Part 2

"Our scientists have been unable to isolate the germ, it must be a filtrable virus ... that is their problem. But, if as I suspect there is a ... what was it the barbaric, ancient Romans called it?... a _Deux ex machina_ behind it, then, by the perdurable glory of our Moon, gentlemen, I pledge a holocaust that'll dwarf Jupiter's Red Spot into insignificance!" The capacity for destruction in Astran's cold, dispassionate voice was awesome.

In the ensuing silence, Julian's mind trained to the apex of its wide-awakedness, felt the horror-vibration that swept the audience of Dekkans. He saw the coruscating streamers of living fire that blazed from the stupendous double star, and, with a feeling of shock saw that ahead of him an Astro-operative's mask had slid imperceptibly to one side, enough to expose a tell-tale _silver tide that had reached half-an-inch above the hair-roots_!

Casually almost, Julian moved with his strange, smooth elegance over the ethereal blueness of the safiro-plast flooring, and the imperturbable gaze of his frigid eyes probed into the suddenly startled glare of the man. Without warning his hand flashed out and came away with the torn mask. A wealth of hair that had been tinted gold but showed unmistakable silver at the roots and parting cascaded to his shoulders.

The narrow face of the Mutant, with its thin, high-bridged nose and silver eyes, flushed crimson as he was exposed, and the long claw-like hand darted to his side, groping for the deadly Power-rapier that was _de rigeur_. All in one sinuous motion he lunged with the weapon that described a silver vortex under the fulgurant star. In the utter silence Julian, too, had drawn.

The breath of all present seemed to pause for a startled second, then their ranks split to give them room. There could be no interference in a duel, that was the law. There was courage in the Mutant, a fanatical valor that was mirrored in his eyes. He knew his life to be forfeit--and he intended to sell it as dearly as he possibly could.

* * * * *

Only the singing impact of the blades was heard, as the darting swords parried and cut, swirling streamers of unleashed power. And suddenly, the Mutant seemed to recoil upon himself, as if gathering all his reserves of strength, then he launched himself forward in a vertiginous fury of unholy speed. And that was his undoing, for Julian trained under Jovian gravity could more than match it, and the Mutant staking all on speed, had had to sacrifice his guard. There was a soundless flash, like the glare from a gigantic glass, and where the Mutant's chest had been there was only space, space lit by the spectral-blueness of the Dekka Star. The body fell a charred and twisted thing from which the watchers averted their eyes. The peculiar odor of disintegrated flesh stung their nostrils.

For the first time in living memory, a spy had contrived to enter their midst. Julian didn't care to think what would happen to the units who guarded and activated the Neuro-graphs that were posted the length of the entrance corridor. Still, it was obvious that only a mind of great power could have had the satanic ingenuity to plan an invasion of the _Dekka's_ Hall of Sessions.

Julian Varon bent over the mutilated form suppressing an impulse to retch. It was unmistakably a _true_ Mutant from Ganymede, where the dark flower of their civilization had reached obscure heights. The features of the man were unmistakeable. As he straightened, Julian raised his left arm exposing the tiny double star at his wrist, symbol of his rank, and belatedly reported to the _Dekka_.

"A Ganymedean Mutant, _Serenity_!" Julian spoke, facing toward the Dais where he knew Astran stood behind the veiling curtain of light shed by the diamond star. "This dubious honor is the second one tonight," Julian said with a mirthless laugh. "I've fought one bare-handed, the other with Power-rapiers, I should like the next encounter to be with 'Electro-cannon!' However, perhaps these two encounters are something of a clue. Surely," he paused and swept the assembled Dekkans with his eyes, "they must form part of a definite pattern."

"Please continue, Control-Facet," Astran's voice held a note of suppressed excitement.

"Simply that it has occurred to me, that while we on Io, the dwellers on Europa and even Callisto have been ravaged by this hellish disease, Ganymede has failed even to _mention_ the scourge in their reports. Even taking for granted their genius for silence and intrigue--their aloofness from their sister-worlds' affairs, such a catastrophe as this Plague should have blasted them out of their shells, _if they have been ravaged, too_! If not," Julian paused deliberately, and into these words he put all the dynamic, irresistible power of his trained voice, "_we should investigate, regardless of consequences_!"

