The Godmen

CHAPTER VI

The sudden imminence of complete defeat had a curiously numbing effect upon Harlow. He had come a long way, they all had, and they were tired, and it seemed that they were too late and it had all been for nothing. And what was he doing so far from Earth, standing in the night of an alien world and looking across a dead, dark city at a pillar of glory while a floating radiance that had once been human whispered in his mind?

Then Harlow's momentary despair was swept away by good, strong rage. His anger had nothing to do with his mission, important as that was. It was ordinary human anger at being beaten, out-thought, bested, by someone cleverer than himself. He would not let Taggart get away with this!

"Then we've got to hit Taggart before Frayne's ship arrives,” he said.

He spoke aloud, so that Kwolek and the others could understand as well as Dundonald. He asked Dundonald, “Where are Taggart and his sentries?"

"You see that pillar of light, Harlow?"

"I see it. What is it?"

"It's the operative beam of the Converter. It's perpetual, undying. It springs from the mechanism of the Converter itself. Enter the base of the beam and its forces take the atoms of your body, the very electrons, and rearrange them so that you become like me — like the Vorn. But if, as a Vorn, you enter the upper part of the beam, it triggers the reverse process and the beam draws you down and re-arranges your electrons into solidity, into ordinary humanity, again."

"You can tell me how it works later — right now I've got to know about those sentries,” pressed Harlow.

"I'm trying to tell you,” thought Dundonald. “Up on the rim of the Converter itself are two guards with auto-rifles — in case I try to emerge. They also can cover every foot of the big plaza in which the Converter stands. Taggart and his men have their base in a large building on the south side of the plaza. They've got a communic there and their prisoners — my men and Brai — are locked up in a windowless room of the building."

"Taggart's awake?"

"Yes. He was talking by communic with his ship out there. Telling them to hit your ship with missiles the moment you show up, but not to mistake Frayne's ship for yours."

Harlow tried to think fast. This was a soldier's job and he was not a soldier, Star Survey didn't teach strategy. Nor was there time to evolve elaborate plans. He said, “We'll have to knock out the two outside sentries before we can hit Taggart, then. We'll see what the set-up is. Let's move."

They went forward on the double, down the descending roadway toward the dark city that brooded under the loom of the ridge. For light they had the opalescent rays of the great column of brilliance ahead.

Their hurrying feet shuffled the dust and sand of thousands of years’ drifting, and made echoes that whispered in the starless night. The echoes became louder when they came down into one of the wide streets that led straight away between low black buildings toward the vertical beam.

Fast and far had Earthmen come from their little world, thought Harlow. The swift snowballing of technical progress had made one breakthrough after another and now a score of’ Earthmen were hurrying through the night of an alien star-world toward something that could be the biggest breakthrough of all.

A deep shiver shook Harlow as he looked at the shining will-of-the-wisp gliding beside him, and then at the dark and silent buildings. Men had once lived here as men. Now they were all gone, dispersed as the radiant Vorn far across the galaxies, and had that breakthrough been good? He thought of a secret like that in the hands of ambitious men, and looked again at the gliding, dancing star beside him, and he quickened his pace.

They came to where the street debauched into the plaza. They kept close against the side of a building, and Harlow motioned his men to stay there in the shadow. He and Kwolek and Garcia with the flitting gleam of Dundonald, moved forward until they could peer out into the open space.

Plaza, park, shrine — what would you call it? Harlow wondered.

Whatever it had been called, this smoothly-paved space was vast. So vast that far away around its curving rim, a parked star-cruiser as large as his own looked small.

"My Starquest," murmured Dundonald's thought.

Harlow spared it only a glance. His eyes flew to the thing that dominated the plaza, the city, the whole planet.

The Converter. The ultimate triumph of an alien science, the machine that had made men into the Vorn.

It did not look like a machine. At the center of the great paved area there rose a massive, flat-topped cement pedestal. Whatever apparatus there was, whatever perpetual power-source of nuclear or other nature, was hidden inside that. A flight of steps on each side of it led up to the summit of the eminence.

From the center of this flat summit, the opalescent beam sprang upward into the night. At its base, the beam was a curdled, seething luminescence that was dazzling to the eyes, flinging quaking aurora-rays in a twitching brilliance all around the plaza. Higher up, the beam imperceptibly lessened in intensity until far up in the night it was only a vague shining. The Converter. The ultimate step in space travel, the gateway to the freedom of the cosmos.

"The guards — see!” rang Dundonald's thought, urgently.

With an effort, Harlow wrenched his mind from the hypnotic fascination of the beam. Now he saw the two men.

They stood on the unrailed ledge or balcony that surrounded the beam, and the beam itself was between them. Their backs were to the beam as they could not stand its brilliance for too long, but they looked alertly upward and around them every few moments. Each of them carried a heavy, old-fashioned auto-rifle, cradled for instant use.

"They watch in case I try to come back out through the beam,” thought Dundonald. “Always, two watch. And they can see the whole plaza."

"Where are Taggart and the others?” whispered Harlow.

"See there — away to your left, not far from the Starquest. That square building with the domed roof."

Harlow saw it. It was not hard to identify, for light shone out through the windows of that building and all the others were dark.

He dropped back a little to where Kwolek was looking ahead with wide, wondering eyes.

