 Part 1 of Venus Enslaved. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phil Chenevere, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Venus Enslaved by Manly Wade Wellman. This story was first published in Planet Stories, summer 1942. Black Velvet Infinity all around, punctured and patterned with the many huge jewels of space, comforting somehow, because they made the same constellation patterns you used to see on earth. There was the dipper, there Scorpio, there Orion, but the twinkle was shut off, as though every star had turned cold and silently watchful toward your impudent invasion of emptiness. So big was the universe that the little recess, which did duty for control room, observation point and living cabin, seemed even smaller than it was, which was very small indeed. Peter forgot the dizzy lightness of head and body, here beyond gravity, and turned his wondering eyes outward from where he lay strapped in his spring-jointed hammock toward the firmament, and decided that there was nothing in all his past life that he would change if he could. Check blast tempo! came the voice of Dispro, just beyond his head, a high, harsh commanding voice. Check lubrication loss and check sun direction. Then brace yourself, we may land quicker than we thought. Planter leaned toward the instrument panel that covered most of the bulkhead to the right of his hammock. The pale glow from the dials highlighted his face, young bony intent. Blast tempo adequate, he called back to Dispro. Lubrication lost about 7.2, 3.96 degrees off sunward. Air-loss nil. Who asked for air-loss? snubbed Dispro from his hammock forward. He was leaner than Planter, taller, older. Even in his insulated coveralls, bulking against whatever temperature or pressure danger might be threatened by the outer space, he was of a dangerous elegance of figure and attitude. His face, framed in tight cushioned helmet, was so narrow that it seemed compressed sidewise. Dark eyes crowded together with only a disdainful blade of nose between them, a mouth short but strong, a chin like the pointed toe of a stylish boot, a cropped black moustache. Back on lost earth Dispro had frightened men and fascinated women. His cunning crime administration had been almost too neat for the police but not quite, or he would not have been here with his life barely held in his elegant fingertips. Venus plumbed center ahead, he told Planter, have a look. That last as if he were granting a favor. Planter twisted in the hammock. He saw the taut slung cocoon that would be Dispro's netted body, the control board like a bigger, more complex typewriter where Dispro could reach and strike key combinations to steer, speed or otherwise maneuver the ship, beyond a great round port at its middle, a disk the size of a tabletop. Since the black airless sky most of that disk looked as blue as the thinnest of milk. One smooth edge was brightened to cream, the sunward limb of Venus, but even the dimmer expanse showed fluffy and gently rippling a swaddling of opaque cloud. That, said Dispro, is our little grey home in the west. I wonder what's underneath the clouds, mused Planter for the millions time. All those science-pots sitting home on the seat of their expensive striped pants wonder that snarled Dispro. That's why they sent eight rockets before us smack into the cloud. That's why, with eight silences out of a possible eight, they rigged this night. That's why, when nobody was fooled enough to volunteer, they dug up three convicts who were all neatly earmarked to be killed anyway and gave them a bang at the job. Three convicts. Planter, Dispro, and Max. Planter had forgotten Max, as everyone was apt to, including Max himself. For Max had been a sturdy athlete, a coming heavyweight champion, until too many gaily accepted blows had done something to his mind. Doctors said some concussion unbalanced him, but not far enough so that he didn't know right and wrong apart when he killed his manager for cheating on certain gate receipts. And so, prison and a sentence to the chair, with the reprieve that came by recommendation of the Rocket Foundation on March 30, 2082. Now Max was in the compartment aft, keeping the levers kicking that ran the rocket engines. Show Max how to do a thing, and he keep right on doing it until you pulled him away, or until he dropped. What would Max's last name be, wondered Planter? He studied the face of Venus. He sang to himself softly, O thou sublime sweet evening star. Softly, but not too softly for Dispro's excellent ears. Dispro chuckled, You know, opera-planter? Pretty fancy for an ex-con? I know that piece, said Planter shortly. Wolfram's hymn to Venus from Tonhouser. It had started him thinking again. Gwen had played it so often on her violin, played it and sung it. Those were the days he had known she was married, down in her red and gold department at the artist's quarters. He'd been sculpting her. She had the second-best figure he ever saw. Then he found out about her husband, for the husband burst in upon him. The husband had tried to kill Planter, but Planter had killed the husband, and Gwen had sworn his life away. Check elapsed time, Dispro bait him. Fifty-eight days, nine hours and fifty-four minutes, .7, rejoined Planter at once. Prompt, aren't you? Will be on Venus before the sixty-fourth day. Planter saw Dispro shift over in his hammock. I'm going to shave, then eat. Dispro turned a stud in the wall. His electric razor began to hum. Planter opened a locker valve and brought forth his own rations. A pack of concentrated solid. Compounded of chocolate, meat extract, several vitamin agents. It would sustain him for hours, but was anything but a fill to his hunger. He chewed it slowly to make it last longer, and sipped from a snipe-nosed container of water, slightly effervescent and assidulated. A few drops escaped between snout and lip, and swam lazily in the gravityless air of the cabin like shiny little bubbles. Planter, said Dispro, suddenly pleasant, we're going to fool him. He shut off his razor. Planter took another nibble. Yes, Dispro? We'll land at the north pole. Planter shook his head. We can't. This rocket is set at midpoint on the Venusian disc. We can. I've tinkered with the controls. A break for us, no break for the foundationeers at home. They're watching us through telescopes. What they want is our crash on Venus with a great up flare of the exploding fuel. Then they'll know that we landed and can shake hands all round on a successful advancement. But we're curving away, then, in. I've fixed that. We'll not blow off and make any signal, but we'll live. What pole, mused Planter, pensively? No spend of Venus up there. We'll land solidly. We'll land where it's coolest and none too cool. Her equator must be two degrees hotter than Satan's reception-hall. The pole may be indurable. What then, asked Planter? We'll live, I say. Don't you want to live? Planter hadn't thought about it lately, but suddenly he knew that he did want to live. His was a family of considerable longevity. His grandfather had attained the age of one hundred and seven and had claimed to remember the end of the Second World War. Six days to study it over, this bro was saying. Then we'll have a try. If we land alive, we'll laugh. If we die trying, we'll have nothing to worry about. Float up here, will you? Take over. I'm going to have a little sleep. Through choking steam, white and ever-swelling drove the silvery cigar that was the ninth rocket-ship to attempt to voyage across space. From its snout blossomed sudden flame, blue and red and blue again. Rocket counter-blasts that were designed to act as breaks. They worked somewhat. The speed cut from bullet-rate to falling-rate. From falling-rate to flying-rate. Then, of a sudden, partial clarity around it. Within an upper envelope of blinding vapors, Venus had a thinner atmosphere, partially transparent. Below showed a surface of fluffy greens, all sorts of greens, lettuce, apple, olive, emerald, spinach, sea greens, vegetation plainly and lots of it. The ship, steadying in its plunge like a skilled diver, nosed across toward a wet slate-dark patch that must be open ground. From the stern where rocket-tubes had ceased blasting, broke out a massive expanse of fabric, a parachute, another and another. Down floated the craft, thudding at last upon its resting place. Planter felt a cramping pain. He realized that to feel pain one must be alive. Then his head throbbed. It hung head downward. Gravity was back. He groped for his hammock-fastenings, loosened them, and lowered himself to a standing position beneath, on the round port that had been forward. Disparo hung in his hammock, motionless but moaning faintly. Planter hurriedly freed him and laid him flat on his back. He fumbled a locker open, brought out a water-pot. A little spurt between Disparo's short, scornful lips brought him back to consciousness. We made it! was Disparo's first comet, full of triumph and savagery. Help me up! Thanks! Oh! we seem to have sucked in somewhere nose-first. He was right. No sign of light or open air showed through the forward port, nor the side-ports from which