Hiero's Journey

12. AN END AND A BEGINNING

The view of the mighty cave of the ancients was one to make a first sight a quiet and reflective one. How far below the earth they were, they could not imagine, but it must be a very long way indeed. Yet this giant’s delving was apparently artificial! The long, dimly glowing bars of pale light hanging far above from the invisible roof (reminding Hiero of the blue lights on Manoon) which now illuminated the whole great space showed that clearly, though there were obvious dark gaps where they had failed.

The walls, stretching out of sight almost, were geometric and regular, sharply cut in the shape of a pentagon from the bedrock of the planet. Above a certain height they were unfinished stone, but below that, to a distance of some thirty feet above the floor, they were smoothed and polished. The glint of metal showed where many of them were actually paneled. A wide circular space ran all around the structures in the center, separating them from the walls.

“Look at those things, will you!” Hiero’s voice was low and reverent. The many great, shrouded shapes, standing about the floor, covered with the dust of countless centuries, were vast, almost beyond the comprehension of men of a later day. There was spiritual fear both in his voice and in his mind. These must be the actual devices of the legendary pre-Death era. Perhaps they themselves had helped loose The Death upon the cowering world above! Ingrained in every reasoning human, save for the Unclean, of course, was such a horror of The Death that gazing upon things such as this was very like a glimpse of Hell itself. Brother Aldo’s face was rigidly controlled and might have been carved of jet, but the repulsion in his eyes was clear. Luchare had actually fallen to her knees. At only seventeen, even after all she had been through, an actual glimpse of the titan engines of the legendary and horrific past weakened her legs as perhaps nothing else could.

Hiero bent and helped her up, and as they moved together to the heavy metal rail of the platform for a better look, he kept an arm about her.

As they looked up, they also saw a spider’s maze of slender catwalks and beams, strung from wires and metal cables, but so far off in the upper gloom that many of them looked suspended on nothingness. The hush of many centuries brooded over them. Above them, higher yet, glowed the lights, in turn hiding the ceiling from which they hung.

“You could put a regiment, ten regiments, of Metz Frontier Guards in here and lose them,” was Hiero’s awed comment, half to himself. His mind was staggered by the immensity of the place. And more than that. He knew what he was supposed to be looking for—the computers, if they still existed. But how to find them? Or anything else, in a place so huge and alien? True, he knew certain names, certain symbols in the dead languages, but would they be obvious, would they even be legible? His task, now that he had actually arrived at one of the ancient sites, suddenly seemed impossible.

Luchare had left him, and she and the white-bearded Elevener were now examining something on the far side of their platform, where a metallic, boxlike structure thrust itself out on the floor. As he was about to join them, he felt Gorm’s sudden thought.

The bats have all gone. Where did they go? There is something I don’t like about this place, Hiero. Bad air is entering far off on the other side. I smell, very faintly again, the sort of deadness which yet moves.

Hiero used his far-looker while sweeping the area with his mind as well. There was no real sentience in the ether, but the small minds of a few of the bats were revealed, far away and getting further still. They had left by an invisible ceiling hole, some natural crevice perhaps, and were impossible to read for direction. The far-looker showed not one opening indeed, but several, black tunnel entrances, two, perhaps a half mile off, on the opposite, eastern side of the man-made grotto. As he looked, he saw yet another far off to the left, on the south side of the cavern. And around one of those on the west were things which did not appear artificially constructed. There seemed to be dark stains, perhaps pools of moisture, there, as well as he could see from that distance and in the poor light, the upright objects arranged in clumps. He had been in caves and seen stalagmites and stalactites before, but these appeared different somehow. Was there not a dim glow about them? However, he forgot them as Aldo spoke.

“Hiero, come here,” the old man said. “I think we have a way to get down, if we can still trust the incredible mechanics of a long-dead age. I have seen drawings of things like this. This box-thing goes up or down on this track set against the wall. That is why the stairs, which I imagine were only an emergency exit, go no further. Come and look.”

He explained to the three of them, using his mind, how an elevator worked. He and Luchare had been cleaning off the control switchboard of its accumulation of dust, and the three buttons were now easy to see. He next tested them by reaching around and in, while himself remaining on the platform. With a creak, the ancient thing began to move slowly down. He stopped it quickly.

“I thought so! I know the words. The bottom black button is ‘down,’ the top ‘up.’ The red one I don’t know, but red was often used for danger, so we will ignore it. Let’s get in. Hiero, what are you doing now?”

“Maintaining communication with the surface. Gimp and his crew are still all right. They’re camped now and set up for the night. I wanted a last mind check before we got into that thing.”

Despite the pleased certainty in his voice, Aldo would not have been human if he had not been nervous as they all climbed aboard the elevator. The layers of dust were over six inches thick on its floor, and they had already learned to move slowly to avoid stirring it up any more than was necessary. Fortunately, the dust must have contained much powdered rock, for it both rose slowly and settled quickly.

The elevator ran on two metal tracks set deep in the cavern’s wall, and these had allowed only a little deposit of any kind to adhere. But of course the machine was old, old beyond the concept of even its designers. It creaked and groaned ominously as it started down, and the noises did not decrease as they sank lower. Some long-ruptured circuit made them stop at each level, and it took an almost physical effort on Hiero’s part to push the button and restart the contrivance afresh. There were five similar-appearing platform levels, and even the bear, who had been shielding his thoughts, let out an audible “whoof” of relief as they settled at last to the base of the shaft. They all felt the same. But their relief was to be short-lived.

As they left, farsighted old Aldo, who was the last one out of the metal cage, reached back and touched the “up” button. He had decided to find out if they could return again in a pinch. Now his cry of dismay alerted them all. The elevator would not move. For ten minutes they poked, prodded, and fiddled with the mechanism and tried at least to locate the power source. The latter must have been buried deep under the floor, for they could find nothing. Thus they were five storeys lower now, with no known way back to the surface.

“I would wager we must be at least half a mile down altogether,” Aldo said soberly, putting their common thought into words.

We will have to find another way out, came Gorm’s cool thought. At least we are on our own feet, not in that thing which moves. The alien mechanism had rasped the ursine nerves more than he cared to admit.

Around them now, in the much dimmer light of the cavern floor, loomed the dust-covered shapes of what had to be the great machines and devices of the past. From the platform far above, many of these things had looked to be of modest size. Now it was seen that all were large and many were absolutely monstrous.

Hiero walked over to the nearest, intrigued by something puzzling in its shape. He used the shuffling walk, which they had learned stirred up the least floor dust, and he gently brushed the coating of inches-thick grime away from the surface of the shrouded object, while the others waited.

“I thought it looked odd!” His laugh stirred remote echoes in the dusty aisles and corridors between the silent bulks and rebounded from cornices and projections far above.

