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diff --git a/68425-0.txt~ b/68425-0.txt~ new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eea247a --- /dev/null +++ b/68425-0.txt~ @@ -0,0 +1,2597 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68425 *** + + The Power and the Glory + + By HENRY KUTTNER + + [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from + Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1947. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that + the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + + + CHAPTER I + _Transmutation_ + + +Carrying the coffee-pot, the Belgian shuffled out of the room. The door +thumped behind him. Miller met Slade’s inquiring stare and shrugged. + +“So he’s crazy,” Miller said. + +Slade drew down the corners of his thin mouth. “Maybe he is. But I’ve +got other sources of information, remember. I’m sure +there’s—something—up on Peak Seven Hundred. Something plenty valuable. +You’re going to find it for me.” His teeth clicked on the last word. + +“Am I?” Miller said sourly. + +“Suit yourself. Anytime you feel like it you can go back to the States.” +There was a threat in the way he said it. + +Miller said, “Sure. And then you send a few telegrams . . . It was a +sweet little frame you fixed up on me. A murder rap—” + +“Well,” Slade interrupted, “_that_ happened to be a frame. I’ve got to +protect myself, though, in case you ever want to turn State’s evidence.” + +“I’ve done your dirty work for ten years,” Miller growled. “It’s too +late now to try crossing you up. But we’re both guilty of one particular +murder, Slade. A guy named Miller who was an honest lawyer, ten years +ago. I feel sorry for the poor sucker.” + +Slade’s strong, implacable face turned away from him. + +“The man with the gun has the advantage. Up on Peak Seven Hundred +there’s the biggest gun in the world—I think. Something’s sending out +terrific power-radiations. I’m no scientist, but I’ve got men working +for me who are. If I can get that—weapon—from the Peak, I can write my +own ticket.” + +Miller looked at him curiously. He had to admit Slade’s strength, his +powerful will. Head of a slightly criminal and completely unscrupulous +political empire for a decade now, Slade was growing restive, reaching +out for new worlds to conquer. + +Word of this power-source on the peak in Alaska had sounded fantastic +even back in the States but it seemed to fascinate Slade, who could +afford to indulge his whims. And he could afford to trust Miller—to a +certain extent. Miller was in Slade’s hands and knew it. + +They both looked up as the Belgian came back into the room, carrying a +fresh bottle of whiskey. Van Hornung was drunk and well aware of his own +drunkenness. He peered at them from under the huge fur cap he wore even +indoors. + +“_Could man be drunk forever with liquor, love and fights_—” he +murmured, hooking out a chair with his foot. “Ah well, it doesn’t matter +now. Have another drink, gentlemen.” + +Miller glanced at Slade, then leaned forward across the table. + +“About Peak Seven Hundred, now,” he said. “I wish you’d—” + +The Belgian slapped a fat hand on the table. “You ask me about Seven +Hundred. Very well, then—listen. I would not tell you before—I did not +wish you to die. Now I am drunker and, I think, wiser. It does not +matter whether a man lives or dies. + +“For twenty years I have been neither alive nor dead. I have not thought +nor felt emotion nor lived like a man. I have eaten and drunk and tried +to forget. If you wish to go to the Peak I’ll tell you the way. It’s all +quite futile, you see.” + +He drank. Miller and Slade exchanged glances in silence. + +“If you go,” Van Hornung said, “you will leave your soul behind you—as +I did. We are not the dominant race, you see. We try to achieve the +summits but we forget that there may already be dwellers on the peaks. +Oh yes, I will tell you the way to the Peak if you like. But if you live +you will not care about anything any more.” + +Miller glanced again at Slade, who gestured impatiently. + +“I’ll take a chance on that,” Miller said to the Belgian. “Tell me the +way.” + + * * * * * + +In the dim twilight of the arctic noon Miller followed his Innuit guides +up the snowy foothills toward Seven Hundred. For many days they had +traveled, deeper and deeper into this dry, sub-zero silence, muffled in +snow. The guides were nervous. They knew their arctic gods, animistic, +watchful, resented intrusion into sacred areas like Peak Seven Hundred. +In their fur-hooded Esquimaux faces oriental eyes watched Miller +mistrustfully. + +He was carrying his gun now. Two of the Innuits had deserted already, in +the depths of the long nights. These two remained and hated him, and +went on only because their fear of his gun was greater—so far—than +their fear of the gods on Seven Hundred. + +The Peak lifted great sheer cliffs almost overhead. There was no visible +way of scaling it. But the Innuits were hurrying ahead as if they had +already sighted a clearly marked trail. Miller quickened his steps, a +vague uneasiness beginning to stir in his mind. + +Then the foremost Esquimau dropped to his knees and began to scrabble in +the snow. Miller shouted, hearing his own voice come back thin and +hollow from the answering peaks. But when he reached the two, one of +them looked up over his furclad shoulder and smiled a grim smile. In his +native tongue he spoke one of the strange compound words that can convey +a whole sentence. + +“_Ariartokasuaromarotit-tog_,” he said. “Thou too wilt soon go quickly +away.” There was threat and warning and satisfaction in the way he said +it. His fur mitten patted something in the snow. + +Miller bent to look. An iridescent pathway lay there, curving up around +a boulder and out of sight, rough crystal surfaces that caught the light +with red and blue shadows. Here in the white, silent world of the high +peaks it looked very beautiful and strange. Miller knelt and ran a +gloved hand over it, feeling even through the leather a slight +tingling. . . . + +“Erubescite!” he murmured to himself, and smiled. It meant copper, +perhaps gold. And it was an old vein. The color spoke of long exposure. +There was nothing strange about finding a vein of erubescite in the +mountains—the interpenetrating cubes twinned on an octahedral plane +were common enough in certain mining regions. Still, the regularity of +the thing was odd. And that curious tingling. . . . + +It looked like a path. + +The Innuits were watching him expectantly. Moving with caution, Miller +stepped forward and set his foot on the path. It was uneven, difficult +to balance on. He took two or three steps along the iridescent purple +slope, and then. . . . + +And then he was moving smoothly upward, involuntarily, irresistibly. +There was a strange feeling in his feet and up the long muscles at the +back of his legs. And the mountain was sliding away below him. Peaks, +snow-slopes, fur-clad men all slipped quietly off down the mountainside, +while at Miller’s feet a curving ribbon of iridescence lengthened away. + +“I’m dreaming!” was his first thought. And his head spun with the +strange new motion so that he staggered—and could not fall. That +tingling up his legs was more than a nervous reaction, it was a +permeation of the tissues. + +“Transmutation!” he thought wildly, and clutched in desperation at the +slipping fabric of his own reason. “The road’s moving,” he told himself +as calmly as he could. “I’m fixed to it somehow. Transmutation? Why did +I think of transmutation? I can’t move my feet or legs—they feel like +stone—like the substance of the road.” + +The changing of one element into another—lead into gold, flesh into +stone . . . The Innuits had known. Far away he could see the diminishing +dots that were his guides slide around a curve and vanish. He gestured +helplessly, finding even his arms growing heavy, as if that strange +atomic transmutation were spreading higher and higher through his body. + +Powerless, one with the sliding path, he surrendered himself without a +struggle to that mounting glide. Something stronger than himself had him +in a grip that seemed purposeful. He could only wait and . . . it was +growing difficult to think. Perhaps the change was reaching to his brain +by now. He couldn’t tell. + +He only knew that for a timeless period thereafter he did not think any +more about anything. . . . + + * * * * * + +Thin laughter echoed through his mind. A man’s voice said, “But I am +bored, Tsi. Besides, he won’t be hurt—much. Or if he is, what does it +matter?” + +Miller was floating in a dark void. There was a strangeness about the +voice he could not analyze. He heard a woman answer and in her tone was +a curious likeness to the man’s. + +“Don’t, Brann,” she said. “You can find other—amusements.” + +The high laughter came again. “But he’s still new. It should be +interesting.” + +“Brann, please let him go.” + +“Be silent, Tsi. I’m master here. Is he awake yet?” + +A pause. “No, not yet. Not for a while yet.” + +“I can wait.” The man sighed. “I’ve preparations to make, anyhow. Let’s +go, Tsi.” + +There was a long, long pause. The voices were still. + +Miller knew he was floating in nothingness. He tried to move and could +not. Inertia still gripped his body but his brain was free and +functioning with a clarity that surprised him. It was almost as if that +strange transmutation had changed his very brain-tissues to something +new and marvelous. + +“Transmutation,” he thought. “Lead into gold—flesh into stone—that’s +what I was thinking about when—when I stopped thinking. When that sort +of change happens, it means the nuclear charge in the atoms of one +substance or the other has to change too. The tingling when I touched +the road—was that when it happened?” + +But he paused there, knowing there was no answer. For when had a man +ever before felt the shifting from flesh to crystal take place in his +own body? + +If it had happened that way, then it must have been a force like the +coulomb forces themselves that welded him into one with the moving +road—the all but irresistible forces that hold the electrons in their +orbits and rivet all creation into a whole. + +And now—what? + +“There are two methods of transmutation,” he told himself clearly, lying +there in the dark and groping for some answer to the thing that was +happening to him. + +“Rationalize it,” his mind seemed to say, “or you’ll go mad with sheer +uncertainty. Reason it out from what you know. A chemical element is +determined by the number of electrons around the nucleus—change that +and you change the element. But the nucleus, in turn, determines by its +charge the number of electrons it can control. If the nuclear charge is +changed, then this—this crystalline state—is permanent. + +“But if it isn’t, then that must mean there’s constant bombardment that +knocks off or adds electrons to whatever touches that road. The change +wouldn’t be permanent because the original charge of the nucleus remains +constant. After awhile the extra electrons would be dropped, or others +captured to restore the balance, and I’d be normal again. That must be +the way of it,” he told himself, “because Van Hornung came this way. And +he went back again—normal. Or was he really normal?” + +The question echoed without answer in his brain. Miller lay quiet a +moment longer and then began to try once more to stir his inert body. +This time, a very little, he felt muscles move. . . . + +What seemed a long while later, he found he could open his eyes. Very +cautiously he looked around. + + + + + CHAPTER II + _Tsi_ + + +He was alone. He lay on something hard and flat. A dome of crystal +arched overhead, not very high, so that he seemed in effect to lie in a +box of crystal—a coffin, he thought grimly, and sat up with brittle +care. His muscles felt as stiff as if the substance of the iridescent +roadway still permeated his flesh. + +The dome seemed to have strange properties, for all he saw through it +was curiously distorted and colored with such richness it almost hurt +the eyes to gaze upon what lay beyond. + +He saw columns of golden trees upon which leaves moved and glittered in +constantly changing prisms of light. Something like smoke seemed to +wreathe slowly among the trees, colored incredibly. Seen through the +dome about him the color of the smoke was nameless. No man ever saw that +hue before nor gave a name to it. + +The slab on which he sat was the iridescent purple of the road. If it +had carried him here, he saw no obvious way in which it could have left +him lying on the crystal coffin. Yet, clearly, this was the end of the +moving roadway and, clearly too, the forces which had welded him to it +were gone now. + +The unstable atoms created in the grip of that strange force had shaken +off their abnormality and reverted to their original form. He was +himself again but stiff, dizzy and not sure whether he had dreamed the +voices. If he had, it was a nightmare. He shivered a little, remembering +the thin, inhuman laughter and its promise of dreadful things. + +He got up, very cautiously, looking around. As nearly as he could tell +through the distorting crystal there was no one near him. The coffin +stood in a grove of the golden trees and, except for the mist and the +twinkling leaves, nothing moved. He put out a tentative hand to push the +crystal up. + +His hand went through it. There was a tinkling like high music, +ineffably sweet, and the crystal flew into glittering fragments that +fell to the ground in a second rain of sound. The beauty of it for a +moment was almost pain. He had never heard such music before. It was +almost more beautiful than any human being should be allowed to hear, he +thought confusedly. There are sensations so keen they can put too great +a strain upon human nerves. + +Then he stood there unprotected by the dome and looked around him at the +trees and the mist and saw that the dome had made no difference. These +incredible colors were no distortions—they were real. He took a +tentative step and found the grass underfoot so soft that even through +his shoe-soles he could feel its caress. + +The very air was exquisitely cool and hushed, like the air of a summer +dawn, almost liquid in its translucence. Through it the winking of the +prism-leaves was so lovely to look at that he turned his eyes away, +unable to endure the sight for more than a moment. + +This was hallucination. “I’m still somewhere back there in the snow,” he +thought. “Delirium—that’s it. I’m imagining this.” But if it were a +dream, then Van Hornung had known it too, and men do not dream identical +dreams. The Belgian had warned him. + +He shook his shoulders impatiently. Even with all this before him he +could not quite