Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: Kidnapped by weird crystalline mechanisms, Richard Swift and Margo La Rue must find a way to thwart a cold and ruthless alien intelligence's plan to exterminate the human race. But how can they defeat the super-science of the dreaded age-old Crystal Brian? If you wish to know the answer you'll have to read this hair raising tale of perilous adventure on an alien world.
Edit history: This story underwent minor editorial changes on the 30 June 2021.
Chapter 1: The Glowing Disc
Sometimes extraordinary events have the most ordinary of beginnings, as Richard Swift was soon to discover. Swift, a fireman by profession, but also an amateur paleontologist, ambled casually along the beach towards towering limestone cliffs in whose craggy face he hoped to find ammonite fossils of the Mesozoic era.
Above him, the sky was a cloudless sapphire vault; the sea - a calm expanse of indigo whose foaming waves caressed the sandy shore. A gentle breeze stirred his black hair and rustled the tall pines that clad the lonely coast. It was a peaceful scene. No dark clouds marred the horizon. Nature gave no portent of what was soon to occur.
Swift drew near the cliffs and saw the isolated beach was not deserted as he had believed. A young woman lay sunbathing. An attractive girl, or so he thought as he noted how well her figure filled out the skimpy yellow bikini that she wore.
They smiled in greeting as he passed. For a moment the girl’s eyes lingered upon his handsome face and muscular figure, then she studiously returned to reading Shakespeare‘s Macbeth. Both had other, more pressing things to think about.
The soaring cliffs now held Swift’s attention. Even from several yards away his keen eyes discerned the faint outlines of fossilized shells - ammonites, perhaps? His heart quickened with excitement at the thought.
Swift was on the verge of doffing his backpack when a sudden cry of alarm startled him. Quickly, he turned and saw the young woman scramble up and stumble back in sudden and mysterious fright, her Shakespearian play quite forgotten.
“What’s wrong?” he called. “What is it?”
No answer came. The girl stood poised to flee, yet strangely checked by some weird sight that held her in helpless thrall.
Quickly, Swift dashed madly to her side.
“What’s wrong? What do you see?”
The girl’s face, pale beneath her tan, was marred by fear. Speechless, she pointed at something with a trembling hand.
He saw it now. Several yards away was a disc of prismatic radiance, like a faceted jewel of pulsing crimson light. It was no larger than a coin, and hung in midair without any obvious means of support - strange, unearthly, and pregnant with subtle menace.
Swift went cold. It was alien, this thing - not of Earth. Fear of the unknown stabbed him with the sharpness of terror. His fright increased as the disc rapidly expanded, grew huge.
“Back!” His voice was a croak as he dragged the frightened girl away. She stumbled against him and uttered a fear choked cry as something pushed through the shimmering surface of the quivering ruby light.
Like a crystalline serpent was the thing- an unearthly tentacle, perhaps? It undulated, quested hesitantly, searching. Man and girl clung to one another, ensnared by the terror, the utter strangeness of what confronted them.
Suddenly, the thing surged out upon the sand. Swift had a fleeting, terrified glimpse of it - a glassy, dome-shaped body supported by many-jointed legs. Writhing tentacles were about the hemisphere’s base with a faceted eye above each squirming limb.
The girl screamed as it scuttled towards them with alarming speed, grasping limbs extended to snare them in its horrid embrace. Her fear stained cry broke terror’s hold upon the man.
With an oath, Swift snatched a geologist’s hammer from his belt and struck one snaking tentacle as it coiled about his waist. The tool rang bell-like against the limb as it scratched the thing’s crystalline armor. Again, the girl cried in terror as other tentacles ensnared both with terrible, relentless strength.
Swift cursed. He struck savagely at the encircling limbs as he was hauled aloft with frightening ease. He saw another tentacle arch towards the girl. A purple ray erupted from a silver cylinder in its grip. The hellish glare bathed her struggling form. She screamed in agony and went limp.
The cylinder swung in Swift’s direction. He drew back the hammer and prepared to hurl it at one staring, crimson eye. Suddenly, the tool was wrenched savagely from his grasp by another limb. Then, the ray enveloped him with its demonic light, and his body exploded in a purple hell of searing pain.
By sheer will power, Swift clung to the shreds of consciousness as his senses swam in a vortex of swirling blackness and sickening agony. Through this throbbing sea he dimly perceived the transition into otherness as the weird being carried him and the girl within the light of the shimmering disc.
A strange sensation of falling through infinite space struck him with its icy terror. The feeling abruptly passed - they were across the portal, and upon the soil of another world.
Swift’s stunned mind dimly perceived his surroundings - strange, towering machines of interlocking pyramids, cubes and spheres, alien and incomprehensible.
A jungle of weird trees surrounded the clearing in which the devices had been assembled. Bronze trunks soared above him; their boles covered in wicked, yard long thorns. Jagged, serrated leaves sprang from the limbs, midnight blue in color - a strange contrast to the vault of the citrine sky in which blazed a scarlet sun.
The crowding vegetation was strange, alien and hostile. To Swift’s reeling brain, nameless and lurking terror seemed everywhere. He fought against the debilitating sense of dread, knowing he must cling to consciousness and courage no matter what.
Weak and helpless, he and the girl were carried towards some kind of machine - a metallic silver disc beneath which was a circular latticework of lucid crystal rods in which green spheres were embedded.
The thing in whose frightful grip they lay imprisoned cast them upon the plane of the mechanism and touched a control rod that projected from the centre of the disc. The machine whined to life, rose with increasing rapidity into the heavens, and then arrowed above the disconcerting wilderness with amazing rapidity.
Swift lay upon the device, fighting for calm, desperately trying to make sense of the incredible situation into which he had been precipitated with such frightening speed. Slowly, strength crept back to his shaken limbs, and with its return he managed to order the chaotic impressions that had crashed upon his groping mind.
Clearly, they had been abducted by an alien intelligence of some kind. Slowly, he cocked up one eye, and gazed upon their strange captor. The thing towered above him, silent, immobile, but potent with slumbering inhuman strength. Again, his heart hammered with wild fear.
It had the look of a machine - the glassy, olive body and its articulated limbs; their movement as swift and fluid as the pistons of some outlandish contrivance. But even so, he had the inexplicable impression that what confronted him was a being, strangely alive, one animated by a cold and ruthless intelligence that had no kinship with the mind of Man.
His eyes shifted to the girl. She lay limply upon the disc, her cataract of brunette hair fanning out behind her. The girl’s heavy breasts rose and fell with steady breath. Momentary relief swept away his growing concern. She was alive. Then dark fear again beset him as he speculated on their fate.
The girl moaned, breaking his train of disturbing thought. She stirred and opened her eyes. Their captor swung its armament upon her. She screamed in naked terror at the sight of the deadly cylinder and cringed in fearful expectation of the torturing ray.
Swift lunged and grasped the hammer that had also been cast upon the deck. He hurled it with all his strength at the foe. It struck one eye and shattered the orb. The thing staggered back and fell against the control mechanism of the flying disc. Its weapon discharged wildly.
The control rod snapped under the impact of its body. Sparks erupted from the broken stub as the craft madly tilted. Both humans slid across the disc and towards its edge. Swift tumbled over. He barely saved himself with one clawing hand and the screaming girl with the other. He gasped in pain. Agony lanced his straining arms. His fingers began to slip.
