Part 2

Alston moved. His arm curved in one slashing arc. It was a trick blow learned in his space academy days. One swift slash with the edge of a hand could paralyze a man, stun him for hours. Alston caught the falling body and rolled with it to the tiles.

In silence he dragged the unconscious man under the slab and rapidly stripped off his robes. Swiftly, quietly, Alston donned the radiation-proof garments. The body was hard to lift, but with a minimum of noise and bustle, he got it to the slab, replaced the canvas covering. For jewelled seconds, he waited to see if this disturbance had been noted from the alcove.

Steeling himself to patience, Alston pretended to continue the task of the attendant, working his way from slab to slab and slowly edging toward the swing doors at the end of the loft. It was a grueling, nerve-tightening process. At the last slab he paused, darting a quick survey at the activities within the far alcove. Attention there seemed to be focused upon an immense vat in which flickering lights played. Boldly, Alston stepped through the door.

From a small landing a spiral ramp descended. It was the one visible exit.

As he remembered, the clinical laboratories and dissecting rooms occupied the two top floors, beneath the landing stages on the roof of the VE Building. Apparently there was no direct outlet to the roof from this landing. He would have to risk a descent to the office-floors below. It was a long chance, garbed as he was, but there seemed no help for it. His robes and cowl might disguise him but they were sure to attract attention. He must get other clothes somehow before making his break.

His previous escape plan dealt with the underground tunnels connecting the various buildings. Now a new plan must be made up as he went along, grasping whatever opportunity arose. Probably the best trick would be to reach the roof-landings by elevator and try to steal a 'copter.

Down the ramp he went, abandoning stealth. The first landing he reached was empty, but seemed to open into laboratory rooms. Down again. The ramp opened into a corridor leading to a central landing. Alston tried to remember if Hailard's office were on the floor just under the lofts. At any rate, there were elevators here.

Pressing a stud, he waited for the whine of the car. One was ascending, but he could not guess how close it was.

Waiting, he pressed close against the wall, out of vision range of the opening door. A weapon would be a help, but he might as well wish for the moon.

A hiss of releasing air announced the elevator cage. Silently the door opened, and a humanoid robot emerged. Blank but sensitive metallic eyes fixed on Alston.

* * * * *

Suddenly alarms rang through the echoing corridors. A blinker red signal flashed in the cage, its reflection a splash of blood on the polished frame. The robot hesitated, reaching for the portable transmitter to report below for instructions. Alston barked quick command. Half-turned, the robot touched the transmitter. Alston struck.

His fist crashed into the face plate, numbing his arms to the elbow. A jingle of small mechanical parts rained inside the robot, but the automaton caught at the man. Man and machine fell in a loud tangle, locked in savage, struggling embrace. Alston broke free and smashed in the face plate with a series of blows. His fingers clawed at intricacies of wiring inside. Acrid smoke and a smell of scorched insulation spiralled forth. The robot sprawled in weirdly human attitude of death.

No use now to descend. Hope of bypassing the guarded lower floors to the tunnels must be abandoned. And unarmed, he could not hope to get past the guards on the roof-landings. The alarm was out.

Inside the cage, he jammed the controls on nonstop descent and sprang back to the landing. Forcing shut the safety door released the car for a shrieking express drop. Uncontrolled, it would crash into fearful wreckage at the tunnel levels.

It would confuse the search momentarily while the debris was examined for his body.

He looked quickly around the landing, found a tablet numbering the rooms and giving directions. He was on the floor of Hailard's office. It gave him an idea. Perhaps he could hold the director as hostage for his escape. At least it would be no worse than his present predicament. Hailard's office would be the last place they would expect him.

He hurried down the corridor.

Hailard's door was closed. Alston flung it open and leaped inside. Kial Nasron and the director faced each other across the desk. Both faces froze, staring at the intrusion. Hailard's hand dipped toward an open drawer.

In tigerish movement, Alston scooped girl and chair from the floor and flung them over the desk into Hailard's lap. The heat gun flamed at random, melting a section of plastic wall. Alston sprang, went over the desk top into a belly-slide. All three of them crashed in a squirming heap on the floor.

