Gama Is Thee!
Date: 2021-01-16T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; Adventure stories; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction; Escaped prisoners -- Fiction

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Title: Gama Is Thee!

Author: Stanley Mullen

Release date: January 16, 2021 [eBook #64309]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GAMA IS THEE! ***

GAMA IS THEE!

By STANLEY MULLEN

On Venus, if one rings a doorbell, or bangs
on a locked gate at night, it is adventure. You
never know who—or what—will answer your summons.
The door swings slowly open and you brace yourself
to look. Will it be maid—or monster—or both?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories July 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Wherever men gather and talk, someone is sure to mention Khaljean's, on Venus. Men will always be fascinated by tales of the strange and wonderful and fantastic, and Khaljean's—zoo, petshop, wild animal supply house—is the stuff from which legends are made. One hears of the place on Mars or Earth, on Titan or Rhea, on Callisto or Ganymede, even in the subsurface mines of Pluto or the curious twilight outposts on Mercury, and some of the yarns will probably lessen the tedium of light-year watches when the first manned spacer pushes beyond the frontiers of the solar system.

Most of the stories are 21st century versions of the tall tale, for both establishment and owner stagger imagination and breed fabulous accounts. A rumor that Khaljean will fabricate to order any nightmarish monster from synthetic flesh and organic spare parts is obvious exaggeration. The claim that Khaljean can mate any curious life-form captured by far-roving hunters is also false—since he failed twice. Khaljean loves animals and collects them chiefly for pleasure. He will sell some for pets and for educational exhibitions, but for each one sold he keeps ten. Everyone knows that he has frequently risked death rather than kill or injure a living creature.

Of all his zoo's wonders, none can compare with Khaljean—for man is the most fantastic of animals, and Khaljean is the most extraordinary of men. Khaljean is both public figure and man of mystery. Nobody knows his race or origin, and nowadays nobody asks. With the epidemics of mutation in the Earth-colonies of Venus, and the standard gene-tangents accepted among Venusian natives, such curiosity is bad form. And dangerous.

So Khaljean's, and the stories about it, have grown steadily through the years. The strangest story of all concerning the zoo is one that, for good reason, no one tells. It happens to be true. One night, in Castarona, by the Yellow Sea—

But the trouble did not start in Khaljean's. There are some who say it did not finish there....

Austerity had finally caught up with Venus. Pao Chung's subcellar fungweed hell in the native quarter of old Castarona was ordered to close every night at midnight (Venus time)—or else. Being a Venusian business man, a very rugged individualist, and a type Q mutant, Pao Chung preferred to chance the "or else."

Among interesting people netted in the raid were:

Pao Chung, himself. Bland and over-civilized, he had grown rich from traffic in illegal drugs and the outlawed mechanical hypnotizers. Despite pointed ears and a gnome-like expression of detached malice, he appeared to be reasonably human, even in his devotion to vice as a means of livelihood. Anything illegal and profitable was his vocation; his hobbies ranged from innocent blackmail to murder for fun. Recent extension of his operations from slave trading into political corruption had incensed even the grafting officials of Castarona. They waited only an opportunity to catch him off-balance. Hence the raid.

Bat Ferris, spaceman, wanted on an open charge warrant sworn out by Solar Surveys, Inc.,—and wanted preferably alive and in condition to answer questions. Ferris had learned long ago not to give his right name, but an alias is poor disguise if one's brain wave patterns happen to be on file. And sometimes if they are not. Being off "reservation" at all, and particularly without permission and lacking his ident-armband, would mean real trouble. His capture in the raid was pure mischance, due to entering Pao Chung's only for the virtuous purpose of rescuing his partner and friend—

Bogus Angel, X-type mutant from South Venus, painfully well known to police records. The only angelic attribute he could claim was his twenty-foot wingspread. His face bore eerie resemblance to those demonic gargoyles carved on medieval cathedrals. Fine fur in stripes of ochre, burnt orange and smudged brown covered the visible parts of his anthropoid anatomy, making him resemble a tiger left in the rain long enough for the dyes to run.

Angel liked peace and quiet, and resorted to gambling, theft, arson, aggravated assault and occasional assassination to obtain it. In the icy morass of his soul, the few cracks vented sinister and malicious humor. His greatest virtue was warped and violent loyalty to Ferris—which was not necessarily a virtue from the official point of view. Angel's appetite for and capacity for misuse of drugs, alcohol and mechanical hypnotizers was miraculous—but when loaded, he was dangerous.

Of nine others scooped in the raid, only one fact need be mentioned. They are still in jail, which indicates lack of initiative or good sense. Jailbreak on Venus is a sporting proposition, and inevitably weeds the sheep from the goats. Pao Chung and Bogus Angel were definitely goats, and Ferris may be considered a dark gray sheep. For various reasons, it was essential to all three to escape—and quickly.

They stood together in the jailyard. Ferris and Angel had relapsed into silence as Pao Chung approached.

"When are you planning escape?" Pao Chung asked with a directness not expected of him.

Angel chuckled, but Ferris stared suspiciously. "How are you so sure we intend to escape?" he parried.

Pao Chung shrugged. "A simple question easily answered. While your friend was in my shop I manipulated the hypnotic machines. He talked, chiefly about himself, but also about you. Enough to give me a clue to your real identity, though probably he does not guess it himself. I know that you dare not stay. Eventually, they will check your brain wave patterns and learn ... too much. Which is the greater risk?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"None, directly," Pao Chung admitted. "But I enjoy fishing in troubled waters. Other people's business can often be turned to my profit. In this case, since we are being frank, I wish to leave with you when you go. Take me along, or I talk before you can make the attempt."

Mayhem shone in Angel's eyes but Ferris put a restraining hand on the furry arm.

"Dead men don't talk," urged Angel hopefully, his non-human tongue licking feral lips.

"Wait," ordered Ferris. "If you kill him now, we will have no chance to escape. It would draw too much attention to us."

"Besides being foolish," said Pao Chung smoothly. "Both of you are strangers in Castarona. Where would you go? Who would hide you? How long would you last?"

"Talk fast," Ferris advised gently. "If you know so much, you know we have little to lose."

"Only your lives, perhaps. More, if my deductions are correct. Listen to me. Like you, I am in greater peril here. My offense is a minor one. By now, I should have been fined and let go with a warning. I suspect the authorities of more sinister intentions. It will be easy to find a pretext if they wish to be rid of me. I must escape. Alone, none of us would stand a chance. Together, who knows...?"

Ferris consulted his partner with a glance, Angel nodded, but imposed a question.

"And afterwards, what of your deductions?"

