"She would die, yes. Her own life-force has been sapped too far. You
and she are kept alive only as long as the bond of possession holds."
Nice, Stuart thought. If the Aesir were destroyed, Kari would die
with him. And if _he_ faced doom, he too would die, as the Protectors
withdrew to avoid sharing his fate.
Hell--what did he care whether Kari lived or died? It was only the
glamor of half-alienage that had drawn him to the girl. A dagger in her
throat--
Besides, he was certainly facing doom now.
"All I can do--" he said--and stopped abruptly. He was speaking aloud.
Patiently the twin voice in his brain waited for him to continue.
Slowly he flexed his arms. He tilted back his head, staring up at the
rim of the pit fifty feet above him. He could see the titan pillars
rising toward the roof of that mighty tower, incredibly far above. But
there was no sign of life.
"I can move," he said. "I--"
Struck by a new thought, he gripped the folds of the cloak. It was
nauseously warm and vibrant. It seemed to move under his hands. He
jerked at it, and felt a twinge of agonizing pain along his spine and
about his throat, while a white-hot lance stabbed into his skull.
"If I could get rid of this--you could help me?"
"We could give you our power, to use against the Aesir. But we do not
know how to remove the cloak."
"I don't either," Stuart growled, and paused as a movement caught his
eye. The muscular Earthman near him was stirring.
He turned slowly. Beyond him the Martian girl swayed her
feathery-crested head and lifted supple, slender arms. And the
others--all about Stuart they were wakening to motion.
But no life showed in their dull eyes. No understanding. Only a blind,
empty withdrawal.
They turned, trooped toward the wall of the pit ... toward an arched
opening that was gaping suddenly.
"The Long Orbit," said the voice in Stuart's mind.
"What's that?"
"Death. As the Aesir feed. They feed on the life-force of living
organisms."
"Is that the only way out?"
"The only way open to you. Yes."
* * * * *
Stuart went slowly after the others. They had crossed the threshold
now, and were pacing along a tunnel, lit with cold blue brilliance,
that curved very gradually toward the left. Behind him a panel closed.
The cloak swayed like a great bloodstain behind him, moving in a motion
not entirely caused by Stuart's movements. He tried again to unfasten
it, but the clasp at his throat only drew tighter. And the tingling
sensation increased along his spine.
An artificial synapse ... blocking his nerve-ends so that he could not
draw upon the Protectors' power....
At his left was an alcove in the tunnel wall. It was filled with
coagulated light ... bright with glaring flames ... flame-hot. Within
that white curtain stirred swift movement, like the leaping of fires.
Above the recess a symbol was embossed in the stone. The sign of
Mercury.
"Mercury," said the voice in Stuart's mind. "The Servant of the Sun.
The Swift Messenger. Mercury, that drinks the Sun's fires and blazes
like a star in the sky's abyss. First in the Long Orbit--Mercury."
The crowd of prisoners, dull-eyed, swayed to and fro, a ripple of
excitement rustling through them. Abruptly the Martian girl darted
forward--
Was engulfed in the milky flames.
Stood there, while curdled opalescence veiled her. On her face sheer
horror, as--
"The Aesir feed," the voice whispered. "They drink the cup of her
life ... to its last dregs."
The captives were moving again. Silently Stuart followed them along the
tunnel. Now another recess showed in the wall.
Blue ... blue, this time, as hazy seas of enchantment ... misted with
fog, with slow shifting movement within it....
"The sign of Venus," said the voice. "The Clouded World. Planet of life
and womb of creation. Ruler of mists and seas--Venus!"
The Earthman was drawn into the alcove. Stood there, while azure seas
washed higher and higher about him. Through that glassy veil his face
glared, stiff with alien fear....
The sacrifices went on.
There was no alcove, no symbol for Earth. The Aesir had forgotten the
world that had been their place of birth.
"Mars! Red star of madness! Ruler of man's passion, lord of the bloody
seas! Where scarlet sands run through Time's hourglass--Mars, third in
the Long Orbit!"
The crimson glow of a dusty ruby ... the face of a Venusian, strained,
twisted in agony ... the hunger of the Aesir....
"The Little Worlds! The Great Belt that girdles the Inner System! The
Broken Planet--"
Tiny goblin lights, dancing and flickering, blue and sapphire and dull
orange, wine-red and dawn-yellow--
The hunger of the Aesir.
"Jupiter! Titan! Colossus of the Spaceroads! Jupiter, whose mighty
hands seize the ships of man and drag them to his boiling heart! The
Great One-fifth in the Long Orbit!"
The hunger of the Aesir.
