There was no need for this Ratan to picture for Blaine the wild
devastation of Earth. "Perhaps even before we have drawn you out to the
orbit of Saturn," Ratan was saying, "then there will be no Earthman
still living."
The end of human Earth-life. It might take another Earth-year,
or many. But it was coming. Inevitable. A thing that the Radak
Great-Mind had long planned, and that already was being successfully
accomplished.... There are on Earth now as I write this brief
narrative, many scientists working to understand the theories of
the strange, diabolic mechanisms of the bandit Crimson Comet. The
projection of some new application of gravitational force. The purple
ray was something of that nature, of course. A link between Zelos
and Earth, like a chain binding them together--a powerful little tug
pulling a great ocean liner. And the same force unquestionably was what
made Zelos itself mobile in Space. That much we know definitely because
in miniature, but doubtless of the same approximate nature, the purple
gravitational ray is the motive power for the Radak Space-ship which we
now have intact.
"So you are planning to kill everyone on Earth," Blaine said. His heart
was pounding, but he tried to hold his voice calm. He stood with folded
arms, gazing at Ratan. "And what will that gain you?"
"Our little planet here we do not like," Ratan retorted. "Many
space-ships we will build, and when your Earth-people are gone, then we
will migrate to your much better world. The Lei, and the Radaks to rule
them. The Great Mind has planned it all. We have been secretly to your
Earth, we have studied life there. It will be much better for us than
this. The Great Mind will rule your whole world for a while--until he
dies. And then--do you not see something unusual in me?"
"What?" Blaine demanded.
"I am the appointed one to be the next Great Mind. When I was born it
was decided. I have been trained for that. Just for that, nothing else."
* * * * *
Blaine could see it in him now. That air of quiet, confident dominance.
"I see what you mean," Blaine agreed. "I am like that, on Earth. You
realize it?"
"It is why I chose to bring you here," Ratan said.
"I can be very helpful to you," Blaine added. "My companions--they
are just captives. But I would like to be more than that." The banker
shrugged. "I bow to the inevitable. If you are to seize my world, then
I would like to do the best for myself. That's good sense, isn't it?"
Was he gaining this fellow's confidence? The big Radak smiled also.
"What do you mean?"
"On Earth I am very powerful. I have money, property."
"Of what good could that be to me?" Ratan smiled. "And when I get
there--I have it all anyway."
"What I mean," Blaine persisted, "I am an organizer. I know the
resources of Earth--"
"And to that I agree," Ratan interrupted. "You mean, you would join us,
as a friend."
"For a position of power among you Radaks, yes. You will find I can
handle the Lei." He smiled cannily. "On Earth they called me ruthless.
I could bend men to my will--and always to my own profit."
Blaine's keen, appraising gaze was watching the Radak. Ratan was
smiling; he could understand talk like this, and it was obvious that
he liked it.... Blaine's heart was pounding. At Ratan's broad grey
belt a little pot-bellied metal cylinder was hanging. He gestured to it
casually.
"What is that, Ratan?"
"That? It is a weapon of ours. Very important. There are only very few
of us who may carry it. A Rak-gun, perhaps your language would term it."
"Let me see it. How does it work?"
But Ratan was only fingering it lovingly. He made no move to detach it
from his belt. He was smiling. "It is what brought you from Earth."
He seemed willing enough to describe it. The projection of a
vibration akin to thought-waves, but infinitely more intense. In
effect it paralyzed the conscious mind, yet left the motor area
intact. The victim, to all intents and purposes was a somnambulist.
The subconscious mind, with will power numbed, then was open to
any suggestive stimulus which it received. The victim's muscles
instinctively obeyed commands. And the memory areas recorded nothing.
Shorty and I had seen it happen to Vivian and Mack. Blaine did not know
of that. But it had happened to him, on Earth, as it had to all of us.
"And, then, after a time it wears off?"
"Exactly. An hour--what you would call an hour on Earth, perhaps. But
another shock of it can be given. You were under its influence for
about three weeks--the time it took for our Space-ship to bring us
here."
"And you fed me very badly," Blaine commented. He was taut inside now.
He took a casual step forward so that he was almost within reach of the
seated Radak. "Is that thing easy to operate?"
Blaine's heart leaped as Ratan unclipped the little cylinder from his
belt. "Very simple," the Radak said. "Just a pressure on this little
lever. But it will be years before the Great Mind or myself would let
you handle one of these."
"I was thinking," Blaine said, "when we get to Earth you yourself will
not be the Great Ruler. But if, perhaps, the Great Mind should suddenly
die? Then it would be only the great Ratan, with me to help him--"
Blaine had leaned forward confidentially and lowered his voice. "Did
you ever think of that?"
Surely at least the idea of murdering his commander was startling to
Ratan, and for that instant he was off his guard. Just a second, but
it was enough for Blaine. The banker abruptly reached, snatched the
cylinder and leaped backward.
"Now you damned villain--"
* * * * *
Blaine raised the cylinder level. With a roar, Ratan was on his feet.
