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The Scarlet Saint: The SF Classic Unabridged [MultiFormat]
eBook by Manly Banister
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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy
eBook Description:  First Unabridged Book Version! Hailed as a classic when it first appeared in magazine form, the book version of The Scarlet Saint was cut by more than 20,000 words. Critics and fans universally condemned the result. According to Amazing Stories' reviewer S. E. Cotts, this "robbed the story of suspense, as well as its flow. The magazine version is longer and richer in description." Amazing also hailed the original as "written in the style and featuring the tremendous characters which epitomized the Golden AgJye of science fiction. The wealth of descriptive detail, the exciting action and pace, the painstaking construction of plot: all are here, to make an unforgettable experience." In Manly Banister's science fiction classic, Earth has been under the rule of the Trisz for generations. Seemingly benevolent but the Trisz are really looting the planet, for the Trisz feed on pure energy and are robbing Earth of its water supply and all else that makes it habitable. The only hope of Earth lies in the Scarlet Order of Men, the one planet-wide organization that the Trisz tolerate because it is disguised as a religion. The Scarlet Order of Men's only hope lies in Kor Danay, the young mutant whose mental powers are the result of centuries of psychic research by the Order. Kor Danay's only hope lies in Lady Soma, the woman who has sworn to kill him. But, dying could be Kor's and Earth's best hope. With his psychic powers he just might become a God if he dies. And as for Lady Soma, every God needs a Goddess! Here is the original, uncut Scarlet Saint! Deep space, the far future, strange powers and stranger beings, this is a science fiction novel with that often-screamed-for "sense of wonder."
eBook Publisher: Renaissance E Books/PageTurner, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2005
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.2 MB], eReader (PDB) [230 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [217 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [191 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [214 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [248 KB], hiebook (KML) [535 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [314 KB], iSilo (PDB) [178 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [221 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [284 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [282 KB]
Words: 64943
Reading time: 185-259 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
CHAPTER IAfter nineteen years, this was the day of days for Kor Danay. As he had expected, the day dawned clear and bright. Almost every day on Rth was clear; almost every day was bright ... as bright as a turgid, blood-red Sun could make it, shining in a dry, cloudless sky that mellowed from almost black at the zenith to a deep indigo at the horizon. In their season, minus-magnitude stars like Sirius and Antares appeared as blazing spicules of light at high noon. Rth's bare bones, scoured and whitened by desert winds, grisly relics that had long ago worked through the withered flesh of the planet, sucked at the Sun's waning heat, stored it for radiation in the bitter night, when even frost would have softened the cold. In places, of course, soil, humus, desiccated vegetation, and precious moisture still clung obstinately to the brittle chassis of an ancient world. People still toiled for their daily bread, and other people, enjoyed the cake distributed to them by the Trisz, the benevolent Trisz... Kor always awoke easily, but the subconscious prompting was even more effective this morning. He lay blinking on the stone-slab floor of his quarters in the Institute of Manhood. He thought of his first morning at the Institute--when he was six--and he had awakened in this same room, cold, stiff, and tearful. Nineteen years of rigorously practiced sleeping routine had conditioned childish frailties out of his body. The stone on which he lay was hollowed by the restless movements of generations of learners at the Institute. To sleep on harsh stone was pure luxury, after the grueling periods of drill and training to which the initiate Men were subjected. It was morning in late spring, with no sign of an impending sand storm. A fine day, Kor thought, for the Examination which marked his last day at the Institute. There was no such thing as failure of the Examination ... those who lived through it were the ones who did not fail. From where Kor lay against the wall, wrapped in his warm blue cloak, he could look out through the glassless window-opening into the deep indigo sky. The color was like a backdrop against which, in harsh contrast, a small bit of a poplar was to be seen, as it lifted its fluttering crown in a green-gold greeting to the day's first sun. Hail the Sun! Lord of creation! The ritual phrases drifted through Kor's mind. Protector ... Defender ... Shield Arm... Even though Kor didn't believe in the ritual or in the symbol of the Sun, it did not seem right to him that he should concern himself with the Sacred Litany of the People while lying abed. The ritual had been drilled into him these nineteen years past. It was a part