"I will forget them," promised Pao Chung.

"See that you do," said Ferris. "Or we will."

Pao Chung ignored the prophecy amiably. "I know a possible refuge once we have managed the escape. A man in the city owes me favors. As refuge, of course, it will be temporary. They will have mechanical trackers after us eventually, but not at first. Electronic bloodhounds would spoil their sport, make killing us too easy. But the nature of our sanctuary will give them pause for a time. Complex, interesting and dangerous, it is the one place in Castarona no one will think to look. And there is enough space to hide in for quite a while."

"Such a place sounds interesting," Ferris agreed. "But I suppose you know every unsavory rat's nest in Castarona."

"Not a rat's nest," said Pao Chung, smiling. "Much better. Have you heard of Khaljean's?"

"Who hasn't? That should muddle the pursuit for a day or two. But can you count on Khaljean?"

Pao Chung snorted. "Blackmail is my professional secret, so don't ask details. Khaljean will grant us refuge. Not willingly, perhaps, but I have enough on him to guarantee his conduct. How about a plan for getting out of jail?"

Ferris laughed harshly. "You've paid your passage. Now we'll pay ours. Hiding out with the rest of the wild animals seems very appropriate. Listen carefully...."

Pao Chung and Angel bent an ear, nodding approval.

Jailbreak looks temptingly easy. Hazards of escape are mostly mental, so far as barriers of barred doors and windows, locked gates, or walls of stone, metal or plastic are concerned. Inner and outer doors are frequently open. Prisoners move about at will, within defined limits. Even there, no physical hindrance is put in the escapee's way. He may pause at the door and indulge in whimsical repartee with guards or warden. He may delay his exit long enough to exchange fond farewells with friends and fellow inmates—and he had better.

Once outside the fun begins. It is open season on fugitive prisoners, and the first guard lucky enough to fatally blast an escapee receives two weeks with pay and a cash bonus for every hour short of the deadline required for killing or recapturing a runaway. Any prisoner who makes good his escape, and lasts a full three days is written off the books. Either way, he is written off, since the guards make no pretense of trying to recapture him alive, and the hunt is geared to surprising efficiency.

It should be a spirited gamble, but few men ever make the attempt, and fewer still succeed—so the sport may be said to languish. History records only five men who made the finish line, though hundreds used to try for it. Building walls opposite the gateway bear leprous scars from blaster discharges which brought several daring attempts to pyrotechnical conclusions.

Angel sauntered up to a guard on duty at the main gate. He looked across the busy street at the flaking walls and evidences of extreme heat. A bored guard glanced casually at the brawny Venusian, taking curious note of his folded wings.

"Going out?" asked the guard with cynical humor. "You'll get those wings singed, sonny."

Angel smiled, and a dream of violence lived briefly in his gem-faceted eyes. "I might," he mused softly. "What handicap will you give me?"

"Close my eyes and count to five," offered the guard, grinning viciously.

"Start counting," suggested Angel.

The guard's eyes and mouth opened wide, his grin changed to a glare, alert and suspicious. At that moment, alarms blared in the cellblock and jailyard.

Angel appeared to stumble, thrusting himself heavily against the guard. Already off-balance, trying to look in two directions at once, the man lurched halfway through the gate. Automatic selenium cell alarms caught the movement and added their wild clamors to the jangling babel from the building. Volumes of dense black smoke poured from doors and windows of the cellblock's lower floors. From above came shrill screams from the trapped inmates on upper floors.

"Fire!" yelled Angel. Then he was running, not through the gate but towards the building.

Guards and prisoners milled in ultimate confusions. Jailyard was a melee, but Angel forced a passage. At the cellblock doorway he paused long enough to make sure that guards were rushing a long ladder of light-metal alloy to the wall.

Inside, he plunged through churning confusions of smoke, sound and invisible solids. In a city as inflammably built as Castarona, fire inevitably creates panic. Equipment must be always at hand. Automatic sprinklers were already deluging the threatened interior with water and chemicals. Angel waded knee-deep in chemical foam to the stairway and ascended against the pressure of a descending waterfall. Voices and metallic alarms mingled in shrill discords.

Groping blindly and colliding with hysterical prisoners, Angel fought up the spiraling cascades of the stairway like a trout seeking the spawning grounds.

At the fourth floor, he got to a window and smashed the glass, then set up a bedlam of howls and shrieks. From below, the light-alloy ladder angled up toward him. Its hooks engaged the window ledge. With a yelp of maniacal joy, he snatched it from the hands of the steadiers on the ground, and gave a series of quick jerks to dislodge the mounting guards and firefighters. With easy strength, he lifted it clear of the ground and rung by rung hoisted it upward. Bat Ferris and Pao Chung grasped it from the roof parapet and held on while he raced upstairs again and helped them drag it to the roof.

The nearest building was just about a ladder-length away.

By prodigies, they raised it to the vertical, then let it slant in the direction indicated. It toppled and swung in a wild arc. There was a bad moment when all three realized that it did not quite reach. Acting instantaneously, Angel lifted the pivot end, hooked his knees to the parapet and extended the ladder by his own length. The far end struck hard, bounced high, nearly tearing Angel from his precarious hold.

"Over!" he commanded, while the vibrations still jarred painfully through his body.

Without argument, one at a time, Ferris and Pao Chung walked gingerly across the perilous, swaying bridge. Kneeling, Ferris made sure the ladder hooks were secure on the other parapet. He cried out.

Angel relaxed his kneeholds, beating his wings furiously and climbing like a bird on a breaking treelimb. The ladder swung in giant's pendulum. Angel moved with lightning speed and miraculous precision, maintaining balance with threshing pinions while his lithe legs and powerful arms carried him upward. He was mounting the upper rungs when the ladder crashed savagely against the building side, writhing, vibrating, tearing its hooks free and sending broken masonry crashing into the dizzy depths below. Angel leaped clear, caught the parapet and dragged himself up.

Guards boiled onto the jailhouse roof and laced blaster beams across the chasm between buildings. Crouched low, the fugitives ran, taking advantage of every cover. Explosions followed them and they raced through pelting storms of molten stone and metal.

"Over the roofs," Ferris shouted. "They'll follow soon enough. Probably the near streets are already blocked off, and we'll need all the time we can snatch."

They halted for breath in the shelter of a vast dome. Pao Chung glanced admiringly at his enforced allies. "Well-generaled," he commented. "Even to the timing of the faked fires. Too bad such talent as ours must be wasted on an audience as unappreciative as the police. However, you've kept your bargain. We're out, and still alive, with a few minutes' start, and the rooftops of the city to play hide and seek in. Now, if we can reach Khaljean's Petshop."

