She turned, running back toward the buildings, and he plunged into the
reeking swamp, backtracking along his own trail of muddy footprints and
crushed vegetation.
He emerged at the fallen tree, dived in, and with a sense of relief
filled his lungs with water.
"Xintel!" he called.
"Here!" He swung around. The bank beneath the tree trunk had been
hollowed out by the action of ripples on the soft mud, and she crouched
there, protected on three sides.
"I was so afraid you weren't coming back!"
"I told you I'd return."
"Barry?" Her voice trembled. "Did you see--her?"
He nodded.
"And yet you came back to me!" She spoke as though she could hardly
believe it.
"Listen closely," he broke in. "What do the women of Tana think of
Komso's plans?"
"They know many of their men will never return."
"Do you think you could--?"
"Perhaps I could sneak back into Tana. But what good would that do?"
Barry frowned thoughtfully. "Could you persuade some of them, as many
as possible, to follow the war party and overtake their men? When they
see you're alive, that Komso's curse didn't work--"
Xintel shook her head. "Most have never been outside Tana in their
lives. Even to save their men they would be too fearful of the sea
dangers and of Komso's wrath. They would never follow me."
Barry drew one of his fire pistols and moved aside.
"Watch this," he told her. The liquid charge was self-oxidizing and
should burn under water, but there was a distinct danger the gun would
backfire. His nerves were screaming as he squeezed the trigger.
Scarlet fire lanced from the muzzle with a sizzling roar that nearly
broke their eardrums.
The water surged and heaved.
Xintel pressed her hands to her ears; her eyes were round with
amazement.
"What was that?" she gasped.
"That was fire," Barry answered, handing her both weapons. "Now you
have magic to surpass anything of Komso's. Would that help persuade the
women?"
Xintel smiled grimly. "They will follow me or else--And if Komso or a
Chosen One should interfere, would it--?"
"It would. And tell the women that if your people and mine can meet as
friends there will be guns like this for everyone. Norus and torvaks
will hold no more terrors."
"But you?" she asked.
"I must wait at the mouth of the slough and stop Komso there."
"But--?"
"Waste no more time! Hurry!"
* * * * *
After she was gone he swam along the shore to the slough and settled
on the bottom. He waited interminably it seemed before he spotted the
distant streaks of light left by Komso's men, perhaps a hundred of them
in a close group.
He remained crouched, waiting until they were just beyond crossbow
range. Then he stood up, waving his arms to create enough light to
make his identity unmistakable. He had decided his only course lay in
turning Komso's own propaganda against him.
"Stop!" he commanded.
For a moment there was confusion in the ranks, and those in front
backed water.
"Come forth, Komso, and look upon me!" Barry called. "You are a
trickster and a fraud, and your curses are without power!"
Komso's jaw went slack and his face grew crimson. The priest spoke
softly to a Chosen One.
"Men," he declared. "Only a demon could survive the curse of the Gods
Of The Deeps--but even a demon can die!"
Barry almost missed seeing the Chosen One raise his crossbow, but some
instinct warned him just as the weapon twanged. He sidestepped and the
missile whizzed by. It had been close. If they were to open upon him
in volleys--
"Komso's curses are powerless but mine are not!" he declared loudly,
concealing his nervousness. "You are forgiven this time, but the next
man who raises a weapon against me will feel my wrath. He shall die
screaming in slow agony!"
"Rush him! Kill him!" Komso ordered, attempting to rally his wavering
ranks. But Barry's boast, and their belief that he was a demon, held
them back.
Barry scanned the sea for the patch of light that would indicate Xintel
approaching with the women of Tana. Nothing. Stalling was his only
chance.
"Men of Tana," he began. "If you follow Komso you go to certain death.
Already you have seen that his so-called curse means nothing. And now I
shall tell you how--"
"Close your ears!" Komso shrieked. "Listen to this infidel and the
curse of the Gods will be upon you too!"
The men trembled, torn between fear of the demon and fear of their own
leader.
"Those from Above would be your friends," Barry argued. "They are not
demons, but men very like yourselves."
"Liar!" Komso bellowed. "The people of Tana are the only true men!"
