Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 Page 3

  The Pirate Planet

  PART TWO OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

  _By Charles W. Diffin_

  It is war. Interplanetary war. And on far distant Venus two fighting Earthlings stand up against a whole planet run amuck.

  WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

  A flash of light on Venus!--and at Maricopa Flying Field LieutenantMcGuire and Captain Blake laugh at its possible meaning until theradio's weird call and the sight of a giant ship in the night sky provetheir wildest thoughts are facts. "Big as an ocean liner," it hangs inmidair, then turns and shoots upward at incredible speed until itdisappears entirely, in space!

  McGuire goes to Mount Lawson observatory, and there he sees the flash onVenus repeated. Professor Sykes, who had observed the first flash,confirms it and sees still more. He sees the enveloping clouds of Venustorn asunder, and beneath them an identifying mark, a continent shapedlike the letter "L."

  And then the great ship comes again. It hovers above the observatory andsettles slowly down.

  "Hold them off as long as you can!"]

  Back at Maricopa Field, Captain Blake has tested a new plane foraltitude, and is now prepared to interview the stranger in the higherlevels. McGuire's frantic phone call sends him out into the night withthe 91st Squadron of planes in support. It is their last flight, for allbut Blake. The invader smothers them in a great sphere of gas, butBlake, with his oxygen flasks, flies through to crash beside theobservatory. Only Blake survives to see the enemy land, while strangeman-shapes loot the buildings and carry off McGuire and Sykes.

  A bombardment with giant shells dispels the last doubt of the earthbeing under attack. The flashes from Venus at regular intervals spoutdeath and destruction upon the earth; a mammoth gun, sunk into theplanet itself, bears once upon the earth at every revolution, until thechanging position of the globes take the target out of range.

  In less than a year and a half the planets must meet again. It is war tothe death; a united world against an enemy unknown--an enemy who hasconquered space. And there is less than a year and a half in which toprepare!

  Far out in the blackness of space McGuire and Sykes are captives in thegiant ship. Their stupor leaves them; they find themselves immersed inclouds. The clouds part; their ship drops through; and below them is astrange continent shaped like the letter "L." Captives of inhuman butman-shaped things, they are landing upon a strange globe--upon theplanet Venus itself!

  CHAPTER VIII

  Miles underneath the great ship, from which Lieutenant McGuire andProfessor Sykes were now watching through a floor-window of thick glass,was a glittering expanse of water--a great ocean. The flickering goldexpanse that reflected back the color of the sunlit clouds passed to oneside as the ship took its station above the island, a continent in size,that had shown by its shape like a sharply formed "L" an identifyingmark to the astronomer.

  They were high in the air; the thick clouds that surrounded this newworld were miles from its surface, and the things of the world thatawaited were tiny and blurred.

  Airships passed and repassed far below. Large, some of them--as bulkyas the transport they were on; others were small flashing cylinders, butall went swiftly on their way.

  It must have come--some ethereal vibration to warn others from thepath--for layer after layer of craft were cleared for the descent. Abrilliant light flashed into view, a dazzling pin-point on the shorebelow, and the great ship fell suddenly beneath them. Swiftly it droppeddown the pathway of light; on even keel it fell down and still down,till McGuire, despite his experience in the air, was sick and giddy.

  The light blinked out at their approach. It was some minutes before thewatching eyes recovered from the brilliance to see what mysteries mightawait, and then the surface was close and the range of vision small.

  A vast open space--a great court paved with blocks of black and white--alanding field, perhaps, for about it in regular spacing other hugecylinders were moored. Directly beneath in a clear space was a giantcradle of curved arms; it was a mammoth structure, and the men knew at aglance that this was the bed where their great ship would lie.

  * * * * *

  The smooth pavement seemed slowly rising to meet them as their shipsettled close. Now the cradle was below, its arms curved and waiting.The ship entered their grasp, and the arms widened, then closed to drawthe monster to its rest. Their motion ceased. They were finally, beyondthe last faint doubt, at anchor on a distant world.

  A shrill cackle of sound recalled them from the thrill of thisadventure, and the attenuated and lanky figure, with its ashen,blotchy face that glared at them from the doorway, reminded them thatthis excursion into space was none of their desire. They wereprisoners--captives from a foreign land.

  A long hand moved its sinuous fingers to motion them to follow, andMcGuire regarded his companion with a hopeless look and a despondentshrug of his shoulders.

  "No use putting up a fight," he said; "I guess we'd better be good."

  He followed where the figure was stepping through a doorway into acorridor beyond. They moved, silent and depressed, along the dimlylighted way; the touch of cold metal walls was as chilling to theirspirits as to their flesh.

  But the mood could not last: the first ray of light from the outsideworld sent shivers of anticipation along their spines. They werelanding, in very fact, upon a new world; their feet were to walk wherenever man had stood; their eyes would see what mortal eyes had nevervisioned.

  Fears were forgotten, and the men clung to each other not for the humantouch but because of an ecstasy of intoxicating, soul-filling joy in thesheer thrill of adventure.

  They were gripping each other's hand, round-eyed as a couple ofchildren, as they stepped forward into the light.

  * * * * *

  Before them was a scene whose blazing beauty of color struck them tofrozen silence; their exclamations of wonder died unspoken on theirlips. They were in a city of the stars, and to their eyes it seemed asif all the brilliance of the heavens had been gathered for itsbuilding.

  The spacious, open court itself stood high in the air among the massesof masonry, and beyond were countless structures. Some towered skyward;others were lower; and all were topped with bulbous towers and gracefulminarets that made a forest of gleaming opal light. Opalescenceeverywhere!--it flashed in red and gold and delicate blues from everywall and cornice and roof.

  "Quartz?" marveled Sykes after one long drawn breath. "Quartz orglass?--what are they made of? It is fairyland!"

  A jewelled city! Garish, it might have been, and tawdry, in the fulllight of the sun. But on these weirdly unreal structures the sun's raysnever shone; they were illumined only by the soft golden glow thatdiffused across this world from the cloud masses far above.

  McGuire looked up at that uniform, glowing, golden mass that paledtoward the horizon and faded to the gray of banked clouds. His eyes cameslowly back to the ramp that led downward to the checkered black andwhite of the court. Beyond an open portion the pavement was solidlymassed with people.

  "People!--we might as well call them that," McGuire had told Sykes;"they are people of a sort, I suppose. We'll have to give them creditfor brains: they've beaten us a hundred years in their inventions."

  He was trying to see everything, understand everything, at once. Therewas not time to single out the new impressions that were crowding uponhim. The air--it was warm to the point of discomfort; it explained theloose, light garments of the people; it came to the two men laden withstrange scents and stranger sounds.

  McGuire's eyes held with hungry curiosity upon the dwellers in thisother world; he stared at the gaping throng from which came a bedlam ofshrill cries. Lean colorless hands gesticulated wildly and pointed withlong fingers at the two men.

  * * * * *

  The din ceased abruptly at a sharp, whistled order from their captor. Hestood aside with a guard that had followed from the ship, and hemotioned the two before him
down the gangway. It was the same scarletone who had faced them before, the one whom McGuire had attacked in afrenzy of furious fighting, only to go down to blackness and defeatbefore the slim cylinder of steel and its hissing gas. And the slantingeyes stared wickedly in cold triumph as he ordered them to go beforehim in his march of victory.

  McGuire passed down toward the masses of color that were the ones whowaited. There were many in the dull red of the ship's crew; others insky-blue, in gold and pink and combinations of brilliance that blendedtheir loose garments to kaleidoscopic hues. But the figures were similarin one unvarying respect: they were repulsive and ghastly, and theirfaces showed bright blotches of blood vessels and blue markings of veinsthrough their parchment-gray skins.

  The crowd parted to a narrow, living lane, and lean fingers clutchedwrithingly to touch them as they passed between the solid ranks.

  McGuire had only a vague impression of a great building beyond, of lowerstories decorated in barbaric colors, of towers above in strange formsof the crystal, colorful beauty they had seen. He walked toward itunseeing; his thoughts were only of the creatures round about.

  "What damned beasts!" he said. Then, like his companion, he set histeeth to restrain all show of feeling as they made their way through thelane of incredible living things.

  * * * * *

  They followed their captor through a doorway into an empty room--emptysave for one blue-clad individual who stood beside an instrument boardlet into the wall. Beyond was a long wall, where circular openingsyawned huge and black.

  The one at the instrument panel received a curt order: the weird voiceof the man in red repeated a word that stood out above his curious,wordless tone. "Torg," he said, and again McGuire heard him repeat thesyllable.

  The operator touched here and there among his instruments, and tinylights flashed; he threw a switch, and from one of the black openingslike a deep cave came a rushing roar of sound. It dropped to silence asthe end of a cylindrical car protruded into the room. A door in themetal car opened, and their guard hustled them roughly inside. The onein red followed while behind him the door clanged shut.

  Inside the car was light, a diffused radiance from no apparent source,the whole air was glowing about them. And beneath their feet the carmoved slowly but with a constant acceleration that built up totremendous speed. Then that slackened, and Sykes and McGuire clung toeach other for support while the car that had been shot like aprojectile came to rest.

