Robert Grandon 02 Prince of Peril Read online

  *Zarovian unit of lineal measurement. About two-thirds of an earth mile.

  "I have signaled for a car," said Pangar. "It will be here soon."

  As I watched, a tiny gleaming speck became visible far out over the valley. Its apparent size grew larger with amazing rapidity, and in a few seconds I saw that it was a long, octagonal vehicle, pointed at each end, and constructed of the shimmering, transparent material.

  It came to a stop beside the narrow landing platform without any perceptible jar or sound, and we all hurried down to meet it. When we reached the platform I found that round doors, hinged above, had been thrown open along the entire length of the vehicle.

  Into one of these the princess and I were ushered by Pangar. The small kroger had kept close at our heels. We had no more than taken the comfortable springy seats when the doors clamped shut; the kroger was left alone on the platform, and we never saw it again—to my relief. The car then started smoothly out over the valley. In a moment it was speeding so rapidly that the landscape, though far below us, became a mere blur.

  It seemed that only a few seconds elasped before the car slowed down once more and we were entering an octagonal opening in the enormous central tower I had previously noticed. Before we entered I had a brief view of hundreds of other similar openings in the tower from which slender, transparent cables radiated in all directions.

  The door snapped open, and as we stepped out on the landing floor Pangar said, "I will conduct you immediately to our Torrogo, as he wishes to greet you in person."

  "How do you know that?" I asked, puzzled.

  "His majesty instantly communicates his wishes by thought-transference to any of his subjects."

  "Then you communicate with each other here by telepathy?"

  "Not with each other," he replied, "except through our Torrogo or a member of the Committee of Twelve—kings who are thought-censors for the emperor. If I wish to communicate with a distant comrade, I send my thought to the member of the committee whose duty it is to watch over my mind. He receives the message and, if he approves, transfers it to my comrade or to the Torrogo."

  As he talked, Pangar led us through a maze of hallways, the decorated floors, walls and ceilings of which were all of the same glasslike substance, but opalescent, so that, with light coming from all directions, we moved without casting shadows. It gave me a queer sense of unreality—as if I were moving in a dream from which I should presently awaken.

  But when we were suddenly ushered into a huge and magnificent throne room, the many octagonal doors of which were guarded by warriors with drawn swords, the ceiling of which was fully a mile above our heads reaching to the very peak of the hive-shaped building, and my eyes beheld for the first time the grandeur of the Imperial Court of Doravia, I felt positive that only in a dream could such splendor have existence. I pinched myself repeatedly to make sure that I was awake.

  My illusion of unreality, however, was instantly dispelled as we were led before the throne. Seated on its scarlet cushions was a powerful and commanding figure of a man. His high forehead and heavy eyebrows, joined at the center, reminded me of Dr. Morgan,- but there the resemblance ceased.

  The nose was Grecian rather than Roman in type, and the clean-cut features had the pale beauty of chiseled marble. It was a face which showed remarkable intellectual power and, at the same time, an utter lack of all sentiment or human sympathy. Although every other man belonging to this strange race was beardless, the ruling monarch wore, at the end of his chin, a narrow, sickle-shaped beard which curved outward and upward, ending in a sharp point.

  Flanking each side of the throne was a row of six lesser thrones, on each of which sat a scarlet-decked individual whose insignia proclaimed the rank of rogo, or king. These rogos, I judged, must comprise the Committee of Twelve referred to by Pangar. On still lower thrones sat the purple-decked nobles of the land, while lining the walls on either side stood the blue-decked plebeians. Beyond these, on the outskirts of the throne, as it were, were massed a few of the gray-decked slaves.

  Tandor stood up as we were brought before his throne—a deference due visiting royalty—and smiled, his black eyes boring into mine as we exchanged salutations. Although his smile was friendly, there was something about the look of his eyes which was not quite human. They appeared snakelike, with a sinister, hypnotic quality that was far from reassuring.

