Part 7

Eldon felt his scalp prickle as a huge grey shape appeared beside her on the platform. After a moment of symbolic gyrations the figures of the woman and the Luvan _merged_, seemed to interpenetrate each other and become something that still looked like Sin but was only partly human. He heard Margaret's indrawn breath, felt the psychic wave of her lustful, panting impatience, saw her face masked in unearthly expectancy as _something_ took on nebulous outlines in the Gateway, throbbing evilly.

The guards bound the wrists of the first sacrificial victim, a girl, and at a touch of Wor's hands on the controls she was drawn up until her bare toes just touched the floor. There was a hush of tense expectancy as the restorative pill took effect, and then a satisfied whisper swept the gathering as she screamed and struggled in sudden horror. The glow of the Gateway brightened, shaded from green to yellow, and Sasso showed more clearly in all its alienness, glorying in the terror of the victim.

Wor's fingers flashed to the controls and a thrilled shudder shook the gathering as the Sasso-force flowed through the maze of woven cables. Eldon felt rather than saw Margaret's slender body, so exactly like that of the high priestess, shiver and go rigid beside him.

Then he was too occupied to notice. For the fabric around his wrist was not a perfect insulator. His entire body tingled. His heart was pounding and blood raced through his body and throbbed in his temples under the leaking influx of the Force of Sasso. It was a terrible sensation, evil and yet compelling. The eerie waves surging through his brain called upon him to surrender, to give himself now and utterly and forever to the service of Sasso--for Sasso was the All, the Everlasting.

Almost he succumbed. But then for an instant his sight cleared and he looked upon Sin's cruel face, on the screaming girl who hung above the Vat in readiness for sacrifice, upon Krasna, the piquantly smiling face he remembered so well now dull with idiot emptiness. Soon she too would be screaming above the Vat.

The form in the Gateway pulsed, swelling and writhing, striving to _come through_. An intense crackling hum reverberated throughout the spherical temple. Around Eldon the devotees of the Faith were sagging and pitching to their knees as Sasso _used_ their lives, drew upon them in an attempt to enter Varda. Eldon too felt his legs buckling, his mind block weakening, but managed to remain on his feet.

* * * * *

Just as Eldon reached the point where his wracked nerves were shrieking for surrender she shot a meaningful glance at Wor. The big man's fingers flicked the controls and the pulsating waves of Sasso-force quieted.

High-pitched feminine screams cut the air as the hoist chain unreeled and the victim's feet touched the lavender fluid in the Vat. Her writhing body stirred the pale surface to foam as she was lowered. And then, while Eldon squirmed inwardly in impotent fury, she was gone. Only the cord that had bound her wrists remained. But there was nothing he could have done to save her without abandoning all hopes, all plans.

The restoring tide of the girl's vitality, the very essence of her life, poured through the cables at Wor's touch. In the Gateway the unbelievable, eye-straining shape of Sasso swelled and solidified, thrusting against the thought-barrier that barred it from Varda.

Even through the insulating fabric a tiny portion of the life energy reached Eldon, strengthening him, steadying his reeling mind. It was a _human_ force, the antithesis of that emanating from the alien monstrosity, and Eldon resolved that the Rebel girl should not have died entirely in vain. Quickly but unobtrusively he worked his shirt out of his trousers and touched the conducting wristband to the bare skin thus exposed. Instantly the life-current increased, filling him with a new vitality and a terrifying awareness of how crushingly irresistible the Sasso-force would have been in its full impact. The trick of the plotters had unintentionally saved his life and sanity.

All around him color returned to faces drained to death-like pallor by the alien entity. The panting, rasping breathing of the worshippers eased. Two guards stepped forward and the second sacrifice, a man this time, was prepared.

And then his throat constricted in fear. Sin was staring down at him, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. The priestess had been a Superior and was still a telepath! Eldon was afraid that in the throes of resisting the Sasso-force his mind block had slipped. He could only hope no clearly defined thoughts had leaked through.

She gestured to Victor and the renegade Earthman pranced forward, elated at this public attention. She said something to him and he turned toward Eldon, one hand dropping to the jeweled hilt of his ornate dagger. A gleam of joy appeared in his eyes.

