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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..c692a25 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63663 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63663) diff --git a/old/63663-0.txt b/old/63663-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4547ce3..0000000 --- a/old/63663-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1320 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Survival, by Basil Wells - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Survival - -Author: Basil Wells - -Release Date: November 07, 2020 [EBook #63663] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVIVAL *** - - - - - SURVIVAL - - By BASIL WELLS - - Mindless creatures mewled and grovelled in - the streets of Ohio ... and men found themselves - suddenly in the swampy, alien hell of Venus, - fighting a weird battle for existence. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Spring 1946. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -The experiment flopped, or perhaps, more accurately speaking, it -succeeded only too well. - -The theory had been that of plucking the ego from one human domicile -and transplanting it, temporarily of course, into the brain of another -man--or animal. The machine had been built for the same purpose. - -Circuits shorted and the resultant blast of power killed Doctor Brixson -and his elderly assistant, Elmer Morgus. And outward the circle of -unleashed power extended for a mile from Crayton College. - -The egos, wrenched from their rightful places, went hurtling outward -into space on the light-speeding wave of the blast and contacted that -of life on our sister planet, Venus. And mindless things grovelled and -mewled in the streets of Crayton, Ohio.... - -Only since the _Malcolm's_ successful voyage to Venus, recently, has -the full story of that catastrophe been known. From the lips of the -rubbery hided, hideous Venusians who came to Earth aboard the spacer we -learned the truth. - -This, then is the story of those Earthlings flung into that swampy -alien hell of a world by the freakish blast of an experimental -patchwork of wires, tubes, and odd scraps of quartz. It is the tale of -their battle for survival in a sodden unfriendly environment: - -Glade Masson, timid, myopic history professor at Crayton College, -jerked his head from the dank grayish ooze of the hollow where he lay. -His eyes snapped wide as he examined the foggy outlines of bushes and -twisting vines surrounding him. Further than the length of two bodies -he could not see. - -"'Lo," a croaking voice mumbled from close by. - -Masson looked up into the blinking round dark eyes of the alien -creature. He examined the naked human-shaped animal curiously as he -came to his feet. - -That the strange being was intelligent he realized at once; the sharp -dagger of splintered bone depending from a cross band of mildewed hide -told him that. But the noseless, broad-joweled face; the hairless slick -grayness of the froglike body, shading to a dark purple around the two -eyes and the generous slit of a mouth; the webbed hands and feet, and -the drooping pointed ears were anything but human. - -"A frog!" he gasped, amazed, "an intelligent batrachian!" He rubbed his -hand across his eyes, and arrested the motion. - -_His_ hand was webbed and gray! He had six fingers instead of five! -And his sleek body was naked save for the crossed belts of ridged hide -supporting his own two daggers. - -Masson belched. This strange new body of his had dined on fish he -discovered, and probably very overripe fish at that. He flexed his -thick gray arms, admiring the ripple of sleek hard muscle. Blood was -pumping and throbbing through his body with the excitement of the -moment. For almost the first time in his forty years of myopic boyhood -and timid manhood Glade Masson felt alive. - -Luxuriantly the man from Earth stretched. He saw an expression that he -took to be amazement cross the strange being's features. The purple -deepened around the other male's sunken nostrils. - -"I," the frog man said, "am Doctor John Lawler!" - -Masson's mouth dropped open. What must have happened back there in -Crayton? His last memory was of a horrible wrenching at his delicate -stomach, and then an abrupt blacking out of the auditorium. Apparently -his ego, and that of Doctor Lawler as well, had by some mysterious -means been exchanged with that of these froglike beings. - -Suddenly he smiled. This was probably another of his nightmares. He -would shut his eyes, pinch himself hard, and command himself to awaken. - -He pinched. He heard Lawler screech in terror. Slowly he opened his -eyes. - -An ugly beast, a reptilian monster of scales and gaping tooth-lined -snout, came lumbering toward him on stubby crooked legs. Ten feet in -length was the alligator-like saurian, its lumpy black plates sprouting -an ugly ridge of yellowish spines along its back down to its broad flat -tail. - -Masson took to his heels. He bounded away across the springy carpet of -water-logged vines after the fading sounds of the Doctor's spurting -webbed feet. - -Fog closed in around him. Twice he fell into seemingly bottomless pools -of water and his alien body surfaced him instinctively and dragged -him ashore so he could continue his flight. No longer did he hear the -running feet of Doctor Lawler; yet he continued to run. - -So it was that he came into a section of the vine-floored mistiness -where stubby leafy-boled shrubs grew from the spongy soil, and as he -approached closer to the pale-leaved little trees, he heard the excited -babble of slurred half-familiar words. He looked more closely at the -trees then, to discover that just above his head a thatch of living -vines, leaves and grasses topped each pulpy yellowish trunk. - -Gray faces, hideous and limp of ear, peered down at him. He had come -across a village of the frog people! From the trees of this sunless -foggy jungle they had fashioned shelters of a sort. - -As his breathing eased he could hear them more plainly. No wonder their -speech sounded familiar, he realized, they were speaking English! -Lawler and he were not alone then. Probably all of Crayton was -here--possibly all of Ohio! - -"I tell you," that was Charles Ellis, the chemistry department head, -"I'm positive this is not Earth. May sound crazy to you, but I'm sure -this is the planet Venus." - -Masson nodded his head in agreement, but some of the other men snorted -their disgust. - -"Impossible," grunted one scarred old frog-man, blinking his one good -eye and flapping his ears at a persistent buzzing insect winging -around his hairless skull. "I say this must be the Amazon River -country--though how we came here I wouldn't know." - -"No familiar fauna and flora," Ellis said shrugging. "Nope. I disagree. -The only logical choice is Venus or perhaps a similar environment in -another dimensional plane." He got to his feet and walked across the -rough floor of the large hut toward the descending ladder of lashed -poles. "But I'll not argue with you," he concluded. "We must hang -together now as never before." - - * * * * * - -Masson followed his friend down the ladder. As he descended into the -misty sea of fog he regarded the changed village that a score of this -watery world's days had seen created. The boles of the trees had been -utilized as foundation piles for more substantial and water-tight -structures, and now the two thousand and twenty-nine exiles from Earth -were well-housed. - -"This is the reality, Charles," Masson said, his wide sunken nostrils -drinking deep of the thick moist air. "Already our life back on Earth -seems an unpleasant dream. Here the swamplands furnish us food in -plenty and the temperature seldom varies more than a few degrees." - -The steady dark eyes of Ellis regarded Masson seriously. Then he -lifted the crude spear, bone-tipped and heavy, and touched the curved -projection of the bow above his shoulder. - -"Three times," he said, "we have been attacked by hostile natives. Only -our superior weapons have given us the advantage." He paused. "The next -time we may not be so lucky. The frogs may have copied our spears and -bows. - -"That is the reason we must not be satisfied. We must build machines -and better weapons for our own protection. Here on Venus we are but a -handful of aliens surrounded by millions of hostile savages." - -Masson grunted doubtfully. "With what," he inquired, "are we to build -machines? All the islands that we have visited by raft or swimming are -like this one--soggy floating atolls of thidin vines and nik-nik brush. -The natives have no metal weapons; even flint seems unknown." - -Ellis rammed his webbed gray hand down into the pouch that hung at his -side. When it emerged again a sharp fragment of black glassy rock lay -in his palm. He grinned at Masson's amazement. - -"One of the Frogs," he said, "that we captured yesterday had this on a -loop of leather around his neck. With the few words we have learned and -signs I learned that a mountain of this material lies toward the east." - -"Land!" was all Masson could gasp. Reverently he fingered the bit of -glassy obsidian. His eyes blinked with excitement and his grotesque -slash of a mouth quivered. - -"What are we waiting for?" he demanded eagerly. "Let's get going." - -Ellis laughed tolerantly. "The island lies some distance away," he -said. "We will need good rafts, or, better, canoes. Hostile natives -probably live in the mud-lands surrounding the island." - -"Let's get to work on it then," urged Glade Masson. "We can kill a lot -of these alligator-jawed vallids and use their skins for boat covering. -The Eskimos do that. And we can make shields of their hides, too. We'll -need extra arrows, food, and other supplies." - -"Go to it," laughed Ellis. "Ten or fifteen of the younger men will -probably want to go along." He blinked his round black eyes solemnly. -"And you're the guy that was satisfied with things as they are." - - * * * * * - -The little flotilla of skin-covered canoes threaded its way among the -misty islets of pale green thidin vines. Ten of the unwieldy craft -there were, and in all save the two larger boats two powerfully muscled -Frogs sat. The larger boats carried three paddlers and were well-laden -with dried vallid flesh, broiled thidin shoots, and heaps of the -scarlet-mottled orange nik-nik fruit. - -"Hear about Susan Martin?" inquired Ellis as he dipped his paddle -rhythmically into the sullen waters of the mist-shrouded sea. - -"Nope." Masson's head did not turn. His canoe was leading the -expedition. "Heard she was visiting Crayton, but never heard what -happened to her." - -"Always lecturing about birth control and child psychology," chuckled -Ellis. "As uncompromising a spinster as ever I met. Well, that's all -changed now. She finds herself with a family of seven young Frogs on -her hands." - -"Whew!" gasped Masson. "Bet she hates that." - -"Oddly enough," the chemistry instructor said, "she's taking to being -a mother enthusiastically. Her seven little Frogs will be the neatest, -best-scrubbed, insufferable little prigs