 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Rowdy Delaney, Idaho, USA. A World is Born by Lee Brackett. Mel Gray flung down his hoe with a sudden tigerish fierceness and stood erect. Tom Ward, working beside him, glanced at Gray's indianesque profile, the youth of it hardened by war and the hells of the Eros prison-blocks. A quick flash of satisfaction crossed Ward's dark eyes, then he grinned and said mockingly, "'Hell of a place to spend the rest of your life, ain't it?' Mel Gray stared with slitted blue eyes down the valley. The huge son of Mercury seared his naked body, sweat channeled the dust on his skin, his throat ached with thirst, and the bitter landscape mocked him more than Ward's face. "'The rest of my life,' he repeated softly, "'the rest of my life,' he was twenty-eight. Ward spat in the damp black earth. You ought to be glad, helping the unfortunate, building a haven for derelict—'Shut up!' Fury rose in gray, hotter than the boiling springs that ran from Sunside to water the valleys. He hated Mercury. He hated John Moulton and his daughter Jill, who had conceived this plan of building a new world for the destitute and desperate veterans of the Second Interplanetary War. "'I've had enough unselfish service,' he whispered, "'I'm serving myself from now on.' Escape! That was all he wanted. Escape from these stifling valleys, from the snarl of the wind and the barren crags that towered higher than Everest into airless space. Escape from the surveillance of the twenty guards, the forced companionship of ninety-nine other veteran convicts.' Ward poked at the furrows between the sturdy, high-bred tubers. "'It ain't possible, kid. Not even for Duke Gray, the light-fingered genius who held the interstellar police at a standstill for five years,' he laughed. I read your publicity. Gray stroked slow, earth-stained fingers over his sleek cap of yellow hair. "'You think so?' he asked softly. Dio the Martian came down the furrow, his lean, wiry figure silhouetted against the upper panorama of the valley, the neat rows of vegetables and the green riot of Nusian wheat, dotted with toiling men and their friendly guards. Dio's green, narrowed eyes studied Gray's hard face. "'What's the matter, Gray, trying to start something?' "'Suppose I were,' asked Gray, soquely. Dio was the unofficial leader of the convict veterans. There was about his thin body some of the grim determination that made the Martians cling to their dying world and bring life to it again. "'You volunteered like the rest of us,' said the Martian. "'Haven't you the guts to stick it?' The hell I volunteered. The IPA sent me. And what's it to you?' "'Only this,' Dio's green eyes were slitted and ugly. "'You've only been here a month. The rest of us came nearly a year ago, because we wanted to. We've worked like slaves, because we wanted to. In three weeks the crops will be in. The molten project will be self-supporting. Molten will get his permanent charter and will be on our way. There are ninety-nine of us, Gray, who want the molten project to succeed. We know that that lousy Karen of Mars doesn't want it to, since Pitchblend was discovered. We don't know whether you're working for him or not, but you're a troublemaker. There isn't to be any trouble, Gray. We're not giving the interplanetary prison authority any excuse to revoke its decision and give Karen of Mars a free hand here. We'll see to any one who tries it. Understand?' Mel Gray took one slow step forward, but Ward's sharp stoet, a guard, stopped him. The Martian worked back up the furrow. The guard, reassured, strolled back up the valley, squinting at the jagged streak of pale gray sky that was going black as low clouds formed, only a few hundred feet above the copper cables that ran from cliff to cliff high over their heads. Another storm, growled Ward. It gets worse, as Mercury enters perihelion. Lovely world, ain't it? Why did you volunteer?' asked Gray, picking up his hoe. Ward shrugged. I had my reasons. Gray voiced the question that had troubled him since his transfer. There were hundreds on the waiting list to replace the man who died. Why did they send me, instead? Some fool blundered, said Ward carelessly. And then, in the same casual tone. You mean it, about escaping? Gray stared at him. What's it to you? Ward moved closer. I can help you. A stab of mingled hope and weary suspicion transfixed Gray's heart. Ward's dark face grinned briefly into his, with a flash of secretive black eyes, and Gray was conscious of distrust. What do you mean, help me? Dio was working closer, watching them. The first growl of thunder rattled against the cliff faces. It was dark now, the pink flames of the dark side aurora, visible beyond the valley mouth. I've got connections, returned Ward cryptically. Interested? Gray hesitated. There was too much he couldn't understand. Moreover, he was a lone wolf. Had been, since the Second Interplanetary War, wrenched him from the quiet backwater of his country home, an eternity of eight years before, and hammered him into hardness, a cynic who trusted nobody and nothing but Mel Duke Gray. If you have connections, he said slowly, why don't you use them yourself? I got my reasons, again that secretive grin. But it's no hide off you, is it? All you want is to get away. That was true. It would do no harm to hear what Ward had to say. Everything burst overhead, streaking down to be caught and grounded by the copper cables. The livid flair showed Dio's face, hard with worry and determination. Gray