mansions packed closely together. Each unit satalone in sprawling, neatly sheared grounds, landscaped with floweringtrees and set with the chill sophistication of statuary in gold, silverand platinum. Botanical splendors from exotic worlds rioted in orderlytangles of aromatic greenery, with sculpture of glass, marble and thenoble metals glinting like pale ghosts against the darker masses.
Shadows parted before them. Half-hidden among trees rose a slenderspire, needle-shaped, tall as a tower, but unwindowed. For a dwelling,its design was curious, and the interior must consist of circular roomsone above the other. At the base, an arched, oval aperture should havebeen the door, but neither handle nor keyhole showed on the flat,polished plate.
"Here we are," the girl said needlessly, her voice soft as a hint ofpain trembled in it. A tremor ran through her body as she thrust out twoobjects toward him. A key and a gun.
"You will need these," she went on. "He will be in one of the upperrooms. His name is Genarion. Perhaps he will talk with you, especiallyif you surprise him. But remember, he is deadly. His scientificknowledge is a more frightful weapon than this. So do not hesitate touse violence."
Newlin fumbled the gun into a pocket, fingered the key. It was slim as aneedle and as smooth. Without comment, he stared at her as weariness anddisgust strangled him.
"Tell me your price," she said quickly, as if in haste to get words outbefore either could think too much. "I will pay--now."
Shabby bargaining, he thought. But he would call her bluff and force herto back down. "Not money," he said savagely. "I don't kill for money.For a woman, yes. I want you."
He expected anger, scorn, even hatred. She gasped and her face went paleand hard. Wilting under his glare, she nodded.
"Yes, even that--if you wish. I have no choice."
Newlin felt sick, empty. He no longer desired her, even if she werewilling. He despised her and himself. But a bargain was still a bargain.He shrugged.
Like an outsize toy, a child's model of a spaceship, the oddly gracefulstructure towered upward into arching darkness. Like her, it wasslender, radiant, beautiful. Bitterly, he caught the girl, dragged herto him, felt her flesh yielding to him. She leaned and met his lips withhers. The kiss was cold and ugly as writhing snakes. Cold. Ugly._Alien...._
* * * * *
The key went in smoothly, did not turn. It must have been impregnatedwith magnetism. Somewhere electronic relays clicked switches faintly.The door was open, its movement indescribable in familiar terms. Itneither slid, nor swung on hinges. There was no door, much as if a lighthad switched off.
A rush of air came out. It had the high, sharp tang of ozone, andsomething unfamiliar.
Newlin stood inside what was obviously an airlock valve. A door insidehad opened soundlessly.
He went on. Beyond the inner doorway was a large circular room. Itsdimensions seemed far greater than Newlin would have guessed from theexterior of the building.
This was no mere dwelling, no laboratory or workshop. It was a spaceshipof radical design. Elfin stair-ladders spiralled up and down. Thegirders seemed impossibly delicate and fragile, as if their purpose washalf-decoration, half-functional; and stresses involved wereunimportant. Such support framework was insane--in any kind ofspaceship. It had the quality of fairyland architecture, a dream shipwoven from the filaments of spiderwebs.
But there was hidden strength, and truly functional design, as may befound in spiderwebs. Newlin was no engineer, but he sensed solidity andsound mathematics behind the toy structure's delicacy.
The stair ladder supported him without vibration, without give or anyfeeling of insecurity. He climbed.
Walls and the floor and ceiling bulkheads were rigid to his touch,supported his weight firmly, despite their eggshell-thin appearance offragility. There were no corners; everything fused together seamlesslyin smooth curves. Walls were self-luminous and oddly cool.
The lower chambers were bare of all furnishing. Higher levels containeda hodge-podge of implements, all in the same light, strong formula ofdesign. But none familiar, either as to material or their possiblefunction. There were machines, but all too simple. Neither the bulk ofatomic engines nor the intricate complexities inseparable from electricor combustion motors.
Newlin was puzzled.
He stopped to listen, feeling like an intruder into a strange world. Thebuilding, or spaceship, ached with silence.