bring himself to believe Van Hornung’s story. There was +a quality of dream about this landscape, as if all he saw were not in +reality what it seemed, as if this grass of ineffable softness were—and +he knew it was—only crusted snow, as if those cliffs he could glimpse +among the trees were really the bare crags of Peak Seven Hundred, and +everything else delirium. He felt uneasily that he was really lying +somewhere asleep in the snow, and must wake soon, before he froze. + +That high, thin laughter rang suddenly through the air. In spite of +himself Miller felt his heart lurch and he whirled to face the sound +with a feeling of cold terror congealing him. It was odd how frightening +the careless voice had been, talking impersonally of its pleasures. + +A little group of men and women was coming toward him through the trees. +He could not guess which of them had laughed the familiar laughter. They +wore brilliantly colored garments of a subtle cut that hung like a toga +or a sari, with a wonderful sophistication of line. The colors were +incredible. + +Miller blinked dazedly, trying in vain to find names for those +shimmering hues that seemed to combine known colors into utterly unknown +gradations and to draw from the range of colors above and below the +spectrum as we see it. + +A women said, “Oh, he’s awake,” and a man laughed pleasantly and said, +“Look how surprised he is!” All of them smiled and turned bright, amused +faces to Miller. + +He said something—he never remembered what—and stopped in sheer shock +at the harsh dissonance of his own voice. It was like an ugly discord +tearing through smooth, lilting arpeggios of harmony. The faces of the +others went blank briefly, as though they had concentrated on something +else to avoid hearing the sound. The woman Miller had first noticed +lifted her hand. + +“Wait,” she said. “Listen to me, for a moment. There is no need to +speak—_aloud_.” A faint distaste was in her tone. Her . . . tone? That +could not be right. No voice was ever so sweetly musical, so gently +harmonious. + +Miller looked at her. Her face was a small pale triangle, lovely and +elfin and strange, with enormous violet eyes and piled masses of hair +that seemed to flow in winding strands through one another. Each strand +was of a different pastel hue, dusty green or pale amethyst or the +yellow of sunshine on a hazy morning. It was so in keeping, somehow, +that Miller felt no surprise. That bizarre coiffure fitted perfectly +with the woman’s face. + +He opened his mouth again, but the woman—it shocked him a little, and +he wondered that it did not shock him even more—was suddenly beside +him. A split-second before she had been ten feet away. + +“You have much to learn,” she said. “First, though—remember not to +speak. It isn’t necessary. Simply frame your thoughts. There’s a little +trick to it. No—keep your mouth closed. Think. Think your question.” + +Her lips had moved slightly, but merely for emphasis. And surely normal +vocal cords could not have been capable of that unearthly sweetness and +evenness of tone, with its amazing variations and nuances. Miller +thought, “Telepathy. It must be telepathy.” + +They waited, watching him inquiringly. + +The woman said, silently, “Think—_to me_. Frame the thought more +carefully. The concepts must be rounded, complete. Later you may use +abstracts but you can’t do that yet. All I can read is a +cloudiness. . . .” + +Miller thought carefully, word by word, “Is this telepathy?” + +“Still cloudiness,” she said. “But it’s clearer now. You were never used +to clear thinking. Yes, it is telepathy.” + +“But how can I—where am I? What is this place?” + +She smiled at him, and laughter moved through the group. “More slowly. +Remember, you have just been born.” + +“Just—what?” + +And thoughts seemed to fly past him like small bright insects, grazing +the edges of his consciousness. A half-mocking, friendly thought from +one of the men, a casual comment from another. + +_Brann_, Miller thought, remembering. _What about Brann? Where is he?_ + + * * * * * + +There was dead silence. He had never felt such stillness before. It was +of the mind, not physical. But he felt communication, super-sensory, +rapid and articulate, between the others. Abruptly the rainbow-haired +woman took his arm, while the others began to drift off through the +prism-leaves and the golden trees. + +She pulled him gently away under the tinkling foliage, through the +drifts of colored mists. Brushing violet fog before them with her free +hand, she said, “We would rather not mention Brann here, if we can avoid +it. To speak of him sometimes—brings him. And Brann is in a dangerous +mood today.” + +Miller looked at her with a frown of concentration. There was so much to +ask. In that strange mental tongue that was already coming more easily +to him, he said, “I don’t understand any of this. But I know your voice. +Or rather, your—I’m not sure what you’d call it.” + +“The mental voice, you mean? Yes, you learn to recognize them. It’s easy +to imitate an audible voice but the mental one can’t be imitated. It’s +part of the person. So you remember hearing my thoughts before? I +thought you were asleep.” + +“You’re Tsi.” + +“Yes,” she said and pushed aside a tinkling screen of the prisms. Before +them stood a low rampart of light—or water. Four feet high, it ran like +liquid but it glowed like light. Beyond it was blue sky and a sheer, +dizzying drop to meadows hundreds of feet below. The whole scene was +almost blindingly vivid, every lovely detail standing out sharp and +clear and dazzling. + +He said, “I don’t understand. There are legends about people up here, +but not about—this. This vividness. Who are you? What is this place?” + +Tsi smiled at him. There was warmth and compassion in the smile, and she +said gently, “This is what your race had once, and lost. We’re very old, +but we’ve kept—” Abruptly she paused, her eyes brightening suddenly +with a look of terror. + +She said. “Hush!” and in the mental command there was a wave of darkness +and silence that seemed to blanket his mind. For no reason his heart +began to pound with nervous dread. They stood there motionless for an +instant, mind locked with mind in a stillness that was more than absence +of sound—it was absence of thought. But through the silence Miller +caught just the faintest echo of that thin, tittering laugh he had heard +before, instinct with cold, merciless amusement. + +The prism leaves sang around them with little musical tinklings. From +the sunlit void stretching far below bird-song rippled now and then with +a sweetness that was almost painful to hear. Then Tsi’s mind relaxed its +grip upon Miller’s and she sighed softly. + +“It’s all right now. For a moment I thought Brann . . . but no, he’s +gone again.” + +“Who is Brann?” Miller demanded. + +“The lord of this castle. A very strange creature—very terrible when +his whims are thwarted. Brann is—he cares for nothing very much. He +lives only for pleasure and, because he’s lived so long and exhausted so +many pleasures, the devices he uses now are not very—well, not very +pleasant for anyone but Brann. There was a warp in him before his birth, +you see. He’s not quite—not quite of our breed.” + +“He’s from the outside world? Human?” As he said it Miller knew +certainly that the woman before him was not human, not as he understood +the term. + +But Tsi shook her head. “Oh, no. He was born here. He’s of our breed. +But not of our norm. A little above in many ways, a little below in +others. _Your_ race—” there was faint distaste and pity in the thought, +but she let it die there, unelaborated. + +“You can’t understand yet,” she went on. “Don’t try. You see, you +suffered a change when you came. You aren’t quite as you were before. +Were you ever able to communicate telepathically?” + +“No, of course not. But I don’t feel any different. I—” + +“A blind man, given sight, wouldn’t realize it until he opened his eyes. +And he might be dazzled at first. You’re at a disadvantage. I think it +would be best for you to get away. Look there, across the valley.” + +She lifted an arm to point. Far off across the dazzling meadows hills +rose, green in the sunlight, shimmering a little in the warm, clear +light. On the height of the highest a diamond glitter caught the sun. + +“My sister,” Tsi said, “has that palace over there. I think Orelle would +take you in, if only to thwart Brann. You aren’t safe here. Fur your +sake, it was a pity the port of entry you reached was here in Brann’s +castle.” + +“There have been others, then?” Miller asked. “A man named Van +Hornung—did he come here?” + + * * * * * + +She shook her head, the rainbow hair catching the sunlight. “Not here. +There are many castles in our land and most of them live at peace within +and without. But not Brann’s.” + +“Then why are you here?” Miller asked bluntly. + +She smiled an unhappy smile. “Most of us came because we felt as Brann +does—we did not care very much any more. We wanted to follow our +pleasures, being tired of other pursuits after so many thousands of +years. All except me.” + +“Thousands of. . . . What do you mean? Why are you here then?” + +Her mouth turned down at the corners in a rueful smile. + +“Well—perhaps I too was warped before birth. I can’t leave Brann now. +He needs me. That doesn’t matter to you. Brann’s dangerous—his heart is +set on—on experiments that will need you to complete. We won’t talk +about that.” + +Miller said, “I came here for a purpose.” + +“I know. I read part of your mind while you lay asleep. You’re hunting +for a treasure. We have it. Or perhaps I should say Orelle has it.” The +violet eyes darkened. She hesitated. + +“Perhaps I’m sending you to Orelle for a purpose,” she said. “You can do +me a great service there—and yourself too. That treasure you seek +is—should be partly mine. You think of it as a power-source. To me it’s +a doorway into something better than any of us knows. . . . + +“Our father made it, long ago. Orelle has it now, though by rights she +and I should share it. If you find a way to get that treasure, my +friend, will you bring it to me?” + +Long-grooved habit-patterns in Miller’s mind made him say automatically, +“And if I do?” + +She smiled. “If you don’t,” she said, “Brann will have you sooner or +later. If I can get it I think I can—control Brann. If I can’t—well, +you will be the first sufferer. I think you know that. You’ll do well to +persuade Orelle if you can. Now—I’ve made a bargain with Brann. Don’t +ask me what. You may learn, later. + +“Go to Orelle, watch your chance and be wary. If you ask for the +treasure you’ll never get near it. Better not to speak of it but wait +and watch. No one can read your mind unless you will it, now that you’re +learning telepathy, but watch too that you let nothing slip from your +thoughts to warn her.” + +“You want me to take her hospitality and then rob her?” + +Distress showed in Tsi’s face. “Oh, no! I ask only what’s mine, and even +that only for long enough to control Brann. Then you may return the +treasure to Orelle or strike a bargain with her over it. Five minutes +with that in my hands is all I ask! Now here is something I’ve made for +you out of your own possession. Hold out your wrist.” + +Staring, he obeyed. She unclosed her hand to show him his wristwatch in +her palm. Smiling, she buckled the strap around his arm. “It isn’t quite +as it was. I changed it. If you need me concentrate on this and speak to +me in your mind. I’ll hear.” + +There were countless questions still unasked. Miller took a deep breath +and began to formulate them in his mind. And then—Tsi vanished! The +earth was gone from underfoot and he spun through golden emptiness, +dropping, falling. The water-wall hung beneath him. He floated in midair +a hundred feet above the crag-bordered stream at the cliffs bottom! + +Panic struck him. Then Tsi’s reassuring thought said, “You are safe. +This is teleportation.” + +He scarcely heard. An age-old instinctive fear chilled his middle. For a +million years men have been afraid of falling. He could not now control +that fear. + +Slowly he began to drop. He lost sight of Tsi and the golden trees and +then of the water-wall. + +Under him the stream broadened. + +He sank down at an angle—and felt solid ground beneath his feet. + +There was silence except for the whispering murmur of the stream. + + + + + CHAPTER III + _The World That Couldn’t Be_ + + +Miller sat down on a rock and held his head in his hands. His thoughts +were swimming. Cold, fresh air blew against his cheeks and he raised his +face to meet that satisfying chill. It seemed to rouse him. He began to +realize that he had been half asleep during the interview with Tsi, as +though the mists of his slumber had still blanketed his senses. +Otherwise he would scarcely have accepted this miraculous business. + +Or was there another reason? + +He felt a desperate impulse to see Tsi again. She could answer his +questions, if she would. And she had been the first friendly face he had +seen in this terribly strange land. + +He looked up and willed himself to rise. + +Impossible, of course. _My own bootstraps_, he thought, with a wild sort +of amusement. Were his feet pressing less heavily on the rock beneath +him? + +And then, from above, came a high, thin laughter that was not truly +audible—Brann! + +Even before the mental voice came, that malicious, slow thought sent its +familiar radiations before it. Something as recognizable as sound or +color—more so!