Part 4

He wanted to hold her tightly and never let her go. There were lovers who remained entwined the whole night through and he wanted to be such a lover now, but a single night would never suffice and he wanted it to be a hundred nights, a thousand.

Earthmen were too quick in their lovemaking, headstrong and foolish. They thought of love as a kind of explosion, which quickly burned itself out and left only ashes. He knew better. He was far wiser and now that wisdom and knowledge was a living flame consuming him. Not a flame that could be extinguished in one soaring burst of ecstacy or a hundred such bursts but a flame that would burn forever.

First her mouth. Claim and possess it, parted lips over parted lips with the dartings of love between. Yes, her moist and yielding lips. She would bend to him and he would kiss her with such ardor....

But it was not as he had expected. As his arms moved to envelop her more completely and his lips approached her mouth she shuddered convulsively and strained backwards, crying out in wild terror.

It was not the cry alone which unnerved him. He could see her eyes now. They were very close and he could look directly into them. They were no longer glazed and uncomprehending. They were trained on his face with a blazing intensity of hatred and loathing.

It was horrible. It shamed him. He himself began to tremble and turn pale. Not only had his ardor failed to arouse her, it had stirred her to the kind of response that he most dreaded--anger, contempt, revulsion. She was no longer even frightened. He could see that she despised him too much to be afraid of him. He revolted her, sickened her. But strongest of all was the hatred--a blazing hatred such as he had never before seen in the eyes of a woman.

It was not even a womanly hate. It was the kind of hate that could crush and destroy. She was clubbing him with it, using it as a gladiator would use a mace--a mace encircled with cruel, blood-drawing spikes.

He had no defense against such contempt, such hatred. It unmanned him, so that he cowered back from her as if she had turned suddenly into a savage beast with bared fangs, slowly pacing about in front of him, and waiting for his knees to give way before closing in for the kill.

The words she flung at him were the worst of all. He had hoped never to hear such words spoken by any woman. But from her lips they seared all that remained of his pride, so that his image of himself as a lover, accomplished and irresistible, shriveled and blackened and fell apart, like a leaf on a burning tree.

Her words were destructive to more than his pride. They even made him doubt the genuineness of his past triumphs, his success with Martian women. Had his fierce lovemaking not been what Martian women wanted? Had he been less than an artist in love? Had they submitted to him only because of his high station, while secretly holding him in contempt? If they had spoken such words as were coming now from the lips of the woman before him would their voices have rung out with the same biting contempt?

He could imagine a Martian woman saying such things to him. He could picture it now. But the words of the slender woman before him were infinitely more cruel and vindictive and even as he listened to them he could feel his virility ebbing away. They were terrible and crushing words and they burned into his brain like a firing rod glowing white-hot.

"If you touch me again I will kill myself! I will find a way! If only you knew how loathsome you are--what a beast thing you are! I would rather be embraced by a toad! I do not know where you came from or what you are. But you are inhuman beasts, cruel and cold and merciless. We will fight you until every man and woman on Earth is dead. If necessary, we will all die. But we will fight you. You can be sure of that. Oh, you can be very sure! You killed my husband! He had every right to defend himself. He saw what you did to the man who fled."

Tragor heard himself speaking in reply. How he managed to find the right words he did not quite know, and perhaps they weren't the right words at all. But he had to say them. He had to speak.

"Listen to me," he said, with a pleading urgency in his voice that he could not repress and did not perhaps really want to repress. "I can speak your language. We have been on Earth for almost two years but we have taken care to keep our presence well concealed. We are from Mars. We call our home planet Jagroon, but to you it is Mars. A few of our spaceships have been sighted in the past, for almost twenty years now. But we sent only a few ships to Earth to explore the planet at first and did not come in force until two years ago.

"Do you understand? I want it all to be very clear to you."

The woman's lips had gone very white. "It is clear enough. It is what I feared. Beasts like you, and men like my husband cannot live on the same planet in peace. You will either destroy us or we will destroy you. My husband took the flying saucer sightings seriously. I did not. I only wish that my blindness had not been shared by so many."

"If that blindness had not been widespread you still could not have struck a single destructive blow against us," Tragor heard himself saying, knowing that he lied but determined to prevent the woman from knowing. "You have atomic weapons, but so have we. And our weapons are more destructive than yours. We could destroy all of your cities overnight. We could destroy them instantly."

"Then why have you not done so? Isn't that what beasts would normally be expected to do?"

"We have a better plan. It is not our purpose to destroy but to build. That is why we are here. To build a better world for both men and Martians."

"With the beasts in the saddle, is that it? Peace on your terms. Peace with slavery for every man and woman on Earth."

"I did not say that."

"No, but you are thinking it. I can see it in your eyes."

"And what if it were true? Should a higher race bow to a race that could not hope to build a ship like this? If you could see the Martian cities you would understand."