Sin spoke further. A petulant, disappointed expression crossed Victor's arrogant face, but obediently he unbuckled his wristband, cutting himself off from Sasso. A buzz of curiosity began among the nearest watchers.

Sin cut it short with a nod to Wor, and Eldon moved his wristband away from his bare skin just in time as the Force of Sasso surged once more through the cables and into the worshippers. Then he was immersed once more in the struggle to retain his own individuality.

This time Eldon knew what to expect and so was better prepared to resist. During the first communion he had been vaguely aware of changes in the Gateway, and now he turned his single bloodshot eye upward, waiting for one particular moment.

The glow changed from green to yellow as once more the terrible entity thrust itself against the unseen barrier created by the thoughts of the surviving Forest People. The barrier weakened, gave, seemed about to snap, and through the cables came impulses of elation. _The Gateway shaded from yellow to pink._

Ripping noises filled the air, sounds that were oddly familiar. Deliberately, risking his mental defenses to do so, Eldon concentrated upon making mental measurements which were in reality only enlightened guesses at the power and resonant frequency and other characteristics of the multiple bound charges constituting the Gateway.

Eldon felt a hard object thrust against his hand.

"Take it!" Margaret hissed. "Kill Victor! Now!"

With a great effort he forced his fingers to close around the blast rod, and deliberately he fumbled and almost dropped it. He could only stall for time now, for Krasna still stood passive and mindless beside the Vat, still a slave-creature of the Faith.

It was in that moment of perilous indecision that he realized just how deep and all-encompassing his feelings for her had become. He knew that if Sasso _came through_ now the fate of Varda and perhaps of his own world too would be sealed. Yet to act immediately would doom the red-haired girl to death or a half-life of mindlessness. He hesitated.

Then he was granted momentary respite. One of the worshippers dropped to the floor. Then another, and still a third. Sasso surged against the invisible barrier, almost _came through_, then recoiled in temporary frustration. The efforts of the entity so drained its worshippers that fully half the group slumped awkwardly to the curving floor. The ruddy tinge of the Gateway faded back to yellow. A wave of malignant hatred poured through for all living creatures who did not acknowledge the overlordship of Sasso.

* * * * *

Sin saw and acted. Unconscious worshippers could not help Sasso _come through_. A nod to Wor stopped the force, and another caused the Rebel captive to be swung over the Vat and lowered. He vanished in the lavender liquid without a sound, without a struggle, unwilling to give the bestial devotees of the Faith the satisfaction they craved.

Margaret's hand closed over Eldon's, thrusting the blast rod into his belt, hiding it beneath his loose fitting coat. A quick glance passed between her and Wor and the big man nodded almost imperceptibly. Almost. Next time.

The hook of the hoist swung back empty and the guards prodded the third victim into position. Quickly they tied her hands, placed a loop of the bindings over the hook, and one of them forced the drug that would counteract the slave potions into her mouth. Eldon held his breath.

For the next to die would be Krasna.

* * * * *

The girl gulped, then twisted her head as the counteragent took effect. She looked up to see Sin leaning from the platform, gloatingly awaiting her screams of hopeless terror. But in the moment of recovery she glared up at the priestess with eyes filled with loathing instead of fear.

Sin's mouth twisted with hate at the girl's defiance. Personal hate, for Krasna had injured her pride and her dignity by escaping from the slave pits. It had been an unforgivable affront, and now the high priestess flung taunting words at her victim.

Krasna's lips moved as though pleading for mercy and Sin bent lower to hear and enjoy. And then the Rebel girl turned her face upward and deliberately spat at her tormentor. Eldon's heart leaped in admiration. It was an unladylike but magnificent gesture of defiance and contempt. Sin jumped back, her face dark with rage, and nodded a signal to Wor. He seized the lever.

Once more Sasso-force pounded through the machine, more fiendishly intense than ever. Once more Eldon felt the ravenings of the alien monster who sensed that this was The Night, and once more battled the overwhelming compulsion to abandon the unequal struggle and with his own thoughts help Sasso to _come through_.

Right then he almost died. He had forgotten Victor.

