The Buccaneers of Venus Collection (Three novels in one volume!) (34 page)

    "Influenced by the religious leaders, my brother presently ordered the banishment of myself and my followers, who remained faithful to me. With less than a thousand of these I came to these shores and subsequent explorations revealed this valley."

    I murmured my astonishment at all this.

    "The only member of my family to accompany me," he went on, "was my sister, Xunia, who had been in sympathy with my plans from the first. As rapidly as I could, I prepared duplicate bodies for my followers, it being necessary to give each body the outward semblance of the body and brain which was to be quitted, else the personality would not enter it.

    "I have always kept many bodies in reserve for myself and for my sister, so we were prepared for almost any emergency. In case the body I occupied broke down I could instantly enter another. If that one broke down or was destroyed, I could enter still another, and so on.

    "The slaves were the only class which was never completely immortalized. Today, immortalization of a slave is a reward for faithful service. You may readily see, therefore, why the food and drink for which I am forced to apologize are of the cruder sort. I am compelled, for the moment, to offer you but the fare of slaves."

    "It is excellent," I replied, "and quite good enough for any king's son."

    "I will find the means to improve it, however, as I expect you to remain here permanently. I have planned a great honor for you."

    "Indeed?"

    "I will explain. As you probably have surmised, there has been no such thing as propagation of the race among my immortals. This did not bother me in a material way. When I lost a follower—which was rarely, as every one has at least one extra body and most of them several—I could immediately replace him from the ranks of my slaves. But there was no love; and after about three thousand years had passed, the defect bothered me emotionally.

    "I knew that the problem which confronted me was considerably more difficult than any on which I had previously worked, but undaunted, I plunged into my studies. Two thousand years of anatomical, histological, embryological, biological, biochemical and psychological research have brought their reward, so that, although today I differ from you physically as much as ever, I have built into my newest bodies and into those of my sister the sexual characteristics of ordinary human beings.

    "Pangar was sent forth today with the object of bringing me two human beings suitable for marriage with royalty. His journey ended almost as soon as it began when he found you and the princess. I therefore offer you the hand of my beloved sister in marriage, and will likewise offer the half of my throne to the Princess Loralie."

    "But if we should decline the honor?"

    "It is unthinkable. Even if you were to decline, either of you, I have means at hand which, I am sure, will cause you to reconsider gladly."

    Removing the electrodes from his ears and draining his bowl, he arose and summoned two pages. To the first, he said, "Instruct the Princess Loralie to prepare for my coming." As the messenger sped away he said to the other, "You will conduct His Highness Torrogi Zinlo of Olba to the apartments of Her Highness Xunia, Torrogina of Doravia."

    As the little page conducted me to the apartments of Princess Xunia I turned over in my mind Tandor's strange story and its revolting sequel. I was going to the apartments of a girl who had been dead five thousand years, but whose soul was bound in a machine. Beautifully and cleverly constructed as it was, it was yet a mere mechanical contrivance—a thing of wheels and cogs, levers and shafts, a thing that fed on electrical energy and drank fuming acid.

    And I was expected—commanded with a none-too-veiled threat—to make love to this travesty on life.

    But Loralie! Somehow I must contrive to live in order to save her.

    The page stopped before an ornate doorway, two guards saluted and opened massive doors. Then a pair of scarlet curtains were drawn back, revealing a luxurious boudoir. "His Highness, Zinlo of Olba," announced the page as I entered the room.

    The curtains fell in place behind me. I heard the guards close the heavy doors.

    As I looked at the beauteous dead—alive creature that reclined on a luxuriously cushioned divan in a scarlet and gold decked recess, a feeling of revulsion swept over me; yet, paradoxically enough, this was combined with admiration. I was revolted at thought of the nearness of this living dead thing, but could not but admire the consummate art that had created so glorious an imitation of the human form.

    I realized that if I would live to be of assistance to Loralie I had a part to play.

