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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c24e084 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61884 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61884) diff --git a/old/61884-h.zip b/old/61884-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b33b235..0000000 --- a/old/61884-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/61884-h/61884-h.htm b/old/61884-h/61884-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index aadc306..0000000 --- a/old/61884-h/61884-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2820 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The War-nymphs of Venus, by Ray Cummings. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The War-Nymphs of Venus, by Ray Cummings - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The War-Nymphs of Venus - -Author: Ray Cummings - -Release Date: April 21, 2020 [EBook #61884] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR-NYMPHS OF VENUS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="351" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>THE WAR-NYMPHS of VENUS</h1> - -<h2>By RAY CUMMINGS</h2> - -<p>The voluptuous golden civilization of Arron was<br /> -doomed. Licentious laughter echoed through the<br /> -water-kingdom, unmindful of the relentless,<br /> -clanking invasion of the Gorts. What fools, this<br /> -handful of warrior-maidens led by a puny Earthman,<br /> -to pit their thin strength against Tollgamo's iron army!</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Spring 1941.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>I was fishing for tarpon, lolling back in the stern of my small boat. -The outboard motor, running at trolling speed, was a puttering purr in -the drowsing watery silence. It was sunset of a summer evening of 1948. -The Gulf of Mexico, out beyond the mouth of the little Florida bayou -inlet across which I was heading, was a glassy expanse, blood-red in -the light of the huge setting sun.</p> - -<p>To the south lightning was playing along the orange sky. I recall that -a vague uneasiness was upon me. Because a storm might be coming? Surely -it was not that. I was within three miles of the small island where -young Jack Allen and I were camping. It was my intention to head for -there presently, especially as there had been no sign of tarpon. Allen -had been too lazy to come fishing; he had said he would loaf and have -supper ready for us at dark.</p> - -<p>My name is Kent Fanning. Jack Allen and I were of an age—twenty-four, -that summer. With our business in New York, we were here on vacation, -having a permit to fish and to camp on the small, uninhabited island.</p> - -<p>The intermittent lightning at the southern horizon rose higher. Faint -muttering thunder was audible. A massive grey-white cloud was down -there now, a thunderhead, coming northward with the storm behind it. I -had decided to pull in my line and head for the island when suddenly I -had a strike, the big reel humming as the line went out. A tarpon? I -hooked it, shut off the motor, sat erect with my stout rod braced in -the leather socket of my belt. I was prepared for a long struggle.</p> - -<p>And then, two hundred yards or so from me, the water broke with a -floundering splash. I gasped, stared numbed. A floundering, oblong -pink-white thing was there at the end of my line. A slim white arm -flailed up as the thing turned, swimming on the surface frantically -away from me. Pink-white limbs gleaming in the moonlight. Streaming -tawny hair, like seaweed—hair in which my hook seemed to be caught.</p> - -<p>A girl! I had her at the boat in a moment, floundering in the -moonlight, gasping, still trying to twist around and disentangle my -hook from her long streaming hair. A small, slim figure, white-limbed -yet flushed like moonlit coral. There was a brief dangling robe wetly -clinging to her. It was of gleaming lustrous green as though perhaps it -was a fabric of softly woven metal, painted green by the sea.</p> - -<p>An extraordinary yet very human girl.</p> - -<p>Just a few seconds of my stricken amazement. I recall that I gasped -inanely.</p> - -<p>"Well—why good Heavens—"</p> - -<p>Her gasping laugh rippled like the splashing water in the moonlight. -"Sorry! I got some frightened to be confused."</p> - -<p>English! Strangely intoned with little rippling liquid syllables. Like -nothing I had ever heard before and yet my own language.</p> - -<p>She had pulled my hook from the gleaming tawny tresses of her hair. -Then she flung up a coral-white arm. I bent, seized her wrist, drew her -up and she came with a nimble, skilled little leap and landed on her -feet in the boat beside me!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>I find myself now somewhat at a loss accurately and yet succinctly to -depict that next hour or two. You who read this of course have heard -much of the strange affair from newscasters and from the public prints. -Garbled reports, some of them. Others pedantic with technical details -of science. I am no scientist. It is my purpose here merely to give -a factual account of the weird incidents which brought to me, Kent -Fanning, a person certainly of no importance save perhaps to myself, a -sudden prominence not in one world, but in two.</p> - -<p>Queer that throughout my lifetime there had always been talk that -some day, here on Earth, scientists would discover the secret of -spaceflight; that then intrepid adventurers would journey out into -space. But as you all know now, the reverse, so seldom anticipated, was -true. Another world came to us, in the person of this strange Venus -girl; came indeed by utter chance, or destiny if you will; to me.</p> - -<p>Venus; the Earth. Of all known planets, the two most close, and most -alike. There are things brewing in the Universe of which none of us can -be aware, of course. A myriad things. And here was one of them. Unknown -to us, Venus and the Earth already were intermingled, fused into the -beautiful little person of this strange girl—the blood of Venus, the -blood of Earth flowing in her veins.</p> - -<p>You had not heard of George Peters, doubtless. Nor had I! A research -chemist and physicist, in New York City, about 1930. He was a young -man then; I think, twenty-eight. He sought no publicity. A wealthy -man. With some twenty companions, all of them scientists, some of them -older than himself, he was working, not on the secret of spaceflight, -but with a ray—a vibration—which he hoped might reach some distant -planet, as a means of communication if there should be inhabitants -there.</p> - -<p>Ironically he did not know he had succeeded! And it was men from -Venus—the villainous Tollgamo of whom now you have heard so much—who -was attracted by his signals and came to him; abducting him and his -companions so that all that was known, here on earth was that one -morning George Peters' laboratory was found wrecked, and he and his -companions were gone.</p> - -<p>"George Peters, that is my father," the girl was telling me now as I -headed the small open boat for the island where young Allen and I were -camping.</p> - -<p>And she had come to Earth—the first time in her sixteen years that -she had been off Venus; stolen a small spaceflight cylinder from her -father. Her Venus people needed help from the threat of Tollgamo. All -that was good and beautiful on Venus and in her Arone world of love and -music and beauty, was to be destroyed by the monstrous threat of this -Dictator from his mechanized realm of the Gorts.</p> - -<p>"Wait," I said, as she poured it at me, at times only half coherent. -"You came here to Earth, for help? You came alone?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. You have not, father thinks, yet discovered the secret of -spaceflight. He was sending the cylinder, with drawings and scientific -details of how spaceflight was accomplished by Tollgamo and his evil -men. And so I came. We want that you should build a spaceship and come -to Venus. Your men, and some of your weapons of war, to help us fight -Tollgamo."</p> - -<p>And she had dropped here into the Gulf of Mexico, wrecked the little -one-man space-vehicle so that she barely escaped with her life. And it -sank, with its secret of spaceflight obliterated by the sea, even if by -some chance the little metal mechanisms themselves could be recovered.</p> - -<p>I think that she had given no thought to that realization as she swam -to save herself and suddenly found my trolling hooks entangled in her -hair. Nereid of the sea. Far more like her Venus mother than her Earth -father, water was almost her natural element, since her blood did not -need the replenishment of oxygen so quickly as ours, so that for ten -minutes or more she need not breathe.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I learned only fragmentary details of all this that Midge Peters had -to tell, there in the boat as we headed for the island. Surely I must -admit that the weirdness of it startled me, and for just a moment -perhaps, it vaguely occurred to me that here was some trickster, or a -mentality unbalanced. But to look at her, was to know that certainly -here was no Earth girl!</p> - -<p>I had to believe her. But I must admit, I gave little thought, there in -the boat, to any menace to her world, or to the ironic fact that she -had brought to Earth the treasured secret of spaceflight and already -had lost it so that she was marooned here. Here was the amazing, -beautiful little creature herself in the boat beside me, and what she -was saying of Venus dwindled into insignificance with the stirring -of my pulses as I stared at her. Slim little body, hardly matured, -but fashioned with almost a normal earthly beauty. Yet there was a -strangeness that made her different. The flush of pink coral to her -flesh; her shimmering robe with moonbeams rippling on it like moonrays -on green rippled water; her long tawny tresses, drying now in the wind.</p> - -<p>But most of all, I think, the strangeness was in her eyes. The sea was -there in the green depths of her eyes. Eyes that mirrored the soul of a -strange girlhood; eyes that had seen things strange to me, reflecting -now the thoughts, emotions of another world.</p> - -<p>"You look at me so queerly," she said suddenly. "Why is that?"</p> - -<p>"Well you—you—" Suddenly it was hard to say anything of my -conflicting thoughts. "You—well, why wouldn't I be startled? A little -sea nymph. You should have been named Nereid."</p> - -<p>Again her laugh rippled.</p> - -<p>"Nereid? Why yes, my father calls me that, though my mother named me -Midge. That was when she learned English. So I am not like Earth-girls? -My father has said it many times. But you—"</p> - -<p>Her gaze at me was earnest, direct. "You do not look queer to me," she -added. "You look much in the fashion of my father, grown younger."</p> - -<p>Surely I have given only a vague picture indeed of that half hour in -the boat with Nereid as the puttering little outboard motor drove us -to the island where Jack Allen would be waiting for me. Half an hour, -so crowded with my first jumbled impressions of what Nereid's weird -Venus-world must be like.</p> - -<p>"That is your island?" Nereid said suddenly. "Why—it looks very -pretty."</p> - -<p>The storm still was rising in the south—occasional bursts of lightning -and rolling, reverberating thunderclaps. But the starlight and -moonlight was over us. It silvered the island palms; it lay like white -metal on the sand of the island's shore.</p> - -<p>I headed us into the little cove. A small dilapidated dock was there. -On a little rise behind the palmetto fringe, under the palm trees, a -shaft of moonlight gleamed on the white of our tent. I thought that -young Allen would have heard the putt-putt of my motor and be down at -the dock now to greet me. But there was no sign of him.</p> - -<p>I shut off the motor. Silence leaped at us.</p> - -<p>"Queer," I said. "Jack promised he'd have supper ready."</p> - -<p>The glow of campfire beside the tent was visible. In the silence I -could hear the murmur of music from our little portable radio. Allen -must have been here only a few minutes ago. I called,</p> - -<p>"Oh Jack—Jack, where are you?"</p> - -<p>There was only the roll of my words, echoing into silence. Very queer.</p> - -<p>Nereid was in the bow of that boat. "Fend us off," I said as we glided -to the dock.</p> - -<p>This weird girl. Water, almost her native element so that suddenly she -dove over the bow. Flash of coral limbs, green-sheathed little body and -streaming tawny hair. There was hardly a splash as she slipped into the -water and then was swimming backward against our gliding little boat. -It slid to the dock, gently eased up, and Nereid was gone.</p> - -<p>For a moment I held my breath, with my heart pounding. Foolish -apprehension. Abruptly she appeared, out in the middle of the cove, -head and shoulders bobbing up as she shook the water from her tresses -and flung up an arm to greet me.</p> - -<p>"Come back here," I called.</p> - -<p>The silent cove echoed with the ripple of her laugh. With weaving -limbs, incredibly swiftly her body slid through the water; submerged -again, and she came up laughing, like a dog shaking herself as she -jumped to the dock.</p> - -<p>"Some day we will swim together, Kent." Again she flung me that -sidelong glance of coquetry. "And if you swim like my father, without -much trouble I could drown you. You think so?"</p> - -<p>"No argument on that," I said. Queerly I seemed to feel, just for that -instant, almost a vague resentment. Resentment of a man at the superior -prowess of a woman. Instinctive, of course.</p> - -<p>She seemed to understand it, and she laughed again. "Our young men of -Venus are like that," she said, "for they, too, cannot swim very well." -And instantly her face clouded. "That, too, is part of the trouble of -my world—the men who would have their mates kept from the water so -that the man may be in everything the master. Our virgins do not like -that."</p> - -<p>She clung to my hand as we went up the palmetto-lined path to the camp. -And suddenly she seemed frightened. An aura of sudden menace was here. -I, too, could feel it. Allen had started supper. The things were out; -food was in the frying pan, burning now in a charred mass over the -campfire flames.</p> - -<p>"Kent—something wrong—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>We stood tense. Like animals abruptly scenting danger, yet having no -least idea what it was, or from whence it could come.... And abruptly -in the silence, the murmuring little radio here changed from music to a -newscaster's flash.</p> - -<p>"Nereid listen—news of you—" I murmured.</p> - -<p>Something had been seen, late this afternoon, dropping swiftly from the -sky—something, a meteorite?—the few eyewitnesses differed in trying -to describe it. "<i>Mysterious missile drops into the Gulf ten miles -off lonely Palmetto Key.</i>" The newscaster drew on his imagination, -conjecturing what the round shining thing could have been, which -two fishing boats had reported seeing coming hurtling down from the -afternoon sky, dropping into the glassy Gulf.</p> - -<p>I smiled at Nereid as for a moment we stood listening. Her little -falling space-cylinder already was causing comment. I could envisage -the incredulous amazement of the authorities at Tampa when I took her -there, told them who she was. The world would ring with it. Blaring -newscasters: "<i>Stranded Venus girl! Marooned on Earth! Venus inhabited! -Venus threatened with bloody revolution! Appeals to Earth for help! -Daughter of two worlds brings secret of spaceflight to Earth, and loses -it on her arrival!</i>"</p> - -<p>And some would try to be humorous: "<i>Girl from Venus brings gift of -spaceflight secret, and loses it before she can give it to us! Isn't -that what you would expect of a woman?</i>" "<i>Kent Fanning and weird girl -try to hoax scientists—</i>"</p> - -<p>Somehow as I thought of it, resentment sprang within me at what this -would do to the gentle little Nereid. Allen and I, tomorrow when the -storm was over, would have to take her to Tampa, of course. Or perhaps -we would take her to some scientific Society, with less publicity. And -an effort would be made to recover her cylinder, with its precious -secret.</p> - -<p>It was my swift flow of thoughts as for that moment the newscaster -droned on. And suddenly his voice changed. He had been describing the -mysterious falling of what quite evidently had been Nereid's little -vehicle. And now another Press Bulletin had reached him.</p> - -<p>"<i>Mysterious airship descends from the stratosphere, lands in the Gulf -near Palmetto Key, off west coast of Florida. At sunset tonight—</i>"</p> - -<p>Nereid gripped me with a little gasping cry as we listened. A gleaming -metal thing, flatly oblong with a turret globe at bow and stern, had -been distantly seen by a tramp freighter which was heading westward -into the Gulf, bound for Mexico. A metal ship—blood-red with the -sunset on it—slowly floating down; rotating slowly, weirdly on its -horizontal axis.... It had been seen to land on the Gulf surface. And -then slowly submerge, heading shoreward like a plunging submarine as it -vanished!</p> - -<p>Nereid murmured, "Tollgamo, he has a ship like that! But my father has -none! Oh Kent—"</p> - -<p>A spaceship from Venus! Was it that? Following Nereid here to -seize her; to prevent her from giving the secret of Interplanetary -transportation to Earth! The newscaster was saying something about -U.S. Coast Guard Cutters being ordered from Tampa to investigate.</p> - -<p>And from here on little Palmetto Key, young Allen had disappeared! The -implication of that struck at me. For a second I stared at Nereid, the -firelight gleaming soft and warm on her dripping little body; tinting -her pink-coral face which now was stamped with terror.</p> - -<p>But we had no more warning than that. The storm was at hand now, and -the wind was lashing the upper fronds of the palms; purple darkness -here on the island with a flash of lightning and almost simultaneous -thunderclap. For that second the palmetto shrubs were whitely illumined -by the electric glare. Fifty feet away a big, dark upright shape -abruptly was visible. And another—and another! Men stalking us!</p> - -<p>The glare died. There was only turgid windy darkness. I must have -muttered something to Nereid; my arm went around her as we turned to -run back to our boat in the cove. Too late! From the palm woods behind -us a violet beam of light stabbed out. It caught us; bathed us. There -was a guttural shout; the sound of a little pop and something whizzing -with a whining hum through the air. I felt something strike my legs. A -little blob which with its impact abruptly uncoiled, and then coiled -again as it wrapped itself around my legs so that I crashed heavily to -earth face down.</p> - -<p>And another had hit my neck. Ghastly thing—quivering steel spring. It -felt like that; thin quivering metal encircling my throat. Almost like -a thing alive, gripping me with its metal fingers ... strangling me. -I was aware that Nereid, too, had fallen. My groping fingers clutched -at the strangling band; its sharp edges cut my fingers as futilely I -tried to tear it loose. I recall that I lay threshing, lunging, with my -legs pinned and my breath gone. Dark figures were standing over me now. -Guttural chuckling voices mingled with the roaring torrent of Niagara -in my ears. Then the dancing spots before my bulging eyes blurred the -gathering dark shapes.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>The roaring in my ears came first as my consciousness struggled back. -My fumbling fingers felt my throat. The band was gone; the skin was -swollen there. Then I knew that I was bathed in the cold sweat of -weakness and was lying on the metal grid of a floor. The murmur of -voices sounded around me; and I opened my eyes to find myself in a -dimly starlit, circular turret room. The control room of a spaceship. -It hummed with a throbbing rhythm of its current. But save for that it -was queerly still, vibrationless.</p> - -<p>We were in space. Through the round, transparent turret walls I could -see the blazing stars in a black firmament to one side. The other -was shrouded with metal blinds, through the chinks of which dazzling -sunlight was showing, so that I knew we had already left the giant -cone of the Earth's shadow. Heading partly toward the Sun. Heading for -Venus? It seemed so.</p> - -<p>Men were here around me. Huge, burly, strangely garbed men—one at the -controls, where banks of levers and dials with quivering indicators -were ranged in rows with a line of little fluorescent globes diagonally -across them. Two other men sat softly talking together; guttural, -unintelligible words. Weird figures indeed. At first glance they could -have been towering robots; wide, square shoulders, rectangular bodies, -round tubular, jointed legs. The starlight glinted on their burnished, -grey-white metal casements. Then as they moved, I saw that their -garments were of flexible woven metal.</p> - -<p>The one at the controls was bareheaded, a round bullet head of -close-cropped black hair. His face was heavy; skin queerly grey-white. -Weird features, with a protruding chin and long hawk nose so that the -mouth was a greylipped slit, depressed between the projections of his -nose and lower jaw. And he had deep-set, round dark eyes under shaven -black brows.</p> - -<p>Men of science. Humans whose life was of such efficient, mechanical -rigidity that they themselves had the aspect of machines. Worshipers of -precision; of mechanization. The aura of it was on them.</p> - -<p>I saw that one of them was sitting impassive, stiffly erect in -his metal garments with his gaze roving me like a guard. Strange, -jewel-like little weapons were at his waist and in pouches of his metal -jacket. On his head was a metal, peaked helmet—its peak fashioned in -the form of a hawk-like bird, poised for screaming flight. Across the -starlit circular room, another of the men was sitting, gazing out at -the firmament. A man? I stared with a new amazement. The same square, -jointed metal garments. But the hips were wider, the shoulders more -narrow. A woman, of this mechanized race of Gorts. Her breast swelled -beneath her mailed tunic. Her hair was black, long to the base of her -neck, covering her ears. A shining black metal band was around her -forehead, holding the hair from her eyes.</p> - -<p>Strange, powerful Amazon. She was a good six feet tall; her face was -hawk-nosed like the men, but with lips that were fuller, of a reddish -tinge. Then as I stared, the man at the controls called to her:</p> - -<p>"Garga—"</p> - -<p>She rose; moved to him. Her dangling weapons, and a huge metal ornament -on her bosom, clanked as she walked. At the control table the leader -gave her orders; guttural crisp words unintelligible to me. She -nodded; went to a small table across the room, where with charts and -computations she seemed figuring the course of our flight.</p> - -<p>Garga, woman of the Gorts. Mechanized womanhood, with all that -womanhood stands for in my own world submerged within her so that -she was a mere female machine. And suddenly my mind, still dazed now -in these first moments of my returning consciousness, swept back to -Nereid. Strange world, this Venus, to hold two such contrasting types -of female! What a gulf between them!</p> - -<p>Where was Nereid now? Had she been killed in that attack upon us? -Anxiety swept me. I had struggled up on one elbow. The watching Gort -saw me; he muttered an exclamation and the man at the controls came -clanking to his feet. A giant fellow, well over six feet. His slit of -mouth widened with a grin like a gash between his nose and chin as he -bent down over me.</p> - -<p>"You—still alive?" he greeted. "What your name?"</p> - -<p>I sat up, still rubbing my bruised throat. "Kent Fanning," I said. "So -you talk English? There was a girl with me, back there on that island. -Where is she?"</p> - -<p>He gestured blandly. "She safe. Daughter of Peters. Tollgamo wants her -not injured. He will like you too, I think perhaps. You have scientific -skill of Earth science?"</p> - -<p>I would be kept alive for the knowledge I might have. "Well, maybe," -I said. "Where is Peters' daughter? I want to see her. Where are you -taking us? To Venus?"</p> - -<p>"You ask too much quick questions," he retorted. His grey knuckles -rapped his mailed chest. "I am Rhool, second to Tollgamo. I talk with -you some else time. Maybe you teach me more the English? Eh?"</p> - -<p>"Where is Peters' daughter?" I insisted. I was on my feet, still dizzy; -and as I staggered a little, I clutched Rhool's metal clothed arm. It -angered, or perhaps startled him. With a sweeping gesture, incredibly -powerful, his arm flung me aside. His guttural barking command brought -the woman Garga with a pounce.</p> - -<p>I have not mentioned that I am a bit under six feet in height; slim -and dark. Not very powerful; but I have, my friends tell me, a temper -somewhat flaring so that in a rough and tumble fight I usually can take -care of myself. But the glare in Rhool's eyes warned me that this was a -time when discretion certainly was better than valor. The woman Garga -towered an inch or so over me; her fingers gripped my shoulders.</p> - -<p>"So?" she muttered. "You think to cause trouble?"</p> - -<p>I summoned a grim smile. "I do not. I want to be taken to Peters' -daughter. Where is she?"</p> - -<p>Rhool, back at his instrument table now, barked a command; and the -metal-clad Gort woman shoved me. "You come with me. I take you."</p> - -<p>To Nereid? I hoped so. Docilely I preceded Garga along a glowing -humming little metal corridor of the spaceship. She said nothing more, -but flung open a small metal door after unbarring its fastenings, -shoved me in and banged it upon me.</p> - -<p>I found myself in a small metal sleeping apartment. Brilliant starlight -filtered in through its single bullseye pane. A figure was in the -corner on a fabric couch.</p> - -<p>"You Kent? Good Lord."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was Jack Allen. They had pounced on him, back there on Palmetto Key. -I sat with him now, telling him of the weird things which had happened -to me; telling him of Nereid.</p> - -<p>He stared. "Good Lord, Kent—well, I understand it better now."</p> - -<p>There were things that he had learned; and as he told them to me, -Nereid's only half-coherent story began to clarify.</p> - -<p>"That woman Garga," Allen was saying with his ready grin, "I get along -fine with her. Pumped a lot of facts out of her."</p> - -<p>Physically, Allen and I are of quite different types, which is perhaps -why we are such friends. He says I have a romantic, sort of poetic -look—from my mother, who was Spanish. And that, he says, goes with a -bad temper. However that may be, certainly he was always the opposite. -A giant, blond fellow; six feet four; rugged, sun-bronzed, like a young -Viking. And he had an almost unfailing good nature. A slow, quiet -smile. Slow of movement; usually somewhat lazy. But there were times, -rare intervals, when he was angered. His movements were panther-like -then, and I wouldn't like to be the one to meet him in a fight.</p> - -<p>"That Garga woman likes me," he grinned. He lowered his voice as he -leaned toward me. "She looks like a machine, but still she's a woman. -Get the idea? If we ever get out of this, that might be the way."</p> - -<p>And then he told me what he knew of Nereid's strange Venus world. The -realm of the Arones was in a lush forest, the tropic region. Compared -to our Earth population, there were not many of the Arones. Half a -million perhaps, in little Forest and Water villages, with twenty -thousand in the chief city, known as Arron.... How shall I attempt -even an outline of the ethnological history of Venus? I can give only -the barest suggestion of it. In former ages doubtless there had been -millions of humans on this, Earth's sister planet. A civilization -rising to great heights of science, with all the planet's surface -mastered by man. And then decadence had come. Mankind resting; then -drifting backward. Dwindling in number; with science forgotten, put -aside as a memory, a tradition. And slowly but inexorably the monstrous -animals, insects, the weird vegetation again took primitive possession -of most of the globe.</p> - -<p>"So that's your Nereid's people," Allen was saying. "Decadent—soft -now—trying to accomplish nothing."</p> - -<p>Except human happiness. I recalled Nereid's words of her world, living -for love and music and beauty. Strange how in all human affairs there -are two sides of looking at everything! I said something like that to -Allen, and he nodded.</p> - -<p>"The trouble with science," he agreed, "is that it can be so easily -perverted. Things to benefit mankind, turned into engines of death. -That's the recent history of our own world."