“This is a cover! All these things are protected. Look, you can lift it and see what is underneath.” He raised a corner of the heavy plastic wrapping, still moving slowly so as to avoid raising any more dust than was necessary. The soft gleam of a metal base, untouched for thousands of years, met their eyes, which by now were accustomed to the dim light.

Excited, the soldier-priest ran to the next great object and then the next. All were covered with thick plastic sheeting, a substance which mocked the centuries, and the metal underneath appeared untouched by any corrosion or other of time’s ravages. Hiero drew his dagger and began to cut pieces of the plastic away, for the huge sheets were far too large to be pulled off by their puny efforts; many of the devices they covered were as high as a two-storey building and half an acre in. extent.

“Hiero,” came the Elevener’s strong voice. “I think we had better be told what we are seeking, don’t you think? I have no wish to pry, but…”

“Of course. I meant to tell you earlier, honestly. There’s been so much on my mind, I simply forgot.”

While they stood about, or leaned on the buttresses of the incredible machines, he gave them a mental, closed-circuit recapitulation of the Abbey mission, describing the lost computers, or at least their purposes, as well as he could and explaining carefully why the Abbeys felt they were so important.

“If what Demero told me is true, and I believe every word,” he concluded, “we need one of these things desperately. The attacks against us are mounting and coordinated. Our defense and any counterattack won’t have a prayer unless they are also completely coordinated.”

Aldo had no more questions. Now that he knew what to look for, he began at once to examine the nearest mechanisms, seeking labels or identity marks of any kind. The others joined in, the bear helping him to lift the plastic covers, the girl aiding her lover in the same task.

An hour later, they paused in their work, looked at one another, and laughed. Sweat and disturbed layers of dust had covered them all with a pale mantle, and even the bear looked a furry ghost of his former self.

“Let’s see,” said Brother Aldo, who had been writing in a small book he had produced. “We have found nothing so far about computers, Hiero.” The priest wiped a grimy forehead with an even dirtier hand and tried to concentrate. Brother Aldo’s knowledge of the ancient languages was vital now, since Hiero himself had been able to memorize only a few simple words and phrases before setting forth.

“We have found ‘engines,’ that is, machines,” Aldo continued, “and we have found other things, controls apparently. What these engines ran on, their power source, by the way, baffles me. Unless,” and he looked very grave, “it is the lost power of the atom itself, which caused most of The Death when misused. But I prefer not even to think about that.” Hiero did not see lit to mention that he felt the Unclean well might have rediscovered that particular power source. It was only a suspicion, but he had never ceased wondering what silent engines drove their dark, sailless ships.

“We have found ‘air-conditioning’ and ‘thermal control,’ ” Lu-chare put in.

“Yes, but these are things, as I said, which occur in other sites I have visited. They mean fresh air and artificial heat, that’s all. We have no idea how they did these things, but we know they are neither weapons nor computers.”

“We’re poking around out on one edge of this place,” Hiero said, after a moment’s thought. “How about heading for the middle? If there is an information storage center, it might be there, logically. I am trying to recall how the place looked from up top, and I think there was a circular space, with things set about on it in some regular pattern.”

This plan was adopted, and they began a circuitous approach toward the center. Time and again they found a pathway or aisle blocked by some rearing hulk or other and had to go around or even retrace their steps. Hiero felt they were all minute creatures trapped in some vast and incomprehensible maze.

Eventually, all coughing and sneezing by now, they emerged from a corridor between two long lines of machinery into the open space which Hiero had glimpsed from far above. For some time they had been moving up a very gentle slope, and it was now apparent that this radial point in the center was set higher than the rest of the cavern. “Probably a system of drains buried under all this dust so they could flush the place down when it needed cleaning,” Hiero said.

They could see things of interest at once. Before them stood a vast, semicircular control board, its function very clear, since of all the things they had seen, it alone was not covered by plastic. Yet it had been, that was evident. For piles of plastic sheeting, minus any dust, lay here and there, as if each section had been ripped from the control board and cast aside at random. The thirty or so seats which were set in the floor in front of the board were not uncovered, however, and still retained their plastic shrouds.

On the board’s center, several small, unwinking lights, three amber and one red, glowed in which was obviously the main panel, since it lay in the center of the great board’s gentle arc. The three humans stared for a moment, only realizing by degrees what was indicated by all this.

“Someone’s been here,” the girl breathed. “Who could it have been? How long ago? Look, those lights must have been turned on.” She spun around suddenly, as if to catch someone or something stealing up behind them. Yet nothing moved, save for themselves. The dusty relics of the most ancient past towered up in forgotten, majesty around them, only the three tiny lights of the board the sole indication that life was not extinct in the relics of a vanished age.

The bear moved slowly forward and began, to sniff. Come here, his mind said. Something has been here and it has left a track. Something we know, was his grim afterthought.

Stepping forward, Hiero looked down and saw what Gorm had found. A broad, grooved mark, its greasy path only slightly tinged by dust, came from off to their left out of yet another aisle in the bulking engines. This trace went along the front of the control board, occasionally broadening into a wide smear where the plastic sheets had been flung aside, and then vanished again, down into the gloom of still another canyon in the forest of silent machines. The message was clear. Something had come, uncovered and examined the board, and then gone away again. Had it turned on the lights somehow? Where was it now and when would it return? Hiero shivered. Whatever had made this strange mark was certainly not human, and even before the bear’s next message, he felt he knew what it was.

That House-thing or one of its creatures has been here, came Gorm’s calm thought. Can’t you smell it yet? In his four-footed friend’s mind, Hiero caught the irritation at his duller senses, but he paid no attention.

Swiftly, now he relayed a warning to the other two. At the same time, he bade Luchare relight the lamp she had extinguished when they had managed to get the cavern lighting system activated. Fire had been their only weapon against the House before, and it might still save them, should the monster reappear, or should it send its servants.

“See here!” Aldo had been examining the portion of the board where the three small lights gleamed. “I can read these signs, or some of them. Some words such as ‘gantry’ and ‘silo’ are new to me, but here are ‘missile launch’ and a long series of numbers. We have found something terrible here, Hiero. This is a place which sent out into the air the flying Death itself, the great machines which traveled over and above the whole world, shedding foul poison and radioactive destruction.” He was shaken to the core as he looked down at the silent board. “Perhaps,” he added in a low voice, “perhaps some of those things are still waiting, waiting to spread more death, even after five thousand years.” No one spoke, even the bear’s mind, perhaps appalled at the thought that they might be able somehow, by mistake, again to loose such a horror on the world.

It was Hiero who recovered first. His active brain simply could not mull over the past for too long. He had come here to find something, a weapon in fact, and instead he had found a deadly enemy, which if not actually present, was certainly not too far off. These matters transcended any brooding over vanished tragedies.

