Part 2

He flattened against the wall as the five Guards came past and turned into the Maenad. A civilian was among them, a grotesque little man, like a spider. His garments were studded with jewels and precious stones which could only signify that he was one of Consar III's personal slaves.

Which, in turn, signified that they had come for Zaleel.

A bitter hate burned in Cadmus as he edged past the Maenad's entrance toward the policejet the Guards and the civilian had parked in the street. He unsheathed his sword. He turned the little force-field unit to full power. This was it. Dawn was about to break.

He had the advantage of surprise and here was a way. He knew he could never get into that council tower from the ground levels. It was too heavily guarded. He might manage it from the air.

He ran straight out of the shadows, taking advantage of the surprise that froze the two Guards standing outside the entrance panel of the policejet. Deimos blinked as Cadmus' sword struck. Its light was red. The slain Guard sank wordlessly in a fresh warm pool that was redder still on the worn stones.

Cadmus laughed tonelessly as he struck again.

III

The second Guard's face lost its sharply disciplined mask for an instant, then he, too, died in the shadow of his glistening plane. Cadmus was retrieving their weapons as two more Guards ran out of the Maenad toward him, evidently called by one of the two slain Guards before they died.

Cadmus shot the policejet straight up beneath a blast of fire. Through the pre-dawn chill, he angled it toward the council tower. He had only minutes now to get inside the Tower and get that microtape before the Machine's analyzing eyes.

Below him sprawled the spires and sharp minarets of the ancient capital city. To the east beyond the fifth cut-off from the Low Canal, was the newer modernistic plastic council tower, rearing up into the sky for a mile, directly in the valley's mouth.

Beyond the council tower was the gigantic rounded dome of the Great Machine, gleaming dully in the mists. To the right was Consar III's pleasure palace, glittering like a monstrous and evil jewel.

Zaleel would be there soon, groveling among his slaves.

Now, from various roofports all over the city, silver policejets began to dot the sky. Cadmus unhooked an antigrav belt from beneath the seat. He pressed a stud and the cowling above him slid open. He belted the antigrav belt about his waist and stood up.

The council tower was a mile distant. A parabola would allow him to reach it, if he could avoid being spotted by the Guards while falling.

About twenty policejets, in formation as usual, were coming in from his right. He raised both neutron guns, fired, simultaneously. He used both weapons' full charge.

An incredible blast ripped out, leaving paths of condensation in its wake. Radiant energy spread forth in its basest and most deadly form, heating intolerably by sudden kinetic interchange. There was a devastating fire, a supernal electronic flash. Radiant energy blinded and burned.

The pre-dawn grayness became searing light. For an instant the area was bombarded with fragments of molten metal. But Cadmus had sent his plane in a sudden leap high above the disaster even as he fired. His plane trembled, then began to burn. Its metal hull became unbearable.

Cadmus leaped out into the darkness and began floating down, utilizing the antigrav belt's angle facets to control the direction of his fall. He looked about him. A mile behind, a hundred or so policejets were converging on that spot where he had created the sudden holocaust. By lifting his own plane and bailing out, he had put himself half a mile away, a small dark speck, falling in a slow curve directly at the top of the council tower.

The policejets were swinging away in large, ever-increasing circles, searching. Far away, he saw his own jetplane burst suddenly into white flame and crash into the sluggish red waters of the canal. Most of the policejets headed for it. Apparently there was no suspicion that he had been able to escape the ship.

Cadmus struck the top of the Tower. The mile-high dome was cold and smooth as ice as he slid down its side onto a narrow ramp. He lay flat for a moment in order to get back his strength. The city was moving from its somnolence. Beings shuffling from drugged states to worship the Gray God of stability. It was eternal slavery or death to neglect the worship.

Far below he could see a balcony opening into what would be the question submission chamber. Utilizing the antigrav belt, Cadmus slid from the ramp, down the shadowed side of the Tower. He attained the balcony and crouched behind the colonnade. The sun peered over the mountains. It reached into the valley, lapping the Machine's towering skull with crimson tongues.