</p> - -<p>And the Arones had gone to the other extreme. Science was banned. Men -and women should live for human happiness, with no thought of conquest, -or of personal power. And out of this, a few generations ago, had risen -the Gorts. They had been for centuries a nomadic race of giants, mere -savages roaming the barren parts of the planet. Few in number, and like -the savages of our own Earth, apparently doomed to extinction. Banished -criminals from the world of the Arones, generations back, had joined -them, brought them science—stolen things of science.</p> - -<p>And out of this sprang the Gort, Tollgamo. His father had started it: -Tollgamo, the son, carried it on. He was a genius, of course. A genius -with mad dreams. To mechanize his little world. There were only a few -thousand of them now. Men and women making themselves into machines; -fed by Tollgamo upon his own mad dreams of Venus conquest.</p> - -<p>He had discovered the secret of spaceflight, which before him, on -Venus, had never been known. Peters' Earth-signals had attracted him, -and quietly he had gone to Earth, and seized Peters and his men; -bringing them to Venus so that they might tell him all they knew of -their science. It would be useful, that future day when he would -attempt to conquer the Arones.</p> - -<p>Most, perhaps all, of Peters' men were dead now; killed, possibly by -Tollgamo, when their usefulness to him was finished. But Peters had -escaped; gone to the Arones. And telling them their danger, had made -himself the leader of the revival of their science. All Nereid's life, -her father, with a group of men he had trained, had feverishly been -working in the city of Arron, to build weapons with which to combat the -attack when it came.</p> - -<p>All that was known to Tollgamo, of course. He had spies in Arron. Queer -how human nature is the same, wherever in the Universe the Creator -has planted it! The fatuous, decadent, pleasure-loving leader of the -Arones was unwilling to believe that the Gorts could be any menace. -The efforts of Peters and his fellow scientists, even now were looked -upon with disfavor. Peters and his men were distrusted, even accused of -having dreams of conquest of their own. Thousands of the Arones thought -it, so that there was an undercurrent of strife in Arron, fostered, of -course, by Tollgamo's spies.</p> - -<p>"And now Tollgamo seems to be about ready for his attack," Allen was -telling me. "Peters probably has no weapons of any importance with -which to oppose him. And so Peters made an effort to get help from -Earth. Tollgamo found it out, and sent this ship to follow the girl so -as to keep her from giving the secret of spaceflight to Earth."</p> - -<p>The barred metal door of our little cubby suddenly opened. A Gort man -stood there. Allen and I stared. Like the other Gorts, he was encased -in shining mailed garments. But he was crippled, bent and twisted, with -one shoulder higher than the other and a lump on his bent back. On him, -the metal garments were grotesque. He came sidling in, grinning at us -with his ugly, puffed and bloated grey-skinned face.</p> - -<p>"I am Borgg," he said. "You will have food and drink soon. You hungry?"</p> - -<p>"I want to see the Peters girl," I retorted. "Take me to her."</p> - -<p>He shook his head. "Garga will take care of her. She is safe."</p> - -<p>His glowing, dark-eyed gaze roved us. Out in the corridor there was a -man's voice—one of the other Gorts passing. And the weird, shambling -hunchback suddenly burst into guttural laughter. "So the Earthmen are -afraid of me? Afraid of Borgg, who wants only to amuse people?"</p> - -<p>He suddenly backed away from us, hurling what seemed a stream of -invective at us in the guttural syllables of his own language. Then he -backed through our door, slammed it upon us and bolted it.</p> - -<p>We stared at each other blankly. "Well I'll be damned," Allen muttered. -"What could that mean?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I can only sketch the weird events of that voyage to Venus. My first -spaceflight. You who read this can anticipate taking one soon, of -course. And you are naturally familiar with the glowing words of -description the newscasters have used. With the mechanical details of -Interplanetary traveling, the more scientific-minded among you must -be thoroughly familiar. I think all that need have little place in my -narrative. Human motives; human conflicts. The things of actuality -which happened to me, to Jack Allen, to little Nereid—with those -things only am I concerned here.</p> - -<p>There were some ten men and five of the grim Gort women, here on the -space vehicle. By Earth routine of living, it could have been five or -six days. After the first time of sleep, Allen and I were given a fair -freedom of movement. Much of it we spent in the control turret, with -Rhool, the leader here. Tollgamo's lieutenant was well pleased with -himself. He was bringing Nereid back. He had learned from her that her -little space-cylinder was lost at the bottom of the sea on Earth. What -Tollgamo had ordered, Rhool had accomplished, with efficiency which -would bring him commendation. And he was bringing Allen and me back, -Earthmen whom Tollgamo doubtless would very much want to question.</p> - -<p>"You tell him much—he treat you well," Rhool assured us with his heavy -leer. He was, I could see, far more impressed with Allen than with -me; Allen who now was winning his confidence, pretending that there -was much he could tell Tollgamo; hinting even that he and I would not -be averse to joining the great Master of the Gorts in his schemes of -conquest.</p> - -<p>Nereid was unharmed. The woman Garga was caring for her; and on the -third day from Earth, Allen persuaded Garga to bring Nereid to the -turret. After that, Nereid was often with us, and her fragile, delicate -beauty here among the grey, metal-clad Gorts made her seem ethereal -indeed. She came to my side, with her face lighting up.</p> - -<p>"I was afraid they had killed you," she whispered. "Bad time for us -all, my Earth-friend. I—I did very badly on my adventure to Earth."</p> - -<p>She told us then that her father had built the little cylinder, -intending to send one of his men in it. But Nereid, who had learned its -operation, had stolen it.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly she was whispering to us, that the Gorts in the turret -might not hear. "I have a brother—my twin—his name is Leh. Tollgamo -does not know there is such a person." She shot a furtive glance -around the turret. "For several years he has been living with the -Gorts. Pretending he is one of them. From him, father has gotten much -information of Tollgamo's plans. It would be death to Leh if who he is -were known. And now I will tell you—Leh is—"</p> - -<p>A guttural shout from Rhool at the control table checked her.</p> - -<p>"He says, stop whispering," she murmured. "That other thing I will tell -you later.... I speak the English," she said to Rhool. "You speak it -too? Then we talk it here, so that these Earthmen may understand?"</p> - -<p>Rhool laughed. His heavy dark gaze roved her. "You very beautiful," he -said. "See—I talk English. Come sit by me. The starshine makes you -beautiful, girl of Arron."</p> - -<p>I tensed, with my heart pounding as I saw his darkly leering gaze rove -over her again.</p> - -<p>"Easy!" whispered Allen. "Don't start anything."</p> - -<p>Then at last Venus had grown to a full-round, glowing silver disk -before our bow. After the next time of sleep it was a monstrous -ball, filling half the firmament, mottled with clouds so that its -surface configurations were only vaguely apparent. Heavy, thick Venus -atmosphere. Within another day of our living routine we dropped into -it, sliding diagonally downward, with slackening velocity now and -rocket streams of fluorescent gases to check and guide us.</p> - -<p>With Rhool and Nereid I was in the starlit turret. It was night here, -the Venus night of atmospheric fog. Rhool had been drinking from a -little gourd at his belt, and was flushed with his triumph and the -liquor.</p> - -<p>"A few hours," he said to Nereid. "Then I give you to Tollgamo." His -arm went suddenly around her waist, drawing her against him. What he -was muttering in his own language I had no idea; but as she cried out, -struggling with him, I jumped.</p> - -<p>"That's enough from you—let her alone!" I rasped.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He cast her off, leaped to his feet. Rage darkened his heavy face so -that it seemed to blacken. My lunging jab struck his mailed chest, but -my swing at his face missed him. He jumped backward, with a hand going -to a weapon at his belt. I have no doubt that I would have been dead -in another few seconds. But there were shouts behind me; the woman -Garga and Allen coming from the corridor. Garga's guttural remonstrance -checked the angry Rhool. And then Borgg, the weird little hunchback, -came shambling forward.</p> - -<p>"Stop it!" Allen shouted at me. "Easy there, you idiot!"</p> - -<p>Borgg grabbed me. As I fought, his mouth jabbed against my ear. His -voice was a sibilant whisper. "Fight me—not too hard! I am Leh—her -brother!"</p> - -<p>Nereid's brother! Spy among the Gorts, for years masquerading in this -grotesque guise of half-demented hunchback jester! I struggled with him -now as he cuffed me, while Nereid stared terrified and Rhool laughed -with coarse ribald amusement, appeased that I was being beaten.</p> - -<p>And then Leh shoved me from the turret, dragged me down the corridor, -slammed me into my sleeping cubby. Again his mouth was to my ear.</p> - -<p>"Later tonight, I will try and turn you loose. And your friend Allen, -and my sister."</p> - -<p>In a swift whisper he told me his plans. At the ship's lower exit porte -he had hidden a small anti-gravity platform, and three pressure suits. -We could escape from there. He shoved the door upon me, barred it and -was gone.</p> - -<p>I sat tense in the darkness, those last hours. Through the bullseye -window the Venus clouds were an opalescent haze of weird glowing -luminosity, like phosphorescence in tropic water. It seemed inherent -to the cloud-vapours; but more than that I could see that it was -radiating up from below. Venus-shine. Pale and weirdly beautiful light -inherent to the planet herself.</p> - -<p>And then our little ship sank below the clouds, and the surface of -Venus lay spread some ten thousand feet below me. It was an amazing -world of lush shining forests and gleaming, rippling opalescent water. -We were near the country of the Arones; but for just a moment, beyond -the shining sea, tiers of black metal mountains were visible which I -knew to be the country of the Gorts.</p> - -<p>The rasp of my door softly opening made me turn. The grotesque hunched -form of Nereid's brother stood there, with a hand in a silencing -gesture to his mouth.</p> - -<p>"Most of them are in the forward control turret. You go down into the -hull to the exit porte. My sister and Allen will join you."</p> - -<p>He shoved me. Then he softly closed my door, barred it, and shambled -forward toward the turret, grinning, mumbling an inane little tune. I -ducked into a doorway; went down an incline ladder. The hull corridor -was dark, with just a small hooded light of green glow. Tense, alert, -I came to the pressure porte doorway. And suddenly a figure stirred in -the shadows.</p> - -<p>"Kent!" It was Nereid, crouching here, waiting for me. I gripped her.</p> - -<p>"Where's Jack?"</p> - -<p>"My brother said he would send him down. But he has not come."</p> - -<p>Then we heard faint footsteps on the incline. And suddenly from up -there in the dimness, came Allen's voice:</p> - -<p>"Why—why hello, Garga. I didn't see you."</p> - -<p>And the Gort woman's voice: "Where you go, Jack Allen?"</p> - -<p>"Why—why Rhool said he didn't mind my moving around the ship. Come -into the turret, Garga. I want you to show me your world. Don't you -think I am going to like it?"</p> - -<p>"Maybe. And if Tollgamo like you, Jack Allen—"</p> - -<p>Their voices receded. Allen would make no attempt now to join us, that -was obvious. With Garga eager always to be with him, his attempt would -be futile.</p> - -<p>I whispered it to Nereid.</p> - -<p>"We are close to my country now," she murmured. "Too late for us to -escape successfully, if we wait much longer."</p> - -<p>We did not need the pressure suits which Leh had hidden here, thinking -he might find an opportunity for us to disembark while still above the -atmosphere. The anti-gravity platform was an oblong, raft-like metallic -thing, with its mechanisms under a hood in its bow. Nereid understood -its workings. She lay flat upon it as I slid it through the porte and -jumped beside her.</p> - -<p>We went like a sliding rocket, with a rush of wind that stopped our -breath. But the hooded bow partially shielded us, so that presently we -could breathe. Behind us, and over us now, the gleaming shape of the -spaceship was seemingly sliding upward and backward. Beneath us the -shining sea with a glowing shoreline off at the horizon seemed rocking -with a crazy sway. And then at last we steadied.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="617" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Did it!" I gloated. "We made it, Nereid. Evidently they didn't see us -rocketing off."</p> - -<p>There was no sign of any alarm from the ship and presently it had -dwindled high above us and was gone.</p> - -<p>Amazingly swift, that downward glide. The wind whistled past us with a -screaming whine. At five hundred feet Nereid leveled us as we headed -for the glowing shoreline. I could see artificial illumination there -now, a myriad little dots of colored lights. And then little colored -beams were waving.</p> - -<p>"My city—the city of Arron," Nereid said.</p> - -<p>It was a few miles back in the forest, where a great shining lagoon -opened. A riot of glowing, prismatic color burst upon us; and as Nereid -saw it, she sucked in her breath with a little gasp.</p> - -<p>"The love festival," she murmured. "Oh why—why would they have that in -times like these? With Tollgamo so ready to attack us?"</p> - -<p>I stared down with awed amazement at the scene of weird sensuous beauty -spread now so close beneath us.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Allen's first sight of the country of Gorts, as he afterward told me, -was a line of terraced hills that rose steeply up from the shore of the -placid sea. He was in the controlroom of the Spaceship with Rhool, and -with the grim woman Garga beside him. It had been a tense time for -Allen, when the escape of Nereid and myself was discovered. But he had -been allowed a measure of freedom, whereas I was locked in my cubby. -Allen was not suspected, nor, fortunately, was Leh. Two of the Gorts -came in for Rhool's wrath.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo will deal with you," he said.</p> - -<p>Then Allen spoke up, denouncing me as a traitor to him; claiming that -I had agreed to join Tollgamo. "That Peters girl bewitched him," Allen -said.</p> - -<p>Whether it fooled the big, leering Rhool or not, Allen couldn't tell. -Perhaps it did, for Allen now was taken more as one of them, than a -prisoner.</p> - -<p>The Country of the Gorts! To Allen, as he stared down through the -turret window of the spaceship, those terraces of grey metal rock were -as grim and forbidding as the Gort people themselves. In the glowing -night-sheen, the barren wastes near the shore seemed utterly without -life. And then Allen saw weird vegetation in little patches; and -occasionally roaming wild things with round eyes which stared up at the -ship. Some of them incuriously stared; others, frightened, scuttled -away.</p> - -<p>The ship now was following a broad, gleaming inlet of the iridescent -sea. Ten Earth-miles or so, to its head where lights gleamed on a -terraced hillside. It was Tollgamo's little city. Allen had only a -brief glimpse as the ship swooped down and settled into the rack of a -metal landing stage. Rows of blue and green lights were strung in half -a dozen rows on the terraces, one above the other to mark the streets, -with metal ladders vertically connecting them. Metal and stone little -houses, polished, grey-blue, lined the streets. At one end of the lower -street, close by a promontory bluff where beyond a bridge-like metal -ladder a smaller kiosk overlooked the inlet, there was a larger, square -building, terraced into three stories. Round spots of dull purple light -marked its four corners. On its roof, metal-garbed figures paced back -and forth.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo the Master—that is his house," the woman Garga murmured to -Allen.</p> - -<p>Green-yellow, turgid smoke belched from a chimney-like opening in the -cliff, where doubtless, partly underground, a factory was in operation. -Figures moved in the grim weird glow of the bleak streets; apparatus -was being dragged along one of them. Men and women working; and in the -doors and windows of the cubical houses, the figures of children stood -peering.</p> - -<p>As the ship settled lower, Allen realized that both above and below -ground it was a beehive of activity now. And presently he could hear -sounds; the clank of metal machinery; the grind of gears; the voices of -the workers.</p> - -<p>Beside him Allen was suddenly aware of the grotesque, hunched form -of Nereid's brother, Leh. Neither of them spoke; and then Leh, with -a surreptitious gesture, indicated the shining inlet. Down on the -opposite shore of it, a tunnel mouth showed, with a red-yellow glare -back under the opposite cliff. A crowd of metal-clad workers, goggled -against the glare so that they looked like huge beetle-eyed insects, -were struggling with apparatus which they were pulling out.</p> - -<p>Leh was tense. Then a moment came where he was able to whisper -furtively to Allen. "I will try later to get us to that cliff. Do you -see that Kiosk? If we can get there, we will dive to the water. From -there I have a way of escaping."</p> - -<p>That was all. Allen had only time to murmur assent. The ship landed. -With Rhool half guarding, half leading him, he was taken along -the lower street. The workers stood grim, impassive, until they -recognized Rhool. Then like machines they stood stiff, with a hand -touching the metal insignia of their helmets until Rhool had passed. -Even the children stood rigid, saluting. Little bodies drilled to -efficiency; impassive childish faces. But in their eyes still there was -childhood—excited, wondering childhood.</p> - -<p>Rhool and Allen passed the guards at the entrance to Tollgamo's home. -In the dim blue-green glow of a metal room Allen was told by Rhool -to stand, and Tollgamo would come. Then Rhool was gone. Unseen eyes -were watching Allen. He sensed it; and stood stiffly against one wall, -awaiting the coming of the Master. It was a strange, square apartment. -Blue-lit, so that its richly tiled floor and ceiling glistened -like polished steel. The furniture was square, glistening in the -light-sheen. At one end of the room a huge polished table with a single -big chair at its end, held a variety of small apparatus, a bank of -levers and little buttons as though for signalling commands. And there -was a neat stack of what seemed to be charts and mathematical data.</p> - -<p>A murmur outside the room brought Allen back from his contemplation of -his surroundings. Men's voices; a guttural command. Then Rhool came -in, walking with stiff, pseudo mechanical tread. On his heavy face -was a grinning leer. Behind him there was a Gort man and woman. Allen -recognized them; both had been on the spaceship and both were blamed by -Rhool for the escape of Nereid and me. They came now marching stiffly -erect. Their faces were impassive, but terror was in their eyes and in -the tense set of their lips.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And then at last came Tollgamo. Involuntarily Allen gasped at sight of -him.</p> - -<p>He was a giant figure of a man, six feet six, at least. Unlike -the square, robot appearance of his menials, his garments of grey -metal-fabric were soft, and clinging. A flowing tunic fell from his -powerfully broad shoulders to below his waist, with a wide, glistening -metal belt; trousers which sheathed his powerful, shapely legs; shoes -with padded soles so that he moved soundlessly. He was bareheaded, -and his black hair, closely clipped, came to a peak at his forehead. -His skin was the familiar Venus grey, but there was a saffron cast -to it. His high-bridged nose was hawk-like, his chin protruding, but -square—the firm jaw completely characteristic of determination and -power.</p> - -<p>His thin-lipped mouth, as he came quietly in and surveyed Allen with -dark-eyed gaze, was faintly smiling. Allen, standing rigid, silently -met the stare. It was then that he felt, far more than in Tollgamo's -commanding aspect, the power of the man's personality. A dominant force -seemed to radiate from him, so that no one could be in his presence an -instant without feeling it. An aura of command that made Allen suddenly -feel like a child. Helpless; and with a vague, indefinable shudder -within him.</p> - -<p>And then Tollgamo spoke. Suave, gentle voice of careful, cultivated -English, meticulously correct, yet with a strange foreign intonation.</p> - -<p>"So you are one of the Earthmen, Jack Allen?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," Allen said; and then remembered Rhool's instructions, so that -after a moment he added, "Yes, Master. I give you service."</p> - -<p>Tollgamo's faint ironic smile broadened; his glittering dark eyes -seemed to hold a twinkle of sardonic amusement, "You learn fast." His -gaze darted away; went to Rhool, and then to the Gort man and woman -from the spaceship who stood with terror in their eyes.</p> - -<p>"I hear that you need punishment," he said gently. "This Earthman will -learn from it." His tone, almost drab, was casual, with a slow finality.</p> - -<p>With pounding heart, Allen stood watching the metal-clad man and woman -as Tollgamo quietly confronted them. The terror leaped from their eyes -to stamp their faces. And Tollgamo said quietly,</p> - -<p>"That is bad to show fear. That forces the punishment to be worse."</p> - -<p>At his gesture, a flick of his jeweled fingers, they bared their grey -chests. Tollgamo's hands were at his ornamented belt, each of them -leveling a little jeweled weapon. The weapons suddenly hissed, and from -each of them a tiny violet pencilray of heat-light sprang. Allen gulped -as the beams struck the chests of the two victims, and the grey flesh, -turned red, then black as Tollgamo wrote a brand of punishment, an -insignia of dishonor. The man stood firm, with a hand still at salute, -his slit of mouth twisted as he pressed his lips together in an attempt -to restrain his cry of pain.</p> - -<p>But the woman involuntarily moaned. It was too much for Allen. He -gasped,</p> - -<p>"Stop that, you damned torturer! They're not the ones who are guilty -anyway! They—"</p> - -<p>Tollgamo had finished. He snapped off the tiny rays and slowly turned -to where Allen had taken a step toward him. And the smile now was gone -from his serene face.</p> - -<p>"You are not yet trained," he said quietly. "I forgive you for that—so -short a time." Another flick of his hand; and Rhool led the stumbling -man and woman away.</p> - -<p>The smell of the burning flesh drifted off; and Tollgamo, alone here -now, fronted the shuddering Allen. Again he was gently smiling.</p> - -<p>"You show weakness?" he said. "I am disappointed. So you know who -released that Kent Fanning, and Peters' daughter?"</p> - -<p>"No I don't. I'm sorry. That was just my desire to stop you doing that -to that woman."</p> - -<p>Amusement was in Tollgamo's eyes and twitching at his thin grey lips. -"So? You would join me, and still try to lie to me?" His gesture -dismissed it. "We will talk of that some other time." For a moment he -stood pondering. "That girl—that Peters' daughter," he added. "Rhool -tells me she is very beautiful. Is that so?" There seemed a twinkle in -his inscrutable eyes.</p> - -<p>"Yes," Allen agreed.</p> - -<p>"That is interesting. I must see for myself. I think perhaps I must -protect her from the things that will happen tonight."</p> - -<p>Allen tensed inside. Did he mean that his attack upon the Arones would -take place tonight?</p> - -<p>"The woman Garga will give you supper," Tollgamo added abruptly. From -a ring on his finger a silent light-signal sprang across the room and -through a small arcade doorway; and at once Garga appeared there.</p> - -<p>"Take him to my rest-room," Tollgamo said. "He is hungry. Give him -food. I will send for him later."</p> - -<p>"Yes, Master."</p> - -<p>Then as Tollgamo moved away, lithe and silent as a great panther, with -his padded soles soundless on the metal floor, he said quietly.</p> - -<p>"Your thoughts are very transparent, Earthman. But I think you can be -of use to me."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In the small adjoining room, Garga brought Allen food. They ate it -together.</p> - -<p>"What did he mean by things that will happen tonight?" Allen suddenly -murmured.</p> - -<p>Garga had been sitting, staring at him with her slumbrous dark gaze. -"The attack," she said.</p> - -<p>"And Peters doesn't know that?"</p> - -<p>"No." Her hand touched him. "I am trusting you."</p> - -<p>"Of course," Allen agreed. He recalled how Nereid's brother, Leh, -as the spaceship landed, had gazed down at the inlet, across which -workers were bringing things from a tunnel to the edge of the water. -Leh had sucked in his breath as though with startled surprise.</p> - -<p>"The attack," Allen murmured. "Will it be upon the city of Arron?"</p> - -<p>"Yes—naturally. And the imbecile slaves there—they think they are -going to help." Her grim grey face lighted with a smile. "That will be -amusing; those imbecile workers causing bloodshed, making it so easy -for us, when we get there."</p> - -<p>"Get there—how, Garga? By air?"</p> - -<p>Allen felt that Leh now was trying to get just such information as -this; and he and Allen would escape—get to Arron and warn Peters. -But evidently haste was necessary. By what Tollgamo said, he would be -attacking perhaps within a few hours.</p> - -<p>"By air?" Garga echoed. "Oh no. By water." She leaned closer to Allen. -A woman warrior. But the womanhood in her now was making her bosom rise -and fall with her emotion at Allen's nearness. "Under the water," she -murmured. "You see how clever we are? That is the last method of attack -that the Arones think we will try. There are grottos beneath the city -of Arron. Grottos with the sea in them. So that we shall come up that -way, appearing all over the city at once." She chuckled. "They will not -know there is to be any attack at all. Just trouble with the imbeciles. -And suddenly we will be there among them!"</p> - -<p>Allen had it now! All the information needed. More than ever now he -wanted to connect with Leh, and escape out of here.</p> - -<p>"Garga, listen," he murmured, "were you ordered to stay here with me, -until Tollgamo sends for me?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," she agreed. Her gaze clung to his. "That will not be—too hard -for you?"</p> - -<p>"No—no, of course not, Garga, but listen—" Abruptly Allen tensed. In -a dark doorway nearby, beyond which Allen knew Tollgamo's guards were -stationed, a dim blob of figure had appeared. Garga's back was to the -door; she did not see the lurking shape. It was a hunched, misshapen -silhouette. Leh, in his masquerade as jester, standing there listening.</p> - -<p>"Listen," Allen quickly resumed. "There's no reason why you should not -show me around a bit, is there? On that cliff quite near here there's a -little kiosk that looks over the inlet. You and I—alone there, Garga?"</p> - -<p>His hand touched her square, metal-clad shoulder; and at once her hand -went up, gripping his. "Perhaps."</p> - -<p>"I would like to have you show me what's going on," he urged. "And to -sit there with you, just for a little time."</p> - -<p>Leh heard it. His hunched figure in the doorway moved and his head -nodded assent; and then he drew back, was gone.</p> - -<p>"I will get you a cloak," Garga murmured abruptly.</p> - -<p>She came with the cloak in a moment; a long, dark-grey garment of -flexible metal. With this on, and with the helmet which Rhool had given -him, Allen could pass for a Gort. Garga was eager, trembling, as she -took him through a small side doorway. The nearby glowing city street -bustled with activity. Garga and Allen were not challenged as they -skirted the edge of the metal street; and presently came to a dark and -narrow little bridge, a fifty foot catwalk-span over a chasm to the -promontory head where the lookout kiosk stood dark and silent above the -lagoon.</p> - -<p>A new idea had come to Allen. As together they crossed the catwalk he -murmured to Garga:</p> - -<p>"The Master spoke of the Peters girl, and asked me if she is beautiful."