The warriors nodded, accepting the oft-repeated dogma as indisputable
truth. Barry realized it was useless to argue. He waited, hoping
something would swing the balance. Meanwhile Komso deployed his forces
in a crescent across the mouth of the slough. To Barry it looked like
preparation for a rush that would overwhelm him.
Each warrior, he saw, carried a large sealed wooden cylinder. They
handled them gingerly. Barry guessed their purpose. They contained
the hypervirulent bacterial cultures with which the colony was to be
exterminated. But of course, to the Venusians themselves, they were
magic.
Just when it seemed Komso's men were rallying from their fright, Barry
sighted a speck of brightness far out to sea. One of the men saw it too
and called the priest's attention to it. Komso's stare of puzzlement
changed to fury as he made out the forms of thirty women.
Xintel darted ahead of the group, past Komso's men, and before the
priest could give an order, she had reached Barry's side.
"I had to use all the fire," she said in a low voice. "There were
torvaks, and it killed them."
Barry squeezed her hand, although he wished she had saved one charge
with which to impress the war party.
Komso's forces were disorganized. Several of the men had left ranks
to join their frightened, panting mates and a series of shrill family
quarrels were in progress despite all the priest's efforts. Men cursed
their wives for leaving Tana and were in turn cursed for everything the
near-hysterical females could lay tongue to.
"Hear me!" Komso bellowed. "Hear me!"
The quarreling stopped abruptly.
"I challenge the demon to single, bare-handed combat!"
Barry gulped. He had wanted for a long time to get his hands on Komso,
and now the opportunity was here.
"I accept!" he said firmly.
Xintel's face was ashen; her lips were trembling.
"Barry! My father believed the Leaders used poison under their
fingernails; the slightest scratch means death," she whispered.
Barry dared not back down now. He watched Komso advance.
* * * * *
The priest swam upward and stopped, slight motions of arms and legs
holding him there. Barry recognized it as a clever move. Komso had seen
what the Earthman's muscles could do when he was able to plant his feet
solidly.
"Come meet your doom, Demon!" Komso taunted.
Barry sensed the interest of the watchers. Many times they had seen
Komso's powers displayed, and they were waiting for the demon to flee
or die.
Suddenly Barry launched himself from the bottom in a headlong rush.
Komso dodged and his hands came out in a clawing, scratching reach. In
that instant Barry knew Xintel had been right.
He knocked Komso's arm aside and whipped his fist toward the smirking
face. It struck, but only a glancing blow. It left him floundering off
balance. The water around them glowed with increasing brightness as
they twisted and turned.
Again and again Komso's poisoned nails reached out, but each time Barry
managed to escape. He tried to maneuver the battle toward the bottom,
but Komso stayed above and made short, threatening swoops. Barry was
forced to move upward again or remain entirely on the defensive. He did
not dare grapple.
In desperation he relaxed his guard and tried a judo chop at Komso's
shoulder muscles. The priest uttered a cry of pain, but the blow had
not disabled. Fingernails scraping along his neck filled him with blind
panic. Luckily they failed to break the skin.
Komso drew away, dove in again, this time low, clawing at Barry's legs
and keeping clear of his punishing fists.
Barry drew his legs up, and as the Venusian passed under him, pumped
them down with all his strength.
One foot struck Komso's side. Barry felt something shatter beneath his
heel.
Komso pulled up from his rush. He turned, unhurt, prepared to dive
again. And then one hand went to his side, feeling through his
clothing. His face went greenish; his jaw sagged. His eyes rolled and
he screamed in utter despair. Barry was too startled to follow up his
advantage.
Seconds passed, and then there was a whizzing, hissing sound moving
through the water at tremendous speed. A streak of light. Barry barely
glimpsed the shark-like creature that burst through the ranks of
Komso's men. Straight as an arrow it came, ignoring those it knocked
aside.
Komso's third scream broke in the middle, unfinished. Then there was
only a spreading pink stain and a few remnants.
The dead silence that followed was broken by a yell of horror. Out to
sea specks of light grew brighter by the second. Warriors and women
alike milled in confusion, leaderless, and when one man started a
panic-stricken dash up the slough, the others dropped their weapons and
followed.
