Part 1

THE STAR-MASTER

By RAY CUMMINGS

Docile, decadent Venus was easy pickings for that twenty-first century Hitler's dream of cosmic empire.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

My name is Arthur Frane. You who read this story now, of course are familiar with momentous events into which I was unexpectedly plunged--momentous for all mankind.

I write this narrative now to add the true details to what you have all read and heard blared by the newscasters around the world. I have been extolled as a hero although I did nothing except try to keep from getting killed.

I was twenty-six years old last summer, in June of 2003, when fate so strangely brought Venta and me together. My family is wealthy, as you have heard. Do not envy me for that. An income of ten thousand decimars, however nice it may seem in theory, is in reality no advantage to a young man of twenty-six. I am a big blond fellow whom the newscasters have been pleased to call Viking-like and handsome as a god. I'm much obliged. But whatever truth there is in it, that too has been a disadvantage.

The weird events began in July, last summer, when with Jim Gregg I went hunting in that Adirondac forest. Jim and I were in Government College together. I left to spend my income and become a dawdler--the disadvantage of money; and Jim joined the Crime Prevention Bureau of the New York Shadow Squad. We got a one-day hunting permit. Jim took his official crime-tracker equipment, with an extra flash-gun for me; we flew to the Adirondac mountain slope which our permit named and hopefully set out on foot to try our luck.

But we had no luck. A few birds, which even the minimum pencil-ray flash had all but burned to a crisp, were all we had bagged. Evening came, with twilight settling so that the forest glades were deepening into purple. And then suddenly it seemed that we heard a rustling in the underbrush--a rustling which ought to be a deer.

We crouched in a thicket, waiting. The sound stopped. "Let's try the listener," I whispered.

Jim got out his little eavesdropping gadget. But he had no time to connect it. The rustling began again. It was obviously up a short slope no more than a hundred feet from us--some wild animal which seemed now to be retreating.

"I'll take a chance," I muttered. "If that's a deer, we'll lose it if I can't drill it now."

We knew it could not be a human, since our permit for today barred anyone else from the twenty square miles of Government preserve allotted to us. I fired at the sound, with my violet pencil-flash eating through the underbrush at the top of the slope.

There was a startled, weird outcry; and from the summit of the little rise a shape broke cover. A girl! She came bursting from a thicket no more than three feet to the side of the swath my flash had burned, and for a second or two she stood poised on a rock with the open evening sky a background above and behind her. A slim shape of bare legs and arms with a brief drape from shoulders to her thighs. The starlight and fading daylight gleamed on her bronzed skin as though she were a metal statue.

"Well--I say--" Jim muttered.

* * * * *

Thoughts are instant things. There was in my mind the vague idea that here, by some wild circumstances, was a girl in a fancy-dress party costume or something of the kind. But the thought, and Jim's muttered words of astonishment, were in another second stricken away. She paused for that instant on the rock, and then she leaped. Amazing, incredible leap! It carried her in a flat arc some ten or fifteen feet above the ground and twenty feet away, where light as a faun she landed on the toes of her bare feet. Nearer to us now; and seeing us, perhaps for the first time, she stood and stared.

I could see the silvery streaks running through the black hair that framed her face. It was a queerly beautiful face, apparently devoid of normal cosmetic-make-up. Negroid? Oriental? In that second I had the thought that it was neither--nor anything else that I could name. A girl with a mysterious wild beauty which stirred my pulses.

"Well--good Lord--" Jim muttered again. He too was staring, with a hand in his shock of bristling red hair, and I can imagine the look of numbed astonishment on his freckled, pug-nosed face. "Good Lord, how did she jump like that?"

I heard myself stammering, "You--up there--what in the devil--"

Like a terrified fugitive the girl abruptly swept a look behind her; and then she leaped again, and landed almost beside us.

"You--you--Oh you mus' help me! There was a flash that tried to kill me--"

English! With weird, indescribable intonation, she gasped the English words.

"I--shot at you," I stammered. "Sorry--we thought you were an animal. No human is allowed here today but us."

Somehow it seemed futile, incongruous that I should try to explain anything rational to a girl so weird as this.

