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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e09972 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63872 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63872) diff --git a/old/63872-h.zip b/old/63872-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index eecb365..0000000 --- a/old/63872-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63872-h/63872-h.htm b/old/63872-h/63872-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 9f59bf1..0000000 --- a/old/63872-h/63872-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2428 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Beast-jewel of Mars, by Leigh Brackett. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.caption p -{ - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; - margin: 0.25em 0; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph1 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beast-Jewel of Mars, by Leigh Brackett - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Beast-Jewel of Mars - -Author: Leigh Brackett - -Release Date: November 24, 2020 [EBook #63872] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAST-JEWEL OF MARS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>THE BEAST-JEWEL OF MARS</h1> - -<h2>By LEIGH BRACKETT</h2> - -<p>Burk Winters was a panting, shambling ape,<br /> -fleeting through dark and echoing pits of<br /> -horror. Behind him hissed the lashes of<br /> -the jeering mob, savagely exultant at<br /> -having debauched still another proud<br /> -Terran into something that crawled.</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Winter 1948.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Burk Winters remained in the passenger section while the <i>Starflight</i> -made her landing at Kahora Port. He did not think that he could bear -to see another man, not even one he liked as much as he did Johnny -Niles, handle the controls of the ship that had been his for so long.</p> - -<p>He did not wish even to say good bye to Johnny, but there was no -avoiding it. The young officer was waiting for him as he came down the -ramp, and the deep concern he felt was not hidden in the least by his -casually hearty grin.</p> - -<p>Johnny held out his hand. "So long, Burk. You've earned this leave. -Have fun with it."</p> - -<p>Burk Winters looked out over the vast tarmac that spread for miles -across the ochre desert. An orderly, roaring confusion of trucks and -flat-cars and men and ships—ore ships, freighters, tramps, sleek -liners like the <i>Starflight</i>, bearing the colours of three planets and -a dozen colonies, but still arrogantly and predominantly Terran.</p> - -<p>Johnny followed his gaze and said softly, "It always gives you a -thrill, doesn't it?"</p> - -<p>Winters did not answer. Miles away, safe from the thundering rocket -blasts, the glassite dome of Kahora, Trade City for Mars, rose -jewel-like out of the red sand. The little sun stared wearily down -and the ancient hills considered it, and the old, old wandering wind -passed over it, and it seemed as though the planet bore Kahora and its -space-port with patience, as though it were a small local infection -that would soon be gone.</p> - -<p>He had forgotten Johnny Niles. He had forgotten everything but his own -dark thoughts. The young officer studied him with covert pity, and he -did not know it.</p> - -<p>Burk Winters was a big man, and a tough man, tempered by years of -deep-space flying. The same glare of naked light that had burned his -skin so dark had bleached his hair until it was almost white, and just -in the last few months his grey eyes seemed to have caught and held -a spark of that pitiless radiance. The easy good nature was gone out -of them, and the lines that laughter had shaped around his mouth had -deepened now into bitter scars.</p> - -<p>A big man, a hard man, but a man who was no longer in control of -himself. All during the voyage out from Earth he had chain-smoked the -little Venusian cigarets that have a sedative effect. He was smoking -one now, and even so he could not keep his hands steady nor stop the -everlasting <i>tic</i> in his right cheek.</p> - -<p>"Burk." Johnny's voice came to him from a great distance. "Burk, it's -none of my business, but...." He hesitated, then blurted out, "Do you -think Mars is good for you, now?"</p> - -<p>Quite abruptly, Winters said, "Take good care of the <i>Starflight</i>, -Johnny. Good bye."</p> - -<p>He went away, down the ramp. The pilot stared after him.</p> - -<p>The Second Officer came up to Johnny. "That guy has sure gone to -pieces," he said.</p> - -<p>Johnny nodded. He was angry, because he had come up under Winters and -he loved him.</p> - -<p>"The damn fool," he said. "He shouldn't have come here." He looked out -over the mocking immensity of Mars and added, "His girl was lost out -there, somewhere. They never found her body."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A space-port taxi took Burk Winters into Kahora, and Mars vanished. He -was back in the world of the Trade Cities, which belong to all planets, -and none.</p> - -<p>Vhia on Venus, N'York on Earth, Sun City in Mercury's Twilight Belt, -the glassite refuges of the Outer Worlds, they were all alike. They -were dedicated to the coddling of wealth and greed, little paradises -where millions were made and lost in comfort, where men and women from -all over the Solar System could expend their feverish energies without -regard for such annoyances as weather and gravitation.</p> - -<p>Other things than the making of money were done in the Trade Cities. -The lovely plastic buildings, the terraces and gardens and the glowing -web of moving walks that spun them together, offered every pleasure and -civilized vice of the known worlds.</p> - -<p>Winters hated the Trade Cities. He was used to the elemental honesty -of space. Here the speech, the dress, even the air one breathed, were -artificial.</p> - -<p>And he had a deeper reason than that for his hatred.</p> - -<p>Yet he had left N'York in feverish haste to reach Kahora, and now that -he was here he felt that he could not endure even the delay caused by -the necessity of crossing the city. He sat tensely on the edge of the -seat, and his nervous twitching grew worse by the minute.</p> - -<p>When finally he reached his destination, he could not hold the money -for his fare. He dropped the plastic tokens on the floor and left the -driver to scramble for them.</p> - -<p>He stood for a moment, looking up at the ivory facade before him. It -was perfectly plain, the epitome of expensive unpretentiousness. Above -the door, in small letters of greenish silver, was the one Martian -word: SHANGA.</p> - -<p>"The return," he translated. "The going-back." A strange and rather -terrible smile crossed his face, very briefly. Then he opened the door -and went inside.</p> - -<p>Subdued lighting, comfortable lounges, soft music, the perfect waiting -room. There were half a dozen men and women there, all Terrans. They -wore the fashionably simple white tunic of the Trade Cities, which set -off the magnificent blaze of their jewelry and the exotic styles in -which they dressed their hair.