by Don Wilcox
Theban knew he had taken a long chance, maneuvering about in daylight. Now he waited for darkness, clinging perilously to scraps of swamp weed to keep from sinking in the spongy soil.
Under the protection of darkness he traversed the last mile. The mound loomed black against the deep blue sky. Apparently the long-dead volcano had built, in its dying days, a smaller crater cone within the vast original crater. It was the smaller crater that loomed up as a mound; and within its hidden recesses—as yet unexplored by any purgier—he expected to find the fugitive Draz-Kangs.
Halfway around the side of the mound the starlit paths converged toward a huge mass of blackness that Theban guessed must be the open mouth of the cave.
The low thuds of his tattered boots echoed back to him as he plodded into the cavern. It was a long, dark, gently-inclined runway. Gradually it closed in like a funnel, still large enough for the largest of space ships to enter.
Dim green lights could now be seen far down the way. Here and there splotches of black in the green-glinting walls indicated that there were alcoves, perhaps a maze of corridors, leading off from the main stem.
Theban cautiously ventured toward a few of these. But none were lighted. Sometimes there would be sounds of stealthy footsteps. Now and then he would catch sight of a dark shadowy human form moving across his path a few yards beyond him.
He looked in vain for stairs or ladders leading upward. He knew he was getting far below the level of the tower that dispensed the invisible death. Somehow he must get back—
At last the space ship runway veered off to his right toward a vast open shelf or chamber where he could see, under the dim lights, the hulls of a few idle ships. But most of the light, and certainly all of the noise, came from another direction. Theban followed the broad ramp to the left.
Momentarily a figure marched along in step with him. It was his reflection in a glazed surface along the wall. It gave him a sense of satisfaction to recall that his identity as a purgier was lost within a disguise of an unshaven face and a mud-caked uniform.
The walls widened, his vision spread over the wide plaza, ghastly brilliant under the purple lights. It swung in a wide circle; far across the open circular chasm he could see it on the other side.
Here and there over the circular purple plaza were groups of figures, some doing weird dances, some chasing and playing, shouting and fighting. Theban wondered whether there would be safety for him in such a chaotic mob. Perhaps if he joined the confusion, he could get onto the ropes of this place without being noticed.
A group of careless merry-makers staggered past him and went dizzily on their way. Theban grew bold, advanced to the railing of the plaza, looked down into the vast open chasm that had once been the mouth of a volcano.
For all the lights that lined the bronze-hued walls, this might have been the inside of a vast dome of some gigantic building. Three or four hundred feet down the opening met a white-rock floor. Squads of Draz-Kang troops were doing drills, and the thunder of their tread sounded clearly from the bottom of the cavern.
The purple plaza seemed to be the central dividing level of this underground world. There were innumerable lesser balconies above and below it. As Theban’s eyes roved over the endless maze of stone-hewn pathways and alcoves and windows that opened upon this central shaft, he involuntarily shrank back toward the deeper shadows.
There were eyes—hundreds of pairs of dark eyes—staring toward him out of dark faces. Gradually the clamor of merry-making was dying down, and in its place came the echoes of breathy whispers and hushed talk.
Still, Theban saw that many dark-clad figures seemed to be going about their routine business. The tread of marching feet continued to echo from the depths. Higher up there was a shelf upon which men were carrying on target practice with flame guns. Elsewhere there were games of chance, eating, drinking. A whole world of activity was visible from the purple plaza. And up and down the cylindrical walls was a continual traffic of goods and persons, carried on moving cable.
Theban’s eyes turned back to the shadowy alcoves and stairways that ranged aloft. Those mysterious watchers were still there—
Some raucous yelling burst out upon the plaza. A party of ten or twelve merry-makers came chasing down the way. They stormed past Theban, their half-clad bodies gleaming under the purple light, their unkempt black hair flying—
Theban’s blood went cold. The streamers and trophies they were waving with such mad glee were purgiers’ uniforms and badges—relics from the White Comet ships!
