EVIL EARTHS, page 31
The metal cord was slippery, scoring Mason's skin. He
twisted his legs about it, fought his way up, while Alasa
held the rope steady from below. And at last he reached
the roof of the cell, swung on to it, sweating with exertion.
"Hurryl" he told the girl. Distant sounds of conflict
made him fear that the cavern would not be isolated for
long.
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His muscles, weary with exertion and lack of food,
cracked and strained as he hauled Alasa painfully to his
side. But it was easier thereafter. They slid down to the
floor of the cavern, and swiftly made for the passage that
led to freedom.
"It's the only way out, apparently," Mason said, glancing
around. "Hold on! There's something I want."
He retrieved a bar of silvery metal, longer than his
arm, that would make a formidable bludgeon. He tested
it with a vicious swing that smashed the crytic gears of a
machine.
"Good! It isn't soft or brittle. This'Il help, Alasa!"
The girl responded by picking up a smaller bar for
herself. Battle-light glowed in her golden eyes. She hurried
at Mason's side, the cloak occasionally flaring to
reveal the pale flesh of her thighs.
But before they reached the passage-mouth a battling
horde spewed from it, struggling in insane conflict. Swiftly
Mason caught the girl, drew her down out of sight.
Crouching, they watched.
The Gorichen were fighting for their fives. And their
enemies were
The Deathless Ones! Icy cold crawled down Mason's
back as he saw the invaders, creatures that were unmistakably
human beings, yet more alien to him than the
grotesque plant-men. For the Gorichen were normal products
of evolution, and the Deathless Ones, Mason sensed,
were not.
They were the living dead. In their bodies dwelt life
undying, forms that had once been tall and stalwart and
god-like in their beauty. Even now some remnant of past
splendor fingered, made dreadful by the foul corruption
that had overtaken the Deathless Ones.
The name itself explained much. They were men who
had conquered death but not disease! Not--corruption!
Ail the hideous plagues of mankind had burst into foul
ripening on the bodies of the Deathless Ones. None was
whole. Loathsome gaping wounds and sores showed the
flesh and bone beneath. Tatters of granulated flesh hung
in ribbons from some. There were unspeakable skull-faces
glaring blindly, and there were mutilations from
which Mason turned away, sickened.
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Man had conquered death--and, too late, had discovered'his
error.
The Deathless Ones seemingly could not be iniured.
Scores of the Gorichen would leap upon an enemy, bearing
him down by their weight. And presently the pile of
struggling figures would fall away, and show that at the
bottom the Deathless One had been busy--feeding.
Mason remembered he had seen no plant or animal
life on the surface of the planet. Possibly the Gorichen
were the only food of the Deathless Ones ....
The struggle swept away from the tunnel-mouth. With
a whispered command Mason gripped Alasa's arm,
sprang out from concealment. They heard a dreadful cry
go up, heard feet thudding in pursuit. A hand closed on
Mason's arm; he whirled; struck out blindly with his
'.weapon, felt unclean flesh pulp under the blow. The grip
fell tway and was gone.
Th two humans fled up the passage, black fear pacing
them.
Were there more of the monsters in the tunnel.9 Mason
gripped the metal bar fighter at the thought. The sounds
of pursuit grew fainter, but did not die away.
Slowly the couple's speed grew less. Their hearts were
throbbing painfully; their throats parched and dry. An
increasing tumult from below made them increase their
pace. But they could not keep it up. Once more the
Deathless Ones gained.
Alasa stumbled, almost fell. Mason dragged her upright,
ran on supporting her with his arm about her waist.
"We ought to be near the surface now," he told the girl,
and she looked up with a quick smile.
"Soon, now, Kent .... "
The pursuers came faster. Mason caught sight of a
gleam of silvery daylight lancing down from overhead.
The door to the outer Earth!
They reached the ladder, climbed it with frantic haste,
the clamoring monsters almost within arm's length. In the
ravine Mason pointed up.
"The ladder, Alasa, I'll hold 'em back and then come
after you."
