IV

I go back now to that moment when Ama and I, pursued by the roaming

band of Orgs, plunged into a tunnel passage that led from the gully,

near the wrecked Roberts' spaceship. It was quite evident that Ama was

aware of the dangers of the wind-storms of her little world. There was

a swift air-current sucking into this passage. But it was not powerful

enough to do more than hurry us along. Once, where the tunnel branched,

there seemed an open grotto up a little subterranean ascent to the

right. It glowed with a brighter pallid light than was here in the

passage. I turned that way with an interested gaze, but at once she

clutched at me.

"No--no. In times of the storm, very bad sometimes in places under the

ground."

There seemed no sign of pursuit behind us. "The Orgs--they run heavy,"

Ama said when I mentioned it. In the pale opalescent glow of the

tunnel, I could see her faint triumphant smile as she gazed up at me

sidewise. Strange little face, utterly foreign so that upon Earth, by

Earth standards one would have been utterly baffled to identify her.

But it was an appealing face, and now, with her terror gone, the sly

glance she flung at me was wholly feminine.

"Those fire-mimes," I said. "Couldn't they rush ahead of their masters,

trailing us?" I explained how on Earth dogs would do that, following

their quarry by the scent. She looked puzzled, and then she brightened.

"I remember. The Captain Roberts told us about that. The mimes are

different. The male and female both--they follow what it is they see,

nothing else."

Then she told me about the weird, dog-like creatures. The male, exuding

a scent--if you could call it that--a vapor which in the air bursts

into spontaneous combustion as it combines with the atmospheric oxygen.

How long we ran through what proved to be a maze of passages in the

honey-combed ground, I have no idea. Several Earth-miles, doubtless.

Several times we stopped to rest, with the breezes tossing about us as

I listened, tense, to be sure the Orgs were not coming. Then at last we

emerged; and at the rocky exit I stood staring, amazed.

It was a wholly different looking world here. The pallid underground

sheen was gone; and now again there was the dim twilight of the

interminable Vulcan night. From where we stood the ground sloped down

so that we were looking out over the top of a wide spread of lush,

tangled forest. Weird jungle, rank and wild with spindly trees of

fantastic shapes, heavy with pods and exotic flowers and tangled with

masses of vines. Beyond it, far ahead of us there seemed a line of

little metal mountains at the horizon; and to the left an Earth-mile or

so away, the forest was broken to disclose a winding thread of little

river. It shone phosphorescent green in the half light. The storm was

over now, but still the colors lingered in the cloud sky--a glorious

palette of rainbow hues up there that tinted the forest-top.

Ama gestured toward the thread of river. "The Senzas--my people and my

village--off that way beyond the little water. We go quickly. But we be

careful, until we get beyond the water."

"Swim it?"

"We can. But I think I remember where there is a Senza boat hidden on

this side."

* * * * *

She had already told me more of what happened to her. The Senzas,

primitive obviously, yet with an orderly tribal civilization, were the

dominant race here on little Vulcan. The savage Orgs--a far lower, more

primitive type both mentally and physically--in nomadic fashion, roamed

the metal deserts and little stunted forests which lay beyond the

barren regions. They were, at times of religious frenzy, cannibalistic,

with weird and gruesome festival rites which Ama only shudderingly

sketched.

For the most part, the clumsy Orgs and their weird mime-creatures were

kept from the Senza forests. But occasionally they raided, stealing

the Senza women, and roaming the lush forests for food. There had

been, in the Senza village, one Tahg, a wooer of Ama. An older man,

but somehow well liked by the Senza tribal leader. Repulsed by Ama, he

had threatened her--and then he had vanished from the village; gone

hunting, and the Senzas considered that the Orgs might have killed him.

"But I think it was Org blood in him," Ama said. "I told the Captain

Roberts that--I remember just before he and his men left us to finish

the repairs of their ship--and then we found later that the Orgs had

killed them all."

Tahg, Ama thought, had become the tribal leader of this group of the

Orgs--indulging with them in their gruesome rites.... Then, just a few

hours ago, two Orgs had crept upon Ama as she slept--with extraordinary

daring for an Org, had successfully seized her and carried her off.

Taking her into the Org country, past the Roberts' spaceship, where

they had come upon me, and Torrence and Jan....

"We be careful now," she was telling me as we stood gazing out over the

forested slope. "After a storm it is when the Orgs mostly roam--the

hunting here is better when the little creatures are out after the

water."

The little creatures! Best of the animal foods here on Vulcan.... The

red-storm quite evidently had emptied torrential rain on the forest.