Planter had been want to study the reaches of space. Disparo looked up. The after-bulkhead, now their ceiling, had a hatch-way. Hice me! he said to Planter, who made a stirrup of his hands and obliged. The slightly less gravitational pull of Venus made Disparo more active than on earth. He caught Planter's hammock, got his foot on a side bracket for steadiness, and climbed up to the hatch. A tug at the clamps opened it, and he wriggled through. Wake up, you big buffalo! Planter heard him snarling. Max was evidently unconscious up there. Planter, without a help or to lift him, made shift by climbing Disparo's hammock, then his own to gain the compartment above. He'd have died if he had an ounce of brains, commented Disparo, pointing. Max lay crumpled against the bulkhead close to the great bank of levers he had been working. In his hands were grasped broken pieces of network from his hammock. He was out of the lashings when we landed. Disparo went on. We were about to hit, and he grabbed hold. He must have passed out. But the big lump single-minded, abnormally so. He hung on without knowing, and the breaking of those strands kept him from crashing full force. Planter knelt and pulled Max straight. Max was tremendous, a burly troll in his coveralls. His shoulders were almost a yard wide, his hands like oversized gloves. His big face, with his broad jaw, heavy dark brows, and ruddy cheeks, might have been handsome, was not the nose smashed in by a blow taken in some old ring battle. Don't waste water, cautioned Disparo, as Planter hunted for the food locker. I'll bring him out of it. He knelt and slapped the inert face sharply. Max's mouth opened, showing a gap where his front teeth had been beaten out. He gave a grumbling yell, then sprang erect so suddenly that Disparo, starting away, almost fell through the hatchway. Max saw Planter scowled and snorted, then fell into a boxing stance. He inched forward his mighty fists fiddling hypnotically. Time, yell Planter at once. This isn't a fight, Max. We've landed safe and alive on Venus. Max's eyes widened a little. He grin loosely and pulled off his helmet. His skull was thatched with bushy black hair. Oh! he said in a deep, chiding tone. I forgot. Oh! Forgot! echoed Disparo scornfully. He sounds as if he had the ability to remember. Planter studied the ports in this compartment. They too were obscured by wet-looking, grail soil. The ship must be well buried in the cross of Venus. What if it was completely submerged, a tune for them? He glanced upward to another hatchway, one that would lead past the rocket engines. Don't go up, Max cautioned him totally. Hot up there. Brilliant was Disparo's ill-humored rejoiner. Max actually knows that the engines will be hot. Planter clapped Max on the big shoulder. It'll be all right. He reassured the giant. Get me a wrench, will you? That long shanked one for tightening tube housings will do. He scrambled up along the levers, which made a ladder of sorts. The hatch to the engines had to be loosened with a wrench. Beyond, as Max had sagely warned him, it was stifling hot. He avoided gleaming, sweltering tubes and housings, scrambling to air a four-foot circle of nuts showed in the bulkheading. This would be the plate that closed the central stem among the rear rocket jets. He began to loosen one. Stop that you fool! It was Disparo who had climbed after him and was watching. Who knows about this lower atmosphere of Venus? I'm going to find out about it, replied Planter a little roughly, for he did not like Disparo's manner. He gave the nut another turn. Wait! Wait! cautioned Disparo. He climbed all the way into view, holding up a glass flask with a neck attachment of gauges and piping. I got a sample through the lock panel. Plenty of air bubbles were carried down with us. Let me work it out before you do anything heroic. Disparo was right. He was usually right about technologies. Planter mopped his brow on the sleeve of his coverall and waited. Yes! Disparo was commenting. Oxygen, nice article of that, and Plenty nitrogen too. Just like Earth. Quite a bit of carbon dioxide. It'll be from all that vegetation. Certified breathable. Go on and unship that plate. Planter did so. He loosed the last nut and pushed against the plate. It stirred easily. The after-part of the ship would still be in the open. Disparo, climbing after him, caught his elbow. I go out first, he announced. They marked me down as senior of the expedition. One side. Planter stared quizzically and once again did as Disparo told him. The lean man thrust up the plate like a trap door and crept out. At last he yelled back. Men on Venus! Come on, Planter! Planter called back to Max who was bringing up a bundle of articles Disparo had chosen for the venture outside. Two repeating rifles, two pistols, several tools, and tens of food, carls of rope. Planter helped him with the load and they got outside with it. Disparo had slid down the steep bulge of the hull. He clung to a grab-iron his feet just above the grey muck into which they had plunged. He stared up. First man to set foot on Venus, he was saying. Who was second of you two? We didn't stop to bother, Planter replied. What now? He stared around to answer his own question. Venus was dull like a very cloudy day at home. The air was moist but fresh and little wreaths and veils of mist kept one from seeing far. But he made out that they had found lodgement and a sterile looking clearing with a muddy floor that might or might not sustain a man's weight. All around was a crowded wall of vegetation towering high above the range of his vision into upper fog, tight grown as a hedge and vigorously fat of twig and leaf. Planter, no botanists, yet was aware at once of strangeness beyond his power to describe. He knew that specimens would be gathered and preserved to take home. To take home? Home to earth? But the ship was almost buried in its mud. He remembered Disparo's dry comment. Our little grey home in the west. They were on Venus. Undoubtedly to stay. Max beside him gave a sort of gurgling bellow of surprise and fear. Oh! Something's got Mr. Disparo. For once Max was being articulate. For once Disparo was being silent. Glancing down, Planter saw the slender, elegant figure writhed close against the metal hull, clutching with both hands the grab iron. Disparo stared groundwards, and what could be seen of his face was as white as a wood-boring grub. One of his legs was drawn up, knee bracing against the plates, the other stretched out grotesquely as if to point a toe with something in the muck. It took a second staring study to realize that a whip-like strand of something that gleamed and tightened was snapped around Disparo's ankle. Rope Max snapped Planter. He made a quick hitch around a rocket tube and lowered himself in a rush. His free hand grasped the heavy automatic pistol. He paused in his descent just above Disparo, studying the black shiny tether. It protruded from the semi-glutenous mud which stirred and quivered around the protrusion. A sense was there of rigid grasp and slowly contracting pressure. It was squeezing the captured ankle. It was shortening itself to pull Disparo down. Disparo said nothing because he had caught his breath for an effort at wrenching free, but he could not do that. His strong, lean fingers were beginning to slip on the grab-iron. He turned horror-wide in eyes toward Planter. Hang on, muttered Planter, and aimed his pistol. No sure shot. He nevertheless was close to his target. He fired a fifty-caliber slug, another and another. Two of them hit the tail, tentacle or probiscous. At once it let go of Disparo, gesticulating wildly. Blood sprang forth on its shiny integument. Venusian blood was red, mused Planter, even as Venusian herbage was green. Disparo gave a choking gurgle that might have been thanks, relief, or effort. A moment later he was swarming up Planter's rope like a monkey. But Planter did not follow. The appendage he had wounded was drawing out of sight like a worm into its hole, but two more just like it had fastened upon his foot and knee. He lost his grip and fell into the mud. There was like a dip into thick gravy. The stuff lapped and closed over his head, and he let go of the pistol to try to swim. A couple of laborious strokes brought him back to the surface gasping and blowing away thick lumps from nose and mouth. A moment later two more tentacles were groping and seizing at his shoulder and waist. Four bonds now tightened upon him like lariats. Planter seemed to be thinking in two compartments. One set of thoughts dictated his floundering desperate struggle. The other considered the situation with a curiosity dispassionate and almost mild. The creature that snared him was just what he might have expected, something on the octopus order. How many science fiction stories had dealt with such monsters on strange worlds? The creepy writhings of tentacles appealed to fantasy writers. The neat simple active structure of the brute was logical to the great mechanic who devised nature. The thing had him in any case if he could not kick or struggle or cut free. Cut free? That was it. He had a knife in the side