When freemen shall stand
Date: 2024-10-14T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science fiction; War stories; Time travel -- Fiction; United States -- Fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction; World War; 1939-1945 -- Fiction

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Title: When freemen shall stand

Author: Nelson S. Bond

Illustrator: Robert Fuqua

Harold W. McCauley

Release date: October 14, 2024 [eBook #74576]

Language: English

Original publication: Chicago, IL: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1942

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74576

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN FREEMEN SHALL STAND ***

WHEN FREEMEN SHALL STAND

By NELSON S. BOND

Earth was conquered by Venus and her master. But
the mysterious faces of Mt. Rushmore became the gods
that gave hope and fighting courage to beaten Man!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Adventures November 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"That," said Stephen Duane, "is that!" He wiped his hands on an acid-stained apron, turned to his assistant. "We all set now, Chuck? Got the stuff?"

"Right here, Lootenant."

"What? What's that you called me?" Stephen Duane's voice flattened.

"I said—" Chuck began.

"I heard you. Chuck, for Pete's sake, won't you lay off that 'Lieutenant' nonsense? I've got a front handle; one you've been using for three years. What's the matter? Don't you like it any more?"

Chuck Lafferty shrugged. "Them," he said patiently, "was the good old days. But times has changed. We're in the Army now. You've got bars on your shoulders—remember?—and I'm just a sergeant. Which makes a difference."

"Nuts!" snorted Steve. "I'm still a chemist, Chuck, and you're my lab assistant. And so far as you're concerned, I'm still just plain old Steve Duane. Get it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, Lootenant."

"Wha-a-at?"

"I mean, yeah, sure—er—Steve."

"That's better. Now, let's get to work on the final experiment. If this gas does what I think it will, World War II is going to end all of a sudden, and a madman named Hitler is going to be caught with his panzers down. Let's find out. Bring that flask over here while I get one of the guinea pigs from the cage. Put it on the—Wait a minute! Who left that door open?"

Chuck, gingerly lifting a small, stoppered vial from its shockproof rack, glanced over his shoulder wonderingly.

"Not me!" he denied. "I always make sure it's shut. Maybe the guard outside—?"

"Well, whoever did it," frowned Duane, "must be more careful. Our country's at war, and there's been entirely too much enemy sabotage and espionage around these parts already! You outside there! Guard!"

A khaki-clad figure appeared in the doorway, saluted smartly.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"Close that door, soldier, and see that it's kept—say! What is this, anyway? Why the gas-mask?"

The guard's voice was weirdly muffled by his rubbery face covering.

"Orders, sir. Trial blackout and mock gas attack in fifteen minutes, sir. All men on duty have been ordered into masks, sir."

"So?" Steve Duane stared at the guard thoughtfully. "Well, in that case, you may resume your post. But this time close the door carefully. Oh, and by the way, soldier—"

He spoke with studied casualness as the guard turned away. The other man glanced back.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"You might be kind enough to—Achtung!"

His voice shifted abruptly from a tone of easy camaraderie to one of sharp command. It was an old ruse—but it worked! Reflexes conditioned into the soldier's body through long years of training exercised themselves. The man's heels clicked together, his frame stiffened.

On that instant, his suspicion verified, Steve Duane hurled himself forward.

"I thought so!" he roared. "A spy at our very door, eh? Grab him, Chuck!"

But the room was wide, and the Nazi spy had realized his mistake the moment he made it. He, too, swept into swift action. A tug wrenched the .44 from his holster; impetuously he ripped the mask from his face to reveal eyes gleaming with fanatic determination. Malice thickened the heretofore well-concealed guttural accent which bespoke his ancestry.

"Stop! Another step, Leutnant, and you die! We are alone here. That has been arranged. We are not so foolishly overconfident as you stupid Americans. Ja—" He laughed—"it was I, Eric von Rath, who opened the door, the better to watch your progress, hear your braggart claims. Zu, you have a new weapon to end the war, nicht wahr? But our Fuehrer is the one who will use that weapon. Now—" He swung the ugly muzzle of his automatic to bear on Chuck Lafferty—"bring me the vial! Quickly, bitte! I have no time to waste—"

Dazed by the sudden turn of events, Chuck faltered a half step forward, stopped, turned questioning eyes to Duane. Steve nodded imperceptibly. His quick mind had appraised the gravity of the situation, found but one slim chance of coming out on top.

To take the flask from Lafferty's hand the Nazi must for a split second, at least, relax his guard. It was narrow figuring, but if in that second he could move....

"Go ahead, Chuck. Give it to him," he ordered.

"B-but—" hesitated Chuck.

"Give it to him!"

The enemy agent laughed coarsely. "Your Leutnant is no fool. A coward, yes; but, then, all Americans are cowards at heart, nein? Bring the flask here! Ach—be careful, you blundering eisel!"

The last sentence broke in a gasp from von Rath. He was not the only one to shout warning. Steve's fearful voice echoed his cry.

"Good Lord, Chuck, be careful! Don't drop that! We will all be—look out! Be care—"

The cold sweat of sudden fear broke on his forehead. Not fear of his foeman, but of what might now seize them all. Even as he shouted, the glass shattered upon the floor. From if rose a pale, chill, ominous mist. A sharp, unidentifiable odor assailed his nostrils; black vertigo staggered him. The world reeled and tumbled into wells of seething darkness; the darkness was peopled with gray, swirling phantasms; he sensed motion within and about him; a multitude of half-heard sounds rolled like surging waters past his ears. This for a fearful moment. Then:

"—ful!" he cried. "That's dangerous, Chuck—"

His hands groped forward, governed by an instinctive motion, to catch the falling flask. But, amazingly, they met and clutched nothing! More frightening still, the muscles of his well-knit, athletic body flamed with sudden agony, racked in protest as if they had been welded for months in a plaster cast.

Over straining sinews and bones that ached horribly, Lieutenant Stephen Duane had no more control than has a month old baby. With a gasp more of shock than of fear, he pitched headlong to his knees, his chest, his elbows.

He tried to roll, that his shoulders might break his fall, and succeeded in a measure, but concrete grated against one cheek painfully. The jolt shook him like the impact of a sledgehammer. He spat dry dust flavored with the warm, salty taste of blood and cried again:

"Chuck! Chuck, what—?"

Then the paralysis which had held him lessened; with an effort he lifted his head and stared about him, eyes stark with incomprehension.

The laboratory was gone! The bright-gleaming lights had vanished, as had the rows upon rows of glistening beakers and retorts ... the work-benches and hooded range ... the centrifuge and tubes and hissing Bunsens ... the vast intricate array of chemical paraphernalia that should be here ... all were gone!

There was only this dingy, windowless room, bare and musty, lighted by the feeble flames of candles guttering upon worn wall-sconces.

A sense of panic fear tugged at Steve Duane's heart. He cried yet again, "Chuck! Chuck Lafferty! Where are you?"

The answer came from behind him. Drowsily at first, as if the speaker were wakening to respond from the depths of drug-numbed slumber, then more coherently, the answer gaining speed like the disc of a hand-started phonograph.

"—grab it, Steve! It slipped! Look out! The gas is escap—"

Steve turned just in time to see his subordinate and lab assistant strain frozen muscles forward in futile attempt to stay the fall of a non-existent bottle. Chuck's eyes were open, but their blankness mirrored nothing. He was toppling, as grotesquely as had Duane a moment before, to the floor.

Clenching his lips against the pain that flooded him with every motion, Steve inched forward to cushion his chum's fall. Chuck's body, locked as if in rigor mortis, was a dead weight. Not only that, but—a sudden realization heightened Steve's sense of eerie—cold!

Chuck's body was cold! Not with the soft clamminess of a drugged or shellshocked invalid, but with the all-pervading iciness of carven marble!

But stiff or limber, cold or quick, Lafferty's white lips were moving. And they framed Steve's own query.

"Steve—what happened? Where are we? And what are we doing here?"

Steve said, "Flex your fingers, chum. That's right; work 'em. Yeah, I know it hurts, but it unfreezes 'em. Now, try moving those knees and elbows."

Chuck performed, obediently, the exercises Steve had found loosened his own rigid body. Soon he, too, was able to lift his head and stare about him. He turned to his superior officer, but Steve's shake of the head answered his questions before they were given voice.

"I don't know, Chuck. It's all—fantastic! What's the last thing you remember? Before you woke up, I mean."

"Woke up?" repeated Lafferty wonderingly. "I wasn't even asleep. What do you mean, woke—?"

"That," commented Steve queerly, "is what you think! You weren't asleep, eh? Well, take a look at the hunk of statuary behind you."

Chuck turned and gulped. "The—the Jerry!"

"Right! That's what you looked like, chum, a moment ago. And me, too, I suppose. But I wouldn't know about that, and I wasn't on deck to watch myself unfreeze—as he's doing right now. Catch him, Chuck!"

"The hell with him!" said Chuck. "Let him break his dirty Nazi neck!" But he obeyed. The German woke blubbering with pain and fright, howled for mercy when he discovered his hands no longer held a weapon of destruction. But no thought of vengeance motivated Steve at the moment; his sole interest was in learning what weird fate had befallen them. There was time and enough to handle their enemy as he deserved; now the problem was to find out what had happened. Therefore he gave the German the benefit of his advice, and in a short time the three erstwhile "statuettes" sat staring at each other in dim perplexity.

"This is not peace between us," he warned the German agent. "Only a truce until we find out what's happened. One false move, and—" He stopped significantly; then, to Chuck, "All right, Chuck. Your story. You were saying—?"

"I don't know," wailed Lafferty, "from nothing! All I know is that just a couple of minutes ago you ordered me to hand this lug a flask of that new anesthetic we were working on. I—I stumbled, and the flask slipped from my hands. As I fell, I tried to grab it—"

"And I yelled, 'Be careful!'"

"That's right. And then—and then all at once here I was, stiff as a board and falling flat on my puss. In this place—whatever it is! Steve—" Chuck stared at the young officer fearfully—"you don't think we—we're dead, do you? I mean, maybe the gas asphyxiated us, or something—?"

"If we are," stated Duane bluntly, "my Sunday-school teacher had the wrong steer on the afterworld. I hurt when I came to. And disembodied spirits don't have nervous systems; not that I know of. Anyhow, have you noticed your clothes?"

Chuck did, now, for the first time. He stared, then fingered wildly at the apparel in which he was clad. Perhaps unclad would be more apt. For his garments—like those worn by Steve and the spy—consisted of a metal harness about the loins, a short, metal-cloth cape suspended from the shoulders, and a pair of doeskin sandals.

He gasped, "Hell's bells, Steve! Superman duds!"

"Except," pointed out Duane, "that Superman, even in his balmiest days, never decked himself out in cloth like the stuff we have on! Don't you recognize the metal?"

Chuck squinted more closely at the material of which their garments were woven, then: "Gold!" he croaked. "Solid gold! Sweet Moses, Steve, now I know I'm off my nut! I drop a flask of gas, draw a blank—and snap out of it flopping on my pan with 18 karat panties on! What makes here? A gag?"

"It's no gag," said Steve soberly. "I don't pretend to know all the answers, Chuck, but there are several facts I can deduce from what I see in this room. The first one is—our new gas worked."

"W-worked?"

"Better," nodded Steve, "or worse than we ever dared hope. There's only one logical explanation for the situation we find ourselves in. You dropped the flask, the anesthetic knocked us out, slowing down our basal metabolism—according to my expectations—and we fell into a state of catalepsy.

"That is why our muscles were stiff, our bodies cold and our joints rigid. Our minds recognized no lapse of time. That does not mean there has been none. All of our functions—breathing, digestion, elimination—have been slowed." He turned to the third member of their party. "Can you remember what happened? You were farthest from the fumes. You—Hey! What do you think you're doing? Come back here!"

Von Rath had been inching away from them stealthily. Now, well out of arm's reach, he leaped suddenly to his feet, raced toward a doorway at the far side of the chamber.

"A trick, nein? You are trying to make me reveal my Vaterland's secrets? You don't catch me in your dirty, democratic trap. I—"

His words ended with the same dramatic suddenness as his headlong flight. For as if stricken by lightning, all at once he dropped to the floor and lay still! Blood burst from his nose and mouth.

In a flash, the two Americans were at his side. Awe weighted Chuck Lafferty's words.

"Goddlemighty, what hit him? He went down just like he was pole-axed, Steve!"

But Steve, having satisfied himself that the spy was only unconscious, had already found the answer. He swept his hands before him, felt cool smoothness beneath their palms.

"Glass!" he said. "A solid wall of it! We're caged like animals under a bell!"

"What?" Lafferty, too, pawed wildly at the crystal-cool invisibility that bound them. "But air, Steve! There's air coming through somewhere—"

Duane's questing eyes had found the answer.

"Up there," he said. "See—near the ceiling? It's a wide crack in the glass. Chuck, I'm beginning to piece the puzzle together. It's mad, but it all ties in.

"That crack up there may be the thing that caused us to waken! From the appearance of this chamber, it used to be hermetically sealed! Then the dome split, air seeped in, and we wakened. But if that is true, what has seemed to us but a second's time may in reality have been weeks ... years...."

"Years!"

"Possibly," warned Steve, "longer than that! It was experimental work we were engaged in, Chuck. Methioprane was a compound about which nothing was known. Set yourself for a shock. While we slept, not only years but centuries may have passed!"

"Centuries!" echoed Lafferty bleakly. "B-but, Steve—the war? Who won? And where are we now? How—?"

Steve Duane shook his head.

"You know as much about that as I do. I'm guessing, anyway. There may be another explanation. But—" His head turned—"I think we'll know the answer in a few minutes."

"Eh? What do you mean? How?"

"Because," replied Steve tautly, "unless my ears are deceiving me, we're about to entertain guests. I heard footsteps coming down the outer corridor a moment ago, and—see? Now the door is opening!"

CHAPTER II

Priestess Beth

What manner of men Steve Duane expected to see enter the cavernous chamber, he could not have really told. Men of a future era—for by now he was firmly convinced that it was a future era in which he and his companions had roused—might differ from men of the Twentieth Century in great or in no degree. He could even conceive of looking upon members of the long-heralded race of supermen, and was fully prepared to greet such arrivals.

This presumptuous logic, based on hunch, was typical of Duane. Unorthodox, perhaps—but it was this high, swift, imaginative quality of thought which had set him apart as one of his country's ablest young chemical engineers. If hunches like these occasionally led him to error, more often they led him to success in fields where others had failed.

But this time his surmise was completely wrong. For it was no lofty-browed race of supercultured beings who stepped through the doorway. It was, instead—

"Babes!" choked Chuck Lafferty. "Holy cow—dolls!"

"Quiet!" breathed Steve swiftly. But he, too, gazed at the corps of newcomers with numb astonishment. Women they were—but what women! Steve Duane was a scientist. As such he had allotted no place in his scheme of life for the weaker sex. But he knew now, in a single blinding moment, that this was only because never before had he looked upon such a woman as she who headed this group.

From the top of her dust-golden head to the soles of her doeskin sandals she was perfection. Tawny hair, shorn to shoulder-length, cascaded down over firm neck and shoulders to frame features strong with dignity and grace. Breast-cups of filigreed gold highlighted the smooth, golden sheen of her flesh. From beneath the folds of a sarong-like loincloth her long, straight limbs carried her forward in pantherine grace.

Her manner was at once imperious and oddly humble as she led the way to the dais upon which Steve and Chuck stood. Approaching them, she intoned a curious chant in a voice warm and mellow as the dimly-heard thrum of harpstrings.

With an effort, Steve wrenched his eyes away, and in a whisper warned, "Steady, Chuck! Don't move a muscle. It's dark in this corner. Hold the pose you were frozen in before we woke. They may not notice our change of position, or him. We'll play 'possum ... try to learn something about...."

Then he stopped in obedience to his own command, and held himself rigidly motionless as the tiny band drew nearer. He saw, now, that not all of the group shared the delicacy of the dust-golden Diana who led them. Only one other—and she a maid of thirteen or fourteen—wore the kirtle and peculiar amulet which he judged to be a badge of office.

The others fell into types as sharply diverse as day and night. First, waddling meekly behind the chieftain, came a huddle of pale and flabby-fleshed matrons, grossly obese of figure, flaccid of breast, vacant of eye. These moved with a slow, tantalizing undulation of hip and thigh which disgusted rather than enticed Steve.

Encircling these, tense as fighting falcons, marched the second distinctive type. No weakling billows of fat were these, but lean, hard warriors, granite-jawed, with eyes that stared straight forward in uncompromising challenge.

These Amazons wore no gold-cloth habiliments. Their breachclouts were of coarse, sweat-stained leather, and their flat, dry, masculine breasts were stifled beneath straitlaced halters, giving freedom of movement to their sword arms.

A third type brought up the rear. Neither masculine nor cloyingly feminine were these. They might have been dull husks of neuter gender for all the physical emotion the sight of their thick, peasant bodies aroused. Their flesh was dark with long exposure to burning sun and driving sleet, they had gnarled, calloused fingers and strong, broad wrists.

They were heavy of jowl and brow, their stringy hair was crudely hacked to the neck-line, then caught in a clubbed knot. Aprons of shoddy felt were their only garments. Their legs bulged, sturdy and asensual as limestone pediments, from beneath these grimy skirts.

This much Steve Duane saw with growing wonder. Then the band drew still nearer, and the chant of the golden Diana became audible.

At first the words meant nothing. They were part of an intoned, indistinguishable blur, signifying nothing. Then suddenly—as if one strophe of a sacred ritual had ended and another begun—the chant slowed. Halting words emerged from the meaningless drone—and it was no longer meaningless. As one mesmerized, Steve hearkened incredulously to the chant of the dust-gold maiden.

"Osé, can you see by the Daans' surly light—"

The American national anthem! Steve's eyes narrowed in dazed bewilderment. Francis Scott Key's immortal words—immortal indeed!—but phrased all wrong, curiously accented, broken in the wrong places! Behind him, Chuck emitted a tiny gasp, but it went unnoticed as the voice of the cantor lifted sonorously.

"—the rockets' red glare-bombs bursting in air—"

There it was again! The right words, or right syllables, but improperly cadenced so that the whole true meaning of the song was distorted! Holding his peace was the hardest task Steve Duane had ever undertaken. Every fretful instinct urged him to interrupt this grotesquely mangled hymn.

But it was wiser, reason warned him, to just listen. Listen and learn more. The girl had lifted her head now, and was looking directly at him. A mist of reflected candlelight enmeshed her hair with a halo of golden glory. And there was radiance in her eyes, too; a bright, high burning, with which was somehow strangely mingled desperation and—hope! Liquid fire flamed in her throbbing voice.

"Osé, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land, O, Thou Free? Or
Thy hoam, O, Thou Brave?"

The last note of the chant dwindled into silence. A strange, strained, watchful hush settled over the little band of women as if they were waiting for—for what? Steve Duane did not know. A manifestation of some sort? Quite possibly. It was perfectly obvious by now that to these women, for some obscure reason, he and his companions were objects of worship. The glass-encased dais upon which they stood was an altar—a shrine!

But—Lord! If this were so, for how many countless decades or centuries had they been immured here? What mighty evolutionary or sociological force had wrought these physical changes upon one-time fair and lovely womankind? And—where were the men of this day?

As if in answer to his unvoiced query, was presented the next act of this weird tableau. The circle of obese matrons parted, disgorging from their midst one whom, in the wan light, Steve had not noticed before. A tiny, withered parody of a man with painted lips and cheeks, kohl-blackened lashes, elaborately ringletted hair tumbling shoulder-deep to a white samite frock.

As this futile creature was loosed, terror glittered in his beady eyes; he emitted a small, high-pitched bleat and strove to break from his guards. But the warrior women, grim and adamant as stone, formed a phalanx about him, a barricade of hard flesh which stood unyielding before the panic thrusts of his soft, white fists.

Then it was the dust-gold maiden turned to the young neophyte, accepted from her an object which gleamed evilly in the sallow light; then it was the voices of the loose-fleshed matrons rose in mournful keening; then it was that two of the apron-girt women stepped forward to seize the struggling male in oaken grip, tearing the samite frock from his body, baring his soft, hairless chest to the knife.

And then it was that Steve Duane horribly understood the meaning of this ritual. Chuck Lafferty got it, too. His voice exploded in Steve's ear.

"Hell's flaming fire, Steve, they're sacrificing the little guy—to us!"

But Duane had already recognized the finale to which the drama was moving, and was already in motion. He raced to the transparent barrier.

"Stop!" he cried. "Stop—!"

There was no way of knowing whether or not his words were audible to those outside. True, the glass dome of their prison was cracked, but even so the curved surface might mute all sounds. But communication is not a matter of sound-waves alone; action has a tongue. Steve lifted his arm—as he had seen the golden priestess raise hers a moment before—in the universal symbol for cessation.

His gesture saved the doomed man's life. The raised blade stayed ... then clattered to the floor from the dust-gold maiden's nerveless fingers. Heads turned, and faces hard and soft adopted one expression of awed terror. Voices rose in a bedlam of confusion; then, as one, the women tumbled to their knees!

Cringing, they cowered there prostrate. But one had the courage to raise her eyes again: the leader. On her brow was a furrow of perplexity as if she were trying to recollect some once-heard, half-forgotten instruction. Then her visage lighted; her voice lifted in clarion call.

"Jain! The Slumberers have awakened—at last! The Day of Freedom dawns! To the Sacred Wheel, swiftly!"

A flame of joy burst in the eyes of one of the grim-faced warrior women; her lean flanks tensed as, leaping to her feet, she hurried across the chamber to a huge, metal wheel on the farther wall. Sweat sprang from her forehead, her sinews knotted in cords as she tugged at this device. It held fast. Again she wrenched its spokes, white lines of strain upon her jaw. This time red flakes of rust showered to the floor, the wheel groaned protest at being thus rudely roused from an age of disuse—and slowly turned!

As it did so, Steve was conscious of a draft of cool air about his ankles, his knees, his thighs. Looking sharply he saw that the nether rim of the glass prison was separating from the edge of the dais; the whole structure hoisted upward like the gigantic bell it was.

Slowly as it had started, the movement stopped. And Steve and Chuck—along with the wide-eyed von Rath, whom the fresh air had revived, and who had now lurched to his feet—stood face to face with their worshippers!

Now the leader dropped to one knee; in a voice which even determination could not steady quavered:

"Hail, O Slumberers! Aie, look with mercy upon us, Thy children, for lo! we have tarried and kept the faith, even as was ordained!"

Chuck stared at the speaker.

"Hey, what makes here? A revival meeting? How come this 'faith and ordained' chatter?"

The German was equally taken aback. So much so that for the moment he quite forgot the neo-paganistic pretensions of his creed, and relapsed into the speech-habits of one-time Christian Germany.

"Gott im Himmel!" he exclaimed. "Vas—?"

Only Steve Duane had the acuteness to comprehend the lofty place to which he and his companions had been elevated, and the quickness of mind to take advantage of it. Aside, he whispered hurriedly, "Don't you get it? We are their gods—or the symbols of their gods! Quiet, now!" And to the girl, in a gravely commanding voice:

"Rise, O Priestess!" he said. "The Slumberers hear, and are merciful. Is there one in command here?"

The priestess rose with slowly returning assurance.

"Not here, O Wise One; but elsewhere in Fautnox sits the Mother in everlasting wisdom."

The Mother, thought Steve swiftly. Then his surmise as to the sociological organization of this race had not been wrong. It was a matriarchy, divided into groups of warriors, workers, and—what else could the flabby-fleshed ones be but breeders? That accounted for the sole male being a pampered, bedizened pet.

But—"Fautnox"? Doubt clouded his eyes; he bit his lip. Then his trusted ally, hunch, came to his rescue. Why, of course! A concrete, subterranean chamber of massive size. A wild wealth of gold used lavishly, almost negligently, by a civilization obviously semi-barbaric. A language which owned English as its parent, but was changed by untold ages of misuse and elision. Fautnox was—Fort Knox, Kentucky![1]

The next words of the priestess brought verification of his guess. Humbly she said, yet proudly, too:

"Come, O Slumberers! Let Thy handmaiden, Beth, lead Thee to the Mother of the Tucki Clan."

She made a sign of obeisance, whirled, issued orders to those who followed her. Instantly the kneeling ones rose. The warriors formed an avenue before the dais; metal clanged! on metal as a score of bright blades whipped from scabbards.

Chuck Lafferty started. "Now, wait a minute, Steve! I don't like them swords, nohow! You sure this Mardi Gras is on the level?"

"Positive!" asserted Duane. "Keep your tongue still and follow me. The Marines have landed, and the situation is well in hand. You, von Rath—come along! And don't forget, I don't need much of an excuse to slug you. So watch out!"

Thus marched the trio of "Slumberers," surrounded by a triumphant band, upward from the cavern through the strong, bastioned corridors of a citadel which had once served as the repository for a mighty nation's riches, to meet the Mother.

In one expectation, Steve Duane was disappointed.

He considered it a foregone conclusion their journey would take them to the surface, into sunshine or moonlight as the case might be. But though they rose several levels, they never left the subterranean depths. News of their awakening, spreading swiftly and mysteriously as only tidings of evil or great joy can spread, had somehow gone before them; clansfolk poured from everywhere to crowd the passageways through which they traveled.

In vain were drawn the warriors' swords, futile were the commands of the soldier-captain, Jain. The crowd pressed forward, screaming wild paeans of joy, to look upon, to touch the garments of their demigods. Had there been a rigid caste system in this community, it was forgotten now. Laborers and breeders stood shoulder to shoulder, weeping openly with joy. Here a towering warrior lifted a spindling male that he might see, above the heads of the throng, the Deliverers. There an awed worker stood with gaping mouth in the midst of a bevy of shrill-piping breeders, a dirty blot against their immaculate whiteness.

It was with relief, and barely with whole skins, that the small procession wound its way finally through a guarded door into the sanctuary of the Mother's hoam.

There was nothing pretentious about the chamber. It was just another room, barren as any they had passed through, simply furnished with the scant necessities of life. But two things served to differentiate it from other dwelling-places: the tremendous heap of parchment rolls overflowing from loose racks in one corner—and the woman who rose to greet them as they entered.

For her, Steve Duane could conceive no other feeling than one of instant affection. A ruler she was, a tyrant she might be, but there was goodness, honor and truth in the gaze she bent upon them, gentleness in her voice as she spoke.

"Then it is true!" she breathed. "You have wakened, and after all these long and weary years, I have lived to see the ancient prophecies fulfilled. Now am I, Mother Maatha of the Tucki Clan, content to die. For at last you have come to free us, as was promised—"

Her white head bent, her soft eyes filled with tears of happiness, and she stretched forth a lean, tremulous hand. Steve moved forward, took it between his own.

"Yes, Mother," he said gently, "we have come. But I do not understand. You speak of freedom as if it were a lost thing. Who holds you captive? Not—" A sudden fear struck him—"not the Nazis?"

The old woman shook her head.

"The word you use is strange to me, O Wise One. But surely, you, who are All-Wise and Eternal, know that all Earth lies crushed beneath the heel of the vandals from Daan?"

CHAPTER III

Attack

"Daan?" repeated Steve wonderingly. "Daan, Mother?"

"Yes, O Everlasting. Daan, the shining star of morn and eventide. Surely you know how, many snows ago, before my mother's mother's mother learned the Rites, the invaders from Daan swooped down upon Earth in their rockets, destroying all who stood before them? How they seized Earth's mighty cities and vanquished equally both the Women and the Wild Ones?"

Surprisingly, it was von Rath who spoke. To Steve's astonishment, the German seemed to have forgotten, faced with this new problem, their own ideological differences. He said incredulously, "Leutnant, the star of morgen und abend! That is—"

"I know," said Steve. "The planet Venus! They call it 'Daan'; why, I do not know. Perhaps from our word 'dawn.' But I'm beginning to understand their distortion of America's national anthem. I wondered why she chanted of the '—Daan's surly light—' and the '—rockets' red glare-bombs—.'

"But—" And he turned to the Mother querulously—"how can we help you? We are but three, and you are many."

"It is written," said the Mother Maatha confidently, "that one day the Slumberers shall waken, and that with their wakening the one known as Dwain shall reveal the Great Secret which he alone knows. It is also written that this knowledge will forevermore bring peace to Earth. You, O Slumberer, are Dwain?"

"I am Duane. But I know of no secret—"

"Wait a minute, Steve!" That was Lafferty. "You're forgetting something, ain't you? You do know a secret!"

"What?"

"Methioprane! Don't you get it? We went beddy-bye, Lord knows how long ago. Nobody else knew nothing about that gas we was working on. All they knew was that when they come in and found the three of us laid out colder than herring, we had evidently sniffed it. The medicos examined us, and found out we was still alive, only in a state of coma, or suspended animalation, or whatever you call it. So—"

"You're right, Chuck! You must be right! They must have moved us here to Fort Knox, left a message to succeeding generations that our glass tomb was to be kept inviolate till one day we should waken. But—how long? Mother, surely you must know? How long have we slept?"

The Mother nodded sagely.

"Yes, O Dwain, I know. When they advised me of your wakening, I performed the magic of Numbers. Your sleep began in the year One-Nine-and-Four-Two. It is now the year Three-Four-and-Eight-Eight—"

"The Thirty-Fifth Century!" cried Steve. "Chuck, we have slept for more than fifteen hundred years!"

But if he had expected Chuck Lafferty to be dismayed by this revelation, he had another thing coming.

Chuck just grunted. "That," he said, "ain't hard to believe. I been wondering why I'm so confounded hungry. Now I know. It's been a helluva long time since breakfast, pal!"

The Mother, Maatha, stirred anxiously at his words.

"But I neglect my duty!" she exclaimed. "Beth, send for food. The gods are an-hungered."

"As you say, O Mother." The priestess slipped away. Soon she re-appeared, followed by workers bearing golden trays laden with food and drink. These they placed before the trio without lifting their eyes, then backed from the room. Steve looked after them curiously.

"But, Mother Maatha, you must tell your clansfolk we are not gods. We are but men—"

"Men!" The Priestess Beth almost dropped the golden ewer from which she was pouring water. "Men!"

The Mother said hastily—too hastily, thought Steve Duane—and in a tone of admonition, "Be not so swift of ear, child, when is spoken that of which you know naught. The god but jests, nor is it ours to comment on his words.

"O, Wise One—" She changed the subject quickly—"is it not true, then, that you do bear us the knowledge of a Great Secret? A new weapon with which we may wreak vengeance on our enemies?"