    Xunia smiled languidly, seductively, as I stood before the raised divan just outside the niche it occupied. With feline grace she extended a slender, dimpled hand. Shuddering inwardly, I took it, expecting to feel the cold clamminess of death. But it was as warm as my own and as natural—from its white back in which a delicate tracery of blue veins showed, to the pink-tipped, tapering fingers. I raised it to my lips and released it, but she clung to my fingers for a moment, pulling me to a seat on a low ottoman just in front of her.

    "Long have I awaited your coming, prince of my heart," she said. "Be not afraid to come near to me, for it is my desire and my command."

    "To be prince of your heart were indeed an honor," I replied, "yet you name me this, having only seen me today."

    "The moment I saw you I knew it was so. Fear not, beloved, that there have been others before you. I am, and have ever been, virgin in mind as in body. Once I thought I loved, yes, but it was long ago, and then I was but a child."

    "You make me very jealous, nevertheless," I said, remembering the part I had to play.

    "I did not really love him, I swear it, dearest." She ran her fingers through my hair in a gentle caress so natural, so womanly, that I found it well-nigh impossible to believe her other than a real princess of flesh and blood. Then, before I realized what she was about, she twined her arms about my neck and kissed me full upon my lips.

    The kiss did not taste of acid, as I had imagined it would, but was like that of a normal, healthy girl, though it aroused in me a feeling of revulsion which I was at some pains to conceal.

    "I go now, beloved, to prepare for your marriage," she said. "Await me here."

    As I stood up, she took my hand and arose gracefully. The time for action had arrived. Yet, as I looked down at the slender, beautiful figure, the long-lashed eyes gazing trustfully up into mine, I hesitated to carry out the plan which I had been contemplating as I sat there on the ottoman before her—a plan with which I hoped to accomplish a double purpose—to rid myself of this machine-monster and to get her brother away from Loralie, for she would probably summon him telepathically, if in no other way.

    I was trying to think of her as a dead thing in a machine, yet it seemed impossible that she was other than human, so natural was she, and so beautiful. But the thought of Loralie and the danger she was in steeled me to the task.

    Seizing Xunia by her long black hair, I whipped out my stone knife and slashed the artificial muscles of the slim white throat. She gave one startled scream, which ended at the second slash of my knife, and went limp as I jerked the head backward, cracking the metallic structure which took the place of cervical vertebrae. Instead of blood, there spurted from the severed neck a tiny stream of clear fuming liquid, a few drops of which fell on my hand, burning it like molten metal.

    Dropping the sagging body, I turned and was about to part the curtains which led out into the hall to see if the coast was clear, when I heard a stealthy sound behind me. Swiftly turning, I saw Xunia, apparently unharmed. In her right hand was a long, straight-bladed sword drawn back for a thrust. Behind her lay the body I had just destroyed.

    I leaped back just in time to avoid her vicious lunge. Then, jerking my spiked club from my belt, I dealt her a blow which crushed her skull like an egg-shell. But scarcely had this body sunk to the floor ere a panel opened in the wall behind it and a third, armed like the second, stepped out to attack me.

    "Fool," mouthed the advancing figure. "Think you that you can slay one of the immortals?"

    This time she swung the sword with both hands with the evident intention of decapitating me, but I struck the weapon from her hands. Then I crushed the skull of this third body.

    I leaped through the opened panel, where four more bodies, identical with the other three, lay on scarlet couches. The one nearest me was just sitting up, when I smashed the skull with my club. I quickly disposed of the next two in the same manner before they showed any signs of life, but the last rolled from the couch and, dodging beneath my arm, rushed out into the room from which I had just come.

    "Brother!" she screamed. "Brother—he would destroy me!"

    As I stopped the screeching of this last figure with a blow of my club, the entire wall toward which I was facing rolled up like a curtain. On the other side of it was a room like the one in which I stood, and in that room were Loralie and Tandor.

    The long hair of my princess was disheveled and her eyes were flashing with anger as she tried to pull away from the monarch, who gripped her slender wrists.

