The girl stumbled, almost fell. The sphere wheeled, came at her, and she dodged just in time. Wavering unsteadily on its pivoted base, the thing swung and rolled more swiftly toward the wall. It struck with a crash, bounced back. Shawn saw the metal side of the pit glow briefly red.
GOOD God! If the machine touched Lorna—it would fry the flesh from her bones! Cursing, Shawn fought uselessly against the hairy arms that prisoned him. Below him the nude girl fled and dodged, her breath coming in great gasps, her moulded bosom rising and falling.
The watchers thundered maniac glee. They leaned forward, red eyes blazing, yellow tusks bared.
Lorna went down, rolled away just as the globe rushed past her, painting her pale skin with crimson radiance. She was pulled forward, her breath cut off by the metal collar. Somehow she managed to get to her feet, dodged and ran once more, sobbing, with the fiery juggernaut pursuing inexorably.
She was weakening steadily, Shawn realized. He stared around, searching for some weapon. Abruptly his eyes narrowed.
He had caught sight of a familiar object strapped to the barrel chest of a beast-man—an automatic! The creature might have been the one who had attacked them in the tavern, who had managed to capture one of the guns, treasuring it with the unintelligent greed of an ape. The beast-man was intent on the sadistic spectacle before him, and the others, too, were glaring down at the fleeing, nude girl. Shawn’s captors had relaxed their vigilance.
That was a mistake on their part. Shawn measured the distance to the creature who had the gun. A desperate plan came to him—and he acted.
He kicked up viciously at the groin of the beast-man on his right, and as the monster doubled out, screaming, he whirled to face his other captor. Fangs bared, the creature thrust its hideous head forward, its talons digging agonizingly into Shawn’s arms. But the Earthman had already put all his strength into a sledgehammer blow that crashed against the beast-man’s jaw with a grinding crack of breaking bones.
The thing shrieked, let go of Shawn. The slow minds of the others had not yet reacted. They were turning to lace him, staring. Shawn sprang forward.
He reached the creature who had the gun. The beast-man moved forward, huge arms outstretched. Shawn dived forward, let himself be gathered into a rib-cracking embrace. The breath shot out of his lungs. A nauseous mass of fur choked him.
Blindly he fumbled for the gun, felt its cold metal against his palm. He yanked it free, thrust the muzzle against the monster’s side, squeezed the trigger. The automatic bellowed.
Simultaneously the great binding arms contracted, sending frightful pain lancing through Shawn’s back. Then—they relaxed! They fell away, limp and flaccid, and the beast-man roared his death-cry, blood spouting from his throat.
Shawn tore free. In the pit he could see Lorna stumbling, dodging, as the red-hot machine rolled in eccentric pursuit. But he dared not pause to rescue her. Not yet.
He raced toward the bronze doors. The beast-men had not expected this; they were massing at the other side of the amphitheatre, before a closed gateway. A few of them barred Shawn’s path, but he managed to dodge their lumbering attack.
Then he was in the temple, empty save for the altar and its dreadful tenant. As Shawn raced forward he felt a blast of power rush out to meet him, the mighty thoughts of Droom tearing at his brain. Blazing agony blinded him.
A thousand lingers of steel seemed to be plucking, tearing, wrenching at his head, pulling it apart bit by bit. The flames within the altar were blinding.
Staggering, he kept on, hearing the bellowing of the beast-men growing louder behind him. The sphere was a dozen feet away—
A taloned paw gripped his shoulder. He hurled himself forward, sick and blind with agony, felt himself crash down on the stones. A heavy body fell atop him.
Shawn thrust the gun forward, squeezed the trigger again and again. Something shattered; tinkling bells rang in a sudden outburst, and drowning them out was a high, sickening shrilling that faded and died . . .
A bestial roar sounded in Shawn’s ears. The beast-man pinning him down sprang up, shouting. Throughout the temple the cries died into a horrified, deadly silence.
Shawn dragged himself up. The altar was a jagged wreck; the flaming lights were gone; sticky pale fluid ran trickling across the floor. The brain that was Droom was a mangled, butchered thing, no longer pulsing, no longer—alive!