</p> - -<p>Their faces were pallid and effeminate, scored with the haggard marks -of life lived under the driving tension of a super-modern age.</p> - -<p>A Martian woman sat in an alcove, behind a glassite desk. She was dark, -sophisticatedly lovely. Her costume was the artfully adapted short robe -of ancient Mars, and she wore no ornament. Her slanting topaz eyes -regarded Burk Winters with professional pleasantness, but deep in them -he could see the scorn and the pride of a race so old that the Terran -exquisites of the Trade Cities were only crude children beside it.</p> - -<p>"Captain Winters," she said. "How nice to see you again."</p> - -<p>He was in no mood for conventional pleasantries. "I want to see Kor -Hal," he said. "Now."</p> - -<p>"I'm afraid ..." she began. Then she took another look at Winters' face -and turned to the intercom. Presently she said, "You may go in."</p> - -<p>He pushed open the door that led into the interior of the building, -which consisted almost entirely of a huge solarium. Glassite walls -enclosed it. Around the sides were many small cells, containing only a -padded table. The roofs of the cells were quartz, and acted as mammoth -lenses.</p> - -<p>Skirting the solarium on the way to Kor Hal's office, Winters' mouth -twisted with contempt as he looked through the transparent wall.</p> - -<p>An exotic forest blossomed there. Trees, ferns, brilliant flowers, -soft green sward, a myriad of birds. And through this mock-primitive -playground wandered the men and women who were devotees of Shanga.</p> - -<p>They lay first on the padded tables and let the radiation play with -them. Winters knew. Neuro-psychic therapy, the doctors called it. -Heritage of the lost wisdom of old Mars. Specific for the jangled -nerves and overwrought emotions of modern man, who lived too fast in -too complex an environment.</p> - -<p><i>You lie there and the radiation tingles through you. Your glandular -balance tips a little. Your brain slows down. All sorts of strange and -pleasant things happen inside of you, while the radiation tinkers with -nerves and reflexes and metabolism. And pretty soon you're a child -again, in an evolutionary sort of way.</i></p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Shanga, the going-back. Mentally, and just a tiny bit physically, back -to the primitive, until the effect wore off and the normal balance -restored itself. And even then, for a while, you felt better and -happier, because you'd had one hell of a rest, from everything.</p> - -<p>Their pampered white bodies incongruously clad in skins and bits of -coloured cloth, the Earthlings of Kahora played and fought among the -trees, and their worries were simple ones concerning food and love and -strings of gaudy beads.</p> - -<p>Hidden away out of sight were watchful men with shock guns. Sometimes -someone went a little bit too far down the road. Winters knew. He had -been knocked cold himself, on his last visit here. He remembered that -he had tried to kill a man.</p> - -<p>Or rather, he had been told that he had tried to kill a man. One did -not remember much of the interludes of Shanga. That was one reason -people liked it. One was free of inhibitions.</p> - -<p>Fashionable vice, made respectable by the cloak of science. It was -a new kind of excitement, a new kind of escape from the glittering -complexities of life. The Terrans were mad for it.</p> - -<p>But only the Terrans. The barbaric Venusians were still too close to -the savage to have any need for it, and the Martians were too old and -wise in sin to use it. <i>Besides</i>, thought Winters, <i>they made Shanga. -They know.</i></p> - -<p>A deep shudder ran through him as he thrust his way into the office of -Kor Hal, the director.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal was lean and dark and of no particular age. His national origin -was lost in the anonymity of the conventional white tunic. He was -Martian, and his courtesy was only a velvet sheath over chilled steel, -but beyond that he was quantity X.</p> - -<p>"Captain Winters," he said. "Please sit down."</p> - -<p>Winters sat.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal studied him. "You're nervous, Captain Winters. But I am afraid -to treat you anymore. Atavism lies too close to the surface in you." He -shrugged. "You remember the last time."</p> - -<p>Winters nodded. "The same thing happened in N'York." He leaned forward. -"I don't want you to treat me anymore. What you have here isn't enough -now. Sar Kree told me that, in N'York. He told me to come to Mars."</p> - -<p>Kor Hal said quietly, "He communicated with me."</p> - -<p>"Then you will ..." Winters broke off, because there were no words with -which to finish his question.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal did not answer. He reclined at ease against the cushions of his -lounge chair, handsome, unconcerned. Only his eyes, which were green -and feral, held a buried spark of amusement. The cruel amusement of a -cat which has a crippled mouse under its paw.</p> - -<p>"Are you sure," he asked finally, "that you know what you're doing?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"People differ, Captain Winters. Those manikins out there—" he -indicated the solarium—"have neither blood nor heart. They are -artificial products of an artificial environment. But men like you, -Winters, are playing with fire when they play with Shanga."</p> - -<p>"Listen," said Winters. "The girl I was going to marry took her flier -out over the desert one day and never came back. God only knows what -happened to her. You know better than I do the things that can happen -to people in the dead sea bottoms. I hunted for her. I found her flier, -where it had crashed. I never found her. After that nothing mattered -much to me. Nothing but forgetting."</p> - -<p>Kor Hal inclined his dark, narrow head. "I remember. A tragedy, Captain -Winters. I knew Miss Leland, a lovely young woman. She used to come -here."</p> - -<p>"I know," said Winters. "She wasn't Trade City, really, but she had too -much money and too much time. Anyway, I'm not worried about playing -with your fire, Kor Hal. I've been burned too deep with it already. -Like you say, people differ. Those lily-whites in their toy jungle, -they have no desire to go back any farther. They haven't the guts or -the passions to want to. I have."</p> - -<p>Winters' eyes blazed with a peculiarly animal light. "I want to go -back, Kor Hal. Back as far as Shanga will take me."</p> - -<p>"Sometimes," said the Martian, "that's a long way."</p> - -<p>"I don't care."</p> - -<p>Kor Hal gave him an intent look. "For some, there is no return."</p> - -<p>"I have nothing to return to."</p> - -<p>"It is not easy, Winters. Shanga—the real Shanga, of which these -solariums and quartz lenses are only a weak copy, was forbidden -centuries ago by the City-States of Mars. There are risks, and -discomforts, which means that the process is expensive."</p> - -<p>"I have money." Winters leaped up suddenly, his control breaking. "Be -damned to your arguments! They're all hypocrisy, anyway. You know -perfectly well which ones are going to take to Shanga. You keep them -coming until they're addicts, half crazy to feel the real thing, and -you know damn well you're going to give them what they want as soon as -they cross your dirty palm with silver."