Her eyes closed, her body relaxed; the potion had done its work quickly.
We laid her beside Ventnor on the pile of silken stuffs, covered them
both with a fold, then looked at each other long and silently--and I
wondered whether my face was as grim and drawn as his.
“It appears,” he said at last, curtly, “that it's up to you and me for
powwow quick. I hope you're not sleepy.”
“I am not,” I answered as curtly; the edge of nerves in his manner of
questioning doing nothing to soothe my own, “and even if I were I would
hardly expect to put all the burden of the present problem upon you by
going to sleep.”
“For God's sake don't be a prima donna,” he flared up. “I meant no
offense.”
“I'm sorry, Dick,” I said. “We're both a little jumpy, I guess.” He
nodded; gripped my hand.
“It wouldn't be so bad,” he muttered, “if all four of us were all
right. But Ventnor's down and out, and God alone knows for how long. And
Ruth--has all the trouble we have and some special ones of her own. I've
an idea”--he hesitated--“an idea that there was no exaggeration in that
story she told--an idea that if anything she underplayed it.”
“I, too,” I replied somberly. “And to me it is the most hideous phase
of this whole situation--and for reasons not all connected with Ruth,” I
added.
“Hideous!” he repeated. “Unthinkable--yet all this is unthinkable.
And still--it is! And Ventnor--coming back--that way. Like a lost soul
finding voice.
“Was it raving, Goodwin? Or could he have been--how was it he put it--in
touch with these Things and their purpose? Was that message--truth?”
“Ask yourself that question,” I said. “Man--you know it was truth. Had
not inklings of it come to you even before he spoke? They had to me.
His message was but an interpretation, a synthesis of facts I, for one,
lacked the courage to admit.”
“I, too,” he nodded. “But he went further than that. What did he mean by
the Keeper of the Cones--and that the Things--were vulnerable under the
same law that orders us? And why did he command us to go back to the
city? How could he know--how could he?”
“There's nothing inexplicable in that, at any rate,” I answered.
“Abnormal sensitivity of perception due to the cutting off of all
sensual impressions. There's nothing uncommon in that. You have its most
familiar form in the sensitivity of the blind. You've watched the same
thing at work in certain forms of hypnotic experimentation, haven't you?
“Through the operation of entirely understandable causes the mind gains
the power to react to vibrations that normally pass unperceived; is able
to project itself through this keying up of perception into a wider area
of consciousness than the normal. Just as in certain diseases of the ear
the sufferer, though deaf to sounds within the average range of hearing,
is fully aware of sound vibrations far above and far below those the
healthy ear registers.”
“I know,” he said. “I don't need to be convinced. But we accept these
things in theory--and when we get up against them for ourselves we
doubt.
“How many people are there in Christendom, do you think, who believe
that the Saviour ascended from the dead, but who if they saw it today
would insist upon medical inspection, doctor's certificates, a
clinic, and even after that render a Scotch verdict? I'm not speaking
irreverently--I'm just stating a fact.”
Suddenly he moved away from me, strode over to the curtained oval
through which Norhala had gone.
“Dick,” I cried, following him hastily, “where are you going? What are
you going to do?”
“I'm going after Norhala,” he answered. “I'm going to have a showdown
with her or know the reason why.”
“Drake,” I cried again, aghast, “don't make the mistake Ventnor did.
That's not the way to win through. Don't--I beg you, don't.”
“You're wrong,” he answered stubbornly. “I'm going to get her. She's got
to talk.”
He thrust out a hand to the curtains. Before he could touch them, they
were parted. Out from between them slithered the black eunuch. He stood
motionless, regarding us; in the ink-black eyes a red flame of hatred. I
pushed myself between him and Drake.
“Where is your mistress, Yuruk?” I asked.
“The goddess has gone,” he replied sullenly.
“Gone?” I said suspiciously, for certainly Norhala had not passed us.
“Where?”
“Who shall question the goddess?” he asked. “She comes and she goes as
she pleases.”
I translated this for Drake.
“He's got to show me,” he said. “Don't think I'm going to spill any
beans, Goodwin. But I want to talk to her. I think I'm right, honestly I
do.”
After all, I reflected, there was much in his determination to recommend
it. It was the obvious thing to do--unless we admitted that Norhala was
superhuman; and that I would not admit. In command of forces we did not
yet know, en rapport with these People of Metal, sealed with that alien
consciousness Ruth had described--all these, yes. But still a woman--of
that I was certain. And surely Drake could be trusted not to repeat
Ventnor's error.
“Yuruk,” I said, “we think you lie. We would speak to your mistress.
Take us to her.”
