D. L. James

“ He was staring down at that weird sight—staring at Eyoaoc Eiioiei. And for a moment I, too, ignored the warning. For that grotesque thing was fighting—fighting in a way that was an astonishing sight to witness.
Thin, dazzling, rapierlike beams were flashing up at him and past him. But Eyoaoc Eiioiei was avoiding those hissing shafts with a skill not human—a dancing, cavorting nightmare thing, silhouetted against and enmeshed by those lethal streaks of fire; and I saw that now and then from his metal hand flashed a return blast of radiance. ”

“ I worked here alone, except for one laboratory assistant—Eyoaoc Eiioiei, as I called him. And here we created the Ice Stone.
"As I have already explained, it is no material thing—merely a cube of specialized space, foreshortened, warped and curved to attain a specific result. Its action is very simple. It slows up a beam of light exactly as does a lens, but to an incomparably greater degree. And being composed of nothing tangible, it acts on any moving thing—particle, atom or electron—exactly as it does on light photons.
"Thus a man can walk through the Ice Stone without sensing any change. ”

“ Rog Tanlu wasn't smiling now, but was speaking very seriously. "Perhaps you realize that it is a trait of the human mind to look upon the Past as uncultured. Such an attitude is greatly in error."
"You traveled here through Time?" asked Doc.
"Not exactly," said Rog Tanlu. "Time, as you know, is merely the illusion experienced by creatures endowed with memory living in a universe of random energy distribution. Time is movement, the rearrangement of matter—dependent upon the degree of entropy. I found it impossible to travel in Time. That's why I constructed the Ice Stone."
"The Ice Stone!" ”

“ And judging by the way Doc Champ was frostily puffing and rubbing his ears, I guess he wasn't, either.
We soon got down to where the wind didn't hit so strong, and Doc started asking questions.
When would the refugees start coming? Would Darlu Marc—Rog Tanlu's enemy—be among the first?
"He may never come," said Rog Tanlu bitterly. "His purpose is to bleed the people, sell them passage to this paradise. That would enable him to live in comparative security and comfort back in Iralnard City for the remainder of his lifetime." ”

“ I guess Doc Champ had already caught sight of the Ice Stone. But I hadn't; and now with my first glimpse of it, the thing did look exactly like ice. It was like a huge, square block, set flush with the face of the cliff, and with that ledge forming a pathway up to it.
"Queer," I heard Doc Champ muttering. "All the legends pertaining to the Ice Stone mention its black appearance. That stone doesn't look black—it looks transparent."
"Its color has recently changed," explained Rog Tanlu. "It isn't a stone, or any material substance. ”

“ Two days later, with Doc's whole scant outfit stored in the truck he'd managed to purchase, we were grinding out through squalid towns of ancient, one-story huts toward the salt swamp of Kavir and the lonely stretch of mountains to the north.
"Notice the way the dew lies there on the grass?" he said to me one morning, just as the sun was rising and we were breaking camp. "We slept right over the foundation walls of what was once part of an ancient city." ”

“ It is a peculiar kind of space—space with the third dimension, thickness in this instance, so twisted and curved as to allow the fourth dimension to emerge from nothingness into a certain hypostatic realness. Light has needed a long time to penetrate through it, and for that reason the cube has only recently assumed an apparent transparency. Now, if you will follow me, I will lead you to my laboratory."
He continued on around a shoulder of the cliff, so that we lost sight of the Ice Stone. Gigantic boulders all but blocked the way. ”

“ Doc Champ and I stood there staring.
But by and by I heard Doc's voice.
"A robot," he said, speaking softly and in kind of an awed tone. "So his laboratory assistant is a robot."
"No wonder it was immune to the cold," I gulped, swallowing hard.
Presently Rog Tanlu swung around toward us and commenced to talk so we could understand.
"Serious news," he bit out. "Darlu Marc has delayed the emigration. But he is sending a party of his vassals to wipe me out. He thinks I possess means to destroy the Ice Stone—thinks I'd do it out of sheer spite. He's wrong of course, in both instances. ”

“ It sounded simple, as he told it, even to me, and Doc nodded.
"What seems queer," he observed, "is about this cold and wind. I understand it's blowing from the outside cliff into the Ice Stone—from way back in the Ice Age—and is only now emerging here. In that case the cube must have swallowed a tremendous amount of air—and energy!"
"You grasp the idea," said Rog Tanlu, with quiet satisfaction. "But you must not judge the capacity of the Ice Stone by its external dimensions. They are quite deceptive. ”

“ And when you like a man you're bound to think twice before discrediting what he believes in.
"So you'll be taking a ride over this crazy railroad," I remarked thoughtfully, somewhat later.
He nodded. "What makes you call it crazy?"
Well, I told him. Of course he already knew quite a lot about Iran's new railroad—the many-million dollar toy of the "Brother of the Moon and Stars," as the fancy-tongued Iranians like to call their shah. ”

“ If a man touches it, his hand sinks in, and he can get loose only by amputating. The queer part is, there seems to be some basis for the legend. All down through Iran's history there are disconnected references. The thing keeps cropping up. Vague reports from wandering tribes, with one or more cripples, minus an arm or leg, to verify the yarn. So, I may take a shot at locating the Ice Stone."
Queer stories like that are quite common in Iran. ”

“ But I shall await them here, in this cavern which is very familiar to me."
Doc Champ shook his head. I knew he wouldn't fall in with that plan.
"We're both armed," he told Rog Tanlu, slapping the automatic that sagged in his pocket. "We'll hang around awhile."
I guess I like this quality in Doc. Maybe it was partly the reason why I took to him.
Well, I backed up the little guy ... but I thought he was wrong. That fight—if there was going to be a fight—wasn't ours. And I couldn't just see men with pistols getting very far against those fountain-pen affairs, like Rog Tanlu had. ”

“ Doc Champ kind of gulped.
Rog Tanlu waved the bird-leg he was nibbling on.
"With the audio-visiscope," he explained.
He reached over and did something to that flashlight thing on the rock near me. Right away it started talking—like a radio. But I knew it wasn't a radio. The speaker was someone cussing the King of Kings' order forbidding veils for Iranian women. And then I saw that what I had thought was a reflection in that silvered globe was moving. It wasn't a reflection ”