by Don Wilcox
Perhaps they had persuaded her to change her mind. She must have gone. These empty caverns held no living thing. No living thing—
The words stuck in Allison’s throat. An unfamiliar coldness spread through his body. He forced himself back toward the ship, telling himself that he had looked everywhere—everywhere that June could possibly have gone—
But there was another cave he hadn’t explored—and there was another ravine—and another . . .
Hour after hour Allison searched and called. Time after time he started back, only to be stopped by an intangible something. Sometimes he thought he heard faint sounds somewhere out in the blackness beyond the reach of his light. Not the sounds of a voice, not the clatter of a rivulet beating over stones—something fainter, more musical, like the almost inaudible hum of a tiny insect.
Hmmmmmmm! Hmmmmmm! The sound melted away into nothing . . .
There it came again, a perfect tone—and another, slightly higher! Where did it come from? This way and that Allison moved quickly. The subtle tones were closer now—and there were three of them—three delicate harmonious notes of a stringed instrument! The zither!
“June! June!” Allison’s voice was no more than a clogged, croaking whisper. “June, where are you?”
His ghastly call echoed away into the blackness. No voice answered. Silence—then it came again, as clearly as if it were resounding through a speaker! Hmmmmm—hmmmmmm!—hmmmmm!
A few more steps, then Allison’s light flashed down over an abrupt break in the rocks. The caprices of nature had formed a trap—a triangular dungeon-like pit as deep and straight-walled as a cistern. The flashlight’s beam found a white form lying limp on the stony floor.
Allison looked down upon the most pitiful and at the same time the most beautiful face he ever hoped to see.
June O’Neil’s eyes were almost closed. Her dry swollen lips were open. Her clothes were in shreds, her fingers were torn and clotted with blood. One limp hand weakly stroked the battered little zither that lay beside her.
In a moment Allison had her in his arms, was whispering to her.
CHAPTER IX
The Long Chance
“You poor child,” Allison breathed. “So you stayed—for me—” A slight movement of her white eyelids and a barely perceptible smile that touched her lips were all the response she could give.
Lifting her out with the aid of the rope, which he had knotted into a sort of ladder, Allison carried her to the nearest rivulet. She was near to dying from thirst. Many an hour must have passed since her fall. He wondered if she would live. Gently he bathed her face and her limp body.
An hour later, lying on a cot in the great Mercurian laboratory, she lifted her arms up to Allison and spoke to him, smiling through tears. Those tears looked good to Allison. He knew she was feeling better.
Though the memory of the interminable hours of darkness she had spent in the trap haunted her mercilessly, June O’Neil was quick to regain her strength.
Soon she was able to tell Allison everything—the anxiety of the little Earth group to go to Venus after him; the troubles with the robot ship; the swift hours of work through most of four months, which had at last evolved the two battering rams; her own fateful decision not to go; her fall, the blow against her head that had struck her unconscious, the terror of awakening in the blackness—trapped!
And finally, June concluded, the frantic efforts to break stones from the wall and to carve handholds—only to be overcome by sickness and exhaustion and thirst.
Allison smoothed her hair. She must think no more about it; she must rest, sleep, gain back her strength.
“But you haven’t told me a word of yourself, Lester.”
As Allison gave her his story, June O’Neil’s eyes opened wide.
“And this person Sasho,” she said, “will he actually go ahead with such a plan?”
“By this time he is probably starting his whole fleet into motion.”
June was alarmed, but even so she was in no state to imagine the stupendousness of the thing.
“What will the earth do?”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for the earth to do anything.”
The girl drew herself up on one elbow and looked at Allison intently.
“What about Mary and Smitt and the others? What will happen to them?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are we doing here?” June’s voice rang with alarm.
“Waiting for you to regain your strength. I’m not going to leave you again—”
“I’m strong already! And I can gain as well riding through space as here.” Firm purpose glowed in the girl’s youthful face. “Carry me aboard, Lester.”
They were off.
In addition to their one prisoner, Siccolo, whom Allison had already had aboard after his escape from earth in the S-37, they carried a heavy cargo of molded metals—articles which the automatic Mercurian machines had turned out by the thousands while Allison had been searching for June. During the hour that he had entered the laboratories, he had set the machinery to humming. It was only a crude hunch, he had told himself, but the effort required was so slight that it was worth a try.
“Anyone in the world that makes trouble for Sasho,” Allison told June, by way of explaining his curious cargo of hardware, “is doing mankind a favor.”
Allison set the ship for a straight hard course toward Venus. June walked about on unsteady legs. She surveyed the roomfuls of red metal spears, swords, helmets and shields. There were even a few of the black metal axes which had been left over from the original Mercurian civilization. June wondered if Lester had gone out of his head.
Allison grinned and said he didn’t know, perhaps he had. But these were weapons that the machines could turn out most easily and they were weapons that anyone could use. It was his theory that the very possession of a weapon can make a frightened creature bold.
“I hope we can find a few thousand men who’ll take a fancy to red hats and sharp spears,” he added.
