Part 9

They were almost at the bottom now and could see the shining surface of the disk which they had seen from above without being able to determine its precise configuration. It spread out from the base of the stairs in a translucent glimmering, a surface of smooth, almost glass-like texture that spiraled slightly downwards for perhaps a hundred feet and then became completely horizontal. Where it rose to a level gradient it widened out so that its faintly luminous edges graded off into shadows.

There was a pylon-shaped structure at the far extremity of the sloping section. It could have been either a gateway or a small building, but Loring was almost sure that it was a building.

He did not pause when he reached the bottom. He tightened his hold on Janice's waist and then released her, gesturing out across the brightness.

"Walk fast, but don't run," he cautioned. "They may be watching us. That small tower could be anything: a communication control structure, a guardhouse, even a dwelling. We won't know until we get to it."

He nodded and left the stone stairway, moving out across the glass-like surface of the disk without looking back. Janice kept almost abreast of him, quickening her steps but not quite running.

Loring studied the structure appraisingly as he drew near to it. It was smooth-surfaced and completely featureless, a massive block of metal that rose to a height of about eighty feet.

He halted directly in front of it and waited for Janice to join him before he reached out and ran his hand over a square foot of its smooth metal surface. The metal was yellowish with a burnished copper sheen to it.

"What do you suppose it is?" Janice asked breathlessly.

Loring shook his head. "I wish I knew. It could be a guardhouse or a signal tower or something of the sort. There's no entrance on this side, but there may be an entrance in back. It could have been erected here as a kind of sentry barrier to guard this particular part of the city. It could even be a remotely controlled robot structure, equipped with detective devices and destructive weapons."

"You really think--"

"I don't know what to think. I'd like to pound on the metal to see if it gives off a hollow sound. But I'm afraid to risk it. Even raising our voices might be dangerous and activate some delicately balanced instrument of destruction."

A look of decision came into Loring's eyes. "You stay here," he said. "Don't move or touch that wall. If there's an entrance I don't want you to be with me until I've made sure there's nothing dangerous inside."

Janice looked at him, startled. "You're not going inside?"

"I will if there's an entrance."

"But darling, don't you see? If anything happened to you I wouldn't want to go on living. You think of what could happen and all that unrealistic nonsense about shielding a woman, not letting her share a danger with a man she loves more than her own life, breaks down."

"It hasn't broken down with me," Loring said. "I'm sorry, darling, but you're staying here."

"Please, David--"

"No chance. You're staying right here."

Before she could protest again he kissed her and turned quickly, not trusting himself to prolong the embrace. He walked to the edge of the building, rounded it and moved forward cautiously, keeping a short distance from the wall. The side of the structure was as wide as the facade, quite possibly a little wider.

The vague fear, the sense of danger, remained with him, but so far he had encountered nothing alarming. His uneasiness angered him a little, made him impatient with his own perhaps wholly unjustified caution. He came to a sudden decision. If there was an entrance at the rear of the building he would not hesitate but would go immediately inside.

There was an entrance at the rear of the building; an unlighted, oblong-shaped opening without ornamentation, twice the width of a man's body and eight or nine feet in height. Although the structure was metallic, the entrance had a stone-carven look, as if it had been chiseled with precision from a block of solid granite.

Having come to a decision, the swift dwindling of his dread surprised him. It was as if a point of pressure had been removed from his mind, leaving him free to walk without restraint into the structure.

The falling away of tension gave him no satisfaction. He mistrusted it, feared it, for it strengthened his belief that his thoughts were under scrutiny and an effort was being made to influence his emotions. Had he won a momentary victory or was that, too, an illusion?

The tension started mounting again the instant he had passed through the aperture. The darkness was just as bad as he had imagined it might be, totally unrelieved by the faintest glimmer of light. It was a smothering blackness, shroudlike and all-engulfing.

He stood very still a few feet within the entrance. The aperture was faintly filmed with light, but the dim glow did not penetrate for more than a foot or two into the darkness. Beyond that slight penumbra of light there was an impenetrable wall of darkness hemming him in on all sides.

The odor which came to his nostrils was equally unnerving. It was sharp, acrid, but with a faint mustiness about it which made him think of tomb rot.

For a moment there was no sound at all, no faintest stir of movement. Then he heard a rustling sound that seemed to come from deep within the darkness. A rustling, a shuffling, the kind of sound that could have been made by a snake unwinding its coils, or someone dragging a heavy sack over a stone floor, or by nothing more unnerving than the slow backward and forward movements of a broom.

Loring did not think it was a broom. The fear which came upon him was primitive, elemental. In some respects it was the kind of fear which a man in a dark wood would experience if he came upon a nest of copperheads while exploring a foliage-choked crevice in search of edible mushrooms. Expecting to find some poisonous varieties perhaps, but hardly death staring up at him out of the opaque eyes of a snake poised to strike.

