Kortha floated in clouds, bodiless. Fragrance drifted past in tendrils
of white mist, curling and crawling with scented life. Through the
mist came a battleship with Guantra seated on it, laughing at him. A
silken garment dyed with scarlet and magenta flickered past, obscuring
Guantra. Wrapped in the silk was Ilse, dancing for him, trailing a
cape of moonlight behind her white shoulders, above the multicolored
scarves. The clouds shifted beneath him, causing him to fall. He
dropped, faster and faster.
Golden men caught him, carried him on their shoulders. They led him to
a wall and chained his wrist to a red-hot manacle--
It was Ilse who held his wrist in her hand; Ilse bending above him,
crystal tears quivering on her long amber lashes.
"Kortha! Thank Zut. You've lain so still."
He was in a bed. He grunted as he sat up. Ilse fought him, tried to
force him down, saying, "The doctor said you had the constitution of
a desert boar. What you went through would have killed ten ordinary
men. But lie still, lie still. The wards are filled with the men you've
wrecked--"
She laughed and sobbed, fighting him. But Kortha put her aside easily,
asking, "Where is he? Where is the smell?"
"I am here, Kortha," said Guantra from the doorway where he stood, a
gun steady in his hand.
The gun was aimed at Ilse. Kortha was a little too far away to jump,
but the muscles on his legs and arms writhed like snakes with the fury
that pounded in his blood.
Guantra was saying, "Stand away from him, Ilse. A bullet won't stop
Kortha, but he won't risk your chances with hot lead."
"What do you want of me?" snarled the giant, mastering his red rage,
fingers opening and closing.
"You will be my friend, Kortha. That is all I seek of you. Just your
friendship."
Ilse gasped in her throat and whirled around, blue eyes wide. She
stood rigid, bent a little forward. She choked, "No, no. Guantra, you
wouldn't--not to Kortha. Not that!"
"Not what?" rasped Kortha, scowling in puzzlement.
"The Blue Grotto! It changes men. It makes them different. They aren't
the same after they come out of there."
Kortha stared at Ilse, noting the wide ashen eyelashes, the red mouth
twisted in pain, the white forehead riven with furrows. Torture! So. It
was what he had expected of Guantra: to torture a man until he became a
broken thing begging for friendship. Suddenly he looked at Guantra and
found the man lost in admiration of Ilse's tanned loveliness.
Kortha leaped like an uncoiling spring. He caught Guantra about the
waist and flipped him across a thigh, sending him into a wall. The
Premier thudded into the oak and steel, hitting hard. He crouched for
long moments on hands and knees, shaking his head. Then he crawled to
his feet and looked into his own gun held in Kortha's hand.
"You'll let Ilse and Xax go, Guantra. I remain."
Guantra rubbed his hip, smiling grimly. He nodded.
"Gladly, Kortha. It will be guarantee of our future friendship."
"No," sobbed Ilse, long fingernails biting into Kortha's hairy forearm.
"He'll change you. He'll do to you what he did to those--others."
Kortha shook her off. Torture he hated, but he could stand up to it.
But if they did anything to Ilse--he wasn't that sure of himself. He
had to get rid of her, send her away to Hurlgut. Maybe they could
somehow contact Earth or Venus; get help.
Ilse hit his furred chest with tiny fists, whimpering.
"Idiot! Can't you see? Guantra will make you his friend. You'll do what
he says. You'll be a figurehead. All the Confederacy will hail the
union of Guantra and Kortha. It won't know that only Guantra gives the
orders, that you're just a puppet."
Kortha shoved her away.
"Get moving," he snapped. "I'll hold off Guantra until you're safely
gone."
Ilse fought and raged, but she was helpless with her bare arm in one of
Kortha's hands. She went sideways in front of him as he pushed her. Her
red mouth whimpered.
Kortha stood and watched the fleet little scout ship fade into the
south. When it had disappeared, he waited for minutes, calculating
Ilse's speed against possibility of pursuit. Satisfied, he handed his
gun to Guantra.
He growled, "Bring on your torturers, Guantra. Let's get this over
with."
But Guantra laughed softly, sheathing the gun.
"Torture? Oh, no. That's a bit--ah--antiquated, isn't it? Besides, I
know men, Kortha. Torture would never make me your friend."
"Not torture?"
"Come with me into my stateroom. Oh, be my enemy, if you will. But
you'll be needing food, and a bit of Sharasta wine. I have both."
