Kimball Trent was the last hope of a ravaged Earth,
for locked in his mind were secrets that would
bring freedom to the Barbs. He lacked but one
thing to release the power of those secrets—the key
to the riddle of the blue monsters who could not die.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
At first there was only the cold, the Stygian inky iciness that heldevery muscle of his body in thrall and made his thoughts flow with theturgid slowness of treacly molasses. He could not open his eyes, norcould he move; and his mind slipped back into the darkness time andtime again. He tried to think of who he was, or what he was, andthere was no knowledge in his brain.
And then the heat came through to him, biting into his numbed fleshwith the bitter sharpness of a naked yellow flame, drawing life to allhis body, pressing back some of the velvet shadows from his mind.
"Kim," he thought dazedly. "I'm Kim."
And then his mind blanked out again, for how long, he did not know. Butwhen he came to, he could open his eyes and see the faintest glimmer ofsunlight coming through the split and ruptured earth, tiny dust motesfloating in the golden streak.
"I'm Kim," he thought again, and held onto the memory with a franticdesperation, frightened that it was the only reality he had.
He moved at last, screaming at the agony that surged with everymovement, finally rolled into a sitting position. There was but thebarest glint of light from the earth fault, and his eyes grew strainedas he peered about.
He was in a cave, obviously artificial, for there were shelves loadedwith dully-gleaming objects, and man-hewn blocks of stone lay upturnedwhere great strangling roots squirmed into the air like monstrous scalysnakes.
He looked at himself.
His hands were talons now, for the nails were curled and twisted intotangled knots, and the flesh had not the resiliency or the strength tostraighten the fingers. He bent his head, watched fabric disintegrateinto dust on his emaciated body, then gasped. Great festoons ofthe dust had not powdered into nothingness, and he recognized thatthey were the swirls of beard that hung pendant from his chin. Hestraightened, mind trying to grasp what had happened, and the hair fromhis head swirled about his shoulders, rippling in undulant waves intothe clump of tangled masses that lay at his side.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry, his tongue swollen.The terrible cold was still in him, and he shivered agonizingly forseconds. It was then he heard the sound of rilling water close at hand.
He crawled toward the sound, tangling hands and feet in the hair thatgrew so monstrously from his head, his fingernails scrabbling andclicking together like the whisperings of bare branches before a softWinter breeze.
"I'm Kim," he thought again, and drank with great slobbering noisesfrom the narrow shallow stream that pierced one wall of the cave andvanished through the opposite.
Thirst slaked, he lay, gasping, like some spent animal, thoughtsswelling and unfolding in his mind, creeping unbidden from darkrecesses, stealing into the brightness of his consciousness.
"I'm Kim," he thought. "Kimball Trent."
He sat, groaning from the hurt that was in every muscle, methodicallybroke the twisted fingernails close to his finger tips, permitting hisfingers to flex more freely, giving him hands once more instead ofpaws. He tried to break his heavy hair and beard the same way, but hisstrengt