Alston wrenched free first and came up with the heat gun in his hand. Pale and furious, Kial Nasron writhed back to the wall, glaring at the man. Hailard sat up, staring in dazed fixation at the pointing gun.

"It won't do you any good, Alston," he said. "Security police are searching the building."

"We'll see about that," Alston grinned at the girl. "Mr. Hailard and I are exchanging clothes."

After the exchange, Alston smashed the visiphone and inter-office communicator.

"The lady is leaving with me," he warned the director. "So use judgment. If anything happens to me, it happens to her. If anyone gets in my way, I'll blast through. Is that clear?"

Hailard nodded. "Clear to me. Maybe not to the guards on the roof."

Alston's face lighted savagely. "You can come along and explain it to them."

Herding his prisoners before him, Alston marched to the elevator-landing. Hailard pressed the stud for the surviving cage. The car stopped, its door slid open.

Alston gestured toward the transmitter. "Give them your orders and make it good."

Hailard shrugged....

III

Five hours and approximately 1,800 airline miles from Quanta City, Alston switched back from rocket power to the atomic motors. Not daring to use radar for navigation or altitude soundings, he was not certain exactly where he was. Climbing swiftly into the murk, he flew blindly by dead reckoning, and most of the journey was accomplished in or above the miles-deep canopy of dust and vapor which eternally shrouds Venus from all view of other worlds.

On the silver, skimming over the limitless expanse of cloud banks, rainbow-tinted with reflected light, the ship had a view of breath-taking extent. They were somewhere over the Tihar Forest, he knew, and within striking distance of his destination. But until he descended below the obscurity of unbroken mist-seas, the exact position was guesswork. Blades flailing in the thin, stratospheric air, the 'copter slanted downward, settling swiftly. It hovered for seconds above a roil surface of blinding brilliance, then churning grayness enveloped them, limiting vision to a few yards radius.

Temptation to use the sounding device was overwhelming, but he knew that hundreds of spotters were tuning detectors eagerly, hoping for just such a lapse, to triangulate his position. With muttered profanity, he restrained the impulse.

Sparing a moment from peering anxiously below, he eyed Kial Nasron resentfully.

"You should have 'chuted down when I gave you the chance," he told her morosely. "It was a better risk than this."

"I wanted to come," she replied, with a toss of head. "This is the Tihar Forest, isn't it?"

He grinned. "I think so. We'll know in a few minutes if the ceiling is high enough to give me a chance to pull this crate out of the fall. If not, I don't think we'll care."

"I'm an easy pick-up, but hard to shake. Since we're landing, you might untie my hands."

"And have you get foolish notions of grabbing the controls?"

"What good would that do me? I can't fly a 'copter."

Alston stared through the viewports. The ship appeared to be descending a well of infinite depth with featureless gray walls in which flickered eery light.

"You're a bigger fool than I thought," he admitted. "I had a vague idea of turning you loose with the ship, later on, after I'd smashed the radar and wireless. How d'you expect to get back?"

"We'll figure that out when we come to it," the girl said confidently. "Maybe we can still make a deal. If we find my sister and take us both back, you'll have something to bargain with. My father will make them meet any terms you say."

Alston disillusioned her brutally. "Don't count on it, sister. I'm on a one-way ticket. The penalty for attempted escape is death, in the disintegrators. I've added kidnapping, stealing a ship, and some assorted violence to my record. The least I'd get is life in the deep mines, and I'd prefer the disintegrators to that. You'll have to find yourself another hero."

Kial Nasron fell silent while Alston returned his attention to the controls. Dark rifts appeared in the grayness, became restless mobile patterns, like smoke swirling in a glass. The rotating blades overhead caught denser air and set up curious disturbance areas in the mist. Except for the lessened gravity, like the first moments in a rapidly descending elevator, there was no sense of motion at all. The ship might have been suspended in a dim, mist-shrouded pocket of space.

Tense at the controls, Alston did not turn as she spoke again.