“What are those lights?” he asked, his voice deliberately brusque. He wanted to shake Aldo out of his present mood and stir him to new activity. Tough as he was, the Elevener was a very old man, and he was facing in the flesh, so to speak, things he had thought of only as the abstract components of a nightmare. But now it was a living, revived nightmare, whose return to the world he dreaded more than any mere bodily peril to himself.

With an effort, Brother Aldo returned to the present.

“Those lights? All of them are marked with one word underneath. The two yellow ones say ‘standby,’ which I believe means ‘wait.’ ” He peered closely at the red bead on the smooth, black panel. “This one says ‘alert,’ which means ‘be on guard.’ A moment, though! A line of inlaid silver leads away to another area, over here to the right.” Muttering to himself, he stepped around two of the chairs, still tracing the line of bright metal with his eye. The others followed in his wake, waiting for a translation. The line wandered about for a distance along the board, at last coming to rest on a black, ovoid projection. Under this bulge were more letters.

“Let’s see now,” the old man said. “ ‘Lift cover for total self destruct.’ ” He turned and faced them. “Did you by any chance understand that?”

I did, Gorm said unexpectedly. You are becoming very careless with your minds down here, all of you. You radiate even while using your human speech. You have found an old thing which will destroy all of this whole place, and us too, I gather. His mind was quiet and amused again. One would have thought he was describing his last meal.

“I’m going to lift that cover,” Brother Aldo went on in steely tones, ignoring the bear. “The best thing I know about this awful place now is that we may be able to destroy it. I frankly regret having aided you to come here.” His passionate hatred of the pre-Death artifacts around him rang in every syllable of his voice.

“Let me,” Hiero said quietly. “Don’t forget, I’m more used to machines than you are. You look over my shoulder and tell me what you read there. I won’t do anything without permission, I promise.” So strained and taut had both Aldo’s brain waves and his speech become, Hiero was beginning to fear the old man would do something irrational.

The Elevener closed his eyes for an instant. When he opened them, he suddenly looked more at peace, and a faint smile touched his mouth.

“I caught a fragment of your thought, boy,” he said. “You are quite right. I must not give way to emotion, and I was very close there. You go ahead, and I’ll try to supervise if I can.”

The Metz examined the almost conical, black projection. He saw that it had a knurled edge, obviously designed for fingertips, and he began to turn it. A screw mechanism slowly revolved, and as it lifted, he saw both what lay underneath and the wisdom of such a cover. With sudden death for the whole area in one control, a screw opening allowed time to circumvent a madman or an enemy bent on self-destruction. A simple hinged affair would have been too easy.

Under the cap, which he laid carefully aside, was a thing like an uncovered dial. A row of thirty numbers, engraved in the archaic system of the ancients, bordered a curved slot. At one end, set sideways in a smaller slot, was a pointer. Studying the mechanism, Hiero saw that the pointer could be pulled up, out of its own slot, and moved down the larger to any of the numbers desired.

“Those are hours, or hour symbols, I feel sure.” Aldo peered over his shoulder. “It must be that one can set the thing for up to thirty hours and then—the whole place goes.”

“Suppose they’re minutes, not hours, or some other unit of time we don’t even use any longer?” Hiero asked dryly, Luchare gasped behind them.

“It says ‘hours’ here.” Aldo pointed to a pair of tiny letters, which Hiero had not even seen, at the base of the slot. “This is an abbreviation, but one I have seen many times.”

“Sorry,” the priest said. “I’m getting jumpy. What do you say we have a meal? It must be well into the night up above, and I imagine we all could use some food.”

Once their stomachs had been called to their attention, all were indeed hungry, and Gorm protested bitterly that he was being slighted when Luchare gave out each agreed-upon ration.

You’re so fat you could live for a week on nothing at all, she said, poking his plump sides. Do you good to go without for a while.

Hiero wondered to himself, as he ate the dried meat and biscuit, whether the water would last until they got out. He said nothing to disturb the others. They had brought only one large water skin with them, and when all had drunk, it was only a bit more than half full. The all-pervasive dust had made everyone very thirsty.

Barely had they finished when the bear suddenly rose to his feet, apparently snifling, head erect.

Nothing comes, was his thought. It is the mind of Gimp (here a pictorial composite of the little captain was made clear). He tried to reach us. There is trouble up above.

Instantly both Hiero and Aldo shut their eyes in an effort to tap the sailor’s mind far over their heads, up on the surface of the dark plain. It was full night now, on the portion of the world’s surface nearest them.

Gimp felt them at once, and they could gather the relief in his mind as he did. He was not, of course, used to sending messages this way, but they persisted, probing and questioning, until out of jumbled images, emotions, and attempts to communicate, they got his story, or at least the gist of it. This was the tale:

A lone guard, for the others were asleep, had heard something moving in the brush and had the sense to keep quiet and awaken Gimp. That worthy had found two more men accustomed to moving quietly and had awakened one-eyed Blutho and put him in command, with orders to arouse the camp and get under arms in silence. Gimp and his two trusties sneaked out and presently heard a man, they thought, moving, off to the south. They stole closer and were able to see, in the moonlight presumably, a number of mounted men on hoppers. (On what?—Hiero; Never mind, I’ll tell you later—Aldo.) Gimp cleverly ambushed one such person, killing the mount and capturing the rider without noise. This man, for it was a man, had been taken back to their camp and hastily interrogated. What they had learned was disquieting. A small, hand-picked army of the Unclean, both men and Leemutes, were coming from the south (the rider had been one of an outer screen of scouts) and were heading for a “buried world,” one to which they had a “door.” They were led by master adepts (Gimp called them “magicians”) and they were hunting a terrible man from the far North, a dangerous enemy who had to be slain at all costs. The captain wanted advice fast, for he now could hear the approach of the army itself. That was all.

Hiero wasted no time. The prisoner was to be decently killed at once. The seamen were to take Klootz on a lead and move north as fast and as quietly as possible. The prisoner’s body was necessary, since he might otherwise be mind-traced by the enemy. His total absence would probably be ascribed to wild beasts or to an accident. As usual, Hiero wasted no sentiment on the Unclean and their vassals.

His task done, he turned to the others and explained. Aldo had heard everything, but Luchare and Gorm had to be filled in. The girl pointed out the obvious clue, though the others had already guessed.

“They’re heading for a ‘buried world.’ It must be this one! Hiero, Gorm told us we were using our minds too loudly. They must have been listening somehow. There has to be another entrance, and they know it. We’re trapped!”

Gorm was less excited by the news and even a bit smug. I’ve been telling you for some time that you were using your minds too much, but it can’t be helped now. We must find a way out somehow. We have before. He seemed unafraid and not even interested very much. He added: Tell me when you want to start.