She hesitated, and then obeyed. Mason's inattention
was almost his undoing. A talon-like hand seized his foot,
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almost overbalancing him. A frightful skull-face rose out
of the pit, screaming with wordless, dreadful hunger. Mason
sent the metal bar smashing down, sick revulsion
clawing at his stomach.
Bone and brain shattered under the blow. Blindly tho
thing tried to crawl up, though its head was a pulped,
gory horror. The mouth of the pit was choked with dozens
of the Deathless Ones, greedy for flesh to feed their
avid maws, heedless of blows, pushing up and up ....
Mason battered them down, till the very weight of tho
monsters bore them in a tangled heap to fall back into
the passage. Then, gripping the bar in one hand, he ran
swiftly up the ladder and rejoined Alasa on the surface.
"I've an idea," he said, grinning feebly, swaying on his
feet. "Those things can't be very intelligent. Tho plant-men
are, but "
Mason stooped, pulled up the ladder. A group of
Deathless Ones emerged from the pit, roaring monaco.
Spying Mason, they tried to climb the walls of the ravine,
but failed. Presently a few of them set off to right and
left.
"There may be another way out. We'd better scram--depart,
I mean," Mason said at Alasa's puzzled look.
"Come on."
"But--where?"
The man scanned the dark sky. A wail San glowed
huge and red. The Moon had vanished. A chill wind
blew over a plain of wet, featureless silt.
"I don't know. Away from the coast, anyway. If we
can find Murdach and the ship .... "
Silently they set out, trudging across the lonely waste,
shuddering in the icy wind that rushed bleakly over the
surface of a dying planet.
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CHAPTER IX
Tower of the Mirage
For hours the two struggled through the sticky ooze, up
the slope of a slowly rising plain. In the thin air their
lungs pumped painfully. Twice Mason saw something
fly
'rog overhead, vague in the distance, but he could not
make. out its nature. It was apparently winged, and was
clearly, not the time-ship.
ù But they found the ship at'la'st, almost by chance. Its
silvery surface glowed like a flame in the gray, dull plain.
It seemed hours before they reached it.
And it was empty. Murdach and Erech had vanished.
There were signs of struggle, and a pool of dried blood
on the floor. In the mud outside a confused track led toward
the east. Frowning, Mason swung shut the door and
turned to the controls.
"I can move the ship, Alasa. Maybe we can find Erech
and Murdach. That spoor's pretty clear."
The girl wrapped her cloak more closely to her slender
body. "Do so, Kent." She found a flask of water and
offered it to Mason before she drank.
Slowly the craft rose, drifted on above the waste, following
the track. On the horizon a spire rose, growing
taller as they advanced. It was a cyclopean crag--not the
work of nature. It was too regular, Mason realized, a
great cylindrical shaft that thrust itself from the grey
empty plain into the grey sky, flat-topped, desolate and
colossal.
"They may be in that," Mason suggested. "See if you
can find some weapons, Alasa."
Presently the girl gave him Murdach's egg-shaped projector.
"It worked on the metal men," she told him.
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"Whether it will succeed in killing living beings I do not
know."
"We!l, it's better than nothing. I still have my club."
Mason glanced down at the metal bar.
The surface of the tower was, perhaps, two miles
across, and quite flat. There was an odd flickering in the
air above it, and once or twice Mason caught a fugitive
glimpse of bright color that flashed out from the grey
desolation of the tower and was gone. In the exact center
was a round, black opening, and toward this Mason lowered
the ship slowly.
He landed on the rim--almost losing control of the
craft in his surprise. For directly beneath him, springing
out of empty nothingness, loomed a great granite boulder!
It was twenty feet high, and he was slanting toward it,
paralyzed with astonishment and horror. With a grating
crash the ship landed.
The shock almost threw him from his feet. The boulder
--was gone! He followed the direction of Alasa's astonished
gaze, turned and saw the boulder behind the ship.
Apparently they had passed through it as though it were
a phantom.
Nor was this all. All around, where he had seen nothing
but a flat, metallic surface from the air, was a wilderness
of tumbled, riven rock. To all sides towered the
great boulders, and overhead a blazing white sun glared
down.
