Chester S. Geier

“ Swifter and swifter the huge wings beat. Bryan clutched at the feathers under him, rocked by the surges of giant muscles, buffeted by the torrent of air that rushed past.
The valley wall rose ahead, and through a deep cleft in the towering masses of rock he saw a deadly blue shimmer. The bird descended toward the cleft—and abruptly he felt its stunned dismay.
"Leeta has gone through the portal! She has reached the fire!"
Anguish flamed in Bryan. He had done this. If Leeta died, it would be as though he had killed her with his own hands. ”

“ Bryan stumbled in his frantic stride, caught himself, numbed by a sudden dismay. Leeta and her people could be hurt! It was as though the glowing energy of which they seemed composed existed in a state of delicate balance that could be disrupted by the impact of a bullet or its shock-wave.
He reached the pavilion steps, leaped up them toward Mulvaney. He had to keep the man from firing again. Somehow he had to show Leeta that his intentions were friendly, sympathetic. He had to talk to her, make her realize what she had been doing. Perhaps, even, he could help her. ”

“ In her hands the girl held the crystal globe, shining with its stolen radiance. Now she leaned forward, lowering the globe to the surface of the pool. It seemed to float, pulsing. Sparkles from the pool ran to it in a growing boil of motion—and were absorbed. The activity grew swifter and yet swifter, until the pool seethed and foamed with brilliance. The air turned electric with a sensation of vast striving, of super-human effort.
Watching puzzled, from his vantage point above the depression, Bryan saw the globe begin to swell. ”

“ Witch? Again he wondered. He could find nothing evil in her face, nothing of cruelty or guile. Behind the compelling anxiety in her eyes, the sadness that touched her full lips, was ... innocence.
The curiosity faded from her face. The tenseness and urgency that had been lurking in her abruptly became dominant.
Her hands lifted. Bryan saw now that she held an object in them, a globe of cloudy gray crystal, within which seemed to lay a core of pale rose light. And the light, he noticed, waxed and waned in a slow pulsing. ”

“ But first—you have seen something of this valley? You have seen that it is beautiful?"
"Very beautiful, Leeta."
"But only the valley is like that. All the rest of my world is bathed in a terrible fire that destroys any life it touches."
"I have seen that, too," he said. "Was it always this way?"
"Not always. Once the entire world was like the valley, beautiful, filled with life. There were fully as many people as on your own world. And they had great knowledge—too much knowledge, perhaps. They lived in vast cities and had many wonderful machines to serve them. ”

“ Bryan detected a sudden eagerness in the winged shapes that hovered beyond. And with the eagerness came the child-like piping.
"Take him, Leeta! He has courage. This time you may succeed."
An answering thought; soft, holding a delicate note. "Patience...."
Then Bryan saw the crystal globe being lifted still higher—toward his face. Behind it the girl's large exotic eyes seemed very intent. Within the globe the pulsing of the pale rose core quickened.
Bryan felt something draw at him. A strange force—like insistent hands. Hands immaterial and yet tangible, that reached into him ... and pulled. ”

“ The energy of his body, it seemed, had been heavily drawn upon in order to sustain the projection of himself in Leeta's aspect.
Leeta.... He thought of her with a crushing sense of tragedy. He knew he loved her—incredible and weird as that love may have seemed. He remembered the shyness of her kiss, the numbed horror of her belief that she had been betrayed, that he had pretended love only as a ruse to obtain Mulvaney's freedom. ”

“ The globe lowered. Over it the girl peered at him, startled, perplexed. And from the background came a piping despair.
"Failed.... It has failed...."
"He has a strength I have not met before." An echo of that other despair lay in the silver chiming. And an overtone of awe. "He cannot be taken—and that is strange. He has qualities I cannot quite explain. But his will is great—great enough, I think, to penetrate the veil unaided."
"He cannot be taken...." The piping again, sorrowfully resigned.
Bryan was aware of the girl's eyes on him. The wistfulness in them seemed to have grown. ”

