Robert Arnette EMPIRE OF EVIL (Amazing Stories January 1950)

Amazing Stories January 1950

Robert Arnette

EMPIRE OF EVIL

CHAPTER I

A BLUE Mercurian, arrogance in every line of his shell-covered body, was leading a white Earth-girl up the street. The Earth-girl was practically naked. She walked with head bent, shoulders drooping—a creature without hope. The rope around her slender waist, by which the Mercurian hauled her along, had raised a cruel, circular abrasion on her otherwise smooth brown skin.

The girl stumbled and the Mercurian jerked ruthlessly at the rope just as a pair of Darrien's black-tailed Venusian fighters paused in passing to grin and lay lascivious hands upon the girl's body.

The Mercurian snarled and yanked the girl away. "Mine!" he spat, and laid a hand on the zam-gun at his belt. He pushed the girl behind him and faced the two Venusians, ready to kill or be killed in defense of his rare prize.

Ordinarily there would have been quick death here—either one Mercurian spilling out his green blood on the walk, or two Venusians stiff in death, their black tails twitching and snapping. The Venusians, who considered themselves the aristocrats of Darrien's hideous army, had more than once taken loot from their fellow fighters from the other planets. And this young virgin was a prize indeed.

But the Venusians were sated at the moment. Their bellies were full of raw flesh and warming Bizant liquor. So they laughed and moved on, much to the Mercurian's surprise.

Seated at a cafe table nearby, Ron Kratnick was fighting with himself as he had never fought before; battling to hold his fury in check; striving to keep from leaping forward to tear the Mercurian's dome-shaped head from his shoulders. Bright in Ron's senses was the vision of what was going to happen to this girl. Apparently fresh from Earth, probably from America, she had no doubt been taken in one of the rapier-like raids of Darrien's forces and, according to the code of Darrien, she was fair loot of the blue Mercurian soldier.

Ron Kratnick writhed inwardly as he thought of Darrien—that archfiend of the universe; thought of the man's devilish cleverness in discovering the one thing which would make his interplanetary army fight like tigers possessed—the promise of Earth-women as their own property, to be used as they saw fit. The girl, beyond doubt, would be better off dead.

But Ron held himself in by conjuring up the words of Blake Wentworth, Chief of Universal Intelligence: "You'll see some terrible things on Venus, Kratnick. Things done to our women and to captive soldiers that will make your blood boil and well-nigh unseat your reason. Your ability to control yourself will be the mark of your success or failure. When you see a girl raped or tortured, you've got to remember that you can do nothing for her—that your allegiance lies with the millions here on Earth—that your success will mean salvation for them. When you get to Venus, you've got to ignore everything except your prime objective."

"And what is that objective?" Ron had asked. He'd been called, completely unbriefed, from an assignment in Africa, and had come to Chicago with no idea whatever as to what his orders would contain.

BLAKE WENTWORTH, a highly capable, but sorely harrassed Intelligence Chief, had smiled bitterly. "I'll come to that, but first, let me give you the background." Wentworth's smile twisted into deeper bitterness as he snatched a cigarette from the tray on his desk. "Most of it you know, of course, so we'll just call it blowing off steam on my part. A man's got to sound off once in a while, or the stuff piles up inside him and cracks him up."

"I understand, sir."

"To a certain extent, maybe, but you can't know how I feel. You can't know that because you haven't been in the saddle—taking the abuse for the mistakes made by others."

There was sympathy in Ron's smile. "I'm a good listener, sir."

"The trouble with this planet, Kratnick, is that they were too cocky. The chosen people and all that silly rot. It came on gradually of course. With the most advanced brains in the universe we naturally were the superiors of the barbaric peoples we found on other planets. Our technical know-how was such that we had no trouble controlling them. And as time went on we considered ourselves as the paternal lords of the universe. The High Council members got up off their fat lard buckets and spouted off about how the blue Mercurians and the Venusians and the Martians loved us and looked to us for guidance."

This was evidently a subject close to Wentworth's spleen because he mashed his cigarette into a tray and his eyes blazed. "Loved us! Any fool with half an eye could see they hated our guts, envied us our advancements and drooled down their tusks at thoughts of getting us by the throats."

Ron had said nothing. There didn't seem to be anything to say. Went-worth scowled at his subordinate much as though he considered it his blame and then went on;

"Then we came up with that foul scheme for getting rid of our own trash and scum. Send them to Venus! Take our mobsters and degenerates and murderers and foist them off on the Venusians, and if the Venusians didn't like it—the hell with them! I remember when a pompous ass of a hypocrite named Lanson made the suggestion in the High Council. I can remember his very words!"

Wentworth had unconsciously burlesqued the voice and attitude of a typical well-fed politician: "Fellow citizens, why should the sweet air of earth be polluted by the breath of such as these? Let's send them to consort with their own kind—the savages in the red jungles of Venus. Let that steaming red planet fulfill the destiny for which it was created—let it be our penal colony."

The Intelligence Chief had stopped for lack of breath and Ron felt called upon to say something. "That was quite a while ago. I was just a kid then."

"Yes and I was still a young man when that groundwork for today's hellishness was laid. But I was in the Service when Darrien reared his rotten head and had to be dealt with."

"That I remember clearly," Ron said. "It was a big issue in the press. After his two attempts to overthrow the government I remember there was a great public clamor for his execution."

"I was a part of that clamor," Wentworth replied grimly. "I went before a Council committee and testified that regardless of Darrien's general rottenness, he had one of the greatest brains of all time; that by sending him to the penal colony of Venusia, we were sewing the seeds of our own possible destruction."

"But they sent him there anyhow."

WENTWORTH'S mood had changed from one of fire to one of moody defeat. "That's right. My words meant nothing and the Council went along with the sob-sisters and the so-called humanitarians. As a result, we lighted a time-bomb that's going off now. Darrien went to work immediately. Because certain men are criminals it doesn't follow that they have no brains. Darrien combed the cesspools of the universe and came up with brains by the bucketful. In ten years he built a war machine that has us with our backs to the wall. He built the most ferocious army ever conceived by the simple process of offering his soldiers our women as prizes."

It had been Ron's turn to frown. "But, sir, we aren't exactly helpless. We have four space fleets, any one of which is capable of blowing Venusia out into the void. I'm just an agent and I don't know what goes on on the inside, but I know that's what the public's howling about. They want to know why we haven't done just that—blown Darrien's rat's-nest to Kingdom Come. Your talk of our having our backs to the wall surprises me. I didn't know it was that bad."

"And neither does the public," Wentworth said grimly. "They blame the Council for not stopping the Earth-raids of Darrien's space ships. That's impossible unless we destroy Venusia."

"Then why don't we?"

"Because we can't."

It was equivalent to saying a man couldn't slap a fly on his own wrist. Ron allowed his expression to mirror surprise but he said nothing. Wentworth lit another cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke out through his nose. He then asked;

"Did you ever hear of the Clanton Space Mine?"

Ron shook his head and Wentworth smiled without humor. "If you had," Wentworth said, "it would mean a leak in Intelligence. Very few people know about it. If the information got out, there'd be panic in the streets."

He punched a button on his desk. A door opened at the far end of the room and a young man entered. The young man had about him, the impersonal air of the scientist. He crossed the room and stood by Wentworth's desk, staring at the Chief through calm, impersonal eyes. Wentworth closed his own eyes, evidently from sheer weariness.

"This is Corbett," he said. "One of our brilliant young brains. Corbett, tell this man about the Clanton Space Mine."

While Wentworth appeared to sleep, the young scientist turned to Ron and spoke in a flat voice as though he were reading his words off a sheet of paper:

"The Clanton Space Mine can be compared, for the sake of understanding its function, to the explosive land mines used in ancient wars to blow up a road over which the enemy was passing. It is used for exactly the same purpose relative to a ship passing through a given area of space. It is an entirely invisible and unregisterable—"

Ron held up a hand. "What do you mean by unregisterable?"

"That its presence cannot be detected by any instruments—at least by any instruments we have been able to devise."

"I see."

"This mine consists of a ray and was discovered by Andrew Clanton—"

WENTWORTH was evidently not asleep because he waved an impatient hand without opening his eyes and said, "The hell with that. Everybody knows Clanton is a scaly-legged genius Darrien picked up in a Martian booze house. Tell him how they use the mine."

The youth went on: "To the best of our knowledge, the ray emanates from a central power plant located in the city of Venusia. It is projected so that it forms an umbrella over the city and about seven hundred square miles surrounding it. Functionally, this ray umbrella explodes any missile, lethal or otherwise, which comes down into its area of effectiveness. That area, so far as we can ascertain, has a depth of about a mile and lies about two hundred miles above the city and surrounding jungles."

"Remember that, Kratnick," Wentworth said, still without opening his eye?. "Seven good men died getting us the information."

There was a moment of silence, after which Wentworth said, "All right. Tell him the rest."

"We know also that there are entrances—tunnels so to speak, through this umbrella—uncontaminated passages in space through which Darrien's ship can enter and exit safely."

"But," Wentworth cut in, "we don't know where they are."

"Is that all, sir?" the young scientist asked. Wentworth nodded and then Corbett left the room.

"You know the score now, Kratnick," Wentworth said. "You know why Darrien's been holding us helpless. If we can't get through that umbrella with a bombardment squadron, these raids will continue until Earth is in panic and Darrien has recruited enough emboldened fighters from other planets to come down and annihilate us."

"I see why you call the situation serious," Ron said grimly. "What are my orders?"

"They're pretty much equivalent to suicide. I want you to go in and locate that projection plant and put it out of commission."

"Might I ask why I was picked for the job?"

"On your record." Wentworth hesitated, then spoke with an added grimness in his voice. "You're entitled to the truth, Kratnick. I told you seven men had already died in the project. They were all good, but that number includes Tanton, the Mercurian. I banked heavily on him but he's been gone for over four months now, and we're giving him up for dead. Anything Tanton couldn't crack is—well, almost impossible."

Ron was genuinely shocked upon hearing this news. Tanton! The blue Mercurian had been practically a legend among the men of Intelligence. A master of over fifty languages, a graduate of Cambridge and the Harvard University of Advanced Theoretics, he was an unsurpassed nuclear physicist, a recognized composer and—this above all—an incurable adventurer. Why, it was an honor even to be considered for a project on which the great Tanton had failed!

"And there were six others beside Tanton?"

"Our best men right up the line. Three Earthmen, a Martian, and two Plutonians. It's practically a certainty they're all dead. Probably died in agony after being tortured. You may refuse the assignment if you wish."

"How do I get through the umbrella?"

"As a member of a Venusian raiding party. At times we get information as to where a raiding party intends to strike. Not very often but when we do, we use that information pretty grimly—we allow the raid to be made and use it to plant an agent in Venusia."

RON HAD understood instantly and his stomach tightened in protest at the seeming callousness. Darrien's forces were allowed to make off with a number of Earthlings in order that Intelligence could make a stab at winning this grim struggle. The unfortunates who were captured became hapless pawns in a game that was for keeps—a game where the stakes ran into the millions of lives.

"I know what you're thinking," Wentworth said. "I know it seems treacherous and rotten, but in this business you've got to weigh all the evils and condone the lightest in order to smash the heaviest."

"I understand," Ron said.

"The Raiders come in lots of about five hundred—usually only one ship—and are a mixture from every planet. Fortunately for us, Darrien has recruited a battalion of Earthmen—renegade exiles from our slums and cesspools. We've managed to capture a few of these and when the raid is staged, you're to infiltrate into the marauders. If necessary in order to carry it off—snatch yourself a woman captive and take her back to Venusia."

"I'll be entirely upon my own of course."

"Entirely. One of our space fleets is patrolling continuously off Venusia. We'll give you their wave length and you're to notify them if you succeed in destroying the projector."

Wentworth got to his feet and held out his hand. "And I promise you," he said grimly, "if you can do it, there'll be a big hole in Venus immediately thereafter."

"I'll try my best, sir," Ron said, and shook Wentworth's hand. He had left, terribly sorry for this man who had to sit at a desk with the weight of the whole terrible affair on his shoulders; this man who perhaps saw in his dreams the faces of Earthlings sacrificed in a plan he himself had had to devise.

"Good luck, Kratnick," Wentworth said.

"Thank you, sir," Ron replied.

Crouched in some bushes two nights later on the outskirts of a small town in Iowa, Ron had listened to the chirping of crickets in a nearby swamp and searched the dark skies for signs of a space-ship. He was clad in the tight gray britches and red tunic of Darrien's Earthmen Brigade. He wore the leather harness which distinguished those renegades, and he carried a zam-gun on his hip. In a supply packet at his belt were papers—genuine enough—identifying him as Louis Diehl, a young St. Louis embezzler who had been exiled to Venusia, had returned as one of Darrien's raiders, and was now safely put away in the cell blocks in Chicago. Ron also wore, on his tunic, the tiny, almost imperceptible blue stitching which would identify him for what he was to any agent he chanced to meet.

But I won't meet any, he had told himself. They're all dead and I'm the eighth in line.

The red tail of a space-ship appeared in the sky. Ron crouched in the bushes and thought of Tanton.

CHAPTER II

TANTON'S greatest asset was a sixth sense which was uncanny in warning the blue Mercurian of danger. The moment he had set foot on Venusian soil, this sense rang a signal bell—told him point-blank that he was being watched.

Possessed of the azure, shell-skin of all Mercurians, he was incapable of facial expression, but his round eyes searched every face in the vicinity and finally settled upon two Venusian idlers in civilian garb who were lounging nearby in entirely too casual a manner. Had Tanton been capable of smiling, he would have done so now. What stupid ass had put these two dolts on his trail?

As he shuffled away from the Earth-raiding space ship after it had set down in its home port with its warriors and their booty, his mind went swiftly to work.

Starting with the knowledge that he was being watched, he began reasoning—building from that fact alone. First, it was obvious that he'd been spotted for what he was—an Earth Intelligence Agent. Therefore, his presence on the space-ship was known even before he left Earth with the raiders.

