Page:Amazing Stories Volume 21 Number 06.djvu/80

80 ANIL seemed to have certain trouble with her work. There were always disturbing factors in the human equation "upstairs," and the movements of the dolls in the reproduction city had to allow for, to adapt themselves to, the observed variant moments introduced by the humans in the scene above — those for whom she had no dolls. This mental forecasting of the movements of humans over whom she had not control seemed very difficult. I imagine it was something like having a fleet of robot-planes under radio control and suddenly finding the fleet of controlled planes flying through another fleet of friendly planes piloted by friendly humans with whom one must not allow the bomb-carrying robots to collide. For she sometimes had humans driving cars under control, and that was ticklish work with cars or trucks cutting in and out. She was "just practicing." Practicing—with human lives risked because of her practice? Practicing for what? She would not say, only to give me an enigmatic look with those other-world eyes of hers; a look full of the mystery of her alien wisdom, as though to say:

"I would tell you if your poor Earth-mind could comprehend."

I was never complimented by this exclusion of myself from her plans. Still, I knew she had not decided whether I was truly a friend or just someone to use and forget. Someone to trust and confide in, or someone to watch and guard against no matter what her emotions.

So I waited, and worked, building my harnesses and batteries to her order. It was a job to build a hundred of those things by hand; without help. For I had no intention of teaching the know-how to any "helpers".

Nightly my sleep was filled with dreams similar to my first dream there in the caverns; dreams of the worship of Tanit. And nightly it seemed to me that the two women contended gently over which owned my heart—Tanil, or Kyra. This contention seemed to be robbing me of some deep pleasure, some terrific fulfillment that would give full understanding of what these women's mysterious efforts were leading toward—what their goal.

How could the two things hinge together? I could not understand. These women seemed to be waiting for me to decide between them; in dreams quite openly waiting; in the day-time activity subtly, hiddenly waiting. Perversely I gave no sign which one my deepest affections preferred. For I did not truly know, and feared to lose one by preferring the other. Time went on, and Nueces Panot and his white-robed priests waited too, and watched. And I knew he was vastly more to be feared than Tanil realized. I spoke of this to Kyra.

"This death's head priest of 'love' who stalks around here—the one I dreamed stabbed you—how is it he is still trusted and powerful? Why does Tanil not see that he is plotting something, that he is danger?"

Kyra said:

"Tanil is biding her time. If she made the first move, he would have the sympathy of the other priests as one unjustly dealt with. They would be troublesome to handle, as the workers here follow them pretty blindly. But if he makes a break, then she can deal with him openly and it will be understood he is in the wrong."

Y NOW I had realized that Tanil's full purpose with her dolls was a full and unbreakable control of this city with her dolls. And after that the control of other and greater cities, and in time the whole government itself. I realized that she could do this without anyone "upstairs" being any the wiser that they were not in truth ruling themselves.

She could move into Washington tomorrow, and, after her dolls of the chief figures of government were made, she could at any time control the whole workings of the government from a distance. I could understand how this could pay off richly commercially. But I was not sure that such a goal was Tanil's real purpose. What was her purpose? She could take control now, what was she waiting for? Why "practice," if her practice was unobserved? It didn't seem to matter whether her control was perfect or not. They would not know the difference on the surface. Not them, not they who laugh if one mentions witchcraft seriously as existant.

But whatever Tanil's real purpose, things happened to throw her and Kyra and myself into a peril that superseded all her work toward that goal. It told me, too, why she waited.

Nueces Panot was not alone. There were a group of priests who, as Kyra said, "served Tanit as she served the Devil, very