Streaming from the city's main avenues, a solid river of Akal-jor's inhabitants were marching to worship at the shrine of the Gray God.

Cadmus stared at the fantastic and horrible scene. Worshipping a machine that had chained them to its unchanging pattern and was killing them. A thunderous chorus of wailing and chanting rose in a moan of suppliancy.

From every city on Mars, via transmat, other rivers of worshippers were debouching into the valley. For a brief time they would gaze with trembling awe at the monstrous metal dome that ruled them inexorably, then return to their hopeless patterns.

Via huge transmats on Terra and Venus, other rivers of worshippers numbering millions were flowing across the void. They, too, would gaze upon the Gray God's face, then return by transmat sender to their own worlds. Cadmus stared in sudden shocked fear. One abruptly obvious and terrible fact left him stunned.

The great transmats on the right side of the valley were not disgorging any worshippers. Nothing was emerging from the Venusian transmats.

* * * * *

NO VENUSIANS WERE COMING TO WORSHIP THE GRAY GOD.

* * * * *

Bewildered, stunned, Cadmus ran through the panels into the vaulted height of the question submission chamber. He would worry about this other fearful emergency once he got the microtape installed.

Across the chamber were panels containing many eyes of the photoelectric analyzers--lenses which must focus his microtape. Receptacles in front of the eyes waited for the microtape to be inserted. A red light indicated that none of the eyes were being used at that moment to analyze a problem for the Machine.

A problem scanned by these eyes was carried into the Machine by electron beam tube. The Machine, a colossal mechanical brain, was the result of the final achievements of the finest scientific minds in the System.

It could think. It could think, but its answers could never vary. The Gray God.

Cadmus ran across the chamber, inserted the microtape on its spindle shaft and moved a small switch. The eyes glowed. The red light dimmed into green, signifying that the Machine was now handling a problem.

Cadmus stumbled back toward the windows. There was no feeling of triumphant release for having fulfilled his destiny. Now that the problem Johlan had devised was submitted to the Machine's vast mechanical mind, the Machine was supposed to destroy itself.

But the big problem now was why weren't those transmats bringing Venusians to worship the Gray God? Why should only streams of screaming psychopaths from Terra and Mars march out of transmats to their pathetic worship?

What had Old Pirri said?

"Beware of friends and patriots who are such only to achieve selfish ends. Remember history, and recall that when the Great Machine God was spawned and stopped all progress, wars were brewing between the worlds. Remember that was the reason the Machine was made--to halt progress and social evolution that might lead to another atom war. If the Machine is destroyed, remember that the old hates will return...."

Cadmus shivered as he hesitated before the panels leading onto the balcony. The sun was higher now. The area about the valley was a sea of surging humanity marching out of transmat receivers.

And the Machine lay there in its vaulted silence. That mass of thinking apparatus was preparing now to solve the problem which Johlan had prepared and which Cadmus had succeeded in injecting into its mechanical brain. It would take a few minutes at least before any results appeared.

But Cadmus knew something was terribly wrong. No Venusians were yet emerging from those transmats!

A number of policejets were circling the areas about the non-functioning Venusian transmats. A greater number had landed and Cadmus could see Guards running in and out of the powerhouses.

He turned quickly as he heard the panels of the doors opening behind him. He dropped to his side, dragged frantically at the neutron gun in his belt. He caught a smearing glimpse of many faces and acted too late to save himself.

He tried to activate the force-shield unit Old Pirri had given him. But paralysis beams reached out like the fingers of a hand, gripped him, held him rigid in a slowly-fading consciousness. He thought of Zaleel. He tried to understand how their plan had seemed to succeed, but had failed.

IV

The voice penetrated through layers of pain. Cadmus lay outstretched, his eyes remained closed.

"The probers won't find anything more. I know his name. I know a little about him. But very little. He is Cadmus, the son of the first Cadmus who started the first revolt against our great System. The revolt failed of course."

A whining voice answered. "I've revived him, my ruler. He feigns unconsciousness."