  "You find me in the midst of my multifarious court duties," said Tandor, still smiling, "but I shall terminate them as soon as possible. Meanwhile, permit me to offer you rest and refreshment. Pangar will show you to the quarters provided for your entertainment. I shall join you presently."

  When we were outside the throne room, Pangar issued instructions to a page, who hurried away, to meet us again down the corridor with a girl who wore the scarlet insignia of royalty, followed by the others whose purple ornaments procalimed them daughters of the nobility. The six girls were shapely and quite pretty, but their mistress was beautiful. With a superb figure, glossy black hair and big black eyes, half veiled with long dark lashes, she rivaled the beauty of Loralie herself.

  Yet, on comparing the two I was struck by a marked contrast between them. While the Princess of Tyrhana was the spiritual type of beauty, her every lineament suggesting purity and strength of character, this royal girl of Doravia appeared volumptuous, sensuous and apparently with great strength of purpose—like an exalted odalisque, or perhaps a fallen houri.

  According us the royal salute, to which we resonded in kind, she spoke softly with a low musical voice that, while it betokened culture and refinement, yet had about it a certain husky undertone which was puzzling. Her black eyes, too, I thought had something of that reptilian quality which had shone forth from the orbs of Tandor.

  "I am Xunia of Doravia," she said. "It is the wish of my brother, Torrogo Tandor, that Loralie of Tyrhana be entertained in my apartments until such time as suitable quarters can be prepared for her."

  She held out her hand to Loralie, who took it without hesitation, and the two moved off down a transverse corridor followed by the six handmaidens. Pangar then conducted me to a luxurious suite, whose glasslike furniture was upholstered with chlorophyl green ramph hide tanned to a softness that was almost velvety.

  After a bath and a shave I felt greatly refreshed. "His majesty is now ready to receive you in his private dining room," Pangar then told me.

  A short walk down the corridor brought me to a doorway, octagonal in form, before which two guards stood, sword in hand. At a sign from Pangar they drew back two scarlet curtains, and I entered the room. As the curtains dropped into place behind me I beheld my royal host seated at an octagonal-topped table of translucent scarlet material in a high-backed golden charr upholstered with ramph hide, which was also stained a brilliant scarlet. He arose as I entered and tendered me the royal salute, which I returned. Then 1 took a chair at his right which an unobtrusive servant placed for me.

  "I trust that you will pardon the slimness and coarseness of the fare which I am about to place before you," said Tandor after I had taken my seat, "but, with the exception of the slaves, we of Doravia do not eat or drink as you do in the outer world."

  A slave set a crystal bowl before each of us. Mine was filled with steaming kova, but that which was placed before the Torrogo contained a heavier liquid which seemed to fume rather than to steam. It had an acrid smell which reminded me of the odor of a corrosive acid.

  "May your years be as many as the stars," pledged Tandor as he raised his bowl to his hps.

  "And may yours be as numerous as the rain drops that fall on all Zarovia," I replied, tossing off a draught of kova.

  "Your arrival, O Prince," said Tandor, setting down his bowl, "was timed most opportunely, as you will realize from what I am about to relate to you. For the past two thousand years I have been planning a great experiment—one which if successful will revolutionize the lives both of my kind and yours."

  "That is indeed interesting," I replied as
a platter of chopped mushrooms and grilled ramph steak was set before me. "But—two thousand years?"

  A disk-shaped vessel, black in color, was set before Tandor. Coiled about the handles on each side of the vessel were two insulated wires with electrodes on the ends. Uncoiling them, he inserted an electrode in each ear.

  "I was born five thousand years ago in your country of Olba," he said, "the second son of the Torrogo. I did not covet the throne, preferring scientific research in chemistry, physics and psychology. When I had learned everything the greatest scientists of my time could teach me about these subjects, I began to combine my knowledge of the three with a view to realizing a dream of mine which is perhaps the universal dream of mankind—immortality.

