FirebrandFirebrand 
by A Bertram Chandler 
FIRE BRAND! 1 
FIRE BRAND! 
By A. Bertram Chandler 
2 FIRE BRAND! by A. Bertram Chandler 
Pulse-Pounding Feature-Length Novelet of Vengeance on Venus! 
Could this then be the notorious Firbrand, and the thing at her slim waist 
the notorious, blood Weapon? This small dark woman with hair cropped almost like 
a man's--could she have pirated the Terran spaceliner? But Fleming knew he'd 
have his answers perhaps sooner than he wished. . . . 
CHAPTER I 
HE CAME slowly out the door of the trading post. He was mopping his brow 
with a large, gaudily patterned hankerchief. It was hot inside the garish, 
shoddy building, in spite of all the efforts of the air conditioning plant. It 
was hotter outside. And the trader cursed softly, without enthusiasm, as a 
matter of routine. He cursed the heat, the humidity, the perspiration that 
dripped from the tip of his high-bridged nose, that ran in clammy rivulets down 
his smooth, hairless body, that saturated the loin-cloth that was his only 
clothing. 
It was almost sunset. 
The blur of light--hazy, diffuse--that was all that was ever seen of the 
sun from Venus, hung low above the western horizon, turning the sullen yellow of 
the sky to hot gold. Eastward, darkly ominous shadows were already creeping up 
the eternal overcast. And there was a faint flicker of lightning, a low growl of 
thunder, sensed rather than heard. 
Inland from the post stretched the marshy plains, the lush, low jungle. 
Distant, more than half shrouded by mists, were the unpretentious undulations of 
the smooth hills. And to the north was the sea--like the sky above it, a dirty 
yellow. Little tired wavelets collapsed in utter exhausttion upon the grey 
beach, well below the line of oozing, gelatinous scum that was high water mark. 
And there was a brief flurry of foam as something big and black broke surface, 
threshed the water with tail and fins, then vanished. 
The trader stood at the root of the jetty, stared out to the north-west. 
Now and again he raised his hand absently, brushed away the little winged 
insects that hovered in a dancing cloud around his close-cropped blond head. But 
all his attention was given to the distant skyline. Vague it was, 
3 and misty. And nothing solid broke the indeterminate union between sea 
and sky. It seemed that nothing ever had broken it--that nothing ever would. But 
the trading post, the jetty, were evidence that ships had sailed these seas. Had 
sailed. . . . . 
Already Aphrodite, the little freighter operated by the Venus Trading 
Corporation, was a week overdue. Long since, the trader would have called Port 
Lanning to make enquiries, but for the fact that among the cargo that Aphrodite 
should have been bringing were spares to replace certain burned out components 
of his radio. 
He was worried. This had never happened before. Aphrodite, until now, had 
always arrived with clockwork regularity. And the long talk, the drinking 
session, with her skipper had been one of the few, welcome breaks in his 
monotonous routine, one of the things that helped to keep him sane. And the 
natives were talking, he knew. He had seen them looking out to sea, had heard 
them muttering among themselves in their croaking, incomprehensible language. 
And the drums had been beating in the low hills, had been rapping their 
intelligence from peak to insignificant peak, from island to island. 
He was a man alone--one lone alien among hostile myriads. His weapons 
commanded respect but he knew that, if it came to a showdown, he could not hope 

to stand off assault, siege, indefinitely. He allowed himself a momentary 
disloyalty to the Corporation, a dull resentment against their policy of 
economy, retrenchment, that had reduced the staffs of the trading posts from two 
or three to one. With two men to stand watch and watch the post would be 
practically impregnable. With two men to man the launch the dangers of the 
hazardous voyage to Port Lanning would be more than halved. 
He was a man alone--and he almost felt that he was the last of his kind 
upon this steaming world. There were times when he would have thought so save 
for the fact that, once or twice in the last three days, he had heard the 
drumming of rockets, the distant, whistling scream of jet-propelled aircraft, 
above the clouds. 
The sun went down, and the gold faded to yellow, to green, and the indigo 
shadows crept across the sky, and the lightning was dazzlingly violet, running 
down in rivers of vivid flame from the zenith. And where the little waves lapped 
listlessly at the sand was a dim, pallid fire, and where the line of scum lay 
along the high water mark was a brighter light, shining with the luminescence of 
decay, of rottenness. And in the hills and in the jungle drum answered drum, the 
staccato, coded melody drowned ever and again by the crashing thunder, fading 
and swelliing as the rising, gusty wind veered and shifted. 
The first rain began to fall. 
For long moments the trader stood in the downpour grateful for the 
refreshing, clearing coolness. And then his body shook with a slight chill, and 
he remembered that his alarms were yet to be set and tested, and that he would 
be a good target against the glow from the door of the post, and that his pale 
body would stand out against the darkness in vivid relief with each lightning 
flash. 
4 Walking slowly, striving to ignore the uncomfortable feeling in his 
shoulder blades as he walked to the open door, turned his back to the hostile 
marsh and jungle, he went inside. And the door shut, and there was no longer any 
light save that of the lightning and the phosphorescence of the sea; and the 
post, shrouded in rain and darkness, its garish colours forgotten, loomed like a 
fort. 
It was a fort. 
There was a brief rattle of fire from the cupola on the roof as the trader 
tested his guns against the coming night. 
And the drums, distant but insistent, answered. 
THE TRADER pushed aside his plate, fumbled in the pouch at his belt for his 
cigarettes. One more carton, he thought. I shall have to go easy .. And his 
mind, as he brooded over this last deprivation, was that of a filially devoted 
but unjustly punished child. I have always been a loyal servant of the 
Corporation, he thought. The trite phrase pleased him, and he repeated it aloud. 
And his memory, as he smoked the rationed cigarette, ran over the countless 
instances in which he had proved his loyalty--petty economies, shrewd bargains, 
frank and unashamed swindling. 
He sighed, rose from the table. He carried the dirty plates, the debris of 
his meal, into the little scullery. The debris of the last meal was still there, 
and that of the meal before--but until it became offensive he would take no 
steps to dispose of it. He returned to his living room, got out his Log and his 
account books. And there he sat until the scratching of his pen was drowned by 
the shrilling of the alarm. 
His first action when he reached the cupola was to open the switch that put 
the guns on automatic fire. 
Had he not done so they would have blasted, in a very few seconds, the 
figure that was staggering through the rain, over the short, sodden, grass-like 
vegetation towards the post. The stranger, wavering like a white moth in the 
beam of his searchlight, was indisputably human. Here was no scaly monstrosity, 
no Disney frog trying to look like a man, no batrachien undecided whether to 

