Part 3

The second Fazoql had walloped him over the head with the leg of a chair. The lights went out. Joan screamed. Jaro felt her hand torn from his arm. He thought, "Mercurians!"

Something hit him over the head.

* * * * *

After a while Jaro came to. He stood up, bumped his head against the ceiling. It was dark. He felt about with his hands. He seemed to be in a cubical cell about four feet square and not much higher. He could neither stand up nor lie down. It was so deep beneath the city, he couldn't hear the flutes. His head ached. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the cell, he discovered by the sense of touch, were stone. He sat down, his back to the wall. He wondered dully what had happened to Landovitch and Joan. Did Albert Peet or Karfial Hodes have the girl?

He thought ruefully that Peet probably had her. The presence of the Earthmen and the two Venusian Fazoqls convinced him that Peet was behind the attack. Then he too must be a prisoner of Peet. He was faintly surprised that he hadn't been killed.

He closed his eyes to shut out the absolute darkness which pressed in on him from all sides. With a touch of panic he considered the possibility that he might be blind. He shuddered, refusing to think about it, speculating on the fine collection of rogues which Albert Peet had gathered in support of his collapsing economic empire.

He was not surprised that the Latonka Czar had hired the Fazoqls. The caste of Venusian killers were active all over the Universe. Like the Greek mercenaries of ancient times, it was a respected profession on Venus. As long as Peet fulfilled his side of the contract, the Fazoqls would be loyal. But the Earthmen!

Earthmen gone bad were more feared than mad dogs and given a much wider berth. They were just as apt to destroy Albert Peet as his enemies. When he thought of Joan Webb being left to their tender care, he writhed mentally.

There was something fresh, likeable, wholesome about the girl. He made no melodramatic vows of revenge to himself should he discover that the girl had been harmed. Instead a coldness crept over his mind. He would, he knew, hunt them to the outermost ports of the Universe's far-flung frontiers.

His head was no better. He felt that a drink of Latonka would clear his mind. After a while he went back to sleep.

When he awoke he was very thirsty. He set about exploring his cell with his fingers, encountered a jug and a pan of food. They must have been placed there while he slept. He ate and drank. His head didn't ache so badly, his mind was clearer. He felt his chin. He thought he would like a bath and a shave.

He shifted position, leaned back against the wall, felt it give slightly beneath his weight. He scrambled around, feverishly ran his hand over the smooth blocks of stone. One of the blocks, he discovered, had been pushed back in the wall about an inch. He shoved outward against it. The stone receded further, leaving a hole scarcely large enough for his broad shoulders.

Jaro squeezed into the hole, wriggled forward, pushing the stone ahead of him. It ran in grooves. This was not the regular door he felt sure, but a secret entrance of whose existence he doubted that even his guards suspected. After about four feet, he felt himself clear of the wall. The stone came to a stop. He could push it no further. He had come through into a second chamber or passage, he didn't know which as still no glimmer of light relieved the intense darkness.

* * * * *

He stood, cracked his head against the ceiling. He recalled the small stature of the Mercurians, grinned ruefully.

He bethought himself of his captors' surprise when they discovered his escape, got back down on hands and knees, pushed the stone back into the exit. It came to a stop with a small click. The hole was plugged. He tried to move the stone. It was latched fast. He realized that the lock must not have been caught or else no amount of pressure would have moved that stone. Backing out into the passage behind the cells, he stood up again. He was free.

Stooping painfully he crept along the wall. He had taken five hundred and twenty-three steps when he stumbled up a stair. Recovering his balance, he climbed up sixteen steps which wound back on themselves, came out in another passage. This second corridor he judged ran directly above the one he had just left. There was still no light. With increasing confidence he began its exploration.

The first thing his groping fingers encountered was a narrow alcove inset in the wall. Like a blind man he passed his hand across the back wall of the alcove, felt a knob-like protuberance, pulled. A small stone plug came out, revealing a peep hole. A ray of light streamed through the aperture. He wasn't blind!

He put his eye to the peep hole, saw a large, delicately furnished room. In the center was a bed on a dais. Several luxurious chairs, fashioned like chaise lounges and upholstered in white fur, squatted invitingly about the floor. A deep-piled aquamarine carpet covered the cold stone blocks under foot. The walls were a solid mass of bas relief. The ancient sculptor had exhibited a robust sense of realism in his choice of subjects.

