The Alien

A Gripping Novel of Discovery and Conquest in Interstellar Space

by Raymond F. Jones

A Complete ORIGINAL Book, UNABRIDGED

WORLD EDITIONS, Inc. 105 WEST 40th STREET NEW YORK 18, NEW YORK

Copyright 1951 by WORLD EDITIONS, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. THE GUINN CO., Inc. New York 14, N.Y.

[Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Just speculate for a moment on the enormous challenge to archeology when interplanetary flight is possible ... and relics are found of a race extinct for half a million years! A race, incidentally, that was scientifically so far in advance of ours that they held the secret of the restoration of life!

One member of that race can be brought back after 500,000 years of death....

That's the story told by this ORIGINAL book-length novel, which has never before been published! You can expect a muscle-tightening, sweat-producing, mind-prodding adventure in the future when you read it!

_Chapter One_

Out beyond the orbit of Mars the _Lavoisier_ wallowed cautiously through the asteroid fields. Aboard the laboratory ship few of the members of the permanent Smithson Asteroidal Expedition were aware that they were in motion. Living in the field one or two years at a time, there was little that they were conscious of except the half-million-year-old culture whose scattered fragments surrounded them on every side.

The only contact with Earth at the moment was the radio link by which Dr. Delmar Underwood was calling Dr. Illia Morov at Terrestrial Medical Central.

Illia's blonde, precisely coiffured hair was only faintly golden against, the stark white of her surgeons' gown, which she still wore when she answered. Her eyes widened with an expression of pleasure as her face came into focus on the screen and she recognized Underwood.

"Del! I thought you'd gone to sleep with the mummies out there. It's been over a month since you called. What's new?"

"Not much. Terry found some new evidence of Stroid III. Phyfe has a new scrap of metal with inscriptions, and they've found something that almost looks as if it might have been an electron tube five hundred thousand years ago. I'm working on that. Otherwise all is peaceful and it's wonderful!"

"Still the confirmed hermit?" Illia's eyes lost some of their banter, but none of their tenderness.

"There's more peace and contentment out here than I'd ever dreamed of finding. I want you to come out here, Illia. Come out for a month. If you don't want to stay and marry me, then you can go back and I won't say another word."

* * * * *

She shook her head in firm decision. "Earth needs its scientists desperately. Too many have run away already. They say the Venusian colonies are booming, but I told you a year ago that simply running away wouldn't work. I thought by now you would have found it out for yourself."

"And I told you a year ago," Underwood said flatly, "that the only possible choice of a sane man is escape."

"You can't escape your own culture, Del. Why, the expedition that provided the opportunity for you to become a hermit is dependent on Earth. If Congress should cut the Institute's funds, you'd be dropped right back where you were. You can't get away."

"There are always the Venusian colonies."

"You know it's impossible to exist there independent of Earth."

"I'm not talking about the science and technology. I'm talking about the social disintegration. Certainly a scientist doesn't need to take that with him when he's attempting to escape it."

"The culture is not to blame," said Illia earnestly, "and neither is humanity. You don't ridicule a child for his clumsiness when he is learning to walk."

"I hope the human race is past its childhood!"

"Relatively speaking, it isn't. Dreyer says we're only now emerging from the cave man stage, and that could properly be called mankind's infancy, I suppose. Dreyer calls it the 'head man' stage."

"I thought he was a semanticist."

"You'd know if you'd ever talked with him. He'll tear off every other word you utter and throw it back at you. His 'head man' designation is correct, all right. According to him, human beings in this stage need some leader or 'head man' stronger than themselves for guidance, assumption of responsibility, and blame, in case of failure of the group. These functions have never in the past been developed in the individual so that he could stand alone in control of his own ego. But it's coming--that's the whole import of Dreyer's work."

"And all this confusion and instability are supposed to have something to do with that?"

"It's been growing for decades. We've seen it reach a peak in our own lifetimes. The old fetishes have failed, the head men have been found to be hollow gods, and men's faith has turned to derision. Presidents, dictators, governors, and priests--they've all fallen from their high places and the masses of humanity will no longer believe in any of them."

* * * * *

"And _that_ is development of the race?"

"Yes, because out of it will come a people who have found in themselves the strength they used to find in the 'head men.' There will come a race in which the individual can accept the responsibility which he has always passed on to the 'head man,' the 'head man' is no longer necessary."

"And so--the ultimate anarchy."

"The 'head man' concept has, but first he has to find out that has nothing to do with government. With human beings capable of independent, constructive behavior, actual democracy will be possible for the first time in the world's history."

"If all this is to come about anyway, according to Dreyer, why not try to escape the insanity of the transition period?"

Illia Morov's eyes grew narrow in puzzlement as she looked at Underwood with utter incomprehension. "Doesn't it matter at all that the race is in one of the greatest crises of all history? Doesn't it matter that you have a skill that is of immense value in these times? It's peculiar that it is those of you in the physical sciences who are fleeing in the greatest numbers. The Venusian colonies must have a wonderful time with physicists trampling each other to get away from it all--and Earth almost barren of them. Do the physical sciences destroy every sense of social obligation?"

"You forget that I don't quite accept Dreyer's theories. To me this is nothing but a rotting structure that is finally collapsing from its own inner decay. I can't see anything positive evolving out of it."

"I suppose so. Well, it was nice of you to call, Del. I'm always glad to hear you. Don't wait so long next time."

"Illia--"

But she had cut the connection and the screen slowly faded into gray, leaving Underwood's argument unfinished. Irritably, he flipped the switch to the public news channels.

Where was he wrong? The past year, since he had joined the expedition as Chief Physicist, was like paradise compared with living in the unstable, irresponsible society existing on Earth. He knew it was a purely neurotic reaction, this desire to escape. But application of that label solved nothing, explained nothing--and carried no stigma. The neurotic reaction was the norm in a world so confused.

He turned as the news blared abruptly with its perpetual urgency that made him wonder how the commentators endured the endless flow of crises.

The President had been impeached again--the third one in six months.

There were no candidates for his office.

A church had been burned by its congregation.

Two mayors had been assassinated within hours of each other.

It was the same news he had heard six months ago. It would be the same again tomorrow and next month. The story of a planet repudiating all leadership. A lawlessness that was worse than anarchy, because there was still government--a government that could be driven and whipped by the insecurities of the populace that elected it.

Dreyer called it a futile search for a 'head man' by a people who would no longer trust any of their own kind to be 'head man.' And Underwood dared not trust that glib explanation.

Many others besides Underwood found they could no longer endure the instability of their own culture. Among these were many of the world's leading scientists. Most of them went to the jungle lands of Venus. The scientific limitations of such a frontier existence had kept Underwood from joining the Venusian colonies, but he'd been very close to going just before he got the offer of Chief Physicist with the Smithson Institute expedition in the asteroid fields. He wondered now what he'd have done if the offer hadn't come.

* * * * *

The interphone annunciator buzzed. Underwood turned off the news as the bored communications operator in the control room announced, "Doc Underwood. Call for Doc Underwood."

Underwood cut in. "Speaking," he said irritably.

The voice of Terry Bernard burst into the room. "Hey, Del! Are you going to get rid of that hangover and answer your phone or should we embalm the remains and ship 'em back?"

"Terry! You fool, what do you want? Why didn't you say it was you? I thought maybe it was that elephant-foot Maynes, with chunks of mica that he thought were prayer sticks."

"The Stroids didn't use prayer sticks."

"All right, skip it. What's new?"

"Plenty. Can you come over for a while? I think we've really got something here."

"It'd better be good. We're taking the ship to Phyfe. Where are you?"

"Asteroid C-428. It's about 2,000 miles from you. And bring all the hard-rock mining tools you've got. We can't get into this thing."

"Is _that_ all you want? Use your double coated drills."

"We wore five of them out. No scratches on the thing, even."

"Well, use the Atom Stream, then. It probably won't hurt the artifact."

"I'll say it won't. It won't even warm the thing up. Any other ideas?"

Underwood's mind, which had been half occupied with mulling over his personal problems while he talked with Terry, swung startledly to what the archeologist was saying. "You mean that you've found a material the Atom Stream won't touch? That's impossible! The equations of the Stream prove--"

"I know. _Now_ will you come over?"

"Why didn't you say so in the first place? I'll bring the whole ship."

* * * * *

Underwood cut off and switched to the Captain's line. "Captain Dawson? Underwood. Will you please take the ship to the vicinity of Asteroid C-428 as quickly as possible?"

"I thought Doctor Phyfe--"

"I'll answer for it. Please move the vessel."

Captain Dawson acceded. His instructions were to place the ship at Underwood's disposal.

Soundlessly and invisibly, the distortion fields leaped into space about the massive laboratory ship and the _Lavoisier_ moved effortlessly through the void. Its perfect inertia controls left no evidence of its motion apparent to the occupants with the exception of the navigators and pilots. The hundreds of delicate pieces of equipment in Underwood's laboratories remained as steadfast as if anchored to tons of steel and concrete deep beneath the surface of Earth.

Twenty minutes later they hove in sight of the small, black asteroid that glistened in the faint light of the faraway Sun. The spacesuited figures of Terry Bernard and his assistant, Batch Fagin, clung to the surface, moving about like flies on a blackened, frozen apple.

Underwood was already in the scooter lock, astride the little spacescooter which they used for transportation between ships of the expedition and between asteroids.

* * * * *

The pilot jockeyed the _Lavoisier_ as near as safely desirable, then signaled Underwood. The physicist pressed the control that opened the lock in the side of the vessel. The scooter shot out into space, bearing him astride it.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" Terry Bernard yelled into the intercom. He gave a wild cowboy yell that pierced Underwood's ears. "Watch out that thing doesn't turn turtle with you."

Underwood grinned to himself. He said, "Your attitude convinces me of a long held theory that archeology is no science. Anyway, if your story of a material impervious to the Atom Stream is wrong, you'd better get a good alibi. Phyfe had some work he wanted to do aboard today."

"Come and see for yourself. This is it."

As the scooter approached closer to the asteroid, Underwood could glimpse the strangeness of the thing. It looked as if it had been coated with the usual asteroid material of nickel iron debris, but Terry had cleared this away from more than half the surface.

The exposed half was a shining thing of ebony, whose planes and angles were machined with mathematical exactness. It looked as if there were at least a thousand individual facets on the one hemisphere alone.

At the sight of it, Underwood could almost understand the thrill of discovery that impelled these archeologists to delve in the mysteries of space for lost kingdoms and races. This object which Terry had discovered was a magnificent artifact. He wondered how long it had circled the Sun since the intelligence that formed it had died. He wished now that Terry had not used the Atom Stream, for that had probably destroyed the validity of the radium-lead relationship in the coating of debris that might otherwise indicate something of the age of the thing.

Terry sensed something of Underwood's awe in his silence as he approached. "What do you think of it, Del?"

"It's--beautiful," said Underwood. "Have you any clue to what it is?"

"Not a thing. No marks of any kind on it."

The scooter slowed as Del Underwood guided it near the surface of the asteroid. It touched gently and he unstrapped himself and stepped off. "Phyfe will forgive all your sins for this," he said. "Before you show me the Atom Stream is ineffective, let's break off a couple of tons of the coating and put it in the ship. We may be able to date the thing yet. Almost all these asteroids have a small amount of radioactivity somewhere in them. We can chip some from the opposite side where the Atom Stream would affect it least."

"Good idea," Terry agreed. "I should have thought of that, but when I first found the single outcropping of machined metal, I figured it was very small. After I found the Atom Stream wouldn't touch it, I was overanxious to undercover it. I didn't realize I'd have to burn away the whole surface of the asteroid."

"We may as well finish the job and get it completely uncovered. I'll have some of my men from the ship come on over."

It took the better part of an hour to chip and drill away samples to be used in a dating attempt. Then the intense fire of the Atom Stream was turned upon the remainder of the asteroid to clear it.

"We'd better be on the lookout for a soft spot." Terry suggested. "It's possible this thing isn't homogeneous, and Papa Phyfe would be very mad if we burned it up after making such a find."

* * * * *

From behind his heavy shield which protected him from the stray radiation formed by the Atom Stream, Delmar Underwood watched the biting fire cut between the gemlike artifact and the metallic alloys that coated it. The alloys cracked and fell away in large chunks, propelled by the explosions of matter as the intense heat vaporized the metal almost instantly.

The spell of the ancient and the unknown fell upon him and swept him up in the old mysteries and the unknown tongues. Trained in the precise methods of the physical sciences, he had long fought against the fascination of the immense puzzles which the archeologists were trying to solve, but no man could long escape. In the quiet, starlit blackness there rang the ancient memories of a planet vibrant with life, a planet of strange tongues and unknown songs--a planet that had died so violently that space was yet strewn with its remains--so violently that somewhere the echo of its death explosion must yet ring in the far vaults of space.

Underwood had always thought of archeologists as befogged antiquarians poking among ancient graves and rubbish heaps, but now he knew them for what they were--poets in search of mysteries. The Bible-quoting of Phyfe and the swearing of red-headed Terry Bernard were merely thin disguises for their poetic romanticism.

Underwood watched the white fire of the Atom Stream through the lead glass of the eye-protecting lenses. "I talked to Illia today," he said. "She says I've run away."

"Haven't you?" Terry asked.

"I wouldn't call it that."

"It doesn't make much difference what you call it. I once lived in an apartment underneath a French horn player who practised eight hours a day. I ran away. If the whole mess back on Earth is like a bunch of horn blowers tootling above your apartment, I say move, and why make any fuss about it? I'd probably join the boys on Venus myself if my job didn't keep me out here. Of course it's different with you. There's Illia to be convinced--along with your own conscience."

"She quotes Dreyer. He's one of your ideals, isn't he?"

"No better semanticist ever lived," Terry said flatly. "He takes the long view, which is that everything will come out in the wash. I agree with him, so why worry--knowing that the variants will iron themselves out, and nothing I can possibly do will be noticed or missed? Hence, I seldom worry about my obligations to mankind, as long as I stay reasonably law-abiding. Do likewise, Brother Del, and you'll live longer, or at least more happily."

* * * * *

Underwood grinned in the blinding glare of the Atom Stream. He wished life were as simple as Terry would have him believe. Maybe it would be, he thought--if it weren't for Illia.

As he moved his shield slowly forward behind the crumbling debris, Underwood's mind returned to the question of who created the structure beneath their feet, and to what alien purpose. Its black, impenetrable surfaces spoke of excellent mechanical skill, and a high science that could create a material refractory to the Atom Stream. Who, a half million years ago, could have created it?

