[Transcriber's Notes: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 Misspellings have been corrected. ]

[Illustration]

VALLEY of the CROEN

By LEE TARBELL

 There was a mysterious golden statue that always pointed one way--and it led to sudden death in the valley where flying disks landed. 

[Illustration: Like a lodestone drawn to a magnet, the tiny goldenstatue leaped from his hand and darted toward its huge counterpart. ]

They say cross-eyed men are bad luck. He stood there, in my doorway, eyeing me up and down with those in-focused black eyes. 

His face was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashedwith a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across hisnose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side. 

He was big, and he looked like bad news to me. I inadvertently moved thedoor as if to close it, then he spoke:

"You Keele, the mining man?"

I nodded, wondering at the mild voice from the huge battered figure. 

"Been looking for you. I've run across something I wouldn't tell justanyone. But I've heard of you, that you are on the level. Here inKorea, you're known already. "

I still didn't step back and swing the door wide. But he had aroused mycuriosity as well as my natural desire to acquire things. I had made twofortunes and lost both in mining ventures. My present not small incomecame from an emerald mine in the Andes. It had been a very dirty andvery sick Indio who had led me to that emerald mine. You never know!

"I'm pretty busy, could you give me some idea. .. . " I hedged. It doesn'tdo to seem too anxious or eager in any business deal. Too, the sight ofhis burly figure, even without the nightmare face, was not exactlyreassuring. That bulge under the native quilted coat, I knew was nothingbut a gun too big for even his bulges to conceal completely. But a manneeded a gun, here. Especially if he had something valuable, such as thewhereabouts of gold. 

He grinned, and the white, even teeth, and the wrinkles around his eyestook away the sense of impending catastrophe brought by those crossedeyes. I stepped back then, and he walked in. I sat down at my desk. Hesat down across from me, and fumbled in one pocket. He lay on the deskan object in wrappings of dirty rags. These he peeled off slowly, hiseyes seeming to dart here and there, never looking where they should. Ashe peeled, he talked:

"I just landed off a ship from Fusan, up-coast. Y' ever been in Fusan?"

I shook my head, watching his fingers work at the knots of the stringsaround his mysterious object. 

"Korea is a funny place. As long as people have been living here, you'dthink it would be settled. But it isn't! There're immense forests, greatmountains, where no man has gone, places no one enters. They're so dumbthey don't even have compasses; they get lost! Think my compass ismagic, wonder how I know where to go next, and not get lost. Superstitious, scared to go into the great, dark, damp forests. Scaredof the mountains no one has ever climbed. That kind of country is aprospector's meat!"

I nodded. He had the wrappings off, and I leaned forward, a littlebreathless at the beauty of the thing in his hand. A curiously wroughtlittle statuette about eight inches high, of gold. It was set with realemeralds, for eyes. About the neck and waist of the exquisite femalefigure were inset jewels, simulating girdle and necklace. A littlegolden woman goddess! It was very finely wrought, and what surprised me, it was not oriental, not any style of art I could place. Yet it wasalien and ancient. I reached for it. He let me take it in my hands, andas I touched it, an electric tingle of surprise, a thrill of utterdelight, ran up my arm, as if the image contained a strong little soulintent upon enslaving me with admiration. 

"Potent little female, isn't she?"

His crossed eyes were on mine with that queer stare of the cross-eyed. Icould make nothing of the facial expressions of this man. He would havebeen disturbing to play poker against. I would have said he was afraidof that little figure! Afraid, yet very much attached to it. I set itdown and he wrapped it up again. 

"Strange thing! Tell me about it. "

"You know we split Korea with Russia, after the war. I thought I'd takea look around. I have done quite a bit of that. It wasn't hard. Up nearthe Russian line I found something. "

He stopped, looked at me. Whether, he was trying to gauge my credulityor my depth, I don't know. 

"You're young. You're not yet thirty, Keele; you've got time left toenjoy a fortune such as I'm letting you in on. And I saw such womenamong these unknown people as no man would believe. I spent a lot oftime spying on them. "

I figured he was lying about the women to get me to help him finance thetrip. But just the same, the hint of unknown and unspoiled beauty ofsome hidden, weirdly alien tribe of people aroused my curiosity--the oldlure of the Savage Princess from kid days, I guess. I hadn't had a realvacation in years--and what would I enjoy more than a jaunt throughuntouched forests? Toward what didn't matter as long as the hunting wasgood. And it sounded good!

"Unknown people, virgin forest, beautiful women and plenty of gold. Sounds too good to be true!"

He squinted at me, bared his fine teeth. He leaned forward, almostwhispered trying to impress me:

"The people who made that statue are still there. It isn't ancient--theystill make them!"

Now I knew he was lying, but still I was hooked. I had to know! For thatstatue was an infinite evidence of a refinement of art culture rare onearth! If such a race still remained untouched by white man's modernrot--I could pick up a fortune in art objects. I wasn't too dumb to knowwhat they'd bring in New York. I nodded, and he went on. 

"I found a cache of valuable gold, jewels, and other things. Things Ican't understand. I could be better educated, Mr. Keele. That's why I'vecome to you. I want some help. "

I leaned back. If he found gold, he should have the wherewithal to getin there and back without my help. So he was lying. I determined to findout why, and just what the lie was. 

"Go ahead, " was all I said. Give a liar enough rope and he'll triphimself. 

But he didn't! He didn't ask for money! He only wanted me for advice, for the names of experienced men of the kind he needed, to help him goback there. Men willing to fight if needed. Or else he was too clever. At the end he had me. I was committed to supervising and accompanyingthat expedition. Or was it the wise emerald eyes of the little goldenGoddess that trapped me? I didn't know, then. 

Finally I got it out of him. He hadn't brought back the gold. He had tocross bandit territory, and he didn't have to tell me why he didn'tcarry his fortune with only his own rifle to guard it. 

I picked two well-known men who were available just then. Hank Polterhad led more than one hunting party through country I wouldn't havepicked--and come out safe. He knew what a gun was for, and when to useit. And that's the most important part of handling a gun, knowing _when_you have to shoot, and then doing it first. The man that shoots beforehe has to is going to get you into more trouble than he can get you outof. 

Lean and tough, he knew the ropes. Around thirty, just under six feet, not bad looking, he was making the most of Seoul's wide-open hot spots. Nearly broke, he jumped at our offer. 

Seoul is the capital of Korea, in case you don't know. Everyone didpretty much as they pleased, for there were few restrictions from theso-recently installed government. There are a number of gold minesaround Seoul, which was why I was there. Like the cross-eyed Jake Barto, I knew that something would turn up worth owning where governments havechanged three times in as many years. 

Frans Nolti, the other hunter we hired, was more of a fortune hunter, by appearance, than one who knew his way in the jungles of the world. Handsome in his Italian way, he was suave, apparently well educated, very quick in his movements. He gave the impression of extremecleverness, of intellect held in reserve behind a facade of worldliness, of light clever talk. 

Both of them knew their Orient, far better than I. Which was one reasonI wanted them. 

Barto had at first wanted a large party, at least a score of "white" menof the western school, able to fight and smart enough to know how. But Ihad talked him out of it. 

"You see, Jake, with two like these, we can travel fast. If there'streachery, if they aren't satisfied with the cut we're offering, whyit's two against two--you and I have an even chance. With a largerparty, we might pick up some scoundrels who will try to murder us andmake off with the treasure. Providing we _get_ the treasure!"

Jake eyed me, in that maddeningly unreadable cross-eyed expression ofcold ferocity which the scars gave his ugly face. We had agreed onone-third each, the other two to split the other third between them. Iwas footing the bills, Jake was nearly broke. He had found the stuff, and tried to hold out for half, me a quarter, the other two to split aquarter. I said nothing doing. 

"No, Jake, this first trip, it's got to be this way. If it's like yousay it is, there'll be more. What we can carry won't be all the value. There'll be more to be gotten out of that ruin than the stuff you found. You'll have the money to do it, after this, and it's your find. We'll beout, after this one trip. "

We sailed up the east coast of Korea from Fusan to the village ofLeshin. By native cart from there to the ancient half-ruined city ofMusan. That's close to the Manchurian border. There we hired eightdiminutive Korean ponies and four men to "go along" as Barto put it, forthey didn't want to go, and didn't appear like men of much use foranything but guides. And Barto knew the way. But I didn't want to bewandering around without any native interpreters, without contact of anykind possible with the people we might encounter. None of them had beenmore than a few miles into the wilderness. They were sad looking menwhen we started northward. But Koreans manage to look pretty sad much ofthe time. With their history, that's easy to understand. 

Something about the burly, ugly Barto's behavior began to worry me. Hedidn't know where he was going. He had told a lie, but just what the liewas I couldn't figure out. I watched him covertly. Whenever we came tothe end of a march, instead of sighting his landmarks, making sure ofhis bearings--he would go off by himself. Next day, he would knowexactly where he wanted to go--but sometimes the "way" would be acrossan impassable gorge, a rapids, or straight into a cliff. 

One night, the fourth day and well into the wilderness, we were movingup a broad valley through a forest of larch. I sighted a deer, andcalled a halt while I stalked it. I got it, and came back ahead of therest, who were cutting up the deer. I moved quietly in the woods--it's agood habit. I came upon Barto, and he was oblivious of me. He had thelittle golden girl in his hands, talking to it. 

"Now, tell me the way, girl, tell me the way. " Then he held the girlloosely in his hand, as I watched, it gave me an eerie feeling to seethe little figure turn, its outstretched hand pointing northward like acompass. Was Jake Barto a madman? Or _did_ the little figure act as acompass? If so, why did Barto have to rely on the pointing figure's handfor directions? If he didn't get that figure from the place we wereheading, where did he get it? How did he know there was anything ofvalue in the place we were headed for?

These questions tormented me, for I could not ask them without revealingto Jake that I knew he was lying. And that meant a showdown. I mighthave to kill him. Still, I had to get the truth out of him, or let amadman lead us on and on into an untracked wilderness, if that is whathe was. 

For several days we did not see a sign of life, after that deer. 

The forest became denser at every mile, with more and more swamps andsurface water. Time after time our ponies mired and had to be lifted outof the mud. Lush ferns and rank grass made walking dangerous. The treeswere interlaced with draping festoons of gray "Spanish moss, " forming acanopy overhead which let through only a gloomy half-light. No soundsbroke the stillness except the half-awed calls of the men. No birds, noteven a squirrel. Then it began to rain. 

That drizzle continued for a week! The men became frightened at thegloomy stillness and exhausted by the strenuous work of keeping theponies moving. 

Then in the night my four Koreans deserted. They didn't take any ponies, just what grub they could pack. We all felt better off without them, butI often wonder if they ever found their way out of that morass. 

The next day there came a break. We sighted a majestic mountain abouttwo days' march ahead. It looked like a gloomy cloud that had settled toearth for a moment's rest. But no cloud ever managed to look so rocky, so windswept, or so welcome. And no patch of blue sky ever looked sogood as that sky above the mountain, swept clean of the rain curtain bythe updraft. 

Jake seemed to recognize that mountain, gave an audible sigh of reliefwhen we sighted it. My suspicions quieted. 

We went hunting that day. It was the first dry camp in a long time, thefirst signs of game; we needed a rest. As usual, Barto stayed at camp toguard the ponies and camp equipment. 

We were on the trail of a bear when we saw a strange object in the sky. It looked like a doughnut or a saucer, and it settled to the earth onthe far side of the great white mountain at whose foot we had made camp. It seemed only an hour's walk to a point where we could overlook thelanding place of the strange object, and Hank and Frans pushed ahead, curious and a little frightened. I had read in the American newspapersthe accounts of "disk ships" and knew they would not be able to getclose to it, and I wanted to watch Hank. I let them get out of sight, then turned back to camp. Quietly, I was nearing our camp, when thescream of a woman in pain came to me!

It was the answer to all my apprehensions about the ugly Barto, a suddenmaterialization of the vague distrust I had felt all along! I broke intoa run, crashing through the young, white birches and larches, to theclearing. 

A chuckle reached me, a gloating heavy laugh of triumph. 

Barto had the girl prone, one arm bent near to breaking, her kneescaught beneath his weight. I caught him by the shoulders, heavedbackward, sent him sprawling across the young grass. He sat up, glaredfor an instant, then went for his gun. Before it came out of theholster, my foot caught him beside the jaw. He was too big for anyother method I might have chosen to be effective. The kick stretched himunconscious; my heel had struck the button. 

I turned, to see the girl disappearing among the brush. She had dartedaway instantly she was free. That she would bring her people down on usI had no doubt. I did doubt their ability to hurt us. Unless shebelonged to a band of Manchurian bandits hanging out here in thewilderness, they would not have arms. In the case she was of thebandits, we might be wiped out in our sleep. 

I bent over Jake, hoping I had not broken his neck. He looked as thoughhe would be out for some time. I picked up his heavy . 45, shoved it inmy belt. I wished Hank and Frans would return soon. The four of us mightbe able to handle her people. 

I turned--and _she_ stood there, looking at me!

 * * *

That such as she existed among the usually ugly Koreans and Manchurianswas impossible! I gasped a little in unbelief. Her clothing was likenothing on this earth. 

Soft green leather was clasped low on her hips with a narrow gold band, set with jewels. It was a skirt, I suppose, but it hung with a diagonalhem-line running from hip to knee, it was beaded in an intricatepattern, not Oriental, somehow reminding me of American Indian beadwork. 

On her feet leather sandals, laced like the ancient Greek sandal nearlyto the knee. In her hand a bow of horn, small and powerful. Around hershoulders a short leather cape similarly beaded and fringed. Around herbrows a jeweled circlet set like a diadem, and it crowned a young queen, proud and knowing very well her beauty and its power. 

Her features were neither Caucasian nor Oriental, certainly not theheavy-boned native stock. I couldn't pin them down to any race. Her nosewas straight, the nostrils neither wide nor narrow, but strong and firm. Her eyes were too wide-set and heavy-lidded to be Aryan, but they werenot tilted; they were level. Her hair was not black, but chestnut andcurled or naturally very wavy. Her glance was tawny and aflame withanger and excitement, furious upon the prostrate Barto. They were verylight-colored eyes, and they caught the sun in a blaze that made themseem yellow. 

Striking, she was a figure not of any ordinary kind. Her every aspecttold that she came of a culture unknown to me. She was evidently notignorant, but of a different way of life. 

Looking into her eyes, appraising her interest in myself that hadbrought her back, drinking in the immense appeal of her strangeness andher evident gentility--the evidences of a past of cultivated living asstrange as her attire--I forgot the unconscious man at my feet. 

Her skin was whiter than my own! Her arms were bruised purple whereBarto had clutched her. Then she spoke, in halting Korean:

"Is he dead?"

"No, " I answered. 

"Then he will live to meet a far worse fate! I know why you are here, stranger, and I warn you! You are on a fool's errand! The Golden Goddessis death for such as you!"

I was bewildered. 

"What Golden Goddess?"

"The Golden Goddess whose symbol led him here. He does not know what itis. He stole it by murdering one of our own messengers for it. He didnot _know_ at all; he only heard the tales that some relate about her. They are false tales. "

"Did he tell you how he got it?"

"He was boasting to me, trying to get me to tell what I knew about herdwelling-place. I would not, that is why he hurt me. "

"Why did you come back, whatever-your-name?"

"My name is Nokomee, and I came back to tell you something you need toknow. Leave these others, and you will live! Stay with them, you will beslain with them. We do not allow such as he to come among us, goldengirl or no. "

"I cannot leave my comrades because of danger. What kind of man do youthink me?"

"I do not care! I can only tell you. This is a secret place, where weremain hidden from the men of earth. I know what happens to those whostray upon our secrets! Go, and think no more to pry into treasure talesof this mountain land. It is not for such as you. Go, before it is toolate. I cannot hold back the death from you. "

I laughed. I thought of the Koreans who had deserted, of their talkabout the fires at night, of demons and haunted mountains ahead. 

"We came a long way on the track of Barto's tale of treasure from whichhe brought the golden girl. It will take more than words to frighten usaway. "

"Do not laugh! I try to save you from something even worse than deaththat can come to you. I want to return to you the favor that you did me. If you do not listen to me, how can I help you?" Her voice took on aplaintive, charming note; she smiled a half-smile of complete witchery. 

A high, keening cry came suddenly from the slopes above us, and sheraised on her toes as if to spring away. 

"They come, my friends! I must leave you. I can only tell you to stayclose by your fire at night. I cannot say what fate will strike you. Icannot help you. Go back, friend who would live, go back!"

She turned and sprang lightly up the slope toward the sound of the cry, half human, half beast-like, that she had called "her friends. " It hadsounded to me like the cry of a wolf, or a cat-man, anything but human. But people can make odd sounds, and imitate beasts. Still it had been aneerie sound that gave me a foreboding, added to her warning words. Whatkind of people were these, who wore leather and jewels and used bowsthat might have come off an Assyrian wall painting?

Came a tumult above, the high clear blast of some horn, a dozen eeriecries hardly human--a rush and a pounding in the earth as though a partyhad ridden off on heavy, full-size horses. No Manchurian pony ever madesuch a sound on soft ground!

Polter and Noldi came back about an hour later. I had dragged the bigBarto into a tent and made him comfortable. He was snoring peacefully. Polter squatted down beside me, folding his long form like a jackknife. 

"That thing _was_ a ship, Keele, " he said. There was a husky excitement, repressed but still obvious about him. I grunted. 

"It landed among some big timber on the south end of the mountain. Wegot pretty close, enough to see the sides of the thing. Men busy aroundit, we couldn't get too close, afraid they'd see us. "

I started, a pulse of unreasoning fear, of terrific interest, ranthrough me. I asked in a voice I couldn't keep calm, "What kind of men, Hank? I saw reports of such ships in the papers, no one got close enoughto see _that_ much. Newspapers called them illusions!"

"They're not our kind of men; they are something very different. I don'tknow just how to tell you, besides I couldn't be sure. But they seem tobe a people--" He stopped. "I'd rather you'd see it yourself. Youwouldn't believe me. "

Noldi came out of the tent where Barto was still snoring. He came overand squatted across the fire, eyeing me strangely. 

"What happened to the big jerk, Carl?" he asked, a little tremor ofanger in his voice. 

"I've got to tell you fellows we're in trouble, " I began. I did notbelieve that the girl's people would ignore Jake's attack upon her. 

Hank looked at the slender man from New York's East Side. "What's thematter with Barto?"

