Читать книгу A Million Years to Conquer - Henry Kuttner - Страница 6

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Before man created gods, Ardath was. In his space ship, swinging silently around the world, he slept as the ages went past.

Sometimes he woke and searched, always in vain, for intelligent life in the land below. The road of evolution was long and bloody.

Dark weariness shrouded Ardath as he saw the vast, mindless, terrible behemoths of the oceans. Monsters wallowed into the swamps. The ground shook beneath the tread of tyrant lizards. Brontosaurs and pterodactyls lived and fed and died.

There were mammals—eohippus the fleet and three-toed, and a tiny marsupial in which the flame of intelligence glowed feebly. But the Titan reptiles ruled. Mammals could not survive in this savage, thundering world.

Forests of weeds and bamboo towered in a tropical zone that stretched almost to the poles. Ardath pondered, studied for a time in his laboratory—and the Ice Age came.

Was Ardath responsible? Perhaps. His science was not Earthly, and his powers were unimaginable. The ice mountains swept down, blowing their frigid breath upon the forests and the reptile giants.

Southward the hegira fled. It was the Day of Judgment for the idiot colossi that had ruled too long.

But the mammals survived. Shuddering in the narrow equatorial belt they starved and whimpered. But they lived, and they evolved, while Ardath slept again....

When he awoke, he found beast-men, hairy and ferocious. They dwelt in gregarious packs, ruled by an Old Man who had proved himself strongest of the band.

But always the chill winds of the icelands tore at them as they crouched in their caves.

Ardath found one, wiser than the rest, and taught him the use of fire. Then the alien man sent his ship arrowing up from Earth, while flames began to burn wanly before cave mouths. In grunts and sign language the story was told. Ages later, men would tell the tale of Prometheus, who stole fire from the very gods of heaven.

Folklore is filled with the legends of men who visited the gods—the Little People or the Sky-dwellers—and returned with strange powers. Arrows and spears, the smelting of ores, the sowing and reaping of grain. How many inventions could be traced to Ardath?

But at last Ardath slept for a longer time than ever before, and then he awoke.

Dark was the city. Flambeaux were as numerous as fireflies in the gloomy streets. The metropolis lay like a crouching beast on the shore, a vast conglomeration of stone, crude and colossal.

The ship of Ardath hung far above the city, unseen in the darkness of the night. Ardath himself was busy in his laboratory, working on a curiously constructed device that measured the frequency and strength of mentality. Thought created electrical energy, and Ardath's machine registered the power of that energy. Delicately he sent an invisible narrow-wave beam down into the city far beneath.

On a gage a needle crept up, halted, dipped, and mounted again. Ardath reset a dial. Intelligent beings dwelt on Earth now, but their intelligence was far inferior to Ardath's. He was searching for a higher level.

The needle was inactive as Ardath swept the city with his ray. Useless! The pointer did not even quiver. The mental giant Ardath sought was not here, though this was the greatest metropolis of the primeval world.

But suddenly the needle jerked slightly. Ardath halted the ray and turned to a television screen. Using the beam as a carrier, he focused upon a scene that sprang into instant visibility.

He saw a throne of black stone upon which a woman sat. Tall and majestic, an Amazon of forty or more, she had lean, rugged features, and wore plain garments of leather.

Guards flanked her, gigantic, stolid, armed with spears. Before the throne a man stood, and it was at this man that Ardath stared.

For months the Kyrian's ship had scoured the skies, searching jungles and deserts. Few cities existed. On the northern steppes, shaggy beast-men still dwelt in caves, fighting the mammoth. But the half-men and the hairy elephants were rapidly degenerating. In mountain lakes were villages built on stilts, and piers sunken into the mud, but these clans were barbarous. Only on this island were there civilization and intelligence, though lamentably lower than Ardath's own level.

The man from space watched the wisest human on this primitive Earth.

In chains the Earthman stood before the black stone throne. He was huge, massively thewed, with a bronzed, hairy skin showing through the rags he wore. His face resembled that of a beast, ferocious with hatred. Amber cat's-eyes glared from beneath the beetling brows. The jutting jaw was hidden by a wiry beard that tangled around the nose that was little more than a snout.

Yet in that brute body, Ardath knew, dwelt amazing intelligence. Shrewdness and cunning were well-masked by the hideous face and form.

What of the Queen? Curious to know, Ardath tested her with his ray. She, too, was more intelligent than most of the savages.

"These two are enemies," Ardath thought. "And I imagine that the man faces danger or death. Well, what is that to me? I cannot live in a time where all are barbarians. It is best that I sleep again."

Yet he hesitated, one hand resting lightly on the controls that would send the ship racing up into space. The barren loneliness of the void, the slow centuries of his dark vigil, crept with icy tentacles into his mind. He thought of the equally long, miserably lonely future.

