* * * * *
The shoulders and heads of the running, circling fire-mimes were nearly
as high as the altar slab on which we were lying. The flames of them
swirled two or three feet higher--blobs of fire which merged one with
the other. A circular curtain of mounting flame walling us in. Through
it the temple interior was blurred, distorted. Vaguely the figure of
the aged priest was visible. He was now on his knees, turned partly
away from us as he faced his little row of god-images, supplicating
them.
Curtain of swirling fire. Within a moment the heat of it was searing
us. Heat slowly intensifying. It was bearable now; but the confined
circle of air here was mounting in temperature; the big gargoyle
image over us, the metallic-rock slab beneath us both were slowly
heating. The smoke and the swirling gas-fumes would choke us into
unconsciousness very quickly, I knew. And then the mounting heat would
at last make this a sizzling griddle, on which we would lie, slowly
roasting....
A chaos of confused phantasmagoria blurred my mind in those first
horrible moments.... I saw the old priest, so solemnly, humbly
supplicating his gods as he officiated at this gruesome pagan
ceremony ... then I could envisage us being carried off, back to the
Org village where the people, not worthy of being here in the sacred
temple, were so eagerly awaiting us ... then the orgy--sacred feast,
endowing its participants with what future virtues and panaceas they
conceived their gods would give them....
The end, for us.... Already Jan was pitifully coughing.... But what
was this? I felt a shape stir beside me; a small, slender figure with
dangling hair; I felt trembling fingers fumbling at my bonds.
Ama! She had crept from a little recess under the giant bulging statue
of the gargoyle god, here on the altar. Ama, who had found a chance to
slip away from the wooing Tahg, and had preceded us here--hiding up
here so that she might try and release us....
But it was too late now. So obviously too late! She had accomplished
nothing, save to immolate herself here with us!
Into my ear her terrified voice was whispering, "I thought that the
fire-males would not come so soon."
In the blurring, blasting heat and smoke, she had untied us, but of
what use? "No--no chance to try and jump," she stammered. "As we fell
they would leap upon us--kill us in a moment--"
The sizzling, crackling of the flames--the gibbering baying of the
fire-mimes mingling with the incantations of the old priest--it was
all a blurred chaos.... Then suddenly I was aware that Jan, coughing,
choking, had struggled half erect on the slab. There was just an
instant when I saw his contorted face, painted lurid by the flames.
Wild despairing desperation was stamped there. But there was something
else. An exaltation....
"You--run--" he gasped.
And then he jumped. A wild, desperate leap, upward and outward.... It
carried him through the curtain of flame and out some ten feet to the
temple floor. The thud of his crashing body mingled with the gibbering
yelps of the fire-mimes as they whirled and pounced upon him--all of
them in a second, merged into a great blob of flame out there on the
temple floor where they fought, scrambling over him, ripping--tearing--
Gruesome horror.... I knew in that second that already Jan was dead....
And then I was aware that the other side of the altar, behind the
gargoyle image, was momentarily completely dark. All the flaming
creatures were fighting over Jan's body. Torrence, too, had realized
it. I saw him stagger up and jump into the darkness. I shoved at Ama;
rolled and tumbled her off the slab. We fell in a heap and scrambled
erect. The pawing, snarling group of fire-mimes, twenty feet away with
the big altar slab intervening, intent upon their scattering fragments,
for that moment did not heed us. On his little dais by the wall, the
old priest had turned and was standing numbed, confused. There was no
one else in the sacred temple. The single doorway was a vertical slit
of darkness. Already Torrence was running for it. I clutched at Ama and
we ran.
* * * * *
Out into the rocky blackness. I recall that I had the wits to turn us
away from where the Org village lay nearby, behind the hillock....
Then, suddenly, from behind a crag, a dark figure rose up. Tahg! Tahg,
who had been crouching here, evidently impatient for his feast so that
he would be the first to see us as we were brought from the temple....