</p> - -<p>Garga smiled. "So? The Master is ironical always. He plays with you."</p> - -<p>"Meaning what?"</p> - -<p>"He has seen that girl many times. Ten years ago, when there was no -threat of Tollgamo, he was in Arron. She was just a child then. He -played with her. And he has loved her ever since."</p> - -<p>They came to the kiosk, entered its dark interior. It was merely a roof -over a circular metal bench, with a waist high railing. Thirty feet -down, the sea inlet was a black ribbon of water. The yellow tunnel at -the bottom of the opposite cliff was dark now, but further up the inlet -there were lights and activity.</p> - -<p>Allen sat with a hand gripping Garga's mailed arm. Across the -background of his mind he was trying to plan ... he could seize this -amourous woman's weapons. But then what? Would Leh be able to come -here now? Leh, who had mentioned diving from here, with a way of escape -from the inlet.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo loves Peters' daughter?" Allen was murmuring.</p> - -<p>"Yes. It is sure, although he would not have it known. And he is -planning tonight, before we attack Arron, to—"</p> - -<p>A dark figure near them suddenly materialized. For a second Allen -thought that it was Leh. But it was Rhool! Rhool who doubtless had seen -Garga coming here, and followed her.</p> - -<p>In that tense second Allen was aware that Rhool was drawing a weapon. -And Allen leaped, catapulted with lowered head. He caught Rhool in the -stomach, knocked him backward. But the Gort's weapon had stabbed, a -hiss of violet light. It missed Allen; struck Garga. She went down.</p> - -<p>On the metal floor of the kiosk, Allen rolled with the giant Rhool. -The Gort had no chance to use his weapon again. Allen in a second or -two was on top of him, pounding his head against the metal floor. It -cracked, and his big body quivered and lay limp.</p> - -<p>Allen jumped up. He was aware of a commotion on the catwalk bridge. A -running figure. And men back in the glare at the end of the street; -men shouting, and then running forward. The figure on the catwalk was -Leh. He came plunging into the kiosk. Allen was bending over the fallen -Garga. She was dying, with bloody foam gushing at her mouth. But she -was trying to smile, her eyes staring at Allen. Contrition swept him. -This Amazonian woman-warrior.... Trained to be a cruel machine. But she -had remained only a woman; and she was dying now; just a woman staring -with her last wistful gaze at the Earthman she loved so that she might -take the image of him with her into the Great Beyond.</p> - -<p>Allen murmured: "Oh, Garga, I'm sorry."</p> - -<p>She may have heard him, but then her breath stopped, the light went out -of her eyes and she was gone.</p> - -<p>Allen jumped up as Leh gripped him. Leh, with his face and figure -changed now so that Allen saw him as a handsome stripling, with -something of the look of Nereid.</p> - -<p>"Come on," Leh gasped. "Get that helmet off, and that heavy cloak. -Hurry!"</p> - -<p>A shot came from the catwalk, a spitting electronic stab that sent a -shower of sparks on the kiosk ceiling. From the rail Allen and Leh -dove. Then they were swimming; Leh guiding him as shots stabbed down at -them. Allen was aware that Leh was dragging him underwater through a -small subterranean passage to emerge in a watery cave. A water-cylinder -was here, a twenty foot little submarine, as one might describe it -on Earth. Two small seats were amidships in it, with its operating -mechanisms around them. A moment later, they were off.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a weird underwater journey; some two hours, Allen guessed, while -they sat in the dimness of the humming little cylindrical interior. -Through the visor pane of the turret into which their heads projected, -Allen had a dim vista of the turgid green-black depths, illumined by -the small search-ray which preceded them. The vessel was propelled by a -rocket-stream of disintegrating water as the electrolysis of backward -gas-thrust shoved them forward.</p> - -<p>Sub-sea world of Venus. Allen saw little of it then, but still enough -to suggest its ramified weirdness. They sped out through the watery -tunnel, down the inlet at a depth of perhaps fifty feet, and then -into the open sea. Empty, black-green depths. Running at fifty feet -submersion, Allen could see beneath them the vague vista of a slimy -undulating bottom. Then it dropped away, with only occasional jagged -spires of peaks. Tumbled, submarine world. Fishes flipped away, -frightened by the light. Occasionally, there was a glimpse of monstrous -things that quivered; shapes that hung suspended, watching with -dull-green round eyes.</p> - -<p>A submarine forest for a time was to one side, an intricate tracery of -vegetation, with air-pods holding it upright as it slowly weaved and -undulated like a thing quivering with life. A gigantic thing like a -great squid with weaving tentacles came wobbling from a forest glade. -It lunged to attack, but the little cylinder avoided it and sped past.</p> - -<p>Leh hardly spoke. He was tense, guiding their frail craft; and tense -too with this emergency of haste to get to Peters. Leh had learned as -much or more of Tollgamo's plans than had Allen.</p> - -<p>Then at last they were nearing their destination. Allen had learned -now that Peters and his men of science were not located in the city of -Arron. They had laboratories, workshops and arsenal on a rocky island -fortress. It was some twenty miles by water from Arron; within a mile -or so of a partly submerged section of the forest, where a village -known as the Water City was built.</p> - -<p>Allen saw the watery foundations of the Water City as the cylinder sped -past. Then Leh was slackening, to land at a sub-sea dock beneath the -arsenal. The dock's weird dark outlines presently were beside them. -With air-renewer mechanisms like a pack on their shoulders, and a -round transparent glassite helmet, which had an elastic gasket tightly -fitting their throats, they emerged through the cylinder's little -pressure lock into the water. Heavy shoes made them able to walk, with -a pushing swaying shove.</p> - -<p>Leh, with a metal-tipped finger, touched a tiny metal plate on Allen's -helmet. And Leh's voice, dim, muffled, sounded in Allen's ears.</p> - -<p>"You follow me. There will be a guard where we emerge."</p> - -<p>Allen swayed along a rocky path which was slowly ascending. The turgid, -black-green depths here were dimly lighted by a glow from some unseen -source. It was a tumbled, honeycombed submarine slope. Clumps of -vegetation stood like black thickets to the sides. Ahead, the glow -seemed brighter.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly Leh stopped his advance; stood rigid. Within the round, -wholly transparent ball of his helmet his youthful face was tense. And -his voice murmured.</p> - -<p>"Allen, look there!"</p> - -<p>They had no more warning than that. From a clump of tawny submarine -vegetation nearby, two human figures suddenly emerged! Figures that -stood as though startled for a second, and then came plunging to attack!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>Festival of Love! On the swaying little anti-gravity platform I -lay with Nereid, staring down at the strange, colorful scene that -stretched beneath us. It was at the end of our escape-flight from the -Spaceship, in time doubtless before Allen on that trip arrived in -Tollgamo's mountain city.</p> - -<p>What Allen saw of the grim little metal and rock city of the Gorts was -in weird contrast to what I saw now of the riotous, colorful forest -and water scene where the gay festival of Love and Music was in full -progress.</p> - -<p>There was only a brief glimpse at first, as we swooped down. We had -already passed over the main city of Arron. It lay between the open -sea and an area a mile or so inland, where there was a lagoon, little -chains of lakes, threads of tiny streams and a myriad little dots -of tropic islands. I had seen, down in the forest, lines of gay, -pastel-tinted lights to mark the city streets. Then we came to the -lagoon, where the festival was being held.</p> - -<p>A watery failyland of gayety. The lagoon, a circular spread of water of -perhaps five miles, was rippled with a soft night-breeze. The ripples -were stained with the opalescent night-sheen from the overhead clouds, -and stained like a painter's pallette with a riot of glorious tints -from the strings of colored lights which connected the little islands.</p> - -<p>One big island, a thousand feet in length, stood in the center. A -pavilion was on it, from which soft exotic music flooded out into the -night—music that blended on the tropic breeze with a vast murmur of -excited voices. I could guess that there might be four or five thousand -people disporting themselves here. The main island was thronged with -people moving about, or crowding toward the pavilion where with -the music there seemed dancing and perhaps some form of theatrical -entertainment.</p> - -<p>Boats were on the thread-like little canals between the islands. A -barge crowded with young men and girls, all in gay-colored robes, was -slowly approaching from the open lagoon. Little boats, mere six foot -rafts, each held a girl and man; the man paddling, the girl fending off -flowers with which she was pelted by young men on other rafts, or on -the shore.</p> - -<p>The laughing screams of girls floated up as they swam in the open -lagoon, their voices calling jocular defiance to the men on shore to -come out and catch them.</p> - -<p>Nereid slid our little flying platform skilfully down. We landed on a -small level island which was connected with the big island by an arcade -bridge. No one had seemed to notice us. Boats were tied up here along -the shore. Others were arriving, disembarking the gay merrymakers. All -were in holiday attire; a variety of motley costumes, indescribable as -a fancy-dress costume ball on Earth. Some of them, men and girls, wore -cloaks and hoods, with little gaily colored masks covering their eyes.</p> - -<p>I stood for a moment with Nereid. "You're going to find your father?" I -suggested.</p> - -<p>"Yes. If he is here." She told me then of the Arsenal rock beyond the -Water City, where Peters and his men most of their time were working. -"He is there probably," she added. "I think he would not come here -tonight."</p> - -<p>"Then what would we do, go to him there?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, of course. I will see our Ruler first. Jenten-Shah—he will -be here. Over there on the big island, in the pavilion probably." -Bitterness was in her tone. Nereid was thinking of the menace of the -Gorts, with their engines of destruction. She and I did not know then, -what Allen was just about now learning—that there was an urgency of -haste since Tollgamo's attack would be made tonight. But as we threaded -our way under the gay colored lights across the arcade to the main -island, I somehow seemed to feel the undercurrent of menace here. -Occasionally we passed little figures who were evidently onlookers. -The imbecile workers, lower class who were almost in the position -of slaves. They were weird little creatures, most of them no more -than four feet tall, grey-skinned and powerfully built. We passed -one who was standing on the shore gazing at a raft where a lone girl -shrouded in blue-white filmy drapery was being pelted with flowers. The -gnome-like imbecile stood impassive, gazing with vacant face. Then he -was muttering to himself. A fragment of it reached us.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo is coming to help us workers. We won't have to work tomorrow. -Then we can do things like this."</p> - -<p>I gripped Nereid. "You hear what that worker said? No work for him -tomorrow. Do you suppose—"</p> - -<p>She tried to smile. "What an imbecile says never means much, Kent. But -I must tell father."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Occasionally now people were staring at us, at me. Some rushed at us, -but Nereid with an imperious gesture scattered them; and in a moment, -with their other diversions, they had forgotten us. Then we came to -where there was a pile of cloaks. Nereid gave me a dark robe and hood; -and found a long white cloak and white cowl for herself. Then from her -green undergarment she produced a little golden star, fastened it on -the breast of her cloak. Queer insignia, that star with a crescent moon -above and below it.</p> - -<p>The white cloak and cowl to signify that she was an Untouchable. -Nereid's beautiful little face bore a faint twisted smile. "That is -what some of them call us, Kent. That is a term of derision, because -now, at a festival like this, there are things we do not like."</p> - -<p>Love, music, laughter—all so admirable. But here in Arron, under the -leadership of the wanton Ruler, Jenten-Shah, it was becoming license. -There were some five hundred young Virgins here in Arron, who were -trying at least for moderation. And trying to help Peters prepare for -the menace of the Gorts ... Untouchables. Nereid was leader of them.</p> - -<p>In our robes and cowls now, Nereid and I were attracting no attention -save that occasionally there was a jibe at Nereid. Laughing young men, -befuddled perhaps by some intoxicating drink with wanton girls clinging -to them, would sometimes lunge at us with mocking laughter. But we -pushed past them, shoving our way toward the big open pavilion. I could -see now the jam of people under its low spreading roof.</p> - -<p>We were still following the shorefront. From the pavilion a bevy of -girls with flowing drapes came running and plunged into the water of -the lagoon.</p> - -<p>I gripped Nereid's white-cloaked arm. "That big figure in red—who is -that?"</p> - -<p>I had seen the giant figure here at an edge of the crowd, when we -crossed the arcade bridge. A man in robe and cowl of red and black. -Then he had vanished. He was visible again now, a huge fellow, six and -a half feet, at least. He was standing a hundred feet or so ahead of -us, on the pink-white coral sand of the shore. And then abruptly he -moved away and was gone again.</p> - -<p>Nereid stared, and then shook her head. "I do not know. I—" She -checked herself; her face had a queer startled look.</p> - -<p>"What—" I demanded. But we were in the pavilion now, with the jam of -watching people pressing us.</p> - -<p>"You will wait here, Kent?" Nereid murmured. "I will ask Jenten-Shah of -my father."</p> - -<p>I drew back behind a palm on which great orchid-like flowers were -growing. I could see the dais where the gay fatuous ruler was seated -with food and drink before him, with his young women favorites around -him as they watched the platform where a barbarically voluptuous woman -in flame-colored drapes was dancing with colored light-beams upon her.</p> - -<p>I had a glimpse of Nereid importuning Jenten-Shah. It was brief; and -then Nereid came back to me.</p> - -<p>"Father is not here, Kent. He told the King not to hold this festival -tonight."</p> - -<p>"Did you mention that imbecile worker?"</p> - -<p>She nodded. Her face was grim, frightened now. "He said, if any -imbecile causes trouble there will be a hundred imbeciles killed as -punishment. He is drunk with <i>marite</i>. He laughed at the idea that -Tollgamo would dare attack."</p> - -<p>Merrymaking on the brink of disaster and death.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As though both Nereid and I were fascinated now, for a time we stood in -the pavilion corner, watching the colorful scene. Half the people here -were robed and masked, waiting a later time when a bell would give the -signal for the unmasking. I saw several of the white-robed girls—the -Untouchables. Then one of them, with a golden star on her breast, like -Nereid's but without the crescent moons, came and joined us. Nereid had -met her a while ago near the Ruler's dais. Her name was Venta. Under -Nereid, she was commanding the little group of protesting Virgins.</p> - -<p>She was very like Nereid, save that beneath her white cowl I could see -that her hair was dark. She stared at me. "So? The Earthman?" She shook -my hand with a quaint awkwardness. "You look in the same fashion as her -father, the Meester Peters," she commented.</p> - -<p>Then suddenly all three of us were stricken tense. There was a -commotion across the crowded pavilion, where a scantily clothed young -girl was struggling, terrified, in the grip of a thick-set, crooked -little imbecile man. He was forcing his caresses on her and the girl -was screaming.</p> - -<p>The music suddenly ceased. In the hushed, stricken silence, the -imbecile's crazy childish laughter mingled with the girl's screams. -Then there was a rush as a group of young men nearby plucked the girl -away, knocked the gnome-like worker down, beating him, slamming him -until he lay inert.</p> - -<p>It was like a spark in gunpowder. People were shouting. Somebody found -another imbecile and attacked him. A wave of shouting spread beyond the -pavilion. But it lasted only a moment. The music started up again. The -dancing continued.</p> - -<p>Nereid gripped me. "Out in the workers' village they will hear of that. -And what they might try to do—"</p> - -<p>Her words evoked a grim picture of powerful little men, with minds like -children suddenly enraged to frenzy; and the half-drunken youths at the -festival, ready enough to kill any worker, with the Ruler encouraging -them.</p> - -<p>And this was what Tollgamo wanted, of course; confusion here to make -his attack easier.</p> - -<p>The girls now were swiftly talking in their own language. We had shoved -our way out of the pavilion, were standing near the shorefront; and the -girls had drawn a little apart from me. I could see Venta nodding as -Nereid gave her instructions. Then Nereid came to me.</p> - -<p>"She will get our Virgins, Kent. She has ten other girls who will help -her collect them all."</p> - -<p>The Virgins—five hundred of them if Venta could locate them all—would -come in surface boats, past the Water City to the Arsenal. Nereid and I -would precede them, starting now. All to offer ourselves to Peters and -his fighting men if Tollgamo should strike tonight. But how would he -strike? That we did not know.</p> - -<p>"And in the Water City," Nereid was hastily telling me, "many of the -people living there have come here to the festival tonight. But some -of our girls live there." Again her lips twisted with that wry little -smile. "They will be there now. Some have brothers and fathers who work -with my father in the Science Arsenal. But some do not, and I will send -them here. If there is trouble with the imbeciles, they will help quell -it."</p> - -<p>Venta, ready to start on her mission, called goodbye. Then for just a -moment Nereid ran after her to add something. Two other girls in the -white Untouchable robes joined them, and stood talking about fifty feet -away from where I waited. The shore there had risen to a little grassy -bluff about twenty feet above the glittering, light-bathed lagoon.</p> - -<p>And suddenly I gasped. From a clump of vivid blue and orange palms -which grew thickly beside the four girls, a figure suddenly emerged. A -giant man-shape, in red and black robe. Then his robe and cowl dropped -from him, revealing a towering powerful giant with dark close-clipped -hair, dressed in a grey garment of woven metal with jeweled weapons at -his broad belt. And in that second of my numbed gaze, I was aware that -he had scattered the girls and had seized Nereid, holding her slim form -against his huge bulk.</p> - -<p>And one of the other girls screamed: "Tollgamo!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Tollgamo! My first sight of him. And like Allen, for just a second I -stood numbed, awed by the power, the dominance that radiated from him. -He was quietly smiling. His hand went up to wave the girls away.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo! Tollgamo!" The name went like a wave, back from the shore, -so that the merrymakers gasped, stood stricken. For that second it was -a tableau, with only the smiling Tollgamo in movement. Slowly he was -backing, drawing the fighting, struggling Nereid with him. Backing -toward the thick clump of palms.</p> - -<p>Then I was aware that I was dashing forward, shouting. It was only -fifty feet. From one of Tollgamo's hands, a spit of tiny blue light -hissed at me. Missed. Then Venta and two of the other girls had cast -off their white robes. Slim little creatures, like Nereid, greenly -clad. Soon Tollgamo was struggling with all four of them. He flung them -off, still trying to hold Nereid.</p> - -<p>It was only a second or two as I plunged at them. Then in a group they -went over the little promontory and hit the water with a splash. Almost -simultaneously I dove. The green opalescent water closed over me. -Somewhere near at hand I could see the blurr of the struggling figures. -But I could not reach them. With all my strength I swam, but then I had -to come up for air. I dove again. Accursedly helpless. Then on another -try I met a girl coming up, then another and another—all four of them -bobbing to the surface with me. All panting; unhurt, but angry that -they had not captured Tollgamo!</p> - -<p>Then Venta and the other two girls swam away on their errand. Nereid -drew me forward as we swam, to avoid the commotion of gathered people -on the bank. Tollgamo was gone. His plan had been, quite evidently, to -dive into the water with Nereid here. Some twenty feet down, as the -girls attacked him, he had tried to shove Nereid through a rock-rift, -which obviously opened again to some cave where air was trapped.</p> - -<p>"I got away from him," Nereid was saying. "A man, even Tollgamo, is so -clumsy in the water, so quick to smother. I could have followed him but -he blocked the little passage with a rock."</p> - -<p>"And maybe he's trapped down there?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head. "There are so many passages, and all lead out to -the sea. Of course he had a cylinder-boat under there."</p> - -<p>Together we swam out into the open lagoon, diagonally across it to -where, beyond the lights of the festival, Nereid had a little surface -boat in which we could get now to the Water City.</p> - -<p>"My boat is about a mile from here. Can you swim so far?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. I guess so." I had always counted myself a strong swimmer; a -mile was not too much for me. But I was like a puffing tugboat now, -laboriously splashing along. Nereid was laughing at my efforts; trying -to tow me; then giving it up, swimming around me, under me.</p> - -<p>Occasionally, while we were still in the light-glare, other girls came -dashing up, with questions of Tollgamo; and of me. Once a group of them -dashed at me, with shouts of laughter trying to seize me, but Nereid -drove them off. Then we were swimming alone in the luminous opalescent -night; and at last we reached the little boat. Nereid was already in -it; waiting impatiently to haul me aboard as I came panting.</p> - -<p>It was a narrow, canoe-like surface craft; some twenty feet long, of -dull white metal. Its hooded mechanisms were in bow and stern—water -electrolysis. Soon we had attained a considerable speed, silent, -vibrationless. And then we were on the open sea, with the lights of -Arron fading behind us.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Venus night at sea. It was weirdly beautiful. The low-hanging curtain -of heavy clouds was luminous with pale blue and silver sheen. The -water, silver-rippled by a gentle night-breeze, was opalescent as our -little craft hurled up a bow wave, with a gleaming phosphorescent wake -behind us. Off to the right, for a time, the faint blurred outlines -of metal mountains were visible on a promontory near the land of the -Gorts. Then we passed it; and the forest to the left had faded away to -be just a blur.</p> - -<p>Beside me, Nereid sat grim and silent, staring ahead as she steered -our boat. The breeze tossed her tawny tresses against me. My mind went -back to that other night, back on Earth when she had sat in my little -fishing boat, with its outboard motor puttering. How long ago that -seemed. And like that other night, my hand went now to a lock of her -hair, beside us on the seat.</p> - -<p>"Nereid, when this is over, this war—"</p> - -<p>Her face turned toward me. She was faintly, whimsically smiling.</p> - -<p>"I think my father will like you," she murmured.</p> - -<p>"And you, Nereid?"</p> - -<p>There was no impishness, this time. Her gaze met mine, shyly, and she -nodded.</p> - -<p>But a moment later we were again both thinking of Tollgamo. And we were -wondering about Allen, and Nereid's brother, Leh. Had Tollgamo put them -to death, in vengeance for our escape from Rhool's spaceship?</p> - -<p>Then at last, to our left, the outlines of the lush forest shore were -close at hand.</p> - -<p>"The Water City," Nereid murmured.</p> - -<p>It was built in what seemed a partly submerged area of the jungle. -Tangled tree-tops projecting from the water, with little houses of -thatch and wood built like birds' nests between them. Or queer little -dwellings of woven blue rush, built on platforms that floated on the -water and were lashed between the protecting tree-trunks. Narrow arcade -bridges connected the houses; and the little balcony platforms where -boats were moored.</p> - -<p>There were a few dots of lights. Then we passed the first group of -houses. Very queer. Nereid stared at me. Queer indeed. It was far into -the time of sleep, but still there should have been someone attracted -to the house doorways as we passed.</p> - -<p>We had slackened now, with the houses, most of them dark, clustering -all about us.</p> - -<p>"There is Venta's home," Nereid murmured. "Her father and brother will -be there."</p> - -<p>We drifted under an arching bridge. The figure of a man was lying on -it. Asleep? Nereid called softly to him, but he did not move. Then I -was aware of a queer, acrid smell here. Choking smell. Nereid coughed -suddenly.</p> - -<p>The boat landed at a low platform dock of Venta's home. We jumped to -the platform. Two men were here. Venta's father and brother. They lay -in a heap, one half upon the other. Dead! The opalescent sheen of the -glorious night was ghastly on their dead faces; mouths goggling with -blackened, protruding tongue; eyes staring with the agony and death.</p> - -<p>And from here we could see other house balconies. Inert forms on them. -All dead.</p> - -<p>In that stricken second, as we stood shuddering on the little platform -with the sea lapping under it, a new horror suddenly assailed us. There -was a tangle of vegetation here, tree branches overhead; air-vines with -redolent flowers and pods on them, dangled, swaying in the breeze. And -abruptly I realized that the dangling, rope-like vines were visibly -growing! At an edge of the platform one of them was slithering like a -serpent!</p> - -<p>And Nereid gasped: "That smell! The gas of nitro-carbon in some -terrible concentration!"</p> - -<p>I stood numbed. Nitrogenous gas-fumes, sprayed here on the night-breeze -by what deadly means I could not guess, had asphixiated the people of -the little Water City. Most of them asleep, they were quickly overcome -by the insidious fumes. An intensification of the gas which was -normally used by the Arones to stimulate vegetation growth, as we on -Earth use fertilizer. Nitro-carbon—deadly to humans; stimulating to -plant-life!</p> - -<p>And the air-vines here were growing with a deadly acceleration!</p> - -<p>In that same second, as we stood momentarily confused, one of the -dangling, swaying vines, grown monstrous now to be as thick as my arm, -struck against Nereid. Sentient vegetation! With the contact, the -damnable dangling vine suddenly wrapped itself around her, its powerful -sinuous blue feelers gripping her slender white throat, strangling her! -And in the night-silence an imbecile was gibbering, with triumphant, -maniacal laughter!</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VI</p> - -<p>For an instant I was stunned, with so great a rush of horror that the -weird scene blurred before me. Then I leaped, tearing at the quivering -vine-rope that held Nereid in its grip. Ghastly thing. I tore it loose, -broke it—gruesome, squashing, flimsy stuff. But as I cast broken -segments of it away, more seemed to come.</p> - -<p>Weird, horrible combat. A slithering tentacle gripped my ankles. -Another was winding itself around my throat. There was a terrible -moment when I thought that Nereid and I would go down; and on the -platform now at our feet, another leafy vine had come crawling, with -lashing feelers and red pods that opened like little bloody jaws.</p> - -<p>Then I tore Nereid loose. The whole platform now seemed cluttered with -writhing vegetation. From overhead dangling things were swinging, -reaching down at us.</p> - -<p>"Nereid, our boat—which way?" In the dim luminous light I was -confused. Nereid led me; and we staggered to our boat, tumbled into it. -A vine-end like a rope threshed at us as we frantically shoved off.