I pointed toward the teeming crowds that eddied around the building's
base. "You must count your people here by the millions?" I queried.
His face grew somber as he too looked down at the masses of humanity
below. "It is seldom there are crowds like that," he said. "But this
is a time of great events, and our people gather around this building,
which is the seat of the Council of Kom, that they may learn what
decisions have been made."
He turned from the window, face solemn and unsmiling now, and with a
slight push sent my platform drifting toward and through the door.
Conducting me down a long corridor, he turned in at another room,
similar in every detail to the one I had just left. And there, standing
up and gazing down through an open window as I had just done, was
Lantin.
He turned and saw me, came toward me anxiously. At a touch from Kethra,
my platform sank down to the floor, and assisted by my friend, I rose
weakly to my feet.
"You're all right, Wheeler?" he asked quickly. I assured him that I
was, for the weakness and dizziness I had felt were rapidly leaving
me. Lantin laughed ruefully. "What a fool's trick of mine, to smash
straight down into that roof!" He pointed upward, toward the blue sky,
and walking over to the window beside him, I looked up curiously.
There was the same flicker in the sky that I had noticed from above,
an elusive, wavering flash of light that I knew now was caused by the
sunlight glinting off the flat, transparent roof.
"The roof," I said to Kethra, "does it cover all the city?"
"All of Kom lies beneath it," he said. "Without it, could we live like
this?" He swept an arm around in a wide gesture that included the soft,
warm air, the open windows, and the white city below, laced with the
greenery of gardens.
"But how is it built?" I asked. "How supported? Is it glass, or what
material?"
"It's no material at all," he replied, astoundingly. "It's force."
I looked at him, a little incredulously. "Force? It was solid enough
when we crashed into it."
"Yes, it is force," he smiled. "That's the reason it is almost
invisible, from above or below. It is a perpetual sheet of electric
force, drawn over the city from end to end. It is so designed and
projected, from a ring of stations around the city, that it excludes
some vibrations of the ether, and allows others to enter. For instance,
it excludes the vibrations called matter, such as air, or such as your
car. All of the city's air is pumped in through special vents in the
force-shield. On the other hand, it allows the vibrations of light and
of radiant heat to enter, and so our city is lighted and heated by the
sun itself. Without such a shield, we would be living in a city as
bleak and cold as the plains that surround it."
"So we crashed into an invisible field of force," I said, and shook my
head. "Well, it seemed solid enough when we hit it."
"The most powerful force in the world could not crash through it,"
said Kethra, "and it is fortunate that you were not going at high
speed or you would have been annihilated. As it was, we found you both
lying unconscious in your car, up on the force-shield, and as we can
neutralize it at will, at given spots, we were able to bring you down
to the city."
"But the car!" I cried. "It is not destroyed, is it? It was not
completely smashed?"
He shook his head. "It was hardly damaged at all," he assured us. "The
point, or prow, was bent back, but that has already been repaired."
He paused a moment, then said an astounding thing. "The car does you
credit, in its design. It is too bad that, after making it and coming
so far into the future, you have been unable to find your friend."
I gasped and looked at Lantin. His face reflected utmost surprize, and
he said, "I didn't tell him, Wheeler. I'll swear I didn't."
Kethra smiled. "Neither of you told me," he said. "But you have lain
unconscious for a day, and in that time we learned all your story, my
friends, and learned how you came here to warn us of the peril beyond
the ice, that peril of an evil being, whom you call the Raider."
"But how?" I asked helplessly.
In answer, he touched a button set in the wall, and motioned us to
seat ourselves in the chairs beside the window. A green-robed servant
entered, in a moment, with a metal cabinet. He handed this to Kethra,
and then departed.
* * * * *
The cabinet was an oblong box of black metal, a yard or more in its
greatest length. Our companion touched a stud in the floor with his
sandaled foot, and a small square section of the floor sprang up on
four legs, or supports, forming a little table. Setting the cabinet on
this table, our friend opened it.
Inside was a small, gleaming apparatus, consisting of a squat little
box on which was set a small horn like that of a radio loud-speaker,
but much smaller. From the box a flexible cord led, splitting at
its end into three separate cords, each of which was metal-tipped.
Setting this on the table, Kethra then drew from the cabinet three or
four small, shapeless objects, gray and withered and deeply wrinkled,
smaller in size than a baseball, the nature of which I could not guess.
