CHAPTER VIII

Miles underneath the great ship, from which Lieutenant McGuire and
Professor Sykes were now watching through a floor-window of thick glass,
was a glittering expanse of water–a great ocean. The flickering gold
expanse that reflected back the color of the sunlit clouds passed to one
side as the ship took its station above the island, a continent in size,
that had shown by its shape like a sharply formed “L” an identifying
mark to the astronomer.

They were high in the air; the thick clouds that surrounded this new
world were miles from its surface, and the things of the world that
awaited were tiny and blurred.

Airships passed and repassed far below. Large, some of them–as bulky
as the transport they were on; others were small flashing cylinders, but
all went swiftly on their way.

It must have come–some ethereal vibration to warn others from the
path–for layer after layer of craft were cleared for the descent. A
brilliant light flashed into view, a dazzling pin-point on the shore
below, and the great ship fell suddenly beneath them. Swiftly it dropped
down the pathway of light; on even keel it fell down and still down,
till McGuire, despite his experience in the air, was sick and giddy.

The light blinked out at their approach. It was some minutes before the
watching eyes recovered from the brilliance to see what mysteries might
await, and then the surface was close and the range of vision small.

A vast open space–a great court paved with blocks of black and white–a
landing field, perhaps, for about it in regular spacing other huge
cylinders were moored. Directly beneath in a clear space was a giant
cradle of curved arms; it was a mammoth structure, and the men knew at a
glance that this was the bed where their great ship would lie.

* * * * *

The smooth pavement seemed slowly rising to meet them as their ship
settled close. Now the cradle was below, its arms curved and waiting.
The ship entered their grasp, and the arms widened, then closed to draw
the monster to its rest. Their motion ceased. They were finally, beyond
the last faint doubt, at anchor on a distant world.

A shrill cackle of sound recalled them from the thrill of this
adventure, and the attenuated and lanky figure, with its ashen,
blotchy face that glared at them from the doorway, reminded them that
this excursion into space was none of their desire. They were
prisoners–captives from a foreign land.

A long hand moved its sinuous fingers to motion them to follow, and
McGuire regarded his companion with a hopeless look and a despondent
shrug of his shoulders.

“No use putting up a fight,” he said; “I guess we’d better be good.”

He followed where the figure was stepping through a doorway into a
corridor beyond. They moved, silent and depressed, along the dimly
lighted way; the touch of cold metal walls was as chilling to their
spirits as to their flesh.

But the mood could not last: the first ray of light from the outside
world sent shivers of anticipation along their spines. They were
landing, in very fact, upon a new world; their feet were to walk where
never man had stood; their eyes would see what mortal eyes had never
visioned.

Fears were forgotten, and the men clung to each other not for the human
touch but because of an ecstasy of intoxicating, soul-filling joy in the
sheer thrill of adventure.

They were gripping each other’s hand, round-eyed as a couple of
children, as they stepped forward into the light.

* * * * *

Before them was a scene whose blazing beauty of color struck them to
frozen silence; their exclamations of wonder died unspoken on their
lips. They were in a city of the stars, and to their eyes it seemed as
if all the brilliance of the heavens had been gathered for its
building.

The spacious, open court itself stood high in the air among the masses
of masonry, and beyond were countless structures. Some towered skyward;
others were lower; and all were topped with bulbous towers and graceful
minarets that made a forest of gleaming opal light. Opalescence
everywhere!–it flashed in red and gold and delicate blues from every
wall and cornice and roof.

“Quartz?” marveled Sykes after one long drawn breath. “Quartz or
glass?–what are they made of? It is fairyland!”

A jewelled city! Garish, it might have been, and tawdry, in the full
light of the sun. But on these weirdly unreal structures the sun’s rays
never shone; they were illumined only by the soft golden glow that
diffused across this world from the cloud masses far above.

McGuire looked up at that uniform, glowing, golden mass that paled
toward the horizon and faded to the gray of banked clouds. His eyes came
slowly back to the ramp that led downward to the checkered black and
white of the court. Beyond an open portion the pavement was solidly
massed with people.

“People!–we might as well call them that,” McGuire had told Sykes;
“they are people of a sort, I suppose. We’ll have to give them credit
for brains: they’ve beaten us a hundred years in their inventions.”

He was trying to see everything, understand everything, at once. There
was not time to single out the new impressions that were crowding upon
him. The air–it was warm to the point of discomfort; it explained the
loose, light garments of the people; it came to the two men laden with
strange scents and stranger sounds.

McGuire’s eyes held with hungry curiosity upon the dwellers in this
other world; he stared at the gaping throng from which came a bedlam of
shrill cries. Lean colorless hands gesticulated wildly and pointed with
long fingers at the two men.

