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diff --git a/32836.txt b/32836.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7addc6a --- /dev/null +++ b/32836.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1034 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of When the Mountain Shook, by Robert Abernathy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: When the Mountain Shook + +Author: Robert Abernathy + +Illustrator: Kelly Freas + +Release Date: June 16, 2010 [EBook #32836] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE MOUNTAIN SHOOK *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + WHEN THE MOUNTAIN SHOOK + + By Robert Abernathy + + Illustrated by Kelly Freas + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science +Fiction March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that +the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: _Dark was the Ryzga mountain and forbidding; steep were its +cliffs and sheer its crevasses. But its outward perils could not compare +with the Ryzgas themselves, who slept within, ready to wake and +conquer...._] + + +At sunset they were in sight of the Ryzga mountain. Strangely it towered +among the cliffs and snow-slopes of the surrounding ranges: an immense +and repellently geometric cone, black, its sides blood-tinted by the +dying sun. + +Neena shivered, even though the surrounding cold could not reach her. +The ice-wind blew from the glacier, but Var's love was round her as a +warming cloak, a cloak that glowed softly golden in the deepening +twilight, even as her love was about him. + +Var said, "The Watcher's cave should be three miles beyond this pass." +He stood rigid, trying to catch an echo of the Watcher's thoughts, but +there was nothing. Perhaps the old man was resting. From the other +direction, the long way that they two had come, it was not difficult to +sense the thought of Groz. That thought was powerful, and heavy with +vengeance. + +"Hurry," said Neena. "They're closer than they were an hour ago." + +She was beautiful and defiant, facing the red sunset and the black +mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He +felt a wave of tenderness and bitterness. For him she had come to this. +For the flame that had sprung between them at the Truce of New Grass, +she had challenged the feud of their peoples and had left her home, to +follow him. Now, if her father and his kinsmen overtook them, it would +be death for Var, and for Neena living shame. Which of the two was worse +was no longer a simple problem to Var, who had grown much older in the +last days. + +[Illustration] + +"Wait," he commanded. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to +the crags that loomed over the pass, and to the frozen ground underfoot. +It was black night, as it would really be when Groz and his henchmen +reached this place; lurid fire spewed from the Ryzga mountain, and +strange lights dipped above it; and for good measure there was an +avalanche in the dream, and hideous beasts rushed snapping and ravening +from the crevices of the rock. + +"Oh!" cried Neena in involuntary alarm. + +Var sighed, shaking his head. "It won't hold them for long, but it's the +best I can do now. Come on." + +There was no path. Now they were descending the steeper face of the +sierra, and the way led over bottomless crevasses, sheer drops and sheer +ascents, sheets of traitorous glare ice. Place after place had to be +crossed on the air, and both grew weary with the effort such crossings +cost. They hoarded their strength, helping one another; one alone might +never have won through. + +It was starry night already when they saw the light from the Watcher's +cave. The light shone watery and dim from beneath the hoary back of the +glacier, and as they came nearer they saw why: the cave entrance was +sealed by a sheet of ice, a frozen waterfall that fell motionless from +the rocks above. They heard no sound. + +The two young people stared for a long minute, intrigued and fearful. +Both had heard of this place, and the ancient who lived there to keep +watch on the Ryzga mountain, as a part of the oldest legends of their +childhood; but neither had been here before. + +But this was no time for shyness. Var eyed the ice-curtain closely to +make sure that it was real, not dream-stuff; then he struck it boldly +with his fist. It shattered and fell in a rain of splinters, sparkling +in the light that poured from within. + + * * * * * + +They felt the Watcher rouse, heard his footsteps, and finally saw him--a +shrunken old man, white-haired, with a lined beardless face. The sight +of him, more marred by age than anyone they had ever seen before, was +disappointing. They had expected something more--an ancient giant, a +tower of wisdom and strength. The Watcher was four hundred years old; +beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy. + +The Watcher peered at them in turn. "Welcome," he said in a cracked +voice. He did not speak again; the rest of his conversation was in +thought only. "Welcome indeed. I am too much alone here." + +"You were asleep!" said Var. Shock made his thought accusing, though he +had not meant to be. + +The old man grinned toothlessly. "Never fear. Asleep or awake, I watch. +Come in! You're letting in the wind." + +Inside the cave it was warm as summer. Var