Chapter II

I came to with the sound of distant throbbing in my ears. It seemed that I was lying on a metal grid-floor; and as I stirred, a familiar voice sounded.

"Thank the Lord, you're coming out of it at last."

It was Jim, here on the floor with me, bending anxiously over me in a luminous darkness. His pug-nosed face grinned down at me.

"I sure thought you might never come back, Art. You been a day, sleeping off that damned drug."

Dizzily I tried to sit up as he held me. "What--what happened? Where the devil are we?" Then I remembered the fight. "Venta--" I murmured.

"She's all right. I've seen her, and talked with her."

I could see that Jim and I were alone in a small, triangular metal apartment. A closed door was to one side. And to the other, there was a round bull's-eye window. It was black out there, with bright white points of stars. The thrumming was a faint distant electronic throb, off in this strange interior.

I could feel my strength rapidly coming back. I sat up, shoving Jim away. "I'm all right now. Where are we?"

He grinned wryly. "Hold your breath for a shock. We're out in Space, plenty far. I guess, by now, we're on our way to Venus!"

Out in Space! How often, like everyone else in our modern world of science, I had envisaged it, and wondered why it had never been made possible.

"On the way to Venus?"

"So they tell me, an' Lord knows I wouldn't doubt it. If you don't believe me, come take a look."

With his arm around me, I staggered dizzily to the bull's-eye porte. It was an amazing scene! The Heavens everywhere were a black vault, strewn with myriad white gems of the blazing worlds. Filling one whole side, the familiar Earth hung motionless. It was mottled with clouds, beneath which the configurations of the oceans and continents were plainly visible.

I stared, awed, wordless; and then, still weak and dizzy with the cold sweat of the drug chilling me, I was glad enough to sit down on the couch, with Jim beside me.

"Who's got us?" I asked presently.

"A fellow named Curtmann and his band. A dozen or more of them here on board. I've talked with one of them--they're all Earthmen--this ship was built on Earth. Would you believe it? A damned scientist from mid-Europe built it secretly. He never told the world about it, but gathered a bunch of crooks and beat it off."

"Not so fast," I murmured. "Don't get incoherent."

* * * * *

I tried to sort it out as he breathlessly told me what he had learned. Some eight or ten years ago, among the captive people of mid-Europe under police domination of the Anglo-American Federation, a fellow named Karl Curtmann had built this hundred foot cylindrical space-flyer. The same old urge for world conquest. But this fellow Curtmann had known that on Earth he had no chance. This was not 1915, nor 1939. And so he had gathered others like himself; all English-speaking, since their racial language had been banned by the Federation before they were born, and with his ship and his men, they had adventured into Space.

"Seems they landed on Venus," Jim was saying. "It was a fertile field for a world-conqueror, by what I hear! Peaceful, simple people, with these Earth cutthroats jumping on them. They used a bunch of our Shadow Squad weapons, which was enough and plenty."

Once established there as a conqueror, Curtmann had gone back to Earth on several trips, for supplies and more weapons and men.

"I guess there are several hundred of 'em on Venus now," Jim went on. "Built themselves a little city, and made slaves out of the Venus-people. You can imagine what this style Earthman would do when he's a conqueror with nothing to challenge him! And the Venus-people are on the down-grade. Dying out, except for the Midges."

"Midges?"

"They're the little people of Venus. They serve. They believe that all Earth men are gods, or something." Jim shrugged. "Don't ask me. We'll find out soon enough."

The Midge! I remembered that little bronze man-figure which had peered at us.

"And Venta?" I prompted.

"Her father--No, I guess it's her grandfather--he's a leader on Venus. Religious leader, or something. He and some others have escaped to a Forest City. Curtmann had Venta. Venta says he's just trying to make her love him--make her see how wonderful he is. Curtmann, the Man of Destiny--I can't wait to meet him!"

He had taken Venta on one of his forays to Earth, and she had escaped from him. "An' they got us along with her," Jim finished wryly. "Damned lucky we didn't get killed. We will yet, most probably."

A little rasp here in the darkness made us turn. A doorslide had opened; a man's heavy-featured face scowled in at us.

"At last you have recovered," he said to me. His voice was the heavy, guttural timber of a mid-European. He was a villainous-looking fellow, his slack-jowled face bluish with a week's growth of beard.

"Yes," I said. "Fortunately for me. Are you Curtmann?"

"He's Frantz," Jim put in. "He's been feeding me."

"Tell your master I want to see him," I said. "And take me to the girl, Venta."

The fellow leered. "You talk like you own the ship," he commented.

The doorslide closed. His footsteps retreated, but presently they came back. He opened the door. "The Great-Master says, bring you," he said with an ironic grin. "Come on. You can both come."

* * * * *

Silently we followed him down a narrow metal corridor.

"This way--" I saw our captor now as a bulky six-foot fellow clad incongruously in a crudely plaited robe of dried vegetable fibre, draped upon him like a Roman toga. He stood aside at an oval doorway; and Jim and I went into a small triangular room. Starlight filtered into it from a side bull's-eye.

Clad still in her brief garment, Venta sat on a square pad on the floor. As we entered she flung me a look, and then stared straight ahead.

"So? This is the fellow who thought he would steal my little Venta? Come in, Frane. Stand over there; I want to look you over."

