Part 3

While he slept, his subconscious had integrated Tabak's fund of knowledge, made it a part of his own. He was changed. He didn't look at things quite the same. His own hard ruthless personality had become tinctured with something of Tabak's soft deviousness.

He didn't like it.

His fingers closed on the girl's shoulders, bit into the flesh. "What have you done to me?"

"I? I've done nothing. I've come to help you, Wanderer-from-Beyond."

"How?"

"Please," she said; "don't you believe me?"

"Why should I?"

She lifted her arms, touched his temples with her fingertips. "Come in," she said simply. "Come into my mind so that you can have no more doubts."

Almost against his will, he peered into her eyes, experiencing an odd frightening sensation of sinking into their wide, violet-blue depths. Down. Down. His very being seemed to merge with the girl's.

All at once, the room swam back into his vision, but from a different angle. Everything looked a little strange. Then he saw himself!

Literally!

Saw himself through Tabak's eyes!

With a peculiar sense of detachment, he observed his own lean, muscular, sun-reddened frame, his wiry red beard, tangled hair, half-closed green eyes. And all the time he was aware of Tabak's flow of thought--her emotions, sensations, the bubbling fluid well of her subconscious.

"Now do you trust me?"

Jupiter was acutely embarrassed. Their conjoining was more intimate than any physical relation could have been. Tabak's very soul lay naked before his mind's eye.

"Trust you. Yes. For Pete's sake, let me go!"

He staggered, blinked, realized that she'd thrust him out of her mind. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, stared at the girl curiously.

Her cheeks were pink with confusion, and she wouldn't meet his eyes.

"I--I've never done that with a man before," she said. "You believe me, don't you?"

"Yes. But how did you do it?"

"By means of the Anolyn that are attached to our necks. See." She turned her back, lifted her wheat-blonde locks with one hand.

Jupiter could see the tiny plum-colored lump. Tabak's neck was slender, delicately formed. He was struck anew by the contrast between her and Lete, the wiry, pagan-souled cave girl.

Lete was rawhide, tough, pliable, resilient. But this Caligan girl was a steel rapier. In that moment of intimacy he had glimpsed something of the truth.

For all her apparent softness, Tabak could be infinitely more dangerous!

* * * * *

The door opened instantly at Tabak's mental command. Jupiter followed her into the corridor, saw that it was empty.

"Where are the Anolyn?"

"They--they are occupied. Those here in the temple." Tabak shivered. "Come, it's on our way. I'll show you."

"On our way where? Show me what?"

She said, "I'd rather let you see for yourself," and started up the passage, her bare feet soundless on the hard composition floor.

Jupiter padded at her elbow. This was all familiar. He couldn't overcome the feeling that he'd been here before. It was Tabak's memory patterns playing tricks on him, he knew. The girl's experience had actually been implanted in his brain.

When they reached the ramp angling downward into the gloom, a vague alarm got hold of him, but he followed her onto it without protest.

The way led down and down. The air was dank. Moisture dripped from the walls. It grew slippery underfoot.

Abruptly, the ramp came to an end. He could see the glint of water ahead.

Subconsciously, he knew it was a canal running beneath the streets to the _Dra Dur_. He knew it just as he knew that there was a network of these canals like fingers reaching into every part of the city. Just as he knew of the ledge a scant foot above the water, even as Tabak crept onto it.

The living boj fur glowed with a pale phosphorescent light as she sidled into the vaulted aquaduct. It lent her a wraith-like appearance to Jupiter, a few paces behind.

"Shhh!" she cautioned him, coming to a stop. "Don't make a sound here!"

Jupiter's mouth felt dry. He could see nothing but the girl's vague luminous outline, hear nothing but the lap of water against the shelf at their feet.

Then Tabak clutched his hand, pulled him forward and into a bisecting passage running at right angles to the aquaduct. He could see the glow of light ahead.

The passage curved, the light bursting on his eyes, half blinding him. Together they crawled to the very end of the tunnel and peered out.

It was a courtyard that Jupiter found himself looking into. The orange sun beat down warmly on the flagstone pavement, on the large shallow pool in the center of the court.

There were Anolyn in the pool, fifty or sixty of them, floating like purple jellyfish. Humans, too. Pink-skinned Caligans, wild Kagans, fighting men and the stolid green porters. Even the tailed, ape-like Begans were represented. They moved with a dreamy apathy like sleepwalkers.

