IF YOU WILL LOOK AT any good map of Venus you will see that the land mass called Anlap lies northwest of the island of Vepaja, from which Duare and I had just escaped. On Anlap lies Korva, the friendly country toward which I pointed the nose of our plane.
Of course there is no good map of Venus, at least none that I ever have seen; because the scientists of the southern hemisphere of the planet, the hemisphere to which Chance carried my rocket ship, have an erroneous conception of the shape of their world. They believe that Amtor, as they call it, is shaped like a saucer and floats upon a sea of molten rock. This seems quite evident to them, for how else might the spewing of lava from the craters of volcanoes be explained?
They also believe that Karbol (Cold Country) lies at the periphery of their saucer; whereas it is, as a matter of fact, the Antarctic region surrounding the south pole of Venus. You may readily perceive how this distorts their conception of actual conditions and is reflected in maps, which are, to say the least, weird. Where actually the parallels of longitude converge toward the pole, their conception would be that they converged toward the Equator, or the center of their saucer, and that they were farthest apart at the periphery of the saucer.
It is all very confusing to one who wishes to go places on the surface of Amtor and must depend upon an Amtorian map, and it seems quite silly; but then one must bear in mind the fact that these people have never seen the heavens; because of the cloud envelopes which enshroud the planet. They have never seen the Sun, nor the planets, nor all the other countless suns which star the skies by night. How then might they know anything of astronomy or even guess that they lived upon a globe rather than in a saucer? If you think that they are stupid, just bear in mind that man inhabited the Earth for countless ages before it occurred to anyone that the Earth was a globe; and that within recent historic times men were subjected to the inquisition, broken on the rack, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake for holding to any such iniquitous theory. Even today there is a religious sect in Illinois which maintains that the Earth is flat. And all this in the face of the fact that we have been able to see and study the Heavens every clear night since our earliest ancestor hung by his tail in some primordial forest. What sort of astronomical theories do you suppose we would hold if we had never seen the Moon, the Sun, nor any of the Planets and myriad stars and could not know that they existed?
However erroneous the theory upon which the cartographers evolved their maps, mine were not entirely useless; though they required considerable mental mathematical gymnastics to translate them into usable information, even without the aid of the theory of the relativity of distance, expounded by the great Amtorian scientist, Klufar, some three thousand years ago, which demonstrates that the actual and the apparent measurements of distance can be reconciled by multiplying each by the square root of minus one!
So, having a compass, I flew a little north of west with reasonable assurance that I should eventually raise Anlap and Korva. But how could I foresee that a catastrophic meterological phenomenon was soon to threaten us with immediate extinction and literally hurl us into a series of situations as potentially lethal as that from which we had fled on Vepaja?
Duare had been very quiet since we had taken off. I could understand why, and I could sympathize with her. Her own people, whom she loved, and her father, whom she worshipped not only as her father but as her jong, had condemned her to death because she had mated with the man she loved. They all deplored the stern law of the dynasty as much as she, but it was an inexorable commandment that not even the jong himself might evade.
I knew what she was thinking; and I laid my hand on hers, comfortingly. “They will be relieved when morning comes and they discover that you have escaped—they will be relieved and happy.”
“I know it,” she said.
“Then do not be sad, dear.”
“I love my people; I love my country; but I may never return to them. That is why I am sad, but I cannot be sad for long; because I have you, and I love you more than I love my people or my country—may my ancestors forgive me it.”
I pressed her hand. We were silent again for a long time. The Eastern horizon was lighting faintly. A new day was breaking on Venus. I thought of my friends on Earth, and wondered what they were doing and if they ever thought of me. Thirty million miles is a great distance, but thought travels it instantaneously. I like to think that in the next life vision and thought will travel hand in hand.
“What are you thinking?” asked Duare.
I told her.
“You must be very lonely sometimes, so far from your own world and your friends,” she said.
“Quite the contrary,” I assured her. “I have you; and I have many good friends in Korva, and an assured position there.”
“You will have an assured position in that Heaven of yours of which you have told me, if Mephis ever gets hold of you,” she said.
“I forgot. You do not know all that transpired in Korva,” I said.
“You have told me nothing. After all, we haven’t been together for very long—”
“And just being together seemed enough, didn’t it?” I interrupted.
“Yes, but tell me now.”
“Well, Mephis is dead; and Taman is now jong of Korva.” I told her the whole story in detail and of how Taman, having no son, adopted me in gratitude for my having saved the life of his only daughter, the Princess Nna.
“So now you are Tanjong of Korva,” she said, “and if Taman dies you will be jong. You have done well, Earthman.”
