by Don Wilcox
Theban gestured with a restraining hand. “You’ve admitted, haven’t you, that there’s no danger if I can once get through to that yellow floor?”
“Sure, I admit—”
“Have you ever seen any people walking down there in the crater?”
“Over toward the island—yes. Plenty of times. They was too far away for me to see much. But a few puntos ago when a space boat landed out beside the island I could see a lot of figures come up from nowhere and swarm around it.”
Theban nodded. “I know about that space boat. It was my fellow purgiers trying to crack this death trap.”
“It cracked them,” said the mountaineer in a warning tone. “They sailed down out of the sky from over yonder peaks and came down for a low straight shot—”
The mountaineer broke off. Something out of the distance seemed to have silenced him. Theban’s eyes flashed toward the deep purple clouds. He saw the bullet-shaped blob of white skimming down toward the crater.
The white ship retarded. It circled like a buzzard bent on swooping down upon its prey. With each spiral it drew closer to the island-like mound in the center of the crater.
“It’s a White Comet!” the mountaineer gasped.
Now the low roar of rocket motors reached their ears.
Theban tore out of his shirt like a mad man. He ripped the white undershirt from his body. He hooked it and his regulation blue shirt to the end of a rope. Near them he looped the rope into a slip knot, poked a crooked stone into the loop, tightened the rope down on the stone.
Then catching the rope a few feet from the end, he began whirling it over his head. Weighted with the stone, the white and blue garments fluttered through air. It was a weird signal, concocted on the spur of the moment; and Theban’s hope that it might be seen was only the wild frantic hope of a lost cause.
Wider and wider he flung the circle of white and blue flags. Lower and lower the white space boat descended. It was almost upon the island. Theban let the weird signal sail out of his hands. He stood, his arms and fingers outstretched, powerless to stop the awful thing from happening.
The controls of the space boat suddenly seemed to relax. Two or three miles though the boat was from Theban’s eyes, he knew the very instant that death struck through its every occupant. The stream of rocket fire chopped off; the pilot at the throttle must have yanked the lever backward as he toppled.
The white ship skated a quarter of a mile or so across the swampy yellow floor and stopped with its nose half buried. The rocket motor echo died away; the hiss and screech of landing went silent.
“Dead!” the mountaineer muttered.
CHAPTER IV
Number Thirty-Six Is Death!
“What next, sir?” the mountaineer asked for the fifth time.
The young purgier scarcely moved. He was like a bronze statue fixed upon the bronze crags, his arms still half extended, his unfathomable gaze frozen upon the distant gray-green mound where the little stream of black figures wove to and fro from the crippled, slowly sinking space ship.
Those figures were the uniformed Draz-Kangs, Theban knew, although they were much too far away for their uniforms to be distinguishable. They were plundering the ship, no doubt, and gloating over another victory, and mocking the dead purgiers.
A gentle rain began to fail. Theban’s hands slowly planted against his hips, then rose to lock behind his head.
“What next, sir,” the mountaineer repeated gently.
“More rabbits . . .”
Darkness came, and with it a storm that raged and thrashed through the Bronze mountain valleys.
With the light of the new punto Theban’s experiments went on.
The fallen White Comet ship had sunk from view, and only a long black line across the bright yellow swamp floor marked the trail of its final landing. Far and wide over the swamp-filled crater little splotches of black—pools of water—dotted the yellow surface.
All through that punto Theban continued his tests, and by the time darkness descended he knew the individual shafts of death as he knew the dials of his space ship controls panel.
With a new dawn he put his scientific findings to a final test. The mountaineer was at his side, ready for orders.
“The gate has just passed,” said Theban consulting his watch. “You’ll have time for a smoke before it comes back around again.”
Again Theban sketched his diagram of the wheel with numerous spokes, each representing a beam of death.
There would have been a hundred spokes but for the three that were missing,
“That means a descending ship has three chances to get through against ninety-seven to foul up,” said Theban, “unless it came down so swiftly that it could pass through the death band in five centi-millipuntos. And if it did it wouldn’t have time to angle off for a landing.”
The mountaineer puffed foggily.
“Here goes the final test,” said Theban. He picked out a lively rabbit, hooked it to the end of a rope, handed the rope to the mountaineer. “Lower him almost to the death level. Now. We’re going to drop him into the level between every spoke of death, and jerk him up again before it hits him. If our timing is accurate he’ll keep right on kicking. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Let him down! Two. Three. Up! Five. (One. Two. Three. Four. Five.) Down! Two. Three. Up! Five. (One. Two . . .)”
“He’s still kicking.”
As the counting went on the mountaineer grew more and more baffled. How was this that the rabbit didn’t go dead? Perhaps the invisible force was no longer there. He would put it to a test of his own.
“. . . Two. Three. Up! Five. (One. Two—”)
“Hold on, we’ve got a dead rabbit,” the mountaineer drawled.
“What?”
“All my fault,” said the mountaineer. “I got a little sluggish on the rope, and your five-one caught him.”
Theban reached for another rabbit. There was just time to hook it on and swing it down before the invisible gateway rotated past.
“Down. One, two, three, four, five, six—Leave it down.”