nodded. Tonight, then, whispered Ward, in the barracks. Out from the cleft where Mel Gray worked, across the flat plain of rock stripped naked by the wind that raved across it, lay the deep valley that sheltered the heart of the molten project. Hot springs joined to form a steaming river, vegetation grew savagely under the huge sun. The air, kept at almost a constant temperature by the blanketing effect of the hot springs, was stagnant and heavy. But up above, high over the copper cables that crossed every valley where men ventured, the eternal wind of mercury screamed and snarled between the naked cliffs. Three concrete domes crouched on the valley floor, housing barracks, tool shops, kitchens, storehouses, and executive quarters connected by underground passages. Beside the smallest dome, joined to it by a heavily barred tunnel, was an insulated hangar containing the only spaceship on mercury. In the small dome, John Moulton leaned back from a pile of reports, took a pinch of Martian snuff, sneezed lustily, and said, Jill, I think we've done it. The gray-eyed, black-haired young woman turned from the quartzite window through which she had been watching the gathering storm overhead. The thunder from other valleys reached them as a dim barrage which, at this time of mercury's year, was never still. I don't know, she said. It seems that nothing can happen now, and yet it's been too easy. Easy, snorted Moulton. We've broken our backs fighting these valleys, and our nerves fighting time. But we've licked them. He rose, shaggy gray hair tossled, gray eyes alight. I told the IPA those men weren't criminals, and I was right. They can't deny me the charter now, no matter how much Karen of Mars would like to get his claws on this radium. He took Jill by the shoulders and shook her, laughing. Three weeks, girl, that's all. First crops ready for harvest? First pay-or coming out of the mines? In three weeks my permanent charter will have to be granted, according to agreement, and then, Jill, he added solemnly, we're seeing the birth of a world. That's what frightens me. Jill glanced upward as the first flare of lightning struck down, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the dome. So much can happen at a birth. I wish the three weeks were over. Nonsense, girl, what could possibly happen? She looked at the copper cables, burning with the electricity running along them, and thought of the one hundred and twenty-two souls in that narrow twilight belt, with the fierce heat of the sun side before them, and the spatial cold of the shadow side at their backs, fighting against wind and storm and heat to build a world to replace the ones the war had taken from them. So much could happen, she whispered, an accident, an escape. The interdome telescreen buzzed its signal. Jill, caught in a queer mood of premonition, went to it. The face of Dio the Martian appeared on the screen, still wet and dirty from the storm-soaked fields, disheveled from his battle across the plain in the chaotic winds. I want to see you, Miss Moulton, he said. There's something funny I think you ought to know. Of course, said Jill, and met her father's eyes. I think we'll see now which one of us is right. The barracks were quiet, except for the mutter of distant thunder and the heavy breathing of exhausted men. Tom Ward crouched in the darkness by Mel Gray's bunk. You ain't going to go soft at the last minute, are you, he whispered, because I can't afford to take chances. Don't worry, Gray returned. What's your proposition? I can give you the combination lock of the hangar passage. All you have to do is get into Moulton's office, where the passage door is, and go to it. The ship's a two-seater. You can get her out of the valley easy. Gray's eyes narrowed in the dark. What's the catch? There ain't none. I swear it. Look, Ward, I'm no fool. Who's behind this, and why? That don't make no difference. All you want—oh! Gray's fingers fastened like steel claws on his wrist. I get it now, Gray said slowly. That's why I was sent here. Somebody wanted me to make trouble for Moulton. His fingers tightened agonizingly. His voice sank to a slow draw. I don't like being a pawn in somebody else's chess game. OK, OK. It ain't my fault. Let me go. Ward rubbed his bruised wrist. Sure, somebody—I ain't sayin' who—sent you here, knowing you'd want to escape. I'm here to help you. You get free. I get paid. The big boy gets what he wants, OK? Gray was silent, scowling in the darkness. Then he said, All right, I'll take a chance. Then listen, you tell Moulton you have a complaint. I'll—Light flooded the dark as the door clanged open. Ward leapt like a startled rabbit, but the light speared him, held him. Ward felt a pulse of excitement beat up in him. The long ominous shadows of the guards raised elongated guns. The barracks stirred and muttered like a vast aviary waking. Ward and Gray, said one of the guards, Moulton wants you. Gray rose from his bunk with the live, delicate grace of a cat. The monotony of sleep and labor was ended. Something had broken. Life was once again a moving thing. John Moulton sat behind the untidy desk. Deal the Martian sat grimly against the wall. There was a guard beside him, watching. Mel Gray noted all this as he and Ward came in, but his cynical blue eyes went beyond, to the door with the ponderous combination lock. Then they were attracted by something else, the tall, slim figure standing against the black quartz panes of the far wall. It was the first time he had seen Jill Moulton. She looked the perfect