  "Whew!" breathed the lieutenant; "that was quick delivery." Sykes madeno reply, and McGuire, too, fell silent to study the tremendous roominto which they were led. Here, seemingly, was the stage for their nextexperience.

  A vast open hall with a floor of glass that was like obsidion, empty butfor carved benches about the walls; there was room here for a mightyconcourse of people. The walls, like those they had seen, were decoratedcrudely in glaring colors, and embellished with grotesque designs thatproclaimed loudly the inexpert touch of the draughtsman. Yet, abovethem, the ceiling sprang lightly into vaulted, sweeping curves.McGuire's training had held little of architecture, yet even he felt thebeauty of line and airy gracefulness of treatment in the structureitself.

  * * * * *

  The contrast between the flaunting colors and the finished artistry thatlay beneath must have struck a discordant note to the scientist. Heleaned closer to whisper.

  "It is all wrong some way--the whole world! Beauty and refinement--thencrude vulgarity, as incongruous as the people themselves--they do notbelong here."

  "Neither do we," was McGuire's reply; "it looks like a tough spot thatwe're in."

  He was watching toward a high, arched entrance across the room. Aplatform before it was raised some six feet above the floor, and onthis were seats--ornate chairs, done in sweeping scrolls of scarlet andgold. A massive seat in the center was like the fantastic throne of achild's fairy tale. From the corridor beyond that entrance came a stirand rustling that rivetted the man's attention.

  A trumpet peal, vibrant and peculiar, blared forth from the ceilingoverhead, and the red figures of the guards stood at rigid attentionwith lean arms held stiffly before them. The one in scarlet took thesame attitude, then dropped his hands to motion the two men to give thesame salute.

  "You go to hell," said Lieutenant McGuire in his gentlest tones. And thescarlet figure's thin lips were snarling as he turned to whip his armsup to their position. The first of a procession of figures was enteringthrough the arch.

  Sykes, the scientist, was paying little attention. "It isn't true," hewas muttering aloud; "it can't be true. Venus! Twenty-six million milesat inferior conjunction!"

  He seemed lost in silent communion with his own thoughts; then: "ButI said there was every probability of life; I pointed out thesimilarities--"

  "Hush!" warned McGuire. The eyes of the scarlet man were sending wickedlooks in their direction. Tall forms were advancing through the arch.They, too, were robed in scarlet, and behind them others followed.

  * * * * *

  The trumpet peal from the dome above held now on a long-drawn, singlenote, while the scarlet men strode in silence across the dais and partedto form two lines. An inverted "V" that faced the entrance--they were anassembly of rigid, blazing statues whose arms were extended like thoseon the floor below.

  The vibrant tone from on high changed to a crashing blare that shriekeddiscordantly to send quivering protest through every nerve of thewaiting men. Those about them were shouting, and again the name of Torgwas heard, as, in the high arch, another character appeared to play hispart in a strange drama.

  Thin like his companions, yet even taller than them, he wore the samebrilliant robes and, an additional mark of distinction, a head-dress ofpolished gold. He acknowledged the salute with a quick raising of hisown arms, then came swiftly forward and took his place upon the massivethrone.

  Not till he was seated did the others on the platform relax their rigidpose and seat themselves in the semicircle of chairs. And not till thendid they so much as glance at the men waiting there before them--the twoEarth-men, standing in silent, impassive contemplation of the brilliantscene and with their arms held quiet at their sides. Then every eyeturned full upon the captives, and if McGuire had seen deadlymalevolence in the face of their captor he found it a hundred-fold inthe inhuman faces that looked down upon them now.

  The inquiring mind of Professor Sykes did not fail to note thecharacter of their reception. "But why," he asked in whispers of hisfellow-prisoner, "--why this open hatred of us? What possible animuscan they have against the earth or its people?"

  The figure on the throne voiced a curt order; the one who had broughtthem stepped forward. His voice was raised in the same discordant,singing tone that leaped and wandered from note to note. It conveyedideas--that was apparent; it was a language that he spoke. And thecentral figure above nodded a brief assent as he finished.

  Their captor took an arm of each in his long fingers and pushed themroughly forward to stand alone before the battery of hard eyes.

  * * * * *

  Now the crowned figure addressed them directly. His voice quaveredsharply in what seemed an interrogation. The men looked blankly at eachother.

  Again the voice questioned them impatiently. Sykes and McGuire weresilent. Then the young flyer took an involuntary step forward and lookedsquarely at the owner of the harsh voice.

  "We don't know what you are saying," he began, "and I suppose that ourlingo makes no sense to you--" He paused in helpless wonderment as towhat he could say. Then--

  "But what the devil is it all about?" he demanded explosively. "Why allthe dirty looks? You've got us here as prisoners--now what do you expectus to do? Whatever it is, you'll have to quit singing it and talksomething we can understand."

  He knew his words were useless, but this reception was getting on hisnerves--and his arm still tingled where the scarlet one
had grippedhim.

  It seemed, though, that his meaning was not entirely lost. His wordsmeant nothing to them, but his tone must have carried its own message.There were sharp exclamations from the seated circle. The one who hadbrought them sprang forward with outstretched, clutching hands; his facewas a blood-red blotch. McGuire was waiting in crouching tenseness thatmade the red one pause.

  "You touch me again," said the waiting man, "and I'll knock you into anoutside loop."

  The attacker's indecision was ended by a loud order from above. McGuireturned as if he had been spoken to by the leader on the throne. The thinfigure was leaning far forward; his eye were boring into those of thelieutenant, and he held the motionless pose for many minutes. To theangry man, staring back and upward, there came a peculiar opticalillusion.

  The evil face was vanishing in a shifting cloud that dissolved andreformed, as he watched, into pictures. He knew it was not there, thething he saw; he knew he was regarding something as intangible asthought; but he got the significance of every detail.

  He saw himself and Professor Sykes; they were being crushed like antsbeneath a tremendous heel; he knew that the foot that could grind outtheir lives was that of the one on the throne.

  * * * * *

  The cloud-stuff melted to new forms that grew clearer to show him theearth. A distorted Earth--and he knew the distortion came from the mindof the being before him who had never seen the earth at first hand; yethe knew it for his own world. It was turning in space; he saw oceans andcontinents; and before his mental gaze he saw the land swarming withthese creatures of Venus. The one before him was in command; he wasseated on an enormous throne; there were Earth people like Sykes andhimself who crept humbly before him, while fleets of great Venusianships hovered overhead.

  The message was plain--plain as if written in words of fire in the brainof the man. McGuire knew that these creatures intended that the visionshould be true--they meant to conquer the earth. The slim, khaki-cladfigure of Lieutenant McGuire quivered with the strength of his refusalto accept the truth of what he saw. He shook his head to clear it ofthese thought wraiths.

  "Not--in--a--million--years!" he said, and he put behind his words allthe mental force at his command. "Try that, old top, and they'll giveyou the fight of your life--" He checked his words as he saw plainlythat the thin cruel face that stared and stared was getting nothing fromhis reply.

  "Now what do you think about that?" he demanded of Professor Sykes. "Hegot an idea across to me--some form of telepathy. I saw his mind, or Isaw what he wanted me to see of it. It's taps, he says, for us, and thenthey think they're going across and annex the world."

  He glanced upward again and laughed loudly for the benefit of those whowere watching him so closely. "Fine chance!" he said; "a fat chance!"But in the deeper recesses of his mind he was shaken.

  For themselves there was no hope. Well, that was all in a lifetime. Butthe other--the conquest of the earth--he had to try with all his powerof will to keep from his mind the pictures of destruction these beastlythings could bring about.

  * * * * *

  The chief of this strange council made a gesture of contempt with thegrotesque hands that were so translucent yet ashy-pale against hisscarlet robe, and the down-drawn thin lips reflected the thoughts thatprompted it. The open opposition of Lieutenant McGuire failed to impresshim, it seemed. At a word the one who had brought them sprang forward.

  He addressed himself to the circle of men, and he harangued themmightily in harsh discordance. He pointed one lean hand at the twocaptives, then beat it upon his own chest. "They are mine," he wassaying, as the men knew plainly. And they realized as if the weird talkcame like words to their ears that this monster was demanding that thecaptives be given him.

  An exchange of dismayed glances, and "Not so good!" said McGuire underhis breath; "Simon Legree is asking for his slaves. Mean, ugly devil,that boy!"

  The lean figures on the platform were bending forward, an expression ofmirth--distorted, animal smiles--upon their flabby lips. Theyrepresented to the humans, so helpless before them, a race of thinkingthings in whom no last vestige of kindness or decency remained. But wasthere an exception? One of the circle was standing; the one beside themwas sullenly silent as the other on the platform addressed their ruler.

  He spoke at some length, not with the fire and vehemence of the one whohad claimed them, but more quietly and dispassionately, and his coldeyes, when they rested on those of McGuire and Sykes, seemed morecrafty than actively ablaze with malevolent ill-will. Plainly it was thecouncilor now, addressing his superior. His inhuman voice was silencedby a reply from the one on the throne.

  He motioned--this gold-crowned figure of personified evil--toward thetwo men, and his hand swept on toward the one who had spoken. He intoneda command in harsh gutturals that ended in a sibilant shriek. And thetwo standing silent and hopeless exchanged looks of despair.

