Chapter III

"A rainbow storm is coming," old Prytan said. "We shall have to wait until it is passed before trying to get to the broken city."

We were in the depths of an orange-blue forest of giant, spindly vegetation that rose in fantastic shapes from the soft, porous ground five hundred feet or more into the air. Pods and vines hung upon the lacery of trees. There were huge vivid flowers, redolent with a perfume exotic, cloying in the heavy humid air.

Everything, particularly at first, to me was heavy, oppressive. Venus is denser than the Earth, and the gravity is a full third heavier. It made walking, to us Earthmen, a panting labor. I felt that I weighed, not my normal hundred and eighty pounds, but almost two hundred and fifty. For us to run seemed impossible.

I had seen but little of this Forest City. It was a group of perhaps a thousand dwellings, all seemingly built of slabs of the porous forest trees, with walls and roofs of thatch. The houses nestled between the great fantastic trees. Some were like birds' nests in the branches, with vine-ladders from the ground leading up to them. The colors of the thatch were vivid blue, red and yellow.

It was a fairyland of woodland fantasy, peopled by the humans of this scattered, futile Venus-race. I had seen gaping groups of them as Venta and I pushed through them, heading for old Prytan's dwelling. Men, women and children crowded the flower-lined, crooked little city streets. They were all gaudily-dressed in toga-like fabrics made from the vivid-colored, dried vegetable fibres. A few of them had fled here from Shan where they had picked up a little English from the Earth-conquerors. But most of them babbled at me in their own weird tongue. They were a gentle people. The lack of struggle, lack of accomplishment for generations now, had stamped them with a futility. Here in the benign climate of Venus they had grown content with simple wants. Love-making, music--that was enough for them. The Midge attended their every want.

Decadence perhaps, but who shall say but what it is to be preferred to the bloody upward struggles of our own Earth's history? All that too, had been upon Venus. Far ahead of Earth in the life-cycle of its humans, there had been great scientific civilizations here. The science of war had risen into all its ghastly power and then had destroyed itself, with mankind at last coming to realize its tragic futility. There were ruins of great cities here, with the silt of centuries upon them and the forests growing lush amid their wreckage.

"You two Earthmen are not quite like Curtmann and his fellows," old Prytan said to me. His eyes twinkled beneath his shaggy white brows. His seamed old face wrinkled with a smile.

"No," I said. "We hope not."

"But your Earth still struggles, with each man wanting more than his neighbor."

We were in a room of a huge, crudely-built dwelling of thatch. A thousand Midges had woven it in a day. Venta was here; and draped on the floor at her feet was the graceful, gaudily-clad figure of a young Venusman. His name was Jahnt. He was her cousin, I understood. A handsome fellow with longish, bushy dark hair; an oval face with pointed chin, hawk nose and eyes with an almost Oriental slant. He spoke English as fluently as Venta. I don't know why I took an instant dislike to him, save that he always seemed to want to be beside Venta.

A rainbow storm was coming. I could see the premonitory signs of it. The room here was lighted with little braziers--seemingly the caged bodies of tiny insects which were luminous as fireflies. Through the oval window-openings the night outside was turgidly dark. But wind now was pattering the trees, and there were distant flares of weird opalescent lightning.

A tenseness was here in this room of old Prytan's home--and it was everywhere about the little city. Like an aura of terror it seemed to envelope us. All this day that had passed, Midges by hundreds had been flying in from Shan. And now, this evening, the big people themselves had begun coming. Fugitives. Terrified people who had escaped from Shan; rebellious, wanting to do something to rid Venus of these cruel conquerors, coming to Prytan as their leader; helplessly throwing themselves upon him, asking him what they should do. Groups of people milled in the streets, eyed the coming storm. Rebellion against the Earth-conquerors. But it was more than that. Among us all, here in this eerie opalescent room there was the feeling of impending disaster. Curtmann had returned to Shan. In a rage at the loss of Venta, he had learned that the rebellion against him was growing. Would he wait for old Prytan to organize some attack? Certainly I doubted it. And my mind swept back so that again I seemed to hear his grim words: "I shall have to punish that Forest City!"

Was Curtmann planning to strike at us now?

"... but until the storm is over we can do nothing," old Prytan was saying.

Even then, what could we do? In somber voices that seemed to echo dully through the rustic room and mingled with the weird storm-noises outside, we discussed it. One of the great broken cities of by-gone days was only some ten miles away. In it there was hidden away a cache of ancient weapons of science.

"I have kept them workable," Prytan said grimly. "And my father before me also attended them. And before him, his father. But never did we really think the horrible time would come when they should be used."

* * * * *

But whatever we could do, certainly must be done soon. The news from Shan every moment was more serious. Upon Curtmann's return, open disorder had broken out in the capital city. As punishment, a thousand or more of the young Venusmen of the city had been summarily killed by the diabolic flash-guns of the Earthmen. "Only our men he kills," young Jahnt put in ironically. "Why not? Our women are very beautiful. Like you, is it not so, Venta?"

I tensed at the glance with which he swept her. "I shall bring in the supper," Venta said. His gaze followed her as she rose and left us.

"I tell you all this about our hidden weapons," Prytan was saying to me in his cracked treble voice. "We can trust you, even though you are Earthmen?"

"Yes," I agreed.

"Listen," Jim put in. "These young men you've got here--well, no offense meant--on Earth we'd call them ladylike." His gaze barely touched the gaudy figure of Jahnt and then went back to Prytan. "My business, sir, on Earth is to deal with criminals. I'm pretty good in a fight. You just give me some of your weapons."

"I trust you," Prytan agreed. "Never, until tonight, has anyone but myself known about the weapons. If Curtmann knew it--"

"He won't," I said. "We'll get them tonight. We--"

I checked myself. The beat of wings sounded, and a Midge came through the window, and landed on Prytan's shoulder.

