A NIGHT OF HORROR
J.HE NEWSCASTER'S VOICE came blaring from the
sound-grid:
"And we have upon good authority the information that
the Bolton Flying Cube is almost ready for another trial
flight.  Dr.  Norton  Grenfell,  when  interviewed  yesterday,
was evasive regarding his plans. But from other sources we
learn that at the next Inferior Conjunction of Mercury and
Earthwhich occurs in about two weeks now, at which
time the two planets will again be at their closest points to
each otherwe are informed that this new concept in inter-
planetary travelthe Flying Cube, will endeavor to reach
Mercury"
"Well!" exclaimed Rowena. "They think they know a lot,
don't they?"
"Hear him out," I said.
The voice went on: "There is undoubtedly no further men-
ace from Mercury. The marauders from last fall will not come
again. Jack Dean and his wife, Rowena Palisse, will of course
be upon the Flying Cube when it makes its adventurous
flight. Dean and his wife and Guy Palisse and the strange
girl named Tama, and her brother Toh, who came last fall
from Mercury, are still in seclusion. We have as yet been un-
able-"
"To locate us," Guy said with a grin. "This fellow has a
lordly manner, hasn't he?"
I am the Jack Dean whom the newscaster mentioned. This
was in March; in August of the previous year the world was
startled by an attack of Mercurian invaders upon a girls'
summer camp in Maine. Some of the girls were abducted
vanished in the night. I met Rowena Palisse then.
She's a very tall girl, with the regal aspect of a Nordic
queen. I myself am several inches over six feet. I think our
abnormal statures first attracted us to each other.
Rowena's brother, Guy, had tried to get to the Moon ten
years ago, an abortive attempt in a moon rocket. He left
the Earth, and was not heard from again. It was to Mer-
cury the rocket carried him. He lived there all those ten
yearsand last August he came back, a captive with the
Mercurian invaders.
How the ship of these invaders was destroyed in outer
space some three hundred thousand miles from the Earth;
how the giant Mercurian Croat was killed; and Guy, the
Mercurian girl Tama, and her brother Toh were rescued by
the Bolton Flying Cubeall this was public news.
And now Rowena and I were married and, with Guy and
Tama and Toh, were trying to live in seclusion from the
prying newscasters. The affair was over. Croat was dead.
The only spaceship existing on Mercury had been destroyed.
There was no further menace.
Ah, if we had but known!
The newscaster's voice interrupted my thoughts: "We feel
sure that within a short time now the whereabouts of Jack
Dean and the others will be disclosed. The Broadcasters'
Press Association has every hope of being able shortly to
supply its millions of subscribers with television scenes of the
strange Mercurian girl Tama"
"Not a chance," Guy gibed. "Get that right out of your
mind, young fellow."
Rowena, Guy and I were sitting before our audiophone
grid in a secluded new cabin set in a lonely spot in one of
the northern states not far from the Canadian border. Forests
surrounded us. A little lake was nearby. It was a clear, frosty
evening of mid-March. The lake was frozen now. Snow
lay thick on the ground and edged the naked tree branches
with white. The underbrush, ice-coated, gleamed with a white
brilliance in the sunlight. The snow was piled high against
our windows; but inside, with a roaring log fire, we were
snug enough.
Toh came into the living room. He was a slim, straight and
boyish fellow, this Mercurian youth of twenty-one. In height
he was no more than a little over five feet. He was dressed in
high laced leather boots, corduroy trousers, and a flannel
shirt open at his slender throat. It seemed a costume utterly
incongruous to him. His thick black hair was long to the base
of his neck. A band like a ribbon of red was about his
forehead to hold the hair from his eyes; and with his high-
bridged nose, it gave him something of the aspect of a North
American Indian youth. Toh was gentle-featured, almost girl-
ish; yet there was about him an unmistakable dignity and
strength.
He joined us quietly, unobtrusively, at the radio grid.
Guy said, "Toh, listen to thishe's talking about us."
"The air always talks, these days, of the Bolton Cube,"
Toh said, in a soft, gentle voice with an indefinable accent.
He spoke perfect English. Guy, on Mercury, had had years
to teach him and Tama.
"Right," said Guy. "And they're all excited because the
news reporters can't find us."
For a time we listened to the droning voice. Guy replen-
ished our log fire.
"They don't mention Jimmy," he commented.
Jimmy Turk was my best friend. He had been with us on
that memorable test flight of the Flying Cube, when we had
gone, last fall, out of the Earth's atmosphere and met the
Mercurian spaceship. He was an operative flyer in the newly
established Interstate Patrol.
Then the newscaster did mention Jimmy: "It was thought
that James Turk might be persuaded to reveal the hiding place
of his too-modest friends. But it seems not. He visits them
occasionally, and it is no secret that our reporters have
tried many times to trail him to their lair. But he is fleet
and cleveras clever in avoiding our pursuit as he is in
tracking down criminals."
Rowena laughed. "That newscaster is frank enough, any-
way."
"Where is Tama?" Guy asked suddenly.
"Out flying," said Toh. "She left just a little while ago."
Guy frowned. "She shouldn't be out. I've told hernot
while there's still light."
"Pretty cold," I said.
"She has a knitted suit," said Rowena, and smiled. "I told
her, too, that she shouldn't go, but she went. You know Tama.
But she can't go far. She can hardly fly with those clothes
weighing her down, and the Earth's gravity"
Guy went to the window, stood gazing out. Presently he
called us.
"Look here!"
The sunset light was almost gone, but one could still see
a snow-white cloud sailing high overhead.
Guy pointed. "Look"
We went outside. A tiny dot was far up there, dropping
out of the cloud. We knew it was not Tama. It came
down like a plummet, resolved itself presently into a midget
monoplane descending almost with a nose dive.
. '  "Jimmy's dragon," I said. "He must have been at fifty
or sixty thousand feetdropping through those  clouds-
making sure nobody is trailing him here."
Jimmy landed on the snow nearby. Climbing from his little
pit, he was a shapeless bundle in his electrically warmed fly-
ing suit. In our living room he revealed himselfa short,
stocky, redheaded little daredevil, with an unfailing grin.
"Hello, folks! A damned B.P.A. plane was after me when
I left the city. Hope they had a good trip. I say, how about
a cup of coffee?"
"Oh, 1m sorry," Rowena apologized. "Of course you'll want
something. I'll tell Eliza."
Eliza was our one servent, a middle-aged woman. She
and Rowena returned presently with a hot breakfast for Jim-
my.
"What brought you, Jimmy?" I demanded.
"Oh, )ust to see you. Don't I have to see my buried
friends every so often?"-His grin faded. "I've got news, a
message for you from Grenfell: We're definitely goingthe
Cube is starting for Mercurythe tentative date is March
thirtieth. . . . I say, Rowena, you do serve the most marvelous
coffee."
He took it as lightly as that I In two weeks we were leaving
for Mercury. My heart pounded at the thought of it. We
had been waiting here only for Grenfell's decision.
Jimmy went on: "Inferior Conjunction is the first week in.
Aprilthe shortest distance. I've been down to see the Cube.
They've got perfect equipment this time. Everything's about
ready. Grenfell wants you in Trenton in about a week, say
March twenty-second."
The Flying Cube had been built and now was housed in the
midst of the  huge buildings  of the  Bolton  Metal  In-
dustries near Trenton, New Jersey.
"Where is Tama?" Jimmy asked.
Guy was still anxiously at the window. And now Tama
was coming. We went to the cabin doorway to meet her.
She came, flying low over the frozen lake. A great, white-
bodied, red-winged bird! Flying sluggishly as though tired,
but she was only hampered by the weight of her clothes,
and Earth's heavy gravity.
The wonder of Tama had never ceased to thrill me.
The men of Mercury were very much like the men of Earth.
But the women with their great feathered wings
Her warm knitted suit made her slim body white as the
surface of the frozen snow-covered lake. But her long black
hair was waving in the wind; and her crimson-feathered wings
with their ten-foot spread showed plainly in the twilight.
Her body hung at an angle, breast down. She flew straight
for our doorway, fluttered down, her feet dropping, her wings
flapping backward as she righted herself to land on tiptoe
among us. She was panting with the flying effort, and laugh-
ing, and the frosty evening had brought into her clear white
cheeks a mantling red.
"Tamal" exclaimed Guy. "You shouldn't fly out before it's
dark."
"No one saw me, Guy. I must get out. It smothers me in-
doors. . . . Oh, good evening, Jimmy!"
A few minutes later Tama had taken off the knitted suit,
and wore now her native garments. Beside the tall, queenly
Rowena, Tama was an elfin, fantastic figure indeed. As
small as Toh, They were, in fact, twins, twenty-one years old.
Tama stood before me. "You are not angry at me, Jack?"
"Well-"
"Guy is."
Elfin little creature, pouting at me to placate my anger.
But like her brother, there was about her a decided dig-
nity. The set of her )aw could be firm; her dark eyes, twinkling
at me now, could flash with command. On Mercury, as Guy
had told us, she was leader of all the winged virgins of the
Light Country.
On Mercury, a leader. But here on Earth, so strangely
fantastic! Her crimson-feathered wings were folded now as
she stood among us. They arched from her shoulder blades,
with their flexible feathered tips just clearing the ground
behind her. She wore silky fabric, gray-blue trousers bound
at her  ankles;  sandals  encased  her  bare  feet.  A  silken
gray-blue scarf was wound about her waist, crossing in front,
covering her breast and shoulders, crossing again between
the wings behind and descending to her waist.
"Angry, Jack?"
"Well-"
I found it difficult to be angry; yet she should not have
gone out.
We sat down to discuss the voyage to Mercury in the
Cube. Guy sat with his arm about Tama. It was no secret
that they were in love. They were to be married as Tama
wanted, on Mercury, in her native Hill City, at the end of
this forthcoming trip.
"I am glad," said Tama. "It seemed so long, waiting here."
The elfin look was gone from her now. With her thoughts
back on Mercury she was Tama of the Light Country, a leader.
She met my gaze.
"It is not that I do not like your Earth, Jack. But you
know I am worried about things in the Hill City. My girls,
the winged virgins as you call them. Jimmy, tell me just
what Dr. Grenfell says. We go, surely?"
"Sure thing!" said Jimmy.
Late into that night and most of the next morning we
discussed it; then Jimmy had to leave.
"See you in a week," he told us. "I'll come up and fly you
down to Trenton."
We stood beside his tiny dragon to see him take off. If
we had only known under what terrifying stress of circum-
stances we next were to see him!
The remainder of that memorable day passed without
incident. Jimmy left )ust before noon. That evening we all
retired early. Our log-cabin bungalow was a rambling, many-
roomed structure. Rowena and I had a bedroom off the
living room. Toh and Guy slept in another room; Tama oc-
cupied a room alone. And Eliza, the housekeeper, had a bed-
room nearby.
It was after midnight when I awakened. I had slept un-
easily, perhaps the stimulus of Jimmy's exciting news. What
\yoke me up, I do not know. I started into full wakefulness,
and at once became aware that Rowena was not beside me.
The room was cold, the house wholly silent. Through the
drawn window blinds faint shafts of moonlight were strag-
gling. Rowena's negligee was gone from the chair beside
curbed.
I lay listening in the silence. The door to the living room
was open; a log in the dying fire fell with a sound startlingly
loud.
And then I heard something that set me shuddering, and
took me out of bed with a bound. 4 crunching in the snow
outside the cabin! Footsteps! And, it seemed, low murmurs
of voices!
I reached the living room. The waning fire illumined it
with flickering yellow light and waving shadows. A shaft of
moonlight showed me that the outer door was open; it
hung askew on its hinges, the top one broken so that it
dangled forward into the room!
My confusion lasted no more than a moment, however.
I found myself shouting, "Rowenal Guy!"
At the door I saw a trail of footprints in the snow. Not our
beaten path to the lake. These ..led sidewise toward a line
of naked trees. I thought that in the moonlight there were
dark blobs of retreating figures off there!
The frosty outer air struck at me as I stood thinly clad.
Our overcoats hung on pegs near the living room door. I
recall donning a heavy  coat and pulling boots  over my
bare feet.
My shouts brought the household. A confusion of fig-
ures and voices.
"Jack! What the devil-"
"Jack--
Guy and Toh were plucking at me. Then Toh saw the
broken door.
"Oh-" He darted at it. Stooped. Straightened. "Burned!
The hinges burned with a heat-ray! Where is TamaP"
Guy and Toh were here! But not Rowenal Not Tamal
The housekeeper appeared; stood stricken with terror.
"Mr. Jack-what is it? Tell mel What's wrong? What-"
I ran outside. The distant figures had vanished. In the
house the voices and tramping steps of Guy and Tob re-
sounded.
Guy shouted, "Tamal Rowenal Tamawhere are you?"
Guy met me at the doorway; his face was livid in the moon-
light.
"Gone! They're not here!"
Eliza was screaming with shrill, hysterical wails.
I gasped, "I think I saw them out there among the trees!"
We seized our large-bore rifles, which stood in a corner
of the room. Guy and Toh drew on overcoats and boots.
In a moment we started. The moon went under a passing
cloud. The white snow surface turned dark gray, but the trail
was plain. A wide, scuffled path, many footsteps. The edge
of the forest was a few hundred feet away. We were half
running. I suddenly realized, heedlessly running
I stopped, and drew Guy and Toh crouching beside me
behind the huge bulk of a fallen tree.
"Wait! They must be close ahead. I saw them!"
We could not fire on any distant figure, with the girls
possibly among them.
Toh murmured, "It must be Mercuriansi"
"They can't travel fast," I whispered. "The Earth's gravity
is too great. If we can decide their direction, then circle and
get ahead of them"
I checked my words. Beside me in the snow, almost at
my feet, a dark object was lying. I reached for it. A torn
piece of cloth. There was light enough for me to see it.
A portion of a man's coat sleeve. The wrist cuff had some
insignia on it. It was queerly burned, blackened where a
segment of it had been melted away by a blast of heat.
It was from the uniform of Jimmy Turk!
I had no time to do more than show it to Guy and Toh.
The Mercurians had seen us. From the edge of the nearby
forest a narrow beam of blue-green light came with a hiss,
like a tiny lightning bolt darting over us. It caught a snow-
drift twenty feet away; melted a hole like a clean-bored tun-
nel with vapor rising from it.
I leaped up, against the efforts of Toh and Guy to pull
me down. A figure stood at the forest edgethe bundled
shape of a man in animal skins. I shot. My rifle stabbed its
spurt of yellow flame. The report echoed in the still night air
over the frozen lake.
But my shot never reached its intended mark.
From my adversary the blue-green beam came again. By
chance it must have met my bullet. A puff of fire showed
in mid-air as the steel-tipped missile melted into burning gas
and ashes.
The figure disappeared. We were all three running forward,
but we got not more than thirty feet.
"Jack-look!"
We stood amazed, transfixed, cold with horror. From the
forest a shape rose up. A huge silver ball, thirty feet or so
in diameter. It mounted over the trees with a hiss, like a
rocket, with a faint stream of light-fire beneath it.
We stood stricken, watching as it sailed up and dwindled.
The moon came out. The moonlight caught the sphere, bathed
it with  glistening silver.  The  tiny  dark  windows  and  door-
way were visible.
It  shrank to  a  dot  amid  the  stars.  A  gloaming  speck.
Twinkling. . . . Gone!
The rest of the night was a turmoil of confusion to me. With
the approaching nearness of Mercury, the silver ball had
comeand was already gone. And Tama and Rowena were
on it; we could not doubt that.
By telephone we summoned help. Local flyers came. We
called Grenfell. Headquarters of the Interstate Patrol were
seeking Jimmy.
In the midst of it allour orders from Grenfell giving us
so much to do, so quickly1 moved as though in a dream.
Rowena gone! My bride of two months stolen by these mar-
auders from another planetl Goneand Tama gone! Already
speeding out there into the starry depths of space!
Guy rushed at me as I stood in the cabin living room
groping with my confusion of thoughts.
"Hurry, Jack!" he said. "Bring the rifles! Youll need those
coats."
Toh came in. "A report from Boston. A man outside told
me-"
There were tramping figures about the cabin, lights and
figures and voices searching the nearby forest, planes land-
ing on the lake. Confusion.
Our door and two of our window shutters were found
burned loose. Marks in the sn~w showed where a struggle
had taken place. Long red feathers from Tama's wings lay
ill  the snow.  In  the  forest were  marks  where  the  space-ve-
hicle had rested.
Toh was saying, "Jimmy Turk is reported missing!"
Half an hour later came Grenfell's plane. We gathered our
belongings, our equipment, and boarded it. The flight down
to South Jersey through the glistening, frosty moonlight was
like a dream.
The plant of the Bolton Metal Industries was another tur-
moil of confusion. The Bolton Flying Cube resounded with
hasty, last-minute preparations.
From the Mount Wyndam Observatory, near Summit,
New Jersey, came constant reports. The night was ideal for
observation. The ascending silver ball was still plainly visi-
ble with the giant electro-telescope. The ball was swiftly but
cautiously mounting. Too rapid a flight would have burned
it from atmospheric friction-heat.
By 4 A.M. it was in the rarer, upper strata, a hundred
miles up. Then two hundred. Swiftly, steadily accelerating
its velocity.  Clinging to the shortest,  straight-upward path.
And then swinging eastward toward the Sun. Heading for
Mercury.
Guy, Toh and I sat together near the doorway of the
Cube. It loomed above us, a great fifty-foot sugar lump,
with an observatory dome on top like a little conical hat,
and the bulging balcony-deck girding its middle. There was
nothing we three could do to speed our departure.
Dr. Grenfell came up to us. "Got your personal things all
insider
"Yes."
Grenfell, commander of the expedition, was a middle-aged,
thickset man with wide, deep chest and thick, hunched shoul-
ders. He gazed down at us.
"Better get aboard. Well be starting in a few minutes."
It had seemed an interminable delayevery lost moment
an eternity vv?th that Mercurian vehicle fading into the un-
known.
Grenfell smiled gently, l can imagine the shock of it to you
three."
The scientist hastened away and boarded the Cube, mount-
ing to the second of its three interior tiers, to stand at one
of the bulls-eye windows of its narrow, corridor-like en-
closed deck.
And Guy burst out, "If they'd only let us help them-l Do
something. God, this delay"
The dawn was just coming when we left the Earth, pur-
suing the silver ball into space.

II
AN UNKNOWN VOICE
FBOM WHAT Jimmy afterward told me, I can construct a
picture of what happened to him from the time he left us
that noon of March 15. From our secluded camp he flew
his dragon directly back to Boston. His little monoplane
the fleetest, most agile type of flyer of its daymounted
high into the clouds. Jimmy was taking no chances that
a newscaster's plane might be on the lockout for him, guess
that he bad been visiting us, and thus reveal our vicinity.
The dragon had its own insignia in chameleon letters
on its underwing surface, but Jimmy could light the wings
to show other official insignia.
When he left our cottage his wings bore a naval device.
His plane, constructed for instant camouflage, dangled a
false landing gear, and wore wide, spreading false upper
wings. No observer at a distance could have guessed it was
Jimmy's dragon.
He mounted to high altitudes, changed the angles of
incidence of his wing surfaces, switched the pressure air into
bis carburator for rarified flying, and kept mounting. At sixty
thousand feet he swung southeast toward Boston.
"Coming," he told the chief over the ether-phone. "Be
there in an hour."
Over Boston he nosed down. The false plane-shape ribs
were folded. The camouflaged landing gear had been drawn
"~ up. His wing surfaces carried his own familiar device.
He landed on the Commonwealth Building; descended to
his office, dispatched his routine work.
At about two o'clock his televisor phone puzzed.
"James Turk speaking. Interstate Patrol, New England,
Division Four. Who wants me?"
The call-sorter's voice answered him. "Someone wants
you through the Bangor Broadcasting Studio. Do you ac-
cept the call, please?"
"Plug 'em in," said Jimmy.
"I would speak to Jimmy Turk," came a soft, low-spoken
man's voice.
"I'm Turk. Who are you? Where's your image?"
The sorter cut in. "I can't get his image, Mr. Turk."
"Let him come through without it."
The soft voice sounded: "Iyou do not know me. I am a
friend of Rowena."
"Rowena?"
Was this some hoax? Some newscaster trying to work a
game on him?
"Rowena"the voice barely whispered"is in danger-
great danger. And Tamayou know Tama"
"Who in the devil are you?" Jimmy bent at his sending
grid with tense vehemence.
"A friend." The voice now spoke with furtive swiftness.
"Rowena and Tamathey are together? Both in the same
place?"
"None of your damned business!"
"They are in danger. I do not ask you to go to them. Come
to me."
Jimmy still thought it was a hoax; but in spite of him-
self his heart was thumping.
"I'm not going to them. You want me to come to you?
Why? Where-"
"I will tell you of the danger if you will meet me. It
must be secret."
"Where will I meet you?"
"Moosehead Lake, in Maine." The voice was intensely
earnest. "There is a landing fieldM 56and another land-
ing fieldM 57. From the air a line connecting them would
cross a north arm of that lake. I will be where it crosses the
lakeshore."
-When?"
"In an hour."
"I'll come," Jimmy agreed. "And look here, if this is some
damned newscaster's joke, I'll slam you into pulp."
"Danger is no joke. You will come alone? If you do not,
you will never find me."
"Don't worryI'll come alone."
They broke connection. Jimmy left orders to trace the call,
and in five minutes had his dragon in the air. Jimmy Turk
was afraid of nothing. His worst fault was that he was too
hasty, heedless. There was a chance that one of the many
criminals with whom he constantly dealt was using this
method of luring him to a lonely spot. But a landing on Moose-
head Lake in broad daylight was nothing in Jimmy's life; and
his dragon was nimble as a flea and a veritable arsenal of
weapons.
Nevertheless, as he approached the rendezvous, he flew
high, gazing cautiously down, sweeping his binoculars over
the white, frozen landscape. The afternoon sun was shining.
The forest stretched white, with sharp black shadows; every
twig of the underbrush was touched with winter's fairy
fingers, glittering in the sunlight.
He could see, some ten miles apart, the two landing
fields which the unknown voice had namedthe hangars,
repair shops, and the towns nearby. Mentally he drew a
line connecting them.
Jimmy made a wide circle. There were a few towns, shape-
less in the snow, overhead an occasional plane, and camps
in the forest, most of them deserted in this season. The town
of Quogg was visible, and far off to the south, a patch on
the lakeshore marked the snow-piled site of the White Sum-
mer Camp for Girls, where the Mercurian invaders had
made their first raid the summer before.
Jimmy saw nothing suspicious. The designated spot was
obviousa level snow field near the lake shore with the
forest set close around it. A desolate, lonely spot.
Jimmy flashed on his wing insignia, dropped his snow-skid
gear and descended. The dragon skimmed the naked tree-
tops like an albatross, struck the field, slid its length, and
  stopped with the forest edge and a thick line of under-
brush twenty feet beyond its propeller nose.
For a minute Jimmy sat in his little open pit, waiting.
The forest was silent; the small open field lay blue-white
in the sunlight, an unbroken surface save for the double
track of his skids.
No one was waiting here. Then it occurred to Jimmy
that he had the dragon in a wrong position. He pressed
down his turning spikes, wheeled the little plane around,
facing the open field for a quick takeoff.
Jimmy was alert. He was awkward in his thick suit, but
he had flung back his face visor, taken off his gloves, and
in his hand he held his automatic. As the dragon wheeled
with its tail to the nearby forest edge, a figure appeared
from the underbrush there. Jimmy did not see it at once;
but he saw it an instant later when he raised himself
cautiously up to gaze back over the pit-cowl.
"Hil" called Jimmy. "Stand where you arethat's close
enough."
The single figure stopped obediently. It was a small man
bundled in a huge gray-white fur garment with a hood
over his head. His pale face was uncovered, but his hands
were lost in the voluminous fur.
Jimmy noticed that at once and ducked back of his cowl,
clicking open a tiny slit through which he poked the muzzle
of his gun. Down in the pit where he crouched, his periscope
mirror showed him the standing figure. The stranger was
only twenty feet away; the astonished expression of his face
at Jimmy's actions was plainly discernible.
Jimmy called, "I've got you covered. Better throw your
hands up. Up I tell you! I never talk to strangers when
they hide their hands like that."
The man's arms went up. His hands were seemingly
empty. His voicethe soft voice of the phone callsaid,
"Are you Jimmy Turk?"
"Yes. What is it you want to tell me?"
"I cannot shout it. Can I come closer?"
"Yes. But keep your hands up."
The man came walking with a slow, dragging tread. To
Jimmy's mind flashed the thought that he was a cripple,
his feet laboriously scuffling the snow.
And then another thought came: a realization. Jimmy's
heart leaped. His finger very nearly pressed the trigger
of his leveled automatic. But it was not Jimmy's way to kill
in cold blood. He shouted, "Hey there1 say, wait a min-
utel Stand still!"
The man stopped. He was only ten feet from Jimmy now.
His hands were over his head and one of them flipped
forward suddenly.
Jimmy fired. He thought he saw the man's knees knock
together, an instant in advance of the shot. At the stranger's
waist a spreading stab of blue-green light leaped out. Jim-
my's bullet went into the light-radiance: melted in a harm-
less puff of ignited gas.
All in a second. Jimmy was aware of the tiny object the
man had flipped, dropping into the open pit beside him as
he crouched. It shattered into a tiny puff of light, almost
invisiblecolorlessincredibly bright. Stabs of pain leaped
in Jimmy's eyeballs. The pit interior went dazzling white,
then dark. Black.
Jimmy felt himself firing again, blindly. He biinked. The
pain in his eyeballs was horribleconfusing, blurring. His
eyes were open. But he was blind.
He felt arms reaching in to seize him. He swung up his
automatic, but it was knocked from his hand. Then some-
thing struck his heada blow dulled by his headgear, but
it  was  enough.  His  senses  whirled;  he  felt  himself  falling
backward to the floor of his pit.
