The Gods Hate Kansas Page 14

  He was only vaguely aware of space-suited figures that were suddenly around him, relieving him of his burden, helping him on. He was barely conscious when he was dragged into the air lock, his helmet removed. Fresh, sweet air washed over his face. Sucking in deep breaths, he felt the mists lift from his brain but with maddening slowness. Vaguely he knew that his suit was being stripped off and that Rocossen was sitting up close by.

  There was something wrong about the figure of the little physicist. Something was missing from an expected pattern. His fogged brain struggled with the mystery. The thoughts were all tangled with a desperate urging that was fighting to gain precedence. Something he had to say at once to Monj—something of vital importance. It was something about Lee Mason and about Plague victims and people who would gladly build a space ship.

  The oxygen was beginning to clear his brain. Suddenly he remembered Lee waiting out in the rocks with a dwindling air supply and a stalking hunter.

  He remembered the all-important thing he had to tell Monj—that he knew a solution to the Xacrn problem of defeating evolution. As soon as he explained, there would be no more Crimson Plague, no more mindless slaves, but only harmonious co-operation. Mankind would benefit by the awesome knowledge of the Xacrns and they, in turn, would have their space ship built for the journey home.

  Last of all he realized what was different about Dr. Eno Rocossen. Grinning in triumph, the little physicist was standing over him, holding a curious instrument. He bent over Temple.

  “This won’t hurt, Curtis. It is a very superior form of anesthetic that will prevent your feeling a thing while the plate is being removed.” His eyes again held the dead emptiness of an entity-controlled automaton. “Then you will be with us.”

  Temple tried to move, to shout. A puff of glowing gas whipped from the instrument and his senses drifted away. The last impression before blackness closed down was the voice of Monj, booming, “Take him to the operating room at once. I will operate without delay.”

  Panting and numb with cold, Lee crouched among the rocks, struggling with numbed fingers to replace her exhausted oxygen bottle with the one taken from the hunter. The coldness of her body matched the coldness in her heart. Seeing Curt stumbling off across the alien landscape brought home the terrifying possibility that she had seen him for the last time.

  She flinched instinctively as a rocky peak, only a few hundred yards away, vanished in a flash of unleashed fury. Moments later she saw the reflection of another flash, down low. The hunter was ranging the edge of the rock heap, trying to drive her from her hiding place. Another burst, almost overhead, showered her with debris.

  On familiar Earth, Lee Mason was notably cool and nerveless in the face of danger. But here, in the lonely desolation of an alien, hostile world, she felt the impact of a nameless terror that could not be defeated by reason and logic. Another burst, even closer, brought sheer panic.

  She scrambled up and ran, sobbing, blind with fear. A huge rock barrier loomed in her path. She gathered herself and jumped. Under gravity only one-sixth that of Earth, she went up to an impossible height and cleared it. Arching down, she braced herself against the impact of striking the ground in the black shadows.

  There was no impact. She went down and down into a pit or shaft that seemed to have no bottom. Her tumbling body struck a rocky side and rebounded to another. Her ears were deafened by the grinding clatter of the metal suit against rocks. The tumult continued even after she struck bottom with an impact that jarred her senses.

  She awoke gradually to a realization that she had fallen into a deep shaft that penetrated far below the crater floor. Only the lighter gravity had enabled her to survive at all in the thinly padded suit. As it was, her body was a mass of aches and bruises. She cautiously moved her arms and found them unbroken. She tried her legs and muffled a gasp of alarm. They moved but the legs of the suit did not.

  Her exploring hands found the reason. She was almost buried under a mass of rocks dislodged by her fall. Only the strength of the metal suit had kept them from crushing her body. As it was, the rocks pinned her as solidly as a vise. No amount of straining could move one, nor could she free the legs of her suit.

  She was hopelessly trapped—and somewhere in her panicky flight or fall, the fresh oxygen bottle had been irrevocably lost. Her chest was heaving as her lungs fought for the last tenuous molecules of oxygen left in the suit after her original bottle was exhausted.