“ His burly figure appeared on the pavilion steps—and then halted in amazed surprise as he caught sight of the eerily glowing shapes that were now winging downward.
Eagerness had pulled Bryan to his feet. The soaring figures were rapidly coming closer, growing more distinct. He saw the giant bird and its escort of mosquito-men. He saw Leeta, slender-limbed, elfin, her gossamer draperies fluttering behind her.
The appearance of Mulvaney momentarily tore his attention from the scene. He realized that the patrolman was silhouetted against the pavilion's pale backdrop—a clear target. ”

“ If I have to pick between you and Leeta, then...."
She stiffened as though struck. "Leeta!" she spat. "So you know her name, do you? Now I see you must have been cozy with her all along—that's why you helped her commit murder!"
Her voice grew shrill and breathless with fury. "All right, Terry! You're asking for it. I've made a fool of myself in front of everyone, chasing after you, throwing myself at you. This is where I even up the score.... The police might not believe what I just saw, but I'll tell them a story they'll swallow without tasting. They just love people who help kill cops. ”

“ Haven't you realized that you were tearing those men away from persons they loved deeply and didn't want to leave? I don't mean the kind of love you felt for your father, Leeta, but the love that exists between a man and a woman who are mated. Don't you know what that kind of love is like?"
She hesitated, startled, wondering. "No," she breathed at last. "Then I'll show you," he said. Though he was somehow unsubstantial, a projection, he knew he could still transmit feeling, just as the mosquito-men had transmitted their paralysis to him. ”

“ He indicated the globe she was holding. "And that's why you'll fail again. It's wrong to destroy a life uselessly, Leeta. Wrong. Surely you realize that. You must release this man—if it's at all possible."
"It can be done," she said. Then her thought grew protesting, rebellious. "But I cannot release him. I cannot give up my mission so easily. I must keep trying until I succeed. Surely you in turn must realize how great my duty is."
"Will you persist in it even if you know you are doing wrong, bringing pain and grief to people in my aspect? Don't you know what grief is, Leeta? ”

“ An elevator made distant noises somewhere in the building. White-clad nurses moved crisply by in the hall beyond the open door. Late Spring sunshine was bright behind the drawn shade at the window. Life and movement, the mundane and familiar. But in this room thoughts probed beyond the earthly facade and found a mystery, a wonder as old as Man.
Bryan moved his muscular shoulders as though against an invisible resistance. Then, slowly, still fighting that resistance, he reached into the breast pocket of his rumpled tweed jacket and produced a pencil and a wrinkled but otherwise clean envelope. ”

“ His mind kept returning to his strange dream and its incredible implications. And tangled in the thread of his thoughts was the picture of Leeta, dainty and elfinly lovely, struggling toward an end he could only dimly grasp.
A slim figure dropped into the chair opposite Bryan. It was Joyce, crisp, fresh, giving her usual effect of elegance.
"Hi! A little bird told me I'd find you here, Terry." She studied his face in swift concern. "What on earth happened to you last night? You look like a fugitive from a horror movie." ”

“ Sanders leaned forward at his desk, his eyes suddenly shrewd. "What's eating on you, Terry?"
Bryan shrugged. "Things like the Holzheimer business."
"It's all part of a system," Sanders said slowly. "You can't change that system any more than you can change human nature, Terry. All you can do is make the best of it. I hope you'll look at it that way. I've seen too many good reporters go sour over what they keep running into."
A telephone jangled on the desk. Sanders spoke into it briefly and returned his attention to Bryan. ”

“ Joyce looked shaken. "It ... it's gruesome, Terry. If anyone else had told me those things, I'd have said they were plain crazy." She hesitated. "This girl with the strange way of making men friends, what was she like?"
"She was ... beautiful," Bryan said. He stared into distance, seeing Leeta in memory again. His voice softened. "I've never met anyone like her."
"She's a witch!" Joyce said abruptly, an unnatural sharpness in her tone. "A vampire—a ghoul. What she's done is horrible, Terry. Someone should put a stop to her."
"She isn't a monster," Bryan returned in swift defense. ”

