The Quetenestel Towers

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FANTASTIC

UNIVERSE

SCIENCE FICTION

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DESTINY

A Complete Novelet

by ROBERT E. HOWARD &

1 L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP

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FANTASTIC

UNIVERSE

* ■ — ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ , ■ . ■ i . . i n —

1

Conan, Man of Destiny 4

by Robert E. Howard and
L. Sprague de Camp

The Entity . / • • 29

by Arthur Porges

The Conquerors ...»....,.•-• . 34

by Ed M. Clinton, Jr.

* *,' The Quetenestel Towers ". . 46

President TT

by Robert F. Young

Leo Margulies When Blindness Strikes . • 53

Publisher by Winston Marks

Editorial Director

The Mental Coin 58

by Richard R. Smith

Jukebox . . ; . . • . . . 82

by Arthur Sellings

Consultant Diagnostician 90

by F. B. Bryning

Picture That! . : j 102

by Norman Arkawy

Floyd and the Eumenides ........ 109

by Evelyn E. Smith

Mel Hunter Universe in Books - , . m 124

Cover Design &V Hans Stefan Santesson

FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, Vol. 4. No, 5. Published monthly by King-Size Publications,
Inc., 471 Park Ave., N. Y. 22^ N. Y. Subscription, 12 issues $3.75, single copies 35(*, Foreign
postage extra. Reentered as second- class mailer at Llie post oiftc*:, New York, New York. The
xracters in this magazine arc entirely fictitious and have no relation to any persons living
or dead. Copyright, 1&55, by J£na;-SizK Publications, Inc. DEC. li*C>5- prijni-ki* .in u. a. ▲.

THE STORY BEHIND THE COVER . . .

A very placid truck driver is Joseph Lucius McGinnis, even for
the year 1994. It goes without saying that he has seen a good many
scientific marvels in his time. But why should a man with a balanced
historical perspective become unduly excited about such things?
Space flight? "Look, chum, maybe you can tell me what's so sju
cial about one little rocket takin' off for Mars? It ain't as if there
was a Deborah LaSpurner inside. Even then it would be kid stuff
when you consider what we did with the at-omie bomb. I got two
kids myself and I'll admit I had to hold on to 'em when they started
jumping up and down.

"But me, I never cracked a yawn. I figure that if there really
is life on Mars we'll get acquainted with it the hard way and maybe
wish we hadn't. But you can be dead certain it's not going to change,
anything that runs on wheels. I'm mindin' my own business, sec
It's no skin off ray nose one way or the other. Just so long as we
don't have to pay fifty cents for a beer one of these days they can
send a hundred rockets to Mars, and I'll come home to the li'le wife
with no complaints worth shaking a finger at*'

On this particular morning McGinnis is humming a song. It's
a very old song, and McGinnis learned it at his grandmother's kne
*'Did you ever see a dream walking?' 1 hums McGinnis, marvel ii \g
at something deep within himself that keeps insist] that so loi y r
as he keeps his foot firmly planted on the propulsion pedal of his
annoyingly streamlined truck he'll be good for another thirty years
of happy suburban living.

Yes, sir. Just let anything modern or mechanical try to remove
from the life of a McGinnis a single crackling log in a midwinter
fireplace or one chattering blue jay from the tree on his carefully
mowed front lawn when autumn seta up a migratory swarming —

A sudden droning jerks McGinnis about in his seat before he eaft
let his thoughts really soar. He stares and — does a swift take. The
lines of the old song tumble over themselves, strike a snag and

become a roaring Niagara. "It isn't a dream walking. It's a robot
driving /"

McGinnis takes his foot off the pedal and the robot driver does
a swift take too. It's a woman android, you see, and there's some-
thing about the big, handsome McGinnis —

You've known all along:, haven't you? McGinnis doesn't let the
truck overturn. He just manages to be a little late for dinner for
the first time in twenty years,

FRANK BELKNAP LONG

the
quetenestel

towers

by . * . Robert F. Young

A vision of beauty becomes a part
of the mind that rejoices in its
splendor. No wonder the Martian
towers menaced Thorton** sanity*

The mass of men lead lives
of quiet desperation.

