Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

In desperation I used my final weapon. Olua had cautioned me not to use it, except as a last resort. With a sob I tugged at my thirtieth button. As I did so, a blinding flash came from one of the arms of my suit. It struck Kapioma and coiled itself around him. Fighting against the strange power at every step, he was dragged relentlessly toward me. The red and white still glowed and my body seemed parched and dried up but I could not think of that. In another moment he would be within reach.

Despite his struggles, he was drawn closer until I could reach him with my hands. I understood why Olua had warned me against this weapon for my strength was rapidly oozing away. It took a tremendous toll of the user. Kapioma reached for other buttons but he was unable to use them. This thirtieth weapon of Olua’s was nothing less than an electrical harnessing of the will of the user and while Kapioma was in its grasp, his will was a slave to mine. As I realized the nature of the strange force I was wielding, I concentrated on what I wished him to do. Slowly and reluctantly his hand sought his controls. He tugged at one and the deadly red and white which was eating into my very brain died out. I was temporarily safe.

I threw all the force of my will into the struggle and the force I exerted was magnified a thousand times by the instrument which Olua’s genius had evolved. Kapioma tugged button after button, until not a ray gleamed from his suit and not a single deadly gas even oozed from it. With almost my last effort I pulled my second button and bathed him for an instant in the common green paralyzing ray carried by even the simplest fighting suits. He wavered a moment and then dropped in a heap. I shut off the terrible weapon with which I had conquered and swayed in weakness for a moment.

I thought I was going to fall, but I didn’t. My eyes caught a glimpse of Awlo and it acted like a dash of cold water in my face. I braced myself up and faced the spectators.

“Remove the fighting dome!” I cried, “and make way for Courtney, Sibama of Ulm!”

The dome was hastily lifted from me. As I approached Awlo, there was a disturbance at the door. I looked up and a more welcome sight never met my eyes. In the doorway stood Moka with a half dozen Ulmites with rifles in their hands ranged behind him. Four figures in six-armed fighting suits stood beside him.

“Way!” I cried imperiously, “Way for the men of Ulm! Way ere I blast a path through your living bodies!”

There was a general scurry at my words and the space between Moka and me opened. Down the path came my loyal Ulmites. At my orders two of them handed their rifles to comrades and tenderly picked up the form of my beloved princess. Down through the ranks of the scowling Kauans we passed until the door of the palace opened before us. Guards stepped forward to bar our way, long black tubes in their hands. I hesitated only a moment. The poor fellows wore no fighting suits and it was almost murder but I did not dare to hesitate. I tugged my fourteenth button and a flash of violet flame leaped in front of me. The guards went down like tenpins, their black tubes exploding with brilliant flashes of light. As we emerged from the doorway, a distant crackle of rifle fire told us that Hama’s party had left the roof and were fighting their way down through the power house. In a compact group we raced across the lawn toward the building.

We had covered about half the distance before we were opposed. I heard a shout behind us and turned and looked. Emerging from the trees at one side were a group of figures in fighting suits. We were a little closer to the power house than they were, but we were handicapped by our rifles and we had to carry Awlo. It looked as though we would arrive at the door at about the same moment. My decision was made in an instant. Warning Moka to hold straight for the door, I turned at an angle and raced to meet them.

As I approached, the newcomers stopped and rays began to flash from the arms of their fighting suits. None of the suits carried more than ten arms, so I pulled on my general protective rays and charged them. They strove to run but they were too late. Again my fourteenth button came into play and they toppled in heaps. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Moka’s party had gained the doorway.

I bounded through the door and Hama slammed it shut behind me. I was positive that there were protective rays of some sort that could be brought into action but I did not dare to look for them. Hama told me that the power house was clear of Kauans except for one room in which a few were barricaded. I knew that they would soon emerge wearing fighting suits and that more men from the palace would be using more potent weapons against us in a few minutes. With Hama and Moka at my back, I ran for the central control room. I reached it just in time.

My hand was on the switch controlling the fighting suit power when a door opened and a dozen figures wearing many-armed suits entered. I let them approach a few feet and pulled the switch just as their hands were seeking the control buttons. When I pulled that switch every fighting suit and every weapon of war in the empire of Kau became useless. It took me only a few seconds to pull the other four controlling switches and everything which depended on power in the empire was useless. The science of our enemies was at an end and the battle, if battle there was, would be fought out hand to hand in the same manner as the old battles with the Mena. The only power left in the land was a tiny auxiliary generator which fed the lights in the power house itself. As we saw in the morning, my action in pulling the switches came none too soon. Two huge Kauan warships had crashed in ruins not a hundred yards from the building. Had I been a little slower, they would have landed on the roof and we would have been caught between two fires.

I left Awlo in the laboratory and hastened out to look after our defense. Although crippled by the loss of power, the Kauans were not altogether helpless. They were present in tremendous numbers and they still had a quantity of the black tubes which I had noticed in the hands of the guards at the palace gates. These tubes were not dependent on power for their discharge, although once fired, they could not be reloaded while the generators were shut down. They carried a large charge of static electricity and at short range they were very deadly.

Armed with the tubes and with spears, the Kauans made a determined assault on our fortress. The attack was doomed to failure from the first. The flash tubes were not dangerous at ranges of over fifty yards and we mowed down the attackers with our deadly rifle fire. The attack waned after a few minutes and I returned to the laboratory.

Awlo lay on a table, cold and rigid. There was a complete absence of respiration and I could not detect the slightest flicker of a pulse. I would have unhesitatingly pronounced her dead, had I not seen what had happened to her. I knew that Kapioma would never have fought for the possession of a dead body and I was confident that there was some method of reviving her, could I only find it. I ordered Moka to turn on the switch which controlled the fighting suit I had worn. He did so and I bathed her in a refulgence of the orange anti-paralysis ray. It had not the slightest effect. For an hour I experimented with various rays and combinations of them without result. I did not dare to use most of the weapons in Olua’s fighting suit for I was not aware of all of their properties and I might easily do more harm than good.

As I studied her prostrate figure, I was alarmed by a crash at the main door of the house. I started down to investigate, but a messenger from Hama met me before I got there.

“A Kauan!” the man gasped, “a Kauan in a fighting suit has broken in the door and has killed a dozen of our men!”