HURRYING down the runway into the great cave below, I was about to rush out into the daylight to examine the small object I had found, when a long, muscular arm suddenly went about my shoulders, my head was crushed against a soft, furry breast, and a pair of pendulous lips caressed my cheek.
With the heel of my hand I pushed the face of a she-ape from mine and broke her embrace. Surprised, I recognized Chixa. She advanced toward me again, arms outstretched, but I motioned her off.
“Stand back,” I warned her. “What do you mean by this familiarity?”
“But I am your mate,” replied Chixa. “You have slain Rorg and the other she has run away. Rorg chose me for his mate before the food-woman came.”
“Rorg chose his own mates, and I’ll choose mine,” I retorted. “What’s this you say about the other she running away?”
“The food-man and she came down the runway together. I let them escape. I did not want the food-woman to take my place.”
“But how could they escape when the place is surrounded?”
“The food-man knew of the inner passageway,” replied Chixa. “I showed him where it was . . . Am I not as comely as the other shes of my people?”
“No doubt you are the most comely, Chixa, but I will never mate with a cave-ape. You say this she went willingly with the food-man?”
“She did. I think they will be mates.”
“Chixa,” I said, walking to the entrance and examining the small glittering object that I had picked up, “you have lied to me.”
“I lied,” admitted Chixa, not one whit abashed, “but how do you know? You must be a sorcerer, as Graak said.”
“I know by this small, broken glass needle, one end of which is stained with blood,” I replied. “Call it magic, if you like, but this needle tells me that the she was carried away by the food-man.”
“It is even as you say,” conceded Chixa. “She was unconscious from the magic of the food-man, and her arm was bleeding.”
“Show me the entrance to the inner passageway,” I commanded.
Chixa sulked, and crouched in a corner.
“Show me the entrance,” I said again, “or I will kill you by magic and feed you to the crowd outside.”
Evidently the threat to kill her by magic—the fear of the unknown—was more potent than any ordinary death threat could possibly have been, for she rose, and, walking to the back of the cave, heaved a great slab of rock to one side, disclosing the dark mouth of a runway.
“It was this way they went,” she said, “but you will never find them. By this time they will have taken trails where none but our greatest trackers could scent them out.
“Who is your best tracker?”
“Graak is the greatest of them all.”
“Go instantly,” I commanded, “and bring Graak to me. See that my command is carried out at once, or my magic will follow and slay you.”
“I go,” she responded fearfully, and hurried from the cave.
I fidgeted impatiently until she returned with Graak, who unhesitatingly offered to obey his new Rogo. Stooping, he entered the passageway. I hurried after him with my hands outstretched in the inky blackness in front of me to prevent dashing myself against the curving walls. We must have gone two miles in this manner before twilight loomed ahead, followed by daylight, and we emerged in the open air on a narrow shelf of rock against which the topmost fronds of a giant tree fern brushed. Around and beyond this mighty fern stretched a forest of its fellows, coming up to the very edge of the mountains that held the homes of the cave-apes.
Graak sniffed the air for a moment, then leaped for the nearest fern frond, which sagged beneath his weight as he caught it with both hands. His great body swung precariously a full seventy feet above the ground as he went up the slanting frond, hand over hand, until he reached the trunk. After sniffing at this for a moment, he descended, feet first, to the ground.
I followed his example, making much more work of it than he, and descending so slowly that he stamped impatiently before I reached the ground. I wondered how Taliboz had been able to negotiate this route with his inert burden until I noticed a long, slender cord dangling from the end of one of the fern fronds, its lower end about ten feet from the ground. The traitorous noble had evidently lowered Loralie by means of this cord to within reach of the ground, where he had evidently cut her loose and carried her off.
While Graak fidgeted impatiently, I leaped and caught the end of the cord. I called him to help me, and together we pulled until the frond broke off and came crashing to the ground. With my flint knife I quickly cut the cord from the branch and, coiling it about my body, told Graak to proceed. Feeling that we might have a journey ahead of us, I thought of several ways in which the cord might be useful.
We had not gone more than a mile in the fern forest when the cave-ape pointed to a set of smaller footprints beside Taliboz’s and said, “The she walked from here.”
Recovering at this point from the paralysis induced by the tork projectile, she had gone on with her abductor, willingly or not.
Although the footprints led at first toward the west, they presently began to turn southwest, toward the coast.