As the last of the mad procession passed, Theban caught the insignia on a sleeve being waved from a stick. That had once been the coat of a comrade!
Theban’s muscles turned to steel. He chose the most likely stairs, ascended as swiftly as dared, paid no heed to the figures he passed. Higher and higher—now he must be getting into the base of the tower, for the walls were closing in rapidly.
On the red balcony he stopped. Three men faced him.
The rafters of a tower were above him, and a ladder pointed the way. Off from the red balcony, beyond doorways arched in red lights, were power rooms where engineers watched over humming motors.
Over the edge of the balcony was that vast open chasm, its walls lined with moving cables and zig-zag stairways, purple-lighted plazas, and—far, far down—the little white floor alive with squads of little black figures no bigger than bugs.
Three ugly defiant faces, three black uniforms, three gleaming flame guns challenged Theban’s right to move a single step farther.
Theban lifted his hands slowly. Out of the corner of his eye he concentrated on the nearby power room.
One quick monkey wrench in that machinery, he thought, might queer the whole death trap. It would mean quick death for him, no doubt; but for the White Comet Union it might mean—
“Turn around and march!” the guttural voice of one of the gunmen bawled. He gave a menacing gesture with the flame gun.
Instantly Theban made his decision. He sprang for the power room door. Back of him the flame guns hissed. The hot blaze caught the calves of his legs.
His leap for the open door was cut short. A beam from within swung at him with the precision of electric-eye timing. It was an automatic protection device.
The beam caught him across the chest, knocked him backward. He staggered as if he were blind. His burning legs sank beneath him. He tottered over the balcony rail, clutched frantically for anything his hands could grasp, his fingers froze upon a rope!
He swung downward.
The vast underground world yawned beneath him—
Blannnnng! Blannnng! Blannnnng! Blannnnng!
The shrill alarm bells rang up at him with a spine-chilling clangor. The ear-splitting volume was redoubled by the closeness of the walls. He seemed to be hanging at the top of a gigantic bell, whose wild cry set the nerves in his grasping fingers to tingling.
“Get him off that alarm bell!” one of the three gunman roared. “Get a rope on him, chop him down, anything!”
Theban hung on for dear life. He started to climb up, hand over hand, but the legs of his uniform were ablaze, and his energies went into kicking—and hanging on.
Now the men caught the rope and drew him up. The alarm bell ceased; its echoes gave way to a frantic hum of voices that welled up from all the depths below. The stairs clattered with footsteps. Several important-looking uniformed men bounded up toward the red balcony.
“A fine mess!” one of the gunmen muttered ruefully. “Now we’ve got the whole Carnage Ring on their high horses!”
All fifteen members of the Carnage Ring crowded onto the red balcony in time to see Theban Hyko drawn safely over the rail. The gunmen slapped his blazing trousers with the ends of ropes until the flames were extinguished.
“So that’s the purgier!”
“It’s Theban Hyko, I’ve seen his picture!”
“Well, I’ll be damned, we’ve got one alive at last!”
“This is another feather
in Vida’s hat!”
“Why?”
“She claims she tricked him into coming here.”
The fifteen members of the Carnage Ring and the three gunmen all talked at once.
“This calls for another celebration, gentlemen!”
“What the hell was he trying to do, crash the Crater Killer?”
“Get him down in a cell, clean him up, and put some prison clothes on him.”
“Go say something in the speaker. The Draz-Kangs are on a rampage.”
“All right, let Vida have him. If she rounds up a few more key men we’ll have the whole damn Union on the run.”
“Give him to Vida on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“The Draz-Kangs have got to see him die. That much they’ll demand.”
“She’ll give ’em that, and make ’em like it!”
“Give that rope a jerk, will you?”
Blannnnng! Blannnnnnng!
“Fellow Draz-Kangs!” the loud speakers reverberated throughout the cavernous world. “Another victory! We’ve captured the famous purgier, Theban Hyko . . .”
