Chapter VI

A soft, distant shimmering glow pierced through in arrows of jeweled brilliance. A swirling mist swam toward and around him. It was a beautiful, soft enchantment. A green world of gently swaying fronds and phosphorescent bubbles climbing and bursting in clouds of multi-colored flame.

It was an underwater city, a delicate coraled Babylon of some alien beauty, with avenues of high dainty ferns swaying to the urgings of invisible currents. Enmeshed in this strange ensorcelled dream of jeweled, glimmering, glittering wonder, Venard's mind sped through emerald halls....

And suddenly, by his side, there was Vale--her presence mistily improbable, and yet somehow definite. He could not see, he could not feel, but he could know--

He and Vale were being summoned, called by frantically urging minds.

They floated into a room that was nebulous, quivering now into plainer sight, now withdrawing into indefiniteness. Then Venard saw a brilliant flame that grew, hardened, crystallized, shone brighter and more brilliantly strange. Mists of argent light, then floating shadowy shapes of incredible delicacy swam into view. He knew it now.

The Undersea City of the Venusian Sea People.

Small, round, quasi-human faces looked with deep concern into his. Not his face, but into his mind, his roving, battling mind. Opaque arms, delicate and slender as flower stems, motioned with desperate urgency.

The reality of the apparent fantasy hit Venard like a projectile from space with a shockingly familiar voice, a mental voice from the dead:

"Hey, Karl! It's me, Kewpie Doll Larson. We gotta move fast, see? It's me and the Venusian Sea people. It's us! We're helping you fight the Jovian."

Venard thought frantically, "How? You're--you're supposed to be dead!"

"No, Karl. That was just a gag. I burned loose the muscle hinges that holds them clams together, but I still couldn't get out. Then, when the tide came and backed up into that moat, the Venusians swam up and rescued me. They knew what had happened; they used their thought-crystals. Listen, it ain't fantastic at all. Them memory-spheres are mental power synthesizers, just like dynamos. The Sea People have been working on these things secretly to fight the Jovians with. Listen, Karl. You're the instrument, see? We all concentrate on our crystals and you can blast that infernal black box to Kingdom Come. I'll be in there with you in two shakes of a three-tailed _ghroat_. I'm just outside S.S.C. now! Give him hell, Karl!"

"But--how?" his mind almost gasped.

Then he heard Vale's laugh--and it was a joyous thing. "Too many people have told you too little," her message came through. "Come--we haven't much time now. You must trust these people. They will show you how...."

Arm in arm, then, they soared up into green translucence. Curiously, as they rose, the green grew deeper, darker, and choking terror tore once again at Venard's throat--a terror cunningly without reason.

He suddenly felt the dark box nestling against his ribs. Had he been carrying the Jovian even down among the Sea People?

And where was Vale? The warming sense of her presence was withdrawn. Fear stabbed into him again. Fear--and those tendrils of white-hot anguish.

He was back in the body bank ... alone ... with the Jovian. Black fury burst once more against his reeling mind, but through it rose the faintest of echoes: "Give him hell, Karl!"

Energy, strength, courage, power flooded through him. Still, there was no reality, no visible enemy, no material hall with body banks and mosaic walls and solid plastic floors. Out of a black sea bobbed a cloudy sphere of coruscating evil hate. Venard leaped, his body bending through an arc of torture. He had the sphere in his dripping hands, holding it high. He must hurl it from him, smash it, but it clung to him, seemed a part of him. Blindness thickened his sight; then, as it thinned, he blinked. The Jovian cubicle body was smashing against the high, up-curving wall of the buried body bank hall in S.S.C.

A dazzling greenish glare exploded in a bright crackling flame that flung him full length. In his mind burst an ultimate unhuman cry of raw agony from the Jovian. It climbed beyond his auditory range so high that a stark-shock wrenched his spine and shook his brain in his skull. And the Jovian spewed out in a pulsating, semi-liquid mass, ran down the smoothly polished mosaic.