* * * * *

The din ceased abruptly at a sharp, whistled order from their captor. He
stood aside with a guard that had followed from the ship, and he
motioned the two before him down the gangway. It was the same scarlet
one who had faced them before, the one whom McGuire had attacked in a
frenzy of furious fighting, only to go down to blackness and defeat
before the slim cylinder of steel and its hissing gas. And the slanting
eyes stared wickedly in cold triumph as he ordered them to go before
him in his march of victory.

McGuire passed down toward the masses of color that were the ones who
waited. There were many in the dull red of the ship’s crew; others in
sky-blue, in gold and pink and combinations of brilliance that blended
their loose garments to kaleidoscopic hues. But the figures were similar
in one unvarying respect: they were repulsive and ghastly, and their
faces showed bright blotches of blood vessels and blue markings of veins
through their parchment-gray skins.

The crowd parted to a narrow, living lane, and lean fingers clutched
writhingly to touch them as they passed between the solid ranks.

McGuire had only a vague impression of a great building beyond, of lower
stories decorated in barbaric colors, of towers above in strange forms
of the crystal, colorful beauty they had seen. He walked toward it
unseeing; his thoughts were only of the creatures round about.

“What damned beasts!” he said. Then, like his companion, he set his
teeth to restrain all show of feeling as they made their way through the
lane of incredible living things.

* * * * *

They followed their captor through a doorway into an empty room–empty
save for one blue-clad individual who stood beside an instrument board
let into the wall. Beyond was a long wall, where circular openings
yawned huge and black.

The one at the instrument panel received a curt order: the weird voice
of the man in red repeated a word that stood out above his curious,
wordless tone. “Torg,” he said, and again McGuire heard him repeat the
syllable.

The operator touched here and there among his instruments, and tiny
lights flashed; he threw a switch, and from one of the black openings
like a deep cave came a rushing roar of sound. It dropped to silence as
the end of a cylindrical car protruded into the room. A door in the
metal car opened, and their guard hustled them roughly inside. The one
in red followed while behind him the door clanged shut.

Inside the car was light, a diffused radiance from no apparent source,
the whole air was glowing about them. And beneath their feet the car
moved slowly but with a constant acceleration that built up to
tremendous speed. Then that slackened, and Sykes and McGuire clung to
each other for support while the car that had been shot like a
projectile came to rest.

“Whew!” breathed the lieutenant; “that was quick delivery.” Sykes made
no reply, and McGuire, too, fell silent to study the tremendous room
into which they were led. Here, seemingly, was the stage for their next
experience.

A vast open hall with a floor of glass that was like obsidion, empty but
for carved benches about the walls; there was room here for a mighty
concourse of people. The walls, like those they had seen, were decorated
crudely in glaring colors, and embellished with grotesque designs that
proclaimed loudly the inexpert touch of the draughtsman. Yet, above
them, the ceiling sprang lightly into vaulted, sweeping curves.
McGuire’s training had held little of architecture, yet even he felt the
beauty of line and airy gracefulness of treatment in the structure
itself.

* * * * *

The contrast between the flaunting colors and the finished artistry that
lay beneath must have struck a discordant note to the scientist. He
leaned closer to whisper.

“It is all wrong some way–the whole world! Beauty and refinement–then
crude vulgarity, as incongruous as the people themselves–they do not
belong here.”

“Neither do we,” was McGuire’s reply; “it looks like a tough spot that
we’re in.”

He was watching toward a high, arched entrance across the room. A
platform before it was raised some six feet above the floor, and on
this were seats–ornate chairs, done in sweeping scrolls of scarlet and
gold. A massive seat in the center was like the fantastic throne of a
child’s fairy tale. From the corridor beyond that entrance came a stir
and rustling that rivetted the man’s attention.

A trumpet peal, vibrant and peculiar, blared forth from the ceiling
overhead, and the red figures of the guards stood at rigid attention
with lean arms held stiffly before them. The one in scarlet took the
same attitude, then dropped his hands to motion the two men to give the
same salute.

“You go to hell,” said Lieutenant McGuire in his gentlest tones. And the
scarlet figure’s thin lips were snarling as he turned to whip his arms
up to their position. The first of a procession of figures was entering
through the arch.

Sykes, the scientist, was paying little attention. “It isn’t true,” he
was muttering aloud; “it can’t be true. Venus! Twenty-six million miles
at inferior conjunction!”

