Chapter IV

He glanced up at the huge square frame of the palace, crouched like a great machine waiting to devour him. There was something about the building that was subtle, mysterious, luring. Engraved in deep convex letters above the door was the motto of the Imperator: THE WORLD BELONGS TO THE STRONG. Now for the first time, Ostby thought, he was to meet that controversial figure face to face.

There was no formal greeting of the entering guests. Two liveried servants stood at either side of the entrance, eyeing, politely but carefully, each entrant. They did not stop Ostby and he passed through the doorway. He deposited his outer wrap with still other servants inside, and mingled unobtrusively with the guests in the wide entrance hall.

For a half-hour Ostby loitered about the edge of the thickening crowd, wearing an expression of abstract concentration that discouraged conversation. At the end of that time the Imperator had not appeared. Ostby decided to wait no longer.

Walking casually down a long corridor that led into the palace he began his search for the man he wanted. The occasional servants he met asked no questions. They merely nodded politely and went about their duties.

When he came to a long circular stairway he walked quickly up. He knew that the closer he came to his goal the greater would be the risk. But this was not the time for surreptitious conniving. Only action would produce results now.

A door opened suddenly behind him and a voice said, "Keep walking."

Strangely Ostby was glad to hear the voice.

"I'm not moving," he said.

A gun pressed against his back and he knew the time had come to act. Pivoting on the balls of his feet he knocked aside the hand that held the gun with his left arm. As he completed the pivot he aimed his right fist at the stranger's face.

His assailant rolled with the blow and it caught him with glancing force on the chin. But it was hard enough to drive him off his feet.

Ostby followed swiftly, but his opponent turned like a cat and kicked both feet into his stomach. The kick knocked the breath from Ostby's lungs. Black circles ringed his vision and the only thing that worked then was instinct. He grabbed at the ankles as the man's feet came up again. Letting the momentum of the kick furnish most of the power, he pulled on the ankles in a circular jerk that lifted the man clear off the floor.

Ostby swung him around in a wide circle, scraping his head and shoulders on the wall of the hallway, before releasing his grip. The gunman crashed unconscious against the far wall.

Ostby took two steps forward, and a blinding light bathed his body! He turned, raising one leg to retreat, and found himself fighting with an awful exertion to set it down again!

The air had become viscous, and he took one step that felt as though he were walking in freshly mixed cement. The cement hardened rapidly and held him rigid. Next his vision blurred, and he stood with all power of motion gone. His respiratory function was his only movement.

* * * * *

He was no longer rational enough to judge when the agony in his muscles changed their tenor to the sensation of a thousand needles being stabbed into his flesh. Somehow he knew that this meant the paralysis was leaving.

The first muscles to free themselves were those in the lids of his eyes. He opened them and found himself staring into the iciest, most emotionless eyes he had ever seen. Strangely enough they were brown eyes yet they gave the definite impression of being colorless.

The eyes were in a face carved with lines of craglike pride. Strength and ruthlessness breathed in every feature. Ostby needed no introduction to know that the face belonged to the Imperator!

A voice said, "He can see and hear now. But his power of speech and movement won't return for a few minutes." The voice came from Ostby's right. He was unable to turn to see who spoke.

The Imperator smiled. "My Name is Magogar," he said to Ostby in a voice an octave lower then normal. "I've been waiting a long time to meet you."

Ostby returned the look, wordlessly--all he was capable of doing.

"We'll begin our discussion," Magogar said, "with my telling you that I know you are the one they call the Berserker, what your mission is, and much else about you that you may not suspect. On the other hand, there are many things you do not know about me, and, strange as it may seem, there are some things concerning yourself that you do not know.

"When you were first brought into our world," Magogar continued, "you made the mistake of confiding in several of your fellow captives, thinking that they would aid you. Needless to say, one of them talked. That last I probably don't have to tell you; you must have guessed, because you made your escape soon after. You didn't even try your preconcocted story."

"You knew about that too?" Ostby asked, and was surprised that he was able to speak again.

"Yes. You were right in believing that your confidants would be sympathetic to your schemes, but you forgot one thing. Men can be made to talk."