Steve answered slowly, "It is true, O Mother, that I hold such a secret. But—" He was thinking of the chemical problem involved in the preparation of his invention, the anesthetic methioprane. Not only did the preparatory process for its sublimation require intricate equipment unknown to this crude culture; it also demanded an ingredient which even in Steve's day had been so frightfully rare that it had taken ten months to segregate the flaskfull used in his experiments.

The basic ingredient of methioprane was the seed-pod of the swamp-musk, a tank-epiphyte so delicate, so sensitive, that even in Steve's day—fifteen hundred years ago—it had been virtually extinct. Only the painstaking plant husbandry of a hundred patriotic botanists had enabled Steve to continue his work. It had been hoped that once his research was done, and crowned with success, the end-product of his labors might be analyzed, and its formula synthesized from ingredients less rare.

And in a day which had known nylon, alnico, plastics; had made felt hats of cows' milk, automobile bodies of rolled oats, and women's hose of water, coal and air, this might have been possible. But now—

"Tell me first, O Mother," said Steve, "something of these Daan invaders. It is needful to know their nature if I am to prepare a weapon against them. When came their rockets to Earth? How strong is their rulership over our world? And was it they who destroyed all the males and left the women to fend for themselves?"

"But, Wise One!" exclaimed the priestess Beth, "None ever caused the Women to 'fend for themselves!' We Women are the rulers of humankind, and ever have been. Surely you know that—or do you jest again?"

And once more the Mother interrupted hurriedly, with an all-too-obvious desire to change the subject.

"A hundred seasons have come and gone, O Dwain," she said, "since first the Daan fleet landed on this planet. But we shall talk of this in more detail later. There is a query I would put to you."

"It is told in the records of the Ancient Ones that of the Slumberers two were good and one was evil. It is told that when the Slumberers waken, the evil one must die. Which is he who must face judgment?"

"Well!" said Chuck Lafferty. "Now we're starting to get somewhere! Them records is okay, huh, Steve? All right, von Rat—here it comes! Fifteen hundred years late, but you know the old saying."

The German's face was a white mask of fear. Well it might be, for at the Mother's query, the ranks of the warrior women had snapped together; now they were standing with drawn swords ready for any command. At that moment, a nod of Steve Duane's head, a word from his lips, would have cost the enemy agent his life.

But no such word was forthcoming. Instead, his brow drawn thoughtfully, Steve turned and spoke to the Nazi in his native tongue.

"You hear that, von Rath? You understand?"

"Ja, mein Leutnant! But—but you must not let them do this thing! It is barbarous ... uncivilized...."

"No more so," pointed out Duane grimly, "than taking young women and girls from their homes and sending them to the front for the amusement of fighting troops, or shooting fifty hostages for every one of your own soldiers slain. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, we used to be enemies, but that period of mankind's history is dead and gone, buried beneath fifteen centuries of dust.

"We are now three exiles of Time, the only remaining representatives of a civilization now vanished. We can never return to our own warring world. The very differences which made us foes have been obliterated by the ages and, from what the Mother says, I suspect by an even greater peril to humankind.

"Now, what do you say? Will you join us? Lay aside the old enmity and hatred? Or—shall I tell which Slumberer was the 'evil one?'"

Von Rath said, "There is but one possible answer, mein Kamerad. You are right: it is futile to continue our ancient warfare in this strange new world. I am your ally."

The women were listening, wide-eyed, to this "speech of the gods." Chuck Lafferty, who knew no more of the German tongue than they, was also listening suspiciously. He glared discontent as his superior offered von Rath his hand, growled as the erstwhile Nazi met it hesitantly.

"Hey, what's the big idea, Steve? You turning Fifth Columnist on me? Turn that heel over to the dames!"

"No, Chuck. Whatever his faults, despite our former differences, von Rath is an intelligent man. We must respect him as such, and accept his help in solving our new problems. Therefore—" He turned to the Mother—"There has been some mistake, O Mother. The records are wrong. There was no evil one amongst the Slumberers. We are three brothers pledged as one to aid you."

The Mother said humbly, "So be it, O Dwain. Shall I then dismiss the warriors?"

"Do so."

The Mother motioned to Beth. The priestess murmured a command to the warrior chieftain, Jain, and reluctantly but obediently the strait-harnessed ones wheeled and marched from the room. The Mother turned again to Steve.

"And now, O Wise One—?"

"First," suggested Steve, "let us learn those things which have happened since we slept. In the year out of which we came a great war was raging. The forces of peace defended themselves against hordes of international anarchy. What was the result? How ended this conflict, and did men—?"

"Forgive me, O Dwain!" Again, at the sound of that tabu word, the Mother interrupted hastily, casting a worried, sidelong glance at the priestess Beth. "Perhaps it were best we should discuss these holy matters privately. Such secrets are not fit for maiden ears. The priestess is unenlightened; she has not yet embarked upon the sacred Pilgrimage."

"Pilgrimage?" repeated Steve wonderingly.

"Yes, O Everlasting. She has not yet visited 'Kota, the Place of the Gods. She does not know—"

"But, Mother!" pleaded the dust-gold maiden, "Soon I shall go, and will then be initiate to these mysteries. May I not stay now and garner wisdom from the lips of the Ancient Ones? By Taamuz and Ibrim I swear—yea, even by far-seeing Tedhi—no word I hear shall escape my lips!"

The Mother shook her head, her lips pressed together firmly.

"It is forbidden, my daughter. Only after you have seen with your own eyes the Place of the Gods and learned its dread secret can you join this consultation. Such knowledge, coming suddenly, might destroy your very sanity. Go, now, to your hoam and recite thrice the magic of fives—"

Steve, wisely, held his counsel, nor tried to interfere in matters of ritual which he did not understand. Chuck Lafferty was less inhibited. He said:

"Hell's imps, let the kid stick around if she wants! We'll keep it clean. What's this all about, anyway? I don't get it. Where's this 'Place of the Gods,' and who are Taamuz and Teddy and—?"

"Teddy!" The name leaped from Steve Duane's tongue. He, too, had been vainly trying to decipher the girl's words. Lafferty's altered pronunciation gave him the clue he needed. "Teddy ... Thomas ... Abraham! Mother—this 'Place of the Gods' of which you speak! Is it in Dakota? South Dakota?"

The Mother Maatha answered perplexedly, "Verily, the Place of the Gods is in 'Kota, O Eternal One. But it lies to the north of here, not south. Across the plains of Zurri and 'Braska territories, beyond the Big Water—"

"I thought so!" shouted Steve. "I knew I was right! Chuck, this is terrific! You wouldn't believe—"

"Believe what?" demanded Lafferty. "Thunderation, I don't even understand! Give out! What's it all about?"

"Why, don't you see? The 'gods' these women worship are—"

But not at that moment was Chuck to be let in on his discovery. For there came another interruption, this time in the shape of a warrior messenger.

"They come, O Mother! They come again!"

Alarm dawned swiftly in the old woman's eyes. In an instant she was on her feet.

"Who comes, my daughter? Not the—the Daans?"

"Nay, Mother, none so dangerous as they, thank Jarg! But a foe dangerous enough. It is the animals of the forests who storm our citadel with wicked force and fury. The filthy male creatures of the outland, O Mother. The Wild Ones!"

CHAPTER IV

Revelation

Chuck Lafferty yelped, "Oh, boy! Fun!" and started from the room. Steve halted him with a word.

"Chuck! Where do you think you're going?"

"Why—why, I dunno. Topside, I suppose. There's a scrap going on somewhere around here, ain't they?"

"A fight," said Steve. "But not our fight. I don't exactly understand—" To the Mother he said—"Just who are these 'Wild Ones,' O Mother? Fierce beasts?"

"Beasts, yes, O Dwain," replied the matriarch. "But of the two-legged variety. They are the foul males who some say are a brutish branch of our own human race—though it is hard to credit that theory. Matted, hairy creatures dwelling in the junglelands of Tizathy. They have no females of their own, as we have drone-men to impregnate our breeding-mothers, so when need and nature tightens their loins, they make raids upon our encampments to capture Women, that they may replenish their race."

The priestess Beth was standing before Steve, eagerness brightening the steel-blue of her eyes.

"It was for this, O Dwain," she cried, "you wakened! To rid us once and evermore of these who prey upon us. Come! Come with me and see how brave Women vanquish their foes!"

Steve glanced at von Rath. The German nodded.

"It were well to learn what sort of enemies we shall meet in this time, Leutnant Duane."

"Right!" agreed Steve. "Very well, priestess. Lead the way."

The way carried them again upward from the bowels of Fautnox, debouching at last into a walled enclosure which, at some dim period of the past, may have been a courtyard. Ages had taken their toll, however, of the once-sturdy barricades. Their firmness had been breached in a dozen spots; gray piles of stone and detritus were strewn beneath wide openings which a barbarian clan with no knowledge of cement had found no way of mending.

It was before these entrances the battle raged most fiercely. Within the court, no breeders or pet males were to be seen; apparently they had all been removed to safer spots. The workers and the warriors defended the citadel. Of these, the warriors did the actual fighting; the workers acted as an auxiliary corps, bearing fresh supplies of lances, arrows and bows to the fighting-women when their stores were depleted or broken, rallying the Amazons to weakened salients when danger loomed, dragging the wounded from the field of conflict.

This much saw Duane at a glance. Then his eye swung to the attackers, and his body stiffened.

In some respects, Beth had told the truth. The Wild Ones were dirty, hairy, unkempt. Their garments and weapons were crude as compared with the golden equipage of the Women. But there ended their brutishness, their loutishness. Though they fought savagely, it was clear to the most un-military eye that their main effort was not toward wholesale slaughter and destruction—but to capture!

When a Wild One fell, perhaps suffering from only a minor wound, all feminine adversaries within sword-thrust were upon him in an instant, his body was literally hacked to bits before it was abandoned. But when a Woman fell—then it was a different story! Attackers surged forward en masse, with a sort of savage desperation, recklessly braving death in order to take, unharmed, their prisoner!

And incredible as it might seem—those who bore the captured warriors clawing and screaming from the fray, did so with an almost hallowed tenderness!

But this was the tide of battle only as seen through unprejudiced eyes. At Steve's shoulder, the priestess Beth's golden body was tense with rage and hatred, her hands gripped his arm hotly.

"You see, O Dwain? Behold how the vandals lay waste the flower of our womanhood; Vengeance, Eternal One! Cast a spell upon them; yea, call down the fury of the Ancients upon those who would despoil our—"

Steve turned to Chuck.

"Well, chum? You still itching to get in the war?"

Lafferty's eyes were mirrors of surprise.

"Who—me?" he gasped. "Hell's imps, no! Why, them guys ain't wild animals at all. They're not matinee idols, I grant you, but they're no worse than—well, than a couple of hundred pro wrestlers from our own time. Steve, they're men! Like—"

Steve said, "What do you say, von Rath?"

"I am confused," admitted the German, "but I believe your friend is right. These are barbarians, but nevertheless true members of the genus Homo sapiens. This battle is stark madness! Gross Gott! Women against men—"

The priestess had drawn away, was staring at them as one aghast.

"In the Name of Jarg," she whispered awfully, "what blasphemy is this? Men! You compare these hideous creatures with our sacred charges? Am I mad?"

"Not mad, honey," grinned Steve suddenly, "just sort of befuddled. You and the rest of your gang. And it's about time you snapped out of it. I think I can turn the trick. I don't think those 'Wild Ones' ever got around to studying the Greek wars, so it ought to work.

"Can you issue commands to your warriors? I thought so. All right, then. Tell the fighting-women to withdraw to the protection of the walls, out of sight, and the workers to retreat toward this building."

"What! You bid me—Here!" The priestess Beth drew from her girdle a long, slim, golden knife, handed it to him. With a sob she clenched her fists upon her cupped breasts.

Steve stared at her in astonishment.

"What the—?"

"Strike!" she begged from between white lips. "Strike hard and true, O Slumberer. For I must defy even you, a god. What you bid me do is treason, and rather death than I should betray my Clan!"

Von Rath's eyes were admiring. He said raptly, "But what eine fraulein!" Duane was less impressed with her histronics. He said, "Oh, nuts!" and tossed the dagger back to her. "Look, sister," he said wearily, "skip the mellerdrama. You want to win this fracas, don't you?"

"But—but, yes, O Wise One—"

"Okay, then. Do what I say. This isn't 'a sell-out; it's what we gods call the 'Trojan horse' trick. Magic, see? The good old ousemay-aptray."

The priestess seized on the one word she understood. "Magic! Aie, Thy forgiveness, O Eternal One. I leap to obey Thy commands."

"Well, get going—" commented Steve gloomily—"before there aren't any Wild Ones left to capture. Well?"

Chuck scratched his head as the priestess ran to the warrior captain, Jain, and transmitted Steve's orders.

"I don't get it," he complained. "I don't get it at all. Whose side are you playing on, anyway?"

"I'm tired explaining," said Steve. "Wait and see!"

He hadn't long to wait. The scheme of wily Odysseus worked as well in the Thirty-fifth Century as in pre-historic Troy.[2] Better, perhaps. The Trojans had their Cassandra; the Wild Ones had no soothsayer to warn them against a ruse. Men who had never won a battle against their better-armed adversaries leaped eagerly through the breeches abandoned by the retreating women.

In a solid swarm they flooded half-way across the open courtyard, leaving flanks and rear exposed. And then:

"Warriors!" cried Steve. "Close the openings behind them! Your foes are trapped!"

And it was so! The Wild Ones were caught in a vise; their thin ranks were hopelessly sandwiched between divisions of warriors and workers. The very portals they had fought so hard to win were now closed avenues to freedom.

As they stared wildly about them, muttering, milling in aimless circles, preparing to sell their lives dearly, the golden voice of Beth rang out over the court.

"Upon them, Women of Tucki! Destroy the invaders ... strike and kill till the last lies drowned in his blood! The gods have blessed us with victory! Kill! Kill—"

"Whew!" said Lafferty. "Gentle wench, ain't she?"

But Steve had no time to bandy words. In an instant golden lances, arrows of barbed death would fill the air, and his plan would end in a massacre. He shouted again, drowning out the maiden's lesser voice.

"Nay, hold! Stay your wrath! Hear our command: Let not another drop of blood be shed! These 'Wild Ones' are not beasts or fiends, but humans like yourselves! Men—and your rightful mates!"

The silence which greeted his words was sudden and devastatingly complete. Steve seized that moment to whisper to his companions, "Come on! Let's get down there before the dam busts!" and swiftly the three moved toward the center of the courtyard.

Then the moment was shattered by a howling simoon of sound. The hoarse gasps of the workers merged with strident cries of wonder ripped from the throats of the warriors; with these mingled a grateful roar of acclamation from the trapped males.

But—overwhelming tribute to the awe in which these Women held their gods—not a spear was cast, not a bow bent. All held their positions save one: the priestess Beth. Dust-gold flame in motion, she burst her way through the throng to confront Steve with blazing fury.

"Wherefore, O Dwain, this untoward mercy? Can it be you do not know the Law? It is written that all Wild Ones be slain, nor their mildest stripling spared!"

There was only one language this beautiful, but barbaric, creature could understand. Steve employed it. With a shrug he cast her hand from his arm as if its touch defiled him; in a voice of thunder he said:

"Woman, you question me? I am the Law!"

Then, having tossed in his raise, he held his breath. If she called his cards—

But the bluff worked. Color fled from the priestess' lips; she stared at him strangely for a moment, then sank to one knee. In a low voice:

"Yes, O Eternal One!" she whispered. "Thou art the Law!"

"Then listen," bade Steve, "and learn, O priestess!" And he turned to the awestruck captives. "Which of you calls himself leader of this band?"

One stepped forward hesitantly. He was covered with sweat and blood, grimy, bearded, but his features were fine, his eyes those of a reasoning creature.

"I am the leader, O Mighty One."

"You call yourself—?"

"Jon, O Heaven-sent."

"Tell me, then, Jon, and tell this Woman. Are you a man, or are you not?"

A subtle straightening lifted the Wild One's breast, his chin, his eyes. He said firmly:

"I am a Man!"

"But—" protested Beth.

"Shut up, sister!" snapped Steve. "Jon—why do you make war upon the Women?"

"We do not make war upon them, O Firm-of-Hand. Only when our need of mates becomes acute do we seek to linber[3] new mothers for our children that our seed may live on."

"Blasphemy!" screamed the priestess. "I will listen no more! He is no Man. Men are weakling creatures who serve only to enripen our breeding-mothers. This beast—"

"Quiet!" ordered Steve. "Jon, why have you not told these Women you are Men?"

The bearded one shrugged. "It has been tried, Great Chieftain. Many times has it been tried in ages past, but no Woman will listen. They hunt us with packs, they dig pits to trap us and line the pits with sharp sticks, they do not heed our cries for truce and understanding—"

"It is forbidden," defended Beth haughtily, "that a Woman should hear a Wild One's speech. He is no Man—"

Steve's patience snapped.

"He is a Man, O priestess—even as I am a Man, and my comrades also!"

The priestess Beth fell back a pace, her eyes glazed with something akin to horror. "Thou art ... a ... Man?"

"Not only I," Steve told her, "but the very gods you worship, O puzzled one. You cannot believe? Then come!" He spoke gently. "Come with me to the Mother, Beth. You cannot doubt her. She will tell you I speak the truth. You, Jon—come with us!"

Eager to settle this matter once and for all, he led the way back into the citadel, down the corridors to the hoam of the Mother. Under stern command to maintain a truce they left the warrior band and the knot of captive Wild Ones. Jon followed hopefully, the priestess like one stricken. At last they reached the room wherein waited the matriarch. She rose and hobbled forward to greet them.

"The battle is done, O Wise Ones? You have destroyed our foes? Aye, I see it is so. But—but you bring one with you? Why is this?"

The priestess broke her silence, bursting forward to kneel trembling before the old woman.

"Mother, doom is upon us! The legends erred. These are no Deliverers who have risen from the tomb to aid us, but mocking demons! He, the one called Dwain, has confessed that he is no god, but a Man! And with horrid blasphemy—forgive me, O Mother!—he said that, yea, even our gods were Men!"

The eyes of the Mother clouded, her lips moved in an unintelligible phrase that might have been a prayer. And she stared at Duane beseechingly.

"O Slumberer," she said, "you—you have told? Then the time for the Revelation has come?"

"It has come," said Steve quietly. "Speak, Mother."

The Mother laid a trembling hand on Beth's dust-gold hair. And:

"Then hear, O my daughter," she said, "and learn the Great Secret which until now no common Woman has been allowed to suspect, which no priestess has ever known until after she has made the sacred pilgrimage to the Place of the Gods.

"The Gods—great Jarg and solemn Taamuz, lean Ibrim and far-seeing Tedhi—are not Women like ourselves. Deep in the shadowed grottoes of far 'Kota I have looked upon them; I have seen their faces strong and fine, covered with the crisp Man-hair. The Gods of the Ancients, O Beth—are Men!"

Chuck glanced at Duane curiously.

"She's seen the gods, Steve?"

Steve nodded. "So have we, Chuck—in the modeling. I'm not surprised these women worshipped their statues. They must be impressive to a civilization so backward as this. In the Black Hills ... the side of a mountain carven in a gigantic work of art ... don't you remember? George ... Thomas ... Teddy ... Abraham...."

"Mount Rushmore!" gasped Chuck. "That is the 'Place of the Gods'!"

Mt. Rushmore was the Mecca of this future world.

"Exactly!"

"But—but how—?"

"Listen," suggested Steve. "I think we can learn much from the Mother's words."

For the Mother had closed her eyes. In a recitative monotone she was intoning a message to the dazed priestess at her feet.

"Thus say the holy records: 'And in those days were Men the Masters of humankind, and Men were truly in the image of the gods. And mighty were the works of men; over highways of creet and steel they raced swift chariots which took their sustenance from vapored liquid; they spoke to each other from afar over wires that hummed and goblets that glowed; in those days none wanted for food, they spent their days in laughter, their nights in gaming and magic.

"'But it came to pass that some Men, zealous to rule all others, made war upon their brothers. Great and terrible were the weapons of their destruction: great catapults, which hurled fire and flame and exploding death; snarling hand-bows which shot steel arrowheads; with gases they wreaked woe, and with waters that burn the flesh.

"'On earth and sea they made these battles, and even in the air. For in those days, the Ancient Ones were winged, like the birds. They soared high, making great thunders, and when they warred they dropped huge eggs of death.

"'For many years this battle waged, and, lo! neither side could gain a victory. In those days, it was the Men who fought while the Women kept the hoams. So the Men fought and died till their number was as the sands of the sea. Until at last there came a day when the Women despaired and cried out, "Alas! Alas!"

"'Then joined the Women in conclave; great was their sadness. And they vowed to rid themselves forever of war and of the brutal Men. They stopped sending fire-eggs to the Men who battled on Earth's five seas; they built walled forts and hid themselves therein.

"'Then the Men cried, "Give us weapons!" and behold! there were no more weapons, and the men cried, "Give us food, lest we perish of hunger!' and lo! the Earth was parched. So the Men came back to their hoams, seeking their Women.

"'Then the Women would not receive them, and now was bitter warfare again between Men and Women. But the Women in their walled cities vanquished the brutal males, and they did flee to the hills and jungles.

"'Thus it was in the old days....'"

CHAPTER V

Captured

The matriarch's voice dwindled into silence. For an awkward moment none spoke. Then said Jon, leader of the Wild Ones, "Great are the records of thy Clan, O Mother. Often I have pondered on these matters, nor solved them not. We have no legends like these; only one that before the Daans came to Earth, we Men were the lords of humankind."

The priestess Beth was forged of stronger stuff than Steve Duane had believed or dared hope. The knowledge thrust upon her must have come as a staggering shock, but she met it unflinching.

"But, Mother Maatha," was her only demurrer, "if the Ancient Ones and the gods were Men, then what are those which we call men? And—what means this Revelation to our mode of living?"

"Our men," replied the Mother, "are the inbred males born to our breeding-mothers. They are not true Men; this is a truth known to Clan Mothers for many generations. But what could we do? How else perpetuate our Clan? It was forbidden that Women should have contact with the Wild Ones. And it is certain that these—" She stared at Jon with evident repugnance—"are not cast in the mould of the gods we worship."

Steve stepped forward, placed a hand on the shoulder of the hesitant Jon.

"Judge not a man by his garments, O Mother of Women, nor by your own high standards. Bathe this creature, cleanse the blood from his wounds, anoint him with sweet-scented oil, shave the hair from his lips and chin, and beneath his layers of grime you will find one wrought in the image of the gods.

"You have asked, priestess Beth, what the Revelation means to your mode of living? I will tell you. No more must Women war on Men, nor Men attack and seek to linber Women. A new era is proclaimed by us, the Slumberers. Henceforth must Wild Ones and Women join in common amity and purpose!"

"Join in—!"

"Even more," continued Steve boldly, "there shall no longer be castes of Women. No longer must Women be forced to adopt the professions of warrior, worker or breeder, but each shall have the privilege of being wooed and won by a Man, her mate!"

A new radiance shone in the eyes of the Mother. She whispered, "Now are the prophecies fulfilled, indeed. A mate for each Woman! Now is the empty loneliness of sterile wombs banished forever—"

"But how," demanded Beth shrewdly, "is this 'wooing' done? Must we first subdue the Men, and then—?"

"Each shall choose the one she wants," Steve advised her, "then win him as she can. Thus, also, it was in the old days."

Beth looked at Jon and wrinkled her nose. She gazed through a portal of the Mother's hoam and studied a spindling pet male peering inquisitively in at the meeting, and sniffed contemptuously. She frowned.

She said, "And you—O Dwain? Did you not claim to be a Man?"

"That is right."

"Very well, then," said the priestess. "I will make my choice of mates now. I choose you!"

"N-now, wait a minute—" began Steve.

"Shall I come to your hoam tonight?" asked the dust-gold maid with alarming ingenuousness, "Or will you attend me in mine? I do not understand these matters so well, O Dwain. But one of the breeding-mothers can teach me the Rites—"

Lafferty stole a sidelong glance at Steve's suddenly flaming cheeks, and chuckled, "Okay, buster. Let's hear you talk your way out of this one!" Steve coughed nervously and changed the subject.

"You—er—you must not be so hasty, priestess," he said. "There are other—er—more important matters. About the Daans, for instance. Though we gain unity ourselves, yet we are a conquered people. Before we can rebuild humankind's lost civilization, we must first hurl the invader from Earth. To do this, we need force.

"Jon—can you communicate with other tribes of Wild Ones? Call them hither for a general conclave?"

The bearded outlander nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. I think so. It will not be easy. Our tribes are scattered and far-flung, nor is there great unity amongst us, but—yes. It can be done. It will take many days and nights, though."

"How about you, Mother Maatha? Can you summon Women of other Clans to a grand council at Fautnox?"

"I can, O Wise One. The Mother Mairlee of Lextun is my sworn sister; we made the Pilgrimage together. The Tensee Clans owe us a debt of honor since we aided them in defending their mountain stronghold, Ashful, against an attacking horde of Wild Ones as many snows ago as I have fingers. These will surely come at my call, as will the Clina and Yana Clans, and I will bid them bring all others they can persuade. But this will take time, O Dwain. The way is long and the roads bad."

Von Rath coughed gently.

"If I might make a suggestion, Leutnant—?"

"Yes?"

"Since we plot to overthrow ein herrenvolk, would it not be well to learn more about those whom we plan to attack? These Daans are a mystery to us—"

"Absolutely right!" agreed Steve. "And that's how I had planned to spend the weeks that must intervene before our forces can be drawn together. Mother, where lies the nearest Daan encampment?"

"To the north of Fautnox," said the Mother promptly, "two days walking. In a city of the Ancients called Sinnaty, where once dwelt a mighty Clan known as the Reds."

"Reds!" exclaimed von Rath. "You hear, Duane? Then our Fuehrer was right in warning the world against the menace of Bolshevik Russia! Small wonder man's civilization toppled, if even your nation succumbed to—"

Chuck Lafferty made a rude noise with his lips.

"Guess again, 'kraut," he chuckled. "These Reds was different. They did their scrapping with bats and baseballs, and their boss was a 'Dictator' named McKechnie. Cincinnati, eh? Boy, many's the time I've parked my tootsies in a bed in the Netherland Plaza.[4] Steve, remember the night we—"

But his words had struck a responsive chord. A gasp escaped the Mother Maatha.

"Nedlunplaza! Yes, that is it! That is the name of the Daans' fortress in Sinnaty!"

Steve Duane grunted satisfaction.

"In that case," he said, "call the room-clerk and make reservations. We're on our way to Cincy!"

Two days later, they were not merely on their way to the one-time Queen City of the Ohio but almost there.

There were eight in their party. Duane and Lafferty and von Rath—whom, despite their pledge of mutual aid, Steve preferred to keep under surveillance—headed the group. The warrior captain, Jain, commanded a trio of fighting-women who had been assigned to guide and guard them on their adventure. Eighth member of the expedition was the priestess Beth. Over Steve's protest she had insisted on coming.

"It is my right," she declared, "as a priestess. If I go not, the journey is without favor in the sight of Jarg."

"But—" argued Steve.

"Moreover," insisted the girl, "one must go to serve as interpreter and counsel. You Slumberers know not the ways of those through whose territory you must pass."

"Just the same—" fumed Steve.

"Furthermore," concluded Beth firmly, "I have chosen you as my mate. And it is written that a Woman must stand by her Man at all times, nor desert him in hour of peril."

There was no answer to that. So, completely floored and none too gracefully, Steve surrendered.

But however little he may have desired her presence, now that she was here, Steve Duane was forced to concede that her aid had proven invaluable. It was she who, by reading of the stars, had reoriented them after an evening of blundering aimlessly through a trackless forest. It was she who stalled the attack of a small band of Rovers, addressing the ruler of these unattached Women in their own slurred dialect and bidding her take her followers to the Mother at Fautnox. It was she, also, who snared wild hares in seines of hair and cotton, dug scrawny taters from furrowless fields, and prepared meals for them all. For these, she explained, were the rightful duties of a priestess.

Only in one respect did her company prove more of an embarrassment than a pleasure: the persistence with which she attached herself to him. This was not so bad in the daytime. As a matter of fact, it was good to tramp through leafy dells with the keen, live scent of summer vibrant in your nostrils, watching the sudden scamperings of curious chipmunks startled by your passage, and the arrow-flight of swift-flushing birds; hearing the muted murmur of river waters rushing pell-mell to a distant sea as it had in countless ages past and would for endless aeons; feeling the soft warmth of a shoulder firm against your own in carefree comradeship. But it was—well, awkward to say the least, thought Steve, to seek your blanket at night and find it already occupied by one who looked up at you with drowsy expectancy, and damned uncomfortable to spend the night huddled by the glowing embers of a campfire.

Chuck heard Steve's grumbling with a stare of blank astonishment.

"Well, cripes!" he exploded. "You ain't got nothing to squawk about! You said yourself we was stuck here in this new world forever, didn't you? Well, then—?"

"That's not the point," wrangled Steve. "If we want to change an entire culture and substitute a brand new design for living, we must set the example ourselves in our behavior towards these women. We can't confuse liberty with license."

"You mean," said Chuck, "everything's got to be done fair and square, eh? Marriage, and all that stuff?"

"That's the idea."

"Well, then—" Lafferty stroked his jaw—"why not that? I got eyes in my head. You like the kid, don't you?"

Steve answered, "That's the hell of it; I do! If we had met in a different age, under other circumstances—"

"No dice, pal! If you like her, why don't you set a real honest-to-John example by marrying her? Show the Women that the new system will pan out."

"Because," explained Steve bitterly, "it wouldn't be fair to Beth. I'd be getting her under false pretenses. You see, she still thinks I'm a god. She's doing this purely and simply because she considers it her duty. Beth's not in love with me. She doesn't even know what love is!"

Lafferty shrugged and turned away.

"Well, okay," he said. "It's your worry. All I got to say is: Some guys want everything!"

And so, as the third twilight of their march neared, they approached the stronghold of the Daans. The wild trails gave way to highways of cracked "creet" through which hopeful spires of grass had broken in patches ... the highway bore them to a deserted village Beth called "Covton", which once, Steve knew, had been the populous city of Covington, Kentucky ... and they stood, at last, on the southern bank of the rolling Ohio looking into the enemy-held fortress of Sinnaty.