"Good lord!" Mason gasped. "We haven't moved in
time! What's happened?"
"Magic," Alasa said, solving the problem to her own
satisfaction. "Do you think Erech and Murdach are
here?"
"If they are, they flew in." As Mason spoke he realized
his guess was not too far-fetched. He had seen creatures
flying in the airmperhaps the very beings that had captured
the vanished pair.
"I hope Erech is not dead," the girl murmured. "Shall
we search, Kent?"
qodding, Mason opened the port, stepped out, followed
by the girl. He approached the great rock and
tried to touch it. His hand passed through the brown,
rugose surface as though it did not exist.
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"It's a mirage," Mason said suddenly, with convletion.
"An unbelievably perfect one! Three-dimcnsionalI Artificially
created, I'm sure. Look at your feet, Alasa."
The girl's slim ankles were hidden, seemingly, in grey,
slate-like rock. But she stepped forward without hindrance.
Mason moved to her side, felt the smooth surface
of the flat tower top beneath him. He got down and felt
the cold metal with his hands. Then, smiling a little, he
plunged first his hand and then his head into one of the
great phantom boulders, and found himself instantly in
profound darkness. He heard Alasa cry out.
He moved back, and there was the white sun pouring
down its non-existent, heatless rays, and all around was
the tumbled wilderness of jagged rock.
"Yourhead," the girl said shakily. "It--vanishedI"
"yeah," Mason nodded. "And I've just thought of
somethitig. That hole in the roof. We'd better be careful,
or we'll Ioth vanish for good. There may be a stairway
going down it, though."
Trying to remember the location of the gap, he stepped
forward cautiously, gripping the girl's hand. They waded
through intangible rocks that sometimes came up to their
waist. It was fantastic, incredible science of an alien
world.
And suddenly Mason felt a mighty throbbing that grew
and pulsed all about him. The wilderness of barren rock
trembled and shivered, like a painted curtain rustling ia
the wind, and abruptly it-changed! Like a motion-picture
fading from one scene to another the panorama
of rocks that seemed to stretch to the horizon grew vague
and disappeared, and in its place grew another scene, a
weird, alien landscape that hemmed in the pair as though
they had been transported to another world.
All about them now was a tangled forest of luxuriant
vegetation, and the bark of the trees, as well as the
leaves, the thick masses of vines, even the grass underfoot
was an angry brilliant crimson. Nor was that the
worst. The things were alive1
The vines writhed and swung on the trees, and the
trees themselves swayed restlessly, their branches twist-lng
in the air. No wind stirred them. They were living
219
beings, and even the long, curiously serpentine red grass
at their feet made nauseating little worm-motions.
There was no Sun--just an empty blue sky, incongruously
beautiful and peaceful amid the writhing horrors
that hemmed them in, the forest that was as immaterial
as the phantom rocks had been.
"Wait a minute," Mason said. He took a few steps
back, for a curious theory was forming in his mind. And
again came the mighty throbbing and the strange crawl-lng
and shifting of the red forest, and as he retreated it
melted swiftly into the familiar wilderness of jagged rock.
Alasa had vanished. Looking over his shoulder, Mason
could see the time-ship beside the great boulder. He
moved forward again and Alasa sprang into view, her
golden eyes wide and frightened.
"Okay," he told her. "Let's hunt for the hole, eh?"
"Here it is, Kent. I almost fell into it." She pointed at
the wormy tangle of red grass near by. Mason stared. Of
course, he could not see down into the gap. The scarlet
vegetation hid it. He knelt and, overcoming his repugnance,
thrust his face down through the twisting grasses.
He was in empty blackness--below the ground level in
the world of the red plants, Mason knew.
A curious conviction came to the man that these
scenes, the strange mirages on the tower, were not merely
created phantoms, but actual reflections of real worlds
that exist, or did exist, or will exist in the future. He circled
cautiously about the gap.
It was about twenty feet across. His fumbling hands
found an incline going down into the darkness, slippery
and too steep to walk upon. It went down at an angle of
about forty-five degrees, as well as Mason could judge,
crawling on his hands and knees and feeling there in the
empty darkness.
