The Buccaneers of Venus Collection (Three novels in one volume!) (2 page)

    Dr. Morgan nodded. "He and his princess have had many adventures together beyond those related in the first manuscript. To us, of course, both have been dead millions of years. But it is possible for me to tune in on their lives at any point where Harry was transmitting to me. He has never regretted his choice."

    "Then," went on Grandon, "you got in touch with a Venusian named Vorn Vangal, who is a contemporary of Lal Vak and Borgen Takkor. With his help you constructed a space-time vehicle through which your nephew, Jerry Morgan, was able to go to Mars in the flesh. And he, too, made out pretty well."

    Morgan nodded. "Yes. I sent Jerry to Mars that way, and hoped that I'd be able to send someone to Venus the same way. But my telekinetic control failed in some way on the return trip, and I never recovered the ship I built for Jerry. Vorn Vangal said he would build one on Venus and send it to Earth for me, so that I could visit him, but I do not know when this will be possible. It may be soon; it may not be for some years." Morgan smiled. "And I'm not too patient a man. I know that it is possible for me to get an account of Venus as seen by Earthmen's eyes—the Venus that was, in relation to the Mars that was—just as I learned about Mars in those two manuscripts you've read. So I asked Vorn Vangal if he could send me the brain-waves of two Venusians, to see if I could find their counterparts here on Earth. Then Harry urged me to try to see if there was a Venusian with whom he could change personalities—so I sent his picture and brain-wave pattern to Vorn Vangal."

    "I see. And Vorn Vangal sent you the picture and brain-wave pattern of a Venusian who was—me."

    "Yes. You'll recall that Lal Vak had shown one how to construct a mind-compass, which would indicate whether there were any living persons here on Earth whose brain-waves corresponded with those of the Martians whose pictures he sent me. This would not only aid in my finding such people here on Earth, it would also protect me from disappointment on coming across someone who looked right, but whose brain-pattern did not match closely enough for an exchange of personalities, after all."

    "Has that happened?" Grandon asked.

    "Only once. But now it's all arranged for Harry; and I hope you'll be interested in going to Venus, too."

    Grandon smiled. "After reading those two accounts of conditions on Mars, I certainly am. Of course, I suppose it's nothing like Venus."

    "There are differences, of course, but the civilizations are on a somewhat similar level. The planet is known as Zarovia, and your physical counterpart is a gentleman who has been enslaved by an Amazon ruler—a princess with no thought save of her own pleasure. He finds it impossible to escape from bondage, and is therefore willing to make the exchange. Mr. Thorne's bodily duplicate is a prince of a realm on the opposite side of the planet from that occupied by the slave. The prince has been petted and pampered and shielded from all danger, and longs for adventure; he is willing to exchange bodies for a time with Mr. Thorne. Well, what do you say? Are you willing to make the trip?" Grandon smiled.

    "You know, Doctor, I'm a little surprised. You investigated the Earth-born Harry Thorne very carefully, because you'd made a bad choice and sent a criminal to Mars ahead of him. You knew your nephew thoroughly because you were in telepathic communication with him for years though he didn't know it then. But what do you know about me?"

    "Touche!" chuckled Morgan. "I forgot to tell you. I've gone a good ways beyond telepathic projection in the last few years. When I contacted your mind, I also got a very full picture of your character and personality—no intimate details, but sufficient to assure me that you were the sort of man I wanted. And that you were very likely to go along with me if the way could be cleared for you…But suppose you tell me of any inhibiting factors; I think they can be cleared up."

    Robert Ellsmore Grandon recounted his personal situation briefly, and Morgan nodded. "Yes," he said. "This checks with the information I've gathered on Mr. Arthur Grandon since you arrived here. He's sincerely devoted to you, you know. I don't believe he'll stand in the way if he knows you want to go on some caper of your own and by your own choice. Suppose you phone him long distance now. Here's what I suggest you tell him…"

    "You were right, Doctor," Grandon said after bidding his uncle farewell. "Uncle Arthur agrees that Vincent is better suited to handle the firm than I. He just wanted me to try for awhile and see—says he half expected something like this when I disappeared and was concerned lest I forget to let him know."

