For a while Gerry drowsed. The audiphones of his helmet picked up all the faint sounds of this watery world. A muffled splash as Angus McTavish stirred restlessly ... the steady movement as their drowsing but apparently sleepless dolphins fed on the fields of sea-weed ... an occasional steady churning as some larger denizen of the deep swam past above them. Then he slept.
It was well past midnight by the illuminated dial of the waterproof chronometer that Sarnak had given Gerry when he awoke. Angus was shaking his shoulder. The light had been put out hours before, and there was no illumination at all except for an occasional flash of green phosphoresence where some fish sped by.
"Either I'm an over-grown sponge," the big engineer muttered, "or there's a light shining through the water off to the west."
Gerry yawned and sat up, instinctively starting to rub his eyes before his hands bumped against the hard glass surface of his curving helmet. Some of the bits of coral around them glowed with an eerie green radiance, and a tall frond of sea-weed had tiny specks of light on the tips of its constantly waving leaves. Then, far off to the left, Gerry caught a faint glow.
It was hard to tell what kind of a light it was, so great was the refraction of the water, but there was something there. It was little more than a lessening of the deep gloom that otherwise surrounded them on all sides. Gerry got to his feet and picked up his rubber saddle which he had been using as a pillow under his helmet.
"We'd better investigate," he said. "Wake Closana."
They saddled their dolphins and rode out at an easy pace, holding the big fish down with a tight rein. As they rode the glow ahead of them became more definite. It seemed to come from a long row of twenty or more lights. Then they were near enough to see each other in the reflected glow.
"It's some kind of a ship," Gerry said. "Those lights are her port holes!"
"It's more than that!" snapped Angus. "It's theViking! I know the lines of her stern anywhere, even in this sunken and God forsaken spot!"
The space-ship lay quietly in the soft mud of this part of the ocean bottom. All her port holes of transparent duralite were glowing with the reflected light from inside. The twisted wrecks of her helicopters were still visible on top of the hull, but otherwise she did not appear to be damaged.
Gerry was in the middle as the three of them rode their dolphins up close to one of the big windows of the control room. The ship had evidently survived the fall into the water, for they could see dim figures moving about inside.
"I told you that duralite hull could stand a little thing like a fall into the ocean!" McTavish exulted.
As they crowded their finny steeds close to the glass of the control room window, Portok the Martian came to peer out. His red-skinned face went pale as he saw them, and even through the ship's hull their audiphones picked up his agonized cry.
"Steve! Tanda! I just saw the ghosts of Norton and McTavish looking in the window!"
Steve Brent came into the control room. He looked haggard and unshaven, and he was stained with oily grease.
"What are you raving about, Portok?" he snapped.
"It's no raving, Steve!" the little Martian chattered, "I tell you I saw the three of them. The Chief, and Angus, and the Amazon girl—all riding on some kind of big fish and peering in that window!"
"You're going crazy!" Steve Brent snapped, but he walked to the window. His own eyes widened as he saw the strangely clad trio sitting their mounts outside. Gerry waved violently to him.
"Let us in, you idiot!" he shouted, forgetting that theVikingdid not carry any audiphones that could pick up his words. He heard Steve's unsteady voice.
"Maybe we're both crazy, Portok, but I think they're really out there. Open the outer door to the starboard space-lock."
A small door swung open on the starboard side of theViking'sblue and silver hull. That small compartment had really been designed for dropping objects into the void of outer space, or for testing the quality of the atmosphere on any stray planetoids theVikingmight have visited on her journey across the vastness of interplanetary space, but it would do for a water-lock in this instance.
Gerry and the others dismounted from their dolphins and let the reins hang. Angus gave his mount a slap on the flank. With a flip of its tail the big fish wheeled and swam off, and after a second the others followed it. Gerry led the way into the space-lock and closed the door behind him. It only took a few seconds for the blast of theViking'spowerful compressed air tanks to blow out the water. Then, as Gerry unstrapped his helmet and lifted the big glass globe off his head, Steve Brent opened the inner door and stepped into the space-lock.
"I don't know if I'm crazy or dreaming or what, Chief," he said, "but I'm damn glad to see you back."
"You're sane enough," Gerry snapped, "it's a long story, so skip it for the moment. I thoughtyouwere done for!"
"Not theViking!" Larry affectionately slapped the laminated duralite shell of the space-ship. "She can stand more than being dropped in the drink from a few hundred feet up. Our problem is how to get going again. We've been able to crawl along the bottom by using minimum power of one rocket tube and scaring hell out of all the fish, but that's the best we've been able to do. Now that Angus is back he can take over. What do you think about the helicopters?"
"I could forge new ones in a week out of that blue metal they have in Giri-Vaaka," McTavish muttered. "But God knows how we'll ever get hold of a supply. Anyway, I think I can reverse enough of the gravity plates to give this craft reserve buoyancy so she'll navigate on the surface instead of hugging the bottom."
"I never thought of that!" Steve said admiringly. Angus grunted, and began to strip off his green rubber uniform.
"It takes a Scotsman to show the rest of the Universe how to get out of a tough spot!"
It was afternoon on the following day when theViking'slong hull finally broke the surface. She lay in the water like a half submerged cigar, the yellowish ripples lapping on the curved blue duralite of her super-structure. The twisted remains of the shattered helicopters were ugly stumps along the space-ship's sleek back. A single rocket tube flamed and smoked astern, its blast driving the vessel through the water at a good pace while her wake smoked and bubbled.
Gerry Norton opened the duralite dome of the upper control room and stepped out on the wet deck with a few of the others. They were well out on the great sea, with the green hills of the Giri-Savissa border a low smear along the horizon to starboard. This was the same lonely sea they had seen when they first dropped down through the clouds to Venus.
The vast and greenish-yellow waters were broken by scattered islands, bare bits of rock that were dotted with blue moss. Sea birds swooped about them. Lofty mountains on a distant shore were capped with snow. In one or two places a narrow shaft of sunlight struck down through a brief gap in the canopy of eternal clouds, but otherwise there was only that subdued and peculiarly golden light in which there moved only a few oddly shaped birds.
