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creature that had run upon his tracks in the mist, the enigmatic watcher from
the Citadel, the being whose dreams he had shared altogether too closely, in
the long night-time of the ship.
He stared in frozen dismay as Evaya vanished into the cloudy grip of the
Alien. Surely the
Carcasillians had come to worship, expecting benediction not this! This avid
clutching grasp, as if the creature had been starving for countless centuries.
. . .
Before the crowd about him could catch its breath, the tall, blinding robed
figure it was dark or light? had tossed Evaya aside with a gesture almost of
impatience, and was striding down upon the next nearest. It swooped and seized
and enveloped with motion so incredibly swift that the
Carcasillians could not have turned or fled even if they wished. And the
great, striding god went through them like a reaper through grain, snatching
up, enveloping, hurling aside figure after figure, and flashing on to the
next.
Far back in Alan's brain, behind the helpless horror, the terrible revulsion,
the more terrible taint of kinship with this being whose dreams he had
known lay one small corner of detached awareness. In that corner of his mind
he watched and reasoned with a coolness that almost matched
Sir Colin' s scientific detachment. "It can' t get at them," he told himself.
"Somehow, they're protected. Somehow, the good Light-Wearers gave them armor
to wear like a spiked collar for their pets. Whatever it wants it isn't
getting it here. Not yet. ..."
The stooping and rising and inevitable nearing of that figure almost shook
even the cool corner of his brain as it came closer and closer, reaping among
the standing rows of Carcasillians. Alan strained vainly at his frozen limbs.
Now it was two rows ahead of him. Now it was one Tall, formless, all but
invisible in its robes that were both lightness and dark. . . .
The towering, inhuman thing stooped above his head with an avid swoop, its
robes fell about him like blindness to shut out the violet day. He felt a
vortex of hungry violence sweeping him up.
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Vertigo gravity falling away beneath him
And then a strange, indescribable, long-drawn "Ah-h-h!'' of inhuman
satisfaction breathing voiceless through his brain. And a probing eager,
ravenous, ruthless as if intangible fingers were thrusting down all through
his mind, his body, among his nerves, into his very soul. They were
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tadel%20UC.txt bruising fingers that in a moment would rip him inside out,
bodily and mentally, as a fish might be gutted.
Instinct made him stiffen against them, with a stiffening of more than
musCles. His mind went rigid in anger and rebellion, along with his body. And
the thing that clutched him hesitated. He could feel its surprise and
uncertainty, and he struck out into the blindness with futile fists, gasping
choked curses that were less words than anger made audible. He was awake now,
vividly, painfully awake as he had not been since his first bath in the
fountain. And he fought with all the fury that was in him against this
devouring thing that was he knew it now starving with an inhuman hunger for
the life-force he was fighting to protect.
This much he knew, in that inviolable corner of the brain where reason still
dwelt. This creature was evil made incarnate, and its hunger was diabolic now.
It could not touch the Carcasillians; he was its last hope. Its struggles to
overpower him were as desperate in their way as his were to be free.
For one timeless instant Alan shared its hunger. And he shared its dismay and
sorrow. He knew what it was to wake upon a dying world and find only the
ruined relics of kinsmen that once had ruled the planet. Ruin and starvation
and unthinkable loneliness.
He felt those gutting fingers thrust down along the track of the understanding
thoughts, deep into his awareness, ripping and tearing.
He closed his mind like a steel trap against the treacherous sympathy of those
thoughts, closed it as if he closed his eyes to shut out a terrible sight.
With a brain tight-shut against everything but the danger he must fight, he
stiffened against that probing, ravenous need raging all about him.
And he was holding his own. He sensed that. By fighting with every ounce of
strength in him, he could hold his own. And when that strength began to fail.
...
The blindness around him rifted now and again in his timeless, furious,
voiceless fight. He could catch glimpses of violet light and the awed faces of
the Carcasillians, and then dark again. Dark, and the starving desperation of
the Alien tearing at him in a vortex of inhuman, demanding need.
And then, suddenly and bewilderingly the bellow of gunfire.
That half-tangible grip upon him jolted staggered slipped away. Alan reeled
back upon the slope of the white ramp, too dizzy to see anything clearly,
knowing only in this moment that he was free and still alive. And then he
heard or was it a dream again? a familiar, rasping voice, burred with strong
emotion.
"Alan, laddie gie us yer nan'! Alan, here I am, laddie! It's Colin here!"
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