    Taking in the situation at a glance, Tandor suddenly released Loralie, who fell to the floor. Then he whipped out his sword and advanced on me.

    Forgetting that I held only a wooden club, I bounded forward to meet him. A sneer crossed his cold, statuesque features, as with a deft slash he cut my club in two near the handle.

    "Die, upstart," he snarled, raising his weapon for the blow that was to end my existence.

    I barely succeeded in avoiding death by leaping back, then caught up one of the swords which Xunia had dropped.

    But as I attacked he came on guard and countered with a skill which spoke of expert training and thousands of years of practice.

    "In your ignorant folly," he said, cutting, thrusting and parrying with a deft precision which amazed me, "you believe you have sent my sister into the unknown, and that with your skill as a swordsman you can do likewise for me. Know, then, witless one, who would try conclusions with the immortals, that in one of the great twin towers which flank the falls under constant guard, my sister has twelve more bodies in reserve.

    "Should you succeed in destroying the six bodies I have here in the palace—which you will not be able to do—I also have twelve more under guard in the opposite tower."

    "I care not if you have a hundred, you monster," I retorted. "Bring them one by one within reach of my blade and I'll eventually send you down the unmarked trail you should have taken five thousand years ago."

    "You are, I perceive, a braggart as well as a dullard," said Tandor. "You realize, of course, that I can call the guard and have you slain at any moment I choose to do so. Yet to make things more interesting I'll make a wager with you. If you succeed in besting me and destroying the six bodies I have here in the palace, I'll promise not to alarm the guard until I return from the tower in one of my reserve bodies. If I force you to surrender, you are to become my slave for life, body and soul, to do with as I see fit. Is it agreed?"

    "It is a wager," I replied between clenched teeth as I desperately sought for an opening in this, the most marvelous guard I had ever encountered.

    Tandor laughed as I tried, one after another, the many tricks I had learned in my fencing on three planets.

    "You are a good swordsman, youth, better than any mortal I have ever encountered; yet I, with five thousand years of training, am merely playing with you. See, I can touch you at will."

    And with that, he pinked my left shoulder.

    The moment he extended his weapon he left the opening for which I had been waiting. Not knowing on what part of his anatomy I could use my point effectively, I dealt him a swift neck cut with its keen edge.

    The head flew from his shoulders and bounded to the floor, but the body did not fall. Instead, it stooped, and catching up the head, tucked it under its left arm and resumed the contest. Here, indeed, was a super-mind, which could control, at the same time, severed head and body.

    "A pretty counter," mocked the head, while our blades clashed as vigorously as before, "but perhaps not as effective as you expected. I will tire you out presently. Then will I slice you down, inch by inch, until you will be glad to yield."

    "Not with this body," I replied as I got inside his guard for a swift downward cut on his forearm. Cleanly severed, it fell to the floor, the hand still gripping the sword. An instant later the body dropped the head and fell. Then a panel slid up behind it, and Tandor, another sword in hand, emerged, smiling sardonically. "You are more clever than I thought, princeling, but that trick will not work again."

    "It is not the only one I know," I replied and, catching his blade on mine, disarmed him, much to his consternation. This time I not only split his head from crown to chin, but slashed off his right arm. Then I rushed through the panel opening in time to catch a third newly animated body just arising from its scarlet couch. I served it in like manner, but the fourth sprang up before I could strike and came on guard with appalling swiftness. Before Tandor could attack in this body I struck two swift blows, splitting the heads of the two recumbent forms.

    I stepped to one side barely in time to avoid a powerful downward cut that would have divided my own head had it landed, and before he could recover I severed the sword arm of my attacker and split his head.

    Rushing back into the room where I had left Loralie, I found her plucking a sword and dagger from one of Tandor's bodies.

    "We must get out of here at once," I said. "In a few moments Tandor will be back here in one of his swift vehicles. Then, the terms of the wager fulfilled, he can quickly have us captured."