"Well, Meeta," he said, "you come with more bad news?"

A female Midge. It was the first one I had seen except at a distance. She was a fairylike little creature--a ten-inch high miniature of Venta. Her flesh was like pink-white satin, glistening in the insect-light. Her wings thrummed to balance her as she poised.

"English?" she said in her tiny voice.

"Yes," Prytan nodded. "These are good Earthmen."

Her pixie-like, tiny face turned toward me. I saw then, in those tiny glowing eyes, the leap of her instinctive adoration for my giant size. Here a new God for her to worship and serve.

"English, yes," she agreed. "Master, there have been still more killings. They kill our men now for no reason; and those of the women who are young and beautiful they have herded together into a harem."

Prytan's old body trembled with anger. "We must stop it. And Meeta, have you told the Midge to meet us in the broken city?"

"Master, yes. They will be there when the storm is passed. We cannot fly in the wind, and even now it is very strong."

I could hear it, crackling through the giant foliage outside. Then there was a monstrous flare of color as though a rainbow had burst around us.

"It gets bad," young Jahnt muttered. He went to one of the windows; then sauntered to a door-oval and disappeared.

Meeta, I understood now, was one of the leaders of the Midge. It was her brother who had aided us to escape from Curtmann's ship. I told her about it now as she perched on my hand, with her soft eyes roaming my face and her tiny lips parted with eager breath as she listened.

"Oh I am glad of that. Rahn so wants to do what is right in serving our Gods. But it is confusing, Gods here on Venus who fight with one another--"

Through the window, upon a blast of storm-wind another little figure came fluttering. Another female Midge, like Meeta. With beating wings she hovered a second and then fell to the floor at our feet.

"Mela!" old Prytan gasped. "What is it?"

The storm had tossed her against a tree. One of her wings was broken; blood was on her body. But she had struggled on to us, bringing her news.

"What is it?" old Prytan demanded.

"Curtmann comes! He and all his men--his army, coming now to attack the Forest City!"

Curtmann coming to attack us! A dozen little male Midges here on the floor of the room heard it and scurried away.

"Curtmann coming?" Prytan gasped. "Why--why we will not be ready for him."

It stunned us. Within a minute, out in the city, the news was spreading with cries of the frightened people. A panic was beginning here. That would have to be controlled.

"They've left Shan already?" I demanded of the little Midge.

"No. Perhaps not. But they are ready--the storm may hold them off."

* * * * *

I was on my feet. Old Prytan was trembling with the palsy of his confused terror. By what Jim and I had seen of the young men of the Forest City, there was not one who could be counted on to do anything constructive in this crisis. If the Venus-people were to have any leadership, it would have to be Jim and me.

"Send word that the women and children are to stay in their homes," I said. "There must be no panic. Have the young men come here. Storm or no storm we shall have to get to the broken city, and get those Venus-weapons."

"How far is it from here to Shan?" Jim put in.

"Twenty Earth-miles perhaps," old Prytan stammered. "If Curtmann and his men should start now--"

"Maybe they won't," I said. "The storm is still going strong."

"Where is Venta?" Prytan stared helplessly about the room. "She said she would bring us food. What use of that? We have no time to eat it now." He suddenly raised his shaking old voice. "Venta. Venta, where are you?"

There was no answer from the nearby interior door-oval through which Venta had gone. Just blank, stark silence. Horror struck at me.

Jim and I were on our feet. Jim gasped, "I'll go see." But before he could move, we heard a woman's moan, followed again by silence!

Jim broke it with an oath. I tossed little Meeta into the air with a flip of my hand as I ran toward the crude kitchen, out there beyond the dim door-oval.

Thank God, it was not Venta. On the packed loam of the floor an old serving woman lay sprawled. Her throat was a ghastly welter of crimson, and near her a Midge lay dead.

The old woman was still alive. She tried faintly to gasp in English as I bent over her.

"He--took her--Venta--"

"Who took her?"

"Jahnt--he--"

The blood choked her. But I had no interest in hearing more. Jahnt!

"Why--he's got the secret of those weapons now!" Jim gasped. "Get the idea, Art?"

The commotion had brought others. They all stood milling, helpless, frightened. Jim and I shoved them away.

"He'd probably head for the broken city," Jim said. "It's much closer to here."

"That he might do," Prytan agreed. "And where is his Midge--you people--you have seen little Ort lately?"

"Jahnt could send that Midge flying to Shanga to tell Curtmann about the weapons," I suggested.

Old Prytan could only stammer assent to the possibility. And if Curtmann and his ruffians got to that cache before we could get there, that indeed would be the end of any possibility of overcoming him.

"Where is Meeta?" I demanded. "Meeta knows the location of the broken city."

She fluttered from behind me at the sound of my voice. "Master I am here. What I can do to serve?"

"We're going after Jahnt," Jim said. "He can't have gotten far."

"But you run so heavily," old Prytan murmured. "My young men here--"

They were all standing looking frightened and confused. Jim swept them with a glance and drew me past them. It occurred to me that we might use the three spacesuits in which we had escaped from Curtmann. With their anti-gravity mechanisms and tiny rocket-streams we could propel ourselves over the forest. But we found now that they were gone.

Precious minutes were passing. We would have to go on foot. At the door we paused, appalled by the wind and a chromatic burst of glaring light. Meeta fluttered in the air beside my head, and as the wind hit her she was tossed back.

"You can't fly out into that, Meeta?"

"No, I am afraid it's not possible now. But you can carry me."

She fluttered to my shoulder, crouching with a tiny hand gripping my coat collar. With Jim beside me we plunged out into the roaring riot of the rainbow storm.