Brother Aldo patted Hiero’s shoulder in his kindly way. “The clue, Hiero, I’m quite sure, lay in our battle with the House. The waves of mental power that struggle gave off must have been easy to detect. Don’t blame yourself, my dear fellow. The Unclean were a bit smarter for once than we gave them credit for being. Also, they must have been a good deal closer than we thought, must have been well on their way to reach us, from out of Neeyana. No one’s fault, but we really have to think now.”

“It’s S’duna,” Hiero said bitterly. “He’s sworn to kill me or die trying. He must have done some brilliant calculating, all the same, to estimate where we were heading so well.” He looked about at the dimly lit vastness around them. “How in God’s name we can either fight or escape is beyond me.” His shoulders sagged visibly.

“Think!” Aldo thundered, no longer sounding kind. “You are the warrior, as well as the priest, and this is no time for resignation. One thing even I can point out. They are still terribly afraid of you. Why else have they not used their minds, located and captured Gimp? They are using mind shields, those mechanical things they hide behind. For fear of you, that’s why! Now take that fear of the enemy’s and use it!”

Luchare said nothing. She came close and put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him, just looked, her eyes full of love and trust. Then she patted his cheek once, lightly, and moved away, humming softly to herself. Her man was there, and he would find a way out. How was only a detail!

The twin appeal was sufficient to galvanize Hiero out of his momentary despair. The strange, huge vault in which they were apparently incarcerated lost its brief terrors. Once again he was able to reason, to plan, to look at all sides of the problem. Brother Aldo saw the changed expression and the tightened jaw and waited, content. Their leader was back with them again.

The moment he began to think ahead once more, two factors occurred to him. The House was one and his unfulfilled mission the other.

“Spread out, but mark your path in the dust so you don’t get lost, you two.” Gorm, go with Luchare. Give warning of the House or any enemy. “Brother Aldo, look for signs, names, I guess, of computers, if the damned things ever were kept in a place like this.”

“They were,” was the answer. “We read that it was the computers which somehow sent these terrible weapons out into the world and told them where to go and whom to kill. Certainly there is one here at least.” He turned and strode off, swinging his staff and clutching his own small knife, with which to cut any enshrouding plastic. Luchare and Gorm were already poking about, off in another direction. The bear was so sensitive to danger that he was a superb sentinel, and she had forgotten she did not understand the ancient languages and thus could be of little real help.

Hiero badly wanted to be alone. He had some mental probing to do and, once that was done, some very careful planning. Already the germ of an extremely grim idea had come to him, an idea fraught with horrible risks, but also one which might be of tremendous benefit.

His mind he sent roving ahead, seeking out the enemy. In a moment he found him, or rather them, and he was somewhat shaken as a result. He had forgotten to ask Gimp if his prisoner had worn a mind shield. For all the minds he now encountered had them, and he could not even make an estimate of how many there were. All he could do was estimate the physical distance from himself to an oncoming conjoint aura of defensive screens. Like a great blob of energy, it was advancing from the south and above, at hazard, no more than a mile away. It was a real feat, he ruefully acknowledged, to shield so many in such a short time.

Coldly he assessed his own and his companions’ chances. One thing was clear: the Unclean somehow had acquired a good knowledge of this place and thus were coming on without hesitation. Did this mean they had been here before? He considered this. It seemed doubtful, on reflection, that they had. Only the central switchboard, of the entire complex, had been disturbed, and that recently. And he knew who, or what, had done that!

No, the Unclean Masters must have ransacked their own accumulated files and records, just as the Abbey Council had done before sending him out on his own quest. The place was marked on the enemy map he had looted from the dead adept’s body. No doubt the enemy had other charts as well, with more detailed directions. This cavern would have been one of a large number of places indicated for eventual examination, when time and manpower permitted.

But that plan had been changed when S’duna and his allies had determined to follow him, now their single greatest fear and enemy, to his doom! And they had found him somehow, half by guess and half by detecting his mind’s energy bursts when he fought the House, that is if Brother Aldo were right. He probably was. That struggle indeed must have registered a long way off, to those who were watching and aware.

All this went through Hiero’s mind in no more than an instant. He was standing, leaning actually, on the central control panel as he thought, and he now made a sudden gesture and freed the cap on the destruct device. And as he did, he began to consider the House. From this thought, his decision hardened. His hand moved.

The Metz next replaced the cap and then walked quickly away, in the direction of the eastern tunnels or openings he had glimpsed from the platform. There was a relatively clear path and he moved fast, although with caution. Meanwhile, he contacted the bear and Aldo on a wavelength Luchare could not yet follow and told them briefly where he was going and why. He had not forgotten the House and its method of mental ambuscade. Should he not communicate at regular intervals, they would come after him.

At this point he suddenly saw the slimy track of whatever creature the House had sent out, approaching the same corridor he was on from the left. He could see that, ahead of him, it continued on down the very aisle he had chosen. He instantly chose the next gap to the right and placed himself in a parallel alleyway between other lines of mechanical colossi. No sense in going to the thing’s front door. He had seated a quarrel in his crossbow and now lighted the spare firepot as well. The crossbow bolt had oil-soaked cloth wrapped around it, and he could light it in an instant were it necessary. And if I’m given an instant, he added to himself.

Now a new sensation came to Hiero. Over the musty, stale smell of the whole place, there came to his nostrils a familiar whiff of organized corruption. The bear must have detected this all along, he realized, even if it were far fainter here than up on the surface. Sickly sweet and abhorrent, it came to him, the stench of the living rot which was the hallmark of both the House and its realm.

He stooped under and rounded a lofty corner of some ageless mechanism and then quickly ducked back again. Before him was the work of the monster!

Here, far underground, the fungi were stranger even than those on the surface. It was as if the House saved its more delicate and cherished outgrowths for this hidden realm. And it was obvious that they needed no light, for many of them glowed with an evil light of their own making.

A broad, dark pool, full of floating scum, had formed where the floor had actually sunk or collapsed near the east wall of the great cave. Water trickled steadily over and down a broad area of slimy rock, for this wall was unfinished, indeed hardly even smoothed down by the craftsmen of long ago. An underground spring must have burst forth in ages past and still flowed into the pool, leaving by some hidden outlet.

Around this sinister tarn, which was many yards in extent, there grew a forest of tail, gently tapering spires of soft, living matter. Several men’s height they were, colored with pallid and crepuscular shades, ugly, faded violets, insipid yellows, and debauched, bleached oranges. On top of some of them glowed round areas of foxfire and dim phosphorescence. This was the light, the priest realized, which he had glimpsed far off when they first entered the cavern.

As he watched this buried, obscene parody of a living wood, Hiero was moved by its allure as well as by its horror. Totally alien and awful were the purposes of the House, but it could still create an eldritch beauty. He checked his mind sharply at this thought and examined his own reasoning, fearing a mental trap, an allurement into which the entity called the House might be subtly trying to draw him.

