Queen of the Panther World

by Berkeley Lingston

  This time the women’s voices rose in a vast shout of anger. And once more Luria went on:

  “. . . Aye! Men like Hostal, and Mita and others of his ilk. That was why I went out of our time and place into another. To bring back the sex which once ruled. Our men have grown soft to the ways of war. They have grown soft because the years have made them that way. Look at the weapons of our fighting. Swords, spears and knives. But we are fortunate. Loko and his minions have no choice in this matter. We must prevent Loko and his from gaining the upper hand. Else we all become slaves to his will . . .”

  It was all going in one ear and out the other. But not Hank. He got it right away. I was just in time to see the heat of anger come to his eyes and face, but not in time to stop him. Whirling swiftly, he puled Luria about until she was facing him.

  “So that’s why you brought me here? As a guinea pig! As a symbol for these Lysystratas of yours . . .”

  Luria didn’t take his fingers from her wrist. Instead, she motioned for the other dames to halt; at the very touch of Hank’s fingers, swords flashed in the bright sunlight and bodies tensed.

  “Did you think it was because of your manly beauty?” she asked. “Or because of your charm?”

  Hank’s fingers fell away from her wrist. The flush of anger still lighted his lean long face. But there was a tinge of frustration in his eyes. Perhaps he had assumed it might have been because of some such reasons.

  “I brought you here, you and this ugly wart of a man whom you call friend, because you were the vessel in which the fluid of my father’s wisdom coagulated. Only you heard the call. And because this Berk was your friend did I allow him with you . . .”

  “Okay, babe,” Hank said evenly. “You called, we answered. Now I don’t like the set-up. So suppose you send us right back to the place you got us from.”

  “You pout prettily,” Luria said. “How like must this Earth be to our planet. Here, too, the men pout if we do not give them their way.”

  I DAMNED her and could have kicked Hank. He kept opening his yap and she kept putting her foot in it.

  “Yes,” I said. “We have all the manners of men. But I gather you are not too well-acquainted with all the ways. Perhaps it’s in the cards that you’re going to learn.”

  “Aah! He gives a twist to words and has no fear that they will rebound to confound him,” Luria said, turning her attention to me.

  I didn’t care. There wasn’t a dame alive on this or any planet I couldn’t argue with or against.

  “Yep. I have no fear. Only in your tears do you have immunity . . .”

  “Tears! Do you take me for a man?”

  I gave her a slow up-and-down. This time it was she who burned bright red. I knew my look was an insult. I’d already figured the score. If we were playing Lysystrata then the boy friends and husbands of these Amazons were weak-kneed neutrals.

  “Not the way you stack up, kid,” I said.

  I guess it was insult direct. Only the answer to it came from an unexpected corner. My head rocked from a blow and I staggered a bit before I recovered my balance. When my head cleared I saw it was the luscious dish whom I’d been admiring who stood facing me.

  “It is not meet that our leader, whose toes you are too low to touch, should deal you the punishment you deserve. But I, who am the smallest of her servants, can . . .”

  These babes sure could yell. All they needed was one of their number to open up and they were ready with the howling. I looked at Luria who had a half-grin on her lips.

  “Teach the little toad a lesson,” Luria said.

  “Hey!” I called in protest as an immense circle formed about us. “I can’t hit a woman.”

  And once more my head rocked as she planted one right on the jawbone. Well, woman or no, she wasn’t playing for fun. I stepped back, danced around a bit to loosen up my leg muscles, put up my dukes and, whammm! Something hit me with the force of a mule’s kick.

  “Berk,” a voice called from a long distance off. “Get up. Don’t let her look like a champ . . .”

  There were ten suns up there, and a million women at least. Then my head cleared and there was that beautiful pan looking down at me. I motioned for her to step back and got to my feet.

  “Okay, kiddo,” I said, snuffling the claret back up my nostrils. “You asked for it. Come and get it.”

  Then bing, bing, bing, faster than the telling takes, she let me have it.