“ Mulvaney slapped his holstered gun. He left, then, to continue his patrol of the area around the pavilion.
Bryan sat down on a bench and lighted a cigarette. An uneasy thought had risen in his mind. He didn't know if Mulvaney would be able to cause any real harm in the event that Leeta appeared, but he didn't want the girl hurt.
Time passed with tortuous slowness. The tense hush that lay over the park seemed to deepen. Bryan spoke to Mulvaney when the patrolman reached him on his rounds, but otherwise the monotony of the wait remained unbroken. ”

“ Leeta, you must stop what you have been doing. You know now it has caused the deaths of those men in my world. And there is another reason, Leeta—danger. My people will be watching for you to appear again. They will try to destroy you. ”

“ A chill touched Bryan as he looked down at the figure on the hospital bed. He had seen dead men before—too many of them. He had seen them sprawled on European battlefields, had seen them huddled in wrecked cars or lying waxen and stiff on morgue slabs.
But he had never seen a dead man like the one who lay there on the bed. ”

“ Down ... down.... And then a swirling brilliance, a sense of delicious coolness, of returning strength. He found himself floating in the pool. And beside him, her liquid eyes even now widening with returning awareness, was Leeta. He felt the god-like power of the pool throbbing through him, and he knew that he and Leeta had been cleansed of the deadly radiation, that life and not death now lay before them. ”

“ Leeta is sending herself into the fire! Only you can stop her. She has commanded the winged ones not to interfere—a command we cannot disobey."
"Leeta—planning to destroy herself? But why?"
"It is because of this thing called love that you awoke in her. She felt that without you there was no longer any reason to live." Anxiety sharpened in the twittering thought. "Will you help to save Leeta, man of this aspect? Will you come with me through the veil?"
"Yes," Bryan said. "Yes!" Eagerly he leaned close to the slowly pulsing globe that the bird held out to him in its beak ... ”

“ Joyce shook her head coldly. "It's still murder. And you're in it up to your eyebrows, Terry. If the police find out what happened here, they'll lock you up and throw away the key."
In another moment her features softened, her voice grew pleading. "It isn't too late, Terry. Forget that girl. Tip off the police so they'll be ready for her the next time she shows up. They don't have to know exactly what you saw—or what you did. We'll keep that to ourselves, Terry. We'll start over again ... you and I."
Bryan stared at her, shocked by the bargain she was suggesting. ”

“ But the vital force contained in living matter could be made to cross easily enough—with, of course, the means of a tool like the Vessel. And the pool could incarnate the vital force, give it matter in this aspect according to the pattern of the original shell. All I had to do was bring the vital force of a man through the veil—and my race could go on. Still, I have been unsuccessful, for it seems that the vital force is also held to its aspect."
"I think that's because of what might be called psychic bonds," Bryan said slowly. "The men you brought here, Leeta—they did not want to come. ”

“ But somewhere must be one who is not.... And so my quest must go on. Again—farewell...."
Once more she was slipping from him. And once more he could do nothing. Despite his frantic, violent inner struggle, he could make no sound or movement, could give no slightest indication of the purpose that drove him. He was imprisoned within a cage of flesh as unresponsive and immovable as stone.
She turned to Mulvaney ... held the crystal globe to him. Its pulsing quickened, it brightened. And Mulvaney fell, limp—empty.
Watching through his despair, Bryan saw Leeta stand hesitating. ”

“ He saw the figures of two men now, one of them in police uniform. This man held a gun, its muzzle pointed in silent threat.
"All right, cop-killer," the man in the suit said. He had a detective's unemotional face and flat hard eyes. Something bright glinted in his hands as he leaned close—and Bryan felt the cold steel of handcuffs close around his wrists.
"Let's go," the detective said, then. "We've got about two-dozen men combing the park for you, friend. They won't like to be kept on the job for nothing. ”

“ Bryan said. "Trying to frame a kid and build up a record."
"Circumstantial evidence and re-election, Terry. It happens all the time—you ought to know. And you ought to know we're politically on the D.A.'s side of the fence. Stories like the one you wrote about the Holzheimer case will only hurt the campaign this paper is putting on."
"Sometimes there's too much incompetence to whitewash—even if it comes from the right side of the fence."
Sanders shook his disorderly thatch. "You ought to know better than that, Terry. You've been around long enough. ”