 CHAPTER 1 THE BEGINNING Ardath opened his eyes, trying to remember why a blinding pain should be throbbing within his skull. Above him was a twisted girder of yellow metal, and beyond that the inner wall of the spaceship. What had happened? It seemed scarcely a moment ago that the craft had been filled with a confusion of shouted orders, quickly moving men, and the shriek of cleft atmosphere as the ship drove down. Men had come the shock of landing, blackness, and now, painfully Ardath dragged his slight fragile body erect. All around him were ruin and confusion. Corpse's lace sprawled and limp, the bodies of those who had not survived the terrible concussion. Strange men, slim and delicate, their skins had been darkly tanned by the long voyage across space. Ardath started hopefully when he saw that one of the bodies moved slightly and moaned. Theron, Theron the Commander, highest in rank and wisdom, had survived. A wave of gratefulness swept through Ardath. He was not alone on this new, unknown world as he had feared. Swiftly he found stimulants and bent over the reviving man. Theron's gray, beardless face grew contorted. His pallid blue eyes opened. He drew a lean hand over his bald head as he whispered, Ardath. A rocking shudder shook the ship, then suddenly died. Who else is alive? Theron asked with painful effort. I don't know, Theron, Ardath replied softly. Find out. Ardath searched the huge golden ship. He came back with despair on his drawn, harrowed features. You and I are the only ones left alive, Theron. The Commander nod at his lips. So, and I am dying. He smiled residedly at Ardath's sudden protest. It's true, Ardath. You do not realize how old I am. For years we have gone through space, and you are the youngest of us. Unshield a port. Let me see where we are. The third planet of this system, Ardath said. He pressed a button that swung back a shudder from a nearby port in the golden wall. They saw nothing but darkness at first. Then their eyes became accustomed to the gloom. The ship lay beached on a dim shore. The ominous, the strange world loomed through the grey murk of vague light that filtered through the cloudy sky. A slow drizzle of rain was falling. Test the atmosphere, Theron commanded. Ardath obeyed. The spectroscopic analysis made from outer space had indicated that the air here was breathable. The chemical test confirmed this. At Theron's request, Ardath opened a space-lock. Air surged in with a queerly choking, sulfurous odor. The two men coughed wrackingly until eventually they became accustomed to it. Carry me out, the commander said quietly. His glance met and locked with Ardath's as the younger man hesitated. I shall die soon, he insisted gently. But first I must—I must know that I have reached my goal. Finally Ardath lifted the slight figure in his arms. He splashed through the warm waves and gently laid Theron down on the barren beach. The sun, hidden behind a cloud blanket, was rising in the first dawn Ardath had ever seen. A grey sky and sea, a dark shore—those were all he actually saw. Under Ardath's feet he felt the world shudder with the volcanic fires of creation. Rain and tide had not yet eroded the rocks into sand and soil. No vegetation grew anywhere. He did not know whether the land was an island or a continent. It rose abruptly from the beach and mounted to towering crags against the inland skyline. There inside, his thin fingers groped blindly over the rocky surface on which he lay. You are space-born, Ardath, he said painfully. You cannot quite realize that only on a planet can a man find a home. But I am afraid— His voice died away. Then it rose again, strengthened. I am dying, but there is something I must tell you first. Listen, Ardath. You never knew your mother-planet, Kyria. It is light years away from this world, or it was. Centuries ago we discovered that Kyria was doomed. A wandering planetoid came so close that it would inevitably collide with us and destroy our civilization utterly. Kyria was a lovely world, Ardath. I know Ardath breathed. I have seen the films in our records. You have seen our great cities and the green forests and fields. An agonizing cough rocked the dying commander. He went on hastily. We fled. A selected group of us made this spaceship and left Kyria in search of a new home. But of the hundreds of planets that we found, none was suitable. None would sustain human life. This, the third planet of this yellow sun, is our last hope. Our fuel is almost gone. It is your duty, Ardath, to see that the civilization of Kyria does not perish. But this is a dead world, the younger man protested. It is a young world, Theron corrected. He paused, and his hand lifted, pointing. Ardath stared at the slow, sullen tide that rippled drearily toward them. The gloomy wash of water receded, and there, on the rocky slope, lay something that made him nod, understandingly. It was not large. A greasy, shining blob of slime, featureless and repulsive, it was unmistakably alive, undeniably sentient. The shimmering globule of protoplasm was drawn back with the next wave. When Ardath's eyes met Theron's, the dying man smiled triumphantly. Life! There's sun here, Ardath, beyond the clouds. A sun that sends forth energy, cosmic rays, the rays of evolution. Immeasurable ages will pass before human beings exist here, but exist they will. Our study of countless other planets enables us to predict the course of evolution here. From the unicellular creatures will come sea-beings with vertebrae, then amphibiae, and true reptiles. Then warm-blooded beasts will evolve from the flying reptiles and the dinosaurs. Finally there will be ape-like men, who will yield the planet to true men. But it will take millennia. You must remain here," Theron stated. How many of us survived the voyage from Kyria? You must wait, Ardath, even a million years if it is necessary. Our stasis ray kept us in suspended animation while we came across space. Take the ship beyond the atmosphere, adjust it to a regular orbit like a second satellite around this world. Set the controls so you will awaken eventually and be able to investigate the evolutionary progress of this planet. You will wait a long time, I admit, but finally you will find men. Men like us? Theron shook his head regretfully. No. Super-mentality is a matter of eugenically controlled breeding. Occasionally a mental giant will be born, but not often. On Kyria we bred and mated these mental giants till eventually their progeny peopled the planet. You must do the same with this world. I will, Ardath consented. But how? Go through the ages. Do not stop till you find one of these mental giants. He will be easily recognized, for almost from infancy he will be far advanced of his contemporaries. He will withdraw from them, turning to the pursuit of wisdom. He will be responsible for many of the great inventions of his time. Take this man, or woman perhaps, and go on into time, until you have found a mental giant of the opposite sex. You could never mate with a female of this world, Ardath. Since you are from another system it would be biologically impossible. The union would be sterile. This is your duty. Find a super-mentality, take him from his own time-sector, and find a mate for him in the more distant future. From that union will arise a race of giants equal to the Kyrians. In a sense you will have been their foster-father. There inside and turned his head till his cheek lay against the bare rock of the shore. May the great architect guide you, Ardath, he said softly. Abruptly his head slumped and Theron was dead. The gray waves whispered a requiem. Ardath stood silent, looking down at the worn-tired face, now relaxed in death. He was alone, infinitely far from the nearest human being. Then another feeling came, making him realize that he was no longer a homeless wanderer of space. Never in his life had Ardath stood on a world surface. The others had told him of Kyria, and on the pictorial library screens he had seen views of green and sunset lands that were agonizingly beautiful. Inevitably Ardath had come to fear the black immensity of the starlit void, to hate its cold, eternal changelessness. He had dreamed of walking on grassy, rolling plains. That would come, for he knew Theron had been right. Psycads and ferns would grow where Ardath now stood, and Phibii would come out of the waters and evolve, slowly of course, but with inexorable certainty. He could afford to wait. First though he needed power. The great atomic engine of the ship was useless, exhausted. Atomic power resembled dynamite in that it needed some outside source of energy to get it started. Dynamite required a percussion cap. The engine of the golden ship needed power. Solar energy, lenses were required. Besides, the cloud blanket was an insurmountable handicap, filtering out most of the necessary rays. Coal, it would not exist here for ages. A