</p> - -<p>And in the silence now, with only the leafy rustling of the growing -vines, the gibbering, maniacal laughter of the imbecile still sounded.</p> - -<p>"Kent, look—" Nereid touched my arm as she guided our little boat out -into the open water. On a rock nearby, a hunched, gnome-like figure was -crouched. Then I saw his face, goggled with great round eyepanes and -nose-breather, with a pipe that led to a pack on his back.</p> - -<p>Nereid steered us toward him; we stopped and I reached and seized him.</p> - -<p>"You did this?" I demanded. "You turned loose the gas that killed these -people? Who told you to do it? Who gave you the gas, and the mechanisms -to spread it?"</p> - -<p>His laughter turned to a terrified whimpering. Nereid murmured,</p> - -<p>"That mask he's wearing—the workers use that, in our agriculture when -they spray with the nitro-carbon. But we have no sprayers that could do -a thing like this, nor gas deadly enough."</p> - -<p>"You did it?" I shook him.</p> - -<p>And then he was laughing again. And suddenly I realized that of course -he could not understand English. I cast him loose. And Nereid flung -questions at him in her own language.</p> - -<p>"Figures came up from the water," she said. "He happened to have his -mask and saved himself."</p> - -<p>We left him there on the rock, still laughing. Tollgamo's first attack! -Would he try to loose this gas on Arron? Our little boat sped past the -Water City. I could see now that the quivering, slithering vegetation -everywhere was engulfing the flimsy houses. Its stimulated growth would -persist, an hour or a day, and then subside.</p> - -<p>Shuddering, we drove our boat onward. The great Arsenal rock loomed -ahead of us now, a huge almost square lump of metallic rock rising -sheer from the water to a height of two or three hundred feet. On -all sides it was like that; its only access was from beneath where -subterranean passages ran into its honeycombed, grotto interior. -Impregnable fortress, save from beneath the sea.</p> - -<p>Nereid tied our little craft to a metal fastener against the black, -sleek rock-cliff. Then for me she produced the air-mechanisms and round -transparent helmet with elastic gasket to fit around my throat. And -heavy, metal-weighted shoes for us both.</p> - -<p>But no helmet was needed for her. "We will be there in ten or fifteen -minutes," she said. "I can see better without the head-covering."</p> - -<p>We dropped into the luminous, opalescent water. Nereid held my hand -as I floundered a little, trying to remain balanced upright while our -weighted shoes carried us slowly down. It was a descent of some fifty -feet, with the opalescent surface light fading into the black-green -of the depths. Then slowly an undulating dark surface seemed coming -up to us; and we landed, swaying on our feet. Weird, submarine world. -The jagged slope to one side went on down into the depths. Beside us, -swaying leafy vegetation stood upright in the water—a little thicket -here, with what seemed a rocky path, ascending along the edge of the -black abyss.</p> - -<p>Through my transparent helmet I stared at Nereid. She was smiling, -unbreathing, as much at home down here as on the land. She gestured -that we were to take the ascending path; and held my hand to steady me -as we started our swaying, shoving climb. I could see now that ahead of -us there was a little tunnel into the cliff where we would emerge into -air.</p> - -<p>And suddenly I felt Nereid's hand tighten convulsively on mine. I saw -the blurred figures in another second, two upright swaying blobs close -ahead of us as we emerged past the seaweed clump. Two men down here. -Tollgamo's men? I shook loose from Nereid and plunged forward.</p> - -<p>Then in another second I could see the faces in the transparent -helmets. And one of them I recognized. It was Leh and Allen here, as -startled as ourselves at the sudden encounter.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I think now I need only briefly sketch that following hour or two while -within the Arsenal fortress Allen and I met Peters and his men, and all -of us hastily prepared for Tollgamo's attack. I found Nereid's father -quite what I had expected—a quiet, grave-faced man of somewhat my own -type, garbed like his fellow scientists in tight trousers and blouse of -sleek black fabric. There was no time then to exchange more than the -briefest of questions, as Nereid hastily told him what had happened to -her since her little note had informed him of her furtive departure -for Earth.</p> - -<p>"You worried me very much, my daughter," he said quietly. And the same -sense of humor which she herself had twinkled now in his grey eyes. -"But I think this is no time for reproof."</p> - -<p>Peters of course had known that Tollgamo's attack was imminent; and he -was almost ready. Allen and I could help little here with everything -so indescribably strange. Nereid's virgins were arriving now in little -dripping groups that scattered through the workshop grottos with -chattering voices that added immeasurably to the confusion. They were -all like Nereid, most of them clad in the brief, shining sea-green -garment, all of them with flowing hair and eager, excited little faces. -But I could see now the evidence of Nereid's Earth heritage—these -other girls, even more slim and frail-looking, with oval faces and pert -little pointed chins. And their skin was distinctly less pink-white -than hers.</p> - -<p>Finally the departure for battle. Assembling of this weird little -sub-sea army. I watched it with silent, awed amazement. There was but -one type of sub-sea vessel here, the small underwater cylinders such -as Leh and Allen had come in from the country of the Gorts. Most of -them were that same twenty foot size, to carry two men; and a few -of them were some thirty feet, with space for three. An underwater -electronic ray armed them in bow and stern. Leh explained the weapon to -me. It had an effective range of fifty feet, with a current duration -of some ten seconds. It would kill any living substance at that range -almost instantly; and with duration would eat into the metal armour of -Tollgamo's ships.</p> - -<p>"My father has had no opportunity to build an underwater weapon of more -range and power than this. It is all we have," Leh was telling us. And -my heart sank, and Allen and I exchanged glances of dismay, as Leh -added:</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo has built them up to a range of three hundred feet."</p> - -<p>There were about fifty of the small cylinder-boats; most of them to -take two men. For battle tonight it was all Peters could assemble. -But the cylinders were fleet as darting fishes. We had mobility, and -courage, but with sinking heart I wondered if it would serve us.</p> - -<p>And I also wondered what Tollgamo would have. Leh's information gave -us little hint; and presently he, Allen and I took one of the larger -cylinders.</p> - -<p>We ran without lights. For a time all I could see was a turgid vista -of dark-green depths. An abyss of water at times was beneath us. Then -there were the tops of jagged mountain peaks, naked black needle -spires rising in clusters out of the depths. Leh knew very well the -oceanography here in this undulating terrain of seascape. We headed -for the mouth of the inlet at the head of which Tollgamo's city was -perched. But before we reached there, little lights down in the watery -green haze suddenly appeared. An orange, blurred haze, separating in a -moment into dotted points of light.</p> - -<p>"Tollgamo's forces!" Leh murmured.</p> - -<p>At perhaps a hundred feet of depth, we shut off our tiny rocket-streams -of oxo-hydro fluorescence and hung poised. The three of us sat -breathless, peering. Had our tail-stream been discovered? It seemed -not. There was no undue movement of the Tollgamo lights. Just a -slow-moving little string of them, ahead and below us.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I could see the bottom now, a great undulating spread here of dark -surface. Rock, doubtless, with slime and ooze on it. The moving dots -of light presently disclosed the blobs of enemy vessels. Ten of them, -crawling on the bottom in a slow moving line. Cubes and oblongs of -metal. Dwarfed by distance they were like struggling little bugs, with -lighted eyes and tiny searchbeams waving like feelers before them. -Metallic vehicles, perhaps with caterpiller tread, crawling on the -bottom.</p> - -<p>We drifted closer; almost over them for a moment so that I could guess -that each of them was a hundred feet or more in length. Turreted oblong -vessels, armoured; and armed with the three hundred foot rays. How -many men were in them? Of this Leh had little knowledge, save that he -thought perhaps a total of two thousand. Men and women, crawling along -in the ooze of this sea bottom, tense, with minds only upon the kill.</p> - -<p>"They're heading for Arron," Leh murmured. "In those big ships they -surely must have a vast apparatus for land attack."</p> - -<p>To come up abruptly within the lagoons and interior waterways of Arron. -Perhaps then, on the windward side of the city, to loose their deadly -lethal gas.</p> - -<p>Two hours, at least, for them to reach Arron. The lights crawled under -us; and a vagrant ocean current drifted us away, so that presently we -dared fling on our rocket-stream power and speed back to Peters. He was -ready now, and his hundred men embarked in the fifty little cylinders. -And the five hundred girls were ready, too. I saw them on the ocean -surface, from the turret of our cylinder as we bobbed to the top. An -amazing army of green-clad nymphs. Each of them had a ray-cylinder -of our fifty foot projector. They lay, each of them on a six-foot -little sub-sea sled, powered, like our cylinders, with the oxo-hydro -gas-streams. In effect, a narrow, six foot long raft, with a hooded bow -that housed the control mechanisms and protected the girls' faces from -the rush of water. The girls' bodies had a weight of about the same -as water. Specific gravity of 1. And the sled with its mechanisms was -adjusted to be the same. Girl and sled—neither to float nor sink, but -approximately to hang poised. And thus, with little tilting fins on the -sled's sides, and lateral and vertical bow and stern rudders, the power -would thrust them down into the depths and up again at will.</p> - -<p>We started. Running at first on the surface, the largest of our little -cylinders with Peters and two of his skilled men led us in a line. And -behind us came the girls, in squads of twenty, each with a leader. They -had often practiced it, for sport and for the possibility of such a -time as this.</p> - -<p>As we passed the Water City, we submerged to fifty feet. I turned to -look back through our turret. Like darting fishes the girls came down, -still holding their formation as we swept on through the green-black -depths to battle.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">VII</p> - -<p>For a time we ran with short-range headlight beams preceding us, then, -as we neared the area where we knew Tollgamo's ships should now be, we -ran dark. But still there were the glowing, bubbling rocket-stream -tails of our fifty little cylinder boats; and the rocket-streams of the -girls' diving sleds. And our swift passage through the water left a -phosphorescent wake so that the area all around us glowed, opalescent -with a pallid, eerie light.</p> - -<p>Leh and his father had arranged the tactics of battle which we hoped we -could employ. He explained them to us now. Peters' larger cylinder was -banded with white alumite stripes so as to be easily distinguishable. -Its light signals would give us orders.</p> - -<p>"There is a ridge," Leh was saying. "It crosses from the promontory -head of the metal mountains across to the Arron forests. We think -Tollgamo will follow it as his best method of approach."</p> - -<p>It was a transverse ridge, lying at an average of not much more than -fifty feet beneath the surface. A submarine plateau, in main extent -some ten miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, with deeps on both -sides of it where the bottom dropped sharply away, in places to -unfathomable depths. If we could catch the Tollgamo vehicles in that -area it was our best chance for a shallow attack. And that, we needed. -The girls especially, could not dive into the lower, higher pressures.</p> - -<p>Then presently ahead of us, Peters signalled and we all slackened, -wheeling, gathering in a group.</p> - -<p>"There they are!" Leh murmured tensely. "Just climbing to the ridge."</p> - -<p>The shallower water here was bright with the upper light filtering -down. Astonishingly bright; and suddenly I realized that the Venus -night was over. Dawn had come to the world of air above us, penetrating -the cloud-masses of the Venus atmosphere. It came down here with a -faint ruddy glow, so that now we could see miles of the area before us. -At first it was blurred and unreal. But in a moment I was used to it, -my mind translating its distortion into the terms of its reality.</p> - -<p>A dark abyss was under us here as we poised. Ahead, a thousand feet -away now, the ridge was visible. A cliff was at one side of it, a -honeycombed, submarine wall, a peak of which rose above the surface as -a volcanic little island, with a tiny crater mouth, yawning faintly -yellow from the fires of the earth which here must be close.</p> - -<p>The slow-moving, struggling little line of submarine vehicles was just -mounting to the ridge. Only a few miles from here and they would be -under the city of Arron. We must turn them back here.</p> - -<p>Slowly we approached, still out of Tollgamo's range. We had long since -been seen, of course. The waving headlights of the ten huge black -vessels turned our way. Monsters with searching, glaring eyes. And then -a tentative shot came. In the blurred watery twilight it was a stab of -thin violet light. Not instantaneous, but slow-moving as though for a -second it was pushing its way at us. But it blurred to nothingness far -short of us; and in a few seconds it died.</p> - -<p>At Peters' signal we divided now, spreading fanshape between the -leading Tollgamo ship and Arron; skimming close under the surface, -still keeping three hundred feet or more away from the leading vessel. -But we had to get within fifty feet for our rays to be effective! I -could feel my heart pounding, and my blood seemed cold.</p> - -<p>And then a puff of orange light from the bow of Peters' cylinder gave -the signal for our first attack. Beside me I could hear Allen suck in -his breath. My hands were on the small gun-firing mechanisms—my two -small ray projectors on one side of the cylinder, Allen's on the other, -with Leh's ranging in a quadrant of the bow and stern. In a slanting -dive, we plunged forward and down.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>It was a chaos of blurred confusion to me, that first slanting plunge -that took us close past the looming black side of one of the Tollgamo -vessels, half circling it until in a few seconds we had fired our six -little stabbing bolts and were past, rising again. I was aware that all -the area of water suddenly seemed churned into silver phosphorescence -through which shapes were diving. A bolt stabbed at us and missed. -Then as we were mounting, one caught us. For a second it clung, with -a bubbling red viscosity of fusing metal, glaring against my small -bullseye pane. Would it eat through? Undoubtedly, if it clung too long, -or if another were to strike in the same place.</p> - -<p>But we twisted away from it: and in another second its built-up -electronic power had discharged and it died. I realized then the -advantage of our mobility with our five hundred and fifty agile little -units against the ten huge caterpiller vehicles of Tollgamo, at least -we might have an equal chance. Their three hundred foot rays were -thin as pencil-streaks. Not easy for them to hit a tiny, swift-moving -target. And I saw too, that once we were close, there were many angles -at which the rays could not reach us.</p> - -<p>Leh, Allen and I each fired two charges in that first dive. I saw some -of them strike against the looming black armoured hull of the Tollgamo -vessel as we flipped past it, each hit marked by bubbling red pits of -metal. Through the bullseye windows I caught a vague glimpse of crowded -men and women Gorts inside.</p> - -<p>Then we were back, almost at the surface, out of range again, wheeling, -poising, with the enemy behind and beneath us. I stared down, and saw -that the girls, like a school of plunging dolphins, were making their -dive. And then I had my first sight of one as she was struck. She was -a tiny descending silver streak; and the bolt darted up, caught her. -For a horrible second or two it clung. I saw her waver; come loose from -her sled. And then she was a twisted, blackened, almost shapeless blob, -slowly drifting down, with crimson air-bubbles for a moment rising. -Then on the black ridge bottom her inert form lay, with a little -movement as the water made it weave, as though horribly she were still -alive.</p> - -<p>For five minutes we stared down at the swarm of attacking girls. They -swarmed within the wide angles of the opposing rays. Some of them were -at the hulls of the enemy ships, holding their rays close, trying to -melt through.</p> - -<p>Then at last they were rising; swooping back to the surface. Some of -them! But others were wavering away. With broken mechanisms discarded, -some were swimming free. And others were sinking. Broken, twisted -little shapes, with the water tinted crimson as they sank.</p> - -<p>Leh, Allen and I stared at each other, white-faced, as the girls came -fluttering up, flipping on the surface to get air, organize into squads -again; and to recharge their tiny projectors. The squads reformed. My -heart sank at the pitiful gaps in the formations. We had lost more -than a hundred and fifty girls in that first attacking dive. And two -of our ten cylinder-boats were crippled. Air bubbles were oozing from -them; then the exit escape porte of one of them opened as the little -cylinder sank. The two men came out, with buoyant belts which all of us -were wearing so that they floated away on the surface.</p> - -<p>But we had done some damage. Two or three of the big Tollgamo vessels -seemed to be in distress. The one leading the line had checked its -advance. Those behind seemed trying to hasten forward, so that now -the ships were bunching. One of them, seemingly out of control, had -slued sidewise, close to the edge of the abyss where the green-black -depths went down perhaps a thousand fathoms. Perilously close, so that -now as we stared it sagged drunkenly on the brink and seemed out of -commission. And at the window portes of another of them, a dull-red -glare was apparent. An interior fire.</p> - -<p>"Not too bad," Leh was muttering. "We'll do better, next time."</p> - -<p>Where was Nereid? My heart seemed to stick in my throat with -apprehension as I watched the girls coming up. And then I saw her; -still unharmed. She came close past our turret on her power-sled, her -white arm waved at us as she flipped past and broke the surface for air.</p> - -<p>And then Allen suddenly gasped,</p> - -<p>"What the devil is that? What now?"</p> - -<p>Tollgamo wasn't waiting for our second dive! His leading ship suddenly -was starting ahead of the others. And then suddenly, from three or four -of the enemy vessels tiny black dots were rising. Water bullets.... -Needle-like, foot-long projectiles. They came hurtling at us. And then -they burst with muffled, blurred sounds of little explosions. Some were -near the surface, tossing up spouts of iridescent water.</p> - -<p>It startled us into sudden confusion. Several of our girls were caught -in the exploding puffs; and one of our cylinders. I saw it break apart -in sluggish tearing fragments of metal and what had been its living -occupants. A girl, caught at the surface, was hurled into the air.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A chaos. And in the midst of it, Peters gave the signal for a general -attack; sustained attack, this time. Again Leh plunged us into what now -was a watery inferno. How long it lasted I cannot say. Ten minutes. -Half an hour. An eternity of horror, with everyone for himself. There -were times when I could see little of it. The shallow, fifty foot -depth of ocean here was a glare of red and orange and opalescent light -through which our cylinders dove and the girls plunged up and down like -voracious little fishes.</p> - -<p>There was an inferno of lights and muffled ghastly rumbles down below. -And the surface now was strewn. Our broken cylinders sagging there; -then sinking as the men tried to get out. Men and girls swimming, -wounded, and then sinking. Chaos of human wreckage. The rippled -daylight surface now was tossed by crazy waves; water stained with -blood; or orange and blue with oil and gas-fumes.</p> - -<p>Then I saw that Peters' cylinder was gone. Only ours and two others -left. Leh, Allen and I, now in command. Empty authority. The girls, -down in the weird lurid depths, were fighting with utter desperation, -heedless of the possibility of command.</p> - -<p>An eternity of horror. But now, two of the Tollgamo vessels had slid -over the brink, sinking slowly into the abyss. I saw another of them -burst with interior fire. Muffled explosions, that spewed out Gorts -and broken equipment. Then there was a time when one of the distressed -vessels emitted an inky fluid as though it were some giant squid—a -pall of black water, to hide the disembarking men. We fought through -it, until presently it drifted away.</p> - -<p>"Getting them," I heard Allen mutter once. "By Heaven, only two of -those boats in action now—Tollgamo's and this other one."</p> - -<p>We were plunging at Tollgamo's ship. Its portes were red with glare. -The enemy rays now were lessening. It seemed that only one or two -were left. And the battle now had changed its aspect. From the broken -Tollgamo ships, many of the Gorts had safely emerged, with helmets and -weighted shoes so that now they were walking, swaying on the rocky -bottom. Five hundred or more of them. And the girls swooped down at -them. Myriad hand to hand combats between the unweildy Gorts and the -Arron virgins that plunged at them like darting hungry sharks.</p> - -<p>The bottom now was strewn with the dead as the girls plunged and -fought and we darted our cylinder among them, struggling to find -opportunity to strike with our rays.</p> - -<p>Where was Nereid? Again cold apprehension struck at me; it was so long -since I had seen her. And now a new ghastly horror was entering the -turgid scene. Attracted by the lights, the muffled roars and the blood, -monsters of the deep were coming. Eaters of carrion. Sea vultures. -Some came in little swarms, a thousand tiny silvery shapes, darting -at the bodies, picking at them until only white skeletons lay here -on the slimy sea bottom. Other shapes, huge with glaring round eyes -like torches, came slithering from the deeps, searching for the dead, -seizing the wounded.</p> - -<p>"That Tollgamo ship is all that's left," Leh was saying. He sped us -toward it. Quite obviously now it was trying to escape. Forty or fifty -girls were clinging to its hull; too close for its single remaining -ray weapon to hit them; girls with close-held projectors eating with -bubbling red electro-glare into the hull-plates. We had a glimpse into -one of the bullseye portes—gas fumes and red glare in there; and the -Gorts, trapped there, in a panic making ready to disembark. We lay -close, firing our bolts.</p> - -<p>Suddenly a wounded girl was drifting past our turret; she seemed -struggling to get to our little pressure porte. Nereid?</p> - -<p>Then I saw that it was Venta. She got into the porte; and I pumped out -the water; threw myself in and bent over her. She was gasping, but -still trying to smile at me.</p> - -<p>"We—we have won, Earthman."</p> - -<p>"Yes. Yes, Venta. You just lie quiet. Have you seen Nereid?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. Here, just a little while ago. I don't know, now."</p> - -<p>I stared out the porte bullseye. The Tollgamo ship was breaking; -I could see its air coming out in bubbling puffs that caught our -cylinder and shoved it away. That ship would be water-filled in a -moment. And then I stiffened; tense with horror as I stared. A little -side exit-porte of the wrecked vessel suddenly opened. A single huge -figure lunged out. A dark-clad giant figure, with round air-helmet and -weighted shoes.</p> - -<p>Tollgamo! He was no more than fifty feet from me; a red sheen of light -struck his helmet so that I could see his face with its quiet, grim -smile. And then suddenly, in a leaping dive, he flung himself forward, -and seized a girl who was clinging to the vessel's side, blasting with -her ray-torch.</p> - -<p>Nereid! In the glare, abruptly I saw her, as Tollgamo seized her, -catching her by surprise so that she had no chance to escape him. And -then her torch and her knife were gone, as he held her body against him -and with swaying, shoving tread started away along the bottom.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>There were weighted shoes here in our pressure porte. I was only a -moment getting Venta out of the porte into the main part of the hull. I -slid its door; adjusted my helmet; admitted the water. And then I was -swaying out on the rocks, with a knife in my hand.</p> - -<p>Vaguely I could see Tollgamo, with Nereid struggling in his grip as he -advanced with swaying tread toward where, near at hand, the honeycombed -cliff of that little crater-island loomed here. I struggled after him. -Then I saw that he had plunged into what seemed a water-filled little -passage leading back under the island. I was there in a moment; tense, -alert, cautious now that he might be crouching somewhere here in ambush.</p> - -<p>The ten foot high narrow passage wound up an ascent until unexpectedly -my head broke the surface. I twitched off the helmet. I had thought -that Tollgamo knew that he was being followed, but evidently he did -not. Neck deep in water, I was near the rocky shore of a subterranean -lagoon ... a huge jagged grotto here in the depths of the honeycombed -little island.</p> - -<p>And then I saw Tollgamo. His helmet was off now. Carrying Nereid in -his arms, he had mounted a broken rocky wall of the grotto, so that he -was some fifty feet back and ten feet above me. I had kicked off my -weighted shoes. I tried to dive, but I was discovered. Nereid gave a -little cry; and as Tollgamo saw me, he suddenly checked his climb, set -Nereid on her feet and held her against him. I had floundered forward, -on the shore now; and dropped my knife, plucking a little ray-projector -from my belt. Its fifty foot stab was ample here. Was Tollgamo armed?</p> - -<p>Brief thoughts; brief tableau. For that second he and Nereid stared -down at me. A red glare painted them, a glare that came from what I -saw now was a glowing pit almost beside them on this little volcanic -island. In the heavy subterranean silence I could hear the low -muttering, hissing rumble of the fires deep in the bowels of the earth, -and the grotto was heavy with their sulphuric smell.</p> - -<p>A slow ironic smile was on Tollgamo's gray face, painted now by the red -and yellow glare.</p> - -<p>"So, the Earthman!" he said. "And he finds Tollgamo unarmed."</p> - -<p>My little projector was leveled; but as he held Nereid against him I -could not dare fire. He saw it, and his ironic smile broadened. Was he -really unarmed? It seemed so. I could see the empty weapon-clips at his -belt, from which evidently he had torn his exhausted weapons and flung -them away. And his hands were both in plain view, gripping Nereid's -shoulders. There was just a second when I saw his gaze flick from my -leveled gun as he desperately measured his chances for escape.</p> - -<p>And then he seemed to reach his decision. The quiet smile still plucked -at his thin gray lips. I must have made a move with my leveled muzzle; -and suddenly it seemed to startle him.</p> - -<p>"Don't fire, Earthman!" he said sharply. "You would kill her."</p> - -<p>And then, with a twitch of his big powerful arms he swept Nereid, not -further to shield himself, but behind him. And he added softly, to her:</p> - -<p>"So you see Tollgamo has lost? That is too bad." His breath went out in -a long hiss. "I had thought to conquer Arron, to share it with you." -His soft voice was ironical; as though now at the last he was jibing at -the futility of all human effort.</p> - -<p>I stood numbed, withholding my shot as now he cast her away; and he -stood alone on the red-yellow brink. His gaze turned to me.</p> - -<p>"You see, Earthman, you need not kill me," he said gently. "I should -not like anyone to do that—much less an Earthman."