But there was no contact, and he knew he was truly free. Besides, somehow he had the feeling that this was a place of utter privacy to the House, a hidden chamber of repose which the monster deemed inaccessible and utterly safe. How he knew this, he could not have said, but perhaps his terrible struggle with the lord of the fungi had allowed him to fathom, if only unconsciously, its emotions and thought processes; he had thus established a strange rapport with his enemy.

At first he thought nothing moved, and he was about to emerge himself when he caught a flickering shadow out of the corner of his eye and instantly froze. The forest of fungoid spires was truly alive!

The things’ movements were so slow and rhythmic he had almost missed them, but now that he watched carefully, he could see it all. The unnatural forms were not rooted or fixed, not even as much as a mushroom, but were moving, ever so slowly, about on their broad bases. As he watched, fascinated, he saw that it was like a mockery or simulacrum of some stately dance, or even a solemn religious service. The weird beings, plants or whatever they were, would approach one another slowly until their sides touched; then a rippling motion seemed to run up and down their entire length. Those whose crowns glowed with the pale phosphorus seemed to deepen that glow in these encounters. Too, as they approached each other, a clot of slime or soft, bulging flesh developed at their bases and then dissolved as they retreated in the same, almost imperceptible fashion, to begin their peculiar gyrations anew with a fresh partner.

The ghastly things were sentient in some way, of this he felt sure. Just as the great slime molds he had met far above were able to sense enemies or their food, so too were these living fungi able to feel, to react, perhaps even to know. Had he revealed himself, he was sure that he would have been detected, if not even captured and slain. He drew back further into the shadows of whatever vast machine was giving him shelter.

The living cones, or fungus candles, for they were thinner than a normal cone shape, partially masked the black rift of the tunnel which opened on the far side of the water. It was a tunnel, of that he was sure. Its sides were regular and smooth, too rounded to have occurred naturally. Once, in remote ages, it might have been a major entrance to the underground hiding place of the great missiles. But the slime and muck which coated the lips of the entrance proved that nothing human had passed that way for many long years.

Well, he had learned all he could. He quietly slid further back, away from the stagnant water and the evil, living spires of mold. When once out of sight, he began to run, always angling toward the south. One portion of his brain, meanwhile, had kept a ceaseless watch on the inchoate but collected mental force which he knew represented the Unclean horde. Since they had steadily advanced, there was only one place from which they could be coming, and that was one of the tunnels in the southern wall. A fairly clear road must exist to it from the surface, and the Unclean leaders would be moving into and down it as rapidly as possible.

He paused and calculated various times for a moment. No trace of his mind or that of the others could the enemy now detect. This he felt sure of, for his powers had become such that he could have kept a protective shield over many more than just four minds, even if Aldo were not on guard. In any case, defense was always far less effort than attack, for it could be maintained with and by an unconscious effort of mind. No, he could check on the enemy’s progress, but not the reverse. Aldo had been right. Their fear of him was such that they were relying on physical strength and hiding under their mechanical mind screens.

Now he sent messages to his companions to join him, whether they had found anything worth taking or not. He simply stood still and waited, until they came. In a few minutes the white beard of the aged Aldo appeared around a corner, and the other two came only a little bit behind. The priest was so wrought up, he noticed nothing of the small package Luchare carried.

“Look,” Hiero said, stooping. He traced a design in the dust of an engine’s buttress next to him. It was hard to see in the dim Sight, but there was just enough when he added that of his little lamp.

“Here’s where we are. Here’s a pool of water over on the east side. The House has an exit here. I’ll tell you about that later. Over here,” his finger drew yet another circle, “is the southern entrance. S’duna and the Unclean must be coming this way. That elevator machine is broken, and we can’t go back. All right, we’re going out the way the enemy comes in, to the south. But you’ll have to do exactly what I tell you.” He paused and grinned, his face quickly looking years younger on the instant. “Even then, there’s a good chance it may not work. It depends on two things. One, S’duna’s so eager to get me, hell stop at nothing and, hopefully, not think straight. Two, so will somebody else, not think straight, I mean. Oh, yes, and neither of them knows or is aware of the other at all. That’s the equation, and it has to be perfect to work.”

Brother Aldo laughed, honest, chuckling laughter. “I see your plan, I think. It may work out totally, but if not, well, there’s still a great load off my spirit. Tell me what you want us to do.”

Gorm, who had been kept informed simultaneously, sent a quick thought. A terrible idea. Let’s hope it works. Luchare simply pressed herself close to him.

“Here’s what we do,” the priest went on. “You go this way, over to the southwest wall, and hide the best way you know how. I’ll find you. I have to go back where I came from. Now hurry!” He kissed the velvet cheek gently and then spun on his heel, erasing every thought but those needed for the task ahead. The Unclean army was very close!

Returning to the evil pool of water was easy, for his own marks in the untrodden dust of centuries were simple to follow. In a matter of minutes he was peering around the corner of another machine at the dark water and the moving nightmare garden (if such it was) of the House. In the dim light, the living candles still moved and stank.

He took a careful aim with his crossbow, lowered it, having once got the range, and raised it again. In the interval he had lighted the oily rags bound around the quarrel from the rekindled firepot. He released the trigger, and with a hiss, the now blazing dart shot across the water and deep into the pulpy substance of the tallest of the moving towers of putrescence.

The reaction was instantaneous. As he had prayed, the horrid things were every bit as inflammable as their fellow fungi far above, up on the earth’s surface. The fire raced over the tall, writhing shape in seconds, and the sudden, whipping movements and frenzied gyrations of the mold beast touched and set fire to a half dozen of its fellows in hardly less time. Hiero had been readying another bolt, but so speedy was the awful destruction he had wrought with only one that he stayed his hand.

At the same time, there came into his brain a terrible shrilling, a piercing vibrato, on an incredibly high wavelength, which rose and fell like the skirling of some demoniac orchestra. He knew he was hearing the death agony of the foul things and, being a kindly man, felt momentary sorrow even for these.

Then he remembered his mission and stepped into the open!

The moving spires, such as were not already alight and writhing in their fiery death throes, were aware of him at once. He had been right, he realized; the creatures were indeed sentient! Immediately they knew him to be the author of their misery. The tall columns bent as one in his direction. He could feel an almost material wave of venomous hatred emanating from them as their fellows blazed and shook all around them. The very slime with which their movements had coated the naked rock was itself flammable, and fresh runnels and gutters of moving fire sought out many of those who were nowhere near their burning fellows.

The splendor and horror of the sight almost made him a victim himself. One of the awful spires, whose top was as yet aglow with only its own poisonous foxfire, bent until it pointed in his exact direction. Then, from its crown, a dully glowing series of blobs were launched in Hiero’s direction. So unexpected was the attack that he barely had the presence of mind to leap aside as the first ball of glowing slime raced his way. Even so, it splattered almost at his feet, and one minute fragment struck his right hand. The pain was savage, and only the instant application of the oil-soaked rag he still clutched made it die down. He hastily backed away, keeping on his toes, so that the next poisonous missiles came nowhere near. Actually, if one stayed alert, he realized, they were easy to avoid.

