THE LEADER of the hunters called out “Dua” and Princess Loralie stepped from her hiding place to my side. Together we walked toward them.
“I am Pangar,” said their leader, according us the royal salute in deference to the scarlet we wore. He himself, although not clothed, had a purple band on his metallic helmet and touches of purple on his accouterments which marked him as a member of the nobility.
“I am Zinlo of Olba,” I replied, acknowledging his salute, “and this is the Torrogina Loralie of Tyrhana.”
“In the name of my royal master, Tandor of Doravia, I bid Your Highness welcome,” he said. “Will you accompany me to the palace and permit my emperor the pleasure of greeting you in person?”
“We’ll be delighted.”
“Your indulgence for a moment, then, while I see if any of my men can be salvaged.”
“Salvaged!” I was struck by the peculiarity of the term when applied to men. It brought home to me that there was something extremely odd about these people. The motions of many of them seemed to be quite stiff and awkward—mechanical, that was it—like the motions of marionettes.
Their armor—accouterments and weapons, too—were not made of ordinary metal, as I had first thought, but were constructed from a material which greatly resembled glass. The blades of the swords and daggers were quite transparent. The hilts resembled colored glass.
The helmets were also transparent, except for the colored band at the base of each denoting the status of the wearer. The chain belts and shoulder straps were of the same material, but lined with ramph leather, evidently to prevent their contact with the body.
Pangar bent over one of the fallen men. “Think you can make it?” he asked.
The stricken one spoke weakly. “Power unit is low. Was shorted for a time, but I have it back in place now. If someone can spare some power . . . ”
“Who can spare power?” asked Pangar.
A man stepped up. “I can spare five xads.”
“Good.” From a hook on his belt, Pangar took two coiled tubes that resembled insulated wires with metal sockets at each end. He inserted an end of each wire in each ear of the fallen man and handed the other two ends to the man standing. The latter instantly inserted an end in each ear, meanwhile watching an indicator which was strapped to his wrist. Presently he jerked a tube from one ear, then the other. The fallen man arose, apparently restored to strength, and returned the wires to Pangar.
I noticed the next man. His entire breast had been torn away by the claws of the ramph. There was a set expression on his features, as of death or deep hypnotic sleep. But around the jagged wound was no sign of blood. The flesh, if it was flesh, was a peculiar grayish-red shade. And where the viscera would have been exposed in a normal human being, I saw a conglomeration of coils, tubes, wheels and wires, tangled and broken.
Pangar passed him by with but a single glance. “No use to try to save this one.”
He rapidly examined the other fallen men. Two were picked up and slung over the shoulders of comrades. The rest were stripped of their weapons and helmets and left lying on the ground. A half dozen men, using their keen knives, had already skinned the ramph. It seemed that they wanted the hide only, not the flesh, for the great red carcass was left lying near the broken figures of the fallen men when we went.
Men or machines—which? I pondered the matter as Loralie and I walked beside the courteous and seemingly human Pangar, while the kroger waddled at our heels.
After a walk of about two hours we reached the summit of the mountain range and halted there for a few moments of rest while Pangar pointed with pride to the various features of the fertile valley of Doravia which was spread before us. It was oval in form, about twenty-five miles in length, tapering down to points at both ends where the inclosing mountain ranges ran together.
At the northwestern end of the valley a tremendous water fall, over a mile in height and fully a half mile in width, tumbled into a spray-veiled lake. From this flowed a river that wound through the center of the valley, to emerge at the southeast end. According to Pangar, it emptied into the Ropok.
At each side of the falls a conical, hive-shaped structure of immense size towered for some distance above the upper water level. These two enormous buildings were connected by an arched span that was fully a half mile above the lower water level. Their bases were hidden by the mists that arose from the bottom of the cataract.
The banks of the river, as it wound through the valley, were dotted at regular intervals by smaller twin towers of similar construction. The surfaces of all these buildings glistened with mirrorlike brightness.
In the very center of the valley, on an island of considerable size around which the river flowed in two nearly equally divided streams, was the largest structure of all. Cone-shaped like the others, but much larger than any of them, it reared its pointed, gleaming top to a height of fully two miles.
“The imperial palace of Tandor of Doravia,” explained Pangar as he saw me looking at it. “A wonderful building. We will be there in a short time now.”
