II

Stark dropped slowly downward through a strange world. There was no

difficulty about breathing, as in a sea of water. The gases of the Red

Sea support life quite well, and the creatures that dwell in it have

almost normal lungs.

Stark did not pay much attention at first, except to keep his balance

automatically. He was still dazed from the blow, and he was raging with

anger and pain.

The primitive in him, whose name was not Stark but N'Chaka, and who

had fought and starved and hunted in the blazing valleys of Mercury's

Twilight Belt, learning lessons he never forgot, wished to return and

slay Malthor and his men. He regretted that he had not torn out their

throats, for now his trail would never be safe from them.

But the man Stark, who had learned some more bitter lessons in the name

of civilization, knew the unwisdom of that. He snarled over his aching

head, and cursed the Venusians in the harsh, crude dialect that was his

mother tongue, but he did not turn back. There would be time enough for

Malthor.

It struck him that the gulf was very deep.

Fighting down his rage, he began to swim in the direction of the shore.

There was no sign of pursuit, and he judged that Malthor had decided to

let him go. He puzzled over the reason for the attack. It could hardly

be robbery, since he carried nothing but the clothes he stood in, and

very little money.

No. There was some deeper reason. A reason connected with Malthor's

insistence that he lodge with him. Stark smiled. It was not a pleasant

smile. He was thinking of Shuruun, and the things men said about it,

around the shores of the Red Sea.

Then his face hardened. The dim coiling fires through which he swam

brought him memories of other times he had gone adventuring in the

depths of the Red Sea.

He had not been alone then. Helvi had gone with him--the tall son of a

barbarian kinglet up-coast by Yarell. They had hunted strange beasts

through the crystal forests of the sea-bottom and bathed in the welling

flames that pulse from the very heart of Venus to feed the ocean. They

had been brothers.

Now Helvi was gone, into Shuruun. He had never returned.

Stark swam on. And presently he saw below him in the red gloom

something that made him drop lower, frowning with surprise.

There were trees beneath him. Great forest giants towering up into

an eerie sky, their branches swaying gently to the slow wash of the

currents.

Stark was puzzled. The forests where he and Helvi had hunted were truly

crystalline, without even the memory of life. The "trees" were no more

trees in actuality than the branching corals of Terra's southern oceans.

But these were real, or had been. He thought at first that they still

lived, for their leaves were green, and here and there creepers had

starred them with great nodding blossoms of gold and purple and waxy

white. But when he floated down close enough to touch them, he realized

that they were dead--trees, creepers, blossoms, all.

They had not mummified, nor turned to stone. They were pliable, and

their colours were very bright. Simply, they had ceased to live, and

the gases of the sea had preserved them by some chemical magic, so

perfectly that barely a leaf had fallen.

Stark did not venture into the shadowy denseness below the topmost

branches. A strange fear came over him, at the sight of that vast

forest dreaming in the depths of the gulf, drowned and forgotten, as

though wondering why the birds had gone, taking with them the warm

rains and the light of day.

He thrust his way upward, himself like a huge dark bird above the

branches. An overwhelming impulse to get away from that unearthly place

drove him on, his half-wild sense shuddering with an impression of evil

so great that it took all his acquired common-sense to assure him that

he was not pursued by demons.

* * * * *

He broke the surface at last, to find that he had lost his direction

in the red deep and made a long circle around, so that he was far

below Shuruun. He made his way back, not hurrying now, and presently

clambered out over the black rocks.

He stood at the end of a muddy lane that wandered in toward the town.

He followed it, moving neither fast nor slow, but with a wary alertness.

Huts of wattle-and-daub took shape out of the fog, increased in

numbers, became a street of dwellings. Here and there rush-lights

glimmered through the slitted windows. A man and a woman clung together

in a low doorway. They saw him and sprang apart, and the woman gave a

little cry. Stark went on. He did not look back, but he knew that they

were following him quietly, at a little distance.

The lane twisted snakelike upon itself, crawling now through a crowded

jumble of houses. There were more lights, and more people, tall

white-skinned folk of the swamp-edges, with pale eyes and long hair the

colour of new flax, and the faces of wolves.

Stark passed among them, alien and strange with his black hair and

sun-darkened skin. They did not speak, nor try to stop him. Only they

looked at him out of the red fog, with a curious blend of amusement

and fear, and some of them followed him, keeping well behind. A gang

of small naked children came from somewhere among the houses and ran

shouting beside him, out of reach, until one boy threw a stone and

screamed something unintelligible except for one word--_Lhari_. Then

they all stopped, horrified, and fled.

Stark went on, through the quarter of the lacemakers, heading by

instinct toward the wharves. The glow of the Red Sea pervaded all the

air, so that it seemed as though the mist was full of tiny drops of

blood. There was a smell about the place he did not like, a damp miasma

of mud and crowding bodies and wine, and the breath of the _vela_

poppy. Shuruun was an unclean town, and it stank of evil.

