Astounding Outpost

AT the end the passage divided in two. Not knowing which turn would lead me from the building, I chose the right, but had hardly gone twenty paces when before me I saw the low flare of a light and heard a mighty clanking. Surely, I thought, this is the very abode of the Demon Power himself, and I turned back with a new fright to add to the old.
“This time I took the other branch. As I went down it I again saw a light ahead—but to what purpose would it be to turn back? Moreover I had now somewhat gained control of myself, and so, saying—‘A man who is fated to die will surely die, whereas a man fated to live shall walk through perils’—I strode on. And lo! the shaft of light came from a room, and near the door of the room sat a man, a veritable living man in a chair with a board before him, on which he moved small carved figures. As I entered, he turned to me a face that was not a face, but a metal mask, and said some words to me in a tongue which I did not understand. Overcome with fatigue, I fell at his
feet. . . .”
Again the old man paused and drank a draught of mead, then seated himself for a brief space, while in the Hall arose a whirr of voices that were stilled again when he rose once more.
“When I awoke I was lying on the floor of the room where I found the man with the metal face, and it seemed that he looked upon me with kindness. In his hand he held vessels, which he extended to me, making signs that I should eat and drink, and though the food was strange I ate and was refreshed. I spoke to him quickly, asking what this city of the living dead was, and where were the people of so glorious a town and what had become of the Anglesk, but he only shook his head and sat down again to his board, which was marked out in squares of alternate black and white. Then, taking one of the carved figures from the board, he held it up to me, and said—‘Rook.’ I examined it—it was in the likeness of a tower of stone—but it conveyed no meaning whatever to me, so I handed it back with a smile for his courtesy. Therewith the man with the metal face sighed deeply and motioned me to a seat beside him, while he went on moving the carved figures here and there, making notes on a piece of paper he held in his hand the while.
“I looked about; the room was long rather than wide, and along one wall of it ran a great board, from which loops of wire jutted, entering into little holes. Presently a red light shone from the board and the man with the metal face rose, and with slow and halting steps, like one of great age, went to the board and transferred one of the loops from one hole to another; then returned to his table.
FOR a long time I waited, watching the man with the metal face. He said no more—nor did I. But after a time he arose and, motioning that I should follow him, led me through the other end of the room. There he showed me a bed; it was narrow and low, and covered not with blankets but with a single web of a weave marvellously fine and softer to the fingers than anything I had ever touched. The room was filled with a pleasant fragrance like that of the woods in spring, though there was no window and we were far from the trees.
“He signed that I should lay myself on the bed, and when I had done so he brought forth from some corner a Machine like a cap, fitting close to the head, with special parts to cover the ears, and this he placed on my head. I started back in fright at it, for I thought it some new device to trap me deeper into the lures of the Demon Power. But the man with the metal face spoke kindly, and placed the cap on his own head to show that no harm was intended.
“With that I lay down on the bed and slept, and knew no more, though my sleep was shot with dreams in which the living dead rose and spoke to me in the tongue of the Anglesk, and told me of frightful things. . . . To you, my friends, it will seem strange that men should speak in another tongue than ours. Yet so it was in the days of the Anglesk, that different men in different dales had different words for the same thing and could no more understand one another than we could understand the babbling of a child or the bark of a fox.
“In the morning I awoke fresh and rested after my sleep. The man with the metal face was bending over me, and as I sat up in the first wild surprise at finding myself in this so unfamiliar place, he bent over and detached the Machine I had been wearing through the night.
“‘Do you play chess?’ he asked; not in our own words, but in the tongue of the Anglesk of old; and, wonder of all wonders, I understood him.
“‘What?’ I cried in astonishment. ‘How is it that I now understand what you say, though it is in a different way from our own speech?’
“‘Oh, that is the radio helmet,’ he replied, treating the matter as one of no import. ‘But tell me, do you play chess?’ His speech was thick and slow, as though passed through lips unable to properly form the words.
“‘Chess?’ I answered. ‘I don’t know the name. Is it a game of the Anglesk?’
“The man with the metal face sighed deeply and half to himself said: ‘And for twenty years I have been bringing my Sayers gambit to absolute perfection—my legacy to the world.’ Of this I understood nothing, but he said aloud: ‘Yes, I am one of the Anglesk, as you call them, though our name is the English. I am the last.’ And again the man with the metal face sighed.
“Questions rushed to my lips. ‘Then what does all this mean?’ I asked. ‘Who built this glorious village and these shining towers with the spider-like bridges from one to another, and where are those who should live in them? And who are the living dead that sleep above?”
‘“They are the English,’ said the man with the metal face, ‘all that are left of them. Now let us eat and I will explain it to you; but first you shall tell me how you came here, ignorant of Machines and civilization, and yet with a white skin.’
The Tale of the Machine Man FELL in with his humor and with him partook of his curious foods; then sat in the room of the board and table, where ever and again the red light flashed and the man with the metal face ceased his talking and changed a loop of silver wire from one hole to another. I told him of Alvrosdale and of our life there; how we hunted and tilled the ground and tended our flocks; and of the Mountain of the South and how I had climbed over it with the aid of the most high gods. It was a tale of which he did not weary. He plied me with meat and drink, and learned what I knew. Then he told me his tale in turn, which I will rehearse to you.”
At this saying the old man paused again, and again drank from the mead-horn. And as he began the tale of the man with the metal face, the hall was hushed to hear him.
* * * * *
“‘Know, man of Alvrosdale (the man with the metal face told me) that I am of an age compared to which you are but a babe in arms, for I count beyond a hundred summers, and so does the least of those sleepers above. Much have I seen and heard and read, and of one thing I am sure—that you are a part of a race which for thousands of summers has been shut away from the progress of civilization. You have no business in this dying world today, and when you have heard how it is with us, you had best go back over your mountain, there to stay. Or perhaps you will gather companions, and out of your dale come to people a new world.
“‘Know that long centuries ago—about the year 1950 A. D.—the world held countless hundreds of millions of people. There were men whose skins were black, and men with yellow skins and even with red skins; but they were mostly barbarians, and hence I was surprised at your own arrival, for I thought all the men with white skins had died long ago. The men with white skins were, in truth, the greatest of peoples; they had spread out and conquered all the rest of the world, so that the black and yellow and red men toiled for them. Now of all the white men, the greatest were the English; they moved fastest and strongest across the face of the earth; they founded colonies, and the colonies themselves grew to be greater than other nations.
“‘In elder ages men quarreled, this group and
that, and fought destructive wars in which thousands were slain by the use of guns, which hurled great pieces of steel that rent and tore asunder all that stood in their path. But among the English and the colonies of the English were many great scientists. These scientists designed Machines called Radio, fashioned so cunningly that a man had but to speak in them to he heard afar by many men in other lands. Now in the days of which I speak, the English spoke into their Radio and their tongue spread across the whole world. Then the quarrelling of nations ceased, for there is no quarrel that may not be settled by simple words when men may speak these words of understanding to one another.
“‘THAT was long after the Mountain of the
South had risen to shut off your dale. The people of your dale may have heard of the wonders of our civilization, though it is not likely. We had Machines that flew through the air and bore many passengers across the oceans; Machines that grew crops for us, tending them carefully and driving away the insects; Machines that transformed these crops into food without the intervention of hands. We built great cities, of which this is one of the least; cities of majestic buildings, all of glass, in which men lived lives of ease and pleasure. Pleasure! That was the cause of the whole tragedy of our world. We did not know that the pursuit of pleasure alone, which had been our guide, was to be our ruin.
“‘Can you imagine, barbarian of Alvrosdale, what it is to be free from the necessity of earning your bread? You cannot—for you belong to another age and another race. But the English all over the world, and the men of other races who had become English, now had nothing to do. The sources of Power were so inexhaustible, and the amount of work necessary to make them available so slight, that half an hour’s labor a day sufficed to earn a man his living. And the Machines continued to grow ever more complex and more ingenious.
“‘Adventure, which is the pastime of many men, disappeared, when war became obsolete. For some people, art filled the vacant hours. But as the scientists grew in knowledge, the Machines they made executed the arts better than the artists themselves. Music was the first of the arts to disappear. First there were Machines that recorded the performances of great musicians and reproduced them to all hearers at any time. Then came Machines that gave these reproductions to vast audiences, and others that showed the audiences such lifelike pictures of the musicians that they seemed to be present in person. And finally Machines were invented that altogether eliminated the musician, striking the correct tones and shades of tones with scientific accuracy.
“‘The picture Machines, that brought an end to music, were the beginning of the end of the art of the theatre—you hardly know what a theatre is? It is, or was, a place where people acted stories. With the going of theatres, too, there were fewer and fewer artists, and finally we had only mere puppets. Sculpture, which was a kind of carving, was the next art to cease. The scientists made Machines that felt gently over living persons and carved their likenesses out of enduring stone or wood.

