Lydia said quietly, “I shall be brief since you are no doubt planning high policy and further military campaigns. I have come here at the request of my grandson, Lord Clane Linn.”
“The mutation!” Czinczar nodded. His remark was noncommittal, an identification, not a comment.
Lydia felt an inward shock that Czinczar’s knowledge of the ruling faction should extend to Clane, who had tried to keep himself in the background of Linnan life. She dared not pause to consider the potentialities. She continued quietly. “Lord Clane is a temple scientist, and, as such, he has for many years been engaged in humanitarian scientifc experiments. Most of his equipment unfortunately is here in Linn.” Lydia shrugged. “It is quite valueless to you and your men, but it would be a great loss to civilization if it were destroyed or casually removed. Lord Clane therefore requests that you permit him to send slaves to his town house to remove these scientific instruments to his country estate. In return -”
“Yes,” echoed Czinczar, “in return -” His tone was ever so faintly derisive; and Lydia had a sudden realization that he was playing with her. It was not a possibility that she could pay any attention to.
“In retrn,” she said, “he will pay you in precious metals and jewels any reasonable price which you care to name.” Having finished, she took a deep breath and waited.
There was a thoughtful expression on the barbarian leader’s face. “I have heard,” he said, “of Lord Clane’s experiments with the so-called” – he hesitated – “god metals of Linn. Very curious stories, some of them; and as soon as I am free from my military duties, I intend to examine this laboratory with my own eyes. You may tell your grandson,” he continued with a tone of finality, “that his little scheme to retrieve the greatest treasures in the entire Linnan empire was hopeless from the beginning. Five spaceships descended in the first few minutes of the attack on the estate of Lord Clane to insure that the mysterious weapons there were not used against my invading fleet, and I consider it a great misfortune that he himself was absent in the country at the time. You may tell him that we were not caught by surprise by his midnight attempt two days ago to remove the equipment and that his worst fears as to its fate are justified.” He finished, “It is a great relief to know that most of his equipment is safe in our hands.”
Lydia said nothing. The phrase, “You may tell him,” had had a profound chemical effect on her body.
She hadn’t realzed she was so tense. It seemed to her that if she spoke she would reveal her own tremendous personal relief. “You may tell him -” There could be only one interpretation. She was going to be allowed to depart. Once more she waited.
Czinczar walked forward until he was standing directly in front of her. Somethng of his barbarous origin, so carefully suppressed until now, came into his manner. A hint of a sneer, the contempt of a physically strong man for decadence, a feeling of genuine basic superiority to the refinement that was in Lydia. When he spoke, he showed that he was consciously aware that he was granting mercy.
“Old woman,” he said, “I am letting you go because you did me a great favor when you maneuvered your son, Lord Tews, into the – what did he call it – Lord Advisership. That move, and that alone, gave me the chance I needed to make my attack on the vast Linnan empire.” He smiled. “You may depart, bearing that thought in mind.”
For some time, Lydia had condemned the sentimental action that had brought Tews into supreme power. But it was a different matter to realize that, far away in interplanetary space, a man had analyzed the move as a major Linnan disaster. She went out without another word.
Czinczar slowly climbed the hill leading up to the low, ugly fence that fronted Lord Clane’s town house. He paused at the fence, recognized the temple building material of which it was composed – and then walked on thoughtfully. With the same narrow-eyed interest a few minutes later, he stared at the gushing fountains of boiling water. He beckoned finally to the engineer who had directed the construction of the spaceships that had brought his army to Earth. “How does it work?” he asked.
The designer examined the base of the fountain. He was in no hurry, a big fattish man with a reputation for telling jokes so coarse that strong men winced with shame. He had already set up house in one of the great palaces with three Linnan girls as mistresses and a hundred Linnan men and women as slaves. He was a happy man, with little personal conceit and very little pride as yet to restrain his movements. He located the opening into the fountain and knelt in the dirt like any worker. In that, however,he was not unique. Czinczar knelt beside him, little realizing how his actions shocked the high-born Linnans who belonged to his personal slave retinue. The two men peered into the gloom. “Temple building material,” said Meewan, the designer.
Czinczar nodded. They climbed to their feet without further comment, for these were matters that they had discussed at length over a period of years. At the house, a few minutes later, the leader and his henchman both lifted the heavy draperies that covered the walls of a corridor leading into the main laboratory. Like the fence outside, the walls were warm as from some inner heat.
Temple building material! Once again no comment passed between them. They walked on into the laboratory proper; and now they looked at each other in amazement. The room had been noticeably enlarged from its original size, although this they did not know. A great section had been torn out of one wall, and the gap, although it was completely filled in, was still rough and unfinished. But that was only the environment. On almost every square yard of the vast new floor were machines opaque and machines transparent, machines big and small, some apparently complete, others unmistakably mere fragments.
For a moment there was a distinct sense of too much to see. Czinczar walked forward speculatively, glanced at several of the transparent articles with an eye that tried to skim the essentials of shape and inner design. At no time during those first moments did he have any intention of pausing for a detailed examination. And then, out of the corner of his eye he caught a movement.
A glow. He bent down and peered into a long, partly transparent metal case, roughly shaped like a coffin, even as to the colorful and costly-looking lining. The inside, however, curved down to form a narrow channel. Along this channel rolled a ball of light. It turned over sedately, taking approximately one minute to cover the distance to the far side. With the same lack of haste, it paused, seemed to meditate on its next action, and then, with immense deliberation began its return journey.
The very meaningless of the movement fascinated Czinczar. He extended his hand gingerly to withn an inch of the ball. Nothing happened. He drew back and pursed his lips. In spite of his attack on Linn, he was not a man who took risks. He beckoned toward a guard. “Bring a slave,” he said. Under his direction a former Linnan nobleman, perspiring from every pore, extended his finger and touched the moving ball. His finger went in as if there were nothing there.
He drew back, startled. But the inexorable Czinczar was not through with him. Once more the reluctant, though no longer quite so fearful, finger penetrated the moving ball. The ball rolled into it, through it, beyond it. Czinczar motioned the slave aside and stood looking at him thoughtfully. There must have been something of his purpose in his face, for the man gave a low cry of horror: “Master, I understand nothing of what I have seen. Nothing. Nothing.”
“Kill him,” said Czinczar.
He turned, scowling, back to the machine. “There must be,” he said, and there was a stubborn note in his glorious voice, “some reason for its movements, for – its existence.”
Half an hour later he was still examining it.
“If I could only -” thought Clane many times. And knew that he dared not. Not yet.
He had with a certain cynicism permitted the soldiers sent by Lord Tews to remove his equipment to Linn. This included the prize of all his findings, a ball that rolled to and fro in a coffinlike container; a discovery of the golden age that had shaken his certainties to the core of his being.
Because of the ball of energy he had not hesitated to let Tews take control of the artifacts of that ancient and wonderful culture.