“I am going to do even better,” I said.
“Yes! What?”
I drew her to me and kissed her. “That,” I said. “I have kissed the sacrosanct daughter of an Amtorian jong.”
“But you have done that a thousand times. Are all Earthmen as silly?”
“They all would be if they could.”
Duare had put her melancholy from her; and we joked and laughed, as we flew on over the vast Amtorian sea toward Korva. Sometimes Duare was at the controls, for by now she was an excellent pilot, and sometimes I. We often flew low to observe the strange and savage marine life which occasionally broke the surface of the sea—huge monsters of the deep, some of which attained the dimensions of an ocean liner. We saw millions of lesser creatures fleeing before fearsome carnivorous enemies. We saw titanic battles between monstrous leviathans—the age-old struggle for survival which must exist upon every planet of the Universe upon which life exists; the reason, perhaps, why there must always be wars among nations—a cosmic sine qua non of life.
It was mid-afternoon. The thing that was to change our lives was about to happen. The first intimation of it was a sudden lightening of the sky far ahead. We noticed it simultaneously.
“What is that?” asked Duare.
“It looks as though the Sun were trying to break through the cloud envelopes of Amtor,” I said. “I pray Heaven that he doesn’t succeed.”
“It has happened in the past,” said Duare. “Of course our people knew nothing of the Sun of which you tell me. They thought it the all-enveloping fire which rose from the molten mass upon which Amtor is supposed to float. When a break came in our protective cloud envelopes, the flame struck through, destroying all life beneath the cloud rift.”
I was at the controls. I banked sharply and headed north. “I am going away from there,” I said. “The Sun has broken through one of the cloud envelopes; he may break through the other.”
WE WATCHED THE INCREASING LIGHT upon our left. It illumined the whole sky and the ocean, but it was intensest at one spot. As yet it resembled only bright sunlight such as we are accustomed to on Earth; then, suddenly, it burst through like blinding flame. There had been coincidental rifts in both cloud envelopes!
Almost instantly the ocean commenced to boil. We could see it even at a distance. Vast clouds of steam arose. The heat increased. It was fast becoming unendurable.
“The end,” said Duare, simply.
“Not yet,” I replied, as, with throttle wide, we raced toward the north. I had chosen flight to the north because the rift was a little southwest of us and the wind was from the west. Had I turned back toward the east, the wind borne heat would have followed us. In the north lay what hope we had.
“We have lived,” said Duare. “Life can hold nothing better for us than that which we have enjoyed. I am not afraid to die. Are you, Carson?”
“That is something that I shall never know until it is too late,” I said, smiling down at her, “for while I live I shall never admit the possibility of death. Somehow, it doesn’t seem to be for me—at least not since Danus injected the longevity serum into my veins and told me that I might live a thousand years. You see, I am curious to know if he were right.”
“You are very silly,” she said, “but you are also reassuring.”
Enormous clouds of steam blotted out everything in the southwest. They rose to the clouds, dimming the sunlight. I could imagine the devastation in the sea, the myriad of living things destroyed. Already the effects of the catastrophe were becoming plainly discernible below us. The fleeter reptiles and fishes were fleeing the holocaust—and they were fleeing north! Instinct or intelligence, or whatever it was, it filled me with renewed hope.
The surface of the ocean was alive with them. Mortal enemies raced side by side. The stronger creatures pushed the weaker aside, the fleeter slithered over the tops of the slower. How they had been warned, I cannot guess; but the flight was on far ahead of us, though our speed was greater than the swiftest of the creatures racing with us from death.
The air was becoming no hotter; and I had hopes that we should escape unless the cloud rift enlarged and the Sun took in a larger area of Amtor’s surface; and then the wind changed! It blew in a sudden furious gust from the south, bringing with it stifling heat that was almost suffocating. Clouds of condensing vapor whirled and swirled about us, drenching us with moisture and reducing visibility amost to zero.
I rose in an attempt to get above it; but it was seemingly everywhere, and the wind had become a gale. But it was driving us north. It was driving us away from the boiling sea and the consuming heat of the Sun. If only the cloud rift did not widen we might hope for life.
I glanced down at Duare. Her little jaw was set; and she was staring grimly ahead, though there was nothing to see but billowing clouds of vapor. There hadn’t been a whimper out of her. I guess blood will tell all right, and she was the daughter of a thousand jongs. She must have sensed my eyes upon her, for she looked up and smiled.
“More things happen to us!” she said.