Henry David Thoreau

Somehow Thorton had not felt
like going 'with the others. Some-
thing in him had rebelled against
squandering the last precious hours
of his vacation in the flamboyant
carnival town across the canal, and
he had stayed behind.

It was comfortable there in the
late afternoon sunlight, his body
propped lazily against the soft
grass of the canal bank. It was
calm and peaceful, and a million
miles from tomorrow. That was
where tomorrow belonged, Thorton
thought. A million miles — or sixty
million,. which was the same thing
— away. He never wanted it to
come any closer.

Beyond the vivid blue of the
canal he could see the Quetenestel
Towers rising into the violet sky.
The mild sunlight had caught their
crystalline patterns and transformed
them into a dazzling tapestry of
light shards. The towers were as
integral a part of the Martian land-
scape as the canal was, Thorton
thought.

In the fullest, most audacious sense Robert P. Young is a completely unspoiled
writer. He may never be an inordinately prosperous writer— he may even occa-
sionally go hungry. We don't know and we refuse to venture a prediction. But
when a writer is true to himself, and wholly dedicated to an inner vision of soar-
ing beauty and abiding worth Time has often a curious way of making him fa-
mous overnight. You'll see what we mean when you read this memorable story-

4 6

THE QUETENESTEL TOWERS

47

They were as endemic as the yel-
low sea of Martian maize rolling
away beyond them to the distant
crimson mountains. They looked as
though they had been standing
there for a million million years,
the scintillating culmination of all
the art of old Mars. They were the
sort of monument you'd have ex-
pected a great civilization to leave
behind it — the sort of symbol you
/led a great civilization to leave
behind it.

Quetenestel, according to the
little guide book issued by inter*

.planetary, Inc., had lived during
the hedonistic centuries preceding
the Martian siroccos. While his
contemporaries were frantically bur-
rowing underground, excavating
the intricate system of grottoes that
were so shortly and tragically to
become catacombs, he had made his
last defiant gesture against mortal-
ity and built his fabulous towers.

Thorton \s mind evoked a vivid
image of an old and wizened man,
his elfin face crinkled by two Mar-
tian centuries, his scrawny arms
gesticulating, his bird-like voice
shrill as he strode back and forth
along the canal bank directing the
exacting creation of his ultimate
masterpiece. Like some fantastic
Cheops, Like some alien Ozyman-
dias.

Thorton saw the towers rising,
section by shining section, the scin-
tillating columns stabbing ever
higher into the swiftly darkening
sky; he saw the first drab murk of
the dust storms curtaining the

horizon. And then he saw the dusl-
misted years swirl leadenly by, th
sun a bloodshot eye in a lowering
sky 'that had forgotten day and re-
membered only night.

And all the while the timeless
towers remained standing, while
the blue canals became pitiful stria-
tions wrinkling the faces of new-
born deserts and the cities became
memories choked with dust Stand-
ing, still, when the first survivor
poked his blanched face out of his
mountain burrow and crept into
the slowly brightening sunlight.
Standing, sedate and calm, to greet
the space-jaundiced eye of the first
Earth man to step from the bowels
of the first Earth-Mars spaceship.

"You admire the towers, senir?"

Very startled, Thorton twisted
around. He saw the little Martian
peasant standing on the canal path
just above him. The peasant bowed
in the humble courtesy of his race.

M I am sorry to have disturbed
you/' he sard. "I was but passing
to my batiqueno when I saw you
sitting there contemplating an an-
cient art form of my race. Without
propriety the question rushed to
my lips/*

"I do admire the towers," Thor-
ton admitted.

"My heart is warmed that you
find pleasure in the art of my peo-
ple. To us the towers are priceless
because behind their immortality
lies a lesson we shall never for-
get."

M A lesson?" Thorton's face must
have betrayed his interest because

FANTASTIC \IVERS E

48

the Martian, after hesitating a mo-
ment, descended the slope and
stood before him. "You would like
to hear?" he asked.

