I came to with the sound of distant throbbing in my ears. It seemed
that I was lying on a metal grid-floor; and as I stirred, a familiar
voice sounded.
"Thank the Lord, you're coming out of it at last."
It was Jim, here on the floor with me, bending anxiously over me in a
luminous darkness. His pug-nosed face grinned down at me.
"I sure thought you might never come back, Art. You been a day,
sleeping off that damned drug."
Dizzily I tried to sit up as he held me. "What--what happened? Where
the devil are we?" Then I remembered the fight. "Venta--" I murmured.
"She's all right. I've seen her, and talked with her."
I could see that Jim and I were alone in a small, triangular metal
apartment. A closed door was to one side. And to the other, there was
a round bull's-eye window. It was black out there, with bright white
points of stars. The thrumming was a faint distant electronic throb,
off in this strange interior.
I could feel my strength rapidly coming back. I sat up, shoving Jim
away. "I'm all right now. Where are we?"
He grinned wryly. "Hold your breath for a shock. We're out in Space,
plenty far. I guess, by now, we're on our way to Venus!"
Out in Space! How often, like everyone else in our modern world of
science, I had envisaged it, and wondered why it had never been made
possible.
"On the way to Venus?"
"So they tell me, an' Lord knows I wouldn't doubt it. If you don't
believe me, come take a look."
With his arm around me, I staggered dizzily to the bull's-eye porte. It
was an amazing scene! The Heavens everywhere were a black vault, strewn
with myriad white gems of the blazing worlds. Filling one whole side,
the familiar Earth hung motionless. It was mottled with clouds, beneath
which the configurations of the oceans and continents were plainly
visible.
I stared, awed, wordless; and then, still weak and dizzy with the cold
sweat of the drug chilling me, I was glad enough to sit down on the
couch, with Jim beside me.
"Who's got us?" I asked presently.
"A fellow named Curtmann and his band. A dozen or more of them here
on board. I've talked with one of them--they're all Earthmen--this
ship was built on Earth. Would you believe it? A damned scientist from
mid-Europe built it secretly. He never told the world about it, but
gathered a bunch of crooks and beat it off."
"Not so fast," I murmured. "Don't get incoherent."
* * * * *
I tried to sort it out as he breathlessly told me what he had
learned. Some eight or ten years ago, among the captive people of
mid-Europe under police domination of the Anglo-American Federation,
a fellow named Karl Curtmann had built this hundred foot cylindrical
space-flyer. The same old urge for world conquest. But this fellow
Curtmann had known that on Earth he had no chance. This was not
1915, nor 1939. And so he had gathered others like himself; all
English-speaking, since their racial language had been banned by the
Federation before they were born, and with his ship and his men, they
had adventured into Space.
"Seems they landed on Venus," Jim was saying. "It was a fertile field
for a world-conqueror, by what I hear! Peaceful, simple people, with
these Earth cutthroats jumping on them. They used a bunch of our
Shadow Squad weapons, which was enough and plenty."
Once established there as a conqueror, Curtmann had gone back to Earth
on several trips, for supplies and more weapons and men.
"I guess there are several hundred of 'em on Venus now," Jim went
on. "Built themselves a little city, and made slaves out of the
Venus-people. You can imagine what this style Earthman would do when
he's a conqueror with nothing to challenge him! And the Venus-people
are on the down-grade. Dying out, except for the Midges."
"Midges?"
"They're the little people of Venus. They serve. They believe that all
Earth men are gods, or something." Jim shrugged. "Don't ask me. We'll
find out soon enough."
The Midge! I remembered that little bronze man-figure which had peered
at us.
"And Venta?" I prompted.
"Her father--No, I guess it's her grandfather--he's a leader on Venus.
Religious leader, or something. He and some others have escaped to a
Forest City. Curtmann had Venta. Venta says he's just trying to make
her love him--make her see how wonderful he is. Curtmann, the Man of
Destiny--I can't wait to meet him!"
He had taken Venta on one of his forays to Earth, and she had escaped
from him. "An' they got us along with her," Jim finished wryly. "Damned
lucky we didn't get killed. We will yet, most probably."
A little rasp here in the darkness made us turn. A doorslide had
opened; a man's heavy-featured face scowled in at us.
"At last you have recovered," he said to me. His voice was the heavy,
guttural timber of a mid-European. He was a villainous-looking fellow,
his slack-jowled face bluish with a week's growth of beard.
"Yes," I said. "Fortunately for me. Are you Curtmann?"
"He's Frantz," Jim put in. "He's been feeding me."
"Tell your master I want to see him," I said. "And take me to the girl,
Venta."
The fellow leered. "You talk like you own the ship," he commented.
The doorslide closed. His footsteps retreated, but presently they came
back. He opened the door. "The Great-Master says, bring you," he said
with an ironic grin. "Come on. You can both come."
* * * * *
Silently we followed him down a narrow metal corridor.
"This way--" I saw our captor now as a bulky six-foot fellow clad
incongruously in a crudely plaited robe of dried vegetable fibre,
draped upon him like a Roman toga. He stood aside at an oval doorway;
and Jim and I went into a small triangular room. Starlight filtered
into it from a side bull's-eye.
Clad still in her brief garment, Venta sat on a square pad on the
floor. As we entered she flung me a look, and then stared straight
ahead.
"So? This is the fellow who thought he would steal my little Venta?
Come in, Frane. Stand over there; I want to look you over."
