«We live, through you.»
«And fight, through you!»
So that's it, thought Leonard Sale. I'm to be a battleground, am I? Are you friends?
«Enemies!» cried Iorr.
«Foul enemies!» cried Tylle.
Leonard smiled a rictal smile. He felt ghastly. How long have you waited? he damanded.
«How long is rime?» Ten thousand years? «Perhaps.» Ten million years? «Perhaps.»
What are you? Thoughts, spirits, ghosts? «All of those, and more.» Intelligence? «Precisely.» How did you survive?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, sang the chorus, far away.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang another army, waiting to fight.
«Once upon a time, this was fertile land, a rich planet. And there were two nations, strong nations, led by two strong men. I, Ioir. And he, that one who calls himself Tylle. And the planet declined and gave way to nothingness. The peoples and the armies languished in the midst of a great war which had lasted five thousand years. We lived long lives and loved long loves, drank much, slept much, fought much. And when the planet died, our bodies withered, and, only in time, and with much science, did we survive.»
Survive, wondered Leonard Sale. But there is nothing of you!
«Our minds, fool, our minds! What is a body without a mind?»
What is a mind without a body, laughed Leonard Sale. I've got you there. Admit it, I've got you!
«True,» said the cruel voice. «One is useless, lacking the other. But survival is survival even when unconscious. The minds of our nations, through science, through wonder, survived.»
But without senses, lacking eyes, ears, lacking touch, smell, and the rest? «Lacking all those, yes. We were vapours, merely. For a long time. Until today.»
And now I am here, thought Leonard Sale. «You are here,» said the voice. «To give substance to our souls. To give us our needed body.»
I'm only one, thought Sale. «Nevertheless, you are of use.»
I'm an individual, thought Sale. I resent your intrusion.
«He resents our intrusion! Did you heard him, Iorr? He resents!»
«As if he had a right to resent!»
Be careful, warned Sale. I'll blink my eyes and you'll be gone, phantoms! I'll wake up and rub you out!
«But you'll have to sleep again, 5owe time!» cried Iorr. «And when you do, we'll be here, waiting, waiting, waiting. For you.»
What do you want? «Solidity. Mass. Sensation again!» You can't both have it. «We'll fight that out between us.»
A hot clamp twisted his skull. It was as if a spike had been thrust and beaten down between the bivalvular halves of his brain.
Now he was terribly clear. Horribly, magnificently clear. He was their universe. The world of his thoughts, his brain, his skull, divided into two camps, that of Iorr, that of Tylle. They were using him!
Pennants flung up on a pink mind sky! Brass shields caught the sun. Grey animals shifted and came rushing in bristling tides of sword and plume and trumpet.
Eeeeeeeeeeeee! The rushing.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The roaring.
Nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! The whirling.
Mmmmmnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm-
Ten thousand men hurled across the small hidden stage. Ten thousand men floated on the shellacked inner ball of his eye. Ten thousand javelins hissed between the small bone hulls of his head. Ten thousand jewelled guns exploded. Ten thousand voices chanted in his ears. Now his body was riven and extended, shaken and rolled, he was screaming, writhing, the plates of his skull threatened to burst asunder. The gabbling, the shrilling, as across bone plains of mind and continent of inner marrow, through gullies of vein, down hills of artery, over rivers of melancholy, came armies and armies, one army, two armies, swords flashed in the sun, bearing down upon each other, fifty thousand minds snatching, scrabbling, cutting at him, demanding, using. In a moment, the hard collision, one army on another, the rush, the blood, the sound, the fury, the death, the insanity!
Like cymbals, the armies struck!
He leaped up, raving. He ran across the desert. He ran and ran and did not stop running.
He sat down and cried. He sobbed until his lungs ached. He cried very hard and long. Tears ran down his cheeks. «God, God, help me, oh God, help me!» he said.
All was normal again.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The rocks were baked by the sun. He managed, after a time, to cook himself a few hot biscuits, which he ate with strawberry jam.
«At least I know what I'm up against,» he told himself. «Oh, Lord, what a world! What an innocent-looking world, and what a monster it really is. It's good no one ever explored it before. Or did they?» He shook his aching head. Pity them, whoever crashed here before, if any ever did. Warm sun, hard rocks, not a sign of hostility.
Until you shut your eyes and relaxed your mind.
And the night and the voices and the insanity and the death padded in on soft feet.
«I'm all right now, though,» he said, proudly. «Look at that.» He displayed his hand. By a supreme effort of will, it was no longer shaking. «I'll show you who in hell's ruler here,» he announced to the innocent sky. «I am!» He tapped his chest.
To think that thought could live that long! A million years, perhaps, all these thoughts of death and disorder and conquest, lingering in the innocent but poisonous air of the planet, waiting for a real man to give them a channel through which they might issue again in all their senseless virulence.
Now that he was feeling better, it was all silly. All I have to do, he thought, is stay awake six nights. They won't bother me that way. When I'm awake, I'm dominant. I'm stronger than those crazy monarchs and their silly tribes of sword-flingers and shield-bearers and horn-blow-ers. I'll stay awake.
But can you? he wondered. Six whole nights? Awake?
There's coffee and medicine and books and cards.
But I'm tired now, so tired, he thought. Can I hold out?
Well, if not — there's always the gun.
Where will these silly monarchs be if you put a bullet through their stage? All the world's a stage. No. You, Leonard Sale, are the small stage. And they the players. And what if you put a bullet through the wings, tearing down scenes, destroying curtains, ruining lines! Destroy the stage, the players, all if they aren't careful!
First of all, he must radio through to Marsport, again. If there was any way they could rush the rescue ship sooner, then maybe he could hang on. Anyway, he must warn them what sort of planet this was, this so innocent-seeming spot of nightmare and fever vision -