Walls of Acid Read online

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  _Five millenniums have passed since the loathsome Termans were eliminated from the world of Diskra.... But what of the other planets?_

  WALLS OF ACID

  _BY HENRY HASSE_

  Braanol stirred, throbbed sluggishly once, then lay quiescent as hismental self surged up from the deeps of non-entity. And gradually hecame to know that someone had entered the room. His _room_, far beneaththe city.

  Now he could feel the vibra-currents through the liquids of the hugetanks where he had lain somnolent for untold aeons. It was pleasant,caressing. For a moment he floated there, enjoying to the utmost thisstrange sensation as the renewed thought-life-force set his everyconvolution to pulsing.

  "To be once more aware! O gloriously aware!" the thought came fierce andvibrant. "Once more they have wakened me--but how long has it been?"Then curiously: "And what can they want this time?"

  The huge brain was alert now, with a supernal sense of keening.Tentatively he sent out a thought-potential that encompassed the room.

  "They are afraid!" he sensed. "Two have entered here, and they areafraid of me. I shall remedy that!"

  Braanol lowered his thought-potential to one-eighth of one magnitude,and felt his mind contact theirs. "Approach, my children," he saidkindly. "You have nothing to fear from me! I take it you are theimperial messengers sent by her Supreme Magnificence, the EmpressAlaazar?"

  He felt the fright slip from their minds. But they were startled.

  "The Empress Uldulla reigns now, fourth in the Royal line," came thethought. "Empress Alaazar died long ago!"

  "I am truly grieved!" Braanol flashed to them. "Alaazar--may she rest inpeace--did not neglect me! How well I remember her interest in thestories I could tell, stories of the Diskra of old when we sent men outto glorious adventures on the other planets! Aye! Five millenniums agoit was that we achieved space travel. In those days--"

  Braanol ceased in his reminiscences, aware that these two were trying toget their thoughts through to him.

  "That is why we have come! The Empress Uldulla, too, wishes a story. Thestory of the first space-flight from Diskra, and the events that broughtit about. And of how you--"

  "Aye! Of how _I_ came to be as you see me now! I shall be delighted, mychildren, to tell it again. But first, prepare the trans-telector sothat it may be recorded faithfully."

  Braanol directed them to a machine on the far side of the room, andinstructed them as to its operation. Soon the hundreds of tiny coilswere humming, and a maze of tubes fed out of the machine, on which wouldbe recorded Braanol's every thought. For a moment he paused, gentlyswaying, pulsing, a huge independent brain suspended in the pale greenliquid. Then he began his story.

  * * * * *

  Your Supreme Beneficence! When the imperial messengers came to me,bringing the communication with which you deigned to address mydecrepit solitude, it was like a glorious ray of light come to illuminethe deepening darkness of my declining years!

  It is with trepidation that I set about to fulfill your Exalted Command.Five millenniums, aye, even more, have passed, since those who were partof that segment of history into which you inquire, have become butdrifting dust. Only within the feeble memory of your humblest servant isthere any record of it.

  Five millenniums! Aye! That was truly the golden period of our belovedDiskra--not that our period under _Your_ Serene Effulgence is not goldenindeed! But in that day all Diskra was under the glorious rule ofPalladin. His city on the scarlet shores of our central sea was thewonder of us _all_. Aye! We had a sea then, where there is now butdesert.

  The intelligent planets were three: our own Diskra, of course, fourthfrom the sun. And nearest the sun, Mirla, that fiery globe, where lifeapes the quality of our own salamander, existing by necessity near theflames. And second from the sun Venia, the cloud-capped world, wherelife exalts the virtues of the fish. Of the third planet, Terra, we thenknew little.

  Our cities faced the sun in those days, towering in polychromaticsplendor. Height was no obstacle then, for we had wings--wings! Think ofit, O Beneficence! No need had we of clumsy, metal vessels. But all thathas changed. Now no whirr of wings disturbs the air, and ourformi-tectural splendors rise _within_. The history of this change iswhat Your Supreme Exaltation would know. This, then, is the record.

