“You closed the opening we came through,” said Avery abruptly.
“Of course.”
“But you’ll open it again? You’ll let us go?”
The tone of his voice betrayed him. Falken knew, and Sheila.
“No,” said Sheila throatily. “It won’t let us go. It’ll keep us up here to play with, until we die.”
Ugly dark reds washed the Sun-child. “Death!” it whispered. “My creatures exist until I bid them vanish. But death, true death—that would be a supreme amusement!”
*
A desperate, helpless rage gripped Falken. The vast empty vault mocked him with his dead hopes. It jeered at him with solid walls that were built and shifted like smoke by the power of this lovely, soulless flame.
Built, and shifted....
Sudden fire struck his brain. He stood rigid, stricken dumb by the sheer magnificance of his idea. He began to tremble, and the wild hope swelled in him until his veins were gorged and aching.
He said, with infinite care, “You can’t create real living creatures, can you?”
“No,” said the Sun-child. “I can build the chemicals of their bodies, but the vital spark eludes me. My creatures are simply toys activated by the electrical interplay of atoms. They think, in limited ways, and they feel crude emotions, but they do not live in the true sense.”
“But you can build other things? Rocks, soil, water, air?”
“Of course. It would take a great deal of my strength, and it would weaken my shell, since I should have to break down part of the rock to its primary particles and rebuild. But even that I could do, without serious loss.”
There was silence. The blue distant fires flared in Falken’s eyes. He saw the others staring at him. He saw the chances of failure bulk over him like black thunderheads, crowned with madness and death.
But his soul shivered in ecstasy at the thing that was in it.
The Sun-child said silkily, “Why should I do all this?”
“For amusement,” whispered Falken. “The most colossal game you have ever had.”
Brilliant colors flared. “Tell me, human!”
“I must make a bargain first.”
“Why should I bargain? You’re mine, to do with as I will.”
“Quite. But we couldn’t last very long. Why waste your imagination on the three of us when you might have thousands?”
Avery’s amber eyes opened wide. A shocked incredulity slackened Sheila’s rigid muscles. The voice cried:
“Thousands of humans to play with?”
The eager greed sickened Falken. Like a child wanting a bright toy—only the toys were human souls.
“Not until the bargain is made,” he said.
“Well? What is the bargain? Quick!”
“Let us go, in return for the game which I shall tell you.”
“I might lose you, and then have nothing.”
“You can trust us,” Falken insisted. He was shaking, and his nerves ached. “Listen. There are thousands of my people, living like hunted beasts in the deserts of the Solar System. They need a world, to survive at all. If you’ll build them one in the heart of this planet, I’ll bring them here.
“You wouldn’t kill them. You’d let them live, to admire and praise you for saving them. It would amuse you just to watch them for some time. Then you could take one, once in a while, for a special game.
“I don’t want to do this. But it’s better that they should live that way than be destroyed.”
“And better for you, too, eh?” The Sun-child swirled reflectively. “Breed men like cattle, always have a supply. It’s a wonderful idea....”
“Then you’ll do it?” Sweat dampened Falken’s brow.
“Perhaps....Yes! Tell me, quickly, what you want!”
Falken swung to his stunned and unbelieving companions. He gripped an arm of each, painfully hard.
“Trust me. Trust me, for God’s sake!” he whispered. Then, aloud, “Help me to tell it what we need.”
There was a little laughing ripple of golden notes in the Sun-child’s light, but Falken was watching Sheila’s eyes. A flash of understanding crossed them, a glint of savage hope.
“Oxygen,” she said. “Nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide....”
“And soil,” said Falken. “Lime, iron, aluminum, silicon....”
*
They came to on a slope of raw, red earth, still wet from the rain. A range of low hills lifted in the distance against a strange black sky. Small tattered clouds drifted close above in the rainbow’s light.
Falken got to his feet. As far as he could see there were rolling stretches of naked earth, flecked with brassy pools and little ruddy streams. He opened his helmet and breathed the warm wet air. He let the rich soil trickle through his fingers and thought of the Unregenerates in their frozen burrows.
He smiled, because there were tears in his hard blue eyes.
Sheila gave a little sobbing laugh and cried, “Eric, it’s done!” Paul Avery lifted dark golden eyes to the hills, and was silent.
There was a laughing tremble of color in the air where the Sun-child floated. Small wicked flames drowned the sad, soft mauves. The Sun-child said:
“Look, Eric Falken. There, behind you.”
Falken turned—and looked into his own face.
It stood there, his own lean body in the worn vac suit, his own gypsy face and the tangle of frosted curls. Only the eyes were different. The chill, distant blue was right, but there were spiteful flecks of gold, a malicious sparkle that was like....
“Yes,” purred the Sun-child. “Myself. A tiny particle, to activate the shell. A perfect likeness, no?”
A slow, creeping chill touched Falken’s heart. “Why?” he asked.
“Long ago I learned the art of lying from men. I lied about reading minds. Your plan to trick me into building this world and then destroy me was plain on the instant of conception.”
Laughing wicked colors coiled and spun.
“Oh, but I’m enjoying this! Not since I built my shell have I had such a game! Can you guess why I made your double?”
Falken’s lips were tight with pain, his eyes savage with remorse at his own stupidity.
“It—he will go in my ship to bring my people here.”
He knew that the Sun-child had picked his unwitting brain as cleanly as any Hiltonist psycho-search.
In sudden desperation he drew his blaster and shot at the mocking likeness. Before he tripped the trigger-stud a wall of ebon glass was raised between them. The blast-ray slid away in harmless fire and died, burned out.
The other Falken turned and strode away across the new land. Falken watched him out of sight, not moving nor speaking, because there was nothing to do, nothing to say.
The lovely wicked fire of the Sun-child faded suddenly.
“I am tired,” it said. “I shall suckle the Sun, and rest.”
It floated away. For all his agony, Falken felt the heart-stab of its sad, dim colors. It faded like a wisp of lonely smoke into the splintered light.
Presently there was a blinding flash