  "As I look back on my earlier efforts I realize how exceedingly crude they were, but after countless experiments and untiring efforts, they worked. ... No doubt you have noticed the great difference between yourself and my people-between my sister Xunia and Princess Loralie."

  "I saw the chest of one of your men, which had been torn open by a ramph," I replied, "and he was evidently no ordinary human being. I also heard talk of depleted power units, and I have noticed that you drink a beverage which smells and looks like fuming acid and that your food is evidently transmitted to you in the form of fluid power."

  "In other words," said Tandor, "you have deduced that we are a race of automatons—machine men. You are right, but I do not believe that there exists anywhere else on any world a race of man-created beings with souls. Nearly five thousand years have elapsed since I cast off forever the frail shell with which nature endowed me to take up my existence in a more enduring body of my own creation.

  "You are of course familiar with the phenomena of personality exchange and telekinesis. You are aware that two men can permanently or temporarily exchange their physical bodies.

  "My problem, then, was to construct a duplicate material body into which my personality could enter, and which would respond to the direction of my will by amplifying the power of telekinesis. The first body which I succeeded in so entering collapsed because of faulty construction, and I barely got back to my own body in time to save it from dissolution and myself from being projected into the great unknown. But I made many others, and when they were at last perfected, I published my discovery in the Empire of Olba.

  "My father had been received into the mercy of Thorth in the meantime, and my brother had succeeded him to the throne. I called on him to join me in immortality, and offered to make every person in the empire an immortal. To my great surprise and disappointment, my offer not only met with rebuff, but a systematized persecution against me and my followers was begun by the more religious of the Thor-thans.*

  "Influenced by the religious leaders, my brother presently 'Followers of the prophet Thorth.

  ordered the banishment of myself and my followers, who remained faithful to me. With less than a thousand of these I came to these shores and subsequent explorations revealed this valley."

  I murmured my astonishment at all this.

  "The only member of my family to accompany me," he went on, "was my sister, Xunia, who had been in sympathy with my plans from the first. As rapidly as I could, I prepared duplicate bodies for my followers, it being necessary to give each body the outward semblance of the body and brain which was to be quitted, else the personality would not enter it.

  "I have always kept many bodies in reserve for myself and for my sister, so we were prepared for almost any emergency. In case the body I occupied broke down I could instantly enter another. If that one broke down or was destroyed, I could enter still another, and so on.

  "The slaves were the only class which was never completely immortalized. Today, immortalization of a slave is a reward for faithful service. You may readily see, therefore, why the food and drink for which I am forced to apologize are of the cruder sort. I am compelled, for the moment, to offer you but the fare of slaves."

  "It is excellent," I replied, "and quite good enough for any king's son."

  "I will find the means to improve it, however, as I expect you to remain here permanently. I have planned a great honor for you."

  "Indeed?"

  "I will explain. As you probably have surmised, there has been no such thing as propagation of the race among my immortals. This did not bother me in a material way. When I lost a follower—which was rarely, as every one has at least one extra body and most of them several—I could immediately replace him from the ranks of my slaves. But there was no love; and after about three thousand years had passed, the defect bothered me emotionally.

  "I knew that the problem which confronted me was considerably more difficult than any on which I had previously worked, but undaunted, I plunged into my studies. Two thousand years of anatomical, histological, embryological, biological, biochemical and psychological research have brought their reward, so that, although today I differ from you physically as much as ever, I have built into my newest bodies and into those of my sister the sexual characteristics of ordinary human beings.

  "Pangar was sent forth today with the object of bringing me two human beings suitable for marriage with royalty. His journey ended almost as soon as it began when he found you and the princess. I therefore offer you the hand of my beloved sister in marriage, and will likewise offer the half of my throne to the Princess Loralie."

  "But if we should decline the honor?"

  "It is unthinkable. Even if you were to decline, either of you, I have means at hand which, I am sure, will cause you to reconsider gladly."

