the glass was thick, perfectly clear. only its glimmer in the sun said they were imprisoned. beyond the field, the ever dying and growing jungle undulated like a green sea. just outside the glass, the ladder lay on the gravel where the patrolman had dropped it—within arm's reach and it might as well have been light years away.
"look!" dorothy cried. "the scratch on my finger's already healed." she held up her finger and there was no mark on it. vulcan's power was working, building a life then to tear it down. each soul-wringing second created beauty, clear blue-eyed, honey-haired beauty—to transform it as swiftly into ugliness....
it was the first time in norman's eventful life that he had ever stared defeat in the face. he had met death before and he had been in some pretty tight spots but always there had been some way out. not here. there was no possible way to climb a twenty-foot wall of perpendicular oil-slick glass.
"i'm afraid i've failed you, dorothy," he said. in his mind now was only the thought of something he must not do. he couldn't allow her to go through the horror he had seen on johnny's gray face. after two hours, when he saw the first gray hair—he looked down at his hands. they were his only weapons against a longer torture. could he kill dorothy with his own hands...?
"well," dorothy broke in on his thoughts. "sade wins; and when we go, the whole universe is next." her voice was a full octave lower than norman had first heard it when she appeared at his galley door.
norman walked over and stood before her. "whatever happens," he said, "i want you to know this—that i've fallen in love with you. you're the bravest woman i've ever known and the most beautiful. that combination usually doesn't go together."
she looked up at him with very blue and serious eyes. "i've been in love with you for a long time," she said. "ever since i first saw your picture in the paper. that's why i came with you."
her words were cut off by norman's lips. then quickly he left her and walked back to the glass, staring out at the wind-whipped jungle. why wait? why go through this torture any longer? get it over with now!
"gods of the universe, forgive me," he whispered and turned to take her throat in his hands.
light flashed across his face. it was dorothy's mirror. she held it, smoothing her sun-burnished hair. a thought burst into his consciousness like a butterfly from a cocoon.
he jumped over and snatched the mirror from her hand, ripped his watch from his wrist and flipped off the crystal with his thumbnail, letting the watch drop to the ground.
"what're you doing!"
he didn't bother to answer. his pulse was liquid fire as he held the watch crystal close to the glass wall with one hand and focused the rays of the sun into it with the mirror. a thin curl of smoke rose from the jungle across the field. then where the smoke had been an orange flame licked up from the dry grass. he dropped the mirror and the watch crystal and grabbed dorothy close to him in the center of their prison, holding her tightly.
"why! why!"
"you'll see!"
lashed by the wind, the fire spread like a flood. a blast of smoke engulfed the glass obscuring their view with its swirling whiteness. then bits of flaming ashes dotted the smoke as the flames found new fuel in the rotted trees. standing there, holding dorothy in his arms, norman saw the glass around them slowly darken. quickly, as the wind brought the increasing heat upon them, the glass turned black and all he could see was the wild smoke rolling across the hole at the top of their stifling cage. he felt dorothy coughing. heat swam in the blackness about them.
then almost as suddenly as it had begun, the wind swept the smoke away and norman tore himself away from dorothy and sprang to the glass wall. without waiting till the glass lightened, he ran his hand across its blistering surface. when the thermal quality of the glass permitted the passage of light and the sight of the smoldering forest across the field, norman was half way up the slick side, climbing like a ladder the bulging ridges that encircled the glass at its invisible seams.
as dorothy stared at him, unbelieving, he vaulted over the rim and jolted with stinging feet to the hot gravel outside. the metal ladder was like a live coal in his hands but he barely felt it as he threw it against the wall and ran up it like a squirrel. sitting on the cooling rim, he drew the ladder up after him and dropped it inside for dorothy.
soon they were streaking across the steaming gravel toward the house, dorothy's hair streaming in the smoky wind.
norman burst into the big front room with dorothy behind him. their running feet were loud in the silent house as they sped down the corridor, norman dreading what he would find tied to the cylinder where they had left keren. "you don't want to see this," he said, halting at the closed door. "try these other doors and find a gun. sade may be back any moment!"
dorothy obediently turned away as he went in and the sight that met his eyes was to figure in many a future nightmare. half way between the door and the cylinder, keren lay on the floor, more like some hideous reptile than a human being, staring up at him, her eyes two black holes, hate alive in them, the only life in what was left of her face.