in all New Crayton--even old -Joe Hansel, the ex-town drunkard. He's her next-to-the youngest son." - -Masson shook his hairless gray head thoughtfully. The mystery of -the switching of his neighbors' and friends' egos with the former -inhabitants of these tough gray bodies never ceased to amaze him. The -former sex of their transferred intelligences had been preserved, but -not their age. - -"Something like Cunningham, the campus heart-breaker," he said. "Only -he ended up an old, hideously wrinkled Frog." - -"And a good end for him," cried Ellis warmly, "he was...." - -"Ssst," warned Masson peering along a steaming tunnel of vision that a -chance breath of moist air had opened. "A raft, and half a dozen Frogs!" - -They relayed the word back to the seven smaller craft and four of them -swiftly drew abreast of the canoe of Masson and Ellis. The other three -canoes remained to guard the cargo boats with their three paddlers. - -"We'll investigate," ordered Masson softly. "Unless they attack, do not -harm them. With the few words of their language we have learned perhaps -we can find where the rocky island is located." - -"Fat chance," growled the huge-shouldered scarred young Frog whose name -was Dolan. "They attack and talk later." - -"Those are orders," said Masson firmly, his eyes boring into those of -the other. "When you elected me leader of this expedition I took full -control. Suggestions I will listen to, but you must follow orders!" - -Dolan's eyes wavered. "I didn't say nothing," he grunted. - -Two canoes slipped silently away to the left and the other two sped -toward the right. Masson continued straight ahead toward the raft. - -Suddenly the mist parted. The foggy outlines of a half-dozen Frogs were -revealed. And across the crudely plaited surface of the raft of buoyant -thidin stalks lay the bound body of a young female Frog. Masson had -time to see that the female wore a brief skirt and confining band of -beaten vegetable fiber--a woman stolen from their own village of New -Crayton--before the natives hurled their lumpy cudgels of nik-nik at -him. - -He ducked. The clubs missed, only one of them thudding into the -hide-bound gunwale beside him, and then the frog men had plunged into -the familiar medium of the warm sea. They swam swiftly toward the two -men in the boat, their bone knives in their powerful webbed fists. - -Masson hurled his spear at one of them. A gurgling cry of pain attested -to the accuracy of his aim. He saw Ellis' spear leap forward and bury -itself in the sea, and then his bow was in his hands and the bowstring -swiftly nocking into the bone-tipped shaft of an arrow. But the frog -men were upon them. - -The other canoes converged then. Arrows frothed the water around the -swimming savages. Blood dyed the water with shifting red. And the -ghastly coils of glistening snake-like things of the deep, attracted -by the blood, fought for the bodies. The water boiled into frenzy as -shark-like fish came also and battled with the coiling scavengers of -the deep. The canoes rocked and threatened to swamp despite the frantic -paddling of the men. - -All of the Frogs were dead, but their raft bobbed, unharmed, outward -from the seething cauldron of fighting monsters. The bound woman -watched with fearful eyes as Masson and Ellis paddled closer, and then -she cried out with joy as she saw their weapons and the simple breech -clouts. - -"Thank God," she gasped, as Masson stepped aboard and freed her bonds. -She chafed gently at the swollen flesh where her gray-skinned legs and -arms had been bound. - - * * * * * - -Masson swallowed. Hideous though she might have been by any Earthly -standards, to him she was beautiful. Her body was firm and shapely and -her eyes were soft and liquid. And in his body there coursed the blood -of the Frog People. Already he was forgetting the standards of beauty -back on Earth. Grace, strength, and the clean-cut planes of the body -are the secret of loveliness. - -"I cannot blame them for stealing you," he said, thick-tongued. "I have -not seen you before in New Crayton. Who are you?" - -"Irene Croft," she said, smiling. "And you, I know, are Glade Masson. I -saw you working on these canoes before I was captured." - -The ex-instructor of history felt his mouth drop open. This most -charming of all females he had seen on Venus was Irene Croft? Croft, -the slab-sided, bony woman who had taught languages at Crayton -College--the fussy old maid without a saving grace or charm save her -intelligence and quick understanding? They had been good friends back -there on Earth, but now--well, friendship would not be enough. - -"Irene," he said enthusiastically, "you're a--a--honey." - -His face turned purple as she smiled her gracious acceptance of his -compliment. Words gurgled impotently in his throat as he helped her -aboard the canoe. - -"Son," said Charles Ellis gruffly, "you've got it bad. And," he scowled -at the trim figure sitting between them, "I don't blame you." - -This time it was Irene's face and neck that purpled delicately. - -"Sorry we can't take you back to New Crayton," said Masson, his grin -anything but sorry, "but we must be almost to the rocky island we are -hunting." - -The girl flashed a quick smile at Masson, a smile that would have given -the ordinary Earthman a series of nightmares. "You are right about the -island," she said. "I have picked up a fair knowledge of the speech of -the Butrads." - -"So that's what they call themselves," broke in Ellis. "Sorry, Miss -Croft. Go on." - -"The island is called Tular," she said. "They were taking me there to -give me as a bride to the God-From-the-Clouds, as I translated it, -but I feel sure that I was to be sacrificed in some ghastly religious -fashion." - -"From-Clouds," Ellis was musing. "Probably a meteorite." His face -brightened. "A meteorite may mean iron!" he cried. - -Masson's paddle dipped steadily into the murky waters of the cast sea -that covers all Venus. Floating miniature islets of thidin swirled -past, islets that some day might grow to be huge, matted sub-continents -of green life. Ghostly islands of thidin, their swampy floors giving -root to the stocky trees and shrubs of the Venusian jungle growth, -loomed out of the endless blanket of fog. The throaty deep roar of the -scaly vallids and the splash of their bodies broke the thick silence. - -"And iron means machines, and weapons," he said thoughtfully, without -turning around. "Machines--and plows. Weapons--and hoes. We will build -factories, but we will also build homes." - -Irene's voice cut across their musings. "Supposing the meteor is not -iron?" she demanded. - -"The sea is full of metal," said Ellis doggedly. "We will take -magnesium from it. We did it on Earth. And the island will contain -metal--it must." - -"Spears!" called Masson unexpectedly, and then, tersely, "vallids just -ahead." - -The canoes slowed and sheered off from the pulpy underwater shelf of -the island Masson had almost rammed. Hundreds of the scaly monsters -floated sleepily in the water, their yellow spines and bulging eyes -carpeting the shallow depths for several acres. Ashore dozens of others -crawled about on their stubby bowed legs searching for the tasty -vegetable tidbits that their saurian palates desired. - -Luckily none of the vallids saw them, or if they did they were not -interested, and they backed water until the eternal low-lying clouds of -the wet planet shielded their ungainly craft from view. They commenced -paddling cautiously away toward the right only to again encounter the -shore of an island swarming with the ugly snouted saurians. - -At intervals they attempted to proceed again in the direction they had -been heading but always they encountered more vallids and the low-lying -shore of an island. An idea was beginning to dawn in Masson's -gray-skinned skull. This must be a larger island than any they had -before encountered. - -"Perhaps," he said, as the other canoes drew abreast, "this is the -shore of Tular. There would be swamplands and mud flats if it were. -Thidin would grow up about the central mountain." - -A slim-faced frog man named Reppart nodded. "Probably you're right," he -agreed. "Never saw so many vallids before." He shrugged his shoulders. -"But how do we get through them to the land?" - -"Should be a river." Ellis was dipping out the water that the ceaseless -heavy mist of rain poured into the boat. He gestured with the hollow -gourd-shaped husk of a nik-nik fruit. "We follow the river in." - -"But we have found no river," sneered Dolan. "What now, General Masson?" - -Irene Croft's softer voice cut across their conversation. - -"But we _have_ found the river," she said. "See the current pushing out -toward us from the island? And the color of the water is different, -grayer." - -"You're right," cried Masson exultantly. He picked up his paddle and -sent the canoe probing forward into the thick murk of the cloudy wall -ahead. - - * * * * * - -Three, or perhaps four miles the men from Earth paddled upstream along -a mile-wide channel that carried the steady surge of the river seaward. -They came at last to the first waterfall, a low rocky shelf that lifted -but five feet above the green floor of swampy thidin vines and the -grayish ooze that floored them. - -The firmness of rock was welcome underfoot. The slow darkness of the -Venusian night was falling and so they made their camp on a level shelf -of rock a few hundred feet back from the waterfall's muted roar. - -And with morning they pushed onward up the river. - -The stream forked a mile above the first waterfall. They chose the -larger stream on the right and paddled between low sullen black cliffs -of basalt for perhaps another three miles. Here a lake spread outward -fanwise from three giant cataracts that boomed and frothed as they -poured over a sheer hundred-foot precipice. - -"Power," said Masson. "Power enough for a dozen Pittsburghs. Power to -light all the cities of Earth." - -"This is a large island," Ellis nodded. "Such a volume of water -requires an enormous watershed." He smiled confidently. "There will be -metal here. This will be the home of our children." - -Masson found his hand had unconsciously clasped that of Irene. He -pressed the velvety softness of the webbed fingers and the woman's eyes -lifted curiously to his own. A steady, intense glow burned far back in -their depths. Her lips parted, unsmiling. - -"Our children," he whispered softly, and her eyes dropped as purple -spread slowly upward from her rounded firm neck. - -She pressed his hand timidly; dropped it, and started up the rocky -ledge that led from the lake's left-hand shore. And behind her climbed -the frog men from the village of New Crayton. - -Their canoes they had concealed in the tangled jungle growth. From here -their feet would have to serve--their feet and the tough sandals of -vallid hide that they now donned for the first time. - -The sheer escarpment gave way to a vast level plain of jungle growth -and swampy reeds. The jungle was almost impenetrable and so they -decided to swim up the river. The eternal clouds of Venus seemed to -have thinned as they