In the happier day, not one but a half dozen spans had bridged this river. They were gone now; their rust-encrusted skeletons still thrust redly from the water like the bones of drowned monsters. But where Twentieth Century man had thrown his cantilevers, where a later, barbaric era had allowed them to decay and fall, now stood a gleaming anomaly which brought a gasp to Steve Duane's lips.

"Sweet snakes!" he exclaimed. "Am I nuts, or do you see what I see? A glass bridge!"

"The answer," said Chuck, awed, "is yes. To both."

But the German, von Rath, was staring at the edifice narrowly. Now he said, "A bridge, true. But glass, nein!"

"What? But it's transparent!"

"Exactly! Too transparent—do you see what I mean? There is no diffraction whatsoever in that structure."

"But—but if it ain't glass—" stammered Chuck.

"Then it must be," recognized Duane, "plastic! Like the lutice of our day, but of an infinitely superior quality. Right, von Rath? But—but if they can create such things as this, we have been underestimating them. What sort of beings are these Daans—"

"Magnificent!" The German's eyes were gleaming with admiration. "What kultur, what refinement! Truly, they must be a great people who built this structure—"

And:

"Don't look now," interrupted Chuck somewhat acidly, "but if you'd peek more and peep less you can get a gander at the bozos you're yapping about. 'Cause, unless I'm completely cockeyed, there's a bunch of 'em coming toward us right now!"

All followed the direction of his gaze. He had made no mistake. A band of men, previously concealed by a bulwark of the bridge, was now approaching them. Or—were they men? They were manlike in general build and structure, being neither shorter nor taller than Duane, apparently weighing about the same, but—there were differences.

Evolution on Venus must have somewhere diverged from the path taken by Earth's anthropological mankind, and chosen a pathway derivative from amphibious or piscatorial forebears. For the Daans were dead-white of complexion, their hair was a bleached thatch of silver, their eyes so lowly pigmented that there was no sharp distinction between eyeball and iris. The forward jut of their jaws gave them a truculent, almost carp-like look, and between their fingers—now hovering above the hilts of curiously-wrought weapons tucked in their girdles—stretched translucent films of flesh, a faint, vestigial webbing inherited from aqueous ancestors.

Beth shrank as she looked upon the newcomers, and an exclamation, less of fear than of awed hatred, broke from her lips.

"O Dwain! Now you have seen them, let us flee—"

"Steady!" said Steve soothingly. "Hold tight. It's all right, my priestess."

Chuck said, "Whaddya mean, hold tight, Steve? Do we just stand here and let them fish-on-legs catch us? Looks to me like it would be smarter to take it on the lam."

"We wait!" ordered Steve succinctly. "Our desire is to get into their fortress, isn't it? I know no better way." He took a step forward, raised an arm in greeting. "Peace, O Daans!" he said. "We are eight wayfarers seeking lodging for the night. Yonder city looks inviting. Can we—?"

He at the head of the armed band grated his men to a halt, stared at the earthlings suspiciously. Then:

"Whence come you?" he demanded.

"From Loovil," equivocated Steve. "We come from the territory of Tucki—"

"So?" rasped the Daan captain. And he crisped swift commands to his followers in the Earth tongue. "We have been fortunate to find those we sought so soon. Seize them! Bind them well that we may take them to the Overlords!"

CHAPTER VI

Rodrik of Mish-kin

In the moments that followed, Steve Duane could feel his mantle of "godhood" slipping from him; its loss was plain to be seen in the eyes of the Women who were his companions.

He had no doubt that, given their own choice, Jain's warriors would have died then and there rather than submit to the Venusians' bonds. His conciliatory policy had caused him to "lose face" before these battle-scarred veterans. Beth did not like it, nor did Chuck Lafferty approve. Lafferty argued hotly, "It's one thing to walk into their town, Steve, but it's another to be toted in like a trussed duck! There's only six of these white lobsters. Say the word, and—"

"The word," said Steve grimly, "is—wait!"

But even he was forced to admit to himself that he hadn't expected this sort of treatment at the hands of the invaders. After all, they had approached the Daan fortress openly, had neither evaded nor attempted to withstand these others. More humane captors would, under the circumstances, have dispensed with the added humiliation of gyves. Not so the Daans. From their harnesses they uncoiled lengths of plastic rope, pliant but incredibly tough. With this they lashed their prisoners, linked them in single file, and herded them across the bridge to the fortress-city.

Vainly Steve tried to reason with the corps captain, demanding to know why he and his comrades had been bound; the Venusian merely grunted and, with the muzzle of his odd hand-weapon, prodded him to silence.

Only von Rath seemed to understand the reason behind the Daans' high-handed treatment. To Steve he said stolidly, "But of course they take us prisoner. They could not well do otherwise, could they? After all, we are their enemies."

"But we surrendered freely. We are entitled to sane and decent treatment—"

The Nazi shook his head disdainfully.

"Ach, you Yankees! Always the dreamers! Warfare is no silly child's game, mein Leutnant. It is a grim business. The true warrior never trusts nor turns his back on his antagonist. As for treatment—the conqueror treats his prisoner as just what he is: a conquered foe. That is realism!"

Steve said caustically, "Yes. I know what you mean. We've all heard about your Nazi concentration camps."

Von Rath shrugged.

"What would you have us do with our captives, coddle them like house-pets?"

"At least," commented Steve, "give them clothing and shelter, sufficient food and medical attention, as we do your soldiers in our prison-camps."

"But," protested von Rath in astonishment, "you hold so few of our brave soldiers, compared to the vast numbers of yours who have deserted to our side! Moreover, you treat our men well because you know you must. Our Fuehrer has promised that the blood of each slain German will be avenged a hundred times over, nicht wahr?"

"Your Fuehrer," snorted Chuck, "is good at promises. He promised your army plenty of fuel oil, too. But you ain't got it yet. Trouble with Adolf is, he picked the wrong method of getting it, attacking the Russians. I know an easier way. All he had to do was build a pipeline from Berlin to the Baku oil-fields, and shove one end of the pipe in his mouth. If he could suck like he can blow, Germany would have more oil than the whole state of Texas!"

Von Rath stiffened, his eyes darting malice.

"That," he stormed, "is dirty democratic propaganda! Our Fuehrer is—"

"Was!" interrupted Steve.

"Eh?"

"Was," repeated Steve wearily, "not is. You two seem to have forgotten where we are. Stop fighting a war that was over fifteen centuries ago!"

Both men stopped wrangling abruptly, glanced at each other rather sheepishly. Chuck said, "Yeah. I guess you got something there, Steve," and von Rath said, "Ja, we have been foolish."

Even so, his defense of the Daans had reminded Steve again that even yet the Nazi was not altogether to be trusted.

Meanwhile, they had crossed the bridge into the city now known as "Sinnaty." The bridge carried them to the heart of the city; still it was with the utmost difficulty Duane—who had known Cincinnati—oriented himself.

It was as if a Twentieth Century New Yorker suddenly should find himself treading the muddy footpaths of New Amsterdam. The geography was the same, but the street pattern was so completely altered as to be practically unrecognizable. Where had been rows of smart shops and office buildings, there now ranged clusters of tumbledown shacks, shanties so squalid as to be mere pig-stys.

Gone were the fine asphalt avenues; age had crumbled them to dust; rain and snow had dissolved this dust, the feet of careless generations had turned the roadways to a quagmire of muck. Animals—cats, dogs, swine, an occasional horse or cow—roamed the streets unmolested, cropping the sparse grass by the roadsides or rooting through the garbage that befouled the air.

Two witnesses remained that this had once been Ohio's second largest city. Still intact was that great, paved intersection which had been Fountain Square ... and beside it, heart-stirringly beautiful in this scene of desolation and squalor, still stood proudly erect the mighty spire of Carew Tower. It was toward this building the Daans herded their prisoners.

The mighty spire of Carew Tower still stood proudly erect amid the ruins of Cincinnati.

A few humans, both men and women, were on the streets. But these slunk along in the shadows of the dilapidated houses, and when they glimpsed the Daans, scurried furtively, hastily, into the nearest shelter. Steve Duane's hands clenched at his sides to see this evidence of mankind's abject peonage, and in that moment he vowed that, though it cost him his life, he must do something!—to resurrect the glory which had once been Man's, and the pride which had once been America's!

But if the Overlords of Daan let their subjects live like beasts, they maintained a high standard of existence for themselves. The "Nedlunplaza" was, if anything, an even more gorgeous building than it had been in the days when its great lobby entertained visitors from forty-eight states, a hundred nations.

It had been converted into a stronghold, a fortress, a citadel at once impregnable and breathtakingly opulent. A layer of some gleaming metal—silver, perhaps—overlay its erstwhile granite frame. Buttressed walls had been stretched about it; from the occasional watchtowers of these, Daan warriors looked down over their territory. At a call, the gates were flung open. The captives marched into the Daans' capital. Across terraced flags to that which had once been the hotel's lobby ... thence upward in an elevator....

"But, hey!" muttered Chuck. "How come this elevator? I thought these people didn't know nothing about—"

Steve grunted tightly.

"Humans don't. They have forgotten everything of our mechanistic civilization. Look at Beth and Jain. Scared to death. This probably seems like magic to them. But there's nothing wrong with the Daans' science. They know what these things are—and how to use 'em. Any race which can discover spaceflight—"

"Silence!" rasped the Daan group-leader. "Out, now! This is your prison. You will wait here until sent for."

The moving cage quivered to a stop, the door opened, and the octet of captives were thrust from it. Those who had brought them thus far accompanied them no farther. Stepping from the elevator, they moved into custody of other Venusians not only armed with the now-familiar crystalline hand-weapons but also equipped with short, thick-handled, barb-tipped cat-o'-nine-tails.

These, without curiosity or comment, loosed them of their bonds and rudely shouldered them through heavy bronze doorway. The door clanged! shut and they were alone.

Chuck said, "Well, I'll be damned!"

"Well, I'll be damned!" repeated Chuck Lafferty. "Of all the hoosegows I've ever been in, this one takes the cake! Steve—are we supposed to be prisoners?"

"Nothing else but," grunted Duane succinctly.

"But it's nuts!" declared Chuck. "Prisoners oughta be barred or walled or underground or something—"

"You," Steve told him, "should soak up a little bit of von Rath's realism. Or read Elizabethan poetry. Richard Lovelace was right. 'Stone walls do not a prison make', pal! See those windows?"

"Sure I see 'em. And they ain't barred."

"No. But they look straight down about two hundred feet. That's a long way to tumble. Don't kid yourself. We aren't free just because they removed our bonds and loosed us to do as we will."

Von Rath said soberly, "Duane speaks truth, Lafferty. A high, well-guarded tower is the strongest of all prisons. In the Middle Ages all dungeons were built at the tops of castles. Chillon ... der Rathaus ... the bloody tower of London. This is but another evidence of the Daans' superiority over humans. Being wiser, stronger, better organized, they can afford to be contemptuous of their prisoners. They need not bind us. One rebellious move, and they can starve us into submission."

"That's right," agreed Steve. "As a matter of fact, there's only one factor in our favor—and that is the very thing you just mentioned, von Rath. Their contempt for humankind. They have had only to deal with—well, with the poor barbarians of this day. They don't suspect that we three are different. Sharper, more resourceful, and perhaps almost as intelligent as themselves."

The priestess Beth had been listening wide-eyed and comprehending perhaps only half of what she heard. Now, with a small sign of obeisance, "And what," she asked, "do we now, O Dwain? Wait quietly, or prepare magic to destroy our foes upon their return?"

"First," Steve told her, "we get one thing straight. You've got to stop addressing me like something on a marble pedestal. Our chances of success depend on the Venusians not finding out who we are. So lay off that, 'O Dwain!' stuff."

"It shall be as you say, O Dwain," agreed the dust-gold maiden meekly. "But—but how should one address one of the gods—"

"I'm not one of the—Oh, hell!" snorted Steve. "Do we have to go through all that again? Look, Beth—I've told you time and time again that I am a man!"

"Yes, Master. A Man-god."

"Man-god your—Well, never mind! If I were one of the Men of your Clan, you'd call me by my given name—right? Well, from now on that's the ticket. I'm Steve, get it? And this is Chuck, and this is—what's your name, von Rath?—oh, yes, I remember—Eric!"

"Steve ... Chuck ... Ay-rik. Very well, Wise Slumberer. Henceforth it shall be as you say. Jain, you hear?"

"Yes, priestess. We hear and obey."

"Good!" sighed Steve. "Well, now, that's settled—let's take a look around this joint. I don't see any PRIVATE: KEEP OUT signs on the doors, so I guess we're free to wander."

For in addition to the windows which lighted the room, several doors other than the bronze portal through which they had entered off it. Toward the nearest of these Steve led his wondering group.

The door opened easily. And it opened upon a scene which surprised them all. They were not the only prisoners in the tower of Nedlunplaza. The chamber into which they strode was vast, and thickly strewn with humans of all ages, colors and descriptions. Conditions, too. Many were of the furtive, fearful type Duane had seen in the streets of Sinnaty, others were "Wild Ones" like Jon and his tribe—but a few were of a type whose existence in this era the time-exiles had not even suspected. Strong-thewed, intelligent-seeming Men like themselves!

At their entrance, all heads turned at once. Voices raised, for the most part in mourning, but a scattered few in a sort of gloating triumph. And this spontaneous roar roused to movement; the gleeful cries coalesced into a single word:

"Women!"

So swiftly that even Steve Duane, whose mind usually accepted new circumstances with lightning speed, was shocked into immobility, male figures rose and hurtled forward toward the newcomers!

But if the three time-travellers were stunned motionless, not so the women of the Tucki Clan. Barbaric they might be, superstitious they undoubtedly were—but their defensive reflexes had been trained in a hard school; the bitter school of experience.

In the twinkling of an eye, the warrior captain Jain had cried, "On guard!"—and like automatons trained to split-second precision she and her three fighters had whipped steel from scabbards and formed a shield before their priestess and their gods.

Against this biting rampart, not even such a woman-hungry sea of males dared dash itself. The cries assumed an angry, baffled tone, but the attack slowed ... stalled. For an instant there was silence, then one voice, boldly desperate, cried, "On them! What mean their weapons? They are but four, and we are many—"

Steve understood, now, why the Daans had not removed their sidearms while in all other ways holding them in strict bondage. Here was sickening evidence of the difficulties he faced in welding the pitiful remnants of humanity to a force which might overthrow Earth's invaders. Here were men who, though serfs to a master race, spent their blood, their hate, their energies upon each other rather than those who should be their natural enemies.

Eyes blazing, he thrust himself into the forefront beside Jain; his cry was a flaming challenge.

"What manner of men are you? We came in peace—but if war is what you want, then—come on! Who would first like the hot blood let from his veins?"

Answer came from an unexpected source. From the far side of the chamber ... from another door which opened suddenly ... appeared one tall and fair as Stephen Duane himself. In a glance the newcomer appraised the situation, his voice put an end to the mob's mutterings.

"Hold! What have we here? Aaah—new Women?" His cold, gray-blue eyes swept the newly-arrived group, lighted appreciatively as they came to rest on Beth, who had taken her place at Steve's side. "Good! Subdue the men and divide the warriors as you will. But touch not the golden one. She is mine!"

Chuck gasped, "Hoddya like that for nerve, Steve!"

Steve didn't like it. Not a bit. His brow darkened dangerously. "Yours?" he cried. "Guess again, buster! She's not yours till you take her! By what right—?"

"By the right of the power," mocked the other, "that is mine, stranger. I am Rodrik. Rodrik of Mish-kin—ruler of the prisoners of Nedlunplaza!"

CHAPTER VII

Lady Loala

Chuck Lafferty sniffed, "Ruler, eh? Well, a ruler's only got twelve inches, mister—and I got eighteen inches of good steel right here in my fist. If you'd like to—"

"Wait, Chuck!" crisped Steve. Things were beginning to size up a little better now. He stared at the self-styled "ruler of Nedlunplaza" thoughtfully. He said, "Ruler by right of your power, is that it, Rodrik? Then you are strongest of all here?"

"I am the strongest of arm," proclaimed Rodrik, "the fiercest of heart, most skilled with sword and lance, wisest and most cunning—"

"Bashfulest, too, maybe?" suggested Lafferty.

"A shrinking violet," grinned Steve. "Only don't forget to cross the 't' in 'shrinking'." And to Rodrik—"I too am a ruler in my native territory, Rodrik. Therefore I challenge you to pit your strength against mine, here and now, for the prize of these Women who are my own."

"It is not meet," said the ruler disdainfully, "that I should soil my hands against one so puny. I, Rodrik, who alone and unaided have slain the fierce jungle wolf, snared the sharp-fanged boar with bare hands, shattered the ranks of a warrior Clan—"

"Child's play!" taunted Steve. "In my youth, Rodrik, I met and bested the horrible Intercollegiate Fisticuffs Champion, fighting against staggering odds under the sacred and dreadful Marquis of Queensbury rules! Can you say as much?"

The priestess Beth, who until this moment had seemed fearful not so much for her own safety as for that of the man she was pledged to protect, now turned to Chuck dubiously.

"Is—is this really so, O Chuck?" she murmured. "He did destroy the terrible intakul—intrical—?"

"Sister," chuckled Lafferty, "he moidered him! Left-jabbed him silly, then crossed a kayo to the solar plexus. If Rodrik of Mish-kin gets sucked into this deal, he's gonna get tagged on the whiskers—but plenty!"

"The language of the gods," whispered the girl in awe, "is strange to my humble ears. But I am reassured. What can I do to help?"

"Just say," grinned Chuck, "the magic words: 'Sock him, Steve!' That oughta help."

The priestess made a swift, pious movement. "Your suggestion, O Chuck, is my command."

Meanwhile, Rodrik of Mish-kin had pressed forward to confront Steve. Ranged face to face, there was a startling similarity between the two men. Both were over six feet tall, both were blond of hair, fair of skin, blue of eye. But there the likeness ended. Steve's brow was smooth, unfurrowed; his lips were drawn in an amused, almost hopeful, half smile. The other man's eyes were sultry, his lips drawn thin with anger at having his authority thus challenged.

For a long moment he glared at Steve, as if the very ferocity of his looks might cow his antagonist. But finally it was he, not Steve, who dropped his eyes. He turned to his followers.

"Enough of this!" he snarled. "The stranger lies. Destroy him and his fellow males. The Women are ours."

And again the hands of the eight adventurers tightened upon their hilts. But strangely the blood-lust of the prison band seemed to have cooled. One who had pressed most ardently now voiced the doubt of his fellows.

"That we cannot do now, O Rodrik," he demurred. "He has put the question—challenged you, the ruler of our band, to private combat. The challenge must be met. It is the Law."

Rodrik's fair cheeks flamed with sudden anger.

"Fool! Can you not see he is a braggart and a liar? At him—"

"It is the Law!" repeated the other man stubbornly.

"Very well, then!" cried Rodrik, goaded out of patience. "See how I meet and destroy this interloper—"

And in one blurring motion he whirled, lashed his sword from his belt, and hurled himself upon Steve.

But Duane's smile had not masked carelessness. Fast as Rodrik moved, he moved even more swiftly. His blade met that of the other in midair with a chilling zzzwiing! Shock numbed his opponent's fingers, a twist sent the sword flying across the room. Rodrik cried aloud, a cry of dismay mingled with fear. His hand darted to his harness, withdrew, flashed—and winged death sang past Steve's ear as he left his feet in a diving tackle.

His shoulder smashed his foeman's knees. Rodrik staggered backward, arms flailing, and Steve pressed his advantage. With a lunge, he was on his feet again, closing in on Rodrik, battering him with sledgehammer lefts and rights. The ruler of Nedlunplaza's prisoners moaned and spat blood. Powerful man that he was, this type of onslaught, performed under the "sacred and dreadful" Marquis of Queensbury rules, was beyond his ken.

Realizing this, Steve relented. Face close to that of his antagonist, Duane offered, "Enough? Are you satisfied now, Rodrik? Do you yield?"

The reply was half-choked, gasping.

"I ... yield ... stranger."

"Good!" said Steve. "Then—aaagh!" His proffer of peace and amity ended in a retching groan. For as his fists fell to his sides, Rodrik moved with devilish treachery. His booted foot found Duane's groin, driving Steve to his knees, twisting and nauseated, lips working to hold back the sickly bile churning within him.

Chuck Lafferty's outraged scream ripped the darkness which threatened to engulf him.

"The damned, sneaking scoundrel! Steve—are you all right? Out of the way! Let me at—"

In that moment, while Steve was helpless and Chuck still too far away to be of any assistance, Rodrik of Mish-kin could have won his battle—had he dared. But he had learned a wholesome respect for his opponent, and it was his way to end the fight with cold steel, not with the vigor of his own fists. He whirled, eyes darting about the room, found what he was looking for, and raced toward his sword.

But rage, cold and deadly, flooded Stephen Duane like an icy cascade. From somewhere deep within him came strength he had not known he possessed. He lurched to his feet, threw himself after his enemy. They met again before Rodrik's hand could clutch the sword—and their meeting was the downfall of Rodrik of Mish-kin.

For no peace offer was granted him now. With deadly fury Steve went to work on his opponent. His blows cut like the bite of an axe in heartwood: right and left to the body until Rodrik's mouth gaped like an angry wound, his knees sagged beneath him, his guard pawed futilely at the battering rams which bent him double ... then lefts and rights to the unprotected face, hard knuckles raising great welts on his fair cheeks, welts which tore and bled....

Then:

"This one," rasped Steve, "is on the house!" And he let it go. A hay-maker from the floor that caught Rodrik on his way down to meet it. Rodrik sighed once, wearily—then his eyes rolled back in his head. His legs seemed to melt beneath him; he sprawled on the floor like a flayed carcass.

Steve Duane bent over him, not again trustful.

"Had ... enough ... sweetheart?" he puffed.

Rodrik answered nothing. He had had quite enough. Too much. He was deep in the arms of Morpheus....

It was then Beth the priestess broke from her place beside Chuck to throw herself on her knees before Steve. Her dust-gold hair tumbled to the floor; beneath its shimmering veil she took one bruised hand and touched it tenderly, reverently, to her lips.

"Now canst Thou no longer deny Thy godhood, O Mighty Dwain!" she cried raptly. "For surely none but a living god could wage so fierce a battle!"

At another time, Steve might have laughed. But this fight had done something to him, too. It had filled him with an impatient fire which swept him free of all inhibitions.

With a swift, half-angry, and most ungodlike abruptness he raised the girl, yanked her into the circle of his arms, lowered his face to hers.

"All right, then!" he yelled. "I'm tired of arguing with you. I'm a god, then, if that's the way you want it!"

And spurred by impulse, by a hunger whose depth even he had not realized, his lips found hers bruisingly, crushingly ... warmed themselves at the swift-fanning blaze which wakened beneath them. For a moment in which Time itself ceased to exist he felt the oneness of their pulses pounding like myriad hammers of flame. Then he released her, spun to confront those about him.

"Is there any other," he demanded, "who would like to take Rodrik's place?"

His question brought neither defiance nor avowal, but something more astonishing. It brought—surprise! The eyes of Rodrik's erstwhile lieutenant lifted, and his voice echoed bewilderment.

"But, no, my lord," he said for all. "Who would lift a hand against you now? You are our ruler."

Steve stared at him in amazement.

"Come again? I'm your—?"

"Our new ruler. But, of course, my lord. You have bested Rodrik of Mish-kin in the trial by combat. Henceforth we follow your commands. It is the Law."

Chuck chortled delightedly.

"Now, that," he said, "is what I call a pretty good law! Hyah, Your Majesty! Whateth is nexteth on ye program?"

"Nuts," said Steve, "to you!" He frowned at his new lieutenant. "We have but just come here. There is much we need to know—er—"

"My name is Jak," supplied the other. "Jak of Norlinz, men call me. I shall try to explain anything you would know. But first—" He jerked his head contemptuously toward the prostrate figure between them—"shall we dispose of this?"

"Yes," said Steve unthinkingly. "Snap him out of it and—Hey! What are you doing!"

For at his word, two men had stepped forward, lifted the body of Rodrik and carried it to the nearest window. In another instant the vanquished chieftain would have been flying on his way two hundred feet to the stone courtyard below. They paused uncertainly. One said, "But, surely—Oh! Pardon, my lord! You would put him to the sword yourself?"

"Release him!" snapped Steve. "Give him water, and tend his hurts!"

"But—but the Law!"

For the second time since his arrival in this strange, semi-civilized world, Stephen Duane invoked a defiant phrase. This time he did it with more assurance. His eyes hardened, tiny white knots gathered at the corners of his jaw. "I am the Law!" he said. "Release him! It is folly to waste good manpower in such—Ah! You've come to, Rodrik?"

The deposed ruler, released, had somehow managed to stay on his feet. He cringed at the tone of Steve's voice.

"Mercy, O Stranger!" he cried. "Be merciful—"

Von Rath said thickly, "This is not wisdom, Stephen Duane. I have warned you, never is it safe to allow an enemy to live—"

"I'm handling this," interrupted Duane. "Rodrik, do you pledge yourself to keep the peace from now on, acknowledge me your master?"

"M-master?" The Mish-kinite's pallid eyes were less clouded now; they fastened on Steve as if seeing him for the first time. They roved from the top of his ash-blond head to the tips of his doeskin sandals. A strange, new light which might have been awe ... or understanding ... or a curious sort of fellowship ... dawned in his eyes. Aloud he said, "Yes! I do so yield and acknowledge, O Master!" But this was solely for the ears of their audience. He moved to Duane's side, and as he bent his head in token of submission he whispered softly, "Forgive me, brother! I did not understand. I should have known when I looked upon you—"

"Eh?" exclaimed Steve, startled. "What's that?"

"Hush, brother! Let not the others hear. Later you and I shall discuss ... the Plans. But now—" And he raised his voice again—"Let me show you about the prison, O strong new leader. None is more qualified than I to explain."

And that much, at any rate, was true. So, stifling his curiosity for the time being, Steve permitted the former leader to show the way through the tower-gaol of Nedlunplaza. But still wary, still grimly watchful, Jain's body-guard of Women ranged themselves between him and the other prisoners. And to his arm clung the priestess Beth.

Steve laughed at her for this. "You cling to me, O priestess," he taunted her in mock outrage. "You dare place warm hands upon my flesh! Is this how a mere mortal approaches a god?"

But the dust-gold head lifted; the girl's eyes met his levelly, softly, thoughtfully. And the voice of Beth was alive with a strange new vibrancy as she said:

"Aye, even so, my lord; perhaps I am presumptuous. But there was magic in the touching-of-mouths you just taught me. Mad magic. I know not why—but for the first time it sings in my heart that perhaps you have spoken the truth. My mind acknowledges you a god, but here—" And she touched her breast—"I feel you are in truth—a Man!"

Considerably later, after they had been led through the labyrinthine series of connecting chambers and corridors which comprised this prison—this whole floor—of Nedlunplaza, Steve dismissed all his new followers save Jak of Norlinz. To this young stalwart he had taken a liking. Of him he asked the question which had perplexed him ever since entering the citadel.

"Jak, you are no weakling male like those utilized for breeders by Beth's clan. Nor are you like the Wild Ones. You are a man like myself. How is this?"

Jak looked puzzled.

"I do not understand, Steve. How else should it be?"

The priestess Beth broke in fiercely, "You know full well how it should be, Jak of Norlinz! The Women rule Tizathy everywhere! And guard your tongue, male upstart! The sacred name of 'Steve' is not yours to use—"

"That will do, Beth," ordered Steve. "I asked him to call me that. And it is obvious that the Women do not rule everywhere. Not in Jak's New Orleans, nor in Rodrik's Michigan."

"But it is written in the holy books," argued Beth, "that the Men and Women fought, and the Women were victors—"

Jak nodded. "I begin to understand, Steve. We, too, have a legend of the days when the sexes warred. But where I came from the Men subdued the rebels. In my territory Men and Women mate ... they work together hand in hand, and enjoy such happiness as the Daans' harsh rule permits. Thus it is, also, in many territories I know. In Zoni and Mexco ... in Bama and Sippi."

"But," frowned Chuck, "how about this here now place Beth just mentioned: Tizathy? Where's that?"

"Why, that is all places," explained Jak laboriously. "All territories are but part of Tizathy. It is the Land of the Ancients, over which ruled Jarg and Taamuz, Ibrim and—"

"I see," said Steve softly. "I understand now. It is the whole, one-time American nation. Don't you see, Chuck? 'My country ... Tizathy....'"

Jak said, "Yes. You know the Song, Steve?"

"I know it." Duane's forehead creased. "But how is it you languish in a Sinnaty prison, Jak?"

Jak shrugged. "I was restless. I wandered in search of—well, I know not what. Perhaps a territory where there were no Daans. I was captured here, questioned. I could not account for myself, so—here I am. Thus it was with many of the prisoners. Rodrik ... Pawl ... Alan of Washtun."

"But were you free to return to your homeland, Jak, could you rouse others like yourself to come northward?"

"Perhaps. But why?"

"For the purpose of—" began Steve.

He did not finish his sentence. For at that moment came a frightened messenger from the outer chamber. "It is the Daans, O ruler!" he told Steve fearfully. "They are come to take you for the Questioning."

Chuck stirred fretfully.

"What does that mean, Steve? The third degree? Say, we've got an organization now. What say we spunk up and give them toads a dose of—"

"No," said Steve, rising swiftly. "That would only tip our hand. And besides, they don't want to see us any more than we want to see them. That's what we came here for. Let's go!"

Thus it was that, a few minutes later, the recently captured band of Tuckians and time-exiles, surrounded by armed Daans, ascended in the elevator to the topmost stage of Carew Tower. They debouched from their lift into a place which had once upon a time been a swank nightclub, a glass-encased roof garden wherein beneath the light of the stars gay humans had wined and dined and danced.

Age had shattered the glass panes here as elsewhere throughout Nedlunplaza, but in this place the windows had not gone unrepaired. They were filled with that odd, transparent plastic of which the Sinnaty bridge had been made. The whole chamber was a gigantic council-hall, at the head of which sat in opulent splendor the Venusian vice-regents.

A fanfare greeted their entrance into the hall, and a guard, with the haft of his knout, prodded Steve roughly to his knees. Then a voice, curiously gentle and mellow, issued a command ... and from somewhere roused the strident cry of an equerry:

"Let the prisoners rise! Bring them forward, that they may be seen by the Overlord Loala!"

Again the whip dug Steve's back. Stifling an urge to turn and let his captor have one, Steve rose, took a step forward, lifted his eyes and—almost gasped aloud in utter amazement.

