Chapter VIII

He was on a wide balcony. Near at hand was a tele-vise, a control-studded panel, and other complicated machinery. Overhead, seeming so near he could almost touch it, the great laboratory dome stretched out and away in its vast curve. While below ... was emptiness. Now for the first time he realized the gigantic proportions of this building. A hundred feet below he saw bare floor. Probably twice that distance away, straight across from him, he could make out the opposite wall. There was nothing more, nothing in all that maw of space.

Peering at the walls, he saw strange instruments protruding. Short and tubular, literally thousands of them reached from the floor to the height of this balcony, stretching away across the walls as far as he could see. Ketrik thought he knew what they were--but he had to be sure.

He looked at the controls all about him. One huge panel contained thousands of studs. He depressed one. From the far away opposite wall a ray of white light needled out and slightly downward. He swept his hand across more studs, and other beams lanced out from the four walls--dozens, then hundreds. Ketrik was satisfied. Here, he knew were the controlling rays which Vaajo had spoken of. He shut the rays off, and looked further about him.

There was only the tele-vise, and two other instruments. One was merely a wheel, six feet in diameter. The other was a machine complicated beyond anything Ketrik had ever imagined. Giant tubes, coils, and alien looking grids nestled in the bulk of it. Cables thick as his arm led to the nearest wall, thence upward to the lower rim of the glassite dome, and completely around it. From there, other cables dangled downward for a few feet into empty space.

Ketrik approached the control panel. It seemed simpler than he had supposed, but he studied it a while before reaching out a tentative hand to the first switch. The coils shrieked maddeningly, then the sound ascended the scale and passed beyond the audible. The giant tubes pulsed to life, throwing out a silver radiance. Then Ketrik reached out to what seemed to be a master-lever. He pulled it slowly toward him.

There came a sound, a sighing, which rose to tremendous crescendo as though every wind from the depths of space were sweeping in upon him! An awful vertigo as the dome, the floor, and all space between seemed to tilt crazily--into _nothingness_! He clung to the lever, sought to push it back. His mind reeled. Everything before him was merging into a grotesquerie of impossible angles and planes--and through it all came a twisting vortex of darkness, utter emptiness, that sought to sweep him out and away!

Then the lever gave before his surging muscles. It fell back into place. Everything came back to normal--except Ketrik. He allowed the dizziness to pass, and then grinning, he tried the stunt again! Two, three times more he tried it, with the same result, until he was quite sure of his mastery over that control.

For here was the machine he had hoped to find! Here was the means and the only means, of ridding the System once and for all of that Entity which Dar Vaajo in his madness had built up into such a weapon; a terribly alive weapon which, if allowed to go unchecked, with or without Dar Vaajo, could well become a menace to all the worlds! Ketrik realized that his task had reached the crucial point. A single mistake now, a mere miscalculation, and all would be over. So far he had only seen a manifestation of the Entity, not the thing itself. But he knew it must be here, somewhere very close--and waiting....

He stepped over to the towering perpendicular wheel.

* * * * *

It moved easily beneath his hand. He was tense now, watching the great expanse of floor a hundred feet below. His surmise was correct. A tiny crack appeared there, extending the length of the floor. And upward from it came light--greenish, terrible light which he'd felt before, which he knew was the Entity itself, eager to lash outward! Almost, Ketrik hesitated. But he forced his hand to move the wheel.

The crack widened as the floor moved away on either side. Gradually he could see the Entity, the very bulk of it--maddening, impossible--but there it was! Fully a hundred feet across, greenish and blinding! It was roughly globular, seemed to be a giant brain slowly pulsing and evilly alive, yet somehow it was more than that. It was quasi-amorphous, writhing and changing shape and trying to heave itself upward! Tentacles lashed out--tentacles that seemed to be solidified light, seeking ... seeking for sustenance!

It began to move upward. Up between the walls on a sliding platform, to a point just above the floor, where it stopped. Some of its light touched Ketrik, beat against his helmet and surged about him, tearing with cold fingers at his beryllium suit. In his absorbing interest he had almost forgotten the controlling rays! He hurled himself at the panel. With reckless sweeps of his hands he flicked on the studs.