“But it’s fully five kants from here,” I said. Then I noticed something which had previously escaped my observation. A thin cable stretching beside a long narrow platform a short distance below us extended out toward the tower, though it soon dwindled into invisibility. It was composed of the same peculiar glistening material.
“I have signaled for a car,” said Pangar. “It will be here soon.”
As I watched, a tiny gleaming speck became visible far out over the valley. Its apparent size grew larger with amazing rapidity, and in a few seconds I saw that it was a long, octagonal vehicle, pointed at each end, and constructed of the shimmering, transparent material.
It came to a stop beside the narrow landing platform without any perceptible jar or sound, and we all hurried down to meet it. When we reached the platform I found that round doors, hinged above, had been thrown open along the entire length of the vehicle.
Into one of these the princess and I were ushered by Pangar. The small kroger had kept close at our heels. We had no more than taken the comfortable springy seats when the doors clamped shut; the kroger was left alone on the platform, and we never saw it again—to my relief. The car then started smoothly out over the valley. In a moment it was speeding so rapidly that the landscape, though far below us, became a mere blur.
It seemed that only a few seconds elapsed before the car slowed down once more and we were entering an octagonal opening in the enormous central tower I had previously noticed. Before we entered I had a brief view of hundreds of other similar openings in the tower from which slender, transparent cables radiated in all directions.
The door snapped open, and as we stepped out on the landing floor Pangar said, “I will conduct you immediately to our Torrogo, as he wishes to greet you in person.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, puzzled.
“His majesty instantly communicates his wishes by thought-transference to any of his subjects.”
“Then you communicate with each other here by telepathy?”
“Not with each other,” he replied, “except through our Torrogo or a member of the Committee of Twelve—kings who are thought-censors for the emperor. If I wish to communicate with a distant comrade, I send my thought to the member of the committee whose duty it is to watch over my mind. He receives the message and, if he approves, transfers it to my comrade or to the Torrogo.”
As he talked, Pangar led us through a maze of hallways, the decorated floors, walls and ceilings of which were all of the same glasslike substance, but opalescent, so that, with light coming from all directions, we moved without casting shadows. It gave me a queer sense of unreality—as if I were moving in a dream from which I should presently awaken.
But when we were suddenly ushered into a huge and magnificent throne room, the many octagonal doors of which were guarded by warriors with drawn swords, the ceiling of which was fully a mile above our heads reaching to the very peak of the hive-shaped building, and my eyes beheld for the first time the grandeur of the Imperial Court of Doravia, I felt positive that only in a dream could such splendor have existence. I pinched myself repeatedly to make sure that I was awake.
My illusion of unreality, however, was instantly dispelled as we were led before the throne. Seated on its scarlet cushions was a powerful and commanding figure of a man. His high forehead and heavy eyebrows, joined at the center, reminded me of Dr. Morgan, but there the resemblance ceased.
The nose was Grecian rather than Roman in type, and the clean-cut features had the pale beauty of chiseled marble. It was a face which showed remarkable intellectual power and, at the same time, an utter lack of all sentiment or human sympathy. Although every other man belonging to this strange race was beardless, the ruling monarch wore, at the end of his chin, a narrow, sickle-shaped beard which curved outward and upward, ending in a sharp point.
Flanking each side of the throne was a row of six lesser thrones, on each of which sat a scarlet-decked individual whose insignia proclaimed the rank of rogo, or king. These rogos, I judged, must comprise the Committee of Twelve referred to by Pangar. On still lower thrones sat the purple-decked nobles of the land, while lining the walls on either side stood the blue-decked plebeians. Beyond these, on the outskirts of the throne, as it were, were massed a few of the gray-decked slaves.
Tandor stood up as we were brought before his throne—a deference due visiting royalty—and smiled, his black eyes boring into mine as we exchanged salutations. Although his smile was friendly, there was something about the look of his eyes which was not quite human. They appeared snakelike, with a sinister, hypnotic quality that was far from reassuring.
“You find me in the midst of my multifarious court duties,” said Tandor, still smiling, “but I shall terminate them as soon as possible. Meanwhile, permit me to offer you rest and refreshment. Pangar will show you to the quarters provided for your entertainment. I shall join you presently.”
