Between Worlds

by Garret Smith

  No small part of this curiosity was directed at the mysterious queen. Many a notable who called gave his chief attention to this lady, and I was disturbed to note the strong Impression made upon all by her unusual beauty and her childlike interest in her new surroundings. I had at first supposed that her Imperial designs had been abandoned in the face of the vast complications of this world, so new to her that for the moment even she was overawed.

  But I was presently filled with uneasiness as I noted again the readiness with which she adapted herself to her new surroundings, the intelligence and trend of her innumerable questions, and the quickness with which she absorbed new knowledge.

  She was greatly impressed by the fact that our broad continent, with its great wealth and millions of population, had no rulers and no laws, but was merely controlled in its social life by a set of age-old customs. To her, used to absolute authority over such world as she knew, this state of affairs was unthinkable. The trend of her questions soon convinced me that she saw here a great opportunity to supply what was to her mind an obvious lack.

  “I am told,” she exclaimed to me, “that this wonderful land of yours has not changed in hundreds of ages! That should not be. In my Land of Darkness I was constantly changing things, building new and larger and better dwellings. But I had so little opportunity. Here, there is endless opportunity. They need someone to rule over them and make them change their ways.”

  Another observation of mine added to my uneasiness. The disaffected ones of our ship’s company had left us at the pier with scant ceremony and gone their several ways, presumably back to their homes. But as I went about my rounds through the city, renewing my professional relations with public affairs, I ran across different ones of this group here and there. Without any particular reason, I felt their tarrying near our leader boded no good to him. A little later, I had reason for this fear.

  ONCE, as I was leaving the chief market place, I saw the queen, accompanied by her two blind slaves, turn into a side street. A gaping crowd followed at respectful distance. I followed out of curiosity, and presently saw her joined by Tanner, who of all our ship’s company had been most outspoken in his opposition to Hunter at the last.

  A little way down the street the quartet turned into a travelers’ home. Feeling it my duty to look into this strange proceeding, I withdrew to a convenient doorway and watched unseen.

  Presently, one after another, every one of the opponents of Hunter who had formerly been of our ship’s company arrived and entered this travelers’ home.

  It was evidently a prearranged meeting. There was conspiracy on foot.

  I realized now, as I thought back over recent happenings, that since our arrival the queen, though apparently on the best of terms with all our party, Hunter in particular, had never at any time expressed to a caller any faith in his tale of a round Venus, and of worlds beyond the sky. She had always avoided discussion by declaring that she knew too little of such things. Moreover, she had developed the habit of spending much time going about the city alone, save for her two blind slaves, who were always with her. Evidently she had not been bent on excursions of mere curiosity.

  Putting these circumstances together, I came to the conclusion that the queen was plotting for power through the medium of Hunter’s enemies. Her threat to rule in the Land of Light had been meant as no childish boast.

  While I had no idea at the moment that Hunter’s ambitious cousin could make any real headway with such an absurd scheme, I realized at the same time that she might develop enough influence to create no end of trouble. I felt it my duty to go at once to Hunter and put him on his guard.

  But on my way back to our lodgings I witnessed an act of a drama that for the moment drove out of my mind all thoughts of the apparently petty machinations of the queen.

  It had to do with that other female nemesis of our leader, the Lady of the South. An astounding sequel it proved to the matter that sent me on my late journey to her home and had made a profound impression on my mind before it had been submerged by the more momentous affair of Hunter’s expedition.

  I had just rounded the corner into the market-place again when I was startled by a clanging of gongs and an uproar of many excited voices. Out across the square opposite me poured an excited throng.

  At first I saw only the mingling of drab and white of the usual crowd of men and women. But as I ran across the square for nearer view, an array of brilliant color burst from the center of the seething human mass. A long file of women, arrayed in shimmering robes of many hues, marching four abreast in tune to the clamorous gong-beats, pushed out into the open.

  Even before I read the inscriptions on the many banners they bore triumphantly above their heads, I had a premonition that this demonstration had to do with the First Lady of the South. Never but once before had I seen garments such as were worn by these women. Each was a counterpart of the alluring robe in which the Lady was arrayed when I had interviewed her.

  The lettering on the leading banner confirmed my impression: “Our leader, the First Lady of the South,” it read.

  “Let men direct the world. We will rear its children,” ran another.

  “Woman’s place is in the home. Man must support that home,” was a third maxim.

  “We will love whom we choose, without fear of clan,” and so on down the line, which I should judge was some twenty thousand strong.

  I was astounded. Here was evidence that the repulsive and revolutionary ideas of the daughter of the Patriarch of the South, had, during our long absence in the darkness, won a large following. She had made good her boast far beyond my most pessimistic forebodings.

  After seeing the last of this strange procession, I hurried to the nearest signal tower to turn in a report of what I had witnessed. I might have spared myself the pains. The report was already spread on its bulletin-board and with it statements from all parts of the Land of Light, and all of a most alarming nature.

