Part 4

The second hall was lighted by radi-lights in ceiling brackets, and a current of air came strong against their faces from the far end. Light shone through the bottom crack of a doorway, and they went toward it on cat-feet, making no sound, stifling their very breathing for fear of discovery.

Strangely, there was no sound of alarm above, nor did they hear sounds of pursuit. They glanced instinctively at each other, then drifted forward, the single weapon their only defense against attack.

* * * * *

Kimball Trent almost smiled when he remembered the wish that had been Korm's that day. He would have given ten years of his life to exchange places with Lura and Trent, to have had this opportunity of wreaking his vengeance upon the Masters in their fortress.

Then the thought was gone, and they stood before the door of the room from which light came. Trent laid his finger across his lips, nodded for Lura to wait. She shook her head impatiently, started to speak.

It was the natural thing to do to keep her quiet. He bent his head to hers, and her lips were soft and sweet and fragrant against his mouth. He came close to her, savoring her warmth and pliancy, feeling the urge that lay in them both. Then he backed away, smiled from deep in his heart.

"Wait for me," he whispered, and was gone through the doorway.

His gun was out in front of him, finger trembling on the stud. He saw the Gharrian standing to one side, and hell raved from his flame pistol as he fired instinctively. The cone of ravening energy twisted its deadly way over the entire body--yet the alien monster made no move to flee or to attack.

Heat grew and built and swelled, drove him back a full step--and still the blue-grey monster made no move. Red rage pulsed in Trent's mind, and he whispered, "Damn! Damn! Damn!" over again as the last charge in the flame began to die away.

And at last, the gun empty and cooling in his hand, he stood facing the Gharrian, blinking against the heat, smelling the odor of charred plastic where the flame had touched the wall. Then he gasped, bent forward in excitement.

For the Gharrian had no head.

Kimball Trent took two cautious steps forward, standing on tiptoe, staring at the cavity where the eye-head had been. And what he saw chilled the blood in his body.

For the Gharrian was a robot, a tiny control board deep in the aperture, a curved hood dropping on hinges to the back.

Kimball Trent whirled then and began to stalk the room. He didn't know exactly what he sought, but there was a singing in his mind, and the knowledge he had just gained was the answer to many things that had never been solved.

He saw the flickering movement at the corner of the room, took two long strides that way, snatched with bare hands at the monstrosity that squirmed with miniature strength against the grip of his lean fingers.

He almost vomited at sight of the weird creature that fought to free itself. It was like a pink convoluted brain, with spider legs like wormy tentacles coiling and uncoiling in mad rage. Two tiny eyes glared lidlessly at Trent, and a hole like a sucker mouth gaped, showing blue toothless gums.

Trent increased the pressure of his fingers, and the tiny eyes popped in agony, the tentacles wrapping about his fingers, trying to pry them free. And in the midst of the struggle, a thought pried its way into Trent's consciousness.

"Do not slay me, Earthman. Let me live."

* * * * *

Kimball Trent went to the side table where small machines and tools were scattered haphazardly. He emptied out a deep plastic jar, set it upright, then dropped the pink monstrosity into its depths. His skin crawled, and he heard Lura's gasp, as the Gharrian righted itself, trying frantically to climb the glasslike walls of the prison.

"Laura, bolt the door," Trent said without turning his head, then spoke directly at the squirming blob of flesh. "Do you understand what I am saying?" he asked.

"Faintly," the answer came welling into his mind. "Our minds are not enough alike to catch all thoughts."

"So you are one of the Masters!" Trent sighed contemptuously, glancing at the monster robot that all Earth had thought to be a creature that lived.

"I am one," the Gharrian thought.

Lura came to Trent's side. "Put a cover on the jar," she said, shuddering, "and we shall take him along with us."

Mental laughter shook their minds, a dry ironical humor all the more terrible because there was no sound. They stared in horror at the brain-beast, while its thoughts raced through their consciousness.

"You cannot escape; all doors are guarded."

"Maybe!" Trent said aloud, lifting a sharp tool from the table, balancing it idly in one hand. Then he reached over, probed delicately at the scrambling pink beast in the jar, watched critically as green ichor oozed from a tiny cut the tool had inflicted.

"See us safely out, or you die," he said unemotionally.

The thought came hurtling back, utterly savage and unafraid. "Destroy me, and you surely die." There was an interval in which no message came. Then: "I shall bargain with you. Tell me where those ancient weapons were found, make yourself my prisoner, and the girl, as you call her, shall go free."

Trent carefully dropped the razor-sharp tool, heard the soundless shriek of agony that welled high as a tentacular leg was sheared completely away.

"I make no bargains," he said coldly.

He turned about, studying the single window that studded the far wall of the room, catching up several tools from the bench, he crossed the plastic floor, studied the incredibly hard plastic that served as a pane through which the outer world could be seen.

He searched for a catch, realized there would be none, for this was a ground floor, and the Gharrians would leave no openings through which an attack could be made. Calmly, he beat at the pane with his pistol butt, bruising his hand, making absolutely no impression.

"Will it break?" Lura called softly.

"No. But it may cut." Trent chose the sharpest of the tools, bore down with all his weight.

The squeal of metal on plastic keened high, setting his teeth on edge; and then the sound had passed too high for him to hear. He finished the stroke, bent close, then straightened in defeat. There was not the slightest of scratches on the plastic window.

"Kim!" Lura cried, and he raced to her side.

Even as he reached her, the Gharrian began to putrefy. It had died during the few moments Trent had tried to break the window; and its monstrosity of a body was already beginning to rot in upon itself like a blighted spider caught in a flame.