    "Then we need waste no more time, Mr. Grandon."

    "But—my body will remain here while my personality goes to Venus. What happens to it?"

    "You need have no fear about that. The man who comes to inhabit it—forgotten about him, haven't you?—will naturally be careful of it; for if he loses it there will be no return for him, either to this world or his own."

    "What do we have to do in order to exchange bodies? And how will you keep in touch with me?"

    "I will, at regular intervals, establish telepathic rapport with you and Thorne while you are asleep. You will know nothing of these telepathic communications—which will be as detailed as those you read last night—unless I see fit to convey a message to you which will probably come in the form of a dream, so vivid that you will remember every detail. If you wish to communicate with me for any reason whatever, I will learn of it when I establish rapport with you."

    Grandon sighed. "I'm ready. Want me to lie down and look into a mirror the way Harry Thorne did when you sent him to Mars?"

    "Right. And the present Harry Thorne will follow you in a few hours—you may meet on Venus, though it isn't too likely." He set up the mirror, painted with alternate circles of red and black, as Grandon reposed on the sofa. "Now think of Venus, far off in time and space—millions of miles, millions of years away…"

CHAPTER III

    ROBERT ELLSMORE GRANDON, was awakened from a sound sleep by a shaft of brilliant sunlight which shone through the mica-paneled window of the quarry-slaves' sleeping quarters. He blinked, turned uneasily, then sat up. His muscles appeared stiff and bruised and his back smarted and burned. He noticed that his sole articles of apparel consisted of a scarlet breechcloth and a pair of sandals of strange design. His skin was browned; his hands were rough and callused. His face was covered with a thick, black beard, and his hair was matted and unkempt.

    He rose stiffly and walked to the window, hoping for a clear view of a Zarovian landscape, but he was disappointed, for in front of his window there stretched a solid wall of black marble cliffs. The only visible vegetation consisted of a few pink toadstool-like growths which grew from niches in the rock, some over twelve feet in height.

    He turned and glanced at his roommates. Fifty men were quartered in the sleeping shed. The bedding consisted of a coarse, dried moss, which made an exceptionally resilient couch. The men were attired like Grandon, except that their breechclouts were gray instead of scarlet. Their skins were sun-burned like his own, and marked with scars and open wounds.

    Grandon was startled by a hollow booming sound, and someone on the outside opened a large door at the center of the shed. Instantly every man sprang to his feet, and he saw that they were forming in single file to march through the door. He joined the procession, which was heading for a large building in the midst of a group of sheds similar to the one he had occupied, and saw that the sound emanated from a large cylinder of iron suspended from a steel beam in front of the building, and beaten by a man who wielded a large club wrapped with thongs.

    Heavily-armed guards stood at intervals of about fifty feet on either side of their pathway. Each guard carried a tall spear with a broad blade about four feet long; a sword with a basket hilt, its blade rather like that of a scimitar, hung from the left side of the belt.

    From the right depended a weapon which was utterly strange to Grandon. It was about two feet long, oblong like a carpenter's level, and apparently composed of blued steel. A rivet passed completely through it about four inches from the end, holding it firmly to the belt, although it could be tilted at any angle, and its wearer could point it in any direction by turning his body.

    Grandon had yet to learn the efficiency of this weapon, the tork, which fired needlelike glass projectiles filled with a potent poison that paralyzed man and beast alike almost as soon as it penetrated, and had a range as great as the most powerful of rifles. These tiny bullets were propelled by a highly explosive gas, ignited by an electric spark at the touch of a button.

    The gas was compressed in a chamber at the rear of the tork, while the glass missiles were held in a magazine near the muzzle. After a shot was fired, the weapon would automatically reload, a bullet sliding into place in front while just the right charge of gas was released in the chamber behind it. Each tork held a thousand rounds of ammunition.

    The slaves passed through the building where each man had his ration doled out to him: a bowl of stewed mushrooms and a steaming cup of a beverage which Grandon found to be very much like a strong wine.

