Alone, accursed, he set out on the
long, dark voyage to the forbidden gateway
to worlds beyond life itself—restless
forever with an ultimate knowledge,
possessing which no man could die!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Super Science Stories May 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER ONE
The Pyramid of Bottles
The pyramid was built of bottles, hundreds of bottles that flashed andglinted as if with living fire, picking up and breaking up the mistylight that filtered from the distant sun and still more distant stars.
Frederick West took a slow step forward, away from the open port ofhis tiny ship. He shook his head and shut his eyes and opened themagain and the pyramid was still there. So it was no figment, as he hadfeared, of his imagination, born in the darkness and the loneliness ofhis flight from Earth.
It was there and it was a crazy thing. Crazy because it should not bethere, at all. There should be nothing here on this almost unknown slabof tumbling stone and metal.
For no one lived on Pluto's moon. No one ever visited Pluto's moon.Even he, himself, hadn't intended to until, circling it to have a lookbefore going on to Pluto, he had seen that brief flash of light, asif someone might be signaling. It had been the pyramid, of course. Heknew that now. The stacked-up bottles catching and reflecting light.
Behind the pyramid stood a space hut, squatted down among the jaggedboulders. But there was no movement, no sign of life. No one wastumbling out of the entrance lock to welcome him. And that was strange,he thought. For visitors must be rare, if, indeed, they came at all.
Perhaps the pyramid really was a signaling device, although it wouldbe a clumsy way of signaling. More likely a madman's caprice. Come tothink of it, anyone who was sufficiently deranged to live on Pluto'smoon would be a fitting architect for a pyramid of bottles.
The moon was so unimportant that it wasn't even named. The spacemen, onthose rare occasions when they mentioned it at all, simply called it"Pluto's moon" and let it go at that.
No one came out to this sector of space any more. Which, West toldhimself parenthetically, is exactly why I came. For if you could slipthrough the space patrol you would be absolutely safe. No one wouldever bother you.
No one bothered Pluto these days. Not since the ban had been slapped onit three years before, since the day the message had come through fromthe scientists in the cold laboratories which had been set up severalyears before that.
No one came to the planet now. Especially with the space patrol onguard ... although there were ways of slipping through. If one knewwhere the patrol ships would be at certain times and build up one'sspeed and shut off the engines, coasting on momentum in the shadow ofthe planet, one could get to Pluto.
West was near the pyramid now and he saw that it was built of whiskybottles. All empty, very empty, their labels fresh and clear.
West straightened up from staring at the bottles and advanced towardthe hut. Locating the lock, he pressed the button. There was noresponse. He pressed it again. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the lockswung in its seat. Swiftly he stepped inside and swung over the leverthat closed the outer lock, opened the inner one.
Dim light oozed from the interior of the hut and through his earphonesWest heard the dry rustle of tiny claws whispering across the floor.Then a gurgling, like water running down a pipe.
Heart in his mouth, thumb