Raft went on. He saw another of the armored animals, but it was licking the stem of a fern-mushroom, and did not notice him. Then a clearing opened ahead, and it was—carpeted.
That was Raft's first impression. Patterns of flowers, arabesque and exotic, blazed with a riot of color within a circular expanse twenty feet in diameter. But they were not flowers. A queer, smooth glaze seemed to overlie that expanse—and it was a carpet, after all. The meaningless, twisting pattern was the first touch of vivid color he had seen in the saffron forest.
Raft stood scowling, sensing more strongly now that dim pulse of a living presence in the Garden.
Slowly there crept into his mind the thought of a voice—whispering.
CHAPTER XI.
CREEPING MENACE
IT CAME SO slowly, so imperceptibly, that eerie voice, that Raft could not tell when it took form and shape in his brain. Yet it was not exactly a voice nor a thought. Rather, it was something akin to each, but with a difference. Communication is aimed at what psychologists call empathy—the transference of the senses from one mind to another, so that perfect understanding may be approached. It is rapport, never complete, always groping —
Till now.
Because the Intruder understood Raft. With its ancient wisdom it knew the very structure of his soul. Like ivy sliding through crevices in a wall, the thing permeated Raft, as though he stood bathed in a light that flowed into his body. As though he were a living sponge through which tidewater stole.
The slow tide mounted.
The heavy scent of the forest was not so unpleasant now. Raft could sort out the component elements which made up the perfume, the sharp, pungent fluid that the armadillo-creatures liked, the warm, oily, sweet ichor that fed the nerve-things. Other juices, musk-heavy, eucalyptus-keen, salty and sour and pungent were present. It was oddly fascinating, this business of analyzing the odors and recognizing each one.
For they were, in essence, food-odors. Not human food.
But nevertheless those smells stimulated the purely physical part of Raft and, through that, struck deep into his mind.
Feeding was an integral part of the life-cycle, the purpose for which all things were created. Dulled senses could not appreciate the pure ecstasy of absorbing nourishment. Only specialized beings could understand the delight which went through every cell of the body.
The nerve-things. They lay immersed in their warm, steaming liquor, tingling with electric pleasure as they absorbed the fluid mat was food and drink to them. The armadillo-beasts. The feeling of taste on the taste-buds of a tongue. Cool liquid slipping down a dry throat, sharp and refreshing. The pleasure of taste, and taste alone.
You have always known hunger, Brian Raft.
He was standing in the center of that patterned carpet, he noticed. It did not matter. He was trying to concentrate on that message, that inviting whisper which spoke to him of delights so purely physical that they transcended anything else.
Not only animal-beings, but plants as well, knew hunger and satiation. For plants fed through their root-sytems, set deep into the breathing earth that is the primal source of all life. Something utterly unimaginable crawled through Raft, the physical sensation of having roots, of feeling himself absorb nourishment through vegetable tissue. Plant-cells. He was part of the earth itself, and it fed him.
He sank to his knees on that smooth, vivid carpet.
Now he was looking up at a shimmering dance of faint light. He was on his back, arms flung wide, and a tingling, delightful warmth was saturating him. He was on quicksand which very slowly, very gently, settled beneath him.
Or it was not settling. It was he who was dissolving, being absorbed into that alien substance on which he lay. He was becoming part of the composite, hungry life that beat distantly all around him, murmuring in the slow motions of the trees, shuddering through the very earth.
You have always known hunger, Brian Raft. You are one. I am many.
Therefore feed and be content, the silent voice said. Sip the sharp, tingling essence that nourishes the armored beasts. Steep yourself in the warm smoothness of the liquor in the fungus-cups. Thrust roots into the soil, and know the subtle delight of a feeding which permeates all of you, body and mind.
Brighter grew the swirling mists. They blotted out vision. But there was no need for eyes. The trees were blind, yet they thrilled with ecstasy as their roots sucked up food.
The trees?
No, they could not feel. And yet they could. Something bound them to all other life here, by an unbreakable cord.
The Garden of Kharn hungered and was fed.
Memories flashed through Raft's mind. The Intruder was questioning, seeking, probing for what? He remembered the sharp catnip taste of beer, the peppery spiciness of curry, the fresh hot taste of newly-baked bread. The sweet juice of tangerines was in his mouth, and the heavy richness of cocoa. The aromatic tickling of old brandy.
Eagerness touched Raft. The probing grew more violent. He half roused himself from his trance.
Still the memories were dragged into the forefront of his consciousness. The tastes of things he had known once, elsewhere.
Where, then?
In a world where brandy was sipped from sleek glass inhalers, where bread was baked in ovens, where cocoa was served in cups, on tables upon which white linen was spread. Association clicked in Raft's brain. He remembered more than food now.
He remembered civilization. And with that thought came realization of himself, of Brian Raft. He was not a sensuous machine for sucking up nourishment.
The bright mists swept down like a shrouding blanket. The Garden of Kham sent its heavy perfume like a tide over Raft. But he remembered, very suddenly and chillingly, another Garden, and a Tree which had borne strange fruit A command that said, "Ye shall not eat of it."
You have always known hunger, Brian Raft. Feed as I feed. Know ecstasy as I know it.
A still, cool, distant voice, infinitely alluring, impossible to resist, although it, too, aroused memory. That indefinable familiarity was stronger now. The presence that infiltrated the Garden was one that Raft had known before, in different form.
Then he remembered.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
The blind shock of realization stabbed through Raft with abysmal violence. His muscles jerked into tenseness. He attempted to spring up, and found that he could not.
That gelid carpet had flowed upon him, over him, as he had lain motionless.
Yet it was possible to move. With infinite effort he dragged his arm down till his hand closed over the hilt of the dagger. He could feel the treacherously pleasant embrace of the thing all around him. A winding sheet that would have absorbed him, he thought, as he lay helpless.
He stabbed up, claustrophobia bringing dry panic to his throat. He slashed in a blind frenzy of panic till the living carpet was ribboned. The worst part was that the entity did not try to flee. It let itself be cut to rags, till all that flowery beauty was torn and spoiled. Raft stumbled away into the dubious shelter of the saffron forest, choking for a breath of clean air. He felt filthy and contaminated.
It revolted him that any one of his senses, the purely animal one of taste, could be so treacherous!
What monstrous dead-end evolution had developed such a devil's Garden as this?
It was more than symbiosis. It was an attunement of all life within these walls. Outside, on the cyclopean trees, various species killed each other, ate, propagated, and died. But in Kharn there had been a gradual absorption, a bond growing into existence between plant and animal life.
One species—dominant!
Raft presently saw that species.
Deeper in the forest, the shapeless mound of flesh lay under a transparent hemisphere that seemed to be unbreakable. Raft yielded to impulse and smashed a rock down upon it, without result. He did not wish to fire his revolver, for fear of forewarning Parror, but he had an idea that a bullet would not harm that protective barrier either. Immersed in a watery liquid the gray mass floated. Small conduits like arteries led down into the ground.