HALF an hour later I shot a ptarmigan amid the snow and so tasted meat for the first time in three days. This was the greatest luck, for the descent was worse than the climb on the other side had been. For a day I floundered amid the drifts, and came at last to a place that dropped sheer for half a mile. There was no descent, so I had to turn back and try this way and that. Three days I spent thus, going down and coming back, climbing and descending, before I deviously reached the bottom. On the second day I tasted once more the kindness of the gods, for my foot touched a stone that touched another and suddenly set off a landslide that cleared my path down the worst of the steeps.

“At last I stood at the base of the mountain, a place by no means lacking in piled rocks, but with no more dizzy descents. For a time I lay on my face, prostrate, and clasped the fair grass with my bruised hands—grass that felt softer to them than after the longest winter! Then I arose and, with such strength as I had left, staggered to the brim of Oster Dalalven and plunged my face in the water; then by the brim of the stream I fell asleep, though the sun was still high in the heavens.

“I woke in the chill of dawn, with the memory of a sound ringing in the back of my head. As I started to my feet, I heard again the sound that had roused me—the baying of a dog— and in a moment it was answered by multiple voices, as when a pack of our Alvrosdale hounds course on the trail of a rabbit.

“‘Surely,’ I thought, ‘there must be men not far away in this dale, since there are men’s dogs here,’ and I climbed up onto a boss of rock the better to see my way and the dogs that had sounded. As I reached the crest of the stone, the hounds swept into view from the road not a hundred paces to my left, and came tearing along among the stones—dogs indeed, but such as I had never seen, strong and terrible of aspect, and not on the trail of a rabbit, but of a great antlered deer. In a moment they were past, but two of the later members of the pack paused when they came to where I had passed, sniffing and growling over the place where I had slept.

“‘IF all the Anglesk are as great as their dogs, then theirs is indeed a mighty race,’ I thought. The road itself was curious, all overgrown and the stones pushed apart by grass and weeds; and the dried grass of other summers lay among the fresh, as though it had been there for a long time. Yet I mused not overmuch on it, for the road led up under the Mountain of the South, and all men knew how that hill had risen between Alvrosdale and the world in a single night, breaking sheer across the road and all else.

“Perhaps a mile or two further along I saw houses clustered in a hamlet between road and river. Among them all there was no sign of life and while it might have been the earliness of the hour, I remarked it because of the other signs of desolation on that journey and my heart misgave me. And as I drew near I was more surprised than ever, for in all that village, which by the legends of the dale should have been a great and splendid place, there was neither sound of voice, bark of dog, nor sign of smoke in the chimneys. A fear came upon me, and I ran forward, weak as I was. But at the first house my fear was confirmed. The door hung all awry with rust marks at its side— the doorsill split and dug up by the frosts of winter, and the broken windows looking in on ruin and desolation.

“I hastened to the next house and the next, and so on through the village. Some were of stone and some of purest glass, but all alike were empty; it was a village of the dead, but with no sign of dead or living. Only at the end of the village did I hear the bleating of sheep and, going to the spot, came upon a flock—not well-kept, fat sheep such as we house in Alvrosdale, but thin and lank, and their coats filled with briars. At my approach they made off toward the forest. I bent my bow against them and slew a ewe, and taking of her meat went to one of the houses, thinking to cook the meat in that ruined town; but in no house that I entered was there so much as a fireplace—all were filled with Machines, now fallen to dust and rust, and other appliances whose use I did not understand; so I built my fire in the open, using dead branches from the trees.