“Cling to me,” he cried.
The trembling girl wrapped her arms about him. Fear leant her strength as she saw how far they were above the earth. Both arms free, Swift steadied his grip and clung grimly to the wobbling disc as it began to fall.
Their captor had not been idle. The thing now advanced upon the helpless pair, its conical feet somehow clinging firmly to the rocking vehicle. Fear’s icy hand touched Swift as the thing’s weapon swung towards them and prepared to fire as the craft slanted within the thorny trees.
A branch whipped up and struck the creature. Its deadly ray went wide. In fragments, the shattered body tumbled to the jungle floor. With a Herculean effort Swift levered himself and the clinging girl upon the disc. Again, they slid across its juddering plane. He caught the control rod’s stub with one grasping hand and clung fast.
Through thorny branches crashed the disc. The ground rushed up alarmingly. Then all went dark when they struck with crushing force …
Chapter 2: An Alien World
Darkness gave way to pain; pain to light as the groaning man opened his eyes. Swift lay for a moment, disorientated. Nightmarish, fragmented images flitted across his mind. What strange dreams! Slowly, the mental fog cleared. An alien reality was revealed in all its dreadful lines.
Carefully, he raised himself to an elbow and looked about. The girl lay next to him. Margo’s eyes fluttered open. Slowly, she sat up and, as the reality of the situation imposed itself upon her; the girl uttered a soft cry and clung to Swift as she took in the unearthly scene - the towering, spiky trees; their unnatural color, and the weirdly hued sky that could be glimpsed through gaps in the jungle canopy.
“Where are we?” her voice was a throaty whisper in the deathly stillness of the shadowed verdure.
“Not on Earth, that’s for sure.”
She eyed him, a wry smile slowly curving the fullness of her lips. “You have a talent for stating the obvious, I see.”
Swift grinned. They both laughed. It broke the net of tension ensnaring them.
“Margo … Margo La Rue, aspiring thespian.” She smiled warmly as she expended her hand.
They shook. Margo’s grip was surprisingly firm. Swift helped the girl to her feet and introduced himself.
“Despite the danger, our only chance of getting home is to find the point of entry to this world,” he continued, after having quickly outlined what had occurred whilst she had been insensible. “We’d best start now, if you’re up to it.”
Margo nodded. “The initial shock of what happened has mostly worn off. I’m as well as I can be, considering things.” The girl shuddered as she gazed at the rampant and weird vegetation surrounding them. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Swift looked about. The disc lay at a slight angle, its fall cushioned by the bizarre undergrowth of strange plants - springy cane-like things. Their thorny, orange forms were three feet in height and crowned by prickly leaves resembling ferns. He didn’t waste time examining the alien machine - it was obviously wrecked, its delicate mechanisms probably even beyond the repair of its builders.
“This way,” he said, indicating the path their crash had made through the jungle. “We flew in a straight line. All we have to do is retrace our steps along this route.”
Of course Swift knew he was being overly optimistic - even a slight error of a few degrees would cause them to miss their goal by many miles, and there was no certainty that the weird machine had travelled in a precisely straight line. Slim though the chance was, it was their only hope. Also, Margo’s eyes were upon him, and he sensed that, despite this age of liberated women, she expected him to play the role of manly savior. He hoped for both their sakes her faith in him was not misplaced.
Margo watched as he eased himself over the side of the disc and stood among the thorny growths. She didn’t fancy walking through them dressed as she was - barefoot, and in nothing but a skimpy swimsuit. However, what choice was there?
Swift, too, saw the danger. The plants grew about two feet apart and their roots formed a tangled mat beneath the musky humus. Perhaps they were all part of one vast organism that reproduced by vegetative propagation, or so he speculated.
“Margo, my hiking boots and thick jeans will protect me, but you can’t walk through this. Climb upon my shoulders. I’ll have to carry you. ”
Relieved, the girl did so, hoping he could bear both his backpack and her weight. She thought from the way his muscles bulged that he looked strong enough to do so with ease.
They set off, the man aligning his path to the trail of broken foliage. An hour went by as his long strides ate up the distance, and the couple passed the time by speculating on the nature of this world, their captor and the being’s intent. The situation they were in, however, was so outside the realm of ordinary experience that neither could reach any definite conclusions.
Suddenly, the snap of breaking vegetation startled both. Margo stiffened as the thing emerged from a thorny thicket. The creature, man tall, resembled a praying mantis in general appearance. It was clearly no insect though, for its body was covered in rubbery skin, bronze in color. Its head was long and narrow and its gaping jaws full of razor teeth. Dark eyes regarded the frozen couple with malicious intent.
Swift slowly knelt. “Get off,” he hoarsely whispered to the girl.
The creature exploded into charge as she slid free. Swift snatched up a spiky, fallen branch. He bravely leapt to meet the monster. Margo screamed a warning as its arms snapped out. Swift ducked. Its scorpion-like pincers clashing above his head. He thrust for its bulging eye.
Its head weaved. Swift missed. A hissing cry exploded from its throat. Again, the man made a frantic lunge, but to no avail - the creature’s pincers latched upon the branch and violently tore it from his grasp.
Margo watched in horror as he stumbled and fell painfully upon the thorny growths. The girl, ignoring the stabbing pain of the thorns, uprooted one plant. She hurled it at the beast as its claws swept down to rend the helpless man.
Swift rolled. Pincers gouged the earth where he had lain. The well aimed plant struck the beast. It looked up. Baneful eyes alighted upon the girl. With a hiss of rage it scuttled at her, dripping jaws agape.
Cursing, Swift staggered up. He glimpsed Margo turn to run and saw the thorny plants slow her panicked flight. Quickly, he broke a dagger sized spine from the branch, and tore madly after the raging beast. His heart was in his mouth as it closed upon the girl.
Cruel thorns raked Margo’s thighs as she frantically struggled through the clawing plants. She sensed the monster gaining upon her. In a blind panic the girl crashed between spiky bushes and became entangled within the stabbing branches that rent her flimsy swimwear. She cried in agony as sharp needles stabbed her naked skin.
Swift hurled himself upon the beast as its wicked pincers sought the helpless, whimpering girl. The man’s weight crashed upon its back. The thing’s claws jerked to a stop mere inches from her flesh.
Catching hold of its neck, and wrapping his legs about its girth, Swift grimly clutched the rearing creature. In morbid fascination Margo’s terrified gaze clung to the frightening sight - the man’s frenzied stabbing and the snapping claws he fended off with wild blows. The jolting monster spun about like a deranged ballet dancer. Its lucid blood spurted in all directions.
The beast’s neck grew slippery with gushing gore. The thing reared wildly. Swift lost his grip. He fell heavily. The man saw it loom above him, pincers reaching to tear him limb from limb. Margo screamed. The thing’s legs buckled. The creature fell, nearly crushing Swift as he frantically scrambled clear.
Stumbling to his feet the shaken man thought of how close he had come to death as he watched it die in shuddering spasms . The sobbing of the girl broke through his self-concern.
Oaf, he though as he walked unsteadily to Margo’s side and began the delicate task of freeing her from the clawing thorns. The girl needs your help and you stand there like a frightened child.