"I have never seen a city built by beasts, filled with beasts. I doubt if I would care to visit such a city. The constant stench would be intolerable--the stench of cruelty and death."

"We are not beasts," Tragor said, still looking at her almost pleadingly. "If I were stretched out on a table in the operating room of a New York hospital, the surgeons busy with their scalpels, there would be no horrified faces, I can assure you. There is nothing about my body or brain that is in the least beastlike."

"You forget. I have seen a demonstration of just how beastlike Martians can be."

"Is there nothing I can say to convince you then?"

"Nothing. You killed a man I loved more than my own life. You've killed me too. I died with him. You are looking upon a woman who no longer places any value upon the mockery life that remains. That is why I do not fear you."

It seemed to Tragor that he, too, had died. At least a part of himself had perished. For a moment life had flamed so brightly in him that he had feared it might consume him. But now that vision of beauty, of desire's complete fulfillment, had been snatched away. There could be no rapture in the night with a woman who looked upon him with loathing and contempt.

He could take her by force, easily enough. But how could love have any meaning when it was completely one-sided? Just to make love was not enough. You had to be loved in return, loved for yourself. He had never been able to endure a completely unresponsive woman, a cold shape of ice in his arms. The warrior-caste brutes felt quite differently about it. They preferred either complete passivity in a woman, or protests, tears, and wild strugglings. He had no great liking for either. He preferred a woman who was as passionate as himself and who could return his caresses with unrestrained ardor.

Perhaps it was a limitation in his nature. He had never felt completely happy about it and now it returned to torment him. Why couldn't he be primitively ruthless? Had not an Earth philosopher said that all women were alike in the dark? Perhaps in the dark even a completely unresponsive woman ... no, no, it was unthinkable. He was not a warrior-caste brute and never could be. The small, fleshy protuberances growing from his head were a mark of his high station. The ruling caste alone possessed them, and no man who wore them could ever descend to that kind of barbaric lovemaking.

It seemed suddenly horrible, unendurable to him that he should have to surrender all hope of fulfillment. He had never before been quite so stirred by a woman. Her great beauty had enraptured him beyond reason. Not only her physical charms in the light of day when she was standing close to him, but the promise of delight which those charms hinted at when the daylight was gone and they would be alone together in the night.

No, it could never be now and he had lost her forever. He felt like a man cast adrift in an open boat, far from land, his throat parched, the sun beating down. Water in abundance, but not a drop to quench his thirst.

If only he were a man in a completely human sense, a man like her husband. Then, no matter how much she hated him, he might be able to overcome her resistance by continuous, passionate pleading.

But now there was no hope. No hope at all.

* * * * *

He turned and gestured to a waiting, warrior-caste brute, whose stationary bulk cast a long shadow on the smooth metal wall opposite the drawn up, now completely telescoped stairway. The warrior stepped forward and stood waiting expectantly.

Tragor spoke tonelessly, as if the tumult within him had risen to such unprecedented heights that its ebbing had left him exhausted.

"Take her to my sleeping compartment. I am quite sure that she will go willingly." He looked at the woman as he spoke, and was not too surprised when she nodded. She at least had the good sense to realize that further struggle would be useless.

"If you harm her in any way I will kill you," Tragor said, surprised and shocked by the explosive violence which gave his words so much added weight that the warrior-caste brute paled and stared with alarm in his eyes at the slumped form at the end of the passageway. From the slain warrior's dart-pierced skull a thin ribbon of blood was descending to the deck and spreading out in a widening pool which gleamed in the overhead lamps.

"I warn you," the slender woman said. "If you touch me again I will find a way to kill myself."

She turned then and followed the waiting warrior down the passageway to where it turned sharply to the right.

FOUR

The landscape beneath the Martian mother ship was changing rapidly now, but no Martian eyes watched a lake sweep into view and the dwarfed evergreens surrender their sovereignty to a forest of tall, straight pines, their boles dark against the pale, blue-gray sky. A speedboat came suddenly into view from behind a mile-wide island densely overgrown with scrub oak and hemlocks, and headed northward, throwing up a curtain of silvery spray that slowly blended with the haze that hung over the southern part of the lake.

The observation compartment was deserted and only the tele-communication screen opposite the view-glass glimmered with light and movement.

The light was very bright, the movements of absorbing interest to Martian eyes on every ship that had tuned in on that particular broadcast. Twenty-two Martian ships had tuned in. On the screen a man was fitting a key into a lock in the hallway of a building in New York City.

The man was an artist and every Martian watcher knew that the man's name was David Loring. They knew that he was about to walk into the apartment and change the entire pattern of his life. And that change would be a small but vital part of a larger change--the Martian pattern for world conquest.