A few hours later, when the S-37 hovered among the silvery clouds high over Venus, June gazed down through the high-powered telescope and saw the few thousand men that Allison had in mind.
Though these people were too far away for their green faces to be seen, June could guess from their primitive-looking mountain camps that they were the hordes of Venusians whom Sasho’s cutthroats had robbed and driven off. The Jagged Mountains, their stronghold, was many miles removed from the blue-domed cities that dotted the vast panorama and were now in the hands of Sasho.
“Any activity?” Allison asked. He was busy at the controls, cruising at the lowest possible speed.
“They seem to be holding conferences,” June replied. “Do you think they have radios?”
“In all probability.”
Radio broadcasts from the Venusian military headquarters were going strong. From the moment the S-37 had come into listening range, June and Allison had picked up messages.
The first thing they had heard was some last minute instructions of no particular importance to the departing S-44. The important thing to Allison was that the S-44—the ship whose flame-cloud had unwittingly caught the crew of the S-37—was starting back on a second trip.
Every other ship was gone now, the messages implied. There was a hint of disturbance over the missing S-37, otherwise things were going well. But to make sure they continued to go well, the S-44 was loaded with high-ranking officers who would supervise the fleet’s return.
There were numerous other messages, all of them charged with the war spirit and anticipation of the greatest, most complete, military victory in history!
“The Sasho Victory Festival begins today!” boomed a stock announcement every few minutes. “Your attendance is your declaration of allegiance to the Sasho Empire! Your absence brands you as a damned rebel!”
Allison groaned. “No wonder those green-faced Venusians are holding conferences all over the Jagged Mountains. If they ventu
re toward any city to take in the Festival, they’ll probably be caught and turned over to the Cutthroats and shot. But if they don’t show up, they’ve branded themselves for life as ‘damned rebels’.”
Allison looked at his stacks of spears and swords with a sigh. He wished they could have been automatic guns. But the green-faces would run at the sight of a gun, no doubt. Getting spears and swords into their hands was going to be difficult enough—and perhaps futile, at that.
“A large group is heading toward that central plateau over there now,” June called down from the observatory through the speaking tube. “You’ve got plenty of time to get there ahead of them.”
It was a difficult task of piloting for Allison, novice that he was, but within a few minutes he achieved it, landing on the central lookout plateau. Then came the strenuous job of unloading. He wished he could have forced Siccolo to help him, but that yellow-eyed prisoner was not to be trusted outside his cell.
The weapons were stacked in gleaming red piles. Allison had almost finished when the approaching column of green-faces came into sight a quarter of a mile down the trail.
They saw the space ship, turned tail and ran!
“No use trying to reason with those boys,” Allison growled disgustedly. “They only understand two English words: ‘damned rebel’.”
Allison took off as quietly as possible. He and June looked down from the high cloud level. What they saw through their telescopes was disheartening. The party of Venusians had switched to a different trail. They feared a trap. All those fine metal weapons might lie untouched forever.
“If they only knew we were their friends,” June sighed.
“Too bad. They’ll eventually fall before Cutthroat bullets. They could at least go down fighting if they only knew. It’s a cinch no Sasho bullet would go through one of those red metal shields.”
But Allison’s efforts were apparently lost. Messengers sped through the mountain trails from one green-faced group to another, obviously to warn against trouble from the skies. Allison steered back toward the open skies high above the blue-domed Sasho cities.
“What could have become of our two battering rams?” June asked, continuing to scan the vast landscape.
“Perhaps captured,” Allison answered quietly.
It was a dark moment. June sensed that for once Allison was uncertain which way to turn. The earth was a lost cause! The two battering rams containing the nearest and dearest friends in the world—the four young couples from Mercury—had doubtless gone to their unknown doom!
June, acting upon her womanly instincts, went to the supply cupboards and brought forth food. Nothing was so full of inspiration as calories, she said.
Allison returned her brave smile, kissed her. For a brief moment his thoughts flashed back to the wedding that had been postponed. He did not mention it, for all too obviously he saw that that lost hour would never come back. They were in the Sasho maelstrom now. It was up to them to gamble against the fates to the last—and that course certainly led to death.
Suddenly something came in on the radio-telephones that set Allison’s imagination aflame. It was a message from the Venusian headquarters—an answer to a clamoring public.
Don’t be alarmed about the rumored invasion from Mercury, said the reassuring voice. (So Allison’s story of Mercury’s millions of warriors had taken root!) The rumored voices from Mercury ships had been heard no more, the broadcast continued.
And Allison fairly shouted, “Voices! Could that have been Smitt and Laughlin and—”
June nodded eagerly. “Oh, thank God they’re safe!”
The Venusian announcement continued:
“Either the Mercurian report was a false alarm resulting from a confusion of messages, or else the invaders were bluffed out. Nevertheless the spaceship defense guns are keeping a close watch on the skies.”
At these words Allison automatically rocketed high out into the heavens. True, his ship bore a safe name, the Sasho-37, but the Sasho gunners, if they sighted a boat that hadn’t radioed in, might not stop to read names.