"Sit down/' Thorton said.

"No, senir. It is not fitting. I am

but a poor tiller of the land while
you — you are an Earthman, a dwel-
ler in one of the great cities of
your planet. But I shall be glad to
impart the meager information I
possess if you are interested.'*

His small leathery face was in-
scrutable, yet Thorton had the
uncomfortable feeling that he was
being ridiculed. His curiosity, how-
ever, was rapidly becoming unbear-
able.

*T am very interested," he said.

"Thank you, senir. I shall tell
you about the towers. But first, in
order that you may understand, I
shall tell you about my people.

"Once we were a big race, a
brave, bold race. Much like your
own race today, senir, though of
course not quite so bold, nor nearly
so brave. Our culture of that pe-
riod, judged in the light of the
set of values that shaped it, was
the glorious consummation of a way

of life.

"To use a simple expression, we
were object- worshippers. We
adored things. Not things with
meaning behind them; not sym-
bols. But things that we made,
things that we built. Vehicles, ma-
chines, buildings. Most of all
buildings, senir. Buildings, and, of
course, those agglomerations of
buildings — cities.

We loved our tall white edifices
with their gleaming facades, their
magnificent spires and pinnacles.
We lived in them completely. We
carried on our lives' work in them,
hurrying, when it was necessary,
from one to the other, but never
for long remaining in the sunlight.

"It was during that period that
the Quetenestel Towers were
built—"

"No!" Thorton objected.

The Martian looked at him puz-
zledly. "Why do you shout 'No',
senir?"

"Because an age like that simply
can't produce art/'

"But that age produced the Que-
tenestel Towers/'

"You must be mistaken!"

"Possibly, senir, but I do not
think so."

Thorton waited for him to go
on. But the Martian stood there
quietly, a strange reticence in his
opaque brown eyes. Thorton be-
came impatient. "You mentioned
a significance behind the towers,"
he prompted. "A lesson."

"I did, senir. Primarily, the tow
ers signify that which they un-
equivocally state. Are you familiar
with our simple language?" Thor-
ton shook his head. "It does not
matter. You will observe the first
tower. In a bizarre fashion it re-
sembles the *K' in your alphabet.
Actually it is a gigantic symbol for
our language sound 'Q/ The sec-
ond tower, comparable to the in-
verted *N* in your alphabet, is our
way of indicating the sound Ten/

THE QUETEKESTEL TOWERS

49

Then there is the symbol, very
much like your *S/ except that its
curve is less pronounced, which — "

"Are you trying to say — " Thor-
ton began. Then he stopped,
wordless. He was staring across the
canal, not quite believing, yet des-
perately wanting to believe, want-
ing to be the first Earthman to make
the amazing discovery.

"I am trying to say, senir, that
the Quetenestel Towers arc the
word 'Quetenestel 1 spelt out, on a
prodigal scale, in the symbols of
our simple alphabet/'

"I'll be damned!" Thorton was
frozen in an attitude of in terse
concentration, his whole being fo-
cused through his eyes at the sud-
denly revealed letters which, a
moment ago in inane illiteracy, he
had believed to be towers. And
yet, paradoxically, they were still
towers, and still beautiful despite
his disillusionment.

"To think," he said, "that all
this while people have come here
sightseeing, that some, like myself,
have come here for the express pur-
pose of seeing those towers, and
all the while no one knew, no one
dreamed — But why? Why didn't
you, or others of your race, tell
us?"

u No one asked us, senir"
Thorton sat there quietly for a
long time. Finally he said, "You
implied a deeper significance, a
lesson — "

"Yes, senh\ Object worship
flourished during the centuries im-
mediately preceding the dust

storms. As I have explained, wc
were devoted to material objects
Nothing to us had value unless it
had been manufactured by our
selves, unless it was immediately
pleasing to the eye, and had, sup-
posedly, a necessary function to
per form.

"Also, as I have explained, we
loved our buildings and our cities
most of all. We spent our long
cool evenings drinking our clear
incomparable wine, looking up
from our sidewalk cafes at tall state-
ly facades, at pinnacles lost in the
stars. While it lasted, senir, it was
a pleasant way of life. But, ol
course, it could not last.