"We'll reach it," Ferris promised grimly.

II

Around them was the fantastic skyline. From below, in the teeming streets, came a rising buzz like the droning activity of a hive of angry bees. Above, rose the city-wide dome of fused quartz, its crystalline concavity faintly iridescent as it reflected the questioning beams of giant searchlights. North, between the fugitives and the older native quarters of Castarona, were the gigantic systems of airlocks, and below that, the sprawling tangles of dockland.

Ferris led his companions in a tortuous route that covered miles of angled and uneven rooftops. Realizing that his ident-cards must have come through, he knew that police and security officials must be turning the city inside out in a wild scramble to locate and deal with him. Speed was essential, and more than his personal safety depended upon the outcome of the wild chase over the jagged skylines.

Knots of wary policemen and determined security soldiers invaded the rooftops and began searching the hundreds of square miles. In case the escaped prisoners had descended from the high levels, even business blocks were being turned out. The whole city was undergoing systematic scouring. Officialdom was desperate and badly frightened. Mechanical trackers had already been sent for. Never before had they been used so early in the game. The man, or whatever he was, Bat Ferris must be found at once, slain if possible. The hunt was on, full cry.

After two near brushes with patrols, Ferris finally decided that it would be safer to descend to the streets. Dragnets spread over the world above the city, and only luck had kept the trio from being sighted a dozen times. They were near the edge of the city where the half-bubble of the dome comes down into a series of cones which are the great airlocks protecting the city-atmosphere from the troubled violence and noxious fumes of outer Venus.

Like shadows the fugitives descended, going down darkened spirals of stairways, stealing elevators, moving furtively among dark, twisting alleyways, crawling under vast landing stages and skirting heaps of exotic Venusian produce ready for shipping to the nine inhabited worlds. In the cluttered dockland areas they collided blindly with an armed patrol.

Angel, acting on pure instinct, leaped high, then swooped down like a striking hawk. The rustle of his opened wings was like the flapping of wind-whipped flames. His outstretched arms gathered two of the four man patrol and crushed life from them before they sensed danger. Ferris was almost as quick. He leaped and strangled, and a man died in swift, deadly silence. Pao Chung, unused to managing his own violence, was clumsier. A blaster went off. Then Angel took over the difficulty. The soldier broke and ran, screaming, firing his blaster twice more without aiming.

The uproar would bring help. But the soldier was beyond help. Angel soared and dived. There was no fight.

Now armed, the fugitives fled swiftly. Pao Chung took over the lead. By devious streets and crooked alleys, they went in the extremes of haste.

Further caution was useless. Now that the alarm had been given, speed was the only hope. Pao Chung knew every secret rat-run in the old native quarter. He used most of them. If the passage of the fugitives caused a ripple of excitement among the polyglot denizens of that forbidding area, they did not know it, nor heed it. All three knew the natives well enough to be certain that the police could expect no favors from that source. All Venusians are natural anarchists, born outlaws and rebels against authority. The trail would die on stubborn tongues unless mechanical trackers were used.

Even then, unless the police and security squads came in massed force, there would be incidents to delay pursuit. Natives, and the human debris of nine worlds which had found refuge in the quarter, had no reason to love authority. In one sense, the area was an armed camp within the walls. Uneasy truce at best existed between these motley dwellers and the intruding minions of the nominal officialdom. While the hunted could expect no actual help from the guerrilla forces of Castarona's underworld, there was the certainty of hindrance to the hunters.

Patrols and searching squads converged on the freight-dock stages, drawn by radioed reports of a clash. From there a trail of sorts led straight into the native quarter. As the soldiers and police massed on the fringes of the area, sparks of trouble began to develop, were quickly fanned to flame, and quenched only by continuous violence and the arrival of overwhelming forces.

Pao Chung led his companions into a dark, zigzagging alley.

"Not far now," he gasped hoarsely, struggling for breath.

From close behind came a rising uproar.

The alley ended abruptly against a high, blank, curving wall of reinforced concrete. Pao Chung's raw, burning throat refused speech, but he gestured over the wall. There was no gate. Angel sprang lightly to the top and gave his partners in crime a hand up. They dropped into darkness on the far side. Light writhed and flickered curiously on the great dome overhead. Tumult died away behind them as they fled across a wide open space, then rose to shocking crescendos. Reflections flared in the dome.

Uproar dwindled to uneasy silence, as if the massed forces of law and order had found the native quarter stickier going than expected, and had been forced to retire in disorder.

Pao Chung stopped as if checking directions, then led off at a sharp tangent. The way went through fields. Diffused light from the tall city-buildings filtered in here and gave some sense of the ground surface, which was fortunate. Numerous small fences of wire hummed and sputtered on insulator-posts. Electrified guard-fences. Pao Chung hurdled them carefully, but they were low enough to trip and incinerate an incautious trespasser, unaware of their existence and unused to their spacing.

Oppressive silence brooded over the place. Atmosphere was thick with pungent and exotic odors that lingered with unpleasantly alien tang in the nostrils.

Ahead loomed a high stockade of chrome-steel pilings, pierced by a single monstrous gate.

Pao Chung ran up and hammered on the gate. Its reverberations roused thunderous echoes in the night. A curious echo persisted and increased in volume.

On Venus, if one climbs a fence, rings a doorbell, or bangs on a locked gate at night, it is adventure. You never know who or what will answer your summons. The door swings slowly open, and you brace yourself to look. Will it be maid or monster—or both?

This was Khaljean's....

The gate swung open a scant double handspan, checked by a short length of sturdy chain. A head poked through the aperture. An interesting head, even in the difficult light. Details were obscure, but there was a flash of curd-white skin, fine-modeling of feature, a delicate oval face framed in a swinging bell of dark hair.

In this case, the summons was answered by, presumably, a maid. Khaljean's daughter, Teucrete, herself something of a legend.

A woman can be described in terms of anatomical rhapsody. Or one may dwell endlessly upon sweetness of disposition, upon quaint and unique charms of personality. A potential lover may fashion poetic conceits upon the lilting moonbeam qualities in her voice, compare her skin to flower-petals, her eyes to gemfires, liken the graceful movements of limbs and body to the liquid symphonies of swirling water. Or these matters may be left wholly to the imagination and the girl described obliquely by reference to her effect upon the male population in her immediate vicinity.

The effect was jarring enough.

"Go away!" she said inhospitably. She leaned further through the opening to snarl fluent imprecations in Venusian billingsgate at the nocturnal callers.

Pao Chung braved the storm. "Shut up!" he said evenly.