    As he followed his companions, Grandon noticed that each man stopped before a small shrine and stood for a moment with head bowed low and hand extended toward it, palm downward. When he reached the shrine, he stopped as the others had done, then gave a gasp of amazement at a life-size painting of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

    She wore a robe of scarlet, ornamented with gold and precious stones, and a jeweled band of platinum imprisoned a mass of golden curls which were piled on top of her head after a style different from anything he had ever seen. She was seated on a massive golden throne with cushions of scarlet, across the arms of which rested a scarbo—a sword like those carried by the guards, but with a hilt of gold studded with rubies.

    Could this be the Amazon ruler of whom Dr. Morgan had spoken?

    A sharp exclamation brought him to his senses; he turned and saw an overseer advancing with whip upraised. Quickly bowing as the others had done, he ran forward to join his fellow slaves.

    Once outside the building, the men seated themselves on the ground in little scattered groups for their morning meal. Grandon joined a company of those who had occupied the same dormitory with him.

    He could not take part in the general conversation because the language was unintelligible to him—yet the words sounded strangely familiar. A recollection of their meaning was stored in the brain cells of the body which had become his, but the ego which was Grandon could not interpret them. He kept silent and listened.

    The meal finished, the slaves were herded to the quarries by their drivers. Each driver, who had charge of ten slaves, wore both tork and scarbo in his belt and carried a whip, the five lashes of which were woven from some coarse fiber and interwoven with short pieces of a brittle, nettlelike moss, which broke off in the skin of the victim, inflicting pain like that of a thousand bee stings.

    Grandon managed to keep pace with his fellow slaves. The intense heat of the sun would have made labor in the open impossible, had it not been constantly tempered by the floating clouds of vapor, ever present in the dense, moist Zarovian atmosphere.

    The marble was being removed from the hillside in large rectangular blocks, by thousands of slaves working on a series of terraces, each of which was the height of one of the blocks. The crews were so distributed that the terraced hillside constantly retained the same general contour.

    Grandon's crew worked on the bottom terrace all morning, but were ordered to the top in the afternoon to reinforce the laborers in that section who, for some reason, had not kept up their quota. He and a fellow slave were removing one of the heavy blocks by means of levers when his end slipped and fell on another block, breaking off a large fragment. The driver raised his whip and struck Grandon a stinging blow across the shoulders.

    Quickly wheeling, Grandon landed a tremendous right hook on the point of the man's jaw. It was a clean knock-out. Another driver came running with whip upraised, but Grandon bowled him over with a marble fragment and ran through the group of startled slaves toward the brow of the hill. Someone raised the alarm and a half dozen torks were immediately pointed toward the fugitive. Several slaves fell, struck by the missiles intended for him, as he disappeared over the hilltop.

    Before him stretched a dense, waving forest of tree ferns into which he plunged without slackening his speed, his pursuers close behind. As he dodged in and out among the tree trunks he could hear their halloos growing fainter and fainter; finally no sound was audible except the rustling of the countless, wind-shaken fern leaves.

    He slackened his pace and, after proceeding about a mile farther, stopped and looked about him.

    Huge tree ferns with rough trunks and foliage growing out of the tops like that of palm trees, some of them over seventy feet in height, towered above the shorter, more bushy varieties which were themselves giants. Then there were climbing ferns hanging in tangled masses, creeping ferns and dwarf, low-growing kinds, barely raising their fronds above the thick carpet of moss which everywhere covered the forest floor.

    Grandon noticed that the ground slanted slightly toward his right, and intuition told him that this might lead to a valley and water. He changed his course accordingly. He hoped also to find some fruits, berries or nuts with which to satisfy his hunger.

    As he trudged wearily forward, sunset was succeeded by twilight, and before he realized it, the black, moonless Zarovian night had spread its impenetrable mantle about him.

    Suddenly, from out the darkness behind him, came a peal of horrible, demoniac laughter.

    As he wheeled, two glowing phosphorescent orbs were slowly advancing as if something were creeping or slinking toward him. Then, without warning, the hideous noise was repeated at his left.