tremble shook the ground, and Ardath nodded thoughtfully. There was power below the power of seething lava, enormous pressures, and heat that could melt solid rock. Could it be harnessed? Steam, a geyser. That would provide the necessary energy to start the atomic motor. After that, anything would be possible. With a single regretful glance at the dead Dharan, Ardath set out to explore the savage new world. For two days and nights he hunted, growing haggard and weary. At last he found an area of lava streams, shuddering rock and geysers. Steam feathered up into the humid air, and to the north a red glow brightened the gray sky. Ardath stood for a while watching. His quest was ended. Long weeks of arduous work still lay ahead, but now he had no doubt of ultimate success. The steam demons would set the atomic motor into operation. After that, he could rip ores from the ground and find chemicals. But after that, the ship must be made spaceworthy again, though not for another long voyage. Such a course would be fruitless. Of all the planets the Kyrians had visited, only this world was capable of supporting life. As yet, mere cells of blind, insensate protoplasm swarmed in the sullen seas, but those cells would develop. Evolution would work upon them. Perhaps in a million years, human beings, intelligent creatures, would walk this world. Then, one day, a super-mentality would be born, and Ardath would find that kindred mind. He would take that mental giant into the future, in search of a suitable mate. After dozens of generations there would arise a civilization that would rival that of Kyria, his home planet, now utterly destroyed without trace. Time passed as Ardath worked. He blasted out a grave for Theron on the shore where the old Kyrian had died. He repaired the golden craft. Tirelessly, he toiled. Five months later, the repaired spaceship rose, carrying its single passenger. Through the atmosphere it fled, it settled into an orbit, became a second, infinitesimal moon revolving around the mother planet. In it Ardath's robot machinery began to operate. A ray beamed out, touching and bathing the man's form, which was stretched on a low couch. Slowly consciousness left Ardath. The atomic structure of his body was subtly altered. Electrons slowed in their orbits. Since they emitted no quanta, Ardath's energy was frozen in the utter motionlessness of Stasis. Neither live nor dead, he slept. The ray clicked off. When Ardath awakened, he would see a different world, older and stranger. Perhaps it would even be peopled by intelligent beings. Silently the spaceship swept on. Far beneath it a planet, shuttered in the titanic grip of dying fires. The rains poured down, eroding, endless. The tides flowed and ebbed. Always the cloud-veiled shrouded the world that was to be called Earth. Amid the shattering thunder of deluges, new lands rose and continents were formed. Life, blind, hungry and groping crawled up on the beaches, where it bathed for a time in the dim sunlight. CHAPTER II. YOUTH On August 7, 1924, an eight-year-old boy caused a panic in a Des Moines theater. His name was Stephen Court. He had been born to a theatrical family of mediocre talent, the crazy courts they were built. The act was a combination of gags, dances and humorous songs. Stephen traveled with his parents on tour when they played One Night Stands and Small vaudeville circuits. In 1924, vaudeville had not yet been killed by the films. It was the beginning of the Jazz Age. Stephen was so remarkably intelligent, even as a child, that he was soon incorporated into the act as a mental wizard. He wore a miniature cap and gown and was introduced by his parents at the end of their turn. Any date. Ask him any historical date, my friends, and he will answer. The gentleman in the third row, what do you want to know? And Stephen would answer accurately. When did Columbus discover America? When was the Magna Carta signed? When was the Battle of Hastings? When was Lafayette born? Mathematical questions. You there. Stephen would answer. Mathematics was no riddle for him, nor algebra. The value of pie, he knew it. Formulas and equations slipped glibly from his tongue. He stood on the stage in the spotlight, his small face impassive, a small, dark-haired child with curiously luminous brown eyes, and answered all questions. He read omnivorously every book he could manage to obtain. He was coldly unemotional, which distressed his mother, and he hid his thoughts well. Then, on that august night, his me suddenly changed. The act was almost over. The audience was applauding wildly, the courts stood on each side of the boy bowing, and Stephen stood motionless, his strange, glowing eyes staring out into the loom of the theatre. Take your bows, kid! Court hissed from the side of his mouth. But the boy didn't answer. There was an odd density in his rigid posture. His expressionless face seemed strained. Only in his eyes was there life and a terrible fire. In the theatre a whisper grew to a murmur and the applause died. Then the murmur swelled to a restrained roar until someone screamed, FIRE! Court glanced around quickly. He could see no signs of smoke or flame, but he made a quick gesture and the orchestra leader struck up a tune. Hastily the man and woman went into a routine tap dance. Steve, Court said urgently, Join in! But Stephen just stood there, and through the theatre the roar rose to individual screams of panic. The audience no longer watched the stage, they sprang up and fought their way to the exits, cursing, pushing, crowding. Nothing could stop it. By sheer luck no one was killed. But in ten minutes the theatre was empty and there had been no sign of a fire. In his dressing room Court looked clearly at his son. What was wrong with you, tonight, kid? he asked, as he removed grease paint from his face with cold cream. Nothing, Stephen said abstractedly. Something funny about the whole thing. There wasn't any fire. Stephen sat on a chair, his legs swinging idly. That magician we played with last week, he began. Yeah? I got some ideas from him. Well, his father urged. I watched him when he hypnotized a man from the audience. That's all it was. I hypnotized the entire audience, tonight. Oh, cut it out, Court said, grinning. It's true, the conditions were right. Everyone's attention was focused on me. I made them think there was a fire. When Court turned and looked at the boy he had an odd feeling that this was not his son sitting opposite him. The round face was childish, but the eyes were not. They were cold, watchful, direct. Court laughed without much conviction. You're crazy, he said, turning back to the light-rimmed mirror. Maybe I am, Stephen said lightly. I want to go to school. Will you send me? I can't afford it. Anyway, you're too big an attraction. Maybe we can manage later. Stephen did not argue. He rose and went toward his mother's dressing-room, but he did not enter. Instead, he turned and left the theatre. He had determined to run away. Stephen already knew that his brain was far superior to the average. It was as yet unformed, requiring knowledge and capable training. Those he could never get through his parents. He felt no sorrow or pity on leaving them. His cool intellect combined with the natural cruelty of childhood to make him unemotional, passionlessly logical. But Stephen needed money and his youth was a handicap. No one would employ a child, he knew, except perhaps as a newsboy. Moreover, he had to outwit his parents, who would certainly search for their son. Strangely, there was nothing pathetic about Stephen's small figure as he trudged along the dark street. His iron singleness of purpose and his ruthless will gave him a certain incongruous dignity. He walked swiftly to the railroad station. On the way he passed to speak easy. A man was lying in the gutter before the door, an unshaved derelict, grizzled of hair and with worn, dissolute features. He was mumbling drunkenly and striving helplessly to rise. Stephen paused to watch. Attracted by the silent gaze, the man looked up. As the two glances met, inflexible purpose grew in the boy's pale face. "'Wanna drink?' the derelict mumbled. "'Gotta. They won't give old Sammy a drink.' Stephen's eyes again grew luminous. They seemed to bore into the watery eyes of the hobo, probing, commanding. "'Eh?' the drunkard asked, blankly. Sammy's voice died off uncertainly as he staggered erect. Stephen gripped his arm and the two went down the street. In a dark doorway they paused. The foggy, half-wrecked brain of the tramp was no match for Stephen's hypnotic powers. Sammy listened as the boy talked. "'You're catching a freight out of town. You're taking me with you. Do you understand?' "'Eh?' Sammy asked, vaguely. In a monotonous voice the boy repeated his commands. When the drunkard finally understood the two headed for the railway station. Stephen's plans were made. To all appearance