So much had happened since they first saw that lonely sea! It seemed as though much more than a week had elapsed. Savissa and its Golden Amazons ... the arrow tipped tower of Rupin-Sang ... the Scaly hordes of Vaaka and the dread palace of the insane Lansa who had once been an Earthly officer ... the secret and water-locked halls of Luralla where The outlaws of Giri dwelt—many scenes went through Gerry Norton's mind. He seemed to have aged ten years since the day he brought theVikingdown through the cloud screen. Well—the immediate problem was to get some suitable metal to repair the smashed helicopters. TheVikingmight possibly get up into the air with the power of her rockets alone if they beached her on a sloping shore with her nose upward, but she could never come down safely without helicopters.
"I'll hold her on this course a while," Gerry said. "In the morning we can strike over and try to pick up the frontiers of Savissa."
It was just at dusk that they saw white towers against the sky. They rose out of the sea as Gerry turned theViking'sblunt nose toward them—the mighty battlements of a vast city. Closana, who was standing on deck beside him at the time, rested her hands on the rail and stared in utter amazement.
"But it isn't possible, Geree!" she gasped, "there isn't any civilization out there on the islands of the Great Sea!"
"Could it be a mirage?" he suggested. "A reflection of some Savissan city on the mainland?"
"No." The girl shook her head. "There are no cities of that sort in any of these lands. Geree—there is something strange here. I do not like it. Therecannotbe any city ahead of us there!"
"But there it is!" Gerry said grimly. "We can't all be seeing things. We'll go closer and get a better look."
It was sunset, the unspectacular Venusian sunset which was simply a swift lessening of the golden glow from the cloud veiled sky above. Lights were gleaming from most of the tall buildings of the towering city as theVikingdrove toward it through a quiet sea. Sea birds swooped low about the ship's wake. The watchers on deck could see the low shore line of the island on which the city was built. Then they heard distant bells, pleasant bells that seemed to be chiming a farewell to the day and a welcome to the night. And then a red light flashed on top of the tallest building and in an instant the entire city vanished.
One minute the strange city had been clearly visible before them, its graceful towers agleam with lights as they notched the sky. The next instant the whole place was gone. There was nothing in sight at all but a low shoreline. It was as though a thick veil of concealing mist had been suddenly drawn across between the ship and the city. Only—the air was clear and without a trace of mist. Gerry walked across to the open dome of the upper control room.
"Cut rockets!" he snapped. "Get some kind of an anchor overboard. We'll just stay right here off shore until morning. There's something queer going on."
Gerry and Steve Brent leaned on the rail together, peering through the darkness toward the island. Nothing was visible in the faint phorphor-glow that marked the Venusian night, but they could just hear a distant singing as of many voices lifted in chorus.
"What do you think happened to the city so suddenly?" Steve asked. Gerry shrugged.
"I suppose some mist hid it."
"There wasn't any mist," Steve said flatly, "anyway—we could see the low hills on shore just as clearly after the city disappeared as before. Anyway...."
"Listen!" Gerry interrupted.
Now they could again hear the sound of bells coming across the water. Half the time the sound was swept away by the night breeze, half the time they could just hear it. The bells were of many blended tones and notes, an immense carillon. They were singing some outland melody that was full of the surge of ocean breezes and the cries of the sea birds. It rose, and swelled, and died away again.
"The city's there, all right," Gerry said slowly. "Though I can't imagine why we don't see any lights with the sound of the bells that close. But we'll see in the morning."
"I tell you there is no city," Closana said, her voice troubled. "We have often sailed ships into these waters from the Savissan coast, and we know that none of these Outer Isles are inhabited. What you have heard must be the ghosts of the Old Ones, ancient phantoms speeding through the skies. There is a legend that the bells of their phantom ships can sometimes be heard off the coast at night."
"Ghosts or no ghosts, we're going ashore there in the morning!" Gerry said stubbornly.
All night theVikingrode to a crude anchor that Angus had improvised from some spare parts on board. The space-ship's designers had never expected her to lie in water. Most of the crew were on deck as soon as it grew light enough to see. Ahead of them, less than half a mile away, stretched a sandy shore backed by a line of low hills. The island had a wealth of the yellow vegetation typical of the mainland of Venus, so that it had a more friendly appearance than the other specks of land which dotted the Great Sea and were only bare rock, but there was no sign of life. Certainly there was no trace of any city! There was not even an indication of human habitation at all. As the dawn-mists cleared away they could see that another range of hills stretched along the horizon some miles behind. Their greenish-yellow slopes were clear and sharp against the cloudy sky beyond, and they were located well in the rear of where the city had appeared to be in that hasty glimpse the night before.
"Ready the landing party!" Gerry commanded. "Full armor and equipment!"
They gently beached the space-ship on the sloping expanse of sand, running her nose a little way up above the water level while the light surf lapped her dripping sides. Some giant crabs scurried away across the beach in startled surprise.
"Want to go ashore, Angus?" Gerry asked as McTavish's red bearded face came up through an escape hatch. The big engineer shook his head.
"I'll just stay aboard here and brood over my broken helicopters, thanks. My last trip ashore took care of all my wanderlust for the present."
Gerry took half the vessel's crew with him, leaving the other half on guard. Closana went with the landing party. With their armor gleaming in the golden light, ray-guns and other weapons ready, they tramped up across the loose sand of the beach. Beyond the shore line was firmer ground, a field of some low plants that grew in orderly yellow rows.
"I'll swallow my ray-tube if this isn't a field cultivated by man! Nature was never that orderly," Steve Brent muttered. Gerry shrugged.
"Lord knows! If we ever get those helicopters fixed, I'm all for a quick return to Earth. This planet is certainly no peaceful garden of Eden, and I've had pretty near all I want of it. Savissa was the only place I really liked. I wonder what's happening there now!"
"We'll know if anything very exciting turns up," Steve said. "When we started out on our search after you disappeared that night, I left Tanda behind with a portable radio to keep us posted. Sort of figured it was our base on Venus, and anyway there was always the chance you might wander back there."
"Great planetoids—I just thought of something! As soon as we get back to the ship, remind me to radio Tanda to tell Rupin-Sang that the Scaly Ones had learned to use the old sewers, and that he must either block them off or place a heavy guard there."
For a mile they walked inland, across those odd fields. The orderly rows of plants stretched off to the horizon on both sides. And then they came to a kind of level plain. The ground before them was strange looking, so strange that Gerry called a halt while he stared down the slight slope at it.