The fantastic trees were heavy with it. Soddenly it dripped from the

overhead branches. And now as we started down the slope, I saw the

little creatures. Insect or animal, no one could have said. A myriad

sizes and shapes of them, from a finger-length to the size of a cat.

Before our advance they scurried, on the ground, scattering with

weird little outcries. Some flew clumsily into the leaves overhead;

others ran up there on the vines, peering down at us as we passed. We

came suddenly upon a pool of rain-water. Greedily a hundred little

orange-green things, seemingly almost all head and snout, were crowding

at the pool, sucking up the water. With eerie, maniacal little voices

they rolled and bounced away at our approach.

This weird forest! Abruptly I was aware that there were places where

the rope-like vines and leafy branches of the underbrush shrank away

from us as we advanced--slithering and swaying little vines in sudden

movement before us. Sentient vegetation. There are plants on Earth

which shrink and shudder at a touch. Others which snap and seize an

unwary insect enemy. But here it was far more startling than that. I

saw a vine on the ground rise up upon its myriad little tendrils; the

pods, like a row of heads upon it were quivering, puffing. The extended

length of it, like a snake slithered from my threatening tread.

"It fears every human," Ama said. "A strange thing to you Earthmen?"

"Well, slightly," I commented. "Suppose it--some of this vegetation got

angry--" Fantastic thought, but the reality of it--a looping, swaying

vine over our heads, as thick as my arm--that was a stark reality.

"Would a thing like that attack us, Ama?"

She shrugged. "There is talk of it. But I think no one is ever truthful

to say it really happened."

We were in the depths of the forest now. In the humid, heavy darkness

it was sometimes arduous going. That thread of river--we could not see

it now, but I judged it still must be half an Earth-mile away. Once

we sat down in a little open glade to rest. In the thick silence the

throbbing voice of the forest, blended of the scurrying life and the

rustling vines, was a faint steady hum. Then suddenly I saw that Ama

was tense, alert, sitting up listening. She looked startled, abruptly

frightened.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"Off there--the vines, they are frightened. You hear?"

* * * * *

It seemed that somewhere near us, the vine-rustling had grown louder.

A scurry, mingled with little popping sounds from the pods. Someone

coming? I recall that the startled thought struck me. Then from a

thicket near at hand a group of little creatures came dashing. They

saw us, wheeled and scurried sidewise. I was on my feet, peering into

the shadowed leafy darkness. I thought I heard a low, guttural voice.

Whether I did or not, the whizz of an arrow past me was reality enough.

A wandering band of the Orgs were stalking us! At the whizz of the

arrow I made a dash sidewise. My gun was gone; I jerked out my knife.

Ama was up, and another arrow barely missed her--an arrow that came

from a totally different direction so that I knew we must be already

surrounded.

"Ama--lie down! Down--"

A woman under some circumstances can be a terrible handicap. She didn't

drop to the ground; she stood gazing around her in terror, and then she

came running at me, clutching me so that I was futilely struggling to

cast her off. Another arrow sang past our heads, and then from several

directions, the Orgs were bursting into the glade.

I tore loose from Ama, but it was no use. Whatever effective fight I

might have put up, it could have brought a rain of arrows which might,

probably would, have killed the girl.

"Quiet," I murmured. "They've got us. No chance to fight."

I stood trying to shield her as in the dimness the Orgs crowded around

us. Ten or more of them, jabbering at us, seizing me and presently

shoving us off through the forest.

Two or three others seemed to join us in a moment; and abruptly Ama

gasped:

"Tahg! There is Tahg--"

The renegade Senza, quite obviously a leader here, shoved past his

jabbering, triumphant men and confronted us. He was seemingly startled,

and then triumphant at seeing Ama here. Then his gaze swept to me. He

was a big, muscular, but slender fellow. He was clad in a brief brown

drape; but his aspect was wholly different from the heavy, misshapen,

clumsy-looking Orgs. His thick dark hair fell longish about his ears,

framing his hawk-nosed, thin-lipped face. And his narrow dark eyes

squinted at me as he frowned.

"Well," he said, "Earthman? New one?" His English was evidently less

fluent than Ama's, but it was understandable enough.

"Yes," I agreed. "Friendly--like all Earthmen."

He had signaled to the Orgs, and two of them had shuffled forward and

taken Ama from me.

