The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gama Is Thee!, by Stanley Mullen

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Title: Gama Is Thee!

Author: Stanley Mullen

Release Date: January 16, 2021 [eBook #64309]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
             Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GAMA IS THEE! ***




                             GAMA IS THEE!

                           By STANLEY MULLEN

             _On Venus, if one rings a doorbell, or bangs
            on a locked gate at night, it is adventure. You
          never know who--or what--will answer your summons.
          The door swings slowly open and you brace yourself
            to look. Will it be maid--or monster--or both?_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                       Planet Stories July 1953.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Wherever men gather and talk, someone is sure to mention Khaljean's,
on Venus. Men will always be fascinated by tales of the strange and
wonderful and fantastic, and Khaljean's--zoo, petshop, wild animal
supply house--is the stuff from which legends are made. One hears of
the place on Mars or Earth, on Titan or Rhea, on Callisto or Ganymede,
even in the subsurface mines of Pluto or the curious twilight outposts
on Mercury, and some of the yarns will probably lessen the tedium
of light-year watches when the first manned spacer pushes beyond the
frontiers of the solar system.

Most of the stories are 21st century versions of the tall tale, for
both establishment and owner stagger imagination and breed fabulous
accounts. A rumor that Khaljean will fabricate to order any nightmarish
monster from synthetic flesh and organic spare parts is obvious
exaggeration. The claim that Khaljean can mate any curious life-form
captured by far-roving hunters is also false--since he failed twice.
Khaljean loves animals and collects them chiefly for pleasure. He will
sell some for pets and for educational exhibitions, but for each one
sold he keeps ten. Everyone knows that he has frequently risked death
rather than kill or injure a living creature.

Of all his zoo's wonders, none can compare with Khaljean--for man is
the most fantastic of animals, and Khaljean is the most extraordinary
of men. Khaljean is both public figure and man of mystery. Nobody knows
his race or origin, and nowadays nobody asks. With the epidemics of
mutation in the Earth-colonies of Venus, and the standard gene-tangents
accepted among Venusian natives, such curiosity is bad form. And
dangerous.

So Khaljean's, and the stories about it, have grown steadily through
the years. The strangest story of all concerning the zoo is one that,
for good reason, no one tells. It happens to be true. One night, in
Castarona, by the Yellow Sea--

But the trouble did not start in Khaljean's. There are some who say it
did not finish there....

       *       *       *       *       *

Austerity had finally caught up with Venus. Pao Chung's subcellar
fungweed hell in the native quarter of old Castarona was ordered to
close every night at midnight (Venus time)--or else. Being a Venusian
business man, a very rugged individualist, and a type Q mutant, Pao
Chung preferred to chance the "or else."

Among interesting people netted in the raid were:

Pao Chung, himself. Bland and over-civilized, he had grown rich from
traffic in illegal drugs and the outlawed mechanical hypnotizers.
Despite pointed ears and a gnome-like expression of detached malice,
he appeared to be reasonably human, even in his devotion to vice
as a means of livelihood. Anything illegal and profitable was his
vocation; his hobbies ranged from innocent blackmail to murder for fun.
Recent extension of his operations from slave trading into political
corruption had incensed even the grafting officials of Castarona. They
waited only an opportunity to catch him off-balance. Hence the raid.

Bat Ferris, spaceman, wanted on an open charge warrant sworn out by
Solar Surveys, Inc.,--and wanted preferably alive and in condition to
answer questions. Ferris had learned long ago not to give his right
name, but an alias is poor disguise if one's brain wave patterns
happen to be on file. And sometimes if they are not. Being off
"reservation" at all, and particularly without permission and lacking
his ident-armband, would mean real trouble. His capture in the raid
was pure mischance, due to entering Pao Chung's only for the virtuous
purpose of rescuing his partner and friend--

Bogus Angel, X-type mutant from South Venus, painfully well known to
police records. The only angelic attribute he could claim was his
twenty-foot wingspread. His face bore eerie resemblance to those
demonic gargoyles carved on medieval cathedrals. Fine fur in stripes of
ochre, burnt orange and smudged brown covered the visible parts of his
anthropoid anatomy, making him resemble a tiger left in the rain long
enough for the dyes to run.

Angel liked peace and quiet, and resorted to gambling, theft, arson,
aggravated assault and occasional assassination to obtain it. In
the icy morass of his soul, the few cracks vented sinister and
malicious humor. His greatest virtue was warped and violent loyalty to
Ferris--which was not necessarily a virtue from the official point of
view. Angel's appetite for and capacity for misuse of drugs, alcohol
and mechanical hypnotizers was miraculous--but when loaded, he was
dangerous.

Of nine others scooped in the raid, only one fact need be mentioned.
They are still in jail, which indicates lack of initiative or good
sense. Jailbreak on Venus is a sporting proposition, and inevitably
weeds the sheep from the goats. Pao Chung and Bogus Angel were
definitely goats, and Ferris may be considered a dark gray sheep. For
various reasons, it was essential to all three to escape--and quickly.

They stood together in the jailyard. Ferris and Angel had relapsed into
silence as Pao Chung approached.

"When are you planning escape?" Pao Chung asked with a directness not
expected of him.

Angel chuckled, but Ferris stared suspiciously. "How are you so sure we
intend to escape?" he parried.

Pao Chung shrugged. "A simple question easily answered. While your
friend was in my shop I manipulated the hypnotic machines. He talked,
chiefly about himself, but also about you. Enough to give me a clue
to your real identity, though probably he does not guess it himself.
I know that you dare not stay. Eventually, they will check your brain
wave patterns and learn ... too much. Which is the greater risk?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"None, directly," Pao Chung admitted. "But I enjoy fishing in troubled
waters. Other people's business can often be turned to my profit. In
this case, since we are being frank, I wish to leave with you when you
go. Take me along, or I talk before you can make the attempt."

Mayhem shone in Angel's eyes but Ferris put a restraining hand on the
furry arm.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Dead men don't talk," urged Angel hopefully, his non-human tongue
licking feral lips.

"Wait," ordered Ferris. "If you kill him now, we will have no chance to
escape. It would draw too much attention to us."

"Besides being foolish," said Pao Chung smoothly. "Both of you are
strangers in Castarona. Where would you go? Who would hide you? How
long would you last?"

"Talk fast," Ferris advised gently. "If you know so much, you know we
have little to lose."

"Only your lives, perhaps. More, if my deductions are correct. Listen
to me. Like you, I am in greater peril here. My offense is a minor one.
By now, I should have been fined and let go with a warning. I suspect
the authorities of more sinister intentions. It will be easy to find a
pretext if they wish to be rid of me. I must escape. Alone, none of us
would stand a chance. Together, who knows...?"

Ferris consulted his partner with a glance, Angel nodded, but imposed a
question.

"And afterwards, what of your deductions?"

"I will forget them," promised Pao Chung.