Ostby had recovered some of his self-possession by this time. "If you know, tell me what that plan was," he said.

"Certainly," Magogar replied. He rose to his feet and walked with long strides about the room. Ostby was surprised at the breath and girth of the man. At first glance he appeared squat. But that appearance was a deception caused by his great bulk. He was as tall as Ostby, but heavier of bone, and must have weighed a hundred pounds more. He walked heavily, each step landing forcefully on the heel of the foot.

"One of our ships," the Imperator said, "read your distress signal of colored rocks and picked you up. Your story was to be that you were a survivor of a ship of ours which crashed twenty years earlier. I believe you had established quite an authentic story. Your mother and father had been hurt, and died several years after the crash, you said. But not before they had taught you, their six-year-old son, to care for himself, to pass as one of the people of the world in which you found yourself, and last, how to establish contact with us. It was a good story, and its background was authentic. Tell me, why did you decide not to use it?"

Ostby shrugged. "Mainly because I made the mistake of confiding my plans to several of your prisoners. And you forced one of them to talk."

Unexpectedly Magogar no longer seemed to be paying attention to Ostby. He had turned his head and was looking to his left. It was then Ostby remembered that he had made no effort to discover to whom the other voice he had heard belonged. The thought of it now made him realize how much his faculties had been dulled by their session under the paralysis. Ordinarily, by this time he would have had every detail of the room catalogued in his mind. He hastened now to correct the omission.

The sight that met his eyes as he turned his head was one that would stay with him for all the years of his life!

A square, paneled box, supported by four sturdy legs, rested against the wall, across the room from them. In the center of the box was a large eye!

The eye had no pupil; its entire surface was one of mottled streaks of gray, pink, and black. The colors slowly flowed and changed, following a seemingly erratic pattern. It was the weirdest sight Ostby ever expected to see. And behind and through it all glowed intelligence--human, reasoning intelligence!

Vaguely, through his momentary funk, Ostby heard the Imperator's voice, "Allow me to introduce you to the Brain."

Then those vague rumors he had heard had been true, Ostby reflected, or at least some facets of them. He had heard talk--which he had regarded as superstitions--that the Imperator possessed the living brain of a man long dead, a brain of infinite wisdom, and possessing all the knowledge there was to be had. Ostby was forced to believe in its existence now, for here he was faced with the living proof.

Once again Magogar's words interrupted his reverie. But the words were not directed at him. "He's here now. What did you want to ask before I have him killed?"

"You may change your mind about that after you hear what I have to say," a voice from the box answered. "You call yourself Ostby," it said. "Do you remember your father or your mother?"

Ostby stared at the apparition, not answering. The reality of the present situation, and yet its impossibility, was overwhelming.

The voice in the box continued. "I believe that I am safe in assuming that you do not remember them. I would like now to give you a hypothetical problem. If we were to assume that everything upon which you built your life were false: that the men you trusted lied to you: that you are not even who and what you believe you are ... what would you do?"

The voice paused, but Ostby remained silent and it went on, "The records of the people of our world, who crashed in yours, I assume you studied very carefully. That would be necessary to make your planned deception more effective. Their names were Shemolang and Roelang. Am I correct?"

Ostby nodded. The Brain went on. "Shemolang was no ordinary man. He was first in line for the Imperator office, after Magogar."

The voice shifted its focus by some subtle change of the vision in the eye, and Ostby knew that it no longer addressed him. "Will you look in the files and find a picture there of Shemolang, Magogar?"

The Imperator brought his attention to alertness with an obvious effort of will. He had been listening as intently as Ostby. Now he rose and walked to the indicated files.

After a minute he drew a picture from one of the files and studied it. The Imperator gasped and murmured, "I had almost forgotten how he looked."

"Show the picture to Mr. Ostby, will you please?" the Brain said.

Ostby took the picture and the first glance sent a shock through his system that started as a weight in the pit of his stomach and flooded his body like fever. The picture that looked back at him was very nearly a replica of himself!

"Your father," the Brain interrupted his thoughts. "You not only have had a vast deception practiced upon you, but you have been fighting your own people!"