Most of the plain was of bare rock, rock that was absolutely smooth and level without any sign of weathering at all. Along the outer edge it was pitted at regular intervals by what looked like shallow wells a foot in diameter. Beyond that zone were many excavations of many sizes and shapes, all cut down into the solid rock with the sides perfectly straight and smooth. Gerry took off his helmet and scratched his head.
"Now what do you make of that?"
"I know what it looks like to me," Steve said. "It looks just like the foundations of a city—without the city. Those round pits are the anchorages of the outer wall. Those square holes are the basements of tall buildings. Only—somebody has lifted the whole city away."
"You're crazy!" Gerry growled. Steve shrugged.
"Maybe we all are! Anyway, I'm going to take a look into one of those holes."
Steve walked quickly forward toward the nearest of the round pits. Suddenly, just as he reached the very edge of the zone of bare rock, there was a dull clash of steel. Something had seemed to pick Steve up bodily and hurl him backward. He landed flat on his back on the ground, his helmet bouncing off and rolling a few feet away.
"It hit me," he shouted.
"What did?"
"I don't know." Steve sat up and rubbed his head. "Y' know, Chief, it really felt more as though I'd just walked squarely into a solid stone wall."
"It has just occurred to me," Gerry said slowly, "that maybe that's exactly what youdiddo!"
Gerry walked forward cautiously, a foot at a time, one hand stretched out before him. When he reached a spot on line with the place where Steve had been stopped, his hand encountered something cool and firm and smooth. It was like the surface of a highly polished stone wall. Or a sheet of heavy and invisible glass. He ran both his hands over it. The thing was continuous and solid. There was nothing visible to the eye, and he could see far ahead of him across the strangely surfaced rocky plain, but there was an impenetrable barrier blocking the path.
Stepping back a few feet, Gerry picked up a pebble and tossed it upward. The stone bounced sharply back as soon as it came in line with the invisible barrier. He threw the pebble higher and the same thing happened. There was something mysterious and disquieting about the way the stone would soar up into the clear air—and then sharply bounce back from a point in space where nothing at all was visible.
"Magic!" Closana said nervously. Even the Earth-men of the landing party had drawn together in a compact group, ray-tubes ready and eyes alert.
Gerry moved back a few feet farther, then hurled the stone forward and upward as high as he could. This time the pebble did not bounce back. It simply vanished in thin air. And then, from somewhere off in the emptiness of space above them, there came the sound of a deep and mocking laughter!
As though that first laugh had somehow eased the necessity for a carefully enforced silence, there came a whole burst of unseen and eerie merriment. There was a murmur of many voices. Then it died away again. There was still nothing visible, and the silence was once more unbroken.
"For Lord's sake, let's get out of here!" Portok gasped. "This place is ghost ridden!"
"There are no ghosts here, little red-faced man!" boomed a voice.
The sound had seemed to come from somewhere overhead. From the empty void above, where there was nothing at all until the cloud canopy was reached many thousands of feet up. One of theViking'screw bared his teeth in a sudden panic and lifted his ray-gun to fire blindly upward. Before he could pull the trigger there was a blinding blue flash and a crash like summer thunder. Captive lightning! The ray-gun flew from the man's hands and landed a few feet away, its wooden stock badly charred and its barrel a glowing mass of fused metal.
"Let your weapons rest, for they are useless here!" commanded that same booming voice from above. "Whence came ye, strangers in odd clothing who have traveled in a ship like a blue whale? What do ye seek here in the Outer Isles?"
Gerry stepped forward, a few feet ahead of the group. He shouted that they were a scientific exploring party who had come from Earth in a space-ship. There was a brief period of silence, as though men consulted in whispers. Then the voice called him again.
"You there—the leader! The Council of Elders will talk with you. Go fifty paces to your right, to where there are two white stones, and then come forward between them. Do not be afraid. You will not be harmed."
"Are you going to take the chance, Chief?" Steve whispered. Gerry nodded.
"I'll have to."
About fifty yards to his right Gerry saw two white stones. They were set some twelve or fifteen feet apart, on the very edge of the invisible barrier. Gerry walked over, turned left, and then walked squarely in between the stones. He held one arm protectingly in front of him, but this time his hand did not encounter any barrier. Instead—he found himself standing under the arch-way of a gate with a mighty city spread before him!
The city had simply appeared in a flash, with its mighty towers soaring up to the sky, as soon as he stepped over the outer line of the arch. Whatever it was that held the place invisible from outside, it had ceased to function for him as soon as he came within the limits of the outer surface of the walls. Glancing back, he saw that his companions were still staring blankly at the spot he had just quitted. They were evidently unable to see either him or any part of the city.
"It's all right, Steve!" he shouted. "Just hold everybody there till I come back."
Doors of heavily carved glass slid noiselessly out of recesses within the wall to close the gate through which Gerry had just entered. The arch in which he stood was inside the thickness of the wall, faced with white marble, inlaid with designs in gold. Ahead, he could see a broad avenue that ran from the gateway down through the center of the city. It was tree lined and pleasant, thronged with people. Flowers grew in little plots in front of the gold and white houses. Small furry animals, dogs, were evidently kept as pets. They drowsed on the doorsteps or scampered about the neat gardens.
Half a dozen men were standing around Gerry, within the arch of the gate. They were slight in stature though wiry, with heads a little larger than normal and exceptionally high foreheads. Their skin bore a tawny tinge, similar to that of the Amazons of Savissa. Two of them, who immediately took up posts just inside the glass portals of the gate, wore a semi-military uniform that included a gilded helmet. The others wore white cotton tunics and high leather shoes. It suddenly struck Gerry that this was the first place on Venus that he had visited where the majority of the citizens did not go heavily armed at all times. Perhaps it was a good omen.
One of the men stepped forward, a bearded and gray-haired man who bore a gold-tipped staff.
"I am Gool, chairman of the Council of Elders of Moorn," he said in the deep voice that Gerry had heard outside. "The Council has decided to see you at once. You are the first outsider who has been permitted to enter the city of Moorn—White Queen of the Outer Isles—in countless generations. It would not have been permitted even now if you had been a man of this planet. Come with me."
They went up a flight of steps and climbed into a metal car that hung from an overhead rail supported by columns along the street. Gool touched a button, and the car shot ahead at high speed along the overhead mono-rail. The old man, who had settled comfortably back on one of the upholstered seats, was faintly smiling as he watched Gerry's face.