—fell down the cliff and crept coldly into Miller’s +brain. He knew that unheard voice. + +“You had better not come up,” it said. + +Miller stood motionless, waiting. Instinctively he had fallen into the +fighter’s crouch. But how useless ordinary precautions would be against +this super-being! + +He tried to close his mind. + +“Go to Orelle, then,” it said. “I’ve made my bargain with Tsi and I’ll +keep it. But she’s a fool. She always tries to close her mind to +unpleasant things. She’ll never really admit we’re at war with her +sister. As long as she doesn’t name it _war_, she thinks it’s something +else.” + +Again the high laughter. + +“Go to Orelle,” Brann said. “I’m winning too easily. Perhaps they can +use another fighter. Then they may be able to give me more of a battle. +Though, if I chose, I could crush you with a thought—turn the air +itself into a weight that would flatten you in an instant. But Orelle +may think of a use for you. I can’t, except to divert myself with your +reactions to certain experiments.” + +The unheard voice grew carelessly casual. + +“Too easy a victory is no victory at all. Go away.” + +Anger stirred in Miller at that calm assumption of superiority. Brann +was thoroughly justified, of course, yet no man likes to be discounted +utterly. With all his power Miller willed himself to rise, to float +upward as easily as he had floated down—and this time he was certain +that his feet lost contact with the earth. + +Then a weight like a great stone crushed down on him. Only for an +instant did that frightful, unbearable pressure continue, while the +veins swelled on Miller’s forehead and he heard his breath coming in +deep, rasping gasps as he tried to resist the onslaught. + +He went to his knees—down till he lay on his back, prostrate, helpless +beneath that furious assault of the air itself. A screaming river of +wind thundered down and the thin bushes in the gorge stirred and small +landslides began as the air-river rushed in hurricane force from above. + +Brann laughed idly again and obviously lost interest. The pressure +vanished. Sweating, breathing hard, Miller struggled to his feet. He did +not try teleportation again. For a moment he stared up at the cliff-rim. +Then he turned and began to walk up the gorge in the direction of +Orelle’s palace. His mouth was thin and his eyes held an angry glow. + +So Brann was winning too easily. Well—perhaps something could be done +about that! + +Far off across the glimmering valley a green hillside rolled high +against the sky. The diamond twinkle that was the castle he must reach +grew larger as he walked—grew larger with abnormal speed. Miller looked +down and was surprised to find that measured by the pebbles and the +flowers underfoot he was taking increasingly long steps. + +_Seven-league boots_, he thought, as he found himself striding like a +giant through the softness of the grass. The earth slid by beneath his +feet with dream-like fluidity. Now the diamond glitter of Orelle’s +palace was dividing into hundreds of tinier glitters and he saw the +walls of pale-colored glass rising fantastically upon the green height +of the grass-clad mountain. A palace of glass—or ice. + +“Ice,” he thought suddenly. “Ice and snow and rocks. That’s all there is +here. This is a dream. There’s no such world—there couldn’t be.” + +And then reason, stirring in his mind, argued, “Why not? How do we know +the limits of possibility? Out of the few simple building blocks of the +universe—out of neutrons, protons, electrons—everything we know is +made. How much else may there be we can’t even perceive—unless +transmutation takes place and the structure of a man’s nuclear patterns +change to let him see. . . . + +“After all, you aren’t the first. There was Van Hornung and who knows +how many before him? There was Tannhauser in the magical mountain of +Venusburg—there was Thomas the Rhymer under the hill in fairyland. +Paradise itself sounds like a distorted tale of just such a land as +this. Legend remembers. You aren’t in any new world. You’re only +exploring a very old one, and—” + + * * * * * + +Without warning the world dropped away under his feet and all logical +progression of thoughts ceased abruptly. The sky was beneath him now and +the shining world whirling dizzily over and over around him. But +something firmer than gravity clasped him close so that there was no +vertigo, even though the earth had forsaken him. Green translucence +cradled him. There was a sensation of great speed, and then— + +Glass walls flashed past, spun, righted themselves gently. A solid +pavement fitted itself against his soles and leveled off to the +horizontal. He stood in a small, high room whose walls were row upon row +of lenses, like bull’s-eye panes, all looking down upon him with—eyes? +Black mechanical pupils that moved whenever he moved, following him as +he walked toward the nearest wall. For an instant he felt stripped and +naked under that multiple scrutiny. + +Then a telepathic voice said, “You come from Brann.” + +Miller looked around wildly. He was alone. Almost automatically he said, +“No!” aloud, so that the air shivered to the harsh sound. He wasn’t sure +why he denied it. Brann had spoken of war. + +“Don’t lie,” the voice said coldly. “I can see the dust of Brann’s +mountain on you. Do you think we can’t identify a simple thing like dust +from a given mountain? It streams off you like purple light in the +fluorescents. You come from Brann. Are you a spy?” + +“Tsi sent me,” Miller said. “Take me to Orelle.” + +“Orelle speaks,” the telepathic voice told him without emotion. “My +sister loves me—but Tsi is no woman to trust. No one on Brann’s +mountain is worth trusting or he wouldn’t be with Brann at all. What Tsi +finds distasteful she denies existence. What do you want here?” + +Miller hesitated, glancing around the walls at the impassive, watching +eyes of the—machines? Power, he wanted to say. Give me that +power-source and I’ll go. But he was silent, remembering Tsi’s warning. + +How much of it he could believe he didn’t know now but it was second +nature for him to keep his own counsel until he was sure enough to act. +Orelle could not read his mind. Tsi had confessed that would be +impossible once he began to master telepathic communication. He would be +safe enough as long as he could give the right answers. + +“I’m from the outside,” he offered hesitantly, thinking that hesitation +and uncertainty might be his best defense until he learned more about +this place. Exaggerate them, play up even more than was really genuine +his bewilderment and confusion. “I—Tsi said you’d help me get oriented +here.” + +The disembodied voice was silent for a brief, considering moment. Then +it said, “I think you lie. However—are you willing to accept our +search? Only after you’ve been proved weaponless can we admit you here.” + +What could he say but yes? For an instant he remembered the watch Tsi +had strapped to his wrist and what she had said of it. But it was for +communication only—she had said—and surely she knew that a routine +search would probably be made. She wouldn’t have branded him with +something that would give him away to the first inspection. Or would +she? What he had heard of Tsi did little to increase his confidence in +her. Still . . . + +“Search if you like,” he said. + +The room went dark. Miller, blinking in the sudden blindness, felt +something like the vertigo he had not suffered in flight seize him +relentlessly now he was on solid flooring. The air spun around him in a +shrill diminishing vortex and it seemed to him limitless gulfs were +opening underfoot and sucking him down, tight, tight, into a crushing +spiral of darkness. . . . + +Out of the dark lights suddenly sprang into being, cold, blue lights +that struck him like cold water—struck and penetrated. Looking down, he +was aghast to see his own blood coursing red through transparent veins, +to see his bones stand out cleanly white in their lacings of muscle, +moving startlingly when he bent to stare. + +The lights went out again. The darkness ceased to whirl. And then for +one instant he felt all through his body an indescribable shifting, a +terrible motion of inconceivable multiplicity. And in that flash of the +instant he was _changed_. + +The atoms went back into their normal pattern. That unstable isotope +which was himself shed its changed form and he was as he had always +been, solid, human, normal. + +It was a hideous feeling. Until that moment he had not realized how much +he had changed already, what nascent, nameless senses had begun to open +up in him, pushing back horizons upon glories beyond glories. It was +like deafness and blindness suddenly closing in about a normal man. It +was worse—it was like having all the properties of death itself imposed +upon the living. Miller held his breath, closed his eyes. + +He felt the shift again as the isotope form renewed itself within him. +The shifting stirred in the unthinkable myriads of the nuclei that +formed him. He was whole again. + +Once more the vortex whirled and roared in darkness. Then the dark +lifted and he was standing beside a bank of thick yellow flowers under +an arched vault of glass. The floor was tiled in brilliant colors, +resilient to the foot. The flowery bank rising from it might be real +earth and flowers or it might be a skillful imitation. For it was also a +divan. + +Orelle lay upon it, smiling at him. He knew it was Orelle. He was aware, +though he could not have explained how, of the telepathic emanation from +her mind to his, individual as the pattern of the brain. She was +beautiful—as everyone in this world seemed beautiful. + + * * * * * + +He saw something of Tsi’s features in hers but she was not dressed with +the extravagance her sister affected. She was very slender, and her +graceful body was sheathed tightly in something like clear satin that +covered her to the wrists and ankles and flowed in long smooth lines +over the flowers she lay on. She was pulling them idly and twirling the +blossoms between her fingers. + +“Well, you are welcome,” she said, almost reluctantly, eyeing Miller +with a smile that had wryness in it. “We found no weapons, though we +searched you down to the very structure of the protons. To tell you the +truth, we have no reason to trust you. + +“But Tsi must have had some reason for sending you here and I think +we’re safer coping with her schemes at first hand than goading her on to +try something more subtle still. Be sure you’re watched, my friend. Be +careful what you do.” + +Miller said wryly, “I’m not likely to do anything. From what I’ve seen +of this place, I feel helpless. Do you all have the same powers as Tsi? +How many of you are there? And what—” + +Orelle shrugged. “We’re not used to hurry. Of course we have all the +time we need. Your race doesn’t—even here. I can see your curiosity. +And I’ll satisfy it, too. Yes, everyone here has the same powers, though +naturally some are stronger than others. There is the telepathic factor, +and—other things.” + +“Bred into your race? But what about me? I’m not your kind.” + +She said slowly, “A million years ago your ancestors were, though. Since +then your people have gone down. It took eons to reach the peak when +Atlantis and Mu were great cultures, and it will take eons more for your +race to regain what they have lost. Only here, on this secret mountain, +have we retained the strength of the old civilizations.” + +Miller said. “But what happened?” + +“Oh, the usual thing. Men took weapons they weren’t ready to use. In +that time—try to understand this—the atomic structure of the world +itself was different. You know that? That the atom can change—” + +“I do indeed,” Miller told her grimly. “If electrons change, or if the +nucleus changes, the structure changes too.” + +She said, “Well, that was what happened. All earth is dull and dead now. +Only here does the old special type of matter still exist. It throws off +a certain radiation that makes it possible for us to be born and live as +we are. In Atlantis there was experiment with nuclear structures, and +transmutation.” + +“We have atomic power now,” Miller said. + +“The beginnings of it. You’re merely beginning. It will be a long, long +time before you stand where Atlantis once stood. First you must change +the very structure of your world! Only then will _you_ change, will the +radiation-caused mutation alter you and give you the powers and senses +you lost when a world went to war a millennium ago. + +“The fires of matter itself moved across the planet, and where it +passed, structure altered and what was bright and shining and glorious +became a dull, empty thing. Men lost their specialized, hard-won powers +then. But the seeds remain latent in their bodies, recessive +characteristics. Here, on the mountain, the recessive can become +dominant for a little while. It is unstable, of course. . . .” + +“Then—I’m like you? Tsi told me but I couldn’t believe it. I’m a—a +sort of superman?” + +“Every gift has its price,” she said oddly. “There is beauty here but +there is terror too. You must have noticed that you see with clearer +eyes—the eyes of the mind.” + +“Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed that. Things are—shining, somehow.” + +“It would be well if you remembered your own world,” Orelle said, after +a little pause. Her eyes were troubled. “Your own atomic structure has +altered but that can take place only once.” + +A man came into view through a glassy wall that melted at his approach, +and solidified again behind him. He looked no older than Orelle, a +firm-fleshed, smiling man whose vari-tinted hair lay smoothly across his +scalp. But his eyes were old, grey and cloudy with the mists of +incalculable centuries. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + _The Bomb_ + + +“Orelle—” he began. And then the aeon-misted eyes fell upon Miller, and +a look of bewildered recognition seemed to grow in them. “This man,” he +said uncertainly. “Should I know him, Orelle? Has he been here before, +or. . . .” Suddenly the mists cleared from his eyes and he looked old no +longer but resolute and certain. + +“I know him!” he said in a crisp voice. “His face was in the Time Pool. +It meant danger. But the likelihood was so remote that—well, I +dismissed it. I didn’t believe.” + +“What was the danger?” Orelle leaned forward anxiously, her satin skirts +moving with a gentle rustle over the flowery bank where she sat. + +The man shook his head. “You’ve seen the Time Pool, child. There are so +many possibilities of the future—who can say in what ripple this man’s +face floated for a moment before the bubble burst? But it was danger. I +remember that.” + +They turned in one motion and looked at Miller with wise, wary, +thoughtful eyes, astonishingly alike in the two faces. He realized they +must be closely akin, and both akin to Tsi, whom no one trusted far. + +He said quickly, “If you can read the future you must know I’m not a man +to break my promises—and I swear to you both I mean no harm.” + +The man made an impatient gesture. “The future is never that clear. +There is no ‘must’ in time—only ‘perhaps’.” + +“Tsi sent him,” Orelle said. “She must have had her reasons.” + +“She sent me because of Brann,” Miller declared. The two nodded. + +Orelle said, “Well, sometimes she’s moved to save one of Brann’s +victims. Sometimes I think she helps him in his—call them +experiments—on those he captures. She’d like us to think only whims +move her. But we know the thing that lies behind all she does. Llesi and +I—we know.” She smiled grimly at the man beside her. + +“She wants the Power,” the man called Llesi said. + +Miller thought to himself, “So do I,” but aloud he said only, “The +Power?” in a voice of innocent inquiry. + +Llesi nodded, his eyes fixed speculatively upon Miller as if he gazed +through the mists of incalculable years. + +“A toy my brother and I once made that became far more than a toy before +we were finished. Now Tsi claims her