sober apostle of righteousness he'd learned to mock. And then he saw the soft cluster of black curls, the curve of her throat above the dark dress, the red lips that balanced her determined jaw and direct gray eyes. Moulton spoke, his shaggy head hunched between his shoulders. Leo tells me that you, Gray, are not a volunteer. Tattletail, Gray said. He was gauging the distance to the hangar door, the positions of the guards, the time it would take to spin out the combination, and he knew he couldn't do it. What were you and Ward up to when the guards came? I couldn't sleep, said Gray, amiably, and he was telling me bedtime stories. Jill Moulton was lovely. He couldn't deny that, lovely but not soft. She gave him an idea. Moulton's jaw clamped. Cut the comedy, Gray. Are you working for Karen of Mars? Karen of Mars, Chairman of the Board of the Interplanetary Prison Authority. Leo had mentioned him. Gray smiled in understanding. Karen of Mars had sent him, Gray, to Mercury. Karen of Mars was helping him through Ward to escape. Karen of Mars wanted Mercury for his own purposes, and he could have it. In a manner of speaking, Mr. Moulton, he said gravely, Karen of Mars is working for me. He caught Ward's sharp hiss of remonstrance. Then Jill Moulton stepped forward. Perhaps he doesn't understand what he's doing, Father. Her eyes met Gray's. You do want to escape, don't you? Gray studied her, grinning as the slow rose flushed her skin, the corners of her mouth tightened with anger. Go on, he said. You have a nice voice. Her eyes narrowed, but she held her temper. You must know what that would mean, Gray. There are thousands of veterans in prisons now. Their offenses are mostly trivial, but the prison authority can't let them go, because they have no jobs, no homes, no money. The valleys here are fertile. The mines are rich in copper and pitch-blend. The men have a chance for a home and a job, apart in building a new world. We hope to make Mercury an independent self-governing member of the League of Worlds. With the Moulton's as rulers, of course, Gray murmured. If they want us, Jill answered, deliberately missing the point. Do you think you have the right to destroy all we've worked for? Gray was silent. Rather grimly she went on. Karen of Mars would like to see us defeated. He didn't care about Mercury before radium was discovered, but now he'd like to turn it into a prison-mining community, with convict labor, leasing mine grants to corporations and cleaning up big fortunes for himself and his associates. Any trouble here will give him an excuse to say that we've failed, that the project is a menace to the solar system. If you try to escape, you wreck everything we've done. If you don't tell the truth, you may cost thousands of men their futures. Do you understand? Gray said evenly, I'm my own keeper now. My brother will have to take care of himself. It was ridiculously easy. She was so earnest, so close to him. He had a brief kaleidoscope of impressions, wards sullen bewilderment, Moulton's angry roar. Dio's jerky rise to his feet as the guards grabbed for their guns. Then he had his hands around her slim, firm throat. Her body pressed close to his, serving as a shield against bullets. Don't be rash, he told them all quietly. I can break her neck quite easily if I have to. Ward unlocked that door. In utter silence Ward darted over and began to spin the dial. At last he said, OK, come on. Gray realized that he was sweating. Jill was like warm, rigid marble in his hands, and he had another idea. I'm going to take the girl as a hostage, he announced. If I get safely away she'll be turned loose, her health and her virtue still intact. Good night. The clang of the heavy door had a comforting sound behind them. The ship was a commercial job, fairly slow but sturdy. Gray strapped Jill Moulton into one of the bucket seats in the control room, and then checked the fuel and air gauges. The tanks were full. What about you, he said to Ward. You can't go back. Nah, I'll have to go with you. Worm her up, Duke, while I open the dome. He darted out. Gray set the atmosphere motors idling. The dome slid open, showing the flicker of the auroras, where areas of intense heat and cold set up atmospheric tensions by rapid fluctuation of joining air masses. Mercury, cutting the vast magnetic field of the sun in an eccentric orbit, tortured by daily change from blistering heat to freezing cold in the thin atmosphere, was a powerful generator of electricity. Ward didn't come back. Swearing under his breath, tense for the sound of pursuit in spite of the girl, Gray went to look. Out beyond the hangar he saw a figure running. Running hard up into the narrow cleft of the valley. Their natural galleries in the Rock of Mercury led to the places where the copper cables were anchored, and farther into the unexplored mystery of the caves. Gray scowled, his arrogant Roman profile hard against the flickering aurora. Then he slammed the lock shut. The ship roared out into the tearing winds of the plane. Gray cut his rockets and blasted up into the airless dark among the high peaks. General Moulton hadn't moved or spoken. Gray snapped on the space radio, leaving his own screen dark. Presently he picked up signals in a code he didn't know. Listen, he said. I knew there was some reason for Ward's running out on me. His Indian-esque face hardened. So that's the game. They want to make trouble for you by letting me escape, and then make themselves heroes by bringing me in, preferably dead. They've got ships