He felt about the walls, sure that there must be some means of ingress. His fingers discovered a second handle. He pulled. A section of the wall swung back.

For a moment he hesitated like a gray wolf coming into a clearing, then crossed the chamber to the door. Cautiously, he inched it open. A long corridor met his eyes. It was lighted like the chamber with the pale green globes of the Mercurians. Like the chamber too, it was deserted.

He stepped back in the room, drew the door shut, bolted it. With growing curiosity he set about examining his surroundings. If this belonged to Albert Peet's establishment, he surely did himself proud. He discovered a closet full of rich feminine apparel, then a second door leading through a mirror paneled dressing room into a bath with a sunken tub.

Jaro sighed. He stripped off his clothes, filled the tub, let himself into the warm water. Having bathed he searched a small built-in cabinet, found a hair remover used by the Mercurian women on their legs. It doubled for a razor quite successfully. He ran his hand over his chin, laughed, returned to the main chamber. Unlocking the door to the hall in order not to create suspicion, he retreated into the secret passage, shut the door, plugged the peep hole.

A dozen steps further along the corridor, he found a second alcove identical with the last. There was a corresponding peep hole. The room he looked into resembled the other except that its appointments differed. It too, was deserted. He thought everyone must be above celebrating the Festival. He wondered where he was. The last two chambers had held no clue.

A third alcove revealed a room similar to the others except that it was occupied. A pale Mercurian girl was asleep on the bed. Her black hair lay on her white shoulders like stains of ink. A broad band of green metal encircled one naked ankle.

Jaro drew in his breath sharply. A temple priestess, one of the ex-brides of Nemi. He was beneath the temple of the rain god. Albert Peet's men had not captured him after all. The thought induced a new chain of reasoning. He remembered the lights flashing out back in the grog shop. His thought at the time: "Mercurians." It dawned on him that Karfial Hodes' men must have rescued them from Peet's hired Mercenaries. But why? He put the plug back into place.

The following two chambers were empty. At first, he thought the next one was too. He was about to insert the plug when a girl entered from the dressing room. His lips formed an inaudible whistle. The girl was Joan Webb.

* * * * *

Jaro, observing Joan Webb through the peep hole, saw that her tawny brown eyes were strained, frightened, her shorts and blouse rumpled as if slept in. He wondered suddenly how much time had elapsed since the fight in the grog shop.

Joan turned and went back into the dressing room. Jaro, with a broad grin, found the handle, swung back the secret panel. He squeezed through the narrow aperture, drew shut the panel behind him.

Joan came back into the room.

He said: "Hail, fairest of all maidens. I am Nemi come for my bride."

Joan screamed, sprang back into the dressing room, peered at him wildly around the edge of the frame.

"You!" she said. She came out. "Where did you come from?"

Jaro bounced up and down on the edge of the bed. "How did you rate this?" he asked. "You should have seen my cell. You've been imprisoned in the lap of luxury."

Joan repeated, "Where did you come from?"

He waved his hand airily. "Out of the nowhere into the here."

She observed him dubiously, said, "Listen Nemi, if you can get in and out as you please, let's not loiter."

He grinned, led her to the secret entrance, pushed back the panel.

"Oh!" said Joan. "You almost had me believing that Nemi stuff."

"Come on." He squeezed through the exit, disappeared.

Joan hesitated, peering with alarm into the black hole. "The way I have to trust you!"

Jaro reached out a hand, pulled her through, pushed the panel in place. They were immediately in darkness so thick, so dense that they could feel it.

"Where are you?" said Joan, a panicky note in her voice.

"Here," Jaro laughed.

"Oh!" she ejaculated. "Really, Mr. Moynahan."

"What happened back in the grog shop?"

Joan hesitated, said, "It's all kind of foggy. I was simply petrified with fright. When the lights went out, someone grabbed me. I tried to cry out for you only someone had his hand over my mouth. I couldn't do anything but gurgle. They dragged me toward the back of the shop. I thought.... Well, never mind what I thought."

Jaro chuckled.

