Stanley Mullen

“ For the moment, he had been part of the screen.
Newlin could not tear his eyes from that glaring plane of illusion. Something about the glare played havoc with nerves, and a faint hint of diabolical sound tortured his brain. No such world could exist in a sane universe. Not even with its terrible and heartbreakingly poignant beauty. It was a vision of Hell, bright with impossible octaves of light, splendid with raging infernos of blinding color, some of it beyond the visible range of human sight. ”

“ Blind eyes and hands can never reach the light. Most of our emissaries, of that kind, die horribly, and their message is distorted to serve the ends of madness and corruption."
"Is there no hope for us?"
She stared at him. The pale glow of her moonbright eyes softened and intensified.
"One hope, and only in yourselves. We have tried and failed. If you feel so strongly, why have you done nothing?"
Bitter hatred snagged in Newlin's throat, making his laugh a sound of horror. "Not me. I can pity the masses of poor and down-trodden, but only as masses. ”

“ Windbells chiming, jangled; tinkling, shimmering, exploding inside his brain. Windbells shattering in a hurricane of sound and ecstasy.
With his fists, Newlin pounded at his bursting skull. Pain deadened perception, gave him a moment's relief.
He was not changing, he shouted in loud defense. He was not!
Songeen poised, watching. Her body-outlines swirled and altered in swift mutations before his eyes. She was not woman now. Not even human. She danced and flickered and gibbered at him. She was jeweled movement. Change. She was as crystalline as the forest, as molten emerald as the sky. ”

“ The major shock. We—you and I—must give them the ultimate weapon."
Newlin knew his humanity. He protested. "But why? If they have misused everything else. Why give them something still more hideous? Why give them means for further destruction?"
Her answer pulsed through darkness which glittered like black crystal.
"Because it is the final experiment. The last hope for your people, your system. We cannot help them beyond that. They must choose for themselves, as you did. We must go back to Earth, this time. And it is our task to give them the final treatment and test. The ultimate weapon. ”

“ The race was neck and neck. Death sniffed at their heels in the guise of mechanical trackers. On Venus, life is to the swift and cunning. To Newlin, life was perilous, but sweet.
Their helmet microphones picked up and amplified a curious droning buzz. It was the deathsong of the electronic tracker and it seemed closer than it was. ”

“ Within a massive, deep-carved archway of stone, set an oval of polished red granite. A doorway, barren of carving save for one, scrawled and monstrous hieroglyph. Uneasiness stirred in Newlin, for something in his buried race-memories recalled that symbol with supernal dread. Ice formed about his spine and melted in trickling terror-drops. Instinct cringed, but his conscious mind rebelled at even the effort of memory.
Songeen stopped and stared at the hideously marked doorway, as if tranced. ”

“ The system was mad, true—but how sane was Newlin? How sane and trustworthy? He could be a dangerous tool in her unskilled, frightened hands.
She had chosen him on the basis of his reputation. From his police record, and other documents. A capable man, courageous and self-reliant, ingenious, but a person of tensions and conflicts, a man of violence, unpredictable, torn by contradictory impulses, a savage but not without kindness and generosity. For her purposes, he might do as well as any other. At worst a man, cast in heroic mold. ”

“ Newlin scowled. "With money, a free man can be free; a slave with money is still a slave. Perhaps I want to learn for myself which I am. I want enough to pay for a spaceship, the best to be had. A one-man ship in which I can escape this madhouse and venture alone—beyond Pluto. Such a plan requires money, so I work in the Spacebell. ”

“ And with fists, brain and nimble fingers he had written an epic biography in Security Police annals.
Like other cities of the space frontier, Venusport was raw and crude, exotically beautiful and cruelly violent. To Newlin it was old stuff, picturesque, with the spicy flavor of a perilous vacation spot. After abrasive years on a dozen planets and habitable moons, the ugly savageries of Venus had only a quaint charm. Survival was always comparatively easy there, and a man shed normal fears with the shredding, blistered skin of spaceburns. ”