walk erect or hop. 
The trader cursed. It was obvious, in spite of the teeming rain, the 
downpouring torrent that turned the beam of his searchlight into liquid silver, 
that his visitor was a woman. Again he swore--but his oaths lacked any real 
weight. It was a full month since his last leave in Vennsburg, since his 
immersion in the mercenary delights, the commercialized ecstacies, of that city. 
And he was hungry for the sound of a female voice, the sight of a female face 
and figure, the feel of soft woman-flesh against own. 
But suddenly he became aware that the beating of the drums was no longer 
distant, was no longer confined to the distant hills. The thunder and the 
lightning had ceased, and there was no sound but the incessant beat of the 
rain--the beat of the rain and the beating of the drums. From all around it 
came, from the south and the east and the west. And the fringe of the jungle 
from 
5 which the girl had run seemed to waver, to put out pseudo-pods, to creep 
out over the pallid marshland. 
There was a flicker of fire, then, along the jungle verge. And there were 
great gouts of spray tossed up at the girl's feet. And she weaved as she 
ran--and the trader realized that her unsteady gait was not altogether the 
result of fatigue, that she was putting the unseen marksmen behind her off their 
aim. 
A flick of the hand--and the searchlight was on manual control. Another 
deft motion and the door of the post was opened. And then the beam swept up, and 
along the tide of dark, glistening bodies, showed with pitiless clarity the 
horde of Venusian Swamplanders, pointed them out to the questing tracer of the 
heavy machine gun. The attack surged forward over its own debris. And the 
flashes of fire along its front became more frequent, and the strange thudding 
made by the rifle bullets as they struck the thick, tough plasti-glass of the 
cupola. 
But it couldn't go on for long. Savages the Venusians may have been--but 
they were intelligent savages. Nonhuman they were--but, like humankind, each 
individual placed a definite value upon his own life. 
And so the tide withdrew, and the marsh was presently splotched by the 
great, pallid bodies of the scavenger worms that oozed up from out the sodden 
soil, and the song of the drums grew distant and still more distant, and drum 
answered drum from peak to insignificant peak, and rattling, incomprehensible 
messages ran all the long, straggling length of the Van Dusen Archipelago. 
And the trader put his weapons, his searchlight, once again on automatic 
control, tested his circuits, and went down from the cupola to meet his 
unexpected guest. 
CHAPTER II of Firebrand! 
SHE WAS SMALL, this woman and darkly brunette, her hair closely cropped, 
almost like a man's. And the face was neither beautiful nor even conventionally 
pretty, but it had a charm, a vivacity under the fatigue, that made 
uninteresting by comparison the simpering Venusburg beauties flaunting their 
half-nude charms in full color all along the walls of the trader's living room. 
Her upper garment was in rags, and the smooth skin, from shoulder to waist, 
from thigh to broken sandals, was a network of scratches, evidence of the thorns 
and brambles through which she had forced her way. And the blood oozed still 
from the shallow wounds, spread in a wet film over the wet, smooth skin. 
Above the bedraggled loincloth was a belt, and from it depended a holster, 
and from the holster protruded the butt of a heavy pistol. Sight of the weapon, 
of its gained wood grip worn smooth and polished by long handling, did much to 
inhibit the emotions that were stirring in the woman

 6 starved man. And as he shifted his gaze to her cool grey eyes, his own 
faltering uneasily under the steadiness of her regard, she spoke. 
"Thank you," she said simply. 
It was gratitude--but it was gratitude such as might be displayed by 
royalty in the acknowledgement of some service performed by a courtier. There 
was some power, in her or behind her, that demanded assistance as though by 
divine right. 
The trader's glance fell to her feet, to the pools of water that were 
slowly growing on the thick pile of the carpet. 
"In there," he said with a gesture towards the door, "you'll find some dry 
clothes. . . And ointment for your scratches. There is some danger of 
infection." 
"I know." 
The voice, a contralto that could have been sultry, was cool, almost 
disinterested. The man was at a loss. This woman was altogether outside his 
experience. But he went to his bedroom, picked up a pile of garments almost at 
random, gave them to her with a hint of shyness, of apology. And he went to a 
cupboard, brought out his last precious bottle of whisky, set it, with two 
glasses, on the table. And he emptied the contents of two whole packets of 
cigarettes into an ornamental box that was but rarely used. And he ran his hand 
over his chin, and wished that he had shaved. And then he went back into his 
bedroom and changed his plain none-too-clean loincloth for one that was 
patterned with gay flowered designs, that to his mind had always suggested palm 
trees, guitars, a full tropical moon. And when the girl came out he was 
disappointed to see that she was still wearing her gun. 
SHE HAD achieved a sarong effect with the clothes that he had given her. It 
suited her. All that she lacked was an hibiscus flower behind the ear. Ugly, 
incongruous, was the broad leather belt, the holster, the heavy pistol. And so 
was the case or pouch that hung on her right hip, that was bulging with what had 
the appearance of papers. 
The trader, mute enquiry in his eyes, poured whisky into her glass. When it 
was almost full she signalled[sic] to him to stop. Before he could fill his own 
she had raised hers, had swallowed its contents with almost a single gulp. 
She said: "I needed that." 
"You really must have." The man was shallowly sympathetic. Then--"My name 
is Fleming, Peter to my friends. And this place is Howard's Landing." 
"Howard's Landing? Tell me, Fleming, how can I get to Port Lanning?" 
"By sea. There is a launch. But Aphrodite should be in at any moment now. 
She is a week overdue already." 
7 "She'll never come. But how soon can we leave? It is imperative that I 
get to the port as soon as possible." 
"Not, so fast," ejaculated Fleming. There was too much secrecy--even though 
it was unintentional--too much high-handed demanding. "Before we go any 
further--who are you? What are you? What are you doing here? And--" he had just 
realised the calm certainty with which she had made her statement "--what do you 
know about Aphrodite?" 
"Don't you know?" It was the girl's turn to be surprised. 
"No. Both my transmitter and receiver burned out two days before the ship 
was here last. She should have been bringing spares . . . " 
There was a little silence, broken only by the steady drumming of the rain 
on roof and walls, by the distant drums calling from hill to hill, from island 
to island, all along the straggling length of the Van Dusen Archipelago. And 
there was a sound that could have been rifle fire, but it was too far away to 
bring any hint of immediate menace. 
The girl looked at the trader, at the useless radio set along the further 
wall. She got to her feet, sagging a little, for she was very tired. And she 
went to the receiver, tinkered a while with dials and switches, satisfied 
herself that the apparatus was in truth inoperative. Then-- 

