Part 2

"Got to get free," Emerson panted, straining against the wristbands. The hard muscles of his arms ridged with effort, but the straps held. He dropped back, sobbing.

"That fiend," yelled Mussdorf. "That ten-eyed, octopus-legged, black-hearted spawn of a mismated monster did this to us. Damn him! Damn him! If I ever get loose I'll cut his heart out and make him eat it."

"Maybe--maybe he's vivisecting us," moaned Nichols. "With rays or--or something--aagh! I can't stand it!"

"Hang on, kid," gritted Emerson, fighting the straps. "I think it's lessening. Yeah, yeah--it is. It doesn't hurt so much now."

Mussdorf grunted astonishment.

"You're right. It is lessening. And--hey, one of my arm buckles is coming loose. It's torn a little. Maybe I can work it free."

They turned their heads to watch, biting their lips, the sweat standing in colorless beads on their pale foreheads. Mussdorf's thick arm bulged its muscles as he wrenched and tugged, panting. A buckle swung outward, clanging against the tabletop as it ripped loose. Mussdorf held his arm aloft and laughed harsh triumph.

"I'll have you all loose in a second," he grunted, ripping straps from his body.

He leaped from the table and stretched. He grinned into their faces.

"You know, it's funny--but I feel great. Huh, I must've sweated all the aches out of me. Here, Gunn--you first."

"Thanks, Karl. We're still pals, aren't we?"

When Gunn was free, Mussdorf came to stand over Emerson, looking down at him. His eyes narrowed suddenly. He grinned a little, twisting his lips.

"Maybe you fellows ought to stay tied up," he said. "In case that--that thing comes back. He won't blame us all for the break we're making."

"Not on your life," said Emerson.

But Mussdorf shook his head, and his lips tightened.

"No. No, I think it's better the way I say."

"Don't be a fool, Mussdorf," snapped Emerson savagely. "It isn't your place to think, anyhow. That's mine. I'm commander of this force. What I say is an order."

Mussdorf grinned dryly. Into his eyes came a glint of hot, sullen anger.

"You were our commander--out there, in space. We're on a planet now. Things are different. I want to learn the secret of those mists, Emerson. Something tells me I'd get a fortune for it, on Earth."

Emerson squirmed helplessly, cursing him, saying, "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing new. Remember me, Karl Mussdorf? I'm a convict, I am. A salt mine convict. I'd have done anything to get out of that boiling hell. I volunteered to go with you for the radium. Me and Gunn. Nichols doesn't count. He came on account of his wife and kids. We were the only two who'd come. Convicts, both of us."

* * * * *

Mussdorf drew air into his lungs until his ribs showed against the rips in his jacket.

He went on slowly, "All along I've thought that if we ever did discover radium in any quantity to cure the folks of space out of it. I want to be that somebody, Emerson. With my pardon and that profit, I could be a boss on Mars. And you know what it's like to be a boss on Mars."

Emerson writhed in his straps, wrenching and twisting until his muscles crackled, seeking freedom. His lips snarled oaths at the big criminal.

"If I ever get out of this, I'll teach you who's boss--right here!"

Mussdorf laughed his confidence, "Don't worry. You won't. Those straps are pretty secure. I'm lucky one of mine was ripped."

The big man turned to Gunn; looked down at him, curiously.

"You with me, Til?"

Gunn looked at Emerson; looked up at Mussdorf, nodding.

"I think we got a chance, guv'nor," he muttered softly. "Them mists that don't 'ave germs. They're worth lots. People will pay plenty for h'air without germs."

The big man and the little man swung toward the door. They paused at the threshold and glanced back.

"We'll give you a chance to think it over, Emerson," Mussdorf grated. "You can use a few billions, same as us. We aren't hogs. We're willing to share--"

"Get out!" Emerson spat.

Mussdorf shrugged and followed Gunn into the corridor, carefully closing the door behind him. He glanced both ways frowning.

"We don't know this space," he said slowly. "Stick close to me, Til. We might meet some more of that beast's pals. He's too much for us physically, but damned if I don't believe we got more grey matter than him and his whole tribe, if we use it right!"

They went along the black marble flooring for long minutes. The thick drapes along the walls muffled their footsteps, but they cast anxious glances behind them. The eerie silence that overhung the place scratched at their uneasy nerves.

