by Garret Smith
Leaving a viceroy in charge of conquered West Venus, she had marched overland diagonally across the continent upon South Venus at the head of her army, arriving there five sleeps ahead of us.
There the Lady of the South, driven desperate by danger, had attempted to meet force by force. Hastily organizing her women into an army provided only with clubs, they had met the queen’s force, and had been routed with considerable slaughter, the first bloody battle in the history of Venus.
The Lady, with her disrupted rabble of women, was now in full flight along the main canal for East Venus, hoping to win protection from reenforcements there, but hotly pursued by the queen and her men.
The queen had publicly announced on her way through South Venus that she proposed to kill the Lady as soon as she caught her. She would then move on to East Venus and capture the chief Patriarch, and hold him as hostage until his son, Hunter, should give himself up and redeem his promise to marry her.
The last news of her had come through three sleeps before. By now, her dire threats may have been accomplished.
Thus, while he had drifted helplessly at sea in a disabled ship, had been demolished Hunter’s dream of saving Venus by sacrificing himself and removing from the planet the Lady of the South, whom he had deemed the world’s one great menace.
The Lady was to be removed, perhaps had been removed, by one who was a far greater menace than she. Hunter had only the ignominious choice of saving his life by sacrificing his father, or by giving himself up to become husband and accomplice of this tyrant.
In either event he would add to the ignominy of his supposed attempt to hoax this populace, the real reproach of having been the means of foisting this female monster upon them.
I knew Hunter too well to doubt which horn of this dilemma he would seize. It was not in his nature to seek physical safety at the expense of others, least of all of his revered father.
This foregone conclusion had barely entered my mind when he gave Weaver the order to throw the ship into the air and fly to East Venus at all possible speed. He left a message to be forwarded to his father that he was coming.
During our brief trip I had little to say to our leader, because there was little I could say. Again and again I went over the situation from every angle, in vain search for a loophole of escape.
The plan by which he had hoped to remove the menace of the Lady of the South manifestly would not work with the queen. There had been method in her study of the flying-ship. There would be no hope of luring her aboard a second time and kidnaping her. She would control the vessel once we surrendered, and surrender we must without condition or hope of escape, or the life of the Chief Patriarch would be forfeited.
As for the simple tricks with anesthetics by which she had been foiled before, she was now thoroughly on her guard against them.
To you of Earth, familiar with tragedy, one obvious solution would have occurred—murder of the queen; failing that, suicide with honor, perhaps both.
But such tragic methods were undreamed of in Venus, and such, a thought never occurred to me, nor could I have dreamed that Hunter had such a solution in mind.
So in the spirit of utter despair we approached South Venus.
The old familiar harbor looked so peaceful as we approached, that for a moment we hoped the marauding band had not yet arrived.
But we. were quickly undeceived. Our vessel had scarce settled down to the surface of the harbor when a boat shot out from a pier and approached us. As it drew a little nearer, we saw in the hands of each of the company on her deck a shining spear. These were emissaries of the queen come to take us. Hunter shouted a direction, and our vessel rose from the surface of the water out of their reach, but near enough for conversation.
At this unusual sight those on the approaching boat were thrown into temporary consternation. The boat stopped abruptly, and they stood at her rails, craning their necks at us, their faces blank with amazement. The queen was not among them.
Hunter, seeing no advantage in delay, caused a signal to be waved from our mast-head, assuring them that we knew their purpose, and intended to surrender without attempt to injure them. First, however, he wished to talk to them and invited them to approach without any fear.
Thereupon one who was evidently in charge of the party, a man none of us knew, gave an order, and the boat came on until it lay almost beneath us.
“We come from the queen,” shouted the spokesman. “She bids you surrender your, vessel and yourselves, and come with us to the market-place, where she awaits you. If you refuse, or if you offer any resistance after surrender, your father, who is in her hands, will instantly be killed.”
I REMEMBER studying this man’s face curiously as he spoke of killing in such offhand manner. Such sentiments would have seemed natural in the mouth of the queen herself. But I marveled that even her influence could in a bare three score sleeps have so transformed a civilized being of the Land of Light into a brutal savage worthy of the Zone of Darkness, “I will go with you,” Hunter replied, “but first tell your queen that I will not surrender my company or my ship. If she will allow them to sail away, as I pledge my life they will, I will do her bidding. If they return afterward, or offer harm, you may kill me.”
After some demurring, this leader agreed to signal the queen this answer.
While we awaited her reply, I sought permission from Hunter to accompany him. I claim no great heroism in this. I did not at the time believe our lives were in danger, I was moved partly by loyalty to Hunter and partly by the instinct of my craft that bade me be where momentous events were happening. It was not without much argument and a threat at absolute rebellion that I won his consent.
Not to be outdone by me, each of our company in turn made the same request. Weaver was particularly insistent. Him, Hunter took into, his cabin for a private conference. I did not know at the time what was said between them, but when they returned to the deck Hunter announced that he would have only-myself with him, and Weaver acquiesced without further argument.