  They were being delivered to this other--that much was plain--but thatit boded anything but captivity and torment they could not believe. Thatlast phrase was too eloquent of hissing hate.

  * * * * *

  The creature rose, tall and ungainly, from his throne; amid thesalutations of his followers he turned and vanished through the arch.The others of his council followed, all but the one. He motioned to thetwo men to come with him, and the sullen one who had demanded the menfor himself obeyed an order from this councilor who was his superior.

  He snapped an order, and four of his men ranged themselves about thecaptives as a guard. Thin metal cords were whipped about the wrists ofeach; their hands were tied. The wire cut like a knife-edge if theystrained against it.

  The new director of their destinies was vanishing through an exit at oneside of the great hall; their guard hustled them after. A corridoropened before them to end in a gold-lit portal; it was daylight outbeyond where a street was filled with hurrying figures in many colors.With quavering shrieks they scattered like frightened fowls as anairship descended between the tall buildings that reflected its passingin opalescent hues.

  It was a small craft compared with the one that had brought them, andit swept down to settle lightly upon the street with no least regardfor those who might be crushed by its descent. Consideration for theirfellows did not appear as a marked characteristic of this strangepeople, McGuire observed thoughtfully. They swarmed in endless droves,these multicolored beings who made of the thoroughfare an ever-changingkaleidoscope--and what was a life or two, more or less, among so many?He found no comfort for themselves in the thought.

  Shoulder to shoulder, the two followed where the scarlet figure of thecouncilor moved toward the waiting ship. Only the professor paid furtherheed to their surroundings; he marveled aloud at the numbers of thepeople.

  "Hundreds of them," he said; "thousands! They are swarming everywherelike rats. Horrible!" His eyes passed on to the buildings in their gloryof delicate hues, as he added, "And the contrast they make with theirsurroundings! It is all wrong some way; I wish I knew--"

  They were in the ship when McGuire replied. "I hope we live long enoughto satisfy your curiosity," he said grimly.

  The ship was rising beneath them; the opal and quartz of the city'swalls were flashing swiftly down.

  CHAPTER IX

  They were in a cabin at the very nose of the ship, seated on metalchairs, their hands unshackled and free. Their scarlet guardian reclinedat ease somewhat to one side, but despite his apparent disregard hiscold eyes seldom left the faces of the two men.

  Windows closed them in; windows on each side, in front, above them, andeven in the floor beneath. It was a room for observation whosemetal-latticed walls served only as a framework for the glass. And therewas much to be observed.

  The golden radiance of sunlit clouds was warm above. They rose towardit, until, high over the buildings' tallest spires, there spread onevery hand the bewildering beauty of that forest of minarets
and slopingroofs and towers, whose many facets made glorious blendings of softcolor. Aircraft at many levels swept in uniform directions throughoutthe sky. The ship they were in hung quiet for a time, then rose to ahigher level to join the current of transportation that flowed into thesouth.

  "We will call it south," said Professor Sykes. "The sun-glow, you willobserve, is not directly overhead; the sun is sinking; it is past theirnoon. What is the length of their day? Ah, this interesting--interesting!"The certain fate they had foreseen was forgotten; it is not often given toan astronomer to check at first hand his own indefinite observations.

  "Look!" McGuire exclaimed. "Open country! The city is ending!"

  * * * * *

  Ahead and below them the buildings were smaller and scattered. Their newmaster was watching with closest scrutiny the excitement of the men; hewhispered an order into a nearby tube, and the ship slowly slantedtoward the ground. He was studying these new specimens, as McGuireobserved, but the lieutenant paid little attention; his eyes were toothoroughly occupied in resolving into recognizable units the picturethat flowed past them so quickly. He was accustomed, this pilot of thearmy air service, to reading clearly the map that spreads beneath aplane, but now he was looking at an unfamiliar chart.

  "Fields," he said, and pointed to squared areas of pale reds and blues;"though what it is, heaven knows. And the trees!--if that's what theyare." The ship went downward where an area of tropical denseness made atangled mass of color and shadow.

  "Trees!" Lieutenant McGuire had exclaimed, but these forests were oftree-forms in weirdest shapes and hues. They grew to towering heights,and their branches and leaves that swayed and dipped in the slow-movingair were of delicate pastel shades.

  "No sunlight," said the Professor excitedly; "they have no direct raysof the sun. The clouds act as a screen and filter out actinic rays."

  McGuire did not reply. He was watching the countless dots of color thatwere people--people who swarmed here as they had in the city; peopleworking at these great groves, crouching lower in the fields as the shipswept close; people everywhere in teeming thousands. And like thevegetation about them, they, too, were tall and thin, attenuated of formand with skin like blood-stained ash.

  "They need the sun," Sykes was repeating; "both vegetable and animallife. The plants are deficient in chlorophyl--see the pale green of theleaves!--and the people need vitamins. Yet they evidently have electricpower in abundance. I could tell them of lamps--"

  * * * * *

  His comments ceased as McGuire lurched heavily against him. The flyerhad taken note of the tense, attentive attitude of the one in scarlet;the man was leaning forward, his eyes focused directly upon thescientist's face; he seemed absorbing both words and emotions.

  How much could he comprehend? What power had he to vision theidea-pictures in the other's mind? McGuire could not know. But "Sorry!"he told Sykes; "that was clumsy of me." And he added in a whisper, "Keepyour thoughts to yourself; I think this bird is getting them."

  Buildings flashed under them, not massed solidly as in the city, yetspaced close to one another as if every foot of ground not devoted totheir incredible agriculture were needed to house the inhabitants. Theground about them was alive with an equally incredible humanity thatswarmed over all this world in appalling profusion.

  Their horrid flesh! Their hideous features! And their number! McGuirehad a sudden, sickening thought. They were larvae, these crawlinghordes--vile worm-things that infested a beautiful world--that bred herein millions, their numbers limited only by the space for their bodiesand the food for their stomachs. And he, McGuire, a _man_--he and thisother man with his clear-thinking scientific brain were prisoners tothis horde; captives, to be used or butchered by those vile, crawlingthings!

  And again it was this world of contrast that drove home the convictionwith its sickening certainty. A world of beauty, of delicate colors, ofsweeping oceans and gleaming shores and towering cities with their graceand beauty and elfin splendor yet a world that shuddered beneath thisdevouring plague of grublike men.

  * * * * *

  They swept past cities and towns and over many miles of open land beforetheir craft swung eastward toward the dark horizon. The master gaveanother order into the speaking tube and their ship shot forward, fasterand yet faster, with a speed that pressed them heavily into their seats.Behind them was the glory of the sunlit clouds; ahead the gloomygray-black masses that must make a stygian night sky over this lonelyworld--a world cut off by that vaporous shell from all communion withthe stars.

  They were over the water; before them a dark ocean reached out inforbidding emptiness to a darker horizon. Ahead, the only broken line inthe vast level expanse was a mountain rising abruptly from the sea. Itwas a volcanic cone surmounting an island; the sunlight's glow reflectedfrom behind them against the sombre mass that lifted toward the clouds.Their ship was high enough to clear it, but instead it swung, as McGuirewatched, toward the south.

  The island drifted past, and again they were on their course. But tothe flyer there were significant facts that could not pass unobserved.Their own ship had swung in a great circle to avoid this mountain. Andall through the skies were others that did the same. The air above andabout the grim sentinel peak was devoid of flying shapes.

  McGuire caught the eyes of the councilor, their keeper. "What is that?"he asked, though he knew the words were lost on the other. He nodded hishead toward the distant peak, and his question was plainly in regard tothe island. And for the first time since their coming to this wildworld, he saw, flashing across the features of one of these men, a traceof emotion that could only be construed as fear.

  The slitted cat eyes lost their look of complacent superiority. Theywidened involuntarily, and the face was drained of its blotched color.There was fear, terror unmistakable, though it showed for but aninstant. He had control of his features almost at once, but the flyerhad read their story.

  Here was something that gave pause to this race of conquering vermin; aplace in the expanse of this vast sea that brought panic to theirhearts. And there came to him, as he stowed the remembrance away in hismind, the first glow of hope. These things could fear a mountain; itmight be that they could be brought to fear a man.

  * * * * *

  The sky was clearing rapidly of traffic and the mountain of hisspeculations was lost astern, when another island came slanting swiftlyup to meet them as their ship swept down from the heights. It was a tinyspeck in the ocean's expanse, a speck that resolved itself into thesquared fields of colored growth, orchards whose brilliant, strangefruits glowed crimson in the last light of day, and enormous trees,beyond which appeared a house.

  A palace, McGuire concluded, when he saw clearly the many-storied pile.Like the buildings they had seen, this also constructed of opalescentquartz. There were windows that glowed warmly in the dusk. A sudden waveof loneliness, almost unbearable, swept over the man.

  Windows and gleaming lights, the good sounds of Earth; home!... And hisears, as he stepped out into the cool air, were assailed with thestrange cackle and calling of weird folk; the air brought him scents,from the open ground beyond, of fruits and vegetation like none he hadever known; and the earth, the homeland of his vain imaginings, wasmillions of empty miles away....

