"Nor me," Zeeth said. Sanderson only grinned.
Vanning grunted. "It's one of you. I'm pretty sure of that. And I'm
talking to you now, Callahan. You'll be able to disguise your walk and
your mannerisms, and I can't recognize your new face or fingerprints.
But sooner or later you'll forget and betray yourself. Then I'll have
to take you back to Earth."
"You will forget," Zeeth said. "In a year--five, if you live, you will
forget. Our people have legends of this land, where the gods live. Our
priests taught that the North-Fever is sent by the gods. We did not
know how true that teaching was...." His bulbous face was grotesque in
its solemnity.
* * * * *
Vanning didn't answer. His hope of tricking an admission from Callahan
had failed. Well, there would be time enough. Yet obviously one of
these three was the fugitive. Hobbs? Sanderson? Certainly not Zeeth--
Wait a bit! Suppose Callahan had disguised himself as a Venusian
native? That would be a perfect masquerade. And the diabolical skill of
the anthro-surgeon could have transformed Callahan into a Venusian.
Vanning looked at Zeeth with new interest. The native met his glance
with stolid calm.
"One cannot argue with fate. Those who died on the way here are
luckier. We must live and serve."
"I've got other ideas," the detective growled.
Zeeth gestured vividly. "Your race does not accept destiny, as ours
does. We have from birth a struggle for existence. Venus is a hard
mistress. But some of us live. Yet even then there is the shadow of
the North-Fever. At any time, we know, the sickness may fall upon us.
If it does, and we are not kept close prisoners, we go into the jungle
and either die or--come here. My brother was very lucky. He had the
fever three years ago, but I held him and called for help. My tribesmen
came running and tied Gharza tightly, so that he could not escape. For
ten days and nights the fever made him mad. Then it passed. The threat
had left him forever. The North-Fever only strikes once, so Gharza was
immune. I, too, am immune--but I consider myself dead, of course."
"Aw, shut up," Sanderson snapped. "You give me the leapin' creeps.
Let's get some sleep. We've got to attend the festival tonight."
"What's that?" Vanning asked.
The mild-faced Hobbs answered him. "A religious ceremony. Just do what
you're told, and you'll be all right."
"Just that, eh?"
"Our people have learned to bow our heads to Fate," Zeeth murmured. "We
are not fighters. Pain is horrible to us. You call us cowards. From
your standards, that is true. Only by bowing to the great winds have we
managed to survive."
"Shut up and let me sleep," Sanderson ordered, and relaxed his heavy
body on a bunk. The others followed his example, all but Vanning, who
sat silently thinking as hour after hour dragged past.
The door opened at last, and a Swamja stood on the threshold. He wore
the familiar costume of the race, but there was an oddly-shaped gun in
a holster at his side.
"Time!" he barked in the Venusian dialect. "Hasten! You--" He pointed
to Vanning. "Follow me. The others know where to go."
The detective silently rose and followed the Swamja into the huge room.
It was filled now, he saw, with natives and with Earthmen, hurrying
here and there like disturbed ants. There were no other Swamja, however.
One of the Venusians stumbled and fell. He was a thin, haggard specimen
of his species, and how he had ever survived the trip north Vanning
could not guess. Perhaps he had been in this lost city for years, and
had been drained of his vitality by weeks of arduous servitude. He
fell....
The Swamja barked a harsh command. The native gasped a response, tried
to rise--and failed.
Instantly the Swamja drew his gun and fired. The Venusian collapsed and
lay still. Vanning took a step forward, hot with fury, to find himself
drawn back by Hobbs' restraining hand.
"Easy!" the other whispered. "He's dead. No use--"
"Dead? I didn't hear any explosion."
"You wouldn't. That gun fires a charge of pure force that disrupts the
nervous system. It was set to kill just now."
The Swamja turned. "I must attend to this carcass. My report must be
made. You, Zeeth--take the new slave to Ombara."
"I obey." The native bowed and touched Vanning's arm. "Come with me."
* * * * *
Followed by Sanderson's sardonic grin, Vanning accompanied the Venusian
into a corridor, and up a winding spiral ramp. He found it difficult to
contain himself.
"Good God!" he burst out finally. "Do those devils do that all the
time? Plain cold-blooded murder?"
Zeeth nodded. "They have no emotions, you see. They are what you call
hedonists. And they are gods. We are like animals to them. The moment
we make a mistake, or are no longer useful, we are killed."
"And you submit to it!"
"There was a rebellion two years ago, I heard. Twenty slaves died to
every Swamja. They are like reptiles--nearly invulnerable. And we have
no weapons, of course."
"Can't you get any?"
"No. Nor would I try. Venusians cannot endure pain, you understand. To
us, pain is worse than death."
Vanning grunted, and was silent as they passed through a curtained
arch. Never would he forget his first sight of the Swamja city. It was
like--
Like an ocean world!
He stood upon a balcony high over the city, and looked out at a vast
valley three miles in diameter, scooped out of the heart of the
mountains as though by a cosmic cup. Overhead was no sky. A shell of
transparent substance made a ceiling above the city, a tremendous dome
that couched on the mountain peaks all around.
Gray-green light filtered through it. An emerald twilight hazed the
fantastic city, where twisted buildings like grottos of coral rose in
strange patterns. It was a labyrinth. And it was--lovely beyond all
imagination.
"Those--things--built this?" Vanning breathed.
"They knew beauty," Zeeth said. "They have certain senses we do not
have. You will see...."
From the exact center of the city a tower rose, smooth and shining as
metal. It reached to the transparent dome and seemed to rise above it,
into the clouds of Venus.
"What's that?" Vanning asked, pointing. "Their temple?"
Zeeth's voice held irony. "Not a temple--a trap. It is the tube through
which they blast the spores of the North-Fever into the sky. Day and
night without pause the virus is blown upward through that tube, far
into the air, where it is carried all over the planet."
The air was darkening, thickening. Here and there rainbow lights sprang
into view. Elfin fires in an enchanted world, Vanning thought.
Through the grotesque city equally grotesque figures moved, to be lost
in the shadows. The monsters who ruled here--ruled like soulless devils
rather than gods.
"Come. We must hurry." Zeeth tugged at Vanning's arm.
Together they went down the ramp into one of the winding avenues. It
grew darker, and more lights came on. Once Vanning paused at sight of a
corroded metal structure in the center of a well-lighted park.
"Zeeth! That's a space-ship! A light life-boat--"
The Venusian nodded. "And it is well guarded, too. It crashed through
the dome a century ago, I was told. All the men in it were killed. A
space-wreck, I suppose."
Vanning was silent as they went on. He was visualizing what had
happened in that distant past. A wreck in space, a few survivors
taking to this life-boat and setting out, hopelessly, for the nearest
world--believing, perhaps, that if they reached Venus, they would be
saved. And then the tremendous atmospheric tides and whirlpools of the
clouded planet, in which no aircraft but the hugest could survive....
Vanning whistled softly. Suppose he managed to get into that
space-boat? Suppose there was still rocket-fuel in the tanks, and
suppose it hadn't deteriorated? Couldn't he blast up through the dome
to freedom?
Sure--to freedom and death! No ship could survive in the Venusian
atmosphere, certainly not this light space-tub, of an antiquated and
obsolete design.
* * * * *
At one of the twisted buildings, Zeeth paused. The structure was larger
than Vanning had imagined from above, and his eyes widened as he
followed the Venusian up winding ramps, past curtained arches, till at
last they stepped into a luxurious chamber at the top. Seated on a low
tussock was a Swamja, fat and hideous, his bulging eyes glaring at the
intruders.
"You are late," he said. "Why is that?"