CHAPTER XXI
_The Monstrous Something_
The way to the top of the pyramid was long. One look Chet allowedhimself out over this world--one slow, sweeping gaze that took in thebare floor at the pyramid's base, a level platform of rock some distancein front of the pyramid, the hard black and white of the walled oval,the sea of waving green that was the jungle beyond, and, beyond that,hills, misty and shimmering in the noonday heat. And nestled there,beyond that last bare ridge, must be the valley of happiness, DianeDelacouer's "Happy Valley."
Chet Bullard turned abruptly where the projecting capstone hung heavyabove a shadowed entrance. He entered the blackness within, stopped oncein choking nausea as the first wave of vile air struck him, then foughthis way on till his searching feet found the stairway, and he knew hewas descending into a pit that held something inhumanly horrible--anabomination unto all gods of decency and right.
And still there persisted that abnormal coolness that made him almostlight-headed, almost carefree. Even the fetid stench ceased to offend.His feet moved with never a sound to find the first step--and thenext--and the next. He must go cautiously; he must not betray hispresence until he was ready to strike.
Just where that blow would be delivered or against what adversary hecould not tell, and perhaps it would be given him only to save Diane andWalt by the grace of a merciful bullet. It made no difference. Nothingmade any difference any more; they had had their day, and now if thenight came suddenly that was all he could ask. And still his cautiousfeet were carrying him down and yet down....
* * * * *
He was far below the surface of the ground when he found the foot of thestairs. They had been a spiral; his hand had touched one wall that ledhim smoothly around a shaft like a great well. And now there was firmrock beneath his feet, where, with one hand still guiding him along thestone wall, he followed the wall into a darkness that was an almostsolid, opaque black. He seemed lost in a great void, smothered insilence, and buried under the black weight of the pressing dark, untilthe sound of a footfall gave him sense of direction and of distance.
It made soft echoings along rock walls that picked up every slightestrustle, and Chet realized again how cautious his own advance must be.It came toward him, soft, scuffing, followed the wall where hestood ... and Chet felt that approaching presence almost upon him beforehe stepped silently out and away.
And in the darkness that blotted out his sight he sensed with some innereye the passing ape-man with arms rigidly extended, while a wave ofthankfulness flooded him as he realized that in the dark the brute wasas blind as himself and that the terrible thing that had sent him couldsee at a distance only with the ape-man's eyes.
Here was something definite to count on. As long as he remained silent,as long as he kept himself hidden, he was safe.
The scuffling footsteps had gone to nothing in the distance when Chetreached out for the wall and went swiftly, carefully, on. The messengerhad come this way; he could hurry now that he knew there was safefooting in the dark.
The wall ended in a sharp corner; it formed a right angle, and the newsurface went on and away from him. Chet was debating whether he shouldfollow or should cast out into the darkness when his staring eyes foundthe first touch of light.
* * * * *
It came from above, a wavering line that trembled to a flame whichseemed curiously cold. The line grew: a foot-wide band of light high upon the wall, it thrust itself forward like a tendril of the horribleplants he had seen. It grew on and wrapped itself about a great room,while, behind it, cold flames flickered and leaped. And Chet, sointerested was he in the motion of this light that seemed almost alive,realized only after some moments that the light was betraying him.
He glanced quickly about and found himself within a chamber of hugeproportions. Walls that only nature could form reared themselves high inthe putrescent air of the room; they curved into a ceiling, and fromthat ceiling there hung a glittering array of gems.
Chet knew them for great stalactites, and, even as he cast aboutdesperately for some secluded nook, he marveled at the diamondbrilliance of the display. But on the smooth floor of stone, wherecorresponding stalagmites must have been, were no traces of crystalgrowths, from which he knew that though nature had formed the room someother power had fitted it to its own use.
Chet's eyes were darting swift glances about. There was no single movingthing, no sign of life; he was still undiscovered. But it could not lastlong, this safety; he looked vainly for some niche where the light wouldnot strike so clearly, so betrayingly.
Across the great chamber was a platform fifteen feet above the floor.Even at a distance Chet knew this was not a natural formation; he couldsee where the stones had been cleverly fitted. And now his eyes,accustomed to the light, saw that the platform was carpeted with hidesand strange furs. There were some that hung over the edge; they reachedalmost to the upright block like a table or altar at the platform'sbase. On this altar another great hide of thick leather was spread; itdragged in places on the floor.
Bare floors, bare walls--no place where an intruder could remainconcealed! Suddenly from the lighted mouth of another passage he heardsounds of many feet; the sounds of approaching feet.
