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Title: All That Earthly Remains

Author: C.C. MacApp

Release Date: January 16, 2020 [EBook #61187]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Breathing a little heavily in the Andean air, and still dazed at the urgency with which he had been whisked southward (via jet bomber), Dr. Luis Craig walked across packed earth toward a powerful-looking helicopter which, he had just been told, was to take him on the last leg of his trip. He listened tiredly to the unctuous words of his escort, a Lieutenant Rabar who wore the uniform of this Latin American nation's Air Force and who was to fly the helicopter.

Shouts erupted behind them, at the edge of the field. Something snarled at his left ear. The sound was familiar, though not recently so: the crack of a rifle. He hit the dirt.

Another bullet came searching, but now the shouts got themselves organized into crisp Spanish. Sidearms and at least two automatic weapons blatted. There were no more rifle shots. Cautiously, he raised his head to look at the knot of uniformed men where the sniper had been.

Rabar stepped forward, offering a hand. "Are you all right, Doctor?"

Craig ignored the hand and got up without help. "Quite, thank you." He had disliked Rabar from the moment of introduction; and now it was in his mind that Rabar had stepped carefully away from him before the first bullet came.

As casually as he could, he walked to the aluminum ladder hung upon the helicopter's side and hauled himself up. He stopped in the hatch, dignity forgotten, startled at the disparity of the three men already in the ship.

Directly across the cabin sat a gaunt scarecrow of a man in a black priest's cassock. An oxygen mask dangled on his thin chest, suggesting a bloated crucifix. The long, swarthy face was pockmarked, dour and without animation at the moment, except for fierce black eyes that burned steadily into Craig's own. Craig thought of a condor, perched near some nearly ready meal. He was immediately ashamed of the thought.

Forward of the priest sat a brown Indian. His face mirrored dignified resignation to being carried in this hellish contraption to horrible death, or worse.

Occupying the only seat on the hatch side was a tautly uniformed man who eyed Craig coldly.

The priest spoke. His voice was deep and gently strong, caressing the Spanish syllables like a great soft bell. "We are abject, Doctor. We had tried very hard ... but there are fanatics."

"Eh?" said Craig. "Oh. Well, I am unhurt, as you can see."

"For which, thanks to the Almighty. Our humblest apologies. You speak Spanish exceptionally well, Doctor."

Wondering if there were a question behind the compliment, Craig said, "My mother was Mexican." He did not think it necessary to add that he'd grown up near the border, and had once spent two years as an exchange Professor of Physics at the Mexican university.

The priest nodded once. "I see. It was thoughtful of your government to choose you. And more than kind of you to come. But, forgive me; the shooting has made me forget my manners. This—" indicating the uniformed man—"is General Noriega." He laid a hand on the shoulder of the Indian. "And this one prefers to answer to the name Dientes."

Craig looked at the brown face with interest. Archeology was one of his hobbies, and in this part of the world ... 'Dientes' was Spanish for 'teeth,' he mused. Abruptly, under his gaze, the immobile face split into a wide nervous smile revealing the source of the nickname. They were large, even and very white.

"And I," the priest was saying, "am called Father Brulieres. Won't you seat yourself?"

Craig tensed in surprise. The name Brulieres had been very much in the news of late. A priest by that name had led the movement which put the present government in power—and was still reputedly, the man who actually ran it.

Craig realized he was still perched awkwardly halfway into the cabin. Mumbling something, he squeezed his bulky mountain gear through the hatch and took the empty seat beside the priest.

Rabar came in, closing the hatch behind him, and went forward to the pilot's seat. He glanced around at his passengers.

It seemed to Craig that he was more interested in faces than in the condition of seat belts. Rabar worked at switches and buttons. Engines coughed, then roared. From overhead came the rising "whoosh" of the vanes. The craft shivered and lifted.

They went on oxygen at once, and Craig, under the eyes of the other passengers, was glad to put the breather over at least part of his face. Imitating the others he pulled down the earflaps of his helmet. It seemed to have built-in radio, as he could hear Rabar advising them to strap in. A moment later, clearing his throat, he discovered that his breather contained a mike. He was surprised at such advanced electronics here.

