For a long time he had only his thoughts for company. They were not
pleasant. He felt alone, as he had never felt so utterly lonely and
deserted before anywhere in the System. Now he realized that even
since his landing on Asgard, he had had companionship of a sort--that
the twin voices murmuring in his brain had been more real than he had
realized. A living warmth, a sense of--of _presence_--had been with him
then.
But it was gone now. Its absence left a black void within him. He stood
alone.
And Kari.... If he saw her again when his hands were free, he would
kill her. He knew that. But--but her shining smile lightened the
darkness that engulfed him now. He had never seen loveliness like
Kari's, and he had known so many women, so many, too many.... A man who
has fought his way Sunward and back again by way of Pluto's chasmed
midnight is not so easily misled by the smile of a pretty woman.
Kari was no ordinary woman--God knew she was not! Perhaps not even
human, perhaps not even real at all. It might be that very touch of
alienage that had stamped her shining image upon his memory, but he
could not put the image aside now. He saw her clearly in the darkness
of his captivity and the deeper dark of his loneliness, now that the
voices were stilled. Lovely, exotic, with the eyes full of longing and
terror--what lies they told!--and that lovely, that dazzling smile.
Bitterness made a wry taste in his mouth. Either she was one of the
Aesir, or she served them. Served them well. A knife in the heart was
the only answer he had for her, and he meant to give her that edged
answer if he lived. But she was so very lovely....
Slowly the veil of darkness lifted. He saw a face he had seen
before--the harsh, seamed features of the burly Earthman in the pit.
And beyond him, the slim Martian girl. All motionless, standing like
statues beside him ... beside him! For Stuart was one of them now. He
was in the pit, with the other captives.
Sensation came back slowly. With it came a tingling, a warm vibration
along his spine ... about his throat ... inside his brain. He
could not move, but at the corner of his range of vision flamed a
crimsonness--the cloak. He still wore it.
He wondered if the other captives could see him, if their minds were
as active as his in their congealed bodies. Or whether the chill of
deathlike silence held their brains along with their frozen limbs.
A slow, volcanic fury began to glow within him. Kari--traitor and
murderess! Was she Aesir? Was she Earth-born? And that black-cloaked,
cowled creature ... which was not real. Another projector of the Aesir,
as the giants had been?
_You were sent by the Protectors._
Memory of Kari's phrase came back to Stuart now. And with it, as though
he had somehow unbarred a locked gate, opened it a mere crack, came
a--a whispering.
Not audible. Faint, faraway, like the shadow of a wind rustling ghosts
of autumn leaves, the murmur rose and fell ... calling him.
The scarlet cloak moved ... writhed ... flowed more closely about him.
Fainter grew the voices.
Stuart strained after them. His soul sprang up ... reaching toward
those friendly, utterly inhuman whispers that came from nowhere.
A dull lethargy numbed him. The cloak drew tighter....
He ignored it. Deep in the citadel of his mind, he made himself
receptive, all his being focused on that--that strange calling from
beyond.
And, suddenly, there were words....
"_Derek Stuart. Can you hear us? Answer!_"
His stiff lips could not speak, but his thoughts formed an answer. And,
rising and falling as though the frequency of that incredible telepathy
pulsed and changed continually, the message came--
"We have lost. You have lost too, Stuart. But we will stay with you--we
_must_ stay now--and perhaps your death will be easier because of
that...."
"Who are you?" he thought, oddly awed by the personality he sensed
behind that voice that was really two voices.
"There is little time." The--sound?--faded into a thin whisper, then
grew stronger. "The cloak makes it hard for us to communicate with you.
And now we can give you none of our power at all. It is a monstrous
thing--a blasphemy such as only the Aesir would create. Half-alive--it
makes an artificial synapse between the individual and outside mental
contacts. We cannot help you--"
"Who are you?"
"We are the Protectors. Listen now, Stuart, for soon you must walk the
Long Orbit with the others. We removed some of your memories, so the
Aesir could not read your mind and have time to prepare themselves--we
hoped we might destroy them this time. But--we have failed again.
Now--we give you your memories back."
Like a slowly rising tide, Stuart's past began to return. He did not
question how this was done; he was too busy lifting the veil that had
darkened his mind since--since that night at the Singing Star in New
Boston. A few drinks with the tired-eyed man, and then darkness--
But the curtain was lifting now. He remembered....
* * * * *
He remembered a tiny, underground room, with armed men--not many of
them--staring at him. A voice that said, "You must either join us or
die. We dare run no risks. For hundreds of years a tiny band of us has
survived, only because the Aesir did not know we existed."
"Rebels?" he had asked.
"Sworn to destroy the Aesir," the man told him, and an answering glow
burned briefly in the eyes of the others.
Stuart laughed.
"You have courage," the man said. "You'll need it. I know why you
laugh. But we don't fight alone. Have you ever heard of the Protectors?"
"Never."
"Few have. They aren't human, any more than the Aesir are. But they are
not evil. They're humanity's champions. They have sworn to destroy the
Aesir, as we have--and so we serve them."
"Who are they, then? What are they?"
"No man knows," the other said quietly. "Who--and where--they are is a
secret they keep to themselves. But we hear their messages. And once in
a lifetime, not oftener, they tell us where we may find some man they
have winnowed the planets to discover. In our lifetime, Stuart, you are
the man."