Planter refrained to tell what he knew of the crossbow-girls. Plainly he was up against an attitude of content from which it would be hard to free his new companions—harder than to free them from guards and prison walls.
He slept that night in a hammock-like bed, and next day worked at the machine. His toil was long, but not sapping, and food was good. Once a Skygor came to take his clothing, shoes and possessions, giving him a sleeveless shirt and shorts instead. Otherwise he was not bothered by the masters of the city. For days—perhaps ten—he followed this routine, masking his feeling of revolt.
Then came a Skygor messenger to lead him away along under-water corridors to someone who had sent. At the end of the journey he entered an office. There sat the person he least expected to see.
Disbro.
"You rat," Planter began, but Disbro waved the insult aside.
"Don't be a bigger ape than usual," he sniffed. "I've been able to do you a favor."
"You didn't do me much of a one when I was captured," reminded Planter.
"How could I?" argued Disbro, in the charming fashion he could sometimes achieve. "I was only on probation. If I'd tried to help you then, we'd both be dead, instead of both on top of this Turkish Bath world. Sit down." They took stools on opposite sides of a heavy, wooden table. "Planter, how would you like to help me run Venus?"
"You're going to get away from these Skygors?"
Again Disbro waved the words away. "Why should I? I'll run them, too. Look, we landed safely, didn't we? Observations on Earth will show that, won't they?"
"Right," agreed Planter, mystified. "There'll be more ships coming, to look for us and maybe set up a colony."
"That's it. We'll ambush those ships."
"Ambush?" repeated Planter sharply. "Losing your mind, Disbro?"
"No. I'm only thinking for all of us. Ships will come, I say. Loaded with supplies, valuables all sorts of things. We can overwhelm them as they land. Some of their crews will join us—the others can be rubbed out. And the law can't touch us, Planter! Not for a minute!"
"What are you driving at?" Planter demanded.
"I'm the law," said Disbro, tapping his chest. "Just now I string with the Skygors. Later I may knock 'em off. But anyway, I'm the commander of the first expedition to land on Venus. I have a right to take possession, in my own name." He got up, his voice rising clear and proud. "Possession, like Columbus! Not of a continent—of a whole world!"
Planter, leaning forward on his stool, clutched the edge of the table so strongly that his knuckles whitened.
"And what," he asked slowly and quietly, "do you want me to do?"
"I'm coming to that," said Disbro, smiling with superior craftiness. "You're going to help me solidify these loud-mouthed Skygors."
"They hold me for a slave," reminded Planter harshly, for he did not like the life as well as Glanfil and the others who toiled among the clockwork. But Disbro brushed the complaint aside.
"That's because they don't know what I know. Your lady friends, I mean."
Planter glanced up sharply. Disbro chuckled.
"I talk a lot with these Skygors. Not bad fellows, if you muffle your ears. Anyway, they tell me about a herd of wild girls that bushwacks them constantly, and which they hope I'll find and destroy. Lately some of those girls have been scouting around, yelling for something. The Skygors haven't the best of English, and don't know what the words mean. But I do. Those girls are calling your name. David Planter."
Mara had come back for him, then. She braved the terrors of the Skygor fortress, trying to get him back. Planter felt warmth around his heart. He faced Disbro and shook his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "You must be getting drunk with your Skygor friends."
"They don't have any kind of liquor, only some sort of sniff-powder I wouldn't touch. And you're a cheerful liar, Planter. You know all about those girls, and you're probably good friends with them. Don't be a fool, I'm offering you a slice of my empire!"
"Empire!" echoed Planter, honestly scornful. "You really think you'll go through with this idea of grabbing Venus for yourself?"
"I know all the angles. Back on Earth I was boss of quite an organization."
"And ended up in jail, buying your way out by gambling your life on this voyage!" Planter rushed those words into speech, but made them clear, biting and passionate. "You're a case for brain doctors, not jail wardens. I don't know why I listen to you."
"I know why," hurled back Disbro. "Because I'm already quite a pet among these Skygors. I can kill you or save you. Meanwhile, we're changing the subject. I want you to lead me to these wild girls, and after we're solid with them, a bunch of Skygors will come—"
"Nothing doing!"
"In other words, you now admit that there is such a group! And you'll take orders, Planter. I'm still chief of the expedition."