They were quickly closed in by mighty cliffs. Below them, a river tumbled wildly. Where it could find root-holds, fantastic greenery burgeoned, but it did little to disguise the menacing rock. The cabin's plastic windows gave all too clear a view.

Turning from the window beside him, Craig found his eyes wandering to the insignia pinned to the priest's cassock. Of elegantly wrought gold, it was the same emblem he'd noticed on buildings, vehicles and other government property here. It looked like a set of football goalposts with the uprights moved in close together, leaving the crossbar extending to the sides.

The priest caught his look and gave him what might be intended for a smile. "You wonder about our emblem? It represents the Church and State standing—what is the expression in your own language?—'four-square' together."

"Oh." Craig realized that the symbol was simply a cross with two posts instead of one. He felt a little annoyed. His own government had told him enough to make him eager to come on this job, but they'd also warned him emphatically not to discuss politics or religion. He supposed the United States needed friends wherever they could be found, but a dictatorship wasn't his notion of a good alternative to Bolshevism.

He realized that the warning had point. He didn't know how ruthless these people might be, but the shooting back at the airfield hadn't been any game of marbles. For that matter, the whole country, or what he'd seen of it, had an armed-camp air.

He decided the thing to do was to concentrate on the scientific reason for his visit, and now was as good a time to start as any. He leaned toward Brulieres, then realized that wasn't necessary. "Er—are you at liberty to tell me anything about the explosion?"

Brulieres eyed him for a moment, and again there was the hint of a smile. "We could hardly be secretive with you, Doctor. You are the expert. How much were you told?"

"Just that there'd been a nuclear explosion of unknown origin. They said there was something spectacular about it."

"Spectacular? Si! Your government was gracious enough to accept our request for technical help without demanding details. Security is very difficult, as you comprehend." Brulieres looked absent for a moment. "The explosion occurred at a spot famous in pre-Christian legends, which is why friend Dientes accompanies us. He is considered experto." The intense eyes turned upon the Indian, with a hint of mischief. "Not that he fails to be a good Christian as well."

The Indian crossed himself nervously.

"The explosion," Brulieres went on, "seems to have uncovered some very ancient tunnels. We wish to explore them, but we felt we needed a nuclear physicist along. Especially since there appears the possibility that the explosion originated from the tunnels."

Craig heard Noriega clear his throat. Brulieres glanced at Noriega. "It has also been suggested," the priest said, "that the uncovering of the tunnels is coincidental, and that the explosion was of foreign origin."

Craig thought that over, and was annoyed. "That does not seem likely," he said, a little stiffly. "Nobody is tossing live warheads around."

Noriega spoke for the first time. His voice was crisp and rather high. "You can perhaps speak for your own nation, Doctor Craig; but others too possess missiles."

Brulieres interposed, "You no doubt know, Doctor, that a communist putsch very nearly took over this country. The present government has been compelled to very strict measures against a further attempt. Therefore we are not popular with the communist nations."

Craig waved a hand impatiently. "Yes, I know that, but...." He realized he was being careless. "I only wish to approach my investigation with an open mind. You say the tunnels were ancient? Incan, perhaps?"

Brulieres shook his head slowly. "They were hardly capable of anything on this scale. One cannot speak so surely of those who preceded the Incas in this place."

Craig pondered, and felt his pulse move faster. "How much have you learned so far?"

"What can be seen from the air. We will be the first to land, if you decide it is safe."

II

They rose with the canyon, and its upper ramparts began to display patches of snow. Ahead loomed solid whiteness. They strained upward and emerged over a snowfield glaring white in the sun, its jagged peaks casting crisp blue shadows. The copter's own shadow danced along beneath them like a crazy gnat.

They aimed for a cluster of five or six peaks dominating everything else. Dientes, twisting nervously in his seat, mumbled something about "puesto de los demonios." They flew between two of the peaks and were in a basin formed by the roughly circular cluster.