* * * * *
Kortha realized that if he leaped on Guantra now, he could break his
neck or snap his spine. But there would be other Guantras. Better to
fight this one, than the others who might arise. He smiled to himself.
Apparently those years in the desert had aided him to control his mad
temper. In olden days he would have been on Guantra, slaying without
thought to a possible future.
He shrugged broad shoulders, aware that his stomach was empty. There
was no need to starve to death. He had done a lot without food. He
walked after Guantra slowly, thoughtful.
A dull black plasticine screen formed one wall of the hexagonal
stateroom. Before it a curved desk glittered dully, littered with
charts and papers. Chrystolite chairs and benches gleamed in myriad
colors over the thickly woven black rug. Kortha stared around him,
nodding. He remembered the ship. It was one he had himself planned.
But the screen was new. He stood in front of it, frowning. Guantra came
to his side, gesturing.
"Since you turned hermit, things have happened on Mars, Kortha. This
screen is a by-product of researches by my science division. With it, I
can detect scenes at certain distances in the open air. Essentially the
same as television, we can focus an unlimited field by using cosmic ray
amplifiers."
Guantra went to the wall, pressed a button.
"We use radio waves though, throughout the ship, in order to prepare
our food."
Kortha looked through the transparent shield in the wall; saw a frozen
steak thaw suddenly, cook before his eyes in a matter of seconds.
"High frequency waves," Kortha said. "That's old."
"True, but I've found it saves time to install them in every room. In
time of battle, my men need not desert their posts for food. The food
is there frozen; needs only six to eight seconds to cook, and be taken
out, ready to eat."
A steward came and lifted out the steak, setting it on a table before
Kortha. He served chilled Sharasta wine and freshly baked bread.
Chilled sugar sauce over bitter fruits brought a hard grin to the
giant's mouth. He had not realized before just how hungry he was.
He began to eat.
When he was done, he went and stood at Guantra's side in front of the
starboard windows. Outside, sunlight blazed on the quartz-veined cliffs
over which the _Varadium_ was passing. Hollow depressions glittered as
though filled with sparkling gems, while huge stalagmites lifted jagged
edges, shot forth scintillating hues that etched color madness on the
dun cliffsides.
The sheer cliffs fell away, exposing a massive gap in the mighty
mountains. The _Varadium_ poked its dull grey nose downward and sank
between the ledges.
Staring from the darkened starboard windows, Kortha beheld the
iridescent gleam of the mountain-walls turn to yellow and red and
green. The colors deepened as the ship lowered on the air currents:
grew lavender, then purple. Shadows from the tall cliffsides gave the
canyon into which they sank a dark sombreness.
"The Blue Grotto is far below the surface," whispered Guantra. "A young
lieutenant discovered and told me about it. I checked his findings; had
my engineers pay it a visit. Their work resulted in something that will
make your eyes shine."
With her keel scraping dry red sand, the _Varadium_ edged along the
bed of the canyon. Ahead lay a great black orifice in the side of
the cliff: a gigantic cave, vast as Mars' mightiest hangar. Even by
straining his keen eyes, Kortha could make out nothing beyond that
ebon darkness.
But when the flier poked its prow into the cave, a battery of
tremendous mercury floodlamps leaped to bluish-white life. Blinking
in their glare, Kortha looked down at the floor of the cave; found it
fitted with great steel cradle, with benches and lathes and tools. The
battleflier sank into the cradle with a lurch and a swift righting of
its bulk. Springs sighed softly under its weight, cushioning it on a
blanket of compressed air.
Guantra led Kortha from the stateroom out along the grey deck, toward
the gang-plank, saying, "This place has been useful to me. Extremely
so. I've found that it paid to spend the money to equip it."
Kortha looked around him, gauging his chances for fight. Men stepped to
benches, swung down ladders, with an air of deft sureness. They paid
him the insult of inattention. His hands knotted, then relaxed. Suppose
he did fight? It would do him no good. Even Kortha could not overcome
the entire crew of a battleflier. Not without a weapon.
Guantra motioned him to a tiny monorail car.
"The journey is not far, but we must avoid some--ah--rather terrifying
precipices in this. The rail cost fifty lives to install. A misstep
above an abyss--"
He shrugged, pressing buttons. The car lurched forward, gathered speed.
