Part 4

"You and Tahn will stay with him," I told Vivian. And Shorty and I had decided that Blaine had best stay also. For once Blaine had to do something against his will.

"Think I'm too old to help you young fellows now?" he said. "All right, maybe I am."

Certainly he was in no physical condition to be much help in the desperate venture we were planning. He handed me the Radak-gun, showed me how to use it. I dropped it in my pocket.

"Good luck to you," Blaine said.

"Thanks. We'll need it," I acknowledged.

Then Shorty, Taro and I left them. Taro had hidden the only weapons he could get, near here. We found them--sheathed knives that the Lei used in the underground fields. They were odd-shaped knives; they seemed made of a highly polished, metallic stone. I thumbed one. It was sharp.

"Very handy," Shorty commented. "Come on, Taro, let's go. Where is this Cavern of Machines?"

It was perhaps half an Earth-mile, low down in the maze of underground passages. Shorty clutched his knife; I held the Radak-gun as we followed Taro down the dim, descending crimson tunnel.

V

"There's one of the guards!" Shorty whispered. "See him?"

I pushed Shorty back. "No, two of them! The other one's sitting down. You and Taro keep behind me. I'll tackle them with the Radak-gun."

We could see the square grey figures of two Radaks down the little length of tunnel ahead of us. They were by an opening that seemed to lead sharply downward, with a glow of radiance streaming up. And now in the heavy underground silence we could hear the faint muffled thrum and whine of mechanisms.

My hand silently gripped Taro. All three of us crouched. "That's the entrance to the Cavern of Machines?" I whispered.

"Yes."

"Two guards. Are there liable to be more of them around?"

Taro shook his head. "I think not. Though I cannot surely say."

"The machines are operating," Shorty said. "Hear them? That means only the Great Mind, or Ratan will be down there in the Cavern?"

"Yes," the young Lei agreed.

"It's most likely not Ratan," I said. "Blaine got him--struck him insensible. Or would he be recovered by now?"

Taro had no way of guessing. With an ordinary Radak the shock would have lasted longer than this. "But Ratan's mind is trained--developed--more powerful as you would say. He could recover more quickly."

"Are there other entrances?" Shorty asked. "They'd have guards at them. If we make any commotion down there, and a bunch of Radaks come rushing us--"

"This is the only entrance."

"Right," Shorty chuckled. "Come on then, let's finish off these fellows." He fingered his knife. "You tackle 'em with that gun, Bob. But if you miss, trust me--I'll slip this knife into them--"

With Taro and Shorty behind me I crept soundlessly forward. In my hand the pot bellied little Radak gun, so unfamiliar, gave me an uneasy feeling. Suppose I should miss. An uproar from these guards might bring dozens of others.

"How close do I have to get?" I whispered to Taro.

"This now--close enough."

One of the Radaks was standing up, lounging with his back to the wall. The other was lying down. To send my flash clinging to the heads of both of them, I would have to shift my aim, and fire twice. My hand trembled a little. Then I pressed the lever.

There was that vaguely visible flash. The gun-hilt in my grip vibrated, and at the muzzle of it there was a faint little hiss. A hit! The Radak on the ground seemed to stiffen. He raised his head, staring blankly. The Radak who was standing noticed it. He started, whirled around toward us. It took all my will power to withhold my second flash for that instant. But I did; and then as the standing figure steadied, I fired again.

"Got him!" Shorty murmured. "Good work, Bob! Come on!"

We ran forward. The standing Radak was motionless, gazing with vacant stare. Shorty dashed up to him. "Lie down, you're asleep! If you're not, you ought to be."

But the Radak did not move, just turned his empty gaze toward the sound of Shorty's voice. I got it. "They don't speak English! Tell them, Taro."

The Lei murmured commandingly in his own language, and in a moment the two guards were lying inert with closed eyes.

"Mighty neat," Shorty whispered. "Come on--here we go."

Beyond the guards an earthen ramp led sleepily downward, winding to a circular spiral. Then presently we emerged upon a little ledge with the great Cavern of Machines spread out before us.

