"Quiet!" rasped Captain Lane. His flashlight beam faded abruptly,
darkness closed in about them like a shroud. But only for an instant.
Because a new effulgence lit the scene. The massive door was slowly
swinging open--and from its widening groove came a pallid, greenish
glow. Like some monstrous, hungry mouth the door opened wider and yet
wider. Dim shapes were shadows behind it, vague at first, dark and
sinister....
And then, out of the ghoulish semi-gloom, suddenly two figures stood
limned in stark relief. But they were not the figures of Earthmen,
neither were they fat, friendly shapes of Venusians. They were tall,
lean creatures, thin-faced and hungry-fanged, garbed with what appeared
to be huge mantles covering them from their shoulder-blades to the tips
of their long, prehensile fingers!
Two wobbling, awkward steps they took from the now completely opened
door; for an instant Tim heard the shrill, piping chatter of their
speech--then their "mantles" spread and became huge, jointed wings on
which they soared straight across the cavern toward the spellbound trio!
Captain Lane's cry was thick with horror.
"Good God, Mallory! Shoot, and shoot quick! We've found the gates of
hell. They're the bat-men--the Vampires of Venus!"
* * * * *
Even as he spoke, he was tugging his own needle-gun from its holster;
now its fiery beam lanced squarely at the foremost of the two
attackers. Nor was Tim Mallory slow in heeding. His weapon was out in
one swift movement; its beam slashed a hole in the gloom as it sought
one of the silently winging creatures above.
But they might as well have taken aim at a will-o'-the-wisp. The dim
glow from beyond the open door illumined only a portion of the cavern;
the heights above were a well of jet, against which the crepuscular
creatures were all but invisible. Again and again the two heat-beams
stabbed black shadows, once Tim thought he heard a brief, whimpering
cry, but no winged creature, charred in death, hurtled from the eyrie
point of vantage. Only the sound of great wings beating persisted--and
once an ebon shape flung itself from an ebon shadow to rake sharp
claws gratingly across Tim's bulger helmet. It had glided away again,
mockingly, before he could spin to flame a shot after it.
Then Lane's free arm was thrusting at him. Lane's voice was sharp,
incisive.
"Out of here! Dorothy first! Maybe there are just two of these
devils--_Ooow!_ Damn your rotten hide!"
He had turned to speak over his shoulder. In that moment of
inattention, one of the bat-men had rocketed down upon him, slashed
viciously at his gun-arm with clawed hands. Metal clattered on rock;
Captain Lane went swiftly after the lost gun, groping for it blindly,
down on his knees.
Tim had taken a backward step; now he moved forward again to cover the
frenzied fumbling of the older man. His eyes were suddenly dazzled
as Lane, desperate, used his flash to search for the weapon. And the
skipper groaned.
"It's gone! It fell down that fissure! Mallory--quick! Do you have
another gun? They're closing in--"
Beads of cold sweat had suddenly sprung out on Tim Mallory's forehead.
Not only did he _not_ have another gun--but the one he now held was
about to become useless! A dim shape wheeled above him; he pressed the
trigger, but no red flame leaped from the muzzle. Just a spluttering,
ochre ray that simmered into nothingness a few feet above his head!
The gun's charge was practically exhausted. Battle with the
proto-balls ... the constant drainage of raying their route-turns ...
these had done it! There were fresh capsules in his ammunition kit, but
in the length of time required to recharge the gun....
"A minute!" he cried. "Fight 'em off a minute! I have to--"
And he reached for a new capsule. But the skipper, misunderstanding,
impatient, turned peril into disaster with his next, impetuous move.
"Don't stand there like an idiot, you Earthlubber!" he howled.
"Here--give that to me!"
And he jerked the useless weapon from Tim's hand!
For a stark instant, Tim was wrenched in a vise of indecision. To fight
the winged demons without a weapon was madness. Wisdom lay in hurrying
back to the ship, equipping themselves with new guns. But--but Lane had
said these bat-men were vampires. The Vampires of Venus, he had said.
And Tim had heard stories ... the word "vampire" meant the same in any
language, on any planet.
But there was Dorothy to consider, too. He groaned aloud. His instinct
bade him plunge forward, weaponless or not; common sense advised the
other course.
And then, in a split-second, the decision became no longer his to
make. For as if the victory of the first two bat-men had determined
the action of the entire clan, out of the bronze gateway flooded a
veritable host of the sickening winged creatures!
