Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan (September 1950) (4 page)

His hand closed tightly on the tiny metal box in his pocket. He must gamble that it would protect him from the Harpers’ power. But, remembering that experience of years ago, he dreaded the test.

He asked the old councillor, “Do you know this to be true, about the Harpers?”

“Taras and two others were seen at dawn, coming back from the forest, each bearing a hidden thing. And — they wore the Helmets of Silence.”

The old man gestured toward the group of men by the king’s throne who looked with such triumphant hatred at he whom they thought to be John Keogh.

“See, they wear them still!”

Swiftly, Simon studied the helmets. At first glance they had seemed no more than the ordinary bronze battle-gear of a barbaric warrior. Now he saw that they were of curious design, covering the ears and the entire cranial area, and overlarge as though padded with many layers of some insulating material.

The Helmets of Silence. He knew, now, that Keogh had spoken truly when he told of an ancient means of protection used long ago by the men of Moneb against the Harpers. Those helmets would protect, yes.

The king of Moneb rose from his throne. And the nervous uproar in the hall stilled to a frozen tension.

A young man, the king. Very young, very frightened, weakness and stubbornness mingled in his face. His head was bare.

“We of Moneb have too long tolerated strangers in our valley — have even suffered one of them to sit in this council and influence our decisions,” he began.

Here there was a sharp uneasy turning of heads toward “Keogh.”

“The strangers’ ways more and more color the lives of our people. They must go — all of them! And since they will not go willingly, they must be forced!”

He had learned the speech by rote. Simon knew that from the way in which he stumbled over it, the way in which his eyes slid to the tallest of the cloaked and helmeted men beside him, for prompting and strength. The dark, tall man whom Simon recognized from Harker’s description as Keogh’s chief enemy, Taras.

“We cannot force the Earthmen out with our darts and spears. Their weapons are too strong. But we too have a weapon, one they cannot fight! It was forbidden to us, by foolish kings who were afraid it might be used against them. But now we must use it.

“Therefore I demand that the old tabu be lifted! I demand that we invoke the power of the Harpers to drive the Earthmen forth!”

There was a taut, unhappy silence in the hall. Simon saw men looking at him, the eager confidence in young Dion’s eyes. He knew that they placed in him their desperate last hope of preventing this thing.

They were right, for whatever was done he must do alone. Curt Newton and Otho could not possibly have yet made their way secretly by back ways to this council hall.

Simon strode forward. He looked around him. Because of what he was, a kind of fierce exaltation took him, to be once more a man among men. It made his voice ring loud, thundering from the low vault.

“Is it not true that the king fears, not the Earthmen, but Taras — and that Taras is bent not on freeing Moneb from a mythical yoke, but in placing one of his own upon our necks?”

There was a moment of utter silence in which they all, king and councilors alike, stared at him aghast. And in the silence, Simon said grimly:

“I speak for the council! There will be no lifting of tabu — and he that brings the Harpers into Moneb does so under pain of death!”

For one short moment the councilors recovered their courage and voiced it. The hall shook with the cheering. Under cover of the noise Taras bent and spoke into the king’s ear, and Simon saw the face of the king become pallid.

FROM behind the high seat Taras lifted a helmet bossed in gold and placed it on the king’s head. A Helmet of Silence.

The cheering faded, and was not.

The king said hoarsely, “Then for the good of Moneb, I must disband the council.”

Taras stepped forward. He looked directly at Simon, and his eyes smiled. “We had foreseen your traitorous counsels, John Keogh. And so we came prepared.”

He flung back his cloak. Beneath it, in the curve of his left arm, was something wrapped in silk.

Simon instinctively stepped back.

Taras ripped the silk away. And in his hands was a living creature no larger than a dove, a thing of silver and rose-pearl and delicate frills of shining membrane, and large, soft, gentle eyes.

A dweller in the deep forests, a shy sweet bearer of destruction, an angel of madness and death.

A Harper!

A low moan rose among the councilors, and there was a shifting and a swaying of bodies poised for flight. Taras said, “Be still. There is time enough for running, when I give you leave.”