"Their minds are under the control of the Anolyn in the pool," Tabak breathed into his ear. "The Anolyn have entered into them. They feel and see and hear exactly what their human vehicles do."

Jupiter's face was drawn. He could hear music. The scale was all wrong, it registered discordantly in his ears. It was coming from one of the balconies that rose in tiers above the courtyard. Food and drink had been spread on cloths.

"They'll be here for days," Tabak whispered.

Hardened as Jupiter was, nevertheless he was sickened at the deeds being enacted under his eyes. They were unthinkable. His fists clenched.

He could bring himself to watch no longer. He turned his head away, said hoarsely: "Let's clear out of here."

Tabak was silent as she led him back down the tunnel to the vaulted canal.

"Can you swim?" she asked as they reached the water's edge.

"Yes."

The girl stripped off the boj, laid it on the ledge, dived into the canal like a slim, naked, sea nymph. Her head broke water a dozen feet out creating phosphorescent ripples.

Jupiter plunged after her. The water was black, cold, salty. He kept up with the girl easily using strong breast strokes.

At length she paused again, treading water near the opposite wall of the aquaduct.

"There's a tunnel here, a man's height below the surface. It leads into another chamber. Are you willing to try it?"

"Go ahead."

Tabak up-ended in a surface dive, the black water closing over her feet. Jupiter followed her down. He found the hole with his hand, swam into it. On and on--ten--twenty--thirty yards. His lungs felt as if they must burst.

Air began to dribble out his nose. He kicked furiously, driving himself ahead. Suddenly he realized he was out of the tunnel. He shot up to the surface, broke water, gasping air into his scalded lungs.

That had been close, too close. He floated on his back breathing deeply.

After a minute he rolled over and stared about him.

* * * * *

He was in a vast echoing chamber. Orange sunshine streamed in from open skylights. Steps led down into the water. Tabak, he saw, was already standing on the edge of the floor looking down at him.

He swam to the steps, climbed out. There was a faint odor of putrefaction in the air.

Tabak said: "These rooms are the laboratories. There are other entrances; but they're all guarded by Nehogans."

He frowned. "What was it you wanted me to see?"

"This way," she said and led him through dissecting tables, past shelves of fantastic creatures preserved in some liquid, and into a small office-like room at the side.

Spread out on a shelf were the contents of Jupiter's pack: the medicine chest, emergency rations, spare ammunition, testing apparatus, prospecting tools, his light carbine, the electroscope and geiger counter. It was all there.

Tabak's violet-blue eyes glittered with excitement.

"There are your weapons, Wanderer-from-Beyond! Now you can drive the Anolyn back into the sea!"

Jupiter's face didn't betray his consternation. The carbine was pitifully inadequate. In fact, so long as the horrible little parasite was fastened to his spinal cord, he knew that he would be incapable of using it against the Anolyn.

If he could only rid himself of the parasite, though, and get to his ship with even a chunk of that idol....

He narrowed his eyes as a new thought struck him.

"Tabak, we must get rid of these spinal parasites first. I--" He nearly said, "I think," but realized that he mustn't show any doubt. "I can do it. But I'll need your cooperation."

"Can you?" she cried in excitement and seized his hands, peering into his eyes. "Can you really? You _are_ the Wanderer then!"

He looked quickly away. He didn't dare let her glimpse what was in his thoughts.

"Yes."

"Let me come into your mind; let me be sure," she pleaded.

"Tabak, you'll have to trust me."

"Why?" her blue eyes clouded in suspicion. She released his hands, backed away. "What is it you want to do to me? What are you hiding? What are you afraid I'll see?"

He swore under his breath. There wasn't time to argue, even if he could overcome the girl's suspicions, which he doubted was possible unless he opened his mind to her.

Without the slightest warning he jumped for Tabak, grabbed her and swung her off her feet.

The girl screamed, twisted, kicked and bit, wild with terror. The thick walls confined her cries. She was soft and tiny like a small white kitten in his hands. A spitting, scratching, squalling kitten.

He imprisoned her arms and legs, carried her out into the main laboratory.