“If you wished to lead a quiet life, Duare, you picked the wrong man. I am always having adventures. That’s not much to brag about, though. One of the great anthropologists of my world, who leads expeditions to remote corners of the Earth and never has any adventures, says that having them is an indication of inefficiency and stupidity.”
“I don’t believe him,” said Duare. “All the intelligence and efficiency in the world could have neither foreseen nor averted a rift in the clouds.”
“A little more intelligence would probably have kept me from attempting to fly to Mars, but then I should never have known you. No; on the whole, I’m rather glad that I am no more intelligent than I am.”
“So am I.”
The heat was not increasing, but the wind was. It was blowing with hurricane force, tossing our sturdy anotar about as though it were a feather. I couldn’t do much about it. In such a storm the controls were almost useless. I could only hope that I had altitude enough to keep from being dashed on some mountain, and there was always the danger from the giant Amtorian forests which lift their heads thousands of feet into the air to draw moisture from the inner cloud envelope. I could see nothing beyond the nose of the anotar, and I knew that we must have covered a great distance with the terrific tail-wind that was driving us furiously toward the north. We might have passed the sea and be over land. Mountains might loom dead ahead, or the mighty boles of a giant forest. I was not very happy. I like to be able to see. If I can see, I can face almost anything.
“What did you say?” asked Duare.
“I didn’t know that I said anything. I must have been thinking aloud—that I would give almost anything to be able to see.”
And then, as though in answer to my wish, a rift opened in the swirling vapor ahead; and I saw. I almost leaped at the controls because of what I saw—a rocky escarpment looming high above us and dead ahead.
I fought to bank and turn aside, but the inexorable wind carried us toward our doom. No scream broke from Duare’s lips, no faintest echo of the fear that she must have felt—must have, because she is human and young.
The thing that appalled me most in the split second that I had to think, was the thought of that beautiful creature being broken and crushed against that insensate cliff. I thanked God that I would not live to see it. At the foot of the escarpment we should lie together through all eternity, and no one in all the Universe would know our resting place.
We were about to crash when the ship rose vertically scarcely a dozen yards from the cliff. As the hurricane had toyed with us before, it did again.
Of course there must have been a terrific up-draft where the roaring wind struck the face of the escarpment. It was this that saved us, combined with the fact that when I had discovered that I could not maneuver away from the cliff, I had cut my engine.
Now we rose high above a vast tableland. The vapor, torn to shreds, floated off in little cloud-like wisps; and once more we could see the world below us. Once more we breathed.
But we were still far from safe. The tornado had not abated. I glanced back in the direction of the cloud rift, but now there was no brightness there. It had closed, and the danger of incineration had passed.
I opened the throttle a little in a rather futile effort to battle the elements and keep the anotar on an even keel; but we were dependent more upon our safety belts than upon our engine for salvation, for we were so tossed about that often our landing gear was above us, and we dangled helplessly in our belts.
It was a harrowing experience. A down draft would plummet us toward the ground with the velocity of a power dive; and when it seemed that we must surely crash, the giant hand of the storm would toss us high aloft.
How long we were the plaything of the Storm God, I may only guess; but it was not until almost dawn that the wind abated a little, and once more we were permitted to have some voice in the direction of our destiny; and even then we must still go where the wind willed, for we could not fly against it.
For hours we had not spoken. We had made an occasional attempt, but the howling of the wind had drowned our voices. I could see that Duare was almost spent from the buffeting and the nervous strain, but there was nothing that I could do about it. Only rest could revive her, and there could be no rest until we could land.
A new world lay below us with the coming of the new day. We were skirting a great ocean, and I could see vast plains, and there were forests and rivers and, far away, snow-capped mountains. I believed that we must have been driven thousands of miles toward the north, for much of the time the throttle had been wide open, and all the time that terrific wind had been at our tail.
Where could we be? I felt confident that we had crossed the Equator and must be in the north temperate zone; but where Korva lay I could not even guess, and might never know.
THE TORNADO DIED OUT IN a last few fitful gusts. The air was suddenly calm. It was like the peace of Heaven.
“You must be very tired,” said Duare. “Let me take the controls. You have been fighting that storm for sixteen or seventeen hours, and you have had no sleep for two days.”
“Well, neither have you; and do you realize that we’ve had neither food nor water since before we left Vepaja?”
“There’s a river down there, and game,” said Duare. “I hadn’t realized before how thirsty I was—and hungry, too. And so sleepy! I don’t know which I am the most.”
“We’ll drink and eat, and then we’ll sleep,” I told her.
I circled around, looking for some sign of human habitation; for it is always men that must be feared most. Where there are no men, one is comparatively safe, even in a world of savage beasts.