</p> - -<p>He tossed a checkbook on Kor Hal's desk. The top one was blank, but -signed.</p> - -<p>"There," he said. "Anything up to a hundred-thousand Universal Credits."</p> - -<p>"I would prefer," said Kor Hal, "that you draw your own check, to -cash." He handed the checkbook back to Winters. "The full amount, in -advance."</p> - -<p>Burk Winters said one word. "When?"</p> - -<p>"Tonight, if you wish. Where are you staying?"</p> - -<p>"The Tri-Planet."</p> - -<p>"Have dinner there as usual. Then remain in the bar. Sometime during -the evening your guide will join you."</p> - -<p>"I'll be waiting," Winters said, and went out.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal smiled. His teeth were very white, very sharp. They had the -hungry look of fangs.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">II</p> - -<p>Burk Winters got his bearings finally when Phobos rose, and he could -guess where they were heading.</p> - -<p>They had slipped quietly out of Kahora, he and the slender young -Martian who had joined him unobtrusively in the Tri-Planet bar. A flier -waited for them on a private field. Kor Hal waited also. They took off, -with a fourth man, who looked to be one of the big barbarians from the -northern hills of Kesh. Kor Hal took the controls.</p> - -<p>Winters was sure now that they were bound for the Low Canals. The -ancient waterways and the ancient wicked towns—Jekkara, Valkis, -Barrakesh—outside the laws of the scattered City-States. Thieves' -market, slave market, vice market of a world. Earthmen were warned to -keep away from them.</p> - -<p>Miles reeled behind them. The utter desolation of the landscape below -got on Winters' nerves. The silence in the flier became unendurable. -There was something menacing about it. Kor Hal and the big Keshi and -the slim young man seemed to be nursing some common inner thought that -gave them a peculiarly vicious pleasure. Its shadow showed on their -faces.</p> - -<p>Winters spoke finally. "Are your headquarters out here?"</p> - -<p>No answer.</p> - -<p>Winters said rather petulantly, "There's no need to be so secretive. -After all, I'm one of you now."</p> - -<p>The slim young man said sharply, "Do the beasts lie down with the -masters?"</p> - -<p>Winters started to bristle, and the barbarian put his hand on the -wicked little sap he carried at his belt. Then Kor Hal spoke coolly.</p> - -<p>"You wished to practice Shanga in its true form, Captain Winters. That -is what you have paid for. That is what you will receive. All else is -irrelevant."</p> - -<p>Winters shrugged sulkily. He sat smoking his sedative tobacco, and he -did not speak again.</p> - -<p>After a long, long time the seemingly endless desert began to change. -Low ridges rose naked from the sand and grew into a mountain range, of -which nothing was left now but the barren rock.</p> - -<p>Beyond the mountains lay a dead sea bottom. It stretched away under the -moonlight, dropping, always dropping, until at last it became only a -vast pit of darkness. Ribs of chalk and coral gleamed here and there, -pushing through the lichens like bones through the dried skin of a man -long dead.</p> - -<p>Winters saw that there was a city between the foothills and the sea.</p> - -<p>It had followed the receding water down the slopes. From this height, -Winters could see the outlines of five harbours, abandoned one by one -as the sea drew back, the great stone docks still standing. Houses had -been built to fill their emptiness, and then abandoned in their turn -for a lower level.</p> - -<p>Now the straggling town had coalesced along the bank of the canal that -drew what feeble life was left from the buried springs of the bottom. -There was something infinitely sad about that thin dark line—all that -was left of a blue and rolling ocean.</p> - -<p>The flier circled and came down. The Keshi said something rapidly in -his own dialect, from which Winters caught the one word, <i>Valkis</i>. Kor -Hal answered him. Then he turned to Winters and said,</p> - -<p>"We have not far to go. Stay close by me."</p> - -<p>The four men left the flier. Winters knew that he was under guard, and -felt that it was not entirely for the sake of protecting him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The wind blew thin and dry. Dust rose in clouds around their feet. -Valkis lay ahead, a stony darkness sprawling upward toward the cliffs, -cold in the eerie light of the twin moons. Winters saw, high up on the -crest, the broken towers of a palace.</p> - -<p>They walked beside still black water, on paving stones worn hollow -by the sandaled feet of countless generations. Even at this late -hour, Valkis did not sleep. Torches burned yellow against the night. -Somewhere a double-banked harp made strange music. The streets, the -alley mouths, the doorways and the flat roofs of the houses rustled -with life.</p> - -<p>Lithe lean men and catlike women watched the strangers, hot-eyed -and silent. And over all, Winters heard the particular sound of the -Low-Canal towns—the whispering and chiming of the wanton little bells -that the women wear, braided into their dark hair, hanging from their -ears, chained around their ankles.</p> - -<p>Evil, that town. Ancient, and very evil, but not tired. Winters could -feel the pulse of life that beat there, strong and hot. He was afraid. -His own civilian garb and the white tunics of his companions were -terribly conspicuous in this place of bare breasts and bright kilts and -jeweled girdles.</p> - -<p>No one molested them. Kor Hal led the way into a large house and shut -the door of beaten bronze behind them, and Winters felt a great relief. -He turned to Kor Hal.</p> - -<p>"How soon?" he asked, and tried to conceal the trembling of his hands.</p> - -<p>"Everything is ready, Winters. Halk, show him the way."</p> - -<p>The Keshi nodded and went off, with Winters at his heels.</p> - -<p>This was very different from the Hall of Shanga in Kahora. Within these -walls of quarried stone, men and women had lived and loved and died -in violence. The blood and tears of centuries had dried in the cracks -between the flags. The rugs, the tapestries, and the furnishings were -worth a fortune as antiques. Their beauty was worn, but still bright.</p> - -<p>At the end of a corridor was a bronze door, pierced by a narrow grille.</p> - -<p>Halk stopped. He said to Winters, "Strip."</p> - -<p>Winters hesitated. He carried a gun, and he did not like to leave it -behind. "Why out here? I'd rather have my clothes with me."</p> - -<p>Halk said, "Strip here. It is the rule."</p> - -<p>Winters obeyed.</p> - -<p>He walked naked into the narrow cell. There was no comfortable table -here, only a few skins thrown on the bare floor. A barred opening -showed darkly in the opposite wall.</p> - -<p>The bronze door rang shut behind him and he heard the great bar drop -into place. It was completely dark. He was really afraid, now. Terribly -afraid. But it was too late for that. It had been too late, for a long -time.</p> - -<p>Ever since Jill Leland was lost.