Man of Two Worlds Page 31

  At a point just above the ruins of the Temple of Birth, the Edge was no longer black. A spot of faint violet was glowing there, but it stood out like a blinding white glare so great was its contrast with the lightlessness of the surrounding area.

  “What have they done?” Zeeter exclaimed.

  It seemed reasonably obvious to Ketan. “They have aligned a Gate right at the Edge as was the case with the one serving the Temple. It is no doubt just big enough to admit the beam.”

  “But radiant energy cannot be transmitted alone through a Gate as can solid matter!”

  “In that one region it apparently can. I have seen it in connection with the Chamber of Birth.”

  “We can’t possibly locate the projector in that position! It could be anywhere—on Earth or Kronweld or on any of a thousand other planes.”

  “You’re right. We can’t.” Ketan whirled and looked about him at the miniature reproduction of Kronweld. “We’ll have to empty the city. Take charge of accommodating the Kronwelclians here. Use the emergency police force and rescue squads for controlling them. As soon as they are here, prepare for attack. When the Statists find the city is being emptied they’ll start looking for us, because they’ll wonder why the defense still goes on. I give you full command at that time; I shall have other duties. Now, I want fifty men of the rescue squads at once!”

  Zeeter moved to comply without question and Ketan turned back to the screen. He saw the single devastating beam sweeping slowly over the city. An attempt to screen it was made, but the beam moved constantly about and only momentary interruptions of its destruction were accomplished.

  The beam swept the ruins of the Temple and turned the remnants of its walls into pow’der and lava. The molten rock gathered slowly in a pool that rose higher and higher, its white surface mirroring the smoke waves in the sky. It filled the depression where the building had rested and rose above the surface, forming a wall that hesitated a moment while surface tension held. Then it broke like some fearsome clam and poured out the smoking lava in a stream that cut through the garden and pathways and spread to the street where it cooled and paused, waiting until the beam should loose more substance to feed it.

  The beam swept on, cutting through the stately trees and the gardens. Cremated blossoms seemed to set forth upon the air all the sweet essence of their perfume an instant before the smoke of their dying rose to help darken the sky.

  Ketan watched the fabulous house of Teacher Daran melt like a house of tallow and his gardens and mud fountains turned into boiling pools and shapeless forms. The beam went on and swept the length of the long arc of roadway that passed before the Temple grounds. The plastic substance melted and flowed in a river that piled against the lava mound of congealed Temple substance, paused, then merged and poured 011 in a mighty stream of fire towards Control Centra!.

  The destruction was awesome. Its very ferocity and completeness almost stunned Ketan to immobility. He watched the slow, gathering force of the molten river, the curtain of smoke that rose and cut off so much of the light of the sky that it seemed as if both globes had set.

  Ketan was roused from contemplation by the voice of the position operator. “The squad is ready.”

  Swiftly, Ketan spoke and gave them brief, already outlined instructions. Then the operator gathered them into the threshold of a Gate and whisked them across the vast waste of Dark Land and Fire Land into the city. One by one they were dropped into the hysterical mobs that ran through the streets in mad terror. Ketan focused on the thinfaced youngster that was dropped near the Karildex ruin. The fellow ran into the hall crying out to the frantic, whimpering Seekers.

  “This way!” he shouted. “Run for your lives. The beam is coming this way! Run and hide!”

  He ran the full length of the hall crying out at the top of his lungs. Once or twice he paused to shake or slap the face of someone so crazed with fear that he didn’t seem to hear the words.

  In a few moments he had the occupants of the ruin seething with mob panic and fury. He raced out the remnants of the doorway and they followed blindly not knowing or caring where they were headed, their only impulse being flight. Like the cells of some great animal they had no independent thought of their own and flowed through the streets in a unity of madness and fear.

  The young Restorationist called out in a frantic voice to any they passed on the way and the mob grew like a protoplasmic mass that sucked nourishment from all life in its path.

  The boy ran straight down the center of the street—into the blustery, windswept snowscape of the hidden valley.

  The momentum of their flight overcame the first shocked sight of their surroundings. A cold wind whipping the drifting snow was like a flail against their bodies which were ill-protected by the scanty harness wear worn by most.

  They halted and stared and tried to look back. But the Gateway had closed behind them. They turned and their madness focused upon the young Restorationist who stood at a distance before the open door of a building beckoning. Someone uttered an hysterical scream and their unified mob mind sent them rushing towards the doorway in a frenzy.

  The scene was repeated then, twenty, fifty times—and only scattered remnants of the most hysterical still raced madly through the streets of Kronweld, or crept whimpering into some unfmdable crevice to die.

  Hundreds of them had died, Ketan knew, but he was determined to save all that would be saved. He sent the rescue squad back until they were more numerous than the Kronweldians upon the streets. They sought in houses and public buildings for hiding places they had not yet found. They dragged out one by one a score of screaming, terrified Seekers whose minds had shattered before the onslaught.

  More than half the city was gone now. Ketan knew that it was time for him to go.