Then a battering-ram smashed him crushingly and he choked, gasped, felt
the weakness of oblivion well over him like a turgid, engulfing cloud.
He was conscious of raking talons that gripped his armpits, of sudden,
swift and dizzy flight ... of a vast, aching chaos that rocked with
hungry, inhuman mirth.
* * * * *
Captain Lane's voice was an aeon away, but it came closer. It said,
"--be all right now. You must have been in a hell of a fight, boy!"
And Dorothy was beside him, too. There were tears in her eyes, but she
shook them away and tried to smile as Tim pushed himself up on one
elbow. Tim's head was one big ache, and his body was bruised and sore
from the buffeting of the bat-men's hard wings. He looked about him
dazedly.
"Wh-here are we?"
The room was a low-ceilinged, square one. It had but one door, a bronze
one similar in design, but smaller, than the gateway that had led to
the city of the Vampires. Elsewhere the walls were hewn from solid
rock.
"Where are we?" he repeated. He started to unscrew his face port, but
the skipper stayed his hand.
"Don't, Mallory! We tried that. It's impossible. The air's so
ammoniated it would kill you. From that."
He pointed to a trough-like depression in the room. A curious
arrangement. Probably for purposes of sanitation. Liquid ammonia, or
something akin, entered the trough from a gushing tube set low in one
wall, transversed the room, and exited through a second circular duct.
These were the only openings in the chamber, save for--Tim glanced up,
noticed several round holes. He studied these curiously. Lane answered
his unspoken query.
"Yes, that's right. Ventilation. These devils may be inhuman in form
but they're clever. They've built this underground city, equipped it
with heat, light, ventilated it to maintain circulation--"
There was something wrong there. Tim frowned.
"Ventilation? Yet you say that stream is ammoniated enough to kill a
man. Then how do they live?"
"They're not men," replied Lane bitterly. "They're vampires. Heaven
knows how they can breathe this atmosphere, but they can. The
ingenious, murdering..."
* * * * *
He didn't complete the sentence. For at that instant there came the
scrape of movement outside their dungeon door. The door swung open.
A bat-man entered. His hooked claw signalled them to come forth. Tim
glanced at the older man. Lane shrugged resignedly.
"There's nothing else to do. Maybe we can strike a bargain with them.
Our freedom for something they want."
But there was no hope in his voice. Tim threw an arm about Dorothy's
shoulders. They followed their guide out of the room. There a cordon of
other bat-creatures circled them, and Tim, for the first time, got an
opportunity to see his captors at close range.
They weren't much to look at. They were such stuff as nightmares are
made of. Tall, angular, covered from head to toe with a stiff, glossy
pelt of fur. Their faces were lean and hard and predatory; their teeth
sharp and protruding. Their wings were definitely chiropteric; the
wing-membranes spanned from their shoulders to their claws, falling
loosely away when not in use, and were anchored to stiff, horny knobs
at clavicle and heel.
They walked now, guarding their captives, but it was apparent that
flight was their usual method of locomotion. Anything else would be
awkward, for their knees bent backward as did the knees of their
diminutive Earthly prototype.
They turned, at last, into a huge chamber. And before them, perched
obscenely on a platform elaborately laid with jewels and tapestries,
was the overlord of the Harpies.
* * * * *
No man, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, could have
considered any of the vampires attractive. But of all they had seen,
this monster was the most repugnant. It was not only that his frame was
tauter, skinnier, than that of his fellows; it was not that his furry
body was raw and chafed, as if from ancient, unhealed sores; it was not
only that his pendulous nose-leaf perpetually snuffled, pulsed, above
a red-lipped, vicious mouth. It was the unclean aura of evil about him
that made Tim feel dirty. As though by merely looking on this thing he
had profaned himself in some strange, inexplicable fashion.
Dorothy felt it, too. She choked once, turned her face away. And
Captain Lane growled a disgusted curse.
"Lord, what a filthy beast! Mallory, I wouldn't mind dying if I could
get one shot at that pot-bellied horror first!"
He did not expect--none of them could have expected--that which
happened then. There came a high, simpering parody of laughter from the
thing on the dais before them. And the words in their own tongue--
"But you cannot, Man! For here _I_ am the Master!"