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He lay down on the hides. High above, in the vault of the roof, he -could make out a faint, vague shimmering. It grew brighter. Presently -he saw that it was a prism set into the stone, rather large and cut -from a crystalline substance that was the colour of fire.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal's voice reached him through the grille. "Earthman!"</p> - -<p>"Yes?"</p> - -<p>"That prism is one of the Jewels of Shanga. The wise men of Caer Dhu -carved them half a million years ago. Only they knew the secret of the -substance, and the shaping of the facets. There are only three of the -jewels left."</p> - -<p>Sparks that were more energy than light flickered on the stone walls of -the cell. Gold and orange and greenish blue. Little flames, the fire of -Shanga, to burn the heart.</p> - -<p>Because he was afraid, Winters said, "But the radiation, the ray that -comes through the prism. Is it the same as that in Kahora?"</p> - -<p>"Yes. The secret of the projectors was lost also with Caer Dhu. -Presumably they use cosmic rays. By substituting ordinary quartz for -the prisms, we could make the radiation weak enough for our purpose in -the Trade Cities."</p> - -<p>"Who is 'we,' Kor Hal?"</p> - -<p>Laughter, soft and wicked. "Earthman—we are Mars!"</p> - -<p>Dancing fire, growing, growing, glinting on his flesh, darting through -his blood, his brain. It was not like this in the solariums, with their -pretty trees. It was pleasure there, tantalizing, heady pleasure. It -was exciting, and strange. But this....</p> - -<p>His body began to move, to arch itself into strong writhing curves. He -thought he could not endure the lovely, lovely pain.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal's voice boomed down some huge fateful distance. "The wise men -of Caer Dhu were not so wise. They found the secret of Shanga, and they -escaped their wars and their troubles by fleeing backward along the -path of evolution. Do you know what happened to them? They perished, -Earthman! In one generation, Caer Dhu vanished from the face of Mars."</p> - -<p>It was getting hard to answer, hard to think. Winters said hoarsely, -"Did it matter? They were happy, while they lived."</p> - -<p>"Are you happy, Earthman?"</p> - -<p>"Yes!" he panted. "Yes!"</p> - -<p>The words were only half articulate. Twisting, rolling on the hide -rugs, in the grip of such magnificent, unholy sensation as he had never -dreamed of before, Burk Winters was happy. The fire of Shanga blazed -down upon him like a wicked sun, and all his troubles were melting -away, and there was nothing left but joy.</p> - -<p>Again, Kor Hal laughed.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After that, Winters was not sure of anything. His mind rocked, and -there were periods of darkness. When he was conscious, he knew only a -feeling of <i>strangeness</i>. But he carried one memory with him, at least -part way down that eerie road.</p> - -<p>During a lucid period, a space of only a minute or two, he thought that -one of the stones had rolled back to reveal a quartzite screen, and -that through the screen a face looked at him, watching as he bathed -naked in the beautiful flame.</p> - -<p>A woman's face. Martian, high-bred, with strong delicate bones and -arrogant brows, and a red mouth that would be like a bitter-sweet fruit -to kiss. Her eyes were golden as the fire, and as hot, and proud, and -scornful.</p> - -<p>There must have been a microphone in the wall, for she spoke and he -heard her voice, full of a sweet cruel magic. She called his name. He -could not rise, but he managed to crawl toward her, and to his reeling -brain she was part of the unearthly force that played with him. A -destruction and a fascination, as irresistible as death.</p> - -<p>To his alien eyes, she was not as lovely as Jill. But there was a power -in her. And her red mouth taunted him, and the curve of her bare -shoulders drove him to madness.</p> - -<p>"You're strong," she said. "You will live, until the end. And that is -well, Burk Winters."</p> - -<p>He tried to speak, but he could no longer form the words.</p> - -<p>She smiled. "You have challenged me, Earthman. I know. You've -challenged Shanga. You're brave, and I like brave men. You're also -a fool, and I like fools, because they give me sport. I'm looking -forward, Earthman, to the moment when you reach the end of your search!"</p> - -<p>He tried again to speak, and failed, and then the night and the silence -came to stay. He took the sound of her mocking laughter with him into -the dark.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He did not think of himself now as Captain Burk Winters, but only by -the short personal name of Burk. The stones upon which he lay were cold -and hard. It was pitch dark, but his eyes and ears were very keen. He -could tell by the sound of his breathing that he was in a closed space, -and he did not like it.</p> - -<p>A low growl rumbled in his throat. The hairs stiffened at the back of -his neck. He tried to remember how he had come here. Something had -happened, something to do with fire, but he did not know what, or why.</p> - -<p>Only one thing he knew. He was searching for something. It was gone, -and he wanted it back. The wanting was a pain in him. He could not -remember what the object was that he wanted, but the need for it was -greater than any obstacle short of death.</p> - -<p>He rose and began to explore his prison.</p> - -<p>Almost at once he found an opening. Cautious testing told him that -there was a passage beyond. He could see nothing, but the air that blew -in to him was very heavy with strange smells. Instinct told him that it -was a trap. He crouched irresolute, his hands opening and closing in -desire for a weapon. There was no weapon. Presently he went into the -passage, moving without sound.</p> - -<p>He went a long way, his shoulders brushing stone on either side. Then -he saw light ahead, red and flickering, and the air brought him the -taint of smoke, and the smell of man.</p> - -<p>Very, very slowly, the creature called Burk padded toward the light.</p> - -<p>He came close to the end of the tunnel, and suddenly a barred gate -dropped behind him with a ringing clash. He could not go back.</p> - -<p>He did not wish to go back. Enemies were in front of him, and he wished -to fight. He knew now that he could not come upon them secretly. -Flexing his great chest, he leaped out boldly from the tunnel mouth.</p> - -<p>The tossing glare of torches dazzled his eyes, and a wild mob howl -deafened him. He stood alone on a great block—the old slave block of -Valkis, though he did not know that. Men and women thronged the square, -leaving a wide open space around the block. They stared up, jeering at -the Earthman who had tasted the forbidden fruit that even the soulless -men of the Low Canals would not touch.</p> - -<p>The creature called Burk was still a man, but a man already shadowed by -the ape. During the hours he had bathed in the light of Shanga, he had -changed physically. Bone and flesh had altered under the accelerated -urging of glands and increased metabolism.