climbed for now they stood within a grayish dome -that extended a hundred feet or more on every hand. - -As they approached the river they saw a huge raft of thidin bound about -with sturdy vegetable withes and having a score of sturdy poles lashed -to its rough surface. But for the increased range of their vision they -would have missed the man-made little island. - -Masson trimmed the green shoots that were already sprouting from the -pole he had chosen. His bone knife broke as he hacked at a tough sprout. - -"With our first iron," he said, "I will make an axe. The axe and the -machete are the first tools of civilization." - -Twice they climbed past mighty waterfalls again. They came, at last, to -the fertile central plateau that stretched for three hundred miles away -to the north and south and a third of that distance before them. - -Four native villages they passed and four times Irene used her -meager command of the Butrads' tongue to tell them that they were on -pilgrimage to the God-From-The-Clouds, and that she was to be the god's -bride. Apparently the ordinary inter-tribal warfare of the Butrads was -held in abeyance where the God-From-The-Clouds was concerned. - -They crossed park-like country, where beneath the pale-green trees a -tough spear-bladed grass grew, and they slept at night in the shelter -of broad-leaved trees that roofed over several acres of ground so -completely that there were patches of dusty earth. - -Masson sent Dillen, Marcy, Reppart, and Dolan back to report to the -settlement at New Crayton. He advised that as many families as possible -be ferried across the sea to Tular. Here on the upper plateau would be -their new world. - - * * * * * - -The day after the four messengers had left they came to the -God-From-The-Clouds. - -An ancient crater housed the god, a low-rimmed bowl five miles in -diameter. The jungle had crept over the outer walls and far down -the inner slopes to the edge of the lake within. The trail they -followed ended abruptly at a cliff on whose brink a triangular block -of greenish-black basalt rested. There were mounds of rounded white -objects, human skulls, about the rough altar, but the broken white -skeletons of the sacrifices lay thick about the god far below. - -Irene shuddered. She hid her head on Masson's chest. "The brides of -their god," she sobbed, "brides of the machine." - -The god of the Butrads of Venus was a huge crumpled ball of metal--a -space ship from some distant world! - -A distant and alien world the battered craft must have come from, for -the corridors and cabins were too small for the froglike bodies of the -Earthmen to pass. Yet the space ship was gigantic by any standard--a -quarter of a mile in diameter. There were strange corroded weapons and -machines whose use the Earthmen could not fathom. There was sealed -cargo--food that even yet was edible after long years of exposure to -the heat and humidity of the Venusian upland. - -The ship was a veritable storehouse of precious metals and equipment. -Ellis set to work at once designing a dynamo and drew plans for a -machine shop to be set up in a nearby cavern. Masson took two of the -men and examined the defensive possibilities of the crater's upper -rim--he feared the reaction of the Frogs when they learned of this -desecration of the God-From-The-Clouds. Irene put two of the men at -work clearing out another cave for a kitchen and sleeping rooms, and -Gilroy, who had been a farmer, cruised the rich lava-fed flat along the -lake's rain-speckled shore. - -Busy days and nights passed. They lost all track of time. No word came -from New Crayton but they were so busy they paid no heed. The waterfall -that fed the crater lake now turned a dynamo, and electricity worked -its magic. At the two passes that permitted descent into the crater -guards were now posted, armed with crude muskets and grenades, and the -signal that was to mark the approach of the party from New Crayton was -three spaced shots. - -"They are coming at last," cried Irene. The third shot echoed soddenly -through the thick air. She tugged at Masson's arm. "We must go to meet -them." - -Laughing they raced up the trail from the crater's green depths to -the high wall where the sentry stood guard. They stood beside him, -breathless, for a moment. Then Masson's hand went out impulsively to -the shoulder of the man. - -"Gilroy, man!" he cried. "What is it?" - -The guard's drooping shoulders straightened. Bitterly his webbed hand -pointed. - -A handful of Butrads, men from New Crayton by their arms and clothing, -tramped wearily nearer. Masson counted them--thirty-three men. As he -watched one of them dropped suddenly, an arrow in his back. Then for -the first time did he see the misty shapes of the pursuers of this -exhausted band. - -They raced forward, hundreds of them, the naked froglike savages of -the lower river villages. Another of the hunted men dropped and Masson -jerked the gun from Gilroy's hands and trained it on the horde of -charging Butrads. - -He fired. The sound of the shot, rather than the bullet, arrested the -enemy advance momentarily. From the harried little knot of men a faint -cheer lifted and their pace quickened. A moment later Gilroy swung open -the thick narrow gate and was helping the first of them through. Masson -lobbed a grenade far out toward the island Frogs and they shrank yet -farther away. - -"Did our best." That was Reppart sobbing out his story. "Three hundred -of us ... rest of them decided to live easy back on the island.... -Maybe they wasn't too dumb either.... - -"Anyhow the Frogs hit us at the first waterfall.... Finished off most -of the women and children there.... We fought them all along the -river ... rest of the women died there.... Eighty of us reached the -plateau." - -"And thirty of you are left," finished Masson soberly. His round eyes -blazed hot. "Fifty of us to conquer a watery jungle world. Fifty men -against a planet." - -He shook a knotted gray fist at the hostile natives. "There'll be no -more contact with New Crayton," he said. "We cannot risk more of our -manpower in futile warfare if we are to build a worthy civilization for -our children. This crater must be our world for many years." - -One of the men laughed bitterly, and then great racking sobs shook his -stocky gray body. - -"Children!" he cried. "All our children lie out there, unborn. Among us -all there is only your woman." - -Glade Masson swept his arm out toward the seething mob of the Butrads. -"There are your children," he said. "The natives have daughters and -sisters. Their blood is that of our own bodies. They will bear us -children. We and our children will conquer and rule the water wastes of -Venus." He paused for a long moment. - -"To survive," he said flatly, "we must fight with all means at our -command. We must steal, we must kill, and we must work. If we do not -steal the females of the Butrads, Earth's culture and wisdom will -shortly vanish. If we do not kill we will be killed." - -The round dark eyes of the listening Earthmen brightened with new hope. -Croaking sounds of approval issued from their ugly slashes of mouth. -And hopeless sloping shoulders straightened. - - * * * * * - -So it was that they raided the villages of the Frogs again and again. -The females of the surrounding uplands proved to be intelligent, and -shortly most of them were happy in the safety and comfort of the -building town of the Earthmen. - -They mated with the men and learned the strange customs and speech of -their captors. - -But there was trouble looming ahead. As the months passed and the eggs -of the females failed to hatch Masson and Ellis realized that their -little colony was doomed to extinction. - -"The women tell the same story, Glade," said Ellis, his nervous webbed -fingers drumming at the table in his tiny office. - -Masson looked out through the window at the men moving about their -tasks in the factory and further down beside the lake, in the fields. -They worked listlessly, hopelessly. What was there to work for now? - -"So the old women of the tribes carried the eggs away and hid them?" -Masson rubbed the unlovely flesh of his jowls thoughtfully. "They were -forbidden to follow. Taboo or something of the sort. And then the old -females brought back the young ones?" - -"Could be, of course," said Ellis doubtfully, "that they are concealing -the truth. Lying to us." He shook his head. "But I doubt it. Most of -them are glad to be safe here where raiding tribes and the more vicious -saurians cannot reach them. They learn fast, too," he added. - -"Nothing to do," Masson said grimly, "but for me to trail the old -women. I'll take Dolan. He's never satisfied unless he's prowling the -jungles outside the crater." - -"I'm going, too," Ellis began, but Masson shook his head. - -"Your knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy are needed here," he said. -"If I am lost you can carry on, but you are the only living text book -available." - -And he overrode the other's protests. - -Later in the day Masson and Dolan slipped out through the barrier at -the crater's rim and made their way toward the nearest Butrad village. -They took with them plenty of ammunition and supplies, for they -expected to be gone for many days. - -"There they go, Glade!" Joe Dolan's scarred face twisted in a hideous -parody of a grin. - -They lay in the lush oozy bed of rotted growth above the shallow ravine -where the Frog village lay. Nik-nik brush and giant broad-leaved grass -of mottled yellow and green concealed them from the eyes of the Butrads -in the ugly huddle of elevated huts below. - -"Ten old females," went on Dolan. "Maybe they can carry twenty eggs -apiece in their baskets." He whistled. "That'd be two hundred." - -"How," asked Masson, "can you whistle with a mouth like that? I've -tried dozens of times." - -Dolan chuckled. "It's a gift," he said, and came to his hands and knees. - -"Take your time," cautioned Masson. "Just so we keep them in sight." - -The ravine narrowed and became a vertical-walled tunnel of thidin vines -and scaly gray rock. Masson and Joe Dolan lost sight of the slow-moving -party of Frogs at times as they moved along the rim of the deep slot. -And as they followed, the floor of the ravine fell further away beneath -them; they were climbing high into the stunted cliffs and peaks of -Tular's interior. - -Night came and they slept above the stopping place of the ten Butrad -ancients. And with morning they pushed upward through the soupy fog -again. - -Abruptly the upward slanting slope ended. They looked out over a -roughly oval bowl of slowly writhing mist and cloud. - -Dimly they saw the floor of the cavity. Several hundred acres of -jungle-clad raggedness. Miniature buttes, mesas, and cliffs split -the bowl into a hell of broken terrain, and here and there, near the -black pocks of caverns in the rimming cliff walls, there showed little -huddles of Butrad huts. - -"The Place of Birth," Masson said slowly. "All the tribes of the island -must come here." - -Dolan nodded and rubbed the palm of his hand over the whetted edge -of his hunting knife. "Plenty of guards stationed