Ill
THIRD DEGREE
JIMMY'S FIRST returning consciousness brought again those
stabbing pains in his eyeballs. The white puff of light had
caused only a temporary blindness: a horribly brilliant acti-
nic ray which narrowed his pupils and paralyzed their nerves
so that they could not expand when the light was gone.
The effect was wearing off now. He could see dim blurred
shadows around him; and out of the shadows of uncon-
sciousness the murmur of voices became audible.
Jimmy felt himself to be lying upon something soft. He
moved his hand and struck a curved, smooth metal sur-
face. He felt his head.  His hair was matted with blood,
drying now, stiffly sticky. A scalp wound where something
had struck him.
He realized that his headgear had been taken off; and
then that his flying suit was off. But he was warm, lying
in some interior. His returning senses were clarifying, the
sounds around him becoming less blurred. He could hear
footsteps, and men's voices in a strange, unintelligible lan-
guage.
Then he heard the approaching tread of heavy footsteps.
A shape bent over him and a face took forma woman's
face with a wide,  flat nose,  flabby,  sagging  pallid-gray
cheeks. Over her thick shoulder, he could distinguish the
arch of gray-feathered wings.
She said in a gutteral, broken English, "You better? No
hurt now?"
"No," said Jimmy. "But I can't see. Where am I? That
man"
"No talk." She pushed at him with a flabby hand as he
tried to sit up. "You no move. He kill."
Jimmy sank back. "If he's here, you send him to me."
She straightened and moved away into the blurred sha-
dows of the room. Jimmy lay motionless and felt his strength
coming back to him. He felt now that he was capable of
standing, fighting
But he was still very nearly sightless, and unarmed. He
felt his clothes. There was no weapon upon him. He was in
a lighted room; several men were here. A room unmoving,
vibrationless.
Again approaching footsteps. A man this time. As the face
came down, Jimmy saw a man with a smallish face of per-
haps thirty. His black hair grew down in a little peak on his
white forehead to give him a curiously satanic look. Jimmy
recognized the soft voice of the man who had phoned him,
he was saying, "And you have your senses now?"
"Yes. What the devil do you mean by" Jimmy broke off.
That line of talk was useless. He amended, "You've done
something to my eyes. I'm blind."
"That will wear off presently. Have no fear, I have not
banned you."
The man sat down beside him.
"Look here," said Jimmy. "What's this all about? Who are
you?"
The man laughed softly. "My name you have heard, just
as I have heard of you. I am Roc."
Roc, the Mercuriani Jimmy had never seen him before,
but from Guy Palisse he had heard of him. He was the
son of the giant Croat who had come to Earth last summer
and met his death. In the Light Country of Mercury this
man Roc had risen to be chief of the army in Tama's na-
tive Hill City. Guy had taught him English, had known him
for nearly ten years.
At Jimmy's exclamation. Roc chuckled grimly.
"You have heard of mel But you and Palisse, that Jack
Dean and the rest never thought I would come to your
Earth. Well, I came, to find out what became of my father
and his spaceship"
Jimmy interrupted cautiously, "Did they come to Earth?
Well, I don't know"
"You lie! You know his ship was destroyed. He was a fool
to bother with your accursed Earthwomen. I told him so.
I told him he was not clever enough to come here. He is
dead now. Well for me, because it leaves me to be master
of the Light Country. . . . He had another spaceship in
the Cold Country of Mercury. It was nearly completed
and I have finished it: this ball you are now in."
"I can't see a thing," said Jimmy calmly. "Where are we?"
Again Roc chuckled. "Hidden in the forest, near where
I caught you. It is still daylight. We descended last night.
For one never here before, I know this land very well. Guy
Palisse was nice to teach me your language, and to draw
me maps."
He seemed ready enough to talk. A conceited fellow, proud
of his own cleverness; pleased on the whole that his father
was dead. Jimmy could barely see him as a blurred shape
sitting nearby. Roc told with bland conceit how he had crept
upon a farmhouse not far from here, listened to its radio-
grid.  Every grid these  days  shouted  of nothing  but  the
Bolton Flying Cube; the death of the marauding Croat last
fall; the hidden Tama, Rowena, Guy Palisse and Jack Dean;
and Jimmy Turk, the patrol flyer who knew their whereabouts
but would not tell.
Roc was shrewd, quick to learn; and he was fairly familiar
with Earth -devices. He had found no trouble in communi-
cating with Jimmy.
"Well," said Jimmy. "You're a clever fellow, aren't you?
What comes next?"
Roc retorted softly, "I want Tama, that is all. Your Earth
does not interest me. I never liked my father's plan to popu-
late Mercury with your Earthwomen. But the virgins of the
Light Country are rebellious. They fly off in revolt if one
crosses them."
"You mean, if you mutilate their wings," Jimmy put in.
"Clip their wings. I passed a law that their wings should
be clipped. But that is not important now. When I return
to Mercury, I shall be master of the Light Country. Every-
thing is ready: from the cold Country our armies are com-
ing."
"When are you going to return?"
"Tonight, when the darkness comes."
"Well, I'm not interested in your Mercury. Suppose you
let me out of here and I'll go"
Roc suddenly gripped him with thin, talon-like fingers and
a fair amount of strength.
"You are a fooll If I had weapons to do it, I would destroy
this Flying Cube that dares plan a flight to Mercury. At
any rate, your Earth can give me Tama and that Earth-
girl,  Rowena.  There  is  a  comrade  with me herebig  like
herwho would like to see her." The grip of Roc's fingers
tightened. "Tonight, when the darkness comes, you are going
to lead me to where Tama and that Rowena hide."
"I don't know where they are," said Jimmy.
"You lie!"
Jimmy's sight was steadily returning. He was lying in a
triangular room which was evidently a segment of a small
metallic globe. The metal ceiling arched concavea dull
white metal surface, with a small lens-paned window. It
stood partly open. There were tree branches close outside,
dimly visible in the fading daylight. Other figures had been
in the room, but they had moved away now. Their voices
were audible through one of the interior doorways.
Roc leaned closer. "I am going to have trouble with you
then?"
"You are, if you expect me to tell you what I don't know."
"We shall see."
Jimmy felt a sudden stab of pain on the upper flesh of his
arm. A burning, blistering heat as though a small white-
hot needle had been laid against his skin and instantly with-
drawn. The smell of burning cloth, his coat sleeve, wafted
to him. In Roc's hand was a small black object the size and
shape of a metal lead pencil.
"That is nothing," Roc sneered, "Just a hint. Will you
tell me now where those two girls are living?"
Jimmy suddenly lunged. His flying fist caught Roc in the
face. Roc went over backward, with Jimmy on top of him.
They were about the same size, but Jimmy was far stronger.
Roc's pencil-weapon emitted a tiny silent flash. It missed
Jimmy. He knocked the thing from Roc's hand. His fingers
encircled the Mercurian's slender throat, choking him; but
Roc had been able already to shout. Footsteps were ap-
proaching.
Jimmy let go of his writhing adversary and sprang to his
feet. The bulk of a giant man's figure loomed before him.
Jimmy's sight was still far from normal. He ducked sidewise,
trying to gain the doorway. A stab of light flashed past him;
missed him. Roc was shouting, struggling erect. There were
other men's figures.
Jimmy stumbled over something. Fell, with the curiously
light weight but bulging bulk of the giant on top of him. He
felt something damp against his face. The acid smell of a
drug. His senses blurred. He went limp.
Jimmy did not lose consciouness this time. All his muscles
seemed paralyzed. As though in some strange form of cata-
lepsy, he lay helpless, unable to move, but with his eyes
wide open. There was a blurred sense of sight and hearing.
Blurred thoughts, as though something were pulling at
him, striving to waft him off into a phantasm of chaos. He
fought against it vainly.
He was lying on his back. They had shoved him against
the wall of the room. Someone was talking nearby.
Jimmy fought for consciousness. He biinked. He could
twitch the muscles of his face a little. Not quite dead! He
could swallow awkwardly, with effort. His tongue seemed
swollen, but would move.
Time passed. Jimmy suddenly realized that he had re-
laxed and floated off into a wild, drugged sleep. Someone
had held more of the drug against his nose and mouth. He
had a vague recollection of it.
The vehicle was moving now. There was vibration; and a
humming in the interior. Jimmy thought he could see a
window. Night outside; it seemed to be starlight. No forest
trees. Only a field of glittering stars.
Roc bent over him. "Can you talk?"
"Yes."
"It is night now. We have ascended.  Still over Maine,
up about a hundred thousand feet. Are you ready now to
tell me where those girls are?"
"No"
"But you know their location?"
"Yes."   .
A dull feeling of surprise swept over Jimmy as he heard
his thick, toneless voice giving his answer. His brain -was
rational. He had meant to say, "No"tried to say it. but
the answer had come, "Yes."
Roc demanded, "Are they in this state of Maine?"
"No."
Again Jimmy had tried not to answer truthfully. He real-
ized now that this drug which had paralyzed his muscles,
his nerve centers, had also paralyzed his will. Against all
his efforts, his answers were truthful.
"Are they in New York State?"
"Yes."
"Tell me just where."
Jimmy fought not to speak at all. He could feel Roc's
gloaming dark gaze upon himfeel, as though it were some-
thing tangible. Roc's will dominating his own.
The Mercurian's voice was low and intense:
"Tell me, I command you. Do you understand? Command
you."
Suddenly he heard his voice telling the detailed descrip-
tion of the location of the secluded cabin. Roc would have
no trouble in descending in the forest near it. Jimmy gave
all the details of the cabin's interior, the location and oc-
cupants of its different rooms.
Roc laughed softly. "Thank you. I hope there will be
many times when you can help me like this."
Jimmy lay mentally exhausted. His senses were floating
llow and it was pleasant to be at peace.
He came to himself with the realization that he was out-
doors. It was still night. Snow was under his feet and a vista
of open snow fields, with forest trees nearby. A thick cloth
hooa protected his head; the under jacket of his flying suit
was over his shoulders.
He seemed to have almost his full strength at once. He
was slumped by a tree trunk which loomed beside him. A
giant man clung to him by the aimhad evidently dragged
him here. The man leaned down.
"You-right, now? All right?"
Broken, gutteral English. A giant Mercurian. Jimmy be-
came suddenly aware that this was a familiar locality. He
saw the dim outlines of a nearby log cabin, dark in the
starlight.  This  was  our  cabin,  which  he  had  left  only
about twelve hours before. He saw figures prowling outside
it now.
Jimmy did not answer. With all his force he wrenched
from his captor and tried to run. But his strength suddenly
drained from him. He stumbled and fell in the snow. Aflash
stung his arm and burned his sleeve; and as the giant leaped
on him and pulled him erect, a portion of burned fabric
fell unheeded to  the  now beside  the  stump.  It  was  the
cloth which I came upon a few moments later.
Another figure gripped Jimmy. A voice, in better English,
said softly, "Do not try that." And then, "They come, Dor-
rekRoc no need this fellow."
They had brought Jimmy out to revive him in the cold
air,  perhaps thinking they might need him  to  show  them
further details of the cabin. They hurried him now toward
the nearby forest. Jimmy saw, behind him, a following group.
He saw the silver ball resting in the shadows of the forest
nearby. He was led into it, flung down on the floor of the
same room where he had been before. The giant sat watch-
fully at his elbow.
Then there were shots outside, in the distance. A flurry
of footsteps in the vehicle; excited voices. Arriving figures.
Rowena and Tama were flung down beside Jimmy. Roc's
voice said:
"Guard them, Dorrek. . . . If anyone of you causes trouble,
Dorrek will kill you."
The lenses of the windows and the door were slamming.
The vehicle lifted, quivered. Outside the window, the forest
trees were sliding downward. Then only starlight. The ball
was making upward, leaving the Earth.
"Jimmyyou I"
The girls clung to Jimmy. The giant seemed to ignore
their whispering.  Tama had been  caught by Roc while
she was still asleep, but the slight noise had awakened
Rowena. She had seized a long dressing gown and' gone
into the living room. Roc and his men had pounced upon
her.
To Rowena's easy capture Guy, Toh and I undoubtedly
owed our lives. Had there been a commotion Roc would prob-
ably have killed us in our beds. But with the girls cap-
tured, he retreated at once.
"I told him where you were," Jimmy whispered. "I was
druggedparalyzed1 couldn't keep from telling."
Tama knew the drug. It was foolproof. She named it in
her native language. Roc had thrown a cloak over her wings.
She was shivering, but presently, with the friction-heat of the
rapid ascent, the room began to warm.
"We're headed for Mercury," whispered Jimmy.
The giant abruptly leaned toward Rowena, plucked at
her gown.
"You-the Rowena girl?"
There was light enough to see his face. A great bloated,
flabby-jowled, hairless face of pallid gray skin. A wide flat
nose with a bridge suggesting that it had been broken. He
was grinning with a leer meant to be ingratiating.
Rowena flung off his hand. Jimmy muttered an oath, but
Tama gripped him.
"Waiti He is a Cold Country native; perhaps a leader."
"Youthe Rowena girl?"
"Yes," said Rowena calmly. "That's my name."
"I like you. I, Dorrek, master of the army when we cap-
ture Light Country. Soon now. And I like you. Big woman
beautiful. My woman soon"
His gaze devoured Rowena's figure. Jimmy was tense, but
a movement of Tama's directed his attention across the room.
Behind the squatting giant, a heavy-set gray woman was
standing.  Her gray wings were folded behind her.  She
stood against the wall; the light fell upon her wide, flabby,
gray face to illumine it plainly. It was contorted now with
hate. The venom of a woman's jealous hate.
And all in an instant Jimmy realized that in her hand
as it came up from the folds of her drab-colored robe, i
long glittering knife was clutched.
The woman moved suddenly forward, uttered a piercing
hysterical scream and with waving knife blade leaped at
Rowena.

IV
ENDLESS VOID
I SAT BESIDE Guy in one of the deck corridor chairs of the
Bolton Cube. A bull's-eye window was at hand. Earthlight
and starlight, and mingled moonlight fell upon usthe great
firmament out there blazing with a glory wondrous, amaz-
ing. The Earth hung fairly below our window. Tremendous,
reddish-yellow ball, etched with the tracery of its land and
water, mottled with cloud areas, white with its polar snow-
caps.
To one side hovered the gloaming, sharply black and white
Moon-disk and everywhere the stars blazed like points of
fire in the dead black void of space. The Sun was overhead.
From this side of the deck we could not see it.
"How far out are we?" Guy asked. I had been to the
dome-peak and just-returned.
"About four hundred thousand miles."
"Has Grenfell's telescope lost sight of the silver ball?"
"Yes."
We had been on the voyage some ten hours. It was now,
by Earth Eastern Standard Time, which we were maintaining
on the Cube, about 3 P.M. on the afternoon of March 16th.
The Mercurian vehicle had departed some four hours in
advance of us and now it was beyond our sight.
"But Grenfell is sure we have been making as good speed as
the ball," I added. "And he hopes to do better. We'll over-
haul it in a day or two."
"If it heads directly for Mercury," said Guy. "But we're
following it blind."
Through the window there was no movement apparent.
"The Earth and Moon were dwindling, but very slowly. The
Sun was growing larger. Our velocity was now only a million
miles in about nine hours. More than a month to reach the
Sun at this rate, and something like twenty-six thousand
years to the nearest star!
For an hour Guy and I talked that afternoon on the deck
of the Bolton Cube. We would overtake the Mereurian vehi-
cle. And then what? There was a gun mounted at a press-
sure port on the deck of the Cube. But with Tama, Rowena
and Jimmy in the ball, we could not attack it.
On the other hand, if Roc had the necessary weapons,
he was free to attack us. Guy felt, however, that Roc had
no long-range weapons.
"It won't be armed," Guy insisted.  "They'll have hand
weaponsbut that's about all. That ball was only a tender
for Croat's ship."
A day passed. Anxious hours, seemingly interminable. Our
almost vibrationless little square metal house seemed hang-
ing in the void. Everything remained almost the same. The
Earth was still full-round, but smaller, vidth a silvery aspect
mingling now with its yellow-red sheen; the Moon, behind
it,  a tiny white  sphere.  Both were level with  our  side win-
dows, with the Sun and Mercury on the other side. Gren-
fell kept us in this position so that his telescope might most
readily seek the Mereurian vehicle in advance of us.
The Sun seemed a trifle larger now. The crescent Mer-
cury could be seen only through the telescope. And far to
one side, the blazing point of light which was Venus showed
in the telescope as a glorious half-moon.
Then at last we were rewarded. Five F.M. of March 17th,
thirty-six hours after leaving the Earth. A shout from Toh
resounded through the Cube.
"They have picked it up I It is visiblea dot against the
Sun-diski Jack, come up here! Guyoh, Guythe thing is in
advance of us, but not so far."
We jammed into the little dome-room. Our velocity was now
some five hundred thousand miles an hour. It had reached
and passed the maximum of which apparently the Mercur-
ian vehicle was capable. The ball showed as a tiny black
dot against the flaming gaseous envelope of the Sun's
surface.
I faced Dr. Grenfell. "Can I see you a moment alone?"
He gazed up at me from beneath his raised bushy brows.
"Alone? We've no secrets here. Jack. What"
But he left Baker at the telescope and accompanied me
down the inclined ladder into the third and upper tier of
the Cube. A small central room, with table and chairs, sur-
rounded by a number of cubbiescontrol and instrument
rooms. Guy had followed us, with Toh beside him.
I had a plan; wild, suicidal. All day the details of it
had been obsessing me: I had been waiting for the sighting
of the silver ball as the time to tell it to Grenfell. He lis-
tened quietly, hearing me through with only an occasional
question. He sat low in his chair, his thick shoulders hunched,
his eyes peering up at me; and only his thick fingers toying
restlessly with the  black  ribbon  of  his  seldom-used  eye
glasses betrayed his emotions.
Guy sat speechless, turning grim and white, regarding me
with an eagerness almost pathetic. Only once, he spoke.
"Jack! I'm going with youl Dr. Grenfell, if he goes. I'm
going."
And Toh protested the same.
We ignored them. When I finished, there was a tense si-
lence.
Then Dr. Grenfell said, "That's all. Jack?" .
"Yes . . . Wait, Guy" I gripped his arm. "Take it easy!
Let's talk this out. Dr. Grenfell"
He interrupted me with his slow quiet voice. "I think
you could get there. The way you reason it, the thing is
rational. But Jack, you could not do anything."
"Except yield myself up. But I don't think they'll kill
me, and just being there with RowenaDr. Grenfell, she's
my wife, don't you realize that? She"
His gesture checked my outburst. "You could not take
any weapons, or it would result only in arming our enemy."
"I know it. I don't want any. One, perhapsa little re-
volver or a knife which I might hide. I just want to be
there. It's when they land on Mercuryinstead of Jimmy
alone, it will be Jimmy and me to try and guard the girls
and find some way of escape. Well succeed, 1m sure." I
tried to be calm. "Dr. Grenfell, you can spare me?"
"Yes, I can spare you. But it may be suicide." He gazed
down at his eyeglass ribbon; and then he looked up with
sudden decision.
"I can imagine your emotion, Jack. I won't keep you,
won't try to influence you."
"I'm going," Guy insisted. "Two of us-" He stopped Toh
from speaking. "You keep out of this. They'd kill you the
moment they got hold of you, and you know it."
Grenfell shook his head at them both. "I wont spare more
than one of you."
"But, Dr. Grenfell-" Guy began.
"And you, most emphatically, I cannot spare. When we
reach Mercury, trying to plan what to do, whom do you
think well depend on most? You, Guyl Isn't that obvious?
There will be only eight of us here on the Cube, and of us
all,  only  you  and  Toh  have  been  to  Mercury before.  You
think I'm going to let you try this mad thing? Lose you
and your knowledge of Mercury? I'm not!"
He leaned forward with his hands on Guy's shoulders.
"Get it out of your head. The very thing you want, the
safety of Tama, would be jeopardized. . . . Jack, if you insist
on trying it, well start your preparations now. Toh, please
you're only a lad. I won't let you try this mad thing. ...
Your Moon-suit, Jack; we'll get it ready, test it out in the
air lock. We'll overtake Roc's vehicle presently."
So it was decided that I alone was to undertake the ad-
venture. Fantastic, suicidal attempt! I prepared for it with
outward calmness. But he who Sayg he is incapable of fear
is a liar.                                       \
Our vehicle was a cube fifty feet in each of its three
dimensions. Outwardly it suggested a great sugar-lump, or-
nate with little windows, a doorway, a bulge around the
middle which was the enclosed balcony deck. On top there
was a observatory dome set like a tiny conical hat.
The Cube inside was a maze of softly blue-lit apartments
of metallic walls, floors and ceilings, draped and furnished
into a fair semblance of comfort. There were three tiers, and
a balcony deck surrounded the four vertical sides of the
middle tier. Of these four deck-lengths of the balcony, one
was different from the others. D-face, it was termed. Along
this fifty foot length there were  pressure .portsair  locks
pro)'ecting outward from the deck. Our single long-range gun
was mounted at one of them. Others were for the firing
of hand weapons, so that from the normal air pressure of
the deck a bullet might be fired into the vacuum of space.
Grenfell added, "I've had the telescope on them. Not a
show of anything at the windows. They must be avoiding
each window as it turns toward us."
On the deck, three of our men were waiting to launch
me off. Gibbons was in the dome at our telescope; Baker
was in the main control room. They had all been alert as we
overhauled the ball. Roc might have been able to fire upon
us. D-Face was kept now fronting the ball, and one of our
men stood alert at the long-range gun. Roc's shot, had it
come, would have been promptly answered. I thanked God
that such a thing had not been necessary.
Guy touched me. "Well, good-byegood luckl"
They all chorused it as, with hands that shook in spite
of myself, I bolted on the helmet, started my tiny motors,
felt the suit bloating with its interior pressure. Through my
visor pane I could see Grenfell's face as he stared at me. His
lips framed, "Good luckl"
Someone pushed me into the pressure lock. The door
slid closed after me. I sat awkwardly on the floor in the
center of the little metal room. Through the transparent
slide I could see the men's faces peering; and beyond the
outer slide, which was also closed, was a vista of stars and
the round gloaming shape of Roc's vehicle.
The exhaust pumps were sucking the air from the lock.
Currents plucking at me.
A few minutes later I was in a vacuum. I stood up, sway-
ing unsteadily. There was a glimpse of Guy's white, anxious
face. I turned away from it, faced the outer door panel.
It moved silently aside. The last swirl of rarified air in the
lock pushed at me as it rushed out. I clutched the door-
way, poised at the sill. At my feet a brinka million million
miles of black void and blazing worlds down there.
Once before I had found myself in a situation similar to
thisa human projectile in space, detached, a world of
myself. Yet now, for all my anticipation, the shock of it
numbed me. A vague amazement of thought.
I did not fall. There was no sensation of falling. No move-
ment. A suspension, as though with my body hanging
poised in the void, my thoughts were also poised. A shock-
but in a moment it passed, leaving only confusion.
The heavens slowly, soundlessly shifted, and stopped. The
Earth hung level, unmoving. I turned my head. The fiery
ball of the Sun was steady to my right. A firmament of
blazing, unmoving worlds. And I now was one of them.
Subject now, not to human movement, but to the laws qt
celestial mechanics. The finding of my orbit would be the
result of all the complicated forces now acting upon me. Per-
haps I could take the open trajectory of a comet; or the
closed ellipse of a planet, or become only a satellite, for-
ever to revolve about one of these greater astronomical
bodies near me.
Time was lost with movement. I was a world which could
exist a few years or hours or minutes, and then die, dis-
integrate. Poised in the infinity of Time and Space. Hung
chained as a satellite to something.
I shook myself free from the confusion. How long it lasted
I cannot say. I lay helpless, floating weightless in a weight-
less void. I could kick and flounder but could not change
my position. I had left the air lock with a carefully planned
forward dive. It had carried me, like a log floating in water,
a hundred feet or so away from the Cube. My outward vel-
ocity had retarded.
Of all the myriad forces pulling at me, the attraction of
the Cube was the greatest. Dr. Grenfell held D-face of the
Cube with neutral gravity plates. The Cube's nearness
checked me, held me. I sensed only the movement of my
slow, outward dive; yet at that instant I was plunging for-
ward with the Cub6 at half a million miles an hour I
The Mercurian vehicle hung before me, seemingly un-
moving, some ten miles away. I wondered if Rowena had
seen me leapif she could guess it was 1.
Then the heavens were shifting, slowly oscillating with
pendulum swing as I picked up a rolling motion. I became
aware that I was lagging behind the Cube, the beginning
of a small velocity of my ownthe making of an orbit.
Soon, with these forces, I would be a satellite of the Cube
with the lesser attraction of. the Roc vehicle retarding me
at each revolution.
Again my blurred thoughts clarified. The air lock door
at D-face was closed. I could see Grenfell in the lock peer-
ing out at me. I raised my bloated arm with our agreed
upon signal that I was all right.
He answered it, and vanished. Another countless inter-
val of time went by. I knew that Grenfell was shifting the
gravity plates in D-face so that their force would repulse
me. It was presently apparent, l-'began moving away from
the Cube.  Moving free.  Slowly  at first. Then faster.
The Cube visually began dwindling. The Roc vehicle grew
larger.
I fell free. The heavens shifted.  Then the attraction of
the silver ball caught me. I went around it in a great ellipse.
And with a slow axial rotation I was turning end over
end, so that now the Earth was over me and then the Sun
my days, which now were minutes or seconds of human
time and my year, once around this enlarging globe.
I circled it several times in a narrowing spiral orbit, as
steadily its bulk drew me closer. There were glimpses of the
Cube, hovering watchful in the starry distance. I saw that
my orbit was eccentric as I passed the side of the ball upon
which Roc was using his power. Then I think he made all
the ball neutral, for it drew me evenly inward each time I
went around. I thought several times that at the small convex
panes there were faces peering out at me.
The whole process took many minutes, or hours. I went
at last with a curving rush at the ball. Struck its smooth
gleaming, convex side. Rebounded, with the impulse of the
air pressure in my bloated garments; struck again. It seemed
like a fall: I landed with hands and knees under me, and
felt that I now had a little weight: I lay sprawled, sticking
outward like a fly upon the side of the sphere!
