Part 3

The words brought a terrified cry from Setta. "If only Bragg will be brought here to us," she murmured. "I think I can get us outside to watch the marriages. The Master has never been angry at me. And once we are outside with a chance to run for the ship--"

Futile, desperate plans. But they were all we could devise. We huddled now on the sofa, waiting for Bragg. All of us were unarmed. Even if we had been armed, of what use would a knife or a bullet-weapon be against this multiple monster? A thing impregnable to human attack....

Then I was questioning Dora about that strange thing the Supreme One had said--that Torkine had known her many years ago.

"After my father and mother died," Dora was telling me now, "before I met you, Tom, I lived in that home with my Uncle. Mrs. Holten was our housekeeper."

Dora had always seemed reticent about her young girlhood; I had known her only about a year. When she was about twelve, her uncle had been working to give the secret of spaceflight to the world. It was he who had, in secret, constructed the space-disc. Dora had known about it only vaguely; and had been warned to keep secret what little she knew. Torkine had been her uncle's assistant; and him, as a little girl, she had hated and feared.

"He--he tried to kiss me one day," she was telling us now. "You, Tom--you understand? It terrified me so that I screamed, and then my uncle came and I told him."

Torkine had been discharged by her uncle; and later her uncle had heard that he was in prison. Then there was the jailbreak, and shortly after that her uncle's experimental ship, and himself also, had vanished.

"He stole the ship, and killed your uncle?" I murmured.

"Yes. He told me that, while we were coming here."

* * * * *

I could understand so much more of this weird thing now! It was no chance that had directed Bragg to Dora and me as we sat listening to the concert. Torkine had sent him to lure us to some spot where we could be seized without creating an alarm. And it wasn't chance which enabled us to be attacked in Dora's home. Torkine knew where her home was located.

"Was it Bragg, or Torkine himself who came with the Physicals and caught us?" I demanded.

"Torkine," she said. "He told me they killed Mrs. Holten just before we arrived."

My mind leaped back.... My little laboratory there in which I had just completed the small ray-weapon. The paralyzing ray. In our frightened haste when we had arrived and found Mrs. Holten gone, I had glanced into the laboratory, but had not thought of my ray-model. Had Torkine forced Mrs. Holten to tell her what work was being done there? She knew about the weapon. Had Torkine taken it?

The little brown-skinned, brown-clad Martian girl, Setta, was at one of the windows now, standing there with Johnny; and they motioned us silently to come. The guarding Physicals on this side of the house had drawn back a little, but still we could see them, a line of gruesome motionless shapes. Their eyes glowed like points of fire in the darkness. Behind them there was a dark area of open rocks between the house of the monster and the Earth Village. Humans were moving about, always with little groups of Physicals guarding them.

The bustle of activity out there was growing. For half an hour past we had been aware of the sound of men's voices; the voices of girls, sometimes laughing, sometimes with little cries of terror.

"Look," Johnny murmured. "The dais for the wedding couples. They're lighting it."

Earth tubelights, with batteries attached, were glowing now, mounted on the rocks. Their colored radiance illumined a small ledge of rock like a little natural dais which faced the glowing house of the monster. And now we saw a group of Earthmen gathered near the dais. Torkine's original band of criminals. Some had jugs in their hands from which occasionally they drank. Alcoholite, I had no doubt. There were some twenty of them, with others occasionally joining them. Their muttering laughter floated to us.

Johnny Blair bent toward me. "Something going on among those fellows--look at that."

A group of Earth-girls were passing the dais, herded toward its entrance steps by a line of Physicals. Some of the roistering men reached for the girls as they went by. The Physicals with popping anger checked them. The half-drunken men desisted. Some jibed at the girls with coarse comment; but others muttered to themselves--low, defiant curses. I felt myself shuddering. There was smoldering revolt out there. Torkine's men, inflamed now by the alcoholite so that what for a long time they and their leader might have been planning, they now forgot to disguise. It was as though here were a little spark trembling above a pit of horrible explosive--a spark which at any moment might hurl us all to death.

"They've never been like this before," Johnny muttered anxiously. "By Heaven, if the Physicals turn on them, and on us--"

"If only Bragg would come," Setta murmured.

A scream out in the night made her words die in her throat. A man's scream of agony, blood-curdling with its ghastly shrillness. And Setta, here in the dim room with us, echoed it.

"Bragg!"

It sounded again, mingled now with the hissing, popping little voices of the Physicals. Gruesome, ghastly tragedy being enacted now within the House of the Supreme One! Bragg's screams were horrible, but brief. All in a moment they were dying into terrible agonized moans--Bragg's tortured death in the grip of the angered multiple monster.