Zero ground of the explosion was as obvious as an ugly dark blotch on white cloth. Snow had been melted away from an oblong area on the inner slope of one peak, leaving naked rock. Craig stared at what lay revealed. A plateau was carved out of the mountainside, so flat and so precisely oval that there wasn't an instant's doubt that it was artificial. The uphill wall was vertical, following exactly the curve of the ellipse. The wall was in shadow, but Craig could make out the five black tunnel mouths, all of a shape and evenly spaced.

He let out his breath in a grunt as he remembered that this was a blast area and that they were getting close. Hastily, he unhooded one of the instruments, his fingers awkward with excitement. He watched the dial. No serious radiation yet. Rabar looked at him, and he nodded his head to indicate they could go closer.

The radiation increased a little but was still mild. He pondered. The blast had been very clean, and of a low order, melting the snow without even scarring the rock. Apparently it had occurred not far above the surface and over the center of the plateau. He didn't know of any existing warheads that fit the explosion, nor could he believe that either intent or coincidence had placed the blast so exactly.

The copter was hovering now, the other passengers watching him silently. He met Rabar's eyes, and glanced away, uncomfortable. If the priest's eyes reminded him of a vulture's, then Rabar's made him think of a wolf's. They had an odd yellowish tinge, and were at one time alert and devoid of expression. Craig couldn't know where the man fit into things, but he didn't ring true as a simple pilot.

Craig needed no diagrams drawn for him, so far as his own position went. In the first place, the opposition might assassinate him simply to embarrass the government. On the other hand, if he seemed to stand in the way of Noriega's project of making political capital of the explosion, and if Noriega represented a strong faction in the government, that faction might think it worth while to let something happen to him and blame it on the communists.

But the hottest potato of all would be whatever he learned at the spot of the explosion. He could imagine all sorts of fabulous things. So would others, and some of them would go to considerable lengths to know.

An instrument, dangled at the end of a line, showed no bad radiation, so Craig said they could land.

When he stood on the plateau the tunnel mouths seemed like converging black stares. Nevertheless he itched to explore. Impatiently, he led the unloading and stacking of his equipment.

When that was done the group stood for a minute, evidently all feeling the awe Craig did. Dientes was first to break the silence, muttering something under his breath.

Brulieres fixed the Indian with a look that was not entirely severe. "Christian prayers, hijo, if you please." He turned to Craig. "What can be learned where we stand?"

"I should be able to determine the type of explosion. I will have to take rock samples, and set up some apparatus."

"How long will that require?"

"Less than an hour, with luck."

Brulieres was thoughtful for a while. "In that case, I believe we shall begin reconnoitering the tunnels while you work. But first, let us hear from our expert in demonology."

Dientes squirmed guiltily in his mountain clothing. "I know only what the old tales say, Padre."

"Tell us, if you please. We will decide later whether you have been guilty of paganismo."

"Si, Padre. This place is the home of the Fire Devils. There is no question of the fact. It is precisely as described when I was a small boy sitting at the feet of los viejos."

"Well, then. What manner of devils were they?"

"Creatures of fire, Padre, such that the eye could not behold without being blinded. Brighter than the sun."

"Did they make war upon your people?"

"Those who approached this place were punished with spears of fire. It is told that in ancient times, they were often seen flying through the sky, trailing long tails of white feathers. Sometimes they visited the villages, demanding strange things and frightening the people."

"Do the stories mention these tunnels?"

"No, Padre. The Fire Devils lived beneath the snow. They were seen to vanish into it."

"Without melting it?"

"They could turn off their fire, perhaps. In any event, Padre, who knows what is possible with demons?"

"I know that you need and will receive many hours of strict Christian instruction. How is it that men returned to tell of these things if the devils pursued them with spears of fire?"

"Some escaped."

"Is it definitely told of individuals who were killed?"

Dientes looked thoughtful, and disappointed. "I do not recall the names of any who were slain."

"Bah. Why have there been no reports in recent years?"

Dientes shrugged. "Quien sabe? Perhaps the arrival of the true religion has driven away the devils."