"You are puzzled, stranger?" he asked at last.
"Yes. There seemed to be nothing on the plain but a lot of holes bored in the rock, and now...."
"And now you find yourself in the city of Moorn," Gool said. "A knowledge of dimensional control is one of the reasons why we of this city have lived in peace and safety for so many centuries while the rest of the planet is torn by constant wars."
"Dimensional control?" Gerry said slowly. Gool nodded.
"Yes. It is hard to put it into language that will be clear to one who has no knowledge of our science. Perhaps I can explain it by saying that the human eye is a three-dimensional organism, and therefore capable of perceiving only things that fall into that same category. There are a great many things in the universe, some of the greatest importance, that the ordinary man's senses are incapable of perceiving. We have learned how to cast a protective screen of fourth-dimension rays about our city, and the effect is that it becomes completely invisible to the human eye. Do I make myself clear?"
"Not entirely," Gerry grinned. "But I do know that your screen works! But, since your science is so far ahead of the other people of Venus, why don't you rule the entire planet?"
"The other races are all barbarians," Gool said with a sort of disdainful gravity. "We prefer to live here in our peaceful isolation and not bother with them. That is an essential part of our philosophy."
The speeding mono-rail car mounted higher as it neared the center of the city. The track seemed to end on the blank wall halfway up the tallest of the buildings, but as the car came near a circular doorway suddenly opened just in time to let it through. They halted in a circular chamber where heavy springs caught and allayed the last of the car's momentum, and a pair of gold-helmeted guards saluted Gool as they helped him to alight.
"The Council is ready and waiting, my Lord," said one. Gool nodded over his shoulder to Gerry.
"Follow me," he commanded.
The Council of Elders of Moorn sat at a U-shaped table in a high-ceilinged room whose walls were hung with heavy and very ancient tapestries. The dozen members of the council were all old men, gray-beards who seemed dwarfed by the high-backed chairs in which they sat. They listened with grave attention to Gerry's account of what he had seen of conditions on Venus, but their austere faces showed no sign of animation when he again suggested that they should intervene in the planet's affairs.
"We are not interested," Gool said listlessly.
Suddenly the short-wave alarm in Gerry's helmet buzzed loudly. He pressed the receiving switch.
"Listen, Chief!" Steve Brent's voice was tense and excited as it came from the ear-phones, "I just got a message from Tanda back in Larr. There's hell to pay back there! The Scaly Ones have in some way managed to storm one of the barrier forts, and now they're pouring over the borders of Savissa in great hordes. They're armed with supode rays, too!"
Gerry switched off the radio, and leaned forward with his hands on the carved table.
"Now is the time for you to act!" he snapped. "Lansa is a mad-man. He plans to overrun all Venus. If you come to the aid of the Amazons at this time, it will...."
"Our isolation of centuries is not to be broken," Gool interrupted. Watching the emotionless faces of the Council of Elders, he felt as though he were wading through mud. He was getting nowhere! The inertia of these gray-beards was a leaden and tangible thing.
"But if Lansa wins he may come after you!" he urged. "Your walls are invisible, but they're there. I could feel them with my hands. Now that Lansa has the equipment to project the supode ray, he may bring them down and...."
"We take no part in what goes on outside our walls," Gool repeated firmly. "We will give you the metal to repair your own ship. If you and some of your men wish to return quickly to the mainland in the meantime, we will send you across in our flying cars. That is the most that we can do."
Half a dozen flying cars rested on a broad platform on top of one of the walls of the city of Moorn. Many bells were tolling the noonday chimes as Gerry Norton led his armored men from theVikingaboard the compact little flying machines. There was room for six men in each car, the pilot and five passengers. Only Angus and the necessary assistants had remained behind to repair the space-ship with the materials supplied by the men of Moorn. Gerry leaned from his car to shake hands with Gool, who was leaning on his gold-tipped staff.
"Thanks for this much help," Gerry said. "Next time we meet I'll tell you...."
"We shall not meet again, my friend," Gool said with a half smile. The words seemed definitely ominous to Gerry, but before he could say anything more the old man had bowed ceremonially and then stepped back off the landing platform.
The flying cars of Moorn were shallow bowls of some gleaming blue metal, oval in shape and with three comfortably upholstered seats. They had no visible means of propulsion. Curved windshields of heavy glass protected the passengers from the air-blast of swift motion. Gerry got in beside the pilot of the leading car, who was a slight and taciturn Moornian with the big head and high forehead of his race. A complicated control board was fixed in place before him. Closana and Portok were in the seat next behind, while two more members of theViking'screw occupied the rear seat.
"Ready?" the pilot asked. Gerry nodded.
The pilot touched a switch on the control board before him, and three globular dials glowed with an iridescent light. The space-car rose easily from the landing platform, moving upward and outward at a steep angle. There was neither noise nor vibration. The city vanished as soon as they passed outside the zone of dimensional-control on its outer walls. Looking back and down, Gerry saw only the pitted rock of the foundations far below. A cart was moving toward the beach with some bars of metal for theViking.
Then the next flying car came into sight as it sped out beyond the walls. Its nose came into sight first, then the middle section, finally the whole car. One after another, the rest of the flotilla took off till they were flying in a V-shaped formation like a flock of wild geese.
"What kind of power makes these cars go?" Gerry asked.
"Iso-electronic rays," the pilot replied shortly, not taking his eyes from the indicator board.
"And can they be made invisible like the city?"
"Yes. The dimensional-control lever is here." The pilot pointed at many of the controls, then again lapsed into silence.
It was evident that Gerry was not going to be able to have any extended conversation with the driver of the car. That might be due to instructions the man had received from his superiors, or simply to his own nature. Probably a combination of both! These men of Moorn were a cold and self-centered race. Probably they were an isolated off-shoot of the original Old Ones who had first settled this planet, a group who had managed to retain the scientific knowledge of their ancestors but had lost the vigor and fire that are found in active and vital nations.
Below them lay the greenish yellow expanse of the Great Sea. Though these electronic flying cars of Moorn traveled with a noiseless smoothness that was the last word in flying comfort, their speed was much less than that of theVikingat even minimum rocket power. The pilots were holding the flotilla down to a level of only a few hundred feet. The sight of the vast expanse of rippling waters sliding past so close below them was a strange experience to Gerry Norton, who had spent his life in space-ships that always traveled at the upper levels where everything below looks like a gigantic patch-work quilt.