"It wasn't funny," said Joan, indignantly. "They hauled me down some stairs, into an alley. I saw then that they were Mercurians, and I wasn't so scared. They brought me here, and here I've been ever since. But I still don't understand how you found me."

He said, "There seems to be a regular network of these secret passages running through the walls. It was the merest accident that I stumbled into them. Where they lead, though, I don't know any more than you."

"What are we going to do?" she wanted to know.

"Find Karfial Hodes. I've a hunch that he's hidden here."

"I was afraid of that," she said in a plaintive tone.

Jaro found her hand, led her to the next alcove, applied his eye to the peep hole. The room, he saw, was identical with the one in which Joan had been imprisoned. On the bed lay the red-headed singer of _Mercury Sam's Garden_.

"The Red Witch," he whispered. "We're getting hot."

"Who's she?" said Joan. She pushed Jaro aside, put her eye to the peep hole. "Where _do_ you meet these people?" she asked.

Jaro said, "I'm going in and talk to her. Wait here."

"What?" cried Joan, "Leave me out in this dark hole? I should say not."

"All right," he replied. He glanced again through the peep hole. The woman was asleep. She lay on her side, her red hair turning the pillow to blood. She still had on the abbreviated costume she had been wearing on Mercury Sam's stage.

Jaro opened the panel, crawled into the room, Joan on his heels.

He went up to the bed, looked down at the sleeping woman. He thought she looked hollow cheeked, unhappy in her sleep; nothing like the flaming wanton who was known throughout the Universe as the Red Witch. He touched her shoulder.

She opened her eyes. They were a vivid green. Recognition swept her features.

V

"Jaro!" she cried, a note of fright in her voice. She jerked up, swung her bare legs off the bed onto the floor. "What do you want? How did you get here?" Those amazing green eyes flicked past him, discovered Joan. She wasn't too frightened to raise her eyebrows.

"There are a few questions I'd like to ask," he replied coolly. "Just who is behind this revolution?"

There was the faintest hesitancy in her reply. "Hodes. Who did you think?"

He looked skeptical, waited.

She said, "You don't believe me? When I talked with you, I exaggerated perhaps. But there is very much money involved, very much indeed. Should the Mercurians be successful, they would take possession of the Latonka Trust, the plantations, and the mines. The Earthmen would be dispossessed. Naturally, they are very anxious to frustrate the revolution."

"But the Mercurians are in the right," Joan burst out. She had been swelling up like a toad in the effort to contain herself. "Albert Peet and his kind, stole everything in the first place. They deserve to be kicked out. Mercury has a right to self-government."

The Red Witch shrugged. "I'm not curious about the ethics. I'm paid by the Earthmen, not the Mercurians. Are you with us or against us, Jaro?"

He ignored her question, asked, "Are you being held by Karfial Hodes?"

She nodded.

"Why?"

She exhibited surprise. "Karfial Hodes knows that I am the principal agent of the counter revolutionaries. But if he thinks that by eliminating me he can block the forces opposing him, he's overestimating my importance."

"Eliminating?" said Jaro mildly. "Are you in any danger?"

She shrugged again. "The Mercurians aren't butchers. They merely hold me until the revolution begins."

Jaro said: "Where does Karfial Hodes keep himself?"

She shook her head.

"That little pianist, the gunman, how did he escape?"

"Stanley, you mean Stanley. Did he get away?" she asked him eagerly.

He nodded.

Her eyes narrowed; she bit her lip.

"That's all you want to tell me?" he said.

The look of fright reappeared in her green eyes. "What do you mean, Jaro?"

He said nothing.

"You know as much as I do," she assured him. "You believe me now, don't you, Jaro." Her voice was eager.

"No," he replied calmly.

"What are you going to do?" she whispered.

"Who are the others in this with you?"

"I can't tell you." She bit her lip, looked more frightened than ever.

"Who are the others?" he repeated mildly.

The red-headed singer leaped to her feet. Her figure was full, strikingly beautiful. She was well aware of her appeal. "Jaro," she cried, "I can't tell you. It would be as much as my life is worth. Not until I know what side you're on."

* * * * *

Jaro regarded her calmly. At length he said, "You'll excuse us if we lock you in the dressing room?"