Karl Curtmann. He was seated in a small, straight-backed armchair. He
was a smallish, slim fellow, not over forty perhaps. A vivid blue toga
encased him; sandals were on his feet. At our entrance he raised one of
his bare ornamented arms with a gesture.
The costume was queerly incongruous to a modern Earthman; but upon
Curtmann there was an immense dignity, a sense of the consciousness
of his own greatness. More than mere conceit, it seemed to radiate
from him. On his heavy, square-jawed face there was a look of amused
contempt as he regarded me.
"My little Venta has asked me not to kill you," he added. His voice was
soft and suave. English was his native language, taught him exclusively
by Government decree. But the inherited timbre was guttural. "That is
fortunate, is it not?"
"Yes," I agreed. "Very. I thank her."
His eyes twinkled; his immaculate hands with jeweled fingers, brushed
his crisp blond hair. "You can also thank me. I am permitting you to
join our life. You know now, of course, that I am Master of Venus? It
is their good fortune. Always I shall protect them from any harm, and
teach them the life that is good for them."
He was utterly sincere. His eyes were gleaming with his fervour. Man of
Destiny. He believed it with the faith of a child. And now his gaze
went to Venta.
"Her people--" He was still talking to me, though he stared at her.
"Some of them still are misguided. Old Prytan, her grandfather, is a
very wicked old man, Frane. He has fled to the Forest City. He defies
my rule. I shall have to punish that Forest City."
Suddenly his face contorted; his arm shook as he pounded his fist on
his chair. "I shall not tolerate it. They are all to die. Nor in the
city of Shan itself will I have rebellion. I am a man of peace--there
shall be no strife. And each year, from Earth, more of my men will come
to mate with the Venus women. The new race. The new Empire of Curtmann.
Is it not a wonderful future, Venta? I shall make you Empress."
"Yes," she murmured.
"Race of the Gods," he said. "And I--Karl Curtmann--"
He checked himself. There was a little sound of beating wings here in
the dim starlit room. I turned as through the door a tiny shape came
like a fluttering bird through the air. A footlong bronze man-shape.
One of the Midge! Again my mind leaped back to that little figure in
the Adirondac forest. It had had wings, though then I had not noticed
them.
This one came and poised on the arm of Curtmann's chair. "What is it,
Rahn?" he said.
The Midge's voice was tiny, but clear. "The flight-master has asked
that you come now to check his calculations of our course." The English
words, taught to this Midge, were quaintly intoned. The voice was
gentle, humble.
Curtmann stood up. "All right. I shall go." He waved an arm at the
burly Frantz who was standing silently to one side. "Our captives can
remain here, Frantz."
He turned, smiled gently at Venta, and strode from the room.
* * * * *
As the days passed we were allowed a fair freedom of movement. A
freedom to plan--what? I must confess that Jim and I had no conception
of what we might do in circumstances like these.
Once Venta had whispered to me, "We shall escape from here--it can be
done."
Escape from this Curtmann, join Venta's grandfather--old Prytan--out
there in the Venus Forest City.... Certainly it was all that Jim and I
could hope for. And then came that night when the misty lead-grey ball
of Venus had grown to a monstrous disc beneath us, with the cone of its
shadow blotting out the Sun as we dropped down into the heavy Venus
atmosphere. There came a moment when Venta, Jim and I were alone, and
from the dim corridor with a little beat of wings, Rhan, the Midge,
came to join us. He was carrying an oxohydro heat-torch. Amazing little
man-shape. The alumite torch was as big as himself, and heavier. His
diaphanous, dragonfly wings struggled with it. Like a giant flying ant,
with an ant's monstrous strength in proportion to its size. Panting, he
fluttered heavily and laid it at my feet.
"You, the Great God," he said. "I serve you. Here it is."
He stood now by the torch he had brought. The muscles on his broad
chest heaved under the sleek bronzed skin with his panting breath.
"For you," he added. "No one saw me. I got it for you. I did well,
Seyla Venta?"
"Oh yes. Thank you, Rhan." Venta was trembling now with excitement.
"When we get lower into the atmosphere, we'll go to one of the
pressure-portes at the bottom of the hull. There are space suits there,
if we can get to them."
"Let's close this door," Jim said quickly. "Not so loud, Venta."
We planned it, as the ship settled down through the heavy,
sullen-looking Venus clouds and then burst out into the lower
atmosphere with the dark surface of Venus far down beneath us. Rhan
watched and reported that Curtmann and most of his men were forward by
the control turret. Then Jim, Venta and I were able to get down through
one of the dim corridors, down a little catwalk ladder into the lower
hull. The metal pressure porte door was locked.
I stood at the bottom of the ladder. Above me the voices of Curtmann's
ruffians were audible. Every moment I expected that we would be missed.
"Hurry it," I murmured.
The porte doorlock melted as Jim held the torch upon it. We slid into
the porte, closed the door after us. Venta, on the voyage to Earth, had
been trained by Curtmann in the use of these pressure-suits, and in a
moment we stood in them, helmeted, with the air bloating the suits so
that we were shapeless monsters.
I opened the outer doorslide. A little at first, and then wider. In
the rarified atmosphere of Venus at this fifty mile height, the air of
the little porte went out with a rush. It blew us out with it. I had a
sickening sensation of falling into nothingness. Then it seemed that my
head steadied. I fumbled with a hand upon the anti-gravity mechanisms
by which the fall could be guided.
Above me the dark finned shape of Curtmann's space ship was drawing
swiftly upward and away. Head down, with the bloated shapes of Jim
and Venta beside me, we plummeted like falling meteorites through the
sub-stratosphere darkness.