around the only -entrances," he said, "just as you expected. I'll have to kill them -off." - -Masson shook his head. "That would warn them. I may need weeks to learn -the secret of their system of hatching the eggs." His webbed gray hand -swept in a short arc. - -"Some of those caves must have other entrances. From the rim perhaps. -That's what we'll look for." - -Dolan shrugged. "Right you are," he agreed. - -"My theory is," Masson said, "that Venus was formerly much warmer -than it is now. For that reason the incubation temperature must be -artificially raised. The question is: how much and how long must the -eggs be artificially warmed. And do they use pools of all-but boiling -water, or is the heat comparatively dry?" - -"That's for you to find out," said Dolan. "Me, I'm nothing but a truck -driver. I ain't no college-brain guy." - -"You do all right," said Masson, grinning. "You seem to find your way -around the jungle easy as a native." - -"Huh," snorted Dolan. "Ten years hammering the pavements and dodging -traffic does that. You gotta have a quick eye and remember what you're -doing." - -Masson got to his feet and moved back from the brink. - -"Let's start hunting," he suggested. - - * * * * * - -They crouched together in the dark shadows of the tunnel that opened a -dozen feet above the floor of the large cavern. Down there, in the gray -half-light that filtered in through the outer entrance, they saw three -small heaps of vegetation steaming silently and the two old females who -tended them. - -From time to time one of the old females filled a hollow husk from the -nik-nik fruit with water and sprinkled it over the three mounds. The -eggs they had seen the ancient ones bury so carefully were soaking up -the moist warmth. - -Masson jogged Dolan's elbow, and they crawled carefully back along the -low-roofed passage toward the vine-festooned entrance five hundred feet -above. Water and gray ooze sloshed underfoot as they walked along level -reaches of the way, and always the wet rock was slippery. - -"We know how the eggs are hatched now," he said, "and with experience -we can learn to gauge the proper temperature. But until we have -perfected the procedure our families will not increase very rapidly." - -Dolan gulped. "I dunno if I want one of them ugly looking things we saw -in that side pen," he said. - -"They're no uglier than you are, Joe," chuckled Masson. "Hunt up a pool -of clear water and look at yourself sometime." He gripped Dolan's arm. - -"But that's what I was thinking about," he went on. "About that side -pen in the cave where the newly hatched Butrads are kept. We kidnaped -the Frogs' women, so...." - -"Why not their kids?" Dolan laughed. "We seem to be going in for crime -in a big way." - -"The young ones will have a better chance for living to adulthood," -argued Masson. "We're doing them a favor. And the Frogs can't know -whose children are gone and whose are left." - -"Sounds all right the way you put it," agreed Dolan. "Maybe because I -want to believe it. But will the little brats have brains enough to -soak up education?" - -"I'm sure of it, Joe. All they need is opportunity." - -"So I'm to go back and get ten or twelve other guys," said Dolan, "and -we'll clean out this Frog nursery." - -"Right. I'll stay here and watch the whole procedure. Don't hurry back. -Maybe a week or so will be better." - -"Okay, Glade," said the scarred giant, moving at a crouch along the -low-roofed way. "Be seeing you." - -A turn in the ascending tunnel smothered the last low-spoken words, and -Masson was left alone. - -The blind men came into the cavern at the direction of the wrinkled old -hags. They carefully stripped away layer upon layer of vegetation from -the smallest and brownest mound. - -Masson leaned further out over the rim of the hole above the cavern -floor to watch. He had feared that the party of men from the crater -would arrive before he could see the uncovering of a mound and the -hatching of the Frog eggs. - -The last layer of thidin and grass came away and perhaps a hundred of -the leathery bluish ovoids lay revealed on their steaming warm nest. -They were shapeless and limply alive now, that leather-hard outer -shell rendered soft and rotten by the steady warmth of the heating -vegetation. Masson saw two tiny monsters already free from their -outgrown prisons as the blind men began scooping them up and carrying -them to the empty pen beside the ones already occupied. - -The young Butrads set up a throaty, hoarse bellowing that made the cave -vibrate. It was not their feeding time but the excitement had aroused -them and they knew but this one way to express their displeasure. -Masson started to crawl back from the passage's outer lip even as the -two old females started throwing thidin shoots and scraps of raw fish -to the screeching young ones. - -And the rotten gray rock betrayed him. A dozen times in the past eight -days he had leaned out over the rim to watch, and a dozen times the -rock had supported his weight. But this time it went scaling away, a -great slab of it, and with it went the Earthman. - - * * * * * - -The blind men whirled from the half-full pen and came lunging at him. -The old females screeched throaty harsh orders. And Masson raised the -gun that he somehow had managed to cling to. - -"Go back," he ordered in the language of the Butrads, "go out of the -cave before I kill." - -"He is but one," croaked the ancient ones, "destroy the desecrator of -the Place of Birth." - -Now Masson could see that the eyes of the four Frog males had been -neatly gouged from their sockets in days past. Probably they were -blinded that they might not see the forbidden magic of the eggs that -became Frogs. Or perhaps they were blinded that they might not escape -from the birth caves into the outer jungles. - -Yet in the semi-gloom of the cave they were not at too great a -disadvantage. They listened for the movement of Masson's body, and the -breath of his lungs guided them. The young of the Butrads were silent, -too. The sudden quiet was a roar in his ears. - -They closed in, great chunks of stone clenched in their fists. A Frog -with but a club or a crude spear would have been beaten. But the puny -hollow tube of metal that the Earthman carried held the strength of -many heavy clubs and many huge rocks in its miniature pebbles of shaped -copper. - -Masson fired and a Frog went down. The other three came on uncertainly, -and he fired again. The two remaining Butrads stopped. - -"There are many of them, Old Ones," one of them cried. "They have -struck down Trew and Brun with thunder." - -"There is only one!" cried the wrinkled old females. "Kill him! Strike -him down!" - -"Do not listen to the Old Ones," Masson warned. "I have captured the -thunder. With it I strike you down." - -The blind men hesitated, and Masson sent a bullet smoking between their -legs. They backed away toward the entrance, the females with them. And -a moment later Masson was piling fragments of rock and crumbling shale -into a barricade before the cavern's mouth. - -He could hold them off for a time he knew, until night at least, even -though they brought the guards from the outer entrances to the bowl to -aid the blind men. - -Again and again the guards had attacked the cave where Masson lay holed -up. All that day they had come crawling through the dense matted growth -to launch their arrows and spears at him. Fifty or sixty of them there -had been, he estimated, and at least forty blood-hungry Butrads still -faced him. These were the outer guards. - -With the coming of night the blinded workers of the caves would join -them, and with their uncanny sense of hearing and touch they would -overrun the cave. The Frogs were not a cowardly race, and his invasion -into this, their most taboo and sacred place, made them all the more -fanatical in their hatred. - -Masson had until night. After that, unless he escaped back through the -tunnel, he would die. And if he left the young Frogs behind he would -never again be able to raid this cavern. Already they were hungry, -their throaty shrilled cries beating at his droop-tipped ears. - -Perhaps the din from within dulled his hearing. For tough naked hide -scraped on rock and the heavy breathing of the wounded blind man -should have been clearly audible otherwise. Masson must have heard him -approaching at the last for he was half-turned when the rough fragment -of grayish shale came thudding down. He twisted away from the weighty -missile, but even so it grazed along his skull and he went down into -the blackness of nothingness for a time. - -He awakened to look into the hot dark eyes of a Frog who had crept to -within a few paces of his barricade. - -The rifle was yet in his grip and through blinding flashes of pain -he somehow found the strength to aim and squeeze trigger. The ugly -gray face vanished and he painfully fed another cartridge into the -rifle's single chamber. The weight across his back did not go away, -and twisting his head he saw that the blind Butrad's body had slumped -across his own. - -Masson slid the weight off but the blackness came again; so he rested -for a time. And this time the blackness had come to stay for it was -night. The sun had finally been swallowed by the cloud layers that -swath Venus eternally. - -He tried to crawl back toward the tunnel, but how he was to climb the -sheer wall to the escape passage he did not know. He could not raise -his body from the ground on the level. - -Once again the pain in his head returned and pain flashed its -lightning. His eyes clenched themselves shut and he fought off the -giddy waves of weakness. After a time he could feel again, and see. - -There was light in the cave, light and the grayish flabby-hided bodies -of Butrads. He tried to raise the rifle and a webbed hand knocked it -from his grasp. - -"None of that, now," a voice ordered, and his unbelieving ears -recognized that of Joe Dolan. - -Rifles cracked at the cave entrance and he saw the larger young ones -of the Butrads being hoisted up to the escape tunnel. And he grinned -weakly up at Dolan's hideous scarred face. - -The future of the Earthmen on the Watery World was safe now. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVIVAL *** - -***** This file should be named 63663-0.txt or 63663-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/6/6/63663/ - -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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: Survival - -Author: Basil Wells - -Release Date: November 07, 2020 [EBook #63663] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVIVAL *** -</pre> -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>SURVIVAL</h1> - -<h2>By BASIL WELLS</h2> - -<p>Mindless creatures mewled and grovelled in<br /> -the streets of Ohio ... and men found themselves<br /> -suddenly in the swampy, alien hell of Venus,<br /> -fighting a weird battle for existence.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Spring 1946.<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>The experiment flopped, or perhaps, more accurately speaking, it -succeeded only too well.