norman stepped over and picked her up, his fingers recoiling from the touch of leathern skin and bone. her luxurious hair had vanished leaving a skull, cracked skin tight across her cheek bones. the rope that had held her to the cylinder had slipped from her shrunken wrists and how she had crawled this far, norman couldn't tell.
he carried her to the cylinder, opened the heavy cap and drew out the small hose that sade had used to restore to youth the white rat. quickly, he sprayed the pink liquid upon her face and body—a treatment that was to rewrite all of medical science. her cheeks swelled again to the form of a living face and like a trick of superimposed motion picture work, before his eyes keren's skeletal structure became covered again with firm, rounded flesh, and on her head wispy black threads appeared and extended again into a silken sable mass.
to save the spark of life that remained with johnny, norman knew he had to get this material back to earth now; which meant a finish fight for a space ship. "are you strong enough now? we've got to ambush sade."
it was an effort for keren to reorganize her forgotten coordinations which enabled her to speak. her lips moved soundlessly as he carried her to the door and down the passage. he explained quickly how he and dorothy had escaped.
"there are guns in the tower," she managed to whisper as they entered the front room.
dorothy stood at the door with two jet rifles, peering out at the still deserted field. "i found these in their bedroom," she said, handing norman one of the guns. "is she all right? i thought—"
norman told her what he had done to revive keren. "but here's what we do," he said, lowering keren to a sofa. "sade will see the empty cage and know there's something wrong when he comes in to land. he will probably attack the house. we've got to get back in the cage. keren can vaccinate you," he nodded to dorothy, allaying her hesitation. "when they land, i'll jump out and take care of as many as i can. keren can get the rest from the tower."
"there's a glass cutter in the store room," keren said, nodding her approval of the plan. her cheeks were white as paper but she got up and walked unsteadily from the room.
"the liquid brought her back from the grave," norman whispered to dorothy, watching keren walk up the hall.
keren returned immediately, and gave norman the glass-cutter, which was an instrument shaped like a small riveting hammer. "one promise," she asked. "sade's mine. i'll be in the tower. you've got to save him for me."
keren took her hypodermic from her pocket and, at norman's smile, dorothy permitted the needle to enter her arm. "all right. let's go."
with the cutter in one hand and the rifle in the other, norman left the house again with dorothy running beside him.
at the glass cage again, it was short work to cut a narrow door at the base of the smooth wall. with an eye on the horizon, norman quickly covered the cutter with gravel, then motioned dorothy into the invisible enclosure that had been their prison and so nearly their mausoleum. "we'll play dead," he explained, stretching out on the gravel with the two rifles hidden under him. dorothy lay down beside him. "when they leave the ship and come over here, i'll jump out. you stay inside in case they get a chance to shoot back."
suddenly the air hummed with the flow of rockets. "here they are!" but the sound told norman that his job was doubled in danger. there were two ships now, the other, his own. they'd repaired it.
rockets idling, they hovered over the field and slowly settled. sade's group was now split in two parties—he couldn't surprise them both....
"don't move!" norman whispered, feeling dorothy's soft hair against his cheek. his fingers tightened on the guns under his body. his pulse was loud in his ears. if they suspected something? but it was too late for worry now. he heard footsteps on the gravel as the sound of the rockets sputtered and died away.
the next second was a lifetime. then suddenly he was on his feet. he whirled, ducked out through the hole in the glass. the guns in his hands were spitting their red streams, before his eyes found the men before him, and he played the guns like two garden hoses, spraying death. the two patrolmen fell, charred and black. but the two groups had ruined his ambush. swart sprang aside, behind the glass wall as the flame streaked past him. norman saw sade standing in the door of the ship, staring at the wild scene. the door was slammed shut as norman's guns splattered the hull with fire. then the fight was between him and swart alone.
on the opposite sides of the ring of glass, dorothy standing there horrified between them, it was one of the strangest situations in norman's experience. the glass was impervious to jet fire. dorothy was perfectly safe. but as norman moved around the wall to get a shot at swart, the dark little man also moved, keeping the arc of glass between them. it couldn't continue. a sudden sheet of flame rushed past one side of the glass, sade firing from the ship. swart was not slow to take advantage of the opportunity. quickly he slid around the wall to corner norman against sade's fire.