  Gosh, I thought. They got the sweetest-singing birds out here. And angels, too. My, what a place. Just like heaven. And once more that voice called me. I was beginning to dislike Mister Sharpe. Why didn’t he take a couple of lumps? Was I supposed to take them all?

  The birds I thought I heard was the strident sound of all those bags yelling, and the angels’ faces were not so angelic, once my vision cleared. My knees were on the wobbly side. My glamour-puss could hit like Louis. I assayed a grin but yipped in pain instead. “Enough?” the dear girl asked.

  I SHOOK my head. I’m a stubborn dope in some ways. But the memory of the giant who’d taken his picks on me had come to mind and suddenly I wanted to haul off at something.

  I motioned her forward with beckoning fingers. This time I got there just. Instead of hitting with my right, I closed the beckoning fingers of my left hand and jabbed her right on the point of her stubborn chin. Her head went back and my right came over, but with all I had on it. There was a sharp crack! And baby went sailing through the air to land on a pillow of grass some fifteen feet from where we were battling.

  They proved they were the opposite sex, then. Their voices rose like banshees on the prowl and with a single concerted howl they made for me. Nor were they joking. They had those three-feet long stickers out and aimed right for Hank and myself. Again Luria stopped them:

  “Halt! Are we men that we attack like animals? Besides, Lovah has not signified defeat.”

  I cursed the day I’d ever seen this woman, the day I’d ever met Henry Sharpe, and most of all the day I went to the zoo with him. Now I was on a spot. This Lovah could just be that stubborn as not to give up easily.

  Several of the gals had gone to Lovah’s assistance. The kid was on the wobbly side as they brought her forward. My punch had raised a lump on the side of her jaw. And her eyes didn’t quite have that superior look as she tried to look into mine.

  “Better take it easy, kid,” I said, picking my words carefully. “There’s no sense in beating each other silly. You’re far too pretty to get messed up . . .”

  I guess it was the first time anyone had called her pretty. Though why not was a mystery to me. She could make my breakfast any morning of the week.

  Her left hand came up and caressed the swelling and her eyes became a lot more natural, and something of speculation showed in the deep blue. I held my breath, waiting for her answer. I blew it out in a deep sigh when she said:

  “Enough . . . for the while,” Lovah said.

  Only Luria was smart enough to get the game I’d played.

  “You are clever with words,” she said, and this time there was no scorn in her voice. “Well, call your mounts. Enough time has been wasted . . .”

  It was a command which was instantly obeyed. A tuneless whistling went up and like black demons called from their pits, hundreds of black panthers, much like Mokar in appearance, though none so large, rose, as though from the very ground. They loped forward and the women mounted them.

  Lovah gestured for me to step to her side. I did and she motioned for me to mount behind her. Then at a signal from Luria, who had again taken Hank behind her, we were off.

  “Say, beautiful,” I said as we started, “you got a wallop. What’s more you got a whole lot more that appeals to me . . .

  She turned and looked deeply into my eyes. Her face became oddly soft, then, with the speed of light, it changed and as she drove her elbow into my belly, knocking the wind from me, she said:

  “You got a wallop, too . . .”

  AT FIRST I thought it
was suburbia. At least a real-estate agent’s dream development. They called it Gayno, but it could have been the community of El Rancho Grande, for all of me. It was a community of well-laid-out homes, all single-storied, with the most modern architectural designs; sloping roofs, glass walls, patios and terraces to take advantage of shade and sun gave it the House Beautiful look.

  When we were still several hundred yards from the village of homes the women lifted their voices in a sort of musical chant. It was the first I knew their voices could be soft and charmingly feminine. Then as we swept into the level grass-filled width of street a host of men and children came from the houses and followed us to one set apart from the rest. Luria, in the lead, drew Mokar up to the shallow series of steps leading to the door of the house, and dismounted. Lovah kicked her panther beside Mokar and with a well-placed blow of her elbow, knocked me from the animal. As she wheeled him around, she turned her face to me and winked broadly.