For many hours we followed the trail without food or drink; then Graak stopped in a clump of bush ferns which furnished us pure, fresh water. He next plucked some sporepods, cracking them with his teeth. I split some open with my knife. They had a pleasant, nutlike flavor.
We resumed our journey until the advent of sudden darkness, when we climbed into the leaf-crown of a tall tree fern to pass the night there.
Graak fell asleep at once, but I could not. No sooner had darkness descended on the forest than the night-roaming carnivora were astir, making the night hideous with their cries—howling awoos, the horrid, mirthless laughter of hyenalike hahoes, the terrific roars of marmelots, the death-cries of the victims.
I think the gentle rocking of the trees, together with the rustling of the countless millions of fern leaves, lulled me to slumber. At any rate, I was awakened by the great hairy paw of Graak pulling at my arm, which I had thrown across my face—a habit of mine while sleeping. “The light has come,” he said, “and Graak is hungry. Let us find food and be gone.”
As I followed him down the rough, scaly trunk, I was struck by the contrast of the daylight sounds. I could hear only the buzzing of insects, the silvery toned warbling of the awakened songbirds, the occasional snort or grunt of some herbivore feeding, and the peculiar squawking cries of the queer bird-reptiles called aurks.
Graak and I had only traveled a short distance on the trail when he suddenly stiffened and, looking upward, said, “Good food! A ptang!”
Following the direction of his gaze, I saw a large, hairless slothlike creature hanging upside down on a thick fern frond which bent downward beneath its weight. The ptang was unconcernedly munching leaves without so much as a glance in our direction.
The cave-ape bounded to the base of the tree and quickly ascended, to climb out on the limb where the stupid creature was feeding, paying no attention to the approaching danger.
Graak swung by a prehensile foot and hand, and struck with his saw-edged club, laying the side of the creature’s head wide open at the first blow. It ceased its feeding, but did not attempt either to fight or run away, though its powerful legs were armed with long, hooked claws. Again Graak swung his club. The animal’s head hung limply downward and a shiver ran through its frame.
Replacing his club in his belt string, the cave-ape drew his flint knife and pried the hooked claws one by one from their grip on the limb. The ptang crashed downward through the branches to the ground.
When we had eaten our fill, the ape and I each cut off as large a portion of the animal as could conveniently be carried, and started once more on the trail.
We had not gone far when Graak pointed out a place where Taliboz and the princess had stopped to eat, the night before. A little farther on the trail, we came to the base of a large tree fern in whose leaf crown they had passed the night. Evidently they were not more than an hour ahead of us.
As we hurried forward and the scent grew stronger and stronger, the cave-ape showed all the excitement of a hound on a fresh game trail—which it was, to his mind.
Presently he stopped, tensely alert, sniffing and listening.
“What is it?” I asked in a whisper.
“A marmelot follows them,” replied Graak, pointing to the footprints in the leaf mold.
Looking down, I saw, sometimes between their tracks, sometimes obliterating part of them, the spoor of a gigantic feline, so heavy that it sank to a depth of nearly a foot with each step.
Then carne the scream of a woman in deadly terror, only a short distance ahead, followed by the crashing of underbrush and a terrific rumbling growl which I recognized only too well.
Graak instantly took to the trees, but I unlimbered my club and knife and dashed forward.
Hurrying as fast as I could in the soft leaf mold, dodging through fern-brakes and tripping over creepers, I presently floundered out into a little glade where a most fearsome sight met my eyes.
Rolling about on the ground, snapping, tearing and clawing at everything that came within its reach, was a magnificent marmelot, apparently in its death throes.
I had not taken three steps before the creature quivered, subsided, and lay still.
Looking about for the princess and her abductor, I was startled by a warning cry from almost directly above me, “Zinlo! Behind you!” It was the voice of Loralie.
Whirling, I saw Taliboz standing behind the broad trunk of a tree fern. In his left hand he held an object which I recognized as a clip for tork projectiles. Balanced in his right hand with its base against his palm and its length parallel with his fingers was one of the needle-like glass bullets, ready to throw. Even as I looked, he hurled it straight for my face.
I ducked my head just in time, heard the bullet strike a fern trunk behind me, and sprang forward. But he quickly pulled another from the clip and I saw that I could not reach him in time to use my weapons; nor could I, close as I was, again hope to avoid the throw by dodging.
With a grin of triumph on his features, he swung back his arm, poised it for a moment to get his aim, then brought it swiftly forward, his fingers pointing directly at my breast.
“Die, stripling!” he grated between clenched teeth.