</p> - -<p>The theory had been that of plucking the ego from one human domicile -and transplanting it, temporarily of course, into the brain of another -man—or animal. The machine had been built for the same purpose.</p> - -<p>Circuits shorted and the resultant blast of power killed Doctor Brixson -and his elderly assistant, Elmer Morgus. And outward the circle of -unleashed power extended for a mile from Crayton College.</p> - -<p>The egos, wrenched from their rightful places, went hurtling outward -into space on the light-speeding wave of the blast and contacted that -of life on our sister planet, Venus. And mindless things grovelled and -mewled in the streets of Crayton, Ohio....</p> - -<p>Only since the <i>Malcolm's</i> successful voyage to Venus, recently, has -the full story of that catastrophe been known. From the lips of the -rubbery hided, hideous Venusians who came to Earth aboard the spacer we -learned the truth.</p> - -<p>This, then is the story of those Earthlings flung into that swampy -alien hell of a world by the freakish blast of an experimental -patchwork of wires, tubes, and odd scraps of quartz. It is the tale of -their battle for survival in a sodden unfriendly environment:</p> - -<p>Glade Masson, timid, myopic history professor at Crayton College, -jerked his head from the dank grayish ooze of the hollow where he lay. -His eyes snapped wide as he examined the foggy outlines of bushes and -twisting vines surrounding him. Further than the length of two bodies -he could not see.</p> - -<p>"'Lo," a croaking voice mumbled from close by.</p> - -<p>Masson looked up into the blinking round dark eyes of the alien -creature. He examined the naked human-shaped animal curiously as he -came to his feet.</p> - -<p>That the strange being was intelligent he realized at once; the sharp -dagger of splintered bone depending from a cross band of mildewed hide -told him that. But the noseless, broad-joweled face; the hairless slick -grayness of the froglike body, shading to a dark purple around the two -eyes and the generous slit of a mouth; the webbed hands and feet, and -the drooping pointed ears were anything but human.</p> - -<p>"A frog!" he gasped, amazed, "an intelligent batrachian!" He rubbed his -hand across his eyes, and arrested the motion.</p> - -<p><i>His</i> hand was webbed and gray! He had six fingers instead of five! -And his sleek body was naked save for the crossed belts of ridged hide -supporting his own two daggers.</p> - -<p>Masson belched. This strange new body of his had dined on fish he -discovered, and probably very overripe fish at that. He flexed his -thick gray arms, admiring the ripple of sleek hard muscle. Blood was -pumping and throbbing through his body with the excitement of the -moment. For almost the first time in his forty years of myopic boyhood -and timid manhood Glade Masson felt alive.</p> - -<p>Luxuriantly the man from Earth stretched. He saw an expression that he -took to be amazement cross the strange being's features. The purple -deepened around the other male's sunken nostrils.</p> - -<p>"I," the frog man said, "am Doctor John Lawler!"</p> - -<p>Masson's mouth dropped open. What must have happened back there in -Crayton? His last memory was of a horrible wrenching at his delicate -stomach, and then an abrupt blacking out of the auditorium. Apparently -his ego, and that of Doctor Lawler as well, had by some mysterious -means been exchanged with that of these froglike beings.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he smiled. This was probably another of his nightmares. He -would shut his eyes, pinch himself hard, and command himself to awaken.</p> - -<p>He pinched. He heard Lawler screech in terror. Slowly he opened his -eyes.</p> - -<p>An ugly beast, a reptilian monster of scales and gaping tooth-lined -snout, came lumbering toward him on stubby crooked legs. Ten feet in -length was the alligator-like saurian, its lumpy black plates sprouting -an ugly ridge of yellowish spines along its back down to its broad flat -tail.</p> - -<p>Masson took to his heels. He bounded away across the springy carpet of -water-logged vines after the fading sounds of the Doctor's spurting -webbed feet.</p> - -<p>Fog closed in around him. Twice he fell into seemingly bottomless pools -of water and his alien body surfaced him instinctively and dragged -him ashore so he could continue his flight. No longer did he hear the -running feet of Doctor Lawler; yet he continued to run.</p> - -<p>So it was that he came into a section of the vine-floored mistiness -where stubby leafy-boled shrubs grew from the spongy soil, and as he -approached closer to the pale-leaved little trees, he heard the excited -babble of slurred half-familiar words. He looked more closely at the -trees then, to discover that just above his head a thatch of living -vines, leaves and grasses topped each pulpy yellowish trunk.</p> - -<p>Gray faces, hideous and limp of ear, peered down at him. He had come -across a village of the frog people! From the trees of this sunless -foggy jungle they had fashioned shelters of a sort.</p> - -<p>As his breathing eased he could hear them more plainly. No wonder their -speech sounded familiar, he realized, they were speaking English! -Lawler and he were not alone then. Probably all of Crayton was -here—possibly all of Ohio!</p> - -<p>"I tell you," that was Charles Ellis, the chemistry department head, -"I'm positive this is not Earth. May sound crazy to you, but I'm sure -this is the planet Venus."</p> - -<p>Masson nodded his head in agreement, but some of the other men snorted -their disgust.</p> - -<p>"Impossible," grunted one scarred old frog-man, blinking his one good -eye and flapping his ears at a persistent buzzing insect winging -around his hairless skull. "I say this must be the Amazon River -country—though how we came here I wouldn't know."</p> - -<p>"No familiar fauna and flora," Ellis said shrugging. "Nope. I disagree. -The only logical choice is Venus or perhaps a similar environment in -another dimensional plane." He got to his feet and walked across the -rough floor of the large hut toward the descending ladder of lashed -poles. "But I'll not argue with you," he concluded. "We must hang -together now as never before."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Masson followed his friend down the ladder. As he descended into the -misty sea of fog he regarded the changed village that a score of this -watery world's days had seen created. The boles of the trees had been -utilized as foundation piles for more substantial and water-tight -structures, and now the two thousand and twenty-nine exiles from Earth -were well-housed.</p> - -<p>"This is the reality, Charles," Masson said, his wide sunken nostrils -drinking deep of the thick moist air. "Already our life back on Earth -seems an unpleasant dream. Here the swamplands furnish us food in -plenty and the temperature seldom varies more than a few degrees."</p> - -<p>The steady dark eyes of Ellis regarded Masson seriously. Then he -lifted the crude spear, bone-tipped and heavy, and touched the curved -projection of the bow above his shoulder.</p> - -<p>"Three times," he said, "we have been attacked by hostile natives. Only -our superior weapons have given us the advantage." He paused. "The next -time we may not be so lucky. The frogs may have copied our spears and -bows.</p> - -<p>"That is the reason we must not be satisfied. We must build machines -and better weapons for our own protection. Here on Venus we are but a -handful of aliens surrounded by millions of hostile savages."</p> - -<p>Masson grunted doubtfully. "With what," he inquired, "are we to build -machines? All the islands that we have visited by raft or swimming are -like this one—soggy floating atolls of thidin vines and nik-nik brush. -The natives have no metal weapons; even flint seems unknown."</p> - -<p>Ellis rammed his webbed gray hand down into the pouch that hung at his -side. When it emerged again a sharp fragment of black glassy rock lay -in his palm. He grinned at Masson's amazement.</p> - -<p>"One of the Frogs," he said, "that we captured yesterday had this on a -loop of leather around his neck. With the few words we have learned and -signs I learned that a mountain of this material lies toward the east."</p> - -<p>"Land!" was all Masson could gasp. Reverently he fingered the bit of -glassy obsidian. His eyes blinked with excitement and his grotesque -slash of a mouth quivered.</p> - -<p>"What are we waiting for?" he demanded eagerly. "Let's get going."</p> - -<p>Ellis laughed tolerantly. "The island lies some distance away," he -said. "We will need good rafts, or, better, canoes. Hostile natives -probably live in the mud-lands surrounding the island."</p> - -<p>"Let's get to work on it then," urged Glade Masson. "We can kill a lot -of these alligator-jawed vallids and use their skins for boat covering. -The Eskimos do that. And we can make shields of their hides, too. We'll -need extra arrows, food, and other supplies."</p> - -<p>"Go to it," laughed Ellis. "Ten or fifteen of the younger men will -probably want to go along." He blinked his round black eyes solemnly. -"And you're the guy that was satisfied with things as they are."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The little flotilla of skin-covered canoes threaded its way among the -misty islets of pale green thidin vines. Ten of the unwieldy craft -there were, and in all save the two larger boats two powerfully muscled -Frogs sat. The larger boats carried three paddlers and were well-laden -with dried vallid flesh, broiled thidin shoots, and heaps of the -scarlet-mottled orange nik-nik fruit.</p> - -<p>"Hear about Susan Martin?" inquired Ellis as he dipped his paddle -rhythmically into the sullen waters of the mist-shrouded sea.</p> - -<p>"Nope." Masson's head did not turn. His canoe was leading the -expedition. "Heard she was visiting Crayton, but never heard what -happened to her."</p> - -<p>"Always lecturing about birth control and child psychology," chuckled -Ellis. "As uncompromising a spinster as ever I met. Well, that's all -changed now. She finds herself with a family of seven young Frogs on -her hands."</p> - -<p>"Whew!" gasped Masson. "Bet she hates that."</p> - -<p>"Oddly enough," the chemistry instructor said, "she's taking to being -a mother enthusiastically. Her seven little Frogs will be the neatest, -best-scrubbed, insufferable little prigs in all New Crayton—even old -Joe Hansel, the ex-town drunkard. He's her next-to-the youngest son."</p> - -<p>Masson shook his hairless gray head thoughtfully. The mystery of -the switching of his neighbors' and friends' egos with the former -inhabitants of these tough gray bodies never ceased to amaze him. The -former sex of their transferred intelligences had been preserved, but -not their age.</p> - -<p>"Something like Cunningham, the campus heart-breaker," he said. "Only -he ended up an old, hideously wrinkled Frog."</p> - -<p>"And a good end for him," cried Ellis warmly, "he was...."</p> - -<p>"Ssst," warned Masson peering along a steaming tunnel of vision that a -chance breath of moist air had opened. "A raft, and half a dozen Frogs!"