Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/97

Rh, lined with blank, shining walls. He turned right, at a venture. He went up a short flight of steps and across a landing, to a cross corridor, and turned right once more. All at once he heard voices. That is to say, his mind heard them, for sound as he knew it simply did not exist. He realized then that Elemental had no atmosphere, in its three-dimensional sense; and, without atmosphere mere can be no sound. He was in a world of the mind, of the elemental. Another thought came. Rather, it was a sensation. His body was becoming heavier. His sight was a trifle blurred. He seemed to be subtly balancing between real and unreal. With understanding, sweat started on his forehead. The effect of the vibrational inoculation was evidently passing. The seven aeons were coming to an end. He must hurry hurry.

He rounded a corner and halted abruptly. Before him was a wide foyer spaced with cones of gleaming metal. Beyond them showed, at the head of a short ramp, a narrow door slightly ajar. There came to him the hum of hidden dynamos.

In a space to the left, between a group of cones, three Elementals were crouched. They appeared to be playing some kind of game. Their backs were to him, yet somehow he knew an awareness of something alien had touched them. Against a wall leaned a curiously shaped tube, obviously some kind of stungun, with a push-button trigger midway along its shining length. He snatched at it just as discovery came. They were turning, when he fired—twice, thrice. The soundless discharge took them point blank and they collapsed into a state of mindless inertia. For how long? He did not know.

He was more concerned to know the whereabouts of the fourth guard, the one whose gun he held. The open door suggested that the elemental had left his comrades to inspect or service some kind of machinery.

He stepped quickly inside. Evidently for greater security, bolts were fitted on either side of the door. He shot them fast and turned to look about him.

He was confronted by an enormous instrument panel, rising in tiers, polished and gleaming. At its center, floor level, was an arrangement resembling the console of an organ, its keyboard set in horizontal rows of colored discs. Over it bent an Elemental. The fourth guard! There was no evidence that this humanoid was armed. As he slowly turned, as if sensing another and hostile presence, his face showed dead-white and ageless, loose-lipped, eyes fixed in an expressionless stare.

He had picked up a bar of some kind of metal, and now he confronted the simian creature with desperate threat.

"Stop! I suppose an elemental can die, like any other form of life. Call for help make a move of