But Margaret had become sufficiently adept to hold a part of herself aloof from Sasso's influence, and she saved him.

"Behind you!" she hissed. "It's Victor! Kill!" There was surprise and genuine fear in her voice. She had not expected Victor to come after Eldon.

Eldon abandoned all pretense and whirled.

Under other circumstances he might have enjoyed the disconcerted look that over-spread Victor's narrow face. Victor, a few feet away, carried a dagger which he had obviously expected to plunge into Eldon's unprotected back without resistance, as Highness Sin had ordered. Sin's vague suspicions had been enough to order Eldon's death.

"The blast rod! Shoot him!" Margaret whispered urgently, and then she was tumbling aside to avoid the searing backfire of the weapon.

But the moment for which Eldon waited had not yet arrived.

Victor struck out. Eldon sidestepped. And then he fell, tripped by a loop of the cable attached to his wrist. Victor gave a hoarse cry of triumph and moved in. Eldon felt the slashing pain of a flesh wound.

"The blast rod, you fool!" Margaret cried.

But Eldon made no attempt to draw the power weapon. As he regained his feet he snatched a short, heavy sword from the belt of a subordinate officer who was so immersed in the Observance that he was only just becoming aware of the disturbance.

A frightened expression twisted Victor's mouth as he saw his adversary no longer empty-handed, but he knew by the vengeful gleam in Eldon's single eye that this time one of them must surely die. He still held the advantage, for the Force of Sasso confused Eldon's thoughts with alien impressions, interfered with his muscular coordination, drained his strength. And the cable attached to his wrist hindered his movements.

But Victor Schenley's own fear of this man he had crippled but twice failed to kill proved his undoing. One of his panicky lunges caught the cable--and sheared through it.

Eldon almost fainted as the Force of Sasso ceased and for a second his stomach muscles contracted in a tight, cramping knot. But he was freed from Sasso!

The light of the Gateway gleamed red on Victor's weapon. But the renegade had forgotten to close his mind--if he had ever learned how--and with the Force of Sasso no longer confusing him Eldon knew exactly when and where and how the attack would come.

Victor lunged. Eldon swayed clear and caught Victor's dagger hand between his side and the stump of his amputated left arm. Before Victor could jerk free Eldon plunged his blade into Victor's throat.

There was a gurgling moan, the warmth and acrid odor of spurting blood, the clatter of Victor's dagger on the floor. It was over so suddenly that Eldon felt no thrill of revenge, no elation. For an instant he stared at the corpse, stunned. It was the first time he had ever killed a human.

* * * * *

A scream spun him around. Krasna! In the brightening glare of the Gateway her body seemed afire as she swung above the terrible Vat.

With a bellow Eldon plunged toward the elevated chair upon which Wor sat, pushing aside the spellbound devotees of Sasso. He must stop the lowering of the hoist, and at once!

But he had forgotten Margaret.

"Eldon!" she screamed and threw her arms around him, pinioning his single hand at his side. Her pale face was inhuman with fury at the deception he had practiced upon her and fear of the deadly position in which she found herself. There could be no explanation. If Eldon did not kill her, Sin assuredly would.

Krasna shrieked again, this time in pain as her toes touched the liquid of the Vat, and even through the crackling, spitting crescendo Eldon heard her.

The short stub of his arm drew back, swung, and needles of fire raced through it as he struck Margaret's jaw. Her grip slackened and with a heave of his muscles he broke loose. He raised his sword--and knew himself for a sentimental fool. Earth repressions still in his mind would not let him kill a woman. Not even this woman.

The huge grey paw of a Luvan raked the side of his face and he weaved just in time to evade the clutching talons. Three of the monsters towered above him, slow-moving but inexorable. Automatically Eldon threw his sword full into the face of the nearest and ducked beneath its outstretched arms.

Wor looked up from his controls with murder in his eyes and half rose in his seat to rasp his great sword from its sheath.

Eldon swerved aside, avoiding combat with the larger man. The hell-glow of the Gateway was deepening to crimson and the ripping crackles had reached a deafening pitch. Soon, too soon, Krasna would vanish in the Vat and Sasso would _come through_. His last chance would be lost if he allowed Wor to interfere.

