Collected short fiction, p.121
Collected Short Fiction, page 121
“First they found means of building matter from it. You know that the atoms of all matter are composed of electrons, and that the electrons are vibrating charges of electricity—of energy. Matter is merely a manifestation of energy in a certain form. And my people learned to condense the ytlan, with such rods as this I carry, into any material form that they required—as I made the little thought-amplifiers, through which I see your minds. They even made new forms of matter—that are lighter and stronger and more lovely than any of those in nature.
“And through ages, they caused certain changes in their bodies, so that the ytlan was no longer harmful—and other, greater changes, they wrought through the generations. The very living tissue was altered, so that its content of water is held in more firm chemical union, and cannot escape in the vacuum of space.
“And since there was little air upon that tiny world, upon which the remnant of my people battled for existence, nor any way to produce the substances they had used for food, new ways they sought for sustaining their bodies.”
HERE Sharothon paused, dropped a slender hand through the dim mist of violet light that surrounded her body in a mysterious cloud, fingered the broad, silvery belt about her waist, caressed the ruby cylinders that studded it.
“This girdle,” her message came on, “is the fruit of their toil. It draws upon the universal and illimitable energy of the ytlan, and transforms it into many other kinds of force, at my wish. You see the glow of violet light which is about me?”
“Yes,” Eric breathed. “I’d been wondering—”
“It is an actinic radiation, of carefully adjusted frequencies,” she went on. “In my body, it reverses the chemical reactions caused by fatigue, and the mere passage of time. It breaks up the poisons, formed when work is done, into fresh oxygen, and new food to be consumed again. Through it, I draw the energy of life from the ytlan.
“My people no longer need to breathe oxygen from an atmosphere. They must no longer consume the remains of other living things. Their bodies are directly maintained by the all-pervading power of the ytlan. They are freed forever from weariness and sickness—and the span of their lives is increased a thousand times, and more!”
“Gosh!” Eric muttered, “that beats a patent medicine ad!”
“And the girdle also generates other useful forces,” Sharothon resumed, after a curious look at Eric. “It generates an invisible, insulating screen of force, which prevents the radiation of heat from our bodies—it protects us from the terrible cold of the void. It can also erect screens to cut our bodies off from the force of gravity, to prevent us from falling toward the sun or wandering planets. Or it can be used to create an artificial field of gravitation, to hold us firmly against even small objects in space.”
“I begin to see how it is possible for you to exist!” I told her.
“Glad you can admit she isn’t a dream,” Eric shot at me. And he turned to Sharothon with the hesitant question, “What—er—do you mind telling us about yourself and this—Kerak, I think you called him?”
The strange girl’s splendidly luminous eyes were speculatively upon him for a long minute, twinkling through the pale violet nimbus of the wonderful rays that enabled her to exist in the void. Then her thought-impressions came again:
“For time upon time, my people have been dwellers of the void—while Mars has grown old and died, while your earth has passed from hot youth far toward the chill of age, while the sun has dwindled and grown yellow, and Venus has cooled from a globe of flame. From a struggling few, their number has grown to untold legions—for all the universe was before them, to conquer, and the illimitable ytlan to supply all their needs.
“But a change—an ill change—has come upon them with the ages. The first who came to space—those who did the wonderful things of which I have told you—were brave men, and strong. They were warriors, mighty lovers. They accomplished Herculean tasks. Life was strong in them.
“Those great ones made all things easy for those who followed—too easy. And my people have become seekers of vain pleasure, questers of idle beauty, hunters of useless knowledge, dreamers of dead dreams. They serve but selfish ends in living, and all their endless numbers bring no good into the universe.
“The reality of life is gone from them, with the old flame of love, that drove our fathers to do great things. For ages few children were born—until the Nine, who are our rulers, mated my people, man and woman, by lot, and ordered that there be offspring.
