Where The World Is Quiet - Henry Kuttner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where the world is Quiet by Henry Kutner. Fra Rafael
saw strange things, impossible things. Then there was the mystery
of the seven young virginal girls of Hakan. Fra Rafael

(00:21):
drew the illamabole blanket closer about his narrow shoulders, shivering
in the cold wind that screamed down Fromhacan. His face
held great pain. I rose, walked to the door of
the hut and peered through fog at the shadowy, haunted
lands that lifted toward the sky, the cordelieras that made
a rampart along Peru's eastern border. There's nothing, I said,

(00:44):
only the fog. Fra Raphael. He made the sign of
the cross on his breast. It is the fog that
brings the terror. He said. I tell you, Senor White,
I have seen strange things these last few months, impossible things.
You are a scientist, though we are not of the
same religion, you also know that there are powers not

(01:04):
of this earth. I didn't answer, so he went on.
Three months ago it began after the earthquake, a native
girl disappeared. She was seen going into the mountains towards
Wasscan along the pass, and she did not come back.
I sent men out to find her. They went up
the pass, found the fog grew thicker and thicker until
they were blind and could see nothing. Fear came to them,

(01:27):
and they fled back down the mountain. A week later,
another girl vanished. We found her footprints the same canyon,
see and the same result. Now seven girls have gone,
one after the other, all in the same way, and I,
Senor White fra Raphael's pale, tired face was sad as
he glanced down at the stumps of his legs. I

(01:50):
could not follow. As you see, four years ago an
avalanche crippled me. My bishop told me to return to Lima,
but I prevailed upon him to let me remain here,
for these natives are my people, Senor. They know and
trust me. The loss of my legs has not altered that.
I nodded. I can see the difficulty now, though exactly

(02:11):
I cannot go to Huacan and find out what has
happened to the girls. The natives well, I chose four
of the strongest and bravest and ask them to take
me up the pass. I thought that I could overcome
their superstitions, but I was not successful. How far did
you go, I asked, a few miles, not more than that.
The fog grew thicker until we were blinded by it,

(02:33):
and the way was dangerous. I could not make the
men go on. Frau Raphael closed his eyes wearily. They
talked of old ink in gods and devils, Manko Kapac
and Ohilo Juaco, the children of the Sun. They are
very much afraid signor white. They huddle together like sheep
and believe that an ancient god has returned and is

(02:54):
taking them away, one by one, and one by one
they are taken only the young girls, i' mused, and
no coercion is used. Apparently, what's up towards was gun
Nothing but wild lamas and the condors and snow cold desolation.
These are the andes. My friend okay I said, it

(03:17):
sounds interesting. As I'm an anthropologist, I owe it to
the Foundation to investigate. Besides, I'm curious. Superficially, there is
nothing very strange about the affair. The seven girls have
disappeared in the unusually heavy fogs we've had ever since
the earthquake, nothing more. I smiled at him. However, I
think I'll take a look around and see what's so

(03:37):
attractive about was gun. I shall pray for you, he said,
perhaps well, signor for all the loss of my legs.
I am not a weak man. I can stand much hardship.
I can ride a bulla. I don't doubt your willingness,
Frau Raphael, I said, but it's necessary to be practical.
It's dangerous and it's cold up there. Your presence would

(03:59):
only handicap me. Alone. I can go faster. Remember, I
don't know how far I'll have to travel. The priest sighed,
I suppose you are right when now my borhoh's packed
your porters they won't go, I said, ryly. They've been
talking your villagers. It doesn't matter. I'll go alone. I

(04:20):
put out my hand and Fray Raphael gripped it strongly.
Via contius. He said. I went out into the bright
Peruvian sunlight. The Indios were standing and straggling knots, pretending
not to watch me. My porters were nowhere in evidence.
I grinned, yelled us sardonic good bye, and started to
lead the borau toward the pass. The fog vanished as

(04:42):
the sun rose, but it lay still in the mountain canyons.
Towards the west, A condor circled against the sky. In
the thin, sharp air. The sound of a distant rock
fall was distinctly audible. White wasscan towered far away. A
shadow fell on me as I entered the pass. The
Buddho plodded on, patient and obedient. I felt a little chill.