CHAPTER VI
TITAN
FOR a moment the paralyzed hush held; then it broke and the beast-men stampeded in mad fear, pouring in a great rush back into the amphitheatre, through it, and out between metal gates now flung ajar. Hastily Shawn followed in their track.
The blazing machine to which Lorna was chained was no longer moving; its motive power seemed to have died with Droom. The girl lay unconscious on the stones. Shawn freed her from the collar, and then released his companions from their cell.
He had foreseen difficulty in escaping from the city, but a revolution was in progress, they discovered on leaving the temple. The priests had apparently held the people in a grip of fear, under the rule of Droom, and now the people had revolted. Even the soldiers joined in mercilessly slaughtering priests and beast-men. Carrying Lorna, the Earthmen picked their way furtively by alley-ways, dimly lit by Phobos and Deimos, the two moons, till at last they passed safely through the gate and saw the desolate, reddish wastes before them.
Trost had learned some important facts during his captivity. The golden fleet had not, apparently, come from Mars. In fact, he said, the priests had been discussing the destruction of several of their cities by yellow spaceships that dropped down from the void to bring death and l’uin to Mai’s.
“That means we’ll have to look further, “Shawn grunted as they clambered aboard the Eagle. “You said Saturn and Mars were the logical places, didn’t you, Sam?”
“Yeah,” Heffley nodded. “One of Saturn’s moons, I imagine. Titan’s the best bet, though it’ll take quite a while.”
“Not so long. We can’t equal the speed of the golden ships, but there’s plenty of power in anti-gravity. And now that the compensators are adjusted we won’t have to worry about acceleration.”
But the distance they had to travel was nearly seven hundred and fifty million miles. Despite the incredible velocity of the Eagle, it was a week before the ringed splendor of immense Saturn loomed before them—Saturn, with its nine moons. Shawn agreed with Heffley that Titan was the obvious choice, and so he sent the spaceship hurtling through the atmosphere, dropping lower and lower over a densely-forested region.
“Funny how white the forest is, “Trost commented, polishing his glasses. “Distance from the sun, I suppose. Lack of solar radiation—no chlorophyl to make the leaves green. No signs of life.”
“Of human life,” Shawn amended. “Wait a minute! I think—”
He brought the Eagle curving down in a spiral. On a broad, rocky expanse something artificial was certainly constructed, a towering cube of stone forty feet high. Shawn dropped the spaceship gently near it.
“Looks like a house,” he commented. “It may be empty, though. I don’t see anything alive.”
“I doubt if the golden fleet came from here,” Heffley said.
“We might pick up a clue. There may be some way of finding out what we want to know. If there’s intelligent life in that stone block.”
Lorna, trim and boyish in shirt and slacks, said, “Find out if the air’s okay. I’m sick of this artificial stuff.”
“It’s breathable,” Trost told her. “The plant-life takes care of that.” Leaving Trost and Heffley to man the Eagle, Shawn and Hooker Flynn descended the rope ladder. Before they had gone a hundred yards Lorna joined them.
“Wanted to stretch my legs,” she chuckled in answer to Shawn’s disapproving look.
The air was very cold, the Sun a dim red star in a purple, star-speckled sky. The heat emitted by the immense globe of Saturn was small. Warily the three went toward the stone block, noticing h
oles—apparently doorways—at its base.
IT was strangely silent. No one spoke until Lorna touched Shawn’s arm, said quickly, “Wait a minute. I hear something—”
They paused. For a long moment there was no sound; then a faint stir of movement came from far away. Simultaneously a shout sounded from the Eagle.
“Terry! Look out!”
Trost’s voice! Shawn whirled, saw a horde of fantastic creatures pouring from the forest, racing forward swiftly. Dinosaurs, he thought—but curiously different from the great reptiles that had once existed in Earth’s Mesozoic swamps. These were small, half as tall as a man, with blunt muzzles, long-fingered hands that seemed almost human, and tails that were atrophied and vestigial. They ran instead of hopping. Their skins were pale, whitish like the forest.
There were hundreds of them. Shawn said, “Back to the ship. Quick!” He drew his automatic, hurried forward, his companions beside him.
But he was too late. The dinosaurs closed in, barring them from the ship. They surged up like a wave.