The Anolyn possessed no anaesthesia. The dissecting tables were equipped instead with straps to hold their victims motionless while they operated. Jupiter buckled the girl face-down on one of the tables.

"Please!" she begged hysterically. "Please!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he growled and left her to get his medicine kit from the other room.

The kit had been devised to handle almost any emergency that might befall one of the Galactic Colonization Board's special corpsmen. Jupiter found the hypodermic syringe, sterilized it and filled it with exsrocain. The drug was the latest development in a spinal anaesthetic that deadened the nerves of the entire body, inducing a temporary state of suspended animation.

It was a delicate operation, but he inserted the needle between two of the girl's vertebrae, felt her flinch away from him. She lay on the hard slab, quiescent, crying silently.

"Won't hurt," he grunted, and ejected the exsrocain directly into the spinal fluid. Under his breath he counted: "One--two--three--four."

He felt for her pulse, but there was no sign of a heart beat. He found the mirror in the kit, held it before her nostrils. The mirror didn't cloud.

Sweat stood out on Jupiter's forehead. He wiped his palms on his thighs, lifted Tabak's wheat-blonde locks, exposing the small purple protuberance. It looked like a sea shell fastened to the back of her neck.

His hand was trembling. He had to pause and get a grip on himself. Then he grasped the Anolyn, pulled it gently but firmly away from the girl's skin.

For a moment he thought it was going to stick, then it slid free, the tentacles dangling like short, fine threads.

He examined the creature minutely to make sure no faintest spark of consciousness remained.

He felt weak with relief. The spinal anaesthesia had worked, putting the Anolyn into a state of suspended animation at the same time that it had the girl.

Suddenly he could contain himself no longer. He hurled the creature down on the hard floor with all his strength, smashed it into a shapeless blob, ground it into paste with the butt of his carbine.

VI

It would be an hour before the effects of the anaesthesia wore off the Caligan girl. Jupiter prowled the laboratories, investigating the extent of the research performed by the Anolyn. It was crude, elementary.

Only with the breeding of specialized forms had they had any starting successes and that had been a trial and error, hit and miss practice that had taken literally thousands of years.

He was not impressed. Like all parasitic cultures, the Anolyn civilization was rotten at the core, degenerate. One ship of the Galactic Security Patrol could wipe them out of existence.

He found clothes in a locker, a kilt for himself and a length of some black fabric which Tabak should be able to use in lieu of the boj.

When he returned to the dissecting table he saw that the color was returning to the girl's cheeks. He unfastened her, sat down on a stool and waited.

After a moment, Tabak's lids flickered. Her eyes opened; she gazed at him in sudden terror.

"Feel the Anolyn," he said.

She sat up. Her hand went hesitantly to the back of her slender neck. He saw the amazement spread over her face.

"It's gone! You--How? How did you do it?"

She slipped suddenly from the blood-stained dissecting table, seized his hand, held it to her forehead. She was half laughing, half crying.

"You are the Wanderer! Forgive me for ever doubting. I'll atone for my sacrilege." She was hysterical with relief and awe and hope. "I'll never question your will again, never fail in obedience--"

"Rubbish!"

Jupiter regarded her startled expression with satisfaction.

"You're temporarily overcome by surprise," he went on. "You haven't had a chance to think. I know you inside out--too well to believe I could fool you for very long. And," he added ruefully; "you know me the same way. There's the rub. But I need you--and you need me."

The girl was silent.

"Yes," she agreed finally; "that's true. You're a man. A strange man. But you're not the Wanderer. You plan to use us to help you escape back to your ship, then desert us. But I don't think you will. Desert us, I mean."

It was Jupiter's turn to look disconcerted.

"Why not?"

"Because--" she began and started to smile. "You won't like this, but you're too soft. Deep down on the inside you're too fine, too idealistic to pull a trick like that. Your conscience wouldn't let you.

"You've been hurt. Many times. When I looked inside your mind, I could see the scars. I could feel how you'd armored yourself with a harsh shell to hide your true feelings. You have a saying among your own people: 'Scratch a cynic and you'll find an idealist!'"

"Well, I'll be damned," said Jupiter. Then almost hesitantly, "But you'll help. I need someone I can trust." He wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Someone I can trust with my life to take the Anolyn from my own neck."

"You'll trust me," she said; "because you must. You're really not self-sufficient. No one is."