“It’s still kicking.”
“It’ll keep kicking for exactly thirty-five centi-millipuntos. That’s the outside limit that the Draz-Kangs give themselves to pass through their own gate.”
“Still kicking.”
“Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six—”
“It’s dead, sir. Stopped on thirty-six.”
Theban rose abruptly. “I’m leaving. I may not see you again. But I want you to take this paper to the purgier headquarters at the Bronze Planet Capital. Get a pack mule. Make all possible speed.”
He handed the mountaineer a scrap of paper closely written on both sides. The mountaineer climbed to his feet and saluted.
“This describes the system we’ve worked out and makes note of your fine service. There’ll be a reward waiting for you. I hope you can get there before another White Comet ship sets out for this death trap, though I doubt it. Good-bye.”
“Good luck.”
The mountaineer gave another awkward salute. His gentle, curious eyes followed Theban as the latter made his way down the crater wall.
Thirty or forty feet down the young officer paused, studied the jagged wall below him, planned his steps.
Then came a long moment of waiting. The mountaineer could see the gleam of Theban’s watch and knew he was counting off the Centi-millipuntos, waiting for the invisible gateway.
Suddenly Theban made a run for it. He bounded down three perilous steps, sprang for the little cone-shaped landslide that projected from a wide crevice, slid, slid and scrambled—down—down! He was at the foot of the crater wall.
He clambered to his feet, turned and looked up toward the mountaineer two-hundred feet above him. Once more they exchanged salutes, and with that the young officer struck out across the wide yellow swamp.
He left foottracks behind him that soon filled with black water. He looked back at th
e trail he was making; then, to the utter astonishment of the mountaineer he suddenly changed his course as if he intended to follow the circumference of the crater.
“Does he figure he can circle their camp bolt upright?” the mountaineer muttered to himself. His eyes followed the blue tattered figure as it slogged along across the swamp. “They’ll spot him dead certain. He must be crazy . . . And all them figures and time schemes . . . He must have fell through safe by accident.
Suddenly he saw that the trudging form changed tactics once more. Theban was rolling over the ground. And gradually the path over which he rolled seeped full of black water, to form a wide black line.
“If he thinks that’s going to hide his trail,” the mountaineer mumbled, “he is crazy.”
Then the mountaineer glanced at the paper in his hand, turned and made tracks of his own toward a faraway neighbor’s where he might borrow a pack mule.
CHAPTER V
A New Captive for Vida
The underground nest of the Draz-Kangs was a riot of celebration. Of all the Draz-Kang hideouts, the dead crater of the Bronze mountains had long ago become the most popular and the most populous. It was the natural magnet for the Draz-Kang Carnage Ring—the inner circle which governed the policies and staged the attacks and planned the campaigns to undermine the law and order of the White Comet Union.
The present orgy of shouting and dancing and tin-pan beating, drinking and fighting, had begun with the recent crash of another White Comet ship.
When the black-uniformed guards had chased out over the yellow swamp to bear back the lifeless bodies of more purgiers, an uproar had torn loose throughout the rocky chambers and halls of the dead crater. Now the bedlam had been going on for two punt os; it would probably go on for several more.
When the first purgier ship had plunged to its death, several puntos before, the weird rollicking riot had been almost endless; for the Draz-Kang riffraff, excited by the professional terrorists, had been led to believe that the moment for a mob attack on the Bronze Planet Capital was at hand.
Then the mad orgy had been stopped with the suddenness of a falling meteor. A White Comet ship had floated down into the nest to stop at the foot of the space-ship runway. The air locks had flown open and Vida had come out. Vida the Beautiful, the favorite of the Carnage Ring. And with her had come a young male prisoner wearing the uniform of a White Comet guardsman.
With her usual scorn for the riff-raff, the howlers and noise-makers, Vida had gone directly to the Carnage Ring with her prisoner and her account of her adventures. The captured ship had been rolled into a repair chamber for re-, painting. And the mob, left curious, had quieted.
But now the mania of dancing and marching and shouting was on again in full force, and the rhythmic mob-cries rang through the vast cavernous spaces.
Blannnng! Blannnngf Blannnng!
The alarm gongs suddenly rang out with a spine-tingling shrillness that brought all pandemonium to a halt.
The loud-speaker system crackled and sputtered and burst forth with deep-throated words.
“Attention, Draz-Kangs! The Carnage Ring had several announcements of general interest.
“Announcement number one: The Crater Killer is being shifted from time-system number three to time-system number four. All persons who contemplate leaving these quarters by space ship or otherwise take notice. Time-system number four goes into effect this instant.”
As the words were spoken, an engineer stationed in the tower high over the underground nest pressed a button. The colored signal lights that blazoned upward to be read by any approaching plane or space boat changed from “3” to “4”.
“Announcement number two: The reason for this sudden shift is that the purgiers may have solved the rhythm of time-system number three.”
A widespread groan sounded through the Draz-Kang caverns.
“At this moment a uniformed man believed to be a purgier is approaching our nest. Our observers saw him descend over the crater wall. We must assume that he did not come through the Crater Killer by accident. However, he will not know that the time-system has been changed. He will think he knows his way out safely. Don’t disillusion him. All guards take notice. If he becomes your prisoner, you mustn’t know that he knows anything about the Crater-Killer system.