  The leader stopped, and McGuire looked dispiritedly at the unfamiliarlandscape under dusky lowering skies. Trees towered high in theair--trees grotesque and weird by all Earth standards--whose limbs werepale green shadows in the last light of day. The foliage, too, seemedbleached and drained of color, but among the leaves were flashes ofbrilliance where night-blooming flowers burst open like star-shells tofill the air with heavy scents.

  Between the men and the forest growth was a row of denser vegetation,great ferns twenty feet and more in height, and among them at regularintervals stood plants of another growth--each a tremendous pod held inair on a thick
stalk. Tendrils coiled themselves like giant springsbeside each pod, tendrils as thick as a man's wrist. The great pods wereranged in a line that extended as far as McGuire could see in the dimlight.

  * * * * *

  His shoulders drooped as the guard herded him and his companion towardthe building beyond. He must not be cast down--he would not! Who knewhow much of such feeling was read by these keen-eyed observers? And theonly thought with which he could fill his mind, the one forlorn ghost ofa hope that he could cling to, was that of an island, a volcanic peakthat rose from dark waters to point upward toward the heights.

  The guard of four was clustered about; the figures were waiting now inthe gathering dark--waiting, while the one in scarlet listened and spokealternately into a jeweled instrument that hung by a slender chain abouthis neck. He raised one lean hand to motion the stirring guards tosilence, listened again intently into the instrument, then pointed thathand toward the cloud-filled sky, while he craned his thin neck to lookabove him.

  The men's eyes followed the pointing hand to see only the sullen blackof unlit clouds. The last distant aircraft had vanished from the skies;not a ship was in the air--only the enveloping blanket of high-flungvapor that blocked out all traces of the heavens. And then!--

  The cloud banks high in the skies flashed suddenly to dazzling, rollingflame. The ground under their feet was shaken as by a distantearthquake, while, above, the terrible fire spread, a swift, flashingconflagration that ate up the masses of clouds.

  "What in thunder--" McGuire began; then stopped as he caught, in thelight from above, the reflection of fierce exultation in the eyes of thescarlet one. The evil, gloating message of those eyes needed no words toexplain its meaning. That this cataclysm was self-made by these beings,McGuire knew, and he knew that in some way it meant menace to him andhis.

  Yet he groped in thought for some definite meaning. No menace could thisbe to himself personally, for he and Sykes stood there safe in thecompany of the councilor himself. Then the threat of this flaming blastmust be directed toward the earth!

  * * * * *

  The fire vanished, and once more, as Professor Sykes had seen on thatnight so long ago, the blanket of clouds was broken. McGuire followedthe gaze of the scientist whose keen eyes were probing in these briefmoments into the depths of star-lit space.

  "There--there!" Sykes exclaimed in awe-struck tones. His hand waspointing outward through the space where flames had cleared the sky. Astar was shining in the heavens with a glory that surpassed all others.It outshone all neighboring stars, and it sent its light down throughthe vast empty reaches of space, a silent message to two humans,despondent and heartsick, who stared with aching eyes.

  Lieutenant McGuire did not hear his friend's whispered words. No need toname that distant world--it was Earth! Earth!... And it was calling toits own....

  There was a flying-field--so plain before his mental eyes; men in khakiand leather who moved and talked and spoke of familiar things ... andthe thunder of motors ... and roaring planes....

  Some far recess within his deeper self responded strangely. What now ofthreats and these brute-things that threatened?--he was one with thispicture he had visioned. He was himself; he was a man of that distantworld of men; they would show these vile things how men could meetmenace--or death.... His shoulders were back and unconsciously he stooderect.

  The scarlet figure was close beside them in the dusk, his voice vibrantwith a quality which should have struck fear to his captives' hearts ashe ordered them on. But the look in his crafty eyes changed to one ofpuzzled wonder at sight of the men.

  Hands on each other's shoulders, they stood there in the gathering dark,where grotesque trees arched twistingly overhead. Their moment ofdepression had passed; Earth had called, and they had heard it, eachafter his own fashion. But to each the call had been one of clearcourage. No longer cast off and forlorn, they were one with their ownworld.

  "Down," said Professor Sykes with a whimsical smile; "down, but notout!" And the lieutenant responded in kind.

  "Are we down-hearted?" he demanded loudly. And the two turned as one manto grin at the scarlet one as they thundered. "N-o-o!"

  CHAPTER X

  Two men grinned in derision at the horrible, man-shaped thing that heldtheir destinies in his lean, inhuman hands!--but they turned abruptlyaway to look again above them where that bright star still shone throughan opening in the clouds.

  "The earth! Home!" It seemed as if they could never tear their eyes awayfrom the sight.

  Their captor whistled an order, and the guard of four tugged vainly atthe two, who resisted that they might gaze upon their own world untilthe closing clouds should blot it from sight. A cry from one of the redguards roused them.

  The dark was closing in fast, and their surroundings were dim. Vaguely,McGuire felt more than saw one of the red figures whirled into the air.He sensed a movement in the jungle darkness where were groves of weirdtrees and the tangle of huge vegetable growths. What it was he could notsay, but he felt the guard who clutched at him quiver in terror.

  Their leader snatched at the instrument that hung about his neck and putit to his lips; he whistled an order, sharp and shrill. Blazing lightthat seemed to flame in the air was the response; the air was aglow withan all-pervading brilliance like that in the car that had whirled themfrom the landing field. The light was everywhere, and the buildingbefore them was surrounded by a dazzling envelope of luminosity.

  Whatever of motion or menace there had been ceased abruptly. Theirguard, three now in number instead of four, seized them roughly andhustled them toward an open door. No time, as they passed, for more thanfleeting impressions: a hall of warm, glowing light--a passage thatbranched off--and, at the end, a room into which they were thrown, whilea metal door clanged behind them.

  * * * * *

  These were no gentle hands that hurled the men staggering through thedoorway, and Professor Sykes fell headlong upon the glassy floor. Hesprang to his feet, his face aflame with anger. "The miserable beasts!"he shouted.

  "Take it easy," admonished the flyer. "We're in the hoose-gow; no use ofgetting all fussed up if they don't behave like perfect gentlemen.

  "There's a bunk in the corner," he said, and pointed to a woven hammockthat was covered with soft cloths; "and here's another that I can sling.Twin beds! What more do you want?"

  He opened a door and the splash of falling water came to them. Afountain cascaded to the ceiling to fall splashing upon a floor ofinlaid, glassy tile. McGuire whistled.

  "Room and bath," he said. "And you complained of the service!"

  "I have an idea," he told the scientist, "that our scarlet friend whoowns this place intends to treat us decently, even though his helpersare a bit rough. My hunch is that he wants to get some information outof us. That old bird back there in the council chamber told me as plainas day that they think they are going to conquer the earth. Maybe that'swhy we are here--as exhibits A and B, for them to study and learn how tolick us."

  "You are talking what I would have termed nonsense a month ago,"replied Sykes, "but now--well, I am afraid you are right. And," he saidslowly, "I fear that they are equally correct. They have conqueredspace; they have ships propelled by some unknown power; they have gasweapons, as you and I have reason to know. And they have all thebeastly ferocity to carry such a plan through to success. But I wonderwhat that sky-splitting blast meant."

  "Bombardment," the flyer told him; "bombardment of the earth as sure asyou're alive."

  "More nonsense," said Sykes; "and probably correct.... Well, what are weto do?--sit tight and give them as little information as we can? or--"His question ended unfinished; the alternative, it seemed, was not plainto him.

  "There's only one answer," said McGuire. "We must get away; escapesomehow."

  * * * * *

  Professor Sykes' eyes showed his appreciation of a spirit t
hat couldstill dare to hope, but he asked dejectedly: "Escape? Good idea. Butwhere to?"

  "I have an idea," the flyer said slowly. "An idea about an island." Hetold the professor what he had observed--the fact that there was onespot of land on this globe from which the traffic of these monsters ofVenus steered clear. This, he explained, must have some significance.

  "Whatever is there, God only knows," he admitted, "but it is somethingthese devils don't like a little bit. It might be interesting to learnmore. We'll make a break for it; find a boat. No, we probably can't doit, but we can make a try. Now what is our first step, I wonder."

  "Our first step," said Professor Sykes, measuring his words as if hemight be working out some astronomical calculation, "is into theinverted shower-bath, if you feel as hot as I do. And our next step,when all is quiet for the night, is through the window I see beyond. Ican see the branches of one of those undernourished trees from here."

  "Last one in is a lop-eared Venusian!" said McGuire, throwing off hisjacket. And in that strange room in a strange world, under the shadow ofdeath and of tortures unknown, the two men stripped with all thecare-free abandon of a couple of schoolboys racing to be first in theold swimming hole.

  * * * * *

  It was some time later when the door opened and a long red hand pushed atray of food into the room. The tray was of unbreakable crystal--herattled it heedlessly upon the floor--and it held crystal dishes ofunknown foods.

  They were sampling them all when Sykes remarked plaintively, "I wouldlike to know what under heaven I am eating."