"Investigate!" Astran's voice held a grim sardonicism. "If what I _intuit_ is true, we, the Dekka are prepared to underwrite Jovian history for the next hundred years!"

Julian sighed with a sudden feeling of exultance, and he knew why. Wryly, he was aware that what Astran termed "intuit" was an integer of vastly complicated cerebro-geometric figures; graphs of brainpower coordinates and emotional integers, whose tendrils root-like delved into the innermost recesses of the human mind. And Astran was perhaps the greatest Cerebro-Geometrician of them all. Quite obviously the scientists of the Dekka had been far from idle. And, the expose of the Mutant spy had been like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle falling into place and revealing the beginnings of a pattern of some sort, but as yet not clear.

"Quorum!" Astran's voice rose imperatively. "Astro-operatives and Facets clear the Hall. All others remain."

The real session was about to begin. Julian Varon knew it all by heart. The endless series of individual reports on every nook and corner of their worlds, so that each member of the Dekka present would be acquainted with the sum total of their individual experiences. Still they remained masked.

* * * * *

A great multitude of lesser members surged toward the exit, while those chosen to remain grouped forward under the flaming diamond star, whose light veiled the ten members of the _Dekka_. For the ten leaders of their order of whom Astran was the foremost, might be known by their names, recognized by their voices, but they were never seen. There was a saying that all others "could enter the light, but could never touch the flame."

All the waning night, while Io revelled in a fantastic carnival of pleasure, they gave their reports in minute detail, and the ten minds on the dais that formed the Dekka, made calculations with infinite patience and fed them to the Neuro-graphs by their desks complicated cerebro-geometric figurates were set up, and woven into the matrix of their problem. The possible influence of certain key figures in the Societies of other Moons whose intelligence, emotional stability and intellectual attributes were known, was reduced to high-level variables, and again fed to the marvelous machines together with the relevant data culled from the members present. Astran was like a raging juggernaut, asking questions, prodding laggard memories, directing the other nine members of the Dekka. He was tireless, and pitiless. How at his great age he could accomplish it, was a mystery. But it had been that boundless energy and stupendous will that had been responsible for the greatness of Io--not to speak of the _Dekka_.

_He must be over two hundred!_ Julian thought with awe, recalling dimly the "Memoirs" of an earlier historian whom Astran had commissioned to compile a history of Io, and in so doing had managed to bedevil that poor man's life to such an extent, that the historian had counted the cessation of Astran's visits as among the compensations for dying!... That had been fifty years ago, when already for a century Astran had led the Dekka.

At last, the Neuro-Graph machines, marvelous as they were could do no more. Out of that welter of figures, endless reports and calculations, one master mathematical conclusion remained. _The answer lay in Ganymede!_

It suddenly occurred to Julian just how ghastly was the irony of their position. For their ancestors in gaining all the "conditions of freedom," had gained far more than they'd bargained for, including this epidemic of Mutations that in rendering them sterile sealed the doom of their Moons. Had _Terra_ known it, this was the perfect answer--a few decades and all of them would remain only as a Mars-dry chapter in history.

They had sown the whirlwind ... and were reaping extinction!

And Julian found a kindred feeling in the vast capacity for sheer destruction that Astran had hinted at tonight.

If the answer lay in Ganymede with its dual civilization of Terran mutants and their descendants, and the original Ganymedean race, he meant to visit that stupefying world of cabals and intrigues and unrivaled luxury.

* * * * *

Julian stood alone at last beside the spacer where lay Narda's unconscious form. He glanced up into the ultra-marine skies blazing with myriad fiery roses, and gazed at the red ruby that was Ganymede reflecting the great Red Spot of the parent world.