He turned to us, now. "This mechanism," he said, indicating the
gleaming apparatus, "is what we call a brain-reader. As you know, the
brain preserves in its convolutions an indelible, unchangeable record
of every word and action. When we remember a thing, we simply refer
to that record, which we call memory, but which is in reality a very
tiny change, but a lasting one. And this apparatus, when connected to
a human brain by way of the nervous system, reads, from the myriad
convolutions of that brain, the record of memory which is stamped on
those convolutions."
With a swift movement, he fastened three clamps of metal to his body,
one above the forehead, one around the neck, and the other along his
spine. "These clamps make direct contact to the nervous system, through
the skin," he explained, "and to them I attach the three cords from the
brain-reader," suiting the action to the word. This done, he snapped
a switch in the little box beneath the horn, and at once a nasal,
metallic voice began to speak from that horn, in the Kanlar tongue.
Kethra's own voice came to us above the twanging one from the
brain-reader. "It is giving a record of my experiences within the last
few hours," he explained, "and will go back farther and farther as it
continues, back to my very first memory, if allowed to run. Or I can
use it to concentrate on any given period of my own life, and it will
read with unvarying accuracy the impressions and sensations of my brain
during that period. A mechanical, perfect memory," and he snapped off
the switch and removed the clamps from his body.
"Nor does its usefulness stop there," he added, while we stared
dumfoundedly at the little mechanism. "Here," he went on, picking
up one of the withered gray objects, "is a human brain, the brain
of one of the great men of our people, who died five centuries ago.
And yet every memory and every thought and sensation in his life,
imprinted unchangeably on his brain, is available to us by using the
brain-reader."
He rapidly fitted over the withered brain a hollow hemisphere of
metal, and attached to it the cords from the apparatus. A snap of the
switch, and again the same nasal voice broke the silence, from the
horn, speaking in the Kanlar tongue, and reading steadily on from the
brain it was connected with, reciting the inmost thoughts and ideas
and aspirations of a man dead for five hundred years. I shuddered,
involuntarily, and Kethra snapped off the apparatus.
"It seems strange to you," he said, "but you will see the wisdom of
such an apparatus. When a great man dies, a man of mental ability
above the rest of us, his brain is removed, especially prepared, and
then filed and indexed in a building reserved for that purpose. There
are thousands of brains preserved there, and every one of them is
available at all times, by means of the brain-reader, to aid us with
its knowledge, its experience, its memories. Thus when a man dies among
us, his intelligence does not die, but remains as a record for us to
consult at will, a record of that man's ideas and achievements."
"And while we were unconscious," I broke in, "you used the brain-reader
on us? Learned our story, learned why we came here?"
"It is so," he said, and his face darkened. "We sought to know who
you might be, the first strangers ever to approach us. And from the
brain-reader came your amazing tale, and we know all that you came to
tell us, concerning that creature of evil you term the Raider. And it
is that knowledge that has brought those crowds below to await the
decision of the Council."
"But the Raider?" I cried. "_What_ is it, Kethra? Do you know?"
"I know," he said simply, and a brooding expression dropped on his
face. "I know," he repeated, "and all here in Kom know. And that you
too may know, who have had dealings with this same Raider, I will
relate to you what we do know. Soon the council meets, and you will be
questioned further. But now--"
He was silent a moment, then spoke in a voice vibrant and low-toned.
* * * * *
"The history of the Kanlars," he began, "the people of the cylinders,
the evil ones whose doom draws near. Know, men of the past, that ages
ago, though not so far back as your own time, our people dwelt in
four mighty cities, each of which was nearly as large as Kom itself.
There was no ice-flood from the north, then, and the country around
those cities was green and fair, yet none lived in that country, all
preferring the gayer life of the vast towns. Long ago, the people had
learned to make their food from the soil direct, as we do today, and so
there was no need of tilling the land, or living on it. And so, into
the four great cities had drifted all the people in this land.
"In each city, the buildings were constructed of a different design.
Here in Kom, all of the buildings were cone-shaped, and thus this
became known as Kom, the city of cones, and we, the dwellers in it, as
the people of the cones. Another city was the city of cubes, another
the city of spheres, and still another the city of cylinders.