 "You must have heard of me. I am Elspeth Van Dusen. And Aphrodite will not 
be coming because she has been seized by us, has been converted into a gunboat." 
Fleming said, harshly: "You are talking in riddles. But I have heard of 
you. The Van Dusen woman. The firebrand. And there is a reward for you." 
"Yes." The girl's hand fell to the polished butt of her pistol. Her face 
told of some mental struggle, of a decision struggling to be made, of 
alternatives weighed and balanced. The exact nature of the struggle the man was 
never to know--whether or not to hand out to him the same line of propaganda 
that had been handed out to the other traders, that had won most of them to the 
rebel cause; whether or not to count on the dangerous, two-edged weapon of her 
sex. 
And the tension in the room was intensified as some shift of wind, some 
freak of conductivity, brought again the rhythmic throbbing, the coded melody, 
drum calling drum from peak to unpretentious peak, drum answering drum all along 
the straggling length of the archipelago. 
PERHAPS it was the drums that decided her. It was the low throbbing, 
beating in time with her pulse, the rhythm of her blood, that told her that, 
here and now the use of her womanly weapons would be dangerous to herself. And 
she was tired, and she doubted her ability to keep the situation under control 
should she allow it to develop. 
"This is how things stand," she said, her voice crisp, official. We, the 
colonists, have risen against the Corporation. Most of the cities are with us, 
the bulk of the traders. And some of the Corporation police have deserted to us, 
bringing their arms. We hold the Macrae Coast from Port 
8 Lanning to just south of Venusburg. There is fighting in De Kuyper's 
Land. There has been a naval action in the Rynin Straits, with heavy losses on 
both sides. And neither of us has air superiority--neither of us has any air 
force to boast about. Most of the rockets and jet planes were destroyed on the 
ground, by sabotage..." 
And Earth. . . ?" 
"Earth is neutral. Earth will intervene only if either side uses atomic 
weapons. The Commissioner announced that his duty was merely to protect the 
interests of Terran nationals. And--under corporation law--there are no Earth 
nationals on Venus. Only the commissioner, his staff, and the crews of the two 
space liners still at Port Lemaire." 
"And you say that most of the traders are with you?" 
The girl looked at his face; puzzled it was, incredulous, but not 
unintelligent. Dispassionately she analysed him. He has a brain, she told 
herself with a flash of insight, but no mind... With distaste, but almost with 
sympathy, she applied the rules of the science, the art, she had learned when 
she was a student of psychology, the skill that had been of such value to her as 
a propagandist. And she saw on what fertile ground the seeds of Corporation 
indoctrination had fallen. The Corporation was more than bread and butter--it 
was mother and father, it was Earth. And it was the friend of the little man who 
would be king, of the type not sufficiently able, or just a little too unlucky, 
to rise to high rank on any of the democratic worlds. That was it. Under its 
rule the Corporation gave kingship. True--it was only the rule of a few square 
miles of swamp, of jungle, over a few hundred or a few thousand non-human 
savages. But it was power, the authority to be a just or an unjust judge, the 
sole arbiter in disputes, to kill or spare without question. For, so long as the 
Corporation's posts showed a profit, no questions were asked. And the traders, 
neither merchant nor civil servant nor bureaucrat, but a little of all three, 
held undisputed sway over most of the area of Venus outside the cities. 
And they hated the people of the cities--the intellectuals, the masterless 
men. They hated them for their enmity to the Corporation. They hated them for 
their intention to raise the far from brainless Swamplanders to human cultural 
levels. For they had long been monarchs by Divine Right--and the Corporation was 

their god. 
"Most of the traders are with us," said the girl again. 
"With you?" 
"Of course." 
"And the others?" 
"Dead." 
"You filthy murderers!" shouted Fleming. He took a step towards her, hand 
upraised, face contorted with passion, the loose, weak mouth set in a hard line 
of hate. And he stopped when he 
9 realized that he was looking straight into the muzzle of the girl's 
pistol. She had drawn with the swiftness and smoothness of a striking snake--and 
he did not need to be told that she would pull the trigger should she think it 
expedient. He had seen weapons in women's hands before, but had sneered, had 
laughed, had refused to take either the weapons or their owners seriously. 
But this was different. 
CHAPTER III of Firebrand! 
WILL YOU sit down, said Elspeth Van Dusen. It was more of an order than a 
request. Her voice was emotionless. She gestured towards a chair with her gun. 
Fleming sat down. He was not sorry. His knees were trembling, and he knew 
that the blood that had suffused his face had fled, that the shock of coming 
hard up against a purposiveness that would stop at nothing, must have produced a 
deathly pallor. And his pride was hurt and his comforting doctrine of male 
superiority had received a severe blow, and he needed time to at least--think of 
some face-saving gesture. 
The woman sat opposite him, the lithe grace of all her movements struggling 
through the hampering garment of her weariness. And she lowered her pistol, but 
it and the hand that held it lay on her right knee, could move, if required, 
with deadly speed and accuracy. 
She said: "Some of the traders have been murdered. Did you know Williamson 
at Taylor's Bay?" 
Fleming nodded. 
"He was Venus born. Yet he was loyal to the Corporation. He had his wife 
living at the post with him . . . " 
...tall, golden of hair and golden of hair, Eleanora Williamson glided 
through Fleming's memory... There was the time that he had stopped overnight at 
Taylor's Bay on his way to Venusburg... And Williamson had been away, visiting 
the little chief of a nearby village... He'd returned early that evening, 
unfortunately but in the eyes of Eleanora had been the tacit understanding that 
some other time... 
"...and she has been murdered, too. They flayed them alive, and used the 
skin for their drums..." 
. . . and the memory of Eleanora was replaced by the vision of a screaming, 
red horror... 
" . . . and it has been the Corporation that has murdered them--and many 
others." 
Fleming fought down his rising nausea. 
He said: "The Corporation? But . . . " 
10 "Yes. The Corporation. You saw the mob that was after me. Where do you 
suppose they got their rifles? And they have machine guns, too, and 
artillery--the old, worn-out pieces that have been thrown out of the police 
arsenals . . . " 
"The Corporation? Arming the natives?" This was the ultimate crime, the 
unforgiveable sin--and yet he was not as incredulous as he should have been. His 
reception of the story was the crystalisation[sic] of months, of years of 