(05:03):
The fog began to thicken. Yes, the Indios had talked
to me. I knew their language, their old religion. Bastard
descendants of the Incas, they still preserved a deep rooted
belief in the ancient gods of their ancient race, who
had fallen with Hueina Kapek, the Great Incan a year
before Pizarro came raging into Peru. I knew the Quichua,

(05:25):
the old tongue of the mother race, and so I
learned more than I might have otherwise. Yet I had
not learned much. The Indios said that something had come
into the mountains near Huascan. They were willing to talk
about it, but they knew little. They shrugged with apathetic fatalism.
It called the young virgins, no doubt for a sacrifice

(05:47):
kent sobe certainly, the strange thickening fog was not of
this earth. Never before in the history of mankind had
there been such a fog. It was, of course the
earthquake that had brought the visible, and it was folly
to seek it out. Well, I was an anthropologist and
knew the value of even such slight clues as this. Moreover,

(06:10):
my job for the Foundation was done. My specimens had
been sent through to Caaleo by pack train, and my
notes were safe with Frau Raphael. Also, I was young,
and the lure of far places and their mysteries was
hot in my blood. I hoped I'd find something odd,
even dangerous at Huascan. I was young, therefore somewhat a fool.

(06:32):
The first night I camped in a little cave, sheltered
from the wind and snug enough in my fleece lined
sleeping bag. There were no insects at this height. It
was impossible to make a fire, for there was no wood.
I worried a bit about the borow freezing in the night,
but he survived, and I repacked him the next morning
with rather absurd cheerfulness. The fog was thick, yes, but

(06:54):
not impenetrable. There were tracks in the snow where the
wind had not covered them. A girl had left the
village the day before my arrival, which made my task
all the easier. So I went up into that vast,
desolate silence, the fog closing in, steadily getting thicker and thicker,
the trail getting narrower, until at last it was a
mere track, and then I was moving blind. I had

(07:17):
to feel my way, step by step, leading the borough.
Occasionally tracks showed through the mist, showed that the native
girl had walked swiftly, had run in places, so I
assumed that the fog was less dense when she had
come this way. As it happened, I was quite wrong
about that. We were on a narrow path above a gorge.
When I lost the Booda. I heard a scrambling and

(07:39):
clashing of hoofs on rock behind me. The rope jerked
out of my hand, and the animal cried out, almost articulately,
as it went over. I stood frozen, pressing against the stone,
listening to the sound of the borough's fall. Finally, the
distant noise died in a faint trickling of snow and
gravel that faded into utter silence, so thick the fog

(08:00):
that I had seen nothing I felt my way back
to where the path had crumbled and rotten rock had
given way under the borrow's weight. It was possible for
me to retrace my steps, but I did not. I
was sure that my destination could not be much further.
A lightly clad native girl could not have gone so
far as Haaskan itself. No, probably that day I would

(08:23):
reach my goal. So I went on feeling my way
through the thick, silent fog. I was able to see
only a few inches ahead of me for hours. Then
abruptly the trail grew clearer, until at last I was
moving in the shadowless, unearthly mist over hard packed snow,
following the clearly marked footprints of a girl's sandals. Then

(08:46):
they vanished without warning, those prints, and I stood hesitant,
staring around. I could see nothing but a brighter glow
in the misty canopy overhead marked the sun's position. I
knelt and brushed away the snow with my hands, hoping
to undo the wind's concealing work, but I found no
more footprints. Finally, I took my bearings as well as

(09:06):
I could and plowed ahead in the general direction the
girl had been traveling. My compass told me. I was
petting due south. The fog was a living, sentient thing,
now secretive, shrouding the secret that lay beyond its gray wall.
Suddenly I was conscious of a change. An electric tingle
coursed through my body. Abruptly, the fog wall brightened dimly,

(09:30):
as through a translucent pain. I could make out vague
images ahead of me. I began to move toward the images,
and suddenly the fog was gone. Before me lay a valley.
Blue white moss carpeted it, except where reddish boulders broke
the blueness. Here and there were trees, at least I
assumed they were trees, despite their unfamiliar outline. They were

(09:53):
like banions, having dozens of trunks, narrow as bamboo, blue leafed.
They stood like immense bird cages on the pallid moss.
The fog closed in behind the valley and above it
it was like being in a huge sunlit cavern. I
turned my head saw a gray wall behind me. Beneath
my feet, the snow was melting and running in tiny