But she smiled. "Oh--I thought--I thought--"

"Someone is after you?" Jim said quickly.

"Yes. I thought--but I guess not now. Oh you are good Earthmen--not like Curtmann. I escaped, and I have come long long a way from my poor terrified people."

I saw Jim glance at me significantly. We both had the same thought, of course. A girl demented; with painted skin and fancy dress--trappings of insanity; and she had escaped from some asylum?

But those leaps were far beyond the power of any trained athlete!

"What's your name?" I murmured.

"Venta. I was a prisoner--and now I have to tell someone of importance here on Earth. I did escape when I was brought here by Curtmann." She babbled it out, breathless, terrified. "I did not know what to do, he is so bad to my people--to the Midge--to all of us. And I--I do not love him. I am afraid of him. In Shan he rules--and my family now are all in the great Forest City. And Curtmann will capture that too."

Blankly Jim and I exchanged glances. And suddenly with a muttered oath, Jim gasped,

"My God, Art! Look at that--thing! There--behind you!"

I whirled. But whatever he had seen, or thought he saw, was gone.

"Behind me? What?"

"Why--why--" Jim could only gasp. The girl was staring at us blankly. Jim was stupified into incoherency. "Why--why--a little thing--it ran--" And then he raised his left wrist with another muttered gasp.

"What in the devil?" I demanded. "Are you crazy too?"

"Electro-eavesdropper on us! Look--" An eavesdropper detector was on his wrist, connected with his watch. Part of his S.S. equipment and he always wore it. The underplate was glowing now, its warmth against his flesh attracting his attention.

An eavesdropper being used against us! I knew it was illegal for anyone but a Federal Man to have one; but criminals had them, and most of the other S.S. devices and weapons, of course. Some criminal was near here, listening to us now!

"Someone not far away!" Jim gasped. "Look at that dial!"

His little detector-needle was swaying violently, in the range of one to two hundred feet. Then it swung back to normal as the ray evidently was shut off.

I snatched out my flash-gun. Jim and I crouched with the numbed, terrified girl between us.

"Oh--" she muttered. "They have come, and they will kill us."

"There it is again!" Jim's hand gripped my arm. "My God--that little thing!"

* * * * *

The purple shadows of night were deepening in the forest now. But in the gloom I saw it. On the bole of a tree no more than six or eight feet from us a tiny figure stood peering at us. The glistening, brown-bronze figure of a man; a broad-shouldered, stocky little figure no more than a foot high! I had an instant glimpse of a powerfully-muscled body, a tiny hairless round head, then the creature leaped to the ground, recovered its balance and ran. In another second it was lost in the gloom.

The girl too, had seen it. "A Midge! Here? Why--then Curtmann's men are here, too!"

She stopped abruptly. From the leafy darkness something hurtled into a tree beside us. There was the faint tinkling of fragile glass, then a sickening sweet smell assailed us, and sticky liquid splattered on us.

"Anesthesia-bomb!" Jim gasped. "Get away from here--grab the girl!"

My head was reeling, with senses fading so that the dim scene was blurring around me. Jim and I dragged the girl through the thickets. Then came a shot at us, the sizzling flash just missing us, shriveling the foliage over our heads. Jim's shot answered it. I saw a skulking figure by a nearby tree, and fired quickly. My shot caught him full; he went down.

In front of me, Jim had dropped prone into the brush. His voice warned: "They're here. Get down."

We had no chance to fight them off. I drilled a shape that appeared in front of me; but another pounced on my shoulders as I crouched. Blurred by the drug, I squirmed, reached up and grabbed him by the throat. But another man was on us. Jim's shot sounded again; and then as I fought, I saw several dark shapes leaping on him. His panting oaths mingled with the girl's scream.

In the melee glass hit my face, breaking with the sticky drug oozing out on me. A man's fist followed it, with a crack that made my head burst into roaring light before I drifted off into an abyss of nothingness....

II

I came to with the sound of distant throbbing in my ears. It seemed that I was lying on a metal grid-floor; and as I stirred, a familiar voice sounded.

"Thank the Lord, you're coming out of it at last."