He stood gasping, startled; and in that same second I was upon him, my
fist crashing into his face so that he went backward and down. With
desperate haste I caught up a rock from the ground--pounded it on
his head--wildly pounding until his skull smashed.... Then I was up,
clutching Ama. Torrence already was ten or twenty feet ahead of us in
the darkness. We ran after him; he heard us coming and waited.
"Which way?" he gasped. "She ought to know. Our spaceship--that would
be best--"
At the door of the temple the old priest now was standing screaming.
From behind the little hill, answering shouts were responding....
"Is it closer to your village, or to our ship?" I demanded of Ama.
"Why--why to your ship, I think."
"You know the way?"
"Yes--yes, I think so. Not to where you landed--that I do not know. But
to the Roberts' ship--"
And the Orgs doubtless would consider that we would head into the Senza
country. The forests in that direction would be full of roaming Orgs
hunting us....
She and I and Torrence ran, plunging wildly forward in the rocky
darkness, with the lights and the turmoil behind us presently fading
away into the heavy blank silence of the Vulcan night....
* * * * *
I think that there is little I need add. It was a long, arduous
journey, but we reached our little spaceship safely. And in a moment,
with the rocket-streams shoving downward and with the lower-hull
gravity plates in neutral, slowly we were rising into the cloudy
darkness.
"You will take me to my people?" Ama said anxiously. "You did promise
me--"
"Yes, of course, Ama--we'll land you near your village--"
Queerly enough, it was not until that moment after all the tumultuous
events which had engulfed us, that suddenly I remembered the deposits
of _allurite_ which we had hoped to locate upon Vulcan. If I could
take back samples of the ore--to my sponsors that doubtless would
be considered the major success--the only success indeed--of my
expedition.... It occurred to me then that we could land at the Senza
village, and for a little time, prospect from there....
But even that plan was doomed to frustration. I mentioned it to
Torrence. "We should head for Earth," he said dogmatically. "I have had
enough of this."
It was then, before we had gone far toward the Senza country, that
I noticed the rocket streams were acting queerly. A seeming lack of
power.... Torrence had gone down into the hull; he came back presently
to the turret.
"The Pelletier rotators are slowing," I said. "What's the matter?"
He shook his head. "I noticed it," he said. "Haven't found out yet. You
want to come and look?"
I locked the controls, left Ama and went down into the hull with
Torrence. In the dim mechanism cubby, as I bent over the Pelletier
mechanisms, suddenly Torrence leaped on me! It came as quickly,
unexpectedly as that. The culmination of his brooding, murderous,
cowardly plans. His heavy face was contorted, his eyes blazing. In his
hand he held a sliver of metal arrow. It was bent, doubled over, so
that all this time he had been able to keep it hidden in his clothes.
The arrow he had taken from Roberts' body, as it lay there near the
bow of the wrecked spaceship! The little light in the mechanism cubby
gleamed on it now; glistened on the green and red spots of the sleek,
sand-colored metal. _Allurite!_ The precious substance--not an alloy,
not a low-grade _allurium_ ore, but _allurite_ in its pure state! On
Earth this single bent little arrow could be worth a fortune!
And the frenzied Torrence was gloating: "See it, you damn fool--your
_allurite_--right under your nose all the time! And now it's mine--"
In that second he would have plunged the needle-sharp arrow-point like
a stilletto into my heart. But his own frenzied, murderous hysteria
defeated him. My fist struck his wrist, knocked his stab-thrust away,
with the arrow clattering to the floor. And then I had him by the
throat, strangling him until he yielded and I tied him up....
As you who read this, of course, already know from the news reports, I
dropped Ama near the edge of the Senza village. I recall now how she
stood in the Vulcan night, in the torchlight with the excited crowd of
her people behind her; the last I saw of Vulcan was the little figure
of her waving at me as I rose into the leaden sky and headed back for
Earth.... Maybe--just maybe--I'll return someday to that land where Jan
gave his life that his friends might live.