of his every action and reactions, cloak and a shield at once, a cover for the work he was trained to perform ... after today had proved his fitness for it. Kor bounded to his feet, shedding his cloak like a chrysalis, and finished the ritual at the window, in company with the Sacred Exercises that flexed and toned every muscle in his lean, powerful young body. A golden giant, Kor stood there, methodically exercising as laid down in Mechanics of Ritual, Section 2A, Subsection D. His skin was golden ... it gleamed like reddish brass in the sunlight. His hair was the sheenless, rich color of hammered gold. He had gray eyes, lean cheeks, a large nose with flaring nostrils, a full underlip, and a chin slightly rounded. He had strength and character fully representative of the Men. He raced through the ritual, easily, fitting the words and cadences to the smooth, muscular movements of the Exercises. The ritual was meaningless ... a recorded whirly-whirl of sounds and nothing more. But here and there were words of meaning, and where the tongue tripped over senseless syllables, the mind dwelt upon the semantic interpolations ... the hidden keys to the power of Manhood. Desire is our scourge, and Need is our blessing ... He chanted the simple-minded concepts with the relish of a connoisseur of their inner meaning, and peered with bright-eyed eagerness upon the sun-drenched newness of his world--no reminder of yesterday, but a glowing promise of tomorrow. A line of poplars tossed in the early breeze. Beyond their screen, the ruffled surface of a small lake-lanced sparkles of divine flame to counterpoint the tranquil indigo of the sky-bowl. Precious water! Water was the life-blood of Rth ... the fluid that failed now in its subterranean veins and arteries, flowed slowly from the bowels of the earth, to vanish and return no more. Rth's seas now were stinking ponds, shrunken in girth and depth. They soon would be gone. When the Trisz removed the last precious drop ... Kor straightened his back. "Resolve is our armor; Will is our Weapon ... Belief in our Lord Faith in our Selves..." He raised his arms aloft, hands clasped, and shook them in more than usual vehemence in the ritual Sign of the Conqueror. From a neighboring chamber suddenly came sounds of young men laughing. Water splashed from huge amphoras, cleansing their bodies, and ran down carefully chiseled channels and drains in the floor, dripped into the purification tanks in the basement and returned thence to the supply tanks in the loft. So rare a commodity was water that it needed to be carefully conserved ... no more permitted to evaporate than was absolutely unavoidable. There was plenty of water to be had at the Institute, of course. It was in the nature of the inhabitants of the Institute that there should be plenty of water. It was a pity that this plenty could not be made available to the People as well ... but this secret was only one of many which the Institute of Manhood kept so carefully concealed from the Trisz, the benevolent Trisz... "Kor!" bawled a male voice from the door. "Still sleeping? ... Ho! I see you ... come on, Man! Clean up for the Examination! Would you take all morning to ritualize at the window?" Kor ducked his head sheepishly, stooped and hurled his sleeping cloak at his comrade. While Jon Moran sputtered and pawed at the enveloping folds Kor thrust laughingly by. "We'll see who is first to wash, Jon!" He dashed into the Lavatory where sparkling streams of cold water cascaded and splashed upon healthy youth. In a moment his own skin red with sparkling streams and droplets as he scrubbed under the downpour of a tilted amphora. They were six, these young Initiates, the largest class ever to be assembled at the Institute for graduation ... and the best, they confidently congratulated themselves. Besides Kor and Jon Moran, there were Rik Meni, Star Rova, Lod Hareth, and Pron Sark ... the only survivors of the hundred novitiates who had entered the Institute together as children, nineteen years before. Novitiates entering the Institute at the age of six spent six years in physical training and in learning the rudiments of secular and religious education. For the following six years, they were termed Students, and received the harshest of physical and mental discipline in their training and studies. Those who proved deficient in physical stamina or mental acumen were at this time transferred to regularization classes for further training, leading to initiation into the Order of the Blue Brothers. The Blue Brothers were an order of the highest religious significance, acknowledging the Sun as Lord of Creation and the Protector of the People. The Blue Brothers were the graduate priests of Rth's Sun-religion. Few were the Students accepted into the Order of Initiates, where seven years of specialized training fitted them for initiation into the Scarlet Order of the Men. This was the prime purpose of the Institute ... to select and train candidates for the Men ... who were the highest type of Manhood on Rth. Their deepest mysteries were held secret against all ... were known only to those who personally were wearers of the scarlet cloak. Thus, the Institute was crowded to capacity with learners, but each year only the meagerest number who survived the lethal training of the Initiates attained to the coveted wearing of scarlet. To be a Man is Greatness ... it is Nobility ... thought Kor, proud that he was about to become a Man. These Initiates, save for the formality of today's Examination, actually were Men ... clean-cut, bursting with health and energy, and their minds were such hardened, tempered, keenly edged tools as the world had never before seen. True Men, these, who bore the secret of their purpose with pride and determination. Rth was incredibly ancient. Millions of generations of the People had come and gone upon its withering surface ... and millennia of the Trisz. There was no actual historical record of when the Trisz had first come to Rth. That was what the People called them--Trisz. They had no name of their own that had ever been sounded by the People or by anybody else. The world of sound was closed to the Trisz. They ruled the People and never heard them speak. Kor Danay had never seen a Trisz, not even a picture of one. No picture could have portrayed the Trisz ... no photograph ... no effort from an artist's hand. One word described the Trisz better than ten thousand pictures could have shown ... they looked as their name sounds--Trisz ... the name a muted sibilance, their appearance an illusory refraction of light, a flutter upon the retina, as the morning wind was a ruffle upon the Institute lake. Kor could afford to be leisurely with his dressing. There would be no breakfast for the examinees this morning. Nor was fast to be broken until the Sun had set upon the day of Examination. Keeping the fast was ritual, as the Examination was ritual. It was physical and mental discipline, attuned to the asceticism to which the Men were trained. No Man could fail this Examination, except that he destroyed himself fulfilling the requirements. It was well that, if he could not pass, a Man be destroyed, for there was no room among the Men for a failure, and no place for him among the People. Moreover, his destruction might provide valuable information, that would serve in the teaching of future Men. For the last time, Kor drew on the blue regalia of the Institute ... silken blue hose of gossamer woven plastic, blue leather buskins that wrapped up his calves, jerkin of blue leather, sleeveless and laced at the front. Finally, Kor threw over his shoulders the rippling cloak of the Wearers of the Blue, the same garment worn by the Blue Brotherhood, but embroidered with the deeper toned insignia of the Institute--uplifted hands clasped in the Sign of the Conqueror. It was almost with reverence that Kor clothed himself in these nearly sacred garments ... the next time he dressed, his color would be scarlet. Only the Outlanders of Rth bore arms thin, rapier-like weapons or daggers. Anything dangerous was forbid by the Trisz, except for the troops of the regional Lords, who handled sword, spear and bow with equal facility. The terrible blasters of the Trisz were prohibited ... reserved exclusively for the elite city guards of Triszmen. Weaponless, therefore, Kor swished into the hall, already clamorous with the others of his class. They paired into ranks and marched solemnly down the hall, out of the building, across a rippling sward of blue grass and into the arena where the Masters of Examination already awaited them. This was exciting, Kor thought. How grand and noble to be a Man! Things had been different in antiquity, he knew. He could not be sure how different, or in what way. History passed back across two Ages of Ice, and before that it was very, very dim. It was said in their texts--though taken with a grain of salt in these enlightened times--that once all of the People had called themselves Men. It was certain that none of them had been Men. To be a Man was a special privilege and a product of arduous training of mind and body. It was not taken for granted, nor even generally believed, that any before the latter-day Men possessed the kind of minds the Men had, nor even their god-like physical attributes. All of the Men were tall, handsome unbelievably strong and capable. These Men were unique in Time; for being a Man was a way of life, a matter of training and natural aptitude combined, of science and belief welded into the beautiful weapon that was a Man. It was a religion, actually, to be a Man, and the Men were suffered by the Trisz to exist as an ancient institution that brought religion to the People. Nominally, the Men were the spiritual leaders of the People, including the Triszmen, though the latter naturally owed their allegiance to the Trisz, and not to the secular authority of a regional lord, or to a mythical deity such as the Lord Sun. The sociological aspect of this latter-day Rth was a peculiar one ... a complication of treading down and being downtrodden. The Trisz on top, then the Triszmen, and at the bottom--the People. Although Kor had not traveled, physically, so much as a yard into the world beyond the limits of the Institute, his teachers had kept him well informed of the state of things. Since the novitiate left the world at the age of six, it was necessary that he be kept informed in order to re-enter it at the conclusion of his training. It was not only the thought of his pending return that sent a delicious shudder of anticipation through Kor. He had a secret of his own ... one which he felt was of great importance to every Man, and ultimately, to the People and to Rth. Today's examination would reveal that secret--a specialized ability the young Initiate had assiduously