He had been just in time. The white rays, lancing out from the walls, now formed a gorgeous criss-crossing pattern that held the Entity in leash. It writhed and cowered. Slowly its own tentacles of light drew back. It lay in seeming quiescence. But even then Ketrik received its thought-emanations, as they crashed with frightening impact upon his brain. Yes, the thing was alive and evil. Too long had Dar Vaajo held it in subservience. It wished to escape these barriers, launch out for itself. There was sustenance aplenty on Mars, and it would grow titanically. Then would come Earth--and there were many other planets.

Perhaps the Entity sensed Ketrik's rising horror. Perhaps it guessed what he meant to do! For now, despite the concentration of rays, it tried to lash out in new fury. Ketrik laughed then, a bit wildly; laughed in mockery and joy, seeing the thing in thrall, watching its futile efforts against the barriers....

Then the laughter died in his throat. Something was happening. The rays, the controlling rays across the walls--one by one they were blanking out! One by one, then suddenly whole rows at a time!

* * * * *

Ketrik whirled to the control-panel. Another figure was there--Dar Vaajo! Somewhere he had obtained another protective suit, had entered silently. Now he was blanking out the control-rays, enough of them to allow the power of the Entity through!

Even as Ketrik hurled himself forward, he saw madness on Vaajo's face. More of the rays blanked off as Vaajo swept his hand down. Then Ketrik was upon him. The two metal-suited figures clashed, went spinning backward and then to the floor of the balcony in a wild tangle.

Dar Vaajo was old but he was still tough and wiry. He had the strength of a madman now. He kept Ketrik at bay as the latter sought to grip his throat. He laughed wildly as Ketrik pounded futilely at the tough _crystyte_ helmet. Then Ketrik knew why he laughed. The damage had been done, the power of the Entity was lashing through the barriers now! A tendril of light curled about Ketrik's head. Even through the helmet he felt the insatiable greed of it, as his brain exploded in fire.

He forgot Dar Vaajo, managed to drag himself upward. He staggered toward the huge Vortex machine. Vaajo hurled against his legs and brought him crashing down. His brain was now a writhing agony of fire. He saw Vaajo's grinning face near his own, and knew that somehow Vaajo wasn't affected by the Entity; perhaps years of working so close to it had made him partially immune. Slowly Ketrik managed to bring his knees up under the other's body, then his feet. With his last remaining strength he lashed out.

He saw the Martian's slight body hurl backward. It crashed into the balcony's low railing which caught him just at the knees. For a moment Vaajo tottered, arms flailing wildly; then his mouth opened in what must have been a shriek as he went over the edge, over and downward, to crash a hundred feet below into the great greenish bulk of the Entity.

But Ketrik didn't see that. He was dragging himself the few remaining yards to the Vortex machine, then slowly up to the controls. Heedless now of the frantic light-tendrils that tried to stop him, he managed to turn on the control. He sank to the floor as he pulled back on the master lever.

It was through blurring eyes this time that he saw the crazy tilting of the laboratory dome and everything beneath, saw the dark Vortex twisting through from an alien space. As though in a dream he saw a rush of light, glimpsed a greenish mass hurtling outward to disappear in a convergence of crazy space-angles....

After that he remembered finding his electro which had skidded away on the floor. He used it to blast the Vortex machine into tangled ruin. He remembered staggering to the tele-vise and turning it on, and seeing Praana's face from a screen somewhere in the palace.

"Praana ... the laboratory ... your father is...." But that was all. He was sliding forward against the screen, sliding down to the floor into merciful oblivion.

* * * * *

He saw her face again and it was no longer startled, it was smiling down at him. He tried to sit up. A spasm of pain hit him. He heard her say, "Rest. You will be all right soon."

He was lying on a couch somewhere in the palace. Servants were hovering around anxiously. Praana sent them away. Presently she said, "I've contacted the Earth Fleet's flagship. They will be here sometime tomorrow. They come in peace."

He managed to nod. "You know about the other? Your father--he was...." He stopped the words in time, his face twisted as he thought of it.

"Don't be afraid to say it." Praana still managed to smile. "Yes, I know it now, we all know! He was mad. Mars as well as Earth owes you a debt of gratitude it can never repay." She hesitated. "I want to forget. I must get away, somewhere far away. I should like to return to Earth, for just a little while."

Ketrik grinned. He lay back. He had wanted to hear her say that.