"Damn!" Trent swore softly. "I probably squeezed too hard. Come."

He led the way toward the door through which they had come, lifted the single bar. He smiled tiredly, gamely, was warmed by the unquenchable courage that flamed in her bearing.

"Ready?" he asked, threw open the door at her wordless nod.

Facing them from ten feet away, single eyes emotionlessly watching, were three of the robot-Gharrians.

VI

"Run!" Trent snapped, threw himself to one side, pausing for a fraction of a second to permit Lura to dart past him. Then, even before the Gharrians could move, they were darting through the side door, flung instantly open by Trent's driving hand.

He slammed the door, slammed the single bar shut, then whirled to follow the girl. A soundless gasp of incredible awe came from his throat, and he froze motionless.

Kimball Trent went dashing forward, smashed the single darting pink monstrosity, as it raced toward a robot, with his heel, then stopped, and watched the incredible thing that filled the entire center of the room.

It was like a monster fishbowl, great cables snaking to atomic motors that hummed with quiet power. Colors glowed and played and flickered in the greenish liquid that filled the bowl, and the liquid bubbled softly within itself.

But the things that brought the sickness to Trent's and Lura's hearts and minds were the things that bobbed in the liquid. They were brains, some large, some shrunken in upon themselves, each attached to fine wires that led to grids at the center of the bowl. Larger wires ran from the grids to the sides of the bowl, slipped through and dropped to small platforms upon which rested the spider monsters who ruled the world.

"Life eaters!" Trent whispered. "They live on the lives and brains of the people they kill."

He walked about the great bowl, watching the lights flicker behind the plastic wall, seeing the sluggish movements of the creatures who sucked the life forces from the liquid bubbling so gently. Then with a calm viciousness that surprised even himself, he methodically crushed each of the pinkish monsters to death.

And with the death of the last monster, the first of the Gharrians in the hall attacked the door. Great sledging blows smashed at the plastic, each blow driving bulges where no man could have scratched the surface.

Kimball Trent stared thoughtfully at the bulging panel, his mind working clearly for the first time in minutes. There was no fear in him now, no blazing hate, only the crystal brightness of logic in his mind. He looked about the room, then beckoned for Lura to come to his side. She came trustingly, staring into his eyes, and he knew then his future was yet to come.

He grinned, kissed her gently. "You will do as I say. Go to the Reader and tell him to read about sound waves. Tell him that the Gharrians can be killed with supersonic waves of sound; that that is the _only_ way that they can be killed while in their armor. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Lura said quietly. "But I do not leave."

The door shattered inward, hanging on a single hinge, and through the opening came the invulnerable Gharrians, moving slowly toward the unarmed Earthman and girl.

Kimball Trent swung the girl behind him, retreated, wondering if the mad scheme he had would possibly work. And even as he thought, his hand reached out, ripped loose the cables from one of the motors that fed the current to the life-trap bowl.

He raced to the second, tore the cables free, winced, as the motor sang a shriller song, power mounting now that it no longer fed the bowl. He tore the third bunch of cables free, then shielded Lura with his body, as the motors began to race with incredible speed, their screams mounting higher and higher.

Still the Gharrians came forward, moving with an implacable deadliness that nothing could stop apparently, their concussors dangling from their waists. They would use their strength here, for concussion would wreck the life bowl, and they had no reason to fear the puny strengths of the couple they faced.

The screams of the motors were like knife blades now, biting into every nerve, wrenching agony from their brains. Trent and Lura gasped from the pain, pressed farther back around the great transparent bowl, striving desperately to evade that last moment when the Masters would reach them.

And then the shrill screams of the motor eased, were gone, vibrations scaling past the audible, going into a supersonic range that their ears could not catch.

The first Gharrian lifted a mailed arm--and died.

* * * * *

He died rather horribly, beating insanely at his companion and the plastic wall. Then he was dead, and was but a toppling metal hulk that smashed to the floor.

Almost in the same instant, the others died. They died as silently as they had lived, except for one simultaneous thought of agony that came clearly to the humans' minds.

Kimball Trent leaped past the bulk of the first slain Gharrian, closed the switches on the motors. Slowly they stopped, grew silent.

Without a word, Trent switched on the motors again, then raced at Lura's side from the room. Behind, the motors began their keening song again.

They found the outer door without trouble, guided by a supernal instinct that needed no voluntary thought. Trent threw the great bar and they raced outside, going toward the slope from which they had attacked the Gharrians hours before.

They heard Korm's great voice cry out, and relief gave strength to their flying legs. Then the blond giant was at their side, and behind him they saw the hundreds who had followed his leadership.

"Run!" Trent panted. "The tower will blow within seconds."

Then the motors exploded, lifting the tower in shattered fragments, blowing to dust the place that had been one of the Gharrians' strongholds. Flames leaped a mile into the air, fed by the ruptured atomic motors, spreading crimson light like the wave of a rock dropped into a still pond. The concussion passed, and all was still, the column of brilliance still leaping and pulsing into the night.

And watching the flame, his arm tight about the slender shoulders of Lura, was Kimball Trent, the man who had lived five hundred years to save his doomed world. He held her tightly, and the hope in his heart was a singing melody that crept into his mind, tangling his thoughts.

"Call the Elder," he said to grinning Korm. "I have a story to tell of a new home for all of us. And"--his voice grew strong, rang like that of a prophet--"of a weapon we can make that the Gharrians cannot fight."

Then he and Lura stood alone in a night that was a dream and they the dreamers. The first streamers of dawn were coming in the sky, foretelling of the new day that was coming to their world.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note: No section V heading in original text.]