by Don Wilcox
But no—that was our little surprise, and Jay had the honor of springing it.
“Come in here, you devils!” Lathrop snapped. His gun was on them.
For the first time I saw expressions other than insolence in these guards’ faces. Talk about surprise. These uniformed bozos were turned ice-cold in their tracks.
“You don’t—you don’t dare shoot!” the spokesman of the lot stammered. “The ship can’t take it!”
“That’s why we’re got you,” Lathrop said, and the way he clipped his words they knew he meant business. “We don’t give a damn about the ship!”
We were with him, whatever he meant to do. Our guns were ready. And unless these guards had the means to fill us with lead, we could run this bluff just as far as they. Anyhow we thought we could.
The biggest of the guards, who had done most of the talking, began to curse.
“Shut up!” said Lathrop, brandishing his gun.
The four guards began to mumble and whimper, and then they came toward us, and it looked as if our bluff was done.
“Shall I shoot ’em?” Midge yelled.
Before Lathrop could give a cue one way or the other our telephone rang. That froze both sides of us momentarily.
As if I wasn’t already frozen from fear. The thought of a ray-gun battle while we were still out in space was a contemplation of suicide, nothing else. The air within this enclosed shell would leak away in a hurry at the rate we were roaring through space. As for our magnetic properties that carried our meteoroids along, it was anyone’s guess how they might be affected if the walls were blasted through.
The phone rang a second time, and Lathrop made the big guard answer it.
“It’s Novairre, the scientist,” said the guard, holding his hand over the mouthpiece. “He wants to know what about these two men.”
“Tell him they’re on their way down.”
The guard obeyed and hung up. Instantly the phone rang again.
“It’s Violet Speer,” said the guard.
“What does she want?” said Lathrop.
“You,” said the guard. “You’re to meet her on the observation deck to watch the landing at Venus.”
“Tell her she can wait for me,” said Lathrop. But the guard hung up.
“She wants you now. She’s sending a five-guard escort.”
“So she doesn’t trust me!”
“You said it!” the guard said. He suddenly opened up, and his three companions smirked knowingly at what he had to say. “She’s got your number, smart boy. She knows you’re heading up a revolution. You’ve already started to work on these new passengers.” Another guard helped him pour it on. “You won’t get far, buddy. She’s got you trapped.”
And a third put in, “Got any last words, mister? You’ll never get home alive.”
“In that case—” Lathrop advanced a step with his gun. “Get out of those uniforms. Get out or I’ll shoot.”
“The hell with you,” said the big guard. “You don’t dare—”
Lathrop pulled the trigger. The bolt of magic blue lightning went out straight and hard, and in that split second one of the four guards vanished. He was gone, from his last evil breath to his very shoestrings.
But that wasn’t all that was gone. A chunk of stateroom wall was missing. A section of utility pipes was out. And beyond them more walls blasted. A straight oval tunnel had been cut instantly, clean through the ship.
The daring deed was done, and for a moment the three remaining guards and the three of us were the only ones on board who knew the meaning of that weird whistling sound that began to echo through the ship.
That was the sound of the ship’s air supply being dissipated!
There were well over a thousand persons on board, and each of them would have a goodly amount of breathing to do in the next forty-five minutes. And right now the air was sucking away so fast that in one quick glance I saw a pack of papers, a folding table and two chairs dart into the open tunnel and shoot out into the void.
All of which happened in hardly more than three or four seconds from the time that Jay Lathrop fired the shot.
Two more shots were fired. Whether they removed anyone from another deck I wouldn’t know. I was too busy swinging my fists. The three guards had rushed us. Somebody knocked my gun out of aim just as I pulled the trigger and I had a quick vision of a new tunnel overhead that cut through toward a sickly amber sun in a very black sky.
My fists collided with a jaw and a guard went down. He grabbed the open wall as if bracing himself against a suction. I thought he was out of the picture, then, and I went to Midge’s rescue.
But suddenly the fallen guard was coming up at me, and there was a raygun in his hands. I was sure it was all over with me then. He kept his distance. I backed away, hands aloft. He had me cut off from the others.
The last I saw of them they were holding their own in a tooth-and-nail fight. But I was beyond help. The guard ordered me through the door and down the corridor. There was no reason why he shouldn’t shoot me outright. One hole more or less through the hull of the ship couldn’t make much difference now.
But here it was again—the amazing sense of duty that these guards held toward their superiors. Orders were for me to go into the experimental slaughter-house in room 247, and this guard was going to see that I got there.
That’s all I wanted to know. I’d go there—but fast. Beginning with the next corner I rounded. Measured step until then. Perfect obedience. Not a sign of any false intentions. Wasn’t I simply a captive with no knowledge of my fate?
The next corner—ten steps ahead. The scream of escaping air was growing louder. Now an alarm was ringing through the ship. Pandemonium—
The corner! I flew—two steps and a bound, I was through a door. It slammed behind me like an explosion.
