Read Ebook: The War-Nymphs of Venus by Cummings Ray Paul Frank R Frank Rudolph Illustrator

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Ebook has 331 lines and 17989 words, and 7 pages

planted it! The fatuous, decadent, pleasure-loving leader of the Arones was unwilling to believe that the Gorts could be any menace. The efforts of Peters and his fellow scientists, even now were looked upon with disfavor. Peters and his men were distrusted, even accused of having dreams of conquest of their own. Thousands of the Arones thought it, so that there was an undercurrent of strife in Arron, fostered, of course, by Tollgamo's spies.

"And now Tollgamo seems to be about ready for his attack," Allen was telling me. "Peters probably has no weapons of any importance with which to oppose him. And so Peters made an effort to get help from Earth. Tollgamo found it out, and sent this ship to follow the girl so as to keep her from giving the secret of spaceflight to Earth."

The barred metal door of our little cubby suddenly opened. A Gort man stood there. Allen and I stared. Like the other Gorts, he was encased in shining mailed garments. But he was crippled, bent and twisted, with one shoulder higher than the other and a lump on his bent back. On him, the metal garments were grotesque. He came sidling in, grinning at us with his ugly, puffed and bloated grey-skinned face.

"I am Borgg," he said. "You will have food and drink soon. You hungry?"

"I want to see the Peters girl," I retorted. "Take me to her."

He shook his head. "Garga will take care of her. She is safe."

His glowing, dark-eyed gaze roved us. Out in the corridor there was a man's voice--one of the other Gorts passing. And the weird, shambling hunchback suddenly burst into guttural laughter. "So the Earthmen are afraid of me? Afraid of Borgg, who wants only to amuse people?"

He suddenly backed away from us, hurling what seemed a stream of invective at us in the guttural syllables of his own language. Then he backed through our door, slammed it upon us and bolted it.

We stared at each other blankly. "Well I'll be damned," Allen muttered. "What could that mean?"

I can only sketch the weird events of that voyage to Venus. My first spaceflight. You who read this can anticipate taking one soon, of course. And you are naturally familiar with the glowing words of description the newscasters have used. With the mechanical details of Interplanetary traveling, the more scientific-minded among you must be thoroughly familiar. I think all that need have little place in my narrative. Human motives; human conflicts. The things of actuality which happened to me, to Jack Allen, to little Nereid--with those things only am I concerned here.

"You tell him much--he treat you well," Rhool assured us with his heavy leer. He was, I could see, far more impressed with Allen than with me; Allen who now was winning his confidence, pretending that there was much he could tell Tollgamo; hinting even that he and I would not be averse to joining the great Master of the Gorts in his schemes of conquest.

Nereid was unharmed. The woman Garga was caring for her; and on the third day from Earth, Allen persuaded Garga to bring Nereid to the turret. After that, Nereid was often with us, and her fragile, delicate beauty here among the grey, metal-clad Gorts made her seem ethereal indeed. She came to my side, with her face lighting up.

"I was afraid they had killed you," she whispered. "Bad time for us all, my Earth-friend. I--I did very badly on my adventure to Earth."

She told us then that her father had built the little cylinder, intending to send one of his men in it. But Nereid, who had learned its operation, had stolen it.

Then suddenly she was whispering to us, that the Gorts in the turret might not hear. "I have a brother--my twin--his name is Leh. Tollgamo does not know there is such a person." She shot a furtive glance around the turret. "For several years he has been living with the Gorts. Pretending he is one of them. From him, father has gotten much information of Tollgamo's plans. It would be death to Leh if who he is were known. And now I will tell you--Leh is--"

A guttural shout from Rhool at the control table checked her.

"He says, stop whispering," she murmured. "That other thing I will tell you later.... I speak the English," she said to Rhool. "You speak it too? Then we talk it here, so that these Earthmen may understand?"

Rhool laughed. His heavy dark gaze roved her. "You very beautiful," he said. "See--I talk English. Come sit by me. The starshine makes you beautiful, girl of Arron."

I tensed, with my heart pounding as I saw his darkly leering gaze rove over her again.

"Easy!" whispered Allen. "Don't start anything."

Then at last Venus had grown to a full-round, glowing silver disk before our bow. After the next time of sleep it was a monstrous ball, filling half the firmament, mottled with clouds so that its surface configurations were only vaguely apparent. Heavy, thick Venus atmosphere. Within another day of our living routine we dropped into it, sliding diagonally downward, with slackening velocity now and rocket streams of fluorescent gases to check and guide us.