The councilors were still. The king was still, white-faced upon his throne. But on the shadowy benches, Simon saw Keogh’s son bent forward, leaning toward the man he thought to be his father, his face alight with a child’s faith.

Taras stroked the creature in his hands, his head bent low over it.

The membranous frills began to lift and stir. The rose-pearl body pulsed, and there broke forth a ripple of music like the sound of a muted harp, infinitely sweet and distant.

The eyes of the Harper glowed. It was happy, pleased to be released from the binding silk that had kept its membranes useless for the making of music. Taras continued to stroke it gently, and it responded with a quivering freshet of song, the liquid notes running and trilling upon the silent air.

And two more of the helmeted men brought forth silvery, soft-eyed captives from under their cloaks, and they began to join their music together, timidly at first, and then more and more without hesitation, until the council hall was full of the strange wild harping and men stood still because they were too entranced now to move.

Even Simon was not proof against that infinitely poignant tide of thrilling sound. He felt his body respond, every nerve quivering with a pleasure akin to pain.

He had forgotten the effect of music on the human consciousness. For many years he had forgotten music. Now, suddenly, all those long-closed gates between mind and body were flung open by the soaring song of the Harpers. Clear, lovely, thoughtless, the very voice of life unfettered, the music filled Simon with an aching hunger for he knew not what. His mind wandered down vague pathways thronged with shadows, and his heart throbbed with a solemn joy that was close to tears.

Caught in the sweet wild web of that harping, he stood motionless, dreaming, forgetful of fear and danger, of everything except that somewhere in that music was the whole secret of creation, and that he was poised on the very edge of understanding the subtle secret of that song.

Song of a newborn universe joyously shouting its birth-cry, of young suns calling to each other in exultant strength, the thunderous chorus of star-voices and the humming bass of the racing, spinning worlds!

Song of life, growing, burgeoning, bursting, on every world, complicated counterpoint of a million million species voicing the ecstasy of being in triumphant chorus!

Something deep in Simon Wright’s tranced mind warned him that he was being trapped by that hypnotic web of sound, that he was falling deeper, deeper, into the Harpers’ grip. But he could not break the spell of that singing.

Soaring singing of the leaf drinking the sun, of the bird on the wing, of the beast warm in its burrow, of the young, bright miracle of love, of birth, of living!

And then the song changed. The beauty and joy faded from it, and into the sounds came a note of terror, growing, growing...

IT CAME to Simon then that Taras was speaking to the thing he held, and that the soft eyes of the Harper were afraid.

The creature’s simple mind was sensitive to telepathic impulses, and Taras was filling its mild emptiness with thoughts of danger and of pain, so that its membranes shrilled now to a different note.

The other Harpers picked it up. Shivering, vibrating together and across each other’s rhythms, the three small rose-pearl beings flooded the air with a shuddering sound that was the essence of all fear.

Fear of a blind universe that lent its creatures life only to snatch it from them, of the agony and death that always and forever must rend the bright fabric of living! Fear of the somber depths of darkness and pain into which all life must finally descend, of the shadows that closed down so fast, so fast!

That awful threnody of primal terror that shuddered from the Harpers struck icy fingers of dread across the heart. Simon recoiled from it, he could not bear it, he knew that if he heard it long he must go mad.

Only dimly was he aware of the terror among the other councilors, the writhing of their faces, the movements of their hands. He tried to cry out but his voice was lost in the screaming of the Harpers, going ever higher and higher until it was torture to the body.

And still Taras bent over the Harper, cruel-eyed, driving it to frenzy with the power of his mind. And still the Harpers screamed, and now the sound had risen and part of it had slipped over the threshold of hearing, and the super-sonic notes stabbed the brain like knives.

A man bolted past Simon. Another followed, and another, and then more and more, clawing, trampling, falling, floundering in the madness of panic. And he himself must flee!

He would
not
flee! Something held him from the flight his body craved — some inner core of thought hardened and strengthened by his long divorcement from the flesh. It steadied him, made him fight back with iron resolution, to reality.

