Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 9. Abraham Merritt
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itself—after all what is it? A secretion of the brain? The cumulative expression, wholly chemical, of the multitudes of cells that form us? The inexplicable governor of the city of the body of which these myriads of cells are the citizens—and created by them out of themselves to rule?
Is it what many call the soul? Or is it a finer form of matter, a self-realizing force, which uses the body as its vehicle just as other forces use for their vestments other machines? After all, I thought, what is this conscious self of ours, the ego, but a spark of realization running continuously along the path of time within the mechanism we call the brain; making contact along that path as the electric spark at the end of a wire?
Is there a sea of this conscious force which laps the shores of the farthest-flung stars; that finds expression in everything—man and rock, metal and flower, jewel and cloud? Limited in its expression only by the limitations of that which animates, and in essence the same in all. If so, then this problem of the life of the Metal People ceased to be a problem; was answered!
So thinking I became aware of increasing light; strode past Yuruk to the door and peeped out. Dawn was paling the sky. I stooped over Drake, shook him. On the instant he was awake, alert.
"I only need a little sleep, Dick," I said. "When the sun is well up, call me."
"Why, it's dawn," he whispered. "Goodwin, you ought not to have let me sleep so long. I feel like a damned pig."
"Never mind," I said. "But watch the eunuch closely."
I rolled myself up in his warm blanket; sank almost instantly into dreamless slumber.
XVIII
INTO THE PIT
High was the sun when I awakened; or so, I supposed, opening my eyes upon a flood of daylight. As I lay, lazily, recollection rushed upon me.
It was no sky into which I was gazing; it was the dome of Norhala's elfin home. And Drake had not aroused me. Why? And how long had I slept?
I jumped to my feet, stared about. Ruth nor Drake nor the black eunuch was there!
"Ruth!" I shouted. "Drake!"
There was no answer. I ran to the doorway. Peering up into the white vault of the heavens I set the time of day as close to seven; I had slept then three hours, more or less. Yet short as that time of slumber had been, I felt marvelously refreshed, reenergized; the effect, I was certain, of the extraordinarily tonic qualities of the atmosphere of this place. But where were the others? Where Yuruk?
I heard Ruth's laughter. Some hundred yards to the left, half hidden by a screen of flowering shrubs, I saw a small meadow. Within it a half-dozen little white goats nuzzled around her and Dick. She was milking one of them.
Reassured, I drew back into the chamber, knelt over Ventnor. His condition was unchanged. My gaze fell upon the pool that had been Norhala's bath. Longingly I looked at it; then satisfying myself that the milking process was not finished, slipped off my clothes and splashed about.
I had just time to get back in my clothes when through the doorway came the pair, each carrying a porcelain pannikin full of milk.
There was no shadow of fear or horror on her face. It was the old Ruth who stood before me; nor was there effort in the smile she gave me. She had been washed clean in the waters of sleep.
"Don't worry, Walter," she said. "I know what you're thinking. But I'm —ME again."
"Where is Yuruk?" I turned to Drake bruskly to smother the sob of sheer happiness I felt rising in my throat; and at his wink and warning grimace abruptly forebore to press the question.
"You men pick out the things and I'll get breakfast ready," said Ruth.
Drake picked up the teakettle and motioned me before him.
"About Yuruk," he whispered when he had gotten outside. "I gave him a little object lesson. Persuaded him to go down the line a bit, showed him my pistol, and then picked off one of Norhala's goats with it. Hated to do it, but I knew it would be good for his soul.
"He gave one screech and fell on his face and groveled. Thought it was a lightning bolt, I figure; decided I had been stealing Norhala's stuff. 'Yuruk,' I told him, 'that's what you'll get, and worse, if you lay a finger on that girl inside there.'"
"And then what happened?" I asked.
"He beat it back there." He grinned, pointing toward the forest through which ran the path the eunuch had shown me. "Probably hiding back of a tree."
As we filled the container at the outer spring, I told him of the revelations and the offer Yuruk had made to me.
"Whew-w!" he whistled. "In the nutcracker, eh? Trouble behind us and trouble in front of us."
"When do we start?" he asked, as we turned back.
"Right after we've eaten," I answered. "There's no use putting it off. How do you feel about it?"
"Frankly, like the chief guest at a lynching party," he said. "Curious but none too cheerful."
Nor was I. I was filled with a fever of scientific curiosity. But I was not cheerful—no!
We ministered to Ventnor as well as we could; forcing open his set jaws, thrusting a thin rubber tube down past his windpipe into his gullet and dropping through it a few ounces of the goat milk. Our own breakfasting was silent enough.
We could not take Ruth with us upon our journey; that was certain; she must stay here with her brother. She would be safer in Norhala's home than where we were going, of course, and yet to leave her was most distressing. After all, I wondered, was there any need of both of us taking the journey; would not one do just as well?
Drake could stay—
"No use of putting all our eggs in one basket," I broached the subject. "I'll go down by myself while you stay and help Ruth. You can always follow if I don't turn up in a reasonable time."
His indignation at this proposal was matched only by her own.
"You'll go with him, Dick Drake," she cried, "or I'll never look at or speak to you again!"
"Good Lord! Did you think for a minute I wouldn't?" Pain and wrath struggled on his face. "We go together or neither of us goes. Ruth will be all right here, Goodwin. The only thing she has any cause to fear is Yuruk —and he's had his lesson.
"Besides, she'll have the rifles and her pistols, and she knows how to use them. What d'ye mean by making such a proposition as that?" His indignation burst all bounds.
Lamely I tried to justify myself.
"I'll be all right," said Ruth. "I'm not afraid of Yuruk. And none of these Things will hurt me—not after—not after—" Her eyes fell, her lips quivered, then she faced us steadily. "Don't ask me how I know that," she said quietly. "Believe me, I do know it. I am closer to —them than you two are. And if I choose I can call upon that alien strength their master gave me. It is for you two that I fear."
"No fear for us," Drake burst out hastily. "We're Norhala's little playthings. We're tabu. Take it from me, Ruth, I'd bet my head there isn't one of these Things, great or small, and no matter how many, that doesn't by this time know all about us.
"We'll probably be received with demonstrations of interest by the populace as welcome guests. Probably we'll find a sign—'Welcome to our City'—hung up over the front gate."
She smiled, a trifle tremulously.
"We'll come back," he said. Suddenly he leaned forward, put his hands on her shoulders. "Do you think there is anything that could keep me from coming back?" he whispered.
She trembled, wide eyes searching deep into his.
"Well," I broke in, a bit uncomfortably, "we'd better be starting. I think as Drake does, that we're tabu. Barring accident there's