“You questioning my command, lieutenant?”
There was a little silence. Dodd’s shadow on the street got out a shadow-cigar and lit it leisurely, puffed smoke toward the stars. Morgan could smell the fragrance of Mars-bred tobacco. He couldn’t see the other man at all. He wondered if his own heartbeats were not making very audible thunder in this narrow alley. When Dodd spoke, his voice was calm.
“Jaime Morgan won’t kill anybody else tonight, lieutenant,” he said. “It isn’t a matter of tasting blood. It’s a matter of touching pitch. Morgan got too close to civilization and he got himself fouled with it. But it’ll wash off. Maybe he’s learned the lesson he was bound to learn, sometime.”
There was a pause.
“Sir—”
Dodd paid no attention. “Yes,” he said, “when a man’s young, he’s always on the move. He can’t stop too long on any one world. But he gets habits, and they slow him down. One day he finds he isn’t ready to leave when the time comes. But he can’t stop civilization moving in, the good and the bad of it. What can he do? A world gets civilized; nothing can stop it once it gets opened up. So a man like Morgan gets sucked in before he knows it. He’s got to follow the rules of civilization, even when he thinks he’s fightin’ it. You can’t be neutral. Morgan didn’t know that.”
The shadow puffed smoke fragrantly. “Loki isn’t Morgan’s any more. It belongs to the settlers. But the sky’s still full of stars, lieutenant. You heard about that new planet they’ve opened up, over by Rehoboem IV?”
The lieutenant’s voice said, “That’s another thing, sir. We’re not guarding that freighter. If Morgan should hear about it—if he should stow away—”
“He doesn’t know the Nincvah’s taking off at dawn,” Dodd said, enunciating his words with great distinctness. “He doesn’t even know I’ve lifted the grounding orders. There’s no need for a guard around the Nincvah. A man follows his habit patterns. Morgan will take to the woods.” He chuckled. “Morgan’s too old to change,” he said with a certain sardonic inflection in his voice. It sounded like a challenge. “He’s forgotten what other worlds are like. He doesn’t remember the cockeyed giant.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind, lieutenant. Get along now. Better join your men before you lose them.”
“Yes; sir,” the voice said, not quite convinced.
“Let’s go,” Dodd’s voice insisted, and two pairs of footsteps moved away. Dodd’s voice floated back, clear and thoughtful.
“There’ll always be worlds to open, you know, and there’ll always be men like Morgan to find them. There always has been. There always will be. One of the old poets wrote about Jaime. He said a man like that would always know there was—” The voice paused, then strengthened into firm command. “Something lost beyond the range—lost and waiting for you . . . Go!” Heavy boots rang loud on the dark street, and less loud, and then mingled with the other night sounds.
Morgan stood quite still until the last rhythmic beat of footfalls was silent. Then he tipped his head back and looked westward toward the port. He saw five tall ships and the shining sky behind them.
He was feeling very sad, but much better, and hardly old at all. He stooped quickly once, and touched the ground. Good-by, Loki, he thought. Good-by, world.
Then he turned in the dark and ran soundlessly toward the west and the towering ships and the endless reaches of Paradise Street.
THE END
CARRY ME HOME
On that fog-shrouded Venusian mountaintop lay an eternal Pool, where icy diamonds and blood-red rubies, emerald idols and rich yellow gold sparkled seductively in darkling depths . . . and striding confidently up the strange path toward that island in the sky came Red Rohan, thief of Venus. Rut the treasure, of course, had a Guardian: a Monster . . . or possibly a god . . .
YOU COULD SEE THE Mountain sometimes, on the clearer days, from as far away as the town called Foggy Morning. The unearthly lands between swam in jungle, stirring endlessly with the pale, restless foliage of Venus, garrulous jungle full of a continual murmur that had all the notes of human speech imperfectly heard.
The Quai told fabulous tales about the Mountain, drawing up the third eyelid dreamily over their yellow gaze and humming gently through their noses between words, in the disconcerting way of Quai. They said there was a pool up there, and something in the pool. They said the pool was blue—under a sky of unbroken, eternal cloud, the pool was blue.