“The food refreshed me much, and packing in my scrip as much more of it as I could conveniently carry, I followed the road onward. Further down I came upon another House of Power, so like this that the two might have been built by the same hand; and with fear strong within me I swung wide around it, yet had no need, for like all else in this dale, it was lifeless.

The Dead City

T is sad to me even now in retrospect to think of coming to that place after a journey of so much arduousness. For in all that land of the Anglesk I found no living man nor heard any voice save those of the wild dogs as they bayed now near, now far. For days I journeyed thus; many villages I passed, all well built and strong and beautiful, most of them made of shining glass, testifying to the glory of the Anglesk. All were filled with Machines of much marvel—and all were fallen to ruin and rust, befouled by beasts, streaked with the wet of rains and rent by tempests. At night I often lay in the cellars of these houses. By day I walked, killing now a sheep and now a hog, according to my need and as I came upon them. One day I came to a place where the houses grew thicker and the forest had retreated until the village was the greatest ever seen by the eye of man. Some of these houses were like those I had heard of in legends—mighty towers whose tops soared to the clouds, built all of stone and bronze so that the tooth of time had hardly touched them. But all were dead and deserted like the rest, with only birds to nest behind the broken windows, and swine to wander among the streets of that melancholy place.

“I wandered to and fro among the streets for close upon a day, and as twilight fell I made preparations to find a cellar for the night. But as I did this I saw among the myriad towers a single one that held a light in its window. A great, fierce hope sprung up in me that living men might be here, though mingled with it was the fear that it was only a trap of the Demon Power to lure me into his clutches. However, for what purpose had I come so far in such a melancholy land—but to adventure? So I made for this tall tower as rapidly as I might through all the tangled maze of streets.

“Night had come on before I reached it. I came upon it suddenly, swinging around the corner of another tower upon a square of forest land let into that village. A fox stirred in the underbrush as I crossed this square and for a moment a dark owl soared between me and the spring moon. The tower rose before me—a mountain of stone and glass, like the Mountain of the South in size but all dark and silent behind its windows, save some four or five near the base, and a whole floor high up, from which came the light I had seen.

“I drew near and saw a flight of steps that led up to a great bronze door. It would not yield to my push, nor was there any answer to my knocking. As it was already late, I looked for a place to spend the night so that I might attempt the adventure of the tower again when day should come.

WHEN the sun gilded the towers of the great village, I rose to try again. As before, I found the bronze doors locked fast against me; but the building was of great extent as well as height, and I did not desist, thinking there might be some other way in. I had not looked far when I came upon another and smaller door, set level with the street. This I tried; it gave a little to my push and I set my shoulder against it. As I did so, door and lock burst, and I plunged in.

“I stood in a long hall, lit dimly by the tall and narrow windows at the side of the door I had entered. At either side there was a long row of doors. With my mind now made up to follow the venture through, I tried the first. It would not open; but the trick of its movement as I pushed it showed me that it was a sliding panel door, and, slipping it to one side, I stepped in. I found myself in a room no larger than a closet in my father’s house in Alvrosdale, windowless as that same closet, and very dark. The door had slid into place behind me. I groped for it, and it is in my mind that I must have touched some Machine within the wall of the room, for forthwith there rose a humming sound, and when I put my hand out again, it touched a wall in rapid motion. The whole room was moving! . . . My friends, you cannot understand the terror of that moment; for I felt that I was in the very grip of the Demon Power. Though Power is an old and feeble demon now, in those days he was strong and malignant.”

The old man paused and from the hand of one of the elders took a fragrant draught of mead; and when he paused, a low sigh of interest and excitement ran around the hall, for all those folk had been brought up to fear Power and Machines as the most deadly of things.

“In real life men do not faint or go mad with terror, when in such situations,” said the old man, beginning again. “They seek for some means of escape. But even as I sought to escape from that moving room, there came a louder buzz and it stopped as suddenly as it had moved. A shaft of light filtered in at the top and showed me that it had stopped before a door. I flung it open— anything was better than that small moving closet. I stood in a long hall with sunlight streaming through the glass walls and reflecting back in dazzling radiance from row on row of great ingots of silver.

The Silver Men

O much wealth neither I nor anyone in this dale has ever seen. Yet there was something curious about those ingots, when I looked at them a second time, for each one was laid on a table by itself, and each seemed rather a close winding of many wires than a solid piece of that precious metal. Dumb with astonishment at the sight, I stood for a moment, and then approached one of them, thinking that they might be a dream wrought for my undoing by the Demon Power. I noted that the form of the silver winding had, from a little distance, a certain likeness to that of a man, from one side of which many of the wires were collected and twisted through holes in a slab of stone on which the form lay.

“The likeness to the form of a man increased as I approached, and when I came and stood directly over it, I saw that it was indeed a man, but a dead one—all swathed and wound in silver wires which, as they drew near his body, drew into finer and finer wires till right over the skin they were spread out like silver spider webs, halfconcealing his features. The dead man had a grave and reverend aspect, like a priest of the gods; no hair grew on his head nor beard on his face, for even here the silver wires lay over him.

“All this I took in at a glance, and in the same moment the thought came over me that each of these piles of silver was a man, dead like the first. I stepped back in horror. As I did so, my hand touched the tangle of silver wires from one of the dead, and all up my hand and arm ran a tingling jar! At the same moment the dead man before me stirred ever so slightly. With the horror of that moment my tongue was loosed; I shrieked and fled. Around and around the room I ran, like a rat trapped in a cage. At last I reached a door and flung it open, not on another narrow room, but on a stair, and up this I fled without taking account of direction . . .