"S'got a bruise on his jaw the size of a goose-egg. Like a mule kickedhim. Scratched up quite a bit. I just wondered. He's unconscious, too; Icouldn't wake him up. "

"We may be in for it, " I went on. "When I got back to camp, Hank had agirl. He'd thrown her down, was struggling with her. I had to put himasleep to stop it. Didn't want trouble with her people. "

Noldi glanced at the torn place in the soft sod where the scuffle hadtaken place. I had unconsciously nodded toward it. He got up, walkedover, picked something out of the grass. 

"Some girl, wearing this kind of stuff!"

He handed the glittering bauble to Polter. It was a necklace ofemeralds, with a pendant of gold in which was set a big blue stone thatI couldn't recognize, maybe a diamond, maybe something else. It lookedalmighty valuable, each stone was as big as a man's thumbnail. It hadsnapped, lain there unnoticed by either of us. 

Noldi looked at me a little venomously. 

"Looks as if you were a little premature, letting her go. We should havefound out where she gets this kind of sparkle first!"

"Seemed the safest thing to do. We are only four, how could we handleher friends?"

"Bah, they wouldn't have known where she was. We could have kept hertill we were good and ready to let her go. "

I stood up, took out my pipe and filled it. 

"What about this ship you saw, and the people around it. That'simportant, not this girl and her jewelry. "

"We couldn't see much except that it was a ship and that it landed inthe trees where it couldn't be seen from the sky. It's pretty big, andthere are men moving around it. That's all. "

"That's plenty! If we run into them, there is no knowing what they'lldo. That ship was never built on this planet. "

Noldi didn't smile or laugh. He just looked at me. Serious, puzzled, anda little scared. 

"You think it's a space ship, eh, Keele?"

I nodded. 

"What else could it be?"

"What's it doin' out here in no man's land?" Polter asked. "You'd thinkstrangers like that would land near a city, try to make some kind ofofficial contact. "

"If you were landing on a strange world, would you land near a city?" Iasked. 

Polter laughed. 

"I guess you hit it. They don't know whether they'd be welcome or not. Scared, eh?"

"Just careful, I'd say. We don't know anything about them. But shipslike that have been reported off and on for hundreds of years. Don't besurprised if you never see a trace of it again, and if no one else butme ever believes you when you mention it. I don't think we'll have toworry about the flying saucer. "

"What the hell do they want, then?" Noldi didn't know what I meant, exactly. 

"Nobody knows, Frans. Nobody ever saw them as close as you just didtoday. "

 * * *

Watching Jake Barto next morning, I saw that the little image in hishand pointed right across the center of that cloud-topping mountain. That meant we had to go around it, for we were not equipped for suchclimbing, nor would there have been any sense in it. Jake figured oncircling to the left, and I was glad, for I for one wanted no parts ofthat disk ship that Polter and Noldi had seen in the other direction. Jake ignored me. He was unpredictable!

It was a long mountain, and we traveled along one side, toward thenorth, figuring on crossing to the east wherever a pass appeared. Aftera time a faint trail showed, and we followed it. It drew us higher, until we were moving perilously along a ledge of rock, with precipitouswalls above and a sharp drop below. Higher and higher, above thetree-line now, the path went on, and there were signs of travel along itthat worried me. 

Polter was in the lead, and as we rounded a shoulder of rock, gave a cryof wonder. We hurried after, to see the trail breaking over a low crestof the mountain, and leading now downward. This shoulder of rockoutthrust here marked the place where the trail we were followingcrossed the ridge of the mountain crest at its lowest point. But it alsomarked something else, which was what had caused Polter's cry. 

A line of dust across the trail and along the near-bare rocks stirredand lifted and fell fitfully, as if the air was barred passage by someinvisible wall, and there were the skeletons of birds that had flungthemselves against the invisible wall and died, falling there. There wasthe skeleton of a goat half across the trail; and at one side, what hadonce been a man! All these dead--and the bones could be seen here andthere along the far line of the dust--had gone so far and no farther. Polter had stopped fearfully ten feet from the clearly marked line--andI for one had no desire to add my skeleton to the others. 

For a few minutes none of us had anything to say, then reason reasserteditself, and I pressed past Polter, knowing that the thing was anillusion born of coincidence and wind currents. Some baffling current ofwind around the mountain formed here a wall of air cleavage, and theskeletons were merely coincidence. I pushed up to the strange line oflifting and falling dust, a little roll showing the magic of invisibleforce, and pressed on, as if to cross. 

Behind me a cry gave me pause. I turned, looking for that cry's source, for it seemed to me the cry was the girl I had rescued from Barto. Thatsaved me, for the little horse behind me pressed on across the strangeline--and faltered, gave a horse-scream of terror, fell dead before me. 

We stopped, terror of the unknown in our breasts, wondering--afraid toput the wonder into words. We did not look at each other or discuss thething, we just accepted it, and stared dumbly at it like animals. Itossed a rock across the body of the now quite motionless pack animal, the rock reached the wall beneath which my animal lay dead--slowed, curved sharply to the ground, did not roll, but lay as if imprisoned ininvisible jelly!

There was a wall of invisible and deadly force there, and there was noknown explanation for it!

I growled at Barto, all the suspicion and distrust that had beenbuilding up in me toward him in my voice. 

"What does your golden girl tell you now, Jake?"

Jake surprised me. He walked ahead toward that frightening manifestationof the unknown, holding the little statuette before him like a sword, his ugly face rapt in some listening beyond me. As the little statuecrossed the line, he sang out:

"Listen, Goddess of the Golden forces, listen and heed! We come fromafar to pay our worship, to give to you our devotion, and we are metwith this wall of death! Is that the way you greet your friends?"

Jake waved the statuette in a circular motion, then crossed the circletwice with the waving gold. He stood there, his crossed eyes dartinghere and there along the line of force, and after a long minute, after atime that seemed filled with a distant chuckling, like thunder too faroff to be heard clearly--the lift and fall of the dust on the baffledwind stopped, the strict line of the wind's stoppage began to disappear, the line of demarcation was gone!

Jake reached out an arm, feeling cautiously for the invisible wall, andafter a minute, his face lightened from its habitual gloom, he steppedacross the line, and did not stagger and fall as had the horse. The wallwas gone! Jake turned, said calmly:

"Come on, our friends have decided to let us in. "

My mind in a whirl at the unexpected display of knowledge beyond me, offorces beyond the power of any rifle bullet to overcome, of strangehidden things here--I stepped across the line, keeping close to thetracks left by Jake's big feet. Polter and Noldi followed and the horsesplodded after. We trudged on, but not the same. We were afraid, and wewere conscious of a vast ignorance, of a fear that we did not belonghere, that the only wise thing for us to do was to turn back and give upthis Jake Barto and his cross eyes and his mumbo jumbo statue to his owndoom. 

At least that's the way I felt, but something stronger than curiositydrew me on. I wanted to know why I was so drawn when reason keptdemanding I give up this quest. I wanted to know why a golden statuepointed always to one point on the horizon, and why that wall of forcehad obeyed Jake's injunction to go away. Or was I unable to think, really? Was I shocked out of my ability to reason and act on my reason'sdictates?

Ahead, as the trail dipped low, a vast panorama of valley and hill andhollow, of eerie rocky spires, lay outspread. Here and there werecultivated fields, and figures at work on the fields. In the distanceshone a stream. It flowed meandering into a wide lake. There were twovillages, not clear in the haze. At the distant lake, some kind oflarger structure lifted tall towers, shining with prismatic glitter, acity of strange appearance. 

We had crossed a barrier, and we had entered a land of the living--butit was unclear before us. The drifting mountain mists, the sun-glitterand the haze of noon kept the scene from striking through to our brainswith its true significance. For there was an eerie _difference_ aboutthe scene; it was not a land below us such as any of us had ever seen. I felt that and yet I could not think clearly about it. We moved alonglike zombies, not thinking--just accepting the unusual and the unknownas casually as if we were travelers who could not be astounded. Butinside, my mind was busily turning the significance and the meaning ofthis wall of force. I had heard of such walls before--upon Shasta inCalifornia, and in Tibet, and in ancient times in Ireland, and therewere other instances of a similar wall in the past, and in the presentin other places. But what it could really mean, that was what I did notknow. 

After crossing that invisible barrier, things began to happen in asequence, of a strangeness and with a rapidity such that I was unable toanalyze or to rationalize. From there on I was like a man on atightrope, hounded by invisible tormentors trying to shake me off. I hadnot time to wonder whether it was true that spirits existed. What I didthink was that some of these Korean primitives had a Devil Doctor whosurpassed all others in trickiness, and was amusing himself at ourexpense. But I did not _think_ it, I _clung_ to the idea to save myreason from tottering over the brink. 

The first thing after the wall that could not exist but did--after wehad passed on over the ridge and half way down the mountain side--was agully along the mountain side, up which Barto turned. I assumed he wasstill following the pointing of the magnetic statuette, but I wasvaguely conscious that none of us were _really_ conscious--were under akind of spell in which our actions and our thoughts werepredetermined--inevitable! I knew it, but I could not shake it off, norput my finger on any reason why I should shake it off and call a halt tothe strange, wordless, silent following of Jake and his eerie talisman. 

The faint trail led along the bottom of the gully, and after twentyminutes of downward progress, led into a dark overhang of rock, the skyhardly visible where the rocks almost met overhead. Down the semi-cavernwe went; still silent, zombie-like; and I felt ever more strongly thecompulsion that made us so move and so unable to do otherwise. 

Jake was striding rapidly now, his dark ugly face aflame with weirdeagerness, my own heart pounding with alarm at the strangeness and theirrationality of the whole proceeding. He held the statuette outstiffly, it seemed fairly to leap in his hands, as if tugging with anecstatic longing to reach the dark place ahead. The rocks closedcompletely overhead; the dimness changed to stygian darkness. I got outmy flashlight, sent the beam ahead. But Jake was pressing on through thedarkness, directly in the center of the trail. 

Quite suddenly the cavern turned, opened ahead, wider and wider--andbefore us lay a room of jeweled splendor, the temple of someforgotten--_or was it forgotten?_--cult of worship. 

The golden statue in the center of the big round chamber drew our eyesfrom the splendor of the peculiarly decorated walls, from the strangecrystal pillar on the tall dais at the far wall, from the weirdassemblages of crystals and metals that had an eerie resemblance tomachines--to a science entirely unknown to modern men. All these detailsof that chamber I remember now, looking back, but then--my attention andthat of the others was entirely drawn to the beauty of the tall, goldenwoman who stood in frozen metallic wonder at the center of the forgottencrypt. 

Jake, his ugly face in a transport, had fallen to his knees, wascrawling forward to the statue abjectly, mouthing phrases of worshipand self-abnegation. Close on his heels came Polter and Noldi, eyesrapt, movements mechanical. I stopped, some last remnant of senseremaining in my head, and by a strong effort of will held my limbsmotionless. 

As Jake reached the statue, the little golden replica of the life-sizedwoman of gold seemed to leap out of his reaching hands, and clungagainst the metallic waist of the golden woman as a lodestone to themother lode. 

Even as Barto's hands touched the statue, he slumped, lay thereoutstretched, his fingertips touching the metal hem of the golden skirt;and whether he was unconscious from unsupportable ecstasy or for whatmad reason, I did not know, but I did not _want_ to know. 

Undeterred by Jake's condition, the two men following in his steps alsoreached out hands to touch the golden metal--and fell flat on theirfaces beside Jake Barto, unconscious, or dead!

I stood, numb and with a terrific compulsion running through my nerves, which I resisted with all my will. I drew my eyes from the strangelypleasant magnetic lure of the metal woman with an effort and examinedthat strange chamber. 

The walls were covered with a crystalline glittering substance, likemolten glass sprayed on and allowed to harden. Behind this glasseousprotective surface, paintings and carvings spread a fantasy of strangeform and color, but the light was too dim to make much of it, exceptthat it was alien to my experience, and exceedingly well done, speakingof a culture second to none. 

Beyond the central form of the strange golden statue, was the dais whichI had noticed at once, and now my eyes picked out the fact that on itwas also a glasseous protective sheath about a form--another statue, Ithought. 

Thoughtfully I prowled along the rim of the room, examining the wallfrescoes foot by foot, seeing on them a strange depiction of semi-humanforms, of crab-men and crab-women, of snake-men and snake-women, of menhalf-goat and half-man, of creatures hardly human with great jaws thatlooked like rock-cutters, with hands like moles on short powerful arms, fish people with finned legs and arms, their hands engaged in catchinggreat fish and placing them in nets, a nightmare of weird half-humanshapes that gradually brought to me a message that I could not accept. 

If that rock painting was telling a true story and not some allegoricalfantasy--these people who had built this place had been a race who knewthe secrets of life so intimately they could manipulate the unborn childinto shapes intended to give it powers and physical attributes fittingit for amphibious life, for the underground boring life of a mole, forthe tending of flocks in the goat-legged men--the whole gamut of thesemonstrous diversions from the normal human seemed to medesigned--purposely--to build a race which, like ants, has a shapefitted to its trade. 

I threw off the illusion of a deformed past race the wall art gave me, and passed on to examine the crystalline pillar on the dais. I stood along time, before the dais, drinking in the beauty of the form lockedwithin the prisoning glass. 

No human, no earth woman--she was different from anything I had evereven imagined. 

Female, vaguely human in form she was, with an unearthly beauty; butfour-armed, with a forehead that went up and up and ended in a singletall horn, as on the fabled unicorn. 

Her eyes were closed, if she had eyes beneath the heavy purple-veinedlids, so like the petals of some night-flower, pungent with perfume. 

Naked the figure was, except for a belt of what looked iron chain aroundthe waist, black and corroded with time, holding her with a great boltand link to the side of that crystalline prison. 

Her hair, black as night, was pressed tight to the skull by the pressureof the crystal, which must have been poured about her in a molten orliquid state. 

As I stood there agaze at the strangeness and wonder of her, a voice atmy shoulder made me whirl in surprise. A soft, silky familiar voice:

"Do you find the dead Goddess so fascinating, stranger from the world ofmen?"

It was the girl of the forest, no longer in hunting garb, but dressed inTurkish trousers, vest and slippers with upturned toes. Jewels glitteredabout her waist and neck and arms, her wrists jangled with heavybangles, in her ears two great pendants swayed--her eyelids weredarkened and her lips reddened. She was a ravishing houri of the harem, and I gasped a little at the change. 

"Have you put on such clothes for my benefit?" I asked, for I reallythought perhaps she had. 

She frowned and stamped her foot in sudden anger. 

"I come here to save you from what has happened to your friends, and youinsult me. Don't you want to live? Do you want to become what they aregoing to become?" She pointed to the bodies of Jake and Noldi andPolter. 

I turned where she pointed, to see a thing that very nearly made mescream out in revulsion. 

I shuddered, shrank back; for several creatures were bending over thethree, lifting them, bearing them away. 

It was the strange, revolting difference from men in them that caused myfear. Once they may have been men, their far-off ancestors, perhaps--orin some other more recent way their bodies had been transformed, madeover into creatures not human, not beast, not ghoul. What they were wasnot thinkable or acceptable by me. I turned my face away, shuddering. 

They were men such as the wall-paintings pictured, something that hadbeen made from the main stock of mankind, changed unthinkably into acreature who bore his tools of his trade in his own bone and flesh. Mole-men, men with short heavy arms and wide-clawed hands, made fordigging through hard earth. They bore my friends away on theirhairy-naked shoulders, and I stood too shocked to say a word. Threemole-men, accompanied by three tall, pale-white figures, figuresinexpressibly alien--even through the heavy white robes--that moved withan odd hopping step that no human limb could manage, turned theirpaper-white, long, expressionless faces toward me for an instant, thenwere gone, on the trail of the mole-man. Beneath those robes must havebeen a body as attenuated as a skeleton, as different as an insect'sfrom man's. Within those odd egg-shaped heads must have been a mind asalien to mine as an ant's mind. 

"Why do your people take my companions?" I managed, when I had regainedmy composure. 

"They are not my people; they are of the enemies of the Dead Goddess. "The girl gestured to the figure in the crystal pillar. "My people haveno time for them, but neither have we power over them. They go theirway, and we go ours. Once, long ago, it was different, but time hasmade us a people divided. "

"What will become of the three men?"

"They will become workmen of one kind or another. Everyone works, in_their_ life-way. But it is not _our_ way! They guard our land from suchintruders; we let them. It is an ancient pact we have with them. "

"Why did they not seize me, I am an intruder as much as the others?"

"Because I signed to them to let you stay. You did not see, whatever-your-name-is. .. . "

"Call me Carlin Keele, Carl for short. What is your name, and what isyour race, and why are you so different from people as I know them?"

"My name is Nokomee, as I told you before. You are still confused fromthe magic that led you here. I have saved you once, and _now we areeven_; my debt to you is paid. You will never see your friends again, and if you do, you will be sorry that you saw them, for they will havebecome beasts of burden. Now go, before it is too late. This is not yourkind of country. "

Something in her eyes, something in the sharp peremptory tone she used, told me the truth. 

"You don't really want me to go, Nokomee. I don't want to go. Manythings make me want to stay--your beauty is not the least attraction. Icould learn so much that my people do not know, that yours seem toknow. "

"I would not want my beauty to lead you to your death. " Nokomee did notsmile, she only looked at me, and I saw there a deep loneliness, atender need for companionship and sympathy that had never been filled inher life. She looked at me, and her lower lip trembled a little, hereyes suddenly averted from mine. 

"Nokomee, there is so much we would have to tell each other, you of yourlife, and I of the great country of which you have never heard. Wouldyou not like to see the great cities of my country?"

She shook her head, turned on me with sudden fierce words:

"When you came and struck down that hideous cross-eyed man, my heartwent out to you in gratitude. Go, while my heart remains soft, it is notso often that the heart of a _Zerv_ is soft toward any outlander. Go, Icannot protect you from this place. "

"I will stay, " I said. 

"Stubborn fool!" She stamped her foot prettily, imperiously, vexed at myrefusal to go out of that weird place the way I had entered. "Stay then, but do not expect me to keep off the slaves of the Goddess. This placecan be most evil to those who do not know what it is, nor why it issecret. "

She turned, walked behind the great dais of the crystal sarcophagus, andI followed just in time to see her disappear behind a hanging curtain ofleather. I hastened after, my hand on my gun, for I had no wish to beleft alone where I had seen my three companions stricken down with noenemy in sight. 

Behind the curtain a passage led, along the passage were several doors. She sped past these lightly, almost running. I followed, she must haveheard me, but she did not look back. The doors along the passage werecurtained. Through the gaps of the curtain I could see they were emptyof life. The curtains were rotted as if long unused, dirty and blotchedwith mould staining the leather. 

Though she had spoken to me in Korean, and I had answered in the sametongue, I knew she was no native, for she spoke it differently, perhapsno better than myself. I was no judge; what she used may have been adialect different from that I had heard previously. 

I followed as she emerged from the long tunnel into the blaze ofsunlight. She stood for a moment letting her eyes adjust to the glare. Istumbled to her side, half-blinded, stood looking down at the scenewhich seemed to engross her. 

Gradually it came clear, like a television screen coming into perfecttune--the immense inner valley that the mountain of cloud-like snowenclosed. In the center of the encircled valley a lake shimmered blue asthe sky, and about that lake was a city. 

My eyes refused, at first, to accept what they were seeing. My mindrebelled, but after a minute of staring and making sure--I gasped. 

Alien to this earth it was, but beautiful! Towers, and round-baseddwellings braced together in one single unit of structural strength, adesigned whole such as our architects dream of and never achieve. Walledwith white marble, the city was a fortress, but a lovely fortress. Yetthere was a coldness, an angularity, that told me these Zervs, asNokomee had called her race, lacked true sympathy for life forms, lackedemotion as we know it in art. Yet it was beautiful, if repellent becauseso alien, so pure in design, so lacking in the sympathetic understandingof man's nature. This was a city no earthman could ever call home. Itlacked something. There were no dogs, no strolling women or runningchildren, it lay silent and waiting--for what?

Nokomee waved a hand. 

"Titanis, our first earth colony. But it is no longer ours. The Schreeshave taken it from us. That is why it is silent. "

I did not understand. There were plodding lines of people, disciplined, carrying burdens, no bigger than ants at this distance. There was anominous horror about the quiet beauty of the place. It was somehow likea beautiful woman lying just slain. Yet I could see no wounds of war, noreason for the feeling that I had, like the sudden shrinking one mighthave at sight of the stump of a man's arm just amputated. 

I looked into Nokomee's face, and there were tears in her eyes. My heartsank. I felt a vast sympathy for her sorrow, though I could notunderstand. 

"We planned so much with our new freedom here in your wilderness. Thencame the raiders, to freeze our Queen in her sleep, to drive us intoyour forests, to make of us that remained mindless slaves and maimedhorrors. I cannot bear it, stranger. I cannot. .. . "

She turned and wept, her head on my chest. I patted her head, feelingentirely incompetent to console her for what injuries I could notimagine. 

"What raiders, Nokomee? Tell me. Perhaps there is a way I can help. Whoknows?"

"We are so few now, who were so many and so strong--and every day fewer. There is no hope. Do not try to wake it in me. It would be madness. "

"Tell me. Perhaps that alone would help you. "

"How can I tell you the long history of my home world, the immortalwisdom of our Queen, the strange science her immortal family gave her, of how we fought to protect her from our own tyrants and at last fledinto space with her? How can I tell you of what she is? How could youunderstand the ages of struggle on our own world that reduced her kindto but a dozen, and left our kind, the mortals, at the mercy of theSchrees? You ask, but it is impossible for you to believe things you donot know about. "

"Perhaps if I told you of my people and their life, you would understandthat I could understand what you think is impossible for me. I am notignorant as the others of earth people you have met. And my nation isnumerous, the greatest of this earth. "

"Our ways are too strange to you. But I will try. You need not try totell me of your people; we examined your earth carefully before we chosethis valley for our retreat. Here we built and raised the force wall tokeep out inquiring interlopers like yourself who might bring the powersof your nation in ignorant war against us. But from our home world theSchrees were sent on our trail, and they found us. They were too many. Our only hope was in safe hiding, and they found us out. We did not knowthey could find us, or we would never have built. We thought pursuit hadlong been abandoned, but they are driven by single-minded hate, not bylogic. It has been a lifetime of wandering they have followed us. It hasbeen all my lifetime, making this home here, thinking ourselvessafe--and then they came and destroyed all our work. "

As she talked, she had quieted. We had resumed walking along the ledgeof the mountainside. Suddenly from ahead a man leaped out, his strangeweapon trained on my breast. I stood, not daring to move, while Nokomeeshouted a string of shrill alien syllables at him. He thrust the weaponback in his belt, and fell in behind us as we passed. I could not helpstaring at him, and at the thing he had pointed at me. 

It was a tapering tube about a foot long, triggered on the thumb sidewith a projecting stud, with a hand-grip shaped with finger grooves. Iknew it was a weapon with a long history of development behind it by thesimplicity of the lines, the entire efficiency of its appearance. Thesmall end was a half-inch, perhaps, in bore, the big end perhaps threeinches or less. He handled it as though it weighed but a trifle. I didnot ask what it was. 

The man himself was no taller than Nokomee, though much more solidlybuilt, with thick, slightly bowed legs and heavy black brows on bulgingbone structure, his eyes deep-set beneath. His ears, like Nokomee's, were high and too small to be natural. His teeth were larger than normalon earth, and the incisors smaller and more pointed, the canines heavierand longer. There was a point to his chin, heavy-angled and thick-bonedas it was, it was not an earthman's chin. His neck was long, more suppleand active, he kept moving his head in an unnatural watchfulness like awild animal's. I wondered what other differences, small in themselves, but adding up to complete strangeness of aspect, I would find in time. 

"That is Holaf, " murmured Nokomee in Korean to me. "He is a chief amongus now, since the fall of our strength. He is good, but young and alwaystoo impetuous. He needs long experience, and it looks as if he would getit, now. "

"You have more than one leader?" I asked. 

"We have three chiefs left to us, who rule their families--their clans. We have but one real leader. He is an old wise man left us by goodfortune. He is our lone scientist. The chiefs of the clans listen to theleader, but they argue. Things look bad for us all. "

"You are too few to reconquer the city?"

"Too few, yes. And time plays against us, for with the coming of theships from our home planet--that I should call that tyrant's nesthome!--there will be even more of the Schrees, then. We are a lostpeople now. There is no hope, eventually we will be hunted down as youearthmen will be hunted down, like animals. Made into slaves--and worsethan slaves. You will learn what I mean when next you see your threefriends. "

It was too much for me. I asked:

"Why don't you leave this place, and go on to another?"

"On your little world? It is not big enough to hide ourselves from them. And we have lost our ships, we cannot get others. "

"You think that they mean to conquer our whole planet?"

"In time they will do so. Not yet, but when they are many, they willspread, slaughter all who fight them, and enslave all who do not. Theyare very terrible creatures, not men at all, you know. "

"Not like you and I?"

"Not at all. You will see, soon. Hurry, it is late, and we have councilto attend. "

There was a deep passion in her words, quick and sharp and strange onher lips as they were, a passion of anger and hopeless effort thatsomehow roused me into desire to help her and these strange people ofhers. Too, if what she said was true, these raiders who had despoiledher people would in time engulf the world with a war of conquest, evenif they were less able to defeat us than she estimated. I resolved tomake the most of this opportunity to learn the worst of this hiddenthreat to men everywhere. I felt a kinship with Nokomee and her friend, silent and alert beside me, and I realized it could well be that I hadin my hands the future of mankind, and that it behooved me not to let itfall through carelessness. 

Lapsed now into silence, we reached the end of the trail along theledge. We came out upon a broad shelf, with several cave mouths openingalong its cliff-side. Gathered here in the twilight were some two-scoremen and women, bearing weapons; some the short powerful bow I had seenin Nokomee's hands; others weapons like Holaf's tapered tube; stillothers bearing small, round metal shields embossed with weird designsthat meant nothing to me. Squatted here, without fire, they fell silentat our approach, eyeing me with curiosity and the beginnings of anger atmy intrusion. Nokomee began to talk swiftly in that rattling, high-pitched tongue of theirs. I squatted down on my heels, took out mypipe, lit it. At the flare of my match Holaf struck it from my hand. Irealized it had been a blunder, even a spark might attract attention totheir presence on the hillside. Still, the incident told me Nokomee hadnot been lying to me. 

Holaf pointed at the city far below, now glowing here and there withlights, and at the match on the ground. Then he motioned to a cavemouth, and I followed him. Inside there was a fire burning, furs strewnabout the floor, metal urns and even mirrors hung on the rough stonewalls. I sat on a rude wooden bench of newly-hewed wood, lit my pipeagain without interference. But I was sorry to miss that conferenceoutside in the open air. I wanted to hear, even if I could notunderstand. Holaf still remained by my side, and his hand did not leavethe oddly-carved butt of the tapered tube-gun. 

I sat there, feeling very much alone, with Holaf watching me somberly, the only light a flickering amber from the fire. I started to my feet asa musically pitched, almost singing voice questioned Holaf in theirtongue. I looked about for the source, then saw her moving toward me inthe half-light, and I stepped back in a kind of awe and embarrassment, for this was new. 

She was as tall as myself, shaped with slender Amazonian strength, butcurved and soft and subtly aware of her feminine allure, stronglyinterested and pleased at the awe and pleasure in my face. Her, rounded, fully adult body was sketched over with a web of silkily gleaming blacknet, light and unsubstantial as a dream, clinging and wholly revealing. Her eyes were dark-lidded and wide-set, her brow high and proud, andabout her neck hung a web of emeralds set in a golden mesh of yieldinglinks. 

She came on, moving on shoes like Japanese water shoes, completelymystifying as to how she balanced on the stilt-like soles. Stepping thusin little balancing steps like a dancer, she moved very close, peeringinto my eyes, so that I blushed deeply at the nearness and the nudity ofher, and she laughed, amusedly, as at a child. Her long, gemmed handreached out and touched me, and she talked to Holaf excitedly, her faceall smiles and interest; I was a wholly fascinating new toy he hadbrought her, it seemed. Then she sank to the bench, crossing her lovelyknees over her hands, clasped together as if to make sure they behaved. To me she was wholly cultured and I some strange boor who had never beenin a drawing room. I felt the impact of that culture in her interestedeyes and in the sleek, smart bearing of her utterly relaxed body. Shestretched a hand to gesture me to be seated, and I tried Korean on her. 

"It is a pleasure to meet you, lady. If I but knew who you were, and howto speak properly, there is much we could find of interest to discuss. "

"I am sure of it, stranger. First you must tell me of yourself, and thenlater we will talk of what is familiar to me. I cannot put off thecuriosity which burns me. Please tell me all about your people andyourself!" Her voice was hard to follow, she handled the clumsy Koreanwith a bird-like quickness and an utter disregard for the nature of thelanguage. Her eyes burned into my own, and I sat embarrassed beside her, tongue-tied, while Holaf smiled quietly and kept his hand on his weapon. 

So I talked about New York, about my home town in Indiana, about my minein South America, about anything and everything, and she listened, rapteyes encouraging me, hanging on every stumbling, mispronounced, difficult word. I would have given an arm to have been able to talkexpertly in her own tongue. 

Thus engaged, and engrossed by her, I glanced up absently to noteNokomee's eyes blazing into my own in fury, and spaced about the room ina listening circle, a score of others. I stopped abruptly, and Nokomeelashed out at the woman beside me with a string of alien expletives thatmade her face flame with an anger as great as Nokomee's own. I wonderedvaguely what I had done. .. . 

Their strange, grim faces, all watching me, seeming to peer inside me, trying to gauge me as an enemy or a friend. I stood up, for the excitingnear-nude body of the woman who had caused Nokomee's outburst was tooclose, too intimately relaxed. 

Abruptly Nokomee took me by the hand, led me out and along the ledge onthe cliff. Into another cavern entrance she led me, to a smallerchamber, where another fire burned, and another bench invited to itswarmth. She half pushed me to a seat, and busied herself in the nextadjoining chamber, rattling dishware, and now and again giving a sharpexclamation as of extreme disgust. 

I gathered I had been guilty of falling for the Zerv equivalent of avamp. How wrong I was in this deduction I was to learn. It was not thewoman's beauty that Nokomee feared, but something vastly more dangerous. I was very ignorant then. The Zervs were an ancient people and theirways were strange entirely. For the net-clad beauty had been a "Zoorph. "I asked Nokomee, as she repeated the word again. 

"What is a Zoorph, that makes you so angry? I thought she was verycharming. I saw no harm in talking to her!"

Nokomee thrust her head out of the curtained doorway, from which thesmell of food told me I had not eaten since morning. 

"A Zoorph dear _child_ of earth, is a creature not good for man orbeast! Only a Zerv would be fool enough to keep so dangerous an animalabout! If I told you, you would not believe it. "

"Tell me anyway, Nokomee. "

The girl came, bearing food on a tray. She squatted at my feet, puttingthe tray on the bench, and holding a large graceful urn of some liquidto replenish my cup. Very prettily she did this, yet I gathered that itwas something which would have overwhelmed me with the honor if I hadunderstood. I did appreciate her service, and I tried to say so, but shesilenced me. 

"Never mind, one day you will understand how proud we are, that in ourown world and in our own society _you_ would be less than a worm. Yet Iserve you, who am more above you than a princess would be in your world. Thus does the world change about one, and one adjusts. But do not thinkof it. It must be, or some terrible thing like the Zoorph would seizeupon you here among us. "

I laughed a little, for I was sure she was telling a lie, to warn meagainst the "vamp" in the only words she could think of in the alientongue. 

Her face flushed deep red at my laughter, and she half rose as if toleave, but restrained her anger. 

"A Zoorph is worse than a disease, it has enervated my people until theyhave lost everything, and still they are among us. They are childrenraised by a secret cult on my own world, trained into strange practices. It is somewhat like a witch or sorcerer would be to you, but much, muchdifferent. You could not understand unless you were raised among us. When men are tired of life, they go to a Zoorph. It is not nice to speakof, what they are and what they do. To us, it is like death, only worse. Yet we have them, as ants have pets, as dogs have lice, as your peoplehave disease. It is a custom. It is a kind of escape from life andlife's dullness--but it is escape into madness, for the Zoorph has anart that is utter degradation, and few realize how bad they are for us. You must never go near her again!"

Days passed into weeks, and every day I learned a few words of the Zervlanguage, every day I picked up a little more insight into their utterlydifferent ways and customs and standards--their scale of values. It wasa process replete with surprises, with revelations, with newunderstanding of nature itself as seen through the alien eyes. 

I remained as a kind of semi-prisoner, tolerated because of Nokomee'sposition and her affection for me. Nokomee, I learned, was "of theblood, " though there were few surviving of her family to carry on thepower and prestige she would have inherited. Yet, she was "of the blood"and entitled to all the respect and obedience the Zervs gave even totheir old ruler. 

He was an attenuated skeleton of a man, with weary eyes and tremblinghands, and I grew more and more sure that the inactivity against theirusurpers visible in the valley beneath was due more to his age andtimorous nature than to any inability to turn the tables. They seemed tohold the "Schrees" in contempt, yet never took any action against them, so that I wondered if the contempt were justified or was an inherited, sublimated hatred. 

The supplies, rifles and ammunition which had been left on our horseswhen we entered the cavern of the golden image, had been brought toNokomee's cavern and locked in a small chamber before my eyes. It wasall there. As the time dragged on, I chafed at the inactivity, foughtagainst the barriers of language and alien custom that separated me fromthese people, struggled to overcome their indifference and their, to me, impossible waiting for _what_ I did not understand. 

Finally I could wait no longer. In the night, I burst the lock of thecloset with a bar, took out a rifle and . 45 and two belts of cartridges. I slid over the lip of the ledge that hid us from the city's eyes. I wasgoing to see for myself what we were hiding from, what we were waitingfor, was going to take my chances with the dangers in that place theyhad built and from which they now hid. I had pressed Nokomee forexplanations and promises of future participation in their life andactivities, and I had been refused for the last time! Like a runaway, Islid down the steep cliff face, putting as much space between the Zervsand myself as rapidly as I could. 

The night was dark as pitch. I had left Nokomee asleep in her chamber. Ihad avoided Holaf, who still kept a kind of amused watch over myactivities, and I was free. Free to explore that weird city of ploddinglives, of strange unexplained sounds, of ominously hidden activity!

Scrambling, sliding, worrying in the dimness, I finally reached the lessprecipitous slopes of the base of the cliff. As I stopped to get abearing on the direction of the city, above me came a slithering, a softfeminine exclamation, and down upon me came a perfumed weight, knockingme sprawling in the grass. 

My eyes quickly adjusted, I crawled to the dim shape struggling to herfeet. Her face was not Nokomee's, as I had at first thought. Thoseenormous shadowed eyes, that thin lovely nose, the flower-fragile lips, the mysterious allure--were the woman whom Nokomee had described as a"Zoorph" and whom she had both feared and despised. I spoke sharply inthe tongue of the Zervs. I had learned enough under Nokomee's tutelageto carry on a conversation. 

"Why do you follow me, Zoorph?"

"Because I am weary of being cooped up with those who do not trust me, just as you. I want to find a new, exciting thing; just as do you. Evenif it is death or worse, I want it. I am alive, as are you. "

I put down the dislike and distrust the girl Nokomee had aroused in meagainst her. Perhaps she _had_ been merely jealous of her. 

"Don't you _know_ what could happen in the city?" To me it was curiousthat she should want to go where the others feared to go. 

"I know no better than you what awaits there, and I do not believe whatthey have told me of the Schrees. They are not wholly human, but neitherare they evil wholly, as the Zervs suppose. "

"Why do the Zervs wait, instead of trying to do something forthemselves? They speak of the threat of these raiders, yet they do nottry to help me bring others of my people here to stop the threat theyspeak of so fearfully. I do not understand. "

"The old ruler thinks the ships will come and drive them off from hiscity. But he is wrong, they will never come. It is like waiting for themoon to fall. The raiders' ships will return, and they will be strongerthan ever. But not a ship of the Zervs remains in neighboring space tosuccor us. Yet he hopes, and his followers wait. It is foolish, and hecannot trust you or men like you to get help for him. He is too old tomeet new conditions and to understand. "

Few of the Zervs had shown the rapt interest in me and my people thatthis Zoorph had made so plain. I thought backward on how carefully sheand I had been kept apart since our first meeting, and I realized therewas more to it than Nokomee's words of anger. 

"What is a Zoorph, and what is your name? Why did Nokomee warn meagainst all Zoorphs?"

"A Zoorph is a member of a cult; a student of mysteries not understoodby the many. The others have a superstition about us, that we destroysouls and make others slaves to our will. It is stupid, but it is likeall superstitions--hard to disprove because so vague in nature. " Sheflickered impossible eyelashes at me languishingly, in perfect coquetry. "You don't think me dangerous to your soul, do you?"

I didn't. I thought her a very charming and talented woman, whom Iwanted to know much better. I said so, and she laughed. 

"You are wiser than I thought, to see through their lies. They are goodpeople, but like all people everywhere, they have their littleinsanities, their beliefs and their intolerances. "

Yet within me there was a little warning shudder borne of the strangepower of her eyes on my own, of the chill of the night, of many littlepast-observed strangenesses in her ways, in the fear the Zervs bore forher . .. I reserved something of caution. She saw this in my eyes andsmiled sadly, and that sad and understanding smile was perfectlycalculated to dispel my last doubt of her. I slid closer across thegrass, to lie beside her. 

