by Don Wilcox
“What are you doing here?” Joe Peterson asked.
“I thought you looked lonesome. But you’re going to have company; Guess who? The king!”
“I’m on my way to see the king,” Joe said.
“The king’s on his way to see you.” The frog boy gave Joe a wink. Then he turned his funny face to the cloud and opened his red mouth to catch the first big raindrops. He splashed along the marshy way chuckling contentedly. “The king,” he repeated, gesturing over his froglike shoulder. Then with a splash, he ducked under.
Through the sudden downpour Joe looked back to see the car that was almost upon him. It was sliding dizzily around the slick road. It came to an abrupt stop beside Joe.
The two important looking Karridonzan officials in the rear were shouting at the chauffeur, who was having a bad time of it, trying to satisfy both of them. Now the older of the two lowered a window and called to Joe.
“Slave! What are you doing out here alone? Running away?”
Joe made a proper bow. He brushed the streaming rain from his face and came nearer.
“Sir, I’m on the way to interview the king.”
The older man gave a sarcastic laugh. “Isn’t that nice? The king will be real happy. I’ll bet you’re one of his old playmates.”
The younger man, whom Joe guessed to be King Arvo himself, wasn’t impressed by his companion’s joke. “What business could you possibly have with the king?”
The older man interrupted before Joe could answer. “He has no business. He’s probably an assassin.” Joe meant to stand his ground. By
a twist of fate he had been shanghied from the earth and sold to a Karridonzan slave trader many months ago. He had taken his share of physical beatings but he had never been beaten in spirit. At last he had been entrusted with a day of freedom, and he was determined to see the king. He meant to present his case, and demand in the name of justice and interplanetary good-will, that he be allowed to return to the earth.
Now the surly words of the king’s companion incensed him. But he wasn’t going to let any rash answers upset his plans.
He bowed as courteously as he could, and addressed the younger man confidently.
“Your majesty—”
“So you recognize me!” The king gave a start. “How did you know?”
“I was told you were coming this way.”
“You were told? No one knew I was coming. I didn’t know it myself until a minute ago.”
“Your majesty, may I have an appointment to explain to you—”
The older man barked an order to the chauffeur and the car plunged ahead. Joe was left standing in a spray of flying mud.
Pudgy hopped up out of the marshy waters.
“Congratulations, slave. You’ve had an interview with the king.”
The rain roared down heavier than ever and great blasts of thunder pounded through the hillsides. The car had disappeared from view. Joe trudged on, low in spirits.
It was the thunder, he thought. Lightning and thunder always reminded him of his troubles back home. It had stormed that night when they clamped him in jail over a labor squabble. He had been a laborer, and a damned good one. He’d never thrown himself into an unjust strike in his life. But some personal enemy had seen a chance to put him through the mill. One swift surprise move and Joe found himself in jail. And that night the storm had struck. The thunder roared and Joe roared back at it. He was innocent, and by the heavens he would prove it!
Pudgy was now hopping along beside him, feeling very good over the falling weather.
“What’s the matter, slave? Afraid of the thunder? Oh, I know. You’re telling yourself that old story about how you got into this mess. I’ve heard that one before.”
“The door of my prison opened and someone pretending to be a good angel, told me it was time to come out,” Joe muttered. “I thought everything had been cleared. But the next thing I knew I was being loaded onto a space ship. They brought me up to this God forsaken planet and sold me to the Karridonza prison.”
“Just like the rain,” Pudgy cackled. “Spatter, spatter, spatter. The same tune over and over again.”
“That doesn’t make it any lees true.”
But Joe knew that his protests of innocence had become hollow words. And now, after this roadside clash with the king, how could he hope to win?
“Keep walking,” Pudgy said. Then with a gay laugh, that froglike monstrosity hopped back to the marsh. He dived in, his green webbed feet flying after him.
Joe had lost one of his sandals in the mud and was looking for it when he heard the call of the chauffeur. The car had stalled a few feet ahead of him. They needed help.