pocket of his coveralls. He dug for it, almost dropped it from his muddy fingers, then yanked open the biggest blade. He slashed at the nearest tentacle, the one around his waist. It parted like a cane stalk before a machete. The other arms quivered and slackened plainly, shocked by pain. Planter rolled out of their grip, started to swim away anywhere. He looked over his shoulder and saw his enemy as it humped itself partially into view. Not such an octopus after all. The dispassionate part of Planter's brain called the thing an animated tall tree. The slender tentacle sprouted from a thicker trunk that could curve and writhe and wallow, but not so readily. It was of a rubbery gray brown, and at the upper end, nestled among the tentacle roots was what must be its mouth. That mouth opened and shut in almost wistful hunger. Planter swam furiously. He wanted to reach and climb the stem of the rocket ship, but the thing knew his wish and moved to hat him off. He kicked and fought his way toward the far mass of leaves that bordered this mud pit. From among those leaves glowed for an instant a sort of splinter of yellow light. A small object sang over Planter's helmeted head like a bee and struck behind him with a little chuck. It must have found lodgemen against the hull tree-thing which paused in its pursuit to flop and spatter the mud with its tentacles. Planter blessed the diversion whatever it was and strove nearer to the shore. The forest was alive, he suddenly decided. Out of its misty tangle a great leafy branch swung knowingly toward him. He clutched at it, brought away a fat moist handful of strange-shaped leaves. His other hand made good its hold on the branch itself, and with the last of his strength he dragged himself to where roots hummocked above the mud. Then he saw where the branch had come from. A slim, active figure stood among the stems, pressing with both hands upon the base of the branch to make it move into the open. As Planter scrambled to safety, the figure relaxed its helpful shoving and the branch moved back toward the perpendicular. Planter gazed in utter lost unbelief at this stranger. It was a woman, young, fair, fine-limbed. She wore the briefest of garments, belted around with strange weapons, and her feet were shot in cross-gordered buskins. Upon her tumble of golden curls rode a metal helmet that reminded him of Grecian antiquity. Her bare arms, round but strong, cradled something with a stock and butt of a musket, but with a short, tight-strung bow at its muzzle, surely the pattern of a medieval crossbow. Her face was of a flawless pink and white beauty, just now stamped with utter disdain. Its short, rosy mouth opened and formed words, words that Planter understood. You fool! said the girl with the crossbow. You scurvy fool! End of Part One Part Two of Venus Enslaved by Manly Wade Wellman This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part Two Dispro, barely able to stir for shock and weariness, climbed only a few hands breaths out of danger before he must stop and wheeze for breath. At last he could make himself heard. Max, you pighead! Help me! Oh! came the grunt of ascent from above as the big fellow slid down in turn. He slipped a thick arm around Dispro, hoisting the tall, slender body as if it were a bundle of old clothes, and slid it across a shoulder like the jut of a kreg. Then Max scaled the rope once again to the safe top of the nose over a rocket ship. Dispro found his own feet and shakily wiped his clear cut face, still pale from exertion and terror. That was close. Say, ventured Max, Mr. Planter, he's gone! Dispro looked around. The mud expanse around them was stirred up as if by boiling struggles, but there was no sign of Planter or the thing with tentacles. That thing got him, decided Dispro. But Max shook his heavy head. Uh-uh, he demured. No. The girl, she got him. Girl echoed Dispro and scowled. What girl? Max pointed with a finger like the heft of a hammer. She was in the trees, got him. Dispro peered at the trees, then it Max. His skull deepened. What are you dribbling about? The girl, said Max. Dispro snorted and skinned his teeth and scorned. How, he demanded of the misty skies, do I get mixed up with minus quantities like this? A girl, the man says here on Venus. A girl, repeated Max firmly. Dispro wheeled upon him. Come off of that, he commanded sharply. Planter's gone, dead. You're all I have to associate with. You'll act sane whether you are or not. Max's big, pained eyes faltered before the glittering accusation of Dispro's gaze. All right, he conceded. There wasn't any girl there, you idiot! Max nodded. I saw. Shut up! Dispro cut him off. No girl, I said. No girl, repeated Max, obediently. Rain began to fall. Fat drops the size of marbles. Back inside, commanded Dispro. There'll be lots of this kind of weather. We'll have something to eat, then study another way to reach the trees yonder. No girl, said Max, but I saw. The rain that drove Dispro and Max back into the shelter filtered through layers of leafage, beginning to wash the mud from Planter's clothing. He stared again at his rescuer. I seem to have understood what you said, he managed at last. Isn't so strange that, she flung back in words somehow run together. In though you're maddened now to support with yonder muckworm. And her wide bright blue eyes flickered toward the danger he had lately avoided. You'll have the tongue of mankind, art no man. Man enough, young woman, replied Planter, a little niddled. I suppose it's like the fantasies. We can read each other's minds or something. Something, she echoed as if humoring a child. And I owe you thanks for saving my life. Oh, it was no great matter, she shouldered the crossbow. Come, for the sky-gores will be about our heels. She picked her way rapidly among the stream, with the surest and cleverest of feet. Women on earth were never so graceful, or sure, decided Planter, hurrying after. He was aware that he did not step on the muddy surface of Venus, but upon a matted overfloor of roots, fallen stems, ground vines, sometimes great sturdy leaves, like lily-pads, grown to the size of double mattresses. Wait, young lady, he called. Who are the sky-gores you mentioned, and why should they be after us? She halted again, swung and studied him with more of that disdainful curiosity. "'Tis a gruel-brained idiot,' she decided as if to herself. For that they cast him out. Me thought was strange that a man should flee of himself from sure-shelter and vitual. It was raining harder. The great roof of vegetation only partially broke that downpour. It sluiced away the coating of mud from Planter, and soaked his stout garments through. He felt miserable in the dampness, but his girl-guide throve, if anything, in the drops that struck and rolled down her bare arms and shoulders. He saw, too, that she followed something of a trail among the stalks and stems. It was barely wider than his own stalwart shoulders could pass, and wound crazily here and there, but one must stick to it, for to right and left the jungle grew thicker than a basket. He called out again. "'Miss, young lady,' she turned as before. "'What now?' "'This path, what is it? Did you make it? Tell me things.' He made a gesture of appeal, for she was putting on that look of contempt once more. "'You see, I'm no more than an hour old on this planet. Odd so! Your brain is younger than that. Leave me, I have no time for idiots.' Abruptly she stiffened, widened her eyes, lifted a finger to her red lips for silence. The two of them stood close together in the misty rain, their ears sharpened. Planter heard what she had heard, a rustling, crunching approach along some other angle of the jungle path. The girl wrenched apart two sappy-lengths of vine, and with a jerk of her head, Bay Planter slipped through into the great thicket. He did so, and she followed. Turning, her lithe body close against his, she brought her crossbow to the ready. "'Danger,' whispered Planter, and she nodded, bleakly. The approach was coming near. Planter judged that whatever threatened them was too legged, weighty, and great-lunged, many o'ers off it wheezed like a faulty engine. His companion's ears were better than his, or more experienced. She gauged the nearness of the stranger, and the crossbow went to her shoulder like a rifle. Planter saw that it operated on a spring-trigger that would trip a latch and release the string. The bow, violently recovering from its bending, would force the missile along a groove in the top of the stock. All parts, stock, bow, and string, were of some massive dark metal, apparently treated with grease to save it from the constant dampness. The missile itself was not an arrow, but seemed the size and shape of a silvery fountain-pin. Planter burned to ask questions about it, but the enemy was in sight by now, something of mottled green and black that shouldered upright along the way between the thickets. Planter felt his companion's body grow tense against his shoulder. Her finger touched the trigger lightly. The metal string twanged, and with a waspy hum the missile leaped toward its target. At the same time a little