There was something else about it, a subtle thing that touched Stark's

nerves with a chill finger. Fear. He could see the shadow of it in the

eyes of the people, hear its undertone in their voices. The wolves of

Shuruun did not feel safe in their own kennel. Unconsciously, as this

feeling grew upon him, Stark's step grew more and more wary, his eyes

more cold and hard.

He came out into a broad square by the harbour front. He could see the

ghostly ships moored along the quays, the piled casks of wine, the

tangle of masts and cordage dim against the background of the burning

gulf. There were many torches here. Large low buildings stood around

the square. There was laughter and the sound of voices from the dark

verandas, and somewhere a woman sang to the melancholy lilting of a

reed pipe.

A suffused glow of light in the distance ahead caught Stark's eye. That

way the streets sloped to a higher ground, and straining his vision

against the fog, he made out very dimly the tall bulk of a castle

crouched on the low cliffs, looking with bright eyes upon the night,

and the streets of Shuruun.

Stark hesitated briefly. Then he started across the square toward the

largest of the taverns.

There were a number of people in the open space, mostly sailors and

their women. They were loose and foolish with wine, but even so they

stopped where they were and stared at the dark stranger, and then drew

back from him, still staring.

Those who had followed Stark came into the square after him and then

paused, spreading out in an aimless sort of way to join with other

groups, whispering among themselves.

The woman stopped singing in the middle of a phrase.

A curious silence fell on the square. A nervous sibilance ran round

and round under the silence, and men came slowly out from the verandas

and the doors of the wine shops. Suddenly a woman with disheveled hair

pointed her arm at Stark and laughed, the shrieking laugh of a harpy.

* * * * *

Stark found his way barred by three tall young men with hard mouths and

crafty eyes, who smiled at him as hounds smile before the kill.

"Stranger," they said. "Earthman."

"Outlaw," answered Stark, and it was only half a lie.

One of the young men took a step forward. "Did you fly like a dragon

over the Mountains of White Cloud? Did you drop from the sky?"

"I came on Malthor's ship."

A kind of sigh went round the square, and with it the name of Malthor.

The eager faces of the young men grew heavy with disappointment. But

the leader said sharply, "I was on the quay when Malthor docked. You

were not on board."

It was Stark's turn to smile. In the light of the torches, his eyes

blazed cold and bright as ice against the sun.

"Ask Malthor the reason for that," he said. "Ask the man with the torn

cheek. Or perhaps," he added softly, "you would like to learn for

yourselves."

The young men looked at him, scowling, in an odd mood of indecision.

Stark settled himself, every muscle loose and ready. And the woman who

had laughed crept closer and peered at Stark through her tangled hair,

breathing heavily of the poppy wine.

All at once she said loudly, "He came out of the sea. That's where he

came from. He's...."

One of the young men struck her across the mouth and she fell down in

the mud. A burly seaman ran out and caught her by the hair, dragging

her to her feet again. His face was frightened and very angry. He

hauled the woman away, cursing her for a fool and beating her as he

went. She spat out blood, and said no more.

"Well," said Stark to the young men. "Have you made up your minds?"

"Minds!" said a voice behind them--a harsh-timbered, rasping voice

that handled the liquid vocables of the Venusian speech very clumsily

indeed. "They have no minds, these whelps! If they had, they'd be off

about their business, instead of standing here badgering a stranger."

The young men turned, and now between them Stark could see the man who

had spoken. He stood on the steps of the tavern. He was an Earthman,

and at first Stark thought he was old, because his hair was white and

his face deeply lined. His body was wasted with fever, the muscles all

gone to knotty strings twisted over bone. He leaned heavily on a stick,

and one leg was crooked and terribly scarred.

He grinned at Stark and said, in colloquial English, "Watch me get rid

of 'em!"

He began to tongue-lash the young men, telling them that they were

idiots, the misbegotten offspring of swamp-toads, utterly without

manners, and that if they did not believe the stranger's story they

should go and ask Malthor, as he suggested. Finally he shook his stick

at them, fairly screeching.

"Go on, now. Go away! Leave us alone--my brother of Earth and I!"

The young men gave one hesitant glance at Stark's feral eyes. Then they

looked at each other and shrugged, and went away across the square half

sheepishly, like great loutish boys caught in some misdemeanor.

The white-haired Earthman beckoned to Stark. And, as Stark came up to

him on the steps he said under his breath, almost angrily, "You're in a

trap."

Stark glanced back over his shoulder. At the edge of the square the

three young men had met a fourth, who had his face bound up in a rag.

They vanished almost at once into a side street, but not before Stark

had recognized the fourth man as Malthor.

It was the captain he had branded.

With loud cheerfulness, the lame man said in Venusian, "Come in and

drink with me, brother, and we will talk of Earth."