In the distance I saw what appeared to be a large inland lake, or an arm of the sea. There were little patches of forest, and the plain was tree dotted beneath us. I saw herds grazing. I dropped down to select my quarry, run it down, and shoot it from the ship. Not very sporting; but I was out for food, not sport.
My plan was excellent, but it did not work. The animals discovered us long before we were within range, and they took off like bats out of Hell.
“There goes breakfast,” I said.
“And lunch and dinner,” added Duare, with a rueful smile.
“The water remains. We can at least drink.” So I circled to a landing near a little stream.
The greensward, close cropped by grazing herds, ran to the water’s edge; and after we had drunk, Duare stretched out upon it for a moment’s relaxation and rest. I stood looking around in search of game, hoping that something would come out of the near-by forest into which it had fled, effectively terminating my pursuit of it in the anotar.
It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two that I stood there in futile search for food on the hoof, but when I looked down at Duare she was fast asleep. I didn’t have the heart to awaken her, for I realized that she needed sleep even more than she did food; so I sat down beside her to keep watch while she slept.
It was a lovely spot, quiet and peaceful. Only the purling murmur of the brook broke the silence. It seemed very safe, for I could see to a considerable distance in all directions. The sound of the water soothed my tired nerves. I half reclined, supporting myself on one elbow so that I could keep better watch.
I lay there for about five minutes when a most amazing thing happened. A large fish came out of the stream and sat down beside me. He regarded me intently for a moment. I could not guess what was passing in his mind, as a fish has but one expression. He reminded me of some of the cinema stars I had seen, and I could not repress a laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” demanded the fish. “At me?”
“Certainly not,” I assured him. I was not at all surprised that the fish spoke. It seemed quite natural.
“You are Carson of Venus,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“Taman told me. He sent me to bring you to Korva. There will be a great procession as you and your princess ride on a mighty gantor along the boulevards of Sanara to the palace of the jong.”
“That will be very nice,” I said; “but in the meantime will you please tell me who is poking me in the back, and why?”
At that the fish suddenly disappeared. I looked around, and saw a dozen armed men standing over us. One of them had been prodding me in the back with a three pronged spear. Duare was sitting up, an expression of consternation on her face. I sprang to my feet. A dozen spears menaced me. Two warriors were standing over Duare, their tridents poised above her heart. I could have drawn my pistol; but I did not dare use it. Before I could have killed them all, one of us would have been killed. I could not take the chance, with Duare’s life at stake.
As I looked at the warriors, I suddenly realized that there was something very peculiar and inhuman about them. They had gills, which their heavy beards did not conceal; and their fingers and toes were webbed. Then I recalled the fish which had come out of the stream and talked to me—I slept, and I was still dreaming! That made me smile.
“What are you smiling about?” demanded one of the warriors, “me?”
“I am laughing at myself,” I said. “I am having such an amusing dream.”
Duare looked at me wide-eyed. “What is the matter with you, Carson?” she demanded. “What has happened to you?”
“Nothing, except that it was very stupid of me to fall asleep. I wish that I could wake up.”
“You are awake, Carson. Look at me! Tell me that you are all right.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you see what I see?” I demanded, nodding toward the warriors.
“We both slept, Carson; but now we are awake—and we are prisoners.”
“Yes, you are prisoners,” said the warrior who had spoken before. “Come along with us, now.”
Duare arose and came and stood close to me. They did not try to prevent her. “Why do you want to make us prisoners?” she asked the warrior. “We have done nothing. We were lost in a great storm, and we landed here for food and water. Let us go our way. You have nothing to fear from us.”
“We must take you to Mypos,” replied the warrior. “Tyros will decide what is to be done with you. I am only a warrior. It is not for me to decide.”
“Who are Mypos and Tyros?” asked Duare.
“Mypos is the king’s city, and Tyros is the king.” He said jong.
“Do you think he will let us go then?”
“No,” said the warrior. “Tyros the Bloody releases no captives. You will be slaves. The man may be killed at once, or later, but Tyros will not kill you.”
The men were armed with tridents, swords, and daggers; they had no firearms. I thought I saw a possibility for Duare’s escape. “I can hold them off with my pistol,” I whispered, “while you make a run for the anotar.”
“And then what?” she demanded.
“Perhaps you can find Korva. Fly south for twenty-four hours. You should be over a great ocean by that time; then fly west.”
“And leave you here?”
“I can probably kill them all; then you can land and pick me up.”
Duare shook her head. “I shall remain with you.”
“What are you whispering about?” demanded the warrior.
“We were wondering if you might let us take our anotar with us,” said Duare.
