He concentrated on the transmitter again, commanding the robot to move forward to the edge of the dais, till he could see its back.
“Raise your arm. Step back. Forward again. Back.”
It worked. The robot obeyed his mental commands, awkwardly, but—it obeyed.
“Back. Sit on the throne.”
A jarring crash deafened Garth momentarily. He had forgotten how huge the robot was. No doubt the creature should lever itself down gradually into its seat, instead of dropping a ton of metal solidly on the black block.
Footsteps again. The Zarno were beginning to pour into the cavern. Huge as it was, they almost filled it. They flung themselves flat, crawling toward the dais, nodding their misshapen heads in awkward rhythm. Their voices were raised in a deep-throated chant.
Garth concentrated. At his mental command, the robot rose and paced slowly forward.
“Kra-enlar!”
Garth put his mouth to the diaphragm. His voice crashed out.
“The gods have returned! Hear me, O Zarno!”
“We hear!”
“Let no Zarno fail to come to the temple of the gods. Have the guards left their posts?”
“Nay—nay!”
“Summon them,” Garth roared. “When the gods speak, all must hearken. Let every Zarno come to me now, or die!”
Some of the creatures raced away and returned with others. The chant continued.
“Have any Zarno failed to heed my summons?”
“None—none! We are here—all!”
Garth nearly shouted with relief. There were almost two thousand Zarno in the cavern, he judged, all genuflecting before the dais. And that meant that the city was unguarded—that Doc Willard could lead the others to the antigravity hangar.
If he could hold the Zarno here!
Garth shook his head, feeling oddly dizzy. He tried to concentrate. At his mental order, the giant robot lifted its arms in symbolic, ritualistic gestures he remembered from the tripod-recorder.
But the dizziness persisted. Garth realized that his lungs were hurting. He found it difficult to draw a deep breath.
Air—he needed fresh air! The inhuman lungs of the Ancients probably were able to endure lack of oxygen far better than the human organism. In any case—Garth realized that the air was getting stale.
He investigated the vision-slit. It was barred by a glassy, transparent pane that seemed as hard as steel. Well, it would be necessary to open the panel behind him—a few inches, anyway. Garth’s hand sought for the spring. It was in plain sight; there was no need to conceal it within the throne’s compartment.
He pressed it. There was a low grinding that stopped almost immediately. Garth tried again.
Useless. The mechanism, somehow, was jammed. Probably its mechanism had failed when the huge robot had crashed down on the throne.
That meant—
Garth’s fingers tried to find some purchase on the smooth surface of the panel. He failed. …
A Zarno called a question. Garth turned back to the eye-slit, trying to fight back his dizziness. Heads were lifted, he saw, watching him inquiringly, as though the silicate creatures expected something. Well—
He made the robot move again, its arms reaching out in ancient ceremonial gestures. A gasp of awe came from the Zarno.
Their chant thundered out, deeper, sonorous and inhuman.
Garth felt the beginning of a throbbing ache in his temples. He was trapped here. How long could he stand it? He was human, not one of the Ancients. He needed air—
He held the Zarno, but not for long. Once more bulbous heads were lifted, oval eyes watching him inquiringly. They were expecting something—what? Garth tried to remember what he had seen in the recorder.
More heads were lifted.
Garth made the robot step forward, raising its metal arms. He had to say something—anything that would hold the Zarno quiet for a while, long enough for Doc and the others to escape. Words he had forgotten since childhood came suddenly unexpectedly to him. The English phrases meant nothing to the Zarno, but the sonorous, powerful chant kept them silent.
“He shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter; and from the noisome pestilence. … Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. … A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. …”
The agony flamed up again in Garth’s brain, consuming, terrible. The huge robot body of the dais swayed, caught itself, and the chant thundered out again through the great cavern.
“If I take the wings of the morning; and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me. …”
The distant, harsh clangor of a bell sounded. Garth had heard it before, when he had crossed the threshold of the black temple in the forest. At the sound the Zarno stirred, and a few of them sprang up.
Garth thrust out his hand, fighting back the pain that tore at him like white flame.
His voice held them—
“The floods are risen, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voices; the floods lift up their waves. … The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly: but yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier—”
He held them. He held them, speaking a tongue they did not know, while his mind shook under the impact of sanity-destroying pain. A slow, sick bitterness crept into his soul. Was this the end—death here, prisoned on an alien world, so far from his home planet?
Death—and for what?
He closed his mind to the thought. Mentally he paced Doc and the others through the tunnel, from the black temple to the hangar. Surely they must have reached it by now! Paula—
That first glimpse he had had of the girl, in Tolomo’s drinking-hell—Moira, he had thought then, for an incredible instant. Yes, she had been like Moira. If the paths of destiny had led elsewhere than to the Black Forest of Ganymede, the result might have been far distant. He would not be dying here alone, horribly alone. Moira—Paula—
They were the same, somehow. And Garth knew he had to keep going, till he had saved Paula Trent. A little time—a few moments more, to keep the Zarno in check.
He
