The engine was the wealth of Mars. With it Kortha
could save his people ... or the evil Guantra
could rule the Universe. But neither could use
the machine until its secret was solved--so
they fought and schemed for the knowledge, and
their planet lay on the brink of destruction.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1946.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Kortha the smith brooded out over the great red waste of desert. Men
said Kortha was a genius. Men said he was the biggest man on Mars, and
strong as an anthropoid ape. But Kortha brooded, because Kortha was a
coward.
He was not afraid for himself. He was afraid _of_ himself.
He looked at his sun-bronzed, hamlike hands, and shuddered; glistening
beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. With those hands he had killed
men, and had crippled his best friend for life.
Behind him gleamed the red _utta_-brick smithy and his small shack,
and the tiny structure he called his laboratory. Swinging on his heel,
he went away from the desert and into the smithy. He made the bellows
leap, and the red flames spurt from the furnace. With the tongs he
lifted a white-hot strip of metal and pounded on it with a sledge that
an ordinary man would have found immovable.
In the clang and dance of hammer on anvil, he lost himself; listened
only to the mad symphony of beaten metal instead of the still,
small voices of his soul. The din of smitten steel jangling on the
sootblacked anvil was the music that helped the giant forget his heart.
His eyes gleamed red from the smarting flames, and he peered into their
depths with green eyes wide and angry as though he beheld a corner of
some lost hell.
He did not hear the muffled thunder of the 'copter that swung in a
circle above his shack and swooped downward to dig its tires into the
yielding sands. He did not see the door open, and who came out.
"Kortha," said a voice like a song.
He started then; looked up, brows furrowed. His eyes opened a trifle in
astonishment.
"Ilse!" he whispered. The hammer fell from his grasp and bounced on the
brick floor.
The girl with the hair like spun flax laughed softly and leaned against
the wooden door. A white cloak clasped with a fiery ruby draped her
shoulders. She wore gauze trousers with broad leather belt studded with
jewels, and a bolero of _arket_-fur. Her white midriff was bare.
"You ran away, Kortha," she accused, her dark eyes gleaming like uncut
sapphires from the tanned oval of her face. "You ran away from Hurlgut
when he needed you. It took me a long time to learn where you had
holed."
"Three years," said Kortha softly, wiping grimy hands on the white fur
that clasped his hard loins beneath the leathern apron.
The girl ran her eyes over his massive frame in approval; saw shoulders
a yard wide, and a chest and legs that were ridged in muscles. His long
arms, tanned by years of exposure to a desert sun, were those of a
king gorilla. She had seen Kortha snap an iron chain with those arms;
had seen him break a man's back, and other things. Well did Ilse know
the strength of Kortha, and the fact that she carried a heatgun in her
cloak was mute evidence that she had knowledge of his mad, flare-hot
temper.