For the central figure of those enthroned before him was—though not altogether Earthly—unmistakably feminine. The Overlord Loala was a woman!

CHAPTER VIII

Honor for Sale

There was one thing about Chuck Lafferty which could be depended upon. He was a creature of habit. Nor time nor place nor condition of servitude could vary his set response to given circumstances. When he saw a pretty woman, he gave vent to his admiration in a typically Chuck Laffertyian way. He did so now. He opened his eyes wide. And he whistled.

"Phwee-eew! What a pigeon!"

Steve muttered, "Quiet, you dope! Do you want to get us all in a jam?"

But he had to concede that the Overlord Loala was—as Chuck's whistle had intimated—something to make a man sit up and take notice.

The amphibious heritage of the Venusian race did not display itself so blatantly in the females as in the men. Aside from the fact that her skin was abnormally pale, almost alabaster, the Lady Loala could have passed anywhere as one of Earth's fairest daughters. Her fingers were not joined with vestigial webs, as in the case of the Venusian men, nor was there any prognathous cast to her jaw. Her hair was a silver mantle, billowing down over soft and rounded shoulders ... her eyes were not colorless, but irised with lambent, gray-green pools, slumbrously inviting as a cool grotto on a torrid day. Her body was slim and lithe and perfectly molded. If Steve had suspected the Daans might be ovariparous, a glance at her contours convinced him otherwise. This Venusian was definitely, decidedly, most invitingly, mammalian.

There were others seated on the dais beside her ... a sort of Council, Stephen Duane guessed. These were obviously Venusians of a higher rank and culture than the fighting-men who had been their captors. They were less coarse of feature, less tagged with the stigmata of their squamous ancestry, more Earthly in appearance. One curious phenomenon which impressed itself upon Steve's notice was that the higher types of Daans seemed more highly pigmented than the lower classes. He could only guess at an explanation, but his off-hand hunch was that this differentiation of types paralleled the difference between humankind and the less fortunate anthropoids of Earth.[5]

But there was no time for further conjecture, because the Lady Loala had now lifted one hand in a delicate gesture, and he and his associates were being summoned forward.

The beautiful Overlord looked down upon them with an unusual curiosity. Upon Steve she bent her most interested glances; to him she spoke.

"We have been told you approached our city from the south. Is this true, Earthman? Whence came you, and what is your name?"

"I am called Steve. Steve of—er—M.I.T.[6] And it is true we came from the south," equivocated Duane. "We came from the territory of Loovil."

Loala frowned daintily. "I know not this village of Emmeity, but we shall send a corps to conquer and subdue it," she said. "So you came from Loovil? With permission of the Daan commander there, I presume? You have your travel certificate?"

This was something Steve had not expected. But there was no sense in pyramiding falsehoods until he had constructed a fabric which might destroy them all. He put a bold face on the matter.

"We have not, O Daughter of the Dawn Star," he said. "We left Loovil secretly because we were not happy under the treatment of the local rulers."

A gasp of outrage shuddered through his listeners. The Daan at Loala's left scowled, spoke harshly. "Loala, we have heard enough. They stand self-convicted of rebellion. Destroy them!"

But the Daan at the Overlord's right advised gently, "Wait! The human is honest, even though guilty. Let us hear him through."

Steve glanced at their befriender swiftly. Never had he expected to hear such words from a Venusian. But this one was a rather decent looking chap ... grave, quiet, gentle ... and Steve spoke gratefully.

"Thank you, O Master."

"Nonsense!" rapped the first advisor. "Okuno is too soft-hearted! Let us have an end of this; make an example of these temerarious humans—"

"Silence, Malgro. I make the decisions here." And she turned to Steve again. "Tell us, Steve of Emmeity—did you, perchance, in your travels pass through a village known as 'Fautnox'?"

"Fautnox!" exclaimed Chuck. "Why—"

But Steve, a warning bell clamoring deep within him, silenced his friend with a swift, stabbing glare. He repeated the name wonderingly.

"Fautnox? Nay, Princess of Beauty. That name is new to me. Was it upon our route? We did not see it."

And—unexpectedly, Stephen Duane learned much about the Venusian race. Or, rather, about the Daan women ... Loala in particular. For the term of respect which had come to his lips instinctively proved that to Venusian womankind, as to their Earthly sisters, flattery was a potent weapon. At the words, "Princess of Beauty," Loala's alabaster features softened, her gray-green eyes widened appreciatively, and to her lips came the faintest suggestion of a smile. When she spoke again, her voice was even more mellow.

"Nay? That is too bad ... human called Steve—"

"He lies!" interrupted the advisor Malgro. "Fautnox must be along that route somewhere. All reports tell us—"

"He lies!" interrupted the advisor, Malgro.

"Gently! Gently!" again soothed his fellow advisor. And the Lady Loala turned to him almost impatiently. "I must ask you to remember, Malgro, that I am Overlord of this city. If you cannot restrain yourself, I shall conduct this inquiry in private!" Then, to Steve: "Perhaps, Earthman, you chanced to hear on your journey somewhat concerning certain mythical creatures known as—the Slumberers?"

This time the warning bell within Steve brazened into strident tocsin. Though his face was an impassive mask, his brain was churning furiously. How to answer? To confess himself one of the Slumberers might, and probably would, mean instant death. But to deny all knowledge of that which must be a legend common to all earthlings....

Instinct guided him aright. He made a swift, pious gesture, said in an awed tone, "But of course all men know of the Slumberers, O Lady of Loveliness! They sleep the endless sleep in some unknown chamber...."

"That's not what we have heard!" snarled the restive Malgro. "We know very well the Slumberers—"

"Malgro!" The Lady Loala, who had looked even more approvingly upon Steve during his last speech, now flared into sudden anger. Duane realized, noting the swift sharpness of her voice, the fire brightening in her eyes, that this was no woman to underestimate. She might seem soft and languid, but actually she was as brittle, as coldly ruthless, as any of her followers. She demonstrated, now, her power. "I have warned you twice against these interruptions! Now I act!

"This interview is terminated! Members of the Daan Council, you are dismissed. Guards—take the prisoners back to their quarters. Clear the chamber—quickly! No! Do not take that one—" As two guards stepped forward to prod Steve toward the door—"He remains. I will continue this investigation in private!"

And apparently Steve had not misjudged the character of Loala. Her fury spurred others to action—but quick! In the space of minutes the Daan advisors had departed ... Beth and Chuck, von Rath and Jain, the Tucki warriors, had been herded from the hall ... and he stood alone before the still-smouldering Overlord.

It was then, and then only, Loala stopped smouldering. Her anger died, her features softened, and her voice was again enticingly mellow.

"There! That is better. Now we can talk in peace."

And there was dignity in her voice—but Steve noted something more significant in her actions. For as she spoke, one soft hand lifted—and adjusted the silver strands of her hair! He had seen others do that. It was not alone the gesture of a Daan ... it was the gesture of a woman, self-conscious before a man. His eyes lighted with something that was half amusement. He said softly:

"Yes, O Mistress of a Thousand Charms. We are alone. It is much better this way."

The Lady Loala glanced at him strangely, assumed an air of indignation.

"What? Seek not to beguile me with soft words, man of Earth! Remember your humble place!"

Steve moved a step nearer, bowing submissively. "No words are enough to describe your loveliness, O Lady of Grace. Any man, be he Daan or Earthman, must be humble before you."

"You mean that?" mused the Daan ruler. "You find me attractive, Steve of Emmeity?"

"Do my eyes," breathed Duane, "not answer for me?"

And his eyes, lifting, met hers for a long, tingling moment. A moment in which Steve realized that his play-acting had overreached its purpose ... that he did almost believe it! For the Lady Loala, human or inhuman, was incredibly beautiful. There was warmth, aliveness, allurement in her arms ... in her eyes ... her lips ... in the rhythmic rise and fall of her breast. Were it not for the memory of another woman, dust-gold, and the recollection of lips but a short time ago warm upon his own, Steve could have mistaken the emotion now throbbing through his veins.

But in the comparison lay the answer to his problem. Beth stirred him, too—but not as this woman stirred him. A hunger wakened within him at the nearness of Loala, but for Beth he felt something stronger, greater, finer ... something which was not only of the body but of the heart and spirit as well. What he felt toward Beth was love. What he felt toward Loala was simple, unvarnished, primitive....

Her answer, interrupting the chaos of his thoughts, came as a staggering surprise. She, too, seemed to have been pondering. Now she reached a decision. She nodded her head abruptly; her hands made a gesture of finality.

"So be it!" she said. "You please me, too, Steve of Emmeity. It is permitted that those who so desire may take earthling consorts. I now so desire. You shall move into my chambers!"

Steve's gulp was almost audible. He felt, suddenly, like a man who has been teasing a caged lion—and discovers too late that the door of the cage is wide open! He had not guessed that a Daan—especially a Daan Overlord—would take an Earthman consort. Now he recognized that this, too, was not without precedent in human history. It was customary for conquerors to take into their tents, their castles, their hareems, such members of a subdued race as attracted them. Alexander ... Darius ... Catherine of Russia....

He could see himself installed as human favorite in the equipage of the Lady Loala. An amusing plaything, a man maintained in pampered luxury for the sole and simple purpose of amorous dalliance.

He said, "But—but, my Lady—"

The chameleon-swift eyes of the Overlord darkened.

"Then you were but flattering, Earthman? You sought to deceive me? Now, by the gods of Daan—"

"Nay, Princess of Delight!" swore Steve feverishly. "I only say that—that it is too great an honor. There lives no man, Daan or human, who would not gladly die to win such a prize. But I am a simple barbarian, lately-sprung from the wilderness. Your Council would take offense...."

His wild guessing struck a vulnerable point. Again the Lady Loala nodded, this time speculatively.

"There is truth in what you say, Steve of Emmeity. You have not been tested nor tried; you have not been given the Treatment. But if you were, none could object. Were you given a mission to fulfill, and fulfilled it capably—" Her eyes lighted suddenly. "Yes! That is how it must be. So you would win my favors, Steve?"

"Who would not, O Mistress of Glory?"

"Then it can be arranged—on one condition. On the condition that you renounce your own race and become a human follower of the Daans. Say, Steve of Emmeity—will you join the Brotherhood?"

CHAPTER IX

Rebel—and Die!

"The Brotherhood, O Loala?" repeated Steve wonderingly. The silver princess of Venus smiled a faint half-smile.

"You have not heard of it, Steve?"

"But, no, my Lady—"

"Few common Earthlings have," said Loala. "Yet the Brotherhood numbers scores ... hundreds ... each member selected from the cream of the human clans. Only those are invited to join who, by their physical characteristics, are akin to the Daans—as you, Steve, approximate the coloration and bodily structure of our master race.

"The Brotherhood is an organization of Earthlings who have joined us in the creation of a Daan civilization here on Earth. Because they have allied themselves to us, they have been granted great rights and privileges; because they are human, they may come and go amongst their fellows and bring us reports of what transpires amongst the barbarians. Thus we keep informed as to human schemes and plottings, and can act swiftly to quell incipient rebellion wherever it may rear."

"A—a Fifth Column," gasped Steve, "of humans!"

"Fifth Column?"

"It is a phrase," explained Steve hurriedly, "of the clan whence I sprang. It means—er—those who work for the common good of all."

But her words had cleared up one tiny mystery which had baffled him. He understood, now, the sudden comradeship exhibited by Rodrik of Mish-kin. "Forgive me, brother!" the fellow had whispered. "You and I shall discuss ... the Plans." Rodrik was, like himself, a tall, fair-skinned blond, a human of the physiological type approved by the pallid Daans. Then Rodrik was a member of the Brotherhood; no true prisoner at all, but a spy masquerading as a captive to anticipate such attempts at escape as might be formulated by the Nedlunplaza malcontents!

"I see," said the Lady Loala, and studied him closely. "Well, Steve of Emmeity—what say you?"

Steve struggled to repress the grin of satisfaction which crept unbidden to his lips. There was only one possible answer. Where else could he work better for the liberation of his fellow humans than from the trusted ranks of those who conspired to hold them in subjection?

He said humbly, "I am overwhelmed, O Loala. Gladly will I join my cause to yours, to serve in what humble fashion I may."

Approval, mingled with relief, lifted the shadows of doubt from the Daan woman's eyes.

"That is good, Steve. After learning the secret, had you decided otherwise it would have been necessary to—seal your lips forever. Now is the way open to our future enjoyment of each other."

And she smiled at him languidly, caressingly. Steve felt the tips of his ears burning; he cleared his throat uneasily.

"Yes, Princess. But you spoke of a—a test, a task to be fulfilled?"

Loala nodded.

"And a most important one, Steve. With the morning, you shall return to the woodlands of Tucki whence you came, seeking a hidden refuge known to humans as 'Fautnox.' There you shall investigate for us the truth of a rumor which has reached our ears: that certain legendary figures known as the 'Slumberers' have awakened."

"But, how—" Steve caught himself just in time. A moment more and he would have asked how the Daans had already learned of something which had occurred but three days since, and in so doing would have revealed his own knowledge of the fact. Even so, he was stricken with a new and deeper respect for the espionage system of the Venusian conquerors. It must be a strong and far-reaching organization, this Brotherhood of traitors. "The—the Slumberers, O Princess? The Slumberers have awakened?"

Loala was eyeing him shrewdly, appraisingly.

"This means much to you, Steve of Emmeity?" she asked sharply. "The Slumberers are gods of your clan, too?"

"Not gods," denied Duane. "Just—legends. Stories in which none of us greatly believe. But there is danger in this rumor, Princess. If the hordes believe it, trouble may arise—"

"That," nodded Loala, her suspicions again allayed, "we know. Of course the fable is fantastic. We of a higher culture realize that gods, as such, do not exist, and that no mortals can sleep for hundreds of years, as it is credited the Slumberers have done.

"Nevertheless, the rumor must be tracked down, those who started it must be apprehended and punished, and—above all else—this hidden village of 'Fautnox' must be found and laid waste. Too long has it been a thorn in our side. Well, Steve, can you fulfill this task?"

"I can try, O my Princess," said Steve.

"Good. You shall receive the Treatment now, and in the morning you shall start."

"Alone, O Loala?"

"How else?"

"If I am to appear as a human of my Clan," declared Steve, "it is needful that I be accompanied by those who came to Sinnaty with me. Amongst my people it is customary that a journeying male should always have a corps of female warriors to protect him and a neophyte to prepare for his needs. Were I to approach this 'Fautnox' otherwise, my motives might be suspect—"

Loala shrugged negligently.

"Very well. It shall be as you say. And now—the Treatment that makes you truly one of us, a full-fledged member of the Brotherhood!"

She clapped her hands, and from a room adjacent the council hall came armed guards. Into their care Loala placed Steve, issuing crisp commands in a strange, rhythmic, labial tongue Steve had not heard before, the tongue of her native Venus. When she finished, the guards motioned Steve to come with them—this time by nods, rather than rough elbowing—and he was led from the room.

What sort of ceremony comprised the "Treatment," he had no idea. A swearing-in of some sort ... perhaps even some highly involved and dramatic ritual was more or less what he expected. But Steve had failed to take into consideration the technology of the Daans. He was reminded, sharply, that they were, after all, a mechanically cultured race when he was led into a chamber which—save for the fact that most of the instruments and machines were constructed of that ubiquitous plastic material beloved by Daan engineers—was remarkably similar to a scientific laboratory of his own era.

Most prominent, as well as most curious, device in the entire room was a large, transparent cabinet placed centrally on a raised platform. Verniers and controls studded a panel on the outside of this cabinet, sheathed wires fed current to tubes ranged about its perimeter—and within it stood a large, metallic chair equipped with a headpiece.

For an instant, a tremor of indecision shook Stephen Duane. His experience dictated that this could be one thing only: an execution chamber! The thing inside looked exactly like the dreaded "electric chair" of his vanished era. In a moment of brief panic he glanced about him wildly but—

But his guards were smiling pleasantly—as pleasantly as their taut, colorless features would allow—and their nods motioning him into the cabinet were almost benign. With a shrug that cast his fate into the hands of whatever gods of earth might accept responsibility, Steve stepped into the cabinet, sat upon the chair, allowed the headpiece to be fastened down about his skull, watched curiously as a technician set stops and dials, pressed a switch.

Slowly the bulbs rimming the cabinet glowed into red life. The hum of current droned in Steve's ears, lifted to a scream, a howl, a raging torrent of sound that smashed upon his brain with the impact of a million surging seas!

Every fibre of his body tensed with the strain of an electric agony coursing through his veins. But he was not aware that his flesh had drawn taut with a myriad, tingling horripilations; he knew only that wave upon wave of torment was beating at his brain ... suns whirled, flared, burst into searing fragments before his bloodshot eyes ... sound lashed at his brain-cells like unleashed demons of devastation.

He tried to gain his feet—and was powerless! His lips opened—and no sound came forth. A pinpoint of darkness whirled from the maelstrom of flame before his eyes, began to close in upon him like an ominous, menacing shroud. Nearer it came and nearer; with it came a coldness and a horror. Again he tried to tear the headpiece from him ... to rise and flee ... to scream aloud....

He did none of these things. He slumped downward in the chair, limp in the thundering darkness which had engulfed him.

When he awakened, it was to find himself once again in the council hall, sprawled on the thick furs which lay beside and before the throne of the Overlord Loala. The first face he saw was that of the Venusian princess herself; she was staring down at him with pride and approbation.

He said, "What ... what...?" and tried to lift himself, but the slightest movement roused sharp needles of pain within his brain; the floor beneath him spun giddily.

Loala leaned forward, pressed something to his lips.

"Here! Drink this! It will rid you of the after-pains. You are a strong man, Steve of Emmeity. Few waken so swiftly after undergoing the Treatment."

As she had said, the amber liquid dulled the fire in his skull, Vigor returned to Steve slowly but surely; he was able to lift himself without reeling. He whispered, "Then it is over?"

"It is over, Steve. Now you are one of Us. Guards! You may retire now. The human will return to the prison by himself in due time."

Obediently the Daan warriors withdrew. Steve stared after them wonderingly.

"Then they speak the human tongue as well as yours? When first you addressed them, you spoke in the Daan language."

Loala smiled.

"And this time also, Steve."

"This time—?"

"I spoke to them," laughed Loala, "in the tongue of our mother planet, Daan, Yes."

"But—but I understood you!"

"Of course. It was for that you took the Treatment. Search your mind, Steve of Emmeity, and tell me—what month is it upon our native world?"

"Why—why, Kraama, of course—" replied Steve instantly—and stopped with his mouth an O of astonishment. "I—I knew!"

"That," smiled Loala, "and many other things. Where are the nearest Daan fortresses, Steve, in the event that you should ever need help quickly?"

"Kleevlun," responded Steve promptly, "Slooie, Yanaplis, Davun—Yes, Princess! That, too, I know! And a—host of other things! The number of our forces ... the legends of our people ... the history of our great race ... your race...."

He stopped, corrected himself in confusion. It was a hopeless jumble in his mind. His thoughts, his knowledge, his instincts, were still those of Stephen Duane, Earthman—but superimposed upon these were the thoughts, the knowledge, the instincts of another, a second Stephen Duane—a Brother in the fellowship of Daan!

The old Steve Duane had looked upon the woman Loala and found her seductive, alluring. The new Duane, seeing her, was blinded by the radiance of her overwhelming beauty! Gone were any last, small, lingering doubts as to the attractiveness of her pallid skin, her bleached-silver hair, her grey-shadowed eyes. To him, these physical traits were now tokens of perfection. Her white flesh roused a crying hunger within him ... he felt an impulse to bury his hands in her silver hair and feel its fineness strain through his fingers like a web of molten glory ... the quickening beat of his pulse was like a metronome pacing the tempo of his heart's breath.

The Lady Loala, reading this in his eyes, smiled and stirred with languorous assurance. She whispered softly:

"You found me attractive before, Steve. And now—?"

But deep within Stephen Duane stirred a memory ... the haunting recollection of another woman, one whose hair was a cascade of flowing gold, whose body was pearl and ivory. A girl whose lips had warmed beneath his own. And—Treatment be damned—this Duane was still the dominant of Steve's new schizophrenic character.

And this, realized Duane suddenly, was to his advantage! Never, now, would the Daans dream that he was other than that which he pretended to be: a convert to their ideology. He was in possession of their lore, their secrets—and still free agent to do as he willed!

How this might be, he could not say. Perhaps because the machine which gave the Treatment was set to establish dominion over barbarians of lesser mind ... perhaps because his Twentieth Century brain was somehow differently formed than the evolved brains of men fifteen hundred years removed. But the Treatment, somehow, had failed its complete purpose.

With this realization came the second realization that never must he allow the Daans to suspect his freedom of mind. They considered him now one of Them; he must foster this belief. So—

He stirred forward as though impelled by a restless urgency almost beyond endurance. And, "Need I tell you, O Loala!" he murmured vibrantly. "Need my lips speak—?"

And Loala was, indeed, a true daughter of her sex. Pursuer herself but a short while ago, now she took delight in becoming the pursued, and her withdrawal was purely feminine.

"Not now, Steve," she warded him off, "but later—when you have completed your task. Yes, I am convinced. But be swift, my human, and return to me. And perform your task faithfully and well, remembering the fate which befalls those Brothers who fail."

"Fate?" repeated Steve.

"Yes. This must be told you that you will ever act for the greater glory of the Daans. While you were in the Treatment cabinet, your brain passages were impressed with the knowledge of our people—up to certain limits. Someday I may attempt to explain how the cabinet works; at present your human brain would not comprehend.

"But at the same time, another thing was done. Upon a metal cylinder was impressed a 'nerve image' of your brain, a pattern of waves and impulses which—like your fingerprints—is peculiar to you alone of all humans on Earth.

"This nerve image has been placed in our laboratory vaults. It is our protection against treason or disloyalty, against greed, cunning or too-great ambition. Beware lest you should be found guilty of any of these crimes, for the metal cylinder is electrically sympathetic to your own brain. If it becomes necessary, the brain pattern can be destroyed—and when it is destroyed, you die instantly!"

CHAPTER X

Brother Rodrik

"So?" queried Chuck Lafferty.

"So then—" continued Steve—"she told me that the first time I speak out of turn, my recording gets burned up. And there I go—boom! Out like a light! A swell mess I made of things! Try to outsmart the Daans and get caught in their booby-trap!"

He kicked savagely at a hapless clod. He had reason to worry, had Stephen Duane. Three days had passed since his departure from the Daan fortress. Now every step, each passing second, brought him and his companions nearer Fautnox, and he had not yet puzzled a way out of his difficulties.

Chuck said, "It's distinctly ungood, pal. You're in a lock. If the Daans ever catch on that you're really one of the Slumberers—bing! And I'm all alone in this wacky world with that skunk, von Rath. But—but how about this here now Rodrik person? Where does he fit into the picture?"

"He," growled Steve bitterly, "is one of my brand-new 'Brothers.' At the last moment, just as we were leaving Sinnaty, I was advised that he was to accompany us on our journey. I'm not certain, but I suspect that was the doing of Malgro. Remember him? The Daan councillor who wanted to lop off our heads without giving us a chance to explain ourselves?"

Chuck groaned, "Then Malgro don't exactly trust you, eh?"

"Possibly not. Or maybe it's just routine. Like the Nazis of our day, the Daans don't even trust their own. They set spies to spy on their spies. But—shhh! Here's Rodrik now!"

The Mish-kinite wore a worried look as he approached. He glanced at Lafferty hesitantly, said to Steve:

"If we could speak privately—?"

Chuck snorted, "Don't mind me. I'm just one of the Jones boys—" but Duane silenced him.

"It's all right, Chuck. Run along." Then, as Chuck moved forward to where Beth led the little group, "Well?" he asked, "What's the matter, Rodrik?"

"I do not like this," complained the traitor. "There is something strange going on here, Brother. These Women of your equipage—do you trust them?"

"Completely. Why?"

"Well—we are supposed to be a scouting party," said the other, "seeking the hidden shrine of Fautnox. But we make no effort to conceal ourselves from others. Thrice have we encountered armed groups of warriors, but never once did you ask them the whereabouts of the place we seek. And we press forward through these leafy jungles surely, certainly, almost as if we had some destination in view."

Steve laughed curtly.

"Oh, is that all? We do."

"We ... do?"

"Of course. Our destination is—Fautnox."

Rodrik gestured impatiently.

"Yes. That I know, Brother. But according to such rumors as we have heard, Fautnox lies more to the east of the road we travel—"

It was the "Brother" that did it. For three days now Steve Duane had been pondering which course it would be best to pursue as regarded Rodrik of Mish-kin. Now, hearing again that fraternal salutation on the other's lips, he decided.

For the sake of the dream he had within him, he could endure labor and pain, trouble and hardship. But one thing he could not stand was hearing himself coupled in traitorous Brotherhood with such humans as this standing before him. He grinned, and dropped his pretenses.

"That," he said grimly, "is what you think."

"Yes. Of course. Then should we not change—" In that instant, Rodrik understood. His eyes opened wide. "You mean—you know where Fautnox is?"

"That's it, Brother Rat," said Steve.

"Then—then why did you not tell Malgro?" demanded the other man. "Why did you pretend ignorance ... let them send us from Sinnaty...."

"Because," gritted Duane, "we came from Fautnox, and wanted to get back there! And if I'm not mistaken, it's just beyond that rise—Hold it, Rodrik! You're not going back to Sinnaty! You're staying here with us! Jain! Seize this man; bind him. He is our prisoner!"

In vain the "Brother of the Daans" fought to escape. Seconds later he was securely trussed and, flanked on either side by watchful warriors, being prodded up the last hill. A few more yards, and the little group topped the crest, stood looking down into the secluded valley which was their refuge.

But the forest-hid fortress had changed much in the days which had elapsed since they left it. Before, it had been a desolate-seeming barracks, surrounded by the crumbling shell of a wall; its denizens had dwelt invisibly underground. But now the entire clearing was athrong with humans. The Mother Maatha and Jon, leader of the Wild Ones, had made good their promises; they had summoned to this gathering place all over whom their words held any persuasion. The result was a motley array of humankind.

Here, close beside a buttress of the old wall, were pitched a huddle of dingy, goatskin tents: the shelters of the Wild Ones. Elsewhere about the courtyard where once Men and Women had met in bloody combat had been erected crude, wooden hoams for the Women of visiting Clans. Their number was great as could be seen even from this distance by the differences in their tribal trappings.

Strangest sight of all to the eyes of Beth and Jain, the three fighting-women, was that of Wild Ones and Clanswomen seated side by side before scattered campfires ... laboring side by side on still other dwelling-places for the expected reinforcements ... toiling side by side at the forges, in the fields.

Chuck said, "Good golly, look at 'em! Cozyin' up like bugs in a rug, Steve. Boy! They took to the New Order like a duck to water!"

Even Rodrik stopped muttering threats as he stared incredulously at the sight before them. He said, "But this is madness! Women and Wild Ones joined together, working in harmony! Even in my tribe—"

And the priestess Beth raised troubled eyes to Steve. "Is this," she asked, "is this what you had planned for, O my mate?"

Steve answered quietly, "Yes, Beth. This is the way it shall henceforth be. This is how it was in the old days."

And he led the way down the hill to the encampment. Sentries glimpsed them from afar, challenges turned to cries of joyous recognition. "The Slumberers! The Slumberers are returned!" And center of a spontaneous exhibition that woke the very hills to jubilee, the voyagers shouldered their way through roaring hosts to seek the hoam of the Mother.

They found her seated in council with not only Jon but the leaders of a dozen other tribes of Wild Ones as well as the Mothers of as many neighboring Clans. She rose, moved forward to greet them, her wise old eyes soft with tears of happiness.

"You have returned. Now, thanks be unto great Jarg, who has given you back to us! See, I step down from the rostrum, O Dwain! The council is thine. Tell us what you have learned, and what must next be done."

"First," said Steve, "suppose you tell us the number now gathered at Fautnox, O Mother. It must be great."

"They are as the sands of the sea," said the Mother proudly. "Of Women there are fourteen Clans.... Of Wild Ones a dozen tribes. And more pour in from every direction daily. Already our poor resources are overtaxed; we have sent bands of hunters into the woods to find us meat, and Workers slave in the fields night and day that all mouths may be fed."

"And the number of actual fighting men and women?"

"Hear, O Dwain, and be staggered!" said the matriarch triumphantly. "For surely this is the greatest army ever to be assembled! We number two thousand, eight hundred and four strong warriors—all armed and ready to strike for freedom!"

Von Rath gasped aloud. "Two thousand—!"

Steve interrupted him swiftly before his disappointment could communicate itself to the humans now gazing at him with such radiant pride mirrored in their faces. He knew how the German felt. After their plans, their high hopes, to be given this handful of soldiers ... this pitiful little force with which to undertake the reclamation of a world....

But—was it such a pitiful little force, after all? Of all who heard the number, only he and von Rath and Lafferty were negatively stirred. The priestess Beth's red lips were agape with wonder, the eyes of Jain had lighted with grim joy, and even Rodrik—who knew the ways of the Daans—was hushed with something akin to awe.

And Duane, searching his own brain—the refurbished brain supplied him by the Treatment—realized suddenly that he was guilty, as were his time-exile comrades, of anachronistic thinking. In the era whence they came, such an army would be a mere nothing ... a suicide squad with which to withstand an enemy's advance for a day, an hour ... but in this day it was a force to be reckoned with. The Daans themselves held Sinnaty with less than five thousand souls, while some of their less important citadels were manned by detachments numbering only in the hundreds....

"You have done well, O Mother!" he said. "We have now the strength to—" He stopped suddenly, turned—"Von Rath!" he said.

"Yes, Duane?"

"Take Rodrik away from here, will you? We don't want him to hear our plans. And—guard him well! I'll tell you what we decide later."

"Sehr gut!" The German took Rodrik's arm, propelled him roughly from the chamber. Chuck glared after them disdainfully.

"There goes a sweet pair," he groused. "I wouldn't trust either of 'em any farther'n I could throw a cow by the tail! Steve, if you want Rodrik guarded, why didn't you ask me to—"

"Because," explained Steve, "I wanted you here, in the first place. And in the second place, because I'm not any too sure of von Rath myself. But, now—" And he turned to his audience—"as to our next step—"

"Tell us, O Dwain," said one of the gathered Mothers. "We are yours to command. Aye, and more are yet to come, for word of your Wakening spreads throughout Tizathy like flames in the forest. Do we wait for still further strength, or—"

"We do not!" declared Steve boldly. "We change our gathering-place to a larger and more central city. One which will amply feed and house our ever-increasing numbers."