</p> - -<p>They relayed the word back to the seven smaller craft and four of them -swiftly drew abreast of the canoe of Masson and Ellis. The other three -canoes remained to guard the cargo boats with their three paddlers.</p> - -<p>"We'll investigate," ordered Masson softly. "Unless they attack, do not -harm them. With the few words of their language we have learned perhaps -we can find where the rocky island is located."</p> - -<p>"Fat chance," growled the huge-shouldered scarred young Frog whose name -was Dolan. "They attack and talk later."</p> - -<p>"Those are orders," said Masson firmly, his eyes boring into those of -the other. "When you elected me leader of this expedition I took full -control. Suggestions I will listen to, but you must follow orders!"</p> - -<p>Dolan's eyes wavered. "I didn't say nothing," he grunted.</p> - -<p>Two canoes slipped silently away to the left and the other two sped -toward the right. Masson continued straight ahead toward the raft.</p> - -<p>Suddenly the mist parted. The foggy outlines of a half-dozen Frogs were -revealed. And across the crudely plaited surface of the raft of buoyant -thidin stalks lay the bound body of a young female Frog. Masson had -time to see that the female wore a brief skirt and confining band of -beaten vegetable fiber—a woman stolen from their own village of New -Crayton—before the natives hurled their lumpy cudgels of nik-nik at -him.</p> - -<p>He ducked. The clubs missed, only one of them thudding into the -hide-bound gunwale beside him, and then the frog men had plunged into -the familiar medium of the warm sea. They swam swiftly toward the two -men in the boat, their bone knives in their powerful webbed fists.</p> - -<p>Masson hurled his spear at one of them. A gurgling cry of pain attested -to the accuracy of his aim. He saw Ellis' spear leap forward and bury -itself in the sea, and then his bow was in his hands and the bowstring -swiftly nocking into the bone-tipped shaft of an arrow. But the frog -men were upon them.</p> - -<p>The other canoes converged then. Arrows frothed the water around the -swimming savages. Blood dyed the water with shifting red. And the -ghastly coils of glistening snake-like things of the deep, attracted -by the blood, fought for the bodies. The water boiled into frenzy as -shark-like fish came also and battled with the coiling scavengers of -the deep. The canoes rocked and threatened to swamp despite the frantic -paddling of the men.</p> - -<p>All of the Frogs were dead, but their raft bobbed, unharmed, outward -from the seething cauldron of fighting monsters. The bound woman -watched with fearful eyes as Masson and Ellis paddled closer, and then -she cried out with joy as she saw their weapons and the simple breech -clouts.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"Thank God," she gasped, as Masson stepped aboard and freed her bonds. -She chafed gently at the swollen flesh where her gray-skinned legs and -arms had been bound.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Masson swallowed. Hideous though she might have been by any Earthly -standards, to him she was beautiful. Her body was firm and shapely and -her eyes were soft and liquid. And in his body there coursed the blood -of the Frog People. Already he was forgetting the standards of beauty -back on Earth. Grace, strength, and the clean-cut planes of the body -are the secret of loveliness.</p> - -<p>"I cannot blame them for stealing you," he said, thick-tongued. "I have -not seen you before in New Crayton. Who are you?"</p> - -<p>"Irene Croft," she said, smiling. "And you, I know, are Glade Masson. I -saw you working on these canoes before I was captured."</p> - -<p>The ex-instructor of history felt his mouth drop open. This most -charming of all females he had seen on Venus was Irene Croft? Croft, -the slab-sided, bony woman who had taught languages at Crayton -College—the fussy old maid without a saving grace or charm save her -intelligence and quick understanding? They had been good friends back -there on Earth, but now—well, friendship would not be enough.</p> - -<p>"Irene," he said enthusiastically, "you're a—a—honey."</p> - -<p>His face turned purple as she smiled her gracious acceptance of his -compliment. Words gurgled impotently in his throat as he helped her -aboard the canoe.</p> - -<p>"Son," said Charles Ellis gruffly, "you've got it bad. And," he scowled -at the trim figure sitting between them, "I don't blame you."</p> - -<p>This time it was Irene's face and neck that purpled delicately.</p> - -<p>"Sorry we can't take you back to New Crayton," said Masson, his grin -anything but sorry, "but we must be almost to the rocky island we are -hunting."</p> - -<p>The girl flashed a quick smile at Masson, a smile that would have given -the ordinary Earthman a series of nightmares. "You are right about the -island," she said. "I have picked up a fair knowledge of the speech of -the Butrads."</p> - -<p>"So that's what they call themselves," broke in Ellis. "Sorry, Miss -Croft. Go on."</p> - -<p>"The island is called Tular," she said. "They were taking me there to -give me as a bride to the God-From-the-Clouds, as I translated it, -but I feel sure that I was to be sacrificed in some ghastly religious -fashion."</p> - -<p>"From-Clouds," Ellis was musing. "Probably a meteorite." His face -brightened. "A meteorite may mean iron!" he cried.</p> - -<p>Masson's paddle dipped steadily into the murky waters of the cast sea -that covers all Venus. Floating miniature islets of thidin swirled -past, islets that some day might grow to be huge, matted sub-continents -of green life. Ghostly islands of thidin, their swampy floors giving -root to the stocky trees and shrubs of the Venusian jungle growth, -loomed out of the endless blanket of fog. The throaty deep roar of the -scaly vallids and the splash of their bodies broke the thick silence.</p> - -<p>"And iron means machines, and weapons," he said thoughtfully, without -turning around. "Machines—and plows. Weapons—and hoes. We will build -factories, but we will also build homes."</p> - -<p>Irene's voice cut across their musings. "Supposing the meteor is not -iron?" she demanded.</p> - -<p>"The sea is full of metal," said Ellis doggedly. "We will take -magnesium from it. We did it on Earth. And the island will contain -metal—it must."</p> - -<p>"Spears!" called Masson unexpectedly, and then, tersely, "vallids just -ahead."</p> - -<p>The canoes slowed and sheered off from the pulpy underwater shelf of -the island Masson had almost rammed. Hundreds of the scaly monsters -floated sleepily in the water, their yellow spines and bulging eyes -carpeting the shallow depths for several acres. Ashore dozens of others -crawled about on their stubby bowed legs searching for the tasty -vegetable tidbits that their saurian palates desired.</p> - -<p>Luckily none of the vallids saw them, or if they did they were not -interested, and they backed water until the eternal low-lying clouds of -the wet planet shielded their ungainly craft from view. They commenced -paddling cautiously away toward the right only to again encounter the -shore of an island swarming with the ugly snouted saurians.</p> - -<p>At intervals they attempted to proceed again in the direction they had -been heading but always they encountered more vallids and the low-lying -shore of an island. An idea was beginning to dawn in Masson's -gray-skinned skull. This must be a larger island than any they had -before encountered.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps," he said, as the other canoes drew abreast, "this is the -shore of Tular. There would be swamplands and mud flats if it were. -Thidin would grow up about the central mountain."</p> - -<p>A slim-faced frog man named Reppart nodded. "Probably you're right," he -agreed. "Never saw so many vallids before." He shrugged his shoulders. -"But how do we get through them to the land?"</p> - -<p>"Should be a river." Ellis was dipping out the water that the ceaseless -heavy mist of rain poured into the boat. He gestured with the hollow -gourd-shaped husk of a nik-nik fruit. "We follow the river in."</p> - -<p>"But we have found no river," sneered Dolan. "What now, General Masson?"</p> - -<p>Irene Croft's softer voice cut across their conversation.</p> - -<p>"But we <i>have</i> found the river," she said. "See the current pushing out -toward us from the island? And the color of the water is different, -grayer."</p> - -<p>"You're right," cried Masson exultantly. He picked up his paddle and -sent the canoe probing forward into the thick murk of the cloudy wall -ahead.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Three, or perhaps four miles the men from Earth paddled upstream along -a mile-wide channel that carried the steady surge of the river seaward. -They came at last to the first waterfall, a low rocky shelf that lifted -but five feet above the green floor of swampy thidin vines and the -grayish ooze that floored them.</p> - -<p>The firmness of rock was welcome underfoot. The slow darkness of the -Venusian night was falling and so they made their camp on a level shelf -of rock a few hundred feet back from the waterfall's muted roar.</p> - -<p>And with morning they pushed onward up the river.</p> - -<p>The stream forked a mile above the first waterfall. They chose the -larger stream on the right and paddled between low sullen black cliffs -of basalt for perhaps another three miles. Here a lake spread outward -fanwise from three giant cataracts that boomed and frothed as they -poured over a sheer hundred-foot precipice.</p> - -<p>"Power," said Masson. "Power enough for a dozen Pittsburghs. Power to -light all the cities of Earth."</p> - -<p>"This is a large island," Ellis nodded. "Such a volume of water -requires an enormous watershed." He smiled confidently. "There will be -metal here. This will be the home of our children."</p> - -<p>Masson found his hand had unconsciously clasped that of Irene. He -pressed the velvety softness of the webbed fingers and the woman's eyes -lifted curiously to his own. A steady, intense glow burned far back in -their depths. Her lips parted, unsmiling.</p> - -<p>"Our children," he whispered softly, and her eyes dropped as purple -spread slowly upward from her rounded firm neck.</p> - -<p>She pressed his hand timidly; dropped it, and started up the rocky -ledge that led from the lake's left-hand shore. And behind her climbed -the frog men from the village of New Crayton.</p> - -<p>Their canoes they had concealed in the tangled jungle growth. From here -their feet would have to serve—their feet and the tough sandals of -vallid hide that they now donned for the first time.</p> - -<p>The sheer escarpment gave way to a vast level plain of jungle growth -and swampy reeds. The jungle was almost impenetrable and so they -decided to swim up the river. The eternal clouds of Venus seemed to -have thinned as they climbed for now they stood within a grayish dome -that extended a hundred feet or more on every hand.