“You will understand that, although the place is of ill omen and hence forbidden for our folk to approach, it is in no wise deadly; but I did not know this. I thought that these living dead were under the shadow of the Demon Power and that the jar I had received was a warning not to disturb their sleep, lest I become like them . . . But the staircase up which I fled gave on another hall, filled, like the first, with row upon row of those living corpses, lapped in silver. As in the hall below, the walls were all of glass; and the coiled silver cables, where the thin wires of this most precious metal united, were twisted from the sides of the sleepers and passed through holes in the slabs.

“Yet all this I hardly noted, for I fled again, and so to another hall, and another, and yet another, up and down the stairs seeking only to leave that accursed place. I do not know how long I ranged thus up and down. I only know that at last, stumbling downward, I came to a door that led upon a long passage. Down it I went, though it was narrow, and at one side a Machine hung over the edge of the passage to grip the passer-by the instant the Demon Power should will it.

 

The sun sank slowly behind the far-off, face which bore twelve characters written in torn and rocky crags, throwing up a black. As the youth took their places, he twisted last red glare like a shout of defiance this Machine, so that it rang a bell, loud and as the white tooth of Herjehogmen stridently. Then there was silence, and the old

mountain blotted the last beams from Alvrosdale. the man rose to speak.

A deep-toned copper bell rang across the evening, “My friends,” said he, “you will leave and the young men andAlvrosdale tomorrow. girls, leaving there Your skis are even now dancing on the ice,p repared; your glider came trooping up thewings await your path in little groups outside. In this Hall of the Hall of Assembly,Assembly, which was laughing and talking.once the House of Their gay-coloredPower, we are met clothes stood outtonight, as is the brilliantly against thecustom of our people, white background ofthat I may tell the story the snow in theof the last of the

Northern twilight thatAnglesk and warn you often seems like day.of the dangers you will
without sadness, since for many it was the last parting—some going into the Hall, others passing on up the path to the line of houses. Those who entered were grave, though they had smiled not long before. Yet they were a goodly company for all that, some three-score in number and all in the
few!—will be caught in treacherous winds and flung against the Mountain of the South to die. Some may be caught by the Demon Power, whom the Anglesk worshipped. Some will find green fields and prosperity, and will meet the others of our folk who have gone before . . . But a few At the door of tmeet.  Some of you— Hall they parted—notGod grant it may be the fire of youth.

Within the hall might be seen benches; a great fire against one wall, and against the other the smouldering remains of those

Machines that were the last relics of the days of old. At the center was a dais with places for the elders of Alvros, and midmost among these sat a man full of years, but in no wise feeble. Strong, stern, white-headed, he bore on one arm the silver band of authority, and in his hand he held a small, shiny Machine, round in shape and with a white you will wish to return. To these I now say—stay behind! You are better

THIS story, in our opinion, is one of the most off here! And I cannotgo on with my tale till I unusual that has appeared in recent years, for it

deals with a subject which is bound up with our have asked whether there whole existence. are any among you who

We all know that our experiences come to us would prefer the life of through our senses; that is, the senses of hearing, this quiet dale to that of sight, touch, smell, taste, etc.; and that, if these the outer world, with its senses were removed, although we would still Power, its mountains, know we were alive, the world itself would cease to and its living dead.” exist for us.

But suppose that, instead of having our natural made a pause, and organs of sense, we were supplied with artificialfor a breathing ones, and that by the medium of a mechanical

device we could experience any sensation or event space none stirred. Then that we wish. Then, you might say, we would be a maid of the company living in a true Utopia. However, this is not really arose, sobbing; she cast so, and, as our authors point out so convincingly, her shawl over her face there might be a total degeneration of our human and said she would live race, and even a cessation of all life. and die in Alvrosdale; then she went forth from

the Hall. With her went likewise the young man of her choice, and as the door of the Hall clanged to behind them, the rest sat the closer and gave ear to the voice of the old man.

“There are none now left alive,” he said, “who remember Hal Hallstrom in his youth; but I give you my word that it was as lusty a youth as any of yours. I was light and gay and would roll the flavor of adventure under my tongue. In those days, before the year 4060 A. D., as was the reckoning, there were legends of the lords of old, and how the Demon Power drove them through the skies and over the waters and under the earth. But they were the rusty legends of those who tell a tale without understanding its meaning. This very Hall of Assembly was held to be the home of the Demon Power, a place so accursed that none dare approach it. This Demon was believed to be the same who had so dealt with the Mountain of the South that it fell across the neck of our dale and cut it off from the world in long past ages. We know now that this is not true; but men thought otherwise then.

“In those days I heard also legends that came down from my fathers’ fathers, how, when the Mountain of the South closed off the dale, the Anglesk sent men through the air to bring us this thing and that; but such tales were held foolish beyond words. Now, lo!—we ourselves fly through the air, though not as the Anglesk with the aid of the Demon Power.

“Also there were legends of the splendor of the villages of the Anglesk: how they piled stone on stone to make mountainous dwellings in which the night was bright as day by suns of their own contriving; how they quarreled and slew each other from afar with thunderbolts; how the voices of men long dead spoke to them from Machines, and the voices of men far away spoke to them through the clouds.

“Old wives’ tales? But I was young, and youth must ever test the false and true by the touchstone of experience, even as you now go forth to do…. One who has reached my age seeks neither for truth nor beauty any more, but only for rest.” Herewith, one of the elders touched the arm of the old man, who thereupon looked around and, as one who has been recalled to his narrative, went on.

Wanderlust

N a day in spring, then, as I was in charge of the flock close by the brink where Oster Dalalven plunges into the channel that carries it under the Mountain of the South, I was seized with a great longing to see these dwellings where men moved in light and music.

“Thereupon, so hasty was my mood, I slung my quiver over my shoulder without more ado, and with staff in hand set out for the Mountain of the South, making a wide circuit to the east to go around this very House of Power.