</p> - -<p>Still his jibing irony. But there was tragedy in his smoldering dark -eyes; the tragedy of failure, as now his dream at last was broken.</p> - -<p>He was still quietly smiling, as he poised on the brink, staring down -at the fiery abyss. Then slowly he leaned forward, toppled and fell. -For a second his plummeting body was visible, and then the red-yellow -glare swallowed it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I think that there is little I need add. I have no wish to picture -the return of our pitiful little army to Arron. Victorious army.... -How trite, but how true it is—in warfare, even the victor is -vanquished! But surely, there is a better time ahead for Venus now. -Jenten-Shah, degenerate ruler of the Arones, was killed that night by -an imbecile worker. Peters was killed; and Leh is ruling. Surely he -will bring order out of chaos, and minimize license in the lives of the -pleasure-loving Arones, so that now there need be no rebelling young -Virgins with the opprobrium of Untouchables.</p> - -<p>Certainly that is what we all hope.</p> - -<p>Nereid and I are married now and are very happy. My strange little -wife, daughter of two worlds. I know that I shall have to take her back -to Venus presently. Loyally she insists she likes our Earth quite as -well as Venus. But as I recall the lush tropic beauty of the glowing -Arron nights, and the soft iridescence of the water—well, I doubt it -very much.</p> - -<p>I want Nereid to like Earth. Our little home is in the tropics, by the -palm-lined edge of a lagoon. We are secluded here, which is what Nereid -wants. When people see her she is dressed always in Earth fashion. But -when we are, alone, at night—</p> - -<p>I wanted to finish this narrative tonight. I thought I could finish by -dawn. It is bright moonlight. I thought Nereid was asleep, but just a -little while ago she came from our bedroom to the veranda where I am -writing. Nereid, with her tawny hair flowing, her beautiful body again -in the shining sea-green garment.</p> - -<p>Then she went past me, flinging me her impish, whimsical little smile -as she ran for the lagoon. She is swimming down there now. Occasionally -she calls up to me, daring me to come down.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">[Transcriber's Note: No heading for Section IV in original.]</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The War-Nymphs of Venus, by Ray Cummings - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR-NYMPHS OF VENUS *** - -***** This file should be named 61884-h.htm or 61884-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/8/8/61884/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The War-Nymphs of Venus - -Author: Ray Cummings - -Release Date: April 21, 2020 [EBook #61884] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR-NYMPHS OF VENUS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THE WAR-NYMPHS of VENUS - - By RAY CUMMINGS - - The voluptuous golden civilization of Arron was - doomed. Licentious laughter echoed through the - water-kingdom, unmindful of the relentless, - clanking invasion of the Gorts. What fools, this - handful of warrior-maidens led by a puny Earthman, - to pit their thin strength against Tollgamo's iron army! - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Spring 1941. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -I was fishing for tarpon, lolling back in the stern of my small boat. -The outboard motor, running at trolling speed, was a puttering purr in -the drowsing watery silence. It was sunset of a summer evening of 1948. -The Gulf of Mexico, out beyond the mouth of the little Florida bayou -inlet across which I was heading, was a glassy expanse, blood-red in -the light of the huge setting sun. - -To the south lightning was playing along the orange sky. I recall that -a vague uneasiness was upon me. Because a storm might be coming? Surely -it was not that. I was within three miles of the small island where -young Jack Allen and I were camping. It was my intention to head for -there presently, especially as there had been no sign of tarpon. Allen -had been too lazy to come fishing; he had said he would loaf and have -supper ready for us at dark. - -My name is Kent Fanning. Jack Allen and I were of an age--twenty-four, -that summer. With our business in New York, we were here on vacation, -having a permit to fish and to camp on the small, uninhabited island. - -The intermittent lightning at the southern horizon rose higher. Faint -muttering thunder was audible. A massive grey-white cloud was down -there now, a thunderhead, coming northward with the storm behind it. I -had decided to pull in my line and head for the island when suddenly I -had a strike, the big reel humming as the line went out. A tarpon? I -hooked it, shut off the motor, sat erect with my stout rod braced in -the leather socket of my belt. I was prepared for a long struggle. - -And then, two hundred yards or so from me, the water broke with a -floundering splash. I gasped, stared numbed. A floundering, oblong -pink-white thing was there at the end of my line. A slim white arm -flailed up as the thing turned, swimming on the surface frantically -away from me. Pink-white limbs gleaming in the moonlight. Streaming -tawny hair, like seaweed--hair in which my hook seemed to be caught. - -A girl! I had her at the boat in a moment, floundering in the -moonlight, gasping, still trying to twist around and disentangle my -hook from her long streaming hair. A small, slim figure, white-limbed -yet flushed like moonlit coral. There was a brief dangling robe wetly -clinging to her. It was of gleaming lustrous green as though perhaps it -was a fabric of softly woven metal, painted green by the sea. - -An extraordinary yet very human girl. - -Just a few seconds of my stricken amazement. I recall that I gasped -inanely. - -"Well--why good Heavens--" - -Her gasping laugh rippled like the splashing water in the moonlight. -"Sorry! I got some frightened to be confused." - -English! Strangely intoned with little rippling liquid syllables. Like -nothing I had ever heard before and yet my own language. - -She had pulled my hook from the gleaming tawny tresses of her hair. -Then she flung up a coral-white arm. I bent, seized her wrist, drew her -up and she came with a nimble, skilled little leap and landed on her -feet in the boat beside me! - - - II - -I find myself now somewhat at a loss accurately and yet succinctly to -depict that next hour or two. You who read this of course have heard -much of the strange affair from newscasters and from the public prints. -Garbled reports, some of them. Others pedantic with technical details -of science. I am no scientist. It is my purpose here merely to give -a factual account of the weird incidents which brought to me, Kent -Fanning, a person certainly of no importance save perhaps to myself, a -sudden prominence not in one world, but in two. - -Queer that throughout my lifetime there had always been talk that -some day, here on Earth, scientists would discover the secret of -spaceflight; that then intrepid adventurers would journey out into -space. But as you all know now, the reverse, so seldom anticipated, was -true. Another world came to us, in the person of this strange Venus -girl; came indeed by utter chance, or destiny if you will; to me. - -Venus; the Earth. Of all known planets, the two most close, and most -alike. There are things brewing in the Universe of which none of us can -be aware, of course. A myriad things. And here was one of them. Unknown -to us, Venus and the Earth already were intermingled, fused into the -beautiful little person of this strange girl--the blood of Venus, the -blood of Earth flowing in her veins. - -You had not heard of George Peters, doubtless. Nor had I! A research -chemist and physicist, in New York City, about 1930. He was a young -man then; I think, twenty-eight. He sought no publicity. A wealthy -man. With some twenty companions, all of them scientists, some of them -older than himself, he was working, not on the secret of spaceflight, -but with a ray--a vibration--which he hoped might reach some distant -planet, as a means of communication if there should be inhabitants -there. - -Ironically he did not know he had succeeded! And it was men from -Venus--the villainous Tollgamo of whom now you have heard so much--who -was attracted by his signals and came to him; abducting him and his -companions so that all that was known, here on earth was that one -morning George Peters' laboratory was found wrecked, and he and his -companions were gone. - -"George Peters, that is my father," the girl was telling me now as I -headed the small open boat for the island where young Allen and I were -camping. - -And she had come to Earth--the first time in her sixteen years that -she had been off Venus; stolen a small spaceflight cylinder from her -father. Her Venus people needed help from the threat of Tollgamo. All -that was good and beautiful on Venus and in her Arone world of love and -music and beauty, was to be destroyed by the monstrous threat of this -Dictator from his mechanized realm of the Gorts. - -"Wait," I said, as she poured it at me, at times only half coherent. -"You came here to Earth, for help? You came alone?" - -"Yes. You have not, father thinks, yet discovered the secret of -spaceflight. He was sending the cylinder, with drawings and scientific -details of how spaceflight was accomplished by Tollgamo and his evil -men. And so I came. We want that you should build a spaceship and come -to Venus. Your men, and some of your weapons of war, to help us fight -Tollgamo." - -And she had dropped here into the Gulf of Mexico, wrecked the little -one-man space-vehicle so that she barely escaped with her life. And it -sank, with its secret of spaceflight obliterated by the sea, even if by -some chance the little metal mechanisms themselves could be recovered. - -I think that she had given no thought to that realization as she swam -to save herself and suddenly found my trolling hooks entangled in her -hair. Nereid of the sea. Far more like her Venus mother than her Earth -father, water was almost her natural element, since her blood did not -need the replenishment of oxygen so quickly as ours, so that for ten -minutes or more she need not breathe. - - * * * * * - -I learned only fragmentary details of all this that Midge Peters had -to tell, there in the boat as we headed for the island. Surely I must -admit that the weirdness of it startled me, and for just a moment -perhaps, it vaguely occurred to me that here was some trickster, or a -mentality unbalanced. But to look at her, was to know that certainly -here was no Earth girl! - -I had to believe her. But I must admit, I gave little thought, there in -the boat, to any menace to her world, or to the ironic fact that she -had brought to Earth the treasured secret of spaceflight and already -had lost it so that she was marooned here. Here was the amazing, -beautiful little creature herself in the boat beside me, and what she -was saying of Venus dwindled into insignificance with the stirring -of my pulses as I stared at her. Slim little body, hardly matured, -but fashioned with almost a normal earthly beauty. Yet there was a -strangeness that made her different. The flush of pink coral to her -flesh; her shimmering robe with moonbeams rippling on it like moonrays -on green rippled water; her long tawny tresses, drying now in the wind. - -But most of all, I think, the strangeness was in her eyes. The sea was -there in the green depths of her eyes. Eyes that mirrored the soul of a -strange girlhood; eyes that had seen things strange to me, reflecting -now the thoughts, emotions of another world. - -"You look at me so queerly," she said suddenly. "Why is that?" - -"Well you--you--" Suddenly it was hard to say anything of my -conflicting thoughts. "You--well, why wouldn't I be startled? A little -sea nymph. You should have been named Nereid." - -Again her laugh rippled. - -"Nereid? Why yes, my father calls me that, though my mother named me -Midge. That was when she learned English. So I am not like Earth-girls? -My father has said it many times. But you--" - -Her gaze at me was earnest, direct. "You do not look queer to me," she -added. "You look much in the fashion of my father, grown younger." - -Surely I have given only a vague picture indeed of that half hour in -the boat with Nereid as the puttering little outboard motor drove us -to the island where Jack Allen would be waiting for me. Half an hour, -so crowded with my first jumbled impressions of what Nereid's weird -Venus-world must be like. - -"That is your island?" Nereid said suddenly. "Why--it looks very -pretty." - -The storm still was rising in the south--occasional bursts of lightning -and rolling, reverberating thunderclaps. But the starlight and -moonlight was over us. It silvered the island palms; it lay like white -metal on the sand of the island's shore. - -I headed us into the little cove. A small dilapidated dock was there. -On a little rise behind the palmetto fringe, under the palm trees, a -shaft of moonlight gleamed on the white of our tent. I thought that -young Allen would have heard the putt-putt of my motor and be down at -the dock now to greet me. But there was no sign of him. - -I shut off the motor. Silence leaped at us. - -"Queer," I said. "Jack promised he'd have supper ready." - -The glow of campfire beside the tent was visible. In the silence I -could hear the murmur of music from our little portable radio. Allen -must have been here only a few minutes ago. I called, - -"Oh Jack--Jack, where are you?" - -There was only the roll of my words, echoing into silence. Very queer. - -Nereid was in the bow of that boat. "Fend us off," I said as we glided -to the dock. - -This weird girl. Water, almost her native element so that suddenly she -dove over the bow. Flash of coral limbs, green-sheathed little body and -streaming tawny hair. There was hardly a splash as she slipped into the -water and then was swimming backward against our gliding little boat. -It slid to the dock, gently eased up, and Nereid was gone. - -For a moment I held my breath, with my heart pounding. Foolish -apprehension. Abruptly she appeared, out in the middle of the cove, -head and shoulders bobbing up as she shook the water from her tresses -and flung up an arm to greet me. - -"Come back here," I called. - -The silent cove echoed with the ripple of her laugh. With weaving -limbs, incredibly swiftly her body slid through the water; submerged -again, and she came up laughing, like a dog shaking herself as she -jumped to the dock. - -"Some day we will swim together, Kent." Again she flung me that -sidelong glance of coquetry. "And if you swim like my father, without -much trouble I could drown you. You think so?" - -"No argument on that," I said. Queerly I seemed to feel, just for that -instant, almost a vague resentment. Resentment of a man at the superior -prowess of a woman. Instinctive, of course. - -She seemed to understand it, and she laughed again. "Our young men of -Venus are like that," she said, "for they, too, cannot swim very well." -And instantly her face clouded. "That, too, is part of the trouble of -my world--the men who would have their mates kept from the water so -that the man may be in everything the master. Our virgins do not like -that." - -She clung to my hand as we went up the palmetto-lined path to the camp. -And suddenly she seemed frightened. An aura of sudden menace was here. -I, too, could feel it. Allen had started supper. The things were out; -food was in the frying pan, burning now in a charred mass over the -campfire flames. - -"Kent--something wrong--" - - * * * * * - -We stood tense. Like animals abruptly scenting danger, yet having no -least idea what it was, or from whence it could come.... And abruptly -in the silence, the murmuring little radio here changed from music to a -newscaster's flash. - -"Nereid listen--news of you--" I murmured. - -Something had been seen, late this afternoon, dropping swiftly from the -sky--something, a meteorite?--the few eyewitnesses differed in trying -to describe it. "_Mysterious missile drops into the Gulf ten miles -off lonely Palmetto Key._" The newscaster drew on his imagination, -conjecturing what the round shining thing could have been, which -two fishing boats had reported seeing coming hurtling down from the -afternoon sky, dropping into the glassy Gulf. - -I smiled at Nereid as for a moment we stood listening. Her little -falling space-cylinder already was causing comment. I could envisage -the incredulous amazement of the authorities at Tampa when I took her -there, told them who she was. The world would ring with it. Blaring -newscasters: "_Stranded Venus girl! Marooned on Earth! Venus inhabited! -Venus threatened with bloody revolution! Appeals to Earth for help! -Daughter of two worlds brings secret of spaceflight to Earth, and loses -it on her arrival!_" - -And some would try to be humorous: "_Girl from Venus brings gift of -spaceflight secret, and loses it before she can give it to us! Isn't -that what you would expect of a woman?_" "_Kent Fanning and weird girl -try to hoax scientists--_" - -Somehow as I thought of it, resentment sprang within me at what this -would do to the gentle little Nereid. Allen and I, tomorrow when the -storm was over, would have to take her to Tampa, of course. Or perhaps -we would take her to some scientific Society, with less publicity. And -an effort would be made to recover her cylinder, with its precious -secret. - -It was my swift flow of thoughts as for that moment the newscaster -droned on. And suddenly his voice changed. He had been describing the -mysterious falling of what quite evidently had been Nereid's little -vehicle. And now another Press Bulletin had reached him. - -"_Mysterious airship descends from the stratosphere, lands in the Gulf -near Palmetto Key, off west coast of Florida. At sunset tonight--_" - -Nereid gripped me with a little gasping cry as we listened. A gleaming -metal thing, flatly oblong with a turret globe at bow and stern, had -been distantly seen by a tramp freighter which was heading westward -into the Gulf, bound for Mexico. A metal ship--blood-red with the -sunset on it--slowly floating down; rotating slowly, weirdly on its -horizontal axis.... It had been seen to land on the Gulf surface. And -then slowly submerge, heading shoreward like a plunging submarine as it -vanished! - -Nereid murmured, "Tollgamo, he has a ship like that! But my father has -none! Oh Kent--" - -A spaceship from Venus! Was it that? Following Nereid here to -seize her; to prevent her from giving the secret of Interplanetary -transportation to Earth! The newscaster was saying something about -U.S. Coast Guard Cutters being ordered from Tampa to investigate. - -And from here on little Palmetto Key, young Allen had disappeared! The -implication of that struck at me. For a second I stared at Nereid, the -firelight gleaming soft and warm on her dripping little body; tinting -her pink-coral face which now was stamped with terror. - -But we had no more warning than that. The storm was at hand now, and -the wind was lashing the upper fronds of the palms; purple darkness -here on the island with a flash of lightning and almost simultaneous -thunderclap. For that second the palmetto shrubs were whitely illumined -by the electric glare. Fifty feet away a big, dark upright shape -abruptly was visible. And another--and another! Men stalking us! - -The glare died. There was only turgid windy darkness. I must have -muttered something to Nereid; my arm went around her as we turned to -run back to our boat in the cove. Too late! From the palm woods behind -us a violet beam of light stabbed out. It caught us; bathed us. There -was a guttural shout; the sound of a little pop and something whizzing -with a whining hum through the air. I felt something strike my legs. A -little blob which with its impact abruptly uncoiled, and then coiled -again as it wrapped itself around my legs so that I crashed heavily to -earth face down. - -And another had hit my neck. Ghastly thing--quivering steel spring. It -felt like that; thin quivering metal encircling my throat. Almost like -a thing alive, gripping me with its metal fingers ... strangling me. -I was aware that Nereid, too, had fallen. My groping fingers clutched -at the strangling band; its sharp edges cut my fingers as futilely I -tried to tear it loose. I recall that I lay threshing, lunging, with my -legs pinned and my breath gone. Dark figures were standing over me now. -Guttural chuckling voices mingled with the roaring torrent of Niagara -in my ears. Then the dancing spots before my bulging eyes blurred the -gathering dark shapes. - - - III - -The roaring in my ears came first as my consciousness struggled back. -My fumbling fingers felt my throat. The band was gone; the skin was -swollen there. Then I knew that I was bathed in the cold sweat of -weakness and was lying on the metal grid of a floor. The murmur of -voices sounded around me; and I opened my eyes to find myself in a -dimly starlit, circular turret room. The control room of a spaceship. -It hummed with a throbbing rhythm of its current. But save for that it -was queerly still, vibrationless. - -We were in space. Through the round, transparent turret walls I could -see the blazing stars in a black firmament to one side. The other -was shrouded with metal blinds, through the chinks of which dazzling -sunlight was showing, so that I knew we had already left the giant -cone of the Earth's shadow. Heading partly toward the Sun. Heading for -Venus? It seemed so. - -Men were here around me. Huge, burly, strangely garbed men--one at the -controls, where banks of levers and dials with quivering indicators -were ranged in rows with a line of little fluorescent globes diagonally -across them. Two other men sat softly talking together; guttural, -unintelligible words. Weird figures indeed. At first glance they could -have been towering robots; wide, square shoulders, rectangular bodies, -round tubular, jointed legs. The starlight glinted on their burnished, -grey-white metal casements. Then as they moved, I saw that their -garments were of flexible woven metal. - -The one at the controls was bareheaded, a round bullet head of -close-cropped black hair. His face was heavy; skin queerly grey-white. -Weird features, with a protruding chin and long hawk nose so that the -mouth was a greylipped slit, depressed between the projections of his -nose and lower jaw. And he had deep-set, round dark eyes under shaven -black brows. - -Men of science. Humans whose life was of such efficient, mechanical -rigidity that they themselves had the aspect of machines. Worshipers of -precision; of mechanization. The aura of it was on them. - -I saw that one of them was sitting impassive, stiffly erect in -his metal garments with his gaze roving me like a guard. Strange, -jewel-like little weapons were at his waist and in pouches of his metal -jacket. On his head was a metal, peaked helmet--its peak fashioned in -the form of a hawk-like bird, poised for screaming flight. Across the -starlit circular room, another of the men was sitting, gazing out at -the firmament. A man? I stared with a new amazement. The same square, -jointed metal garments. But the hips were wider, the shoulders more -narrow. A woman, of this mechanized race of Gorts. Her breast swelled -beneath her mailed tunic. Her hair was black, long to the base of her -neck, covering her ears. A shining black metal band was around her -forehead, holding the hair from her eyes. - -Strange, powerful Amazon. She was a good six feet tall; her face was -hawk-nosed like the men, but with lips that were fuller, of a reddish -tinge. Then as I stared, the man at the controls called to her: - -"Garga--" - -She rose; moved to him. Her dangling weapons, and a huge metal ornament -on her bosom, clanked as she walked. At the control table the leader -gave her orders; guttural crisp words unintelligible to me. She -nodded; went to a small table across the room, where with charts and -computations she seemed figuring the course of our flight. - -Garga, woman of the Gorts. Mechanized womanhood, with all that -womanhood stands for in my own world submerged within her so that -she was a mere female machine. And suddenly my mind, still dazed now -in these first moments of my returning consciousness, swept back to -Nereid. Strange world, this Venus, to hold two such contrasting types -of female! What a gulf between them! - -Where was Nereid now? Had she been killed in that attack upon us? -Anxiety swept me. I had struggled up on one elbow. The watching Gort -saw me; he muttered an exclamation and the man at the controls came -clanking to his feet. A giant fellow, well over six feet. His slit of -mouth widened with a grin like a gash between his nose and chin as he -bent down over me. - -"You--still alive?" he greeted. "What your name?" - -I sat up, still rubbing my bruised throat. "Kent Fanning," I said. "So -you talk English? There was a girl with me, back there on that island. -Where is she?" - -He gestured blandly. "She safe. Daughter of Peters. Tollgamo wants her -not injured. He will like you too, I think perhaps. You have scientific -skill of Earth science?" - -I would be kept alive for the knowledge I might have. "Well, maybe," -I said. "Where is Peters' daughter? I want to see her. Where are you -taking us? To Venus?" - -"You ask too much quick questions," he retorted. His grey knuckles -rapped his mailed chest. "I am Rhool, second to Tollgamo. I talk with -you some else time. Maybe you teach me more the English? Eh?" - -"Where is Peters' daughter?" I insisted. I was on my feet, still dizzy; -and as I staggered a little, I clutched Rhool's metal clothed arm. It -angered, or perhaps startled him. With a sweeping gesture, incredibly -powerful, his arm flung me aside. His guttural barking command brought -the woman Garga with a pounce. - -I have not mentioned that I am a bit under six feet in height; slim -and dark. Not very powerful; but I have, my friends tell me, a temper -somewhat flaring so that in a rough and tumble fight I usually can take -care of myself. But the glare in Rhool's eyes warned me that this was a -time when discretion certainly was better than valor. The woman Garga -towered an inch or so over me; her fingers gripped my shoulders. - -"So?" she muttered. "You think to cause trouble?" - -I summoned a grim smile. "I do not. I want to be taken to Peters' -daughter. Where is she?" - -Rhool, back at his instrument table now, barked a command; and the -metal-clad Gort woman shoved me. "You come with me. I take you." - -To Nereid? I hoped so. Docilely I preceded Garga along a glowing -humming little metal corridor of the spaceship. She said nothing more, -but flung open a small metal door after unbarring its fastenings, -shoved me in and banged it upon me. - -I found myself in a small metal sleeping apartment. Brilliant starlight -filtered in through its single bullseye pane. A figure was in the -corner on a fabric couch. - -"You Kent? Good Lord." - - * * * * * - -It was Jack Allen. They had pounced on him, back there on Palmetto Key. -I sat with him now, telling him of the weird things which had happened -to me; telling him of Nereid. - -He stared. "Good Lord, Kent--well, I understand it better now." - -There were things that he had learned; and as he told them to me, -Nereid's only half-coherent story began to clarify. - -"That woman Garga," Allen was saying with his ready grin, "I get along -fine with her. Pumped a lot of facts out of her." - -Physically, Allen and I are of quite different types, which is perhaps -why we are such friends. He says I have a romantic, sort of poetic -look--from my mother, who was Spanish. And that, he says, goes with a -bad temper. However that may be, certainly he was always the opposite. -A giant, blond fellow; six feet four; rugged, sun-bronzed, like a young -Viking. And he had an almost unfailing good nature. A slow, quiet -smile. Slow of movement; usually somewhat lazy. But there were times, -rare intervals, when he was angered. His movements were panther-like -then, and I wouldn't like to be the one to meet him in a fight. - -"That Garga woman likes me," he grinned. He lowered his voice as he -leaned toward me. "She looks like a machine, but still she's a woman. -Get the idea? If we ever get out of this, that might be the way." - -And then he told me what he knew of Nereid's strange Venus world. The -realm of the Arones was in a lush forest, the tropic region. Compared -to our Earth population, there were not many of the Arones. Half a -million perhaps, in little Forest and Water villages, with twenty -thousand in the chief city, known as Arron.... How shall I attempt -even an outline of the ethnological history of Venus? I can give only -the barest suggestion of it. In former ages doubtless there had been -millions of humans on this, Earth's sister planet. A civilization -rising to great heights of science, with all the planet's surface -mastered by man. And then decadence had come. Mankind resting; then -drifting backward. Dwindling