The ancient pseudo-scientific Bode's Law had indicated a missing planet which could easily have fitted into the Solar System in the vicinity of the asteroid belt. But Bode's Law had never been accepted by astronomers--until interstellar archeology discovered the artifacts of a civilization on many of the asteroids.

The monumental task of exploration had been undertaken more than a generation ago by the Smithson Institute. Though always handicapped by shortage of funds, they had managed to keep at least one ship in the field as a permanent expedition.

Dr. Phyfe, leader of the present group, was probably the greatest student of asteroidal archeology in the System. The younger archeologists labeled him benevolently Papa Phyfe, in spite of the irascible temper which came, perhaps, from constantly switching his mind from half a million years ago to the present.

In their use of semantic correlations, Underwood was discovering, the archeologists were far ahead of the physical scientists, for they had an immensely greater task in deducing the mental concepts of alien races from a few scraps of machinery and art.

Of all the archeologists he had met, Underwood had taken the greatest liking to Terry Bernard. An extremely competent semanticist and archeologist, Terry nevertheless did not take himself too seriously. He did not even mind Underwood's constant assertion that archeology was no science. He maintained that it was fun, and that was all that was necessary.

At last, the two groups approached each other from opposite sides of the asteroid and joined forces in shearing off the last of the debris. As they shut off the fearful Atom Streams, the scientists turned to look back at the thing they had cleared.

* * * * *

Terry said quietly, "See why I'm an archeologist?"

"I think I do--almost," Underwood answered.

The gemlike structure beneath their feet glistened like polished ebony. It caught the distant stars in its thousand facets and cast them until it gleamed as if with infinite lights of its own.

The workmen, too, were caught in its spell, for they stood silently contemplating the mystery of a people who had created such beauty.

The spell was broken at last by a movement across the heavens. Underwood glanced up. "Papa Phyfe's coming on the warpath. I'll bet he's ready to trim my ears for taking the lab ship without his consent."

"You're boss of the lab ship, aren't you?" said Terry.

"It's a rather flexible arrangement--in Phyfe's mind, at least. I'm boss until he decides he wants to do something."

The headquarters ship slowed to a halt and the lock opened, emitting the fiery burst of a motor scooter which Doc Phyfe rode with angry abandon.

"You, Underwood!" His voice came harshly through the phones. "I demand an explanation of--"

That was as far as he got, for he glimpsed the thing upon which the men were standing, and from his vantage point it looked all the more like a black jewel in the sky. He became instantly once more the eager archeologist instead of expedition administrator, a role he filled with irritation.

"What have you got there?" he whispered.

Terry answered. "We don't know. I asked Dr. Underwood's assistance in uncovering the artifact. If it caused you any difficulty, I'm sorry; it's my fault."

* * * * *

"Pah!" said Phyfe. "A thing like this is of utmost importance. You should have notified me immediately."

Terry and Underwood grinned at each other. Phyfe reprimanded every archeologist on the expedition for not notifying him immediately whenever anything from the smallest machined fragment of metal to the greatest stone monuments were found. If they had obeyed, he would have done nothing but travel from asteroid to asteroid over hundreds of thousands of miles of space.

"You were busy with your own work," said Terry.

But Phyfe had landed, and as he dismounted from the scooter, he stood in awe. Terry, standing close to him, thought he saw tears in the old man's eyes through the helmet of the spaceship.

"It's beautiful!" murmured Phyfe in worshipping awe. "Wonderful. The most magnificent find in a century of asteroidal archeology. We must make arrangements for its transfer to Earth at once."

"If I may make a suggestion," said Terry, "you recall that some of the artifacts have not survived so well. Decay in many instances has set in--"

"Are you trying to tell me that this thing can decay?" Phyfe's little gray Van Dyke trembled violently.

"I'm thinking of the thermal transfer. Doctor Underwood is better able to discuss that, but I should think that a mass of this kind, which is at absolute zero, might undergo unusual stresses in coming to Earth normal temperatures. True, we used the Atom Stream on it, but that heat did not penetrate enough to set up great internal stresses."

Phyfe looked hesitant and turned to Underwood. "What is your opinion?"

Underwood didn't get it until he caught Terry's wink behind Phyfe's back. Once it left space and went into the museum laboratory, Terry might never get to work on the thing again. That was the perpetual gripe of the field men.

"I think Doctor Bernard has a good point," said Underwood. "I would advise leaving the artifact here in space until a thorough examination has been made. After all, we have every facility aboard the _Lavoisier_ that is available on Earth."

"Very well," said Phyfe. "You may proceed in charge of the physical examination of the find, Doctor Underwood. You, Doctor Bernard, will be in charge of proceedings from an archeological standpoint. Will that be satisfactory to everyone concerned?"

It was far more than Terry had expected.

"I will be on constant call," said Phyfe. "Let me know immediately of any developments." Then the uncertain mask of the executive fell away from the face of the little old scientist and he regarded the find with humility and awe. "It's beautiful," he murmured again, "_beautiful_."

_Chapter Two_

Phyfe remained near the site as Underwood and Terry set their crew to the routine task of weighing, measuring, and photographing the object, while Underwood considered what else to do.

"You know, this thing has got me stymied, Terry. Since it can't be touched by an Atom Stream, that means there isn't a single analytical procedure to which it will respond--that I know of, anyway. Does your knowledge of the Stroids and their ways of doing things suggest any identification of it?"

Terry shook his head as he stood by the port of the laboratory ship watching the crews at work outside. "Not a thing, but that's no criterion. We know so little about the Stroids that almost everything we find has a function we never heard of before. And of course we've found many objects with totally unknown functions. I've been thinking--what if this should turn out to be merely a natural gem from the interior of the planet, maybe formed at the time of its destruction, but at least an entirely natural object rather than an artifact?"

"It would be the largest crystal formation ever encountered, and the most perfect. I'd say the chances of its natural formation are negligible."

"But maybe this is the one in a hundred billion billion or whatever number chance it may be."

"If so, its value ought to be enough to balance the Terrestrial budget. I'm still convinced that it must be an artifact, though its material and use are beyond me. We can start with a radiation analysis. Perhaps it will respond in some way that will give us a clue."

When the crew had finished the routine check, Underwood directed his men to set up the various types of radiation equipment contained within the ship. It was possible to generate radiation through almost the complete spectrum from single cycle sound waves to hard cosmic rays.

The work was arduous and detailed. Each radiator was slowly driven through its range, then removed and higher frequency equipment used. At each fraction of an octave, the object was carefully photographed to record its response.

After watching the work for two days, Terry wearied of the seemingly non-productive labor. "I suppose you know what you're doing, Del," he said. "But is it getting you anywhere at all?"

Underwood shook his head. "Here's the batch of photographs. You'll probably want them to illustrate your report. The surfaces of the object are mathematically exact to a thousandth of a millimeter. Believe me, that's some tolerance on an object of this size. The surfaces are of number fifteen smoothness, which means they are plane within a hundred-thousandth of a millimeter. The implications are obvious. The builders who constructed that were mechanical geniuses."

* * * * *

"Did you get any radioactive dating?"

"Rather doubtfully, but the indications are around half a million years."

"That checks with what we know about the Stroids."

"It would appear that their culture is about on a par with our own."

"Personally, I think they were ahead of us," said Terry. "And do you see what that means to us archeologists? It's the first time in the history of the science that we've had to deal with the remains of a civilization either equal or superior to our own. The problems are multiplied a thousand times when you try to take a step up instead of a step down."

"Any idea of what the Stroids looked like?"

"We haven't found any bodies, skeletons, or even pictures, but we think they were at least roughly anthropomorphic. They were farther from the Sun than we, but it was younger then and probably gave them about the same amount of heat. Their planet was larger and the Stroids appear to have been somewhat larger as individuals than we, judging from the artifacts we've discovered. But they seem to have had a suitable atmosphere of oxygen diluted with appropriate inert gases."

* * * * *

They were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a laboratory technician who brought in a dry photographic print still warm from the developing box.

He laid it on the desk before Underwood. "I thought you might be interested in this."

Underwood and Terry glanced at it. The picture was of the huge, gemlike artifact, but a number of the facets seemed to be covered with intricate markings of short, wavy lines.

Underwood stared closer at the thing. "What the devil are those? We took pictures of every facet previously and there was nothing like this. Get me an enlargement of these."

"I already have." The assistant laid another photo on the desk, showing the pattern of markings as if at close range. They were clearly discernible now.

"What do you make of it?" asked Underwood.

"I'd say it looked like writing," Terry said. "But it's not like any of the other Stroid characters I've seen--which doesn't mean much, of course, because there could be thousands that I've never seen. Only how come these characters are there now, and we never noticed them before?"

"Let's go out and have a look," said Underwood. He grasped the photograph and noted the numbers of the facets on which the characters appeared.

In a few moments the two men were speeding toward the surface of their discovery astride scooters. They jockeyed above the facets shown on the photographs, and stared in vain.

"Something's the matter," said Terry. "I don't see anything here."

"Let's go all the way around on the scooters. Those guys may have bungled the job of numbering the photos."

They began a slow circuit, making certain they glimpsed all the facets from a height of only ten feet.

"It's not here," Underwood agreed at last. "Let's talk to the crew that took the shots."

They headed towards the equipment platform, floating in free space, from which Mason, one of the Senior Physicists, was directing operations. Mason signaled for the radiations to be cut off as the men approached.

"Find any clues, Chief?" he asked Underwood. "We've done our best to fry this apple, but nothing happens."

"Something _did_ happen. Did you see it?" Underwood extended the photograph with the mechanical fingers of the spacesuit. Mason held it in a light and stared at it. "We didn't see a thing like that. And we couldn't have missed it." He turned to the members of the crew. "Anyone see this writing on the thing?"

They looked at the picture and shook their heads.

"What were you shooting on it at the time?"

Mason glanced at his records. "About a hundred and fifty angstroms."

"So there must be something that becomes visible only in a field of radiation of about that wave length," said Underwood. "Keep going and see if anything else turns up, or if this proves to be permanent after exposure to that frequency."

Back in the laboratory, they sat down at the desk and went through the file of hundreds of photographs that were now pouring out of the darkroom.

"Not a thing except that one," said Terry. "It looks like a message intended only for someone who knew what frequency would make it visible."

* * * * *

Underwood shook his head. "That sounds a little too melodramatic for me. Yet it is possible that this thing is some kind of repository, and we've found the key to it. But what a key! It looks as if we've got to decipher the language of the Stroids in order to use the key."

"The best men in the field have been trying to do that for only about seventy-five years. If that's what it takes, we may as well quit right now."

"You said that this was nothing like any other Stroid characters that you had seen. Maybe this belongs to a different cultural stratum. It might prove easier to crack. Who's the best man in the field on this stuff?"

"Dreyer at the semantics lab. He won't touch it any more. He says he's wasted fifteen years of his life on the Stroid inscriptions."

"I'll bet he will tackle this, if it's as new as you think it is. I've seen some of those antiquarians before. We'll get Phyfe to transmit some copies of this to him. Who's the next best man?"

"Probably Phyfe himself."

"It won't be hard to get him started on it, I'll bet."

It wasn't. The old scientist was ecstatic over the discovery of the inscriptions upon the huge gem. He took copies of the pictures into his study and spent two full days comparing them with the known records.

"It's an entirely new set of characters," he said after completing the preliminary examination. "We already have three sets of characters that seem to be in no way related. This is the fourth."

"You sent copies to Dreyer?"

"Only because you requested it. Dreyer admitted long ago that he was licked."

* * * * *

During the week of Phyfe's study, the work of radiation analysis had been completed. It proved completely negative with the single exception of the 150 A. radiation which rendered visible the characters on the gem. No secondary effects of any significance whatever had been noted. The material reflected almost completely nearly every frequency imposed upon it.

Thus, Underwood found himself again at the end of his resources. It was impossible to analyze material that refused to react, which was refractive to every force applied.

Underwood told Terry at the conclusion of a series of chemical tests, "If you want to keep that thing out here any longer, I'm afraid you've got to think of some more effective way of examining it than I have been able to do. From a physical standpoint this artifact is in about the same position as the language of the Stroids had been semantically--completely intractable."

"I'm not afraid of its being sent back to the museum now. Papa Phyfe's got his teeth into it and he won't let go until he cracks the key to this lingo."

Underwood didn't believe that it would ever be solved, unless by some lucky chance they came upon a sort of Rosetta Stone which would bridge the gap between the human mind and that of the alien Stroids. Even if the Stroids were somewhat anthropomorphic in makeup as the archeologists believed, there was no indication that their minds would not be so utterly alien that no bridge would even be possible.

Underwood felt seriously inclined to abandon the problem. While completely fascinating, it was hardly more soluble than was the problem of the composition of the stars in the days before the spectroscope was invented. Neither the archeologists, the semanticists, nor the physicists yet had the tools to crack the problem of the Stroids. Until the tools became available, the problem would simply have to go by the boards. The only exception was the remote possibility of a deliberate clue left by the Stroids themselves, but Underwood did not believe in miracles.

His final conviction came when word came back from Dreyer, who said, "Congratulations, Phyfe," and returned the copies of the Stroid characters with a short note.

"Well, that does it," said Underwood.

Phyfe was dismayed by Dreyer's reply. "The man's simply trying to uphold a decaying reputation by claiming the problem can't be solved. Send it to the museum and let them begin work on it. I'll give it my entire time. You will help me, if you will, Doctor Bernard."

* * * * *

Terry himself was becoming somewhat dismayed by the magnitude of the mystery they had uncovered. He knew Phyfe's bulldog tenacity when he tackled something and he didn't want to be tied to semantics for the rest of the term of the expedition.

Underwood, however, had become immersed in X-ray work, attempting to determine the molecular structure of the artifact from a crystallographic standpoint, to find out if it could be found it might be possible to disrupt the pattern.

After he had been at it for about a week, Terry came into the lab in a disgruntled mood at the completion of a work period.

"You look as if Papa gave you a spanking," said Underwood. "Why the downcast mood?"

"I think I'll resign and go back to the museum. It's useless to work on this puzzle any longer."

"How do you know?"

"Because it doesn't follow the laws of semantics with respect to language."

"Maybe the laws need changing."

"You know better than that. Look, you are as familiar with Carnovan's law as I am. It states that in any language there is bound to be a certain constant frequency of semantic conceptions. It's like the old frequency laws that used to be used in cryptographic analysis except a thousand times more complex. Anyway, we've made thousands of substitutions into Carnovan's frequency scale and nothing comes out. Not a thing. No concept of ego, identity, perfection, retrogression, or intercourse shows up. The only thing that registers in the slightest degree is the concept of motion, but it doesn't yield a single key word. It's almost as if it weren't even a language."

