It seemed minutes later, but it might have been hours, that Jim Landor
sat up with a start, aware that the softly purring motors had lulled
him to sleep. He wondered how long they had been travelling. Now their
speed seemed to have diminished considerably.
But something else seemed strange.
He turned to the tiny window, and was startled to see no more Polar
Cap, no more expanse of white ice. Instead they were in a strange
dark place. It was several seconds before he could adjust his eyes
sufficiently to see that a wall was very close. It seemed to be moving
backward and slightly upward. He knew then that they were descending
somewhere at about a thirty degree angle.
"When did this begin?" he asked, turning to Conley.
"About twenty minutes ago. We must be a mile below the ice by now."
So M'Tonak lay somewhere _beneath_ the Polar Cap! That was why men in
ages past had been unable to find it, until it became a legend on a par
with Earth's lost Atlantis! Jim tensed in his seat now as he thought of
all the conflicting reports he had heard about M'Tonak; vague questions
crossed his mind to which there were only vaguer answers.
Now the passage through which they sped seemed to widen. Simultaneously
they were in a sea of softly diffused, pale greenish light. This light
increased as they went on, but did not become intense or glaring;
rather it seemed to permeate the very atmosphere from some subtle,
unknown source. Then, with breath-taking suddenness they burst out into
a vast open place and looked upon the city of M'Tonak.
M'Tonak lay in the center of a vast, shallow bowl several miles wide.
In the first start of amazement Jim thought they must have somehow
emerged again upon the planet's surface; but this thought was
immediately discarded when he gazed across at the opposite horizon. It
was concave rather than convex, which meant they were in a cavern of
inconceivable dimensions. Far overhead he saw something vague and misty
that must have been a roof. That soothing green light was everywhere
but he still could not determine its source, it simply seemed to exist.
Now they were gliding gently down into the city which consisted of
low-structured, white-marble buildings of peculiar architecture. Wide,
empty avenues stretched away in a perfect geometric pattern.
"This city must be inconceivably old!" Conley gasped. "There's no other
architecture like this anywhere on Mars!"
Their car was slowing now. It came to rest in a wide circular plaza.
The door slid smoothly, invitingly open.
Jim glanced at the others who made no move to leave. He didn't blame
them for not moving, for there was something strange and devilishly
pre-arranged about all this.
"End of the line!" he said with a jocularity he did not feel. He moved
to the door and stepped out.
Instantly he was aware of a strange difference. It might have been
that alien green-tinged atmosphere, as if he had suddenly stepped into
another dimension. Every fiber of his being now seemed to tingle in a
peculiarly delightful way. It was very slight, scarcely felt, but there
was no mistaking it.
As the others stepped out Jim looked at them closely. They felt it too,
he noticed--especially Kaarji. Kaarji's usually dark and expressionless
face was now alight with a feverish excitement.
They looked at the radiating streets about them. All were utterly
empty, eerily silent.
"Where in blazes," muttered Conley, "is the welcoming committee? We
were brought here, but why? Surely the place isn't uninhabited!"
"It isn't!" Jim said in that instant. "Look. Here comes your welcoming
committee!" There was a peculiar note, almost a shrillness of disbelief
in his voice.
The others whirled, their combined gaze following his pointing finger
across to the opposite side of the plaza.
* * * * *
Toward them slowly came a single lone figure. It was a Martian, of
that there could be no doubt; but a Martian inconceivably old! He was
stooped and withered, he leaned heavily on a stout cane, but he moved
forward briskly for all of that. There was a certain purposefulness
about him.
He stopped before them, and leaned forward with both hands on top of
his cane. His chin almost rested on his hands as he peered around
at them. None of the men moved or spoke. Jim, who was nearest, was
fascinated by that grayish leathery face criss-crossed with thousands
of tiny lines, in which were set, like jewels, four unwinking black
eyes incongruously bright and alert with cunning. There was an uncanny
aura of evil about this bent little Martian, an evil made audible as he
spoke:
"There are only four of you--and one Martian. Strange, I thought there
were more. But it is all right. Four Earthmen, intelligent Earthmen
too. Earthmen are always welcome here."