It was Jim, here on the floor with me, bending anxiously over me in a luminous darkness. His pug-nosed face grinned down at me.

"I sure thought you might never come back, Art. You been a day, sleeping off that damned drug."

Dizzily I tried to sit up as he held me. "What--what happened? Where the devil are we?" Then I remembered the fight. "Venta--" I murmured.

"She's all right. I've seen her, and talked with her."

I could see that Jim and I were alone in a small, triangular metal apartment. A closed door was to one side. And to the other, there was a round bull's-eye window. It was black out there, with bright white points of stars. The thrumming was a faint distant electronic throb, off in this strange interior.

I could feel my strength rapidly coming back. I sat up, shoving Jim away. "I'm all right now. Where are we?"

He grinned wryly. "Hold your breath for a shock. We're out in Space, plenty far. I guess, by now, we're on our way to Venus!"

Out in Space! How often, like everyone else in our modern world of science, I had envisaged it, and wondered why it had never been made possible.

"On the way to Venus?"

"So they tell me, an' Lord knows I wouldn't doubt it. If you don't believe me, come take a look."

With his arm around me, I staggered dizzily to the bull's-eye porte. It was an amazing scene! The Heavens everywhere were a black vault, strewn with myriad white gems of the blazing worlds. Filling one whole side, the familiar Earth hung motionless. It was mottled with clouds, beneath which the configurations of the oceans and continents were plainly visible.

I stared, awed, wordless; and then, still weak and dizzy with the cold sweat of the drug chilling me, I was glad enough to sit down on the couch, with Jim beside me.

"Who's got us?" I asked presently.

"A fellow named Curtmann and his band. A dozen or more of them here on board. I've talked with one of them--they're all Earthmen--this ship was built on Earth. Would you believe it? A damned scientist from mid-Europe built it secretly. He never told the world about it, but gathered a bunch of crooks and beat it off."

"Not so fast," I murmured. "Don't get incoherent."

* * * * *

I tried to sort it out as he breathlessly told me what he had learned. Some eight or ten years ago, among the captive people of mid-Europe under police domination of the Anglo-American Federation, a fellow named Karl Curtmann had built this hundred foot cylindrical space-flyer. The same old urge for world conquest. But this fellow Curtmann had known that on Earth he had no chance. This was not 1915, nor 1939. And so he had gathered others like himself; all English-speaking, since their racial language had been banned by the Federation before they were born, and with his ship and his men, they had adventured into Space.

"Seems they landed on Venus," Jim was saying. "It was a fertile field for a world-conqueror, by what I hear! Peaceful, simple people, with these Earth cutthroats jumping on them. They used a bunch of our Shadow Squad weapons, which was enough and plenty."

Once established there as a conqueror, Curtmann had gone back to Earth on several trips, for supplies and more weapons and men.

"I guess there are several hundred of 'em on Venus now," Jim went on. "Built themselves a little city, and made slaves out of the Venus-people. You can imagine what this style Earthman would do when he's a conqueror with nothing to challenge him! And the Venus-people are on the down-grade. Dying out, except for the Midges."

"Midges?"

"They're the little people of Venus. They serve. They believe that all Earth men are gods, or something." Jim shrugged. "Don't ask me. We'll find out soon enough."

The Midge! I remembered that little bronze man-figure which had peered at us.

"And Venta?" I prompted.

"Her father--No, I guess it's her grandfather--he's a leader on Venus. Religious leader, or something. He and some others have escaped to a Forest City. Curtmann had Venta. Venta says he's just trying to make her love him--make her see how wonderful he is. Curtmann, the Man of Destiny--I can't wait to meet him!"

He had taken Venta on one of his forays to Earth, and she had escaped from him. "An' they got us along with her," Jim finished wryly. "Damned lucky we didn't get killed. We will yet, most probably."

A little rasp here in the darkness made us turn. A doorslide had opened; a man's heavy-featured face scowled in at us.

"At last you have recovered," he said to me. His voice was the heavy, guttural timber of a mid-European. He was a villainous-looking fellow, his slack-jowled face bluish with a week's growth of beard.