  I sighed deeply and got to my feet and walked to the side of Hank and the girl. I had an idea that this Lovah baby wasn’t too displeased with me.

  “Well, come in,” Luria said.

  The other women scattered as we followed the girl into the house. If I thought the exteriors of the homes looked like something out of House Beautiful, the interiors took my breath away. Wow! Two-level interiors with an incline leading to a combination dining and living room on the second story. The first floor had four walls of colored glass which softened the sun’s rays and gave them a subdued and marvelous brilliance which somehow did not hurt the eyes. There was a wondrous air of peace and serenity in this house.

  Luria slumped wearily into a deep-piled chair after throwing off her belt and helmet. There were a couple of sofas facing each other across a gigantic coffee table. Hank and I sat side by side on one, so that we were in profile to the girl. To our left was a raised fireplace of colored stones. Above it, on the mantle, were some statuary, primitives, from the looks of them. At sight of them, Hank arose and examined them closely.

  “Say! These are truly wonderful. Who was the carver?”

  “One of my servants,” Luria said in answer. But her mind was elsewhere. She shook her head after a second or so, looked up to Hank and said, “Care for a beverage?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Make mine Scotch and water.”

  Hank was still deep in study of the small statue. He turned and said:

  “Servant? Why that’s criminal! Someone with a positive talent for creative work, someone with the ability of this person whoever he may be, should certainly not be a servant!”

  “Sit down,” Luria said. It wasn’t said in anger but rather in an almost supplicating tone.

  HANK sat deep in a corner of the wide sofa. To my surprise she walked around the arm of the sofa, past the coffee table and faced us. She studied us for a second, then spoke:

  “You are strangers here, in a strange land, among strange people who have strange customs. I don’t have any doubts but that you will both have to spend the rest of your natural lives here. My father discovered the secret of transmigration of bodies. But it is still a mystery to me how he returned them.

  “Therefore I beg of both of you to take what I have to say to heart. There should be a beginning, I know. But that beginning goes back into an antiquity greater and more distant than any you know. I saw a something in your eyes the instant you entered my home. I think I interpreted it correctly. You both marveled that you should find something approximating your own civilized world, after a visit to the world of Loko.

  “Then let me start from there. For it is in that you might best understand. Here, you have a ready comparison. This land of Gayno and Loko’s world. Further, when my father lived, there were better worlds, finer cities, greater cultures. But death came to him as it must come to all and though he lived to be eleven hundred and sixty-four years . . .”

  I couldn’t help it. Eleven hundred and sixty-four years! I grunted an unintelligible something. She caught on fast.

  “Unbelievable, isn’t it? That one can live so many years?” she asked.

  Hank got the connotation of her remark before I did. He squinted at her and said:

  “And I suppose you’re in your . . .?”

  “I am nine hundred and twenty-four years old,” she said.

  “Pretty well-preserved for your age, I’d say,” I said.

  “Lovah is almost a thousand years old,” she said.

  I thought that was nasty of her. But it was like a woman. I grinned weakly. “Touché,” I said.

  “Let’s get back to your father,” Hank suggested.

  “Very well,” she replied. “In the last forty years of my father’s reign, a small border clash became a conflagration which set all of Pola aflame. He did not know it at the time, but there were some who were envious of his power. They plotted his downfall and overcame his legions. It turned into a war of utter annihilation. When it was over, there was nothing left of culture, civilization, or people. Here and there were scattered the fragments of humanity.

  “They went back to living as they had done thousands of years ago. They had to do this because my father in his great wisdom, realizing the finality of the battle, doomed the terror weapons of the time and erased their marks forever. We, the offspring of that terrible time, had only the means you see of waging war, a sword, a spear and a knife.

