"Good Lord!" Hobbs said. "One of us—"
Vanning nodded. "When he came to Venus, he put a disguise over his new, remodeled face. That’s gone now, of course. One of you three is Callahan."
Zeeth, the Venusian native, said softly, "I do not think the usual laws hold good here."
Sanderson roared with laughter. "Damn right! You expect to arrest your man and ask the Swamja to imprison him for you?"
Vanning shook his head, smiling crookedly. "Scarcely. I’m getting out of this place sooner or later, and Callahan’s going with me. Later, I’ll bring back troops and clean out the Swamja. But I’m not forgetting about Callahan."
Hobbs shrugged. "It isn’t me."
"Nor me," Zeeth said. Sanderson only grinned.
Vanning grunted. "It’s one of you. I’m pretty sure of that. And I’m talking to you now, Callahan. You’ll be able to disguise your walk and your mannerisms, and I can’t recognize your new face or fingerprints. But sooner or later you’ll forget and betray yourself. Then I’ll have to take you back to Earth."
"You will forget," Zeeth said. "In a year—five, if you live, you will forget. Our people have legends of this land, where the gods live. Our priests taught that the North-Fever is sent by the gods. We did not know how true that teaching was...." His bulbous face was grotesque in its solemnity.
*
Vanning didn’t answer. His hope of tricking an admission from Callahan had failed. Well, there would be time enough. Yet obviously one of these three was the fugitive. Hobbs? Sanderson? Certainly not Zeeth—
Wait a bit! Suppose Callahan had disguised himself as a Venusian native? That would be a perfect masquerade. And the diabolical skill of the anthro-surgeon could have transformed Callahan into a Venusian.
Vanning looked at Zeeth with new interest. The native met his glance with stolid calm.
"One cannot argue with fate. Those who died on the way here are luckier. We must live and serve."
"I’ve got other ideas," the detective growled.
Zeeth gestured vividly. "Your race does not accept destiny, as ours does. We have from birth a struggle for existence. Venus is a hard mistress. But some of us live. Yet even then there is the shadow of the North-Fever. At any time, we know, the sickness may fall upon us. If it does, and we are not kept close prisoners, we go into the jungle and either die or—come here. My brother was very lucky. He had the fever three years ago, but I held him and called for help. My tribesmen came running and tied Gharza tightly, so that he could not escape. For ten days and nights the fever made him mad. Then it passed. The threat had left him forever. The North-Fever only strikes once, so Gharza was immune. I, too, am immune—but I consider myself dead, of course."
"Aw, shut up," Sanderson snapped. "You give me the leapin’ creeps. Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got to attend the festival tonight."
"What’s that?" Vanning asked.
The mild-faced Hobbs answered him. "A religious ceremony. Just do what you’re told, and you’ll be all right."
"Just that, eh?"
"Our people have learned to bow our heads to Fate," Zeeth murmured. "We are not fighters. Pain is horrible to us. You call us cowards. From your standards, that is true. Only by bowing to the great winds have we managed to survive."
"Shut up and let me sleep," Sanderson ordered, and relaxed his heavy body on a bunk. The others followed his example, all but Vanning, who sat silently thinking as hour after hour dragged past.
The door opened at last, and a Swamja stood on the threshold. He wore the familiar costume of the race, but there was an oddly-shaped gun in a holster at his side.
"Time!" he barked in the Venusian dialect. "Hasten! You—" He pointed to Vanning. "Follow me. The others know where to go."
The detective silently rose and followed the Swamja into the huge room. It was filled now, he saw, with natives and with Earthmen, hurrying here and there like disturbed ants. There were no other Swamja, however.
One of the Venusians stumbled and fell. He was a thin, haggard specimen of his species, and how he had ever survived the trip north Vanning could not guess. Perhaps he had been in this lost city for years, and had been drained of his vitality by weeks of arduous servitude. He fell....
The Swamja barked a harsh command. The native gasped a response, tried to rise—and failed.
Instantly the Swamja drew his gun and fired. The Venusian collapsed and lay still. Vanning took a step forward, hot with fury, to find himself drawn back by Hobbs’ restraining hand.
"Easy!" the other whispered. "He’s dead. No use—"
"Dead? I didn’t hear any explosion."
"You wouldn’t. That gun fires a charge of pure force that disrupts the nervous system. It was set to kill just now."
The Swamja turned. "I must attend to this carcass. My report must be made. You, Zeeth—take the new slave to Ombara."
"I obey." The native bowed and touched Vanning’s arm. "Come with me."
*
Followed by Sanderson’s sardonic grin, Vanning accompanied the Venusian into a corridor, and up a winding spiral ramp. He found it difficult to contain himself.
"Good God!" he burst out finally. "Do those devils do that all the time? Plain cold-blooded murder?"
Zeeth nodded. "They have no emotions, you see. They are what you call hedonists. And they are gods. We are like animals to them. The moment we make a mistake, or are no longer useful, we are killed."
"And you submit to it!"
"There was a rebellion two years ago, I heard. Twenty slaves died to every Swamja. They are like reptiles—nearly invulnerable. And we have no weapons, of course."
"Can’t you get any?"
"No. Nor would I try. Venusians cannot endure pain, you understand. To us, pain is worse than death."
Vanning grunted, and was silent as they passed through a curtained arch. Never would he forget his first sight of the Swamja city. It was like—
Like an ocean world!
He stood upon a balcony high over the city, and looked out at a vast valley three miles in diameter, scooped out of the heart of the mountains as though by a cosmic cup. Overhead was no sky. A shell of transparent substance made a ceiling above the city, a tremendous dome that couched on the mountain peaks all around.
Gray-green light filtered through it. An emerald twilight hazed the fantastic city, where twisted buildings like grottos of coral rose in strange patterns. It was a labyrinth. And it was—lovely beyond all imagination.
"Those—things—built this?" Vanning breathed.
"They knew beauty," Zeeth said. "They have certain senses we do not have. You will see...."
From the exact center of the city a tower rose, smooth and shining as metal. It reached to the transparent dome and seemed to rise above it, into the clouds of Venus.
"What’s that?" Vanning asked, pointing. "Their temple?"
Zeeth’s voice held irony. "Not a temple—a trap. It is the tube through which they blast the spores of the North-Fever into the sky. Day and night without pause the virus is blown upward through that tube, far into the air, where it is carried all over the planet."
The air was darkening, thickening. Here and there rainbow lights sprang into view. Elfin fires in an enchanted world, Vanning thought.
Through the grotesque city equally grotesque figures moved, to be lost in the shadows. The monsters who ruled here—ruled like soulless devils rather than gods.