"See that you do," said Ferris. "Or we will."

Pao Chung ignored the prophecy amiably. "I know a possible refuge
once we have managed the escape. A man in the city owes me favors. As
refuge, of course, it will be temporary. They will have mechanical
trackers after us eventually, but not at first. Electronic bloodhounds
would spoil their sport, make killing us too easy. But the nature of
our sanctuary will give them pause for a time. Complex, interesting and
dangerous, it is the one place in Castarona no one will think to look.
And there is enough space to hide in for quite a while."

"Such a place sounds interesting," Ferris agreed. "But I suppose you
know every unsavory rat's nest in Castarona."

"Not a rat's nest," said Pao Chung, smiling. "Much better. Have you
heard of Khaljean's?"

"Who hasn't? That should muddle the pursuit for a day or two. But can
you count on Khaljean?"

Pao Chung snorted. "Blackmail is my professional secret, so don't ask
details. Khaljean will grant us refuge. Not willingly, perhaps, but
I have enough on him to guarantee his conduct. How about a plan for
getting out of jail?"

Ferris laughed harshly. "You've paid your passage. Now we'll pay ours.
Hiding out with the rest of the wild animals seems very appropriate.
Listen carefully...."

Pao Chung and Angel bent an ear, nodding approval.

Jailbreak looks temptingly easy. Hazards of escape are mostly mental,
so far as barriers of barred doors and windows, locked gates, or walls
of stone, metal or plastic are concerned. Inner and outer doors are
frequently open. Prisoners move about at will, within defined limits.
Even there, no physical hindrance is put in the escapee's way. He may
pause at the door and indulge in whimsical repartee with guards or
warden. He may delay his exit long enough to exchange fond farewells
with friends and fellow inmates--and he had better.

Once outside the fun begins. It is open season on fugitive prisoners,
and the first guard lucky enough to fatally blast an escapee receives
two weeks with pay and a cash bonus for every hour short of the
deadline required for killing or recapturing a runaway. Any prisoner
who makes good his escape, and lasts a full three days is written off
the books. Either way, he is written off, since the guards make no
pretense of trying to recapture him alive, and the hunt is geared to
surprising efficiency.

It should be a spirited gamble, but few men ever make the attempt, and
fewer still succeed--so the sport may be said to languish. History
records only five men who made the finish line, though hundreds used
to try for it. Building walls opposite the gateway bear leprous scars
from blaster discharges which brought several daring attempts to
pyrotechnical conclusions.

Angel sauntered up to a guard on duty at the main gate. He looked
across the busy street at the flaking walls and evidences of extreme
heat. A bored guard glanced casually at the brawny Venusian, taking
curious note of his folded wings.

"Going out?" asked the guard with cynical humor. "You'll get those
wings singed, sonny."

Angel smiled, and a dream of violence lived briefly in his gem-faceted
eyes. "I might," he mused softly. "What handicap will you give me?"

"Close my eyes and count to five," offered the guard, grinning
viciously.

"Start counting," suggested Angel.

       *       *       *       *       *

The guard's eyes and mouth opened wide, his grin changed to a glare,
alert and suspicious. At that moment, alarms blared in the cellblock
and jailyard.

Angel appeared to stumble, thrusting himself heavily against the guard.
Already off-balance, trying to look in two directions at once, the
man lurched halfway through the gate. Automatic selenium cell alarms
caught the movement and added their wild clamors to the jangling babel
from the building. Volumes of dense black smoke poured from doors and
windows of the cellblock's lower floors. From above came shrill screams
from the trapped inmates on upper floors.

"Fire!" yelled Angel. Then he was running, not through the gate but
towards the building.

Guards and prisoners milled in ultimate confusions. Jailyard was a
melee, but Angel forced a passage. At the cellblock doorway he paused
long enough to make sure that guards were rushing a long ladder of
light-metal alloy to the wall.

Inside, he plunged through churning confusions of smoke, sound and
invisible solids. In a city as inflammably built as Castarona, fire
inevitably creates panic. Equipment must be always at hand. Automatic
sprinklers were already deluging the threatened interior with water and
chemicals. Angel waded knee-deep in chemical foam to the stairway and
ascended against the pressure of a descending waterfall. Voices and
metallic alarms mingled in shrill discords.

Groping blindly and colliding with hysterical prisoners, Angel fought
up the spiraling cascades of the stairway like a trout seeking the
spawning grounds.

At the fourth floor, he got to a window and smashed the glass, then set
up a bedlam of howls and shrieks. From below, the light-alloy ladder
angled up toward him. Its hooks engaged the window ledge. With a yelp
of maniacal joy, he snatched it from the hands of the steadiers on
the ground, and gave a series of quick jerks to dislodge the mounting
guards and firefighters. With easy strength, he lifted it clear of the
ground and rung by rung hoisted it upward. Bat Ferris and Pao Chung
grasped it from the roof parapet and held on while he raced upstairs
again and helped them drag it to the roof.

The nearest building was just about a ladder-length away.

By prodigies, they raised it to the vertical, then let it slant in the
direction indicated. It toppled and swung in a wild arc. There was a
bad moment when all three realized that it did not quite reach. Acting
instantaneously, Angel lifted the pivot end, hooked his knees to the
parapet and extended the ladder by his own length. The far end struck
hard, bounced high, nearly tearing Angel from his precarious hold.

"Over!" he commanded, while the vibrations still jarred painfully
through his body.

Without argument, one at a time, Ferris and Pao Chung walked gingerly
across the perilous, swaying bridge. Kneeling, Ferris made sure the
ladder hooks were secure on the other parapet. He cried out.

Angel relaxed his kneeholds, beating his wings furiously and climbing
like a bird on a breaking treelimb. The ladder swung in giant's
pendulum. Angel moved with lightning speed and miraculous precision,
maintaining balance with threshing pinions while his lithe legs and
powerful arms carried him upward. He was mounting the upper rungs
when the ladder crashed savagely against the building side, writhing,
vibrating, tearing its hooks free and sending broken masonry crashing
into the dizzy depths below. Angel leaped clear, caught the parapet and
dragged himself up.

Guards boiled onto the jailhouse roof and laced blaster beams across
the chasm between buildings. Crouched low, the fugitives ran, taking
advantage of every cover. Explosions followed them and they raced
through pelting storms of molten stone and metal.

"Over the roofs," Ferris shouted. "They'll follow soon enough. Probably
the near streets are already blocked off, and we'll need all the time
we can snatch."

They halted for breath in the shelter of a vast dome. Pao Chung glanced
admiringly at his enforced allies. "Well-generaled," he commented.
"Even to the timing of the faked fires. Too bad such talent as ours
must be wasted on an audience as unappreciative as the police. However,
you've kept your bargain. We're out, and still alive, with a few
minutes' start, and the rooftops of the city to play hide and seek in.
Now, if we can reach Khaljean's Petshop."

