INFERNO
They found no sign of Norden as they approached the factory.
Several times they had to take cover in ditches and weeds as
whispering spheres floated overhead in search of prey. But they
escaped the electrical feelers which stirred the grass and brush
around them.
Pember recovered his Garand rifle, which had been left near the
sentry box during the retreat.
Taylor led the group into the tunnel, with Masters following and
Pember bringing up the rear.
The din of the slaughter in the town and the shrill whistle of
the spheres was blotted out underground. They reached the far
end, where the ladder led upward to the sphere-haunted factory.
Taylor ascended. He could hear the shrill whistle of spheres
dinning through the bleak building. He peeped into the forge
room. The first flush of dawn was streaming through the windows.
Norden was there, creeping along the barrels of some naval guns
toward the casting room.
Norden halted at the door. He took a deep breath. From his lips
came a shrill, whispering whistle, a close imitation of the call
of the spheres.
An orange light was reflected from the room beyond.
Still whistling, Norden stepped back a few paces. Through the
door, floating toward the spy came an orange sphere.
Taylor watched, expecting to see a bolt of heat lash out toward
the spy. But the sphere pulsed slowly, as if half pleased by the
sound Norden made with his lips.
So this is how Orkins escaped from the plant, Taylor thought.
Orkins had imitated the creatures. They had spared him as a pet,
like a man keeps a talking parrot.
Norden stood very still, whistling while the sphere approached. A
little tentacle of flame reached out toward him.
Taylor expected to see Norden disappear in a flash of fire, but
the flame seemed to caress. A soft glow seemed to diffuse from
the man's clothing and body.
The sphere, too, seemed to change, growing softer and more
mellow. It wasn't a tangible substance, but something ethereal,
like the flicker of flame over an open hearth. Some tremendous
force seemed to hold the sphere in globular shape.
Taylor could see the chimerical eyes peering through the surface
of the sphere. He looked into the depths of those eyes and still
could not be sure they were not an illusion. The intensity of the
creatures' intelligence seemed to shine from within, giving the
impression of staring, haunting eyes. They were not organs of
sight, but they were the windows of the mind. They were the
source of those tenuous flames that seemed to caress Norden.
As Taylor looked at the eyes he felt plunged into the pathless
depths of a vast, powerful brain. He was in contact with an infinity
of intelligence far beyond limits of human comprehension. It was a
surging intelligence of energy, abysmal, vaporous and limitless,
transcending the dimensions, out-reaching boundless time,
overshadowing matter.
The eyes made Taylor forget he was a man. His own mind seemed
merged in the intellectual energy floating among the monster
machines of the forge room. Dimly, he was conscious that this
power was not directed at him, but at Norden who stood, still
whistling, in front of the globe.
The sphere was whistling, too, and the sound transformed itself
into music of the stars.
A discordant note rose in the song from Norden's imitation of the
voice. Norden was shrieking hatred for Taylor's nation, for all
those who opposed the self-designated supermen of the world.
"My race must be preserved!"
The thought was Norden's, reflected to Taylor from the shoreless
depths of the energy brain.
"All other peoples are evil, decadent, and are doomed to slavery
under the man of the future. The future man will be a child of my
race. My race is superior. From it the _uberman_ will rise. You
must help. Prey on these inferior peoples. They do not deserve to
live."
The sphere's hues changed, reddish, then yellow, back to orange.
"Is this Norden a man?" came the sphere's questioning thought.
"Why doesn't he flee? Why doesn't he scream in terror? He's
different from the others. Perhaps he is, as he claims, a
superior being. There was one, who called himself Orkins, who
talked with us. But when Orkins saw us slay he ran away in
terror. This Norden begs us to kill."
"It is only through destruction of the weak that the strongest
survive," Norden answered. "Man is a cruel, but noble creature.
Those who fail to kill are weak."
The sphere's whistle grew thunderous.
"You speak the philosophy of my world!" it said.
From the depths of the sphere a rhythm of thought arose. A
whispered epic sang through the fibres of Taylor's mind, telling
of a world of energy, whipped into a storm of war. Spheres of
energy, overwhelmed a weaker race made up of gaseous clouds of
atoms.
In the midst of this titanic battle a huge disc appeared, carried
by the gaseous clouds. It was a concave lens, like some powerful
optical instrument. But instead of focusing beams of light, it
reflected, not only light but all forms of energy. As the spheres
attacked they were shattered into spores and shot away through
space.
The whispered song told of the flight through space. Behind lay a
world, unlike the earth, which the spheres called home. It was a
gaseous, flaming world where matter and energy mingled as one
substance. It was mottled with spots of cold gases which warred
with the whispering spheres. _It was the sun._
The sun was power, yet a ceaseless struggle between energy and
matter. But neither energy nor matter was in control. Should
matter control, the sun would cool. If energy triumphed, the sun
would explode. It was war, like the wars of the earth, where one
philosophy was based on power, and the other seeking justice. A
victory for might would make a ruthless world. Justice was
worthless without injustice. The ideals were mutually dependent,
yet always at war.
"The cold gases tricked us," whispered the sphere. "The weak have
no right to outwit the strong. The weak has no right to survive.
Justice is an unnatural condition. Progress means nothing, except
on the road to glory. Your race, sharing our philosophy, can
build another great energy reflector to send us back. We can aid
our people in triumphing over these inferior beings who claim
rights in a world of might."
"We can built what you wish," Norden promised.
It was a promise like other promises Norden had made, Taylor
thought. Norden once had promised to help Taylor fight the
spheres.
"I will call the others!"
The sphere floated upward toward the hole in the roof. It circled
the factory and moved away, toward the town, where a score of
other majestic, glowing globes floated like bubbles of fire.
Norden watched, a smile cracking his jutting jaw.
There was still a whispering sound. A single shrill hiss came
from the casting room.
"Why do you claim superiority, Norden?" Taylor spoke.
The spy turned. For the first time he saw Taylor.
"_Himmel_!"
Norden's eyes looked beyond Taylor and rested on Masters, who was
emerging from the tunnel.
"Is it because you pose the doctrine of slavery and destruction?
Is it because your cultural contributions are keyed to military
conquest? Is it because of your lies and broken promises? Is it
because you are more skillful in butchery? It is because you have
refined the art of terrorism?"
Taylor was advancing, half crouching, toward Norden.
Norden's arm swished in a swift motion. He drew an automatic
pistol from his pocket and leveled it at Taylor and Masters.
"Because I am the stronger!" Norden said.
Taylor had not expected Norden to be armed. He had overlooked the
possibility that the spy might have an extra weapon hidden in the
tunnel.