“In those days few in Alvrosdale and none outside could equal me as a cragsman. But I had need of all my skill, for, as I advanced, the edges of the Mountain of the South became ever more rugged, torn into heaps and pinnacles as sharp as daggers. All morning long I clambered among the rocky screes, not seldom tearing clothes or skin, and at noon made pause and ate, though sparingly, of the bread and cheese that I had brought for my lunch. Of water there was none, nor did I see any sign of trees or other life. The Mountain of the South is a vast wilderness of stone, hard and desolate, not mellowed with age like our summits of the Keel.

“But still my heart was high, and after my midday meal I took to climbing again. My road grew worse; thrice I was near to death, as some ledge I was on ran out into sheerest precipice without room to turn back. The loneliness of the place weighed down upon my spirit also, for all that day I saw no living thing—I, who had always known the kindly dale of Alvros, where the cowbells tinkle ever within hearing. And at night I made camp just below the edge of the line where the snows mantle the rugged pinnacles.

“In the morn, as I started on, I still saw the summit towering far above me, and now I dared not turn back, for fear of the rocks and avalanches. All day I tramped the snow. Toward afternoon I found a glacier that eased my labor somewhat; yet up it I must move with utmost caution, for there were great crevasses running down for miles. Into its heart, often so hidden that it was not until I thrust my stick down through the crust of snow that they became visible. That night I built myself a cairn of ice in the lee of a rock, and camped supperless and cold.

I AWOKE so stiff that the third day of my ascent was like to be my last. A storm had come up and veiled the head of the mountain; I was weak with the chill, the wounds in my hands were nipped by the icy blast, and my hunger had become a terrible gnawing pain. The glacier petered out and I had to clamber among rocks again—rocks that were covered with a glare of ice.

“The wind shrieked about me among the rocks; the storm blotted out all knowledge of the sun, and I knew that if another night found me on that bleak summit, all nights and days would end for me. Yet I kept on! I came at last to a place where a wall of ice-covered rock rose sheer before me; to right and left there seemed no passage, and I halted, ready to lie down in blank despair. But as I stood still, I caught sight of a black shape amid the gray of the whirling snow, and a great golden eagle swept down on the wings of the wind past me, swung off suddenly to the left and, just at the limit of my sight, turned again over the rocky wall.

“I took it for an omen and followed down the wall to where the eagle had disappeared. Sure enough, there lay a narrow chimney through the rock, that might not otherwise have been seen. I leapt into it, stumbling and slipping on the loosened stones, but going upward; and a few minutes later I had reached the top of the wall, and with it the crest of the mountain!”

The old man paused, and in the hall one might see a stir of motion, as his hearers, stiffened by listening to his recital, changed their position. He—paused and looked around, as though loath to believe that he was not living again the brave days of his adventure. Then he began once more.

“It is unlikely that any, however expert cragsmen they may be, will follow my path; for we now have the wings and follow the raven, soaring over that perilous tower with never a break. But if, through courage, you should wish to attempt it, I warn you—do not venture! For I am convinced that only by the favor of the most high gods and by the omen of the golden eagle did I come through unscathed.

“When I had followed the eagle through the pass and stood indeed on the highest crest of the Mountain of the South, the storm cleared away as if by magic, and far beneath me I saw the Mountain spread out, and beyond the Mountain a smiling valley—like Alvrosdale, but broader and deeper. Through the heart of it trailed our own river—Oster Dalalven—after it had burst foaming from the rocks beneath the mountain. Beside it was a white ribbon of a road that ran off into the distance. Along the road I could see the habitations of men, gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, and forests that ran down almost to the houses and at times hid the road. I shouted for joy at the prospect and began the descent of the mountain; for in that moment I knew that the tales of a world of splendor were based in truth.

---

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HE officer left to obey. The Air Chief lay back weakly on the couch and rested quietly. He seemed to be summoning his last reserves of strength. And Wrane Randall could only wait helplessly for death to come.

Guards came, took him back to the small hospital where his features had been changed. Orderlies took charge of him. In a moment, he was fastened securely to an operating table, and even though he felt his strength returning, he was helpless.

He tried to move. His muscles responded, but he was clamped tight. He lay still, haunted by the thought that though he was to die, his body would live on.

After what seemed hours, the Air Chief was brought in on a stretcher and gently placed on another table. Randall watched from the corners of his eyes, and saw the Air Chief turn to face him. An evil smile gleamed on the discolored face. Randall heard a husking whisper.

“You only succeeded in hastening your end,” the Air Chief mocked. “It is now fifteen minutes to ten, as you Earthlings calculate time. The operation will proceed as soon as Dr. Brophy and Dr. Torvald arrive. I shall have to use him, but three of my guards will remain; and if I do not live—in your body—no one shall leave this room. And the rest of my guards shall wait outside to see that there is no interference. So you needn’t try to comfort yourself that we might both die.”

“That wouldn’t be any comfort,” Randall replied. He was thinking rapidly. Judging from the manner in which the Air Chief spoke of Dr. Torvald, he didn’t know that both doctors were traitors. And he spoke of men as ‘Earthlings’! “What are you?” Randall asked. “You—your brain . . . that body you said was yours. . . . That wasn’t human!”

“You are mistaken,” the Air Chief chuckled. “I am human—more human than you are. I am from Mars, as were your ancestors. Gradual adaptation over hundreds of thousands of years changed your bodies. I came to Earth a century ago when my last companion died. Mars is a dead world now. But I . . . I have outlived my world! I am greater than time! I am greater than all your world! I am greater than the gods! I am the last Martian!”

RANDALL heard him choke. And from the corners of his eyes he saw the Air Chief’s face twist into an unholy mask of agony. Randall grinned. Now was the time!—if he could kill this monster, even though he himself died only a short time later.

“You’ve lived a long time,” he taunted, “but only to die now. Dr. Brophy is a traitor to you, a scientist who cares for nothing but the privilege of unhampered research. So you made an enemy of him. But Dr. Torvald is the man you should fear!” Randall saw the Air Chief stiffen. The gray face turned to face him, eyes horribly alive with an alien intelligence.

They heard the door open, but the Air Chief’s eyes remained fastened on Randall. Suddenly Randall feared that he had delayed too long. A number of people were entering. He heard the door close again.