(10:14):
trickling rivulets among the moss. The air was warm and
stimulating as wine. A strange and abrupt change, impossibly strange.
I walked toward one of the trees, stopped at a
reddish boulder to examine it, and surprise caught at my throat.
It was an artifact, a crumbling ruin, the remnant of

(10:34):
an ancient structure whose original appearance I could not fathom.
The stone seemed iron hard. There were traces of inscription
on it, but eroded to illegibility, and I never did
learn the history of those enigmatic ruins. They did not
originate on earth. There was no sign of the native girl,
and the resilient moss retained no tracks. I stood there,

(10:56):
staring around, wondering what to do now. I was tense
with excitement, but there was little to see, just that valley,
covering perhaps half a mile before the fog closed in
around it. Beyond that, I did not know what lay
beyond that. I went on into the valley, eyeing my
surroundings curiously in the shadowless light that filtered through the

(11:17):
shifting roof of fog. Foolishly I expected to discover ink
and artifacts. The crumbled red stones should have warned me.
They were I think, harder than metal, yet they had
been here long enough for the elements to erode them.
Into featureless shards. Had they been of earthly origin, they
would have antedated. Mankind antedated, even the neanderthal Er men

(11:40):
Curious how our mines are conditioned to run in anthropomorphic lines.
I was, though I did not know it, walking through
a land that had its beginnings outside the known universe.
The blue trees hinted at that. The Crimson ruins told
me that clearly the atmospheric conditions, the fog, the warmth
high up in the cord, the eras were certainly not natural.

(12:02):
Yet I thought the explanation lay in some geological warp,
volcanic activity, subterranean gas fence. My vision reached a half
mile no farther. As I went on, the misty horizon receded.
The valley was larger than I had imagined. It was
like Elysium, where the shades of dead men strolled in
the garden of prosser Pine. Streamlets ran through the blue

(12:26):
moss at intervals, chill as death from the snowy plains
hidden in the fog, a sleepy world of streams. The
ruins altered in appearance as I went on. The red
blocks were still present, but there were now also remnants
of other structures made by a different culture. I thought.
The blue trees grew more numerous leafy vines covered most

(12:49):
of them, now saffron tinted, making each strange tree a
little room screened by the lattice of the vines. As
I passed close to one, a faint clicking sound in
congruously like the tapping of typewriter keys, but muffled. I
saw a movement and turned my hand, going to the
pistol in my belt. The thing came out of a

(13:10):
tree hut and halted, watching me. I felt it watching me,
though it had no eyes. It was a sphere of
what seemed to be translucent plastic, glowing with shifting rainbow colors,
and I sensed sentience intelligence in its horribly human attitude
of watchful hesitation. Four feet in diameter, it was and

(13:32):
featureless save for the three ivory elastic tentacles that supported it,
and a fringe of long, whip like cilia about its
diameter its waist. I thought it looked at me, eyeless
and cryptic. The shifting colors crawled over the plastic globe.
Then it began to roll forward on the three supporting
tentacles with a queer swift, gliding motion. I stepped back,

(13:55):
jerking out my gun and leveling it. Stop. I said
my voice, shrill, Stop. It stopped, quite as though it
understood my words or the gesture of menace. The scillia
fluttered about its spherical body. Bands of lambent color flashed.
I could not rid myself of the curious certainty that

(14:15):
it was trying to communicate with me. Abruptly, it came
forward again, purposefully. I tensed and stepped back, holding the
gun aimed. My finger was tightening on the trigger. When
the thing stopped. I backed off nervously, tense, but the
creature did not follow. After I had got about fifty yards,
it turned back and retreated into the hut like structure

(14:37):
in the banyan tree. After that, I watched the trees
warily as I passed them, but there were no other
visitations of that nature. Scientists are reluctant to relinquish their
so called logic. As I walked, I tried to rationalize
the creature, to explain it in the light of current knowledge.
That it had been alive was certain, yet it was

(14:59):
not protoplant in nature. A plant developed by mutation, perhaps,
but that theory did not satisfy me, for the thing
had possessed intelligence, though of what order I did not know.
But there were the seven Native girls, I reminded myself.
My job was to find them, and quickly too. I

(15:19):
did at last find them, six of them. Anyway. They
were sitting in a row on the blue moss, facing
one of the red blocks of stone, their backs toward me.
As I mounted a little rise, I saw them motionless
as bronze statues, and as rigid. I went down toward them,
tense with excitement expectancy. Odd that six Native girls sitting

(15:40):
in a row should fill me with such a feeling.
They were so motionless that I wondered as I approached
them if they were dead. But they were not, nor
were they in the true sense of the word alive.
I gripped one by the bare shoulder, found the flesh
surprisingly cold, and the girl seemed not to feel my touch.