"Jus' good time," Tahg said ironically. "Org gods pleased tonight to

have Earthmen--"

Earthmen! The plural! I had little opportunity to ponder it. Roughly

I was shoved onward through the forest, back to where it thinned into

a stretch of metal desert--and beyond that into a new terrain of

stunted, gnarled trees and rope vines on a rocky ground. To me it was

an exhausting march. Ama, with Tahg beside her, usually was behind

me. Once we stopped and food and water were given me. When we started

again, I saw that, at Tahg's direction, one of the savages had hoisted

Ama to his back, carrying her in a rope-vine sling. Occasionally other

small bands of Orgs joined us, until there were fifty or more of them,

triumphantly returning to their village. Their torches were burning

now, and a little ahead of us a pack of the huge green-grey mimes were

leaping.

Then Tahg came toward me. "Good-bye," he said. "You look more good to

me when I see you next time. The gods prepare you now."

* * * * *

He turned and was lost in the darkness. My ankles had been fettered

with a two-foot length of rope; my wrists were crossed and lashed

behind me. No one was with me now but my two captors who urged me

forward, impatient at my little jerky steps. The village and its

jabbering turmoil and lights was in a moment hidden by a rise of the

rocky ground. Then I saw before me a fairly large, square building of

stone, flat-roofed, with a cone-shaped stone-pile on top like a crude

church spire.

An Org temple. It was windowless; some twenty feet high from ground to

its roof. A narrow, rectangular slit of doorway was in front, where

two huge torches, like braziers one on either side, were burning. An

Org stood between them, with the torchlight painting him--an aged

savage in a long, white skin drape which was fantastically ornamented.

He was thin and bent, his round brown skull almost hairless, his

body shriveled, parched with age. His skinny arms were upraised,

outstretched to welcome me.

But my startled gaze turned from him, for on the ground just at the

edge of the swaying torchlight, I saw that two figures were lying. Two

men, roped and tied into inert bundles.

They were Jan and Torrence!

V

There was a time when, roped and tied like Jan and Torrence, I was

laid beside them while in the torchlight, alone with his pagan gods,

the ancient Org priest stood intoning his prayers and incantations. It

was then that Jan was able to tell me what had happened to him. He was

lying between Torrence and me. I had little chance to talk to Torrence.

Nor any great desire, for I considered him then merely a craven fellow

who had deserted us at the very first of the weird attacks.

Human emotions work strangely. It was obvious now, as we lay there in

the darkness, with the aged savage in the torchlight near us--obvious

enough that we were doomed to something horrible which at best would

end in our death. Yet Jan and I--each having considered the other

dead--were for a brief time at least, pleased that we were here. No

one yet alive, can normally quite give up hope of escaping death. I

recall that in the darkness I was furtively trying to loosen my bonds,

twisting and squirming.

"You needn't bother," Torrence muttered. "I've tried all that. And

those two damned Orgs who carried you here--they're still watching us."

"Going to take us inside, I guess," Jan whispered. "Inside this temple

to--to--"

His shuddering imagination supplied no words. But his idea was right,

for presently the old priest was finished with his incantations. His

cracked voice called a command and the two savages who had brought me

here came from nearby. One by one, they picked us up and carried us

inside.

I was the last to go in. The place was a single stone square room. It

was lurid with a swaying torchlight. Carved gargoyle images, crude

and hideously ugly--grotesque personification of the pagan Vulcan

gods--where ranged along the walls. The old priest was standing now on

a little dais, between the two interior torches. His arms were upraised

toward me as I was carried in; behind him there was a quick stone

altar, with a line of smaller images on it. His voice rose, quavering,

as I was slowly carried past him; and his hands over me might have been

purifying me for the coming rite.

In the center of the room, raised some five feet above the floor, there

was a broad stone slab, with a big, grinning, pot-bellied stone image

mounted up there. Then I saw that the slab had a broad, cradle-like

depression in front of the image. Still bound, lying there side by

side, with the belly of the huge image projecting partly over them,

were Jan and Torrence. And now the two savages hoisted me up and rolled

me among them.

The sacrificial altar. Heaven knows, I could not miss the realization

now. There was a weird, acrid, nauseous smell clinging here from former

ceremonies. And as I was hoisted up, I saw that the smooth sides of

the altar were seared, blackened by the heat of flames which so many

times before must have been here.

And the heat--the fire? Within a moment after I was rolled into the

saucer-like depression of the alter--with Torrence muttering despairing

curses and Jan pallid and grim beside me--outside the temple there

sounded a weird gibbering chorus of baying. Ghastly, familiar sound!

The mimes--the giant fire-males! Released at the temple doorway, they

came bounding in--blobs of leaping red-green flame! A dozen or more

of the weird creatures, all of these much larger than the male Jan

had killed near the Roberts' spaceship. Fire-males trained for this

ceremony. Enveloped in their lurid flames they rushed at the altar,

circling it, swiftly running one behind the other so that we were

encircled with a ring of leaping flames.