he was a mere child. He could not possibly have fulfilled his desires alone. The authorities would have returned him to his parents, or he would have been sent to a school as a public charge. What man could recognize in a young boy an already blossoming genius? Stephen's super-mentality was seriously handicapped by his immaturity. He needed a guardian, purely nominal, to satisfy the prejudices of the world. Through Sammy he could act. Sammy would be his tongue, his hands, his legal representative. Men would be willing to deal with Sammy, where they would have laughed at a child. But first the tramp would have to be metamorphosed into a useful citizen. That night they rode in a chilly boxcar, headed east. Hour after hour Stephen worked in the brain of his captive. Sammy must be his eyes, his hands, his provider. The train rolled on through the darkness, the wheels beating a clicking melody toward the east. It was not easy, for the habits of years had weakened Sammy's body and mind. He was a convinced tramp, lazy, and content to follow his wanderlust. But always Stephen drove him on, arguing, commanding, convincing. Hypnosis played a large part in the boy's ultimate success. Sammy got a job, much against his will, and washed dishes in a cheap restaurant for a few weeks. He shaved daily and consistently drank less. Meanwhile Stephen waited, but he did not wait in idleness. He spent his days visiting automobile agencies and studying the machines. At night he crouched in a cheap tenement room, sketching and designing. Finally he spoke to Sammy. I want you to get another job. You will be a mechanic in an automobile factory. He watched Sammy's reaction. Aw, I can't, Steve, the man protested. They wouldn't even look at me. Let's hit the road again, huh? Show them these, Stephen ordered, extending a sheaf of closely written papers and drawings. They'll give you a job. At first the foreman told Sammy to get out, after a glance at his red rimmed eyes and weak, worn face. But the papers were a magic password. The foreman pondered over them, bewilderingly scrutinized Sammy, and went off to confer with one of the managers. The man's good, he blurted. He doesn't look it, but he's an expert mechanic, just the kind of man we need. Look at these improvements he's worked out. This wiring change will save us thousands annually, and this gear ratio. It's new, but it might work. I think... Send him in, the manager said hastily. Thus Sammy got his job. Actually, he wasn't much good, but every month or two he would show up with some new improvement, some unexpected invention that got him raises instead of his missile. Of course Stephen was responsible for all this. He had adopted Sammy. Stephen saw to it that they moved to a more convenient apartment than now he went to school. Needing surprisingly little sleep he spent most of his time studying. There was so much to learn and so little time. To acquire the knowledge he wanted he needed more and more money to pay for tutoring and equipment. The years passed with a peaceful lack of haste. Sammy drank little now and took a great deal of interest in his work. But he was still a tramp at heart, eternally longing for the open road. Sometimes he would try to slip away, but Stephen was always too watchful. At last the boy was ready for the next step. It was then early in 1927. After months of arduous toil he had completed several inventions which he thought valuable. He had Sammy patent them and then market them to the highest bidders. The result was more money than Stephen had expected. He made Sammy resign his job and the two of them retired to a country house. He brought along several tutors and had a compact, modern laboratory set up. When more money was required the boy would potter around for a while. Inevitably he emerged with a new formula that increased the already large annual income. Tutors changed as Stephen grew older and learned more. He attended college for a year but found he could apply his mind better at home. He needed a larger headquarters though, so they moved to Wisconsin and bought a huge old mansion which he had renovated. His request for knowledge seemed endless yet he did not neglect his health. He went for long walks and exercised mightily. When he grew to manhood he was a magnificent specimen, strong, well-formed and handsome. But always, say for a few occasional lapses, he was coldly unemotional. Once he had detectives locate his parents and anonymously arrange to provide a large annual income for them, but he would not see either his father or mother. They would mean emotional crisis, he told Sammy. There would be unnecessary arguments. By this time they have forgot me anyway. Think so, Sammy muttered, chewing on the stem of his ancient pipe. His nut-brown, wrinkled face looked rather puzzled under his stiff crop of white hair. Well, I never did think he was human, Stevie. He shook his head, put the pipe away and potted off in search of his rare drinks. Steven returned to his work. What was the purpose of these years of intensive study? He scarcely knew. His mind was a vessel to be filled with the clear, exhilarating liquor of knowledge. As Sammy's system craved alcohol so Steven's brain thirsted for wisdom. Study and experiment were to him a delight that approached actual ecstasy. As an athlete gets keen pleasure from the exercise of his well-trained body, so Steven exalted in the exercise of his mind. Unimaginable eons before in the teeming seas of a primeval world, life-forms had fed their blind hunger. That was appetite of the flesh. Steven's hunger was the appetite of the mind. But it also made him blind in a different way. He was a God-like man, and he was unhuman. By 1941 he was the greatest scientist in the world. CHAPTER III. THE EARTHBORN Before man created gods, our death was. In his spaceship, swinging silently around the world, he slept as the ages went past. Sometimes he woke and searched, always in vain, for intelligent life in the land below. The road of evolution was long and bloody. Dark weariness shrouded our death, as he saw the vast, mindless, terrible behemoths of the oceans. Monsters wallowed into the swamps. The ground shook beneath the tread of tyrant lizards. Brontosaurus and pterodactyls lived and fed and died. There were mammals, eohippus the fleet and three-toed, and a tiny marsupial in which the flame of intelligence glowed feebly. But the Titan reptiles ruled. Mammals could not survive in this savage, thundering world. Forests of weeds and bamboo towered in a tropical zone that stretched almost to the poles. Our death pondered, studied for a time in his laboratory, and the ice age came. Was our death responsible? Perhaps. His science was not earthly, and his powers were unimaginable. The ice mountains swept down, blowing their frigid breath upon the forests and the reptile giants. Southward the Hajira fled. It was the day of judgment for the idiot Colossae that had ruled too long. But the mammals survived. Shuddering in the narrow equatorial belt they starved and whimpered. But they lived and they evolved, while our death slept again. When he awoke he found beast men, hairy and ferocious. They dwelled in gregarious packs ruled by an old man who had proved himself strongest of the band. But always the chill winds of the Iceland's tore at them as they crouched in their caves. Our death found one, wiser than the rest, and taught him the use of fire. Then the alien man sent his ship, arrowing up from earth, while flames began to burn wanly before cave mouths. In grunts and sign language the story was told. Ages later man would tell the tale of Prometheus, who stole fire from the very gods of heaven. Folklore is filled with the legends of men who visited the gods, the little people or the sky dwellers, and returned with strange powers. Arrows and spears, the smelting of oars, the sewing and reaping of grain, how many inventions could be traced to our death. But at last our death slept for a longer time than ever before, and then he awoke. Dark was the city. Flambeau were numerous as fireflies in the gloomy streets. The metropolis lay like a crouching beast on the shore, a vast conglomeration of stone, crude and colossal. The ship of our death hung far above the city, unseen in the darkness of the night. Our death himself was busy in his laboratory, working on a curiously constructed device that measured the frequency and strength of mentality. Thought created electrical energy, and our death's machine registered the power of that energy. Delicately he sent an invisible narrow wave beam down into the city far beneath. On a gauge a needle crept up, halted, dipped, and mounted again. Our death reset a dial. Intelligent beings dwelt on earth now, but their intelligence was far inferior to our deaths. He was searching for a higher level. The needle was inactive as our death swept the city with his ray. Useless. The pointer