  A wild thought planted itself on her oxygen-starved brain.

  “What a cold, lonely, horrible place to die.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Journey’s End

  The group gathered in the smaller rocket tower of the meteor camp looked more like victims of a major catastrophe than distinguished scientists. Allen Farge was the worst, with two black eyes, a bent nose, missing teeth and his clothing in shreds. Mullane, Lansdon, Jacobs and the rest were almost as battered. The big Van Arden showed the least damage but he, too, had taken his lumps in the wild hand-to-hand battle in the doorway as the rocket blasted off with Temple, Lee and Rocossen.

  They might still be fighting if Farge had not cleared enough elbow room to lift the projector and destroy the controlling entities. Now free, embarrassed and worried, they stared bleakly up at the split roof far above and considered the future.

  “Damn,” Farge cried hoarsely. “They’re up there, either seized, dead or fighting unspeakable horrors and all we can do is stand down here like bumps on a log without lifting a finger to save them. Can’t anybody in this aggregation of so-called eggheads come up with one, single, intelligent idea?”

  “Easy, boy,” Van Arden said. “We’ve used Lansdon’s detector and your projector to root out and destroy all those things left here. The guards and the Solles are free and sleeping off their shock. Now all we can do is sweat it out right here. This is our only point of possible contact with—” He broke off, frowning, cocking his head.

  There was a feeling of electric tension in the air and a thin, high, rising whine. In the gloomy shaft of the tower, a flickering turbulence was faintly visible. Mullane’s wild yell broke the quiet.

  “The rocket. It’s coming through from the other dimension.” He whirled to Farge. “Whoever’s piloting will have to be under their control. Have your projector ready to blast when it opens.”

  Suddenly, soundlessly, the rocket was there, materializing out of thin air to awesome solidity. The lock began to open. In Farge’s hand, the butt of the projector was clammy. Beside him, Van Arden muttered, “Don’t miss. That crate is our only contact with the moon and we’re going to ride it there if we have to paddle with our hats.”

  The lock chugged down, the gangplank lowering automatically to meet it. One of Farge’s first projects had been to repair and restore that in preparation for a possible return of the ship.

  Rocossen stepped from the lock and stopped, staring at the tense group with blank, suspicious eyes. Then his hand whipped from behind, leveling a blue beam projector. All saw the brief flash as Farge’s weapon clicked first to destroy the entity.

  The physicist tottered and dropped the projector and his unconscious figure pitched over the side of the gangplank to the concrete pit below. The thudding crash as his body struck was a death blow to their hopes.

  When they reached him, he was unconscious and barely breathing. One arm and shoulder were broken, ribs smashed and there was more than a possibility of skull fracture.

  In the control cabin, the scientists stared from the starkly plain control panel to one another with strained faces. Mullane was the first to speak. “I went back and forth once with Rocky but I can’t remember what he did. I only know one thing. He said if there was the slightest error in passing through to that other-dimensional drive, the rocket and everyone in it would be instantly reduced to atoms.”

  * * * *

  He had wondered often what it felt like to have his brain occupied and possessed by an entity. As Temple swung his feet off the operating table an
d stood up, he knew the answer at last, and tasted the full horror of that knowledge.

  His sensations and feelings were normal. He possessed all his faculties except one. He had no control whatever over the thoughts that flashed across his mind or the commands they sent to his muscles. Across the chamber were two couches. On one the figure of Monj lay, apparently asleep. The other was empty.

  Weary and shaken, he went to the empty couch to lie down and rest awhile. That is, his consciousness willed the movement but a stronger force made his tired body stand erect and turn the other way. There was nothing he could do to stop himself.

  Dully he felt the back of his head. A small bandage was the only visible evidence of the operation. Apparently the skill of the surgeon body had been augmented by the superior Xacrn knowledge to make the operation simple, quick and without aftereffects. He wondered if he would even remember there had been an operation afterward—if there was an afterward.

  Then full realization struck him. “I am a slave!” he thought wildly. “I belong to them.”