“I have told you that the goddess is not here,” he said. “If you do not
believe it is nothing to me. I cannot take you to her for I do not know
where she is. Is it your wish that I take you through her house?”
“It is,” I said.
“The goddess has commanded me to serve you in all things.” He bowed,
sardonically. “Follow.”
Our search was short. We stepped out into what for want of better words
I can describe only as a central hall. It was circular, and strewn with
thick piled small rugs whose hues had been softened by the alchemy of
time into exquisite, shadowy echoes of color.
The walls of this hall were of the same moonstone substance that had
enclosed the chamber upon whose inner threshold we were. They whirled
straight up to the dome in a crystalline, cylindrical cone. Four
doorways like that in which we stood pierced them. Through each of their
curtainings in turn we peered.
All were precisely similar in shape and proportions, radiating in a
lunetted, curved base triangle from the middle chamber; the curvature of
the enclosing globe forming back wall and roof; the translucent slicings
the sides; the circle of floor of the inner hall the truncating lunette.
The first of these chambers was utterly bare. The one opposite held a
half-dozen suits of the lacquered armor, as many wicked looking, short
and double-edged swords and long javelins. The third I judged to be the
lair of Yuruk; within it was a copper brazier, a stand of spears and a
gigantic bow, a quiver full of arrows leaning beside it. The fourth room
was littered with coffers great and small, of wood and of bronze, and
all tightly closed.
The fifth room was beyond question Norhala's bedchamber. Upon its floor
the ancient rugs were thick. A low couch of carven ivory inset with gold
rested a few feet from the doorway. A dozen or more of the chests were
scattered about and flowing over with silken stuffs.
Upon the back of four golden lions stood a high mirror of polished
silver. And close to it, in curiously incongruous domestic array stood
a stiffly marshaled row of sandals. Upon one of the chests were heaped
combs and fillets of shell and gold and ivory studded with jewels blue
and yellow and crimson.
To all of these we gave but a passing glance. We sought for Norhala.
And of her we found no shadow. She had gone even as the black eunuch had
said; flitting unseen past Ruth, perhaps, absorbed in her watch over her
brother; perhaps through some hidden opening in this room of hers.
Yuruk let drop the curtains, sidled back to the first room, we after
him. The two there had not moved. We drew the saddlebags close, propped
ourselves against them.
The black eunuch squatted a dozen feet away, facing us, chin upon his
knees, taking us in with unblinking eyes blank of any emotion. Then
he began to move slowly his tremendously long arms in easy, soothing
motion, the hands running along the floor upon their talons in arcs
and circles. It was curious how these hands seemed to be endowed with a
volition of their own, independent of the arms upon which they swung.
And now I could see only the hands, shuttling so smoothly, so
rhythmically back and forth--weaving so sleepily, so sleepily back and
forth--black hands that dripped sleep--hypnotic.
Hypnotic! I sprang from the lethargy closing upon me. In one quick side
glance I saw Drake's head nodding--nodding in time to the movement of
the black hands. I jumped to my feet, shaking with an intensity of rage
unfamiliar to me; thrust my pistol into the wrinkled face.
“Damn you!” I cried. “Stop that. Stop it and turn your back.”
The corded muscles of the arms contracted, the claws of the slithering
paws drew in as though he were about to clutch me; the ebon pools of
eyes were covered with a frozen film of hate.
He could not have known what was this tube with which I menaced him,
but its threat he certainly sensed and was afraid to meet. He squattered
about, wrapped his arms around his knees, crouched with back toward us.
“What's the matter?” asked Drake drowsily.
“He tried to hypnotize us,” I answered shortly. “And pretty nearly did.”
“So that's what it was.” He was now wide awake. “I watched those hands
of his and got sleepier and sleepier--I guess we'd better tie Mr. Yuruk
up.” He jumped to his feet.
“No,” I said, restraining him. “No. He's safe enough as long as we're on
the alert. I don't want to use any force on him yet. Wait until we know
we can get something worth while by doing it.”
“All right,” he nodded, grimly. “But when the time comes I'm telling you
straight, Doc, I'm going the limit. There's something about that human
spider that makes me itch to squash him--slowly.”
“I'll have no compunction--when it's worth while,” I answered as grimly.
We sank down again against the saddlebags; Drake brought out a black
pipe, looked at it sorrowfully; at me appealingly.
“All mine was on that pony that bolted,” I answered his wistfulness.
“All mine was on my beast, too,” he sighed. “And I lost my pouch in that
spurt from the ruins.”
He sighed again, clamped white teeth down upon the stem.