All the while he was praying for something else. He had provoked the ruler of this foul realm, carefully and deliberately. Where was it? Had he guessed wrong? Mind and body keyed up to the highest degree, he backed slowly away from the inferno of the dying fungi. The stench of the corrupt and burning bodies, and the thick, greasy smoke, made even this close proximity almost unbearable. Where are you, House, damn you? And even as he bent his thought upon it, it came.

He had been watching the gaping mouth of the tunnel beyond the pool, a task made increasingly difficult because of the swirling smoke wreaths and nauseating reek, for he was sure this was the entrance to the creature’s lair. Perhaps it was, but there were others.

Almost before he had time to realize it, a surge of filthy liquid overflowed the near edge of the buried, underground pool and sent a wave of fluid corruption racing over the floor in his direction, and the bulging, gelatinous horror of the House began to emerge out of the water. As it grew in size, it sent one bolt after another of mental force at the lone man.

It was well that Hiero had armored himself against this very time. In odd, waking moments, ever since his first encounter with the monster, he had carefully analyzed its Medusa-like power of paralysis, and he had deduced that its true strength lay in an attack on the psyche, rather than on the actual brain. The emotional centers of the body were its targets, not the reasoning process, and in the subconscious alone could it establish its unearthly stranglehold.

One remote corner of his mind registered mild surprise at the relatively modest size of the alien monstrosity. Its brownish, slimy bulk was not too much higher than his own head and scarcely more than five or six yards in total width. It still preserved the odd, four-cornered shape which had made Vilah-ree name it, but the lines moved and shook, the angles continually re-formed in peculiar abhorrent and sickening ways. Hiero saw also that it could move on its blobby base, just as the horrible candle-things did, and that it could move fast. Also now, long, glistening tendrils or pseudopods sprouted from its upper parts and waved hungrily as it slid rapidly in his direction over the floor. And all the while its ravening hatred and power beat upon his mind. His own rapport with the alien growth had become so strong that he understood why it laired so deep here and what actually he had done when he had attacked the fungoid spires. The pool was the center of not so much a garden but more (though not entirely) a harem!

The seal which he had painstakingly set upon his inner being held. Even so, he prayed for strength as he backed away from the water and into the aisle in the machinery from which he had first come. After him flowed the monster, and behind it, in turn, came the remaining spires.

No more did the House use its vile blandishments to make him an ally and thus attempt to lure him within its reach. For it recognized him. Its hatred of the one being who had ever broken its power and had helped destroy much of its awful kingdom overcame it, until its strange composite mind could think of nothing else but to obliterate the impudent minikin before it. What—did the very inner parts of its buried realm, its hidden mates’ playground, hold no safety from this feared and dreaded enemy? On, on, and slay! Its speed increased, and its groping, vibrissal pseudo-pods flailed the dead air as it sought to rend him.

Carefully, judging his speed to a nicety, Hiero fled from the thing and its pack of followers. The assaults on his mind he repelled, content merely to ward off the House’s attack and not to try to retaliate. Any such trial on his part might serve instead to open new corners of his own brain to fresh and unknown assaults. Who knew of what else the monster was capable if allowed, even for an instant, to forget its mad rage?

Down the silent, dust-laden corridors, under the dim illumination of the glowing bars of millennia-old light, the strange chase continued. The human fled; the living lord of the slime sought to overtake him and extinguish its bitterest foe from the earth. Save for the light footfalls and breathing of the man and the sucking, slithering noise of the fungoid pack’s progress, there was utter quiet. The deadly race, to an observer, would have appeared some strange and voiceless charade or shadow show. The squat House and the tall, dozen remaining mold pillars sped on; the man ran; the shrouded, ancient machines were backdrop.

Always, the priest led his pursuers south, shifting a little back and forth so that it would not be too obvious and straight a road, but never going very far from the line he had chosen. And now, at length, there fell upon his ear a sound for which he had yearned. It was the distant vibration of a legion of people moving, the faint but distinct echo of many feet! The Unclean host was upon them and must even now be debouching into the great cavern!

Still, husbanding his strength, Hiero ran on; and, implacable as ever, the alien master of the mold-things and its last minions followed on his track, centuries-old dust by now coloring them all the same pallid gray.

At a certain intersection of two opposing aisles, Hiero suddenly increased his speed. His careful appearance of fatigue was suddenly shed, as quickly as that of a parent bird whose apparently broken wing has led the searcher far from, its huddled young.

Now he turned and darted away at full speed, taking the House by surprise as he did so. He flashed away toward the south wall and then—barely before leaving the shelter of the machines—darted into a narrow gap between two huge engines and was gone. One instant the House thought it had him trapped, the next he was utterly vanished!

Ravening, the unstable, shifting bulk increased its speed, layers of filth and dust flying as it sped forward in the manner of some Brobdingnagian snail on its rippling base, its slender mates coming on in its wake.

Hiero, now two hundred yards off and well to the left of his former track, peered cautiously out toward the open, the southern end of the ancient cave. What he saw made him draw breath in exultation.

Pouring into the cave, rank upon rank, file upon file, came the massed forces of the Unclean. Even as he watched, the last ones entered the great cave, and the tunnel gaped empty behind them. At least two hundred creatures were already streaming across the open, some of them men in dark uniform clothes, armed with pikes, others Leemutes in their own skins. He recognized red Hairy Howlers, brown Man-rats, and, far off to one side, a clump of the new things he had first encountered on the ship, the Gliths, their gray, scaly hides glistening. Not far from the entrance itself, marshaling their forces, were a group of men in dark cloaks and hoods. The adepts were preparing for a master stroke, and he smiled grimly as he thought that only one man was the cause of all this preparation! Truly, the enemy had not been properly challenged for a long time.

And then it happened. The first part of his desperate scheme came to fruition, just as he had planned it and willed it, but (down inside) never dared believe it would.

Out into the open from the central passageway, charging along in its blind rage, seeking the hated human and oblivious of ail else, came the House!

From his vantage point, Hiero could see it all, every stage of the weird ensuing drama. All movement ceased instantly out on the quarter mile of open, between the machines and the cavern wall Not a man, not an Unclean mutant, stirred. The little group of hooded masters of evil were frozen, standing with their heads together, as if turned to ice in the middle of their plots.

He spared a glance for the House. It too had checked and come to a halt, and for once its own unstable, wobbly outlines were not moving. A little way out in the open from the street he had just quit, it halted, its acolytes motionless also. Its pursuit was forgotten as it strove to adjust to a new situation with all the power at its command.

