Prince Cadmus slew the Dragon and sowed
its teeth. Could this latter-day Cadmus
smash Akal-jor's atomic monster? Could
he halt the devouring Gray God before--
Doomsday 257 A.G.!
_Novelet by_ BRYCE WALTON
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Cadmus trembled now as he waited. He had been waiting too long. Sweat
was heavy on his clean-muscled body. A bright eagerness blazed from
his gray eyes. And beyond the small pressure dome of the combination
lab and living quarters, the frigid night pounded at the translucent
teflonite--gnawed hungrily at that small dot of life and warmth on the
barren asteroid.
Now that he was almost ready to step into the matter transmitter, each
moment had become an eternity as he waited to be transported almost
instantly to Mars. To the city of Akal-jor. To his final destiny.
He cursed softly at the cloud of amnesia aching in his skull. Johlan
the Venusian scientist had had him in various states of hypnosis for
some time, educating him for this task, and had placed a protective
veneering of amnesia across his mind to protect his purpose from the
Silver Guard's mental probers in case he were captured.
Since birth, Johlan had raised Zaleel and Cadmus on the asteroid. The
three of them were unconditionally dedicated to the great "plan."
Because of his fogged memory, Cadmus now knew but little concerning
the details of the plan. He only knew that he would die to carry it
through. That if he failed, Tri-Planet civilization would go on down to
final decay and ruin.
The three of them, three frail motes of intelligent life, must save
the vast System. Old Johlan the Venusian. Zaleel of the golden hair
and generous red lips. And Cadmus the fighter. To fight the Silver
Guards, and the gigantic mechanical intelligence of the Great Gray God,
Cadmus had only the sword at his side and the crude energy gun Johlan
had made. The energy gun was too small for efficiency but it had to be
small in order to be carried unnoticed beneath his tunic.
Zaleel was gone. She had stepped into the transmat months before to
carry out her part of the plan. Cadmus remembered only the shiny
richness of her hair, the warm promise of her lips.
A signal light blinked. A glow crackled round the electronic power rim
of the transmat. Cadmus shot one last glance through the pressure dome
where he had spent most of his lifetime in preparation.
A thin hard smile parted his space-burned face as he stepped into the
transmat and melted into a blurred vortex of coloration.
Pain beyond thought shattered his consciousness to shreds. The
blackness was absolute. The cold was ineffable.
* * * * *
It was the year of the Gray God, 257 A.G.
Tomorrow was the day of Worship at the Gray God's shrine. Beyond the
city of Akal-jor was the vast valley where the Gray God was born, and
where it lived on, eternally, beneath its impregnable gray metal dome,
five miles in diameter, and a mile high. Shielded by half a mile of
deadly radioactive field, a teeming moat of gamma rays through which no
living thing could pass.
On three worlds, hopeless, futile, static beings of a dying
civilization prepared for the big exodus to Mars and to the Gray God's
altars. Then they would return to their dull cycle of meaningless
existence to dream in some drugged escapeasy, or to die horribly in
one of Consar III's atomic power plants, mine shafts, or his isotope
factories.
Consar III had arrived in Akal-jor for the worship. With him were five
thousand slaves. Bathing in countless hedonistic luxuries, he awaited
the worship to begin at tomorrow's dawn. Meanwhile he looked for new
and interesting female slaves.
Next to sensual pleasure, Consar enjoyed most the contemplation of his
great power over the masses of three worlds. He could never lose that
power. Unless the Gray God died, and that was impossible of course.
Or unless he died. He would die certainly, sometime. Then he wouldn't
worry about pleasures or power.
From the windows of his Martian mansion, the Palace of Pearl, he looked
to the east into the valley of the Gray God. It towered, a massive gray
metal skull. Consar III laughed. The Gray God was a machine. Therefore
its position as governmental dictator of the System remained absolutely
stable. Nothing could ever change again. His position as sole exploiter
of the resources of the System, under the title of Consar Exploitations
Interplanetary, was to remain unchanged forever. It was a perfect setup.
The System was Consar's really, despite the fact that the Gray God
ruled through mechanical dictates. All the dictates favored Consar.
Consar and his hedonistic rituals, sycophants, courtiers and concubines.
There was always the rumor of an underground seeking to overthrow the
status quo. The Cadmeans, who had tried once before to destroy the
Great Machine, had been wiped out of existence. Or at least most of
them. If any did remain alive, they were ineffectual. They would be
discovered and killed or enslaved by the Silver Guards. The Guards
didn't really work for Consar, not directly. They were conditioned in
the council tower to obey the dictates of the Great Machine. But those
dictates all favored Consar's position of royalty, so it amounted to
the same thing.