Mussdorf's hand vised on Gunn until the little man whimpered.

Behind them there was the slow shuffle of a mighty body.

"In here," snapped Mussdorf, drawing Gunn with him into a niche sculped in the marble wall. They pressed back, drawing the drapes about them. Biting on their tongues, they held their breaths.

The huge black body trod past, stirring the drapes and uncovering the feet of the Earthmen. But he did not glance aside. Mussdorf and Gunn let their breath out slowly, silently. They did not know that Irgi was the last of his race, that he was used to loneliness, that he was not given to looking away from his objective.

They peered out: saw the monster nearing two great bronze doors sculped with forms of alien beauty. Watching breathlessly, they saw the doors slide open untouched.

"Light beam," whispered Mussdorf.

They caught a glimpse of the Chamber of the Cones through the doorway; saw with awe the great block of glimmering white, pulsing with an inner fire. The ten glittering cones with their rings of shimmering light made them gape.

They eased forward, and halted at the doors.

The black thing was pressing levers, working them swiftly. The great cones began to hum softly, began to throb. They could feel that terrific power pulsating through the room, making them quiver in rhythm though they stood beyond its range. The faint azure haze darkened; grew deeper, a dark blue. In broad bands of light the blue leaped from the cones, poured outward over the room.

Irgi too, they saw. He lifted himself to his full height, turning and pirouetting gracefully despite his bulk. He bathed in the light, and it sprayed over and covered him.

"He's h'on h'a bat," croaked Gunn in hoarse excitement. "'E's getting drunk on that stuff, whatever it is. A bender, a rip-snorting tear 'e's 'avin' for himself. Look at him. Like it was champagne he was wallowin' in. Gawd--I could stand a snootful of that myself!"

He leaped swiftly, before Mussdorf could stop him.

Past the big man's outstretched arm he charged, full into the beating bands of blue.

"Oh good Lord!" whispered Mussdorf.

* * * * *

Before his eyes little Gunn stiffened in intolerable agony, straight up, rigid. He hung that way for one long instant, immobile.

Then Gunn--disappeared.

Mussdorf blinked, and looked. The little pickpocket had been right before him an instant ago. Now where he had been was nothing but those pulsing ribbons on cobalt, pounding, beating, throbbing.

He's gone right in front of my eyes, Mussdorf thought. Evaporated. Into thin air. No, not into air. Into that blue color. It just absorbed him, like a blotter sops up ink!

Mussdorf knew cold fright, shuddering.

He whirled and ran, straight up the corridor toward the laboratory door. It shot back before the thrust of his arms. He leaped for the white tables as Emerson and Nichols stared at him, wondering at his pale face.

Big brown hands seized on the straps that held Emerson, fighting to burst them.

"Calm down, man," said Emerson evenly. "If those things could break, I'd have broken them. Undo the buckles."

"Yeah, yeah. You're right," sobbed the big convict.

"What happened to you?"

"Not to me. To Gunn. Little Tilford Gunn. Gone. That--that damned black beast killed him with his blue color. Right in front of my eyes. It's going to take all of us to lick him. That's why I came back."

"What are you babbling about?" said Emerson softly. "Take your time, man. What blue color?"

"In the big room up the corridor. There's a deep roar and splashes of this deep light, as dark as a sapphire. Caught him, it did. Melted him into nothing at all. I--I can't forget it."

He unsnapped the last buckle and stood silent as Emerson got up and stretched. His chest heaved as he gasped for air.

He said suddenly, "We might as well get out of here while we can. If that thing wants to experiment on us any more--the hell with him. Let's go, and fast."

Emerson was freeing Nichols, smiling thinly, "What about your fortune, Mussdorf? What about being a boss on Mars?"

Mussdorf licked his lips, whispering, "Hell with that. I just want to get away from here, that's all. That black thing has power we've never seen, never dreamed of. I tell you, those blue bands--"

Mussdorf swore.

Emerson whirled, reaching for his solar gun.

Irgi stood in the doorway, brooding at them. Almost he seemed to shake his vast head, sadly.

"Stop him, one of you," babbled Mussdorf, striving to get past them. "Maybe one of us can get away."