“I am very young among my people—not even so old as you, Eric Locklin. But it seems that I am more like Luroth, my friend who is head of the Nine, and others who are very old—aged beyond thought. For I have always sought eagerly for stories of those great ones of the early ages, who loved strongly. Life, dead in most of my race, burns in me like a restless flame.
“By the lot, I was not long ago chosen to be companion to Kerak, who is a strong man, young, and leader of the idle young against Luroth, who is head of the Nine and very old—and very good. Kerak wishes himself to head the Nine. I hated Kerak, for he is proud and cold; and I would not bear his child. He came before the Nine, to force me to it. But the aged Luroth is my friend, and saved me from the foul touch of Kerak—but even he could not free me completely, for many in the Nine are young, and friends of Kerak.
“YOU wonder how I came here, far without the dwelling of my people? Know, then, that I often leave the portals of Yothanda—though there is a law against it—to watch what happens upon your earth. For your people are like the fathers of my people. The tide of life still flows strong in you. I see on your planet great loves, and noble deeds, that are become only a memory in Yothanda.”
“Have you actually been to the earth,” Eric demanded, surprised.
“No,” she replied. “There I cannot go—not, at least, without great peril. Not to the surface of your planet. For, you know, the ytlan—the force you call the Cosmic Ray—is shielded from your world by the atmosphere. Only in tiny amounts does it filter as far as the tops of your mountains. And since the ytlan feeds my body, I could not live long without it.
“A few times, men of my race have been to your world. But not long could they stay—and come away alive. And for that reason, there is a law against visiting planets, even against leaving the Portal of Yothanda, lest adventurers stay overlong, become too weak to return, and die.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eric said, looking at her with strange intentness. “I was hoping you could call some evening, for a little visit, after we get back.”
“No, I can’t go to your world,” came the slow response. Then suddenly Sharothon’s blue eyes flashed. “But I can take you to mine!”
“Great!” Eric cried.
“Wait,” her thought commanded, doubtfully. “Vast will be the danger. If Kerak should find you, he would not be easy with you—or with me either, for that matter. But for me it does not matter.”
“I’ll take my chance,” Eric said. “What about you, Higdon?”
“I’d risk anything for a glimpse of the home of these space dwellers,” I said. “Yothanda, didn’t she call it?”
“Good boy!” Eric shouted—though I am thirty years his senior.
“Then there is much to be done,” came the thought-forms of Sharothon. She was suddenly animated; her face was flushed with color; a great eagerness lit her splendid blue eyes. “We must leave this clumsy machine. Your bodies cannot be changed to exist in the void as mine does.
Caught
“But I can draw from the ytlan garments which will shield you from the cold and the vacuum. There will be means of clearing the air you breathe, and of replenishing the oxygen. And I can also make foods for you to eat, when you are hungry, like those substances to which you are accustomed. The radiations that restore my body are so powerful they would consume yours, which are not accustomed to such forces.”
She stroked her white forehead, thoughtfully. I wish I could paint Sharothon as she stood there—or floated, rather, in the thin cloud of rose-violet luminosity—her superb body swathed in the filmy green tunic—the ruby studded silver girdle about her waist; the emerald staff in her hand—her blue eyes, a little perplexed, staring absently at Eric.
“Difficult, it will be to pass the Portal,” her message came again. “And difficult to take you through the busy world of Yothanda, without letting you be seen. But I think I see a way to do it. And to hide you there—I know a place—”
Abruptly, the lovely girl stiffened, as if in alarm. The thought-message was cut off. And her head was turned rigidly, as if she were staring out through the metal plates of the rocket. The small hand at her side was suddenly clenched into a white ball. And white teeth were set against a red lip.
A sudden tremor shook her body. And she moved quickly toward the massive mechanism of the air-lock, through which she had entered the rocket.
Her thoughts came sharply to me. “Let me out! Quickly! Kerak comes. He is jealous of me; he watches me closely. I feared that he would find me gone from Yothanda, come to seek me. Great danger have I brought upon you, by staying with you. But I will try to save you.
“Quick! He comes swift as light!”
