Then the face of a girl, pale, lovely, with auburn ringlets clustering about her cheeks. Sympathetic blue eyes looked into his. And that, too, was gone....
He awoke to find—something—standing above him. And it was no nightmare. It was the thing of his dreams—a being that stood upright on two stocky legs, and which wore clothing, a shining silver tunic and kirtle. The head was fish-like, but the high cranium told of intelligence.
It said something in a language Vanning did not know. Weakly he shook his head. The fish-being launched into the Venusian dialect.
"You are recovered? You are strong again?"
Vanning sought for words. "I’m—all right. But where am I? Who—"
"Lysla will tell you." The creature clapped its huge hands together as it turned. The door closed behind its malformed back, opening again to reveal the auburn-haired girl Vanning recognized.
He sat up, discovering that he was in a bare room walled with gray plastic, and that he was lying on a pallet of some elastic substance. Under a metallic-looking but soft robe, he was naked. The girl, he saw, bore over her arm a bundle of garments, crimson as the kirtle she herself wore.
Her smile was wan. "Hello," she said, in English. "Feel better now?"
Vanning nodded. "Sure. But am I crazy? That thing that just went out—"
Horror darkened the girl’s blue eyes. "That is one of the Swamja. They rule here."
"Here? Where’s here?"
Lysla knelt beside the bed. "The end of the world—for us, Jerry Vanning."
"How do you know my name?"
"There were papers in your clothes—what was left of them. And—it’ll be hard to explain all this. I’ve only been here a month myself."
Vanning rubbed his stubbly beard. "We’re on Venus?"
"Yes, of course. This is a—a valley. The Swamja have lived here for ages, since before Earthmen colonized Venus."
"I never heard of them."
"None ever return from this place," Lysla said sombrely. "They become slaves of the Swamja—and in the end they die. New slaves come, as you did."
Vanning’s eyes narrowed. "Hold on. I’m beginning to understand, a little. The Swamja—those fish-headed people—have a secret city here, eh? They’re intelligent?"
She nodded. "They have great powers. They consider themselves the gods of Venus. You see—Jerry Vanning—they evolved long before the anthropoid stock did. Originally they were aquatic. I don’t know much about that. Legends ... Anyway, a very long time ago, they built this city and have never left it since. But they need slaves. So they send out the North-Fever—"
*
"What? " Vanning’s face grayed. "Lysla—what did you say? The fever’s artificial?"
"Yes. The virus is carried by microscopic spores. The Swamja send it out to the upper atmosphere, and the great winds carry it all over Venus. The virus strikes very quickly. Once a man catches it, as you did, he goes north. These mountains are a trap. They’re shaped like a funnel, so anyone with the fever inevitably heads into the pass, as you did. They are drawn through the mirage, which looks like a wall of rock. No one who wasn’t—sick—would try to go through that cliff."
Vanning grunted, remembering. "Keep talking. I’m beginning—"
"There isn’t much more. The victims fall into the pits, and stay there till the fever has run its course. The Swamja run no risks of being infected themselves. After the sickness has passed, it’s easy to find the way out of the pits—and all the tunnels lead to this place."
"God!" Vanning whispered. "And you say this has been going on for centuries?"
"Very many centuries. First the natives, and now the Earthpeople as well. The Swamja need slaves—none live long here. But there is always a supply trickling in from outside."
Thousands of helpless victims, through the ages, drawn into this horrible net, dragged northward to be the slaves of an inhuman race.... Vanning licked dry lips.
"Many die," the girl said. "The Swamja want only the strongest. And only the strongest survive the trip north."
"You—" Vanning looked at Lysla questioningly.
She smiled sadly. "I’m stronger than I look, Jerry. But I almost died.... I still haven’t completely recovered. I—was much prettier than I am now."
Vanning found that difficult to believe. He couldn’t help grinning at the girl’s very feminine admission. She flushed a little.
"Well," he said at last, "you’re not Venusian, I can see that. How did you come to get sucked into this?"
"Just bad luck," Lysla told him. "A few months ago I was on top of the world, in New York. I’ve no parents. My father left me a trust fund, but it ran out unexpectedly. Bad investments, I suppose. So I found myself broke and needed a job. There weren’t any jobs for unskilled labor, except a secretarial position in Venus Landing. I was lucky to get that."
"You’ve got nerve," Vanning said.
"It didn’t help. The North-Fever hit me, and the next thing I knew, I was ... here. A slave."
"How many Earthmen are there here?"
"About a hundred. Not many are strong enough to reach the pass. And about the same number of Venusian natives."
"How many Swamja?"
"A thousand, more or less," Lysla explained. "Only the highest classes have slaves. Most of the Swamja are trained for the military."
"So? Who the devil do they fight?"
"Nobody. It’s a tradition with them—part of their religion. They believe they’re gods, and the soldiers serve as the Valkyries did in the Norse Valhalla."
"Two hundred slaves.... What weapons do the Swamja have?"
Lysla shook her head. "Not many. A paralysis hand-projector, a few others. But they’re invulnerable, or nearly so. Their muscles are much tougher than ours. A different cellular construction."
Vanning pondered. He could understand that. The human heart-muscle is much stronger and tougher than—say—the biceps.
The girl broke into his thoughts. "Rebellion is quite useless. You won’t believe that now, but you’ll understand soon."
"Maybe," Vanning said tonelessly. "Anyhow—what’s next on the program?"
"Slavery." Her voice was bitter. "Here are your clothes. When you’re dressed, you’ll find a ramp leading down outside the door. I’ll be waiting." She detached a metal plaque from the wall and went out. Vanning, after a scowling pause, dressed and followed.
*
The corridor in which he found himself was of bare plastic, covered with a wavy bas-relief oddly reminiscent of water’s ripples, and tinted azure and gray. Here and there cold lamps, using a principle unfamiliar to the man, were set in the walls. Radioactivity, he theorized, or the Venusian equivalent. He saw a ramp, and descended it to enter a huge low-ceilinged room, with doors at intervals set in the curving walls. One of the doors was open, and Lysla’s low voice called him.
He entered a cubicle, not large, with four crude bunks arranged here and there. The girl was fitting the metal plaque into a frame over one. She smiled at him.
"Your dog-license, Jerry. You’re 57-R-Mel. It means something to the Swamja, I suppose."
"Yeah?"