share in her father’s treasure. +These two are my brother’s children but sometimes I think Tsi has no +blood of mine in her veins.” + +Orelle said, “No, Llesi, she’s only weak. If Brann didn’t rule her so +completely—” + +“She’d be welcome to her heritage. But we know that to give her what she +asks is to give it straight into Brann’s hands. And there’d be an end to +this castle and all who live here.” + +“Who is Brann?” Miller asked impatiently. “I’ve heard so much about him, +I’ve even heard him speak. But I’ve never seen him. What does he look +like?” + +Orelle shook her head. Small bells she wore in her ears tinkled at the +motion, and even the tiny sounds they made were vividly beautiful to +Miller’s increasingly keen new senses. + +She said, “No one has seen him except Tsi. No one but she can tell you +what he is. He receives his friends only in the dark or from behind +curtains. Ever since he built that castle, centuries ago, he’s kept his +secret hidden—whatever it may be. I should like to see him dead.” + +She said it without passion. “Brann is true evil, perhaps pure evil in +its most flawless form. He’s very wise and very powerful. I’m not sure +why he chose us for his enemy but I only know now we must fight or be +killed.” + +Miller made up his mind suddenly. “As I left his castle,” he said, +“Brann spoke to me from beyond the wall. He said this was a fight he +would win too easily. He told me to come to you as another fighter, to +make the battle more interesting.” + +Orelle leaned forward quickly on the flowery bank, her earrings tinkling +musically. “He said that? You know, I’d have guessed the opposite. + +“I’d have said Tsi sent you here knowing Brann would covet you for his +experiments—knowing that with you here, he’d redouble his efforts to +conquer us and drag you back. If his interest were flagging, that might +be the best way to revive it against us and force her entry here. +Because she’d do anything in the world to get her hands on the Power.” + +Llesi interrupted her in a thoughtful voice. “She might send an envoy +here armed with some secret weapon Brann could devise—something that +could pass even our careful searching. Remember, Orelle, I’ve seen this +man before in the Time Pool—this man’s face, and danger!” + +“I’ve given you my word I didn’t come to harm you,” Miller said, +realizing that though he sailed close to the wind of truth in saying +that, at least it was accurate as far as it went. “Still, I’d like to +know more about this Power. Unless you—” + +He never finished. For suddenly there was a blast of appalling sound in +the room, and a rush of white-hot fire that seemed to flow down his arm +and burst in a blinding gush from his wrist. + +When he could see again, what he saw was stunning. For Llesi was +collapsing where he stood, his knees buckling, his face strangely +drained and empty as if he were dead before he struck the floor. There +was a curious shimmering glow bathing him, sinking inward like a +devouring acid. + +Orelle was on her feet, stumbling forward, and from all around figures +were closing in through the glass that melted at their approach. + +Blinded and deafened by a sound that he knew was not truly audible, +Miller tried to spring back. + +He could not move. The white dazzling flame still poured from him upon +the falling Llesi. Louder and louder that unheard, cataclysmic shout +roared through the room. Now Miller felt energy of some strange sort +pouring from Orelle and the others—mental power, a silent, tremendous +flood that beat upon the white flame and—snuffed it like a candle. + +The fire was gone. But Llesi had fallen. + +A dozen men and women had crowded into the room by now, bright in their +sleek rainbow garments. Two men fell to their knees beside Llesi. + +Orelle had swung toward Miller. Hot rage blazed tangibly from +her—tangibly, for Miller’s mind winced beneath that telepathic red +fury. Through the scarlet twisted a black thread—the thought and +intention of death, cold black against crimson. + +“Orelle!” he cried desperately. “I didn’t—it was some trick!” + +He could not speak, even telepathically. For he could see nothing now +but Orelle’s dark eyes, and they were expanding, growing into luminous +pools that chilled him, and effectively paralyzed muscle and nerve and +mind. + +Eerily a thought that was not his own moved suddenly in his frozen +brain—moved and reached out toward Orelle. + +“_Wait, child, wait!_” the thought said. “_This is Llesi speaking._” + + * * * * * + +All must have heard it, for every head in the room turned sharply. The +blinding pools that were Orelle’s eyes began to fade and dimly Miller +could see again. In his mind that voice of another brain said, “_The +bracelet on his wrist—take it!_” + +No one stood near Miller but he felt a violent tug at his wristwatch, +saw it torn free. It sprang through the air to Orelle as if thrown by an +invisible hand. She spread her fingers and received it. But she was +looking at Miller. + +“Llesi?” she said uncertainly, still staring into Miller’s eyes. +“Llesi—you hear me?” + +“_Yes. Wait. I must speak with this man . . . Miller . . . wait._” + +Orelle gestured. Llesi’s body was lifted without support and floated +toward the bowery couch. It sank down gently. One of the men came +forward and made a quick examination. + +“He isn’t dead. It’s stasis, of a sort. But I can’t communicate with +him. Try it, Orelle.” + +“Llesi?” Orelle’s thought arrowed out. “_Llesi?_” + +Miller roused from his stupefied amazement. That fantastic voice in his +brain was speaking quietly to himself alone. + +“Don’t fight me. They’ll kill you unless you obey me. Empty your mind, +Miller. Let me speak through you. Now. . . .” + +Miller listened to the thought that was not his, riding on the waves of +his own telepathic mind, speaking to Orelle and the others. But he +believed it spoke to himself as well. + +“This must be Brann’s doing,” Llesi said. “The bracelet—when I guessed +at a weapon the man Miller could have brought Tsi must somehow have been +listening. Even our tests failed to find it but a weapon that bracelet +must have been. Well, Brann failed but only thanks to you for smothering +the weapon so soon. I’m not destroyed but I think it may be a long while +before I can think or move in my own body.” + +“But you can hear us, Llesi?” Orelle’s voice was soft. + +“Through this man—yes. This is a telepathic rapport with him. There +must have been electronic contact at the crucial moment. Without Miller +I would be cut off completely until my body mends again. I think it will +in time. I know the sort of weapon Brann used. My body will have to +absorb vital energy, to overcome the insulation of atomic stasis the +weapon threw about me. + +“Now listen, because my strength is going. The mental must draw on the +physical and my body’s an ember now. I must sleep and gather power. +Brann will know what’s happened here—depend on it, he’ll strike while +I’m still helpless. I must think—and rest.” + +Orelle said, “We can handle Brann!” + +“We can handle him if I can lead you. Otherwise. . . Take no risks. +Remember, my only contact with you is through this man Miller. Brann +will destroy him if he can. But the sword is two-edged. Through Miller I +can fight if I must. Now let me rest. I must gather my strength, and +think.” + +The thought trembled on the air—faded—and was gone into an enormous +stillness. Miller was alone again in his own brain. + +Orelle stared at him, anger still bright in her mind but leashed anger +now. + +“How much of this have you passed on to Brann already?” she demanded. + +Miller said, “I swear I didn’t know I was carrying a time-bomb like +that. Tsi told me it was only a communication device she’d built into my +watch. I can only say I’ll help you fight Brann in any way I can.” + +Orelle came forward with quick steps, her satin robes rustling, and took +Miller’s shoulders in a tight grip, reaching high with both hands to do +so. Her eyes were close to his. She stared compellingly up at him and he +felt the warm force of her mind probing his with angry emphasis. + +“Tell me one thing—the truth,” she demanded. “_Are you Brann?_” + + + + + CHAPTER V + _The Signal_ + + +The stars were glittering rayed circles of colored fire in the night +sky. Miller lay staring for what seemed a long while, wondering vaguely +what had wakened him. The wall before his bed was clear glass through +which the night sky seemed to look in at him with its countless silver +eyes. He had never seen the stars before, he knew now. + +With his other eyes, they had been only dots of brilliance, without +pattern. Now he could see that there was indeed a pattern to their +arrangement—one too vast for even his augmented mind to grasp but +something he could recognize as being there, even though it lay outside +the range of human understanding. + +He could see colors change and glitter in the discs of light that had +been only points without dimension to his old sight. He could even make +out dimly the shapes of continents on one or two of the planets. And +there was a strange, distant, ringing music, almost inaudible, circling +through the dark vault above. + +He knew now that it was no legend which told of the music of the spheres +and the stars that sang together. Light-waves and sound-waves blended +into a melody that was neither one nor the other, neither sight nor +sound, but a beautiful medley of both. + +“Men in the old days must have heard it,” he thought to himself, +half-asleep. “Maybe in ancient times they were still close enough +to—_this_ state—to catch the echoes of the old music. . . .” + +Deep in the center of his drowsing mind a thought stirred that was not +his own. “_Miller, Miller, are you awake?_” + +He framed the answer with an eerie feeling of double-mindedness. “Yes, +Llesi. What is it?” + +“I want to talk to you. I’ve gathered enough strength now to last me +awhile. What’s been happening? Are you safe?” + +Miller let a ripple of amusement run through his mind. “Thanks to you. +Can you tell from my thoughts that I didn’t know what I was bringing +into your castle? I didn’t mean to attack you.” + +“I believe that—with reservations. Does Orelle?” + +“She thought I was Brann. She may still think so though I hope I’ve +convinced her.” + +“I can’t read your mind. But I must trust you—no more than I can avoid! +Get up, Miller, and look toward Brann’s castle. I have a feeling of +danger. I think that was what roused me. Something evil is coming our +way.” + +Conscious of a slight chill at the gravity with which Llesi spoke, +Miller rose. The floor was ineffably soft to his bare feet. He stepped +out into the little glass bay that formed one side of the room. From +there he could look down over the valley he had traversed that day. Far +off lights glimmered at the height of a sheer cliff—Brann’s castle. + +“Why—I can see in the dark!” he exclaimed in surprise, staring out at +the soft, dim landscape that seemed to be lit by a soil of invisible +starshine so that details were delicately visible as they had never been +before. + +“Yes, yes,” Llesi’s mental voice said impatiently. “Turn your eyes to +the left—I want to see that wall of the valley. There—now +right. . . .” + +The commands, couched in mental terms that took only a flashing fraction +of the time words would have taken were almost like reflex commands from +Miller’s own brain. + +“I think you’d better dress and go down to the Time Pool,” Llesi said at +last. Miller could feel the profound uneasiness stirring in the +disembodied mind that his own brain housed. “Hurry. There’s no guessing +what unnatural thing Brann may have shaped to attack us. He wants you, +Miller. Your coming brought our war to a climax and I know now he won’t +stop until he gets you—or dies. It depends on you and me which thing +happens.” + +There was a guard at Miller’s door—or the glass wall that melted like a +door when he approached it. Llesi’s mental voice spoke and the guard +nodded and followed down the long sloping ramp of the glass castle, +through great, dim, echoing rooms, along corridors behind which the +people of Orelle’s dwelling slept. + +They came out at last into a garden in the heart of the castle. Circled +by glass walls, it lay dim and fragrant around the broad shallow pool in +its center. Starlight shimmered in changing patterns on the water that +rippled slightly in the wind. + +Miller found himself glancing up toward the wall-top without being sure +whether the impulse was his own or Llesi’s. In a moment he knew, for +there was a whispering rush and in obedience to some command from his +own brain—and from Llesi’s—a domed roof of glass moved across the +garden, closing it in. + +Now the starlight fell in prismed rays through the dome. It struck the +pool in somehow focused patterns and the water seemed to respond to that +unimaginably light pressure. + +Circles formed where the rays struck, formed and spread outward in +interlocking rings that seemed to gather momentum instead of losing it, +so that they were seething together in a very short time, breaking over +one another in tiny waves, tossing up bubbles and foam. The pool boiled +in the cool starlight. + + * * * * * + +And among the boiling rings there were reflections. Pictures moved +chaotically through one another, so rapidly and so bewilderingly that +Miller grew dizzy as he watched. Once he thought he saw Tsi’s face with +the rainbow hair disordered, streaming in the wind. + +Once he had a glimpse of himself, seen confusingly from the back, +struggling against something that seemed to tower and stoop above him +but the vision rolled under again before he could focus on it and the +faces of strangers floated among bubbles to replace it. + +“Is it real?” he asked Llesi inaudibly. “Is this the future?” + +There was an impatient movement in his own mind. Llesi, who had been +studying the pictures in the profoundest silence, said, +“No—yes—partly. These are the likeliest futures. No one understands +fully, but the theory is that somewhere in hyperspace all possible +futures work themselves out from any given point. + +“And the light-rays—the pictures of all that happens—move on out into +space endlessly. When the glass dome is closed starlight, falling +through the moving rays, projects these pictures back into the pool for +anyone to read who knows how. Men from time everlasting have tried to +read the future in the stars but you can see from this how difficult it +is and how unreliable even a trained mind can be when it has only this +to work from. + +“One decision may alter all probable futures. And those are unstable, +shifting and changing—no man can know the future with any certainty. +But it’s possible to see dangers, sometimes, and prepare for +them—though