Carefully, he eased Margo from the ensnaring plants and sat her upon the ground. The shaken girl clung to him, her body trembling like a leaf. Swift soothed her with his comforting embrace and his calm words of reassurance. Slowly, she regained her composure, and he gently freed himself from her clinging arms.
“I’d best tend your wounds,” he said as he doffed his backpack. “I’ve a first aid kit in here.”
Margo gave him a weak smile as she wiped away her tears. “Scout’s motto: always be prepared.”
He grinned, but quickly sobered as he looked her over. Her cuts were shallow, but there were many of them upon her arms and legs. Her generous breasts lay exposed, slightly scratched where razor thorns had sliced away her bikini top. Her worst injury, though, was to the hand she’d used to uproot and hurl the spiny plant.
With expert hands he cleaned her wounds, and applied a spray-on dressing; then tended his own, which were not as numerous thanks to the thickness of his clothing, and the rucksack which had shielded his back when he fell.
“We’d best be going,” he said, helping her to rise. “That carcass may attract other predators. Oh, forgive me. I‘m a fool. Here, my jacket …”
She gratefully accepted the item of clothing. Swift turned away as she donned it. He’d been so busy playing the role of medic that he hadn’t thought about her state of semi-nudity.
Margo made light of his obvious embarrassment. “Consider what you’ve seen as an incentive to keep on saving my shapely arse.”
Swift laughed. He was relieved to see she still retained a sense of humor despite the dreadful situation they were in. Mentally, Margo was stronger than she looked, and he knew she’d be okay.
With the girl upon his shoulders, Swift set off again, pausing for a moment by the beast he had slain. The creature was organic, not at all like their crystalline kidnapper, and the man wondered how evolution could produce such dissimilar forms upon one world. He said as much to his fair companion.
“We can debate that over coffee when we get home,” replied Margo, as she playfully jabbed him in the ribs with her heels. “Let’s get going before we meet its ugly relatives. “
If we get home, thought the girl. Margo was no fool - she had no illusions about the terrible situation they were in, and knew their chances of survival were slim at best. Yet she also knew she must muster all her courage, for the last thing Swift needed to be burdened with was a tearful, fainting woman.
Swift forced a smile at her remarks for he, too, knew that unknown dangers lay ahead. They moved on, reciting ribald jokes to keep at bay their secret fears. About fifteen minutes later both saw the reason for the defensive spikes of the strange verdure. The beasts, ten in all, were huge - as tall as the towering trees.
Six long legs, like enormous stilts, supported each creature’s pear-shaped body from whose apex arched a serpentine neck of prodigious length. Their heads were conical; their skins - black, rubbery in appearance, with neck and legs banded in canary yellow.
The monsters, ponderous and dim witted titans, stood perhaps fifty yards away. They poked gingerly among the serrated leaves and spiked branches, nibbling at the new and tender growth with bovine stolidity.
“Herbivores, “whispered Swift. “But even so we must be careful.”
His words proved prophetic. Suddenly, the beasts swung their heads in one direction. They looked up. From their throats arose foghorn cries of panic. As one they bolted towards the startled pair. Swift turned to flee. He cursed. Thorny bushes hedged them in.
“We’ll be trampled,” cried Margo as the stampeding behemoths swept down upon them in a wild rush.
Chapter 3: Citadel of Monsters
Quickly, Margo slid free of Swift. She glimpsed the looming beasts - huge, terrifying and frighteningly near. There was neither time nor place to flee.
Swift saw their only chance. He grabbed the girl, pulled her behind a tree and pushed her to the ground, and threw his body upon her as a shield. Both felt the earth tremble under the monsters pounding tread. They were deafened by the creature’s booming cries of wild fear. Margo clung to Swift in silent terror. Reality exploded into dust and thunder as the bolting beasts, in maddened flight, swept by them in a jarring wave of massive bodies.
Swift felt Margo’s body tremble. His own tensed with prickling fear. They felt frightful death, in the form of mighty legs, flash by on every side. The huge trees trembled. Spiked bark flew as the panicked titans crashed against their boles. It was a timeless, nightmarish moment of utter terror. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The booming cries faded with the fleeing beasts. The dust settled, and stillness was once more upon the alien world…
In silence, too, lay man and girl, both badly shaken by their terrifying brush with awful death.
“Gone?” Margo whispered, her words hushed by lingering fear.
“I think so,” was Swift’s whispered, cautious answer.
Both rose unsteadily, each helping the other. Swift went cold as he looked about. The thorny shrubs that had barred their path lay flattened in utter ruin, many trees had been stripped of bark and in the trampled earth were numerous claw-like prints - they had come within mere feet of a swift and gruesome end. But what had panicked those huge and timid beasts?
A humming noise impinged upon the human’s ears. Man and girl looked up. Swift cursed. Margo gasped in shock. Above the trees hovered another flying disc. Upon it were two beings - twins to their erstwhile, glassy captor.
Swift grabbed the startled girl, heaved her across his shoulder and ran as if it was the very devil upon his heels. A blazing ray flashed down - a narrow miss. The weird machine swooped upon them - a diving hawk. Swift sprinted between the thorny trees. Margo cried a warning. He madly swerved, heard the hiss of the electric rays and felt their dread tingle as they lanced soil mere feet away.
Disaster struck - Swift stumbled, fell. Both crashed to earth and were nearly impaled by the thorny plants as stabbing, purple beams struck in blazing frenzy all about. Man and girl were hit. Their bodies convulsed in the frightful agony of electric fire, then lay deathly still.
The disc landed. Its unearthly occupants disembarked. Swift, enfeebled by the dreadful ray, could only watch in utter helplessness as the things approached with frightening and implacable intent.
Margo saw his limp form grasped by coiling tentacles - a dreadful sight. Sick with fear, the girl watched as he was hauled aloft. What was to be their fate? She moaned in terror as the second alien’s tentacles ensnared her form. Cold limbs coiled about her breasts, her belly, slipped around her thighs. The thing lifted her as if she was a child.
Both were carried towards the waiting craft and dumped upon the disc. The mechanism whined to life. With gut-wrenching swiftness it lifted off, and hurtled above the trees like a blazing meteor.
Swift lay motionless, as weak and helpless as a babe. The chill air rushed over him in icy torrents, and gloom hung its ebon shroud upon his jolted mind. Once again both were helpless captives at the mercy of malignant and inhuman intelligences.
He looked at Margo’s crumpled form, then the creatures standing over her. He had failed to protect the girl. The dark and bitter bile of self-reproach marred his thoughts. His mind seemed a cage in which futile ideas tore madly round like the inmates of a poorly run asylum.
With a mighty effort he calmed his wild thoughts and gradually regained his self-control. Panic was clearly not an option. The situation was grim, but to give up hope would surely kill all chance of living. He slowly realized he must be as cunning as a beast - quiet, watchful and ready to pounce on any favorable opportunity should it arise.
From his prone position, Swift examined his surroundings as best he could. In the distance black mountains thrust their jagged peaks, sharp and cruel as dragon’s teeth, through the citrine sky. And against their riven crags, cold and bleak, a shadow of greater darkness seemed to loom.
Their speeding disc arrowed towards this strange enigma, and the watching man grew startled as its misty form resolved with closing distance. The thing was a slowly rotating cone of ebon metal - an alien machine, titanic, inexplicable.
