voice--had been only imagination. Hesitantly he -said, "Are you still there?" and was a little relieved, after all, to -hear her say, - -"Yes, I am here. I was thinking.... I need help. I need it desperately. -I wonder--has Sanfel's laboratory changed? Does the machine still -stand? But it must, or I could not speak to you now. If the other -things work, there may be chance.... Listen." Her voice grew urgent. "I -may have a use for you. Do you see a lever, scarlet, marked with the -Klanvahr symbol for 'sight'?" - -"I see it," Dantan said. - -"Push it forward. There is no harm in that, if you are careful. We can -see each other--that is all. But do not touch the lever with the 'door' -symbol on it. Be certain of that.... Wait!" Sudden urgency was in the -voice. - -"Yes?" Dantan had not moved. - -"I am forgetting. There _is_ danger if you are not protected from--from -certain vibration that you might see here. This is a different -universe, and your Martian physical laws do not hold good between our -worlds. Vibration ... light ... other things might harm you. There -should be armor in Sanfel's laboratory. Find it." - -Dantan glanced around. There was a cabinet in one corner. He went over -to it slowly, his eyes wary. He had no intention of relaxing vigilance -here simply because that voice sounded familiar.... - -Inside the cabinet hung a suit of something like space armor, more -flexible and skin tight than any he had ever seen, and with a -transparent helmet through which vision seemed oddly distorted. He got -into the suit carefully, pulling up the rich shining folds over his -body, thinking strangely how long time had stood still in this small -room since the last time a man had worn it. The whole room looked -slightly different when he set the helmet into place. It must be -polarized, he decided, though that alone could not account for the -strange dimming and warping of vision that was evident. - -"All ready," he said after a moment. - -"Then throw the switch." - -With his hand upon it Dantan hesitated for one last instant of -wariness. He was stepping into unknown territory now, and to him the -unknown meant the perilous. His mind went back briefly to the Redhelms -scouring the canyons above for him. He quieted his uneasy mind with the -thought that there might be some weapon in the world of the voice which -he could turn against them later. Certainly, without a weapon, he had -little to lose. But he knew that weapon or no weapon, danger or not, he -must see the face behind that sweet, familiar, imperious voice. - -He pressed the lever forward. It hesitated, the weight of milleniums -behind its inertia. Then, groaning a little in its socket, it moved. - -Across the screen above it a blaze of color raged like a sudden shining -deluge. Blinded by the glare, Dantan leaped back and swung an arm -across his eyes. - -When he looked again the colors had cleared. Blinking, he stared--and -forgot to look away. For the screen was a window now, with the world of -Zha behind it.... And in the center of that window--a girl. He looked -once at her, and then closed his eyes. He had felt his heart move, and -a nerve jumped in his lean cheek. - -He whispered a name. - -Impassively the girl looked down at him from the screen. There was no -change, no light of recognition upon that familiar, beloved face. The -face of the girl who had died at the Redhelm hands, long ago, in the -fortress of Klanvahr.... For her sake he had hunted the Redhelms all -these dangerous years. For her sake he had taken to the spaceways and -the outlaw life. In a way, for her sake the Redhelms hunted him now -through the canyons overhead. But here in the screen, she did not know -him. - -He knew that this was not possible. Some outrageous trick of vision -made the face and the slender body of a woman from another universe -seem the counterpart of that remembered woman. But he knew it must be -an illusion, for in a world as different as Zha surely there could be -no human creatures at all, certainly no human who wore the same face as -the girl he remembered. - - * * * * * - -Aside from the girl herself, there was nothing to see. The screen was -blank, except for vague shapes--outlines--The helmet, he thought, -filtered out more than light. He sensed, somehow, that beyond her -stretched the world of Zha, but he could see nothing except the -shifting, ever-changing colors of the background. - -She looked down at him without expression. Obviously the sight of him -had wakened in her no such deep-reaching echoes of emotion as her face -woke in him. She said, her voice almost unbearably familiar; a voice -sounding from the silence