"We'll reach it," Ferris promised grimly.


                                  II

Around them was the fantastic skyline. From below, in the teeming
streets, came a rising buzz like the droning activity of a hive
of angry bees. Above, rose the city-wide dome of fused quartz,
its crystalline concavity faintly iridescent as it reflected the
questioning beams of giant searchlights. North, between the fugitives
and the older native quarters of Castarona, were the gigantic systems
of airlocks, and below that, the sprawling tangles of dockland.

Ferris led his companions in a tortuous route that covered miles of
angled and uneven rooftops. Realizing that his ident-cards must have
come through, he knew that police and security officials must be
turning the city inside out in a wild scramble to locate and deal with
him. Speed was essential, and more than his personal safety depended
upon the outcome of the wild chase over the jagged skylines.

Knots of wary policemen and determined security soldiers invaded the
rooftops and began searching the hundreds of square miles. In case the
escaped prisoners had descended from the high levels, even business
blocks were being turned out. The whole city was undergoing systematic
scouring. Officialdom was desperate and badly frightened. Mechanical
trackers had already been sent for. Never before had they been used
so early in the game. The man, or whatever he was, Bat Ferris must be
found at once, slain if possible. The hunt was on, full cry.

After two near brushes with patrols, Ferris finally decided that it
would be safer to descend to the streets. Dragnets spread over the
world above the city, and only luck had kept the trio from being
sighted a dozen times. They were near the edge of the city where the
half-bubble of the dome comes down into a series of cones which are
the great airlocks protecting the city-atmosphere from the troubled
violence and noxious fumes of outer Venus.

Like shadows the fugitives descended, going down darkened spirals of
stairways, stealing elevators, moving furtively among dark, twisting
alleyways, crawling under vast landing stages and skirting heaps of
exotic Venusian produce ready for shipping to the nine inhabited
worlds. In the cluttered dockland areas they collided blindly with an
armed patrol.

Angel, acting on pure instinct, leaped high, then swooped down like a
striking hawk. The rustle of his opened wings was like the flapping of
wind-whipped flames. His outstretched arms gathered two of the four man
patrol and crushed life from them before they sensed danger. Ferris was
almost as quick. He leaped and strangled, and a man died in swift,
deadly silence. Pao Chung, unused to managing his own violence, was
clumsier. A blaster went off. Then Angel took over the difficulty. The
soldier broke and ran, screaming, firing his blaster twice more without
aiming.

The uproar would bring help. But the soldier was beyond help. Angel
soared and dived. There was no fight.

Now armed, the fugitives fled swiftly. Pao Chung took over the lead. By
devious streets and crooked alleys, they went in the extremes of haste.

Further caution was useless. Now that the alarm had been given, speed
was the only hope. Pao Chung knew every secret rat-run in the old
native quarter. He used most of them. If the passage of the fugitives
caused a ripple of excitement among the polyglot denizens of that
forbidding area, they did not know it, nor heed it. All three knew
the natives well enough to be certain that the police could expect no
favors from that source. All Venusians are natural anarchists, born
outlaws and rebels against authority. The trail would die on stubborn
tongues unless mechanical trackers were used.

Even then, unless the police and security squads came in massed force,
there would be incidents to delay pursuit. Natives, and the human
debris of nine worlds which had found refuge in the quarter, had no
reason to love authority. In one sense, the area was an armed camp
within the walls. Uneasy truce at best existed between these motley
dwellers and the intruding minions of the nominal officialdom. While
the hunted could expect no actual help from the guerrilla forces of
Castarona's underworld, there was the certainty of hindrance to the
hunters.

Patrols and searching squads converged on the freight-dock stages,
drawn by radioed reports of a clash. From there a trail of sorts led
straight into the native quarter. As the soldiers and police massed
on the fringes of the area, sparks of trouble began to develop, were
quickly fanned to flame, and quenched only by continuous violence and
the arrival of overwhelming forces.

Pao Chung led his companions into a dark, zigzagging alley.

"Not far now," he gasped hoarsely, struggling for breath.

From close behind came a rising uproar.

       *       *       *       *       *

The alley ended abruptly against a high, blank, curving wall of
reinforced concrete. Pao Chung's raw, burning throat refused speech,
but he gestured over the wall. There was no gate. Angel sprang lightly
to the top and gave his partners in crime a hand up. They dropped into
darkness on the far side. Light writhed and flickered curiously on the
great dome overhead. Tumult died away behind them as they fled across a
wide open space, then rose to shocking crescendos. Reflections flared
in the dome.

Uproar dwindled to uneasy silence, as if the massed forces of law and
order had found the native quarter stickier going than expected, and
had been forced to retire in disorder.

Pao Chung stopped as if checking directions, then led off at a sharp
tangent. The way went through fields. Diffused light from the tall
city-buildings filtered in here and gave some sense of the ground
surface, which was fortunate. Numerous small fences of wire hummed
and sputtered on insulator-posts. Electrified guard-fences. Pao Chung
hurdled them carefully, but they were low enough to trip and incinerate
an incautious trespasser, unaware of their existence and unused to
their spacing.

Oppressive silence brooded over the place. Atmosphere was thick with
pungent and exotic odors that lingered with unpleasantly alien tang in
the nostrils.

Ahead loomed a high stockade of chrome-steel pilings, pierced by a
single monstrous gate.

Pao Chung ran up and hammered on the gate. Its reverberations roused
thunderous echoes in the night. A curious echo persisted and increased
in volume.

On Venus, if one climbs a fence, rings a doorbell, or bangs on a locked
gate at night, it is adventure. You never know who or what will answer
your summons. The door swings slowly open, and you brace yourself to
look. Will it be maid or monster--or both?

This was Khaljean's....

The gate swung open a scant double handspan, checked by a short length
of sturdy chain. A head poked through the aperture. An interesting
head, even in the difficult light. Details were obscure, but there was
a flash of curd-white skin, fine-modeling of feature, a delicate oval
face framed in a swinging bell of dark hair.

In this case, the summons was answered by, presumably, a maid.
Khaljean's daughter, Teucrete, herself something of a legend.

A woman can be described in terms of anatomical rhapsody. Or one may
dwell endlessly upon sweetness of disposition, upon quaint and unique
charms of personality. A potential lover may fashion poetic conceits
upon the lilting moonbeam qualities in her voice, compare her skin to
flower-petals, her eyes to gemfires, liken the graceful movements of
limbs and body to the liquid symphonies of swirling water. Or these
matters may be left wholly to the imagination and the girl described
obliquely by reference to her effect upon the male population in her
immediate vicinity.

The effect was jarring enough.

"Go away!" she said inhospitably. She leaned further through the
opening to snarl fluent imprecations in Venusian billingsgate at the
nocturnal callers.

Pao Chung braved the storm. "Shut up!" he said evenly.