"Perhaps," said Brulieres, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. He turned toward the tunnels. "I think, General, that I will ask you and the lieutenant to explore a little way into one of the tunnels. Come out at once if you see anything that might be dangerous."

Craig opened his mouth to protest, but held back the words. He did ache to get into the tunnels, but he wasn't a free agent here. He watched as the two uniformed men disappeared into the middle tunnel. Their flashlights were quickly lost as they rounded some turn in the tunnel.

Brulieres said to Dientes, "The doctor and I must take some samples of the rock. Will you be good enough to remain here and guard the helicopter?" He laid his hand on the Indian's shoulder. "I see that you are not comfortable in your helmet. You may remove it if you wish. We will call to you if we need you."

Craig realized Brulieres wanted to talk to him alone. He went with the priest. The Indian squatted, apparently quite comfortable without his oxygen. "He is used to high altitudes," Brulieres remarked. "You or I could hardly remain conscious here. I wished to talk to you, Doctor."

"About what, Padre?" Craig felt a little awkward with the title.

"About certain things in our country of which you do not approve."

Craig hesitated. "I ... am here on a scientific mission."

"Nevertheless, you have ideas in the field of politics? I hope we can be frank with each other."

"Well ... I have no intention of being critical. As you know, we—that is, in the United States the Church is separate from the government."

The corners of Brulieres' mouth quirked. "What you mean, perhaps, is that you do not understand how the Church can support a totalitarian government. Oh, do not protest; the facts are obvious. We have been called worse names than 'totalitarian.' You do not think it right that the Church should take up actual arms."

"I—yes. Since you put it into words. We have a different concept of religion."

The priest nodded slowly. "Si. Once I visited your land. In a way, I envied the priests there. Here, we have had more to contend with than the christening of fat babies and listening to trifling sins of appetite. We are in the front line of battle."

Craig said stiffly, "Do you mean a spiritual battle, or an ideological one?"

This time Brulieres nearly smiled. "Are you so certain, then, that they are not the same battle?"

Damn it, thought Craig, I know better than to argue with a priest. He did not answer for a minute.

Brulieres said gently, "Please forgive me if I am too direct. You do not believe that Evil is a real force?"

Craig could not meet the penetrating eyes. The old doubt edged into his mind: what if he's right and I am wrong? What if there is a personal God? He pushed the thought away, telling himself as he always did that it was just the exposure he'd suffered before he was old enough to think for himself. He said, "I'm a scientist, Padre."

"But not, unless I misjudge you, an atheist?"

"I call myself an agnostic, if you must classify me. I recognize the possibility of some force behind life and mind. I do not believe in a God who is a man with a beard. Nor do I believe in a Devil with hooves and horns."

Brulieres nodded again. "We are not so far apart as you may suppose, Doctor. Myself, I have always thought that one who claimed perfect faith without the trace of a doubt, was either an idiot or a liar. God surely has his reasons for not removing all doubt. In any case I wish to make my position clear to you. It was not happily that I took up what weapons were at hand. Had I the choice, I would choose quite differently." He eyed Craig directly for a moment. "The battle is very real and very clear to me, Doctor. I have done what I must. I hope you will believe that."

Craig's skeptical mind told him that this was just a play for a good press when Craig got home.

His emotions though, wouldn't go along. They cried out that he was looking upon sincerity.

III

The first tests confirmed what Craig had already presumed; that the explosion had been absolutely clean. What radiation existed had originated from molecules in the rock itself or in the vaporized snow.

There was no way of guessing at the type of blast; he only knew that mass had been transformed virtually one hundred per cent into energy in a very short period of time. No process Craig knew even approached it.

He stared again at the tunnel mouths. He was sure now that something had come out of them, risen about seven hundred feet above the plateau and released the blast. He trembled with eagerness to get inside, danger or no.

He had turned impatiently to Brulieres, when somewhere deep in the tunnels, shouting broke out. Two pistol shots echoed hollowly. There was a clatter of running footsteps. Craig found his right hand fumbling at his hip, and felt foolish. He hadn't carried a sidearm since Korea.