He moved slowly backwards, keeping the same distance from the entrance but putting as much space as possible between himself and the shuffling. He kept backing away until he came up against a firm metal barrier which he quickly explored with his hands. It had the solid feel of a wall.

His breathing became a little less strained. With a wall at his back he was at least in no danger of being attacked from two directions. And if the wall made further retreat impossible the danger had not increased, for he was still the same distance from the entrance and could still, if he wished, make a very swift dash for it.

He had no immediate intention of doing so. He stood listening, motionless and alert, his shoulders barely touching the wall. The shuffling sound did not seem to be coming any nearer. It even stopped for an instant. The silence closed in about him and he became aware of the over-loud beating of his heart. When the sound started up again it seemed to come from another direction, closer to the entrance.

Now it _was_ nearer. Unmistakably louder and nearer, very close to him in the darkness. He strained his eyes, but could see nothing. He had to depend on his hearing alone, and hearing, he knew, could be deceptive. It was often very difficult to determine the precise location of a sound, to pinpoint it with any certainty.

Suddenly his heart skipped a beat, and his breathing quickened. His throat turned cold as he swallowed, and tightened as well, the muscles stiffening, cording into knots. Unconsciously he gripped his leg, just above the knee, and dug his fingers into the flesh, as if physical pain alone could keep reality from taking on an aspect so nightmarish that his sanity would be imperiled.

The creature was passing directly across the entrance. It was moving so slowly that he could see it distinctly in the sharply sheared-off glow from outside the building. The glow penetrated the darkness hardly at all, but when the creature paused and half turned about even that abruptly curtailed illumination was strong enough to bring it into stark relief.

He saw the monstrous shape clearly. Saw the long, insectlike legs with their tapering hairs, and the very slender, flylike body. Saw its gauzy, tightly folded wings, the metallic glitter of its immense, many-faceted eyes and the slow turning of the eyes as they sought him out in the darkness.

The enormous flying insect framed for an instant in the glow was a shape of terror. It was not its size alone which was making his flesh crawl and his chest heave as his eyes remained fastened upon it in the swimming darkness. He was quite sure of that.

There was something rapacious about it, a deadliness that could be instantly sensed. It seemed intent on his destruction, its enormous eyes filmed with a malignancy that made his blood run cold.

Its attitude was just as terrifying, the body poised as if for attack, a rapier sharpness in the writhing mandibles, a wire-tight tension in the rhythmically vibrating thorax, the slender abdomen, and the long, hairy legs which terminated in rust-colored, cuplike disks.

Loring's thoughts went into a mind-chilling whirl. The human mind does not associate ferocity with an ordinary fly. A house fly, a fruit fly, even a blue-bottle fly hovering over carrion and evoking no more than a slight, momentary shiver of disgust. But wasps and hornets are flylike in aspect and they are equally graceful in flight. Winged insects of great beauty, delicately constructed and the opposite of revolting. Yet wasps and hornets can inflict stings that can paralyze and kill.

A long blue hornet in a drowsy woodland glade can be a flying torpedo, a death-dealing precision instrument, as billions of fat, sluggish caterpillars have discovered over a very long period of geologic time. And if a hornet could become large enough....

A gigantic hornet might well find a man more to its liking on an alien world, a far more delectable feast for its larvae when paralyzed with care and stored in a clay-constructed hive. Or a metal-constructed hive.

The solitary wasps. The mud builders. Every schoolboy was familiar with them, every young naturalist exploring the countryside near his home, the autumn leaves turning red and yellow, the tang of woodsmoke in the air. The small, gray, skillfully cemented-over openings to their nests deep underground where unspeakable acts of insect vampirism took place. The paralyzed caterpillar shrinking, turning sere, losing its substance but remaining tormentingly alive while the gnawing, insatiable grubs waxed fat and strong. Dying in the end, its substance liquefying.... And a human caterpillar?

Despite his terror Loring knew that he was letting his imagination get out of control. He was taking too much for granted, letting his thoughts lead him into a dark abyss which probably had no basis in reality. The hideous thought had leapt unbidden into his mind and he had elaborated upon it, filling in the total blankness of the unknown with images so ghastly that they glowed blood-red. It was exactly what an expressionistic artist might have been forced to do if his morbidity became a genius-inspired flame and he could no longer restrain an impulse to torture himself to win immortality for what could be, at best, a purely symbolical vision of madness completely remote from reality.

Again he was merely a very frightened man with no particular liking for morbidity who had been trapped in total darkness on an alien planet and had everything to lose by abandoning himself to wild conjecture when only clear, logical, determined thinking could save him.

If he had thought at all of wasps and hornets, if he had instantly seized upon such a comparison--there had to be a reason behind such a forceful, almost irresistible distortion of thought.