Planter shook his head. "I can give you arguments on that. You've betrayed the trust of the Foundation back home. That lets you out. You don't have authority over me."
He rose abruptly. "Send me back to the basement, Disbro."
Disbro, too, jumped up. He held something in his hand. It was a gun, not a Skygor curiosity but a Terrestrial-made automatic.
"You don't get off that easy, Planter. I need you badly. And you need your insides badly. Knuckle down, before I blow them out!"
Planter smiled, broadly and rather sunnily. Suddenly he lifted a toe. He kicked over the table against and upon Disbro. Down went the elegant, lean figure, and a bullet sang over Planter's head as he dived in to grapple and fight.
Disbro, the lighter of the two, was wondrously agile. Almost before he struck the concrete floor, he was wriggling clear of the table. Planter's weight threw him flat again, but he struck savage, choppy blows with the pistol he still held. Half-dazed, Planter could not get a tight grip, and Disbro got away and up. Planter, shaking the mist from his battered head, staggered after him, caught his weapon wrist and wrung the gun away. It clanged down at their feet.
"All right, Planter, if you want it that way," muttered Disbro savagely, and took a long stride backward. He got time to fall on guard like the accomplished boxer he was.
Planter sprang after him. Disbro met him with a neat left jab, followed it with a hook that bobbed Planter's head back, and easily slid away from a powerful but clumsy return. When Planter faced him again, he stood out of danger, smiling and lifting a little on his toes.
"How do you like it?" he laughed. "Didn't know I was a fancy Dan, eh?"
Planter charged again. Disbro slipped right and left tries at his jaw, returned a smart peg to Planter's belly, and then let the bigger man blunder past and fetch up against a wall. Planter was forced to lean there a nauseous moment, and Disbro hooked him hard under the ear. A moment later, Planter was crouching and backing away, sheltering his bruised head with crossed arms. He heard Disbro laugh again. "This is fun," pronounced Disbro. "I've been taught by professionals, Planter. Good ones, not washouts like poor Max."
Planter clinched at last, but Disbro's wiry body spun loose. The two faced each other, and Planter felt some of his strength and wit come back.
He realized that he was being beaten. He must change tactics. He remembered what he could of fist-science, and abruptly crouched. Again he advanced, but not in a rush. Inch by inch he shuffled in, head sunk between his shoulders, hands lifted to strike or defend.
"You look like a turtle," mocked Disbro, and tried with a left. It glanced off of Planter's forehead, and Planter sidled to his left, away from Disbro's more dangerous right. Bobbing and weaving lower still, he baffled more efforts to sting him. A moment later, Disbro was backing, and Planter had him in a corner, close in.
He struck, not for Disbro's adroit head, but for his body. His left found the pit of the stomach, just within the apex of the shallow, inverted V where ribs slope down from breastbone. Disbro grunted in pain, and Planter put all his shoulders behind a short, heavy peg under the heart. Again to the belly, twice—thrice—he felt Disbro sag. A hook glanced from Planter's jowl, but it was weak and shaky. Disbro managed to slip out of the corner, but Planter was now the stronger and surer. Across the room he followed his enemy, playing ever for the body—kidneys, abdomen, heart. Disbro was hanging on, his breath came in choking grunts. Planter struggled loose, and sank one clean, hard right uppercut.
Disbro spun off of his feet, fell across the overturned table, and lay moaning and gasping.
"Had enough?" Planter challenged.
Disbro was crawling on the floor, trying to grab the pistol. Planter sprang in, stamped on Disbro's knuckles. Disbro had only the strength and breath for one scream, and collapsed.
Abruptly Skygors entered, Skygors with hard eyes and leveled weapons. "What," demanded one, "is this?"
Disbro, helped to his shaky feet, pointed to Planter. "He—he—refused," he managed to wheeze out.
Disbro nodded, and Planter felt a sudden rush of joy. They would drive him forth, as they used to drive forth unprofitable female slaves. And he would find the Nest again, and Mara.
He was being herded along a passage, up stairs. The Skygors who guarded him kept their weapons close against his ribs. "No escape," they promised him balefully.
He wondered at that, but only a little. Now they had brought him out upon an open, railed bridge between two buildings. Below was water, above the thick Venusian mist. "Jump," a Skygor bade him.