I’m right! the priest exulted. The strange, mesmeric power of the House was unaffected by the Unclean mechanical screens, screens which Hiero himself had been unable to penetrate. The House really did not operate on the brain at all, and the blocking power the Unclean scientists had devised was therefore useless against it.

Around him, surging in a way which to his sensitive mind was practically physical, Hiero could feel the ferocious wills of the Unclean overlords struggling to be free. But the only free brains in the House’s environs now were his own and those under his protection. The monster’s pressure upon his had ceased as it grappled with its new and unexpected foes. It had never had so many creatures to control before and it was having a hard time holding them immobile. Hiero, observing from the “outside,” so to speak, could actually feel, with his mind, the House’s efforts to maintain its screen as the swarm of enemy beings tried to break the hold it had laid on their bodies.

But now the priest was himself in motion again, running hard to the left along the southern tier of silent engines. He kept in the shadows, and neither the House nor the Unclean army seemed aware of his flitting shape, engrossed as they were in their silent grapple.

In a few moments he spied tracks in the dust ahead of him, coming from the center of the mechanical maze, and followed them to an alcove between two canopied buttresses. Here, Brother Aldo, the girl, and the bear were waiting, the humans’ faces strained and intent and even Gorm shaking with excitement and shifting nervously from one paw to another.

Come on! Hiero sent. Don’t even think from now on if you can help it. I’m going to keep covering your minds. Aldo—build a reserve shield under mine, if you can. Now, let’s go—fast!

“Hiero,” Luchare cried, trying to say something, but the blazing glance he spared her made whatever message she had die unspoken.

They were only a few steps from the open space on the south, and he led them quickly out into it. He felt Luchare, whom he was actually leading by the hand, tremble at her first sight of the massed enemy off to their right, but she never faltered. Behind them, the other two trotted in their wake, raising yet more dust. By now, Hiero thought, we must be visible. God help us if my screen drops!

The House did indeed sense their motion somehow. Despite the efforts it was putting forth to hold the Unclean ranks imprisoned, it spared another bolt for them. Hiero warded it off, using his new technique, with almost contemptuous ease. Once one knew how the House operated, its traps were not all that clever, and besides, now it could spare only a fraction of its strength.

But to the other enemy, who had never met it before, its methods were deadly indeed. Strain as they might, the Unclean army, masters and slaves, Leemute and human, could not move a muscle. Two evil forces worked to allow the good freedom!

Soon Hiero was compelled to pass close to a squad of black-clad soldiers with dark, metal helmets and long spears. They had been racing toward the northern section and the House had caught and held them in mid-stride. Their eyes gleamed with deadly hatred as the four loped by, but they could not twitch so much as a finger to impede their progress.

Another such group and another they passed, living yet locked like statues in the foul embrace of the fungoid horror.

Next they passed what had been a crouching, bounding crew of giant Man-rats, creatures Hiero knew well from the past as devilish foes, huge, mutated rodents with all of human reasoning ability and clawed hands as capable as any man’s. Their fists now clutched sharp knives, clubs, and long lances, while their brown-furred bodies bore elaborate harness and equipment. But no more than their human allies could they break the grip of the House on muscle and nerve. Only the red eyes glared with hate.

Next, close to the mouth of the tunnel itself, the fleeing four came to the half-dozen hooded shapes of the enemy commanders. Of those looking his way, Hiero could see the knowledge and hatred flare in their eyes as his little group passed by. But though they would, he did not doubt, cheerfully die in order that he too might be slain, they were as helpless as the stupidest and least of the evil servitors in their forces. For it was obvious that they did not understand the House’s power and methods any more than had the warrior-priest himself when he first encountered it.

His crossbow slung, he carried his sword-knife in his right hand as he ran, leading the panting Luchare with his left. But his fear that one or more of the Unclean would free himself proved groundless. On past the last of them, a pair of Howlers whose acrid stench supervened even over the drifting reek of the House, he sped, the others close behind. They were actually into the tunnel now, and he saw at once why the enemy had chosen and used it.

Before them, still clear in the remaining light of the cavern’s glowing rods, stretched a smooth, level ramp, thirty feet across, curving up in a gentle spiral sweep into the gloom ahead. Many heavy feet had beaten a path down the dusty floor; the dust had hardly had time to settle, but the way ahead seemed clear enough.

The priest stopped and relit the firepot to which he had stubbornly clung ever since he had shot his flaming arrow into the living towers of the fungi. They would need some light ahead, for they were leaving the artificial glow of the lost cavern.

He released Luchare’s hand, pushed her on, and waved the others past. In silence they moved, obedient to his orders. Alone, Hiero watched the scene below for a last, fascinated instant. About his head, he had never stopped feeling the surging currents and giant forces in contest as the Unclean tried to free themselves and the countergrip of the House still stubbornly kept them trapped in its invisible mesh. One look only he spared, seeing for the last time the slime-bedewed, grayish shape, its attendant pale cones towering over it, and between it and himself, the equally silent, motionless legions which had come to destroy him.

The Metz turned and ran, holding his lamp high as he caught up to the others. They had not gone far, but were waiting for him only a little above. Aldo held the other lamp, and Luchare was just filling it from the now depleted oilskin, which she cast away. They did not light it but fell in behind Hiero and began their upward journey. He set a sharp pace and no one questioned it, but they were all too exhausted to run, and a brisk walk was the best they could do.

“How long can it hold them, do you suppose?” Luchare gasped at length.

“Long enough,” Hiero said curtly. “For God’s sake, darling, save your breath! We’re not out of danger yet. The ancient had exact time devices and I don’t! Just keep walking and try to keep your mind a blank.”

She did not flare up in anger, for she recognized by now that his orders had reason, and they trudged on in silence. The light showed the ramp to be almost featureless, a great tube, lined with some age-defying substance, which had been cut into the earth and rock with micrometer precision by its long-dead makers. Once or twice they passed a sealed opening in the walls, but they did not stop. There were no lights visible, and only the flicker of their little lamp lit the way.

This must have been the main path, the priest reflected, driving his weary legs forward and upward. They had been walking a long time, at least it felt like forever, but he dared not rest. The forces trapped in that place behind them were too awful to take any chances with. But talking might ease the strain.

“Did you find any computers?” he asked at length.

“No,” was Aldo’s answer. “Such a search might take a week, or a month. But Luchare found something. She is carrying it. Do you think the Unclean can free themselves? They have the man and beast power to find anything there. And what about the House? It is so powerful, Hiero. What might it not do with the knowledge of the past?”

“The house nothing about the past or machines or weapons. I know what it thinks or feels as well as anyone human that is now alive. It has no use for mechanical devices, but only what it makes or grows itself.” He forgot Luchare’s find as his worry reasserted itself.

“Yet it, or perhaps one of its creatures, was looking around at the control board. Don’t forget that.”

