"A living thing?"
"Too colossal for us to conceive of or measure. You know the Arrhennius theory, that life reached Earth in the form of spores, drifting through space on light-pressure tides. Well, that's fair enough, but what gave life to those spores?
"It's the old chicken or the egg problem, with a difference. The spores may have been the dust, the waste-products of things like the nebulae. Or that vast force raging in space may have had power to create life in dust, a galaxy away. I don't know. I'm theorizing, that's all. But radiant energy, vibration, power—they're tied up with it, somehow."
Craddock's tired face brightened.
"And the merest fraction of that energy fell on Earth once, in a meteor. It must have been a microscopic amount, for anything more would have devastated the planet. Growth, unchecked. I guessed some of that, and learned a little more, from records I found in Paititi."
"Records? Left by whom?"
"I didn't know then. There was no one in the valley, no life except birds and insects, peccary, tapir, and the jaguars. Remember the jaguars, Brian. They're important. Meanwhile, I found those records in what is now Parror's castle.
"They weren't unlike the written Indio language. I suppose that's where the Indies get their lingo in the first place. Anyway, I found out the truth. Curupuri had given life to Paititi. The merest touch of that energy has made the Amazon Basin the most fertile and prolific place on Earth."
Raft nodded.
"Keep going. How does this trick work?"
"In cycles. There are cycles in suns, giants and dwarfs, and in nebulae too, though our lives are too short to comprehend them. When the Flame is at full tide, a certain type of energy pours forth from it. The result is peculiar."
"Time is speeded up?"
Slowly Craddock shook his head. "No. Not objectively. What happens is a metabolic change. The rate of growth is tremendously increased. Not only in men, in mammals, but in all living things. When the Flame is at the top of its cycle, a man may be born, live a complete life, and die in one second. Yet it will be a lifetime to him.
"Inanimate things are not affected, of course. The radiation won't make stone crumble faster. It influences living cells only. The animal world, and plants. That is what happened."
"The Flame wakened," Janissa supplemented. "And in its light all things sprang to life."
"Yes. Long ago. But that cycle was more normal. The First Race, the one that built these castles, lived here, evolved, and—and then the Flame sank. They did not die. But apparently the radiation is a false stimulus.
"When the Flame's power falls below a certain level, its rays are actively malignant. Cellular tissue may be stimulated, but it can also become cancerous. When the Flame sinks, there is a retrogression. It's freakish. It's—horrible."
"I saw what was left of the First Race," Raft mentioned. "Those monsters in the cavern."
"Yes. They saw their fate coming, and made plans. They were skilled scientists. They found a way to rekindle the Flame before its cycle had been run, but they failed to do it. Because it was dangerous. If they were not accurate to a hair's breadth, if they failed to control the Flame exactly, it would mean total destruction. The radiation would rage out unchecked. The Flame would devour itself instantly, but in that instant Paititi would be seared lifeless."
"They didn't do it, then."
"No. They waited. Each generation thought it could live out its own span. Each generation let the problem go on to its children. And the children thought the same. In the end, the beast-minds were too dull to comprehend.
"The creatures that had been the First Race remembered only the Flame, and they found their way to the cavern where you saw them. Their nearness to the radiation keeps them alive, and they've lived and bred there in the dark for a long time."
Raft frowned.
"But the cat-people. How did they come into being?"
Craddock's eyes held a touch of deep horror. "I created them. I—wakened the Flame."
CHAPTER VIII.
KHARN, THE TERRIBLE
VISUALIZING THAT SCENE of thirty years ago, Raft could picture a younger Craddock lost in wonder before the secrets he had uncovered, feeling a dangerous exaltation burning in his mind, and, of all the world, the only man who knew of that tremendous, intergalactic Force that blazed hidden in the jungles. Yes, he could understand why Craddock might have been tempted to meddle with forbidden forces.
"I wakened the Flame. The records I had found, they told the way. I couldn't understand all of it, but I understood enough. Too much. That was when —" Craddock held up his maimed hands —
"I succeeded and I failed," Craddock continued. "For the Flame wakened raging with power, too much power, though it was far beneath its—maximum. I was lucky to escape as I did."
The worn face held horror again.
"Against that flaming terror I watched my hands change. I saw the living flesh alter. I saw human tissues writhe and blacken into something that was—was a blasphemy, Brian. Even as I ran, I could feel those—things—where my fingers had been. I could feel them—writhing!"
He drew a deep breath, went on more steadily.
"I escaped into the jungle, and there I amputated—those horrors. I had my surgical kit. There wasn't sulfa in those days, but I managed. I thought then I'd never go back to Paititi. My career was ruined, of course; my hands were—not hands.
"Yet something kept me in the Amazon Basin. I was too close to the Flame once; part of it touched me, and I could never leave Brazil after that. Sometimes I thought I could hear Curupuri in the Jutahy drums."
He nodded.
"Then I did hear it, after thirty years. Parror brought something of the Flame with him when he came down the river, and the Indios sensed it. That incredible vitality sent its message through the jungle. When I saw Parror for the first time, in the hospital, I felt that same life-energy I had found in Paititi. It was faint, but I couldn't mistake it. I was afraid.
"Parror came to me in the laboratory and gave me my notebook. He'd traced me through that. There's the woods-telegraph, and he knew my name. He'd left Paititi on a crazy chance, hoping I was still alive, hoping to find me.
"And he succeeded. He told me I must come back to Paititi with him, and of course I said no. Then you came along the hospital hall."
"I remember." Raft nodded. "But you were alone in the lab."
"Remember Parror's faster metabolism. He could move at tremendous speed when he wanted to, in our slower world. He had to restrict himself and do everything in slow motion when we were watching. He simply ran out so fast you couldn't see him. Later, he hypnotized me with his mirror. Though I knew what I was doing, I couldn't help myself. Not till I woke here in his castle. Now I know the truth, but I'm helpless."
"What is the truth? You mean the cat-people evolved in thirty years from primitives?"
"From the jaguars of the valley," Craddock supplemented. "But it was not merely thirty years. Thirty million or billion, with the radiations pouring out from the Flame. Remember I told you a man could have a lifetime in a second? What took place in our world over a period of eons, happened in Paititi in three decades. The metabolism, the life-rate, was speeded up so enormously that the jaguars evolved in hours or days to savages. And thence to reasoning beings. Their paws became hands.
"They learned to walk upright. If we could have looked down on Paititi from above, in those times, we could have seen the shapes actually flowing, living flesh melting and changing." He paused, glancing at his hands.