"I need no second chance," Planter replied, breezily, and dived in.
He still wore the scanty costume of a slave, and it allowed him to strike out easily for the edge of the pool. Behind him the Skygors were discussing him, but in their own guttural tongue which he could not understand. As he swam, he studied the city beneath the water.
He meant to come back and assail that city some time, and there must be worthwhile secrets to note. For instance, he was now aware that this pool was artificial—he made out the sluices and gates of a large dam. To one side was a spacious submarine chamber that must be the clockwork-jammed cellar where his erstwhile companions, the slaves, worked.
But something else was under water, something that moved darkly, but had arms and legs, though it was as vast as an elephant. It was approaching him swiftly, knowingly.
Now he knew why he had been told, with such a voice of doom, to jump into the water.
Planter's blood was still up because of that brisk battle with Disbro. He was young, strong, in gilt-edge condition. His new impulse was to keep on fighting, against the thing which had the size, the intention, and apparently the appetite, to engulf him.
The huge swimmer was a Skygor, of tremendous size. Logic in the back of Planter's head bade him not to be amazed; on this damp, fecund world, monsters of such sort were not too unthinkable. As it broke surface, he heard a hubbub like many steam sirens. The smaller Skygors, on housetops and bridges, were all chanting some sort of ear-bursting litany, waving their flippers in unison. Plainly they worshiped this giant of their race. He, Planter, was a gift—a sacrifice.
He swam speedily, but his pursuer was speedier still. With ponderous overhand strokes it overhauled him. An arm as long as his body, with a flipper-hand like a tremendous scoop shovel, extended to clutch at him. A mouth like an open trunk gaped, large enough to gulp him bodily.
Only one thing to do. He did it—dived at once, turning under water and darting below and in an opposite direction from the great swimmer. By pure, happy chance, his kicking feet struck the soft cushion of its mighty belly, and he heard the thrumming gasp of the wind he knocked out of it. Coming up beyond, he swam desperately toward a nearby building. If he could climb up, away, from this huge, hungry being.
"No, not here!" That was a Skygor, poking its ugly smirking face from a window-hole. He tried to seize the sill to draw himself out of the water, and it lifted a dagger to slash at his knuckles.
But then it gasped, wriggled. The paw opened, the knife fell. Planter managed to catch it as it struck the water. A moment later he saw what had happened—big human hands were fastened on the slimy throat from behind. The Skygor, struggling, was pulled back out of sight. In its place showed the flat, simple features of Max.
"Huhh!" gurgled Max. "You in trouble, Mr. Planter?"
He put out a hand to help. At the same moment a monstrous flipper struck at Planter, driving him deep under water.
He filled his lungs with air at the last moment, spun and tried to kick away. His enemy had its hooked claws in his clothing and was drawing him toward the dark cavern of its mouth. Planter struck with the knife he had snatched, and buried the blade in the slimy-green lower lip of the creature. It let go, and a cloud of blood—red as the blood of Earth's creatures—suddenly obscured the water, so that Planter could attempt another escape.
He reached the top once again. The giant held itself half out of the water, big and grotesque as some barbaric sculpture, one webbed hand held against its wounded mouth. As Planter came into view, its big, bitter eyes caught sight of him. Dropping its hand, it howled at him. All the Skygors at their watch-points echoed that howl and began to repeat their uncouth litany once again. The monster pursued as before.
But from his watch-window, Max threw his burly pugilist's body.
Coarsely built Max might have been. Stupid he undoubtedly was. Cowardly and clumsy he was not. As he flung himself into space, he shifted so that his feet were down. He drove them hard between the shoulders of the huge Skygor demon, and the impact of his flying weight drove it under water.
"Get out of here!" yelled Max at Planter. "Get out!"
He had time for no more, for he, too, submerged. Planter clasped his knife in his teeth, and turned in the water. He could not desert that plucky rescuer.
Righting itself, the big Skygor grimaced under the troubled, gory surface. It was having trouble—more trouble than ever before in its freakish, idle, overstuffed life as deity and champion of the community. Two alien dwarfs, of a species it had looked on hitherto as only enticing meat, were viciously attacking and wounding it. Hunger was overlaid by a stern lust for vengeance.