He pointedly ignored Kaarji and turned his eyes upon Jim. Then he
chuckled, as though with secret glee. It was a dry metallic wheeze that
reminded Jim of an empty rocket tube when the fuel is burned out. Jim
was glad of the comfortable weight of his electro-pistol in his pocket.
"My name is Jim Landor," he said. "Who are you, and why were we brought
here? Did you have anything to do with it?"
The old Martian gave a quirk of a smile as if faintly amused by Jim's
impetuosity. But he answered the questions promptly and in order.
"My name? It is Bhruulo. Here I am the Overseer--the Co-ordinator--call
it what you will. As to why you were brought here, did you not seek
M'Tonak, as have innumerable men in ages past? Now you have attained
M'Tonak, and you should thank me. Yes, it was I who sent the surface
car for you. I send it for all men who come far into the Polar Cap."
"You still haven't explained why we were brought here."
"That," Bhruulo said with a tinge of sarcasm, "I am sure you will learn
from the others far better than you could from me."
"Then there are _others_ here!"
"Yes, there are others. You need not fear, you are free to come and go
here as you please. I give you--M'Tonak! But you will excuse me now, I
must leave you. I am sure you will find--the others." With that, the
old Martian whirled upon his cane and hurried across the plaza in the
direction whence he had come.
* * * * *
"Wait a minute, lad," Conley put out a restraining hand as Jim leaped
forward. "Let him play his game for the time being. Let's see where his
hangout is, so we can find him later."
They watched as Bhruulo, without a backward glance, entered a
columnaded building that was different from the others by reason of its
imposing height. Jim nodded and decided to remember that building.
"Now, Jim, let's find those others he speaks of. There are other
Earthmen here, I'm convinced of it now." Conley had begun to lose his
skepticism of M'Tonak--now that he had found it!--and his eyes were
agleam with a growing excitement.
But search as they would, they saw no other occupants. They traversed
streets that were dead and empty and silent. That palely diffused
greenish radiance was everywhere, coloring all with a ghostly
brightness. For several hours they explored, wandering far from that
central plaza.
Kaarji stayed very close to Jim now, his original excitement having
faded; indeed he seemed appalled, if not a little frightened, as he
stared around in the abysmal stillness, and several times Jim noticed
the Martian pass his hand in a puzzled manner across his brow.
Wessel's mien brightened, as he watched the needle of his radite-finder
gyrating wildly as if at any moment it would jump its bearings.
"It must mean we're now in the very center of the main deposit!" he
exclaimed. "If only we--"
It was then they saw the figure of an Earthman emerge from a building
hardly fifty yards away. He saw them at the same time. He turned
quickly indoors again, and shouted something that sounded like: "New
arrivals!"
Then three other men emerged, and they all walked toward the little
group of five.
* * * * *
"We're friendly," one of them said as they neared, and Jim's hand fell
away from his weapon. "Because we have to be, here. Hmmm. When did
_you_ arrive?"
"A few hours ago."
"Uh-huh. And you met the funny little man, I suppose?"
"If you mean Bhruulo," Conley said with a grimace, "we sure did! Is he
head man here?"
"More about that later. My name's Spurlin. Ross, Fleming, Adams," he
introduced the others.
Jim was staring at the speaker, a huge man with a purposeful set to his
unshaven jaw. "Then you're Gregg Spurlin, who headed the scientific
expedition three years ago in the search for M'Tonak!"
"And found it, as you can see. Found it too damn well. But we weren't
the first. What about you?"
Briefly, Jim told of their trek, and of his search for his brother.
"What about him?" he said in imitation of Spurlin's own brusqueness.