  "I've wished to know that in lots of restaurants," McGuire replied. "Iremember a place down on--" He stopped abruptly, then chewed in silenceupon a fruit like a striped pepper that stung his mouth and tongue whilehe scarcely felt it. References to Earth things plainly were to beavoided: the visions they brought before one's eyes were unnerving.

  They made a pretence of sleeping in case they were being observed, andit was some hours later when the two stood quietly beside the openwindow. As Sykes had seen, there were branches of a pale, twistedtree-growth close outside. McGuire tried his weight upon them, thenswung himself out, hand over hand, upon the branch that bent low beneathhim. Sykes was close behind when he clambered to the ground to stand forsome minutes, listening silently in the dark.

  "Too easy!" the lieutenant whispered. "They are too foxy to leavea gateway like that--but here we are. The shore is off in thisdirection."

  The dark of a night unrelieved by a single star was about them as theymoved noiselessly away. They followed open ground at first. The buildingthat had been their brief prison was upon their right; beyond and at theleft was where the ship landed--it was gone now--and beyond that thewall of vegetation.

  And again, in the dark, McGuire had an uncanny sense of motion. Softbodies were slipping quietly one upon another; something that lived wasthere beyond them in the night. No sound or sign of life came from thehouse; no guard had been posted; and McGuire stopped again, beforeplunging into the tangled growth, to whisper, "Too easy, Sykes! There'ssomething about this--"

  * * * * *

  He had pushed aside the fronds of a giant fern; a cautious stepbeyond his hands touched a slippery, pliant vine. And his whisperended as he felt the thing turn and twist beneath his hand. It wasalive!--writhing!--cold as the body of a monster snake, and just asvicious and savage in the way that it whipped down and about him inthe gloom of the starless night.

  The thing was alive! It threw its coils around his body in an embracethat left him breathless; a slender tendril was tightening about hisneck; his hands and arms were bound.

  His ankle was grasped as he was whirled aloft--a human hand that grippedhim this time--and Sykes, forgetting discretion and the need forsilence, was shouting in the darkness that gave no clue to theiropponent. "Hang on!" he yelled. "I've got you, Mac!"

  His shouts were cut short by another serpent shape that thrashed him andsmashed the softer growing things to earth that it might wrap this man,too, in its deadly coils.

  McGuire felt his companion's hold loosen as he was lifted from theground; there were other arms flailing about him--living, coiling thingsthat seemed to fight one with another for this prize. Abruptly,blindingly, the scene was vividly etched before him: the strange trees,the ferns, the writhing and darting serpent-arms! They were illumined ina dazzling, white light!

  He was in the air, clutched strangely in constricting arms; an odor ofrotted flesh was in his nostrils, sickening, suffocating! Beyond andalmost beneath him a cauldron of green gaped open, and he saw within ita pool of thick liquid that eddied and steamed to give off the stenchof putrescence.

  All this in an instant of vision--and in that instant he knew the deaththey courted. It was a giant pod that held that pool--one of the growthshe had seen ranged out like a line of sentinels. But the terribletendrils that had been coiled and at rest were wrapped about him now,drawing him to that reeking pool of death and the waiting thick lipsthat would close above him. Sykes, too! The tendrils that had clutchedhim were whisking his helpless body where another gaping mouth wasopen--

  * * * * *

  And then, in the blazing light that was more brilliant than any light ofday in this world, the hold about McGuire relaxed. He saw, as he fell,the thick, green lips snap shut; and the arms that had held him pulledback into harmless, tight-wound coils.

  Their bodies crashed to earth where a great fern bent beneath them tocushion their fall. And the men lay silent and gasping for great chokingbreaths, while from the building beyond came the cackle and shrieking ofman-things in manifest enjoyment of the frustrated plans.

  It was the laughter that determined McGuire.

  "Damn the plants!" he said between hoarse breaths. "Man-eatingplants--but they're--better--than--those devils! And there's only--oneline of them: I saw them here before. Shall we go on?--make a break forit?"

  Sykes rolled to the shelter of an arching frond and, without a word,went crawling away. McGuire was behind him, and the two, as they came toopen ground, sprang to their feet and ran on through the weird orchardwhere tree trunks made dim, twisting lines. They ran blindly andhelplessly toward the outer dark that promised temporary shelter.

  A hopeless attempt: both men, knew the futility of it, while theystumbled onward through the dark. Behind them the night was hideouswith noise as the great palace gave forth an eruption of shrieking,inhuman forms that scattered with whistling and wailing calls in alldirections.

  * * * * *

  A mile or more of groping, hopeless flight, till a yellow gleam shoneamong the trees to guide them. A building, beyond a clearing, gave abright illumination to the black night.

  "We've run in a circle," choked McGuire, his voice weak and uncertainwith exhaustion. "Like a couple of fools!--"

  He waited until the heavy breathing that shook his body might becontrolled, then corrected himself. "No--this is another--a new one--seethe towers! And listen--it's a radio station!"

  The slender frameworks that towered high in air glowed like flame--awarning to the ships whose lights showed now and then far overhead. And,clear and distinct, there came to the listening men the steady,crackling hiss of an uninterrupted signal.

  Against the lighted building moving figures showed momentarily, andMcGuire pulled his friend into the safe concealment of a tangle ofgrowth, while the group of yelling things sped past.

  "Come on," he told Sykes; "we can't get away--not a chance! Let's have alook at this place, and perhaps--well, I have an idea!" He slippedsilently, cautiously on, where a forest of jungle ferns gave promise ofsafe passage.

  * * * * *

  Some warning had been sounded; the occupants of the building werescattered to aid in the man-hunt. Only one was left in the room wheretwo Earth-men peeped in at the door.

  The figure was seated upon an insulated platform, and his long h
andsmanipulated keys and levers on a table before him. McGuire and Sykesstared amazedly at this broadcasting station whose air was filled with apandemonium of crashing sound from some distant room, but McGuire wasconcerned mainly with the motion of a lean, blood-red hand that swungan object like a pointer in free-running sweeps above a dial on thetable. And he detected a variation in the din from beyond as the pointermoved swiftly.

  Here was the control board for those messages he had heard; this was theinstrument that varied the sending mechanism to produce the wailingwireless cries that made words in some far-distant ears. McGuire, as heslipped into the room and crept within leaping distance of the grotesquething so like yet unlike a man, was as silent as the nameless, writhinghorror that had seized them in the dark. He sprang, and the two camecrashing to the floor.

  Lean arms came quickly about him to clutch and tear at his face, but theflyer had an arm free, and one blow ended the battle. The man of Venusrelaxed to a huddle of purple and yellow cloth from which a ghastly faceprotruded. McGuire leaped to his feet and sprang to the place where theother had been.

  "Hold them off as long as you can!" he shouted to Sykes, and his handclosed upon the pointer.

  Did this station send where he was hoping? Was this the station that hadcommunicated with the ship that had hovered above their flying field inthat far-off land? He did not know, but it was a powerful station, andthere was a chance--

  * * * * *

  He moved the pointer frantically here and there, swung it to one sideand another; then found at last a point on the outside of the strangedesign beneath his hand where the pointer could rest while the crashingcrackle of sound was stilled.

  And now he swung the pointer--upon the plate--anywhere!--and the noisefrom beyond told instantly of the current's passage. He held it aninstant, then pushed it back to the silent spot--a dash! A quick returnthat flashed back again to bring silence--a dot! More dashes and dots... and McGuire thanked a kindly heaven that had permitted him to learnthe language of the air, while he cursed his slowness in sending.

  Would it reach? Would there be anyone to hear? No certainty; he couldonly flash the wild Morse symbols out into the night. He must try to getword to them--warn them! And "Blake," he called, and spelled out thename of their field, "warning--Venus--"

  "Hold them!" he yelled to Sykes at the sound of rushing feet. "Keep themoff as long as you can!"

  "... Prepare--for invasion. Blake, this is McGuire...." Over and over,he worked the swinging pointer into symbols that might in some way, bysome fortunate chance, help that helpless people to resist the horrorthat lay ahead.

  And while heavy bodies crashed against the door that Sykes was holding,there came from some deep-hidden well of memory an inspiration. Therewas a man he had once met--a man who had confided wondrous things; andnow, with the knowledge of these others who had conquered space, hecould believe wholly what he had laughed and joked about before. Thatman, too, had claimed to have travelled far from the earth; he hadinvented a machine; his name--

  The pointer was swinging in frenzied haste to spell over and over thename of a man, and the name, too, of a forgotten place in the mountainsof Nevada. It was repeating the message; then finished in one longcrashing wail as a cloud of vapor shot about McGuire and his hand uponthe pointer went suddenly limp.

  CHAPTER XI

  Captain Blake's game of solitaire had become an obsession. He drovehimself to the utmost in the line of duty, and, through the day, thedemands of the flying field filled his mind to forgetfulness. And forthe rest, he forced his mind to concentrate upon the turn of the cards.He could not read--and he must not think!--so he sat through longevenings trying vainly to forget.

  He looked up with an expressionless face as Colonel Boynton entered theroom. The colonel saw the cards and nodded.