of death over many chilly years, - -"Dantan. Samuel Dantan. Earthly language is as harsh as the Klanvahr I -learned from Sanfel. Yet my name may seem strange to you. I am Quiana." - -He said hoarsely, "What do you want? What did you want with Sanfel?" - -"Help," Quiana said. "A weapon. Sanfel had promised me a weapon. He -was working very hard to make one, risking much ... and now time has -eaten him up--that strange, capricious time that varies so much between -your world and mine. To me it was only yesterday--and I still need the -weapon." - -Dantan's laugh was harsh with jealousy of that unknown and long-dead -Martian. - -"Then I'm the wrong man," he said roughly. "I've no weapon. I've men -tracking me down to kill me, now." - -She leaned forward a little, gesturing. - -"Can you escape? You are hidden here, you know." - -"They'll find the same way I found, up above." - -"The laboratory door can be locked, at the top of the shaft." - -"I know. I locked it. But there's no food or water here.... No, if I -had any weapons I wouldn't be here now." - -"Would you not?" she asked in a curious voice. "In old Klanvahr, Sanfel -once told me, they had a saying that none could hide from his destiny." - -Dantan gave her a keen, inquiring look. Did she mean--herself? That -same face and voice and body, so cruelly come back from death to waken -the old grief anew? Or did she know whose likeness she wore--or could -it be only his imagination, after all? For if Sanfel had known her too, -and if Sanfel had died as long ago as he must have died, then this same -lovely image had lived centuries and milleniums before the girl at -Klanvahr Fortress.... - -"I remember," said Dantan briefly. - -"My world," she went on, oblivious to the turmoil in his mind, "my -world is too different to offer you any shelter, though I suppose you -could enter it for a little while, in that protective armor that Sanfel -made. But not to stay. We spring from soil too alien to one another's -worlds.... Even this communication is not easy. And there is no safety -here in Zha either, now. Now that Sanfel has failed me." - -"I--I'd help you if I could." He said it with difficulty, trying to -force the remembrance upon himself that this was a stranger.... "Tell -me what's wrong." - -She shrugged with a poignantly familiar motion. - -"I have an Enemy. One of a lower race. And he--it--there is no -word!--has cut me off from my people here in a part of Zha that -is--well, dangerous--I can't describe to you the conditions here. We -have no common terms to use in speaking of them. But there is great -danger, and the Enemy is coming closer--and I am alone. If there were -another of my people here to divide the peril I think I could destroy -him. He has a weapon of his own, and it is stronger than my power, -though not stronger than the power two of my race together can wield. -It--it _pulls_. It destroys, in a way I can find no word to say. I had -hoped from Sanfel something to divert him until he could be killed. I -told him how to forge such a weapon, but--time would not let him do it. -The teeth of time ground him into dust, as my Enemy's weapon will grind -me soon." - -She shrugged again. - -"If I could get you a gun," Dantan said. "A force-ray--" - -"What are they?" - -He described the weapons of his day. But Quiana's smile was a little -scornful when he finished. - -"We of Zha have passed beyond the use of missile weapons--even such -missiles as bullets or rays. Nor could they touch my Enemy. No, we can -destroy in ways that require no--no beams or explosives. No, Dantan, -you speak in terms of your own universe. We have no common ground. It -is a pity that time eddied between Sanfel and me, but eddy it did, and -I am helpless now. And the Enemy will be upon me soon. Very soon." - - * * * * * - -She let her shoulders sag and resignation dimmed the remembered -vividness of her face. Dantan looked up at her grimly, muscles riding -his set jaw. It was almost intolerable, this facing her again in need, -and again helpless, and himself without power to aid. It had been bad -enough that first time, to learn long afterward that she had died at -enemy hands while he was too far away to protect her. But to see it all -take place again before his very eyes! - -"There must be a way," he said, and his hand gripped the lever marked -"door" in the ancient tongue. - -"Wait!" Quiana's voice was urgent. - -"What would happen?" - -"The door would open. I could enter your world, and you mine." - -"Why can't you leave, then, and wait until it's safe to go back?" - -"I have tried that," Quiana said. "It will never be safe. The Enemy -waited too. No, it