Teucrete's eyes fixed on him savagely, and she took a sharp breath with
the obvious intention of renewing her tirade. Then she thought better
of it and restrained her outrage long enough to throw a taunt in his
face.

"Is Pao Chung so desperate for money that he comes now in the middle of
the night? You're two days early for your payment. Come back then."

"Call your father," ordered the Venusian.

"Khaljean is not here. He's ... hunting. Come back after noon tomorrow
if you must see him."

The head withdrew inside. The gate crashed shut. Bolts grated.

"Shall I fly over the stockade and throttle her?" asked Angel, rippling
his wings.

Pao Chung hammered the gate again. As before, the racketing animal
chorus repeated the sound, with variations. Pao Chung kept pounding
until the gate was opened again. This time the head did not appear,
but a wiry female voice addressed them from the inside darkness.

"Still here? The police must be hunting you."

"They are."

"Good! I will point you out and stay to watch the kill."

Pao Chung chuckled evilly. "Do that. The record of Khaljean's
background and illegal activities is in my safe. My will provides for
publication of all such papers upon my death."

The voice hesitated. "It might be worth humiliation or disgrace to be
rid of you permanently."

"It might," agreed Pao Chung. "Many people have thought so. I wonder if
Khaljean will be one of them."

With a scrape of bare metal, bolts retreated into sockets and the chain
was removed. Crack widened enough to permit entrance.

"Come in, then," Teucrete said wearily. "I will let my father decide
when he returns. For tonight, you can stay. But I won't answer for your
safety. The animals are roused and nervous. I am not sure I can control
them with strangers here."

       *       *       *       *       *

Beastly cacophonies greeted the entrance of the fugitives. An
atmosphere of alien and indescribable uneasiness pervaded the vast
compound with its rows and piled banks of cages. The atmosphere was the
emotion of night-hauntings, and the sound was its voice.

No sign above the gate proclaimed, _Here Dwells Nightmare_, nor,
_Through These Portals Pass the Most Incredible Life-Forms in the Known
Universe_. There was no circus atmosphere. Just a nameless blending of
sounds and smells and alien vibrations that stirred the imagination
like evil flames licking at forgotten folk memories. On Venus, the term
_unearthly_ has naturally lost meaning, but here was a hint of dreadful
abysses beyond even the exotic fecundity of the cloud-veiled planet.
Here were half-audible chords beyond all the known octaves. Here,
in the troubled darkness one sensed symbols of instincts, minds and
feelings that man was never meant to know or understand. Here was the
final question mark of evolution--whence, and to what dreadful purpose?

What incredible virtuosity of the Unknown Creator had brought these
unthinkable beings into multiform existence? And why? What purpose did
they serve in the plan of Creation? Or was there any purpose? Was there
even a plan?

Bat Ferris remembered such thoughts from his lonely, monastic youth on
Mars, and during the schooling period on Earth. One had time for long
unhappy thoughts in such a segregated childhood and some of them still
reverberated deep inside him.

The girl drew back to let them enter, flashing the beam of a hand
radilume on each in turn. Her glance flicked each of them in
examination sharp enough to draw blood. She received them in silence,
for Teucrete's mind was not on the duties of a hostess to unexpected
guests.

"Wait here," she ordered crisply. Then she went among the tangled
avenues between cages and spoke soothingly to the caged brutes. Her
voice crackled, purred, coughed, roared, hissed.

The bird people were the first to heed. Their bright, nervous
chittering subsided into occasional geysers of chirping. Surly sand
leopards from Mars paced their cages and vented sounds like needles
caught in the grooves of antique disc recordings. Partially gaseous
life forms from Saturn had no vocal apparatus, but showed their uneasy
displeasures by flaring into sullen crimsons and bruised purples of
luminosity.

Ferris followed the girl closely on her rounds, his eyes staring in
wonder at the caged monsters revealed when her light bathed the barred
cubicles. Some cages were not cages in the ordinary sense at all.
Behind barriers of streaming light crouched protoplasmic entities of no
set form. Moondogs sported aimlessly in pools of ionized gas. Wireflies
battered themselves against invisible net barriers. Complex mysteries
of Plutonian life-forms floated in magnetic fields. Metallic crystals
built themselves into coral-like colonies resembling miniature castles.

Less _outre_ creatures inhabited the myriads of cell-blocks--the
ordinary and extraordinary varieties of apes and cats and dogs, the
bovines and marsupials, the squeaking rats and trumpeting elephants,
the endless species of sea-creatures, the tree-haunters and the desert
dwellers, the burrowers and the flyers. There were supposedly extinct
saurians, and examples of tomorrow's freaks and mutants. There were
brute clowns and tragedians. There were--

But Khaljean's has been described often enough in magazine articles,
sometimes with tri-dimensional pictures in color. Any reader so
inclined may look into the back files of _Inter-Planetary Magazine_ and
stupefy himself with the famous issue of July, 2091.

Teucrete sensed that she was followed, but with pointed insolence,
ignored Ferris and continued her rounds. Gradually, her eerie tones
brought calm to the multiform excitements of the compound. She returned
eventually to Pao Chung and Angel.

"I will take you back through the laboratories to the inner maze," she
said irritably. "Move quietly and do not stumble in the dark. Some of
the protection barriers are fragile, and a few exist only in the minds
of the creatures in them. If excited too much, they can break through.
Many are man-killers."

"One man-killer runs loose in here," observed Angel drily.

Teucrete disposed of the intended compliment with a sneer. "Pao Chung
has long had such ideas. Through pressure on my father he has tried
to ... to buy or barter for me. Such disposal is mine to make, not my
father's. I have my price, but it is high."

It is evidence of Teucrete's more obvious charms that three masculine
minds went into gear, calculating resources.

Teucrete laughed viciously. "The first item is Pao Chung's head on a
platinum platter."

"A platinum platter is not unobtainable," said Angel speculatively.

Pao Chung was not offended. He chuckled unpleasantly. "Such fire as
yours would bring a high price in the slave marts of Yabn," he said.
"My head would bring more, locally. Should we not move further from
the gates? A scanner could pierce several layers of metal as thin as
this stockade. Perhaps I can bring your price down, or my offer up. But
another occasion for bargaining would suit both of us better."

"If there are other occasions for any of us," Ferris put in bitterly.

From outside came the sounds of many movements, the rustle and clatter
of questing men, hoarse shouts and a confusion of crowd sounds. Above
all, like a thin thread of sound, binding the other noises together,
was a high, ear-piercing, nerve-wracking drone.

Angel flittered to the top of the stockade and peered warily through
the razor-edged metal pilings. He swooped down to his companions with
whispered verification of their suspicions.

"The mechanical trackers," he said.

"Perhaps there is still a deal open," muttered Pao Chung. He bowed with
sardonic malice toward Teucrete. "We have one possession of greater
value than my head or your body. My young friend here--"

Teucrete snorted contemptuously. "Him!" But her glance lingered on
Ferris momentarily. "What do you mean?"

