"The men of Tana are not cowards despite what the Chosen have done to them. Some have faced and fought even the torvaks of the Outside. But to act contrary to what Komso has declared the will of the Gods—that they will not do. So although several have looked upon me with desire, none have dared take me as mate."
There was pity in Barry's heart as he thought of the deep loneliness to which Komso had condemned her from childhood on. More than pity, he thought now. What had started with him as a matter of survival had changed and deepened, become more than friendship.
"But I am not a man of Tana," he blurted impulsively. "And I love you."
Xintel lowered her eyes. "Barry, do you really like me—that way?"
"Yes."
"Then it is settled," she declared, and came into his arms. "See, it is simple."
Later, still holding her closely, he told her, "Xintel dearest, whatever lies ahead we shall face together."
But even his newfound happiness could not curb Barry's restless tension. Large as it was, the cavern of Tana was still confining to one accustomed to the open sweeps of Earth, and the threat of Komso hung like a looming storm cloud. And, despite much thinking and long, fruitless conversations, neither Barry nor Xintel could see a way to attack the Chosen's almost invulnerable position.
Roaming the great cave, Barry's attention turned one day to the gas filling the upper portion. It gathered from the tiny bubbles given off by the submarine plants, with even the living houses of Tana contributing, and its level was nearly constant. Whenever its volume increased beyond a certain point the excess spilled into the tunnel leading to the open sea.
"What's up there?" he asked.
Xintel laughed. "It should do no harm to go there."
Together they swam high above the town along one insloping wall of the cavern, passing through the thin layer where swarming microscopic life furnished Tana's constant illumination, and reached the surface.
"Clear the water from your lungs all at once," Xintel instructed him. "It's easier that way."
She exhaled as far as possible, water pouring from her open mouth, and gasped in a breath of gas. He did likewise, and after some choking and coughing, found he could breathe.
They climbed out on a slanting rock outcropping and he stared around.
"This gas must be almost pure oxygen," he said, his voice ringing hollowly.
He looked around at the vaulted roof and irregular walls, noticing that his breathing, while not painful, was somewhat labored. Then suddenly the girl laughed wildly and did a few steps of a strange sinuous dance.
"What's the matter?" he asked anxiously.
She threw herself into his arms with limp abandon and squinted up into his face as though having difficulty focusing her eyes. He believed he understood, and besides he was beginning to cough.
She was giggling as he pushed her head under the water, but he had to force himself to overcome his instinctive Earth reactions before he could take that first breath of liquid.
After a few minutes Xintel gave him a shamefaced smile.
"Did I make a fool of myself?" she asked.
"Of course not," he replied gallantly but with a trace of absentmindedness.
Slowly they let themselves drift down into the city, with Barry's mind working furiously. He had remained out of water several minutes. He though of the colony, and—until Xintel touched his arm—of Dorothy.
The experience gave a new purpose to his oddly timeless life. After that during each waking period he swam up to the cavern roof. Each time, as well as he could judge, he was able to remain out of water a little longer.
At first Xintel scolded him bitterly, as from time immemorial wives have scolded husbands for their own good. Upon the Venusians breathing gaseous oxygen had the same effects as alcohol addiction on Earth. She told him horrible stories of people who had drunkenly wandered into the Outside and fallen afoul of norus or torvaks. She pointed out an oxygen addict who moved jerkily and seemed half insane. Once she even resorted to the ancient feminine weapon of contending amid loud sobs that he no longer loved her or he would instantly cease his debauchery.
But Barry persisted, and after following him and seeing for herself that he did not become intoxicated she finally accepted his habit, along with his periods of silent thoughtfulness, as an inborn peculiarity of her alien mate.
VI
Gradually, so gradually he could not determine when it started, he began to hear a new word whispered around the city.
"Demon!"
"The demons are not all dead!"
"The demons have returned!"
"The demons gather to attack us!"
"Only Komso can save us from the demons!"
"Is he—?"
"Perhaps her father, Soren Who Died Accursed, was a—"
"Have they found—?"
"Will the demons—?"
A shuddering uneasiness spread insidiously among the people, and their attitude changed. Venusian men watched the Earthman with hostile speculation in their eyes and hands close to weapon hilts. Women moved aside as he approached, dragging their children with them.
Although not a single individual mentioned demons to Barry's face he knew he was somehow concerned.
"Just what are these demons?" he demanded of Xintel.
He expected her to refer to some superstition, but she surprised him with a definite answer.
"They were the last of my race to live in the Above—not devil-spirits or supernatural beings at all. But they were outlaws and killers, and so were not permitted to pass through the Place Of Change. Over this there was great bitterness, and the Last Days were filled with hatred and slaughter that is still remembered. But they are all long since dead."
"You mean your people came here from the Above deliberately?" Barry asked incredulously. "Why?"
Xintel nodded. "We—my forefathers—were to have come to the Here for a short time only, for sanctuary. But our way back was closed when the Place Of Change was destroyed. And the Chosen, gaining power, saw that misfortune overtook those who knew the secret of the Place."
She smiled tremulously. "I hoped that you could lead us back. But you too had lost the way of return."
"But why? What made your people come to the Here?"
The pain of ancient tragedy was in Xintel's eyes as she told the story.
"Around us nearly everywhere are creatures, living creatures, small beyond all normal sight," she explained.
"There." She pointed to the light. "And another sort live in the paste which produces gas. My people were always clever at making use of them.
"In the Above live many more types of these unseen creatures. My people became too clever—but they were not as clever as they thought."
She glanced at Barry and spoke with earnest seriousness. "Some of them, incredibly tiny as they are, are deadly. They get inside a person, causing him to sicken and die, killing as surely as a spear thrust."
She hesitated as though expecting the Earthman to hoot in derision at such an idea, and continued only when he nodded slowly.
"There were quarrels among factions of my people, breaking out again and again with increasingly vicious fury.
"Ordinary weapons were not enough. With their skill my people took the unseen things—they understood, then, a way to see them—and made them change their natures to become more deadly still."
Barry shuddered as he guessed the rest. He remembered talk on Earth of developing mutant, hypervirulent strains for bacterial warfare.
"The ancients used the special unseen creatures they had created to fight their battles, and the slaughter was horrible beyond belief. But then the creatures turned against their masters. The other tiny creatures with which the ancient protected themselves failed, became ineffective, and Death walked the entire Above unhindered."