"Crouch down! We will see who is here," Taro whispered. There was awe in his voice. "We must not be seen until we attack."

It was a huge, vault-like cavern, with glowing roof high over our heads, and we were about twenty feet above its lower level, with a narrow, steep ramp leading down from near us. I saw that it was a weird, dim grotto, lurid with swaying, prismatic glows of colored radiance, and throbbing, humming with a myriad mechanical voices. Distant railed terraces held frameworks of metal, where opalescent tubes were glowing. Beams of light-radiance seemed to carry the power from one strange mechanism to the next, like wires connecting them in series. No Lei, no ordinary Radak, and certainly least of all us Earthmen, could by any chance have understood the scientific details of what we were seeing.

I recall there was a convergence of beams, high up in mid-air at the center of the cavern, where a shower of tiny electrolyte sparks glittered like a fountain of pyrotechnics. And out of it a narrow concentrated beam of violet-purple glow shot upward to a grid in the ceiling--the gravitational force, doubtless, which from there was conducted to some point above where it was hurled into Space.

How long I stared, awed, I have no idea. Then I was aware of Taro beside me, whispering, "It is the Great Mind who is down there. He has just come into sight--down by that yellow glow."

The floor of the cavern held a dozen or more of the huge mechanisms, and in the center of them there was a throbbing space that seemed to hold the controls of all these intricate machines. Down there in the weird glow we could now see the lone figure of the ancient Radak leader--shriveled and bent, he moved around, occasionally reaching to shift some lever or make some adjustment.

"He must not see us coming!" Taro whispered. His voice was tense. And on his face now as the multi-colored glow bathed it, there was unmistakable terror. This young Lei, like all his people, born and bred to fear the dominance of the Great Mind--to attack that little figure, to Taro was almost unthinkable. Taro had planned this; dreamed of it. But faced with it now, there was only terror sweeping him, so that had he been here alone, easily he could have turned and fled.

Shorty and I had no such inhibitions.

"What in the devil," Shorty murmured. "He's got a Radak-gun--sure, I've no doubt of it. We've got to duck that. But once I get close to him--" Shorty's gesture with his knife was significant.

For minutes more we tensely waited. Then we got down the ramp without being seen, and on the lower floor we crouched between two of the giant whining machines.

"Easy now!" I whispered. "You two--keep behind me--"

I held the Radak-gun in my hand. We waited another moment; then ducked forward and crouched again, behind a great glowing mechanism through which two beams of colored light were passing. We were only some twenty feet from the leader now. Close enough for my shot, or for us to rush him. He was bending down over a glowing dial. Green light from it streamed upward, bathed his weird mummy-like countenance so that suddenly he seemed like some horrible ghoul intent upon a task diabolic, gruesome.

"Let him have it!" Shorty whispered. "Now's your chance!"

I must confess my heart was racing, with a sudden nameless premonition of terror. Thoughts are instant things. I tried to tell myself that this was just a weazened old man. Helpless, with three of us about to leap on him. Of course he was helpless! With sudden relief I saw that he had discarded his belt. It hung on the peg of a rack, several feet away from him--his belt, with his Radak-gun! Shorty saw it at the same instant.

"There's his gun, Bob! He can't reach it! We've got him!"

Of course ... I leveled my weapon. I was sighting it ... I shall always wonder if my racing thoughts were projected then to warn the Radak leader. Or did he sense us in some other way? I was standing a little out into an aisle between two big mechanisms when suddenly he lifted his head, turned and saw me. The movement, and my own startled reaction, spoiled my aim ... Mustn't fire until I was sure....

I recall that in that split-second I was aware that the old Radak had not moved. He was just staring at me with glittering eyes and his shrunken grey face horrible with the intensity of his menace. He knew of course that he couldn't reach his weapon. He didn't try....

* * * * *

Just a helpless, weazened old man. But as I sighted my gun I was aware of the power radiating from him. The power of his mind, pitted now against mine; his will commanding me to drop my weapon and my own brain demanding my muscles to sight it, to fire it. Conflict most horrible. It was as though every fibre of me was being outraged, seared and torn. My nerves screaming.... And my mind was screaming--kill him! Got to kill him now!... Don't drop the gun! Hold your fingers tight!