And suddenly the frenzied little Setta was rushing from us to the room-door.

"No!" Johnny shouted. "Come back!"

We jumped for her but she eluded us; rushed out. And then we saw her outside for just a brief, horrible glimpse. A group of Physicals rushed at her; seized her, but she fought them. And then suddenly they were pulling at her. Little box-like parts of the great monster with an inhuman, incredible strength ... pulling at her arms and her legs ... like Johnny Blair's young wife....

I seized Dora, pressed her head against my side. "Don't look, Dora. Dear God!"

I could not look myself after a moment.

"I am ready for you now, Dora Franklin." Physicals were here in the room with us, advancing upon Dora! The voice of one of them crisply added:

"Come with me, Dora Franklin."

Even with what I had seen and heard outside, I tensed to resist. But I came to my senses as Johnny tremblingly seized me, and Dora screamed:

"No! No, Tom!"

Then the Physicals had taken her from me. Three or four of them remained here in the room with Johnny and me; the others herded Dora away. Then from the window we saw her as they led her to the dais. Torkine's men called at her with coarse, drunken comment as she went past them.

And now the House of the Monster was opening. The radiant barrage which had formed its walls and roof slowly dissolved so that the huge, weird Being was exposed. Giant glowing thing spread there on the rocks. Its big central eye appraisingly roved the weird night-scene. And then its hollow, toneless, central voice was intoning names. The men and girls whom now it was to marry.

"... and Karl Torkine to Dora Franklin, both of Earth. And Sela Sirran, Mars, to Irene Jarrod, of Earth."

Slaves, matched and mated by the decisions of the Great Master.

Then I saw the big figure of Torkine. The colored tubelight gleamed on his leering face as with his arm around the trembling Dora he led her up onto the marriage dais and faced the glowing spread of the Supreme One.

* * * * *

It was a fantastic, weird ceremony. The varicolored tubelights gleamed down upon the couples who stood ranged along the front edge of the dais. Men and women of three great planets, facing the gruesome multiple monster which here on its own little world was Omnipotent. Its toneless voice was droning now with the ritual it had devised; and at intervals, trained by the Physicals, the couples on the dais bowed, gestured and then knelt with foreheads to the ground in supplication and homage to the Supreme One. Little grey-skinned Venus girls in their gaudy robes; brown-skinned, black-haired young women of Mars; the Earth-girls and young men.

But I had eyes only for Dora, as she knelt with the big Torkine beside her. The light gleamed on her long, pale-blonde hair which fell in great gleaming ripples over her shoulders. Then she and Torkine and the others stood up; and I saw her terrified face.

At the window Johnny and I stood breathless. Watching us, Physicals were ranged across the dim room behind us. I had no thought of them. Helpless, utterly despairing now, I stood gazing out at the weird, eerie night-scene. The group of Torkine's men still gathered at the back of the dais. Their muttering voices mingled with the drone of the Supreme One. Abruptly my heart leaped. One or two of the drunken men had started to climb to the dais. And one suddenly called:

"Why wait, Torkine? Why--"

Like a spark in gunpowder. The Supreme One's voice droned on; but one of the Physicals jumped and jerked the man from the dais. It made a commotion off there. Two others of Torkine's men reached and plucked at the flowing robe of a Venus girl. The man being married to her turned with an oath, jumped and dealt a blow with his fist. There was a scuffle, and the Venus man was pulled down from the dais.

Suddenly there was a milling, spreading chaos. In a fringe at the edge of the light-sheen the spread of rocks was filled with a watching, motley crowd of humans from the three little villages. I saw the crowd wavering; the front ranks pressing backward and those behind shoving forward, trying to see better.

Like fire in prairie grass the milling movement widened. Human voices shouting in terror, and in drunken anger. Darting little Physicals, with popping, commanding voices. Then one of the Physicals emitted a flash. A man screamed and dropped.

"Tom--Oh, look at Torkine!" I was aware that Johnny was gripping me. Up on the dais in the midst of the commotion the big figure of Torkine was standing motionless. His left arm was around Dora who in terror sagged against him. The light revealed clearly his pale, handsome face, and I saw again that leering, triumphant smile. And now his right hand was fumbling under his flaring, gaudy jacket.