"Open your eyes, Cadmus," said the heavy thick voice ironically. "Open them and look at the destruction you have brought upon our nice stable order."

Cadmus sat up, blinked back nauseous fog. An unbelievably fat man sat before him on a golden throne, studded with precious stones. A cloud of metallic birds piped a strange subdued song. Cadmus' eyes shifted to the spidery little man standing beside the throne. But Consar III gestured, and the spidery little man bowed out.

The room was bare except for several mind-probing machines, and wire mesh cages with graph screens. There was little on the screens. Johlan's amnesia injection had been very effective, thought Cadmus. Too effective. He was helpless now unless he got his memory back. He knew part of the answer. His father was the first Cadmus. And there had been a reason for calling himself that. It was of vast importance. But that threshold response word. The key word--it might never be heard now.

He was fully clothed but he was without weapons. The force-field generator was gone. His antigrav belt had been taken from him.

Cadmus said, "I never expected to meet you alive, Consar."

Consar's mountain of flesh trembled in a rumbling laugh. "So many unpredictable games the jester Chance plays, eh. It doesn't matter now what you did or didn't expect."

Cadmus started. He knew that Consar was mad with power. He knew nothing else about Consar III, except that Zaleel was to have killed him with a lithium capsule, and that she had failed.

"We tapped your mind, Cadmus. I know a great deal about you, but so little, too. You submitted a problem to the Machine--we shall refer to it as a Machine as neither of us are quite convinced that it's a god--and your purpose was that the Machine was to have destroyed itself."

Consar laughed. "It was a ridiculous purpose. You rebels with your high ideals of progress and change! Progress and change are the great errors of entropy, Cadmus. But it's too late to discuss that now. You submitted the problem but the Machine still functions."

Consar smiled. "You have driven the Machine insane!"

Cadmus' throat was dry, thick. He didn't understand.

"Come, I'll show you." Consar III pressed a button. The throne carried his bulk across the marble floor to the wide windows overlooking the council tower and the valley of the Machine.

"You see, Cadmus. The Machine is insane. You submitted a problem to it. I don't know what the nature of the problem was, its details, but it was planned to be unsolvable to the Machine. Although the Machine isn't organic, it functions much like an organic brain. Faced with an unsolvable problem that nevertheless must be solved, a human mind goes insane. Our Machine did the same thing. Insanity is a decision of a sort. Sometimes it's the only logical answer to a dilemma. That seems to be the case this time."

Cadmus stared, but he still found it difficult to grasp the scene below. What he saw and heard through the opened windows was horrible beyond the maddest nightmare. The Venusian transmats were still dead. No Venusians were emerging into the valley. But vast rivers of humans from Terra, and Martians from all the cities, were spilling in great masses into the valley--

And to their death!

Wailing, crying in sobbing ecstasy, these rivers were pouring directly into that half-mile deep area of deadly radioactivity surrounding the Machine.

Cadmus murmured in sheer horror. Millions were dying. Millions more would die. The valley was a gigantic pit of carnage. Unless it were stopped every living person on Terra would march out of those transmats and die. So would every living Martian.

"Like the lemmings," said Consar III absently. "A suicide drive. See what you Cadmeans have done with your foolish revolt. Listen to the voice from the council tower."

Cadmus was listening. A decision from the Machine was automatically transcribed and broadcast from the Tower.

"Listen to what the Tower is saying. The voice of the god. It couldn't solve the answer it was forced to answer in any other way except by this extreme and apparently insane way. Yet if this is the only way it could answer the question, then it's logical isn't it? Logical that its answer should be one of defeat, futility, abandonment of all hope."

From the Tower the public address system thundered out over the wailing shambles of destruction in the valley. Its waves of sound bludgeoned the helpless, milling hordes into an ecstatic suicidal rush.

"_Life has no meaning. All is futility. There is no hope. The only way out of this problem is death. Death is the final and complete escape._"

* * * * *

Consar said, "Few are ignoring the Machine's voice. That's natural. They have long since abandoned hope. Without progress, with no goal, the Machine's answer is logical to them. It's very interesting, this end of System life, isn't it, Cadmus? Look at the rabble. Look at the bawling cattle you dedicated your life to save. What have you done but pushed them on down into the slime where they belong?"

