The Godmen

CHAPTER V

There was nothing monstrous or terrible about the Vorn as far as looks went — no crude grotesqueries to shock the eye. It hung in the still air of the cabin, a patch of radiance like a star-cloud seen from far off so that the individual points of light are no more than infinitesimal sparks. The Vorn's component motes seemed at first to be motionless and constant, but as Harlow stared he became aware of a rippling, a fluctuation of intensity that was as regular and natural as breathing, and this was the crowning touch that turned his blood to ice. The thing was alive. Creature and force and flame, as the legends said, not human but living, thinking, sensing, watching.

Watching him. This unhuman voyager between the stars, watching him and pondering his fate.

Kwolek had picked up something and was holding it with his arm drawn back for a throw, but he was just holding it. Garcia just sat. His lips were moving, as though he prayed hastily under his breath. Yrra slid very slowly and quietly onto the floor in an attitude of abasement.

Harlow spoke. Some automatic reflex set his tongue in motion, and words came off it, sounding so stiff and ridiculous that he was ashamed, but he could not think of any others. These words came easy, straight out of the Manual. He had said them many times before.

"We belong to the Star Survey. We are on a peaceful mission. We have come to your world—"

Knock it off, Mark!

Harlow knocked it off in midbreath. He stared at Garcia and Kwolek. Neither one of them had opened his mouth.

Yet somebody had spoken. Kwolek started violently. “Who said that?"

"Nobody said anything,” Garcia whispered.

"They did, too. They said, ‘Kwolek, put down that silly lump of iron before you get a cramp in your shoulder'."

"You're crazy,” said Garcia quietly, and seemed to go back to his praying.

"Mark,” said the voice again to Harlow, “I seem very strange and frightening to you but that is only because you don't yet understand the scientific principles that make this changed form of mine possible. My atoms are in different order from that in which you last saw them, but I'm otherwise quite the same. Well, no. Not quite. But near enough so that I can truthfully say that I'm still Dundonald."

"Dundonald," said Harlow, staring at the patch of fluctuating radiance that hovered in the air before him. He added softly, “For God's sake!"

Kwolek and Garcia turned their heads and looked at him. They spoke almost together.

"Dundonald?"

"You heard him,” Harlow muttered.

"They didn't hear me at all,” the voice said to him. “Shake the cobwebs out of your head, man. You can't afford to be stupid now, you haven't the time. This is telepathy, Mark. I'm communicating with you direct because it's the only way I have now. Unfortunately I haven't the energy to communicate with all of you at once. Now listen. I've been waiting for you—"

"What are you talking about?” Garcia said to Harlow. “What do you mean, Dundonald?"

"You better take the time to tell them,” Harlow said to the patch of light. “I doubt if they'll believe me."

He put his hands over his face and trembled quietly for a moment, trying to understand that his quest for Dundonald was ended, that this amorphous cloud of energy-motes was his friend, his drinking companion, the flesh-and-blood Dundonald with the strong hands and ruffled brownish hair and the bright blue eyes that were always looking past the familiar to the distant veiled shadows of the undiscovered.

He could not believe it.

"That doesn't matter,” said Dundonald's thought-voice in his mind. “Just accept it for the time being. What does matter is that Taggart is all ready for you. That ship of his carried heavy armaments. He has them set up, and the moment he catches your ship on his radar the missiles will fly. Then you'll be dead and I'll never get back, so please mind what I say."

"You'll never get back?” repeated Harlow. “Back where?"

"To the old me. Solidity. Taggert has the Converter. It's guarded night and day and I'd be killed on sight if I stepped through. So would any of the Vorn, I suppose, though none of them have for centuries. So—"

"Wait,” said Harlow. “Just wait a minute. I'm trying to understand, but you've lost me. Converter?"

"Of course, a converter. What did you think made us — me — like this?"

"I don't know,” said Harlow numbly. “Just what is ‘like this'?"

"Exactly as you see,” said Dundonald. The patch of radiance bunched up, swirled, then shifted so quickly that Harlow thought it was gone. “Matter into energy, only the ancient Vorn solved the problem of achieving the conversion without losing either intelligence or personality. The individual remains unchanged. Only his body is free of the limiting shackles of the flesh."

The patch of radiance moved toward the iron bulkhead. It glided right through the solid iron, and then came dancing back again.