doubts, of disapproval of petty economies, of unnecessary harshness towards 
employees. He must have known for a long time that his idol had feet of 
clay--but he would never have admitted it. It had taken this stranger, this 
hated firebrand from the cities, to push the false god from its pedestal. 
He said, flatly: "I don't believe it." 
He almost convinced himself with the conviction in his tone. 
"No?" 
SHIFTING her gun to her left hand, holding it at the ready, the girl 
fumbled in her wallet. Papers fell out, littered the floor. At last she found 
that which she wanted--a score or so of sheets of various sizes, clipped 
together. She threw them to the trader. And she stooped to retrieve the 
documents, the flimsy sheets with their intricate designs, that had fallen to 
the floor. And Fleming saw his chance, and moved swiftly--but not swiftly 
enough. Again he was looking into the muzzle of the pistol. And-- 
"Next time I fire," said the girl. Then-- "While you're here you can pick 
these up for me." 
Fleming picked them up. There were documents of all kinds. There were 
banknotes of high denominations--not Corporation money but good, solid Earth 
currency. Elspeth Van Dusen's eyes narrowed when he handed them to her. She 
could have sworn that only reports and similar papers, valueless to all save 
those in the movement, had fallen. She had made, she knew, a bad mistake. But it 
was too late to rectify it. 
She stuffed the papers back into the pouch. She gestured again towards 
Fleming's chair with her pistol. And-- 
"Read," she said again 
The trader read. There were copies of orders made by the Corporation, of 
acknowledgments made by its agents. There were the originals of both orders and 
acknowledgments. And there was a signed, witnessed statement made by Fergus, the 
skipper of Aphrodite, admitting the part that he had played in arming the 
Swamplanders. It was damning evidence, incontrovertible, telling a tale of a 
system in which profit took precedence over human work, wealth and happiness. 
The papers could have been forgeries. They could have been lies coming from the 
rebel propaganda machine. But Fleming could not convince himself of this. The 
story they told tallied too well with scores of little, hitherto unrelated facts 
stowed away in the odd corners of his brain, that had 
11 never, until now, been brought out into the light, had never been 
recognized as being the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. 
The trader read on, his brow furrowed, his whole attitude that of a man 
whose gods are gone, who has no gods with which to replace them. And Elspeth Van 
Dusen stuffed the other papers into her wallet, the banknotes, the millions of 
credits of Terran currency. 
I was careless, she thought. I was a fool. But I am tired... 
And she remembered the Spurling swooping down to the Port Lemaire landing 
field, the grey- uniformed figures of the Corporation police falling like 
ninepins before the fire from its guns. And they had boarded the Earth liner, 
and they had dragged Hoare out of his stateroom . . . It was a pity that he had 
been killed by the fire from his own men when they were running back to the 
Spurling... And there had been the Terran officers--some approving, others 
regarding her and her men as no better than bandits. The Captain had shouted 
about piracy and had threatened reprisals. The Purser had needed no urging at 
pistol point to make him open the safe... 
And unexpected reinforcements of police had arrived, and Morrison and 
Blake, who had left the Spurling against her orders, had been killed, and a 
withering fire had swept the landing field as they were running to the plane, 
and they had all been killed. . . . Excepting herself. And she had got the 
Spurling up, and the police had opened fire with one of the anti-aircraft 
batteries. Their shooting had been wild--but they had scored what was almost a 

direct hit on the turret drive. 
SHE HAD realized, then, that she could never hope to make Port Lanning. She 
had headed for the coast. So far as she knew all the remaining posts were 
friendly. But before she could make Howard's Landing the drive had failed 
altogether... She did not care to dwell upon the flight through the jungle, the 
throbbing, insistent drums on all sides, the nagging, panic-inducing memory of 
what had been done to the wife of the Taylor's Bay trader, the mutilated corpse 
and the flies, the fact that she and her partisans had arrived too late to save, 
and before the scavenger worms had done their cleansing work... 
And the fingers of her left hand beat a little, soft rhythm on the arm of 
her chair, a staccato melody that was in time with the faint, distant throbbing, 
brought by some shift of wind or freak of conductivity, as drum called to drum 
from peals to unpretentious peak, as drum answered drum from island to island, 
all down along the straggling length of the archipelago. And she smiled, and her 
hand went down to caress the wallet at her belt, the money that was to be the 
price of ultimate victory. And to her the distant drums were the rattle of small 
arms, the thud of explosives, as Venusburg fell to the rebels and to the 
Corporation police under Colonel Hendaye- -who could be bought . . . 
Fleming heard the sound. He looked up. And he remembered, illogically, a 
girl in Venusburg. She had been, he recalled, a queer kid. She had liked poetry. 
It never occurred to him that, had the dice been thrown a little differently, 
she herself might have been a poet. And, one night in her rooms, he had picked 
up a book, little, bound in limp leather. And in a spirit of derision he had 
started to read--and had fallen under the spell of the tinkling quatrains, the 
philosophy of hedonism that they expounded. How did it go? 
12 . . . Then take the Cash, and let the Credit go-- Nor heed the Music of 
a Distant Drum... 
A distant drum. Arise, ye prisoners of starvation... Comes the Red Dawn... 
Oh yeah? 
And he looked at the girl. He saw that she was half dreaming, that she was 
seeing and hearing things outside his range of vision, of comprehension. And 
such was the longing intensity of her thoughts that they half communicated 
themselves to him, carried by the quivering air. He sensed dimly who and what 
she was. And the half-realization brought him no closer to knowing her, no 
nearer to sympathy; coloured his feelings only with scorn and derision. 
Then take the Cash and let the Credit go . . . 
CHAPTER IV of Firebrand! 
CREDIT... Where did it get you? The Van Dusen who had been the first on 
Venus had received the credit for his actions--and had died a poor and broken 
man. This Van Dusen who hoped to be the liberator of Venus... Perhaps the 
history of the future would ring with her praises but what would her life be? 
Danger, the continual struggle against adversaries and, should the times become 
more stable, arduous, unremitting toil until the end. The only true happiness 
for a woman was in the home, with children, in the service of the stronger sex. 
Even the Venusburg girls got more from life than she did . . . 
And the little fool must have a cool million in good Earth credits in her 
wallet. And she would take them to Rebel Headquarters, or the Central Committee, 
or whatever they called themselves, in Port Lanning and say: Look what a good 
girl am I. And they would pat her on the head and chase her out on some other 
scatterbrained mission... 
The money belonged to the Corporation. That much was obvious; no other 
individual or group of individuals on Venus possessed such huge sums of ready 
cash. It had been stolen. But that had been the fault of other servants of the 
Corporation, not himself. Besides--by arming the natives the Corporation had 
forfeited the allegiance of every right-thinking man. And if he should rob the 
thief, deprive her of her spoils, he would be rendering a signal service to his 