A moment later we saw a return signal waving from the nearest signal-tower ashore, which reported the queen’s acceptance of Hunter’s terms.
Weaver drove the vessel to a safe distance from the harbor boat to provide against possible treachery, and Hunter and I lowered on a life-raft. The vessel immediately lifted while the harbor boat was bearing down to pick us up.
It was with deep emotion that we finally left our comrades and the old ship that had borne us through so many perilous adventures together. Weaver took our pledge to the queen very literally, for before we were fairly aboard the harbor boat, he had driven the flying vessel up out of sight in the haze.
Aboard the boat, we were surrounded by armed men, thoroughly searched, and our hands bound behind us. By the time this was accomplished, we had touched the pier.
Thus in most humiliating fashion we returned to our home city. We were led through streets, deserted save for armed sentries of the queen here and there, a strange contrast to the popular tumult that hailed our departure.
And so presently we came to the market-square and into the presence of the queen. She stood in front of a great file of armed men, drawn up across half the square. We were halted in an open space some twenty paces in front of her.
I saw in the beautiful face of the tyrant, which had formerly held a mixture of childlike simplicity and barbaric cunning, a new veneer of sophisticated hardness. It was the face of one who could be infinitely, calculatingly cruel, and yet be swayed at times by overwhelming emotion.
As she looked upon her captive cousin, there crept into her eyes, a sudden fire that was not altogether lacking in tenderness.
“And so, cousin, you have returned to me,” she said. “I knew my love would win. Return that love and work with me, and you shall have unlimited power and glory. Refuse it, and my love will turn to hate.” She paused as if to give Hunter a chance to reply. I looked at him now. His head was bowed.
He seemed not to ev
en notice the queen or those with her. His attitude was that of one listening for a distant sound.
And then I, too, fell to listening. Somewhere far off overhead it seemed I heard a familiar hum. it grew rapidly louder. The throng heard it now, and stirred about uneasily. The queen was so intent upon the captive before her, and the emotion his presence stirred in her, that I do not think she noted it until too late.
I looked up. As I did so, there burst out of the mist directly over our heads the ship we had so recently left. I could just make out the figure of a man leaning over the side.
The next instant came a resounding crash on the pavement between us and the queen. I saw the queen reel and fall. Hunter staggered against me: I heard discordant shrieks. Then my own senses wavered.
Everything went black, and I knew no more.
CHAPTER VI
A WORLD ABLAZE
I RETURNED to consciousness to find that I was debating a problem of religion with myself. My last fleeting thought as I lost my senses was that I was about to die a violent death. When my glimpse of our ship above us had been followed so swiftly by an explosion at our feet, I jumped to the conclusion that Hunter had arranged with Weaver to release him from an impossible dilemma, and at the same time free Venus from the peril of the queen by dropping some infernal machine on our heads that had wiped out all our lives together.
A brief resentment that he had included me in the sacrifice had flashed through my mind, to be followed instantly by shame at such an unworthy thought, and pride that I had been permitted to share his martyrdom. So much can pass through a man’s mind in an instant of deadly peril!
With this sharp conviction in my mind, I had no doubt now that I was dead. But if dead, ran the argument in my still dazed brain, then all our anciently taught and still firmly held beliefs as to life after death were wrong. For though I would, of course, possess a conscious self, I should not, according to all teachings of patriarchs for a hundred generations and more, have any memory of my past life, nor have redeveloped as yet the power to think. I should at the present moment be a squalling babe, a new little Scribner, with the soul of the lately deceased adult that I was, reborn in the body, of a fresh offspring to my clan.
For in the theology of Venus all souls at death return to supply the bodies of a new generation of their own clan: And so I argued in a maudlin way over the riddle of the ages till at length I realized that I still possessed an adult body whose stomach was very sick, whose eyes and throat and nostrils smarted as though I had gone through fire.
Then I became conscious of a steady rumble and whir that seemed somehow familiar. At that I attempted to open my eyes, and succeeded after a struggle. I looked straight into the anxious face of Hunter, who was kneeling beside me about to present a cup to my lips.
This being dead was indeed far different from what we had been taught! Thank the Over Spirit, we still had our friends and could remember them!
“There, old fellow!” soothed Hunter. “You’ll be all right now. Drink this and rest awhile. I’m sorry you had to have such a rough dose, but I couldn’t risk warning you.”
Weakly I obeyed and drank his draft. It seemed to leap through my veins and fire me with strength. My head cleared as if by magic, and I realized suddenly what nonsense I had been thinking. I was not dead, nor was Hunter. And the humming I heard was our good old ship’s motor again. We had somehow been saved, and left our mad captors behind.
Then a flood of perplexities rushed to mind, and despite Hunter’s protest I sat up and plied him with questions.
It seemed that while we waited over the harbor for the queen’s reply to Hunter’s conditions of surrender, he had been seized with a last-minute inspiration, a desperate expedient that might cost us our lives, but if it did would at least remove the queen from further troubling. Its execution he entrusted to Weaver.