They said there was a monster in it. Possibly a god. No Terrestrial understands Quai speech very clearly yet, so they may have said both monster and god. It sounded intriguing, but too remote to interest anyone in the frontier towns along the Terrestrial Highway. Terrestrial holdings on Venus are precarious yet, strung along a chain as narrow and perilous as Bifrost, and infringments against Venus and Quai have proved too dangerous for any man to commit more than once.
Three men slipped out of Foggy Morning just ahead of the vigilantes one day, getting the jungle equipment they needed by direct and deadly means. Frontier justice being what it always is, the vigilantes pursued them only far enough to make sure they would not return. The men were robbers. If the vigilantes had caught them they would have hanged them. But when they had chased them past the turn-off that leads southwest toward Flattery and north toward Adam and Eve, and on along a little winding, diminishing path due west, they paused and looked at each other and began to laugh. The path went straight into forbidden Quai lands, and its far end was the Mountain. The vigilantes shrugged and went back to Foggy Morning.
There were d’vahnyan in the jungle. D’vahnyan is a complex term, but its basic import is death-dealer. The Quai were quite competent to look after their own lands. Hanging might have been preferable.
THE CAVERN was reasonably dry, considering. It was reasonably safe, or as safe as any refuge could be in Quai territory. A small, soft fire burned in a hollow of sand near one wall, pale lavender flames licking up and whimpering in the annoying way all fire does on Venus. Something in the wet air damps its color and the flames never feel really hot even when they bum you.
A man named Rohan lay drowsily with his back to the cavern wall and his eyes shut, singing to himself.
“Swing low,” he sang, “sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.”
Condensing fog gathered in big drops along the outer brow of the cave and dripped continually as an obbligato to the song and the whimper of the fire. One of the other men was sitting on his heels just inside the fringe of dripping water, gun across his knee, peering into the misty jungle. The third man threw down an emptied ration-tin with violence and said, “Red!”
Rohan did not open his eyes.
“Yes, my little friend?” he said.
“Red, I’m sick of it. I’m going back! You hear? There’s no use waiting any longer. Barber isn’t coming. Why should we sit here waiting for the police to come and get us? I tell you there’s been a d’vahnyan on our trail since yesterday; morning, and I don’t like it. I’m going back. I’ll take my chances—”
Rohan grinned sleepily.
“If you get there before I do,” he sang, “tell all my friends I’m comin’ too—”
“It’s crazy,” the other man said. “It isn’t safe to wait around here any longer. I’m afraid of the d’vahnyan, if you’re not. I’m going.”
He made no further move. Rohan listened to the quiet complaint of the flames and thought of the d’vahnyan of Venus.
The d’vahnyan’s place in Quai society is not comparable to any Terrestrial equivalent. He approximates police, judge, jury and executioner all in one, though his powers are not limited to the enforcing of justice; he also—for no reason Terrestrials have yet grasped—destroys trees or whole forests, burns occasional villages, dams or diverts rivers, and at times sterilizes the soil of agricultural areas. His decree is never questioned. He is debarred from the fields of science, using the weapons the blue-clad ll’ghirae give him, without understanding the principles of the de
vices he wields. The ll’ghirae correspond to scientists or priests of science, and are forbidden knowledge of the Realities. Exactly what the Quai mean by Realities is not yet known.
But a few of the more concrete realities of life on Venus the Terrestrials have learned fast, often the hard way. Foremost among them is the absolute power on Venus that sometimes a man found of the d’vahnyan. To wield it they seem to have surrendered much—perhaps the whole ego as we think of it. They rule by a sort of divine right, and no one dreams of questioning or disobeying them or lifting a hand against them. Their lives are sacred and their decrees irrevocable.
“I don’t trust them,” Forsythe said again. “I’m going back.”
“The Quai are a funny people,” Rohan said cheerfully, opening his eyes a little to peer out past the watcher on the threshold and into the drifting mist. “They work in a mysterious way their wonders to perform. An amazing race, the Quai. All right, Forsythe. Goodbye. Jellaby and I are going to climb the Mountain.”
FORSYTHE JERKED AROUND heavily, his dark face flushing with anger and incredulity. Even Jellaby, at the door, looked back over his shoulder and his freckled jaw dropped.