His shaking hand drew out the little metal box. The switch clicked. Slowly, as the power of the thing built up, it threw out a high, shrill keening sound.

“The one weapon against the Harpers!” Curt had said. “The only thing that can break sound is — sound!”

The little repeller reached out its keening sonic vibrations and caught at the Harpers’ terrible singing, like a claw.

It clawed and twisted and broke that singing. It broke it, by its subtle sonic interference, into shrieking dissonances.

Simon strode forward, toward the throne and toward Taras. And now into the eyes of Taras had come a deadly doubt.

The Harpers, wild and frightened now, strove against the keening sound that broke their song into hideous discord. The shuddering sonic struggle raged, much of it far above the level of hearing, and Simon felt his body plucked and shaken by terrible vibrations.

He staggered, but he went on. The faces of Taras and the others were contorted by pain. The king had fainted on his throne.

Storm of shattered harmonies, of splintered sound, shrieked like the very voice of madness around the throne. Simon, his mind darkening, knew that he could endure no more...

And suddenly it was over. Beaten, exhausted, the Harpers stilled the wild vibration of their membranes. Utterly silent, they remained motionless in the hands of their captors, their soft eyes glazed with hopeless terror.

Simon laughed. He swayed a little on his feet and said to Taras, “My weapon is stronger than yours!”

Taras dropped the Harper. It crawled away and hid itself beneath the throne. Taras whispered, “Then we must have it from you, Earthman!”

He sprang toward Simon. On his heels came the others, mad with the bitter fury of defeat when they had been so sure of victory.

Simon snatched out the audio-disc and raised it to his lips, pressing its button and crying out the one word, “Hurry!”

He felt that it was too late. But not until now, not until this moment when fear conquered the force of tradition, could Curt and Otho have entered this forbidden place without provoking the very outbreak that must be prevented.

SIMON went down beneath his attackers’ rush. As he went down, he saw that the councilors who had fled were running back to help him. He heard their voices shouting, and he saw the boy Dion among them.

Something struck cruelly against his head, and there was a crushing weight upon him. Someone screamed, and he caught the bright sharp flash of darts through the torchlight.

He tried to rise, but he could not. He was near unconsciousness, aware only of a confusion of movement and ugly sounds. He smelled blood, and he knew pain.

He must have moved, for he found himself on his hands and knees, looking down into the face of Dion. The shank of a copper dart stood out from the boy’s breast, and there was a streak of red across the golden skin. His eyes met Simon’s, in a dazed, wondering look. He whispered uncertainly:

“Father!”

He crept into Simon’s arms. Simon held him, and Dion murmured once more and then sighed. Simon continued to hold him, though the boy had become very heavy and his eyes looked blankly now into nothingness.

It came to Simon that the hall had grown quiet. A voice spoke to him. He lifted his head and saw Curt standing over him, and Otho, both staring at him anxiously. He could not see them clearly. He said, “The boy thought I was his father. He clung to me and called me Father as he died.”

Otho took Dion’s body and laid it gently on the stones.

Curt said, “It’s all over, Simon. We got here in time, and it’s all right.”

Simon rose. Taras and his men were dead. Those who had tried to foster hatred were gone, and not ever again would Harpers be brought into Moneb. That was what the pale, shaken councilors around him were telling him.

He could not hear them clearly. Not so clearly, somehow, as the fading whisper of a dying boy.

He turned and walked out of the council hall, onto the steps. It was dark now. There were torches flaring, and the wind blew cold, and he was very tired.

Curt stood beside him. Simon said, “I will go back to the ship.”

He saw the question in Curt’s eyes, the question that he did not quite dare to ask.

Heartsick, Simon spoke the lines that a Chinese poet had written long ago.

“ ‘Now I know, that the ties of flesh and blood only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.’ ”

He shook his head. “I will return to what I was. I could not bear the agony of a second human life — no!”

Curt did not answer. He took Simon’s arm and they walked together across the court.