Lieutenant Rabar burst through the tunnel, stumbling in the sunlight, his face contorted. He ran straight across the plateau and threw himself over the edge. Dientes, who had jumped to his feet, was only a step behind him. Craig, eyes fastened on the tunnel, realized vaguely that the two must have landed in deep snow, since there was no sound of their falling.

A glow appeared in the tunnel. Craig fought the panic that seized him; stood his ground and was aware of Brulieres beside him. The glow brightened.

Its source came into sight—a ball of dazzling brilliance, oval and about the size of a man's torso. It emerged into sunlight and Craig saw that it was solid. It looked like incandescent metal, but he somehow felt that it wasn't hot. It seemed to move at will and to hover without support.

It acted alive.

It moved a little way toward Craig and Brulieres, then stopped. A tentative rumble came from it, like the beginning of thunder. Something like a tentacle lifted, clutching an object that resembled a flashlight. A blinding lance of heat shot from the object and struck the rock a few yards in front of the two men. A sound came from the rock like ice pressed upon a hot stove. Smoke puffed upward. The beam lasted only an instant, but it left a long curved scar in the rock.

The thing rumbled again, and flashed so brightly Craig threw an arm over his eyes, and heard his own voice cry out wordlessly. His legs tensed to run, but something about the behavior of the thing held him where he was. It seemed unsure of itself, and not really threatening.

When he looked up again, it was moving laterally and up the face of the wall. He saw the flashlight-like object on the ground where it had evidently been dropped.

The oval thing, no longer glowing, lifted fast toward the mountain top. He saw that it was metal, not rusted or corroded but dull with age, and he saw the two ragged holes near the middle of it. He strained his eyes for more detail but it grew tiny in the distance and he saw no joints and no protuberances other than the one tentacle. He lost it in the shadows of the mountain's brow, then saw it flash momentarily in the sun as it curved up and over.

After a moment he turned dazedly toward Brulieres. But before he could say anything there was a sun-dimming flash of light from beyond the mountain. The ground danced. Sound, echoing from the other peaks and battering its way through the solid rock of the mountain, beat about them like monstrous punishing wings.

As the vast thunder dwindled away, Craig, squinting, saw a tenuous, rapidly dimming mushroom cloud tower above the peak. He flinched, but knew that this would be another clean explosion. Most of the cloud was steam. He was sure they were seeing a re-enactment of the blast which had cleared this plateau.

His mind worked in simple patterns: the thing was destroyed; it had dropped its weapon.

He started toward the tunnel mouth, but he had hesitated too long. Brulieres, moving very agilely, was ahead of him.

The priest picked up the weapon and turned toward Craig. Craig, still befuddled, wondered mildly at his own detached state of mind: is he going to kill me; I'd love to get that weapon home to the labs; so that's how he keeps warm. (The latter in reference to the heavy underwear he'd glimpsed beneath the priest's cassock as the padre bent over).

But Brulieres' voice was mild. "Please forgive me for taking possession of this, Doctor. Later, I hope, you will be able to examine it; but I must think first of my own responsibilities." He looked at the thing briefly, started to stow it in some fold of his gown, then hesitated. As if unable to resist the temptation, he aimed it at the rock wall and put his thumb on something.

The incandescence squirted out. The rock cried out and yielded up a curl of smoke. Brulieres turned the thing off at once and turned back to Craig with an expression half guilty, half delighted, like a child with a forbidden toy. Then he sighed and put the weapon away.

Craig had observed what details he could. The thing was an inch or a little more in diameter, perhaps ten inches long. All except one tip was dull and apparently knurled to give a good grip. The tip looked like quartz or some crystal, translucent except the end, which was darkly transparent when not emitting the beam. The trigger was apparently a spot of different color on the body, over which the thumb could be pressed.

Craig thought of the energy stored in that slender cylinder, the necessary insulation, the efficiency of whatever system was used to direct and control the beam. He felt a chill shiver of awe. Then another thought struck him and he looked wide-eyed at Brulieres. "A flaming sword!"