  An exultant reply flashed through his mind. “You belong to me—Monj. You are a more useful vehicle for my purpose than the other, which I will keep for use when its skills are needed.”

  A frantic anguish tore at Temple. The lives and futures of the human race had been in his hands and he had let them slip, had unwillingly violated a trust. He had even figured out how to save the Xacrns from their doom—

  In a flash of belated caution he blanked out the thought. That was his last and only bargaining hope, to be held back until he could be sure of fair exchange.

  He had not been fast enough. Into his mind flashed a sharp, “What was that? What did you discover about our problem? Reveal your whole thought instantly or I will tear it from you, and I promise the process will not be painless.”

  Stubbornly Temple fought to submerge the thoughts. His mind and body reeled with the fury of Monj’s rage. Probing tentacles tore into his mind like knives of fire, digging, gouging, wringing intolerable agony from hidden nerve ends.

  Decex Vard had said that a strong and willful mind could sometimes resist an entity—but not one as all-powerful as Monj. Try as he would, fight as he could, the sinister force was reaching through, baring the last secret of his dwindling hope.

  Suddenly the struggle ended, broken off by an incredible interruption.

  The disheveled figure of Lee Mason burst through an archway. Her lovely face broke into radiant relief at the sight of Temple.

  “Oh, Curt, thank God you’re all right.” She saw the figure that had been Monj on the couch. “You overpowered him somehow. I knew you could. Curt, you won’t believe what happened to me. I fell down what must be a Vard mine shaft, lost my new air bottle and got my suit trapped by falling rock. Then I remembered air is heavy and collects in the lowest spots, so I unfastened my helmet and found I could breathe. I wriggled out of the suit and followed the shaft into a huge mine. There was a lighted corridor leading up so I followed it and here I am, with you.”

  Laughing happily, she ran toward him with outstretched hands. Behind Temple’s false smile of welcome a titanic battle was raging. His whole being fought to cry a warning, while the mighty force of Monj kept him a silent Judas, waiting to grab her, tear off the silver cap and open her brain to entity.

  His waiting hands closed like traps on her wrists…and something happened. A great surge of strength seemed to pour into his hands from the touch, her will rushing to join his. Against their united power, he felt the will of Monj waver and retreat. For moments they stood rigid, locked in savage battle.

  Abruptly the battle ended as the entity gave up. Temple felt its bonds slip away and knew his mind was free again. He and Lee clung together for a moment of glad triumph.

  The figure on the couch stirred and sat up, glaring in sullen hatred. Temple turned sharply. “Hold it, Monj. Don’t try sending for a goon squad of human dupes, or you’ll never learn the secret of saving your race. You know I found it and you know I’m not bluffing, because you glimpsed it in my mind.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Your promise to keep hands off while I tell you the answer. And you’d better summon all your Xacrns to listen with you. Oh, yes, and I want that detector you swiped from me so I can see my audience.”

  A Vard shuffled in with the battered instrument and Temple knew he had an audience, even before the screen showed him the upper part of the cavern crowded solid with tensely waiting entities.

  “Speak,” Monj growled, “and it had better not be a trick.”

  “You know it isn’t,” Temple said, and his arms tightened on Lee’s shoulders, drawing her closer. “You thought you knew all about our race, but you didn’t know the basic principle of our whole civilization or you could have had the answer long ago. If you’d simply told your story, our whole world would have pitched in to help you, to build and stock your ship and see you safely off for home. We’d have done it without threats or pay because when the chips are down for somebody, that’s the way human beings are.”

  Monj seemed utterly dazed, as the Vard had been, at such an incredible idea. Temple rushed on, “Your strong-eat-the-weak principle doesn’t hold on Earth, except when some mad dog runs wild until decent people rise and slap him down. We feel one another’s hurts and griefs and share his joys. We cry at sad pictures and lost kittens and send CARE packages to the underprivileged in lands we’ve never even seen. You can’t understand that but you’re going to have to in order to save yourselves. We call it the human spirit and it’s the reason you could conquer the Earth but never conquer human beings. It’s the tool that can rescue your race.”