</p> - -<p>As they approached the river they saw a huge raft of thidin bound about -with sturdy vegetable withes and having a score of sturdy poles lashed -to its rough surface. But for the increased range of their vision they -would have missed the man-made little island.</p> - -<p>Masson trimmed the green shoots that were already sprouting from the -pole he had chosen. His bone knife broke as he hacked at a tough sprout.</p> - -<p>"With our first iron," he said, "I will make an axe. The axe and the -machete are the first tools of civilization."</p> - -<p>Twice they climbed past mighty waterfalls again. They came, at last, to -the fertile central plateau that stretched for three hundred miles away -to the north and south and a third of that distance before them.</p> - -<p>Four native villages they passed and four times Irene used her -meager command of the Butrads' tongue to tell them that they were on -pilgrimage to the God-From-The-Clouds, and that she was to be the god's -bride. Apparently the ordinary inter-tribal warfare of the Butrads was -held in abeyance where the God-From-The-Clouds was concerned.</p> - -<p>They crossed park-like country, where beneath the pale-green trees a -tough spear-bladed grass grew, and they slept at night in the shelter -of broad-leaved trees that roofed over several acres of ground so -completely that there were patches of dusty earth.</p> - -<p>Masson sent Dillen, Marcy, Reppart, and Dolan back to report to the -settlement at New Crayton. He advised that as many families as possible -be ferried across the sea to Tular. Here on the upper plateau would be -their new world.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The day after the four messengers had left they came to the -God-From-The-Clouds.</p> - -<p>An ancient crater housed the god, a low-rimmed bowl five miles in -diameter. The jungle had crept over the outer walls and far down -the inner slopes to the edge of the lake within. The trail they -followed ended abruptly at a cliff on whose brink a triangular block -of greenish-black basalt rested. There were mounds of rounded white -objects, human skulls, about the rough altar, but the broken white -skeletons of the sacrifices lay thick about the god far below.</p> - -<p>Irene shuddered. She hid her head on Masson's chest. "The brides of -their god," she sobbed, "brides of the machine."</p> - -<p>The god of the Butrads of Venus was a huge crumpled ball of metal—a -space ship from some distant world!</p> - -<p>A distant and alien world the battered craft must have come from, for -the corridors and cabins were too small for the froglike bodies of the -Earthmen to pass. Yet the space ship was gigantic by any standard—a -quarter of a mile in diameter. There were strange corroded weapons and -machines whose use the Earthmen could not fathom. There was sealed -cargo—food that even yet was edible after long years of exposure to -the heat and humidity of the Venusian upland.</p> - -<p>The ship was a veritable storehouse of precious metals and equipment. -Ellis set to work at once designing a dynamo and drew plans for a -machine shop to be set up in a nearby cavern. Masson took two of the -men and examined the defensive possibilities of the crater's upper -rim—he feared the reaction of the Frogs when they learned of this -desecration of the God-From-The-Clouds. Irene put two of the men at -work clearing out another cave for a kitchen and sleeping rooms, and -Gilroy, who had been a farmer, cruised the rich lava-fed flat along the -lake's rain-speckled shore.</p> - -<p>Busy days and nights passed. They lost all track of time. No word came -from New Crayton but they were so busy they paid no heed. The waterfall -that fed the crater lake now turned a dynamo, and electricity worked -its magic. At the two passes that permitted descent into the crater -guards were now posted, armed with crude muskets and grenades, and the -signal that was to mark the approach of the party from New Crayton was -three spaced shots.</p> - -<p>"They are coming at last," cried Irene. The third shot echoed soddenly -through the thick air. She tugged at Masson's arm. "We must go to meet -them."</p> - -<p>Laughing they raced up the trail from the crater's green depths to -the high wall where the sentry stood guard. They stood beside him, -breathless, for a moment. Then Masson's hand went out impulsively to -the shoulder of the man.</p> - -<p>"Gilroy, man!" he cried. "What is it?"</p> - -<p>The guard's drooping shoulders straightened. Bitterly his webbed hand -pointed.</p> - -<p>A handful of Butrads, men from New Crayton by their arms and clothing, -tramped wearily nearer. Masson counted them—thirty-three men. As he -watched one of them dropped suddenly, an arrow in his back. Then for -the first time did he see the misty shapes of the pursuers of this -exhausted band.</p> - -<p>They raced forward, hundreds of them, the naked froglike savages of -the lower river villages. Another of the hunted men dropped and Masson -jerked the gun from Gilroy's hands and trained it on the horde of -charging Butrads.</p> - -<p>He fired. The sound of the shot, rather than the bullet, arrested the -enemy advance momentarily. From the harried little knot of men a faint -cheer lifted and their pace quickened. A moment later Gilroy swung open -the thick narrow gate and was helping the first of them through. Masson -lobbed a grenade far out toward the island Frogs and they shrank yet -farther away.</p> - -<p>"Did our best." That was Reppart sobbing out his story. "Three hundred -of us ... rest of them decided to live easy back on the island.... -Maybe they wasn't too dumb either....</p> - -<p>"Anyhow the Frogs hit us at the first waterfall.... Finished off most -of the women and children there.... We fought them all along the -river ... rest of the women died there.... Eighty of us reached the -plateau."</p> - -<p>"And thirty of you are left," finished Masson soberly. His round eyes -blazed hot. "Fifty of us to conquer a watery jungle world. Fifty men -against a planet."</p> - -<p>He shook a knotted gray fist at the hostile natives. "There'll be no -more contact with New Crayton," he said. "We cannot risk more of our -manpower in futile warfare if we are to build a worthy civilization for -our children. This crater must be our world for many years."</p> - -<p>One of the men laughed bitterly, and then great racking sobs shook his -stocky gray body.</p> - -<p>"Children!" he cried. "All our children lie out there, unborn. Among us -all there is only your woman."</p> - -<p>Glade Masson swept his arm out toward the seething mob of the Butrads. -"There are your children," he said. "The natives have daughters and -sisters. Their blood is that of our own bodies. They will bear us -children. We and our children will conquer and rule the water wastes of -Venus." He paused for a long moment.</p> - -<p>"To survive," he said flatly, "we must fight with all means at our -command. We must steal, we must kill, and we must work. If we do not -steal the females of the Butrads, Earth's culture and wisdom will -shortly vanish. If we do not kill we will be killed."</p> - -<p>The round dark eyes of the listening Earthmen brightened with new hope. -Croaking sounds of approval issued from their ugly slashes of mouth. -And hopeless sloping shoulders straightened.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>So it was that they raided the villages of the Frogs again and again. -The females of the surrounding uplands proved to be intelligent, and -shortly most of them were happy in the safety and comfort of the -building town of the Earthmen.</p> - -<p>They mated with the men and learned the strange customs and speech of -their captors.</p> - -<p>But there was trouble looming ahead. As the months passed and the eggs -of the females failed to hatch Masson and Ellis realized that their -little colony was doomed to extinction.</p> - -<p>"The women tell the same story, Glade," said Ellis, his nervous webbed -fingers drumming at the table in his tiny office.</p> - -<p>Masson looked out through the window at the men moving about their -tasks in the factory and further down beside the lake, in the fields. -They worked listlessly, hopelessly. What was there to work for now?</p> - -<p>"So the old women of the tribes carried the eggs away and hid them?" -Masson rubbed the unlovely flesh of his jowls thoughtfully. "They were -forbidden to follow. Taboo or something of the sort. And then the old -females brought back the young ones?"</p> - -<p>"Could be, of course," said Ellis doubtfully, "that they are concealing -the truth. Lying to us." He shook his head. "But I doubt it. Most of -them are glad to be safe here where raiding tribes and the more vicious -saurians cannot reach them. They learn fast, too," he added.</p> - -<p>"Nothing to do," Masson said grimly, "but for me to trail the old -women. I'll take Dolan. He's never satisfied unless he's prowling the -jungles outside the crater."</p> - -<p>"I'm going, too," Ellis began, but Masson shook his head.</p> - -<p>"Your knowledge of chemistry and metallurgy are needed here," he said. -"If I am lost you can carry on, but you are the only living text book -available."</p> - -<p>And he overrode the other's protests.</p> - -<p>Later in the day Masson and Dolan slipped out through the barrier at -the crater's rim and made their way toward the nearest Butrad village. -They took with them plenty of ammunition and supplies, for they -expected to be gone for many days.</p> - -<p>"There they go, Glade!" Joe Dolan's scarred face twisted in a hideous -parody of a grin.</p> - -<p>They lay in the lush oozy bed of rotted growth above the shallow ravine -where the Frog village lay. Nik-nik brush and giant broad-leaved grass -of mottled yellow and green concealed them from the eyes of the Butrads -in the ugly huddle of elevated huts below.</p> - -<p>"Ten old females," went on Dolan. "Maybe they can carry twenty eggs -apiece in their baskets." He whistled. "That'd be two hundred."</p> - -<p>"How," asked Masson, "can you whistle with a mouth like that? I've -tried dozens of times."</p> - -<p>Dolan chuckled. "It's a gift," he said, and came to his hands and knees.</p> - -<p>"Take your time," cautioned Masson. "Just so we keep them in sight."</p> - -<p>The ravine narrowed and became a vertical-walled tunnel of thidin vines -and scaly gray rock. Masson and Joe Dolan lost sight of the slow-moving -party of Frogs at times as they moved along the rim of the deep slot. -And as they followed, the floor of the ravine fell further away beneath -them; they were climbing high into the stunted cliffs and peaks of -Tular's interior.</p> - -<p>Night came and they slept above the stopping place of the ten Butrad -ancients. And with morning they pushed upward through the soupy fog -again.</p> - -<p>Abruptly the upward slanting slope ended. They looked out over a -roughly oval bowl of slowly writhing mist and cloud.</p> - -<p>Dimly they saw the floor of the cavity. Several hundred acres of -jungle-clad raggedness. Miniature buttes, mesas, and cliffs split -the bowl into a hell of broken terrain, and here and there, near the -black pocks of caverns in the rimming cliff walls, there showed little -huddles of Butrad huts.