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

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