The heat dissipated rapidly. The air was hazy with green vapor, and the square in the wall stood open and empty. Like the dry-ice of solid carbon dioxide, the molecules of the substance making up the wall had apparently been moved to evaporate abruptly without the need of melting into liquid form. The wall had altered in form but not in substance, and the vapor which had in its solid condition been impermeable now hung like a green fog in the air, leaving an exit open.
A supercilious, glass-crowned Isier head now appeared through the opening and regarded them with complete objectivity, as a human might glance into a chicken-coop and observe the inmates. Even that god-like brow, however, was sweating beneath the crown. The heat which had vaporized the wall must have been considerable.
The large, half-lidded eyes of the Isier considered Sawyer coldly, moved to Alper, summed him up in a glance and apparently decided that he was the man the Isier had come to find, for without entering the cell any farther, the demigod brought a long non-human hand into sight and tossed into Alper’s lap a package about ten inches square. It was black, and it shimmered dazzlingly.
Before anyone could move or speak the Isier head withdrew, supercilious to the last. For an instant the opening in the wall stood empty. Then a gust of intense cold soughed through it into the cell. All the molecules of the green vapor, which had been rioting energetically in the heat, now obeyed the laws of their kind by condensing with a rapidity unknown upon Earth. In the blink of an eye the vapor had been sucked backward into the emptiness whence it had come, the air was clear again and the wall unbroken.
Alper touched the package on his knee gingerly. He gave Sawyer a suspicious glance. The package solved his problem at this point by collapsing suddenly from its solidly compact cube into a limp, unfolding bundle of shimmering black cloth, so totally black that the eye could not fix upon it, but slid repeatedly away for lack of anything to focus on. The bundle had been wrapped, apparently, not in a confining paper or carton, but in a little cubical force-field of its own. When this unique wrapping let go, something like a cloak of remarkable volume for the original size of the bundle spilled over Alper’s knees and onto the floor. Out of its unfolding center a little cone of white paper popped with a brisk snap, and unfolded itself noisily, lying flat.
Alper took it up by its extreme corners. There was writing on the white surface. Alper’s eyes moved rapidly down the lines. Then a look of triumph lighted his face. He laughed in a sudden bark of elation and glanced up at Sawyer, his hand moving in the same instant to his pocket.
Thunder and lightning. Down between the lobes of his brain Sawyer felt jagged sheets of blindness flashing. His own blood-beat, amplified to a volume of noise like the crash of doom, blanked out everything before him.
But this time, he was ready for it. Almost ready—as ready as any man could be for the crack of Thor’s hammer on his bare brain. He saw Alper’s hand move. He read aright the expression on Alper’s face in the instant before the motion started. And the decision which had been crystallizing in his mind ever since the last time Alper had used the transceiver took over his muscles and his nerves without any need for further thought.
Before the thunder split his skull apart he was off the floor; he was in mid-air when the lightning struck. And Alper’s attention was partially distracted by the message in his hand and the mystifying cascade of blackness across his knees. If it was a half-unconscious man who struck him in that long leap across the cell, it was still a heavy and a desperate man.
The impact knocked Alper sidewise. He flung up both startled hands to fend Sawyer off, and with the release of contact in his pocket, the thunder ceased abruptly in Sawyer’s head.
It was no fault of Sawyer’s that he did not kill the man. He meant to. As Alper struggled up to meet the attack Sawyer knocked him sidewise with an edge-of-the-hand blow meant for the side of Alper’s neck. Luckily for Alper it struck him across the cheek-bone instead as he rose. Sawyer’s other hand sank into his belly, doubling him forward, and Sawyer’s lifted knee smashed him squarely in the face.
Sawyer bent over the writhing body on the floor, hand lifted for the sidewise crack across the base of the brain that would certainly finish him. And then caution returned in a faint glimmer of warning. If Alper died, would the transceiver explode in his own head?
Carefully, he clipped Alper on the jaw. And once again. He paused, watching, making sure that Alper was unconscious. Then with rough hands he turned the man over and reached into that fatal coat pocket from which the thunder in his brain had been triggered. He found a small flat case the size of a wristwatch. Very cautiously he put a featherweight of pressure on it. An ominous humming sounded in his head as his own blood and breath roared loud in the cavities of his skull.
He leaned forward, releasing his finger’s pressure. His ear was close to the coat pocket.
“Alper,” he said softly. “Alper?”
From the little case, a thin voice that was his own echoed the name. So it was a radio receiver, too. Alper had not lied about that. The multi-purpose transceiver on his own head was also a microphone that could betray him to Alper no matter how far away he might go.
He drew a deep breath and pulled the case out of Alper’s pocket. It came easily. It was not attached by any visible or tangible cord. But as it left the damping influence of Alper’s body-field the low humming began again, and the farther it was removed the louder the humming grew. Sawyer stepped back two paces and the humming became low thunder. He shook his head violently and stepped back another pace.
Then he leaped blindly for Alper’s body and thrust the case back into the pocket it had come from. The violence in his head ceased as softly as if it had never been.
So he was in a complete dilemma. He could not endure the coercion of the transceiver any longer, and he could not endure the only means of stopping it. He flexed his hand eagerly and looked down at the helpless form of his tormenter, whom he dared not kill, for fear of splitting his own brain apart.
Alper had said there was a shut-off switch in the control case. He had added that Houdini couldn’t locate it and only a differential analyzer could find the combination. Sawyer gingerly reached into Alper’s pocket again and drew out the flat metal case.
Perhaps the secret of the shut-off switch’s camouflage was in its simplicity. Or perhaps that was the one point on which Alper had lied, Sawyer thought—perhaps there was no shut-off switch. He studied the case carefully. Even with all the time in the world, he wondered if he would be able to locate the switch and find the combination—if it existed.
Ten minutes later, convinced of failure, he put the case back in Alper’s pocket and turned to the note that had touched off Alper’s attack on him.
It rustled crisply between his fingers. It was smooth and white, and the writing upon it was ordinary English in a curiously looping hand, traced as if by fingers that had not learned English script until lately. It was, however, perfectly coherent.
“Alper: I will save you if I can. I need your help. I want the Firebird you stole. You want to live. We can make a fair trade if you do exactly as I tell you. Here is a black cloak such as the Temple’s servants wear on private errands for the Goddess. Within limits it should make you moderately invisible after dark. You can open the wall by pressing one of the studs along the hem of the cloak against any spot that glows when the stud approaches it. Let go of the stud as soon as it adheres or you will burn your fingers. When the hood covers your head you will hear a humming signal that will guide you to me if you keep it constant as you walk. Stay in the shadows, speak to no one and answer no questions. You don’t need to, for you will be wearing the Goddess’s robe.”