waiting to get me as soon as I clear Mercury, and they're getting standby instructions from somebody on the ground, the somebody that Ward was making for. Jill's breath made a small hiss. Somebody's near the project. Gray snapped on his transmitter. Duke Gray, calling all ships off Mercury, will the flagship of your reception committee please come in? His screen flickered to life. A man's face appeared. A middle-age, soft fleshed, almost stickily innocent face of one of the solar system's greatest crusaders against vice and crime. Jill Moulton gasped. Coron of Mars. Ward gave the game away, said Gray gently. Too bad. The face of Coron of Mars never changed expression, but behind those flesh-lidded eyes was a cunning brain working at top speed. I have a passenger, Gray went on. Miss Jill Moulton. I'm responsible for her safety, and I'd hate to have her inconvenienced. The tip of a pale tongue flicked across Coron's pale lips. That is a pity, he said, with the intonation of a preaching minister, but I cannot stop the machinery set in motion. And besides finished Gray acidly, you think that if Jill Moulton dies with me, it'll break John Moulton so he won't fight you at all. His lean hand poised on the switch. All right, you putrid flesh-tub, try and catch us. The screen went dead. Gray hunched over the controls. If he could get past them, lose them in the glare of the sun. He looked aside at the stony-faced girl beside him. She was studying him contemptuously out of hard Gray eyes. How, she said slowly, can you be such a callous swine? Callous? He controlled the quite unreasonable anger that rose in him. Not at all. The war taught me that if I didn't look out for myself, no one would. And yet you must have started out as a human being. He laughed. The ship burst into searing sunlight. The sun-side of Mercury blazed below them, out toward the velvet dark of space, the side of a waiting ship flashed, burning silver. Even as he watched, the flare of its rockets arched against the blackness. They had been sighted. Gray's practiced eye gauged the stranger's speed against his own, and he cursed softly. Abruptly he wheeled the ship and started down again, cutting his rockets as the shadows swallowed them. The ship was eerily silent, dropping with a rising scream as the atmosphere touched the hull. What are you going to do, asked Jill almost too quietly? He didn't answer. Maneuvering the ship on velocity between those stupendous pinnacles took all his attention. Karen at least couldn't follow him in the dark without exhaust flares as guides. They swept across the wind-torn plain into the mouth of the valley where Gray had worked, breaking hard to a stop under the cables. You might have got past him, said Jill. One chance in a hundred. Her mouth twisted. Afraid to take it? He smiled harshly. I haven't yet reached the stage where I kill women. You'll be safe here. The men will find you in the morning. I'm going back alone. Safe? She said bitterly. For what? No matter what happens, the project is ruined. Don't worry, he told her brutally. You'll find some other way to make a living? Her eyes blazed. You think that's all it means to us? Just money and power? She whispered. I hope they kill you, Duke Gray. He rose lazily and opened the airlock. Then turned and freed her. And sharply the valley was bathed in a burst of light. Damn! Gray picked up the sound of air-motors overhead. They must have had infrared search-beams. Well, that does it. We'll have to run for it since this air-bus isn't armed. With an eerie irrelevancy the tele-radio buzzed. At this time of night, after the evening storms, some communication was possible. Gray had a hunch. He opened the switch, and the face of John Moulton appeared on the screen. It was white and oddly still. Our guards saw your ship cross the plain, said Moulton quietly. The men of the project, led by Dio, are coming for you. I sent them because I have decided that the life of my daughter is less important than the lives of many thousands of people. I appeal to you, Gray. Let her go. Her life won't save you, and it's very precious to me. Car and ship went over low above the cables, and the grinding concussion of the bomb lifted the ship, hurled it down with the stern twisted and useless. The screen went dead. Gray caught the half-stun girl. I wished to heaven I could get rid of you, he graded. And I don't know why don't. But she was with him when he set out down the valley, making for the cliff-caves up where the copper cables were anchored. Car and ship, a fast, small fighter, wheeled between the cliffs and turned back. Gray dropped flat, holding the girl down. Bombs pelted them with dirt and uprooted vegetables, started fires in the wheat. The pilot found a big enough break in the cables, and came in for a landing. Gray was up and running again. He knew the way into the explored galleries. From there on it was anybody's guess. Car and was brazen enough about it. The subtle way had failed. Now he was going all out. And he was really quite safe. With the broken cables to act as conductors, the first thunderstorms would obliterate all proof of his activities in the valley. Mercury, because of its high electrical potential, was cut off from communications with other worlds. Molten, even if he had knowledge of what went on, could not send for help. Gray wondered briefly what Car and intended to do in case he, Gray, made good as escape. That outpost in the main valley, for which Ward had been heading, wasn't kept there for fun. Besides, Car and was too