"What could I gain by a knowledge of what lies in the city, Zoorph?" Iasked. 

"My name is _Carna_, stranger. In that city you can learn whether thereis danger for your people in what the Schrees plan on earth. We couldnot tell that, for we do not know enough about your own race'sabilities. You could steal a vehicle to take you to your own richcities. And as for me, I could go with you, to practice my arts in yourcities and become rich and famous. "

"What are your arts, Carna?"

"Nothing you would call spectacular, perhaps. I can read thought, I canforetell the future, and I can sometimes make things happen fortunately, if I try very hard. Such things, very unsubstantial arts, not like yourgun which kills. Subtle things, like making men fall in love with me, perhaps. "

She laughed into my eyes and I got abruptly to my feet. She was tellingthe truth in the last sentence, and I did not blame Nokomee for fearingher power. 

"Let us see, then, Carna, what the night can give us. I cannot waitforever for chance to bring me freedom. Come, " I bent and helped her toher feet, very pleasant and clinging her grasp on my arm, very soft andutterly smooth the flesh of her arm in my hand, very graceful and lovelyher swift movement to rise. My heart was beating wildly, she was a kindI understood, but could not resist any the better for knowing. Or was Iunkind, and she but starved for kindness and human sympathy, so longamong a people who disliked and feared her?

We walked along in the darkness, the distant moving lights of that citycloser each step, and a dread in my breast at what I would find there, adread that grew. Beside me Carna was silent, her face lovely and glowingin the night, her step graceful as a deer's. 

We circled the high wall of white marble keeping some twenty feet away, where the grass gave knee-high cover we could drop into instantly. Wecame around to the far side from the cliff, and stopped where a pavedhighway ran smooth, like pebbled glass, straight across the valley. Iglanced at Carna, she gestured toward the open gate in the wall, andsmiled a daring word. 

"In. .. ?"

"In!" I answered, and like two kids, hand in hand, we stole through theshadowed gateway, sliding quickly out of the light, standing with ourbacks to the wall, looking up the long, dim-lit way along which a myriaddark doorways told of life. But it was seemingly deserted. Carnawhispered softly:

"When it was ours, the night was gay with life and love, now--_it isdeath!_"

"Death or taxes, we're going to take a look. "

We stole along the shadowed side of the street, the moon was up, shedding much too bright a light now for comfort. Perhaps a hundredyards along that strange street we went, I letting the Zoorph lead theway, for I had an idea she must know the city and have some plan, or shewould not be here. If she meant to use me to escape into my world, I wasall for her. 

Then, from ahead, came the sound of feet, many of them in unison. Wedarted into a doorway, crouched behind a balustrade. Nearer came thefeet, and I peered between the interstices of the screening balustrade. The feet came on; slow, rhythmic, marching without zest or pause orbreak, perfection without snap. As the first marching figure came intosight in the moonlight, I shuddered to the core with something worsethan fear. 

For they were men who were no longer men! When Barto and Polter andNoldi had been carried off unconscious, Nokomee had told me:

"They are not my people. They go their way and we go ours. Time has madeus a people divided. Time, _and a cruel science_. "

These were the mole-men, the crab-men, the creatures built for specificpurposes as tools are built. Each _thing_ bore on his back a bale ofgoods, or a bar of metal, a burden sizeable enough for two ordinary men. They were strong, and they were silent and smooth-moving as machines. Irealized they _were_ machines--made out of flesh. 

"Are these slaves, or what?" I asked Carna. 

"These were once the slaves, or workmen of the race of Zervs. They nowserve the Schrees, for they are mindless, in a way. They are notimportant. It is those who guard and guide them I wait to see. I havenot yet seen a Schree, but only heard the Zervs describe them. "

The nightmare procession went on for minutes, long minutes that were tome a nightmare. Yet I realized that if I had been raised to the idea ofhumankind made into machines, it would not be revolting--not after theyhad been hereditarily moulded for centuries into what they were. Yetwhat a crime it was, what they might have been if left to develop asnature intended, rather than as man cruelly mal-intended. They must havebeen once specially selected for strength as well as beauty, for aboutthem was a sad and terrible grace, a remainder of noble chiseling ofbrow and nostril, distorted as by a fiend into the horror that itwas--these had once been a noble race!

"Do you feel the terrible horror of this sight?" I asked Carna. 

"Always I have felt the horror that was done to them in the past. It is_still_ done to man. Look, there are the three who came with you, andfell into the hands _of the priests_. They are the thing that the Zervs_really fear_, yet they live with it, and have done so for centuries. They can despise the Schrees, but they are as bad themselves--look!"

I followed with my eye her pointing finger. Yes, that figure _was_hulking Barto, and I almost yelled "Jake, snap out of it!" before Iremembered my own peril. 

Then he came into the full light, and passed not twenty feet away. Ileaned against the railing of stone, sick as a dog and retching. Theyhad made him over, with some unknown aborted science of an evil world!Jake was clubfooted, lumbering, with his jaws grown into great jowls ofbone, his arms elongated and ending in hooks. Two of the fingers, or thethumb and finger had been enlarged or grafted into a bone-like semblanceof a crab's claw. What he was going to be when they got through, Ididn't know, but neither did Jake. He didn't know anything! He clumpedalong, his crossed eyes unmoving, his back bent with a weight heavy foreven his broad shoulders--a man no longer, but a mindless zombie. Across-eyed zombie!

I cursed silently, tearing my hands against the stone as I resisted theimpulse to fire and fire again upon those hopping, thin, white thingsthat came after. 

"Just _what_ are those hopping things?"

"They are a separate race, who have lived with both Zervs and withSchrees. They are a part of our life. You have dogs, horses, machines. We have _Jivros_--that is, priests--and we have the workmen we callShinros, and too, we have the Zoorphs!" She laughed a little as I staredat her. "Do not worry, the Zoorphs are not really so different. But theSchrees and Shinros _are_ different. "

"Damned, beastly, demoniac life it must be. "

"To you, who expect things to be like your knowledge tells you it mustbe. To us, it is our way. For a Zerv, or for a Schree, it is a good way. The Jivros do the supervisory work, the Shinros do the hard work, andthe Schrees take it easy and enjoy life. Why do you have machines?"

"Machines are not alive. That is different. "

"Neither are the Shinros alive, they only seem so. They do not know whatthey have lost--it is much as if they had died. 

"But come, I must show you where we can get a ship to take us away fromthis and into your world. I have a life to live, I want to _live_ it!You--have a message to deliver to your people, or they will become theShinros of the whole race of Schrees. I do not like to think what canhappen to your world!"

I followed her again on our furtive way among the shadows. She wasswift and sure, and made good time. She knew where she was going. It wasa broad open space deep within the city. On three sides were wide closeddoors like hangar doors. The fourth was a massive structure of rosegranite, beetling above us, a monstrous shape in the dimness, throwing ashadow half across the paved space. We raced across the shadow towardthe nearest doorway, flattened against it, listening for life inside. Carna worked on the catch of the door, after a second slid the dooraside slowly, carefully. Inside I could see a shimmering smoothness, round, higher than my head, a top-shaped object. I guessed that this wasthe ship she meant to steal from the Schrees. Suddenly the door she wassliding open scraped, and emitted a shrill, high-pitched sound. I didnot know if it was an alarm activated by the opening door or just ruston the rails and wheels of the door mechanism. Carna cried:

"Hurry, get into the ship, we must take off at once. They will come;they must have heard that sound!"

I ducked into the darkness, circled the bulging shape, looking for anopening. Smooth, there seemed no way I could find. 

"Here it is, help me open it, " Carna panted behind me. 

I leaped to her side. She was twisting at an inset handle around whichfaint lines indicated the door edge. I pulled her aside, took hold ofthe handle, twisted hard. It bent, then gave, and the door swung easilyopen in my hands. We tumbled in. Carna raced through the first chamber, and even as I got the door closed, the floor lifted under my feeteasily, drifted out of the wide doorway, shot upward so quickly I wasthrown to the floor. I lay there, the increasing acceleration pressingme hard against the cool metal. After a time I struggled up, made my wayto the woman's side. 

Ahead was the moonlit range of mountains. Carna was setting a coursestraight along the ridge of them, heading southward. 

"How far will this thing fly?" I asked. 

"It will fly around your world many times, if I want it to. "

"What kind of fuel does it use?" I asked incredulously. 

"I don't know what that is. It uses a substance we call Ziss. It is agood fuel. "

"It must be!"

I looked back along the ridge of the mountain's top toward the valley wehad left. We were in a bubble on the top of the flat, circular ship; onecould see in any direction. Back there a series of glowing round shapesshot upward, came after us in a long curve that would bring them aheadof us on our course. Carna changed her course to parallel the pursuit, and they changed again, to intercept her new direction. Again shechanged, circling farther west. 

But it was no use! Rapidly they overhauled us. 

"Can't you get more speed out of it?" I shouted at her, for they werevery close. 

"We have been unlucky, my friend. This ship is not in good shape. Thereis something wrong with it. I cannot make it go as it should, or thereis something I do not know. .. . "

Swiftly they came up with us, over us, and beams of light shot from themdown upon us. The ship was held now, rigid. One could feel theacceleration cease. Like a bird on a string we followed as they swungback toward the valley. Minutes later we were being lowered into theopen space we had just left. I clicked the safety off my rifle, loosened the gun in my holster. I covered the door, shielding myselfbehind the round shape of a machine. But Carna put a hand on my weapon, shook her head. 

"If you kill some of them, they will make of you a Shinro. If you submitmeekly, it may be I can talk to someone and save you. I have ways. Iunderstand them. They will be glad to get me, and I will tell them _you_know many things they need to know. I can save your life. Later we cantry again, in another ship. Next time we will not be so unlucky. "

It sounded like sense, and I looked into her deep eyes searchingly. Shemeant well. Perhaps she could do what she said. I did not know thesealiens; she was almost one of them. 

As the door opened in the side, I lay the rifle down, stood with crossedarms as the thin, hopping horrors came near. 

These things had _never_ been men. They had faces that were empty offeatures, just flat, shiny, gray eyes, two holes where they breathed, nomouth that I could see. There was a long neck around which the collar oftheir white robe was gathered in folds. Their hands were horny, like aninsect's claws. They were not human, they were only four-limbed, andwalked--or hopped--in an erect position. There the resemblance ceased. 

They led us out, Carna rattling off a series of sounds I could hardlyfollow. Something about:

"We had to flee from the Zervs, we did not believe you would take us in, we had to steal a ship. I am Carna, a Zoorph of the first grade, andthis man is a native of the United States, the greatest country of thisearth. Do not harm him, he can help you if he wishes. "

Her words must have had quite an effect, for the weird, insect-like menexamined me with their eyes as we hurried along, across the hangarspace, into the big building of rose granite. Within twenty minutes wewere entering a tremendous room, and Carna nudged me. 

"Their boss, Carl! Look impressed. "

It was easy to look impressed. I _was_ mightily impressed by the _She_on the throne!

 * * *

I had no eyes for the score or so of Schrees that surrounded the massivecarved chair, even though I was curious about their difference from men. Above them were her sleepy eyes, wide almonds, molten and wise, incandescent with intense inner fire above a mouth that was a wide, scarlet oval torn into the whitely-glowing face. 

A great black pelt softened the harsh lines of the throne, framed herchalk-white body so that it curved starkly sensual, dominating the greatchamber with beauty. It was a beauty one knew this woman used as a tool, a weapon, keen and polished and ready, and it struck at me swift as agreat serpent, the fires behind her eyes driving the blow. 

She wore a kind of sark of shadowy black veil, sewn over with sparklingbits of gem. It was in truth but an effective ornament for the proudfirm breasts, the narrow waist, the arch of the hips and the curves ofher thighs. Inadvertently I let out a low whistle of approbation andastonishment. Carna, beside me, nudged me sharply, and I snapped out ofit. 

The purple, lazy lids of her eyes moved, the slow weary-wise gazecentered on me, her hand moved. In two strides a man from thethrone-side had me by the arm, and another seized my other, tugged meforward to her feet, thrust me down on my knees. Still, I looked. Curiosity and something more held me in a grip I couldn't shake. 

This was more than a woman, I sensed. There was an awe of her throbbingin me. Not fear--something deeper, something one feels before theunexplainable, something one feels gazing at the moon and wondering; anominous, deep, thrilling and unexplainable emotion. 

Closer, I could see her firm flesh was dusted over with a glitteringpowder, the soft curves of her hair swept back to mingle and losethemselves in the black fur of the pelt so that the night-black hairseemed to spread everywhere about her and melt into the shadows. 

Her hands were sinuous as serpents, the fingers tapering, the nails verylong like the Chinese. Her nose was exquisite, but thin-edged, and witha cruel line on each side that vanished when she spoke. 

"It is death to strangers in this valley. .. . " she mused, not speaking tome or to anyone, but with a cruel intent to toy with me in the words, mocking, waiting for me to answer. 

"I have been long on the way, " I answered, in much the same tone, asthough we were speaking of some one not present. 

"The way to death is sometimes long, and sometimes short. And, too, there are things worse than death. But what was it you came hereseeking?"

"I did not know, until just now, " I answered, still looking at her eyes, which glanced at me, then away, then back again. She was interested inspite of her apparent weariness with routine--or perhaps with lifeitself. 

"Now that you know, will you tell me?" She smiled a little, not a goodsmile, but a secret jest with herself. An appearance of extreme evil satfor a moment on her face, then went again, like the wind. Her voice wasgrave, careless, yet modulated with an extreme care as if she spoke to achild. 

"I seek the wisdom I see in your eyes, to know what is and why itwearies you. I want to know a great many things, about your people andwhat they do here, what they mean to mine, what your plans may be--agreat many things I need now. "

The sleepiness left her eyes, and she bent toward me with the grace of agreat cat and the shadows circling her eyes lifted a little. Wise, aloof, indifferent, yet she did not know what I was, or what I meant, and she meant to find out. 

"So you know. .. . " she mused, as if to herself. 

"I know you are from space. I know it has been a long long time sinceyou first touched here; your people, that is. I know that you drove theZervs from this city and took it for your own. But that is all. "

"It is too much. You cannot leave here. " Her voice was sharp, and I wassurprised to learn that she had even considered letting me go free. Itwas encouraging, after the dire pictures the Zervs and Nokomee had drawnfor me of these Schrees. 

I looked curiously at them, the Zervs had called them "not human. " They_were_ different, as a negro is different from a white, or an Orientalfrom a Finn. Their eyes were wide-set and a little prominent, their earsthinner and smaller, their necks very long and supple--different stillfrom the Zervs. Yet they were a human race. I had misunderstood--or Ihad not yet met those whom the Zervs called Schree. 

Carna had knelt beside me, and I murmured to her:

"Are these the Schrees, or something else?"

"These are the high-class Schrees, they are very like the Zervs inappearance. The other classes of the Schrees at sometime in the pastwere changed by medical treatments into a different appearance. It was away of fixing the caste system permanently--understand?" She answered meswiftly, in a whisper, and the woman on the throne frowned as shenoticed our conversation. 

Her eyes fixed ours as she said, with a curiously excited inflection, nolonger bored with us: "Take these two to the place of questioning. Iwill supervise the proceeding. I must know what these two intended here, whether others of this man's people understand us. "

"We're in for it!" said Carna, and I knew what she meant. Jerked to ourfeet, we were hurried from the big throne room, down a corridor, througha great open door which closed behind us. 

That place! It was a laboratory out of Mr. Hyde's nightmares. 

Up until now I had accepted the many divergencies and peculiarities ofthe Zervs, the priestly insect-men, the monstrous workers--all thevariance of this colony from space--as only to be expected of anotherplanet's races. I had consciously tried to resist the impact of horroron my mind, had tried to put it aside as a natural reaction and onewhich did not necessarily mean that this expedition from space was ahorrible threat to men. I had tried to accept their ways as notnecessarily monstrous, but as a different way of life that _could_ be asgood a way as our own if I once understood it. There were attractivepoints about the Zervs and even about these Schrees' rulers which boreout this impulse toward tolerance in me. 

But in this laboratory--or _abattoir_--some nameless, ominous aura orsmell or electric force--what it was I know not--struck at my alreadystaggering understanding with a final blow. 

Now at last I met the real Schrees! I knew without asking. They seemedto me to be an attempt by the peculiar insect-like "priests" to makefrom normal men a creature more like themselves in appearance. Perhapsit had been done from the natural urge to have about them beings morelike themselves than men . .. And it was plain that the race of theinsect-like creatures and of men had become inextricably linked--becomea social unity in the past. It was also increasingly plain that thefour-limbed insect creatures had in the beginning been the culturedrace, been the fathers of the science and culture of this race, hadthrough the centuries lost their dominance to the Zervs and the Schree'supper classes--had retained the "priest" role as their own place insociety. It was perhaps at that time that their science had brought theSchree type into existence. There were perhaps a hundred of them at workin the big chamber--a chamber bewilderingly filled with hanging surgicalnon-glare lights, filling the place with a shadowless illumination, revealing great, gurgling bottles of fluid with tubes and gleaming metalrods; pulsing elastic bulbs; throbbing little pumps, with row on row ofgauges and dials and little levers along the walls. 

There were a score of ominous-looking operating tables, some occupied, some empty, about them gathered group after group of white-maskedSchrees. These were taller than men, near seven feet, with very bonyarms and legs, a skeletal structure altered into attenuation, withhigh, narrow skulls, great liquid eyes, no brows, hairless skullsshowing bare and pointed above the white surgical masks. 

Very like the Jivro caste, yes, but different as men are different frominsect. They walked with a long graceful stride, not hopping as thepriests' class. Their eyes were mournful and liquid with a dog-likesoftness, their hands were snake-quick and long, they looked likesad-faced ghouls busy about the dismemberment of a corpse--a corpse ofsomeone they had loved, and they appearing very sad about the necessity. Such was their appearance; mournful, ghoulish, yet human and warm in arepressed, frustrated way. 

The tall, sad-eyed Schrees turned from the preparation of two rigs likedental chairs, except that they were not that at all, but only similarlysurrounded with gadgetry incomprehensible to me. We had stood isolated, waiting, with four guards between us and the door. 

As we were each placed in one of these chairs, our wrists and anklesfastened with straps of metal, I expected almost any horrible torture tobe inflicted upon us. 