  In every center in the Land of Light there had been simultaneously, a feminine demonstration like the one I had witnessed. The women of Venus, almost in a body had refused to do any further work outside their homes. Wives had refused to live with their husbands until they agreed to these terms. Women not yet married had pledged themselves to marry only for love and regardless of clan, and then only to mate with men who would agree to support them.

  Of a truth, our World of Never Change, once having tasted the passion for alteration, was indulging it to the full.

  And he who had been among the first prophets of change must needs now stand by, discredited as a leader, a mere spectator of change far different than he would have had, nay, rather that he had been willing to sacrifice his life to avert.

  I LOST no time now in returning to Hunter and acquainting him with what I had learned. To my surprise I found him making hasty preparations for departure.

  “We sail for East Venus at once,” he announced as I entered the apartment. “I have a message from my father. He needs me with him. The world is in a turmoil, and I must be at his side, though I fear my present disfavor with the people will render me of little use. I may be able to help him in another way, however.”

  “You have heard, then, of the revolt of the Lady of the South?” I asked. “I saw the parade here and read the bulletins. I came to tell you.”

  “Yes, my father’s message told me. And I have another important message which I will confide to you. In it I see a possible way of saving the society of Venus from destruction.”

  He paced the floor in his agitation.

  “Change! Change, indeed!” he went on. “I wanted change. I thought by discovering new worlds and introducing new ideas, something new to work for, I could save our world from rot. Then, even as I planned my venture, I realized suddenly that the world was awaking. It would soon of itself demand change. I hoped to provide healthy channels for this restlessness, but I was too late. Change has overwhelmed us! But it is the wrong change! It had already found its nervous ou
tlet. But read that. Perhaps by sacrificing myself, I may yet arrest this madness.”

  He handed me a tablet newly arrived from the signal service. It was from the Lady of the South, and was couched in shamelessly endearing terms. It began by saying that she had read of Hunter’s return and of his great discoveries. She assured him of her absolute faith in the truth of his statements and declared that he could count on her support against all the world. But of most significance was the closing paragraph:

  . . . And by the time this message reaches you, my dearest friend and sweetheart, I will be in a position really to help you with my moral support. For I know, dear one, that despite your ancient prejudices, you are in truth my sweetheart. I read it in your eyes that time so long ago when I. offered you myself as mate and wife, and you refused because of the customs of Venus. But I have planned to overthrow those customs. My plans are well-laid. The women are with me. By the time this reaches you, those chains of custom will be thrown off forever. We will be free to follow our love, and wed. Come to me at once.

  I looked up, aghast at the shamelessness of the sender of this message. But if Hunter had felt this same repugnance, he no longer showed it in his face. There was rather in his expression something like puzzled tenderness.

  “There can be no doubt that she loves me,” he mused. “And I—I have always believed love could come only with the affection of married life which could not exist except between those of the same blood and clan. And yet—she moves me strangely. Can it be that I love, her, as she says? Scribner, tell me, can a man love two women at once?”

  I gasped in astonishment. It was some moments before I could give him my utterly futile reply.

  “I know nothing about this thing called love, my poor friend,” was all I could say.

  “Nor I, I’m afraid,” he sighed. “I feel that I know less of it at this moment than ever before. Once I fled the Land of Light to escape this lady because she appealed to me so strongly that I feared for the strength of my own resolutions. Then I met the queen, my kinswoman, a most proper mate for me, and I felt for her the same emotions that the Lady of the South had aroused for the time, I thought I had been cured of the infatuation I had felt for the other. But now, I confess, she has set it aflame again.

  “But the worst of it all is, I have already given the queen to understand that I will wed her. Was ever a man so beset?”

  He faced me, a very image of woe, the appeal in his eyes bidding me settle the vexatious question.

  “As for the queen,” I said, “I think she has already settled that matter for you.” Then I told of the evidence of her disloyalty that I had just gathered.

  “So much for the queen,” I added. “As for this Lady of the South, I can only appeal to the ancient customs of Venus to guide you. You should be the last to yield to this outrageous demand on the part of the temporarily insane women of our land.”

  But my advice, I could see, weighed little with him. The information preceding it, however, seemed to lift a great load from his mind.

  “Scribner!” he exclaimed. “Your news has solved my problem. I am under no obligation to my treacherous cousin. I think, then, I can save Venus from this menace. I will marry the Lady of the South, and take her away from Venus. Without her, this revolt will die a natural death.”

  I was so stunned by his totally unexpected decision that I could have made no reply even had his manner indicated that he expected further counsel. But evidently the decision was irrevocable, and I was saved the embarrassment of comment by the arrival at that moment of the porters who were to take our baggage to the ship.

  We departed immediately afterward and proceeded to the pier in silence, he evidently preoccupied with his plans and I too much disturbed by this latest turn of affairs to give thought to anything else.

  The rest of the ship’s company had been summoned before I had returned to our apartments, and were already aboard. Our baggage had arrived ahead of us.

  Under Hunter’s orders, that there might be no delay, the vessel had cast off from the pier and lay awaiting us in midchannel. A small boat was ready at the pier to take us to the ship.