Barry hung in the water, still not comprehending, until Xintel shook
him out of his stunned inaction.
"Quick, Barry!"
Her legs churned the water at top speed and she guided him with
occasional touches. Once he glanced over his shoulder, and the glow
around the slough's mouth disclosed huge black shapes gathering.
Torvaks!
The girl swam close to shore where the water was thick and muddy and
fetid with the reek of decay. After a while she cut her speed so he
could come up beside her. No Venusians were in sight.
"His own curse!" she said.
Barry understood. Komso had been carrying a vial of his secret lure.
Barry's random kick had broken it, saturating the priest's clothing.
The beasts of the ocean had done the rest, and now, in addition, they
had the smell of fresh blood to attract them.
"I've got to get ashore at once!" Barry panted.
Trapped between the electric barrier and the monsters prowling the
slough, the Venusians would be doomed. With their leader dead, and
ravening death at their heels, they would have forgotten all about
attacking the colony, Barry hoped.
X
Once more they reached the spot where the tree lay at the water's edge.
"Wait here, darling," Barry said hurriedly, and climbed out.
He lay on the tree trunk a moment, coughing the water from his lungs.
When he glanced up Robson Hind was standing there. Under his arms was a
submachine gun.
"You damned degenerate fish-man!" he said.
Barry could only stare helplessly as Hind's trigger finger tightened.
The man looked mad.
A shot barked from the swamp and at the same instant a slender arm from
the water caught Hind's ankle and jerked. The submachine gun roared an
unaimed burst as he toppled backwards. His head thwacked dully against
the wood, and then there was a splash as he sank.
Barry stood up trembling.
A coveralled and hooded figure emerged from the swamp, carrying a
carbine from which a wisp of smoke still curled.
"Barry, did I--?" Under the smears of mud Dorothy's face was pale.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"I saw him following your trail, and I guessed--"
A head broke water beside the log. Dorothy fired, but Barry knocked the
muzzle skyward just in time to deflect the bullet. Then he knelt to
give Xintel a hand up.
The Venusian girl cleared her lungs, rubbed one webbed hand across her
eyes, then gave Dorothy a long, level stare.
"He breathes like you?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. Did she kill him or did I?"
"Is that your Venusian girl?" Dorothy interrupted. "And what are you
two talking about?"
Barry switched to English. "Hell's still loose. Got to get to
headquarters immediately."
He started off, looked back with a worried frown. Xintel had drawn a
tube-weapon to match Dorothy's rifle. The slender, coveralled Earthgirl
and the more fully curved Venusian, dressed in only a torn skirt, were
eying each other like two alley cats. He could almost feel the crackle
of emotion between them. He winced.
* * * * *
"It's murder if you don't!" Barry raged.
Captain Stanley of Ship Two was in charge of the slough sector of
defense. He shook his head regretfully.
"Must have the approval of the other captains first," he said.
"Well, in God's name, get them!"
Barry strained his eyes, but the mist had settled down thickly. Only
the vaguest hints of heaving, convulsive movement were discernible
beneath the water. The air-masked crews of the machine guns and mortars
and flame throwers set up to supplement the stun barrier were tense and
jittery as they waited.
The radio handpiece crackled with static that drowned all
communication, so Captain Stanley sent a runner to summon the others.
Anger and despair contended in Barry's mind. They would be too late.
The heavy cables sprawled into the black water like great snakes,
lifeless in appearance, but he knew the torturing forces with which
they were filling the slough. And he alone of all the colony knew the
full horror of the torvaks.
Through the mist he could just see the building where Nick had set
up the switchboard, and he hoped he would be watching for orders.
Otherwise--
With deceptive calm he walked to one of the flame throwers, snapped the
latch releasing the bulky mechanism from its tripod, picked it up in
both arms.
"What are you doing?" Captain Stanley demanded.
"I'm going in," Barry declared.
The watching men were too dumfounded to stop him as he ran downstream.
Through the mist he saw something move just below the surface. A
Venusian woman, her muscles twitching in spastic convulsions as the
electric current ripped at her nerves. And then a few yards away a
shadow, misshapen and unbelievably huge.
Barry stopped, cradling the heavy flame thrower in his arms.
