The Saga of Lost Earths Page 10

  She's dead, he thought. Then he erased the thought, angrily. No! It couldn't be! She had to be alive!

  Dragging himself up out of the yellow It, he flung his long body down with a weary grunt. He lay there, face down, until the all-encompassing need for rest was somewhat satisfied. Curiosity and the demand that he find Silia put him back up on his feet, facing a sky-high wall, of dead black that reflected no trace of light.

  He moved along it, hunting for an opening. There was none. Finally he stopped walking. His legs rebelled and this could go on ad infinitum. The curvature of the black mass was hardly noticeable; it would take him forever to circumnavigate it.

  “There's got to be some way to get in!” The inhabitants probably teleported in and out or maybe they never left the black city at all. Likely this dense midnight bulk was the core and the totality of their existence. Except for the Force.

  When he moved up close and touched the wall he cried out. It was like touching frozen metal. Cold as death. Outside, the Daliesque landscape was warm, even balmy, after the rigors of Lapland and points North. The icy cold of the black light-trapping wall repelled him. What would such a city be like inside? Freezing cold, soulless, inimical. Still, he must get in the city. He must.

  Silia! he called out urgently with his mind.

  Nothing. No faint trace that she still lived. Likely they had forced her to kill herself, as they did all of those other thousands.

  Why? Why did they kill?

  “I've got to get in, somehow,” he gritted.

  His hands involuntarily patted the pockets of the close-fitting green-gray uniform he had been furnished in Helsinki and still wore (refuting completely the whole Lemminkainen episode as a crazy dream: dung-spattered barnkeep clothes, minstrel finery and all) to find something that might scratch a way through. Deep inside his inner tunic, under his left biceps, he came up with a thin metal rod.

  Silia's light-rod and hand weapon!

  Mindful of the weird tactile syndrome that went with this alloy tube, he pulled the gloves off his wide belt and slipped them on before he took the light-rod out of its narrow pocket.

  He flicked it on.

  Something wild happened.

  The light ring cut through the impregnable black wall; it scooped out a concave bole; something about this earthlight pushed the wall's molecular structure back. Perhaps because it didn't belong here.

  “I wonder!” Carl whistled. “Is it possible?"

  It was. Splashing the white circle of light ahead of him, Carl moved forward in the hole it created through the wall.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVI

  ONLY ONCE did he glance behind him to see solid wall. Carl shuddered at the thought of the light flicking off, leaving him, encased in alien metal. He moved at a run, as if by hurrying he could prevent such a fate. What now? Dare he ever turn the light off? Would he pass clear through it and out of its black shell again?

  Carl!

  The mind-voice was sharp, agonized by desperation, and it was Silia!

  Where are you? he esped.

  This way!

  Silia's esp begged for him to come to her, yet dreaded it, too. Beyond her fear for herself was her love-fear for him. He must not come. It would only make them both captive.

  That was what They wanted.

  Still, what else could he do? He had to follow her voice, find her, no matter what came after that.

  He walked on into the nothingness created by the light. Where the secondary spill of light made a ragged black edge under his feet, Carl stepped, dizzy with vertigo. Then, all at once, Silia was standing there in the middle of the void, her feet resting on nothing.

  “You can turn off the light now."

  Silia said it, but behind the words, shoving the thought forward, was an alien demand.

  Carl snapped off the rod. Instead of the plunging blackness he expected, came a pulsing blue light out of no detectable source. It was strongest where Silia stood; in the blue pool of effulgence she seemed to be an illusion from out of his yearning thoughts. Framed in the pageboy twin waves, her face was paper pale, her eyes lambent with joy ... and pent-up terror.

  “Silia!"

  She moved a step or two toward him, incredulously; then she was in his arms, sobbing. In the while that followed there was only a crash of happiness as Carl felt her slim body close to him and their two minds interlock. The total emp lasted only the briefest part of their physical contact, not long enough to register more than her topmost thoughts. The pain and horror Silia had suffered, alone in this nameless black alien place, wounded Carl's mind. But joy in finding her alive took precedence.