burst of flame showed from it bright yellow. Chuck! the shot went home, as that other shot against the faint called a muckworm. Down floundered the green spotted form. At once the girl was out of hiding and stooping above her quarry. Planter, following, peered with wonder and caution. He saw a body larger than himself and grotesquely of the same build. A dumpy torso on massive back-bent legs like a crickets, wide flapper feet, a round low head with a monstrous slash of mouth, big eyes, now filming with death, no nose at all. The creature was very like a nightmare frog. But this frog wore garments of linked and plated metal wire and rubbery-looking fabric. It had a silver belt with pouches and holsters. These pouches and holsters the girl was now plundering. Quick! she snapped at Planter over her rosy shoulder. Take the spoil. He will have friends and they must not find us. Her tone was still reminiscent of Dispro speaking to Max. Planter's ravenous curiosity was that last completely overwritten. Young lady, he said flatly, I'm not prepared to endure any more— she suddenly screamed, not like a warrior, but like a girl who is mortally frightened. Planter had the time to realize that she saw something just beyond him. He pivoted and set himself as another of the froggy beings charged. More Sky Gores! he heard a cry behind him, and he knew that it was Sky Gores he faced. Planter was a boxer of sorts, strong if not brilliant, and his unthinking reflex was to plant his feet, bend his knees, and crouch for attack or defense. That reflex shortened his height by several inches and saved his life. The Sky Gores that rushed him had pointed a pistol-form weapon from which came yellow flame as from the crossbow. A silvery object meant to shatter his brains, only saying above his head with millimeters to spare. Before the pistol-like weapon could aim and spit again, Planter had charged in. It was all he could do, but it was enough. He jabbed viciously with his left fist, followed with his right to the abdomen. The left knuckle slashed soft flesh about the wide mouth. His right hand almost broke on a hard belt buckle. Both blows were staggering to the wheezing adversary, who dropped its pistol and yelled with a voice like a steam whistle. It made words, each of them almost deafening to Planter. To silence it more than anything else, Planter drove in closer still and lifted an uppercut as though it were a shovel full of gravel. It found the point where a terrestrial man would have a chin. Down floundered the clumsy body, and Planter, with no thought of referees or rules, set his heavy boot on the face and bashed it in. He stepped across the subsiding form in time to encounter another. This one got great flappy hands upon him. Their grip was knowing powerful, wicked. The skygore plucked him close, its mouth grinned into a gape. It had teeth. It was going to bite. He was held by the shoulders and doubted if he could break away. Instead of trying, he put his own hands to the thing's elbows, drew his right knee tight to his chest, and planted a toe in a metal clad midriff. Then, even as the open paw sought to seize his face, he threw himself backward. Landing flat on his shoulder blades, he drew down with his hands and hoisted with his feet. His opponent somersaulted in air and fell with a heavy squashing thump upon the root-tangled floor of the trail. In a flash, Planter was up. He jumped with both feet. Bones broke under the impact. A second skygore was down, dead or dying. Aside, the girl was calling, and he obeyed, flattening against a cross-weaving of einstems. She was risen upon one knee, cross-boated shoulder. It twanged, flashed, and once again its successful charge sounded its chuck. Planter glanced down the trail in time to see a fourth and last skygore drop down. He found that he was gasping for air and trembling as though the danger was still to come instead of past. The girl rose, came to him, and touched his arm. She smiled, her eyes shone. Gone was the contempt, the superiority. She only admired completely and frankly. "'Sink me, you're a fighter,' she said. A cod, I saw only the flight of fists, and a skygore went down, and another. You saved my life, and we have four skygores to strip, with none to boom about where we went from here. Your name, friend?' "'Planter,' he said. David Planter.' "'David Planter,' she repeated. Her A was very broad, so that she made the name almost David.' Again she smiled. "'A king's name is Tnut. I am called Mara. Come, help me take what is valuable from this carrion.' Planter's heart warmed to her. Thanks for your kind words,' he smiled back. "'But I did what any man would do.' "'All men are slaves,' she surprised him by saying. "'You will amaze the other girl-warriors when I bring you to the nest.' Dispro, standing on the glass-port pane that was now floor of the control room, labored and cursed at his keyboard. He pressed one, two, an octave. The nose-dovership stirred, but did not rise. "'Max!' bawled Dispro to the upper hatch. "'Pressure!' "'Giving you all there is,' Max informed him timidly. Dispro turned from his controls, shrugging in disgust. "'Those bow-tubes are jammed and displaced,' he cursed. "'We can't clear off until we get her up and clean them. And we can't get her up and clean them until they work. Huh!' Max's big, diffident face framed itself in the hatchway, registering a small hope. "'We're floating,' he volunteered, close to those trees and things.' Dispro showed interest. "'Then we'll get our feet on solid ground, or nearly solid. That tentacle thing won't be sloshing around.' He beckoned. "'Come down.' "'Max obeyed.' From a locker Dispro took a pressure-squirt of waterproofing liquid. He sprayed Max's clothes then his own. "'Vadals shed rain,' he said. "'Buckle on a pistol, if you're smart enough to use one, and give me two.' Once more the hammocks in the lower chamber and the levers in the higher gave them a lot of way up. Dispro, emerging first into the damp warm mist, saw it once that they had visitors. The ship, as Max said, floated close to the mat of growth that fringed the muddy pool. Here the jungle consisted of meaty stems, straight, thick and close set, with tangled, firm-a-form foliage. A little above mud level, gnarled roots wove into a firm footing and upon it, pressing from the thickets toward the ship, were huge biped creatures and gleaming metal harness. They had chopped down spongy trunks and branches on which to venture over the mud's surface, as on rafts. Coming near the ship they had passed cables of grease-clotted metal wire around it, mooring it fast to thicker trunks. As Dispro stared down, several of them began to converse in tones that rang and boomed like great gongs. Half deafened, Dispro still could perceive that their voices had inflection and sense. Harness concerted action, tools, a language. Here was a master race comparable to terrestrial humanity. One of them turned a bulging black eye upward and saw Dispro. Its flat face split across and a mouth like an open gladstone bag shouted its discovery. One green paw, webbed but prehensile, snatched a weapon from a metal-length waist belt and aimed it at the terrestrial. But Dispro too was quicker on the draw. His gang rule on earth had necessitated shooting skill as well as leadership. His own automatic sprang into his hand. No, you don't! he snapped and shot the weapon out of the Venusian's flipper. It screamed in a voice that vibrated the steamy air and its companions started and shrank back and startled wonder. Dispro drew a second pistol, leveling it at them. I'll shoot the first one that moves, he promised, as if they could understand and understand they did. Up went shaky flipper hands. No, no! they boomed in thunderous humility. Don't, don't! He had not the time to wonder that they spoke words he knew. He swung his weapons in swift arcs covering them all. Max, behind, had sensed enough to level the long barrel of a repeating rifle. Please! roared a Venusian who seemed to be a leader. We do not to you. Better not! cautioned Dispro loftily. We're more profitable as friends, that is enemies. Friends, agreed the leader. Friends! If you try any funny business, went on Dispro. Well, watch! He snapped his right handgun up and fired. The bullet snipped away, leafed the size of an opened umbrella. As the great green blob drifted down, Dispro fired again and again, until, ripped to rags, the leaf fell limply among the Venusians. They moaned like awestruck foghorns. Understand, taunted Dispro. Savvy, I could kill you all as easy as look at you. Friends! promised the leader again. Max muttered Dispro. These birds quit very easily without a fight, but keep me covered from up here. Plantar's rope still dangled along the hull. Dispro slid down, coming to his feet on the raft heap below. The Venusians gave back in wary confusion. Dispro allowed himself to smile upward. See what an ape you are, Max! he chuckled. You gotta look at one of these and thought it was a girl. You're not much of a picker, Max. To the Venusian chief, he said. I think I'll muscle in on your territory. Mara, the crossbow girl, brought a planter to the