"Maybe it isn't."

"What else could it be?"

"Well, maybe this thing we've found is a monument of some kind and the inscriptions are ritualistic tributes to dead heroes or something. Maybe there's no trick at all about the radiation business. Maybe they used that frequency for common illumination and the inscription was arranged to show up just at night. The trouble with you strict semanticists is that you don't use any imagination."

"Like to try a hand at a few sessions with Papa Phyfe?"

"No, thanks, but I do think there are other possibilities that you are overlooking. I make no claim to being anything but a strictly ham semanticist, but suppose, for example, that the inscriptions are not language at all in the common sense."

"They must represent transfer of thought in some form."

"True, but look at the varied forms of thought. You are bound down to the conception of language held as far back as Korzybski. At least to the conception held by those who didn't fully understand Korzybski. You haven't considered the concept of music. It's a very real possibility, but one which would remain meaningless without the instrument. Consider also--Wait a minute, Terry! We've all been a bunch of thoroughbred dopes!"

"What is it?"

"Look at the geometrical and mechanical perfection of the artifact. That implies mathematical knowledge of a high order. The inscriptions could be mathematical measurements of some kind. That would explain the breakdown of Carnovan's principles. They don't apply to math."

"But what kind of math would be inscribed on a thing like that?"

"Who knows? We can give it a try."

* * * * *

It was the beginning of their sleeping period, but Terry was fired with Underwood's sudden enthusiasm. He brought in a complete copy of all the inscriptions found upon the facets of the black gem. Underwood placed them on a large table in continuous order as they appeared around the circumference.

"It's mud to me," said Terry. "I'm the world's worst mathematician."

"Look!" exclaimed Underwood. "Here's the beginning of it." He suddenly moved some of the sheets so that one previously in the middle formed the beginning of the sequence. "What does it look like to you?"

"I've seen that until I dream of it. It's one Phyfe tried to make the most of in his frequency determinations. It looks like nothing more than some widgets alongside a triangle."

"That's exactly what it is, and no wonder Phyfe found it had a high frequency. That is nothing more nor less than an explanation of the Stroid concept of the differential. This widget over here must be the sign of the derivative corresponding to our dy/dx."

Hastily, Underwood scrawled some symbols on a scratch pad, using combinations of "x"s and "y"s and the strange, unknown symbols of the Stroids.

"It checks. They're showing us how to differentiate! Not only that, we have the key to their numerical system in the exponentials, because they've given us the differentiation of a whole series of power expressions here. Now, somewhere we ought to find an integral expression which we could check back with differentiation. Here it is!"

* * * * *

Terry, left behind now, went to the galley and brewed a steaming pot of coffee and brought it back. He found Underwood staring unseeingly ahead of him into the dark, empty corners of the lab.

"What is it?" Terry exclaimed. "What have you found?"

"I'm not sure. Do you know what the end product of all this math is?"

"What?"

"A set of wave equations, but such wave equations as any physicist would be thought crazy to dream up. Yet, in light of some new manipulations introduced by the Stroids, they seem feasible."

"What can we do with them?"

"We can build a generator and see what kind of stuff comes out of it when we operate it according to this math. The Stroids obviously intended that someone find this and learn to produce the radiation described. For what purpose we can only guess--but we might find out."

"Do we have enough equipment aboard to build such a generator?"

"I think so. We could cannibalize enough from equipment we already have on hand. Let's try it."

Terry hesitated. "I'm not quite sure, but--well, this stuff comes about as near as anything I ever saw to giving me what is commonly known as the creeps. Somehow these Stroids seem too--too _anxious_. That sounds crazy, I know, but there's such alienness here."

"Nuts. Let's build their generator and see what they're trying to tell us."

_Chapter Three_

Phyfe was exuberant. He not only gave permission to construct the generator, he demanded that all work aboard the lab ship give priority to the new project.

The design of the machine was no easy task, for Underwood was a physicist and not an engineer. However, he had two men, Moody and Hansen, in his staff who were first rate engineers. On them fell the chief burden of design after Underwood worked out the rough specifications.

One of the main laboratories with nearly ten thousand square feet of floor space was cleared for the project. As the specifications flowed from Underwood's desk, they passed over to Moody and Hansen, and from there out to the lab where the mass of equipment was gathered from all parts of the fleet.

An atomic power supply sufficient to give the large amount of energy required by the generator was obtained by robbing the headquarters ship of its auxiliary supply. Converter units were available in the _Lavoisier_ itself, but the main radiator tubes had to be cannibalized from the 150 A equipment aboard.

Slowly the mass of improvised equipment grew. It would have been a difficult task on Earth with all facilities available for such a project, but with these makeshift arrangements it was a miracle that the generator continued to develop. A score of times Underwood had to make compromises that he hoped would not alter the characteristics of the wave which, two weeks before, he would have declared impossible to generate.

When the equipment was completed and ready for a trial check, the huge lab was a mass of hay-wiring into which no one but Moody and Hansen dared go.

The completion was an anti-climax. The great project that had almost halted all other field work was finished--and no one knew what to expect when Hansen threw the switch that fed power from the converters into the giant tubes.

As a matter of fact, nothing happened. Only the faint whine of the converters and the swinging needles of meters strung all over the room showed that the beam was in operation.

On the nose of the _Lavoisier_ was the great, ungainly radiator a hundred feet in diameter, which was spraying the unknown depths of space with the newly created power.

Underwood and Terry were outside the ship, behind the huge radiator, with a mass of equipment designed to observe the effects of the beam.

In space it was totally invisible, creating no detectable field. It seemed as inactive as a beam of ultraviolet piercing the starlit darkness.

* * * * *

Underwood picked up the interphone that connected them with the interior of the ship. "Swing around, please, Captain Dawson. Let the beam rotate through a one hundred and eighty degree arc."

The Captain ordered the ship around and the great _Lavoisier_ swung on its own axis--but not in the direction Underwood had had in mind. He failed to indicate the direction, and Dawson had assumed it didn't matter.

Ponderously, the great radiator swung about before Underwood could shout a warning. And the beam came directly in line with the mysterious gem of the universe which they had found in the heart of the asteroid.

At once, the heavens were filled with intolerable light. Terry and Underwood flung themselves down upon the hull of the ship and the physicist screamed into the phones for Dawson to swing the other way.

But his warnings were in vain, for those within the ship were blinded by the great flare of light that penetrated even the protective ports of the ship. Irresistibly, the _Lavoisier_ continued to swing, spraying the great gem with its mysterious radiation.

Then it was past and the beam cut into space once more.

On top of the ship, Underwood and Terry found their sight slowly returning. They had been saved the full blast of the light from the gem by the curve of the ship's hull which cut it off.

Underwood stumbled to his feet, followed by Terry. The two men stood in open-mouthed un-belief at the vision that met their eyes. Where the gem had drifted in space, there was now a blistered, boiling mass of amorphous matter that surged and steamed in the void. All semblance to the glistening, faceted, ebon gem was gone as the repulsive mass heaved within itself.

"It's destroyed!" Terry exclaimed hoarsely. "The greatest archeological find of all time and we destroy it before we find out anything about it--"

"Shut up!" Underwood commanded harshly. He tried to concentrate on the happenings before him, but he could find no meaning in it. He bemoaned the fact that he had no camera, and only prayed that someone inside would have the wit to turn one on.

As the ship continued its slow swing like a senseless animal, the pulsing of the amorphous mass that had been the jewel slowly ceased. And out of the gray murkiness of it came a new quality. It began to regain rigidity--and transparency!

* * * * *

Underwood gasped. At the boundary lines of the facets, heavy ribs showed the tremendously reinforced structure that formed the skeleton. And each cell between the ribs was filled with thick substance that partially revealed the unknown world within.

But more than that, between one set of ribs he glimpsed what he was sure was an emptiness, a doorway to the interior!

"Come on," he called to Terry. "Look at that opening!"

They leaped astride the scooters clamped to the surface of the lab ship and sped into space between the two objects. It required only an instant to confirm his first hasty glimpse.

They navigated the scooters close to the opening and clamped them to the surface. For a moment, Underwood thought the gem might be some strange ship from far out of the Universe, for it seemed filled with mechanism of undescribable characteristics and unknown purposes. It was so filled that it was impossible to see very far into the interior even with the help of the powerful lamps on the scooters.

"The beam was the key to get into the thing," said Terry. "It was intended all along that the beam be turned on it. The beam had to be connected with the gem in some way."

"And what a way!"

The triangular opening was large enough to admit a man. Underwood and Terry knelt at the edge of it, peering down, flashing their lights about the revealed interior. The opening seemed to drop into the center of a small room that was bare.

"Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," quoted Terry. "I don't see anything down there, do you?"

"No. Why the spider recitation?"

"I don't know. Everything is too pat. I feel as if someone is watching behind us, practically breathing down our necks and urging us on the way he wants us to go. And when we get there we aren't going to like it."

"I suppose that is strictly a scientific hunch which we ignorant physicists wouldn't understand."

But Terry was serious. The whole aspect of the Stroid device was unnerving in the way it led along from step to step, as if unseen powers were guiding them, rather than using their own initiative in their work.

Underwood gave a final grunt and dropped into the hole, flashing his light rapidly about. Terry followed immediately. They found themselves in the center of a circular room twenty feet in diameter. The walls and the floor seemed to be of the same ebony-black material that had composed the outer shell of the gem before its transmutation.

* * * * *

The walls were literally covered from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling with inscriptions that glowed faintly in the darkness when the flashlights were not turned on them.

"Recognize any of this stuff?" asked Underwood.

"Stroid III," said Terry in awe. "The most beautiful collection of engravings that have ever been found. We've never obtained a consecutive piece even a fraction this size before. Dreyer has got to come now."

"I've got a hunch about this," said Underwood slowly. "I don't know a thing about the procedures used in deciphering an unknown lingo, but I'll bet you find that this is an instruction primer to their language, just as the inscriptions outside gave the key to their math before detailing the wave equations."

"You might be right!" Terry's eyes glowed with enthusiasm as he looked about the polished walls with the faintly glowing characters inlaid in them. "If that's the case, Papa Phyfe and I ought to be able to do the job without Dreyer."

They returned to the ship for photographic equipment and to report their finding to Phyfe. It was a little difficult for him to adjust to the view that something had been gained in the transformation of the gem. The sight of that boiling, amorphous mass in space had been to him like helplessly standing on the bank of a stream and watching a loved one drown.

But with Terry's report on the characters in Stroid III which lined the walls of the antechamber which they had penetrated, he was ready to admit that their position had improved.

Underwood was merely a by-stander as they returned to the gem. Two photographers, Carson and Enright, accompanied them along with Nichols, assistant semanticist.

Underwood stood by, in the depths of speculation, as the photographers set up their equipment and Phyfe bent down to examine the characters at close range.

Terry continued to be dogged by the feeling that they were being led by the nose into something that would end unpleasantly. He didn't know why, except that the fact of immense and meticulous preparation was evidenced on all sides. It was the reason for that preparation which made him wonder.

* * * * *

Phyfe said to Underwood, "Doctor Bernard tells me your opinion is that this room is a key to Stroid III. You may be right, but I fail to find any indication of it at present. What gives you that idea?"

"The whole setup," said Underwood. "First, there was the impenetrable shell. Nothing like it exists in Solarian culture today. Then there was the means by which we were able to read the inscriptions on the outside. Obviously, if heat and fission reactions as well as chemical reactions could not touch the stuff, the only remaining means of analysis was radiative. And the only peoples who could discover the inscriptions were those capable of building a generator of 150 A. radiations. We have there two highly technical requirements of anyone attempting to solve the secret of this cache--ability to generate the proper radiation, and the ability to understand their mathematics and build a second generator from their wave equations.

"Now that we're in here, there is nothing more we can do until we can understand their printed language. Obviously, they must teach it to us. This would be the place."

"You may be right," said Phyfe, "But we archeologists work with facts, not guesses. We'll know soon enough if it's true."

* * * * *

Underwood felt content to speculate while the others worked. There was nothing else for him to do. No way out of the anteroom was apparent, but he was confident that a way to the interior would be found when the inscriptions were deciphered.

He went out to the surface and walked slowly about, peering into the transparent depths with his light. What lay within this repository left by an ancient race that had obviously equaled or surpassed man in scientific attainments? Would it be some vast store of knowledge that would come to bless mankind with greater abundance? Or would it, rather, be a new Pandora's box, which would pour out upon the world new ills to add to its already staggering burden?

The world had about all it could stand now, Underwood reflected. For a century, Earth's scientific production had boomed. Her factories had roared with the throb of incessant production, and the utopia of all the planners of history was gradually coming to pass. Man's capacities for production had steadily increased for five hundred years, and at last the capacities for consumption were rising equally, with correspondingly less time spent in production and greater time spent in consumption.

But the utopia wasn't coming off just as the Utopians had dreamed of it. The ever present curse of enforced leisure was not respecting the new age any more than it had past ages. Men were literally being driven crazy with their super-abundance of luxury.

Only a year before, the so-called Howling Craze had swept cities and nations. It was a wave of hysteria that broke out in epidemic proportions. Thousands of people within a city would be stricken at a time by insensate weeping and despair. One member of a household would be afflicted and quickly it would spread from that man to the family, and from that family it would race the length and breadth of the streets, up and down the city, until one vast cry as of a stricken animal would assault the heavens.

Underwood had seen only one instance of the Howling Craze and he had fled from it as if pursued. It was impossible to describe its effects upon the nervous system--a whole city in the throes of hysteria.

Life was cheap, as were the other luxuries of Earth. Murders by the thousands each month were scarcely noticed, and the possession of weapons for protection had become a mark of the new age, for no man knew when his neighbor might turn upon him.

Governments rose and fell swiftly and became little more than figureheads to carry out the demands of peoples cloyed with the excesses of life. Most significant of all, however, was the inability of any leader to hold any following for more than a short time.

Of all the inhabitants of Earth, there were but a few hundred thousand scientists who were able to keep themselves on even keel, and most of these were now fleeing.

As he thought of these things, Underwood pondered what the opening of the repository of a people who sealed up their secrets half a million years ago would mean to mankind. This must be what Terry felt, he thought.

For perhaps three hours he remained on the outside of the shell, letting his mind idle under the brilliance of the stars. Suddenly, the phones in his helmet came alive with sound. It was the voice of Terry Bernard.

"We've got it, Del," he said quietly. "We can read this stuff like nursery rhymes. Come on down. It tells us how to get into the thing."

Underwood did not hurry. He rose slowly from his sitting position and stared upward at the stars, the same stars that had looked down upon the beings who had sealed up the repository. This is it, he thought. Man can never go back again.