Venard rubbed his burning eyes, as he sat there wearily trying to grasp some general understanding. His body was terribly tired. The Martian medic helped him to his feet, but he couldn't stand alone. While he swayed dizzily, the Martie's body sac nodded gently. "Thank you, Lieutenant Venard. S.S.C. is free at long last. We had abandoned all hope. A burial place of knowledge is always a final graveyard of hope."

* * * * *

Venard was leaning wearily against the wall and the Martian medic was lifting the first Zharkon's brain-sac into the refrigerated bank when Larson and Vale came running down the hall. Larson was a spectacle for sore eyes. His uniform was waving tatters, his skin a splotched mass from digestive acids of the carnivorous clam. Vale wrapped unforgotten arms around Venard's neck and for a while he forgot Larson, the Zharkon's brain. He forgot almost everything.

"You defeated it," she breathed proudly, eyes shining. "You defeated it! We couldn't help here in S.S.C. We were powerless. But, for that few days when I was free, you would never have known about it."

"_He_ defeated it?" howled Larson from a raw, flaming face. "I defeated it. Me and the Sea People did, that is. But we ain't got any time to argue about who gets the medals. The Martians are outside with a couple of Battlewagons. They're setting up electro-cannons, vibratory beams, oxo-hydro guns, and God alone knows what they got in secret. They're gonna break in here or bust."

The Martian medic said, "They can't, of course. The force fields and--"

Larson bawled out an ungentlemanly, "Don't be so smug! Comin' all the way here I bet they've got some secret weapon."

Venard said curtly, "Contact them! I suggest we tell them we'll give them their Zharkon the First's blasted brain. I'm beginning to get brains on the brain!"

They hurried to a nearby room containing an inner-S.S.C communication set. The Martian medic nervously switched through to S.S.C. control study. "This is Yhongar in the Transplant Wards," he said. "Lieutenant Venard of the Guards and an--er--Mr. Larson have defeated the Jovian, as you probably know. Director Bronlen, are you all right, sir?"

Director Bronlen's austere face swam into view, changed now. It was the face of a man who has learned the ultimate meanings of slavery and freedom of thought. It smiled with new hope, and with gentle, but firm strength. "Everything is all right now, Yhongar. However, two Martian warships have been reported just outside S.S.C."

"Yes, Director Bronlen," said the Martian. "They intend to attack S.S.C. in an attempt to obtain the brain of Zharkon I. Lieutenant Venard says we should give them the brain. Lieutenant Venard, could you explain to S.S.C. Director H. Bronlen the reason for this proposed action?"

Venard hesitated, flushed weakly. "I--really don't know, exactly, that is. A Martian subversive, Jhongan, working with the Allies, said to give the Martian High Priests every possible assistance in obtaining the Brain. He said that if the replacement in the present Zharkon is accomplished, complete peace would return to the System."

Bronlen's face remained puzzled, groping. "There must be some explanation. We owe you and Sergeant Larson an infinite debt of gratitude, but unless some logical reason is given for this unorthodox procedure, I'm afraid--"

Vale stepped forward. "I think I can explain Jhongan's purpose in wanting this transplantation to succeed."

"I.Q. Saunders," smiled Venard wryly.

"Speak," said Bronlen. "But hurry. The Martians are preparing to attack. For all we know, they may have developed some kind of atomic-penetrator."

"Well," began Vale, "the fanatical Zharkonian Royalists thought they had all authentic Martian historical documents destroyed and forgotten. But they didn't. Their own interpretation of history is based on primitive myth, legends of race and ancestor worship--the old war gods of slaughter and conflict, the hero-worship of victorious armies and of individuals killed in battle. Greatly similar to the old Nazi and Norse ideologies. So, naturally, they didn't want the newly conditioned masses acquainted with _true_ Martian history which is just the opposite, being one of steady progress and peaceful aims designed for the betterment of all peoples. But Jhongan's underground faithfuls on Mars made it a point to preserve key historical Martian documents, evidently, so that they have known all the time the exact nature of the thousand-year-old brain of Zharkon I."

She paused, while Venard lit up a para-ette to steady his shaky nerves. He grinned at her thinly. "I bet you could quote the whole Solar Encyclopedia," he snapped.