</p> - -<p>Already a big, powerful man, he had thickened and coarsened along -lines of brutish strength. His jaw and brow ridges jutted. Thick hair -covered his chest and limbs and extended in a rudimentary mane down the -back of his neck. His deep-set eyes had a hard and cunning gleam of -intelligence, but it was the intelligence of the primitive mind that -had learned to speak and make fire and weapons, and no more than that.</p> - -<p>Half crouching, he glared down at the crowd. He did not know who these -men were, he hated them. They were of another tribe, and their very -smell was alien. They hated him, too. The air bristled with their -enmity.</p> - -<p>His gaze fell on a man who stepped out lightly and proudly into the -empty space. He did not remember that this man's name was Kor Hal. -He did not notice that Kor Hal had shed the white tunic of the Trade -Cities for the kilt and girdle of the Low Canals, nor that he wore in -his ears the pierced gold rings of Barrakesh, and was now honestly -himself—a bandit, born and bred among a race of bandits who had been -civilized for so long that they could afford to forget it.</p> - -<p>Burk knew only that this man was his particular enemy.</p> - -<p>"Captain Burk Winters," said Kor Hal. "Man of the tribe of Terra—lords -of the spaceways, builders of the Trade Cities, masters of greed and -rapine."</p> - -<p>His voice carried over the packed square, though he did not shout. -Burk watched him, his eyes like blinking red sparks in the torchlight, -weaving slightly on his feet, his hands swinging loose and hungry. He -did not understand the words, but they were threat and insult.</p> - -<p>"Look at him, oh men of Valkis!" cried Kor Hal. "He is our master now. -His government kings it over the City-States of Mars. Our pride is -stripped, our wealth is gone. What have we left, oh children of a dying -world?"</p> - -<p>The answer that rang from the walls of Valkis was soft and wordless, -the opening chord of a hymn written in hell.</p> - -<p>Someone threw a stone.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Burk came down off the slave block in a great effortless spring and -sped across the square, straight for Kor Hal's throat.</p> - -<p>A laugh went up, mirth that was half a cat-scream of sheer savagery. -Like one supple creature, the crowd moved. Torchlight flashed from -knife-blades and jewels and eyes of glittering green and topaz, -and the small chiming bells, and the points of the deadly spiked -knuckle-dusters. Long black tongues of whips licked out with a hiss and -a crack.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal waited until Burk almost reached him. Then he bent and pivoted -in the graceful Martian savatte. His foot caught Burk under the chin -and sent him sprawling.</p> - -<p>As he rolled half stunned, Kor Hal caught a whip from a man's hand.</p> - -<p>"That's it, Earthman!" he cried out. "Grovel! Belly down, and lick the -stones that were here before the apes of Earth had learned to walk!"</p> - -<p>The long lash sang and bit, lacing the hairy body with red weals, and -the harsh mob scream went up—<i>Drive him! Drive the beast of Shanga, as -the invading beasts of old were driven by our fore-fathers!</i></p> - -<p>And they drove him, with whip and knife and spike, through the streets -of Valkis under the racing moons. Jeering, they drove him.</p> - -<p>He fought them. Mad with fury, he fought them, but he could not come to -grips with them. When he lunged they melted before him, and each way -he turned he was met by the lash and the blade and the crippling kick. -Blood ran, but it was all his own, and the high shrill laughter of -women pursued him as he went.</p> - -<p>He wanted to kill. The lust of killing was more red and strong within -him than his blood. But he reeled under the pain of many blows, and his -sight was dim, and where his great hands closed on flesh to tear it, -he was himself torn and driven back, dragged down by the lashes curled -around his throat.</p> - -<p>At last there was only fear and the desire to escape.</p> - -<p>They let him run. Along the crumbling ways of Valkis, up and down the -twisting alleys that reeked of ancient crime, they let him run. But not -too far. They blocked him off from the canal and the freedom of the -sea bottom beyond. Again and again they headed the panting, shambling -creature that had been Burk Winters, captain of the <i>Starflight</i>, and -drove it higher up the slope.</p> - -<p>Burk moved slowly now. He snarled and his head wove blindly from side -to side in a pathetic attempt at defiance. His blood dripped hot on the -stones. And always the insolent stinging lashes drove him on.</p> - -<p>Up and up. Past the great looming docks, with the bollards and the -scars of moored ships still on them, and the dust of their own decay -lapping dry around their feet. Four levels above the canal. Four -harbours, four cities, four epochs written in fading characters of -stone. Even the dawn-man Burk was oppressed and frightened.</p> - -<p>There was no life here. There had been no life for a long time, even in -the lowest level. The wind had scoured and polished the empty houses, -smoothing the corners to roundness, hollowing the doors and windows, -until the work of man was almost erased. Only strange things were left, -that looked as though the wind had made them by itself out of little -mountain tops.</p> - -<p>The people of Valkis were silent now. They drove the beast, and their -hate had not abated, but was intensified.</p> - -<p>They walked here upon the very bones of their world. Earth was a green -star, young and rich. Here the Martians passed the marble pier where -the Kings of Valkis had moored their galleys, and the very marble was -shattered under the heel of time.</p> - -<p>High on the ridge above the oldest city the palace of the kings looked -down at the scourging of the interloper. And in all of Valkis now there -was no sound but the whispering of little bells that was like the sigh -of wind on another world, where the women ran on their small bare feet, -ankle deep in dust.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Burk climbed apelike up the history of Mars. His belly was cold with a -terror of these dark places that smelled of nothing, not even of death.</p> - -<p>He passed a place where houses had been built within the curve of a -coral reef. He clambered over the reef, and saw above him a sloping -face of rock with gaping holes that the sea had made. He climbed that, -not knowing or caring what it was.</p> - -<p>On the level space above he passed the broken quays that had once made -safe mooring in the bay, and stopped to look back.</p> - -<p>They were still hunting him. His flanks heaved and his eyes were -desperate. He went on, scrambling up steep narrow streets where the -paving blocks had fallen out and the houses had come down in shapeless -heaps, and his hands and feet left red prints where he put them down.</p> - -<p>Then, at last, he was at the top of the ridge.</p> - -<p>The great bulk of the palace loomed above him against the sky. -Primitive wisdom told him the place was dangerous. He skirted the high -wall of marble that ringed it, and suddenly his twitching nostrils -caught the scent of water.