* * * * *
The impulse that threw him across the room was born of desperation; heraced frantically to cross the wide expanse before those feet broughttheir owners within view, and he fought to keep his panting breathinaudible while he tugged at the heavy leather altar covering, stiff andthick as a board; while he forced his crouching body beneath and foundspace there where he could move freely about.
It walled him in completely on the platform side where it hung to thefloor, but on the other three sides there were gaps near the floor wherethe light shone in on two pedestals of stone that supported the stonetop.
Between the pedestals Chet crouched, hardly daring to look, hardlydaring to breathe, while feet, bare and black, tramped shufflingly past.They went in groups--he lost count of their number but knew there werehundreds; he heard them going to the platform above. And, through thesound of the naked feet, came disjointed fragments of thought thatreached his brain, transformed to words.
Mere fragments at first: "... back; the Master goes first!... Thelights--how grateful is their coolness!... Who stumbled? Careless andstupid ape! You, Bearer-captain, shall take him to the torture room; atouch of fire will help his infirmity!"
And there was a cold rage that accompanied the last which set Chet'stense nerves a-tingle. But there was no fear in the emotion; he wasquivering with a fierce, instinctive, animal hate.
The black feet retraced their steps. Then there was silence, and Chetknew there was something above him on the platform; whether one or manyhe could not tell until an interchange of thoughts reached him to showthere was at least more than one.
"A presence!" some unseen thing was thinking. "I sense a strange mentalforce!"
* * * * *
A moment of panic gripped Chet at the threat of discovery. Then heforced himself to relax; he tried to make his mind a blank; or if notthat, to think of anything but himself--of the jungle, the ape-men, ofthe two comrades who had been captured.
"Patience!" another thinker was counseling. "It is the captives; theydraw near." And across the great room, from the same passage where hehad entered, Chet heard again the sound of bare, scuffing feet.
He could see them at last; he dared, to stop and peer along the floor.Bare feet--black, hairy legs, and then came sounds of clumping leatherthat brought Chet's heart into his throat, until, directly before thealtar that made his shelter, he saw the stained shoes and torn leggingsof Walt Harkness, and beside them, the little boots and jungle-stainedstockings that encased the slender legs of Mademoiselle Diane.
They were there before him, Walt and Diane; he would see them if he butdared to look. And, from somewhere above, a confusion of th
oughtmessages poured in upon him like the unintelligible medley of manyvoices. Out of them came one, clearer, more commanding:
"Silence! Be still, all! Your Master speaks. I shall question thecaptives."
And there came to Chet, crouched beneath the altar, hardly breathing,listening, tense, a battering of questioning thoughts. He heard noanswer from Harkness and Diane, but he knew that their minds were openpages to the one from whom those thought-waves issued.
"Where are you from?--what part of this globe?... Another world?Impossible! This is our own world, Rajj. It is alone. There is no nearbystar."
And after a moment, when Harkness had silently answered, came otherthoughts:
"Strange! Strange! This creature of an inferior race says that our worldhas joined hands with his; that his is greater; that our own world,Rajj, is now a satellite of his world that he calls by the strange nameof 'Earth.'"
* * * * *
To Chet it seemed that this one mysterious thinker, this "Master" of anunknown realm, was explaining his findings to other mysterious beings.There followed a babel of released thoughts from which Chet got only aconfused impression of conflicting emotions: curiosity, rage, hate, anda cold ferocity that bound them into one powerful, vindictive whole.
Again the leader quieted the rest; again he laid open the minds of Waltand Diane for his exploring questions, while Chet mentally listened andtried to picture what manner of thing this was that held two Earth-folkhelpless, that called them "creatures of an inferior race."
Super-men? No? Super-beasts, these must be. Chet was chilled with anameless horror as he sensed the cold deadliness and implacable hate inthe traces of emotion that clung and came to him with the thoughts. Andhis imagination balked at trying to picture thinking creatures soabominably vile as these thinkers must be.
The questions went on and on. Chet lost all sense of time. He had thefeeling that the two helpless prisoners were being mentally flayed. Nothought, no hidden emotion, but was stripped from them and displayedbefore the mental gaze of these inhuman inquisitors. No physical torturecould have been more revolting.
And at list the ordeal was ended. Chet had forgotten Schwartzmann's menuntil the "Master's" order recalled them to his mind. "Bring the othercaptives!" the unspoken thought commanded.
* * * * *
Chet crouched low to see from under the hanging leather. Naked feetshuffled aimlessly; they were raised and put down again in the sameposition, until the dazed and hypnotized blacks received their ordersand drew Diane and Harkness to one side. Then other leather-shod feetcame into view as Max and his companions were brought forward.
But there was no more questioning. "Perhaps another day we shall amuseourselves with them," a thinker said. Chet, for the first time waspaying no attention.