"Turn off that current!" he pleaded once again.
Without waiting for an answer he leaped.
The weight of the weapon took him instantly to the bottom. He sprawled
in the ooze. He had miscalculated. A million fiends were stabbing
with red-hot knives, and his muscles twitched and squirmed in insane
convulsions. His chest was clamped in a gigantic vise that kept him
from filling his lungs with the water that meant life.
But he was still conscious, still able to see the screaming forms of
Venusians who, in their flight from the monsters, had ventured too deep
into the charged area.
An ugly creature came toward Barry. It was shaking its huge body, but
it was coming on nonetheless. Its scaly hide and low-grade nervous
system made it at least partially immune to the electrical charge; its
killer instincts forced it to disregard the discomfort. Through the
reek of decaying vegetation Barry got a whiff of the acrid odor he had
learned to identify as fresh blood.
He struggled to raise his flame thrower, but he was unable to
coordinate his movements.
And then at the last possible moment the twitchings of his body ceased.
Someone, Captain Stanley or Nick, had pulled the main switch.
He brought the nozzle of the flame thrower around. Flame blossomed and
ricocheted through the water in burning globules. Concussion and shock
wave threw him face down in the mud, dazzled and deafened.
He picked himself up, gagging and retching at the taint of charred
flesh. The creature was still twitching in its death throes, stirring
the water to opacity. Through the silt Barry could see several Venusian
survivors moving feebly.
"Follow me!" he yelled, fearful that at any instant the current would
be turned on again.
Then he went down the slough in great leaping bounds while a howling
lust to kill mounted within him. The flame thrower, designed to be used
from a fixed mount, made a clumsy burden in his arms. Monsters, dozens
of them of all sizes and shapes, had come to kill. They remained to be
killed instead.
Time after time the flame thrower sent its blazing cone licking forth.
The water grew thick and uncomfortably hot, but little by little he
cleared a path to the sea.
Once he looked back. The Venusians were following, and on each face was
a look of adoration. Barry knew then he had made himself the new leader
of Tana. They crowded close, anxious to get away from the bewitched
waters. He motioned them to keep a safe distance.
And then suddenly he reached open water and the last of the monsters
died in fire. Barry looked down at the pressure gauges. The tanks were
empty.
The Venusians gathered around but kept a respectful distance from his
person.
"Get back to Tana, all of you!" he commanded. "Remain there until
either Xintel or I tell you otherwise!"
Without further questioning they obeyed.
* * * * *
He would have missed the half submerged tree entirely except
for something white on the bottom, something from which small
carrion-eaters scuttled at his approach. Hind's skeleton, already half
buried in the ooze. Gunshot or drowning? Dorothy or Xintel? What matter?
The two women were still watching each other warily on the bank. But,
he saw with relief, they had laid their weapons aside.
Together, each in her own language, they bombarded him with questions.
He managed a faint smile although the skin of his face felt stiff and
scorched from the flame thrower's heat.
"No war," he said.
That should have finished it, and all he wanted now was rest.
But again they spoke at once. Their languages were different but their
meanings were the same.
"Barry, I want to talk to her."
Wearily he slumped down, nodding.
But as the conversation progressed he fidgeted uneasily. With the
amazing frankness of two strong-willed females, they were settling his
future while he translated. It was like a distorted dream.
They finally reached an agreement. Neither liked it entirely, but
both were unselfish enough to consider Barry's welfare. And both were
realists.
Barry blinked and blushed as he translated, but could not suppress a
feeling of relief.
"I really don't mind--too much," Dorothy addressed him directly. "But
if you ever tell anyone up here you're still carrying on with this bare
breasted fish-girl I swear you'll be sorry."
Xintel spoke. "I understand. She is of your own people. But please,
Barry, those of Tana do not need to know."
Dorothy and Xintel were watching him, waiting for his answer.
Two women in his life, both determined to remain. Either they would
resent each other, and through jealousy, make his life hell, or they
would become firm friends. He could easily become the most henpecked
man on all Venus. But to choose between them--
Well, boredom was one thing he need never fear.
He nodded.
* * * * *
[Transcriber's Note: No Section VII heading in original text.]