CHAPTER XV. THE HOUSE OF NORHALA
Her eyes closed, her body relaxed; the potion had done its work quickly.We laid her beside Ventnor on the pile of silken stuffs, covered themboth with a fold, then looked at each other long and silently--and Iwondered whether my face was as grim and drawn as his.
"It appears," he said at last, curtly, "that it's up to you and me forpowwow quick. I hope you're not sleepy."
"I am not," I answered as curtly; the edge of nerves in his manner ofquestioning doing nothing to soothe my own, "and even if I were I wouldhardly expect to put all the burden of the present problem upon you bygoing to sleep."
"For God's sake don't be a prima donna," he flared up. "I meant nooffense."
"I'm sorry, Dick," I said. "We're both a little jumpy, I guess." Henodded; gripped my hand.
"It wouldn't be so bad," he muttered, "if all four of us were allright. But Ventnor's down and out, and God alone knows for how long. AndRuth--has all the trouble we have and some special ones of her own. I'vean idea"--he hesitated--"an idea that there was no exaggeration in thatstory she told--an idea that if anything she underplayed it."
"I, too," I replied somberly. "And to me it is the most hideous phaseof this whole situation--and for reasons not all connected with Ruth," Iadded.
"Hideous!" he repeated. "Unthinkable--yet all this is unthinkable.And still--it is! And Ventnor--coming back--that way. Like a lost soulfinding voice.
"Was it raving, Goodwin? Or could he have been--how was it he put it--intouch with these Things and their purpose? Was that message--truth?"
"Ask yourself that question," I said. "Man--you know it was truth. Hadnot inklings of it come to you even before he spoke? They had to me.His message was but an interpretation, a synthesis of facts I, for one,lacked the courage to admit."
"I, too," he nodded. "But he went further than that. What did he mean bythe Keeper of the Cones--and that the Things--were vulnerable under thesame law that orders us? And why did he command us to go back to thecity? How could he know--how could he?"
"There's nothing inexplicable in that, at any rate," I answered."Abnormal sensitivity of perception due to the cutting off of allsensual impressions. There's nothing uncommon in that. You have its mostfamiliar form in the sensitivity of the blind. You've watched the samething at work in certain forms of hypnotic experimentation, haven't you?
"Through the operation of entirely understandable causes the mind gainsthe power to react to vibrations that normally pass unperceived; is ableto project itself through this keying up of perception into a wider areaof consciousness than the normal. Just as in certain diseases of the earthe sufferer, though deaf to sounds within the average range of hearing,is fully aware of sound vibrations far above and far below those thehealthy ear registers."
"I know," he said. "I don't need to be convinced. But we accept thesethings in theory--and when we get up against them for ourselves wedoubt.
"How many people are there in Christendom, do you think, who believethat the Saviour ascended from the dead, but who if they saw it todaywould insist upon medical inspection, doctor's certificates, aclinic, and even after that render a Scotch verdict? I'm not speakingirreverently--I'm just stating a fact."
Suddenly he moved away from me, strode over to the curtained ovalthrough which Norhala had gone.
"Dick," I cried, following him hastily, "where are you going? What areyou going to do?"
"I'm going after Norhala," he answered. "I'm going to have a showdownwith her or know the reason why."
"Drake," I cried again, aghast, "don't make the mistake Ventnor did.That's not the way to win through. Don't--I beg you, don't."
"You're wrong," he answered stubbornly. "I'm going to get her. She's gotto talk."
He thrust out a hand to the curtains. Before he could touch them, theywere parted. Out from between them slithered the black eunuch. He stoodmotionless, regarding us; in the ink-black eyes a red flame of hatred. Ipushed myself between him and Drake.
"Where is your mistress, Yuruk?" I asked.
"The goddess has gone," he replied sullenly.
"Gone?" I said suspiciously, for certainly Norhala had not passed us."Where?"
"Who shall question the goddess?" he asked. "She comes and she goes asshe pleases."
I translated this for Drake.
"He's got to show me," he said. "Don't think I'm going to spill anybeans, Goodwin. But I want to talk to her. I think I'm right, honestly Ido."
After all, I reflected, there was much in his determination to recommendit. It was the obvious thing to do--unless we admitted that Norhala wassuperhuman; and that I would not admit. In command of forces we did notyet know, en rapport with these People of Metal, sealed with that alienconsciousness Ruth had described--all these, yes. But still a woman--ofthat I was certain. And surely Drake could be trusted not to repeatVentnor's error.
"Yuruk," I said, "we think you lie. We would speak to your mistress.Take us to her."
