Part 4

He only grimaced crookedly. "Let's make a couple more wishes," he taunted. "A couple of really good ones! How about a whole fleet of space ships, for instance? The biggest, most powerful fleet in the solar system! All automatic craft, capable of flying and maneuvering unmanned! Then, let's see, the other wish? It's not so difficult either. Both you and Arnold are my deadly enemies, Harwich. I think it would be fun to make my enemies squirm a little. I'd like to see you crack up, Harwich! You've always been so tough! So how about some kind of a discomfort device? Something really special? In short, a torture instrument! Come on, pretty machines! Do your stuff!"

Paul Arnold's face turned pale, but he bit his lip courageously. Evan Harwich studied the strange, wild light in the fat printer's squinted eyes, and waited for whatever would happen.

There was a crescendoing whir within that huge pyramidal coordinator. The man who had usurped the rule of the ancient Ionians over their mechanical servitors, had given his telepathic orders. Already there were signs of obedience. Thinking and planning was going on in that pyramid; thinking and planning more intricate than that of the greatest human wizard that had ever lived, more soulless and swift than that of an adding machine.

Presently, from far away, came a thin, shrill sound. Looking back through the darkened glass walls of the Tower room, Harwich and Arnold, both of them clutched, now, by the tentacles of the flat robot, saw a horde of black specks collecting against the sky in the pale sunlight outside. A flock of those flat, tentacled, flying things.

They seemed to emerge from an opening in the ground; from a vault where perhaps they'd been stored for ages. In a gigantic swarm they hovered over the glass cages and their pathetic animal inhabitants. Then, drifting like gulls away from this weird city of the Forbidden Moon, they moved off toward the surrounding hills.

There, like swarming bees, they settled in their tremendous numbers, on the open, arid valley. Flame tools in their tendrils were brought into play. Dust, reddened with heat, began to rise.

"They're leveling the ground!" Paul Arnold whispered hoarsely. "They must be preparing a shipyard!"

"Sure, kid," George Bayley laughed, trying to conceal the half-scared wonder in his own voice. "Maybe it'll take weeks for them to build the fleet I asked for! But they'll do it! You'll see, if I happen to let you live that long!"

* * * * *

The unholy wizardry of the Forbidden Moon was proven beyond all doubt. And in this weird Tower room, air-conditioned against the cold thinness of the atmosphere beyond its wall, the pyramid still throbbed a shrill portent of more to come.

A second robot mechanism soared into the chamber from a tunnel mouth. It bore a curious tripod-like instrument. The flying automaton spiralled down like a bubble, and came to rest beside Harwich and the youth. Pinioned by the tendrils of the other automaton, they were helpless to do anything but watch and submit. They were pushed flat on their backs, and held firmly. The tripod instrument was set up between them.

"The discomfort device, this must be!" Bayley gloated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "In just a few seconds there's going to be some fun, I'll bet! Now, Harwich and Arnold, I'm wishing you bad luck. Just a little foretaste of what I might wish later! Okay, pretty machines! Give my beloved enemies the works, just for a second."

Two rods of metal, projecting down from the tripod, were set in position by one of the automatons. One rod touched Harwich's skull, the other Paul Arnold's. A switch was moved.

There was no sound; but all of the patrol pilot's body seemed suddenly and maddeningly afire. To the very center of his mind, agony stabbed, viciously. No searing pain of any injury he had ever received, could have equaled this. He writhed, longing to scream his lungs out, as that moment of sheer hell seemed to last an age.

"God!" Paul gasped when it was over.

Both men were sweating and limp, and yet no visible harm had been done to their bodies. Artificial sensation, the torture must have been. Nerve impulses transmitted directly to the brain. A devilish, perverted achievement of superscience! Such agony might conceivably go on, in Satanic refinement, for months, without bringing death.

"You see, boys, I'm boss here as long as I stay in this little telepathy coop, where the old Ionians used to give their orders!" George Bayley hissed triumphantly. "All the wonders of the Forbidden Moon are mine to use, just as I see fit! There were just a bunch of machines here, waiting for somebody to control them. A pistol doesn't ask who pulls its trigger! And I got here first!"