“Hurry up, you damned slave. Put your shoulder to the wheel and get us out of here.”
CHAPTER III
Joe had played in luck. His muscles had turned the trick. He was a prisoner: for convenience they had put him in a waiting room cage temporarily; but at least he was here. The warm glow of the palace lights shone down upon him. He was still caked, with mud from head to foot for he had helped push the car all the way back to the main highway. What he wouldn’t have given for a good shower! A drink of water would help, too. You’d think they’d be more thoughtful in a king’s palace. No service. And he’d better not risk rapping on the bars.
He thought of Pudgy. He looked to the marble pillars along the corridor—the very sort of hiding place that Pudgy would choose. He gave a low whisper.
“Pudgy! Pudgy!”
One of the orange-sashed guards, standing like a statue against the wall turned a cold eye in Joe’s direction. Joe gulped, fell silent, and settled back against the bars to wait. Then he came up with a start.
“Holy comets! Am I seeing things?”
It might have been a dream but it wasn’t. It was a girl. And when Joe Peterson said the word girl to himself, he wasn’t referring to just any female from Mars or Venus or Mercury. Here was an earth girl—the rarest of all creatures in Karridonza. She was darned attractive, he thought. Maybe not what you’d call pretty. Not a painted doll type, but a keen looking person who would make the most important travelers on any space ship sit up and take notice.
She was dressed for space travel. From her attitude, Joe guessed that she had every intention of boarding the earthbound sky ship that would leave this very afternoon. She crossed to the table where her baggage had been assembled. She checked each item, barely nodding to the officious prime minister as he came toward her smiling.
“You’ve not changed your mind, Miss Melinda?”
“No, thank you. I’ll go at once. Is my transportation ready?”
Joe thought that her face brightened a little at the sight of the king. He was bringing her a gift—an ivory jewel box. It was pretty elegant, the way he opened it and handed it to her with a slight bow.
“These treasures are for you, Miss Melinda. I hope you will not forget—” The king paused as if to suggest many things that could not be enumerated. “I’m sure you will not forget—” The girl was shaking her head. “No gifts, please, your majesty. After all, you and I are parting as friendly enemies. My requests have only troubled you.”
“You can’t call yourself an enemy,” the king said. “No enemies ever leave this palace alive. This is a gift of friendship.”
He was forcing her to accept, Joe thought. Joe was puzzled, trying to determine the degree of sincerity back of this farewell. For now the prime minister was also bestowing gifts—obviously the finest of jewels from his personal treasury.
“We have failed to listen to your entreaties,” the prime minister said, rubbing his hands together and smiling unctuously, “but these gems should convince you that you have been our most popular guest.”
The air spinner, as the Karridonzan “airplane” was called, taxied onto the plaza. Joe had been fascinated by the stories of its automatic controls, It could find its way back to home base like a homing pigeon.
“You needn’t send a pilot with me,” the g
irl was saying. “Can’t I cross the mists and let the spinner come back alone?”
“It is a matter of Karridonza courtesy,” the prime minister said. “King Arvo has already arranged for one of our slaves to accompany you.”
The three of them came over to Joe’s cage. For a moment Joe forgot to breathe. Were they going to let him act as escort? What was the game?
The girl gave a little gasp at the sight of him. He must have looked an awful megs. He was unshaven, his hair was uncombed, and he was cloaked in slave garb and mud. He wouldn’t blame her if she were frightened at the sight of him.
But when she said, “Oh, the American!” and then pressed her fingers over her lips, he caught the impression that she must have heard of him before.
She was telling him something with her eyes. She was shaking her head, a barely perceptible gesture, as if trying to warn him of some danger.
Nitticello, the sharp-eyed little prime minister, drew the king aside, and for a moment they consulted. Nitticello had perceived something, Joe didn’t know what. But whatever it was, he got a nod of agreement from the young king. In that moment, Joe new, the plan had been changed.