smart to have only one string in his bow. Shouts! The splatter of shots around them. The narrow trail loomed above. Gray sent the girls scrambling up. The sun burst over the high peaks, leaving the black shadow of the valley still untouched. Car and ship roared off, but six of its crew came after Gray and Jill Molten. The chill dark of the tunnel mouth swallowed them. Keeping right to avoid the great copper posts that held the cables strung through the holes drilled in the solid rock of the gallery's outer wall, Gray urged the girl along. The cleft his hand was searching for opened, drawing the girl inside, around a jetting shoulder, he stopped, listening. Footsteps echoed outside, grew louder, swept by. There was no light, but the steps were too sure to have been made in the dark. Infrared torches and goggles, Gray said, tersely. You see, but your quarry doesn't. Useful gadget. Come on. But where? What are you going to do? Escape, girl. Remember? They smashed my ship. But there must be another one on Mercury. I'm going to find it. I don't understand. You probably never will. Here's where I leave you. That Martian Gala had will be along in a minute. He'll take you home. Her voice came soft and puzzled through the dark. I don't understand you, Gray. You wouldn't risk my life, yet you're turning me loose, knowing that I might save you, knowing that I'll hunt you down if I can. I thought you were a hardened cynic. What makes you think I'm not? If you were, you would have kicked me out the waist-tubes of the ship and gone on. You'd never have turned back. I told you, he said roughly, I don't kill women. He turned away, but her harsh chuckle followed him. You're a fool, Gray. You've lost truth, and you aren't even true to your lie. He paused in swift anger. Waces, the sound of running men, came up from the path. He broke into silent run, following the dying echoes of Karen's men. Run, Gray, cried Jill, because we're coming after you. Mercury, with the rising of the Titanic Mountains, sprawled an elaborate-themed network through those same vast peaks. Only the galleries lying next to the valleys had been explored. Man's habitation on Mercury had been too short. Gray could hear Karen's men circling about through connecting tunnels, searching. It proved what he had already guessed. He was taking a desperate chance. But the way back was closed, and he was used to taking chances. The geography of the district was clear in his mind. The valley he had just left, and the main valley, forming an obtuse triangle at the apex of the wind-torn plain, and a double range of mountains lying out between the sides of the triangle. Somewhere there was a passage through the peaks. Somewhere there was a landing-place, and ten to one there was a ship on it. Karen would never have left his men stranded, on the off chance that they might be discovered, and used as evidence against him. The men hunting him now knew their way through the tunnels, probably with the aid of markings that fluoresced under infrared light. They were going to take him through, too. They were coming closer. He waited far up the main gallery, in the mouth of a side tunnel. Now, behind them, he could hear Dio's men. The noise of Karen's outfits stopped. They began again, softly. Gray smiled. His sense of humor pleased him. He tensed, waiting. The rustle of cloth, the fruit of creek of leather, the clink of metal equipment, heavy breathing, someone whispered, Who the hell's back there? Must be men from the project. We'd better hurry. We've got to find that damn Gray first, snapped the first voice grimly. Karen'll burn us if we don't. Gray counted six separate footsteps, trying to allow for the echoes. When he was sure the last man was by, he stepped out. The noise of Dio's hunt was growing. There must be a good many of them. Granted by their own echoes, he stole up on the men ahead. His groping hand brushed gently against the clothing of the last man in the group. Gaging his distance swiftly, he went into action. One hand fastened over the fellow's mouth. The other, holding a good-sized rock, struck down behind the ear. Gray eased the body down with scarcely a sound. Their uniforms, he had noticed, were not too different from the prison garb. In a second he had stripped Goggle's cap and gunbelt from the body and was striding after the others. They moved like five eerie shadows now in the queer light of the leader's lamp. Small fluorescent markings guided them. The last man grunted over his shoulder. What happened to you? Stumbled, whispered Gray, tersely, keeping his head down. A whisper is a good disguise for the voice. The other nodded. The leader broke in. We'll circle again. Be careful of that project bunch. They'll be using ordinary light, and be quiet. They went, through connecting passages. The noise of Dio's party grew ominously loud. Abruptly the leader swore. Caron or no Caron, he's gone. And we'd better go too. He turned off, down a different tunnel. Gray heaved a sigh of relief, remembering the body he'd left in the open. For a time the noise of their pursuers grew remote, and then, suddenly, there was an echoing clamor of footsteps, and the glare of torches on the wall of a cross passage. Voices came to Gray, distorted by the rock vaults. I'm sure I heard them, just then. It was Jill's voice. Yeah, that was Dio. The trouble is, where? The footsteps halted. Then, let's try this passage. We don't want to get too far into this maze. Gray's leader blasphemed softly and dodged into a side tunnel. The man next to Gray