"I was afraid of something like this when we were still on Ganymede, before any of us knew," Paul Arnold muttered raggedly.

And Evan Harwich understood very well what the youth meant. George Bayley was feeling that touch of power here. A sense of omnipotence was flattering his shallow ego, raising him in his own estimation to the level of some ruthless god. He, who had been a petty business man, a printer, a repairer of instruments, a loan shark! Just a crumby, fat little human being, ridiculous, small and conceited. Pathetic, too, stubborn, and lacking in judgment. There were many like him on Earth, and among the scattered spheres of Earth's interplanetary empire.

Maybe, after all, the wisdom of the Forbidden Moon was too big for the human race. Maybe they would have to grow themselves first, advance in evolution, before they would know how to handle and how to win real benefits from such wisdom.

"All right, Nero," Harwich growled contemptuously to Bayley. "I'll grant that you're in the driver's seat, ready to stop nowhere. Building a space fleet and all. But where is Clara Arnold?"

The patrol pilot asked the question with fear and doubt in his heart.

"Clara Arnold?" said Bayley almost casually. "Too damned clever for a girl! Said she thought I might have had something to do with the crackup of the RQ257. Said she was worried about Paul and you, too, Harwich, being maybe stranded still alive here on Io. But she said that she'd finally decided my promises weren't good for anything, anyway. That I'd have to rescue you two men first before she'd believe in me. Until then, our engagement was off."

Harwich felt a brief wave of elation, as he heard these words. Clara had seemed so quiet and timid; but she'd evidently proved herself plenty courageous and plenty smart.

"But where is she?" Harwich growled angrily. "Now, I mean!"

"Don't get excited," Bayley sneered. "She came to the Forbidden Moon with me, hoping to see you and the kid again. I left her locked in my rocket. But she can't mean much to me any more now! Not when they begin to hear about me all over the solar system! Just a passing fancy! I suppose I might just as well have the machines bring her here now, to see just how completely helpless you two dopes are!"

* * * * *

Harwich and Paul Arnold were still pinioned to the floor by the automatons; but in the patrol pilot's slitted eyes glowed the subdued light of murder, futilely smoldering. The fat printer was absolutely master now of Clara, the boy, and himself. In his stupid, cruel, shallow vanity, cosmic power the deeper secrets of which he could never have understood, had driven Bayley to madness; to megalomania. That clanging and that red glow from near the distant hills showed the extent of his ambitions beyond question. The slave machines were not building that colossal fleet of space warships for nothing! Armed with weapons beyond human knowledge, such a fleet would sweep in aggressive fury to even the remotest world within the field of the sun's gravity!

But Harwich's feelings changed briefly to relief, when Clara Arnold was brought into the Tower room by another of those metal slaves. The automaton removed from her a flexible, transparent covering, of evidently airtight material, a protection against the rarity of the Ionian atmosphere, probably, for in being taken from the airlock of Bayley's rocket to the air-conditioned Tower here, she would otherwise have been exposed to suffocation.

The machine set the girl down gently. She looked scared, her blonde hair was awry, as though, maybe, she'd struggled with the robot; but otherwise she was still all right.

She looked about in wondering terror; for what she saw was still a complete mystery to her, just as it had been to her brother and Evan Harwich a little while ago. No one had told her anything yet.

"Paul--Evan!" she stammered "What is all this here? This pyramid, and Bayley? What's happened? Tell me, somebody!"

"Take it easy, Clara," Harwich responded, trying to sound reassuring. "Everything will be all right!" he ended a little unconvincingly, trying to shield the girl from grim truth.

"Everything's all right already, Clara," Bayley assured her mockingly. "I've got these two men of yours just where they can do the least harm! How would you like to see 'em squirm a little? I've got a special device for that purpose, something very refined and painful! And I've got just about everything else! In a month's time I could give you the planet Earth, to wear in a ring around your finger, if I happened to want to."

"What's he talking about, Evan?" the girl pleaded again, the shadow of fear in her face deepening. "It sounds sort of awful! Please tell me. Why are those flat monsters holding you and Paul to the floor?"