With the contact, blessed normality returned. Detached
no longer, free of the abnormality of an independent exis-
tence, I was once again the inhabitant of the world.
The sense of human time came back to me, with human
movement. I sprawled on the sharply rounded metal surface.
I was on its side, but it seemed like its top, with the win-
dows set wrongly and all the globe under me.
I lay for a moment. I seemed to weigh a few pounds. I
began cautiously crawling away from the windows, and to
my senses the ball was slowly passing beneath me, so that
always I remained on top.
My mind was working clearly now. Would they let me
in? It seemed probable. I had a tiny revolver. It was hidden
m one boot, inaccessible now; I thought that perhaps when
they captured me they might not find it. And there was a
thin-bladed knife, of a size that made a fair weapon, fastened
to my outer belt.
I clutched it now in my gloved hand. It might be that in
the confusion of my arrival some chance would present it-
self. I knew that with my more than six-foot stature, I had
many times the strength of any Mercurian.
I crawled past a window. A face ducked away. I moved
sidewise over the small lower doorwayan entrance that
could not be used in the vacuum of space. I could not get
in that way.
The pressure port was farther around. I was over its smooth,
opaque panel before I realized it. Sprawling, knife in hand.
The panel abruptly slid from beneath me. I dropped out
of the starlight of the outer surface and fell in a heap against
an inner wall; then I dropped to a metal floor.
The panel slid swiftly closed. I was in a soundless black-
ness.
v
HATRED
WITHIN Roc's VEHICLE, shortly after it left Earth's atmosphere,
Tama, Rowena and Jimmy were sitting and talking with the
giant Mercurian. He had told them his name was Dorrek and
that he was an army leader on Mercury. And Rowena, a
giantess compared to the women of Mercury, quite evidently
attracted him. He told her so, in his gutteral, broken English.
"I like youbig womanbeautiful.  My woman  soon"
Then Jimmy saw, lurking in the dimness of the narrow
metal room, the short, flabby, gray Muta with folded gray
wings. Her face was contorted with jealous rage. Without
warning she gave a scream and with a glittering knife-blade
in her hand, leaped upon Rowena.
Jimmy had no time to rise; he flung himself, sprawling
forward from his sitting posture. But Tama was quicker. Her
wings were spread behind her on the floor. She half turned,
raised one of the crimson-feathered wings and with a sweep-
ing blow, struck Muta as she leaned down. Rowena had
thrown herself backward; the descending knife missed her.
The force of her blow and the thud of Tama's wing made
the woman fall. Jimmy reached her, seized the knife and
wrenched it from her hand. Dorrek was struggling to his feet,
shouting with rage and surprise. He clutched the woman,
lifted her up, and cuffed her in the face.
Out of the confusion Jimmy found himself apart and
armed. He sprang erect. Then, for the first time, he was
aware of the feeble gravity pull existing within this Mer-
curian vehicle. To the Mercurians it was normal. To Jimmy,
it was  not  enough.  He bounced into the air with his  up-
ward leap, and his head struck the vaulted ceiling. He fell
back, fortunately on his feet, with the knife still clutched
in his hand, and found Roc confronting him.
The small triangular room was in a turmoil. Jimmy had an
instant flash of determination. He was armed. He would fight
his way out of this.
But before he could translate his thoughts into action,
other thoughts brought sanity. How could he fight his way
out? Imprisoned with two girls in this silver ball hurtling
through space! Jimmy's muscles relaxed. He raised the knife,
held it out toward the astounded Roc, and smiled.
"Here's the knife. Roc. I took it away from that damned
womanshe tried to kill Rowena."
Roc took the knife, turned from Jimmy to the turmoil of
the others. The woman stood sullen in the clutch of the an-
gry Dorrek.
There was a confusion of argument in the Mercurian tongue.
Then Muta was ordered from the room. The giant Dorrek,
triumphantly grinning, turned to Rowena.
"That Mutashe be punished soon by meDorrek." He
struck his bulging chest with a show of manly strength.
"Brave fellow," muttered Jimmy.
Roc said abruptly, "The end of that. She will not try
that again. You, Turk, come with me. Another room1 will
give you something to eat. Are you hungry?"
"Yes. So are the girls, I think."
"They shall be well cared for, have no fear. The Earth-
ship, that Flying Cube they call it"he pushed Jimmy to-
ward the door"I suppose it will be after us?"
"I suppose so." Jimmy flashed a farewell look to Rowena
and Tama as he let Roc lead him away.
This, by Earth-time, was shortly after dawn of March 16th,
about the time our Cube was leaving the Earth. Jimmy
was confined in a small three-sided room. He could see
that the ball was divided into two stories. A raised base-floor
perhaps a third up the vertical height gave a level area for
the bottom of the lower tier of rooms. The space beneath it
a single bowl-shaped roomheld the ball's driving mech-
anisms. The lower tier was cut into triangular rooms, like
slices of pie. The upper tier was the sametwo triangular
sleeping rooms, the others housing operating instruments
and controls.
It was to this upper tier, up a steep metal ladder, that Roc
now pushed Jimmy ahead of him. They entered a small
triangular room. Wall and ceiling one continuous curve, which
was the outer side of the ball; the other walls converging to
a point at the ball's center.
Jimmy stood gazing around. The room was dimly lighted
by starlight and Earthlight streaming in its single window.
"So this is where I bunk down? Do I eat in here?"
"Yes."
It was a comfortable though very small room. There was
a low, bunk-like couch on the floor set under the bull's-eye
window. A low, curiously-shaped table, a wide-armed metal
seat, and an animalskin rug were on the floor.  One side
wall was blank; the other held the small door-slide through
which they had entered. Roc turned toward it.
"I will send you food, or bring it."
"Much obliged." Jimmy took a step and gripped his cap-
tor. "Say, what are you going to do with us?"
Roc eyed him. The fellow's queer satanic look with his
thin pale face and that peak of black hair down on his
forehead was accentuated now by an ironic smile.
"You can follow me in our great conquest of Mercury
the Light Country." He checked himself suddenly. "You ask
too many questions."
But Jimmy gripped him again. "I don't give a damn about
your Mercury. Except for Tama"
"Tama is mine!" The irony left Roc's face. "It is you
who are the intruder. You and Guy Palisse, Earthmen.
Tama is a girl of Mercury, my world. I loved her years be-
fore you or Guy Palisse ever heard of her. Did you know
that?"
His eyes held Jimmy. His voice was vibrant with the in-
tensity of his emotion.
"You Earthmen would think to steal her from me? She
is mine!"
"She doesn't say so. Look here. Roc, don't lets try to kill
each other, especially about a girl who most certainly is
nothing to me."
It flashed to Jimmy that something might be gained by
talldug. He added, "Get me something to eat. Bring it back
and we'll argue this out."
Rocs look was gauging him. "You Earthmen are strange."
"That's our way. You help me, and I'll help you. I like
that better than sticking knives into people. Do you realize
that the Bolton Cube will probably be after us by now?"
"Yes."
"Well, I know all about the Flying Cube and what it's
going to do to you, Roc. Get that food and we'll talk."
Roc did not answer. He went through the doorway; and
Jimmy heard the snap of the door-slide as it closed upon
him.
Left alone, Jimmy examined the room in which he was
imprisoned. No way, apparently, of getting out. Much good
it would do him, to get out until they landed on Mercury.
He went to the window. The Earth hung level with it,
a great disk spreading half across the firmament. The ball
had now a very slow axial rotation. The Earth, the Moon
and all the starfield slowly swung; presently the Sun was
visible.
Roc did not return. He sent in the meal. Jimmy confronted
the sullen woman who had attacked Rowena.
"Where is Roc?"
"He no come. Not now. Once again maybe, later."
She put down the thin metal slab on which Jimmy's meal
was arranged. She had left the door-slide open; Roc evi-
dently did not much fear that Jimmy would try leaving the
room. As she closed the door-slide, Jimmy called:
"Tell Roc to come in here!"
But Roc did not come. Jimmy bad no way of calculating
the time. He slept, and Muta served him his meals. The
ball's axial rotation continued. Outside Jimmy's single win-
dow the heavens passed in slow horizontal procession.
Then Roc brought Jimmy's meal. While Jimmy ate he
squatted on the floor. He thumped his chest.
"Master of Mercury, and Tama my mate to help me rule
iti" A crafty look was on the Mercurians face. "I love Tama.
It was a fortunate choice  tor me.  She is  leader  of the
flying virgins. They have always been rebellious. With Tama
as my mate I can win them.'"
"Diplomacy," said Jimmy, "is a great thing. But maybe
Tama is rebellious too?"
"I shall win her."
"Not force her?"
"No, unless she makes it necessary."
"What do you want of me?"
"Perhaps as what you call a hostage," Roc promptly re-
turned. "The Earth vehicle might attack us. They would not
want me to kill you. That Cube is in sight now"
"Is it?" Jimmy involuntarily turned to the window, but
Roc stopped him.
"Eat your meal. It is not visible yetonly with my de-
tection instruments."
"Will you attack It?" Jimmy held his breath.
"No. I cannot. And it will not attack me. That is one
advantage of having you here. You and Tama and that big
Earth-girl you call Rowena." Roc rose to his feet. "We will
talk again."
"Sit down a minute," Jimmy urged. "You mention Rowena.
What do you want of her?"
"I brought her," said Roc, "for Dorrek. Or at least, he
Rmbcs ao." Roc's crafty look came back; again he lowered
his voice. "I would rather trust you, Earthman, than any
Mercurian of the Cold Country. This Rowena makes a good
hostage now. That is what interests me. I do not wish to
harm her."
"No, I believe you don't. But there's Dorrek"
"A leader of many men, is Dorrek. I need them so I
need him. Yet" His voice fell still lower: "I have been in
the Light Country for many years. This Dorrekthese eight
other men with us here nowthey are strange to me. I
command them, because I am my father's son. But I cannot
trust them. I did not realize it when we started for Earth,
but I do now. So you see, Jimmy Turk, why I want to
make friends with you? I am really alone here on this flight."
A pulse was pounding in Jimmy's throat. For the first time
l,Ai.ViA, Z \11* Uuu  v-  -I------- 
-'he felt that he and Roc were talking without duplicity. A
bond was between them. They both desired, at least, the
present safety of Tama and Rowena. And they were shut
up here with what Jimmy now realized were barbarians,
savages of a strange planet. Roc was bad enough; but
Jimmy realized now these others were infinitely worse.
"You mean," said Jimmy tensely, "he might slip a knife
into you? Now that your father is out of the way, if he got
rid of you, would he be the leader then of this invasion or
conquest or whatever it is you are planning?"
"Yes."
"Look here," pursued Jimmy, "hadn't you better give me
a weapon?"
"And have you turn it on me?"
"Don't be a fool, Roc. I'm with youfor this flight, any-
way. See here, we're shut up in this damn little ball"
They were startled by a sound outside the door. Roc's
cylinder weapon sprang into his hand. He shoved it back
to his belt with a laugh.
"Talking like this makes me nervous."
He and Jimmy were on their feet. Jimmy gripped him,
whispered, "See herethose girls, don't let anything hap-
pen to them"
The slide abruptly opened. It was the giant, DoJ,tde.- What
had he heard? His face was impassive as he stooped and
squeezed through the little doorway. He spoke to Roc in the
Mercurian tongue. Roc said in English:
"The Earth vehicle can be seen now."
They went to the window, waited a moment for the ball's
axial rotation to bring the Earth into view. Jimmy stood gazing
at the slowly shifting, starfield; but he was very conscious
of the giant Mercurian beside him. Roc was undoubtedly an
unscrupulous, crafty scoundrel. But at least one could talk
to him, perhaps almost reason with him.
Jimmy's surreptitious, gaze roved Doirek. Six and a half
feeta gigantic hulk of a man, with a gray, flat, flabby face,
heavy jowls and a broken nose. An animalskin was draped
now across his bulging, hairless chest.
Other Mercurians crowded in to question Roc about the
approaching Eaitilship. Men of smaller stature, but with the
same heavy barbaric look that characterized Dorrek.
'  A babble of unintelligible Mercurian words enveloped Jim-
my. Suddenly Jimmy thought of the girls on the lower tier.
The woman Muta might be down there alone with them.
He flashed Roc a significant look.
"Let's go down, see it from below. Why wait up here?"
Tama and Rowena were standing at one of the lower
windows. Strangely contrasting types, these girls of different
worlds. They stood with arms around each other. Rowena's
tall figure was draped in the brown dressing gown; her hair
fell in brown braids down her back. Her extended arm with
the robe was thrown out over Tama's wings, enveloping the
small Mercurian girl who leaned affectionately against her.
Their backs were to the room; and its only other occupant at
the moment was Muta. She stood against the wall gazing
with heavy brooding eyes at Rowena.
They saw the Cube draw level and check its accelera-'
tton, sweeping along with them some ten miles away. They
saw me leave as a tiny projectile hurtling toward them
across the intervening void. Roc kept everyone away from
the windows; he threw his mechanism to neutral so that
't~~e attractive mass of the ball might capture and hold me.  '
Roc had' no way of knowing the identity of this emissary
sent by the Earth vehicle. But when I had closely approached,
Jimmy could guess. He thought it likely that the personnel
of the Cube now was the same as upon its first flight, when
Jimmy himself had been aboard. And as my bloated, gro-
tesquely helmeted figure now encircled Roc's ship, drawing
inward until I fell against the gleaming side, Jimmy guessed
who it was, for I was by far the tallest man on the Cube.
The occupants of the ball crowded one of its lower com-
partments at the inner entrance of the air lock chamber.
The inner slide was closed.
Jimmy said nothing. He stood tense beside Roc at the
gauges of the pressure port.
They saw my figure as I crawled like a fly outside the
windows. I came against the outer entrance slide. Roc shoved
at a lever.
They felt the vibration of the metal wall as I tumbled
to the floor of the air lock.

VI
WEAPONS
THE AIR LOCK was black. I lay huddled on its floor. I could
feel the air pressure coming into it. For a moment or two
I crouched, clinging to my knife. When the air in the lock
reached the pressure of the interior of the hall, the inner
door would open, no doubt; and the Mercurians would leap
upon me. I had an instinct to put up a -fight, if I saw
that Jimmy was free. It was a chance for us. But now I
felt that it would be too dangerous, shut up here in this
tiny world, to start acts of violence with Rowena and Tama
aboard.
I determined to keep my wits, betray myself into no
rash move.                                                   ._._
I became aware that the air pressure was aboHfrTBBnnaT"
The tiny gauge inside my helmet, faintly illumined, showed
15.5. The darkness continued. But my eyes were more ac-
customed to it now; I could see the narrow walls of a small
room. Where the inner slide might be I could not yet deter-
mine.
Another moment passed and I took off my helmet, placed
It on the floor and stood up  cautiously.  There  was barely
room for me to stand erect, scarce an inch above my head
to the metal ceiling. As I got to my feet, I realized they
were maintaining a gravity much less than that of Earth.
A sudden slit of light dazzled me. The inner slide was open-
ing. Air of a little heavier pressure rushed in with a gust. I
saw figures: squat, heavy men in crudely fashioned animal-
skins. One was gigantic. Then I saw a small slender fellow
who was Roc. I recognized him from Guy's description.
They crowded in upon me with a rush and jerked me
forward out of the lock into a metal room which seemed
brightly illumined.
But though I was dazzled by the sudden light, I could
see enough. Infinite relief swept me. Rowena, unharmed! Ta-
ma and Jimmy1 saw them standing in a group in the midst
of the confusion. And over the babble of voices, I heard
Rowena give a single cry, instantly suppressed. Joy at see-
ing me, yet fear, too, for my safety.
I found myself standing alone, with the Mercurians crowd- 
ing me. The knife was still in my gloved hand; I had held
it in a fold of my deflated robe.
Roc confronted me. "Who are you?"
In that instant a score of wild plans flashed over me. I
discarded them all. I smiled. I was holding the knife by its
blade; I extended its handle.
"My only weapon. Take it. I come peacefully."
He took the knife. "Who are you?"
"Jack Dean."
I thought that Rowena gave a cry of protest. I could
see comprehension sweep Roc's face, but to the other Mer-
curians the name seemed to mean nothing.
Boc demanded, "What did you come for?"
~~ace. Not war.'" I added vehemently, "The release of
th~see prisoners, with my promise that then the Flying Cube
wai never attack you."
~.-" Roc's face was impassive. The Mercurians were murmur-
ing among themselves.
Jimmy said abruptly, "We had better have a talk with
him. Another room. Roc, where we can talk quietly to him.
Bargain"
I was aware then, as Roc ordered me to take off the pres-
sure suit and searched me for weapons, of the smoldering
undercurrent here. It seemed that Jimmy and Roc were
very watchful, not of me, but of the giant and his jabber-
ing followers.
Jimmy added, "Can the girls come with us?"
Then I saw the woman Muta, standing with the smol-
dering dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing.
Something herea situation unexpected, to me unfath-
omable. I sensed at once the menace of it. I stood divested
of my pressure suitbut a hidden pocket in the upper flap
of my high leather boot held a small revolver. Roc had not
found it when he searched me. I could reach it ' with a
single swift motion.
Roc pushed me before him, roughly. Jimmy, Rowena and
Tama crowded after us. The giant tried to stop them. It
seemed that every other man in the room was tense, as
though waiting for some signal. Muta's eyes were blazing.
Roc pushed the giant away, with a command in their na-
tive tongue. We went up a small inclined ladder to an up-
per level into a small room, and Roc slid the door upon us.
I could sense the relief.
Tama held onto me. Rowena flung herself into my arms.
"JackJack, dearyou should not have come into this!"
I kissed her, then pushed her away.
"Rowenal"
What words could tell what was in my heart? Thismy
wifeagain with her arms around me. But it was no time
for words, nor were they needed. She stood aside, her gaze
clinging to me.
I gave Tama the message from Guy: that he would gi.ye-
his life to come to her.                                 .-" ''
The Mercurian said abruptly, "Sit down, all of you."
There was a low metal settee, and cushions on the floor.
Roc stood over us, weapon in hand.
"You are Jack Dean, husband of Rowena here?"
"Yes."
"And you have come to rescue her?" He said it vidthout
sarcasm.
"Yes," I retorted. "But not with bloodshed. I promise that
the Cube will not attack."
"I know that it will not attack so long as I hold all of you
here."
Jimmy interrupted impatiently, "What's the use of sparring,
Roc? Let me tell him our situation" In a burst Jimmy told me
with lowered voice. And he ended, "You, Roc, can't you
see that Dean is a help? We've got to get out of thisnot
all get murdered."
Roc said abruptly, "I believe I can trust you. Jack Dean."
"Yes," I agreed.
"He only wants Rowena out of this," Jimmy added. He
flung a significant glance at me.
"And Tamap" Roc said. He was smiling again. A strange
fellow this: I could not make him out. "You think I will
release TamaP Is that what you came for. Dean? Your ship
off there, threatening me."
"And meanwhile Dorrek will murder us all," Jimmy put in.
"I'm not armed, nor is Jack"
I could have snapped that revolver out within a second,
but I thought it best not to say so.
"If Dorrek knew I had given you a weapon," said Roc,
"it would bring trouble."
"Then I'll keep it hidden," Jimmy insisted. "What weapons
have you? What have Dorrek and his men? See here. Roc,
you're a fool if you don't come out in the open now. Let
us stand with you. Man, we're all shut up here! You're only
holding Dorrek off by the grace of the Almighty1 saw
his look when you crossed him as we came up here. And
his menevery one of them waiting for his signal."
"True," said Roc calmly. "But they would not dare attack
me now. They can handle the controls only as long as they
do what I tell them. I chart our coursethe navigating.
Without me they would be helpless. When we get to Mer-
cury"
"The danger will come then," finished Jimmy. "But that
doesn't help me now. Or these girls. Or Dean."
"Dorrek will obey my orders."
"Maybe he will, maybe not. Roc, you used a lot of weap-
ons on me. That ray-weapon"Jimmy indicated the cylinder
Roc was holding"and that light-bomb in my plane, that
blinded me. And gas fumeswhere are they all? Has Dor-
rek got them?"
"No." The Mercurian had been gazing thoughtfully at
Tama. He turned abruptly to the wall of the room, pressed
a hidden mechanism. A small slide opened. In a compart-
ment like a little closet we saw an array of hidden weapons.
Roc moved the slide closed again. "Dorrek does not know
this locker is here. Nor could you open it, even though you
have seen me."
"All right," said Jimmy. "What weapons has Dorrek?"
"A cylinder like this. His men have knives."
"That's enough. Roc, if you'll give me and Dean each a
cylinder, we'll keep them hidden, watch ourselves until we
get to Mercury. Then you order a landing. That's when
Dorrek will make a play to kill you. But we'll be prepared-
break awayforce a passage for you out of this"
Roc was again staring fixedly at Tama. He said abruptly
to Jimmy, "You spoke truth a while ago, Turk. My affairs on
Mercury are none of yours. This Rowena1 wish her no
harm, except that J am glad to have her as hostage so that
your Earthship is not firing at me now. But there is Tama
whom I love. I think I will speak to Tama a moment."
He stood with Tama across the room. We could not hear
what they were saying, nor could we have understood it,
since it was in their native tongue; but later Tama told me.
He began quietly, "You heard this fellow Turk. He speaks
with wisdom sometimes. He and I have talked much of
' you. He knows I love you."
He waited but she was silent.
"You have nothing to say?"
"No."
"I am planning a conquest of all Mercury. I want you to
rule with me,  and keep  the  virgins  from  rebellion."
"You want many things. Roc."
"Most of all, I want your love. This Turk has the wisdom
of Earth. He says I should not use force against you.
Perhaps now I realize I should try to earn your love."
She measured him, wondering if he were sincere. "How,
Roc? By warring on my country? By playing the traitor? By
mutilating the wings of the virgins so that they might not
fly, and then to-"
"That was your own country's law."
"You tricked them into passing iti"
He waved that away. "I want not to quarrel, Tama. I am
thinlong of joining with these Earthmen. Perhaps hoping to
win your love." His calm voice turned suddenly vehement,
intense, and he seemed wholly sincere.
"Perhaps I did play the traitor. Taught by my father1
was only a boy, did you never think of that? I grew up, with
my father planning a conquest of the Light Country, which
had banished him. . . . These last months, Tama, while you
were taken from me to Earth, I had time to think. And
now I know that to win your love, to have you, is what
J want more than any conquest." Again he paused.
"You talk very strangely. Roc."
"I talk truth." He smiled. "You are not a fool but a very
wise girl. I will tell you more truth: My father assembled a
Cold Country army. It is waiting now. Weapons, every
scientific device of war. And even in the Fire Country, the
savages are ready. Do not shudder, Tama. It is ready
now, everything for the conquest.
"With my father's death, I should be in command of it.
And now, because you are a wise girl, I will hide nothing
from you. I say I will give up all this to win your love. I
will join these Earthmen, get them to help us in the Light
Country to repel the invasion. It will start very shortly." Ha
paused again.
"Go on, Roc."
"You are charitable, Tama. You avoid saying the sharp
things which are in your mind. You knowand therefore
I am not trying to hide it from youthat I realize now I
cannot lead the invasion. My father had all these forces
under his control, 'but I have not. This Dorrek and his men
they are only waiting to murder me. If I escape them,
and try to lead the invasion, it will be the same."
She said sarcastically, "And so, failing in villainy, you
will try heroics?"
"Yes. But you must give me credit1 tell you frankly my
reasons. And that I love you, as I always have, and that I
regret the wrongs I have done."
She touched him. "I wish I thought you were truthful.
But I have learned to fear your trickery."
"Tama, this time you are unjust. This time I will not
change. And I think perhaps you might love me. Some-
day"
They were startled as Jimmy darted suddenly away with
a gesture of silence; he crossed the room on tiptoe and
jerked at the door-slide which Roc had left unfastened. Be-
hind the door aperture the woman Muta was standing,
bending down as though listening. She started backward
with surprise, recovering herself and said in her gutteral,
broken English:
"To the Master Roc, say food is ready."
Her gaze swept the room. And abruptly she whispered
to Jimmy, "I talk you alone, maybe, sometime."
"What in-"
Her face was inscrutable. She turned and left the room.
Jimmy gazed after her with his )'aw dropping in astonish-
ment. "What innow what in the devil does she mean by
' that?"

VII
MERCURY
1 TELL YOU, Jimmy, I'll trust Roc fust as much as I have
to. No more."
"Reasonable enough. But, Jack, we have to trust him.
He's as frightened asas I am. If we ever get out of this"
Jimmy's smile was lugubrious. Five days had passed. They
had worn our nerves ragged. The situation was the same
within the Mercurian ball, save that every hour as we ap-
proached Mercury the critical moment when we must make
. our escape, or be murdered by Dorrek and his fellows, came
closer.
And with it all, I could not bring myself to trust Roc. He
had been allied to us these days by a common desire for
safety. Yet, for all his words and his actions, I was mis-
trustful. Here in the narrow confines of these enclosing walls,
be was with us right enough. But outside, free upon Mer-
cury1 wondered. And I knew that Tama mistrusted him
also.
The passing days seemed interminable. We were allowed
apparent liberty of movement on the vehicle. Boc had given
Jimmy and me each a small cylinder of the heat-ray and
shown us how to operate it. We kept them hidden, and I still
had my revolver, which even Roc did not know.
Outwardly we were Roc's prisoners. Dorrek and his men
were subordinates. But it was all thinly disguised. The mu-
tinbus Dorrek obeyed Rocbut always with a sneering con-
fident smile.
There were times when Jimmy, Roc and I thought that it
would be best to rush Dorrek and his men at once. Kill them
and have done with it.
We had for instance, little bombs of blinding light and
fragile bombs with fumes which would have stricken Dor-
rek and all his men into catalepsy. But to release one of them
here would have endangered or killed us, as well as our
enemies.
