Thought :You speak to the Lord of the Heaven. Lad-nar seemed awed. He watched, his huge, brilliant eyes suddenly grown wide.
Kettridge thought at the beast: Lad-nar! I come from the Lord of Heaven, I can show you how to walk in the storms! I can show you how to—
The creature’s roar deafened Kettridge. Accompanying it came a mental scream! Kettridge felt himself lifted off the floor by the force of the blow to his mind and hurled violently back against the rocks.
The aborigine leaped to his feet, threw his taloned hands upward, and bellowed in rage.
Thought: You speak that which is Forbidden! You say that which is Untrue. No human walks when the Essence-Stealer speaks in the night. You are a fearful thing! Lad-nar is afraid!
“Heresy, I’ve spoken heresy!” Kettridge wanted to rip off the metal-plastic hood and tear his tongue from his mouth.
Thought: Yes, you have spoken that which is Unclean and Untrue!
Kettridge cowered in fear. The creature was truly enraged now. How could it be afraid when it stood there so powerful and so massive?
Thought: Yes, Lad-nar is afraid! Afraid !
Then the waves of fear hit Kettridge. He felt his head begin to throb. The tender fiber of his mind was being twisted and seared and buffeted. Burned and scarred forever with Lad-nar’s terrible all-consuming fear.
Stop, stop, Lad-nar! I speak the truth! I will show you how to walk in the storm as I do.
He spoke then—softly, persuasively, trying to convince a being that had never known any god but a deity that howled and slashed in streamers of electricity. He spoke of himself, and of his powers. He spoke of them as though he truly believed in them. He built himself a glory on two levels.
Slowly Lad-nar became calmer, and the waves of fear diminished to ripples. The awe and trembling remained, but there was a sliver of belief in the creature’s mind now.
Kettridge knew he must work on that.
“I come from the Heaven-Home, Lad-nar. I speak as a messenger from the sky. I am stronger than the puny Essence-Stealer you fear!” As if to punctuate his words, a flash of lightning struck just outside the cave, filling the hollow with fury and light.
Kettridge continued, speaking faster and faster, “I can walk abroad in the storm, and the Essence-Stealer will not harm me. Let me go out, and I will show you, Lad-nar.”
He was playing a dangerous hand; at any moment the creature might leap. It might dare to venture upon a leap, hoping that Kettridge was speaking falsely and preferring not to incur the wrath of a god he knew to be dangerous.
Thought: Stop!
“Why, Lad-nar? I can show you how to walk in the night, when the Essence-Stealer screams. I can show you how to scream back at him and to laugh at him too.”
Kettridge reminded himself that the creature was indeed clever. Not only did it fear the wrath of the Lord of the Heaven and his screaming death. It knew that if it let the man go, it would have nothing to eat during the coming cold days.
“Let me go, Lad-nar. I will bring you back a cat litter for your feasting. I will show you that I can walk in the night, and I will bring you food. I will bring back a cat litter, Lad-nar!”
Thought: If you are what you say, why do you speak to the Lord of the Heaven?
Kettridge bit his lip. He kept forgetting…
“Because I want the Lord of the Heaven to know that I am as great as he,” he said. “I want him to know I am not afraid of him and that my prayers to him are only to convince him that I am as great as he.” It was gibberish, but he hoped that if he kept talking the creature would shuck off the thoughts rather than try to fathom them.
The Earthman knew he had one factor in his favor: Lad-nar had never before heard anyone speak against his own god and to do so with impunity immeasurably strengthened Kettridge’s hand.
Kettridge hit Lad-nar with the appeal again, before the creature had time to wonder.
“I’ll get you a cat litter, Lad-nar. Let me go! Let me show you! Let me show you that you can walk in the storms as I do!”
Thought: You will go away.
There was a petulance, a little child sound, to the objection, and Kettridge knew the first step had been achieved.
“No, Lad-nar. Here is a rope.” He drew a thin cord of tough metal-plastic from his utility belt. His hand brushed against his service revolver, and he laughed deep in his mind once more as he thought of how useless it had become.
He would not have used the gun in any case. Only by his wits could he hope to win through to victory. There was more at stake now than mere self-preservation.
“Here is a rope,” he repeated, extending the coiled cord. “I will tie it about myself. See—like this. You take the other end. If you hold it tightly I can’t escape. It is long enough to enable me to go out and seek a cat litter, and to convince you that I can walk abroad.”
At first Lad-nar refused, eyeing the glistening, silvery cord with fear in his heavily lidded eyes. But Kettridge spoke on two levels, and soon the creature touched the cord.
It drew back its seven-taloned hand quickly. It tried again.
The third tune it grasped the cord.
You have just lost your religion, Kettridge thought.
Lad-nar had “smelled” with his mind. He had sensed a cat Utter fairly close to the cave. But he did not know where the living food supply had taken refuge.
Kettridge emerged from the dark mouth of the cave into the roaring maelstrom of a Blestonian electrical storm.
The sky was a tumult of heavy black clouds, steel and ebony and ripped duty cloth. The clouds revolved in dark masses and were split apart by the lightning. The very ah- was charged, and blast after blast sheared away the atmosphere in zigzagging streamers.
Kettridge stood there with the pelting rain washing over ward against the pull of the cord. He was forced to shade his eyes against the almost continuous glare of the lightning.
He was a small, thin man, and had it not been for the cord he might easily have been swept away by the winds and rain that sand-papered the rocky ledge.
Ketteridge stood there with the pelting rain washing over him, obscuring his vision through the hood, and leaving only the glare of the storm to guide him.
He took a short step forward.
A bolt slashed at him through a rift in the mountains and roared straight toward him. It materialized out of nowhere and everywhere—shattering a massive slab of granite almost at his feet Kettridge fell flat on his stomach, and the crack of thunder rolled on past him.
The effect on his body was terrifying.
Immediately he went deaf. His legs and hips became numb, and his eyes reflected coruscating pinwheels of brilliance.
Thought: The Essence-Stealer has screamed, and you have fallen!
The rope tightened and Kettridge felt himself being drawn back into the cave.
“No!” he protested desperately. The pressure eased. “No, Lad-nar. That was the Essence-Stealer’s scream. Now I shall make my power felt. Let me show you, Lad-nar!”