"Suppose I sleep again and wake in a dead world? It could happen, for my own home planet was destroyed. How could I face another search through space? Theron and the rest had each other."

He turned back again to watch the two people on the screen.

"They are intelligent, after a fashion, and they would be companions. If I took them with me, and we woke in a lifeless time, they could bring forth a new race which I could train eugenically into the right pattern."

The decision was made. Ardath would sleep again in his ship—but this time not alone.

He glanced at the screen, and his eyes widened. A new factor had entered the problem. Hastily he turned to a complicated machine at his side....

As Thordred the Usurper stood before the throne of his queen, his savage face was immobile. Weaponless, fettered, he nevertheless glared with implacable fury at the woman who had spoiled his plans.

Zana met his gaze coldly. Her harsh features were darkly somber.

"Well?" she asked. "Have you anything to say to me?"

"Nothing," Thordred grunted. "I have failed. That is all."

The huge, almost empty throne room echoed his words eerily.

"Aye, you have failed," the queen said. "And there is but one fate for losers who revolt. You tried to force me from my throne, and instead you stand in chains before me. You have lost, so you must die."

Thordred's grin mocked her calm decision.

"And a woman continues to rule our land. Never in history has this shame been put upon us. Always we have been ruled by men—warriors!"

"You call me weakling?" Zana snarled at him. "By all the gods, you are rash, Thordred. You know well that I've never shirked battle, and that my sword has been swift to slay, I am strong as a man and more cunning than you."

"Yet you are a woman," Thordred taunted recklessly. "Kill me, if you wish, but you cannot deny your sex."

A shadow darkened Zana's face as she glared venomously at her mocker.

"Aye, I shall kill you," she said. "So slowly that you will beg for a merciful death. Then the vultures will pick your carcass clean on the Mountain of the Gods."

Thordred suddenly shouted with laughter.

"Save your words, wench. It is like a woman to threaten with words. A man's vengeance is with a spear, swift and sudden. I—"

He paused, and a curious light came into his amber eyes. His great body tensed as he listened.

In the distance, a tumult grew louder and louder, like the beating of the sea. Suddenly it was thundering through the throne room.

Zana, the Amazon, sprang to her feet, her lips parted in astonishment.

The vast doors at the end of the room burst inward. Through the portal poured a yelling mob.

"Thordred!" they roared. "Ho, Thordred!"

The giant grinned victoriously at Zana.

"Some are still faithful to me, it seems. They would rather see a man on the throne—"

A blistering curse burst from Zana's lips. She snatched a spear from a guard and savagely drove its point at the prisoner. But Thordred sprang aside, laughing, the muscles rolling effortlessly under his tawny skin.

He set his foot on the links of the chain that bound his wrists. His body arched like a bow. The metal snapped asunder, and Thordred the Usurper was free!

The guards near the throne leaped at him. He ducked under a swift spear at the same instant that his fist smashed a face into a bloody ruin. And then the mob surrounded him, lifted him, bore him back.

"Slay him!" Zana shrilled. "Slay him!"

The mob swept back, out of the hall, through the great doors and into the street.

But now Zana's cries brought a response. Armed soldiers rushed in through a dozen portals. They raced after the escaping prisoner, with Zana fearlessly leading them.

It was sunset. The western sky flamed blood-red. Down the street the crowd seethed, to halt in an open plaza. Grimly menacing, they turned at bay, Thordred at their head. He towered above the others with his chains dangling from his wrists and ankles.

Zana's men formed into a sizable army, filling the street from side to side. Arrows flew, hissing at the angry, triumphant mob. Over the city the low, thunderous muttering grew louder.

"Revolt! Revolt!"

It was civil war.

But the conflicting forces were not yet in contact. A space still lay between. Only spears and arrows had crossed it.

"Charge!" Zana shouted. "Slay them all!"

Grinning, Thordred raised high his lance and shook it defiantly.

The queen's soldiers drew erect, and like a thunder-cloud they began to move. Abruptly they were sweeping forward, irresistible, a tidal wave bristling with steel barbs. The pounding of their shod feet hammered loud on the stones. In the forefront raced Zana, her harsh face twisted with fury.

Thordred let fly his spear. It missed its mark. At the last moment the giant had hesitated, and his gaze went up to the western sky. His jaw dropped in awe. For the first time, Thordred was afraid. A scream rose, thin and wailing.

"Demons!" someone cried. "Demons!"

The soldiers slowed involuntarily in their charge, then one by one they halted. Struck motionless with fearful wonder, every man stood gaping toward the west.

Against the blood-red sunset loomed actual demons!