They shot a beam of energy through my head and I heard words, sentences, a rapid expounding of alien grammar and pronunciation which sank deepinto my brain. My memory was being ineradicably written upon with allthe power needed to make of me whatever they wanted. But apparentlytheir only purpose now was to give me a complete understanding of theirlanguage. An hour, two, swept by, and now the heretofore almostunintelligible gibberish about me became to my ears distinct andunderstandable words. I was now acquainted with the tongue of theSchrees, far better than little Nokomee had taught me the somewhatdifferent tongue of the Zervs. 

Then they wrapped about my waist and chest a strong net of metal mesh, and I knew that now something strenuous was going to occur, for I couldnot move a muscle because of the complete wrapping of metal mesh. 

Now a metal disk was set to swinging in front of my nose so that I couldnot see what they were doing to my companion. I watched the metal disk, and saw behind it the tall swaying figure of the Queen enter andapproach. She stopped a few feet from my chair, and her eyes were intentupon me. Then a light flashed blindingly in the reflecting disk, it wentback and forth faster and faster, and I felt a strong vibration ofenergy pass in a beam through my head, throbbing, throbbing . .. Darknessengulfed me. It was a darkness that was a black whirlwind of emotion. The sense of the desertion by humankind, by God and mercy andrationality swept through me and overwhelmed my inner self. I will neverforget the utter agony of shrieking pain and loss that formed a whirlingocean of darkness into which I dived. .. . 

In this maelstrom of seeming destruction I lost all grip, had no will, was at sea mentally. Into this shrieking hurricane of madness a calmvoice intruded. I recognized a familiar note--it was the ruler herself, her voice no longer bored, but with a cruel curiosity that I knew meantto be satisfied if it killed me. 

"Tell me what your people intend to do about the flying saucers theyspeak of in their newspapers?"

"They do not believe they exist; they are told they are delusions, " Iheard myself answering. I was surprised to hear my voice, for it camewith no conscious volition on my part. 

"That is for the public; that is a lie. But what do the powers behindthe scenes intend to do about them?"

"They are searching for them, to learn all they can about them. They donot understand where they come from, but they have some information. They suspect they are from space, and are afraid of them. "

"And they sent you here to learn what you could. They brought you thegolden statuette to help you gain an entry, did they not?"

I tried to resist the impulse to tell the truth, for I could realizethat if she thought I had the power of my government behind me, my fatemight be different than if I did not. I tried to say "yes, they sentme, " but I could not! I answered like an automaton:

"No, my government has no knowledge of my expedition. I came purely toget gold and for no other reason. Mining is my business. "

She gave a little exclamation of frustration. Then after a pause sheasked:

"Do you think our way of life and your own could live together in peace, could grow to be one?"

Again I made futile efforts to hide my revulsion and fear of them all. It was no use. The flood of force pouring through my head was moreeffective than any truth serum. 

"No, to me you are horrors, and my people would never consent to live atpeace with you. You could never conquer us. Until the last of ourcultured members were dead they would resist the horrible practices ofyour culture. "

"That is as I surmised, " she mused. "But I would have you tell me whythis is so. What is it you find so revolting about us. "

"What have you done to my companions? Do you think men want that tohappen to them?"

"That was a punishment for entering here without permission. That wouldnot happen to any but enemies. "

"Men could never accept the altering of the shapes of workers, thetinkering with the hereditary form of their children, the artificialgrafting upon our race of revolting and unnecessary form changes. Yourwhole science is a degeneration of wisdom into evil, tampering with lifeitself. You are horrors, and you do not know it. "

I could hear her steps as she turned and left, tapping angrily upon thefloor. After her I could hear the shuffling, heavier tread of herretinue. As the flood of vibration ceased, I began to curse aloud forthe undiplomatic truths I had been forced to utter. In seconds my armswere free, and I was led out, a tall grim-faced guard on each side, witha firm grip on my arms. I wondered what was happening to the lovelyZoorph, but I did not get a chance to look. I was thrown into a cell, and the heavy wooden door shut. The thud of a bar dropped in placepunctuated the evening's experience with a glum finality. 

 * * *

I lay for hours with my mind in a whirl from the effects of the truthray. Jivros, or insect-priests, moved phantom-like before my sleeplesseyes, watching from the dark and waiting. Gradually my thinking becamemore normal, and I began a systematic analysis and summing up of what Ihad learned of these people. There were but a few members of the rulinggroups, and it was evident the rule was split between the Jivro caste ofthe insect men and some normal-appearing groups who had divided thepower with them in the past. Under these were the Schrees, and underthese the malformed working caste or castes. The Schrees had contactwith some space-state, the Zervs were outcasts of the ruler caste whohad been driven from that space-state--perhaps more than oneplanet--sometime in the past and had hid out upon earth until recentlylocated by the power that ruled on their home planets. Now they werefugitive and nearly powerless, and I knew the Zervs were few in numberfrom my own observation. There were perhaps a hundred, perhaps twohundred. They had contact with some of the Jivros with whom they werefamiliar, but the appearance of Jake and Noldi and Polter among theworkmen in the city told me that these Jivros could be traitors to them, could be giving new allegiance to the conquerors of the Zervs. My mindcentered on two facts. The Jivro caste were the real source of the evilin these people. It was their unnatural attitude toward human life whichhad made this race the horror it was, and they were still exercisingthat evil influence. 

Morning came through a high barred window, and after a while food came, slid beneath the door. I did not see the bearer of the food, though Icalled out in curiosity. He did not answer, only shuffled wearily away. 

The morning crawled past, the sun mounted until I could see the goldenorb near zenith. Then came what I dreaded, the tread of a number offeet. The bar was lifted; I saw four armed guards and a waitingwhite-robed Jivro, his protruding pupiless eyes moving as he ran hisgaze over my figure. I could not help shrinking from the horror of hisexamination, brief though it was, for I realized he might be decidingjust what freak of nature he could make out of me. 

I was marched out, down the corridor, up a long ramp, a turn, along twoother corridors, up another ramp. The tour ended before a wide metaldoor, the guards spaced themselves at each side, the door was opened bythe agile, hopping Jivro. I went in ahead of it. 

There were but four beings in the room, and I stood before the long, foot-high table behind which the four reclined upon cushioned couches. 

They were four divergent creatures. One was the queen, whose name I hadyet to hear spoken. One was a very old Jivro, his skin ash-white andcovered with a repulsive scale, like leprosy. The third was amournful-eyed Schree, clad in an ornamented smock-like garment, fromwhich his thin limbs thrust grotesquely. The fourth was a handsome, long-necked male who resembled the queen. He lounged negligently somedistance from the three, as if in attendance upon her. I deduced he washer paramour, husband or close relative, perhaps a brother. 

I stood eyeing them silently, waiting. I gathered the three heads of thegovernment were here, and the extra one represented the balance of powerin the hands of the queen. His negligent lack of interest seemed to meto be an evident giving of his voice to the queen, if he was a part ofthis gathering. 

The queen's voice had lost its sleepy, mocking tones, was sharp, incisive:

"You present a problem new to us, earthman. Sooner or later, if wedecide to remain upon this planet permanently, we will have to meet andconquer, or meet and engage in commerce with the other members of yourrace. You are the first educated member of your race who has fallen intoour hands. We must study your people, and we would like your willingcooperation. Will you give it willingly? Or must we put you to death?Which would perhaps symbolize, even indicate directly, our futureattitude toward your races. "

"I am quite willing, " I said, before I had a chance to bungle it worse, "quite willing to exchange information on your people for the same aboutmy own. However, I doubt that your people will find this planetcongenial to an invader who ignores the natives as you have done. "

"We did not come here to colonize, earthman. We came in pursuit ofrenegades from our law, fugitives who fled when their plots wereuncovered. But we are considering the possibility of a permanent colonyhere, and you could help us. .. . "

For an instant her eyes dwelt upon mine with a peculiar warningexpression, as evident as a wink, and the expression was evanescent as abreath. I caught on, and made my face agreeable and subservient. Immediately her own reassumed a harsh, proud set, her voice became evenmore incisive and cold. 

My eyes drifted casually to the blank, cold stare of the old Jivro, tothe mournful liquid eyes of the Schree, on to the apparentlydisinterested gaze of the queen's friend. The only ominous feeling I gotwas from the eyes of the aged insect-man, and my deduction that theywere the source of the evils of these people was strengthened. Thechills ran down my back, and something within me thrilled as Iunderstood that this queen was playing a part to please the Jivros, thather interests were actually divergent. Her voice was saying:

"You could help us greatly by explaining your life to us, who are sodifferent; make it possible that in the future trade and culturalintercourse might spring up between the two alien ways of life. Therewill be no peace without understanding, you realize!"

"I quite agree with your views, and will help you in any way that Ican, " I said loudly, for the old Jivro seemed to be hearing withdifficulty. He leaned back at my words, seemed to relax as if pleased. 

The queen turned to her companion, smiled and said:

"Genner, you will see that he is taken care of as a guest, and endeavorto learn what you can from him. I will hold you responsible for thesuccess of this experiment. "

"Very well, " Genner murmured, "but it seems to me, Wananda Highest, thatwe can never allow the wall of secrecy between ourselves and the peopleof this planet to be breached. To consider doing otherwise . .. " for aninstant his eye hesitated upon hers, then he went on, ". .. Could hardlybe logical, but of course, there is much we could learn from them, andthey from us. That, I see, as the only purpose of this exception. "

Just then a great hullabaloo broke out in the corridors outside, thedoor burst open, and into the room three captives were borne, half-carried, half-pushed. I stood back out of the way, and the threewere prodded into a row in front of the low table. Among them Irecognized with a start my erstwhile guard, Holaf, of the Zervs. 

Wananda leaned forward, her eyes glittering with sudden triumph, hervoice thrilling with a cruel mocking note. 

"More of the skulking Zervs fail to avoid our warriors! Where did youfind them, Officer?"

"They were attempting to release the captive Croen female in the crystalprison of the cave of the Golden statue, your highness. Our spies amongthe Zervs informed us of the attempt. "

Wananda's eyes blazed at Holaf. Her voice became more shrill withsomething almost like fear. The three men shrank back visibly from herfury. 

"So it is not enough you plot treason, you must also turn against yourGods? You know the Croen powers, you know what she would do to us all, you included. But so that you can overcome the Schrees, nothing else toyou is sacred, nothing too vile for you to do. Away with them, let thembecome the least among the mindless men. "

The tall Schree warriors, their long faces expressionless, started tohustle the three captives toward the door again. Holaf wrenched free, turned, his face contorted with hatred. 

"You have hounded us until we are but few, Wananda the Faithless, butyou will never conquer us. We still have your doom in our hands, and itwill find you out. Death to you, woman without mercy, creature withoutsoul! These sacred Jivros plot your downfall, and your people pray thatthey will succeed. The ancient Jivro rule would be better than thejustice you administer, you snake in a woman's flesh!"

The Schree holding Holaf's arms let go, tugged a weapon from his belt, struck Holaf over the head with it. He slumped unconscious, with bloodrunning over his face from the blow. The three were taken out, andWananda leaned back. Seeing my intent face, she waved a hand to hercompanion, Genner, who rose to his feet and motioning to me, preceded mefrom the room by another door than that which I had entered. I followedhim. 

Apparently I was on my honor, for no guard followed, and Genner bore noweapons I could see but a little jeweled dagger in his belt. 

As he walked a step ahead of me, I asked:

"Who is this Croen that Holaf spoke of, in the crystal column. I sawher, wondered at her, in the room of the golden goddess. Why do theythink she could be released?"

"The Croen are a powerful race of wizards, Carlin Keele. They live faroff from our home planets in space, and they have a code of conduct thatmakes them monitors, doctors, interferers in all matters of other races'business. If she were released, she would at once attempt to overthrowour power, to set up a state after the Croen pattern. It is their way. They consider themselves as superior to all others, and they do have aknowledge of nature which they use to impose their will upon allpeoples. They are worshipped as Gods by many primitive people, and soconsider themselves above all laws but their own. She was captured manyyears ago in an attempt to overthrow the rule of Wananda upon a smallsatellite planet. Wananda did not kill her, but placed her in suspendedanimation within the protective crystal plastic. Our queen intends torevive her and study her mind for her wisdom, but we have not had timebecause of the press of events. Soon, now, she will become a tool in ourhands to build greater the eminence of Wananda. "

"Peculiar looking creature, yet attractive, " I murmured. 

"The Croens are physically beautiful, but they are warlike and cruel, they do not desire peace and the way of life of the Schrees and Jivrosis an irritant to them. They hate and despise us, and we return them thefavor. "

I did not reply, but my heart seemed to throb in sympathy with the Zervattempt to free the beautiful creature from her living tomb. 

"Could she turn the tables for the Zervs if they had succeeded?"

"I really don't know, " answered Genner, opening a door and motioning meinto the apartment. "These are my quarters. There is plenty of room, theplace is usually empty of all but slaves. I seldom sleep here myself, preferring more congenial and less lonesome sleeping accommodations. Ithink you will find it comfortable. I will see you at the evening mealtime. "

As I walked in, the door closed and I heard the lock click. I was a"guest" with reservations. 

Curiously I examined the place, the unreadable books kept in nichesbehind transparent sections of the wall, the strange furnishings, atonce exotic and comfortless to me. The books I could not get at, findingno way to open the transparent panels which seemed an integral part ofthe wall. I could not feel comfortable in the seats and lounges, as theywere very low, requiring an oriental squat at which I am not adept. Icompromised by stretching out along a hard couch raised some six inchesabove the floor. There were no gadgets to tinker with, the place was tome barren of necessary appurtenances . .. Strange people, indeed. 

As I was dozing off, the lock clicked in the door, and I sat up, startled to see Wananda glide in and close the door quickly behind her. She was alone, and there was something furtive about her. 

"Welcome to my abode, beautiful one. "

The woman smiled, an almost human smile; reserved, yet with anunexpected warmth. I waited with intense curiosity for her explanationof her visit. 

"I come to you for aid, for I can talk to none of my own. I am introuble which perhaps no one but you could remedy. Will you give me yourhonor, will you do what I ask without question, will you be my friend?"

I was taken aback that this apparently powerful personage should beseeking aid of me, a prisoner. I answered:

"I see no reason why you should not trust me, as I know no one here tobetray you to. But are you not the supreme power here? Why should youwant my aid?"

"Because you do not understand my position does not mean that I am notin trouble. These Jivros are difficult allies for one with blood in herveins. I was raised to be a ruler. The Jivro priests were my tutors andmy administrators before I came of age. It is only reluctantly they havefollowed the orders from the rulers of our home planets to obey me. Theyintend to slay me, and report my death as an accident. I live in fear, and I have long awaited their treachery. There is but one hope for meand that is Cyane, the Superior One whom I saved only by enclosing herin that living coffin. That is what I ask of you--to succeed where theZervs have failed, and to release her and guide her in flight from here. She can lead your people, save them from these monstrous Jivros who havemade of my race the things which you see. I would save your people aswell as myself. Will you try to release her?"

I leaned back against the cushions, crossed my legs, took out my pipe. This was not exactly a surprise, but I had not realized the rift betweenher and the peculiar insect-men was such as to cause her to fear for herlife. 

"How does one release a person from such a death?" I asked. "In mypeople's understanding of life, death comes with the stopping of thebreath. "

"She can be released by an injection of a stimulant which I can obtainfor you. She is not dead, but in a condition very near to death, like aspider stung by a wasp. If she were free, she would soon scour yourearth clean of the Jivros. Our race needs her even more than your own, yet I must pretend to be her enemy. I must pretend to be yourseductress, and worm from you the knowledge which the Jivros will use toconquer and enslave your planet and your people. I must play this part, unnatural to me, of a cruel and heartless ruler, or they will have mekilled by some subtle poison which they will call illness. You see, theJivros are our doctors. Much of the wisdom of our race is in theirhands. They are our priests and our administrators. They leave to usonly useless occupations which will not allow us to be dangerous. Forcenturies they have been taking over every vital function of our life. Iam allowed to live only so long as I am a willing tool, and foolishenough to wreak their evil will upon my people. It is a part I cannotcontinue to play. Every instinct of my being shrinks from what I amforced to order done daily, from what I am forced to allow them to do tohuman beings. "

This was a different kettle of fish than I had expected. This slender, lovely creature, with her hands wrung together in pain and sorrow forher brutally maltreated people, this tear-streaked lovely face contortedwith an agony which she had not spoken of to anyone else--this actresssupreme, who for all her life had pretended to approve of the alienJivro's sabotage of her own racial stock--was a heart-rending picture, and her own face told me with its extreme tension that what she said wasa fact. But perhaps this alien from space _could_ act that well? Ipreferred to believe her. 

"I don't see how you expect me to get a chance to release Cyane of hercrystal coffin? I will have no opportunity. "

"I will _make_ an opportunity. I am not yet alone or helpless, much asthe insects would like me to be. This is my only power, that I am thesame blood as the people, and not a Jivro. They know that, andconstantly try to destroy this strength of mine by making me commitcruelties which I cannot always avoid for fear of such of them as theold Jivro whom you met at the council. So long as I retain his favor, Ilive. When he raises his finger in the death signal, my days will be fewthereafter. "

"I think I understand your position. I have heard of puppet rulersbefore--woman whom I am delighted to learn has a human heart after all. I am wholly with you, and want you to feel that you can trust me to thehilt. "

She smiled and dried her eyes. After a moment she leaned forward, andthe glory of her beauty, the near nudity of her utterly graceful bodystruck at me as she fixed my eyes with her own, her face now intent withwill to make me completely understand quickly what she knew must be veryobscure to me. 

"The Jivros fear the power of Cyane, the Croen captive, as they feardeath! The Croens have fought to destroy their power for centuries, onmany planets in our area of space. Cyane is one of their greatest. Sheis a scientist of vast wisdom, and one who has developed a technique ofincreasing the vitality of life within herself, as well as in anyone shechooses to favor. You could well win from her such gifts, if you shouldrelease her. It is one reason I wish to release her, in order to winfrom her that secret of long life which she holds. The Croens aremasters of warfare and she would be able, with only a little help, todevelop an attack which they could not withstand. "

"If they are so powerful, how is it they have not defeated the Jivros?"

"The Jivros are a very ancient, very widespread race. The Croens cameinto our space-area recently, as time goes, only three centuries by yourtime. They were lost. There were only a few hundred in a great ship, andthey settled upon a small uninhabited and airless satellite of our homeplanet, were there for many years before they were discovered. When theJivros attacked them to destroy them, they found in spite of theirinnumerable ships and countless warriors they could not harm them. Buttheir attacks angered the superior ones, and they began a campaign ofextermination against the insect men's empire. Since the Croen werefew, they began to recruit from among the Zervs and other groups whowere subservient to the Schrees. The Schrees were the ancient tools ofthe Jivros, and have always held positions as tributary rulers, sincethe insect-men themselves found subject peoples obeyed the Schrees morereadily. They have always kept the priest-like power and, by poisoningand other devices, remove any Schree puppet who displeases them. "

"Go on, " I said huskily, her rapt face and intent manner, her utterlylovely ivory body, glittering everywhere with the shining powder whichshe used, the subtle penetrative scent of her--I was hard put toconcentrate upon her words. 