saw with some surprise that +all the walls were sheathed in ice--warm to the touch, bound fast +against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from +the ice walls, till there was no shadow in the place. Behind them began +a tinkling of falling water, thawed from the glacial ridges above to +descend sheet-wise over the cave mouth, freezing as it fell into +lengthening icicles. The old man gazed at his work for a moment, then +turned questioningly to the young pair. + +"We need a little rest out of the cold," said Var. "And food, if you can +spare it. We're pursued." + +"Yes, yes. You shall have what I can give you. Make yourselves +comfortable, and in one minute.... Pursued, eh? A pity. I see the world +is as bad as it was when I was last in it." + +Hot food and drink were before them almost at once. The Watcher regarded +them with compassion as their eyes brightened and some of the shadow of +weariness lifted from them. "You have stolen your enemy's daughter, no +doubt, young man? Such things happened when I was young." + +Warming to the old man now, Var sketched his and Neena's history +briefly. "We should have been safe among my people by now. And before +very long, I'm sure, I would have performed some deed which Groz would +recognize as a worthy exploit, and would thus have healed the feud +between our families. But our flight was found out too soon. They cut us +off and forced us into the mountains, and now they are only a few hours +behind us." + +"A pity, indeed. I would like to help you--but, you understand, I am the +Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families." + +Var nodded somberly, thinking that an old recluse would in any case be +able to do little for them against Groz and his violent kinsfolk. + +"And what will you do now?" + +Var grinned mirthlessly. "We haven't much choice, since they're +overtaking us. I have only one idea left: we can go where Groz may fear +to follow us." + +"To the mountain, you mean." + +"And into it, if need be." + +The Watcher was broodingly silent; his eyes shifted to Neena, where she +nestled by Var's side. He asked, "And you--are you willing to follow +your lover in this?" + +Neena returned his gaze without flinching; then she looked sidelong at +Var, and her lips curled with a proud and tender mockery. "Follow? Why, +I will lead, if his courage should fail him." + + * * * * * + +The old man said, "It is no part of my duty to dissuade you from this +thing. You are free persons. But I must be sure that you know what you +are doing. That is the second part of the law the First Watcher made: to +guard lest the unwary and the ignorant should bring harm on themselves +and on all men." + +"We know the stories," Var said brusquely. "In the hollow heart of their +mountain the Ryzgas sleep, as they chose to do when their world +crumbled. But if they are wakened, the mountain will tremble, and the +Ryzgas will come forth." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"As one believes stories." + +"It is true," said the Watcher heavily. "In my youth I penetrated +farther into the mountain than anyone before, farther even than did the +First Watcher. I did not see the sleepers, nor will any man until they +come again, but I met their sentries, the sentinel machines that guard +them now as they have for two thousand years. When I had gone that far, +the mountain began to shake, the force that is in the Earth rumbled +below, and I returned in time." Now for the first time Var sensed the +power in the old man's look, the power of four hundred years' wisdom. +Var stared down at his hands. + +"The Ryzgas also were men," said the Watcher. "But they were such a race +as the world has not seen before or since. There were tyrannies before +the Ryzgas, there was lust for power, and atrocious cruelty; but such +tyranny, power, and cruelty as theirs, had never been known. They ruled +the Earth for four generations, and the Earth was too little for them. +They laid the world waste, stripped it of metals and fuels and bored to +its heart for energy, poisoned its seas and its air with the fume of +their works, wrung its peoples dry for their labor ... and in each of +those four generations they launched a ship of space. They were great +and evil as no other people has been, because they wanted the stars. + +"Because of them we must build with dreams instead of iron, and our only +fire is that of the Sun, and even now, two thousand years later, the +Earth is still slowly recovering from the pangs and poison of that age. +If you turn up the sod in the plain where the wild herds graze, you will +find numberless fragments of rusted or corroded metal, bits of glass and +strange plastic substances, debris of artifacts still showing the marks +of their shaping--the scattered wreckage of the things they made. And +we--we too are a remnant, the descendants of the few out of all humanity +that survived when the Ryzgas' world went down in flame and thunder. + +"In the last generation of their power the Ryzgas knew by their science +that the race of man would endure them no longer. They made ready their +weapons, they mined the cities and the factories for destruction, making +sure that their works and their knowledge would perish with them. +Meanwhile they redoubled the yoke and the punishments, hastening the +completion of the last of the starships. + +"From the memories that the old Watchers have left here, and from the +memories of dead men that still echo in the air, I have gathered a +picture of that world's end. I will show it to you...." + + * * * * * + +Var and Neena stared, unstirring, with wide vacant eyes, while the old +man wove a dream around them, and the bright ice-cave faded from their +vision, and they saw-- + +Black starless night, a sky of rolling smoke above the greatest city +that was ever built. Only the angry light of fires relieved the city's +darkness--that, and the blue-white lightning flashes that silhouetted +the naked skeletons of buildings and were followed by thunder and a +shaking of the earth. + +Along lightless streets, half choked with rubble and with the dead, +poured a mad, hating horde. The recurrent flashes lit scarred faces, +naked bodies blackened and maimed from the hell of the workshops where +the Ryzgas' might had been forged, eyes that stared white and half +sightless from the glare of the furnaces, gnarled hands that now at long +last clutched the weapons of the last rebellion--a rebellion without +hope of new life on a world gutted and smoldering from the fulfilment of +the Ryzgas' dream, without slogans other than a cry for blood. + +Before them death waited around the citadel where the masters still +fought. All round, from the lowest and most poisonous levels of the +shattered city, the slaves swarmed up in their millions. And the +lightning blazed, and the city howled and screamed and burned. + +Then, unbelievably, the thunder fell silent, and the silence swept +outward like a wave, from ruined street to street. The mouths that had +shouted their wrath were speechless, and the rage-blinded eyes were +lifted in sudden awe. From the center, over the citadel, an immense +white globe soared upward, rising swiftly without sound. + +They had never seen its like, but they knew. It was the last starship, +and it was leaving. + +It poised motionless. For an instant the burning city lay mute; then the +millions found voice. Some roared ferocious threats and curses; others +cried desolately--_wait!_ + +Then the whole city, the dark tumuli of its buildings and its leaping +fires and tormented faces, and the black sky over it, seemed to twist +and swim, like a scene under water when a great fish sweeps past, and +the ship was gone. + +The stunned paralysis fell apart in fury. Flame towered over the +citadel. The hordes ran and shrieked again toward the central inferno, +and the city burned and burned.... + + * * * * * + +Var blinked dazedly in the shadowless glow of the ice-cave. His arm +tightened about Neena till she gasped. He was momentarily uncertain that +he and she were real and here, such had been the force of the dream, a +vision of such scope and reality as Var had never seen--no, lived +through--before. With deep respect now he gazed upon the bent old man +who was the Mountain Watcher. + +"Some of the Ryzgas took flight to the stars, and some perished on +Earth. But there was a group of them who believed that their time to +rule would come again. These raised a black mountain from the Earth's +heart, and in hollows within it cast themselves into deathless sleep, +their deathless and lifeless sentinels round them, to wait till someone +dare arouse them, or until their chosen time--no one knows surely. + +"I have told you the story you know, and have shown you a glimpse of the +old time, because I must make sure that you do not approach the mountain +in ignorance. Our world is unwise and sometimes evil, full of arrogance, +folly, and passion that are in the nature of man. Yet it is a happy +world, compared to that the Ryzgas made and will make again." + +The Watcher eyed them speculatively. "Before all," he said finally, +"this is a world where you are free to risk wakening the old tyrants, if +in your own judgment your great need renders the chance worth taking." + +Neena pressed her face against Var's shoulder, hiding her eyes. In her +mind as it groped for his there was a confusion of horror and pity. Var +looked grimly at the Watcher, and would have spoken; but the Watcher +seemed suddenly a very long way off, and Var could no longer feel his +own limbs, his face was a numb mask. Dully he heard the old man say, +"You are tired. Best sleep until morning." + +Var strove to cry out that there was no time, that Groz was near and +that sleep was for infants and the aged, but his intention sank and +drowned under wave upon wave of unconquerable languor. The bright cave +swam and dissolved; his eyelids closed. + + * * * * * + +Var woke. Daylight glimmered through the ice of the cave mouth. He had +been unconscious, helpless, for hours! At the thought of that, panic +gripped him. He had not slept since childhood, and he had forgotten how +it was. + +He came to his feet in one quick movement, realizing in that action that +sleep had refreshed his mind and body--realizing also that a footstep +had wakened him. Across the cave he faced a young man who watched him +coolly with dark piercing eyes that were familiar though he did not know +the face. + +Neena sat up and stifled a cry of fright. Var growled, "Who are you? +Where's the Watcher?" + +The other flashed white teeth in a smile. "I'm the Watcher," he +answered. "Often I become