Part 2

Decadence perhaps, but who shall say but what it is to be preferred to the bloody upward struggles of our own Earth's history? All that too, had been upon Venus. Far ahead of Earth in the life-cycle of its humans, there had been great scientific civilizations here. The science of war had risen into all its ghastly power and then had destroyed itself, with mankind at last coming to realize its tragic futility. There were ruins of great cities here, with the silt of centuries upon them and the forests growing lush amid their wreckage.

"You two Earthmen are not quite like Curtmann and his fellows," old Prytan said to me. His eyes twinkled beneath his shaggy white brows. His seamed old face wrinkled with a smile.

"No," I said. "We hope not."

"But your Earth still struggles, with each man wanting more than his neighbor."

We were in a room of a huge, crudely-built dwelling of thatch. A thousand Midges had woven it in a day. Venta was here; and draped on the floor at her feet was the graceful, gaudily-clad figure of a young Venusman. His name was Jahnt. He was her cousin, I understood. A handsome fellow with longish, bushy dark hair; an oval face with pointed chin, hawk nose and eyes with an almost Oriental slant. He spoke English as fluently as Venta. I don't know why I took an instant dislike to him, save that he always seemed to want to be beside Venta.

A rainbow storm was coming. I could see the premonitory signs of it. The room here was lighted with little braziers--seemingly the caged bodies of tiny insects which were luminous as fireflies. Through the oval window-openings the night outside was turgidly dark. But wind now was pattering the trees, and there were distant flares of weird opalescent lightning.

A tenseness was here in this room of old Prytan's home--and it was everywhere about the little city. Like an aura of terror it seemed to envelope us. All this day that had passed, Midges by hundreds had been flying in from Shan. And now, this evening, the big people themselves had begun coming. Fugitives. Terrified people who had escaped from Shan; rebellious, wanting to do something to rid Venus of these cruel conquerors, coming to Prytan as their leader; helplessly throwing themselves upon him, asking him what they should do. Groups of people milled in the streets, eyed the coming storm. Rebellion against the Earth-conquerors. But it was more than that. Among us all, here in this eerie opalescent room there was the feeling of impending disaster. Curtmann had returned to Shan. In a rage at the loss of Venta, he had learned that the rebellion against him was growing. Would he wait for old Prytan to organize some attack? Certainly I doubted it. And my mind swept back so that again I seemed to hear his grim words: "I shall have to punish that Forest City!"

Was Curtmann planning to strike at us now?

"... but until the storm is over we can do nothing," old Prytan was saying.

Even then, what could we do? In somber voices that seemed to echo dully through the rustic room and mingled with the weird storm-noises outside, we discussed it. One of the great broken cities of by-gone days was only some ten miles away. In it there was hidden away a cache of ancient weapons of science.

"I have kept them workable," Prytan said grimly. "And my father before me also attended them. And before him, his father. But never did we really think the horrible time would come when they should be used."

* * * * *

But whatever we could do, certainly must be done soon. The news from Shan every moment was more serious. Upon Curtmann's return, open disorder had broken out in the capital city. As punishment, a thousand or more of the young Venusmen of the city had been summarily killed by the diabolic flash-guns of the Earthmen. "Only our men he kills," young Jahnt put in ironically. "Why not? Our women are very beautiful. Like you, is it not so, Venta?"

I tensed at the glance with which he swept her. "I shall bring in the supper," Venta said. His gaze followed her as she rose and left us.

"I tell you all this about our hidden weapons," Prytan was saying to me in his cracked treble voice. "We can trust you, even though you are Earthmen?"

"Yes," I agreed.

"Listen," Jim put in. "These young men you've got here--well, no offense meant--on Earth we'd call them ladylike." His gaze barely touched the gaudy figure of Jahnt and then went back to Prytan. "My business, sir, on Earth is to deal with criminals. I'm pretty good in a fight. You just give me some of your weapons."

"I trust you," Prytan agreed. "Never, until tonight, has anyone but myself known about the weapons. If Curtmann knew it--"

"He won't," I said. "We'll get them tonight. We--"

I checked myself. The beat of wings sounded, and a Midge came through the window, and landed on Prytan's shoulder.