“What would we do with that thing in Mypos?”
“Maybe Tyros would like to see it, Ulirus,” suggested another warrior.
Ulirus shook his head. “We could never get it through the forest,” he said; then he turned suddenly on me. “How did you get it here?” he demanded.
“Come and get in it and I’ll show you,” I told him. If I could only get him into the anotar, along with Duare, it would be a long time before Ulirus would see Mypos again; and we would never see it. But Ulirus was suspicious.
“You can tell me how you did it.” he countered.
“We flew it here from a country thousands of miles away,” I told him.
“Flew it?” he demanded. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. We get in it, and it flies up into the air and takes us wherever we wish to go.”
“Now you are lying to me.”
“Let me show you. My mate and I will take it up into the air, and you can see it with your own eyes.”
“No. If you are telling me the truth about the thing, you would never come back.”
Well, finally they did help me shove the anotar among a clump of trees and fasten it down. I told them their jong would want to see it, and if they let anything happen to it he’d be very angry. That got them, for they were evidently terribly afraid of this Tyros the Bloody.
We started off through the forest with warriors in front and behind us. Ulirus walked beside me. He wasn’t a bad sort. He told me, in a whisper, that he’d like to let us go; but that he was afraid to, as Tyros would be sure to learn of it; and that would be the end of Ulirus. He was much interested in my blond hair and gray eyes, and asked me many questions about the country from which I came.
I was equally interested in him and his fellows. They all had beautiful physiques—smooth-flowing muscles and not an ounce of unnecessary fat; but their faces were most peculiar. Their full black beards and their gills I have already mentioned; these, with their protruding lips and pop eyes, resulted in a facial pulchritude of something less than zero.
“They look like fish,” Duare whispered to me.
Just how piscine these Myposans were we were to learn later.
WE FOLLOWED A WELL MARKED trail through the forest, a typical Amtorian forest, a forest of exquisite loveliness. The lacquer-like bark of the trees was of many colors, and the foliage of soft pastel shades—heliotrope, mauve, violet. Flowering parasitic plants added to the riot of color, flaunting blooms beside which our most gorgeous Earthly orchids would have appeared as drab as a church mouse at a Mardi gras.
There are many types of forests on Venus, as there are on Earth; but this through which we were passing is the most common, while the most awe inspiring and amazing are those such as cover Vepaja, the tops of which rise fully five thousand feet above the ground, and whose trees are of such enormous girth that, as at Kooaad, the palace of a king is carved within one a thousand feet from its base.
I am an inveterate worshipper of beauty; so that even though Duare and I were marching to an unknown fate, I could still be thrilled by that which met my eyes on every side. I could still wonder at and admire the gaily plumaged birds and insects and the tiny flying lizards which flitted from flower to flower in the eternal routine of pollination, but I could also wonder why Ulirus had not taken my pistol from me.
Perhaps there are few people more gifted with telepathic powers than I, yet I do not always profit by my knowledge. Had I, I should not then have thought about my pistol, for while I was wondering why Ulirus had not taken it from me, he pointed to it and asked me what it was. Of course it might have been only coincidence.
“It is a charm,” I told him, “which protects me from evil.”
“Let me have it,” he said, holding out a hand.
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t do anything like that to you, Ulirus,” I said, “for you have been very decent to my mate and me.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded. Several of the other warriors were looking on interestedly.
“This is my personal charm,” I explained; “anyone else touching it might die.” After all it was not exactly a lie. “However, if you would like to take the chance, you may.” I took the weapon from its holster and proffered it to him.
He hesitated a moment. The other warriors were watching him. “Some other time,” he said; “we must be getting on to Mypos now.”
I glanced at Duare. She was keeping a very straight face; though she was smiling inwardly, I guessed Thus I retained my weapon for the time being at least; and though the warriors showed no further desire to handle it, they did not lose interest in it. They kept eyeing it, but I noticed that they were very careful not to brush against it when they were close to me.
We had marched through the forest for about a mile when we came into the open again, and ahead I saw the body of water that I had seen from the anotar before I made my fateful landing. On its shore, and perhaps a mile away, was a city, a walled city.
“That is Mypos,” said Ulirus. “It is the largest city in the world.”
From where we stood, on slightly higher ground, I had a good view of Mypos; and should say that it covered perhaps a hundred acres. However, I didn’t dispute Ulirus’s claim. If he wished to believe that it was the largest city in the world, that was all right with me.
We approached a large gate which was well guarded. It was swung open when Ulirus was recognized. The officer and members of the guard gathered around us, asking many questions of our captors; and I was delighted that among the first things that they were told was of the magical charm that I carried, which dealt death to whomever else touched it.