"I told you to take it easy, Clara," Harwich returned with a trace of sternness. "This maniac, Bayley, has got the upper hand now, but I said everything would be all right, didn't I?"

The patrol pilot was trying again to reassure the girl, with a show of truculent bravado this time. He hoped that truculence would make his words sound true, as though he had a trump card up his sleeve, or something.

"All right in the end, Harwich?" the fat printer chuckled wickedly. "Well, the end's pretty close. In another minute you'll be too tortured to do anything but scream. Right now I'm thinking and wishing. Look, the automatons are getting that agony tripod ready again!"

It was true. Metal tentacles were whipping about, adjusting the torture rods to touch Harwich's and Paul Arnold's skulls again.

Everything will be all right! That statement was a mocking memory to the patrol pilot now. An empty, rash challenge to the man whose petty ego yearned to control even the solar system.

Harwich had never felt so completely helpless in his life before, not even when he had been suffocating out there on the deserts of the Forbidden Moon. If he could only somehow knock Bayley out of that little, pillared structure that served as a receiver for telepathic orders to the machines; if only he could replace him there for a second, then everything might be very, very different! But Harwich was held helpless to the pavement of the tower room. His massive muscles were useless against machine might!

Direct argument--an attempt to make Bayley see the narrowness and lack of originality in his colossal ambitions--he knew was equally futile. Bayley was stubborn and shallow and greedy. Besides, he would never admit that he was wrong, even if he felt the truth of it!

So Harwich felt utterly checkmated on every side. The clanging out there, the building of the space fleet, mocked him. The rustle of wheels in that huge pyramid coordinator mocked him. All the Aladdin-like miracles of the Forbidden Moon mocked him, pointing out his impotence to do anything, now.

He even wondered savagely why that great coordinator mechanism, with all its terrific powers, didn't revolt against the dominance of the puny human being that mastered it. But, of course, it would have no desire to revolt. It had no desires of any kind, no capacity for happiness or misery, no consciousness even. It was no more alive, no more sentient, than an adding machine. Only infinitely more complex. It invented things and it directed lesser mechanisms only by the rolling of the wheels and the surge of energy inside it. And it responded to telepathic control of whomever was there to give it, just as a space ship might respond to whomever was at its throttle.

Still, there had to be some way out of this mess! Harwich knew it wasn't just Clara and Paul and himself that were in danger. It was everything he knew and respected. Freedom. Liberty. Unless he and his companions were able to do something, a Dark Age would come, surely. An age of machines, ruled by a madman.

The rod of the torture instrument was touching his skull. In just another moment the agony would begin. But what was Paul Arnold muttering beside him?

"Evan, those animals in the cages! We thought they looked like men didn't we? Here's something else: Maybe they are men, in a way! Men who went backward in evolution; lost their intelligence."

* * * * *

No one but Harwich could have heard the boy, for he spoke in a very low tone. But at once the patrol pilot understood; grasped a part of the Ionian riddle that he had missed before. Machines. No thinking or work to do. Indolence. And then?

At once Harwich saw a way, a slim possibility to avert cosmic catastrophe. He couldn't appeal to Bayley's reason, but maybe he could appeal to his fears. He had to try it, anyway.

Suddenly the patrol pilot's lips curled in derision and contempt. "Bayley," he said, "you're an utter damned fool! You think you'll extend your power all over the solar system. Well, maybe you will do that; but in the end you'll be destroyed! You give the orders--sure! But do you understand the thing in that pyramid? It was made to serve, as all machines are. The ancient Ionians had it pretty nice for themselves, yes. But did you ever wonder what happened to them? _Where are they now? Do you know, Bayley?_"

Harwich's final question was a dry whisper, like the voice of some ghost of ages past.

"_Where are those ancient Ionians now, Bayley?_" he repeated.

No man could have escaped awe there in that tremendous Tower room, where all the mysteries of the eons seemed to be congregated, many of them hidden and unknown and perhaps dangerous. George Bayley's eyes were suddenly very big. Quite evidently there were many things that he had not thought about. His gaze lingered momentarily on the great throbbing pyramid, inscrutable there in this huge dusky chamber.