When we were outside the throne room, Pangar issued instructions to a page, who hurried away, to meet us again down the corridor with a girl who wore the scarlet insignia of royalty, followed by the others whose purple ornaments proclaimed them daughters of the nobility. The six girls were shapely and quite pretty, but their mistress was beautiful. With a superb figure, glossy black hair and big black eyes, half veiled with long dark lashes, she rivaled the beauty of Loralie herself.
Yet, on comparing the two I was struck by a marked contrast between them. While the Princess of Tyrhana was the spiritual type of beauty, her every lineament suggesting purity and strength of character, this royal girl of Doravia appeared voluptuous, sensuous and apparently with great strength of purpose—like an exalted odalisque, or perhaps a fallen houri.
According us the royal salute, to which we responded in kind, she spoke softly with a low musical voice that, while it betokened culture and refinement, yet had about it a certain husky undertone which was puzzling. Her black eyes, too, I thought had something of that reptilian quality which had shone forth from the orbs of Tandor.
“I am Xunia of Doravia,” she said. “It is the wish of my brother, Torrogo Tandor, that Loralie of Tyrhana be entertained in my apartments until such time as suitable quarters can be prepared for her.”
She held out her hand to Loralie, who took it without hesitation, and the two moved off down a transverse corridor followed by the six handmaidens. Pangar then conducted me to a luxurious suite, whose glasslike furniture was upholstered with chlorophyl green ramph hide tanned to a softness that was almost velvety.
After a bath and a shave I felt greatly refreshed.
“His majesty is now ready to receive you in his private dining room,” Pangar then told me.
A short walk down the corridor brought me to a doorway, octagonal in form, before which two guards stood, sword in hand. At a sign from Pangar they drew back two scarlet curtains, and I entered the room. As the curtains dropped into place behind me I beheld my royal host seated at an octagonal-topped table of translucent scarlet material in a high-backed golden chair upholstered with ramph hide, which was also stained a brilliant scarlet. He arose as I entered and tendered me the royal salute, which I returned. Then I took a chair at his right which an unobtrusive servant placed for me.
“I trust that you will pardon the slimness and coarseness of the fare which I am about to place before you,” said Tandor after I had taken my seat, “but, with the exception of the slaves, we of Doravia do not eat or drink as you do in the outer world.”
A slave set a crystal bowl before each of us. Mine was filled with steaming kova, but that which was placed before the Torrogo contained a heavier liquid which seemed to fume rather than to steam. It had an acrid smell which reminded me of the odor of a corrosive acid.
“May your years be as many as the stars,” pledged Tandor as he raised his bowl to his lips.
“And may yours be as numerous as the rain drops that fall on all Zarovia,” I replied, tossing off a draught of kova.
“Your arrival, O Prince,” said Tandor, setting down his bowl, “was timed most opportunely, as you will realize from what I am about to relate to you. For the past two thousand years I have been planning a great experiment—one which if successful will revolutionize the lives both of my kind and yours.”
“That is indeed interesting,” I replied as a platter of chopped mushrooms and grilled ramph steak was set before me. “But—two thousand years?”
A disk-shaped vessel, black in color, was set before Tandor. Coiled about the handles on each side of the vessel were two insulated wires with electrodes on the ends. Uncoiling them, he inserted an electrode in each ear.
“I was born five thousand years ago in your country of Olba,” he said, “the second son of the Torrogo. I did not covet the throne, preferring scientific research in chemistry, physics and psychology. When I had learned everything the greatest scientists of my time could teach me about these subjects, I began to combine my knowledge of the three with a view to realizing a dream of mine which is perhaps the universal dream of mankind—immortality.
“As I look back on my earlier efforts I realize how exceedingly crude they were, but alter countless experiments and untiring efforts, they worked. No doubt you have noticed the great difference between yourself and my people—between my sister Xunia and Princess Loralie.”
“I saw the chest of one of your men, which had been torn open by a ramph,” I replied, “and he was evidently no ordinary human being. I also heard talk of depleted power units, and I have noticed that you drink a beverage which smells and looks like fuming acid and that your food is evidently transmitted to you in the form of fluid power.”