“They curl up like worms and die in horrible convulsions,” explained Ulirus. Ulirus was quite a propagandist, however unintentionally.
Nobody, it seemed, wished to touch it.
“Now,” I said, “I wish that you would take us at once to Tyros.”
Ulirus and the officer appeared astounded. “Is the man mad?” demanded the latter.
“He is a stranger,” said Ulirus. “He does not know Tyros.”
“My mate and I,” I explained, “are of the royal family of Korva. When the jong dies, I shall be jong. The jong of any other country should receive us as befits our rank.”
“Not Tyros, “ said the officer. “Perhaps you do not know it, but Tyros is the only real jong in the world. All the others are impostors. You had better not let Tyros know that you claim to be related to a jong. He would have you killed immediately.”
“What are you going to do with us, then?” I asked.
Ulirus looked at the officer as though for instructions.
“Take them to the slaves’ compound at the palace,” he directed; “they look fit to serve the jong.”
So Ulirus marched us off again. We passed along narrow, crooked streets flanked by one storied houses built of frame or limestone. The former were of roughly split planks fastened to upright framework, the latter of carelessly hewn blocks of limestone. The houses were as crooked as the streets. Evidently they had been built by eye without benefit of plumb-line. The windows and doors were of all sizes and shapes and all manner of crookedness. They might have been designed by a modernist of my world, or by a child of five.
The city lay, as I later learned, on the shore of a great fresh-water lake; and as we approached the lake front we saw buildings of two stories, some with towers. The largest of these is the palace of Tyros.
The compound to which we were taken adjoined the palace grounds. Several hundred tiny cells bounded an open court, in the center of which was a pool. Just before we were admitted, Ulirus leaned close to me.
“Do not tell anyone that you are the son of a jong,” he whispered.
“But I have already told you and the officer at the gate,” I reminded him.
“We will not tell,” he said, “but the slaves might in order to win favor.”
I was puzzled. “And why won’t you tell?” I asked.
“For one reason, I like you; for another, I hate Tyros. Everyone hates Tyros.”
“Well, I thank you for the warning, Ulirus; but I don’t suppose I can ever do anything to repay you;” then the guard opened the gate and we were ushered into our prison.
There must have been fully three hundred slaves in the compound, mostly creatures like ourselves; but there were also a few Myposans. The latter were common criminals, or people who had aroused the ire of Tyros the Bloody. The men and women were not segregated from one another; so Duare and I were not separated.
Some of the other slaves gathered around us, animated by curiosity, a part of which was aroused by Duare’s great beauty and a part by my blond hair and gray eyes. They had started to question us when the officer who had admitted us strode into the compound.
“Look out!” whispered one of the slaves. “Here comes Vomer;” then they drifted away from us.
Vomer walked up to me and eyed first me and then Duare from head to feet. His bearing was obviously intentionally insulting.
“What’s this I hear,” he demanded, “about something that you ride in that flies through the air like a bird?”
“How should I know what you heard?” I retorted.
One couldn’t tell, from their facial expressions, the mental reactions of these Myposans; because, like true fish, they didn’t have any. Vomer’s gills opened and closed rapidly. Perhaps that was a sign of rage or excitement. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. He annoyed and disgusted me. He looked surprisingly like a moon fish, numbers of which I had seen seined off the Florida Keys.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice, slave,” shouted Vomer; “don’t you know who I am?”
“No, nor what.”
Duare stood close to me. “Don’t antagonize him,” she whispered; “it will only go the harder with us.”
I realized that she was right. For myself, I did not care; but I must not jeopardize her safety. “Just what do you wish to know?” I asked in a more conciliatory tone, though it griped me to do it.
“I want to know if Ulirus spoke the truth,” he said. “He told me that you rode in a great thing that flew through the air like a bird, and the other warriors with him said the same thing.”
“It is true.”
“It can’t be true,” objected Vomer.
I shrugged. “If you know it can’t be true, why ask me?”
Vomer looked at me steadily with his fishy eyes for a moment; then he turned and strode away.
“You have made an enemy,” said Duare.
“They are all our enemies,” I said. “I should like to punch his face.”
A slave standing near smiled. “So should we all,” he said. He was a nice looking chap, well put up; a human being and not a freak of nature like the Myposans. I had noticed him before. He had been surreptitiously eying me. It was evident that my appearance had aroused his curiosity. “My name is Kandar,” he said, by way of opening up a conversation with me. “I am from Japal.”
“I am Carson of Venus,” I told him. “I am a citizen of Korva.”
