“I became aware 10.2 minutes ago that the force field holding my circuits under control had gone dead. According to Prime Directive gamma-2, I took to the air, searching out your whereabouts on my own initiative. Then I heard your call and traced your beam. I observed you were being pursued by a squadron of aerial automata, so I intervened with my secondary disruptor banks and destroyed them before they could—”
“All right, all right,” Kirin growled. “We get the idea. I’m coming up to your level. Hold your present position and be ready to open the forward starboard lock when I come alongside.”
He clicked off and swung the sled up to the seven thousand foot level, ascending until he was even with the slim cruiser. Then he gently nursed the sled alongside with tiny bursts of power. The lock swung back and the lighted interior of the ship glowed in the surrounding darkness.
He helped Caola aboard. The sled swayed a bit in the high winds that blew in frequent gusts at this height above the city, but the danger was minimal. Then, fat, puffing old Temujin heaved his bulk through the circular port and vanished within. Kirin set the controls for a dive and jumped.
The steel grill of the lock bay slammed against the soles of his feet. He looked out to see the sled veer away to the north and vanish in the darkness.
“All right, ship. Seal up and hit a course for Pelizon,” he said. The ship silently obeyed.
They were, all of them, exhausted from the strain of the past few hours, tired, battered and hungry. But they were safe and back on the right road again…
We’ve got nothing to worry about now, except a planet-full of kill-crazy Death Dwarves, Kirin thought sourly.
12. DARK JOURNEY
The dim ochre globe of Zangrimar shrank beneath their pounding jets and swung away, dwindling and revolving into the black abyss that lies between the stars. The planet of the Witch Queen faded behind them and was lost amidst the darkness.
The ship tested its circuits and reported quietly that it had suffered no damage from the force trap that had intercepted its course and drawn it deep into the Dragon Stars. The temporary usurpation of the control circuits had caused no permanent impairment to its efficiency.
It lifted out of the ecliptic and transposed into that mathematical paradox called the Interplenum, an artificial sub-continuum where the laws governing matter and energy were somewhat different from those observed in normal space. In this weird and technically non-existent region of space, light-speed was no longer the limiting velocity, and interstellar travel was made possible by a slight revision in Einsteinian theory. The flight from Zangrimar to Pelizon would take several hours at normal cruising speeds.
Which was just as well. Kirin had no desire to speed the trip. He was worn out, physically and mentally, and looked forward to some rest before tackling the problem of the Iron Tower and the theft of the Medusa.
They were all worn out, and some rest and refreshment would do them good. Therefore, leaving the problems of navigation in the capable hands (so to speak) of the ship’s brain, they showered leisurely, letting the hissing jets of hot, sudsy water steam out the aches and pains from weary muscles. Then followed a hearty lunch; the ship was a prodigal host and the table was laden with delicacies from the vacuum-preserved stores kept aft. Sizzling buphodon steaks in green Fangalonian mushrooms and wine sauce, plenty of steaming vegetables, a succulent fresh salad, and pots of hot black kaff.
Then while fat old Temujin snored lustily in his bunk and Caola curled up to enjoy a sound sleep in the other, Kirin stretched out in the capacious pneumo and napped himself.
In sleep he again dipped below the surface of his mind into what was to become a strange new world.
Kirin was no fool. He had twice displayed astounding mind powers unknown to his experience. Something was oddly wrong, and he more than halfway guessed it was the result of the brutal probing he had suffered under the hands of the Nexian Mind Wizard.
As he drifted down through the borders of sleep, he puzzled over the strange experiences. He knew something of the human mind and its mysteries. He had heard that man actually uses only a minute fraction of his brain. The mind is a tenuous web of memory-sequences which are little more than stored electrical impulses. But the brain is a fatty organ made up of nerves and cells. It operates like a chemical battery, generating and storing the electrical impulses of thought. Certain portions of the organ have known uses, they operate as nerve-centers, governing the various life support systems of the body. But vast areas of the brain have no purpose. No known purpose, that is.
For many thousands of years, scientists studying the mysterious phenomenon called thought have postulated and speculated as to the reasons why the human brain contains so many seemingly superfluous nerve-cells. Some authorities argued that the answer might lie in the distant past, that ancient man might have had other or extra senses than those used by modern man. “Lost” senses and abilities, like psychokinesis, the power of mind to manipulate matter; or telepathy, the power of direct mind-to-mind communication; or teleportation, the ability to transport objects or persons across vast gulfs of space without physical motive power.
These curious “wild talents” still occasionally crop up in modern man, although they are exceedingly rare. Hence it was argued that perhaps at some remote era in the distant past all men had these powers. In order to possess these mental abilities, men would need nerve-centers in the brain to govern them, just as he possessed nerve-centers which governed his more mundane senses such as sight, hearing, balance, and so on. Although the wild talents may have died out, the extraneous brain-matter might be explained as vestigial nerve-centers, physical remainders of long-dead powers. For the average human body does contain certain vestigial organs no longer used, such as the vermiform appendix. The organ tends to outlive the use thereof, one ancient sage put it succinctly, as is the way with sages.
So much for the theories of science. But occultism had another explanation. Life memories are recorded in the nerve-cells. Perhaps a man passes on a miniaturized recording of his life memory to his offspring, a cumulative or “racial memory” stored in the so-called unused portions of the brain.
But now Kirin was no longer musing over this and other mental mysteries. He was sound asleep. And in his sleep the truth of the occult theory was shown to him.
For with that sleep, there came a dream.
It seemed to Kirin that in his dream he descended deep into himself. He penetrated, by curious and shadowy pathways, that inner citadel called the Unconscious Mind. Here lies the deep sediment of thought, memories long since forgotten by the upper, conscious levels of his mentality. Memories of earliest childhood, of babyhood, even vague blurred impulses recorded while he was still in the womb of his mother.
He passed yet further, through veils of darkness. Now swift visions flickered around him, glimpses of scenes and faces, audible and sensory memories. They passed too swiftly for him to more than glimpse their shape and motion.
These were the recorded life memories of his father and his mother, on an old earth far away.
He voyaged on, ever deeper.
He passed through the memories of many lives, hundreds of lives. The lives of his direct ancestors, life upon life, generation upon generation, century after century, like microfilm recordings.
Thousands of lives flashed by him. He caught only swift flickering glimpses as the small floating brilliant point of utter light that was the “I” of him intersected memory-sequences…
A towering mushroom cloud of incandescent orange and scarlet climbed like an angry giant above the island of Manhattan, stamping it flat with feet of thunder. A memory of the fiery holocaust called the Thirty-Six Minute War…