</p> - -<p>His tongue was swollen in his mouth, his throat choked with dust. His -need was so great, with the salt bleeding and the fever of his wounds, -that he forgot his enemies and the menace of the mountain-thing behind -the wall. Breaking into a ragged lope, he went forward along the cliff -top until he came to a gateway, and plunged through it, and suddenly -there was turf under his feet, soft and cool. There were shrubs, and -flowers pale in the moonlight, heavily sweet, and dark branches against -the sky.</p> - -<p>The gate closed silently behind him. He did not see it. He ran down a -grassy ride between rows of trees trimmed into fantastic shapes, guided -by the smell of water. Here and there were strange gleams and glints -of statuary, wrought in marble and semi-precious stones. Burk's skin -crawled with an awareness of danger, but he was too weary and too mad -with thirst to care.</p> - -<p>The ride ended. Beyond was an open space, and in the center of it was -a great sunken tank, carved and ornamented. The water in it was like -polished jet.</p> - -<p>Nothing stirred in the open. A wing of the palace rose beyond the tank -like a black wall, and it seemed that nothing lived there, but Burk's -hair-trigger nerves told him otherwise. He stopped in the shelter of -the trees, sniffing the air and listening.</p> - -<p>Nothing. Darkness and silence. Burk looked at the waiting water. It -filled all his senses. Suddenly he ran toward it.</p> - -<p>He flung himself belly down on the slabs of turquoise that paved the -brink and buried his face in the icy water and drank. Then he lay there -panting, utterly spent.</p> - -<p>Still nothing moved.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Then, all at once, a long howl rose on the night, from somewhere beyond -the palace wing. Burk stiffened. He got to his hands and knees, every -hair on his body bristling with fear.</p> - -<p>The howl was answered by a strange reptilian scream.</p> - -<p>Now that he had satisfied his thirst, the night wind brought him many -odours. They were too numerous and tangled to be identified, except -for a strong musky taint that made his flesh crawl with instinctive -loathing. He did not know what sort of creature gave off that taint, -but it filled him with horror, because it seemed that he <i>almost -knew</i>—and did not want to.</p> - -<p>He wanted only to get away from that place, that was so full of secret -life and hidden menace and silence.</p> - -<p>He began to move toward the trees, back the way he had come. Slowly, -because he was wounded and very weak. And then, quite suddenly, he saw -her.</p> - -<p>She had come without sound into the open space, out of the shelter of -huge flowering shrubs. She stood not far away, in the shifting glow -of the little racing moons, watching him. She was shy and large-eyed, -poised for flight. The hair that hung down her back and the shining -down that covered her body were the colour of the moonlight.</p> - -<p>Burk stopped. A tremor went through him. All his sense of loss and his -desperate searching came back to him, and with them a desire to be -closer to this slender she.</p> - -<p>A name spoke itself from some dim chamber of his soul. "Jill?"</p> - -<p>She started. He thought she was going to run away, and he cried out -again, "Jill!" Then, step by step, uncertainly, she came nearer, lovely -as a fawn in spring.</p> - -<p>She made a questioning sound, and he answered. "Burk." She stood still -for a moment, repeating the word, and then she whimpered and began to -run toward him, and he was filled with a great joy. He laughed and -mouthed her name over and over, and there were tears in his eyes. He -reached out toward her.</p> - -<p>A spear flashed and fell quivering between them.</p> - -<p>She gave him a cry of warning and fled, vanishing into the shrubbery. -Burk tried to follow, but his knees gave under him. He turned, snarling.</p> - -<p>Tall Keshi guards in resplendent harness had come out of the trees, -circling behind him. They carried spears and a net of heavy ropes. In a -moment he was surrounded. The spear-points pricked him back until the -net was thrown, and he went down helpless.</p> - -<p>As they carried him away, he heard two things. The wail of the silver -she, and from somewhere nearby, a woman's mocking laughter.</p> - -<p>He had heard that laughter before. He could not remember where, or how, -but it filled him with such fury that he was finally knocked over the -head with a spear-butt, to keep him quiet.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">III</p> - -<p>He came to himself—the self that was Captain Burk Winters—in a room -that was much like the one he last remembered, in Valkis, except that -the walls were of a dark green rock and there was no prism.</p> - -<p>Winters could remember nothing of what had happened since that last -room, except that he knew he had had a strong emotional shock. Jill's -name was uppermost in his mind. He began to tremble with a deep -excitement.</p> - -<p>He got to his feet, and it was then that he realized he was shackled. -Chains ran from cuffs on his wrists to similar cuffs on his ankles, -passing through rings on a metal belt around his waist. These -constituted his entire clothing. He saw also that there freshly healed -scars on his body.</p> - -<p>The heavy door was opened for him before he could begin to pound on it. -Four tall barbarians, their harness magnificent with jewels and wrought -metal, formed up a guard around him, and an officer led the way. They -did not speak to Winters, and he knew the uselessness of trying to get -anything out of them.</p> - -<p>He had not the faintest idea where he was, or how he had come there, -beyond a vague memory of pain and flight that was like something he had -dreamed.</p> - -<p>And somewhere, during that dream, he had seen Jill, spoken to her. He -was as certain of that as he was of the weight of his chains.</p> - -<p>He stumbled, because his sight was blurred with tears. Up to then, he -had not been sure. He had seen the twisted wreck of her flier, and -while he did not believe it, there was always the chance that she might -really be dead, and lost to him beyond all hope.</p> - -<p>Now he knew. She was alive, and if Winters had been alone he would have -wept like a child.</p> - -<p>Instead, he studied the corridors and the great halls through which the -guard took him. From the size and the splendour of them he knew that he -was in a palace, and guessed that it might be the one he had seen on -the cliffs above Valkis. This was confirmed when he caught a glimpse of -the town through a window embrasure.</p> - -<p>The palace was older than anything he had seen on Mars, except for the -buried ruins of Lhak in the northern deserts. But this was no ruin. It -had grown old in sombre beauty. The patterns of the mosaic floors were -blurred, the precious stones worn thin as porcelain. The tapestries, -preserved by the wonderful Martian formula that had been lost for -centuries, like everything else on Mars, had grown frail and brittle, -their colours all softened to faint glows, infinitely sad and lovely.