The thing stretched out his tentacles so swiftly that Emerson rasped curses as his gun-arm was clapped and held tight against his side. Nichols writhed beside him in another viselike arm. Mussdorf had fainted.

Looking down at him, Emerson smiled thinly, and said to Nichols, "Whatever happened to Gunn must have been pretty bad. They told me at New Mars that Karl Mussdorf was pretty tough."

"Yeah," whispered Nichols.

Emerson looked up at the thing, studying it, thinking: maybe I can get it to listen to me. Maybe it will even let us go free if I can communicate with it.

"What're you going to do with us?" he questioned as calmly as he could.

The thing looked at him, and the thin mouth moved, but Valentine Emerson heard no sound. The thing shook his head again, sadly.

* * * * *

He could not make these beings understand that he was helping them, Irgi realized. They cannot hear my voice because it is pitched lower than their ears can detect. And even if they heard me, they would not understand. I shall cure them of the growth disease. By that act, they will know I am friendly. Time enough then to discuss other matters. Matters like the building of a great statue to him, Irgi, greatest of the Urg.

He carried them into the Chamber of the Cones; set them down gently.

The large one with the black hair and the shaggy brows was screaming something. He was undergoing an emotion: anger. And fright, too. Yes, the black haired one was frightened. More frightened than he was angry. Irgi watched him curiously. He must have seen the little one blasted when the Cones were pulsing.

It was too bad about that, Irgi thought as he trussed them up. But these beings were so impetuous, almost childlike in their emotional hysteria. He could not let them know that the Cones were set to pulse in rhythm with his own body, not theirs. And anything foreign to that peculiar vibration--perished. It simply ceased to exist, wiped out by the flood of power loosed by the white block.

Irgi twisted dials on the instrument panel. He knew the rhythm of these creatures, and adjusted to allow for it. This time the blue beam would not harm them. Instead they would blast into nothingness the growth disease that was slowly eating away their lives.

There was danger for Irgi, too, in this. He could not remain in the Chamber to watch them. He must leave. He set the automatic regulators to begin in five parazaw, last for one azaw, then switch back. After that time, he could safely return, for the dark blue light and the roaring hum would cease, and the cones would be idle.

Irgi glanced at the three beings. The black-haired one still raved, but the others lay silent, watching him. He nodded approval. The black-haired being was trying to loosen within the others the storms of emotions that held him thrall, but they were of different stuff.

He went through the doors, and the doors slid shut.

* * * * *

Emerson rasped, "Shut up!"

They lay silent for long moments. Emerson was studying the white block and the cones and the spiralling, gleaming rings. He frowned, trying to imagine their use. A tremendous powerhouse, of some sort. Probably atomic power sucked from the white rock in some alien manner. Atomic power that beat outward from the cones in bands of visible color. Could it be a bath of atoms, bombarding everything in the room?

Mussdorf snarled, "I tell you he's going to do away with us like he did with Gunn."

"Don't be a fool, man," answered Emerson wearily. "He wouldn't go to all this trouble just to kill us. One quick wrench with those tentacles of his, and we'd be dead ducks. He's got us in here for some reason. I'm not denying he may be experimenting on us. But there ought to be others joining with him in it. Funny, we haven't seen any others like him."

"Look," said Nichols abruptly.

The white block was radiating, pulsing, casting forth bluish beams that swept to the cones and fled outward in ever expanding arcs to splash against the walls. The blue light deepened, grew violet. It pulsed faster, swifter. And the humming of the cones was deafening.

"I don't feel anything," said Emerson. "I can still see you fellows. Whatever it was happened to Gunn isn't happening to us."

He turned; found himself free of the straps, sat up. He clambered to his feet and looked around.

"The straps that held us are gone. Disappeared. Like Gunn."

Mussdorf murmured oaths but he too got to his feet, asking, "What do we do now?"

"Stay here and see what's next on the program. I still don't believe that thing's out to harm us."

"Ahh, you always were a soft-hearted fool," Mussdorf snarled. "Why's he going to all this bother to save us? It doesn't add up. This is some fool scheme of his mad brain. He's no altruist. Not that black octopus. Gad, what a shape!"