"Ringed Saturn light-crowned! Guardian of the outer skies! Saturn--"
Uranus ... Neptune....
Pluto.
The hunger of the Aesir....
Beyond Pluto, dark worlds Stuart had not known. Until finally he was
alone. The last of his companions had been drawn into one of the
vampire alcoves of the Long Orbit.
He went on.
There was another recess in the wall at his left. It was filled with
night. Jet blackness, cold and horrible, brimmed it.
Something like an invisible current dragged him forward, though he
fought with all his strength to resist. Instinctively he sent out a
desperate call to the Protectors.
"We cannot aid you. We must leave you ... you will die instantly."
"Wait! Don't--don't give up yet! Give me your power--"
"We cannot. While you wear the cloak."
The edge of blackness touched Stuart with a frigid impact. He felt
something, avid with horrible hunger, strain forward from of the
alcove, reaching for him. The cloak billowed out--
Sweat stood out on Stuart's face. For, suddenly, he had seen the way.
It might mean death, it would certainly mean frightful agony--but he
could go down fighting. If the cloak could not be removed in any other
way--perhaps it could be ripped off! He gripped the half-living fabric
at its bottom, brought his arm behind him--and tore the horror from him!
* * * * *
Stark, abysmal nerve-shock poured like a current of fire up his spine
and into his brain. It was like tearing off his own skin. Sick, blind,
gasping dry-throated sobs, Stuart stumbled away from the black alcove,
tearing at the cloak. It tried to cling to him--
He ripped it away--hurled it from him. And as it fell--it screamed!
But he was free.
For an instant sheer weakness overwhelmed him. Then into him poured a
racing, jubilant torrent of strength, of mighty, intoxicating power
that seemed to heal his wounds and revivify him instantly.
Into him surged the power of the Protectors!
From the alcove a finger of darkness tendrilled out. He was borne away
from it ... along the passage. Dimly, through drifting mists, he sensed
that he was moving up a ramp ... through a wall that seemed to grow
intangible as he approached it ... up and up....
He was in the hall of the Aesir.
Above him the cyclopean pillars towered, dwarfing the thrones set
between them. Before him hung the shifting wall of light.
He was carried toward it--through it.
He stood on a black dais. Facing him was the cloaked, cowled figure he
had last seen with Kari.
And beside the Aesir stood Kari!
The creature lifted its arm ... a red flame spouted toward Stuart.
Sudden, mocking laughter spilled from his lips. He no longer fought
alone. The tremendous power of the Protectors blazed within him, power
and energy and force that could smash suns.
In midair the fiery lance failed and died. The Aesir drew back a step,
drawing its cloak about it as if in surprise. And Kari--Kari shrank
back, too, and something strangely like hope flashed for a moment
across her dazzling, her more than mortal loveliness. Hope? But she was
of the Aesir now. And if they failed, she died. Then why--
The Aesir's cloak flickered, and a second gush of fiery light
fountained toward Stuart.
Up surged the tide of power in him again. Blind and dazed with his
own tremendous energy, Stuart felt a curve like a dim shield flung up
to meet that lance. The Aesir's fire struck-and flashed into blazing
fragments on the Protector's shield. Each droplet sang intolerable
music as it faded and winked out. And behind the Aesir, more dazzling
than any immortal fire had been, Stuart saw Kari's sudden, shining
smile....
She would die if the Aesir failed. She must know she would die. But the
brilliance of her smile struck him as the Aesir's spear of fire could
never strike. He knew, then. He understood....
The Aesir's cloak whirled like a storm-cloud, in dark, deep billows.
The Aesir itself grew taller for a moment, as if it drew itself up to a
godlike height. And then it did for Derek Stuart what no Aesir had ever
done for a mortal man before. No Aesir had ever needed to. It cast off
the hampering cloak and stood stripped for battle with this primitive
manling whose forebears immemorially long ago had been the Aesir's
forebears. There was in that stripping something almost of kinship--an
acknowledgment that here at last in the hall of the Aesir stood an
equal, sprung of equal stock....
Naked in its terrible power, the Aesir stood up to face the man.
Not human. Not ever human, except in the mysterious basics which these
people of a thousand millenniums in the future had chosen to retain.
The flesh they had cast off, and the flesh the Aesir stood up in to
face his forebear was pure, blazing, blinding energy. Twice as tall
as a man it stood, shining with supernal brilliance, terrible and
magnificent.
The great hall rang soundlessly with the power of the Protectors.
And then from above a streak of light came flashing, and another, and
another. And were engulfed in the one Aesir who stood shining before
its adversary, growing ever brighter and more terrible. The rest of
the Aesir, coming to the aid of their fellow, forming a single entity
to crush the champion of mankind.