"And that place, O Dwain?"

"The nearest," said Steve, "of the strongholds now held by the Daans. Send messengers to spread the word and bid the fighters prepare. Tomorrow, at dawn, we march on Loovil!"

Dawn ... and the first thin silver of gold limning the crests of the eastward hills. Dawn ... and two men crouching in a field of waving grain.

All night long these two had led their troops across broken, weed-strewn ground which had once been verdant farmland, down cracked creet roads which had been highways, over hills and streams and mounds of tumbled masonry which marked forgotten home-sites. Now they lay within sight of the city, and the time was ripe for action.

Chuck said, "You sure we ain't bitin' off more than we can chew, Steve?"

"I think not. This much is certain: if we can't take Louisville, our whole dream is blasted. There are only four hundred Daans in the entire city."

"Yeah, I know. But that gun they have—"

"Is deadly. Make no mistake about that. It expels some sort of radiation which will either kill or stun, depending on the way its dial is set. But we have the advantage of surprise."

"How about the Daans? Don't they have some sort of communication, like radio or telephone? Any race as smart as theirs—"

"They have. An instrument they call the 'telaudio.' But our objective is to take this city and set up a fortress here before outside help can arrive. Jain—all are ready?"

"Ready and eager, O Dwain!" answered she who was in general command of the allied fighters.

"Then—" Steve drew a deep breath—"let's go!"

Thus simply, without fanfare or threat, declaration or parley, was launched the first reprisal blow of long-time captive humankind against its extraterrestrial oppressors.

Like a wave rose the earthlings from their places of concealment to hurl themselves forward into the city. It did not matter that they had marched thirty-five miles during the night; these were strong women and stronger men, their sinews were hardened in the never-ending struggle against nature.

Their hearts were strong, too, and their voices. As they charged the Daans' citadel they roared, and their cries were a paean of deliverance.

"For the Slumberers—strike! Strike for the Slumberers!"

What happened during the next hour was all chaos and confusion. At the head of the advancing Tuckians, Steve had neither the perspective from which to view the battle in its entirety nor the time to analyze its tide. He was swept away in a torrent of action ... of blow-dealing and blow-fending ... of movement and halt ... life and death ... which was beyond the scope of any single mote's comprehension.

Louisville became a hell of battle.

All he did realize was that the attack achieved its purpose in taking the Daans completely by surprise. Years of rulership had made them contemptuous of their human enemies; they paid now, dearly, for this contempt. Before an alarm was sounded, the advancing allies had swept into the heart of the city; before sleep-befogged soldiers could man the ramparts of the central fortress, those ramparts were aswarm with clambering human warriors.

The weapon of the Daans was deadly. Its flaming ray withered whole ranks of the attackers, mowing them down with the grim, mathematical precision of a husbandman's scythe—but this slaughter seemed only to increase the fury of those who remained. Where a Wild One dropped, stricken lifeless before ever he hit the ground, there was a warrior Woman to seize the sword from his falling hand ... and fill his place in the ranks. Where Women tumbled in grotesque heaps, there were Workers to hurdle their bodies and plunge on ... ever on!

And when a Daan fell, there was a Daan's ray-weapon for his nearest foe. Thus the battle, which was one of science against sheer brute power in its early stages, shifted to one of science against science. It did not matter that the earthlings could not understand the weapons with which they fought. They could sight, and aim, and press a grip—and after each such deed there was one less foeman to overcome.

By what miracle Steve Duane came through that battle unscathed, he could never afterward say. Comrades fell before and behind him, on either side of him; their places were taken by still others who joyously fought and happily died with the battlecry frozen on their lips. But somehow he won through, and it was he who, at the end, accepted the capitulation of a dwindling handful of Daans hopelessly trapped, violently defeated, in the innermost chambers of their citadel.

This stricken remainder Jain would have ordered put to the sword but for Steve's refusal.

"No!" he commanded. "They have surrendered; we have their weapons. That is enough."

"But these are the Daans, O Slumberer," protested one Clansmother, "who have annually levied tribute on our people, despoiled our villages, seized our crops, chosen the strongest of our men and women and transported them to slave miserably in the stinking swamps of their native planet—"

"Nevertheless," avowed Steve, "there shall be no more slaughter. We will hold these prisoners as hostages—Yes, Chuck? What is it?"

Lafferty had burst through the mob excitedly; now he clutched his friend's arm. "There's one guy around here is goin' to be murdered—if I have to take him out somewhere and do it myself. The dirty, connivin' scoundrel—"

"Who?" demanded Steve. "What are you talking about?"

"Von Rath!" screamed Chuck. "That's who! Steve, I warned you not to trust him. The dirty Nazi rat has murdered you, just as sure as if he stuck a knife in your back—"

A quick pang of fear coursed through Stephen Duane's arteries. Even as his suddenly-dry lips framed the question, he thought he knew its answer. He said harshly, "What—what did he do?"

"Do?" howled Lafferty. "Drag him out here, Beth, so we can see him! I'll tell you what he done! He set Rodrik free! And Rodrik's on his way back to Sinnaty, hell-on-fire, to tell them that you're one of the Slumberers—so they can destroy you by remote control!"

CHAPTER XI

"A Daniel Come to Judgment"

Short moments ago Stephen Duane had been drinking deep of the heady wine of victory, basking in the radiant sunlight of renascent hope. Now a cold shadow overwhelmed that sunlight; the savor of triumph soured on his lips. He turned slowly to the man standing defiantly captive between Beth and Jon.

"Is this true, von Rath?"

The Nazi met his gaze with belligerent hauteur.

"It is true, Stephen Duane."

"But why? Why did you do it? We were enemies once, I know. But we formed a pact of friendship ... a promise of mutual assistance—"

"Pacts! Promises!" sneered von Rath. "What are these but empty words? Eric von Rath is no fool, mein Leutnant. He knows when a cause is doomed. And if ever a rebellion was foredestined to failure, this one is. Could any but a foolish, vain-glorious Yankee expect this motley, undisciplined army—" His eyes swept the rebel host derisively—"to overcome the magnificent science of the Overlords?

"Nein! It is no victory you have won here today, but a single minor skirmish of a hopeless rebellion. Surely, the Daans, even before they surrendered, sent a message to the Sinnaty garrison. Soon will come—perhaps even now it is on the way—an avenging host to wipe out this pitiful handful of upstarts.

"I, Eric von Rath, am a realist. I acknowledge a master race when I see one. I acknowledge the Overlords as masters of Earth. That is why I liberated Rodrik. That is why, when the Daans retake this place, I shall win a place high in their favor."

Lafferty grated, "Not you, weasel! When the Daans come—if they come—you ain't going to be here to see them. Because—" And he took a swift stride forward, an already crimson blade balanced judicially in his hand.

But Duane stopped him. "No, Chuck!" he ordered.

Chuck swiveled, his eyebrows twin parentheses of astonishment. "What! You mean to say that even now, after what he's done, you ain't going to—"

"I am going to," pledged Steve tautly, "but I myself; no one for me. Von Rath is mine. I shall take care of him personally—when I have time to do so. But now—" He swung to the warrior captain—"Jain, your forage sack, quickly! There is not a moment to waste."

The Mother Maatha asked anxiously, "What are you going to do, O Dwain?"

"I'm going after Rodrik. He has no more than a couple of hours start, and Sinnaty is a long way from here. If I'm lucky, I may be able to head him off before he can reach the Daans and spill the beans."

The Priestess Beth stepped forward, eyes lighting.

"So be it, O my mate! With the speed of the woodland hart we shall pursue him."

"Not we, Beth," corrected Duane. "You're not going. This is my job; one I must do alone. You are needed here. Stay with Chuck and help him consolidate this position, that we may use Loovil as a rallying place for our ever-growing forces."

"But," cried Beth, "it is not fitting that a Woman should desert her mate in hour of peril. The way is long, and the forest dark and treacherous—"

"One," interrupted Stephen Duane, "can travel faster than two. And now every moment is precious."

He took from Jain the knapsack she had slipped from her own shoulders; the forage bag of the woodland women which contained salt and meal, taters and dried meat, tinder ... all the small necessities of a hasty trek.

"Guard von Rath well, Chuck. I'll be looking forward to meeting him again when I return. And now—good-bye. No, Beth! I have said you must stay here."

For the girl had followed him to the doorway. But there was no stubborn insistence in her eyes as she lifted them to his. There was, instead, something else. Something incredible. A softness Stephen Duane had thought never to find mirrored in the eyes of a woman such as this, his warrior priestess.

In a small and trembling voice she whispered, "I shall come no farther than this, O Dwain. But—but before you depart, can we not as man and woman once more perform the touching-of-mouths you taught me?"

And the nearness of her warmed him for the perilous journey ahead.

Stephen Duane had hoped to catch Rodrik of Mish-kin before that traitorous Brother of the Daans reached his Sinnaty goal. He had vowed to press forward at forced speed, halting no oftener than was absolutely necessary. But one thing he had failed to take into account was the fact that the urgency spurring Rodrik was as great as that which goaded himself. Rodrik knew vengeful swords would pursue him. He knew his life was forfeit should he be apprehended before he attained the sanctuary of the Daan citadel. So fear lent him a speed commensurate with Steve's determination, and because he was a strong man, woodland-trained, he maintained his precious advantage over his pursuer.

So closely did Duane press him that once, in the coolness of the dawn, he found a pallet of leaves still warm where Rodrik had rested briefly during the night. Again he found upon the roadway both used tattered shreds of a still-hot carcass; a rabbit Rodrik had killed and eaten raw, not daring to take time to cook his meal.

But it was not until Steve passed half through the deserted village of Covton and saw lifting before him the shimmering arch of the Sinnaty bridge that he actually glimpsed his quarry. Then, though his legs had been leaden with exhaustion, he spurred himself to one last desperate effort and almost closed the gap between himself and the fleeing Rodrik.

But the Mish-kinite, whose flight had been that of a frightened Janus,[7] turned and saw him—and he, too, whipped a final reserve of energy from his flagging body.

Thus it was that before Steve could draw within bowshot of his betrayer, Rodrik had screamed piteous appeal and won himself the protection of a Daan patrol. These same Venusians spotted Duane, waited for him, and took him into custody.

Their leader growled curt challenge to both humans.

"What is the meaning of this? Know you not it is forbidden armed humans shall approach our citadel? Death is the penalty for such folly."

But Rodrik bleated, "I flee in peril of my life, O masters. This man pursues me. I am Rodrik of Mish-kin, a Brother of the Daans."

And when piscine eyes narrowed upon Duane he was forced to adopt the same shibboleth. "I, too, claim sanctuary," he panted heavily. "I am Steve of Emmeity. I, too, am a Brother of the Daans."

The Daan captain glared at them malevolently.

"Methinks the Daans," he complained, "have all too many human Brothers. But—" He shrugged—"you have claimed the right of judgment. I shall take you to one in command."

Steve clutched at a straw of hope. There was one Venusian who might be expected to proffer him a certain favoritism. "Take us to the Lady Loala, O Captain!" he demanded.

"I demand the right of judgment!" said Steve. "Take us to the lady Loala."

And in the same instant Rodrik of Mish-kin cried, "Convey us to Malgro of the Council!"

But the Daan chieftain silenced them both with a gesture of his crystaline weapon. "Silence. Pangru of Daan heeds not the advice of earthling scum. You shall plead your cases before Okuno, Overlord of all human disputes and Chief Executioner."

Thus a few minutes later the two earthmen, pursued and pursuer, were herded to the judgment chamber over which presided the Overlord Okuno.

It did not lessen Steve Duane's gloom to discover that Okuno was the less tyrannical Overlord who had interceded in his behalf when first he had been taken captive by the Daans. On that occasion he had been accused of no crime greater than that of wandering without a travel certificate. This time the accusation hurled against him would be that of treason. He had been warned of, and knew full well, the punishment he must expect: destruction of the cylinder on which was engraved an electrical transcription of his brain pattern. And with this—sudden death to himself.

Nor was the accusation long in coming. Rodrik of Mish-kin burst into speech the moment they entered the room.

"Hail, O Master!" he cried. "May the Daan empire reign forever!"

"So be it," replied Okuno formally. "You may depart, Captain." With a gesture he dismissed the warrior and his corps, then turned to the pair before him. "What is the meaning of this? I recognize you two as Brothers of the Daans. Why are you brought thus hither before me? Are you not they who were sent to seek the hidden rebel refuge of Fautnox?"

"We are, O great Okuno," clarioned Rodrik.

The Overlord leaned forward. His gravely gentle face might have been a carven mask for all the emotion it displayed. But his eyes brightened with interest and his hands moved tensely. "And—found you this place?" he breathed.

"We did, O Lord of the Master Race."

"Now by Jarg and Ibrim," gasped Okuno, "false gods of the earthling race, heard you any word concerning the fabulous Slumberers?"

And—Stephen Duane took a deep breath, braced his shoulders rigidly. This was it. The showdown.

For a moment he toyed with the idea of whipping his sword from its scabbard and forever stilling Rodrik's traitorous voice. But that, he knew even as the thought flashed through his brain, was a hopeless dream. Before ever he could draw his blade, the watchful Okuno could unleash destructive lightning from his crystaline hand-weapon. The only thing to do was wait. Wait and hope.

Rodrik laughed, and in his laughter was a note of brazen triumph. "Aye, that we did, my Lord! And behold, he who stands before you, the human Steve of Emmeity, who by my guile I lured back to judgment in this citadel, even he is the one known as Dwain! He is one of the Slumberers!"

The Overlord stiffened, and his eyes swung, startled, to Steve. "What! A Slumberer—thou? Does this human speak the truth?"

Steve shrugged. He could deny it, yes. But even then it would be only a matter of time before the Daans discovered the truth. And he could not see that denial was of any use now. He was doomed, anyway. Faltering or hesitation on his part would only increase the Daan's contempt for the valor of earthmen. If his last contribution to the cause of human freedom could be to instill in Venusian breasts one iota of admiration for earthling courage, and perhaps a spark of fear because a Slumberer had defied them, then he would not have died in vain.

So with a single contemptuous glance for the traitor beside him, he drew himself proudly erect and faced the Overlord boldly. Boldly he nodded his head.

"It is true, Okuno," he said. "I am one of the Slumberers, wakened after fifteen hundreds of years to lead my race to freedom."

What he expected to attend his pronouncement he did not rightly know. Outrage, certainly. Anger, possibly. Sudden death, perhaps.

But none of these followed his declaration. Instead, he had the satisfaction of seeing the almost colorless lips of the Daan pale utterly. Of seeing a proud Venusian Overlord stunned and shaken. The Executioner Okuno stared at him as one stricken. His breath rasped through his lips.

"Then—then the myths, the old legends, were true! Three did sleep for centuries, and—"

"And have risen now," gritted Stephen Duane, "to lead their people out of the bonds of slavery. Yes, Overlord of Earth, count the passing moments as precious gems. For each of them brings nearer the time when you and all of your race will be exiled to the stinking marshes of the planet which spawned you."

Rodrik of Mish-kin gasped.

"Blasphemy, O great Okuno! For all the Brothers of Daan I renounce this false god and the cause he espouses. Your permission, Sire, and as token of good faith, I shall destroy him, here and now."

"Nay!" Okuno's crisp command halted the traitor's movement. "You have done Daan a great service, Rodrik of Mish-kin, but now you presume too much. It is not yours to take judgment into your own hands. This man must be dealt with as all traitors to the Brotherhood. We will make an example of him. Guard!" He clapped his hands and warriors appeared as if by magic. "I have certain preparations to make. Bring these two humans a short time hence to the execution chamber." And he left the room.

And so, when scarce an hour had passed, Stephen Duane found himself being led to that great vaulted chamber which was the execution room of the Daan Overlords. Okuno had not exaggerated when he said he would make an example of this occasion. "Spectacle" might have been a better word. For the amphitheatre was jammed. There were gathered into it scores of humans who, by the camaraderie with which they mingled with the Daan warriors, Duane rightly judged to be the assembled fellows of the Brotherhood.

He and Rodrik were motioned to a central dais, the execution dock. There they stood, side by side, Rodrik smirking triumphantly, Steve matching his grin with one of derisive bravado, while the Overlord Okuno addressed the throng.

"There stand before us," he proclaimed, "two members of the Brotherhood. One true and noble, worthy to be acknowledged a fellow of this group. The other a scoundrel and a traitor. You are gathered to watch the justice of the Daans.

"Behold, O gathered Earthmen. Watch and tremble. To that human who worked nobly and well for our Brotherhood shall be allotted great honor. To him who proved a traitor in our midst shall be meted destruction. The cylinder of him who would have betrayed us has been placed within the destruction chamber. Behold now the vengeance of the Daans—swift, terrible, and just!"

And he lifted his arm in a sign. The Venusian guard closed a master switch. A high thin whine rose to lose itself in ultrasonic heights. Crackling waves of electricity sputtered in a metal cubicle across the room. Within that chamber a cylinder blazed into sudden, fiery oblivion. And in that moment—Rodrik of Mish-kin screamed aloud, once and horribly, and dropped dead at Stephen Duane's side!

CHAPTER XII

Alter Ego

Steve's first thought as he stood stock-still and staring with horror fascinated eyes at the crumpled figure beside him was that there had been some terrible mistake.

What he might have said or done is hard to guess. Probably nothing, for one of Duane's virtues was that of knowing when and where to keep his mouth shut. Moreover, any tendency toward speech he might have felt was thwarted when he lifted startled eyes to the Overlord Okuno to find the executioner's intense gaze unmistakably warning him to silence!

So silent he remained while his fellows of the Brotherhood filed from the amphitheatre, and Venusian guards removed the remains of Rodrik of Mish-kin.

It was then that Okuno turned to him and, obviously speaking for the benefit of those Daans who still lingered in the chamber, said, "And now, Brother Steve of Emmeity, we shall go to my privy chamber, where I shall justly reward your valor in apprehending this traitor. Come!"

But in Okuno's private room, with the door closed and locked behind them, Steve turned to the Overlord questioningly.

"And now, Okuno, what—?"

But the strangest sight of all climaxed the whole mad episode. For the purple-gowned Okuno, haughty Overlord of Daan, Chief Executor of the invading master race, had slipped to his knees—and was bowing before Steve in humble supplication.

"Thy forgiveness, O my Lord!" he prayed, "if for a moment I caused thee trepidation or alarm. It was the only means whereby I could beguile the cunning Rodrik into silence until his lips could be sealed forever."

Steve gasped, "Then those were the preparations you made! You substituted his brain-pattern cylinder for mine?"

"Even so, O mighty Slumberer."

"And—" It was all beginning to make sense now—"though a Daan, you are on our side?"

Okuno's head lifted proudly. "At thy side, aye, Master! And a humble follower of the Slumberers. But no Daan am I. I am an earthman, even as thyself."

"You are—what!" Steve stared at the man in stunned bewilderment. Then, impatiently, "Get up, man! We are humans together. No earthman needs bow before another. Get up and tell me what this is all about!"

So Okuno spoke, and what he told Steve was the most heartening news Duane had heard since his wakening in this strange world of slave humans.

"I am an earthman," repeated Okuno proudly. "My real name is Wiam. Wiam of Kleevlun. The true Okuno lives no more. He made the error which, praise Jarg, many sons of the marsh planet have made: that of riding alone through human settlements too arrogantly and too often. His last such outing cost him his life. The worms have long since stripped his carcass. But this the Daans know not. For an Okuno set forth upon a journey, and an Okuno returned. Nor does any Venusian suspect I am not the true Okuno."

"But," stammered Stephen Duane, "your hair ... your eyes ... the webbings between your fingers...."

"Are all," smiled Okuno, "artificial. I know, O Slumberer, that thou who wakened in a matriarch's camp have cause to believe all humans are crude and uncultured. But, believe me, this is not so. We number amongst us a handful who remember somewhat of the skill and artifice of the Ancient Ones. The art of masquerade we know and practice mightily.

"Rejoice to learn, O Slumberer, that I am not the only earthman who treads the soil of Terra in the guise of a Venusian. Throughout broad Tizathy there are scores, hundreds, like myself. Altered earthmen with bleached hair and chemically treated pupils, artificial webbing secured to their phalanges, who have wormed their way into the confidence of the so-called 'master race,' and but wait for that moment to come when earthmen may strike for their lost liberty.

"Changelings like myself are Daan guards, captains of Daan troops, space navigators, and even as I, Councillors of Daan citadels. It is a vast and secret movement we have prepared for generations, awaiting only—a leader. And now—" The masquerader's pale eyes gleamed with fanatic zeal—"the leaders have come! The legend has been fulfilled, and the Slumberers have awakened!"

Stephen Duane felt a vast resurgence well within him. There had been moments when, despite his own courage and determination, his spirit had shrunk appalled before the magnitude of the task confronting him, so helpless had been those upon whom he had been forced to depend for aid, so engulfed in barbarism and superstition. But here were men of richer stuff conceived. Men not only of purpose, but of wit and wisdom. Men who had wormed their way into the very heart of the invaders' organization.

"Great guns, Okuno!" he cried excitedly. "This is the best news yet! A counteroffensive set up within the Daan organization! More than I dared dream of!"

"We stand ready," said Okuno simply, "to do your bidding. What are your orders, O Duane?"

Stephen Duane said feverishly, "I don't exactly know—yet. We'll have to call a council of war. We have already struck the first blow against the enemy, you know. Three days ago our forces occupied Loovil—"

Okuno lifted a trembling hand. His voice shook.

"Pardon, O Duane. But do you mean to say you have not heard of the retaking of Loovil?"

"Loovil retaken!" choked Steve. "You mean—?"

Okuno nodded slowly. "Yes, O Slumberer. Before that garrison fell, its commander got off a message to this headquarters. Even as you pursued Rodrik of Mish-kin hither, a punitive expedition flew from Sinnaty to Loovil. Your companions, though they defended the Tucki fortress bravely, were unable to match the superior might of the well-armed Daan fighting craft. Loovil is again a Daan outpost."

Steve Duane licked suddenly parched lips. "And—" he faltered—"and those who defended the garrison? They were—destroyed?"

Okuno nodded somberly. "Many were slain in the battle. Those who died so, swiftly and nobly, were fortunate. To the others has been meted a punishment more dreadful than clean and sudden death. By rockets they have been transferred to the planet of Daan, there to waste away the wretched remaining hours of their lives slaving in the Venusian swamps."

It was revelatory, though at the time it did not occur to Duane, that his first tense query should have coupled with the name of a friend held dear for years than of a maid he had known scarce a fortnight.

Eyes clouded with anxiety, he gripped Okuno's arm in fingers of steel.

"The priestess Beth?" he cried. "And my fellow Slumberer, the one known as Chuck? Where are they? Were they among those—?"

He dared not say the word, dared not think of Lafferty's laughing vigor stilled by the Daan's ray-weapons, nor the dust-gold vibrancy of Beth charred and blackened by that weapon's spiteful flame.

But Okuno said, "Let us see," and moved to a cabinet upon one wall of his private chamber, drew therefrom a list of the exiled earthlings. "These are they," he told Steve, "who survived the battle and have been exiled to Daan. You will find here—"

Steve had already snatched the sheets, was scanning them eagerly. The listing of those slaughtered was like a series of sword thrusts in his heart. Brave Jain had fallen, and Mairlee, Mother of the Lextun Clan; Ralf, chieftain of a tribe of Wild Ones from Clina territory, and Alis, his newfound mate; hosts of others had died defending the all too briefly held salient.

But on another list, naming those who had survived the conflict only to be transported to Earth's evil sister planet, he found those names for which he sought most eagerly. Those of Beth and the Mother Maatha and a male who designated himself as "Shuk of Bruklin."

On still a third sheet, Steve found a name which brought a snarl of anger to his lips. That name was Ay-rik. To it was appended a strange curlique unfamiliar to Steve. Guessing at its meaning, a sudden fear wakened within him. He turned to his friend.

"This Ay-rik—-what means that symbol after his name?"

Okuno glanced and shrugged. "That means he was wounded but will survive. But what troubles you, my Lord?"

"Plenty!" gritted Steve. "It's bad enough we've lost Loovil; that some of my friends are dead and others captive. But this—" He tapped the sheet—"Eric von Rath being alive is the worst thing which could have happened to us. He is that Slumberer whom the legends tell is evil from the core. He betrayed me once, and will do it again if he gets the chance. So long as he lives neither you nor I nor any of our comrades is safe, Okuno."

The masquerader stared at him haggardly. "I see what you mean, O Duane. Let him but report that you are one of the Slumberers and then not only will you be apprehended, but investigation will disclose that I aided you by exchanging the cylinders—"

"—and there," ground Steve curtly, "goes our whole plan before it gets well under way. Okuno, there is only one thing to do. I must somehow get to Venus."

Okuno nodded slowly. "Yes, that is so. Much more can you do there than here. Not only can you liberate our fellows in exile, and silence the tongue of this treacherous Ay-rik, but there you can perchance accomplish that which is vitally essential if ever earthmen are to reestablish control of their own planet."

"And that is—?" demanded Steve.

"Find a way," Okuno told him, "of immobilizing the Daan spacefleet. Time and again have there been opportunities for our organization to strike a blow at the Overlords' mastery ... and this was even before we could count on the assistance of the Women and Wild Ones you have converted to our cause. But never have we dared take that last important step, for we have realized that whatever small successes might crown our uprising at the beginning would be nullified as soon as the Daans' mighty armada of space-vessels could hurtle the distance between their planet and ours.

"They garrison here but a scattered handful of spacecraft. These it is well within our power to capture and subdue, the more so because there is not one of these vessels but numbers amongst its crew masqueraders like myself.

"But on Daan is cradled the full majesty of the Venusian space-navy. Somehow this fleet must be crippled, so it cannot be turned against us until we have time to consolidate our positions. This, O Slumberer, is the major important task you can accomplish for us on Daan. You have powers greater than those allotted humble, commonplace mortals, O Duane. Can your powers encompass this deed?"

Steve said grimly, "I don't know, Okuno. But this much is certain: I must go to Daan, and while there, do what I can. Meanwhile, can it be arranged for me to visit the other planet?"

"Can and will, O Wise One. A ship leaves Sinnaty on the morrow for Daan. Tonight, our craftsmen will perform upon you the artistry which altered my lineaments. Meanwhile, false credentials will be forged. You will go to Daan as the noble Captain Huumo, secure beneath the seal and sanctuary of a Council messenger."

"Huumo?" frowned Steve. "But is there now a Daan captain named Huumo? Won't he—?"

Okuno smiled grimly. "When you leave in the morning," he promised, "there will have been another Huumo."

"And when I get to Daan—?"

"Then," said Okuno simply, "may the gods of 'Kota guide you. You must act for yourself, and upon your deeds may rest the hopes of a thousand generations. But fear not. Even on Daan you will find allies in the highest and most unexpected places.

"Mark well this interchange, O Slumberer. Should one say to you, 'Have you kinsmen on distant Terra?', answer that questioner, 'Aye, I have many brothers.' And if he then says, 'The brave never lack for brethren', you will know you have found a friend and ally. And now—" Okuno bestirred himself brusquely—"already have we lingered too long together in this room. Let us separate and meet again in the dark hours of night, that the change may be wrought in you."

He spoke no more.

So they parted to meet again when midnight darkened the corridors of Nedlunplaza. And this time Steve, stripped to the buff, placed himself at the disposition of those disguise artists who had altered Okuno and others.

They worked swiftly and effectively. A chemical rinse bleached his tawny hair to Venusian silver. Brief exposure to the radiance of a floodlamp dulled the healthy color of his flesh, paling it to the more sallow hue of the Daans. Then swift technicians went to work on his hands and feet and face. With a gummy, flesh-colored plastic they lengthened the membranes between his digits, simulating the vestigial webbing of the squamous Venusians. With paddings here, and subcutaneous injections of a waxy substance elsewhere, the make-up artists subtly changed Steve's features until, staring at himself in a mirror, he could scarcely recognize his own face beneath the mask which had been superimposed upon it.

Okuno smiled his satisfaction when the job was done.

"You look more like Huumo than did Huumo himself. It will do, O Duane. Only a mother or sweetheart would recognize you beneath that mask. Here are Huumo's trappings and credentials. Henceforth, they are yours, and you are Huumo. Rest, now, a short while. For when the eastern sky lights, it will be time to board the Oalumuo."

CHAPTER XIII

Spaceflight

So came at last the dawn, and with its coming Okuno and Steve Duane set forth upon the last stage of the adventure which they shared together: the short journey to the spaceport.

It lay not far from the tower of Nedlunplaza—but a few minutes' trip in the speedy monocyclular motor the Daans used as a ground vehicle—on a promontory north and east of town which, in the day whence Stephen Duane had come, had been known as Observatory Hill.

If there was any time at which Duane had doubts as to the ultimate success of his dreams, it was at that moment when first he looked upon the Daan spaceport and the gigantic metal monster cradled thereupon.

He had overestimated the courage of his own allies in this endeavor. He knew their daring and determination; knew they could be depended upon to fight the foe so long as one drop of blood remained in their veins. But now a new doubt assailed him. Perhaps he had underestimated the enemy!

It had been easy to acknowledge the scientific skill of the Daans, looking upon their plastic bridges, their single-wheeled vehicles. Yet these were feats which humans of Duane's own era might have accomplished. But this great rocketship, a towering teardrop braced in its launching tripod, tremendous jet-tubes pointed for the thrust against the bosom of earth, prow lifted proudly toward the heavens over which it was master, was at once a staggering and a humbling sight.

For this was something men had dreamed of, worked for, planned to some day build, but had found beyond their ability. Perhaps von Rath had been right. Perhaps the Venusians were a master race, rightfully Overlords of Earth. For surely....

Then he thought again of the city of Sinnaty, its squalid streets, its mud-encrusted hovels, and a repulsion shook him. No, culture was not a matter of superior science alone. Other things entered into it. A truly great race displayed sociological wisdom as well; knew that civilizations are built not only on guns and swords, rockets and machines, instruments of destruction and impregnable bastions, but on the right of every slightest soul to live cleanly, warmly, comfortably, and happily at peace with his neighbors.

The science of the Daans was great, true; but it was cold and harsh, brutal. It was science for science's sake, not science harnessed for the greater welfare of living beings. This was the Daan's false ideology. There could be no peace between Venusians and earthmen until for this credo was substituted the ancient democratic principles of liberty, equality, fraternity.