He moved the animated throne across the room to the edge of his roseate
pleasure pool that shimmered in the middle of the jeweled floor. Above
him, joylamps spun their songs of colored sensuality. His three hundred
pounds of white flabby flesh settled into depths of luxuriance.
A small spidery man entered and bowed. "There is a girl here in
Akal-jor, Illustrious Consar."
"Ah. Go on, Gaston." Consar's voice bubbled with soft power like lava.
"You have acted rapidly and with customary clarity."
"She is a dancer in an escapeasy called the Maenad on the Street of
Shadows. She is alive and vital and desirable as no woman among your
women, My Ruler. She--"
"Bring her, Gaston, before dawn. After the worship, I'll take her back
to Terra. Is she Martian?"
"Terro. Her name is Zaleel."
"Good. You can obtain the services of Silver Guards, as usual, under
the Gray God's labor conscription edict fifty-seven."
The spidery little man bowed out. Consar III pressed a button. Soft
durolite arms lowered him into the swirling waters of his pleasure
pool. He sank slowly as the crystaline waters washed him gently in its
bath of a thousand dreams.
* * * * *
Spiraling patterns fused, disassociated atomic rejoined. Cadmus
stumbled from the transmat receiver. As he lurched through dusty damp
shadows, a familiar, non-terrestrial voice called. The Venusian padded
toward him on webbed feet, green scales shining in the cold luciferin
light of a trunjbug lamp.
Cadmus' voice was still shaky, rattling through the subterranean gloom
somewhere below Akal-jor. He couldn't remember where. He could remember
very little. "I've got to know more about the plan," he said quickly.
"More about myself. This fog is driving me crazy!"
The ancient Venusian said, "You'll know more, a lot more, if you
succeed in destroying the Great Machine. It wouldn't be safe to know
very much--at least until just before you're ready to strike. And you
must strike the final blow at dawn."
"Was it necessary to wipe practically everything out of my mind,"
growled Cadmus. "I seem to be desperately groping for some memory, some
facts that I should remember now! Do you--?"
"Forget everything but the immediate task before you," said Johlan
tensely. "You strike just as dawn strikes. Just as millions of
worshippers emerge from those transmats in the valley, the Great Gray
God which they worship will die--before their eyes. They must see it
die so they can carry eyewitness accounts back to their own worlds.
We must succeed this time. Another solar year and the System will be
too sunken in the disease of unchange and futility and defeat ever to
change."
Cadmus breathed hoarsely. "Let me get on with it. Give me the necessary
information!"
"Very well," sighed Johlan. "You have only one advantage. You realize
what it is. Having been born in the asteroids, you don't have the
disciplinary band in your head. The Guards, by using their coercion
rays, can slay or paralyze any living inhabitant of the three worlds
through the disciplinary band. That will allow you great advantage.
Now--first you go to the Maenad on the Street of Shadows. Zaleel is
a dancing girl there. She'll give you the equipment to destroy the
Machine."
Cadmus gripped Johlan's boneless cold fingers. "I'll get the job done,"
said Cadmus with a certainty he was far from feeling.
Johlan nodded. "Straight ahead and up the first stairway. It will lead
you directly onto the Street of Shadows."
Later, Cadmus gripped the sword hilt as he hugged the mouldy green
wall of aged dhroon-stone. His eyes shifted up and down the crooked
alley through filthy pools of splashing light from Phobos. Down its
scrofulous length were a number of nameless dens and dives where
defeated hopeless beings found solace in deadly drugs and deadlier
dreams. He sucked in his breath. Yes--he had heard the jackboots on
the stone street. Coming toward him from the direction of the Maenad,
cutting off his advance. Part of a labor recruiting drive no doubt.
Phobos' pale light glowed on silver uniforms and an array of deadly
weapons. They were fine looking soldiers though they were nothing
really but slaves.
He slid the sword free. The energy weapon beneath his tunic must be
saved for an extreme emergency. Swords had been in use when the Machine
had been constructed. Anyone could still carry one. Few bothered. Few
cared. They were past the hope of fighting.
Cadmus turned. He had to run away, away from the Maenad as well as the
Guards. He might not get back and time was getting too precious. The
city swarmed everywhere with Guards because of the great worship at
dawn.
He snarled like a trapped animal as hunched shapes spilled from
the dark before him. Huge shaggy Bluemarts from the desert caves.