"Frank Landor. He should have arrived here weeks ago, unless--"
He stopped there, looking from one to the other. The men were looking
uncomfortably at each other.
"No Frank Landor ever showed up here," Adams said.
Fleming nodded agreement, a little too hurriedly, Jim thought, and none
of the men would look directly at him.
"They're lying to you," Spurlin said. "You might as well know the
truth; but before I tell you about it let's get back inside, out of
this green hell."
He led the way back into the building whence they had emerged. But once
inside they did not stop. The greenish radiance penetrated even there.
They hurried over to a wide metal door that slid silently open when
Spurlin pressed a hidden button. Revealed to their gaze was a dark
narrow tunnel, leading downward.
"What about the Martian?" Ross said, addressing Spurlin.
"He goes along!" Jim snapped, and Kaarji looked at him gratefully.
"All right," Spurlin murmured softly. "No harm if he comes. But I don't
think he'll last long, no Martian ever does in this city."
If Kaarji heard the words he did not show it, as he followed Jim into
the tunnel.
"About your brother," Spurlin spoke brusquely out of the darkness as
they moved along. "Yes, he arrived here all right. For a while, Frank
Landor was with our secret little group down here below. But--there's
something about that greenish atmosphere, something exhilerating
but also deadly, in a very subtle and insidious way. Sometimes it
increases, penetrates even down to us, through walls and things. But
there are some men who--"
"Yes, I know," Jim's voice was as dead as the hope within him. "Frank
was one of those men. He couldn't stay cooped up here. He was curious,
he had to find out--things, and the reason for things. That what you're
trying to tell me?"
"That's about it. Like others who have come here he had to go up into
the city, searching, trying to solve its secret. Every day he and a few
others went up. Always they returned to us here, exhausted, until one
day--they just didn't come back."
In silence they continued along the winding passage. Jim was thinking
of his brother now, with a dawning realization that he would probably
never again see him alive. He was thinking of other things too. Of
that menacing greenness in the city above. Of Spurlin who seemed so
calloused and unconcerned. Of the legendary emerald of M'Tonak, the
lure for countless men in ages past.
* * * * *
Spurlin's voice shattered the silence. "Here we are." Now he was
flashing a tiny light upon a massive metal door. And Jim's heart
leaped, for he saw it as a metal new, and yet not new to him. It was
the same dull, greenish-gray metal as the piece Kaarji had given him.
Jim passed his fingers lightly across it to make sure, but said
nothing.
For more than any of these things he was thinking of a bent and
shrivelled old Martian named Bhruulo, who had chuckled with a secret
evil glee.
The door swung ponderously open. They stepped into a huge oval room,
and many men came hurrying toward them. The walls of this room, Jim
noticed, were of the same peculiar metal.
"Introductions later," Spurlin said, as the men came crowding around.
"Right now I want you newcomers to see the work we're engaged in here.
You look like the sort who can help us in the job."
He led them to another room where a long, skeletal shape was under
construction. It rested on curved cradles, pointing upward. Only a few
outer plates had as yet been put into place, plates of the same strange
metal Jim identified with everything here.
"A spaceship!" he exclaimed unbelievingly. "But--why a spacer here, so
far beneath Mars' surface?"
"A spacer it is, Jim Landor. One such as you never saw before, and it's
being built under conditions such as you cannot imagine. We have to
mine and fashion the metal in the few tiny furnaces we have here, and
it's inconceivably slow due to the scarcity and crudeness of tools.
We've been at work on this one spacer for three years.
"As for this new metal, it's to be found here in huge deposits. In some
ways it's like radite, it might even _be_ radite, strangely changed
through the centuries by those peculiar green radiations. Anyway, it's
amazingly light and tough, almost expansive under fuel pressure and
it's going to revolutionize spacer construction if we can only get any
from here and make it known!"
