hard for the next few days photographing, classifying, packing, exploring, cataloging. It should have been pleasant and rewarding work, but I was too tired to share Al’s enthusiasm. Each night I dreamt of the terrible Scythians. There was always violence and, somewhere hovering just outside the edges of the dreams, the grim spirit of the Warlord of Kul Satu. I think more of the work force was affected by that brooding presence, but they were being well paid and said nothing. The workman who had called us robbers occasionally glared at Al or me, but he too kept his opinions to himself. Work was scarce in that part of Hungary.
My dreams were clearer now. The horses were strong, short-necked beasts. It did not seem strange that I should be riding with the men. Armed and armored, we flew over the vast green plain like some storm from the East. And the Warlord was somewhere close, very close.
I was desperately afraid now of the terrible presence. I knew that his ghost was abroad, that our disturbance of his tomb had given some kind of unholy sense of outrage to his terrible spirit. I was too young, too much in love to risk my fiancé’s peace of mind; I think too that I was afraid of his macabre jokes. The thought of Al’s laughter would be too much. What a fool I was!
The fifth night after we had opened the juniper coffin, I saw the Warlord’s face. Flat, Mongol, slant-eyed, ferocious, it was the living counterpart of that withered face in the gold-decked cloak. His eyes were wild, his mouth a bitter line. We wheeled our horses to hear him. Commands flowed.
The reason for our wild, surging charge across the steppes became clear. Softer, richer, more civilized peoples held the Hungarian plains. They had rich soil, cattle, docile children and gold. Land, wealth, cows and slaves were the prize. In that dreadful dream I saw the Warlord look at me with contempt. The insults rang in my ears the whole of the night and the next day.
I trembled as I helped Al with the last of the packing away. As we handled the still-sharp swords and the exquisitely-chased cauldrons I heard the warlord’s taunting voice. How had I offended that terrible man! Why had I to endure his bitter denunciations! How was it that he could reach out across the long centuries and send his terrible spectre into my dreams!
Al noticed my tiredness. I allowed him to send me to bed early when all I wanted was to remain conscious. Would it have changed matters if I had confided in him?
I think not.
The warlord of Kul Satu had eaten into my soul. When I slept, I dreamt, and when I dreamt I was his. I fought sleep, of course, but it came. With it came the thundering charge, the screams of dying men and the wild, exulted bellowing of the Scythians.
The Warlord glared red-eyed at me. He pointed to the gold-hilted sword in my hand, a woman’s weapon, slim and deadly. I was deeply ashamed. No Scythian woman could marry until she had killed a man, I wept. He pointed again, this time to a whimpering peasant who was trying to outrun our superb mounts. The man looked round, too exhausted to scream. He fell at my horse’s feet.
The Warlord bawled a command. I dismounted. The dread, the blood, the fury, filled my whole being. And all the time, the Warlord watched, his flat face alight with malice and triumph. I struck. I turned and saw that the Warlord’s face had withered and dried; but his eyes were filled with grim delight.
That night I slept deeply.
I heard the shouting as if through a fog. Al’s voice was raised, but others were yelling louder. I remembered my dream and shuddered, but I saw the red light of dawn and felt the night’s terror ebbing away. I knew I was free of the Warlord. We were to leave Kul Satu that day. I wondered what the hubbub was about. Pay? Or a new find!
Al called to me. I was to dress at once. Puzzled, but not yet alarmed, I pushed the sheet back. It was then that my eyes fell on the widespread red-rust blotches. I refused to ask myself their cause. I looked at my right hand. Blood had congealed on the hand and wrist. Al called once more, this time sharply.
I washed quickly. Something made me thrust the sheets into a specimen bag.
The workman who had been afraid lay transfixed by the slim, gold-hilted sword. He lay at the feet of the Warlord. My tears and shrieks were acceptable as feminine weakness. I don’t think anyone connected me with the death, not at the time. The police were anxious to keep publicity at a minimal level. Perhaps the man was trying to steal, they suggested. A slip in the dark, an unlucky fall.… I made no comment.
I buried the sheets. Perhaps Al saw me, I don’t know. He made no more jokes. I believe he married a girl from Maine.
What I do know is that the Warlord called more than one to his tomb, for the face of the dead workman was the face of the exhausted peasant. He had reason to fear the grim spirit of the Warlord of Kul Satu.
And so had I.
THE BROKEN SEQUENCE, by Antonio Bellomi
“Thank you for coming.”
Commissioner Kim Sukyung welcomed Uriel Qeta and signaled to the agent on the threshold to let him in. The Chief Commissioner of Luna City Laboratories had a grim face, betraying someone heavily pressured and wrestling with insoluble problems. The so-called oriental deadpan face was absolutely missing.
Uriel Qeta passed through the door of the Astronomy Lab and shook hands with the commissioner. When he had been called half an hour ago on the videophone the commissioner had been very frank with him.
“I urgently need your help,” the Chief Commissioner of the Luna City Police Force had said. Such a statement from him meant that the trouble that had arisen was real trouble.
It was not the first time that Uriel Qeta was asked to give his expert help to Commissioner Sukyung, and each time it had happened it was for a very good reason: it meant the commissioner had no idea whatsoever what to do.
Qeta looked around him curiously. He had expected to see a corpse on the floor, as he had been told, but on the clear glassex floor there was no body, either dead or alive. The commissioner caught his look of surprise and gave a forced smile.
“No, the dead man is not here, but in the adjoining lab, just at the opposite end of this room. I am sure you can help me. I wouldn’t have imposed on you, had it not been so urgent. I must find a solution to this case within three hours at the most.”
“And you need a planetologist?” Qeta looked puzzled. “I’m an expert on planets, not a detective. Are you sure I can help you? It is the first time you’ve called me for a murder case. Previously you called me to help you solve problems which were more on the scientific side than police matters.”
Sukyung guided the scientist to the end of the room and through a door to another room. This was more spacious and from the threshold Qeta could see a large table and rows of shelves overcrowded with jars and tubes.
“I’m afraid there is a dead man to complicate things now, and I thought that your sharp mind could be useful once more,” he replied. “The dead man, or rather the man who was killed, is Professor Helios Olmedo, the director of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Lab. I gather you knew him very well professionally.”
“Oh, yes,” said the planetologist.
“Well, I hope you can find some clue, which has so far evaded us. I confess that I am groping in the dark and time is short, very short indeed.”
Professor Olmedo was lying behind the counter, near the right wall. He was wearing a white coat and the terminal end of a ceramic dart was protruding from his neck. His face was contracted, showing his