"Each of these four cities was free and independent, each ruled by a
council selected by its inhabitants. And being thus independent, there
arose rivalry between the cities, and fierce jealousy. Each strove to
outdo the others, in their scientific achievements, and each strove to
keep its blood from intermixing with the others. Thus in the city of
cylinders, the Kanlars, or people of the cylinders, gradually evolved
into a bright-haired race, while in Kom, the Khluns, or people of the
cones, were a dark-haired race. And the other two cities differed
likewise from each other and the rest.
"Ages passed, and then down from the north rolled a mighty tide of ice,
sweeping over the whole land and submerging all under its frozen flood.
It rolled down toward the four cities, and finally had forged south
until it was at the gates of the city of cubes. In desperation, the
people of the cubes appealed to those in Kom for shelter, and it was
granted them. They came down to Kom, every one, and the ice rolled over
and hid the city of cubes. Next it engulfed the city of spheres, and
its people likewise found refuge in Kom, which was the most southern of
all the four cities. And finally, the ice-tide swept over the city of
cylinders, and its people, the Kanlars, were forced to seek refuge in
Kom also, though they liked it not.
"But the ice did not stop. It came on, ever south, until it threatened
to cover Kom also, and leave our people homeless and shelterless. So,
taking counsel among themselves, the people of Kom set out to stop the
progress of the glacial sheet.
"They kindled great uprisings far beneath the earth's surface, until
the tortured earth heaved up in a great wall across the ice-flood's
path. And then, that this wall of earth might not be swept away, the
scientists of Kom showed them a way by which every kind of material
could be transmuted at will into other elements, by a recasting of its
electronic structure. And, using this power, the people of Kom smoothed
the gigantic barrier they had created, and then, using the instruments
their scientists had devised for them, they turned on the great wall
a ray that changed it to metal by its power of element-transmutation.
It was finished, and when the ice rolled down to this smooth
mountain-range of metal, it was checked, halted. Far away, on either
side, it rolled on and engulfed the country, but the wall so dammed it
that it could not progress farther toward the city.
"Yet the cold of the glacier was not halted by the wall, and to combat
that cold, the great shield of force was devised that stretches over
all Kom, and into which you crashed in your car. It admitted the sun's
light and heat, but excluded the cold winds from the glacier. And thus,
having thwarted nature itself, the troubles of the people of Kom were
seemingly at an end.
"The people of the other three cities settled down contentedly enough
in Kom, and each people built their own type of dwelling, cube or
sphere or cylinder. And all mixed, intermarried, and mingled in race,
with the exception of the Kanlars, the people of the cylinders. These
still held apart, though unobtrusively.
"And as the years went by, the scientists of Kom came to more and
more wisdom. They found ways to strengthen their own bodies, so that
they lived for great stretches of time, as we do yet. They sent their
explorers out to other planets, they cast their vision out to the
farthest stars. They learned to create life, and they learned to
conquer death, almost. The flight of the soul from the body they could
not control, for there is a wisdom above man's, but the body itself
they could retain as moving and lifelike as in life itself, though
soulless.
"It seemed, indeed, that no other steps of wisdom remained up which to
climb. And then, without the knowledge of the other people, the Kanlar
scientists set themselves to conquer the secret of time. Unable to find
a way of controlling time themselves, of moving in it at will, they
created a monstrous, undreamed-of thing, a thing of shapeless, inchoate
body, which was yet living, and which could transform itself, at will,
into mists and vapors, and in that gaseous form could travel at will
through time. And this thing the Kanlars made, setting in it three orbs
of light that were its organs of sense and its seat of intelligence,
and this thing is the same that you now call the Raider.
"This, indeed, happened in my own lifetime, a scant score of years ago.
And when the Kanlars brought their creation before the supreme council
of Kom, I was a member of that council.
"They explained the power of their creation, they showed its life, its
intelligence. And they proposed to the council a plan which possession
of the Raider made possible.
"They pointed out that since the Raider could travel at will through
time, it could whirl back into the past, or into the future, and seize
people from every age, bringing them back to our own time to be our
slaves. Always there had been none but free people in our cities, nor
were slaves needed, since nearly all of our work was done by machinery,
yet such was the evil plan of the Kanlars.
"The council rejected the plan in horror. And it also warned the
Kanlars that unless they destroyed the thing they had made, the council
would hunt it out and destroy it itself. The Kanlars left in rage, and
took with them the Raider, but later they promised to destroy it within
a certain period of time, saying that they desired to study it further
before doing so.
