No answer. Ketrik glanced at the Guard sitting next to him. This man
had gone grim too, as his hand rested lightly on the electro beneath
his tunic. Ketrik couldn't guess what had gone wrong or why, but he
knew he wasn't going to see Dar Vaajo under favorable circumstances. He
went tight inside.
They stopped before a low stone building. The driver came around,
opened the car door. "Out!" he ordered curtly.
Ketrik came out. He launched himself bodily, his fist smashing to the
other's face and making a bloody smear of it. The man staggered back.
The momentum carried Ketrik out of the car and to his knees. He heard
the rush of the other Guard, whirled to meet it. Too late. He only saw
the dark blur of the man's arm coming down in a swift arc, then heavy
metal crashed behind his ear, leaving him stunned.
His muscles wouldn't pull him up. The blows came again ... more than
once, heavy and accurate. He ploughed forward onto cold pavement as his
mind blanked out.
* * * * *
He came again to consciousness, groaned as heavy pain hammered through
his skull. Gradually his eyes focused upon the details of the room.
There weren't many details. It was a small room, quite bare. The floor
was stone but the walls seemed to be of thick _crystyte_. Dim lights
filtered through. There was no entrance of any kind that he could see.
"So you are awake at last, Earthman. And none the worse for wear." The
voice came from within the room. Ketrik raised his head, stared at the
opposite wall, a section of which had taken on the silvery radiance of
a tele-vise.
Imaged there were the features of Dar Vaajo. Ketrik recognized him
immediately.
It was an elderly face, but smooth--with the color and toughness
and texture of old leather. The lips were tight and purposeful, the
cheek-bones bulged beneath crisp, graying hair. And the eyes ... they
held Ketrik. They weren't old eyes. They were hard and bright as
jewels. An indomitable light came up from the dark depths of them.
Dar Vaajo spoke again from the screen.
"As you see, I prefer to hold audience with you in this manner. You are
a dangerous man. Yes, very dangerous, to have come so far. Through my
Space Patrol. Past my Specials. Into the city and past the inner wall
itself." The lips quirked a little. "Yes, I have determined everything
about you. Your name is not Khosan, but George Ketrik--I have heard
something of your exploits in the past. You are the spy sent here by
the Earth Councillor, Mark Travers." Again he paused. "You are not
surprised that I know all this?"
If he was surprised, Ketrik didn't show it in the slight shrug he gave.
He knew the voice would go on.
"I have learned this," Vaajo said, "within the past few hours. You
see--we, too, have a development of the Scanner Beam. This beam was
trained upon you from the very moment you drove into the palace
grounds. We learned your true identity and purpose."
Ketrik went dry inside. It would have to be that, the one thing he
couldn't have foreseen! He spoke to the screen. "Very well, so I have
lost. I suppose I can expect no reward for saving the Princess."
Something showed in the dark depths of Vaajo's eyes. Amusement? But he
spoke thoughtfully. "Very well, you shall have your reward. I think I
will send you back to Mark Travers--in a most unique way!"
Quite suddenly then, Ketrik knew. He knew the reason for the beam he
had seen launched into space, and almost he grasped the principle of
it. He felt his insides twisting up into cold, hard knots. But he
managed to say, "You mean--that just a part of me will go."
Vaajo chuckled. "So. You saw last night's display, felt a taste of it
perhaps, and you have guessed. Yes, your surmise is correct! We utilize
the Rajec caravans. Two hundred yesterday, and fine specimens they
were! But they are now mere walking hulks, devoid of all but the most
meager mental impulses. Their bodies will be sent north to work the
Uranium pits. Their minds have already been absorbed into my--shall we
say, weapon, increasing its potential considerably."