Finally Julian entered the spacer and tenderly raised Narda's head to pour Sulfalixir down her throat. First he had to take her where she would be cared for, and then ... and then.... With a sigh he took the controls and set the drive. In seconds he was soaring, above the deserted plains.

III

"_Terra glances--Men bend low-- As Death dances, on tip-toe!_"

Io--_27th Century_.

Like a shallow bowl hooded in starlight, the secret Ganymedean landing fields came rushing upward as Julian coasted the muted spacer, descending in a great rush of wind.

It seemed deserted and bleak, coldly uninviting. There was a brief jar as Julian made contact and brought the small but almost invulnerable semi-cruiser to a partial stop. His fingers were still over the banked keys when it came with mind-shattering suddenness--a burst of intolerable light! The spacer trembled, shuddered like a living thing. Instantly the hidden depression was alive with shadow-shapes as the first shot struck home. Again the livid-orange flare blotted out the starlight with a macabre radiance, and Julian reeled against the panel. He had time for but one thought: "Hidden! Secret, eh!"

* * * * *

He pressed the stud and drove the "Drive" forward one quarter. The spacer reared like a mammoth stallion and plunged vertiginously into the mass of men and projectors, scattering rocks and limbs in a welter of crushed metal and torn flesh. The pandemonium of screams and explosions was drowned in the roar of the hurtling ship. The warm blood spurted out of Julian's ears and its acrid scent was in his nostrils. The momentum had carried the spacer across the entire field before Julian could bring it to a stop. Reeling with the effects of concussion he drove himself out of the wounded vessel and into the darkness of the tumbled terrain. The city was very near, he knew, even if no garish brilliance heralded it. He had to get to it.... _He had to!_ The "plan" was complete, and even if only one small phase of the plan were defeated, the whole pattern would have to be reconstructed and the element of surprise would be lost.

And then he realized grayly that an _awareness_ of the Plan existed. Else how explain such a reception? Violence was out in the open now. And, the _Dekka_ had not been the one to force the issue. Still, the pressure of the thought in his mind--the overwhelming responsibility of his task--was so great, that it drove him with cyclonic power. It lent wings to his strength as he covered the distance in great leaps, and was profoundly grateful for his Jovian training. The tumult behind him receded into the distance, became indistinct. But Julian knew that transmitters would be crackling with warning. His instinctive ruse with the spacer had worked like a miracle, but he knew he could not hope to have disposed of all his attackers. They would be on his trail like bloodhounds in short order!

The darkness now was but faintly suffused with the shimmer of starlight, and great sections of the sky were blotted out. He came up against a solid barrier and realized he was in the city. Ahead loomed a vast shadow whose upthrust towers caught glimmers of faint luminescence.

"The Temple!" he breathed, and darted like a hunted animal into the silent sanctuary. He didn't deceive himself that he would be inviolate, although that was the law; but it was a respite. Time to get his bearings in the damnable city of darkness and tortuous ways.

Once within the lofty nave of the temple, Julian took swift stock of his surroundings. It was illuminated with surpassing skill, soothing, caressing almost. But it suddenly struck him that the perfection of the workmanship had a double purpose--it served primarily to mask the impregnability of the place. It was a veritable fortress instantly convertible if the need arose. It had been built to withstand a siege!

Ahead of him was a lofty, jewel-encrusted altar. But no idol was enthroned there. No inscription even. Only the raging inferno of a miniature atomic-vortex held under control by some unknown means and enclosed in a transparent substance which he rightly judged to be an illusion, and was a field of force, in reality. There seemed to be no exit anywhere, except the entrance through which he had come. Julian had suddenly come to the end.

He searched like a trapped creature, his whole being convulsed by the urgency of his will, while the tumult of the chase drew nearer and nearer with desperate urgency he explored the altar. "_Surely_," he reasoned, "_there must be some way the priests of the temple reach the nave!_" With frantic fingers he explored the gemmed surfaces, driving his mind to intuit the logical means of ingress not to speak _egress_. The chromatic shimmer of the gems blurred and merged together, formed curiously fantastic patterns, as his senses reeled through the after-effects of concussion. Imperceptibly almost, his probing fingers felt a slight projection on a flat surface. With a swift, jabbing motion he pushed in, and a circular section the size of a small coin slid to one side. There was a thin metallic ring beneath. He twisted it, and the whole section large enough for a stooping man to enter swung silently inward. He hesitated briefly gazing into the dark aperture. He could already hear clearly the shouted commands of his pursuers, as the troops deployed into the branching streets. He entered and the aperture closed.