"So for a time they kept the Raider, and it grew swiftly in power and
intelligence, until it became a deity to the Kanlars, a being whose
every word to them was law. Again the council warned them to destroy
their creation, and again they agreed to do so. But in secret, on a
night soon after, every one of the Kanlars assembled on their air-boats
and fled from the city, taking with them the Raider.
"We could not know where they had gone, but sent out many scouts to
search for them. And when all our scouts had returned without finding
trace of them, we decided that they had fled with their evil god to
another planet, and so the matter rested. We had always thought that
the ice-fields in the north extended clear to the pole, and could not
know of the land there where the Kanlars had gone.
"But now, with the knowledge the brain-reader gleaned from you while
you were unconscious, all the people in Kom know the peril that hangs
over them, know that the Raider and the Kanlars have gathered thousands
of fierce warriors from all ages, and that they plan to sweep down and
loot our city and kill its people. So the council meets, now, to decide
what course of action we will take."
Kethra finished, and I silently pondered his amazing story, but Lantin
broke in with a query. "Two things puzzle me," he said; "how is it
that you speak the same tongue as the Kanlars, and why are there no
cylindrical buildings in the city below? You spoke of each people
building its own design of dwellings here, but there are no cylinders."
"When the Kanlars fled," Kethra explained, "the cylinders were
demolished, for none of the other peoples would then live in them. As
to our language, it was always the same, for all the four cities. You
call it the Kanlar tongue because you heard it first from them, but it
is equally the language of the people of Kom."
* * * * *
Before we could ask more questions, a single bell-note sounded from a
corner of the room. "The council," murmured Kethra; "you are summoned
before it."
He motioned us out of the room and led us down the corridor outside,
toward a small elevator that was curiously familiar in appearance,
there in that building of the future. A lever was touched and we
flashed silently down a long shaft, past level after level of the
great cone's interior. The car stopped, and we stepped out of it into
a small antechamber. Following Kethra across it, we strode through a
high, arched entrance, into a great amphitheater, a semicircular room
with bank on bank of rising tiers of seats. In each seat was a man
attired like Kethra, and the gaze of all was instantly focused on us as
we entered. On a dais at the semicircle's center sat four men, older
than the others, and there was another chair beside the four, which was
empty. A servant swiftly placed two collapsible seats on the dais, on
which Lantin and I seated ourselves. Then Kethra strode to the front of
the dais and began to address the assemblage.
He spoke in an even, unraised voice, but from the expressions on the
faces of the council members it was easy to see that his words were of
intense interest to them. He reviewed the history of Kom, which he had
already briefly recounted to us, and then pointed out the peril that
threatened the city. He concluded with a strong plea that the people of
Kom should take the offensive and strike at the Kanlars and the Raider
in their own city, rather than let the battle come to Kom.
When he had finished, there were many questions as to the means to be
employed for the battle. It seemed that air-boats had not been used
greatly of late in Kom, because of the difficulty of flying beneath the
great roof of force, and thus it would be hard to transport a force
over the ice-fields in any short space of time.
But Kethra waved aside these objections. A great fleet of air-boats
could be made in a few days, he declared, if the people of Kom
turned their energies toward it. As to weapons, the scientists of Kom
could design these, and they would also be made in great numbers, as
effective as possible.
A solidly built, white-haired man in a lower row stood up and
exclaimed, "But what of the Raider?" (I give our own equivalent of
the unpronounceable term used by the people of Kom for that being).
"Remember he is powerful, how powerful we can not even guess. And, if
hard-pressed, he can flee into time and bide his time to strike at us
again, with or without the Kanlars."
"Not so," replied Kethra. "When we build our air-boats, we will equip
each with the time-traveling apparatus invented by these two men, which
is installed in their own car. Thus equipped, our air-boats will be
able to pursue the Raider into time and destroy him, should he flee
there."
There were other objections, other questions, but Kethra overrode them
all. It was plain that he was intent on following his plan of striking
at the Kanlars unexpectedly, instead, of awaiting their attack, and he
finally won the council over to his side. We were called on twice to
furnish information on pertinent points, and finally, after hours of
debate, the council voted by a large majority to build with all speed
a great fleet of air-boats, equipped for time-traveling, like our own
car. As soon as completed, and provided with weapons by the scientists,
the entire force was to speed north under the leadership of Kethra,
drop unexpectedly upon the city of the cylinders, and crush the Kanlars
and the Raider forever.
_CHAPTER 17_