The Alien by Raymond F. Jones (best summer reads of all time TXT) 📖

of the speed of closing the hiatus, such a coincidence was sufficient to destroy the ship. And so Underwood and his companions, watching, saw one of their great battleships explode in a nova of atomic fire as such a hit was scored upon it.

The interceptor itself was fired an instant later by the concentrated fire of the two adjacent battleships, but its loss was negligible to the enemy. The interceptors were expendable, expendable for now another score were seen leaving the rim of Earth and taking up the pursuit of the fleet.

But it was not their approach that caused the hearts of the men aboard the Lavoisier to quail. Behind them, slowly and ponderously, rose a terrible fleet of fifty dreadnaughts with vast firepower.

"What's our orbital radius at present?" Underwood demanded abruptly of the navigator.

"Sixty thousand."

"Take it, Mason," Underwood said. "I'm going down."

The impact of that moment hit them all, though they had been trying to anticipate it since they had first known that it would come. It was not their regard and friendship for Underwood, who might presently die before their eyes. It was not their own almost extinction before the fire of the invincible fleet rising to do battle.

It was that this moment would decide the course of man's history.

Everything depended upon a single strange weapon snatched from the hands of a forgotten people in a little eddy of civilization, whose sole purpose in existence might have been to carry this weapon through time to this moment.

And only one of them could wield that weapon, while the others stood by, neither knowing the progress of that conflict nor able to assist.

Underwood sat down in the deep chair that would hold his body restfully while his abasic senses swept Earthward to envelop and crush the anachronism that he had turned upon civilization.

It was more than just, more than ironic, he thought. It was his high privilege to wipe out some of the guilt that he knew he could never smother or rationalize out of his mind—the guilt of having been the one to bring Demarzule back to life.

Of them all in that control room, only Illia uttered a sound, and hers was a half audible cry choked back before it was fully spoken.

He lay apparently relaxed with eyes closed in the huge chair in the control room of the Lavoisier, but the essence, the force that was Delmar Underwood, was sixty thousand miles away, hovering over the force shell dome that hid the Carlson Museum.

Simultaneously with Illia's cry there came a smashing alarm that rang through the room with its insistent, murderous message.

"We're hit! Number three and four shell generators have gone out!"

As Underwood held to the point of view of the advancing wave-front of perception, he had the sensation of diving headlong toward the throng that was gathering as if by magic about the white, shining columns of the building. As if knowing of the battle that was to be fought between the titans, the waiting thousands had gathered when the force shell went over the Carlson and the battle fleets took to space. They watched, waiting for the unknown, the unexpected, somehow sensing their destiny was being decided.

Sight of the milling thousands was lost to Underwood as he plunged deep below the protecting shell over the building as if it did not exist. The lightlessness inside the shell was broken by the blaze of lights that showered their radiance everywhere upon the grounds and museum that had become a monstrous palace.

Waiting, hesitant guards and servants moved about the grounds, gathering in knots to ask one another what the appearance of the battleships and the sudden use of the shell meant. It was inconceivable that anyone should be challenging the Great One, but the very improbability of it filled them with fearful dismay.

Underwood entered the building. The vast assemblage of instruments and machines that had filled the main hall when he last saw it was gone now, replaced with rich paintings and fabulous tapestries had been ransacked from the treasuries of the Earth.

There was no one in sight. Underwood continued on until he came to the series of large exhibition rooms toward the rear. Here, apparently, were set up administrative offices to maintain whatever personal contact was necessary between Demarzule and the Disciples he ruled.

Then Underwood came to the central room at the rear of the center section of the building. Demarzule was there.

It was with an involuntary shock that Underwood saw again the alien creature he had restored to life. As he sat in the throne-like chair in the center of one wall of the room, the Great One seemed like some sculpture of an ancient god of evil executed in weathered bronze. Only the startling white of his eyes gave evidence of life in that enormous bulk.

Underwood hadn't expected the twenty Earthmen who sat near Demarzule, forming a semi-circle with the Great One in the center, as if in council. They sat in brooding silence. Not a word seemed to be passing between them, and Underwood watched in wonderment.

Then, slowly, Demarzule stirred. His white staring eyes moved, as though searching the room. His words came to Underwood.

"So you have come at last," he said. "You challenge Demarzule the Great One with your feeble powers. I know you, Delmar Underwood. They tell me it was you who found and restored me. I owe you much, and I would have offered you a high place in my realm which shall encompass the Universe. Yet you set yourself against me.

"I am merciful. You may still have your place if you choose. I need one such as you, just as I needed the brain and hands of Toshmere, who was so foolish as to think he could be the one to conquer the eons in my place. You know of his fate, I am sure."

Demarzule's speech was a paralyzing shock. Underwood had made no revelation of himself, yet the alien had detected his presence. Through the abasa, he sensed the might and power of Demarzule, the full potentialities that lay in the three organs that the ancient race had developed, potentialities that he had scarcely touched in the short weeks of experimentation.

It made him sick for an instant with the fear of almost certain defeat. Then he struck, furiously, and with all the power that was in him.

Never before had he hurled such a bolt of devastation. With satisfaction he sensed Demarzule's powers sway and wither before its blast, but the Great One absorbed it and recovered after an instant.