"Personally, I think some of them are bottomless. We could take no
soundings."
They caught glimpses of black depths to their left as the car slid
along on its ribbonlike rail. A string of lights fastened to the cliff
cast eerie shadows into the gulf. The car slowed to round a curve.
It halted in a chamber whose walls were sculped with vividly stained
statuary. Their colors were faded now, but here and there were spots of
red sunset, or blue ocean, or the white of a ship's sail.
Kortha muffled a curse of surprise in his throat.
"I thought you'd like it," Guantra laughed. "That lieutenant of mine
found it. He swears it's a lost museum of some very early Martian race.
The ones who lorded it when there were oceans on the planet."
* * * * *
Kortha did not fight the drag of curiosity. He walked along the wall,
intent on the friezes. Here were the tall-prowed water-ships, sails
bellying before the wind, cleaving foaming, blue-green ocean. He saw
men in mail and helmets battling on green grass. There were boudoir
scenes, too, with tall and lovely blonde women reclining on soft
cushions, fanned by strangely shaped slaves.
How had this forgotten clue to a past civilization come to be buried
under tons of mountains? Perhaps a planetary catastrophe in the past
had shifted an entire mountain-range, to bury a city beneath its rock
foundations. Then again, the Old Ones might have carved out niches in
the stone itself, hollowing chambers the better to preserve traces of
their culture.
Kortha hastened his steps, found Guantra waiting for him in a room hung
completely with expensive blue-and-gold draperies. Even the ceiling
was muffled in bands of rich silk. The floor was a thick fur rug that
would have cost a million _kofuls_ on the open market. And in the
mathematical center of the room was a couch of incredible softness
draped with a spotted black-and-silver _ocemar_ pelt.
"Lie down and rest, Kortha. I shall leave you to your thoughts."
Kortha came up swiftly in front of Guantra and grasped him by his arms
above the elbows. He swung the Premier off his feet, held him inches
above the ground, glaring at him.
"I could kill you, Guantra. I could snap your spine as a king gorilla
could a twig. You would die."
Guantra paled and licked him lips. Then he managed to laugh.
"No need for that. All I ask is that you spend the night here. In this
room, sleeping on that couch. After that, you are free to leave."
Kortha dropped the man in his bewilderment, saying, "Is that all? Is
the place haunted? Ought I start at ghosts? Or do you gas the lungs out
of me?"
"Neither. Just stay here. No harm will come to you."
Kortha grinned and surveyed the drapes. He ran fingers through his
thick yellow hair. He chuckled, "I'll stay. In the morning, I'll leave."
He watched Guantra close the door behind him. He heard the bolt snick
into place. He went and sank on the couch. It was soft, enticing.
Putting up his tanned legs, he crossed them at the ankles.
Kortha tried to think, to reason out the danger of the room. But even
his giant body knew the lassitude of fatigue. He closed his eyes,
trying to sort out facts and interpret them; shaking his head a little,
muttering at his tiredness. Guantra had the whiphand, with Hurlgut a
cripple and Ilse and Xax no help at all. And he, Kortha! Of what use
was he, sleeping like a perfumed harlot on this couch? If he could
raise an army, now--
His eyelids blinked against the tiredness beating up from deep within
him. Wave upon wave of languor swept to his brain, wrapping it in soft
and gentle folds. He closed his eyes. Just for a minute, just until he
was refreshed--
Kortha slept. His big body lay utterly relaxed, every muscle inert,
like a lazing panther. The room was drugging in its silence. The thick
draping seemed to enfold, to cradle.
"_Kortha!_"
It was a voice like a wind whispering in pines. It soughed across the
room, making the man turn lazily in his slumber, uneasy.
"Kortha, speak to me. Tell me of yourself. Who are you, Kortha?"
The man slept, but his lips spoke, sighing, "I am Kortha the strong.
The hard, the cruel."
"Ahhh, no. You must forget that, Kortha. True, you are heavily muscled,
but so are many men."
"I crippled Hurlgut my best friend, in a fit of rage. I am not to be
trusted. My temper is the red heart of the living volcano. It can spew
destruction."
"Forget that you are Kortha. He never existed. You are not that Kortha,
but another. Tell me about this best friend, Kortha. Tell me. Tell me."
Kortha whispered the tale, shuddering even as he slept.
The voice spoke to him, and its softness was the purl of a wave lapping
at the shore.