It was all a part of the Great Plan. And every Martian knew exactly what that plan would do to the man even if he failed to behave as he was expected to behave. Even if he failed. He was in deadly danger, but he did not know that and it was not important that he should know. Nothing but the Great Plan itself was important.

It was a plan tremendous in scope, unbelievable in its daring.

It was a plan that had to succeed or Martian hopes would go down into everlasting night and darkness. It was a plan for the conquest of Earth by infiltration. But it was not the infiltration of spies and fifth-columnists. Not even the infiltration of skillfully trained saboteurs. It was a quite different kind of infiltration.

To perfect the Great Plan five hundred women had been captured and studied. And five hundred men. Their desires, hopes, dreams, intelligence native and acquired, manner of thinking, loving, dressing, walking, eating, sleeping; their habits and methods of choice in every aspect of living, taste in women--or, in the case of the women, men. Sex proclivities, sex drives, physical appeal, were all approached scientifically, and the effects of enhancement of the sex urge and what happens when it is enormously diminished by accident or design.

The Earth people were kept in captivity for eight months and then released, with all knowledge of what had happened to them blotted from their minds.

Five hundred men. Five hundred women. Living models. Living models for--what?

Only the Martians knew.

The Great Plan was protected, guarded, veiled in secrecy. But now one man was about to know, to be tested, to enter into the inner workings of the Plan. His name was David Loring and he was an artist and he was a man of very great talent, perhaps even a man of creative genius.

One man alone first and then ten thousand men, the wielders of political and social power, statesmen, generals, industrialists of the first rank, influential moulders of public opinion, atomic physicists, the key men in a hundred laboratories. Ten thousand men who could strategically determine, by the power invested in them whether human civilization should resist or surrender when the Martian mask was lowered and Martian intentions were made unmistakably plain.

Ten thousand men who must be made to say: "We must surrender. We shall. The Martians will not destroy us. They wish only to live with us in peace, in a world so strangely beautiful that we cannot understand why we were content to live in the world as it was,--with its poverty and wars and widespread human misery. We have received from the Martians a living gift that has transformed our lives and made us men indeed. Let us surrender freely and joyfully, with everlasting gratefulness to the gift-bearers."

Ten thousand women too, in high places, in the front ranks of industry and politics, women of enormous wealth, of great and commanding talents who had found no man to please them, or had foolishly allowed themselves to believe that they did not need men to enrich their lives and continuously adore them. Ten thousand women who must also be made to say: "Let us surrender with gratitude, for in the world as it was there was no true happiness for career women. Now all that is changed and we are deliriously happy."

In the thrumming observation compartment of the mother ship, as it moved southward toward New York City, the landscape beneath a riot of autumn colors, the sky clearing now and the haze dissolving, the tele-communication screen continued to glow brightly.

And on the screen the man named David Loring was moving into a room fragrant with woman-scent, with the lingering perfume of his beloved and another perfume that mingled strangely with it, barely noticed but impinging on his senses in a subtle, and beguiling way--the odor of jasmine.

A low, droning sound arose suddenly in the observation compartment and a wall panel swung open.

Two Martians stood framed in the lighted aperture, remaining for a moment motionless, neither advancing nor retreating, but staring steadily at the tele-communication screen, as if it were commanding all of their attention and had for them an almost hypnotic fascination.

One of the Martians was Tragor. The other was a shorter, less heavily muscled ruling-caste individual, stern of eye and lean to the point of emaciation. His name was Sull.

Tragor seemed to have aged and almost to have shrunken in stature. There was a smouldering bitterness in his eyes, a look of savage frustration.

If only her rejection of him could have wavered slightly, he might have been able to endure her scorn. He had tried in a thousand ways to please her, had humbled himself, had knelt in desperate appeal at her feet.

He had beaten on the panel of his sleeping compartment when she had locked it--and he had given her permission to lock it--until the bruising of his flesh had become too painful to endure and blood had dripped from his taloned hands. The back of his right hand was scraped raw.

Never had a woman been wooed so ardently, with such utter abandonment, with such a thrusting aside of all pride. Even a woman of ice should have been stirred to compassion, should have relented a little. Was there not something in all women which responded to the lovemaking of the stricken, the hopeless, the lost? Should not her maternal instincts have been aroused?

They had advanced into the observation compartment now and he was suddenly aware that Sull was talking to him.

"You must be quite mad to forget in so dangerous a way why we are on Earth, Tragor. The Plan is about to be tested, an actual experiment is at the crucial stage, and you let a woman make a complete fool of you."

"I am sorry," Tragor heard himself replying. "I did not intend--"

"You did not intend. You are sorry. What a pitifully weak excuse that is! We should not have gone searching for women at all at so crucial an hour. The success of this experiment is vital to us. We may be needed to silence the man if the experiment is not a success. If you were not my superior I might be tempted--"

"Do not allow yourself to be tempted, Sull," Tragor heard himself saying, his bitterness and frustration giving way to rage. "I warn you. I am in no mood to countenance insubordination. I would be quite capable of silencing you, in a way that would cause you exquisite torment."