Cadmus hardly heard Consar's cynical humor. His head throbbed. Blood rushed his temples as he tried to break that web of amnesia. It was there, the answer, the solution.

Johlan! He was Venusian. And no Venusians were dying in the valley. The sudden clarity of the monstrous truth hit him like an explosion. Johlan had formulated a problem to submit to the Machine. True. But not to destroy it. Only to cause its reaction to be analogous to those of an insane brain.

Now it was directing the suicide of its worshippers. But not of Venusians. The old hates still smoldering....

A few inhabitants of Terra and Mars might remain alive when this ghastly massacre ended. But Venus would be untouched. Johlan had brought about a monstrous suicidal drive that would decimate the Terran and Martian population. And leave Venus the unchallenged ruler of the System.

And Consar III laughed. Cadmus lunged at his throat. His hands struck an invisible barrier. From behind the shield surrounding his throne, Consar smiled.

"You're helpless now, Cadmus. I see you've noticed that the Venusian transmats are dead. The Guards have investigated. The power generators have been destroyed so they won't work anymore without being repaired. You've taken the rule of the System from the unchanging Machine, and have given it back to the people. Therefore you've destroyed the System. Already the Venusians are trying to wipe out Terra and Mars."

Cadmus pounded against the invisible barrier.

"You can't touch me, Cadmus. And what would it gain for you if you did? We probed your girl comrade's brain, too. She came here to kill me, but she had hidden the explosion somewhere and the Guards couldn't locate it. She's gone now. She was taken to the slave quarters. But none of the slaves are in their quarters now. They have all gone into the valley to march into the Machine.

"You see, Cadmus, everyone is conditioned to carry out the Machine's dictates. Those who do not follow the commands of the Machine will be driven into the valley and to death anyway by the Guards. The Guards, too, will walk into the Machine to their deaths when everyone else is dead. Including me. The Guards will force me to my death, too, Cadmus. I have utilized the Guards only within the limitations of the Machine's laws, you understand. Everyone will die except the Venusians. Let them have it! I've enjoyed myself. I'm ready to make my exit."

Cadmus ran back to the window.

* * * * *

Policejets were circling above the marching hordes of suicidals, raying those who fell out of the surging river. Thousands of Guards were circulating at the edges of the human tide, keeping the lines solid, threatening stragglers with neutron charges. There were few stragglers. In that hopeless, un-evolving system, the majority had wanted to die. The Machine was sanctioning their psychotic desires.

And somewhere, perhaps in that horde, Zaleel was trapped. Or she might already be dead.

Regardless of the amnesia, his hopeless position, Cadmus saw one thing he could do if he could escape. Try to destroy as many of those transmats as possible and stop the flow of doomed Terrans and Martians. Johlan had stopped the Venusian transmats by destroying the generators. He could do the same.

From the Tower the thunderous voice of the mad Machine still called:

_Life has no meaning. All is futility. There is no hope._

Cadmus tried to shut out the sound. He knew that if he had to listen to it very long, its suggestion would overpower him.

His own voice buried the voice of the mad Machine momentarily.

"It isn't over yet, Consar. You're a victim of unchange like every other poor suicidal out there. The blood of millions who have died in your enslavement is on your hands. Your only excuse is that there never was hope for humanity anyway. But there is, Consar. And I'll prove it to you. You'll die, but I'll prove the truth to you before I kill you."

Consar laughingly waved a flabby white hand. "The magic shadow show still goes on. Join it. I'm not holding you here. See--the doors are opening for you. Without the rigid discipline of the Machine, System life will destroy itself. Every institution contains the seeds of its own destruction. Even the Machine. Blind tropisms, rabble, robots, cattle. Those are the stupid dolts you Cadmeans dedicated your lives to save, to set free. Freedom! Hah!" Consar broke into a rumbling laugh. But Cadmus didn't hear it.