With a clumsy leap he vaulted to the transparent platform of the high priestess. He leaned far over the Vat, reaching toward the hook from which Krasna swung. His one hand made pawing motions in the air. But the distance was too great.

Krasna saw him, guessed his intentions, and gave him a look at once appealing and resigned. Then her eyes opened wide at the sight of his maimed body. She turned her eyes upward to where the grossly incredible form of Sasso was _bulging_ in the crimson light and shouted. Her words went unheard but Eldon received her thought. She was begging him to ignore her, to leave her to her fate and do whatever he could to halt the alien entity.

But that Eldon could not and would not do. Such a sacrifice would be worse than useless. The crimson tint of the Gateway, the crescendo crackling, the _bulging_ of Sasso against the weakening thought barrier, all told him that Sasso needed only the additional strength of Krasna's life to _come through_ in an unstoppable rush.

He crouched at the edge of the platform, measuring the distance as best he could with his single eye, and then the entire power of his legs was unleashed in a leap that carried him far out over the deadly Vat. His one arm stretched outward and upward. For an instant he thought he had misjudged and was plunging to destruction. Then his fingers touched the hook, clutched it, and he crashed against Krasna.

They swung together, pendulum fashion, carried in an arc by the force of Eldon's leap. Out away from the platform, toward the other side of the Vat. Out, and then back again.

Eldon's legs reached, feeling for the narrow rim at the platform's edge. His toes touched it, slipped, held. His body stretched on a slant between hook and platform, every muscle strained. Krasna, shorter than he and unable to touch the ledge, dangled vertically over the Vat, but above the surface.

* * * * *

Above them something in the Gateway glared malevolently down. Its silent call reached the high priestess who stood encrimsoned in the lurid glare with outstretched arms reaching in unclean yearning toward the thing to which she had surrendered her humanity. Until then she had been too deep in communion with Sasso to notice the Earthman.

But at Sasso's warning she spun about. A shrill sound of pure rage issued from her throat as she threw herself upon him. She was a harpy, an animal, her teeth and pointed fingernails punishing weapons. In silent fury she clawed and bit, trying to break his hold on Sasso's destined victim. And Eldon was too fully occupied to protect himself in any way.

Wor started up the platform, sword in hand, but Sin paused to wave him back.

"No!" she commanded. "At your controls! _Sasso comes!_"

Puzzled, his slow thoughts in confusion at the sudden shift in events, Wor obeyed.

Margaret too joined the fight, scrambling to the platform which would be the focus of Sasso's power. She had picked up Victor's jeweled dagger and with it she now lunged at Sin's back. But not to save Eldon. To save herself from Sin's vengeance and become ruler of Varda. For the Power would descend upon whomever Of the Faith occupied the platform.

The blade sank home to the hilt. Sin opened her mouth, but if she screamed it was lost in the swelling roar of Sasso's coming. The impetus of Margaret's rush carried the Black Priestess' body forward--toward the Vat.

Her body crashed against Eldon and his overstrained body gave way. His toes slipped from the platform's edge, and he and Krasna once more swung out over the Vat--while Sin's white form plummeted on down.

There was a dull splash--and Sin, Beloved of Sasso, was no more. _Nothing_ settled through the evil lavender depths.

The temple of Sasso was now in an uproar. Eldon and Krasna hung in slow-swinging arcs, and Margaret stood paralyzed, fingers taloned and shoulders raised.

Through the tumult she and Eldon's eyes met--and held. In what seemed to them both an age, their thoughts took concrete form. Margaret somehow realized that he was her sole obstacle now. Eldon would have to be removed before she could fill Sin's place.

Eldon, too--in this split-second that seemed eternity--had made his decision. From the Gateway came a sound that stopped the blood in his veins. Sin herself had furnished the final needed burst of life energy.

Sasso was _coming through_!

Margaret was evil. But Sasso was the greater evil. With all his Thin World knowledge, Eldon knew that the instant of balance was at hand, the time to strike and disrupt that balance of bound charges.