“In other words,” said Tandor, “you have deduced that we are a race of automatons—machine men. You are right, but I do not believe that there exists anywhere else on any world a race of man—created beings with souls. Nearly five thousand years have elapsed since I cast off forever the frail shell with which nature endowed me to take up my existence in a more enduring body of my own creation.
“You are of course familiar with the phenomena of personality exchange and telekinesis. You are aware that two men can permanently or temporarily exchange their physical bodies.
“My problem, then, was to construct a duplicate material body into which my personality could enter, and which would respond to the direction of my will by amplifying the power of telekinesis. The first body which I succeeded in so entering collapsed because of faulty construction, and I barely got back to my own body in time to save it from dissolution and myself from being projected into the great unknown. But I made many others, and when they were at last perfected, I published my discovery in the Empire of Olba.
“My father had been received into the mercy of Thorth in the meantime, and my brother had succeeded him to the throne. I called on him to join me in immortality, and offered to make every person in the empire an immortal. To my great surprise and disappointment, my offer not only met with rebuff, but a systematized persecution against me and my followers was begun by the more religious of the Thorthans.
“Influenced by the religious leaders, my brother presently ordered the banishment of myself and my followers, who remained faithful to me. With less than a thousand of these I came to these shores and subsequent explorations revealed this valley.”
I murmured my astonishment at all this.
“The only member of my family to accompany me,” he went on, “was my sister, Xunia, who had been in sympathy with my plans from the first. As rapidly as I could, I prepared duplicate bodies for my followers, it being necessary to give each body the outward semblance of the body and brain which was to be quitted, else the personality would not enter it.
“I have always kept many bodies in reserve for myself and for my sister, so we were prepared for almost any emergency. In case the body I occupied broke down I could instantly enter another. If that one broke down or was destroyed, I could enter still another, and so on.
“The slaves were the only class which was never completely immortalized. Today, immortalization of a slave is a reward for faithful service. You may readily see, therefore, why the food and drink for which I am forced to apologize are of the cruder sort. I am compelled, for the moment, to offer you but the fare of slaves.”
“It is excellent,” I replied, “and quite good enough for any king’s son.”
“I will find the means to improve it, however, as I expect you to remain here permanently. I have planned a great honor for you.”
“Indeed?”
“I will explain. As you probably have surmised, there has been no such thing as propagation of the race among my immortals. This did not bother me in a material way. When I lost a follower—which was rarely, as every one has at least one extra body and most of them several—I could immediately replace him from the ranks of my slaves. But there was no love; and after about three thousand years had passed, the defect bothered me emotionally.
“I knew that the problem which confronted me was considerably more difficult than any on which I had previously worked, but undaunted, I plunged into my studies. Two thousand years of anatomical, histological, embryological, biological, biochemical and psychological research have brought their reward, so that, although today I differ from you physically as much as ever, I have built into my newest bodies and into those of my sister the sexual characteristics of ordinary human beings.
“Pangar was sent forth today with the object of bringing me two human beings suitable for marriage with royalty. His journey ended almost as soon as it began when he found you and the princess. I therefore offer you the hand of my beloved sister in marriage, and will likewise offer the half of my throne to the Princess Loralie.”
“But if we should decline the honor?”
“It is unthinkable. Even if you were to decline, either of you, I have means at hand which, I am sure, will cause you to reconsider gladly.”
Removing the electrodes from his ears and draining his bowl, he arose and summoned two pages. To the first, he said, “Instruct the Princess Loralie to prepare for my coming.” As the messenger sped away he said to the other, “You will conduct His Highness Torrogi Zinlo of Olba to the apartments of Her Highness Xunia, Torrogina of Doravia.”
As the little page conducted me to the apartments of Princess Xunia I turned over in my mind Tandor’s strange story and its revolting sequel. I was going to the apartments of a girl who had been dead five thousand years, but whose soul was bound in a machine. Beautifully and cleverly constructed as it was, it was yet a mere mechanical contrivance—a thing of wheels and cogs, levers and shafts, a thing that fed on electrical energy and drank fuming acid.
And I was expected—commanded with a none-too-veiled threat—to make love to this travesty on life.
But Loralie! Somehow I must contrive to live in order to save her.
The page stopped before an ornate doorway, two guards saluted and opened massive doors. Then a pair of scarlet curtains were drawn back, revealing a luxurious boudoir. “His Highness, Zinlo of Olba,” announced the page as I entered the room.