place she called the nest. It was hollowed out in the thickest part of the towering jungle, as a rabbit's form is hollowed among tall grasses. The floor was of plaited and pressed wives, supported on stumps and roots of many tall growths. Rounding upward and outward from this were walls, also of wooden poles and twigs, woven into the growing tangle. The roof was similarly made, but strengthened and waterproofed with earth, dried and baked by some sort of intense heat. The space thus blocked off was shaped like the rough inside of a hollow pumpkin, and its size was comparable to the auditorium of a large theater. Within it were set up smaller hut and bowers. There were common cooking fires in ovens of stone and mud brick, and a great common light suspended from the ceiling by a long heavy chain. This was a metal lamp fed by oily sap from some sort of tree. Finding the nest was difficult. Mara had picked a careful way through maces of thick vegetation. Paying special attention to the rearranging of leaves and branches behind them, sagely she explained that the sky gores, when hunting her kind, were thus completely lost. Even at the very doorstep of the nest the tangled vines, branches and leaf sprays obscured any hint of such a place at hand. The dwellers in the nest were all women. They came cautiously forward, twenty or so as Mara ushered a planter inside. They were active specimens, dressed scantily and attractively like Mara. Most of them were young, several comely. All were fair of skin and hair, a logical condition in the cloudy air of Venus. They were daggers, hatchets, ammunition pouches. Even at home they all carry crossbows. What does this man hear, demanded a lean, harsh-faced woman of middle age? Is he not content with servitude? Mara shook her head. He's like none we know. He fights more fiercely than we. He caught, should have seen him. Bare-handed he or came two sky gores. I slew two more. Look at our trove. She opened a parcel of great leaves and showed dozens of the silver pens that were ammunition for both the sky-gore pistols and the human crossbows. Planter also showed what he had brought from the battlefield, several belts, numerous harness-fastenings, and two of the guns. These latter made the crossbow girls nervous. We stand by these, Mara said, tapping her crossbow. Planter fiddled with a pistol. Its mechanism was strange but understandable, and he flattered himself that he could learn to use it. As for the pin missiles, they seemed to contain a charge that burned violently on exposure to air. The trigger mechanism, with her pistol or crossbow, punctured it, set it afire, and the vehemence of combustion not only propelled it, but destroyed the target completely. The older woman, whose name was Montha, nodded her head over a decision. Let the man have the dag, she granted with an air of authority. If he fights as Mara says, he may be of aid. Yet he is unlike those we know in hue and aspect. True enough, Planter was dark of complexion with black curls and ruddy tan jaws. He spoke to Montha respectfully, for the others called her mother and treated her as a commander. I am not of your people, he said. I come from another planet, Earth. Earth, she repeated. You come from there? Why, so do we all. Down a trail went a patrol of skygars. Among them not much under them in size, tramped Max. His broad shoulders bore a great burden of supplies from the ship. At the head of the procession next to the chief walked Dispro. As someone else was saying to Planter at almost the same moment, the chief skygore boomed to Dispro, You are not like men we know. Naturally not, agreed Dispro. Your race is more like a bunch of freak reptiles. Not my race, demure the chief skygore. Men, slaves. Dispro understood only part and took exception to that. I am no slave of yours, he warned. No, equal. We have long needed equal men to kill off the wild girls. You see, Mr. Dispro chimed in Max from behind. Dave Planter was embarrassed. Inside the nest he sat on a crew chair opposite Montha, the mother. The overhead light burned dim and damp banishing fires in the ovens mangled red clothes. Planter asked questions but was distracted by the crossbow girls who watched him with round eyes, whispering and giggling. Mara nearby scowled at the noisemakers. This Venus world has much that's unknown, Montha said. Here in the north can we dwell. Not many days off the steam is thick, the heat horrid, the jungle dreadful. None go there and return. Mother, if you are call that, enlighten me, big Planter. You say you come from earth? Our fathers came, lifetimes are gone. Planter's good-looking face showed his amazement. Interworld flight was new, he had thought, but some unknown expedition might have tried it, succeeded, and then never returned to report. It was for fear of Black Cromwell, Montha enlarged. Cromwell echoed Planter. The Puritan leader who fought and wiped out the English Cavaliers, Montha seized on one word. Cavaliers, yes, our lives were forfeit, we flew hither. It explained everything. Human beings in a world never meant for anything but amphibians. Their fair complexions, their quaint but understandable speech, the crossbows that would be familiar weapons to Shakespeare, Drake or Captain John Smith. Yes, it explained everything. Except how pre-machined-age Britishers could succeed on a voyage where eight spaceships before Planters had failed. How did you fly, demanded Planter, amazed? Montha shook her graying locks. Nay, I know not, to as long ago, and all records are held in the sky gore fastness. They stole from you? After our father's made landfall there was war, Montha said, her voice bitter. The sky gores were many, and would have slain all but thought to hold slaves, and as slaves our fathers dwelt and died and their children after them. But you aren't slaves, protested Planter. Tis sky gore fashion to keep all men and such women as are hail and ow for toil. Others who seem weak they cast forth to die, like us. Who did not die, chimed in Mara plucking her bowstring. We found fruits, meat, shelter, and joined. Now we slay sky gores for their metals and shot. Lately they slay weaklings lest they join us. Planter whistled. This was a harsh proof of human tenacity. The sky gores, discarding unprofitable servants and finding them a menace. None of you were weaklings, he said. Breedom brings health, replied Montha, stintentiously. Yet they are many more than we, well fortified, and have a strange spell to overwhelm those who attack. She grimaced and distaste. We but lurk and linger fighting when we must and fleeing when we may. As the last of us dies, things began to happen. A tall robust girl, very handsome, had been hitching her woven chair close to Planter. With a pert boldness she touched his hand. I've seen no man since I was driven forth, a child, she informed him. I like you. I am Sala. Mara rose from her own seat, swore a rather Elizabethan oath, and slapped Sala's face resoundingly. Sala too sprang up. Larger than Mara she clutched her assailant shoulders and tripped her over a neatly extended foot. Mara spun sidewise and falling, broke Sala's hold, came to her feet with a drawn dagger. This happened silently and swiftly, with none of the screaming and fumbling that marks the rare battles between terrestrial women. Planter stared, half aghast and half admiring. Another girl whispered behind him, let them fight, send them ill days, look at me, I am not ugly. Perhaps to flee this new admirer, Planter threw himself between the two fighters. As Mara attempted to stab Sala, Planter caught her weapon wrist and wrenched the knife from her. Meanwhile Sala snatched up a crossbow. Leaving Mara, Planter struck the thing out of aiming line just in time. The pin-missile tore through the basketry wall of the nest, and Planter gained possession of the crossbow, not without trouble. Are you girls fighting over me? he demanded. A gad, what else? challenged Montha, who had also sprung forward. Orte man of height and presence, for any man these my manless girls would contend. I, would we? agreed one of the bevy with frightening candor. He's mine, snapped Mara, holding her own crossbow with a revvy. Step forth, who will, and I speak true. I'm nobody's, exploded Planter. Anyway, I'm going. I have two friends near here that I've got to find and soon. More men, ejaculated Sala, forgetting her anger. Fighters with weapons, said Planter, ignoring her. They'll help you smoke out these skygores and set free your kinsmen. Happy cries greeted his words. I'll guide you home, David Planter offered Mara, and Montha gestured approval. Mara and Planter left the nest on a new jungle trail. Mara explained that these tunnels were made by great floundering beasts, and served as runways for smaller land life. The girl trod the green fog-filled labyrinths with assurance. Within minutes they reached the pool where Dispero had landed the ship. At the edge floated the limp, dead thing that Mara had killed to save Planter. Small flutterers like gross winged flies, but as large as gulls, swarmed to dig out morsels. Mara called the creature a krau, the flying scavenger's gulls. Cygore words