"I am not afraid of you, Tragor. My lineage is almost as high as your own. I have a right to speak my mind."

"Speak it then, and let us be done with it. I know where my duty lies. I have not neglected it in any way."

"You are trembling so I am concerned for your sanity. You are thinking of that woman and you are thinking of her compulsively and that is bad. I would never allow a woman to hold the whip hand. They must be made to obey."

"You have never been in love, Sull. You cannot force a woman to love you."

"You can force her to respond."

"Sull, there is something about you that I do not like. I refuse to listen to you. We have come to watch the experiment. Let us watch."

The two Martians approached the tele-communications screen and stood before it. The man named David Loring was in the room of his beloved staring about him now, his eyes on the unmade bed and a slipper that she had dropped in her haste to leave the apartment. He was standing very still, his image very sharp on the lighted screen.

Tragor turned and glanced for an instant at the view-glass, which mirrored the shining waters of the lake far below and the launch which was heading northward.

He stiffened in instant alarm, gripping Sull's arm. "That speedboat!" he whispered. "Sull, look! Quickly! Can you see it? They've observed the ship and are turning about. We can't allow that many eyewitnesses to remain alive when everything is so crucial. It would be dangerous--the height of folly. We must silence them immediately."

Sull turned and stared in the view-glass, his lean body and the emaciated lines of his face making him look almost mummylike in the cold overhead light.

"Three men and three women," he said. "One of the men has a camera."

"It would not be the first time that photographs have been taken of our ships in daylight," Tragor said quickly. "But we cannot risk it now. Events are moving too rapidly."

"Yes, it would be a very clear photograph, with identifiable scenery in the background. The kind of photograph it would be difficult to fake. It would carry conviction, if backed up with the observations of six eyewitnesses. I do not like it at all."

"Neither do I. And it is too late to get out of range. They have started taking pictures and they can see us clearly. I'm afraid we shall have to destroy the boat."

Tragor turned, strode quickly across the compartment and picked up a communication tube. He spoke into it, issuing detailed instructions, pleased by the steady way his voice rose above the faint buzzing and clicking of the instrument, feeling within him the sureness and firmness which he always experienced when he knew himself to be in command....

On the bright waters of the lake the occupants of the launch were no longer in a merrymaking mood. It had been quite wonderful to be in such a mood and it had lasted for five hours before the huge, shining disk had come into view. Both the men and the women had been drinking heavily and had felt gloriously relaxed and at ease, the way they had known they would feel on a speedboat excursion with no holds barred. Even now on the foredeck there was still a sprawl of arms and nylon-encased legs and a sleepy voice whispering: "I'm not going to get up, lover. Not even going to get up and look. You hear me, lover? It's too dee-licious right here. What do I care about an old flying saucer? You are sending me, lover. Sweetkins, come closer. Closer ... that's it. Never mind that silly old flying saucer. We can do our own flying right here."

All of the others had gotten up, however and were staring up at the sky. One of the women was very tall, but otherwise no fault could have been found with her from a man's point of view. She was wearing only a halter and a transparent, black gauze brassiere which was having no success at all in concealing her rose-tipped, sharply pointed breasts. Her legs were long and so beautifully shaped that they could very easily have persuaded a man at the wheel of a speedboat to ignore the safety of his companions in a dangerous gale. The whiteness of her body where it wasn't sun-tanned was a specialty of the house, and her face went with the menu like the rarest of Parisian wines.

The man who stood at her side had tossed the menu aside for a moment, apparently. He was almost as tall as she was, with curly blond hair and a rugged, outdoorsman aspect. He was wearing a gray tweed sports jacket and a stubby pipe was clamped between his teeth, the smoke drifting out over the water.

The woman sprawled on the foredeck, who still did not seem in the least interested in the saucer, was a redhead, and she also wore a halter. But her companion, who had a Latin profile and hair so black that it could have been mistaken for the wings of a crow, was doing his best to conceal most of her charms. The third woman was a short, almost dumpy brunette, but there was something attractive about her.

The man with the camera was heavy-set and ruddy-faced and attired in a bathing suit. He seemed the most excited member of the party.

"And I thought people who took UFO's seriously were whacks!" he shouted. "Good Lord! Look at it. Just look at it. It's an Unidentified Flying Object, all right, but when I get it on film the lads in Washington will drop the 'Unidentified'. It's from somewhere in space. Mars, Venus! Who knows? Big--oh, my God!"

"You've got a good camera there," the man in the tweed sports jacket said, removing the pipe from his mouth and speaking very calmly. "A Leica, isn't it?"