[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]amazement.
Insects? Electricity? He blinked. The spots of light were beyond the wall. He
nervously switched on his dome lamp.
The lights disappeared; the shiny black wall confronted him. Dick uncertainly
turned out the light; the spots of yellow glow reappeared. Now they were
larger; they appeared to have small dark centers, Dick watched fascinated. The
eyes of the Basilisk behind the wall!
Paralysis once more began to steal over his muscles. With a tremendous effort
Dick turned away his gaze; gritting his teeth, he fought the pressure of the
great golden eyes. "It' s in my mind," he whispered desperately. It s
hypnotism; it s because I m afraid... He s not supernatural, only another live
creature..."
Dick forced himself to look back to the glass wall; on the other side the
golden eyes stared with the inhuman detachment of a fish looking through the
side of an aquarium.
Dick stared back, clinging to his will with every shred of mental force at his
command. He rose shakily to his feet; suddenly he knew that he had won, that
the Basilisk had lost his power to freeze him with a glance. So far as it
went, it was a victory.
The golden eyes hung steady, looking toward Dick with a dispassion far beyond
malignance.
Dick felt like a moth under the gaze of a spider.
Light began to fill the room behind the glass wall. The Basilisk made a subtly
terrifying silhouette: low, broad-brimmed black hat, the strange face, the
gaunt frame hunched under the black cape.
The speaker inside of Dick s helmet clicked; in Dick s ear sounded a voice. I
wonder that I
have allowed you to live as long as I have.
Dick made no answer. The voice was metallic and precise. Where had Dick heard
such a voice before? He looked wonderingly into the golden eyes with the
glittering black centers.
You have disarranged my plans; you have come to spy on me; you have done more
than any man living to injure and inconvenience me.
Dick asked huskily, How do you know all this?
The Basilisk ignored him. I will gladly see you die. And after you, your
father.
But why? Dick burst out, Why do you want to harm my father? What has he
done to you?
He stands in my way.
So will any other Chief Astronomer. You ll have to kill them all, and you
can t do it. Because sooner or later the Space Navy will hunt you down.
The Space Navy is nothing. There is no navy in space except my own ships; I
will allow no other. The Basilisk s voice became sharper, more metallic. I
have a secure base, the Lunar
Observatory is mine. Earth ships fear to venture into my realm; already my
power is felt. I shall master the outlying planets; there shall be a million
corpses; a million slaves.
Dick began to perceive that, nonhuman or not, the brain which motivated the
Basilisk was diseased.
Already the plans are made, said the Basilisk, Your body will hardly be
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cold before my ships set forth.
Set forth for where? Dick could not help asking. I ride to Mars, to
Perseverine. I shall raze the city with fire, and kill, kill, kill... His
voice rose in pitch. I gain all the wealth of the Martian metal works, all
the production of the Martian machine shops!
But what good does it do you? cried Dick. You can t spend the money; the
men and women have never injured you.
They will know my power; they will acknowledge my will. First Perseverine,
then all of Mars and all of Venus and then who knows? Perhaps He stopped,
leaned slightly forward, seemed to focus his golden eyes even more fixedly on
Dick. Inside your little inefficacious pulp of a brain you think the Basilisk
is mad; he is crazy. I say to you, you do not know what sanity is. I am the
Basilisk. In later days men will guide their ways by me, as the sun guides a
billion clocks. Men shall say, Thus did the Basilisk; we will do likewise,
and they shall be right. And they shall say, This was as it was done before,
but the Basilisk has interposed, and now it is bad; now it is insane.
Only the Basilisk is sane; only the Basilisk is the norm; only the Basilisk
knows.
The voice had risen to a shrill yammer. Dick frowned. Where had he heard that
voice? It was at once familiar and strange, as if well-known intonations had
been passed through an electronic distortion apparatus. Dick frowned.
Something was evading him, something of which he should be aware was passing
him by.
Now I leave you to die, came the Basilisk s voice. You can count the hours
of your life on the gauge of your oxygen tank; spend those hours wisely; you
will never have others. Three times you have evaded my reach; now there is an
end. So make your peace with the hereafter, because you will never leave this
cell alive. The Basilisk rose to his feet, the lights dimmed, and blackness
seeped back into the cell.
In nightmare fascination Dick watched the yellow eyes recede, becoming two
yellow parentheses as the Basilisk turned his back, the bulging edges of the
eyes showing past his head.
The eyes vanished; Dick was alone.
He moved restlessly back and forth across the cell, then caught himself up
short. Motion consumed oxygen; he must move as little as possible, every
breath was precious.
He stretched himself out near his spare tank of oxygen. This was his single
hope for life the possibility that the pirates would give him a reasonable
time to smother, on the basis of his single
tank, then come for his body. Once he was free of the dungeon, he once more
had a chance to escape. No matter how slim a chance, it was a chance.
Dick lay still, breathing as shallowly as possible. Time inched past as if the
seconds rode the backs of snails. He thought of his home on Venus, his mother,
his sister, the voyage across space aboard the
African Star
, his life at the observatory. He thought of his father, he thought of the
Basilisk. Deep in his mind something stirred, something he could not remember.
He remembered his camera; there was one exposure in its catch box. The single
existing photograph of the Basilisk.
Time moved on, deliberate as a glacier. Three times he switched on his dome
light, looked at his oxygen gauge; remorselessly the needle fell;
remorselessly the sands of his life ran out.... For it was entirely
possible in fact probable that the pirates would not think to drag up his body
before at least a day or two had passed, and he would be dead indeed.
At last the needle touched zero; Dick felt his breath becoming faster, felt
the air inside his helmet lose the clean bite of oxygen. He delayed as long as
he could, then switched tanks. He could not resist gasping great lungfuls, as
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