Brulieres gave him a quick glance, and nodded. "Primitives might describe it so."

Rabar climbed back into sight at the edge of the plateau, looking pale. A moment later Dientes poked his head into view.

"Where is the general?" Brulieres demanded.

"Muerto," said Rabar shakily, "in the tunnel. The creature killed him."

The priest's face twitched. "Who shot at it?"

"The general, Padre. He had the only gun."

Brulieres sighed. "Then that is why he is dead. The creature would not have harmed him."

Craig had the same idea. It had used the weapon more as if in bluff, and had apparently carefully gone beyond the mountain to die. He wondered if the two bullet-holes had killed it.

But how many more of the creatures (or machines) waited in the tunnels?

He looked at Brulieres. "Are we going in?"

"By all means. Unless we are stopped." The priest looked thoughtful. "They may be coming out of hibernation or something like it. Can you tell how old this plateau is?"

"Not without taking samples to a geological laboratory. Perhaps not even then, with accuracy. But I would say, some thousands of years."

Rabar was not happy at re-entering the tunnel, but set his jaw and came. Craig stood aside to let the lieutenant go ahead of him. Rabar hesitated, then stepped by. Dientes, crossing himself and muttering, evidently preferred coming along to being left alone outside. He followed Craig.

Brulieres swept his flashlight along the tunnel walls, revealing a turn ahead. They rounded it. After a little way it seemed to Craig that the flashlight dimmed. Then he realized that there was other light in the tunnel; the arched ceiling was aglow. It got brighter and Brulieres turned off his flashlight.

"Evidently," he said, "we are expected. Have you noticed the air?"

Craig had not, but he did now; it was warm and the pressure was higher than outside. "One moment," he said, puzzled. He went back to the mouth of the tunnel. As he stepped outside, he felt a gentle resistance as if some force were pushing him into the tunnel. He re-entered, and felt warmth radiating from the ceiling. He rejoined the others.

The floor of the tunnel sloped up gently for a while, then leveled, then turned downward. The walls were vertical and perfect, with a smooth glazed look. The ceiling curved from wall to wall in a perfect arc. There was room for two men to walk side by side by crowding. Craig walked a little behind Dientes.

Soon he took off his oxygen mask and breathed normally. He would have liked to remove his jacket, but there were too many things in the pockets to spill out.

He had counted one hundred seven paces when the tunnel turned again. It was just beyond the turn that they found Noriega's body.

The tunnel branched here; or at least, a narrower tunnel angled up and off from each side. These tunnels were dark, and, Craig found, cold and with low air pressure. The same mild resistance guarded their mouths. The General lay sprawled loosely just inside the right-hand branch, his head and torso in shadow. He looked simply and peacefully dead.

"Will you lend me a hand, Lieutenant?" Brulieres said. The two of them dragged Noriega into the light.

Craig could see no burns nor any other kind of wound except an abrasion on one cheek which might have resulted from a fall. He started to ask Rabar exactly what had happened, but checked himself. Better not appear suspicious.

He wondered what had happened to the general's pistol, and began to look around for it. But again Brulieres was ahead of him. The priest was eighteen or twenty yards farther into the tunnel, picking up something. It was the pistol. It went into the cloak as the heat-weapon had.

Craig was watching Rabar and he thought the man looked disconcerted. Craig thought, How's this for a theory: Rabar killed Noriega, took his pistol and started up the tunnel. Maybe he just wanted to learn for himself what was in the mountain, or maybe he planned to murder the rest of the party and make it look like an accident. He met the glowing creature, panicked, put two bullets into it, then dropped the gun and ran.

Craig wondered if the priest shared his doubts about Rabar; but if he did, he didn't show it. The priest was already starting on.

Craig lost count of his steps, but judged they'd gone over a quarter of a mile when the tunnel took a final right-angle turn and opened into a great high-domed chamber.

IV

Immediately all question as to the nature of this place vanished. It could only be a military base.

