Collected fiction, p.263
Collected Fiction, page 263
It opened! He passed through into a short corridor, and another panel opened before him. His legs were aching intolerably under the strain of walking crook-legged.
Though he carried the gravity screen in plain sight under his arm, there was no trouble. Presumably the Listeners were accustomed to such errands as this. The gods, Denham thought, were not suspicious of one another, only of their human subjects.
And now, to all outward appearances, he was a master—a Listener.
He was in the control room now, a huge domed structure that surmounted the Tower. There were no windows. Here and there were tables where Listeners were working, but there were no complicated machines. Here was the brain of the Tower.
On the farther wall a great metal bar slanted up at a sharp angle. If it were pulled down, Denham surmised, the power source would fail until it was closed again.
Why did this switch exist? Denham guessed the answer. The weapons themselves might be dangerous. They might fall in the hands of enemies, or might in themselves become uncontrollable. That must be the reason.
Then he saw the helmet and switch-box of his size-change ray-projector, on one of the tables, surrounded by sheets of metal which bore inscribed symbols and diagrams. One of the Listeners was bending over the device now.
Denham prayed that it had not been dismantled.
There were perhaps a dozen of the reptile-men in the room. A heavy silence filled it; no one spoke. Denham walked slowly forward, knowing he must secure the ray-projector first of all, even if he had to snatch it from under the nose of a Listener.
Luck was with him. That particular Listener rose, a sheaf of metallic papers in his hand, and moved across the room. Instantly Denham was at that table, and had picked up the projector.
His back crawled with the expectation of death.
Yet in the control room the Listeners seemingly did not expect or think of danger. None of them knew, as yet, that an enemy of another race was among them. Denham blessed the excellence of Varr’s disguise.
Crook-legged he walked toward the switch. Blood pounding in his ears, he bent forward—and a voice called a question behind him!
Instantly Denham acted. The gravity screen unrolled as he gave it a quick jerk. It lay like a carpet against the wall, on the floor beneath the switch.
Then he pulled the lever down. Solid blackness instantly brimmed the room.
CHAPTER XI
Triumph!
DENHAM had a few seconds’ grace. In that brief time, he raced back toward one of the tables, forsaking his crook-legged gait for better speed, and fitted the helmet on his head. His finger depressed the all-important switch-box stud at his belt.
In the dark he could see nothing, but he knew a whirling sensation and a feeling of giddiness. Light came on suddenly. Denham began to shrink. He saw the table towering over him, its leg like a gigantic column a few feet away. He pressed the button again, sending himself down into further smallness.
Not too small, though—or the gravity-screen control might not work! Cowering by the table leg, Denham peered out, realizing that an auxiliary power system had automatically come on. But this system was an emergency one, Varr had told him, and did not control the Listeners’ weapons.
Several of the reptilian creatures were hurrying toward the main power switch, reaching for it to lift it back into place. One of them stepped on the flat mesh of the screen—
Denham touched the gravity-screen control. The Listener plunged down as though struck by Thor’s hammer. He lay flat, unable to stir a muscle, his hideous face pressed down by the weight of five gravities.
But he was moving! Labriously he was crawling to his knees! He had one hand on the power lever, and was slowly raising it!
To Denham, the Listener was a colossus looming across a broad plain. He moved the control key again—ten gravities—and the monster crashed down, joined by another who had unwarily crossed into the circle of the gravity screen. The fall of giants!
Denham crouched further back, afraid that he might be discovered, small as he was, little larger now than his own fingernail had been a moment ago.
He had made a charmed circle, which nothing could cross. Not even the invulnerable Listeners were proof against gravity!
Again he increased the strength of the force. One of the reptile-things had a metal bar now and thrust it forward, trying to pry up the lever with it. But the bar was dragged down irresistibly, a tool ten times its own normal weight.
One Listener ran forward at top speed and dived toward the lever. Instantly Denham pushed forward the gravity again. As the gross body came into the circle of influence, it crashed to the floor.
And still the beings moved, incredibly! Twenty gravities now—thirty—and still they came on! Denham increased the power, till he realized that a man of normal proportions, such as himself, would have been crushed by that frightful force.
At last those of the Listeners who had been trapped lay motionless; though the others, giants now to Denham’s eyes, moved hurriedly about.
Abruptly a cold voice filled the room.
“The slaves are revolting. What is wrong with the power?” There was a pause, then: “We cannot use our weapons, but the slaves cannot harm us. We are destroying them. It is time to make an end. Spare no living thing in the Tower!”
Denham ground his teeth together. He knew now, only too well, that the Listeners were almost godlike in their invulnerability. The slaves would be crushed, Varr and Corek and the rest, slain by brute strength of the Listeners alone.
“No! God, no!” Denham whispered, and bent over the gravity control. He pushed the key further—further—
Metal screamed rendingly. As Denham glanced up, he saw that part of the ceiling over the screen was caving in slowly.
A force that could crush metal left the Listeners unharmed! Or—perhaps not! Perhaps those huge figures lying motionless on the screen were dead, slain by the force of increased gravity? Hope leaped in Denham.
