by Don Wilcox
“Well, just a mite.”
George lifted her hand from the papers and saw what she had been doing. It had nothing to do with the oldtime earth, but here was evidence of homesickness of a sort, no question about it. She had been trying to reconstruct, from memory, the plan of the proposed Banrab village.
“Come on, Pantella. We’re taking an evening ride, and maybe we won’t be back till morning. Nobody will miss us until breakfast.”
“You and I? I thought you’d forgotten I existed, Big Boy. Where are we going?”
“After a few lost blueprints.” There was a moon to be seen if one swung a wide parabola through the heavens, and George was in the mood and Anna was willing.
It was pink dawn between the blue mountain ridges of Banrab when they landed.
CHAPTER XXXVI
“The place looked deserted. Through the telescope it had been impossible to see any details of the cave entrance as they approached because of the early morning mist. And Anna was a bit goggle-eyed, anyhow, George observed.
“Two of us,” Anna said, smiling dreamily.
During the recent hours of flight they had kissed, and time had stood still, and the little space flivver had found its way back to the Banrab camp as if by some homing instinct.
They landed. The deserted settlement was like a mining camp or government project that had stopped before it had started.
They walked out across the clearing, hand in hand. The air was fragrant. Life was full of new horizons. The old troubles of Banrab had faded into memory. George was filled with the thought that he and Anna were in love, and George suspected that Anna had known it for a long time. This morning love was his world, and he was saying things he had never said before.
A wingman swooped over and alighted on the nose of George’s ship. He was a bronzed, muscular figure, naked except for a loin cloth of green, reminiscent of certain green and gold uniforms.
The wingman called out, as squawkily as any bird of prey anticipating a good meal, “Same boat, same people.” Then he laughed and said it again. “Same boat, same people.” Wherewith, he flew back over the treetops into the blue shadowed rocks.
“Impertinent!” Anna said. “Reminds me of my brother’s parrot.”
So the wingmen were still in possession! Those Gret had brought and the others which had been dropped later by the Venus Express had found this home to their liking and had stuck.
And why not? The provisions that had been left were enough to make them comfortable while they explored the countryside for other resources.
“I wonder if Green Flash is still here.” George’s question was answered as he spoke. From a high shoulder of the mountain a male and a female came on outspread wings, soaring downward in slow spirals until they alighted on a weather-beaten picnic table. Green Flash and Purple Wings! Two superb physical specimens, George thought—and with an endowment of native intelligence that humans had learned to respect.
They also wore abbreviated costumes that had come from the uniforms of Madame Zukor’s gunmen.
“I wonder what the gunmen are wearing,” Anna whispered. “Maybe a coat of dust over their clean bones?”
George called, “Hello, there! . . . Hello, there, friends.”
The manner of the winged couple was distinctly strained. Not as frank or cordial as George wished. At first they talked only to each other, though their words were for George’s and Anna’s benefit.
“These strangers should not be here,” Purple Wings said.
“They will go soon,” Green Flash replied. “If they knew of the danger they would go at once.”
George called, “What’s the danger, Green Flash? Don’t you remember that I’m a friend of Paul Keller? You and Paul and I once helped the giant when he was sick. And Anna—don’t you remember Anna?” The two winged folks walked around slowly, watching, uncertain, apparently worried. Then Green Flash spoke very directly.
“Our flock has gone back to its more primitive life, Hurley. You must understand. When we are living free among the crags we can revert swiftly. Purple Wings and I could not prevent it. Do you see?”
“We understand,” Anna said. “But some of your ways we remember well,” Green Flash went on. “I have taught our flock to make their decisions by voting, not fighting.”
“Remarkable!” George said under his breath. The wingmen couldn’t have departed too far from earth men’s best lessons if they maintained some sort of democratic practices. Voting. That implied free discussions and a chance for each wingman to think out and make his own decisions.
“Another lesson we have retained,” said Green Flash, now with curious question marks glinting from his eyes, “is the idea of a hospital.”
“A hospital? Are many of you ill?”
“No, we are not ill. We are fine.”
“But a hospital?”
“A hospital for the wingless ones you left with us when you blocked the cliff road on that rainy night. Those prisoners are now patients in the hospital.”
George and Anna looked at each other. It took a moment for this strange information to soak in. Until now they had hardly dared ask themselves what might have become of the old Glasgow gang.
“They are all in the cave, in their separate cells, behind bars,” said Green Flash. “They are well fed and well treated.”
Purple Wings added with a faint smile, “We are keeping them for observation.”
“Oh. Uh—yes, I see. A hospital—well. What of Glasgow? Was he killed that night you flew off with him? We were afraid you would be killed.”
“Thank you,” Green Flash gave a little bow. He was warming toward them. “No, Glasgow was not killed. He is our model patient.”
Purple Wings was smiling. “We observe him more than anyone. Our doctors are trying to determine whether he is morally responsible.”
Green Flash glanced to the mountains and again the worried look was in his eyes. “You will go soon?”
“Very soon,” George promised.
“How soon?”
“As soon as we have picked up a few things we left.”
“Very well. A smooth take-off to you and many pleasant journeys.”