Ketrik's brain seemed to twist inside his skull, until he could not
tell whether he felt horror or fury or both. He only knew he must keep
control, learn more of this grisly thing that Vaajo was conducting with
human minds.... He found his own voice, hard and dry, saying, "Yes, I
saw it last night, felt it ... but still I cannot understand...." He
passed a hand across his forehead in seeming bewilderment. He heard
Vaajo saying, "It cannot matter now, for my beam reached Earth last
night ... yes, it would please me to tell you something of it! You
must have heard of the ancient city of M'Tonak, lying far beneath
Mars' Polar Cap. And the sentient thought-force that came from outer
space, or another dimension--no one ever knew--to land at M'Tonak where
it remained for untold centuries. Through all that time the Entity
remained barely alive, unknown to man, sustaining itself by sending out
invisible radiations that fed on Martian minds! And you must have heard
of the Earthman, Jim Landor, who found his way there and destroyed the
Entity, leaving it crushed beneath tons of ice. All this was before
your time or mine. Over a hundred years ago...."[3]
[Footnote 3: _City of the Living Flame_, Planet Stories, Fall, 1942.]
Ketrik nodded. He had heard the story many times.
* * * * *
Dar Vaajo went on. "The story of the thought-entity beneath our ice
cap had always intrigued me," he said. "So several years ago I sent
some workmen to uncover that ancient city. Yes, you have guessed. The
Entity hadn't died! It remained there insentient but alive, frozen into
suspended animation beneath miles of ice! It was then that I remembered
the stories of its power, its insatiable appetite for the mental forces
of man ... and thereupon I evolved my scheme. It has been dangerous,
Ketrik, but I worked slowly and carefully.
"The first step was to waken it, which was easy. The second step was
to keep it under control--not so easy. But I managed this by means of
Uranium rays which seems to be the only thing capable of combating
the Entity's own peculiar atomic structure. That was the reason for
my Uranium embargo; I've had to increase the potential of these
controlling rays as the Entity grew in size and power."
"You mean you ... _fed it_? Allowed it to _grow_?" Ketrik was aghast,
listening to this cold-blooded recital.
"Of course! How else was I to reach Earth with it, across miles of
space? That was my ultimate goal."
"But how? It must have taken a tremendous ... surely the Rajecs were
not enough?"
Vaajo smiled blandly from the screen. "I told you I worked slowly.
I began by communicating with it, telepathically. Yes! It's a
highly intelligent entity, and it wishes to remain alive. It seems
it came originally from a world _in another dimension bordering on
ours_! It was the creation of a scientist on that world. The Entity
became dangerous, threatened to get out of control, and could not be
destroyed. The scientists rigged up a contra-dimensional device which
hurled it out of that dimension. It landed quite by chance in ours--on
Mars, near M'Tonak.
"So we made a sort of pact, the Entity and I. I wished it to grow
in size and potential, but not at the sacrifice of my own people. I
told it something of my plans. It, in turn, told me how to build a
contra-dimensional machine by which to project it back into its own
world! I managed this at last, adding a reverse control by which I
could always bring it back.
"Fully a dozen times now it has crossed the dimensions. Whenever I
brought it back, it had ... _fed_. You understand? It was satiating
itself upon the populace of that other world! Until finally, it
revealed to me that ... there was no more. The other-dimensional world
was barren of sustenance!
"By this time, however, I was almost ready. It had grown tremendously
in size and power. I always added more rays to keep it under control.
Then I began testing for Earth, allowing it to reach out. Have you
realized what a terrible weapon concentrated and projected thought
can be? Several times it touched Earth spacers, absorbed the minds
aboard them, and"-- Dar Vaajo shrugged--"I had to send my Patrollers
out afterwards to destroy the spacers. But never were we quite able
to reach Earth! It would take more potential, just a little more, and
where was I to find it? Then I thought of the Rajecs. I made treaty
with them, built the temple here to attract them ... I guess you know
the rest."
Ketrik knew the rest, and more. He knew that Earth would have
to capitulate to Vaajo's demands, or face destruction by a
mind-destroying, mind-feeding Entity now capable of reaching across
space. Venus would undoubtedly be next, leaving Dar Vaajo in control
of the inner planets including the colonies recently established on
Jupiter's moons.
"So, Ketrik, I shall send you back to Mark Travers," Dar Vaajo was
saying. "Four days from now the orbits of our two planets reach their
nearest juxtaposition. _Then_ is when the Entity shall reach out
again for Earth, to give another sample of my power." Vaajo smiled
maddeningly just before he caused the screen to blank out. "And isn't
it ironic that you, or rather the mental part of you, shall be an
infinitesimal part of it!"