“Dr. Torvald is the man you should fear!” he shouted at the Air Chief. “He is an Irredentist! All he desires is your death, and it won’t matter to him if he has to die!”

Randall heard a curse from the group near the door. It sounded like Torvald. But he was watching the Air Chief. As he had hoped, the information was too much for the Air Chief’s weak heart. The man stiffened spasmodically, quivered.

One of the guards ran to the Air Chief’s side with a curse, then turned back to the two doctors.

“Hurry! Damn you! Hurry! Maybe you can

change his brain to this other body yet!”

Randall saw the two doctors go to the Air Chief. Brophy lifted the lifeless hand. And as he waited, Randall wondered if the other guards had remained at the door. Then he felt a touch and rolled his eyes to see.

Patricia Holden was standing beside him. She slipped something into his hand. It was a gun! He heard a muffled click and the clamps were loose.

“Do whatever you think best,” Pat said softly. “I couldn’t see them go on.”

The pistol lay comfortingly in his hand. Its heaviness balanced a lot of trouble from his mind. Once more he felt himself a firm believer in the adage, “If you want a thing done right, do it yourself.”

“You’re a regular arsenal, baby,” he whispered.

“It’s the Air Chief’s own pistol,” she replied hastily. “I stole it from his clothes.”

He motioned her to step away from him, to get out of danger, but she lingered at his side. Randall looked at the others by turning his head slowly. There were two guards at the doorway and one with the doctors. It would take two shots.

Dr. Brophy dropped the Air Chief’s hand. It struck the table at the side of the lifeless body with a soft thump.

“It is too late,” he said. “Circulation has stopped. Before we could be half through, most of the delicate brain cells would be dead.”

Torvald smiled happily and glanced at Pat Holden. Then he frowned that she didn’t seem happy. The guard at the doctors’ side glanced at his fellows near the door. He nodded.

Their hands went to their pistols. Randall decided to take them first, even though the third guard would probably get him. He reached up, sent Pat reeling across the room and out of danger, then he rolled off the table to his feet as he shot at the men near the door.

The weapon in his hand merely hummed, but the men went down like rag dolls. And as their pistols clattered on the floor, he swept his own weapon toward the remaining guard and the two doctors.

The guard was struggling to draw his gun, but Dr. Brophy fought silently and efficiently. Randall’s pistol swept over him and Brophy slumped. The guard brought his pistol out of the holster, lifted it, then he too went down. A moment later Torvald fell like a northern pine. His shoulder struck the operating table on which the dead Air Chief lay, and they crashed to the floor.

Randall covered the door and waited. If the crash had been heard, the guards would be streaming in.

Evidently the sound hadn’t reached them. The door remained closed. Pat was climbing to her feet, frightened and resentful of his harsh treatment.

“Get their arms,” Randall said, then was suddenly acutely conscious of his unclothed state. He snatched up the sheet from the floor where it had fallen, and draped it over his shoulders.

Pat Holden glanced at him. “You look like Dr. Torvald,” she jibed.

Randall looked quickly at the unconscious doctor, half-expecting to see the man chuckle.

ONE of the guards was struggling to sit up before Pat could collect all the guns. Randall calmly shot the man again, and smiled to see him lay back tiredly and relax.

Pat brought the guns to the table and stood at his side while they awaited the recovery of the men.

He looked down at her.

“I thought you were an Irredentist?”

“I was; but I got to thinking of all the horrible things we do for political reasons and—and I got to wondering if it was worthwhile. I decided it wasn’t.”

“When did you start wondering?” he asked. “Just after—” She halted, flushing crimson.

Randall grinned. “So marrying me would be a horrible thing?” he said. “I feel sorry for you.”

She kept her head averted as he moved toward her. Then she pointed to the door. “Look! He’s coming out of it.”

Randall covered the guard with the pistol.

“Get up!” he ordered.

The guard looked around for his gun, then got slowly to his feet. Randall motioned to the table. “You won’t need it,” he assured.

The two doctors and the guard in the second group shot down, were reviving and Randall forced them into a line. There was a short wait for the third man to revive, then Randall cleared his throat.

“I’m only a rocketman,” he said, “but after seeing a few of you fellows who are supposed to have brains, I think I’m pretty good in that line too. I’m top dog now, and I intend to stay on top. You poor morons who are all brains haven’t got sense enough to run things, so I’m taking over.

“You, Dr. Brophy, would have a Science Board of Three to rule the world. I’m not denying that they couldn’t. But it wouldn’t be much of a world when they got started. Haven’t you any respect for a thing called liberty, or pursuit of happiness, to say nothing of life? Shut up! Of course you deny you’d have a machine world. But you would!

“And you, Dr. Torvald . . . You are an Irredentist. You want the good old days. You think today with today’s science, but you’re living in the past. Have you ever stopped to think what those good old days were? Sure, some men had more liberty. But all civilization is, is giving up some of the smaller liberties so that you can guarantee everyone the greater ones. Your kind of liberty would be a jungle. The world has gone beyond that. Take your choice! It doesn’t matter which you choose; the fact remains. Remember all the little wars that nations used to have, and the big ones? God! Even the Air Chief was a blessing when you consider them. He wasn’t so bad in some ways. This central authority of Yss has possibilities of lifting the whole world to a new high. He wouldn’t; I will!”

He stopped to look at them. Then he continued: “Remember, Brophy—there would be no organized science without a central authority. And you, Torvald, remember that there can be no liberty or happiness without some guarantee that the strong guys won’t step all over the weak ones.

“You both better quit living in your little ivory towers. You’re a couple of hundred years behind the times. There’s only one way to prevent hell from breaking loose, and that is for all of you to play my game. I will take the place of the Air Chief and be the central authority—call it the executive branch. Maybe we can make it elective afterwards!

“But, Brophy—there will be science, organized science. And we will give most of the results to the world, not hide them. We will only keep that knowledge we need to keep Yss in control—by force, if necessary.

“And you, Torvald—you and others like you will be sent out into the world to organize elections. For a certain number of people—say, ten million— there will be one representative in the worldlawmaking body. And a judicial will be elected. Well? . . . What is your answer?”