"Perhaps, then, I can make contact with the searching parties, and bargain with them. You don't know my father's influence. He can protect you."

Alston grunted savagely. "No, thanks. I've had dealings with your father. Maybe you don't remember. You were just a kid, away at school on Earth. He helped railroad me. Figured I was not good enough for Annelle, and that was one way to be rid of me. As if I had a chance, anyhow. That was the joke. They called it sabotage, when the charge should have been negligence under extenuating circumstances. Annelle stood by and let him do it."

* * * * *

He was conscious of her voice, but it sounded distant, unreal.

"Then you did remember. I didn't know much about it. You were a forbidden topic in the house. But you're wrong about Annelle. She cried a lot before she forgot, and even Father talked of having the case re-opened. Nothing came of it. I supposed you were guilty."

"I was. There was a choice of following orders or saving the ship. I waited too long to decide. Men died. They were my friends. That was important, the rest isn't. You're welcome to both your father and your sister. I could even enjoy your predicament if I cared. But I'm past that, long ago. None of you even exist to me."

"Then you won't mind if I try to reach the searching parties? They could take me back--"

He laughed grimly. "And have you lead them to me? I'd be a fool to trust you. Besides, none of them will get this far. None on the surface. And the air patrols can't land. You're stuck with me, sister. And don't expect any favors. I'm not in the mood."

Dark curtains parted suddenly below.

Immensity of somber desolation spread in all directions. The scene was savage, monstrous, rich in vegetation, fitfully lighted by distant volcanic flares. Jungle had stormed and over-run the visible countryside. Like a vast green map it unrolled below them. Directly beneath the plunging 'copter, and perilously close at hand, was a jagged upthrust of bare rock, miles-high, towering almost into the gray ceiling of mist.

Frantically, Alston worked at the controls. Airscrews whined, shrilled, blasted. The muted thunder of atomic engines rose into deafening crescendo. The blades overhead vibrated in frenzy of rotation.

The 'copter pulled from its steep fall, jerked forward like a startled animal, then hesitated. One of the blades grazed the high pinnacle of rock with a jarring crash. The ship rebounded, poised like a dancer, then fell away, floundering in a crazy rhythm.

Fighting the wheel and stick, Alston was wrenched from his strapped pilot-seat and wedged violently among the control bars.

The damaged blade broke loose and beat itself to exploding tatters on the fuselage cabin. Gyrating, plunging end over end, the ship was tearing itself to pieces. Extricating himself, the man shut off the motors and switched to rocket power. Jets flamed and sputtered. Ground, like a solid green wall, rose up toward the stricken ship. Thundering jets painted a crazy pattern of brilliant crimson.

Righting the ship, Alston tried vainly to jettison the blades, but they were lodged fast in the keys. Banshee wail of tortured brace wires rose shrill and thin. In a sickening glide, the ship struck. By instinct, Alston cut the power. Then, darkness....

Green, roaring avalanches engulfed the hurtling ship, wiped away the landing gear. Upper branches grasped at the breaking fuselage, ground at its metal plates with tearing force. Twice it broke clear, bounded high in the air, and struck again. In a high tangle of treetops, it lodged for seconds, then toppled and fell a sheer hundred feet before coming to rest in a snarled webbing of vines and main limbs. Like a broken moth, twitching and swaying, it hung there.

A band of natives found the wreckage. Like agile monkeys they swarmed up the trees, found the occupants still unconscious, and lowered them gently to the forest floor. The native leader solved this problem with primitive directness. Taking a large mouthful of water from his snakeskin canteen, he blew hard, spraying Alston's face liberally, then repeating the process with the girl.

Water showering Alston jerked him instantly awake. Dazed and bruised, he raised himself on one elbow and looked about. It was impossible that he had survived the crash, but he seemed painfully alive. He sat up, blinking.

A group of fox-headed natives surrounded him, their large ears flapping excitedly. They waved spears and danced, chirping noisily, faceted eyes on stalks protruding from their foreheads writhing and flickering with curiosity and interest. Alston spoke to them in their own language of weird, chirping monosyllables.