did not even quiver. The mental giant our death sought was not here, though this was the greatest metropolis of the primeval world. But suddenly the needle jerked slightly. Our death halted the ray and turned to a television screen. Using the beam as a carrier, he focused upon a scene that sprang into instant visibility. He saw a throne of black stone upon which a woman sat. Tall and majestic and Amazon of forty or more, she had lean, rugged features and wore plain garments of leather. Guards flanked her gigantic, stolid, armed with spears. Before the throne a man stood, and it was at this man that our death stared. For months the Kyrian ship had scoured the skies, searching jungles and deserts. Few cities existed. On the northern steppes shaggy beast men still dwelt in caves, fighting the mammoth. But the half men and the hairy elephants were rapidly degenerating. In mountain lakes were villages built on stilts and piers, sunken into the mud, but these clans were barbarous. Only on this island were their civilization and intelligence, though lamentably lower than our death's own level. The man from space watched the wisest human on this primitive earth. In chains the earth man stood before the black stone. He was huge, massively feud, with a bronzed hairy skin showing through the rags he wore. His face resembled that of a beast, ferocious with hatred. Amber cat's eyes glared from beneath the beetling brows. The jutting jaw was hidden by a wiry beard that tangled around the nose, that was little more than a snout. Yet in that brute body Ardath knew dwelt amazing intelligence. Shrewdness and cunning were well masked by the hideous face and form. What of the queen? Curious to know Ardath tested her with his ray. She, too, was more intelligent than most of the savages. These two are enemies, Ardath thought, and I imagine that the man faces danger or death. Well, what is that to me? I cannot live in a time where all are barbarians. It is best that I sleep again. Yet he hesitated, one hand resting lightly on the controls that would send the ship racing up into space. The barren loneliness of the void, the slow centuries of his dark vigil, crept with icy tentacles into his mind. He thought of the equally long, miserably lonely future. Suppose I sleep again and wake in a dead world. It could happen, for my own home planet was destroyed. How could I face another search through space? Theron and the rest had each other. He turned back again to watch the two people on the screen. They are intelligent after a fashion, and they would be companions. If I took them with me, and we woke in a lifeless time, they could bring forth a new race which I could train eugenically into the right pattern. The decision was made. Our death would sleep again in his ship, but this time not alone. He glanced at the screen and his eyes widened. A new factor had entered the problem. Hastily he turned to a complicated machine at his side. As Thor dread the usurper stood before the throne of his queen, his savage face was immobile. Weaponless, fettered, he nevertheless glared with implacable fury at the woman who had spoiled his plans. Zaina met his gaze coldly. Her harsh features were darkly somber. Well, she asked, have you anything to say to me? Nothing, Thor dread grunted. I have failed, that is all. The huge, almost empty throne room echoed his words eerily. I, you have failed, the queen said. And there is but one fate for losers who revolt. You tried to force me from my throne, and instead you stand in chains before me. You have lost, so you must die. Thor dread's grin mocked her calm decision. And a woman continues to rule our land. Never in history has this shame been put upon us. Always we have been ruled by men, warriors. You call me a weakling, Zaina snarled at him. By all the gods you are rash, Thor dread. You know well that I have never shirked battle and that my sword has been swift to slay. I am strong as a man and more cunning than you. Yet you are a woman, Thor dread taunted recklessly. Kill me if you wish, but you cannot deny your sex. A shadow darkened Zaina's face as she glared venomously at her mocker. I, I shall kill you, she said, so slowly that you will beg for a merciful death. Then the vultures will pick your carcass clean on the mountain of the gods. Thor dread suddenly shouted with laughter. Save your words, wench. It is just like a woman to threaten with words. A man's vengeance is with spear, swift, and sudden. He paused, and a curious light grew in his amber eyes. His great body tensed as Thor dread listened. In the distance a tumult grew louder and louder, like the beating of the sea. Suddenly it was thundering through the throne room. Zaina sprang to her feet, her lips parted in astonishment. The vast doors at the end of the room burst inward. Through the portal poured a yelling mob. Thor dread, they roared. Ho! Thor dread! The giant grinned victoriously at Zaina. Some are still faithful to me, it seems. They would rather see a man on the throne. A blistering curse burst from Zaina's lips. She snatched a spear from a guard and savagely drove its point at the prisoner. But Thor dread sprang aside, laughing, the muscles rolling effortlessly under his tawny skin. He set his foot on the links of the chain that bound his wrists, his body arched like a bow, the metal snapped asunder, and Thor dread, the usurper, was free. The guards near the throne leaped at him. He ducked under a swift spear at the same instant that his fist smashed a face into a bloody ruin. And then the mob surrounded him, lifted him, bore him back. Slay him, Zaina shrilled. Slay him! The mob swept back out of the hall, through the great doors and into the street. But now Zaina's cries brought a response. Armed soldiers rushed in through a dozen portals. They raced after the escaping prisoner, with Zaina fearlessly leading them. It was sunset. The western sky flamed blood-red. Down the street the crowd seathed to halt in an open plaza. Grimly menacing they turned at bay, Thor dread at their head. He towered above the others with his chains dangling from his wrists and ankles. Zaina's men formed into a sizable army, filling the street from side to side. Arrows flew, hissing at the angry triumphant mob. Over the city the low, thunderous muttering grew louder. Revolt! Revolt! It was civil war. But the conflict was not yet in contact. A space still lay between the two forces. Only spears and arrows had crossed it. Charge! Zaina shouted. Slay them all! Grinning Thor dread raised high his lance and shook it defiantly. The Queen's soldiers drew erect and like a thunder-cloud they began to move. Abruptly they were sweeping forward, irresistible, a tidal wave bristling with steel barbs. The pounding of then-shod feet hammered loud on the stones. In the forefront raced Zaina, her harsh face twisted with fury. Thor dread let fly his spear. It missed its mark. At the last moment the giant had hesitated, and his gaze went up to the western sky. His jaw dropped in awe. For the first time Thor dread was afraid. A scream rose, thin and wailing. Demons! Someone cried. Demons! The soldiers slowed involuntarily in their charge, then one by one they halted. Struck motionless with fearful wonder, every man stood gaping toward the west. Against the blood-red sunset loomed actual demons. Giants, scores a feet tall they were. Titans, whose heads towered above the city's walls. A whole army of the monsters loomed black against the scarlet sky. These were not men. Shaggy, hump shouldered, dreadful beings, more human than apes, but unmistakably beasts, they came thundering down upon the city. The frightful masks twisted in ferocious hunger. They swept forward. No one noticed that their advance made not the slightest sound. Panic struck the mobs. Both sides dropped their weapons to flee. From the sky a great shining globe dropped. It hovered above the plaza. Two beams of light flashed down from it. One struck thordred, bathing him in crawling radiance. The other caught Zaina. The man and the woman alike were held motionless. Frozen, paralyzed, they were swept up, lifted into the air. When they reached the huge globe they seemed to disappear. The sphere then rose, dwindled quickly to a speck, and was gone. Surprisingly the giants had also vanished. Ardath adjusted the controls. Sighing he turned away. The ship was back in its orbit, circling the earth. It would not deviate from that course for centuries until the moment Ardath's hand moved its controls. He picked up a small metal box, stepped out of the laboratory, and closed the panel. On the floor at his feet lay the unconscious forms of Zaina and thordred. Ardath set down the box. This would be a new experiment, one that he had never tried. He could not speak the language of these earthlings, nor could they speak his. But knowledge could be transmitted from one brain to another. Thought patterns were a