The Martian Circe

by Raymond F. Jones

The door flung back under the force of Roal's and Shorty's push. They rushed in beside Alayna and found themselves on a ten-foot balcony overlooking tiers of seats arranged in concentric circles. There were enough of them to be a thousand, Roal thought. In each seat was an immobile, withered Martian. The entrance of the Earthmen caused no stir of movement among the Martians. They sat as if dead, but Roal sensed the tremendous, concentrated mental power of that immobile assembly—mental power that could conjure up the powers of darkness and of light which they had seen, and the flood of writhing serpents.

Roal raised his flame lance to turn it on the Martians. A sense of revulsion at such an attack upon the seemingly helpless creatures assailed him, but he knew they were far from helpless. And their purpose was deadly to Earthmen.

Before he could pull the trigger, a dozen Alaynas appeared beside him. Scores were in his line of sight. Those standing in the air before him were not real, he knew, but of those beside him he could not tell the difference between Alayna and the mental creations of the Thousand Minds. But one of them grasped his arm tightly.

"I'm real," she said. "Fire quickly."

He poured flame into the midst of the assembly. Behind him the other spacemen were pouring onto the balcony. Many of them, drunken, thought the visions that beset them were creations of their own minds and fired wildly.

The total effect was marked. Below, tens of Martians withered and died in the blast. But those who were left bent their mighty power of their minds to new creations of horror. As the Earthmen watched, there grew in the air over the assembly a monstrous head that swelled until it threatened to fill the whole space of the chamber. A hundred gaping mouths breathed out smoke and tongues of flame that licked hungrily towards the spacemen.

It was a harmless, unreal creation, thought Roal. He moved near to it, planning to fire through the monster into the assembly. But one of those flame tongues lashed out and flung itself about him. He cried out involuntarily at the unexpected pain.

The thing was far from harmless. The fire of those tongues burned with untold agony. A score of the others must have felt it, too, for their cries of alarm spread through the chamber. One by one they began to fall back, retreating towards the passage as the head swelled.

Alayna tugged at Roal's arm. "Down! Over the edge of the balcony before the head swells and fills the chamber. Get down into the midst of them!"

Roal saw she was right. He called hoarsely to the spacemen, who turned at his beckoning. He grasped the edge of the railing and leaped over as a tongue of flame reached for him.