A slit in the leather--it might bare been where a spear had entered toslay a dinosaur in some earlier age--served now as a peep-hole fromwhich Chet saw two gray and lifeless faces that were expressionless asstone. And, as if their bodies, too, were carved from granite, Diane andHarkness stood motionless.
He saw the blacks, saw that all eyes were on the other prisoners. OnlyHarkness and Diane stood with lowered gaze, staring stonily at the floorwhere the leather hung. And through Chet's mind flashed a quick impulsethat set his nerves thrilling and quivering, though he checked theemotion in an instant lest some other mind should sense it.
Those other minds were not contacting Walt and Diane now. Could he reachthem? Chet wondered. That they were conscious, that they knew withhorrible clearness every detail of what went on, Chet was certain: hisown brief experience that first night on the pyramid had taught himthat. And now if these two could see and comprehend what they saw: ifonly he could send them a word--one flashing message of hope! His handswere working swiftly at his belt.
The detonite pistol slipped silently from its sheath. And as silently heplaced it on the floor where the two were looking, then slid itcautiously underneath the leather that just cleared the floor.
* * * * *
His eye was close to the narrow slit. Did a change of expression flashfor an instant across the face of Walt Harkness? Was it onlyimagination, or was there the briefest flicker of life in the dead eyesof Diane Delacouer? Chet could not be sure, but he dared to hope.
The "Master" was speaking. To Chet came a conviction that he must notfail to hear these thoughts. He restored the pistol to his belt.
"And now the time has come," flashed the message. "One thousand timeshas Rajj circled the sun since we put his light behind us and came downto the dark place that had been prepared.
"One hundred others and myself; we were the peerless leaders of apeerless race. To produce the marvelous mentality that made us what wewere, all the forces of evolution had been laboring for ages. We weresupreme, and for us there was nothing left; no further growth.
"Then, what said Vashta, the All-Wise One? That I and a hundred chosenones should descend into the dark, there to live until a new world wasready for us, lest our great race of Krargh perish." Chet started at thename. Krargh! It was the same word that Towahg had used.
The mental message went on:
"And we alone survive. Our world of Rajj is a wasteland where once weand our fellows lived. And we have been patient, awaiting the day. Thebiped beasts, as you know, have been our food; we have trained them tobe our slaves as well. By the power of our invincible minds we have sentthem out to do our bidding and bring in more of the man-herd forslaughter when we hungered.
"And now, remember the words of Vashta, the All-Wise: 'until a new worldis ready.' O Peerless Ones, the new world waits. These ignorant, whiteanimals have brought the word. We had thought that Vashta meant us tomake a new world of our old world of Rajj, but what of this new worldcalled Earth? Perhaps that will be ours."
Chet felt the thinker break in on his own thoughts.
"One thousand years, but not to a day. Tell us, O Keeper of the Records,when is the time?"
And another's thoughts came in answer: "Six days, Master; six daysmore."
The leader's thoughts crashed in with an almost physical violence:
"On the sixth night we shall go out! In darkness we have lived; indarkness we shall emerge. Then shall we feast in the arena of Vashta aswe did of old. We shall see this new world; we shall breed and peoplethe world; we shall take up our lives again.
"Let the captives live!" he commanded. "Feed them well. They shall bethe sacrifice to Vashta--all but the woman. She shall see the blood ofthe others flow on the altar stone; then shall she come to me."
There was a chorus of mental protests; of counter claims. The leaderquieted them as before.
"I am Master of All," he told them. "Would you dispute with me over thisbeast of the Earth--a creature of no mental growth? Absurd! But sheinterests me somewhat; I will find her amusing for a time."
* * * * *
There were bearers who came crowding in; and again in groups they left.They were on the side where Chet dared not look, but he knew each groupof blacks meant a mysterious something that was being carried carefully.
And somewhere in the confusion of black, shuffling feet the othersvanished. No sight of Walt or Diane did the slitted leather give; only amotley crew of blacks who were left, and a wall, high-sprung to aglittering ceiling, and flaming, cold fire that ebbed and flowed tillthe room's last occupant was gone. Then the flames faded to denseblackness where only fitful images on the retina of Chet's staring eyesflared and waned, and ghostly voices seemed still whispering through theclamoring silence of the room....
They were echoing within his brain and harshly at his taut nerves as hemade his slow way toward the passage through which he had come. Despitetheir terror-filled urging he did not run, but took one silent, cautiousstep at a time, until, after centuries of waiting, his eyes found asquare of light that was blinding; and he knew that he was stumblingthrough the portal in
the top of the pyramid of Vashta--Vashta theAll-Wise--unholy preceptor of an inhuman race.