But I could feel my fingers loosening their grip. The muzzle was swaying. Everything seemed blurring before me, swimming into a phantasmagoria of horror.... It was all in a second or two. I heard Shorty mutter a startled oath beside me. But it was Taro, despite that he must have been unutterably frightened, who kept his wits. He uttered a grim shout, jumped to his feet, sidewise away from me.

It did what Taro had hoped. For just an instant that baleful gaze left me, fastened on Taro. Then it swung back--but in that instant I had recovered myself, leveled the gun and fired.

New horror! The Radak leader's gaze, again on me, seemed to meet the flash of my gun in mid-air between us. I could imagine there must have been a conflict there--a little almost soundless, almost invisible puff of deranged vibrations. And the derangement must have been forced backward to me. All in the flash of a thought. To my conscious mind there was only my pressing the gun-lever, and then a bursting explosion at my hand as the Radak-gun flew into fragments! One of them struck my forehead; I staggered back, went down. But I was aware that Shorty, with Taro close after him, had leaped--Shorty, with knife upraised, his catapulting body hitting the crouching, ghoul-like figure.

Shorty thinks now his knife never reached its mark. There was just the impact of his body, knocking the weazened figure backward. The Radak screamed a shrill, weirdly horrible cry. But it ended in a gurgle--just for an instant, a gruesome, liquid gurgle. Then there was only Shorty's gasp of horror.

I was scrambling to my feet. I crouched, stricken, staring. Shorty had drawn back, standing staring. And Taro too had checked his rush. All three of us, frozen with revulsion. On the floor, weird in a green-red glow from a nearby machine, the weazened, mummy body of the Radak lay huddled. A thing which had been nearly all of mental quality. And now it had encountered a physical blow, to which every atom of its weird makeup was foreign.

And what a second before had been living, solid substance now was dissolving! The clothes sagged, deflated. A bubbling ooze was where the face had been. Just a brief moment, and then before us the Radak's garments lay crumpled and flat in a little pool of stenching putrescence!

I turned away, sickened. Then Shorty recovered himself. "It--that damned thing screamed! Others will come--"

"Hurry now! Smash the machines! It is what we came for--" Taro gasped.

I made a leap for the control panels; then stopped, whirled around. There was a cry from behind and above me. On a narrow, railed little balcony which connected with the ramp down which we had come, the figure of a Radak was standing! A tall grey shape! It was Ratan, though I did not know who it was then. He had a knife in his hand, and he was in the act of leaping over the rail to land upon me! I had no time to avoid him. His body came sprawling, landed on my shoulders, bore me down.

* * * * *

Simultaneously I was aware that Shorty and Taro were smashing at the control apparatus. It crackled, tinkled like breaking glass, with a huge flash of colored light and sparks that sent Shorty and Taro reeling backward, dazed so that they did not see what was happening to me. Then they were up, at it again, hurling broken fragments of the controls at the nearby grids, tubes and prisms. And in that same second, the multi-colored flash spread--deranged--weird current. Like burning powder-trains it leaped everywhere around the grotto. Puffs, sparks of fountain-glare, the hissing, whining, screeching of breaking machines....

On the floor I struggled with Ratan on top of me. He had no gun--just a long, thin knife with polished blade that glittered as he tried to thrust it into my throat. My own knife was gone. I reached, clutched at the grey wrist, turning the knife so that it went past my throat. Then I heaved upward. In the struggle Ratan dropped his knife and neither of us could reach it. Locked together we rolled, pummeling, scrambling. Then I knew that I had him. My fist landed on his hawk-nosed grey face--a solid blow that made him scream with revulsion and pain.