He flicked the control back to normal. And then, sick at heart, he sent the key back to its former place as the prostrate Listeners began to rise, reaching for the power lever.
He shut his eyes and tried to think. There was red carnage below. The slaves had no chance against their inhuman masters. Gravity that would destroy metal must destroy a living organism, by disrupting the delicate structure of the brain tissue if in no other way.
“It’s impossible,” Denham said voicelessly—and caught his breath. Suddenly, incredibly, he knew the answer.
The Listeners did have a chink in their armor! It was the only possible explanation. There could be no other.
Denham shoved the control box against the table leg, where it could not be easily discovered—it was no larger than a grain of sand—and turned toward the door. He must escape now, and quickly.
The room was filled with giant Listeners: giants to Denham’s eyes. He reduced his size further, and raced toward the door. It seemed to take hours. But he dared not risk being glimpsed by his mortal enemies.
Tiny as a mouse, he entered an elevator and rode down with several of the Listeners. As the door opened, he saw across the threshold the vista of the slave level. The slaves were retreating, hemmed in by the reptilian beings, fighting desperately as they were forced back toward the center of the circular city.
A blaze of light flared. One of the Listeners leaving the elevator lifted his hand, a short rod in it. Flame of green fire shot forth.
“The power is on,” he said sibilantly. “Hurry!”
Denham, alone in the elevator, shuddered uncontrollably. Above, in the control room, the Listeners had discovered that tiny switch-box, had turned off the gravity screen. The power was on again.
The Listeners had their’weapons back—to slay more ruthlessly!
Denham touched his belt, grew to normal size. There was little left of his disguise as a Listener, and he irritably ripped off the hampering plastics. As the door closed, he caught a sudden glimpse of Varr among the crowd.
Varr was swinging a heavy blade, her keen face alight with battle madness. Corek fought beside her, shielding her.
Then the door closed. Denham sent the elevator plunging down. He emerged in the corridor that led to the temple, far beneath the Tower. There was no sound. He ran forward.
He came out in the temple’s vast stillness. The Doric pillars rose all around, contrasting with the gaudy mosaics on the walls. In the center, the glass hemisphere lay like a watchful eye.
Under the crystal, black pedestals topped by white globes stood in a dwarf forest. Her ancestors, Varr had said.
In the level above she was fighting valiantly in a hopeless struggle against the Listeners.
Her ancestors! The temple of the cat-people. The one sacred place left them, where they would never look for danger! A place the “slaves” themselves protected!
The lair of the Listeners! The secret of their power!
HOT fury surged through Denham. He felt eyes upon him, watching, inimical. Involuntarily he stepped back.
A weapon to break the glass. But he had none. Unless—
Smiling grimly, he depressed the belt stud. The room grew small. Denham’s body expanded under the power of the ray, grew vast as a colossus. His helmeted head nearly touched the roof.
He whirled toward a stone pillar, circling it with his arms, wrenching it from its place. It made a formidable mace. Formidable enough for the work at hand.
Holding it like a club, he strode through the silent temple toward the crystal hemisphere. The white globes on their black stems seemed to watch him.
He brought down the pillar, striking with deadly fury. The crystal globe shivered and shattered!
Rays leaped up at Denham—flaming, burning, agonizing! Yes—the Listeners would protect themselves!
Heedless of his pain, knowing only that he must strike quickly, Denham swung the great stone pillar like a scythe of death. He smashed the milky globes in a harvest of destruction. Unceasingly the burning rays tore at him. He did not heed.
The terrible mace swept down, shattering the black pedestals, crushing the white globes atop them. And as the globes broke, white ichor oozed out from them. White and red and gray—
They shattered like eggs. They broke like skulls. And, like skulls, within them were—brains!
The bodiless brains of the Listeners! The reason why the Listeners were invulnerable! For those monstrous, reptilian bodies were—robots!
What strange history lay behind the grim truth, Denham was never to know. Dimly he sensed a race of pure intelligence, using artificial bodies as garments, casting them aside for new ones when the need arose. And here, in the heart of the cat-people’s temple, where their presence would never be suspected, the Listeners had hid their most vulnerable parts—their very selves, their brains.
Yet it was the only possible solution, once Denham had guessed that the reptilian monsters were robots. Morlan had said that the slaves were allowed everywhere in the Tower. A guarded room would be instantly under suspicion. So the Listeners had let their secret be guarded by the religious awe of the slaves themselves!
Much good it did the Listeners now, Denham thought savagely, as he smashed down with the great pillar. Defenseless, their brains lay before him, and he felt no compunction in destroying them. A nightmare of agony burned into his body from the heat rays, an endless dream of pain!—
It was done, finally. The floor was—frightful.
Denham had no remembrance of touching the instrument box at his belt and returning to his former size. He saw the room grow large, and then unconsciousness possessed him. The Listeners were dead.
CHAPTER XII
Varr Makes a Plan
A VOICE spoke within Denham’s mind. “You have—conquered. Only I am left, and I am—dying. But we have the last jest.”