It hadn't happened on Earth yet but Barry could picture bacterial warfare out of control, spontaneous mutations loose, and no vaccines or antitoxins to combat them. The warm, eternally moist atmosphere of Venus offered ideal conditions. Perhaps that was why the Colony had found only insects and quasi-reptiles. Infection could have spread from homo Venusians to all related, warm-blooded life forms, blasting them into extinction.
"Against that deadly smallness there was no way to fight," Xintel continued. "And there was but one place to flee. So the Place Of Change was built by the wisest of my race. But by the time it was completed only a few remained to use it."
Barry had no doubts who was fomenting talk of the demons. Komso.
But if the Venusians had once been air-breathers and had deliberately become water-breathers there was still a chance that somehow he could become completely human again. At least his condition was not completely hopeless.
He could escape. His practice sessions had taught him to remain out of water nearly three hours, as nearly as he could judge, and that should be sufficient to re-establish contact with the Colony. But escaping alone, leaving Xintel behind, was something he knew he could never do.
"How did the Place Of Change work?" he asked. "On what principles? Did your Ancients actually understand how to generate Sigma radiations on the surface of a planet? Or was the change accomplished in other ways?"
Xintel shook her head. "That knowledge has fallen into the hands of the Chosen and been destroyed. Knowledge, except for themselves, is according to the Chosen against the will of the Gods."
"Is there nothing left?" Barry insisted, grasping at straws.
"The Place still remains amid the ruins of Last City," Xintel answered unexpectedly. "But it is wrecked and useless."
"How do you know?"
Xintel smiled sadly. "I have been there, twice. Soren once took me as a little girl, and once I went alone."
"But how?"
"Long since have the creatures of deadly smallness exterminated each other. Soren knew, and I know, and Komso knows. But Komso will not tell the people that one can go to the Above for a short time and not die."
Immediately Barry wanted to see for himself the remains of Last City and particularly the Place Of Change, but the Venusian girl demurred. The trip was perilous, she said, and if they were to leave Tana now, going into the Outside and toward the Above, it would only confirm in the minds of the people that Barry was a demon. Anything that would precipitate open action before they were able to take countermeasures against Komso's plots would be a fatal mistake.
Reluctantly Barry put the idea aside, but he did not abandon it. Instead he doubled his practice sessions in the oxygen at the top of the cavern, driving himself until his chest burned and throbbed. He was still a member of the Five Ship Plan whose duty was to the colony, and besides he had a frightening surety that without outside help Komso would eventually encompass his death.
One day when they were returning from the fields in the far reaches of the cavern they saw a man swimming away from their house. Barry put on an angry burst of speed, but the distance was great and the furtive figure vanished.
Xintel went through the three rooms inch by inch, checking all her possessions—but nothing was missing and nothing seemed to have been disturbed.
"We must have frightened him away before he could steal anything," Barry commented.
The girl frowned and bit her lip. "No. I do not think thievery was his object."
"What then?"
"I—I do not know," she admitted uneasily.
Komso finally took official cognizance of the talk of demons. He selected ten young men, not of the Chosen, and led them forth to reconnoiter in the Above. The men went heavily armed, but still superstitious dread would have prevented them from venturing to the myth-haunted surface without the high priest's mystic protection.
Barry grew acutely uneasy when he heard of the expedition. It boded no good for anyone except Komso. Hour after hour the underwater city hummed with speculation. For Barry and Xintel it was a nerve-wracking wait.
Then Komso returned—and with him came only three of the ten.
With lightning rapidity the story spread. There were demons in the Above, and despite Komso's great powers they had turned overwhelmingly potent weapons against them.
The mates of the slain were loud in their lamentations, and as though following prepared instructions, the Chosen spread the rumor that Barry, and Xintel too, were responsible for the slaughter. Barry was a demon spy, and Xintel had turned against her own people to mate with him.
Barry felt certain the priest had deliberately led his men into disaster for the psychological effect. He had been building hatred, and to one of Komso's mentality, seven deaths would be a negligible price for this crowning touch.
Drawn together by a spreading terror the people massed near the center of the city, each seeking company to stem their rising panic of helplessness. Their mutterings increased, their mood grew uglier.
But with dramatic suddenness Komso appeared in the doorway of his cave-temple and swam slowly forward. The murmuring died, then broke out again with a questioning undertone. The priest raised his arms so the sacred bracelets of office on his thick wrists flashed in the cold yellow light. Then slowly, deliberately he began to speak.
He expressed regret for the deaths of those who had followed him aloft. He had underestimated the malignancy of the demons, he admitted.
A shocked silence fell over the crowd, broken only by the grief stricken sobs of one of the widows. He glared at the woman, and his eyes made her cower.
The peril was dire, he warned. One demon had already penetrated the sacred boundaries of Tana and others were gathering in the Above. Soon they would descend and overwhelm the city unless the people of Tana followed his leadership unquestioningly.
But the mission had not been in vain. Komso had discovered the demons' plans—and their vulnerability.
"We killed one demon!" he boasted.
Barry gasped. Komso was too clever to tell an outright lie when there were three surviving witnesses to check his story.
"Kill the demons! Kill all the demons!" A Chosen One began the chant, and it was taken up and echoed by the crowd.
It sounded so absurd that a group of aquatic semi-savages could hope to attack a surface settlement defended by the finest weapons of Earth that Barry almost laughed. But he remembered Xintel's account of the Venusian downfall, and was not so sure. Komso's forces would not have to breach the defense perimeter of the colony to achieve their objective. Bacterial warfare ineffective under water, could render the surface uninhabitable again.
And the colony had no inkling of such a threat.
"Damn him," Barry thought. It was all so stupid and useless.
He fumed while Komso's words calmed, influenced, and finally controlled with hypnotic completeness the emotions of his listeners.
"The demons shall die!" Komso orated. "I, Komso, shall call upon the powers of the Gods Of The Deeps. Beasts of the marshlands shall come at my command, smashing and overturning the houses and forts of the demons in the Above! And then shall the Unseen Death smite them!"
The people roared their approval, and while they were still shouting the priest turned away in abrupt dismissal.
Barry and Xintel looked at each other, their faces white and set, each wondering what they could do.
A hundred thoughts flashed through Barry's mind at once, dominated by the knowledge it was his duty to warn the colony. He had become a freak through accident, but he was still an Earthman. But to make his warning really valuable he must know more of Komso's methods. He thought momentarily of invading the cave-temple to steal information or even assassinate the priest, but discarded the notion. Komso would be expecting such an attempt and have his Chosen Ones waiting.
