"Stay here, Chuck," he said, drawing his own weapon. "If I don't come
out within five minutes, come in blasting."
* * * * *
I started to argue, but I knew that he really wanted it that way. I had
more experience at the rough and tumble arts, but he had taken a back
seat so far, and it was his right. It was for Sukey.
I waited, while the minutes dragged. Just as I was ready to go in,
Harry came out. There was a sick look on his face that I had never seen
before. He was one of those people who can't stand the sight of freaks
or anomalies.
He took a deep breath of that damp, heavy, tasteless air, as though it
were wine.
"You found him?"
"It was like--like hitting a--a--" He gagged.
"I know," I said. "I saw a picture of him once. What did you learn?"
"Probably it doesn't make any sense. She--Mrs. Campbell--gave him ten
thousand dollars, Colonial money. I got that much out of him. In return
he arranged for them to visit what he calls a 'sacred rainbow garden',
whatever that means, near the equator. I got the approximate location
of the place."
For the first time I got plenty scared. I knew about the rainbow
gardens, all right. On most of the surface of Venus the direct rays
of Sol never penetrated the numerous layers of poisonous clouds that
shielded and sheltered the livable atmosphere and the mild, though
dreary climate underneath. But in certain areas curious updrafts
allowed small shafts of sunlight to reach the surface. The areas were
never large, but wherever the light struck, the effect upon a drab,
colorless world was like magic.
For a reason that science had never been able to learn, objects on
Venus, whenever exposed to direct sunlight, instead of giving off white
light, diffracted it into its spectral components, and showed up in
gorgeous, blinding hues. Also, the vegetation within these charmed
areas was subtly changed. The constant, radiant mist caused the trees
and plants to take on warped, nightmarish shapes.
The natives worshipped the rainbow gardens, and bathed in the colored
mists that eternally swept up into the blackness of space from the
surface.
I didn't want to upset Harry, but I had spent enough years on Venus to
hear a lot of curious stories that had circulated through the north
about those strange regions.
"Come on," I said, "we'd better not waste any time."
We had been able to charter an old-fashioned flutter-plane, which could
land more or less vertically, and Harry had the approximate longitude
of the place from Marjud.
We could see it a long way off, fortunately, and it was like a big
waterspout, except for its preternatural straightness, reaching up in
a silvery, swirling column through the gray cloud layer twelve miles
overhead.
He didn't swing the flutter-plane too near to it. The updrafts around
it, at this altitude, were supposed to move at terrific speed, and
could shatter even a rocketship.
There was some kind of gray stone building rising out of the gray-green
forest at the foot of the column, and we landed a quarter of a mile
away, so as not to attract attention. We walked in, and in a few
minutes were able to make out the domes of the temple rising over the
tops of the trees.
The masonry was of a rough, dark basalt, crude and unbeautiful. The
work of the primitive tribes that lived in the area. I had heard of
giant towers and spired old cities which were supposed to have been the
work of an ancient, long-dead, and highly evolved race, but there had
never been any evidence of such places. Probably these native temples
had started the stories. There was plenty of reason to believe that the
planet Venus was new and in the first evolution when men from Earth
arrived.
Behind the temple itself rose a fifty foot wall of the same
undistinguished stone, and inside this wall the mysterious column of
mist rose. Within that mist lay the rainbow garden.
The only entrance appeared to be through the temple itself.
* * * * *
We were in an enormous rotunda, a sort of congregational throne room
where thousand of natives might gather during the orgies that were
irregularly held.
There was not a living thing in sight in all that domed vastness.
Hundreds of idols of obscure primitive gods lined the walls.
Harry cupped his hands to his mouth. "Anybody here?" The words bellowed
and bounced against the lofty ceiling, echoing and reechoing. And they
got results right away.
From somewhere among those shadows at the other end of the room there
was a blue flash. The air crackled and fried near my ear. We flopped on
the floor and returned the fire. There was a scream. One of us had made
a lucky hit. We waited ten minutes and advanced.
We found the body of a Venusian in colonial garb, one of the slim,
regular-featured northern tribesmen. I knew that he must be Marjud's
agent, for Northerners were rarely found in these latitudes if they
could help it.
Beyond the dead Venusian lay a narrow passageway that must lead to the
inner chambers.
Harry wanted to rush the place. "Take it easy," I said. "These boys
are tricky, and they have little poison spears that kill on contact.
There's bound to be a few of them hanging around the garden--the
priests. That was Marjud's underling back there. We haven't met the
natives yet."
We met them right away. Three of them had been waiting for us in a
sort of transept. Something--a blunt hatchet probably--bounced off my
shoulder and sent a sharp pain through it. I swung my fist and caught
the assailant in his skeleton midriff, doubling him up. I could only
see the outline of his shape in that gloom, and I didn't like it. It
was out of a nightmare. Harry was having better luck. He shoved the
muzzle of his gun into the Venusian's belly and burned a hole through
him.
The other one tried to run, but he didn't get far.
Harry was breathing hard. He grinned at me. "You okay?" he said.
"I'll have a shoulder that's sore as hell for a while," I said, "but
let's go."
A dozen passageways led from the main one. "Where do we look first?"
Harry wanted to know.
"We'd better split up. That way we can cover more territory."
"I don't like to leave you alone with that bum shoulder."
"Forget it. If there were any more around, they've cleared out by now.
Get going."
I had a pocket light that I used in the darkest passages. Most of the
cloisters and compartments were empty, and didn't look as though they'd
been used in years.
At the end of one passageway I found the rooms of the priests, very
sparsely furnished, and from there I got a glimpse from a narrow
ventilation slit at the garden itself. The colored mists and the weird
trees. But no animate being was moving out there.
In the last room, the door was barred with a crude, vertical bolt. I
blasted off the bar, and opened the door. Behind it I found Sukey Jones.
* * * * *
She stood there looking scared, and not believing that it was really
me. Her eyes were big as dollars.
And when she was sure, the way she threw herself at me and hugged me,
it was embarrassing.
"Chuck, Chuck! I never thought I'd see you again. I never--I'm so--!"
And that was all I got out of her for the next couple of minutes. I
gave her my handkerchief to dab at her eyes, and I got the story at
last.
She had been there two days without food and water, locked in.
They had arrived a week ago, and during that time she had seen nothing
except the interior of this room.
Althea Campbell had heard rumors of the rainbow gardens, and that the
natives, by bathing in the radiation given off by the colored mists,
were able to restore youth and vigor for long periods of time. She had
seen the chance of restoring her own body to its youthful bloom and of
working the miracle that she had sought for so many years on half a
dozen planets. She had sought out Marjud, who alone had contacts that
could get them into the forbidden area.
"I still don't get it," I said. "Where is she now, and why has she got
you locked in here?"
"I was afraid after we arrived, and I didn't want to do it. She said we
had to take off our clothes and go with the priests into the rainbow
garden. I refused, and she slapped me and said that I was impertinent
and ungrateful. I threatened to run away and tell the authorities, so
they locked me in here.
"The she-devil!" I said.
"Oh, she's really not so bad," said Sukey, forgivingly. "It's just that
she's a little mad when it comes to being young and beautiful. She was
forever talking about the way her arms and legs looked, and all, and
crying, and bawling me out."
"Come on," I said. "Let's find Harry and get out of here."