The mechanism floated in the sky as effortlessly as a cloud, its apex pointing to the ground two thousand feet below. About the mile-long cone were bands of emerald hemispheres, and from them ghostly beams of viridian radiance sprang, their phantom light etched against the yellow heavens.
About the circumference of the mechanism’s skyward facing base were slender cones that towered to heights of at least a hundred feet, their ebon forms studded with smaller, lucid versions of themselves. And from the centre of the mighty disc rose another cone of prodigious height. Unlike the others, it was surmounted by a spiky, silver sphere.
Towards this structure leapt the flying disc. An equatorial iris portal spiraled open. The craft passed within and landed upon a floor of strange alloy - white and self-luminous. Dazed and paralyzed, they were carried like helpless children by their captors, who conveyed them through a maze of rooms and corridors humming with weird and nameless mechanisms of metal and crystal.
The silent alien mechanisms arrived at their destination - a bare chamber whose egress was barred with purple rays. The beams winked out. The beings entered, dropped their prisoners upon the floor, stripped Swift of his backpack and then left. The livid rays sprang back as they exited the cell, cutting off all hope of liberty.
Swift tried to move, but was unable. This time the paralyzing energy had been of greater force.
“Margo,” he weakly called. “Are you badly hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” replied the girl, equally affected by the purple ray. “Where are we?”
A strange voice giggled: “In a citadel of monsters,” it answered in hollow, sepulchral tones.
Their eyes swiveled and beheld a huddled form in one corner of the cell. It lay near a kind of waterfall that poured from a grillwork aperture in the ceiling, and plunged through a grid upon the floor - obviously a sanitary facility of alien design.
The man-thing slowly rose and shuffled towards the helpless couple. Swift’s flesh crawled at the sight of the creature’s revolting nudity. It was a fellow earthman, or at least had once been so. The skin was pale, corpse white. The sunken, shadowed eyes stared. Margo saw that madness was in their depths as it approached. She shivered and looked away.
It stopped and swayed above them. Swift felt the gorge rise in his throat as he gazed upon it. Half the skull had been cut away and replaced by a lucid crystal dome. Upon this was an onyx cube, and from it needle probes passed through the glass to penetrate the pulsing brain below.
Swift licked his lips. His voice came out - a shaken whisper: “Who … What are you?”
For tense moments the thing stared at man and girl - a silent, nightmarish horror. Slowly, the crazed expression faded and was replaced by something almost human in appearance. It spoke:
“A slave,” it mumbled. “I am a slave of the Crystal Brain.”
Swift forced himself to look upon this human wreck and controlled his revulsion with an iron will. He spoke gently, coaxingly, realizing the thing before him might prove a vital ally.
“What are our captors? What do they want with us? You look as if you have been here for some time. Do you know?”
The thing gazed at him, its dull mind mulling over his questions. Slowly, hesitantly, it spoke. Its tongue, long disused, groped for words.
“These things … Not of this world … They came here … Eons ago … Their own sun … dying …”
Slowly, Swift drew forth the incredible tale with further careful questions. The Thoom - their captors - were not at all remotely human, more like social insects in their mentality. And this vast machine was the repository of their species’ mental essence: The Crystal Brain - the collective consciousness of their greatest minds fused into a single entity and preserved against extinction.
The Thoom’s native star, aged with the passing of a thousand eons, had become unstable. Its nuclear fires had flared and poured forth torrents of radiation inimical to the life upon its daughter worlds. The ship was rapidly constructed, launched. Across the gulf of space the mighty vessel leapt, fleeing the swollen, seething sun as its expanding bulk engulfed the system’s spheres.
Through stellar immensities, for a thousand years hurtled the titan craft, at last arriving at this solitary, uncharted globe of another star. But now deuterium*, a rare and vital element upon this savage world had been exhausted, and once again the Crystal Brain sought other worlds, this time with a new invention - a hyperspace portal which quickly bridged the daunting gulf of space.
“That’s why the Brain captured us,” continued their weird companion, his speech now more fluent with increasing practice. “It needs to thoroughly study us in preparation for …”
The once-man’s hollow voice suddenly died away. A look of madness crawled across its hideous face. With a trembling hand it touched the horrid mind-probe upon its head - a frightening reminder, stirred by its final words, of what it had become.
It gibbered for a moment; then the dead eyes turned upon the girl, animal passions flaming in its broken mind. Margo’s skin crawled as its wild gaze roved across her nubile defenseless form. She saw that all semblance of humanity had deserted it.
Margo screamed as it fell upon her. Again she cried in shrill terror as it tore her jacket open, sending buttons flying and began to paw her naked breasts. Swift yelled, cursed. Desperately he sought to muster the dregs of strength to aid the helpless girl. Again, she cried in fear; then uttered a piercing scream as with clawing hands it ripped the tattered swimwear from her hips.
Footnote: Deuterium is a heavy isotope of hydrogen that can be used as a fuel in nuclear fusion power plants. This isotope is abundant in terrestrial oceans, and has the potential to supply us with almost limitless energy once nuclear fusion technology is perfected. Little wonder, then, that the Crystal Brain desires Earth.
Chapter 4: In the Presence of the Brain
Desperately, Margo tried to move, but was unable. Cold fingers slithered between her naked thighs. She whimpered as its violating hands neared her shaven mound. Whimpering, she closed her eyes against the horror of her rapist’s lust distorted face.
A brawny form slammed against the thing and knocked it off the frantic girl. Margo opened her eyes. She saw Swift desperately wrestling with the madman. Both rolled across the floor, each striving for the upper hand.
The thing rolled atop the man. It gibbered gleefully as its bony fingers locked about his throat. Swift broke the deadly hold with a judo trick. He grabbed its head, and then twisted with utmost violence, muscles bulging. There was a dreadful crack, and the travesty of humanity fell lifeless to the glowing floor.
For a moment Swift lay panting heavily, exhausted by the battle; then he slowly crawled to Margo’s side and collapsed. Both lay in silence for a time, the girl regaining her mental balance and the man his strength.
At last Margo broke the silence: “I can move,” she softly said. Slowly, the girl sat up and attempted to cover her nakedness with the button-less jacket, a rather futile task. Swift levered himself to his knees and wiped the sweat from his brow. Margo shuddered as she gazed at the broken thing upon the floor.
“Hold me,” she whispered. “Hold me tight.”
He wrapped her in his arms. She clung to him. They kissed with fervor. In the midst of death both sought comfort in human passion. It was an interlude, all too short - from the corner of his eye Swift glimpsed sudden movement.
They broke apart. Both lurched up. Three glassy beings stepped within their cell. The creatures, Swift now knew, were lifeless mechanisms - drones controlled by the Crystal Brain. They were extensions of its immense and all-pervading mind. He stepped in front of Margo - a chivalrous but futile gesture.
Margo placed her hand upon his arm. “Do nothing foolish. I need you more than ever, now.”
Swift nodded as the machines surrounded them, herded both from the cell and along a passageway. The girl looked back and shuddered as she clung to her companion.
“Richard,” she whispered. Promise you’ll kill me first before letting them do to me what they did to that poor soul.”
“You have my word on that,” he calmly replied, surprised at his own sincerity. Swift, though a fireman, had never really considered himself a man of action. Before today, he’d never have dreamed he’d be capable of killing another human being, and for a moment he wondered with sudden trepidation if he was becoming as ruthless as their inhuman captors.