“I know.” Hiero’s laugh was grim. “And it had no idea what it was doing, I’m sure of that too. Yet it may have given us a way out by its action. How long have we been walking, do you suppose?”

“At least an hour, I should think. Are we safe yet?”

“No. Keep walking. We’ve got to keep on till we drop, if necessary. I can still feel the pressure behind me. And the House is weakening!”

“Can they kill it and follow us? Maybe we can block this tunnel, then.” Luchare’s tone was defiant, her attitude that of the princess she was. Hiero’s heart warmed to her.

“Maybe we can,” he said more cheerfully. “But it hasn’t quite let go yet. It never had to control so many powerful minds before, all alien to it and all trying to break loose. It hasn’t dared move, I can feel that, all right. Perhaps it’s summoning some of its carnivorous slime molds. And the Unclean are still there too. I can feel all their minds, even under their screens, like one big ball of force.”

“I also,” Aldo admitted. “What an amazing creature the House is. How I would like to know it, to learn what it thinks, feels, and wants from life.” His tone was wistful.

Hiero glanced at his aged ally in amazement. The Eleventh Commandment really embraced everything, it seemed!

We are close to the good air. Gorm had been waddling unhappily along, his pink tongue hanging out and his fur an inch deep in gray film. Now he scented escape from this underground world he disliked, and his spirits lifted.

Hiero momentarily covered the lamp with the edge of his cloak, and they all strained their eyes. Was there a faint lessening of the blackness ahead? The very thought revived their flagging energy.

Soon it was a reality. As the light grew, Hiero slowed his pace, may be a rearguard,” he said. “They’d be fools if there weren’t something of the kind. Let me probe a bit while you three rest and catch your breath.”

His mind sped forward ahead of them, seeking any intelligence that might be lurking above at the tunnel’s mouth. But he could detect nothing, not even the shrouded energy which he had learned meant an Unclean mind shield. Unbelievable as it seemed, the whole force of the enemy had apparently plunged into the bowels of the earth, so overconfident of his destruction it had left nothing behind.

He told the others this, and they went cautiously on. Three more great curves, and the light was quite strong enough to make the guttering lamp unnecessary.

The faint calling and piping of birds came to their ears now, and even the human noses could catch the sweet scent of the air which poured down the shaft.

“Let me go first.” Hiero took the lead again and soon saw the great, opened doors ahead. He absently noted the shattered hinges and, when he stepped outside, the cleverness of the device amazed him. For the two huge doors were made of something on the outside which imitated weathered, gray rock and yet which must have been far more impervious than any granite. The Unclean had been indeed cunning to penetrate their secret and so quickly follow on his traces.

All this raced through his mind as he drank in the cool air of the tropic dawn, but he urged the others on as before.

“Hurry,” he said, “hurry! We can’t delay yet! We may not be safe for hours!” He gave Luchare, who was stumbling, his arm again. He was oblivious to the packet to which she clung with her other hand, for her telescoped spear was now tucked through her belt.

The four set off to the south over the boulder-strewn waste onto which the huge tunnel had opened. Limping and staggering, they went on, no one questioning Hiero’s iron determination or right to drive them thus. Aldo now frankly leaned on his heavy staff, something no one had seen him do before.

Still they staggered on, their breath coming in painful gasps, their muscles twitching and burning. The ground was semi-desert, tall weeds and thorn bush growing up through patches of rock and scree. The cool air of dawn gave way to the burning heat of morning and (very slowly now) they hobbled forward. Time seemed to pass with terrible slowness.

Then it happened. Hiero, who had been listening both with his mind and his other senses, felt it first.

“Down!” he shouted and, falling, pulled Luchare close to him. Aldo, too, fell prone, while the bear simply collapsed.

First came a gentle tremor of the earth, so slight it might have deceived them into thinking it was a muscle spasm of their own overused bodies.

Then the earth began to shake and heave, rising and falling in a great wave, as if the tiny atoms of flesh which clung to it were being tossed in some inconceivable blanket. For the first time, Gorm let out a howl of sheer terror.

A distant, muffled roar filled the air. Slowly the heaving of the troubled earth died away. A ringing in their ears also ceased. They raised their heads and looked at one another. Hiero was the first to grin, his white teeth flashing in a countenance so dirty it looked like pure mud. Then Aldo laughed, a deep-throated, ringing sound. Hard on his heels a bird began to sing nearby, tentatively at first, then bursting into its full series of rippling cadences.

Luchare kissed Hiero. When she pulled her lips away, she murmured drowsily, for she was almost asleep from sheer exhaustion, “What was that?”

“That,” Brother Aldo answered as he helped them both up, “was the button marked ‘self-destruct’ on the central control board. Right, my boy?”

“Yes. I gave it four hours. What a race of men! After five thousand years their death still works! At least the Unclean got nothing from them. Nothing but destruction. The House too. And yet—if it hadn’t held them, I couldn’t have done it.”

They looked north in silence. Where there once had been a wide, level plain, a vast, shallow bowl had now appeared, its sides and rim of raw tumbled earth and chunks of riven rock. The low trees and scrubby bushes had vanished, lost in the rubble caused by the great explosion.

“We’d better move,” the priest said. “Klootz and the men are apt to be way up north by now, and we need to push on as soon as possible.”

“Your road should be easier henceforward,” Aldo said, the sun highlighting the gray in his once snowy mane and beard.

“I hope so,” Hiero said wearily. “But I still haven’t found a computer. And this army of theirs wasn’t a real percentage of what the Unclean could put into the field if they wanted to.

“Besides,” he added, “S’duna’s not dead. I would have known somehow if he’d been down there. He wasn’t. We have an appointment to keep somewhere, he and I.”

“You may not have found a computer,” the old man said, “but look what Luchare is carrying. She found a stack of these things on an apparently abandoned desk. Possibly someone’s study area. I could read the title. Try it yourself.”

Half-numb from what he had been through, Hiero scanned the title of the small, flat book which Luchare had handed him with one finger. “Principles of a Basic Computer,” he read in halting English, the lost language. Inside were plastic page after plastic page of diagrams and close-printed text. He could say nothing and felt choked. Here was how a computer could be built, perhaps by anyone! The other two smiled at the look on his dirty, sweat-streaked face.

“Look,” Aldo said, using his finger in turn, “it says, ‘Volume I.’ Luchare found a stack of them. And she has the other two, Volumes II and III, as well. She called me over and I read off the titles. But I think she knew, somehow, even without me!”

Wordless, Hiero pulled Luchare’s arm around his waist, and the three humans and the bear began to retrace their steps, moving north like cripples over the barren and shattered landscape. Gorm tried to have the last word, or rather, thought.

No one ought to move so fast, he grumbled. From now on, let’s try to move at a calmer speed.

The world moves at a certain speed, Aldo answered, after a bit. We all must learn to move with it.