Scattered islands shouldered their way upward through the sea ahead, and then sailed past below. So utterly smooth and noiseless was the movement of the electronic flying cars that they seemed to be standing motionless, while a strong wind blew against their glass shields and the surface of the planet unrolled beneath them. It was well into the afternoon before the familiar mountain ranges bordering Savissa came into view ahead.
Closana was leaning forward on her seat, her eyes eager and youthful in the shadows of the steel helmet with which she had been fitted out from theViking'sstores. Then, as the coast line became clearer with every passing mile, she suddenly pointed ahead and down to two black dots on the surface of the sea. The pilot took one glance at them, and then his hand moved to the dimensional control lever.
When they first entered the flying cars, Gerry had noticed that each one bore a very realistic appearing metal bird at the end of a sort of flag-staff that protruded upward at the bow. At the time he had thought it was simply a form of decoration. Now he realized that the metal bird fulfilled a much more useful purpose. It was outside the zone of invisibility, and gave all the pilots something to indicate the locations of the other cars and avoid collisions. When he glanced back, all he could see was a flock of birds following them in a wide V. The flotilla was keeping formation.
As they soared closer to shore, the two black dots gradually took shape as a pair of good-sized surface craft. A black-hulled raider, manned by a crew of the Scaly Ones, was hotly engaged with a wooden Savissan patrol boat. Companies of Amazons crouched behind the high bulwarks of their warship, loosing their arrows in stinging flights. Explosive bullets crackled around them as the Scaly Ones replied with their gas-guns. The boat was equipped with a big charging-tank, for reloading the gas-guns, equipment too heavy to be carried by land raiders but possible here. The tide of battle was definitely setting against the Amazons. The bodies of many of the golden-haired feminine warriors lay sprawled in the scuppers or scattered on the riven decks.
Closana's fists were clenched as she peered down at the battle on the seas below. The decks of the Savissan craft were beginning to smolder, and her arrow fire was weakening. Closana threw Gerry an agonized glance, and he turned to the pilot beside him.
"Is there any way we can strike at that raider below?" he asked. The Moornian pilot smiled faintly, and then handed Gerry a long metal rod that was equipped with gun-sights and had a sort of rubber stock. A wire trailed away from it and was attached to the car's power plant beneath the control boar. It looked like an odd form of rifle, but the metal rod was solid instead of hollow.
"Aim—then press the button!" the taciturn Moornian said.
Gerry brought the strange-looking weapon to his shoulder and sighted through a line of rings set in the top. He centered the cross-hairs amidships on the black-hulled Reptilian craft, then gently pressed the switch button set in the stock.
There was a blinding flash of lightning. An instant later came the crashing roar of thunder. Momentarily the flying car rocked under the buffeting of the disturbed air masses, then it steadied down again. On the sea below, the battle had come to an abrupt end. That single blow was enough.
The lightning bolt struck the sea raider amidships, with a blinding flash. The metal hull glowed red hot. Water steamed about it. The dark shapes of Scaly warriors went spinning off into the sea. Then the tank of gas amidships exploded, sending a sheet of blue flame high into the air.
The Savissan war-craft rocked violently on the waves created by the lightning bolt and the explosion. The surviving Amazons clung frantically to bullwarks and rigging to avoid being washed overboard by the sheet of foam-flecked water that spread over the decks. Then as their craft steadied down again, they looked up into the sky. All they could see was a flock of small birds speeding rapidly inland. They lifted their weapons to the sky in salute, a tribute to whatever dark Gods had sped the deadly bolt that wrecked the enemy craft.
Gerry gingerly handed the deadly lightning caster back to the pilot.
"That's an effective weapon," he said. "If these flying cars can only stay with us for a few hours after we arrive at the city of Larr, we can probably break up the attack of the Scaly Ones and...."
"We return to Moorn immediately, as soon as we have landed you in Larr," the pilot said with cold finality. "Those are the orders of the Council of Elders."
Dusk caught them just as they passed over the Savissan coast line. They saw the gleaming lights of various scattered towns and hamlets below them. An hour later the lights of Larr itself came into view. At first they were only a glow along the horizon. Then, as the flotilla of flying cars swept nearer, the lights of the city began to take on definite form and shape. Closana was again leaning eagerly forward.
"The lights look strange!" she said, "so many of them are unsteady and flickering!"
Gerry Norton peered ahead through the night. His own eyes were narrowed and thoughtful.
"Those flickering lights you see are ray-guns," he said at last. "The city is already under siege."
Before attempting a landing as they came to the Golden City of Larr, the flotilla of flying cars swept in a wide circle over the city and its surrounding suburbs. Great fires burned in braziers along the walls. Other fires had been kindled by the besiegers. Dozens of cottages outside the circuit of the city walls were also aflame, blazing furiously. The whole place was suffused with a ruddy and uneven light, and the observers in the flying cars had a clear view of the scene below.
Behind the battlements and bastions atop the city's walls crouched the Golden Amazons of the garrison, loosing their storms of arrows at the swarming besiegers below them. Other tawny-skinned crews worked the alta-ray tubes that belched blasts of blue flame at regular intervals. Wherever the blue beams struck, the ground was blackened while the twisted and charred shapes of Scaly Ones writhed in brief agony. The myriad brazen trumpets of Larr sounded hasty rallying calls, or else tossed staccato signals from one part of the defences to another.
The hordes of Lansa had invested the city on three sides, the marsh-land on the far border of the city protecting that side from direct assault. Groups of Scaly Ones took shelter behind tree trunks and mounds of earth and any other possible cover, firing their gas-guns up at the battlements in an effort to lessen the arrow fire. Others crept forward behind movable metal shields. Heavy-caliber gas-guns inched slowly forward behind wooden mantlets that bristled with arrows, and hurled their larger explosive bullets up at the walls. Wherever they struck there was a puff of yellow dust and a scarred place on the stones. Reptilian trumpets beat with a staccato thunder as Lansa kept in touch with his various divisions. Not all the advantage was with the besiegers, however. Even as Gerry watched, a blue heat-ray struck full on one of the big gas-guns and blew it up with a shattering crash.
In all but one particular the battle was a large-scale edition of the type of assault that the Scaly Ones had often tried against various barrier forts in the past. The difference was that they now possessed the supode ray, which Lansa had been able to prepare for his forces. Long beams of the familiar murky, reddish light were continually playing upon the walls of Larr.