“How are you going to do all this?” growled Brophy.

“Hell, man! I am the Air Chief—as long as I choose to be, and as long as you support me.”

Still they hesitated. Torvald glanced at the guards. “I think we could trust you. If not, we can pull you down. Your intelligence isn’t as great as the Air Chief’s. You’re vulnerable. It is agreeable to me.”

“And me,” echoed Brophy.

They looked to the guards. The guards hesitated. No one seemed willing to speak.

“We could kill them,” said Randall and smiled when Pat’s hand gripped his arm, “but those outside would do the same to us, if we come out without them. Right?” he asked, turning to them.

“Right,” agreed one of them. “Orders were that we come out of here with the Air Chief in his new body, or that they shoot us down.”

TORVALD started to speak, but Randall waved him to silence. Then he faced the guard who

had spoken.

“We can’t give you anything you haven’t always had,” he admitted. “You’ve always had your jobs and your paydays. You’ve always been able to go out and blow your pay on a hell of a time, or have a family and raise that family as you wanted to. Sure, I know that. That’s called liberty. You have it now, but there are millions like you that haven’t. We all have a chance at liberty and a new world, and you will not lose what you already have. You will be giving others liberty like that. Are you going to pass up that chance?

“Or are we all going to leave this room together and consider, and make others consider, the operation was a complete success—only one of the patients died? It is up to you . . . Take your choice.

But do it quickly.” The guards looked at one another.

“It’s better than dying.”

“Let’s give it a whirl.”

“Okay with me. I got a kid brother who couldn’t make the guards.”

Randall straightened. He felt taller without the strain of doubt. “Then it’s settled,” he said, starting toward the door. “Let’s go!”

“Wait a minute!” said Dr. Brophy. “We’re good surgeons here, but our patients don’t get up and walk away from us after a brain transplantation. You have to be sick for awhile, and there will have to be a scar.”

“That is easily fixed,” said Torvald tersely and the guards grinned.

Wrane Randall stepped back, unwilling, but he was greatly overruled. In a moment he found himself lying on the table again. Patricia Holden was standing near his head, ready for business and smiling with enjoyment. He looked up at her.

“It’s a bad habit you’re forming,” she advised unsympathetically.

Randall glared at her as Torvald approached flushing. “Well,” he advised, “you better start with the anaesthetic. running now, because while my intentions are

“Do you remember what I said about doing my strictly honorable, I think I’ll start off with a good own chasing?” Randall asked her, and she nodded, spanking.”

HE CLOSED the door after him, feeling fairly confident that they wouldn’t dare raise any alarm. There was the awkward problem of explaining how a patient had been able to secure a pistol, and the patient could talk.
He looked around the room, saw that it was larger than the other and equally well furnished. It was obvious that they formed an apartment. There were two other doors.
He went to the nearer one and listened. He heard the slight scuffing of a movement, and went to the other door. He waited for several minutes, heard nothing, then opened the door and started out.
He halted abruptly, hand tightening on the gun in his pocket, and faced a trimly uniformed guard. “Excellency!” said the guard, presenting arms.
Randall stared for a moment, then his fingers relaxed from his pistol. The guard thought he was the Air Chief! And why not? Hadn’t he been chosen because he could be made to resemble the Chief? And Brophy and Torvald had done good work.
“Allow no one to go through this doorway, Guard,” he ordered. “Neither in, nor out.”
“Yes, Excellency,” said the guard, remaining stiffly at attention.
Randall strode away, concealing his elation. The corridor joined a larger corridor and a few feet away he saw another guard stationed at a door. Randall strode up to him. The guard came to attention and waited.
Randall repeated his orders to the first guard, then started down the corridor, grinning as he thought of the time Pat and Torvald were going to have when they tried to get out of that room. Then his thoughts turned exultantly to escape. The masquerade had worked twice, so there was no reason why it shouldn’t work all the way to the roof and get him a rocketship—if he didn’t meet the real Air Chief.
He stepped into an elevator. “All the way up,” he ordered.

The operator closed the door, started up and stopped almost immediately.

“This is the fiftieth floor, Excellency,” the operator said, trying to keep his eyes off Randall. “Your private elevator is at the other end of the corridor.” He hesitated, then added, “I will show you the way, Excellency, if you wish.”

Randall faced the man quickly. “Why?” he demanded, afraid that the fellow suspected.

The fellow paled, was frightened. “A-As one of the Household Corps I was ordered to hold myself ready to assist Your Excellency in any way when it seemed that you—you might act as though you had forgotten.”

Randall remembered Dr. Brophy’s words—that the brain transplantation caused memory lapses. Evidently orders had been issued to take care of that matter. “Show me the way,” he said with relief.

The elevator man led him down the corridor to another shaft, summoned the elevator.

“His Excellency wishes to go to the roof,” he instructed the new man.

Randall was assisted into the elevator as though he were an invalid, and the ride upward was much slower than he knew to be possible.

“Shall I assist you, Your Excellency?” the man asked when they came to a stop.

“No,” said Randall. “I think I can make it.”

Feigning weakness, he left the elevator, then halted abruptly. Facing him was his mirror-image, the face he remembered seeing in the mirror that Pat had given him before he had escaped. Only this time he wasn’t looking into a mirror.

The image purpled with anger, opened his mouth.

“Guards!” he bawled.

Randall ducked back into the elevator and slammed the door before the operator could see.

The man looked at Randall uncomprehendingly.

“What—?” he started.

“Down!” snapped Randall. “It’s a revolt!”

That was a word the man understood. The elevator descended swiftly. Randall’s mind raced. He hadn’t seen any stairways—probably there were none; only elevators.

“Your apartments, Excellency,” said the operator as he brought the elevator to a stop and opened the door.

“Stop all elevators!” Randall ordered, getting out.

“The master switches are in your apartments, Excellency.”

“Then warn all the operators you can reach, not to answer calls to the roof. We must isolate them.”

He turned, not knowing which way to go, but a uniformed servant came and bowed submissively.

