Five days later a giant of a man and a round thing that rolled straight
as a warlance beside him clambered up the sloping black rock side of
the Mountains of Eternity.
Sunlight glinted from the smooth, dark stone that was polished bright
as a mirror by the myriad dust storms that swept up from the desert,
year after year. Heat shimmered all about them, rising slowly from the
vast sand-bottom, reflected back from the igneous rock. Sweat wetted
the hairs on the man's chest and forearms. It dripped from his face in
tiny streams.
Kortha stood erect on a narrow footpath and looked above him. Upward
the trail wound to dizzy heights. Set on a shelf of massy ebon stone
beyond him lay Yassa, like a white bowl of cool water in a black
furnace.
Onward they climbed, and upward, their eyes fastened on the goal ahead
of them.
They came together to the greenish bronze gates that tilted off their
hinges and lay at grotesque angles. Down the street that stretched
behind the gates walked Kortha, and with him swept the tumblie.
Kortha stood still, nostrils distended.
"I smell danger."
Eyes alert, he walked on; but now he paced like the stalking cat, and
the muscles in his long legs humped and swelled beneath the bronzed
skin. His hammer hung loose in his hand, but then, the claws of a tiger
are often sheathed.
A shadow dropped from above, swiftly.
Kortha whirled, side-stepping.
A huge king gorilla slammed an arm at him and screeched in anger as
the smooth-skinned man eluded him. The gorilla gave his attention to
alighting on the hard stones, and that was his mistake, for this smooth
skin was on him like a charging buffalo, head lowered between his
tremendous shoulders, and arms long as the gorilla's own shooting at
him, hitting hard, like pistons.
Kortha was laughing harshly in his throat as he hit. He had not fought
in three years, and the taste of a battle was as old wine to his lips.
He needed this test, badly. He wanted to learn if his reflexes were as
they used to be. Kortha balled a fist and drove it into the gorilla's
ribs. He hit again, and again, and something snapped.
Blood flecked the wide, distorted mouth of the animal. His tiny eyes
glared beneath shaggy brows. His dark brown coat bristled.
The gorilla had got his balance by now, and Kortha darted beneath a
blow that could have ripped his head off. He swung low, then veered up
sharply, legs planted apart, arms pliant and big hands grasping. He
caught the gorilla by a wrist, whirled, taking the screaming animal on
his back. He humped his hips and flung the beast from him, into the
air. But he kept tight hold of its wrist, and snapped downward with all
the fury of his titanic strength.
The gorilla hit the stones on its back. It screamed as its spine burst.
Kortha stared down at the writhing, dying gorilla, saying, "So. This
is the secret of Yassa. The extinct king gorilla is not extinct. Only
an expedition in force could completely explore Yassa."
Xax shrilled, "They dare not touch a tumblie. That is why we can come
and go."
He proved his point an instant later when another gorilla dropped from
a low roof. Xax rolled beneath the falling beast who screeched in
agony as the tumblie's long quills ripped into the pads of his feet.
Chattering in pain, the gorilla ran off while Kortha laughed.
"You're a good companion to have at a time like this, Xax," he chuckled.
Xax clicked his needles. "We're coming to the Tower of Zut. A tumblie
can't fight what dwells in there."
Kortha said, "No living thing dwells there, Xax. And the dead cannot
harm you."
* * * * *
The glory that was Yassa burst on them as they rounded a corner and
stood in the square of Zut. A massive building of translucent white
jadestone loomed solitary in the square. The face of the temple,
gleaming lucid in the sunlight, fronted toward them, broad and tall
and tapering to a triangular crown far above. From its base four
bulbous domes stretched backward, fanshaped, like blunted and misshapen
fingers. The symmetry of the building was awesome. The ancient
architect who designed it had been an artist as well as an engineer. It
was a thing of beauty, as well as a place of terror.
Like a dark mouth set in the white face of the windowless tower gloomed
a gate of shadows, open to the square. That yawning space was black
with emptiness. There were no doors hung on hinges; only that sombre
opening, silently menacing.
Kortha stood looking at it. The wind ruffled the white fur of his
mantle. It stirred his amber hair and cooled the naked skin of arms and
shoulders.
He lifted his hammer and shook it in the sunlight, and grinned.
He walked forward.
Xax spoke to him above the clicking of his needles on the broken
flagging of the square, "Are you walking into that thing like a _yavit_
to the trap?"
"Others have examined it before me, Xax. I have not heard that their
examinations saved them. Besides, if the death that lurks in the tower
of Zut still lives, I have no need to fear Guantra."
They were quite close to the doorway now, and looking in they glimpsed
something white and shining on the tiled floor. As they drew nearer,
the heaps of white stuff grew plainer.
They were bones. Human bones: what was left of the skeletons of many
men.
Kortha lifted his head to survey the doorway. His green eyes blazed
with challenge, but their fire was controlled, and alert. He saw the
entrance plain and severe in style, affording no clue as to the manner
of its deadliness. From the way in which the walls shone, so clearly
translucent with the hint of inner fires deep within them, he knew that
the tower was built of _transvaline_, that rare building material whose
secret was lost with so many others during the Great War.
In the walls two tall, faint strips of black shone dully: the doors of
this queer adit.
Kortha swung his hammer in his hand and tossed it through the opening.
The doors remained open, and the bolt of force that he half expected to
sweep from somewhere at the hammer, remained hidden.