“ There is fatal disease in the race, a disease of instability and cruelty and violence. Call it madness—insanity—in the technical sense. It is pathological, and the disease is common to the human race, in all its ramifications. The Solar System is mad, and all who dwell in it are lunatics. Dangerous and homicidal lunatics. Sol's system is the asylum and pesthouse of our galaxy. We—my people—are its keepers and doctors. ”

“ But in the bitterness of ultimate disillusions, he had found the fountainhead as lacking in civilization and sanity as its furthest ripples. He longed, now, only for the final gesture of rejection. Escape....
"I had expected more of Newlin," said the girl.
His reply was a short, bitter laugh. "So had I. My character is as corrupt as the rest of mankind. Poverty is undignified and degrading; it poisons virtue and debases the outlook. Without money a man cannot claim his birthright of freedom; getting money he loses his independence and his character." ”

“ The beam lashed at the tracker, which stopped suddenly, threw back its monstrous head, and burst into hideous uproar of sparking, electrical discharge. Like a live thing, it twitched, jerked, and flung itself in mad spasms. Convulsions stopped as short-circuits flared in both head and body. Molten, flowing, its metallic carcass glowed eerily in the dimness. Dying, it blazed up in a fireworks display spectacular enough to attract half of Venus to the terrified fugitives. ”

“ A twilight, silvery, unreal as the trans-Lunar dreams of drugged poets. Songeen moved ahead slowly, making no effort to regain her clasp of his hand. Almost she seemed to avoid him, waiting until he almost overtook her, then skimming lightly away from him. Her slim, pale witchery was both taunt and challenge. She appeared to float rather than walk.
One by one she dropped her clinging robes. She became part of the mad forest, part of its dreamy gray enchantments.
Light grew steadily, and with it came more color, more magic, and more confusion of senses. ”

“ Newlin replied frankly. "Are these Masters your gods?"
"Not gods. Living, intelligent beings, civilized, but not like us. Not material. I cannot explain. Even they are but advisers and messengers. Not all-wise, nor all-powerful. I wish they were; for they are kind."
"You sound like nice people," Newlin admitted. "I wish I could believe you. Off-hand, I think you're crazy. You say we're all off the beam. Then you talk like delusions of grandeur, and I have reason to know you can be homicidal. One of us is nuts. It's a toss-up."
Songeen smiled wearily. "It is possible that I am infected. ”

“ Sheltering from wind-driven sand under the cover of a great monolith, Newlin and Songeen watched the racing figures of pursuit top the crest of the opposite ridge and start down. Man and girl were too winded and weak even to get up. They dared rest only a moment, then plunged on into the maze of tumbled ruins. Ultimate exertion had taken toll of their energies and rapidly burned up air reserves. ”

“ Newlin went and stood beside her, watching.
With gloved hand, she appeared to be tracing out some maze of deep cut markings that figured what must have been an altar-fane.
"Do you expect any results from this ritual mumbo-jumbo?" he questioned irritably.
Songeen looked up, startled. "Not more ritual than any other mathematics," she chided. "This is no temple, as you seem to imagine. It is the old quarantine station. I seek a doorway, but not into a hidden passage. There are other doorways. This one leads between dimensions. My world exists in a different plane. ”

“ It is the same force. The choice is theirs—kill or cure. Sanity or destruction. You and I will stay, try to guide and help, advise, but not interfere. Like you, your people must have free choice.
"We must stay with them, and share whatever happens. This is their shock treatment—and yours. We will share it together. But come, the Masters are waiting. I will take you to them."
"Together!" said Newlin, awed. "You will stay with me and share my—our shock treatment!"
"Together, always—now. It is a small price to pay, whatever happens," murmured Songeen. ”

“ Later, when he had begun to doubt that she was all-human, her physical charms still went inside him and turned like a dull knife. He was no more immune to animal attraction than the next man, but in this particular woman there was something else even more intriguing and unpredictable. He felt a powerful impulse to do something to relieve her of that paralyzing supernatural dread.
A situation pregnant with violence was working up at one of the gaming tables but Newlin wilfully tore his attention from the mounting tension between the fat Martian gambler and an ugly character from Ganymede. ”