(16:01):
I swung her around to face me, and her black,
empty eyes looked off into the far distance. Her lips
were tightly compressed slightly, Cyana said, the pupils of her
eyes were inordinately dilated, as if she was drugged Indian style.
She squatted cross legged, like the others. As I pulled
her around, she toppled down on the moss, making no

(16:22):
effort to stop herself. For a moment, she lay there, Then,
with slow puppet like motions, she returned to her former
position and resumed that blank staring into space. I looked
at the others. They were alike in their sleeplike withdrawal.
It seemed as if their minds had been sucked out
of them, that their very selves were elsewhere. It was

(16:43):
a fantastic diagnosis, of course, But the trouble with those
girls was nothing a physician could understand. It was psychic
in nature, obviously. I turned to the first one and
slapped her cheeks. Wake up, I commanded, you must obey me, waken,
but she gave no sign of feeling or seeing. I

(17:03):
lit a match and her eyes focused on the flame,
but the size of her pupils did not alter. A
shudder racked me. Then abruptly I sensed movement behind me.
I turned over the blue moss. The seventh Indio girl
was coming toward us, Miranda, I said, can you hear me?
Fra Raphael had told me her name. Her feet, I

(17:24):
saw were bare and white, frostbite blotches marked them, but
she did not seem to feel any pain as she walked.
Then I became aware that this was not a simple
Indio girl. Something deep within my soul suddenly shrank back
with instinctive revulsion. My skin seemed to crawl with a
sort of terror. I began to shake, so that it
was difficult to draw my gun from its holster. There

(17:47):
was just this young Native girl walking slowly toward me,
her face quite expressionless, her black eyes fixed on emptiness.
Yet she was not like other Indios, not like the
six other girls sitting behind me. Only liken her to
a lamp in which a hot flame burned. The others
were lamps that were dead, unlit. The flame in her

(18:08):
was not one that had been kindled on this Earth,
or in this universe, or in this space time continuum. Either.
There was life in the girl who had been Miranda Vow,
but it was not human life. Some distant, skeptical corner
of my brain told me that this was pure insanity,
that I was diluted, hallucinated. Yes, I knew that, but

(18:30):
it did not seem to matter. The girl who was
walking so quietly across the blue yielding moss had wrapped
about her like an invisible and tangible veil, something of
the alienage that men through the eons have called divinity.
No mere human, I thought, could touch her, but I
felt fear, loathing, emotions not associated with divinity. I watched,

(18:53):
knowing that presently she would look at me, would realize
my presence. Then well, my mind would not go beyond
that point. She came forward and quietly seated herself with
the others at the end of the line. Her body
stiffened rigidly. Then the veil of terror seemed to leave her,
like a cloak falling away abruptly. She was just an

(19:13):
indio girl, empty and drained, as the others, mindless and motionless.
The girl beside her rose suddenly with a slow, fluid motion,
and the crawling horror hit me again. The alien power
had not left, It had merely transferred itself to another body,
and this second body was as dreadful to my senses
as the first had been. In some subtly monstrous way,

(19:36):
its terror impressed itself on my brain. Though all the
while there was nothing overt, nothing visibly wrong. The strange landscape,
bounded by fog was not actually abnormal, considering its location
high in the andes, the blue moss, the weird trees,
they were strange but possible. Even the seven native girls

(19:56):
were a normal part of the scene. It was a
sense of an alien presence that caused my terror, a
fear of the unknown. As the newly possessed girl rose,
I turned and fled deathly, sick, feeling caught in the
grip of nightmare. Once I stumbled and fell. As I
scrambled wildly to my feet, I looked back. The girl

(20:17):
was watching me, her face tiny and far away. Then suddenly, abruptly,
it was close. She stood within a few feet of me.
I had not moved, nor seen her move, but we
were all close together again, the seven girls and I. Hypnosis,
something of that sort. She had drawn me back to her.
My mind blacked out and unresisting. I could not move.

