Brood of the Dark Moon
It made soft echoings along rock walls that picked up every slightest
rustle, and Chet realized again how cautious his own advance must be.
It came toward him, soft, scuffing, followed the wall where he
stood ... and Chet felt that approaching presence almost upon him before
he stepped silently out and away.
And in the darkness that blotted out his sight he sensed with some inner
eye the passing ape-man with arms rigidly extended, while a wave of
thankfulness flooded him as he realized that in the dark the brute was
as blind as himself and that the terrible thing that had sent him could
see at a distance only with the ape-man's eyes.
Here was something definite to count on. As long as he remained silent,
as long as he kept himself hidden, he was safe.
The scuffling footsteps had gone to nothing in the distance when Chet
reached out for the wall and went swiftly, carefully, on. The messenger
had come this way; he could hurry now that he knew there was safe
footing in the dark.
The wall ended in a sharp corner; it formed a right angle, and the new
surface went on and away from him. Chet was debating whether he should
follow or should cast out into the darkness when his staring eyes found
the first touch of light.
* * * * *
It came from above, a wavering line that trembled to a flame which
seemed curiously cold. The line grew: a foot-wide band of light high up
on the wall, it thrust itself forward like a tendril of the horrible
plants he had seen. It grew on and wrapped itself about a great room,
while, behind it, cold flames flickered and leaped. And Chet, so
interested was he in the motion of this light that seemed almost alive,
realized only after some moments that the light was betraying him.
He glanced quickly about and found himself within a chamber of huge
proportions. Walls that only nature could form reared themselves high in
the putrescent air of the room; they curved into a ceiling, and from
that ceiling there hung a glittering array of gems.
Chet knew them for great stalactites, and, even as he cast about
desperately for some secluded nook, he marveled at the diamond
brilliance of the display. But on the smooth floor of stone, where
corresponding stalagmites must have been, were no traces of crystal
growths, from which he knew that though nature had formed the room some
other power had fitted it to its own use.
Chet's eyes were darting swift glances about. There was no single moving
thing, no sign of life; he was still undiscovered. But it could not last
long, this safety; he looked vainly for some niche where the light would
not strike so clearly, so betrayingly.
Across the great chamber was a platform fifteen feet above the floor.
Even at a distance Chet knew this was not a natural formation; he could
see where the stones had been cleverly fitted. And now his eyes,
accustomed to the light, saw that the platform was carpeted with hides
and strange furs. There were some that hung over the edge; they reached
almost to the upright block like a table or altar at the platform's
base. On this altar another great hide of thick leather was spread; it
dragged in places on the floor.
Bare floors, bare walls--no place where an intruder could remain
concealed! Suddenly from the lighted mouth of another passage he heard
sounds of many feet; the sounds of approaching feet.
* * * * *
The impulse that threw him across the room was born of desperation; he
raced frantically to cross the wide expanse before those feet brought
their owners within view, and he fought to keep his panting breath
inaudible while he tugged at the heavy leather altar covering, stiff and
thick as a board; while he forced his crouching body beneath and found
space there where he could move freely about.
It walled him in completely on the platform side where it hung to the
floor, but on the other three sides there were gaps near the floor where
the light shone in on two pedestals of stone that supported the stone
top.
Between the pedestals Chet crouched, hardly daring to look, hardly
daring to breathe, while feet, bare and black, tramped shufflingly past.
They went in groups--he lost count of their number but knew there were
hundreds; he heard them going to the platform above. And, through the
sound of the naked feet, came disjointed fragments of thought that
reached his brain, transformed to words.
Mere fragments at first: "... back; the Master goes first!... The
lights--how grateful is their coolness!... Who stumbled? Careless and
stupid ape! You, Bearer-captain, shall take him to the torture room; a
touch of fire will help his infirmity!"
And there was a cold rage that accompanied the last which set Chet's
tense nerves a-tingle. But there was no fear in the emotion; he was
quivering with a fierce, instinctive, animal hate.
The black feet retraced their steps. Then there was silence, and Chet
knew there was something above him on the platform; whether one or many
he could not tell until an interchange of thoughts reached him to show
there was at least more than one.
"A presence!" some unseen thing was thinking. "I sense a strange mental
force!"
* * * * *
A moment of panic gripped Chet at the threat of discovery. Then he
forced himself to relax; he tried to make his mind a blank; or if not
that, to think of anything but himself--of the jungle, the ape-men, of
the two comrades who had been captured.
"Patience!" another thinker was counseling. "It is the captives; they
draw near." And across the great room, from the same passage where he
had entered, Chet heard again the sound of bare, scuffing feet.
He could see them at last; he dared, to stop and peer along the floor.
Bare feet--black, hairy legs, and then came sounds of clumping leather
that brought Chet's heart into his throat, until, directly before the
altar that made his shelter, he saw the stained shoes and torn leggings
of Walt Harkness, and beside them, the little boots and jungle-stained
stockings that encased the slender legs of Mademoiselle Diane.