"No more barriers. No more death. No wonder the Vorn lost interest in the old planet-bound life. I tell you, Mark, even in my brief term as one of them, I've seen done things — Have you any conception of what it is like to fly free as a bird between the stars, covering light-years at the flick of a thought, with no fear of anything? And not only the stars, Mark, but other galaxies. Time and distance are only words without meaning. The greatest secret ever discovered. Nothing so crude and clumsy as the transmission of matter, which would merely send you like a package from transmitter to receiver, leaving you as planetbound as ever. No, the Vorn developed a mechanism that gave them the real freedom of the universe."

The radiance danced and floated, and Kwolek and Garcia and Yrra stared at it with naked fear, and the thoughts from it kept pouring into Harlow's mind and he did not think he could take any more. It was easy enough to talk of leaving off the shackles of flesh and wearing a body of pure energy, but it was too big for his brain to grasp as yet. He said, “Dundonald."

"Yes?"

"I'm Mark Harlow, remember? I'm just a guy from Earth. You spring this on me all at once, you expect me to—” He broke off, and then he clenched his hands and made himself go on again. He said, “Listen. I'm talking to a patch of light. And I get a thought in my mind that this light-patch says it's Dundonald, a man I knew. It's hard to take. You know?"

Dundonald's thought came with a pitying quality in it. “Yes, Mark. I suppose it is."

"All right.” Harlow felt sweat damp on his forehead, but he stared straight at the misty radiance and said, “Give it to me slow, then, will you?"

"All right, Mark, I'll give it to you slow. But not too slow, please, for time is running out."

Harlow asked, “You found the world of the Vorn from the legend Brai told you about?"

"Yes."

"You found the Vorn on it?"

"No. No, Mark — the Vorn have been gone from that world for a long, long time. Ever since they found out how to change and become — like me. I found their dead cities, and I found the Converter. Not them."

"The Converter that made you this way. What made you do it, Dundonald?"

The answering thought was strong. “I had to. I had to try the thing, after I learned its secret. I went through. I was still like this — like the Vorn — when Taggart's ship came."

"Ah,” said Harlow. “And then-?"

"My men, my ship, were waiting,” Dundonald answered. “Taggart took them by surprise, easily. In the fight, three of my men were killed. He has the others locked up."

Harlow, in the anger he felt, almost forgot he was not talking to Dundonald in the flesh. He said, between his teeth, “He's very good at trick surprises, is Taggart."

"He learned,” said Dundonald, “that I was — on the other side. He has armed men watching the Converter. If I try to come back through, he'll have me."

"But what's he doing — just sitting there?” demanded Harlow.

"He's waiting, Harlow. He sent out communic messages, to someone named Frayne. Frayne, I gathered, commands another of the secret ships that the Cartel sent to find me and the Vorn. Taggart messaged him to come to the world of the Vorn, to help him take the Converter away."

The appalling picture began to come clear to Harlow. If the Cartel ships got this Converter away, the ultimate freedom of the universe would be in the hands of a group of greedy men who could exploit the greatest of all discoveries for their own power and profit.

"Oh, no,” said Harlow. “We've got to stop that. Can we reach that world before this other ship — Frayne's ship — does?"

"I don't know,” said Dundonald. “Frayne can't be too far away or he'd be out of range of communic. That's why you've got to hurry, to get there first. Yet you can't land right where Taggart is, his ship radar will spot you coming and his missiles will get you before you're even close. The only way you can get to him is through that."

And the patch of radiance became a round ball and moved to the visiscreen, touching the black outward bulge of a looming cloudcliff.

"I can guide you through it, Harlow. But you'll have to come down beyond the curve of the planet and walk the rest of the way to Lurluun — that's that old Vorn city where the Converter is. After that—"

"After that,” Harlow said, “we'll hit Taggart with everything we've got."

"Which isn't much,” Dundonald said, “if all you have are the popguns prescribed by Regulation Six. Well, they'll have to do. Change your course now, and make it fast."

Harlow, as he moved, glimpsed the strained face of Yrra gazing in awe at the floating core of radiance. He said, “Something else, Dundonald. “The girl's brother, Brai. She came after him. Is he still living?"

"He's with Taggart's prisoners — my men,” came the answering thought. “How long any of them will live if Taggart pulls this off, you can guess."

Harlow told Yrra briefly, in her own language, and saw the tears start in her eyes.

"For God's sake, will you hurry!” prodded Dundonald's thought.

Feeling very strange indeed, like a man dreaming or drunk or in partial shock, Harlow spun the Thetis around on her tail and sent her plunging toward the black cliff of dust.

He filled in Kwolek and Garcia as much as he could in a few words, and had Garcia get on the intercom to the crew. He tried not to look at the dust-cliff ahead. It was a million miles each way and it looked as solid as basalt. The green glare of the distant sun touched its edges with a poisonous light.

"Relax,” said Dundonald. “It only looks that way. I've been through it a dozen times."

"Fine,” said Harlow, “but we're still bound to our old fleshly selves, not at all impervious to floating hunks of rock."

"I'll take you through, Harlow. Don't worry."

Harlow worried.

The cliff was black and imminent before them. Instinctively Harlow raised his arm before his face, flinching as they hit. There was no impact. Only suddenly it was dark, as dark as Erebus, and the telltales on the board flopped crazily. The Thetis was blind and deaf, racing headlong through the stellar dust.

Kwolek muttered, “This is crazy. We just imagined we saw and heard—"

"Shut up,” whispered Harlow. “I can't hear—” He looked around. Panic hit him. The patch of radiance was gone. Dundonald was gone. Dundonald? How did he know it was Dundonald and not a deceitful stranger, one of the old Vorn sent to lead him to destruction? He could wander forever in this cosmic night until the ship was hulled and they died, and still they would wander forever—

"Pull your nose up,” came Dundonald's thought sharply. “Three degrees at least. What the hell, Mark! Pull it up. Now. Starboard ten degrees — forget the degrees. Keep turning until I tell you to stop. Good. Now keep her steady — there's some stuff ahead but we'll go under it. Steady—"

Harlow did as he was told, and presently he saw what he had not seen before — the misty brightness that was Dundonald's strange new being drawn thin as a filament and extending out of sight through the fabric of the ship. Harlow found time to be ashamed.

The utter dark went on, not quite forever. There was no thinning, no diffusion. Or perhaps they went through the fringe area so swiftly that none was apparent. One moment the screens were dead black and in the next moment the green sunblaze burst painfully upon their eyes and they were out of the cloud, back in the vast, dark walled bay of the Vorn. But their detour through the dark had now brought them out on the other side of the green star and its planet.

Dundonald's thought reached him, urgent. “Taggart expects you to come after him, straight in through the bay the way he came. He's got his ship cruising out in front of the planet to radar your approach."

"And we've got the planet between us and his ship, masking us,” Harlow said. “If we keep it between, we can land secretly."

"That's it, Harlow. But you've got to hurry! I'll guide you in."

Strange pilot for the strangest landing a man ever made, thought Harlow. Don't think about it, don't think about what Dundonald has become, play it as it comes, take her in.

He took her in. The Thetis hit the atmosphere and it was like plunging into a green well.

"I'm trying to land you as near Lurluun as I can,” said Dundonald. “But this planet rotates, and Lurluun is rolling toward the picketship out there, and you have to keep the curve of the planet hiding you."

The ship plunged downward, and now weird-colored forests rolled beneath them, vast deserts of greenish sand, mountains of black rock stained with verdigris like old copper, a strange, unearthly landscape under the light of the emerald sun that was setting as this side of the planet turned away from it.

A low black range rose ahead of them and Dundonald urged him toward it, and the Thetis went down on a long slant with the screeching roar of riven atmosphere about them. And Harlow, his hands tense on the controls, thought that he saw scattered cities fly past beneath them.

"All dead,” came Dundonald's thought. “More and more of the Vorn took to star-roving and fewer and fewer came back, until gradually the race here died out. And now hardly any of the Vorn are left in even this part of the galaxy. They've moved on and out."

An instant later he warned, "Drop her! This side of the ridge!"

They landed in a desert where a river had cut a deep fantastic gorge down through the sand and the layers of many-colored rock. The tawny waters ran toward the rocky ridge, and through a canyon Dundonald said, “Don't waste time on atmosphere-check, the air's breathable. I lived here for months, and the Vorn lived here for ages, and they were as human as us."

Harlow went to the intercom and gave an order. “Crack the lock. All hands out."

When they went outside, it was into air that was dry and warm and faintly metallic in smell. The green desert stretched around them, and the light of the viridescent sun struck brilliantly across it and painted the looming black rock of the ridge with poisonous colors. There was a silence, except for the murmur of the river in its gorge.

The men looked dumbly at each other and then at Harlow. And then, as a little dancing star of radiance flicked past them and bobbed close to Harlow, the tough Earth faces changed. Harlow had tried to explain but it was no use, all they knew was that the dancing star was supposed to have been human once and they did not like it, they were afraid and they showed it. All of them, and that included Kwolek and Garcia and Yrra too, kept looking at the floating radiance that had been Dundonald.