Jupiter regarded her silently, coldly. Then he picked up the hypodermic, sterilized it, filled the barrel with exsrocain.

"This is a damned ticklish trick. The needle must be inserted between the vertebrae so that it doesn't injure the spinal cord and yet--"

"Lie down," she interrupted. "I know as well as you how it must be done."

"But--"

"Don't be alarmed. I'm in possession of all your experience, just as you are of mine!"

Jupiter swallowed, laid face-down on the stained table. "For Heaven's sake, be careful!"

Tabak ran her fingertips along his backbone, locating the spot to insert the needle. It sent cold chills prickling through his skin.

"And you're sure you know exactly what to do?"

She laughed. "Of course, I know. Don't tell me you've forgotten the girl on Betelgeuse XI--the one you used to put into a state of suspended animation whenever you had to ship out so that she couldn't be unfaithful between voyages."

Jupiter made a choking sound. Before he could think of anything to say, he felt the needle prick his flesh. He winced, heard Tabak begin to count:

"One ... two...."

* * * * *

Slowly Jupiter became conscious of a smart in the nape of his neck like a bee sting. He opened his eyes, sat up, touched the base of his skull.

The hard little lump was gone.

Relief left him weak. He caught Tabak's eye, felt his face grow warm.

"About that girl on Betelgeuse XI--" he began uncomfortably.

"You don't need to explain. Under the circumstances you were entirely justified."

He swore under his breath, slid off the table, began to throw his equipment into the pack. "Have you any ideas about how we can get out of here?"

"Don't be angry, Jupiter. I was only teasing. I--"

Tabak's eyes suddenly widened.

She was staring beyond him, Jupiter realized. He twisted around, reaching instinctively for his carbine.

Not thirty feet behind them an adult Anolyn sprawled on the floor, tentacles exploring the air. Its soft brown eyes were regarding them intently. The gray doughy face was expressionless.

"Quick! Kill it!" Tabak screamed. "Kill it before it sends out a call for help!"

The creature was obviously puzzled, unable to understand why the two humans failed to respond to its control.

Jupiter shot it squarely between the eyes.

The hollow, pointed bullet, blew away the entire back of its head. It slumped into a quivering heap. A pool of thin, pinkish blood made an ever-widening stain on the floor.

"The cat's out of the bag now," he said in a tight voice.

Tabak nodded.

"There's a guard at the door. You'll have to kill him, Jupiter, before we can get out of here. I only hope you're as good as you think you are."

Jupiter took a short length of strong plastic cord from his pack, made a loop in it. His face looked older, grimmer. His vivid green eyes were dull.

"Where is he stationed?" he said.

* * * * *

The dissection laboratory occupied a long, hall-like room in one wing of the temple. The pool of water was at one end, the main entry at the other.

Tabak wound the black cloth about herself sarong-fashion, nodded towards the arched doorway.

"There's a--a lobby of sorts through there. The guard stays just outside on the street. He'll be a Nehogan, Jupiter. They're terrible men--"

Jupiter brushed past her. He reached the lobby, crossed it swiftly.

"Open the door," he said to Tabak who had followed him.

She looked suddenly frightened.

"I can't, Jupiter. Not without the Anolyn on the back of my neck to transmit my thought! We'll have to go back the way we came."

His eyes sought the door. The blank, solid panel mocked him. He ran his fingers over its surface, but could find no slightest protuberance anywhere.

"Look out!" Tabak suddenly whispered.

Jupiter sprang back like a startled cat.

The door was opening.

The thick, solid panel swung inexorably inward. He flattened himself against the wall, the carbine clubbed in his hands. His palms were sweaty.

Then an Anolyn appeared in the entrance, scuttled inside on its eight tentacles. Jupiter swung the carbine.

There was a dull crunch as the stock connected with the creature's head. Jupiter didn't give it a second glance, but sprang into the doorway.

A tall, coppery Nehogan warrior lounged just outside. With a flick of his wrist, he dropped the loop of plastic over the guard's head, yanked him backward through the door.

Any cry the Nehogan might have uttered was cut off at its source. He thrashed wildly, but Jupiter only tightened the noose, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching savagely.

Suddenly he got a look at the man's distorted face.

"Reiloc!" he cried and immediately slackened the cord.