“ The pre-holocaust Venusians were purely legendary. No written records could exist, amid such conditions as must have followed the ancient wars. Science knew that at least half a million years had passed since Venus was a fair green planet peopled with hearty, beautiful, ease-loving races. Half a million years since the surface people had even looked upon the sun.
"If you're right about where we are," Newlin growled, "I'm still interested in that city. We can never make Sansurra with the water we have. Ruined or not, there may be wells. Is there a chance?"
"Not a good one," Songeen replied. ”

“ Newlin admitted slowly. "Most of the truly worthwhile leaders of mankind stand so far above the mob that they seem cast in a different mold. The real leaders—not politicians, nor military brass. The thinkers and scientists, even the prophets. Every great religion sprang from the vision or inspiration of a single leader. Beyond the chaff, the fragments of his actual thoughts and words—always sound good. But their followers don't follow them."
Songeen's face twisted in bitter wrath. "How terribly true! Can blind men follow the sun? ”

“ Songeen told him calmly. "Choose now. I will take you with me if I can without permission. But do not come with me, unwarned. There is grave peril, beyond anything I can describe to you. Beyond your experience or imagination. I will try to get you safely back, somehow. But I can promise nothing. And if you stay too long, there is no coming back. You must remain there; even if the terror of your surroundings kills you."
She stood beside the mysterious doorway, waiting. Newlin made a start to follow her, then balked. ”

“ At least, our pathway to it follows strange ways, that you could never understand. You are no scientist or scholar. How could you grasp such unknown and forgotten matters? How could anyone in your world?"
Newlin stared at her, seeing things he had only guessed before.
"You are—alien," he said.
"You can't guess how alien," she answered. "I said I was not of Venusian stock. My people came from outside. Our world exists in the same plane as yours, a planet circling one of the nearer stars. This place was never our home, but we had colonies on Venus, Earth, Mars and one of Jupiter's moons. ”

“ All around him was a maze of shimmering crystal in odd forms, grotesque, clear but echoing the witchlights of that haunted sky.
Wind-borne, came the faint, sweet chiming of distinct porcelain bells. The place was alive with movement, sensed but incompletely seen. Even the wind flowed in almost visible currents, thickened as if the air had become dense, molten glass. All forms in the maze of crystal varied constantly. Light flared and died in odd rhythms, and the almost visible winds played icy arpeggios upon strings of spun glass, like Aeolian harps. ”

“ If your people burst outside the limits of Sol's system, the contagion of your madness will spread and engulf the galaxy. At our request, they have given time, granting extensions freely. For countless centuries we have tried, and our effort, all our work and thought, has led only to failure. Now, the others have set a time limit, and the deadline is very close. Very close. You are all living on borrowed time; and but for our pleadings, it would be still less.
"The masters often send emissaries to us, as we send ours to the planets of Sol. ”

“ Blaring metallic clangor, and the uncanny banshee wailing of the hunting sirens. Police care little who is murdered in the nameless dives of Venusport, but let one of the lordly rich men die, and all Hell is loosed on the killer. ”

“ Just a people not human, but not too remote from humanity. Just emissaries and workers, students and doctors. You might call us elder brothers to the human race. We came not to conquer, enslave and exploit, but to help. Sometimes the Masters came with us, since they were interested in our work. ”

“ You can set your own price. Enough even for your spaceship. But what do you expect to find—beyond Pluto?"
"Myself, first. After that, who knows? This solar system is a vast pesthouse. I am contaminated by fools, moneygrubbers, sheep and the corrupt authorities that rule them. What else I find isn't important if I find myself. Even death."
Newlin's eyes burned with a hot glare of fanaticism. ”

“ In a—building, there is a man I must see. He does not wish to see me, and there are barriers I cannot pass. The building is a combination workshop and living quarters, and something else you would not understand. You must go inside for me and induce him to come out to me. My name is Songeen. Tell him that. He will know me, and perhaps he will come. But it has been so long—"
Newlin grunted. "That man I must see. One who wouldn't come when you whistled. ”