Teucrete's eyes fixed on him savagely, and she took a sharp breath with the obvious intention of renewing her tirade. Then she thought better of it and restrained her outrage long enough to throw a taunt in his face.

"Is Pao Chung so desperate for money that he comes now in the middle of the night? You're two days early for your payment. Come back then."

"Call your father," ordered the Venusian.

"Khaljean is not here. He's ... hunting. Come back after noon tomorrow if you must see him."

The head withdrew inside. The gate crashed shut. Bolts grated.

"Shall I fly over the stockade and throttle her?" asked Angel, rippling his wings.

Pao Chung hammered the gate again. As before, the racketing animal chorus repeated the sound, with variations. Pao Chung kept pounding until the gate was opened again. This time the head did not appear, but a wiry female voice addressed them from the inside darkness.

"Still here? The police must be hunting you."

"They are."

"Good! I will point you out and stay to watch the kill."

Pao Chung chuckled evilly. "Do that. The record of Khaljean's background and illegal activities is in my safe. My will provides for publication of all such papers upon my death."

The voice hesitated. "It might be worth humiliation or disgrace to be rid of you permanently."

"It might," agreed Pao Chung. "Many people have thought so. I wonder if Khaljean will be one of them."

With a scrape of bare metal, bolts retreated into sockets and the chain was removed. Crack widened enough to permit entrance.

"Come in, then," Teucrete said wearily. "I will let my father decide when he returns. For tonight, you can stay. But I won't answer for your safety. The animals are roused and nervous. I am not sure I can control them with strangers here."

Beastly cacophonies greeted the entrance of the fugitives. An atmosphere of alien and indescribable uneasiness pervaded the vast compound with its rows and piled banks of cages. The atmosphere was the emotion of night-hauntings, and the sound was its voice.

No sign above the gate proclaimed, Here Dwells Nightmare, nor, Through These Portals Pass the Most Incredible Life-Forms in the Known Universe. There was no circus atmosphere. Just a nameless blending of sounds and smells and alien vibrations that stirred the imagination like evil flames licking at forgotten folk memories. On Venus, the term unearthly has naturally lost meaning, but here was a hint of dreadful abysses beyond even the exotic fecundity of the cloud-veiled planet. Here were half-audible chords beyond all the known octaves. Here, in the troubled darkness one sensed symbols of instincts, minds and feelings that man was never meant to know or understand. Here was the final question mark of evolution—whence, and to what dreadful purpose?

What incredible virtuosity of the Unknown Creator had brought these unthinkable beings into multiform existence? And why? What purpose did they serve in the plan of Creation? Or was there any purpose? Was there even a plan?

Bat Ferris remembered such thoughts from his lonely, monastic youth on Mars, and during the schooling period on Earth. One had time for long unhappy thoughts in such a segregated childhood and some of them still reverberated deep inside him.

The girl drew back to let them enter, flashing the beam of a hand radilume on each in turn. Her glance flicked each of them in examination sharp enough to draw blood. She received them in silence, for Teucrete's mind was not on the duties of a hostess to unexpected guests.

"Wait here," she ordered crisply. Then she went among the tangled avenues between cages and spoke soothingly to the caged brutes. Her voice crackled, purred, coughed, roared, hissed.

The bird people were the first to heed. Their bright, nervous chittering subsided into occasional geysers of chirping. Surly sand leopards from Mars paced their cages and vented sounds like needles caught in the grooves of antique disc recordings. Partially gaseous life forms from Saturn had no vocal apparatus, but showed their uneasy displeasures by flaring into sullen crimsons and bruised purples of luminosity.

Ferris followed the girl closely on her rounds, his eyes staring in wonder at the caged monsters revealed when her light bathed the barred cubicles. Some cages were not cages in the ordinary sense at all. Behind barriers of streaming light crouched protoplasmic entities of no set form. Moondogs sported aimlessly in pools of ionized gas. Wireflies battered themselves against invisible net barriers. Complex mysteries of Plutonian life-forms floated in magnetic fields. Metallic crystals built themselves into coral-like colonies resembling miniature castles.

Less outre creatures inhabited the myriads of cell-blocks—the ordinary and extraordinary varieties of apes and cats and dogs, the bovines and marsupials, the squeaking rats and trumpeting elephants, the endless species of sea-creatures, the tree-haunters and the desert dwellers, the burrowers and the flyers. There were supposedly extinct saurians, and examples of tomorrow's freaks and mutants. There were brute clowns and tragedians. There were—

But Khaljean's has been described often enough in magazine articles, sometimes with tri-dimensional pictures in color. Any reader so inclined may look into the back files of Inter-Planetary Magazine and stupefy himself with the famous issue of July, 2091.

Teucrete sensed that she was followed, but with pointed insolence, ignored Ferris and continued her rounds. Gradually, her eerie tones brought calm to the multiform excitements of the compound. She returned eventually to Pao Chung and Angel.

"I will take you back through the laboratories to the inner maze," she said irritably. "Move quietly and do not stumble in the dark. Some of the protection barriers are fragile, and a few exist only in the minds of the creatures in them. If excited too much, they can break through. Many are man-killers."

"One man-killer runs loose in here," observed Angel drily.

Teucrete disposed of the intended compliment with a sneer. "Pao Chung has long had such ideas. Through pressure on my father he has tried to ... to buy or barter for me. Such disposal is mine to make, not my father's. I have my price, but it is high."

It is evidence of Teucrete's more obvious charms that three masculine minds went into gear, calculating resources.

Teucrete laughed viciously. "The first item is Pao Chung's head on a platinum platter."

"A platinum platter is not unobtainable," said Angel speculatively.

Pao Chung was not offended. He chuckled unpleasantly. "Such fire as yours would bring a high price in the slave marts of Yabn," he said. "My head would bring more, locally. Should we not move further from the gates? A scanner could pierce several layers of metal as thin as this stockade. Perhaps I can bring your price down, or my offer up. But another occasion for bargaining would suit both of us better."

"If there are other occasions for any of us," Ferris put in bitterly.

From outside came the sounds of many movements, the rustle and clatter of questing men, hoarse shouts and a confusion of crowd sounds. Above all, like a thin thread of sound, binding the other noises together, was a high, ear-piercing, nerve-wracking drone.

Angel flittered to the top of the stockade and peered warily through the razor-edged metal pilings. He swooped down to his companions with whispered verification of their suspicions.

"The mechanical trackers," he said.

"Perhaps there is still a deal open," muttered Pao Chung. He bowed with sardonic malice toward Teucrete. "We have one possession of greater value than my head or your body. My young friend here—"

Teucrete snorted contemptuously. "Him!" But her glance lingered on Ferris momentarily. "What do you mean?"