Armed with this knowledge, he moved into line with the raiders who were waiting to be numbered off before having their loot returned to them, and was struck by the fact that the two Venusians made no move to collar him. This gave him something more to build upon.

Obviously they had been told to watch him rather than to make an arrest. With this thought in view, he moved casually out of the line and drifted toward the gate of the enclosure, certain that no one would detain him.

The two Secret Service men drifted also toward the gate and followed Tanton up the street. Tanton, moving casually, and with no apparent destination, made it very easy for them. He avoided crowded streets and wandered up into the second tier of the city and stood for a time gazing up at the vast glass dome which covered Venusia. This dome, one of the greatest architectural feats in history, covered twenty-five square miles and shut out the vast heat of the flaming sun, thus turning Venusia into an air-conditioned city. Tanton gawked up at it like the most naive tourist, keeping careful sight on his spotters the while.

Absolutely certain of his facts now, he returned to the first tier, had a leisurely dinner, and then moved off toward a certain intersection at the west end of the city. He knew exactly where he was going, although he certainly did not appear to.

So, when he was quite ready, he shook off the two Secret Service men by the execution of one quick maneuver, redoubled his pace, and went straight to an ancient stone building where he found a door; a door cleverly camouflaged with dust, debris, and apparent disuse.

He knocked on the door, his knock a staccato of taps, obviously in code. Then he lounged against the wall and awaited results.

Ten years prior to this time, he had gone through exactly the same movements and now—as then—the results were identical. After five minutes, a small window opened in the door-panel and a red, hostile eye peered out.

"I'm Tanton," the agent said. "I want to see the princess."

These words he had also used ten years before and now the same, hideous misshappen creature drew back the panel and croaked that he should enter.

WITHIN, Tanton found a small room, lit by a dusty levon tube which, barring deliberate or accidental damage, would burn forever. The incredibly filthy one-eyed creature who acted as door-keeper apparently recognized Tanton—acted in fact, as though ten years was hardly longer than ten minutes. The thing held out a scaly hand and gave with what was intended to be a grin. "One creda," it mouthed. "One creda for food."

Tanton laid a silver coin—a three-creda piece—into the hand and was rewarded with a frenzied little dance as the creature showed its appreciation. As Tanton crossed the room and went down a flight of stairs into the murky levels below, the creature was still registering happiness.

Tanton moved swiftly, entirely sure of himself. He was in a tunnel now, which stretched off into the distance, illuminated at irregular intervals by levon tubes, and with other tunnels giving off it every few hundred feet.

This was the famed Undercity of Venusia, a tunneled and catacombed area of unmapped crypts and death traps with a history so gory as to make even the Casbah of olden times pale into positive respectability.

Here, like slavering rats in the darkness, lived the vermin that had been rejected by the greater body of vermin exiled from Earth. In these passages dwelt the absolute dregs of the universe. Even members of Darrien's intrepid Secret Police had been known to resign rather than pursue a criminal into these deadly labyrinths.

A complete shadow-government was known to exist down here. The King of the Undercity was reputed to be a four-armed freak named Tza-Necros from the Planetoids, where evolution sometimes went wild and produced all manner of fantastic animal forms. This monster, possessed of a fine brain in his repulsive cask of a head, had created the shadow-empire himself and stood out successfully against even the ruthless Darrien who was said to have recoiled in horror at accounts of what went on in the Undercity. Twice Darrien had attempted to clean out the foul nest, too strong even for his stomach, and as a result, several thousand of his men now lay rotting in the dark tunnels below.

Tanton, however, seemed entirely at home. He moved with a sure step from one passage to another. He walked with zam-gun in hand and coldly alert when coming abreast of a cross-passage or to a place where the tunnel ceiling vaulted away and left room for balconies giving on the tunnel itself.

He was entirely conscious of the hungry eyes that followed his progress but he found that no creature barred his way.

The passages were taking him ever downward and it seemed, finally, that he must be at least a mile under the first tier of the city above him. Then he stopped abruptly, examined a wall on his right, and tapped it sharply with the butt of his zam-gun. He waited for ten minutes, after which time, the routine at the first entrance, high above, was repeated, and again Tanton said;

"I want to see the Princess."

There was no hesitancy on the part of this doorkeeper, a young Plutonian with a zam-gun of his own clutched in his fin-like hand.

The room inside was cleaner this time, and furnished with deeply upholstered chairs and a thick white yangskin rug.

THE AGENT stepped inside, showing no hesitancy nor even a ghost of caution. "Tell the Princess Tanton is here. Make it quick or I'll strip off your hide and push it down your throat."

This was evidently language the young guard understood, because, with a surly growl, he pocketed his gun and went out through another door.

A few moments later he returned, and Tanton was ushered through the inner door.

There was the sound of tinkling fountains, the music of rippling water, an artificial sky of lazy blue with white clouds floating by. A pathway of yellow brick led off through this amazing paradise, winding through rows of palm trees and banks of carefully tended flowers.

Tanton hesitated for a moment and then a voice called out to him: "Here Tanton—over here."

The blue Mercurian moved in that direction and came to a fern-rimmed pool out of which there arose a golden flame of a girl, completely naked, to stand on tip-toe in the lush grass and shake water from her long blonde hair.

Tanton sat down on a marble bench close by. As a sign of friendship, he removed his harness and dropped it in the grass.

"It's been a long time, Tanton," the girl said. "Throw me the towel there, and my robe."

Tanton picked up both articles and carried them to the girl. He stood by while she dried her brown body and slipped into a robe of fluffy gold-flecked material.

"You're in trouble of course," the girl said, laughing, "or you wouldn't have come."

"I'm in trouble—yes—but that's got nothing to do with it. Your callousness wounds me."

She laughed again as they made their way back to the bench. Tanton sat down and the girl dropped into the grass at his feet and sat looking up at him. "Tell me the news. What goes on on Earth and around the Universe?"

"He still keeps you cut off from things then?"

For a moment her mask of gayety slipped and Tanton could see the bleak unhappiness underneath. He had met this girl, long years before, in a New York cafe. She'd been a dancer then and when this paradise in the heart of Venusia's Undercity had been offered her—with certain strings attached—she'd taken it in lieu of a more strenuous life on Earth.

Margot had not changed one iota through the years. This, however, did not surprise Tanton. Rather, he'd have been surprised to find signs of age, what with Margot's access to the youth hormones developed in Kordo's Martian laboratories.

"Yes," the girl said, "I'm trapped here, but he's good to me. He's kept his end of the bargain and I've kept mine." She smiled and waved a hand in the direction of the pool and the glittering apartments beyond the garden. "What other girl has had what I've had? I live in the most beautiful place in the Universe. My every wish is granted. I have fifty people to fulfill my slightest whim. I'm the luckiest girl ever born."

"You're trying hard to convince yourself of that, aren't you?" Tanton said. Margot dropped her eyes and Tanton went on: "Can anything compensate for the ordeals you go through with that four-armed monstrosity from the Planetoids?"

MARGOT laid a hand on Tanton's armored knee. Her eyes were still downcast. "Tza-Necros is good to me," she said. But she could not hide the hopelessness in her voice. "If it wasn't for him I'd be an ancient hag by now. I was over a hundred years old when I stopped counting. He got the hormones for me that give me eternal youth. I have complete mastery here in my buried Eden. He gives me what other girls only dream of having and all he asks in return is my—love."

"He hasn't got your love and he knows it. All he asks is your body."

Margot raised her head in a flare of defiance. "Well—isn't that little enough?"

Tanton put a hand under her chin and kept her from again lowering her head. He stared into her lovely face until she cast her eyes down. "Why don't you stop trying to kid an old friend," he said softly.

"It's his body, isn't it?" she whispered glancing down at her golden torso. "He's kept it young."

"Stop it!"

The girl held her poise for a few more moments. Then it cracked and she flung herself down to bury her face in Tanton's harness and burst into a frenzy of weeping.

Tanton sat motionless watching her. Possibly a little pity was mirrored in his round eyes, but more probably not. Tanton came of a realistic race and was not given to emotion.

When her sobs had diminished, he reached down and lifted her to the bench and sat her down beside him. "That's better," he said. "You've been a lot of things in your lifetime, Margot, but never a hypocrite. Now stop the blubbering and tell me about it."

She looked at him—dry-eyed now—her face oddly expressionless. "Damn you to hell-fire," she said, dully. "May God spit in your stupid eyes. I should have you killed and use your skull for a flower-pot. But—I can't."

"Of course you can't. One doesn't kill old friends. Besides, my skull would poison the flowers. Tell me—how long have you felt this way? How long have you been fed up?"

There was utter hopelessness in her voice. "I've always hated it, but for the last five years it's been—horrible. I can't seem to steel myself against it any more. Those—those four hairy arms—that slavering mouth!" She lowered her head into her hands for a moment, then raised her head and there was a hard smile on her face.

"Sorry. I'm trapped here and there's no escape. But tell me about yourself. What news of the outside world?"

But Tanton's mind was not on world-events. He had no inclination whatever to turn himself into a walking newspaper. Instead, the wily Mercurian was evolving plans of his own. Already, his brain was busy building a ladder of intrigue and double-dealing up which he could climb to his objective—the destruction of Darrien's ray-projector. He was no lily-white crusader, this Mercurian. He had learned his business in a hard school and it wasn't by chance that he was one of the cleverest agents in Earth's employ. His one saving grace was utter loyalty to whatever cause he served. His reason for serving a cause was entirely a selfish one—for example he was an Earth Intelligence agent because it was the most lucrative proposition he could find for his peculiar talents.

Nor was there any high-mindedness in the loyalty he gave after casting his lot with a particular group. It was simply a matter of common-sense and good business. An untrustworthy agent would soon find himself out of a job, whereas a loyal one increased his reputation and, it followed, his monetary value.

SO NOW, with a structure of intrigue forming in his mind, he laid his first groundwork. "Have you ever taken a lover?" he asked. "Some man a trifle more palatable than our four-armed friend?"

Margot shook her head. "No. I've lived up to my part of the bargain. It's the last shred of decency left to me."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Tanton said. "Any man in Venusia would sell his soul for two hours with you."

"That may be true," Margot said without ostentation, "but it makes no difference."

"If you'd be a little more reasonable, I think I could get you out of here. Back to earth where you'd be safe from Tza-Necros."

The shot, fired at the girl when her guard was down, brought quick blood. She grasped Tanton's hand. "You—you could get me out?" In her eyes was wild entreaty. Then she caught herself and her shoulders drooped. "You talk foolishness, my friend."

"You should know me better than that. I don't babble for the sake of hearing my own voice. I said I could get you out and I can—safely."

"But what would my taking a lover have to do with it?"

Tanton did not answer for a moment. His mind raced up the line of Darrien's bully boys until he came to Lars Valcan, head of the grim and bloody Secret Service. This branch of officialdom was vested with the duty of counteracting espionage and ferreting out dissenters in very form. Also with the protection of government installations. Beyond doubt Valcan would know the location of the ray-projector.

"Would you be willing to spend a half hour with Lars Valcan?" Tanton asked. "That is if I could in turn promise you safe passage back to Earth?"

"How would that help?"

"It's merely a matter of enlisting powerful friends," Tanton lied glibly. "Valcan wouldn't help us for any amount of money. But for the privelege of holding you in his arms. To be able to talk of it later—"

Margot, even in her degradation, had the grace to flush.

"In less than three months you could be walking the streets of New York City," Tanton said. "Riding across the good green land—breathing Earth air and bathing in the blessed sunlight."

Even then, Tanton knew he'd won. Even before Margot said, "I'll try it." Then, even more bitterly. "I guess I'm desperate enough to try anything."

Swiftly, Tanton followed up his advantage. "I'll be back in three hours at the most," he said. "Send orders to all entrances that I'm to be admitted no matter who is with me. And you be waiting in the garden."

While talking, he had been snapping his harness on. Now he turned away and left as he had come, quitting the hidden paradise for the foul passages beyond. A short time later he was across the city, standing in front of a tall marble building which housed the offices of the Secret Police. He was entirely alone, his spotters not having picked him up after his exit from the Undercity.

HE STRODE boldly up the well-worn steps and into the lobby where a young Venusian with a built-in scowl and a zam-gun on either hip barred his way.

"I want to see Lars Valcan," he said. "Take me to him."

"You must be as stupid as you look," the Venusian snarled. "No one sees Lars Valcan—except maybe over the lip of a roasting pit."

"I'll see him. Tell him that Tanton, Intelligence agent from Earth wants an interview. And jump to it or you'll fry on a griddle before sundown."

The guard's mouth dropped open. Here was something utterly inconceivable. It couldn't be a joke because jokes weren't perpetrated within the walls of the Secret Police Building. Here all was grimness and stark reality. The guard walked slowly away, backwards, his eyes still on Tanton. The guard waved a hand and immediately four uniformed soldiers moved in from various locations about the lobby and formed a square around Tanton. The agent ignored them.

The guard backed up to a counter behind which two other officials were seated. He spoke to them in a low voice over his shoulder. They came close to the counter, leaned over, and the three held a hurried conference, after which one of the officials snapped a switch and spoke into a mouthpiece.

After a few moments he got up and came around into the lobby toward Tanton. "This way," he said sharply.

With the four-man guard still in entourage, Tanton was escorted to a small room and placed before a visiplate. There was a whining sound and the plate lit up to reveal a heavy-set, handsome Earthman seated at a desk. The man, frowning, remained silent.

"Greetings, Valcan," Tanton said easily. "When your two spotters got careless and lost me, I felt slighted. I'm certainly more important than that. I came to make inquiries and, incidentally, to do you a service."

The paths of these two had crossed before and Lars Valcan had no reason to love Tanton. But Tanton knew his man. He knew that Valcan, sure of his own position, would grant him an interview out of curiosity if nothing more. An interview was all Tanton asked.

"Send him up," Valcan growled and the plate went dead.