At her first warning, Eric and I had sprung to the wheels which controlled the valves. The inner one was already open—it was only a short time since the girl had entered through it. Eric motioned to her to climb back up into the chamber.
A moment she hesitated. She slipped a slender arm about Eric’s great shoulders, drew him to her. Lightly, she set her lips against his forehead. It seemed a very natural thing to do.
And she did it naively—almost, it seemed, she did it unconsciously.
Then a jet of white flame from the emerald staff drove her upward into the chamber of the lock.
“Hasten!” came her imperative appeal. “Kerak draws near!”
Desperately we swung the wheels. The inner valve clanged shut. The air hissed swiftly out of the chamber, freezing in a white cloud in space. Then the outer gate was opened.
Watching through the oval window in the inside valve, I saw the slender, lovely form of Sharothon, wrapped in its rose-violet nimbus, drive out into space, outlined brilliantly against the starred darkness of the void.
“What a girl!” Eric breathed. “God, what a girl!”
CHAPTER IV
The Coming of Kerak
ERIC had drawn himself to one of the wide, quartz windows. Devoid of weight, he was floating queerly, beside it, holding with his hand to a light rail fastened below it.
“Look!” he called to me, abruptly. “The devil is right here on us. Sharothon is waiting outside—bless her. We get to see the show, if there is one. I wish—” His excited voice died in a whistle of breath through clenched teeth. I hastened to pull myself over to join him.
Beyond the window was the ebon blackness of the void universe, sprinkled with the tiny, unwinking, many-colored points of light that were stars. The Milky Way was a broad and splendid path of silvery mist across it. And one wide, palely white wing of the Zodiacal Light was in view.
Against that strange and supernally beautiful background, we were to witness a weird and amazing drama—a dramatic struggle in which our own lives were at stake.
Not many yards from the window, Sharothon was waiting—floating in the void. A strange and lovely figure, mantled in violent radiance so pale that it did not obscure the whiteness of her slim body, nor dim the golden gleams of her massed hair, nor darken the glitter of the ruby-studded argent girdle about her green tunic and of the long green rod she held in her hand.
“Sharothon, the Lady of Light,” Eric breathed. “Waiting, I suppose, to protect us. Maybe to fight for us. And us sealed up like sardines in a tin, not able to do anything!”
I saw that his nails were cutting into his palms; that he had set his teeth grimly. But suddenly he moved, pointed upward.
I looked, and saw a fleck of purple light, driving down across the black curtain of space. Swiftly it grew larger, more brilliant. And presently I could see a human form outlined within it.
Kerak!
In the space of a dozen swift breaths, he was drifting motionless in space, only a few yards before Sharothon—she had moved swiftly to keep between him and the rocket. I could see him with almost microscopic clearness.
His body, white-skinned, was huge, powerfully developed—it looked almost as strong as Eric’s own. His abundant hair, worn long to his shoulders, was of a pale yellowish color, almost white. His face was strongly moulded, with the stamp of chill, severe intellectuality upon it—it bore no hint of kindness or simple humanity. His eyes were cold, palely blue—angry and merciless!
His body, like Sharothon’s was bathed in a nimbus of light, though the glow which surrounded him was richly purple, darker than the pale violet about the girl. Like her, he wore a silvery belt, studded with ruby cylinders. Beneath it, he had on a loose tunic of soft black fabric.
He, too, carried a long rod. It was not green, like Sharothon’s, but black as ebony.
He came to a halt a few feet before the girl, with a scowl of evil anger upon his hard face. His lips did not move, of course, for there can be no spoken communication in the airless void; their conversation was one of thoughts. And for some reason, the little blue disks upon our heads failed to make those thoughts intelligible to us—Sharothon must temporarily have insulated them in some way.
We could judge what was passing only by the visible actions of the man and the girl.
His scowls. His angry, threatening gestures. His overbearing manner. His possessive clutching at her shoulder, which she always deftly eluded. The cold, stern light that flashed in his pale eyes.