"Ferris is a gamma-man," said Pao Chung. Even Angel gasped with shock. Teucrete's eyes widened in incredulity, horror and fear.

III

Fear is a subtle poison.

It began long ago, in a small New Mexico town, long before there were gamma-men or even interplanetary travel. The fear radiated from mushrooming clouds with impossible radiance at the core, and the fear did more harm to the minds of men than the deadly spectra of invisible death did to their bodies.

It began with scientists in cages in the name of national securities; it developed into continual surveillance for all men engaged in atomics. These workers, and their families, led cloistered, monastic lives. They intermarried, since there was little contact with outsiders, and they shared generations of haunted, spy-ridden lives. They lived in the midst of fear and mistrust, while the earth went through its chronic spirals of war and the preparations. Throughout history, scholars and philosophers have warned that knowledge must be free and universal, like sunlight. But there have always been wars and secrets and guarded weapons, and fear is older than man.

Scientists were men of dangerous knowledge, of destructive potentials. As such, they were hostages of fear and illusions of safety. They were segregated, guarded, well-fed, and at first provided with all the deadly toys necessary to their amusements. It was all painfully logical and futile, but all the best brains of mankind were locked up to putrefy for lack of fresh air and the stimuli of mutual thoughts. Their knowledges and prerogatives became hereditary.

Natural law works against segregation. Artificial isolation of any group leads to misunderstandings, prejudices, resentments, mutual fears, and eventually to violence. Fear-hysteria is a serpent devouring its own tail. In time, the once-honored and glorified gamma-men became feared and hated. In the minds of the ignorant and superstitious populace, they were associated with medieval wizards and workers of dreadful miracles. The threat of gamma groups became a political pawn, and was used as a club to beat down restless, unhappy populations.

With their knowledge, and the popular delusion of their almost supernatural powers, it was easy enough for ambitious men to misuse the Scientists. In some cases, the gamma-men themselves usurped authority, but this noble experiment slipped through their fingers, and they lost control from sheer unworldliness. In truth, from the working of natural law, the juice had run out of them and they no longer understood the basics of normal human relations. In a final paroxysm of public panic, they were disarmed, their toys taken away, and every last gamma-man imprisoned in carefully guarded and isolated colonies. Like the ancient Indians, they were placed in reservations and kept there by force.

After this culminating outrage, the gamma-men lost heart for practical activity. Locked into their libraries, they turned to abstractions and dabbled in dead-end philosophies. Most of them were querulous oldsters, hidebound by tradition, their sciences now become a ritual religion, their books exalted as "The Word," and their fading knowledge still held secret for reasons long forgotten.

Not quite all gamma-men accepted this half-life allotted to them. There were sports, avatars, occasional throwbacks who rebelled and went "off reservation."

None of these actually ran amuck, but so great was the fear-conditioning on one side, and so difficult the adaptation to ordinary living on the other that there were painful accidents and incidents. Nothing genuinely monstrous occurred, but enough friction developed to keep alive and add to the public dread of gamma-men. The term became a byword for nursery terror. And in their turn, the infant generations of gamma-men learned to pity and despise the ignorant and corrupt multitudes of normal humanity. They lost contact with their human heritage.

In recent years, few gamma-men had broken out to mingle with the expanding races now peopling and colonizing the frontiers of the solar system. Those few were hunted down like outlaws, and killed with brutal ingenuity.

But a new generation had come among gamma-men, with an urge so passionate and devout they themselves did not understand it. Either some latent folk-memory, or some emotional mutation, urged them to go forth and civilize mankind. In the old books, they tracked down knowledge and made grandiose plans for engineering the renaissance. Realizing their common origin, and longing for more nearly normal lives, they grouped together and made a pact to see some changes made.

Studying history and the other technologies of man, they soon discovered that social, economic and psychological sciences had lagged far behind the other developments. These were the blind spots of mankind, and these led to all the other serious and tragic misdirections of effort. Always, the sons of Adam had struggled to achieve workable systems, and always these systems had broken down or failed at critical moments.

If some means could be found—

Eventually, the means was tracked down from a clue in one of the oldest books. It was not found, but its existence deduced and proved to the satisfaction of the searchers. Somewhere, hidden in a forgotten corner of the solar system, was the missing tool.

This fact settled, it became necessary to locate and use the missing tool.

It was a pitifully small generation. Only seven bright-eyed and high-hearted young men. But that night they broke out of their prescribed boundaries. They went off reservation, and separated in seven directions. Each had a theory, and a hope to be explored.

Without their ident-armbands of platinum with the old Greek letter deeply incised, they resembled any other seven youths picked at random from the teeming multitudes. They could mingle unquestioned, and their studies had prepared them for various tasks to which their forged papers entitled them. But adaptation was not easy.

A single incautious moment could betray them. Even a routine brain wave check would be sufficient to identify the fugitives, for in subtle ways, the gamma-men were different.

Seven young men with a noble purpose, and fanatical hopes in their hearts.

And now there were two. Five of them had made fatal slips, and had been hunted down to hideous deaths.

Ferris was one of the two survivors.

Four people stood paralyzed while the hammering resounded at the gate. This was no human fist demanding attention, but an odd, robot-like clanking, as if a mechanical beast nosed in determined rooting against the metal leaves of the gate.

It was just such a beast. A burring whine rose into notes of shrill frustration. Metallic and electronic frustration, for the tracker was a bloodhound of vacuum tubes and relays and switches and batteries and transformers. Unerring and inexorable, its robot senses sorted a single frequency from all other brain wave patterns, and it clung to the trail with chilling efficiency. Something about its unhuman lusting numbed most quarry before the pursuers in charge of the monster could check its demonic eagerness for prey.

Now, like a metallic carnivore scenting blood, the robot tracker nuzzled the gate and rebounded to nuzzle again.

All four of the humans inside the compound imagined the scene outside. Pencil beams of hand radilumes glinted here and there, the questing soldiers and police squads, the glittering serpentine body of the tracker, with its scurrying treads churning clouds of dust as it whined and rooted at the gate.

Bat Ferris shot a glance of uneasy calculation at his three companions. The girl was an unknown quantity. Angel, momentarily shocked, was predictable enough within limits. Pao Chung was openly an opportunist, willing to turn any situation to personal profit. Unarmed, Ferris could not even deal with them, let alone with the police outside. He frowned angrily.

Teucrete's stare held on him for a moment, as if puzzled. Her eyes moved on, focusing on Angel, then Pao Chung. Presently, they came back to Ferris, amused and faintly mocking.