"I plan to have the crystal pillar opened, perhaps, have Cyane broughtto my own chambers, and I will pretend to set up apparatus to read hersleeping mind and so learn from her. Naturally the Jivros will becomesuspicious of me if I do so, as they fear the knowledge of the Croenwhich has always proved too great for them. There will be but a few daystime between my action in bringing her here, and my own death or herconfiscation by the Jivros. But in order to overrule me in this, theywill have to make a pretext, charge me with infidelity, convince the oldJivro that I intend harm to him and his. During that time you must finda way to release Cyane and escape with her. "

"Why don't you yourself release her and escape with her?" I asked. 

"Because I can be useful to her when she attacks us. Besides, I amconstantly under the Jivro eyes, and they know me so well they would seemy perturbation, they would know something was wrong and forestall me. You alone could do it, and, too, I depend upon your alien knowledge toprovide a barrier or two to their overcoming you. Your weapons which youbore when we captured you--do they fear them?"

"I never shot any of them; I don't know. "

"Perhaps I will send you with the party to get Cyane. That way you canfind a chance to inject the stimulant when they are not looking. Theymust remove the crystal from about her to move her; it is too heavy tocarry otherwise. Then when she awakes, you can find a way to diverttheir pursuit, provide a false trail. Do you understand?"

"I could try, but I cannot tell if I could outwit them or not. "

"They are really very stupid things, the Jivros. Like an insect, theirpatterns are fixed and repetitive. They are almost incapable of originalthought. Once you know them, you can always outwit them. With you willgo my brother, Genner. He may be successful where you are not. "

"It is agreed then. " I stood up; this low couch made my knees stiff. Shetook my movement as a dismissal of her, and flushed deeply. I smiled ather embarrassment, and went down on one knee to bring my face level withhers where she half reclined on the bench-like lounge. 

"Dear lady, " I said in English, not finding the necessary Schree wordsin my artificial memory for a term of respect--then in Schree phrases, "I will do my utter best to help you and your people. It is my duty tomy own race, too, as it is yours to yours. Trust me, so far as good-willmay go. Together, we will rid ourselves of these unclean Jivros ofyours!"

She rose then, and I stood too, still holding her hand that I had seizedin my own to impress her with my sincerity. For an instant she lookedat our two hands clasped together, then she placed an arm on myshoulder, leaning against me and trembling slightly with emotion. Tearssprang out in her eyes. She brushed them aside. 

I did not know what to do. For fear of offending her, I restrained theimpulse to take her in my arms, and it took great willpower. 

Something about her aroused my deepest admiration. Here was a woman whohad been playing a difficult part for years, whose heart was sore withsorrow for her blighted people, and who must yet seem to approve. Thesigns of long strain were very plain on her face. I understood that thiswas one of her greatest fears, that her mind would give way and betrayher true emotions to the Jivros. 

Clumsily I patted her bare shoulder. For an instant her wet cheek waspressed against my own, then she went gliding swiftly away, her faceonce again proud and empty of all human feeling. At the door she turned, swept her palm once over her face, removing the tears and as the handpassed upward she smiled as sweetly as a young girl, with a pathetic andutterly charming mischievous expression. Then the palm passed downward, and her face was left again stiff and masklike, the lips twisted alittle into a cruel thinness, her eyes hard as agates on my own. She wassuperb, and I silently applauded. Then she was gone. 

As I stood there, musing on the nature and the strange life of Wananda, a mocking, sultry laugh made me whirl, for I had thought I was alone. 

Standing beside the tall, open window--a window I had examined and foundimpossible of exit because beneath it was a straight drop of someseventy or eighty feet--was my erstwhile companion and prisoner, theZoorph, Carna!

Still in her hand was the long, fantastically ornamented drape behindwhich she had been concealed during my "secret" interview with thepuppet queen. 

"You!" I exploded. "Where did you come from and what did you hear?"

"Very interesting things, friend Keele. She is a fascinating woman, isshe not?" Carna made a pretty mouth, as if kissing something, and withher fingers a gesture new to me, but one unmistakable in meaning. "Shenow has your simple heart in her hand, to do with as she wishes. You area fine fool, you!"

"I thought you had psychic powers. You claim to read minds and foretellthe future, and you do not understand that she is fine and honest andutterly admirable! You are the fool, Carna!"

She laughed. 

"You are right, and not so simple. I said that only to know if yourperceptions were keen enough to know that what she said was true. "

"Now you know. How did you get here, what do you want, what have theydone to you?"

She snapped her fingers, and gave the Zerv equivalent of "pouf. "

"They gave me their tongue, as they did you, I notice. They questionedme much longer than you, as they thought I knew the Zervs might becaught. I did not tell them much. But it was my fault that poor Holafwas caught. I did know he was going to try to revive the Croen captive. They wrung that out of me, and then put me in a room directly above thisone. I knew that you were below me from the talk of the guards. I made arope from the hangings and slipped down to see you. I may go back upwhen I get ready. "

She came toward me as she spoke, her hips undulating exquisitely, thatsultry smile of completely improper intent on her beautiful face. Shewore still the silkily gleaming black net in which I had first met her. It was torn now and even more revealing. 

I fixed my eyes on the wide web of linked emeralds at her throat to keepmy eyes from hers, for she had a disturbing power to make a man's headswim and his will disappear. It was perhaps no greater power than manyanother woman possesses, but to me she was particularly devastating. Imoved back as she came toward me, smiling a little, and said in spite ofmy liking for her:

"Keep away from me, Zoorph! You will destroy my soul!"

She laughed huskily. 

"What is a soul or so to the passion that could burn us, my Carl? Do youreally fear me, stranger from a strange people? Don't you know how muchI thirst to drink of your lips! Look at me, you coward. Are you afraidof a woman? Don't you know how curious I am as to how you of this planetmake love? I who am a student of love, am most curious about you. Standstill. Here we are prisoners, about to die, perhaps, and you refuse meone sup of pleasure before we die? You are a cruel, and a spinelesscreature. I despise you, and yet I want you very much. "

I kept backing away, around the room, and she pursued me at arm'slength, her long graceful legs dramatically striding, making of herpursuit a humorous burlesque, yet I knew she was quite serious about it. If little Nokomee had not warned me against her, I might have succumbedthen and there, for, as she said--"What good is a tomorrow that maynever exist for us?"

"What did you come for, Carna? To make a fool of me?"

"I thought we might try to escape again, but this pretty queen of theaccursed Schrees has charmed you to her will, and I must await a betteropportunity. But that does not prevent me from trying to outdo herattraction for you. Do you love her already, Carl?"

"Of course not, I just met her. "

This was utterly ridiculous, yet it was a lot of fun and I could see noreal reason why I should resist Carna's advances. To me she was aboutthe most attractive woman I had ever met, and I might never see heragain. I gave up my retreat, seized the girl almost roughly in my arms, bent her back with a savage, long-drawn kiss and embrace. Then Ireleased her, to see what she would make of an earthman's kiss. 

She stood for an instant, her hand pressed to her lips, her eyes widewith surprise, one hand raised as if to push me away. Then she giggledlike a young girl, and put both hands on my shoulders. 

"So that is what you call love, strange one? Shall I show you how we offar-off Calmar do the first steps of courtship?"

"That would be interesting, " I said huskily, my lips burning. 

Her voice became low and penetrating. 

"You will be two, yet alone, above the all. " She said other words whosemeanings I did not know. My head swam, my soul seemed to be floating ina sea of new and strange emotions. I sank into a dream state, and withher low suggestive words in my ears, a new world came gradually intoform about us, we were two lovers walking among plumed fern-trees, beside deliciously tinkling streams, the songs of birds rang like littlebells all about. I was conscious of her warm lips upon my own and of hereyes like two deep dark pools in which my own gaze swam and sank androse. 

Suddenly a rude, loud voice broke in, the dream of paradise vanishedfrom about us. 

Before us stood Genner, his face angry, and in the wall I saw the panelby which he had entered where I had thought was only blank wall. Hecried:

"You, Zoorph, I had thought not to interfere. But you are not going toenslave this man to your will. We need him, and your people need himtoo, and what you do is not right, for you know as well as I that if hefalls entirely under your spell he will be left no will of his own!"

Carna, not even abashed at the intrusion, almost spit as she angrilyretorted:

"What is the difference whose will he obeys so long as it is what we alldesire that gets accomplished? He would be better off with myexperienced direction than with his own ignorance of our ways, inanything you plan. Do you think I want to be left out? Do you think I donot desire freedom from the Jivros, too? Do you think I want to be madeinto a mindless thing when I fail to please them?"

"Never mind; get back where you came from. This man is our ally, not ourslave, and your behavior is bad. I will hold this against you. Go!" Hepointed at the window with one rigid, outstretched arm, and Carna movedslowly away, saying:

"No, Prince, do not think me an enemy! It is only that my heart _is_moved toward this strange one, I wanted him _very_ much, and how elsecan a Zoorph love than as she has been taught?"

The prince smiled at her words, his arm fell to his side. 

"Very well, little temptress. Kiss your love goodbye. It may be a longtime before I let you see him again. If he desires it, you may meetlater on. But I will warn him, so that he does not become your slave. "

"I would not rob him of his self, my Prince. I have an affection forthis one!"

"We will see that you do not, sweet Carna. Now get out, and be quick. The time approaches. "

She darted to my side, where I sat still bewildered by the eerie yetutterly delightful experience with the witchery of a Zoorph, pressedburning lips to my own, caressed my cheek with her fingertips, gave myhand a quite American squeeze. Then I watched her slender legs swing upand out of sight as she went up her improvised ladder hand over hand. She was athletic as a dancer. 

"Whew, " I said, passing my hand over my heated face, and grinning at thePrince. 

"Yes, whew! If it had not been for me you would have become herproperty, for they are very accomplished in making people do what theywant. "

"Hypnotism, developed beyond anything I ever heard of! It must behereditary, such power!" I mused aloud. Genner answered as if I spoke tohim. 

"The word hypnotism I know not, I guess you mean what we call Zoorph. Itis a cult, teaching the art of enslaving others to your will. But she isa good girl, and her Zoorph qualities are not evil. For your own sake, remember always to hold yourself in check, or she will automaticallybecome your mistress. A man does not like to be a slave even to socharming a mistress. "

I did not say anything. I saw nothing wrong with the idea just then. 

"Were you there behind the panel while your sister and I talked?" Iasked. 

"Of course. To make sure nothing went amiss. If some curious Jivro hadcome to the door, she would have joined me in the passage. "

The Prince sat down across from me on a low stool. 

"I will lead this group she will send to bring the Croen. You willnaturally accompany us, as I am to keep an eye on you. Wananda will giveyou the fluid to inject into her veins. You must not be seen making theinjection. Somewhere along the way she will revive. She is an extremelystrong creature, and will immediately make her escape. I will order noneto shoot at her with vibro guns, as we do not wish her harmed. We willhurry back to get ships to pursue and capture her. But we will be unableto capture her. 

"If you can manage to keep up with her in her flight, do so. You shouldbe able to outrun a Jivro; they are not very fast. But whether you cankeep up with the Croen, that I doubt. However, make the attempt, andwhen you are alone with her, explain why we want her to escape, who herfriends are. If you do not do that, she may elect to make her waythrough the wilderness, which would be fatal for her. Knowing she hasallies among us, she will find a way to attack us. "

I grunted. I did not see how they expected one lone woman, howeverfantastically gifted with wits and know-how, to overcome the ships, armament and organization of the Jivros, even with Wananda working toneutralize their power. 

"She must be a wizard; you expect such wonders of her!"

"There will be a ship waiting to pick her up as soon as she is out ofsight of the Jivros who will accompany us. I have sent it already. Itwaits in the hills by the barrier. With you along, you can contact theremaining Zervs. They will augment your power. I can send more shipsmanned with my men, later. We have been preparing for this a long time. "

"Aren't you doing a lot of talking? Walls have ears, you know, and thoseJivros of yours look pretty shifty to me. "

"It is the hour of their sleep. They are creatures of regularity, likeants, you know. They live by routine. There are only guards awake. Iknow exactly where every one of them stands at this moment, where everyone of them sleeps. I have not been inactive. "

 * * *

We filed out of the city gate, a party of nearly fifty, a score of thembearers of a big palanquin-like vehicle in which they proposed to carrythe Croen's inert body. 

I was remembering the brief examination of her that I had made when Ientered the cavern of the golden statue. 

A four-armed female of near-human aspect, but with a single horn on herforehead. A member of a race from distant space, alien even to thesevisitors to earth. She had been utterly different from anything I hadeven imagined as human--yet somewhere, somehow the origin of that racehad been similar to our own. I wondered if space was peopled with suchnear-human races, all descendant from some ancient space-traveling racewho had colonized--then passed on into forgotten time?

The party wound on, taking that same trail by which I had entered thecavern with Hank and Jake and Frans. Silently I blessed the fate thathad spared me the things that had been done to them. Their onlyrelease, I imagined, could be death. 

Overhead the rocky walls began to close, the light grew dim, ahead camethat eerie glow from the magnetic statue. The prince's eyes caught minein a swift, silent order to be ready, and the two of us drew ahead ofthe column. In my jacket pocket I held the hypodermic, one of Schreedesign, different from a modern medical hypodermic only in that it wasdecorated with incut figures of glorified Jivros, carved in thecrystalline cylinder, and the metal was of gold. 

There were only two of the repellent insect-men with us. I surmised theywere there only as observers, but that was not the case. They were therebecause they had to be. I could see an unusual agitation on their blank, bulge-eyed faces, if those insect masks could be called faces. They wereafraid of this Croen female, even in her inert condition. 

The tall, graceful Schree warriors followed us into the cavern, and lastof all came the two hopping Jivros. The intense attraction of the statuedrew me, but I remembered how I had avoided it before, and kept my eyesaverted. Like light on a moth's eyes, the power of it seemed to strikeinto the will only when the eyes were upon it. 

We gathered around the column of crystal. The Schrees attached a loop ofrope to the top, pulled it carefully from the base. When it wasstretched out horizontal upon the floor, the two Jivros set to work withlittle spinning metal disk-saws, cutting a line entirely around itlengthwise. Then they tapped it with small hammers, and the cut crackedthrough. Lifting off the top section like the lid of a sarcophagus, theCroen lay exposed to the light of day. 

I stood entranced by the exquisite beauty and majesty of the nakedcreature until Prince Genner nudged me with an elbow. Even as he did so, he whirled, pointed, cried out:

"There, through that doorway, one of the traitorous Zervs spies upon us. Catch him, my warriors, before they bring the others down upon us!"

As if drilled or awaiting this order, the tall Schrees set off as oneman, running through the same doorway by which I had followed the angryNokomee. 

The prince and I were left alone with the two Jivros, who stood besidethe nude figure of the alien Croen. They eyed us, their eyes jerkingnervously from our faces to the body of the Croen. Quite calmly thePrince tugged a vibro-gun, very like the weapon Holaf had worn at hiswaist, from his belt and trained it upon the two horrors. 

"This day will come for all the Jivros, " cried the prince in atriumphant voice, and shot a terrible blue bolt of force into the bodyof each of them. The second had snapped a little weapon from his breast, hidden in the folds of his white robe, and as he fell, the beam of itcut a long smoking channel in the floor rock. The prince calmly pickedit up, pressed the trigger lever, handed the thing to me. I pocketed it, then stepped over to the nude body of the Croen. I inserted the needlecarefully in the artery at her inner elbow, pushed the plunger slowlyhome, my eyes on her face with a deep awe. 

The prince bent beside me, watching her face intently, and both of usstood rapt, waiting for I knew not what except that it would be moremarvelous to meet such a god-like creature as this face to face thananything else that had ever happened to me. 

But a sound of feet up the corridor made Prince Genner spring to hisfeet. 

"Quick, man, help me get these dead horrors out of sight! I do not trustall those warriors, though most of them are in sympathy with us. "

We sprang to the dead things. I bent and picked one up by the shoulders. Surprisingly, frighteningly light they were, as if filled with cotton. Their limbs were truly skeletal, and curiously I tugged the white robefrom the strange insect body as I followed the prince. The thorax, thewasp-waist, the long pendulous abdomen, the atrophied center limbsfolded across the wasp-waist--the whole thing was like a great whitewasp without wings. As we flung them into an empty chamber, I turned theburden face down, and on the back were two thin wisps of residual wings. Once these things had been winged!

We sped back to the side of the sleeping Croen. 

I stopped ten feet from the giant figure, surprise, awe, a thrill ofadmiration filling me! She was sitting up, her hands at her temples, peering about with her great eyes distracted. On her face, even in thiscondition of tension, still unaware of her surroundings, was thegreatest evidence of intelligence I had ever sensed. This Croen race, Irealized, was something truly beyond an earthman's understanding. 

But the prince had no time for the awed, stupefied condition into whichsight of her had struck me. 

"Come, Cyane, great one, we have released you, but you must flee atonce. I know how weak you must be, but if you can, please rise and flee. This man will accompany you. He is alien to us, and it is better that hebe out of the hands of the Jivros as quickly as possible. Go, dear one, swiftly, swiftly--we will find you later!"

The great body moved, gathered itself, stood tottering, gazing wildlyabout. The prince pointed at the cavern entrance where our footprintsstill showed in the dust. To me he cried: "Go up the rocky side as faras you can when you reach the slopes. The north side, earthman. Keepgoing, and conceal yourselves in the bush. I will guide the search awayfrom you. "

I ran ahead of the tottering figure and she followed, her stepsgathering strength. Faster she followed until we raced along the dimcavern way. The rocky roof opened out and the blue sky showed overhead. The prince had gestured to me when we had entered to a ledge that angledupward from the gully, and I knew now what he had meant. 

I could not keep up with the great strides of the now fully arousedCroen goddess. She turned back, picked me up like a child, and in greatleaps bounded up the side of the canyon along the ledge. Up and up andover, and still she ran, untiring. I was not rescuing, I was beingrescued!

As we ran beneath the shadow of the trees, a figure rose suddenly upbefore us. I was astounded to see it was Holaf, whom I had thought theJivros had already dealt with. 

"I await you, Cyane, great one, to guide you to safety. The prince hassent me, " he cried. 

The great striding creature slowed, spoke to me with a voice full of adeep music. 

"Do you trust this man?"

"He may be trusted in this case. He has already risked his life to setyou free. "

She set me down. I looked at Holaf, who was too excited to be amused. 