"Well, Meeta," he said, "you come with more bad news?"

A female Midge. It was the first one I had seen except at a distance. She was a fairylike little creature--a ten-inch high miniature of Venta. Her flesh was like pink-white satin, glistening in the insect-light. Her wings thrummed to balance her as she poised.

"English?" she said in her tiny voice.

"Yes," Prytan nodded. "These are good Earthmen."

Her pixie-like, tiny face turned toward me. I saw then, in those tiny glowing eyes, the leap of her instinctive adoration for my giant size. Here a new God for her to worship and serve.

"English, yes," she agreed. "Master, there have been still more killings. They kill our men now for no reason; and those of the women who are young and beautiful they have herded together into a harem."

Prytan's old body trembled with anger. "We must stop it. And Meeta, have you told the Midge to meet us in the broken city?"

"Master, yes. They will be there when the storm is passed. We cannot fly in the wind, and even now it is very strong."

I could hear it, crackling through the giant foliage outside. Then there was a monstrous flare of color as though a rainbow had burst around us.

"It gets bad," young Jahnt muttered. He went to one of the windows; then sauntered to a door-oval and disappeared.

Meeta, I understood now, was one of the leaders of the Midge. It was her brother who had aided us to escape from Curtmann's ship. I told her about it now as she perched on my hand, with her soft eyes roaming my face and her tiny lips parted with eager breath as she listened.

"Oh I am glad of that. Rahn so wants to do what is right in serving our Gods. But it is confusing, Gods here on Venus who fight with one another--"

Through the window, upon a blast of storm-wind another little figure came fluttering. Another female Midge, like Meeta. With beating wings she hovered a second and then fell to the floor at our feet.

"Mela!" old Prytan gasped. "What is it?"

The storm had tossed her against a tree. One of her wings was broken; blood was on her body. But she had struggled on to us, bringing her news.

"What is it?" old Prytan demanded.

"Curtmann comes! He and all his men--his army, coming now to attack the Forest City!"

Curtmann coming to attack us! A dozen little male Midges here on the floor of the room heard it and scurried away.

"Curtmann coming?" Prytan gasped. "Why--why we will not be ready for him."

It stunned us. Within a minute, out in the city, the news was spreading with cries of the frightened people. A panic was beginning here. That would have to be controlled.

"They've left Shan already?" I demanded of the little Midge.

"No. Perhaps not. But they are ready--the storm may hold them off."

* * * * *

I was on my feet. Old Prytan was trembling with the palsy of his confused terror. By what Jim and I had seen of the young men of the Forest City, there was not one who could be counted on to do anything constructive in this crisis. If the Venus-people were to have any leadership, it would have to be Jim and me.

"Send word that the women and children are to stay in their homes," I said. "There must be no panic. Have the young men come here. Storm or no storm we shall have to get to the broken city, and get those Venus-weapons."

"How far is it from here to Shan?" Jim put in.

"Twenty Earth-miles perhaps," old Prytan stammered. "If Curtmann and his men should start now--"

"Maybe they won't," I said. "The storm is still going strong."

"Where is Venta?" Prytan stared helplessly about the room. "She said she would bring us food. What use of that? We have no time to eat it now." He suddenly raised his shaking old voice. "Venta. Venta, where are you?"

There was no answer from the nearby interior door-oval through which Venta had gone. Just blank, stark silence. Horror struck at me.

Jim and I were on our feet. Jim gasped, "I'll go see." But before he could move, we heard a woman's moan, followed again by silence!

Jim broke it with an oath. I tossed little Meeta into the air with a flip of my hand as I ran toward the crude kitchen, out there beyond the dim door-oval.

Thank God, it was not Venta. On the packed loam of the floor an old serving woman lay sprawled. Her throat was a ghastly welter of crimson, and near her a Midge lay dead.

The old woman was still alive. She tried faintly to gasp in English as I bent over her.

"He--took her--Venta--"

"Who took her?"

"Jahnt--he--"

The blood choked her. But I had no interest in hearing more. Jahnt!

"Why--he's got the secret of those weapons now!" Jim gasped. "Get the idea, Art?"