* * * * *

Kial Nasron was rousing. She showed less signs of battering than he did, but evidently her return to consciousness was not an unmixed blessing. Her cultured voice made unladylike comments.

Suddenly aware of the natives, Kial leaped to her feet and started running like a frightened _yarnab_. The native leader hurled a spear-shaft between her legs and brought her down heavily. His followers carried her back.

"What will they do to us?" she wailed, shuddering as she looked at the half-human creatures.

"Shut up," he ordered. "These are friends."

He addressed the leader and the chirping discussion went on. Partially reassured, the girl examined the eery beings with curiosity which they openly returned, picking at her garments, touching her skin, laughing among themselves and making comments which she could not understand.

Vaguely manlike in form, the inhabitants of Tihar were spindly and barrel-chested, with long, multiple-jointed limbs. Their slate gray skin, covered with fine golden down, blended easily with the ocher moss of the forest.

"Something is wrong," Alston told her finally. "These people are badly frightened. They're leaving the forest and heading west into unknown country. I don't understand it, and Tuluk is vague about the actual danger. He's warning us to leave at once. And Tuluk doesn't scare easily, so it must be something out of the ordinary."

The leader glanced apprehensively about as he talked, his voice rising and falling in the birdlike cadences of his speech. Alston gestured toward the wrecked ship, then the girl, shook his head in negation, and shrugged eloquently.

Gesticulating, chirping wildly, the native chief rounded up his followers and melted swiftly into the shadowed gloom of the forest.

"What was that all about?" asked Kial uneasily.

Alston snorted. "I still don't know. I explained that we could not go in the ship. He wanted us to come with him. I told him that was equally impossible, that you wouldn't last ten miles the way they travel. Don't worry about it. There's danger, but we knew that. Besides, these natives don't always make sense. They've different mental processes from ours. Not quite human. What scared them might mean nothing to us. Volcano, earthquake, food shortage. They're superstitious, too. Maybe a god growled at them."

"What are we going to do?"

Alston grinned. "Hole up. I know where I am now. I hoped to get guide service, but we won't need it. Tuluk told me how to get where we're going. I spotted the place a while back on one of my survey trips. Seems like a good place to hide for a while. I have a cache of supplies there. Three hours of rough going, though. One hour, Tuluk said, but that means three for us. Messy job, pawing through this muck."

Alston climbed into the trees and rummaged in the shattered 'copter for usable equipment. His total find amounted to a pair of radilume flashbeams, some tablets of food concentrate, water in a self-cooling canteen and his heat gun. He scrambled back to the ground and struck out boldly through the jungle.

It was Kial Nasron's first experience of Venusian forest. She wondered how Alston could keep his directions at all. To her it was a vast nightmare, staggering, impressive, but without order or definite form. Here was nothing of the cultivated parklands of Earth. Titanic trees towered upward and lost themselves in gloom, their knotted trunks like the columns of a giant's temple. Overhead was a blank mass of foliage so dense that practically no light filtered down from the uneasy gray glare of sky.

Colossal tree-ferns and gigantic mushrooms gave the place a goblin aspect, like the background of some sinister fairy-tale, and underfoot the ground moved queasily as if she trod upon the crust of quagmire. Coarse, thorny scrub and a moldering confusion of rotting tree trunks blocked the aisles, and higher up interwoven vines and trailing beards of moss knotted together the dense growth of trees in complex tapestries of shadow. Footing was treacherous, although a luminosity hovered above the sinks of decaying vegetation, and by this tricky light, they made frequent detours to avoid bogholes and the bubbling sinks of steaming-hot water. The air was thick, moist and nauseous with the foulness of gas rising from the layers of mold. Each step was an adventure.

After two hours of tramping and stumbling through choked aisles of sodden jungle, Kial Nasron was out on her feet.

* * * * *

Fortunately, they had reached higher ground. Outcroppings of lichen-crusted rock broke the morass of soft, unsteady ground, and she fell less often. Alston paid no heed to her or her difficulties. He marched steadily on, and, gasping and perspiration-soaked, she made shift to keep up. A terror of being abandoned in the awesome wilderness urged her faltering muscles.