Stuart braced himself for the incredible torrent of energy that
would come blasting through him from the Protectors. And in a split
second--it came!
Mind and body reeled beneath the impact of that power as force flared
through him and struck out at the tower of lightning which was the
Aesir. But the force which was trying his human body to its utmost was
not force enough to touch that blinding column. Energy lashed out from
it, struck him a reeling blow--Stuart dropped to his knees, the hall
swimming in fire around him.
But what he saw was not the terrible, blazing image of his adversary,
but Kari's face beyond. His falling meant her life--but when she saw
him go down the brilliance dimmed upon her features. The hope he had
seen there went out like a candle-flame and she was once more only a
vessel of human flesh which the Aesir had possessed and degraded.
In his despair and his dizziness he cried soundlessly, "Help me,
Protectors! Give me your power!"
The still double-voice said, "You could not hold it. You would be
burned out utterly."
"I'll hold it long enough!" he promised desperately. "One second of
power--only that! Enough to smash the Aesir. Then death--but not till
then!"
* * * * *
There was one instant when time stopped. That cataclysmic horror that
had risen a thousand years ago and raged through the worlds like a
holocaust stood blazing before Stuart's eyes. It stooped toward him,
poising for the hammer blow that would smash him to nothing--
Then a power like the drive of galaxies through space thundered into
Stuart's mind.
He had not expected this. Nothing in human experience could have taught
him to expect it. For the Protectors were not human. No more human than
the Aesir themselves. And the unleashed energy that roared soundlessly
through Stuart rocked his very soul on its foundations. He could not
stir. He could not think. He could only stay upon his knees facing the
Aesir-thing as galactic power thundered through him and wielded him
like a sword against man's enemies.
Higher and higher rose the crashing tides of contest. The citadel
shook ponderously upon the rocks of the god-made little world. Perhaps
that world itself staggered in space as the titans battled together on
its rocking surface.
Faster spun the core of radiant light which was the Aesir. Faster raced
the tides of power through Stuart's blasted body, seeming to rip his
very flesh apart and blaze in his brain like hammers of cosmic fire.
Terribly, terribly he yearned for surcease, for the end of this
unthinkable destruction that was tearing his brain and body apart. And
he knew he could end it in a moment, if he chose to let go....
Grimly he clung to the power that was destroying him. Second by
second, counting each moment an eternity, he clung to consciousness.
The crashing lances of the Protectors drove on upon the armor of the
Aesir, and the cyclopean pillars of the great hall reeled upon their
foundations, and the very air blazed into liquid fire around him.
He never knew what final blow of cosmic violence ended that battle. But
suddenly, without warning, the vast column of the Aesir pulsed with
violent brilliance and the whole hall rang with a cry too shrill and
terrible for ears or the very mind to hear, except as a thrilling of
despair.
The tower rocked. All the bright tapestries billowed and flowed against
the walls. And the radiant thing that was the Aesir--
Went out like a blown flame. Stuart saw it darken in the quickness of
a heartbeat from blinding brightness to an angry, sullen scarlet, and
then to the color of embers, and then to darkness.
There was nothing there at all.
And Stuart's brain dimmed with it one last glimpse he had of the
shining smile on Kari's face, triumph and delight, in the instant
before the cloudiness of oblivion blotted her features out.
He was not dead. Somewhere, far away, his body lay prone upon the cold
pavement of the Aesir's hall, a hall terribly empty now of life. But
Stuart himself hung in empty space, somewhere between life and death.
The thought of the Protectors touched him gently, almost caressingly.
"You are a mighty man, Derek Stuart. Your name shall not be forgotten
while mankind lives."
With infinite effort he roused his mind.
"Kari--" he said.
There was silence for a moment--a warm silence. But the voices,
speaking as one, said gently, "Have you forgotten? When the Aesir died,
Kari died too. And you, Derek Stuart--you can never go back to your
body now. You remember that?"
Sudden rebellion shook Stuart's bodiless brain. "Get out of my mind!"
he raged at the double-voice. "What do you know about human beings?
I've won for mankind--but what did I win for myself? Nothing--nothing!
And Kari--Get out of my mind and let me die! What do _you_ know about
love?"
Amazingly, laughter pulsed softly.
"Love?" said the double-voice. "Love? You have not guessed who we are?"
Stuart's bewildered mind framed only a voiceless question.
"We know humanity," the twin voices said. "We were human once, a
thousand years ago. Very human, Derek Stuart. And we remembered love."