"Don't speak aloud to me, they're getting panicky,” came Dundonald's thought. “Think it strongly, and I'll get it."

"Which way to Lurluun?” thought Harlow.

"The way the river flows. But you can't follow the river, Harlow, the gorge is too deep. You'll have to go over the ridge."

"How many men has Taggart got there?"

"Fourteen,” Dundonald answered. “All heavily armed. Plus eight more out in his ship."

Harlow spoke aloud to Kwolek. “Serve out the sidearms."

The little stunners were duly handed out — purely defensive weapons to be used only to save the lives of personnel. They did not have an effective range of more than a few feet, and they did not carry a lethal charge — Star Survey was very tender of native feelings. The light feel of the thing in his hand did not give Harlow much confidence.

He said aloud to the men, “You know what Taggart did to us back at ML-441. Here's our chance to get back at him. He's over that ridge. We're going over and hit him."

"All of us, sir?” said Garcia. “Don't you want a guard left on the Thetis?"

Harlow shook his head. “Unless we overpower that bunch, we won't be coming back to the Thetis. We're twenty to their fourteen, but they've got weapons that make ours look like water-pistols."

Yrra's face flamed with eagerness in the fading green light. “Then I go with you too."

Harlow looked at her dubiously. “I suppose you have to. Stay close to me, and obey orders."

He turned toward the patch of radiance hovering in the air beside him, shining brighter now that the green sun was setting and the light lessening. He thought, “Dundonald, can you go ahead and find out where Taggart has his sentries posted in that city? I must know exactly before we go in."

"Yes. I can do that."

And then men of the Thetis flinched back as the radiance whirled and spun and then flashed away through the gathering twilight. A shining feather, a shooting star, an incredible will-of-the-wisp, darting toward-the looming black ridge and disappearing.

Harlow raised his voice. “We're moving out right now. Pick them up and keep them going."

And in a compact column they started across the sand, keeping a little away from the river-gorge. As the last rays of the green star lit the rock rampart ahead, Harley surveyed it dubiously. He thought he saw a way over it but was not yet sure.

Then he found that they were following an ancient roadway, one so drifted over by sand that he would have strayed from it had there not been stone markers along it. Back from the road rose dark, low, rambling structures that looked like scattered villas. The wind had piled the sand in drifts around them. And in the deepening twilight, there was no sound but the wind and the river. Nobody had lived in those villas for thousands of years.

Yrra, marching beside him, shivered. “It is evil,” she said. “Men were meant to live like men. Suppose everyone were to become like the Vorn? All the worlds of the galaxy would be like this."

It was a frightening thought. Harlow's mind leaped ahead, in imagination, to a time in the future when the human race might vanish utterly and only creatures like Dundonald would be left, immortal, sterile, building nothing, creating nothing, existing only for the thrill of pure knowledge, lovely bits of force and flame wandering forever through the reaches of space, universes without end.

Was that the ultimate goal of a race who went to space, their final evolution? Had the first rockets been only the first steps of an evolution that would take man and make something more than human and less than human of him?

He forced that eerie thought from his mind. They were nearing the ridge and he saw now that the ancient roadway climbed along its face in an easy grade.

"This way,” he called.

The darkness was becoming absolute. There were no stars in the sky, nothing but the blackness of the mighty Horsehead in which this world was embayed. The tiny flash of his pocket-light was drowned.

But as they climbed higher, Harlow thought that he saw a steady pulsing of light from the other side of the ridge. It grew stronger in the sky. They reached the crest of the ridge.

They stood and stared, all their faces bewildered and strange in the light that now struck upon them.

"What is it?” whispered Yrra. A few miles from them, on the other side of the ridge, a great column of opalescent light rose skyward. It was most intense at its base, fading as it ascended. It seethed and coruscated uncannily, yet it maintained itself and sent a strange glow out to touch everything around it.

By that glow, Harlow saw that the opalescent pillar rose from the center of a city. Dark roofs, walls, towers, quivered in the unearthly glow, and shadows clotted the ways between them. There was no other light at all in the silent place, and no visible movement.

"That's the city of the Vorn,” he said. “Lurluun. It's dead, all right."

"But the light?"

"I don't know—” Then Harlow broke off in relief as he saw a flying, shining star that came rushing up toward them. “Dundonald can tell us."

Dundonald had something to tell them, but it was not that. From that hovering star of radiance, his thoughts beat at Harlow frantically.

"It may be too late, Harlow. They've had a message from Frayne. Frayne's ship has entered the Horsehead and is coming on to this world right now!"