(20:40):
I could only stand motionless while that alien being dwelling
within human flesh reached out and thrust frigid fingers into
my soul. I could feel my mind laid open, spread
out like a map before the inhuman gaze that scanned it.
It was blasphemous and shameful, and I could not move
or resist. I was flung aside as the psychic grip

(21:02):
that held me relaxed. I could not think clearly that
remote delving into my brain had made me blind, sick, frantic.
I remember running, but I remember very little of what followed.
There are vague pictures of blue moss and twisted trees,
of coiling fog that wrapped itself about me, trying futilely

(21:22):
to hold me back. And always there was the sense
of a dark and nameless horror just beyond vision, hidden
from me, though I was not hidden from its eyeless gaze.
I remember reaching the wall of fog, saw it loomed
before me, plunged into it, raced through cold grayness, snow
crunching beneath my boots. I recall emerging again into that

(21:43):
misty valley of a baden. When I regained complete consciousness,
I was with lahar. A coolness as of limpid water
moved through my mind, cleansing it, washing away the horror,
soothing and comforting me. I was lying on my back,
looking up in an hour or a beste pattern of
blue and saffron gray silver light filtered through a lacy filigree.

(22:06):
I was still weak, but the blind terror no longer
gripped me. I was inside a hut formed by the
trunks of one of the banion like trees. Slowly, weakly,
I rose on one elbow. The room was empty except
for a curious flower that grew from the dirt floor
beside me. I looked at it dazedly, and so I

(22:27):
met Lahar. She was of purest white, the white of alabaster,
but with a texture and warmth that stone does not have.
In shape well, she seemed to be a great flower
and unopened tulip like blossom, five feet or so tall.
The petals were closed and folded, concealing whatever sort of

(22:47):
body lay hidden beneath, and at the base was a
convoluted pedestal that gave the odd impression of a ruffled,
tiny skirt. Even now I cannot describe Lahar coherently. A flower, yes,
but very much more than that. Even in the first glimpse,
I knew that Lahar was more than just a flower.

(23:07):
I was not afraid of her. She had saved me,
I knew, and I felt complete trust in her. I
lay back as she spoke to me telepathically, her words
and thoughts forming within my brain. You are well now,
though still weak. But it is useless for you to
try to escape from this valley. No one can escape.
The other has powers I do not know, and those

(23:29):
powers will keep you here. I said, you are a
name formed within my mind. Lahar, I am not of
your world. A shudder shook her, and her distress forced
itself upon me. I stood up, swaying with weakness. Lahar
drew back, moving with a swaying, bobbing gait, oddly like

(23:50):
a courtesy. Behind me, a clicking sounded. I turned, saw
the many colored sphere force itself through the banyan trunks. Instinctively,
my hand went to my gun, but a thought from
Lahar halted me. It will not harm you. It is
my servant. She hesitated, groping for a word, A machine,
a robot. It will not harm you, I said. Is

(24:14):
it intelligent, yes, but it is not alive. Our people
made it. We have many such machines. The robot swayed
toward me, the rim of sillia flashing and twisting. Lahar said,
it speaks thus without words or thought. She paused, watching
the sphere, and I sensed the dejection in her manner.

(24:35):
The robot turned to me. The sillia twisted lightly about
my arm, tugging me toward Lahar. I said, what does
it want? It knows that I am dying. Lahar said
that shocked me. Dying. No, it is true. Here in
this alien world, I do not have my usual food,
so I will die. To survive, I need the blood

(24:58):
of mammals, but there are none save those seven. The
other has taken, and I cannot use them, for they
are now spoiled. I didn't ask Lahar what sort of
mammals she had in her own world. That's what the
robot wanted when it tried to stop me before, isn't it.
He wanted you to help me. Yes, but you are
weak from the shock you have had. I cannot ask you.

(25:20):
I said, how much blood do you need? At her answer,
I said, all right, you saved my life. I must
do the same for you. I can spare that much
blood easily. Go ahead. She bowed toward me, a fluttering
white flame in the dimness of the tree room. A
tendril flicked out from among her pedals, wrapped itself about

(25:40):
my arm. It felt cool, gentle as a woman's hand.
I felt no pain. You must rest now, Lahar said,
I will go away, but I shall not be long.
The robot clicked and chattered, shifting on its tentacle legs.
I watched it, saying, Lahar, this can't be true. Why
am I believing impossible things? I have given you peace.