It spied one of the enemy very close, swimming away. Max was not as much at home in the water as Planter, and he could not dodge its grasping talons. Treading water, the thing hoisted him clear, as a child might lift a kitten. Its other paw struck him, with openwebbed palm, hard as a mule's kick.
Max went limp. Once again that awful mouth opened to its full extent.
"No, you don't!" cried Planter, battling his way close. For a second time he drove with the knife, sheathing it to the hilt in a slate-colored chest, close to one armpit.
A fountain of blood sprang forth, drenching his face and weapon hand. He dragged strongly downward, felt his weapon point grating on bone, then coming free. That was a terrible wound, but not a disabling one. In a frenzy of pain and rage, the Skygor giant threw Max far away into the water, and whirled to look for its other tormentor.
But Planter had dived yet again. The fresh blood obscured his passage as before. He came up, panted for air, and seized the limp wrist of Max. As he kicked away for shore, he heard the whine andsplatof a missile.
The Skygors were shooting at him.
He bobbed under, bringing Max with him. As he fought through the water, he felt his friend quiver and beat with his hands. He felt fierce joy. Max was alive, he too, would escape. He had to come up.
"Duck down, Planter," Max told him at once. "They're going to give us another volley."
His voice was suddenly intelligent, his words sensible and articulate. Planter took the advice, swam forward again.
"Shore's that way," said Max, when they came up. "Can you make it? Give me your hand."
The ex-pugilist was climbing over a tangle of roots, to solid ground at last. Planter made shift to follow him.
"What—happened—" Planter barely whispered.
Max laughed, very cheerfully. "What a wallop that sea-elephant has! I guess it knocked my senses back into me. Another belt dizzied me back on Earth. So it's logical that—"
Yes, logical.... Max was no longer a dim, stupid child in a big man's body.
Planter felt himself weakening. He had fought himself out. Even as he turned toward the jungle, he stumbled and fell, rolled over on his back.
He could see the whole surface of the water-city. Skygors were coming in throngs to recapture him, crowded aboard their inflated boats, or swimming. For ahead of them, something like an awful goblin was scrambling out—the mighty freak he and Max had dodged up to now. It stood erect on powerful, awkward legs, its eyes probing here and there to pick up the trail of its prey.
Planter tried to tell Max to run, but his strength and breath were spent. He could only lie and watch. Max had torn up a kind of sapling, whirled it aloft like a club. The tottering colossus approached them, heavily and grimly. It grinned relentlessly, its bloody muzzle opened and slavered.
Out of the jungle moved another figure. A smaller Skygor? No—Mara!
She sprang across the prostrate form of Planter. He managed to rise to an elbow, just as she planted herself in the way of the oncoming destruction. It loomed high above her, paws lifted to seize and crush her. But she had lifted her crossbow.
Pale fire flashed. The string hummed. At a scant five feet of distance she slammed a pen-missile full into the thing's immense chest.
It staggered back from her, its face gone into a terrible oversize mask of awful pain. Those great legs, like dark, gnarled stumps, bowed and bent. It fell uncouthly, supported itself on spread hands. Planter could see the hole Mara had burned in it, a great red raw pit the size of a bushel basket. Then it was down, motionless. Dead.
Max had helped Planter up. "Can you run?" he was demanding.
"No! No!" Mara interposed, hurrying back to them. "Not run! Fight!"
"Fight?" Planter echoed, rather idiotically.
"Fight the Skygors! See, your friends have come!"
Through the jungle to the water's edge pressed other human figures, in Terrestrial overalls and helmets.
A slim, square-faced man in the neatest of overall costumes had grabbed Planter's elbow. It was beginning to rain again. Thunder sounded, like Skygors grumbling high in the mist. "Quick!" said the square-faced man. "You're Planter, aren't you? And that other man—but where's Disbro."
Planter pointed toward the water-city. "Who are you?" he demanded, as if they had all day.
"Dr. Hommerson. Commanding this new expedition. Ten of us in the big new ship started when they reported you landing safely. We cracked up, not far from where your ship bogged down. This girl found us, said—"
"Whatever she said was true!" cut in Planter. "Quick, defend yourself against those Skygors."
"They'll defend themselves against us," rejoined Dr. Hommerson bleakly. "If they're smart, and if they're lucky."