“Announcement number three: All guards at the entrances keep on the lookout but keep yourselves concealed. If the man is a purgier it is more important to observe him and find out what he knows and what his plans are than to capture him outright.
“Announcement number four: Let the merry-making continue!”
The first three announcements went over the heads of hundreds of soggy staggering merry-makers, but announcement number four was understood by everybody. Through the rocky walls high and low the battering of cymbals, the blare of horns, the shouting of hoarse voices carried on.
Vida the Beautiful hurried along a dimly lighted avenue to the prison cells.
Two guards saluted her, conducted her through a series of doorways to the private luxurious room in which Ilando was interned. They locked the door behind her and departed.
Ilando leaped to his feet. Under the amber glare reflected off the walls of green-gray hewn rock his face was pallid. His white fingers twitched nervously.
“What’s the matter, my fair-haired friend,” said Vida with a slight smile. “You don’t look so happy. Maybe you need a drink.”
She handed him a small bottle of wine. He filled his glass and drank. Another glassful drained the bottle. He gulped it down.
“Vida, what’s the meaning of all this?” he demanded savagely. “You told me to wait until you arranged for our escape—”
“Now don’t go raving like a mad man—”
“I’ll be a mad man if this keeps up!” He paced the floor. “I’m nothing but a common prisoner here!”
“That’s my scheme, I tell you,” the girl retorted, backing out of Ilando’s path. “You’ve got to look like a prisoner and act like one—”
“Act like one, hell! How can I do anything else? Guards and locks and bread and water—”
“You’re doing fine I That’s beautiful!” The girl’s enthusiasm was tinged with sarcasm, but Ilando was in no condition to detect the subtleties of her manner. “If you acted any other way these Draz-Kangs would tear you to pieces, and what would happen to our sweet little air-castle?”
“Then you are going through with it!” Ilando turned to the girl fiercely, tried to catch her shoulders but she eluded him. “You’ll get us both out of here?”
“Do I have to go over all that again?” Vida whined with an irked gesture.
Ilando followed her with a desperate throb in his voice. “Vida! Vida! I love you so! I can’t endure much more of this—”
For a moment the girl stood before him and the light played over her gorgeous face and the taunting beauty of her figure.
“All right, all right!” She gave a wave of impatience. “Stop your raving. It won’t get you out any quicker. What can you hear back in this room?”
“Hear? Nothing. It’s so ghastly quiet I wouldn’t know there was a soul within miles—except when you or the guards come back—”
“You can’t hear the celebrating—or announcements?”
Ilando shook his head blankly, and Vida, listening for a moment, realized that he was telling the truth.
“All right. That’s all I wanted to know.” She started to go.
“What’s happened? Why are they celebrating? What are they announcing?”
“Another victory,” said Vida dryly. “Another ship of purgiers fell to us a punto or two ago . . . Well, you don’t seem very happy about it.”
“Sure, that’s good. That’s fine,” Ilando commented in an uncertain tone. “But T h e b a n—Theban Hyko—he wasn’t one of them was he?”
“What if he was?”
“Was he?”
“How could he be? You turned him loose in the mountains, you rat, or I’d have ha
d him—” Vida broke off sharply. The uncontrolled ire that rang through her voice brought back the familiar gleam of disillusion in Ilando’s eyes. She warded off his suspicion by taking his hand. For a moment her words were hurt and pleading.
“But Ilando, dear, how can I forget what you did? You deliberately deceived me. You knew I wanted to bring him back as my captive—”
“That wasn’t what you told me when I agreed to let you hide in his space boat—”
“I don’t give a hang what I said.” Vida whirled away. “That was what I wanted, and you knew it. And that’s why I slammed him over the head when he started for you—and what did you do? Turned him loose! Set him free while I slept! I ought to kill—” Again the girl caught herself, and none too soon. Ilando came at her, his eyes blazing wide, his fists clenched. He seized her by the arms, forced her against the wall—
“Vida! Vida!”
The girl tossed her head slightly to one side and assumed a cool tantalizing smile.
Ilando breathed nervously, the muscles in his face twitched and jerked. “Vida, if I weren’t so sure of you—you and me—”
The girl slid out of his relaxed grasp. “I told you to stop that sentimental talk,” she taunted. “Someone’ll hear us. And let me tell you another thing. If Theban Hyko should find his way into this Draz-Kang nest, watch out how you let him work on you—or you’ll find yourself in the same boat with him.”
Ilando gave an astonished gasp. “You—you think he might come?”
“They say someone slipped through the Crater Killer early this punto~~on foot. Someone in a purgier’s uniform. Figure it out for yourself.”
Vida called for the guards and with a shrug of the shoulders she sauntered away, leaving Ilando to his thoughts.
CHAPTER VI
Stronghold of the Draz-Kangs
The closer Theban Hyko came to the verdant mound that heaped up in the center of the swampy yellow floor, the less he liked its looks. That tower top, from a closer view, looked as if it might be more than the hub of a gigantic death wheel. It might also be an observatory.