Perhaps the monster itself in that instant was startled at the magnitude of this human commotion. The droning central voice abruptly ceased. In the room behind me I was aware that the Physicals had darted back through the doorway and gone outside. And on the dais the leering, triumphant Torkine suddenly brought his right hand from under his jacket. He was leveling a weapon! My ray-gun! My paralyzing vibration-projector!

This, then, was what Torkine had been planning! This was what had inspired drunken boldness among his men! Torkine was leveling it now at the glowing, quivering spread of the Supreme One!

In that tense, breathless second I was aware that Johnny and I were leaning out over the sill of the window, numbly staring. And then Torkine fired my vibration-gun! Its hissing, infra-red bolt spat down into the palpitating spread of the great rooted, multiple monster! There was a split-second when it seemed to me as though all the world hung breathless, pregnant with expectancy of horror.

* * * * *

And the horror came, with a rushing, spreading tumult. Down in the glowing mass of the great circular, flat body there was a little puff of light-flash where the ray vibrations struck. A blow at one of its hearts? It seemed that one of the blobs of heart-muscle was wildly beating, expanding and lunging. And the central eye was flashing crimson and seeming to split with electric flame.

And now in a flash almost simultaneous with the first shot, its wrath was transmitted to its remote, detached parts. Over all the weird chaotic scene of milling humans, the little Physicals sprang into action. A thousand of them as this multiple-membered monster ran amok.

I felt Johnny pulling at me. "Got to get out of here, Tom. It's our last chance!"

"Johnny," I gasped, gripping him. "Got to keep together. Try and get to Dora!"

"Yes; keep away from the Physicals. Good God, Tom!"

Up on the dais Torkine had fired his last futile little bolt, and now he had flung my projector away. He was still holding Dora. Amazement, futility, then terror was on his face as he gazed at the writhing, bellowing monster and then at the wild scene of chaos out on the rocks--the crowd of milling, panic-stricken humans with the little Physicals darting among them. Popping, wrathful, miniature duplicated voices of the Supreme One. Violet-yellow flashes were hissing from the Physicals. The running, milling, screaming humans were falling.

Johnny and I were running, trying to get to the dais. Then we saw that Torkine had lifted Dora in his arms; had leaped down and was running with her over the dark spread of rocks. The lights over the dais abruptly now were extinguished. The dimness of the night sprang around us, hideous with human screams of agony and terror; ghastly with the glares of the little popping bolts and the red-yellow, wrathful glare of the monster.

Where had Torkine gone? We could not see him. We darted sidewise as a group of running men and women with Physicals chasing them swept past. And then again we saw Torkine. He was still carrying Dora, leaping over the rocks, zig-zagging, trying seemingly to reach the space-disc. The dark outlines of it were apparent no more than a hundred feet away.

"No Physicals there!" Johnny gasped.

We slanted our running leaps to head off Torkine. And suddenly he saw us and jumped to a little rocky butte where he stood leering down at us with his arm holding Dora as she sagged against him. A knife was in his hand now. The red-yellow chaos off to our left glistened on its naked blade. For a second I thought that he would plunge it into Dora's breast.

Then suddenly behind him the little box-bodies of Physicals had appeared. Tentacle arms reached for him so that he dropped Dora. For a second she staggered, slumped and then fell over the little brink. Johnny and I scramblingly caught her; I snatched her in my arms and ran, with Johnny beside me. We reached the dark, space-disc doorway, and I turned to look back. Torkine was wildly slashing at a tentacle arm of a Physical that gripped him. Weird tissue-flesh of the damnable, gruesome thing. The steel knife-blade slid harmlessly on it; and then as he wildly stabbed at a box-like chest, the knife-blade broke. He screamed with a last agonized, throat-splitting cry as the plucking little things tumbled him from the rock and engulfed him....

"Tom, there they come! Hurry! Get inside--" Johnny gasped.

We slide the doorslide as a plunging wave of Physicals came and hurled themselves against it....

Then in a moment the big disc was slowly rising. From a bullseye window of the central turret we could see the raging little things as they dropped from the rim of the disc.

The ground slid slowly away beneath us. The sounds were shut off from us now. Mute, ghastly scene. We had only a brief glimpse of the glowing, wrathful monster. It palpitated, quivered in the midst of the carnage. Monster of the planet. Omnipotent ruler here. There were no humans running now. No human bodies were on the rocks. Nothing but crimsoned, noisome fragments with little shapes fighting over them.

The terrible scene in a moment dropped away, blurred and was gone so that there was just starlight here in the turret. The myriad stars of Interplanetary Space. And at the dark, rocky horizon of the planetoid the Earth was just rising, a great mellow crescent, beckoning us.