The commotion had brought others. They all stood milling, helpless, frightened. Jim and I shoved them away.

"He'd probably head for the broken city," Jim said. "It's much closer to here."

"That he might do," Prytan agreed. "And where is his Midge--you people--you have seen little Ort lately?"

"Jahnt could send that Midge flying to Shanga to tell Curtmann about the weapons," I suggested.

Old Prytan could only stammer assent to the possibility. And if Curtmann and his ruffians got to that cache before we could get there, that indeed would be the end of any possibility of overcoming him.

"Where is Meeta?" I demanded. "Meeta knows the location of the broken city."

She fluttered from behind me at the sound of my voice. "Master I am here. What I can do to serve?"

"We're going after Jahnt," Jim said. "He can't have gotten far."

"But you run so heavily," old Prytan murmured. "My young men here--"

They were all standing looking frightened and confused. Jim swept them with a glance and drew me past them. It occurred to me that we might use the three spacesuits in which we had escaped from Curtmann. With their anti-gravity mechanisms and tiny rocket-streams we could propel ourselves over the forest. But we found now that they were gone.

Precious minutes were passing. We would have to go on foot. At the door we paused, appalled by the wind and a chromatic burst of glaring light. Meeta fluttered in the air beside my head, and as the wind hit her she was tossed back.

"You can't fly out into that, Meeta?"

"No, I am afraid it's not possible now. But you can carry me."

She fluttered to my shoulder, crouching with a tiny hand gripping my coat collar. With Jim beside me we plunged out into the roaring riot of the rainbow storm.

IV

"Guess we'll have to wait a bit longer," Jim murmured. "But it seems to be easing, don't you think?"

In a sheltered recess of the forest we were crouching, forced to wait for the weird storm to pass. There had been no possible chance of finding the fleeing Jahnt. We could only hope now that he would go on to the broken city. The storm seemed to be lessening but still it was a roar of wind which cracked through the spindly giant trees, often bringing down great segments of branches which it had torn loose.

A lull came at last, and through a ragged, littered forest Jim and I pushed our tortuous way. Meeta could fly now. She guided us, and with little forays hummed ahead and to the sides, seeking some signs of Jahnt and Venta. But there were none.

The storm had been a torture of delay. In my heart now I had no thought that we would be able to locate Jahnt and Venta. I could only hope that they might be in the broken city. Had Curtmann received news of the Venus weapons? My mind was upon Venta, but still I could envisage that bloodthirsty band of Earth cutthroats advancing upon the Forest City.

"I say, is it much further?" Jim demanded suddenly of Meeta. "This is tough going for us."

"Master, no. It is ahead, just down that slope."

The dim forest glade was descending into a great shallow area of deeper shadow. And presently we could see the ruins of tumbled, broken buildings lying here, half buried by the rank forest growth. In the turgid dimness, with a faint orange luminosity that seemed inherent to the great trees, it was an eerie place of colored shadows. Great buildings were everywhere around us now, weird of shape and substance, some of them still partly erect with the spindly trees growing through them.

It was a place of the ghosts of Venus' past.

"It is down in here," Meeta said, pointing.

A littered rocky depression was before us. A ruined amphitheatre, with its walls almost gone and the forest like a monstrous clump in its middle. We descended into it. The ground in places was rocky. Some natural cataclysm must have torn this ground since the original arena was built.

Then we saw the cache of weapons. It was half a demolished room in some broken structure that now was unrecognizable; an apartment partly open at the top, of some two hundred feet diameter. A little light filtered down from the lurid greenish-yellow storm-clouds high overhead.

"No one here ahead of us, Jim?" In the darkness, with Meeta perched again upon my shoulder, we stood peering and listening. There was only silence.

"Where are the weapons?" Jim demanded.

Meeta led us. "There in that little recess, Master. Many old broken boxes are filled with them."

We stood before the rock-shelves, numbed with disappointment and horror. The crumbling old metal boxes were here. But they were strewn about; broken open; empty! The weapons were gone!

* * * * *

"Gone!" Jim gasped. "That damned Jahnt!"

Abruptly Meeta cried, "Look! He is over there!"