employers. It would mean that arms from neutral Earth could not be purchased, 
that high government officials could not be bribed. 
And that was the only service that the Corporation could now expect of him. 
Once in Venusburg--and one of those notes would smooth his way to Home, 
would buy his passage to distant Earth... 
The sound of the drums came louder, louder, beating in from the jungle, 
breaking against the thick walls of the post like the breakers of a long, heavy 
swell rolling in unchecked from the 
13 other side of the world, rising and falling, setting the very air 
a-shake so that visual images seemed to shiver as if seen over a flame. 
The two in the room roused from their reveries, looked at each other with 
something akin to intimacy, drawn together in a strange, sexless union by the 
bond of common fear. And the alarm bells shrilled, and sharp, distinct, above 
the rhythmic throbbing came the rattle of musketry. 
The trader was first to his feet. He ran out of the door, up the stairs to 
the cupola on the roof. And when he got there his searchlights were blazing, and 
the ugly snouts of his guns were swinging from side to side in small arcs, the 
noses of small, bloodthirsty animals smelling out the prey. And the edge of the 
jungle, to the south and the east and the west, was alive with little, twinkling 
points of flame, with the ragged volley fire of the Swamplanders, kept under 
some semblance of control by the mission-educated savages who were the 
Corporation's officers. 
"Take the eastern sector!" shouted Fleming. 
The girl obeyed mutely. And her guns, and the trader's to the west, were 
answering fire with fire, were replying to rifle bullets with three-quarter-inch 
explosive tracer. To the south, where the guns were still under full automatic 
control, the tide of attack surged out from the jungle, across the swampland. 
And so far it came, and crossed the invisible line drawn and measured by the 
electronic fire control gear--and the southern guns added their stammering 
clamour to that of the manned weapons. 
Fleming swung his guns around in a great arc to sweep the flank of the 
broken attack; on the other side of the cupola the girl did the same. 
"It always works!" shouted the trader, his face aflame with the berserk joy 
of killing. The Van Dusen girl did not reply. Her face was serious. She killed 
efficiently, of necessity, and took no pleasure of it. She deplored the 
slaughter of those who should have been her allies, registered it in her mind as 
another crime for which the Corporation would have to answer. 
FAR TO THE south the jungle was lit by a flash, a gout of vivid orange that 
flamed on the underside of the low overcast. Seconds later came a screaming roar 
that passed overhead, that receded rapidly, that culminated in a pillar of fire 
and smoke and high-flung spray in the sullen sea. The crash of the bursting 
shell came seconds before the thud of the gun. To the east was another flash, 
and to the west two more. The shells fell short and wide; the gun to the south 
fired again and it, too, was short. 
Fleming tried elevating his own weapons, tried to attain the range of the 
Swamplanders' artillery, but it was useless. The girl saw this even before the 
first tracer were falling, all of a mile short, into the dark jungle. 
She said: "It's hopeless. And it's only a matter of time before they get 
the range, before they blow the fort to smithereens . . " 
14 "Artillery..." muttered the trader bitterly. "They gave them artillery. 
They never gave me anything heavier than a machine gun..." 
His voice was hurt, complaining, and it was obvious that the nature of the 
armament issued to the natives had utterly destroyed whatever vestiges of 

loyalty to the Corporation that were left in his mind. He--an Earthman--could be 
trusted only with relatively light automatic weapons. Those over whom he had 
been given dominion had been entrusted with the power of gods; the means, the 
ability, to strike and maim and slay over a distance measured in miles, not in 
yards. 
"This launch of yours," the girl's, voice was urgent, "where is it?" 
"The boathouse by the jetty . . . " 
He loosed off another futile burst at the distant guns, winced as a shell 
seemed barely to skim the cupola, as another burst hard against the southern 
wall of the post. He looked almost reproachfully at the weapons that had been 
the symbols of, the means of enforcing, his authority. He threw the switch that 
would put them all on full automatic control, at the command of the deadly 
accurate but undiscriminating brain whose sense organs rotated ceaselessly and 
tirelessly atop the cupola. Not looking back, not looking at the girl, he 
stumbled down the stairs. And as the girl followed there was a burst of fire 
from all guns as a fresh attack burst out from the fringe of the jungle; 
advanced, wavered; withered as it crossed the invisible line measured and drawn 
by the electronic fire control. 
WHEN SHE GOT down into the post the trader was packing a bag, throwing into 
it clothing, photographs, the last carton of cigarettes, the last bottle of 
whisky. He did not look at her, but glanced hurriedly around what had been his 
home, making last decisions outside the range of her knowledge, her experience, 
as to what was to be crammed somehow into the bag, what was to be left for the 
slimy fingers of the Swamplanders. He plucked a photograph of one of the 
Venusburg beauties from the wall, placed it, not without care, on top of his 
other possessions, pulled the zipper of the bag shut with a decisive gesture. 
And he started for the door, the bulging container bumping his legs. The girl 
followed. 
Outside the air was hot, humid, lit by the flicker of gunfire, by the flare 
of close bursting shells, by reflected light from the searchlights on the cupola 
that were still, like the antennae of some monstrous insect, swaying and 
dipping, vaguely questing. And like that of swift flying insects was the passage 
past their heads of singing bullets as unseen marksmen on the jungle verge, 
handicapped by the flickering, flaring, shifting light, tried their hardest to 
pick them off; as Death sighed and passed them by. 
They were more than half way to the boathouse when the girl ran two or 
three steps forward, caught up to the trader, clutched his arm. 
"What?" he demanded roughly. 
"The northern guns in the cupola. Are they on automatic control?" 
15 He stopped, swayed as the raised, forward-swinging right foot was 
checked abruptly, was lowered gingerly to a place beside its fellow. 
"I forgot..." he stammered. 
"Then you'd better go back and switch off." 
Fleming turned, looked at the post, black against the beams of its own 
drums. searchlights, against the brief, eyesearing flare of the bursting shells. 
And as he watched a whole corner of the squat, square building was torn away, 
was dissolved in the incandescent blast of high explosive. And the next shells 
fell wide, proving that the hit had been more a matter of luck than skill. 
"You'll have to go," she said. And the unsteady light gleamed on the 
metallic object in her hand, the gun with which she was prepared to enforce her 
commands. 
"But . . . " 
And then the argument was settled. A shell landed fair and square on the 
cupola. And the searchlights went out, and the guns were dead, and there was 
nothing whatsoever to hinder the inevitable rush from the jungle. 
And as the trader fumbled with the lock of the boathouse door the drums 
were beating with a note of triumph, were closing in from all sides, their 