  He stepped to the communicator. “Units 11, 12, and 13, and remnants of 9 and 10: Ready yourselves to attack the Statist citadel in force. Formation D, as before.” He turned to Zeeter. “Take command. I’m leaving.”

  “But where—?”

  “I’m taking the big generator— inside.”

  The officer stared at him. “Not you—it’s not necessary. There are other drivers, men who have trained long with the big machine. You are needed here.”

  “There’s nothing to be done that you can’t do now. I intend to come back, but this is my job. The Director is mine.”

  He stepped into a marked off square on the floor and signaled the operator. A moment of blackness and meaningless lights, and he found himself upon the turret of the giant generator. Behind him its great bank of controls ranged in almost bewildering array.

  For an instant he almost regretted his plan. It was true that many of the drivers were more skilled in the operation of the giant generator, and this was the last resort of the Restorationists.

  But the plan was his and no one else could see the full implication of it as he did.

  He threw the controls that set the vast atomic power units into operation far beneath the surface of the ground. More by imagination than by sound he heard the whine of their monster rotors.

  He turned on the primary energizing current in the loop that arced far overhead and watched it glow into the red with the wasted power of it.

  Then the panel flashed the signal from the positioning operator. The assigned Units were in place, their beams flowing ineffectually over the invisible crystal surface that surrounded the citadel.

  “Position!” he exclaimed.

  Simultaneously, he threw the switches that fed the destroying power into the loops. The red glow died and his vision blacked out an instant. He found himself next in the great valley where he had seen the death of Hameth-Igon. An almost overpowering impulse to get out and search again that valley of ruin and sec the ruins of that artificial body came over him:

  But the operator called again. “Ready.”

  The terrible beam of the generator leaped out into space, potential destruction to anything in it
s path. In that one beam there was the power of ten Units of small mobile generators.

  He waited again for the moment of blackness, and it came. He closed his eyes against it, fighting the vertigo that swept over him, and the mental fantasies of worlds and spaces. He swayed on his feet as it ended and opened his eyes.

  He didn’t comprehend for a moment the thing that he saw. It was too disastrous, too terrifying. But his mind forced itself to consider the phenomenon. He stared at the loop above him.

  Its deadly beam had died.

  He whirled to the panel behind. The power units were going at full intensity, the converters that turned the atomic energy into lethal radiance were functioning.

  But there was no emission from the loops.

  Outside the turret lay the Statist stronghold. Beyond, Ketan could see dimly the outlines of the massed generators whose mordant radiation sprayed the invisible sphere that now protected him. He would have been glad to see that sphere collapse if he could be sure the Director would be annihilated at the same time.

  The invisible wall held.

  Ketan looked back at the building. There was no sign of life or activity. The great, silent bulk of the structure could have held Kronweld’s ten thousand and they hardly be noticed within it.

  He turned about and switched off the useless, straining atomics and converters. He went down the companionway and through the hatch that led to the outside.

  Before emerging, he buckled on a small, powerful atomic unit that fitted over his shoulders. In his hand he grasped the hand weapon that it powered.

  A curious sense of instability seized him as he stepped out. It was as if the ground upon which 1 he walked were of uncertain substance and supported him only by the grace of powerful imagination. It seemed to sink and twist like something living as he made his way towards the building.

  Outside, beyond the barrier, the world was hidden by the wash of fire. It seemed curiously unreal, too, as if seen through a wall of falling water.

  He came to the entrance of the building. The curious stillness was maddening. Even the terrible thunder of the generator beams impinging on substance was absent.

  He entered the doorway. The corridor was dimly lighted—and empty. Weapon in hand, he advanced slowly, expecting attack at any moment. He had no recollection from his previous visit of any of the passageways through which he wound. None of the moving passageways was in operation.

  He advanced up the sloping corridor and came to the next level. At the far end he saw a door that opened into a large hall. And he saw people within it.

  He flattened against the wall and breathed slowly. He had come into the corridor so precipitantly that he knew he must have been seen. But no one moved to approach him.

  There was something queer about the figures he could see through the open doorway. Cautiously, with weapon ready, he advanced. Then abruptly he relaxed.

  The half dozen, or so figures that were visible were sprawled grotesquely where they sat, or upon the floor, They were dead, all of them. He went to the doorway. There were nearly a hundred dead bodies within the room.

  They were Statists. The imprint of their culture was upon their .faces and in their dress. No sign of the manner of their death was evident.

  There was nothing to be learned in that room of the dead and he went on through the corridor peering cautiously into empty rooms and offices and laboratories. Once more he came to a smaller hall and found another group of fifty dead, sprawling Statist bodies.

  Then with a start he recognized his location. He knew this corridor, He recognized the closed door just ahead of him. He leveled his weapon with a swift, striking motion and burned the door out of its casement.

  “An impetuous young man, but that is what is needed,” the voice commented. It came through the air from all about him and prickled the fine hairs upon the back of his neck.

  “Director!”

  “The Director, if you please. Come closer. You need not have ruined my door. Perhaps you have hoped for this opportunity?”