in number; with science forgotten, put -aside as a memory, a tradition. And slowly but inexorably the monstrous -animals, insects, the weird vegetation again took primitive possession -of most of the globe. - -"So that's your Nereid's people," Allen was saying. "Decadent--soft -now--trying to accomplish nothing." - -Except human happiness. I recalled Nereid's words of her world, living -for love and music and beauty. Strange how in all human affairs there -are two sides of looking at everything! I said something like that to -Allen, and he nodded. - -"The trouble with science," he agreed, "is that it can be so easily -perverted. Things to benefit mankind, turned into engines of death. -That's the recent history of our own world." - -And the Arones had gone to the other extreme. Science was banned. Men -and women should live for human happiness, with no thought of conquest, -or of personal power. And out of this, a few generations ago, had risen -the Gorts. They had been for centuries a nomadic race of giants, mere -savages roaming the barren parts of the planet. Few in number, and like -the savages of our own Earth, apparently doomed to extinction. Banished -criminals from the world of the Arones, generations back, had joined -them, brought them science--stolen things of science. - -And out of this sprang the Gort, Tollgamo. His father had started it: -Tollgamo, the son, carried it on. He was a genius, of course. A genius -with mad dreams. To mechanize his little world. There were only a few -thousand of them now. Men and women making themselves into machines; -fed by Tollgamo upon his own mad dreams of Venus conquest. - -He had discovered the secret of spaceflight, which before him, on -Venus, had never been known. Peters' Earth-signals had attracted him, -and quietly he had gone to Earth, and seized Peters and his men; -bringing them to Venus so that they might tell him all they knew of -their science. It would be useful, that future day when he would -attempt to conquer the Arones. - -Most, perhaps all, of Peters' men were dead now; killed, possibly by -Tollgamo, when their usefulness to him was finished. But Peters had -escaped; gone to the Arones. And telling them their danger, had made -himself the leader of the revival of their science. All Nereid's life, -her father, with a group of men he had trained, had feverishly been -working in the city of Arron, to build weapons with which to combat the -attack when it came. - -All that was known to Tollgamo, of course. He had spies in Arron. Queer -how human nature is the same, wherever in the Universe the Creator -has planted it! The fatuous, decadent, pleasure-loving leader of the -Arones was unwilling to believe that the Gorts could be any menace. -The efforts of Peters and his fellow scientists, even now were looked -upon with disfavor. Peters and his men were distrusted, even accused of -having dreams of conquest of their own. Thousands of the Arones thought -it, so that there was an undercurrent of strife in Arron, fostered, of -course, by Tollgamo's spies. - -"And now Tollgamo seems to be about ready for his attack," Allen was -telling me. "Peters probably has no weapons of any importance with -which to oppose him. And so Peters made an effort to get help from -Earth. Tollgamo found it out, and sent this ship to follow the girl so -as to keep her from giving the secret of spaceflight to Earth." - -The barred metal door of our little cubby suddenly opened. A Gort man -stood there. Allen and I stared. Like the other Gorts, he was encased -in shining mailed garments. But he was crippled, bent and twisted, with -one shoulder higher than the other and a lump on his bent back. On him, -the metal garments were grotesque. He came sidling in, grinning at us -with his ugly, puffed and bloated grey-skinned face. - -"I am Borgg," he said. "You will have food and drink soon. You hungry?" - -"I want to see the Peters girl," I retorted. "Take me to her." - -He shook his head. "Garga will take care of her. She is safe." - -His glowing, dark-eyed gaze roved us. Out in the corridor there was a -man's voice--one of the other Gorts passing. And the weird, shambling -hunchback suddenly burst into guttural laughter. "So the Earthmen are -afraid of me? Afraid of Borgg, who wants only to amuse people?" - -He suddenly backed away from us, hurling what seemed a stream of -invective at us in the guttural syllables of his own language. Then he -backed through our door, slammed it upon us and bolted it. - -We stared at each other blankly. "Well I'll be damned," Allen muttered. -"What could that mean?" - - * * * * * - -I can only sketch the weird events of that voyage to Venus. My first -spaceflight. You who read this can anticipate taking one soon, of -course. And you are naturally familiar with the glowing words of -description the newscasters have used. With the mechanical details of -Interplanetary traveling, the more scientific-minded among you must -be thoroughly familiar. I think all that need have little place in my -narrative. Human motives; human conflicts. The things of actuality -which happened to me, to Jack Allen, to little Nereid--with those -things only am I concerned here. - -There were some ten men and five of the grim Gort women, here on the -space vehicle. By Earth routine of living, it could have been five or -six days. After the first time of sleep, Allen and I were given a fair -freedom of movement. Much of it we spent in the control turret, with -Rhool, the leader here. Tollgamo's lieutenant was well pleased with -himself. He was bringing Nereid back. He had learned from her that her -little space-cylinder was lost at the bottom of the sea on Earth. What -Tollgamo had ordered, Rhool had accomplished, with efficiency which -would bring him commendation. And he was bringing Allen and me back, -Earthmen whom Tollgamo doubtless would very much want to question. - -"You tell him much--he treat you well," Rhool assured us with his heavy -leer. He was, I could see, far more impressed with Allen than with -me; Allen who now was winning his confidence, pretending that there -was much he could tell Tollgamo; hinting even that he and I would not -be averse to joining the great Master of the Gorts in his schemes of -conquest. - -Nereid was unharmed. The woman Garga was caring for her; and on the -third day from Earth, Allen persuaded Garga to bring Nereid to the -turret. After that, Nereid was often with us, and her fragile, delicate -beauty here among the grey, metal-clad Gorts made her seem ethereal -indeed. She came to my side, with her face lighting up. - -"I was afraid they had killed you," she whispered. "Bad time for us -all, my Earth-friend. I--I did very badly on my adventure to Earth." - -She told us then that her father had built the little cylinder, -intending to send one of his men in it. But Nereid, who had learned its -operation, had stolen it. - -Then suddenly she was whispering to us, that the Gorts in the turret -might not hear. "I have a brother--my twin--his name is Leh. Tollgamo -does not know there is such a person." She shot a furtive glance -around the turret. "For several years he has been living with the -Gorts. Pretending he is one of them. From him, father has gotten much -information of Tollgamo's plans. It would be death to Leh if who he is -were known. And now I will tell you--Leh is--" - -A guttural shout from Rhool at the control table checked her. - -"He says, stop whispering," she murmured. "That other thing I will tell -you later.... I speak the English," she said to Rhool. "You speak it -too? Then we talk it here, so that these Earthmen may understand?" - -Rhool laughed. His heavy dark gaze roved her. "You very beautiful," he -said. "See--I talk English. Come sit by me. The starshine makes you -beautiful, girl of Arron." - -I tensed, with my heart pounding as I saw his darkly leering gaze rove -over her again. - -"Easy!" whispered Allen. "Don't start anything." - -Then at last Venus had grown to a full-round, glowing silver disk -before our bow. After the next time of sleep it was a monstrous -ball, filling half the firmament, mottled with clouds so that its -surface configurations were only vaguely apparent. Heavy, thick Venus -atmosphere. Within another day of our living routine we dropped into -it, sliding diagonally downward, with slackening velocity now and -rocket streams of fluorescent gases to check and guide us. - -With Rhool and Nereid I was in the starlit turret. It was night here, -the Venus night of atmospheric fog. Rhool had been drinking from a -little gourd at his belt, and was flushed with his triumph and the -liquor. - -"A few hours," he said to Nereid. "Then I give you to Tollgamo." His -arm went suddenly around her waist, drawing her against him. What he -was muttering in his own language I had no idea; but as she cried out, -struggling with him, I jumped. - -"That's enough from you--let her alone!" I rasped. - - * * * * * - -He cast her off, leaped to his feet. Rage darkened his heavy face so -that it seemed to blacken. My lunging jab struck his mailed chest, but -my swing at his face missed him. He jumped backward, with a hand going -to a weapon at his belt. I have no doubt that I would have been dead -in another few seconds. But there were shouts behind me; the woman -Garga and Allen coming from the corridor. Garga's guttural remonstrance -checked the angry Rhool. And then Borgg, the weird little hunchback, -came shambling forward. - -"Stop it!" Allen shouted at me. "Easy there, you idiot!" - -Borgg grabbed me. As I fought, his mouth jabbed against my ear. His -voice was a sibilant whisper. "Fight me--not too hard! I am Leh--her -brother!" - -Nereid's brother! Spy among the Gorts, for years masquerading in this -grotesque guise of half-demented hunchback jester! I struggled with him -now as he cuffed me, while Nereid stared terrified and Rhool laughed -with coarse ribald amusement, appeased that I was being beaten. - -And then Leh shoved me from the turret, dragged me down the corridor, -slammed me into my sleeping cubby. Again his mouth was to my ear. - -"Later tonight, I will try and turn you loose. And your friend Allen, -and my sister." - -In a swift whisper he told me his plans. At the ship's lower exit porte -he had hidden a small anti-gravity platform, and three pressure suits. -We could escape from there. He shoved the door upon me, barred it and -was gone. - -I sat tense in the darkness, those last hours. Through the bullseye -window the Venus clouds were an opalescent haze of weird glowing -luminosity, like phosphorescence in tropic water. It seemed inherent -to the cloud-vapours; but more than that I could see that it was -radiating up from below. Venus-shine. Pale and weirdly beautiful light -inherent to the planet herself. - -And then our little ship sank below the clouds, and the surface of -Venus lay spread some ten thousand feet below me. It was an amazing -world of lush shining forests and gleaming, rippling opalescent water. -We were near the country of the Arones; but for just a moment, beyond -the shining sea, tiers of black metal mountains were visible which I -knew to be the country of the Gorts. - -The rasp of my door softly opening made me turn. The grotesque hunched -form of Nereid's brother stood there, with a hand in a silencing -gesture to his mouth. - -"Most of them are in the forward control turret. You go down into the -hull to the exit porte. My sister and Allen will join you." - -He shoved me. Then he softly closed my door, barred it, and shambled -forward toward the turret, grinning, mumbling an inane little tune. I -ducked into a doorway; went down an incline ladder. The hull corridor -was dark, with just a small hooded light of green glow. Tense, alert, -I came to the pressure porte doorway. And suddenly a figure stirred in -the shadows. - -"Kent!" It was Nereid, crouching here, waiting for me. I gripped her. - -"Where's Jack?" - -"My brother said he would send him down. But he has not come." - -Then we heard faint footsteps on the incline. And suddenly from up -there in the dimness, came Allen's voice: - -"Why--why hello, Garga. I didn't see you." - -And the Gort woman's voice: "Where you go, Jack Allen?" - -"Why--why Rhool said he didn't mind my moving around the ship. Come -into the turret, Garga. I want you to show me your world. Don't you -think I am going to like it?" - -"Maybe. And if Tollgamo like you, Jack Allen--" - -Their voices receded. Allen would make no attempt now to join us, that -was obvious. With Garga eager always to be with him, his attempt would -be futile. - -I whispered it to Nereid. - -"We are close to my country now," she murmured. "Too late for us to -escape successfully, if we wait much longer." - -We did not need the pressure suits which Leh had hidden here, thinking -he might find an opportunity for us to disembark while still above the -atmosphere. The anti-gravity platform was an oblong, raft-like metallic -thing, with its mechanisms under a hood in its bow. Nereid understood -its workings. She lay flat upon it as I slid it through the porte and -jumped beside her. - -We went like a sliding rocket, with a rush of wind that stopped our -breath. But the hooded bow partially shielded us, so that presently we -could breathe. Behind us, and over us now, the gleaming shape of the -spaceship was seemingly sliding upward and backward. Beneath us the -shining sea with a glowing shoreline off at the horizon seemed rocking -with a crazy sway. And then at last we steadied. - -"Did it!" I gloated. "We made it, Nereid. Evidently they didn't see us -rocketing off." - -There was no sign of any alarm from the ship and presently it had -dwindled high above us and was gone. - -Amazingly swift, that downward glide. The wind whistled past us with a -screaming whine. At five hundred feet Nereid leveled us as we headed -for the glowing shoreline. I could see artificial illumination there -now, a myriad little dots of colored lights. And then little colored -beams were waving. - -"My city--the city of Arron," Nereid said. - -It was a few miles back in the forest, where a great shining lagoon -opened. A riot of glowing, prismatic color burst upon us; and as Nereid -saw it, she sucked in her breath with a little gasp. - -"The love festival," she murmured. "Oh why--why would they have that in -times like these? With Tollgamo so ready to attack us?" - -I stared down with awed amazement at the scene of weird sensuous beauty -spread now so close beneath us. - - * * * * * - -Allen's first sight of the country of Gorts, as he afterward told me, -was a line of terraced hills that rose steeply up from the shore of the -placid sea. He was in the controlroom of the Spaceship with Rhool, and -with the grim woman Garga beside him. It had been a tense time for -Allen, when the escape of Nereid and myself was discovered. But he had -been allowed a measure of freedom, whereas I was locked in my cubby. -Allen was not suspected, nor, fortunately, was Leh. Two of the Gorts -came in for Rhool's wrath. - -"Tollgamo will deal with you," he said. - -Then Allen spoke up, denouncing me as a traitor to him; claiming that -I had agreed to join Tollgamo. "That Peters girl bewitched him," Allen -said. - -Whether it fooled the big, leering Rhool or not, Allen couldn't tell. -Perhaps it did, for Allen now was taken more as one of them, than a -prisoner. - -The Country of the Gorts! To Allen, as he stared down through the -turret window of the spaceship, those terraces of grey metal rock were -as grim and forbidding as the Gort people themselves. In the glowing -night-sheen, the barren wastes near the shore seemed utterly without -life. And then Allen saw weird vegetation in little patches; and -occasionally roaming wild things with round eyes which stared up at the -ship. Some of them incuriously stared; others, frightened, scuttled -away. - -The ship now was following a broad, gleaming inlet of the iridescent -sea. Ten Earth-miles or so, to its head where lights gleamed on a -terraced hillside. It was Tollgamo's little city. Allen had only a -brief glimpse as the ship swooped down and settled into the rack of a -metal landing stage. Rows of blue and green lights were strung in half -a dozen rows on the terraces, one above the other to mark the streets, -with metal ladders vertically connecting them. Metal and stone little -houses, polished, grey-blue, lined the streets. At one end of the lower -street, close by a promontory bluff where beyond a bridge-like metal -ladder a smaller kiosk overlooked the inlet, there was a larger, square -building, terraced into three stories. Round spots of dull purple light -marked its four corners. On its roof, metal-garbed figures paced back -and forth. - -"Tollgamo the Master--that is his house," the woman Garga murmured to -Allen. - -Green-yellow, turgid smoke belched from a chimney-like opening in the -cliff, where doubtless, partly underground, a factory was in operation. -Figures moved in the grim weird glow of the bleak streets; apparatus -was being dragged along one of them. Men and women working; and in the -doors and windows of the cubical houses, the figures of children stood -peering. - -As the ship settled lower, Allen realized that both above and below -ground it was a beehive of activity now. And presently he could hear -sounds; the clank of metal machinery; the grind of gears; the voices of -the workers. - -Beside him Allen was suddenly aware of the grotesque, hunched form -of Nereid's brother, Leh. Neither of them spoke; and then Leh, with -a surreptitious gesture, indicated the shining inlet. Down on the -opposite shore of it, a tunnel mouth showed, with a red-yellow glare -back under the opposite cliff. A crowd of metal-clad workers, goggled -against the glare so that they looked like huge beetle-eyed insects, -were struggling with apparatus which they were pulling out. - -Leh was tense. Then a moment came where he was able to whisper -furtively to Allen. "I will try later to get us to that cliff. Do you -see that Kiosk? If we can get there, we will dive to the water. From -there I have a way of escaping." - -That was all. Allen had only time to murmur assent. The ship landed. -With Rhool half guarding, half leading him, he was taken along -the lower street. The workers stood grim, impassive, until they -recognized Rhool. Then like machines they stood stiff, with a hand -touching the metal insignia of their helmets until Rhool had passed. -Even the children stood rigid, saluting. Little bodies drilled to -efficiency; impassive childish faces. But in their eyes still there was -childhood--excited, wondering childhood. - -Rhool and Allen passed the guards at the entrance to Tollgamo's home. -In the dim blue-green glow of a metal room Allen was told by Rhool -to stand, and Tollgamo would come. Then Rhool was gone. Unseen eyes -were watching Allen. He sensed it; and stood stiffly against one wall, -awaiting the coming of the Master. It was a strange, square apartment. -Blue-lit, so that its richly tiled floor and ceiling glistened -like polished steel. The furniture was square, glistening in the -light-sheen. At one end of the room a huge polished table with a single -big chair at its end, held a variety of small apparatus, a bank of -levers and little buttons as though for signalling commands. And there -was a neat stack of what seemed to be charts and mathematical data. - -A murmur outside the room brought Allen back from his contemplation of -his surroundings. Men's voices; a guttural command. Then Rhool came -in, walking with stiff, pseudo mechanical tread. On his heavy face -was a grinning leer. Behind him there was a Gort man and woman. Allen -recognized them; both had been on the spaceship and both were blamed by -Rhool for the escape of Nereid and me. They came now marching stiffly -erect. Their faces were impassive, but terror was in their eyes and in -the tense set of their lips. - - * * * * * - -And then at last came Tollgamo. Involuntarily Allen gasped at sight of -him. - -He was a giant figure of a man, six feet six, at least. Unlike -the square, robot appearance of his menials, his garments of grey -metal-fabric were soft, and clinging. A flowing tunic fell from his -powerfully broad shoulders to below his waist, with a wide, glistening -metal belt; trousers which sheathed his powerful, shapely legs; shoes -with padded soles so that he moved soundlessly. He was bareheaded, -and his black hair, closely clipped, came to a peak at his forehead. -His skin was the familiar Venus grey, but there was a saffron cast -to it. His high-bridged nose was hawk-like, his chin protruding, but -square--the firm jaw completely characteristic of determination and -power. - -His thin-lipped mouth, as he came quietly in and surveyed Allen with -dark-eyed gaze, was faintly smiling. Allen, standing rigid, silently -met the stare. It was then that he felt, far more than in Tollgamo's -commanding aspect, the power of the man's personality. A dominant force -seemed to radiate from him, so that no one could be in his presence an -instant without feeling it. An aura of command that made Allen suddenly -feel like a child. Helpless; and with a vague, indefinable shudder -within him. - -And then Tollgamo spoke. Suave, gentle voice of careful, cultivated -English, meticulously correct, yet with a strange foreign intonation. - -"So you are one of the Earthmen, Jack Allen?" - -"Yes," Allen said; and then remembered Rhool's instructions, so that -after a moment he added, "Yes, Master. I give you service." - -Tollgamo's faint ironic smile broadened; his glittering dark eyes -seemed to hold a twinkle of sardonic amusement, "You learn fast." His -gaze darted away; went to Rhool, and then to the Gort man and woman -from the spaceship who stood with terror in their eyes. - -"I hear that you need punishment," he said gently. "This Earthman will -learn from it." His tone, almost drab, was casual, with a slow finality. - -With pounding heart, Allen stood watching the metal-clad man and woman -as Tollgamo quietly confronted them. The terror leaped from their eyes -to stamp their faces. And Tollgamo said quietly, - -"That is bad to show fear. That forces the punishment to be worse." - -At his gesture, a flick of his jeweled fingers, they bared their grey -chests. Tollgamo's hands were at his ornamented belt, each of them -leveling a little jeweled weapon. The weapons suddenly hissed, and from -each of them a tiny violet pencilray of heat-light sprang. Allen gulped -as the beams struck the chests of the two victims, and the grey flesh, -turned red, then black as Tollgamo wrote a brand of punishment, an -insignia of dishonor. The man stood firm, with a hand still at salute, -his slit of mouth twisted as he pressed his lips together in an attempt -to restrain his cry of pain. - -But the woman involuntarily moaned. It was too much for Allen. He -gasped, - -"Stop that, you damned torturer! They're not the ones who are guilty -anyway! They--" - -Tollgamo had finished. He snapped off the tiny rays and slowly turned -to where Allen had taken a step toward him. And the smile now was gone -from his serene face. - -"You are not yet trained," he said quietly. "I forgive you for that--so -short a time." Another flick of his hand; and Rhool led the stumbling -man and woman away. - -The smell of the burning flesh drifted off; and Tollgamo, alone here -now, fronted the shuddering Allen. Again he was gently smiling. - -"You show weakness?" he said. "I am disappointed. So you know who -released that Kent Fanning, and Peters' daughter?" - -"No I don't. I'm sorry. That was just my desire to stop you doing that -to that woman." - -Amusement was in Tollgamo's eyes and twitching at his thin grey lips. -"So? You would join me, and still try to lie to me?" His gesture -dismissed it. "We will talk of that some other time." For a moment he -stood pondering. "That girl--that Peters' daughter," he added. "Rhool -tells me she is very beautiful. Is that so?" There seemed a twinkle in -his inscrutable eyes. - -"Yes," Allen agreed. - -"That is interesting. I must see for myself. I think perhaps I must -protect her from the things that will happen tonight." - -Allen tensed inside. Did he mean that his attack upon the Arones would -take place tonight? - -"The woman Garga will give you supper," Tollgamo added abruptly. From -a ring on his finger a silent light-signal sprang across the room and -through a small arcade doorway; and at once Garga appeared there. - -"Take him to my rest-room," Tollgamo said. "He is hungry. Give him -food. I will send for him later." - -"Yes, Master." - -Then as Tollgamo moved away, lithe and silent as a great panther, with -his padded soles soundless on the metal floor, he said quietly. - -"Your thoughts are very transparent, Earthman. But I think you can be -of use to me." - - * * * * * - -In the small adjoining room, Garga brought Allen food. They ate it -together. - -"What did he mean by things that will happen tonight?" Allen suddenly -murmured. - -Garga had been sitting, staring at him with her slumbrous dark gaze. -"The attack," she said. - -"And Peters doesn't know that?" - -"No." Her hand touched him. "I am trusting you." - -"Of course," Allen agreed. He recalled how Nereid's brother, Leh, -as the spaceship landed, had gazed down at the inlet, across which -workers were bringing things from a tunnel to the edge of the water. -Leh had sucked in his breath as though with startled surprise. - -"The attack," Allen murmured. "Will it be upon the city of Arron?" - -"Yes--naturally. And the imbecile slaves there--they think they are -going to help." Her grim grey face lighted with a smile. "That will be -amusing; those imbecile workers causing bloodshed, making it so easy -for us, when we get there." - -"Get there--how, Garga? By air?" - -Allen felt that Leh now was trying to get just such information as -this; and he and Allen would escape--get to Arron and warn Peters. -But evidently haste was necessary. By what Tollgamo said, he would be -attacking perhaps within a few hours. - -"By air?" Garga echoed. "Oh no. By water." She leaned closer to Allen. -A woman warrior. But the womanhood in her now was making her bosom rise -and fall with her emotion at Allen's nearness. "Under the water," she -murmured. "You see how clever we are? That is the last method of attack -that the Arones think we will try. There are grottos beneath the city -of Arron. Grottos with the sea in them. So that we shall come up that -way, appearing all over the city at once." She chuckled. "They will not -know there is to be any attack at all. Just trouble with the imbeciles. -And suddenly we will be there among them!" - -Allen had it now! All the information needed. More than ever now he -wanted to connect with Leh, and escape out of here. - -"Garga, listen," he murmured, "were you ordered to stay here with me, -until Tollgamo sends for me?" - -"Yes," she agreed. Her gaze clung to his. "That will not be--too hard -for you?" - -"No--no, of course not, Garga, but listen--" Abruptly Allen tensed. In -a dark doorway nearby, beyond which Allen knew Tollgamo's guards were -stationed, a dim blob of figure had appeared. Garga's back was to the -door; she did not see the lurking shape. It was a hunched, misshapen -silhouette. Leh, in his masquerade as jester, standing there listening. - -"Listen," Allen quickly resumed. "There's no reason why you should not -show me around a bit, is there? On that cliff quite near here there's a -little kiosk that looks over the inlet. You and I--alone there, Garga?" - -His hand touched her square, metal-clad shoulder; and at once her hand -went up, gripping his. "Perhaps." - -"I would like to have you show me what's going on," he urged. "And to -sit there with you, just for a little time." - -Leh heard it. His hunched figure in the doorway moved and his head -nodded assent; and then he drew back, was gone. - -"I will get you a cloak," Garga murmured abruptly. - -She came with the cloak in a moment; a long, dark-grey garment of -flexible metal. With this on, and with the helmet which Rhool had given -him, Allen could pass for a Gort. Garga was eager, trembling, as she -took him through a small side doorway. The nearby glowing city street -bustled with activity. Garga and Allen were not challenged as they -skirted the edge of the metal street; and presently came to a dark and -narrow little bridge, a fifty foot catwalk-span over a chasm to the -promontory head where the lookout kiosk stood dark and silent above the -lagoon. - -A new idea had come to Allen. As together they crossed the catwalk he -murmured to Garga: - -"The Master spoke of the Peters girl, and asked me if she is beautiful." - -Garga smiled. "So? The Master is ironical always. He plays with you." - -"Meaning what?" - -"He has seen that girl many times. Ten years ago, when there was no -threat of Tollgamo, he was in Arron. She was just a child then. He -played with her. And he has loved her ever since." - -They came to the kiosk, entered its dark interior. It was merely a roof -over a circular metal bench, with a waist high railing. Thirty feet -down, the sea inlet was a black ribbon of water. The