"But Jaro," she said; "aren't you going to take me with you?"

He shook his head.

"You're going to leave me here?" she repeated. She couldn't keep the relief out of her voice.

He laughed, said, "I'm afraid so."

A great weight seemed lifted from the red-headed singer's mind. With a resumption of her old bravado, she shrugged, walked into the dressing room. Her hips moved from side to side. Jaro shut the door, pushed the bed in front of it.

"The hussy!" said Joan.

Jaro wasn't sure but he thought he detected a feline note in her tone. He led the way back into the passage, closed the exit.

Joan clutched his hand again. "That woman!"

"Attractive, isn't she?" he said with a chuckle. "Ouch!" he said. "That wasn't very lady-like."

"What wasn't?" asked Joan sweetly. "I didn't do anything."

"Well, someone kicked me," he replied.

"You don't think I'd do a thing like that? Do you?"

"Yes," he said. He inched ahead along the lightless passage.

"Jaro."

There was no reply.

"Jaro!" cried the girl in panic. "Where are you? Wait for me, Jaro. I'll never kick you again."

"Is that a promise?" he asked from the darkness right at her ear.

"Eeek!" she gasped. "Yes, it's a promise, though I regret it already."

He chuckled, said, "Give me your hand," led her forward.

They had gone only a few yards, when his foot struck an obstacle. "Careful," he warned. "Here's a stair." They crept up to the next level. The familiar alcoves began again along the right hand wall. He tried the first one. It revealed a rectangular tank of water some ten by twenty feet. The walls were a mosaic of hand painted tile depicting Nemi, the rain god, descending to Mercury in a shower, Nemi searching for his bride, Nemi at the nuptial feast. The fourth wall was the one through which they were looking; and they couldn't see its decoration. From the realism of the ancient artist and the sequence of events, Jaro decided it was just as well they couldn't.

"Whew," he said, "what a bathroom!"

Joan put her eye to the peep hole. Jaro gaped in amazement. From a circular hole in the ceiling poured a curtain of rain. The shaft, he realized, must lead straight up through the different levels and through the roof. A raised dais with a rim around it received the rain in the center of the room. The surface of the dais he saw, was composed of a springy wire mesh through which the water drained into some subterranean channel.

"The bed of Nemi," said Joan. "That's where the queen must sleep on her wedding night. Nemi is supposed to visit her in the rain."

"What a clammy way to spend your wedding night," Jaro said, putting his eye back to the aperture. The appointments of the chamber were magnificent. It glowed with a rosy, pulsating light. The floor was carpeted with a shaggy white rug; a divan large enough to hold at least six people rested against the left hand wall. Around the walls ran murals depicting the exploits of Nemi: Nemi touching the red egalet which burst into flower, Nemi squeezing the juice from a cluster of Latonka grapes.

The next room proved to be an ordinary sleeping chamber, obviously the bedroom of the queen for the remainder of the year. Jaro saw a beautiful Mercurian girl packing clothes and trinkets into a chest. The green band about her ankle marked her as a temple priestess. She was singing a lilting, happy refrain in the odd language of Mercury as she went about her work.

Joan put her eye to the hole.

"That's the ex-queen," she informed him. "She's getting ready to move to the apartments of the temple priestess."

"She doesn't seem unhappy at her approaching bereavement," said Jaro.

Joan sniffed. "Not likely."

"I'm going in to talk to her," said Jaro.

"Are you crazy?" cried Joan in alarm. She tugged at him arm, but he was already pulling back the secret entrance.

* * * * *

The queen had her back to them. Jaro closed the entrance, coughed discreetly. The girl spun around, her hand to her mouth.

"How should I address her?" He whispered over his shoulder.

"I don't think you need bother with formalities," observed Joan in a bitter voice, "not after your entrance."

The queen said, "You are an Earthman."

Jaro said, "Yes, your majesty."

"Majesty?" echoed the Mercurian girl. Her eyes were golden, oblique, curious, her hair a fine graven ebony. She had long, black lashes, bright red lips. Her skirt and jacket were green. "I don't quite understand. I am not very familiar with your language."

Jaro grinned. "I suppose our entrance was not exactly orthodox but the fact is that we are escaped prisoners." The queen raised her fine black brows.