"Hasten, we must get under cover at once. A place awaits, and many men, arms, tools. We have long fought for this day, Cyane!" Holaf was whollyecstatic to see the success of his plans. I realized the prince had madean ally of him with the same kind of interview the queen had granted me. 

Holaf led us around the side of the mountain, keeping in the shelter ofthe trees, and by a back route to the same hideaway in the mountainsidewhere I had first met him. 

I greeted Nokomee with a glad smile, but her smile was not so glad andmy heart was hurt to find she was angry with me. But the great Croencreature left us no time for argument. 

The caves where the two hundred or so Zervs had hidden for so long werequite numerous and confusingly branched. There was room there to hide anarmy if needed. 

I went at once to the small chamber where Nokomee had placed the packsand camping equipment from the horses, and took out one of Hank's bigold forty-fives, belted it on. The old-fashioned belt was filled withcartridges. I also took my own Winchester Model . 70. I had a plentifulsupply of 130-grain Spitzer-point bullets, a high-velocity, long-rangekiller that I might get a chance to use. I filled my pockets withcartridges, took a knapsack and filled that. So, burdened down withlethal equipment, I hurried back to Cyane's side. I didn't want to missa move of that visitor from far space. I wanted to learn, and I had anidea she would show plenty of science if she got into action. The princewasn't gambling on her for nothing, not with that glorious sister of hisin jeopardy. 

She had seated herself on that same big bench where I had first met theZoorph, Carna, and the Zervs were coming and going to her rapidly-givenorders. A dozen of the older Zervs were assembling apparatus under herdirection, and if I expected to learn something, I saw I was going to bedisappointed, for the stuff was inexplicable to me. 

I went on outside to the ledge from which the city could be seen. I wasworried about how Genner had explained to the Jivros the death of thetwo who had accompanied him. I had taken a pair of small binoculars frommy packs, and seeing activity near the gates of the wall, I trained thelenses upon the wall. 

I gave a cry which brought the Zervs speeding to me. I handed thefocused glasses to Holaf, pointed at the gates. He put them to his eyes, then he too gave a cry of warning, and raced back to the Croen. 

For, filing out of the gates and spreading out across the valley was thevanguard of an army. The glass had shown the streets filled withmarching men. 

For a few minutes I could not understand exactly what had happened, thenI guessed. The prince had asked for permission to use the entire forcesof the city in a search for the Croen! The strategy of the man wasexquisite. He was playing on the Jivro fear of the Croen to get themilitary power fully in his hands!

Even as the great limbs of the Croen woman brought her to my side, as Ihanded her the glasses, round disk ships began to rise from the centerof the city one after the other until at least five score of the smallertype were in the sky. After them came two of the larger craft that Iknew were really space ships with huge inner chambers in the bottomwhere the small craft nested. 

An all-out search for the Croen was on in earnest!

But now quite suddenly an astonishing thing happened. One of the greatmother ships swung in a circle, came alongside the other, and from thegreat center bulge of the upper surface a blue beam lashed out, struckthe other in a slicing flare and sheared off the entire upper bulge inone blow. The great ship faltered for an instant, then began to fall. Itstruck the ground near the wall with a blinding explosion. As the greatmushroom of white smoke began to lift up, the stem of the mushroom blewaway, and where the ship had fallen was only a hole, surrounded by bitsof shattered metal. The wall near the explosion was breached in afifty-foot-wide break, and the bodies of men could be seen through thebreach, killed by concussion. 

From the city a blazing yellow beam lanced here and there in pursuit ofthe traitor disk, but it darted like a dragonfly, up, down, and zig-zag. The pursuing beam came nowhere near it. Somehow I knew the prince, andperhaps Wananda too, were in that ship, and my heart was in my throat asI thought of the queen in that ship, being shot at by the repulsiveinsect men. 

The army deploying on the plain kept right on marching, columns slantingoutward from the center, forming three columns that spread out like theextending prongs of a trident. I could make nothing of it. 

Several dogfights had broken out among the smaller disk ships since thefall of the mother disk, but these were quickly over, and the flightcame on, swift as arrows. 

The remaining mother disk settled to earth on the level land directlybelow our hiding place, and the smaller disk settled now around it. Thearmy marched on, nearer and nearer. 

I looked at Holaf, handed him the glasses. 

"I don't know whether we are lost, or, whether the prince has joined us, deserting the Jivros in the city you Zervs built. "

"None but Prince Genner knew our hiding place, and who else would placethemselves under our fire range, knowing we were here?" Even as hespoke, the door opened in the side of the great disk, and the princesprang out, turning to assist his sister to the ground. 

The Croen, Cyane, standing beside me, suddenly leaped off the ledge, herlong limbs making easy going of the sloping detritus below. Secondslater she was running easily across the plain toward the ship, and I wassurprised to see the prince and the queen bow their knees to her, kneelbefore her as if praying to a goddess. She touched the bowed heads withher fingertips, and the three figures then entered the disk and the doorclosed. The ship lifted, took off alone in a southerly direction, flyinghigher and higher and out of sight. Even as it disappeared, anothergreat disk lifted from the city, set out in the same direction inpursuit. 

But the smaller ships below lifted at once as they sighted this pursuit, set out after the second mother disk. 

"I guess we're going to miss the fighting, " I said to Holaf. 

"We can get into it when the time is right. We've got to move at once. The Jivros know our location now. Come on!"

Holaf strode back into the cavern that had been the Zerv's hideout forso long. I followed, stopping curiously to examine the apparatus whichthe Croen had abandoned on the advent of the prince. It was a kind ofstill, bubbling now with a wick lamp under the red fluid, and nearly agallon of the end product had collected in a big jar. 

"What was this distillation all about?" I asked Holaf. 

"It was a medicine she was making for the Shinro. She said that aninjection into their blood would increase their perceptions to a humanrange of intelligence, and that then we could use their resulting rageagainst their mutilators. It is only a temporary effect. It will wearoff in a day, leave them again to the stupidity the Jivros gave them. Now, she's gone, I don't even know the dosage. It is useless, the princetook her from us. "

"We can use it, if it is complete. I have the needle I used to revivethe Croen. Bring the stuff; we'll try it. "

"We could circle the army, get into the city. .. . " said Holaf, his eyesglittering on mine. 

"Let's go, " I cried, getting his idea. 

 * * *

We were near a hundred and fifty young Zerv fighters, and perhaps asmany women and old men and children. We wound through the passages ofthe tunnels in the mountain, came out on the far side from the valley. Along the mountainside we traveled, and I realized we were at the mercyof any force we met, being too few and too hampered with baggage and thehelpless members of the Zerv families. 

But Holaf knew what to do. He pointed out a trail toward the wildernessto the thin little column, told them where to take cover and await hisreturn. Then with myself and a dozen of his best warriors, he turned hisface again toward the Jivro stronghold. 

We circled the valley, marching hard, crossing the upper narrow end. Coming toward the city, twilight was closing down, and we made the lastfew miles in complete darkness. 

Near the walls, Holaf chopped a thirty-foot sapling, which we carried tothe wall. A young Zerv swarmed up the pole, let down a rope to help theascent of the others. I climbed the rough pole after him. I hadn't theathletic ability of these Zervs who seemed to like to climb ropes handover hand. So over and down into the silent city we went, drawing uppole and rope after us, hiding them in the shadows of the wall. 

Like shadows we stole along the streets, and after long minutes heardthe unmistakable feet of the Shinros. They came with that ghastlymechanical rhythmic tread, eyes staring, backs burdened. I guessed thatnow their burdens were materials for the defense of the wall. Wefollowed, and not far distant from the breach of the explosion of thedisk ship, found our chance. They were accompanied by four of thehopping Jivros, and upon the back of each a young Zerv sprang, silent asstalking cats, striking them down, crushing their skulls with vibro-gunbarrels. 

Holaf and I set to work immediately on the mindless Shinros, injectingshots of the red fluid into their veins one by one, varying the shots togauge the effect. But it was potent stuff, and before I had the thirdman under the needle, the first was speaking in a hoarse, angry voice. 

"What has happened to me, what--what?"

Holaf said: "These are almost all graft jobs, were once captives andnormal men. The result, if this shot works, is going to be a thoroughlyangry man, fighting mad for the blood of the Jivros. " Then he raised hisvoice to the newly revived Shinro. 

"You were made into a beast of burden by the Jivro insects! Tonight youwill get your revenge. This shot of sense we are giving you will lastonly till daylight, so your life does not matter--it will revert to thebeast in the morning. Go and spend your time where it will hurt theJivros most--spill their blood. Their power is ending this night! This isthe beginning of the end for all the Jivro parasites of our race. Whatwe begin tonight will not stop till every Jivro in the ancient Schreegroup of planets is dead and gone!"

As we completed our injections, the column stood waiting, but a columnof sane men, ready to shed Jivro blood for their revenge. 

"Go as if to get more burdens of stone to repair the wall. When theJivros show themselves, kill, get weapons, do not stop killing untilthey are gone or you are dead. You have but this night; make the most ofit. "

The column plodded off, in the same apparent condition we had first metthem. But in their brains was boiling, enraged sanity, in a condition ofcomplete rebellion, of murderous intent. 

"They'll sell their lives for something worthwhile, tonight, " said Holafinto my ear, as we set off on their trail. We intended to make the mostof any opening the revived Shinros made for us. 

Two more columns of toiling Shinros we liberated with injections, thenour supply of fluid was exhausted. Just what more to do to hurt theJivros we didn't know. 

"How many ships do those Jivros have? Why are they always in hiding?Since I've been around here I haven't seen a dozen of 'em at one time!"I asked Holaf, my feet tired from sneaking along the deserted streets. 

"They never come out in the open except for some express reason, such asdriving the Shinros to work. They still have probably a score of ships. "

"Twenty of those big disks?" I asked. 

"Yes, I would say that many. But they will not bring them out to battleunless there is no other way. A Jivro never does anything he can get ahuman to do. Now that they have only the Shinros in the city, with thearmy out there searching for the Croen--and maybe the most of itdeserting to some rendezvous the prince sent them word about--they willdo nothing unless they must. You know how a spider hides when it sensesdanger?"

"There are many insects that hide when they are in fear. "

"They have that trait, but they also have courage when desperationdrives them. Now they are holed up in their strongholds, waitingdevelopments. They will only come out to fight if they see anopportunity to crush their opposition, or if they are driven forth. "

Suddenly the long beam of a searchlight lanced across the night skyabove, then another and another. For an instant a huge disk showed inthe beam. It tilted and drove abruptly sideways out of the light. Thebeam danced after. It was not seen again, and still more beams winkedon, began to search, systematically quartering the sky. 

"I would say our friends, the Jivros, were in for it. The prince and theCroen are attacking, " I said to Holaf. 

He grunted. 

"I didn't expect it so soon. They do not have the strength in ships. Butthe Croen must have some stunt figured out to equalize their power. "

We moved along pretty rapidly, keeping to the shadows, and soon wereagain at the side of that flat, paved place from which the disk shipstook off. Overhead loomed the beetling walls of the palace from whichthe prince had led his people in revolt--manned now by the Jivros. Iwondered how it felt to them to have to do their own fighting. 

The beams moving about from the top of the building lit the streetsabout us with a distinct glow. It was no place to remain. We moved backalong the parallel street, and I had an idea. Whatever was I carryingall this weight of heavy game rifle and knapsack of cartridges, and noteven getting in position for a shot? I gestured to Holaf and tapped therifle, pointing up. 

He got the idea, led me to a dark doorway and we entered the building, made our way to the roof. Lying prone along the parapet of the roof, Iadjusted the sights for two hundred yards, and swung the rifle sightslowly across the flat roof of the palace. The reflections of the bigsearchlights made the surface quite bright, and about each light was agroup of the tall white-robed Jivros. They made perfect targets!

I began to fire, taking my time, centering each figure exactly. At eachshot, one Jivro fell. I had fired but a score of times, and thewhite-robed creatures began to leave the lights, to cluster about thearchway over the roof stair. 

Grouped as they now were, I did not need to aim. I fired four more clipsas rapidly as I could load them. Then the remaining Jivros began toswing the great beams in a frantic search for the deadly fire. As thebeam swung toward us, Holaf seized my head, pushed it beneath theparapet. The beam swept on without pausing. I raised my head and kept onfiring. 

All of the beams but two were now stationary and unattended. I could notreach these, the angle of fire was wrong; but I could see the base ofthe lights, and as they swung again toward me, I fired into the centerof the beam. It blinked out. Holaf clapped me on the shoulder. 

"Get the rest of the lights, man, never mind the damned insects! TheCroen will take care of them soon enough. "

One by one I put out the search beams, the sky overhead grew dark again. 

"These are the creatures who expect to conquer the earth!" I cried outscornfully to Holaf. "They could be bested by a bunch of boy scouts withtwenty-twos!"

"They have never fought! They are only priests, not warriors. They arenot thinking of conquering anything now, without their willing servants. They are fighting only for life!"

Overhead still wheeled the circle of guarding disks, manned, I knew, bythe inexperienced priest-like insect men. I took a careful aim at theglowing transparent bulge in the center of the nearest, hoping the alienplastic was as soft as the earth plastics. But there was no way to tellif it had pierced the shell of plastic, or if it had done any harm. 

Fumbling in my pockets, I pulled out a loaded clip, lay there ponderingwith the clip in front of my nose. Absently I noted the black bandaround the nose of the bullets, indicating it was a high-velocity, armor-piercing cartridge, manufactured by the U. S. Army for exactly suchemergencies as I faced. I did not know if it would prove too big apowder-charge for my rifle, I did not know then even how I came to havethe cartridges. Polter had bought some Army ammunition and these musthave been among his things. I may have been firing them steadily and notknown the difference. 

I inserted the clip, and lay there with my fore-sight following the diskship in its steady circling flight. Just where would an armor-piercingsteel bullet do the most harm? I shot the clip out at the great roundbody of the thing, trying to guess where a hit might damage machinery orpierce fuel tanks. There was no visible result, and I gave the flyingdisks up as a bad job. How did I know they were built to resist meteorsin ultra high-speed space flight? It didn't even occur to me. 

"Where're your buddies?" I asked Holaf. He lay beside me peering downinto the street below. 

"Gone to join the Shinro. They are storming the doors of the palacenow. " He gestured toward the street. 

I leaned over the parapet. Below in the street the hideous, mutilatedbodies of the Shinro moved in a mass. They had brought up a huge beam, and were pounding it against the great palace doors. Others climbedtoward the tall barred windows, some of them slipped through. But of thewhite-robed Jivros there was now no visible sign. 

I was about to send a few shots through those same windows, when awaving white cloth from a window near the top of the huge structure drewmy eyes. A sudden fear struck my heart. Could that be my Zoorph, leftthere--could that be Carna? I felt sure it was, and something warm andpitiful seemed to flutter in my chest as I thought of her alone amongthose hopping Jivros. I got to my feet, started across the roof. 

"Where are you going, earthman?" asked Holaf, placing a hand on myshoulder. 

"I am going into that place, but there is no need you accompanying me. Ithink I saw Carna at her window, a prisoner! I would like to free her. "

Holaf gave a cry of unbelief. 

"No, you cannot do that! The Croen means to destroy that place down tothe ground. Carna will have to perish with it. It is too bad, but youcannot enter there. I know what is going to happen. "

Even as he spoke, a great white blossom of flame spurted suddenly overour heads, spread and spread across the sky above the circling ships. Looking up, my eyes were struck blind. I dropped to the roof surfacewith agony. Then came the terrific, stunning concussion. The prince wasletting off the fireworks at last! I exulted, even as I despaired. Somehow I only now realized that this waiting, strange Zoorph in herprison, who faced death because forgotten by her friends--_must notdie!_ In my heart some warm thing she had waked there with her magicbreathed, moved, sprang into complete life. I could not see her die! Imust get into that place that I saw was doomed, even as I now saw two ofthe great ships above falter in flight, turn and slide downward atincreasing speed. The concussion had broken them, perhaps destroyed thelife within them. I realized that in a short time the same thing wasgoing to happen to the headquarters of the Jivros. 

Below, the booming of the great ram against the palace door ceased, there came wild shouts, cheers, running feet, terrible screams of agony. I ran down the ramps up which we had ascended to the roof. Heedless ofdanger, I raced along the dark street, across the wide-open spacesurrounding the palace. 

About the palace door the dead were sprawled in mangled heaps. Among thedead were several white robes, now stained with the pale blood of theJivros. I surmised the frightened creatures had opened the door, intending to kill the men wielding the ram--and had been unable to do acomplete job. The doors gaped open. I stumbled over the reeking heap ofslain. A dying man raised one horrible crab claw to me, called out myname! It was Jake, his ugly face now a horror. I had not even known hehad received the reviving shot of the Croen medicine. 

I bent to hear his words, but he only looked at me for a second, hislips formed one word: "Gold!" He laughed bitterly, repeated it: "Gold, hell!" and then his head dropped lifeless. 

I raced on into the place, and at my heels came Holaf. In his hands heheld the vibro gun, and on his face was a wild triumph. He kept cryingaloud:

"Death to the Jivros! An end to tyranny!"

I had no time for the political angles which so inspired Holaf. I racedupward along the same paths by which Prince Genner had led me to my owndetention quarters. I did not know how to reach Carna's room except thatit lay directly above my own. I raced into the open door of the prince'squarters, and to that window by which Carna had entered. I leaned out, shouted at the top of my voice. 

"Zoorph, are you there?"

Her voice came to me with a message of relief, yet it justified my worsefears. She was here, and the place was about to be blasted by sometitanic explosive of the Croen science creation! Her words wereindistinct, but the tone was almost mocking, and I thought I heard herlaugh. 

"Can you come down, Carna, or do I have to come after you?"

Seconds later the knotted drape she had used before swayed down intosight, I grasped it to steady it. Her bare legs followed, and now hervoice came to me with a sweet mockery:

"Never let it be said that Carna required a lover to climb to herwindow! Rather let it be said that passion made Carna risk. .. . "

Overhead another of the terrible blasts of flame blazed across the sky. The light blazed all about us, and Carna leaped from the window ledgeinto my arms even as the concussion struck at us. I lost my balance; wefell to the floor together . .. And her voice went calmly, mockingly on, loud in the sudden ensuing silence:

". .. Death itself to be at her lover's side! And it sounds as if we bothrisked death this night!"

I lay there staring into those mysterious depths of her strangewide-spaced eyes, and she giggled a little. I could not help laughing. Even as I struggled to retain sense an almost hysterical laugh of reliefbroke from me. 

We got to our feet, and in spite of the terrible danger, our arms kepthold of each other, our eyes still held together, and our lips weredrawn together and burned there for minutes. 