Reiloc sprawled on the floor, gasping painfully.

"Are you crazy?" Tabak cried. "Kill him, Jupiter! Kill him before he can give the alarm." She suddenly snatched the carbine, aimed a blow at the prone warrior's head. Jupiter tore it out of her hands.

Reiloc pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He looked from the dead Anolyn to Jupiter, his hand massaging his bruised throat.

"What are you?" he whispered painfully. "What manner of man are you who can kill the Anolyn in their own temple?"

Jupiter's hesitation didn't show on his face. In a cold voice of authority, he said:

"The Wanderer-from-Beyond!"

Reiloc's eyes widened. Doubt and hope struggled in his grim countenance. Then the savage Nehogan dropped to one knee, held his sword out to Jupiter, hilt first.

* * * * *

Jupiter sat beside the embrasure, staring out at the street below. Behind him Reiloc was pacing back and forth in the bare little cell like a caged wolf. The copper-skinned Nehogan was nervous, worried. Action was his only emotional release.

Tabak said: "Stop it, Reiloc! You're driving me crazy!"

Reiloc quit pacing, squatted on his heels. But he couldn't stay still. Rising to his feet again, he growled: "Wait, wait. Are we waiting for them to come drag us out of here and take us to the vivisection rooms?"

Tabak said: "Only for a little while longer."

The Earth man continued to stare morosely down at the street. Under Tabak's guidance the three of them had secreted themselves in this neglected cell just off the sanctum of the Radiant God.

When the city was new this chamber had been a part of the defenses of the temple in case of an uprising. But as the ages crept past without any threat from the human cattle, even its existence had gradually been forgotten.

Outside, the city by the _Dra Dur_ was in the grip of hysteria. The alarm had gone out and the street below was deserted except for occasional patrols of Nehogans.

Jupiter squinted at the angry orange sun. It seemed to rest on the rooftops. Only a minute or two and the ceremony should begin. He faced back into the room.

Tabak said: "I think it's crazy."

"Crazy or not, we need her," Jupiter said. "We can't hope to succeed without her."

He closed his eyes searching the memory patterns imprinted on his brain by Tabak.

The temple was built in the form of a hollow square with the breeding pens located in the main courtyard. Every day the human guinea pigs were driven up a back way into the sanctum of the Radiant God. There they were exposed to the hard radiations emitted by the statue.

No wonder the Anolyn could create endless mutations. The effects of hard radiation on the genes were known to every school child in the Galactic Federation.

He was still standing beside the window when the faint sound of cymbals broke the silence.

"Here they come!" Tabak whispered.

Reiloc stiffened, jerked out his sword. He put his hand to the back of his neck as if to reassure himself that the Anolyn was actually gone. Jupiter had removed it while they waited. Its absence seemed to give the Nehogan confidence.

"You both know what to do?" Jupiter asked.

"Yes."

He adjusted the pack over his shoulders, picked up his carbine, assured himself that a cartridge lay in the chamber. The clash of cymbals was louder, reinforced by the chant of voices.

He went to the door, followed by Reiloc and Tabak. There was a short dark passage beyond which ended abruptly in a solid wall. A well opened in the ceiling overhead, though, with a ladder bolted inside it.

He gave Tabak a boost up into the well, then Reiloc. In a moment they'd climbed out of sight.

Jupiter leaped upward, caught the bottom rung, pulled himself hand over hand up into the thick darkness.

The clash of cymbals, the chant of voices had a hollow, muffled quality. He heard Tabak pant, then whisper, "I've got it open!" The cymbals were suddenly louder.

He crawled out of the well on Reiloc's heels, replaced the cover.

They were inside the sanctum, he saw, where he'd been left when he had first been brought to the city by the _Dra Dur_. The huge radioactive statue of the Anolyn was the only source of light. It shed a chill greenish pallor through the circular temple room.

The room itself was at least a hundred feet across, surrounded by pillared cloisters. They had come up behind the pillars where the feeble light from the idol scarcely reached.

The rhythmic chant came from the other side of the floor. Jupiter sucked in his breath. A procession of humans was filing out of the darkness.

A scrawny, naked Caligan was in the lead, making cabalistic signs with a phallic instrument resembling the Egyptian sistrum as he moved in front of the idol.