staccato melody enhanced by the noise of the ragged, random volleys that, 
abruptly, ceased. The Swamplanders liked to take their prisoners alive if 
possible. And there were precious minutes wasted whilst the trader set the gyro 
compass of the launch to the dock heading, waited until the flywheel was 
revolving with sufficient speed. And more minutes were lost when the crew had to 
be cleared of the hastily slipped stern line; and the boathouse landward door 
was already going down before the battering rams when the launch surged out 
through the seaward entrance, trampled beneath her sharp forefoot those who had 
swum out and around to cut her off. And the rifles opened up again, and the 
bullets threw up gouts of spray, sang with a high, keen note as they struck the 
smooth plastic of hull and upperworks, the metal of fittings, and glanced off. 
And then they were out to sea, into the darkness, under the cover of a 
welcome and opportune bank of mist; followed only by the menacing, yet fading, 
throb and rattle of the drums. 
CHAPTER V of Firebrand! 
IT WAS hot in the pilot room of the launch. The windows were down, and the 
wind, created by the motion of the craft, swept through, presented an 
unconvincing illusion of coolness. And the sun, climbing slowly towards the 
meridian, no more than a diffused blur behind the mists, the eternal overcast, 
added to the humidity with every degree of altitude gained. 
16 Normally, this would not have worried the Venus-born Elspeth Van Dusen. 
This was her world, and she loved it; and to her Earth, with its clear skies, 
its winds cool more often than not even in the Tropics, would have been as 
uninviting as is Mars to the Earth-born. 
But she was tired. 
With Fleming she was keeping watch and watch, but her watch below had been 
a matter of fitful, uneasy slumber, broken by the efforts of the trader to force 
the bolted door into the cabin, by the shrilling of the alarm bells when a 
school of the huge, Venusian flying fishes attacked, by the hectic, eventful 
minutes she had spent behind the launch's machine gun whilst Fleming maneuvered 
the little ship. 
And tiring, too, was the strain of keeping a constant check upon the 
trader's every action, of making sure that he was keeping the launch headed Nor' 
West for Port Lanning and not North by West for Venusburg. When she had first 
come on watch she had obtained observations--a position line by magnetic dip, 
crossed by a line of soundings as they passed over the Clarendon Deep. As yet 
Fleming was playing square. Whether he would continue to do so she doubted. But 
she carried the means--her hand went down to holster--to enforce his unwilling 
loyalty to the rebel cause. And she carried in the wallet at her side that which 
would have seduced many a man from his allegiance even to a cause in which he 
most passionately believed . . . 
THE LAUNCH slid through the oily water, the hot mists, as smoothly and 
easily as something in a dream. And some shift of wind, some freak of 
conductivity, brought quivering life to the humid air; low, on the borderline of 
the senses rhythmically monotonous, drum called to drum from peak to 
insignificant peak, drum answered drum from island to low island, all down along 
the straggling length of the archipelago. And the sound that should have been a 
warning of danger, that should have brought alertness, lulled; and the ticking 
steering repeater, the ever so slightly wavering line drawn by the course 
recorder on its slowly revolving drum, swam giddily before the girl's eyes as 
she strove desperately to keep her heavy lids from falling. She thought that it 
would be wise to cut out the automatic pilot, to take the wheel herself. But to 
raise her hand to the switch was too much effort. She started the movement--and 
slumped down in the chair. And she did not stir when the door of the cabin 
behind her opened silently and slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time. But when 

the soft lead piping in the trader's hands struck the back of her neck, she 
jerked convulsively. 
He thought at first that he had killed her, but then he saw that she was 
breathing. She would have to die anyway, of course, some time before Venusburg. 
He had relinquished all thought of claiming the bounty on her dead body for, 
large as the reward was, it was small compared with the bills that he now 
pulled, with avid hands, from her wallet. 
Alive, she would talk. She would remain silent, if possible, about the 
plans, the secrets, of the Central Committee of the revolution. But regarding 
his theft of what had already been stolen, she would need no urging. Dead--and 
they would wonder what had become of the huge sum that Hoare had been taking to 
Earth. 
So she would have to go... 
17 But first... He felt the compulsion to assert his masculinity, to prove 
to his own satisfaction that this servant of the dialectic, of forces outside 
his limited comprehension, was, after all, just another woman. And so he found 
some strong cord in the pilothouse locker, and he lashed her securely, then 
dragged her down to the cabin. He threw her on to one of the bunks, returned to 
the control post. 
And there he busied himself briefly with chart and parallel rules and 
dividers, laid off the course that would bring the launch to the Venusburg 
approaches. The steering repeater clicked rapidly as the bows swung round to the 
new heading. And that was all that, to the eye, was changed. There was still the 
same hot mist, clinging to the oily surface of the water, blowing in stifling 
clouds through the open windows; the same flickers of the little red light on 
the alarm panel as the radar, the asdic, picked up dangers that were too far 
away to be an immediate menace. Fleming pondered briefly on the strangeness of 
Venusian evolution, on the fact that no indigenous life form possessed organs, 
senses, to serve in lieu of sight under such conditions as these. But the 
theory--of which he had briefly and disinterestedly read--of recent vulcanism 
did not mean anything to him. All that he felt was a dim thankfulness to 
something vague and far astray, a gratitude for the more than even chance he had 
been given to bring the launch to Venusburg singlehanded. 
WHEN Elspeth Van Dusen woke up the first thing she saw was Fleming. He was 
looking at her, his eyes hot and greedy. And tendrils of the fog had followed 
him down the short companionway to the cabin, were eddying around the room, were 
sucked up into the column of hot air that was rising above the master gyro 
compass. 
For some reason this seemed to have a significance greater, even, than her 
present predicament. But she ignored the behavior of the fog in the convection 
currents, the splitting headache, the vile taste in her mouth. She looked 
straight at the trader, felt a sense of ascendancy as his eyes shifted uneasily. 
But she knew that it was an empty, meaningless victory. She knew that at 
any moment now her body would go down into the hot sea, to be wrangled over by 
the ferocious fish-lizards, the tentacular, deadly horrors that defied 
classification. 
And while she stared steadily at the man, she fell a prey to self pity. It 
was hard that it should all have to end like this. Not so much the death--that 
comes to all--but the shame, the ignominy. For this, she had killed, had pirated 
the Terran spaceliner, had fled across De Kuyper's Land with the shells of the 
Corporation anti-aircraft batteries bursting close under her stern. And the 
fruits of her piracy, the price of the lives of her men and those of the police, 
the bribe that was to have bought Colonel Hendaye and his regiment, now became 
this despicable man's, to fritter away as he wished-- 
The alarm bells suddenly shrilled, and there was a dull shock as the launch 
struck something solid but yielding, heeled sharply as her keel scraped over the 
obstruction. And Fleming ran up the steps, and there was the sound of rapid 