"But how, man? How do you propose--"
"To get the spacer out of here?" Spurlin smiled confidently. "In one
super blast we're going to hurl through this roof to the city above,
and through _that_ cavern roof onto the surface of Mars. I'm fully
convinced this metal is capable of withstanding it. We're building a
double hull. And we have enough fuel hoarded here to take us clear to
Earth if we wish."
Jim nodded, but he was not enthusiastic. "How long, do you think,
before you finish it?"
"Perhaps only another month now! The ore's damnably hard to get out,
and we can only stay up there on the surface a few hours at a time--but
with the added help of you new men...."
* * * * *
"We're with you to the finish!" Conley exclaimed, and the others
nodded enthusiastically. Wessel, especially, had listened with an
eager intentness to Spurlin's description of the new metal. Wessel had
come seeking new radite deposits, and had stumbled upon something vast
beyond his fondest dreams! Even his loyalty to TRI-PLANETARY MINING was
fast beginning to waver.
"What I want to know," Jim voiced the thought uppermost in his mind,
"is the status of that little old Martian, Bhruulo."
Spurlin frowned. "No one seems to have found out, and most of us don't
care. He's incredibly old, of course. He seems to have been here
always. In some strange manner, he seems to know when men come into
the Polar Cap, and he always sends that surface vehicle out for them.
However, he completely ignores us here. I'm not even sure that he knows
we're working on this spaceship! We try to keep out of his sight, and
I've personally not seen him more than twice in the past year."
"But isn't it incredible that in three years he hasn't found out or
guessed what you are doing?"
"Not so incredible. We don't know what he's doing. We leave him alone
and he leaves us alone."
"But," Jim exclaimed unbelievingly, "he brought you here, and you're
not even curious to know why?"
"Let me remind you that certain men have been curious--and they have
disappeared. Anyway our sole purpose now is in completing the spacer
for our escape."
Jim gestured disdainfully. "And you, Spurlin--you once claimed to be a
scientist! You have not even the scientific mind--"
"One's mind," Spurlin interrupted softly, "somehow, does not seem to be
the same after three years in this place."
"All right. But before _I_ leave here I'm going to find out what
Bhruulo's purpose is! I don't like the way that old Martian grinned at
me. He's got something up his sleeve, and I think you men'll find it
out too late."
Spurlin smiled sadly. "All right, Jim Landor. Each man is his own boss
here. At least I wish you would accompany a few of us tomorrow. We're
getting more of the metal out, and trying to determine the proper spot
to blast through with our spacer. You'll become more acquainted with
the city and the general terrain, and maybe it'll change your mind."
"Sure, I'll go," Jim agreed. But he didn't think it would change his
mind. He had wanted to find M'Tonak, here he was in M'Tonak and he was
gong to solve the mystery of M'Tonak. More than that, he was going to
learn once and for all what had happened to his brother.
V
The following day a dozen men ventured up into the city. Spurlin seemed
disappointed as they stepped out into the street from their secret
building. "Not an ideal day for it," he commented gruffly. And at Jim's
querulous look, he explained, "Those emanations seem stronger today. I
give us only two or three hours, at the most."
They went into the rocky terrain beyond the city, toward the near
horizon where the cave roof tapered down. That was hardly a mile away.
Jim found it hard to believe that over their heads was the Polar Cap,
vast and desolate. Glancing up, he barely made out the dim contour of
their roof; and it suddenly occurred to him to wonder what sustained
it, why it didn't collapse under that tremendous pressure of rock and
ice!
He knew why, only a minute later. There came a sudden, smooth hum in
his ears. The very air around them seemed surcharged with energy, or
rather all energy seemed to be rushing _away_ from them!
"This way!" Spurlin exclaimed, making a hasty detour from the spot.
Barely a hundred yards away Jim could discern a vague swirling
mistiness, in the form of a huge column that reached up to touch the
roof. Suddenly, he knew what it was, knew also that it would be death
for any man who ventured too close.