Both Jimmy and Rowena tried to find out from Muta what
she had meant by her queer hints that she had something
to say.  But her face was  blankexasperating.  She had
changed her mind; she only shook her head and would not
answer.
The days passed. It was now March 22nd by Earth time.
The Earth had dwindled to a star, a dot of white tinged with
yellow. The Moon, to the naked eye, was invisible. To one
. side, Venus hung with dazzling glory, a trifle larger than she
appears as the brilliant evening star from Earth. The Sun
had expanded to a great round pot of fire with flames leap-
ing from itslow streamers of flaming gas-tongues licking
into space with a reach the distance from the Earth to the
Mooni
Ahead of us hung Mercurylarger now, even, than the
Sun. We had swung in a line almost between the two. The
bronze-red Mercurian disk was nearly full-round. Expanding
hourly: becoming convex.
Other hours, and Mercury was a disk spread well across
the firmament. Cloud areas hid the sharply convex surface.
The Fire Country, facing us, was hidden beneath gray-
black vapor masses. The great celestial ball here in space,
was waiting to receive us.
By Earth time, March 23rd. We swung lower, with the
Mercurian atmosphere in its heavy layers close beneath us.
The world here under us now half filled the firmament. The
sense of falling and traveling sideways was soon distinct-
real movement now, to which our human senses are accus-
tomed.
Gazing down at the great spread of vapor masses, I saw
a gray-black tumbling sea, with rifts of fire in itelectrical
storms tossing the clouds. Gigantic whirlpools of vapor ap-
peared sucking huge circular holes with tossing flames edg-
ing them. Leaping bolts of lagged lightning slit the atmos-
phere.
And then, a sea of mist, shining opalescent with the sun-
light on it; and a chasm in the clouds, with rain beating
across it, and the sunlight catching the raindrops, spread-
ing them with great shafts of prismatic color.
There was a vast area where the sea of clouds hung lower
to the fiery surfacea boiling, bubbling sea, the spread of
a giant caldron with red-green volatile liquid boiling up its
crimson sediment.
The surface of the Fire Country was seldom visible; but
once, through a great rift, I saw a spread of rockspeaks
and spires. As the blistering sun-rays went down, diffused and
radiated by the heavy air, it seemed that one of the moun-
tain peaks burst with a )et of steam, edged with green burn-
ing gases. And then the clouds closed the rift.
We swept on, still above the upper atmosphere levels, head-
ing toward the Light Country.
Grenfell had made sure that Mercury was his destination.
And as we fell into position over the planet, the Cube drew
again into sight above us, following us down. And then we
plunged into the cloud masses. The Cube was lost to our
sight.
Descending the atmosphere, a rush of new problems came
to the interior of our tiny falling world. Roc was tensely ac-
tive, giving orders for the handling of the controls, which
Dorrek and his men anxiously obeyed. Jimmy and I and the
two girls were for a time ignored. We made plans for es-
cape, and watching the activity around us.
This plunge from the cold of interplanetary space to the
friction-heat of the atmosphere brought the temperature con-
trols of the vehicle into constant operation. And with the
swift-changing temperatures, for all Roc could do to keep
them equalized, came pressure changes of our interior air.
This required skillful manipulation.
Dorrek and the others did Roc's bidding with an eager
desire to make no errors. It was obvious that the safety of
the ball depended now on Roc's skilland Dorrek had not
dared cross him. Roc had told us so with his cynical smile.
But once into the lower atmosphere, with the door and
windowports open. Roc would no longer be needed. Dorrek
and his men could then safely fly the vehicle.
I whispered to Jimmy and to the girls, "Be careful, now!
We'll land in an hour or somake the rush. Don't turn your
back on anyone for a second)"
We were in the largest room in the lower tier of the ball.
Most of the Mercurians were dispersed elsewhere at the
various controls. Dorrek was in and out of the room, relaying
his .orders. In a corner angle, Muta sat on a low setteea
shapeless lump with her deformed wings spread out behind
her. Her eyes clung to us with that expressionless, fathomless
gaze.
I had my cylinder m a trouser pocket, and the revolver
m the flap of my boot. Jimmy, in his tight-fitting trousers, put-
tees, and thin gray shirt, with sleeves rolled up and col-
lar wide, sat dejectedly beside me and mopped his forehead
in the heat.
"Hot, Jack! My heavens"
I knew that he was tense, with his hidden cylinder ready
for instant action. In outward aspect, to the gaze of Dorrek
and Muta, we were docile prisoners.
We had found an opportunity of purloining a small knife
for each of the girls. Even Roc did not know they had them.
For use if the worst should come. I prayed that it might
not.
We burst presently through the clouds. The landscape of
Mercury lay spread in the half-light of day beneath the ball.
We crowded to one of the window ovals, and in a moment
Roc joined us. Dorrek, in command of the ball now, had
momentarily left the room; but Muta did not move.
"I will open the door soon," Roc whispered. He gazed
down through the window. "We are not far from the Water
City."
I glanced out, but at once turned back. "Roc, is that
woman armed?"
"No, I do not think so. A knife, perhaps."
I strode across the room.
"Muta!"
She lifted her dark gaze. "What you want?"
"Roc says, go to another room." I gestured. "You go and
make food for us. For mehungry"
She did not move. It seemed that the shadow of a smile
plucked at her heavy, shapeless mouth. Her eyes, like
vacant dark pools, gazed at me. Then she looked away. But
she did not move.
"Do you understand me, Muta?"
"Yes."
Roc joined me and gave her a brusque command in Mer-
curian. She gazed at him suUenly.
Dorrek came in. I saw Roc hesitate. Then evidently he
told Dorrek that she was to go. My breath stopped; my
hand went to my hidden weapon. Across the room Jimmy
took a tense forward step. It seemed in that breathless in-
stant that the conflict we feared was upon us. I saw in the
inner doorway three Mercurians crowding forward.
Then Roc laughed, waved at Dorrek and pulled me away.
Muta sat motionless. The giant Dorrek's gaze swept us all.
But he did not speak, and turning, he pushed his fellows back
and left the room.
Roc whispered, "They will no longer obey me. You saw
it?"
We went back to the window.
"God, I thought it had startedl" Jimmy exclaimed.
To fire these ray cylinders here in these tiny rooms was
doubtless as terrifying to Dorrek as to any of us.
"Open the door," Jimmy whispered. "Let's get out of this.
Order us to land."
Roc nodded. "Our interior air pressure is a little low.
In a moment."
Beneath my window I saw a great spread of naked land-
scapethe Light Country, fairest region of the planet! The
daylight glistened on the naked surface of bleak, metallic
hills. There had recently been a storm;  the bumished hill-
sides were wet with moisture, and little rills and pools of
water filled the rock depressions.
Desolate spread of landscape I No soil, no blade of vegeta-
tion. The convexity of this small world was obvious. An un-
dulating metallic plain, and off to one side a range of naked
little hills, with buttes, square-sided, flat-topped,  and spires
like pointed minarets  rising  against the  flat monochrome
background of the sky.
We fell lower, swept on at an altitude of not over fifteen
hundred feet. Tama stood beside me. She gestured. "The
Hill City is not far. And the Water City is ahead of us.
They have had a black storm not long ago. See the water
on the rocks."
We passed almost over a valley. Soil was there. Porous-
looking trees, suggesting a mushroom growth,  fringed a
little lake. There were small areas with a red soil plowed up.
And set in a long strip at the bottom of one of the en-
closing hillsides was a collection of little hutscrude habi-
tations built* of the porous treetrunks, thatched with huge,
dried leaves.
A deserted camp. There seemed a litter of equipment
lying abandoned. Agricultural implements stood in the fields
where a vegatation growth had come up, unharvested,
and died again. . . . We passed on in a moment once more
over the metallic desert.
"That was one of our girls' camps," Tama said. "Abandoned
when we returned to the Hill City. You remember it, Roc?
You ought toyou drove us there."
"The camp of the flying virgins. Guy had told us of those
events. Only the women of Mercury were endowed vidth
wings, and the men, by instinct, were jealous. Man-made
laws decreed that at marriage the wings of a virgin should be
clipped.
The revolt of the virgins, smoldering for years, had come
at last. Led by Tama, they had pleaded for different laws.
Instead of which, led by the sly Roc, the government had
passed a new, more drastic law. Even before marriage, at
the age of sixteen, the virgins were ordered to accept the
mutilation. They had revolted, flown from the Hill City, the
Water City and elsewhere, and established this camp in the
desert. And then when Roc had proved a traitor, stolen the
government secrets of war and joined his outlawed father
in the Cold Country, the Hill City government had been re-
pentant. Alarmed at the lengths to which it had forced
the young girls, it had begged them to come back, promis-
ing them new laws.
They had gone back, just before Tama and Guy had left
for Earth. That was the situation, all we knew of it, save that
here in the silver ball we had learned of the coming invasion
of the Light Country by the Cold Country barbarians.
Whether the Hill City government was prepared for it or
not we could not say. Our duty now was to get to the Hill
City and warn them.
The welfare of our own Earth was at stake as well. The
present Hill City government would never make a raid
on Earth. But if the barbarians were victorious here on
Mercury, raids upon Earth were inevitable.
Rowena touched me. "Look off there!"
Against the distant sky little moving dots were visible:
a group of flying girls winging off toward the Hill City. And
down on the naked plateau, a few miles away, men were
moving.
We came over the horizon to a new vista. Human figures
moved on foot. Several groups at intervals, hastened labor-
iously forward. They were fairly distant, mere dots. But there
seemed to be men, and women and children as well. A cart
or two drawn by peculiar long creatures close to the ground.
It seemed like a flight, a routas though these were ref-
ugees, with belongings hastily gathered in the face of some
disasterall heading toward the Hill City.
Then the horizon rim showed othersa line of tiny dots.
Then several distant group of girls, coming from the Hill City,
circling over the figures on the ground, and winging back.
They had doubtless seen our vehicle, and fearing it, kept
well away.
This had come upon us all in a few moments as our flyer
sped forward. I saw that Tama was white and grim. She
stood clutching at Rowena, whispered to her. Horror swept
Rowena's face.
Jimmy whispered, "What in the devil, Jack"
Roc had not been looking out of the window. He said
abruptly, "Our pressure is right. I shall open the door."
Dorrek was not here. Muta made no move. Roc unclamped
the mechanism; the thick little panel slid aside. The air of
Mercury surged in with a gust upon us: Moist, heavy air,
with the smell of rain and a hint of sulphur in it from
the recent storm.
The change of pressure appraised Dorrek that the door
was open. He appeared at once and stood gazing at us.
The open doorway was near us allsix feet high, and
half as widea threshold with a fifteen hundred drop down
to the rocky plain beneath us.
Dorrek made no move. There came a cry from Tama.
"Roc-look! The Water Cityl"
Ahead of us at the horizon a low-hanging murky cloud
had appeared over a range of hills, with what I assumed
was the Water City still hidden behind them. In a moment
we could see clusters of figures on the distant hilltops.
A little blob of light rose in an arc, went over the line
of hills and fell into the still hidden city. A rocket bomb! This
was an attack! We all forgot Dorrek and Muta behind us.
Tama cried, "Roc, this is the invasionalready started!
You have tricked ustricked me again!"
"No, Tama. I swear I had no idea of this!"
He seemed speaking the truth. He swung around. "Look
at Dorrek, Tama! If you think I lie, look at Dorrekl He is
as surprised as I am."
The giant had glimpsed the scene through the window
near him. He called Muta. Momentarily ignoring us, they
flung open the breast-high circular pane and stood gazing
with obvious astonishment.
The sphere swept on, rising to a higher altitude to pass
over the line of hills. Presently the stricken Water City lay
beneath us.
Fantastic, ghastly scenes unrolled to our horrified gaze.

VIII
WASTE
THE LITTLE LINE of jagged hills had behind it a sheer drop
of perpendicular copper walls, clean as though cloven by
Titan's knife. Beyond them the contour was a wide-spread-
ing,  shallow oblong bowl, with gentle slopes undulating
upward to other heights at the distant horizon.
A small inland sea had once been here. It was gone now
but, at the bottom of the depression, water still collected,
making a little lake some two miles wide, with the city
houses built on stilts and water treesa spring-fed lake of
turgid, warm water rising from the fire-heart of the planet.
The copper precipice stood against the lake; to the left
it straggled into a marsh as the land rose up. There were
fields on the terraced hillsides off there, spreading in a great
semicircle beyond the laketerraces of water and mud in
which something like rice might be growing. To the right
the lake drained in a slow-moving, sluggish little river that
wound off into the distance between canyon walls.
We stood gazing from the window of the silver ball at a
height of some two thousand feet. Gray-black clouds were
over us; the scene was flat and dim in the half light of day.
And the murk of gas fumes and smoke clung to the city,
hiding it. A murk of horror!
We passed along the peaks of the rim at the top of the.
precipice walls. The figures of men were massed down there.
A flare burst momentarily to illumine them. Men garbed in
animalskins; men like Dorrek and his fellows of the Cold
Country.
A giant projector sent dowr- a spurt of light-fire like a
lightning bolt. It split the smoke cloud that hung on the city.
A rift, through which I saw a little group of thatched build-
ings perched like a cluster of birds' nests between the huge
stems of water trees. A tiny segment of the city was made
suddenly visible, with a tangle of water plants rising thirty
or forty feet above the lake surface. The huts were woven into
this junglelaced platforms,  with oval mounds  of  thatch
upon them. There were six or eight of them in this cluster, set
upon different levels. Leaves like giant palm fronds hung
around them, with interlacing vines, woven into ladders.
The heat-ray bolt hurled itself down. I saw the birds' nest
houses wither, shrivel and fall to the water in a strewn
little heap of wreckage.  Human bodies were floating in it.
I saw a woman with broken wings trying to flap upward.
She struggled an instant and then fell back.
The bolt's duration was only a second or two, when the
murk closed again. I turned to see Tama staring at Roc.
Her voice rang with horrified accusation:
"That projector! You and your father stole the plans for
those weapons!"
He gripped her. "Yes, I did! I'm sorry, Tama." He ended
with a wild laugh. "Lookthey do not know how to use
it-"
I looked down on the rocky hilltop, where the projector
burst into a puff of light. The figures clustered about it were
gone. There was only a small blackened patch of empty
rock.
We moved on, out over the city. Roc was laughing wild-
~
"This attack! They should have waited for mel Or you,
Dorrek!" He swung toward the giant. "You saw that? They
are not readythey do not know how to use their weapons."
Dorrek shouted an order to one of his fellows. Our vehicle
swung slowly over the city, turning on its axis and making
a great circular sweep. The scenes we saw down in the gloom
were fragmentary. I recall them now as a kaleidoscope of
horror.
Men dying on the precipice top, and men fighting off on
the distant terra-ced slopes. An occasional rocket flare rose
in a slow arc and burst in the city. Brief vistas of shriveling
houses.
Presently the rockets and bombs ceased. Grayness fell
upon the scene. Then a wind from the distant mountains
sprang up. The murk began rolling aside. The city opened to
our sight.
The attack was almost over. On the terraces the clusters
of men, and those dark oblong things slithering on the ground,
began moving away. In the distance I saw moving dots in
the skygirls, who had flown up from the menaced city and
escaped. And other patches, dark and leprousholes where
the black water showed, strewn with shriveled litter.
As the smoke swept away, we descended. We turned at
the entrance to the little canyon where the river wound into
the naked hills, and swung back. I saw, in the strewn river
surface, blackened, shriveled bodies floating off.
There was a little patch of open water like a city street
with tree stems lining it and the houses still intact. Something
was still living, swiming down there. An oblong thing. It
reared its head, came to a half-fallen tree, began climb-
ing the incline of the trunk. It had a jointed body some
ten feet long and myriad short, spindly legs. A round head,
with waving arm-like antennae. A "brue" one of the giant'
insects! There were some larger than this one.  Guy had
told us of them, how they were domesticated in the Hill City.
I saw this one leave the water and slither up the tree-
trunk. It reached a house platform, against which the top
of the fallen tree was resting. A woman was lying there
on the platform. Her wings were burned away, her body
mangled so that she seemed even unable to crawl. But she
was still alive, lying against the thatched side wall of her
home. At her breast a white-skinned, golden-haired little girl
was huddled in the dying mother's arms. The child's pale-
blue wings were flapping in helpless terror.
The giant insect reached the platform. Our vehicle had
dropped so low I could glimpse its face. Half-humanmon-
strous. Its tongue licked out; its great slit of mouth seemed
grinning.
I heard the woman screama thin, racking shriek. The brue
slithered eagerly forward. The woman tried to cast the child
off the platform into the water. The insect caught it.
I looked away. Tama and Rowena were shrinking, tremb-
ling against me. Roc and Jimmy were staring transfixed. "Mer-
cifully, the ball turned on its axis. The window showed only
a section of the city where all the houses were leveled and
the blackened bodies were lying inert. I saw other brues:
swimmingstopping to seize upon somethingeatingcast-
ing it away.
Then from the distant terraces, where the invaders now
were withdrawing, a shrill, mechanical whine sounded. A
siren call; it sang over the valley and echoed back from the
cliff walls. The call for the brues. We could see a hundred
or more of them appearing in the wreckage. Swimming in the
demolished streets, slithering over the marsh shores, and up
the terraces to join their masters.
Our vehicle had been seen and recognized. Groups of
men stood gazing up at us. A flare rose vertically up from
them, as a signal.
The ball had turned toward the center of the city. We
had risen againan altitude of about a thousand feet over
the water. Dorrek and Muta still stood at their window, en-
grossed in their thoughts.
I whispered to Roc, "Now is our time! Order us back be-
hind the hills, the way we came. Tell Dorrek to land us there."
Roc nodded agreement. He advanced across the room to-
ward Dorrek. Jimmy and I stood tense where we were. I
whispered, "Watch them, Jimmy! Your flash ready? If Dor-
rek rebels, we can kill him from here and hold this room
against the others."
If only we had done that! And yet, Dorrek's men in the
other room had control of the vehicle. The door was open
beside us, but we were still a thousand feet in the air.
Roc, cylinder in hand, reached the center of the room.
Dorrek turned to face him. Tama and Rowena had moved
aside, closer to the open doorway. But closer, also, to Dor-
rek.
Roc gave his command. Dorrek stared. Again there was that
instant of electrical tenseness. Would the giant obey?
He stared at Roc impassively for an instantand then
he leaped. My beat-cylinder was out but I could not use
ltl I held my impulsive finger from the trigger. With my left
hand I struck at Jimmy's rising weapon, and shouted in
horror to Roc.
For Dorrek had leaped, not at usbut upon Rowena I
She had passed within a few feet of him. Like a huge leop-
ard, without warning he whirled and pounced upon her and
seized her. There was an instant when he was struggling
with her, and with Tama. Rowena was taken too much by
surprise to get her knife from the dressing gown pocket.
Dorrek's arms went around her from behind. As she
struggled with him, twisting, clutching backward over her
shoulder at his face, Tama came at them. Her knife went
into Dorrek's arm. He shouted with an infuriated roar of
pain. Muta dashed heavily forward. A sweep of Tama's
wing knocked the woman back. Dorrek, holding the struggl-
ing Rowena before him as a shield, retreated against the
wall. Again,  like  a wrathful,  desperate bird, Tama with
spreading wings buried herself at them.
Within an instant the little room was a chaos of strife.
Whatever plans we had were discarded now. No time to
think, even to realize what we were doing. Against the open
door, the giant Dorrek fought with the two girls. Muta had
turned aside, crouching, watching. I saw her stoop for Tama's
fallen knife.
Jimmy and I were rushing forward. Roc made a leapthen
fell. Dorrek's weapon spat a blue bolt. It hissed overhead,
struck the metal ceiling with a rain of falling sparks, crackled
into the metal and was absorbed. I felt the heat of it;
I thought Roc had been hit, but in a moment I saw him
up again.
Jimmy and I did not dare fire. As we plunged those few
steps forward toward Dorrek, Jimmy screamed a warning,
"Jackbehind you!"
Half turning, I saw three of Dorrek's men crowding
through the doorway. One flung a knife. I turned in time to
see it coming; the heavy handle of it struck me in the
forehead.
There was a moment of blackness. But at once my senses
came back. I was on the floor, with two of the Mercurians
upon me. I found myself stfll clutching the ray gun. My
revolver had fallen from my bootwas gone. Hands were
plucking at me. A heavy shoulder pinning me, another body
on my legs.
I lunged, twisted with returning strength. Above me I
heard Jimmy's shouts, then Roc's. A turmoil of staggering
footsteps; the thud of blows; the beat of Tama's wings; a
scream. A man's scream of agony. The thick body of a
Mercurian man fell on me and my antagonists as we struggled.
Then another hiss over me; Roc's weapon, I thought. I saw
a gray figure lunge past me, meet the heat bolt and fall.
A hand and knife came down with a stabbing blow. I jerked
away from it, fired my cylinder into a flat gray face bend-
ing down at me. The face went black, sank backward. The
stench of burned flesh was around me as I heaved off re-
straining arms and staggered to my feet.
The room was crowded with struggling forms and clouded
with vapors: the acrid gas of the bolts, the smell of charred
flesh. The lights were out; the place was dim with the out-
side daylight. I stumbled over a body on the floor as I took
a step.  I saw  the  outlined  window  ovals,  and  the  rec-
tangle of open doorway. Tama was there, in the grip of a
Mercurian. Roc and Jimmy were rushing at them. I found
myself reeling against Dorrek, who still held Rowena. We
were in the center of the room. I leaped upon them, struck
at the giant's face, and felt another antagonist thud against
me from behind. Then a stab of pain as a knife blade went
into the flesh of my shoulder.
At the doorway, silhouetted against the outside light, four
figures were entangled in a struggling mass:  a Mercurian
maii, Tama, Jimmy and Roc. They toppled at the threshold
the brink of a void with a thousand-foot drop to the Water
City beneath us. I saw Tama and Roc go over the brink, and
Jimmy with them!
The Mercurian swayed, fought for his balance. Jimmy's
disappearing hand made a last clutchcaught the Mercur-
ian's leg, and pulled him oVer.
The rectangle of doorway was empty. I struck again at
Dorrek, trying to pull Rowena from him. The man behind me
pounded at my head with a ray-cylinder. I crumpled to the
floor as I felt my senses going.

IX
SUSPENSE
GUY AND TOH waited impatiently in a room of Guy's apart-
ment in the palace at Hill City. Some twelve hours earlier,
Dr. Grenfell had brought the Flying Cube to a safe landing.
But they had lost sight of the Mercurian sphere in clouds of
smoke and fog, and with it their hopes of finding Tama and
Rowena, Jimmy and me.
"But, Guy, what are we to do?" demanded Toh. "What
does Dr. Grenfell say?"
"What can he say? We have no idea where the ball
landed. Girls have been flying here to the Hill City from
everywhere. You must talk to them, Toh."
"I havel Alwaysnone have seen it."
Guy seized the little Mercurian youth. "Toh, I'm as eager
as you-desperate. Tama, off there somewhere" He choked
on his words.
They had reached the Hill City only to find chaos. News
of the unexpected invasion from the Cold Country had just
come, brought by girls flying from the outlying districts. The
twelve hours that followed were a blurred turmoil to Guy.
The shocked, frightened government of the Light Country
received  Guywhom  they  knew  welland bis  friendly
companions from Earth with pleasure at having them as
allies.  The  Flying  Cube,  with  its  Earth  weapons  and  its
crew of five men in addition to Grenfell was an asset in the
war.
Grenfell, as he afterward told me, was startled by this
sudden crisis into declaring his Earth party as active allies
and participants. His first instinct was reluctance. With sci-
entific foresight he appreciated the new era of interplanetary
relations, at the threshhold of which he now stood as a pio-
neer. He was upon Mercury, meeting the inhabitants of this
other world as a representative of the Earth. He had planned
coming merely as a friendly visitor; but it was imavoidable
that he should not be in pursuit of Mercurian outlaws who
had abducted an Earth girl.
Grenfell was a forceful man. Once his decision was an-
nounced, he sat with the aged, impractical rulers of the
Hill City government, doing his utmost to cope with the
chaos of hasty preparations for defense into which the Hill
City was plunged. Earth and civilized Mercury were allied
against a Mercurian barbarian nation.
News of the advancing army from the Cold Country had
come to the Hill City; and then other parties of girls had
flown in to tell that the Water City was being attacked.
Across all the distant copper hills refugees were straggling.
But the occupants of the Water City had been caught un-
awares. There had been recently, over all this section, one
of the dread black storms. Whirling black clouds, so thick
that the half-light of day became like the blackest of a
stormy Earth night. And a sweep of winds, and torrential
rain.
The invaders from the Cold Country had advanced through
the storm; when it had cleared and daylight had come again,
they were infesting the Water City, surrounding it on all
sides, men with deadly weapons and a hundred giant in-
sects.
So ran the reports that came to the Hill City. The men
and the married women, the children, the aged of both sex-
es all these in the Water City would meet death. Only the
flying virgins could escape.
From where Guy and Toh were, they could hear the tur-
moil of the palace overhead, and outside in the garden, the
shouts of an excited crowd.
Guy leaped to his feet. "Those shoutswhat are they
saying?"
They stood listening. The cries were muffled by the palace
walls and blurred by the sound of rushing water in an irri-
gation flume which passed nearby.
"Tohcan't you distinguish?"
Guy understood the Mercurian language fairly well, but it
was native to Toh. He cried suddenly, "It's something about
Roc's ship!"
There was a doorway from Guy's room leading into a short
corridor. They hurried through it to a gate which admitted
them to the open, just beyond the garden wall. The garden
was thronged with milling, frightened people. There were
lowering black clouds overhead: aftermath of the storm. A
deep twilight hung over the small lake nearby, the high
metal sides of the water flume; and behind the garden, the
outlines  of the  palace  were faintly  distinguishable  with
dim lights now in its windows.
There were high spreading trees out here, heavy with
clinging air vines and huge exotic flower blossoms. Tiny lights
showed in the spreading circular city. The crowd in the
garden and along the banks of the small artificial lake milled
aimlessly about. Girls were flapping in and out of it. Others
were perched on the high side of the flume, and in the trees.