"You are a worthy opponent," said Demarzule. "You have accomplished much in so short a time, but not enough, I fear. Once more I extend my offer to join me. As my lieutenant, you might become governor of many Galaxies."

Underwood remained silent, conserving his forces for another blast which Demarzule could surely not endure. He hurled it and felt the energies flowing from him in a life-destroying stream. Demarzule's bronze face was only smiling sardonically as he met that attack—and absorbed it.

"When you have exhausted yourself thoroughly," he said, "I shall demonstrate my own powers—but slowly, so that death will not be too quick for you."

The use of such waves of force was exhausting to Underwood, but he knew that Demarzule's absorptive organ should soon reach maximum capacity, if it were not allowed to drain away in the meantime.

A third time he blasted. Then sudden, terrible realization came that Demarzule was not absorbing the energy. It was being diverted, drawn aside before it even approached the Sirenian.

In something approaching panic, Underwood directed his senses to locate the source of the diversion, and found it in the twenty Earthmen sitting motionlessly about Demarzule.

Demarzule seemed to know the instant that Underwood became aware of the fact. "Yes," he said, "we have duplicated the abasa. Cancer is plentiful among you. In five thousand more years you would have stopped fighting it and learned how to use it. There are twenty of us. You would not have come had you known you would have that many to fight singlehanded, would you? Now it is too late!"

With that word, a wave, of paralyzing, destroying force swept over Underwood. How it was affecting him, what senses it was attacking, he did not know. He only knew that a flaming agony was burning out life, as if reluctant to give him a speedy, merciful death.

He must withdraw to the ship to recover his forces. He could never withstand the attack of twenty-one abasas.

Underwood relaxed and threw his powers back toward the ship—and failed!

Abruptly, the metallic glint of Demarzule's lips parted in a roar of laughter without merriment, but of triumph.

"No, my brave Earthling, you cannot retreat. You did not know that. For those who would challenge the Great One there is no retreat. Your decision is made, and you will fail and you will die—but only when I wish, and your fellow Earthmen will find amusement in toying with you as a cat with a mouse before I give the final blow that will destroy your rash, impatient ego."

The flaming fire of Demarzule's attack continued while Underwood fought savagely and vainly to retreat. How was he being held there against his efforts to retreat? He did not know that the abasa held such powers and he would not have known how to exert them himself if he had been aware of them.

He gave up and turned back, letting the power flow into the absorptive cells of the dor-abasa, but it could not be for long, for the organ would disrupt under such stress.

Then, as if in keeping with his promise to prolong the agony, the attack ceased, and Demarzule allowed him to rest.

"You were brash, were you not?" he taunted. "How could you dare come against the mightiest power of the Universe, the greatest mind ever created, and attack with your puny powers? You blaspheme the Great One by your presumption!"

"Once, long ago," said Underwood, "the Sirenian forces were defeated by the Dragbora. Again it is the Dragbora you face, Demarzule. Remember that, and defend yourself!"

Underwood was startled. Incredibly, it seemed that he had not spoken those words, but rather that the dead Jandro was with him, silently backing him, teaching, advising—.

He lashed out, but not at Demarzule. He struck swiftly at the nearest Earthman. Almost instantly, the unfortunate shuddered and fell to the floor, dead. In quick succession Underwood struck at the nerve cells of the next five and they died without sound.

In snarling fury and retaliation, Demarzule retaliated. Underwood absorbed the blow—and incredibly hurled it back.

It was as if he had suddenly become aware of techniques that he had never dreamed of. He had not known it was possible to absorb the nerve-destroying force with his own dor-abasa and whip it back upon the attacker, like a ball caught and thrown.

It hardly seemed as if he were acting through his own volition, yet he acted. He felt the surprise of Demarzule, and in that moment he knew the secret. The Earthmen apparently possessed only a single primitive organ, hardly identifiable as one of the abasa, for they had the capacity for defense, but not for attack. Four more of them toppled, and then Underwood was forced to face the attack of Demarzule again.

Something like terror had entered the mind of the alien now. Underwood sensed the thoughts of possible defeat that flooded Demarzule's mind.

"Remember that day on Vorga?" Underwood asked. "Remember how the Dragboran powers pierced the great force shell you flung about the planet? Remember how your men fell one by one, and their weapons went cold and the force shell dropped for lack of control? Remember, Demarzule, it was the Dragbora you fought that day, and it is the Dragbora you fight now. I have not come to challenge as a puny Earthman. I come as a Dragboran—to complete the unfinished task of my ancestors!"

The Sirenian was silent and new confidence filled Underwood. He felt that he was not fighting alone, that all of the ancient Dragboran civilization was behind him, battling its age-old enemies to extinction. He felt as if Jandro himself were there.

The energy he absorbed from Demarzule he turned upon the cohorts, who sat as if frozen with fear as they watched their fellows slump and fall to the floor in soundless death.

In near-madness, Demarzule increased his attacks. He adopted a shifting, feinting attack that shocked Underwood's abasa with each surging wave of force. But Underwood learned how to control those surges, to pass them on to his own attacks, which still were directed upon the Earthmen within the chamber.

Within moments of each other, the last two on either side of Demarzule fell. The Sirenian seemed not to have noticed, for all his energies and concentration now were directed at Underwood.

Underwood was tiring swiftly. The energies draining out of