There's something recognizable about weapons, Craig mused, no matter how unfamiliar. Here were gathered great vehicles of war, bristling with the outsize cousins of the heat-tube Brulieres carried and with a myriad other menacing shapes. Yawning black tunnels led away at angles—probably, Craig thought, to hidden exits. Repair machines, some with their work partly finished, were scattered everywhere, silent and with a long-unused air about them. Nearly all of the aerial dreadnaughts (Craig was sure they were that) showed terrible wounds.

The group stared about the chamber in silent awe.

At one place, beneath a trio of round tunnels that aimed steeply upward, was what Craig took to be the main launching area, with ramps for loading ... what? The litter showed clearly where great ships had rested, and that the departure had been hasty. Craig drew in deep trembling breaths and imagined the vast alien argosies lifting upon their mysterious legs of force.

He could see the avarice in Rabar's eyes, and edged closer to the lieutenant. He wasn't going to let the man overpower Brulieres and take the weapons, nor was he going to let him pick up any that might be lying around. Not that Brulieres was being careless. Craig noticed that he kept his distance from everybody, and did not turn his back for long.

They must have stared at the alien machines for quite a while before the priest's deep voice echoed in the chamber. "Come. Another tunnel beckons."

Craig looked where the priest pointed. He saw a tunnel like the one they'd left, about a quarter of the way around the chamber. It glowed with light. All the rest were dark.

He looked again at Brulieres, and was startled at the man's face. It wore a look of glory. Craig shivered. Why, he thought, the man thinks God arranged this for him.

Apparently someone was arranging things, unless the tunnels and the lights were completely robotic. Craig, ignoring the edge of panic that cut at him, followed the priest toward the entrance to the lighted tunnel.

It was short, with two bends in it (probably, Craig thought, to contain possible explosions). It opened into a smaller, lower-ceilinged chamber which had evidently been an assembly hall for troops, or possibly a mess hall. Dark openings led off it which might lead to barracks. In the far end, a single tunnel glowed with light.

They entered that tunnel, which was another short one, and found that they were indeed in the living quarters. These, if the analogies applied, had been the officers'. There was a small assembly hall, and upon one wall of that were the pictures.

The lighting was arranged to fall mostly upon that side of the chamber. The rock had been smoothed to take the murals. The first glimpse shook Craig so that he walked mechanically toward that wall, momentarily forgetting his companions.

A part of his mind admired the basic technique. Outlines in low relief had been cut into the rock, details delicately etched in and colors brought up, apparently, by altering the composition of the rock itself. As for the style it was somewhere between realism and impressionism. Craig was no expert, but he thought the hand was defter, the viewpoint more penetrating, than any he'd ever seen. The slight alien air only increased the charm of the work.

Whatever sort of beings the aliens had been, they hadn't been an unfeeling race. Emotion leaped from every line of the murals.

The first few told concisely of the establishment on Earth of this outpost, of the local defeat and abandonment. There were some heroic scenes there, but Craig hurried through them, drawn to the next series of paintings, yet unwilling to turn his eyes to them.

They were Biblical and as stunningly familiar as if he'd lived with them all his life.

Feeling churned at his insides again.

One of the first immortalized Noah, or whoever had been the actual hero of the first version of the Flood story. The painting of the sea and the dark doomsday clouds over it was so real that Craig took a step backward. Mountainous wave masses were battered white by an incredible rain. Heaved aslant, decks tumbling water, dwarfed by the seas, was the wooden ship. A few half-drowned domestic animals stared in terror, lashed to their pens on deck. The bearded man who stood on wide-planted giant's legs, rope-like fingers gripping a tiller that strained to escape, was bedraggled but staunch and muscled to meet the sea. A woman clung to one arm. She had been painted not delicately, but with a strong beauty that spoke in thunder of the artist's piercing compassion.

There was the crossing of the Red Sea, and the painting showed clearly how some force held aside the water. The artist had evidently been fascinated by the still-puddled seabottom.

There were more, but Craig passed them, drawn like a fish on a line to the painting of the man on the cross. The body, more cruelly punished than the Bible recorded, strained in an agony that communicated itself to Craig's own. The face, twisted with pain, sagging with exhaustion, the tortured soft brown eyes, held no bitterness, no accusation.