"I have told you that the goddess is not here," he said. "If you do notbelieve it is nothing to me. I cannot take you to her for I do not knowwhere she is. Is it your wish that I take you through her house?"
"It is," I said.
"The goddess has commanded me to serve you in all things." He bowed,sardonically. "Follow."
Our search was short. We stepped out into what for want of better wordsI can describe only as a central hall. It was circular, and strewn withthick piled small rugs whose hues had been softened by the alchemy oftime into exquisite, shadowy echoes of color.
The walls of this hall were of the same moonstone substance that hadenclosed the chamber upon whose inner threshold we were. They whirledstraight up to the dome in a crystalline, cylindrical cone. Fourdoorways like that in which we stood pierced them. Through each of theircurtainings in turn we peered.
All were precisely similar in shape and proportions, radiating in alunetted, curved base triangle from the middle chamber; the curvature ofthe enclosing globe forming back wall and roof; the translucent slicingsthe sides; the circle of floor of the inner hall the truncating lunette.
The first of these chambers was utterly bare. The one opposite held ahalf-dozen suits of the lacquered armor, as many wicked looking, shortand double-edged swords and long javelins. The third I judged to be thelair of Yuruk; within it was a copper brazier, a stand of spears and agigantic bow, a quiver full of arrows leaning beside it. The fourth roomwas littered with coffers great and small, of wood and of bronze, andall tightly closed.
The fifth room was beyond question Norhala's bedchamber. Upon its floorthe ancient rugs were thick. A low couch of carven ivory inset with goldrested a few feet from the doorway. A dozen or more of the chests werescattered about and flowing over with silken stuffs.
Upon the back of four golden lions stood a high mirror of polishedsilver. And close to it, in curiously incongruous domestic array stooda stiffly marshaled row of sandals. Upon one of the chests were heapedcombs and fillets of shell and gold and ivory studded with jewels blueand yellow and crimson.
To all of these we gave but a passing glance. We sought for Norhala.And of her we found no shadow. She had gone even as the black eunuch hadsaid; flitting unseen past Ruth, perhaps, absorbed in her watch over herbrother; perhaps through some hidden opening in this room of hers.
Yuruk let drop the curtains, sidled back to the first room, we afterhim. The two there had not moved. We drew the saddlebags close, proppedourselves against them.
The black eunuch squatted a dozen feet away, facing us, chin upon hisknees, taking us in with unblinking eyes blank of any emotion. Thenhe began to move slowly his tremendously long arms in easy, soothingmotion, the hands running along the floor upon their talons in arcsand circles. It was curious how these hands seemed to be endowed with avolition of their own, independent of the arms upon which they swung.
And now I could see only the hands, shuttling so smoothly, sorhythmically back and forth--weaving so sleepily, so sleepily back andforth--black
hands that dripped sleep--hypnotic.
Hypnotic! I sprang from the lethargy closing upon me. In one quick sideglance I saw Drake's head nodding--nodding in time to the movement ofthe black hands. I jumped to my feet, shaking with an intensity of rageunfamiliar to me; thrust my pistol into the wrinkled face.
"Damn you!" I cried. "Stop that. Stop it and turn your back."
The corded muscles of the arms contracted, the claws of the slitheringpaws drew in as though he were about to clutch me; the ebon pools ofeyes were covered with a frozen film of hate.
He could not have known what was this tube with which I menaced him,but its threat he certainly sensed and was afraid to meet. He squatteredabout, wrapped his arms around his knees, crouched with back toward us.
"What's the matter?" asked Drake drowsily.
"He tried to hypnotize us," I answered shortly. "And pretty nearly did."
"So that's what it was." He was now wide awake. "I watched those handsof his and got sleepier and sleepier--I guess we'd better tie Mr. Yurukup." He jumped to his feet.
"No," I said, restraining him. "No. He's safe enough as long as we're onthe alert. I don't want to use any force on him yet. Wait until we knowwe can get something worth while by doing it."
"All right," he nodded, grimly. "But when the time comes I'm telling youstraight, Doc, I'm going the limit. There's something about that humanspider that makes me itch to squash him--slowly."
"I'll have no compunction--when it's worth while," I answered as grimly.
We sank down again against the saddlebags; Drake brought out a blackpipe, looked at it sorrowfully; at me appealingly.
"All mine was on that pony that bolted," I answered his wistfulness.
"All mine was on my beast, too," he sighed. "And I lost my pouch in thatspurt from the ruins."
He sighed again, clamped white teeth down upon the stem.