form of energy, and that could be transferred, just as a matrix may stamp out duplicates. First the man. Ardath opened the black box, took out a circular metallic band, and adjusted it about the sleeping thordred's head. A similar band went about his own. He pressed a switch, felt a stinging, tingling sensation within his skull. He removed the metal bands, replaced them, and waited patiently. Would the experiment work? His lips shaped unfamiliar syllables. He had learned thordred's language, but could the undeveloped brain of the earthling be equally receptive? Thordred groaned and opened his eyes. He stared up at Ardath. Into those amber eyes came a curious look that might have been amazement, but which was certainly not fear. You are not hurt, Ardath said in thordred's harsh, primitive language, nor will you be harmed. The earthling stood up with an effort, breathing hoarsely. He took an unsteady step, reeled, collapsed with a shattering crash upon the thought-transference apparatus. He lay silent and unmoving, an utterly helpless strong man. No expression showed on Ardath's face, though the work of weeks had been ruined. The device could be built again, though he did not know if it should be. Had it been successful? Thordred shuddered, rolled over. Painfully he rose and leaned weakly against the wall. His amber eyes rested puzzedly on Ardath as he asked a question in the Kyrian soft language, which grated from his crude throat. Who are you? A god or a demon? Ardath smiled with satisfaction, for all was going well. He must explain matters to this earthling to calm his fears. Later he would rebuild the machine and teach Zaina his own tongue. Then the three could sleep for centuries if necessary. But Ardath did not know that his device had worked too well. It had transferred knowledge of his own language to Thordred's brain. Yet it had transferred more than that. All of Ardath's memories had been transmitted to the mind of the earthling. At that moment Thordred's wisdom was as great as that of his captor. Though he had not Ardath's potentiality for learning more, unearthly, amazing wisdom had been impressed on his brain cells. Thordred had smashed the machine, not through accident, but with coldly logical purpose. It would not do for Zaina to acquire Ardath's wisdom also. With an effort Thordred kept an expression of stupid wonder on his face. He must play his role carefully. Ardath must not yet suspect that another man shared his secrets. Ardath was speaking, carefully explaining things that his captive already knew. While Thordred seemed to listen, he swiftly pondered and discarded plans. Zaina must die, of course. As for sleeping for centuries, well, it was not a pleasant thought. Ardath must be slain, so Thordred could return to earth with new knowledge. The giants you saw in the sky, said Ardath, were not real. They were three-dimensional projections enlarged by my apparatus. I recorded the originals of those beings ages ago, when they actually lived and fought cave-bears and saber-tooth tigers. No, they were merely images, but men had seen them and remembered. The panic in the city below had died. In its place grew superstitious dread, fostered by the priests. Time passed and neither Zaina nor Thordred returned. New rulers arose to sit upon the black throne. But on the mountain of the gods, men toiled under the lash of the priests. Monstrous images of stone rose against the sky, gap-mouthed, fearsome images in crude similitude of the devils who had come out of the sunset. They may return, the priests warned, but the stone giants on the mountain will frighten them away, build them higher. They will guard our city. On the peak the blind alien faces glared ever into the sunset, and the days fled into years, and the dark centuries shrouded earth. Continents crumbled, the eternal seas rose and washed new shores. But the blind gods stayed to guard that which no longer needed anything, and still they watch those strange alien statues on Easter Island. End of Chapter 3. Chapter 4 of The Creature From Beyond Infinity by Henry Kuttner. Read by Mark Nelson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 4 Growth Two years day 1941 was a momentous hour for Stephen Court. Most of December 1940 had been spent in his laboratories, engrossed with a task the nature of which he explained to no one. The great Wisconsin mansion where he lived with his staff had been metamorphosed into a fortress of science, though from the outside it resembled merely an antique, dilapidated structure. But nearby villagers viewed with suspicion the activity around Court's home. The local post office was day-losed with letters and packages. At all hours automobiles arrived, carrying cryptic burdens for Court. Slyly the villagers questioned Sammy, for he often wandered into the combination store and post office to sit by the stove and puff great reeking fumes from his battered pipe. Sammy had not changed much with the years. His hair had turned white, and there were merely a few more creases in his brown face. Since moving to Wisconsin Stephen had relaxed the anti-licker restriction, but Sammy had learned the value of moderation. What's going on up at your place? The storekeeper asked him, proffering a bottle. Sammy drank two measured gulps and wiped his lips. The Lord only knows, he sighed. It's way beyond me. Stevie's a swell boy, though. You can bet on that. Yeah, retorted somebody with an angry snort. He's a cold-blooded fish, you mean. The boy ain't human. He's got ice-water in his veins. Comes and goes without so much as a howdy-do. He's thinking, Sammy defended sturdily. Got a lot on his mind these days, Stevie has. He gets about two hours sleep a night. But what's he doing? I don't know, admitted Sammy. Inventing something, maybe? More than likely he'll blow us all up one of these fine days, grunted the storekeeper. The loungers around the stove nodded in agreement. Here's the tram coming in, hear it? Sammy settled himself more comfortably. There ought to be a package for Stevie, then. There was. The old man took the parcel and left the station. He stood for a time watching the train disappear into the distance. Its whistles sang a seductive song that aroused nostalgia in Sammy's bosom. He sighed, remembering the old days when he had been a hungry, carefree, spindle-stiff. Well, he was better off now, well fed and cared for, without any worries. But it was nice to hear a train whistle once in a while. He climbed into the roadster and zoomed off toward the mansion. Ten minutes later he led himself into the hall to be met by an anxious-eyed girl in a white uniform. It had come, she asked. Sure, Marion, here it is. He gave her the parcel. Holding it tightly, she turned and hurried away. Since her arrival three years ago, Marion Barton had become a fixture in the house. She had been hired at first as a temporary laboratory assistant, during the absence of the regular one. But she had interested court who saw surprising capabilities in her. The fact that Marion was altogether lovely, slim, brown-eyed, dark-haired, with a peach complexion and remarkably kissable lips, meant nothing at all to court. He merely catalogued her as a perfect physical specimen, thoroughly healthy and concentrated on the more interesting occupation of investigating her mind. What he found there pleased him. She's intelligent, he told Sammy, and she is meticulously careful. I have never seen her make a mistake. She's such a perfect assistant for me that we work in complete harmony. The girl seems to know exactly what I want, whether to hand me a scalpel or a lens, and she is completely unemotional. I shall keep her on, Sammy, and train her. Uh-huh! said the old man, nodding wisely. She does all that, and she is completely unemotionally. Well, maybe so. Sure she ain't in love with you, Stevie? Rot! court snapped. But it made him think it was necessary to warn Marion. I'll pay you well, he explained to her, and give you an invaluable training. But I have no time for emotional unbalance. I cannot afford distractions. Do you understand me? Well, Marion observed, with desperate levity. I'll wear horned rimmed glasses if you want, and hoop skirts if my legs distract you. Not at all. I merely mean that there must be no question of any, well, infatuation. Marion was silent for a moment, though her eyes sparkled dangerously. All right, she said quietly. I won't fall in love with you, Mr. Court. Is that satisfactory? Quite, Court said. He turned away, obviously dismissing the subject while Marion glared at his retreating back. She was remembering this scene now as she went into Court's laboratory. He was bent over a table, one eye to a microscope, his lips tensely pursed. Marion waited till he had finished his count. He straightened and saw her. Got it? he asked calmly. Good! Court ripped open the package and drew out a small leather-bound notebook. Hastily