With his hiding place discovered, Jahnt leaped suddenly erect from the shadows of a rocky niche. A knife was in his hand. I was nearest to him. I leaped. But I had miscalculated my abnormal heaviness. I hit the rocks a few feet short of him, stumbled, almost went down. As my arms flailed I saw him over me, his pointed face demoniac with lustful triumph, his knife stabbing at my chest.

There was a whirring of wings, and a glistening body went past my head. Meeta. The ten inches of her elfin form flapped and struck Jahnt in the face. He hit wildly at her with his left hand, went off balance, with his knife-thrust going wild; and collided against me so that I was able to fling my arms around him. Then my left hand caught his wrist, twisted and the knife fell away. We went down, locked together, rolling. And suddenly I felt the knife hit my hand. Meeta with swift agility had retrieved it and brought it to me. The lithe Jahnt, far stronger than he looked, was momentarily on top of me. I seized the knife, stabbed upward into his chest; and with a choked cry he went limp, fell forward on me.

I scrambled to my feet. Jahnt wasn't quite dead, but obviously dying. Jim and I bent over him.

"You got away with the weapons?" Jim muttered. "Or are they still around here?"

"Curtmann has them. My little Midge flew to him, and came back with some of Curtmann's men. They left just a little while ago. I--showed them how to use the weapons. You will--be defeated by Curtmann. You damned--"

Again little Meeta suddenly called us. "Here! Here is Venta!"

She was lying, bound and gagged, but unharmed in the recess of some crags nearby. Jim and I rushed to her.

The three spacesuits were with her. Jim had gone back to the dying Jahnt and he called me. Blood was gushing now from Jahnt's mouth; he was gasping, but still he was trying ironically to smile.

"I--did not tell Curtmann's men that I had Venta. Why should I be in the battle? I just thought I would stay here with Venta, and if Curtmann won, then I would join him."

"Has he started from Shan?" Jim demanded.

"Oh--yes. He and his men must be half way to the Forest City by now. I am sorry now I did not go with them."

I had a sudden thought. "Is he planning to use that spaceship of his?"

Jahnt was choking now with the blood in his throat. Then he gasped, "No--his men said they--could not handle it--so close to the ground--such a--short distance. They are on foot--in the forest--"

Venta was with us now, bending down over the dying Jahnt. His glazing eyes saw her, and he murmured, "You--if you had loved me--this would not have happened. I'm dying--you'll all die when--Curtmann uses those weapons against you. I'm--glad of that--"

His body twitched. Horribly the blood rattled in his throat, choking him; and then in another moment he was gone.

"They're half way to the Forest City," Jim muttered. "Good Lord, we've got to stop them. But how? How can we do it, Art?"

Venta was standing apart from us, with the tiny Meeta on her shoulder. They were murmuring together, and abruptly Meeta flew to me.

"She says it is right and it can be done. We Midges--serve the Gods, and surely now we know the good Gods from the evil."

* * * * *

An army of the Little People! Jim and I stood blankly listening while Venta told us what she and Meeta had been planning. A myriad of Midges could be rallied now. And they had human intelligence.... Only a foot high, or less. But, especially the females, they could fly with the agility of humming birds.

"And we can be armed," Meeta cried. She hummed away, came back in a moment. In her tiny hand there was a thorn. It was no more than two inches long, but to her it was a sword, stiff and sharp as a needle.

"The poisoned enta-thorn!" Venta exclaimed. "But I did not know that any of the enta-shrub was near here."

"I found it," Meeta said proudly. "There is much of it."

"What's that noise?" Jim abruptly demanded.

With my nerves taut, I stood tense. A faint thrumming was audible. We had left the cave where the weapons had been hidden, and were out in the broken amphitheatre with the ruined ancient buildings like spectres around us. Far overhead there was a little starlight, straggling faintly down. The thrumming grew louder. A tiny blurred shape came down through the darkness.... And then another--and another.

The Midges were arriving from Shan, expecting to carry the Venus-weapons from here to the Forest City. In a moment a dozen were here, then a hundred. They came in little groups, males and females, keeping separate in the flight. Like huge insects they thrummed around us, and then settled and stood awaiting our commands. Then Meeta was among them, telling what had happened and explaining that they must fight for the lives of the Forest City people.