“Of course,” he said at last, “if Ventnor was right in that--that
disembodied analysis of his, it's rather--well, terrifying, isn't it?”
“It's all of that,” I replied, “and considerably more.”
“Metal, he said,” Drake mused. “Things of metal with brains of thinking
crystal and their blood the lightnings. You accept that?”
“So far as my own observation has gone--yes,” I said. “Metallic yet
mobile. Inorganic but with all the quantities we have hitherto thought
only those of the organic and with others added. Crystalline, of course,
in structure and highly complex. Activated by magnetic-electric forces
consciously exerted and as much a part of their life as brain energy
and nerve currents are of our human life. Animate, moving, sentient
combinations of metal and electric energy.”
He said:
“The opening of the Disk from the globe and of the two blasting stars
from the pyramids show the flexibility of the outer--plate would you
call it? I couldn't help thinking of the armadillo after I had time to
think at all.”
“It may be”--I struggled against the conviction now strong upon me--“it
may be that within that metallic shell is an organic body, something
soft--animal, as there is within the horny carapace of the turtle, the
nacreous valves of the oyster, the shells of the crustaceans--it may be
that even their inner surface is organic--”
“No,” he interrupted, “if there is a body--as we know a body--it must
be between the outer surface and the inner, for the latter is crystal,
jewel hard, impenetrable.
“Goodwin--Ventnor's bullets hit fair. I saw them strike. They did not
ricochet--they dropped dead. Like flies dashed up against a rock--and
the Thing was no more conscious of their striking than a rock would have
been of those flies.”
“Drake,” I said, “my own conviction is that these creatures are
absolutely metallic, entirely inorganic--incredible, unknown forms. Let
us go on that basis.”
“I think so, too,” he nodded; “but I wanted you to say it first. And
yet--is it so incredible, Goodwin? What is the definition of vital
intelligence--sentience?
“Haeckel's is the accepted one. Anything which can receive a stimulus,
that can react to a stimulus and retains memory of a stimulus must be
called an intelligent, conscious entity. The gap between what we have
long called the organic and the inorganic is steadily decreasing. Do you
know of the remarkable experiments of Lillie upon various metals?”
“Vaguely,” I said.
“Lillie,” he went on, “proved that under the electric current and other
exciting mediums metals exhibited practically every reaction of the
human nerve and muscle. It grew weary, rested, and after resting
was perceptibly stronger than before; it got what was practically
indigestion, and it exhibited a peculiar but unmistakable memory. Also,
he found, it could acquire disease and die.
“Lillie concluded that there existed a real metallic consciousness. It
was Le Bon who first proved also that metal is more sensitive than
man, and that its immobility is only apparent. (Le Bon in 'Evolution of
Matter,' Chapter eleven.)
“Take the block of magnetic iron that stands so gray and apparently
lifeless, subject it to a magnetic current lifeless, what happens? The
iron block is composed of molecules which under ordinary conditions are
disposed in all possible directions indifferently. But when the current
passes through there is tremendous movement in that apparently inert
mass. All of the tiny particles of which it is composed turn and shift
until their north poles all point more or less approximately in the
direction of the magnetic force.
“When that happens the block itself becomes a magnet, filled with and
surrounded by a field of magnetic energy; instinct with it. Outwardly it
has not moved; actually there has been prodigious motion.”
“But it is not conscious motion,” I objected.
“Ah, but how do you know?” he asked. “If Jacques Loeb* is right, that
action of the iron molecules is every bit as conscious a movement as
the least and the greatest of our own. There is absolutely no difference
between them.
“Your and my and its every movement is nothing but an involuntary and
inevitable reaction to a certain stimulus. If he's right, then I'm a
buttercup--but that's neither here nor there. Loeb--all he did was
to restate destiny, one of humanity's oldest ideas, in the terms of
tropisms, infusoria and light. Omar Khayyam chemically reincarnated in
the Rockefeller Institute. Nevertheless those who accept his theories
have to admit that there is essentially no difference between their
impulses and the rush of filings toward a magnet.
“Equally nevertheless, Goodwin, the iron does meet Haeckel's three
tests--it can receive a stimulus, it does react to that stimulus and it
retains memory of it; for even after the current has ceased it remains
changed in tensile strength, conductivity and other qualities that were
modified by the passage of that current; and as time passes this memory
fades. Precisely as some human experience increases wariness, caution,
which keying up of qualities remains with us after the experience
has passed, and fades away in the ratio of our sensitivity plus
retentiveness divided by the time elapsing from the original
experience--exactly as it is in the iron.”
* Professor Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller Institute, New
York, “The Mechanistic Conception of Life.”