But a strange thing happened. Instead of feeling the sting of the needle in my breast, I saw him go limp and slump down in his tracks.
I learned the cause as I bent over to, examine him. The needle bullet which he had intended for my breast had pierced one of his fingers instead. Rolling him over, I took his tork ammunition belt and buckled it about my own waist. I picked up the clip which he had dropped when he fell, and, closing the ejector, replaced it in the belt.
Then I looked up in the direction from which the warning voice of Loralie had come down to me. For a moment only I saw her beautiful face peering down at me between the parted fronds of a leaf-crown. Then a huge hairy arm reached downward, encircled her slender waist, and drew her backward. She cried out in deadly fear as the parted fronds snapped back in place, hiding her from view.
I caught a glimpse of Graak mounting one of the rope-like vines; beneath his left arm he carried the drooping form of Loralie. Then they both disappeared into the thick tangle of vegetation above.
“Stop, Graak!” I called. “Come back, or I will slay you with my magic.”
No answer.
I leaped for the nearest fern trunk, intent on following, when suddenly, without the slightest hint of warning, a long sinuous object whipped through the air and coiled itself about me. With its deadly fangs gleaming in gaping jaws quite close to my face, and cloven tongue darting forth menacingly, the glistening beady eyes of a gigantic whistling serpent stared hypnotically into mine.
Swiftly, relentlessly, the mighty coils tightened about my body while the horrible head moved rhythmically back and forth, just above my face. My club was caught beneath the scaly folds of my assailant, but I managed to jerk my flint knife free, and with this I struck at the swaying, silver-white throat. But the covering was tougher than I had thought, and I only succeeded in chipping off a few scales.
The muscular coils that encircled me grew tighter. It seemed to me that my ribs must crack at any moment. My breathing was reduced to short, spasmodic gasps.
Then I thought of the tork projectiles. With my flint knife I pried the ammunition belt up from beneath an encircling coil. Quickly extracting a clip, I opened the ejector, pressed the button, and a small, sharp needle popped out. I slid it under the edge of a scale and pressed. Scarcely had I done so when the crushing folds about me began to relax; the swaying head dropped limply downward, and I tugged and wriggled until I was free.
Still gasping for breath, I closed the safety catch of the clip and replaced it in my belt. I noticed that it was marked in patoa: “Tork projectiles—deadly.”
As soon as I was able to breathe with reasonable normality once more, I climbed the tallest tree fern in the vicinity, and from its lofty leaf-crown looked out over the tree-tops in the hope of locating Graak and the princess. But although I scanned the forest in every direction I could not catch sight of them.
Far back toward the northeast, the mountains of the cave-apes were barely discernible through the gray-blue mistiness that hung over the jungle. Toward the southwest, and closer, was another mountain range—gray, forbidding peaks much higher than those of the cave-apes.
As he was, by nature, a cave dweller, I decided that Graak would eventually seek a mountain home. Having disobeyed me, King of the Cave-Apes, he would not dare return to the mountains of his tribe. I might very logically expect him to head for the other mountains. When I had caught my last glimpse of him he actually was starting toward the southwest. I decided to travel that way, zigzagging across my plotted course in the hope that I might eventually pick up his trail.
Having made my decision, I descended to the ground and set out toward the unknown mountains.
I was in the middle of my second zigzag toward the south when I came across the trail of Graak. Dainty but significant beside those of the cave-ape were the tiny footprints of Loralie. As I followed the trail I twice saw the records of her attempts at escape—where she had tried to run away, but had been caught.
Now travel became far more difficult. My first warning of the changed terrain was when I sank hip-deep into a sticky quagmire, only saving myself from complete immersion in the soft mud by grasping a stout vine that hung across my path, and swinging up into firmer ground. I noticed that fungi and lichens were beginning to predominate.
Gradually the tree ferns and cycads were replaced by gigantic toadstools of variegated forms and colors, and huge morels, some of which reared their cone-like heads more than fifty feet in the air. Jointed reeds rattled like skeletons in the breeze; lichens upholstered rotted stumps and fallen logs, and algae filled the treacherous, stagnant pools that grew more numerous as I advanced, making it difficult to tell which was the water and which the land.
It was comforting for me to know that the flight of Graak was being even more retarded than mine. He had to test each bit of ground before treading on it, while I had but to follow his footsteps.
Suddenly I heard, only a short distance ahead of me, the angry roar of the cave-ape, followed by a woman’s scream of terror.