For a moment there was awed silence; then a tiny blended chorus of voices, and little shapes humming away to get the thorns.

Jim gripped me. "By the Lord, it's our only chance! You can see that, Art."

"Yes. You and I in the spacesuits, if we can maneuver them. An army in the air--the Midges and you and I to plan their battle--direct them."

"And I shall be with you," Venta cried.

Vaguely I had thought to leave her here, or send her off to the Forest City on foot. She persuaded me at last.

"You talk of planning the battle," she cried. "But almost none of the Midges speak your language. I shall give your commands to them."

Once we had decided, a desperate haste was on us. Midges were arriving here now from the Forest City. Some of them had seen the oncoming columns of Curtmann's men, down in the forest. They were more than half way from Shan. Occasionally their Earth-flash weapons would stab into the forest ahead of them.

Within ten minutes or so we were ready. I had sent a few of the swiftest-flying Midges back to the Forest City to tell Prytan what had happened. His young men were to arm themselves as best they could, and take position. In a ring around the city, prepared to make a last stand, if we should fail. All the Midges now in the Forest City were to arm themselves with the poisoned thorns, and come to join us in the battle as fast as they could.

Then Venta, Jim and I had donned the spacesuits. No need to inflate them now; we only needed the anti-gravity mechanisms, and the rocket-streams for balancing and for lateral movement.

We rose presently into the air, up into the starlight with the ruined piles of the broken buildings and the forest dropping away beneath us. At five hundred feet we poised. In thrumming groups the Midges, more than two thousand of them now, circled around us. Then, with Jim, Venta and me leading, our bodies in the baggy spacesuits poised almost horizontal in the air and the Midges strung out in long thin lines like insects behind us, we plunged forward to the battle.

V

"There they are!" Jim called.

Five hundred feet below us the forest tree-tops were a fantastic matted mass of vivid vegetation. And suddenly, down in a glade, the line of Curtmann's men was visible. More than I had thought--there seemed a full four hundred of them. In two columns they plodded slowly forward. With them was a great wheeled cart, like a clumsy barge. Evidently Curtmann had built it in Shan. It toiled forward, with the marching men in advance of it and behind it. We could see that it was drawn by harnessed lines of Midges--hundreds of the tiny figures plodding on the ground, bending hunched as they pulled the huge creaking vehicle. The top of the cart was uncovered and a dozen men were riding in it. Groups of them were seated, around a little raised platform on which was mounted what seemed a huge projector.

"Keep the Midges high," I called to Venta who was near me. "Wait until I give the signal."

Our Midges were circling, wildly excited now that the enemy was in sight beneath them. Jim and I had discussed our tactics. In groups of about a hundred we would send the Midges plummeting down. Each would try to stab one of Curtmann's men and then come up again. The enta-poison, Venta had told us, was deadly--sure death if enough of it got into the blood-stream. But it did not act at once; five minutes or more was necessary before the victim would feel its lethal effect.

We made a great sweeping half-circle, plunging down as though to attack and leveling at above two hundred feet. As we passed over the lines of watching men and the cart, two or three bolts stabbed up, fell short. Then a man's voice roared orders to withhold the fire.

Curtmann. As we passed at the lower altitude over the cart I saw him standing on a raised platform near its front. We swept past, and up again.

"We better swoop now," Jim urged. "This is as good a place to attack as any we'll ever get."

That was obvious. The lines of men were in an open glade. A few hundred feet ahead of them, the forest was dense again. It would be far more difficult for our Midges to swoop down and attack amid the enveloping lacery of vegetation.

And Curtmann, even though probably he had not as yet the least fear of us, already was starting to advance again. The men in front were marching on. Orders were being roared at the harnessed Midges. The cart went into motion. And the Forest City certainly was no more than a few miles ahead. Curtmann's murderous band would be there in an hour or two.

But still I hesitated to give the signal.

Little Meeta hovered before me. "The Master-God will order us down now?" she pleaded. "We will serve you well."

My heart was pounding. I nodded, with a lump in my throat that choked my voice as I shouted the signal sending so many of them to die.

* * * * *