“Poor wretch,” continued Margo, more to herself than the man. “We never even asked his name.”
“Henry Martin,” replied Swift, softly. “Remember - about a year ago he took his high school class on an excursion to that beach where we were kidnapped. They all vanished without a trace. It made headline news around the nation for several months. God, what horrors those poor souls must have endured.”
They both continued along the wide corridor in sober silence. Swift surreptitiously observed their stalking guards. Two walked on either side with the third behind. All were armed with energy cylinders held in finger-like digits that branched out from their tentacle tips.
The weapons were about twenty inches in length by three in diameter, and covered in small hemispheres that glowed fiercely with a cold and scarlet light. The controls were simple - two black buttons, one set above the other.
Should he make a grab for a weapon? Swift glanced at the drones and noted their staring eyes, cold and merciless. Their towering forms, potent with superhuman strength, stood well above his height. He felt hope slipping away. What could mere flesh and blood do against the might of an alien science far older than callow Man?
His dark musings were interrupted by their arrival in a vast, circular chamber. The room was dome-shaped and reinforced with massive girders that formed an arching geodesic pattern. Beneath their feet was a lucid floor. Looking down, Swift saw more gigantic alloy beams that formed another hemisphere whose base joined the one above.
Beneath their feet were mechanisms - mighty discs, slowly turning, their crystal forms aglow with pastel light. Vast cones and spheres of silver metal were also there, all studded with lucid hemispheres from which leapt stupendous flares of actinic light. And all about was the subtle hum of these titanic engines, their strange forms imprisoning forces, vast and mysterious.
They were ushered towards the centre of the room where floated a lucid sphere thirty feet across, and in its crystal form were a hundred golden globes of light - the Thoom minds, each linked to the other by aureate rays to form a glowing cube. An incredible structure, this fantastic sentient globe, supported high above the floor by propulsive emerald rays, which streamed from silvery hemispheres studding its vitreous form.
Before the sphere they halted - small and frightened children in the presence of a stupendous and alien power. A source-less voice spoke - as cold and vast as space itself and within it seemed the force of exploding suns. The words of the Crystal Brain beat upon their ears like the thundering waves of a mighty sea.
“Specimen nine destroyed. Explain.”
Swift gathered his courage and slipped a comforting arm about the frightened girl. Their only weapon, it seemed to him, was reckless bravery.
“What do you want with us?” His voice was a defiant shout. But even so, the sound seemed small and lost amongst the vastness of the mighty room, dwarfed by the presence of this ancient and inhuman entity.
Again, it spoke, the words chill and terrifying: “New world required. Specimens facilitate invasion plans. Specimen nine destroyed. Explain.”
Margo’s nails dug into her companion’s brawny arm. If it didn’t understand why Swift had been forced to kill her would-be rapist, then it was truly alien. “It wants Earth, just as Martin said,” she continued in breathless fear. “Oh God, what can we do?”
“Reason with it,” replied Swift, sounding more hopeful than he felt. Then, to the Brain: “There are over six billion of us. We have atomic weapons. You need something from our world - Deuterium? Why risk destruction? Trade with us and we’ll give it to you peacefully.”
“Zero risk - virus synthesized to destroy all life upon target world. Nil value in further communication with inferior intelligences; will now initiate test for pathogen lethality.”
The drone’s tentacles lashed out and snared man and girl about the waist. Swift cursed. Both struggled wildly. From a second circular portal stepped another mechanism. The thing approached - a small silver sphere supported on many jointed legs. Margo was grasped by clawing fear, for she saw that glittering surgical implements tipped its numerous, writhing limbs.
With silent menace it drew near the frantic pair. Swift saw their only chance. With lightening speed his hand lashed out and struck the button of his captor’s weapon as the silver mechanism thrust one needle towards his chest.
A blazing purple ray lanced out. It hit the Crystal Brain. The drones convulsed, flinging man and girl about as they crashed inertly to the floor. Swift struggled clear of his captor’s flaccid limbs, snatched up a ray-cylinder. He ran to Margo’s side and helped the thrashing girl free herself.
Margo scrambled up with his assistance. Her eyes went wide and she gasped a warning. Swift turned. He went cold. The mechanisms were stirring. The entity was not destroyed as he had hoped, merely stunned.
“Quickly, he cried. “Grab those other weapons. We’ll fire all three at the Brain. Their combined strength should annihilate it.”
Margo snatched up the two remaining cylinders as the fallen mechanisms, now functioning on automatic, began to rise. Simultaneously, man and girl discharged their weapons upon the Brain. Too late - ripples of mirror-like energy sprang swiftly between its silver hemispheres. The purple rays flamed in a cascade of impotent sparks against this shield as the risen drones deadly tentacles shot towards the couple’s unprotected backs.
Sensing danger, Swift flung himself upon the girl. They struck the floor. The whipping limbs narrowly missed both. From a prone position each fired at the advancing mechanisms. Hissing rays stabbed with purple fury and blazed against the stalking drones. Swift cursed. The things, unaffected, continued their advance.
Swift lurched upright. He hauled Margo with him. Silver claws, cruelly sharp and arcing with lethal current, sprang forth like switchblades from the drones writhing tentacles. Then Margo cried in utter terror as the mechanisms darting limbs lashed towards them.
Chapter 5: Trapped
The whipping tentacles missed their mark as Swift jerked the frightened girl aside. Again, he fired at the drones, but this time depressing his weapon’s second button.
A ray of incandescent brightness erupted from the cylinder. It sheared through one mechanism like a sword of indigo flame and sent it tumbling to the ground. In a sudden rush the three remaining drones charged the pair. Swift swept the ray in a savage arc and caught the trio in his raging beam. The things clattered to the floor, livid sparks spewing from their sundered forms.
For a moment both stared silently at the ruined and smoking mechanisms, overcome with vast relief at having escaped what seemed certain death. Then a sudden metallic clang jarred man and girl to their senses.
Margo gasped. The girl pointed. “Look,” she cried. “The circular door through which we entered has spiraled closed, as has the other. We’re trapped.”
Then, the ominous sound of hissing gas impinged upon the couple’s ears. Swift looked up and to his horror saw crimson vapors billowing from opening apertures in the apex of the dome. Luridly, he swore; then added: “Depress the second button and we’ll again fire upon the Brain.”
Three rays of frightful energy struck the entity’s mirror-like shield. They flamed impotently against its screen of force, and all the while crimson gas drifted slowly down, ever nearer the imprisoned and helpless pair.
“Useless,” gasped Margo as the choking vapors began to take effect. “Try the door. “
Swift nodded. They staggered towards the portal, vision dimming with every labored breath. Margo stumbled. Swift caught her swooning form and eased her to the floor. The gas thickened and drew a crimson veil across his blurry eyes. The choking vapors began to fill his lungs. An invisible noose seemed to tighten about his throat as he sank upon his knees.
With a Herculean effort, Swift raised both weapons. Each seemed to weigh a ton as he fired at the door. A fountain of sizzling sparks erupted. Swift closed his eyes against the actinic glare and gritted his teeth as fiery particles showered him with their lurid incandescence.
Swift’s trembling hands slowly moved the rays through their cutting circle as eternal darkness spiraled ever inwards upon his weakening form. The fear of death assailed him with all its terrors as he wondered if he would win this desperate race.
