WERWILE OF THE CRYSTAL CRYPT

By GARDNER F. FOX

His black science threatened the whole cosmos. Against him frail Princess Nuala thrust her ancient knowledge—but he sneeringly smashed that. And space-toughened Clark Travis stood by helplessly. Of what use here was a pair of ready fists?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

He should have known better. He admitted that, now. Listening to the spacemen in Trixon and Cleg would have saved his skin. They told him that Flormaseron was a hellhole where Creation had run mad. The only thing was, even they hadn't known how bad it was. Clark Travis worked the walnut stud of his stil disintegrator hopefully, but when it sputtered he gave it up.

The arklings were coming for him. Through the opening in the stone traceries of the ancient doorway, he saw the red aura that floated over them as they came up the stone ramp. Clark turned and ran along the sloping floor, down into the black, labyrinthine windings of the ancient city. His spacebooted feet made soft, slapping sounds. His beamlight cast a white brilliant glow ahead of him. He ran past several intersecting corridors before he skidded around a corner into one.

Clark Travis lost himself in the ruins. He went down into the bowels of this city that was in its glory before the Earth had been more than a spinning ball of fire in space. He saw odd animals carved in the walls, queerly human things at work on ships and weapons, tall men and lovely women etched in bas-relief in the marble.

The deeper down he went, the more he was putting himself in the arklings' power. They were familiar with this rotting pile of masonry, where the tunnels were dark strips out of Hades. Their red aura lighted the winding passageways. Clark only had his beamlight for the blackness.

He snapped off the power, stood waiting. His breath came softly. The tunnels were black, as black as space itself; as black as Martin Kent's eyes had been when he first told him about Flormaseron and the sleeping goddess of the crystal crypt.

"She isn't a goddess, of course," Kent had said, seriously. "She's the last remnant of the first race that ever came into existence. The product of a million generations of culture and scientific 

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