"This is madness, woman, we must get out of here. The Croen has madebombs for the prince's ships. He has rebelled against the Jivros, released the Croen, Cyane, they will blast this place, perhaps the wholecity, before this night is over!"

"So no one placed any value on the life or the help of Carna but theearth man! Why did you come here for me, Carl?"

"I saw your scarf at the window. I learned then what I did not knowbefore--I could not let you die! Do you know what I felt when I knew youwere still in this prison?"

"Of course I know. You see, Carl, the magic of the Zoorphs is really amagic of love. You love me, and I willed it so. You will always love menow!"

I was not entranced by her words. 

"We have no time for a discussion of metaphysics or of love, woman. Come, we must get out. "

Carna gestured toward the doorway. I whirled, stood frozen with startlednerves. There stood the old Jivro whom I had met in the council besidethe queen. In his hands were no weapons, and at his back were no tallSchree guards. I wondered if the desertion of the Jivros had been socomplete. Even as I stooped to retrieve the heavy rifle from the floor, his hands gestured, and the rifle eluded my reach, seeming to glideacross the floor. I followed it, and he gestured again. 

Some force seemed to freeze me. It had not been nerves that held mebefore, I learned, but his eyes upon me! Unwinking, the ancient masterof what worlds unknown to me, regarded me, and I knew I was helplessbefore the power he controlled. My lips moved, but no sound came out. 

A sudden blast of light came from the window, and the vast concussionshook the building terribly. For an instant I felt freedom in my limbs. I tugged out the . 45 at my belt, leveled it, fired. The Old Onestaggered, his eyes blazed at me, and his hand gestured again. The gunfell from my hands, and some terrible black thing struck into my brain, tearing, rending. I fell forward into blackness. .. . 

 * * *

Swirling nothingness, a dry cachination as of some dead-as-dust thinglaughing at life itself, a shuddering vibrance flooding through my fleshin waves of terrible nausea, a dim glow that grew and grew intoterrifying painful brilliance, then paled and died again into theswirling blankness that was not death, but a knowledge of deepinjury. .. . 

Again and again the swirling horror of my brain slowed, almost stopped. My eyes almost opened into the painful light, and the deep interiorvibrating sensation swelled into overpowering violence. I sank againinto darkness. Over and over I struggled almost to the doors ofconsciousness, only to be shoved back by the consciously controlledexterior force. 

At last the sickness passed, and my mind quieted. I struggled intowakefulness. As I opened my eyes, the face of the old Jivro gaped withits noseless, bulging eyes not a foot away, the thin, wide lips andmouth hanging open like a trap, the ridges across the mouth like a fish, white and horrible. 

I retched at the repellent sight, and the mouth moved, the words cameout so strangely, like a mechanical voice:

"Tell me, earthman, how is the weapon with which you shot my men on theroof made? What are the details of its construction, and the formula forits explosive?"

I almost laughed. 

"You are ridiculous, old insect! Such things are known only totechnicians in factories, not to mining men like myself. "

Again the blinding light struck at me, the sickening shaking of thevibrance welled through me. I sank and was raised again toconsciousness. 

Still the same foolish old insect face, the same bulging ignorant eyes. The words:

"Tell, then, how this Croen and the forces of Prince Genner may beovercome? Speak, earthman. "

The compulsion moved me, and I answered:

"There is no way you can overcome them, Jivro. You are doomed, and thereis no hope for your tyranny over the Schrees to continue. They havetired of the Jivros, and you deserve what you are going to get. "

Again the sickening application of force and again the exteriorcompulsion to speak. I said:

"Your only chance to get back power is to get forces from your home inspace, wherever that may be. You cannot overcome these fighting men andtheir weapons, which are as good as your weapons, for you Jivros haverelied for too long upon the Schrees and Shinros for your fighting, andfor your thinking too, by the questions you ask. Have you not done anythinking in your life, that you ask me such silly questions?"

A change came over the old creature. I knew he was wounded, for I hadseen the glistening milky fluid pouring from the wound in his breast. Heleaned weakly against the table to which I was strapped, his eyes onmine glazing over with death. The wide lips at the very bottom of theflat face, moved:

"The Jivro Empire is ending, I think, earthman. We dug our own gravewhen we relegated all unpleasant duties to our conquered races. For anage the Jivro has been a creature shunning all work and effort, eventhinking. We were bound to lose our grip. I see now that I am reallyfoolish, and not a strong being of intellect. Our doom is written, andthe day of the writing was that day when we conquered and enslaved theSchrees. "

"Now you are talking sense, Old One. You see what is plain to allothers; at last it becomes clear to you. But you are dying, and it istoo late for wisdom to come to the Jivros. Once you set your feet on thepath to greatness; but when you did evil, your feet naturally turned tothe downward path of decadence. Evil is not a way of life, it is a wayof death. "

The bulging eyes on mine flickered with a fierce inner fire for aninstant, then the head bent lower. For an instant he tottered therebeside me, then crashed to the floor with a sound like a bundle of drysticks. 

I turned my head, saw that I was in the chamber of my firstinterrogation, and the sound of feet about me was the Jivro "doctors, "moving to carry away their ruler. I saw the sleek body of Carna on atable but a dozen feet away. Three of the tall white-robed insects bentover her, one moving a control in a great lamp device, anotherscribbling on a pad, and the third was speaking. Evidently the Zoorphwas getting the third degree, too. I lay back weakly. I felt as if I hadbeen through a washing machine and some of my buttons left in thewringer. 

As I closed my eyes, a vast _boom_ crashed into my ears, the tablejumped beneath me, pieces of masonry fell bounding on the floor and Iraised my head, staring wildly. Evidently the prince and the Croen werestill bombing the place. 

I tugged at the straps on my wrists and ankles. They gave a little. Ikept on tugging, turning my head as far as I could to see how the insectmen were taking their bombardment. They stood, near fifty of them, in agroup by the door. Evidently they had started to run out when the crashcame, but had stopped when it was evident the roof was going to remainintact. If those things had any sense they would be in the deepestsub-basement they could find, I figured. The Schrees must have beencarrying them as helpless parasites for too many centuries to realizethey could do without them, for them to be so inept. 

Straining my neck, I watched the grotesque high-breasted white figuresabout the doorway, they were tittering to each other in some tongue Idid not know, a strange sound like the rasping of corn husks undersqueaking wagon wheels. Suddenly the whole palace shook terribly, thefloor seemed to reel, an unbearable sound raged at my ears. I cringedfrom the pain of the sound. When I opened my eyes, the whole mass of theJivro medicals was jammed in the doorway, struggling to get over eachother, and the squeaking and rasping increased into a bedlam of sound. Ilaughed, a deep "ha ha, " and from the neighboring table Carna cried:

"See what wonderful creatures are the tyrants when things are not goingtheir way. If I had known they were like that in war, I would havekilled them all myself long, long, ago. I would have poisoned them, andwhen they asked me who did it, I would have said, _boo_ and they wouldall have run away and hid!"

As the last of them got through the door, I gave my loosened straps onemighty pull, and the heavy leather tore. I could hear it part in thesudden silence. Again and again I strained, and at last the leatherparted entirely. My right hand was free. Feverishly I tore at the otherfastenings. There could be but little time left us before that bombingstruck dead center and brought the whole palace down. We had to get out. I knew it quite as well as those fleeing insect men. 

Free at last, I rolled off the table, landed on all fours, leaped toCarna's side, and released the buckles of the straps. As she sat up, herface level with mine, she pursed her lips, and I gave her a heartysmack. As her arms went about my neck, I picked her up, raced throughthe doorway, along the passage, down the ramps. I was weaponless, but Ihad no longer any fear of the Jivros. I saw a group of them busy in abig chamber as I passed, but I raced on, spinning around the nextcorner, down the ramps and on . .. On . .. Until I felt the coolness offresh air ahead, ran out beneath the stars again, and along the shadowedstreet. 

Putting my Zoorph back on her feet, we raced toward that breach in thewall. Over our heads the great blasting explosions went on, and I sawbut three of the circling disks left to the defense of the city. 

Outside the city wall we stopped to catch our breath, leaning againstthe wall in the shadow. 

Carna said, musingly: "It is all over for the ancient Empire of theJivros, if help does not come for them tonight. For, now that they areseen to be so helpless without their slaves and their fighting men, thenews will spread. Planet after planet will rise against them. This istheir finish!"

"They expected to conquer earth, Carna. They could never have done it. For a little while, perhaps, but not for long. "

"They might have! They are like ants; they have a highly developedpattern of activity. But when that pattern is disrupted, they are lost. They do not think--they remember. "

"We've got to make contact with the queen and with Genner and the Croen. We will be left out of things. " I was wondering what Carna's futureplans were. 

"You are interested in the beautiful sister of the Prince?" asked Carna. 

"You are interested in the so handsome Prince?" I answered in the sametone of voice. 

"Of course, what woman would not be! But I am more interested in you, for I fell in love with you. But I can fall out again, and maybe--whoknows. .. . " she laughed. 

"What's more to the point, Carna, is she interested in me?"

"I could tell you, " said Carna, her eyes mysterious on my own, luminousand huge in the darkness. 

"Well, perhaps you had better tell me, then. "

"Why? I love you!"

"You mean she _is_ interested in me!"

"Very much, and she is a very smart woman who has ways of getting whatshe wants. I am very much afraid she will take you with her to spacewhen they go, and leave poor Carna in her ruined city, with no one butthe wild beasts and the dead bodies. This will be the end of thisplace. "

"You are wrong!" I smiled, thinking the girl was flattering me. 

"No, not wrong, dear earthman. I am very much afraid of the future, forI am to lose you, but I have a way of avoiding that. "

"And what is that way?"

"You will find out when the time comes, and you may like it very much!"

"Let's get away from this wall where we can see what's going on. .. . "

We plodded across the level, grassy valley floor, walking backward someof the time, watching the great circling ships above the city's center, and the lancing blue paths of their rays stabbing at some dartingadversary high above them. 

Then from the western sky came a series of round low shapes, speeding sorapidly the eye could hardly distinguish them from the darkly glowinghorizon. After their passage, in a close series, came the air-scream offalling missiles, high-pitched, then came a terrific cannonading ofexplosions. Fountains of fire sprang up in exact sequence, one after theother. The ground shook and shook underfoot, each shock seeming greater, to add its strength to the one preceding it. I knew that this was forthe Jivros the end of their plans on earth. 

Simultaneous with the arrow-swift flight, two great blazing lances ofblue fire shot downward from the ships far overhead, transfixed thecircling spheres one after the other. They tilted, plunged slowly, faster and faster--ended in great splashes of fire and sound somewherein the city below. 

I mopped my face. The night was hot, and relief flooded me. 

"We got out of there just in time, Miss Mystic!"

She nodded, her white smile in the night a beautiful thing. 

"What is this Miss Mystic word you use?"

"It means Zoorph, Carna. It is U. S. A. Speech. "

"U. S. A. Speech, " she parroted. "Some day I will talk U. S. A. Speech, too, like you!"

"I hope so. This tongue of yours gives me cramps in the jaws. "

We plodded on across the grass, heading for the cliff ledge where we hadmet. I knew no where else to go. 

Quite suddenly came a soft sussuration overhead, a light-beam lanceddown, pinning us there. I tossed Carna aside, rolled myself out of thepath of light. But mercilessly the light beam spread, until we wereagain within the circle of illumination. 

But no blue death ray followed. The dark shape settled to the earthbeside us, and the door in the side opened. 

I sprang to my feet in glad surprise to see Holaf in the round doorway, motioning us to enter. He cried:

"Come, the day of the Jivro has ended, there is work now for men to do!"

Carna laughed happily, ran to the doorway, and as Holaf caught her waistand swung her up, she kissed him on the cheek, still laughing inabandoned joy to know that finally the centuries-long nightmare fastenedon her people was ended. I followed more sedately, wondering what now? Ithought of poor cross-eyed Jake Barto, and of the three fortune-hunterswho had gone the same path--and as I shook Holaf's hand, questioned theecstatic confidence of release upon his face. 

"Suppose the Empire sends ships here, will they not destroy all youhave gained? Why do you feel so sure their power is broken? They werebut few here?"

"They will not send ships, for no messenger got away. What do you thinkthe ships of the prince have been doing? This is the beginning of theirend!"

"How did you get out of the palace? The last I saw you, you werestorming the place, gun in hand, and cheering. .. . "

"When the bombs began to burst against the very roof, I got out. Ikilled a few Jivros first, though! It has been a good time; the best ofmy life!"

"Were you picked up as you picked us up?"

"Of course. Look there who it is that has done us the honor. .. . "

My eyes followed his finger pointing through the far arched doorway tothe control room. At the bank of levers and dials, her face intent uponthe scene through the circular plastic dome, sat Wananda. Inadvertentlymy eyes went to Carna's face; she nodded once, vigorously. I knew shemeant:

"See, I have told you the truth. She knew where you were, her heart toldher, who else would descend to pick you up while the fighting was stillgoing on?"

I went to her, and stood for a moment beside her, watching her swifthands, the light on her midnight hair, the delicate superb chiseling ofher forehead and nose, the exquisite aura of womanhood about her--shewas every inch a queen. 

She turned, startled to find me there, then smiled, and a warm flushspread slowly from her neck upward to her temples. She knew that I knew!She laughed a little quiet sound to herself. 

"That is why the Zoorphs are hated, earthman. One can never keep asecret!"

"You must have the powers of Carna yourself, to know that she told me. "I answered. 

"I have studied their methods. One comes by such talents hereditarily. The Zoorph is only an organization which concentrates on taking in andteaching such gifted children. I, as a princess, had a tutor of theirsect. I know that you love her, too, you know. "

"And not yourself. But she confesses that I love her only because of herskill at hypnosis, or something of the kind. To me that seems unfair, but I cannot help it. I love her, though I am drawn to you. But whyshould we concern ourselves with these matters? You will go back tospace with your ships to carry rebellion to the other Jivro strongholds. I will be left behind to mourn you both. "

"Why should you be left behind? Do you find the Schree or the Zervcompany so repellent?"

"Not at all. I should desire nothing more than to see the worlds ofother suns, other places in the far paths of space. Yet. .. . "

"Yet what? Have you a wife here, children?"

"No, not that. But I have possessions it cost me many years of effort toacquire. "

Carna came silently into the room, stood on the other side of the queen. For an instant Wananda closed her eyes, and some subtle sense of my owntold me they were talking with each other in a way I could not hear. Wananda opened her eyes, turned to me, smiling whimsically. 

"Carna suggests that she will give your love to me in return for acertain favor. "

"Do you want my love, Wananda?" I asked softly. 

She did not stop smiling secretly to some sound she heard and I didnot. 

"You see, earthman, our race has never developed the morals andinhibitions which your people find so necessary. We are polygamous, andnot apt to be jealous. She offers to give you to me as a royal husbandin return for the privilege of being your slave, your housekeeper, yourbody-servant as it were. What do you say?"

I was stunned. So openly to be bargained over; frankly to be invited tomarriage, to two women at the same time! Weakly I countered:

"Your people would object to an alien consort!"

"The word is strange to me. Among us you would be a ruler if you marriedme. Among us all men have several wives. But women have but onehusband. "

"You are offering me the rule of the Schrees?"

"Yes, and if our coming war with the Jivro creatures turns out well, itwill mean not one planet, but many. I cannot say how many, as some ofthose never allied with the Schrees before will naturally gravitate tous in gratitude for our releasing them from the Jivros. I am agreeablemainly because I know that we need your earth science, your differentculture--as wedded to our own science we would be invincible. We willneed everything finally to conquer the ancient ingrown tyranny of theJivros. I am not offering you exactly any bed of roses. Besides, I likeand trust Carna. I can understand why she loves you, and why shebargains for any part of you. She knows I have but to exert my ownwisdom of Zoorph to release you from her hold on you. "

"I see. Let me get this straight. You love me; it is agreeable to youthat I continue to love Carna; but I will love you too. Two wives wholove me, a kingdom, and the chance of knocking over a whole empire ofinsects who have parasitized human races in space and meant to do ithere. There is no way I can refuse!"

Carna laughed. 

"With two of us working your mind for you, how could you refuse?"

Wananda frowned at Carna's frankness. 

"It is stated in the nineteenth law of Zoorph code that no victim isever to be told of his enslavement openly, Carna. Why do you break thelaw?"

"I don't know, Wananda Highest. I think it is because I want to be fairto him, and give him a chance to do his own thinking, too. "

I grinned. 

"Our race has long been familiar with your so-called magic, dear ones. We call it hypnotism, and if you think I cannot resist it, remember thatI shot the Old One with his eyes upon me. "

Wananda suddenly set the big lever she held into a notch, turned to me, her face full of a charming surprise which I yet knew was an act. 

"So you think you can resist your wives' wills, do you, earthman? Come, Carna, let us humble his boasts once and, for all!"

Their two lovely faces pressed cheek to cheek, the two pair of eyesbored into my own, and four quick slim hands gestured about my chin. Adizzy enervation swam into me as though I were bleeding to death, asthough honey and whiskey were being poured down my throat, as though Ihad fallen suddenly onto a pink cloud of spun candy. 

Visions of terrific pleasure began to hum in my head, my knees graduallygave way beneath me, until I was on my knees before the two women. Myhands were unconsciously extended as if to fend them off, and each ofthem seized a hand, pulled me to the round bench at the back of thecontrol cabin. They stroked my cheeks, began to murmur their "magical"phrases in their mysterious mystic secret words, and my wits began tofloat into a very genuine paradise where their two faces, side by side, became flower and fruit and tree and earth itself. 

When I awoke from the dream into which they had sent me, Carna wasseated beside me, nodding sleepily, her head on her chest, and Wanandahad returned to the controls of the ship. As I looked at each of them, Ifound _a new something had been added_! I loved each of them equallywell!

I sat up, stretching. Sometimes it is comforting to have problemsdecided for one. Now I did not have to go through any excruciating pangsof conscience or guilt or fight myself into a state of not wanting oneor the other of them. They had just adjusted me to the situationmentally, and I felt that everything was perfect in the best of allpossible marriages for me!

"Well, I'm getting hungry!" I cried, apropos of nothing except that Idid feel pangs. 

My Zoorph did not even get up. She reached out one hand to where acovered tray sat on the bench beside her, and handed it to me. I tookoff the lid, and on it were broiled chops, steaming deliciously bakedbeans, some kind of soft brown bread--fruit, a sweet perfumed wine. 

"The master is hungry, Carna will provide!"

If I get cross-eyed as Jake Barto, it will be from trying to see twowomen at once. 

Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that Nokomee became the prince's thirdwife. I wished her happiness. For me, two are enough!

THE END