"Stop trying to bluff me, you crazy idiot!" the fat printer stormed at last. "The Ionians are extinct, of course!"

Harwich managed to grin wolfishly. "If you believe that, Bayley, do you want to follow them into extinction?" he questioned. "Yes, they mastered science. They conquered even the problem of the thinning atmosphere and the loss of moisture and heat on their dying world. But after they turned their science over to the machines, something happened to them. Their numbers began to grow less, yes. They lost control of their empire, which must have included all the moons of--Jupiter. But they didn't completely die out, Bayley! Something happened to those Ionians that was far worse! Do you know what it was, Bayley? Do you want the same thing to happen to you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" the printer stammered furiously, fear of the unknown spreading over his plump face.

"No, those ancient people of the Forbidden Moon didn't become completely extinct," Harwich continued. "I believe you can see quite a few of them from the Tower room here. The walls are semi-transparent, and those cages outside aren't far away. They're full of Ionians. Sluglike, brainless monstrosities without even intelligence enough or will enough to wish any more!"

Harwich paused to let the facts sink into George Bayley's mind.

"That's them!" the patrol pilot continued. "It's an old theory that any race has to keep struggling, thinking, working; otherwise it goes backwards. By using their brains and muscles, Earthmen developed from apish ancestors, you know. But here the Ionians had everything done for them. So evolution was reversed. They lost their intelligence. And now, what are they? Stupid beasts, tended by machines that follow the original orders of long ago to take care of them. Worse than animals in a zoo."

Bayley's eyes were fairly popping, as he stared through the semi-transparent walls of the Tower room. Doubtless he could see those creatures in their air-conditioned habitations. Just helpless, squirming, incubator freaks!

"I wondered what they were--why they were here," Bayley stammered.

Harwich almost believed at first that he had won a point with the obese loan shark--scared him out of most of his wild ambitions. But then, gradually, he saw Bayley's expression grow a trifle less tense. It was just as Harwich had feared. The printer was beginning to realize that it must have taken countless generations to degenerate to their present sorry state. The same condition could not affect him personally. When Bayley saw this truth, he would be the same megalomaniac as before.

There was only that one slim chance left for Harwich. Bayley's attention was strongly diverted now. But in a few seconds more, he would be himself again.

Was the grip of the metal tentacles that held Harwich a little looser than before, now, because Bayley, the master of machines, had his mind so intensely on other things, and away from the thought of giving telepathic commands?

In a sudden, savage lunge, Harwich jerked free from the automaton that held him to the floor. His clothing was torn and his flesh scraped, but what did this matter? Everything depended on instant action. The patrol pilot leaped past Paul Arnold, and his sister, Clara, who had only watched and listened while he had talked with such grim truth to Bayley.

* * * * *

Already the flat, glittering robot was after Harwich, but he continued his surprise rush toward the roofed, pillared kiosk that was the receiver for telepathic orders.

His attack ended in a dying tackle. Bayley was drawing his heat pistol, but before he could fire it, Harwich's weight struck him. There, together, in the kiosk, they wrestled and fought. At last there was a chance for the patrol pilot to bring his massive muscles into play. He swung his heavy fists, and all the fury of weeks of hardship and misfortune were back of his blows. Bayley tottered away from under the kiosk, and for a second Harwich stood there free.

He was in the position of control at last; but Bayley had his pistol out and aimed, now. Clara was screaming as the fat man pressed the trigger.

It was too late for Harwich to marshal his thoughts properly. He was only able to will that the automaton behind him should cease attacking him. He could not call to his aid any of the great science of Io, in time.

With the speed of light, a slender pencil of intense heat waves from Bayley's pistol, struck his side and burned straight through his body. No bullet could have drilled a neater hole. Harwich's legs collapsed under him, and he lay writhing there within the kiosk.

A split second later the heat pistol in Bayley's hand spat again. Turning weakly, Harwich saw Clara crumple and go down. In another instant, Paul became the third victim.