that may mean facing a worse peril later on. Wait—” + +In the pool a ripple took form at the impact of a reflection and began +to spread. It showed the picture of a shifting, cloudy mass moving +against the translucent water—but moving with a directive purpose, +Miller thought. The background took form. He saw himself and Orelle in +miniature with the cloud no longer shifting but swooping purposively +above them. + +Another ripple collided violently with the first and the picture +vanished in a burst of bubbles. But it took shape again in the next +moment, though different now, with a shift in background. The ripples +raced over that image and washed it out with another, like a +not-quite-identical copy. Then he saw the castle in which he stood and +it was, he thought, collapsing into ruins. + +That changed. He saw himself in tiny reflections, facing Tsi— And then +a ripple washed across the pool in which he saw his own face and Slade’s +and there was something inexplicably terrible about both. + +Shaken, he asked Llesi a mental question. Llesi answered him briefly. + +“If part of what you just saw happens, other parts can’t happen. But you +saw that cloudy pillar? It appeared too often against too many +backgrounds to be very far off in space or time. Brann is sending a +warrior against us. Not a human warrior. I think we can expect the +cloudy thing we saw quite soon, in one or another of the versions we’ve +been watching.” + +“But what is it?” + +“I don’t know. Something dangerous—that much you can be sure of. I +think we can defeat it, once we discover what it is. So far we’ve always +been able to defeat Brann’s warriors, no matter what form they had.” + +“So far?” Miller asked. “And then someday—what?” + +Mentally Llesi shrugged. “Who knows? I, who read the future, realize +better than most men that I have no way of guessing what is to come. I +can see the possibilities here in the pool, I can foresee the worst +dangers and prepare against them—but beyond that I can’t go. No. I +don’t know what the outcome will be between Brann and me.” + +Miller said with abrupt decision, “You’ve looked too long in the Time +Pool! You’ve been depending on what you see there to tell you what to +do. Why not take the future into your own hands?” + +There was a curious stillness in his brain at that, as if Llesi were +suddenly wary and watchful. Finally the voice that shared his mind spoke +cautiously. + +“What do you suggest?” + +“Someday, if I understand you, Brann may succeed at last in creating a +kind of warrior you can’t overcome. I saw this castle falling in one of +those pictures in the pool, so I know it’s possible—no, even probable, +that this thing he’s sending, or maybe the one after it, will be the one +to destroy you. It that right?” + +Still caution and distrust ruled Llesi’s mind, but there was reluctant +interest in the mental voice that said, “Go on. What are you thinking +about?” + +“Brann wants one thing—the Power. Is that right?” + +“The Power and yourself, now. Yes,” Llesi answered. + +“So he’ll keep on attacking until he gets one or both. Why haven’t you +attacked him first?” + +“Do you think we haven’t tried? Brann’s castle is invulnerable. We’ve +failed and failed and failed again to force any entry by any means we +know. But Brann’s failed, too, against us. It’s stalemate.” + +“It needn’t be. I have an idea.” Miller hesitated. “I won’t tell you +now. You wouldn’t accept it. Later on, if things go wrong, maybe you’ll +be willing to listen. Maybe—” + + * * * * * + +From across the Time Pool, in the dimness of the garden, Orelle’s mental +voice said clearly, “Don’t go on, Miller. Or are you really Brann?” + +Miller had the curious sensation in his brain that both he and Llesi had +actually moved in the center of his skull, as he spun toward the dark +tree where she stood watching. + +“How long have you been here, child?” Llesi said. + +“Long enough. I saw the cloudy thing coming in the Pool. I know what +we’ve got to face—but not with treachery to make it even worse than it +is. Oh, Llesi, won’t you let me kill him?” + +“Not yet,” Llesi said with a deadly sort of practicality. “Not yet, +because you need me in the fight, and I’m helpless without this man. Nor +am I wholly sure he can’t be trusted, Orelle.” + +“I heard what he was trying to suggest. Something treacherous—some way +to help Brann win at last. Llesi, I’m afraid! This isn’t safe. I—” + +A flash of soundless white light without warning illumined the garden +and the whole castle around it, so that every figure stood out in abrupt +silhouette against the whiteness. As suddenly as it came, it went out, +leaving momentary blindness behind it. + +Orelle caught her breath and said, “The signal! Llesi—hurry! Whatever +it is, it must be almost here!” + + + + + CHAPTER VI + _Invasion_ + + +They saw it first far off on the plain, moving toward them through the +clear darkness. At first it seemed only a mist that drifted with the +wind but, when the wind shifted, the grey fog came on. Its heart was +thicker and dimly the eye could glimpse intricate matrices of light far +inside the cloud, glittering patterns like diamond cobwebs arranged in +lattice formations. + +Miller and Orelle, with Llesi a bodiless awareness beside them, stood at +a glass wall looking out over the plain toward Brann’s castle. + +Llesi breathed softly. “I know that pattern. It’s a bad one. The thing’s +brain and control and energy-source are in the bright matrix you see. +Watch now.” + +The lattices shifted into new geometric formations and out of the cloud +rippling, soft grey tentacles thrust, thickening as they moved. + +“That would be stronger than iron once it took shape,” Llesi was saying. +“The pseudopod principle, of course. It will be a hard thing to fight.” + +They stood watching in silence while the grey cloud flowed forward with +increasing speed until it was nearly within reaching distance of the +castle. Far off, across the valley, the lights of Brann’s walls watched +like eyes. Miller spoke impatiently. + +“Aren’t you going to do anything? Can’t you stop the thing?” + +“I could. But I want to see what new ideas Brann has incorporated into +this. It’s better to know than to guess. If I destroy this he’ll just +send another. I’m going to let it try the gate.” + +The cloud flowed up to the outer wall. . . paused . . . seemed to be +considering the massive glass barrier before it. Then the lattices +rearranged, glittering. A finger of greyness reached out, seeped through +the crack between gate and wall. + +Metal groaned in the quiet of the night. That tiny pseudopod was +expanding with monstrous force. The gate shivered, crumpled—gave way. + +Radiant shimmers of color flared down from the walls upon the cloudy +thing as Llesi’s batteries went into action at last. In his own brain +Miller could feel Llesi’s tense watchfulness as he waited to see how the +creature would meet them. + +Its lattice-work heart shifted like a kaleidoscope. The clouds +thickened, grew dark. It shrank—expanded again—and moved on into the +castle, a wreathed thing of velvety blackness that swallowed up the +attacking lights and ignored them. + +Now they lost sight of it but they could hear, partly through the +vibrations of the castle walls themselves and partly through the +confused mental cries of the people below them, the progress the machine +was making. A transparent wall gave way before it and the crash of the +collapse sent a terrible, ringing music all through the castle. There +was the silent voiceless cry of a man caught in its unimaginable grip—a +cry that shivered up to an unbearable peak in the brains of all who +heard, and then went silent with a suddenness that made the listeners +reel. + +Orelle seized Miller’s arm in a tight grip. “Come with me,” she said. +“Hurry!” + +She was half-running as she led the way through the dark castle which +was yet so clearly visible to the sight. The confusing halls were +strange to him but before they reached their goal Miller was leading the +way, Llesi in his brain sending out the mental orders that guided him, +so that the corridors and doors and sloping glass ramps seemed to swing +around and to fly open before him without the need of knowledge on his +part. + +There was pandemonium below. Miller could feel the tension in Llesi’s +mind and in Orelle’s as they raced toward the breached wall of their +fortress. Llesi was unsure. + +“Maybe this is the one,” he said, half to himself, as the translucent +walls spun past. “Maybe this one we can’t fight.” + +More than one wall had been breached by the time they reached the scene +of the fight. The castle was filled with the jangling, musical crashes +of shattered glass and the cries—some of them vocal cries now—of the +defenders. But from the attacking machine itself no sound came. + +Miller saw it through jagged walls and over the heads of the castle’s +men—a great coagulated cloud, velvet-soft and iron-hard, the colored +lights of the defenders’ strange weapons beating upon it in vain. There +were colors in the weapons such as Miller had never seen. + +“Photon showers,” Llesi told him briefly. “Very high-frequency light +waves with an energy increase great enough to utilize the mass of the +light. Those latticed patterns would be smashed by the impact—if we +could reach them. + +“When you deal with anything as delicate as this you need a delicate +weapon. The lattices would be impervious to heavy weapons but the mass +of light itself could crush the patterns if I had some way to penetrate +the cloud.” + +“The photons should do it,” Orelle said in a worried voice. “Always +before—” + +“Brann has something new this time.” + +The cloud rolled on. Through the shattered walls they saw it engulf the +men in its path, moving like a velvet-soft juggernaut that crushed all +before it. It pressed its misty surface against another wall—there was +a surging all through the mass and, briefly, a pattern of clouded lights +glimmered deep in the smoky bulk. + +The castle rang with the jangled music of another falling wall. + +“It’s making straight for the Power,” Orelle said, quietly now. “Llesi, +you’ve got to stop it.” + + * * * * * + +Miller felt in his own brain Llesi’s rapid, orderly thoughts, +marshalling the facts and measuring against them his varied resources. +Then, decisively, he spoke. + +“We must get to the Power first. I can stop it but we’ll have to hurry.” + +To Miller it seemed as if the castle spun around him again as, in +obedience to the orders in his brain, he whirled and ran with Orelle at +his heels. The corridors opened up before them, unfamiliar pathways +looking strangely familiar to the double vision in his mind. Another +wall smashed into ringing fragments behind them as they ran. + +With his new night-sight Miller could see a long way through the +translucent walls of the glass castle. Lights had been kindled through +the building now so that the glimmers, far and near, reflecting beyond +intervening barriers, made the whole castle glow bewilderingly. + +But ahead of them, growing larger as they neared, was one part of the +building that even this new sight could not penetrate. It was a great +cube whose walls gave back the vision opaquely, as it loomed before +them. + +Orelle pushed past him as they reached it, spread both hands flat upon +the dark surface. It parted before her, melting away as the other walls +melted to admit entry, and she pressed through into the hidden room. +Miller followed her, his brain spinning with his own curiosity and the +complicated planning of Llesi who shared it. + +Afterward Miller could never remember clearly what he had seen in that +great dark room. He had only an impression in retrospect of an immense +number of delicate shining things that might have been instruments—of +countless rows of containers over which light seemed to ripple and play +from within the colored holders, like votive lights seen far off down +the aisle of a cathedral—of things without name or recognizable +shape. . . . + +In the center of the room, hanging in the heart of a filligreed +framework which it did not seem to touch anywhere, a clear transparent +cube three feet through floated free. Within it a tilted halo of—of +stars?—rotated slowly through the solid substance of the block. And +very faintly, Miller thought he could hear music as it turned, the same +music he had caught from the night sky, subsonic but still perceptible +to his new senses. + +“The Power,” Orelle said, nodding toward the cube. + +Miller went forward slowly until he stood by the delicate framework +within which the block floated. He could feel a slight pressure +constantly beating out from the rotating stars, and at the same time a +slight equal suction—an impossible sort of double force that did not +equalize itself but kept him in a continual state of muscular +readjustment to balance the opposite pulls while he stood within its +range. + +He was trying to control the excitement that poured through him at his +nearness to this unimaginable thing he had come so far to find. Slade +would give all he had to possess it for, inexplicable as it was, there +was a harnessed power in the mysterious thing unlike any power at man’s +disposal in the lower world beyond Peak Seven Hundred. + +Then, in his brain, Llesi said impatiently, “Later you can examine it. I +need you now, if we’re going to stop Brann’s beast. Turn around—go to +the far wall, reach up to that container of blue light and. . . .” + +Miller’s conscious mind ceased to make sense out of the orders Llesi +gave it but his body was obedient. He did not try to resist. He relaxed +his own will and allowed Llesi full control, so that he was only dimly +aware of what his body did in the next few minutes. His hands were busy, +and there was an intense, quiet activity in his mind. + +An activity that gradually began to slow. Lights swelled and sank +beneath his busy fingers. Heat and cold and other stranger sensations he +could not name bathed his hands and arms, beat against his intent face +bent above them. But into his mind slowly a sense of frustration crept. + +He made an effort to bring his own mind back into focus and asked Llesi +a quick mental question. + +“I don’t know,” Llesi’s mind replied. “It isn’t easy. I think I can stop +the thing but at a cost we can scarcely afford. And I could only do it +once. Brann will know that. He’ll have only to send another just like it +and—” The thought blanked out as if even in his subconsciousness Llesi +did not want to shape the end of that idea. + +Miller put forth greater effort and shrugged off the inertia of his mind +which had been necessary while Llesi worked. He was keenly alert now. He +had a job to do. + +“Will you listen to me?” he asked. “I think I’ve got an answer—if +you’ll trust me.” + +Llesi’s reply was wary but there was eagerness in it too. “What do you +want us to do?” + +“Tell me first—can you duplicate this Power source?” + + * * * * * + +With a double accord both Llesi and Miller turned to gaze at the +floating cube with its lazily rotating halo of glittering light. + +“I can, yes,” Llesi said. “Why?” + +“Easily? Soon?” + +“Not in time to stop Brann’s creature, no. It would take several hours.” + +“Then,” Miller said, bracing himself for the storm he knew must follow +his suggestion, “then I think you’ll have to let the thing downstairs +take your Power and carry it back to Brann.” + +There was a mental explosion of fury and refusal. + +After it had died down, while Orelle still gazed at him with burning +dark eyes full of distrust and hatred, and Llesi still smouldered angry +thoughts in his brain, Miller went on. + +“I know—I know. In your place I’d feel the same. But look at it +dispassionately if you can. Brann has you where he wants you now. You +can only drive off this mechanism downstairs once and Brann can send +another to take the Power source anyhow. If you stay passive you’re +beaten. But listen to me—and maybe you can still win. Attack! Let the +Power go—but follow it.” + +There was silence for a moment, while the two others digested this idea. +Then Orelle said, “We could only follow to Brann’s walls. We’ve never +been able to get into his castle and—” + +“Don’t you see, this is the only way! He’ll have to make room for the +cube of the Power to enter. If we follow, there ought to be a way for us +to force an entry too. Especially if he doesn’t suspect. Oh, I know—you +think I _am_ Brann. I wish there were some way to—wait! Could you read +my mind if I opened it to you? Would you believe me then?” + +Slowly Orelle said, “I think it might be possible. Are you willing to +let me try?” + +Miller hesitated for a moment. There is a curious reluctance in the +human mind to strip aside the last dark barrier that separates each +individual from the world he lives in. The privacy of the mind is so +jealously guarded a secret that not even if a man wills it can he wholly +bare his thoughts to another. But unless Miller let Orelle into those +innermost chambers there was little hope of success for any of them. + +“If I don’t,” he thought, “Brann will win, in the end. And if he +wins—well, I have more to lose than anyone here.” Aloud, in his mental +voice, he said to Orelle, “Yes—try if you’re able.” + +She smiled a little. “Let your mind go blank. Don’t offer any +resistance—no, none at all—you _are_ resisting me, Miller. Let me have +the truth. Brann—Brann . . . are you Brann? I must know. . . .” + +Her eyes held his and, as they had done once before, began to grow +larger and larger until they blotted out the room and were a dark pool +in which his consciousness was sinking. . . . + +“Thank you,” Orelle said quietly. “I’m sorry. You were telling me the +truth all along—unless you’re more cunning than I think you are and +know how to hide your secrets even deeper than the unconscious mind. I +see that you mean us well. I see another thing, too—why you came here.” + +“Yes. You had to know that anyhow. It was why I asked about duplicating +the Power cube.” + +“He wants to take it away with him, Llesi,” Orelle said and for the +first time Miller realized that Orelle had been in even closer communion +with his mind than Llesi himself, who dwelt in its very center. For +Llesi had not seen the depths of it—he did not know what Orelle knew +now. + +“To take it away?” Llesi demanded, incredulity in his thought. “But—” + +“Yes,” Orelle said quickly. “We could arrange for that, Llesi. If this +plan works well owe him more reward than that.” + +“But Orelle,” Llesi persisted, “doesn’t he understand? Doesn’t he know +that—” + +The thought ceased abruptly, and Miller had the uneasy feeling that the +two were communicating on some higher plane of silence where he could +not follow them. He was suddenly uneasy. There was something here he +didn’t understand. The two of them knew something—about himself?—that +he did not yet know, something that affected his future intimately. + +“What is it?” he demanded. “If I help you, I’ve a right to know.” + +Orelle turned to him, her dark eyes gentle now, the hatred and mistrust +gone out of them. “There isn’t time,” she said. “Listen.” + +Far off, but audible through the opaque walls, the tinkle of falling +glass came clearly to them. + +“It’s the machine,” Llesi said. “We haven’t time to waste now. If we +follow your plan we mustn’t let it win too easily or Brann will suspect. +Do you have any ideas of what to do after we enter Brann’s castle?” + +“Not yet,” Miller said almost absently. He was thinking hard about the +strange little passage just ended. Until this moment he had not dared +offer to open his whole mind for their inspection, because he had had +nothing to bargain with. Inevitably Orelle would have seen that he +wanted the Power and he had nothing to offer in return—until now. + +Well, it was a success in one way, but in another—failure? He couldn’t +be sure. Oddly the balance had shifted and it was he who mistrusted his +companions and they who believed at last that he could be depended on. +Certainly they were hiding something vital from him. + +“Not yet,” he said again, forcing his mind to take up the immediate +problem as the jangle of another falling barrier came more loudly +through the walls. “I only know it’s easier to work on inspiration when +you’re on the offensive—and once in Brann’s castle, we’ll need +inspiration! + +“Brann’s—unbalanced. We know that. Push him farther off balance by +attacking and maybe we’ll have an advantage. You know, there must be +something important he’s hiding or he wouldn’t operate from the dark as +he does. If we can see him face to face—well, who knows?” + +“When you say ‘we’,” Orelle interrupted, “whom do you mean?” + +“Myself. Llesi and me.” + +“And Orelle,” the girl said quietly. + +“Of course not! It’s going to be dangerous. Besides—” + +“No more dangerous to go than to wait for Brann’s vengeance if you fail. +Tsi is my sister. I think I can control her and that should be a weapon +you may need. You can’t take more than one or two with you if you hope +to get in secretly so an army would do no good. But one companion—I +think I could be useful to you, Miller.” + +“Llesi,” Miller said to the voice in his brain, “what do you think?” + +There was silence for a moment. “Let her come,” Llesi said. “What she +says about Tsi is true enough. We may need her.” + +In the quiet a musical ringing of more breaking glass sounded clearer +than before. + +“It’s coming,” Llesi said. “Now we have work to do. Are you ready, +Miller? Take down that lens mounted on the tesseract and do as I tell +you. We mustn’t let the machine win without a struggle. . . .” + + + + + CHAPTER VII + _Battle of the Titans_ + + +In the light of earliest dawn they could see it rolling toward them far +off across the plain. Crouching under the loom of Brann’s castle walls, +Miller and Orelle waited almost in silence. It had seemed wisest to +hurry ahead by teleportation and take shelter while Brann was presumably +occupying all his powers with the direction of his mechanical warrior as +it broke down the walls of the Power chamber and seized at last the +thing he had sought so long. + +Now the two watchers—three, for Llesi waited in Miller’s brain—saw the +lazily turning halo of pointed lights which was the Power glowing +through the cloudiness of the machine that carried it. Faintly the +soundless music of its turning floated to their ears. + +“We’ll have no time to waste,” Llesi warned them. “Brann’s wanted the +Power for a purpose, you know. Once he learns how to use it there’ll be +no hope of controlling him. Whatever we do we must do fast.” + +“Can he learn quickly how to operate it?” Miller asked. + +“You’re thinking of yourself.” Llesi sounded amused. “Yes, it can be +mastered without too much difficulty. But don’t think about it now, +Miller. You have our promise. Be content with that.” + +Miller stirred restlessly. “You’re hiding something. I’ve opened my mind +to you, Orelle. If I deserve any reward for what I’m helping you do I +deserve the truth from you. What is it?” + +Orelle shook her head. “Don’t ask us now. I’ll tell you if we come out +of this alive. But it will only distract you now. I promise you it’s +nothing that will affect our plans to conquer Brann. You need all your +thoughts to do that. Afterward there’ll be time to talk of other things. +Look—it’s nearly here. I wonder where Brann means to let it into the +castle.” + +The music of the turning stars was clearer now. Miller could feel +remotely that extraordinary attraction-repulsion action which the Power +constantly exerted—it was so near to them as they crouched in hiding. +The machine rolled its cloudy bulk past them, almost brushing their +faces with the periphery of its mist, and moved up over the jumble of +rocks that bordered Brann’s castle. + +It pressed close against the surface of the wall. Light glowing down +from that extraordinary barrier which ran like water and shone like fire +cast colored shadows upon the mist, so that it was like a cumulus of +sunset-lighted cloud as it flattened itself against the wall. + +Miller could see Orelle’s anxious face lighted with strange hues from +the water-wall as she watched. He held his breath. + +Within the sunset cloud patterns of latticed diamond moved and shifted. +The wall surface dimmed as if a breath had blown upon it. Darkness grew +where the dimness was—and suddenly a door had opened in the streaming +water-light of the barrier. + +“Now!” Llesi breathed. “Now—follow it in!” She rushed forward. + +There was one breathless, heart-stopping moment when the rocks turned +beneath their feel and Orelle, stumbling, nearly fell. The darkness of +the opened door was already beginning to mist over with solidity when +they reached it. + +“Dangerous.” Llesi’s thought flashed through Miller’s brain, +lightning-like, far faster than it takes to express in words. “If we +miss the turn of the wall-substance we’ll be caught in the solid mass. +Hurry! Never mind making a noise. Hurry!” + +It was like pushing through a thin jelly of darkness that gave way +readily enough but thickened perceptibly even as they moved. “Don’t +breathe!” Llesi warned them. “Hold your breath if you can—I think +you’ll be through in a moment.” + +The substance of the wall was a stiff, scarcely yielding stuff by the +time they pushed free into clear air. They had made it with nothing to +spare. Orelle reached back to touch the surface with a wondering hand as +soon as she caught her breath, and the way they had come was already a +solid resilient surface that lost its resilience as she pressed it and +became hard unyielding wall again. + +They stood in a steeply sloping corridor that echoed with the thin +voiceless music of the Power. Ahead of them the slowly spinning stars +were visible through cloudy grey moving rapidly up the ramp away from +them. + +Silently they followed. + +They were far down under the main floors of the castle. On their left, +as they climbed the steep ramp, the wall of flowing light moved +ceaselessly, tracing their shadows in the inner wall of the corridor. + +“Somewhere there must be guards,” Orelle said. + +“I’d feel better if we’d seen some before now,” Llesi told them +uneasily. “I have a feeling Brann may be more omniscient than we know.” + +The ramp came to a steep end and turned back upon itself in a second +long zig-zag rise. They toiled up in the wake of the cloudy robot that +carried the Power. Still no guards. + +The ramp zig-zagged twice more and then there was a great open area, +like a spacious chimney, rising overhead. The ramp had ended. Lightly, +like the cloud it was, the robot left the ground. Teleportation carried +it out of sight with startling swiftness. From high above the sound of +voices drifted down the well, laughter, music. + +Without a word Orelle put out her arm and clasped Miller’s hand. A +moment later the ground no longer pressed his feet. The light-wall slid +down past them like a Niagara of colored water. + + * * * * * + +The hall in which Brann held court was a vast domed circle. In the +center of it rose a dais—and over the dais a curtain of darkness hung +in straight columnar folds from the great height of the ceiling, veiling +the platform. On its steps a woman was sitting, a stringed instrument on +her knee. Rainbow hair swung forward about her shoulders as she bent her +head and swept a hand across the strings. Wild, high music rang through +the room. + +Someone called, “Brann! Where is Brann?” and the woman looked up, +smiling. It was Tsi. + +“He’ll be here. He’s coming. He expects guests,” she said and looked +straight across the room toward the far wall where, in an alcove, the +robot stood motionless, enshrouding the Power in a misty cloud. + +Behind the robot, huddled against the alcove wall, Miller felt Orelle’s +fingers tighten upon his. So long as the robot stood quiet, they were +hidden behind its foggy outlines. When it moved— + +“She means us,” Orelle whispered. “I know Tsi. What shall we do?” + +“Wait,” Llesi counseled. “Listen.” + +In the great room beyond, where Brann’s court of brilliantly robed men +and women lounged on divans that seemed cushioned with substance as +immaterial as mist, a discontented cry was beginning to rise. Many +mental voices blended in the clamor now. + +“Brann! Call him up, Tsi, call him up! Tell him the robot’s here. We +want Brann again!” + +Tsi swept the strings musically. “He’s still asleep, down below,” she +said. “I’m not sure if I dare wake him yet. Shall I try?” + +“Go down and call him,” someone urged, petulance in the voice that +spoke. “We’ve waited too long already. Call him, Tsi!” + +Tsi smiled. “His visitors must be here by now,” she said maliciously. +“Yes, I’ll go down and waken Brann.” She laid the harp on the steps and +rose. + +At the same moment Miller felt a surge of force suddenly burst into +blinding violence in the center of his brain. For an instant he was +stunned by the power that seemed to pour tangibly forth from him and +through him. . . . + +The robot that had screened them from view rose from the floor, lightly +as a cloud, drifted forward over the heads of the gaping audience and +turned suddenly incandescent just above the dais where Tsi stood. + +Miller knew it was Llesi’s doing, even before the quiet voice in his +brain said, “This is the best way, after all. Attack. You were right, +Miller. Now watch.” + +The robot was pure flame now. With a detached part of his mind Miller +understood that it must have been deactivated once its mission was +completed, so that