  “How I’ve waited for it,” said Ketan. His voice was like a prayer. “I think that I shall be able to demonstrate now that. I can kill without qualms.”

  He raised the weapon point-blank upon the tube that held the Director and advanced.

  “Did you forget that I am shielded?” the voice inquired in soft amusement.

  “Somewhere I can find a spot that will kill you. Somewhere among these circuits there is power I can cut that will let you die slowly behind your shield.”

  “As, yes, so there is,” the Director sighed as if in infinite weariness. “Let us talk, first, then I shall be extremely glad to remove this shield and let you do as you wish. You are not curious as to who I am?”

  “You are the Director. That is all I wish to know.”

  “I have a friend here whom you might care to meet before you do away with me.”

  Instinctively, Ketan twisted his head about to scan the walls on either side. At his left a door opened suddenly and through it walked a man.

  Ketan’s hand almost dropped the weapon. His throat gasped a single word.

  “Hameth!”

  The trunk-clad figure strode forward with outstretched hand, hts bronze body seeming to warm the entire room. But when he neared, Ketan was looking through him.

  A second figure had stepped out of the doorway and behind it a third. Each was an exact duplicate of the first. Three Hameths.

  “Where— ?” Ketan began hoarsely.

  The figures were duplicates except in one feature. Each was a dozen years younger in appearance than the previous one.

  “Quite good, aren’t they?” said the voice of the Director.

  Ketan didn’t answer. His mind was searching for answers, and the only one he could seize upon was the most incredible of all.

  “Do you understand now?” said the voice of the Director. “You saw the wreckage of Hameth under the wheels of your generator.

  “I made him. I spoke through him. I influenced you and led the Restorationists through him. Do you understand what that means?” Ketan’s mind was a battleground of conflicting thoughts and emotions, but one incredible reality emerged victorious.

  | “Igon.”

  After a time the voice spoke again. “Could you imagine a better hiding place—or a more effective one ?”

  “I don’t understand,” Ketan said weakly. “Your extermination of the Illegitimates—the destruction of Kronweld—”

  “Was a lot less murderous than it would have been with another in my place. In a thousand ways I have lessened the hardships of the Illegitimates and of the commoners of our cities. I have postponed and prevented the destruction of the Kronweldians.

  “Why do you think I allowed

  Elta to destroy the Selector? Did you think that the Statists were so ineffective or so foolish that they could not detect and stop her plan if necessary? I had to let her destroy the Selector because you were not ready. The Restorationists were not ready to withstand attack.” “What did you do with her?” “She is at the pinnacle with her father, Javins, and William Douglas. They are prisoners of Bocknor who is directing the attack against Kronweld.”

  “Elta—alive!” A stinging moistness came to Ketan’s eyes, a blinding film that blotted out the mummied figure in the tube, and a prayer of thanks in his heart.

  “How can I get to her?”

  “She is safe for the moment. There are many things I must tell you, Ketan. I shall not live much longer. Minutes, perhaps. I have hung on these past months by sheer desire to see my work finished and you in my place.”

  “How could I ever take your place?” Ketan spoke humbly.

  “There are a good many reasons why you should. First of all because my inheritance is in you.” “What do you mean?”

  “Your father was my son.” Ketan’s face went white. “My father—you can tell me where he is—and mother—”

  “No. They
were killed in the same blast that made me less than half a man. They were part of our group and they knew what I planned for you before they died.” “I—wish that I had known them. But—” Ketan looked at the shriveled figure. A strange and baffling’ emotion swept through him. “I have known you. That is a great deal.”

  “I am glad to hear you say it. I| wondered if the common emotions! of family relationship would ever! touch you. Your mother feared greatly that they would not, but she gave you up.”

  “Tell me what your plans were. I feel that so much has happened to me which was not of my own volition.”

  “That is true, but I think you will finally agree that I have denied you nothing that I have not replaced with something better.

  “It began with my desire to see one of my own complete the work I had begun. I knew that I would never live long enough to see it through.

  “Because I was already in the position of Director, I had the opportunity of examining you at birth and seeing the record of your potentialities. For the most part they were what I needed. I knew that you could be the one to bring back Richard Simons’ lost people. Your father and mother finally gave their consent and I sent you through the Selector to spend your first years in Kronweld.

  “I knew that you would be automatically selected as I was by the special circuits and impressed to return to Earth. During those years I was the only one who knew who you were. I even kept it from your grandmother, Matra.

  “She was furious with me, but1 I didn’t dare let anyone else know your identity. Finally, she discovered you for herself and tried to involve you in plans of her own. I had commissioned her to control the flow of information through the Temple, but Hoult and Daran became too much for her. She determined to do away with them somehow and when she found you she determined that you could help her. She did not know of Elta’s gradually changing heart, of course, and included her in that condemnation.”

  Ketan let his mind drift back to that night when he had been present at the death of the ancient in the Temple of Birth. Something of the strange affinity he had felt for her then came back to him now. He wondered if it were because of her relationship to him. He wished he had known then who she was.