Urged by men on the ground, they flew up to gaze over
the city, and came back again. Or flew to the palace roof,
demanding news from the men up there.
Occasionally dots in the sky materialized into figures of
girls flying in from distant points. They dropped down into
the garden, or by the lake, or upon the palace roof and were
immediately set upon by the eager crowd.
Guy and Toh stood gazing. Toh ran to a nearby group of
men, then came back.
"They were shouting from the roof that the silver ball
was seen passing over the Water City."
"Nothing else? Did it land?"
"They don't know."
There were other shouts. They stood momentarily alone.
Toh added, "They say the Water City is wrecked, but the
invaders have turned backnot coming this way. Grenfell is
going after them with the Flying Cube. Our army is being
organized."
"Then Dr. Grenfell will want us," said Guy. "We'd better
go in."
They turned, but stopped again. On a little balcony of the
palace a man appeared; he stood calling for silence, then
began addressing the crowd. The Earthmen, with their fly-
ing ship, were going to lead an army to repel these invaders.
There was no immediate danger; the enemy was all on the
other side of the Water City now, apparently not planning
to advance for the present. Mobilizing or waiting for rein-
forcements.
Guy and Toh listened. But Guy's attention was distracted.
A girl came fluttering down from overhead and landed on the
ground quite near them, falling into a heap. Guy thought
she was wounded; she lay huddled, with wings spread be-
hind her, not attempting to rise.
Guy and Toh ran to her, bent over her. A small girl, smaller
than Tama; a trail-looking httle creature, not over fifteen.
Flowing draperies lay on her white limbs; her golden hair
was braided and fastened to her sides; her spreading wings
were blue-feathered. She raised her white face to Guy.
"Aina!" he cried. "Why Aina"
He and Toh knew her well; a girl of the Hill City. She
had gone recently to the Water City to see the young
man whom she was to marry.
"Guy Palisse! And Tohmy friend, Tohl Oh, where is
Tama? We need her."
She spoke in English; one of the score or so of the girls
whom Tama had taught. She was not hurt now, merely
winded from her swift flight. She stood up, panting to get
her breath while they told her how the Cube had come from
Earth, and that Tama was a prisoner.
Aina gasped, "I saw it land! It was beyond the Water
City, where the Cold Country men were gathering. I saw
it come down and join them. . . . Guy, you knew my -loved
one ]al of the Water City? He is dead I I was with him. I
tried to fly up with him. I could noti  I am too small
too weak" She buried her face in her hands. "He A brue
caught him as he fell back into the water."
Guy held her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Aina."
She raised her face. "I knowthis is not  the time for
crying"
"No, Ainawe must think of the living." Decision came
to Guy. "Aina, will you help us?"
She was suddenly calm. "What can I do?"
"Are you strong enough to fly now?"
"Yes. What is it?"
"Do you know where there is a platform large enough
to carry Toh and me and two or three others, if we can rescue
them? Can you get a few girlsas many as the platform
needs to bear itperhaps ten?"
"And have them bring it here?"
"Nowe would be seentoo many questions. Take it"
Toh interrupted. "I will tell you where to take it." He
named a distant point of the city. "There may not be any-
one there now."
"Yes," agreed Guy. "We'll meet you there. Soon?"
"I can have it before you can get there."
She spread her wings, leaped, and flapped upward past
the tree branches and was gone.
Guy had no definite plan; he would make one as they
went.
"Toh, we can get near the ball, creep up on it through the
Water City marshes, if only the weather will stay dark."
"If we could get weapons"
They were both unarmed except for small knives. Guy said,
"I'll get them now from Grenfell."
It occurred to him that Grenfell might stop their going.
But he realized that the scientist must be told about the
landing of the ball.
"Listenthat man up there!" Toh's voice was eager.
From the balcony of the palace the Mercurian official was
still haranguing the crowd. Other girls reported having seen.
the silver ball. The man on the balcony was saying that
it had gone now,  off over the daik mountains toward the
Cold Country.
"That might be true or it might not," Guy whispered. "We
must go, anyway."
Toh agreed. "Listen to what he is saying! We have time
to get there and back before Dr. Grenfell will need us."
The speaker was announcing that the Flying Cube would
soon be ready to start for the Water City, to make a survey
and to follow the ball into the Cold Country. A giant ray
projector was being mounted on the Cube, and defensive
electronic barrage armament. Within a few hours it would be
ready to start.
Guy and Toh departed at once, pushing through the gath-
ering people along the lakeshore, they passed into the narrow
city streets. By the Light Country living cycle, this was the
middle of the time of sleep. None were sleeping in the Hill
City this night.
Walking and running, Guy pulling Toh by the hand, they
hastened through the city, ascending toward the distant
heights beyond it.
As the clouds turned black the dim street lamps were
lighted. There were lights in most of the houses. Toh and
Guy threaded the crowds and attracted little attention. Soon
they came to wider, deserted streets: A steady upward as-
cent out of the broad circular bowl, spread like a flat caul-
dron upon the inner slopes of which the city was built.
The street they followed was soon a wide ascending road,
with spreading tree branches interlocking overhead;  low
stone houses at the sides, set in verdant gardens or patches of
cultivated soil.
With the lesser gravity of Mercury, Guy could have
run leaping like a faun. But he did not want to attract un-
due attention. He held Toh by the hand, pulling him up
the steep incline of the street.  The houses were soon
farther apart. Less soil was here; the metallic, barren desert
land began showing. The street dwindled and was lost at
the summit. Ahead was a tumbled region of pointed crags
and strewn bouldersan upland desert plateau stretching
away into the darkness with the black sullen clouds hanging
low above the encircling hills. This was the highland from
which the Hill City took its name.
They reached the rim. Behind them the bowl of the city
lay with winking tiny lights like myriad eyes. Ahead there
was a small level space strewn with boulders.
Guy gestured. "That's where you told her?"
"Yes."
They stood at the brink of a small canyon, a rift in the
coppery rocks. It was some thirty feet wide and equally deep.
Guy smiled at his companion. "I can't help you over,
Tob."
"No. I will climb down and across it." He started clamber-
ing laboriously down the broken side of the rift. Guy walked
back, came with a rush, and leapedsailed in a flat arc
with spread arms for balance and legs hunched up, and
landed well across the rift, where he stood waiting for
Toh. The Mercurian climbed up, panting.
"Not in sight yet, Guy?"
"Noyes, there they are."
The platform came sailing from over the city. A small
rectangle, fifteen feet long by half as wide. Like a small
raft, built of split, porous treetrunks, lashed together with
ropes of vines.  It had six-foot handlessticks projecting
out from its sides. At each of them a girl was flying, five on
either side. The platform passed in a low circle, came down
and landed on the rocks.
The two men ran to it. The platform had a low, foot-high
railing surrounding it,  with handles to which the riders
might cling. The girl Aina was crouched there.
"We are ready, Guy. They would not let me fly. I am
tired; they said I would hold them back. May I go with
you? They will not mind my little extra weight."
The ten girls stood, eager with questionsa flood of
them buried In their native tongue at Toh. He waved them
aside. The girls -were all barely maturedred-feathered and
blue-feathered wings, black and gold-haired. They stopped
their questioning, and stood alert and grim. Little warriors.
The thought struck Guy and made him shudder. Frail,
beautiful little creatures, these flying virgins of Mercury.
For them to be embarked on deeds of violence seemed ut-
terly unjust. Yet, with a flash of vision, Guy saw what was
coming.
The girls realized it well enough. Their landfairest re-
gion of the universe to themwas threatened now by an alien
race. They had had differences with their own government
and had rebelled. But that was forgotten now in the greater
peril.
Guy was saying, "Yes, you may go with us, Aina. Ready,
now."                     ""
The three of them were on the platform. Guy gave the
command, told the girls the direction. The girls raised the
platform by the handles, stooped a trifle, and in unison,
at a word from their leader,  leaped into the air. With
wings beating rhythmically. With stroke set by the two
leading girls, they sailed off toward the Water City.
To Guy, lying on the platform, it seemed an interminable
flight. Yet in actual time it was not longhardly more than
an hour. The low, sullen clouds formed a leaden canopy
overhead. The platform sailed level, creating its own wind
in the heavy, sultry air.
A thousand feet below it, the bleak landscape rolled stead-
ily backward. Copper desert. Sheets of bumished, wavy sur-
face like a strange shining sea rippled by a breeze and
frozen to immobility. Again it was broken by canyons.
Sheer walls; a mist of vapor sometimes at their feet. There
were small valleys, with water and soil and a little struggl-
ing vegetation. Others, incongruously luxuriant, with a rank,
exotic, tropical growth.
There had been occasional huts, tiny clusters nearly al-
ways where the vegetation existed. Moundlike stone huts,
here the half-nomadic rural population of the Light Coun-
try fought for meager existence. They were all deserted now.
Girls had flown past with news of the invasion.
From the platform occasional refugees were visiblelittle
groups foiling along, sometimes attended by a few young
girls flying low above them. There was no sign of the enemy.
From here the valley of the Water City lay concealed
behind the rim line of tumbled peaks with the precipice
brink beyond them. As Guy had hoped, the semidarkness
held; it had even grown dimmer. A deep twilight gloom
now, through which the distant peaks were appearing, blurred
against the solid dark sky. The girls were tired, but they
still flew in steady, orderly fashion.
"They were on this side when I left," murmured Aina.
"On the heights. The attack was over, I think."
"But the main body of them were on the other slopes?"
Guy demanded. "Beyond the marshes?"
"Yes. From these peaks they were going down to join the
others. It was all so blurred. Smoke clouds, fumes, burning
houses, smoke everywhere. . . ." She shuddered. "I could
not see much, so I did not know what was happening. I
saw the silver ball go past."
She stared with eyes that now had no hint of tears. "I
want now only to rescue Tama. To follow her, fighting these
men who killed my Jal."
And she was only fifteen, with childhood barely passed!
"None are down there now," said Toh. "No one along the
_~.-_ **
nm.
Blurred and dim, the wrecked Water City lay smoldering
in the night shadows of the valley. Vapors still hung upon
it,  and  the  heavy  silence  of  death.  Shadows  down  there
concealed  the  drab  aftermath  of  a  thousand  horrors.
Occasional little red-yeJlow flames glowed, where charred,
still luminous embers of wreckage lay strewn on the water.
The platform ascended, passed to one side over the dark
and silent marshes, higher over deserted terraces, swept be-
yond the farther uplands. The invaders had been here; but
they were not here now. From this height, down through
the gloom, there was no sign of any living thing remaining.
"Well, that's the end of that," said Guy. Disappointment
flooded him. A few short hours before, Tama had doubt-
less been here. But now she was gone.
It seemed obvious that the ball and one portion of the
Cold Country army had met here, and now had withdrawn.
The invaders, having destroyed the Water City, were wait-
ing before attacking further. To follow them with the plat-
form back toward the Cold Country seemed to Guy a use-
less undertaking. Yet he dallied with it, even though he knew
his better course was to return at once to the Hill City,
tell Grenfell the condition, and join the Flying Cube.
Toh had turned them back, directly over the wreckage of
the city. They flew lower, by whatever chance of fate, Guy
never knew. He was deep in his gloomy thoughts. Toh was
silent, waiting for Guy's orders. Aina told the girls to return.
The platform went down in a long swoop. Guy came to
himself, to see that they were barely two hundred feet above
the water. The acrid smell of gases, smoke of charring em-
bers, enveloped them. A turgid, rushing darkness.
Close under them, Guy made out what had been a street:
sullen, oily water strewn with mangled houses; naked, black-
ened treetrunks standing like sticks with dark, torn ribbons
of shriveled vegetation dangling from them.
A little further on an up-ended house, still preserving its
shape, was floating half submerged. Its porch platform, now
detached, floated like a raft beside it with a fallen tree hold-
ing them together.
Guy's breath stopped. Death and desolation everywhere.
Things floating, gruesome, that once had been animate hu-
mans. Nothing alive now. Except here! Guy's hand clutched
for Toh. The Mercurian saw it also, and the girls. The little
segment of scene down there swept past; but the girls
wavered and turned back to see it again. The platform
lurched, swayed, and then was level.
Aina murmured, "Guy, you saw it?"
Again it was under them. That floating housethe raft
the connecting tree. There were human forms clinging to the
steep-sloping rooftop. Humans, alivel A winged girl, with two
men beside her. Injured, perhaps; holding with weakening
clutches to the thatch of the roof.
And from the water, up the incline of the fallen tree, the
hideous, jointed length of a giant insect was crawling!

x
BATTLE
AMID THE TUBMOIL of the fighting in that narrow lower room
of the silver ball, Jimmy momentarily found himself free of
his antagonists. A dim chaos of horror was around him. The
window ovals and the open doorway showed with the day-
light behind them. And in the doorway, toppling as though
they were about to fall, he saw Tama and Roc. They had
flung off a Mercurian, who reeled backward and fell. But
another was coming.
Jimmy rushed to help Tama. He had lost his cylinder,
but he still clutched a knife. With it he struck at an oncoming
Cold Country man, but the fellow ducked and avoided him.
Jimmy reached Roc and Tama; they were confused, panting,
and wavering at the threshold. A Mercurian struck them;
Jimmy felt all three of them going over the brink.
Roc shouted, "Hold to Tama! Don't fall free-"
There was an instant of horror as Jimmy felt them going.
He saw the voida thousand feet down to the shattered
bestrewn Water City. The gray man pushed them; and
as he fell, with one hand holding to Roc, Jimmy reached up
and pulled their antagonist out of the ship. He fell free, hur-
tling rapidly below them.
A dizzying moment of falling, with the silver ball seem-
ing to leap upward. Jimmy found himself clutching Roc, who
was holding to Tama. Her wings were flapping desperately.
She was above the men, their weight pulling her down as
she struggled to support it.
Underneath, Jimmy saw a blurred vista of the city, where
a patch of water was apparently mounting upward. The
body of the Mercurian was whirling end over end. Jimmy
thought he heard the crash of splintering wood when it
struck.
Tama panted, "Hold tightly! Come higher!"
Roc pulled himself up and Jimmy with him. They clung
to Tama's waist, long enough to be free of her wings. The
three of them falling, but not too fastnot if Tama's strength
would hold.
The silver ball had moved on and vanished. They fell
through a layer of smoke, almost dissipated, but thick enough
to choke Jimmy. He felt his senses whirling. Roc was cough-
ing, choking.
Tama's white face was above them. Her wings beating
Then there seemed to be purer air again. Beneath them
Jimmy caught a glimpse of dark water, strewn with wreck-
age. It was rushing upward, close. He saw that they would
strike a litter of broken wood. Suddenly he cast Tama off,
and gasped, "Rod Let her free!"
He seemed to fall more swiftly. There was a flash of up-
rushing floating logsan impact.
Jimmy did not quite lose consciousness. He had struck a
half-submerged log. He thought, a second later, he heard
another crash as Tama and Roc came down. He went under
water, entangled with vines and thatch, but he came up
swimming.
Tama was swimming near him. Jimmy was conscious that
one of his legs would not work. A horrible pain stabbed
through it. But in this water he found himself buoyant. He
saw something looming nearby, and swam for it. As he drew
himself up he saw that it was the porch platform of a wrecked
house.
Tama gasped, "Youall right, Jimmy?"
"Yes."
Tama was holding Roc, who was inert. Jimmy started
back into the water. One of his legs dragged limp; the pain
of it made his senses reel.
"Wait, Jimmy1 have him I"
They were only a few feet away. Jimmy helped Tama
draw Roc's body up to the raft. They stretched him out, bent
over him. He was unconscious, but there seemed to be no
bones broken.
I have had from Jimmy the details of those hours he,
Tama and Roc spent in the Water City. Tama was bruised
from the fall, but otherwise unhurt. Jimmy's left leg was
broken. Roc seemed without broken bonesinternal injuries,
perhapsbut he had struck his head in the fall. He lay
unconscious for hours, with Tama and Jimmy beside him
on the raft.
It was dark there at the water level. Nearer objects only
were visible: a dark patch of littered water, a few houses,
flattened, half-burned. A murk in the distance, with ghastly
naked trees standing in the water like half-burned sticks; a
distant burning housea yellow glow in the thick turgid
gloom.
There seemed a slight current to the water. Occasional
blobbing things floating, drifting past. Charred, blackened
bodies. A grotesque detached face under a tree. A human
limb, torn and cast aside by a giant insect.
Nothing living remained. The smoke fumes wafted down
with occasional winds; then up again. But always thinner,
less choking.
"What shall we do, Tama? He may dieprobably will.
You're not hurt. You fly out of this."
"Not yet. I can't leave you now. Your leg is broken. You
can't walk."
They were unarmed. Tama had flown around in a brief
circle near them. She had come back, white-lipped, grim,
with a queer look in her eyes which Jimmy could not miss.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
He lay on his side. The pain in his leg made it difficult for
him to think. He demanded again, "What's the matter?"
Tama did not answer, but bent' over Roc, who was still
unconscious. "If only we could do something for him! Poor
Rod And you, Jimmydoesn't it hurt very badly?"
It seemed that Tama was very alert, her gaze constantly
roving.
"Whats the matter with you?" he demanded again. "Did
you see any of the invaders?"
"No."
"The ball-is it still overhead?"
"No."
A mist rising from the water had closed around them;
through it, the nearer objects standing on the water showed
like phantoms. Overhead was a pall of darkness. Jimmy had
been afraid at first that some of the enemy would discover
them lying there, but now there seemed less danger of that.
Tama on one of her brief, cautious flights had discovered that
the invaders were marching off beyond the marshes. The
silver ball had descended to join them.
"We'll wait a few hours," said Jimmy. "If they're leaving,
they'll be far enough aJvay then. And youll be rested. You
can fly back to the Hill City to safety."
"And leave you? And Roc?"
"Well, I guess hell be dead. And meyou can bring
help. I'll stay right here, you can be sure of that."
Now, after another hour or two, Jimmy reiterated his
suggestion. Tama ignored it and then said abruptly, "We
are too near the water here. Jimmy, could you crawl? And
help me a little, with Roc? Up there"
An inclined, fallen tree connected the raft with a half-sub-
merged house close at hand. The house lay in the water
tilled at an angle.
"Climb up there," said Tama. "Onto its roof. Then may-
be we could get down inside it and hide."
"From what?"
She would not answer. They tried to get up the tree in-
cline with Roc. But could not. And then, after another interval,
Roc came to consciousness.
An hour later and they had laboriously crawled to the
housetop. Tama had been down inside the house and returned
with a single knife, as well as scraps of food and a vessel with
fresh water.
It revived the men. Roc was weaker than Jimmy, but not in
great pain. They lay clinging to the thatch.
"Soon," said Tama. "I can get you down inside. There is
a place where you can lie."
"Then you get away. Come back with help. We'll wait
no fear we'll run away, eh. Roc?"
Roc said abruptly, "They were using the wild brues to
attack the city. Have they all gone? None"
He never finished. Tama had seen a lone, prowling in-
sect a distance away when she had flown around, and had
feared it would find these helpless men. It appeared now
out of the mist; its ugly length slithering through the
water. It saw the three figures on the housetopraised its
round head with a leering, monstrously half-human grin.
Tama, knife in hand, crouched on the sloping thatch of
the roof, with Jimmy and Roc lying behind her, and her
wings spread over them protectingly. Roc tried to rise,
nearly lost his weakened clutch and sank back.
The brue reached the raft where a short time before they
had been lying. Its tongue licked out from its wide mouth-
slit. With waving antennae, it crawled over the edge of the
raft. Brown, jointed length with the water rolling from its
shell, hairy legs under it.
Jimmy murmured, "Tama I Fly up! You fooldon't stay
here I"
The brue reached the inclined tree. Came faster. Jimmy,
looking over Tama's spread of wings, could see its baleful
gloaming eyes, deep-set under the bulging forehead.
"Tamal" He tried to push her. If she fell, she would flutter
away.
Far above them, the mist curtain had parted. Jimmy heard
the sound of wings beating. A shape appeared. It was a
rectangular platform, with flying girls bearing it. Jimmy
stared, his brain blurring with astonishment.
"Tama-lookl"
Two men and a girl were on the platform. It came with
a swoop. The insect on the incline of the treetrunk paused,
and turned its face upward to gaze at this new enemy.
It was Toh and Guy, crouching there on the flying plat-
form with the girl Aina. The girls, frightened and confused
as they came down, fluttered in disorder. Guy stood up,
swaying precariously.
The platform landed on the raft with a thud, which sub-
merged a foot or two under the weight of the girls. Guy
was flung down, but he leaped up at once, and Toh with
him.
"Swim awayall of youl"
The girls were floundering in the water. Guy shouted
at Aina, "Get the girls away from hereall of them I'"
The brue lay motionless, peering around at the confusion;
then it turned and began moving back down the treetrunk.
The girls on the raft were fluttering up. On the roof, Jimmy
lay behind Tama. He felt Roc gripping him.
"I can't move," Roc muttered.
"No," said Jimmy. "Lie quietdon't lose your hold!"
The brue's head reached the bottom of the tree. Guy and
Toh with drawn knives stood confronting it. Suddenly the
great insect jumped. Not with a forward rush but with a
movement incredibly swift, it flipped its whole length
upward, head do\vn, with the forked tail high in the air.
It landed, facing the other way on the raft.
Jimmy saw the water on the raft lashed white, the great
jointed body threshing, lunging, with Guy and Toh astride
of it, hacking with their knives. Spurts of black fluid came
like )ets from its cracked shell, staining the water with ink,
reeking in the air with a horrible stench. The screams of the
thing were blood-chilling, gruesome. Its head twisted around.
Its long feelers,  like the tentacles of an octopus,  clutched
Toh. He tore at them with his knife. But they lifted his
slight body in the air, flung him around, brought him down.
Jimmy was aware that he was screaming a futile warn-
ing and trying to crawl with his dangling leg past Roc, who
was holding him and shouting, "Don'tyou can't do any-
thing!"
Tama was gone! Jimmy saw her go down with a swoop.
Like a thrown missile, she struck the insect's head, just
as he was drawing Toh toward it. Her knife, went into
its face. The bulging forehead crackedsmashed inward like
a broken shell. Tama, lunging, striking, fought to free Toh, and
f
in a minute had him loose, fluttered upward with him. He
was not injured. She dropped him into the water and swooped
back.
The brue, with mashed head, its travesty of a face still
bearing the semblance of an agonized human look, screamed
continuously.  Its  great  body  lashed,  writhed,  squirmed.
But aimlessly now, and with lessening strength. Guy still
clutched its middle, hacking, tearing. It was as thick there
as a stout man. But he hacked through it. The two segments
fell apart, each of them writhing, fighting. Tama went again
for its head. Toh came swimming, but she turned and flung
him back.
Then Guy was at its throat, stabbinghacking off the
clutching feelers. Aina had been shouting, fluttering ten feet
overhead, calling to the swimming girls. They shook them-
selves free of the water, like gathering birds fluttered up into
a confused group. All unarmed, they poised; and then, at
a word from Aina, plunged down. Wrathful birds, picking,
tearing, wrenching at the two lashing segments of the brue.
Clutching its hairy, spindly legs. Twisting them. . . .
The mangled insect's screams gradually grew less. Then
Guy hacked through its throat and they died in a gurgle as
its great round head fell and floated off.
Guy ceased his efforts. Toh swam forward again. Guy
gasped, "It's over, Tohl All rightwe've killed iti"
Then Tama got the girls away. Strange little virgins of
this strange planet! Four of them fainted from the shock
and horror of it, now that it was over. They were all
livid white, and most of them were crying, half-laughing with
hysteria.
I need not detail the reunion of Tama and Guy, and Roc's
turning from an enemy into a friend, eager to help and to
atone for his former treachery. Toh gazed silently at him
and said nothing. Guy listened to Jimmy's explanations and
glanced questioningly at Tama. Perhaps Guy was jealous.
He need not have been, for Tama flung herself unhesitatingly
into his arms.
Roc watched them with his dark, somber gaze. He sat
up, bracing himself against the thatch of the sloping roof.
He said quietly, in his precise, careful English:
"I want you all to believe in me. For what I have done
in the past, Guy Palisse, most truly I am sorry." He offered
his hand, palm up in the Mercurian fashion. "Guy, will you
accept me?"
Guy hesitated.
"I think it would be just," said Tama quietly.
Guy reluctantly smiled. "I'll try. Roc." He laid his hand on
the outstretched palm. "It's not easy, at first. We hated each
other for a long time, Roc."
"Yes. But that is over now. My country is assailed. I want
only to save it. You, an Earthman, are here to help us win,
and for that I am really grateful."
Guy stared at him, but did not answer.
It was two hours before the girls were rested and ready
to fly back. The platform was cleared and washed clean
of its stenching litter. Jimmy and Roc were carried down
to it. Guy and Toh joined them, and two of the weakened
girls. Tama and Aina took their places at the handles.
The platform rose from the Water City, to wing away
upon its return journey. Presently they met the Flying Cube,
coming to reconnoiter. Grenfell saw the platform, where-
upon the Cube landed on the metallic desert. They all boarded
it, abandoning the platform.
After encircling the Water City once more, the marches
and empty hills behind it, the Flying Cube returned to the
Hill City, the Earthmen plunging again into preparations for
the coming battle.
News had arrived. Dorrek with his silver ball had re-
treated with all his forces to the Dark Mountains at the
borders of the Cold Country, in the dark, gloomy canyons
there.
Grenfell decided not to wait for his advance, but to go and
meet him. To cast all into one engagement: the old stratagem,
so often used in Earth warsdefense by attack. To keep the
fight away from the  all too vulnerable Hill City.  Defeat
Dorrek's forces in one battle, in the wilderness of Dorrek's
own choosing. And with his defeat, the menace to the Light
Country and to Earth would be ended.
The young men of the Hill City were assembling into an
organized army. Nearly a thousand girls were ready volun-
teers. With Tama's return, they hailed her as their acknovy-
ledged leader.