His companions had formed a sort of skirmish line among the thickest stems at the water's edge. With a variety of weapons—force-rifles, machine guns, one or two portable grenade throwers—they had opened on the Skygors.
The amphibian dwellers in the water-city had started to chase Planter and Max, but the destruction of their giant kinsman had daunted and immobilized them. Now they had something else to shake their courage, which was never too great. Well-aimed shots were picking them off, in the boats, in the water, on the housetops and bridges.
"Don't show yourselves more than is necessary!" Dr. Hommerson was barking. "If they know there's only a handful of us, they might—" He unlimbered a patent pistol, one with a long barrel, a magazine of fourteen rounds in the stock, and a wooden holster that could fit into a slot and form a makeshift butt like that of a rifle. Lifting this to his shoulder, he began to shoot at such of the Skygors as still showed themselves.
Mara had rushed to Planter's side. "They're retreating!" she cried. "The spell—remember thespell!"
True enough, he'd forgotten. That wild, unmanning storm of noise that defended Skygor country, that had knocked him into their webbed fingers as a captive and slave, might begin at any moment. Even now the Skygors were retiring inside their buildings, but with a certain purposeful orderliness. As Planter watched, Max ran up to his other side.
"She's telling the truth. I know all about that thing they sound off," he said breathlessly in his new, knowing voice. "When I was with Disbro—working for him—I had a look at it."
"Stop your ears," Mara was bidding. "Quick! A rag from your garment will do!"
She ripped away part of Planter's shirt, tore the piece in two, and thrust wads into his ears with her forefinger. Max was plugging his own ears. Then the sound began.
When it began, nobody could say. Suddenly, it was there, filling space with itself as though it were a crushing solid thing.
Planter, even with his ears partially muffled, almost collapsed. His body vibrated as before in every fiber, only not unendurably. He saw Max reel, but stay on his feet. Dr. Hommerson's men, a moment ago almost in the victor's position, were down, floundering in half-crazy agony. Planter understood, in that rear compartment of his mind that was always diagnosing strange things, even in the moment of worst danger.
The Skygors were ill-cultured, poor of spirit, prospered chiefly by ideas stolen from the human beings they enslaved. But they understood sound waves, could use them roughly as an electrician might use electric vibrations. There were all the tales he had heard, of a chord on the organ that shattered window panes, of certain orators who could employ voice-frequencies to spellbind and impassion their audiences. This was something like that, only more so.
Then he saw that Mara, who had thought of saving his ears, was down at his feet.
"Mara!" he cried, though nobody could have heard him. He knelt, ripping away more rags of his shirt. He crammed them furiously into her ears. She stirred, got to her knees. She, too, could endure it now, and she smiled at him, drawnly.
"I knew you would come back," her lips formed words. "David Planter—my David Planter—"
Then she was up, crossbow at the ready.
Because back came the Skygors, a wave of them in boats and as swimmers. Sure of their victory through sound, they were going to mop up the attackers.
Max had a rifle. He lifted it, but on inspiration Planter leaped at him and gestured for him to hold fire. From beside one of the fallen Terrestrials he caught a grenade thrower. It was a simple amplification of an ordinary rifle. Upon the muzzle fitted a metal device like a bottomless bottle, the neck clamping tight to the barrel. Into the spread body of the bottle could be slid a cylindrical grenade, the size and shape of a condensed-milk tin. The grenade was pierced with a hole, and the gun, if fired, would send its bullet through that hole, while the gases of the exploding powder operated to hurl the grenade far and forcefully and accurately.
Planter had never used one, but he had seen them used. A quick check showed him that the rifle's magazine was full. From the belt of the fallen man he twitched a grenade, slipped it into place. He knelt, placed the rifle butt on the soggy mass of rotting vegetation that made up the shoreside jungle floor. By guess, he slanted his weapon about forty-five degrees forward. The foremost press of Skygors approached.
Bang!At Planter's trigger-touch, the grenade rose upward. For a moment the three conscious watchers could see it, outlined against the upper mists at the hesitating apex of its flight. Then it fell, too far to demoralize the first ranks of Skygors, but smashing two inflated boats in its explosion and tossing several slimy-green forms like chips through the air. Planter slid in another grenade, worked the rifle-bolt, and raised the weapon to his shoulder.