Another stairwell beckoned. He climbed, slowly, with increased caution.It would do no harm to have the gun in hand, ready. Where was the manwho lived in such a place? And what sort of man could he be? What wouldhe have in common with the frightened, haughty girl outside? The obviousexplanation no longer satisfied.
As Newlin ascended, another floor opened and widened to his vision. Thestair-ladder ended here. It was the top floor. But this chamber seemedinfinitely larger than the others. At first there was no sight of theman. Newlin stood alone in the center of a vast area. He did not seemindoors at all.
Endless vistas extended to infinity in all directions. In all directionssave one, in which stood a tall shadow. Newlin gasped. It was hisshadow, detached, seemingly solid.
Three-dimensional, it stood stock still. It moved when he moved. Hegasped, then found the answer. By the shadow's echo of his movements, hecould trace a vague outline of encirclement.
The walls were a screen, a circle about the room upon which were castpictures so perfect that the beholder had illusion of being surroundedby eery, exotic landscapes. The scenes were panoramic, all taken at thesame angle, by the same camera, and so cunningly fused into a whole thatthe effect was beyond mere artifice. For a moment, Newlin had stoodwithin the strange world, its crystalline forms and strange jeweled lifeas tri-dimensional and real as himself.
It was a large screen, alive with light, alive with dancing, flickeringfigures. There was no visible projector, and the images weredisturbingly solid and real. There was depth, without any perception ofperspective. It was a reflection of reality, cast upon the plane ofcircling walls.
Then a man stepped from the screen. He had been invisible, because theprojected images had flowed and accommodated themselves to hismetal-cloth smock. 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 ofdiabolical sound tortured his brain. No such world could exist in a saneuniverse. Not even with its terrible and heartbreakingly poignantbeauty. It was a vision of Hell, bright with impossible octaves oflight, splendid with raging infernos of blinding color, some of itbeyond the visible range of human sight. And there was sound, pouring inmaddening floods, sound in nerve-shattering symphonies like the tinklingclatter of many Chinese windbells of glass, all pouring out cascades ofbrittle, crystalline uproar.
Sound and light rose in storming crescendos, beyond sight and beyondhearing. They ranged into madness.
* * * * *
Newlin screamed, tried to cover eyes and ears at once. He tried to run,but nerve-agony paralyzed movement. He was chained to the spot.
Sound and color descended simultaneously into bearable range.
He stared at the man he had come to see. He stared and the man staredback.
"Genarion?" Newlin asked, his voice thin and vague among the tumultuousharmonies bursting from the screen.
"Who are you that calls me by _that_ name?" cried Genarion. He spoke inthe same curious manner as the girl. He showed amazement, mixed with anugly kind of terror. "You're not one of _them_!"
"Them?" Newlin said, striving for sanity as sound and light swelledagain. His brain reeled. "Songeen sent me--!"
Speech itself was a supreme effort.
Genarion was beyond speech. Tigerishly, he moved. He leaped upon Newlinand thrust him back. Newlin sprawled painfully, his back arched andtwisted by invisible machinery.
Genarion stood with a gun in his hand. Aiming hastily, he pressedtrigger. The beam flashe
d and licked charred cloth and smoking leatherfrom Newlin's sleeve. There was an odd jangle from the invisiblemachinery which gouged so tangibly into Newlin's body.
Instinctively, Newlin fired. He did not bother to aim. For him, such ashot was point blank, impossible to miss.
Genarion staggered. Part of his body vaporized and hung in dazzling mistas the projected images of light played over it.
Dazed, Newlin scrambled to his feet. He was sick. But the screen heldhim. He stared, hypnotized. Images jigged and flowed in constant, eeryrhythms. They moved and melted and rearranged themselves in alteredpatterns, without ever losing their identities or the illusion ofsolidity. The scene was not part of Venus, or of any world Newlin hadseen. He had seen every planet or moon in the Solar system. But this wasdifferent, alien, frightening.
And the screen was not really a screen at all, for the body of Genarion,hideous in the distortion of death, lay halfway through its plane. Andit was changing, subtly, as he watched. It was