On shipboard, he still had a large glass Jar full of the anesthetic fluid. To this he added a chemical which greatly increased its potency, though making it dangerous to life. This liquid, exposed to air, would form a heavy vapor that would cause immediate and greatly prolonged insensibility, and leave the victim for some time afterward in a weakened condition, if indeed he survived the ordeal.
Weaver, according to instructions, brought the ship over the square just as we were presented to the queen. He dropped the jar of anesthetic on the pavement directly in front of us. Fortunately it hit no one.
Hunter had held his breath till the worst of the fumes had scattered, and escaped with nothing more than a brief fainting spell. The rest of us fell to the pavement, and when the ship alighted in the square a few moments later, our comrades found the entire throng lying like so many dead men.
The queen, Hunter, and myself had been immediately taken aboard ship. The Patriarch had been found a prisoner with a large group of his friends in his own house. Our ship’s company had released them and armed them with the spears taken from the queen’s unconscious bodyguard.
TO HUNTER’S relief, the Lady of the South had been found a prisoner here also, still alive, but momentarily expecting death at the command of the queen.
Then, satisfied that his father, thus protected, would be able to handle the now leaderless uprisings, he had at last sailed away from East Venus, taking with him the originators and essential souls of the two rival revolutions which had so nearly destroyed the ancient Land of Light.
“It has worked out far better than we could have hoped, had we planned it carefully,” he added triumphantly. “My father is amply protected by his armed friends, and has promised me to lay aside, temporarily, if necessary, his prejudice against force. He will form a nucleus around which the saner elements will rally as fast as they come to their senses on finding their respective leaders gone. Many men of the queen’s followers in other sections are still armed, and the women of the Lady’s party will hardly dare refuse longer to work, now that they lack their leader’s direction. On the other hand, no one else of the queen’s former supporters will have her desire or ability to usurp power. So the two revolts will neutralize each other, and die natural deaths.
“Meanwhile we are left free to follow out our own purpose of discovering a new world, and may yet find a normal outlet for the spirits of our restless brothers and sisters.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” I demanded, incredulously, “that you have both those mad women together, alive, on board one small ship?”
“I have.” He laughed. “Both very much alive, and already each is plotting how she can make way with the other and claim me for her own. And I, the Over Spirit help me, cannot but feel a certain admiration and tenderness for each.
Either, once subdued, would make an admirable mate for a strong man.”
It was evident to me, however, that our « leader did not take the matter as lightly as his present mood of elation might make it appear. It would be some sleeps yet before we could actually put Venus behind us, and start on our second great exploration.
We must first find some place where it would be both safe and convenient to alight and prepare and provision the ship for its flight through vast, airless spaces.
During this delay there were all sorts of possibilities for unexpected hazards to upset our plans.
Hunter had selected, as the best site for this preparatory work, the southern islands. They were well isolated from the main continent, out of signal-tower communication, and not likely to have been affected yet by either of the revolts. We would, however, find there all the supplies we needed.
At the time of my return to consciousness we were already on the way thither, and a sleep later we alighted of the principal harbor.
We lay there for ten sleeps. There were no signs of disturbance in the islands, though some report of the revolts had reached the inhabitants by the last ship from the mainland, and many excited visitors besought further news from us, some inclined to favor one party, some the other; but all, for the most part, quite content on being assured that the disturban
ces were practically at an end.
We allowed no one on the ship, however, save members of our own company. The work was pushed as rapidly as possible, and during all that tune we kept our two prisoners below decks under heavy guard.
Nevertheless, paradoxical though it may seem, in view of the uncertain fate ahead of us, I, for one, did not breathe freely until we rose from the surface of Venus for the last time, and were finally started on our search for one of the new worlds we had seen shining in the blackness above the Land of Night.
We were now inured to danger and surprise. Nothing, we instinctively felt, could surpass in these directions what we had already met and conquered. We faced now the mysteries of the vast, empty spaces with a certain blasé imperturbability amounting almost to contempt.
How fortunate for us mortals that we cannot see clearly along the winding trail of the future! Had that pathway which lifted before us at this last sailing been for a moment illumined, I fear that even we would have shrunk from its perils and hardships, before which our sojourn in the Land of Night and our feverish reception on our return became as mere child’s play in the safe garden of one’s ancestral home.
AS soon as I was sufficiently recovered from the effects of my anesthetizing I had become greatly interested in the alterations Hunter was making in our vessel.
It will be remembered that during our first trial of the flying qualities of this ship we had discovered that at some distance air altogether ceased. Indeed, we had nearly paid for this new knowledge with our lives.
It was patent, therefore, that no attempt could be made to fly past the confines of Venus unless some way were found to carry our air supply with us. To my unscientific mind such a proposal was unthinkable.
It seemed, however, in no way to baffle our resourceful leader. In the first place, he made all the cabins air-tight, fitting double doors where entrance was absolutely necessary, and making their joinings air-proof. A large part of the deck, too, he covered with an air-tight shelter containing many heavily glazed windows.