"When the dust storms came wc
burrowed underground. We could
not take our buildings or our ob-
jects with us. We had to leave ouj
lovely houses and our beloved cities
to the mercy of the wind and the
dust. And the wind and the dust
were not merciful.

"No race can continue to main-
tain an ideal that is not durable.
that will not forbear turning into
a rusty hulk or a pile of misshapen
ruins the day after tomorrow
When the remnants of my peopl
crept out into the sun they saw
nothing of their adored cities, noth-
ing of their cherished objects
They saw nothing but — "

Suddenly the Martian knelt and
plunged one hand into the ground
He scooped up a handful of dark
red silt and let it trickle throug!
his fingers.

"All of my people today, sent

50

FANTASTIC "UNIVERSE

are tillers of the soil We live as
closely to the soil as we can get
When we crept forth from our
burrows we found our heritage and
humbly accepted it. The land."

"But the towers—" Thorton
said.

"Yes, yes, senir. The towers.
They too remained. The towers
and the dust. There is always an
exception to prove every rule, but
seldom has a rule been proven as
ironically as the towers proved this
rule . . . When we looked across
the desolation of our land and saw
the towers, we knew in our hearts
that we would never build another
building, or another city."

"But why?"

The Martian pointed across the
canal Dusk had begun to creep
down from the crimson mountains,
across the yellow fields of maize.
The towers stood, pale and cold
and lonely, At their feet the neon
veins of the carnival town had be-
gun to glow. "Look at them, senir.
Read them. Can you not see why?"
"I see four tremendous letters
of your alphabet immortalizing the
name of the artist who constructed
them," Thorton said.

■ 'Artist ?"
• "Certainly. The fact that he used
his own name in the configuration
of his masterpiece doesn't in the
least detract from his genius. Ego-
tism is typical of all great artists,
and Quetenestel undeniably was a
very great artist. The fact that his
towers were the only buildings to

survive the siroccos merely accen-
tuates his greatness/*

The Martian was staring at him
oddly. "I keep forgetting, senir,
that you are unfamiliar with x>ur
history, that you do not understand
our language . . , Why did you
come to Mars, senir?" he asked
abruptly,

Thorton was taken aback. The
sudden change of subject caught
him off guard and he answered
without thinking, without rational-
izing*.

"Why," he said, "to find some-
thing to take back with me,"

"Thank you for felling me,
senir."

"But you don't understand,"
Thorton said. "It's not what you're
thinking. It's nothing simple. It's
nothing I can pick up and put into
my pocket, or take home and place
on my mantel. It's nothing like
that—"

"I do understand, senir. You
want something to take home.
Something that will make going
home easier. You want a memory
that will not rust, that will remain
clean and shining throughout the
quiet years of your life. Something
lasting that you can hang on to
when doubts assail you. A touch-
stone that your own civilization is
unable to provide," He lowered
his eyes, staring at the dark red soil
in his thin hand* "All of us are like
that, senir J'

The Martian raised his eyes
again. "I am proud that my humble
race is able to lend you such i

THE QUETENESTEL TOWERS

51

touchstone/' he said. He stood up
slowly. Then he raised one arm in
a wide gesture. "The Quetencstel
Towers, senir. Take them. Queten-
estcl was, as your guidebook states,
a famous Martian artist. If, when
my people gaze upon his master-
piece, they know that they shall
never build again, it is because they
are ashamed of their clumsy hands.
It is because they are afraid that
their noblest efforts can never
touch the consummate art work of
the master."

He bowed. "I am sorry to have
disturbed you," he said. "I was but
passing to my batiqueno when I
saw you sitting here, I am grateful
for the time of day you have so
graciously granted me. And now,
quis san foruita. Farewell/'

He turned and started tiredly up
the slope to the canal path.

"Wait," Thorton said, rising. He
lelt vaguely dissatisfied, vaguely
afraid that something essential had
escaped him. But the Martian did
not pause. He climbed up the slope
to the path and walked down the
path, blending finally into the deep-
ening evening shadows.