"You'll take all the men except Garcia and me,” he told Kwolek. “Circle around and approach that building from behind. Wait near its front door until Garcia and I have got the two sentries up there on the Converter. Then, when Taggart and the rest come out, jump them fast."

"Okay,” said Kwolek, but Yrra had pressed forward and now was asking Harlow anxiously, “What of Brai?"

"If we overpower Taggart and his bunch we can release the prisoners easily,” Harlow told her. “But that has to come first.” He added, “You're to stay right here where you are, Yrra. No arguments! All right, Kwolek, get them going."

Kwolek did. They made a considerable-looking little body of dark figures as they slipped away across the street and disappeared among the buildings. But Harlow thought of their little short-range stunners, and of Taggart's old-fashioned lethal rifles, and he did not feel too happy.

He and Garcia were left, with Dundonald hovering beside them and Yrra a little behind them. Her face was both scared and mutinous.

"Listen, Harlow,” came Dundonald's rapid thought. “You and Garcia will be seen and shot if you just barge out onto the plaza. Let me distract those two sentries first."

"You? How?"

"You'll see. Wait till they turn their backs toward you."

With that thought, Dundonald suddenly flashed away from them. Like a little shooting-star he sped out and upward across the plaza, toward the upper reaches of the towering beam.

Harlow, watching tensely with Garcia, saw the two sentries up on the rim of the Converter suddenly point upward and call to each other. They were looking up at the eery, shining star that was Dundonald, as it flitted high up around the beam. They had their rifles ready for instant use now, and they were facing the beam.

"They think Dundonald's going to come through the beam — they're getting set to shoot if he does!” muttered Harlow. “That gives us a chance — you take the farther guard, I'll take the nearest."

"Luck,” whispered Garcia, and went out across the plaza in a swift run, looking miraculously neat after all they had been through, his little stunner glistening in his hand.

Harlow was right after him, taking a slightly different course. The two guards up there still had their backs to him, facing toward the beam and looking tensely up at Dundonald's firefly circlings.

Harlow reached the base of the steps on his side of the Converter. They were wide steps, their cement worn by the wind and weather of thousands of years.

He went quietly up them, his stunner in his hand. He had to get close, the little shocker-gadget had almost no range. He hoped he would get close enough.

And how many other men have gone up these steps toward the beam of the Converter, never to return? How many men and women have left their humanity behind them here to break through into the wider cosmos?

He reached the top of the steps, and crouched a moment. The guard on this side of the Converter ledge was fifteen feet away, his back to Harlow.

Harlow waited, his eyes searching for the other guard part way around the beam. He and Garcia must make their play at the same time. But he could see the man only vaguely, through that brilliance. The beam sprang up from what seemed a transparent plate, twenty feet in diameter, and at this close distance it was utterly dazzling.

He was scared, and he was sweating, he wanted to jump forward and act but he mustn't compromise Garcia's chances, he had to wait…

He waited too long, and everything happened at once.

The other guard, partway around the beam, suddenly crumpled down onto the cement ledge. Garcia had come up close behind and had used his stunner.

Instantly, Harlow jumped forward toward his own man. But this guard had seen his comrade fall and he was whirling around, opening his mouth to shout.

He saw Harlow coming and threw up his rifle to fire. Harlow triggered the stunner. But he was running and he was not too used to weapons, and the invisible conical electric field of the stunner only brushed against the guard. The man staggered, but he did not fall.

Desperately, Harlow ran in. The stunner's charge was exhausted until it re-cycled, and he had to get in past that rifle. He hit the guard in the mouth as he started to yell an alarm, and then grabbed him.

"Harlow!” rang a wild thought in his mind. “No time now, Frayne's coming in—"

Harlow staggered, wrestling clumsily with the guard on the wide stone ledge, with the shining star that was Dundonald dancing in a frantic way close to him. The blood was roaring in his ears, and — No. The roaring was in the sky, it was getting louder and louder, a great dark bulk was sinking on plumes of flame toward the plaza.

Garcia reached him just as Harlow swung again and hit the guard's chin. The man collapsed and fell, his rifle clanging on the cement.

"Harlow! Run!"

The radiance that was Dundonald was whirling with wild urgency beside him yet, and Harlow heard his frantic thought. Had it been a voice he could not have heard, for the roar of the descending cruiser drowned everything.

Harlow cried, “Come through, Dundonald — through the beam!"

"Too late!” was the answering, agonized thought. “Look!"

The star-cruiser landed on the plaza, and instantly its lock opened. At the same moment over in front of the domed square building, shots rang out as Kwolek and the Thetis crew rushed Taggart's men, just emerging from the building.

Out of the newly-landed cruiser men came running. They had auto-rifles too, and Kwolek and the Thetis men were caught in a crossfire.

Harlow was starting to run for the steps when Garcia crumpled.

He caught him. The Mexican's neat tunic was drilled right through over the heart, and his face was lax and lifeless.

Bullets screamed off the cement beside Harlow and he turned and saw men from the cruiser — two — now three — of them, shooting at him.

Dundonald was a star beside him and the star was screaming in his mind.

"You can't run now! The beam, Harlow — it's that or death!"

The little battle was over and they had lost it, and Kwolek and the Thetis survivors were helplessly surrendering, and the rifles out there were leveled to rip through Harlow as he stood silhouetted against the blazing beam.

He had a choice, of dying right there or not dying.

He chose. He threw himself into the beam.