  We were hurrying down the pier toward the boat when we heard behind us a wild outcry and the thudding of many feet. We stopped and looked back.

  Such bystanders, workmen, and sailors as had been about were scattering in every direction with cries of terror. And no wonder! The cause was such as had never before been seen in our peaceful world, though for a moment it transported Hunter and myself back to our adventurous surroundings in the Land of Darkness.

  Sweeping all before them, there charged straight at us a most warlike band. The queen, flanked by her two eyeless retainers, led a company of some fifty men, all, like herself and her slaves, armed with the short, deadly spears that had struck such terror to our hearts when we had faced them in savage hands in the Land of Darkness.

  TO ADD to the grotesque savagery of the spectacle, each wore over his mouth and nose one of the protecting masks Hunter had used to prevent himself from being affected when employing his anesthetic spray to overcome the savages.

  In a flash it was evident that the queen had perfected her conspiracy, and intended to start activities by making Hunter and his friends prisoners. Had she learned or suspected that her cousin did not, after all, intend to wed her, and proposed to force him into the married state? Or—was murder her object?

  She had evidently planned thoroughly, and guarded even against his potent anesthetic sprayer, a precaution she could have spared, for it had never occurred to Hunter to go thus armed in the supposed security of the Land of Light.

  But we tarried no longer to consider this amazing outbreak. It was apparent to both of us on the instant that we could not get aboard ship too soon.

  We whirled about again, and ran as I had never run before in my life. We shouted to our waiting boatmen to start their motor and cast off. We leaped from the pier across a gap already a pace wide, and fell, sprawling, in the center of the boat.

  The motor-driver at the same instant threw the power to full speed, and the craft leaped out into the open water.

  We were not an instant too quick. As our feet let the pier, the queen, some paces in the lead of her retainers, dashed up to the landing. With a savage snarl of baffled rage, all her newly acquired civilization for the moment forgotten, she let drive her spear with such force and accuracy that it struck upright in the bottom of our boat, scarce a hand’s breadth from Hunter’s body.

  Fortunate indeed it was that our departure had been unexpected. Otherwise the queen would have had the pier guarded, and this tale would have had quite another ending.

  As it was, our pursuers seized another small boat that proved faster than ours, and gave us such a close chase that we barely made the ship in time. But once aboard, our big vessel swiftly gathered way and left them behind.

  During the first stretch of our voyage almost nothing was discussed aboard the ship but this amazing outbreak of the queen and the appalling world-wide revolt headed by the Lady of the South. But it never occurred to us that there could at any time be any comparison in magnitude between their activities. Having escaped her savage spears, we could afford to laugh at the puny exhibition of rage by the queen with her handful of followers. Force could gain no headway, we felt sure, in the civilized environments of Venus.

  But the world-wide mortal onslaught of the Lady was no laughing matter. And we were sailing directly into that Lady’s power, for Hunter proposed to return home by way of South Venus, and pick up the Lady on the way. He determined to see his father before finally leaving Venus, and convince him that his revolutionary conduct was the only possible way of saving the order of Venus.

  Hunter had intended to make use of his ship’s flying apparatus, and thus hasten the voyage as much as possible. But the long strain, to the vessel’s machinery, and the impromptu repairing it had received in the Land of Darkness, had left a flaw in a vital part of the motor that the mechanics had
not discovered while overhauling.it in West Venus.

  We were compelled, therefore, at a time when speed was most important, to limp along for twenty sleeps over a course that, with our flying device in order, should have been accomplished in one. We were all the more distressed at this delay in view of our fear that the queen and her followers might possibly seize a ship and overhaul us.

  But no such catastrophe occurred, and on the twentieth sleep, just as the mechanics had put the lifting gear once more in order, we sighted South Venus, and presently were waiting off the roadstead for the harbor guide.

  But when that official arrived, the astounding news he brought instantly changed our plans and banished our delusions as to the minor nature of the queen’s activities.

  MOMENTOUS history had been made in Venus while we drifted idly at sea.

  With the disaffected members of Hunter’s company and a few of their friends as a nucleus, whom she had charmed by her beauty and cleverness into abject obedience to herself, the queen had organized a counter-revolt among the men against the strike of the women under the Lady of the South.

  Force and absolute authority were a matter of course to the queen, and she had converted her enthralled followers to believe that its use under her was a sure way of bringing their rebelious women to time. Her opponents, unable to conceive of such a thing as force, made, no attempt to resist her little army.

  Following her first foray, in which they had nearly captured Hunter and myself, they had taken possession of a big cutlery works in West Venus, and compelled the workers to manufacture spears by the thousand.

  Meantime other recruits rallied to her until she had a good-sized force under arms. She had subjected West Venus with hardly a show of resistance, driven the women back to work at the spear-point, made the Patriarch a prisoner in his palace, and set up an absolute government in his own council chamber, compelling him to furnish to her council whatever information was necessary for the guidance of the new state.