machine gun fire, then silence, then more bursts. 
18 The girl grinned. It sounded as though the trader had his hands full. 
It seemed that he must have run straight into a basking school of the big 
fish-lizards. And she allowed herself to hope. 
When the launch heeled over it had rolled her out of the bunk. And she 
stretched, experimentally, and found that she could still move her legs, that 
she could roll over the quivering deck. And she found that, from a supine 
position, she could lift her feet and, even with both ankles bound, manipulate 
the catches of the binnacle doors with her toes. It does not take long in the 
telling--but in the doing it was an arduous, delicate operation, not without 
pain. 
And it was especially painful when she pressed her bare foot against the 
end bearing casing of the gyroscope. And presently there was the smell of 
scorching flesh, of burning skin, added to that of hot lubricating oil. And the 
instrument precessed inside its binnacles rotated clockwise on its vertical 
axis, and the automatic pilot faithfully followed it. And the straight line 
drawn on the chart did not waver in its straightness, and as far as Fleming 
would know--for he, as the frequent bursts of machine gun fire testified, was 
not overly interested in navigation--the launch was still hugging closely the 
rhumb line to Venusburg. 
And the time came when Elspeth Van Dusen could bear the pain no longer. But 
she was satisfied that she had achieved her object. She could see the chart, the 
position she had obtained when she came on watch, and the pencilled course line 
running--even when steering for Port Lanning-- within a few miles of the 
westernmost islands of the archipelago. She was confident that--unless the fog 
should lift--the launch would ground. And she was sure that the fish-lizards 
would not easily abandon the pursuit. And for a man to be engaged in a running 
fight and, simultaneously, to be concerned with the safe navigation of his 
vessel is almost an impossibility. Especially when his trust is pinned to 
untrustworthy instruments... 
She contrived to shut the binnacle doors, wincing when she brought pressure 
to bear upon her scorched and blistered feet. She rolled and wriggled back to a 
position just under the bunk, to the place, as nearly as she could remember, to 
which she had been thrown when the launch heeled. And she lay, relaxed, awaiting 
the inevitable grounding, reserving her strength for whatever emergencies might 
arise. What they would be she had no way of foretelling--she could only guess. 
And unless she fell alive into the hands of the Venusians, her fate, no matter 
which way the dice fell, could be no worse than that which was already in store 
for her. 
CHAPTER VI of Firebrand! 
SHE WAS not asleep--although she was not far from it--when the launch 
grounded. The stranding came in the middle of a prolonged burst of machine gun 
fire from the deck. And in the interval, the long interval, between the first 
shock and the reversing of the engines, the powerful machinery of the launch had 
had time to push her well up on to the beach. 
And whilst the engines were still going astern the machine gun opened up 
once more. Then there was silence, save for the vibration of the straining 
screw, and Fleming came down the 
19 companionway. He had a knife in his hand. Hypnotized, the girl stared 
at the gleaming blade, wondered if she had miscalculated, if her plans had 
miscarried. 
The trader said nothing. And as he approached she saw that the light in his 

eyes was that of fear rather than hate. And she heard, above the throbbing of 
the screw, the sound of drums as the Swamplanders' coastal look-out signalled to 
their comrades inland the intelligence that a ship had grounded. 
You'll have to help me," he said. "You'll have to cover me with the gun 
while I run an anchor out astern. The fish-lizards are still waiting for us in 
deeper water, and the Swamplanders know that we're here . . . " 
"Suppose I say no?" 
"You won't. You daren't. You told me what they did to the Williamson 
woman." 
"But... I can't trust you." 
"And I can't trust you. When I'm carrying out the anchor you'll be pointing 
a machine gun at my back... Hs voice was appealing. "Can't you see? We've got to 
trust each other." 
"Have we? When you've got my pistol and a couple of million of Earth 
credits tucked into your belt . . ." 
"The money? Look--" his tone was reasonable--"suppose we split 
fifty-fifty?" 
"And you land me at Port Lanning--and give me back my gun. . ." 
And whilst they bargained, desperately, the noise of the drums swelled, 
drew closer. And with much unsettled he stashed with his knife, freed her for 
the part that she was to play towards his-- and her own?--salvation. And he 
tried to hurry her when she flexed cramped limbs, when she insisted on adjusting 
her dress, hunting for and putting on her sandals. And the drums were very close 
when they finally went on deck, and their appearance was greeted by a ragged 
volley of rifle fire, and they could hear the saurians drawing too much water, 
they were, to venture into the shallows--splashing and snorting and hissing only 
a few yards away, but hidden from view by the sea fog. 
Over the land it was relatively clear. They could see the wall of the 
jungle verge looming through the mist, passably distinct, but distorted, 
seemingly a sky-scraping cliff. And they could see the horde that was pouring 
from the jungle, spilling out over the marshland. And drum called to drum along 
the broad front of the attackers; drum answered drum from the swampy beach to 
the low hills inland, beyond the jungle. And there was a drum in the sky, too; a 
curiously regular beat that swelled as it came up from the south, that passed 
rapidly overhead, above the low overcast; that died to a droning mutter in the 
north. 
20 Elspeth Van Dusen ran to the machine gun. She swung the weapon in a 
wide arc, ignoring the bullets that went whining by on invisible wings. And the 
staccato song of the heavy gun was added to that of the Swamplanders' drums, of 
their ragged, irregular volleys. And as she fired she found time to wonder why 
their own machine guns, their artillery, were never in evidence, were called in 
only when all else had failed. Perhaps, she thought, anything more powerful, 
more deadly, than a rifle is, somehow, sacred, is to be used only after prayer 
and fasting... And her lips curled in a thin line of amusement as she watched 
her tracer, bright in the dull, hazy air, sweep the Swamplanders' front, watched 
the attack surge back like a spent wave. 
"Cover the sea!" shouted Fleming. 
HE WAS in the shallow water--only up to his knees, it was, and he had slung 
over his shoulder the anchor from the starboard hawsepipe. And he had thrown the 
windlass out of gear so that, as he waded aft, the chain rattled slowly out of 
the locker. And as he saw the girl looking at him he took one hand from his 
burden, gestured down to the wallet at his belt. "It's all here, he cried. "So 
I'd better come back . . ." 
The girl thought: I suppose so. But it's a pity. The brute is too 
strong--there aren't many men who could carry that anchor out... And he's still 
got my gun... But I'm playing for my life as much as the money--and if he does 
break his bargain he'll have our agents on Earth to deal with... If I'm alive to 
tip them off. . . 