It spoke again, louder even than the din of the noisemaker Mara called the "spell." This time it struck water among the leading Skygors, and exploded on contact. Three or four sank abruptly, several more thrashed the water into pinky-red foam in the pain of bad wounds, the rest wavered.
Now Max opened fire with his rifle, and Mara with her crossbow. Both scored hits, and the Skygors gave back. Something was going wrong, they were realizing. The destroying sound was not paralyzing their enemy. Meanwhile, it was best to take cover. Some ducked under the water, others fell back toward the buildings.
"Dynamite 'em!" cried Planter, forgetting that he could not be heard. Stooping, he stripped away the whole beltful of grenades from its helpless owner. He whirled it around his head as though he were throwing a hammer on an athletic field, and sent it flying out over the water. The shock of its fall into the depths set it off—all grenades at once. Skygors came bounding to the top, twitching feebly. The explosion had destroyed them, as fish are destroyed by the shock of detonating dynamite in nearby waters.
Then the paralyzing noise stopped.
Hommerson was the first man up. He was dazed and groggy, but fight was the first impulse that woke in him. Mara, Max and Planter dragged others to their feet, shook and shouted their senses back into them.
"They're retreating!" Planter yelled. "Let's counter-attack!"
Close in to shore drifted one of the abandoned boats. Max had run into the water, dragging it closer. The Terrestrials tumbled aboard, and one of them got the paddle-wheel running. Planter, at the bow directing fire at any Skygors who showed their heads, saw that Mara had not come along. He worried a moment, then worried no more. She was shouting in the jungle, and other voices—feminine voices—answered her. More of the crossbow-girls were coming to help.
The boat made a landing at the building where Planter had first been dragged to slavery. It was not made for defense, and the invaders split into small parties, ranging the corridors and outer bridges. Planter, hurrying downstairs, heard thespatof the Skygor pen-missiles, with the replying crackle of gunfire. After a while, Mara and other girls began to shout and chatter. They had also found a boat and had come over.
On the floor, above the basement where the slaves worked, he came face to face with a Skygor, who lifted his arms appealingly, in the surrender gesture that must be universal among all creatures who have arms. "I want no fight," begged this one. "You are master."
"Then come downstairs," snapped Planter. He clattered down, among the slaves. "Stop work!" he bawled, almost as loudly as a Skygor, and the men, bred to obey big voices, did so.
"Outside!" was Planter's next command. One or two moved to obey, others hung back.
"Outside," the surrendered Skygor echoed Planter, and they came obediently. Planter hurried them to their quarters, then slammed the door to the big workshop.
"That closes down your power plants," he commented to the Skygor. "Now, quick! Which way to the controls of the dam?"
"Dam?" the Skygor repeated stupidly.
Planter caught the green shoulders and shook the creature roughly. It was larger than he, but cowered. "I will show," it yielded, and led him away. In a nearby corridor were huge handles, three of them, like pivoted clinker-bars. Planter seized one, pulled it down. He heard waters roaring. He pulled another.
"You will drain the pool," protested the Skygor.
"I want to drain the pool," Planter said.
"Then—" The Skygor caught the third lever and pulled it down.
Planter hurried upstairs again. His prisoner kept at his heels.
"Why did you help me?" he asked it.
"Because you conquer," was the booming reply. "The conquered must obey."
"I think you believe that stuff, like the slaves," Planter sniffed.
"Of course, I believe," responded the Skygor.
From the upper levels came Hommerson's voice:
"Planter! These frog-folk are giving up! They haven't any fight left in them!"
But Planter paused, on a landing. He looked into a small office, where two human figures stood close together.
One was Max. The other was Disbro. Max had Disbro by the throat, not shaking or wrestling him. Only squeezing.
"Max!" called Planter. "Why—"
"Why not?" countered Max plausibly. "Planter, I think maybe you were the thick-headed one. You always tried to get along with Disbro, as if he was honest. I was a crazy-house case, but from the first I knew he was wrong. It took the return of sense to understand that the only thing to do was this."
He let go, and Disbro fell on the floor like an empty suit of clothes.
Max brushed his hands together, as if to clear them of dust.
"I wonder how long I've wanted to do that," he said. "Let's go up and watch the final mop-up."