for ugly beasts, she commented, neither is good for food. Planter picked his way from root to root toward the ship. Dispero, he called, max. There was no answer. He scrambled up and inside, then out again. Some things happened, he said gravely. Mara studied the masked logs that made a rough raft. Cygore work, and eek the rope of wires about your ship. They've been captured by Cygores for slaves. Planter had climbed down again. His hand sought the Cygore pistol at his belt. His face was tense and pale. I'll get them back. Where's this swamp city you mention? She pointed not far, but the way is perilous. The trail's throng with Cygores, and there is the spell. That sounds like some old superstition, snorted Planter. I'm not afraid of Cygores. I killed two today. Hi, she smiled. They are not great fighters in these parts, but there are more than two at the city. Come along. You can go back to the nest. She smiled more broadly. How else will you find the way, my David, for you are, my David? Don't start that again, he bait her more roughly than he felt. Leave the way. Mara took a nearby jungle trail. After some time she paused and studied the matted footing. Tracks, she pronounced. Certain Cygores and two pairs of feet shot like yours. Planter looked at the muddied marks thus diagnosed by the skilled trail eye of Mara. My friends and their captors? Aye, that. They went this way. Come. She slipped aside through the close set stems. Planter did likewise. Mara slung her crossbow behind her and climbed a trunk as a beetle scales a flower stalk. To save her from Cygores up here, she told him over her shoulder, follow me carefully. Planter did so with difficulty. He was a vigorous climber and the lesser gravity of Venus made him more agile, but Mara, some forty feet overhead, swung through the crisscross of limbs and vines like a squirrel. Wait! he called, striving to catch up. She paused, finger-chillips. As he came near, she said softly, Not so loud. We come close. Feel you the spell? Hanging quietly, Planter did feel it. Uneasiness came, chilling his back despite the steamy warmth. His hair stirred on his head, his teeth gritted, and he could not reason himself out of the mood. Mara moved ahead and he followed. Growing accustomed to the climbing, he made progress. But the uncomfortable sense of peril grew rather than diminished. Once in their strange journey Mara paused and from a belt pouch produced food. It consisted of fire-dried fruits, strange to Planter, but tasty and substantial. Also two meat dumplings made by wrapping a nut-flavored dough around morsels of flesh. For drink she plucked long spear-like leaves from a vine, and Planter found them full of punching juice. While they munched, he heard boomings in the distance which Mara identified as sky-gore speech. We are almost there, she whispered, look well. She rose and again they took up the journey. After a time she paused again and pointed. Just beyond them the branches thinned out over a great open space in the jungle. Under a far-flung canopy of white vapours lay the swamp city of the sky-gores. Planter, gazing in wonder at the strange city, thought of old Venice, or of a beaver colony and a dike-pond. Before and beneath him was a quiet, greeny, clear body of water. Around its rim-grew shrubs, bushes and huge reeds, their roots clasping the great facing of white rock which apparently paved the banks and bottom of the pool. In the water itself, poking above the surface in little pointed clusters, and plainly visible where they extended beneath, were the houses of the sky-gores. They were of some kind of soil or clay that had been processed to a concrete hardness and were tinted in various colours. Some of the smaller dwellings were roughly spherical and crowned with cone-shaped roofs. Others, larger, protruded well above the water in cylindrical form. Here and there travel ways connected the clustered groups. But it was beneath the surface that the town was complex and great. It seemed to lie, tier above tier, closely built and grouped, with here and there protruding arms or wings of building, like coral butted from the same mass. In those depths swang myriads of sky-gores plainly at home under water. More of them at the window-holes of the upper towers are paddling on the surface, boomed and roared at each other in their deafening language. From on high, planters saw them as smaller and less to be dreaded. They might have been slight fantasy things. Water elves are super-intelligent frogs. Look you, David-planter! prompted Mara at his elbow. From a tunnel-like hole in the jungle a group of sky-gores emerged. Among them were two human figures clad like planter and loose overalls and helmets. Your friends, Mara questioned. Right! snapped planter grimly. He drew the pistol-weapon and glared. Dispro and Max, the latter stooping under a great bale of goods from the ship, had paused on the brink of the water. A sky-gore was thundering to them in words of English which planter across the water found hard to catch. Other sky-gores motioned at the pool and one or two jumped in and struck out for nearby buildings. They want your friends to dive, Mara informed him. See! the slim one shakes his head. Planter rested the pistol on his forearm and sighted it on the sky-gore who harangued Dispro. Meanwhile other sky-gores were bringing up what appeared to be a small inflated boat that operated with a paddle-wheel arrangement behind. Mara saw what planter was doing. No! she gasped. Don't, David! I'm going to, he told her. We'll be next! Nonsense! Those flapper-footed devils can't climb. They're too heavy, too clumsy. She caught at his weapon wrist, but he had fired. The sky-gore weapon was a wondrous one. Even an indifferent shot like Planter could not miss with it. The sky-gore beside Dispro seemed to burst into flames around his flat bushel-multiface, and then he collapsed and lay still. His companions swarmed to his side, rending the air with their horrid yells. Planter chuckled, and Mara moaned. The man moved forward among the branches to a place where he could be seen. Hi, Dispro! he trumpeted, as loudly as any sky-gore. Max, it's David Planter. Run while you have the chance. I'll pick those toads off. But neither of his friends offered to escape. They only stood engaged at him. You idiots, blazed Planter, and then saw that two of the sky-gores on the inflated boat were aiming weapons at him. He sent a silver pin at their craft, and it melted abruptly as its air escaped from the puncture. A third shot took one of the sky-gores splashing in the water. RUN YOU TOO! Planter bathed his companions once more. He felt a grip on his ankle and glanced down. Mara had crouched low, was trying to pull him back from view. As soon as she had his eye, she let him go and thrust both fingers into her ears in some sort of a sign he did not comprehend. Understanding dawned suddenly, and too late. The mist trembled and swirled at a sudden outburst of sound louder than even a sky-gore chorus. Planter dropped his weapon, began to lift his hands to his ears in imitation of Mara, but he could not. The noise possessed him as a rush of electric current might course through a body, paralyzing and agonizing it. He swayed and floundered among the branches. His hair bristled, his ears rang, his blood coarsed. Every fiber of him vibrated. Yet something about it was vaguely familiar, as though it was something he had experienced, or a magnification of such a something. Yes, of course, the uneasiness that Mara called the spell. Some device made a noise vibration, normally subaudible, but unpleasant enough to warn aliens away. In a time like this, when a tack came, it could be intensified to the point of striking the enemy stupid. Meanwhile, he was falling through branches and leafage to splash clumsily into the water of the pool. Abruptly the noise ceased. The sky-gores were around him, their flipper hands fastening upon him, and he was too wrung out, too grateful for silence to resist. End of Part 2 Part 3 of Venus Enslaved by Manly Wade Wellman This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part 3 He may have fainted. Later on he could not be sure. But his next clear memory was of lying in one of the inflated paddle-boats in which sat sky-gores with weapons. There also sat Dispro watching him intently. Dispro, muttered Planter, they got you, too. No, they didn't get me, too, mimicked Dispro. I'm in the racket with them, understand? Planter sat up and, too, sky-gores half drew their weapons to warn him. I thought you were captured, he mumbled. Not me. I do things neatly. Showed I could be an enemy, but would rather be a friend. You butted in, killing two of them. Someone says you got two others earlier today. They're holding you a prisoner, and probably you'll be killed. Planter studied Dispro. Easy does it, he said softly. Better not act as if you know me. You might get mixed up in... No chance, snarled Dispro. I told them you were an enemy of mine. I'm not mixed up in anything. Planter subsided. Plainly Dispro was able to take care of himself. Plainly Planter must do the same with no help from any one. He wondered