"You are wrong. It happened thus--"
Kortha half-rose, listening, though his eyes were closed and his breath
came evenly.
"Repeat after me--Repeat--
"I saw Hurlgut in his tower room. We did not quarrel over politics with
Earth. Hurlgut did not call me names, denounce me as 'war-mad' and
'enhanced with my own powers.' The sun formed a pool at his feet, true.
But it was the guard--not I!--who leaped, struck swift and sure. I slew
the guard, but the damage had been done.
"Hurlgut slandered me. He said _I_ did it. I did not. Hurlgut was
jealous of my strength on Mars. He thinks I want power on Mars. I do
not. Guantra is the one true leader of Mars. It was the guard who
crippled Hurlgut, the guard who did it.
"The guard did it.
"The guard."
* * * * *
Kortha lay back in his cushions, muttering. The room grew silent once
again. Then--
"Kortha!"
"I hear."
"Tell me of your life, Kortha. All of it. All the deeds of childhood,
all the incidents. Tell me of your youth and manhood. Speak to me and
tell me."
Kortha spoke for hours while the voice listened. When he had done,
the voice whispered once again, and its sound flitted through the
arras-hung room, susurrating eerily.
"Your childhood pattern fits into section j-2364-k7. Therefore the
treatment will be relayed over into that pattern, with emphasis on
friendship."
If Kortha had been awake, he would have heard the click of tiny wheels,
the metallic rustle of machinery, the flick of a needle of compressed
air on a metal filament. The drapes helped deaden those sounds, and
Kortha slept on.
"Kortha, listen. When you came from Fraysia to be a student at the
Academy. You remember that first day when you met--Guantra?"
No, it had not been Guantra. It had been Hurlgut whom he'd met, there
on the white walk. Or had it really been Guantra? Was his memory that
bad? Guantra standing before him, smiling at him, putting a friendly
hand on his big arm and saying, "You look like officer material. Come
with me. I'd like to see you fence. You have the build for it."
And it was Guantra, not Hurlgut, who stood with him, awed at the magic
in the lightning parry and thrust of the sword in his hand. He had
defeated Mayram the champion that afternoon as Guantra looked on.
Beaten him with a glittering sword in his hand and a fire in his green
eyes and dancing joy in his heart.
He told Hurlgut--no, Guantra! about it afterward in his rooms; how
his father had had him taught by Eric MacCormac the American, who was
tri-planet champion in all three weapons: foil, sabre and epee. And
Guantra listened, pleased.
The voice went on, whispering softly, speaking to him, lifting from
his memory the threads of recollection, removing the very fibre of
his character, as a mason lifts old tile to lay the new. Bit after
glittering bit of fact was slipped in to take the place of memory. Fact
that was so plausible it became the truth.
It was Guantra who had given him his first engineering chance,
in letting him charge and electrolize the bastion of cliffworks
surrounding radio-city Ruuzol. With cables and generators, he had made
those mountain ridges of solid metals the sounding board for a spacevox
system that was first in the solar system. Kortha had done a great job
on that, thanks to Guantra. Later, there were other triumphs. Then--
"You fled to the desert to escape Ilse. She sought after you, trying to
enmesh you in her charms. All the time you knew she was the chosen of
Guantra. Guantra loves her.
"Guantra is your friend. You would not steal the woman of a friend.
"You gave her up. You ran from her, hoping to lose yourself in the
desert, thinking Ilse would forget...."
Kortha stirred restlessly, but relaxed. He listened, absorbed.
"Ilse found you in your smithy. You wanted to find Guantra to get his
advice, so you went to Yassa. Hurlgut sent men to kill you. You slew
them instead, and fled again. Ilse came to tempt you, but you were
saved by Guantra. He sent Ilse away, and brought you to safety."
Kortha sighed softly.
"Guantra is your friend, Kortha. The two of you might easily rule Mars.
Two friends to lead Mars to its rightful place among the planets. You
and Guantra. True friends...."
Kortha whispered, "Guantra is my friend. Ilse is a wanton seeking my
love. Hurlgut hates me, for Hurlgut is jealous."
"That is correct. Now repeat all that I have told you, after me."
Their voices susurrated in the draped room. Their voices fled from wall
to wall, and sank into oblivion. The candle that marked the hours and
the days burned lower. Only the voices lived, and the teeming brain of
Kortha that was taught by an unsleeping, patient, mechanical teacher.