any mind which teleported it now could do with it as +it would. Llesi chose to destroy it in as spectacular a manner as he +could contrive. + +Out of the blinding cloud of its dissolution the cube of the Power fell, +the singing halo in it turning with slow, indifferent steadiness. The +transparent block struck the steps a yard from where Tsi stood. It +struck—and crashed through, splitting the white marble from top to +floor. Tsi staggered. + +The crash rang from the high vaults above, rebounding from arch to arch +in distant, diminishing echoes that came slowly back to the watcher +below, long after the dais had ceased to vibrate. + +Tsi recovered her balance, turned on the shattered steps, looked +straight across the hall to the alcove where Miller and Orelle stood. + +She was shaken but she had not lost her poise. + +“Sister!” she said, “Welcome to Brann’s castle. Shall I call him to +greet you?” + +From Orelle a strong steady thought went out, compelling and quiet. + +“Tsi, sister, you must do as you think best. Is it best for us that +Brann be called?” + +The woman on the dais hesitated. Miller could see that the quiet +confidence in Orelle’s mental voice has shaken her a little. He knew now +what Orelle had meant when she said she could control Tsi. + +It was a simple matter of sister speaking to sister with the voice of +authority, calling back to mind the precepts of conscience and childhood +training. Tsi was not, he thought, evil as Brann was evil. She was weak, +certainly—and perhaps the weakness would stand them in good stead. + +She said uncertainly, “Orelle, I think perhaps—” But the voices from +the audience around her, rising with sudden violence, drowned out +whatever it was she meant to say. Miller was reminded of Roman audiences +clamoring for blood in the arena. + +“Brann, _Brann_!” the voices howled. “Waken Brann! Go call him up to +meet his guests! _Brann_, waken from your sleep! Brann, _Brann_, do you +hear us?” + +Tsi hesitated a moment longer. Miller was aware of a desperate stream of +thought-waves pouring out from Orelle beside him but the noise of the +assembled people was too strong for her. She could not get through to +her sister. Tsi turned suddenly, putting both hands to her face, and +stumbled up the broken steps toward the dais. + +The long curtains that hung a hundred feet or more from the height of +the ceiling trembled down all their dark length as she put them aside +and vanished into the big tent they made, hiding the platform. + +There was a moment’s profound silence. + +Then Miller said quietly to Orelle, “Come on,” and, seizing her hand, +strode forward across the floor. He had no idea what he meant to do but +if he had come to attack then attack he must—not stand waiting for +Brann to make an entrance on his throne. + + * * * * * + +Heads turned avidly to watch their progress across the great room. No +one made a move to block their way, but eager eyes watched every motion +they made and searched their faces for expression. This was the +audience, Miller thought grimly, that would have watched Brann’s +terrible “experiments” upon him if he had not escaped from the +castle—with Tsi’s help. It was the audience, he realized, that might +yet watch, if he failed. + +Llesi was silent in his brain, waiting. + +They were almost at the steps when the curtains stirred as if a breath +of wind had blown through the hall. Tsi’s voice came weakly from the +hidden place, “Wait, Brann—you mustn’t—” + +But drowning out the feeble protest another voice sounded clear. Miller, +hearing that thin, sweet, sneering pattern which was the mental voice he +had heard before, the voice of Brann, felt a chill sliding down his +spine and a tightening of all his muscles. It was a hateful, a +frightening voice, evoking a picture of a hateful man. + +“Come out, Brann!” Miller said strongly. “Unless you’re afraid of +us—come out!” + +Behind him in the hall two or three intrepid voices echoed the +invitation. “Come out Brann! Let us see you. You aren’t afraid, +Brann—come out!” He knew from that how high curiosity must run even in +Brann’s stronghold and he realized that not even here, then, had Brann +ever yet showed his face. It made him a little more confident. If Brann +had so much to hide, then, there must be weaknesses behind that curtain +upon which he could play. + +He said, “Here’s the Power you wanted, Brann. We broke your platform but +here it is waiting. Do you dare come out and look at it?” + +Brann said nothing. But his thin, sardonic laughter rang silently +through the hall. + +Miller felt it rasping his nerves like something tangible. He said +roughly, “All right then—I’ll come and bring you out!” And he set his +foot firmly on the lowest step. + +A breath of excitement and anticipation ran rippling through the hall. +Llesi was still silent. Orelle’s hand in Miller’s squeezed his fingers +reassuringly. He mounted the second step, reached out his free hand for +the curtain. . . . + +There was a deep, wrenching sound of stone against stone, and under his +feet the steps lurched sickeningly. And then he was falling. + +The walls spun. The floor tilted up to strike him a solid blow—that did +not touch him. For some firm, supporting mind closed its protection +around his body and he floated gently a dozen feet and came to solid +footing again, dazed but unhurt. + +The marble block of steps lay upturned upon the floor. Teleportation +again, he realized. Brann had uprooted the steps he had climbed to +prevent him from reaching the curtain. And someone—Llesi or Orelle—had +reached out a mental beam to teleport him to safety. + +Brann’s cold clear laughter rang silently through the hall. He had not +yet spoken. He did not speak now but his derision was like vitriol to +the ears and the mind. Brann was waiting. . . . Somehow Miller could +sense that, as he waited, an eagerness and impatience went out from him +toward that block of transparence on the broken steps, where the halo of +the Power revolved on its singing axis. + +Llesi realized it in the same instant and Miller felt in his brain the +beginnings of some plan take shape—too late. For now there was a +strange heaviness in the very air about him—a familiar heaviness. . . . +This was the weapon Brann had used on him once before, turning the air +itself to a crushing weight that had all but smashed his ribs in upon +the laboring lungs. + +He felt his knees buckle under that sudden, overwhelming pressure. The +air screamed around him and the vast hanging curtains of the dais +billowed with a serpentine motion as displaced air moved with hurricane +suddenness through the great room. Miller’s breath was stopped in his +chest by that unbearable pressure. His ears sang and the room swam redly +before him. Brann’s careless laughter was a distant ripple of sound. + +Power from outside himself gathered in Miller’s brain, gathered and +spilled over in a wave like molten flame. He felt it gush out toward the +platform where Brann sat hidden. But he was blind and deaf with the +crushing weight of that suddenly ponderable air. + +Even above his own deafness and the shriek of the unnatural wind in the +room he heard the scream of riven marble. And the weight upon him +lessened a little. He could see again. He could see the great block of +stone uprooted with jagged edges from the broken floor at the foot of +Brann’s dais. + +It seemed to tear itself free, to leap into the air of its own +volition—to hurtle toward Brann’s curtains as if Brann’s castle itself +had suddenly turned upon him with great jagged stone fangs. In his brain +Miller could feel the tremendous, concentrated effort of Llesi’s +teleportation, balancing the marble weapon and guiding it on its course. + +The weight upon him ceased abruptly. The release was so sudden that the +congested blood drained from Miller’s brain and for an instant the great +room swam before him. In that moment of faltering the hurtling marble +fragment faltered too and Llesi and Miller together struggled with the +faintness of Miller’s overtaxed brain. + + * * * * * + +Brann seized the opening that brief hesitation gave him. He could not +stop the flying weapon but he could block it. . . . A broken segment of +the marble steps flew up in the path of the oncoming boulder, grated +against it, deflected its course. + +The two struck together upon the dais steps and thundered down them with +a ponderous sort of deliberation, bounding from step to step, their +echoes rolling from the high ceiling. They went crashing across the +floor, ploughing into the divans where Brann’s court had lain watching +this unexpected sight. + +The screams of the watchers as the great marble blocks rolled down upon +them added a frenzied accompaniment to the echoes of thunder wakened by +the stone itself. The room was a tumult of sound re-echoing upon sound. + +Miller felt a renewed outpouring of Llesi’s power move in his brain. He +saw a gigantic marble pillar across the room stagger suddenly on its +base, crack across, lean majestically outward and fall. But it did not +strike the floor. Instead it hurtled headlong, jagged end first, toward +the dais. + +Above it the ceiling buckled. There was a terrible shriek of metal upon +stone as the vaulted roof gave way. But the falling debris, in turn, did +not strike the floor. Deflected in a rain of shattered marble, it moved +to intercept the flying pillar. Column and broken stone together crashed +to the ground at the very foot of Brann’s dais. + +The great hall was full of the shrieks of the scattering court, the +cries of men caught beneath the falling ceiling, the uproar of echo upon +echo as Brann’s throne room collapsed in thunderous noise upon its own +floor. + +When the thunder ceased all who could flee had vanished. Half the +ceiling lay in fragments upon the floor and Miller stood dizzily looking +up at the dais whose long curtains still billowed in the wind. Brann was +silent for a moment as if gathering his resources for another try. And +Llesi was whispering, + +“My strength is failing, Miller. I can’t keep it up much longer. I’m +going to try one last thing. I’ve got to know what it is Brann’s hiding. +Help me if you can—and watch!” + +For an instant there was silence. Then, from far overhead, a long +shudder began and rippled down the length of those vast hanging curtains +which shrouded Brann’s dais. Stone groaned deeply upon stone in the +ceiling. + +From the hidden platform Brann shrieked a soundless, “_No!_” as the +block from which the curtains hung tore itself free of the vault above +and came crashing down to rebound from the shattering pavement. + +The curtains themselves fell far more slowly. Like smoke they wavered in +the air, collapsing softly, deliberately, parting to one side and the +other. . . . + +Miller could see Brann trying to stop that fall. Invisibly the forces of +his mind seemed to claw at their drifting lengths. But there was +something wrong now in Brann’s mind. Even Miller could sense it. + +A dissolution was taking place that the mind felt and shrank from. +Something worse than hysteria, more frightening than fear itself. Llesi +was suddenly intent and Orelle caught her breath. + +Like smoke the last fragments of the curtains parted, lying to left and +right along the broken floor, far out, in long swaths of shadow. + +On the platform stood Brann. . . . + +The figure that had terrorized such a multitude for so long stood +swaying, clutching a black cloak about it as if to hide the shape of the +body beneath. The face was contorted into a terrible grimace of anger +and cold grinning hate. But the face itself was one they had all seen +before. + +It was the face of Tsi. + +Her eyes were closed. She did not look at them nor speak nor move. And, +Miller thought to himself, as Brann perhaps she had never opened her +eyes. As Brann perhaps that grimace of chill hate always distorted her +features. For it was clear to them all now that Tsi was mad. + +“Schizophrenia,” Miller thought automatically. “Split personality.” But +there was no answering thought from Llesi or from Orelle. Stunned +amazement held them both frozen. + +Tsi turned her unseeing eyes to Orelle. In Brann’s thin, cold, +high-pitched voice-pattern she said, “Now you know. Now you’ve seen +Brann. But before I kill you both, tell me—Orelle, _where is Tsi?_” + +Miller felt a cold shudder ripple over him. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + _The Consuming Fire_ + + +At the same moment he realized that Orelle and Llesi could not help him +against—Brann. Their thoughts came into his mind with a stunned, +incredulous tinge of astonishment, a blank bafflement that, strangely, +seemed to leave them helpless. And Miller thought he knew why. + +Orelle and Llesi and all their race had been conditioned to mental +perfection. Never before in their history, he sensed, had there been any +case of mental aberration. The race had been too perfect for that. And +now, faced with the pattern of schizophrenic split-personality, they +were utterly unable to comprehend its meaning. It was too alien to them. + +Insanity had never before existed in Orelle’s race. + +Miller sent a frantic message to Llesi—inchoate confused +memory-pictures from his scant knowledge of psycho-therapy. But Llesi +did not understand. Instead he suddenly closed his mind. And, beside +Miller, Orelle, too, closed her mind against a concept so shocking to +this race that worshiped mental perfection that they could not +consciously face it. + +The blind figure on the dais bent forward. “Orelle. . . .” it said. + +So Brann did not know that the other half of his mind belonged to Tsi. +Naturally! Brann would not know that he was a half, an incomplete split +personality. Nor would Tsi know that Brann was part of herself. What +curious warp in the inherited genes had brought about this cleavage +Miller never knew, but he did not think about that now. + +He stepped forward. + +“Brann!” he called. + +“So you are back.” The thought came coldly into his mind. “Well, the +machine I tricked you into carrying failed to kill Llesi but I’ll remedy +that soon enough. As for you. . . .” Thin mental laughter mocked Miller. + +He felt sweat crawling down his forehead. “Wait,” he thought urgently. +“I can tell you where Tsi is.” + +He sensed a hesitancy and then an urgent, straining question. + +“Where? _Where is she?