</p> - -<p>Here and there, on the walls or the soaring vault of a roof, were -murals—magnificent pageants of lost glory, dim as an old man's memory. -The seas they pictured were deep and blue, and the ships were tall, and -the mail of the warriors was set with gems, and the captive queens were -beautiful as dusky pearls.</p> - -<p>Proud architecture, mating beauty with strength, and showing that -strange blend of culture and barbarism that is so typically Martian. -Winters reflected on how long ago these stones had been quarried, and -went on to reflect that at that time civilization had already destroyed -itself in a series of atomic wars, and the proud Kings of Valkis were -only bandit chieftains in a world that was slipping downward toward the -night.</p> - -<p>They came at length to doors of beaten gold that were more than twice -Burk's six-foot height. The Keshi guards who stood there pushed them -wide, and Burk saw the throne room.</p> - -<p>Westering sunlight slanted in from the high embrasures, falling across -the pillars and the tessellated floor. The pale light touched vagrant -glints from the shields and the weapons of dead kings, warmed the -old banners to brief life. Everywhere else in that vast place was a -brooding darkness, full of whispers and small faint echoings.</p> - -<p>A shaft of cool gold fell directly upon the throne at the far end of -the room.</p> - -<p>The high seat itself was cut from a single block of black basalt, and -as Winters approached it, his swinging chains making a loud sound in -the silence, he saw that the stone had been already half shaped by the -sea. It was very worn and smooth with the patient sanding of the tides, -and where hands had lain on the arm-pieces there were deep hollows, and -on the basalt step below.</p> - -<p>An old woman sat upon the throne. She was wrapped in a black cloak, and -her hair wound into a sort of white crown on her head, braided with -jewels. She stared with half-blind eyes at the Earthman, and suddenly -she spoke, in sonorous High Martian, a tongue as antique on Mars as -Sanskrit is on Earth. Winters could not understand one word of it, but -he knew from her tone and expression that she was quite mad.</p> - -<p>Someone sat in the heavy shadows by her feet, outside the shaft of -sunlight, and veiled by it from Winter's sight. He could catch only -a vague pallor of ivory-tinted flesh, but for some reason his nerves -tingled with premonition.</p> - -<p>As he neared the high seat, the old woman rose and stretched out her -arm toward him, a wrinkled Cassandra crying doom upon his head. The -wild echoes of her voice rolled from the vaulted roof, and her eyes -were full of a blazing hate.</p> - -<p>The guards set the butts of their spears into his back so that he was -thrown face down before the basalt step. A low, sweet, mocking laugh -came out of the shadows, and he felt the pressure of a little sandaled -foot on his neck.</p> - -<p>He knew the voice that said, "Greeting, Captain Winters! The throne of -Valkis welcomes you."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The foot was withdrawn from his neck. He rose. The old woman had fallen -back onto the throne. She was intoning what sounded like a church -litany, and her upturned face had an exalted look.</p> - -<p>The remembered voice said out of the dimness, "My mother is repeating -the coronation rites. Presently she will demand the year's tribute -from the Outer Islands and the coastal tribes. Time and reality do not -bother her, and it pleases her to play at being queen. Therefore, as -you see, I, Fand, rule Valkis from the shadow of the throne."</p> - -<p>"Sometimes," Winters said, "You must come into the light."</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>A soft, quick rustle and she was standing there in the shaft of -sunlight. Her hair was the colour of night after moonset, intricately -coiled. She was dressed in the old, arrogant fashion of the bandit -kingdoms—the long full skirt slit to the waist at the sides, so that -her thighs showed when she moved, the wide jeweled girdle, collar of -golden plaques. Her small, high breasts were bare and lovely, her body -slender, with a catlike grace.</p> - -<p>Her face was as he remembered it. Proud and fine, golden-eyed, a mouth -like a red fruit that mingled honey and poison, a lazy, slumberous -power behind the beauty, the fascination of all things that are at once -beautiful and deadly.</p> - -<p>She looked at Winters and smiled. "So at last you have reached the end -of your search."</p> - -<p>He looked down at his chains and his nakedness. "A strange way to reach -it. I paid Kor Hal well for this privilege." He gave her a searching -glance. "Do you rule Shanga, as well as Valkis? If so, you're not very -courteous to your guests."</p> - -<p>"On the contrary, I treat them very well—as you shall see." Her golden -eyes taunted him. "But you didn't come here to practice Shanga, Captain -Winters."</p> - -<p>"Why else would I have come?"</p> - -<p>"To find Jill Leland."</p> - -<p>He was not really surprised. Subconsciously he had known that she knew. -But he managed a look of blank amazement.</p> - -<p>"Jill Leland is dead."</p> - -<p>"Was she, when you saw her in the garden, and spoke to her?" Fand -laughed. "Do you think we're such fools? Everyone who comes to the -Hall of Shanga in the Trade Cities is carefully checked and examined. -We were particularly careful with you, Captain Winters, because -psychologically you were the wrong type to be drawn to Shanga. Men like -you are too strong to need escape.</p> - -<p>"You knew, of course, that your fiancee had taken up the practice. You -didn't like it, and tried to make her stop. Kor Hal said that she was -terribly upset about it on several occasions. But Jill had gone too far -to stop. She begged to be allowed the full power, the real Shanga. She -helped us plan her supposed death in the sea bottom. We would have done -that anyway, for our own protection, since the girl has influential -connections and we can't afford to have people hunting for our clients. -But she wanted you to believe that she was dead, so that you would -forget her. She felt she had no right to marry you, that she would ruin -your life. Doesn't that touch you, Captain Winters? Doesn't that bring -tears to your eyes?"</p> - -<p>It brought more than that to Winters. It brought an overpowering urge -to take this lovely she-devil between his hands and break her and then -stamp the pieces into the earth.</p> - -<p>His chains made one harsh jangling sound, and then the spears came up -and touched his flesh with sharp red kisses. He stood still and said,</p> - -<p>"Why have you done this? Is it for money, or for hate?"</p> - -<p>"For both, Earthman! And for something more important than either of -them." Her lips curved in brief amusement. "Besides, I've done nothing -to your people. I built the Halls of Shanga, yes. But the men and women -of Earth degrade themselves of their own free will. Come here."</p> - -<p>She motioned him to follow her to the window. As she crossed the vast -room, she said,</p> - -<p>"You have seen part of the palace. Earth credits have rebuilt and -restored the house of my fathers. The credits of apelings who wish to -return to their normal state because the civilization they have forced -themselves is too much for them. Look out there. Earth money has done -that, too."