Free The Time Trap by Henry Kuttner Page A

weak as water.
    “Alasa!” he whispered. “ Alasa! ”
    In a surge of newfound strength he pressed the girl’s form against him, sought her lips. Fantastic visions flashed through his mind. Weird madness of the plant-men’s poisoned gas…
    Alasa seemed to slide away, to vanish in a green-lit abyss. She was gone. Mason was alone. The clouds whirled about him, and very faintly he heard a distant throbbing, steadily growing louder. With the portion of his brain that remained sane he knew that this was unreal, a drug-born hallucination, as the deep pounding roared louder in his ears and dark shadows moved slowly down the emerald distances. Clearer the shadows grew, and clearer … Bat-winged horrors that mocked and tittered obscene laughter as they raced down on him … and ever the drumming roar grew deeper, louder, crashing like the tocsin of a demon in his ears…
    Faster the green mists swirled. They were a whirlwind of chaotic, blinding brilliance. The devils danced a grotesque saraband, screaming a mocking chant.
    It swelled to a frightful crescendo of sound and motion that rocked Mason’s giddy senses. He felt blackness creeping up and overwhelming him.
    And it was with gratitude that he sank down into deepest unconsciousness!
    Slowly Mason awoke, with a blinding headache and an acrid, unpleasant taste in his mouth. He opened his eyes, stared up at the transparent roof of his prison. He was still imprisoned in the crystal cage, but the green gas had been pumped out. Alasa’s still body lay beside him. Head swimming, Mason tried to revive her. He stripped off his cloak, wrapped it about the girl.
    A grating overhead made him look up. The roof of the cage was sliding aside, leaving a gap four feet wide, running the length of the prison. Plant-men were busy with a kind of crane, swinging its burden, an enigmatic metal block, into place so that it could be dropped into the two human’s prison. There came an interruption.
    The Gorichen sprang into frenzied activity. Mason could not interpret their thoughts, but he sensed sudden, deadly danger. Frantically the plant-men went racing toward the corridor that led into the upper world. A stray thought-fragment flashed into Mason’s mind.
    “The Deathless Ones! They have broken the gateway—”
    In five minutes the cavern was deserted. Now, if ever, was a chance to escape. Mason looked up once more. The smooth sides of the cell were unscalable. But above, the gap in the roof hung the metallic block from the crane’s arm, too high to be reached—unless—
    A rope? Mason wore only the loincloth Erech had given him in Al Bekr, and neither that nor the cloak would support his weight. His glance fell on the metal ropes that had bound him, now discarded in a mound on the floor, and Mason knew he had solved the problem. If only they were long enough!
    Picking them up, he paused to examine Alasa. Already assured of her safety, it was with relief that he saw the girl’s lashes flutter, and her golden eyes open. She saw Mason.
    “Oh, Kent! Help me up!” She clutched his arm, got unsteadily to her feet. “We’re not dead, it seems. I thought we were both slain and in the Pit of Abaddon—”
    “Maybe you’re right about the last,” Mason said grimly. He told her what had happened. “If I can loop the rope over that metal block, we can climb out, I think.”
    “Can you do it?”
    He shook his head doubtfully. “I can try…”
    But only after repeated attempts did Mason manage to loop the doubled end of the metal cord over the suspended block. Then a careless move undid his work, and for another ten minutes he tried, a fury of apprehension mounting within him, till at last the anxious work was done. The two ends of the rope hung down within the cell. Mason knotted them together.
    “I’ll go first. Then I’ll pull you up—”
    The metal cord was slippery, scoring Mason’s skin. He twisted his legs about it, fought his way up, while Alasa held the rope steady from