* * * * *

He lowered himself into the opening.

Doctor Phyfe was strangely quiet in spite of their quick success in deciphering the language of the Stroids. Underwood wondered what was going through the old man's mind. Did he, too, sense the magnitude of this moment?

Phyfe said, "They were semanticists as well. They knew Carnovan's frequency. It's right here, the key they used to reveal their language. No one less advanced in semantics than our own civilization could have deciphered it, but with a knowledge of Carnovan's frequency, it is simple."

"Practically hand-picked us for the job," said Terry.

Phyfe's sharp eyes turned upon him suddenly behind the double protection of his spectacles and the transparent helmet of the spacesuit.

"Perhaps," said Phyfe. "Perhaps we are. At any rate, there are certain manipulations to be performed which will open this chamber and provide passage to the interior."

* * * * *

"Where's the door?" said Underwood.

Following the notes he had made, Terry moved about the room, directing Underwood's attention to features of the design. Delicately carved, movable levers formed an intricate combination that suddenly released a section of the floor in the exact center of the room. It depressed slowly, then revolved out of the way.

For a moment no one spoke while Phyfe moved to the opening and peered down. A stairway of the same glistening material as the walls about them led downward into the depths of the repository.

Phyfe stepped down and almost stumbled into the opening. "Watch for those steps," he warned. "They're larger than necessary for human beings."

_Giants in those days_ came to Underwood's mind. He tried to vision the creatures who had walked upon this stairway and touched the hand rail that was shoulder high for him.

The repository was divided into levels and the stairway ended abruptly as they came to the level below the anteroom. The chamber in which they found themselves was crowded with artifacts of strange shapes and varying sizes. Not a thing of familiar cast greeted them. But opposite the bottom of the stairway was a pedestal and upon it rested a booklike object that proved to be hinged metallic sheets, covered with Stroid III inscriptions, when Terry climbed up to examine it. He was unable to move it, but the metal pages were locked with a simple clasp that responded to his touch.

"It looks as if we've got to read our way along," said Terry. "I suppose this will tell us how to get into the next room."

Underwood and the other expedition members moved cautiously about, examining the contents of the room. The two photographers began to make an orderly pictorial record of everything within the chamber.

Standing alone in one corner, Underwood peered at an object that appeared to be nothing but a series of opaque, polychrome globes tangent to each other and mounted on a pedestal.

Whether it were some kind of machine or monument, he could not tell.

"You feel it, too," said a sudden quiet voice behind him. Underwood whirled about in surprise. Phyfe was there behind him, his slight figure a shapeless shadow in the spacesuit.

"Feel what?"

"I've watched you, Doctor Underwood. You are a physicist and in far closer touch with the real world than I. You have seen me--I cannot even manage an expedition with efficiency--my mind lives constantly in the past, and I cannot comprehend the significance of contemporary things. Tell me what it will mean, this intrusion of an alien science into our own."

A sudden, new, and humbling respect filled Underwood. He had never dreamed that the little archeologist had such a penetrating view of himself in his relation to his environment.

"I wish I could answer that question," said Underwood, shaking his head. "I can't. Perhaps if we knew, we'd destroy the thing--or it might be that we'd shout our discovery to the Universe. But we can't know, and we wouldn't dare be the judges if we could. Whatever it is, the ancient Stroids seem to have deliberately attempted to provide for the survival of their culture." He hesitated. "That, of course is my guess."

In the darkened corner of the chamber, Phyfe nodded slowly. "You are right, of course. It is the only answer. We dare not try to be the judges."

* * * * *

Underwood saw that he would get nowhere in his understanding of the Stroid science by merely depending on the translations given him by Terry and Phyfe. He'd have to learn to read the Stroid inscriptions himself. He buttonholed Nichols and got the semanticist to show him the rudiments of the language. It was amazingly simple in principle and constructed along semantic lines.

The going became rapidly heavier, however, and it took them the equivalent of five days to get through the fairly elementary material disclosed in the first level below the antechamber.

The book of metal pages did little to satisfy their curiosity concerning either the ancient planet or its culture. It instructed them further in understanding the language, and addressed them as Unknown friends--the nearest human translation.

As was already apparent, the repository had been prepared to save the highest products of the ancient Stroid culture from the destruction that came upon the world. But the records did not even hint as to the nature of that destruction and they said nothing about the objects in the room.

The scientists were a bit disappointed by the little revealed to them so far, but, as expected, there were instructions to enter the next lower level. There, an entirely different situation confronted them.

The chamber into which they came after winding down a long, spiral stairway, narrow, yet with the same high steps as before, was spherical in shape and seemed to be concentric with the outer shell of the repository. It contained a single object.

The object was a cube in the center of the chamber, about two feet on a side. From the corners of the cube, long supports of complicated spring structure led to the inner surface of the spherical chamber. It appeared to be a highly effective shock mounting for whatever was contained within the cube.

* * * * *

The sight before the men was impressive in simplicity, yet was anticlimactic, for there was nothing here of the great wonders that they had expected. There was only the suspended cube--and a book.

Quickly, Phyfe advanced along the narrow catwalk that led from the opening to the cube. The book lay on a shelf fastened to the side of the cube. Phyfe opened it to the first sheet and read haltingly and laboriously:

"Greetings, Unknown Friends, Greetings to you from the Great One. By the token that you are now reading this, you have proven yourselves mentally capable of understanding the new world of knowledge and discovery that may be yours.

"I am Demarzule, the Great One the greatest of great Sirenia--and the last. And within the storehouse of my mind is the vast knowledge that made Sirenia the greatest world in all the Universe.

"Great as it was, however, destruction came to the world of Sirenia. But her knowledge and her wonders shall never pass. In ages after, new worlds will rise and beings will inhabit them, and they will come to a minimum plane of knowledge that will assure their appreciation of the wonders that may be theirs from the world of Sirenia.

"You have minimum technical knowledge, else you could not have created the radiation necessary to render the storehouse penetrable. You have a minimum semantic knowledge, else you could not have understood my words that have brought you this far.

"You are fit and capable to behold the Great One of Sirenia!"

As Phyfe turned over the first metal sheet, the men looked at each other. It was Nichols, the semanticist, who said, "There are only two possibilities in a mind that would write a statement of that kind. Either it belonged to a truly superior being, or to a maniac. So far, in man's history, there has not been encountered such a superior being. If he existed, it would have been wonderful to have known him."

Phyfe paused and peered with difficulty through the helmet of the spacesuit. He continued, "I live. I am eternal. I am in your midst, Unknown Friends, and to your hands falls the task of bringing speech to my voice, and sight to my eyes, and feeling to my hands. Then, when you have fulfilled your mighty task, you shall behold me and the greatness of the Great One of Sirenia."

Enright, the photographer said, "What the devil does that mean? The guy must have been nuts. He sounds like he expected to come back to life."

The feeling within Underwood was more than bearable. It was composed of surging anticipation and quiet fearfulness, and they mingled in a raging torrent.

The men made no sound as Phyfe read on, "I shall live again. The Great One shall return, and you who are my Unknown Friends shall assist me to return to life. Then and only then shall you know the great secrets of the world of Sirenia which are a thousand times greater than your own. Only then shall you become mighty, with the secrets of Sirenia locked in my brain. By the powers I shall reveal, you shall become mighty until there are none greater in all the Universe."

* * * * *

Phyfe turned the page. Abruptly he stopped. He turned to Underwood. "The rest of it is yours," he said.

"What--?"

Underwood glanced at the page of inscription. With difficulty he took up the reading silently. The substance of the writings had changed and here was a sudden wilderness of an alien science.

Slowly he plodded through the first concepts, then skimmed as it became evident that here was material for days of study. But out of his hasty scanning there came a vision of a great dream, a dream of conquest of the eons, the preservation of life while worlds waned and died and flared anew.

It told of an unknown radiation turned upon living cells, reducing them to primeval protoplasm, arresting all but the _symbol_ of metabolism.

And it spoke of other radiation and complex chemical treatment, a fantastic process that could restore again the life that had been only _symbolized_ by the dormant protoplasm.

Underwood looked up. His eyes went from the featureless cube to the faces of his companions.

"It's alive!" he breathed. "Five hundred million years--and it's alive! These are instructions by which it may be restored!"

None of the others spoke, but Underwood's eyes were as if a sudden, great commission had been placed upon him. Out of the turmoil of his thoughts a single purpose emerged, clear and irrevocable.

Within that cube lay dormant matter that could be formed into a brain--an alien but mighty brain. Suddenly, Underwood felt an irrational kinship with the ancient creature who had so conquered time, and in his own mind he silently vowed that if it lay within his power, that creature would live again, and speak its ancient secrets.

_Chapter Four_

"Del!" The shock of surprise and the flush of pleasure heightened the beauty of Illia's delicate features. She stood in the doorway, the aureole of her pale golden hair backlighted by the illumination from within the room.

"Surprised?" said Underwood. He always found it difficult to speak for a moment after the first sight of Illia. No one would guess a beauty like her to be the top surgeon of Medical Center.

"Why didn't you let me know you were coming? It's not fair--"

"--not to give you time to build up your defenses?"

She nodded silently as he took her into his arms. But quickly she broke away and led him to the seat by the broad windows overlooking the night lights of the city below.

"Have you come back?" she said.

"Back? You put such a confusing amount of meaning into ordinary words, Illia."

She smiled and sat down beside him, and swiftly changed the subject. "Tell me about the expedition. Archeology has always seemed the most futile of all sciences, but I've supposed that was because I could find nothing in common between it and my medical science, nothing in common with the future. I've wondered what a physicist could find in it."

"I think you'll find something in common with our latest discovery. We have a living though dormant creature on an equal or superior plane of intelligence with us. Its age is around half a million years. You will be interested in the medical aspects of that, I am sure."

* * * * *

For a moment Illia sat as if she hadn't heard him. Then she said, "That could be a discovery to change a world, if you're sure of what you've found."

Underwood felt irritation more because he had been trying to fight down the same idea himself than because she had spoken it. "Your semantic extensions would turn Phyfe's whiskers white. We haven't found any such world-shaking discovery. We've found a creature out of another age and another culture, but it's not going to disrupt or change our society."

"If it's a scientifically superior culture, how do you know what it will do?"

"We don't, but to apply so many extensions only confuses our interpretation more. I mention it because we are going to need a biological advisor. I thought you might like to be it."

Her eyes were staring far out across the halo of the city's lights. She said, "Del, is it human?"

"Human? What's human? Is intelligence human? Can any other factor of our existence be defined as human? If you can tell me that, perhaps I can answer. So far, we only know that it is a sentient creature of high scientific culture."

"Then that alone makes its relationship with us a sympathetic one?"

"Why, I suppose so. I see no reason why not."

"Yes. Yes, I agree with you! And don't you see? It can be a germ of rejuvenation, a nucleus to gather the scattered impulses of our culture and unify them in an absorption of this new science. Look what biological knowledge the mere evidence of suspended animation indicates."

"All right." Underwood laughed faintly in resignation. "There's no use trying to avoid such a discussion with you, is there, Illia? You'd take the first flower of spring and project a whole summer's glory from it, wouldn't you?"

"But am I wrong in this? The people of Earth need _something_ to cement them together in this period of disillusionment. This could be it."

"I know," said Underwood. "We talked it over out there before we decided to go ahead with the restoration. We talked and argued for hours. Some of the men wanted to destroy the thing immediately because it is impossible to forecast the effect of this discovery from a strictly semantic standpoint. We have no data.

"Terry Bernard definitely fought for its destruction. Phyfe is afraid of the possible consequences, but he maintains that we haven't the right to destroy it because it is too great a heritage. I maintain that from a purely scientific standpoint we have no right to consider anything but restoration, regardless of consequences.

"And there is something more--the personal element. A creature whose imagination and daring were great enough to preserve his ego through an age of five hundred thousand years deserves something more than summary execution. He deserves the right to be known and heard. Actually, it seems ridiculous to fear anything that can come of this. Well, Phyfe and Terry are expert semanticists, and they're afraid--"

"Oh, they're wrong, Del! They _must_ be wrong. If they have no data, if they have only a hunch, a prejudice, it's ridiculous for them as scientists to be swayed by such feelings."

"I don't know. I wash my hands of all such aspects of the problem. I only know that I'm going to see that a guy who's got the brains and guts this one must have had has his chance to be heard. So far, I'm on the winning side. Tomorrow I'm going to see Boarder and the Director's Committee with Phyfe. If you're interested in taking the job I mentioned, come along."

* * * * *

The enthusiasm of the directors was even greater than that of Illia, if possible. None of them seemed to share the fears of some of the expedition members. And, somehow, in the warm familiarity of the committee room, those fears seemed fantastically groundless. Boarder, the elder member of the committee of directors, could not hold back his tears as he finished the report and Underwood had given verbal amplification.

"What a wonderful thing that this should have happened in our lifetime," he said. "Do you think it is feasible? The thing seems so--so fantastic, the restoration of a living creature of half a million years ago."

"I'm sure I don't know the answer to that," said Underwood. "No one does. The construction of the equipment described by the Stroid, though, is completely within range of our technical knowledge. I'm certain that we can set it up exactly according to specifications. It is possible that too much time has passed and the protoplasm has died. It is possible that Demarzule thought in terms of hundreds of years, or, at the most, a few thousand, before he would be found. There is no way to know except to construct the equipment and carry out the experiment, which I will do if the Directors wish to authorize the expenditure."

"There is no question of that!" said Boarder. "We'd mortgage the entire Institution if necessary! I'm wondering what laboratory space we can use. Why not put it in the new Carlson Museum building? The specimens for the Carlson can stay in the warehouse for a while longer."

Boarder looked about the circle of Directors facing him. He saw nods and called for a vote. His proposal was upheld.

With approval given, Phyfe returned to the expedition to supervise the transfer of the repository of Demarzule to Earth, while Underwood began infinitely detailed planning for the construction and setup of equipment as specified by the instructions he had brought from the Stroid repository.

The great semanticist, Dreyer, was asked to help in a consulting capacity for the whole project; specifically, to assist in retranslation of the records to make absolutely certain of their interpretation of the scientific instructions.

Dreyer was a short, squat man who had never been caught without a thick black cigar from which billowed endless columns of pale blue smoke. His face was round and baby-calm. He gave the impression of having achieved the impossible goal of complete serenity in a world that swirled with unceasing turmoil.

* * * * *

He listened quietly when approached, and when Phyfe and Underwood had finished their stories, he said, "Yes, I shall be glad to help. This is a thing of great importance."