Purple Wings looked from Anna to George as if she had read something interesting in the way they were holding hands. She echoed, “Many pleasant journeys.”
Then the winged couple sprang into the air and flew on their way up the mist filled valley.
George consulted his watch. Anna started to move cautiously up the mountainside trail. They were both curious to see the barrier of loose rocks that had been left by the explosion on the cliff road. The blue mist hung close and they had to climb higher than they intended. At last they could see where the cave entrance used to be. Other blasts had taken place since that violent night. The whole cavern front had been dynamited and sealed shut by the resulting avalanche.
“If Green Flash was telling the truth, the ‘hospital’ must have a different entrance,” George observed.
Anna remembered. “That break in the ceiling beyond the assembly room—remember? You could look up and see the sky at night, and at high noon a streak of sunlight shone through.”
“Sure, that’s the answer,” said George. “The wingmen can fly in and out, but no earth person would be able to climb it.”
“It’s like my Sunday School teacher used to say when she talked about angels,” Anna giggled. “There’s lots of advantages to having wings.”
“We’d better go back, like Green Flash said.”
“We’d better,” said Anna.
George stopped, and his eyes followed a natural ascent that the mountainside afforded. Anna was looking at him questioningly.
“You know,” she said, “some folks couldn’t do what we’re doing now.”
“You mean—”
“Make a decision to come away, when it would be so easy to climb a few steps and look down into the strangest hospital in the solar system.”
“I wonder what it’s like?”
&nb
sp; “If it were only night, so we’d be sure it was safe—”
They looked around cautiously. George noted that Anna had brought her pistol along with her.
“Do you suppose they still have Madame Zukor in there?” Anna said. “What that did to some soft-hearted people! Some folks were horrified when they heard.”
“They don’t know Madame Zukor. The wingmen are welcome to her, as far as I’m concerned. In some way she was more deadly than her brother.”
“Cleverer.”
“You suppose she gets bread and water?”
“I wonder whether she’s still wearing her jewels and flashy clothes.”
Thin, misty clouds skirted along the mountainside. The sun was going to come out full soon, but at the moment George and Anna felt secure. They were temporarily screened from the view of any eyes up or down the valley.
They took several more cautious steps up the natural passageway among the jutting stones. Anna looked toward the valley. The ship couldn’t be seen from here.
“I locked it,” George said.
They edged along more confidently now. There was no sign of life about. The climb was perilous, but George, for all his two hundred and thirty pounds, was sure of step, and when it came to helping Anna his good muscles were there.
“That skylight should be right over this way,” she said. “S-s-sh. Be quiet, now. This should be it. Yes—no, it must be farther over—”
“This way,” said George.
“This way!” a wingman squawked, bobbing up out of a crevice.
George whirled, reaching for his pistol. One lone wingman? His first thought was a false jump at conclusions. There were six wingmen, spinning up out of a crevice, a veritable geyser of wings.
Flash. The play of gunfire whizzed past George’s hand. He took the hint. His pistol clattered to the rocks. Anna, too, had made a futile gesture toward her weapon. No spoken orders were needed to persuade her to drop it in time to save her fingers.
“This way, if you are ready to enter,” the first wingman said.
George looked the six of them over and knew it was number one he had seen before.
He thought of Purple Wings and Green Flash. If they were here they could clear up this little skirmish in a minute. But number one didn’t look at all friendly. He was the fellow George had once tackled in the doorway of the wingman hospital on Venus.
“Step in,” the wingman ordered, cocking his head toward the opening in the rocks. “We were told you would come sooner or later.”
“This is a mistake,” Anna said. “You don’t know us.”
“There‘ll be plenty of time to get acquainted. Will you slide down the rope peaceably or shall we push you in?”
George gulped. “How deep is it?”
He gave Anna a wink. He couldn’t quite make up his mind to letting himself be taken so easily. Maybe they could bluff the winged boys out of it.
“Any cushions to land on?” Anna asked.
The first wingman moved toward George. His gun looked less inviting than a red hot poker. George moved back, his fists doubled. A short, blunt-winged, grizzled old wingman was the one who took advantage of the situation. He came up at one side, leaped forward, and punched George on the jaw. George’s arms swung out wide, like a double haymaker in reverse. The grizzled shorty must have liked the effect, for he swung on George again. He carried a hard wallop. George felt a tremble of weakness coast down his spine. He couldn’t fight back. If he made a false move they’d burn a hole through his heart.
Five blows. George grew groggy. He could hear Anna catching her voice to keep from screaming. The other wingmen bounced in on him with ropes. One of them yanked at Anna’s hair and slapped her across the cheek. In a moment they were both tied, hand and foot. They went down fighting, so to speak, for they were still jerking and kicking when the six wingmen lowered them through the “skylight.”
“Green Flash!” Anna cried out, and her voice took on weird echoes as she descended. “Green Flash! . . . Purple Wings! . . .Where are you?”
It took two days of debate among the assembled wingmen to come to bring about a decision. From their alcove a few yards from the old assembly chamber, George and Anna could hear fragments of the debate. Green Flash and Purple Wings defended them to the last—until, as George realized, their own standing in the group was endangered by their radical arguments. They pleaded for tolerance, for mercy, for judging individuals each upon his own merits.