“What?” Forsythe demanded.
“You heard me.”
“I won’t do it,” Forsythe said excitedly. “You’re crazy. That wasn’t what you told me. You said Barber Jones would pick us up at the clearing and fly us out with the loot. The road toward the Mountain was just to fool the vigilantes. Oh no, Red! Oh no!”
Rohan rolled over lazily to face his companions.
“Did you really think,” he inquired, “that Barber would bother with us if we didn’t get away with the bank hold-up? We’re in an interesting spot, Forsythe, my friend.”
“I don’t like it.” Forsythe’s voice was heavy. “We should have left the bank alone. There was pretty near as much money in the saloon safe. But no, we had to bust into the bank and set off the alarm in Police Headquarters clear over the bay at Swanport. How long do you figure before the police come for us, Red?”
Rohan closed his fist on a handful of moist, sandy soil and let it trickle slowly through his fingers. His look was gently marveling. Terrestrials were still so new—himself struck with astonishment at the simple discovery that this world was made of soil. Plain dirt, rock, sand, prosaic as Earth itself. You expected something more glamorous of the Morning Star.
“A band of angels,” Rohan sang, “comin’ after me, comin’ for to—”
“You can’t go up the Mountain,” Forsythe pursued doggedly. “What’s the good of it? What’s up there but some kind of devil-fish in a pool? I tell you, it’s crazy!”
“What’s up there, my friends,” Rohan said, and in the violet firelight his face took on a sudden look like fever, “what’s up there is a fortune! There’s a pool, all right. There’s a—well, some kind of a monster. And you know why it’s there? To guard a treasure. Jewels, Forsythe. Rubies and diamonds, Jellaby. For a thousand years the Quai have been throwing offerings down to their monster-god. And nobody knows it except us. Not a soul except us three. That’s why we’re going up the mountain, Forsythe.”
Forsythe grunted.
“You been dreaming,” he said.
“I had it straight,” Rohan said, “from the horse’s mouth.” He laughed. “I got it from Crazy Joe.”
Forsythe’s head snapped around sharply and he caught his breath to hoot with angry derision. But Rohan saw the derision pause and heard the breath run out in an uncertain, half-reluctant sigh.
“Uh-huh,” Rohan said. “Think it over. I did. I got him drunk, you see. First time I ever saw Crazy Joe drunk, but I happened to be the lucky guy who drank with him. And he talked . . .”
ROHAN HALF SHUT HIS EYES and looked through his lids at the dim, complaining fire. Crazy Joe, he thought. How crazy? Babbling over his liquor about a treasure he’d seen and walked away from, not wanting it, not really caring. That was crazy. Only a crazy man would do it. But wise in his craziness, with strange threads of sanity twining through the warps of his mind. The Quai paid him a curious respect and abided by his owlish council. They told him things he was not too crazy to turn to account sometimes. It was probable that he knew much more than he ever admitted to. He wandered freely in Quai territory, and he knew what lay at the top of the Mountain . . .
“I saw him next day,” Rohan said. “I thought it might have been just drunken talk. But he claimed the whole thing was true. He told me all about it I believed him.” Rohan grinned. “Would I be here now, if I hadn’t? Why, if even a part of it’s true, half the jewels on Venus are lying right up there on top of the Mountain, just waiting for three guys like us to come and get ’em.”
Then he shut his lips together on a tight, secret smile and thought of the other thing Crazy Joe had said was up there. Forsythe and Jellaby were dubious enough about the jewels. What would they say if he told them about the d’vahnyan?
“You needn’t be afraid of the d’vahnyan,” Crazy Joe had said, combing his beard through his fingers thoughtfully, drawing down his thick, bleached brows. “I’m not. I know too much about ’em. I found out. Up there.” He had chuckled, looking shrewdly at Rohan. “They’re not so mysterious, once you know the secret. It’s all up there. The treasure, the pool, the monster—and the secret of the d’vahnyan.”