  “Where in Hiisi are we?” Carl demanded, pulling away for a study of the shadowy blue-lit area.

  “Hiisi's land, the Finns say.” Silia shivered.

  “Tuonela!"

  Carl moved out of the pool of sifting light to touch the wall, which seemed to be six or eight feet away. But as he moved, the sickly glow moved with him, and what seemed wall wasn't.

  “It's no use,” Silia told him. “I tried running. Everywhere it's the same like running in a circle. Wherever you stop you're back here or someplace just like it."

  Carl moved backward and forward experimentally. “There is a difference in molecular structure. Some places, it is denser. It makes some kind of sense, I suppose. The Wall is dense enough to keep out anything.” He went back to the girl. “Have you seen them? What are they like?"

  “I've only seen one. He was like a great malformed patch of blackness. Only I think they do have color, colors completely off our spectrum. If our eyes could register these colors I think we would see subtleties of shape and body structure, not just a black blot that doesn't refract light."

  “They detest light,” Carl thought. “That's partially why they built that wall.” He squinted up. “The city has a black cover on it, too."

  “When I first opened my eyes I couldn't see anything at all. I thought I was blind or—Then, after what seemed like days the blue light came.” Silia held his arm in a ten-fingered vise. “I couldn't hear anything. There's no sound here, either. Not a whisper, until you came."

  “They're probably telepathic. I have a feeling they didn't originate here. Outside it's wild and alien, but not nightmarish, like in here.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I see them roving about through space, perhaps right in this self-contained black city. Maybe it's a spaceship!"

  “Or teleportation?"

  “Maybe. Something like that. They're probably an old, old race, developed to the point of prowling and going about their predatory ways by mental control. No shiny machines. Only force of mind."

  Silia nodded. “They have a loose molecular structure. I think they move right through these walls inside the city, spreading and changing at will."

  “Protean."

  “Oh, like the sea-god who changed shape. Except that they don't bother to take on human shape or anything like that. At least so far.” She shuddered very close. “Before they made the light happen, in the darkness sometimes one of them would brush across me. Like an icy cobweb on my face. Ugh!"

  “If it weren't for our self-heated tunics we'd probably freeze in damn short order. That's another thing they don't like. Heat."

  “It was a lot colder before the blue light came. I think this blue nimbus that follows us around has heat in it."

  “Those cobwebs on your face probably were studying your basic needs. For some reason they want to keep us alive."

  “For the time being."

  Carl bent and brushed his lips over her cheek. “Hungry?"

  “Starved!” She sighed. “It didn't matter before, but now—” Carl snapped a sealed emergency pack from his wide belt. “Have some concentrate. The vitamins will buck you up, help us think. There must be some way...” While they both chewed the flat lozenges, Carl wondered why he wasn't thirsty. “Maybe the blue stuff creates liquid that's absorbed through our pores,” he decided. “Water and air we must have. As for food, t
hey probably decided-"

  “We won't last long enough to need it."

  Silence, when Silia's forlorn whisper died away, put Carl's teeth on edge. His esp told him the danger lurking back in those black walls was quiescent, for the time being.

  They sat. Carl said, “Tell me what happened back on the tundra. Do you know how you got here?"

  Silia shook her head. “All I remember is the horrible dreams. They lasted forever."

  “Dreams?"

  “I was a vassal, a drudge, in a castle by a great cliff. The country was like an island, floating in and out of Time. It was cold and misty and bleak, ruled over by a hideous crone."

  “Pohyola.” Carl spoke the name with difficulty. He had rejected the legends and Lemminkainen as fantasies, the outgrowth of a thousand childhood dreams, fed, until it became a lunatic's reality, by all the stories pushed at him since the quest began, and most of all, by being called Lemminkainen.

  “Yes, and the old witch was Louhi. She had a great Midsummer's feast. I was dressed in gold. There was a wedding. I was the bride, forced to marry a monstrous shadow called ... She huddled near; she couldn't speak the name.