They were still discussing the situation hours later when Xintel suddenly raised her hand for silence. A puzzled frown appeared on her face and she dropped to the lower room. Barry, watching her peer around the door curtain, saw her body grow tense. He listened, and his ears caught a confused sound of voices.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Men are coming this way, and they are led by Sanlan, the brother of that Czerki."
"Komso's work?"
"Naturally."
Barry reached for a spear. "They won't touch you as long as I'm alive," he promised.
The sounds outside grew louder.
"Go in through the door," he heard a voice command. "Chase the demon and his woman upward and out. Lart and I will attend to them."
Xintel leaped to the upper room and began tossing down baskets.
"Block the hatchway," she directed. "We will hold the middle room."
Quickly Barry piled them across the opening, thrusting extra spears through the wovenwork and into the material of the floor. It was a flimsy barricade but better than nothing.
Xintel loaded her crossbow. Barry stood beside her with a spear ready.
"Now!" the voice outside boomed.
Men poured into the lower room, shouting to keep up their courage. Xintel, her face pale, squinted along her crossbow and thumbed the trigger. A man screamed. A spear thwacked upward into the baskets as the girl put her strength against her weapon's reloading ratchet.
"Can you hold them off a minute?" Barry whispered.
She nodded, and he leaped to the upper room. One basket remained, and he found that by standing on it his head was just below the roof's lower surface. With his knife he began cutting into the matted fibers of the roof. He was nearly through when a whisper from above made him pause.
"Psst! Lart, be very sure your thrust misses."
That was Sanlan, Barry guessed.
The other Venusian growled under his breath.
"Komso will have your skin if you disobey," Sanlan warned.
"But why?"
Sanlan chuckled. "Have you no faith?"
Barry resumed cutting, puzzled and suspicious, opening a hole just large enough to admit his head. He had guessed his position well, for Sanlan and Lart were standing with their backs toward him while they watched the hatchway.
The Earthman withdrew silently, taking no chances that Sanlan's talk had been a trick to draw him out.
Xintel glanced up as he dropped to the middle room. A confused discussion was in progress below, for no man wanted to be the first to rush the barricade.
"Give me both your tube-weapons," Barry demanded.
She turned her hips, allowing him to take them from her belt without putting down her crossbow or relaxing her vigilance.
"Come at once when you hear me call," he directed. "We can't hold out forever. It's run or die."
"Run? Where?"
"Outside. It is our only chance."
He leaped to the upper room again.
A tube gun in each hand, he thrust his wrists through the hole he had cut. Sanlan and Lart were still waiting.
"Perhaps you should have others break through the walls," Lart suggested impatiently.
Sanlan shook his head. "There is plenty of time."
But Sanlan's own time ran out just then as Barry triggered the weapon in his left hand. He died instantly.
Lart whirled. Barry fired the other tube. Lart screamed and doubled over in agony.
"Xintel!" Barry called.
She came up with a rush.
Lart was still alive, and he screamed as they emerged onto the roof. Answering yells came from below.
"Let's go!" Barry barked as attackers began to swarm out of the house.
They swam desperately, side by side. The members of the mob trailed after them, but although they split the water with bloodthirsty yells they were reluctant in their efforts to close with the fugitives. Xintel had taught them respect during the battle inside the house, and Barry was a dread demon.
Barry broke his stroke to point. A large crowd had gathered around the mouth of the tunnel.
"Women there too," Xintel panted.
As they drew nearer he could see she was right. Women and unarmed men predominated in the group around the portal. They made no hostile moves, but nevertheless Barry drew his knife.
And then, off to one side, he saw the unmistakable figure of the priest.
Komso watched their headlong flight with a thin smirk of satisfaction, and as they drew near he pointed one arm at them in a ritualistic gesture and began a resonant chant. A deadly hush fell over the watchers.
"Accursed be ye!" Komso intoned. "Manifestations of evil who presume to flaunt those the Gods have appointed to rule, be ye accursed by the Gods Of The Deeps!
"Gods Of The Deeps, heed thy servant! Send thou thy creatures that they may feed, that they may rend the flesh and grind the bones and destroy utterly those whom I have cursed in thy mighty names!"
Barry felt a crawling prickle of fear along his spine at the confidence of Komso's manner. Xintel's face twisted in terror as she remembered how that self-same curse had brought death to her father. The Earthman felt an almost overwhelming urge to swerve aside, to swing in a suicidal dive upon the priest and his Chosen guards. But remembrance of his duties to the colony and to Xintel overcame blind fury.
It seemed too good to be true when he and Xintel plunged into the dark passageway without interference. The armed mob followed, shouting to the noncombatants to move aside—but they were in the clear. They emerged from the tunnel mouth into the open, deadly, faintly luminous sea of the Outside.
"Hold!" They heard Komso's shouted command behind them. "Follow and you too shall be accursed!"
He did not have to repeat his order, for the Venusians were never too eager to venture into the Outside. Instead they massed at the portal to witness the fate of the demon and his traitorous mistress.
Suddenly the girl gasped in horror, clutching Barry's arm and pointing upward and outward. Against the background of dim luminosity, far in the distance, two bright pinpoints showed. Then three. Four. And then more than he could count.
"Torvaks!" she gasped.
Barry stared aghast. As though summoned by Komso's words the terrible undersea monsters were gathering from all directions.
Xintel's forehead wrinkled in desperate concentration.
"The Cleft!" she said suddenly.
Barry followed blindly as she dove toward the rocky, irregular bottom. Each time he risked a glance over his shoulder the monsters were nearer. And there were more of them. His muscles ached, but those trails of ominous light acted as a powerful stimulant.
The girl led him along the bottom, paying no attention to landmarks but relying solely on an intuitive sense of direction which all Venusians possessed. Soon Tana was lost to sight.
How long the nightmare chase lasted Barry was never to know. Seconds grew to ages and minutes to throbbing eternities. He concentrated on swimming, swimming, swimming for his very life, and hardly heard Xintel's words of encouragement.
"Just—a—little—further!"
Then stabbing, biting, burning pain seared his throat. Almost intolerable. But Xintel was guiding him straight down into a narrow fissure in the bottom. Her legs stopped their flutter-kick and she allowed momentum to carry her bottomward. Barry too ceased his exertions in a state of near collapse.