But Underwood was forced to shed his mind of sociological and semantic implications of the job they were doing. The technical work involved was of tremendous complexity and magnitude. A mountainous quantity of complicated equipment had to be designed and built, but as Underwood deciphered the instructions of the Stroids and had it verified by Dreyer, he could find no short cuts, nor did he dare attempt any.

The Carlson Museum had been designed along the lines of an ancient Greek temple and was set prominently on a low hill apart from other groups of buildings of the Smithson. Its glistening marble columns made a landmark for miles. It was rather symbolical in a way, Underwood thought, that such an imposing edifice should be appointed for the resurrection of the ancient Great One.

The central hall of the museum was cleared of display cases which had already been set up. Electronic and biological equipment began to flow in as Underwood sent strange fabrication orders to scattered shops and plants throughout the country.

* * * * *

When it was announced that the Carlson would not open on the date previously set, the worldwide news associations were interested and Underwood was suddenly besieged by reporters. He briefly outlined their discovery. It would make some good science supplement yarns, Underwood supposed, and by the time the reporters got through with the stories they would have a whole race of monsters out of space being restored in the Carlson.

Underwood told them as much.

But Davis of the Science Press shook his head. "No, that's not the angle. Archeology always makes good stories, but this is the first time archeology has ever produced any live specimens. We'll build the creature up big from the sympathetic angle. What did you say the inscriptions called him? The Great One?"

Underwood nodded.

"That's it! The mysterious, all knowing brain that has lain dormant in the void for ages, waiting for the touch of a merciful hand to restore life to that mighty intellect and receive in payment the magnificent store of knowledge locked within it. That's the angle we'll use."

Underwood mentally gagged and returned to his work.

Slowly the equipment took shape within the large hall. The center of construction was the ceramic bath which would hold the mass of protoplasm in its nutrient solution and keep it in controlled temperatures and pressures. The complex observation panel was being assembled beside it. From this point every physiological function of the developing mass could be observed as it progressed. Scores of meters would give electronic readings which could be interpreted in terms of developing functions. It was almost like watching the development and growth of a foetus, for that appeared almost to be the course of growth that was to be expected.

Automatic valves would control the injection into the bath of nutrient materials with an accuracy of a thousandth of a milligram. A dozen operators would be trained, were now being selected, for the precise task of watching the bath during every second of the growth of the organism.

The upper half of the walls of the bath was transparent, as was the cover. Inside, under the cover, the broad reflecting cone of the radiator would spray the long dormant protoplasm with life-giving radiation. Giant generators required to provide this radiation filled other parts of the hall.

* * * * *

It was five months after the actual discovery of the repository that the restoration equipment was completed and tested and ready for use. Public interest in the project had been aroused by the sensational news reports, and a constant stream of people passed the Carlson to glimpse the activities going on inside.

The news stories built up the Stroid as the magnificent benefactor of mankind, as Davis had promised. They presented a sympathetic aspect of a creature imprisoned and doomed throughout the ages, and now being released from bondage and ready to pour out blessings upon his benefactors.

Underwood didn't pay much attention to the news stories, but the increasing swarms of people began to get in his way and hampered operations. He was forced to ask the directors to fence off a large area about the Carlson.

During this time the _Lavoisier_ had been slowly swinging in an orbit about the Earth to keep the repository, taken bodily into its hold, at the temperature of space, until time for the transfer of the protoplasm to the nutrient bath.

Now, with everything completed at the Museum, Underwood and Phyfe returned to the repository to direct the removal of the container of protoplasm, leaving Terry Bernard in charge at the museum. The operators and technicians were ready to take over their duties.

Removal of the protoplasm to Earth was a critical operation. The bath at the Carlson had been brought down to absolute zero and would be brought up a few degrees at a time.

Boarder and the other directors of the Institution did not share Underwood's reluctance for publicity. They were accustomed to the ways of the publicity writers, for much of the income of the Institute depended upon such publicity which drew substantial contributions.

So it was that the arrival of the _Lavoisier_ was widely announced. A crowd of ten thousand gathered to watch the removal of the protoplasm that had once been a great and alien being.

Underwood stood in the control room watching the landing area beside the Carlson as the ship settled deep into Earth's atmosphere. Gradually he made out the identity of the black smear covering the landscape about the white stone building that gleamed like a Grecian temple.

* * * * *

Terry, beside him, exclaimed, "Look at that mob! The whole town must be out to welcome our guest."

"If they don't get out of the landing area, they'll be smeared over the landscape. Collins, contact the base and get that field cleared!"

The communications officer put the call in. The laboratory ship circled idly while the mob moved slowly back to permit the ship to touch down beside the building.

Underwood raced out of the ship and into the building. His technicians were standing by. Each one in turn reported his position operating properly. Then Underwood called back to the ship and ordered the portable lock released.

At once the massive cargo hold was thrown open and the thick-walled lock, bearing the container of protoplasm, was wheeled out.

The crowd caught sight of it as it rolled swiftly into the building. Someone in the far ranks sent up a cry. "Hail the Great One! Welcome to Earth!"

The shout was taken up by hundreds, then thousands of throats until a sea of sound washed against the ears of those within the building. Underwood paused and turned to look out as the sound caught him. A faint chill went through him.

"The fools," he said angrily to Terry. "They'll drive themselves into hysteria if they keep that up. Why didn't the directors keep this whole business quiet? They ought to have known how it would affect a mob of bystanders."

From a distance, Illia and Dreyer watched silently. Underwood hurried away to give attention to the cargo. The lock was wheeled close to the bath and a passage was opened as the two containers were brought adjacent. On sterile slides, the frozen protoplasmic mass slid forward and came to rest at last within the machine for which it had waited half a million years.

There was utter lack of response to that final placement of the mass. Yet those who watched knew that the great experiment had begun. In six months, they would find out if they were successful.

Underwood sent the carriage back to the ship, and the _Lavoisier_ moved to the Institute's spaceport. Then Boarder entered with a score of photographers and newsmen in his wake. They took pictures of the equipment and technicians, and of the protoplasm lying inert within the bath, in which the nutrient liquids would be placed after a temperature of a hundred degrees had been reached.

Underwood did not have time to pay any attention to the newsmen. He tried to be everywhere at once, inspecting meters and gauges, assuring himself that all was functioning well. Every piece of equipment was triply installed for safety in case of breakdown. The instructions warned that, once started, the process of restoration must not be interrupted or death to the Great One would result.

When he had finished his inspection, Underwood felt suddenly exhausted. He turned away to avoid the newsmen whom Boarder was now lecturing on the subject of the strange repository in space and its even stranger inhabitant.

Underwood spied the aged figure standing almost unseen near the recess between two panels. It was Phyfe and he spoke slowly as Underwood approached.

"It is begun," the old archeologist said slowly. "And it can never be undone."

Underwood felt again that chill of apprehension and looked sharply at Phyfe, but the latter was staring straight ahead--straight at the inert block of protoplasm.

_Chapter Five_

Phyfe asked to be relieved of his duties as head of the expedition still in the field in order that he might devote his entire time to a study of Stroid records and manuscripts now in existence. Terry Bernard gave up field work to assist him in order to be near the site of restoration. With them was Dreyer, who attacked with feverish effort the translation of the language that had defied him so long.

Underwood was concerned with the resurrection itself. He sensed that the very secret of life was involved in the work he was doing. The instruction book left by the Stroid was in the nature of an operating manual, however, rather than a theoretical text, and now that the experiment was actually under way, Underwood abandoned everything in an attempt to study fully the processes that were taking place.

So occupied were they with their own studies that the scientists scarcely noticed the public reaction to the creature they were attempting to restore.

The first outward sign had been that wild cry of welcome the day the protoplasm was brought to Earth.

The next was the Sunday sermon preached by one of the multitude of obscure religious leaders in a poorly attended meeting in a luxurious church in that same city.

William B. Hennessey had been a publicity man in his early years before the full breakdown began to show, and he was conscious of good publicity values. But perhaps he half believed what he wrote and the mere preaching of it convinced him it was so. It is probable that there were other preachers who took the same theme that Sunday morning, but William B. Hennessey's was the one that got the news publicity.

He said, "How many of this congregation this morning are among those who have given up in the race of life, who have despaired of values and standards to cling to, who have forsaken the leadership of all who would lead you? Perhaps you are among the millions of those who have given up all hope of solving the great problems of life. If you are, I want to ask if you were among those who witnessed the miraculous arrival of the Gift out of the Ages. Were you among those who saw the Great One?"

William B. Hennessey paused. "For centuries we have looked for leadership in our own midst and not found it. They were, after all, merely human. But now, into the hands of our noble scientists, has been imparted the great task of awakening the sleeping Great One, and when they have completed their work, the Golden Age of Earth will be upon us.

"I call upon you to throw off the shackles of despair. Come out of the prison of your disillusionment. Make ready to greet the Great One on the day of his rising. Let your hearts and minds be ready to receive the message that he shall give, and to obey the words of counsel you shall surely be given, for truly from a greater world and a brighter land than ours has come the Great One to preserve us!"

* * * * *

Within an hour Hennessey's words were flashed around the world.

Terry was the only one of the scientists on the project who heard about it. He went over to the museum in the afternoon and found Underwood and Dreyer at the test board.

"Some crackpot preacher this morning gave out a sermon on Oscar here." He jerked a thumb toward the bath. "He says we've got the solution to all the world's ills. He's calling on the people to worship Oscar."

"You might know some fool thing like that would happen."

Dreyer emitted a single, explosive puff of cigar smoke. "A religious cult based upon this alien intelligence. We should have predicted that development. I wonder why our computations failed to indicate it."

"I think it's dangerous," said Terry. "It could turn into serious business."

"What do you mean? I don't get it," said Underwood.

"Don't you see the implications? The whole trouble with our culture is disillusionment, lack of leadership. If this thing turns out to be sentient, intelligent--even superior--why, it could become anything the people wanted to make it, president, dictator, god, or what not."

"Oh, take it easy," Underwood said. "This is just one little tin-horn preacher who probably didn't have more than a hundred in his congregation. The news broadcasts must have treated it as a humorous commentary on our experiments. Just the same, we should never have allowed the news to be broadcast. It all started with that hysterical mob the day we brought the protoplasm here."

Dreyer shook his head amid the smoke aura. "No. It began long ago when the first cave man plastered up his clay gods and found them cracked in the Sun and washed away with the rains. It began when the first cave chieftain was slain by a rival leader and his disillusioned followers looked about for a new head man. It has been going on ever since."

* * * * *

"It's no concern of ours," said Underwood.

Dreyer went on slowly, "As one by one the gods and chieftains fell, men cast about for new leaders who would bear the burdens of mankind and show the way to that illusive paradise that all men sought. Through the ages there have always been those who would let themselves be lifted up and called great, who would undertake to lead. Some had their eyes on faraway starry places that man could never reach and their disciples fell away, heartbroken and discouraged. Others sought their goal by mastery over foreign men and nations and bathed their followers in blood and disaster. But always their star fell and men never found the elusive goal which they could not name nor define."

"And so the Age of Disillusion," said Underwood bitterly.

"But disillusion is a healthy thing. It leads to reality."

"How can you call this healthy?" Underwood demanded. "Men believe in nothing. They have lost faith in life itself."

"Faith in life? I wonder what that means," said Dreyer, musingly. "Watch your extensions, Dr. Underwood."

Underwood flushed, recalling Illia's remark that Dreyer would tear off every other word and throw it back at him. "All right, then. There are no governments, no leaders, no religions to lean upon in times of need, because men have no confidence in such sources."

"All of which is a sign that they are approaching a stage in which they will no longer need such support. And, like a baby in his first steps, they stumble and fall. They get bruised and cry, as I detect that many of our scientists have done, else they would not have run away to Venus and other places."

Underwood blinked from the sting of Dreyer's rebuke. "That's the second time I've been accused of running away," he said.

"No offense," Dreyer said. "I am merely stating facts. That you do not believe them is not to your condemnation, only a commentary on the state of your knowledge. But our discussion is on the restoration of the alien, and your knowledge may have far-reaching effects in the disposition of this project."

"Policy is controlled by the directors, who will be guided by your recommendations--"

Dreyer shook his head. "No, I think not, unless it pleases them. Should I ever recommend destruction of the alien, I would have to work through you. And that would take much convincing, would it not?"

"Plenty," said Underwood. "Are you recommending that now?"

"Not yet. No, not yet."

Slowly, Dreyer moved away toward the massive bath that housed the alien, Demarzule, Hetrarra of Sirenia, the Great One.

* * * * *

Underwood watching the beetle-back of the semanticist felt deflated by the encounter. Dreyer seemed always so nerve-rackingly calm. Underwood wondered if it were possible to acquire such immunity to turmoil.

He turned back to Terry, who had stood in silent agreement with Dreyer. "How are you and Phyfe coming along?"

"It's a slow business, even with the help of the key in the repository. That was apparently pure Stroid III, but we have two other languages or dialects that are quite different and we seem to have more specimens of those than we do of Stroid III. Phyfe thinks he's on the way to cracking both Stroid I and II, though. Personally, I'd like to get back out to the asteroids, if it weren't for Demarzule. I wasn't meant to be a scholar."

"Stick with it. I'm hoping that we can have some kind of idea what the Stroid civilization was like by the time Demarzule revives."

"How is it coming?"

"Cell formation is taking place, but how organs will ever develop is more than I can see. We're just waiting and observing. Four motion picture cameras are constantly at work, some through electron microscopes. At the end of six months we'll at least have a record of what occurred, regardless of what it is."

The mass of life grew and multiplied its millions of cells. Meanwhile, another growth, less tangible but no less real, was swiftly rising and spreading through the Earth. The mind of each man it encompassed was one of its cells, and they were multiplying no less rapidly than those of the growth within the marble museum building. The leadership of men by men had proven false beyond all hope of ever restoring the dream of a mortal man who could raise his fellows to the heights of the stars. But the Great One was something else again. Utterly beyond all Earthly build and untainted with the flaws of Earthmen, he was the gift of the gods to man--he _was_ a god who would lift man to the eternal heights of which he had dreamed.

The flame spread and leaped the oceans of Earth. It swept up all creeds and races and colors.

Delmar Underwood looked up from his desk in annoyance as a pompous, red-faced man of short, stout build was ushered in by his secretary. The man halted halfway between the door and the desk and bowed slightly.

He said, "I address the Prophet Underwood by special commission of the Disciples."

"What the devil--?" Underwood frowned and extended a hand toward a button. But he didn't ring. The visitor extended an envelope.

"And by special authorization of Director Boarder of the Institute!"