"Ferris is a gamma-man," said Pao Chung. Even Angel gasped with shock.
Teucrete's eyes widened in incredulity, horror and fear.


                                  III

Fear is a subtle poison.

It began long ago, in a small New Mexico town, long before there
were gamma-men or even interplanetary travel. The fear radiated from
mushrooming clouds with impossible radiance at the core, and the fear
did more harm to the minds of men than the deadly spectra of invisible
death did to their bodies.

It began with scientists in cages in the name of national securities;
it developed into continual surveillance for all men engaged in
atomics. These workers, and their families, led cloistered, monastic
lives. They intermarried, since there was little contact with
outsiders, and they shared generations of haunted, spy-ridden lives.
They lived in the midst of fear and mistrust, while the earth went
through its chronic spirals of war and the preparations. Throughout
history, scholars and philosophers have warned that knowledge must be
free and universal, like sunlight. But there have always been wars and
secrets and guarded weapons, and fear is older than man.

Scientists were men of dangerous knowledge, of destructive potentials.
As such, they were hostages of fear and illusions of safety. They were
segregated, guarded, well-fed, and at first provided with all the
deadly toys necessary to their amusements. It was all painfully logical
and futile, but all the best brains of mankind were locked up to
putrefy for lack of fresh air and the stimuli of mutual thoughts. Their
knowledges and prerogatives became hereditary.

Natural law works against segregation. Artificial isolation of any
group leads to misunderstandings, prejudices, resentments, mutual
fears, and eventually to violence. Fear-hysteria is a serpent devouring
its own tail. In time, the once-honored and glorified gamma-men became
feared and hated. In the minds of the ignorant and superstitious
populace, they were associated with medieval wizards and workers of
dreadful miracles. The threat of gamma groups became a political pawn,
and was used as a club to beat down restless, unhappy populations.

With their knowledge, and the popular delusion of their almost
supernatural powers, it was easy enough for ambitious men to misuse the
Scientists. In some cases, the gamma-men themselves usurped authority,
but this noble experiment slipped through their fingers, and they lost
control from sheer unworldliness. In truth, from the working of natural
law, the juice had run out of them and they no longer understood the
basics of normal human relations. In a final paroxysm of public panic,
they were disarmed, their toys taken away, and every last gamma-man
imprisoned in carefully guarded and isolated colonies. Like the ancient
Indians, they were placed in reservations and kept there by force.

After this culminating outrage, the gamma-men lost heart for practical
activity. Locked into their libraries, they turned to abstractions and
dabbled in dead-end philosophies. Most of them were querulous oldsters,
hidebound by tradition, their sciences now become a ritual religion,
their books exalted as "The Word," and their fading knowledge still
held secret for reasons long forgotten.

Not quite all gamma-men accepted this half-life allotted to them. There
were sports, avatars, occasional throwbacks who rebelled and went "off
reservation."

None of these actually ran amuck, but so great was the
fear-conditioning on one side, and so difficult the adaptation to
ordinary living on the other that there were painful accidents and
incidents. Nothing genuinely monstrous occurred, but enough friction
developed to keep alive and add to the public dread of gamma-men. The
term became a byword for nursery terror. And in their turn, the infant
generations of gamma-men learned to pity and despise the ignorant and
corrupt multitudes of normal humanity. They lost contact with their
human heritage.

In recent years, few gamma-men had broken out to mingle with the
expanding races now peopling and colonizing the frontiers of the solar
system. Those few were hunted down like outlaws, and killed with brutal
ingenuity.

But a new generation had come among gamma-men, with an urge so
passionate and devout they themselves did not understand it. Either
some latent folk-memory, or some emotional mutation, urged them to
go forth and civilize mankind. In the old books, they tracked down
knowledge and made grandiose plans for engineering the renaissance.
Realizing their common origin, and longing for more nearly normal
lives, they grouped together and made a pact to see some changes made.

Studying history and the other technologies of man, they soon
discovered that social, economic and psychological sciences had
lagged far behind the other developments. These were the blind
spots of mankind, and these led to all the other serious and tragic
misdirections of effort. Always, the sons of Adam had struggled to
achieve workable systems, and always these systems had broken down or
failed at critical moments.

If some means could be found--

Eventually, the means was tracked down from a clue in one of the oldest
books. It was not found, but its existence deduced and proved to the
satisfaction of the searchers. Somewhere, hidden in a forgotten corner
of the solar system, was the missing tool.

This fact settled, it became necessary to locate and use the missing
tool.

It was a pitifully small generation. Only seven bright-eyed and
high-hearted young men. But that night they broke out of their
prescribed boundaries. They went off reservation, and separated in
seven directions. Each had a theory, and a hope to be explored.

Without their ident-armbands of platinum with the old Greek letter
deeply incised, they resembled any other seven youths picked at random
from the teeming multitudes. They could mingle unquestioned, and their
studies had prepared them for various tasks to which their forged
papers entitled them. But adaptation was not easy.

A single incautious moment could betray them. Even a routine brain wave
check would be sufficient to identify the fugitives, for in subtle
ways, the gamma-men were different.

Seven young men with a noble purpose, and fanatical hopes in their
hearts.

And now there were two. Five of them had made fatal slips, and had been
hunted down to hideous deaths.

Ferris was one of the two survivors.

       *       *       *       *       *

Four people stood paralyzed while the hammering resounded at the gate.
This was no human fist demanding attention, but an odd, robot-like
clanking, as if a mechanical beast nosed in determined rooting against
the metal leaves of the gate.

It was just such a beast. A burring whine rose into notes of shrill
frustration. Metallic and electronic frustration, for the tracker was
a bloodhound of vacuum tubes and relays and switches and batteries and
transformers. Unerring and inexorable, its robot senses sorted a single
frequency from all other brain wave patterns, and it clung to the trail
with chilling efficiency. Something about its unhuman lusting numbed
most quarry before the pursuers in charge of the monster could check
its demonic eagerness for prey.

Now, like a metallic carnivore scenting blood, the robot tracker
nuzzled the gate and rebounded to nuzzle again.

All four of the humans inside the compound imagined the scene outside.
Pencil beams of hand radilumes glinted here and there, the questing
soldiers and police squads, the glittering serpentine body of the
tracker, with its scurrying treads churning clouds of dust as it
whined and rooted at the gate.

Bat Ferris shot a glance of uneasy calculation at his three companions.
The girl was an unknown quantity. Angel, momentarily shocked, was
predictable enough within limits. Pao Chung was openly an opportunist,
willing to turn any situation to personal profit. Unarmed, Ferris could
not even deal with them, let alone with the police outside. He frowned
angrily.

Teucrete's stare held on him for a moment, as if puzzled. Her eyes
moved on, focusing on Angel, then Pao Chung. Presently, they came back
to Ferris, amused and faintly mocking.