"Perhaps—they—won't follow!" Xintel panted.
Both looked upward. The monstrous shapes—they could see the gross, hideous bodies now—seemed unwilling to follow their prey into the crevice. They wheeled above in relentless circles.
One creature, like a gigantic moray with finned pectoral legs, made an abortive lunge but turned upward again a few feet above them.
Another torvak's neck shot out, its armored head striking the eel-creature a tremendous blow. Another monster swooped, fangs ripping, and for a few minutes the water grew murky with spilled blood and roiled ooze as the three huge beasts battled. The fight ended, and once more the saurians took up a restless, watchful patrol above the cowering pair.
Barry's breathing eased but the burning in his throat remained. Something in the water was irritating the tender membranes of his lungs, nose and eyes. He glanced at Xintel and saw that she too was in pain. But it was this very irritant that was preserving their lives. The monsters did not like its smell or taste.
"Maybe they'll go away," he said, not believing his own words but trying to reassure the girl.
The cleft in the ocean floor was long and narrow, deeper than it was wide, and at the bottom it tapered to a hair-thin crevice in the bedrock. The steeply slanting walls were deeply covered with a yellow-blue greasy jelly mixed with mud and silt. Barry recognized it from Xintel's descriptions as the Cleft Of Hardening where soft wooden implements were made usable. The crack in the bottom must extend deep into the heart of the planet.
"Xintel," he asked. "Are there any weapons buried here now?"
"There always are," she answered, but her voice was filled with despair.
"Where?"
She did not know. When the inhabitants of Tana buried objects to be hardened they were extremely careful to smooth the jelly over them. Otherwise prowling norus would dig them up.
Pawing into the sticky, corrosive jelly with hands and arms they began a blind search. Within minutes the girl gave a cry as she uncovered a spear. She wiped away the clinging stuff, then wept with disappointment. It had been buried only a short time and still had the soft consistency of balsa. Angrily she threw it down.
Barry recovered it. As a weapon it was worthless, but it was firm enough to use as a prod. Methodically he moved along the bottom, thrusting deeply every few inches.
"Got something!" he called, and Xintel swam to his side.
There were two spears and two long knives, all thoroughly hardened. Within a few more sleeps someone from Tana would have made the dangerous trip to pick them up.
Barry glanced at the shadows overhead. It felt good to have a weapon in his hand again, even though logic told him a spear could never penetrate the armored hides of those nightmare creatures. They could do absolutely nothing but wait and hope.
He found a projecting rock that was relatively free from slime and settled down. He wanted to think.
A sudden commotion overhead made him leap up. Two bodies came hurtling over the edge of the cleft some two hundred yards away, with trails of light glistening behind them. A torvak lashed out, missed, and its frustrated bellow made the water vibrate as the newcomers settled toward the bottom.
"Norus!" Xintel hissed in Barry's ear.
"They're not armed," Barry observed.
She turned on him peevishly. "But they're norus!"
Barry, not trained to hatred by a lifetime of strife with these outcasts, felt sorry for them as they crouched trembling and gasping from their flight. They eyed him furtively.
After the first few minutes, when it became evident the norus did not intend to break the unspoken truce imposed by mutual peril, the girl relaxed. Yet she did not turn her back to them.
For a long while she and Barry sat in silence. There was nothing to say, nothing worth saying in their hopeless situation. The norus watched stolidly, their eyes flicking occasionally between the pair from Tana and the monsters circling overhead.
Then in a quick move that startled Barry the girl stood up, unfastened her skirt, stepped out of the garment. She seemed entirely unaware of her nakedness.
"Fan your hands back and forth," she requested. "Make light."
Barry complied, swirling the water to brightness. The norus watched uneasily, staring hard at the girl. But Xintel was absorbed in inspecting the fabric of her skirt, going over it inch by inch. A couple of times she held it to her nose, but each time shook her head.
"Ha!" she cried suddenly, pointing to a slight, almost invisible stain.
"What is?" he asked.
"It may be—Give me your knife."
She cut away the stained cloth and wrapped it around the unhardened, useless spear.
"What are you doing?"
She ignored his question.
"Take this and go part way up," she directed. "But be careful, very careful, dearest—and throw it over the rim."
Trusting her knowledge of this undersea world, he climbed the slippery wall. Halfway up he found a foothold. He tensed his muscles, heaved the weapon with the peculiar pushing gesture he had learned was the only way to throw under water. As the spear made a high arc he abandoned his exposed position in a headlong dive.
Xintel shouted happily. "Look! Barry! Look!"
Above the cleft the water was whipped to intense brilliance as the nightmare monsters converged on the spot where the spear had fallen.
"What is it?" Barry yelped.
Xintel laughed and threw her arms around his neck. "The curse, Barry! The curse Komso put upon us!"
"Huh?" he grunted.
"Everyone knows those beasts follow the smell of blood, and that a man wounded in the Outside is as good as dead. They follow other smells too!"
At once he understood. "So Komso's curse is some powerful lure that will bring every monster within miles to attack, but has a smell we ourselves can't detect."
She nodded. "That one we saw leaving our house—he did it."
Xintel put down her skirt and even unclasped her precious metal necklace. Stark naked and unarmed she started up the slope.
"Come back!" he yelled as he sensed her intention.
She paused, but then continued upward.
A shadow swooped.
"Look out!" Barry screamed. But Xintel had been alert and had thrown herself into a plunging dive.
"Oh!" she sobbed as she pulled herself up beside him. "It's no good. It has gotten into my skin. Probably yours too."
But after his burst of renewed hope Barry refused to surrender. "This corrosive jelly might counteract it," he suggested.
Xintel's eyes were somber. "We have nothing to lose," she agreed.
They scooped out two troughs in the greasy jelly and buried themselves with only their heads projecting, but at Xintel's suggestion they took positions where they could keep an eye on the norus.
"Rub some on your face," Barry advised the girl. "In your hair too."
"It stings!" she complained.
"I know. But it's our only chance."
VIII
They let an hour of torment pass, and although Xintel tried gamely to keep her face composed she could not hide an occasional grimace of pain as the caustic jelly ate at the more tender portions of her skin.
The swarm of monsters still held patrol above the cleft with dull-witted reptilian patience. The two norus had settled down, squatting lumpishly, with only their eyes active.
At last Barry pulled himself from his uncomfortable bed. His body was red and chapped from head to foot. Xintel was in the same condition.