Karl Curtmann. He was seated in a small, straight-backed armchair. He was a smallish, slim fellow, not over forty perhaps. A vivid blue toga encased him; sandals were on his feet. At our entrance he raised one of his bare ornamented arms with a gesture.

The costume was queerly incongruous to a modern Earthman; but upon Curtmann there was an immense dignity, a sense of the consciousness of his own greatness. More than mere conceit, it seemed to radiate from him. On his heavy, square-jawed face there was a look of amused contempt as he regarded me.

"My little Venta has asked me not to kill you," he added. His voice was soft and suave. English was his native language, taught him exclusively by Government decree. But the inherited timbre was guttural. "That is fortunate, is it not?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Very. I thank her."

His eyes twinkled; his immaculate hands with jeweled fingers, brushed his crisp blond hair. "You can also thank me. I am permitting you to join our life. You know now, of course, that I am Master of Venus? It is their good fortune. Always I shall protect them from any harm, and teach them the life that is good for them."

He was utterly sincere. His eyes were gleaming with his fervour. Man of Destiny. He believed it with the faith of a child. And now his gaze went to Venta.

"Her people--" He was still talking to me, though he stared at her. "Some of them still are misguided. Old Prytan, her grandfather, is a very wicked old man, Frane. He has fled to the Forest City. He defies my rule. I shall have to punish that Forest City."

Suddenly his face contorted; his arm shook as he pounded his fist on his chair. "I shall not tolerate it. They are all to die. Nor in the city of Shan itself will I have rebellion. I am a man of peace--there shall be no strife. And each year, from Earth, more of my men will come to mate with the Venus women. The new race. The new Empire of Curtmann. Is it not a wonderful future, Venta? I shall make you Empress."

"Yes," she murmured.

"Race of the Gods," he said. "And I--Karl Curtmann--"

He checked himself. There was a little sound of beating wings here in the dim starlit room. I turned as through the door a tiny shape came like a fluttering bird through the air. A footlong bronze man-shape. One of the Midge! Again my mind leaped back to that little figure in the Adirondac forest. It had had wings, though then I had not noticed them.

This one came and poised on the arm of Curtmann's chair. "What is it, Rahn?" he said.

The Midge's voice was tiny, but clear. "The flight-master has asked that you come now to check his calculations of our course." The English words, taught to this Midge, were quaintly intoned. The voice was gentle, humble.

Curtmann stood up. "All right. I shall go." He waved an arm at the burly Frantz who was standing silently to one side. "Our captives can remain here, Frantz."

He turned, smiled gently at Venta, and strode from the room.

* * * * *

As the days passed we were allowed a fair freedom of movement. A freedom to plan--what? I must confess that Jim and I had no conception of what we might do in circumstances like these.

Once Venta had whispered to me, "We shall escape from here--it can be done."

Escape from this Curtmann, join Venta's grandfather--old Prytan--out there in the Venus Forest City.... Certainly it was all that Jim and I could hope for. And then came that night when the misty lead-grey ball of Venus had grown to a monstrous disc beneath us, with the cone of its shadow blotting out the Sun as we dropped down into the heavy Venus atmosphere. There came a moment when Venta, Jim and I were alone, and from the dim corridor with a little beat of wings, Rhan, the Midge, came to join us. He was carrying an oxohydro heat-torch. Amazing little man-shape. The alumite torch was as big as himself, and heavier. His diaphanous, dragonfly wings struggled with it. Like a giant flying ant, with an ant's monstrous strength in proportion to its size. Panting, he fluttered heavily and laid it at my feet.

"You, the Great God," he said. "I serve you. Here it is."

He stood now by the torch he had brought. The muscles on his broad chest heaved under the sleek bronzed skin with his panting breath.

"For you," he added. "No one saw me. I got it for you. I did well, Seyla Venta?"

"Oh yes. Thank you, Rhan." Venta was trembling now with excitement. "When we get lower into the atmosphere, we'll go to one of the pressure-portes at the bottom of the hull. There are space suits there, if we can get to them."

"Let's close this door," Jim said quickly. "Not so loud, Venta."

We planned it, as the ship settled down through the heavy, sullen-looking Venus clouds and then burst out into the lower atmosphere with the dark surface of Venus far down beneath us. Rhan watched and reported that Curtmann and most of his men were forward by the control turret. Then Jim, Venta and I were able to get down through one of the dim corridors, down a little catwalk ladder into the lower hull. The metal pressure porte door was locked.

I stood at the bottom of the ladder. Above me the voices of Curtmann's ruffians were audible. Every moment I expected that we would be missed.

"Hurry it," I murmured.

The porte doorlock melted as Jim held the torch upon it. We slid into the porte, closed the door after us. Venta, on the voyage to Earth, had been trained by Curtmann in the use of these pressure-suits, and in a moment we stood in them, helmeted, with the air bloating the suits so that we were shapeless monsters.

I opened the outer doorslide. A little at first, and then wider. In the rarified atmosphere of Venus at this fifty mile height, the air of the little porte went out with a rush. It blew us out with it. I had a sickening sensation of falling into nothingness. Then it seemed that my head steadied. I fumbled with a hand upon the anti-gravity mechanisms by which the fall could be guided.

Above me the dark finned shape of Curtmann's space ship was drawing swiftly upward and away. Head down, with the bloated shapes of Jim and Venta beside me, we plummeted like falling meteorites through the sub-stratosphere darkness.