LITMIR.BIZ

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      After all, I reflected, there was much in his determination to recommend it. It was the obvious thing to do — unless we admitted that Norhala was superhuman; and that I would not admit. In command of forces we did not yet know, en rapport with these People of Metal, sealed with that alien consciousness Ruth had described — all these, yes. But still a woman — of that I was certain. And surely Drake could be trusted not to repeat Ventnor’s error.

      “Yuruk,” I said, “we think you lie. We would speak to your mistress. Take us to her.”

      “I have told you that the goddess is not here,” he said. “If you do not believe it is nothing to me. I cannot take you to her for I do not know where she is. Is it your wish that I take you through her house?”

      “It is,” I said.

      “The goddess has commanded me to serve you in all things.” He bowed, sardonically. “Follow.”

      Our search was short. We stepped out into what for want of better words I can describe only as a central hall. It was circular, and strewn with thick piled small rugs whose hues had been softened by the alchemy of time into exquisite, shadowy echoes of color.

      The walls of this hall were of the same moonstone substance that had enclosed the chamber upon whose inner threshold we were. They whirled straight up to the dome in a crystalline, cylindrical cone. Four doorways like that in which we stood pierced them. Through each of their curtainings in turn we peered.

      All were precisely similar in shape and proportions, radiating in a lunetted, curved base triangle from the middle chamber; the curvature of the enclosing globe forming back wall and roof; the translucent slicings the sides; the circle of floor of the inner hall the truncating lunette.

      The first of these chambers was utterly bare. The one opposite held a half-dozen suits of the lacquered armor, as many wicked looking, short and double-edged swords and long javelins. The third I judged to be the lair of Yuruk; within it was a copper brazier, a stand of spears and a gigantic bow, a quiver full of arrows leaning beside it. The fourth room was littered with coffers great and small, of wood and of bronze, and all tightly closed.

      The fifth room was beyond question Norhala’s bedchamber. Upon its floor the ancient rugs were thick. A low couch of carven ivory inset with gold rested a few feet from the doorway. A dozen or more of the chests were scattered about and flowing over with silken stuffs.

      Upon the back of four golden lions stood a high mirror of polished silver. And close to it, in curiously incongruous domestic array stood a stiffly marshaled row of sandals. Upon one of the chests were heaped combs and fillets of shell and gold and ivory studded with jewels blue and yellow and crimson.

      To all of these we gave but a passing glance. We sought for Norhala. And of her we found no shadow. She had gone even as the black eunuch had said; flitting unseen past Ruth, perhaps, absorbed in her watch over her brother; perhaps through some hidden opening in this room of hers.

      Yuruk let drop the curtains, sidled back to the first room, we after him. The two there had not moved. We drew the saddlebags close, propped ourselves against them.

      The black eunuch squatted a dozen feet away, facing us, chin upon his knees, taking us in with unblinking eyes blank of any emotion. Then he began to move slowly his tremendously long arms in easy, soothing motion, the hands running along the floor upon their talons in arcs and circles. It was curious how these hands seemed to be endowed with a volition of their own, independent of the arms upon which they swung.

      And now I could see only the hands, shuttling so smoothly, so rhythmically back and forth — weaving so sleepily, so sleepily back and forth — black hands that dripped sleep — hypnotic.

      Hypnotic! I sprang from the lethargy closing upon me. In one quick side glance I saw Drake’s head nodding — nodding in time to the movement of the black hands. I jumped to my feet, shaking with an intensity of rage unfamiliar to me; thrust my pistol into the wrinkled face.

      “Damn you!” I cried. “Stop that. Stop it and turn your back.”

      The corded muscles of the arms contracted, the claws of the slithering paws drew in as though he were about to clutch me; the ebon pools of eyes were covered with a frozen film of hate.

      He could not have known what was this tube with which I menaced him, but its threat he certainly sensed and was afraid to meet. He squattered about, wrapped his arms around his knees, crouched with back toward us.

      “What’s the matter?” asked Drake drowsily.

      “He tried to hypnotize us,” I answered shortly. “And pretty nearly did.”

      “So that’s what it was.” He was now wide awake. “I watched those hands of his and got sleepier and sleepier — I guess we’d better tie Mr. Yuruk up.” He jumped to his feet.

      “No,” I said, restraining him. “No. He’s safe enough as long as we’re on the alert. I don’t want to use any force on him yet. Wait until we know we can get something worth while by doing it.”

      “All right,” he nodded, grimly. “But when the time comes I’m telling you straight, Doc, I’m going the limit. There’s something about that human spider that makes me itch to squash him — slowly.”

      “I’ll have no compunction — when it’s worth while,” I answered as grimly.

      We sank down again against the saddlebags; Drake brought out a black pipe, looked at it sorrowfully; at me appealingly.

      “All mine was on that pony that bolted,” I answered his wistfulness.

      “All mine was on my beast, too,” he sighed. “And I lost my pouch in that spurt from the ruins.”

      He sighed again, clamped white teeth down upon the stem.

      “Of course,” he said at last, “if Ventnor was right in that — that disembodied analysis of his, it’s rather — well, terrifying, isn’t it?”

      “It’s all of that,” I replied, “and considerably more.”

      “Metal, he said,” Drake mused. “Things of metal with brains of thinking crystal and their blood the lightnings. You accept that?”

      “So far as my own observation has gone — yes,” I said. “Metallic yet mobile. Inorganic but with all the quantities we have hitherto thought only those of the organic and with others added. Crystalline, of course, in structure and highly complex. Activated by magnetic-electric forces consciously exerted and as much a part of their life as brain energy and nerve currents are of our human life. Animate, moving, sentient combinations of metal and electric energy.”

      He said:

      “The opening of the Disk from the globe and of the two blasting stars from the pyramids show the flexibility of the outer — plate would you call it? I couldn’t help thinking of the armadillo after I had time to think at all.”

      “It may be”— I struggled against the conviction now strong upon me —“it may be that within that metallic shell is an organic body, something soft — animal, as there is within the horny carapace of the turtle, the nacreous valves of the oyster, the shells of the crustaceans — it may be that even their inner surface is organic —”

      “No,” he interrupted, “if there is a body — as we know a body — it must be between the outer surface and the inner, for the latter is crystal, jewel hard, impenetrable.

      “Goodwin — Ventnor’s bullets hit fair. I saw them strike. They did not ricochet — they dropped dead. Like flies dashed up against a rock — and the Thing was no more conscious of their striking than a rock would have been of those flies.”

      “Drake,” I said, “my own conviction is that these creatures are absolutely metallic, entirely inorganic — incredible, unknown forms. Let us go on that basis.”

      “I think so, too,” he nodded; “but I wanted you to say it first. And yet — is it

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