Tanton entered Valcan's office, threw his harness on the floor and took a chair beside the Secret Service Chief's desk. He was as much at ease as he would have been in the office of his own chief on Earth.

"Even though I'm going to have you tortured to death," Valcan said, "I've still got to admire your nerve—walking in here like this."

"I said I was here to do you a service."

Valcan smiled coldly. "How stupid do you think we are, Tanton? Let me tell you a little about yourself. You infiltrated into a party of our raiders near a small town in Maryland. You used the papers of a soldier, an Earthman, named Brad Wilcox who was captured on an earlier raid—"

"I threw the papers away before I boarded the space-ship," Tanton cut in. "I knew a man of your caliber wouldn't be fooled so easily."

"Don't interrupt me. Two men were put on you the moment you stepped on Venusian soil."

"And they lost me two hours later."

"Do you know why you weren't picked up? Do you know why all the Earth Intelligence agents who came before you weren't picked up until we were quite ready?"

"Of course. Darrien wants Earth to keep on sending agents until they run onto something. The S. S. lets them wander about as they please. It's Darrien's method of stalling for time. And do you know where I went after I shook off your spotters?"

"No," Valcan growled.

"I went down into the Undercity to report to my boss—to deliver him some documents from New York."

VALCAN showed genuine surprise.

"Your boss! Are you trying to make me believe you're working for Tza-Necros?"

"Of course I am, and I don't care whether you believe it or not—you will later. I got stranded in New York on an assignment when Earth suspended all flights to Venus. I had to get back, so what better way was there than to sign up with Earth Intelligence in order to get a ride?"

Valcan was no fool but his brain was not in the same league with that of Tanton. He smiled coldly and asked the question Tanton was waiting for. "Why did you have to join Intelligence to board one of our ships? You've slipped up, my friend."

"Your raids weren't exactly broadcast beforehand," Tanton answered, suavely. "Earth Intelligence was getting information on a few of your landings and I had to join up in order to locate one of your ships. Any fool should be able to figure that out."

If Tanton had been capable of smiling, he'd have done so now at Valcan's dark discomfiture. However, he allowed the Secret Service Chief no time for a reply.

''But that's not important. The important thing is that I've got a proposition for you for Tza-Necros. The old boy's scared stiff."

Valcan was entirely disarmed by surprise and interest. "Tza-Necros? Scared of what?"

Calmly, Tanton threw his bombshell. "That new death-ray Clanton invented. The one Darrien's going to use to clean out every living thing in the Undercity. Tza-Necros bought some information about it from a professional informer and he's in a panic. I understand Clanton can turn it into the underground tunnels and annihilate all life in twenty-four hours. That's true isn't it?"

Valcan was thinking fast but still the clever Mercurian agent was able to follow the process of that thinking almost as easily as though Valcan had put it into words.

Up to this point, Valcan had been wondering whether or not Tanton had been lying about not being an Earth-Intelligence agent. Now, so long as he had Tanton in his power, the point no longer mattered. It was overshadowed by the new information.

Granting that Tanton was working for Tza-Necros, it was both logical and possible that some sharp-witted informer had sold the Undercity dictator some silly rumors about the Clanton Space Mine. The secret was closely guarded and not one man in ten thousand knew the location, there in Venusia, of the ray-projector. But rumors got about and it was entirely possible the thing had been rumored as a device to clean out the Undercity.

On the strength of this, and by some somewhat faulty reasoning, Valcan decided Tanton was also in the dark as to the true nature of the device.

"You mentioned a proposition," Valcan said coldly.

Tanton chuckled inwardly. "He'll give you a million credas in gold for the location of the ray projector."

"In other words, he takes me for a traitor."

Tanton sighed. "I didn't think you'd do it for mere gold," he said, "and neither did Tza-Necros. So he'll throw in Margot. That will give you an idea of how scared the old boy is."

"Then Margot really exists?" The golden girl who lived in an Eden under Venusia, was in the realm of legend. Tales of her beauty and her ability to please her four-armed lord, were legion, but no one was sure she was other than the dream of some hopped-up story teller.

"Of course she exists. I've seen her myself. If you agree, I'm to take you down into the Undercity and show you the place Tza-Necros built for her down there. You can visit her down there or bring her out, which ever you choose."

Sore temptation beset Valcan just as Tanton knew it would. Valcan's reasoning ran thus. What did it matter if Tza-Necros knew the location of the ray-projector? Once, he, Valcan, got the money and the fabulous Margot, he could see that Tza-Necros was acquainted with the true facts—that the projector in reality guarded Venusia from Earth's space-ships, and thus guarded, also, Tza-Necros' Undercity.

But Valcan brought himself up sharply. It was absurd; entirely absurd. But then again—Margot. The golden legend of the Undercity. Valcan yearned for the prestige that would go with acquiring her for himself—from parading her in the smart eating and drinking places of Venusia. But—

Abruptly, Valcan pressed a button on his desk. Three heavily armed guards entered the room. Valcan pointed at the blue Mercurian agent.

"Put him in a cell," he snapped. "I'll make out the execution orders for early tomorrow morning."

Tanton was lead away, and at that moment his faith in his own powers fell to zero.

CHAPTER III

AS RON KRATNICK watched the dark skies over Iowa, the fiery tail he'd observed, brightened, and a silver ship rocketed down out of space.

Immediately lights began flashing on in the village nearby; but not before the great shining globe from Venus, coming in a long, graceful sweep, had set down on the meadowland of Iowa.

Ramps shot out of the globe; doors opened automatically, and Darrien's hordes spewed forth. They were as motley a collection of demons as Ron had ever seen gathered in one place. First came a contingent of Darrien's pride—the evil, black-tailed Venusian fighting men, each carrying a zam-gun and armed also with the death-sting, swift and terrible, embedded at the end of those whipping, black posterior formations. Then came the blue Mercurian devils, the eyes in their shell-covered faces alight at the prospect of Earth women's bodies. Came the ferocious Martian hillmen, thirsting for pillage and loot.

Like an ocean wave they frothed across the level ground full of the weird, eerie cries of other planets. The wave engulfed Ron and he rose up and went with it, became a part of it, and he told himself: Now I'm a renegade. I want a share of the loot Darrien promised me; my share of white Earth-flesh. Think the part and I can better act it.

The invaders were smashing into houses now. There were terrified Earth-screams added to the din, as the scene took on the horrible proportions of something straight out of hell. Appalled at the sight, Ron found himself frozen while the action milled about him. From the house in front of which he stood, three persons came running; a very old man, a middle-aged woman and a girl of perhaps eighteen, fleeing from a Martian hillman.

The Martian passed the elder two in one long stride and caught the terrorized girl by the arm. In desperation, the elder woman struck out at him only to go down, her skull crushed by the butt of the Martian's zam-gun. The old man stumbled and went headlong to receive a kick from the Martian which doubled him up in agony.

Ron's stomach was revolting at the scene around him; women and girls dragged, partially clad or entirely naked, from houses; dragged by arms, legs, or hair; some thrown over the shoulders of the raiders to scream and twist and writhe helplessly.

I can't stand much of this, Ron told himself through gritted teeth. But I've got to stand it! Hold myself in!

Then, at sight of two Venusians on down the street fighting over a cowering blonde girl, Ron realized there was something he could do—a small thing but it would keep him from going mad and blowing the whole deadly-important assignment.

He leaped at a Martian hillman who now had a shrieking girl in his arms and knocked him spinning with one blow of his right fist. The surprised Martian went down, only to come up with a roar of rage, mouthing again and again the word that could be heard from all directions: "Mine—mine—mine!"

THE GIRL had fallen too and Ron caught her by the wrist as the Martian charged in, clawing for his zam-gun. Ron flung the girl behind him where she crouched, sobbing, with her face in her hands. He took the Martian's head-on charge on his lowered right shoulder. He heaved, fiercely happy at the feeling of impact, and hurled the hillman backward.

"Mine! Mine!" Ron shouted into the hillman's tusked mouth and jammed his zam-gun into the creature's gut. He snapped the switch and a great hole appeared in the hill-man—a round, bloodless hole from which the Martian's bowels, heart and lungs had vanished into a sharp crackle of atomized dust. The Martian's lips came back off slavering teeth. He was dead but the horrible jaws still worked as he melted to the ground.

Ron whirled and slugged out at a blue Mercurian who was reaching for his nightgown-clad prize. The Mercurian snarled in protest, nursing the split shell on his right cheek. But he was not inclined to argue further and went hulking off in search of other loot.

Ron lifted the girl over his shoulder. As he carried her along he could feel her breasts and the agonized pounding of her heart against his neck. "Mine! Mine," he shouted in triumph as he passed other raiders intent upon their work. And it seemed to him that his smile must have resembled a leering, grinning skull.

The raid was in its final stages now. A horn had been sounded from the space ship and the raiders were streaming back toward the meadow. Some with live loot—others who had to be content with inanimate plunder—and some with empty hands.

But back they went because life, after all, was the dearest thing, and to be left behind meant certain death.

Ron lagged behind the streaming mob, snarling at the envious, empty-handed raiders. He allowed them to pass him by as he swung in a circle toward the comparative gloom of the bushes. With only a few raiders left to board the waiting ship, Ron set the girl on her feet, held her erect when she would have slipped down in heap.

"Run," he gritted in her ear. "Off that way into the darkness! For God's sake—run!"

The stricken girl did not understand at first. Then she took a couple of faltering steps, tangled one foot in her torn nightgown, and went down, moaning.

Glancing desperately around, Ron yanked her to her feet. "Don't you understand me? Run!" With a sweep of his hand he tore away the entangling nightgown, leaving her stark naked. He jammed the garment into her hands and whispered. "Put it on later, but get away from here!" He gave her sharp slap on her bare bottom and had the satisfaction of seeing her come to life and turn into a blurred white streak to disappear into the gloom.

Whirling around, Ron dived for the space ship where only one ramp was still down. He scrambled up the ramp and got inside just as the door swung to and thudded into the heavy rubber jambs, leaving a smooth, unmarred surface on the outer shell of the ship.

Two Venusians pushed him aside and locked the inner door. Ron turned away quickly, hiding his face as much as possible, but it was evident the Venusians were paying him no attention. He hurried up the inner ramp, faced now with the first important hurdle of the assignment. He was impersonating a genuine Earth renegade. His papers were in order, but that renegade had not been aboard this ship at the start of its journey. For all Intelligence knew, its previous seven agents may have been spotted for what they were immediately upon boarding the raider's space ships. The trip to Venus was something more than a suburban jaunt and while there was probably no check made until the ship reached its port, a masquerader could be turned up by the men themselves. Associations were made on a trip of this sort. Men made friends with other men and were known. An unknown man would be a subject for investigation.

RON HAD a plan to at least partially overcome this danger. From a foreknowledge, he knew the customs followed on such occasions as this. He knew the men were not allowed access to their booty during the flight back to Venus; at least not to the live booty.

The captive women were segregated in a separate compartment to be turned over to the soldiers upon arrival. This forestalled possible fights and dead-struggles over the prizes en-route. It also allowed the officers much pleasure at their leisure. Things happened to the more desirable captives on the trip back—things Ron didn't dare think about.

And too the soldiers themselves were segregated in small groups for the better handling thereof. Although it was not mandatory, the men congregated with their own kind. Martians usually traveled with Martians. The Venusians hung together and the Earth renegades, the most clannish of all, usually congregated by themselves. So Ron had decided to avoid the Earthmen who would no doubt turn him up as an interloper, and select other companions for his trip to Venusia.

He picked the most vicious of them all—the black-tailed Venusian warriors themselves. He followed a group of these into a compartment, tossed his harness on a bunk and prepared to snarl down any other claimant.

There were roughly twenty-five Venusians in the group, he estimated. Also he saw one Martian and a single Plutonian. The Martian, his tusks still bloody from the raid, took the bunk next to Ron and sat down to wind a piece of dirty cloth around a small ankle-wound.

Ron stretched out in his bunk, closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. He had completed the first leg of his assignment. The ship was already in motion and soon there would be food for the victorious warriors. Then the Venusians would pile into their bunks and put themselves into a dream-state, a drug-induced stupor, for which purpose each Venusian carried a small bag of dried leaves from the Jadic bush—that evil, red vegetation which could be found only in the stifling Venusian jungles.

I wonder if I'll ever get there? Ron thought. I wonder how soon some alert officer will spot me?

I wonder how long I'll live?

When he finally went to sleep it was with the feeling that he would be yanked at any minute from his bunk and made to face a blinding light, while voices barked questions into his ears and heavy fists maimed him for not answering.

But he slept on and awakened to find food on the table. The Martian and the Plutonian were seated at the table. They'd just finished eating and were conversing in some outer planet language unfamiliar to Ron.

At the other end of the table a single Venusian was gnawing on a leg of beef, cracking the bone with his strong teeth to get at the marrow inside. As Ron watched, the Venusian growled to himself and returned to his bunk.

Ron got up and went to the table. The two from alien planets stopped talking and eyed him with hostility. He ignored them, filled a plate and satisfied his appetite.

JUST AS he was finishing his meal, the door opened and a Venusian entered. The man wore the distinctive harness of a high-ranking officer. He walked straight to the table and stood looking down at Ron. He remained silent as Ron tensed his muscles for what appeared to be a payoff. So this was what had happened to the other Intelligence men. Spotted even before they left Earth, they had each been jetted away to quick death in high space.

But the Venusian officer remained silent and made no motion toward Ron. He stood for a full minute staring down at Ron. Then he grinned—a knowing, wolfish grin—and went out as he had come.

Reaction set in and Ron felt suddenly weak. The Martian and the Plutonian, who had sat silent, their eyes on the tableau, now returned to their conversation. Ron got up from the table and went back to his bunk.

The episode left him bewildered. What lay behind it? He could have sworn the Venusian officer knew him for what he was. Yet the man had gone calmly about his business. Was it a cat and mouse game? Knowing they had Ron helpless, were they toying with him? Ron was inclined to doubt this. It wasn't the way Venusians did business. One thing was certain to Ron, however. He would never reach Venusia alive.