The words were swallowed up in a roar that shook the cylindrical bronze walls of the inner crater.
CHAPTER VII
A Woman Spurned
Four long silent painful puntos passed, according to Theban’s prized silver watch, before anything happened to relieve the nothingness of his imprisonment.
Then, at the very time he knew that dawn must be breaking upon the Bronze mountains and the yellow swamps somewhere over his head, an unexpected break came to Theban Hyko.
He heard the guards speak of another prisoner, a young guardsman by the name of Ilando Ken. Instantly Theban was on the alert.
Soon the bars of his cell swung open, the guard stepped in, placed his breakfast on the table, started out. Theban leaped for him, struck him down, seized his keys. A second guard dashed up, and Theban caught him at the door, overpowered him.
The clash had come and gone so quickly that for an instant Theban was flushed with confidence. He looked toward the outer end of the prison corridor where he knew a squad of armed guards waited. He was tempted to make another try for the tower of the Crater Killer.
But a backward glance at the two men he had just bound and gagged restrained him, for he saw one of them give the other a slight nudge.
Yes, it was perfectly plain. He had overpowered them too easily. They had been unarmed. They had spoken of Ilando Ken within his hearing, then they had deliberately given him a chance to break out, knowing that he would go to Ilando. Vida was back of this!
Very well, he would go to Ilando. Nothing could make his own plight any worse than it was. And as to Ilando’s plight—
“Theban, you’ve got to get me out of here!”
Ilando’s taut voice sawed upon Theban’s nerves, but Theban, peering through the bars, looked past his erstwhile friend to the smooth-hewn walls that surrounded him.
“Are there any earphones in here?” Theban asked sharply. “I’ve been tricked into coming to find you.” Ilando’s eyes swept the room and came back to flood their terror upon Theban. “You’ve got to get me out of here, Theban!”
Theban spoke coolly, bitterly. “Aren’t you here from choice?”
“God, no! You’ve got keys, Theban. You can get me out. You know how to beat the death trap, too. I heard the guards say so—”
“Why should I get you out?”
“I want to go back to Frigio. I want to go back, I tell you—Finish my term. Don’t look at me like that! I mean it, Theban! God, if you’ll just get me out of here—give me a chance—”
Smash!
In his uncontrolled gestures Ilando struck a glass off the table. It crashed to the floor, and he trod over it, scarcely noticing.
“You could tell them I was with you all the time, Theban! They wouldn’t have to know I was a—a—”
“Deserter is the word,” said Theban quietly.
“Don’t say it, Theban! For God’s sake, don’t ever say it!”
“What else can I say?” Theban turned a key and entered the luxurious prison room to stand before Ilando. He stood with the unbearable calmness, in Ilando’s erratic thoughts, of one who stands fearless before a firing squad.
Ilando’s high-strung voice dropped down to a low hoarse whisper. “Theban. Theban, listen to me. You’re the only one who knows. The only one in the whole White Comet Union. They all think I’m with you. You can save me, Theban. You can give me a chance to start over—”
“You’re talking wild. You’re a prisoner here. So am I. These Draz-Kangs aren’t going to let us get out. They’d hack us to bits and burn us to charcoal before they’d see us set free—”
“They’re not all so cruel—”
“I’ve had lots of dealings with Draz-Kangs—”
“You forget, there’s Vida—”
“Vida!” Theban fairly howled the name. “You poor blind idiot, haven’t you come to your senses yet? Don’t you know that girl is poison? She hasn’t an ounce of honest sentiment—”
“Just how do you know so much?” interrupted a mocking female voice from the open door. “And since when have you been so interested in the honesty of my sentiments, Mr. Hyko?”
Theban and Ilando turned to face Vida—Vida the Beautiful, standing languorously in the doorway, her orange-red lips touched with an arrogant smile, her jeweled shoulders and breasts glittering defiantly. A few feet down the prison corridor stood the two guards whom Theban had recently bound and gagged. They waited, with flame guns poised; for Vida’s orders.