(26:05):
She told me. Your mind was dangerously close to madness.
I have drugged you a little physically, so your emotions
will not be strong for a while. It was necessary
to save your sanity. It was true that my mind
felt was drugged. The word My thoughts were clear enough,
but I felt as if I were submerged in transparent

(26:27):
but dark wooter. There was an odd sense of existing
in a dream. I remembered Swineburne's lines, Here where the
world is quiet, Here where all trouble seems dead, winds
and spent waves riot in doubtful dreams of dreams. What

(26:47):
is this place? I asked, Lahar bent toward me. I
do not know if I can explain. It is not
quite clear to me. The robot knows he is a
reasoning machine. Wait. She turned to the sphere. It's sillia
fluttered in quick, complicated signals. Lahar turned back to me.

(27:08):
Do you know much of the nature of time, that
it is curved, moves in a spiral, she went on
to explain. But much of her explanation I did not
understand yet. I gathered enough to realize that this valley
was not of Earth, or rather it was not of
the Earth. I knew you have geological disturbances. I know

(27:29):
the strata are tumbled about, mixed one with another. I
remembered what Frau Raphael had said about an earthquake three
months before. Lahar nodded toward me. But this was a
time slip. The space continuum is also subject to great
strains and stresses. It buckled, and strata time sectors were

(27:50):
thrust up to mingle with others. This valley belongs to
another age, as do I and the machine, and also
the other. She told me what had happened. There had
been no warning. One moment she had been in her
own world, her own time. The next she was here
with her robot and the other. I do not know

(28:11):
the origin of the other. I may have lived in
either your future or your past. This valley, with its
ruined stone structures, is probably part of your future. I
had never heard of such a place before. The other
may be of the future. Also its shape I do
not know. She told me more much more, the Other,

(28:32):
as she called it, giving the entity a thought form
that implied complete alienage, had a strangely chameleon like method
of feeding. It lived on life force as well as
I could understand, draining the vital powers of a mammal vampirically,
and it assumed the shape of its prey as it fed.
It was not possession in the strict sense of the word.

(28:53):
It was a sort of merging. Humanity is inclined to
invest all things with its own attributes. Forget that outside
the limitations of time and space and size, familiar laws
of nature do not apply. So even now I do
not know all that lay behind the terror in that
Peruvian valley. This much I learned. The Other, like Lahar

(29:14):
and her robot, had been cast adrift by a time slip,
and thus marooned here. There was no way for it
to return to its normal time sector. It had created
the fog wall to protect itself from the direct rays
of the sun, which threatened its existence. Sitting there in
the filigreed silver twilight beside Lahar, I had a concept
of teeming universes of space time of an immense spiral

(29:38):
of lives and civilizations, races and cultures, covering and infinite cosmos.
And yet what had happened very little in that inconceivable infinity,
a rift in time, a dimensional slip, and a sector
of land, and three beings on it had been wrenched
from their place in time and transported to our time stratum.

(29:58):
A robot of flower that was alive and intelligent and feminine,
and the other the native girls. I said, what will
happen to them? They are no longer alive, Lahar told me.
They still move and breathe, but they are dead, sustained
only by the life force of the other. I do
not think it will harm me. Apparently it prefers other food.

(30:22):
That's why you've stayed here, I asked. The shining velvety
Calyik swayed, I shall die soon. For a little while
I thought that I might manage to survive in this
alien world, this alien time. Your blood has helped the
cool tentacle withdrew from my arm. But I lived in
a younger time, where space was filled with certain energizing,

(30:46):
vibratory principles. They have faded now almost to nothing, to
what you call cosmic rays, and these are too weak
to maintain my life. No, I must die, and then
my poor robot will be alone. I sensed elf and
amusement in that last thought. It seems absurd to you
that I should think affectionately of a machine. But in

(31:08):
our world there is a rapport, a mental symbiosis between
robot and living things. There was a silence after a while.
I said, I'd better get out of here, get help
to end the menace of the other. What sort of
help I did not know. Was the other vulnerable? Lahar
caught my thought in its own shape. It is vulnerable.

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But what that shape is I do not know. As
for your escaping from this valley, you cannot. The fog
will bring you back. I've got my compass. I glanced
at it, saw that the needle was spinning at random.
Lahar said, the other has many powers. Whenever you go
into the fog, you will always return here. How do

(31:53):
you know all this, I asked. My robot tells me
a machine can reason logically better than my co a
Lloyd brain. I closed my eyes, trying to think. Surely
it should not be difficult for me to retrace my
steps to find a path out of this valley. Yet
I hesitated, feeling a strange impudence. Can't your robot guide me?