yellow tunnel at -the bottom of the opposite cliff was dark now, but further up the inlet -there were lights and activity. - -Allen sat with a hand gripping Garga's mailed arm. Across the -background of his mind he was trying to plan ... he could seize this -amourous woman's weapons. But then what? Would Leh be able to come -here now? Leh, who had mentioned diving from here, with a way of escape -from the inlet. - -"Tollgamo loves Peters' daughter?" Allen was murmuring. - -"Yes. It is sure, although he would not have it known. And he is -planning tonight, before we attack Arron, to--" - -A dark figure near them suddenly materialized. For a second Allen -thought that it was Leh. But it was Rhool! Rhool who doubtless had seen -Garga coming here, and followed her. - -In that tense second Allen was aware that Rhool was drawing a weapon. -And Allen leaped, catapulted with lowered head. He caught Rhool in the -stomach, knocked him backward. But the Gort's weapon had stabbed, a -hiss of violet light. It missed Allen; struck Garga. She went down. - -On the metal floor of the kiosk, Allen rolled with the giant Rhool. -The Gort had no chance to use his weapon again. Allen in a second or -two was on top of him, pounding his head against the metal floor. It -cracked, and his big body quivered and lay limp. - -Allen jumped up. He was aware of a commotion on the catwalk bridge. A -running figure. And men back in the glare at the end of the street; -men shouting, and then running forward. The figure on the catwalk was -Leh. He came plunging into the kiosk. Allen was bending over the fallen -Garga. She was dying, with bloody foam gushing at her mouth. But she -was trying to smile, her eyes staring at Allen. Contrition swept him. -This Amazonian woman-warrior.... Trained to be a cruel machine. But she -had remained only a woman; and she was dying now; just a woman staring -with her last wistful gaze at the Earthman she loved so that she might -take the image of him with her into the Great Beyond. - -Allen murmured: "Oh, Garga, I'm sorry." - -She may have heard him, but then her breath stopped, the light went out -of her eyes and she was gone. - -Allen jumped up as Leh gripped him. Leh, with his face and figure -changed now so that Allen saw him as a handsome stripling, with -something of the look of Nereid. - -"Come on," Leh gasped. "Get that helmet off, and that heavy cloak. -Hurry!" - -A shot came from the catwalk, a spitting electronic stab that sent a -shower of sparks on the kiosk ceiling. From the rail Allen and Leh -dove. Then they were swimming; Leh guiding him as shots stabbed down at -them. Allen was aware that Leh was dragging him underwater through a -small subterranean passage to emerge in a watery cave. A water-cylinder -was here, a twenty foot little submarine, as one might describe it -on Earth. Two small seats were amidships in it, with its operating -mechanisms around them. A moment later, they were off. - - * * * * * - -It was a weird underwater journey; some two hours, Allen guessed, while -they sat in the dimness of the humming little cylindrical interior. -Through the visor pane of the turret into which their heads projected, -Allen had a dim vista of the turgid green-black depths, illumined by -the small search-ray which preceded them. The vessel was propelled by a -rocket-stream of disintegrating water as the electrolysis of backward -gas-thrust shoved them forward. - -Sub-sea world of Venus. Allen saw little of it then, but still enough -to suggest its ramified weirdness. They sped out through the watery -tunnel, down the inlet at a depth of perhaps fifty feet, and then -into the open sea. Empty, black-green depths. Running at fifty feet -submersion, Allen could see beneath them the vague vista of a slimy -undulating bottom. Then it dropped away, with only occasional jagged -spires of peaks. Tumbled, submarine world. Fishes flipped away, -frightened by the light. Occasionally, there was a glimpse of monstrous -things that quivered; shapes that hung suspended, watching with -dull-green round eyes. - -A submarine forest for a time was to one side, an intricate tracery of -vegetation, with air-pods holding it upright as it slowly weaved and -undulated like a thing quivering with life. A gigantic thing like a -great squid with weaving tentacles came wobbling from a forest glade. -It lunged to attack, but the little cylinder avoided it and sped past. - -Leh hardly spoke. He was tense, guiding their frail craft; and tense -too with this emergency of haste to get to Peters. Leh had learned as -much or more of Tollgamo's plans than had Allen. - -Then at last they were nearing their destination. Allen had learned -now that Peters and his men of science were not located in the city of -Arron. They had laboratories, workshops and arsenal on a rocky island -fortress. It was some twenty miles by water from Arron; within a mile -or so of a partly submerged section of the forest, where a village -known as the Water City was built. - -Allen saw the watery foundations of the Water City as the cylinder sped -past. Then Leh was slackening, to land at a sub-sea dock beneath the -arsenal. The dock's weird dark outlines presently were beside them. -With air-renewer mechanisms like a pack on their shoulders, and a -round transparent glassite helmet, which had an elastic gasket tightly -fitting their throats, they emerged through the cylinder's little -pressure lock into the water. Heavy shoes made them able to walk, with -a pushing swaying shove. - -Leh, with a metal-tipped finger, touched a tiny metal plate on Allen's -helmet. And Leh's voice, dim, muffled, sounded in Allen's ears. - -"You follow me. There will be a guard where we emerge." - -Allen swayed along a rocky path which was slowly ascending. The turgid, -black-green depths here were dimly lighted by a glow from some unseen -source. It was a tumbled, honeycombed submarine slope. Clumps of -vegetation stood like black thickets to the sides. Ahead, the glow -seemed brighter. - -Then suddenly Leh stopped his advance; stood rigid. Within the round, -wholly transparent ball of his helmet his youthful face was tense. And -his voice murmured. - -"Allen, look there!" - -They had no more warning than that. From a clump of tawny submarine -vegetation nearby, two human figures suddenly emerged! Figures that -stood as though startled for a second, and then came plunging to attack! - - - V - -Festival of Love! On the swaying little anti-gravity platform I -lay with Nereid, staring down at the strange, colorful scene that -stretched beneath us. It was at the end of our escape-flight from the -Spaceship, in time doubtless before Allen on that trip arrived in -Tollgamo's mountain city. - -What Allen saw of the grim little metal and rock city of the Gorts was -in weird contrast to what I saw now of the riotous, colorful forest -and water scene where the gay festival of Love and Music was in full -progress. - -There was only a brief glimpse at first, as we swooped down. We had -already passed over the main city of Arron. It lay between the open -sea and an area a mile or so inland, where there was a lagoon, little -chains of lakes, threads of tiny streams and a myriad little dots -of tropic islands. I had seen, down in the forest, lines of gay, -pastel-tinted lights to mark the city streets. Then we came to the -lagoon, where the festival was being held. - -A watery failyland of gayety. The lagoon, a circular spread of water of -perhaps five miles, was rippled with a soft night-breeze. The ripples -were stained with the opalescent night-sheen from the overhead clouds, -and stained like a painter's pallette with a riot of glorious tints -from the strings of colored lights which connected the little islands. - -One big island, a thousand feet in length, stood in the center. A -pavilion was on it, from which soft exotic music flooded out into the -night--music that blended on the tropic breeze with a vast murmur of -excited voices. I could guess that there might be four or five thousand -people disporting themselves here. The main island was thronged with -people moving about, or crowding toward the pavilion where with -the music there seemed dancing and perhaps some form of theatrical -entertainment. - -Boats were on the thread-like little canals between the islands. A -barge crowded with young men and girls, all in gay-colored robes, was -slowly approaching from the open lagoon. Little boats, mere six foot -rafts, each held a girl and man; the man paddling, the girl fending off -flowers with which she was pelted by young men on other rafts, or on -the shore. - -The laughing screams of girls floated up as they swam in the open -lagoon, their voices calling jocular defiance to the men on shore to -come out and catch them. - -Nereid slid our little flying platform skilfully down. We landed on a -small level island which was connected with the big island by an arcade -bridge. No one had seemed to notice us. Boats were tied up here along -the shore. Others were arriving, disembarking the gay merrymakers. All -were in holiday attire; a variety of motley costumes, indescribable as -a fancy-dress costume ball on Earth. Some of them, men and girls, wore -cloaks and hoods, with little gaily colored masks covering their eyes. - -I stood for a moment with Nereid. "You're going to find your father?" I -suggested. - -"Yes. If he is here." She told me then of the Arsenal rock beyond the -Water City, where Peters and his men most of their time were working. -"He is there probably," she added. "I think he would not come here -tonight." - -"Then what would we do, go to him there?" - -"Yes, of course. I will see our Ruler first. Jenten-Shah--he will -be here. Over there on the big island, in the pavilion probably." -Bitterness was in her tone. Nereid was thinking of the menace of the -Gorts, with their engines of destruction. She and I did not know then, -what Allen was just about now learning--that there was an urgency of -haste since Tollgamo's attack would be made tonight. But as we threaded -our way under the gay colored lights across the arcade to the main -island, I somehow seemed to feel the undercurrent of menace here. -Occasionally we passed little figures who were evidently onlookers. -The imbecile workers, lower class who were almost in the position -of slaves. They were weird little creatures, most of them no more -than four feet tall, grey-skinned and powerfully built. We passed -one who was standing on the shore gazing at a raft where a lone girl -shrouded in blue-white filmy drapery was being pelted with flowers. The -gnome-like imbecile stood impassive, gazing with vacant face. Then he -was muttering to himself. A fragment of it reached us. - -"Tollgamo is coming to help us workers. We won't have to work tomorrow. -Then we can do things like this." - -I gripped Nereid. "You hear what that worker said? No work for him -tomorrow. Do you suppose--" - -She tried to smile. "What an imbecile says never means much, Kent. But -I must tell father." - - * * * * * - -Occasionally now people were staring at us, at me. Some rushed at us, -but Nereid with an imperious gesture scattered them; and in a moment, -with their other diversions, they had forgotten us. Then we came to -where there was a pile of cloaks. Nereid gave me a dark robe and hood; -and found a long white cloak and white cowl for herself. Then from her -green undergarment she produced a little golden star, fastened it on -the breast of her cloak. Queer insignia, that star with a crescent moon -above and below it. - -The white cloak and cowl to signify that she was an Untouchable. -Nereid's beautiful little face bore a faint twisted smile. "That is -what some of them call us, Kent. That is a term of derision, because -now, at a festival like this, there are things we do not like." - -Love, music, laughter--all so admirable. But here in Arron, under the -leadership of the wanton Ruler, Jenten-Shah, it was becoming license. -There were some five hundred young Virgins here in Arron, who were -trying at least for moderation. And trying to help Peters prepare for -the menace of the Gorts ... Untouchables. Nereid was leader of them. - -In our robes and cowls now, Nereid and I were attracting no attention -save that occasionally there was a jibe at Nereid. Laughing young men, -befuddled perhaps by some intoxicating drink with wanton girls clinging -to them, would sometimes lunge at us with mocking laughter. But we -pushed past them, shoving our way toward the big open pavilion. I could -see now the jam of people under its low spreading roof. - -We were still following the shorefront. From the pavilion a bevy of -girls with flowing drapes came running and plunged into the water of -the lagoon. - -I gripped Nereid's white-cloaked arm. "That big figure in red--who is -that?" - -I had seen the giant figure here at an edge of the crowd, when we -crossed the arcade bridge. A man in robe and cowl of red and black. -Then he had vanished. He was visible again now, a huge fellow, six and -a half feet, at least. He was standing a hundred feet or so ahead of -us, on the pink-white coral sand of the shore. And then abruptly he -moved away and was gone again. - -Nereid stared, and then shook her head. "I do not know. I--" She -checked herself; her face had a queer startled look. - -"What--" I demanded. But we were in the pavilion now, with the jam of -watching people pressing us. - -"You will wait here, Kent?" Nereid murmured. "I will ask Jenten-Shah of -my father." - -I drew back behind a palm on which great orchid-like flowers were -growing. I could see the dais where the gay fatuous ruler was seated -with food and drink before him, with his young women favorites around -him as they watched the platform where a barbarically voluptuous woman -in flame-colored drapes was dancing with colored light-beams upon her. - -I had a glimpse of Nereid importuning Jenten-Shah. It was brief; and -then Nereid came back to me. - -"Father is not here, Kent. He told the King not to hold this festival -tonight." - -"Did you mention that imbecile worker?" - -She nodded. Her face was grim, frightened now. "He said, if any -imbecile causes trouble there will be a hundred imbeciles killed as -punishment. He is drunk with _marite_. He laughed at the idea that -Tollgamo would dare attack." - -Merrymaking on the brink of disaster and death. - - * * * * * - -As though both Nereid and I were fascinated now, for a time we stood in -the pavilion corner, watching the colorful scene. Half the people here -were robed and masked, waiting a later time when a bell would give the -signal for the unmasking. I saw several of the white-robed girls--the -Untouchables. Then one of them, with a golden star on her breast, like -Nereid's but without the crescent moons, came and joined us. Nereid had -met her a while ago near the Ruler's dais. Her name was Venta. Under -Nereid, she was commanding the little group of protesting Virgins. - -She was very like Nereid, save that beneath her white cowl I could see -that her hair was dark. She stared at me. "So? The Earthman?" She shook -my hand with a quaint awkwardness. "You look in the same fashion as her -father, the Meester Peters," she commented. - -Then suddenly all three of us were stricken tense. There was a -commotion across the crowded pavilion, where a scantily clothed young -girl was struggling, terrified, in the grip of a thick-set, crooked -little imbecile man. He was forcing his caresses on her and the girl -was screaming. - -The music suddenly ceased. In the hushed, stricken silence, the -imbecile's crazy childish laughter mingled with the girl's screams. -Then there was a rush as a group of young men nearby plucked the girl -away, knocked the gnome-like worker down, beating him, slamming him -until he lay inert. - -It was like a spark in gunpowder. People were shouting. Somebody found -another imbecile and attacked him. A wave of shouting spread beyond the -pavilion. But it lasted only a moment. The music started up again. The -dancing continued. - -Nereid gripped me. "Out in the workers' village they will hear of that. -And what they might try to do--" - -Her words evoked a grim picture of powerful little men, with minds like -children suddenly enraged to frenzy; and the half-drunken youths at the -festival, ready enough to kill any worker, with the Ruler encouraging -them. - -And this was what Tollgamo wanted, of course; confusion here to make -his attack easier. - -The girls now were swiftly talking in their own language. We had shoved -our way out of the pavilion, were standing near the shorefront; and the -girls had drawn a little apart from me. I could see Venta nodding as -Nereid gave her instructions. Then Nereid came to me. - -"She will get our Virgins, Kent. She has ten other girls who will help -her collect them all." - -The Virgins--five hundred of them if Venta could locate them all--would -come in surface boats, past the Water City to the Arsenal. Nereid and I -would precede them, starting now. All to offer ourselves to Peters and -his fighting men if Tollgamo should strike tonight. But how would he -strike? That we did not know. - -"And in the Water City," Nereid was hastily telling me, "many of the -people living there have come here to the festival tonight. But some -of our girls live there." Again her lips twisted with that wry little -smile. "They will be there now. Some have brothers and fathers who work -with my father in the Science Arsenal. But some do not, and I will send -them here. If there is trouble with the imbeciles, they will help quell -it." - -Venta, ready to start on her mission, called goodbye. Then for just a -moment Nereid ran after her to add something. Two other girls in the -white Untouchable robes joined them, and stood talking about fifty feet -away from where I waited. The shore there had risen to a little grassy -bluff about twenty feet above the glittering, light-bathed lagoon. - -And suddenly I gasped. From a clump of vivid blue and orange palms -which grew thickly beside the four girls, a figure suddenly emerged. A -giant man-shape, in red and black robe. Then his robe and cowl dropped -from him, revealing a towering powerful giant with dark close-clipped -hair, dressed in a grey garment of woven metal with jeweled weapons at -his broad belt. And in that second of my numbed gaze, I was aware that -he had scattered the girls and had seized Nereid, holding her slim form -against his huge bulk. - -And one of the other girls screamed: "Tollgamo!" - - * * * * * - -Tollgamo! My first sight of him. And like Allen, for just a second I -stood numbed, awed by the power, the dominance that radiated from him. -He was quietly smiling. His hand went up to wave the girls away. - -"Tollgamo! Tollgamo!" The name went like a wave, back from the shore, -so that the merrymakers gasped, stood stricken. For that second it was -a tableau, with only the smiling Tollgamo in movement. Slowly he was -backing, drawing the fighting, struggling Nereid with him. Backing -toward the thick clump of palms. - -Then I was aware that I was dashing forward, shouting. It was only -fifty feet. From one of Tollgamo's hands, a spit of tiny blue light -hissed at me. Missed. Then Venta and two of the other girls had cast -off their white robes. Slim little creatures, like Nereid, greenly -clad. Soon Tollgamo was struggling with all four of them. He flung them -off, still trying to hold Nereid. - -It was only a second or two as I plunged at them. Then in a group they -went over the little promontory and hit the water with a splash. Almost -simultaneously I dove. The green opalescent water closed over me. -Somewhere near at hand I could see the blurr of the struggling figures. -But I could not reach them. With all my strength I swam, but then I had -to come up for air. I dove again. Accursedly helpless. Then on another -try I met a girl coming up, then another and another--all four of them -bobbing to the surface with me. All panting; unhurt, but angry that -they had not captured Tollgamo! - -Then Venta and the other two girls swam away on their errand. Nereid -drew me forward as we swam, to avoid the commotion of gathered people -on the bank. Tollgamo was gone. His plan had been, quite evidently, to -dive into the water with Nereid here. Some twenty feet down, as the -girls attacked him, he had tried to shove Nereid through a rock-rift, -which obviously opened again to some cave where air was trapped. - -"I got away from him," Nereid was saying. "A man, even Tollgamo, is so -clumsy in the water, so quick to smother. I could have followed him but -he blocked the little passage with a rock." - -"And maybe he's trapped down there?" - -She shook her head. "There are so many passages, and all lead out to -the sea. Of course he had a cylinder-boat under there." - -Together we swam out into the open lagoon, diagonally across it to -where, beyond the lights of the festival, Nereid had a little surface -boat in which we could get now to the Water City. - -"My boat is about a mile from here. Can you swim so far?" - -"Yes. I guess so." I had always counted myself a strong swimmer; a -mile was not too much for me. But I was like a puffing tugboat now, -laboriously splashing along. Nereid was laughing at my efforts; trying -to tow me; then giving it up, swimming around me, under me. - -Occasionally, while we were still in the light-glare, other girls came -dashing up, with questions of Tollgamo; and of me. Once a group of them -dashed at me, with shouts of laughter trying to seize me, but Nereid -drove them off. Then we were swimming alone in the luminous opalescent -night; and at last we reached the little boat. Nereid was already in -it; waiting impatiently to haul me aboard as I came panting. - -It was a narrow, canoe-like surface craft; some twenty feet long, of -dull white metal. Its hooded mechanisms were in bow and stern--water -electrolysis. Soon we had attained a considerable speed, silent, -vibrationless. And then we were on the open sea, with the lights of -Arron fading behind us. - - * * * * * - -Venus night at sea. It was weirdly beautiful. The low-hanging curtain -of heavy clouds was luminous with pale blue and silver sheen. The -water, silver-rippled by a gentle night-breeze, was opalescent as our -little craft hurled up a bow wave, with a gleaming phosphorescent wake -behind us. Off to the right, for a time, the faint blurred outlines -of metal mountains were visible on a promontory near the land of the -Gorts. Then we passed it; and the forest to the left had faded away to -be just a blur. - -Beside me, Nereid sat grim and silent, staring ahead as she steered -our boat. The breeze tossed her tawny tresses against me. My mind went -back to that other night, back on Earth when she had sat in my little -fishing boat, with its outboard motor puttering. How long ago that -seemed. And like that other night, my hand went now to a lock of her -hair, beside us on the seat. - -"Nereid, when this is over, this war--" - -Her face turned toward me. She was faintly, whimsically smiling. - -"I think my father will like you," she murmured. - -"And you, Nereid?" - -There was no impishness, this time. Her gaze met mine, shyly, and she -nodded. - -But a moment later we were again both thinking of Tollgamo. And we were -wondering about Allen, and Nereid's brother, Leh. Had Tollgamo put them -to death, in vengeance for our escape from Rhool's spaceship? - -Then at last, to our left, the outlines of the lush forest shore were -close at hand. - -"The Water City," Nereid murmured. - -It was built in what seemed a partly submerged area of the jungle. -Tangled tree-tops projecting from the water, with little houses of -thatch and wood built like birds' nests between them. Or queer little -dwellings of woven blue rush, built on platforms that floated on the -water and were lashed between the protecting tree-trunks. Narrow arcade -bridges connected the houses; and the little balcony platforms where -boats were moored. - -There were a few dots of lights. Then we passed the first group of -houses. Very queer. Nereid stared at me. Queer indeed. It was far into -the time of sleep, but still there should have been someone attracted -to the house doorways as we passed. - -We had slackened now, with the houses, most of them dark, clustering -all about us. - -"There is Venta's home," Nereid murmured. "Her father and brother will -be there." - -We drifted under an arching bridge. The figure of a man was lying on -it. Asleep? Nereid called softly to him, but he did not move. Then I -was aware of a queer, acrid smell here. Choking smell. Nereid coughed -suddenly. - -The boat landed at a low platform dock of Venta's home. We jumped to -the platform. Two men were here. Venta's father and brother. They lay -in a heap, one half upon the other. Dead! The opalescent sheen of the -glorious night was ghastly on their dead faces; mouths goggling with -blackened, protruding tongue; eyes staring with the agony and death. - -And from here we could see other house balconies. Inert forms on them. -All dead. - -In that stricken second, as we stood shuddering on the little platform -with the sea lapping under it, a new horror suddenly assailed us. There -was a tangle of vegetation here, tree branches overhead; air-vines with -redolent flowers and pods on them, dangled, swaying in the breeze. And -abruptly I realized that the dangling, rope-like vines were visibly -growing! At an edge of the platform one of them was slithering like a -serpent! - -And Nereid gasped: "That smell! The gas of nitro-carbon in some -terrible concentration!" - -I stood numbed. Nitrogenous gas-fumes, sprayed here on the night-breeze -by what deadly means I could not guess, had asphixiated the people of -the little Water City. Most of them asleep, they were quickly overcome -by the insidious fumes. An intensification of the gas which was -normally used by the Arones to stimulate vegetation growth, as we on -Earth use fertilizer. Nitro-carbon--deadly to humans; stimulating to -plant-life! - -And the air-vines here were growing with a deadly acceleration! - -In that same second, as we stood momentarily confused, one of the -dangling, swaying vines, grown monstrous now to be as thick as my arm, -struck against Nereid. Sentient vegetation! With the contact, the -damnable dangling vine suddenly wrapped itself around her, its powerful -sinuous blue feelers gripping her slender white throat, strangling her! -And in the night-silence an imbecile was gibbering, with triumphant, -maniacal laughter! - - - VI - -For an instant I was stunned, with so great a rush of horror that the -weird scene blurred before me. Then I leaped, tearing at the quivering -vine-rope that held Nereid in its grip. Ghastly thing. I tore it loose, -broke it--gruesome, squashing, flimsy stuff. But as I cast broken -segments of it away, more seemed to come. - -Weird, horrible combat. A slithering tentacle gripped my ankles. -Another was winding itself around my throat. There was a terrible -moment when I thought that Nereid and I would go down; and on the -platform now at our feet, another leafy vine had come crawling, with -lashing feelers and red pods that opened like little bloody jaws. - -Then I tore Nereid loose. The whole platform now seemed cluttered with -writhing vegetation. From overhead dangling things were swinging, -reaching down at us. - -"Nereid, our boat--which way?" In the dim luminous light I was -confused. Nereid led me; and we staggered to our boat, tumbled into it. -A vine-end like a rope threshed at us as we frantically shoved off. - -And in the silence now, with only the leafy rustling of the growing -vines, the gibbering, maniacal laughter of the imbecile still sounded. - -"Kent, look--" Nereid touched my arm as she guided our little boat out -into the open water. On a rock nearby, a hunched, gnome-like figure was -crouched. Then I saw his face, goggled with great round eyepanes and -nose-breather, with a pipe that led to a pack on his back. - -Nereid steered us toward him; we stopped and I reached and seized him. - -"You did this?" I demanded. "You turned loose the gas that killed these -people? Who told you to do it? Who gave you the gas, and the mechanisms -to spread it?" - -His laughter turned to a terrified whimpering. Nereid murmured, - -"That mask he's wearing--the workers use that, in our agriculture when -they spray with the nitro-carbon. But we have no sprayers that could do -a thing like this, nor gas deadly enough." - -"You did it?" I shook him. - -And then he was laughing again. And suddenly I realized that of course -he could not understand English. I cast him loose. And Nereid flung -questions at him in her own language. - -"Figures came up from the water," she said. "He happened to have his -mask and saved himself." - -We left him there on the rock, still laughing. Tollgamo's first attack! -Would he try to loose this gas on Arron? Our little boat sped past the -Water City. I could see now that the quivering, slithering vegetation -everywhere was engulfing the flimsy houses. Its stimulated growth would -persist, an hour or a day, and then subside. - -Shuddering, we drove our