Then I had heaved him off, staggered to my feet. I seemed to be in a cloud of yellow-green, choking, acrid vapour through which only dimly I could see Ratan struggling erect. And there was Shorty's voice:

"Bob! Bob, where are you? Got to get out of here! Taro--Taro--"

It seemed that somewhere near me, Taro was coughing, choking. Then I realized that the shape of Ratan was plunging at me through the heavy chemical smoke. I was swaying, but I squared off, hit him solidly in the face again. He went down, and I leaped on him, lifting his head and shoulders, then banging his head back against the corner of a mechanism-frame--pounding it again and again until suddenly I was aware that it had smashed and was dripping upon me.

With a shudder I cast the inert body away and leaped to my feet.

"Bob! Got to get out of here! Taro--" Shorty was still shouting.

Green-yellow vapour was swirling around me. Electrolyte flashes seemed everywhere--the whole grotto, an inferno of pyrotechnics. Then I saw the figure of Shorty staggering to help Taro from where he had fallen. I swayed and joined them.

"That ramp," I gasped. "Behind us! Come on--"

We tried to hold our breath as we staggered up the ramp. Then there seemed a little puff of breathable air. As we plunged into the exit tunnel, for an instant I turned. The big grotto was alive with swirling turgid smoke and flames and leaping, bursting light-fire. And a bedlam of weird bursting sounds. The death of the monstrous Radak science, screaming with its agony of dissolution.

Coughing and choking, we ran up the tunnel, with the sounds and the glare fading behind us; and the pure air reviving us.

"All the Radaks will be after us," Shorty panted. "Faster, Taro!"

Distant cries were all around us in the maze of tunnels. The alarm was spreading everywhere. We saw a few plunging Radak shapes, but were able to avoid them.

Taro was leading us; I gripped him as we ran. "You say you know where they keep their space-flyer?"

"Yes. Not far from Blaine and the others."

Then we reached the girls and Blaine, who were crouching in that tunnel recess with the still unconscious Mack. Vivian and Tahn just stared at us white-faced, with little cries of relief.

Blaine gasped, "You did it!"

"We sure did," Shorty agreed. "Come on--the space-ship--"

"You and I--we'll carry Mack--" I said. Shorty nodded, and we lifted him.

Carrying Mack slowed us. But his emaciated body was light. In a moment I slung him over my shoulders, and with Shorty steadying him, we made better speed. It wasn't far, but there were Radak figures everywhere now. Weirdly, only one of them came near us. Shorty and Taro were ready to attack him. The squat little shape came plunging along a side tunnel, apparently heading for us. He seemed to be gibbering, mouthing, then screaming. But he ignored us, running, knife in hand, until he bashed himself into a rock....

* * * * *

We ran on, and then suddenly I realized that we had emerged into that huge underground space where first we had met the Great Mind. Taro ran toward a wall, found some hidden mechanism. I saw, in the crimson radiance, that by the wall a hundred yards or so away, a big slide had opened. A small, gleaming, pot-bellied cylinder was standing there. It came automatically out on rollers, and stopped in the open--a little thirty foot Space-flyer. And over it, high up, the ceiling of the vast cavern seemed to have opened; the murky purple-red of the sky was up there.

All this I saw in those few seconds. But there was far more here. A turmoil of sounds and moving, milling figures. A scene of weird, ghastly horror so that for a moment I stood swaying with the limp body of Mack slung over my shoulders and my companions clustered around me. Down the slope where the little Lei village stood under the trees in the red gloom, a crowd of Lei were struggling. And everywhere among them, squat grey shapes of Radaks were plunging.... Radaks with knives and scimitar-like swords, and some with rock-chunks and bludgeons ... Radaks screaming, running amok. I saw one lunge with a knife at a Lei woman. The knife went into her and she fell; and the Radak kept on going until he crashed into a tree.

The Great Mind was dead. Ratan, who might have taken his place, was dead. The Mental Force of all this little Radak world was gone. The Lei themselves had not been under its control. For generations they had been cowed, terrified into sullen obedience, but that was all. With the Radaks it was different. They were born, bred and trained to be automatons. To think what they were told to think. Mentally dominated, controlled so that the very essence of their mind was shaped and held together by their leader.

And now they had no leader! For them, there was nothing left but mental chaos, so that gibbering with the insanity of minds unhinged, they were plunging here in wild, unreasoning chaos, obeying their instinct to kill.

