"Follow it." He pointed."Take those who came with you and follow it."The wrinkles upon his face writhed with his eagerness.
"You will go?" panted Yuruk."You will take them and go by that path?""Not yet," I answered absently."Not yet."And was brought abruptly to full alertness, vigilance, by the flame of rage that filled the eyes thrust so close.
"Lead back," I directed curtly.He slid the door into place, turned sullenly.I followed, wondering what were the sources of the bitter hatred he so plainly bore for us;the reasons for his eagerness to be rid of us despite the commands of this woman who to him at least was goddess.
And by that curious human habit of seeking for the complex when the simple answer lies close, failed to recognize that it was jealousy of us that was the root of his behavior; that he wished to be, as it would seem he had been for years, the only human thing near Norhala;failed to realize this, and with Ruth and Drake was terribly to pay for this failure.
I looked down upon the pair, sleeping soundly; upon Ventnor lost still in trance.
"Sit," I ordered the eunuch."And turn your back to me."I dropped down beside Drake, my mind wrestling with the mystery, but every sense alert for movement from the black.Glibly enough I had passed over Dick's questioning as to the consciousness of the Metal People; now I faced it knowing it to be the very crux of these incredible phenomena; admitting, too, that despite all my special pleading, about that point swirled in my own mind the thickest mists of uncertainty.That their sense of order was immensely beyond a man's was plain.
As plain was it that their knowledge of magnetic force and its manipulation were far beyond the sphere of humanity.
That they had realization of beauty this palace of Norhala's proved--and no human imagination could have conceived it nor human hands have made its thought of beauty real.What were their senses through which their consciousness fed?
Nine in number had been the sapphire ovals set within the golden zone of the Disk.Clearly it came to me that these were sense organs!
But--nine senses!
And the great stars--how many had they? And the cubes--did they open as did globe and pyramid?
Consciousness itself--after all what is it? A secretion of the brain? The cumulative expression, wholly chemical, of the multitudes of cells that form us? The inexplicable governor of the city of the body of which these myriads of cells are the citizens--and created by them out of themselves to rule?
Is it what many call the soul? Or is it a finer form of matter, a self-realizing force, which uses the body as its vehicle just as other forces use for their vestments other machines? After all, I thought, what is this conscious self of ours, the ego, but a spark of realization running continuously along the path of time within the mechanism we call the brain; making contact along that path as the electric spark at the end of a wire?
Is there a sea of this conscious force which laps the shores of the farthest-flung stars; that finds expression in everything--man and rock, metal and flower, jewel and cloud? Limited in its expression only by the limitations of that which animates, and in essence the same in all.
If so, then this problem of the life of the Metal People ceased to be a problem; was answered!
So thinking I became aware of increasing light; strode past Yuruk to the door and peeped out.Dawn was paling the sky.I stooped over Drake, shook him.On the instant he was awake, alert.
"I only need a little sleep, Dick," I said."When the sun is well up, call me.""Why, it's dawn," he whispered."Goodwin, you ought not to have let me sleep so long.I feel like a damned pig.""Never mind," I said."But watch the eunuch closely."I rolled myself up in his warm blanket; sank almost instantly into dreamless slumber.