At first Sharothon was very quiet. Her face was white and drawn—but unconquerable fires were smoldering in her glorious blue eyes. From time to time, she seemed to shrink, to flinch unconsciously, as if from some foul insult. And after each involuntary flinching, her slender form grew straighter, and her eyes flashed more dangerously.
Then, very deliberately, and smiling at her in a mocking, taunting sort of way, Kerak raised the thin black rod in his hands, and pointed it toward the rocket from which we were watching.
That seemed to set off Sharothon’s smoldering rage.
She flung up the green staff. A narrow tongue of white flame stabbed from it, toward Kerak. A blinding jet of white fire.
But it did not strike him. As she moved, he had dropped a hand to his argent belt; his fingers had found one of the red crystal studs. And a dense, rolling cloud of black shadow seemed to pour from the belt. Thick, billowing streamers of inky mist, that coiled around Kerak, hid his body from view.
OUT of that black mass reached a slender scarlet tongue. It was snake-like. A thin and flexible tentacle of brilliant scarlet. A ribbon of blood-red radiance, wavering, twining, questing!
The coiling, writhing end of it darted toward Sharothon!
It tried to wrap itself about her.
Thrusting white flame jetted from the end of her emerald staff. She darted backward, away from it. But the astounding tentacle of red flame grew longer, amazing, reached after her.
She, too, touched her silvery girdle. And the violet radiance that bathed her grew intensely brilliant, dazzling.
The wavering coils of the snake-like scarlet tentacle touched that nimbus of violet flame—and drew quickly back, as if somehow repelled, injured.
But it darted toward her again, the end of it moving like the head of a striking snake. Deep it penetrated into the dazzling violet cloud that surrounded Sharothon, before it was hurled back. Then, rapidly, it struck a third time—many times, so swiftly that the eye could hardly follow its flashing motions.
The girl tried to avoid it, retreated before it. But always that dread, living rope of red flame followed her, curving after her, reaching out from the billowing mass of inky mist in which Kerak lurked.
She raised her emerald staff, cut at it with darting rays of white flame. A few times she severed it, with a blinding, sword-like ray of white. But always the broken ends joined, and the endless serpent of crimson fire struck at her again.
“My God!” Eric groaned beside me. “It’s devilish! What can she do—against that!”
His powerful body twitched, as if in pain, each time that the red tentacle struck at Sharothon. He was breathing heavily; his mighty muscles were knotted. His face was white, and there were little glistening beads of sweat upon it.
In a moment, I knew that Sharothon had lost the battle.
The striking tongue of scarlet luminosity penetrated through the bright violet mist, to her body. Her whole form was suddenly contorted, as if in agony—it was twisted as if squeezed in the relentless hand of an invisible giant.
During that moment, the red tentacle struck again, coiled itself about her body. She seemed held powerless in its grasp.
I saw her make a little futile gesture—of surrender!
The sinister streamer of writhing red light was abruptly withdrawn from about her—it retreated into the ebon cloud that shrouded Kerak. And that black mist melted away. The huge form of the black-clad man was revealed, floating free in space.
Sharothon touched her girdle again, and the violet light about her dimmed to a paleness that was almost invisible.
UPON the cold, harsh face of Kerak was a sneering smile of triumph. His pale eyes shone with a chill, mocking light. With an imperious gesture, he commanded Sharothon to come to him.
Slowly, the glorious being swam toward him through the black and empty void, driven by irregular spurts of the thrusting flame from the emerald staff. When she was near enough, he seized her white shoulder with a great hand, drew her roughly to him.
Holding her slim body beside him, with a huge arm about her shoulders, he leered down for an intolerable moment into her white, impassive face.
Beside me, Eric ground his teeth. His fingers twitched. “If we could only get out there!” he muttered. “Just looking on—”
Slowly, with another taunting leer at Sharothon, Kerak lifted his jet-black rod, pointed it toward the rocket. A pale, almost invisible beam of electric blue came from it.