"My people--I must help them!" Taro's unutterable horror at last found voice. He would have plunged down the slope with his young wife after him. But Vivian seized Tahn, clung to her. I shouted at Shorty,

"Hold him! Don't let him go!"

Shorty hung on to him. "No, you don't!"

"You can't help them!" I protested. "And we can't operate the space-ship! You want Earth-people to help your world--got to get back there, we--"

The words died in my throat. We all saw that none of us could get to the Lei now, even if we had tried. A group of a hundred or more of the screaming, gibbering Radaks had swept between us and the Lei village. But the way to the space-ship still seemed open. We ran for it. One of the Radaks, by chance perhaps, turned toward us; and all the ones near him, like sheep followed him. A horde of grey, maniac Things charging us....

We got to the gleaming little cylinder with only an instant to spare--reached it, tumbled through its doorway. I laid Mack on the white grid of its floor. Shorty banged the door-slide, hanged it as the bodies of the Radaks thudded against it. Taro ran for the controls and in another instant the little ship quivered and lifted.

There was a transparent bulls-eye window panel near me. For a second I had a glimpse of horrible, snarling, maniac faces pressed against it. Then they fell away; and in a moment we were out through the upper opening, slanting upward with the crimson surface of little Zelos dropping down. Then we were in space, with the brilliant, beautiful miracle of the Universe glittering around us....

* * * * *

I think there is little more I need add. You have all heard and read, of course, of the events of this past year. The secret of space-flying! We have it now. Earth-scientists, studying the Radak ship, had no difficulty in constructing others far larger. Fortunately our Earth-materials proved adaptable; there was nothing vital that we lacked. Many large ships were swiftly built, and an armed force went to Zelos. Haste was necessary, as you will recall, for when the mechanisms of the Radaks were smashed, it was soon found that the Crimson Comet was plunging directly toward our Sun.

J. Walter Blaine wanted no publicity when he freely gave the millions necessary for the scientific research and the myriad activities which went into the building of the space-ships. You all offered your own donations, and they were refused only because Blaine felt he had earned the privilege of financing the enterprise. He wants me now to extend his thanks to you.

Our first expedition to Zelos was when, in its Sunward plunge, it had crossed our Earth-orbit and was at its closest point to us. And the expedition found that no more than a thousand of the Lei had been killed by the maniac Radaks, who in those terrible hours after our departure, plunged around, screaming until they bashed themselves to destruction, or were killed by the Lei.

Taro and Tahn were with our first expedition to the doomed little world, and they stayed there throughout all the several trips of the many big ships which evacuated the Lei.

I am glad that it was finally decided not to bring the Lei here to Earth. They would have been just curiosities here; and then lost, whirled away into the maelstrom of our huge world. Surely it was the best of good fortune for them when our exploring ships found that Venus was uninhabited, and with conditions for life so propitious.

And now the Lei, with Taro and Tahn to lead them, are masters of a great world of their own. With the friendly world of Earth nearest to them. Surely we will prove a helpful, friendly, neighboring world, with no greedy thought of anything more than that.

Zelos is gone now. I was one of those who saw it go--that night about a month ago. It was a little dot in the sky, with a great flaming streamer of the Sun licking upward as though eager to meet it. And then it was gone.

I recall the earnest solicitations of so many of you who prayed that Mack would get well. He wants me to thank you all again. I saw him only last week, in the little mountain home where he and Vivian went after their wedding trip. That astoundingly pretentious wedding they had--well, that was because Blaine insisted on doing it. He may insist again, if and when a layette is needed. I don't know about that. But Mack, who now has an executive position in one of Blaine's many industries, got their little house himself. He and Vivian remained firm on that.

And as I said at the beginning, you must see now that none of us are glamorous heroes. We're all at our regular jobs, with the Crimson Comet just a gruesome memory.

So now, kind friends--please forget us. Except me. I'm certainly no hero, but, well, I won't mind if you'll remember that I broadcast twice a week on subjects of Popular Astronomy--Station WANA-NYC.