"What is a gamma-man doing here?" she asked.

"An interesting question," said Pao Chung ironically. "But not of prime importance at the moment."

Ferris watched a smile writhe on the girl's lips and felt a quick relief. She might help, if only to thwart Pao Chung's idea of throwing him to the human wolves outside.

A harsh voice clamored for admittance.

The animals were growing restive again. An earthy bellow boomed out against a counterpoint of birdlike trills. The sand leopards coughed guttural warnings. Somewhere a pygmy elephant trumpeted, and the giant insects burst into deafening clatters.

Teucrete motioned for silence, then drew the bolts and held the gate ajar on its short chain.

"Who's there?" she demanded roughly.

"Police," several voices explained. "Open the gate, or we'll break it down."

"Have you a warrant?"

"It's a security matter," someone explained hopefully.

"Tell that to the animals," she stormed. "It's as much as your life's worth to come in here tonight. They're upset already, and I can't control them if you keep up this noise. Go away."

An authoritative voice blustered. "This is an important matter. Let me talk to your father."

Teucrete shrugged. "He will be back by noon tomorrow. Come then, and bring a warrant to search. Or—"

She followed the speech with some insulting suggestions, not in the best of taste. The authoritative voice turned into a gargle addressing a slammed gate. Profanity did not disturb the tracker, which continued to root noisily at the metal.

Bogus Angel watched protectively from the wall top as the mechanical bloodhound inched toward Teucrete while she talked with the police.

Teucrete shoved bolts into sockets and stood back. She sighed, and beckoned the three men to follow her.

They moved amid a nightmarish cacophony of sounds. In memory roused by the various elements of the uproar, Bat Ferris revisited the far planets. Fortunately the light was too dim to see all the sources of sound, but Ferris mentally identified many of the caged dwellers by ear or by nose.

Wrigglers from the mercury mines of Callisto. Venusian swamp slugs, and grull-cats from the Tihar Forest. Morbau-spawn from the honeycombed caverns of Triton. Wireflies and needle-flies, known by their eerie humming and buzzing. Seven-limbed bat-noses from the twilight zone of Mercury. Iceworms from Neptune and Pluto, and the deadly windharps from Mars. Amiably imbecilic moondogs from the satellites of Saturn pressed blank flat faces against the walls of their insulated glass tanks. Monsters out of nightmare. A madman's miscellany.

There was more, an incredible infinity of animal horizons. But imagination reels back, and description falters. What words can catalog the fringes of morphology!

Ferris focused his interest on the girl. Teucrete. A strange name, and as strange a being as these she lived among. He wondered idly about her racial background. Her father's origin was a mystery, and who could say what mate he had found on fecund Venus? Was his daughter one of those half-human mutants, or was she just what she seemed, a willful and badly raised human girl? Ferris could only guess, and await further evidence of her intentions toward him.

But he liked the way she walked. Tall, straight, slender as a spear, and as poised. Pride was in her, and a hint of warped character in her frigid disdain of weakness or fear. Physically—but Ferris was no authority on feminine beauty. On the reservation women had been scarce, most of them neurotic virgins, or old. He had known women since, but mostly the hard, cynical opportunists of the planetary frontier boom-towns. None to share a life with.

Vast perspectives of cages and tanks and pressure vats went off in all directions. He would not have imagined so much area covered by the establishment. It seemed limitless, and all its dimensions were oddly confusing. Intentionally so, since it was laid out in labyrinthine fashion. Unguided, a stranger could lose himself in a matter of minutes. It defied belief that a zoo of such colossal proportions could exist within the precincts of a city, even such a sprawling megalopolis as Castarona. But at last they were through the cage areas, which lined the periphery of the compound, and Teucrete led the men into a building of dazzling white stone.

"My father's laboratory," she explained. "Here we synthesize foods for the animals, and try with all our ingenuity to provide an approximate environment for them."

Her voice brought Ferris back to the present. "It won't work," he said. "Security squads will never wait for a warrant. Even if they do, what good is half an hour? They'll break down your gate and swarm through here like hunting bees."

Teucrete laughed scornfully. "Afraid, gamma-man?"

"If I were I wouldn't be here. But only a fool refuses to recognize danger."

"Relax," she advised. "They will break in, true. But there may be a little difficulty finding their way among the cages. It is a maze, as you saw. And the animals will give them some trouble. I am not forgetting the tracker, but the moondogs and wireflies can confuse anything that operates on electronics. All we need is a slight delaying action. We can count on that."

"There is another exit?" asked Pao Chung eagerly.

Her laugh crystallized in tinkling fragments, like showering shards of glass. "Another exit, yes. The way my father goes when he hunts. If you have the nerve to take it! But compose yourself, Pao Chung. You will need supplies of food, water, air, special clothing. And ... there is a price."

Hesitantly, unhappily, Pao Chung inquired the price.

"The way is dangerous," she said rapidly. "You might not come back. And I must see that my father is protected. Give me an order on your bank or lawyer for all the evidence you have against him; for whatever crimes or stupidities he may have committed."

"How do you know such an order will be honored?" Pao Chung muttered speculatively. "Once I am free—"

The girl tossed her head till the bell of ebony hair swung dangerously. "It had better be honored," she warned crisply. "For there is only one way back ... if you ever come back. And I can control it. I don't think you will like your surroundings well enough to remain there indefinitely."

Pao Chung bowed to the inevitable. Angel chuckled moodily, and Bat Ferris faced Teucrete with admiration on his pleasantly ugly features.

"Well done," he praised. "Is there a price for me?"

"No price to a man who likes animals. I sensed that in you as we passed the cages."

Impulsively, the girl leaned toward Ferris and forced her lips violently on his. "That is for luck, gamma-man. On the house, but the next one might cost you dearly. Watch yourself."

Ferris clung to the sanctuary of masculine silence. Pao Chung glowered sullenly, and Angel's amusement sent iridescent ripples glinting from his wings.

"How about me?" he demanded.

"No kiss, no price," she told him, "but a word of advice, mutant. Keep those wings out of revolving doors."

Angel grinned happily, his gargoyle face wrinkling into impossible contortions. "They are a nuisance."

Newly garbed and equipped, the men followed Teucrete from the building. Stopping to stuff Pao Chung's order into some feminine idea of a safety-vault, not too safe in the company of lecherous males, Teucrete conducted her charges through a lovely formal garden that functioned by concealed hydroponics, and on into another built up area.