Death inched ever nearer. The circle closed. Swift collapsed as the portal fell with a stupendous, ringing crash. The inward falling door fanned away the gas. Fresh air and the mighty impact stirred the semiconscious man. He struggled up, thrust all three weapons in his belt, and with the dregs of strength gathered Margo in his arms and leapt across the white-hot threshold, then staggered up the deserted corridor.
With every step Swift slowly regained his strength as clean, sweet air filled his heaving lungs. Margo stirred. Her eyes fluttered open and she slowly looked about; then smiled - they were free.
“Put me down,” she said, sobering with the realization that further danger could not be far away, and that Swift was burdened with her weight.
“Damn Brain,” gasped Swift as he set the girl upon her feet. “More tricks up its sleeve than a magician… We have to get out of here... Make further plans when free.”
Margo nodded. “The flying discs. It’s our only chance of escape.”
Swift agreed, handed her a weapon and armed himself. “This way,” he said as he cautiously moved out along the passageway, the girl close behind. The eyes of both darted here and there as they advanced, searching for signs of hidden danger in the empty corridors.
“Where are the drones,” whispered Margo, tensely. “Why haven’t they attacked?”
“The Brain may not have many,” replied Swift, cautiously. “My guess is the ship is mostly automated. It’s planning something though, of that you can be sure. “
Margo suddenly yelped. “The floor, she cried, dancing from one foot to another. “It’s getting hot.”
Swift quickly thrust the weapons through his belt, grabbed the girl and slung her across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He, too, began to feel the heat through his heavy boots; and the air, now noticeably warmer.
“God,” he gasped as he began to run. “It’s turning these passages into a furnace. We’ll be roasted alive.”
The temperature rapidly rose as Swift madly dashed through the maze of corridors. His clothes were soaked with perspiration and the stifling air burnt his lungs with every tortured breath. The girl gasped in fear as he nearly lost his grip upon her sweat slick form.
Margo felt him falter and knew with frightening certainty he couldn’t last. A desperate plan formed within her mind.
“Heating mechanisms,” she gasped, discharging her weapon to the rear. “Fire your ray into the walls.”
Swift whipped out his ray-cylinder and let loose a flaming bolt. A cascade of sparks erupted all about. He staggered through their burning curtain and heard Margo scream as the fiery flecks fell upon her skin. Onward he staggered, firing blindly. His rubber soles were now smoking ominously and his feet burning with the frightful heat.
Through shadowed vision, Death’s black maw opened wide. “Foolish man, “it seemed to whisper, seductively. “Your cause is lost... Lie down... Rest your weary limbs. “
Darkness crept upon his mind. From far away he heard the whimpering of the frightened girl. The sound roused him from insidious lassitude. Swift forced himself to stagger on, lost in a haze of burning heat.
Slowly, his mind became a little clearer. Things seemed cooler now, the passageway more familiar. Suddenly, the sounds of weeping impinged upon his ears. Margo? No, the girl lay limp across his shoulders - she had fainted from the frightful heat.
Swift paused to regain his strength and consider their situation. After a few minutes he looked about, wondering if he should take time to investigate the sound. Should he risk wasting precious minutes? Again, came the weeping - clearly human. Swift made his decision. Quickly, he moved up a side passage from which the noise seemed to emanate, and came upon another door barred with purple rays. Looking within, he gasped at the disturbing sight - the missing students, sixteen in all and of equal gender, lay imprisoned in the cell.
They were stark naked, most of the girls clearly pregnant. After nearly a year imprisoned, and under such trying conditions, it was hardly surprising that they had sought comfort in each other’s arms.
An Asian girl of eighteen, or thereabouts, ran forward. “Please help us,” she sobbed. “Oh, God; please get us out of here.”
Swift gazed upon her pleading, tear stained face and the swell of her unborn child. He silently cursed the Brain with every filthy name he could recall. Already, he was burdened with the responsibility of rescuing Margo who was still draped unconscious across his shoulder, and now this was added to his worries. Still, to abandon these captives was unthinkable.
“Stand back,” he ordered. “I’ll get you out.”
Swift fired his lancing beam, sweeping it around the door‘s circumference. The purple rays flickered, died. He beckoned to the frightened prisoners, and was vastly relieved to see that none appeared to be victims of the Brain‘s inhuman experiments.* Despite their ordeal they seemed healthy enough, having endured slave labor for the sake of exercise - regularly clearing the fast growing underbrush from about the Brain’s ground based installation.
“Form a line and follow me,” he called. “Everyone, keep calm and be alert.”
As the captives formed up, a sudden clattering alerted Swift to impending danger. Someone screamed as he spun around. He glimpsed four drones charging down upon them. A hissing ray narrowly missed Swift as he leapt within the cell. He slid Margo‘s limp form to the floor as he kept his eyes upon the foe.
Swift shouted above the screams of the milling captives, ordering everyone down upon their bellies. Sizzling beams raked the walls where the teens had stood. Sparks, in pyrotechnic flares, erupted. Girls wept, young men yelled in naked fear.
Swift fired. Two drones went down before his slashing ray. He rolled aside. More raging beams gouged the floor where he had lain. Again, he unleashed the frightening power of his weapon and felled the third.
The final drone charged in a clanking rush. Swift pressed the button. Nothing happened - the tube’s charge was spent. With a look of utter horror he watched the mechanism’s ray-cylinder zero in, and knew there was no time to reach his other weapon.
*Footnote: As the Brain wished to study human reproduction, it was merely delaying such experiments until the first child had been born. It would have then vivisected both mother and baby without the slightest qualms.
Chapter 6: A Desperate Chance
Swift tensed, expecting death. A ray blazed and sent the final drone crashing to the floor. He turned and saw Margo lower her weapon. She smiled weakly at him.
“Just as well I hung onto this.”
“How?” Queried Swift, amazed. “You were unconscious.” He gazed upon her almost naked form. “Where did you put it?”
Margo grinned. “When we’re alone, I’ll show you.” Then, more seriously: “Are these the missing students?”
Swift nodded. “I’ll explain as we go,” he said as he checked the empty corridor, then rallied the frightened group and led them out upon it. Swift, as wary as a cat, guided them along the way. All were as tense as coiled springs, expecting disaster to strike at any second. But the minutes passed without further incident, and soon they found themselves within the launch bay of the mighty ship.
Swift leaned against the wall and wiped his sweat streaked brow. The constant stress, both physical and mental, was beginning to tell upon him. He wondered how much more he could take as he gazed at the earnest, expectant faces of his charges. In silence they looked upon him; afraid, yet hopeful.
Margo, too, gazed upon Swift and her heart went out to him, but it was more than pity or gratitude that stirred these deep emotions within her inmost being. She sighed, pushed away a strand of sweat damp hair and looked about. The girl knew now was not the time to be distracted by such feelings, however pleasant they might be.
Her roving eyes scanned the quadrant chamber. She saw the rows of flying-discs and the open portal through which a sudden storm hurled its sheets of whipping spray. Jagged lightening flashed, and distant thunder rolled within the confines of the massive room.
The girl placed her hand upon Swift’s shoulder and pointed at the yawning lock. “The Brain seems to want us out of here”, she observed. “Best we go before it has a change of mind.”
Swift grunted. “The real danger is when we leave,” he whispered to her, not wishing to alarm the others. “It probably has long range weapons with which to shoot us down.”