Thus Stephen Duane's thoughts as he approached the huge Oalumuo.

The spaceport was a beehive of activity. Hordes of human slaves were completing an all-night labor of loading the rocketship's cargo bins with Earth wares for the Venusian marts. Over these sweating humans, Daan guards cracked whips and snarled commands. Venusian officials scurried to and fro, concluding last minute preparations for the flight.

Okuno accompanied Steve to the automatic lift which bore passengers to an air-lock some sixty feet above the surface of the ground, there halted and touched the younger man's breast with his open palm in the Daan equivalent of a handshake.

"Now farewell, O Eternal One," he whispered quietly, "May the Holy Four guide and protect thy efforts. You know what must be done."

Steve nodded. "I know. I also know how to get in touch with you. You'll await word from me on the ultra-wave?"

"Day and night," promised Okuno. "The movement you so gloriously started will not die a-borning. I shall see that the Revelation is spread throughout the human territories, that gathering-places are fixed in a hundred strategic spots where Women and Wild Ones may pledge allegiance to the new order. I shall give them every assistance within my power, waiting and praying for your order to strike."

"Good!" said Steve. "And when and if we succeed in immobilizing the spacefleet on Daan, that word will flash to you. Now—" He changed his tone abruptly—"I hear and obey, O Master. The message shall be transmitted promptly."

For a uniformed Daan had approached them and was beckoning Steve to the lift. Okuno nodded. "Very good. Farewell, Captain Huumo. A safe and pleasant journey."

"Captain Huumo" saluted smartly, then ascended the lift to disappear into the ship.

He had thought he was the last passenger to board the Oalumuo, but just as he entered the air-lock there was a flurry of excitement on the field below. A cavalcade of monocycles, with sirens wailing stridently, came roaring across the drome. Bells clanged throughout the ship, and over its intercommunicating audio system rasped hasty commands.

"Stand by for a passenger! Locks open! Stand by!"

Space sailors scurried and grunted. There sounded the whine of the rising lift, the asthmatic wheeze of a reopening air-lock. Then the belated passenger stepped into the spaceship, and....

Alternate waves of heat and cold swept over Stephen Duane. For he was staring squarely into the eyes of the Lady Loala—and in her answering gaze was startled recognition!

It was fortunate for Stephen Duane that the take-off of the transport had been delayed, for Loala made no effort to repress her exclamation of astonishment.

"Steve of Emmeity!" she gasped. "What are you—?"

But her question was drowned in the sudden clamor of signals, a metallic voice calling over the audio system, "All hands to posts! Prepare to lift gravs! Clear ship for lift!"

And an officer came bustling to the duo.

"Pardon, my Lady. Pardon, my Lord. If you will come this way, please—"

And as he swept the pair before him to the hydraulic hammocks wherein passengers must recline during the initial shock of acceleration, Steve seized the opportunity to whisper to the Lady Loala, "Silence, O Mistress of Delight, I beseech thee. I am on a dangerous mission. My true identity must not be revealed."

And though the silver-haired daughter of Venus frowned, her eyes fraught with question, she said nothing more. So the two took the hammocks assigned them, strapped themselves securely therein, and a few minutes later, with an ear-splitting roar and a rushing violence which for an instant seemed to halt the very pounding of blood in their veins, the mighty jet-tubes of the Oalumuo exploded, catapulting their vessel outward from Earth into space.

But not for long could the curiosity of the Overlord be denied. Later, released from their hammocks, with the vessel hurtling the dark vaults of the void at a speed increasing toward the acceleration of 200,000 m.p.h. Duane later learned to be the craft's maximum velocity, the voluptuous Lady Loala turned to Steve imperiously.

"Come, Captain Huumo," she said, addressing him by the title a space sailor had used when releasing him from his hammock. "Follow me to my quarters. I would learn more of this 'mission' which carries you to Daan."

And when they had reached the suite of rooms reserved for her use, and had closed the doors behind them: "Well?" she demanded. "What means this, Steve of Emmeity? A secret mission? And on whose behalf, pray? Was it not I who but recently assigned you to a mission of utmost importance?"

"It was, O my Lady," acknowledged Steve. "But that errand has already been concluded; this new duty springs from its accomplishment. On it I am sent by your companion in Council, the Overlord Okuno."

"The Chief Executioner? But why should he—Aaah!" Loala's gray-green eyes widened slightly. "Then it was you whose information warned us of the rebel uprising at Loovil, and enabled our forces to quell it? Well done, brave Steve of Emmeity! But still I do not understand. Why did you not report this directly to me?"

"Because," explained Steve, "upon my return to Sinnaty I was seized by guards and taken before the Chief Executioner. When I told Okuno of the dreadful secret I had learned at Loovil, he commissioned me to proceed immediately to Daan, that I might point out amongst the group recently exiled—"

"The Slumberers!" Excitement brightened Loala's eyes. "Now I understand! Then what we heard rumored was true? The Slumberers were amongst those captured at Loovil, and exiled to Daan? And you, O Steve, you can identify them?"

"I can," declared Steve boldly. Then, in a softer voice, "I can and will, O loveliest daughter of Daan."

And again, as before, Loala proved herself mistress of all things save her own truly feminine emotions. At the tone of his voice, her features softened. Her eyes met his approvingly, and she whispered, "You have done well, Steve of Emmeity. I think the time is not far off when you shall have won that which you claim to desire. Do you—" There was a calculated allure in her sidelong glance—"Do you still find the prize worth striving for?"

"More so than ever, O Mistress of every delight," avowed Steve ardently ... and moved a step nearer her. "Must I continue to prove myself? Surely by now I have earned—"

It was a bold gambit he offered, one which might have boomeranged against his plans. But he was gambling on the inherent coquetry of the woman Loala. His psychology was good, for, as he had expected, she withdrew before him, and her lips lifted in a smile of light amusement.

"Not so quickly, O most presuming human," she laughed archly. "There is still your important mission to be accomplished. After that, well—then perhaps we shall see...."

To say that the following ten days, during which the spacecruiser Oalumuo blazed its way across thirty-odd million miles of trackless ether, were uneventful would be but to demonstrate the relativity of all things.

To the Venusian space-navigators the trip was, perhaps, one of little moment. It passed smoothly, serenely, and without untoward incident. To the passengers who spent their waking hours dining and gaming, the trip may have been unexciting. To the workmen who performed mysterious functions deep within the bowels of the ship the trip may have seemed but hours of drudgery. But to Stephen Duane the trip was ten days of nerve-tingling adventure. Excitement stirring every sense, emotion and brain-fibre.

First, there was that never-to-be-forgotten moment when, led to the Observatory Deck by a junior officer eager to win a good place in the graces of the mock Daan "nobleman," Steve looked out upon that which every imaginative human has dreamed of some day beholding: the starry firmament of space as viewed from the void itself.

Stephen Duane was stricken speechless by the majesty of this sight. Here was no scattered handful of stars sprinkling the black emptiness like a sparse shaking of mica upon velvet. Here was a glorious backdrop of color, radiant, pulsating, gleaming with hues which shamed the efforts of the most daring rainbow. Clear of the encumbrance of Earth's blanketing atmosphere, the stars became tremendous globes burning hotly, fiercely, in the celestial vault. Flanking them on every side, forming a webwork so closely woven as to stagger the mind with its intricateness, were millions ... billions ... of myriad flaming companions.

Behind the Oalumuo lay the blue-green orb of Earth, studded with the whirling coronet of its tiny lunar companion. Before, looming larger with each passing hour of flight, was the gleaming-white birthplace of the races of Daans. Elsewhere circling the solar giant which dominated the segment of space could be seen, methodically plodding their ordained courses, the other planets of Sol's family. Red Mars and mighty Jupiter ... ringed Saturn and far, frozen Uranus.

It was a sight to humble the proudest human. Seeing it, tiring never of its ever-changing splendor, Steve Duane renewed to himself his vow that he would do everything within his power to reclaim for an enslaved humanity the right to share in the glories of this celestial empire.

But he saw not only beauty on the trip. He studied other things more practical, as well. Under the guidance of young Thaamo, his space-mariner friend, he spent long days in traversing the Oalumuo from stem to stern, from control-room to jet-chambers.

Much of what he saw upon these visits he did not completely understand. That was only natural. Not in a day nor a decade had the Daans solved the secret of space-travel. It lay within the power of no single brain to instantaneously comprehend mechanisms which had taken a hundred brains to invent, a thousand hands to build.

But Stephen Duane was, or had been, a scientist—and a brilliant one. He had that type of mind which, though it necessarily ignored details at the moment unsolveable, grasped prime essentials swiftly and surely.

On the more important points Steve centered his attention. He learned that the motors propelling the ship were atomic motors, and by deft questioning learned how that long-sought power had been harnessed by the Venusians. He studied the controls so carefully that in an emergency he might have taken his seat at the pilot's studs ... mentally blueprinted the general layout of the craft so that in days to come he might know in rude outline the sort of ship earthmen must build were they to go space-vagabonding.

Steve studied the controls carefully.

He learned where the fuel was stored, and where were kept food and water supplies. He was shown—and memorized—the location of the air-conditioning system through whose viaducts re-freshened, re-oxygenated atmosphere was pumped to each nook and cranny of the ship. And though the armaments of the vessel were a military secret that might not be entrusted to even a traveling dignitary, he learned the locations of the principle ray-guns, and knew the points on a Venusian man-o'-war over which one must achieve mastery in order to seize that vessel.

Thus, though others may have been bored by the trip, to Steve Duane the ten days whisked by like dry leaves fleeing before an autumn gale. And finally the journey came to an end.

On the morning of the eleventh day, when he awakened to peer through his porthole, he discovered the now-familiar spangled firmament was blotted out by a mist of writhing gray. Fog banks, impenetrably thick, engulfed the craft like a veil. The clear, sharp brilliance of open ether was left behind, and the Oalumuo was settling through miles of turgid white to its destination.

And when the gray evaporated, Steve looked down upon the landscape of Earth's humid, solar sister ... the planet Daan.

CHAPTER XIV

Between Two Camps

It was with swiftly beating heart that Stephen Duane stepped from the Oalumuo's lift to the soil of the Overlords' planet. Staring about him with eyes which, despite his every effort, he could not keep from widening, he experienced again that sense of reluctant admiration for the scientific ability of those who had made themselves mankind's masters.

The spaceport outside Sinnaty had been marvel enough to earthly eyes, but it paled into insignificance before the spectacle which now presented itself. Here was no rude plain crudely hacked from a tangle of wilderness. The Oalumuo came to rest in but one of a hundred gigantic spacevessel cradles ranged with mathematical precision upon a tremendous, smoothly paved court studded with workshops, hangars, warehouses, machine-shops, technical offices ... all the appurtenances and paraphernalia of a highly organized, perfectly integrated civilization.

Curiously enough, the dense cloud-banks through which the Oalumuo had plunged to its landing did not enswaddle this scene, nor conceal the colorfully magnificent skyline of the metropolis which surrounded the spaceport like a heaven-spanning rampart. Or perhaps that was not so curious as logical. For surely—Duane's swift reason told him—any race which could create such wonders as these had also long since learned how to harness and subdue the meteorological disadvantages of its native world. Plainly this island of freedom from the all-pervading Venusian fog was an artificial one.

So lost was he in wonderment and speculation that it was not until a hand touched his shoulder that he realized he was being addressed for possibly the second or third time by the young space-officer who had been his guide and companion throughout the journey.

He spun, startled. "Oh, I—I beg your pardon, Thaamo. I was lost in dreaming. I did not realize—"

The friendly officer smiled.

"It is good to be home again, is it not, Captain Huumo? Fair Daan is a delight to the eyes after lonely years of service on our colony. Ah, well—it has been a pleasant enough journey. What are your plans now, my Captain? You will report to the Supreme Council, no doubt?"

On this point Okuno's instructions had been clear.

Duane nodded. "Yes."

"Of course. Then you will be traveling by aereo to the palace. You had best make haste, Captain Huumo, ere the last flight leaves without you."

The season was warm, the air dusty-dry, but there was suddenly upon Stephen Duane's forehead a cold, dank perspiration. For, standing there with the gaze of his acquaintance upon him, he realized in that instant that there was too much he still did not know about the customs and the culture of the Daans.

He knew neither where the palace lay, nor what this "aereo" was by which he might reach it, nor even in which direction he should now turn with assured movement to dispel the half-suspicious curiosity of his mariner friend.

But at that moment relief came from an unexpected quarter. There sounded beside him a light tinkle of laughter and his eyes lifted to meet the taunting, gray-green eyes of the Lady Loala.

"Hasten him not, Aarkan Thaamo. Captain Huumo waits for me. But I am ready now. Come, Captain—" She rested a pale hand lightly upon his arm—"let us go." And gratefully Steve Duane allowed himself to be led away.

But a few moments later, in the seclusion of the Lady Loala's tiny, individual aereo, a small craft which Duane discovered to be somewhat similar to the two-passenger planes of his own century save that it traveled silently and effortlessly on an atomic power-beam transmitted from central control stations, rather than by any independent motor of its own, the argent Overlord mocked Steve for his recent awkward moment.

"You are a poor dissembler, Steve of Emmeity. Happy for you that you masquerade only to deceive your Earth brethren, and not the Daans. Methinks your play-acting would come to a swift end if we were those upon whom you attempted to spy, rather than the stupider humans."

Steve grinned, not half so ruefully as the Lady Loala believed, and conceded, "You are right, my princess. Deceit rests poorly upon my features, even though those features have been altered to make me resemble one of your own race.

"I am afraid the Lord Okuno's efforts to make me look like a true Daan were not altogether successful. The episode with Thaamo was not the first time I have come near betraying my real identity. And as for you—you penetrated my disguise the moment you laid eyes upon me."

Loala said softly, "Who should know thee better than I, Steve of Emmeity? True, I recognized you immediately. But perhaps my eyes knew you less swiftly than my heart.

"You see, human, you please me greatly. Yes, frankly, I admit it; even I, Loala, Overlord of Sinnaty, confess I find you—interesting.

"But be of good heart. Here on Daan no other will recognize you, nor none suspect you an earthling, as none aboard the Oalumuo questioned your race. And your secret is safe with me. Though I do not understand why Okuno found it necessary to disguise you as a Daan when he sent you on this mission."

"It was done," explained Steve hastily, "not to deceive the Daans, but the men and women of Earth amongst whom I must move and mingle freely. Were they to realize I were one of their own kind, Okuno said, they would destroy me before ever I found a chance to identify and point out the wakened Slumberers."

"I see," nodded Loala. "Well, Okuno is a wise Councillor. In his judgment I place implicit faith. Still—" Her eyes met Steve's archly—"it strikes me you have taken too seriously this mission of yours. Those were long, lazy hours aboard the Oalumuo, my Steve. Hours we might have spent pleasantly together."

And Steve said staunchly, "There is nothing under sun and stars I should have liked better, O Vision of Loveliness. But—"

"But—?" prompted the Lady Loala.

"But the Lord Okuno has promised that if I perform this mission faithfully and well there may await me even a greater prize than that of mere acceptance into the Brotherhood. To a chosen few, he told me, is granted the privilege of full Daan citizenship, complete membership in the master race. This, O Wakener of Dreams, is my hope and my ambition. To win that coveted honor, so I may not only become your Earthly consort, but aspire to the position of your true Daan mate—"

Steve's eyes met those of the Venusian woman boldly. And this time it was her pale cheeks into which crept the faintest suspicion of color as she dropped her eyes, murmuring, "I—I fear you presume too much, Steve of Emmeity."

But the Lady Loala was not displeased. Nor did she, Steve guessed shrewdly, represent in any way an obstacle to his future plans. Loala would not betray him. Any lurking doubts which might have lingered in her bosom had been swept away by the tide of her own desires.

Thus, his true identity a secret known only to one Daan, and she one who would not reveal it, the major hurdle of Stephen Duane's great impersonation was overcome.

The Daan's Supreme Council accepted himself and his credentials for what they purported to be, strove to discern no human lineaments beneath his cleverly wrought mask, and freely granted that privilege for which Duane pleaded: the right of visiting the marshland slave camp wherein labored earthmen and women transported hither from Earth.

Standing before the Council, Steve experienced his first disappointment in the Daans. Under the circumstances, "disappointment" was perhaps a curious word to use, even to himself. Yet it was the only one to describe his feelings. Up to this time he had felt bitterness toward the Venusians for what they had done to Earth, had hated certain members of the master race for the brutal way they had treated their human slaves; but despite these personal animosities he had been forced to concede an intellectual approval of their skill, their culture, and above all, their superb scientific accomplishments.

Yet now he found himself standing not in such a trim, functional chamber as had been the council hall of Nedlunplaza. The palace of the Supreme Council on Daan was a sybaritic pleasure-dome which on Earth had had its counterpart centuries before Stephen Duane first drew breath.

It was in such a court as this the effete emperors of imperial France had dallied with glamorous mistresses while starving subjects fell plague-ridden in the gutters. Surrounded by such pleasures had the last Roman tyrants squandered their heritage in riotous abandon. Here was such opulence as had rotted the heart of Saladan's kingdom, Priam's, Cleopatra's, and the sea-girdling empire of Phillip.

Duane needed no textbook to tell him the history of the Daans. He knew what had happened; the evidence lay before his eyes.

The Venusians had been a mighty race. Only a strong and stout-hearted people could have raised from the morass of this eternally fog-veiled planet such cities and such sciences. Only daring and stalwart people could have accomplished those wonders the Daans accepted as commonplaces. Labor had played its part in this rise to superiority; labor of back and brain. Sweat of muscle and furrow of brow had created an empire. But now those who had striven so mightily were gone, leaving behind a languorous and unappreciative race to despoil the glories their forefathers had so magnificently wrought.

The present Daan empire was a spoiled, stagnant civilization. It dwelt amidst splendors created for it by vanished generations, reveled greedily amongst luxuries earned by the sweat of predecessor's brows. That was why slave labor was imported from Earth; to lift the burden of honest toil from hands become too proud and soft to fend for themselves.

Those Daans who maintained the scattered outposts on Earth were perhaps the last atavistic remnants of a once-great race. They, at least, could and did work for themselves; had the strength and the courage to wage incessant conflict for possession of a territory precious to the mother land.

But these members of the Supreme Council, languid, lolling, grimacing creatures who spoke in accents of exaggerated boredom, nibbled at wines and sweetmeats as they talked, pausing from time to time to fondle diaphanously-veiled females of their harem corps, were no opponents to be feared. They were, rather—Steve's eyes narrowed minutely and his jaw set—wastrels to be outwitted and overthrown.

Now one of the Council was speaking to him, his voice a shrill simper of amusement.

"To the swamps, Captain Huumo? Of course you have our permission—if you really feel you must. But why any Daan noble would choose to go there and in this season—! Why do you wish to go?"

Steve's answer was half truthful. "Because it is said, my Lord, that at the recent battle of Loovil were taken into custody certain humans who call themselves the 'Slumberers.' The Chief Executioner, Okuno, sent me hither to find these three and return them to Earth for judgment."

"Slumberers?" drawled his questioner. "But surely that ancient myth has been exploded by now, Captain? It is written in the Archives that when our ancestors took Earth centuries ago its people worshipped these fabulous creatures. Have they not learned by now—?"

The Lady Loala interrupted, sharply, impatiently. Glancing at her in surprise, Steve could not help but feel that she, too, had found cause for disappointment in the namby-pamby behavior of her superiors.

"Pardon, O Masters," she said, "but the Captain Huumo speaks truth. We who have lately served, fighting and working—" she stressed the verbs with delicate irony that escaped all save Steve—"on Earth are conscious of a new spirit of rebellion amongst that planet's people. A rebirth of the independence which made them bitter foes centuries ago.

"Our spies inform us that word spreads like wildfire amongst the humans that the Slumberers have awakened, and the hour to strike for human liberation is nigh. If this be true, there may again be bloody warfare on our colony."

"But our fleet, my Lady—" offered one of the Masters—"it is swift and powerful—"

"That I know," said the Lady Loala grimly, "and this I also know—that had Daan not an armada of fighting vessels as an ever-ready threat to hurl against Earth's children, by their vigor and strength, by their renascent determination for freedom they might tomorrow break the bonds of servitude in which we hold them. You may thank the waters whence our ancestors sprang, O my Lords, that we have this mighty fleet at our command."

"We are duly grateful, Lady Loala," yawned the first Councillor impatiently. "But since we have this bulwark, there is no reason to become apprehensive. Was it thus to warn us and spoil our pleasure that you journeyed hither from Earth?"

The Lady Loala shrugged and abandoned the futile attempt to make her Masters understand. "It was, my Lord. But I see now my mission has been vain. Therefore, with your permission I shall withdraw and arrange to return to my post with the first outgoing transport."

"Very well. But wait! Did you not say it was within your territory the Slumberers are reputed to have awakened?"

"Aye, my Lord."

"Then since the first transport is not scheduled to leave for several days, would it not be well for you to accompany the Captain Huumo on his search for these—fabulous creatures?"

There was a mocking lilt to the Councillor's voice. Even Stephen Duane, who was not familiar with Daan traits and trends, read the meaning behind his words. Reminder of the responsibilities habitually shirked had wakened the Council's spite. None too subtly the Lady Loala was being punished for the temerarious violation of their languor, in thus being sent to the equatorial swamplands.

But if Loala recognized this sentence as punishment she showed it neither by word nor expression. Instead, with almost eager alacrity she said, "Very well, my Lord. Your wish is my command. It shall be as you say."

Thus Stephen Duane found himself burdened with the one companion of all Daandom whom he wanted least to take with him on his journey.

CHAPTER XV

Swamp Gold

As on the following day he and the Lady Loala neared their destination by private aereo, Steve Duane came to the conclusion that not without reason had the Daan Supreme Councillor spoken distastefully of the summer climate in this section of the planet.

Nothing in Duane's experience had prepared him for such devastating heat as that which waxed stronger and more devouring as they approached their goal. Earth of Duane's day had known its uncomfortable spots ... the Mohave, the Sahara, the pouring-room of a steel mill, a New York night club in midsummer ... but nowhere had heat ever been so constant, so unavoidable, so overwhelmingly depressing as here in the equatorial regions of Daan.

For one thing, the planet was some twenty-five millions of miles nearer the sun than was Earth. For another, it was enveloped in a swaddling cloak of moisture-laden atmosphere. The third and culminating blow was the terrain over which they flew: a vast and squamous marshland, jungle-thick, steamy and frothy with the scums and scents of myriad forms of torrid, aqueous life.

This combination of sights and smells and stifling heat not only weakened but sickened Steve Duane. The Lady Loala did not seem to share his discomfort completely. Apparently the pores of her dead-white skin were better adapted to this climate than were those of the Earth man. But even she was far from comfortable.

Traveling over this terrain was like tunneling in a closed sled through rifts of downy cotton, so constantly was their ship engulfed in solid layers of fog. Only at brief intervals and for briefer flashes did the interminable mist clear long enough to reveal below them the sprawling green tracery of jungle, or a black and sluggish river winding its sultry way through a half-drowned plain.

And, traveling thus, Duane realized that the beam transmission method of Daan aircraft was not only a great accomplishment but, indeed, the only possible means of flight over a planet so humid as Daan. Only about cities and major outposts did atmosphere-clearing units offer flyers somewhat better than 0-0 visibility. Elsewhere, were it not for the narrow transmission of the atomic power setup, aereo drivers would have been forced to fly by dead reckoning at all times.

Now, however, their craft was approaching one of these cleared patches of atmosphere. The cottony blanket about them was thinning into tufted clots. And Loala, glancing at the instrument panel before her, nodded to Steve.

"This is the slave camp, Steve of Emmeity."

And deftly she guided the little ship to rest on a field which appeared beneath them.

They were greeted upon landing by one who identified himself as the Chief Warden of this slave camp. He was a hulking, truculent brute, more goggling of eye, more prognathous of jaw than most of the Daans. He descended upon them with belligerent alacrity, growling curt queries. But upon learning his visitors were an Overlord and a noble of high rank, his attitude underwent a swift, chameleon-like change. At once he was bowing and scraping, obsequiously servile.

"Yes, my Lady! Yes, my Lord!" he answered their queries. "The new prisoners are quartered here. Of a certainty you may interview them. I will have you shown to their pens immediately. Amarro! Hither quickly, lazy one, and guide our guests to the sties of the Earthborn scum!"

The lieutenant who answered his summons was scarcely less prepossessing of appearance; but Stephen Duane paid him the mental compliment of acknowledging that here was one Daan, at least, with a few vestiges of dignity and compassion.

He frowned at his commander, reminded gently, "But Grudo, they are asleep. It is their hour of rest. They have but returned from long hours of back-breaking toil in the swamps—"

"Silence, weakling!" bellowed Grudo irately. "There is no rest for slaves unto the grave. Convey our visitors where they would go instantly!"

And to Loala and Steve as the abashed Amarro shrugged and silently led the way, "This is what comes," he grumbled, "of allowing Daan warriors to visit that accursed colony, Earth. Before Amarro vacationed there, he was the best hand with the lash of all my guards; since his return he coddles our prisoners like house-pets. You will forgive me if I do not accompany you? I must go now and make preparations that you may eat, drink, and be entertained when you have finished your task. May Daan live forever!"

"May Daan live forever!" repeated Steve and Loala ritually, and followed their guide to the pens wherein were herded the Earthborn prisoners.

It were folly to attempt to describe the revolting squalor of the prisoners' barracks. Grudo had not chosen wrongly when he called their quarters "sties." If anything, the word over-glamorized the conditions under which the slaves were kept.

After threading his way through an intricate series of barricades and across an open area through which even Amarro walked gingerly, explaining as he did so that this entire field was groundmined with atomic bombs against the possibility of a single prisoner's escaping, Steve's heart sickened within him to look at last upon the filthy pens into which were huddled a thousand emprisoned Earth cattle, including those who had so recently and gallantly fought beside him at the taking of Loovil.

The miasmic odors emanating from the swamps were but part of the appalling stench which rose to offend his nostrils. Odors of death and decay, sickness and filth, stagnant waters alive with squirming life, rotten food ... these were the conditions under which the effete Daans maintained their "mastery" over once free earthmen.

Yet what men must endure they somehow can. And even in this scene of degradation, somehow the exhausted prisoners contrived to sleep—until Amarro issued the order which brought the entire camp to its feet as a brazen klaxon clamored its strident signal over the barracks.

Then haggard humans, trained by lash and rack to obey the summons of that signal, came straggling from their quarters to stare in dumb bewilderment at their gaudily-raimented visitors. And it was then Amarro turned to Stephen Duane.

Perhaps it was only imagination on Duane's part, but for an instant he thought he detected in the guard's eyes a sullen glitter of disdain as Amarro muttered, "Here are those you seek, noble Lord. Fear them not. They are too weak and weary to resent your questioning."

And the Lady Loala glanced at Steve.

"Do you see them, Steve of Emmeity? See you the trio you came to identify? Those known as the Slumberers?"

Steve did not hurry his answer. He had already seen and grievously recognized many of those he loved. Beth ... and the Mother Maatha. Chuck Lafferty who, even in befouled exhaustion, managed to maintain a shadow of his erstwhile proud defiance. The Wild Ones' leader, Jon. Lina, warrior captain of a Tensee Clan.

But there was one whose sight evaded him, and that one, for the nonce at least, perhaps the most important of them all. Steve turned to Amarro, frowning.

"I am not altogether sure. I saw the Slumberers but once, and then for a short time. It is not easy to recognize them under these conditions. But there is one face I have not forgotten. I see it not here now. A human tall as myself ... with close-cropped hair of yellow, pale blue eyes, heavy jaw and thick lips...."

Amarro started. "What, my Lord? Say you that one is a Slumberer? He is not here."

"Not here?" cried Steve in swift alarm. "Then where is he?"

"He is back at our headquarters," explained the guard, "undergoing hospitalization. He was wounded when brought from Earth, and could do no work. His mind was affected so he knew not where he was, nor whom. He begins to show signs of recovery now, though—"

A swift pang of fear coursed through Stephen Duane. So far he and his comrades had been fortunate. Von Rath's amnesia was the only reason Chuck still lived and he, Duane, trod the soil of Daan freely. But if von Rath recovered, it would be but a matter of time before....

His voice lifted sharply, excitedly.

"I must see him at once, Amarro. Take us back to headquarters immediately—"

His very excitement was his undoing. For his voice carried clearly across the ground which separated him from his former comrades. At the sound of that voice one slim and dust-gold figure thrust forward suddenly, and a heart-stoppingly familiar voice cried,

"Steve! O Dwain! O Slumberer—thou hast come at last to free us!"

Then everything happened at once. Chuck Lafferty's eyes widened in belated recognition, and he moved in swifter comprehension of the evil Beth had unwittingly done; leaped to the girl's side and clamped a stifling hand over her lips.

But of the mob, only these two identified Duane with gladness or understanding. Through the rest stirred an ominous murmur which heightened instantly to screams of rage and hatred.

A mad voice cried, "Betrayer!", and a hundred throats took up the cry.

A mad voice cried, "Betrayer!"

"It is he, Dwain! The Slumberer who betrayed us!"

And with one concerted movement, like the liberation of flood-waters loosed from their dam, the prisoners surged forward, eyes burning, bare hands aquiver with hatred, to seek revenge upon the rescuer they thought a traitor to their cause!

In the immediacy of this peril it was only the swift action of the guard Amarro which saved the two visitors.

Steve Duane was stricken motionless by this catastrophic disruption of his plans. The Lady Loala was too dazed by the accusation against her favorite to defend herself. She whirled to Steve, her gray-green eyes startled.

"What is this, Steve of Emmeity? They call you Slumberer? What means—?"

Steve answered hurriedly, "There—there must be some terrible mistake. I know not what they mean, my Lady. They confuse me with one of their false gods."

But Amarro, after one stunned glance at Steve, had sprung into action. Ray weapons seemed to leap from his harness to his hands, and in a voice of thunder he cried to the advancing throng, "Back, dogs! Back to your kennels and stop baying! That human who takes another step forward—dies!"

And before the swift menace of his gesture the small uprising trembled and fell apart. Already the privations of this camp had taken their toll upon the spirit of the earthlings. Like cowed creatures they quelled before the lone Venusian. Their babble died, and listlessly they permitted themselves to be forced back into the building which housed them.

Amarro turned to Steve with a curiously level gaze that embodied half a question.