They climbed a rise and came out on a flat, shelving rock at the top of a watershed.

On the far side, the ledge overlooked a circular depression miles in extent. Here, Alston halted. The strength went out of Kial, and she collapsed weakly on the bare rock. Alston gave her food and water and seemed bitterly amused by her plight.

"We're almost there," he said. "Better get used to it. We're home."

On the near side, the hollow was rimmed by sheer cliffs, across its expanse, perhaps fifty miles away, was a chain of high, smoking volcanoes, their red glare reflected from the overcast, drenching the plain with hellish light. Hundreds of feet below was the pit floor, fairly level and carpeted with flowing grass or the ocherous moss.

Before them, sloping from a wedge-like salient of the precipice, a stone-flagged pathway lay straight across the plain toward the city!

At first, in the crimson splendor, it seemed less like a man-made fabric than some curious natural formation rising from the rust-tinted grasslands. In shape it was like a tangle of oddly regular hills and the vegetation swarming over it added to the illusion. But a closer look showed too much geometry for accidental weathering.

Gradually the outlines assumed form. City-size, it seemed to be the complex ramifications of a single building, terraced, overgrown with a thick matting of vines until the place resembled a hanging garden.

Kial Nasron suppressed a shiver, for there was an utterly alien quality about the megalithic structure that both depressed and frightened her. Over both city and hollow rose an aura of something dreadful and unholy, as if the ghosts of some ancient dwellers brooded in forgotten solitudes within.

As they descended the rough pathway and moved along the stone flagging toward the abandoned megalopolis, both man and girl were conscious of a quiver which ran through ground and air. Stopping, Alston knelt and placed a hand flat on the ground. Even through the thick moss, a vibration was perceptible, and something like a weak electric shock ran up his arm, numbing wrist, elbow and the shoulder joint. Now he was aware of a muted throbbing, like the beat of a heavy, steady pulse.

Nearer the city, ground tremors were stronger, and his ears caught a clearly audible echo from the vibrating air. Had he been wrong in believing the city was deserted? On the previous visit he had seen nothing nor felt any awareness of an alien presence.

Before them, the path shone in the rubrous light, and the city wall rose like a sheer cliff, casting a black shadow toward them like a reaching hand.

Now the ruin seemed more complete than before, and a vanguard of the forest reached out a dark arm, encircling the edifice.

"Looks as if the previous tenants had been careless with the fixtures," Kial Nasron said in mock bravado. "At least they did not forget the red carpet."

"Quiet neighborhood," Alston echoed her thought. Suddenly he knew what was different.

The silence. This time there was no hum of insect life, no rustling as the wind moved through the grass. No sense of movement as the wild things prowled at will within the dark labyrinths of the ancient city. There was silence, complete, profound, blanketing and smothering every sound save one, the muted throbbing.

Penetrating deeply into the shadow, they stood at last before a tall gateway. As they hesitated, a long green snake of vine-creeper writhed down from the stone frame, darting, coiling, lashing at them like a living serpent.

Alston struck at it, then whipped out the heat gun and pressed the stud. A pencil beam of dazzling brilliance leaped out. With a scorched stench the tentacle withdrew, squirming hideously.

"Watch those things," he warned Kial Nasron. "Some of them are dangerous. Their poison is a swift corrosive."

Inside the gateway was both sound and movement. A convulsive stirring ran along the vine-covered walls, and a sound between a hiss and a soft rustling struck their ears. Here, too, the pulsing throb was more pronounced. It was as if the plant-things of the deep jungle had over-run and conquered the city, turning it to some evil purpose of their own. The city might be dead, but the forest was alive, watching, waiting. Every wall and column was encrusted with dark masses of greenery, every avenue an alley garlanded with vines and moss. Ugly, twisting fungi and monstrous tree-ferns grew from the broken pavement. Sinister ripples of movement coursed the man and girl. The city reeked with fear.

IV