  With the rule of Palladin was born the age of science, not so much dueto the intellects of that day, as through the driving urge of ultimatenecessity. For Palladin had a brother, Thid. He was unfortunately amutant. Whereas our features were delicate and quite regular, Thid'swere gross and stamped with power. His royal head was too large andcumbersome, and instead of our slender waists, he was almostasymmetrical in shape. In short--no member of our fairer, royal sexcould look upon him with aught but horror. And it was because of thisthat he was dietetically conditioned for the realm of science.

  It was a mistake. As the years passed, the loneliness of his virtualexile tended to derange Thid's prodigious mind! Aye, prodigious--anddangerous in his manic-depressive state. Then one day Palladin called anemergency meeting of the Inner Council. I, Braanol, was a member of thatCouncil.

  "It has come to my attention," Palladin said, "that Thid has beencarrying on certain dangerous experiments! Experiments of a sort thatcould well be inimical to us--to our very existence!"

  We well knew to what Palladin referred. But Thid was his brother, one ofthe Imperial ones. No one dared speak.

  "Why was I not made aware of it sooner?" Palladin demanded sternly."You, Braanol! You knew of it?"

  "Yes, your majesty." I was frightened. "I beg to explain--I have triedto dissuade him--"

  Palladin's visage became less stern, as though he understood ourreluctance in this matter. "True," he said. "Thid is my brother. He mustbe mad! And I tell you now: if he has gone as far in this experiment asI suspect, I shall not hesitate to apply the only remedy dictated byefficiency--death! Have him brought to me at once."

  But Thid was nowhere to be found. He had learned of Palladin's anger,and had fled into the Diskran desert where the abhorred _Termans_ dweltin myriads despite all our effort to eradicate them. These Termans weresoft-bodied, subterranean creatures with an obstinate life-force, and wehad long realized that they might one day be a menace to us.

  So into the desert our Thid fled, spurred by the knowledge that his lifewas forfeit. For a time, he was naturally thought dead. Who couldsurvive unprotected the extremes of heat and cold? And if by a miraclehe triumphed over the elements, how survive the appalling enmity of theTermans, whose rudimentary brains conceived no mercy?

  Nevertheless, startling bits of rumor began to drift in to our city;rumors that Thid had been seen, _leading hordes of gigantic Termansacross the desert wastes_!

  We laughed, of course, for caravaneers are ever the prey of sun mirages,and legends are dear to their souls. A legend was begun concerning Thid.Arriving caravans vied with each other in fantastic reports. Some hadseen him with immense hordes of the repulsive Termans. Still others haddiscovered subterranean labyrinths being built by the Termans under hiscommand, and had barely escaped with their lives. And still we laughed,blessed by the constant climate on the shores of our sea, and thebeneficent rule of our Exalted Palladin.

  And then we ceased to laugh. Palladin called together his Council ofScientists.

  "Can it be?" Palladin asked. "Two whole caravans have vanished on theway to Estka beyond the mountains." And he told us more, reports thathad arrived from other cities. Survivors had arrived, with the light ofmadness in their eyes, babbling some nameless fear. Others had died fromghastly wounds--great burns that refused to heal, but spread a kind ofdisease thr
ough the tissues. I, Braanol, examined some of these woundsand reported to Palladin.

  "Only a perverted, scientific intellect such as Thid's could haveevolved weapons to inflict such wounds!"

  "If he has organized the Termans," suggested another Council Member,"despite their pigmy size, they will become a menace that cannot beignored."

  "We have delayed too long!" thundered Palladin. "Find Thid! I commandit!"

  * * * * *

  An army, the greatest ever assembled on Diskra, was sent forth to huntout Thid and exterminate the Termans whom he had managed to organize byheaven only knew what magic. The planet must be cleansed of that leprousform of life, else there would be no peace.

  But we did not know what depths of horror we were to plumb. Even now, OIllustrious Empress, reason reels and totters at the