The Godmen

A low black range rose ahead of them and Dundonald urged him toward it, and the Thetis went down on a long slant with the screeching roar of riven atmosphere about them. And Harlow, his hands tense on the controls, thought that he saw scattered cities fly past beneath them.

'All dead,” came Dundonald's thought. “More and more of the Vorn took to star-roving and fewer and fewer came back, until gradually the race here died out. And now hardly any of the Vorn are left in even this part of the galaxy. They've moved on and out.'

An instant later he warned, 'Drop her! This side of the ridge!'

They landed in a desert where a river had cut a deep fantastic gorge down through the sand and the layers of many-colored rock. The tawny waters ran toward the rocky ridge, and through a canyon Dundonald said, “Don't waste time on atmosphere-check, the air's breathable. I lived here for months, and the Vorn lived here for ages, and they were as human as us.'

Harlow went to the intercom and gave an order. “Crack the lock. All hands out.'

When they went outside, it was into air that was dry and warm and faintly metallic in smell. The green desert stretched around them, and the light of the viridescent sun struck brilliantly across it and painted the looming black rock of the ridge with poisonous colors. There was a silence, except for the murmur of the river in its gorge.

The men looked dumbly at each other and then at Harlow. And then, as a little dancing star of radiance flicked past them and bobbed close to Harlow, the tough Earth faces changed. Harlow had tried to explain but it was no use, all they knew was that the dancing star was supposed to have been human once and they did not like it, they were afraid and they showed it. All of them, and that included Kwolek and Garcia and Yrra too, kept looking at the floating radiance that had been Dundonald.

'Don't speak aloud to me, they're getting panicky,” came Dundonald's thought. “Think it strongly, and I'll get it.'

'Which way to Lurluun?” thought Harlow.

'The way the river flows. But you can't follow the river, Harlow, the gorge is too deep. You'll have to go over the ridge.'

'How many men has Taggart got there?'

'Fourteen,” Dundonald answered. “All heavily armed. Plus eight more out in his ship.'

Harlow spoke aloud to Kwolek. “Serve out the sidearms.'

The little stunners were duly handed out — purely defensive weapons to be used only to save the lives of personnel. They did not have an effective range of more than a few feet, and they did not carry a lethal charge — Star Survey was very tender of native feelings. The light feel of the thing in his hand did not give Harlow much confidence.

He said aloud to the men, “You know what Taggart did to us back at ML-441. Here's our chance to get back at him. He's over that ridge. We're going over and hit him.'

'All of us, sir?” said Garcia. “Don't you want a guard left on the Thetis?'

Harlow shook his head. “Unless we overpower that bunch, we won't be coming back to the Thetis. We're twenty to their fourteen, but they've got weapons that make ours look like water-pistols.'

Yrra's face flamed with eagerness in the fading green light. “Then I go with you too.'

Harlow looked at her dubiously. “I suppose you have to. Stay close to me, and obey orders.'

He turned toward the patch of radiance hovering in the air beside him, shining brighter now that the green sun was setting and the light lessening. He thought, “Dundonald, can you go ahead and find out where Taggart has his sentries posted in that city? I must know exactly before we go in.'

'Yes. I can do that.'

And then men of the Thetis flinched back as the radiance whirled and spun and then flashed away through the gathering twilight. A shining feather, a shooting star, an incredible will-of-the-wisp, darting toward-the looming black ridge and disappearing.

Harlow raised his voice. “We're moving out right now. Pick them up and keep them going.'

And in a compact column they started across the sand, keeping a little away from the river-gorge. As the last rays of the green star lit the rock rampart ahead, Harley surveyed it dubiously. He thought he saw a way over it but was not yet sure.

Then he found that they were following an ancient roadway, one so drifted over by sand that he would have strayed from it had there not been stone markers along it. Back from the road rose dark, low, rambling structures that looked like scattered villas. The wind had piled the sand in drifts around them. And in the deepening twilight, there was no sound but the wind and the river. Nobody had lived in those villas for thousands of years.

Yrra, marching beside him, shivered. “It is evil,” she said. “Men were meant to live like men. Suppose everyone were to become like the Vorn? All the worlds of the galaxy would be like this.'

It was a frightening thought. Harlow's mind leaped ahead, in imagination, to a time in the future when the human race might vanish utterly and only creatures like Dundonald would be left, immortal, sterile, building nothing, creating nothing, existing only for the thrill of pure knowledge, lovely bits of force and flame wandering forever through the reaches of space, universes without end.

Was that the ultimate goal of a race who went to space, their final evolution? Had the first rockets been only the first steps of an evolution that would take man and make something more than human and less than human of him?

He forced that eerie thought from his mind. They were nearing the ridge and he saw now that the ancient roadway climbed along its face in an easy grade.

'This way,” he called.

The darkness was becoming absolute. There were no stars in the sky, nothing but the blackness of the mighty Horsehead in which this world was embayed. The tiny flash of his pocket-light was drowned.

But as they climbed higher, Harlow thought that he saw a steady pulsing of light from the other side of the ridge. It grew stronger in the sky. They reached the crest of the ridge.

They stood and stared, all their faces bewildered and strange in the light that now struck upon them.

'What is it?” whispered Yrra. A few miles from them, on the other side of the ridge, a great column of opalescent light rose skyward. It was most intense at its base, fading as it ascended. It seethed and coruscated uncannily, yet it maintained itself and sent a strange glow out to touch everything around it.

By that glow, Harlow saw that the opalescent pillar rose from the center of a city. Dark roofs, walls, towers, quivered in the unearthly glow, and shadows clotted the ways between them. There was no other light at all in the silent place, and no visible movement.

'That's the city of the Vorn,” he said. “Lurluun. It's dead, all right.'

'But the light?'

'I don't know—” Then Harlow broke off in relief as he saw a flying, shining star that came rushing up toward them. “Dundonald can tell us.'

Dundonald had something to tell them, but it was not that. From that hovering star of radiance, his thoughts beat at Harlow frantically.

'It may be too late, Harlow. They've had a message from Frayne. Frayne's ship has entered the Horsehead and is coming on to this world right now!'

CHAPTER VI

The sudden imminence of complete defeat had a curiously numbing effect upon Harlow. He had come a long way, they all had, and they were tired, and it seemed that they were too late and it had all been for nothing. And what was he doing so far from Earth, standing in the night of an alien world and looking across a dead, dark city at a pillar of glory while a floating radiance that had once been human whispered in his mind?

Then Harlow's momentary despair was swept away by good, strong rage. His anger had nothing to do with his mission, important as that was. It was ordinary human anger at being beaten, out-thought, bested, by someone cleverer than himself. He would not let Taggart get away with this!