They were there before him, Walt and Diane; he would see them if he but
dared to look. And, from somewhere above, a confusion of thought
messages poured in upon him like the unintelligible medley of many
voices. Out of them came one, clearer, more commanding:
"Silence! Be still, all! Your Master speaks. I shall question the
captives."
And there came to Chet, crouched beneath the altar, hardly breathing,
listening, tense, a battering of questioning thoughts. He heard no
answer from Harkness and Diane, but he knew that their minds were open
pages to the one from whom those thought-waves issued.
"Where are you from?--what part of this globe?... Another world?
Impossible! This is our own world, Rajj. It is alone. There is no nearby
star."
And after a moment, when Harkness had silently answered, came other
thoughts:
"Strange! Strange! This creature of an inferior race says that our world
has joined hands with his; that his is greater; that our own world,
Rajj, is now a satellite of his world that he calls by the strange name
of 'Earth.'"
* * * * *
To Chet it seemed that this one mysterious thinker, this "Master" of an
unknown realm, was explaining his findings to other mysterious beings.
There followed a babel of released thoughts from which Chet got only a
confused impression of conflicting emotions: curiosity, rage, hate, and
a cold ferocity that bound them into one powerful, vindictive whole.
Again the leader quieted the rest; again he laid open the minds of Walt
and Diane for his exploring questions, while Chet mentally listened and
tried to picture what manner of thing this was that held two Earth-folk
helpless, that called them "creatures of an inferior race."
Super-men? No? Super-beasts, these must be. Chet was chilled with a
nameless horror as he sensed the cold deadliness and implacable hate in
the traces of emotion that clung and came to him with the thoughts. And
his imagination balked at trying to picture thinking creatures so
abominably vile as these thinkers must be.
The questions went on and on. Chet lost all sense of time. He had the
feeling that the two helpless prisoners were being mentally flayed. No
thought, no hidden emotion, but was stripped from them and displayed
before the mental gaze of these inhuman inquisitors. No physical torture
could have been more revolting.
And at list the ordeal was ended. Chet had forgotten Schwartzmann's men
until the "Master's" order recalled them to his mind. "Bring the other
captives!" the unspoken thought commanded.
* * * * *
Chet crouched low to see from under the hanging leather. Naked feet
shuffled aimlessly; they were raised and put down again in the same
position, until the dazed and hypnotized blacks received their orders
and drew Diane and Harkness to one side. Then other leather-shod feet
came into view as Max and his companions were brought forward.
But there was no more questioning. "Perhaps another day we shall amuse
ourselves with them," a thinker said. Chet, for the first time was
paying no attention.
A slit in the leather--it might bare been where a spear had entered to
slay a dinosaur in some earlier age--served now as a peep-hole from
which Chet saw two gray and lifeless faces that were expressionless as
stone. And, as if their bodies, too, were carved from granite, Diane and
Harkness stood motionless.
He saw the blacks, saw that all eyes were on the other prisoners. Only
Harkness and Diane stood with lowered gaze, staring stonily at the floor
where the leather hung. And through Chet's mind flashed a quick impulse
that set his nerves thrilling and quivering, though he checked the
emotion in an instant lest some other mind should sense it.
Those other minds were not contacting Walt and Diane now. Could he reach
them? Chet wondered. That they were conscious, that they knew with
horrible clearness every detail of what went on, Chet was certain: his
own brief experience that first night on the pyramid had taught him
that. And now if these two could see and comprehend what they saw: if
only he could send them a word--one flashing message of hope! His hands
were working swiftly at his belt.
The detonite pistol slipped silently from its sheath. And as silently he
placed it on the floor where the two were looking, then slid it
cautiously underneath the leather that just cleared the floor.
* * * * *
His eye was close to the narrow slit. Did a change of expression flash
for an instant across the face of Walt Harkness? Was it only
imagination, or was there the briefest flicker of life in the dead eyes
of Diane Delacouer? Chet could not be sure, but he dared to hope.
The "Master" was speaking. To Chet came a conviction that he must not
fail to hear these thoughts. He restored the pistol to his belt.
"And now the time has come," flashed the message. "One thousand times
has Rajj circled the sun since we put his light behind us and came down
to the dark place that had been prepared.
"One hundred others and myself; we were the peerless leaders of a
peerless race. To produce the marvelous mentality that made us what we
were, all the forces of evolution had been laboring for ages. We were
supreme, and for us there was nothing left; no further growth.
"Then, what said Vashta, the All-Wise One? That I and a hundred chosen
ones should descend into the dark, there to live until a new world was
ready for us, lest our great race of Krargh perish." Chet started at the
name. Krargh! It was the same word that Towahg had used.
The mental message went on: