Henry Kuttner - The Creature From Beyond Infinity

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THE CREATURE FROM

BEYOND INFINITY BY HENRY KUTTNER

POPULAR LIBRARY • NEW YORK

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CHAPTER I

The Beginning

Ardath opened his eyes, trying to remember why a blinding pain should be

throbbing within his skull. Above him was a twisted girder of yellow metal,

and beyond that, the inner wall of the space ship. What had happened?

It seemed scarcely a moment ago that the craft had been filled with a

confusion of shouted orders, quickly moving men, and the shriek of cleft

atmosphere as the ship drove down. Then had come the shock of

landing-blackness. And now?

Painfully Ardath dragged his slight, fragile body erect. All around him were

ruin and confusion. Corpses lay sprawled and limp, the bodies of those who had

not survived the terrible concussion. Strange men, slim and delicate, their

skins had been darkly tanned by the long voyage across space. Ardath started

hopefully when he saw that one of the bodies moved slightly and moaned.

Theronl Theron, the commander-highest in rank and wisdom-had survived. A wave

of gratefulness swept through Ardath. He was not alone on this new, unknown

world, as he had feared. Swiftly he found stimulants and bent over the

reviving man.

Theron's .gray, beardless face grew contorted. His pallid blue eyes opened. He

drew a lean hand over his bald head as he whispered.

"Ardath-"

A rocking shudder shook the ship, then suddenly died. "Who else is alive?"

Theron asked with painful effort, "I don't know, Theron," Ardath replied

softly.

"Find out."

Ardath searched the huge golden ship. He came back with despair on his drawn

harrowed features.

"You and I are the only ones left alive, Theron."

The commander gnawed at his lips.

"So. And I am dying." He smiled resignedly at Ardath's sudden protest. "It's

true, Ardath. You do not realize how old I am. For years we have gone through

space, and you are the youngest of us. Unshield a port. Let me see where we

are."

"The third planet of this System," Ardath said.

He pressed a button that swung back a shutter from a nearby port in the golden

wall. They saw nothing but darkness at first. Then their eyes became

accustomed to the gloom.

The ship lay beached on a dim shore, Blackly ominous the strange world loomed

through the gray murk of vague light that filtered through the cloudy sky. A

slow drizzle of rain was falling.

"Test the atmosphere," Theron commanded.

Ardath obeyed. Spectroscopic analysis, made from outer space, had indicated

that the air here was breathable. The chemical test confirmed this. At

Theron's request, Ardath opened a spacelock.

Air surged in with a queerly choking sulphurous odor. The two men coughed

rackingly, until eventually they became accustomed to it.

"Carry me out," the commander said quietly. His glance met and locked with

Ardath's as the younger man hesitated. "I shall die soon," he insisted gently.

"But first I must-I must know that I have reached my goal."

Silently Ardath lifted the slight figure in his arms. He splashed through the

warm waves and gently laid Theron down on the barren beach. The Sun, hidden

behind a cloud blanket, was rising in the first dawn Ardathhad ever seen.

A gray sky and sea, a dark shore-those were all he actually saw. Under

Ardath's)eet he felt the world shudder with the volcanic fires of creation.

Rain and tide had not yet eroded the rocks into sand and soil. No vegetation

grew anywhere. He did not know whether the land was an island or a continent.

It ros~e abruptly frcm the beach and mounted to towering crags against the

inland skyline.

Theron sighed. His thin fingers groped blindly over the rocky surface on which

he lay.

"You are space-born, Ardath," he said painfully. "You cannot quite realize

that only on a planet can a man find a home. But I am afraid. .' . ."

His voice died away. Then it rose again, strengthened.

"I am dying but there is something I must tell you first. Listen, Ardath . . .

You never knew your mother planet, Kyria. it is light-years away from this

world. Or it was. Centunes ago, we discovered that Kyria was doomed. A

wandering planetoid came so close that it would inevitably collide with us and

destroy our civilization utterly.

"Kyria was a lovely world, Ardath."

"I know," Ardath breathed. "I have seen the films in our records."

"You have seen our great cities, and the green forests a~xd fields-" An

agonizing cough rocked the dying commander. He went on hastily. "We fled. A

selected group of us unade this space ship and left Kyria in search of a new

home. But of hundreds of planets that we found, none was suitable. None would

sustain human life. This, the third planet of this yellow Sun, is our last

hope. Our fuel is almost gone. it is your duty, Ardath, to see that the

civilization of Kyria does not perish."

"But this is a dead world," the younger man protested.

"It is a young world," Theron corrected.

He paused, and his hand lifted, pointing. Ardath stared at the slow, sullen

tide that rippled drearily toward them. The gloomy wash of water receded. And

there on the rocky slope lay something that made him nod understandingly.

It was not large. A greasy, shining blob of slime, featureless and repulsive,

it was unmistakably alive, undeniably sentient!

The shinmiering globule of protoplasm was drawn back with the next wave. When

Ardath's eyes met Theron's, the dying man smiled triumphantly.

"Life! There's sun here, Ardath, beyond the clouds-a Sun that sends forth

energy, cosmic rays, the rays of evolution. Immeasurable ages will pass before

human beings exist here, but exist they will! Our study of countless other

planets enables us to predict the course of evolution here. From the

unicellular creatures will come sea-beings with vertebrae, then amphibiae, and

true reptiles.

"Then warm-blooded beasts will evolve from the flying reptiles and the

dinosaurs. Finally there will be ape-like men, wh& will yield the planet

to-true men!"

"But it will take millennia!"

"You must remain here," Theron stated. "How many of us survived the voyage

from Kyria? You must wait, Ardath, even a million years if it is necessary.

Our stasis ray kept us in suspended animation while we came across space. Take

the ship beyond the atmosphere. Adjust it to a regular orbit, like a second

satellite around this world. -

"Set the controls so you will awaken eventually, and be able to ~investigate

the evolutionary progress of this planet. You will wait a long time, I admit.

But finally you will find men."

"Men like us?"

Theron shook his head regretfully.

"No. Super-mentality is a matter of eugenically controlled breeding.

Occasionally a mental giant will be born, but not often. On Kymia we bred and

mated these mental giants, till

- eventually their progeny peopled the planet. You must do the same with this

world." -

"I will," Ardath consented. "But how-"

"Go through the ages. Do not stop till you find one of these mental giants. He

will be easily recognized, for, almost from infancy, he will be far in advance

of his contemporaries. He will withdraw from them, turning to the pursuit of

wisdom. He will be responsible for many of the great inventions of his time.

Take this man-or woman, perhaps-and go on into time, until you have found a

mental giant of the opposite sex.

"You could never mate with a female of this world, Ardath. Since you are from

another system, it would be biologically impossible. The union would be

sterile. This is your duty-find a super-mentality, take him from his own time~

sector, and find a mate for him in the more distant future. From that union

will arise a race of giants equal to the Kyrians. In a sense, you will have

been their foster-father."

Theron sighed and turned his head till his cheek lay against -the bare rock of

the shore.

"May the great Architect guide you, Ardath," he said softly. -

Abruptly his head slum1ed, and Theron -was dead. The gray waves whispered a

requiem. Ardath stood silent, looking down at the worn, tired face, now

relaxed in death.

He was alone, inflnit~ely far from the nearest human being. Then another

feeling came, making him realize that he was no longer a homeless wanderer of

space.

Never in his life had Ardath stood on a world's surface. The others had told

him of Kyria, and on the pictorial library screens he had seen views of green

and sunset lands that were agonizingly beautiful. Inevitably Ardath had come

to fear the black inmensity of the starlit void, to hate its cold, eternal

changelessness. He had dreamed of walldng on grassy, rolling plains. . .

That would come, for he knew Theron had been right. Cycads and ferns would

grow where Ardath now stood. Amphibiae would come out of the waters and

evolve, slowly of course, but with inexorable certainty. He could afford to

wait. -

First, though, he needed power. The great atomic engine of the ship was

useless, exhausted.

-Atomic power resembled dynamite in that it needed some -outside source

of energy to get it started. Dynamite required a percussion cap. The engine of

the golden ship needed power. Solar energy? Lenses were required. Besides, the

cloudblanket was an insurmountable handicap, filtering out most of the

necessary rays. Coal? It would not exist here for ages.

A tremble shook the ground, and Ardath nodded thoughtfully. There was power

below the power of seething lava, enormous pressures, and heat that could melt

solid rock. Could it be harnessed?

Steam . . . a geyser! That would provide the necessary energy to start the

atomic motor. After that, anything would be possible.

With a single regretful glance at the dead Theron, Ardath set out to explore

the savage new world.

For two days and nights he hunted, growing haggard and w~ea1y. At last he

found an area of lava streams, shuddering rock, and geysers. Steam feathered

up into the humid air, and to the north a red glow brightened the gray sky,

Ardath stood for a while, watching. His quest was ended. Long weeks of arduous

work still lay ahead, but now be had no doubt of ultimate success. The steam

demons would set the atomic motor into the operation. After that, he could rip

ores from the ground and find chemicals. But after that?

The ship must be made spaceworthy again, though not for another long voyage.

Such a course would be fruitless. Of all the planets the Kyrians had visited,

only this world was capable of supporting life.

As yet, mere cells of blind, insensate protoplasm swarmed in the sullen seas,

but those cells would develop. Evolution would work upon them. Perhaps in a

million years human beings, intelligent creatures, would walk this world.

Then, one day, a super-mentality would be born, and Ardath would find that

kindred mind. He would take that mental giant into the future, in search of a

suitable mate. After dozens of generations there would arise a civilization

that would rival that of Kyria-his home planet now utterly destroyed without

trace. -

Time passed as Ardath worked. He blasted out a grave for Theron on the shore

where the old Kyrian had died. He repaired the golden craft. Tirelessly he

toiled.

Five months later, th~é repaired space ship rose, carrying its single

passenger. Through the atmosphere it fled. It settled into an orbit, became a

second, infinitesimal moon revolving around the mother planet.

Within it Ardath's robot machinery began to operate. A ray beamed out,

touching and bathing the man's form, which was stretched on a low couch.

Slowly consciousness left Ardath. The atomic structure of his body was subtly

altered. Electrons slowed in their orbits. Since they emitted no quanta,

Ardath's energy was frozen in

-~ the utter motionlessness of stasis. Neither -alive nor dead, he slept. -

The ray clicked off. When Ardath wakened, he would see a different world older

and stranger. Perhaps it would even be peopled by intelligent beings.

Silently the space ship swept on. Far beneath it a planet shuddered in the

titanic grip of dying fires. The rains poured down, eroding, endless. The

tides flowed and ebbed. Always the cloud veil shrouded the world that was to

be called Earth. Amid the shattering thunder of deluges, new lands rose and

continents were formed.

Life, blind, hungry and groping, crawled up on the beaches, where it basked

for a time in the dim sunlight.

ctIAPTER II

- Yow~h

On August 7, 1924, an eight-year-old boy caused a panic in a Des Moines

theater.

His name was Stephen Court. He had been born to a theatrical family of

mediocre talent-the Cra±y Courts, they were billed. The act was a combination

of gags, dances and humorous songs. Stephçn traveled with his parents on tour,

when they played one-night stands and small vaudeville circuits. In -1924,

vaudeville had not yet been killed by the films. It was

the beginning of the Jazz Age.

Stephen was so remarkably intelligent, even as a child, that he was soon

incorporated into the act as a "mental wizard." He wore a miniature cap and

gown, and was introduced by his parents at the end of their turn.

"Any date-ask him any historical date, my friends, and he

will answer! The gentleman in the third row. What do you' want to know?"

- And Stephen would answer accurately. When did Columbus discover America?

When was the Magna Charta signed? When was the Battle of Hastings? When was

Lafayette born?

"Mathematical questions? You, there-" -

Stephen would answer. Mathematics was no riddle for him, nor algebra. The

value of piP He knew it. Formulas and equations slipped glibly from his

tongue. He stood on the stage in the spotlight, his small face impassive, a

small, dark-haired child with curiously luminous brown eyes, and answered all

questions.

He read omnivorously every book he could manage to obtain. He was coldly

unemotional, which distressed his mother, and he hid his thoughts well.

Then, on that August night, his life suddenly changed.

The act was almost over. The audience was applauding wildly. The Courts stood

on each side of the boy, bowing. And Stephen stood motionless, his strange,

glowing eyes staring out into the gloom of the theater.

"Take your bows, kid," Court hissed from the side of his mouth.

But the boy didn't answer. There was an odd tensity in his rigid posture. His

expressionless face seemed strained. Only in his eyes was there life, and a

terrible fire.

In the theater, a whisper grew to a murmur and the applause died. Then the

murmur swelled to a restrained roar, until someone screamed:

"Fire!" -

Court glanced around quickly. He could see no signs of smoke or flame. But he

made a quick gesture, and the-orchestra leader struck up a tune. Hastily the

man and woman went into a routine tap dance.

"Steve!" Court said urgently. "Join in!"

But Stephen just stood there, and through the theater the roar rose to -

individual screams of panic. The audience no longer watched the stage. They

sprang up and fought their wayto the exits, cursing, pushing, crowding.

Nothing could stop it. By sheer luck no one was killed. But in ten minutes the

theater was empty-and there had been nosignbf a fire.

In his dressing room, Court looked queerly at his son.

"What was wrong with you tonight, kid?" he asked, as he removed greasepaint

from his face with cold cream.

"Nothing," Stephen said abstractedly.

"Something funny about the whole thing. There wasn't any

Stephen sat on a chair, his legs swinging idly.

"That magician we played with last week-" he began.

"Yeah?"

"I got some ideas from him." -

"Well?" his father urged.

"I watched him when he hypnotized a man from the audience. That's all it was.

I hypnotized the entire audience to-

- night."

"Oh, cut it out," Court said, grinning.

"It's trues The conditions were right. Everyone's attention was focused on me.

I made them think there was a fire."

When Court turned and looked at the boy, he had an odd feeling that this was

not his son sitting opposite him. The round face was childish, but the eyes

were not. They were cold, watchful, direct.

Court laughed without much conviction.

"You're crazy," he said, turning back to the light-rimmed mirror. -

"Maybe I am," Stephen said lightly. "I want to go to school. Will you send

me?"

"I can't afford it. Anyway, you're too big an attraction, Maybe we can manage

later."

Stephen did not argue. He rose and went toward his mother's dressing room;'but

he did not enter. Instead, - he turned and left the theater.

He had determined to run away.

Stephen already knew that his brain was far superior to the average. It was as

yet unformed, requiring knowledge and capable training. Those he could never

get through his parents. He felt no sorrow or pity on leaving them. His cool

intellect combined with the natural cruelty of childhood to make him

unemotional, passionlessly logical.

But Stephen needed money, and his youth was a handicap. No one would employ a

child, he knew, except perhaps as a newsboy. Moreover, he had to outwit his

parents, who would certainly search for their son.

Strangely there was nothing pathetic about Stephen's small figure as he

trudged along the dark street. His iron singleness of purpose and his ruthless

will gave him a certain incongruous dignity. He walked swiftly to the railroad

station.

On the way he passed a speakeasy. -A man was lying in the

gutter before the door, an unshaved derelict, grizzled of- hair and with worn,

dissolute features. He was mumbling drunkenly and striving helplessly to rise.

Stephen paused to watch. Attracted by the silent gaze, the man looked up. As

the two glances met, inflexible purpose grew in the boy's pale face.

"Wanna-drink," the derelict mumbled. "Cotta-they won't give old Sammy a drink.

. . ."

Stephen's eyes again grew luminous. They seemed to bore into the watery eyes

of the hobo, probing, commanding. -

"EhP" the drunkard asked blankly.

Sammy's voice died off uncertainly as he staggered erect. Stephen gripped his

arm, and the two went down the street In a dark doorway they paused.

The foggy, half-wrecked brain of the tramp was no match for Stephen's hypnotic

powers. Sammy listened as the boy talked.

"You're catching a freight out of town. You're taking me with you. Do you

understand?"

"Ehr Sammy asked vaguely.

In a monotonous voice the boy repeated his commands. When the drunkard finally

understood, the two headed for the railway station.

Stephen's plans were made. To all appearance, he was a mere child. He could

not possibly have fulfilled his desires alone. The authorities would have

returned him to his parents, or - he would have been sent to a school as - a

public charge. What man could recognize in a young boy an already blossoming

genius? Stephen's super-mentality was seriously handicapped by his immaturity.

He needed a guardian, purely nominal, to satisfy the prejudices of the world.

Through Sammy he could act. Sammy would be his tongue, his hands, his legal

representative. Men would be willing to deal with Sammy, where they would have

laughed at a child. But first the tramp would have to be metamorphosed into a

"useful citizen."

That night they rode in a chilly boxcar, headed East. Hour after hour Stephen

worked on the brain of his captive. Sammy must be his eyes, his hands, his

provider.

Once Sammy had been a mechanic, he revealed under Stephen's relentless

probing. The train rolled on through the darkness, the wheels beating a

clicking threnody toward the East

It was not easy, for the habits of years had weakened

$ammy's body and mind. He was a convinced tramp, lazy and content to follow

his wanderlust. But always Stephen drove him on, arguing, commanding,

convincing. Hypnosis played a large part in the boy's ultimate success.

Sammy got a job, much against his will, and washed dishes in a cheap

restaurant for a few weeks. He shaved daily and consistently drank less.

Meanwhile Stephen waited, but he did not wait in idleness. He spent his days

visiting automobile agencies and studying the machines. At night he crouched

in a cheap tenement room, sketching and designing. Finally he spoke to Sammy.

"I want you to get another job. You will be a mechanic in an automobile

factory." He watched Sammy's reaction.

"Aw, I can't, Steve," the man protested. "They wouldn't even look at me, Let's

hit the road again, huh?"

"Show them these," Stephen ordered, extending a sheaf of closely written

papers and drawings. "They'll give you a

At first the foreman told Sammy to get out, after a glance at his red-rimmed

eyes and weak, worn face. But the papers were a magic password. The foreman

pondered over them, bewilderedly scrutinized Sammy, and went off to confer

with one of the managers.

"The man's good!" he blurted. "He -doesn't look it, but he's an expert

mechanic, just the kind of man we need. Look at these improvements hip's

worked out! This wiring change will save us thousands annually. And this gear

ratio. It's new, but it might work. I think-"

"Send him in," the manager said hastily.

Thus Sammy got his job. Actually he wasn't much good, but every month or two

he would show up with some new improvement, some unexpected invention, that

got him raises instead of dismissal. Of course Stephen v~as responsible for

all this. He had adopted Sammy.

- Stephen saw to it that they moved to a more convenient apartment, and now he

went to schooL Needing surprisingly little sleep, he spent most of his time

studying. There was so much to learn, and so little time! To acquire the

knowledge he wanted, he needed more and more money to pay for tutoring and

equipment. -

The years passed with a peaceful lack of haste. Sammy drank little now, and

took a great deal of interest in his work. lInt he was still a tramp at heart,

eternally longing for the

open road. Sometimes he would try to slip away, but Stephen was always too

watchful. -

At last the boy was ready for the next step. It was then early in 1927. After

months of arduous toil, he bad completed several inventions which he thought

valuable. He had Sammy patent them, and then market them to the highest

bidders. -

The result was more money than Stephen had expected. He made Sammy resign his

job, and the two of them retired to a country house. He brought along several

tutors, and had a compact, modern laboratory set up. When more money was

required, the boy would potter around for a while. Inevitably he emerged with

a new formula that increased the already large annual income.

Tutors changed as Stephen grew older and learned more. He attended college for

a year, but found he could apply his mind better at home. He needed a larger

headquarters, though. So they moved to Wisconsin and bought a huge old

mansion, which he had renovated.

His quest for knowledge seemed endless, yet he did not neglect his health. He

went for long walks and exercised mightily. When he grew to manhood, he was a

magnificent specimen, strong, well formed and handsome. But always, save for a

few occasional lapses, he was coldly unemotional.

Once he had detectives locate his parents, and anonymously arranged to provide

a large annual income for them. But he would not see either his father or

mother.

"They would mean emotional crises," he told Sammy. "There would be

unnecessary. arguments. By this time they have forgotten me, anyway."

"Think so?" Sammy muttered, chewing on the stem of his ancient pipe. His

nut-brown, wrinkled face looked rather puzzled under his stiff crop of white

hair. "Well, I never did think you was human, Stevie."

He shook his head, put the pipe away, and pottered off in search of his rare

drinks. Stephen returned to his work.

What was the purpose of these years of intensive study? He scarcely knew. His

mind was a vessel to be filled with the clear, exhilarating liquor of

knowledge. As Sammy's system craved alcohol, so Stephen's brain thirsted for

wisdom. Study and experiment were to him a delight that approached actual

ecstasy. As an athlete gets keen pleasure from the exercise of his well

trained body, so Stephen exulted in the exercise of his mind.

Unimaginable eons before, in the teeming seas of a psi-

- meval world, life-forms had fed their blind hunger. That was appetite of the

flesh.

Stephen's hunger was the appetite of the mind. But it also made him blind, in

a different way. He was a godlike man, and he was-unhuman.

By 1941 he was the greatest scientist in the world.

CHAPTER III

The Earth-born

Before man created gods, Ardath was. In his space ship, swinging silently

around the world, he slept as the ages went past. . .

Sometimes he woke and searched, always in vain, for intelligent life in the

land below. The road of evolution was long and bloody.

Dark weariness shrouded Ardath as he saw the vast, mindless, terrible

behemoths of the oceans. Monsters wallowed into the swamps. The ground shook

beneath the tread of tyrant lizards. Brontosaurs and pterodactyls lived and

fed and -died.

There were mammals-oehippus the fleet and three-toed, and a tiny marsupial iif

which the flame of intelligence glowed feebly, But the titan reptiles ruled.

Mammals could not survive in this savage, thundering world.

Forests of weeds an~I bamboo towered in a tropical zone that stretched almost

to the poles. Ardath pondered, studied for a time in his laboratory-and the

Ice Age came.

Was Ardath responsible? Perhaps. H)s science was not Earthly, and his powers

were unimaginable. The ice mountains swept down, blowing their frigid breath

upon the forests and the reptile giants.

Southward the hegira fled. It was the Day of Judgment for the idiot colossi

that had ruled too long.But the mammals survived. Shuddering in the narrow

equatorial belt, they starved and whimpered. But they lived, and they evolved,

while Ardath slept again. . .

When he awoke, he found beast-men, hairy and ferocious. They dwelt in

gregarious packs, ruled by an Old Man who had proved himself strongest of the

band.

But always the chill winds of the icelands tore at them as they crouched in

their caves. - -

Ardath found one, wiser than the rest, and taught him the use of fire. Then

the alien man sent his ship arrowing up from Earth, while flames bcgan to burn

wanly before cave-mouths. In grunts and sign language the story was told. Ages

later, man would tell the tale of Prometheus, who stolefire from the very gods

of heaven.

Folk-lore is filled with the legends of men who visited the gods-the Little

People or the Sky-dwellers-and returned with strange powers. Arrows and

spears, the smelting of ores, the sowing and reaping of grain. . . . How many

inventions could be traced to Ardath?

But at last Ardath slept for a longer time than ever before, and then he

awoke.

Dark was the city. Flambeaux were numerous as fireflies in the gloomy steets.

The metropolis lay like a crouching beast on the shore, a vast conglomeration

of stone, crude and colossal.

The ship of Ardath. hung far above the city, unseen in- the darkness of the

night. Ardath himself was busy in his laboratory, working on a curiously

constructed device that meassured the frequency and strength of mentality.

Thought created electrical energy, and Ardath's machine registered the power

of that energy. Delicately he sent an invisible narrow-wave beam down into the

city far beneath. -

On a gauge a needle crept up, halted, dipped, and mounted again. Ardath reset

a dial. Intelligent beings dwelt on Earth now, but their intelligence was far

inferior to Ardath's. He was searching for a higher-level.

The needle was inactive as Ardath swept the city with his ray. Useless! The

pointer did not even quiver. The mental giant Ardath sought was not here,

though this was the greatest metropolis of the primeval ivorld. -

But suddenly the needle jerked slightly. Ardath halted the ray and turned to a

television screen. Using the beam as a carrier, he focused upon a scene that

sprang into instant visibilHe saw a throne of black stone upon which a woman

sat.

Tall and majestic, an Amazon of forty or more, she had lean, rugged features,

and wore plain garments of leather.

Guards flanked her, gigantic, stolid, armed with spears. Before the throne a

man stood, and it was at this man that

- Ardath stared.

For months the Kyrian's ship had scoured the skies, searching jungles and

deserts. Few cities existed. On the northern steppes, shaggy beast-men still

dwelt in caves, fighting the mammoth. But the half-men and the hairy elephants

were rapidly degenerating. In mountain lakes were villages built on stilts and

piers sunken into the mud, but these clans were barbarous. Only on this island

were there civilization and intelligence, though lamentably -lower than

Ardath's own level.

The man from space watched the wisest human on this primitive Earth.