* * * * *

Still keeping his eyes on the man, Underwood accepted the envelope and ripped it open. In formal language and the customary red tape manner, it instructed Underwood to hear the visitor, one William B. Hennessey, and grant the request that Hennessey would make.

Underwood knew him now. His throat felt suddenly dry. "What's this all about?"

The man shrugged disparagingly. "I am only a poor Disciple of the Great One, who has been commissioned by his fellows to seek a favor at the hands of the Prophet Underwood."

As Underwood looked into the man's eyes, he felt a chill, and a wave of apprehension swept over him with staggering force.

"Sit down," he said. "What is it you want?" He wished Dreyer were here to place some semantic evaluation upon this crazy incident.

"The Disciples of the Great One would have the privilege of viewing the Master," said Hennessey as he sat down near the desk. "You scientists are instruments selected for a great task. The Great One did not come only to a select few. He came to all mankind. We request the right to visit the temple quietly and view the magnificent work you are doing as you restore our Master to life so that we may receive of his great gifts."

Underwood could picture the laboratory filled with bowing, praying, yelling, fanatic worshippers crowding around, destroying equipment and probably trying to walk off with bits of holy protoplasm. He pressed a switch and spun a dial savagely. In a moment the face of Director Boarder was on the tiny screen before him.

"This fanatic Hennessey is here. I just wanted to check on the possible liability before having him thrown out on his ear."

Boarder's face grew frantic. "Don't do that! You got my note? Do exactly as I said. Those are orders!"

"But we can't carry on an experiment with a bunch of fanatics yapping at our heels."

* * * * *

"I don't care how you do it. You've got to give them what they want. Either that or fold up the experiment. The latest semi-weekly poll shows they effectively control eighty million votes. You know what that means. One word to the Congressional scientific committee and all of us would be out on our ear."

"We could shut the thing up and call it off. The protoplasm would just quietly die and then what would these birds have to worship?"

"Destruction of government property _can_ carry the death penalty," said Boarder ominously. "Besides, you're too much of the scientist to do that. You want to see the thing through just as much as the rest of us do. If I had the slightest fear that you'd destroy it, I'd yank you out of there before you knew where you were--but I haven't any such fears."

"Yes, you're right, but these--" Underwood made a grimace as if he were trying to swallow an oyster with fur on.

"I know. We've got to put up with it. The scientist who survives in this day and age is the one who adjusts to his environment." Boarder grinned sourly.

"I went out to space to escape the environment. Now I'm right back in it, only worse than ever."

"Well, look, Underwood, why can't you just build a sort of balcony with a ramp running across the lab so that these Disciples of the Great One can look down into the bath? You could feed them in at one end of the building and run them out the other. That way it wouldn't upset you. After all, it's only going to last six months."

"When the Stroid revives, they'll probably want to put him on a throne with a radiant halo about his head." Boarder laughed. "If he represents the civilization whose artifacts we've found on the asteroids, I think he'll take care of his 'Disciples' in short order. Anyway, you'll have to do as they demand. It won't last long."

Boarder cut off and Underwood turned back to the bland Hennessey, who sat as if nothing would ever disturb him.

"You see," Hennessey said, "I knew what the outcome would be. I had faith in the Great One."

"Faith! You knew that the scientific committee would back you up because you represent eighty million neurotic crackpots. What will you do when your Great One wakes up and tells you all to go to hell?"

Hennessey smiled quietly. "He won't. I have faith."

_Chapter Six_

Two days later, Underwood received a call from Phyfe, asking for an appointment. It was urgent; that was all Phyfe would tell him.

The archeologist had not heard of the demands of the Disciples. He was surprised to see the construction under way in the great central hall where the restoration equipment was installed.

He found Underwood with Illia in the laboratory examining films of the protoplasmic growth.

"What are you building out there?" he asked. "I thought you had all the equipment in."

"A monument to human stupidity," Underwood growled. Then he told Phyfe of the orders he had received. "We're putting in a balcony so that the faithful can look down upon their Great One. Boarder says we'll have to put up with this nonsense for six months."

"Why six months?"

"Demarzule will be revived by then or else we'll have failed. In either case, the Disciples will have come to an end."

"Why?"

Underwood glanced up in irritation. "If he's dead, they won't have anything to worship. And if he lives, he certainly won't have anything to do with them."

"I could ask another 'why,'" said Phyfe, "but I'll put it this way. You know nothing of how he will act if he lives. And if he dies he'll probably be a martyr that will establish a new worldwide religion--with those of us who have had to do with this experiment and its failure being burned at the stake."

Underwood laid down the sheaf of films. Out among the asteroids he had learned to respect the old archeologist's opinions but Dreyer had already laid more of a burden upon him than he felt he should bear.

"The technological aspects of this problem are more than you say you have found?"

"Fortunately for us, certain Stroid records were small metallic plates whose molecular structure was altered according to script or vocal patterns. Some of the boys in the lab have developed a device for listening to the audio records. We have actually heard the _voices_ of the Stroids! At least there are sounds that resemble a spoken language. But it is what we have found on the written records that brought me here.

"More than eighty-five years ago, the most fortunate find previous to the discovery of the repository was made. An extensive cache of historical records was uncovered by Dickens, one of the early workers in the field. They were almost fused together, and the molecular alteration was barely traceable due to exposure to terrific heat. But we've succeeded in separating the plates and transferring their records in amplified form to new sheets. And we can read them. We have a remarkably complete section of Stroid history just before their extermination, and, if we are reading it correctly, there's a surprising fact about them."

"What is that?"

"They were not native to this Solar System. They were extra-galactic refugees whose home world had been destroyed in something completely revolting in an intellect that would foresee the doom of a world and set about to assure its own preservation."

"But that is only your own subjective extension," Illia answered. "There is no such semantic concept in the idea."

* * * * *

"Isn't there? The egotism, the absolute lack of concern for a creature's fellows--those are semantically contained in it. And that is why I'm more than a little afraid of what we shall find if we do succeed in reviving this creature. How is it developing?"

"It seems to be going through a sort of conventional embryonic growth," Illia answered. "It's already passed a pseudo-blastic stage. So far, it has generally mammalian characteristics; more than that is impossible to say. But what about this new evidence enough for my mental capacity. I can't and won't give a damn about any other aspects."

"You must!" Phyfe's eyes were suddenly afire, demanding, unyielding. "We have new evidence--Terry may have been right when he asked to have the protoplasm destroyed."

Illia froze. "What evidence?"

"What type of mentality would attempt to preserve itself through a planetary catastrophe that destroyed all its contemporaries?" asked Phyfe. "I find some great interstellar conflict and whose enemies eventually traced them and destroyed for the second time the world on which they lived. Out of all that ancient people, destroyed as completely as was Carthage, only this single individual remained.

"Do you see the significance of that? If he lives, he will live again with the same war-born hate and lust for revenge that filled him as he saw his own world fall!"

"It won't survive the knowledge that all that he fought for disappeared geologic ages past," objected Underwood. "Besides, you are contradicting yourself. If he was so unconcerned about his own world, perhaps he had no interest in the conflict. Maybe he was the supreme genius of his day and wanted only to escape from a useless carnage that he could not stop."

"No, there is no contradiction," said Phyfe earnestly. "That is typical of the war leader who has brought his people to destruction. At the moment when disaster overwhelms them, he thinks only of himself. The specimen we have here is a supreme example of what such egocentric desires for self-preservation lead to."

Phyfe abruptly rose from the chair and tossed a sheaf of papers on the laboratory bench. "Here it is. Read it for yourself. It's a pretty free translation of the story we found on Dickens' records."

* * * * *

He left abruptly. Illia and Underwood turned to the short script he had left behind and began reading.

The hundred mighty vessels of the Sirenian Empire flung themselves across space that was made tangible by their velocity. The impregnable heart of the fleet was deep in the hull of the flagship, _Hebrian_, where the Sirenian Hetrarra, Demarzule, slumped sullenly before the complex panel that reported all the workings of his vast fleet.

Beside him was the old but sinewy figure of Toshmere, the genius who had saved this remnant of the once mighty empire that could have put a million vessels like these into space at one time.

Toshmere said, "Further flight is useless. Our instruments show that the Dragbora are gaining. Their fleet outnumbers us ten to one. Even with my protective screens, we can't hope to resist long. They've got the one weapon we can't withstand. They're determined to wipe out the last of the Sirenian Empire."

"And I'm determined to wipe out the last of the Dragbora!" Demarzule snapped in sudden fury. He rose out of the chair and paced the room. "I shall live! I shall live to see their world blasted to energy and the last Dragbor dead. Is the repository nearly ready?"

Toshmere nodded.

"And you are certain of your method?"

"Yes. Would you care to see our final results?"

Demarzule nodded and Toshmere led the way through the door and down the long corridor to the laboratory where lay Demarzule's hopes of spanning the eons and escaping the enemy who had sworn no quarter.

The Sirenian Hetrarra watched impassively as the scientist put a small animal into a bowl-like chamber. He backed away behind a shield and pressed a switch. Instantly, the animal was bathed in a flood of orange glow and a terrible look of pain crossed the animal's face while hideous cries came from its throat.

* * * * *

"It is not pleasant," observed Demarzule.

"No," said Toshmere. "But it is necessary that it be done with full consciousness of mind. Otherwise, proper restoration cannot be made."

The ruler was impassive as the animal's cries slowly died while its body melted under the glow of the beam--literally melted until it flowed into a pool at the bottom of the bowl where it quivered with residual life forces.

"Pure protoplasm," explained Toshmere. "It can be frozen to absolute zero and the remaining metabolism will be undetectable, yet life will remain, perhaps for a thousand _ela_, long enough for new worlds to form and old ones die."

"Long enough for the last Dragbor to die--while I, Demarzule, Hetrarra of Sirenia, live on in glory and triumph."

Toshmere smiled a thin smile that Demarzule did not see in his own preoccupation. What a tragedy for the civilizations of the Universe if Demarzule or any remnant of the Sirenian Empire should survive, Toshmere thought. The Dragbora had well considered their plans when they set upon a program of complete extermination for the Sirenians.

His own life would be far more worthy of salvation from the impending doom than that of Demarzule. From the first moment that he had conceived the repository and presented the idea to Demarzule, Toshmere had planned that it would hold not Demarzule, but Toshmere himself.

There was only one way to go ahead with such a gigantic project, however, and that was letting Demarzule believe that it would be for him. Since it could not be prepared in secret, Demarzule would have to assent to the construction. He would do that if he thought it were for himself. The idea would appeal to his egotistical mind; the thought of his own personality spanning the eons, while all the civilization he knew decayed and was swept away, would delight him.

"The revival," said Demarzule. "Let me see how life is to be brought back."

Toshmere swung another projector into line above the bowl and snapped another switch. Invisible rays suddenly bathed the mass of shapeless protoplasm within the bowl. As they watched, it quivered and flowed, swiftly changing shapes, and growth and life took possession of it.

* * * * *

The ruler of the Sirenians watched the reformation of the animal in the bowl. Limbs and torso formed in shadowy gray outline, then abruptly solidified and the animal leaped up, alive and startled.

Even Demarzule was somewhat taken aback by the seeming miracle. "It is swift," he remarked. "The specimen is unharmed?"

"Completely," said Toshmere. "The process is not so rapid after a long period of time has elapsed. The level of life is very low, but never will it completely disappear. The lower it is, however, the longer it takes for restoration. After many hundred _ela_, it might require as much as a _tor-ela_."

"But it would be sure to succeed regardless?"

Toshmere nodded.

The hundred ships of the Sirenian bore on their steady course with the enemy constantly gaining even though Galaxies away. At last the lookout spotted a likely System in which the fifth planet showed signs of habitability. Demarzule ordered preparations be made for a halt.

The planet they found was inhabited by the remnants of a dying civilization that had retro-graded almost to its infancy. The opposition offered was quickly disposed of and the Sirenian refugees began the frantic and hopeless task of constructing defenses against the coming of the overwhelming force of the Dragbora, defenses they knew were as penetrable as air to the new, fearful weapon strength of the enemy.

But while gigantic screen generators were swiftly reared against the sky and beam emplacements were dug, the best and wisest of the scientists were busy preparing the repository for the Hetrarra, Demarzule.

The huge, crystal-like container, which would be rendered impervious to all known forces except the key frequency whose formula was inscribed upon the outside, was to be lowered thousands of feet into the great ore beds of the planet, in the hope of avoiding the final blast that would shear the planet.

Two men would go into that repository, but only one would survive the eons.

Toshmere was the only one completely acquainted with the entire process so that it would be necessary for him to direct the operation of the instruments. But Toshmere knew that Demarzule had no intention of allowing him to leave the repository with knowledge of its secrets--any more than Toshmere intended that Demarzule should be the one to benefit by those secrets.

For three _tor-ela_ the Sirenians worked frantically, putting up their mighty defense works, and then their lookout posted a hundred thousand light years out in space announced the arrival of the terrible Dragboran fleet--just before a tongue of light from that fleet lashed out at him and swept him into the eternities.

* * * * *

Toshmere approached Demarzule in his headquarters as the word came. "There is not much time left, Hetrarra. The repository is ready."

Demarzule looked out upon the sprawling works and great machines so pitifully huddled together on an alien planet. This was all that remained of the vast empire which he had dreamed of extending to the limits of space itself, the empire over which he was to have been supreme Hetrarra. And in a short moment this remnant would be wiped out under the devastating supremacy of the now mightier Dragbora.

He looked at Toshmere hesitantly. In the face of certain death the old, lean, sinewy scientist showed nothing but calm. The Hetrarra took one final glance at the remnants of his Sirenian Empire and nodded.

"I am ready," he said.

They went out to the entrance to the shaft leading toward the heart of the planet. The shaft had been built with the knowledge of only a few Sirenians and none of them were aware of its purpose, thinking rather that it was a means of defense.

Nobody saw the Hetrarra and the genius Toshmere enter the elevator that carried them forever into the depths below the surface of the planet.

Underwood and Illia came to the end of the page and Underwood swore softly as he thumbed through the few remaining sheets. There was no more about the ancient Demarzule and Toshmere.

The writer of the history had apparently been one of the Sirenian scientists, a confidant and friend of Toshmere who had been close to him in those last days. He had been one of the few to witness the descent of the two into the depths of the planet, but he knew nothing of what happened when they reached the bottom and sealed the repository.

_He did not know which one had survived in that mighty struggle that must have taken place below._

And shortly no one of the Sirenians cared what the fate of their deserting Hetrarra might have been, for the great Dragboran fleet was upon them. With the mighty, unknown weapon that struck terror to the mightiest of Sirenia, they sped out of space and swiftly nullified the Sirenian defenses. It was a carnage that was frightful even to the Sirenians, so schooled in the methods of shedding blood. Their defenses might not have existed for all the effect they had on their enemy. At first one by one, and then by tens, the operators were touched by death and their machines turned to molten ruin.

