“What is it?”
“Golan-Kirt cannot suggest anything new to us. The machine guns and the soldiers and legionnaires are all things of which we have former knowledge.”
“How is it,” asked Bill, “that we see these things when we know they do not exist?”
“I do not know,” replied Harl, “there are a lot of funny things about this business that I can’t understand.”
“Anyhow, he is giving the crowd a good show,” observed Bill.
The bleachers were in an uproar. To the ears of the two came the shrill screaming of women, the loud roars of the men. The populace was thoroughly enjoying itself.
A lion, large and ferocious, growling fiercely, leaped past the two men. A thunder of hoof-beats announced the arrival of more of the brain creatures.
“It’s about time for us to do something,” said Harl.
He lifted his .45 high in the air and fired. A hush fell.
“Golan-Kirt, attention!” roared Harl, in a voice that could be heard in every part of the arena. “We challenge you to personal combat. We have no fear of your creatures. They cannot harm us. You are the one we wish to fight.”
An awed silence fell over the crowd. It was the first time their god had ever been openly challenged. They waited for the two lone figures out in the arena to be stricken in a heap.
They were not stricken, however.
Again Harl’s voice rang out.
“Come out of hiding, you fat-bellied toad!” he thundered. “Come and fight if you have the guts, you dirty, yellow coward!”
The crowd may not have gathered the exact meaning of the words, but the full insult of them was plain. A threatening murmur rolled out from the bleachers, and there was a sudden surging of the crowd. Men leaped over the low wall in front of the seats and raced across the arena.
Then a sonorous voice, deep and strong, rolled out.
“Stop,” it said. “I, Golan-Kirt, will deal with these men.”
Harl noticed that the soldiers and the lion had disappeared. The arena was empty except for him and his comrade and the score of future-men who had halted in their tracks at the voice which had come out of nothingness.
They waited, tensed. Harl wriggled his feet into a firmer position. He slipped a cartridge in the gun to take the place of the one which had been fired. Bill mopped his brow with the sleeve of his coat.
“It’s going to be brains now,” Harl told his friend.
Bill grinned.
“Two mediocre intelligences against a great one,” he joked.
“Look, Bill!” shouted Harl.
Directly in front and slightly above the level of their heads a field of light had formed, a small ball of brightness in the murky atmosphere. Slowly it grew. Vibrations set in.
The two watched, fascinated. The vibrations quickened until the whole field was quivering. As the vibrations increased the light faded and a monstrosity began to take form. Only vaguely could it be seen at first. Then it became clearer and clearer, began to take definite form.
Hanging in the air, suspended without visible means of support, was a gigantic brain, approximately two feet in diameter. A naked brain, with the convolutions exposed. It was a ghastly thing.
The horror of it was heightened by the two tiny, pig-like, lidless, close-set eyes and a curving beak which hung directly below the frontal portion of the brain, resting in what was apparently an atrophied face.
The two were aghast, but with a tremendous effort they kept close hold on their self-control.
“Greetings, Golan-Kirt,” drawled Harl, sarcasm putting an edge to the words.
As he spoke, his arm swung up and under the pressure of his finger, the hammer of the gun slowly moved backward. But before the muzzle could be brought in line with the great brain, the arm stopped and Harl stood like a frozen man, held rigid by the frightful power which poured forth from Golan-Kirt.
Bill’s arm flashed up and his .45 broke the silence with a sullen roar. However, even as he fired, his arm was flung aside as if by a mighty blow and the speeding bullet missed the huge brain by the mere fraction of an inch.
“Presumptuous fools,” roared a voice, which, however, seemed not a voice, for there was no sound, merely the sense of hearing. The two, standing rigidly, as if at attention, realized that it was telepathy: that the brain before them was sending out powerful emanations.
“Presumptuous fools, you would fight me, Golan-Kirt? I, who have a hundred-fold the mental power of your combined brains? I, who hold the knowledge of all time?”
“We would fight you,” snarled Harl. “We are going to fight you. We know you for what you are. You are not out of the Cosmos. You are a laboratory specimen. Unknown ages ago you were developed under artificial conditions. You are not immortal. You fear our weapons. A bullet in that dirty brain of yours will finish you.”
“Who are you to judge,” came the thought-wave, “you, with your tiny, twentieth century brain? You have come unbidden into my time, you have defied me. I shall destroy you. I, who came out of the Cosmos aeons ago to rule over the portion of the Universe I chose as my own, do not fear you or your ridiculous weapons.”
“Yet you foiled us when we would have used our weapons on you. If I could reach you I would not need my weapon. I could tear you apart, destroy you with the strength of my two hands.”
“Say on,” rumbled the thought-waves. “Say what you believe me to be, and when you are done I shall obliterate you. You shall be dust floating in the air, ashes on the sands.”
There was an unveiled tone of mockery in the brain emanations.
Harl raised his voice, almost shouting. It was a deliberate act, done in hopes the future-men would hear, that they might realize not too late the true nature of the tyrant Golan-Kirt. They did hear and their mouths gaped as they listened.
“You once were a man,” Harl roared, “a great scientist. You studied the brain, specialized in it. At last you discovered a great secret, which gave you the power of developing the brain to an unheard-of degree. Sure of your technique, and realizing the power you might enjoy, you transformed yourself into a brain creature. You are a fraud and an impostor. You have mis-ruled these people for millions of years. You are not out of the Cosmos—you are a man, or what once was a man. You are an atrocity, an abomination—”
The thought emanations which flowed from out the brain trembled, as if with rage.
“You lie. I am out of the Cosmos. I am immortal. I shall kill you—kill you.”
Suddenly Bill laughed, a resounding guffaw. It was an escape from the terrible tension, but as he laughed a ludicrous angle presented itself—the twentieth century travelers millions of years ahead of their time wrangling with a cheat pawning himself off as a god on a people who would not be born until long after he was dead.
He felt the horrible power of Golan-Kirt centering upon him. Perspiration streamed down his face and his body trembled. He felt his strength leaving him.
He stopped laughing. As he did so, he seemed to be struck, as if by a blow. He staggered. Then sudden realization flashed through him. Laughter! Laughter, that was it. Laughter and ridicule! That would turn the trick.
“Laugh, you fool, laugh,” he screamed at Harl.
Uncomprehendingly, Harl obeyed.
The two rocked with laughter. They whooped and roared.
Hardly knowing what he did, almost involuntarily, Bill screeched horrible things at the great brain, reviled it, taunted it, called it almost unspeakable names.
Harl began to understand. It was all a great game that Bill was playing. A supreme egoism such as was lodged in the brain pitted against them could not bear ridicule, would lose its grip before a storm of jeers. For uncounted centuries, through some miraculous power, it had lived and in all that time it had been accorded only the highest honor. Derision was something with which it was unacquainted, a terrible weapon suddenly loosed upon it.