about Mara with a sudden, chilled pang. The brave girl had guided him here, despite her knowledge that Sky Gore Country was dangerous. She had done it to please him because she liked him. He wondered what had happened to her. He lounged under the Sky Gore gun's thinking of Mara. In his mind he saw the light of her steady blue eyes, felt the touch of her slim, strong hand. His heart quickened. Hang it, he told himself. You aren't in love with her. She's a savage, and you only met her a few hours ago. You're only worried because you feel responsibility. But he knew he lied. The boat brought them to an entrance hold at water level in a large cylindrical structure. Dispro swaggered inside with his new friends. A guard prodded Planter with his pistol barrel to follow. As Planter obeyed he saw behind him another boat, in which rode Max with all the baggage he had been carrying. Sky Gores sat with Max, plainly on good terms. Max saw Planter too, and his face twitched and scowled as in an effort to rationalize. Inside he found himself in a large, bare room with dry, roughcast walls. Dispro waited there, with a Sky Gore whose elaborate chain mail suggested that he was an officer. Dispro boomed this individual cordially. You say this is your enemy. What shall be done to him? I'll leave that to you, Vrah. Answered Dispro was a grand manner of bestowing gifts. You have your own ways of handling such problems. I am content. Another Sky Gore approached, and the officer discussed the case. Endefining Sky Gore language. Then, facing Planter, he resumed English. Your life is forfeit, but you look strong. Perhaps you can prove yourself worth keeping. Join the slaves. He struck his webbed hands together. A human man ran in. Like Mara and the other crossbow girls, this man was blonde, but the resemblance ended there. He wore loose, brief garments of elastic fabric, no weapons, and his face was mild and servile. Vrah pointed at Planter. Below with him put him in the spring mill. The slave beckoned and led Planter away, studying him curiously. Planter spoke at once. You have many friends here in slavery? Perhaps I can get you out of this. Out of this? The echo was horrified. To starve in the jungle? Marry, sir, or to mad or sick to say such a thing? Come down these stairs. Planter obeyed his new companion. They went down a dim stone stairway lighted with green bulbs. From below came sounds of mechanical action. What's your name? Planter asked the slave. Glonfill, and you? David Planter. How many slaves are here? Human slaves. Two hundred be like half as many as the Skygores. That was the new thought to Planter. On earth races numbered in the millions, here by the scores. Of course, this might not be the only Skygore city. Mara had mentioned the difficulty of exploring any distance from this habitable pole. For a moment he felt the thirst for knowledge. Wasn't this world as large as his own planet? Might did not have continents, oceans, mountain ranges, whole general of strange species, perhaps other civilizations and climates. Then he remembered he was a slave, and a booming voice drove the memory home. Below men, thundered a Skygore guard, you are not fed and lied to be idle. Pardon, mumbled Glonfill and quickened his descent. Planter followed, beating down a rage of battle at the rough shouting of the guard. The underwater levels were not flooded, though the walls were gloomily damp. Planter found himself in a great rambling chamber, bordered and cumbered with machines at which men toiled. Glonfill was presenting him to a Skygore who made notes with a crayon-like instrument on a board. No! he questioned in his earth-dulling roar. Whence came he? Never stop to answer, show him how to work your machine. Glonfill led him to a cylindrical appliance against a wall. It had a multitude of levers and push-buttons and light shone in its glass to forefront. Most of these were green, but one turned red as they approached. Glonfill pushed a button and turned a lever. The light switched to green again. The red means a faulty rhythm somewhere in the light system, explained Glonfill, fix it by manipulating the buttons and levers near the red lights. Yes, so. It takes not skill, but where are you watching? Planter took over. He found time to observe the rest of the slave-teamed basement. Some operated a treadmill, others wound at keys or turn cranks. The machines were strange, but not mysterious. He judged that they pumped, elevated, and modelled. Glonfill answered his questions. "'Tis the sky-gore method. We supply power by our labours, springs, levers, such things are worked." "'Springs and levers?' repeated Planter. "'Is this a clockwork town? Why not fuel, steam?' Glonfill shook his head. "'We men make small fires, but the sky-gore's not. Their nature is moist. They want such things not. As you say, clockwork is the use of this place.' "'If you refuse to do this slave-work within.'" Glonfill shrugged and shuttered. "'Oh, if the sin is not too great, you go to a level below this. Men drag upon a capstan to wind the mightiest of springs for town works.' "'Like rowing in a galley,' Planter summed up wrathfully. "'But if the sin is pretty sinful?' "'A sky-gore overseer came close, saw that Planter had learned the simple machine, and called Glonfill to some other task. Planter worked until such time as a raucous voice bade another shift takeover. Martialed with twenty or more slaves, he was led away to a must-evault, one side of which was lined with cell-like sleeping quarters. Here was the brick oven, perhaps those in the nest were designed from it, over which two sturdy women toiled at cookering. As the slaves entered, these women quickly passed out stone-plates and metal spoons, into these were poured generous portions of hot appetizing stew. "'They feed you well, these sky-gores,' commented Planter to Glonfill, as he finished his plateful. "'Tis their fashion. They seek to make us happy.' Planter went to the kettles for another helping of stew and ate more slowly. "'I'd rather eat in freedom,' he commented, half to himself. "'Freedom?' echoed Glonfill as his scornful. "'We hear of what freedom can be. Scant commons, rough beds, danger and damp, better to toil honestly and farewell.' "'I,' said a bigger slave, with a spade beard of reddish tinge. "'Did not the sky-gores help our first father, stranger, as now they help you?' "'I've heard otherwise,' Planter rejoined. "'It seemed there was a fight. The men were licked. The survivor is made captive and put to work. That's what happened to me.' "'Best be silent,' murmured Glonfill, bending close. That talk makes few friends.' Planter changed the subject, asking various questions about Venus. His companions hide him strangely as he displayed his ignorance, but made cheerful answer. The noise that had overwhelmed him was a vibrating metal instrument, they said. Their description made it sound like an organ of sorts. As he had surmised it was always in some sort of operation, and could be turned on full force if need be. The sky-gores, with senses meant to endure great noises, were not hurt by such a din, but human ears would be tortured if not quickly closed. Our labours give the instrument power, informed Glonfill, rather proudly. Planter thought over his experiences of the day. "'These sky-gores have many human devices,' he ventured. "'I—that,' agreed the big-bearded one. In the first days our fathers brought many articles which the sky-gores developed and used. "'That's what I'm driving at,' Planter broken, forgetting Glonfill's council to be cautious. They not only enslaved you, they took your ideas and improved themselves. I'll wager they were savages to begin with. And you're actually grateful for the chance to crawl at their big-webbed feet.' "'This world belongs to the sky-gores,' spoke up one of the women as she washed dishes. Without them we would be shelterless and foodless like the weaklings they drove forth.' Planter refrained to tell what he knew of the crossbow girls. Plainly he was up against an attitude of content from which he would be hard to free his new companions, harder than to free them from guards and prison-walls. He slept that night in a hammock-like bed, and next day worked at the machine. His toil was long but not sapping, and food was good. Once a sky-gore came to take his clothing, shoes, and possessions, giving him a sleeveless shirt and shorts instead. Otherwise he was not bothered by the masters of the city. For days, perhaps ten, he followed this routine, masking his feeling of revolt. Then came a sky-gore messenger to lead him away along underwater corridors to someone who had sent. At the end of the journey he entered an office. There sat the person he least expected to see, Dispro. You rat, Planter began, but Dispro waved the insult aside. Don't be a bigger ape than usual, he sniffed. I've been able to do you a favor. You didn't do me much of one when I was captured, reminded Planter. How could I, argued Dispro, in the charming fashion he could sometimes achieve? I was only on probation. If I tried to help you, then we'd both be dead, instead of both on top of this Turkish bath-world. Sit down. They