“What now?” June asked in a heartening voice.
“Back to our green-faced natives,” said Allison. “We’ll try again. There was inspiration in them thar calories you served up,” he added with a tight grin.
He set the controls to circle safely and turned to an equipment cupboard.
“We’ve got a bunch of space parachutes here. We may as well use them.”
As a matter of ordinary precaution, they had already donned space suits and parachutes and had placed oxygen helmets within easy reach. But there were twenty-five or thirty more parachutes—theirs to throw away. That was Allison’s inspiration.
He coasted down to within a mile of the tops of the Jagged Mountains, applying counter-motors to slow the ship down almost to glider speed.
At his direction, June threw the parachutes away by way of the disposal chute, one after another. Each parachute was attached to a bundle of red metal hardware—a sword, a spear, a shield and a helmet. Luckily Allison had kept a few of each.
The third parachute fell true. It deposited its bundle in the very center of an unsuspecting group of green-faces. Their surprised faces looked up to see the cascade of red bundles on their way down. The line led directly to the central plateau, where Allison had previously unloaded and stacked thousands of weapons.
“There,” said Allison. “We’ve told them we’re friends in language plainer than English. Now if they only had a husky fellow about the size of Sasho to use for target practice, they’d be the happiest rebels in the world.”
“Good work!” June smiled. “What next?”
“Up into the skies before a telescope spots us.”
“Then what?”
Allison took a deep breath. The headquarters radio messages continued to pour in. The Sasho communications staff was stewing for a word from tardy ships.
“Willing to take a long chance? Even though the payoff might be final?”
June nodded.
“We don’t have much to work with,” Allison observed. “But we’ve got a Sasho ship and plenty of fuel. And we’ve got you.
“What can I do?” June exclaimed.
“Maybe you can lie,” said Allison. “Lies have been my most useful weapon the last four months. Can you?”
“I—I’ll try,” she stammered beathlessly.
“Okay. We’ve got a ship, two willing liars, a radio transmitter, and a yellow-eyed Sasho officer who’s getting tired of his cell. We’ll begin by putting Siccolo and the transmitter together!”
CHAPTER X
Fires of Rebellion
Orange and silver banners blazed from every blue dome, every public square, every stadium throughout the Sasho cities of Venus. The stadiums and amphitheaters filled rapidly. Throngs of excited, expectant people streamed in from the hinterlands.
Over and over the announcement boomed through thousands of amplifiers.
“The Sasho Victory Festival begins today. Your attendance is your declaration of allegiance. Your absence brands you as a damned rebel!”
Every Sasho stadium contained a four-sided silver tower in the center of the grounds. From each side of each silver tower the televised face of Sasho looked out upon the crowds. From time to time, the voices of officials blared forth from the orange horns that topped the silver towers.
Soon now a volley of fireworks would spurt from the top of every tower, signifying the return of the first ship of the flamer fleet. Then everyone would rise and salute, and the televised face of Sasho would speak and his incomparable voice would thunder from the orange horns. That was the declaration of victory for which everyone waited.
The biggest crowds, of course, were massed at the Capital Stadium. There they could see the real thing—Sasho himself, his bulky head and hunched shoulders looking strangely small in comparison with his gigantic televised image. He and a few other officers occupied the little open platform near the top of the stadium’s s
ilver tower.
Here at the Capital Stadium, the eyes of the multitude tired themselves out gazing into the skies. The space ships must return soon. One by one they would fly down out of the mysterious nowhere, bearing proof that Sasho’s great plan had been fulfilled.
The flamer ships would return as they had left, twenty minutes apart, as Sasho’s time was reckoned. And—thrill of thrills!—they would coast right into the center of the Capital Stadium, one every twenty minutes, each to receive fitting recognition from the mouth of the Emperor.
At first the waiting was not wearisome. Some cruel sports had been planned to keep the crowds entertained. Silent airplanes sewed back and forth, portraying the flamer fleet’s attacks upon the earth. An explanation of the careful clockwork plans was given.
To the multitude’s delight, a touch of realism was added to prove how effectively the gas-clouds could destroy. A specially built plane spread a tiny cloud through one avenue of the stadium, where a few captive green-faced rebels had been placed to represent Earth people.
Ignited, the little cloud barked out a vigorous explosion, The flash of fire was accompanied by many a startled, agonized scream from the victims. Then the crowd saw how quickly and efficiently the purpose had been achieved. Every green-faced rebel’s clothes was a mass of flames!
Cheering throngs and blaring bands, freakish sadistic demonstrations and parading young warriors all did their best to keep that handsome smile of victory on the Sasho face.
But the Sasho smile was not at top form. It came and went with bewildering rapidity. It came with effort. Then the big chin would shoot upward, the twisted lips would spread to show angry teeth, and the head and body would quickly turn, as if in answer to some pressing business.
Back of the scenes all was by no means well. The first of the fleet ships should have radioed in by this time. But no report came.