"Ionization zone." Spurlin voiced Jim's own thoughts as they hurried in
the detour. "An electronic tower of strength! There are usually six of
them in a straight line across this cave, but once in a while new ones
spring up out of nowhere. I think Bhruulo controls them."
Jim nodded uncomfortably, and tried not to think what would happen if
all those electronic zones failed, with millions of tons of ice above
them.
They reached their objective at last. Tunnels were in evidence where
the men had been taking out the ore. They resumed work at once, but it
was slow and heart-breaking. Their tools were crude, and the ore was
the most difficult Jim had ever handled.
Wessel worked harder than any of them, his eyes agleam with a new
excitement. "Look at that stuff," he said once to Conley. "Over fifty
per cent pure content, most of it!"
It was perhaps an hour later when Spurlin called a halt. "Enough for
today. We'll try again tomorrow."
Jim didn't need to ask why they must stop. Already he felt that strange
tingling in every fiber of his being, which increased as the minutes
passed, and he knew that here was a dangerous thing.
"We have so little time in which to work up here," Spurlin said as they
hurried back. "Do you see now, Jim Landor, why it's taken us close to
three years?"
Jim saw, indeed. Within him there surged a vast admiration for
these men who had persevered in the face of almost insurmountable
difficulties, to build their spaceship from the barest resources around
them.
Yet close upon this there leaped to Jim's mind another thought,
unannounced and without reason. It was simply a feeling that there was
something _vastly, terribly wrong with what these men were doing_! It
was more than a feeling, it was a certainty! It didn't make sense--that
they shouldn't escape from M'Tonak--but now Jim knew it!
Before he could think long upon it, however, they had come in sight of
their building and Jim saw a familiar figure emerge. It was Kaarji,
but there seemed something vaguely wrong with him. He looked in their
direction but seemed not to see them at all, as he turned and walked
away with a long, purposeful stride.
Something struck another ominous note in Jim's brain. The men reached
their building and entered it, but he did not stop. He hurried after
Kaarji.
"Landor! You damn fool, come back here!" Spurlin cried after him.
But Jim waved a hand, not looking back. He hurried after the Martian.
Those emanations were almost unbearable now, but he didn't seem to
mind. There was something ominous about them, but something else as
well that he could not resist.
He had miscalculated Kaarji's distance, however, because somewhere in
the maze of streets he lost him. But he knew where the Martian was
going--where they were both going. Hours later it seemed, but could
only have been minutes, when he came in sight of the imposing edifice
where he had last seen Bhruulo disappear.
* * * * *
Now he hesitated. His mind was crystal clear, clearer than he had
ever known it before. But somehow it did not seem to be his own. He
struggled a little, but the result was inevitable, he seemed to know
it. He gave up almost voluntarily. He continued toward the building and
entered its portals that were open wide and waiting.
He faced a long, greenish-gloomy corridor of marble. With hardly a
pause he continued along it. Tall imposing doors, tightly closed, were
on either side of him, but he gave little heed to them. The corridor
turned sharply once, and then again, and then it seemed to lead a
little downward. Jim could not be sure. He only knew that he was being
led _somewhere_, that he was to face something. A cold fear caught his
brain, but he could only go on.
Now the corridor walls seemed to waver, seemed to swim beneath a sort
of radiance. But it was a glaucous radiance, ineffably green as the
light beneath the waters of a shallow sea. It increased in intensity,
however, as he went on. It became almost tangible, it beat against him,
it seemed to pluck with evil intentness at the fibers of his mind. Jim
laughed once, laughed wildly, but did not pause in his stride.
The corridor made one more turn and then he was walking into a light
so blinding that it staggered him momentarily. It flared up once in a
great greenish effulgence, then died down into a steady pulsation. Now,
Jim knew, he must be approaching the very source of that all-pervading
light which had so puzzled him since his arrival at M'Tonak.