I thought it would be blasted open, then, with ray-gun fire. But I never stopped to see. I raced ahead through the dark room, crashing against tables and glass tubes. My hands reached out in a vain effort to find something that would offer a hiding place. Still the door did not open. A cool metal wall was before me, its sweating moisture against my groping hands. The top was within reach. If I could climb over swiftly this might be the answer.
I swung myself over.
Splash! Down I went into a tank of water! Or was it oil? At any rate I was hidden for the moment. And it was a good thing, for just then the doors began opening—three or four of them from various sides of the room.
I heard a rush of footsteps, a shouting of orders. From the talk there must have been some individual oxygen tanks stored in this room. Above the clamor from other parts of the ship I could hear the wheels of a small truck rolling out of the room, which meant that a supply of oxygen was on its way to some anxious consumers.
For my own part I was breathing easily again and I liked the patch of ceiling above me too well to desire a change of scenery.
CHAPTER X
Kandaroff on Trial
The change came, however, in a very few minutes. The sounds of signals told me that the ship had come to a stop at its old port of Venus, safe if not quite sound.
It remained only for me to find Midge and Lathrop and get ourselves down to the ground a half mile below in the most comfortable way possible.
Midge I found within the next hour. He was amazed to find me alive, and observed that I resembled a soaked rat. Together we dodged guards for the next three hours looking for Lathrop.
He wasn’t to be found. We decided he must have gotten down to the surface somehow. We refused to believe that a ray-gun had claimed him. From all evidences, the obedient guards must have had orders not to shoot inside the ship.
Our feet were on the solid ground of Venus again, and there they were destined to stay until the next year. Somewhere Ellen was waiting to greet me, and I could hardly wait to tell her all that had happened.
A year before a revolution could be launched, now that these new men had come?
&nbs
p; A full year, Lathrop had said, would be required. We who were to take over the reins of leadership remembered his words.
And so a year was allowed to pass, after our return, before our hopes rose and we began to lay out our scheme for this action.
A year made a wonderful and terrifying difference. Over half of these newcomers were gone. They had just not been able to stand up under Magnetic Miss Meteor’s slave-driving system.
Many had gone up the mountains for a change of climate. Always one victim at a time, so that there was little chance for any widespread violence.
Now it was known throughout this workers’ realm what it meant to go over the mountain. Other spies, like ourselves, had followed to see the tragedy for themselves. In more than one case it was the guards who did not come back. As a result, that old stormy warhorse, Kandaroff, was now in the company of fifty of the most savage of rebels; those who, like himself, had escaped the jaws of death. But Kandaroff was no longer spending all his time in solitude. He now had four or five “underground” posts within the main settlement, and here he would meet the various leaders of the revolutionary party.
In short, in the year, earth time, Kandaroff had risen to a position of prophet and a moving spirit. You could feel the fires of hatred when his eyes looked at you. You could study his deep-lined face and feel the agonies of the whip. He had been through death; he had come back from it determined to deliver us.
The ship that hovered over us again was as good as new, according to the rumors. And its tyrannical mistress was as determined as ever to enslave us, or kill us if we would not bend to the yoke.
Once she sent Novairre down by the half-mile elevator to spy on us. He came on the pretense of studying the meteoroids which hung over our heads like a death sentence.
Novairre did not stay long. From a distance he commanded a certain respect because of his scientific knowledge. Rumors of his genius would float down to us from time to time. But when he showed his face along the streets within view of the sweating, toiling workmen, his look of dire evil aroused an unrest that foreboded murder.
Once Novairre inquired the source of certain Ions of fresh earth with which a ravine was being filled. He was openly defied. If Violet Speer wanted to know where that dirt came from, let her come down and inquire—if she dared.
Novairre returned to his sky laboratories. In his place came Wilhelm Hegoland, the lawyer.
Hegoland was a big, blustery citizen and in the numerous years that he had been a part of Violet’s society he had been her most outspoken champion. Now it came to Hegoland that these mysterious meetings among the workers could be stopped He set a trap for Kandaroff and caught him.
“A public trial for Kandaroff!” came the amplified announcement from the space ship hour after hour. “Kandaroff will die; but not until he has revealed who saved his life and murdered the guards.”
And so the settlement stopped work and gathered in the vast space clearing beneath the lines of meteoroids. They hung oppressively low. Everyone knew they could drop without warning. In the very first of them, the artificial one, was the enormous image of Violet Speer—not the statue, but the heartless reality. She was sitting on her throne on the observation deck. But to all of us assembled she seemed immediately before us as she judged the trial.
“Kandaroff, who saved your life? Speak up!” Wilhelm Hegoland barked. He and the others stood stiffly in their black boots and red uniforms, the silver belts and epaulettes glistening. Poor old Kandaroff was a shabby creature in contrast. There was deep sadness in his eyes. Before he spoke I was sure that he would never give us away. But it was a pitiful thing to realize what he would do—simply give himself away to save our hope of freedom.
“I was not rescued by any man,” he said slowly.
“A woman, then.”
“What rescued me was no human being,” he said.
“Explain yourself,” Hegoland snapped.
“I was rescued by the native animals of this planet, the rajlouts.”
“You lie. How could a rajlout rescue you?”