The Earthmen had no chance. They emptied their guns, killing many, but within minutes they were overwhelmed. The dinosaurs’ cold hands gripped them, lifted them. The three were carried toward the stone block.
As they reached it there was an interruption. A staccato burst of gunfire stammered out. Trost and Heffley had sallied from the ship, armed with submachine guns, and they were blasting their way through the hordes of dinosaurs, shouting reassurance to their companions.
The group carrying Shawn were in the lead, and they increased their pace, scurrying into one of the black holes in the stone cube. Flynn, a few feet behind him, was galvanized into activity. His fists flailed; he kicked and writhed furiously.
The butchery of the sub-machine guns momentarily daunted the dinosaurs. They gave way, fear sweeping them. Hooker Flynn tore free, rushed toward Trost and Heffley. And Lorna, too, managed to tear herself away from her captors.
Then the dinosaurs rallied. They surged forward like a great wave, and the three Earthmen were buried beneath a mound of reptilian flesh. Lorna was unharmed; she stood hesitating, and then turned toward the ship as several of the dinosaurs ran toward her. But her path was blocked. Dozens of the creatures were advancing now, closing in in a semicircle.
Blinded she turned and fled, her flesh shrinking with cold fear of the monsters. And, hissing shrilly, they leaped forward on her trail, striving to intercept her. But she reached the forest before them.
It was icy there, the ground carpeted with dead, rotting vegetation, the interlacing leaves forming a dim, whitish ceiling high above. She ran in a clear, shadowless gloom, hearing behind her the rapid padding footsteps of the dinosaurs.
She tried to double on her tracks, but dared not continue, for several of the creatures, guessing her intention, angled across to intercept her. The girl was already gasping for breath, her clothing soaked with perspiration. But the dinosaurs ran without effort., coursing her like wolves.
The thought stirred a chord of memory in Lorna’s mind, recalling a trick she had once read. Would it work with these creatures—or were they too intelligent to be duped? Her heart pounded furiously; her throat was one raw blaze of fire. Snatching a quick glance behind her, she saw the leader of the dinosaurs terrifyingly close, cold eyes intent upon her, jaws agape.
SWIFTLY the girl ripped open her shirt, slipped it off. still running, let it fall to the ground. She dared a quick look, and exultation flamed within her. The monsters were pausing to sniff at the discarded garment, fingering it with their anthropoid hands. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lorna swerved in a curve that would take her back to the Eagle.
But the dinosaurs came after her again, hissing. Lorna slipped out of her slacks, let them fall from rounded hips, down the slim length of her legs. Another few yards gained while the dinosaurs examined the garment—
Lorna’s shoes were already gone; save for a lacy brassiere and step-ins she was nude. She was fumbling blindly at the fastenings of her remaining garments when something sprang out from behind a tree; she cannoned into it, felt cold flesh against her body. She was flung back, sent sprawling to the ground. For the first time she saw the nature of this being.
A man, short, naked save for a breech-cloth, with his body oddly mottled with darker patches. His grayish skin had a curiously leathery texture. His head was—not human!
The flattened skull, the broad, loose-lipped mouth, the shallow, dull eyes, all combined to send a ripple of fear down Lorna’s spine. For the man had the taint of the serpent unmistakably upon him.
The dinosaurs came in view, only five of them now, and they paused and circled, wary and alert. The snake-man snarled, and Lorna saw two gleaming, needle-like fangs bared. One of the dinosaurs leaped forward.
The snake-man sprang; the two bodies collided in midair. Shining white fangs dug into the dinosaur’s flesh. And, hissing, the creature flung up its hideous head, dropped instantly to writhe and twist in convulsions upon the rotting vegetation.
As though at a signal the other reptiles raced away.
The snake-man turned to Lorna. Fear and amazement had held her motionless, but now she sprang to her feet, throat tight with dread. Before she had covered a dozen paces the snake-man caught her.
She fought against his grip, but a cold, deadly repulsion weakened her. The being laughed down at her, and, as the girl’s blows hammered against his chest, he suddenly snarled, lowering his fangs menacingly. Lorna paused, her eyes wide—and once more the snake-man laughed.