Giants, scores of feet tall, they were. Titans whose heads towered above the city's walls. A whole army of the monsters loomed black against the scarlet sky. These were not men! Shaggy, hump-shouldered, dreadful beings more human than apes but unmistakably beasts, they came thundering down upon the city. The frightful mask twisted in ferocious hunger. They swept forward.

No one noticed that their advance made not the slightest sound. Panic struck the mobs. Both sides dropped their weapons to flee.

From the sky a great, shining globe dropped. It hovered above the plaza. Two beams of light flashed down from it. One struck Thordred, bathing him in crawling radiance. The other caught Zana.

The man and the woman alike were held motionless. Frozen, paralyzed, they were swept up, lifted into the air. When they reached the huge globe, they seemed to disappear.

The sphere then rose, dwindled quickly to a speck and was gone.

Surprisingly the giants had also vanished....

Ardath adjusted the controls. Sighing, he turned away. The ship was back in its orbit, circling the Earth. It would not deviate from that course for centuries, until the moment Ardath's hand moved its controls.

He picked up a small metal box, stepped out of the laboratory and closed the panel. On the floor at his feet lay the unconscious forms of Zana and Thordred. Ardath set down the box.

This would be a new experiment, one that he had never tried. He could not speak the language of these Earthlings, nor could they speak his. But knowledge could be transmitted from one brain to another. Thought patterns were a form of energy, and that could be transferred, just as a matrix may stamp out duplicates.

First, the man. Ardath opened the black box, took out a circular metallic band and adjusted it about the sleeping Thordred's head. A similar band went about his own. He pressed a switch, felt a stinging, tingling sensation within his skull.

He removed the metal bands, replaced them, and waited patiently. Would the experiment work? His lips shaped unfamiliar syllables. He had learned Thordred's language—but could the undeveloped brain of the Earthling be equally receptive?

Thordred groaned and opened his eyes. He stared up at Ardath. Into those amber eyes came a curious look that might have been amazement, but which was certainly not fear.

"You are not hurt," Ardath said in Thordred's harsh, primitive language. "Nor will you be harmed."

The Earthling stood up with an effort, breathing hoarsely. He took an unsteady step, reeled, collapsed with a shattering crash upon the thought transference apparatus. He lay silent and unmoving, an utterly helpless strong man.

No expression showed on Ardath's face, though the work of weeks had been ruined. The device could be built again, though he did not know if it should be. Had it been successful?

Thordred shuddered, rolled over. Painfully he rose and leaned weakly against the wall. His amber eyes rested puzzledly on Ardath as he asked a question in the Kyrian's soft language, which grated from his crude throat.

"Who are you, a god or a demon?"

Ardath smiled with satisfaction, for all was going well. He must explain matters to this Earthling to calm his fears. Later, he would rebuild the machine and teach Zana his own tongue. Then the three could sleep, for centuries if necessary.

But Ardath did not know that his device had worked too well. It had transferred knowledge of his own language to Thordred's brain, yet it had transferred more than that. All of Ardath's memories had been transmitted to the mind of the Earthling!

At that moment, Thordred's wisdom was as great as that of his captor. Though he had not Ardath's potentiality for learning more, unearthly, amazing wisdom had been impressed on his brain cells. Thordred had smashed the machine, not through accident, but with coldly logical purpose. It would not do for Zana to acquire Ardath's wisdom also.

With an effort, Thordred kept an expression of stupid wonder on his face. He must play his role carefully. Ardath must not yet suspect that another man shared his secrets.

Ardath was speaking, carefully explaining things that his captive already knew. While Thordred seemed to listen, he swiftly pondered and discarded plans. Zana must die, of course. As for sleeping for centuries—well, it was not a pleasant thought. Ardath must be slain, so Thordred could return to Earth with new knowledge.

"The giants you saw in the sky," said Ardath, "were not real. They were three-dimensional projections, enlarged by my apparatus. I recorded the originals of those beings ages ago, when they actually lived and fought cave-bears and saber-toothed tigers."

No, they were merely images, but men had seen them and remembered. The panic in the city below had died. In its place grew superstitious dread, fostered by the priests. Time passed, and neither Zana nor Thordred returned. New rulers arose to sit upon the black throne.

But on the Mountain of the Gods, men toiled under the lash of the priests. Monstrous images of stone rose against the sky, gap-mouthed, fearsome images in crude similitude of the devils who had come out of the sunset.

"They may return," the priests warned. "But the stone giants on the mountain will frighten them away. Build them higher! They will guard our city."

On the peak the blind, alien faces glared ever into the sunset. And the days fled into years, and the dark centuries shrouded Earth. Continents crumbled. The eternal seas rose and washed new shores.

But the blind gods stayed to guard that which no longer needed guarding. And still they watch, those strange, alien statues on Easter Island.