In chains the Earthnian stood before the black stone. He was huge, massively

thewed, with a bronzed, hairy skin showing through the rags he wore. His face

resembled that of a beast, ferocious with hatred. Amber cat's-eyes glared from

beneath the beetling brows. The jutting jaw was hidden by a wiry beard that

tangled around the - nose that was little more than a snout.

Yet in that brute body, Ardath knew, dwelt amazing intelligence. Shrewdness

and cunning were well masked by the hideous face and form.

What of the queen? Curious to know, Ardath tested her with his ray. She, too,

was more intelligent than most of the savages.

"These two are enemies," Ardath thought. "And -I imagine

that the man faces danger or death. Well, what is that to me?

I cannot live in a time where all are barbarians. It is best that

I sleep again."

Yet he hesitated, one hand resting lightly on the controls that *ould send the

ship racing up into space. The barren loneliness of the void, the slow

centuries of his dark vigil, crept with icy tentacles into his mind. He

thought of the equally long, miserably lonely future. -

"Suppose I-sleep again and wake in a dead world? It could happen, for my own

home planet was destroyed. How could I face another search through space?

Theron and the rest had each other. . . ."

He turned back again to watch the two people on the screen.

"They are intelligent, after a fashion, and they would be companions. If I

took them with me, and we woke in a lifeless time, they could bring forth a

new race which I could train eugenically into the right pattern."

The decision was made. Ardath would sleep again in his ship-but this time not

alone. -

He glanced at the screen, and his eyes widened. A new -factor had entered the

problem. Hastily he turned to a compli- -

- cated machine at his side.

***

As Thordred the Usurper stood before the throne of his queen, his savage face

was immobile. Weaponless, fettered, he nevertheless glared with implacable

fury at the womar~ who had spoiled his plans.

Zana met his gaze coldly. Her harsh features were darkly somber. -

"Well?" she asked. "Have you anything to say to me?"

"Nothing," Thordred grunted. "I have failed. That is all." The huge, almost

empty throne room echoed his words eerily. -

"Aye, you have failed," the queen said. "And there is but one fate for losers

who revolt. You tried to force me from my throne, and instead you stand in

chains before me. You have lost, so you must die." -

- Thordred's grin mocked her calm decision.

"And a woman continues to rule our land. Never in history has this shame been

put upon us. Always we have been ruled by men-warriors!"

"You call me weakling!" Zana snarled at him. "By all the

gods, you are rash, Thordred. You know well that I've never

shirked battle, and that my sword has been swift to slay. I

am strong as a man and more cunning than you." - -

"Yet you are a woman," Thordred taunted recklessly. "Kill me, if you wish, but

you cannot deny your sex."

A shadow darkened Zana's face as she glared venomously

at her mocker. --- -

"Aye, I shall kill you," she said. "So slowly that you will beg for a merciful

death. Then the vultures will pick your carcass clean on the Mountain of the

Gods."

Thordred suddenly shouted with laughter.

"Save your words, wench. It is just like a woman to threaten with words. A

man's vengeance is with a spear, swift and sudden. I-"

He paused, and a curious light grew in his amber eyes. - His -great body

tensed as Thordred listened.

In the distance, a tumult grew louder and louder, like the beating of the sea.

Suddenly it was thundering through the throne room.

Zana sprang to her feet, her lips parted in astonishment.

The vast doors at the end of the room burst inward. Through the portal poured

a yelling mob.

"Thordred!" they roared. "Ho, Thordred!"

The giant grinned victoriously at Zana.

"Some are still faithful to me, it seems. They would rather see a man on the

throne-"

A blistering curse burst from Zana's lips. She snatched a spear from a guard

and savagely drove its point at the prisoner. But Thordred sprang aside,

laughing, the muscles rolling effortlessly under his tawny skin.

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THECREATUREFROMBEYONDINFINITYBYHENRYKUTTNERPOPULARLIBRARY•NEWYORKAllPOPULARLIBRARYbooksarecarefullyselectedbythePOPULARLIBRARYEditorialBoardandrepresenttitlesbytheworld'sgreatestauthors.POPULARLIBRARYEDITIONCopyright,1940,byBetterPubUcations,Inc.Copyright(c)1968byPopularLibrary,Inc.PRINTEDINTHEUNITE...

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