At least a dozen times during the trip, Ron was clinically—but silently inspected by men from the officers' quarters. Each time he prepared for the end and was set to do battle. But each time nothing transpired in the way of action. It was a bewildering thing and wore his nerves to raw edges. By the time the ship was ready to set down in its home berth he was as tense as a steel wire.

But again, nothing happened. He quitted the ship and mixed with the boisterous raiders in the bull-pen prior to numbering off. No one, apparently, was paying him any attention whatever.

Now was the time, he decided. Certainly he wasn't going to stand around waiting for death. He moved casually toward a ramp, expecting, any moment, to be apprehended or shot down in his tracks.

No one barred his way. He achieved the enclosure beyond the ramp and mixed in with the Venusian citizens who were there to welcome the raiders home and feast their eyes on the white captives who would soon be led from the ship.

Ron moved through the crowd and toward the exit. He found no one there to bar his way, and drifted out into the street. Now he increased his pace and quick elation surged through him. Apparently it had all been his imagination!

Then he discovered the two Venusians on his trail and realized the reverse was true. He had been spotted. He was definitely known as an Intelligence agent.

But what was the game? This question entered his mind after he had spent an hour moving around the city and knew, beyond doubt, that the men were following him. Did they expect him to lead them to someone? If so, to whom?

He debated the wisdom of attempting to elude them at this point or to wait for a more favorable opportunity. If he tried to get away from them and failed, they might arrest him then and there.

Mulling this question over in his mind, he found himself passing a sidewalk cafe on the first tier of a busy street. He dropped into a chair and saw his two spotters immediately stop and lean casually against a wall some fifty yards away.

When the waiter came, Ron ordered a bottle of Bizant liquor and drank a full glass without stopping. He had not slept well on the trip in from Earth, nor had had much of an appetite and the liquor tightened his already raw nerves.

His whole being writhed for action. He was tired of the cat and mouse game. As a result of the liquor, he had a mighty urge to end this thing for good and all.

In short, he stopped thinking like an Intelligence agent, and when the blue Mercurian came along, dragging the white Earth-girl by a rope, Ron had to fight with himself as he'd never fought before. His liquor-heated rage flared brightly and he gripped the table-edge with both hands until his knuckles were white.

He sat with his teeth locked tight together as he watched the two Venusian soldiers paw the girl with obscene gestures. He waited for the explosion that didn't come.

Then, as the trouble passed over, and the blue Mercurian jerked cruelly at the rope, Ron lost his battle. He was out of his chair like a projectile. The hell with the assignment! The hell with everything. He had to twist off the arrogant head of that blue Mercurian or go completely berserk.

He heard a voice—his own—yelling, "You turtle-faced son-of-a-bitch! Leggo that rope!" as he dived straight at the blue man.

CHAPTER IV

TANTON, lying in comfort on the stone floor of his cell, was inclined to be philosophical about the whole thing. He had no fear of death, nor did he have any regrets. During all the years he'd played at his dangerous game, he'd known that, someday, this would happen. His wily intrigues, practiced to gain his own ends on practically every inhabitable planet, had always been successful. But he'd known that, someday, one would miss, and that he would be finished.

He was aware of his mistake in this case. He'd misjudged the Secret Service chief. The structure of his intrigue had been basically sound except for one flaw. He'd banked too strongly on Valcan's lust for the beautiful Margot—upon his greed for the prestige of acquiring her.

This he could only shrug off as a mistake and forget about it. It did irk him somewhat that he'd be marked in Earth Intelligence offices as having failed on an assignment. But that too was of no great importance. He wouldn't be around long to suffer the humiliation.

With this thought in mind, he went to sleep.

The following morning he was awake to hear footsteps in the hall. The roasting pit, no doubt, was now at the required high temperature. The footsteps stopped and the door opened.

But it was only a guard bearing a tray of food and a flacon of water. The guard set the food down and retired. Evidently, Tanton decided, they were going to feed him before roasting him. For this he was grateful and set to work upon the tray with gusto.

After eating, he went back to sleep. When he awoke the small window, high in his cell, was black. Night had come. The day of his execution had passed and he was still alive.

This surprised him. But as day after day passed in monotonous regularity and he saw no one but the silent guard with tray and flacon, his wonder increased with the time.

What had gone wrong? Then, suddenly, he knew and his faith in his own abilities shot sky-high. He hadn't failed. Not by any means, and he could sense the struggle going on in Valcan's mind—analyze it as accurately as though Valcan had come down to tell him about it.

The Secret Service chief was fighting between greed and fear. In the beginning, fear had been the stronger. Because of this he'd thrown Tanton into a cell, but the greed stayed his fingers, day after day, from signing the death warrant.

Tanton took a new lease on life and began wondering how long Valcan would hold out. The weeks became months and the months became four, with Tanton waxing fat and lazy in his cell.

It must be quite a battle, he told himself. I wonder how long he can hold out? The next morning there were footsteps in the hall as usual but more brisk now, with a sound of more positive authority.

It was Valcan.

HE ENTERED the cell and stood down at Tanton who was stretched full length upon the floor.

"It's been a long time," Tanton said.

"I couldn't make up my mind. I'm still not convinced that—"

"But you're ready to go ahead with it?"

Valcan glanced uneasily at the door, then continued speaking in a lower voice. "It's not as easy as you think. Especially now that you've been committed to jail. The best I can do is to see that you escape. I'll give your guard an order to show you an escape-route—a passage to the second tier of the street behind the building. Then, after you've escaped, I'll come down and kill him for negligence of duty."

"A clever procedure," Tanton said, and was entirely sincere about it. He'd been guilty of equally treacherous deeds more than once in his career.

"But once you're beyond the walls, you'll have to fend for yourself. I'll have to put every man on the alert. And if you're captured you won't live long enough to make any accusations against me."

"Don't worry," Tanton said, cheerfully. "I'm not in the habit of getting caught."

"Then where can I meet you after you're clear?"

"What time is it?"

"A little after the thirteenth hour."

"Meet me, at the eighteenth hour, on the first tier of Darrien Promenade and a small street called Antor. And come alone. Otherwise we will not be admitted to the Undercity."

Valcan was silent for a moment before he said. "I believe you said I could bring Margot out of the Undercity with me. Otherwise—"

"That will be your privilege. And you can also bring the million credas out."

"That is of no consequence. I already have well over ten million credas."

Tanton got to his feet. "Why don't you give me the location of the ray projector now?" he suggested. "It might save time, and will put Tza-Necros into a good mood to receive you."

"Do you think I'm a fool?"

"I was hoping you were, but I guess I'm wrong," Tanton said. "When will the guard come?"

"Within an hour," Valcan said. "And remember, you'll have not more than five minutes before the alarm will be sounded. Goodbye now—I hope we meet again."

"At the Promenade and Antor Street. The eighteenth hour."

Fifteen minutes later, Tanton was standing alone in the small alley behind the prison. Another five minutes and Valcan had personally slain Tanton's guard and had sounded the alarm for the agent's recapture.

Tanton moved swiftly in the few minutes of grace, but not swiftly enough. Before he could shoulder his way into a trans-city jet car, a masterswitch was thrown at Secret Service Headquarters and every pilot obeyed the red signal to stop his car. A cordon was thrown around a mile-square area with the prison as its center. With a smoothness indicating long practice, the Service went into action, checking people out of the area, one by one, through turnstiles and ordering them not to return until the Service quitted the restricted area.

Tanton was neatly trapped.

And he knew what his fate would be if he were captured. Quick death. Beyond doubt the Service men had been ordered to shoot him down instantly upon identification.

PAUSING on a side street to take his bearings, Tanton wracked his brain for a way out. But, while infinitely clever, he was not given to working miracles. His lightning brain reviewed the situation and gave a negative report. There was no way out. All the civilians in the area would be checked at the exits. Then the square mile would be combed by men walking elbow to elbow. No escape.

Tanton stepped back into a doorway as footsteps sounded on the deserted street. A moment later a lumbering giant of a man, a Martian, came around the corner and moved in Tanton's direction. Pushing his head into view, Tanton saw, first the Martian, and then the practically naked Earth-girl he was dragging along by means of a rope around the latter's slim waist.

Tanton catalogued the girl instantly. Obviously an American, she was no doubt from some town recently raided by the Venusians. The droop of her smooth shoulders and the fear and utter hopelessness in her eyes, marked her for what she was. Loot. A girl taken on a raid by the Martian, and now his property to do with as he saw fit.

Another point impressed Tanton. This Martian was evidently looking for a place of seclusion—some deserted nook or alleyway, where he could examine his prize in privacy.

Then a plan for salvation—his own salvation—was born in Tanton's mind. Had he been able to smile, he would have done so as he stepped from the doorway and moved toward the Martian and the captive girl.

The Martian, immediately suspicious, yanked the girl roughly forward and pushed her behind him as he scowled at Tanton. The latter walked up, a picture of innocent interest, and craned his neck to peer around the Martian. He noted, in doing so, the red welt of the rope completely encircling the waist of the lush Earth-girl.

"A rare prize," Tanton said. "Is she for sale? I'll pay two hundred credas gold. A hundred and fifty platinum."

"Mine," the Martian snarled. "I took her in a raid."

"Of course she's yours, but I want to buy her. I'll pay."

The Martian considered for a moment. "I'll sell, but not now. Two days from now I'll return to this spot with her at the same time. Then I'll sell."

Tanton considered in turn, but the Martian had no idea what was in the Mercurian's mind. He had no credas on his person and no intention of buying the girl. Also he had no weapon. Hence the seeming thought on the Martian's proposition which was in reality, a ruse to get a trifle closer to the man—close enough to jerk the zam-gun from his harness.

Finally, Tanton shook his head. "No. I want her now—not after you've spoiled her. I'm not interested in second-hand goods. "I'll pay three hundred—gold."

The Martian did what Tanton had hoped he would do—turned his head to look appraisingly at the girl and consider whether he could find more pleasure with the money in some Venusian booze and flesh house, than with this slim brown Earth-virgin.

He turned his head just enough for Tanton's arm to streak out and come back gripping the raider's zam-gun. The Martian whirled in alarm but his brain probably hadn't even time to form the fear-pattern because—in an instant—his head was gone, charred into a thimbleful of black crust by the ray from the zam-gun.

AS THE big body melted to the pavement, Tanton snatched the rope from the lifeless hand and said to the cowering girl; "You're mine now. See that you come along peacefully and keep your mouth shut. Otherwise I'll sell you in the first flesh house I come to."

The girl whimpered and lowered her head in complete defeat.

A few minutes later, Tanton, now apparently half-drunk, weaved his way toward one of the turnstiles set up by the Secret Service. He was shouting a ribald Mercurian drinking song and seemed surprised and bewildered upon finding a barricade.

"What's this?" he demaded of a young Service Lieutenant. "Who stands in the way of a soldier of Darrien? One side or I'll fry you."

The lieutenant's eyes were on the Earth-girl as Tanton had anticipated. To the young Venusian, Tanton was obviously a triumphant and most fortunate raider who was parading his booty for all to see. Pulling his hot eyes away from the girl, and scarcely looking at Tanton, the lieutenant glanced at the record sheet in his hand and waved Tanton through. As the girl followed, her arms folded to cover a portion of her nudity, she felt the hand of the lieutenant brush casually over her body. She shivered and responded to the jerk of the rope in Tanton's hand. "Come on, girl," Tanton said. "No one bars the way of an Earth-raider."

Tanton gave the girl no rest as he hurried across the city. He was past the main danger now, but the whole Service had been alerted and he would possibly be challenged at any moment, though—thanks to his masquerade—it was doubtful.

He kept to the direct thoroughfare on the first tier, considering audacity to be a good thing and had no trouble until he was within a quarter-mile of his goal—the nearest entrance to the Undercity of winch he had knowledge.

Thus, with safety almost in his grasp, he was intercepted by two swaggering Venusian fighters. Their lustful eyes brightened at sight of the girl and, as Tanton hauled her past them, their hands were upon her.

Here was possible trouble and it had to be met head-on. Tanton snarled as he yanked the girl toward him. "Mine", he spat, and gripped the butt of his zam-gun.

But the reaction of the Venusians was not as Tanton expected. They were in an amiable mood—rare for Venusians—and they laughed good naturedly as they moved on. Tanton breathed a sigh of relief. A brawl at this point would have brought inquiries—inquiries fatal to Tanton.

Then, just as he was resuming his course, trouble sprang at him from another quarter. This in the form of an apparently demented Earthman—a handsome young man in the harness of Darrien's raiders, who dived straight at Tanton's throat from a cafe table nearby.

Tanton, unable to draw his gun, whirled to meet the charge and went down under the fury of the mad assault. He heard a thundering voice in his ear:

"You turtle-faced son-of-a-bitch! Leggo that rope."

Tanton's head cracked hard against the pavement but that bothered him not at all. His skull could not have been split with a hand axe, so thick and hard was its shell-covering.

But he had a vulnerable point at his neck and the Earthman evidently knew this because he had Tanton's head gripped in both hands and was twisting it. Too much of this and the head would snap off at the base of the neck. Then the crazy Earthman could lift it away like a disconnected door knob.

TANTON strained—heaved upward—and his eyes came into line with the Earthman's chest. There, almost invisible, was the faint blue stitching which marked him for what he was—an Earth Intelligence Agent.

It flashed swiftly through Tanton's mind that this man was a disgrace to his planet. He'd lost his head while on an assignment.

But that did not change the fact that Tanton was also close to losing his own head. He jerked the Earthman close to him and gritted. "Stop it you fool! Look at my tunic! I'm an agent myself. My name is Tanton!"

His words pierced the Earthman's brain and quieted the manical fury of his attack. His expression changed to one of bewilderment as he loosed his hold on Tanton's tortured head.

"We've got to get away from here quick," Tanton hissed. "The Service men will haul us to jail and we'll be lost. A crowd is gathering already."