She smiled at him and continued. "The amazing part is that the Zharkonian leaders forgot real history themselves. Fell for their own propaganda, which is so often the case. They believe in the myths and legends they've resurrected--in part. It's obvious they've forgotten or they certainly wouldn't be attempting this transplantation. You see, we've studied that incredible double-brain thoroughly in connection with socio-economic history of Zharkon the First's era. It was one of the first double-brain experiments and wasn't entirely successful. There was an uncontrollable influence of the thalamic half over the cortex half. You see, Zharkon I was beneficently pathological as a ruler."

"Pathological," exclaimed Director Bronlen.

"Yes. A fanatical pacifist, who went into daily trances and preached the sacred brotherhood of all races, creeds and colors. But the methods he used were impractical and revealed unintegration of his brain sections. So you can see what will happen if that kind of cortex gets in control of the present militaristic Martian government."

"A pacifist! Fanatical--pathological--" Venard grinned broadly. Larson laughed hoarsely. The Martian swelled his body sac with pride and renewed hope. Bronlen's face appeared to glow with admiration for Vale's analysis, sharpened to sudden decision. "I am going to contact the Martians immediately," he said. "I'll inform them that rather than have conflict here within the cloistered halls of science, we'll give them the brain of Zharkon I--without question. This will probably inflate their paranoic egos considerably."

The teleaudio faded and almost immediately, several attendants of as many planetary types in interne's gowns came down the long hall and took the huge Martian double-brain away to the arrogantly and triumphantly waiting Martian Priests. Their warships blasted off without delay, atomic-interplanetary drives at full acceleration, to transplant the brain into the body of their incapacitated war leader--to transform him into an incurable, pathological, fanatical lover of peace at any cost--a mind that regarded war for any cause at any time more terrible than a cosmic plague.

Meanwhile, the Solar Federation was made acquainted with the real and far more terrifying threat existing on the obscure, dark and mysterious world of the Jovians. Panic swept over these worlds, realizing as they did that there was no way to combat the pure thought power of the Jovians.

However, the Venusian Sea People had found out via S.S.C. about the thralldom of that citadel by the Jovian there, and, realizing the tremendous threat to the System, they retreated into their strange, deep laboratories to manufacture the memory-crystals by the thousands. The mystic little globes would enable other than Jovian minds to achieve a unity of mental strength. In the hands of millions of Solarians, they would mean inevitable defeat for the outnumbered Jovians.

* * * * *

At an unspecified date after the Jovian defeat on Luna, in the synthetic wonderland of Escapeasies and pleasure palaces, terraced gardens and the magnificent space-view translucent dome of the resort in Theophilus Crater, three figures stood on the crater's colossal rim.

Venard's arm was around Vale's shoulders as they stared with unshakable awe into the huge vault of the sky enclosing them in a black and gigantic hollow, sprinkled with the white dust of the stars. Nearby, seated on a pneumatic couch with a bottle of _stihn_ in one hand and a memory-crystal in the other, Louie Larson was realizing an ultimate kind of hedonistic satisfaction with life.

It was the middle of the Lunar night, and the terrific cold crept in, even through the laced seams of the dome.

"Go ahead, kiss," said Larson in a bored fashion. "Don't mind me. You two don't know what love really means, either of you." He was looking into the memory-crystal from which he never took his eyes. A willowy, flowery, translucent green body undulated in its misty depths.

Vale smiled boldly up at Venard. Venard managed to shoot a quick grin at Larson. "I suppose you're going to say that Venusian Sea Woman who fell for you looks something like Glora Karstedt?"

"Don't joke about pure, cosmic love such as mine," warned Larson dreamily. "It's a love of pure thought, a spiritual delight. There never was any Glora Karstedt. I guess you'd call Glora a symbol, a dream woman. An' I've found the ideal at last, friends. Her name is Ulolalahr. Her thoughts alone in my mind are pure ecstasy."

Larson arose slowly and austerely and walked to the panel. "This physical kind of thing is positively disgustin'," he said.

"I don't agree with him at all," said Vale, closing her eyes and puckering up her lips.

A few seconds later, Venard breathed a long, "Wheeeoooow. What an I.Q.! Ideally Qualified."