But now he had a vaguely uncomfortable feeling. It was as though a
million eyes were watching him, observing every move. It was as though
a million tiny fingers were tearing away the shreds of his mind with
secret, silent amusement. Jim did not look about him as he walked on,
for he knew no one was there. It had something to do with this light,
that much he knew.
Now he could see the end of the corridor through the pulsing
greenish haze. Something seemed to be there, something towering and
opalescent--and waiting.
He came very near before he saw what it was, a huge circular
glass-enclosed well that towered up to the ceiling fifty feet above.
It was from this well that the light came. Jim could see the gentle
pulsing of it, with streamers of a darker color flashing through it
vertically.
Those millions of eyes now were very near. Those millions of fingers
probed into his brain unbearably. Jim pressed his hands to his
throbbing temples, but the pain continued to expand within his skull.
He could not turn and flee, for something held him there. He tried to
cry out against it, but his throat seemed to contract and no sound
would emerge.
He had no knowledge whether it was minutes or hours that he stood
there; but when at last he felt his legs giving way beneath him, and
glimpsed the blur of the floor rushing up, it was with a profound sense
of gratitude for the oblivion that would be his.
* * * * *
But this was not to be. No sooner did he feel the floor beneath him,
than the force which had beaten him down partially withdrew. Jim
staggered to his feet, weak and a little dazed. Now something else was
happening behind that glassite-encased well. The green pillar of light
was lowering, coalescing upon itself with a slowly swirling motion.
And then, as the tower of light lessened, Jim saw what rode atop it. He
saw a shape, huge, iridescent and apparently weightless. It seemed at
first simply a larger area of greenish light, but for a single second
he glimpsed more. He saw the massive core of it. He felt his stomach
turning over in a prodigious yawn, and his brain churned in chaotic
horror.
The thing he saw was a roughly globular, quasi-amorphous shape that was
in a state of constant fluxion. It was partly tentacular, it writhed
and pulsed, it seemed to project itself at will. Darkish tendrils
came uncurling from it as if it were reaching for something not quite
attainable. Simultaneously it spun slowly atop its pillar of light
which seemed also a part of itself, somehow. _It was alive, a thinking,
intelligent entity._ That much Jim knew. It would even have been an
entity of beauty, with its whirling greenish effulgence, were it not
for one thing.
_It was evil._ Terribly, undeniably so. Jim could feel the impact of it
almost physically. Almost he felt that here was the essence of all the
evil of another universe, compressed into that one horribly writhing
mass that was now trying to expend itself but could not. And he had the
feeling that although it could be moved to terrible, devastating anger,
it was now for some reason gleeful.
It came riding down, light as a feather atop its light, until it
hovered just a few feet above Jim's head. Jim knew that he was being
examined microscopically, perhaps even fourth-dimensionally. He
shivered a little. He tried to take a step back but could not. There
came a sudden chuckling within his own brain, and then mentally he
heard the entity speak.
"Yes, Earthman, you were right in your estimate of me. I am 'evil' to
such as you. At least that is what Bhruulo tells me, and I have come to
believe Bhruulo."
Jim crouched before the thing, staring up at it. He still felt its
probing mental fingers in his mind, and the fingers were ... _unclean_.
He spoke aloud at last, in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.
"What--_what in heaven's name are you_?"
* * * * *
There came that chuckling note again, as the thing spoke.
"Whatever I am, Earthman, it is not in heaven's name. I do not exactly
know myself what I am. I personally have no conception or remembrance
of how I came here. I only know what Bhruulo has told me. It pleases me
to tell you."
The mental voice ceased abruptly. Then sudden, vivid pictures flashed
stereoptically across Jim's brain and were as quickly gone. He saw a
city he recognized as M'Tonak, and the city was teeming with people.
Jim knew that must have been many, many years ago.
The scene changed. As through another's eyes, he caught a blurry vision
of this evil entity flashing from out of the sky to land near the city.