He was almost sure that it was a distortion. The mere appearance of a flylike creature close to him in the darkness, huge and malignant as it appeared to be, would not ordinarily have started such a train of thought in his mind and opened up vistas so specifically ghastly.

In all probability his thoughts had been deliberately guided. The paralyzed caterpillar-feasting grub comparison had been firmly implanted in his mind by a skillful mental manipulation of his imagination.

And if his mind was being manipulated, if the alien city dwellers were--

Loring straightened, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, his eyes darting to the entrance. The entrance was darkening again. A shadow had fallen across it, partly blotting out the radiance from outside the building.

It was not a massive shadow and he knew that it could not have been cast by the flylike creature moving about in the darkness. It was an advancing, not a retreating shadow, and it was very slender. It cut off a portion of the light for only a fraction of the time it had taken the insect to pass from the glow into the darkness. It was accompanied by footsteps, quick, uncertain and a brief flurry of movement. Then the slender intruder was inside the building, silhouetted against the glow a few feet from the entrance.

NINE

"Janice!"

Loring spoke her name in a choked whisper, as if an instrument of torture had been applied without warning to his flesh and was slowly crushing every bone in his body. He whispered her name twice, and then his voice broke and he could only stare, gripped by a fear so tormenting that it completely shattered all of his defenses.

He was unable to move or think clearly. If the aliens had chosen that moment of shock to attack nothing could have saved him, for he was incapable of resistance. But they did not attack. It was almost as though they themselves had been caught off guard, checkmated by the very violence of his emotions. Perhaps they had not known that a man in love may lose all concern for his own safety and redouble it in another direction, transfer it to someone whose life is infinitely more precious to him. Perhaps that total forgetfulness of self was so alien to their thinking that they were unable to make instant and effective use of it as a weapon.

Janice's voice broke the stillness, calling out to him in a frightened appeal. "David! David! Where are you? I was too worried about you to wait any longer. When you didn't come back--"

She swayed a little and moved a few steps closer to him, as if groping for something tangible to guide her in the darkness. Then he was at her side, stilling her trembling with the firmness of his embrace, murmuring reassurances.

"What I just said was a lie, David," Janice whispered, holding on to him as if she would never let him go. "Your mind was made up, so I had to pretend I wasn't going to follow you. Now there's nothing you can do about it, is there, darling?"

"No, nothing," Loring said, smoothing her hair, wishing it weren't true but not wanting to alarm her more than he had to.

"You're glad I'm here--glad I did come?"

"Very glad," Loring said, the lie making him tormentingly aware of how difficult it would be to tell her the truth. But she had to know.

The insect might attack at any moment. It was still close to him in the darkness, close to Janice now as well and when he strained his ears he could still hear the faint whirring of its wings. He was aware of its chilling odor too: acrid, and laden with a slight effluvium of mustiness and decay, as if it had just emerged from some airless, long-abandoned sepulchre deep underground.

He tried to keep his voice level when he described it to her, holding nothing back, making no attempt to minimize the danger and asking her to listen herself to the faint whirring of the creature's wings.

She began to tremble again, slightly at first and then more violently, so that he had to tighten his grip on her shoulder and draw her firmly back against the wall.

"Something seems to be keeping it from attacking," he whispered. "Perhaps it won't attack at all if we keep very still and think about getting out."

"Think about it?" Her voice was so faint he had to strain to catch the words. "The entrance is right in front of us. Why can't we make a dash for it?"

"We may have to. It may be a risk we'll have to take. But if we can save ourselves in some other way--"

"What do you mean? Why should we even try? If we head straight for the entrance we'll be outside in two or three seconds. Can that--that insect thing move fast enough to intercept us if we know that our lives are at stake?"

"I think it can. If they release it, I think it can. They may expect us to try to get out that way. Remember, an insect can move with lightning swiftness."

"But there's only one entrance. We can't hope to escape in any other way?"

Loring did a strange thing. He leaned back against the wall, pressed himself more firmly against it, and ran his fingers exploringly over its smooth metal surface.

Then he tightened his grip on Janice's arm and moved slowly along the wall, continuing to explore the surface with his free hand as he drew her with him through the darkness.

Before he had progressed more than four yards his fingers encountered a slight roughness. The roughness increased as he advanced, became a series of firmly projecting ridges. He stopped advancing, his breathing slightly quickened, and tugged experimentally at one of the ridges.

Nothing happened for an instant. Then he felt the wall move slightly under his hand. He tugged more vigorously, increasing the tightness of his grip. A section of the wall began to swing open. He wedged one shoulder solidly against it, and exerted a steady, unrelenting pressure, to counterbalance the tugging and keep the movement stabilized.