must come, in the end, to a battle--and I shall not -win that fight. I shall not see my own people or my own land again, -and I suppose I must face that knowledge. But I did hope, when I heard -Sanfel's signal sound again...." She smiled a little. "I know you would -help me if you could, Dantan. But there is nothing to be done now." - -"I'll come in," he said doggedly. "Maybe there's something I could do." - -"You could not touch him. Even now there's danger. He was very close -when I heard that signal. This is his territory. When I heard the bell -and thought Sanfel had returned with a weapon for me, I dared greatly -in coming here." Her voice died away; a withdrawn look veiled her eyes -from him. - -After a long silence she said, "The Enemy is coming. Turn off the -screen, Dantan. And goodbye." - -"No," he said. "Wait!" But she shook her head and turned away from him, -her thin robe swirling, and moved off like a pale shadow into the dim, -shadowless emptiness of the background. He stood watching helplessly, -feeling all the old despair wash over him a second time as the girl he -loved went alone into danger he could not share. Sometimes as she moved -away she was eclipsed by objects he could not see--trees, he thought, -or rocks, that did not impinge upon his eyes through the protective -helmet. A strange world indeed Zha must be, whose very rocks and trees -were too alien for human eyes to look upon in safety.... Only Quiana -grew smaller and smaller upon the screen, and it seemed to Dantan as -though a cord stretched between them, pulling thinner and thinner as -she receded into danger and distance. - -It was unbearable to think that the cord might break--break a second -time.... - -Far away something moved in the cloudy world of Zha. Tiny in the -distance though it was, it was unmistakably not human. Dantan -lost sight of Quiana. Had she found some hiding place behind some -unimaginable outcropping of Zha's terrain? - -The Enemy came forward. - -It was huge and scaled and terrible, human, but not a human; tailed, -but no beast; intelligent, but diabolic. He never saw it too clearly, -and he was grateful to his helmet for that. The polarized glass seemed -to translate a little, as well as to blot out. He felt sure that this -creature which he saw--or almost saw--did not look precisely as it -seemed to him upon the screen. Yet it was easy to believe that such a -being had sprung from the alien soil of Zha. There was nothing remotely -like it on any of the worlds he knew. And it was hateful. Every line of -it made his hackles bristle. - -It carried a coil of brightly colored tubing slung over one grotesque -shoulder, and its monstrous head swung from side to side as it paced -forward into the screen like some strange and terrible mechanical toy. -It made no sound, and its progress was horrible in its sheer relentless -monotony. - - * * * * * - -Abruptly it paused. He thought it had sensed the girl's presence, -somewhere in hiding. It reached for the coil of tubing with one -malformed--hand? - -"Quiana," it said--its voice as gentle as a child's. - -Silence. Dantan's breathing was loud in the emptiness. - -"Quiana?" The tone was querulous now. - -"Quiana," the monster crooned, and swung about with sudden, unexpected -agility. Moving with smooth speed, it vanished into the clouds of the -background, as the girl had vanished. For an eternity Dantan watched -colored emptiness, trying to keep himself from trembling. - -Then he heard the voice again, gentle no longer, but ringing like a -bell with terrible triumph, "_Quiana!_" - -And out of the swirling clouds he saw Quiana break, despair upon her -face, her sheer garments streaming behind her. After her came the -Enemy. It had unslung the tube it wore over its shoulder, and as it -lifted the weapon Quiana swerved desperately aside. Then from the coil -of tubing blind lightning ravened. - -Shattering the patternless obscurity, the blaze of its color burst out, -catching Quiana in a cone of expanding, shifting brilliance. And the -despair in her eyes was suddenly more than Dantan could endure. - -His hand struck out at the lever marked "door"; he swung it far over -and the veil that had masked the screen was gone. He vaulted up over -its low threshold, not seeing anything but the face and the terror of -Quiana. But it was not Quiana's name he called as he leaped. - -He lunged through the Door onto soft, yielding substance that was -unlike anything he had ever felt underfoot before. He scarcely knew it. -He flung himself forward, fists clenched, ready to drive futile blows -into the monstrous mask of the Enemy. It loomed over him like a