practiced in his years of study and drill. The Men had developed the highest type of double mind in the Universe, a mind that gave them complete mastery of their environment to the nth degree. So far, only Kor knew that his own mind, developing a latent function peculiar to itself, had gone beyond even the far-reaching mental development of the Men. Kor's was not only a double, but a separable mind! The Initiates stood stiffly at attention before the rostrum erected in the center of the athletic field. The green-clad elder Men who were the Masters stood grouped upon the stand, murmuring last minute details among themselves. Tor Shan, Supreme Master of the Institute, turned from his colleagues and faced the junior Men below. His was an imposing figure, tall, muscular, cheeks clean-shaven, eyes dark under startling brows, his bristling hair sparsely shot with gray. Tor Shan was over two centuries old, but he appeared not over fifty, as age is recognized among the People. He wore the brilliant green accoutrements of the Institute Masters. "Men," his words came slowly and clearly. "You are the one hundred sixty-first class I have helped graduate from the Institute." He smiled gravely. "I was assistant instructor at the first graduation I attended functionally. There were two Men in that class. There are six in this--the largest class ever graduated at one time by any of the Institutes." It was true, then, Kor thought. Although Blue Brothers were Graduated by the hundreds all over the world each year, few were those who became Men. Kor flung his glance around the empty, tiered stone seats of the Arena. A week ago the Blue Brothers had conducted their ceremony here and then had gone out to their Chapels in the world of the People. He had watched that graduation. But there were no spectators for this one. A special force field now surrounded the entire area, effectively preventing entry even by the Trisz. This examination would be conducted in secret. The twenty-one who had accompanied Kor into the ranks of Initiate had dwindled until now there were only six. Would they still be six when the setting Sun permitted breaking of the ritual fast? The course of the Examination was hard and dangerous, and many classes of two or three members failed to struggle through the day. "...You have been impressed with the fact that your training has been conducted in secret," Tor Shan continued clearly. "No one outside the Brotherhood of Men knows of your training, your capabilities, or your aims. You know what you have been trained for--the world does not. The welfare of the People is in your charge ... your work is for them, regardless of how they, in their ignorance, may work against you. It has been said that, once, in ages before the Trisz, the world was peopled only by the race of Man. Rth shall again become a world of Men alone. "The people are our sacred trust. To free them and Rth of the Trisz and to lift the People again to the stature of Men is our sworn and solemn duty." Tor Shan concluded his brief speech, announced the order of the Examination, and turned the procedure over to a junior Master. First came the Games, followed by the Contests. These were strictly physical affairs, of course. The Initiates contended with each other, in pairs and in groups. The Games tested their manual skill, their coordination of mind and muscle. In the Contests, they pitted themselves against each other in wrestling, boxing, fencing, racing, and jumping. The exertion of their struggles tuned oily their bodies, brought their minds alive to the hazardous Challenges that lay ahead, which they must grasp and defy with all the might of their minds and wills. After a period of relaxation, Tor Shan called Kor to the rostrum. "Are you ready for your first Challenge?" Kor nodded stiffly. "Yes, Sir." "Good. I can tell you nothing about your problem in advance, the challenges have been carefully thought out, and are the result of centuries of experiment. They are intended to bring out the best you have at your command. You have ten seconds in which to adjust your mind to the first Challenge." * * * * CHAPTER IIKor staggered in slippery ooze. The exchange had been appallingly swift ... instantaneous. Around him, primeval ferns hurled fronded tops into low-lying mist that streamed in the humid wind, mirrored themselves in stagnant scum-ridden ponds. The fumes of rotting humus, of a dank, watery wastescape cloyed at his nostrils. Off to Kor's right, something began to splash heavily, in the streaming mists. A bellowing scream of agony quivered giant ferns, rippled the swamp ponds. Ooze belched noisome exhalations of gas. A struggle was taking place between unseen, monstrous beasts of this primeval world. Kor's conscious mind was aware of the tumult, the stench, the dreary surroundings. His superconscious mind quivered with anticipation of something else, picked up the calm voice of Tor Shan, speaking in tones of infinite calm. "Kor, you have been transported to a young planet, located somewhere in our own galaxy. I may not give you its galactic co-ordinates. It will be your Challenge to return to us here on Rth ... to the exact spot in the arena from which you were transported. The time allowed for this is three point two seconds. You will be credited with five points if you return in this time, ten points if in less, two-and-a-half points if more. A return to any point in