Ron Kratnick saw that this was true. Passers-by had stopped to watch the fight and the walk was becoming crowded.

"I'll throw you off," Tanton whispered. "Then I'll get up and run with the girl. You follow us until you see me turn into an alley but don't catch up with us till then."

With this, the blue Mercurian executed a mighty heave, sending Ron Kratnick rolling into the gutter. Immediately, Ron doubled up as though in agony, as though a hidden blow had paralyzed him.

The Mercurian was on his feet instantly to gallop off down the street, dragging the whimpering girl behind him.

After a reasonable time, Ron got to his feet and ran after the fleeing Mercurian.

Ahead with the girl, Tanton found he could not travel very fast. The girl was bare-footed and was not used to running full-tilt through city streets. Then Tanton glanced back and found that the Earthman had developed a limp which retarded his progress. Thus the distance between them remained pretty much unchanged.

The second time he glanced back, Tanton saw something else. Two Venusians, obviously spotters who had been put on the Earthman's trail, had recovered from their surprise at the swift turn of events and were now in pursuit. Fortunately Venusians were slow of foot, but even so, the distance between them and the earthman was fast diminishing. Tanton was happy to see that the Venusians had not drawn their weapons. Evidently they felt well able to catch the Earthman alive.

Tanton pulled cruelly on the rope, forcing the Earth-girl to increased speed and it was with a feeling of relief that he came to the alley toward which he'd been running. He pulled the girl into the narrow passageway, then pushed his head around the edge of the building and looked back down the street.

The Earthman's limp had magically vanished and he was kiting up the street at a speed which caused the Venusians to claw for their zam-guns.

Then the Earthman was braking his speed to turn and slip into the alleyway past Tanton.

"What now?" Ron asked, gasping for breath.

"The spotters," Tanton said, his zam-gun already in his hand. "You take the short one. I'll cut the tall one in two."

AS THEY approached and hurled themselves into the alley's mouth, the two Venusians died instantly as rays from two zam-guns fried various parts of their anatomies into fragments of hard black crust.

As the men fell, Tanton stepped forward and sprayed the bodies with the zam-gun until there was nothing left of either one except a few fragments of crust.

Watching this brutal annihilation, the Earth-girl sobbed and swayed against the wall, close to the end of her strength.

"I'm not doing this because I enjoy it," Tanton growled, "but we can't leave any remains to be discovered later. This is too close to an Undercity entrance. By the way," he said to Ron, as his zam-gun crackled out the consuming heat ray, "since when has Intelligence been hiring fools like you?"

Ron Kratnick flushed in the semi-darkness of the alley. But he hurled back no defense at the insult because he had no defense. He'd acted the fool all right—the callow school boy—and the incident could easily end his career as an agent. "I—I don't know why I did it!" he said. "I knew those spotters were on me and I decided things were hopeless with all the other agents dead. I had to make one gesture of defiance before they killed me. This is my first assignment away from Earth and—"

"—and if you keep on the way you're going, it will be your last," Tanton cut in. "What's your name?"

"Ronald Kratnick. S-rating. Nine successful assignments."

"You must have been a devil for luck," Tanton observed sourly as he cleaned up the last of the unseared flesh on the ground. "And thank heaven I rate you so I won't have to beat a cocky young superior down to his natural size."

Ron felt heat rising within him at the Mercurian's tone and words. But he dampened it swiftly with the knowledge that he deserved censure. And too, this was the great Tanton. One took criticism from Earth's top agent and didn't resent it—at least not outwardly.

"I'll take your orders of course," Ron said, stiffly.

His work completed, Tanton turned and pointed to the girl. "You'd better carry her," he said. "She's about finished. You've got to get down into the Undercity before she can stop and rest. Better cut that rope off her."

"The Undercity?" Ron asked in surprise. He'd heard of rumors of that horrible place—tales of its cruelties and obscenities, but he'd never been really sure it existed in fact. He took a knife from his supply packet and sliced the rope off the girl's body. As he did so, Tanton spoke to her;

"I'm sorry to have treated you so roughly," he said, "but the act had to be convincing—for your sake as well as mine. What's your name, girl, and where are you from?"

For a moment she did not answer, her expression indicating extreme confusion. Then she whispered, "Glory Evans. I was captured in a raid on Smithton, Tennessee."

"Speak up, girl," Tanton said in a not unkindly voice. "You're among friends now. You'll find clothing and safety down below."

Glory Evans did not react with any degree of gratitude. Instead, her fear deepened. Even on Earth she'd heard the horrors of the Undercity. To her, it seemed little different from the fate from which she'd been rescued.

"Things will be better now," Tanton assured her, "but we must keep moving. I'll lead the way. You, girl, walk behind me, and Nine Successful Assignments here, will cover the rear."

RON TOOK the sarcasm in silence and the three of them moved through the alley to stop at what appeared to be an abandoned plastic shack. Tanton tapped a code on the door panel.

While they waited, Ron wondered how the door, which opened outward, could be used before they moved the huge pile of refuse in front of it. He was soon to learn.

After a few minutes, during which time they had evidently been closely inspected from some hidden vantage point, the door opened. But it moved inward, frame and all, on hinges cleverly covered by strips of plastic. Tanton motioned and they climbed over the heap of debris into the small room beyond.

A wizened little Earthman was the keeper of this Undercity entrance. His mouth opened, revealing a toothless jaw, and he said, "You can go on down—on Margot's order, but I have no escort for you."

Tanton was relieved to hear the words as he feared the order allowing his entrance in to the Undercity accompanied by other persons had been cancelled. He'd told Margot he'd be back in three hours. It had been almost four months.

The old Earthman pushed back a panel in what seemed to be solid rock, and Tanton stepped through into a tunnel lit by a pair of dust covered levon tubes. When the girl hesitated, the blue Mercurian grasped her by the arm and pulled her through. His manner was not rough, but was far more firm than gentle. "We've no time to waste on timidity," he snapped.

Once beyond the panel, Tanton turned and, with a gesture, forbade the doorkeeper from closing it. "You'll have to go on alone," he said to Ron. "The two of you. I've got an appointment at the eighteenth hour that I've got to keep. I'll give you a note to Margot and a map showing how to get to her. Don't tell Margot you're an agent. I'll explain things in the note and she'll give you sanctuary."

Tanton wrote swiftly on a pad he took from his supply packet. Then he drew a map on another slip of paper and handed them both to Ron. "Things aren't tough enough, as it is," he growled. "I've got to be saddled with a couple of babes in the wood on top of everything else."

Ron flushed. "See here—" he began.

"Obey orders," Tanton snapped. "Follow this map and you'll be all right." He went out through the panel as he'd come—then turned back. "And keep your zam-gun handy. You'll bump into some unsavory characters down there. A zam-gun speaks the only language they understand."

With that he was gone. The panel slammed to, leaving Ron Kratnick and Glory Evans alone under a levon tube at the head of a long flight of stairs. Ron's resentment at Tanton's attitude was still in his voice as he said, "Well, we might as well get going." He resented being humiliated in front of this lovely girl, and, unconsciously, he took it out on her. "Give me your hand," he said. "I'll lead the way." Glory made no answer as—her hand tight in his—she followed Ron down the long flight of stairs.

At the foot of the stairs, they found a tunnel, lit at irregular intervals by levon tubes, stretching off into seeming infinity. The silence around them was like a live, sinister thing, waiting to pounce at the first opportunity. After traveling a hundred yards, Ron stopped and consulted Tanton's map. "It shouldn't be hard to find, but we've got to keep our eyes open. No telling what manner of creatures live in this cesspool."

AS THEY moved forward, the silence was broken, not by any abrupt sound, but slowly, imperceptibly, like leaves stirred by a breeze in a forest. Then, gradually they could detect a new note which arose into a babble of sheer gibberish—the language and dialects of the Universe chuckling and babbling in the darkness.

The girl cringed against Ron. "I can feel them," she whispered in terror. "Eyes in the darkness, boring into me! What—what have we gotten into?"

"We've got to go on," Ron said. "It was Tanton's order. I have to obey."

"Will you make me a promise?" Glory Evans faltered. "Promise to kill me if—if—"

"It's not as bad as that," Ron answered. "These creatures down here know better than to face a zam-gun. They're probably just curious as to who we are."

Ron, entirely inexperienced so far as Venusia was concerned, listened to the gibberings and decided they were motivated by fear. Thus did he completely misinterpret the rising tone.

They were possessed of a diabolical cleverness, these obscene creatures—this legion of the damned lurking in the Undercity of Venusia. Clever to the extent that Ron and Glory were already identified as two inexperienced Earthlings; and also, word was being passed up and down the tunnels that Glory was an Earth girl, fair game for the lusts nurtured in unholy darkness. The word was being passed along, and now the tone of the chatterings was one of exultation.

Ron and Glory walked on, came to an indicated turn on Tanton's map, and moved into a new, broader tunnel.

Now, suddenly, there was complete silence, as though a great hand had been clamped over the myriad mouths in the Undercity.

"See," Ron said. "They've stopped."

"Yes but why—why did they stop?" To the terrified girl it was like a lull before some deadly storm.

"It's all right," Ron said. "Tell me what happened to you. You said you were taken in a raid?"

"Yes," Glory said. She was now walking close to Ron and, through sheer weariness, she no longer attempted to hide her lovely breasts from view. Worn and almost beaten, this futile attempt at modesty must have seemed a small thing to her, beside the horrors she had faced and was facing even now. Ron glanced down and his eyes caught the breathless contour of her young bosom and the smooth lines of her thighs and legs. He jerked his eyes guiltily away as she said, "It happened in the dead of night. We had guards in the town, but no one knew where the Venusians would strike next and it was impossible to cover every city and village. The space ship flashed down and those fiends were screaming in the streets and dragging people out of their homes before we knew what was happening. I was pulled from bed by a Martian raider and dragged from the house. On the porch I saw my mother lying dead—"

"Don't talk about it," Ron said quickly. "I'm sorry I brought it up." Then a trifle bitterly, "I seem to do the wrong thing and say the wrong thing with amazing regularity."

Glory Evans reached up impulsively and laid her hand on his chest. "Don't condemn yourself," she said. "It's all right. You've been good to me. I—I—you don't know what that means after what I've faced."

"I'll see that no one ever hurts you again," Ron said, warmly. "I'm going to—"

AT THAT exact moment, they were plunged into the middle of hell incarnate. From the balconies above, giving onto the tunnel—from out of dark crypts and passages—there poured a smothering army of pure horror.

In the light of the levon tubes Ron and Glory could see them; drooling, slithering, galloping, jumping from above—they came in such numbers as to make Ron's zam-gun useless.

Creatures from the Planetoids—some of which could have been classed as human and others undoubtedly lower animals—the products of places where evolution had run riot—had produced savagely and without regard to any known law.

Ron brought his zam-gun up and burned away three legs of a six-legged creature which had advanced upon him with a single great arm outstretched. A bat-like entity with the face of an Earthman and wings, spawned on some Planetoid, came hissing down from above. Ron cut it in two. It fell with a screech of agony and then Ron's gun was knocked from his hand. He saw a giant Plutonian reached out and pull Glory from a pile of furry, gibbering man-apes. But he could do nothing for her. He was held helpless in the iron grip of a shell-covered creature he couldn't classify.

He heard Glory scream once in terror. Then he went down into feathery darkness, spinning—spinning—spinning, as a great weight crashed against his skull.

CHAPTER V

AFTER ridding himself of Ron and Glory, Tanton went cautiously back into the first tier of Venusia. The going was easier now because night had fallen and he had the advantageous cover of darkness.

He left the alley at its far end and found himself in a deserted street some two miles from the intersection of Darrien Promenade and Antor Street. It was well into the sixteenth hour and Tanton covered the two miles by the process of flitting from one shadow to another, avoiding the main thoroughfares with their bright levon tubes for the dim residential ways.

Upon arriving in the vicinity of the Promenade and Antor, Tanton veered to the left and found an alley leading him along one side of a giant warehouse. It was not by chance that he'd selected the particular intersection for his meeting with Valcan. He knew this neighborhood well, as was proven by the manner in which he found the small, ground-level window into the warehouse.

Once inside, he lay hidden in a fuel bin until the watchman plodded past on his hourly rounds. Then Tanton commandeered an empty lift and rode to the forty-second floor. Quitting the lift, he let himself out on the roof and walked half a mile through a maze of ventilators until he came to the far side of the building. Time had moved halfway through the seventeenth hour.

Now, from his vantage point at the roof edge, he could look straight down upon the intersection at which he was to meet Valcan.

A scene of great activity was laid out below him. The section had been roped off and, under strong lights, a great many men were working feverishly. They were operating in crews, digging into every nook, every suspicious corner which might house a hidden door into the Undercity. Brit-guns had been brought into play in order to cut passages through rock. Every door in the vicinity had been broken open and even sections of the pavement had been eaten away by the Brit-rays.

Tanton did not even bother to congratulate himself upon finding he had forecasted Valcan's move successfully. There had been no doubt whatever in his mind as to how the Secret Service Chief would proceed.

The man wanted, above all, a safe entrance into the Undercity. The cunning with which these entrances were hidden, had been the main thorn in Darrien's side. False entrances had been found from time to time, but they had invariably turned out to be death traps for Darrien's men. And upon the two occasions when true entrances had been found, it was almost as though Tza-Necros had given out the information himself, because the Undercity King's men were waiting for the onslaught of Darrien's warriors. And, in each case after the slaughter, the entrance and dozens of the tunnels lying beneath, were sealed solid with ray-contaminated rock which made sure death the price of further tampering.

Tanton chuckled to himself at the sight of Valcan himself pacing restlessly about down below, receiving negative reports from his squads and venting his rage by smashing one lieutenant to the ground with a single blow of his fist.

TANTON waited patiently and, as the eighteenth hour approached, he saw Valcan call his men in and send them away, a group at a time until the area was practically deserted. The portable lights were extinguished and dragged away and finally, only Valcan himself remained, almost invisible now, in the deep shadow of a doorway.