“Put him back in his cell,” the girl said huskily, nodding toward Theban.
Theban tossed the keys over to a guard. Far down the hall the squad of armed guards watched the proceedings with alert eyes. Vida ordered Ilando’s cell locked, she gave Ilando a saccharine taunt to the effect that her fair-haired boy must be well protected, then she led the way back to Theban’s quarters.
“You may leave his cell door open for the present,” Vida murmured to the guards, who nodded and moved on down the corridor. Theban walked into his cell and planted his back solidly against the wall. He gave no sign of surprise that Vida followed him in.
The girl stopped in the center of the little room, turned her face to the light, and applied a touch of powder to her cheeks, rouge to her lips. Then her eyes snapped toward Theban.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I asked you just when you became interested in my sentiments . . . Could it have been that certain moment on your space ship?”
“What certain moment?”
“Your memory is very bad, Mr. Hyko. Have you forgotten that for a moment you held me very closely—and very fiercely?”
Theban’s eyelids lifted sullenly. “Did you come here to remind me of that?” The girl sauntered across the room leisurely; she was obviously mindful of the fact that she was adorned in a very daring costume. Again she stopped under the light, placed an arm akimbo, tilted her head.
“The Draz-Kangs call you Hyko the Lucky,” she said. “The name is very appropriate, don’t you think?”
Theban did not answer; he breathed and stood and waited with forced restraint.
“Hyko the Lucky—on two counts. First, you happened to slide through the Crater Killer alive. That’s a rare accident for anyone.” With these words she studied Theban’s face sharply. It told her nothing.
“In the second place,” the girl continued, “they call you lucky because you happen to be my prisoner.”
Again she cast a sharp glance at that bronzed face, which gave forth no more expression than the bronze walls.
“Perhaps you don’t appreciate your good fortune. Perhaps you don’t realize the extent of my power. I could even set you free if I wanted to . . . You don’t seem to be impressed.”
The girl lighted a cigarette; she came close to Theban, blew smoke in his face, spoke in a low satiny
voice. “But I think you are impressed. You’re too proud to admit it, but you’re too wise to pass up a chance to save your hide.” The lines around Theban’s eyes tightened; he bit his lips, held his silence.
Vida passed her hand over his shoulder, tilted her face up toward his. “What’s more, you’re not half so immune to feminine charms as you try to pretend™”
“I’d burn at the stake before I’d plead to you!” Theban bit his words crisply, flung the girl aside.
She sprang back at him like an angered tiger, flung a clawed hand at his face, screeching, “You beast, you miserable—”
“Call me what you want to, my statement still goes!” Theban hurled the words at her so savagely that she winced. He caught her upraised arms, forced her out through the cell door, slammed the bars closed behind her.
CHAPTER VIII
Execution
The ceremony was brief and unencumbered by ritual. The Draz-Kangs had little use for ritual. They preferred to take their excitement straight.
On the platform were Ilando and
Theban and four other male prisoners, seated. At either side were a number of guards; and on the upper tier of the platform, standing, were the fifteen members of the Carnage Ring—and Vida.
The crowds filled the entire purple plaza—a closely packed swarm of slovenly black-uniformed creatures of both sexes. All rioting and celebrating had been suspended, the gambling dens had closed shop, the transportation workers had deserted their moving cables, the professional thieves and swindlers from the outside world had postponed their money-counting.
A spokesman from the Carnage Ring stepped to the microphones. Theban held his breath. At his side he could fell Ilando’s arm quiver and twitch.
“Our own Vida the Beautiful,” the voice rattled through the speaker system and thundered off into the distant chambers, “who has won many honors, and who has been responsible for so many out-and-out captures of our enemies, and who has converted so many fervent workers to our undying cause, stands before you this punto—” A roar of enthusiasm broke loose as the speaker gestured toward the subject of his words.