With Rhool and Nereid I was in the starlit turret. It was night here, the Venus night of atmospheric fog. Rhool had been drinking from a little gourd at his belt, and was flushed with his triumph and the liquor.

"A few hours," he said to Nereid. "Then I give you to Tollgamo." His arm went suddenly around her waist, drawing her against him. What he was muttering in his own language I had no idea; but as she cried out, struggling with him, I jumped.

"That's enough from you--let her alone!" I rasped.

He cast her off, leaped to his feet. Rage darkened his heavy face so that it seemed to blacken. My lunging jab struck his mailed chest, but my swing at his face missed him. He jumped backward, with a hand going to a weapon at his belt. I have no doubt that I would have been dead in another few seconds. But there were shouts behind me; the woman Garga and Allen coming from the corridor. Garga's guttural remonstrance checked the angry Rhool. And then Borgg, the weird little hunchback, came shambling forward.

"Stop it!" Allen shouted at me. "Easy there, you idiot!"

Borgg grabbed me. As I fought, his mouth jabbed against my ear. His voice was a sibilant whisper. "Fight me--not too hard! I am Leh--her brother!"

Nereid's brother! Spy among the Gorts, for years masquerading in this grotesque guise of half-demented hunchback jester! I struggled with him now as he cuffed me, while Nereid stared terrified and Rhool laughed with coarse ribald amusement, appeased that I was being beaten.

And then Leh shoved me from the turret, dragged me down the corridor, slammed me into my sleeping cubby. Again his mouth was to my ear.

"Later tonight, I will try and turn you loose. And your friend Allen, and my sister."

In a swift whisper he told me his plans. At the ship's lower exit porte he had hidden a small anti-gravity platform, and three pressure suits. We could escape from there. He shoved the door upon me, barred it and was gone.

I sat tense in the darkness, those last hours. Through the bullseye window the Venus clouds were an opalescent haze of weird glowing luminosity, like phosphorescence in tropic water. It seemed inherent to the cloud-vapours; but more than that I could see that it was radiating up from below. Venus-shine. Pale and weirdly beautiful light inherent to the planet herself.

And then our little ship sank below the clouds, and the surface of Venus lay spread some ten thousand feet below me. It was an amazing world of lush shining forests and gleaming, rippling opalescent water. We were near the country of the Arones; but for just a moment, beyond the shining sea, tiers of black metal mountains were visible which I knew to be the country of the Gorts.

The rasp of my door softly opening made me turn. The grotesque hunched form of Nereid's brother stood there, with a hand in a silencing gesture to his mouth.

"Most of them are in the forward control turret. You go down into the hull to the exit porte. My sister and Allen will join you."

He shoved me. Then he softly closed my door, barred it, and shambled forward toward the turret, grinning, mumbling an inane little tune. I ducked into a doorway; went down an incline ladder. The hull corridor was dark, with just a small hooded light of green glow. Tense, alert, I came to the pressure porte doorway. And suddenly a figure stirred in the shadows.

"Kent!" It was Nereid, crouching here, waiting for me. I gripped her.

"Where's Jack?"

"My brother said he would send him down. But he has not come."

Then we heard faint footsteps on the incline. And suddenly from up there in the dimness, came Allen's voice:

"Why--why hello, Garga. I didn't see you."

And the Gort woman's voice: "Where you go, Jack Allen?"

"Why--why Rhool said he didn't mind my moving around the ship. Come into the turret, Garga. I want you to show me your world. Don't you think I am going to like it?"

"Maybe. And if Tollgamo like you, Jack Allen--"

Their voices receded. Allen would make no attempt now to join us, that was obvious. With Garga eager always to be with him, his attempt would be futile.

I whispered it to Nereid.

"We are close to my country now," she murmured. "Too late for us to escape successfully, if we wait much longer."

We did not need the pressure suits which Leh had hidden here, thinking he might find an opportunity for us to disembark while still above the atmosphere. The anti-gravity platform was an oblong, raft-like metallic thing, with its mechanisms under a hood in its bow. Nereid understood its workings. She lay flat upon it as I slid it through the porte and jumped beside her.

We went like a sliding rocket, with a rush of wind that stopped our breath. But the hooded bow partially shielded us, so that presently we could breathe. Behind us, and over us now, the gleaming shape of the spaceship was seemingly sliding upward and backward. Beneath us the shining sea with a glowing shoreline off at the horizon seemed rocking with a crazy sway. And then at last we steadied.

"Did it!" I gloated. "We made it, Nereid. Evidently they didn't see us rocketing off."

There was no sign of any alarm from the ship and presently it had dwindled high above us and was gone.

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