_” + +“You are—” + +Miller felt the mind on the dais close swiftly against the thought. +Brann would not let himself listen to the truth. He could not. + +Brann thought. “Well? Answer me?” + +Troubled, uncomprehending, Orelle and Llesi waited and listened. And +suddenly Miller knew the answer. He unbuckled the wrist-watch from his +arm. Orelle had returned it to him, the deadly lightning machine +removed. As a timepiece it was useless but habit had made Miller keep +the watch. + +“Take this,” he said. + +Brann—Tsi—waited. + +Miller held it up. “It’s not dangerous any more. Can’t you tell that?” + +“A trick. You know nothing of what I wish to know. Why should I waste +time on any of you?” + +“If you want to find Tsi,” Miller thought, “you must take this thing. +Unless you’re afraid to find her.” + +The watch spun from his hand and shot glittering across the room. It was +in Brann’s hand. + +Miller drew a long breath. “Turn it over. That’s it. Hold it up before +your face. Yes. Now . . . open your eyes.” + +“My eyes will not open.” + +“Open them!” + +“They have never opened.” + +Tension sang through the still air. Miller felt Orelle’s sudden movement +toward him. + +“If you open your eyes you will find Tsi.” + +That was the gap in the armor. That was the one thing that could pierce +Brann’s insane half-mind. The blind white eyelids quivered . . . the +long lashes lifted, slowly, slowly. . . . + +Brann’s eyes looked into the polished steel back of the watch. In that +tiny mirror Brann’s eyes looked into—Tsi’s! + +Tsi’s eyes—wide, horrified—stared into Brann’s! + +There was no protection against the mental avalanche that roared out +from that rocking, screaming mind—the two minds—in the single body of +Tsi. For the first time Brann saw the girl he had searched for since his +strange birth. And for the first time Tsi saw her own face twisted, +distorted, into the grimace of chilly hatred that was irrevocably +stamped on Brann’s features. + +But what Miller felt was—pity. It was the basic principle of mental +therapy—making the patient face his problem squarely. But no ordinary +human schizophrenic had ever thus had the curtains of his brain ripped +away with such sudden violence. The normal human brain has automatic +safeguards against such intrusion. + +Tsi was of another race—a race mentally developed to a tremendously +high standard. She had been warped before birth though the madness had +remained latent for a long time—but her mind was nevertheless powerful +enough to be able to face the shocking incredible truth. + + * * * * * + +She had never been evil, as was Brann—weak, yes, but incapable of that +cold cruelty her alter ego loved. + +Face to face, for a thunderous, eternity-long instant, the two +stood—good and evil mated, monstrously wedded in one body and one +brain. The silence roared. + +Then the hand that held the mirror dropped. The face of Tsi swung round +so that her mad, wild, terrified eyes met Miller’s—and he read +destruction there. The double mind looked out of those eyes into his and +for an instant it was as if both Tsi and Brann spoke to him—as he had +first heard them speaking when he woke in this incredible world. + +But then they had not known the truth. It had been a split mind talking +to itself, good and evil debating together and not guessing they were +housed in a single brain. Now they knew. At some point in the past the +evil inherent in Tsi had lost its battle with the good in her—and +pulled free of the control of her conscious mind. It had called itself +by a new name, given itself a masculine identity to disguise its origin +still further, grown so strong that not even Tsi could control it any +longer. + +Brann was abhorrent to Tsi. And to Brann the knowledge that Tsi was +himself was a thing he could not face. The split mind, rocking on its +foundation, reached out into Miller’s mind with a mad destructive +violence. + +“You brought ruin on me!” cried the double voice. “You wrecked my castle +and my life! You must die and all your kind with you!” + +The eyes caught Miller’s in a drowning stare. He could not look away, +and the eyes were growing larger and larger, engulfing him in darkness +and in the darkness the madness of two minds swirled terribly, carrying +away his own sanity on those dreadful, reasonless vortices. . . . + +Miller could no longer see Orelle but he heard her moan, a soft whimper +of helpless terror. “I can’t—help you,” she was saying from far away. +“I can’t fight the two of them. Llesi—_Llesi_—where are you?” + +For a moment there was no answer. The mad twin-mind buffeted at Miller’s +from both sides at once, pulling it asunder, spinning in two opposite +directions and straining him apart between them. No single mind could +withstand the doubled strength of that split brain dragging him down to +madness. . . . + +And then, suddenly, he was not fighting alone. Out of the darkness +Llesi’s mind came swiftly, intangibly, yet with a strength as if the man +himself had set his shoulder against Miller’s, bracing him against the +whirlpool whose vortex led down to insanity. + +Perhaps no other mind in existence could have stood against the riven +mind of Brann-Tsi. But in Miller’s brain too a double mind had been +housed—his own and Llesi’s. They had learned to work together. And now +they could fight. . . . + +There was a voiceless scream of fury—Brann’s thin, high, sweet-toned +rage. And the buffeting redoubled from two sides at once. But now there +were two minds to meet the attack. Miller drew a deep breath and set +himself stubbornly against the whirling drag that was pulling him down +to darkness. He could feel the strong resistance of Llesi’s mind, +fighting beside his own, struggling hard against the double pull. + +For a timeless moment the vortex held them both. In that roaring +silence, while madness raved about them, neither side seemed able to +shake the others. Attacker and attacked stood matched so perfectly that +the balance might have held forever with the fury of the split mind +screaming its soundless cry in infinity. + +Then the scream shivered up to a peak of madness that no sane mind could +sustain. And while the vortex still rang with it . . . + +The robed figure on the dais moved suddenly. Miller’s blindness lifted +again. He could see the dark robe stream back from Tsi’s rainbow +garments as she plunged down the steps toward the crystal block, where +the halo of the Power turned in its singing silence. + +A bolt of the mind reached out before her toward the halo—a summoning +bolt. One quivering thought shook the air of the room. Death was the +thought. Tsi and Brann could not live together in the same brain and +face the knowledge of their oneness. There was no choice but death for +them now. + +The bolt of white lightning blazed up to meet that plunging figure in +answer to its summons. Blazed up and swallowed Tsi—and Brann. + +There was a shimmer in the air where the body and the twin mind had +hovered. And then—nothing. . . . + + + + + CHAPTER IX + _Fairy Gold_ + + +Miller found himself sitting on the broken marble steps with his head in +his hands. How long a time had passed he had no idea. Orelle’s touch on +his shoulder made him look up at last. She was smiling a little but her +eyes were grave. + +“Are you all right now?” she asked. “You’re safe. We’re all safe, thanks +to you. I’m glad I’ve never known your world if you could understand a +thing like that—that madness. But I’m glad you did understand it—for +our sakes. You saved us, Miller. You can ask your own reward.” + +He looked at her groggily, thinking with incongruous steadiness that he +was probably suffering from shock now and not really responsible. But he +glanced involuntarily toward the crystal block of the Power. + +Orelle’s smile was sad. “Yes,” she said, “we can make you a duplicate if +you ask us. But it would be effort wasted in the end.” + +He stared at her, not understanding. Then his eyes went beyond her to +the shattered wall and the beautiful shining day outside. New senses +were burgeoning in him and he could sense in that glittering sunlight +colors and sounds and glories beyond anything words could tell. + +The air was a tangible thing against his cheek, velvet soft, sweeter +than perfume. He was beginning to perceive new shapes moving dimly on +the edge of vision, as if there were a whole unknown world just now +slowly unveiling before his freshly opened eyes. + +Miller laughed suddenly. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I must be +stupid, not to have seen it until now. Of course I won’t want a +duplicate of the Power. Why should I? I’m not going back to Slade. I’d +be crazy if I left a paradise like this. What good would a duplicate do +me when I’m staying on here—forever!” + +Orelle shook her shining head. Her eyes were very sad. In a gentle voice +she began to speak. And Llesi’s voice, gentle too in the dimness of his +mind, spoke with her. + +Very quietly they told him the truth. + + * * * * * + +“So you know now it was fairy gold,” the Belgian said, sliding the +bottle across the table. “Well, I could not have made you believe. You +had to experience it yourself.” + +Miller looked at nothing. + +Van Hornung glanced toward the fire, shivered and reached out a stubby +finger toward the dull cube on the table between them. + +“Drink,” he said. + +Slowly Miller obeyed. There was a long silence. + +Finally Van Hornung said, “It is—still the same up there? The castles +and the wonderful people and the—colors? But it would be. The colors—I +was an artist once. I think the colors meant most to me. There were so +many we do not know.” + +“Orelle told me,” Miller said dully. “I wouldn’t believe her. I didn’t +want to believe her.” + +“There are the legends, Miller,” Van Hornung said. “You and I aren’t the +first. We won’t be the last. There have always been stories of humans +who visit Paradise for a little while—and leave again. I’m no +scientist. I never knew why—” + +Miller glanced up. His eyes brightened a little. + +“It was an unstable compound,” he said. “There was an atomic change, you +see. The Path does that. Your atomic structure shifts to something quite +different. When you’re like that you can talk with your mind, without +words.” + +“I know,” the Belgian said. “I do not talk much any more. It is never +the same, after that.” + +“Will it ever. . . ?” + +Van Hornung said quietly, “We were like gods for a little while. We ate +the food of the gods. Can we expect mortal food to please us after +that?” + +Miller nodded in silence. To go back to his old world, to live his old +life would be meaningless now—like going back to blindness after +knowing sight in a brighter world than this. He had had a taste of this +once, in Orelle’s castle, while they searched him with piercing +electronic eyes for the weapon he did not know he carried. That had been +an illusion and a foretaste of this death-in-life which he must live now +until he died—as the Belgian had been living. + + * * * * * + +He remembered how the mountain-top world had begun to fade around him, +Orelle’s pitying face growing ghostlike, the glass walls of her castle +turning to mist and the wonderful nameless colors of her gardens +thinning away to nothingness while the snow-covered peaks took shape +solidly behind them. + +There had been a little time longer, after Brann’s defeat, for him to +enjoy the last days of Paradise. He had refused to believe it could end +at all. He had shut his mind to the instability of his change, to the +fact that he had been himself an isotope created by a temporary +radioactive atomic shift so that, when the quantum energy was released, +the atomic pattern must revert to its former state. And in one terrible, +fading instant the familiar prison of his own senses closed around him +once more as the lovely world of Peak Seven Hundred went volatile and +vanished. + +The last thing to go was the little cube Llesi had made for him with the +singing halo of the Power turning in miniature within it. When the waste +of glacial ice was all that remained of the invisible castle he went +slowly down the mountain again, walking, he knew, through fields of +glowing flowers he could never see again. And now it was the ice and +snow that seemed illusion—the vanished summer world the only real thing +in life. + +He kept taking the cube out and looking at it as he descended the lower +slopes. After awhile it seemed dimmer than he remembered, the singing +fainter. When he reached the valley the glow was gone entirely. The cube +was non-radioactive lead, inert and useless. Fairy gold, the legends +said, was glittering in your hands when the immortals put it there—but +when you looked again it had always turned to leaves and pebbles. + +Van Hornung said, “What will you do now?” + +Miller shrugged. “Is anything worth doing?” + +“Not for me, any longer. After you have seen the colors and used your +mind to its fullest, there is nothing worth the effort of doing in this +world below. Stay with me if you like. It does not matter.” + +Behind Miller the door opened quietly. Slade walked into the room. When +he saw Miller his jaw dropped slightly. + +“_Miller!_ What’s the matter with you? When did you get in?” + +“Just now.” + +“Did you get it?” + +“Get what?” Miller said dully. + +“The energy-source!” Slade thrust his face down to Miller’s, the feral +eyes narrowing, the thin lips tight. Seeing him, Miller thought suddenly +of Brann. The same irresponsible power, dangerous, hungry, admitting no +discipline but its own desires. + +He was glad, in a casual way, that Slade could never use the Power. +Slade could do harm enough, had done more than harm enough, with only +his own driving unscrupulous brain to guide him. Once armed with a thing +like the Power. . . . + +“I left it where I found it,” Miller said indifferently. “Up on the +Peak.” + +“How can we get it?” Slade demanded urgently. “An expedition?” + +“You can have it for the asking—up there.” A slow idea took shape in +Miller’s mind. Sardonically he said, “Look for the red path at the foot +of the cliff. Follow it. Go on up and you’ll have no trouble finding +your energy-source. That’s all I’m going to say. We’re through, Slade. +Get out.” + +And he would say no more though it was ten minutes before Slade +exhausted his threats and arguments and left. Miller smiled wryly at the +Belgian. + +“He’ll go. You couldn’t keep him away. And you know what will happen.” + +“What happened to us. But—why did you send him?” + + * * * * * + +Miller stared out the window at the snowy cone of Peak Seven Hundred, +white and empty against the sky. + +“I hated Slade once,” he said. “That doesn’t matter how. But where men +like Slade go there’s cruelty and misery and suffering. I can at least +spare a few other men what I’ve gone through from him. He’ll come +back—as we are. As for the Power—yes, it’s fairy gold.” + +The Belgian said softly, “. . .’amid such greater glories that we are +worse than blind.’” + +Miller nodded. “The Power and the Glory. Some day our race may achieve +it. But it has to be earned.” + +He reached for the bottle. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68425 *** |