"Yes," I said. "Fortunately for me. Are you Curtmann?"

"He's Frantz," Jim put in. "He's been feeding me."

"Tell your master I want to see him," I said. "And take me to the girl, Venta."

The fellow leered. "You talk like you own the ship," he commented.

The doorslide closed. His footsteps retreated, but presently they came back. He opened the door. "The Great-Master says, bring you," he said with an ironic grin. "Come on. You can both come."

* * * * *

Silently we followed him down a narrow metal corridor.

"This way--" I saw our captor now as a bulky six-foot fellow clad incongruously in a crudely plaited robe of dried vegetable fibre, draped upon him like a Roman toga. He stood aside at an oval doorway; and Jim and I went into a small triangular room. Starlight filtered into it from a side bull's-eye.

Clad still in her brief garment, Venta sat on a square pad on the floor. As we entered she flung me a look, and then stared straight ahead.

"So? This is the fellow who thought he would steal my little Venta? Come in, Frane. Stand over there; I want to look you over."

Karl Curtmann. He was seated in a small, straight-backed armchair. He was a smallish, slim fellow, not over forty perhaps. A vivid blue toga encased him; sandals were on his feet. At our entrance he raised one of his bare ornamented arms with a gesture.

The costume was queerly incongruous to a modern Earthman; but upon Curtmann there was an immense dignity, a sense of the consciousness of his own greatness. More than mere conceit, it seemed to radiate from him. On his heavy, square-jawed face there was a look of amused contempt as he regarded me.

"My little Venta has asked me not to kill you," he added. His voice was soft and suave. English was his native language, taught him exclusively by Government decree. But the inherited timbre was guttural. "That is fortunate, is it not?"

"Yes," I agreed. "Very. I thank her."

His eyes twinkled; his immaculate hands with jeweled fingers, brushed his crisp blond hair. "You can also thank me. I am permitting you to join our life. You know now, of course, that I am Master of Venus? It is their good fortune. Always I shall protect them from any harm, and teach them the life that is good for them."

He was utterly sincere. His eyes were gleaming with his fervour. Man of Destiny. He believed it with the faith of a child. And now his gaze went to Venta.

"Her people--" He was still talking to me, though he stared at her. "Some of them still are misguided. Old Prytan, her grandfather, is a very wicked old man, Frane. He has fled to the Forest City. He defies my rule. I shall have to punish that Forest City."

Suddenly his face contorted; his arm shook as he pounded his fist on his chair. "I shall not tolerate it. They are all to die. Nor in the city of Shan itself will I have rebellion. I am a man of peace--there shall be no strife. And each year, from Earth, more of my men will come to mate with the Venus women. The new race. The new Empire of Curtmann. Is it not a wonderful future, Venta? I shall make you Empress."

"Yes," she murmured.

"Race of the Gods," he said. "And I--Karl Curtmann--"

He checked himself. There was a little sound of beating wings here in the dim starlit room. I turned as through the door a tiny shape came like a fluttering bird through the air. A footlong bronze man-shape. One of the Midge! Again my mind leaped back to that little figure in the Adirondac forest. It had had wings, though then I had not noticed them.

This one came and poised on the arm of Curtmann's chair. "What is it, Rahn?" he said.

The Midge's voice was tiny, but clear. "The flight-master has asked that you come now to check his calculations of our course." The English words, taught to this Midge, were quaintly intoned. The voice was gentle, humble.

Curtmann stood up. "All right. I shall go." He waved an arm at the burly Frantz who was standing silently to one side. "Our captives can remain here, Frantz."

He turned, smiled gently at Venta, and strode from the room.

* * * * *

As the days passed we were allowed a fair freedom of movement. A freedom to plan--what? I must confess that Jim and I had no conception of what we might do in circumstances like these.

Once Venta had whispered to me, "We shall escape from here--it can be done."