tower, -tremendous, scarcely seen through the shelter of his helmet--and then -the glare of the light-cone caught him. - -It was tangible light. It flung him back with a piledriver punch that -knocked the breath from his body. And the blow was psychic as well as -physical. Shaking and reeling from the shock, Dantan shut his eyes and -fought forward, as though against a steady current too strong to breast -very long. He felt Quiana beside him, caught in the same dreadful -stream. And beyond the source of the light the Enemy stood up in stark, -inhuman silhouette. - -He never saw Quiana's world. The light was too blinding. And yet, in a -subtle sense, it was not blinding to the eyes, but to the mind. Nor -was it light, Dantan thought, with some sane part of his mind. Too late -he remembered Quiana's warning that the world of Zha was not Mars or -Earth, that in Zha even light was different. - -Cold and heat mingled, indescribably bewildering, shook him hard. And -beyond these were--other things. The light from the Enemy's weapon was -not born in Dantan's universe, and it had properties that light should -not have. He felt bare, emptied, a hollow shell through which radiance -streamed. - -For suddenly, every cell of his body was an eye. The glaring -brilliance, the intolerable vision beat at the foundations of his -sanity. Through him the glow went pouring, washing him, nerves, bone, -flesh, brain, in floods of color that were not color, sound that was -not sound, vibration that was spawned in the shaking hells of worlds -beyond imagination. - -It inundated him like a tide, and for a long, long, timeless while he -stood helpless in its surge, moving within his body and without it, -and within his mind and soul as well. The color of stars thundered in -his brain. The crawling foulness of unspeakable hues writhed along his -nerves so monstrously that he felt he could never cleanse himself of -that obscenity. - -And nothing else existed--only the light that was not light, but -blasphemy. - -Then it began to ebb ... faded ... grew lesser and lesser, -until--Beside him he could see Quiana now. She was no longer stumbling -in the cone of light, no longer shuddering and wavering in its -violence, but standing erect and facing the Enemy, and from her -eyes--something--poured. - -Steadily the cone of brilliance waned. But still its glittering, -shining foulness poured through Dantan. He felt himself weakening, his -senses fading, as the tide of dark horror mounted through his brain. - -And covered him up with its blanketing immensity. - - * * * * * - -He was back in the laboratory, leaning against the wall and breathing -in deep, shuddering draughts. He did not remember stumbling through -the Door again, but he was no longer in Zha. Quiana stood beside him, -here upon the Martian soil of the laboratory. She was watching him -with a strange, quizzical look in her eyes as he slowly fought back to -normal, his heart quieting by degrees, his breath becoming evener. He -felt drained, exhausted, his emotions cleansed and purified as though -by baths of flame. - -Presently he reached for the clasp that fastened his clumsy armor. -Quiana put out a quick hand, shaking her head. - -"No," she said, and then stared at him again for a long moment without -speaking. Finally, "I had not known--I did not think this could be -done. Another of my own race--yes. But you, from Mars--I would not have -believed that you could stand against the Enemy for a moment, even with -your armor." - -"I'm from Earth, not Mars. And I didn't stand long." - -"Long enough." She smiled faintly. "You see now what happened? We of -Zha can destroy without weapons, using only the power inherent in our -bodies. Those like the Enemy have a little of that power too, but they -need mechanical devices to amplify it. And so when you diverted the -Enemy's attention and forced him to divide his attack between us--the -pressure upon me was relieved, and I could destroy him. But I would not -have believed it possible." - -"You're safe now," Dantan said, with no expression in voice or face. - -"Yes. I can return." - -"And you will?" - -"Of course I shall." - -"We are more alike than you had realized." - -She looked up toward the colored curtain of the screen. "That is true. -It is not the complete truth, Dantan." - -He said, "I love you--Quiana." This time he called her by name. - -Neither of them moved. Minutes went by silently. - -Quiana said, as if she had not heard him, "Those who followed you are -here. I have been listening to them for some time now. They are trying -to break through the door at the top of the shaft." - -He took her hand in his gloved