“I have never heard of such a country, and I have never before seen a man with hair and eyes the color of yours. Are all the men of Korva like you?”
I tried to explain the matter to him; but of course he couldn’t grasp the fact that there was another world far from Amtor, nor could he readily accept my statement that Korva lay thousands of miles to the south.
“In that direction lies the edge of Amtor,” he objected, “not more than four or five hundred kob; and no country could exist beyond that, where all is fire and molten rock.”
So he, too, thought that his world was flat; but at that his was a more tenable theory than that of the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere.
I questioned him about our captors and the treatment that we might expect from them.
“Our work ashore is not heavy,” he explained, “and we are not treated so very badly; but at sea—that is different. Pray that you are not sent to sea.”
THE SLAVES, OTHER THAN THE Myposans, were from various countries—mysterious lands with strange names; lands which lay east and west and north, but none that lay south. That was the terra incognita, the land of terror into which no one ever ventured.
Nearly all of the slaves had been captured after being shipwrecked on the shores of the great lake on which the city of Mypos lay, or on the coast of an ocean which they said lay about ten miles from the city.
Kandar told me that the lake was about five hundred miles long and that Mypos lay close to the lower end of it and Japal at the upper end.
“We of Japal,” he said, “trade with several friendly countries which lie along the coast of the great sea, and we have to pass Mypos on our voyages. Some times we are wrecked and sometimes a ship of Japal is attacked by the Myposans and captured. Most of the wrecks occur where the lake empties into the ocean through a narrow channel. Only at high tide can a ship pass through the channel from the ocean to the lake, for at low tide the waters of the lake rush madly into the ocean; and no ship can make headway against the current. When the tide is high the waters of the ocean flow into the lake, and then a passage can be made.”
Duare and I had a little cubicle to ourselves, and we only hoped that they would leave us together until I could perfect some plan of escape. We slaves were fed twice a day—a stew of something that looked a little like shrimp and which also contained chopped tubers and flour made from the ground seeds of a plant which grows in profusion with little or no cultivation.
Kandar said it might not be very palatable, but that it was nutritious and strength giving. Occasionally meat was added to the stew. “They want us to be strong,” Kandar explained, “so that we can do more work. We build their ships and their houses and row their galleys; till their fields, carry their burdens. No Myposan does any work if he has sufficient slaves.”
The day following our capture Vomer came into the compound with some warriors and selected a number of male slaves, whom he ordered to accompany him. Kandar and I were among them. We were marched down to the water front, where I had my first glimpse of Myposan ships. Some of them were quite large, being over a hundred feet in length. They were equipped with sails as well as oars. The largest, which lay at anchor, sheltered by a rude breakwater, I took to be warships: These were biremes, with large, flat overhanging decks above the upper bank of oars, capable of accommodating hundreds of warriors. There was a small deck house both fore and aft, upon the tops of which were mounted some sort of engine, the purpose of which I could not determine but which I was to learn later greatly to my discomfiture and sorrow.
I asked Kandar if the Myposans had any motor driven ships, but he did not know what I meant. This aroused my curiosity, and further questioning confirmed my suspicion that we had been carried far north of the Equator into what was, to the inhabitants of the southern hemisphere, the terra incognita of Venus, where an entirely different culture prevailed. Everything here was quite different, there being nothing to compare with the advanced civilization of Vepaja, Korva, or Havatoo, the countries with which I was most familiar.
There were signs of old age and disease here among both the Myposans and their prisoners, indicating that they knew nothing of the longevity serum of the south. Their weapons and customs differed widely. Their language, however, was similar, though not identical with that of the southern peoples.
Vomer put us to work loading a barge with rock that was to be used to strengthen the breakwater. He walked among us with a sort of bull whip, flicking first one and then another on bare legs and bodies. The act was purely sadistic, as the best workers received as many lashes as the shirkers. I saw that he had his eyes on me, and that he was slowly working his way toward me. I wondered if he would dare.
At last he came within striking distance of me. “Get to work, slave!” he growled, and swung his whip hand back for a terrific blow.
I dropped the rock I had lifted; and faced him, my hand upon the butt of my pistol. Vomer hesitated, his gills fluttering rapidly—a sign of rage or excitement in these strange creatures, who have no facial muscles with which to register emotion.
The warriors with us, and the other slaves, were watching. Vomer was on a spot, and I wondered what he would do. His reaction was quite typical of the petty tyrant and bully. “Get to work!” he blustered, and turned and struck another slave.
The warriors were staring at him with fishy eyes. One couldn’t tell what they were thinking, but the second-in-command didn’t leave me in doubt long.