The Hill City arsenal and workshops were a confusion of
activity. The hand weapons, the defensive armaments, bombs
and rockets, giant projectors of the deadly heat-rayall were
hastily being assembled. Flying platforms were armed; girls
were assigned to fly them and armed young men to ride
them.
Three day-cycles passed. Dorrek and his barbarians were
still in the distant mountains. Little news of them was ob-
tainable, save that they were there. Jimmy's leg had been
set by skilled Sfirgeons in the Hill City. He could not walk;
but he could tide a flying platform, and he chose it rather
than be in the Cube. Roc's strength had fully returned. He
had earnestly and faithfully helped in the busy activities of
those three days; urged by Tama, the Hill City officials
had accepted him.
In the half-light of a gray noonday, led by the Flying
Cube, with Tama and her girls winging in orderly formation
behind ita group of armored flying platforms among them
and on the ground a low queue of young men winding
slowly out into the metal desertthis strange army of the
Light Country went forth to battle.

XI
MOUNTAIN STRONGHOLD
"BUT, MTJTA, I do not love him. That's absurd." Rowena gath-
ered the long brown dressing gown more closely around
her, pulled her brown braided hair from her face and gazed
earnestly at the stolid Cold Country woman.
"Don't you understand me, Muta? I wish you no harm.
I hate your Dorrekl" She lowered her voice; gazed furtively
around the small room of the silver ball in which mo-
mentarily she and Muta were alone. "I want only to es-
capeget away from him. Can't you understand me? You
speak enough English for that, don't you?"
"Yes, I understand you. But you tellno truth. A lie."
"No-it is not!"
"Because you are beautifulbighe loves"
"But I can't help that, Muta. Don't you believe me?"
"No."
"But you must. You tried to kill me. I do not blame you."
"Ah-"
"No. Wait! I do not blame you, because you were jeal-
ousyou thought you had causeand you love Dorrek."
The woman's eyes were smoldering. "I lovehe my man
all my life since little girl. And I loveand for himfor
him I workalways."
"I know. I can understand." Rowena put a hand on her
arm. "Sit down, Muta. You think we can be alone here for
a little while?"
"Yes. It may be."
"Then I want you to understand me. " Rowena was gaug-
ing her, wondering if she could trust this stolid gray woman.
"You do understand more English than I thought you did,
Muta."
"Yes. My man Dorrekhe learn from Roc. Someday con-
quer Earth, Dorrek say. Englishyour best tongue."
"Muta, if you only would believe I wish you no wrong!
You think Dorrek is"
"Every woman love him at once."
Rowena laughed gently. "Well, its all right for you to
think that. But I do not. Imy friend Jack Dean is"
She checked herself. Did she dare tell this woman her real
identity? How would Muta react to it? If she would not tell
Dorrek
Rowena added abruptly, "Jack Dean is my husband."
"Your manmated?"
"Yes."
The Cold Country woman stared; whatever her emotion,
she repressed it.
"Muta, I tell you this so that you won't be jealous of me.
He is my husband. I love him just as you love Dorrek. And
we have never banned you, Muta."
"From me, you took my Dorrek's love."
"I did not. It's absurd, I tell you. Not true. Don't you
understand? I have my own man."
"I have Dorrek. But that is nothing to stop him"
How often in life humor clings to the skirts of tragedy!
Again Rowena smiled gently, and gazing, saw tears springing
in the Mercurian woman's eyes.
"Won't you believe me?" said Rowena again.
"Yes." Muta bowed her head, dashed away the tears with
the flat of her hand, and raised her face again. "You say
like truth. But so beautiful, youand I, now oldtoo much
work too long, for beauty"
There was a brief silence. The two womenso different,
and of different worlds-with a bond of sympathy and
understanding come suddenly between them.
Muta said, "If you not love Dorrekstill no difference be-
cause he want you, not me. And he real mantake what
he want."
"True, Mutathat is the danger of having me here."
Rowena lowered her voice. The room corner where they
sat was dim, and a distance from the opened interior door-
way. The nearby windows showed fading twilight. The
ball was flying from the Water City, back toward the moun-
tains of the Cold Country.
I had recovered consciousness after the fight in which
Tama, Jimmy and Roc had fallen from the doorway of the
ballcome to myself still a prisoner in one of the vehicle's
rooms. Bound, this time, with thick, pliable air vines.
Dorrek had visited me. "You not killed?"
"No. It seems not."
"That little man Turk, he killed. And Roc; they fall. Tama,
she fly away. I care not."
He stood grinning. Huge, burly gray fellow, with his
draped gray fura Hun chieftain, by his aspect. A bar-
barian, stupid in the ways of civilization, yet clever for all
that. Dorrek's bullet head, his flat face, his giant stature
were barbaric.
But he was something more, this Mercurian leader. He
wore a wide leather belt strapped tightly around his heavy
middle. Weapons were clipped to it. Weapons, not bar-
baric, but strangely super-modern.
He had brought his vehicle down by the marshes of the
Water City. Had been welcomed by his fellows; had given
his orders. We were now in the air again, heading to what
destination I had no idea. In the ball now were some twenty
of Dorrek's men.
He stood over me. Evidently he was thoroughly pleased
with himself and his affairs. Triumphant. He gazed down at
me, his massive legs planted wide, his hands on his hips.
And suddenlysave for the belt of electronic weapons1
saw him as a pirate captain of the Spanish Main, re-
garding a prisoner whom he soon would tire of goading and
put to death.
Was that to be my allotted portion?
Dorrek said stolidly, "You are left to help me, big man
of Earth. I not kill you."
"Thanks," I said. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Roc dead." His smile widened. "I lead the Cold Country
now. They start the war too soon. I tell them that just now.
We go back to the Dark Mountains, near my country. I
want all my men, my brues. And all my weapons ready.
You understand? We attack again. I talk the English tongue
not too bad?"
He came and sat cross-legged beside me. Wild thoughts
swept me. Where was Rowena? Was she unharmed?
I thought of escaping. Sitting as I was so close to him,
if I were not so  securely tied  I  could snatch one of those
weapons from his belt. Or smash his wide flabby face with
a blow of my fist, or crush his thick chest with my encircling
grip. I was nearly his own giant size. And no Mercurian
in  strength  and agility  could match  an Earthman.  Wild
thoughts
He repeated, "I speak English not too bad?"
I summoned my wits and smiled back at him. "No. You
speak all right."
"I speak better soon. You will teach me, when I master
of the Light Country."
That brought a measure of relief. He had use for me;
and it was obvious I could play on it.
"That should not be hard, Dorrek."
"No. The Mercurian, he learn quick. The memory takes
words and holds them. I want your languagemaster it. I
have great plans. We build big racegiant people on Mer-
cury. I killwhen I am masterthe little flying virgins. No
good. Rebellious, much trouble always. And little Light Coun-
try men, like the brother of Tama. He called Toh. You
know lump"
"I saw him once on Earth."
"No good for breed new people. Men like you better-
like meand your women."
My heart pounded. "Women who cannot fly and be
troublesome?" I ventured.
"Yes. Earthwomen. I like them much. Women like this
Rowena."
I held myself expressionless. "You still have her here, Dor-
rek?"
"Yes. She here1 never hurt her."
"Earthwomen are not always easy to manage, Dorrek."
"This one1 manage her. Besides, she like me. I want my
woman yield with love, not fear. Muta beautiful once, but old
now. Too much old."
I forced a laugh, and he responded to it.
"Your ideas are reasonable," I agreed. "Make this Earth-
woman yield with love, not fear. You can't do that all at
once, Dorrek."
"Not hastemy mind now only on conquest of Mercury."
He touched me. "You, Jack. Dean1 make you want to
teach me the English without forcing."
He was far more clever than he looked, this Dorrek. He
shot me a sidewise glance.
"You want I let you loose? Then you help me?"
I fancy he liked me because I was the only man near
his own giant size whom he had ever seen.
He was smiling again. "You can no escape. Roc tried that.
You saw him fall? You want not death? I loose you a little.
Free to walk. Do what you likehere among us. I call you
-    friend."
Then he was unroping me. Again I had that flood of wild
thoughts. I put them asideto start fighting now would only
mean death for me, and possibly, Rowena.
I rolled over to help him untie me.
"Where is this Earth girl?"
"A room above. Muta with her."
I sat up, rubbing my arms and legs to get the blood back
into them. Dorrek watched me; then with a sudden thought,
he selected a length of rope.
"Only a little loose. " Around my ankles he tied the rope so
that I could take a short step and no more, and he tied my
wrists about a foot apart. I could free myself, I knew. And
Dorrek knew it, of course. But it would take some minutes,
and I would be under constant observation.
He commented: "Just so. No sudden idea of flight. You
. understand?"
"Yes." I smiled.
He watched me as I stood up shakily, stretching my legs
until I could walk normally. With the lesser gravity pull-
it was  Mercurian  gravity  here  now1 had  to  be  carefuL
Dorrek stood beside me.
"When you hungry, you tell Muta." He laid his huge
hand on my shoulder. "Too much bad, so big men like us
not real friends."
"Call us that, Dorrek."
"If you real friend, sometime you talk to Rowena. Tell
her Dorrek, he great man."
I met his steady gaze, and it gave me a shock. There was
always a naive earnestness in this burly scoundrel's manner.
I was shocked to realize now it was largely the limitations
of his command of English.
"You tell her, 'Dorrek he is great man.' "
He said it naively enough, but in his gaze I could not miss
a hint of irony in the earnestness of his voice half-real,
half-assumed. With a shock came the thought that this fel-
low was only malong fun of me.
And then I thought that I was mistaken. He added, "You
tell Rowenasomeday I kill her and kill you if she find she
cannot love me."
There was no duplicity in that .speech, I was convinced!
He turned and left me without waiting for my answer.
I was free now to move about the vehicle. As Dorrek passed
through the interior doorway, one of his men appeared there
and stood watching me. I was free to seek out Rowena. But
though I longed to do it at once, caution held me. Dorrek
might be listening. A surprised, incautious word from Ro-
wena as I told her of my plan for escapeit was too dan-
gerous a chance. I decided to wait, for a time at least. Until
the vehicle landed somewhere, we could not even think of
a way out.
The Mercurian in the doorway was eying me, but he did
not speak. I crossed the room with my hobbled steps and
stood at the window.
We were flying at an altitude of a few thousand feet. It
was dark, but there was enough light for me to see the
landscape beneath. It was changed from the copper up-
lands of the Light Country to a darker rock, sleek and glis-
tening as though it were largely iron.
The sky was leaden. But as I gazed, with my eyes grow-
ing accustomed to it, there seemed a vague green sheen
of radiance mingled with 'the clouds. Green, and occasionally
dim shafts of a turgid yellow. The window was open with a
small sill, breast-high, on which I leaned. A wind was out-
side; but I guessed it was only the creation of our forward
flight. The night was breathlessoppressive. I thought sud-
denly of what Guy had told us about the black storms.
Was this one of them brewing now?
I stood there perhaps an hour, watching the dim landscape
slipping past; A dark metallic plain fluted with little rifts
and gullies. It seemed steadily rising toward us. As the
ball slowly turned on its axis, my view spread to the horizon
over all its circle. A close upstanding horizon, black against
the sky. The plain was gradually breaking into rougher ccnm-
"-  try: deeper gullies, round black pitsunfathomable empti-
ness downward, and little crater holes, like pockmarks.
For a time it seemed almost a Lunar landscape, as deso-
late, uninhabited as our frigid Moon. I saw no sign of habita-
tion down here now.
Then, in a little valley, there seemed a huddled group
of mound-shaped huts. But the village was doubtless aban-
doned; there were no lights, nothing moving.
We flew steadily onward. Off to one side, diagonally ahead
of us against the horizon, I saw a glow of red-yellow light.
A crater pit, not dead like all the others, but with a fire
in its depths. It came into closer view as we passed, a little
glowing crater. It seemed almost welcome in the bleak dark
desolation. It passed sidewise and went quickly down be-
neath the rising horizon as we advanced.
I was aware of the air growing constantly colder. And the
night darker. Not so much because of the storm; we were
advancing, I knew, into the region of perpetual night. The
Sunif there had been no clouds to obscure itwould have
been always at or beneath the horizon even at the Water
City. And here, already it would have set, never to rise.
Presently, I saw mountains coming up aheadblack peaks
a great line of them stretching like a wall before us. The
ball began rising. The mountains loomed higher, closer.
And then we were over them. I stood amazed, awe-struck.
There is a terror to darknessthings almost, but not quite,
visible. Shining Lunar mountains are bleak and desolate, but
the light on them brings a grandeur to the beholder, rather
than a fear. But here beneath me now was a desolation fear-
some in the extreme. Black bottomless canyons, incongruously
wide for the sharply convex surface of this small planet; can-
yons with sheer black walls dropping into blackness; peaks ris-
ing like pointed needles; open valleys strewn with crags and
boulders.
A ragged, tumbled land, rent and torn by some great cata-
clysm of nature. Once there may have been fire here; I saw
a tremendous upsloping ramp of what might have been con-
gealed lava; a cloven rock peak loomed at its summit.
We were slamming low, and now the mountains were
around us. We swung into a deep black canyon. One of its
walls, glistening black, slid past my window hardly more
than a hundred feet away. Gazing up, I could see its straight
edge against the sky and a towering peak still higher. There
seemed a white glow upon the peaksome little light catch-
ing its mantle of snow.
~  The vehicle turned on its axis. Again I could see ahead
up this narrow black canyon and see its floor now, broken
and rock-strewn, as we steadily ascended.
The flight of the ball seemed slowing. Ahead I saw where
the canyon narrowed to a mere two hundred feet, like the
neck of a bottle, beyond which it opened into a wide bowl
enclosed by perpendicular, thousand-foot cliffs. We sailed
through the neck, out into the open valley. I saw lights.
Dorrek's mountain stronghold lay spread here on the valley
floor.
There was a step behind me. I heard a confusion of
sound within the vehicle. Tramping feet. Orders. The hiss
of the side rocket streamspreparations for landing.
Dorrek appeared. "We are here. You go abovefriend
Jack."
I followed him to the small ladder incline which led to the
upper tier. It was the single connection between. the two
floors of the vehicle. He pushed me. A few steps up, I turned
to gaze at him. He was smiling.
"You stay up there. I have men stand here so you not
come down. Windows have bars up there."
"All right," I said. "Are we landing now?"
"Yes. My camp in the mountains here. We stay three
four of your days. Then all of my men are hereMy brues
my big weapons. We go attack the Hill Cityl"
He took a step upward toward me. "You find Muta up
there with the girl Rowena. You send Muta away, you under-
stand? And you tell Rowena, I not so bad man."
I saw again that gleam of irony in his eyes. He gestured
and turned away, and from nearby three of his fellows
appeared.
I ascended. In one of the upper rooms I located Rowena
and Muta. I stood unobserved for a moment at its threshold
-.  my heart beating tumultuously at seeing Rowena again. Am
with a thrill, realization swept me: this was the room i]
which Roc, Jimmy and I had our conference. In this room
hidden in its wall, was the secret compartment containin;
weapons! And no one now in the vehicle-save Rowen,
and myselfknew that they were herel

XII
HOPE
"NO ONE COMING, ROWENA?"
"NO."
"It must be here somewherea hidden spring, a lever or
something. I saw Roc open it. Was it here? You saw him,
Rowena."
"Yes, therejust a little higher. I think it was off to the
left."
Rowena stood at the doorway, watching that no one saw
us. I searched with my hands along the steel-paneled wall.
And suddenly was rewarded. What I touched I do not know;
some concealed mechanism. The panel slid noiselessly aside.
I had a fleeting thought that Dorrek would have found this
tiny arsenal and emptied it. But he had not. The cupboard
shelves still held the rows of little bombs and rockets, tiny
strange devices, the operation of which I bad no vaguest
notion.
"Got it, Rowenal Everything's here."
I put forward a hand the length of my hobbled reach to
touch what seemed a fragile globe with a hooked lever on
it.  But I paused.  If  I were to  clumsily  set  it offthis  close
room might suddenly be filled with a paralyzing gas or a
flare of actinic light to strike me blind
"Rowena, I'm afraid to touch the blamed things!"
But there were several hand projectors of the heat-ray;
I knew how to use them. And there were knives.
-Jackl Quickly!"
I could hear the footsteps outside. I seized a small cylinder
and drew the slide quickly closed. Rowena came swiftly on
tiptoe to join me, and we moved away from the wall. The
fastenings of the closing slide clicked faintly. I recall that I
wondered if I could ever get the thing open again. The foot-
steps outside retreated; no one came in.
"Aren't you hungry, RowenaP"
"Yes. Shall I tell MutaP"
"If you can find her."
I had stuffed the weapon in my pocket. We were together
m the center of the room. Dorrek looked in.
"Oh, Dorrek!" I called. "Were hungrycan Muta bring
us food? We thought we would eat it here together."
"Yes," he said. His gaze roved us, met mine with his
slow, enigmatic smile and he turned away.
This was a full day-cycle after the ball had landed in the
mountain valley. It was the first opportunity I had had
to be alone with Rowena long enough to get the secret
panel open. We were both prisoners in the upper tier of the
ball, though free to move about its several rooms. I had
found them all with windows either closed and sealed,
or if open, with a stout grid of metal lattice. And there
never was a moment when at least three Mercurians were
not guarding the lower end of the single inclined ladder.
This upper tier was infrequently used now. Its two con-
trol rooms were unoccupied and sealed. Dorrek's men occa-
sionally came up, but not often; most of the activity was
on the lower tier, and outside. Rowena and Muta slept in
the room in which the weapon cupboard was hidden, and
Dorrek bad assigned me a room nearby.
What was transpiring in and around the vehicle I had
little opportunity to observesuch as the mobilization of the
Cold Country army. The only open windows to which I had
access faced a sheer black wall a hundred feet away. I could
see the dark rocks upon which the vehicle was resting.
And upward, a thousand feet of forbidding perpendicular
cliff against the blackness of the sky.
We were here, not only that first day-cycle, but three
others. The sounds of the arriving men floated in to vs,
~ along with the clank of giant projectors laboriously being
dragged over rocks. There were spots of lights outside, and
dim vistas of encamped men working to assemble their
mechanisms. And sometimes I had brief glimpses of dark
lines  of things  slithering along  the  rocks.  Giant insects
the bruesdocile here with their masters.
The army which had attacked the Water City was here.
There came others from the Cold County. I could not guess
how many. By Earth standards of modern warfare, not many.
Two thousand, perhaps.
Soon the whole place seemed glowing with a blue-green
radiance. The weather continued with a threat of a slow-
gathering storm. At times it was solid black night, then
vaguely weak twilight, livid with the turgid yellow-green
shafts that shot through the gathering clouds. And it was
steadily colder outside.
They were tense hours for Rowena and me. We got the
panel open again, but decided to take only a ray-cylinder
each.
The guards at the foot of the ladder were changed at
intervals, always armed and wholly alert. I could have shot
them down, but I knew it would bring a hundred men upon
us before we could get out of the ball's lower door.
I thought desperately I might break the metallic bars of
an upper window, but I had no prolonged opportunity and
no tools. The heat-ray from one of our cylinders would melt
them through, but we would be discovered.
There was still Muta. Rowena's first talk with Muta was
interrupted, but during the first cycle here in the mountains
they spent the time of sleep together, and Rowena cau-
tiously resumed her efforts. Muta was receptive. What Ro-
wena now urged, the woman herself had born in mind
when she told Jimmy that some time she would talk to him
alone. Certainly she wanted Rowena away.
"You see, Mutayou saw my husband with me at the
meal tonight? He loves me and I love him. Could you not
see it?"
"That true. But what difference? Dorrek a man, take what
he want and he want you."
Rowena gripped her. "That's the danger! You've got to
help us escape from here, Muta!"
"No, he km me if I try thati I frightened!"
"Talk softly! He won't kill you. He won't know any-
thing about it. We'll plan how it can be done. You-at the
time of sleep, like nowyou can get the guards away from
the ladder."
The plan was coming to Rowena as she talked. It was cold
outside, and by another time of sleep with the approaching
storm it would be still colder. She questioned Muta, found
that would probably be so. And outside, Muta said, the
men were beginning to wear enshrouding fur robes and
hoods. Muta could get two of those. And give Rowena and
me a little food and water to take with us.
It should be possible for the Mercurian woman to get the
guards momentarily away from the ladder, long enough for
Rowena and me, disguised, to slip past.
We would be alone in the mountainous wilds of a strange
planet, but it was better than being here. I thought I had
a general idea of how to get back to the Light Country. It
was not far by Earth measurements.
Muta agreed to try it. She brought the hooded gar-
ments, which Rowena had concealed in a couch.
We thought we would manage the escape the next time
of sleep. Muta was ready. Rowena had carefully drilled her
in what she was to do.
We were ready. I was in my room, tense, waiting for
Rowena's call. Outside, with a cold rising wind moaning
past the rocks, the encampment was setting to sleep.
And then there was a sudden activity! A shrill distant
alarm! A turmoil spreading everywhere. In a moment the
lower tier of the ball was resounding with hurrying footsteps.
Voices shouting.
I rushed into Rowena. She and Muta were there, standing
with the hooded furs.
"Jackwhat is it? Listen!"
Through the window bars the blackness outside was split
~.. .with light flares.
"JackJack Deani" I heard Dorrek's voice shouting on the
ladder. Running footsteps up here in the upper tier. The
ball's control rooms were being unsealed.
Dorrek burst in upon us; Rowena had barely time to hide
the furs. Dorrek whirled on me.
"You stay here with Rowena. We move the ballnot
safe here."
"Do what? Dorrek, wait"
But he was gone. In the lower tier I could hear them
sealing the outer door. The ball lifted, movednot far
and again came to rest, in the middle of the encampment
this time, resting on the rocky floor in the center of the
valley-bowl. Outside the window we could see the confused
glare of leaping, crossing ray beams.
The army of the Light Country had arrived to attack
Dorrek in his mountain stronghold. The battle was bursting
into an inferno around us I

XIII
FLIGHT TO BATTLE
As TT LEFT the Hill City in the half-light of that noonday,
the army of the Light Country consisted of two divisions: the
forces on the ground and those in the air. Of the young men
who marched on foot there were perhaps a thousand. It
could have been more, but Grenfell decided against it.
Warfare is different in every age, and far more does it dif-
fer in one world from another. Grenfell was not officially in
commandthat was given to a Light Country scientist, named
Arton. But the Hill City officials looked to Grenfell as actual
leader. A set of conditions wholly strange was involved:
electrical  warfare.  A battle  of  crossing  rays,  of  blasting,
withering heat. A single technician at a projector could do
the work of a thousand soldiers.
But Grenfell knew that no warefare, however super-
modern, scientific, mechanical, will ever transcend the human
factor.
The young men to go on foot were not primarily fighters,
but their principal mission was to transport supplies: The
food and water, the housing equipment for camping in the
desert, the amttiunition, electronic storage battery renewers,
a renewal supply of the small hand weapons used by the
air force. They carried a score of giant beat-ray projectors
mounted upon little wheeled carts. Fifty additional carts
were used for the supplies. They were drawn by domesticated
brues.
The thousand young men, commanded by Arton, were
slow moving and needed supplies for their own maintenance.
The number would have been unnecessarily large, save that
Grenfell greatly feared Dorrek's giant insects, trained for fight-
tag. It was likely that Dorrek, when attacked, might loose his
brues over the desert with a few men guiding them to raid
the vulnerable Hill City. This the ground army was pre-
pared to oppose.
For defense, there was a black insulating fabrica thin
flexible, cloth-like material, dead-black in color, woven of hair-
thin metallic thread. At a distance of thirty feet a man clothed
in it could withstand the heat-rays for many seconds. Gar-
ments and hoods were made of it, and shields of various
sizes. But, like all devices of war, it was only partially effec-
tive.
The Light County air forces were of three kinds. The
individual flying girls,  of whom there were some  eight
hundred. They could not fly properly in the insulated suits.
Some wore them, but most chose their filmy robes and
carried six-foot flexible shields, folded for long distance fly-
ing,  which  could  be  opened  in  a moment.  They  wore
belts with small ray projectors, knives and a variety of hand
bombs to be thrown or dropped upon the enemy.
Tama was in command of these girls. There were eight
divisions of about a hundred each. They flew in eight sep-
arate squads, each with its girl commander.
The second air division was that of the flying platforms,
using from eight to thirty girls. The two largest carried
'   a single giant projector each, which had an effective range
of something like half a mile. Four Light Country men rode
each of these platforms. Two others, carried four men with
bombs. Three bore merely a single girl eachreserve plat-
forms.
One platform carried Jimmy and Roc. Guy had been as-
signed with them, but, perhaps because of his dislike for
Roc, he persuaded Grenfell against it. He and Toh rode a
platform together.                                     
And there was the Flying Cube. It was loaded now with
reserve armament: weapons shields, fabric suits, food, medical
equipment. It had a giant heat projector mounted now at
.   a port on the D-Face deck, and the long-range Earth gun.
Grenfell rode in the Cube with his five associates. There
were ten or fifteen Light Country men also now aboard the
Cube, including four of the most skillful surgeons in the Hill
City.
Grenfell decided to go in advance and start the attack; the
men on the ground could arrive as a reserve force later.
Grenfell let the flying girls lead the way. He kept the Cube
poised in the midst of them. They took it slowly, so that the
girls would not be tired. Within a few minutes the queue of
marching men upon the groundthe little swaying carts
with harnessed insects slithering ahead of themall were
left behind, out of sight beneath the horizon.
The metal desert lay ahead. After twenty miles the girls
descended to rest. The Cube sailed cautiously ahead to
make sure no enemy was in sight and then returned. The
girls started again. Fantastic sightl They fluttered up, giant
birds with vivid blue and crimson wings, flowing draperies,
braided hair fastened to their sides, white limbs gracefully
poised. They formed themselves into the eight squadrons,
each with its leader, and followed by the flying platforms,
winged swiftly off into the gathering twilight.
