The alien intelligence

by Jack Williamson

Abruptly a vast mellow golden beam of light sprang from behind the distant scarlet hills and spread up toward the zenith in a deep yellow flood. It seemed to vibrate, to throb with incredibly rapid fluctuations. Suddenly, bright swift-changing formless shapes of green and red flared up within it, shot up the beam, and vanished. The radiance dimmed and died. I could see nothing, but somehow I felt that an invisible beam of vibrant force was still pouring up into the sky. Here was another manifestation of the unknown power beyond the sea. The beam had come. So far as visibility was concerned, it was gone. What had been its meaning, its purpose?

Beyond the Silver Lake, low cliffs rose above a broad sandy beach, faintly veiled by the purple mist. The red hills were fainter still above them, and the thicker pall of purple haze that hung over the hidden place beyond, stood out distinctly against the distant, steep black wall that threw his jagged crags to the sky so far above. Out of that vale of mystery the ray had leapt—and died. Or had it merely faded, and was now, invisible ... pulsing still?

All seemed as it had been before, but from the attitude of my companions I knew there was more to come. They were gazing up into the sun-bright void above and waiting expectantly.

Then I saw, far, far above, growing gradually brighter against the sky, as if it were being projected there by a great magic lantern behind the hills, an upright bar of silver haze. Slowly it grew brighter and its outlines sharper until it looked like a vertical bar of silver metal in the sky—inconceivably huge. The length of the bar must have been miles, its diameter, many hundreds of yards. It hung still in the heavens, neither rising nor falling. Here was the display, indeed, of alien science and power!

Presently I recovered from my first wonder, and became conscious that the blue eyes of Melvar were upon me quite as much as on the astonishing thing in the sky. "Melvar, have you seen it before?" I asked. "Is it real—natural? Is it made by man?" I found to my surprise that my voice was odd and quavery. I had not realized the intensity of my nervous strain. I waited eagerly for the reassurance that she could not give.

"It comes often," she replied. "Every day for many months of the year. The priests say that it is the evil goddess of the under-earth, who loves the Purple Sun and flies to the sky to meet him. But the Sun goes on unheeding, and the goddess cries silver tears until her Lord is gone from the sky. But there is yet more to see."

I looked up again and saw that a faint colored mist was gathering about the bar. It grew brighter, condensed, seemed drawn into swirling rings by a sort of magnetic attraction. And the iridescent mist-rings swam about the bar, moved ever faster until they were whirling madly. Their coruscating shapes grew brighter, plainer, until they were vivid, spinning flames of color in the sunshine. I noticed that the red was about the center of the silver bar, and that the bands of color above and below ran regularly to the other end of the spectrum, with rings of violet at the bottom and at the top. During all this time I heard no sound. It was as still as death.

Still the color-rings spun and changed, growing ever brighter and sharper edged. The red band grew larger about the center, until its diameter was the length of the cylinder. It gleamed with a lurid scarlet light. Below and above were spinning, burning circles of orange, yellow, green, and blue, each thinner than the one next nearer the center, and of smaller diameter. And the violet rings had shrunk to great globes of violet fire, shining with painful intensity.

Indeed, as Melvar had said, there had been more to see. The thing was so utterly strange, so utterly inexplicable, that I was grasped in a paralysis of unfamiliar terror, my breath choked off and my heart beating wild with fear, staring straight at it. It was so definitely directed by intelligence that I felt it must spring from a weird and awful mind. Indeed, it seemed that I felt the power of a vast and alien will stealing over me, seizing command of me, making me the slave of itself. I struggled against it. I clenched my hands and knotted my muscles with the intensity of my resistance to the spell. Wheeling sparks of red fire swam before my eyes.

Then my efforts weakened. I could hold out no longer. The alien will had won. Reason and feeling and love flowed away and left me as cold and cruel as a rock in a stormy, wintry coast—a savage, inhuman animal. Care had left me. My soul had lost her throne. I laughed. A wild, unearthly sound it was, like that I had heard as I lay beneath the tent beyond the barrier.