  "Does that help?" he asked, and added without waiting for an answer, "Idon't like cards, but I find my mathematics works well.... My oldproblems--I can concentrate on them, and stop this eternal, damnablethinking, thinking--"

  There was something of the same look forming about the eyes ofboth--that look that told of men who struggled gamely under the sentenceof death, refusing to think or to fear, and waiting, waiting,impotently. Blake looked at the colonel with a carefully emotionlessgaze. "It's hell in the big towns, I hear."

  The Colonel nodded. "Can't blame them much, if that's what appeals tothem. A year and a half!--and they've got to forget it. Why not crowdall the recklessness and excesses they can into the time that isleft?--poor devils! But for the most part the world is wagging along,and people are going through the familiar motions."

  "Well," said Blake, "I used to wonder at times how a man might feel ifhe were facing execution. Now we all know. Just going dumbly along,feeling as little as we can, thinking of anything, everything--exceptthe one thing. They've turned to using dope, a lot of them, I hear.Maybe it helps; nobody cares much. Only a year and a half."

  * * * * *

  He raised his face from which all expression was consciously erased."Any possible hope?" he asked. "Or do we take it when it comes and fightwith what we've got as long as we can? There was some talk in the papersof an invention--Bureau of Standards cooperating with the big GeneralCommittee to investigate. Anything come of it?"

  "A thousand of them," said the colonel, "all futile. No, we can't expectmuch from those things. Though there's a whisper that came to me fromWashington. General Clinton--you may remember him; he was here when thething first broke--says that some scientist, a real one, not another ofthese half-baked geniuses, has worked out a transformation of some kind.It was too deep for me, but it is based upon changing hydrogen intohelium, I think. Liberates some perfectly tremendous amount of power.The general had it all down pat--"

  He stopped speaking at the change in Captain Blake's face. The carefulrepression of all emotions was gone; the face was suddenly alive--

  "I know," he said sharply; "I remember something of the theory. There isa difference in the atoms or their protons--the liberation of anelectron from each atom--matter actually transformed into energy;theoretical, what I have read. But--but--Oh my God, Boynton, do you meanthat they've got it?--that it will drive us through space?"

  * * * * *

  The colonel drove one fist into the palm of his other hand. "Fool!Idiot!" he exclaimed, and it was evident that the epithets were intendedfor himself.

  "I had forgotten that you had been trained along that line. The generalwants a man to work with them, somewhat as a liason officer to link thearmy requirements closely with their developments; we are hoping to workout a space ship, of course. You are just the man; I will radio him thisminute. Be ready to leave--" The slamming of the door marked a hurriedexit toward the radio room.

  And abruptly, stifflingly, Captain Blake dared to hope. "Scientists willcome through with something, some new method of propulsion. All theworld is looking to them!" His thoughts were leaping from onepossibility to another. "Some miracle of power that will drive a fleetthrough space as they have done, to battle with the enemy on his ownground--"

  Could he help? Was there one little thing that he could do to applytheir knowledge to practical ends? The thought thrilled him withoverpowering emotion an hour later as he felt the lift of the planebeneath him.

  "Report to General Clinton," the colonel's reply had said. "CaptainBlake will be assigned to special duty." He opened the throttle to hisship's best cruising speed, but his spirit was soaring ahead to urge onthe swift scout ship whose wings drove steadily into the gatheringdusk.

  * * * * *

  And then, after long hours, Washington! Brief words with many men--anddiscouragement! The seat of government of the United States was a cityof despondent men, weary, hopeless, but fighting. There was a look ofstrain on every face; the eyes told a story of sleepless nights andfutile thinking and planning. Blake's elation was short lived.

 
He was sent to New York and on into the state, where the laboratories ofa great electrical company had turned their equipment from commercialpurposes to those of war. Here, surely, one might find fuel to feed thedying embers of hope; the new development must give greater promise thanGeneral Clinton had intimated.

  "Nothing you can do as yet," he was told, when he had stated hismission. "It is still experimental, but we have worked out thetransformation on a small scale, and harnessed the power."

  Captain Blake was in no mood for temporizing; he was tired with beingput off. He stared belligerently at the chief of this department.

  "Power--hell!" he said. "We've got power now. How will you apply it? Howwill we use it for travelling through space?"

  The great man of science was unmoved by the outburst. "That ispoppycock," he replied; "the unscientific twaddle of the sensationalpress. We are practical men here; we are working to give you men who dothe fighting better ships and better arms. But you will use them righthere on Earth."

  The calm assurance of this man who spoke with a voice of such confidenceand authority left the flyer speechless. His brain sent a chaos ofprofane and violent expletives to the lips that dared not frame them.There was no adequate reply.

  * * * * *

  Blake jammed his hat upon his head and walked blindly from the room.Heedless of the protests of those he jostled on the street he wentraging on, but some subconscious urge directed his steps. He foundhimself at the railway. There was a station, and a grilled window wherehe was asking for a ticket back to Washington. And on the followingday--

  "There is nothing I can do," he told General Clinton. "It is hopeless. Iask to be relieved."

  "Why?" The general snapped the question at him. What kind of man wasthis that Boynton had sent him?

  "They are fools," said Blake bluntly, "pompous, well-meaning fools! Theyare planning better motors, more power"--he laughed harshly--"and theythink that with them we can attack ships that are independent of theair."

  "Still," asked General Clinton coldly, "for what purpose do you wish tobe relieved? What do you intend to do?"

  "Return to the field," said Captain Blake, "to work, and put my planesand personnel in the best possible condition; then, when the time comes,go up and fight like hell."

  An unusual phrasing of a request when one is addressing one's commander;but the older man threw back his shoulders, that were bending underresponsibilities too great for one man to bear, and took a long breaththat relaxed his face and seemed to bring relief.

  "You've got the right idea,"--he spoke slowly and thoughtfully--"theright philosophy. It is all we have left--to fight like hell when thetime comes. Give my regards to Colonel Boynton; he sent me a good manafter all."

  * * * * *

  Another long flight, westward this time, and, despite the failure of hishopes and of his errand, Blake was flying with a mind at peace. "It isall we have left," the general had said. Well, it was good to facefacts, to admit them--and that was that! There was no use of thinking orworrying.... He lifted the ship to a higher level and glanced at hiscompass. There were clouds up ahead, and he drove still higher into thenight, until he was above them.

  And again his peace of mind was not to last.

  It was night when he swung the ship over his home port and signalled fora landing. A flood of light swept out across the field to guide himdown. He went directly to the colonel's quarters but found him gone.

  "In the radio room, I think," an orderly told him.

  Colonel Boynton was listening intently in the silent room; he scowledwith annoyance at the disturbance of Blake's coming; then, seeing who itwas, he motioned quickly for the captain to listen in.

  "Good Lord, Blake," he told the captain in an excited whisper; "I'm gladyou're here. Another ship had been sighted; she's been all over theearth; just scouting and mapping, probably. And there have been signalsthe same as before--the same until just now. Listen!--it's talkingMorse!--it's been calling for you!"

  He thrust a head set into Blake's hands, then reached for some papers."Poor reception, but there's what we've got," he said.

  * * * * *

  The paper held the merest fragments of messages that the operator haddeciphered. Blake examined them curiously while he listened at thesilent receiver.

  "Maricopa"--the message, whatever it was, was meant for them, but therewere only parts of words and disjointed phrases that the man had writtendown--"Venus attacking Earth ... Captain Blake ... Sykes and...."

  At the name of Sykes, Blake dropped the paper.

  "What does this mean?" he demanded. "Sykes!--why Sykes was theastronomer who was captured with McGuire!"

  "Listen! Listen!" The colonel's voice was almost shrill with excitement.

  The night was whispering faintly the merest echo of a signal from astation far away, but it resolved itself into broken fragments of soundthat were long and short in duration, and the fragments joined to formletters in the Morse code.

  "See Winslow," it told them, and repeated the message: "See Winslow atSierra...." Some distant storm crashed and rattled for breathlessminutes. "Blake see Winslow. This is McGuire, Blake. Winslow canhelp--"

  The message ended abruptly. One long, wailing note; then again the nightwas voiceless ... and in the radio room at Maricopa Flying Field two menstood speechless, unbreathing, to stare at each other with incredulouseyes, as might men who had seen a phantom--a ghost that spoke to themand called them by name.

  "McGuire--is--alive!" stammered Blake. "They've taken him--there!"

  * * * * *

  Colonel Boynton was considering, weighing all the possibilities, and hisvoice, when he answered, had the ring of conviction.

  "That was no hoax," he agreed; "that quavering tone could never befaked. That message was sent from the same station we heard before. Yes,McGuire is alive--or was up to the end of that sending.... But, who thedevil is Winslow?"

  Blake shook his head despairingly. "I don't know," he said. "And itseems as if I should--"

  It was hours later, far into the night, when he sprang from out of ahalf-conscious doze to find himself in the middle of the floor with thevoice of McGuire ringing clearly in his ears. A buried memory hadreturned to the level of his conscious mind. He rushed over to thecolonel's quarters.

  "I've got it," he shouted to that officer whose head was projecting froman upper window. "I remember! McGuire told me about this Winslow--somehermit that he ran across. He has some invention--some machine--said hehad been to the moon. I always thought Mac half believed him. We'll goover Mac's things and find the address."

