Man of Two Worlds Page 20

  “I have failed in all I hoped to do. Now … I don’t know.”

  “What happened in the Temple after I left?”

  “Matra was in comunication with a secret band somewhere—I don’t know where—who were struggling to save Kronweld, she said. When she learned what I intended she gave her approval because she said it seemed like the only way. But she gave me the ring, which she said would protect me and take me to Igon when I passed through the’ Gateway. Igon—can you believe it!”

  “Igon!” Ketan lifted his head and looked out, seeing for a moment in vision that slim pinnacle in the desert. “So Igon still lives,” he1 said slowly. “Was she sure of that ?”

  “She seemed very sure, though it seems incredible.”

  “But Anetel took the ring.” “Yes. She didn’t know what it was for, but she knew it was some* means of protection.”

  “Why did you try to kill her?” “The Statists only lately learned that Matra had turned traitor to them. They directed Anetel, my sister, to go there and take charge of the Temple after killing Matra. 1 found out about this too late to save Matra.”

  “Anetel—your sister ?” Ketan exclaimed.

  “Yes. We are twins. But I would have killed her to save Matra, and prevent the information on atomic applications from reaching the Statists. I had already delivered them to her and it was partly to get them back that I tried to kill her. I thought she might send them through and the Statists would attack before I could destroy the Gateway. But she sent the information through and after you had gone she sent me through, expecting that I would be seized 011 the other side and killed for my desertion of the Statist principles.

  Incidentally, the wild story she told you about what was on the other side of the Edge was for the benefit of the other Ladies. One of them told me about it.”

  “How did you manage to escape ?”

  “It’s still a mystery to me. I was seized as soon as I went through by someone I didn’t know. Two men. They told me to keep still and I would be allowed to escape. They took me through the city to the outside where I was given a ship and certain flying instructions. At the spot where they directed me to go there was nothing but forest. I landed in a small clearing and then these savages seized me and tried to burn me at the stake. That’s all.”

  Ketan frowned. “Who were the men who freed you and gave you the plane? Didn’t they say anything to you?”

  “Nothing. Apparently they knew somehow that you were here and wanted me to go to you. That was the purpose of the rings, I think— to bring us here. But you came anyway, and I was guided here. I don’t understand it.”

  “Those men were probably part of Matra’s—and Igon’s secret organization. Would you know them if you saw them again?”

  “I suppose so. Tell me now what has happened to you.”

  “I have found the pinnacle,” said Ketan.

  Elta’s face paled and she sank slowly back upon the hard pillow of animal skins.

  “So you found it,” she said. Her voice was so faint that he barely heard her. “What did you find?” Ketan looked at her in mystification. “Why are you so afraid of what is in the pinnacle? What do you know of it?”

  “There is a legend among the Statists—ages old—that there is such a pinnacle and it contains the secrets of how’ Kronweld came to be. The legend says that someday a man from Kronweld will find the pinnacle and lead his people back to claim Earth and destroy the Statists who have sent them there.” “What is terrible about that?” “Is the legend true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are that man?”

  “Yes … I don’t know!” Ketan shook his head fiercely. “Igon was there before me—and he failed. There have been others, but where are they? I must not fail. I will bring them back.”

  “No!”

  For a moment their eyes locked, fierce determination bridging the gap between them.

  “That must never happen,” Elta said at last, softly.

  “Why? We have been robbed of the heritage of our natural world and thrust into a hot, desolate, unnatural place where even birth cannot take place. Why shouldn’t we come back to claim our world?” Elta did not answer his question. He said, “Tell me what happened there. What is inside the pinnacle ?”

  After a moment, Ketan began slowly, then with gathering force, to tell her of the trek to the rock in the desert, of the amazing library and repository of the science of a dead world, and of the mission of those who came to the pinnacle.

  “The Selector was set to operate at intervals of a thousand years to draw back to it a group of those who had power to understand the plans of Richard Simons and his scientists. Igon was the first. Perhaps I am the last. How many between us—I don’t know. But Igon failed. Or did he? Whether or no, the mission is mine now. I will carry it out. I am returning to Kronweld’ and taking exhibits from the pinnacle. They can’t deny my story. They will come back with me.”

  “I didn’t know there had been others,” Elta said slowly. “I wonder what became of them. What do you think will happen when all of Kronweld comes here?”

  “Why, we’ll depose the Statists, remove their hold upon this world and take over its leadership as was planned for us. The Illegitimates will be with us. We will teach them our science and they will teach us—”

  “—their savagery and primitiveness ?”

  ‘‘Their love of freedom and their strength to wait and endure and build.”

  “The poor fools … the poor, blind fools,” Elta said slowly. Her eyes stared upon some faraway point.

  “The Illegitimates?”

  “No—Richard Simons and his ’scientists and Igon and you—”

  “What are you talking about? Richard Simons and his group saved a world that might have died if it hadn’t been for them. They transplanted it where it could grow unmolested by the degeneracy that would have destroyed it. Now it is time for that transplanting to be moved back. It has grown strong.” “No. That’s just it. There is no strength in Kronweld. The kind of strength that is needed upon Earth. Can’t you see it, Ketan? It would never work out. You of Kronweld must never come back. Oh, please try to see it. You are blinded by the light of this ancient false dream. It can never be anything but a dream.”