"I hope this works," he said.
He climbed toward the rim, nearly to the top, and still the beasts paid no attention. He made no sudden movements and their eyesight was apparently dull.
"Barry! That's enough! Come back!" Xintel called.
Deliberately he waved his arms. A swimming torvak turned in its own length and plunged toward him, and Barry barely evaded its rush.
"If we try to escape they'll see us," Xintel said.
Barry nodded sadly. Even though Komso's curse had been voided they could still only wait and hope.
The nomads who had found refuge with them unwittingly solved his dilemma. As once more the age-old envious hatred of the homeless ones for the city dwellers came to the fore they whispered to each other. For a moment Barry and Xintel grew inattentive. The norus had been waiting for just that. They dashed forward, intent on snatching the weapons that to them represented great wealth. Xintel shouted in alarm and one of the savages struck at her with a webbed fist.
Barry's knife flashed and a noru died. As the survivor swerved to evade Xintel's spear, Barry was upon him from behind.
His knife descended, this time not in a killing stroke. Deliberately he carved a long, shallow gash down the savage's back, a wound that would bleed copiously. Then he shouted and roared ferociously. The wounded noru fled.
Xintel streaked in pursuit, a grim expression on her face and a spear poised, but Barry reached out one arm and caught her ankle. Instinctively she twisted and her fingernails raked his face.
He slapped her hard.
"No!" he barked. "Let the noru go!"
She looked at him in furious disgust as the nomad churned in panic-stricken flight toward the rim.
"He's bleeding!" Barry snapped.
A great dark shadow swooped at the noru, missed, and Xintel looked admiringly at Barry as she understood.
The water above the cleft grew streaky with light as the monsters abandoned the tenuous remnants of the lure to follow a trail of fresh blood. The noru gibbered in horror as he dodged along the rocky bottom.
"Let's go!" Barry barked. "Straight up!"
It was a long, tiring swim. At last they floated just below the surface.
"Can you find the colony?" Barry asked.
"We go to the nearest shore, near Last City," Xintel corrected. "We are not safe here over deep water."
They swam again, this time horizontally, guided once more by Xintel's compass sense. Once Barry raised his head, but all he could see was a narrow circle of rippled water upon which the ever-present mists pressed heavily. A slight rosy glow overhead, dim and diffuse, was the only indication of the sun.
Finally the girl stopped. "We are almost to the edge of the Above," she said.
Barry put his head up again but still could see nothing but water and mist. They swam a few strokes more, and then he and the girl lowered their feet to a bottom of soft mud.
When he stood up in the neck-deep water and emptied his lungs there was an interval of wracking coughing and gasping. But then he found with elation that he was breathing without too much difficulty. His practice sessions in the cavern were paying off.
Xintel too stood up and gasped in the warm, stench-filled air, floundering beside the taller Earthman as they waded toward a dimly seen bank ahead. The water had shoaled to her waist, when without warning, she staggered and collapsed.
Barry caught her as she fell, and with Earth habits returning, cradled her in his arms with her face above water.
"Xintel! What's wrong?"
She stirred in his arms and her eyes opened.
"Put me down," she requested.
Then she noticed the frightened expression on his face.
"I'll be all right soon," she assured him. "Just—tired. And air—too suddenly."
Tenderly he laid her in the shallow water.
"Sure you're all right?" he asked solicitously.
She nodded.
For a few minutes he waited beside her, thinking of the colony. He understood now Komso's reference to the beasts of the marshlands overturning the houses of the demons, and the priest's plan of battle. His lure would attract the monsters with which the colony had already had trouble. And when the colonists were forced outside by the hypervirulent bacteria of the Unseen, death would strike.
Without a warning the unsuspecting colony would be doomed, but without Xintel's guidance he could not reach them to give that warning.
"Barry." The Venusian girl's voice was still weak and unsteady. "The Place Of Change is on this shore. Go look at it. Perhaps you, with a different mind and a different knowledge, could—"
"You sure you'll be all right alone?"
She was sure, and finally Barry left her, emptied his lungs once again, and floundered up the muddy bank.
His body felt heavy without the support of the water to which it had become accustomed, but it was good to be walking like a true Earthman again. He plodded inland, cautiously forcing his way through the thick swamp vegetation. The ground underfoot was a tangle of roots, slime and jagged stones.
Last City was a disappointment. Nothing was left but a few scarcely discernible mounds almost hidden by the swamp jungle. It was impossible to tell even what sort of buildings once existed.
He was ready to turn back when a shift in the mists disclosed the Place Of Change.
It was a domed building, huge even by the engineering standards of Earth, and something done in ancient times had prevented the jungle from encroaching upon it. Half submerged in mud, tilted where the ground beneath it had softened and shifted, the great hemispherical shell nevertheless remained intact. Barry hastened forward, found a circular opening, evidently once a window high on the structure but now at ground level, and after a glance at the dimness within stooped and entered.
He had not known what to expect—Xintel had told him only that the Place Of Change was irreparably ruined—but certainly nothing so bleak and disheartening. There was nothing but mud within the great building. Whatever machinery or equipment had been used to change the Venusians to water-breathers had vanished without a trace. Barry's shoulders sagged as he turned back toward the window.
But then the engineering training of his years on Earth reasserted itself, and he wondered of what material the building had been constructed to withstand the ravages of the savage environment of the Venus. With the flat of one hand he brushed at the greenish, clinging slime that covered the walls. Etched into the wall were strange symbols arranged in an orderly fashion. Writing, obviously done by the Ancients.
It was possible that the inscriptions included the technical data on which the Place had been based.
He ran to another section of wall and wiped at it, then at random to a third spot. More writing. It meant nothing to him, but in the colony there were specialists who might—
His chest began to burn, bringing his mind back to his present situation. There was nothing he could do for the present, and he must warn the colony. There was no telling how far Komso's plans had progressed. Perhaps the attack had already started.
He hurried out through the window, slid and stumbled through the swamp, plunged into the water. Xintel was sitting up.
"Can you find the colony?" he asked.
She nodded, "Far along the shore, that way, I can feel the presence of life. Your kind of life."
"That's it! Let's go!"
They followed the shoreline, and as the minutes passed a happy excitement grew in the Earthman at the prospect of seeing his own kind again. Xintel was silent.
When they came to the opening of the slough, Xintel pointed.
"That way. Not far."