"Of course," he said at last, "if Ventnor was right in that--thatdisembodied analysis of his, it's rather--well, terrifying, isn't it?"
"It's all of that," I replied, "and considerably more."
"Metal, he said," Drake mused. "Things of metal with brains of thinkingcrystal and their blood the lightnings. You accept that?"
"So far as my own observation has gone--yes," I said. "Metallic yetmobile. Inorganic but with all the quantities we have hitherto thoughtonly those of the organic and with others added. Crystalline, of course,in structure and highly complex. Activated by magnetic-electric forcesconsciously exerted and as much a part of their life as brain energyand nerve currents are of our human life. Animate, moving, sentientcombinations of metal and electric energy."
He said:
"The opening of the Disk from the globe and of the two blasting starsfrom the pyramids show the flexibility of the outer--plate would youcall it? I couldn't help thinking of the armadillo after I had time tothink at all."
"It may be"--I struggled against the conviction now strong upon me--"itmay be that within that metallic shell is an organic body, somethingsoft--animal, as there is within the horny carapace of the turtle, thenacreous valves of the oyster, the shells of the crustaceans--it may bethat even their inner surface is organic--"
"No," he interrupted, "if there is a body--as we know a body--it mustbe between the outer surface and the inner, for the latter is crystal,jewel hard, impenetrable.
"Goodwin--Ventnor's bullets hit fair. I saw them strike. They did notricochet--they dropped dead. Like flies dashed up against a rock--andthe Thing was no more conscious of their striking than a rock would havebeen of those flies."
"Drake," I said, "my own conviction is that these creatures areabsolutely metallic, entirely inorganic--incredible, unknown forms. Letus go on that basis."
"I think so, too," he nodded; "but I wanted you to say it first. Andyet--is it so incredible, Goodwin? What is the definition of vitalintelligence--sentience?
"Haeckel's is the accepted one. Anything which can receive a stimulus,that can react to a stimulus and retains memory of a stimulus must becalled an intelligent, conscious entity. The gap between what we havelong called the organic and the inorganic is steadily decreasing. Do youknow of the remarkable experiments of Lillie upon various metals?"
"Vaguely," I said.
"Lillie," he went on, "proved that under the electric current and otherexciting mediums metals exhibited practically every reaction of thehuman nerve and muscle. It grew weary, rested, and after restingwas perceptibly stronger than before; it got what was practicallyindigestion, and it exhibited a peculiar but unmistakable memory. Also,he found, it could acquire disease and die.
"Lillie concluded that there existed a real metallic consciousness. Itwas Le Bon who first proved also that metal is more sensitive thanman, and that its immobility is only apparent. (Le Bon in 'Evolution ofMatter,' Chapter eleven.)
"Take the block of magnetic iron that stands so gray and apparentlylifeless, subject it to a magnetic current lifeless, what happens? Theiron block is composed of molecules which under ordinary conditions aredisposed in all possible directions indifferently. But when the currentpasses through there is tremendous movement in that apparently inertmass. All of the tiny particles of which it is composed turn and shiftuntil their north poles all point more or less approximately in thedirection of the magnetic force.
"When that happens the block itself becomes a magnet, filled with andsurrounded by a field of magnetic energy; instinct with it. Outwardly ithas not moved; actually there has been prodigious motion."
"But it is not conscious motion," I objected.
"Ah, but how do you know?" he asked. "If Jacques Loeb* is right, thataction of the iron molecules is every bit as conscious a movement asthe least and the greatest of our own. There is absolutely no differencebetween them.
"Your and my and its every movement is nothing but an involuntary andinevitable reaction to a certain stimulus. If he's right, then I'm abuttercup--but that's neither here nor there. Loeb--all he did wasto restate destiny, one of humanity's oldest ideas, in the terms oftropisms, infusoria and light. Omar Khayyam chemically reincarnated inthe Rockefeller Institute. Nevertheless those who accept his theorieshave to admit that there is essentially no difference between theirimpulses and the rush of filings toward a magnet.
"Equally nevertheless, Goodwin, the iron does meet Haeckel's threetests--it can receive a stimulus, it does react to that stimulus and itretains memory of it; for even after the current has ceased it remainschanged in tensile strength, conductivity and other qualities that weremodified by the passage of that current; and as time passes this memoryfades. Precisely as some human experience increases wariness, caution,which keying up of qualities remains with us after the experiencehas passed, and fades away in the ratio of our sensitivity plusretentiveness divided by the time elapsing from the originalexperience--exactly as it is in the iron."
* Professor Jacques Loeb, of the Rockefeller Institute, New York, "The Mechanistic Conception of Life."