  “So we had to make the best of things. For my people I chose the standard of living which best suited our time. I utilized the forms of home architecture which because of the constant sunlight would be most suitable. But, as I said before, we were scattered over the entire face of Pola. Loko, who was the ringleader and the only one of the Inner Council to survive the war, went back even further in antiquity for the plans of his community. But he wasn’t interested in how his people lived. He still had it in mind and to this day is obsessed, by his overweening desire to be the ruler of the planet of Pola . . .”

  SHE paused for a breath. And in that moment I thought, baby, you got a right to tell some one else they’re clever with words. You don’t have to take a back seat to anybody when it comes to making with the lip.

  “Aside from the physical manifestations of what transpired with Berk and myself,” Hank spoke up like a good scientist, “there are certain questions which are bothering me. I would appreciate it very much if an answer were forthcoming.

  “Now then, I believe I am assuming correctly, when I say that Pola and the planet from which we have come are existing in the same spheres of time and place . . .?”

  Oh boy, I thought. Good old Sharpe! Now he’s going to make like he knows what he’s talking about. Of course Hank always had a sharp mind, if I’m allowed a pun. He was proving it now.

  Luria answered the question in the seconds I was in thought:

  “That is right.”

  “Well,” Hank said in a speculative tone, “that proved a theory which some men have always held. Now another question. How is it you speak, in fact all the people we have met speak, our tongue, English?”

  Luria smiled and arose and walked to a near wall. A heavy ribbon-like cord hung against the wall. She puled at it and from somewhere in the house a bell sounded in answer to the bell-pull. She came back to the sofa and snuggled up in a corner.

  “The tongue we speak is universal on Pola,” she said. The instant you landed you too, spoke our tongue.”

  It wasn’t a satisfactory answer but I supposed it had to do. Hank wasn’t through, however.

  “That doesn’t make sense. Try this; what is the Groana bird and why is it holy?”

  We had to wait for the answer to that. A husky, masculine voice said:

  “Greatness . . . You rang?”

  We turned and there was a man who wearing a sort of lavalava for a costume. His hairy chest was bare as were his legs. Muscles rippled along the shoulders and arms and as he bent his legs knotted with muscles. He was close to six feet in height.

  “Yes, Hioa,” Luria said. “My guests are
thirsty . . .”

  He shook his head and as silently as he had come, left.

  “All your men, servants?” Hank asked.

  She nodded. “If not so in fact, in theory,” she replied.

  “A nation of women,” I said. “All wrong.’

  “By Earthly standards,” she said turning to me. “But as I said in the beginning you must understand our customs are not as yours. Here, the women are the rulers. Men have only a minor part in the business of state.”

  I was tempted to ask something but I didn’t think it to be the time.

  “. . . Only Loko has changed those conditions of servitude,” Luria went on. “Since the dawn of the new era, women took over the duties which men served so dishonorably before. All went well until Loko thought the time ripe. Secretly, he trained his minions in the arts of war, and when he thought the time was ripe, began his campaign. He has a clever tongue. Not only did he manage to train the men of his tribe but he also convinced the warrior women of the Federation it was only for the purpose of waging war upon me that he did so. And that when he had defeated me he would relegate them to their former positions.”

  “And the Groana Bird?” Hank asked again.

  “The Groana Bird is the symbol by which we will conquer,” Luria said. “It is the most ancient of all living beings on Pola. It holds the secret of all things. It means success or failure. Once it sat on my father’s right hand. Now it roams free and unfettered in the forest. We all seek it. And find it I must even if I have to go into the valley of the mists . . .”

  MY EARS pricked up at the sound of a screaming voice. I thought I was mistaken, but the voice sounded masculine. The screaming came closer. Then another voice joined it, this one raised in anger, and this one decidedly feminine. Hank and the girl heard the sounds also. An expression of displeasure crossed her face. She rose and started down the ramp. Hank and I followed.

  We arrived at the front door simultaneously, Luria, Hank, I and the two who were screaming. Luria flung the door wide and a giant of a man sprawled to his knees before her. Behind him, some few feet came a short scrawny woman who held in one hand a thick club.