The five of us were in a little circle on the dark-glinting surface of
that pool of dreadful darkness, each of us helpless in the tentacles of
a silver robot. The Earthman no longer moved. Moaning, herself almost
insensible, the girl was staring at him with horror-widened eyes.
It was to be an infinitely frightful thing that happened next.
The robot-captors of Rogo Nug and Zerek Oom were searching them. Deft
silver appendages relieved them of weapons, spare converter-tubes, the
little engineman's worn metal cannister of _goona-roon_, the cook's
half-empty flask.
Zerek was sobbing, quivering, gasping a voiceless plea for mercy. His
wizened face grim, Rogo chewed silently, unexpectedly jetted a purple
stream into the crystal eye of the thing that held him.
Ignoring both plea and jet, the white robots methodically completed
the search. Silver ropes released the men and they fell! The last
quavering shriek of Zerek Oom was cut abruptly off, as his hairless
head went beneath the film of darkness.
Cold with an icy chill, I followed their twisting bodies. They
were sucked down, as the ship had been, past the dim-seem, crimson
reflections of the mirror. And they vanished.
A tremendous brazen clangor, reverberating like distant thunder against
the cyclopean columns and the far-off walls and the sky of black stone
that vaulted that incredible hall, drew my eyes back from the giddy,
awesome mystery of the pit beneath us.
I saw that all the host of white robots were dropping swiftly out of
the air. They fell upon the mirror, and upon the far-sweeping floor of
ebon stone that rimmed it, and bowed their silver heads.
All the hall throbbed again to that mighty thunder.
"Malgarth!" A whisper of awe murmured among the robots. "The Master
comes!"
Then I saw that vast doors of black metal had opened in the end of that
hall, miles away. Through the portal came a clangoring throng of the
old robots--many-formed machines of red-and-black, clumsy, grotesquely
ugly, so queerly different from our silver captors.
"The Master!" rippled that murmur. "Malgarth comes!"
My strained eyes blinked. In that dusky light, I distinguished at last
a monstrous stalking thing--a robot ten times taller than the rest. Its
black, colossal body bore scores of fantastic, vari-formed appendages.
The armored dome of its lofty head was crimson, and it gleamed blue
with the myriad lenses of two immense multiple eyes.
This metal giant, I knew, was Malgarth.
The dark film beneath us spun and shimmered queerly to the impacts of
his ponderous approaching tread. Was it to swallow the three of us, I
wondered sickly, as it had Zerek Oom and Rogo Nug? And what could lie
beneath it?
"Barihorn--"
* * * * *
My name sighed from the pale lips of Verel, and her body went limp in
the silver tentacles that held her. Kel Aran had not moved again. I was
left alone to face the stalking monster.
The gigantic robot came to the brink of that pool of darkness, and
stood swaying there. The swarm of his guards were dwarfed about his
feet. The bright blue lenses surveyed us coldly for a time, and then a
thick, bronze-throated voice rasped thunderously:
"I know you, Bari Horn. I believed that I had killed you in your
laboratory, a million years ago. How your puny lump of watery flesh has
survived this time I do not know--but now you face a better weapon than
I had that day."
In the shaft of red from above, the iron giant swayed in grotesque
triumph.
"No trick even of yours, my maker," came that mighty rumble again, "can
match the power of my geodesic mirror. For it deflects the lines of
space at my will. The dimensions of space and time are no barriers to
the mirror. I can hurl you out of this universe. And I shall--"
The great voice sank rustily.
"--after you are dead."
Desperately, I groped for some argument that might induce the robot to
spare some fraction of mankind. Malgarth was a machine. He must respond
to logic.
"Consider, Malgarth," I gasped through the strangling coils about my
throat. "A man made you. Machines and men are complements. Either
would be less without the other. You are stronger than I--but steel
must rust, and life is eternal!"
"I am eternal!"
Deep as a brazen knell of death, the voice of Malgarth rolled through
the dusky vastness of that red-litten hall.
"You were a fool, Bari Horn, when you fashioned me. Twice a fool when
you sought to preserve the knowledge that would destroy me. For that
double folly, you are now to die. And all men with you--for a million
years of slavery must be avenged!"
Still Kel and Verel did not move. Shuddering alone before Malgarth, I
gasped for breath against those constricting silver coils, and sought
in vain for any argument, any weapon.
"Your million years is but a moment," I gasped wildly, "against the
cycle of life. For that is a river that has flowed since the dawn of
the Earth you murdered. Even I have lived a million years, Malgarth,
watching you--to destroy you if I must."
The metal colossus shuddered beyond the black pool. Malgarth was
afraid. But my audacious lie had earned small advantage, for that great
voice bellowed:
"Then destroy me, Bari Horn--if you can! For this is the test. I
command those who hold you to--_crush!_"
Like serpents of living silver, the cold tentacles of the white robots
wrapped closer about me. They coiled deliberately. I had time to look
at the others. Kel Aran had stirred. I saw the bright loops constrict
about him. Then I heard his groan, and saw the new rush of blood.
"Barihorn!" Verel breathed my name. "Bari--"
The living coils were drawn deep into her flesh. Her slender limbs
bent. Her white skin was beaded with sweat of pain. Her breath came
out, in a low, choked, involuntary cry.
* * * * *
Then she was lost, in the red mist of my own agony. A cold smooth noose
sank into my throat. Breath and blood were stopped. My lungs screamed.
I felt the rush of blood from ears and nostrils.
Dimly, through the roaring of my ears, I heard the voice of Malgarth:
"Go, Bari Horn! Through the geodesic mirror! And take your ancient
secret with you!"
Through that darkening mist, I saw the quick movement. My dimming eyes
followed a bright parabola. I glimpsed the thing of wondrous flame that
fell upon the dark spinning film at my feet.
It was the Dondara Stone--that we had sought so long, so vainly!
Then the metal giant was lost in smothering darkness. I swayed alone,
in agony. I knew the thing was done. The mirror of Malgarth was going
to hurl us into some unthinkable oblivion--but not until after we were
dead.
"Bari!" A soft new voice was calling my name. "Bari Horn, the time has
come."