“Then its death by staying or death by going,” remarked Margo, with quiet stoicism.
“Don’t give up,” replied the man as he squeezed her hand and led her towards a craft, motioning the rest to follow him. This vessel was different from the rest, being a narrow oval thirty feet in length, and ten in width. All stepped upon its grid work plain, and Margo silently watched as Swift began his careful examination of the craft’s controls, her courage bolstered by his seeming confidence.
Swift was acutely aware of the girl’s eyes upon him as he commenced his investigation, and hoped his own secret doubts concerning their survival didn’t show. Pushing aside his worries, he focused upon the task at hand and saw that the controls were rather simple in appearance.
The long rod, man-tall, was divided two thirds along its length by a ball and socket joint that allowed the upper section universal movement (a kind of joystick, he correctly guessed), and upon this part was a row of silver buttons. Swift touched one, gingerly. Nothing happened, so he pushed a little harder.
Suddenly, the disc leapt upwards to the ceiling like a rocket. The hapless passengers sprawled upon its surface. They cried in terror as their clawing hands gripped its grillwork floor. Swift stabbed another button. The machine jarred to a halt mere feet from destruction, then shot madly backwards towards the walls. It then swept around the room, the girls wailing like banshees as it careened madly across the vastness of the chamber.
Desperately, Swift wrestled with the controls. He clung to the rod, his knuckles white as the bucking mechanism lurched about in wild abandon. A massive pillar loomed before the hurtling craft. He jerked the joystick. The machine swerved sickeningly aside - a narrow miss. An endless progression of near disasters seemed to follow, but at last Swift got the hang of things, and brought the vehicle slowly to a halt.
Knees weak, he grinned sheepishly at his crew. “Rather sensitive … these controls”, was his banal observation.
Margo’s response was a scathing look more cutting than words could ever be. Swift tactfully ignored her venomous glance, and piloted the oval towards the open portal. They emerged into the driving rain, mouths open to quench their burning thirst with this refreshing downpour.
“Here,” yelled Swift above the storm as he handed Margo his second weapon, the girl having lost hers during the wild careening of their craft. “Be ready for anything.”
Margo nodded. The downpour began to ease as they fled from the Brain’s spaceship-fortress, and Swift cursed the slowness of their speed, for the wind-chill upon rain soaked skin and clothes was so severe that he had to slow their flying oval to but a crawl.
Margo, shivering violently from the cold, looked back through the clearing sky and saw, five hundred yards behind; the slender cones of the monstrous mechanism’s upper plane begin to glow with a cobalt nimbus of electric fire.
She cried a warning. Swift turned. Instantly, he saw the danger and increased their vehicle’s speed. All watched with a mixture of fascination and dread as flaming rays shot upwards from the blazing cones to meet at a focal point of crackling energy high above the floating citadel.
The seething mass of malignant force began to swell. It formed a sphere of raging light at least one hundred feet across. The rays winked out. The sphere contracted to a twelve inch ball. Then the teenagers cried in open fear as the fiery globe rushed towards them - a hurtling nemesis of unstoppable atomic force.
As the raging globe of energy hurtled towards them with frightening speed, a shield of glittering radiance manifested and sheathed the floating citadel in an aura of shimmering light.
Swift went cold at the sight of the energy shield, for it gave a clue as to the tremendous explosive power of the rushing sphere. But it also gave him the gem of hope - that perhaps behind its screen of force the Brain was blind, and would not see what he planned to do.
Quickly, he seized the desperate chance and brought their craft to a jarring halt. Margo looked at him with utter disbelief.
“Trust me,” he said as with squinting eyes he tensely watched the rushing ball of all-consuming flame. Margo closed her eyes. She turned her head away from its swelling glare. Her hands were claws of fear as she gripped the grillwork floor. Her mind was numb with terror. She felt the blazing heat of the sphere as it fell upon them in a roaring rush. Someone screamed.
Swift quickly stabbed a button. The disc dropped with sickening speed, and the seething weapon hurtled passed high above their heads.
“Missed”, cried Swift exultantly as he watched it rush towards the horizon, a roaring streak of blazing light.
“Oh, God,” gasped one young man. “Look. It’s coming back.”
Swift stared in disbelief. The flaming sphere had arced about and was plunging at them once again.
“Hang on,” he yelled as he sent their oval hurtling back towards the floating citadel. Through the sky they rushed, frigid air raking all with claws of icy wind. Margo saw the swelling globe behind them. She glanced in apprehension at the looming, titan mechanism to the fore. It seemed to her they were caught between a hard place and a rock.
Was Swift bent on suicide - did he plan to crash their craft like a kamikaze in one last defiant but futile gesture? The stupendous cone hung before the frightened girl - a glowing, inverted metal mountain against which in seconds they would crash; while behind them was the deadly flaming sphere, ever nearer.
Margo prayed. A black girl whimpered in abject fear. Suddenly, the craft plummeted steeply like a streaking thunderbolt; the howling, frigid wind of its frightful passage nearly tearing all away. Then, the ship’s defensive screen winked out as the Brain sought to view the carnage it had wrought, and the hurtling sphere of blazing energy struck its unprotected hull.
An explosion of searing light drenched the sky and the thunder of raging gods was the essence of its dreadful sound. The mighty ship shuddered as its vast casing was cracked wide by the blast’s stupendous power.
Suddenly, from several miles away, a fan of prismatic, crimson radiance leapt skyward from the ground. Swift and his companions, who had swept beneath the stupendous cone and up its further side, (thus shielded from the fearsome blast by the intervening mass) now saw the awesome sight as they soared up past the stricken ship.
“Look,” cried Margo, pointing at the enormous inverted triangle of scarlet light. “It must be a hyperspace portal - one large enough for the Brain’s ship to pass within. We‘ve damaged its vessel, and its heading for Earth before another disaster strikes.”
Swift knew that she was right. Wrenching fear tore his vitals as he saw the flying citadel lurch towards the entryway in unsteady but rapid flight. Futile plans swirled madly through his mind - the world in mortal peril, helpless before the might of this cold and alien being.
Again, he looked upon the fleeing vessel and saw smoke, black and oily, billowing from the flame licked wound upon its side. Joy touched him as one by one the viridian beams from its bands of propelling hemispheres began to fail.
Swift’s hopes rose - the vessel was fatally damaged. It would never reach the portal. Then his heart sank when his eyes fell upon the spiky sphere of the central cone, for this had separated from the crippled vessel as it began to fall with slow and dreadful majesty.
The smaller craft pulled away from the burning hulk and arched towards the shimmering radiance as the mother ship continued its dreadful plunge. The flying citadel gathering speed in one long and fatal tumble.
“Shield your eyes”, cried Swift as it struck the earth far below and erupted in one vast and thunderous explosion.
A fountain of smoldering debris was hurled skyward by the fearsome blast. Swift shot heavenward to avoid the deadly fragments that streaked in near collisions about his flimsy craft. He briefly glimpsed one whirling piece of wreckage smash against the fleeing sphere as it neared the glowing portal. Crippled, the smaller vessel plunged - a burning ruin. It struck the distant ground based installation and exploded in a cataclysm of erupting force rivaling Abaddon...
From high above, Swift and Margo surveyed a scene of total devastation. Nothing remained of the Brain’s smaller ship or its hyperspace portal generator. Only a mile wide circle of fused and smoking terrain marked the place where it had been.