He seemed lost in silent communion with his own thoughts; then: “But
I said there was every probability of life; I pointed out the
similarities–“

“Hush!” warned McGuire. The eyes of the scarlet man were sending wicked
looks in their direction. Tall forms were advancing through the arch.
They, too, were robed in scarlet, and behind them others followed.

* * * * *

The trumpet peal from the dome above held now on a long-drawn, single
note, while the scarlet men strode in silence across the dais and parted
to form two lines. An inverted “V” that faced the entrance–they were an
assembly of rigid, blazing statues whose arms were extended like those
on the floor below.

The vibrant tone from on high changed to a crashing blare that shrieked
discordantly to send quivering protest through every nerve of the
waiting men. Those about them were shouting, and again the name of Torg
was heard, as, in the high arch, another character appeared to play his
part in a strange drama.

Thin like his companions, yet even taller than them, he wore the same
brilliant robes and, an additional mark of distinction, a head-dress of
polished gold. He acknowledged the salute with a quick raising of his
own arms, then came swiftly forward and took his place upon the massive
throne.

Not till he was seated did the others on the platform relax their rigid
pose and seat themselves in the semicircle of chairs. And not till then
did they so much as glance at the men waiting there before them–the two
Earth-men, standing in silent, impassive contemplation of the brilliant
scene and with their arms held quiet at their sides. Then every eye
turned full upon the captives, and if McGuire had seen deadly
malevolence in the face of their captor he found it a hundred-fold in
the inhuman faces that looked down upon them now.

The inquiring mind of Professor Sykes did not fail to note the
character of their reception. “But why,” he asked in whispers of his
fellow-prisoner, “–why this open hatred of us? What possible animus
can they have against the earth or its people?”

The figure on the throne voiced a curt order; the one who had brought
them stepped forward. His voice was raised in the same discordant,
singing tone that leaped and wandered from note to note. It conveyed
ideas–that was apparent; it was a language that he spoke. And the
central figure above nodded a brief assent as he finished.

Their captor took an arm of each in his long fingers and pushed them
roughly forward to stand alone before the battery of hard eyes.

* * * * *

Now the crowned figure addressed them directly. His voice quavered
sharply in what seemed an interrogation. The men looked blankly at each
other.

Again the voice questioned them impatiently. Sykes and McGuire were
silent. Then the young flyer took an involuntary step forward and looked
squarely at the owner of the harsh voice.

“We don’t know what you are saying,” he began, “and I suppose that our
lingo makes no sense to you–” He paused in helpless wonderment as to
what he could say. Then–

“But what the devil is it all about?” he demanded explosively. “Why all
the dirty looks? You’ve got us here as prisoners–now what do you expect
us to do? Whatever it is, you’ll have to quit singing it and talk
something we can understand.”

He knew his words were useless, but this reception was getting on his
nerves–and his arm still tingled where the scarlet one had gripped
him.

It seemed, though, that his meaning was not entirely lost. His words
meant nothing to them, but his tone must have carried its own message.
There were sharp exclamations from the seated circle. The one who had
brought them sprang forward with outstretched, clutching hands; his face
was a blood-red blotch. McGuire was waiting in crouching tenseness that
made the red one pause.

“You touch me again,” said the waiting man, “and I’ll knock you into an
outside loop.”

The attacker’s indecision was ended by a loud order from above. McGuire
turned as if he had been spoken to by the leader on the throne. The thin
figure was leaning far forward; his eye were boring into those of the
lieutenant, and he held the motionless pose for many minutes. To the
angry man, staring back and upward, there came a peculiar optical
illusion.

The evil face was vanishing in a shifting cloud that dissolved and
reformed, as he watched, into pictures. He knew it was not there, the
thing he saw; he knew he was regarding something as intangible as
thought; but he got the significance of every detail.

He saw himself and Professor Sykes; they were being crushed like ants
beneath a tremendous heel; he knew that the foot that could grind out
their lives was that of the one on the throne.

* * * * *

The cloud-stuff melted to new forms that grew clearer to show him the
earth. A distorted Earth–and he knew the distortion came from the mind
of the being before him who had never seen the earth at first hand; yet
he knew it for his own world. It was turning in space; he saw oceans and
continents; and before his mental gaze he saw the land swarming with
these creatures of Venus. The one before him was in command; he was
seated on an enormous throne; there were Earth people like Sykes and
himself who crept humbly before him, while fleets of great Venusian
ships hovered overhead.

The message was plain–plain as if written in words of fire in the brain
of the man. McGuire knew that these creatures intended that the vision
should be true–they meant to conquer the earth. The slim, khaki-clad
figure of Lieutenant McGuire quivered with the strength of his refusal
to accept the truth of what he saw. He shook his head to clear it of
these thought wraiths.