grasp. "Stay here. Or let me go back to -Zha with you. Why not?" - -"You could not live there without your armor." - -"Then stay." - -Quiana looked away, her eyes troubled. As Dantan moved to slip off his -helmet her hand came up again to stop him. - -"Don't." - -"Why not?" - -For answer she rose, beckoning for him to follow. She stepped across -the threshold into the shaft and swiftly began to climb the pegs toward -the surface and the hammering of the Redhelms up above. Dantan, at her -gesture, followed. - -Over her shoulder she said briefly, - -"We are of two very different worlds. Watch--but be careful." And she -touched the device that locked the oval door. - -It slipped down and swung aside. - - * * * * * - -Dantan caught one swift glimpse of Redhelm heads dodging back to -safety. They did not know, of course, that he was unarmed. He reached -up desperately, trying to pull Quiana back but she slipped aside and -sprang lightly out of the shaft into the cool gray light of the Martian -morning. - -Forgetting her warning, Dantan pulled himself up behind her. But as his -head and shoulders emerged from the shaft he stopped, frozen. For the -Redhelms were falling. There was no mark upon them, yet they fell.... - -She did not stir, even when the last man had stiffened into rigid -immobility. Then Dantan clambered up and without looking at Quiana went -to the nearest body and turned it over. He could find no mark. Yet the -Redhelm was dead. - -"That is why you had to wear the armor," she told him gently. "We are -of different worlds, you and I." - -He took her in his arms--and the soft resilience of her was lost -against the stiffness of the protective suit. He would never even know -how her body felt, because of the armor between them.... He could not -even kiss her--again. He had taken his last kiss of the mouth so like -Quiana's mouth, long years ago, and he would never kiss it again. The -barrier was too high between them. - -"You can't go back," he told her in a rough, uneven voice. "We _are_ of -the same world, no matter what--no matter how--You're no stranger to -me, Quiana!" - -She looked up at him with troubled eyes, shaking her head, regret in -her voice. - -"Do you think I don't know why you fought for me, Dantan?" she asked in -a clear voice. "Did you ever stop to wonder why Sanfel risked so much -for me, too?" - -He stared down at her, his brain spinning, almost afraid to hear what -she would say next. He did not want to hear. But her voice went on -inexorably. - -"I cheated you, Dantan. I cheated Sanfel yesterday--a thousand years -ago. My need was very great, you see--and our ways are not yours. I -knew that no man would fight for a stranger as I needed a man to fight -for me." - -He held her tightly in gloved hands that could feel only a firm body -in their grasp, not what that body was really like, nothing about it -except its firmness. He caught his breath to interrupt, but she went on -with a rush. - -"I have no way of knowing how you see me, Dantan," she said -relentlessly. "I don't know how Sanfel saw me. To each of you--because -I needed your help--I wore the shape to which you owed help most. -I could reach into your minds deeply enough for that--to mould a -remembered body for your eyes. My own shape is--different. You will -never know it." She sighed. "You were a brave man, Dantan. Braver and -stronger than I ever dreamed an alien could be. I wish--I wonder--Oh, -let me go! Let me go!" - -She whirled out of his grasp with sudden vehemence, turning her face -away so that he could not see her eyes. Without glancing at him again -she bent over the shaft and found the topmost pegs, and in a moment was -gone. - -Dantan stood there, waiting. Presently he heard the muffled humming of -a muted bell, as though sounding from another world. Then he knew that -there was no one in the ancient laboratory beneath his feet. - -He shut the door carefully and scraped soil over it. He did not mark -the place. The dim red spot of the sun was rising above the canyon -wall. His face set, Dantan began walking toward the distant cavern -where his aircar was hidden. It was many miles away, but there was no -one to stop him, now. - -He did not look back. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of Thar, by Henry Kuttner - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THAR *** - -***** This file should be named 63123.txt or 63123.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/1/2/63123/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/63123.zip b/old/63123.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index eefeb69..0000000 --- a/old/63123.zip +++ /dev/null |