Barry shook his head vigorously. "They'd shoot first and look later," he explained. "Particularly after Komso's first raid. I'll have to approach overland."
Half a mile beyond the slough a huge tree had fallen and was lying half in the swamp and half in the water.
"This should be far enough," he decided. "Wait here for me. And be careful."
He stuck his head out, studying the treacherous, mist-shrouded swamp he must cross, then ducked under again. The Venusian girl looked at him for an instant. Her hands moved as though to detain him.
"Good-bye Barry."
He kissed her and held her close.
"It's not good-bye," he promised. "I'll come back."
Xintel smiled tremulously.
He released her and climbed to the tree trunk, emptied his lungs of water and slogged off into the swamp. It was filthy and difficult and dangerous traveling, but a sense of urgency was upon him.
After a while he began to sing, loudly and hoarsely and off key. He sang the popular songs of his last days on Earth, cowboy ballads, ribald and unprintable construction camp ditties. The sounds drifted thinly into the enshrouding mists.
He did not sing from happiness. The colony would be an armed camp and the songs of Earth offered his only means of identification in the fog. At the end of each verse he paused and listened.
He finished a particularly lugubrious cowboy number entitledBlood On The Saddle.
"Hey! Who's that out there?" A voice reached him through the mist.
"Ya-hoo!" Barry called. "Where are you?"
"Over here!" the voice replied.
"Keep yelling, and—don't—shoot!" Barry called, spacing his words for clearness.
But sounds moved in tricky ways through the moist, opaque air and it was only after long floundering that he saw the dim shadows of men.
"Who are you?" the voice called sharply. "What are you doing out here?"
"I'm Barry Barr."
"You lie!" someone shouted. "Barry Barr's dead!"
Barry recognized the voice.
"That's what you think, Phillips!"
He sloshed his way over to join them and they stared in amazement.
"Where you been?" one of them demanded.
"At the bottom of the sea."
"This ain't no time for kidding!" the man retorted angrily.
"I mean it," Barry declared earnestly. "But guide me in quick. There's hell brewing."
He waited impatiently in the vestibule of the central building while they peeled off their rubberized swamp suits. Then he was inside, back in the colony he had never expected to see again.
"Call the council of captains and get the leading technical men of each division," he snapped. "Emergency!"
He coughed, his lungs irritated by the artificially dehumidified air of the building. Just then Dr. Jensen passed down the hallway. He saw his erstwhile patient and came running.
"What happened to you, son?" he asked.
"Water machine stopped," Barry said shortly, unwilling to be diverted from more pressing matters by past events. "Had to get out or die."
"The devil!" the doctor exclaimed. "It was running all right when I came back, but the window was smashed."
For Barry that was conclusive evidence—if such were needed—that the breakdown had been no accident. Hind had turned on the water and power again to cover his deed.
Dr. Jensen grabbed Barry's arm. "Let me make some tests on you," he asked eagerly.
"No time now," Barry snapped.
The four spaceship captains and as many technicians as could crowd into the room, set up a babble of questions as Barry entered. He glanced around quickly, searching for two faces, but neither Dorothy Voorhees nor Robson Hind was there. He held up a hand for silence.
The noise subsided.
"Gentlemen, there is intelligent life on Venus, intelligenthumanlife of an origin common to our own. You tangled with them recently."
"My God!" a man exclaimed. "We thought it was some animal that killed Evans."
"I told you that was a knife wound and not the mark of teeth," another interrupted.
"We heard Fred shooting out beside the slough," someone explained. "But by the time we got there he was dead and there was nothing in sight."
"Don't underestimate these Venusians," Barry warned. "They live under water. No knowledge of fire or explosives—they lost those when they went aquatic—but their bacteriology is advanced. They once staged a full scale bacterial war. And they knew enough biological science—a damn sight more than we know—to deliberately become water-breathers to escape the mess their war created."
He noticed sceptical looks on some of the faces.
"Just look at me," he said. "What happens by accident can be done on purpose. This colony is facing death. A fanatical group of Venusians are planning to wipe us out, and the attack will come soon. They will use a chemical that attracts every swamp beast and water monster within miles.
"It works. I know it works," he insisted, and shuddered as he remembered the torvaks.
"Then there will be hypervirulent bacteria. You know what that means!"
"Why should they attack us?" someone demanded.
"You're strange to them, alien, and there is a leader among them who fears outside influences will undermine his absolute control."
"All right! Let's get ready, shoot the works, and give them what they're asking for!" The man who spoke had been a close friend of Evans.
"No!" Barry said decisively. "That would be the worst thing possible!"
"What would you advise?" one of the captains asked.
"Many of them would be friendly if given a chance," Barry explained. "But if you plant mines in the slough and wipe out the attacking party it will mean enmity between colonists and the surviving Venusians for all time to come. Both sides will be vulnerable, you to bacterial attack, they to depth charges, and the surface of Venus will be rendered uninhabitable for years or even centuries."
"What's the alternative?" Captain Reno demanded.
The door opened and Barry glanced around. Even in mud-streaked coveralls Dorothy Voorhees was beautiful. He had forgotten just how desirable she was.
"Barry!" she cried joyfully, and ran to him.
Instinctively he responded to her kiss—until he remembered Xintel and his own condition.
"I won't be able to stay," he told her, deliberately making his voice harsh. "I'm not cured and probably never will be."
"But—but your water machine can be fixed," she protested.
"There's more than that," he said, and with an effort turned away.
IX
"As I was saying, gentlemen. Using the electric secondaries from the ships, with submerged electrodes, you can set up a high-voltage, low-amperage barrier across the slough that will stun without killing. If this first attack can be warded off without killing, perhaps we can establish friendly relations."
"What makes you think they could be friendly?" a man asked suspiciously.
"Because of a girl named Xintel who would undoubtedly become their leader if Komso were killed or discredited. She saved my life, and since then we have lived together and fought side by side. She is waiting on the edge of the swamp now, an outcast from her own people because she dared help me."
Dorothy understood more from his tone than his words alone conveyed. Her face paled.
"Barry," she began, her voice strained. "You—?"
The door opened again and three men crowded into the room. One was Robson Hind. The electronics expert's face went gray as he saw his supposed victim still alive. Barry itched to get at him but for the moment too much was at stake to permit personal revenge.
"Rig the shock charges at once," he suggested. "Xintel and I will do our best to head off the attack under water."