took stools on opposite sides of a heavy wooden table. Planter, how would you like to help me run Venus? You're going to get away from these sky-gores? Again, Dispro waved the words away. Why should I? I'll run them too. Look, we landed safely, didn't we? Observations on Earth will show that, won't they? Right, agreed, Planter, mystified. There'll be more ships coming to look for us and maybe set up a colony. That's it. We'll ambush those ships. Ambush, repeated Planter sharply, losing your mind at Dispro? No, I'm only thinking for all of us. Ships will come, I say, loaded with supplies, valuables, all sorts of things. We can overwhelm them as they land. Some of their crews will join us. The others can be rubbed out. And the law can't touch us, Planter, not for a minute. What are you driving at, Planter demanded? I'm the law, said Dispro, tapping his chest. Just now I string with the sky-gores. Later I may knock him off. But anyway, I'm the commander of the first expedition to land on Venus. I have a right to take possession in my own name. He got up, his voice rising clear and proud. Possession, like Columbus, not of a continent, of a whole world. Planter, leaning forward on his stool, clutched the edge of the table so strongly that his knuckles whitened. And what, he asked slowly and quietly, do you want me to do? I am coming to that, said Dispro, smiling with superior craftiness. You're going to help me solidify these loud-mouthed sky-gores. They hold me for a slave, reminded Planter harshly, for he did not like the life as well as Glonfil and the others who tarried along the clockwork. But Dispro brushed the complaint aside. That's because they don't know what I know. Your lady friends, I mean. Planter glanced up sharply. Dispro chuckled. Ha-ha-ha! I talk a lot with these sky-gores. Not bad, fellows, if you muffle your ears. Anyway, they tell me about a herd of wild girls that bushwax them constantly, and which they hope I'll find and destroy. Lately some of the girls have been scouting around, yelling for something. The sky-gores have the best English and don't know what the words mean. But I do. Those girls are calling your name David Planter. Mara had come back for him then. She braved the terrors of the sky-gore fortress, trying to get him back. Planter felt warmth around his heart. He faced Dispro and shook his head. I don't know what you're talking about, he said. You must be getting drunk with your sky-gore friends. They don't have any kind of liquor, only some sort of sniff powder I wouldn't touch. And you're a cheerful liar, Planter. You know all about those girls, and you're probably good friends with them. Don't be a fool. I'm offering you a slice of my empire. Empire! echoed Planter, honestly scornful. You really think you'll go through with this idea of grabbing Venus for yourself? I know all the angles. Back on Earth I was boss of quite an organization, and ended up in jail, buying your way out by gambling your life on this voyage. Planter rushed those words into speech, but made them clear, biting, and passionate. You're a case for brain doctors, not jail wardens. I don't know why I'll listen to you. I know why, hurled back Dispro. Because I'm already quite a pet among these sky-gores. I could kill you or save you. Meanwhile we're changing the subject. I want you to lead me to these wild girls, and after we're solid with them, a bunch of sky-gores will come, nothing doing. In other words, you now admit that there is such a group, and you'll take Orters, Planters. I'm still chief of the expedition. Planter shook his head. I can give you arguments on that. You betrayed the trust of the Foundation back home. That lets you out. You don't have authority over me. He rose abruptly. Send me back to the basement, Dispro. Dispro, too, jumped up. He held something in his hand. It was a gun, not a sky-gore curiosity, but a terrestrial maid automatic. You don't get off that easy, Planter. I need you badly, and you need your insides badly. Knuckled down before I blow them out. Planter smiled broadly and rather suddenly. Suddenly he lifted a toe. He kicked over the table against and upon Dispro. Down went the elegant lean figure, and a bullet sang over Planter's head as he dived in to grapple and fight. Dispro, the lighter of the two, was wondrously agile. Almost before he struck the concrete floor, he was wriggling clear of the table. Planter's weight threw him flat again, but he struck savage, choppy blows with the pistol he still held. Half dazed, Planter could not get a tight grip, and Dispro got away and up. Planter, shaking the mist from his battered head, staggered after him, caught the weapon wrist and rung the gun away. It clanged down at their feet. All right, Planter, if you want it that way, muttered Dispro savagely, and took a long stride backward. He got time to fall on guard like the accomplished boxer he was. Planter sprang after him. Dispro met him with a neat left jab, followed it with a hook that bobbed Planter's head back and easily slid away from a powerful but clumsy return. When Planter faced him again, he stood out of danger, smiling and lifting a little on his toes. "'How do you like it?' he laughed. Didn't know I was a fancy-dan, eh?' Planter charged again. Dispro slipped right and left, tries at his jaw, returned a smart peg to Planter's belly, and then let the bigger man blunder past and fetch up against a wall. Planter was forced to lean there a nauseous moment, and Dispro hooked him hard under the ear. A moment later, Planter was crouching and backing away, sheltering his bruised head with cross-storms. He heard Dispro laugh again. "'This is fun,' pronounced Dispro. "'I've been taught by professionals, Planter. Good ones. Not wash-outs like poor Max.' Planter clinched at last but Dispro's wiry body spun loose. The two faced each other, and Planter felt some of his strength and wit come back. He realized that he was being beaten. He must change tactics. He remembered what he could have fist-science and abruptly crouched. Again he advanced, but not in a rush. Inch by inch he shuffled in, head sunk between his shoulders, hands lifted to strike or defend. "'You look like a turtle,' mocked Dispro, and tried a left. It glanced off Planter's forehead, and Planter sidled to his left, away from Dispro's more dangerous right. Bobbing and weaving lower still, he baffled more efforts to sting him. A moment later Dispro was backing and Planter had him in a corner, close in. He struck, not for Dispro's a droid head, but for his body. His left found the pit of the stomach, just within the apex of the shallow inverted V, where ribs sloped down from breastbone. Dispro grunted in pain, and Planter put all his shoulders behind a short, heavy peg under the heart. Again in the belly, twice, thrice, he felt Dispro sag. A hook glanced from Planter's jaw, but it was weak and shaky. Dispro managed to slip out of the corner, but Planter was now the stronger insurer. Across the room he followed his enemy, playing ever for the body. Kidneys, abdomen, heart. Dispro was hanging on, his breath came in, choking grunts. Planter struggled loose, and sank one clean hard right uppercut. Dispro, spun off his feet, fell across the overturned table, and lay moaning and gasping. Had enough, Planter challenged. Dispro was crawling on the floor, trying to grab the pistol. Planter sprang in, stamped on Dispro's knuckles. Dispro had only the strength and breath for one scream and collapsed. Abruptly Sky Gores entered, Sky Gores with hard eyes and leveled weapons. What demanded one is this. Dispro helped to his shaky feet point it at Planter. He refused. He managed to wheeze out. Dispro nodded, and Planter felt a sudden rush of joy. They would drive him forth as they used to drive forth unprofitable female slaves, and he would find the nest again, and Mara. He was being herded along a passage up stairs. The Sky Gores who guarded him kept their weapons close against his ribs. No escape they promised him billfully. He wondered at that, but only a little. Now they had brought him out upon an open railed bridge between two buildings. Below was water, above the thick Venusian mist. Jump! A Sky Gore baited him. I need no second chance, Planter replied, breezily and dived in. He still wore the scanty costume of a slave, and it allowed him to strike out easily for the edge of the pool. Behind him the Sky Gores were discussing him, but in their own guttural tongue which he could not understand. As he swam he studied the city beneath the water. He meant to come back and assail that city some time, and there must be worthwhile secrets to note. For instance, he was now aware that this pool was artificial. He made out the sluices and gates of a large dam. To one side was a spacious submarine chamber that must be the clockwork jammed cellar where his erstwhile companions, the slaves, worked. But something else was under the water. Something that moved darkly, but had arms and legs, though it was as vast as an elephant. It was approaching him swiftly, knowingly. Now he knew why he had been told, with such a voice of doom, to jump into the water. End of part three