Lane's jaw dropped; his eyes widened. Tim Mallory felt the small hairs
at the nape of his neck tighten coldly. The bat-thing could speak! Was
speaking again, its cruel little mouth pulled into a grimace remotely
resembling a grin.
"You are surprised that I speak your language? Ah, that is amusing. But
you are just the first of many who will soon discover how foolish it
was to underestimate the intellect of our ancient race.
"With fire and flame you forced us to the caverns, Man-thing. But we
are old and wise. We built our cities here, warmed them against the
dreadful damp and cold. Soon we shall burst forth in all our might. And
when we do--"
He stopped abruptly; the tensing of his claws told the rest more
eloquently than words. He rapped a command to one of the guards.
"Take off their garments! I would see what prizes have stumbled into
our refuge!"
Obediently, the bat-creature shambled forward; his talons fumbled
at Captain Lane's face-port. Tim cried out, "No! Don't let him! The
atmosphere--"
The vampire overlord grinned at him cunningly.
"Fear not, Earthman. The air in this chamber will not harm you. We have
other plans--" His wet, red tongue licked his lips.
Then Lane's headpiece was removed, and his bulger was stripped
from him. A dazed expression swept across his forehead. He said,
"Mallory--it--it's _hot_ in here! And the air is breatheable!"
But by that time, Tim, too, had been removed of his space-suit; he,
too, had felt the sultry, oppressive heat of the cavern. It was
incredible but true. The vampires had found a way to make their
underground city warm as the surface from which men had hunted them.
That then--it came to Tim with sudden, startling clarity--that was why--
The overlord was speaking again. His tone was one of gratification.
"The men will do. We shall feast well tonight--_very_ well! The
woman--" He gazed at Dorothy speculatively. "I wonder?" he mused in a
half whisper. "I wonder if there is not a better way of undermining
Earthmen than just crushing them? A new race to people Venus? A race
combining our ancient, noble blood and that of these pale creatures?"
His eyes fastened on Dorothy's suddenly flaming loveliness. "That is a
matter I must consider.
"That will do!" He motioned to his followers even as Tim, white of lip
and riotous with rage, took a forward step. "Allow them to don their
clumsy air-suits again; take them back to their dungeon. We shall
bring them forth again when the time is ripe."
Strong claws clutched Mallory, staying him. Short minutes later,
surrounded by their guards, they were once more on their way to the
nether prison.
* * * * *
It was a grim-faced Captain Lane who paced the floor of their dungeon.
There was anger in his eyes, and outrage, too. But beneath those
surface emotions was a deeper one--fear! The dreadful, haunting fear of
a powerless man, caught in a trap beyond his utmost devising.
"If there were only something we could do!" he raged savagely. "But
we're weaponless--helpless--we can't even die fighting, like strong
men. I'd rather we had all died in the _Orestes_ than that this should
happen. You and I, Mallory, a feast for such foul things. Dorothy--"
He stopped, shaken, sickened. Dorothy's face was pale, but her voice
was even.
"There is one thing he overlooked, Daddy. We still have the privilege
of dying cleanly. Together. We can take off our suits. Here. Before
they come for us."
Lane nodded. He knew what death by asphyxiation meant; he had seen men
die in Earth's lethal chambers. But anything, even that, was better
than meek surrender to the overlord's mad, lustful plan.
"Yes, Dorothy. That is the only way left to us." He thought for a
moment. "There is no use delaying. But before we--we _go_, there is
one thing I must say--" And he looked at his daughter and her lover
in turn. "I was wrong in forbidding your marriage. You're a _man_,
Mallory. It's too bad I had to learn that under such circumstances.
But I want you to know--at the end--that if things had turned out
differently, I--I'd change my mind."
Tim said quietly, "Thank you, sir." But his thoughts were only half
upon the older man's admission. There was a tiny something scratching
at the back of his mind. Something that had occurred to him, dimly, in
the hot chamber above. He couldn't quite place his finger on it, but--
"I still find it in me to wish," said Captain Lane, "that you had been
a spaceman. But there's no use talking about that now. What might have
been is past. There remains only time to acknowledge past faults, and
then--and then--"
He faltered. And Dorothy took up the weighty burden of speech.
"Shall we ... do it now?"
Her hands lifted to the pane of her helmet. For an instant they
hesitated, then began to turn. And then--
"_Stop!_" cried Tim. He struck her hands away, spun swiftly to the
older man. "Don't do it, Skipper! I've got it! Got it at last!"