a youth at morning, and relax into age as the +day passes. A foolish amusement, no doubt, but amusements are few here." + +"You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us--" + +"Groz and his people could not detect your thoughts as you slept. They +were all night chasing elusive dreams on the high ridges, miles away." + +Var passed a hand across bewildered eyes. Neena said softly, "Thank you, +Watcher." + +"Don't thank me. I take no sides in your valley feuds. But now you are +rested, your minds are clear. Do you still mean to go on to the Ryzga +mountain?" + +Not looking at the Watcher, Var muttered unsteadily, "We have no +alternative." + +There was a liquid tinkling as the ice-curtain collapsed; the fresh +breeze of morning swept into the cave. The youth beckoned to them, and +they followed him outside. + +The glacial slope on which the cavern opened faced toward the mountain. +It rose black and forbidding in the dawn as it had by sunset. To right +and left of it, the grand cliffs, ocher and red, were lit splendidly by +the morning sun, but the mountain of the Ryzgas drank in the light and +gave nothing back. + +Below their feet the slope fell away into an opaque sea of fog, filling +a mile-wide gorge. There was a sound of turbulent water, of a river +dashed from rock to rock in its struggle toward the plain, but the +curling fog hid everything. + +"You have an alternative," said the Watcher crisply. The two took their +eyes from the black mountain and gazed at him in sudden hope, but his +face was unsmiling. "It is this. You, Var, can flee up the canyon to the +north, by a way I will show you, disguising your thoughts and masking +your presence as well as you are able, while the girl goes in the other +direction, southward, without seeking to conceal herself. Your pursuers +will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will +be too late for them to overtake Var." + +That possibility had not occurred to them at all. Var and Neena looked +at one another. Then by common consent they blended their minds into +one. + +They thought, in the warm intimacy of unreserved understanding: "_It +would work: I-you would make the sacrifice of shame and mockery--yet +these can be borne--that I-you might be saved from death--which is alone +irreparable.... But to become_ I _and_ you _again--that cannot be +borne._" + +They said in unison, "No. Not that." + +The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, "Very well. I will +give you what knowledge I have that may help you when you enter the +Ryzga mountain." + +Quickly, he impressed on them what he had learned of the structure of +the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little +dizzied by the rapid flood of detail. + +"You are ready to go," said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice +was cracked and harsh. Var opened his eyes in surprise, and saw that the +Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night. + +Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion; only by its echo in Neena's +mind did he recognize it as a sense of guilt. He said stiffly, "You +don't blame us?" + +"You have taken life in your own hands," rasped the Watcher. "Who does +that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!" + + * * * * * + +They groped through the fog above blank abysses that hid the snarling +river, crept hand in hand, sharing their strength, across unstable dream +bridges from crag to crag. Groz and his pack, in their numbers, would +cross the gorge more surely and swiftly. When Var and Neena set foot at +last on the cindery slope of the great volcanic cone, they sensed that +the pursuit already halved their lead. + +They stood high on the side of the Ryzga mountain, and gazed at the +doorway. It was an opaque yet penetrable well of darkness, opening into +the face of a lava cliff, closed only by an intangible curtain--so +little had the Ryzgas feared those who might assail them in their sleep. + +Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently, +head thrown back, to their echoes that returned. The tunnel beyond +slanted steeply downward. Var's hands moved, molding a radiant globe +from the feeble sunshine that straggled through the fog-bank. With an +abrupt motion he hurled it. The sun-globe vanished, as if the darkness +had drunk it up, but though sight did not serve they both sensed that it +had passed through to light up the depths beyond. For within the +mountain something snapped suddenly alert--something alive yet not +living, seeing yet blind. They felt light-sensitive cells tingle in +response, felt electric currents sting along buried, long-idle +circuits.... + +The two stood shivering together. + +The morning wind stirred, freshening, the fog lifted a little, and they +heard a great voice crying, "There they are!" + +Var and Neena turned. Far out in the sea of fog, on a dream bridge that +they could not see, stood Groz. He shook the staff he carried. It was +too far to discern the rage that must contort his features, but the +thought he hurled at them was a soundless bellow: "Young fools! I've +caught you now!" + +Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows. +Neena's hand tightened on Var's. Var sent a thought of defiance: "Go +back! Or you'll drive us to enter the mountain!" + +Groz seemed to hesitate. Then he