The effect of the supode rays seemed to be less serious than Gerry would have expected. Perhaps Lansa's ray-guns were lacking in power because inefficiently made. Perhaps the yellow stones that formed the walls of Larr contained some radioactive substance that partially neutralized the rays. The walls were crumbling into powder in dozens of small spots as the searching beams of the rays found a weak point or flaw in the stone, but there was none of the wholesale collapse that Lansa had probably hoped to achieve.
The whole scene below was like a macabre nightmare. The fires flashed and crackled, and the explosive bullets of the Scaly Ones twinkled like fire-flies through the drifting smoke. Red light glinted on the points of flying arrows. Savissan trumpets blared defiance to the thunder of reptilian drums. Most dramatic of all, silent but terribly deadly, was the duel of the ray-casters as the red beams of the attackers and the blue rays of the defenders darted back and forth through the night like the rapiers of fencing giants.
The flotilla of flying cars darted down to the plaza in front of the Tower of the Arrow. The pilots kept them invisible until they had landed, lest the nervous crew of a defending ray-machine blast them before their identity was known. As soon as the dimensional-control was switched off there were cries of alarm, and a few hasty arrows glanced harmlessly off the Earthmen's armor. Then Closana shouted reassuringly and they were recognized.
A little later Gerry and a few of his officers stood with Rupin-Sang on one of the balconies of the Great Tower. The aged king of Savissa wore full armor though in the shadows of his gilded helmet his face looked old and gray and tired. Beside them, a squad of the Golden Amazons worked a long-range ray-tube that was firing at the rear areas of the Reptilian position. The muscles of the feminine warriors rippled beneath their tawny skins as they swung the heavy controls of the big ray-machine.
"They came against one of our barrier forts from the rear, in great numbers," Rupin-Sang said wearily. "I cannot imagine how they had managed to get so many men in behind our lines...."
"Probably brought them under water in that submarine they used when they took me captive," Gerry said. "Brought them through in relays. I should have sent you warning to block the river channel against that craft, but I never thought Lansa would strike so quickly."
"At least we had enough warning to prepare for the defense of the city after they broke through the frontier," Rupin-Sang said. "We called in all the surrounding troops. We sent the very young and the very old, the ill and the crippled back to comparative safety in the hills by way of secret trails through the swamps. If the walls will stand against the new rays the Scaly Ones are using, we should be able to hold out for a long time."
"The armor of my men is proof against either rays or explosive bullets," Gerry told him, "and our ray-guns are superior to those that Lansa has been able to make. We'll use my men as shock troops to beat back any particularly pressing attack. Between us, we can hang on until Lansa gets tired of the siege."
"I hope you're right," Rupin-Sang said gloomily, "but I recall the old prophecy. It is in my mind that the end of the Golden City of Larr is at hand, and that the sands of my nation run very low. However—we will fight to the end."
"No bunch of half-lizards led by a white renegade is going to lick me!" Gerry rasped.
A week later Gerry Norton was less confident. Haggard and unshaven, he stalked into an inner room and tossed his helmet clattering on the table. His armor was badly dented by the impact of many explosive bullets, and one forearm was burned where a supode ray had momentarily pierced between the chinks of the armor.
"All right, Steve," Gerry said wearily, "it's your watch. Go up on the walls and take over."
"Anything new?" Steve Brent asked, sitting up on the cot where he had been sleeping and running both hands through his tousled crop of sandy hair. His freckled face was as lined and drawn as Gerry's own.
"Another of the bastions on the west wall came down under the rays, but we're holding the breach all right with archers and a portable ray-caster. Hurry and get up there, like a good fellow! I left Portok in charge, and he's dead on his feet."
"I am not so damn much alive myself!" Steve muttered, but he put on his helmet and went clanking off up the corridor.
Gerry sat down heavily on a bench, at the moment too tired even to take off his armor. The city of Larr still held out—but that was all that could be said. The Scaly Ones still pressed the assault day and night without ceasing. The once mighty walls of yellow stone were crumbling under the constant attack of the walls while the defense of the steadily widening breaches put an added strain on the dwindling numbers of the garrison.
If only theVikingwould come! Her duralite hull would withstand either rays or explosives, and her own powerful ray-tubes should be able to blast the attacking artillery out of existence and thereby raise the siege. But he could not raise the space-ship on the radio! That was the thing that worried Gerry most of all. Tanda had been trying at hourly intervals for days, but he could not get any answer from McTavish.
At last Gerry stretched out on the cot that Steve had quitted, and almost instantly went to sleep. It seemed only a moment later that he awoke to find Portok the Martian shaking him by the shoulder. Gerry laboriously raised himself up on one elbow shaking his head to clear his brain. So strong were the bonds of sleep that several seconds passed before his brain grasped the meaning of the words that Portok was shouting in his ear.
"Chief! Can't you hear me? The whole western wall has come down, carrying all the ray-tubes with it. The Scaly Ones are in the city!"
Gerry seized his helmet and weapons from the table where he had thrown them, and dashed out of the room. From one of the balconies of the Arrow Tower he could see the swift disaster that had come upon the City of Larr. The ceaseless, unrelenting play of Lansa's supode ray machines had finally weakened the city's western wall until the whole rampart had collapsed.
The once towering wall was now only a long mound of rubble. The companies of Scaly Ones nearest the wall had been buried in the debris when it fell, but fresh hordes were pouring forward with a shrill yelping. The Amazon archers defending the wall from above had been mainly crushed in the wreckage. Reserve regiments were hurrying into place at the double, bow strings twanging and long golden hair streaming out behind them but there was one loss that could not be replaced. All the alta-ray machines on that wall were shattered and broken.
The despairing courage of Larr's feminine defenders was not enough to hold that mile-long pile of rubbish whose sloping sides could be easily climbed by the swarming hordes from Giri-Vaaka. The Amazons were falling back all along the line. The retreat was a slow and stubborn one, but it was steady. Such of the alta-ray machines as could be brought to bear upon the shattered wall from other portions of the fortifications swept the advancing Scaly Ones with blue blasts that tore gaping holes in their ranks, but there were not enough of them. The firelight gleamed on the armor of a few of theViking'smen who were fighting with the rear-guard, their ray-guns stabbing viciously into the Reptilian ranks as they fell back. The drums of the Scaly Ones took on a deep-mouthed bellow of triumph, and the brazen trumpets of Larr were the voice of a forlorn and fading hope.