There was a soundless, vague little flash. Ratan, tensing his muscles
for a leap abruptly relaxed, wavered.
"Quiet now! Stand still!" Blaine ordered sharply.
He stood listening, with the quiescent, blankly staring Ratan before
him. Had Ratan's roar of startled anger aroused any guards out in the
corridor? It seemed not. There was only silence.
"Now we will go out of here," Blaine said softly. "We will go out. You
know where Robert Rance is now. You will lead me to him."
With hands outstretched, the big Radak moved to the door, slid it open.
At this moment Shorty and I were confined in another cave-cell not far
away. Ratan knew it; he was leading Blaine there. But suddenly, at a
corridor intersection, voices sounded! Radaks were coming.
"Crouch down!" Blaine commanded. "Be quiet! Not a sound from you!"
There was a wall recess. Blaine shoved his numbed captive into it.
Together they crouched. And now Blaine saw that in a sheath at Ratan's
belt, there was a knife. He drew it out; held it in his other hand and
kept the cylinder ready. Two Radaks were coming. They were talking
together in their own language. They stopped nearby, evidently with the
intention of parting here at the intersection.
Blaine listened. Then he whispered to Ratan: "Answer me softly. What
are they saying? Tell me in English."
"Those Earth-people banished--into the Realm
of--Deathless--Monsters--and they will die--of course." Ratan's words
were mumbled, queerly mouthed, like one who talks in his sleep. Blaine
assumed that all of us were out there on the upper surface, not just
Vivian and Mack. Swiftly he changed his plans.
"In a moment when I command you," he whispered, "you will lead me
there. You know where the Earth-people would probably be now? Out which
exit they went? Answer me--softly."
"By the--big cliff with the--rock spires.... The exit is--down this
left corridor."
Tensely Blaine waited. The nearby Radaks parted and moved away. "Now,
lead me," he whispered.
Again they moved forward, down the left-hand corridor-branch now.
And suddenly behind Blaine there was a shout. He whirled. One of the
Radaks had changed his mind and was coming back, calling something to
his fellow. Blaine had no time to get himself and Ratan out of sight.
The Radak saw them--saw the stiffly walking Ratan, and Blaine with the
cylinder in his hand.
With a startled shout, the little Radak leaped at Blaine. The flash
met him; he stopped in his tracks, stood stiff. But from the other
direction, his companion was coming. And now the commotion was bringing
others. Blaine could hear several of the guttural voices and the thuds
of their oncoming footsteps.
With a leap Blaine went past Ratan. The squat little shape of the
other Radak came charging down the center of the narrow corridor.
His greenish eye-beams were weird in the crimson gloom. Again Blaine
fired his cylinder. But this time evidently he missed and in another
second the Radak was on him. The shock of the impact flung them both
to the ground. The cylinder was knocked from Blaine's hand. He felt
his adversary's arms clutching him, squeezing him with machine-like
strength. In another moment Blaine's ribs would have smashed. But his
left hand still gripped the knife. With despairing effort he drove it
into the Radak's side.
Ghastly knife-thrust! It went in with a crunch, a rasp as it severed
the strange flesh. There was a hiss as hot fluid spurted. The Radak's
scream was horrible. His arms fell away. Blaine disentangled himself.
On the ground near him he saw the cylinder, snatched it, dropped it
into his pocket. A commotion was all around him now. Oncoming Radaks in
several of the branching corridors. But ahead of Blaine there seemed no
one.
He ran. Behind him he could dimly see the squat little figures gazing
at their dead fellow, and surrounding the stricken Ratan. No one seemed
to notice the fleeing Blaine as he ran the length of the winding
corridor until at last he was out upon the crimson upper surface.
For a time he wandered. He did not see any of the crimson monsters, or
at least did not recognize them for what they were. Then he heard Mack
shouting at him; saw Mack and Vivian running toward him.
"I've got something important--a weapon," he called to Mack.
Then abruptly the three of them saw that huge, python-like crimson
Thing which had been silently stalking Blaine.
"Look!" Vivian gasped. "Another of them!"
It was slithering rapidly at them now, no more than fifty feet away.
Its green-swaying eye-beams clung to them. For that instant they were
standing stricken with terror. To one side of them there was the brink
of an abyss a few yards away, and to the other, and behind them, a
ragged little cliff.
"Got to try and climb those rocks!" Mack gasped. "Can't get past that
snake thing--we're trapped--"
But Blaine swept him aside. The cylinder was in Blaine's hand now.
"This will stop it!" he muttered. "You two--get behind me!"
The monstrous thirty-foot thing was only half its own length away from
them now. Then, as its head reared over a projection of the uneven,
rocky ground, Blaine carefully aimed the cylinder and fired. But the
monster didn't stop! There was no conscious, thinking brain in that
ghastly, pulsating crimson head! Just motor-ganglia reacting to the
impulses of instinct!
Blaine fired again. But the monster kept on coming and in another
second was upon them!