boat onward. The great Arsenal rock loomed -ahead of us now, a huge almost square lump of metallic rock rising -sheer from the water to a height of two or three hundred feet. On -all sides it was like that; its only access was from beneath where -subterranean passages ran into its honeycombed, grotto interior. -Impregnable fortress, save from beneath the sea. - -Nereid tied our little craft to a metal fastener against the black, -sleek rock-cliff. Then for me she produced the air-mechanisms and round -transparent helmet with elastic gasket to fit around my throat. And -heavy, metal-weighted shoes for us both. - -But no helmet was needed for her. "We will be there in ten or fifteen -minutes," she said. "I can see better without the head-covering." - -We dropped into the luminous, opalescent water. Nereid held my hand -as I floundered a little, trying to remain balanced upright while our -weighted shoes carried us slowly down. It was a descent of some fifty -feet, with the opalescent surface light fading into the black-green -of the depths. Then slowly an undulating dark surface seemed coming -up to us; and we landed, swaying on our feet. Weird, submarine world. -The jagged slope to one side went on down into the depths. Beside us, -swaying leafy vegetation stood upright in the water--a little thicket -here, with what seemed a rocky path, ascending along the edge of the -black abyss. - -Through my transparent helmet I stared at Nereid. She was smiling, -unbreathing, as much at home down here as on the land. She gestured -that we were to take the ascending path; and held my hand to steady me -as we started our swaying, shoving climb. I could see now that ahead of -us there was a little tunnel into the cliff where we would emerge into -air. - -And suddenly I felt Nereid's hand tighten convulsively on mine. I saw -the blurred figures in another second, two upright swaying blobs close -ahead of us as we emerged past the seaweed clump. Two men down here. -Tollgamo's men? I shook loose from Nereid and plunged forward. - -Then in another second I could see the faces in the transparent -helmets. And one of them I recognized. It was Leh and Allen here, as -startled as ourselves at the sudden encounter. - - * * * * * - -I think now I need only briefly sketch that following hour or two while -within the Arsenal fortress Allen and I met Peters and his men, and all -of us hastily prepared for Tollgamo's attack. I found Nereid's father -quite what I had expected--a quiet, grave-faced man of somewhat my own -type, garbed like his fellow scientists in tight trousers and blouse of -sleek black fabric. There was no time then to exchange more than the -briefest of questions, as Nereid hastily told him what had happened to -her since her little note had informed him of her furtive departure -for Earth. - -"You worried me very much, my daughter," he said quietly. And the same -sense of humor which she herself had twinkled now in his grey eyes. -"But I think this is no time for reproof." - -Peters of course had known that Tollgamo's attack was imminent; and he -was almost ready. Allen and I could help little here with everything -so indescribably strange. Nereid's virgins were arriving now in little -dripping groups that scattered through the workshop grottos with -chattering voices that added immeasurably to the confusion. They were -all like Nereid, most of them clad in the brief, shining sea-green -garment, all of them with flowing hair and eager, excited little faces. -But I could see now the evidence of Nereid's Earth heritage--these -other girls, even more slim and frail-looking, with oval faces and pert -little pointed chins. And their skin was distinctly less pink-white -than hers. - -Finally the departure for battle. Assembling of this weird little -sub-sea army. I watched it with silent, awed amazement. There was but -one type of sub-sea vessel here, the small underwater cylinders such -as Leh and Allen had come in from the country of the Gorts. Most of -them were that same twenty foot size, to carry two men; and a few -of them were some thirty feet, with space for three. An underwater -electronic ray armed them in bow and stern. Leh explained the weapon to -me. It had an effective range of fifty feet, with a current duration -of some ten seconds. It would kill any living substance at that range -almost instantly; and with duration would eat into the metal armour of -Tollgamo's ships. - -"My father has had no opportunity to build an underwater weapon of more -range and power than this. It is all we have," Leh was telling us. And -my heart sank, and Allen and I exchanged glances of dismay, as Leh -added: - -"Tollgamo has built them up to a range of three hundred feet." - -There were about fifty of the small cylinder-boats; most of them to -take two men. For battle tonight it was all Peters could assemble. -But the cylinders were fleet as darting fishes. We had mobility, and -courage, but with sinking heart I wondered if it would serve us. - -And I also wondered what Tollgamo would have. Leh's information gave -us little hint; and presently he, Allen and I took one of the larger -cylinders. - -We ran without lights. For a time all I could see was a turgid vista -of dark-green depths. An abyss of water at times was beneath us. Then -there were the tops of jagged mountain peaks, naked black needle -spires rising in clusters out of the depths. Leh knew very well the -oceanography here in this undulating terrain of seascape. We headed -for the mouth of the inlet at the head of which Tollgamo's city was -perched. But before we reached there, little lights down in the watery -green haze suddenly appeared. An orange, blurred haze, separating in a -moment into dotted points of light. - -"Tollgamo's forces!" Leh murmured. - -At perhaps a hundred feet of depth, we shut off our tiny rocket-streams -of oxo-hydro fluorescence and hung poised. The three of us sat -breathless, peering. Had our tail-stream been discovered? It seemed -not. There was no undue movement of the Tollgamo lights. Just a -slow-moving little string of them, ahead and below us. - - * * * * * - -I could see the bottom now, a great undulating spread here of dark -surface. Rock, doubtless, with slime and ooze on it. The moving dots -of light presently disclosed the blobs of enemy vessels. Ten of them, -crawling on the bottom in a slow moving line. Cubes and oblongs of -metal. Dwarfed by distance they were like struggling little bugs, with -lighted eyes and tiny searchbeams waving like feelers before them. -Metallic vehicles, perhaps with caterpiller tread, crawling on the -bottom. - -We drifted closer; almost over them for a moment so that I could guess -that each of them was a hundred feet or more in length. Turreted oblong -vessels, armoured; and armed with the three hundred foot rays. How -many men were in them? Of this Leh had little knowledge, save that he -thought perhaps a total of two thousand. Men and women, crawling along -in the ooze of this sea bottom, tense, with minds only upon the kill. - -"They're heading for Arron," Leh murmured. "In those big ships they -surely must have a vast apparatus for land attack." - -To come up abruptly within the lagoons and interior waterways of Arron. -Perhaps then, on the windward side of the city, to loose their deadly -lethal gas. - -Two hours, at least, for them to reach Arron. The lights crawled under -us; and a vagrant ocean current drifted us away, so that presently we -dared fling on our rocket-stream power and speed back to Peters. He was -ready now, and his hundred men embarked in the fifty little cylinders. -And the five hundred girls were ready, too. I saw them on the ocean -surface, from the turret of our cylinder as we bobbed to the top. An -amazing army of green-clad nymphs. Each of them had a ray-cylinder -of our fifty foot projector. They lay, each of them on a six-foot -little sub-sea sled, powered, like our cylinders, with the oxo-hydro -gas-streams. In effect, a narrow, six foot long raft, with a hooded bow -that housed the control mechanisms and protected the girls' faces from -the rush of water. The girls' bodies had a weight of about the same -as water. Specific gravity of 1. And the sled with its mechanisms was -adjusted to be the same. Girl and sled--neither to float nor sink, but -approximately to hang poised. And thus, with little tilting fins on the -sled's sides, and lateral and vertical bow and stern rudders, the power -would thrust them down into the depths and up again at will. - -We started. Running at first on the surface, the largest of our little -cylinders with Peters and two of his skilled men led us in a line. And -behind us came the girls, in squads of twenty, each with a leader. They -had often practiced it, for sport and for the possibility of such a -time as this. - -As we passed the Water City, we submerged to fifty feet. I turned to -look back through our turret. Like darting fishes the girls came down, -still holding their formation as we swept on through the green-black -depths to battle. - - - VII - -For a time we ran with short-range headlight beams preceding us, then, -as we neared the area where we knew Tollgamo's ships should now be, we -ran dark. But still there were the glowing, bubbling rocket-stream -tails of our fifty little cylinder boats; and the rocket-streams of the -girls' diving sleds. And our swift passage through the water left a -phosphorescent wake so that the area all around us glowed, opalescent -with a pallid, eerie light. - -Leh and his father had arranged the tactics of battle which we hoped we -could employ. He explained them to us now. Peters' larger cylinder was -banded with white alumite stripes so as to be easily distinguishable. -Its light signals would give us orders. - -"There is a ridge," Leh was saying. "It crosses from the promontory -head of the metal mountains across to the Arron forests. We think -Tollgamo will follow it as his best method of approach." - -It was a transverse ridge, lying at an average of not much more than -fifty feet beneath the surface. A submarine plateau, in main extent -some ten miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, with deeps on both -sides of it where the bottom dropped sharply away, in places to -unfathomable depths. If we could catch the Tollgamo vehicles in that -area it was our best chance for a shallow attack. And that, we needed. -The girls especially, could not dive into the lower, higher pressures. - -Then presently ahead of us, Peters signalled and we all slackened, -wheeling, gathering in a group. - -"There they are!" Leh murmured tensely. "Just climbing to the ridge." - -The shallower water here was bright with the upper light filtering -down. Astonishingly bright; and suddenly I realized that the Venus -night was over. Dawn had come to the world of air above us, penetrating -the cloud-masses of the Venus atmosphere. It came down here with a -faint ruddy glow, so that now we could see miles of the area before us. -At first it was blurred and unreal. But in a moment I was used to it, -my mind translating its distortion into the terms of its reality. - -A dark abyss was under us here as we poised. Ahead, a thousand feet -away now, the ridge was visible. A cliff was at one side of it, a -honeycombed, submarine wall, a peak of which rose above the surface as -a volcanic little island, with a tiny crater mouth, yawning faintly -yellow from the fires of the earth which here must be close. - -The slow-moving, struggling little line of submarine vehicles was just -mounting to the ridge. Only a few miles from here and they would be -under the city of Arron. We must turn them back here. - -Slowly we approached, still out of Tollgamo's range. We had long since -been seen, of course. The waving headlights of the ten huge black -vessels turned our way. Monsters with searching, glaring eyes. And then -a tentative shot came. In the blurred watery twilight it was a stab of -thin violet light. Not instantaneous, but slow-moving as though for a -second it was pushing its way at us. But it blurred to nothingness far -short of us; and in a few seconds it died. - -At Peters' signal we divided now, spreading fanshape between the -leading Tollgamo ship and Arron; skimming close under the surface, -still keeping three hundred feet or more away from the leading vessel. -But we had to get within fifty feet for our rays to be effective! I -could feel my heart pounding, and my blood seemed cold. - -And then a puff of orange light from the bow of Peters' cylinder gave -the signal for our first attack. Beside me I could hear Allen suck in -his breath. My hands were on the small gun-firing mechanisms--my two -small ray projectors on one side of the cylinder, Allen's on the other, -with Leh's ranging in a quadrant of the bow and stern. In a slanting -dive, we plunged forward and down. - - * * * * * - -It was a chaos of blurred confusion to me, that first slanting plunge -that took us close past the looming black side of one of the Tollgamo -vessels, half circling it until in a few seconds we had fired our six -little stabbing bolts and were past, rising again. I was aware that all -the area of water suddenly seemed churned into silver phosphorescence -through which shapes were diving. A bolt stabbed at us and missed. -Then as we were mounting, one caught us. For a second it clung, with -a bubbling red viscosity of fusing metal, glaring against my small -bullseye pane. Would it eat through? Undoubtedly, if it clung too long, -or if another were to strike in the same place. - -But we twisted away from it: and in another second its built-up -electronic power had discharged and it died. I realized then the -advantage of our mobility with our five hundred and fifty agile little -units against the ten huge caterpiller vehicles of Tollgamo, at least -we might have an equal chance. Their three hundred foot rays were -thin as pencil-streaks. Not easy for them to hit a tiny, swift-moving -target. And I saw too, that once we were close, there were many angles -at which the rays could not reach us. - -Leh, Allen and I each fired two charges in that first dive. I saw some -of them strike against the looming black armoured hull of the Tollgamo -vessel as we flipped past it, each hit marked by bubbling red pits of -metal. Through the bullseye windows I caught a vague glimpse of crowded -men and women Gorts inside. - -Then we were back, almost at the surface, out of range again, wheeling, -poising, with the enemy behind and beneath us. I stared down, and saw -that the girls, like a school of plunging dolphins, were making their -dive. And then I had my first sight of one as she was struck. She was -a tiny descending silver streak; and the bolt darted up, caught her. -For a horrible second or two it clung. I saw her waver; come loose from -her sled. And then she was a twisted, blackened, almost shapeless blob, -slowly drifting down, with crimson air-bubbles for a moment rising. -Then on the black ridge bottom her inert form lay, with a little -movement as the water made it weave, as though horribly she were still -alive. - -For five minutes we stared down at the swarm of attacking girls. They -swarmed within the wide angles of the opposing rays. Some of them were -at the hulls of the enemy ships, holding their rays close, trying to -melt through. - -Then at last they were rising; swooping back to the surface. Some of -them! But others were wavering away. With broken mechanisms discarded, -some were swimming free. And others were sinking. Broken, twisted -little shapes, with the water tinted crimson as they sank. - -Leh, Allen and I stared at each other, white-faced, as the girls came -fluttering up, flipping on the surface to get air, organize into squads -again; and to recharge their tiny projectors. The squads reformed. My -heart sank at the pitiful gaps in the formations. We had lost more -than a hundred and fifty girls in that first attacking dive. And two -of our ten cylinder-boats were crippled. Air bubbles were oozing from -them; then the exit escape porte of one of them opened as the little -cylinder sank. The two men came out, with buoyant belts which all of us -were wearing so that they floated away on the surface. - -But we had done some damage. Two or three of the big Tollgamo vessels -seemed to be in distress. The one leading the line had checked its -advance. Those behind seemed trying to hasten forward, so that now -the ships were bunching. One of them, seemingly out of control, had -slued sidewise, close to the edge of the abyss where the green-black -depths went down perhaps a thousand fathoms. Perilously close, so that -now as we stared it sagged drunkenly on the brink and seemed out of -commission. And at the window portes of another of them, a dull-red -glare was apparent. An interior fire. - -"Not too bad," Leh was muttering. "We'll do better, next time." - -Where was Nereid? My heart seemed to stick in my throat with -apprehension as I watched the girls coming up. And then I saw her; -still unharmed. She came close past our turret on her power-sled, her -white arm waved at us as she flipped past and broke the surface for air. - -And then Allen suddenly gasped, - -"What the devil is that? What now?" - -Tollgamo wasn't waiting for our second dive! His leading ship suddenly -was starting ahead of the others. And then suddenly, from three or four -of the enemy vessels tiny black dots were rising. Water bullets.... -Needle-like, foot-long projectiles. They came hurtling at us. And then -they burst with muffled, blurred sounds of little explosions. Some were -near the surface, tossing up spouts of iridescent water. - -It startled us into sudden confusion. Several of our girls were caught -in the exploding puffs; and one of our cylinders. I saw it break apart -in sluggish tearing fragments of metal and what had been its living -occupants. A girl, caught at the surface, was hurled into the air. - - * * * * * - -A chaos. And in the midst of it, Peters gave the signal for a general -attack; sustained attack, this time. Again Leh plunged us into what now -was a watery inferno. How long it lasted I cannot say. Ten minutes. -Half an hour. An eternity of horror, with everyone for himself. There -were times when I could see little of it. The shallow, fifty foot -depth of ocean here was a glare of red and orange and opalescent light -through which our cylinders dove and the girls plunged up and down like -voracious little fishes. - -There was an inferno of lights and muffled ghastly rumbles down below. -And the surface now was strewn. Our broken cylinders sagging there; -then sinking as the men tried to get out. Men and girls swimming, -wounded, and then sinking. Chaos of human wreckage. The rippled -daylight surface now was tossed by crazy waves; water stained with -blood; or orange and blue with oil and gas-fumes. - -Then I saw that Peters' cylinder was gone. Only ours and two others -left. Leh, Allen and I, now in command. Empty authority. The girls, -down in the weird lurid depths, were fighting with utter desperation, -heedless of the possibility of command. - -An eternity of horror. But now, two of the Tollgamo vessels had slid -over the brink, sinking slowly into the abyss. I saw another of them -burst with interior fire. Muffled explosions, that spewed out Gorts -and broken equipment. Then there was a time when one of the distressed -vessels emitted an inky fluid as though it were some giant squid--a -pall of black water, to hide the disembarking men. We fought through -it, until presently it drifted away. - -"Getting them," I heard Allen mutter once. "By Heaven, only two of -those boats in action now--Tollgamo's and this other one." - -We were plunging at Tollgamo's ship. Its portes were red with glare. -The enemy rays now were lessening. It seemed that only one or two -were left. And the battle now had changed its aspect. From the broken -Tollgamo ships, many of the Gorts had safely emerged, with helmets and -weighted shoes so that now they were walking, swaying on the rocky -bottom. Five hundred or more of them. And the girls swooped down at -them. Myriad hand to hand combats between the unweildy Gorts and the -Arron virgins that plunged at them like darting hungry sharks. - -The bottom now was strewn with the dead as the girls plunged and -fought and we darted our cylinder among them, struggling to find -opportunity to strike with our rays. - -Where was Nereid? Again cold apprehension struck at me; it was so long -since I had seen her. And now a new ghastly horror was entering the -turgid scene. Attracted by the lights, the muffled roars and the blood, -monsters of the deep were coming. Eaters of carrion. Sea vultures. -Some came in little swarms, a thousand tiny silvery shapes, darting -at the bodies, picking at them until only white skeletons lay here -on the slimy sea bottom. Other shapes, huge with glaring round eyes -like torches, came slithering from the deeps, searching for the dead, -seizing the wounded. - -"That Tollgamo ship is all that's left," Leh was saying. He sped us -toward it. Quite obviously now it was trying to escape. Forty or fifty -girls were clinging to its hull; too close for its single remaining -ray weapon to hit them; girls with close-held projectors eating with -bubbling red electro-glare into the hull-plates. We had a glimpse into -one of the bullseye portes--gas fumes and red glare in there; and the -Gorts, trapped there, in a panic making ready to disembark. We lay -close, firing our bolts. - -Suddenly a wounded girl was drifting past our turret; she seemed -struggling to get to our little pressure porte. Nereid? - -Then I saw that it was Venta. She got into the porte; and I pumped out -the water; threw myself in and bent over her. She was gasping, but -still trying to smile at me. - -"We--we have won, Earthman." - -"Yes. Yes, Venta. You just lie quiet. Have you seen Nereid?" - -"Yes. Here, just a little while ago. I don't know, now." - -I stared out the porte bullseye. The Tollgamo ship was breaking; -I could see its air coming out in bubbling puffs that caught our -cylinder and shoved it away. That ship would be water-filled in a -moment. And then I stiffened; tense with horror as I stared. A little -side exit-porte of the wrecked vessel suddenly opened. A single huge -figure lunged out. A dark-clad giant figure, with round air-helmet and -weighted shoes. - -Tollgamo! He was no more than fifty feet from me; a red sheen of light -struck his helmet so that I could see his face with its quiet, grim -smile. And then suddenly, in a leaping dive, he flung himself forward, -and seized a girl who was clinging to the vessel's side, blasting with -her ray-torch. - -Nereid! In the glare, abruptly I saw her, as Tollgamo seized her, -catching her by surprise so that she had no chance to escape him. And -then her torch and her knife were gone, as he held her body against him -and with swaying, shoving tread started away along the bottom. - - * * * * * - -There were weighted shoes here in our pressure porte. I was only a -moment getting Venta out of the porte into the main part of the hull. I -slid its door; adjusted my helmet; admitted the water. And then I was -swaying out on the rocks, with a knife in my hand. - -Vaguely I could see Tollgamo, with Nereid struggling in his grip as he -advanced with swaying tread toward where, near at hand, the honeycombed -cliff of that little crater-island loomed here. I struggled after him. -Then I saw that he had plunged into what seemed a water-filled little -passage leading back under the island. I was there in a moment; tense, -alert, cautious now that he might be crouching somewhere here in ambush. - -The ten foot high narrow passage wound up an ascent until unexpectedly -my head broke the surface. I twitched off the helmet. I had thought -that Tollgamo knew that he was being followed, but evidently he did -not. Neck deep in water, I was near the rocky shore of a subterranean -lagoon ... a huge jagged grotto here in the depths of the honeycombed -little island. - -And then I saw Tollgamo. His helmet was off now. Carrying Nereid in -his arms, he had mounted a broken rocky wall of the grotto, so that he -was some fifty feet back and ten feet above me. I had kicked off my -weighted shoes. I tried to dive, but I was discovered. Nereid gave a -little cry; and as Tollgamo saw me, he suddenly checked his climb, set -Nereid on her feet and held her against him. I had floundered forward, -on the shore now; and dropped my knife, plucking a little ray-projector -from my belt. Its fifty foot stab was ample here. Was Tollgamo armed? - -Brief thoughts; brief tableau. For that second he and Nereid stared -down at me. A red glare painted them, a glare that came from what I -saw now was a glowing pit almost beside them on this little volcanic -island. In the heavy subterranean silence I could hear the low -muttering, hissing rumble of the fires deep in the bowels of the earth, -and the grotto was heavy with their sulphuric smell. - -A slow ironic smile was on Tollgamo's gray face, painted now by the red -and yellow glare. - -"So, the Earthman!" he said. "And he finds Tollgamo unarmed." - -My little projector was leveled; but as he held Nereid against him I -could not dare fire. He saw it, and his ironic smile broadened. Was he -really unarmed? It seemed so. I could see the empty weapon-clips at his -belt, from which evidently he had torn his exhausted weapons and flung -them away. And his hands were both in plain view, gripping Nereid's -shoulders. There was just a second when I saw his gaze flick from my -leveled gun as he desperately measured his chances for escape. - -And then he seemed to reach his decision. The quiet smile still plucked -at his thin gray lips. I must have made a move with my leveled muzzle; -and suddenly it seemed to startle him. - -"Don't fire, Earthman!" he said sharply. "You would kill her." - -And then, with a twitch of his big powerful arms he swept Nereid, not -further to shield himself, but behind him. And he added softly, to her: - -"So you see Tollgamo has lost? That is too bad." His breath went out in -a long hiss. "I had thought to conquer Arron, to share it with you." -His soft voice was ironical; as though now at the last he was jibing at -the futility of all human effort. - -I stood numbed, withholding my shot as now he cast her away; and he -stood alone on the red-yellow brink. His gaze turned to me. - -"You see, Earthman, you need not kill me," he said gently. "I should -not like anyone to do that--much less an Earthman." - -Still his jibing irony. But there was tragedy in his smoldering dark -eyes; the tragedy of failure, as now his dream at last was broken. - -He was still quietly smiling, as he poised on the brink, staring down -at the fiery abyss. Then slowly he leaned forward, toppled and fell. -For a second his plummeting body was visible, and then the red-yellow -glare swallowed it. - - * * * * * - -I think that there is little I need add. I have no wish to picture -the return of our pitiful little army to Arron. Victorious army.... -How trite, but how true it is--in warfare, even the victor is -vanquished! But surely, there is a better time ahead for Venus now. -Jenten-Shah, degenerate ruler of the Arones, was killed that night by -an imbecile worker. Peters was killed; and Leh is ruling. Surely he -will bring order out of chaos, and minimize license in the lives of the -pleasure-loving Arones, so that now there need be no rebelling young -Virgins with the opprobrium of Untouchables. - -Certainly that is what we all hope. - -Nereid and I are married now and are very happy. My strange little -wife, daughter of two worlds. I know that I shall have to take her back -to Venus presently. Loyally she insists she likes our Earth quite as -well as Venus. But as I recall the lush tropic beauty of the glowing -Arron nights, and the soft iridescence of the water--well, I doubt it -very much. - -I want Nereid to like Earth. Our little home is in the tropics, by the -palm-lined edge of a lagoon. We are secluded here, which is what Nereid -wants. When people see her she is dressed always in Earth fashion. But -when we are, alone, at night-- - -I wanted to finish this narrative tonight. I thought I could finish by -dawn. It is bright moonlight. I thought Nereid was asleep, but just a -little while ago she came from our bedroom to the veranda where I am -writing. Nereid, with her tawny hair flowing, her beautiful body again -in the shining sea-green garment. - -Then she went past me, flinging me her impish, whimsical little smile -as she ran for the lagoon. She is swimming down there now. Occasionally -she calls up to me, daring me to come down. - - * * * * * - -[Transcriber's Note: No heading for Section IV in original.] - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The War-Nymphs of Venus, by Ray Cummings - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR-NYMPHS OF VENUS *** - -***** This file should be named 61884.txt or 61884.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/8/8/61884/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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