At first I thought Graak had sighted me, and I dashed forward to meet him with club and knife ready. But before I had taken a dozen steps I heard his voice raised in a howl of pain, and soon he was alternately bellowing and snarling as if in intense agony.
I caught sight of Graak and the princess at the same time. The ape, his fierce cries now reduced to mere whimpering, was on his back surrounded by a half dozen of the strangest and most horrifying creatures I have ever seen.
Writhing, squirming, extending, contracting, they had no set form, but could change themselves instantly from limbless, egg-shaped bodies three feet long to the semblance of snakes fifteen feet in length, or any of the intermediate lengths between the two. They were clinging to the fallen cave-ape with grotesque, three-cornered sucker mouths, and from the edges of some of them I could see blood dripping.
Before I could reach him, Graak’s whimpering subsided, his struggles ceased, and I knew that he was beyond help. His assailants, finding him quiescent, settled down uniformly in the shape of extended ovoids about four feet in length, to drain the rest of his blood.
From a position of temporary safety, the princess looked down in horror. She was on the umbrella-like top of a toadstool about fifteen feet in height, evidently having been tossed there by Graak when he had been attacked, for there was no way she could have reached that point unassisted. Climbing rapidly toward her were two more of the hideous things, leaving slimy trails on the stem.
Bounding forward, I swung my club at the nearest creature, expecting to cut it in two with the sharp, saw-edge of my weapon. To my surprise and consternation, the club failed to make the slightest impression, but bounced off as if it had struck extremely springy rubber, and nearly flew from my grasp.
The hideous head with its three-cornered suck mouth was instantly extended toward me, and again I struck—this time from the side. Although the blow made no more impression on the tough skin of the creature than before, it broke the hold of the thing on the stem of the mushroom and sent it whirling and writhing a full twenty feet away.
The other thing on the stem stretched out to seize me, but I dealt it a backhand blow which sent it squirming and wriggling in the opposite direction.
A quick glance around showed me that the surrounding marsh was literally alive with these horrible creatures. Evidently excited by the sound of the conflict—or possibly by the smell of blood—they erected ugly swaying heads to investigate, then came crawling toward us, leaving slimy trails in their wake.
There was only one thing for me to do in order to save the princess, or even to save myself: I must find a way to get to the top of the toadstool with her. But this was a good fifteen feet from the ground, and the marshy soil was not particularly conducive to high jumping, as it clung to the feet with each step.
As I looked about for some means wherewith to accomplish my purpose the ring of attackers closed in on me. Then came an inspiration. About twenty feet from the toadstool on which the girl stood was a clump of huge, jointed reedlike growths. Several of them, which reached to a height of more than forty feet, bent slightly toward it.
I managed to reach them just ahead of the advancing army of attackers and climbed the largest one with an agility of which I had never even imagined myself capable. One of the slimy things that sought my lifeblood instantly wound its body around the reed and followed, then another and another, until the stalk below me was covered with their snaky forms.
As I climbed upward, the reed gradually bent over toward the top of the toadstool, so that when I reached a height of a little over thirty feet, I was directly above it. Swinging my legs free, I hung on for a moment with my hands, then let go. As I alighted on the center of the toadstool cap, the reed shot upward like a steel spring, hurling its slimy occupants far out across the marsh as if they had been shot from a catapult.
No sooner had I alighted than there was a cry of terror from Princess Loralie. Turning, I saw her crouching in fear beneath the ugly head of one of our attackers, its neck arched and its three-cornered sucking mouth, armed with thousands of razor-sharp cutting teeth, ready to strike.
I swung my club, knocking the thing to the ground, but no sooner had I done so than another came up over the edge of the toadstool, quickly followed by two more. Soon the entire rim became alive with the swaying, wriggling heads, and I was kept busy every second of the time knocking them back to the ground.
“Give me your club, Prince Zinlo,” said Loralie after I had been at this strenuous work for some time, “and let me help you. If we take turns with rests between for each, we can last longer. The swamp dwellers are persistent, and we are doomed, it seems—but let us fight while life lasts.”
“I am not tired,” I insisted, rather breathlessly, but she came and seized the club, making it necessary for me either to use force with her or surrender it. I yielded, watching her to see if she could manage it. Despite her small size she proved surprisingly strong.
But she soon grew weary, and I took the club once more. It was a hopeless fight; day was fast waning, and in the black, moonless darkness of Venus we would soon be dragged down to meet the fate of the bloodless carcass that had once been Graak, now staring sightlessly up into the leaden sky.