Rohan had regarded him dubiously, with rising excitement imperfectly tempered by reason. The strangest part of the whole strange business was that he believed Crazy Joe. You had to know Crazy Joe to understand why. Nobody knew what his real name was, or where he came from. Oddly, there were times when the part of his face that showed between ragged beard and ragged bangs had a distracting familiarity to Rohan, but he could not identify it. The man was unquestionably mad, but there was dignity in his madness, and he was not known to distort the truth.
Moreover, he could talk to the Quai. He had even been known to hold conversations with the d’vahnyan, at a distance, looking up into those cold, inhuman faces and stroking his beard as he spoke. They never exchanged an unnecessary word with sane humans, but to Crazy Joe they spoke with respect.
“What do you know about them?” Rohan had asked eagerly, all his own hatred and distrust of the d’vahnyan boiling up in him behind the question. The inhuman, the unspeaking, the terrible d’vahnyan because of whom his one real success on Venus had been thwarted. “What do you know?”
“The secret of the d’vahnyan,” Crazy Joe had said mildly. “I can’t tell you. I couldn’t if I would. It isn’t a thing you can tell. You have to see it.”
“A weapon?” Rohan had asked urgently. “A machine? A book? Come on, Crazy Joe, give me an idea! What is it?”
“It’s up there on the Mountain,” was all Crazy Joe would say. “Go up and see for yourself. I did. I’m not afraid of ’em now. They talk to me. If you want to know about it, you’ll have to go up the Mountain and find out. It won’t be easy, but what is? Go ahead. Find out for yourself.”
So Rohan was going.
HIS CURIOSITY about the d’vahnyan was devouring. The death-dealers were such a terrifying class of people, if you could call them people at all. They weren’t people. They weren’t alive. They weren’t dead. They were more like beings from another star than creatures of human stock.
What their powers were nobody knew, though Terrestrials made guesses. They could destroy at a distance in many changing ways, all of them explicable by analogy, though the analogies might be quite wrong. Ultrasonic waves can focus invisibly to a point and destroy with heat and vibration. Did they kill with a power like that? Perhaps.
The intricate wrappings of gleaming black stuff they wore, interwoven with shining curled threads, might in themselves be some unearthly sort of weapon; as the winding of the armature on an electromagnet controls its efficiency, so these elaborately wound patterns woven with strange threads no Terrestrial had ever seen at close range might control the enormously efficient powers the d’vahnyan wielded.
The sciences of the
Quai both paralleled and diverged from Terrestrial sciences. No Venusian has ever seen the stars, but from the structure of the atom the Quai evolved a very pretty picture of their own sun and sister planets. It was known that they drew upon the very shortwave radiations that filter through the clouds of Venus from the sun and stars, for example converting (in controlling the balance of food supply) starch to sugar with the aid of polarized infra-red, as Terrestrials learned to do long ago. There can be biological converters as well as technological ones. So a converted energy drawn from without or from within, and probably controlled by the gleaming black wrappings of the d’vahnyan, was the weapon they wielded. But where they came from, what they were, nobody knew. Perhaps not even the Quai.
Perhaps Crazy Joe knew. Perhaps, if Rohan reached the Mountain, he too might know. He only knew now that his hatred of the d’vahnyan was an uncontrollable and an irrational thing, resembling more a man’s deep, instinctive aversion to an alien life-form than his dislike of a fellow creature, however unpleasant. They did not suffer from the drives that made Rohan what he was, and he hated them for that. They were passionless, and he felt bewildered scorn for them. They were curiously selfless, and he felt contempt because of that. But his reasoning mind told him they were simply men, after all, men who followed orders in what they did, as most men do. He did not mean to let them thwart him this time. He was afraid of them, but he feared failure more than the d’vahnyan. He would not, this time, turn back for anything.
“I don’t know,” Forsythe grumbled. “I don’t like it, Rohan. It isn’t safe. That Mountain’s a long way off.”
“You like it here?” Rohan inquired, smiling. He rose limberly. He was a tall man, good-looking, pleasantly smiling. You had to look twice to see, underneath, the kind of a man he was and had been.
“You wait here,” he said, “and the d’vahnyan will come and get you. You go back and the vigilantes will string you up, unless the police get there first. You come with me, and the chances are good that a genuine, authentic monster-god will eat you. But you’ll see such a treasure before you die, Forsythe, I promise you’ll be happy.”
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