"What is a gamma-man doing here?" she asked.

"An interesting question," said Pao Chung ironically. "But not of prime
importance at the moment."

Ferris watched a smile writhe on the girl's lips and felt a quick
relief. She might help, if only to thwart Pao Chung's idea of throwing
him to the human wolves outside.

A harsh voice clamored for admittance.

The animals were growing restive again. An earthy bellow boomed out
against a counterpoint of birdlike trills. The sand leopards coughed
guttural warnings. Somewhere a pygmy elephant trumpeted, and the giant
insects burst into deafening clatters.

Teucrete motioned for silence, then drew the bolts and held the gate
ajar on its short chain.

"Who's there?" she demanded roughly.

"Police," several voices explained. "Open the gate, or we'll break it
down."

"Have you a warrant?"

"It's a security matter," someone explained hopefully.

"Tell that to the animals," she stormed. "It's as much as your life's
worth to come in here tonight. They're upset already, and I can't
control them if you keep up this noise. Go away."

An authoritative voice blustered. "This is an important matter. Let me
talk to your father."

Teucrete shrugged. "He will be back by noon tomorrow. Come then, and
bring a warrant to search. Or--"

She followed the speech with some insulting suggestions, not in the
best of taste. The authoritative voice turned into a gargle addressing
a slammed gate. Profanity did not disturb the tracker, which continued
to root noisily at the metal.

[Illustration: _Bogus Angel watched protectively from the wall top as
the mechanical bloodhound inched toward Teucrete while she talked with
the police._]

Teucrete shoved bolts into sockets and stood back. She sighed, and
beckoned the three men to follow her.

They moved amid a nightmarish cacophony of sounds. In memory roused
by the various elements of the uproar, Bat Ferris revisited the far
planets. Fortunately the light was too dim to see all the sources of
sound, but Ferris mentally identified many of the caged dwellers by ear
or by nose.

Wrigglers from the mercury mines of Callisto. Venusian swamp slugs, and
grull-cats from the Tihar Forest. Morbau-spawn from the honeycombed
caverns of Triton. Wireflies and needle-flies, known by their eerie
humming and buzzing. Seven-limbed bat-noses from the twilight zone of
Mercury. Iceworms from Neptune and Pluto, and the deadly windharps from
Mars. Amiably imbecilic moondogs from the satellites of Saturn pressed
blank flat faces against the walls of their insulated glass tanks.
Monsters out of nightmare. A madman's miscellany.

There was more, an incredible infinity of animal horizons. But
imagination reels back, and description falters. What words can catalog
the fringes of morphology!

       *       *       *       *       *

Ferris focused his interest on the girl. Teucrete. A strange name, and
as strange a being as these she lived among. He wondered idly about her
racial background. Her father's origin was a mystery, and who could
say what mate he had found on fecund Venus? Was his daughter one of
those half-human mutants, or was she just what she seemed, a willful
and badly raised human girl? Ferris could only guess, and await further
evidence of her intentions toward him.

But he liked the way she walked. Tall, straight, slender as a spear,
and as poised. Pride was in her, and a hint of warped character in
her frigid disdain of weakness or fear. Physically--but Ferris was no
authority on feminine beauty. On the reservation women had been scarce,
most of them neurotic virgins, or old. He had known women since,
but mostly the hard, cynical opportunists of the planetary frontier
boom-towns. None to share a life with.

Vast perspectives of cages and tanks and pressure vats went off in all
directions. He would not have imagined so much area covered by the
establishment. It seemed limitless, and all its dimensions were oddly
confusing. Intentionally so, since it was laid out in labyrinthine
fashion. Unguided, a stranger could lose himself in a matter of
minutes. It defied belief that a zoo of such colossal proportions could
exist within the precincts of a city, even such a sprawling megalopolis
as Castarona. But at last they were through the cage areas, which lined
the periphery of the compound, and Teucrete led the men into a building
of dazzling white stone.

"My father's laboratory," she explained. "Here we synthesize foods for
the animals, and try with all our ingenuity to provide an approximate
environment for them."

Her voice brought Ferris back to the present. "It won't work," he said.
"Security squads will never wait for a warrant. Even if they do, what
good is half an hour? They'll break down your gate and swarm through
here like hunting bees."

Teucrete laughed scornfully. "Afraid, gamma-man?"

"If I were I wouldn't be here. But only a fool refuses to recognize
danger."

"Relax," she advised. "They will break in, true. But there may be a
little difficulty finding their way among the cages. It is a maze,
as you saw. And the animals will give them some trouble. I am not
forgetting the tracker, but the moondogs and wireflies can confuse
anything that operates on electronics. All we need is a slight delaying
action. We can count on that."

"There is another exit?" asked Pao Chung eagerly.

Her laugh crystallized in tinkling fragments, like showering shards of
glass. "Another exit, yes. The way my father goes when he hunts. If you
have the nerve to take it! But compose yourself, Pao Chung. You will
need supplies of food, water, air, special clothing. And ... there is a
price."

Hesitantly, unhappily, Pao Chung inquired the price.

"The way is dangerous," she said rapidly. "You might not come back.
And I must see that my father is protected. Give me an order on your
bank or lawyer for all the evidence you have against him; for whatever
crimes or stupidities he may have committed."

"How do you know such an order will be honored?" Pao Chung muttered
speculatively. "Once I am free--"

The girl tossed her head till the bell of ebony hair swung dangerously.
"It had better be honored," she warned crisply. "For there is only
one way back ... if you ever come back. And I can control it. I don't
think you will like your surroundings well enough to remain there
indefinitely."

Pao Chung bowed to the inevitable. Angel chuckled moodily, and Bat
Ferris faced Teucrete with admiration on his pleasantly ugly features.

"Well done," he praised. "Is there a price for me?"

"No price to a man who likes animals. I sensed that in you as we passed
the cages."

Impulsively, the girl leaned toward Ferris and forced her lips
violently on his. "That is for luck, gamma-man. On the house, but the
next one might cost you dearly. Watch yourself."

Ferris clung to the sanctuary of masculine silence. Pao Chung glowered
sullenly, and Angel's amusement sent iridescent ripples glinting from
his wings.

"How about me?" he demanded.

"No kiss, no price," she told him, "but a word of advice, mutant. Keep
those wings out of revolving doors."

Angel grinned happily, his gargoyle face wrinkling into impossible
contortions. "They are a nuisance."

Newly garbed and equipped, the men followed Teucrete from the building.
Stopping to stuff Pao Chung's order into some feminine idea of a
safety-vault, not too safe in the company of lecherous males, Teucrete
conducted her charges through a lovely formal garden that functioned by
concealed hydroponics, and on into another built up area.