(32:15):
I persisted, He will not leave my side. Perhaps, Lahar
turned to the sphere and the scillia fluttered excitedly. No,
she said, turning back to me. Built into his mind
is one rule, never to leave me. He cannot disobey that.
I couldn't ask Lahar to go with me. Somehow I

(32:35):
sensed that the frigid cold of the surrounding mountains would
destroy her. Swiftly, I said, it must be possible for
me to get out of here. I'm going to try anyway.
I will be waiting, she said, and did not move
as I slipped out between two trunks of the banion
like tree. It was daylight, and the silvery grayness overhead
was palely luminous. I headed for the nearest rampart of fog.

(32:59):
Lahar was right. Each time I went into that cloudy
fog barrier, I was blinded. I crept forward, step by step,
glancing behind me at my footprints in the snow, trying
to keep a straight line, and presently I would find
myself back in the valley. I must have tried a
dozen times before giving up. There were no landmarks in
that all concealing grayness, and only by sheerest chance would

(33:22):
anyone blunder into this valley unless hypnotically summoned. Like the
Indio girls, I realized that I was trapped. Finally I
went back to Lahar. She hadn't moved an inch since
I had left, nor had the robot apparently Lahar, I said, Lahar,
can't you help me? The white flame of the flower
was motionless, but the robot, Sillia, moved in quick signals.

(33:45):
Lahar moved at last. Perhaps her thought came, unless both
induction and deduction fail, my robot has discovered a chance
for you. The other can control your mind through emotions,
but I too have some power over your mind. If
I give you strength walledew within a psychic shield against intrusion,

(34:06):
you may be able to face the other. But you
cannot destroy it unless it is in its normal shape.
The Indio girls must be killed first killed. I felt
a sense of horror at the thought of killing those poor,
simple native girls. They are not actually alive now, they
are now a part of the other. They can never

(34:27):
be restored to their former life. How will destroying them,
help me, I asked again. Lahar consulted the robot. The
Other will be driven from their bodies. It will then
have no hiding place and must resume its own form.
Then it can be slain. Lahar swayed and curtsied away. Come,

(34:49):
she said. It is in my mind that the Other
must die. It is evil, ruthlessly selfish, which is the
same thing. Until now, I have not realized the solution
to this evil being. But seeing into your thoughts has
clarified my own. And my robot tells me that unless
I aid you, the Other will continue ravening into your world.
If that happens, the time pattern will be broken. I

(35:12):
do not quite understand, but my robot makes no mistakes.
The Other must die. She was outside of the banion,
now the sphere, Gliding after her. I followed. The three
of us moved swiftly across the blue moss, guided by
the robot. In a little while, we came to where
the six Indio girls were squatting. They had apparently not
moved since I had left them. The Other is not here,

(35:36):
Lahar said. The robot held me back as Lahar advanced
towards the girls. The skirt like frill at her base,
convoluting as she moved. She paused beside them, and her
petals trembled and began to unfold. From the tip of
that great blossom, a fountain of white dust spurted up
spores or pollen, it seemed to be. The air was

(35:57):
cloudy with the whiteness. The robot drew me back back again.
I sensed danger. The pollens seemed to be drawn toward
the Indios, spun toward them in dancing mist moats. It
settled on their bronzed bodies, their limbs and faces. It
covered them like a veil, until they appeared to be
six statues, white as cold marble there on the blue moss.

(36:20):
Lahar's pedals lifted and closed again. She swayed toward me,
her mind sending a message into mine. The other has
no refuge now, she told me, I have slain the
the girls. They're dead. My lips were dry. What semblance
of life they had left is now gone. The other

(36:41):
cannot use them again. Lahars swayed toward me. A cool
tentacle swept out, pressing lightly on my forehead. Another touched
my breast above the heart. I give you of my
strength Lahar said, it will be as shield and buckler
to you. The rest of the way. You must go
alone into me. Tide of power flowed. I sank into

(37:05):
cool depths, passionless and calm. Something was entering my body,
my mind and soul, drowning my fears, stiffening my resolve.
Strength of Lahar was now my strength. The tentacles dropped away,
their work done. The robot's silly as signaled, and Lahar said,
your way lies there that temple. Do you see it?