The Earth was safe from an alien menace. But in defeating the foe they had destroyed the last of a mighty and ancient civilization, and Swift was not so callous as to be overjoyed at what he had been forced to do. But had they not also paid a heavy price - marooned forever upon this world. Swift and Margo sat in somber silence, the full import of their situation weighing heavily upon them.
“Can… can we go home?” Swift turned, saw it was the Asian girl who had first spoken to him. What could he say? The truth was terrifying; a lie, impossible.
“I’m sorry,” was his only, heartfelt reply.
The girl’s full lips quivered. Softly, she began to weep, as did others at this dreadful news. A young man placed his arm about her. She clung to him as he comforted her. The scene was repeated with other couples. Swift, embarrassed, looked away. Quietness slowly descended once more. Time passed…
“Well, Richard,” said Margo, breaking the lengthy silence. “I’ve always wanted an adventurous life. It seems fate has granted it to me in abundance.”
They looked at each other. Like Margo, Swift found himself grinning despite the predicament they were in. He slipped his arm about the girl and kissed her. If he was to be marooned upon an alien world, then he could not hope to have a better companion.
“We’d better find a place to land,” he said, after a time. “Who knows how long the batteries, or whatever powers this machine, will last.”
“Let’s try the mountains,” suggested Margo. There is a certain beauty to their harshness, and I’ve always wanted a scenic view.”
There were no objections from the others, so Swift set a course for the towering peaks, and within about two hours they found themselves above the broad plateau of a lesser mountain that nestled among its mighty and rugged cousins.
The expansive tableland was covered in a thorn-less, open forest, split by bubbling streams that flowed in several waterfalls from a high point on the plateau’s eastern side, and Swift correctly reasoned the silky, thorn free verdure was proof that monstrous herbivores were absent from these highland regions.
“If you think it’s safe to land,” replied Margo after he had voiced his conclusions. “Then bring us down near that waterfall. If my eyes don’t deceive me there’s a cave in those cliffs which will shelter us, and the view from there should be rather picturesque.”
The oval descended to a gentle landing. Its occupants alighted, and thus began their new life upon this strange and distant world.
Epilogue: 2215 AD
Captain Aznar sat quietly in his command chair. Eyes closed, he finished reviewing the exploration survey report via the neural implant that linked him to Plato, his ship’s computer. The captain’s grey eyes opened, and he gazed thoughtfully at Jaran, chief xenobiologist of the survey team.
“Your genetic analysis shows they’re human. Are you sure there is no error? We’ve only had interstellar drive technology for fifty years, yet the archaeological data indicates this plateau has been inhabited for over two hundred. How do you explain this contradiction?”
“We have run and rerun the tests,” replied the puzzled scientist. “The results are consistent. There is no error. The villagers are human. They possess a technology comparable with Earth’s Neolithic period, and yet we have detected traces of an ancient nuclear explosion.
“Senu is currently working to translate their language which, as you know, bears some resemblance to twentieth century English. It’s all very confusing, but once we can communicate freely with them I’m sure they’ll have an interesting tale to tell.”
“Indeed,” replied captain Aznar. “Indeed.”
THE END
Addendum
For those of you who may be interested, I shall now give a basic summary of Hoom civilization, which has been left to the final chapter due to the paucity of space afforded by footnotes, and the fact that an extensive digression on the subject would have interrupted the flow of the story.
The Hoom evolved extremely late in the history of their world, Uz, as they called it (Note: Hoom vocalizations can’t be accurately rendered using our language. The spelling being used is as about as close as we can get). In appearance they resembled, in their living form, the drones of the Crystal Brain, with the exception that they were clad in a tough, grey exoskeleton resembling the chitinous integument of terrestrial crustaceans.
Unlike crustaceans, though, the Hoom were bisexual, warm blooded organisms that gave birth to nympha.
The structure of Hoom society was based on a rigid cast system determined to a considerable extent by hereditary factors, and was arranged as follows:
· Thinker Cast. These beings, largely sedentary and with immense brains, were the controlling and organizing force of Hoom society, regulating the other casts through the use of a complex system of pheromones, naturally secreted form specialized glands.
· Worker Cast. Docile and obedient, this cast was the backbone of Hoom society. In appearance they were gracile, with dexterous limbs and digits possessed of great manipulative ability.
· Soldier Cast. Large, heavily armored beings that, in the primitive stages of Hoom civilization, were responsible for the defense of society. With the evolution of intelligence in the Thinker cast, war between the various Hoom colonies was eliminated, with the Soldier Cast retained as a purely precautionary measure.
· Breeder Cast. As the name suggests, these virtually mindless beings were basically reproductive factories, giving birth to the four casts, the quantity of each being determined by chemicals secreted by the Thinkers.
Hoom colonies were established by the Thinkers who gave birth to Breeders, who then gave birth to the other sterile casts at a prodigious rate. Family life for the Hoom was nonexistent. The young, who matured very rapidly, were raised and educated in communal nurseries, and those that failed the Thinker’s stringent medical examinations were destroyed forthwith.
Unlike terrestrial civilizations, Hoom science and culture developed extremely slowly, stretching as it did, over a period of two million years. The primary factor in this gradual advancement was the psychology and social organization of the Hoom themselves.
In human society, technological advances are driven by a combination of factors - an open society where personal freedom is valued, together with the expectation that living standards will improve for all.
These ideas simply did not exist in Hoom mentality. The Thinker Cast investigated nature using the same logical reasoning as human scientists employ, with the other casts being merely tools to achieve this end. The Thinkers thought, the Workers worked, Soldiers fought and Breeders gave birth. Everyone knew their place, and no one considered being other than what they were.
Hoom cities (if we can call them that) were very austere and purely functional affairs consisting largely of single story, barracks-like buildings arranged in an enormous square. The roofs of the buildings were concave to catch rainwater that was used for drinking and hygienic purposes, with the excess piped to reservoirs at the city’s outskirts.
The interior of each domestic building was basically one vast room, privacy and modesty being alien concepts to the Hoom. Furniture was confined to a single item - an enormous stone table running the length of the building at which the Hoom ate and worked. (The Hoom’s many legs made chairs unnecessary, and as they slept standing, beds were not needed; nor wardrobes or drawers as their tough integument made clothes redundant).
Cast structure was also reflected in city planning - the Thinkers and Breeders occupied the centre of the city’s square. Surrounding this area was a larger square in which resided the Workers, with the Soldiers inhabiting the borders of the metropolis.
Beyond the boundaries of the city were the fields of its territory, which were devoted to agriculture, the principle crop being tzim - a kind of vine, bearing nut-like growths suited to the Hoom’s herbivorous diet.
Not being a consumer society, industrial factories were sparse and small in scale; most being devoted to the manufacture of scientific instruments. Ground vehicles existed, but were mostly used for the transport of bulk goods, such as raw materials. In appearance, they resembled old fashioned hay wagons, except they were constructed of a light weight alloy and powered by electric motors, one for each of the vehicle’s six wheels.
Finally, we come to the question of whether the Hoom were evil. Because they attempted to exterminate the Human race, it is only natural for us to think them so. However, can we apply our standards to beings that are clearly not human, creatures whose mentality is so very different from our own? That, dear reader is a question you must answer for yourself.