At last, when only incandescent metal and sprawling dead lay of the Sirenian fleet, the enemy ships withdrew, and the handful of survivors dared hope that there might be escape for them.

* * * * *

But there was none. As the fleet withdrew beyond their vision, a single small ship appeared in the heavens and they screamed with the knowledge of what it was. But they were dead long before the planet exploded into its component fragments which hurtled in all directions into space.

Underwood put the manuscript down, his mind reluctant to close the scene of vast and terrible battle that had occurred so long ago. It had answered some of the problems raised by asteroidal archeology. It explained the utter lack of relationship between Stroid III, which was the language of the Sirenians, and Stroid I and II, which were undoubtedly native to the vanished planet.

But this snatch of history prepared by the unknown scientist companion of Toshmere raised the greatest enigma of all.

Illia's eyes looked up into Underwood's. "Who could have won?" she said. "If it was Toshmere, the alien will be all that we hoped he would be. If it is Demarzule, then Terry is right--he should be destroyed."

Underwood glanced out toward the nutrient bath where the alien slept, where the shadowy outlines of a faintly human figure already appeared in the misty depths of the nutrient solution.

"It's got to be Toshmere," he said, and hoped he was right.

_Chapter Seven_

The viewing balcony above the floor of the museum hall was completed and the disciples of the Great One began to flow through in a never-ending stream. To Underwood, it was a sickening, revolting sight. As he watched the faces of those who came and worshipped at the shrine, he saw them transformed, as if they had seen some great vision. They came with burdens of care lining their faces--all ages, young and old--and they left with shining eyes and uplifted faces. There were even sick and crippled who came and left crutches, eyeglasses and trusses.

Twice a day, William B. Hennessey stood upon the balcony and uttered a prayer to the Great One, and the stream of fanatic worshipers stopped and bowed down.

One of Underwood's biologists, Craven, was so fascinated by the exhibition of mass hysteria that he asked for permission to make a study of it.

Underwood forced the spectacle out of his mind. He knew he couldn't endure staying there at the museum if he allowed his mind to dwell upon the decadence of mankind.

The mass of protoplasm in the nutrient bath was becoming more and more a typical mammalian embryo, anthropomorphic in most respects, but with differences that Illia and Underwood could not assign to the natural development of the creature, or to the unusual circumstances of its revival, because there was no standard with which to compare it.

Then, one day near the end of the fourth month, Underwood received an urgent call from Phyfe.

"Come over at once!" he said. "We've found the answer in the repository. We know who the Great One is."

"Who?"

"I want you to see for yourself."

Underwood swore as Phyfe cut off. He turned his observations over to the operator on duty and left the building. The lexicography and philography sections of the institute were in an old sprawling block across the city by the spaceport; the semantics section was also housed there. The repository had been taken there for continued examination.

Dreyer and Phyfe met him. The old archeologist was trembling with excitement. "I've found the mummy!" he said.

"What mummy?"

"The mummy of the one in the repository who was killed by the successful one."

"Who was it?"

"You'll see. He left a record for the discoverers of the repository."

* * * * *

They went into the enclosure that had been built to house the alien structure. Inside, the repository looked many times the size it had appeared in space. Underwood followed them into the familiar passages. They went down into the main chamber which had held the protoplasm of the Great One. Then Underwood observed an opening leading lower down.

"You found a way into the rest of the repository?"

"Yes, and how unfortunate we were not to have found our way into that portion first. But come."

Phyfe disappeared through the narrow opening and they passed three levels filled with unknown artifacts. Then at last they came to the smallest chamber formed by the curve of the outside hull. It was too small for them to stand upright and filled rapidly with Dreyer's cigar smoke.

"There it is, right where we found it," said Phyfe.

Underwood looked at the thing without recognition. It appeared as if a rather huge, dried-up bat had been carelessly tossed into the corner of the chamber.

"Completely dessicated," said Phyfe. "He didn't stay here long enough between his death and the destruction of the planet for decay to set in. He simply dried up as the molecules of water were frozen and dispersed. I wish there were some way the biologists could find to restore him. He's so shapeless it's difficult to tell what he looked like."

"But who is he?"

"Here is the record he left. Apparently they had some kind of small electric tool they carried with them to write on metallic surfaces. How they read them is a mystery because we have to have a mass of equipment as big as this chamber to decipher the stuff. Here are photographs of his message that we have rendered visible."

Underwood took the sheaf of photographs. They showed the walls of the chamber including the dried mummy lying inert where it had fallen in pain and death. But standing out in sharp white characters was a lengthy inscription written by the ancient creature of eons ago.

"Can you read it?" asked Phyfe.

Underwood scanned the characters and nodded slowly. He had not been able to keep up on the language as Phyfe had, but he could read it now with fair facility.

The first part of the message was a brief reiteration of the history of the ill-fated refugees that he already knew, but then he came to a fresh portion.

"Demarzule has slain me!" the message read.

* * * * *

The words were like pellets of ice suddenly shot with bullet speed into his face. He looked up at the impassive faces of the other two men and read there the decision they had made.

Then, slowly, his eyes lowered to the sheet again and he went on deliberately with the reading.

"I have attempted to get to the main chamber and destroy the transformation equipment, but I cannot. Demarzule has learned how to operate the equipment. Though there is nothing creative in him, and all his aims are of conquest and destruction, he still has the command of vast stores of Sirenian science.

"I am not a warrior or clever in the ways of fighting. It was not difficult for Demarzule to best me. I die soon, therefore it is for you who may read this in the ages to come. This is my message to you, my warning: Destroy the contents of the protoplasm chamber without mercy. Demarzule is there and he will be the scourge of any civilization in which he arises. He dreams of conquest and he will not rest until he is master of the Universe. He has destroyed galaxies; he will destroy others if he lives again. Kill him! Erase all knowledge of the dreadful Sirenian Empire from your memory!

"Should you be tempted to restore the Hetrarra and believe your science a match for ours, remember that the knowledge required to enter this repository is only the minimum. It is the lowest common denominator of our civilization. Therefore, kill--"

The record ended with the last scrawled admonition of the ancient scientist, Toshmere.

For long moments, the chamber of the repository was silent. Phyfe made no comment as Underwood finished. He saw the tensing of the physicist's jaw and the staring fixation of his eyes, as if he would penetrate the ages with his naked vision and try to picture the dying scientist scrawling his message on the walls of the death chamber.

Then Phyfe said at last, "We can't risk the revival of Demarzule now, Del. Think what it would mean to turn loose a mentality having command of such a superior science."

"We're not exactly planning to turn him loose," said Underwood defensively. "We'll still have control when he revives. He can be kept in suitable confinement--and finally disposed of, if necessary. It seems worth it if we could tap the science he knows."

"Are you forgetting that we do _not_ have control of him in any sense of the word? The Disciples have. We're under direction of the Institute, which can be wiped out in an instant by the Science Committee. They, in turn, are mere puppets of the Disciples who hold the voting power. When Demarzule revives, he'll have a ready made following who'll regard him not only as Emperor, but as god. I tell you we have no alternative but destruction."

* * * * *

Underwood's jaws tightened further. Within his grasp was a science that might represent thousands of years of normal development of the Solar system. He could not give up a gift such as the Sirenian culture offered.

Then his eyes found those of Dreyer, who had said nothing, who sat on his heels placidly in his haze of smoke. And there he read the irrevocable answer.

"All right," he said. "You win--you and old Toshmere. Let's get inside to a phone and I'll give the word to turn the radiation off."

Swiftly now they clambered up the stairs as if to escape some foul tomb of the long-dead. They hurried into the building and into the office of Phyfe. There Underwood called Illia.

She answered instantly, as if she had been waiting for his message, fearfully and without hope.

"It's Demarzule, the conqueror," he said. "Turn off the radiation and drain the tank. We'll stand the consequences of that, but we dare not go on with the restoration."

Illia bit her lip and nodded. "It might have been Earth's great chance," she said, and there was something like a sob in her voice. "I'll turn it off at once."

Phyfe said, "Know what, Underwood? There's going to be trouble over this. I think I'll ask for a transfer back to the expedition. Would you like to come along with us?"

"I suppose so, but I'm afraid the Scientific Committee won't let us get away that easily. You and I are through for the rest of our lives. Didn't you think of that, Phyfe? We'll be lucky if we don't have to spend the rest of our lives in prison. But, Dreyer, you don't need to be caught in this. Get away before they come for us."

"I hadn't considered it that way," said Phyfe, "but I suppose you're right. The Disciples won't be likely to let us get away this easy, will they?"

Before Dreyer could speak, a call came through on the office interphone. Phyfe switched on and the frantic face of Esmond, one of the junior archeologists, appeared.

"Phyfe!" the man exclaimed. "I don't know what it is all about, but the police are on the way down to your office. They have warrants for the arrest of you and Dr. Underwood!"

* * * * *

Phyfe nodded. "Thanks, Esmond. I'll see that there's no trouble for you because of this. I appreciate it. They didn't lose any time, did they?" he said to Underwood. "But as long as Demarzule has been destroyed, we've accomplished what we've tried to do."

"Wait a minute!" said Underwood. "Do we know that Demarzule has been destroyed? Something must have gone wrong; the police came too quickly."

"Look!" Shaken out of his customary calm, Dreyer was pointing through the window across the city.

There, where they knew the Carlson to be, was a great shining bubble of light.

"A force shell!" Underwood exclaimed. "How--?"

"They have evidently been prepared for a long time," said Dreyer.

Underwood tried the phone again and called for Illia, but there was no response from inside the shell of impenetrable energy. A moment of terrible fear caught Underwood up in its turbulence. What of Illia? Was she all right?

"Whatever the answer," Phyfe exclaimed, "it's a ten to one shot that Demarzule is not destroyed. In which case we'd better not be taken!"

"What can we do? They'll have the building surrounded. There'll be no chance of getting out."

"This is an old building. There are rooms and sub-basements that few know about, and the staff are all scientists. They'll be loyal. Come on!"

"No, wait," said Underwood. "Nothing can be gained by my hiding in this rabbit warren underneath the city. There is only one chance of destroying Demarzule, and that is my getting back to the museum and doing it personally."

"You're crazy! The Disciples will never let you back in there. Come on, man, we're wasting time!"

"You two go on and hide, Phyfe. I'll try to lay the blame on you and a group of scientists, and swear my own innocence. It's the only way to get access to Demarzule. Get going. Wait--have you got a burner?"

"In the drawer there. We'd better take it."

* * * * *

Underwood yanked open the drawer and found the weapon. Then he held the muzzle a short distance from his upper arm and fired. His face twisted involuntarily with pain and Phyfe stared in amazement. "What for?" the archeologist demanded.

Underwood tossed him the weapon as the room filled with the stench of his burned flesh. "You shot me when I refused to order the radiation off. It's a thin story and if they won't believe it I'll be a goner. But if we don't risk it, Demarzule will be the next ruler of Earth."

Dreyer nodded. "It's a chance. You'd better take it. Good luck."

A sudden commotion down the hall outside the door warned of the approach of the arresting officers. Phyfe gave a last despairing glance at Underwood, who was clutching the painful burn on his arm. The archeologist turned and darted swiftly through a door at the rear of the office, followed by Dreyer.

Almost instantly the main door was flung wide and two heavily armed officers burst into the room. Their impulsive charge was halted as they stared at the groaning physicist.

"Get help," Underwood said desperately. "I've got to get to the museum. It may not be too late if Dr. Morov turned the beam off. Phyfe forced me to order it stopped. Scientists don't want the Great One revived. He shot me when I refused. Would have killed me if--"

Underwood sagged forward over the desk and fainted from the pain he could no longer endure.

_Chapter Eight_

The beefy Committee Chairman regarded Underwood in the crowded hearing room with the self-righteous, detached anger of one who represents approximately a million voters. He told Underwood, "The reprieve you have been granted is not given because your crime is considered any less grievous. Because your act threatened a possession of this government which may potentially change the entire life of Earth for the better, your crime is deemed punishable by death.

"However, you are the only man capable of directing the project. Therefore, your sentence is commuted and will be resolved if you successfully conclude the project of restoring the Great One. Only by so doing may you prove your innocence. If an accident brings failure, three separate committees of competent scientists will bring a verdict that will determine whether you shall live."

"And what of Dr. Illia Morov?"

"Her sentence is life imprisonment for her attempt to destroy the Great One."

"She obeyed my orders given under duress, as I have explained. I cannot be responsible for the successful restoration if I am to be denied competent assistance. Her knowledge is absolutely essential to the success of the work."

The chairman frowned. "The civil courts have exercised judgment. It may be possible for her to be bound over to us as you were, but her sentence cannot be commuted except by special appeal and retrial. We will see what can be done in the matter."

Underwood choked back the blast he would like to have hurled, his denunciation of everything that symbolized the rotten culture into which he had been driven by accident of birth. He dared hope only that Illia would be granted leniency, that somehow they could think of a way to destroy the alien.

* * * * *

He had forced his mind shut against all possibilities of antagonism between the culture of Sirenia and that of Earth. Now he was aware of the full potentialities of a mind like Demarzule's, armed with Sirenian super-science, loose among Earthmen, and he was motivated by an urge to destroy that was as great as his former desire to save and restore. Earth was in bad enough shape without a Demarzule.

For himself and for Illia he almost dared hope that they might find escape from the wrath of the Disciples--perhaps to the Venusian colonies--for there was nothing left for them upon Earth.

The Chairman added with deadly significance, "Just to make sure that no risk is being taken with the Great One, you will be constantly attended by an armed guard. You will carefully explain every move before you make it--otherwise you may not be alive to make it."

That was all then. Underwood was led out under heavy guard between the rows of watchers, most of whom were Disciples. He could almost feel the doubt and hate directed toward him.

When he returned to the museum, guards of the Disciples stood everywhere. The scientists worked with blank, expressionless faces--and guns at their backs.

Craven, the biologist who had made detailed studies of the Disciples, glanced up from his desk uncertainly as Underwood walked in. He had been placed in charge temporarily during the absence of Illia and Underwood.

"I'm sorry about--everything, Del. Especially about Dr. Morov. When I saw her turning off the radiation I knew that something was wrong, but when she said that word had come from you to do it, I knew it was time for us to take over. I'm glad that they found you were not in sympathy with the scientists who wanted the Great One destroyed."