norman stood waiting, rifles poised to blast swart's gun barrel as it nosed past the curve of glass. but swart was no fool. he was playing for time. norman heard the throbbing as sade started his rockets. sade was moving the ship to trap him between their guns.
norman started to jump back through the hole in the glass. but that would be suicide; while swart guarded the door, sade could pick them off from above in the ship. then an idea whispered in norman's mind. if he could lure swart from the protection of the glass into keren's sights in the the tower—if he could trust keren—but there was nothing else to do. he ducked into the enclosure beside dorothy.
swart laughed. norman could hear it inside the glass. quickly, swart stepped to the edge of the hole, his pistol covering their exit, smiling at them through the wall. "you ain't very bright, norman." it was the last breath that ever passed his lips, for a long, thin line of flame suddenly stretched from the tower to the small of his back. swart dropped without a sound, surprise on his dead face.
but sade's ship was already in the air.
"he'll come and strafe us!" norman shouted to dorothy above the roar of the rockets. he took her hand, dragged her out of the cage past swart's body. they had to get to the cruiser; their only hope was a fight with sade in the air. but the sound of sade's rockets stopped norman in his tracks as he started to dash for the cruiser. sade's ship was skimming the field, twenty feet off the ground, his rockets sputtering like a gasoline engine with a broken piston.
the ship was headed directly toward the house, apparently unable to rise. then norman saw what had happened. keren's rifle had hit the rise rocket tube. the heavily repaired solder work had burned through. unable to gain altitude, the ship hurtled into the house like a freight plane gone wild. the plastic walls ripped like tinfoil as the ship's heavy nose plowed into the building just below the tower.
there was no explosion. the impact killed the rockets. dust plumed up like a geyser, disappeared swiftly in the wind, leaving the ship hanging there tail out, stuck in the building like an arrow.
norman and dorothy were at the door before the debris stopped falling. the front room was choked with dust and bits of torn plastic rained from the ceiling as they ran down the shadowy corridor. the door leading to the tower stairs hung on its hinges, admitting a beam of sunlight from the demolished upper story. they ran up the broken stairs, swaying precariously. the cracked hull of the ship lay in the debris of what remained of the tower. the wall had been sheared off level with the floor on one side and swaying out from the foundation below a misty rainbow sparkled its colors in the sunlight, hissing softly as the red fluid escaped from a pipe hidden in the wreckage. sade's well around which the house was built had split in the crash.
leaving dorothy at the top of the stairs, norman climbed over the chunks of plastic into the tower room. then he realized his foolhardiness. too late. a chill tingled the back of his neck as he saw the ship's port hanging open.
he heard dorothy's warning cry behind him as he turned around slowly.
sade's grimy bulk stood beside a chunk of plastic at the edge of the littered floor. the sunlight glistened on the pistol in his hand, as it squirted a stream of red flame upon the barrel of norman's rifle. the gun dropped from norman's blistered fingers.
"you thought you could escape what vulcan and i can do," sade said. "none can escape us, for vulcan and i control the universe from now on." he pointed his pistol to the floor at norman's feet and pulled the trigger. norman stepped back as the flame licked up around his shoes. "keep walking until you fall into that rainbow down there!"
"wait, sade!" norman stepped back again as the line of fire followed him. "there's no time for this. that pipe's going to burst wide open any moment!" he shifted from one foot to another, the soles of his shoes burning.
"jump," sade said quietly. he raised the gun higher.
norman retreated another step. two feet lay between him and the edge of the sheared wall, the end of the floor, and then the misty lethal colors hissing ten feet below.
dorothy scrambled over the plastic wreckage and threw herself at sade, but the flat of his palm met her face and hurled her aside. the line of fire moved to norman's toes again, and he stepped back his last step. like a cobra wavering before its prey, the flame swept back and forth across the floor, inches from norman's toes, scorching the floor under his feet. he glanced down at the crimson mist, leaping like a fountain under the splinters of plastic jutting out over it. then he realized that fate had given him his chance—for a price.
he had come to vulcan to find something to save johnny's life. in the tank in the cruiser out on the field was the fluid that could do that. on the broken wall below him, just over the fountain of death, a piece of the wreckage jutted outward two feet—he could leap to that, swing clear of the mist and reach the ship and be free. he could save johnny—by leaving dorothy behind.
there could be no compromise. he had no doubt that sade would kill her the instant he realized the trick.
norman glanced back into sade's triumphant smile. suddenly he returned the smile and laughed out loud. "when'd you take your last vaccination, sade!" he laughed. "did you know your hair had turned white?"
sade held his smile as steady as his gun. "i'm not leaving you and look for a mirror," he said. "no tricks will save you this time. those shots are good for 24 hours."