“Not–in–a–million–years!” he said, and he put behind his words all
the mental force at his command. “Try that, old top, and they’ll give
you the fight of your life–” He checked his words as he saw plainly
that the thin cruel face that stared and stared was getting nothing from
his reply.

“Now what do you think about that?” he demanded of Professor Sykes. “He
got an idea across to me–some form of telepathy. I saw his mind, or I
saw what he wanted me to see of it. It’s taps, he says, for us, and then
they think they’re going across and annex the world.”

He glanced upward again and laughed loudly for the benefit of those who
were watching him so closely. “Fine chance!” he said; “a fat chance!”
But in the deeper recesses of his mind he was shaken.

For themselves there was no hope. Well, that was all in a lifetime. But
the other–the conquest of the earth–he had to try with all his power
of will to keep from his mind the pictures of destruction these beastly
things could bring about.

* * * * *

The chief of this strange council made a gesture of contempt with the
grotesque hands that were so translucent yet ashy-pale against his
scarlet robe, and the down-drawn thin lips reflected the thoughts that
prompted it. The open opposition of Lieutenant McGuire failed to impress
him, it seemed. At a word the one who had brought them sprang forward.

He addressed himself to the circle of men, and he harangued them
mightily in harsh discordance. He pointed one lean hand at the two
captives, then beat it upon his own chest. “They are mine,” he was
saying, as the men knew plainly. And they realized as if the weird talk
came like words to their ears that this monster was demanding that the
captives be given him.

An exchange of dismayed glances, and “Not so good!” said McGuire under
his breath; “Simon Legree is asking for his slaves. Mean, ugly devil,
that boy!”

The lean figures on the platform were bending forward, an expression of
mirth–distorted, animal smiles–upon their flabby lips. They
represented to the humans, so helpless before them, a race of thinking
things in whom no last vestige of kindness or decency remained. But was
there an exception? One of the circle was standing; the one beside them
was sullenly silent as the other on the platform addressed their ruler.

He spoke at some length, not with the fire and vehemence of the one who
had claimed them, but more quietly and dispassionately, and his cold
eyes, when they rested on those of McGuire and Sykes, seemed more
crafty than actively ablaze with malevolent ill-will. Plainly it was the
councilor now, addressing his superior. His inhuman voice was silenced
by a reply from the one on the throne.

He motioned–this gold-crowned figure of personified evil–toward the
two men, and his hand swept on toward the one who had spoken. He intoned
a command in harsh gutturals that ended in a sibilant shriek. And the
two standing silent and hopeless exchanged looks of despair.

They were being delivered to this other–that much was plain–but that
it boded anything but captivity and torment they could not believe. That
last phrase was too eloquent of hissing hate.

* * * * *

The creature rose, tall and ungainly, from his throne; amid the
salutations of his followers he turned and vanished through the arch.
The others of his council followed, all but the one. He motioned to the
two men to come with him, and the sullen one who had demanded the men
for himself obeyed an order from this councilor who was his superior.

He snapped an order, and four of his men ranged themselves about the
captives as a guard. Thin metal cords were whipped about the wrists of
each; their hands were tied. The wire cut like a knife-edge if they
strained against it.

The new director of their destinies was vanishing through an exit at one
side of the great hall; their guard hustled them after. A corridor
opened before them to end in a gold-lit portal; it was daylight out
beyond where a street was filled with hurrying figures in many colors.
With quavering shrieks they scattered like frightened fowls as an
airship descended between the tall buildings that reflected its passing
in opalescent hues.

It was a small craft compared with the one that had brought them, and
it swept down to settle lightly upon the street with no least regard
for those who might be crushed by its descent. Consideration for their
fellows did not appear as a marked characteristic of this strange
people, McGuire observed thoughtfully. They swarmed in endless droves,
these multicolored beings who made of the thoroughfare an ever-changing
kaleidoscope–and what was a life or two, more or less, among so many?
He found no comfort for themselves in the thought.

Shoulder to shoulder, the two followed where the scarlet figure of the
councilor moved toward the waiting ship. Only the professor paid further
heed to their surroundings; he marveled aloud at the numbers of the
people.

“Hundreds of them,” he said; “thousands! They are swarming everywhere
like rats. Horrible!” His eyes passed on to the buildings in their glory
of delicate hues, as he added, “And the contrast they make with their
surroundings! It is all wrong some way; I wish I knew–“

They were in the ship when McGuire replied. “I hope we live long enough
to satisfy your curiosity,” he said grimly.

The ship was rising beneath them; the opal and quartz of the city’s
walls were flashing swiftly down.