"You're done, Harwich!" the fat printer was yelling triumphantly. "You're finished, all of you!"

But by now the patrol man's seething flood of hate had registered. He was within the telepathy kiosk; and if he had ever willed instant destruction for anyone, he willed it now, for Bayley. Under other circumstances he might not have felt so vengeful, but his ebbing pulses blazed with fury.

There was a click within that vast, slumberous pyramid, that loomed like a grim god in this shadowy place of enigmas. The automaton that had recently held Harwich captive, seemed to move like a maddened animal, created out of pure lightning. Its tentacles whipped around Bayley long before he could fire again. Harder than steel cable, the tendrils tightened, like the coils of a python.

There was a choked cry of terror and anguish, and then a sickening, crunching, squashing sound, as flesh and bone and blood oozed between those constricting metal loops.

It was almost the last thing that Evan Harwich saw. He was mortally wounded, a slender hole bored through his side.

Harwich's last delirium was a dream. A silly dream, maybe. Clara and he together. A little house. Fancifully he pictured its details. Maybe a mining concession somewhere here among the moons of Jupiter, too. An orderly life. Not all this hectic battling with unknown dangers any more. He was a little tired of adventure, a little tired of being space patrol pilot, too. He could resign.

Somewhere, Evan Harwich's fanciful thinking came to an end.

* * * * *

He awoke suddenly. Paul Arnold was shaking him.

"On your feet, you big lug!" the boy was yelling happily. "There's not a thing wrong with you, now! Clara and I have been awake for half an hour."

Harwich staggered erect, grumbling confusedly, his stiff, black hair awry. He'd been lying on a divan. The room around him was almost familiarly furnished, except for slightly fantastic details of decoration. The windows were wide, and beyond them there was a sort of yard, with freshly planted trees. Over the whole setup there was a fine crystal airdrome.

"What the heck! Where in the name of sense are we?" Harwich burst out in startled pleasure.

He looked first at Paul Arnold, and then at Clara, whose amber eyes were twinkling with secretive mischief. It was as though the two had some sort of joke up their sleeves.

Harwich glanced again out of the window. Beyond the airdome, glinting and new, was what looked like improved mining equipment. Cropping out of the ground was the grayish, shiny stuff of a rich ore lode. And there was a space ship, too; bright and slender and strange, but it looked plenty serviceable!

"Where are we, anyway?" Harwich demanded again, still completely in the dark. "Does either of you two know?"

"Still on Io, evidently!" Paul Arnold breezed with a taunting grin. "Same kind of hills and general character of country! When Bayley shot me, I passed out. I didn't know anything more until I woke up here a little while ago!"

"But this layout, Paul!" Harwich growled. "This house and this mining stuff! How come? You've got some kind of an answer in mind, I'm sure, by the way you look! I give up. Spill the gag!"

"Okay, Evan," said the boy. "I really do think I've got that part figured out! After Bayley shot you with the heat-pistol, you were lying in that telepathy kiosk in the Tower room. Consciously or unconsciously, you must have done some wishing there, before your brain blacked out."

Harwich gasped. So that was it! He'd wanted to be alive, though he had been mortally wounded. And so he was! His shirt was open. There was a neat round scar on his chest, left by the heat-ray burn, and evidence of careful supersurgery! The automatons of the Forbidden Moon had saved his life. Probably Clara's and Paul's lives, too. All while they were unconscious! The house, the garden, the mine!

"Our miracle hunt on the Forbidden Moon hasn't turned out so badly," Paul Arnold remarked. "But so far it's been a lot different from what Dad or you or I could have anticipated. This place looks like a nice family setup, Evan. Did you wish include anybody besides yourself?"

Harwich flushed, and looked sheepish. Clara, there, was definitely blushing, but she was smiling, too.

The ex patrol pilot managed a nervous grin. "I guess you got me there, Paul," he said. "Now, if it's all right with you, Clara, I don't know whether I have to say it or not, since it's a dead giveaway. But will you marry me?"

He got it out, feeling that it had been an awful job. But Clara smiled happily.