  “I don’t understand you. I wanted to tell you this. I thought you would be glad, that you would believe in it and help.”

  “It would be more cruel to bring your people here than to leave them and let the Statists destroy them. I’ve lived in both worlds and I know.

  “This world is cruel. Here men fight each other for survival and the Earth and man are always fighting each other. You saw naked blood lust last night. That is nothing strange in this world. It is a common thing. What would you men and women of Kronweld do in such a world?”

  “We would teach them a better wav of life.”

  “You are gentle. Your lives are art and music and poetry and days in your laboratories. Not in the thousand tara of your history is there a record of a single occurrence of war, which is the commonest episode in the history of Earth. You say you will come and take this world away from the Statists. Don’t you know that they can now turn all the force of atomic energies upon you and burn you out of existence before you can make a move ?”

  “We could use those forces as well as they. We can invent and build far more destructive machines than they can if necessary.”

  “You don’t know how to fight. The sight of blood is nauseating to the strongest men of Kronweld. To deliberately inflict damage on another human being is the most incomprehensible thing in your lives. Do you think you can take such men and make bloody warriors out of them overnight? They’re as gentle as children and the grown men of Kronweld could no more form an army with their mental conditioning than they could have the moment they burst out of the Temple of Birth.”

  “They could be trained—”

  “Think of yourself. You told me how it affected you when you first struck William Douglas.”
>
  “I overcame it well enough last night. I was glad to kill and hurt them.”

  “You were insane. The sight of what they were doing to me wiped out all your conditioned restraint. It still lias a grip on you, and when it lets go you are going to be sicker and more disgusted with yourself than ever before in your life. But even so, an army from Kronweld will have no such incentive. They will shrink and run at the first sight of destruction and blood.”

  “The only proof I can offer you,” said Ketan, “will be the actual accomplishment of the fact.”

  “Suppose you should succeed in gaining power. What would you do then?”

  “We would make of this world the paradise that Richard Simons dreamed of.”

  “What would you do with the millions whom the Statists have oppressed into submission, and with the thousands of rebellious Illegitimates? Don’t answer me! I’ll tell you what you‘d do. You’d bring on the greatest period of anarchy and chaos that has been known since the dissolution of world governments in Richard Simons’ time.

  “He asked you if you were ready to govern. I’ll answer him for you. You of Kronweld know nothing of government. The machine could try for ten thousand years and none of you would ever be ready. Because you have been almost all of one mind and one impulse, you have had little need of government. To take care of this small need you built the Karildex. No one among you is experienced in leading and forming laws and administering them.

  “To bring about the world you propose you would need thousands of men skilled in leading and in forming and administering laws. As it is, you would be children trying to lead old and wise and evil adults. You would surely fail in any such attempt.”

  “But we shall make the attempt, at least,” said Ketan. “What of Igon and Matra and the evidence of the opposition which you found?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know that it is too late to make any long plans. The Statists are going to act—and quickly! We must act first. We must destroy the Selector and close the Gateway. You and I will have to make our lives here as best we can.”

  Elta reached out and took his hand in her own. “We can be happy as long as we arc together.” “I’m afraid I can’t give it up as lightly as that. This is not a little thing of personal beliefs or prejudices. It’s the fate of a world we’re talking about. It’s the fulfilling or failing to fulfill the reason for the existence of Kronweld. If we fail in this, we might as well have remained and died or have been as the Illegitimates.”

  “Richard Simons’ dream was so terribly wrong. I lis selection and isolation of you produced exactly the opposite effect that he planned. Instead of making you more fit, it made you less fit for leadership on Earth. Had you remained, you might have been strong enough to lead a revolution that long ago would have freed Earth, but not now.”

  “You will not help me?”

  She looked steadily into his eyes. “I will oppose you with all the powers I can command.”

  XXI

  Ketan left the house and walked through the village. He saw only a few villagers at a distance and they disappeared at the sight of him.

  He walked through the conglomeration of mud and stick dwellings and wandered into the forest. He found a trail that led up and away towards the high peaks beyond the village.

  It was like that first day when he had found himself in the forest and forced himself to walk to keep from thinking. As then, he dared not stop to think now. He dared not face the realities that were in his mind. Everything that he knew was right, that he knew he must do, seemed divided off into conflicting. warring segments that had no meaning.

  The breeze was light upon his face and the coolness of it chilled him still, for he was not yet accustomed to the cooler air that marked this place from Kronweld.

  The treetops fingered the sky above and still gave him a spinning, uncertain feeling when he looked at them long. But their voices were like the voices of gods in his ears. Their music lulled him. and took some of the infinite pain and weariness out of him.

  He dared let a sector of his mind dwell on the thought of Elta. And it brought with it a rush of thoughts that mixed in unreasoning turmoil. He could not understand her reaction to the events through which they had passed. Her final threat to oppose him, bewildered and almost crushed him.

