"He hit me," said Cosmo. "I should have killed him."
All at once Mia said: "Cosmo!" in a strained, frightened voice.
He flicked a glance past the startled girl, stiffened in alarm. At the
edge of the patio, three men stood in a silent group.
One, he saw, was a serf. Naked to the waist, the Venusian was darker,
squatter than the Fozoqls, the killer caste of Venus. But he had the
same venomous green eyes. A grass knife was thrust through his sash,
and he held a ray rifle at a menacing angle.
It was the second figure, though, that took his breath away. A huge,
naked, blue giant. His only weapon was a club.
"A Jovian Dawn Man!" said Mia in a stifled voice.
Cosmo felt his palms dampen. The terrific gravity of Jupiter endowed
the Jovian primitives with superhuman strength. Normally, they were
docile creatures and highly prized among the Venusians as slaves
because of their terrible strength and weird beauty. The Dawn Man faced
them now, nostrils flaring as he tested their scent. He was handsome as
a matinee idol. But somewhere the Jovians had run into an evolutionary
blind pocket. They would never evolve into true men. They were animals.
Cosmo scarcely noted the third member of the group, the short
barrel-shaped Mercurian. He stood a little apart, smiling blandly and
quietly like an inscrutable Buddha.
"Look at the scars on their shoulders," Mia whispered hoarsely. "The
fern leaf! That's Bemmelman's brand. They're the runaways!"
The Venusian raised his rifle. His green eyes burned with hate for the
Earthlings.