  “Emotions,” Monj growled. “Feelings. They are the mark of the lower orders, the primitives. We Xacrns left those behind with our equally useless bodies when we evolved into pure minds.” His glare darkened. “But what is this great secret? You have not told us yet.”

  “I did, but you didn’t see it,” Temple said. “But now we do some dickering. Before I draw pictures for you so your feeble intellects can grasp it—” he grinned maliciously “—we talk about a few other matters. With our whole-hearted aid, how long would it take you to build your ship and take off for Xacrn—with the secret you need for survival?”

  “A week at most,” Monj said, and his voice held a note of reluctant hope. “We would not need massive construction or fuel since we do not use your crude propulsion system. We only used a rocket on your world to lift us high enough so the turbulence of the space warp would not damage surrounding buildings. If we built the ship in an open field, we could flash almost instantaneously into the space-time dimension and emerge on our world. But the secret! If you know it, tell us.”

  “Not so fast, my lad. What can you, or will you, do to repair the damage you’ve done with your stupid bungling approach?”

  “All humans will be returned to normal and those on the moon transported back to Earth at once. As for material damage, we give you the treasury of the moon and our rocket ships to use and to learn from. What you call Plague victims will be restored.”

  “Fair enough,” Temple said. He sighed then smiled at Lee’s happy face. “Then I give you the salvation of your race. Decex Vard, come up here to me.”

  The Vard lumbered hesitantly forward and Temple threw an arm across the leathery body. “When you reach home, do honor to this Vard, for he gave me the key to the secret. To survive, you must reverse your evolution and retrogress back from where you now stand on the brink of oblivion.”

  “Is that all you offer?” Monj cried. “We know that, but it cannot be done. We advanced to our present state by acquiring vast knowledge. But each new moment brings fresh knowledge, so we are swept onward against our will. We cannot erase what we have acquired, nor keep from learning more through each new experience.”

  “Maybe you can’t erase,” Temple said quietly, “but you can dilute that knowledge with other matter and get the same result. In the childhood of your race,
thoughts and emotions were woven together in an inextricable bundle. You’ve gradually sorted out and discarded the emotional threads. Now you don’t know what feelings are. You don’t actually fear your own extinction, as we or a Vard knows fear. You only find it undesirable.”

  “And that’s your answer. Use your Vards because you must and because they need you. But instead of ruling, try sharing. Feel what they feel, know what it’s like to be weary and enjoy the pleasure of rest. You called emotions ‘the mark of a lower order’ but they are the stuff that will dilute pure mind and draw you back from the brink. As you merge with your Vards emotionally, you’ll be retreating down the evolutionary scale a step or two—but without losing any gained knowledge.”

  He stopped, frowned, and suddenly could think of no more arguments, nothing more to add. “End of lecture,” he said. “Period.”

  In the stillness he imagined the very atmosphere crackled with flying thoughts. Then Monj smiled and extended his hand. “It is the key. Will you shake hands, as your people do? I want to find out if I feel an emotion from it. If I do, our cure is already beginning.”

  Their hands met. “I believe I do feel it,” Monj said. “Friends—forever friends.”

  His eyes bulged and his jaw fell. Temple whirled, hearing Lee’s strangled shriek.

  Bursting from the corridor to the rocket cavern came, without a doubt, the weirdest liberation army ever seen.

  The bruised and battered Farge was in the lead, a silver loving cup split open and bound on his head with a scarf. At his heels Mullane wore a shapeless mass of hastily hammered silver from which protruded the tines of a silver fork. Jacobs wore a jingling cap of silver coins.

  “We came to save you,” Farge shouted. “Rocky’s all smashed up out there, but he stayed conscious long enough to show us how to fly back here and wipe out this whole nest of devils.”

  He snatched out a projector, pressed the trigger and waved it grimly at Monj and every other figure in the cavern, then began systematically sweeping its invisible beam through the air above where he knew the entities hovered.