Jimmy, lying with his broken leg stiff in its splints, on his
platform with Roc, gazed eagerly ahead. Two or three
more stops and the mountains would come up over the for-
ward horizon where it seemed a storm was gathering. Jimmy's
mfad was busy with stffl half formed personal plans. Gren-
feB had the big advantage over Dorrek m this coming battle.
But Dorrek had one advantage, which, to Jimmy, was likely
to prove a great handicap to Grenfell's activities.
For Rowenaand I, Jack Deanwere prisoners. It seemed
to Grenfell likely that we would be kept confined in the
silver ball. Dorrek would reason that Grenfell, fearing to loll
us, would thus hesitate to attack the ball, his greatest weapon.
It was a great handicap. Grenfell strode up and down the
deck of the Cube that morning considering it, his shock of
gray hair rumpled, his square-jawed face set in a frown,
his shoulders hunched. Jimmy was lying in a deck chair re-
garding him.
"I don't know how to get them out of that sphere," mur-
mured Grenfell. "We'll have to watch our chance when we
get there." He was talking half to himself.
Jimmy called, "Oh, Doc, I'm thinking the same thing you
are. Once we have them safe, you can feel free to blow
that blamed ball to bits. I've got a plan; will you listen?"
"Of course."
"Well, we don't know yet what conditions we're liable
to meet. But let us assume we take these savages by sur-
prise. My idea is well have them penned in the mountains.
They'll be on the defensive,  won't they? And the ball
wffl be lying insidewell, what you'd call the enemy lines.
And it will be black night. Right?"
"Jimmy, I have no way of guessing what the conditions
will be. But I know one condition I'm afraid ofwhat these
girls may do when they get in contact with the enemy.
Eight hundred of themsupposed to be under my control.
But they won't be! How can I control them? I've no ade-
quate means of communication with them during a battle.
A few flying platforms to take my orders!"
Grenfell was vehement. "Your description of how those
girls fought that giant insectthat brue thingin the Water
City. Reckless! Never letup until they had it torn to shreds,
and then collapsed into hysteria when it was over. If they
get wild, if I can't control themthe whole eight hundred
could kill themselves in half an hour."
"Tama can control them. Doc."
"I hope so. I've spoken to her. She stared at me with that
little quizzical smile. 'Oh, yes. Doctor, we will be prudent.
We look to you to tell us what to do.' That sounds fine. But"
Jimmy interrupted. "What I was saying; my idea is well
have these savages penned in the mountains. You're not go-
ing to attack at once. Make the girls take it slow; that will
help control 'em. It will be dark, won't it?"
"So I understand."
"Abnormally dark. Roc tells me this sky looks as though
a black storm is coming. And a cold one, from the Night
'  Country. Well, my idea is to watch my chanceget my
platform up close to the enemy lines. Wear a black insulator
,_suit, and creep through the lines. Get up to the ballunseen,
why not? And the doorway would probably be open"
"But, Jimmy, you can't walk with that leg."
"I can creep, can't I? I may have no chance after the
fighting starts, to consult with you. I want your permission
now. It might be the lives of Rowena and Jackand it might
make all the difference between your losing or winning the
battle.  You  want  those  barbarians  coming  to  the  Earth
againassaulting, abducting young girls like they did last
year? If I get Rowena and Jackyou'll be free to blow
that ball to bits. Chances are that Dorrek and all the leaders
will be in it.
Grenfell hesitated; then he put his hands on Jimmy's
shoulders and gazed into the flushed, freckled face with the
tousled, brick-red hair above it.
"Do what you think best, Jimmy. Onlydon't get killed."
As Grenfell stood up, Jimmy saw Roc standing a short
distance down the length of dimly illumined deck. He had
come from a nearby door, or perhaps he had been stand-
ing there unobserved for some time. Jimmy called, "Oh, Roc
come here."
Roc was to be his companion on the platform. Jimmy was
by nature impulsive, and he was keyed up, excited now.
He gave Roc the general idea of his plan.
"Suppose we try it together. Roc. You'll be a great help if
we should be stopped by any of Dorrek's men, since you can
talk their language."
Roc said quietly, "We are riding together. Plenty of time
to talk it over later, Turk." Roc turned to Grenfell. "Tama
would like to see you for a moment, Dr. Grenfell. Some ques-
tion about shields for the girls."
"Oh-yes, Roc."
He and Roc hurried away, leaving Jimmy alone, nursing his
leg, pondering his plan.
And he was still pondering it, when in the midst of the
cloud of flying girls, he rode the platform with Rocthe
metallic desert beneath them, and overhead the lowering
black sky. A black storm was coming.
Roc was stretched now at the platform stem; Jimmy was
fa front. At the handles, jutting out, their girls flew, seven
on each side. Only one of them spoke English, and hers
was very limited. A girl named Grazia. She flew at the left-
hand leading position, her wing-stroke setting the beat for
the others. Her small, earnest face, flushed with exertion,
was only a few feet from Jimmy's. Occasionally, as she turned
to glance at him, he would smile and nod to her, or call a
chasing jovial encouragement. The girls of this crew all
seemed to like Jimmy. But they obviously did not like Roc.
At last, far ahead against the dark horizon, the black
peaks of the mountains loomed up.
Like a great gash in the tumbled mountainous ridge wound
the black canyon. Its smooth metallic walls were for the most
part sheerly perpendicular, a thousand feet high. It was nar-
row, frequently curving in broad sweeps, or again turning
sharply. In places it was five hundred feet wide, in others
less than two hundred.
The walls were eroded with lateral ridges, one above the
other as though left by nature to mark the ages of the
drying river which once had surged through here. In the
heart of the Dark Mountains, the canyon widened abruptly
into a great irregularly shaped bowl, where once a lake must
have been. Nearly circular, it was some six miles in diameter:
A broken, ridged floor of strewn boulders, gullies and ravines,
surrounded by sheer circular walls like a crater rim, broken
and jagged on top.
In this great bowl, Dorrek had set his encampment. His
forces were arriving from the upper canyon entrance at the
Cold Country side; and it was from the lower canyon en-
trance that Grenfell and his  army approached.  Grenfell
learned afterward that Dorrek's force was already almost com-
plete. What few came later, seeing the distant conflict, un-
doubtedly turned back and fled.
As Jimmy rode his swaying platform, winging low over the
narrowing black canyon, he could see very little of the re-
gion's formation. It was now almost black night. The Cube
had sailed ahead. Twenty girls had gone cautiously with the
Cube. They came winging back, flying in broken formation,
scattering to the flying platforms and to the leaders of the
various crops of girls with Grenfell's orders.
Jimmy and Roc saw the alarm given long before their
platform arrived upon the scene. Light flares bursting in the
distance, illumed the black sky and the towering jagged
mountain peaks. The steady, rumbling hiss of giant pro-
jectors.
Jimmy thought that the attack had already begun. The
Cube came sailing back, high overhead, turned in a ten-
mile semicircle, and swept forward again.
One of the largest platforms carrying a huge projector
with four men to operate it dropped down and landed upon
the canyon rim at the entrance to the six-mile bowl. The can-
yon here was no more than two hundred feet wide. The
projector, mounted upon the rim, would dominate this exit.
Half of Grenfell's force landed at this point. The other half,
including Jimmy and Roc, swept a mile back to the left, avoid-
ing the open bowl. Jimmy saw great shafts of blue-green
light rays standing like searchlight beams into the air. A cir-
-ular curtain of deadly hght in the center of the bowl.
Jimmy and Roc, following orders, flew in a wide detour
to the left and landed on the crater rim, where the canyon
stretched off toward the Cold Country. There were a few
of Dorrek's guards on the top of these walls, but at once they
scattered and fled.
Dorrek was now trapped in the rocky bowl. As Grenfell had
foreseen, he went instantly on the defensive. When the alarm
came, the silver ball had been resting at the bottom of the
valley near one of its side walls. Dorrek immediately moved
it to the center of the bowl, three miles from the nearest
enclosing cliffs.
Two hours passed, which were horribly irksome to the
waiting Jimmy.
Near the top of the thousand-foot precipice at the opening
to the valley, Grenfell's encampment was springing into ex-
istence on a boulder-strewn plateau. The Cube had landed
on a nearby rocky eminence which dominated the scene.
The men and the four hundred girls unloaded the Cube's
supply of tents, lights, cables, batteries and light mechan-
isms; the food supplies; weapons and defensive armament.
Within an hour the tents and lights were erecteda little
huddled group of dark-fabric shelters, strewn amid the rocks.
Tiny hooded green lights dotted it, their dim radiance dis-
closing the figures of the winged girls moving busily about
The first meal was in preparation.
Jimmy called to Roc as the Mercurian laboriously hauled
the base section of a projector to a spot where someone had
said it should be taken.
"How far is the brink from here? I'm going there."
Roc answered his smile. "Of course, Turk." He called a
passing' girl, instructed her to have the projector assembled.
very well, Turk. Come put your arm on my shoulder."
Jimmy found that he could almost hobble. He weighed
hardly sixty pounds here on Mercury. With his arm over Roc's
shoulders, they made a fair speed, passing beyond the lights
of the camp, heading to the nearby brink where they could
see over the valley.
Fragments of information which Roc had picked up he
now gave Jimmy. Dorrek was caught in the valley. His m.""
and brues were dovm there clustered around the silver ba~
In all, they occupied a space of about a mile-wide circle,
out in the center of the valley. There was no projector in
either camp which could reach the other.
On the heights of the lower canyon entrance, Grenfell's
second camp was being established. There was no way for
Dorrek's men and brues to get out of the valley without pass-
ing through one of these two narrow gorges, both of which
Grenfell's projectors now dominated.
Across the dark rocky distance, in the direction of the
Light Country, Jimmy thought he could distinguish the tiny
lights of the other camp six miles away. Overhead a small
group of girls winged off in that direction.
"Look!" exclaimed Roc suddenly.
They turned. Behind them, in the darkness a mile back
on this upper plateau, was turmoil. Vague blurred sounds
in the heavy, motionless night air. Tiny flashes of blue-green
lightlittle beams leaping down, crossing with others leap-
ing up. It lasted only a moment or two. The beams were
extinguished; the sounds died. Jimmy learned afterward that
a small group of armed girls, flying to investigate the sur-
rounding country, had come upon a few of Dorrek's lurk-
ing men. And a brue. The men and the brue were killed, and
three of the girls.
Grenfell now established patrols for all this neighborhood.
At intervals they passed overhead, flying low with their search-
beams sweeping the crags.
It was a painfully long hobble for Jimmy, but at last he
and Roc came to the brink of the cliff. In the center of the
valley Dorrek had set up a ring of giant projectors, a mile
in diameter, within which his army was enclosed. They were
pointed directly upward, spreading beams of blue-green. At
a few hundred feet above the ground they crossed, mingled
into a solid curtain of light, a circular, mile-wide upstand-
ing funnel.
It was queerly non-radiant, this barrage; inherently blue-
green, but it did not illumine the valley. The rocky floor, even
close to where the projectors were set, was solid black. Nor
did it radiate much heat. Within the beams of that thin,
glowing curtain, the temperature must have been several
thousand degrees centigradeforty times the boiling point
of water perhaps. But twenty feet away, its heat could scarcely
be felt.
The effective height of this heat barrage was two miles,
or less. The Cube could sail over it, drop a bomb, blow the
Mercurian ball to bits.
Jimmy's thoughts raced. At the base of the barrage cur-
tain, where the spreading beams came from the projectors,
there were triangular holes of unprotected darkness. Five
hundred feet on the rocks, narrowing to the point where the
beams met overhead. Into those triangular holes Grenfell
could creepup to the silver ball. A vague glow of light
seemed to disclose the round silver shape of the ball lying in
the center of the encampment.
Jimmy had conceived that Dorrek's barrage was immovable.
The holes in it so easy to penetrate) But within a minute he
saw that was not so. One of the projectors swung suddenly
forward. Its beam swept the empty valley floor, almost
reached the base of the cliff, darted sidewise, then upward
and back to its former position. It made Jimmy shudder.
Nothing living could have withstood the briefest touch of
that faint lurid glow.
GrenfelTs projector at the canyon mouth presently sent
down an answering beam. Its source was along the clifftop
not far from where Roo- and Jimmy were crouching. Its range
was something near a mile; it swept the nearby valley floor,
dominated the exit, but could not reach Dorrek's projectors.
After a moment it was extinguished.
"The storm is coming," said Roc.
"A black storm?"
"Yes."
The clouds overhead ' were shot with occasional turgid
yellow shafts. They illumined the valley far more than did
the enemy barrage beams. The air here on the cliffs was cold.
A little wind had sprung up fitfully.
"We had better go back," Roc added. "The storm may
burst now, or in an hour or two."
"Soon, Roc."
Presently, as an experiment, Grenfell tried a shot from the
long-range Earth gun on the deck of the Cube. But Dorrek's
men were alert. The gun spat yellow; instantly one of the
barrage projectors bent downward. The shell went into the
beam, exploded harmlessly in mid-flight over the valley.
"I'm going down there," Jimmy said suddenly. "Roc, you've
got to help me. Get our platformassemble our gills. We're
going down." In the darkness he could not see Rocs face.
"Yes. I will try."
"Now listen-" A sudden thought struck Jimmy. "If you
see Guy and Toh, tell them what we're doing. Maybe they'd
like to come"
If only Jimmy had insisted on that!
Roc was on his feet. In the darkness Jimmy could only
hear his voice. "Very well. You wait here. If I see Tama,
I will ask her to come. Down there in the darkness, if trouble
should arise, we could send Tama quickly up for help."
As Jimmy hesitated. Roc added vehemently: "I am not one
who would want Tama placed in danger. But just to land in
the darkness down therenot too dangerous."
"O.K. Hurry it."
Jimmy sat alone on the clifftop through another interval,
staring down at the distant enemy barrage. The projectors
could not sweep the ground since their long range would
annihilate the projector next in line, he noticed.
Suddenly he saw a hand heat-beam dart sidewise from
near one of the projectors. It swept the ground with a range
of nearly a hundred feet. And a guard at the neighboring pro-
jector answered it with a similar horizontal beam.
Jimmy smiled grimly. That was not so good. But his fab-
ric suit might withstand that smaller beam. He would have
to chance it.
His attention was distracted by the beat of wings close
over his head. Roc arriving with their platform? But it was
not. Another platform, seven girls on each of its sides, went
sailing past. Fifty feet over Jimmy, and twice that far beyond
the brink of the clifFtop: Two men were crouching on the
platform.
A sudden silent burst of yellow-red radiance in the sky
briefly illumined themGuy and Toh I They did not see Jim-
my. He stood up impulsively, cursed his leg, and hastily sat
down again.
The platform winged away, but Jimmy did not lose sight
of it, as it headed off toward Grenfells other camp. But it
rose steeply and presently came back. Then in a broad spiral,
almost directly over Jimmy's head, it mounted.
Grenfell was making another test. The platform was a
mere dot against the turgid sky. Great funnel-shaped clouds
were slowly wheeling up there. Queer green and yellow
shafts occasionally burst in them.
The platform rose steadily. A mile? Two miles? Twelve
or fifteen thousand feet? Then Jimmy realized: Guy and
Toh were trying to fly acioss the top of the barrage cur-
tain to test the height and try to drop a bomb.
The little dot up there began moving out over the valley.
Dorrek's men had seen it. There was a movement of all of
the barrage beams. They turned diagonally inward, closing
at the top almost together in a mingled blurred glow.
The platform crossed over them. The falling bomb was
Invisible to Jimmy at first. But then he saw it strike the upper
reaches of the barrage funnel as a glowing point of light.
Its metal shell turning luminous.  The heat was weak at
first. But in a second or two the falling dot of fire burst into
a puff of flame. A tiny report echoed over the silent valley.
The platform came sailing back, descending well behind
Jimmy, lost in the darkness of the upper plateau.
A rush of wings sounded behind Jimmy. His platform,
complete with its crew of fourteen girls, landed near the
brink.
Jimmy saw Roc and Tama dismounting. They came toward
him.
Tama greeted him: "Jimmy, you must not try this thing.
Roc has told me"
He waved away her protests.
"Don't worry, TamaI'm no cripple. I'm sparing myself
nowyou wait until you see how I can make speed when
I have to. You going with us, TamaP"
"Yes," said Roc quietly. "For a little way."
They mounted the platform. Jimmy saw three knives, three
small hand cylinders and a flashlight in the weapon rack.
And a pile of garmentsthe black insulated suits.
"There is a cloak and hood for Tama," said Roc. "But in
flying it cannot protect the wings."
The little leading girl, Grazia, was beside Jimmy. The plat-
form was raised, ready for launching.
She leaned toward him. Her face was white and earnest.
There was fear in her eyes, but her jaw was set with deter-
mination. All the girls were watching her. She said, in an
undertone:  "You instruct us where to go, Jimmy."
"Start us off, Grazia. Down to the valleykeep close to
the cliff, right along here on this side. Understand me?"
"Yes. I take orders from you or Tama. Not Roc."
The platform lifted, swayed over the brink and swooped
downward.

XIV
NO MAN'S LAND
JIMMY HEADED THEM down the valley for a mile. They
landed on the dark rocky floor close to the foot of the cliff.
It was far darker than above. There was no wind down here.
But the heavy air was dank and chill. The girls were shiver-
ing from cold and from excitement.
Jimmy and Roc had donned the black suits. Jimmy carried
a knife, a cylinder and the flashlight. His suit encased him
from feet to neck, and to the tips of his gloved fingers. His
hood, with flexible-paneled visor, dangled now at his back.
Tama donned her cloak. It covered her wings for walking,
but was slitted so that for flying her wings could come
through it. The three of them stood whispering.
"Roc, did anyone know we started?" demanded Jimmy.
Roc stood apart, waiting. "No," he answered.
'"Well, we're all right so far. I want the platform to take
us as near as we dare go," Jimmy explained to Grazia. "Pick
out a gully or something, where you can hide while you
wait for me."
It  seemed  that  Roc  hesitated.  Tama  turned  to  him
abruptly.
"We will do what he says.'"
The platform fluttered cautiously forward, landed in a little
pit-like depression. The enemy line was near at hand. The
barrage loomed up, a huge, glowing veil. They left the
platform hidden. Tama stayed with it.
"We haven't been seen," Jimmy whispered. "You wait here.
We may come back in a rush, Tama." He gripped her slim
shoulders. "I hope to God we have Rowena and Jack with
IM
usi
"Come," whispered Roc.
He helped Jimmy for a short distance. The barrage cur-
tain seemed almost overhead. But there was no light from it
here on the rocky surface. The loose boulders were often
ten or twenty feet high. Jimmy and Roc made their way
cautiously forward. They were heading into the dark space
between two of the projectors.
Jimmy pulled up his hood. "We'd better get lower. CrawL
I can make it."
They crept on. Jimmy, without thought of the pain, found
he could drag his abnormally light weight swiftly forward.
Roc crept behind him. After a time, Jimmy was winded.
He paused for breath, then went on. The nearest projector
was some two hundred feet to the left of him. Occasionally
it was hidden by intervening crags. The other, to the right,
lay obscured below a little upstanding ridge.
There was no alarm, though every moment Jimmy feared
it might come.  Every  boulder  might have  a  lurking  guard
in the blackness beside it.
Soon Jimmy figured he was within the enemy line. The
barrage curtain closed in a great sweeping arc over his
head. The left hand projector was a trifle behind him now;
in the dim light from it he could see the dark forms of the
attendants.
Ahead, the broken, ridged surface went down a gentle
slope. Shapes were down therestraggling tents, the out-
posts of the camp. He saw a group of moving lights.
Abruptly Jimmy realized that Roc was not with him I He
waited, stretched out, panting, gazing back. Roc had been
.following, but he was gone now. Afraid I Desertedgone
back to the girls
A grin was on Jimmy's face. He rested a few moments,
then dragged himself on. In Jimmy's mind there had been
no thought of how he might get Rowena out of Dorrek's
clutches. He told himself now that be would decide that
when the time came. The first thing was to get to the Mer-
curian vehicle and into it.
There was a commotion ahead, men dragging a projector
across the camp. Their small hand lights showed. Jimmy
rolled into a little crevice between two boulders and rested
until they had passed. He was well within the lines now.
Overhead he could see the green-yellow sky, and frequent
lightning flares now. He heard a dim, queerly muffled thun-
derclap. And a wind was surging over the valley. The storm
was at hand.
He saw too, that a distant section of the barrage was
moving out from the camp, toward the valley wall. Three or
four of the projectors were being rolled outward. It was a
mile away, but the movement was obvious.
The camp showed distant activity. Dorrek was starting
something. Jimmy lay with pounding heart, watching. The
barrage was moving toward the cliff, in the direction of the
canyon entrance where Grenfell had established his girls, and
the Cube.
An enemy rocket mounted from a point on the valley
floor less than a mile from Jimmy. The barrage parted to let
it pass. It went in an arc upward. Through the brief blank
hole in the barrage Jimmy saw it clearly; it fell on the cliff.
Burst with a puff of light, and from it came a turgid ball of
smoke. Gas fumesi They clung heavily to the clifftopa little
widening cloud. The wind which now was up there caught
the fumes, and blew them back over the plateau.
Grenfell's projectors were sweeping the nearby rocks. The
Cube fired a shot. It came screaming down, went into the
barrage and burst in mid-air.
The battle had begun. A sudden activity everywhere. From
the faraway clifftop, girls were rising, dropping bombs to
dissipate the approaching gas fumes.
Jimmy came to himself to realize that whatever he could
do must be done now. He crept on forward. He had forgot-
ten Dorrek's brues, the gruesome giant insects. With a shudder
that turned him cold, he saw one slithering across the camp
with a man driving it.
They did not see him. Other men passed; he rolled into
a tiny hollow and lay breathless as their feet and legs showed
almost overhead. Legs garbed in a woolly brown fur. He
waited a moment or two after they were gone, raised himself
up on his hands to gaze cautiously out of the hollow.
From the nearby darkness two fur-robed figures were
advancing! Jimmy ducked back, fumbling for his knife; he
could not risk a ray flash which would give the alarm.
But he was too late! A giant man came with a leap upon
bimi
Tama crouched in the ravine with the platform and the
fourteen other girls. Ten minutes passed. Every instant she
feared to hear the sound of alarm within the enemy camp.
It was a mad, desperate attempt. She was sorry she had not
tried harder to restrain Jimmy.
A dark form showed at the brink of the ravine. These
girls were not armed, except Tama, who carried a knife and a
ray cylinder. The little projector was in her hand; but be-
fore she could level it, a soft warning voice came from the
arriving figure.
"Tamal"
It was Roc. He slid down into the ravine, greeting Tama
in their native language.
"All is well, Tama."
His black hood dangled to his shoulders, exposing his
pale face. In his hand he held his cylinder. He fronted
Tama and the girls, with his back to the gully side.
"But where is Jimmy Turk?" Tama lowered her weapon.
"What happened, Roc? Why did you return?"
"He goes on in." Roc laughed, harsh as the grind of a
file  rasping  on  steel.  "I  let  him  go.  Why  not?  They  will
catch him, of course. Kill him. . . . Look there!"'
His swift gesture made Tama and most of the other girls
turn around. There was nothing to see. Tama felt Roc leap
upon her. His hands tore away her cylinder, jerked her
knife from her belt, and flung her to the platform.
"Quiet, all of youl" His weapon swept the girls, men-
acing. His voice hissed at them. "If you do not want me
to kill your Tama, do as I tell you. Take your places at the
handles. We are going up. Lie still, you By the god of
light, I'm in no mood to fool with you, Tama." He shoved
her to the forward end of the platform. "If you try to fly
off, my beam will kill you. I mean it."
"Rod Are your senses gone?"
"No. "I've just got them. . . . Grazia, start us up. To any
of you who dares to leave your placeit is death! I mean
iti"
The white, frightened girls lifted the platform. Roc
crouched ia its stern, facing forward. Tama huddled tense,
watching him. His weapon was leveled. It swept the girls,
came back upon her.
"To the nearest difftop, Grazia. Low at firstdown, you
fooll Do you want us to be seen? The barrage turned on us
shrivel us to ashes?"
They skimmed low over the valley, back toward the cliff.
Tama, facing the rear, could see the enemy lines over Roc's
crouching form. The barrage, on its distant side, was mov-
ing outward. Activity in the enemy camp. Was Jimmy caught?
She feared so. She saw the rocket mount to the cliff. Saw
Grenfell answer with a shot.
Roc chuckled. "Out of it, just in time."
The girls were flying in frightened disorder. He warned
them. They flew more evenly. The platform ascended, reached
the plateau at a point some two miles from Grenfell's upper
camp. It passed above the cliff at an altitude of a few
hundred feet; sailed back over the dark empty reaches of
the upper plain. It flew swiftly; the panic-stricken girls
were menaced by Roc's weapon and his grim threats.
The lights and sounds of the battle faded into the dis-
tance. Ahead lay the black desolate vastnesses of the moun-
tains, with the bursting storm upon them. The sky was lurid
now with shafts of red and yellow light splitting the cloud
funnels. Rain was falling, tossed by a crazy wind.
Roc had not moved from his crouching place in the plat-
form stem. The red lightning flares painted his livid face,
the Satanic peak of hair on his forehead, his blazing dark
eyes.
Tama said abruptly out of the silence, "Are you mad,
Roc? Where are you taking us?"
Roc laughed again, but calmly now, and shifted his
tense position. But he was still alert with his weapon.
"Back home. The Cave City, where you will be safe, m
the Cold Country until this fighting is over, Tama. Dorrek
will win, I hope. These fool meddling Earthmen1 wish them
all to their hell. And I have youthat is all I want."
"But I thought" Her protest sounded so futile. She
checked it. And then her heart leaped into her throat. Over
Roc's shoulder, in the lurid darkness behind them, it seemed
that she saw a following shape. She forced herself to speak,
to hold Rocs attention, to keep him from turning to gaze
back.
"But, Roc, I thought-"
"You thought I was going to plunge into a battle? Get
killed! Or have you tell me you love that accursed Earthman,
Guy Palisse."