Apparently satisfied, Tanton left the building by the same route he'd entered it. He emerged from the alleyway and leaned casually against a wall on Antor Street, scanning the passers-by. There weren't many. After a few minutes, Tanton selected a child of not more than ten years, collared him and pulled him close to the wall. He pointed down the street toward the doorway in which Valcan lurked.

"You see that entrance?" he said to the startled child. "You'll find a man standing there." Tanton thrust a folded piece of paper into the child's hand together with a ten-creda piece. "Carry this note to him and then be on your way. He won't hurt you. Just hand him the note and then go and spend these credas."

Released, the child was off at a dead run. Tanton watched as Valcan's arm came out of the shadows to take the proffered note. He imagined the reaction in Valcan's not-too-clever mind as he read:

Now that you've enjoyed yourself, let's go on with our business. Walk seven sectors down Antor street. If you have men following you I'll know it. If you try any tricks I'll probably have a chance to kill you.

Tanton

The blue Mercurian watched as Valcan wadded up the note and threw it angrily to the pavement, then looked searchingly up and down the street. Tanton could see the indecision working in Valcan's mind and was somewhat relieved when the latter finally quitted the doorway and strode down Antor Street with all the mannerisms of a sulky child.

Tanton did not follow Valcan. Instead he traveled swiftly up into the second tier of the thoroughfare and moved with long strides toward the rendezvous. His pace was such that, when Valcan had finished counting off seven sectors, Tanton's voice greeted him from a dark areaway:

''I'm glad to see you've come to your senses. Here—let me put this blindfold on you."

Valcan scowled and raised his hands in objection, whereupon Tanton said, "Don't be a fool. This alone should convince you I'm sincere. If you were allowed to find an entrance into the Undercity, you know very well Tza-Necros would never let you return alive."

The Secret Service chief made no further objection, allowing himself to be blindfolded and led back through the areaway by the crafty Tanton.

There followed now a period of what seemed aimless wandering. In truth it was just that, and eventually, Tanton brought Valcan back to the exact spot from which they'd departed. It was the place of his first entrance into the Undercity four months previous.

There was the red, peering eye and, once inside, the plea: "A creda for food, my master. This miserable one starves while serving the great Tza-Necros."

Tanton knew the wretch was well fed and that the money would go for a brief hour of drug-induced ecstasy. He parted with a silver creda and led Valcan through the inner door and down into the first tunnel.

THERE he removed the blindfold. Valcan rubbed his eyes and scowled down the long passageway. "If I could bring Darrien information about this place—information with which to destroy it—I would soon sit far higher in his counsels," Valcan said.

And in Tanton's mind was a brusque, unuttered question: Doesn't this fool know he's going to die? How can a man allow lust of a woman and greed for prestige blind him to stark fact? How can men be so gullible?

"The vilest rats are the hardest to kill," Tanton said, easily. "But now we must hurry. And keep your gun handy. We may encounter resistance."

But there was no resistance—only eyes gleaming in dark places and the foul gibberings of creatures who had not seen sunlight for countless years.

Tanton left the Secret Service chief in the small anteroom to Margot's garden—left him under the watchful eye of the hostile young Plutonian—and hurried on to find Margot.

She was resting on a fur-covered lounge in her apartments. As Tanton entered, she arose and drew a robe around her golden body. "I thought you'd been killed," she said, and Tanton was elated to detect genuine concern in her eyes.

"It took longer than I thought," Tanton replied. "But nothing has changed. Aside from the time I spent in jail, the thing has gone off without a hitch." He hesitated for a moment. "You haven't changed your mind have you?"

She came toward him, a tired smile on her face. "If you had returned in three hours you'd have found me in a different mind. But for three months I've dreamed of freedom—of the good green Earth—and now—well, I'll do anything—anything to get away from this place."

"Excellent. Let me brief you on what is to be done." Seated beside Margot on the luxurious couch, Tanton explained very carefully what her role was to be. "And now I'll bring the fool in," he said. "Then I must seek an audience with Tza-Necros."

At the door, he turned back. "By the way, what have you done with my two babes-in-the-woods? You've put them out of harm's way I hope?"

Margot questioned with her eyes. "Your babes-in-the-woods? What are you talking about?"

"An Earthman and a girl I took with me when I broke out of jail. I sent them to you with a note? You mean they didn't get here?"

"Of course not. I would have been told immediately."

The news saddened Tanton somewhat, but not too much. Obviously the two had been trapped—set upon out in the tunnels. By all odds they were dead now. Too bad. The girl was a raving beauty and the young agent was probably not beyond hope. He'd have probably been a good spy with a little guidance.

But, so long as neither of the two had been included in Tanton's original orders, he felt no responsibility for them. There were far larger things at stake than those two. With no further thought on the matter, he hurried across the garden to where Valcan was impatiently waiting.

"She is awaiting you," Tanton said. "And I must say, you are indeed a fortunate man. I regret that my own luck never exerts itself to such an extent in my behalf."

Valcan wore his perpetual frown. "Let's get ahead with it. This place makes me nervous. I wish now I'd signed that execution order."

"You'll change your mind when you see her," Tanton replied cheerfully.

He pushed Valcan through the inner door and closed it behind them. "This way," he said, and led Valcan down the yellow brick path.

"I can't believe it!" Valcan exclaimed. "I don't understand how such a place could have been built. It's beyond conception!"

"Slave labor," Tanton said, as if that explained the whole thing. "Margot is waiting over there. Come."

HE PUSHED Valcan into Margot's chamber, and when the latter saw Margot, reclining on the lounge, he stopped with a quick breath standing before her.

"Here is your new master, my dear," Tanton said.

Margot arose from the couch. "My lord," she murmured, and came forward, sensuous, languorous, her arms reaching.

Valcan took a step forward, but was brought to a halt by Tanton's sharp words. "Just a minute. There is a small formality before I can leave you to your own devices."

"I don't understand," Valcan said.

"I can understand why it slipped your mind—the matter of the projector's location. I have demonstrated my good faith and that of Tza-Necros by bringing you here. The time has come for you to deliver. Where is the projector located?"

Valcan's bedazzled mind was upon other things. Without taking his eyes from Margot's lush body, he said, "It is in a gray stone building on Neptune Way near the intersection of South Plaza. The building is marked as a food processing plant—"

Valcan brought himself up sharply upon the sudden realization of what he'd done. He'd told the truth! This crafty Mercurian had manipulated him into a trap. With devilish cunning, he'd asked his question at exactly the right moment—when Valcan's guard was down.

Valcan had told the truth and he was certain that Tanton knew it.

In so doing, Valcan realized he'd divested himself of his one weapon—his sole means of defense now that he had walked blindly into what could be a trap.

Swiftly his suspicions returned to be resolved into dreadful certainties. The blue Mercurian was no emissary of Tza-Necros! He was an agent of Earth intelligence, sent to locate and destroy the ray projector. And—in league with this golden creature of the Undercity, he'd drawn information from Valcan which no method of torture, however fiendish, would have produced.

How could I have been such a fool? Valcan asked himself. His eyes darted, in desperation, toward the harness which lay on the floor near Margot's couch.

But he was never to get his hands on the zam-gun holstered in the harness. Margot, schooled by Tanton for just such a possibility as this, moved with swift grace to stoop and snatch the gun from its clip. She stepped backward, the gun ready for use, but her face showed both indecision and anger.

The latter was directed at Tanton, not Valcan, and her red lips framed an accusation. "You used me!" She said. "This talk about a ray projector. I don't understand it, but I know there is something wrong. What sort of an intrigue is this, Tanton?"

Her sudden perception threw the blue Mercurian slightly off balance. He hadn't expected it at this point.

A MOMENT later he was fighting for his life as Valcan hurled himself across the intervening space and smashed the agent to the floor.

"You'll never use that information!" Valcan yelled. He locked Tanton's arms to his side, thus preventing him from drawing his gun, and then wrapped his free arm around Tanton's head seeking to twist it from the agent's body.

Tanton managed to free his left arm as pain shot down his spine. He locked his hard, shell-covered hand around Valcan's throat and heaved upward with his knees. Valcan flew through space, but unfortunately for Tanton, his own zam-gun, knocked from its clip on his harness, bounced away also and skidded well beyond reach.

Both antagonists dived for the

weapon. Both laid a hand on it at once. Then Margot's voice, so filled with fright and anguish as to freeze them both, cried out;

"Stop it! For God's sake, stop it!"

They, too, had heard the heavy footsteps coming in from the garden through the open portal. As one man, they turned and stared at what approached.

A great hairy monstrosity with the body of a giant ape, yet more erect and with a certain dignity in its movement. Two pairs of long arms extended from the thick torso upon which sat the ugly head of a Planetoid misfit. Only the eyes of the creature commanded respect. They were large, liquid, beautiful, perpetually brilliant. And without doubt they mirrored the able brain within the skull of Tza-Necros.

He was accompanied by a guard of four Plutonians, each armed with two zam-guns and a Brit projector.

Both Tanton and Valcan got slowly to their feet, their personal differences forgotten at the approach of this greater peril.

"He'll kill us all," Margot whispered in terror. "He'll kill us all."

Tanton looked desperately around for a means of exit. There was none. He lashed at his brain, demanding a plan of escape. But even Tanton's agile mind could not work miracles. It seemed his clever intrigue was to go for naught.

There's always some little angle you can't figure, he told himself sourly as Tza-Necros' gross body appeared in the doorway

CHAPTER VI

WHEN RON KRATNICK opened his eyes he was still not sure of having returned to consciousness. Truly the scene around him could as easily have been something in a nightmare. It was unbelievable.

He lay in what appeared to be a vast cavern. An open fire in its center threw weird dancing shadows on the far-away ceiling and walls. The fire also revealed a circle of bodies and faces. Hideous bodies and faces which could have well been done by a painter gone mad. Crouching, lascivious, bloodlusting entities formed a circle, well back from the fire, and there was continuous, terrifying sound as they jabbered, cackled and snarled in a hundred languages and dialects.

Close beside Ron lay the still body of Glory Evans. Her lovely back was curved as—with her knees drawn up—she buried her face in her arms. Ron slid a hand to her shoulder. She quivered from head to foot and Ron felt a sob run through her body.

Immediately the jabbering heightened as a thousand eyes saw that movement, and a giant voice roared out: "Be still, all of you! Stop this babbling or I'll lash the hides off you!"

Ron turned his head to behold an Earthman standing close to the fire. He was a giant in stature, close to seven feet in height. He wore a pair of tattered pants, sawed off just above the knees. His feet were naked and his great chest was covered with thick curly hair.

But it was the man's face that held Ron. A face mirroring a thousand years of evil. It had been slashed and scarred in a hundred brawls but—oddly—the monster's teeth were all in place—large, even, and white as Earth-snow.

The man held a zam-gun in one hand and a long black whip in the other, and his manner left little doubt that he was commanding the situation. Ron lay motionless as the man's voice boomed out;

"We've had a piece of luck thrown our way and you fools are too stupid to realize it. I don't know if this man is worth anything, but the girl is a prize indeed."

And a chorus went up from the shadows to show that all the fiends agreed. "Graaaaa—yaoooo—fffffttaaaa!" and a sound like sharp teeth cracking bones.

The giant cracked his whip. "Silence! Listen to me! Listen to Caliban who can tear you apart a dozen at a time. Does anyone doubt that?"

The clamor subsided into a surly backwash and the one who called himself Caliban went on. "The trouble here is that none of you are equipped to think. The girl is a prize, yes, but what good is one girl when there are hundreds of us. We could only fight over her and many would be killed and the girl torn to pieces in the bargain."

Somewhere back in the shadows was an articulate voice; "Then let's start tearing. I'll take an arm to put around my neck when I go to sleep."

Another voice: "I'll take—"

But coarse laughter drowned out the rest and Caliban was shouting again. "We know that Tza-Necros has an eye for beauty. We know that had he seen this girl first, she'd never have come our way."

A shout of agreement.

"Then by all that's holy—let's sell her to him. If I'm any judge, Tza-Necros will pay us enough so that each man in the Undercity gets ten credas. Isn't that better than maybe a shred of flesh and probably nothing at all?"

THERE WAS a change in the gibbering and cackling. The air was filled with whisperings now and many little conferences went on out in the darkness.

"If you agree," Caliban shouted, "I'll arrange a meeting with Tza-Necros and I promise you I won't come back empty handed."

A shout of approval went up. Immediately Caliban turned and prodded Ron with his foot. Ron came to a sitting position and Caliban bent down to sweep Glory Evans up into his arms.

"I'll put them in the prison," Caliban said, "and then negotiate with the Overlord."

Two willing lieutenants seized Ron by either arm and dragged him along in the wake of the striding Caliban. The circle broke at one side of the cavern and the place was quitted for a low-ceilinged tunnel leading off at a slightly rising angle. Some few hundred yards of this and another cavern was achieved; a smaller one but still large enough to house a small stone building with room to spare.

Two guardsmen stood in front of the door but their attitude, far from hostile, was almost ingratiating as Caliban said, "We have two tenants for you. We want to leave them here while I seek an audience with the Overlord."

The eyes of both guardsmen were on the body of Glory as Caliban cradled her in his arms like a child.

"You're going to sell her?" one of the guards asked.

"If Tza-Necros will buy."

"I'll buy," said the other. "I'll give you a hundred credas—platinum."

A roar of laughter went up from the citizens of the Undercity who were now pouring into the cavern. "Come back when you have a hundred thousand credas to spend," Caliban said. "Open the door."

The guard did as he was bidden and Caliban strode into the building and laid Glory on the floor. The jail was apparently a one-room affair occupying the entire building. It was very dark inside, the only illumination coming from the levon tubes outside the small windows.

Ron was shoved inside with such force that he went to his knees. He heard the door slam and the key turn in the lock. Then Caliban's booming voice directed, evidently, at the guards:

"You're going to be watched pretty closely while I'm gone, so I'd advise you to keep the door locked and stay outside."