"They hate you, Captain Huumo. It is not safe that you remain here. Perhaps we should return to headquarters."

But Steve said, "No. At the last moment I thought I recognized amongst them one of the Slumberers. Saw you that dark-haired earthman in the forefront? The one who silenced the wench who accused me? I would speak to him. Is there some place we could go for—private questioning?"

Deliberately he fingered his ray-gun while voicing the final phrase. For this, he knew, was a familiar method of "private questioning" used by the Daans in this era as it had been used by totalitarian leaders of his own.

And to both Amarro and Loala the query made sense. Loala smiled thinly, and Amarro replied, "There is such a place, my Captain. That small hut over there. But—may I remind your Lordship these slaves are valuable? We destroy them only on major provocation."

"I understand, guard," said Steve haughtily. "Now bring me the prisoner. And you, my Lady, there is something in what this guard says. Perhaps it would be safer if you retired."

And Fortune at last was tossing the breaks his way. For the Lady Loala nodded.

"Aye, Captain Huumo, that I shall do. I will await you at headquarters."

And she left.

So, short minutes later, Amarro having brought his prisoner to the shack wherein Duane waited, and having left, securing the door behind him, Steve stood at last face to face again with his friend and companion of a lifetime.

In that glad moment it did not matter that his proud trappings were stainless, while Chuck's reeked from head to foot with the prison's filth. Gleefully Steve rushed to his chum's side, gripped him in a bear hug of brotherly affection.

"Chuck!" he cried, his voice breaking. "Chuck, you old son-of-a-gun! I was afraid we'd never meet again. But I made it, pal! I made it!"

And if some of the captives had lost their spirit under Daan treatment, Chuck Lafferty, at least, was made of sterner stuff. For his answer was typical of himself. He answered Steve with a grin sincere if weary.

"Okay," he snorted. "Okay, bud. But I'm warning you—if you kiss me you gotta marry me! Now, for God's sake, pal, talk and talk fast. What are you doing here in them duds? And what in the name of creeping pink lizards have they done to your homely puss? You look like something that crawled off an autopsy table!"

"Better that," chuckled Steve, "than somebody who's going to. Don't look now, pal, but I'm a ranking noble of the Daans."

"You're—what?" Chuck's grin faded abruptly. "You mean, Steve, the bunch was right? You have sold us out? Gone over to their side?"

Steve stared at him long and steadily.

"Do you have to ask that, Chuck?"

And Chuck's eyes fell, then raised again slowly.

"No, I don't. I don't even know why the words came out, Steve. But that's what some of them have been saying. Beth and me and the Mother Maatha and maybe a few others, we're just about the only ones left who still believe in you."

Steve said soberly, "Loovil was that bad, Chuck?"

Chuck nodded. "It was worse. We were just getting settled when the Daan warship came. We were powerless. I don't think there's one stone left on another in that city. And—you see what's left of our 'tremendous army' of two thousand.

"But—" He shook his head and with that gesture tried to dismiss visions of horror forever indelibly imprinted on his mind—"but there's no use talking about that now. What's next on the program? You're here to free us, ain't you? Have we got a half-way fighting chance to—?"

Steve said hotly, "I'm here not only to free you, but maybe to free all Earth, Chuck!"

And in swift sentences he told his friend all that had transpired since their parting. Of Rodrik's death and the false Lord Okuno. Of his visit to the Supreme Council and the results thereof.

"And so," he concluded, "that gives you some idea of the organization we've formed. One huge enough to reclaim Earth for mankind—if we can find some way of immobilizing the Venusian spacefleet here on Daan until our forces have destroyed the invaders. But—" And he shook his head sadly—"that's the stumbling block, Chuck. I've got to find an answer to it somehow ... but it's a tremendous problem. One hundred war-ships cradled at the spaceport, just waiting the word to go into action ... and we have no arms to throw against them!

"Lord!" he moaned bitterly, "if the legends of the Clans had only been true! If only we did have that precious secret the Women expected the Slumberers to bring from their tomb!"

"Good goddlemitey!" cried Chuck. "I ain't told you?"

"Eh? What's that? Told me what?"

Chuck's eyes were wide. His words tumbled in hectic confusion from his lips.

"What I've learned since I've been here, Steve. Maybe that legend about our bringing earthmen a weapon ain't so cockeyed after all. Do you know the work they set us at here in these swamps? Reclaiming the marshes, destroying the rank vegetation that grows wild here, acres and acres of—"

Steve interrupted softly, "Yes, Chuck. I know. It has been horrible. But we'll try to change all that—"

"Shut up, you fool," howled Chuck. "Change it? You're damn right we'll change it. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Them acres upon acres of what the Venusians think is good-for-nothing vegetation ... the stuff we're clearing away ... do you know what is it?"

"Of course not," said Steve impatiently. "But—"

"Then I'll tell you," roared Chuck, "if you'll shut that big yap of yours and give me a chance to talk. It's—swamp-musk, Steve! The rarest epiphyte on Earth grows wild here on Daan like daisies. Swamp-musk—the basic ingredient of methioprane!"

CHAPTER XVI

A Friend in Need

For a moment while his blood seemed to halt in his veins, Stephen Duane stared at his friend. Then his heart resumed its interrupted tempo with violent resurgence, and he gripped Chuck's arm fiercely.

"Swamp-musk!" he choked. "Chuck—are you sure?"

"Listen," said Lafferty, "I ain't no surer of my own name. These swamps are simply lousy with that stuff. There's so much of it that if it was poison ivy I'd be one big itch on legs!"

"And the Venusians don't know what it is?"

Chuck snorted. "They know what it is. They call it klaar, which is Venusian for 'nuisance weed.' But they don't know what it can do, or why would they have us destroying it as fast as we can clear it out of the bogs?

"Hell, no, Steve! They ain't nobody alive on these two worlds in this century that knows what klaar can do except you and me."

That, knew Stephen Duane, was true. The anesthetic gas, methioprane, had been an invention of his own, one upon which, of all mankind, only he and Chuck had worked. Its secret had slumbered with them in the oblivion of subterranean Fautnox for fifteen centuries.

Now a great hope overwhelmed Duane. For the first time, a blazing shaft of light illuminated the murky fog of doubt through which he had stumbled, groping vainly for some means wherewith to overthrow Earth's rulers. The actual preparation of methioprane from swamp-musk was not a difficult feat of chemistry. It was one so simple, indeed, that a handful of men with but a few primitive pieces of equipment could create vast volumes of the potent gas. All needful now was to find the time, the place, the workers to perform this labor.

To Chuck he blazed, "That settles it! I've got to get you out of this camp! We've got to escape and find a hidden refuge where we can start manufacturing methioprane—and plenty of it. But, where? Where?" He beat his temple angrily with the heel of one fist, as if by so doing he could stimulate the duality of his Earth-Venusian brain to knowledge of some sanctuary.

But it was Lafferty who supplied the answer.

"Escape," he snorted, "your hat! What do we want to escape for? We got a ready-made laboratory all set up for us!"

"What?"

"Sure," explained Chuck. "The prison barracks. It's the perfect hideout, Steve. Right under the Daans' noses, where they won't suspect a thing. If we lammed, they'd be out on our trails chasing us with whatever they use for bloodhounds on this stinking planet.

"But the Daans never come into or near our barracks; not even to feed us. We're nothing but swine to them. Our sty ain't fine enough for their lordly feet. They just dump our food at the entrance to the prison area and let us find it or starve. When it's work time, they call us. When it's rest time, they kick us back into our pens and forget about us.

"All we need, Steve, is equipment. That's what you've got to do for us. Keep on playing the part of a Daan nobleman, and somehow find a way to smuggle lab equipment in here. And—" pledged Chuck Lafferty grimly—"I'll supervise the manufacture of enough methioprane to put this whole damn planet to sleep till the crack of doom!"

Duane nodded happily. "That's the answer, Chuck. Yes, it's the perfect answer. But—yourselves? Beth, and the Mother Maatha, the others—can you endure this—?"

"Don't worry about us," grated Lafferty. "We've been enduring it with nothing to hope for. Now that there's a chance to fight back and do something, we'll be in there pitching." He grinned mirthlessly and paraphrased the staunch declaration of another fighting man in an earlier day. "Just give us the equipment, Steve, and we'll finish the job!"

So Duane left his friend. And when they had emerged from the tiny shack in which they had held the conversation which might decide the fate of the two worlds, Lafferty returned to the barracks and Steve called the waiting guard, Amarro, to lead him back to the higher, cleaner terrain whereupon were built the Daan administrative buildings.

Apparently Amarro had not presumed to eavesdrop on the conversation of a Venusian nobleman, but Steve felt he could detect an atmosphere of uncertainty or suspicion emanating from the prison guard. Several times as they wended their way through the treacherous barricades, Amarro seemed on the verge of offering some query. More than once his eyes scrutinized Duane with curious speculation. But Steve silenced all attempts at speech with curt, monosyllabic grunts, and they reached their destination without an accusation having been made or denied.

Loala and the Chief Warden were awaiting his arrival. Apparently they had found subjects of mutual interest, for their heads were close together when Steve entered the administration building. They separated swiftly, and Grudo said in that greasy tone of semi-humility Steve loathed, "Greetings, O most noble Huumo! You have finished your questioning?"

"I have," grunted Steve disgustedly ... and shrugged. "I was wrong. The creature is an ignorant earthman, vulgar and loutish as all his race. He is no Slumberer. Methinks there have never been such thing as Slumberers."

Loala studied him from beneath long, veiling lashes.

"You lingered long enough with this 'vulgar lout', my Captain."

Steve snarled, "The man had complaints to make, and I tarried to hear them. To be truthful, some of his grievances seem justified. He complained that the water prisoners are forced to drink is vile and disease-ridden, pointed out that his companions sicken and die like lice."

Grudo laughed coarsely. "What matter? When these slaves die there are thousands more on our colony."

"Nevertheless," said Steve, "the human's point was well taken. Sick slaves are valueless. I told the man I would do something to assure them a supply of cleaner water. But—" he added hastily—"I also told him we would turn no hand to provide for their comfort. What they want done they must do for themselves.

"Still it will do no harm for us to provide them with the needed equipment. You can requisition a distillation unit, Grudo? Some vats, coils, storage containers ... that sort of thing?"

"Why," acknowledged Grudo frowning, "I suppose so. But—"

And he glanced at the Lady Loala questioningly. Her gray-green eyes had never left Steve's face. Now those eyes hardened to the color of frosted agate. She said slowly,

"Yes, Captain Huumo, that seems harmless enough, and can be done. Perhaps you yourself would like to help the earthlings install this unit?"

Duane said eagerly, "Why—why, yes. I should be glad to help in any way—" Then he stopped abruptly, warned by the note of sarcasm in the girl's voice. "I, my Lady? I soil my hands in labor for such as these? I do not understand."

"On the contrary," said Loala, her voice more harshly grating than Duane had ever heard it, "I think you understand too well, Captain Huumo! So you learned nothing from the earthman, eh? You suspect there are no such creatures as Slumberers? But while you tarried, plotting with your friend—we have learned otherwise! Grudo, call the informer!"

Her voice cracked like the bite of a lashing whip. Steve stared.

"What? I don't—"

Then the words of denial faltered and died on his lips. For Grudo had opened the door, and into the room now stepped one whose entrance was like that of a spectre of doom. An earthman with bandaged head who stared at Stephen Duane with eyes reflecting not only malice and triumph but—restored sanity.

To this one the Lady Loala spoke.

"Well," she cried, "is this he of whom you told us?"

And:

"Aye, it is he!" declared Eric von Rath. "Even beneath that disguise I know him well. He who stands before you is the Daans' worst enemy—that Slumberer known as Stephen Duane!"

In that moment of betrayal tottered and fell the dreamworld of freedom Stephen Duane had been building within his heart. This was the one blow he had feared, and it had fallen. Von Rath's mind had cleared at last of its amnesia, and his first act had been to align himself with humanity's foes.

This, knew Duane with dull, sickening certainty, was the end of the trail; the last act of a drama foredoomed to tragedy. Gone now was the last hope he might live to see Earth liberated.

But if he died, as he would surely die, there was one who would not live to gloat upon his passing. With a cry of rage Steve ripped his ray crystal from its pouch on his harness, turned it upon the suddenly blanching von Rath and fingered its press.

But even as its lethal flame spewed from the opening, his enemies moved. Grudo hurled himself forward, dragging Steve to the floor by sheer brute force, slashing the weapon from his grasp. The rays spent themselves aimlessly on adamant walls and ceilings. And Grudo cried, "A hand here, Amarro! Secure me this skulking spy."

Against two strong and determined foes Steve Duane was helpless. A few minutes later, bleeding and disheveled, hands lashed to his sides with coils upon coils of biting plastic cord, he stood staring defiantly at his captors.

"Very well," he groaned. "I am Stephen Duane, one of the Slumberers. The masquerade is over and this scene of our little playlet is done. But the curtain has not yet fallen on the last act. Though I die, what I have fought for lives on. Others like myself will rise after me. And I tell you now, proud Overlords of Earth, the day will surely come when humanity shall overthrow your tyrannies as mankind ever in the past has destroyed those who set themselves up in omnipotence.

"And as for you, von Rath—" He turned blazing eyes to the German, smirking out of combat range—"if ever again these bonds are stricken from my hands, those hands will surely throttle the breath from your black throat."

Von Rath laughed uneasily.

"That is a vow you will never keep, mein Leutnant. The Daans, like myself, are realists. They are too clever to allow an avowed enemy to exist. We understand each other, I and they. Meanwhile, for your insolence—"

And he took a step forward, arm lifted to strike the bound prisoner before him. But the Lady Loala stayed his gesture with a command.

"Stop, earthman! Presume not over-much on your newly-won favor. The Daans need no human aid in handling their captives. Begone about your business until you are sent for."

The German wilted before her gaze. With a muttered apology he slunk away. Then turned the Lady Loala to her one-time favorite, and though she spoke imperiously still, her tone was edged with the faintest note of regret.

"Now this is a mad thing you have done, Steve of Emmeity," she said. "Have you no wisdom? Were you not content to leave things as they were?"

Steve said, "No, my Lady. I do not expect you to understand—quite. But perhaps you can if I tell you that in the day whence I came, earthmen were not the cringing, servile creatures you have known them to be. They were a strong race, proud and noble as your own. I did what I could to regain that lost freedom. No human worthy of the name would have been content to do otherwise."

"I am not speaking now of governments or empires, human Steve," said the silver lady softly. "Years change all things. No reasoning soul but realizes that some day Daan's dominion over Earth was bound to pass. But all this might have come in the fullness of time. It was not necessary you should hold yourself alone responsible for its accomplishment.

"So I speak not of empires, but of individuals. Did you not know when you espoused this foredoomed cause that your failure would spell an end to the dreams of intimacy you and I have shared?"

Even in the depths of his own darkest hour, Duane felt a shred of compassion for the Lady Loala. A Daan and an Overlord she was, but she was a woman, too, and one at this moment sadly forlorn.

He said quietly, "Aye, my Lady. Even this I knew."

"Then how could you, Steve of Emmeity? Why did you—?"

She stopped abruptly, her gray-green eyes narrowing shrewdly. "I begin to understand. Then these, too, your professions of admiration for me, they were all part of the plan. They, too, were insincere."

Steve said with perfect candor, "No, my Lady Loala, they were not altogether insincere."

"Not altogether!" The Overlord seized the words, hurled them back at him through clenched teeth. "But in part, at least! There is another woman, then, whose charms you find more alluring than those of the Lady Loala? Yes, there is! I read it in your eyes. Speak, I command you! Which is she who has so captured your fancy? Speak, that I may teach her the folly of pitting her fleshly wiles against the magnificence of a Daan princess.

"Is she perhaps that muck-begrimed slut who cried aloud your name in the prison camp? Or some other flabby creature, cowering in her hut on distant Earth? Speak, I say!"

But Duane said nothing, and after a tense moment the flame died from the Lady Loala's eyes. Her features tightened to a silver mask, and she turned to the guard Amarro.

"Remove this creature from my sight," she commanded. "He should die now, but the Supreme Council must be shown that there were Slumberers, and that one was in our very midst. Turn him into the pens with his fellow swine."

And she turned her back. Amarro prodded Steve toward the door. "Move along, earthman," he commanded gruffly.

They left the administration building, started toward the prison camp. But when the door had closed behind them, and they two were alone, a strange thing happened. Amarro turned and stared at Steve, long and appraisingly, then spoke a sentence which sent a blaze of fire coursing through Steve's veins.

"You are a strange person," he said. "You arouse my curiosity, earthman. Tell me—have you kinsmen on distant Terra?"

CHAPTER XVII

Fortress in the Fen

Out of the depths of despair, Amarro's simple query came to Duane like the warm and welcome hand of a friend in blinding fog. Excitement hammered his pulse-beats to a rising fever. In vain he reminded himself that Amarro's choice of words might be purely coincidental, that the Daan prison guard might be, as he had claimed, merely curious. For Steve was thinking of Okuno's last instructions. He heard again the voice of the grave and gentle masquerader on Earth:

"Mark well this interchange, O Slumberer. Should one say to you, 'Have you kinsmen on distant Terra?', answer that questioner—"

And—for better or worse—Steve responded as he had been told.

"Aye," he said, his eyes searching Amarro's face, "I have many brothers."

And his breath caught in his throat as the guarded light in Amarro's eyes lifted, and his captor said firmly but clearly, "The brave never lack for brethren, O Dwain!"

A cry of gladness almost escaped Duane's lips. Okuno had spoken truly when he said that even in the most unexpected places might he find allies.

"Then you," cried Steve, "are one of us. You, too—"

"Hush!" Amarro warned him sharply. "Careful, O Dwain! Warn them not. We must move swiftly.

"When we reach the barricade, I will pause to remove your bonds, and motion you toward the prison camp with leveled ray-gun. You must seize the gun and strike me senseless with it. Stay not your strength, but strike hard and true that none may suspect me. It is important I should remain at this post I have held ever since the former Amarro visited Earth."

"I get it," breathed Steve. "Then what shall I do? Where shall I go?"

"Flee to the swamp-edge," Amarro's nod designated the direction. "There, beside a small dock, you will find a motor-skiff. Leap into this, press the red stud on the instrument panel, and its automatic controls will speed you to my private refuge hidden in the fens. There await me. I shall come to you as soon as possible."

"And the other prisoners?"

"Think not of them, O Dwain, but of yourself. Now, the moment approaches—"

"Wait," breathed Steve hastily. "There is one thing vitally important. You heard my request for distillation apparatus?"

"Yes."

"Then somehow see that this machinery is smuggled to those in the camp. Will you do this?"

"I will, O Dwain. And now, in the name of freedom, strike—and strike hard!"

And with the words, Amarro sheared the bonds from Duane's wrists, thrust a hand against Steve's shoulder coarsely, and cried that all might hear, "Into your wallow, pig of Earth! Join your fellow—aaah!"

His sentence died in a groan as Steve, obeying his instructions to the letter, tore the weapon from his grasp and slashed it violently across the Daan's head. Amarro sank to the ground, a limp and sodden mass. And Duane fled.

Hours later, when Stephen Duane and Amarro met again, it was under strangely new conditions. When, from the tiny island upon which his precipitant flight had ended, he heard throbbing in his ears the hum of an atomic motor similar to that propelling the boat which conveyed him hither, he rose and sought cover, emerged only when he was certain the arrival was none other than his newfound ally. Then he hurried to the beach and welcomed Amarro.

"Thank God," he breathed, "you're all right! I couldn't wait to see. But you fell so heavily I was afraid I struck too hard."

Amarro grinned ruefully.

"You struck," he assured Steve, "hard enough. But that was well. I was still unconscious when they found me. No one dreams I aided your escape.

"Should you wonder how I managed to get here so soon, I'm supposedly searching for you. And I am but one of scores, O Dwain. Grudo sent an emergency call to headquarters, and soon these fens will be combed by a hundred bloodthirsty Daans."

Steve said, "Then must I press on still farther?"

"No. This island is small, and it is but one of thousands in this wild, uncharted swampland. Through the eternal mists they might search for weeks without ever stumbling upon it. But even if they should—" Amarro grinned—"they won't find you. Because you will be completely out of sight."

"On this exposed beach?"

"Only surfaces," reminded Amarro, "are exposed, O Dwain. There is more here than meets the eye. Help me shift these motorcraft to concealment; then I will show you."

A few minutes later, their boats hidden beneath the small landing pier, Amarro led Steve to what appeared to be a small natural promontory near the center of the island. Before a huge granite boulder, taller by half than a man, he stopped, scrabbled briefly in the sand, and uncovered a small metal disc. This he fingered in a curious fashion. And as he did so, Stephen Duane gasped aloud. For the boulder, which had seemed firmly entrenched in its foundation, swung smoothly to one side, exposing a narrow, artificial passageway leading into the subterranean bowels of the island refuge.

Amarro turned, smiling.

"Here, O Slumberer, is my real refuge, prepared against our hour of pressing need. Follow me to that which will be your home on Daan so long as you have need of one."

Full twenty feet the corridor drove into the heart of the jungle island, then opened into a series of underground chambers which were to be Stephen's hideout. And looking upon this place, hope blossomed within Duane more strongly than it had ever dared since his wakening from an age-old slumber.

For everything was here ... everything. Not only food and drink with which to sustain life, but the little luxuries—soft beds and warm clothing; a musical instrument, the Daan's equivalent of a phonograph; books to read—were stored here as well. And—most important—constructed within the refuge were those two things which Duane needed most. A compact but efficient chemical laboratory, and a powerful ultra-wave communicator over which he could converse with Okuno on far-away Earth.

Swiftly Amarro instructed him in the operation of those Daan inventions with which he was not familiar. The atomic cooking-range and incinerating unit, the ultra-wave transmitter. Then he gripped Steve's hand in farewell.

"I place my hand in thine thus, O Dwain," he said, "for thus I am told men pledged their faith in the old days. I must go now, ere my absence awakens suspicion. But be of good cheer. That which you asked me to do for the prisoners will be taken care of. Hidden safely here, do what you can and must, and from time to time I will visit you. But be at all times cautious. Stay off the surface of the isle, and answer no calls unless they be from voices you recognize. Goodbye."

And he was gone.

So settled Stephen Duane for a period which on Earth would have been reckoned as three weeks. On slower-turning Venus, and especially here in these marshes which knew only the filtered light of cloud-drenched sunshine, it was hard to mark the passage of time. But days and nights meant nothing to Duane. When he hungered, he ate. When his brain and body wearied of the innumerable tasks to which he set himself, he slept.

Nor was his period of incarceration dreary. There was much to occupy his time. Twice Amarro came furtively and left with equal stealth, each time advising Steve as to the progress of those still captive in the prison camp.

Much, Amarro told him, had been accomplished. The administrative buildings of the camp were a beehive thronged with Daan warriors who each dusk returned disgruntled and petulant. Meanwhile, as the search for the fugitive Slumberer preoccupied the Daans, the back-breaking labor of the Earth prisoners had been suspended. Amarro, with no voice to say him nay, had requisitioned a "water distillation unit" for the convict barracks. And now night and day earthmen and women labored with rekindled vigor to turn out in vast quantities containers of that gaseous by-product Chuck Lafferty was distilling from Venusian klaar.

"It is my task," Amarro said proudly, "to smuggle these containers out of the camp and into those strategic points which we must strike when the Day of Freedom dawns. And you, O Dwain? You have spoken to our brethren on Earth?"

"Constantly," Steve told him grimly. "And there's good news from there, too. Okuno tells me word of the Slumberers' wakening has spread like wildfire throughout all of Tizathy. Converts flock to our rallying-points from every mount and valley, lake and plain.

"One strong and gallant ally has Okuno found. A golden warrior-priestess from the hills of Jinnia. It appears this priestess, Meg, and her consort, one known as Daiv, are of a superior wisdom and culture. For several years they have known the Great Secret: that the gods of old were no 'gods' at all, but men like us. And in their own small way they have transmitted the Revelation over vast areas. Now have they joined our cause, and those who follow them number in the hundreds of thousands. But you spoke of strategic points, Amarro? You mean the palace of the Supreme Council; such places as that?"

"That is the one place," confessed Amarro ruefully, "we have been unable to cache cylinders of our anesthetic weapon. But elsewhere in public buildings, and even on ships of the Great Armada—"

"Wait!" interrupted Steve sharply. "That reminds me. Here is something Chuck Lafferty will want to know—"

And before Amarro left, Duane sketched for him a series of diagrams which should prove of vital interest to Lafferty's laborers when, as Amarro had phrased it, the Day of Freedom dawned.

Thus three weeks sped more swiftly than waters churning a millrace. And at last came the hour when Duane felt the long-delayed blow might be struck.

He knew full well the dangers before him and his comrades. But he knew equally well that their preparations were as well laid as was humanly possible, and that with each succeeding day the danger of their conspiracy being detected loomed ever nearer.

Thus, speaking to Okuno over the now familiar ultra-wave circuit, he issued to that salient's commander the order Okuno had been awaiting.

"The hour has come, my friend," he said simply. "Strike when you will."

Across more than twenty-five million miles of yawning space Okuno's voice broke in a little gasp.

"You mean we can strike without fear of reprisal, O Slumberer? The Venusian fleet has been rendered impotent?"

"Not as yet," said Duane. "But it will be. You on Earth must strike before we do. We need the confusion and turmoil into which news of your uprising will throw the Daan militia to serve as a shield concealing our own final preparations. When excitement has blinded them to the small but important movements we must make, we too will strike."

"So be it," acknowledged Okuno with a blind confidence which warmed Duane's heart. "Then this shall be our last conversation, O Eternal One, until the fight is won. May the gods of Earth bless you!"

"And may they," said Duane, "fight at your side as you herald the dawning of a new day. Till we meet again, my friend!"

And the connection was severed.

There remained now but one thing. To inform Amarro when he visited that night—as he had promised to do—that already the Earth rebellion was under way, and to set into motion those wheels which his and Lafferty's efforts had greased.

So Stephen Duane, tense and impatient for the first time since he had sought refuge, paced the floor of his underground refuge like a caged tiger, awaiting the grate of stone upon sand which would bespeak Amarro's arrival.

But the sound which finally reached his waiting ears was one even more cheering. For it was as though Amarro, by some prescience, had guessed the significance of this night's meeting. The sound which reached Duane's ears from the island surface was not the guard's husky whisper—but the sound of his own name, loudly cried in a dear, familiar voice.

"Dwain! Steve! Where are you? Open to me swiftly!"

Duane's heart leaped. Beth! Amarro must have told her of this spot, and in the fogs above she was searching for him on a barren island.

He needed no second bidding. Eagerly he raced up the corridor, released the catch which opened the boulder door, stepped forth—and into sight of a company of armed Daans at whose head stood Grudo, and with whom was a silver woman who, even now, was lifting again her voice in perfect imitation of Beth's loved tones.

"Dwain! O Steve!"

Steve Duane choked, "Loala—you! It was a trick; a trap!"

Then he said nothing more. For at that moment something brutally hard smashed down upon his head with crushing force. The fog of Daan thickened to eddying darkness, and Stephen Duane pitched forward, senseless, into the waiting arms of his captors.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Offer of Loala

What Duane recalled of the ensuing hours was a maelstrom of confusion, a phantasmagoria composed of incoherent snatches, peopled with creatures who moved before his vision fleetingly, lingered for a moment, then faded.

Later he dimly recalled once opening his eyes to find himself lying in the thwarts of a motor-skiff scudding through the tortuous channels of a marshland stream. He was conscious of dank mists choking his nostrils and the humid spray of fen waters drenching him as the tiny craft sped toward an unguessed destination.

When next he wakened all this had disappeared. His body, which had been wet, was parched and dry; his mouth was cottony with thirst, and his head hammered brassily. He lay in the cabin of an aereo flashing swiftly through the atmosphere of Venus. A covey of armed guards surrounded him. When he muttered a feeble plaint for water, one dashed a dipperful in his face and laughed harshly as Steve, bound hand and foot, attempted to gulp a few precious drops.

Then again merciful unconsciousness welcomed him, and he knew no more until he wakened for a third time to find himself lying on a crude pallet within a metal-walled room which was obviously a prison cell in the palace of the Daan capital.

Of this he assured himself when, staggering weakly to his feet, he lurched to a grilled opening in one wall and looked down across a great courtyard bristling with armed men over the rooftops of the Daan's mightiest city to the distant spacedrome which, even from this distance Steve could see, was swarming with a black host of humans and Daans performing indistinguishable tasks in, around, and about the spaceships of Daan's great Armada.

His head still throbbed terribly, but with each passing moment an iota of additional strength seeped back into his superbly conditioned body. And save for a weakness born solely of hunger and thirst, Stephen Duane was very nearly recuperated from the effects of his recent assault by the time his gaolers discovered he had come to.

Then one of the warders came with welcome refreshment and unwelcome tidings. As he pushed the first through a movable grill in the corridor door, he donated the second freely.

"Still alive, eh, dog of Earth?" he taunted grimly. "Well, eat and drink heartily; this may be your last meal. You must have a skull of bronze, human. I did not expect to find you on your feet when I came here."

Steve said, "I'm in the palace tower?"

"That's right," grunted his gaoler. "But not for long. The Supreme Council has ordered you be brought before them as soon as you waken. They have a few questions to ask before—"

He left the matter of Steve's fate dangling, but the smirk of malice on his lips was suggestion enough.

Steve asked, "And the excitement at the spacedrome? What means that?"

The guard grinned evilly.

"It means an end to all coddling of you Earth scum. We Daans have been too lenient with you, human. But now your rebelliousness has taught us the error of our ways. We like not the news reaching us from your miserable planet. The Armada is being fueled and equipped to give you earthmen such a lesson in Daan justice as was never before taught. Now, no more questions. Prepare yourself to visit those who will judge you."

Thus a few minutes later Stephen Duane found himself for the second time in the great council hall of the palace of the Daans, face to face with the effete three who ruled the Venusian empire.

If he had thought before the Masters of Daan were a decadent set, he saw now convincing proof of this belief. For strong men deal strongly with those who oppose them. Though they slay their enemies, they do so honorably and openly; oftimes even with a reluctant recognition of their foe-men's prowess.

But weaklings respect not even the dignity of death. And the Venusian masters were weak. There was a feral spitefulness in their attitude toward him who stood before them. Though they blustered and threatened as they questioned Steve, he could sense beneath their vindictiveness an uncertainty, a superstitious dread, which under any other circumstances might have been almost laughable.