“My apartments,” said Randall. “Lead!” Then to impress the urgency for speed, added, “And hurry!”

RANDALL felt like a modern Paul Revere. But events were moving smoothly, so smoothly that he felt a bit suspicious. He followed the servant into a large room. Two men sat at complex control panels and a third, seemingly in command of the trio, sat a little distance from them. They leaped to their feet, saluting.

“Cut out the elevators!” snapped Randall with a silent prayer.

The two men leaped back to their control boards to obey, but the third came toward Randall. Then he came to attention.

“Revolt,” Randall explained tersely, and kept his features rigid to conceal his doubt.

“Dr. Brophy, Excellency?” asked the officer.

Randall nodded. “I think they are still on the roof,” he added. “They performed the operation, but didn’t destroy the other brain. Instead, they transferred it to my old body and revived it first, intending to seize control before I recovered. Have you any suggestions? I am at a disadvantage.”

The officer interpreted the last as Randall hoped he would, and suggested quickly, “We should order the Air Guards to prevent anyone taking off from this building, Excellency.”

“Do that.”

The officer turned and gave the order to the men. Then he faced Randall again. “Excellency, I also suggest that we communicate with the Household Guards, have them gather in force at every elevator. Then we could switch them in and they could attack.”

“Do that, also,” agreed Randall.

While the officer gave the necessary orders, Randall looked around. Now that he had placed the Air Chief’s defenses at his own defense, there was nothing more that he could do except chance revealing his true identity. Even though it seemed not, there must be limits to the credibility of the too thoroughly disciplined guards. He had to keep out of the way until the Air Chief was disposed of.

The officer halted in the middle of his instructions and looked questioningly at Randall.

“Shoot to kill,” said Randall, and the words must have been quite in character with the personality he had blindly assumed. The officer transmitted the order.

“Now, I must rest,” said Randall, waiting for the officer to help him. There were a number of doors leading from the room and it might be just too bad if he took the wrong one. A hint of suspicion would bring the whole edifice of cards down around his ears. The officer hesitated, then as Randall leaned heavily on his shoulder, started toward one of the doors.

Randall found himself in a luxuriously furnished but oddly decorated room. The most general color was a deep ruby shade. The whole effect was decidedly unrestful and reminded Randall forcefully of the effect of colors on emotions. He no longer wondered at the strange brilliance of the Air Chief; a brilliance that had made it possible for him to subdue the world and keep it enslaved. Any person who could find such a room restful must either be mad, or possess a mental balance entirely beyond the understanding of the normal man. Randall felt himself longing for just one touch of green, or blue.

He sat down on the deeply cushioned couch and motioned the officer to go back to his duties, watched the man leave, then gave free rein to his curiosity.

He saw a massive, ornately carved switch on the wall. He got up, went closer. He heard a sound behind him and turned quickly, but he was alone in the room.

A door in the wall attracted his attention. The bottom of the door was three feet from the floor, and it was four feet high by two feet wide. He went to it, grasped the knob, pulled. It opened easily.

HE STARED. Slowly his hand slipped from the knob and fell to his side. Before his eyes was a huge transparent flask containing some transparent liquid. And in the liquid floated a small body, about three feet in height. It was thin, with the huge joints of a rachitic child. The skin was a reddish bronze and hideously wrinkled. But the head was fully the size of a mature man’s.

Randall stepped back, disgust filling his soul. Was the Air Chief pitting his incomparable genius against the problem of creating life? Or, what was much more probable, was he trying to create a super-body for his own use? Randall smiled sickly. If that was the case, then he certainly hadn’t succeeded—providing this was the best he had been able to do. Nature was still a better craftsman.

Despite his situation, he chuckled.

And his chuckle was answered by another directly behind him. He wheeled, found himself facing the Air Chief. The Air Chief held a gun in a hand that didn’t tremble.

Hard blue eyes drilled into Randall’s, which were of a similar blue. There was the same high forehead, the same strong-willed mouth, the same well-fleshed face. The only difference was that the Air Chief was ten years older in body and looked thirty more, and was decades older mentally.

“My body amuses you?” the Air Chief asked gently, but the hardness of his face defied the gentleness.

Randall moved his hand closer to his pocket, and the pistol. The Air Chief’s hand tightened

suddenly, the weapon hummed and all the strength left Randall’s body. He fell loosely to the floor.

He lay motionless, but though he couldn’t move his body, his mind was clear. He could see and hear. The Air Chief came to his side, stooped carefully and took the pistol from Randall’s pocket, then stepped back and sat down.

“Like all your kind, you are a fool,” he said wearily. “Did you suppose I might never want to get secretly to the hangars? There are many things that only I know. This weapon is the refinement of the ‘sapper.’ My shriveled, preserved body that you laughed at—” Suddenly he halted, pressed one hand to his heart. His face grayed with pain; his lips became discolored.

Randall recognized the pain for what it was—a heart attack. He hoped that it might be fatal. He cursed his own helplessness and fought to get up. His heart leaped when he felt his strength returning.

But when he tried to get to his feet, the Air Chief leveled the strange weapon with a trembling hand. The weapon hummed and Randall collapsed. Finally the Air Chief got slowly to his feet. He crossed the room to the open locker containing the tiny body, and closed the door. Then he returned and pulled a cord.

A moment later the door opened and the officer came into the room. The Air Chief covered him with the pistol as the officer’s bewildered gaze went from one to the other.

“You have been a fool, Commander,” the Air Chief husked. “You obeyed this new body too soon. The operation has not yet been performed, and I doubt if even Dr. Brophy’s Gen-Ray will enable a patient to walk away from the table.

“Communicate with Dr. Torvald . . . Have Dr.

Brophy brought from his cell. The change must be made immediately.”

Randall listened to his own death sentence, but it was heard through a hazy horror which made everything seem unreal. The Air Chief had claimed that hideous body as his own. It had been preserved for years—those chemicals and pumps kept it alive. He treasured it! And Randall knew instinctively that nothing on earth had ever produced a body such as that one.