he flipped through the pages. His strong, tanned face darkened. Wait a minute, Marion, he called as the girl moved to leave. I want to talk to you. Yes? Erm, this is New Year's Eve, I know. Had you planned on doing anything to-night? Marion's brown eyes widened. She stared at Court in amazement. Was he trying to date her? Why, I did plan on. I should appreciate it, he said, without a trace of embarrassment. If you would stay and help me with some research tonight. I regret having to say this, but it's rather important. I want to verify certain tests. I'll stay, Marion assented briefly, but she flushed. Good! Stay in these slides, please. For several hours the two worked in silence. Court engrossed with his microscope the girl busy dying the samples. Finally, it exhausted a small tank and conducted experiments in the vacuum he had created. Time dragged on till the huge old house was utterly still. The chill of a Wisconsin winter blanketed it, making frost patterns on the window panes. Inside the room it was warm enough, though snow lay thickly on the ground outside. Presently Marion slipped out of the room and returned bearing a tray of coffee and sandwiches. She set it on a table and glanced at Court. Standing by a window he was idly smoking a cigarette. Mr. Court! What is it? he asked, without looking around. His face was upturned to the quiet night outside as he spoke again, not waiting for her answer. Come here! Marion obeyed. She was astonished to see that Court's face was drawn and haggard, actually gray around the lips, but his eyes were feverishly bright. Up there, he said, pointing, do you see anything? The cold stars glittered frostily in an abyss of empty black. Some icy breath of the unknown seemed to blow down from the frigid, airless seas between the planets. Marion shuddered. I see nothing unusual, she said. Naturally no one has. There's nothing visible, and yet, wearily, he rubbed his forehead, it's impossible that my experiments have lied. Drink some coffee, Marion urged. Court followed her to the table and sat down. As she poured the steaming liquid his somber eyes dwelt on her face. Are you game for an airplane trip into Canada, he asked abruptly? Yes, when? As soon as I can arrange it. There's a man I must see. Um, a patient. Court gulped down untasted coffee and blinked tiredly. You should get at least a little sleep. Not yet. I don't know. He came to a sudden decision. Marion, you don't know anything about this experiment I'm working on. No one knows about it yet, except me. All this data I've been collecting lately has been for a purpose. You haven't any idea what that purpose is, have you? No, I haven't. Well, Court declared, with curious calm, it's simply this. I have reason to believe that the earth is going to be destroyed. Wait a minute, he cried hastily. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned this till I was absolutely certain, but I want to talk to someone. His unrealized loneliness showed naked for an unguarded second on his face. He caught himself and was once more impassive. The earth is going to face a plague that will destroy civilization. With that, at least, I am certain. A plague, she breathed. I call it that, for lack of a better term. Every being on this planet will be affected by it. Marion looked at him sharply, her lovely eyes narrowed. Affected? Don't you mean destroyed? Court pushed back his chair and rose. No, he whispered. I don't. His grave lips went hard. Come here, Marion, look at this. He strode to a safe in the wall, opened it, and withdrew a small oblong box of lead. Said in one face was a round, transparent disk. Look through the lens, he commanded. Don't get too close to that thing, though. Marion obeyed. Through the tiny pain she could see within the box a shining lump of matter, no larger than the nail of her thumb. It's phosphorescent, she said. What is it, an ore? A specimen of flesh taken from the thigh of a man named Pierre Lossico, a French Canadian. Flesh? The girl peered again at the object. Was he exposed to radium? Court replaced the box in the safe. No, nothing like that. Lossico lived in a little settlement in a valley in the wilderness. A month ago he staggered into the nearest town, emaciated and nearly dead. His story was just about unbelievable. He claimed that one day a heavy fog, abnormally heavy, blanketed his valley and affected the inhabitants peculiarly. They became incredibly hungry, ate enormous meals. Their skin became hot to the point of high fever, and they grew so old that most of them died. Lossico went for help, but nobody recognized him when he arrived in town. He looked thirty years older. What does that suggest to you, Marion? Increased metabolism, she said, unhesitatingly. Exactly. A rescue party was sent out. They found the corpses of a dozen old men and women in the valley, but no sign of what killed them. There was no sign of a fog or anything dangerous. Meanwhile, Lossico was luckily put into an isolation ward in the hospital. He ate tremendously. It was noticed that his skin emitted radiation. In the dark his body actually shone. Court lit a cigarette for a few abstracted puffs before continuing. His nurse caught the contagion. She killed herself. Lossico is kept in utter isolation now, for there isn't a doctor or a nurse who dares to get near him. When Dr. Granger wired me, I suggested lead insulation so he could obtain his specimen for me to study. I want to see Lossico and make further experiments upon him. Frown. You have other evidence, of course. Naturally, similar cases have been reported to me. This isn't anything new. Do you remember about seven years ago a newspaper story about a valley in France where the inhabitants were killed by a heavy fog? It was attributed to poison gas. Do you remember that West Indian island where life was wiped out overnight, without any explanation at all? People talked about volcanic gas. My files are full of apparently meaningless items like that. Freaks and sports born to animals and humans. So-called ghost stories about apparitions that shone in the dark. There are dozens of other examples. The girl shuddered as she thought of the tag of flesh she had seen. And do you think this is the beginning of a plague? My graphs and charts show an upward swing. These occurrences happen more frequently as time goes on. Whatever causes them is growing more powerful. But what could cause such a thing, the girl asked? No virus could. Not a virus. Filterable or not, they could not cause cellular radioactivity. This menace, this unknown X, is certainly not a virus. I don't know its nature nor where it comes from. Till I know those factors, I can do nothing. Could it be a weapon of war, Marion suggested? You mean, well, scarcely. Once it started it's completely uncontrollable. X isn't man-made, for its record goes back too far for chemistry. It's a natural phenomenon and our only clue is fog. A gas? Court nodded and his eyes grew distant with thought. Where does it come from, under the earth? That's possible, of course, but hardly any of these cases have occurred in volcanic country. I think X comes from the interstellar void. Marion's eyes widened in horrified recollection. That's why you've been getting those observatory reports, photographs, and spectra. Court grunted impatiently. They showed nothing, and that's what I can't understand. Maybe the conditions aren't right, Marion suggested. Phosphorescence isn't visible in daylight. Perhaps X isn't visible in space. Court didn't move, but his fingers broke his cigarette in two. It was that, he demanded, startled. Before the girl could reply he whistled sharply and turned to the window. Of course! A catalyst! Some element in our atmosphere makes X visible and perhaps dangerous as well. In outer space it can't be seen, but when it comes in contact with some element in the air I think you've got it, Marion! He stared grimly at the dark sky. Up there, yet it's invisible. Perhaps a cosmically huge cloud of it is drifting eternally through space. We're probably on the outer fringes, so we've touched only a few tiny, scattered wisps, when Earth plunges into the main body. Court lifted a clenched fist, furious because he was such a tiny, insignificant figure against the mighty concourse of the starry void. An element so alien that we can scarcely conceive of it. We can realize it exists only by seeing its effects on Earth. What is it? What physical laws govern that frightful matter? Or is it matter as we know it? He turned suddenly, his eyes hard and determined. We're leaving for Canada. Charter a plane. I'll pack the equipment I need. Marion paused at the door. Mr. Court, she began and hesitated. Well? Somehow, though, she could find no words. In her mind was the picture of Court at the window, challenging the universe. A champion of mankind. He had made a magnificent gesture. But then Marion saw his cold, grim