Swinging her lightly under his arm, he hurried into the depths of the dark forest.
CHAPTER VII
THE SERPENT WORLD
WHEN Shawn was carried into the cube of the dinosaurs he was unconscious, or nearly so. He had felt a biting pain in his shoulder, and directly afterward he fell into a light coma, paralyzed, only vaguely comprehending what was happening. So he was able to make no resistance as he was dragged underground, down a slanting corridor scarcely four feet high, in which he could not have stood erect but where the dinosaurs moved with ease.
For a long time, Shawn thought, he was carried thus. Gradually the power of the drug was wearing off, but he held himself motionless, waiting till he had regained his strength. After a long time they came to a blank wall; one of the dinosaurs fumbled with a slender hand at the stones. They slid away, revealing a brightly-lit expanse beyond.
Shawn had the impression that the dinosaurs were afraid. They shrilled softly, peering forward, and at last continued very slowly, carrying the Earthman into a paasage, twenty feet high and nearly as wide, lit with cold radiance that came from a tube set in the roof and running the length of the corridor. Shawn stared up. It wasn’t a tube; it seemed to be a bar of metal, glowing with a bright, chill light. The passage stretched to right and left, curving gently, and directly across was another tunnel mouth at right angles to the one where the dinosaurs were huddled about him. The gap in the wall had closed, he saw; there was no trace of it.
The air was no longer cold; it was stuffy and humid. Abruptly a flicker of movement appeared far down the corridor.
Instantly the dinosaurs were in turmoil. They dropped Shawn and scurried about purposelessly, hissing. Then, in a group, they sprang back to the wall. Again the opening appeared in it. They fled through, and once more the smooth stone surface appeared unbroken.
Shawn’s paralysis had worn off, he realized. Quickly he got to his feet, hurried into the tunnel mouth a few feet away. Crouching in its shadow, he waited as the thing that had frightened the dinosaurs approached.
It came swiftly—and horrified unbelief struck through Shawn. It was a snake—but a snake incredibly huge, its thick body as large as a barrel, and, he guessed, almost fifty feet long! Nor was that all.
There were certain curious features about its head, hastily glimpsed as it raced past. In the flashing glimpse Shawn caught he saw that the thing’s head was an irregular spheroid, instead of being fiat and wedge-shaped,
and in its contour there was a nauseating resemblance to a human face. The mouth was small and scarcely visible, but from the great eyes shone a light of unmistakable intelligence. Girdling the reptile’s neck was a fringe of pulpy, dead-white tentacles, writhing as though with a sentient life of their own.
The snake raced past and was gone in a flash, leaving Shawn trembling. The reptile was—tainted!—with humanity! Its head had been distinctly anthropoid in outline.
The clanging, discordant note of a gong sounded in the distance. It rang out three times and died away into silence, and the hot, stagnant air seemed to press closer in the dead stillness. Frowning, Shawn went into the corridor along which the reptile had passed and peered after it. Nothing stirred, and after a moment he set out in the direction from which the snake had come.
The corridor was level and straight, and occasionally Shawn passed the mouths of other brightly lit tunnels. He quickened his pace. The clanging came again, but this time it sounded five times before it died away. As it faded Shawn saw a movement far ahead of him in the corridor, and paused, hesitating. Peering under his hand, he made out two great snakes gliding rapidly toward him, slithering.
He looked around quickly.
SUDDENLY he remembered passing the mouth of a side tunnel a hundred yards back. He spun about and went racing along the corridor, flinging himself into its sanctuary. Some premonition of danger made him hurry along the passage instead of remaining near its entrance.
That precaution saved him. Behind him came a harsh rustling, rapidly growing louder. The reptiles had entered this passage.
Shawn fled, sweating. If they had not glimpsed him before, his sudden movement attracted their attention, for he heard a curious whistling cry from behind him, and saw a needle-thin pencil of light dart past his head. There was an angry crackle as it fell on the rock wall, and as he raced past Shawn saw that the rock was beginning to glow redly, and a wave of heat billowed out at him. His mouth stretched in a wry grin, Shawn redoubled his efforts; there was a sharp pain in his chest but he dared not slacken his pace.
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