The curtains fell in place behind me. I heard the guards close the heavy doors.
As I looked at the beauteous dead—alive creature that reclined on a luxuriously cushioned divan in a scarlet and gold decked recess, a feeling of revulsion swept over me; yet, paradoxically enough, this was combined with admiration. I was revolted at thought of the nearness of this living dead thing, but could not but admire the consummate art that had created so glorious an imitation of the human form.
I realized that if I would live to be of assistance to Loralie I had a part to play.
Xunia smiled languidly, seductively, as I stood before the raised divan just outside the niche it occupied. With feline grace she extended a slender, dimpled hand. Shuddering inwardly, I took it, expecting to feel the cold clamminess of death. But it was as warm as my own and as natural—from its white back in which a delicate tracery of blue veins showed, to the pink-tipped, tapering fingers. I raised it to my lips and released it, but she clung to my fingers for a moment, pulling me to a seat on a low ottoman just in front of her.
“Long have I awaited your coming, prince of my heart,” she said. “Be not afraid to come near to me, for it is my desire and my command.”
“To be prince of your heart were indeed an honor,” I replied, “yet you name me this, having only seen me today.”
“The moment I saw you I knew it was so. Fear not, beloved, that there have been others before you. I am, and have ever been, virgin in mind as in body. Once I thought I loved, yes, but it was long ago, and then I was but a child.”
“You make me very jealous, nevertheless,” I said, remembering the part I had to play.
“I did not really love him, I swear it, dearest.” She ran her fingers through my hair in a gentle caress so natural, so womanly, that I found it well-nigh impossible to believe her other than a real princess of flesh and blood. Then, before I realized what she was about, she twined her arms about my neck and kissed me full upon my lips.
The kiss did not taste of acid, as I had imagined it would, but was like that of a normal, healthy girl, though it aroused in me a feeling of revulsion which I was at some pains to conceal.
“I go now, beloved, to prepare for your marriage,” she said. “Await me here.”
As I stood up, she took my hand and arose gracefully. The time for action had arrived. Yet, as I looked down at the slender, beautiful figure, the long-lashed eyes gazing trustfully up into mine, I hesitated to carry out the plan which I had been contemplating as I sat there on the ottoman before her—a plan with which I hoped to accomplish a double purpose—to rid myself of this machine-monster and to get her brother away from Loralie, for she would probably summon him telepathically, if in no other way.
I was trying to think of her as a dead thing in a machine, yet it seemed impossible that she was other than human, so natural was she, and so beautiful. But the thought of Loralie and the danger she was in steeled me to the task.
Seizing Xunia by her long black hair, I whipped out my stone knife and slashed the artificial muscles of the slim white throat. She gave one startled scream, which ended at the second slash of my knife, and went limp as I jerked the head backward, cracking the metallic structure which took the place of cervical vertebrae. Instead of blood, there spurted from the severed neck a tiny stream of clear fuming liquid, a few drops of which fell on my hand, burning it like molten metal.
Dropping the sagging body, I turned and was about to part the curtains which led out into the hall to see if the coast was clear, when I heard a stealthy sound behind me. Swiftly turning, I saw Xunia, apparently unharmed. In her right hand was a long, straight-bladed sword drawn back for a thrust. Behind her lay the body I had just destroyed.
I leaped back just in time to avoid her vicious lunge. Then, jerking my spiked club from my belt, I dealt her a blow which crushed her skull like an egg-shell. But scarcely had this body sunk to the floor ere a panel opened in the wall behind it and a third, armed like the second, stepped out to attack me.
“Fool,” mouthed the advancing figure. “Think you that you can slay one of the immortals?”
This time she swung the sword with both hands with the evident intention of decapitating me, but I struck the weapon from her hands. Then I crushed the skull of this third body.
I leaped through the opened panel, where four more bodies, identical with the other three, lay on scarlet couches. The one nearest me was just sitting up, when I smashed the skull with my club. I quickly disposed of the next two in the same manner before they showed any signs of life, but the last rolled from the couch and, dodging beneath my arm, rushed out into the room from which I had just come.
“Brother!” she screamed. “Brother—he would destroy me!”