“We’ve decided to let you go alone after all, Miss Melinda,” King Arvo said. “Are you quite sure you won’t need a pilot’s company?”
“On second thought,” the girl said, “I believe I do. If it’s the rule—Karridonza courtesy and all that—and if this person can be spared—”
The prime minister shook his head. “No, Miss Melinda. We prefer to respect your original wish to go alone. Our very beet wishes will go with you.”
And that was that. All except the farewell kisses.
It must have been the king’s puzzled and forlorn look that softened the girl’s heart at the last moment. She leaned toward him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then she turned hastily, and started to walk past the prime minister.
But Nitticello caught her hand. “I also respect your noble earth customs. Do you have only one goodbye kiss to spare?”
The girl drew back, then yielded on impulse and kissed him lightly on the forehead. Joe saw one of the orange-sashed guards step forward with a cocky twinkle in his eye.
“Everything comes in threes, Miss.” And he reached toward her.
Then to Joe’s surprise, she whirled about and said, “The third kiss is for your prisoner here.”
She stepped to Joe’s cage, reached through the bars to touch his whiskered cheeks lightly with her hands, and kissed him on the lips.
When the air spinner had roared away, two minutes later, Joe was still sitting dreamily wondering what had struck him.
He looked out at the gray rain, now beating down steadily over the marble plaza, and he wondered whether there would ever be another kiss like that—ever—anywhere in the whole solar system.
And suddenly he became alert with a feeling of terror. What was it the prime minister had just said to the king?
“You don’t think I meant to let all of our finest gems slip out of our hands, do you?”
What did he mean by that? The girl had gone. She had flown off into the opaque clouds.
“Of course she’ll not get back to the earth with them.” Nitticello was snarling and there was a murderous light in his eyes. “She’ll never get to the Karridonza skystation!”
And even as the little prime minister enunciated these brittle words he was whirling the cranks of the black machine at one of the circular windows. Joe saw the shiny cannonshaped barrel of the instrument lift to an angle that might have been calculated to shoot a blast of fire through the rain clouds. Now he was letting automatic instruments adjust it to some unseen target.
The king was too confused to do anything. He was trying to make the older man stop and explain.
“You can’t do that, Nitti!” Nitticello grated through his set teeth. “How do you think I’ve preserved the riches of this kingdom for you all through these years? By giving away our finest gifts? This ray will do the trick in a minute. It will nip a wing off. The spinney will fall. The jewels won’t be harmed. And we know how to pick them up, don’t we?”
“But the girl!”
“She had her chance to work with us. Peace be to her mangled bones.” The realization hit Joe like a bolt of lightning. He tore at the bars of his cage, sprung one of them and forced it out of its socket. He wrenched at another. It bent. That was all he needed. He thrust his head and shoulders through the opening, he writhed like an eel, and then he was out.
He dashed across the corridor. But the clank of bars had alarmed a whole bevy of guards into action. They came at him from all directions.
He dodged between two marble pillars. He kicked the first guard out of his path. He ducked back, so that the next two collided. He leaped over the scramble. For an instant the way was clear. He raced toward Nitticello and the black instrument of death.
Was he too late! A silver line blazed like a stream of white fire into the dark clouds. That was death. Death finding its mark through the rain.
The deadly accuracy of instruments. Joe was too late. In his mind he could visualize the spinner dissolving under the touch of that ray. It was an uncontrolled moment for Joe Peterson, the slave. He had seized a chair and would have flung it at Nitticello’s head. But something struck him across the back. He stumbled. Then the guards were pouncing on him from all directions.
They pulled him to his feet. He fell again. They couldn’t make him walk so they dragged him by the feet and dumped him in one corner of the reception room. Then they stood by, with weapons ready, as if just daring him to start anything.