  "Do you think--do you suppose--?" began Colonel Boynton doubtfully.

  "I don't dare to think," Blake responded. "God only knows if we darehope; but Mac--Mac's got a level head; he wouldn't send us unless heknew! Good Lord, man!" he exclaimed, "Mac radioed us from Venus; isthere anything impossible after that?"

  "Wait there," said Colonel Boynton; "I'll be right down--"

  CHAPTER XII

  Lieutenant McGuire awoke, as he had on other occasions, to the smell ofsickly-sweet fumes and the stifling pressure of a mask held over hisnose and mouth. He struggled to free himself, and the mask was removed.Another of the man-creatures whom McGuire had not seen before helped himto sit up.

  A group of the attenuated figures, with their blood-and-ashes faces,regarded him curiously. The one who had helped him arise forced theothers to stand back, and he gave McGuire a drink of yellow fluid from acrystal goblet. The dazed man gulped it down to feel a following surgeof warmth and life that pulsed through his paralyzed body. The figuresbefore him came sharply from the haze that had enveloped them. A windowhigh above admitted a golden light that meant another day, but itbrought no cheer or encouragement to the flyer. McGuire felt crushed andhopeless in the knowledge that his life must still go on.

  If only that sleep could have continued--carried him out
to the deepersleep of death! What hope for them here? Not a chance! And then heremembered Sykes; he mustn't desert Sykes. He looked about him to seethe same prison room from which he and Sykes had escaped. The body ofthe scientist was motionless on the hammock-bed across the room; anoccasional deep-drawn breath showed that the man still lived.

  No, he must not leave Sykes, even if he had the means of death. Theywould fight it through together, and perhaps--perhaps--they might yet beof service, might find some way to avert the catastrophe that threatenedtheir world. Hopeless? Beyond doubt. But he must hope--and fight!

  The leader had watched the light of understanding as it returned to theflyer's eyes. He motioned now to the others, and McGuire was picked upbodily by four of them and carried from the room.

  * * * * *

  McGuire's mind was alert once more; he was eager to learn what he couldof this place that was to be their prison, but he saw little. A glory ofblending colors beyond, where the golden light from without shonethrough opal walls--then he found himself upon a narrow table wherestraps of metal were thrown quickly about to bind him fast. He was tiedhand and foot to the table that moved forward on smooth rollers to awaiting lift.

  What next? he questioned. Not death, for they had been too careful tokeep him alive, these repulsive things that stared at him with such coldmalevolence. Then what? And McGuire found himself with unpleasantrecollections of others he had seen strapped in similar fashion to anoperating table.

  The lift that he had thought would rise fell smoothly, instead, to stopat some point far below ground where the table with its helpless burdenwas rolled into a great room.

  He could move his head, and McGuire turned and twisted to look at themaze of instruments that filled the room--a super-laboratory forexperiments of which he dared not think.

  "Whoever says I'm not scared to death is a liar," he whispered tohimself, but he continued to look and wonder as he was wheeled before agleaming machine of many coils and shining, metal parts. A smooth sheetof metal stood vertically beyond him; painted a grayish-white, he saw;but he could not imagine its use. A throng of people, seated in theroom, turned blood-red faces toward the bound man and the metal sheet.

  "Looks as if we were about to put on a show of some kind," he toldhimself, "and I am cast for a leading role." He watched as best he couldfrom his bound position while a tall figure in robes of lustreless blackappeared to stand beside him.

  The newcomer regarded him with a face that was devoid of all emotion.McGuire felt the lack of the customary expression of hatred; there wasnot even that; and he knew he was nothing more than a strange animal,bound, and helpless, ready for this weird creature's experiments. Theone in black held a pencil whose tip was a tiny, brilliant light.

  * * * * *

  Abruptly the room plunged to darkness, where the only visible thing wasthis one point of light. Ceaselessly it waved back and forth before hiseyes; he followed it in a pattern of strange design; it approached andreceded. Again and again the motion was repeated, until McGuire felthimself sinking--sinking--into a passive state of lethargy. His musclesrelaxed; his mind was at rest; there seemed nothing in the entireuniverse of being but the single point of light that drew him on and on... till something whispered from the far reaches of black space....

  It came to him, an insistent call. It was asking about the earth--hisown world. _What of Earth's armies and their means of defense?_ Vaguelyhe sensed the demand, and without conscious volition he responded. Hepictured the world he had known; how plainly he saw the wide field atMaricopa, and the sweeping flight of a squadron of planes! _Yes--yes!How high could they ascend?_ From one of the planes he saw the worldbelow; the ships were near their ceiling; this was the limit of theirclimb. _And did they fight with gas? What of their deadliness?_ Andagain he was seated in a plane, and he was firing tiny bullets from atiny gun. No. They did not use gas. _But on the ground below--whatfortifications? What means of defense?_

  McGuire's mind was no longer his own; he could only respond to thatinvisible questioner, that insistent demand from out of the depths wherehe was floating. And yet there was something within him that protested,that clamored at his mind and brain.

  Fortifications! They must know about fortifications--anti-aircraftguns--means for combatting aerial attack. Yes, he knew, and he mustexplain--and the thing within him pounded in the back of his brain todraw him back to himself.

  He saw a battery of anti-aircraft guns in operation; the guns werefiring; shells were bursting in little plumes of smoke high in the air.And that self within him was shouting now, hammering at him; "You areseeing it," it told him; "it is there before you on the screen. Stop!Stop!"

  * * * * *

  And for an instant McGuire had the strange experience of witnessing hisown thoughts. Memories, mental records of past experience, were flashingthrough his mind; mock battles, and the batteries were firing! And,before him, on the metal screen, there glowed a vivid picture of thesame thing. Men were serving the guns with sure swiftness; the burstswere high in the air--in a flash of understanding Lieutenant McGuireknew that he was giving his country's secrets to the enemy. And in thatsame instant he felt himself swept upward from the depths of thatdarkness where he had drifted. He was himself again, bound and helplessbefore an infernal contrivance of these devil-creatures. They had readhis thoughts; the machine beside him had projected them upon the screenfor all to see; a steady clicking might mean their reproduction inmotion pictures for later study! He, Lieutenant McGuire, was a traitoragainst his will!

  The screen was blank, and the lights of the room came on to show thethin lips that smiled complacently in a cruel and evil face.

  McGuire glared back into that face, and he tried with all the mentalforce that he could concentrate to get across to the exultant one thefact that they had not wholly conquered him. This much they had got--butno more!

  The thin-lipped one had an instrument in his hand, and McGuire felt theprick of a needle plunged into his arm. He tried to move his head andfound himself powerless. And now, in the darkness of the room where alllights were again extinguished, the helpless man was fighting the mosthorrible of battles, and the battleground was within his own mind. Hewas two selves, and he fought and struggled with all his consciousnessto keep those memories from flooding him.

  With one part of himself he knew what it meant: a sure knowledge giventhese invaders of what they must prepare to meet; he was betraying hiscountry; the whole of humanity! And that raging, raving self waspowerless to check the flow of memory pictures that went endlesslythrough his mind and out upon the screen beyond....

  He had no sense of time; he was limp and exhausted with his fruitlessstruggle when he felt himself released from the bondage of the metalstraps and placed again in the hammock in his room. And he could onlylook wanly and hopelessly after the figure of Professor Sykes, carriedby barbarous figures to the same ordeal.

  * * * * *

  Sleep, through the long night, restored both McGuire and his companionto normal strength. The flyer was seated with his head bowed low in hiscupped hands. His words seemed wrung from an agony of spirit. "So that'swhat they brought us here for," he said harshly; "that's why they'rekeeping us alive!"

  Professor Sykes walked back and forth in their bare room while he shookhis impotent fists in the air.

  "I told them everything," he exploded; "everything!" Their astronomicalknowledge must be limited; under this blanket of clouds they can seenothing, and from their ships they could make approximations only.

  "And I have told them--the earth, and its days and seasons--its orbitalvelocity and motion--its relation to the orbit of this accursed planet.They had documents from the observatory and I explained them; Icorrected their time of firing their big gun on its equatorial position.Oh, there is little I left untold--damn them!"

  "I wish to heaven," said the flyer savagely, "that we had known; wewou
ld have jumped out of their beastly ship somehow ten thousand feetup, and we would have taken our information with us."

  Sykes nodded agreement. "Well," he asked, "how about to-morrow, and thenext day, and the next? They will want more facts; they will pump thelast drop of information from us. Are we going to allow it?"

  * * * * *

  McGuire's tone was dry. "You know the answer to that as well as I do. Wehave just two alternatives; either we get out of here--find some placeto hide in, then find some way to put a crimp in their plans; or we getout of here for good. It's twenty feet, not twenty thousand, from thatwindow to the ground, but I think a head-first dive would do it."

  Sykes did not reply at once; he seemed to be weighing some problem inhis mind.

  "I would prefer the water," he said at last. "If we _can_ get away andreach the shore, and if there is not a possibility of escape--which Imust admit I consider highly improbable--well, we can always swim out asfar as we can go, and the result will be certain.

  "This other is so messy." The man had stopped his ceaseless pacing, andhe even managed a cheerful smile at the lieutenant. "And, remember, itmight only cripple us and leave us helpless in their hands."