 And she loosed off a burst to warn off the saurians that were still 
splashing and hissing and grunting in the fog just outside the shallows; and she 
swung the gun rapidly to deal with a fresh attack that came surging out of the 
jungle. 
The rattling of the cable over the gypsies of the windlass ceased. She 
looked behind her, her finger still on the trigger of the gun, her tracer still 
sweeping the jungle verge, and saw Fleming wading back. She saw the muscles of 
his torso bulge as he hoisted himself over the gunwale. And then he went to the 
windlass, threw it in gear, started the motor that would, he hoped, heave the 
launch clear of the sand bar. 
From the north came the sound of the strange drum in the sky again. And 
from the jungle the Swamplanders' drums answered, drowning it in a great wave of 
sound. And the machine gun jammed as the forward swinging breech block pulled a 
defective round in two, jammed the projectile into the chamber and dropped the 
battered cartridge case into the recoil-actuated mechanism. Fleming looked up at 
the abrupt cessation of the sound that was to him, to both of them, a song of 
hope--then began to heave fast and yet faster at his sternwards leading cable. 
The chain tightened, the links rattled over the gypsies, down into the 
chain locker. And the launch did not move. It was obvious that the anchor had 
failed to take hold, was dragging through the soft sand of the bottom. 
With cold desperation Elspeth Van Dusen worked to clear the jammed gun. She 
forced herself to forget all else but the intricacy of interacting working 
parts, the bent and battered cartridge case, the propellant scattered over the 
mechanism, the round in the chamber. And she got it working, 
21 and she loosed off the first burst at the onrushing Swamplanders--had 
it not been their intention to take the man and the girl alive their rifle fire, 
inaccurate though it was, would have accounted for them long since--and suddenly 
realised that the drum in the sky was overpoweringly loud. 
Swooping down at them was a jet plane. She recognised it as one of those, 
fitted with a primitive, fixed drive, that had been turned out in the 
Corporation's workshops at Port Lemaire. On the underside of the short, stubby 
wings was a golden, rayed sun--the insignia of the Corporation. And from the 
guns in its nose a stream of shells drew a line of angry fire and smoke across 
the wet sand, straight for the launch. And she saw the vaned, black shape detach 
itself from the plane's belly, fall with deceptive slowness. She threw herself 
prone behind her gun, waited long seconds for the burst--and knew that the 
falling bomb must, inevitably, take her for its target. 
SHE SAT up, coughing and retching. The acrid fumes of high explosive were a 
bitter poison in her lungs. And when the deck heaved gently beneath her she knew 
that this was only an effect of the nausea, the shock. 
She opened her eyes. 
The deck--only scarred by the shells from the Corporation plane's guns, by 
the splinters from its bomb--was heaving. Blast is a freakish thing. In this 
case it had lifted the launch and thrown it into the deeper water just clear of 
the sand bar. 
The windlass motor was still running. And the anchor lifted from the 
bottom, rattled against the bows, jammed in the hawsepipe. The windlass strained 
and complained. The girl ran forward, switched off, realised that Fleming was 
not on board. 
Fleming was where the launch had been. He was stretched supine on the grey 
sand. Blood from the gasping wound in his side turned the sand from grey to 
black. But he was not dead. He stirred, tried to raise himself on one arm. He 
started to scream. And a murmurous background to the thin, pitiful sound was the 
fast diminishing thunder of the drive of the Corporation ship, the mutter of 
distant drums from the jungle, where the Swamplanders had retreated. 
Throwing the windlass out of gear, the girl let go the anchor. She dived, 
struck out for the beach. After a few strokes she found bottom, was able to 
walk, to splash and struggle through the warm, muddy water. And then she was 
standing over Fleming. He looked up at her, and stopped screaming. He looked at 

her as though she was the most beautiful thing in his world. And then the 
expression on his face faded, was replaced by a horrified incredulity as she 
knelt beside him, undid the fastenings of his belt, stood erect with the belt 
and the wallet and the holster in her hands. 
When she was buckling it around her own waist--such was her relief at 
recovering the twice stolen money that she did not think to step back out of 
reach--he clutched her leg. 
"You can't leave me!" he cried. "You can't! You can't!" 
22 Dispassionately she looked down at him. She saw the wound in his side, 
the splinters of white bone protruding from the bloody, pulped flesh. She knew 
that she, with the aid of the medical kit carried by the launch, could never 
hope to save his life. And that his life was not worth saving. She felt no sense 
of loyalty, of obligation. Accident had made them members of the same species 
but that was all. 
She tried to break away, but he clung to her. His fingers bruised the flesh 
of her ankle. And when she attempted to walk towards the water, the waiting 
launch, she only succeeded in dragging him a scant inch or so over the sand. She 
stopped, then, stood listening to the drums, to the staccato melody that told 
that the Venusians, frightened off by the display of Terran power, were 
mustering their courage for a last attack. She kicked, hard, with her free foot. 
The trader whimpered, the tears ran down his face, but he did not relax his 
hold. 
She pulled the pistol from its holster. Fleming cried out when he saw the 
ugly weapon, started to scream again. And the crashing report drowned his high, 
thin shrieking, and his grip on the girl's ankle relaxed and she pulled clear 
and stood, for a brief second, looking down at the sprawling, ungraceful body. 
There was no pity on her face. There was a faint shadow of what could have been 
regret. She was remembering the bodies she had seen--and the disgust, and the 
bitter, impotent grief and rage--when the rebels stormed Palmer's Ford, over-ran 
the defences that had been hastily thrown up around the Corporation prison 
there. She remembered the torture room of the Corporation police. Her own lover 
had been among those who had been put to death there. He had died, at last, only 
an hour or so before the surprise attack. 
And she was sorry that this loyal servant of the Corporation had died a 
swift, clean death by her gun instead of a mere lingering one under the 
Swamplanders' knives. 
But it couldn't be helped. 
And as she waded out through the shallows the drums swelled to a crescendo, 
and the first of the fresh attack was advancing on broad, webbed feet over the 
marsh. 
WHEN THE ship loomed out of the thinning mists--there was no warning, for 
all the electronic equipment had been put out of commission by the 
explosion--she put the wheel hard over, turned to run. Then she saw the ripple 
of red at the stranger's gaff recognised the high forecastle head, the bridge 
set well aft, the twin rocket batteries at the bow. It could only be 
Madrileno--late Aphrodite of the Corporation's service. And when the rocket 
roared from one of the auxiliary cruiser's bow projectors, burst in the water 
just forward of the launch's stem, she had already stopped, had thrown the 
engines into reverse. 
She lit the last of Fleming's precious cigarettes, sat quietly and waited, 
grateful for the respite, for the opportunity to let responsibility fall on 
other shoulders than her own. The Odyssey that had started at the Port Lemaire 
landing field, in far away De Kuyper's Land, was at last finished. 
And some shift of wind, some freak of conductivity, brought quivering life 
to the hot, humid air; a peak to unpretentious peak... 
23 . . . and she smiled, and her hand went down with a caressing motion to 

the wallet at her belt. In her mind the staccato melody was the rattle of small 
arms, the thud of explosions, as Venusburg fell to the combined forces of the 
rebels and Colonel Hendaye's police. But that would not be the end. It would 
only be a beginning... 
. . . while drum answered distant drum from island to island, all down 
along the low, straggling length of the archipelago....