For one said to him petulantly, "So you are one of those whom humans call 'Slumberers?' Well, where are the god-like powers you boast? Can you free yourself from these halls? Can you call down the lightnings of heaven to strike us on our thrones? Can you stay the slow death on the rack which is your sure payment for the trouble you have caused us?"

Duane said slowly, savoring the moment, "Nay, Lords of Daan. These things I would not do if I could. But there is this I can promise you. Your puny vengeance on me will prove vain. For each drop of blood you force from my veins, a Daan shall make payment with his life. As my bones crumble beneath your instruments of torture, even so shall the empire of Daan crumble, crushing you beneath its fall."

Another of the Masters bleated fretfully, "You mouth great boasts, earthman, for one whose carcass shall soon rot on the ramparts of this citadel. But as you die so will all rebel earthlings like yourself. One by one shall we find those who defy us and mete out to them the punishment they deserve."

Duane laughed in the Master's face.

"So, my Lord? Some you will find perhaps. But—all? I wonder. Only a short time hence you received me with great honors in this very hall as the proud Daan nobleman, 'Captain Huumo.' Does not the memory of this strike fear to your bosom?

"Look about you, my Lord. These 'friends and noblemen' gathered in this chamber—can you tell which are true Daans and which masquerading earthmen like myself who, at any moment, may bury an avenging dagger in your breast?

"Look sharply, my Lord. For truly I tell you your highest councils are laced with humans like myself who will carry on the work for which you have condemned me. Look closely at each face. Can you tell which face is truly Daan and which is the artificially bleached complexion of an earthman? Aye, even look at each other, you three who sit in the highest seats of judgment. Are you certain that not even one of your own august body is an interloper, a spy waiting his moment to turn against you?"

His shrewd technique, his psychological employment of fifth column tactics borrowed from the masters of boring-from-within of his own era, found root in the suspicious hearts of the Masters. A bruit whispered about the council hall as Daan fingers sought weapons in Daan harnesses, and each listening nobleman edged cautiously from his nearest neighbor. Even the three Masters cast furtive glances at each other as though wondering if possibly—just possibly—there could be something in this man's taunts.

Then Steve's first accuser spoke again, his voice shrill.

"Enough of this! You were summoned hither to hear our judgment, not impugn the dignity and honor of the master race.

"Your efforts are fruitless, earthman. Even now the Armada is being readied. From every city and town, hill and fen, have been conveyed hither hordes of slaves to load our spacecraft. Before Daan turns again upon its axis our mighty fleet will be soaring Earthward to lash your miserable planet with such horrors as never you dreamed could be unleashed.

"When this has been accomplished will be time enough to weed out such few false Daans as, like yourself, may have managed to insinuate themselves into our midst. So when you writhe upon the rack, person of Earth, think not of those trifling successes your rebel mobs have made on your native planet, but of the devastating vengeance which will surely reclaim our tottering colony."

The unwitting revelation stiffened Steve Duane with joy. His eyes lighted, and his lips parted in a grim smile.

"Successes, my Lord? Then our fighters have overthrown your strongholds as was planned?"

The Master's pale cheeks glowed with unaccustomed color as he realized his error. He said with sudden savagery, "It matters not. You came hither for trial, not triumph! Take him back to his dungeon, guard, until we have decided a fitting punishment for him."

And Duane was led away.

But judgment was not so swift in forthcoming as had been threatened. All that day Stephen Duane languished in his cell. Nor could he learn from his truculent guard anything more of that which was transpiring on far-away Earth. All Duane knew was that—apparently—Okuno's rebellion had been crowned with initial success. The Master's slip of the tongue had revealed this; further proof lay in the ever-heightening excitement at the spacedrome.

Its vast plain was like a mighty ant-hill upon which lay a hundred glistening metal eggs. To and from each of these objects filed streams of scurrying figures. One such column poured into a forward port of each ship, never afterward to emerge. These, Duane rightly guessed, would be the Daan warriors taking up transport quarters. The stern port was serviced by two files. One which approached slowly, heavy-laden with supplies, fuel, ammunition; the other of which streamed back to ordnance depots more swiftly to pick up new burdens. These would be the slaves, laboring to charge the fleet for its mission.

And watching these preparations, Steve felt his joy overshadowed with a sense of deepening sadness. The Master had spoken truly in claiming this Armada would overwhelm Earth's uprising. Soon these hundred rockets would blast from their cradles on flaming pillars to flash Earthward.

And that, groaned Steve, was his fault. His capture had made it possible for the Daans to quell this rebellion. He had promised Okuno the spacefleet would be immobilized, then had permitted himself to fall pitiful prey to a woman's ruse. Had he but waited within the underground refuge until Amarro returned to tell him all was well and in readiness....

The sound of footsteps approaching his cell brought an abrupt end to Duane's mournful reverie. He moved from the window opening and squared his shoulders to meet as bravely as possible those finally coming to convey him to his doom.

There sounded the murmur of voices, then the grate of metal upon metal. Slowly the door swung open, and a lone figure stepped into his cell. At the sight of this figure Duane's frozen mask slackened into lines of astonishment. For it was no warrior band which confronted him. It was, instead, she whose silver loveliness was surpassed on two planets only by the dust-gold beauty of one other.

It was the Lady Loala.

Then Duane's surprise coalesced into a tiny grimace of understanding. He said slowly, "So, my Lady, you could not resist this last opportunity to taunt my helplessness."

And—it was completely wrong, completely illogical. The Lady Loala should have flashed into instant indignation, lashed back at him with all the dignity and fury of her superior station. But strangely she did not. She said instead, in a mild and strangely troubled voice,

"You speak but half a truth, Stephen Duane. I could not resist this last opportunity to see you again—and to plead with you for sanity."

Duane stared at her starkly.

"Plead with me? You, Lady Loala? But this is madness. The Supreme Council has decided my fate—"

"Not yet," said the argent princess swiftly. "I have addressed myself to them, human Steve. I stand high in their council and in their favor. Even though you be the most dangerous rebel ever to set himself against the majesty of Daan, they have listened to my pleas. There is one last way in which I can save you."

"And that is—?" demanded Steve.

"We of Daan," said Loala simply, "have a great science. None surpass us in knowledge of mental and physiological change. You have seen how we inscribe electrical brain-images on metal cylinders. Similarly we can, if we wish, alter the entire brain structures of both Daans and humans.

"There is an operation that can be performed upon you, Steve of Emmeity. A simple and painless one. You need but place yourself in a certain chamber, and of your own free will permit that our apparatus activate the electrical network which is your brain pattern. Our delicate instruments can utterly erase every thought and recollection which is now yours by changing the contours of your brain. Then by superimposing new forms upon this plastic gray matter, you can be given an entire new series of thought-habits and memories.

"In other words, human Steve, the Supreme Council has permitted this for my sake: that the human brain of Steve of Emmeity be expunged. And in its place you be given a new brain pattern; that of a true and loyal Daan. Well—?" She paused and looked at him breathlessly—"What say you, Steve of Emmeity?"

CHAPTER XIX

End of the Trail

For a moment Steve knew not what to say. It never occurred to him to doubt the truth of Loala's claim. One thing he had never questioned was the superb scientific ability of this race. His own knowledge of biological science assured him that such master surgeons as the Daans undoubtedly could accomplish this incredible feat.

The only question in his mind was: was it worthwhile he should save his life at such a cost? The thought struck him swiftly that it was not truly his life, the life of Stephen Duane, which would be saved. The fleshly frame which encompassed his personality would live and breathe, true. But that essence which was himself would, in this operation, be as truly destroyed as if his heart were stilled.

He stammered, "But, Loala, if it is I you would save, surely you realize that after such an operation I would no longer be myself."

Loala said, "The change would alter your false ideologies, Steve of Emmeity. But it need not necessarily change those other things about you I—admire. The operation would remove the last traces of rebelliousness which separate me and thee. Your new brain pattern would retain only such things as—" fiercely—"once made you vow you found me desirable. Well, human Steve? Decide. For time grows short, and I may make this offer but a single time."

Steve said, "And if I accept, Lady Loala? What then would those who were my comrades think of me? They will see the body of Stephen Duane living proudly and gladly, a nobleman amongst Daans, consort of a Daan princess. They will know I have forsaken the cause, betrayed them—"

The Lady Loala waved a silver hand impatiently.

"They will think nothing, Steve of Emmeity, nor judge you not. When our spacefleet reaches Earth the rebellion will be quelled, and all those who had a part in it will be no more."

And it was then Stephen Duane realized, with a rising hope which was at the same time a heartbreaking sadness, that which he must do. That which was the last great service he could perform for the gallant men and women, the beautiful Earth, he loved.

He made his decision. And as one who shops at a market-place, he haggled for his bargain. To Loala of Daan he said softly, "I speak not to an Overlord and a princess now, but as a man of one world to a woman of another. Speak truly, my Lady. Do I mean so much to you?"

Whatever Duane might have liked or disliked about this woman in the past there was one truth shining-clear. She was one who followed the urgings of her own desires, nor masked them not. She lifted frank gray-green eyes to his.

"Yes, Steve of Emmeity," she said candidly, "this much you mean to me."

"This much," pressed Steve, "and how much more? Would you, for my sake, stay the blow which is shortly to descend upon that Earth, those comrades whom you ask me to abandon?"

The Lady Loala said, "I do not understand."

"You know that a short time hence the Armada departs earthward. For my agreement to undergo this operation, will you arrange that the arrival of the Armada will not loose a fury of destruction? That the punitive expedition will reestablish control of Earth quietly, and with as little blood-shed as possible? In short, will you grant amnesty to my fellow rebels, nor wreak terrible vengeance upon them for what has been done?"

Loala cried, "But this is impossible, Steve of Emmeity! Never has Daan supremacy been so threatened—"

"Never before," Steve reminded her, "did Slumberers awake. Nor ever again shall this happen. You have said yourself it is inevitable that at some future time Earth must be free. Now I bargain with you that we earthmen cease our efforts to accomplish this immediately, and you Daans refrain from destroying the human seed which shall, perhaps centuries hence when you and I are dust, liberate itself.

"Surely you see, my Lady Loala," he wheedled, "that what the future may bring concerns us not. We seek only our present happiness—"

The Lady Loala was swayed. Her eyes mirrored indecision. She whispered, "But—but the Supreme Council—"

"Is weak," said Steve, "and you are strong, wielding great power over them. Hark, my Lady. Who is to say but that someday you and I, working side by side together, may not even rise to the posts of supreme authority now held by the decadent trio? Then could we not work out for both our planets a new design for living?"

"Hush!" warned Loala nervously. "You speak treason, Steve of Emmeity! To rise against the Supreme Council—"

"Is not folly," pleaded Steve. "You know as well as I that one sharp blow would depose them. And if the new brain you give me has daring and sincerity, this you and I can do together."

"Yes," whispered the Lady Loala. "You and I together. It is possible, Steve of Emmeity."

"Then you will do it? And even the ringleaders you will allow to go free? My friend, the one known as Chuck ... the priestess Beth...?"

The troubled eyes darkened swiftly, stormily.

"Nay," denied the Lady Loala savagely, "there is one who cannot go free! I will share you with no other woman, whether of Earth or Daan!"

"You need share me with no other," Steve reminded her with a trace of sadness, "when the operation is done. My mind and heart will be yours alone."

"But she will remember."

"Until," pointed out Steve, "the first time we meet and I know her not. Well, my Lady—what say you? You must decide swiftly. Footsteps approach. If I am not mistaken, the footsteps of my executioners."

The last words settled the indecision of the Daan princess. A shudder coursed through her; instinctively one pale, soft hand stretched forth to touch Stephen Duane's arm possessively. And:

"Very well," cried the Lady Loala. "It shall be as you say. It is a bargain, Steve of Emmeity!"

Then as once again the cell door swung open, this time to expose a phalanx of Venusian guards come to convey their prisoner to execution, she whirled to face the soldiers like a lioness.

"Nay, touch him not!" she cried savagely. "I care not what your orders are; they will be countermanded so soon as I can reach the ears of the Supreme Council. This prisoner goes not to the rack, but to the Mental Laboratory. Take him thither. Prepare him for operation and await my coming."

So entered Stephen Duane upon the last ordeal of an adventure the most imaginative man of his century might never have dared conceive.

To the Mental Laboratory he was led by grumbling but obedient guards. There he was stripped of all raiment containing any metallic appurtenances and prepared for placement into a cabinet similar to that wherein he had undergone a lesser and transitory change weeks—or was it ages?—ago on his native Earth.

True to her promise the Lady Loala tarried not long. Duane had waited but a few minutes when she burst breathlessly into the room bearing an order signed by the Masters of the Supreme Council. This she hurled at the guards and dismissed them. Now there were in the room but herself and Steve, the technologist of Daan mental clinic, and his assistant.

The master surgeon nodded acquiescence to Loala's query.

"The chamber is ready, my Lady. The operation can be performed whensoever it pleases you."

Loala smiled at Steve. He found himself wondering dimly whether, when next he looked upon that smile, some trace of lingering sadness in his heart would remind him the lips which framed it were but second-best in his affection, or whether he would truly be so altered that his heart would thrill to bursting with its invitation.

He found it hard to believe that anything man or Daan could do, any device man or Daan might invent, could destroy the cherished vision of a dust-gold maiden locked in his heart, or broom away the memory of warm lips which had met his own in the touching-of-mouths. But....

"You are ready, Steve of Emmeity?" asked Loala softly.

He had made a bargain. And that it was a bargain, Duane knew well. The ens, the mental personality of one person, for perhaps a half million lives. One heart's longing balanced against the aspirations of an entire race. This was the greatest barter any man had ever made. It was no time for self pity. He should be fiercely glad such an opportunity had presented itself. He nodded.

"I am ready, Loala. Yet—" He smiled slowly—"there is one thing more. After I leave this cabinet I shall not care ... but now, for the few seconds remaining to the brain of Stephen Duane, it is a matter of great curiosity. Tell me, my Lady, how goes the Earth rebellion?"

Loala said, "Though the cause is doomed, Steve of Emmeity, you should be proud to know you builded your movement well. Everywhere your followers have overwhelmed our Earth garrisons. Kleevlun has fallen and Washtun; Ashful; Sangleez; every citadel on Tizathy.

"Even our outposts on other Earth continents are in rebel hands. Blin, Lunnon, Kiro, a hundred more. Aye, even strong Sinnaty, which was my bastion and pride, is now the stronghold of a rebel masquerader whom I considered one of my loyalest nobles, the Lord Okuno."

"And I have your promise," said Steve, "that mercy will be granted these rebels when the Armada reaches Earth?"

The Lady Loala nodded. "That I swear, Steve of Emmeity. In fact—" She paused, glanced suddenly at the moving hand of a chronometer set in the laboratory wall—"in fact, I have the assurance of the Council that such orders are to be audioed to every commander of the fleet before the Armada jets for Earth, moments hence. If you would enter the cabinet with the spoken vow of Daan honor in your ears, you may hear for yourself...."

She turned to the wall, pressed a stud set therein, and from a small grill issued a voice Steve Duane remembered. It was that of one of the Masters of the Supreme Council.

"—therefore we," he was saying, "the Masters of Daan, do hereby command and ordain that this punitive expedition shall refrain from accomplishing that utter destruction of the Earth colony previously ordered. It is our sage decision—"

The voice droned on. Steve turned grateful eyes to the waiting Overlord.

"You have done well, O Loala. It is as I said; they are weaklings, you are strong."

"It was not easy," Loala told him. "But I pointed out that with you, the spearhead of the rebellion, blunted, the movement would falter and die. Moreover, I appealed to their greed, pointing out our continuous need for human slaves. And now, Steve of Emmeity, can you seek forgetfulness and a new life with a happy heart?"

Not with a happy heart, thought Steve regretfully. Never with a happy heart. But at least with one fear-free and comforted by the knowledge his comrades were safe. He took a step forward.

"Yes, my Lady. I am ready."

And he opened the door of the cabinet ... then whirled, startled. For the door of the clinic had burst open suddenly, and into the room charged one so maddened with fury that his face was drawn into almost unrecognizable lines. A voice smote Duane's ears with raging violence, but the accusation of the newcomer was hurled not so much at Steve as at she who stood a few paces from his side.

"So, my Lady Loala!" screamed the earthling traitor, von Rath. "You, too, have fallen a victim to the mouthings of this lying Slumberer! Even you, a Daan, would betray the master race!"

Loala's eyes glinted. Her arm lifted.

"Earthman," she cried, "depart! It is not yours to judge the decision of the Overlords."

"It is mine," screamed von Rath, "to destroy one who would overthrow the master race of which I am a Brother. Even though the Council be beguiled, I am not. You, Stephen Duane, die now!"

And with the swiftness of a striking cobra his hand tugged a ray-weapon from its harness, pointed at Steve and clenched convulsively.

CHAPTER XX

"And Thus Be It Ever...."

Flaming radiation from the crystal seared a livid path across the room. Duane gasped and tumbled to the floor, hands clawing futilely at his own harness, now stripped of all defensive weapons, rolled and pulled to his knees, trying to close the gap between himself and his attacker before the maddened German could spear him on that lethal ray.

But if Steve was weaponless, another was not. A cry of burning rage burst from the lips of the Lady Loala, and a whirring something whispered a threnody of death across the room as she whipped a small, jeweled dagger from her side, hurled it at von Rath.

Too hastily she threw. The poniard missed its mark. But in ducking away, the one-time Nazi spy caught the whirling impact of the dagger's pommel on his right wrist. His crystalline weapon flew from nerveless fingers, skittered across the floor, rays of death still spuming from its orifice.

Duane needed but that one moment. With a leap and a bound he was upon the man to whom he had promised death should ever again they meet.

Von Rath, scrambling after his fallen weapon on all fours, swiveled in time to see unleashed vengeance crashing toward him. He forgot the crystal then, and with a shrill cry of panic turned to flee.

But he never reached the door. Steve caught him first. And there was inexorable certainty in the settling of his hands about the German's throat.

"This I promised you, von Rath," he roared. "It comes late, but at last it comes!"

And his fingers tightened.

What von Rath screamed in those last moments, Duane did not know nor ever was to learn. Perhaps his last breath cursed the fellow Slumberer whose hands with dreadful certainty crushed the breath of life from his lungs. Perhaps in that last moment the son of pagan Germany voiced futile pleas to a forgotten God. Whatever his words, they found no hearkening ear. Steve's great hands tightened till a darkness thickened the traitor's veins, and his tongue thrust from gasping lips. Tightened until hoarse rawls choked into silence and the body before him became a dead weight beneath his grasp.

Then, and only then, Stephen Duane's tense fingers unclenched. The flesh which had housed Eric von Rath slumped to the floor like a bag of sodden meal. It was then, too, Stephen Duane turned to the woman of Daan.

"Now, indeed," he said, "can I suffer any change a happier man. It was worth waiting—Loala!"

The cry burst from his lips. Shocked, he leaped across the chamber to where the two technicians bent anxiously over their fallen princess. Brushing them aside, Steve lifted the girl's head, cradled it in the crook of his elbow.

"Loala!" he cried. "My princess! What—?"

Then understanding struck him.

"Von Rath!" he whispered. "His weapon! As it flew from his hand, its rays struck you!"

And the silver woman's eyelids lifted slowly.

"Yes, Steve of Emmeity," whispered Loala. "It was meant for you. But I am almost glad it happened thus."

Steve whirled to the chief surgeon.

"Well, do something!" he cried. "You're a medical man, aren't you? Don't just stand there; do something!"

The Daan savant shook his head slowly.

"There is little we can do. Her flesh is charred to a crisp. Had we time—" He frowned—"we could graft new flesh to her burns, perhaps save her life. But the operation would take hours. She cannot live so long. She would die under the knife."

Duane cried, "But you've got to try something!"

And again Loala's eyes opened for a moment. He had to bend to hear her words.

"It does not matter, Steve of Emmeity. It would never have worked anyway, my plan. Though science altered your brain, no instrument could erase the scorings on your heart.

"In a month, a year—who knows?—one day at sight of that Earth woman an ancient memory would have wakened within you, and I would have lost you again. It is better this way. But—" She smiled feebly—"you did, just now, call me ... your princess. Did you not, Steve of Emmeity?"

A warmth misted Duane's eyes, and he whispered hoarsely, "I did, O Mistress of Every Delight."

"And this time," smiled Loala wanly, "you meant it, human Steve. It is enough. But—" A slight shudder stirred through her—"what is that I hear? A voice speaks madness. Someone cries your name!"

And Steve, stunned, looked up. In this moment of true sorrow he had not realized his name was roaring through the audio unit. Now he heard it again, clarion-clear, in the voice of Chuck Lafferty.

"Steve!" Chuck was crying. "Steve, can you hear me? It's all right, pal. We've got 'em!"

Steve rose, the weight of Loala a mere nothingness in his arms, hurried to the wall and pressed the button which opened the audio to a two-way transmission.

"Lafferty!" he cried into the orifice. "This is Duane! Where are you, boy? What do you mean? Have you—?"

And Chuck's voice returned, riotously triumphant. "Wherever you are, Steve, take a look out the nearest window."

Steve turned. Within the past few minutes, unheard in the confusion which had reigned here, a hundred thunderous blasts must have scorched the heavens over Daan. For now, roaring high above the city, circled the mighty armada of the Overlords.

Steve cried, "The fleet! It has taken off! But Chuck, where are you calling from?"

And incredibly—Chuck Lafferty laughed again.

"Don't look now, Steve," he bellowed, "but them ships you're looking at is us! We've captured every last vessel in the Daan spacefleet! Me and the rest of the slaves! We did what you said ... carried containers of methioprane into the ships while we were supposed to be loading them for the flight ... then dumped the stuff loose in the air distribution outlets you charted for us. The Venusians is gone beddy-bye. But our bunch was wearing masks and we've grabbed the Armada without a casualty!"

"And—and the ground defenses?"

"One peep out of them," chortled Chuck, "and we'll blast 'em from here to breakfast! Our guns is manned, and I've notified the Supreme Council that if they don't surrender unconditionally and Johnny-on-the-spot we'll put all Daans to sleep for the next couple of thousand years!"

Loala stirred in Steve's arms. And curiously, in those eyes which should have shown grief at the defeat of her empire, there was something akin to pride. She whispered,

"Then you succeeded after all, my Steve. Somehow ... I am ... almost glad...."

"Loala!" choked Steve. Then an idea struck him. He turned to the silent surgeon. "Time!" he rasped. "You said time is what you need?"

"Yes, earthman. She cannot live much longer—"

"She can," roared Steve, "and she will! Chuck! Send someone here to the Mental Laboratory of the palace with methioprane. And—hurry, man! For God's sake, hurry! The life of a brave woman depends on the speed of your actions!"

Then, to the medical experts, "Get your tables ready, and what instruments you need. My men are bringing you an anesthetic which will give you all the time you need. Under it, the Lady Loala will not die because she cannot. And by the time she comes to—God knows how long hence—her scars will be completely healed.

"Loala, you understand what I am doing? It will be a long sleep. When you waken, I will be gone. But it is the only way—"

He stopped speaking. For the gray-green eyes had closed, and the Lady Loala lay unconscious in his arms. Stephen Duane bent tenderly. For the first, last, and only time in his life he touched his lips to the brow of the silver princess. And:

"Sleep well, my Lady Loala!" whispered Steve. "Sleep well and safely, O Mistress of a Thousand Charms...."

Thus went the Lady Loala, most beautiful and noblest of all Daan Overlords, to an age-long sleep. Nor was she the only Daan to seek the frozen slumber of methioprane. When centuries hence she wakened, it would be in a strangely new and—Stephen Duane hoped—a better world. But amidst its strangeness she would find herself surrounded by at least a handful of warriors, courtiers, and friends from this present era.

For not with complete complaisance did all the Daans accept defeat at the hands of their erstwhile slaves. Some there were, staunch fighting men, who—though they fought in the cause of decadent empire—utterly refused to surrender. Their stubborn resistance found humane ending beneath the breath of the new anesthetic weapon.

And even when all active opposition had been quelled, and a cringing Supreme Council had accepted every one of Stephen Duane's demands, there were a few proud nobles who preferred oblivion to the "ignominy and disgrace" of living under a new interplanetary order under which—as Duane's charter plainly set forth—henceforth Earth was to govern itself and pay no fealty to Daan, earthmen and Daans were to meet in future commerce and council not as Overlords and slaves, but as equals.

To those who could not swallow their pride for the betterment of both races, Duane granted the boon they asked, hoping that by the time they wakened from their slumbers, two brave new worlds would have proven the justice of Earth's liberation.

Other matters of state were arranged before the earthlings finally sought the ship which was to carry them back to their native planet.

All human slaves were freed; their owners pledged to compensate them for years spent in penniless toil. Promise of the Daan Scientific Council was exacted that this society would lend its aid to the renascent Earth empire, assisting the backward planet in rehabilitating its lost knowledge and culture.

Ambassadorships were arranged, and the groundwork for future trade treaties laid. Then, that Earth might have some measure of self defense whilst its citizens engaged in what must surely be decades—perhaps centuries—of reconstruction, the Daan armada was split into two parts.

One half of this magnificent fleet, manned by erstwhile slaves under Daan instructors, was henceforth to be Earth's property. But, fairly, Duane did not simply seize these ships ... though they would have been a small payment for the years of subjugation under which earthlings had labored. A fair valuation was set, and for the space-navy Earth's new government promised to pay in commercial products needed by the Venusians.

So finally were concluded all these negotiations immediately necessary. And because Duane's heart hungered for sight again of his sun-blessed native planet, its sweet, green hills and foam-lashed seas, at last came the day when Earth's new spacefleet was to take off for its home base.

Upon the bridge of the flagship stood those who had captained humanity to freedom. All preparations had been made; now but a word of command was needed to thrust these fifty-odd giants into the void on pillars of flame.

One last look cast Steve Duane at the mighty skyline of Daan's capital. Then he issued the word.

"Home!" he said simply.

And in more than four dozen vessels propelling studs were pressed, and the heavens shook with the thunder of roaring jets.

Chuck Lafferty made a strange, rinsing movement with his hands.

"So that," he sighed, "is that. Us and Caesar, eh, Steve? Now for good old Mother Earth, and a long nap."

Steve grinned at him.

"That's what you think, chum. If a nap's what you want, you'd better take advantage of the ten-day trip through space. Because when we get back to Earth we're going to be the busiest guys alive.

"There's a big job facing us, Chuck. Us and all mankind. We have a wide world to reclaim, centuries of lost time to make up. And," he admitted frankly, "I don't know what you think about it, but I'm looking forward to it eagerly.

"This is the chance of a thousand lifetimes. A chance to start all over, with a clean slate. Build the kind of civilization men have always dreamed of, but never before achieved. A civilization built on friendship, honor, and truth; mutual understanding and sympathy. If we make a go of it, even the Daans will fall in line; recognize our self-seized rights to be considered their equals."

The Mother Maatha said raptly, "Aye, even so, O Dwain. Thus, too, it was written in the Promise. That a new world should spring from the wakening of the Slumberers."

Steve turned to the dust-gold girl beside him, smiling.

"And what say you, my priestess Beth? What shall be your part in these new endeavors?"

The girl lifted eyes wide with question to his.

"But what else should I do," she asked, "than remain with you to council and advise you, O Dwain? Where else should I be than at the side of my mate?"

Chuck snorted amusement. "That's one thing you ain't going to change in the new world, Steve," he chuckled. "The men will still be doing the work, but the women will still be cracking the whip."

The shadow of an old misgiving clung to Stephen Duane. To Beth he said, "And why would you stay with me, my Beth? Because I am one of the gods?"

And this time there was no awe, but something else, something finer and truer and more to Steve's heart's liking, in Beth's eyes as she answered him softly.

"Nay, my Steve, but because you are—a man."

Steve took her into his arms. It was a moment worth waiting for, a dream worth all he had experienced. For her nearness warmed him with a promise of happiness to come, even through the long and arduous days which lay before them.

He kissed her. "We've won, sweetheart, the flag shall fly over Earth again!"

The gentle voice of the Mother Maatha was like a benediction on their love.

"We could not fail," she said. "We could not ever fail. For thus it was promised us ages hence in the sacred song of the Ancient Ones.

"'And thus be it ever,' she quoted, 'when freemen shall stand

'Between their loved hoams and the war's desolation;

'Blessed with victory and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land

'Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation....'"

Stephen Duane picked up the old, familiar words, repeating them softly:

"'Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

'And this be our motto: "In God is Our Trust!"

'And the Star-Spangled Banner....'"

"It will fly again, Steve," said Chuck, "now."

"'... forever shall wave

'O'er the land of the free....'"

"'And Thy hoam,'" finished Beth, her eyes worshipful upon her mate, "'O Thou Brave!'"

For a woman always has the last word. So, too, it was in the old days....

[1] Fort Knox, Kentucky, in addition to being an army post is, in 1942, a bastioned repository wherein is stored seventy-five percent of the entire world's gold.—Ed.

[2] The original "Trojan Horse" was a huge, hollow effigy of a horse, built at the command of Odysseus (Ulysses), and left outside the gates of seven-years-besieged Troy by the apparently retreating Greeks. The exuberant Trojans, unable to wheel this gigantic testimonial to their victory through the gates of their city, broke down a portion of the walls, though warned by the "mad prophetess", Cassandra, that this was a trick. That night a Greek "Fifth Column" crept from within the Trojan Horse and opened all gates of Troy to the returning Greek armies, who laid waste the city.—Ed.

[3] Linber: to kidnap. From "Lindbergh"?—Ed.

[4] Netherland Plaza: One of Cincinnati's finest hotels. It boasts the Queen City's tallest "sky-scraper", a structure known as the "Carew Tower".—Ed.

[5] A corollary to advancement in culture seems to be increase in various sensitivities, both mental and physical. Thus, as humans are more delicately evolved than their arboreal ancestors, they are correspondingly more prone to the ailments which accompany such evolution: deafness, blindness, loss of the sense of smell, etc.

Similarly, the higher classes of Daans might be expected to have become more highly pigmented than their amphibious predecessors. Physical coloration would be a refinement of physique to a race which, under the cloud-blanketed skies of Venus, would in its elemental stages show no reaction to diffuse actinic rays.—Ed.

[6] Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Duane's era one of America's finest colleges of science and engineering.—Ed.

[7] Janus: Roman god with two faces, each looking in a different direction. After this god is named our month of "January", which looks back at the old year, forward to the new one.—Ed.

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