Nichols smiled wryly, "I believe we're just as peculiar to him as he is to us. He talks and we can't even hear his voice. He may hear us, but it's a cinch he doesn't know what we're talking about. Huh, it's somewhat of a 'Never the twain shall meet' angle. East and West, and that sort of thing."

"Only it's solar and star system," agreed Emerson, walking toward the intricate control panels on the wall. He stretched an arm toward a dial--

He paused, staring.

His arm. Good Lord, his _arm_!

"Nichols! Mussdorf," he shouted, leaping for them. "Let me see your arms, your faces. Yes, you see? Mine, too. Free. Free of the lumps. They're _gone_! The bumps that mean cancer--gone. We're cured!"

They stared in awed fascination at themselves. Nichols ripped at his jacket, pulled it open, ran exploring hands over his skin. He sobbed suddenly; began hysterically to cry, shoulders shaking.

"Whatever it is, it's cured us," whispered Emerson, turning to stare upwards at the great glittering cones, that towered high above him.

"Ada and the kids," Nichols sobbed. "If they were here we could cure them too."

"The world can be freed from the Plague," Emerson breathed.

"A fortune," grinned Mussdorf, eyes glinting.

Emerson said, "If we knew how this thing worked, we could set it up on Earth. Duplicate it."

Mussdorf slid a hand over the butt of his solar gun. He smiled grimly. "At a price, commander. Think of it. We'll be billionaires. That girl in New Mars--bah! I could have girls ten times better than her, just throwing themselves at me."

"We came to do a job," Emerson said flatly, "and we're going to see it through."

Mussdorf tugged at his gun, lifting it, aiming it at Emerson's broad chest.

"I'm tired of these damned ideals of yours," he grated savagely. "You'll never change. Neither will I. The time for words is past. I'm acting--"

His finger tightened on the trigger.

And Emerson dove in at him, like a fullback at the line.

The bolt of yellow never left the muzzle of the gun. It was smothered in a cobalt-dark spray of angry color. Color that sizzled.

* * * * *

Emerson brought his fist up hard, caught the big adventurer alongside his jaw, snapping his head back viciously. With hard lefts and rights, Emerson banged his fists mercilessly, swarming over Mussdorf, bruising his ribs, thudding home his big fists on jaw and belly.

Mussdorf dropped, rolled over: lashed upward with both feet.

Emerson sideswayed, drove in. His fists battered Mussdorf's jaw, rolling his head from side to side. His knuckles gashed the tight skin and drew blobs of blood. Mussdorf staggered dizzily, and pitched forward as Emerson hammered his head again.

"I put up with you long enough," he spat at the prostrate man. "After this, when I give an order, you--obey!"

Emerson bent, ripped the gun from Mussdorf; thrust it into his belt.

"But this is what we came to get," Nichols said. "This means life--security--wealth--freedom from cancer--for all the people on Earth and Mars."

"I know," Emerson nodded. "We'll have to take it."

He glanced up at the cones and shook his head. They were far too vast to carry in the spaceship. He might duplicate them if he knew how they worked, though.

"Quick," he rasped at Nichols. "Start hunting for plans--blue-prints--anything that might tell what this apparatus is, how it works, what its principle is."

They sprang about the room, searching the scrolls that hung on the walls, the inscriptions graven in stone and metal. Off in one corner, a great leaden casket lay in a niche. It was Emerson who found it, and his yelp of delight brought Nichols running.

"It's here, all here. Diagrams. Calculations. All of them worked out mathematically. They don't use our system, but it'll be easy enough to decipher theirs. We've got it, Car!"

Nichols stood with head bent, lips soundlessly moving.

"It's atomic power, all right," assured Emerson, "with that block as its source. But lord, what tremendous advances from the atomic power we know. The block is acted upon by the cones which cause it to send out streams of radioactive atoms, throwing them back to the cones that take them up in turn to hurl them all around the room.

"Matter is constantly in motion, thanks to the molecules that comprise it. They keep moving about one another eternally; in the case of solids, they just about make it. That motion is carried on at a certain rate of speed. To an extent, you might say it vibrates at a certain pulse. If the atoms are attuned to that pulse, they feed and nourish. If the matter vibrates at a different rate than the atoms, the atoms destroy it. The straps that bound us are gone, but our clothes are unaffected. Perhaps that's because the things we wear are tuned in some manner to our own vibratory rate. Maybe it's because what we wear comes from Earth, and things from Earth have their own peculiar motion. I'm not sure, yet. But I do know anything that's in this room when the cones are set at a certain pulse either vibrates in harmony with that pulse or is wiped out of existence by the atoms that hit it. Like Gunn. Like the cancer cells that vibrated differently from our otherwise healthy bodies!"