Rupin-Sang appeared on the balcony beside Gerry, leaning his gnarled old hands on the rail. He was smiling, as though final disaster had at least brought a relief from strain.
"This is the end of the City of Larr," he said. "The ancient prophecy of Jeddah-Khana comes true after all. Save yourself and your men while you can, my friend."
"Can't we all escape through the swamps and put up a better fight in the hills?" Gerry asked. Rupin-Sang shook his head.
"No, my friend. The last survivors will do that when all is over, but we will defend Larr to the end—street by street and house by house—as is the tradition of Savissa. We are the last descendants of the Old Ones. We may die, but we will do it with honor."
The swift advance of Lansa's men bit deeply into the city, halfway from the shattered wall to the central plaza surrounding the Great Tower, before it was checked at a line of hasty barricades. There was bitter house-to-house fighting all across the city. Gerry knew that the stand at the barricades could not be sustained for very long. The advance of the Scaly Ones had at the moment outdistanced their supode ray casters and their heavy caliber gas-guns. For the present the Amazon arrows held them checked. The advance was sure to resume as soon as Lansa's heavy weapons could be brought up again.
It was a hopeless fight—and yet Gerry could not bring himself to leave. Partly it was his affection for the grief-stricken but indomitable Closana that held him there. Partly it was the sheer courage of the Amazon's gallant fight against such heavy odds that kept him in the battle line. By some standards the affair was none of his business but he could not quit now. However—he had not the right to hold his men in the stricken city if they wished to leave. As he located the various members of theViking'screw in the disorganized Amazon ranks, he gave each one permission to escape from the city through the eastern marshes. Portok's reaction was typical.
"Run from these snake-skinned devils?" the little Martian panted hoarsely, his ruddy face gaunt and his eyes sunken deep in their sockets. "Not while I can still stand. I'm staying with the rear guard—as long as there is one!"
New fires had been started by the victory-drunk Reptilians, fires within the walls. The lurid glow of burning houses made the night hideous. Fully a third of the city was in flames by now, and only the easterly wind kept the flames from driving the defenders away from those portions of the city that they still held.
By noon the next day the tale was nearly all told. The Savissans now held less than a third of their city, a V-shaped sector with the Arrow Tower at its apex. The murky beams of supode rays were now continually playing against the walls of the Great Tower itself, and small cascades of pulverized rock kept sliding off the face of the stone work as the weaker parts began to decompose under the steady impact of the rays. And still the fight went on!
Gerry had forgotten what it was like to lie down and rest. He was leaning in an angle of the wall, actually asleep on his feet, when Chester Sand from theVikinghurried across to him.
"Rupin-Sang wants to see you down in the garden right away, Chief!" Sand panted. "You and Steve Brent both."
"All right. Get Steve," Gerry growled. He sighed, and tightened his belt, and went wearily down the steps to the lower floor of the tower.
The pleasant walled garden behind the tower was a very different place from the stop Gerry had seen when he first came to Savissa. The explosive bullets of the Scaly Ones had ripped up many of the trees, and shattered the marble statues. A heap of debris fallen from above lay along the base of the tower wall, while more was constantly trickling down as the murky beams of the supode rays criss-crossed overhead. The bodies of dead Amazons were scattered here and there on the trampled grass. Dense clouds of acrid smoke from the burning city swirled down over the garden wall.
Closana was waiting in the garden, her armor dim and battered. Her left arm was heavily bandaged, but she still carried a naked sword in her right hand.
"I was told that you wanted me," she said. Gerry shook his head.
"No, it was your father who sent forme." Just then Steve and Chester Sand came across the garden. A faint suspicion began to stir in Gerry's mind.
"Where is Rupin-Sang?" he demanded.
Sand hesitated, and cleared his throat. His eyes were shifty. Then Gerry heard a slight sound behind him. He spun around—and looked squarely into the muzzle of a ray-tube held by Lansa himself!
They had been neatly trapped! Lansa and a dozen of his men had come up through the sewers and slain the Amazon guards posted there.
"Drop your weapons!" Lansa snapped. Gerry shrugged and obeyed, and the others followed his example. There was a triumphant smile on the renegade's saturnine face. "I am glad you were not killed in the fighting, Norton," he said, "because you and Brent and the girl will make very valuable hostages for me when your space-ship eventually returns."
Gerry turned and stared at Chester Sand. TheViking'sSafety Officer was pale, but he met the other man's glance with a sort of weak defiance. Gerry's lip curled.
"Soyouare the rat who slugged me that time I caught Olga in the radio room!" he said. "I should have known it. I seem to have left several loose ends I should have watched, but I'll fix you for this some day and...."
"You won't be fixing anybody any more, Norton," Lansa said grimly. "After I've used you to get possession of theVikingyou'll die in the torture chambers at Vaaka-hausen. Thanks to my good friend Sands, I also know the location of the invisible city. That, too, I will attend to. But all in good time. Guards! Bind and gag the prisoners...."
He never finished the sentence. There was a sharp hiss, and a thud. A narrow steel point stood a hand's breadth out beyond his throat. A wondering expression came into his eyes. Then his knees buckled, and he went down on the trampled grass. Across the garden, still holding the air-gun from which he had shot the long steel slug, stood Sarnak of Luralla!
The Scaly Ones went for their weapons, but a vengeful throng of the outlaw brood of the Dragon came pouring up from below on the heels of their leaders. There was no thought of quarter between these hereditary foes. There was a short, sharp fight—and then the last of Lansa's raiding party died in the shadow of the wall. Sarnak came striding forward, his hand outstretched and a cheerful smile on his broad face.
"It seems that I came in very good time, my friends!" he said.
"Perfect," Gerry grinned. "But what does your coming mean?"
"It means that the hour of deliverance is at hand. When Lansa brought his full force eastward against Savissa, it gave us the opportunity we have been needing for generations. We of the Dragon's Teeth rose against the scanty garrisons he left behind, and put them to the sword. The mass of the people joined us then, when the chances of victory looked so strong that hope overcame the despair born of generations of oppression. Now the Green Folk of Giri have thrown off the yoke of the invader at last, and thousands of them are marching this way to take the army of the Scaly Ones in the rear."