But in the end they lost. The trifling crimes for which some of the wingmen on Venus had once been incarcerated were no more serious than Anna’s and George’s trespassing—and who could prove that the couple had not come to release the other prisoners?
“It is very bad news for you two,” Green Flash said. He bent down and examined their wrists and ankles where their bonds cut into their flesh. “We’ll have two cells for you before the day passes. You will at least be more comfortable.”
“Green Flash!” George gasped. “You’re not going to let them get away with this. After all you’ve told them about our virtues, you’re not going to stand by and allow us to waste our lives away in a cage are you?”
Green Flash shook his head solemnly. “It is so hard to understand when the tables are turned. But I am bound by the code of my people.”
“You could help us slip away some night. They’d never know.”
“Would that not be a dastardly crime against my own people?” Green Flash replied.
“Someday,” said Purple Wings, with a hint of irony, “some Venus wingmen may ask for earth men to commit some murders for them, and if they choose you and ask to have you released for that purpose, the hospital might yield its hold on you.”
So that was that. When food was finally brought, George was unable to eat. Anna having fallen into a half sleep, awakened to eat moodily. Later, George noticed that she was studying him with a glint of curiosity.
“What is it, Big Boy?”
“Huh?”
“I thought I saw the light of an idea in your eye. What is it? Escape?”
“If there was any way to escape this devilish place, Glasgow and Madame Zukor and their muscle men would have found it out before this.”
“What’s your idea, then?”
“Simply this. We may be here the rest of our lives.”
“The camp will miss us. They’ll send out a search party.”
“We didn’t tell anyone where we were going. They’ll be more likely to search Mars and Venus than Banrab. It may be years—it may be the rest of our lives.”
Anna nestled against his arm. “I know it, Big Boy. I’ve already thought out all the pessimistic angles, and there aren’t any other kind.”
“So—”
“So?”
“Green Flash!” George called. The winged leader came with a restrained step, as if already braced against doing them any favors.
“What is it now, Hurley?”
“Green Flash,” George’s voice was tight with anxiety. “Will you-can you perform some sort of ceremony for Anna and me?
“Ceremony?”
“Say a few words over us, with Purple Wings as a witness. Tell us that from now on we are to be husband and wife—and then—only one cell for the two of us. Please. Am I right, Anna?”
For an answer she snuggled closer to his arm.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Before George and Anna (Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, according to the sign they had scratched on the wall of their cell) had been prisoners of Banrab many weeks they realized that there was a plan of escape in the air. But not for them. They didn’t know the right wingmen. Unfortunately, knowing the right wingmen wasn’t something that could be acquired overnight. It couldn’t be achieved by saying the right words or making the right promises.
There were only two persons included in the escape plan—Madame Zukor and the one-time bodyguard, Poppendorf.
By some wiles (George and Anna were a bit hazy on the details) Madame Zukor had won for herself a
n “in” with a wingman who was willing to exchange favors And so, on one very stormy night, amid the clatter of rain and the roar of thunder Madame Zukor and Poppendorf were swiftly hoisted out of the rocky pit, their half clad bodies showing briefly under the flare of lightning from the skylight, rain pouring down over them.
And what of Glasgow? He must have caught a glimpse of them escaping. He shouted and roared and bellowed, doing his best to wake up the winged powers in time to stop the runaway pair. It was one of the few times that George heard his voice, for the little ex-dictator occupied a cell somewhere on the other side of the assembly chamber.
Within a few days after the escape, the fuller story went the rounds. George and Anna learned that Madame Zukor had tried to reconcile her brother to her plan. She had argued that it would not be possible for more than two persons to escape. She and Poppendorf should be the two. They would be able to do more on the outside, for Glasgow’s eventual benefit (they had said), if they went and he stayed. To this argument Glasgow had ground his teeth like the trapped and hungry animal he was. But Madame Zukor had been clever enough to carry her point.
Now Glasgow openly vowed that he would also escape and return later and personally burn the damned feathers off every wingman in the camp. The wingmen guffawed when they heard it. They would fly in from the outside, concealing handfuls of mud, and would start him off with a question, and when he would open his mouth to make his boasts, they would plaster him.
Much as George hated him, he was occasionally moved to pity. Glasgow still held in his mind some fantastic faith that if Katherine Keller were free from her husband, she would come and rescue him. In pursuance of this mad fancy, Glasgow succeeded in delivering a note through the hospital to George’s and Anna’s cell. It was written on a scrap of white cardboard in which some food supplies had been wrapped, scratched with muddy ink.
“His prisoner’s song,” George remarked.
“He’s in the wrong key,” said Anna.
“The only thing right about it is the bars.”
The note begged them to promise that if they ever chanced to escape, they would be merciful to him, a poor, heartbroken man of tragedy, always misunderstood. If they only knew how he grieved over all the evil he had ever done they would forgive all. And would they please inform Katherine Keller of his plight? He was sure she would have him removed from this deadly hole. If so, he would spend the rest of his days making amends.