CHAPTER VI
INFERNO
They found no sign of Norden as they approached the factory.Several times they had to take cover in ditches and weeds aswhispering spheres floated overhead in search of prey. But theyescaped the electrical feelers which stirred the grass and brusharound them.
Pember recovered his Garand rifle, which had been left near thesentry box during the retreat.
Taylor led the group into the tunnel, with Masters following andPember bringing up the rear.
The din of the slaughter in the town and the shrill whistle ofthe spheres was blotted out underground. They reached the farend, where the ladder led upward to the sphere-haunted factory.
Taylor ascended. He could hear the shrill whistle of spheresdinning through the bleak building. He peeped into the forgeroom. The first flush of dawn was streaming through the windows.
Norden was there, creeping along the barrels of some naval gunstoward the casting room.
Norden halted at the door. He took a deep breath. From his lipscame a shrill, whispering whistle, a close imitation of the callof the spheres.
An orange light was reflected from the room beyond.
Still whistling, Norden stepped back a few paces. Through thedoor, floating toward the spy came an orange sphere.
Taylor watched, expecting to see a bolt of heat lash out towardthe spy. But the sphere pulsed slowly, as if half pleased by thesound Norden made with his lips.
So this is how Orkins escaped from the plant, Taylor thought.Orkins had imitated the creatures. They had spared him as a pet,like a man keeps a talking parrot.
Norden stood very still, whistling while the sphere approached. Alittle tentacle of flame reached out toward him.
Taylor expected to see Norden disappear in a flash of fire, butthe flame seemed to caress. A soft glow seemed to diffuse fromthe man's clothing and body.
The sphere, too, seemed to change, growing softer and moremellow. It wasn't a tangible substance, but something ethereal,like the flicker of flame over an open hearth. Some tremendousforce seemed to hold the sphere in globular shape.
Taylor could see the chimerical eyes peering through the surfaceof the sphere. He looked into the depths of those eyes and stillcould not be sure they were not an illusion. The intensity of thecreatures' intelligence seemed to shine from within, giving theimpression of staring, haunting eyes. They were not organs ofsight, but they were the windows of the mind. They were thesource of those tenuous flames that seemed to caress Norden.
As Taylor looked at the eyes he felt plunged into the pathlessdepths of a vast, powerful brain. He was in contact with an infinityof intelligence far beyond limits of human comprehension. It was asurging intelligence of energy, abysmal, vaporous and limitless,transcending the dimensions, out-reaching boundless time,overshadowing matter.
The eyes made Taylor forget he was a man. His own mind seemedmerged in the intellectual energy floating among the monstermachines of the forge room. Dimly, he was conscious that thispower was not directed at him, but at Norden who stood, stillwhistling, in front of the globe.
The sphere was whistling, too, and the sound transformed itselfinto music of the stars.
A discordant note rose in the song from Norden's imitation of thevoice. Norden was shrieking hatred for Taylor's nation, for allthose who opposed the self-designated supermen of the world.
"My race must be preserved!"
The thought was Norden's, reflected to Taylor from the shorelessdepths of the energy brain.
"All other peoples are evil, decadent, and are doomed to slaveryunder the man of the future. The future man will be a child of myrace. My race is superior. From it the _uberman_ will rise. Youmust help. Prey on these inferior peoples. They do not deserve tolive."
The sphere's hues changed, reddish, then yellow, back to orange.
"Is this Norden a man?" came the sphere's questioning thought."Why doesn't he flee? Why doesn't he scream in terror? He'sdifferent from the others. Perhaps he is, as he claims, asuperior being. There was one, who called himself Orkins, whotalked with us. But when Orkins saw us slay he ran away interror. This Norden begs us to kill."
"It is only through destruction of the weak that the strongestsurvive," Norden answered. "Man is a cruel, but noble creature.Those who fail to kill are weak."
The sphere's whistle grew thunderous.
"You speak the philosophy of my world!" it said.
From the depths of the sphere a rhythm of thought arose. Awhispered epic sang through the fibres of Taylor's mind, tellingof a world of energy, whipped into a storm of war. Spheres ofenergy, overwhelmed a weaker race made up of gaseous clouds ofatoms.
In the midst of this titanic battle a huge disc appeared, carriedby the gaseous clouds. It was a concave lens, like some powerfuloptical instrument. But instead of focusing beams of light, itreflected, not only light but all forms of energy. As the spheresattacked they were shattered into spores and shot away throughspace.
The whispered song told of the flight through space. Behind lay aworld, unlike the earth, which the spheres called home. It was agaseous, flaming world where matter and energy mingled as onesubstance. It was mottled with spots of cold gases which warredwith the whispering spheres. _It was the sun._
The sun was power, yet a ceaseless struggle between energy andmatter. But neither energy nor matter was in control. Shouldmatter control, the sun would cool. If energy triumphed, the sunwould explode. It was war, like the wars of the earth, where onephilosophy was based on power, and the other seeking justice. Avictory for might would make a ruthless world. Justice wasworthless without injustice. The ideals were mutually dependent,yet always at war.
"The cold gases tricked us," whispered the sphere. "The weak haveno right to outwit the strong. The weak has no right to survive.Justice is an unnatural condition. Progress means nothing, excepton the road to glory. Your race, sharing our philosophy, canbuild another great energy reflector to send us back. We can aidour people in triumphing over these inferior beings who claimrights in a world of might."
"We can built what you wish," Norden promised.
It was a promise like other promises Norden had made, Taylorthought. Norden once had promised to help Taylor fight thespheres.
"I will call the others!"
The sphere floated upward toward the hole in the roof. It circledthe factory and moved away, toward the town, where a score ofother majestic, glowing globes floated like bubbles of fire.
Norden watched, a smile cracking his jutting jaw.
There was still a whispering sound. A single shrill hiss camefrom the casting room.
"Why do you claim superiority, Norden?" Taylor spoke.
The spy turned. For the first time he saw Taylor.
"_Himmel_!"
Norden's eyes looked beyond Taylor and rested on Masters, who wasemerging from the tunnel.
"Is it because you pose the doctrine of slavery and destruction?Is it because your cultural contributions are keyed to militaryconquest? Is it because of your lies and broken promises? Is itbecause you are more skillful in butchery? It is because you haverefined the art of terrorism?"
Taylor was advancing, half crouching, toward Norden.
Norden's arm swished in a swift motion. He drew an automaticpistol from his pocket and leveled it at Taylor and Masters.
"Because I am the stronger!" Norden said.
Taylor had not expected Norden to be armed. He had overlooked thepossibility that the spy might have an extra weapon hidden in thetunnel.