Escape from this Curtmann, join Venta's grandfather--old Prytan--out there in the Venus Forest City.... Certainly it was all that Jim and I could hope for. And then came that night when the misty lead-grey ball of Venus had grown to a monstrous disc beneath us, with the cone of its shadow blotting out the Sun as we dropped down into the heavy Venus atmosphere. There came a moment when Venta, Jim and I were alone, and from the dim corridor with a little beat of wings, Rhan, the Midge, came to join us. He was carrying an oxohydro heat-torch. Amazing little man-shape. The alumite torch was as big as himself, and heavier. His diaphanous, dragonfly wings struggled with it. Like a giant flying ant, with an ant's monstrous strength in proportion to its size. Panting, he fluttered heavily and laid it at my feet.

"You, the Great God," he said. "I serve you. Here it is."

He stood now by the torch he had brought. The muscles on his broad chest heaved under the sleek bronzed skin with his panting breath.

"For you," he added. "No one saw me. I got it for you. I did well, Seyla Venta?"

"Oh yes. Thank you, Rhan." Venta was trembling now with excitement. "When we get lower into the atmosphere, we'll go to one of the pressure-portes at the bottom of the hull. There are space suits there, if we can get to them."

"Let's close this door," Jim said quickly. "Not so loud, Venta."

We planned it, as the ship settled down through the heavy, sullen-looking Venus clouds and then burst out into the lower atmosphere with the dark surface of Venus far down beneath us. Rhan watched and reported that Curtmann and most of his men were forward by the control turret. Then Jim, Venta and I were able to get down through one of the dim corridors, down a little catwalk ladder into the lower hull. The metal pressure porte door was locked.

I stood at the bottom of the ladder. Above me the voices of Curtmann's ruffians were audible. Every moment I expected that we would be missed.

"Hurry it," I murmured.

The porte doorlock melted as Jim held the torch upon it. We slid into the porte, closed the door after us. Venta, on the voyage to Earth, had been trained by Curtmann in the use of these pressure-suits, and in a moment we stood in them, helmeted, with the air bloating the suits so that we were shapeless monsters.

I opened the outer doorslide. A little at first, and then wider. In the rarified atmosphere of Venus at this fifty mile height, the air of the little porte went out with a rush. It blew us out with it. I had a sickening sensation of falling into nothingness. Then it seemed that my head steadied. I fumbled with a hand upon the anti-gravity mechanisms by which the fall could be guided.

Above me the dark finned shape of Curtmann's space ship was drawing swiftly upward and away. Head down, with the bloated shapes of Jim and Venta beside me, we plummeted like falling meteorites through the sub-stratosphere darkness.

III

"A rainbow storm is coming," old Prytan said. "We shall have to wait until it is passed before trying to get to the broken city."

We were in the depths of an orange-blue forest of giant, spindly vegetation that rose in fantastic shapes from the soft, porous ground five hundred feet or more into the air. Pods and vines hung upon the lacery of trees. There were huge vivid flowers, redolent with a perfume exotic, cloying in the heavy humid air.

Everything, particularly at first, to me was heavy, oppressive. Venus is denser than the Earth, and the gravity is a full third heavier. It made walking, to us Earthmen, a panting labor. I felt that I weighed, not my normal hundred and eighty pounds, but almost two hundred and fifty. For us to run seemed impossible.

I had seen but little of this Forest City. It was a group of perhaps a thousand dwellings, all seemingly built of slabs of the porous forest trees, with walls and roofs of thatch. The houses nestled between the great fantastic trees. Some were like birds' nests in the branches, with vine-ladders from the ground leading up to them. The colors of the thatch were vivid blue, red and yellow.

It was a fairyland of woodland fantasy, peopled by the humans of this scattered, futile Venus-race. I had seen gaping groups of them as Venta and I pushed through them, heading for old Prytan's dwelling. Men, women and children crowded the flower-lined, crooked little city streets. They were all gaudily-dressed in toga-like fabrics made from the vivid-colored, dried vegetable fibres. A few of them had fled here from Shan where they had picked up a little English from the Earth-conquerors. But most of them babbled at me in their own weird tongue. They were a gentle people. The lack of struggle, lack of accomplishment for generations now, had stamped them with a futility. Here in the benign climate of Venus they had grown content with simple wants. Love-making, music--that was enough for them. The Midge attended their every want.