He grunted to Xax, "Come on. No sense wasting time out here, like dogs
fretting before a bear's cave."
They passed the threshold together, and stood in a domed chamber,
circular in shape, with another doorway beyond and opposite the
entrance. There were words on the lintel above its arch.
"Science chamber," whispered Kortha, and started toward it.
Behind them was a metallic whisper, susurrating in the stillness.
Kortha whirled and cursed and leaped. The doors closed before his
shoulder struck their smooth black surface. He hit and bounced
slightly, jarred. Kortha swore slowly, fluently, looking at the doors.
"How long will the air last?" wondered Xax.
"Longer than our bellies will stand the lack of food and drink. So this
is the great tower of Zut. Sliding doors that imprison any who break a
secret electri-beam. Zut! I'd thought better of the Ancient Ones. This
is really too simple. Find the beam and send a current along it, and
the doors'll open again."
Kortha swung on his heel, going down the hall and into the Science
Chamber. Standing motionless on the threshold, he ran keen eyes into
the huge chamber.
He chuckled. He laughed. Head flung back, he roared hoarse laughter
to the trestled ceiling. He sobbed his delight, hands spread over his
muscled loins, helpless with his mirth.
Xax clicked a question at him, impatient.
"It's Guantra," said Kortha when he could. "The fool. The utter fool.
And he hopes to rule the Trinity. Look for yourself, Xax. Look at all
these machines spread out before your eyes. The wealth of a planet is
spread out for you. The greatest weapons the solar system has known are
here. And Guantra has left them all!"
"How do you know Guantra has been here?"
"Down there. Observe the blacker spaces against the grey dust inches
thick on the floor. Something rested there for ages, Xax. Gone now. Oh,
Guantra was here, all right, probably with his entire science staff.
They took two things away with them. Probably the simplest machines
of the lot. Why did he leave the rest? Because the fools who man his
science staff didn't know what in the world all these things are.
Didn't know how to use them. Didn't have the slightest idea of what
they are supposed to be. Zut, it's rich!"
"You may not know yourself," chided Xax.
"If I had the resources of a science staff, I'd damn soon find out,"
Kortha grunted, wiping moist eyes. "No wonder Guantra can come to
power--when Mars has idiots for a population."
* * * * *
He was bitter and savage, thinking of Ilse and--himself.
"Men say you are a genius," Xax clicked. "It's not fair, comparing
others to yourself."
"Bah!" snorted Kortha. "A man makes himself what he is. But let's not
bandy words. I have work to do."
He walked down the aisles of this treasure house of metal machines.
His quick green eyes studied condensors and generators, pausing to
search the intricacy of bearings, or the purpose of bizarre couplings.
Inventions of forgotten ages lay before him, dim light shrouding
dusty cables, and plasticine casings. Here were bulbous globes and
straight, thin shanks of steel; there in shadowed niches rested wired
engines and bulbed machines, silent and mysterious.
"Guantra and his staff took the more obvious machines, perhaps the ones
that bore explanatory cards," said Kortha, walking softly in the dust.
"These are more complex."
He came to a halt before a queer tangle of rings and wires and
generator. Three metal bands floated in air between two looped
magnetizers. Kortha rubbed at his jaw, thoughtfully, scowling. The
pattern of the machine was utterly new, completely strange to him; yet
there was about it a faint air of familiarity. The thing had no obvious
purpose. It fired no missile. It had no in-take or out-let valves. It--
"Zut!" he whispered. "It only does one thing. It gives off vibrations!"
Xax merely looked at him. Kortha was saying excitedly, running hands
over metal sides and rounded knobs, over cables and rings, "But don't
you see? If a thing can be made to give off the proper vibrations, it
can affect matter. It can cause a change in the electronic structure
of a substance, by speeding up or slowing down the rate of electronic
revolution around the atom.
"Remember the old legend about the beggar who had a queer machine
strapped to his back? Everywhere he wandered he met harshness and ill
treatment, until one night a woodchopper took him into his hut and fed
and clothed him. The woodchopper kept him with him until the beggar was
healthy again. As a reward, the beggar turned everything in the hut
_into gold_!"
"Pfah," muttered Xax. "A myth."
"Myths are simply memories carried down from generation to generation.
No, no, Xax. Where mankind has a myth, there is usually _some_ truth
behind it, no matter how distorted by time and innumerable retellings.
It is the smoke that hints of the fire. I just wonder if this machine
is the one that began that particular myth."
Kortha squatted and ran exploring fingers over wires and coils, making
positive attachments and strengthening connections. He squinted up at
the rings, motionless, rigid in the air, between the magnetizers. He
grunted.
"Must get its power from the air. Maybe it feeds on oxygen or hydrogen.
Or argon. Hell, I'm just guessing at this point. See if it works first.
Then analyze it."
He looked around for an object; found a loose panel of carven wood on a
perilously old table. Ripping off a section of the wood, he placed it
before the machine. His fingers turned a knob.
A beam of shivering green light pulsed from the coils and hung
motionless to a yard outward. Kortha kicked the block of wood into the
beam.
"Zut!" he breathed softly.
The wood changed: grew red and warm, shimmering a brilliant crimson,
pulsating as though from inner fires. It became opalescent, almost
fluid in scarlet brilliance. Slowly the red became green, and then
yellow. The bar hardened, the liquidity of its structure tensing into
solidity.