The thousand tiny eyes raced past him, glittering
with alien ecstasy, shining brighter, ever brighter
as they fed. He felt the lifeblood being sucked
out of him—deeper stabbed the gelid cold—louder
roared the throbbing in his ears ... then the voice
came, "The heart of the Watcher. Crush the heart."
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1946.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man running through the forest gloom breathed in hot, pantinggusts, pain tearing at his chest. Underfoot the crawling, pale networkof tree-trunks lay flat upon the ground, and more than once he trippedover a slippery bole and crashed down, but he was up again instantly.
He had no breath to scream. He sobbed as he ran, his burning eyestrying to pierce the shadows. Whispers rustled down from above. Whenthe leaf-ceiling parted, a blaze of terribly bright stars flamed inthe jet sky. It was cold and dark, and the man knew that he was not onEarth.
They were following him, even here.
A squat yellow figure, huge-eyed, inhuman, loomed in his path—one ofthe swamp people of Southern Venus. The man swung a wild blow at thething, and his fist found nothing. It had vanished. But beyond it rosea single-legged giant, a Martian, bellowing the great, gusty laughterof the Redland Tribes. The man dodged, stumbled, and smashed downheavily. He heard paddling footsteps and tried, with horrible intensityof purpose, to rise. He could not.
The Martian crept toward him—but it was no longer a Martian. AnEarthman, with the face of some obscene devil, came forward with asidling, slow motion. Horns sprouted from the low forehead. The teethwere fangs. As the creature came nearer, it raised its hands—twisted,gnarled talons—and slid them about the man's throat.
Through the forest thundered the deep, booming clangor of a brass gong.The sound shattered the phantom as a hammer shatters glass. Instantlythe man was alone.
Making hoarse, animal sounds in his throat, he staggered upright andlurched in the direction from which the sound came. But he was tooweak. Presently he fell, and this time he did not rise. His arms moveda little and then were still. He slept, lines of tortured wearinesstwisting the haggard face.
Very faintly, from infinite distances, he heard a voice ... two voices.Inhuman. Alien—and yet with a warmth of vital urgency that stirredsomething deep within him.
"He has passed our testing."
Then a stronger, more powerful voice—answering.
"Others have passed our testing—but the Aesir slew them."
"There is no other way. In this man I sensed something—a littledifferent. He can hate—he has hated."
"He will need more than hatred—" the deeper voice said. "Even withus to aid him. And there is little time. Strip his memories from himnow, so that he may not be weakened by them—"
"May the gods fight with him."
"But he fights the gods. The only gods men know in these evil days—"
The man awakened.
Triphammers beat ringingly inside his skull. He opened his eyes andclosed them quickly against the sullen red glow that beat down fromabove. He lay motionless, gathering his strength.
What had happened?
He didn't know. The jolting impact of that realization struck himviolently. He felt a brief panic of disorientation. Where—?
I'm Derek Stuart, he thought. At least it isn't complete amnesia. Iknow who I am. But not where I am.
This time when he opened his eyes they stayed open. Overhead abroad-lea