He felt some of the consternation and then horror as the populace died
by the score in the streets. There was no apparent reason except the
presence of the alien thing. Just to look at the blinding brilliance of
it was to die. Jim caught confused pictures of all available weapons
being rushed to the scene to do battle with the thing, but to no avail;
as the M'Tonakians died, the entity grew tremendous in proportions and
in power.
These pictures flashed away and Jim saw others; the last few scientists
of M'Tonak, in a barricaded place where they worked frantically on a
weapon with which to battle the alien thing. They completed the weapon
but they could not destroy the entity. After a terrific struggle they
subdued it temporarily by means of certain rays and beams. In this
manner they at last brought it into captivity within the glassite well.
"Bhruulo says all this happened hundreds of years ago," the voice
came again within Jim's brain. "He is the last of that final group of
scientists who subdued me. _I_ have only a vague remembrance--"
"Bhruulo says!" Jim gasped, struggling with the significance of the
idea.
He looked up and saw the spherish, effulgent thing spinning with silent
amusement. "Is Bhruulo's longevity, then, such an unusual thing? I do
not know. Your time-scheme means little to me. Perhaps Bhruulo's great
age is due to his perpetual proximity to me, I only know that, unlike
other Martians and Earthmen, he is immune to my strongest powers now."
Jim sensed a certain bitterness in that mental voice, almost a hatred
for Bhruulo. Looking up at the greenish, brooding globe, Jim ventured a
daring question.
"Don't you sometimes long to be--free again?"
He felt the tendril-fingers grasp his mind again with a fierce
tenacity. He cried out against the physical pain of it, but even
through the pain he heard the throbbing answer.
"Free! Yes, Earthman! Bhruulo glories that he has me trapped here.
Often I remember those olden days when I almost conquered the city of
M'Tonak and the planet Mars! Bhruulo has promised me those days again,
and much more. He says he is preparing for it, but I do not know what
he means. I only know that I tire of waiting!"
There were more mental words, but Jim only heard them through a mist
about his brain. He knew that here, at last, he had solved the mystery
of M'Tonak! This evil entity from out of another universe or another
dimension was the "emeralds" of M'Tonak which had lured men up here
in ages past for its own, or Bhruulo's, devilish purpose. But what
was that purpose? Something vastly imminent, Jim knew! Perhaps it was
something the entity even now was trying to tell him in its strangely
confidential mood.
* * * * *
"That is enough. You have said enough! I have warned you about this!"
That was not the thing's mental voice! Jim knew it, even as he whirled
to face Bhruulo who had come from nowhere to stand behind him. Bhruulo
was furious. His grayish, lined face was a mask of hate--but not for
Jim. He hurried forward like a scuttling crab, supporting himself on
his cane with both hands. He approached the glassite barrier, and began
to manipulate tiny wheels there which Jim had not noticed before. A
network of wiring led down to several complicated box-like affairs set
in the floor.
Then a very curious thing happened. If a writhing, pulsing, spinning
globe of evil can cower, that is what the entity did! No sooner had
Bhruulo's hands touched the wheels, than the entity sank down to
the floor, then darted frightenedly up again, to cringe against the
furthermost confines of its prison. It poised there, hesitant, as if
watching Bhruulo. It ventured out from the wall and then back again. It
hardly pulsed at all now, as if holding its breath in fear.
A tiny hum came from the machinery Bhruulo was manipulating. It rose to
a shrill whine and then passed beyond the audible. A sudden criss-cross
of pencil-thin beams leaped about the confines of the well. They were
pale, scarcely visible, but Jim sensed the power of them. He heard a
mental shriek of agony from the spinning globe, then it was tumbling up
the sides of the well, out of range. It vanished fifty feet overhead,
in a haze of greenish light.
Using his cane as a pivot, Bhruulo pirouetted slowly to face Jim.
"Now," he said, "we can talk to each other without interruption from
that thing. Too bad that it hates me and I hate it. For we need each
other.
"I do not know," Bhruulo continued, "how much the Dim-Ing told you of
itself or of me and my plans. It does not particularly matter, now."