Dimly, Denham sensed that one of the brains was corresponding with him telepathically. He could not move; could only listen as the voice in his mind went on.
“We have destroyed—our parent race. With the Silver Plague we slew them a few elads ago.”
Horrified, Denham could sense the gloating overtones. He recalled with a shock what Morlan had told them. The mother-world had sent two spaceships to carry out sentence of death. But the outlawed Listeners had made short shrift of their pursuers.
They had turned the tables, slain their enemies and manned one of the spaceships with robots. The ship had been laden with the dreaded plague-spores—
“But that does not end our feud,” the telepathic voice went on. “Before they died, our parent race took vengeance upon us. They had further resources of their own. They would make certain of our doom. They said we were a menace to the universe. They would destroy us.”
Did the voice chuckle sardonically? It grew stronger.
“They forced an asteroid from its path and sent it hurtling toward this planet. Within three elads the meteorite will strike, destroying all life on this world. We had planned escape, in a spaceship that could carry us all, with a few robots to serve us.
“But now we are slain. And this world will not long survive us. We would have been greater than gods—ruled the world—”
And then silence, black and irrevocable. Denham awoke to find Varr bending over him. Her face was taut and strained.
“Oh, you are badly burned, Denham—but not too badly! Lie still, now.”
“What happened?” he asked, realizing for the first time that he was in Varr’s own apartment. “Tell me!” She told him. The slaves had been decimated, but many still survived, among them Corek and Morlan. Suddenly, inexplicably, the reptilian creatures had ceased to fight. They had, to all appearances, died—
Then Denham told his story. Morlan and Corek heard, and matched glance with grim glance.
“So we are doomed,” the latter said bitterly.
“I must check the meteorite by telescope first,” Denham whispered. “There are some spaceships around, anyway.”
“Only a few. Not enough to save the race,” Varr said. “And there’s no time to build more. I suppose the meteor was sent out of its path with a pressure beam. We had theories of such things. But it is beyond our power to create such a force.”
By a telescope, Denham confirmed his own words. Only the extraordinary power of the instrument could make the meteor visible at all. He estimated that within three weeks it would strike. And it was large enough to annihilate all life with the shock of its collision.
Varr was silent.
“I had hoped—” she began at last, and then made a gesture of futility. “Already my people are beginning to build again. The doors of the Tower are open. From all around come those who were once slaves. The news traveled fast. You were unconscious for a day and a night, Denham.”
THERE was a transparent panel let in the wall, here at the top of the Tower, and Denham looked out over the bright morning landscape.
“A lovely world,” the physicist observed softly.
“To die in?” Varr said bitterly. She put her hand on Denham’s shoulder.
“You can always escape. With your ray-projector, you can return to your own giant universe. There is no reason for you to stay here now.”
“The ray-projector—” Denham’s voice was curiously tense. “Varr! That may be the answer!”
She stared at him.
“You mean—all of us can come to your world?”
He shook his head.
“There’d be no time to build enough of the projectors. I’m thinking of the meteor. If we could destroy it—”
“How?” Varr’s green eyes were blazing.
“With the ray,” Denham said, suddenly thoughtful. “Shrink it to the size of a pebble! It’d be harmless then. If we could adjust my device so that it’d project it’s ray through space, like a searchlight, it would shrink everything in its path.” He hesitated. “I’ll have to work it out.” Varr hovered at his shoulder as he worked. Presently he straightened with a sigh and met her gaze.
“We can do it. It’ll need tremendous power, but we’ve got the Listeners’ power-machine. And the projector will have to be very large. So we’ll transform the workers here into giants.”
“Giants?”
“Why not? Giants for the great metal-cast pieces, tiny men for the delicate machinery—instead of ordinary men using microscopes to see what they’re doing. That’s the solution! But,” Denham’s voice sobered, “it’ll be a gamble, Varr.”
“We won’t fail,” she said. “We can’t fail!”
But often, in the weeks to come, Denham was to spend hours and days fighting back a sick weakness that told of hopeless fear. The deadline was so close—so dangerously close. Three elads. In that time a gigantic ray-projector had to be built. Impossible?
Scientists worked with Denham on the paper details. Corek, Varr and Morlan took charge of the organizational details. Presently a profitable ray-projector was ready, one which did not need a helmet, but which worked on a search-beam principle.
Whatever it touched was atomically altered, rendered large or small. It’s range depended on the amount of power shot into the device. With it, Varr’s men were instantly transformed into the necessary sizes.
The call went forth. Swift messengers raced through the land. From every community men came, in flying platforms, to aid in any way they could. Technicians were given suitable tasks; laborers were made giants, to handle the great beams and girders that were made within the Tower.
It was a completely equipped laboratory which Denham took over. And day by day the huge structure by the lake rose. It was a ray-projector, built like the smaller one Denham had made, but on a scale more than a thousand times larger.
Across the plain towering giants strode, bearing on their backs metal girders that could have crushed a city. In the tiny, intricate mechanism dwarfed men labored, measuring, calculating: men thimble-small and even smaller. It was specialization indeed.