</p> - -<p>"The Place of Birth," Masson said slowly. "All the tribes of the island -must come here."</p> - -<p>Dolan nodded and rubbed the palm of his hand over the whetted edge -of his hunting knife. "Plenty of guards stationed around the only -entrances," he said, "just as you expected. I'll have to kill them -off."</p> - -<p>Masson shook his head. "That would warn them. I may need weeks to learn -the secret of their system of hatching the eggs." His webbed gray hand -swept in a short arc.</p> - -<p>"Some of those caves must have other entrances. From the rim perhaps. -That's what we'll look for."</p> - -<p>Dolan shrugged. "Right you are," he agreed.</p> - -<p>"My theory is," Masson said, "that Venus was formerly much warmer -than it is now. For that reason the incubation temperature must be -artificially raised. The question is: how much and how long must the -eggs be artificially warmed. And do they use pools of all-but boiling -water, or is the heat comparatively dry?"</p> - -<p>"That's for you to find out," said Dolan. "Me, I'm nothing but a truck -driver. I ain't no college-brain guy."</p> - -<p>"You do all right," said Masson, grinning. "You seem to find your way -around the jungle easy as a native."</p> - -<p>"Huh," snorted Dolan. "Ten years hammering the pavements and dodging -traffic does that. You gotta have a quick eye and remember what you're -doing."</p> - -<p>Masson got to his feet and moved back from the brink.</p> - -<p>"Let's start hunting," he suggested.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They crouched together in the dark shadows of the tunnel that opened a -dozen feet above the floor of the large cavern. Down there, in the gray -half-light that filtered in through the outer entrance, they saw three -small heaps of vegetation steaming silently and the two old females who -tended them.</p> - -<p>From time to time one of the old females filled a hollow husk from the -nik-nik fruit with water and sprinkled it over the three mounds. The -eggs they had seen the ancient ones bury so carefully were soaking up -the moist warmth.</p> - -<p>Masson jogged Dolan's elbow, and they crawled carefully back along the -low-roofed passage toward the vine-festooned entrance five hundred feet -above. Water and gray ooze sloshed underfoot as they walked along level -reaches of the way, and always the wet rock was slippery.</p> - -<p>"We know how the eggs are hatched now," he said, "and with experience -we can learn to gauge the proper temperature. But until we have -perfected the procedure our families will not increase very rapidly."</p> - -<p>Dolan gulped. "I dunno if I want one of them ugly looking things we saw -in that side pen," he said.</p> - -<p>"They're no uglier than you are, Joe," chuckled Masson. "Hunt up a pool -of clear water and look at yourself sometime." He gripped Dolan's arm.</p> - -<p>"But that's what I was thinking about," he went on. "About that side -pen in the cave where the newly hatched Butrads are kept. We kidnaped -the Frogs' women, so...."</p> - -<p>"Why not their kids?" Dolan laughed. "We seem to be going in for crime -in a big way."</p> - -<p>"The young ones will have a better chance for living to adulthood," -argued Masson. "We're doing them a favor. And the Frogs can't know -whose children are gone and whose are left."</p> - -<p>"Sounds all right the way you put it," agreed Dolan. "Maybe because I -want to believe it. But will the little brats have brains enough to -soak up education?"</p> - -<p>"I'm sure of it, Joe. All they need is opportunity."</p> - -<p>"So I'm to go back and get ten or twelve other guys," said Dolan, "and -we'll clean out this Frog nursery."</p> - -<p>"Right. I'll stay here and watch the whole procedure. Don't hurry back. -Maybe a week or so will be better."</p> - -<p>"Okay, Glade," said the scarred giant, moving at a crouch along the -low-roofed way. "Be seeing you."</p> - -<p>A turn in the ascending tunnel smothered the last low-spoken words, and -Masson was left alone.</p> - -<p>The blind men came into the cavern at the direction of the wrinkled old -hags. They carefully stripped away layer upon layer of vegetation from -the smallest and brownest mound.</p> - -<p>Masson leaned further out over the rim of the hole above the cavern -floor to watch. He had feared that the party of men from the crater -would arrive before he could see the uncovering of a mound and the -hatching of the Frog eggs.</p> - -<p>The last layer of thidin and grass came away and perhaps a hundred of -the leathery bluish ovoids lay revealed on their steaming warm nest. -They were shapeless and limply alive now, that leather-hard outer -shell rendered soft and rotten by the steady warmth of the heating -vegetation. Masson saw two tiny monsters already free from their -outgrown prisons as the blind men began scooping them up and carrying -them to the empty pen beside the ones already occupied.</p> - -<p>The young Butrads set up a throaty, hoarse bellowing that made the cave -vibrate. It was not their feeding time but the excitement had aroused -them and they knew but this one way to express their displeasure. -Masson started to crawl back from the passage's outer lip even as the -two old females started throwing thidin shoots and scraps of raw fish -to the screeching young ones.</p> - -<p>And the rotten gray rock betrayed him. A dozen times in the past eight -days he had leaned out over the rim to watch, and a dozen times the -rock had supported his weight. But this time it went scaling away, a -great slab of it, and with it went the Earthman.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The blind men whirled from the half-full pen and came lunging at him. -The old females screeched throaty harsh orders. And Masson raised the -gun that he somehow had managed to cling to.</p> - -<p>"Go back," he ordered in the language of the Butrads, "go out of the -cave before I kill."</p> - -<p>"He is but one," croaked the ancient ones, "destroy the desecrator of -the Place of Birth."</p> - -<p>Now Masson could see that the eyes of the four Frog males had been -neatly gouged from their sockets in days past. Probably they were -blinded that they might not see the forbidden magic of the eggs that -became Frogs. Or perhaps they were blinded that they might not escape -from the birth caves into the outer jungles.</p> - -<p>Yet in the semi-gloom of the cave they were not at too great a -disadvantage. They listened for the movement of Masson's body, and the -breath of his lungs guided them. The young of the Butrads were silent, -too. The sudden quiet was a roar in his ears.</p> - -<p>They closed in, great chunks of stone clenched in their fists. A Frog -with but a club or a crude spear would have been beaten. But the puny -hollow tube of metal that the Earthman carried held the strength of -many heavy clubs and many huge rocks in its miniature pebbles of shaped -copper.</p> - -<p>Masson fired and a Frog went down. The other three came on uncertainly, -and he fired again. The two remaining Butrads stopped.</p> - -<p>"There are many of them, Old Ones," one of them cried. "They have -struck down Trew and Brun with thunder."</p> - -<p>"There is only one!" cried the wrinkled old females. "Kill him! Strike -him down!"</p> - -<p>"Do not listen to the Old Ones," Masson warned. "I have captured the -thunder. With it I strike you down."</p> - -<p>The blind men hesitated, and Masson sent a bullet smoking between their -legs. They backed away toward the entrance, the females with them. And -a moment later Masson was piling fragments of rock and crumbling shale -into a barricade before the cavern's mouth.</p> - -<p>He could hold them off for a time he knew, until night at least, even -though they brought the guards from the outer entrances to the bowl to -aid the blind men.</p> - -<p>Again and again the guards had attacked the cave where Masson lay holed -up. All that day they had come crawling through the dense matted growth -to launch their arrows and spears at him. Fifty or sixty of them there -had been, he estimated, and at least forty blood-hungry Butrads still -faced him. These were the outer guards.</p> - -<p>With the coming of night the blinded workers of the caves would join -them, and with their uncanny sense of hearing and touch they would -overrun the cave. The Frogs were not a cowardly race, and his invasion -into this, their most taboo and sacred place, made them all the more -fanatical in their hatred.</p> - -<p>Masson had until night. After that, unless he escaped back through the -tunnel, he would die. And if he left the young Frogs behind he would -never again be able to raid this cavern. Already they were hungry, -their throaty shrilled cries beating at his droop-tipped ears.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the din from within dulled his hearing. For tough naked hide -scraped on rock and the heavy breathing of the wounded blind man -should have been clearly audible otherwise. Masson must have heard him -approaching at the last for he was half-turned when the rough fragment -of grayish shale came thudding down. He twisted away from the weighty -missile, but even so it grazed along his skull and he went down into -the blackness of nothingness for a time.</p> - -<p>He awakened to look into the hot dark eyes of a Frog who had crept to -within a few paces of his barricade.</p> - -<p>The rifle was yet in his grip and through blinding flashes of pain -he somehow found the strength to aim and squeeze trigger. The ugly -gray face vanished and he painfully fed another cartridge into the -rifle's single chamber. The weight across his back did not go away, -and twisting his head he saw that the blind Butrad's body had slumped -across his own.</p> - -<p>Masson slid the weight off but the blackness came again; so he rested -for a time. And this time the blackness had come to stay for it was -night. The sun had finally been swallowed by the cloud layers that -swath Venus eternally.</p> - -<p>He tried to crawl back toward the tunnel, but how he was to climb the -sheer wall to the escape passage he did not know. He could not raise -his body from the ground on the level.</p> - -<p>Once again the pain in his head returned and pain flashed its -lightning. His eyes clenched themselves shut and he fought off the -giddy waves of weakness. After a time he could feel again, and see.</p> - -<p>There was light in the cave, light and the grayish flabby-hided bodies -of Butrads. He tried to raise the rifle and a webbed hand knocked it -from his grasp.</p> - -<p>"None of that, now," a voice ordered, and his unbelieving ears -recognized that of Joe Dolan.</p> - -<p>Rifles cracked at the cave entrance and he saw the larger young ones -of the Butrads being hoisted up to the escape tunnel. And he grinned -weakly up at Dolan's hideous scarred face.</p> - -<p>The future of the Earthmen on the Watery World was safe now.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVIVAL *** - -This file should be named 63663-h.htm or 63663-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/6/6/63663/ - -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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