But this was no cubicle of stone or steel or plastic. It was a roofless
structure of glass. Vertical panels of glass ran off beyond sight.
Panels of all colors, all degrees of transparency. Some were as lucid
as crystal, some barely translucent, and more bent or mirrored to
distort, reflect or refract light. All were tinted, some weakly, others
violently stained. The place was stridently illuminated by concealed
radi-floods. It was a solid mass of rainbow effects, a forest of
crystal mirrors and shafts and flickering, glowing prisms.

One entered by a kind of airlock, or more accurately, a lightlock.
There was no change in atmospheric pressure, but the density and
beating force of sheer luminosity increased by squares and cubes as the
travellers strode through linked cubes of glass.

They entered the light maze. Dazzling splendors beat upon them. Vision
was overwhelmed by visible vibrations. They drowned in light.


                                  IV

"Don't touch anything," warned Teucrete. "Exact alignment is important."

She stopped before a keyboard like the console of a gigantic organ.
Behind it rose massed ranks of vacuum tubes, all glowing, humming,
flickering. The girl's fingers skipped nimbly on the keys, and notes of
sound rose in tinkling, chiming sprays from the shafts. Colors stormed
and raged in the crystalline forest, running up and down the visible
octaves of light. One sensed other scales beyond, in both upper and
lower wavelengths. Glass panels and crystal shafts vibrated to sound
and light, like tuning forks. They stirred, quivered, vanished, then
reappeared. A tall man appeared among the shafts and strode toward the
travellers.

"Khaljean!" said Pao Chung nervously.

It was sufficient introduction. There was uncanny resemblance between
father and daughter, like two matched paintings in different keys. The
animal man listened quietly, while Teucrete explained the situation. He
looked at Pao Chung and laughed. He shrugged.

"A bargain is a bargain," said Khaljean. "Perhaps I should go back to
Venus and fabricate some gnawed bones to convince the police searching
parties that the animals devoured you. All of you had better remain
here and wait till I send for you."

"You are good at faked evidence," Pao Chung jibed bitterly.

"In a good cause, yes," agreed Khaljean good-naturedly. "Even in a bad
cause, this time. Stay here. You will be safer."

"Wait!" ordered Ferris.

Khaljean measured him mockingly. "Who are you to say?"

"I am a gamma-man," Ferris told him.

"That doesn't frighten me, youngster. So am I. Or was. Do you know the
name Djevos Barian?"

Ferris blinked. "But Barian was hunted down and killed, his remains
positively identified."

Khaljean smiled. "As Pao Chung said, I am good at faked evidence. I
always had a skill with synthetics. A man thing I created lived long
enough to be slaughtered in my place, and I had constructed him well,
even to duplicating my fingerprints and brain patterns. Officially I am
dead. But ten years ago Pao Chung found out about me. He has bled me
systematically ever since. Until now."

"Shall I kill him for you?" asked Angel, with malicious joy in the
thought. "Now that you have access to his evidence, his life can be
only a menace to you."

Khaljean frowned. "I don't believe in killing. But sometimes Pao Chung
has tempted me. No, let him live."

"So you are Barian?" said Ferris admiringly.

"Was Barian. I have become Khaljean. The real one was a small-time
operator, dealing chiefly in dead animals. I was with him when he
died. We were much alike in appearance. With plastic surgery, I became
Khaljean. And I have made the name famous. You must be one of the seven
recent escapees from the reservation. We will have much to talk about
later."

"Not later," insisted Ferris. "Now. Where does this maze lead?"

Khaljean humored him. "Nowhere or anywhere. It's a dimensional short
cut that can take you to any place in the solar universe, or even a
few odd places in adjacent or parallel spacetime continuums. Is there
somewhere you want to go?"

Ferris nodded soberly. "A place I must go. Now, if possible."

"Why?" Khaljean studied the younger man grimly.

"I'm not sure you could understand, since you left the gamma
reservation so long ago. I'll try to explain. Somewhere, there is a
tool. Not that exactly, nor a machine either, but we call it that for
lack of a term. In the old books of our library, there was mention of
it. A description, with a hint of properties. It is something alien, a
control placed on the destinies of group-man."

His voice droned on, speaking as if the subject were a lesson he had
learned by rote. "Many times, man's social and political organization
has painfully climbed the ladder toward a workable, civilized system,
but always it has slipped and fallen back. The individual mind
functions well, for the most part, but not so the group-mind. Any crowd
is less honest, less efficient, and far less intelligent than its
individual units. The larger the crowd, the greater the tangent, the
possibilities for evil and injustice. In attempts to solve the problems
of group relationships, man is worse than pitiful.

"Long study has convinced the gamma-people that this is not a mere
accident. Outside influence warps men's thinking in groups, warps
social and political organization. It seems as if group-man struggled
hopefully to put together a complex jigsaw puzzle, in which many parts
will fit badly into an infinity of possible relationships. The true
fit is difficult to find, but even the law of averages should help in
so many attempts. Time and time again, just as the puzzle is nearly
completed, someone joggles the puzzler's elbow, and the pattern is
destroyed.

"There is such a joggler, such an outside influence. Its existence was
proved, its influence even measured. There are clues scattered through
the old books. We know what it is, what it looks like, how it operates,
but we have been powerless to counteract its influence. The warping
hypnotic broadcasts keep throwing mankind back to chaos, when utopia is
in sight. It is too strong to combat, and the source must be destroyed.
By our solemn pact, my six friends and I bound ourselves to locate and
smash this alien mechanism."

       *       *       *       *       *

Khaljean licked his lips reflectively. "You interest me," he admitted.
"I was once young enough to be idealistic myself. What is this alien
monster you describe?"

"Not a monster in the ordinary sense. Not a tool, nor quite even a
machine. Living jewels, perhaps. At least radioactive false gems.

"Gas, probably radon, solidified under the incredible pressures in the
heart of Jupiter. Solar Surveys knows about them, for they were seen
once, and even handled by men. There is an article about them in the
Encyclopaedia of the Solar Planets. In 2036, they were discovered,
mined by cybernetic machinery. Then on their way to Mars, the ship
carrying the jewels was sabotaged and wrecked. Wreckage and frozen
bodies were discovered on the rogue asteroid Hidalgo, but the jewels
were missing."

Pao Chung had shown growing interest in the conversation. He broke in
to ask, "Stolen?"

"Stolen, perhaps. Possibly they disintegrated at the time of the
wreck, or they may have transmuted into something unrecognized by the
searchers. They may have become tenuous enough to sink through the
surface of Hidalgo and recrystallized inside. But the evil influence
continues. We believe that they are still there, still in existence,
working their hidden evil, warping the brains of men, producing social
and political chaos. Five of my friends have lost their lives searching
for this menace. Possibly the sixth is dead, too, since he vanished
into the unknown and has not been heard from.