Margaret leaped forward as his swing carried Eldon and Krasna back toward the platform. She slashed with Victor's knife, slashed at Eldon's fingers.

The thrust was true. The edge bit into bone and severed cleanly. Eldon's mutilated hand slipped from the chains. And he and Krasna fell toward the Vat.

But even as he fell Eldon's hand drove down--what was left of it--and snatched the blast rod Margaret had placed in his belt. Falling, he aimed at the lurid flaming _thing_ that was Sasso.

The Sasso-creature sensed his intention, turned its force into Margaret's receptive mind and drove her into a blind attack. With an inhuman scream she launched herself from the platform after Eldon, her dagger thrusting forward and down as she fell.

In mid-air Eldon pressed the button and with the supreme effort of his life ignored the frothing Vat below and the agony of the rod's backfire to concentrate the resonant power into the Gateway, into the terrible Thing solidifying there, and with Vardan control of mind over matter to warp the discharge of the particular frequency his Thin World knowledge told him was necessary.

A blazing cone from the rod sizzled and spat. The crimson glare of the Gateway flashed through the spectrum, exploded in a scintillating violet flare, and went black. There was the stunning crash of a world being tore asunder and through it an alien cry of rage--and of dawning terror.

In the upper hemisphere of the globe a group of white-glowing pinpoints appeared, arranged in a pattern that had grown familiar. The stars of Varda shining through! With incredible speed the rift in the temple of Sasso spread. Collapse!

As he plunged toward the Vat he knew he had won, knew he had found the proper modulation to disrupt the finely balanced system of resonant bound charges of the Gateway. And he knew the alien thing called Sasso had been caught between worlds, in _no world at all_, doomed to dwindle into the nothingness from which it had arisen by feeding upon stolen lives.

He felt one last wave of malignancy, a wave that faded and left only his own bodily pain. Then that too became indistinct even though his finger still stabbed the button of the ruined blast rod smoking red hot against his palm. And he was falling, not into the Vat but through limitless space.

The shattered remnants of the Globe and the Gateway dissolved in a tearing, melting sensation as though the very atoms of his being were rearranging themselves, a _strain_ that made his mind shriek in torment and flee to the verge of madness.

There was a flashing glimpse of a grotto, of crystalline, polychromatic light and tingling warmth--the Chamber. Then that and the pain too was gone and he fell interminably through blackness.

* * * * *

Seconds ... hours ... eons. And he struck with unexpected mildness on a hard, flat surface.

He opened one eye--and the other. He placed the palms of his hands--both hands--against the floor and pushed himself to a sitting posture.

The fluorescent lights of his own laboratory cast shadowless brilliance upon him. The charge collectors still whined, their pitch lowering slowly as he listened, and the air was still pungent with ozone. It couldn't be--or could it?--that only a few moments of Earth time had elapsed?

A woman lay on the floor a few feet away, and he knew that he and she had both been near enough the neutral focus of the forces he had unleashed to escape destruction. And his arm, his eye--even the hand Margaret had so cruelly slashed--these parts of him had somehow in the transit between Varda and Earth his body had been made whole again.

He stared hard at the woman, for it was a different Margaret Matson, hardly recognizable. There were deep lines and wrinkles in her face and her revealing Vardan costume showed only too clearly how her once sleek body had become flabby and misshapen. In that last effort Sasso had fed ruthlessly upon its own worshippers, and his blast rod discharge had prevented their rejuvenation by lives stolen in the Vat.

While his mind was still adjusting itself he noticed the copper bar lying across the contacts of his experimental mechanism, and with Thin World knowledge he knew exactly what effect it had had upon the resonance of the bound charges. After a while he stopped merely looking and went to work.

He picked up a rod of nonconductive plastic and flipped the copper bar aside. Methodically he replaced blown fuses and threw in the circuit breakers controlling the bound charge concentrators. The hum rose rapidly. The machine was not seriously damaged.

A voice startled him.

"Oh! Eldon! You saved me!"

Margaret had regained consciousness. With grim amusement Eldon admitted to himself that she still thought rapidly and bluffed well. But he kept on working, not answering her.

"Eldon!" Her voice was impatient. He turned slowly.