A roar of understanding went up from the crowd. Quite obviously, the guards would not be left to themselves. Then Caliban's heavy footsteps faded away.

Ron got painfully to his feet and went to Glory Evans, who lay motionless on the floor. He knelt beside her and turned her so he could look down into her face. By the light of the levon tube rays filtering in, he could see the thick-lashed eyes open. His hand, having dropped unconsciously to her breast felt the rise and fall of her breathing. He snatched it away instantly. Somehow it seemed like taking advantage of helplessness.

Glory did not draw back from Ron's touch. In fact she did not seem conscious of it so much as the compassion in his attitude.

With sudden abandon and with a flood of tears, she threw herself into his arms and her manner was that of a child; a child searching for pity, tenderness, for something to keep from cracking up completely.

RON HELD her close in his arms as the explosion of tears and grief wracked her body. He said nothing, allowing her to cry herself out. And he was mute for another reason: he could think of nothing to say—no words of comfort for this harrassed and tortured girl. There was only hopelessness, evil, and viciousness to be anticipated. Better that he remain silent.

He became conscious, now for the first time, of what Glory Evans really was. With her beauty held close in his arms, the perfume of her in his nostrils, he realized it had been more than a breaking point that had made him leap to her aid there by the cafe. He'd heard, vaguely, that sometimes love is like that; it can come suddenly, without apparent reason, and not even be recognized for what it is.

She was quiet now. She raised her face to his and he could see her smile in the dimness. "I'm sorry," she said. "Sorry for being such a problem to you. You've trouble enough without a weeping female on your hands."

Without thought, as naturally as taking a breath, Ron pulled her close and kissed her. An odd, tingling shock went through him at contact with her lips. She did not draw away. For a long moment she lay motionless, neither giving nor taking. Then she came alive with a suddenness that thrilled Ron and she accepted his kiss avidly, hungrily.

After an eternity, she drew away and nestled down into his arms. For a long time nothing was said. Then Ron's bitterness of spirit returned.

"I've failed you," he said miserably.

"Failed me? Don't say that, darling. You've done your best. It will be easier—whatever comes will be easier—knowing this—having felt your arms around me—your kiss."

"I'm no good. Sure—I'm rated as a successful agent on Earth—nine assignments, but what were they? Local disturbances—things petty and unimportant beside an interplanetary project like this."

"You're wrong," she said, fiercely. "They wouldn't have sent you if they hadn't—"

"They sent me because they had no one else! It was a move of desperation. Why, I'm not in the same league with men like Tanton. It's like comparing an advanced scientist and a—a school boy!"

She put her fingers over his lips. "I won't let you say such things!"

But he drew her hand away and there was sudden hope in his face. "Tanton. I'd forgotten. Why, we aren't lost! Far from it. With Tanton calling the turns, it's just a matter of time. He'll get us out. Good old Tanton. He'll see that I get a chance to at least use my muscles even if I don't know how to use my head."

There had been faint sounds as of movement somewhere in the cell, but so intent had they been upon themselves, they hadn't noticed them. Now the sounds came louder, hoarse breathing and the shifting of a body.

Ron tensed as he searched the shadows about him. "Did you hear that?"

Glory raised fearful eyes. "Yes. There's someone else in this cell."

"A rodent of some sort maybe. I'll look around." He got slowly to his feet and sought to disengage himself from Glory, but she clung to him desperately.

"Don't leave me," she said. "I'll go with you. Let me hold your hand."

Together they moved softly in the direction from which the sounds came. The cell was a large one, running at least a hundred feet from wall to wall. It seemed miles until they finally caught sight of the figure lying prone in one corner.

"It's—it's a man," Glory whispered. "Another prisoner. It's—a blue Mercurian!"

Ron bent swiftly down over the figure. His hands explored. Then he braced himself and pulled the inert body forward into the dim light sifting through the window.

"It's Tanton!" he exclaimed in sheer unbelief.

CHAPTER VII

AFTER leaving the jail cavern, Caliban threaded his way unerringly through the tunnels until he came to a great bronze door over which glowed several oversized levon tubes. He lifted in both hands the great iron knocker and allowed it to drop three times against the door. Three claps of thunder boomed through the tunnels. A full five minutes passed, after which a small door cut in the great bronze barrier opened to reveal two repulsive creatures of the Planetoids standing alert with drawn guns.

The giant eyed them with a certain contempt as he folded his great arms and said, "I am Caliban. The Overlord knows me well from keeping the rats in check down here. Tell him Caliban brings good news and would have an audience."

One of the guards stepped through the doorway to make sure Caliban was alone. Then he motioned the man inside and closed the door which Tza-Necros kept between himself and the scum roaming the tunnels of the Undercity.

One of the guards remained at his post while the other led Caliban through a maze of marble corridors to another closed door. Bidding Caliban wait, the guard opened the door and stepped through, closing it after him.

But during that brief moment, Caliban's ears were struck by the surge of sound—the withering blasphemies roared out in a voice which would have put a bull to shame; the curses and oaths of ten planets spewing forth from the foul throat of a man beside himself with rage.

Caliban frowned. He knew that voice well. Tza-Necros was in a vile humor, to say the least. Caliban's annoyance at this turn of events was plain to see. He cared not a whit as to the luckless victim of Tza-Necros wrath. The thought in his mind was that the Overlord would be in no mood to do business.

When contented in mind, Tza-Necros would not hesitate to pay a hundred thousand credas for so lush an object of his lust as the fair-skinned Earth-girl. This Caliban knew. But, in his present mood, Tza-Necros was unpredictable. He might even go so far as to have Caliban slaughtered in his tracks for no reason at all.

Frowning, the giant Undercity leader turned away from the door and began retracing his steps. He would return to the tunnels and wait for the storm to blow over.

But he had gone scarcely ten steps when the door opened and the guard called out. "Wait there! Where are you going? Tza-Necros commands your presence in the throne room."

Reluctantly Caliban turned back, cursing himself for a laggard and consigning his soul to the devils of Neptune. He marched into the throne room with his head held high, expecting the worst.

As the door closed upon him he stood transfixed at the sight he beheld. Tza-Necros his four fists doubled, his arms held in rage above his ugly head, was standing on the dais in the center of the great room. On either side of him, a line of frozen-faced guards were at motionless attention, their eyes staring straight ahead.

On the floor before the dais, lay a naked, golden girl of breathless beauty; a beauty which could be seen even through the blood she had shed and the torturous lashings to which she had been subjected.

AS CALIBAN entered the room, the whipmaster, a brawny Martian hillman, had stepped back and was running the whip through his closed hand to cleanse it of blood.

And Caliban could see the blood had not all been that of the girl. Nearby lay the still body of an Earthman, and Caliban was startled to note that the official harness of Darrien's Secret Service on the back of the prone figure. A quick glance told Caliban the man had been beaten to death. The girl, however, was alive.

As Caliban entered the room, Tza-Necros beckoned with two arms and shouted. "Come forward, Caliban! You arrive at an opportune time. I have a present for you and your underground scum!"

"A present, my lord?"

"A rare one. This unfaithful witch is gall to my eyes. Entertaining lovers under my very nose. Betraying me after I've laid the treasure of the Universe at her feet. At first I thought it would sooth me to see the vile little bitch flogged to death, but that is not enough and your coming has given me a happy thought."

"I am yours to command, my lord."

"Then take her down into the tunnels with you and sate yourself as only a bucko like you would know how to do."

"I can only consider myself fortunate."

Tza-Necros raised a hand. "That is not all. A stipulation, my faithful rogue. When you are through with her, I command you to seek out the most loathsome of your creatures and devise added tortures. And let the vengeance of Tza-Necros be seen by all. Take her."

Caliban stepped forward and lifted the unconscious Margot to his shoulder. "Thank you, my lord," he said, and turned to leave the throne room.

But he was brought to a halt by Tza-Necros' voice. The Overlord, now somewhat exhausted by his rage, was passing a hand across his forehead. "Hold until I release you," he said. Then in a milder, but petulant voice. "There was something. All devils! but with all this chatter about rays to clean out the Undercity and rays to hold off the Earthlings and Margot consorting with two lovers at once—I can't get my thoughts straight. But there was something."

There was a moment of dead silence after which Tza-Necros said, "Oh yes of course—your business. You did not wander in here by chance. What brings you up from the lower tunnels? Is there trouble—unrest?"

"No, my lord. I had business but it is of a trivial nature. I wouldn't think of bothering you with it at a time like this when you are wrought up by ingratitudes. It can wait."

"Good man, my Caliban. Come tomorrow and I'll have a flacon of wine for you."

Caliban went out as he had come and he was greeted in open-mouthed wonder by the guards. Old in experience, this was the first time they'd seen a man make his exit carrying a beautiful blood-soaked girl over his shoulder. They closed the door on Caliban and stood babbling between themselves.

Caliban was not happy. Far from satisfied with events, he went slowly down the tunnel, scarcely conscious of the girl he carried. What, he wondered, was all this talk about a ray to depopulate the Undercity. As to the troubles between Earth and Venus, Caliban cared nothing. He was content in the Undercity and that was where his loyalty and his interests lay.

He mulled over the snatches of information Tza-Necros had given out in his tirade and found them to be no information at all. Obviously the girl on Caliban's shoulder had been untrue to Tza-Necros, and for that Caliban hardly blamed her. But had a portion of Tza-Necros' wrath been generated by treachery of another nature? Who had that Earthman been—the one dead on the floor of the throne room? Obviously an official in the Secret Service.

Caliban shook his head in perplexity and went on his way.

CHAPTER VIII

TANTON was in deplorable shape. Obviously, he'd borne the brunt of a vicious attack during which weapons far more destructive than whips had been used. The hard shell-covering found on all blue Mercurians in lieu of skin had been cracked in three places. The green life-sap which flowed in his veins had run freely from these wounds and from his nose and mouth.

As Ron pulled him into the light, Tanton opened his eyes and sighed deeply. "It was a great show while it lasted," he said in a labored voice. "I did some fast talking, but Tza-Necros went completely bats and refused to believe anything. Valcan was killed and maybe Margot too, for all I know. Mercurians are a lot harder to kill so I'm being saved for the hot hooks and the roasting pits."

He raised a hand to his battered head and then noted the consternation and bewilderment of Ron and Glory.

"You don't have the least idea what I'm talking about, do you? Well—it doesn't make any difference. By the way, what happened to you two?"

In a few words Ron told him, whereupon Tanton sighed again.

"Couldn't even walk down a tunnel without getting into trouble, eh? Well, it doesn't matter. We'll all be buttoned up in twenty-four hours. It looks as though this one certainly backfired on me." He came to a sitting position. "Ouch! One of those guards used an iron club."

"You—you mean there's no hope?" Glory faltered.

"We're both sitting in the same spot," Tanton answered tartly. "Can you see any?"

His sharp mood was generated, not by fear of what seemed the inevitable, but by the knowledge that he was being shown up as a failure before those two. "Help me to my feet, will you? I want to see how bad a shape I'm in."

As Tanton creaked and twisted erect, the sounds outside the prison deepened into a roar. "Something's going on," Ron said. "Maybe they're coming for us." He turned to face the door, his arm around Glory's slim shoulder.

The door opened after some minutes of heated controversy outside, and Caliban strode in with Margot over his shoulder. Tanton's eyes widened. Without preliminaries, he asked, "Where did you get her?"

"A gift to the citizens of the Undercity by Tza-Necros," Caliban said. He was frowning and seemed bemused—far away—as though deep in thought. "I'm going to put her away until I can figure this thing out. There's more here than meets the eye. Tza-Necros says she wasn't faithful to him, but there's more—a lot more—and I don't like it."

No one saw Tanton's eyes brighten as he watched Caliban place Margot on the hard floor. And it was of course impossible for the rest of them to know what was going on in his rapier sharp mind—that he was even now formulating plans to turn defeat into victory.

GLORY, WITH a cry of pity, dropped to her knees beside the still Margot and cradled the golden beauty's head in her lap.

Tanton ignored both of them, his eyes on Caliban. "I don't think I've had the pleasure," he said.

The other scowled at him. "My name is Caliban. I've lived in the Undercity for twenty years. Who are you and where do you come from?"

Ron opened his mouth to fill in with an introduction of his superior, but a quick motion of Tanton's hand blocked off the young agent's words.

"I am a gentleman of fortune," Tanton replied and there was a distinct note of sadness in his voice. "I garner information and go about selling it, making a creda wherever possible. But now I've come to the end of my string."

There was contempt in Caliban's voice. "Oh—an informer. And Tza-Necros has condemned you to death?"

Tanton sighed as if in resignation. "True, but I will not suffer in the roasting pit. I'll die here in this hole along with the rest of the Undercity's people. In twenty-four hours there won't be a single living thing below ground in Venusia."

Caliban snatched the bait and bolted it down—swallowed it whole. He advanced menacingly upon Tanton. "What are you talking about, Blue man. Is it something about a ray that will destroy all life in the Undercity?"

Tanton was taken aback—at least his wide eyes so indicated. "You seem to know a great deal, Caliban. May I ask—?"

The huge Earthman frowned importantly. "I have my sources of information. I have ears and eyes."

Tanton made as if to turn away. "Then there is nothing I can tell you, except that I think we should both do the merciful thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Keep our knowledge to ourselves. It will do no good to panic the Undercity by telling the people the truth. So long as they must die, let them die quietly without knowing what hit them."

Caliban strode forward and seized Tanton roughly by the shoulder. "You mean we should lie here like rats in a trap waiting for death?"

"What else is there to do?"

Caliban brushed aside all pretense. "You know far more than I—tell me."

Tanton nursed his cracked shoulder-shell. "There isn't a great deal to it. You know, of course, that Darrien swore long ago to clean out the Undercity. But it was only recently that he found a means of doing so—a poison ray which will be turned into an entrance to the Undercity—an entrance which his men have found—a ray which will travel into every nook and cranny of this place and not even the smallest microbe will be left alive. I tell you when Darrien gets through, the Undercity will be the most sterile place in the Universe."