"The block," whispered Nichols. "We'll need the block!"

"Certainly. It's radium, in all probability--perhaps treated in some manner we don't know of. But we can take it. It'll fit into this box. The box was made for it. It's lead."

The doors were opening soundlessly. Warned by eyes upon him, Emerson whirled and dove for the cone controls. He set a hand on a lever and turned to face the thing.

"I don't know whether you can hear me, fella," he grated. "But this thing is tuned to _our_ bodies now, not yours. We want that block--" jerking his head toward the shimmering white square, "--to take with us. If you don't step aside--you die!"

"Kill him anyhow," whispered Nichols.

"Yes, you soft fool," snarled Mussdorf through swollen, cut lips from the floor. "Pull the lever and do away with him."

Emerson shook his head, still looking at the thing that stood so still in the doorway, staring back at him.

"That would be murder. He's an intelligent being. If he doesn't interfere, he stays alive."

The black monster turned, and moved off down the corridor. Emerson exhaled with relief, found his palm wet and sticky. He rubbed it on his thigh, turning to the others.

"Snap into it," he barked. "Get off the floor, Mussdorf, and give Nichols a hand. Lug that leaden box between the cones, beneath the block. I'm going to release the pressure that keeps it suspended. We want that block. We need it. We can build the cones and the rings back on Earth, but there isn't anything like that block anywhere else in all the Universe!"

* * * * *

They worked feverishly, sliding the box across the floor. Emerson studied the control panels, sweat beading his brow with the effort of his concentration. He summoned the years of his tutelage under the world's greatest physicists at Earth University, the years of knowledge acquired in laboratory and spaceship on Earth and in the great red city of New Mars. He only had one chance here. It had to be successful. If he made a mistake, he was like to draw on them the concentrated fury of a billion annihilating atoms.

He touched levers hesitantly, frowning; striving to remember the diagrams etched in metal on the box. Here, this one. This should be it. He wrapped his fingers carefully about the gleaming white knob, turned it with infinitesimal slowness, looking at the great white block. He saw it quiver, settle slowly floorwards.

"It's in," yelled Nichols, slamming the leaden cover down and locking it.

It took the three of them to budge it, to slide it across the floor.

"Hell," panted Mussdorf. "We'll never make it. Once we get it into the corridor, that black fiend'll be on top of us again."

Somehow they got it out of the Chamber, and scraped it along the corridor. Luckily, the way was level, and the ramp that lead from the Chamber of the Cones to the great square was smooth. But in the square they ran into an unsurmountable difficulty. There was no way to lift it into the spaceship.

"We can't do it," acknowledged Emerson glumly. "It would take a crane to lift that."

Mussdorf kicked at the box, and swore. Nichols ran quivering fingers through his hair, trembling.

Then Emerson started to grin.

"A crane, sure. We have one here, if we can only make it work. The thing, the black thing. He's as strong as any crane I ever saw!"

"Think he'll do it?" asked Mussdorf.

"I can try. Maybe a threat to use the solar blasters on him will do the trick."

He really didn't think so, recalling the way the black being had sidestepped the bolts before; but it was their only hope. He pulled his two guns and turned; stopped short, staring.

The black creature was coming down the ramp, slithering his great bulk toward them. He ignored them, heading directly toward the leaden box.

Irgi lifted the leaden casket in three of his rippling tentacles, balancing it. He moved toward the spaceship, thrust the box through the open door.

Emerson frowned. He went to the thing, touching it and looking upward into its eyes.

The thing looked down at Emerson unblinking. It pointed to the transparent globe above, then patted Emerson on his wrist with a force that nearly snapped it.

"He's going to open the globe for us. He's going to set us free!"

* * * * *

Irgi watched the ship twinkle to a glittering dot high in the heavens. Sadly he turned and moved back along the empty corridors, once again alone.