Freedom.

FREEDOM!

Cadmus leaned against the coruscating wall. A thrill of returning memory flooded him.

Freedom! That was the key word. Zaleel had said that if the Machine were destroyed the word would be on millions of lips.

Ironic that Consar should have spoken the word unwittingly and set Cadmus' mental fountain of memory free. Behind closed eyes, in a brief flash of recollection, Cadmus' memory, his destiny, his potentiality, returned.

He knew why he was called Cadmus.

* * * * *

His father, the first Cadmus of the newer myth. The greatest hero of the System. For years, since the Machine had been placed in power, his father had worked toward its destruction. A shadow, a mystery in the starways. He had gotten scientists and had constructed secret arsenals. He had constructed small matter transmatters and installed a secret transmat underground between the three worlds and the asteroids.

In the asteroid belt had been thousands of free men who hadn't had the disciplinary bands installed in their skulls because they had been born there in the belt, away from all legislative control, of mucker parents. Men and women and children who were inaccessible in the thousands of uncharted little worlds between Terra and Mars.

Led by his father, they had attacked through the transmats and had marched on the council tower and the Machine. But they had been defeated, slain and taken into slavery. Only a few escaped. Only three. Two children, Cadmus and Zaleel. And Johlan. They returned to the asteroids to plan the second revolt.

But they had marched on the Machine, knowing it was surrounded by half a mile of deadly radioactivity. And now Cadmus knew how his father had expected to overthrow the Machine in spite of this barrier. His father had planned the direct assault on the Machine--alone. His father had trusted no one. He had lain the groundwork, had accomplished the whole preparation himself. He had been intending to launch the direct attack on the Machine by releasing the armed men.

... _slew a dragon and sowed its teeth. From these sprang armed men_ ...

Young as he had been then, Cadmus still remembered starkly. His father had given him the information and directions. No one else knew. Johlan had suspected. That was why he had blanked out Cadmus' mind until his own terrible plan had been achieved.

Cadmus could hear his father's words now, plainly, after the many years. As his father lay dying in a hidden cavern after having failed to reach the other great cave on the side of the valley facing the Machine.

"I've worked it for almost a century, son--the armed men--transported them one by one from Terra by transmat ... an underground filled with armed men ... ready to march into the Machine ... ready to blast its accursed heart ... the lever is under the roots of the komble-plant at the mouth of the cavern ... when the doors are opened...."

His father had given him the directions, how to reach that secret cavern where the armed men waited. Then he had died. The three survivors had been waiting for Cadmus, and they escaped, returned to the asteroids via transmat. Johlan, the leading scientist, had raised and educated Zaleel and Cadmus.

Cadmus was running across the room. He heard Consar's laughter fading behind him as he ran into the hall. But the pattern was clear in Cadmus' mind.

V

Cadmus dodged into a doorway as Guards came down the hall pursuing three Martians. Behind him he caught a glimpse of a huge pleasure pool in a lethean garden. Vacant now, its hedonistic lovers caught up in a grisly destiny.

The two Guards were chasing three Martians who hadn't digested the idea of suicide, evidently. As the Guards raised vibro-guns, Cadmus hurled himself through the doorway. His leap carried one of the Guards to the floor. One desperate blow knocked that Guard senseless. Cadmus raised the Guard's vibro-gun and brought the other man to the floor in a paralyzed sprawl.

The Machine's voice still thundered from the Tower as Cadmus ran from the palace, into the street toward the valley's mouth. The city was almost deserted now, except for a few Guards and policejets circling, hunting out deserters from the suicidal march.

Cadmus ran frantically, straining, along the street, keeping next the shadowed wall. But no Guards bothered him now. To them he was another suicidal lemming who had gotten the call belatedly.

His breath came harshly, burning fire. His muscles groaned as he forced himself up the steep rocky slope leading up and along the valley's rim.

His father's directions were vivid in his mind now as he staggered along the wind-whipped trail. Higher and higher until the mid-afternoon winds were a thousand icy lances driving through his sweating body.