"How do you know all this?"

"Getting such information is my business. In this case I corrupted a high official of Darrien's Secret Police—promised him great wealth when Tza-Necros heard his story. The man I brought into the Undercity was the Secret Service chief himself—Valcan."

Caliban clenched his great fist. Of course! The Earthman he'd seen lying dead at Tza-Necros' feet. The face had seemed familiar. Now he knew! The man had been Valcan. "What happened?" Caliban demanded.

TANTON shrugged. "I made a mistake. I did not have direct access to Tza-Necros. I could reach his ear only through Margot, for whom I once did a service." Tanton stopped and shook his head sadly. "But such an approach was a fatal mistake, because Tza-Necros found us in Margot's apartment and accused us of being her lovers. We were dragged into the throne room and beaten. Valcan died under the lash and I'm to be roasted on hot hooks. But, as I say, that will never happen, because—"

Caliban waved an impatient hand. "Stop babbling," he shouted. "You said the ray will be used within twenty-four hours? Do you know the location of the projector?"

"Yes, but Tza-Necros would not listen—"

"The fool!" Caliban thundered. "The thick-headed fool! Sacrificing the lives of all of us because of his stupidity."

"I'd hesitate to put it so bluntly, but that's about it. Well—no matter now. The game has been played and lost."

Caliban towered over the blue man and raised his fists. "What are you—a spineless jellyfish? Do you propose to cringe against the wall and wait for death?"

"What else is there to do?"

"Fight, man, fight! There are ten thousand creatures down here—ten thousand fighters who have groveled too long under the heel of Tza-Necros. With their lives at stake do you think they'll stand helplessly by?"

It was as if a great plan had suddenly blossomed in Tanton's mind. "Why, of course! Why didn't I think of it?" His eyes lit up with a great hope. "I can see it now. Ten thousand citizens of the Undercity streaming up into Venusia, not only to destroy the ray but to avenge a hundred years of persecution! It's—it's magnificent!"

Caliban strode to the door and threw it open. His great voice boomed out, echoing and reechoing through the tunnels: "Citizens of the Undercity. Hear me! Come and gather around if you value your lives! We have been betrayed and left to die! All of you who would strike a blow for your own existence, come and hear me!"

Inside, Tanton closed the door. Then he crossed to where Margot was regaining consciousness, and knelt beside her. "I'm going to keep my word," he said. "In a matter of hours you'll be on your way back to Earth. Things didn't go exactlv as I'd planned, but—"

He stopped speaking as Glory, who was still cradling Margot gave a low cry of wonder and horror. Ron also came close and knelt down. He raised his eyes to Tanton with a look of utter consternation, then lowered them again to where Margot was changing—magically—before their eyes. First, small wrinkles had appeared at the corners of her mouth and her eyes. Now the flesh—the glorious golden beauty of her was shrinking visibly—drying up and falling away under skin which was becoming gray and withered.

Margot's mouth—now an ancient and toothless one—opened like the mouth of a gasping fish.

"The hormones," she croaked. "I was supposed to take the hormones—I—"

The aging became swifter now. It was like some mad montage—a young and beautiful girl fading away and a hideous wrinkled crone taking her place.

"The hormones," she gasped. Then the pitiful old mouth opened and hung slack; the gray-coated, sightless eyes became set in a ghastly stare.

SWIFTLY, Tanton reached down and closed the eyes forever. "She was very old, you know," he said quietly. "Well over a hundred years. She was kept young by a secret hormone that Tza-Necros provided. Without it, she was doomed."

"She's—she's dead!" Glory breathed in horror. So swift had been the transition from blooming beauty to dried-up skeleton, that the effect was chilling in its grimness.

Tanton lifted the wisp of a body and moved off into the shadows. "She lead a full life," he said. "A very long life. But I have a feeling she's happier now than she's ever been." He returned, empty-handed, to the wide-eyed Glory. "Maybe someone ought to say a prayer," he muttered, then turned toward the door as the voice of the mob outside rose to a thunder.

The door opened and Caliban rushed in. "We're on the move," he shouted. "If you know where the ray is located, you'd better lead the way."

But Tanton knew it was more than the nonexistent death ray that motivated this upheaval. His lie had been merely the trigger—the small thing that had touched off the revolt. True motivation lay far deeper. Here was an irresistible surge of outraged humanity—horrible humanity it was true, but humanity nonetheless—moving up in fury to right ancient wrongs.

And it was in Tanton's mind where the first seeds of this violence had been sewn—long ago by the pompous voice of a politician: ("Let Venus be our penal colony—"). And there must have been a twinge in the Blue Mercurian's conscience, because he told himself: One must weigh two evils and attack the greater with the smaller. All is greed and hunger among men and their greed and hunger are the only effective weapons to be used against them. To defeat darkness, the tools of darkness must be used.

Then the roar of the mob rose to an even greater volume to bring Tanton back to the business at hand.

CHAPTER IX

GLORY HAD been provided with adequate clothing—the harness of a fighter—and she moved—with Tanton, Ron, and Caliban—at the head of a column that assaulted the bronze door to Tza-Necros' underground palace.

The door was cut to pieces and a wave of misfits of the Universe, swept over all resistance in its onward surge. Guarded by a circle of Undercity warriors, Glory saw Tza-Necros—his inner guard annihilated—battling like ten demons with his back to the wall.

The Undercity fighters lay in stacks around him. His more lethal weapons gone, he slashed a crimson circle with a short-sword clutched in each of his four hands. "Back—back, you foul scum!" he roared. "I am your king! I am your master!" And he proved himself their master right up to the final, bloody moment when a zam-gun ray cut off his arms, one by one and left him a helpless, screaming maniac. The scum of the Universe moved in on him then, to take bloody accounting for the years of pain and exploitation. They gloried in tearing him to pieces, bit by bit—in inflicting savage torture until his last scream became a gurgle as life left his grotesque body. His last words were a bewildered plea: "I'm one of you—one of you—one of you. Have mercy."

Then death.

The mob, aflame from the new freedom and the smell of blood, surged on through the palace, tearing Margot's garden to pieces, brick by brick. Then up into Venusia, along with the hordes of fellow exiles who were streaming out of the Undercity entrances to spread bloody destruction in all directions.

The astonished population of Venusia stared in flat-footed horror at the sudden egress from the depths; many of them stared too long and went down to quick death as the waves of madness released, engulfed and destroyed them. The policing mechanisms of the city went into complete panic and chaos. The more experienced Secret Service and the City Police were unable to function because of the panicked populace. There was no room for maneuvering—no chance to assemble and deploy, so mad was the scene of carnage and so frenzied the attack.

Tanton, moving at the head of Caliban's column, adroitly held the latter to the main objective—the ray projector. Working through the giant Earthman, he displayed a skill which any great general would have envied. Truly, the man seemed possessed of limitless talents.

Due to his generalship, the column was organized and thrown around the gray building with military precision. The assault on the entrances was launched as one movement. The doors were beaten down and Glory, Ron, and Tanton, were among the first of the invaders to be swept inside.

Glory heard herself, screaming, calling out to be heard over the din of battle. "Caliban! I saw him go down!"

"He was cut in two with a zam-gun," Tanton shouted. "Come—this way! Quick!" He pushed Glory roughly toward a stairway leading off in to upper levels, and motioned Ron to follow. There was deep concern in Tanton's voice because, again it seemed, ill-luck was besetting him.

OUT IN THE streets there had been panic and chaos, but not so in the ray-projector building. Here was the cream of Darrien's vanguards—the picked soldiery of all the Universe—trained and briefed for only one job—the protection, of the ray projector at any cost.

Their ranks had been dented by the first wave of crazed Undercity fighters, but they had stiffened and gotten down to their work. Like machines, they poured death into the invaders—like implacable robots, they reformed their lines and hurled back Caliban's hordes. And in this action, Tanton sensed his own defeat.

He knew full well that the Undercity fighters would be beaten. When Darrien's organized ranks gained their footing they would move like a steam roller over the deceived and misled creatures from underground. Truly—though with much blood and rapine—it would be the end of the Undercity, but Tanton had gambled that during the upheaval, he could accomplish his purpose. Now he seemed doomed to defeat, as the elite guard of the gray building pushed the last of Caliban's sorry army out into the streets and made fast their own defenses.

With the main action going on below, Tanton found no one to bar his way as he led the two Earthlings up the stairs. His hopes bloomed anew at the thought that possibly he could achieve his ends by stealth. The projector would certainly be located high up in the building. Maybe it could still be reached. Possibly even Darrien's elite guard had made the mistake of depending on the first line of defense down below and had given no thought to the danger of infiltration through their ranks.

The infiltration had been accomplished, and as the three invaders went higher and higher without encountering resistance, Tanton allowed himself to hope anew.

They reached the top abruptly, coming to the head of a staircase and finding themselves on a circular platform just under the roof of the building. The platform ran around a giant opening. A steel railing was built thereon to keep the unwary from tumbling down into a great pit twenty floors deep.

In the center of this pit lay Tanton's assignment; a tremendous silvery ray-tube, anchored at the bottom and extending upward to almost the level of the platform. Laid out horizontal, the tube would have covered over an acre of ground, and from its curved, silvery top, an invisible ray could be heard as it went out through an opening in the roof to blanket Venusian and explode any missile moving in that direction.

Tanton could not smother the shout of triumph that welled up in his throat as he saw the pile of anti-gravity discs piled on one side of the platform. Certainly he could not have planned things better. Scanning the roof, he stepped to the wall and pushed a lever. Immediately another section of the ceiling drew back to make an opening large enough for comfortable exit. Evidently the platform was also used as a hangar for guards on sky patrol.

Tanton swiftly hauled three of the plates out onto the platform. From a pile lying near the wall, he tossed a pair each of gravity shoes to Ron and Glory.

"Put them on," he shouted. "Then get on the plate and wait for me above the building." As he spoke, he donned a pair of the shoes himself. "As soon as I give the signal," he said to Ron, "send word to the Earth squadron out in space that the ray is destroyed. And don't wait for me. After they get word we've got to get out of here quick or we'll be killed by falling bombs. This whole place is going up in atomic dust."

RON SHOWED Glory how to guide the anti-gravity plate by moving her body. Then he threw the switch and steered her through the roof opening. Swiftly, he set his shoes on his own plate and followed her.

It was after they had cleared the building and were hovering within sight of Tanton, that disaster struck. It came in the form of a dozen guards who had crept up the stairs and were advancing on Tanton from three directions. They came as silently as clouds because a quick glance at the situation had shown them their problem. The blue Mercurian was there of course to destroy the projector. Therefore they must get their hand on him rather than blast him down, because he stood so close to the edge of the platform that he could easily fall into the pit.

Tanton, intent upon his work, raised his head and saw the men creeping in—but too late. Turning in the heavy gravity shoes, he heard Ron's voice from above.

"Hold it!" Ron yelled. "I'm coming back to help!"

In a matter of seconds, Tanton took in the situation, estimated his chances and made his decision. "Don't come back!" he yelled. "You can't help. Take the girl away and give out the signal! That's an order!"

Ron slanted his plate out of the dive and then, before his horrified eyes, Tanton made a last contribution toward the security of Earth.

Just as the hands of a guard reached out to seize him, he hurled the man backward with a single sweep of his arm and took a step forward. Held down by the heavy shoes, it was a slow step, but there was just time for another.

The second step was into space and Tanton went plunging down into the pit to smash, with his own body, the great tube of the ray projector.

There was an explosion so loud and with such force, that it hurled Ron and Glory far up into the sky. When the plates steadied away Ron looked, grim-lipped, at the white-faced Glory—saw that she was unhurt—and pulled a small sender from his supply packet. He set the dial and a moment later his voice came in on the board of the California Queen, flagship of Earth's Space Fleet Three:

"Ronald Kratnick—Earth Intelligence to squadron commander. Umbrella destroyed. Umbrella destroyed."

Twice he sent the message and then the clipped, "Message received."

Ron didn't even bother to repocket his sender. He threw it from him and yelled to Glory: "Let's get out of here—and fast! Straight up!"

They reached the glass dome of Venusia in a matter of seconds and now, with the projector destroyed, they were able to go safely through the opening in the dome through which the ray had been allowed to escape.

On they went, ever upward until Ron tilted close to Glory's plate and clamped an oxygen cup over her nose. He had only one cup available and when Venus was lost in the haze beneath them and the heat of the sun was searing their skins, Ron felt his lightheadedness increase and a black curtain began its descent over his brain.

But before he passed out, there was the silver oval of the California Queen hove to, with space-suited rescuers issuing from a porthole.

The last thing Ron remembered was the thin atmosphere heaving and bucking about him as the fleet's bombs smashed down on Venusia and left a great yawning hole in the red forests of the planet.

THE COMFORTS aboard the California Queen were such as to wipe away quickly, the horrors of the Undercity. Ron, seated in the lounge, holding Glory's hand, had been silent for some time. Glory looked up at him and smiled.

"I'm going to leave Intelligence," Ron said.

"That surprises me," Glory replied, "but I'm glad—very glad."

"It's because of him."

"I don't understand."

Ron smiled and there was a sadness in the smile. "It's hard to explain, but—well, he was a schemer, a liar, a master of intrigues and there was nothing he wouldn't do to gain his ends. But over and above it all, he was great—that's the only word I can think of to describe him. He was willing to give his life for any cause to which he pledged himself, and there is no sterner test of any man than that."

"And that's why you're resigning, darling?"

"No, it's because, after seeing him operate, I know I can never be better than second grade. I was a school child beside Tanton, and I won't be a second-grade anything. If I can't be the best, I'll drop out."

His smile deepened. "You know—I think I'd make a swell farmer. In fact I think I could be a farmer second to none."

After he'd kissed her, Glory said, "That's wonderful, darling. And I think I could be the best farmer's wife in the Universe."

THE END