  Carl said it, harshly.

  “Keitolainen, the Contemptible. Also out of the old legends.” He took hold of her shoulders and stabbed her eyes angrily with his own. “Don't you see? All this legend stuff is nonsense! The Pahaliset only made use of it for their own purposes. Think! An alien civilization like these protean creatures, probing the Finn's minds many centuries ago, through the Rare Earth, found a ready-made bag of superstitions in these primitives. They made use of them, naturally. They identified themselves with some of the myth-creatures. That they were so elemental and basic made it that much easier.” He snorted wild contempt. “I have no doubt that's the way they work it: roving among the planets in their own space, using primitive superstitions for the takeover gambit. Using the ‘belief’ your uncle yapped about so much, twisting it against anyone naive enough to fall for it. Sure their legends came to life! The Pahaliset had great mind power. Tricking the Finns the last time they pushed into our space with illusions of Illmatar and whatnot! Child's play to them! They took me in, too, but no more.” Carl stood and paced, muscles snapping as he unleashed his flood of self-contempt. “Don't you see? Your uncle was right about the vibrations, but dead wrong about the rest. Psych-Head was right!"

  Silia watched him exude fury, gravely.

  “You called them Pahaliset. That's from the legends. Evil Ones, I believe it translates."

  Carl snorted. “Just a tag. Call them Proteans! Anything! What's the difference?"

  “None, I suppose. But ... in my dream I was forced to marry Keitolainen. The runic ceremony made it possible for him to bring me here."

  “Illusions. The whole ball of wax."

  “But why so ... so elaborate?"

  “Maybe they get kicks from it—finding a myth pattern and spinning it out into a tri-D Vid entertainment. They're mind creatures, basically. That's why light and sound and tactile sensations mean nothing to them. Maybe at some point in their development they did. Now they're pure mind force, but, let's say they enjoy being reminded of their early, more physical, cycles. So they empathize with us. They take over a human mind through the Rare Earth contact, and drain it dry in a matter of seconds."

  “Why kill?"

  “They don't!” Carl cried. “I know, because I felt the Force when I touched that piece of ore at the Psych-Head conference. The alien being there in my mind hurt. It hurt so bad I wanted to destroy myself to stop the pain."

  “Why does it hurt?"

  “Because they're such giants, mentally. Our minds can't contain them."

  “What about the wild emotional pattern? The terror, then ecstasy?"

  Carl shrugged impatiently. “Who knows? Naturally the thalamus is-"

  The built-in alarm bell in his mind cut him off. They were here. Silently, black patches of alien color moved in on them through the walls. The blue nimbi of light revealed darker places where the protean inhabitants of the black shell-city hung, waiting for some unseen, unheard signal.

  Carl forced down his repugnance, his blood, a riot of icy fear. Psych-Head didn't allow total dark, along with all the fear syndromes, which in the bad old days had led to conflict; now, here in this looking-glass space, he and Silia were face to face with a horde of obscene shapes that abhorred the existence of light.

  Carl choked down fear by his loud, hoarse demand.

  “Who are you?"

  The blotches seemed to retreat momentarily from the sound of his voice. Carl esped their detestation of noise. It was almost fear.

  “I am Keitolainen,” a mocking voice told his mind.

  “Not really,” Carl said, aloud. “He is only part of a primitive Earth legend. Like Hiisi."

  “As you wish. We have names, but they would be meaningless to you because they are not sounds. The first time we found the way to your world the people of the snow country gave us names like Vipunen and Kalma and Keitolainen. Hiisi is our...” The concept was a mixed one. It implied Leader-God-Center-Mindforce, and more.

  “What do you want from us? What is the Force?” Carl blurted.

  Silence. Keitolainen evaded the first question. Carl esped that tendril of fear again. There was something more to their mind take-over than he had told Silia. Something they didn't want him to know. Even yet!

  “The Force is Hiisi,” the voice told him. “He wants you brought to him."