"I never said I loved him. Roc."
"Do you?"
"Or do I love you? Is this the way to make me love you?
Trickery once more. Traitor, again."
The blob behind them was coming closer. Overtaking them.
Another flying platform.
"Perhaps it is the way to make you love me," Roc retorted.
"We shall see. I do not want you to be killed. I'm taking you
to safety."
"Or is it for yourself you most fear?" she demanded. "You
are despicable. Roc. A traitor. A lying little coward"
The girls at the handles showed a sudden confusion. They
had seen the pursing platform; two or three of them were
looking backward.
It attracted Roc's attention. He turned; and Tama would
have leaped upon him but he was too quick for her.
"Back! Sit quietl You, Graziaa faster strokel"
But the girls, although they pretended to do their best,
were faltering. Roc did not dare turn his head again; he moved
forward, almost upon Tama, with the cylinder leveled at her
breast. He called to the girls: "Faster! Do you want me to
kill her?"
The other platform was now barely a hundred feet be-
hind them, and coming at far greater speed. It suddenly be-
gan ascending, to pass over them. The wind had momentarily
lulled, but now it came up again as a roaring blast. The plat-
form swayed, lurched as the girls fought to hold it.
The wind tore at his words and hurled them away. A
crimson flare in the sky illumined the other platform clearly.
Two men 'were upon it. Triumph swept Tama. It was Guy
and Toh! They were close behind, rising to a fifty foot high-
er level. Tama could presently see only the black insulated
bottom of the platform, the winged shapes of its girls
around it, and a face projecting beyond its forward edge.
The face of her brother Toh, staring down.
Roc was crouching on one knee.
"Faster!"
Grazia, flying close at Tama's side, had looked -up and
seen Toh, and had caught a signal from his hand over the
edge of the platform. Guy was leaning over the side, trying
to aim down at Roc.  Both platforms were  lurching;  he
could not make sure of any aim.
Grazia suddenly left her handle and with folded wings
dropped into the void. It distracted Roc, as she had intended.
He leaned sideways, his weapon spat its small deadly beam.
But it missed Grazia's falling body; her wings opened; she
flew away and vanished.
The lower platform wavered dangerously, all its girls in a
panic of confusion. And then Toh leaped over the forward
edge of the upper platform. He came hurtling down the fifty-
foot space with a knife in his outstretched hand.
Roc forgot Tama. He turned his cylinder upward and
fired.
Toll's body crashed upon Roc. loh's knife stabbed in one
convulsive blow.
On the swaying platform under Tama's homfled gaze,
the bodies of the two men lay writhing in last agonies,, and
then were still.

XV
TRAPPED
ROWENA AND I illight have escaped from the silver ball that
time when Muta smuggled the brown-furred garments to us.
She was ready to distract the attention of the guards. But
the alarm came. Grenfell's Cube was sighted, sailing high
over the valley. Dorrek's encampment sprang into confusion.
He rushed in to us.
"You stay here with Rowena. We move the ball-not
safe here."
Rowena had barely time to hide our robes in her bed
covering. Muta stood against the wall. Dorrek whirled around
and was gone.
Our futile plans! Escape was impossible now. Men were
clattering  everywere in  the  small vehicle's  interior.  The
guards still held their position at the foot of the ladder. And
other men were constantly upon it. The upper-tier rooms
near us were occupiedmen in the control rooms, which
had hastily been unsealed. The lower door was closed. The
ball lifted; the thrum of its rocket-stream ejectors sounded
amid the turmoil of footsteps and voices.
I had thought that the battle was bursting around us; but
almost at once I saw that it was not. Rowena and I stood at
the small window oval. She had loosened the ropes which
hampered her. But Dorrek had not noticed or had not cared.
Muta came like a shadow and stood behind us. The ball
had been resting within a hundred feet of the valley's precipi-
tous wall. Our window had faced that way; and all the
main encampment was behind us, out in the open valley. As
we lifted now, we had a wider vista. The ball sailed outward
from the cliff, then backed into the center of the valley some
three miles from the nearest cliff and came to rest again on
the rocks.
We were now in the center of the encampment. I saw
its  turmoil  of  alarm.  Men  were  dragging  projectors  with
cables slithering after them like giant snakes. Brues were
being harnessed to small carts loaded with storage batteries.
Mound-shaped tents were set up in straggling array on
the rocky floor, and illumined by tiny lights, strung from
metal poles. And houses which had been built of gathered
loose stones crudely piled in tiers, with skins and fabric
cloth stretched for a roof, dotted the valley floor.
Many of the giant projectors were ready. Dorrek had at least
half expected this alarm. Within ten minutes after he had
sighted the Cube, his great circular barrage was springing
up around him. The flare of their upstanding beams, the
hiss of them, was what I had mistaken for an attack.
The camp occupied a mile-wide circle, and within half an
hour the barrage was complete around it. From our second-
tier window we presently saw: tiny distant lights which marked
the coming of Grenfell's force.
Dorrek's barrage was constantly being strengthenedre-
serve protectors dragged to the circular line, reserve batteries
for renewal. There seemed hordes of fur-clad men. Hand
weapons were being distributed. A hundred brues went past,
lashed by their drivers, slithering off toward a section of the
barrage. Still no attack came from Grenfell.
Here in the ball I stood alert, waiting for an opportunity
to get away with Rowena.  But always there seemed too
many men moving around this upper tier and the incline.
But once out into the confusion of the camp, clad like these
other furred men, our chances might be better now than
before.
"Soon, Rowena," I whispered. "If this upper corridor is
cleared, even for a moment"
Muta held stolidly to her decision to help us.
"I watch at the door." She stood there, motionless.
At last she signaled, "Now!"
But a dozen men came trampling up from below, rummag-
ing in the room adjoining us. I saw the flare and heard
the scream of Grenfell's test shot, and then the bursting of a
bomb overhead. The conflict was beginning. We must escape,
now if ever.
There seemed renewed activity in a distant section of the
camp. Men marching in that direction. Groups of the giant
insectsand all the reserve projectors, and mechanisms for
the launching of rockets and bombswere being taken now
to one segment of the barrage line. Was Dorrek prepar-
ing an offensive move off there? It seemed so.
The little upper corridor was momentarily vacant. I joined
Muta.
"We will try it now?"
She nodded. "Yes. I go down."
There were only two guards at the foot of the incline. Muta
started down to them. I hastened back to Rowena.
"The robeshurry, dear."
We donned the robes, pulled the hoods over our heads,
close against our faces. Our stature, if closely remarked,
was a danger. Rowena was taller than most of these men.
And I had no counterpart save Dorrek.
We crept to the ladder. Muta had drawn the guards aside.
My heart was pounding with the sudden fear that now, at
the last, the inscrutable Mercurian woman would betray
us. But she did not. She was talking with low, passionate
words to the two guards. What she said, we never knew.
They saw us, perhaps, as we slipped past but she held their
attention.
We reached the lower doorway. Men were nearby, work-
ing at some apparatus. We walked, stooping. The doorway
was open.
A six-foot ladder descended into the dim activity of the
camp. I was upon it, with Rowena behind me. The dark
forms of men were outside. They would see us; but men had
been passing in and out of the vehicle constantlyin our
brown fur robes we would not attract particular notice.
A cylinder weapon was in my hand. But I realized that a
shot would bring the camp upon us. I stuffed the cylinder
back into the pocket of the robe and unclasped a long knife
blade.
"Jack! Hurryl Someone's coming behind us!"
I had paused in the doorway, making sure of what was
below. I tensed to jump down, but the dark moving form
of a brue was disclosed. I could not chance passing near
it, to have it sense me as an enemy.
"Rowenathis wayl"
I pushed her back through the doorway. The room inside
was dim. Footsteps were upon us I We shrank against the
wall, but we could be seen.
"Stoop down low," I whispered.
A pile of apparatus lay by the doorway. We bent over
it, pretending to be working.  The voices  of  men  in  the  ad-
joining room were audible.
"Jackcan't we get out?" Rowena whispered.
"A brue outside. I didn't darejust a minute!"
"Someone is comingi"
I saw Rowena's white hand, and gripped it. I felt then,
with horrible premonition, that in another moment we would
be challenged. We could not answerneither of us could
speak Mercurian. For a brief instant I held Rowena's hand.
With freedom abead of us, all my thoughts had gone to the
future. The worldour blessed Earthso wonderful a place,
with Rowena. Was this to be the end of our life together,
trapped here in this dark room, in the depths of the moun-
tains of a strange planet?
The footsteps were upon us. The brue had stopped al-
most at the foot of the entrance ladder.
"Rowenaleap over iti We'll have to chance it!"
Run openly, with our great Earth strides through the
camp? Or stay here ten seconds longer and be discovered.
It flashed upon me that the choice I must make held all the
difference between life and death.
I suddenly drew Rowena back from the doorway.
What destiny held me? In that second of decision, what
benign fate made me choose rightly? What vagary of that
mysterious thing we call the mind guided my uncertain
muscles? Life is a queer business)
The brue reared itself on the ladder. Half a dozen men
appeared behind the startled giant insect. It sensed us, no
doubt. The men lashed at it; one jabbed with a pronged
pole, and sullenly it slithered back to the ground, and the
men drove it away.
In the room, the approaching footsteps brought a heavy
shape directly toward us. It was Mutal
She touched me. "You go now! I want never see you
again!"
I could well subscribe to that. Rowena bent down.
"Muta," she whispered, "thank you for this. I wish you
happiness."
No one was near the ladder. We descended it. I caught a
glimpse of the face of the Cold Country woman as she stood
watching us go.
We moved slowly into the dim activity of the camp. I
had carefully decided which way to head. We half circled
the outside of the vehicle, threaded our way between two
dark tent shelters and made off over the rocks toward the
distant barrage line.
"Carefully, Rowena." I walked beside her, whispering.
"Hold your balance." For the slight gravity and our tense im-
patience made it difficult to keep from running. "If were
challenged, stand perfectly still. I'll do what I can."
The barrage line seemed horribly far ahead of us across
a dark, rocky expanse. But this was the least occupied, least
active section of the encampment. All the movement was
the other way.
Soon we were past the thickest cluster of the tents. We.
came to an almost unoccupied spread of boulder-strewn floor.
"Now, faster!"
We took longer, freer steps. Soon we were running, paus-
ing momentarily to look around. A line of brues showed
in advance of us. We waited to let it go by. Overhead the
storm was bursting into greater violence. Whirlpools of a
crazy wind plucked at vs. And the rain was beginning.
The barrage line came nearer. I headed toward the space
between two of the giant projectors. The attendants at them
showed clearly, dark shapes of three or four men at each.
"Jack, look!"
Behind us, far across the camp, the opposite segment of the
barrage was moving outward. Dorrek was beginning an of-
fensive. We saw the gas bomb mount and break upon the
clifftop. A shot from the Cube came screaming down and
burst against the barrage. Girls over the cliffs were dropping
bombs to neutralize and dissipate the gas fumes.
We ran. A man driving a brue crossed in front of us.
We waited, crouching in the crevice of an overhanging
rock. Started again. We were not far from the barrage line
soon we would have the two projectors behind us. The
rocky surface here was broken with numerous little gullies
and hollows. We jumped most of them, sailing in huge fan-
tastic leaps.
"Waiti"
I drew Rowena down barely in time to avoid discovery.
Four men passed close to us. Again we started. A small hol-
low lay immediately before us. And as we approached, a
black figure rose from it. He saw usi It was too late to drop
out of sight. I expected a shot. With a leap I was over the
brink of the little pit.
The black figure struck at me with a knife, but I avoided
the blow and saw a white face.
"Jimmy!"
He was lying here with his broken leg, trying desperately
to crawl across the enemy camp to rescue us. There was
moisture in Rowena's eyes, a catch in her voice as she joined
us in the pit. We rested a moment, whispered to each other.
We were triumphant. We would soon be out of this. Tama was
nearby, with a flying platform.
"All right, now," Jimmy murmured. "How glad I am you're
not in the sphere! It's been holding up this fight." He was
trembling with eagerness and triumph. "Fearful handicap
for Grenfellcome onwe've got to get outget back to
Grenfell. Things are starting off there already."
We crawled forward, but we did not get far. The camp,
in advance of us and to the sides, burst into a sudden chaos.
Bombs were dropping from overhead. One of them exploded
within the camp. Outside the barrage, girls were attacking.
"Heckl" muttered Jimmy. "We can't get out now."
I gathered him in my arms. He was incredibly light, as
though I were holding a child. I ran. With Rowena beside me.
But it was useless. A light flare came down from overhead
and struck the ground near us. For a second Or two the
rocks were painted white with the dazzling glare. I stumbled
and fell. Jimmy kept his wits; he reached and drew Rowena
down with us.
We lay in a cluster of boulders against which we huddled
for shelter.  And over us, with amazing suddenness, the
battle raged in full fury.
We were trapped. The storm and the conflict were both
at their height. How long we three lay there I have no
idea. I could not guess the progress of the battle; I only knew
that  every  moment  a  more  lurid  inferno  showed  around
us.
Rowena suddenly whispered, "Where is Jimmy?"
I realized that she and I were alonel Jimmy had crawled
away from us!

XVI
BATTLE FURY
GBEMFELL, during all this time, found himself in an in-
creasing dilemma. He knew that once he ordered these flying
virgins to the attack, the conflict would be sharp and brief.
But Grenfell had no intention of precipitating such a crisis.
Dorreks forces were bottled; by exhaustion of his food
supplies he could be overcome. And there was the question
of electronic power. It seemed probable that Dorrek could
not maintain this huge barrage for many hours. Inevitably
his batteries would be exhausted.
In a day-cycle Commander Arton would be coming up
the canyon with the reinforcements, a thousand young men,
upon whom Grenfell preferred the brunt of the conflict
to fall. An attack now by the flying girls would be too dead-
lythe losses too great.
But Grenfell finally sent the two largest platforms to an
altitude of fifteen thousand feet. Each carried a giant pro-
jector. The rays spat down, and crossed the barrage curtain
with a hissing turmoil of sparks.
Coming back, one of the platforms abruptly disobeyed or-
ders. Four men manned its long-range ray; thirty girls flew
it.  Instead  of  returning  to  Grenf ell's  camp  on  the  cliff,,it
droppped low into the valley and hurled itself at one of the
base projectors of the barrage. The projector bent its ray
down, but missed. The platform went like a speeding pro-
jectile, its beam darting before it. Then Dorrek's ray caught
it and clung.  From the  deck of  the  Cube  the  shuddering
Grenfell saw the bodies of the thirty girls wither and fall.
For an instant the insulated platform held together. It was,
barely a  hundred  feet from  the  barrage  base.  Its  ray
spluttered and vanished. The platform tilted, and crashed
to the rocks, the black figures of its men little falling dots
against the barrage light.
A group of girls made a similar attack. From the darkness
of the valley floor they hurled themselves at an opening
between the barrage projectors.
Flying in a group, they skimmed the surface. They safely
passed the barrage line, rose inside over the enemy camp.
For a minute perhaps they dropped their bombs. The flares
were visible to Grenfell through the curtain. How many of
Dorrek's men and insects were killed was never known.
The beams from the hand weapons of the girls were
flashing down. They flew holding their shields to protect
their bodies and wings as well as they could. Mounting,
they crossed perhaps a third of the camp, leaving a trail of
destruction beneath them. But one by one the enemy rays
caught them and brought them down.
That was enough for Grenfell. Three hundred of the girls
were still in the cliff camp near the Cube. He ordered them
to keep out of the air, and sent two of the emergency plat-
forms to fly to the lower camp and order the four hundred
girls,  the  projectors  and  flying  platforms  there  to  come
up here and join him. Dorrek's activities were at this upper
end, and if he tried to escape through the lower canyon
he would encounter Arton's army.
Grenfell sought Tama, but she was missing. He could not
locate Jimmy Turk, Guy, Toh, or Roc.
The storm was increasing in fury. Grenfell moved the
Cube forward and began firing directly down. But the shots
were always intercepted. The Cube was unwieldy when
flying for short distances close to the ground. But twice
Grenfell manipulated it around the valley; and once it fired
down from four miles overhead.
He wanted to hit the base projectors, but he could not.
One or two of the shots entered the camp. This he did not
altogether want. It was a horrible handicap, tor Grenfell
did not want a shot of his to strike the Mercurian ball in
which Rowena and I had been imprisoned.
Rain was presently falling. The crazy wind had steadied.
The red lightning flares and thunder cracks were almost
continuous. Dorrek's mounting bombs fell upon the cliff. The
wind brought the gas fumes. Grenfell closed up the Cube,
firing down into the turmoil through its -deck port.
He ordered the girls farther back and a hundred of them
into the air to dissipate the fumes with neutralizing bombs.
It was then, with Tama and Guy missing, that events got
beyond Grenfell's control. Dorrek's barrage advanced again
until it reached the base of the cliff. Grenfell thought Dor-
rek's move was to command the canyonto enable his men
to escape back toward the Cold Country. He planned to let
them go; the deep, narrow gorge was twenty miles long in
this direction; the escaping men and brues could easily be
assailed later. Grenfell was watching the silver ball where.
it still lay in  the  center  of the valley.  He was  convinced
that Dorrek and his leaders were aboard it; if he should
ascend to get away, the Cube was ready for the chase.
But the enemy did not escape. Brues began crawling up
the perpendicular cliff in the segment which the barrage now
commanded. A hundred of the giant insects were on top of
the cliff before Grenfell was aware of it. And to each of
them three or four men had clung. They spread out over
the upper plateau.
Lurking men among the rocks, dark, slithering insects-
spreading out, advancing upon Grenf ell's camp. The fume
bombs and rockets stopped coming. But the insects with
their human burden mounted the cliff wall steadily.
Grenfell ordered his girls and platforms into the air. They
flew low, seeking out the crawling enemy. The upper plateau
in all that vicinity was dotted with the tiny lights of the
girls, flashing down upon the gruesome insects. Brief com-
batsalways with the brue left writhing in death agony.
Dorrek's men were harder to find. Once upon the clifftop,
they had ordered the insects forward, left them, and vanished.
Presently no more came up. The move puzzled Grenfell.
Then abruptly they attacked the Cubel Grenfell was stand-
ing with his men on D-Face deck. The lower door was
open. There was a flurry of girls flying nearby. Grenfell
saw, in a red lightning puff, fifty or more furred figures
of men running forward among the crags near at hand.
With short hand rays darting before them, they rushed at
the Cube's doorway.
The infuriated, reckless girls buried themselves down like
frenzied birds. Doubtless none of the men would have lived
to reach the doorway. But it startled Grenfell, as Dorrek prob-
ably intended. The Cube hastily rose; and as it lifted, a pro-
jector, of longer range than any of Dorrek's others, shot at
it from the barrage line.
The beam caught the mounting Cube. There was a horri-
ble moment when Grenfell thought that the hull plates
would melt. The interior heated, stifling; choking fumes of
fusing metal; a rain of smoke and fire and snapping, sizzling
sparks outside.
Then it was over. The Cube's hull, protected to resist the
cold of interplanetary space and the friction heat of atmos-
pheric passage, withstood the brief, intense blast. The Cube
rose beyond range, and came again into the lurid, storm-filled
night.
Grenfell had flung on all power. He checked it now. Bak-
er. Gibbons and the othersand the Hill City officials who
were heregathered in a startled, frightened group on the
deck. The Cube seemed not greatly banned, but it had been
a close call.
From a height of some twenty thousand feet Grenfell
gazed down and saw that all the girls had flung themselves
into the conflict! Darting at the barrage in a score of places,
they dropped down into it like plummets.
Two platforms with men and bombs came from the pla-
teau in a long dive toward a triangular opening between
the projectors. Both got through, into the camp, raking it for
an instant before they fell in little bursts of flame. Those
horrible little bursts of flame I They were everywhere. Tiny
puffs. Each of them a human life gone. And the barrage line
. held.
To Grenfell, cold with horror, it seemed an eternity; yet
he had no more than time to order Ranee to lower the
Cube. Another minuteor five at the mostthose reckless
frenzied girls would all have sacrificed themselves.
Grenfell stood breathless. And suddenly he saw a distant
segment of the barrage go down. A single projector went
dark, leaving a great hole above it. But why? The girls had
not done it; there had been no attack there.
Abruptly the dark projector flashed on again. Grenfell
gasped at an incredible sight.
. When she could find no trace of Jimmy, Rowena was
alarmed.
"He's gone. Jack! Jimmy Turk has gonel"
"But he was with us a moment ago. Rowena, he"
I leaped to my feet, standing in the bottom of the little
hollow within the enemy camp, with the battle raging around
us. Then I saw him; he was crawling on the ground a hun-
dred feet away, his broken leg dragging after him. In three
or four leaps I was with him.
"What are you doing?" I flung myself down with him.
"What in-"
"Let me alone! Lie near the ground. You'll be safe in that
hollow."
He tried to pull away from me; but when I held him he
told me his plan. Possible, at least.
"Look, Jack, we're near it. Only three men there. We can
end this war at once."
The area here was comparatively quiet.
"Look, Jackhow close"
I had not realized how near we were to one of the bar-
rage projectors. Jimmy had crawled to a little rise of ground.
Ahead, not over a hundred feet from us, the projector stood
on the rocks with its vertical spreading beam above ita
three-foot metallic cone, mounted on a low wheeled carriage.
Three men stood on the small low platform; their figures
showed dark against the radiance. There was momentarily
nothing between us and those men. And their attention was
outward, not back toward us, behind them in the camp.
It was black here save for the lightning flares. I bounded
back to Rowena. She flattened herself down in the hollow
against the rocks, as I directed, but turned her white face
up to me. A lightning flash painted it with a flush of red.
I was again with Jimmy. The men at the projector still
had not seen us. A hundred feet to go. . ..
"I'll carry you," I whispered, "until we get within range."
"No! Might see us. Takes a little longer, but I can make
good speed."
In a lull of all the screaming sounds of the turmoil, we
could hear the steady hum and hiss of this projector as we
got closer to it.
"Jack, I'll give the word and well fire together."
Our hand cylinders had a short range; we did not know
bow far, but certainly twenty feet. We got almost that close,
still undiscovered. I was aware of an increased turmoil out-
side the barrage. But not at this particular segment.
The men on the projector platform turned to look back
across the camp. But their gaze was in the air toward the
rising Cube with the high-powered ray leaping up and strik-
ing it.
We crawled a little farther. One of the men was looking
our way. Then his attention seemed diverted. We went on
again. We were doubtless plainly visible now.
A rush for itJimmy went like a maimed crab on his
hands and one leg.
"Jack-nowl"
Our little blue-green beams flashed. Two of the men went
down. The other leaped over the platform edge. His shot
went wide of us. He vanished. I ran for the projector, with
Jimmy scuttling after me. From behind the platform the
figure appeared.  My shot exploded his weapon,  but his
insulated suit withstood it. My leap carried me into him. We
fell, and rolled under the platform. He was a thickset man
but frail. He lay inert under my blows.
I rose from under the projector carriage. Jimmy had
reached it, and pulled himself to the platform; he fumbled
with the mechanism. By chance he turned it off. He was
cursing, panting, as I jumped up beside him.
"Blamed thingcan't" He pushed me away and tilled
the projector down. "Got it! Now, Jack!"
He flashed on the giant beam to horizontal. Not outward
inward I
A single slow, sideways oscillation, swept in one brief in-
stant' the full width of the camp with a swath of destruction
and death! For an instantthere was the gruesome sizzle
and crackle of withering, blasting heat. The whole barrage,
as the central controlling mechanism must have been struck,
went black. Jimmy's beam vanished with it. Darkness every-
where.
Then only the mounting yellow flames of the burning
camp was left, the wrecked, half-fused silver ball lying brok-
er in its center; and over the chaos the flying girls darted
with harmless little search-beams now to see what might be
left alive.
We found Rowena safe in the little gully over which the
blast had swept. Tama and Guy returned with the bodies of
Toh and Roc on their flying platform, only in time to see
the strangely abrupt, terrible end to the conflict.
It was hours before the storm had passed and we were
ready to return to Hill City. A few prisoners were taken,
not many. They found Dorrek's body lying in the wreckage
of his vehicle. And Muta's body, with her hands clasped
about his neck.
With the wounded crowding the Cube, we started back.
The return of the victorious army I There is no greater mis-
nomer than to call any returning army victorious. The Cube
was jammed with a gruesome burden: The maimed; the living
who, most of them, would rather have died. The platforms
were heavy with wingless girls. Every cart in Arton's army was
laden for the return; the young men tenderly carried stretch-
ers.
Tama and Guy were married in the Hill City. New laws
were proposed regarding the clipping and mutilation of the
virgins' wings. They had saved their nation, these fearless,
recklessonce rebelliousvirgins. They had put aside their
grievance against the men for the greater cause.
There was as yet no enactment of the law to say that
Tama could be married with wings unclipped, yet she was.
And every man who saw the strange little ceremony raised
his voice to cheer. Jimmy stood there beside them. And Tama
turned and kissed him in Earth fashion before them alL
Rowena, Jimmy and I are back on Earth now. Guy and
Tama came with us for a brief visit. As Grenfell foresaw, a
new era is at hand: the era of interplanetary travel. New
worlds, but not to conquer.
A few moments ago, Rowena, Jimmy and I witnessed what
to us at least was the most emotion-stirring sight of our lives.
The first broadcasted televised scene of Tama flying. It was
why she made this second visit to the Earthto show her-
selfto cement the friendship of the two worlds.
Here in my study we gathered before my mirror-grid. It
showed the narrow vista of a woodland scene. From over
the distant green trees, with the fleecy sky behind her,
Tama came flying. Waving black hair and blue-white drap-
eries; white limbs poised; vivid crimson wings outstretched.
Guy was standing in the foreground. She came soaring like
a graceful bird and landed upon tiptoe with back-flapping
wings. She stood smiling, bowing, and kissing her hands to
her vast unseen audience. And then turning, she ran and
flung herself into Guy's waiting arms.