There was a sudden change in the darkness. It became less impenetrable and by straining his eyes he could make out the shadowy outlines of a flight of steps leading downward. A blast of cold air swept upwards through the aperture, causing Janice to cry out in surprise and press closer to him. She spoke with a stunned breathlessness.

"David, how did you know?"

"I think--they wanted us to know."

"But why, David? I don't understand."

"I had a sudden impulse to look for another way out. It was as if the thought had been implanted in my mind, as if I was being guided. Something started me searching the instant you said there was only one way to escape, through the doorway. They may have feared I'd decide not to make a dash for it. And I think they want us to go on, to at least try to escape. I don't know why. I can't explain it."

He reached out for her hand, clasped it firmly. "We're going down those stairs. Even if it's what they want us to do we're going to take the risk. To stay here would be too dangerous. The slightest display of weakness or indecision could offset any advantage we might gain by staying. With you here, sharing the danger, I couldn't withstand the pressure. I'd be sure to crack."

She was in his arms suddenly, embracing him with a passion so maddeningly feminine in its soft, clinging sweetness that he forgot for an instant that it must have been inspired by terror and desperation, and a mad desire to wed her body to his for the comfort he could bring her.

"David," she whispered. Her hand was exploring him with tender concern. "I want you--now. I must."

"But, darling--"

"That's why, darling," she whispered, "I love you. I want your seed to grow inside me before one of those monsters rapes me. And David, if anything happens to you, I want someone to remember you by. It's our duty David. We must survive."

He was roused. He touched her, and he knew she was ready for him. "It seems crazy, Janice," he protested, "but your reasons are sound. As you say, darling."

Her lips burned on his. Her lovely breasts pressed against his torso. Her small round stomach quivered against his.

"They might see," he warned. "They're watching us."

"I don't care!" Janice cried fiercely. "Let them see how decent human beings behave." She moved against him. "I'll conceive, David, I know. I'm ovulating. It's one of the unsafe days. Remember how careful we used to be." Her voice was almost gay. "Now we can be utterly careless. With your child in me, David, I won't be scared of anything. Come on, darling."

She took him then. The bliss of their union banished his fears. The warmth of her pulsating body, the rapture of her lips, the quivering of her loins, brought them together in complete harmony. The moment that is eternity for lovers came to both simultaneously.

"Hold me tight just for a little while," Janice pleaded afterwards. "Don't move!" She locked her arms round his waist.

Their bodies still joined, she leaned away from him, hanging her head back exposing the loveliness of her throat. Loring kissed it, because it seemed the natural thing to do. It was an impulsive gesture.

He was startled to feel her tighten against him, as if she were suddenly roused again. Slowly, with a beatific smile on her face, she raised herself, and looked up at him. Love stars were shining in her eyes.

"David," she said seriously, "That was the rightest, purest thing we have ever done. Now we both have something to live for. I am not afraid any more."

He released her wordlessly, tightened his grip on her hand and together they started downward. The stairway was in darkness at first, but it began to glow as they descended.

They moved hand-in-hand, aware that the stairway was even longer than the one they had previously descended; both longer and set at a more precipitous angle. Vast distances fell away beneath them, and Loring knew that they were descending into the heart of the city.

"Don't look down," Loring warned, slowing his steps. The steepness was one source of danger, but there were others which he feared more: the dazzling brightness of the radiance which now enveloped them or a sudden seizure of dizziness.

"Listen!" Janice whispered, halting abruptly and turning to face him with a swift intake of her breath.

"What is it? We can't--"

"Listen, David. Don't you hear it? A whirring sound, right up above us. Not too near, but--David, I'm frightened. That thing must be following us!"

He had to stand very still and strain his ears for an instant before he caught it. It was unmistakable, but so faint that, under calmer circumstances, he would have been amazed by the acuteness of Janice's hearing. But now there was no room in his mind for amazement. Only horror.

"All right," he said. "It's following us. We might have known that it would. I sensed its rapacity the instant I saw it, and if they kept it from attacking us they must have had a reason."

"What reason, David? Don't try to spare me, if you think you know."

"I don't know for sure. How could I? But I can make a guess that has some ugly implications. It could be a kind of insectlike--"

He hesitated, fighting for control, reproaching himself for his harshness. He was making no attempt to soften the blow and he knew why. He had spoken with a slight edge of angry impatience in his voice because he did not want her to know how profoundly the thought had unnerved him.

It was more than chilling, for there was something diabolically calculated, wholly vicious, about the use of such a horror as a weapon.

A relentlessly pursued man--an escaped prisoner floundering in desperation through a swamp or trapped in a mountain gully--can experience many dreads. But only one that claws at his mind like a sharp-taloned, utterly merciless harpy.

The appeal in Janice's eyes put a quick end to his hesitation. "What could it be, David? Tell me."