“I’ve wanted this all my life,” Fox was saying. “I knew we’d find it sometime, I’ve wanted so badly to find it—”
“Find it?” Lars shook his head in confusion.
“Other life, other creatures than men, intelligent creatures,” Fox cried. “Men couldn’t be alone in all this endless universe. Can you see that? There had to be other creatures, good creatures.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“If you find them, down there, don’t spoil it for us. If they are good, trust them. Make them know that we are good, too. Offer them friendship. This is not the time for hate or fear or mistrust.”
Lars nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ll try not to spoil it.”
He started down the slope, leaving Fox and the others watching. His eyes were fixed on the city as the towering buildings grew larger. He reached the valley floor, and stopped, as the urging deep in his mind increased. They were watching him, waiting for him, eagerly. He stepped out again as a cold edge of fear gnawed at his stomach. He clenched his fists at his side as he moved closer.
At first he thought that the buildings were growing larger, but then he saw that the city was dropping down to meet him. Gently, like a feather, it settled to the ground, and he could see bridges and buildings lined with tiny figures watching him. Ahead was a gate, high and luminous, shimmering as he drew nearer, until he was standing before it.
The gate opened before him, noiselessly, and the “sounds” in his mind seemed to swell, excitedly, as he walked through, like the babble of a thousand voices.
And then, inside, he heard a voice in his ear, a real voice so familiar that he whirled with a cry when he heard it, and stopped face to face with Peter Brigham.
Chapter Eleven
For Lars the shock of seeing Peter was almost overwhelming.
Lars was hungry, and dirty, and bone-weary; he could still feel the hot afterglow of his fever; his feet were sore, and it had seemed as he approached the city that every step was the last he could force his aching legs to carry him. But it was more than that. Too much had happened too fast. Too much that had happened was utterly unbelievable, and yet demanded belief because his eyes and senses said it was so. Since the group had started up the mountain days before, it had been like a nightmare that would not end, full of impossible occurrences and half-suggested horrors.
And now, like an island appearing in a sea of chaos, Peter. Lars didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was Peter, beyond doubt. The gates had fallen open, and he had walked into a high-roofed, brilliantly lighted entranceway, with the strange city shifting and glowing before his eyes through a nearby^ archway, and there was Peter, very much alive, very much here on Wolf IV, utterly unexplainable.
Lars had cried out in pure relief to see a familiar face, but now a flood of memories swept through his mind, confused, jumbled, only half-real, but memories just the same. The despair he had felt when the deserters had bolted camp, marooning the rest of them on this alien land; the bitter struggle up the mountainside to the wreck they had been sure was the Planetfall, and the almost unspeakable disappointment that had met them when they reached it—he remembered.
Peter had deserted them. He had run out on them with Salter and Leeds and the rest.
“What are you doing here?” Lars blurted. “What did you do with the ship? The others, where are they?” He stared at Peter, his eyes blazing.
“Never mind, it doesn’t matter right now,” Peter said quickly. He glanced behind him at the great entranceway. You’ve got to—”
“Doesn’t matter! We’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for Fox, after you and your pals ran out on us. What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”
“We may all be dead if you don’t listen,” Peter snapped. “Or as good as dead.” There was urgency in Peter’s voice, wide open warning in his eyes. “I know what you think, but I didn’t run out on you. There isn’t time to explain it now. Later, if we’re lucky. They’ll be here any minute, so listen. Close your mind to everything you can. Make it a blank, don’t think of anything if you can help it when they come, or they’ll be picking your brain like a walnut. But don’t be surprised at anything, and don’t do anything to alarm them.”
Lars nodded once and fell silent. He didn’t understand what Peter was saying, but he heard the urgency and dread in his voice. Whatever had happened before could be settled in good time; there was an immediate menace here, overriding everything else.
His eyes took in all the detail of the huge entranceway. The walls were smooth, curving up into a high, vaulted ceiling. There was a light which seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, softly pink, shimmering. Through the archway he could see the buildings, piled in a fantastic jumble about each other. At first there had been no sign of life; now there was a growing buzz of excitement which seemed to come from all sides of him, though he could hear nothing. It was as though he was feeling the hum and excitement of the city deep in his mind.
And then there was a lull, as though thousands of people had suddenly taken a deep breath. The archway was breaking open, dissolving in brilliantly glowing particles as three figures moved down a ramp and came toward them. Lars had not seen them approach; suddenly they were there, as if they materialized out of thin air. They reached Peter and Lars in a moment, staring at Lars with unabashed curiosity as they came nearer.
They looked like human beings. They were tall and slender, two men and a woman, moving with an easy grace that seemed very odd, until Lars noticed that their feet were hardly touching the ground. The woman creature had light hair; the men were dark, their faces guarded.
They showed no hostility, but their actions were as strange as their uncanny similarity to Earthmen in appearance. They reached out to touch Lars’ clothes, to peer into his eyes questioningly, to rub a finger across his unshaven chin. Occasionally they paused in their inspection to look at one another and nod, then resumed their examination.
Exactly like children examining a new toy, a toy they are a little afraid of, Lars thought. He glanced at Peter, but Peter shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Finally Lars could stand the silent inspection no longer. Tm an Earthman,” he said in a voice that was too loud for the silence. “My name is Heldrigsson. I’m one of the crew of a Star Ship that came from a planet called—”
He broke off sharply. The three City-people were paying no attention to his words. Peter shook his head again. “It won’t do any good to talk to them. They have no spoken
language.”
“But how do they—” Lars groped for the right word— “talk?”
“They’ve got a lot slicker means of communicating than we have,” said Peter heavily. “How did you know they wanted you to come down here? It was you they wanted, you know, none of the rest. But how did you know that?”
Lars had no answer that made any sense. I fust knew it, he thought. My ears didn’t hear anything, but I heard just the same. How could he describe the eerie—feeling—that had struck him out there in the valley? As he tried to think of the right words, he felt the same feeling stirring again in his mind. Weary as he was, he felt himself growing tense. There was an abrupt, ridiculous mental picture of someone gently but firmly prying the lid off a coffee can, and then, suddenly, he knew they were in his mind, probing with soft, feathery fingers. He felt their questions, although there was no sound, and they seemed to pick up his answers from his mind before they reached his tongue.