stumbled and cried out with pain as he struck the wall, and a shout rose behind them. The leader broke into a run, twisting, turning, diving into the maze of smaller tunnels. The sounds of pursuit faded. We're lost in the tomb-like silence of the caves. One of the men laughed. We sure lost him. Yeah, said the leader. We lost him all right. Gray caught a note of panic in his voice. We lost the markers, too. You mean? Yeah. Turning off like that did it. Unless we can find the marked tunnel, we're sunk. Gray, silent in the shadows, laughed a bitter, ironic laugh. They went on, stumbling down endless black halls, losing all track of branching corridors, straining to catch the first glint of saving light. Once or twice they caught the echoes of Dio's party, and knew that they, too, were lost and wandering. Then quite suddenly they came into a vast gallery, running like a subway tube straight to left and right. A wind tore down it, hot as a draft from the burning gates of hell. It was a moment before anyone grasped the significance of that wind. Then someone shouted, We're saved! All we have to do is walk against it. They turned left, almost running into the teeth of that searing blast, and Gray began to notice a peculiar thing. The air was charged with electricity. His clothing stiffened and crackled. His hair crawled on his head. He could see the faint discharges of sparks from his companions. Whether it was the effect of the charged air or the reaction from the nervous strain of the past hours, Mel Gray began to be afraid. Early to exhaustion they struggled on against the burning wind, and then they blundered into a cave, huge as a cathedral, lighted by a queer, uncertain bluish light. Gray caught the sharp smell of ozone. His whole body tingled with electric tension. The bluish light seemed to be in indeterminate lumps scattered over the rocky floor. The rush of the wind under that tremendous vault was terrifying. They stopped, Gray keeping to the background. Now was the time to evade his unconscious helpers. The moment they reached daylight he'd be discovered. Soft-footed as a cat, he was already hidden among the heavy shadows of the fluted walls when he heard voices. They came from off to the right, a confused shout of men under fearful strain, growing louder and louder, underscored with the tramp of footsteps, lights blazed suddenly in the cathedral dark, and from the mouth of the great tunnel, some hundred yards away, the men of the project poured into the cave, and then, sharp and high, an unexpected, a man screamed. The lumps of blue light were moving, and a man died. He lay on a rock, his flesh blackened jelly, with a rope of glowing light running from the metal of his gun-butt to the metal buttons on his cap. All across the vast floor of the cavern, the slow, eerie ripple of motion grew. The scattered lumps melted and flowed together, converging in wavelets of blue flame upon the men. The answer came to Gray. Those things were some form of energy life, born of the tremendous electric tensions of mercury. Like all electricity, they were attracted to metal. When a frenzy of motion, he ripped off his metal-framed goggles, his cap, and gun-belt, the molten's forbade metal because of the danger of lightning, and his boots were made of rubber, so he felt reasonably safe, but a tense fear ran in prickling waves across his skin. Guns began to bark, their feeble thunder all but drowned in the vast rush of the wind. Bullets struck the oncoming waves of light, with no more effect than an eruption of a shower of sparks. Gray's attention, somehow, was riveted on Jill, standing with Dio at the head of her men. She wore ordinary light slippers, having been dressed only for indoors, and there were silver ornaments at her waist and throat. He might have escaped, then, quite unnoticed, instead for a reason he couldn't understand he ran for Jill Moulton. The first ripples of blue fire touched the ranks of Dio's men. Bolts of it leapt upward to fasten upon gun-butts and the buckles of cartridge-belts. Men screamed, fell, and died. One arm of the fire licked out, driving in behind Dio and the girl. The guns of Karen's four remaining men were silent now. Gray leapt over that hissing electric surf, running toward Jill. A hungry worm of light reared up, searching for Dio's gun. Gray's hand swept it down, to be instantly buried in the mass of glowing ropes. Dio's hatchet face snarled at him in startled anger. Jill cried out, as Gray tore the silver ornaments from her dress. Throw down the guns, he yelled. It's metal they want. He heard his name shouted by men torn momentarily from their own terror. Dio cried, shoot him! A few bullets whined past, but their immediate fear spoiled both aim and attention. Gray caught up Jill and began to run, toward the tube from which the wind howled in the cave. Behind him, grimly, Dio followed. The electric beast didn't notice him. His insulated feet trampled through them, buried to the ankle in living flame, feeling queer, tenuous bodies break and reform. The wind met them like a physical barrier at the tunnel mouth. Gray put Jill down. The wind strangled him. He tore off his coat, and wrapped it over the girl's head, using his shirt over his own. Jill, her black curls whipped straight, tried to fight back past him. And he saw Dio coming, bent double against the wind. He saw something else, something that made him grab Jill and point, his flesh crawling with swift, cold dread. The electric beast had finished their pleasures. The dead were cinders on