“Have you seen the big ones?” Kandaroff asked “The ones from across the third mountain range, creatures of mighty stature who have the feet of humans?”
This brought a murmur of wonderment from all listeners, and a thrill of gratefulness from those of us who knew he was lying. Even the expression on the magnified face of Violet Speer took on a look of bafflement.
“You lie,” said Hegoland steadily. “No man has ever been over the third range. The original colonists here found that the second range was an impassable barrier.”
“You will find larger rajlouts beyond the third range,” said Kandaroff stubbornly. “They have great feet and legs like men, and the time will come when they will make trouble for this space port.”
“How so?”
“They will release impounded waters that will flood this flat land”
“What basis have you for these outlandish statements?”
“I have talked with them.”
“Impossible! Even if they had a language you couldn’t know it. You’re one with the rest of these workers from the Earth who got hooked into coming here. Aren’t you? Speak up!”
“You’re wrong I was here.”
“So—you’re a descendant of the colonists. So much the worse for you, breaking into the peace of our new society. But that lie doesn’t go. You can’t show me any early colonist that claims to talk with rajlouts.”
“I did not give you my full pedigree,” said Kandaroff defiantly.
The lawyer ignored this remark.
He followed what he thought was his advantage, angling for a demonstration.
“Rajlout language! Very well, I’ll call before the court a few of these early colonists and see whether any of them can talk it, like you claim you can.”
Ellen Kenzie was standing beside me, and this suggestion caused her to tremble. These lies of Kandaroff had been an easy evasion at first, but now they threatened to get us into deep water. Suppose Hegoland should decide to call a number of these poor, ignorant citizens into this inquisition. Suppose he should reveal what they thought and felt about Violet Speer’s rule. Our revolution would be lost again, perhaps permanently. Our extra arm, the remaining colonists, might be sliced off and used as a club against us.
“Can you name two dozen native colonists who can speak a language understood by the swamp monsters?” There was brutal determination in Hegoland’s voice as he cracked the whip of legal prosecude.
“My people knew the language,” said Kandaroff calmly, “but you would not understand my ancestry.”
The lawyer turned to the guards. “Go into the crowds or out to the hinterlands and get me the first two dozen sons and daughters of colonists that you can find.”
CHAPTER XI
The Lid’s Off!
“They’ll get me!” Ellen whispered. “Don’t let them!”
“Keep close behind me,” I said. Those of the crowd near us understood and they tightened the ranks around the two of us to keep Ellen hidden.
Then Hegoland was shouting something at Kandaroff that made every one stop and listen, and the guards stopped their search just as one of them was breaking into our tight cluster with his eyes on Ellen.
“What’s that?” Hegoland was shouting. “What about your pedigree? You say you’re a half breed?”
“I am!” Kandaroff shouted, with the surprising power of a lie of desperation. Or was it a lie of desperation?
“I am only half early colonist. The other half is from an earlier stock—not men!”
“Then what, if not men?”
“The half-human breed of rajlouts that held this planet before any man ever came. The traditions are still in my veins. My blood is green, the same as the larger, half-human rajlouts. We owned this planet. And I, the last of them, still own it!”
It was at once the noblest and most daring lie I had ever heard; it made Hegoland gasp with rage and utter confusion. Then insta
ntly he whipped out a knife and said. “We’ll see whether you’re lying. We’ll see if your blood is green.”
“I’ll prove it,” said Kandaroff, and he held forth his wrist.
But as the knife came down toward it, Kandaroff’s steel fingers came up with a vise grip. The knife changed hands in a flash. The crowd gasped. Instantly the blade swung with the swift fire of fury, all of Kandaroff’s power back of it. It plunged square into Hegoland’s throat. Then Kandaroff ran.
The guards tried to burst out of the crowd. A squad of eight or ten had stood by when the others had entered the crowd looking for colonists. This free squad swung up with their guns at Kandaroff.
Nothing could stop them. They melted the old man out of existence quicker than it can be told. But Kandaroff’s work was done.
Not one of those eight guards lived to boast their deed. Other guns were in play by this time. Those guns from the guards in the crowd had suddenly changed hands. All at once the lid was off. The riot was on, and it was anyone’s guess who might get killed.
I myself had the pleasure off turning a stream of deadly fire on three of the red uniforms. Midge Jupiter was there to take his toll. If only Jay Lathrop could have been with us!
Then a whoosh of breeze against our hair told us that the real power was in action. The great weapon of Violet Speer herself: the hanging meteoroids! Into action they went.
We fled in a hundred directions. They swung their deadly weight like pendulum’s. One of them, touching its curved surface to the ground, swung free of the magnetic power and rambled off straight down the line. Three workers and a gang of boys were rolled under. It crashed on across one of the low buildings a quarter mile beyond.
“The trenches!” someone cried out. All at once everybody was crying, “The trenches! Take to the trenches!”
For beneath this great floor the workers had cut tunnels in anticipation of a time when these great death balls might come swinging down at them. Novairre might well have wondered where the heaps of freshly dug dirt had come from.