Out of the mud pool where once a snake-armed krau had pursued Planter, the combined strength of many arms was hoisting the bogged ship. Cables had been woven through pulley-blocks at the tops of the biggest and strongest poolside stems. Free men of Venus, once slaves, hauled on these cables in brief, concerted rhythms. Here and there in the rope-gangs toiled a Skygor, accepting defeat and companionship with the same mild grace. Women—free women—laughed and encouraged, and now and again threw themselves into the tugging labor that was a game, Max oversaw everything.
Near by, machete had hewn a little clearing. Here a waterproof tent over a beehive framework sheltered Planter and Dr. Hommerson. They watched as the ship, its bow-rockets toiling to help the tugging cables, finally stirred out of its bed.
Hommerson smiled. "Time to hold a sort of recapitulation, isn't it? As in old-fashioned mystery yarns, when the case is solved and the danger done away with? Of course, it all happened suddenly, but we can say this much:
"The Skygor mistake was that of every softened master setup. They had a half-rigged defense against mild dangers, and never looked for real trouble. They beat that Seventeenth Century space-expedition simply because Terrestrials of that day hadn't the proper weapons. Otherwise, man might have been ruling here for four hundred years and more."
"The Skygors did have one tremendous device," observed Planter. "That super-siren that deadens you by sound waves."
Hommerson laughed. "And which providentially did what all clockwork mechanisms are apt to do—ran down. It's dismantled now, anyway. We're a fuel-engine civilization, and the Skygors will have to wonder and admire a while before they steal our new tricks."
Planter fingered another trophy of the battle, a great brass-bound log book, old and yellowed, but still readable. "This answers more riddles," he put in. "The record of those ancient fugitives from Cromwell. Who'd have thought that their times could produce a successful flight from planet to planet?"
"It was a great century," reminded Hommerson. "Don't forget that they also invented the microscope, the balloon, the principle of maneuverable armies. Their century began with Francis Bacon and ended with Sir Isaac Newton. That rocket fuel, which the Skygors only half understood and used for ammunition—"
"Doctor!" broke in Planter. "Do you remember the old Puritan tales of witches, flying on what seemed like broomsticks?"
"And Cyrano de Bergerac, in France about 1640, writing a tale of a rocket to the moon? We simply forgot that they had something then. The real complete knowledge flew here to Venus, and waited for our age to develop it again from the beginning."
It was so. Planter pondered awhile, and while he pondered one of the expedition came in to make a report.
"We can send back three in this ship when it's set," he said to Hommerson. "Who are you taking, sir?"
"These two who survived the earlier flight, Planter and his big, tough friend. The rest of you can wait and develop a landing field."
Planter spoke: "Did you see the girl called Mara out there?"
"She was watching us," said the man. "Finally she went into the jungle."
"With no message for me?"
"No message for anybody."
"Dr. Hommerson," said Planter, "pick someone else instead of me. Here I stay."
Hommerson looked up sharply. "Until the next ship comes?"
"Here I stay," repeated Planter. "From now on."
He sought a certain jungle trail, one he had traversed before. "Mara!" he called down it.
She was not hard to catch up with, for she was not walking fast. As he came alongside, she looked at him with eyes too bright to be dry.
"You came to bid goodbye," she suggested.
He shook his head. The mist seemed less than ever before on Venus. "No. Never goodbye."
"Isn't the ship leaving?"
"Leaving, all right. But not with me in it. This is home now."
She looked down at her sandalled feet, and one hand played with the dagger in her belt. "Methought you would be glad to regain Earth."
"Earth? Other people gained it long ago." He pulled her hand away from the dagger-hilt. "Stop fiddling with that stabbing-iron, there's no fighting to be done just now.
"You said I was yours," he told her furiously. "You said it just as if you'd won me in a game of some sort."
"And you brushed it aside without answering me. You had none of it."
"Hang it, Mara, a man decides those things! And I've been deciding them. You're the bravest creature I ever knew—the most graceful—the most honest. You did love me once. Have you stopped?"
"I have not stopped," she said. "But why have you waited to say these words?"
"I haven't had time, and I'm going to have little time for a while, what with organization and building and food-hunting and colonizing. But—"
Her mouth, close at hand, was too delectable. He kissed her fiercely. She jumped away, startled, then uttered a little breathless laugh.
"That likes me well," she told him. "Let us do it again."