  “Both?"

  “Both."

  “What does he want?"

  Hesitance. Intense silence. Then: “What he always wants—your minds. Afterwards, we will find use for the component parts of your physical bodies."

  Silia gasped. “You're going to kill us!"

  “You knew that, of course. But go right ahead. Excite your emotions. We-"

  Carl's muscles tightened into painful bands around his organs. Silia made a soft despairing sound against him. But, overlaying his thrill of sharp horror, Carl esped something resembling hope. Keitolainen had revealed more than he had meant to. Hiisi had cut him off. By their dispassionate nature, he knew suddenly that when Keitolainen said “excite your emotions” it was not out of refined sadism. It was something else.

  “We must hurry,” the black shape told them. “Hiisi has need. He is-"

  Again the breakoff, but Carl esped the concept. Hiisi has need. Hiisi is hungry.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVII

  “HISSI IS HUNGRY!"

  He said it aloud. There was satisfaction in saying it, while Keitolainen and the black horde pulled them forward toward some central core of the black labyrinth. Because it told him, in a burst, that Hiisi and his creatures roved the planets of their dimension not out of choice, but out of desperate need!

  Hiisi hungered. Hiisi had need! And when he hungered, all hungered.

  “What ... what is it?” Silia whispered, clinging, while they moved firefly-like toward what must be the end for them.

  “Hiisi is hungry!” Carl cried, “My Rare Earth contact was cut off and I suppose by now he isn't feeling so well! He's drained dry all the food source he can reach. Psych-Head has put a stopper on his medium of contact. The random bits of the Finnish Rare Earth have been located. The mines are sealed tight!"

  “But,” Silia's voice was hollow with strain, “what does Hiisi feed on?"

  Carl's shout skittered into the tridimensional corridors; the black shapes seemed to shiver from the impact.

  “What everything lives on, of course! Energy. But the energy Hiisi feeds on, and doles out to his people in turn, is mental energy, the power of the mind that your uncle told me about! The emotional power that rocks civilizations. The sum total of what all our wizards and psychs, and religious leaders accepted and understood, without knowing they did! Sheer mind energy! We've got it; they need it, desperately. They've drained this planet dry. The yellow lake-creature has no mind, or practically none, so it's safe. But these cr
eatures of Hiisi must rove the universes, siphoning up all the mind power they can find. They finally intruded into our space."

  He stopped short. Almost he shouted in triumph ... and chagrin. How wrong he had been! Jumala, how wrong!

  Until the hero Vainomoinen drove them out.

  He thrust the thought into Silia's mind, but found it already there. It, and a flickering flame of hope.

  Carl looked up at Hiisi and fought back a desire to scream. They had reached the center of the black city; now they were in a great central chamber. Above them, a convoluted ball of always-changing shapes and angry colors, hung the Force.

  Hiisi.

  Hiisi allowed them to see him deliberately. And the shapes that he assumed by his protean nature were shapes out of nightmares. Earth nightmares, combined with the mind-vertigo that tears the human brain when it faces the utterly alien and inimical.

  “He wants our minds to react,” Carl muttered harshly. “He wants our emotions stimulated: horror, fear, despair. When the emotions are pulled to their tautest, the glands secrete panicked defenses, and the mind power your uncle talked about thrusts the brain into great need, this in turn strains all the mental energies of an intelligent mind to their utmost. That is what Hiisi feeds on! His race is old, ancient beyond belief. The mind power is weak, although they need it more desperately than ever before, to thrust them onto new worlds and keep Hiisi strong. Our world's minds are young and virile still and when we believe-"

  Above them Hiisi darkened and howled. The sound it made was mental, but there. Carl stared up at the blood crimson nightmare, dry-throated, but charged with sudden new hope. Hiisi wanted to terrify them to that culmination point where the mind power is greatest, when it is most defensive and battling for survival of the organism that contains it.

  “What can we do?” Silia wailed.

  He esped her mind slipping, teetering toward the Force, making it pulsate with new strength.