"Dim-Ing?" Jim repeated querulously, trying to focus his mind again.
"Yes. 'Dimensional-Thing.' Facetious? I have my moments of humor. _It_
has only a dim remembrance of its past before it came to Mars; but
through certain conversation with it I have come to the conclusion that
it somehow had birth in another dimension impinging delicately upon
ours. How or why it was flung across to us we shall never know. But it
is nearly finished on Mars."
Something caught at Jim's brain. He started a little.
Bhruulo laughed shrilly.
* * * * *
"Yes. Had you not guessed before? The Dim-Ing feeds upon the minds
of men. Oh, very subtly, of course. But for the presence of such
sustenance on Mars it would have died long, long ago. At first the
accumulative mental sustenance of Mars was more than sufficient. I
was careful to keep the Dim-Ing under my control, even as now. But as
the years passed--more years than you think, Earthman--I saw what
was happening. _We were hastening the eventual decease of the Martian
race!_ The Dim-Ing absorbed, at first, all _evil_ from the total
Martian mind. And then--even more.
"No doubt, Earthman, you have read something of Martian history. You
will remember that several centuries ago a frightful war raged across
three major continents of Mars. Almost abruptly, that is to say within
the space of a few years, it ceased mutually and without apparent
reason! It was the Dim-Ing and I who indirectly caused that. Then, you
will remember, there came an almost Utopian state for something like
a few score of years. It quickly passed as the Dim-Ing sent out its
subtle radiations almost desperately, across the surface of Mars. The
Martians became the inactive, indolent, dying race you see now. In the
last few scores of years, sustenance for the Dim-Ing has been meager
indeed."
Jim only stared at this Martian who according to the entity was
hundreds of years old. A horror crept into Jim's brain, and a subtle
warning. Here, he knew, was the one to be guarded against. Here in this
bent little Martian was the ultimate evil. His was the controlling hand.
* * * * *
Jim had been listening in a slowly dawning horror. Now he found his
voice at last, as he took a single tense step toward Bhruulo.
"And you--you tell me this! This thing that has been happening to the
Martian race! You, yourself a Martian--"
Bhruulo did not move and the expression on his face did not change.
"It is not what I am, or once was, that matters. It is what I _shall_
be. With the tool that I have now, immortality lies within my grasp.
That, and eternal power. I shall continue.
"Within the last fifty years, you Earthmen came. I need not say that
you were a Godsend. The Dim-Ing was at a very low ebb indeed.
"Even at the height of their scientific accomplishments the Martians
never quite achieved space travel. By what miracle you Earthmen
achieved it shall always remain a mystery to me. But I thank you. You
came when I needed you most.
"I discovered that your Earthian minds are stubborn, very stubborn
indeed. The Dim-Ing likes that. It can subsist much longer on an
Earthian mind than on a Martian. Furthermore, I learned that the
Earthian mind is curious--one of the inherent qualities of your race.
Therefore, I embellished somewhat the existing legend of M'Tonak.
And you all came searching greedily; if not in droves, at least, in
sufficient numbers.
"And now you are building a spaceship for me. I have known it all
along! I have brought you here for that purpose! I know it is very near
completion, this spaceship which shall carry, not Earthmen back to
Earth, but the Dim-Ing and myself."
"But it shall not!" Jim had let Bhruulo talk on, knowing what
was coming. In his mind now was no room for horror; his mind was
quickly alert and his hand was even quicker, as it flashed to the
electro-pistol in his belt.
But Bhruulo made a motion too, so fast that, paradoxically, there was
a certain casualness about it. He still smiled. He raised his cane on
which he had been leaning with both hands. From a lens-covered bore
in the end of it came a thick whitish light, touching Jim's hand and
holding it motionless. It expanded, enveloped all of his body so that
he could not move.
It surged a little upward, full into his face.
Jim Landor crumpled noiselessly and lay still.