swung his staff up like a weapon, and +for the two on the mountainside the world turned upside down, the +mountain's black shoulder hung inverted above them and the dizzy gulf of +sky was beneath. Var fought for footing with his balance gone, feeling +Neena reel against him until, summoning all his strength, he broke the +grip of the illusion and the world seemed to right itself. The mist +billowed again and Groz was out of sight, but they could hear him +exhorting his men to haste. + +Neena's face was deadly pale and her lips trembled, but her urgent +whisper said, "Come on!" + +Together they plunged into the curtain of darkness. + + * * * * * + +At Var's thought command Neena froze instantly. "Feel that!" he +muttered, and she, listening, sensed it too: the infinitesimal trickle +of currents behind what appeared to be a blank tunnel wall, a rising +potential that seemed to whisper _Ready ... ready.... _ + +The sun-globe floated behind them, casting light before them down the +featureless tunnel that sloped always toward the mountain's heart. Var +summoned it, and it drifted ahead, a dozen feet, a little more-- + +Between wall and wall a blinding spindle of flame sprang into being, +pulsed briefly with radiant energy that pained the eyes, and went out. +The immaterial globe of light danced on before them. + +"Forward, before the charge builds up again!" said Var. A few feet +further on, they stumbled over a pile of charred bones. Someone else had +made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into +these uncharted regions, and only the utmost alertness of mind and sense +had saved them from death in traps like this. But as yet the way was not +blocked.... + +Then they felt the mountain begin to tremble. A very faint and remote +vibration at first, then an increasingly potent shuddering of the floor +under their feet and the walls around them. Somewhere far below immense +energies were stirring for the first time in centuries. The power that +was in the Earth was rising; great wheels commenced to turn, the +mechanical servitors of the Ryzgas woke one by one and began to make +ready, while their masters yet slept, for the moment of rebirth that +might be near at hand. + +From behind, up the tunnel, came a clear involuntary thought of dismay, +then a directed thought, echoing and ghostly in the confinement of the +dark burrow: + +"_Stop!_--before you go too far!" + +Var faced that way and thought coldly: "Only if you return and let us go +free." + +In the black reaches of the shaft his will groped for and locked with +that of Groz, like the grip of two strong wrestlers. In that grip each +knew with finality that the other's stubbornness matched his own--that +neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world +outside should crumble to ruin around them. + +"Follow us, then!" + +They plunged deeper into the mountain. And the shaking of the mountain +increased with every step, its vibrations became sound, and its sound +was like that of the terrible city which they had seen in the dream. +Through the slow-rolling thunder of the hidden machines seemed to echo +the death-cries of a billion slaves, the despair of all flesh and blood +before their monstrous and inhuman power. + +Without warning, lights went on. Blinking in their glare, Var and Neena +saw that fifty paces before them the way opened out into a great rounded +room that was likewise ablaze with light. Cautiously they crept forward +to the threshold of that chamber at the mountain's heart. + +Its roof was vaulted; its circular walls were lined with panels studded +with gleaming control buttons, levers, colored lights. As they watched +light flicked on and off in changing patterns, registering the +progressive changes in the vast complex of mechanisms for which this +must be the central control station. Behind those boards circuits opened +and closed in bewildering confusion; the two invaders felt the rapid +shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum.... + +For long moments they forgot the pursuit, forgot everything in wonder at +this place whose remotest like they had never seen in the simplicity of +their machineless culture. In all the brilliant space there was no life. +They looked at one another, the same thought coming to both at once: +perhaps, after two thousand years, the masters were dead after all, and +only the machines remained? As if irresistibly drawn, they stepped over +the threshold. + +There was a clang of metal like a signal. Halfway up the wall opposite, +above a narrow ramp that descended between the instrument panels, a +massive doorway swung wide, and in its opening a figure stood. + +Var and Neena huddled frozenly, half expecting each instant to be their +last. And the Ryzga too stood motionless, looking down at them. + + * * * * * + +He was a man of middle height and stocky build, clad in a garment of +changing colors, of fabric delicate as dream-stuff. In his right hand, +with the care one uses with a weapon, he grasped a gleaming metal tube; +his other hand rested as for support against the frame of the doorway. +That, and his movements when he came slowly down the ramp toward them, +conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet +not wholly roused from his two millenia of slumber. But the Ryzga's +manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and +assurance of self that smote them like a numbing blow. + +With a new shock, Var realized that the Ryzga's thoughts were quite +open. They had a terse, disconnected quality that was strange and +unsettling, and in part they were couched in alien and unintelligible +symbols. But there was no block. Apparently the Ryzga felt no need to +close his mind in the presence of inferior creatures.... + +He paused with his back to the central control panel, and studied the +interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new, +but not novel, species of insect. His thoughts seemed to click, like +metal parts of a mechanism falling into places prepared for them. The +image occurred oddly to Var, to whom such a comparison would ordinarily +have been totally strange. + +"Culture: late barbarism. Handwork of high quality--good. Physically +excellent stock...." There was a complicated and incomprehensible +schemata of numbers and abstract forms. "The time: two thousand +years--more progress might have been expected, if any survivors at all +initially postulated; but this will do. The pessimists were mistaken. We +can begin again." Then, startlingly super-imposed on the cool +progression of logical thought, came a wave of raw emotion, devastating +in its force. It was a lustful image of a world once more obedient, +crawling, laboring to do the Ryzgas' will--_toward the stars, the +stars!_ The icy calculation resumed: "Immobilize these and the ones +indicated in the passage above. Then wake the rest...." + +Var was staring in fascination at the Ryzga's face. It was a face formed +by the custom of unquestioned command; yet it was lined by a deeply +ingrained weariness, the signs of premature age--denied, overridden by +the driving will they had sensed a moment earlier. It was a sick man's +face. + +The Ryzga's final thought clicked into place: _Decision!_ He turned +toward the switchboard behind him, reaching with practised certainty for +one spot upon it. + +Neena screamed. + +Between the Ryzga and the control panel a nightmare shape reared up +seven feet tall, flapping black amorphous limbs and flashing red eyes +and white fangs. The Ryzga recoiled, and the weapon in his hand came up. +There was an instantaneous glare like heat lightning, and the monster +crumpled in on itself, twitched briefly and vanished. + +But in that moment a light of inspiration had flashed upon Var, and it +remained. As the Ryzga stretched out his hand again, Var acted. The +Ryzga froze, teetering off balance and almost falling, as a numbing grip +closed down on all his motor nerves. + +Holding that grip, Var strode across the floor and looked straight into +the Ryzga's frantic eyes. They glared back at him with such hatred and +such evil that for an instant he almost faltered. But the Ryzga's +efforts, as he strove to free himself from the neural hold, were as +misdirected and unavailing as those of a child who has not learned to +wrestle with the mind. + +Var had guessed right. When Neena in her terror had flung a dream +monster into the Ryzga's way--a mere child's bogey out of a fairy +tale--the Ryzga had not recognized it as such, but had taken it for a +real being. Var laughed aloud, and with great care, as one communicates +with an infant, he projected his thoughts into the other's mind. "There +will be no new beginning for you in _our_ world, Ryzga! In two thousand +years, we've learned some new things. Now at last I understand why you +built so many machines, such complicated arrangements of matter and +energy to do simple tasks--it was because you knew no other way." + +Behind the hate-filled eyes the cold brain tried to reason still. +"Barbarians...? Our party was wrong after all. After us the machine +civilization could never rise again, because it was a fire that consumed +its fuel. After us _man_ could not survive on the Earth, because the +conditions that made him great were gone. The survivors must be +something else--capacities undeveloped by our science--after us the end +of man, the beginning.... But those of us who chose to die were right." + +The tide of hate and sick desire rose up to drown all coherence. The +Ryzga made a savage, wholly futile effort to lift the weapon in his +paralyzed hand. Then his eyes rolled upward, and abruptly he went limp +and fell in a heap, like a mechanical doll whose motive power has +failed. + +Var felt Neena beside him, and drew her close. As she sobbed her relief, +he continued to look down absently at the dead man. When at last he +raised his head, he saw that the drama's end had had a further audience. +In the outer doorway, backed by his clansmen, stood Groz, gazing first +in stupefaction at the fallen Ryzga, then with something like awe at +Var. + +Var eyed him for a long moment; then he smiled, and asked, "Well, Groz? +Is our feud finished, or does your ambition for a worthy son-in-law go +beyond the conqueror of the Ryzgas?" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's When the Mountain Shook, by Robert Abernathy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE MOUNTAIN SHOOK *** + +***** This file should be named 32836.txt or 32836.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/8/3/32836/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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