the rock. The living had run back into the tunnels, and now the blue sea of fire was flowing again, straight towards the place where they stood. It was flowing fast, and Gray sensed an urgency and impersonal haste as though a command had been laid upon those living ropes of flame. The first dim rumble of thunder rolled down the wind. Gripping Jill, Gray turned up the tunnel. The wind, compressed in that narrow throat of rock, beat them blind and breathless, beat them to their bellies to crawl. How long it took them, they never knew. But Gray caught glimpses of Dio the Martian crawling behind them, and behind him, again, the relentless flow of the fire-things. They floundered out onto a rocky slope, fell beneath the suck of the wind, and lay still, gasping. It was hot. The thunder crashed abruptly, and lightning flared between the cliffs. Gray felt a contracting of the heart. There were no cables. Then he saw it, the small, fast fighter flying below on the flat plateau. A cave-mouth beside it had been closed with a plastic door. The ship was the one that had followed him. He guessed at another behind the protecting door. Raking the tumbled blond hair out of his eyes, Gray got up. Jill was still sitting. Her black curls bowed between her hands. There wasn't much time, but Gray yielded to impulse, pulling her head back by the silken hair. He kissed her. If you ever get tired of virtue, sweetheart, look me up. But somehow he wasn't grinning, and he ran down the slope. He was almost to the open lock of the ship when things began to happen. Dio staggered out of the wind-tunnel, and sagged down beside Jill. Then abruptly the big door opened. Five men came out, one in a pilot's costume, two in non-descript apparel, one in expensive business clothes, and a fifth in drab prison garb. Gray recognized the last two, Karen of Mars, and the errant ward. They were evidently on the verge of leaving. But they looked cheerful, Karen's sickly sweet face, all but oozed honey, and Ward was grinning his rat's grin. Thunder banged and rolled among the rocks. Lightning flared in the cloudy murk. Gray saw the hull of the second ship beyond the door. Then the newcomers had seen him, and the two on the slope. Guns were ripped out of holsters. Gray's heart began to pound slowly. He and Jill and Dio were caught on that naked slope with the flood of electric death at their backs. His Indian-esque face hardened. Bullets whined around him as he turned back up the slope, but he ran doubled over, putting all his hope in the tricky, uncertain light. Jill and the Martian crouched stiffly, not knowing where to turn. A flare of lightning showed Gray the first of the fire things, flowing out onto the ledge, hidden from the men below. Back into the cave, he yelled. His urgent hand fairly lifted Dio. The Martian glared at him, then obeyed. This snarled against the rock. The light was too bad for accurate shooting, but luck couldn't stay with them forever. Gray glanced over his shoulder as they scrambled up on the ledge. Karan waited by his ship. Ward and the others were charging the slope. Gray's teeth gleamed in a cruel grin. Sweeping Jill into his arms, he stepped into the lapping flow of fire. Dio swore viciously, but he followed. They started toward the cave-mouth, staggering in the rush of the wind. For God's sake, don't fall, snapped Gray. Here they come. The pilot and one of the nondescript men were the first over. They were into the river of fire before they knew it. And then it was too late. One collapsed and was buried. The pilot fell backward, and then the other man died under his body of a broken neck. Ward stopped. Gray could see his face, dark and hard and calculating. He studied Gray and Dio and the dead men. He turned and looked back at Karan. Then deliberately he stripped off his gun-belt, threw down his gun, and waited into the river. Gray remembered then that Ward too wore rubber boots, and had no metal on him. Ward came on, the glowing rope sliding surf-like around his boots. Very carefully, Gray handed Jill to Dio. If I die too, he said, there's only Karan down there. He's too fat to stop you. Jill spoke, but he turned his back. He was suddenly confused, and it was almost pleasant to be able to lose his confusion in fighting. He tensed, watchfully. The rat's grin was set on Ward's face. The cord licked out, but it caught Gray's throat instead of his ankle. Ward laughed and braced himself, cursing Gray caught at the rope. But friction held it, and Ward pulled hard. His face, purpling, Gray could still commend Ward's strategy. In taking Gray off guard, he more than made up what he lost in point of leverage. Letting his body go with the pull, Gray flung himself at Ward. Blood blinded him. His heart was pounding, but he thought he foresaw Ward's next move. He let himself be pulled almost within striking distance. Then, as Ward stepped aside, jerking the rope and thrusting out a tripping foot, Gray made a cat-like shift of balance and bent over. His hands almost touched that weird flowing surf as he clasped Ward's boot. Throwing all his strength into the lift, he hurled Ward backward. Ward screamed once and disappeared into the blue fire. Gray clawed the rope from his neck. And then, suddenly, the world began to sway under him. He knew he was falling. Ward's hand caught him, held him up. Fighting down his vertigo as his breath came back, he saw that it was Jill. Why, he gasped? But her answer was lost in a titanic roar of thunder. Lightning blasted down. Dio's voice reached him, thin and