* * * * *

When the golden _Felirene_ sprawled on the fabulous rug twitched its plumed tail and narrowed its lambent eyes to slits of emerald fire, Fermin, the Arch-Mutant did not move. He did not raise his head.

The silver-grey eyes remained fixed, the slightly narrow skull immobile; outwardly, he seemed absorbed in the photo-plastic record. But the long, fragile finger of his hand pressed one of the gems that studded the milky whiteness of the Jadite chair on which he sat. Imperceptibly the jewel depressed. In the open hearth before him, a burning log of aromatic wood crackled and sent up a shower of sparks like shooting stars against the blue glory of the aquamarine glass columns that flanked it.

"The slightest movement means death!" Fermin said softly, in a voice that was calm and poised and unhurried. "Even a spoken word might set _it_ off." In the brooding silence, the subdued hissing of the flames could be heard.

"You see, intruder, you're standing in a radio beam that controls a Neuro-flash. The slightest movement disturbs the beam, which in turn releases the "flash." A most deplorable accident...." His voice trailed into a melodious undertone faintly etched with laughter. Then he rose and flung back the folds of his jewelled scarlet robe, bright as fresh blood, with a gesture of fastidious elegance.

"Come, _Sappho_ ... let us welcome our guest!" he bade the now crouching, six-foot-long beast whose formidable claws were bared. "This is a memorable occurrence!" He moved with an effortless surety remarkable in its economy of movement; there was something oddly regal and imperturbable in his stride. Beside him, Sappho, the feral creature, paced with a fluid motion almost like flight, its golden fur gleaming with firelight reflections.

Across an invisible, if lethal barrier they met.

Fermin gazed into the inscrutable eyes, blue-grey and silvered, almost like his own. He appraised the astonishing shoulders of the man, the golden hair with the unmistakable rising tide of silver. Noted the absence of weapons except for the usual power-rapier. "What a magnificent addition to our cause," he meditated. Unhurriedly Fermin retraced his steps to the chair, and depressed another flashing gem that shut off the radio-beam, then came back to the silent man. "How," he inquired in a voice like ice, "did you get in here?" Inwardly Fermin was torn between the desire to let _Sappho_ display her peculiar talents, and that of adding yet another valuable recruit to the cause. He smiled slowly as if reading the intruder's thoughts: "It is safe to speak now," he pointed out. "I've shut off the power."

"My entrance is but a detail," Julian answered. His eyes traveled slowly, noting the shock of translucent hair, the silver eyes, then paused briefly at the power-rapier hanging from Fermin's belt. For a second he had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh at the ghastly irony of it. After waiting for hours in the secret passage, he had to blunder headlong into the presence of the one being in all Ganymede he would have avoided at all costs!

"I sought sanctuary and there was the Temple-nave. It's inviolate, isn't it?" (_The point was, should he brazen it out or fight._)

"Of course!"

"But obviously, I couldn't remain in the Temple forever, so ... I had to find an exit." (_Wonder if the paralysis ray works on a Felirene!_)

"Continue, please," Fermin's voice was a smooth purr.

"The atomic vortex drew my attention and I found beneath it what I sought. Then, when I came in here and saw you absorbed in those records ... why, I hesitated...."

"_As simple as that._" A world of irony lay in Fermin's pellucid tones. The smile of ancient Medusa, would have been mild compared with the change that came over the Arch-Mutant's face. "No doubt, it is also a mere detail that the Atomic-vortex--which represents, incidentally, the Absolute--is absolutely fatal! That secret exit beneath the altar is known only to five other persons besides myself. And, that the slightest miscalculation in manipulating the secondary controls of the last door that leads to this chamber, releases an electronic current sufficient in itself to incinerate a squadron! Remarkable!" Fermin's eyes were flashing molten silver. "And casually strolled through!" The hooded eyes were shadowed with death now. "However," the unhurried voice continued, "_we expected you, Julian Varon_."

