The Unreasoning Mask by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online

slide down the other side.
     
     
Moaning, sweating, Ramstan awoke. Near the door, against the wall,

a wavering figure stood. It was in a dark robe, its face shrouded by

a hood. The face was as pale as moonlight and gave the impression of

being that of a very old man or woman. It was either human or remarkably

humanoid.
     
     
Ramstan blinked, and the figure shimmered and then was gone.
     
     
It was the glowing tag-end of his dream, appearing just as he awoke, and

he had seen it as an afterimage. Al-Khidhr, the Green Man? It had been

pointing at the lock. He rose, and, automatically picking up an olson

from a chair arm, walked swiftly toward the door. He saw the ghostly tube

projecting through the keyhole, stopped breathing, turned, and ran to the

window. He started to turn its lock, which kept the two sections tight

against the outside air, when be remembered the mask. Still not breathing,

he groped around in the seat of the chair until he found it and then put

it on. Only then did he swing the two sections of the window open, and,

leaning far out, breathed deeply.
     
     
When his lungs were full, he ran back to the tube. The slight hissing

from the open end of the tube had told him it was not an olson but a

gas-expeller. It would not do to fuse the tube-end with a blast from

the olson. The gas might be explosive.
     
     
Ramstan went back to the window and leaned out of it backwards, his eyes on

the tube. Presently, the tube was withdrawn. There was a series of clickings

as a tool was worked on the lock. He crouched behind the chair. As the door

started to swing open, he put his back against the wall, drew up one leg,

and shoved the gigantic chair with it. The chair sped toward the doorway

on its six wheels, making only a slight squeaking. The door swung open.

The chair rammed into the figure momentarily silhouetted in the light.

The figure crumbled and went over backward under the impact of the chair.
     
     
Ramstan had run, crouching, a few feet behind and to one side of the chair,

his olson ready. He stuck his head out of the doorway, ready to yank it

back. But he saw nothing threatening in the hall. An arm with a human hand

extended along the floor from behind the massive bulk of the chair.
     
     
Ramstan duckwalked around the side of the chair, moving quietly. The man

on the floor might have an olson in his hidden hand. But that, too, was open

and still, and he was looking into the red-streaked and glazed eyes

of Benagur.
     
     
     
     
     
     
... 5 ...
     
     
     
     
Benagur's head was massive. His hair was as black and as coarse as a bear's

and fell past his shoulders. His beard was long and square-cut. His face

looked like the half-mad, half-divine face of a stone-winged bull-man

in front of an ancient Assyrian temple.
     
     
Benagur groaned and rolled over on his right side. The back of his head

was bloodied. On the floor by the chair, attached to a plastic cylinder,

was the tube which had been shoved through the massive keyhole.
     
     
Ramstan helped the commodore to his feet, but released him when he growled,

"I'm O.K."
     
     
Ramstan shoved the chair back into the room and turned the lights on.

Benagur staggered in and sat down on an inflatable chair. Ramstan brought

in the tube and cylinder and locked the door. "What happened, Benagur?"
     
     
"When I came down the hall I saw two cloaked, masked, and gloved persons

at your door. They looked up and saw me . . .'
     
     
"You didn't shout?"
     
     
"Yes. Didn't you hear me?"
     
     
"No. The wails and the door are too thick."
     
     
"The two ran away down the hall from me. One dropped the cylinder or

whatever it was. They didn't run exactly as humans do . . ."
     
     
"Tenolt?"
     
     
"I don't know. I started to push on the door, and that's the last I remember

until I woke up on the floor. My head hurts."
     
     
"There must have been a third. Maybe he was behind the door of the room

across the hall. He