His words refused to fall into place in Underwood's mind so that they made sense. But after a moment it came--though there were personal guards attached to every other scientist in the place, there was none standing watch over Craven. So Craven was one of them, a Disciple. And if Craven, why not others?

But the biologist had been studying the Disciples from a scientific standpoint. Had he succumbed in spite of that or because of it?

It was a problem beyond Underwood's grasp. He evaded a reply with: "How is everything going? Is the cell division increasing? Intensities of radiation and nutrient solution being stepped up according to our plans?"

Craven nodded. "As far as I can tell, the Great One is developing properly. You'll want to make a complete check, of course. The daily reports are ready for your inspection."

Underwood grunted and left, followed by the silent, ever-present guard. He went out to the test board where the trio of technicians kept constant watch on the processes. Everything was functioning according to instructions in the repository--instructions prepared by Toshmere.

Everywhere were the guards, and up on the balcony were the unending streams of Disciples of the Great One. It was like a nightmare to Underwood. How had control of the project slipped away? It had happened so rapidly and insidiously that he had not been aware. But that was not it; the truth was that he had never had control. From the moment that the scientists brought the protoplasm of Demarzule to Earth and revealed the story of their find, it had been inevitable.

Inevitable, Underwood thought, and the greatest semantic blunder ever made. It might have been a good thing if it had been Toshmere instead of Demarzule. The world had had no leaders for a century except the bungling, vote-buying politicians. Toshmere might have led them back to a semblance of strength and initiative, but what would the conqueror and destroyer, Demarzule, do?

* * * * *

The following day, Illia returned. Underwood was shocked by her appearance. She had dreamed of a new and saner world to be brought by the alien out of space, just as Underwood had dreamed of a new world of science to be revealed. And now their dreams had turned into a monster.

The worst of their meeting was that there was nothing they could say to each other. Illia came into the tiny world of nightmare under the force shell in the custody of guards, and one remained constantly by her side as she resumed her duties. Likewise, Underwood's own guard never left him. Underwood had to maintain his pretense of innocence before them.

"It was Phyfe and Dreyer," he said to Illia. "I'm glad you didn't succeed in destroying Demarzule."

She hesitated an instant, then nodded with understanding. "I didn't know what you were doing, but I supposed there was some reason. I didn't suspect their evil plot."

* * * * *

And that was all. There was nothing more they could say. Nothing of her despair at her white-faced, lusterless appearance. Nothing of her lost dream.

The mass grew and took shape. Limbs and head and torso were distinctly formed and losing their fearsome, embryonic cast. The creature would be of adult form and shape, Underwood saw, and would not represent a return to infancy. It was fully eight feet tall and was humanoid to the extent of having four limbs and head and torso, but the X-rays showed radical differences in bone and joint structure. One cranial and two abdominal organs were completely unfamiliar and could be identified by none of the biologists on the project.

For a time Underwood nursed the hope that these structural differences might make it impossible for Demarzule to survive on Earth. But the further the lungs developed, the more evident it became that the Sirenian would adapt to the atmosphere. As to food, there was little doubt that nourishment would be no problem. By the sixth month, too, it was hopeless to assume that anything would go wrong with the process of restoration. Toshmere had planned too well.

Underwood wondered what had become of Phyfe and Dreyer, if they had been captured and killed, or if they still lived in the depths of the ancient buildings beneath the city. There had been absolutely no word. He had been kept in complete isolation since their tragic failure. He spoke to no one except the silent guards and his fellow technicians. He knew of none that he could trust, for he was certain that among the scientists working beside him, there were those whose duty it was to spy upon him. Craven, for example, had become more sullen day by day, and now he avoided Underwood almost continually, as if ashamed of the things that he believed in and had done, but unable to renounce them or help himself. The symptoms of hysteria were becoming constantly more evident.

Underwood looked for them in the other scientists, but he was not skilled enough to detect all the signs. The only way was to play safe and take no one into his confidence.

* * * * *

Life went on timelessly in the nightmare world. The light of day was completely obscured by the force shell. As Underwood strolled out of the museum building and looked up at its blackness, he recalled how it had saved the world centuries ago, when mankind had once before been on the verge of self-destruction in the dim beginnings of the atomic age. Only by the discovery of the force shell, a field impenetrable by any substance or radiation or force, had men been saved from total annihilation.

But now man was faced by another potent force of destruction--his own desire to submit to any leader who promised relief from independent responsibility and action. The alien would certainly be able to fulfill that promise where no man could, but was it worth the risk of being saddled with a bloody dictatorship?

It was fantastic, Underwood thought, that he could find no way to elude his guards and kill the growing monster. Variations in the strength of the radiation might do it, but there was no possibility of varying the radiation. The guards, whose leaders were technically trained, had access to the records of the scientists, which not only gave the details of previous work, but outlined each step until Demarzule was restored. Underwood dared not attempt departures of procedure from the written notes. The bath itself had been surrounded by a transparent guard impervious to solid shot or radiation weapons--even if he could have obtained any--nor could poisons be placed in the nutrient solution.

There was simply nothing that could be done while Demarzule was still in the nutrient bath. But on the day of his arising? A desperate, last-ditch plan formed in Underwood's mind.

He explained to his guard, "When the Great One arises, it would be well for someone to welcome him in his own tongue. Only a few of us scientists are able to, and of those who can, I am the only one here. With your permission, I'll be beside him and welcome him when he rises."

The guard considered. "I'll relay your request to the First High Prophet Hennessey. If it is deemed fitting you shall be appointed to welcome the Great One."

Underwood wished that he had given Hennessey a warmer welcome that first day when the fanatic prophet came to his office, but Hennessey gave permission immediately. Underwood imagined the Prophet taking considerable satisfaction in the irony of Underwood being the first to welcome the Great One.

Mounted beside the narrow catwalk between the observation board and the bath were the controls which would finally cut the radiation and drain the nutrient solution as the process of restoration came to an end. Here also were the water valves used to flush the bath when it had first been constructed.

In this narrow space, Underwood could escape the watching eye of his guard for an instant. He hoped to be able to cut the radiation and drain the bath prematurely. If that couldn't be done, he might fill the bath with water and drown Demarzule before the guards could intervene or reach the shutoff valve. Underwood had managed to secrete a small bar in his pocket with which he hoped to break the valve after it was opened.

The massive form of Demarzule had been stirring like an embryo for days now, and Underwood watched closely for the first attempt to rise. That would be the earliest moment that he could hope to make an attempt to destroy the Sirenian.

He wished he could confide in Illia, but there was no chance. He feared she might have some desperate, dangerous plan of her own.

The color of the Sirenian's skin had turned a deep hue, like dark redwood, and that appeared to be its natural tone. The hair upon the head was coppery, darker than the skin. Demarzule's whole appearance was one of might and strength even as he lay quiescent. His features were bold, with wide-set eyes and sharp nose. The mouth was stern, almost harsh.

* * * * *

Hysteria among the Disciples was mounting hourly. Instead of flowing through the building along the balcony in their endless stream, they poured in and stayed, hoping to be there for the rising of the Great One. Some were pushed over and killed by the fall to the floor below. They overflowed into the main hall and swarmed about the masses of equipment. This was welcomed by Underwood, who hoped that the pressing mob might damage some of the equipment and thus bring about the end of Demarzule.

In any event, the hysteria was having its effects upon the guards, who continued to watch the scientists. Their alertness and efficiency were giving way to the same tension that filled the mobs within the hall like a disease.

Underwood went sleepless for two days at the end, not daring to miss his one chance. And hundreds of the faithful who jammed the hall and thousands more who waited outside had already stood that long waiting for the miracle.

It was in early dawn when Underwood caught the first faint motion that indicated Demarzule was about to rise.

Underwood jerked a finger in the direction of the bath and looked questioningly at the guard. The man nodded and Underwood raced along the narrow catwalk.

There was no question of premature draining of the solution and cutting the radiation. It was time for that now. Demarzule was struggling upward, his lungs gasping in the first breath of Terrestrian atmosphere which filled the upper part of the enclosure.

Underwood cut the radiation switch and twisted the valve on the water line with a mighty wrench that tore the wheel from the shaft. Water flooded into the chamber.

Demarzule struggled to a sitting position and stared as if dazed, his countenance working fearsomely.

The Disciples saw him. A shout of ecstasy thundered through the great hall and the empty rooms of the museum. And then, suddenly, there was a new sound. A single voice rang out above all the rest.

"Strike now!" it shouted. "Strike down the invader. Destroy the blasphemy of the Great One!"

* * * * *

Underwood's head twisted about. There on the balcony in the place lately occupied by the Prophet, Hennessey, was Terry Bernard!

For an instant Underwood could not comprehend the meaning of it. The gun in Terry's hand flashed red. Underwood's guard slumped in his murderous rush and fell from the catwalk. He alone had seen the sudden rise of water and realized its meaning.

The cries and curses and screams and prayers that filled the hall made the previous commotion deathly silence by contrast. Sudden beams of deadly fire shot through the air, and Underwood could make no sense of it all.

Sides in the conflict began to appear. Underwood saw that some of the technicians and scientists had weapons and had disposed of their guards. Now they were firing carefully into the mob about the equipment, picking off the armed leaders.

Inside the impenetrable enclosure, the giant Sirenian staggered uncertainly as if stunned. The water was rising swiftly about his hips. The air, rushing out the oxygen intake pipe, allowed the water to rise in the otherwise hermetically sealed chamber.

A few minutes more and Demarzule would be cut off from the air supply. How long it would take to drown him, Underwood did not know. It would depend largely on his present rate of metabolism, which was a great uncertainty. But could the mob be held off that long? They had to be! He bent down and grabbed up the gun that his pursuing guard had dropped.

In the background of his mind he wondered what this sudden attack meant. How strongly organized was it, and who was behind it? Apparently Terry had given the signal for attack, and many of the scientists on the project had been prepared for it, yet Underwood had been given not the slightest hint that such attack would take place. He wondered why he had been left out.

The screaming of the hysterical Disciples was deafening as those in front tried to force their way back from the line of battle, and those in the rear tried to press forward to glimpse Demarzule.

Underwood leaped down to the floor in the sea of confusion and found himself unable to determine which way the conflict was moving. None of the scientists were near him, only the maddened, unreasoning Disciples. He decided to stay near the water valve to make certain that it was not shut off by any of the guards.

Then two figures surged up to him and one grasped his arm. "Del! Come on, let's get out of here!"

He turned. Terry's blood-streaked face was almost unrecognizable. His other hand clutched Illia's arm.

"You two go on," Underwood shouted. "Get out if you can. I've got to stay--to make sure he drowns."

* * * * *

"The water's cut off! Can't you see?"

Underwood turned in horror. The water level was falling instead of rising. Someone had cut it off at one of the other valves farther along the line and had opened the drain. Air was being pumped through, for Demarzule was standing rigidly now, looking down upon the surging mass as if contemplating their fate. The bitter animal struggle for survival was gone now from his face, and only a mocking scorn was there as the mob battled before him.

"We've failed!" Underwood exclaimed. "It must have been Craven who shut the water off. We haven't a chance now."

"Not if we stay here. Come on. We can lose ourselves in this crowd and work our way outside. There's a ship waiting to take us across to Phyfe. The _Lavoisier_ is manned and ready to go."

"The _Lavoisier!_ Where--?"

"Who knows? Go!"

Hopelessly, Underwood allowed himself to be pushed and jammed into the thick of the mob by the frantic Terry. Signs of armed conflict were dying. Underwood supposed that the scientists had been subdued, for now the hall was completely filled with the Disciples. It was impossible, he thought, that they could ever make their way out without being apprehended. But even as doubts came, he knew that he had to get out. He had to live to make another stand against the Sirenian.

He looked back. Demarzule was standing erect now. Slowly his great arms came up and his hands extended as if in blessing and welcome, and the moaning of the ecstatic Disciples rose in wild discordance.

Then out of those alien lips, amplified a thousand fold by the audio system installed within the chamber to catch any uttered words, there came an alien voice that only Underwood could understand. And as the strange words poured forth he shuddered at their implications.

"My people." Demarzule said. "My great and mighty people!"

_Chapter Nine_

Underwood turned as if driven back by the force of the conquering voice of thunder that came from the throat of Demarzule.

No one was paying any attention to the three scientists now. The faces of the Disciples were upturned toward the Great One, waiting for further pronouncements.

Underwood, Terry and Illia shoved through the wide doors of the hall against the crowd pressing from outside. As they fought through, the enormous voice continued to assail their ears.

"I have triumphed over death," Demarzule exclaimed. "I have conquered the ages, and now I come to you, my people. I have come to lead you to the stars and to the Galaxies beyond the stars, where your very name shall cause the creatures of distant worlds to tremble."

Each word was like a knife stabbing into Underwood, for they showed that Demarzule had already comprehended the situation--and mastered it. And though the people did not understand the words, the tone of his voice carried the meaning almost equally well, and there were none in that mass of worshipping Disciples who doubted that a new day of greatness had dawned for Earth.

All semblance of organization under the small-time prophets and priests such as Hennessey had vanished. There had never been much organization because people did not trust any man sufficiently to compose a very tight or efficient organization.

This was to the benefit of the scientists. It would take time for Demarzule to become aware of the opposition and the identity of the scientists. But he must surely be aware of the attempt on his life, Underwood thought, unless full consciousness had not returned until the water had begun to subside in the chamber, and Demarzule had not realized the significance of it.

But Underwood did not believe that. Demarzule had exhibited such rapid grasp of the attitude of the Disciples that he probably possessed a semantic accuracy in his thinking which would shame the best of Earth's scientists.

The three were making more rapid progress now as they pushed out into the part of the mob that could not see Demarzule. Under the black dome of the force shell, as far as they could see, the area between the building and the outer edge of the shell was filled with struggling humanity. The words of Demarzule could be heard only faintly.

"The north gate," Illia said. "That is the widest. Maybe the guard system has broken down completely--"

* * * * *

Terry nodded. "It looks like it. That's the closest to our flier, anyway. If we are challenged, let's carry Illia and explain she was injured in the mob. That might get us through. If not, keep your gun ready."

Underwood assented. He felt as if this were some nightmare from which he was struggling to awaken--unsuccessfully. He wondered what had happened to the other scientists on the project, and to those who had attempted the storming of the building. Had they all perished in the short and futile battle?

He had to admit to himself that at times, during those long days under the surveillance of the Disciple guards, he had wondered if there wouldn't have been some chance of utilizing Demarzule's science without danger. That hope, however, had been finally and completely blasted by Demarzule's arising. The Sirenian had not changed in half a million years.

As they savagely thrust through, Underwood considered the course that would probably be followed by Demarzule. He