There were objections. Some considered it too dangerous. A heated argument broke out, but at last the council of captains nodded agreement. A sublethal current was to be used, but it was to be backstopped by mortars, machine guns and flame throwers. Any creature showing its head above water was to be blasted on sight.
"I'll attend to the power supply," Hind suddenly volunteered.
Barry guessed what was really in his mind. From Hind's unbalanced, paranoid viewpoint it was essential he be removed to forestall an investigation. He turned to the spaceship captains.
"I most strongly urge that someone other than Robson Hind take charge of the work."
"Why?" Captain Reno snapped.
"My reasons are valid, believe me. I'll explain later."
"The man's crazy!" Hind spluttered.
Captain Reno looked at his fellow officers and they nodded.
"Podtiaguine, take charge of the installation," Reno commanded.
The dry air was hurting Barry's lungs; Komso might attack at any moment; and Xintel was all alone where hostile swamp met hostile sea.
"I've got to get out," he declared. "Give me a pair of liquid fire pistols."
A storekeeper hurried to get them, and as Barry buckled the holster belt around his waist he looked for Dorothy. She was gone.
"Remember," he warned. "No killing unless absolutely necessary, but watch out for tricks. If my luck holds I'll be back. I have things to settle."
He looked meaningfully at Hind, then turned abruptly and strode down the hall, his ragged trousers flapping damply, his Venusian sandals squishing at every step. The warm, stench-filled Venusian mist closed around him, revivifying him and soothing his tormented lungs as he started toward the swamp.
"Barry!" It was Dorothy.
"Barry, I want a straight answer."
"Yes?"
"Have you stopped loving me?"
His answer was unhesitating. "No, and I never will. But I have no right since I became—like this."
She made a sound between a gasp and a sob.
"But that Venusian girl?"
Barry fumbled for words. "I—I love her too. It's just that I—well—you and she belong in different worlds and I'm—I'm part of both but not fully of either."
"Oh! But you'll come back—for short periods at least?"
"If I live through what's coming," he answered soberly.
She smiled with an effort. "Be careful, Barry dear, and—good luck!"
She turned, running back toward the buildings, and he plunged into the reeking swamp, backtracking along his own trail of muddy footprints and crushed vegetation.
He emerged at the fallen tree, dived in, and with a sense of relief filled his lungs with water.
"Xintel!" he called.
"Here!" He swung around. The bank beneath the tree trunk had been hollowed out by the action of ripples on the soft mud, and she crouched there, protected on three sides.
"I was so afraid you weren't coming back!"
"I told you I'd return."
"Barry?" Her voice trembled. "Did you see—her?"
He nodded.
"And yet you came back to me!" She spoke as though she could hardly believe it.
"Listen closely," he broke in. "What do the women of Tana think of Komso's plans?"
"They know many of their men will never return."
"Do you think you could—?"
"Perhaps I could sneak back into Tana. But what good would that do?"
Barry frowned thoughtfully. "Could you persuade some of them, as many as possible, to follow the war party and overtake their men? When they see you're alive, that Komso's curse didn't work—"
Xintel shook her head. "Most have never been outside Tana in their lives. Even to save their men they would be too fearful of the sea dangers and of Komso's wrath. They would never follow me."
Barry drew one of his fire pistols and moved aside.
"Watch this," he told her. The liquid charge was self-oxidizing and should burn under water, but there was a distinct danger the gun would backfire. His nerves were screaming as he squeezed the trigger.
Scarlet fire lanced from the muzzle with a sizzling roar that nearly broke their eardrums.
The water surged and heaved.
Xintel pressed her hands to her ears; her eyes were round with amazement.
"What was that?" she gasped.
"That was fire," Barry answered, handing her both weapons. "Now you have magic to surpass anything of Komso's. Would that help persuade the women?"
Xintel smiled grimly. "They will follow me or else—And if Komso or a Chosen One should interfere, would it—?"
"It would. And tell the women that if your people and mine can meet as friends there will be guns like this for everyone. Norus and torvaks will hold no more terrors."
"But you?" she asked.
"I must wait at the mouth of the slough and stop Komso there."
"But—?"
"Waste no more time! Hurry!"
After she was gone he swam along the shore to the slough and settled on the bottom. He waited interminably it seemed before he spotted the distant streaks of light left by Komso's men, perhaps a hundred of them in a close group.
He remained crouched, waiting until they were just beyond crossbow range. Then he stood up, waving his arms to create enough light to make his identity unmistakable. He had decided his only course lay in turning Komso's own propaganda against him.
"Stop!" he commanded.
For a moment there was confusion in the ranks, and those in front backed water.
"Come forth, Komso, and look upon me!" Barry called. "You are a trickster and a fraud, and your curses are without power!"
Komso's jaw went slack and his face grew crimson. The priest spoke softly to a Chosen One.
"Men," he declared. "Only a demon could survive the curse of the Gods Of The Deeps—but even a demon can die!"
Barry almost missed seeing the Chosen One raise his crossbow, but some instinct warned him just as the weapon twanged. He sidestepped and the missile whizzed by. It had been close. If they were to open upon him in volleys—
"Komso's curses are powerless but mine are not!" he declared loudly, concealing his nervousness. "You are forgiven this time, but the next man who raises a weapon against me will feel my wrath. He shall die screaming in slow agony!"
"Rush him! Kill him!" Komso ordered, attempting to rally his wavering ranks. But Barry's boast, and their belief that he was a demon, held them back.
Barry scanned the sea for the patch of light that would indicate Xintel approaching with the women of Tana. Nothing. Stalling was his only chance.
"Men of Tana," he began. "If you follow Komso you go to certain death. Already you have seen that his so-called curse means nothing. And now I shall tell you how—"
"Close your ears!" Komso shrieked. "Listen to this infidel and the curse of the Gods will be upon you too!"
The men trembled, torn between fear of the demon and fear of their own leader.
"Those from Above would be your friends," Barry argued. "They are not demons, but men very like yourselves."
"Liar!" Komso bellowed. "The people of Tana are the only true men!"
The warriors nodded, accepting the oft-repeated dogma as indisputable truth. Barry realized it was useless to argue. He waited, hoping something would swing the balance. Meanwhile Komso deployed his forces in a crescent across the mouth of the slough. To Barry it looked like preparation for a rush that would overwhelm him.