"But how did you come to arrive in the garden at this particular moment?" Gerry asked.
"The forces of Giri have forded the river and are marching overland, but I came ahead with a hundred picked cavalry mounted on swift saddle-dolphins. We saw a crude type of underwater craft moving in this direction, and followed it at a distance. You know the rest. After bringing down the sentries that Lansa had posted below, we left our dolphins and our water helmets down at the main drain and crept up through the passages to this place."
"When do you think the rest of the Green Folk will come?" Closana asked.
"Within a few more hours, Princess. They will not be in time to save your city, but they will be in time to protect the survivors."
"If there are any of us left by then!" the girl said bitterly. Gerry suddenly pointed upward.
"Look there! The worst is over now!" he shouted. TheVikingwas streaking across the sky in a burst of yellow rocket flame.
The big space-ship dropped down over the beleaguered city, her powerful ray-tubes flashing. Other murky beams stabbed up to meet her, but her duralite hull was impervious to the rays and Angus kept her high enough so that the helicopters were protected by the curve of the hull. One after another the ray casters and heavy gas-guns of the Scaly Ones went out of action. When the ship's beams had silenced the artillery and commenced to rip black holes in the ranks of the Reptilian warriors themselves, they suddenly broke and fled.
The war drums of the Scaly Ones were silent at last, while the trumpets of Savissa raised a long-drawn paean of vengeance. Out of the ruined and flaming city fled the Reptilian men, while troops of swift-footed Amazons hung on their flanks and rear with twanging bows. Back across the plains toward the border they fled—and ran squarely into the grim thousands of the Green People who tore them apart with the savagery of an oppressed race just finding their souls again. The few that survived, out of the powerful army that Lansa the mad Earth-man had brought eastward to attack Savissa, were a handful who fled back across the land of Giri and vanished into the desolate Vaaka marshes from which their people had first emerged generations before.
The Golden City was hopelessly afire, past saving, and the survivors gathered on a level field outside the northern wall. Gerry and Sarnak and Rupin-Sang were standing together as theVikingdropped down to land on the edge of the field. McTavish stepped out, red bearded and jovial but showing the effects of sleepless nights himself.
"Sorry we couldn't get here sooner," he said, "but we've been working night and day to make proper repairs with that queer metal the people of Moorn gave us. We got your radio messages, but couldn't reply because the ship's sending set is broken and I figured the helicopters were more important repairs."
In a few brief words Gerry told McTavish of the fight in the garden. The big Scot beamed his pleasure. "An' did they get that slinking she-devil of an Olga along with the rest of the carrion?" he asked.
Gerry shook his head. "No, she wasn't there. At least, we didn't see her. It wasn't likely though that she would come. She probably remained back in Vaaka-hausen."
McTavish frowned his disappointment. "Ah, weel," he shrugged, "ye canna' have ever'thing."
"Don't worry, McTavish," Sarnak grinned, "we'll probably have her in a few hours. A force of Savissans and Green Men have already left to clean up Vaaka-hausen."
Gerry grinned. "Good. There's one thing I would like to suggest. I loathed Lansing as much as any of you, but he is a white man, and I dislike thinking that he may be hauled off and tossed into a common grave with the rest of the Scaly Ones. Let's go to the garden, and see that his body has at least a half-way decent interment."
The rest of the party agreed to this, and they made their way back to the garden. They went down the steps leading to it, then all stopped in surprise. The bodies of the slain Scaly Men and Lansa were gone!
McTavish rubbed his eyes unbelievingly. "What kind of devilment is this?" he whispered. Sarnak shook his head slowly. "I don't understand. Unless the retreating forces found them, and carried them along with them. They were all dead, of that I'm sure."
"Lansing, too?" inquired McTavish suspiciously.
Gerry laughed. "Lansing never walked away from here, unless as a ghost. I saw him go down. And men with an arrow transfixing their throats don't do much walking."
But the big Scot didn't seem entirely convinced, and as they walked away, he was still shaking his great, shaggy head in doubt.
With the strain of the siege over at last, many of the garrison had simply dropped to the ground and gone to sleep where they fell. Gerry was watching the flames sweep over the last of the city. For a long time the Arrow Tower remained standing above the sea of fire, but then it began to tip. Faster and faster it fell, till it came down in a shower of sparks. Closana dropped her head in her hands, but old Rupin-Sang touched his daughter on the shoulder.
"Save your grief girl," he said. "It is true that the Golden City of our fathers no longer exists, but there was a second part to the prophesy. That, after the great disaster, the people of Savissa would have a re-birth. A message that just came through from those of our people who are hidden in the hills tells me that—of ten children who have been born since we sent all the non-combatants out of the city—seven have been boys! The curse has been lifted from our race."
Two days later, even before the ashes of Larr were cool, working parties of Amazons began to clear away the ruins to prepare for the building of a new city. Sarnak of Luralla had already returned across the river Giri to supervise the rebuilding of his own land. Angus McTavish came up to where Rupin-Sang and Gerry stood in front of the king's tent.
"Tests all complete, Chief," he said. "That material we got in Moorn is all right."
"I don't suppose there's any way of thanking them for it."
The big Scot shook his head slowly, tugging at his beard. "The city isn't there any more."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that it's gone. We heard the bells a few hours after you left, and then we never heard them again. You can walk clean across the plain where the city stood. Sand from the beach is drifting into the holes that held the wall foundations, and grass is already beginning over the rest of the place.... It's gone, that's all."
"They were queer folk, the people of Moorn," Gerry said moodily. "I suppose they were afraid they might get dragged into the affairs of the planet in spite of themselves, and simply moved the whole city off to some distant and unknown planet."
"But how could they do that?" McTavish said. Gerry shrugged.
"Ask me another! How could they make the place invisible? We know they did that, we don't know how much further their science went. Anyway—I'm going to be glad to get back to Earth for a while. I guess we're ready to start."
He turned to look at Closana for a moment. The girl had laid aside her battered armor for her customary bright loin cloth and golden breast plates. She shook back her long golden hair and faced him with a smile.
"Want to come back to Earth with me, Closana?" he asked.
"Either that—or the ship goes back without its captain," she said quietly. Gerry laughed.
"Darling, I feel sorry for any Earth-woman who ever concludes you're some shy little stranger she can patronize. Well—the trails of interplanetary space are long and we'd better get going. All aboard!"