  She had the advantage in intimate knowledge of both worlds. She knew the details of life in Danfer. And that knowledge gave her a certain perspective that he wished he had.

  But he had other knowledge and other perspectives that were far more valuable. The knowledge gained from the pinnacle storehouse of Richard Simons. If Elta could see that, perhaps she would believe.

  The scientists had been giants of their day. It was not a casual thought, their dream of perfection in the world to come. They had planned carefully. He realized that now more than ever. He understood now how every detail had been arranged to impress him with the tremendous scope of liis mission and the rightness of it.

  He hadn’t paid enough attention to the recreated laboratory of Earth’s scientists. But its significance had been growing unnoticed in his mind ever since.

  He felt the single impression that they had intended to make by showing him that vast laboratory. It was an impressipn of obligation.

  These men are looking down upon you from the ages. The inheritance of all they have hoped and dreamed is yours. You cannot fail them.

  When he opened his mind to the words of that thought it was like the impact of a blow. He sat down upon a boulder beneath the trees and listened to the eternal voices of the gods of the winds. They were the same voices that had spoken in the days when the men whose images moved and spoke within the pinnacle were alive. They were voices intoning the commission of the pinnacle, commanding him not to fail, lest the work and the dreams of all that vast laboratory of men should have been in vain.

  He sat there long after conviction had come. There was a deep calm within him, as of a man who has sought peace from roaming the universe and at last found its seclusive corner. There was sureness and contentment within him. He knew where he was going. He knew he was right, for he was not alone. A thousand ages of man looked down, commanding, trusting, believing—

  He was walking again, on up the hill. The air was sharper and the wind spoke more fiercely as he rose along the steep trail.

  He needed Elta. That was the only uncertainty about the entire future. He needed her with all the fierce compulsion that interlaced the lives of companions and companions-to-be.

  If he took her to the pinnacle, let her look down upon the ages of Earth’s scientists, let the essence of their dreams and visions flow over her as it had him, surely she would be convinced, too.

  There was no question of possibility or advisability. It was a command that the men of Kronweld should be brought to their homeland. Surely she would understand that if she went to the pinnacle.

  But he knew at the same instant that there was no time for it.

  The Statists had the technique for the production of atomic weapons in their possession. Kronweld must be made ready to return before the Statists attacked.

  He paused for a moment to look at the sky over the tops of the green spears that were now below him. The great concourse of pointing arms hid all the earth below them, and only far distant hills of red and gold shone above them.

  Reluctantly, he started down, trying to memorize all the scene before him. Then something caught his eye. a sound and a speck of motion in the sky.

  From below, down beyond the village, a darting plummet soared into the air, flashed silver light for an instant and then was gone. And the soft whine that it put upon the air mingled with the sound of the wind in the trees until he wasn’t sure that he had heard anything at all.

  Puzzled, he wondered what the darting speck had been, but it was only an idle curiosity. He turned back to wondering what he was going to do with Elta. Could he trust her to the care of the Illegitimates? Would they be sufficiently chastened, or would reaction set in
that would demand revenge upon her for his killing among them?

  And abruptly he saw that Elta had been right about his feelings concerning the night before. As the thought of the night’s horror came to him amid the peace of the forest, a wave of revulsion passed through him, revulsion at his own remembered bestiality, that blunt lust to kill. He fought it out of his mind.

  There was turmoil in the village when he came down. He looked about, but no one would meet his glance. They turned away and sought their own doors.

  The first person who spoke and rushed towards him was William Douglas.

  “Ketan!” he cried. “Where have you been ? She’s gone I’1’

  “Who’s gone? What are you talking about ?”

  “Elta. She got away in her plane, walked to it in spite of her burned legs. Did she tell you she was going ?”

  Ketan shook his head. A frightening, hollow feeling rose inside him.

  “I’ve got to get to her,” he said. “I’ve got to catch her somehow before she gets to Danfer. She’s going to destroy the Gateway so Kronweld can never come through.” William Douglas paled. “She can’t do that! It would mean— failure. W’e’d never grow out of this—” His eyes swept the squalor of the village.

  “But how can we stop her? There’s no way to beat her to Danfer.”

  “If it’s true that she is sought by the Statists, she will have to move in hiding from them. That might mean several days before she could carry out her objective/’ “What good would that do? You once told me it would take a month to reach Danfer on horseback.” William. Douglas’ face was white with desperation, “I’m not thinking of horseback,” he said. “Remember that pile of wreckage I showed you once?”

  Ketan nodded. “What of it?” “It’s machinery. The kind of machinery the Statists build their flyers out of. There is fuel with it. None of us could possibly understand it—but could you?” Ketan saw what the Illegitimate meant. Wrecked ships of the Statists. Perhaps there were enough parts from which he could assemble a whole machine. It was fantastic, but not an impossibility. He was very sure the Statists were not capable of building a machine, even with the use of Kronweld’s principles, that he could not analyze and understand within a short time.