Each warrior, he saw, carried a large sealed wooden cylinder. They handled them gingerly. Barry guessed their purpose. They contained the hypervirulent bacterial cultures with which the colony was to be exterminated. But of course, to the Venusians themselves, they were magic.
Just when it seemed Komso's men were rallying from their fright, Barry sighted a speck of brightness far out to sea. One of the men saw it too and called the priest's attention to it. Komso's stare of puzzlement changed to fury as he made out the forms of thirty women.
Xintel darted ahead of the group, past Komso's men, and before the priest could give an order, she had reached Barry's side.
"I had to use all the fire," she said in a low voice. "There were torvaks, and it killed them."
Barry squeezed her hand, although he wished she had saved one charge with which to impress the war party.
Komso's forces were disorganized. Several of the men had left ranks to join their frightened, panting mates and a series of shrill family quarrels were in progress despite all the priest's efforts. Men cursed their wives for leaving Tana and were in turn cursed for everything the near-hysterical females could lay tongue to.
"Hear me!" Komso bellowed. "Hear me!"
The quarreling stopped abruptly.
"I challenge the demon to single, bare-handed combat!"
Barry gulped. He had wanted for a long time to get his hands on Komso, and now the opportunity was here.
"I accept!" he said firmly.
Xintel's face was ashen; her lips were trembling.
"Barry! My father believed the Leaders used poison under their fingernails; the slightest scratch means death," she whispered.
Barry dared not back down now. He watched Komso advance.
The priest swam upward and stopped, slight motions of arms and legs holding him there. Barry recognized it as a clever move. Komso had seen what the Earthman's muscles could do when he was able to plant his feet solidly.
"Come meet your doom, Demon!" Komso taunted.
Barry sensed the interest of the watchers. Many times they had seen Komso's powers displayed, and they were waiting for the demon to flee or die.
Suddenly Barry launched himself from the bottom in a headlong rush.
Komso dodged and his hands came out in a clawing, scratching reach. In that instant Barry knew Xintel had been right.
He knocked Komso's arm aside and whipped his fist toward the smirking face. It struck, but only a glancing blow. It left him floundering off balance. The water around them glowed with increasing brightness as they twisted and turned.
Again and again Komso's poisoned nails reached out, but each time Barry managed to escape. He tried to maneuver the battle toward the bottom, but Komso stayed above and made short, threatening swoops. Barry was forced to move upward again or remain entirely on the defensive. He did not dare grapple.
In desperation he relaxed his guard and tried a judo chop at Komso's shoulder muscles. The priest uttered a cry of pain, but the blow had not disabled. Fingernails scraping along his neck filled him with blind panic. Luckily they failed to break the skin.
Komso drew away, dove in again, this time low, clawing at Barry's legs and keeping clear of his punishing fists.
Barry drew his legs up, and as the Venusian passed under him, pumped them down with all his strength.
One foot struck Komso's side. Barry felt something shatter beneath his heel.
Komso pulled up from his rush. He turned, unhurt, prepared to dive again. And then one hand went to his side, feeling through his clothing. His face went greenish; his jaw sagged. His eyes rolled and he screamed in utter despair. Barry was too startled to follow up his advantage.
Seconds passed, and then there was a whizzing, hissing sound moving through the water at tremendous speed. A streak of light. Barry barely glimpsed the shark-like creature that burst through the ranks of Komso's men. Straight as an arrow it came, ignoring those it knocked aside.
Komso's third scream broke in the middle, unfinished. Then there was only a spreading pink stain and a few remnants.
The dead silence that followed was broken by a yell of horror. Out to sea specks of light grew brighter by the second. Warriors and women alike milled in confusion, leaderless, and when one man started a panic-stricken dash up the slough, the others dropped their weapons and followed.
Barry hung in the water, still not comprehending, until Xintel shook him out of his stunned inaction.
"Quick, Barry!"
Her legs churned the water at top speed and she guided him with occasional touches. Once he glanced over his shoulder, and the glow around the slough's mouth disclosed huge black shapes gathering. Torvaks!
The girl swam close to shore where the water was thick and muddy and fetid with the reek of decay. After a while she cut her speed so he could come up beside her. No Venusians were in sight.
"His own curse!" she said.
Barry understood. Komso had been carrying a vial of his secret lure. Barry's random kick had broken it, saturating the priest's clothing. The beasts of the ocean had done the rest, and now, in addition, they had the smell of fresh blood to attract them.
"I've got to get ashore at once!" Barry panted.
Trapped between the electric barrier and the monsters prowling the slough, the Venusians would be doomed. With their leader dead, and ravening death at their heels, they would have forgotten all about attacking the colony, Barry hoped.
X
Once more they reached the spot where the tree lay at the water's edge.
"Wait here, darling," Barry said hurriedly, and climbed out.
He lay on the tree trunk a moment, coughing the water from his lungs. When he glanced up Robson Hind was standing there. Under his arms was a submachine gun.
"You damned degenerate fish-man!" he said.
Barry could only stare helplessly as Hind's trigger finger tightened. The man looked mad.
A shot barked from the swamp and at the same instant a slender arm from the water caught Hind's ankle and jerked. The submachine gun roared an unaimed burst as he toppled backwards. His head thwacked dully against the wood, and then there was a splash as he sank.
Barry stood up trembling.
A coveralled and hooded figure emerged from the swamp, carrying a carbine from which a wisp of smoke still curled.
"Barry, did I—?" Under the smears of mud Dorothy's face was pale.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"I saw him following your trail, and I guessed—"
A head broke water beside the log. Dorothy fired, but Barry knocked the muzzle skyward just in time to deflect the bullet. Then he knelt to give Xintel a hand up.
The Venusian girl cleared her lungs, rubbed one webbed hand across her eyes, then gave Dorothy a long, level stare.
"He breathes like you?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. Did she kill him or did I?"
"Is that your Venusian girl?" Dorothy interrupted. "And what are you two talking about?"
Barry switched to English. "Hell's still loose. Got to get to headquarters immediately."
He started off, looked back with a worried frown. Xintel had drawn a tube-weapon to match Dorothy's rifle. The slender, coveralled Earthgirl and the more fully curved Venusian, dressed in only a torn skirt, were eying each other like two alley cats. He could almost feel the crackle of emotion between them. He winced.
"It's murder if you don't!" Barry raged.
Captain Stanley of Ship Two was in charge of the slough sector of defense. He shook his head regretfully.
"Must have the approval of the other captains first," he said.
"Well, in God's name, get them!"