Shattering the patternless obscurity, the blaze of its color burst out, catching Quiana in a cone of expanding, shifting brilliance. And the despair in her eyes was suddenly more than Dantan could endure.
His hand struck out at the lever marked “door”; he swung it far over and the veil that had masked the screen was gone. He vaulted up over its low threshold, not seeing anything but the face and the terror of Quiana. But it was not Quiana’s name he called as he leaped.
He lunged through the Door onto soft, yielding substance that was unlike anything he had ever felt underfoot before. He scarcely knew it. He flung himself forward, fists clenched, ready to drive futile blows into the monstrous mask of the Enemy. It loomed over him like a tower, tremendous, scarcely seen through the shelter of his helmet—and then the glare of the light-cone caught him.
It was tangible light. It flung him back with a piledriver punch that knocked the breath from his body. And the blow was psychic as well as physical. Shaking and reeling from the shock, Dantan shut his eyes and fought forward, as though against a steady current too strong to breast very long. He felt Quiana beside him, caught in the same dreadful stream. And beyond the source of the light the Enemy stood up in stark, inhuman silhouette.
He never saw Quiana’s world. The light was too blinding. And yet, in a subtle sense, it was not blinding to the eyes, but to the mind. Nor was it light, Dantan thought, with some sane part of his mind. Too late he remembered Quiana’s warning that the world of Zha was not Mars or Earth, that in Zha even light was different.
Cold and heat mingled, indescribably bewildering, shook him hard. And beyond these were—other things. The light from the Enemy’s weapon was not born in Dantan’s universe, and it had properties that light should not have. He felt bare, emptied, a hollow shell through which radiance streamed.
For suddenly, every cell of his body was an eye. The glaring brilliance, the intolerable vision beat at the foundations of his sanity. Through him the glow went pouring, washing him, nerves, bone, flesh, brain, in floods of color that were not color, sound that was not sound, vibration that was spawned in the shaking hells of worlds beyond imagination.
It inundated him like a tide, and for a long, long, timeless while he stood helpless in its surge, moving within his body and without it, and within his mind and soul as well. The color of stars thundered in his brain. The crawling foulness of unspeakable hues writhed along his nerves so monstrously that he felt he could never cleanse himself of that obscenity.
And nothing else existed—only the light that was not light, but blasphemy.
Then it began to ebb … faded … grew lesser and lesser, until—Beside him he could see Quiana now. She was no longer stumbling in the cone of light, no longer shuddering and wavering in its violence, but standing erect and facing the Enemy, and from her eyes—something—poured.
Steadily the cone of brilliance waned. But still its glittering, shining foulness poured through Dantan. He felt himself weakening, his senses fading, as the tide of dark horror mounted through his brain.
And covered him up with its blanketing immensity.
He was back in the laboratory, leaning against the wall and breathing in deep, shuddering draughts. He did not remember stumbling through the Door again, but he was no longer in Zha. Quiana stood beside him, here upon the Martian soil of the laboratory. She was watching him with a strange, quizzical look in her eyes as he slowly fought back to normal, his heart quieting by degrees, his breath becoming evener. He felt drained, exhausted, his emotions cleansed and purified as though by baths of flame.
Presently he reached for the clasp that fastened his clumsy armor. Quiana put out a quick hand, shaking her head.
“No,” she said, and then stared at him again for a long moment without speaking. Finally, “I had not known—I did not think this could be done. Another of my own race—yes. But you, from Mars—I would not have believed that you could stand against the Enemy for a moment, even with your armor.”
“I’m from Earth, not Mars. And I didn’t stand long.”
“Long enough.” She smiled faintly. “You see now what happened? We of Zha can destroy without weapons, using only the power inherent in our bodies. Those like the Enemy have a little of that power too, but they need mechanical devices to amplify it. And so when you diverted the Enemy’s attention and forced him to divide his attack between us—the pressure upon me was relieved, and I could destroy him. But I would not have believed it possible.”
“You’re safe now,” Dantan said, with no expression in voice or face.
“Yes. I can return.”
“And you will?”
“Of course I shall.”
“We are more alike than you had realized.”
She looked up toward the colored curtain of the screen. “That is true. It is not the complete truth, Dantan.”
He said, “I love you—Quiana.” This time he called her by name.
Neither of them moved. Minutes went by silently.
Quiana said, as if she had not heard him, “Those who followed you are here. I have been listening to them for some time now. They are trying to break through the door at the top of the shaft.”
He took her hand in his gloved grasp. “Stay here. Or let me go back to Zha with you. Why not?”
“You could not live there without your armor.”
“Then stay.”
Quiana looked away, her eyes troubled. As Dantan moved to slip off his helmet her hand came up again to stop him.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
For answer she rose, beckoning for him to follow. She stepped across the threshold into the shaft and swiftly began to climb the pegs toward the surface and the hammering of the Redhelms up above. Dantan, at her gesture, followed.
Over