the Solar System, requiring reorientation for the final return is worth only two points ... two-and-a-half points for a similar return elsewhere on Rth. Time begins when you hear the pseudo-sound of the gong." The Master spoke only in Kor's superconscious mind, the marvelous instrument forged in the training of the Men. Far away ... it seemed to Kor that a muted gong chimed melodiously. He had 3.2 seconds in which to orientate himself, select the swiftest orbit home, and to appear before the Masters in the arena. The simplest Challenges came first, of course. Silence flashed across the primitive world. Ferns and rippled marsh-ponds presented an appearance of frozen, stroboscopic rigidity. It seemed as if Time had suddenly fled from this world, crystallizing this ultimate moment into timelessness. Kor's training had stressed speed of reaction. His double, separable mind automatically assumed control of its environment. Kor was living fast now, so fast that he could grow old and die before Tor Shan could step down from the rostrum. Time was a matter of how you were adjusted to it, Kor thought fleetingly, satisfied. With the immediate response of his superconscious mind. It only seemed that a stasis of time seized the surroundings. Actually, every electron in his body vibrated at a tremendous cyclic rate, speeding up his perception of Time. His body was matter beyond matter, wholly subject to his own will ... cast completely out of the time-rate of the Universe. It owed no allegiance whatsoever to the laws that bound material cause to material effect. "Desire is our scourge ... " Kor thought, arrowing upward through the now-solid mists that shrouded this world. A high-cycle passage opened ahead of him as he forged through and out of the atmosphere, into the vacuum of space. "Need is our blessing ... " The planet was a golden disc, distant in space, like a brassy shield, hung upon an ebony wall. Stars glittered with cold fury in far immensities. Kor checked their alignment and distribution with a cold, reasoning analysis. It was impossible to recognize their appearance, or to attempt a spectral analysis while he was in this state of time-stasis. The light which reached his senses was distorted, stepped up in its own cyclic rate of vibration. Analysis of the starlight could tell him nothing. Kor drifted in timelessness. There was neither heat nor cold in this state. Airlessness was a condition without meaning. No longer matter in the accepted sense, his body did not require oxygen or pressure. It drew its furious needs from the inexhaustible store of sub-etheric energy tapped by his mind. Kor relaxed and let his mind expand. His ultra perceptions snapped outward, spiraling logarithmically toward the ultimate reaches of the galaxy. A "sound" cut across on the high-abstract level of perception ... a shrill, high whistling that went on and on in a steady, unvarying note. Kor recognized it. The sound signified Trisz, a mental wave length held featureless in the time-stop. Impressions poured through his mind. Matter ... here, there, everywhere ... planets, suns, aimlessly drifting planetoids. Kor searched more widely, receiving, sorting, classifying. He eliminated the regions that obviously were not the one he sought. A hundred light years ... five hundred ... a thousand. Three thousand-odd light years away, a familiar, low buzz caught his attention. He mentalized a shift in the timewarp that held him and thrilled to the momentary, excited chirp-chirp-chirp into which the signal developed. Again Kor shifted the lever of his conscious mind against his superconsciousness. The Universe blacked out. Racing atoms spiraled and coruscated before his perceptions. He shifted once more, sorting, seeking, classifying, rejecting ... out of the darkness sprang the tiered stone seats of the arena, the assembled Examination Masters. Tor Shane stood on the rostrum, holding an electronic stop-watch. He drew in a slow breath. His nostrils dilated as he smiled with a pleased expression. "One point oh three seconds, Kor. You have done well!" Kor had a right to be proud of his score in the Examination. The extra points he earned were owing to his swift, facile mind ... proving itself superior to even the super-sharp standards set by the Men. The Initiates went through their Challenges singly, Kor with mounting excitement as the ease and speed of his accomplishments dazzled even himself. His second Challenge took him to the heart of the Andromeda nebula, to return with a cubic centimeter of the vacuum held at the core of that supernal mass of stars. His third Challenge was to visit seven planets whose locations were known only to Tor Shan, and to bring back from each a specimen of its rocky core, correctly labeled. His time to accomplish this last Challenge was only seven-tenths of a second, and most of that time was gone before Kor succeeded in breaking the shield Tor Shan threw across his mind. * * * *Finally, the long day of Challenges drew to a close. The westering Sun cast long shadows across the floor of the arena. Tor Shan held up his hand. "The Examination is concluded," he said, and Kor experienced a thrill of disappointment. He had been certain that Tor Shan would require a demonstration of the Fire Out of Heaven. This was Kor's cherished secret. The theory of the Fire had long ago been mathematically demonstrated by the Men, but none had ever achieved its