The accusation was the painting itself. The bitterness and rage (and remorse?) was the painter's own.

Craig, frightened and miserable, looked at the others. Dientes showed only awe and humility. Rabar was holding himself tautly, but terror showed in his eyes. Brulieres shook with overflowing emotions, his face mirroring worship, glory, worry and doubt. He met Craig's eyes. His voice higher-pitched and cracked with feeling, he said, "Have you noticed—this?"

He was standing before a vertical slab of rough stone which had obviously been used to close up a tunnel. The sealing had been done with melted rock, roughly, leaving a groove around the edge. The job suggested haste. Craig's insides writhed at what might lie behind the slab.

He gripped himself, walked over beside the priest. He could make out only a few of the characters of the inscription burned into the slab. He heard his own voice asking, as if from far away, "Do ... you read Hebrew?"

Brulieres let out a trembling sigh. "With difficulty." He moved slowly closer to the slab, put his fingers to the inscription like a blind man feeling for Braille. Craig saw that his eyes were full of tears. The thin lips mumbled inaudibly.

After a long time Brulieres quit reading and stood there, unmoving. Then he started to speak. His voice was lifeless now, a low uncaring monotone. "Scholars will translate it better, but here is the gist of it."

Craig gripped the priest's arm, heard his own words tumbling out: "It proves nothing, Padre! There can still be a God!" He found that he meant it desperately.

The priest turned, stared at him, then looked faintly amused. "Conviction? Now? You are a more fortunate man than I."

"No, Padre! Your work! Religion is deeper than...."

Brulieres' eyes flashed with some of their old vitality. "My work? This is the God in whose name I have schemed and, Heaven help me, killed." Slowly, mechanically, Brulieres drew the heat-weapon from his garments. He aimed it at the groove around the slab and thumbed the trigger. The rock skirled, and ran to solidify in waxlike lumps. The smoke was acrid in Craig's nostrils.

When the slab was mostly cut around, some inner seal gave way and air sucked loudly into the crack. With a wrenching sound, the slab tore loose. It tilted under some power of its own, and lowered itself to the floor.

Lights, harshly angled and dramatic, flashed on in the small room beyond. It was bare except for the stone platform on the floor, and what rested upon it.

Mechanically, Craig stepped in and moved aside to make room for the others. Brulieres went to the opposite side of the platform and Dientes crouched beside him. Rabar stood hesitantly in the doorway.

The creature was larger than a man and like nothing earthly; many-limbed, built as if for a higher gravity. There was no apparent decomposition or dessication. The atmosphere of the chamber had evidently been chosen to preserve.

There was still a pungent, half-unpleasant smell, being rapidly drawn away through ducts in the ceiling. There was a face of a sort, and two closed eyes. The face was recognizably strong. The thing might have been called ugly, but Craig found a handsomeness about it too. He recognized the drama with which the body was arranged and lighted, and somehow for this last small vanity he loved the creature even more.

Dientes clutched at the priest's robe. "It is a lie, Padre!" And, as the priest remained silent, Dientes turned desperate eyes to Craig. "Mother of God! Will no one say it is a lie?"

Craig felt emotionally depleted. Inside him were a sick regret and a hollowness where something had died, but cold reason remained. If there is no God, he thought, we're just intelligent animals, and we're free to live by our wits. If there is no God, then there is no Devil either.

He pondered that ... and decided with grim amusement that there was Devil enough.

And, in any event, there were needs and desires, friends and enemies. He stepped swiftly around the alien and took the heat-weapon from the priest's limp fingers. He turned toward Rabar, who was (beyond any worthwhile doubt) an enemy, and who was standing in the doorway with an annoying mockery in his eyes. Of course he's happy, Craig thought; he's a Bolshevik agent and an atheist. There'll be damned little religion anywhere, now.

He raised the weapon calmly, every nerve and muscle alert, like an animal ready for action. He watched the triumph fade from Rabar's eyes. As his thumb felt unhesitatingly for the trigger, he watched the growth of fear.

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