eyes. Reading the expression in them, her face whitened as she realized suddenly that Court cared nothing at all for mankind. His motives were passionlessly selfish. He was not a champion. He was a scientist, cold, calculating, egocentric, challenging an opponent that threatened his existence. Whatever she meant to say died in her throat, just as something died in her heart. She went out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. CHAPTER V. JANSAIA It was dark in the forest, though sunlight filtered down wanly through the branches. Truly the earth had changed since our death had first set foot upon it. He was not entirely pleased as he strode along, matching step with the gigantic thordred. It did not seem to him that this world would be a suitable dwelling place. Thousands of years had passed since our death had taken thordred from his home. Weary centuries had passed in ageless slumber, and a new civilization had risen. But somehow our death did not feel at home in this time. He sensed a subtle strangeness in the very air about him. He sighed a little wearily. His plans had gone amiss. The death of Zaina, the Amazon queen, had taken him by surprise. He had hoped to retain her as a mate for thordred, but without apparent cause the woman's sleep had changed to death. A fleeting suspicion of thordred had passed through our death's mind, but he dismissed it. Though he had several poisons which might have caused such symptoms, thordred could not possibly know of their existence nor how to use them. Not a word or a thought had thordred revealed that his brain held all the knowledge that had been our death's alone. The two of them had set out to examine this new civilization, leaving the spaceship safely hidden in the forest. They had captured two natives, learned their language by means of the thought-transference machine and taken their clothing. With all memory of the encounter wiped from their minds by means of our death's strange science the natives were released. They are a puny folk today, thordred said, his savage face twisting into a grin as he shifted the toga about his broad shoulders. These garments scarcely cover me. Our own garments might have caused comment, our death explained. Let us hope that your size won't mark you for an alien. Thordred's spat in vicious contempt. I don't fear these weaklings. Why can I not carry a weapon, Lord? I am armed, our death said quietly. The huge earthling did not answer. He had not wished to accompany our death on this expedition. If thordred could have remained in the ship he would have had free access to the laboratory. After that there would be no need to fear our death or anyone else. But he had not dared to object when his captor ordered him to follow. The forest thinned and the two men came out into blinding sunlight. Starting at their feet the ground sloped down to a broad shallow basin, a valley where a city lay. To the north was the serrated horizon of mountain peaks. Apparently they were volcanoes, for smoke plumed up lazily from one and spread in a dark blot against the blue sky. This is their chief city, our death stated. Remember, if anyone asks we are farmers from the outer provinces. Thordred nodded, grinning more broadly than before. A farmer. His mighty hands were accustomed to sword-hilts, not the handles of plows. But he had good reason not to argue. The metropolis was unwalled. Several unpaved but well-trodden roads led into it, along which wanes and wagons were creaking in and out. Most of the houses were of wood, some of stone, and a few of marble. Those built of marble were mostly temples. Crowds filled the streets. There seemed to be two types of beings here. The roughly clad, bronzed peasant class, walked or drove their wagons. The aristocracy were carried in palanquines. There were soldiers too, armed horsemen who nevertheless seemed slight compared with Thordred's giant frame. Here, our death said, nodding toward a low doorway. Taverns are good places to hear gossip. They entered the inn, found themselves in a large room, broad and long, but low-rafftered. The stench of wine and beer was choking. Lamps illuminated the darker corners. Crude tables were set here and there, at which men lounged, drinking, cursing, and laughing. Two bearded seamen were throwing dice on the floor. We are thirsty, our death said to the waiter who appeared. He did not drink from the wine-cup that was set before him. Thordred, however, drained his at a gulp and shouted for more. You are strangers here, the innkeeper asked. He took the coins our death gave him, curious, bronze discs engraved with a cross within a circle. They had come from the pockets of the two natives our death had captured. Yes, it is our first visit. You come to trade? No, our death replied. We are here to catch a glimpse of the woman whose fame has traveled even to the outer provinces. Men say that her beauty is blinding. So, the landlord asked, his eyebrows lifting, what is her name? That I do not know, our death said, but I can draw her features. He took from his garments a stylus of his own devising and hastily sketched a face on the boards of the table. The likeness was so nearly photographic that the innkeeper instantly recognized it. By the mountain you are an artist. That's Janssaya, the Priestess. She's beautiful enough, or so men say, only you can't see her. The Priestesses of Dagon never leave their temple, and men can worship only during the sea festival. Once a year men gaze on Janssaya as she serves the God. You have ten months to wait. I see, our death said, his face falling unhappily. And where is this temple? Having learned the directions, they left the inn. Why do you wish to see this winch, Thordred grunted? She is the wisest in this time, our death said. I learned that before we landed here. Hovering high over the land in his spaceship, he had located Janssaya with his ray device and noted her high intelligence. The unexpected death of Zayna the Amazon still rankled in him. He had determined to secure a substitute, and Janssaya was the logical one. She would accompany our death and Thordred into time, for he had decided not to remain in this civilization. He had did not fulfill his requirements. The two men reached the outskirts of the temple. As yet, our death had not decided on any definite plan, knowing that first he must find the priestess. Wait here, he said. Do not move away till I return. The giant drew back in the shelter of a tree, watching our death cross the thoroughfare toward a gate, where a soldier lounged on his spear. The guard straightened, ready to challenge the Kyrian's entry into the city. Suddenly his eyes went blank and blind as they met our deaths. Ordinary hypnotism worked well on these superstitious folk. Our death went through the gate. The bulk of a temple rose before him. Built of parfery and onyx and rose marble, it seemed to rest on the sword as lightly as Gossamer. Despite its hugeness, it had been constructed with an eye for proportion, so that it was utterly lovely, a symphony in stone. A curving stairway rose toward bronze gates that stood ajar with a soldier on guard at each side. Quietly our death went on. The guards did not move once they had felt the impact of his gaze. He entered the temple, found it vast, with a high arch dome and smoky with incense. The floor was green as the sea. Jade green, too, was the flat-topped altar that loomed before him. Behind the altar the sacred trident reared and smoke coiled lazily about its prongs. A shaven-headed, soft-faced priest turned to face our death. You have come to pay homage to Dagon, he said, rather than asked. Where are your tributes? Do you come empty-handed? Our death decided to change his tactics. He fixed his stare upon the priest, summoning all his will. The man hesitated, spoke a few thick words, and drew back. You seem strange, he muttered. Your form changes. To the hypnotized priest it seemed as though a light mist had gathered about our death's body. It thickened and swirled, and suddenly, where had been the figure of a man, was something entirely different. It was Dagon, the sea-god, as the priest pictured him in his own imagination. The man went chalk-white. He collapsed to the floor, so paralyzed with fright and amazement that for a moment Ardath feared he had fainted. You know me, Ardath said softly. Great Master, forgive your servant! The priest babbled frantic, incoherent prayers that sounded like gibberish. Bring the priestess Janssaya to me, Ardath commanded. At once, at once! The man backed behind a tapestry and was gone. Ardath lifted ironic eyebrows, for this was altogether too easy. When he felt under his robe for certain weapons he had brought with him from the ship he nodded. Hypnotism was a ticklish trick. It was undependable, whereas weapons were not. But the priest returned, leading a veiled, slight, feminine figure. Both bowed to the