"How did you get here?" Her voice had an odd foreign flavor. Jaro couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there. He said, "That is unimportant. We are searching for Karfial Hodes. I know of no one more apt to be informed of his whereabouts than you."

"And what is it that you want with Karfial Hodes?"

Jaro had the impression that she was stalling, listening expectantly. He said, "Where is Hodes?"

Before she could answer, the doors on either side burst open. A dozen priests of Nemi burst into the room. Jaro caught a triumphant smile on the queen's face, then he kicked the closest Mercurian on the knee. The priest screamed, doubled to the floor. He lifted a second bodily, hurled him into the press, bowling over several others. A priest lit on his back. He flipped him over his shoulder. He rammed an elbow into someone's eye, smashed his fist against a mouth. He kicked another priest on the knee. He got hold of one of the fellows by a leg, whirled him around like a club. He caught a glimpse of the queen, her expression registering frightened dismay. She was stabbing a button on the table, obviously the means by which she had summoned her defenders. A whole horde of priests crowded into the room.

Behind him Joan screamed. "Jaro," she cried. "Help!"

Jaro laid the poor fellow he had been using as a bludgeon on the floor.

"All right," he said. "I surrender." Everyone, especially the priests, appeared relieved.

"Take them before Karfial Hodes," directed the queen. Her yellow eyes regarded the gaunt Earthman with amazement, tinged with respect. The priests laid hold of him gingerly, urged him toward the door. He stood head and shoulders above the Mercurians.

He looked at Joan quizzically, said: "All roads lead to Rome."

"Oh dear," said Joan. "I'm not fitted for this kind of a life. I'm a secretary, a darned good secretary. I don't know how I ever got involved in this mess."

From the queen's apartment they emerged into a broad passage. A concourse of Mercurians moved in streams all about them. They flung eager questions at their guards, chattered, laughed. The flutes, too, were audible once more: thin treble pipings, like the pipes of Pan, Jaro thought.

"How long does the Festival last?" he asked Joan.

"What?" she said. "Oh. Roughly a week. It's half over now."

They came to the end of the corridor, mounted a broad staircase. Jaro sensed that they were still deep in the bowels of Mercury. At length, they were halted before a massive door. A priest stood at the entrance. There was an exchange of words between their captors and the solitary guard. Satisfied, the priest stood aside, flung open the door. Jaro and Joan were motioned inside. The portal clanged shut behind them.

"Caught again," said Joan. "I'll never feel at home now unless I'm behind bars."

Jaro chuckled. "This isn't a jail," he pointed out. "The cells are below us. I think we are about to see Karfial Hodes at last."

* * * * *

The room in which Jaro and Joan found themselves was a large, bare, vaulted hall. At the far end, Jaro saw an imposing door. He advanced curiously toward it.

"Are we just supposed to wait?" asked Joan. "How does Karfial Hodes know we're here?"

"He's probably been notified by visoscreen," he assured her. He pushed experimentally at the massive door. It moved easily beneath his touch. "Hey!" he said. "It's not locked." His voice echoed hollowly in the vaulted antichamber.

"Are we going in?" asked Joan weakly. "As if I didn't know already."

Jaro gave the door a push. It swung wide.

"Look!" cried Joan. "My god, look!"

He saw a magnificent room, the floor of polished marble. A row of fluted columns ran down each side. There was a desk, a modern desk, strangely out of place in the antique setting, opposite the door through which they had entered. Across its polished surface a man sprawled limply, just as if he had fallen forward from his chair in sleep.

With a bound Jaro sprang across the room, felt the man's withered wrist for any signs of pulse. He was a very old man, he saw, and he was quite dead.

"Karfial Hodes!" murmured Joan in a low frightened voice. "I saw him once in a street procession. Is he dead, Jaro?"

Jaro nodded. From the back of the old man's neck, he plucked a tiny metallic splinter. "They got him with a poisoned dart gun. He's still warm. It couldn't have happened but a minute before."

"Oh, Jaro, and he was such a nice old man. Who could have done it?"

Jaro straightened, said, "One of Albert Peet's renegade whites."

"Ugh! And to think I worked for that man."