Thorton would have followed,
but he heard the high-pitched drone
of the reluming launch and knew
that the others were on their way
back from the carnival town.

He waited there on the canal
bank, and when the launch came
in he helped his wife and his son
up the slope, losing, in the sudden
cessation of die afternoon's Ion el i-
ness, some of the doubts that had

infiltrated his mind. lie took his
wife's arm and his son's small hand
and walked with them and the rest
of the tourists back to the neat row
of prefabricated cottages facing the

canal.

Behind him the kaleidoscopic
veins of the carnival town flowed
brightly through the intensifying
night And then — Thorton paused
on his small front lawn to watch
— liquid light leaped vividly
through the huge vowels and con-
sonants of the Quetenestel Towers,
etching their creator's name in pur-
est scarlet against the star-haunted
Martian night.

And suddenly Thorton's heart
was lull. Suddenly he was able to
face tomorrow. His vacation had
not been in vain. He had his touch-
stone.

The matter probably would have
ended there, and Thorton doubtless
would have endured the abyss of
time separating him from his next
vacation with more patience and
equanimity than he could usually
summon to meet the rigors of civil-
ized living. If he had not been
curious; if, deep, deep in the in-
nermost reaches of his mind there
had not lurked one tiny nagging
doubt.

He had been home less than two
months when the Tri-Planetary His-
torical Society announced the open-
ing of the first Martian micro-film
library in Lesser New York, Thor-
ton spent a whole week doing battle
with himself. He presented himself
with a hundred excellent reasons

52

FANTASTIC UNIVERSE

why it would be a waste of time
for him to sit in a long narrow
room ruining his eyes over 3-D
films, listening to prosaic descrip-
tions of a planet he had seen at
first hand.

"What can they tell me about
Mars?" he asked himself again and
again, "I've been there!"

The libra-specialist in the long
narrow room — the Q — S room — •
said: "What topic, sir?"

Thorton was embarrassed. "The
Quetenestel — " he began. Some-
how he could not say the rest.

"Oh, the towers," the girl said.
"Won't you sit down, sir?"

He was sweating. The seat was
supposed to be form-adjusting, yet
it failed utterly to align itself to
his shifting posture. The long room
darkened and abruptly there was
the blue canal flowing slowly
across the 3-D screen before him,
and just beyond it the crystalline
towers rising, with patches of violet
sky showing exquisitely between
their delicate fretworks.

A wave of such poignant nos-
talgia swept over htm that he felt
that the room could no longer con-
tain him, the room, or Earth for
that matter; that he must get up
and flee; run down the grassy bank
of the canal and plunge into the
blue blue water, striking out with
long strong strokes toward the
magic pinnacles waiting forever on
the farther shore.

"The Quetenestel Towers," the
narrator's flat voice said: "a re-
markable example of Martian mass

art dating from the last century of
the old modernism. Formerly and
romantically believed to represent
the attempt of a poct-architcct
named Quetenestel to immortalize
himself by spelling his name in
grandiose letters along the Smiul
canal .

"Actually an example of the ad-
vertising ingenuity — and the ex-
travagance- — of a huge Martian
winery. The Quetenestel Vintners.
The towers bear a startling resem-
blance, when properly understood,
to the much smaller neon lettering
used to promulgate similar prod-
ucts on Earth during the twentieth
century/'

"Is something wrong, sir?"

Thorton realized that he was
standing, "No, no, Nothing," he
said.

Somehow he found his way out

of the room into the corridor. He

walked down the corridor to the

elevators and descended to street

Jevel.

They crawled out of their bur-
rows into the sun } he kept thinking.
Into the sun, and they saw the dmi
covering their broken cities. And
in all their land nothing stood ex-
cept the towers, the towers immor-
talizing the vintage they had drunk
for centuries to rationalize their
brick and mortar civilization . . .

Thorton stepped through the
street entrance into the bleak No-
vember sunshine. He saw the
naked street and the tall white
buildings lining it. And the people
hurrying. He shuddered.