But this was no cubicle of stone or steel or plastic. It was a roofless structure of glass. Vertical panels of glass ran off beyond sight. Panels of all colors, all degrees of transparency. Some were as lucid as crystal, some barely translucent, and more bent or mirrored to distort, reflect or refract light. All were tinted, some weakly, others violently stained. The place was stridently illuminated by concealed radi-floods. It was a solid mass of rainbow effects, a forest of crystal mirrors and shafts and flickering, glowing prisms.

One entered by a kind of airlock, or more accurately, a lightlock. There was no change in atmospheric pressure, but the density and beating force of sheer luminosity increased by squares and cubes as the travellers strode through linked cubes of glass.

They entered the light maze. Dazzling splendors beat upon them. Vision was overwhelmed by visible vibrations. They drowned in light.

IV

"Don't touch anything," warned Teucrete. "Exact alignment is important."

She stopped before a keyboard like the console of a gigantic organ. Behind it rose massed ranks of vacuum tubes, all glowing, humming, flickering. The girl's fingers skipped nimbly on the keys, and notes of sound rose in tinkling, chiming sprays from the shafts. Colors stormed and raged in the crystalline forest, running up and down the visible octaves of light. One sensed other scales beyond, in both upper and lower wavelengths. Glass panels and crystal shafts vibrated to sound and light, like tuning forks. They stirred, quivered, vanished, then reappeared. A tall man appeared among the shafts and strode toward the travellers.

"Khaljean!" said Pao Chung nervously.

It was sufficient introduction. There was uncanny resemblance between father and daughter, like two matched paintings in different keys. The animal man listened quietly, while Teucrete explained the situation. He looked at Pao Chung and laughed. He shrugged.

"A bargain is a bargain," said Khaljean. "Perhaps I should go back to Venus and fabricate some gnawed bones to convince the police searching parties that the animals devoured you. All of you had better remain here and wait till I send for you."

"You are good at faked evidence," Pao Chung jibed bitterly.

"In a good cause, yes," agreed Khaljean good-naturedly. "Even in a bad cause, this time. Stay here. You will be safer."

"Wait!" ordered Ferris.

Khaljean measured him mockingly. "Who are you to say?"

"I am a gamma-man," Ferris told him.

"That doesn't frighten me, youngster. So am I. Or was. Do you know the name Djevos Barian?"

Ferris blinked. "But Barian was hunted down and killed, his remains positively identified."

Khaljean smiled. "As Pao Chung said, I am good at faked evidence. I always had a skill with synthetics. A man thing I created lived long enough to be slaughtered in my place, and I had constructed him well, even to duplicating my fingerprints and brain patterns. Officially I am dead. But ten years ago Pao Chung found out about me. He has bled me systematically ever since. Until now."

"Shall I kill him for you?" asked Angel, with malicious joy in the thought. "Now that you have access to his evidence, his life can be only a menace to you."

Khaljean frowned. "I don't believe in killing. But sometimes Pao Chung has tempted me. No, let him live."

"So you are Barian?" said Ferris admiringly.

"Was Barian. I have become Khaljean. The real one was a small-time operator, dealing chiefly in dead animals. I was with him when he died. We were much alike in appearance. With plastic surgery, I became Khaljean. And I have made the name famous. You must be one of the seven recent escapees from the reservation. We will have much to talk about later."

"Not later," insisted Ferris. "Now. Where does this maze lead?"

Khaljean humored him. "Nowhere or anywhere. It's a dimensional short cut that can take you to any place in the solar universe, or even a few odd places in adjacent or parallel spacetime continuums. Is there somewhere you want to go?"

Ferris nodded soberly. "A place I must go. Now, if possible."

"Why?" Khaljean studied the younger man grimly.

"I'm not sure you could understand, since you left the gamma reservation so long ago. I'll try to explain. Somewhere, there is a tool. Not that exactly, nor a machine either, but we call it that for lack of a term. In the old books of our library, there was mention of it. A description, with a hint of properties. It is something alien, a control placed on the destinies of group-man."

His voice droned on, speaking as if the subject were a lesson he had learned by rote. "Many times, man's social and political organization has painfully climbed the ladder toward a workable, civilized system, but always it has slipped and fallen back. The individual mind functions well, for the most part, but not so the group-mind. Any crowd is less honest, less efficient, and far less intelligent than its individual units. The larger the crowd, the greater the tangent, the possibilities for evil and injustice. In attempts to solve the problems of group relationships, man is worse than pitiful.

"Long study has convinced the gamma-people that this is not a mere accident. Outside influence warps men's thinking in groups, warps social and political organization. It seems as if group-man struggled hopefully to put together a complex jigsaw puzzle, in which many parts will fit badly into an infinity of possible relationships. The true fit is difficult to find, but even the law of averages should help in so many attempts. Time and time again, just as the puzzle is nearly completed, someone joggles the puzzler's elbow, and the pattern is destroyed.

"There is such a joggler, such an outside influence. Its existence was proved, its influence even measured. There are clues scattered through the old books. We know what it is, what it looks like, how it operates, but we have been powerless to counteract its influence. The warping hypnotic broadcasts keep throwing mankind back to chaos, when utopia is in sight. It is too strong to combat, and the source must be destroyed. By our solemn pact, my six friends and I bound ourselves to locate and smash this alien mechanism."

Khaljean licked his lips reflectively. "You interest me," he admitted. "I was once young enough to be idealistic myself. What is this alien monster you describe?"

"Not a monster in the ordinary sense. Not a tool, nor quite even a machine. Living jewels, perhaps. At least radioactive false gems.

"Gas, probably radon, solidified under the incredible pressures in the heart of Jupiter. Solar Surveys knows about them, for they were seen once, and even handled by men. There is an article about them in the Encyclopaedia of the Solar Planets. In 2036, they were discovered, mined by cybernetic machinery. Then on their way to Mars, the ship carrying the jewels was sabotaged and wrecked. Wreckage and frozen bodies were discovered on the rogue asteroid Hidalgo, but the jewels were missing."

Pao Chung had shown growing interest in the conversation. He broke in to ask, "Stolen?"

"Stolen, perhaps. Possibly they disintegrated at the time of the wreck, or they may have transmuted into something unrecognized by the searchers. They may have become tenuous enough to sink through the surface of Hidalgo and recrystallized inside. But the evil influence continues. We believe that they are still there, still in existence, working their hidden evil, warping the brains of men, producing social and political chaos. Five of my friends have lost their lives searching for this menace. Possibly the sixth is dead, too, since he vanished into the unknown and has not been heard from.