  "Sounds all right to me," McGuire agreed, and there was a tone offinality in his voice as he added: "They've made us do that traitor actfor the last time, anyway."

  * * * * *

  Daylight comes slowly through cloud-filled skies; the window of theroom where the fountain sprayed ceaselessly was showing the first hintof gold in the eastern sky. Above was the utter darkness of thecloud-wrapped night as the two men swung noiselessly out into thegrotesque branches of a tree to make their way into the gloom below.There, under the cover of great leaves, they crouched in silence, whilethe darkness about them faded and a sound of subdued whistling noisescame to them from the night.

  A wheel creaked, and in the dim light two figures appeared tugging at acart upon which was a cage of woven wire. Beyond them, against thedarker background of denser growth, tentacles coiled and twisted abovethe row of guardian plants that surrounded the house.

  One of the ghostly forms reached within the cage and brought forth astruggling object that whimpered in fear. The low whine came distinctlyto the hidden men. They saw a vague black thing tossed through the airand toward the deadly plants; they heard the swishing of plianttentacles and the yelping cry of a frightened animal. And the cry roseto a shriek that ended with the gulping splash of thick liquid.

  The giant pod next in line was open--they could see it dimly--and itstentacles were writhing convulsively, hungrily, across the ground.Another animal was taken from the cage and thrown to the waiting,serpent forms that closed about and whirled it high in air. Another--andanother! The yelps of terror grew faint in the distance as the monsterspassed on in their gruesome work. And the two men, palpitant withmemories of their own experience, were limp and sick with horror.

  * * * * *

  In the growing light they saw more plainly the fleshy, pliant arms thatwhipped through the air or felt searchingly along the ground. No hopethere for bird or beast that passed by in the night; nor for men, asthey knew too well. But now, as the golden light increased, the armsdrew back to form again the tight-wound coils that flattened themselvesbeside the monstrous pods whose lips were closing. Locked within themwere the pools of liquid that could dissolve a living body into food forthese vampires of the vegetable world.

  "Damnable!" breathed Sykes in a savage whisper. "Utterly damnable! Andthis world is peopled with such monsters!"

  The last deadly arm was tightly coiled when the men stole off throughthe lush growth that reached even above their heads. McGuire rememberedthe outlines he had seen from the air and led the way where, if nobetter concealment could be found, the ocean waited with promise of restand release from their inhuman captors.

  They counted on an hour's start--it would be that long before theirjailer would come with their morning meal and give the alarm--and nowthey went swiftly and silently through the stillness of a strange world.The air that flicked misty-wet across their faces was heavy and headywith the perfume of night-blooming plants. Crimson blossoms flung widetheir odorous petals, and the first golden light was filtered throughtremendous tree-growths of pale lavenders and grays to show as unrealcolors in the vegetation close about them.

  * * * * *

  They found no guards; the isolation of this island made the land itselftheir prison, and the men ran at full speed through every open space,knowing as they ran that there was no refuge for them--only the oceanwaiting at the last. But their flight was not unobserved.

  A great bird rose screaming from a tangle of vines; its heavy, flappingwings flashed red against the pale trees. A pandemonium of shriekingcries echoed its alarm as other birds took flight; the forest about themwas in an uproar of harsh cries. And faintly, from far in the rear, camea babel of shrill calls--weird, inhuman!--the voices of the men-thingsof Venus.

  "It's all off," said McGuire sharply; "they'll be on our trail now!" Heplunged through where the trees were more open, and Sykes was beside himas they ran with a burst of speed toward a hilltop beyond.

  They paused, panting, upon the crest. A wide expanse of foliage indelicate shadings swept out before them to wave gently in a sea of colorunder the morning breeze, and beyond was another sea that beckoned withwhite breakers on a rocky shore.

  "The ocean!" gasped Sykes, and pointed a trembling hand toward theirgoal. "But--I had no idea--that suicide--was--such hard work!"

  The tall figure of Lieutenant McGuire turned to the shorter, breathlessman, and he gripped hard at one of his hands.

  "Sykes," he said, "I'll never get another chance to say it--but you'reone good scout!... Come on!"

  * * * * *

  McGuire fought to force his way through jungle growth, while screamingbirds marked where they went. The sounds of their pursuers were closebehind them when the two tore their way through the last snarled tangleof pale vine to stand on a sheer bluff, where, below, deep waterscrashed against a rocky wall. They staggered with weariness and gulpedsobbingly of the morning air. McGuire could have sworn he was exhaustedbeyond any further effort, yet from somewhere he summoned energy tospring savagely upon a tall, blood-red figure whose purpling face rosesuddenly to confront them.

  One hand closed upon the metal tube that the other hand raised, and,with his final reserve of strength, the flyer wrapped an arm about thetall body and rushed it stumblingly toward the cliff. To be balkednow!--to be brought back to that intolerable prison and the unthinkablerole of traitor! The khaki-clad figure wrenched furiously at the deadlytube as they struggled and swayed on the edge of the cliff.

  He freed his arm quickly, and, regardless of the clawing thing that toreat his face and eyes, he launched one long swing for the horrible faceabove him. He saw the awkward fall of a lean body, and he swayedhelplessly out to follow when the grip of Sykes' hand pulled him backand up to momentary safety.

  McGuire's mind held only the desire to kill, and he would have begun astaggering rush toward the shrieking mob that broke from the coverbehind them, had not Sykes held him fast. At sight of the weapon, theirown gas projector, still clutched in the flyer's hand, the pursuershalted. Their long arms pointed and their shrill calls joined in achorus that quavered and fell uncertainly.

  * * * * *

  One, braver than the rest, dashed forward and discharged his weapon. Thespurting gas failed to reach its intended victims; it blew gently backtoward the others who fled quickly to either side. Above the trees agiant ship nosed swiftly down, and McGuire pointed to it grimly and insilence. The men before them were massed now for a rush.

  "This is the end," said the flyer softly. "I wonder how this devilishthing works; there's a trigger here. I will give them a shot with thewind helping, then we'll jump for it."

&nb
sp; The ship was above them as the slim figure of Lieutenant McGuire threwitself a score of paces toward the waiting group. From the metal tubethere shot a stream of pale vapor that swept downward upon the otherswho ran in panic from its touch.

  Then back--and a grip of a hand!--and two Earth-men who threw themselvesout and downward from a sheer rock wall to the cool embrace of deepwater.

  They came to the top, battered from their fall, but able to dive under awave and emerge again near one another.

  "Swim!" urged Sykes. "Swim out! They may get us here--recover ourbodies--resuscitate us. And that wouldn't do!"

  Another wave, and the two men were swimming beyond it; swimming feeblybut steadily out from shore, while above them a great cylinder ofshining metal swept past in a circling flight. They kept on while theireyes, from the wave tops, saw it turn and come slowly back in a longsmooth descent.

  It was a hundred feet above the water a short way out at sea, and thetwo men made feeble motions with arms and legs, while their eyesexchanged glances of dismay.

  * * * * *

  A door had opened in the round under-surface, and a figure, whosegas-suit made it a bloated caricature of a man, was lowered from beneathin a sling. From the stern of the ship gaseous vapor belched downward tospread upon the surface of the water. The wind was bringing the mistycloud toward them. "The gas!" said McGuire despairingly. "It will knockus out, and then that devil will get us! They'll take us back! Our lastchance--gone!"

  "God help us!" said Sykes weakly. "We can't--even--die--" His feeblestrokes stopped, and he sank beneath the water. McGuire's last pictureas he too sank and the waters closed over his head, was the shining shiphovering beyond.

  He wondered only vaguely at the sudden whirling of water around him. Asolid something was rising beneath his dragging feet; a firm, solidsupport that raised him again to the surface. He realized dimly the airabout him, the sodden form of Professor Sykes some few feet distant. Hisnumbed brain was trying to comprehend what else the eyes beheld.

  A metal surface beneath them rose higher, shining wet, above the water;a metal tube raised suddenly from its shield, to swing in quick aim uponthe enemy ship approaching from above.

  His eyes moved to the ship, and to the man-thing below in the sling. Itsclothes were a mass of flame, and the figure itself was falling headlongthrough the air. Above the blazing body was the metal of the shipitself, and it sagged and melted to a liquid fire that poured, splashingand hissing, to the waters beneath. In the wild panic the great shapethrew itself into the air; it swept out and up in curving flight toplunge headlong into the depths....

  The gas was drifting close, as McGuire saw an opening in the structurebeside him. The voice of a man, human, kindly, befriending, saidsomething of "hurry" and "gas," and "lift them carefully but makehaste." The white faces of men were blurred and indistinct as McGuirefelt himself lowered into a cool room and laid, with the unconsciousform of Sykes, upon a floor.

  He tried to remember. He had gone down in the water--Sykes had drowned,and he himself--he was tired--tired. "And this,"--the thought seemed acertainty in his mind--"this is death. How--very--peculiar--" He wastrying to twist his lips to a weak laugh as the lighted ports in thewall beside him changed from gold to green, then black--and a rushing oftorn waters was in his ears....

  (_To be continued_)

  * * * * *

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