  Removing the electrodes from his ears and draining his bowl, he arose and summoned two pages. To the first, he said, "Instruct the Princess Loralie to prepare for my coming." As the messenger sped away he said to the other, "You will conduct His Highness Torrogi Zinlo of Olba to the apartments of Her Highness Xunia, Torrogina of Doravia."

  As the little page conducted me to the apartments of Princess Xunia I turned over in my mind Tandor's strange story and its revolting sequel. I was going to the apartments of a girl who had been dead five thousand years, but whose soul was bound in a machine. Beautifully and cleverly constructed as it was, it was yet a mere mechanical contrivance—a thing of wheels and cogs, levers and shafts, a thing that fed on electrical energy and drank fuming acid.

  And I was expected—commanded with a none-too-veiled threat—to make love to this travesty on life.

  But Loraliel Somehow I must contrive to live in order to save her.

  The page stopped before an ornate doorway, two guards saluted and opened massive doors. Then a pair of scarlet curtains were drawn back, revealing a luxurious boudoir. "His Highness, Zinlo of Olba," announced the page as I entered the room.

  The curtains fell in place behind me. I heard the guards close the heavy doors.

  As I looked at the beauteous dead-alive creature that reclined on a luxuriously cushioned divan in a scarlet and gold decked recess, a feeling of revulsion swept over me; yet, paradoxically enough, this was combined with admiration. I was revolted at thought of the nearness of this living dead thing, but could not but admire the consummate art that had created so glorious an imitation of the human forrn-

  I realized that if I would live to be of assistance to Loralie I had a part to play.

  Xunia smiled languidly, seductively, as I stood before the raised divan just outside the niche it occupied. With feline grace she extended a slender, dimpled hand. Shuddering inwardly, I took it, expecting to feel the cold clamminess of death. But it was as warm as my own and as natural— from its white back in which a delicate tracery of blue veins showed, to the pink-tipped, tapering fingers. I raised it to my lips and released it, but she clung to my fingers for a moment, pulling me to a seat on a low ottoman just in front of her.

  "Long have I awaited your coming, prince of my heart," she said. "Be not afraid to come near to me, for it is my desire and my command."

  "To be prince of your heart were indeed an honor," I replied, "yet you name me thi
s, having only seen me today."

  "The moment I saw you I knew it was so. Fear not, beloved, that there have been others before you. I am, and have ever been, virgin in mind as in body. Once I thought I loved, yes, but it was long ago, and then I was but a child."

  "You make me very jealous, nevertheless," I said, remembering the part I had to play.

  "I did not really love him, I swear it, dearest." She ran her fingers through my hair in a gentle caress so natural, so womanly, that I found it well-nigh impossible to believe her other than a real princess of flesh and blood. Then, before I realized what she was about, she twined her arms about my neck and kissed me full upon my hps.

  The kiss did not taste of acid, as I had imagined it would, but was like that of a normal, healthy girl, though it aroused in me a feeling of revulsion which I was at some pains to conceal.

  "I go now, beloved, to prepare for your marriage," she said. "Await me here."

  As I stood up, she took my hand and arose gracefully. The time for action had arrived. Yet, as I looked down at the slender, beautiful figure, the long-lashed eyes gazing trustfully up into mine, I hesitated to carry out the plan which I had been contemplating as I sat there on the ottoman before her—a plan with which I hoped to accomplish a double purpose—to rid myself of this machine-monster and to get.her brother away from Loralie, for she would probably summon him telepathically, if in no other way.

  I was trying to think of her as a dead thing in a machine, yet it seemed impossible that she was other than human, so natural was she, and so beautiful. But the thought of Loralie and the danger she was in steeled me to the task.

  Seizing Xunia by her long black hair, I whipped out my stone knife and slashed the artificial muscles of the slim white throat. She gave one startled scream, which ended at the second slash of my knife, and went limp as I jerked the head backward, cracking the metallic structure which took the place of cervical vertebrae. Instead of blood, there spurted from the severed neck a tiny stream of clear fuming liquid, a few drops of which fell on my hand, burning it like molten metal.