"I tried, myself. Angel and I landed on Hidalgo and searched carefully. But Hidalgo is 'off limits' for spacemen. Solar Surveys sent the Space Patrol after us, and we fled before finishing our search. We were chased to Mars, traced and hunted to Venus. We crashed there, and while I tried to get money for new equipment, Angel got involved with Pao Chung. You know the rest. Now you see why I must go to Hidalgo."

Khaljean shook his head in sorrow. "I understand. But you could never find your way through the maze."

Ferris accused him with fanatical eyes. "You could help me to find my way."

"Not I. I am too old, and I am not sure that I approve of your meddling. Not that I would try to stop you, but don't count on help from me. How do you know that this alien machine is what you say? Its purpose may be good, not evil. Some higher intelligence may have placed it in our system as a governor to influence mankind, to shield man from his own follies. It may be a warning road sign to keep us from crashing into a dead end. Our utopias sound very dull to me, they may easily be a dead end for mankind. I like the interesting and amusing variations of chaos, so let me cling to them. Follow your destiny, if you will. I won't stop you."

Ferris looked pitifully young, but he stood his ground with absurd pride and courage.

"Right or wrong, I must try," he said evenly. "And I won't grant the right of alien interference. Man, too, has a right to work out his destiny, good or bad."

Angel spoke up eagerly for his partner. "I won't say I know what you're talking about, and maybe I'm too stupid and ignorant to understand. But as a victim of 'chaos' I don't appreciate it."

Pao Chung sneered. "One vote for law and order from the fallen Angel, if it can be believed. Like Khaljean, my preference is for chaos, as it furnishes more opportunities for a man of my interests. However, my soul revolts at this talk of destroying gems of presumably unique properties. They must have value. Perhaps you can dismantle this machine, without harming its parts. As a business man, with time on my hands, I would like to go with you and see if something can be arranged."

"I don't trust you," Ferris said frankly. "And I don't believe that the jewels can be salvaged. Come along if you want. I can't stop you. But don't try any tricks."

Pao Chung accepted the warning with bland indifference.

"Father!" called Teucrete. "Leave me your protective suiting."

Khaljean smiled with sad irony. "Are you making a choice?"

"Yes. I'm going with them. I know the way. I can control the maze and guide them safely back. I don't know if I believe in this fabulous machine, or jewels, or whatever. But I think I might learn to believe in ... in him. It's something I'll have to find out."

Smiling, Khaljean stripped off his protective armor and yielded it to the girl. As an afterthought, he handed her his blaster.

"The choice is yours to make. But in such company, the blaster may come in handy."

Khaljean shook hands with Ferris and Angel, though he avoided looking at Pao Chung.

To Ferris, he said, "Come back if you can. And look after my girl. In the meantime, I'll throw some gnawed bones to the police wolves, and we'll manufacture a new identity for you."

Without a farewell, Khaljean strode into the crystalline forest. His lonely figure paused to wave.

"Good hunting, father," Teucrete called after him.

She tripped keys at the console. Light quivered in painful vibrations. His figure became transparent, then dissolved....

Absent-mindedly, Teucrete climbed into the suit of protective armor. Ferris helped her zip up the clumsy garments, then clasped her arm impulsively.

"I haven't the skill to say it properly—but thanks."

"I'll expect your skill to improve with experience," she said irritably, fixing the blaster gun securely in its spring clip.

Returning to the console, Teucrete worked out an elaborate composition on the keys. Tubes flared and flickered, flamed and faded. There was the humming and the bell-toned clamor like glass raindrops spattering on a ceramic floor.

"We have arrived," she whispered. It was then Pao Chung acted.

Quick as a striking snake, he moved close beside the girl and snatched the blaster from its clip.

Backing away, he waved the weapon in wide sweeps to menace both Ferris and Angel at once.

Teucrete turned and cried out. Angel froze like a statue. Ferris started a rush, then thought better of it.

"New deal, I think," said Pao Chung brutally. "From here on I'll give the orders."

Angel chuckled ferociously. "You can't get both of us, Pao Chung. If we rush at once, you can kill one, but the other will get to you."

"Don't try it," warned Pao Chung, sweating but deadly.

"You keep talking of deals," continued Angel evenly. "Better make one with me. For the girl, and a third of the loot, I'll talk business with you."

"I want her myself," croaked Pao Chung.

"Neither of you will get me alive," said Teucrete.

Ferris moved a little, and the gun held steadily on him. He hesitated, glancing curiously at Angel. Light glinted from quivering wings. The gargoyle face grinned hideously. Heavy eyelids blinked in remembered signal.

"Now," snapped Ferris.

Ferris and Angel leaped, like two moving parts of the same machine. Angel was quicker. His powerful wings wafted him in a long, swift bound.

The blaster swerved, flamed, burst in deafening explosion. A reek of charred, disintegrating flesh and singed feathers filled the air.

Angel shrieked in torment as his legs vanished in crumbling ashes. Wings flailing, his body a maimed and blasted horror, he crashed down upon Pao Chung. The gun jerked from nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor. Its beam cut a tinkling swathe among the crystal shafts. Real droplets of half-molten crystal struck myriad bell-tones in falling.

Writhing and threshing in agony, Angel clung to his desperate purpose. Powerful clawlike hands circled Pao Chung's head and wrenched it off. The head rolled free like a ball as two snarled bodies sagged together in bloody horror.

Stricken, Ferris bent over his friend, trying hopelessly to help. The gargoyle lips parted. Dry husks of sound whistled from them.

"Go on. Smash the machine! But first, do this job right—for me."

Trembling, Ferris recovered the blaster gun, cut down its intensity, then thrust the blunt muzzle deep into the striped fur, where rich crimson now mingled with the other gaudy dyes. Blinking his eyes shut, he pressed the stud. Angel writhed and was gone.

Ferris did not look back. Hand in hand with Teucrete he walked slowly toward the forest of crystal shafts. There was much damage, and his heart quailed from the task ahead.

"Can you still find the way?" he asked numbly.

"I'm not sure," the girl faltered. "I'm not sure we can ever get back. Exact alignment is so terribly important."

"We can try," said Ferris grimly.

Hand in hand, young men and women, with the dream still fresh within them, will always seek the ultimate answer to the ultimate questions. It may be, of course, that there is no ultimate answer, and that even the quest is a delusion. But Teucrete and Ferris, with the flame of a new love burning fiercely between them, believed that it was important to find and destroy some alien thing that warped men's minds. Others may think only of building a life together, as a pledge to the future, but not Teucrete and Ferris. Time for that later, they hoped.

For the moment, they might, just possibly, make mankind's tomorrows a little brighter, or more hopeful.

Hand in hand they walked together to the crystal maze, and entered. Perhaps they found something....

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