CHAPTER IV
Joe Peterson was in no condition to start anything. The one deeply burning hurt over the lost earth girl was all the pain he could stand. His injured back and his bruised arms and head were nothing. It was the girl—that lovely, friendly person who had kissed him only a few minutes ago.
Weakly he looked past the guards trying to see what might have happened to the king.
“Could I talk with the king?” he muttered through his swollen lips.
“The king will talk with you when he gets around to it, you damned slave,” one of the guards said. “He’ll read you order number thirty-three. And we’ll have the pleasure of carrying it out.”
Joe watched in silence. He was seeking the king in a strange light. The king was hunched down in a chair, drumming his fingers nervously on the table. He was eying Nitticello like an anguished son who would like to give his father a lecture if he only dared.
King Arvo will fire Nitticello for this, Joe thought—if he’s strong enough.
But Nitticello stared the king down.
“I did it for you and the kingdom, Arvo. I’m always looking out for your best interests. Every hour of every day. That’s why we’re growing rich instead of poor.”
Nitticello glanced around. The orange-sashed guards stood stiffly as if they weren’t hearing a word. Nitti lowered his voice and talked earnestly for several minutes. The king didn’t like what he was saying.
“Riches!” The king groaned like a wounded beast.
“Riches—yes. And friendships, too. Look! We have this paper—Miss Melinda’s own handwriting.”
He waved a piece of parchment. Joe understood that the girl had signed a document of friendship for the Karridonzans’ future use. Those last minute gifts had apparently won her over. This would clear them from any suspicion of blame for her crash.
The poor, confused king! Joe saw that everything had happened too fast for him. If ray-gunning the air spinner and killing the girl were all for the good of the kingdom. Arvo was going to try to see it in the best light. But he didn’t like it.
“Why didn’t we send a slave with her?” the king asked. “At first you insisted. Then at the very last minute you changed.”
Nitticello lifted an eyebrow, and Joe guessed he was debating whether he should reveal his change of motives. “It would have been a neat stroke of irony if we had caused a slave to die wi
th her.”
“But you changed the plan.”
“We.”
“All right, we. We sent her alone.” The wrinkles around Nitticello’s lips tightened. He was squirming. “At the last minute it appeared that our chosen slave might be too valuable to be shot down.”
“Valuable? We have thousands of slaves,” the king protested.
“This fellow is quite husky. Think how he helped us out of the mud. He’s strong. Well-built. He’s alert and willing. Just the man we need as an example for the other slaves.”
The king wasn’t satisfied with the explanation, Joe was sure. But the crafty prime minister turned the subject.
“Don’t worry about the jewels, Arvo. Don’t worry about them.” He was speaking in a low voice, and Joe doubted whether any of the guards heard. “Tonight you and I will go below. Tonight—” a tense whisper—“the lavender vine will work for us.”
CHAPTER V
Nitticello sat at the table, his hands clenched tight. His half-closed eyes followed every action of the king. Their conference had come to an end.
Outside the windows the rain was beating down mercilessly. King Arvo might have been walking through the storm insensible. He moved down the corridor slowly and entered one of his private chambers.
Nitticello watched him out of sight. Then he rose, walked to one of the arched doorways, and beckoned to someone.
In a moment a huge guard strode up to await orders. He was dressed in a more elaborate black and orange uniform than the other guards—“Sashes” as they were called. This, Joe learned, was Stobber, the chief of the Sashes. The wide flowing orange sash which draped over his shoulder and around his waist was adorned with circles of emeralds, so that his approach was announced by the glittering green flashes from his thick swaggering shoulders.
Joe was fascinated by the roached mane of hair over the crest of Stobber’s head—a weird blend of green and orange—doubtless dyed to match his uniform.
“Stobber,” Nitticello said. “I have a delicate assignment. For all I know, this visiting slave may be a bloody assassin. We picked him up on the road. He said his master had given him leave to come. He’s originally from another planet. He must be one of our prison pickups. Assign six of your best Sashes to me as personal bodyguards until further notice.”