distant, through the clamor. We'll be killed! These things will attract the bolts! It was true. All his work had been for nothing. Looking up into that low, angry sky, Gray knew he was going to die. Quite irrelevantly, Jill's words in the tunnel came back to him. You're a fool! Lost truth! Not true to lie! Now, in this moment, she couldn't lie to him. He caught her shoulders cruelly, trying to read her eyes. Very faintly through the uproar, he heard her. I'm sorry for you, Gray. Good man gone to waste. Dio stifled a scream. Thunder crashed between the sounding boards of the cliffs. Gray looked up. A titanic bolt of lightning shot down, straight for them. The burning blue surf was agitated, sending up pseudo-pods uncannily like worshiping arms. The bolt struck. The air reeked of ozone, but Gray felt no shock. There was a hiss, a vast stirring of creatures around him. The blue light glowed, purpled. Another bolt struck down, and another, and still they were not dead. The fire things had become a writhing, joyous tangle of tenuous bodies, glowing bright and brighter. Stunned, incredulous, the three humans stood. The light was now an eye-searing violet. Static electricity tingled through them in eerie waves, but they were not burned. My God, Gray whispered, they eat it! They eat the lightning! Not daring to move. They stood, watching that miracle of alien life, the feeding of living things on raw current, and when the last bolt had struck the tide turned and rolled back down the wind-tunnel, a blinding river of living light. Silently, the three humans went down the rocky slope where Karen of Mars cowered in the silvership. No bolt had come near it, and now Karen came to meet them. His face was pasty with fear, but the old cunning still lurked in his eyes. Gray, he said, I have an offer to make. Well? You killed my pilot, said Karen, swavly, I can't fly myself. Take me off, and I'll pay you anything you want. In bullets, retorted Gray, you won't want witnesses to this. Circumstances force me, physically, you have the advantage. Jill's fingers caught his arm. Don't, Gray. The project—Karen faced her. The project is doomed in any case. My men carried out my secondary instructions. All the cables in your valley have been cut. There is a storm, now ready to break. In fifteen minutes or so, everything will be destroyed, except the domes. Regrettable. But—he shrugged. Jill's temper blazed, choking her so that she could hardly speak. Look at him, Gray, she whispered. That's what you're so proud of being? A cynic, who believes in nothing but himself? Look at him! He turned on her. Damn you, he graded. Do you expect me to believe you, with a world full of hypocrites like him? Her eyes stopped him. He remembered molten, pleading for her life. He remembered how she looked back there in the tunnel, when they had been sure of death. Some of his assurance was shaken. Listen, he said harshly, I can save your valley. There's a chance in a million of coming out alive. Will you die for what you believe in? She hesitated, just for a second. Then she looked at Dio and said, Yes. Gray turned. Almost lazily, his fist snapped up, and took Karen on his flabby jaw. Take care of him, Dio, he grunted. Then he entered the ship, herding the white-faced girl before him. The ship hurdled up into airless space, where the blinding sunlight lay in sharp shadows on the rock, over the ridge and down again, with the project hidden under a surf of storm clouds. Cutting in the air motors, Gray dropped. Black, billowing darkness swallowed them. Then he saw the valley, with the copper cables fallen, and the wheat already on fire in several places. Even with every bit of his skill, he sought the narrowest part of the valley, and flipped over in a racking loop. The stern tubes hit rock. The nose slammed down on the opposite wall, wedging the ship by sheer weight. Lightning gathered in a vast javelin and flame down upon them. Jill flinched and caught her breath. The flame hissed along the hull, and vanished into seared and blackened rock. Still willing to die for principle, Gray asked brutally. She glared at him. Yes, she snapped. But I hate having to die in your company. She looked down at the valley. Lightning struck with monotonous regularity on the hull, but the valley was untouched. Jill smiled, though her face was white, her body rigid with waiting. It was the smile that did it. Gray looked at her, her tousled black curls, the lithe young curves of her throat and breast. He leaned back in his seat, scowling out at the storm. Relax, he said. You aren't going to die. She turned on him, not daring to speak. He went on, slowly. The only chance she took was in the landing. We're acting as a lightning rod for the whole valley, being the highest and best conductor. But as a man named Faraday proved, the charge resides on the surface of the conductor. We're perfectly safe. How dared you, she whispered. He faced her almost angrily. You knocked the props out from under my philosophy. I've had enough hypocritical eye-wash. I had to prove you. Well, I have. She was quiet for a time, and then she said, I understand, Duke. I'm glad. And now what, for you? He shrugged, wryly. I don't know. I can still take Karn's other ship and escape, but I don't think I want to. I think I'll stick around and give virtue another whirl. Smoothing back his sleek, fair hair, he shot her a sparkling look from under his hands. I won't even mind going to Sunday school, he added softly, if you were the teacher. End of A World Is Born by Lee Brackett