As I stopped the screeching of this last figure with a blow of my club, the entire wall toward which I was facing rolled up like a curtain. On the other side of it was a room like the one in which I stood, and in that room were Loralie and Tandor.
The long hair of my princess was disheveled and her eyes were flashing with anger as she tried to pull away from the monarch, who gripped her slender wrists.
Taking in the situation at a glance, Tandor suddenly released Loralie, who fell to the floor. Then he whipped out his sword and advanced on me.
Forgetting that I held only a wooden club, I bounded forward to meet him. A sneer crossed his cold, statuesque features, as with a deft slash he cut my club in two near the handle.
“Die, upstart,” he snarled, raising his weapon for the blow that was to end my existence.
I barely succeeded in avoiding death by leaping back, then caught up one of the swords which Xunia had dropped.
But as I attacked he came on guard and countered with a skill which spoke of expert training and thousands of years of practice.
“In your ignorant folly,” he said, cutting, thrusting and parrying with a deft precision which amazed me, “you believe you have sent my sister into the unknown, and that with your skill as a swordsman you can do likewise for me. Know, then, witless one, who would try conclusions with the immortals, that in one of the great twin towers which flank the falls under constant guard, my sister has twelve more bodies in reserve.
“Should you succeed in destroying the six bodies I have here in the palace—which you will not be able to do—I also have twelve more under guard in the opposite tower.”
“I care not if you have a hundred, you monster,” I retorted. “Bring them one by one within reach of my blade and I’ll eventually send you down the unmarked trail you should have taken five thousand years ago.”
“You are, I perceive, a braggart as well as a dullard,” said Tandor. “You realize, of course, that I can call the guard and have you slain at any moment I choose to do so. Yet to make things more interesting I’ll make a wager with you. If you succeed in besting me and destroying the six bodies I have here in the palace, I’ll promise not to alarm the guard until I return from the tower in one of my reserve bodies. If I force you to surrender, you are to become my slave for life, body and soul, to do with as I see fit. Is it agreed?”
“It is a wager,” I replied between clenched teeth as I desperately sought for an opening in this, the most marvelous guard I had ever encountered.
Tandor laughed as I tried, one after another, the many tricks I had learned in my fencing on three planets.
“You are a good swordsman, youth, better than any mortal I have ever encountered; yet I, with five thousand years of training, am merely playing with you. See, I can touch you at will.”
And with that, he pinked my left shoulder.
The moment he extended his weapon he left the opening for which I had been waiting. Not knowing on what part of his anatomy I could use my point effectively, I dealt him a swift neck cut with its keen edge.
The head flew from his shoulders and bounded to the floor, but the body did not fall. Instead, it stooped, and catching up the head, tucked it under its left arm and resumed the contest. Here, indeed, was a super-mind, which could control, at the same time, severed head and body.
“A pretty counter,” mocked the head, while our blades clashed as vigorously as before, “but perhaps not as effective as you expected. I will tire you out presently. Then will I slice you down, inch by inch, until you will be glad to yield.”
“Not with this body,” I replied as I got inside his guard for a swift downward cut on his forearm. Cleanly severed, it fell to the floor, the hand still gripping the sword. An instant later the body dropped the head and fell. Then a panel slid up behind it, and Tandor, another sword in hand, emerged, smiling sardonically. “You are more clever than I thought, princeling, but that trick will not work again.”
“It is not the only one I know,” I replied and, catching his blade on mine, disarmed him, much to his consternation. This time I not only split his head from crown to chin, but slashed off his right arm. Then I rushed through the panel opening in time to catch a third newly animated body just arising from its scarlet couch. I served it in like manner, but the fourth sprang up before I could strike and came on guard with appalling swiftness. Before Tandor could attack in this body I struck two swift blows, splitting the heads of the two recumbent forms.
I stepped to one side barely in time to avoid a powerful downward cut that would have divided my own head had it landed, and before he could recover I severed the sword arm of my attacker and split his head.
Rushing back into the room where I had left Loralie, I found her plucking a sword and dagger from one of Tandor’s bodies.
“We must get out of here at once,” I said. “In a few moments Tandor will be back here in one of his swift vehicles. Then, the terms of the wager fulfilled, he can quickly have us captured.”
“But where can we go? How can we possibly escape?”
“I do not know, but we most certainly can’t get away by remaining here. Come.”