“Give me your whip,” he said to Vomer. “If you are afraid to punish the slave, I am not.” The fellow had a most repulsive countenance, looking not at all unlike a sculpin with whiskers. His gills were palpitating, and I could see that he meant business.
“Who said I was afraid?” demanded Vomer.
“I do,” said the warrior.
“I am in command here,” blustered Vomer. “I can punish a slave, or not, as I please. If you are so anxious to punish him, take my whip.”
The fellow seized it, and came toward me.
“Hadn’t you better tell him about this?” I said to Vomer, tapping my pistol.
“What about it?” demanded the warrior.
“It kills,” I said. “It can kill you before you can strike me.”
The fellow’s protruding lips formed an O. and he sucked air in noisily through his teeth. It was a Myposan laugh. When angry, they often reverse the operation and blow the air out with a whistling sound. He continued to advance upon me.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I said; “but if you attempt to strike me with that whip, I will.”
My only reason for not wishing to kill him was based upon the certainty of reprisal that might jeopardize Duare’s safety. Otherwise, I should have been glad to kill him and all his kind.
“You’d better use your trident on him,” cautioned another warrior.
“I’ve whipped slaves to death before,” boasted the fellow, “and I can whip this one to death;” then he rushed at me with upraised whip.
I whipped out my pistol, the r-ray pistol that destroys flesh and bone; and let him have it. There was no smoke, nothing visible; just a sharp, staccato buzz; then there was a great hole in the center of the fellow’s face; and he sprawled forward, dead.
All about me the slaves stood, wide eyed and terrified; and the gills of the fish-men opened and closed rapidly. The warrior who had advised the dead man to use his trident, raised his weapon to hurl it at me; and he went down too, with a hole in his heart.
I swung around then, so that I was facing them all. They looked at Vomer, as though awaiting orders. He hesitated. I let the muzzle of my pistol swing in his direction.
“Get to work, slaves,” he said, “we have wasted enough time.” Both his voice and his knees shook.
Kandar was working beside me. “One of us must always keep an eye on him,” he said; “otherwise he’ll get you when your back is turned. I’ll help you watch.”
I thanked him. I felt that I had a friend.
WHEN WE GOT BACK TO the slaves’ compound Kandar told Duare what had happened. I would have stopped him could I have done so, for the poor girl had enough to worry about as it was.
“I knew that you had made an enemy of Vomer,” she said, “the very first time he came out to speak to you. This thing had to come. It is just as well that it is over, so that we may know where we stand.”
“If I could get an audience with Tyros,” I said, “it is possible that we might receive better treatment—even our release.”
“What makes you think so?” inquired Kandar.
“He is a jong, and it seems reasonable to believe that he would accord to people of our station in life the ordinary amenities of decent and civilized society. My mate is the daughter of a jong, and I am the son of one.” I referred to my adoption by Taman, Jong of Korva.
Kandar smiled and shook his head. “You do not know Tyros,” he said, “nor the psychology of the Myposans. They consider themselves a superior race and the rest of us on a par with the beasts. I have even heard them voice their wonder that we are endowed with speech. It is Tyros’ ambition to conquer the world, carrying the Myposan culture to all benighted races and at the same time enslaving or destroying them. He is well aware of the fact that I am the eldest son of the Jong of Japal, yet I receive no better treatment than the meanest slave. No, my friend, it would do you no good to have an audience with Tyros, even if you could obtain one, which, of course, you cannot. The best that you can do is hope for the impossible.”
“And what is that?” asked Duare.
“Escape.”
“You think that that is impossible?” I asked.
“Well, let us say improbable,” Kandar replied; “for after all nothing is impossible to the man of imagination and initiative, such as I assume you to be.”
“And may we count on your co-operation?” I asked.
“Absolutely. I do not intend remaining a slave here indefinitely. Death would be far preferable.”
“You have been here longer than we,” I said. “You must have given much thought to escape. Perhaps you already have a plan.”
“I wish I had,” he replied, “but you will find it difficult to plan, where one is not the master of one’s simplest acts and where one is constantly under the watchful eyes of armed warriors and traitorous spies.”
“Spies?” asked Duare. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that among the slaves there are always those who will inform against their fellows in the hope of currying favor with their masters. You cannot be too careful with whom you discuss even your hopes. You do not even know that I am not a spy,” he added with a smile.
“I’ll take a chance on that,” I told him. “I think I am a sufficiently good judge of human nature to know a man of honor even upon only short acquaintance.”
“Thank you, but don’t be too sure,” he laughed; which made me all the surer of him.