"Yes, I am Varon," Julian answered with a sort of sardonic calm he reserved for moments when death loomed very near. "I am too near _the flame_ to have dispensed with your attention. The point is, Fermin, I thought you a gentleman, while you seem to consider me a knave. I'm afraid we are both mistaken!" His generous mouth curved in a contemptuous smile, as the taunt struck home. Death was something the members of the Dekka had to learn to accept in advance.

* * * * *

Fermin chuckled, if anything as vulgar as a chuckle might be said to issue from those chiselled, aristocratic lips, but his face was ashen as his hand grasped the neutralized hilt of his Power-rapier.

"My rank is higher than a Prince, Dekkan--I don't have to be a gentleman! My mistake lay in thinking that you might be interested in an offer I was about to make. After all, _you're a sterile Mutant now_."

The savage Felirene licked its golden muzzle and gave a muffled roar as if tired of waiting, its prodigious musculature rippled under the metallic sheen of its priceless fur. Fermin stroked it caressingly.

"See, even Sappho has lost patience. I regret I must subject you to the Psycho-graph--that is, unless you prefer to tell me the reason for your visit of your own accord." The mellifluous accents were a study in modulation--clear, precise--sardonic.

Julian had a flashing remembrance of what a Psycho-graph could do to him. It had happened once before during his twenty-nine years of existence. He relived for an instant the burst of dazzling light, the agonizing fury in his brain, while voices that mocked and danced and probed penetrated deeper and deeper into his consciousness until they became a searing Babel in his mind. Julian had vowed it would never happen again. Suddenly he blanked his mind with swift ruthlessness.

And with the same savage ruthlessness he struck. A tiny paralysis beam flashed from the ring on his left little finger and stretched out the Felirene without a sound. His right hand already had sought the Power-rapier and the flashing blade described a scintillant wheel before him. But Fermin's reflexes were quite as swift. His own blade leaped into his long, aristocratic hand, as he sought cunningly to back toward the Jadite chair.

But Julian didn't give him that chance he needed, his onslaught drove forward with appalling speed, slashing, parrying, probing like a living thing, until the Arch-Mutant's face went gray, shadowed by the first fear he had known in his extraordinary life. Craftily, the scarlet-robed Arch-dynast feinted to the left, in the secret Ganymedean lure, and to his vast astonishment saw the lure engaged, _and then_, a searing flash that coruscated before his dazzled eyes left him only the neutralized hilt of his rapier in his hand! Fermin had a confused picture of molten drops spilling from the weightless hilt and of golden motes dancing before his eyes, when the paralysis beam convulsed him in a frozen shudder and he tumbled slowly to the rug--graceful even in unconsciousness.

Julian did not waste a single precious second. Both Fermin and his _alter ego_ would be out for at least two or three hours, he knew. But his presence might be discovered there any moment. He search the jewelled cabinets that lined one wall. Feverishly he scanned the photo-plastic record on the stand, and even read the flowing hieroglyphics of Ganymede, so much like the written Arabic of forgotten antiquity, which he found in a special compartment over the hearth, and found ... nothing! Nothing but a single word, frozen and faded in a now neutralized telesolidograph screen that flanked the white splendor of the Jadite chair. The word was "_Paradisiac_." And that was the name of perhaps the most glamorous, and the most dangerous pleasure den in their known universe.

At last in desperation, he searched the fallen body unceremoniously. The jewelled garments of the Arch-Mutant yielded no records, no secret notes, only a tiny vial fashioned of a single blood-red _Panagran_, which contained a colorless liquid. This, Julian thrust into a pocket. Then like a wraith he melted into the aquamarine penumbra of the titanic columns and disappeared as soundlessly as he had come.