Anthropoid mutations of a savage intelligence at the end of an
evolutionary blind alley. They mimicked the Guards, killed for them,
captured labor conscripts for them. Sometimes they died, too, thought
Cadmus as he ran among them, striking desperately in an attempt to cut
his way through to escape the Guards.
Blood ran black. Bluemarts bellowed pain. Two sprawled out to writhe
and die on the ancient stones. Long heavy leather whips studded with
brass spikes crashed around Cadmus as he dodged and fought and danced
away.
He saw the Guards, close now. They were confused. Their coercion
rays were being used, Cadmus knew, but he had no disciplinary band.
A policejet came down and hovered overhead. A brilliant search beam
slithered over the walls. A whiplash crashed against his shoulder,
stunning him. Another scraped cloth and flesh from his side.
Dazed, he reached for his energy gun. But that whiplash had ripped away
his harness, holster, gun and all. He staggered along the wall. A dull
roaring pounded in his temples. Then he heard the unreal, whining voice
of the old woman from the thick shadows of the wall. He heard but he
could see nothing of her.
There was a dismal creaking of stone on stone.
"This way, my dear boy. Quickly, or you're a dead one!"
II
Her hand was hard and dry, running down his torn arm like a deadly
scorpion. The aperture in the wall opened further and a hot, stinking
wind belched out. He dropped as paws gripped his booted ankles from
behind. He twisted, thrust his sword into a shaggy throat. His hand
felt the harness he had lost. He dragged it inside with him, into a
black, forgotten hole.
The opening closed. There was an invisible stench of stale bodies and
drug vapor. He could hear the old woman's hoarse breathing. He hooked
the broken harness about his waist.
"Light," he gasped. "What's this, a tomb?"
"It will be, dear boy," she said. "We must move quickly down into the
catacombs. I wear the receiver band. I feel them groping, but it's you
they want. They don't know I'm helping you, and they don't want an old
bag of bones like me. But hurry. They'll blast in the wall."
Flame glowed. She lighted a smoky taper. He saw a bent ragged packet of
animated bones, a mop of gray hair and a narrow hawked beak. In niches
along the winding cavern, shapes stirred. Moisture dripped. Turgid
Lethean vapors from escapist drugs curled sluggishly. Skeletal faces
stared, glazed and unseeing, dying.
Cadmus swore. Three worlds were dying like this. A vast social system
that had stopped moving, evolving, so it was dying. Fast! A yellow
Martian girl's luminous eyes stared vacantly into shadows, buried in
some dream far from the hopeless, meaningless reality.
Cadmus studied the old woman with growing suspicion. The amnesia was a
throbbing ache of unknowing. If he only knew more. There was so much
he felt he had to know, right now, but he couldn't remember! Who was
this sudden benefactress? Not from the Asteroids, for she wore the
disciplinary band. Yet she had saved him, preserved him a little longer
to carry out an impossible task.
She turned, anticipating his suspicion. "Zaleel sent me. You can trust
me, Cadmus. I know these catacombs. I'm old Pirri who sells her Lethean
drugs along the forgotten places of Akal-jor. You Cadmeans have a few
sympathizers. Some still have hope. The Cadmean society is that hope."
A wave of fear blew through Cadmus' fogged brain. "Cadmeans.
My--memory! Johlan erased almost everything. I remember
nothing--yet--there's something--something I've got to remember!"
She didn't answer. They walked on. A Martian half-breed ogled them
from a niche in the stone, jaws chewing the mind-shattering pulp of
the Venusian thiln-flower. Wrecks of three worlds. They believed in
nothing but their dreams--and the Gray God in the valley. The former
they believed in as an only escape from a hopeless reality. The latter,
because they had been conditioned to regard it as a god, as omnipotent.
You may fear a god, and hate a god, Cadmus mused, but you cannot desert
a faith with impunity.
"You know a lot of Cadmus and the Cadmeans," he said as they walked
deeper into the gloom. "I know nothing. Nothing! Listen, who is
Cadmus?" He frowned. A ridiculous question.
"You are he," said Old Pirri. "Gods and heroes will never die."
"Who am I?"
"Cadmus."
He swore. His head ached more with doubts and hidden fears. A desperate
yearning to _know_ clawed frantically in his skull.
Old Pirri said, "There is a myth, centuries old, dear boy." Her voice
softened. "But myths repeat themselves. They're rooted in the soul. In
this myth, that was born on Terra when it was young and fresh and when
blood was hot with early flames, there was a prince. He was tall and
strong, and his skin was gold over muscles of steel."