ages.
Those snakes of light along the floor did not seem to give out any radiance — the place was blacker than any night above ground. Yarol's light-tube suddenly stabbed downward, and Yarol's voice said from the dark,
“Whew! Should have bottled some of that to take home. Well, what d'you say, N.W.? Do we leave with the dust or without it?”
“Without it,” said Smith slowly. “I'm sure of that much, anyhow. But we can't leave it here.
The man would simply send others, you know. With blasting material, maybe, if we said the place was buried. But he'd get it.”
Yarol's beam shifted, a white blade in the dark, to the gray, enigmatic mound beside him. In the glare of the Tomlinson-tube it lay inscrutably, just as it had lain for all the eons since the god forsook it — waiting, perhaps, for this moment. And Yarol drew his gun.
“Don't know what that image was made of,” he said, “but rock or metal or anything else will melt into nothing in the full-power heat of a gun.”
And in a listening silence he flicked the catch. Blue-white and singing, the flame leaped irresistibly from his muzzle — struck full in an intolerable violence of heat upon that gray mound which had been a god. Rocks would have melted under the blast. Rocket-tube steel would have glowed molten. Nothing that the hands of man can fashion could have resisted the heat-blast of a ray-gun at full strength. But in its full blue glare the mound of dust lay motionless.
Above the hissing of the flame Smith heard Yarol's muttered “ Shar! ” of amazement. The gun muzzle thrust closer into the gray heap, until the crystal began to glow in the reflected heat and blue sparks spattered through the darkness. And very slowly the edges of the mound began to turn red and sullen. The redness spread. A little blue flame licked up; another.
Yarol flipped off the gun catch and sat watching as the dust began to blaze. Presently, as the brilliance of it grew stronger, he slid down from his pedestal and made his precarious way along the slippery crystal to the floor. Smith scarcely realized that he had come. His eyes were riveted on the clear, burning flame that was once a god. It burned with a fierce, pale light flickering with nameless evanescent colors — the dust that had been Pharol of the utter darkness burning slowly away in a flame of utter light.
And as the minutes passed and the flame grew stronger, the reflections of it began to dance eerily in the crystal walls and ceiling, sending long wavers downward until the floor was carpeted with dazzles of flame. An odor of unnamable things very faintly spread upon the air
— smoke of dead gods. . . . It went to Smith's head dizzily, and the reflections wavered and ran together until he seemed to be suspended in a space while all about him pictures of flame went writhing through the dark — pictures of flame — nebulous, unreal pictures waving across the walls and vanishing — flashing by uncertainly overhead, running under his feet, circling him round from wall to wall in reeling patterns, as if reflections made eons ago on another world and buried deep in the crystal were waking to life at the magic touch of the burning god.
With the smoke eddying dizzily in his nostrils he watched — and all about him, overhead, underfoot, the strange, wild pictures ran blurrily through the crystal and vanished. He thought he saw mighty landscapes ringed by such mountains as none of today's world know . . . he thought he saw a whiter sun than has shone for eons, lighting a land where rivers thundered between green banks . . . thought he saw many moons parading across a purple night wherein shone constellations that haunted him with familiarity in the midst of their strangeness . . .
saw a green star where red Mars should be, and a far pin-prick of white where the green point that is Earth hangs. Cities reeled past across the crystal darkness in shapes stranger than any that history records. Peaks and spires and
Those snakes of light along the floor did not seem to give out any radiance — the place was blacker than any night above ground. Yarol's light-tube suddenly stabbed downward, and Yarol's voice said from the dark,
“Whew! Should have bottled some of that to take home. Well, what d'you say, N.W.? Do we leave with the dust or without it?”
“Without it,” said Smith slowly. “I'm sure of that much, anyhow. But we can't leave it here.
The man would simply send others, you know. With blasting material, maybe, if we said the place was buried. But he'd get it.”
Yarol's beam shifted, a white blade in the dark, to the gray, enigmatic mound beside him. In the glare of the Tomlinson-tube it lay inscrutably, just as it had lain for all the eons since the god forsook it — waiting, perhaps, for this moment. And Yarol drew his gun.
“Don't know what that image was made of,” he said, “but rock or metal or anything else will melt into nothing in the full-power heat of a gun.”
And in a listening silence he flicked the catch. Blue-white and singing, the flame leaped irresistibly from his muzzle — struck full in an intolerable violence of heat upon that gray mound which had been a god. Rocks would have melted under the blast. Rocket-tube steel would have glowed molten. Nothing that the hands of man can fashion could have resisted the heat-blast of a ray-gun at full strength. But in its full blue glare the mound of dust lay motionless.
Above the hissing of the flame Smith heard Yarol's muttered “ Shar! ” of amazement. The gun muzzle thrust closer into the gray heap, until the crystal began to glow in the reflected heat and blue sparks spattered through the darkness. And very slowly the edges of the mound began to turn red and sullen. The redness spread. A little blue flame licked up; another.
Yarol flipped off the gun catch and sat watching as the dust began to blaze. Presently, as the brilliance of it grew stronger, he slid down from his pedestal and made his precarious way along the slippery crystal to the floor. Smith scarcely realized that he had come. His eyes were riveted on the clear, burning flame that was once a god. It burned with a fierce, pale light flickering with nameless evanescent colors — the dust that had been Pharol of the utter darkness burning slowly away in a flame of utter light.
And as the minutes passed and the flame grew stronger, the reflections of it began to dance eerily in the crystal walls and ceiling, sending long wavers downward until the floor was carpeted with dazzles of flame. An odor of unnamable things very faintly spread upon the air
— smoke of dead gods. . . . It went to Smith's head dizzily, and the reflections wavered and ran together until he seemed to be suspended in a space while all about him pictures of flame went writhing through the dark — pictures of flame — nebulous, unreal pictures waving across the walls and vanishing — flashing by uncertainly overhead, running under his feet, circling him round from wall to wall in reeling patterns, as if reflections made eons ago on another world and buried deep in the crystal were waking to life at the magic touch of the burning god.
With the smoke eddying dizzily in his nostrils he watched — and all about him, overhead, underfoot, the strange, wild pictures ran blurrily through the crystal and vanished. He thought he saw mighty landscapes ringed by such mountains as none of today's world know . . . he thought he saw a whiter sun than has shone for eons, lighting a land where rivers thundered between green banks . . . thought he saw many moons parading across a purple night wherein shone constellations that haunted him with familiarity in the midst of their strangeness . . .
saw a green star where red Mars should be, and a far pin-prick of white where the green point that is Earth hangs. Cities reeled past across the crystal darkness in shapes stranger than any that history records. Peaks and spires and
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