Chapter XXIX: Xenora's Sacrifice

I was moved out of the machine like an automaton by the terrible force that controlled me. My body was no longer my own! It was swept along as if by a mighty wind. That force of horror roared and throbbed in my brain. Red flames of fear flickered before my eyes. I was sick and faint with terror. But my body did not collapse--it was relentlessly moved by that terrible force from the violet cylinder. I was utterly helpless--I felt the hopeless horror of one chained before a loathsome monster!

Suddenly I wished fiercely for death, for only death could bring me freedom from the horror that swept in a throbbing torrent through my brain. But even death was beyond my reach, for my hands were not my own!

For a moment that power left me standing on the side of the overturned machine. The Omnimobile lay on the sandy floor of the crater, which may have been a hundred feet in depth and as many yards across. Against the red sky, above the black cliffs of the pit's farther rim, towered the violet metal cylinder--the flaming metal brain whose hypnotic control ruled my body.

For a moment I was left standing there, and then my body was springing down and running across the rock-strewn sand toward the cliffs. It ran like a machine--beyond my control! In vain I tried even to stumble and fall! In a few moments it reached the rim. It clambered wildly up. I know that in my normal self I could never have surmounted that sheer wall. But the telepathic force from the flaming brain seemed to give my limbs superhuman strength! Soon I was at the top, with bleeding hands and tattered clothing!

And my body ran on toward the violet monostyle!

It was two hundred yards away--a Titanic smooth upright cylinder of metal, the polished surface crawling and flowing with violet flame, with the great incredible serpent-like beam of green rising from the top.

It was astounding--in the strangeness of its aspect, and in its inexplicable suggestion of alien intelligence! But how could there be intelligence in metal?

And then I saw the men about it!

Two of the vast silver spheres were stopped on the ground below the cylinder, oddly dwarfed by its vast height. And about them were men! They were the green slaves--the Sleepers of Mutron! Their bodies were naked but for tattered scraps of cloth. Fastened upon their backs by the cruel metal clamps, they bore the strange prisms!

But those bars of metal were not blue like the one we had taken from the dead man! They shone with the same mysterious violet radiance as the Titanic monostyle. They were parts of it--akin to it!

The men moved like sleepers, or like machines, as I felt that I was moving--as if their wills were dead! They toiled in tireless haste, without confusion. Many were carrying burdens. And it seemed that some were polishing the surface of the cylinder, or applying some luminous substance to it. Near the ground they were quite plainly visible, clinging to its surface like flies, and toiling furiously. Higher up on the colossal cylinder they were but dancing black specks within the violet flame!

The ground about was pitted with shell holes from my bombardment, and at one side I saw the twisted wreck of the great machine I had struck. It is possible that I had hit the great cylinder itself, but it might have received the fire of the biggest gun in Christendom with little injury.

In two minutes more I had been drawn to within fifty yards of that vast shining column of metal. Then the force of fear that had seized my body permitted it to stop, and I stood still. That awful twisting beam of green flame reached out of the top of the thing, and bent down over me! It touched me!

I felt tiny whip-like fingers of it feeling--exploring my body! The green radiance grew denser about me. It enshrouded me in a fog of green light--so painfully intense, blinding and terrible, that I tried to shut my eyes against it. But that horror held them open!

And that green fire came into my body, and into my brain. It was eager, insistent, questioning--and so horrible that my being rocked with pain. It questioned; it commanded! It sought to know of me, and of my companions, of the Omnimobile, and of the world we had left above. I struggled against it, fiercely, terribly, until I felt my limbs chilling with the sweat of the conflict. But it won!

It took my mind as it had taken my body! It beat about my brain like a vast storm; it penetrated my being in a flood of green fire! My brain reeled, was swept by an avalanche of awful power! I sank at last into merciful oblivion that was the counterpart of the death I had so desired!

At last, when I was vaguely conscious again, I had a curious feeling of mental exhaustion. I felt as if I had undergone a fearful ordeal. I felt as if I had toiled as I slept, as if I had answered many questions put to me by that power. It seemed as if the green light had swept the contents from my brain, had searched all my knowledge.

As I awoke, bodily sensation returned, and I felt someone lifting me gently from the bare earth upon which I lay: My limbs were cold and stiff; but the awful force that had controlled them was, for the moment, relaxed.

I opened my eyes, and cried out, first in incredulous joy, and then in utter despair. Xenora--the Green Girl--was lifting my head. There was anxiety and care in her violet eyes, and unutterable fatigue was shown in her body. She had followed me into the pit, to give her life with mine!

"Oh, Xenora, my dream girl, why did you come? There was no need for you to give your life!" I protested in bitter despair as she raised me in her arms and held me against her breath.

"I felt you battle with the Lord of Flame. I felt it conquer you. So I left the camp, to come."

"And how, in all wonders, did you get into this pit, and so soon?"

"My chieftain, it is not so soon! For three sleeps I have come through the forests and rocks, without stopping, while you lay still in the power of the Flame!"

"But why--why--come to throw away your life--"

"See, I bring you the wonderful thing of Barsoni Sam, that shuts out the horror. I give it to you, and you can go on with your battle against the Flame!--No, you can never conquer the Flame! But fly! Go back to your land!"

Even then I felt the horror awakening again, felt that fearful force directed again upon me. With a single quick motion, before I could prevent her, Xenora had whipped the electro-screen helmet from her head and drawn it about my own.

"Fly," she whispered fiercely. "The Sleepers of Mutron! And think not of me! Fly! Even from me!"

The horror relaxed, and I collapsed in a daze of relief. In a moment I had recovered and got to my feet. Xenora was a score of yards away, dashing off. I ran after her, calling for her to take back the precious helmet.

Suddenly she stopped. A convulsion ran through her frame. She turned, with her face a mask of livid horror. She was in the power of the Flame! She was a Sleeper! She bent, seized a rock, and hurled it at my head with superhuman strength. I dodged and it hurtled past my ear. She sprang at me like an animal, drawing the hunting knife I had left her.

I turned and ran wildly, as a score of the Sleepers came running. I passed close by that violet metal monostyle, and it seemed that its crawling violet fires reached out for me. I ran desperately toward the east! I heard the strange cries of the Sleepers of Mutron behind me! I felt the awful green flame writhing above me, but even it could not penetrate the helmet!

I was insane with terror!

I ran on and on, through eternities of heart-breaking effort. At last I stopped exhausted, with pounding temples and bursting lungs, to look behind me. The flaming brain was but a dull violet glow against the red sky. A desolate waste of bare rugged rocks and great round craters lay about me beneath the crimson mist. All was silent! The sounds of pursuit were gone!