control ... until he, Kor Danay, had learned to control it. He opened his mouth to protest, but Tor Shan preceded him by a word. "However," he continued in his calm, peaceful voice, "at this point in the Examination, opportunity is given the Initiates to demonstrate what has romantically been called the Fire Out of Heaven. You have studied its laws, and are aware of what it means, but no Man has ever successfully controlled the Fire. To attempt to control it and to fail means instant, sure destruction. You are cautioned to think carefully before volunteering to attempt such a demonstration. You will be required to demonstrate separately, in remote sections of the galaxy from each other, for the action must take place far from the usual trade lanes of the Trisz. A Master will accompany each Initiate for the purpose of observing the Challenge. If none of you choose to demonstrate, it is quite as well as if you had. It is a possibility that no mind will ever learn to control the Fire." Quiet settled over the arena. Kor lifted his hand. "Sir ... I should like to demonstrate the Challenge!" Tor Shan nodded. "Very well." John Moran spoke up. "And I, Sir!" "Any others?" Tor Shan roved his calm gaze over the Initiates. No other volunteered. "That is good. You others may return to your quarters and prepare for the ceremonial breaking of fast." Kor's heart thudded painfully as the four Initiates filed out of the arena. They were his classmates ... his friends. Would he ever see them again? Jon Moran lifted clasped hands in the ritual Sign of the Conqueror and grinned at Kor. Kor suddenly grinned in return, lifted his own hands in the Sign. "Tor Shan," Kor said, "I should like your company at the Challenge." The Master inclined his head in acknowledgment. It was dark as the eternal night of Space on the planet to which Tor Shan took himself and Kor. The surface was a frozen rubble of volcanic ash, and great, tumbled slabs of glassy obsidian that carved ebon gaps in the clotted stars of the galactic perimeter. Almost directly overhead, a singular star blazed with the intensity of a carbon arc ... the far-off sun of this abysmal and nighted planet. There was no air to breathe. Their bodies vibrated in time-stasis. Kor touched his mind to that of the Master. "Sir ... yonder is a high mountain. Please retire to its summit for your personal safety. Break all mental contact with me, for I must work alone." Tor Shan expostulated. "How can I observe if I do not hold contact with you? If your demonstration should fail, I must be in a position to learn." Kor bore him down with the force of his obstinacy. "No! I have worked out all the equations on the cybernograph, Sir, and I believe that there is something in the additional mind which introduces an aberration." "Kor ... have you performed the demonstration in secret?" "Yes, Sir. I have successfully drawn the Fire Out of Heaven!" "Very well. I withdraw." Kor let his mind expand. His superconsciousness whipped outward like an uncoiling steel spring, surging with released power. Tor Shan retired to the mountain top as directed. He watched the desolate plain where Kor stood, but Kor knew that he could not be seen by the sense of physical sight alone. What he was about to do would be seen, though. Kor looked down. His conscious mind floated miles above the glassy, ash-covered plain. His eyes were on the surface, with his body, but Kor had other senses to serve him. He perceived himself far below, poised like an athlete. He no longer had direct contact with his own superconsciousness, but through a secondary channel, the impressions of that lonely figure filtered through to him. He sensed the mighty effort of mind that went into the drawing together of universal forces. The figure of himself staggered with strain. Kor Danay was wholly divorced from that figure; he was only an observer of the robot he had set in motion. This was the crux of his secret, Kor acknowledged--this ability of his to separate the twin factors of his mind. The presence of even his own ego in the performance of this superlative task introduced aberrations into the elaborate forces of mind which wove and re-wove in his superconsciousness. His separable mind was Kor's answer to the problem. Kor's superconsciousness drove like a physical thing across the gap of space to the sun of this peopleless world. Even with his minds separated as they were, Kor felt the shock of the contact. Distant, distant that sun. It was only by virtue of supraliminal perception that Kor was aware of what occurred on its seething surface, the violence of the storms that began to rage in its atmosphere. A whirlpool of energy sucked upward from the surface, controlled and directed by the power of Kor's unleashed mind. The lonely, wooden figure on the airless plain moved stiffly. Its arm rose, hurled forward ... and a river of scarlet flame gushed across the eerie landscape. Volcanic upthrusts, frozen for an eternity in the endless chill of space, showered sparks, stone melted into magma and flowed in the torrent of flame. The scene blotted out. Kor and Tor Shan stood again in the arena of the Institute of Manhood on Rth. "You could smash the Solar System with that power," the Master observed calmly at last; but it was apparent that he restrained himself with difficulty. "Or the Galaxy!" Kor murmured softly to himself.
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