floor. Ardath lifted the girl to her feet. He pulled aside the veil, found that no deception had been practiced upon him. This was the priestess, the beautiful Janssaya. Chapter 6 Unforgettable Land Wonderfully lovely she was, with elfin, childlike features, that somehow held a certain sophistication, and even a suggestion of inherent, latent cruelty. Her hair was bright gold, her eyes sea-green. Though she was tiny as an irid, her delicately symmetrical figure was not in the least childlike. She came closer to Ardath. Suddenly he felt a searing pain on his arm and drew away sharply. This is no God, Janssaya cried, her voice like tinkling silver bells. Blood flows through his veins. He is human and an imposter! She drew away, a small dagger still clenched in her hand. Ardath glanced riley at the long scratch on his arm, yet he caught the quick stir of movement. As though by magic the temple was full of shaven-headed priests. From behind the tapestry walls they came swiftly, forming a ring about Ardath. Their steel swords glittered no less coldly than their eyes. We, too, know something of hypnotism, one of them rasped in contempt. There are ways of testing even gods! Ardath thought quickly. His foes were at least two score. Hypnotism would be useless now, but he had other weapons. Under his gown was a projector that would have slain every priest in the temple if he had cared to use it. He did not. Ardath's alien philosophy forbade the unnecessary taking of me. Instead his hand, hidden in a fold of the toga, moved almost imperceptibly. A tiny crystalline sphere dropped to the green tiles of the floor and Ardath put his sandaled foot over it. "'Do you yield?' the leader of the priests asked. Ardath smashed the globe with his soul, at the same time holding his breath. Instantly a colorless, odorless gas diffused through the temple. The priests no longer could move. Frozen, statue-like, they stood gripping their weapons and staring blindly straight ahead. The gas had a certain anesthetic quality which warped their time-sense and slowed down their reactions tremendously. To their slowed vision it seemed as though Ardath vanished instantaneously when he stepped aside. Hastily he looked around, still holding his breath. The temple was silent. No new enemy had appeared. Ardath wrenched a sword from a motionless priest and held it lightly in his right hand. He strode quickly to the priestess and lifted her under one arm. Ardath was no giant, but his muscles were steel-strong, and Janssaya was tiny. Carrying his light captive he hurried out of the temple. The two guards at the gate had not moved. They remained passive as Ardath descended the stairs and went through the outer portal into the street. The sentry there was also motionless and silent. But behind Ardath rose a clamour and an outcry. Nowhere could huge Thordred be seen. He had not waited. Perhaps he had been taken prisoner. Ardath's first step now was to return to the ship. After that, when the Kyrian gathered more resources, Thordred could be rescued. But at that moment there was no time for delay. Bending low Ardath ran along the street. The noise of pursuit followed close behind him, abruptly swelling to a thunder of iron hoofs. Down upon the Kyrian rode a horseman in glittering armour, sword lifted in menace. The bearded soldier shouted a searing curse. Out of the temple gates the priests poured. Slay him! They yelled as they raced after Ardath. Slay him! Ardath had no time to employ any weapon but the sword that was bare in his hand. He threw Janssaya's side out of danger. Quickly he reversed the blade gripping it by the point. As the horseman thundered down he flung the steel like a club. The street exploded into a blinding blur of action. Ardath died's decide as ringing hoofs clashed on the pavement. The soldier's sword screamed ominously through the air but Ardath's missile had found its mark. Its heavy hilt had smashed against the horseman's bare forehead. The man was slumped in his saddle unconscious. The weight of his sword had completed the slash. Instantly Ardath was at the reins. He dragged the soldier down and sprang lightly into the saddle. He wheeled them out. Reaching low over the side he picked up Janssaya and gently, though swiftly, put the limp figure across the saddle before him. The horse reared and charged down the street, scattering yelling priests before its thundering hoofs. Never before had Ardath ridden a horse nor even seen one of its kind, but eons ago, in the Myocene age, he had studied the small fleet Neo-Hyperion. He instantly recognized the similarity between the modern and the prehistoric Desert Horse. Animals had never feared nor distrusted Ardath, for he understood them too well. The steed responded to the least touch of his hands and heels. Through the city it raced. Three times Ardath had to use his sword but only to disarm. It was not necessary to kill. Suddenly then the city was behind him and he was racing up the slope toward the forest. It was already late afternoon. The shadows lay long and dark on the sword. Ardath cast a glance behind him, saw that a horde of horsemen were riding hard in pursuit. He shrugged indifferently and looked down at Janssaya. Undisturbed she still slept. He studied her face, realizing that it was lovely beyond imagination, though the perfect lips were somewhat arrogant, a little cruel. With his knowledge to combat those traits he could make her a fit mate for any superior man. But what had happened to Thordred? Ardath was beginning to grow worried. He could do nothing till he reached the ship, though. It was sunset before he did. The titanic sphere rose above the treetops as it lay cradled in a clearing. A port was wide open, just as he had left it, but across the gap shimmered a pallid curtain of white radiance. Ardath reigned in, sprang from the saddle. Snatching down Janssaya in his arms, he called out sharply, Thordred! Instantly the giant came out of a thicket, his savage face inscrutable. Follow me, Ardath commanded briefly, and went toward the ship. As he neared the port, the flickering curtain died. He entered, carrying his burden, and Thordred followed. Ardath turned when they were all inside. The horse was quietly grazing where he had left it. When he heard the distant sound of shouting, constantly growing louder, Ardath sighed. He put Janssaya down and closed the port. Seating himself without haste at the control panel, he sent the ship arrowing up from the forest. The vessel hung in the air, hovering motionless. Ardath turned to Thordred. You tried to enter the ship, he said quietly. I had forbidden that. Why did you try to do so? Thordred flushed, trying to evade that piercing, though gentle stare. I came as far as the temple doors. When I saw the priests capture you, I thought you were helpless. I was unarmed, so I came back to the ship to find some weapon to aid you. For a long tense moment Ardath's inscrutable gaze dwelt upon the giant. No one can enter here save by my will, he said. You would do well to obey me in the future. Thordred nodded hastily and changed the subject. The girl is awakening. Janssaya's green eyes slowly opened. The instant she saw Ardath, horror and hatred sprang into her gaze. She looked then at the crafty Thordred. Suddenly and unmistakably the giant earthling realized that he had found an ally against Ardath. But he said nothing. He waited, silent and passive, while Ardath spoke to Janssaya in her own language, explaining why she had been abducted. She listened attentively, and the Kyrian knew she did not regard him as a god or a demon. Not for nothing had he sought out the most intelligent human of this particular time. The sun was setting when Ardath finished his explanation. Through the transparent window of a port they could see the land that stretched beneath them, green and beautiful. Smoke plumbed up from the volcanic range. The city, tiny and white, lay in the distance. You intend to put me to sleep, Janssaya asked incredulously, for a thousand years? A thousand or more, Ardath said quietly. Your civilization does not suit my needs. Do you love it so well that you would refuse? No, she responded. Returned to be imprisoned in Dagon's Temple once more? No, I am glad to be free. But to have to leave my world forever. Kingdoms die, Ardath pointed out. Civilizations pass like shadows. When we awake, perhaps no man will remember your land. Janssaya rose and went to the port. The red sun cast bloody light on her face. You are wrong, she whispered. I am your prisoner. I have no choice but to obey. Yet if we sleep for a hundred thousand years, men will not forget my kingdom. All over earth our ships carry wondrous goods. Our civilization is the mightiest in the world. It cannot die or pass. It will go on through the ages growing mightier. Not even the gods can destroy this land. Not even Dagon, Lord of the sea, can destroy Atlantis.