(37:27):
I saw it far in the distance, half shrouded by
the fog. A scarlet structure, not ruined like the others,
was visible. You will find the other there. Slay the
last Indio, then destroy the other. I had no doubt
now of my ability to do that. A new power
seemed to lift me from my feet, send me running
across the moss. Once I glanced back to see Lahar

(37:50):
and her robots standing motionless watching me. The temple enlarged
as I came nearer. It was built of the same
reddish stone as the other ruined locks I had seen,
but erosion had weathered its harsh angles till nothing now
remained but a rounded, smoothly sculptured monolith twenty feet tall,
shaped like a rifle shell. A doorway gaped in the

(38:12):
crimson wall. I paused for a moment on the threshold,
in the dimness, within a shadow stirred. I stepped forward,
finding myself in a room that was tall and narrow
the ceiling hidden in gloom. Along the walls were carvings
I could not clearly see. They gave a suggestion of
inhuman beings that watched. It was dark, but I could

(38:34):
see the Indian girl who had been Miranda val. Her
eyes were on me, and even through the protecting armor
of the harsh strength, I could feel their terrible power.
The life in the girl was certainly not human. Destroy her,
my mind warned, Destroy her quickly. But as I hesitated,
a veil of darkness seemed to fall upon me. Utter

(38:55):
called a frigidity as of outer space, lanced into my brain.
My senses reeled under the assault. Desperately, blind and sick
and giddy, I called on the reserve strength Lahar had
given me. Then I blacked down. When I awoke, I
saw smoke coiling from the muzzle of the pistol in
my hand. At my feet lay the Indio girl dead.

(39:17):
My bullet had crashed into her brain, driving out the
terrible dweller. There my eyes were drawn to the farthest wall.
An archway gaped there. I walked across the room, passed
under the archway. Instantly I was in complete sticky and darkness.
But I was not alone. The power of the other
struck me like a tangible blow. I have no words

(39:40):
to tell of an experience so completely disassociated from human memories.
I remember only this. My mind and soul were sucked
down into a black abyss where I had no volition
or consciousness. It was another dimension of the mind where
my senses were altered. Nothing existed there but the intense
blackness beyond time space. I could not see the other

(40:02):
nor conceive of it. It was pure intelligence, stripped of flesh.
It was alive, and it had power, power that was godlike.
There in the great darkness, I stood alone, unaided, sensing
the approach of an entity from some horribly remote place
where all values were altered. I sensed Lahar's nearness. Hurry,

(40:23):
her thought came to me before it wakens. Warmth flowed
into me. The blackness receded against the farther wall. Something
lay a thing bafflingly human, A great headed thing with
a tiny, pallid body coiled beneath it. It was squirming
towards me. Destroy it, Lahar communicated. The pistol in my

(40:45):
hand thundered, bucking against my palm. Echoes roared against the walls.
I fired and fired again until the gun was empty.
It is dead, Lahar's thought entered my mind. I stumbled,
dropped the pistol. It was as the child of an
old super race, a child not yet born. Can you

(41:05):
conceive of such a race where even the unborn had
power beyond human understanding? My mind wondered what an adult
alien must be. I shivered suddenly cold, an icy wind
gusted through the temple. Lahar's thought was clear in my mind.
Now the valley is no longer a barrier to the elements.

(41:25):
The other created fog and warmth to protect itself. Now
it is dead, and your world reclaims its own. From
the outer door of the temple, I could see the
fog being driven away by a swift wind. Snow was
falling slowly, great white flakes that blanketed the blue moss
and lay like caps on the red shards that dotted
the valley. I shall die swiftly and easily now, instead

(41:49):
of slowly by starvation, Laar said. A moment later, a
thought crossed my mind, faint and intangible as a snowflake,
and I knew Lahar was saying good by. I left
the valley once. I looked back, but there was only
a veil of snow behind me, and out of the
greatest adventure the cosmic gods ever conceived, only this. For

(42:11):
a little while, the eternal veil of time was ripped away,
and the door to the unknown was held Ajar. But
now the door is closed once more. Below Waskan, a
robot guards a tomb. That is all. The snow fell faster. Shivering,
I plowed through the deepening drifts. My compass needle pointed north.

(42:32):
The spell that had enthralled the valley was gone. Half
an hour later I found the trail and the road
to safety lay open before me. Fra Raphael would be
waiting to hear my story, but I did not think
that he would believe it. And of where the world

(42:53):
is quiet by Henry Kuttner