"not with all this raw stuff in the air," norman laughed. "look how your hands have withered."
"what matter," sade said, "my fountain of youth can restore me again." but his smile loosened, and quick as light his glance dropped to his hands. norman's knees straightened like steel springs. the length of flame seared his hip as he sprang. then his fist piled into sade's heavy jaw.
the gun flew out and down into the mist. sade hit the floor rolling and struggled to his feet as norman was on him like a hurricane. he crossed jabs into his face with both fists then stepped back and swung a long arc that crushed the big man's nose. sade stumbled backward, screamed, arms flailing the air wildly, and fell backward off the edge of the floor.
norman stepped over and looked down. deep in the eery rainbow mist that swirled around him, sade scrambled to his feet and looked around frantically, confused with the colors. his hair turned snow white, his round cheeks tightened across the bones of his face and his big belly vanished in his baggy clothes. he held his hands up before his face and forgot norman to stare at his skeleton-like fingers. then, his hands still raised before his eyes, he sank to the ground as his legs collapsed. the shoes fell off his bony feet as he lay there writhing.
norman shook his head, rubbed his eyes. sade wasn't writhing. it was the wind rustling his clothes.
norman found dorothy's sunlit head pressed against his shoulder as she cried like a baby. he touched her hair gently, then turned to the wreckage of the tower.
a moment's search in the debris disclosed keren's broken form. he lifted her dead weight in his arms and with dorothy behind him went quickly down the stairs. in the front room, he laid keren on the sofa and, risking one moment more, jerked a tapestry from the wall and gently covered her body. then they ran out of the house and across the field to the cruiser.
as he helped dorothy through the port he heard a cyclone roar from the house. he shoved dorothy in, jumped in after her and slammed the door. through the glass, they watched the house fly to pieces like a bursting bomb as a giant flower of red spouted high over the field. then, where the house had been, stood a wavering red column, feet thick, towering above the green jungle. it sprayed down upon the cruiser like a scarlet rain.
they stared at the vivid scene until the red film covered the cabin windows. then norman thumped the tank around the cabin wall, heard its dull fullness, and walked into the pilot room and sat down at the controls. "there's plenty in the tank for johnny," he said, "and there's plenty on vulcan for the universe."
"what shall we name it?" dorothy said.
as they soared away from the planet and their increasing speed washed the red film from the glass. norman looked at the dwindling green globe that was vulcan and lived again, swiftly, all that had happened there. and strangely, now that it was over, one phrase whispered in his mind. i'll owe you a thousand kisses....
"let's name it 'kerine,'" he said. "we owe her more than we can ever repay."
the word "kerine" was being shouted in every street and across every backyard fence in the universe two days later and it was a tense moment outside a closed white door in a hospital in new york city. although the surgery was on the fifteenth floor, norman and dorothy could hear the clamor in the street below as thousands halted traffic for blocks around and the policemen stood by with folded arms, smiling. downstairs, the lobby was packed with photographers and reporters, waiting.
as the white door opened, norman and dorothy jumped to their feet. norman could hear his heart thumping above the noise from the street as he looked down at the sheet-covered stretcher the nurses rolled out the door. as the stretcher rolled into the hall, the face appeared and deep within his pounding heart, norman yelled his joy. johnny's face was pale and thin, as if recently recovered from a long illness, but it was johnny's face, his barber-shy black hair tousled on his forehead.
"hello, chum," johnny said. "the doc told me all about it." then he glanced at dorothy. "so that's her."
"she's got exclusive rights to the story," norman grinned.
"i can't wait to get back in a full dress suit," johnny said. "for the wedding."