"I tried, myself. Angel and I landed on Hidalgo and searched carefully.
But Hidalgo is 'off limits' for spacemen. Solar Surveys sent the Space
Patrol after us, and we fled before finishing our search. We were
chased to Mars, traced and hunted to Venus. We crashed there, and while
I tried to get money for new equipment, Angel got involved with Pao
Chung. You know the rest. Now you see why I must go to Hidalgo."

Khaljean shook his head in sorrow. "I understand. But you could never
find your way through the maze."

Ferris accused him with fanatical eyes. "You could help me to find my
way."

"Not I. I am too old, and I am not sure that I approve of your
meddling. Not that I would try to stop you, but don't count on help
from me. How do you know that this alien machine is what you say? Its
purpose may be good, not evil. Some higher intelligence may have placed
it in our system as a governor to influence mankind, to shield man
from his own follies. It may be a warning road sign to keep us from
crashing into a dead end. Our utopias sound very dull to me, they may
easily be a dead end for mankind. I like the interesting and amusing
variations of chaos, so let me cling to them. Follow your destiny, if
you will. I won't stop you."

Ferris looked pitifully young, but he stood his ground with absurd
pride and courage.

"Right or wrong, I must try," he said evenly. "And I won't grant the
right of alien interference. Man, too, has a right to work out his
destiny, good or bad."

Angel spoke up eagerly for his partner. "I won't say I know what you're
talking about, and maybe I'm too stupid and ignorant to understand. But
as a victim of 'chaos' I don't appreciate it."

Pao Chung sneered. "One vote for law and order from the fallen Angel,
if it can be believed. Like Khaljean, my preference is for chaos, as
it furnishes more opportunities for a man of my interests. However,
my soul revolts at this talk of destroying gems of presumably unique
properties. They must have value. Perhaps you can dismantle this
machine, without harming its parts. As a business man, with time on
my hands, I would like to go with you and see if something can be
arranged."

"I don't trust you," Ferris said frankly. "And I don't believe that the
jewels can be salvaged. Come along if you want. I can't stop you. But
don't try any tricks."

Pao Chung accepted the warning with bland indifference.

"Father!" called Teucrete. "Leave me your protective suiting."

Khaljean smiled with sad irony. "Are you making a choice?"

"Yes. I'm going with them. I know the way. I can control the maze and
guide them safely back. I don't know if I believe in this fabulous
machine, or jewels, or whatever. But I think I might learn to believe
in ... in him. It's something I'll have to find out."

Smiling, Khaljean stripped off his protective armor and yielded it to
the girl. As an afterthought, he handed her his blaster.

"The choice is yours to make. But in such company, the blaster may come
in handy."

Khaljean shook hands with Ferris and Angel, though he avoided looking
at Pao Chung.

To Ferris, he said, "Come back if you can. And look after my girl. In
the meantime, I'll throw some gnawed bones to the police wolves, and
we'll manufacture a new identity for you."

Without a farewell, Khaljean strode into the crystalline forest. His
lonely figure paused to wave.

"Good hunting, father," Teucrete called after him.

She tripped keys at the console. Light quivered in painful vibrations.
His figure became transparent, then dissolved....

Absent-mindedly, Teucrete climbed into the suit of protective armor.
Ferris helped her zip up the clumsy garments, then clasped her arm
impulsively.

"I haven't the skill to say it properly--but thanks."

"I'll expect your skill to improve with experience," she said
irritably, fixing the blaster gun securely in its spring clip.

Returning to the console, Teucrete worked out an elaborate composition
on the keys. Tubes flared and flickered, flamed and faded. There was
the humming and the bell-toned clamor like glass raindrops spattering
on a ceramic floor.

"We have arrived," she whispered. It was then Pao Chung acted.

       *       *       *       *       *

Quick as a striking snake, he moved close beside the girl and snatched
the blaster from its clip.

Backing away, he waved the weapon in wide sweeps to menace both Ferris
and Angel at once.

Teucrete turned and cried out. Angel froze like a statue. Ferris
started a rush, then thought better of it.

"New deal, I think," said Pao Chung brutally. "From here on I'll give
the orders."

Angel chuckled ferociously. "You can't get both of us, Pao Chung. If we
rush at once, you can kill one, but the other will get to you."

"Don't try it," warned Pao Chung, sweating but deadly.

"You keep talking of deals," continued Angel evenly. "Better make one
with me. For the girl, and a third of the loot, I'll talk business with
you."

"I want her myself," croaked Pao Chung.

"Neither of you will get me alive," said Teucrete.

Ferris moved a little, and the gun held steadily on him. He hesitated,
glancing curiously at Angel. Light glinted from quivering wings. The
gargoyle face grinned hideously. Heavy eyelids blinked in remembered
signal.

"Now," snapped Ferris.

Ferris and Angel leaped, like two moving parts of the same machine.
Angel was quicker. His powerful wings wafted him in a long, swift bound.

The blaster swerved, flamed, burst in deafening explosion. A reek of
charred, disintegrating flesh and singed feathers filled the air.

Angel shrieked in torment as his legs vanished in crumbling ashes.
Wings flailing, his body a maimed and blasted horror, he crashed down
upon Pao Chung. The gun jerked from nerveless fingers and clattered on
the floor. Its beam cut a tinkling swathe among the crystal shafts.
Real droplets of half-molten crystal struck myriad bell-tones in
falling.

Writhing and threshing in agony, Angel clung to his desperate purpose.
Powerful clawlike hands circled Pao Chung's head and wrenched it off.
The head rolled free like a ball as two snarled bodies sagged together
in bloody horror.

Stricken, Ferris bent over his friend, trying hopelessly to help. The
gargoyle lips parted. Dry husks of sound whistled from them.

"Go on. Smash the machine! But first, do this job right--for me."

Trembling, Ferris recovered the blaster gun, cut down its intensity,
then thrust the blunt muzzle deep into the striped fur, where rich
crimson now mingled with the other gaudy dyes. Blinking his eyes shut,
he pressed the stud. Angel writhed and was gone.

Ferris did not look back. Hand in hand with Teucrete he walked slowly
toward the forest of crystal shafts. There was much damage, and his
heart quailed from the task ahead.

"Can you still find the way?" he asked numbly.

"I'm not sure," the girl faltered. "I'm not sure we can ever get back.
Exact alignment is so terribly important."

"We can try," said Ferris grimly.

Hand in hand, young men and women, with the dream still fresh within
them, will always seek the ultimate answer to the ultimate questions.
It may be, of course, that there is no ultimate answer, and that even
the quest is a delusion. But Teucrete and Ferris, with the flame of a
new love burning fiercely between them, believed that it was important
to find and destroy some alien thing that warped men's minds. Others
may think only of building a life together, as a pledge to the future,
but not Teucrete and Ferris. Time for that later, they hoped.

For the moment, they might, just possibly, make mankind's tomorrows a
little brighter, or more hopeful.

Hand in hand they walked together to the crystal maze, and entered.
Perhaps they found something....

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