</p> - -<p>Winters looked out upon a sight that had almost vanished from the face -of Mars. A garden, the varied and jewel-bright garden that would have -belonged with a palace like this. Broad lawns of bronze green turf, -formal plantings, statuary....</p> - -<p>For some reason he could not quite remember, that garden gave Burk -Winters a cold shuddering chill.</p> - -<p>But the garden itself was only a part of what he saw. A small part. -Beneath the window the ground sloped away into a vast bowl-shaped -depression, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, and Winters looked down -into an amphitheatre. Ruined as it was, it was still magnificent, with -tiers of seats rising like steps of hewn stone from the inner walls. He -thought of how it must have looked when the games were held in the old -days, with all of those thousands of places filled.</p> - -<p>Now, in the arena, there was another garden. A wild and tangled garden, -closed in by the high protective walls that had kept the beasts from -the spectators. There were trees in it, and open spaces, and he could -make out moving forms among the shadows, strange forms. He could not -see them clearly for the distance and the slanting light, but a chill -pang struck through him, a cold breath of foreboding.</p> - -<p>In the center of the arena was a lake. Not a large one, and probably -not deep, but there were creatures splashing in it, and he caught the -faint echo of a reptilian scream. An echo he had heard before....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Fand was looking outward to the amphitheatre, with an odd, slow smile. -Winters saw that there were people already in the lower tiers of the -seats, and more of them gathering.</p> - -<p>"What is this thing," he asked her, "that is more important than money -or your hatred for the men of Earth?"</p> - -<p>All the ancient pride of her race and house flashed out in her eyes as -she answered him. He forgot his loathing of her for a moment, in his -respect for her deep sincerity.</p> - -<p>She said only one word. "Mars."</p> - -<p>The old woman heard her and cried out from the throne. Then she flung -the corner of her black mantle over her head and was silent.</p> - -<p>"Mars," said Fand quietly. "The world that could not even die in -decency and honour, because the carrion birds came flying to pick its -bones, and the greedy rats suck away the last of its blood and pride."</p> - -<p>Winters said, "I don't understand. What has Shanga to do with Mars?"</p> - -<p>"You'll see." She turned on him suddenly. "You challenged Shanga, -Earthman, just as your people have challenged Mars. We'll find out -which is the stronger!"</p> - -<p>She motioned to the officer of the guard, who went away. Then she said -to Winters,</p> - -<p>"You wanted your girl back. You were willing to go through the fire -of Shanga for her, though you abhorred it. You were willing to risk -your identity through the changes of the ray—<i>which after a while, -Earthman, never go away</i>. And all for Jill Leland. Do you still want -her back?"</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"You're sure of that."</p> - -<p>"Yes."</p> - -<p>"Very well." Fand glanced over his shoulder and nodded. "There she is."</p> - -<p>For a long moment, Burk Winters did not turn around.</p> - -<p>Fand moved away a little, watching, with a cruel, amused interest. -Winters' back stiffened. He turned.</p> - -<p>She was there, standing in the sunlight, bewildered, frightened, a wild -and shining creature out of the dawn of the world, with a rope around -her neck. The guards were laughing.</p> - -<p>Winters thought desperately, <i>She has not changed too much. Back to the -primitive, but not yet to the ape. There is a soul still in her eyes, -and the light of reason.</i></p> - -<p><i>Jill, Jill! How could you have done this thing?</i></p> - -<p>But he understood now how she could have done it. He remembered how -bitterly he had quarreled with her over Shanga. He had thought it -a stupid and childish thing, far beneath her intelligence and as -degrading as any other drug. But he had not understood.</p> - -<p>He did now. And he was filled with a deadly fear, because he understood -so well.</p> - -<p>Because he himself was now numbered among the beasts of Shanga. And -beneath his horror as he looked at the creature that was Jill and -yet not Jill, he was aware that in some unholy way he found her -more beautiful and more alluring than he ever had before. Stripped -of all the shams and the studied unconventions of society, freed of -all complexity, her body strong and fleet as a doe's quivering with -sensitive life....</p> - -<p><i>It would take two of a kind. Dawn-woman, dawn-man. Strong sinew, -strong passion, the guts that cities stole away....</i></p> - -<p>Fand said, "She can still be saved, if you can find a way to do it." -Then she added shrewdly, "Unless you now need someone to save <i>you</i>, -Captain Winters!"</p> - -<p>A strong shock of revulsion rocked him, but his eyes still held a -strange light.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The silver she was coming toward him. Her gaze was fixed upon him. He -saw that she was drawn to him, and struggling to understand why. She -did not speak, and somehow Winters' throat closed on an aching lump, -so that he too was dumb.</p> - -<p>The guard who held her rope let her move as she would. She came close -to Winters, hesitantly, as an animal does. Then she stopped and looked -up into his face. Tears gathered in her wide dark eyes. Presently she -whimpered, very softly, and went down on her knees at his feet.</p> - -<p>The old woman let out a shrill cackling. Fand's eyes were like cups of -molten gold.</p> - -<p>Winters bent over and caught Jill in his arms. He lifted her to her -feet and stood holding her to him, in a fury of protective possessive -love. He said very softly to Fand,</p> - -<p>"You've seen it all now. Can we go?"</p> - -<p>She nodded. "Take them to the garden of Shanga," she said, and added, -"It is almost time."</p> - -<p>The guards took them, Burk Winters and the woman he had lost and found -again, out through the great echoing halls of the palace and down the -long slope of lawn to the amphitheatre.</p> - -<p>A barred gate of heavy metal covered the mouth of a tunnel. The guards -unlocked it and took off Winters' chains and thrust him inside with -Jill. The gate was locked again behind them.</p> - -<p>Holding Jill tightly by the hand, Winters went down the tunnel and came -presently into the arena—into the garden of Shanga.</p> - -<p>He stopped, blinking in the sudden light. Jill's hand tightened on his. -She quivered with a tense expectancy, and her head was tilted in an -attitude of listening.</p> - -<p>He had only a moment before the gong sounded, the mellow sonorous notes -that might have been calling some evil priesthood to its dark prayers. -Only a moment to glimpse the trees and the shambling anthropoid forms -that moved among them, to catch the rank beast taint in the air, to -hear the splashing and the hissing screams from the hidden pool.</p> - -<p>Only a moment to be filled with horror and a sick fear, to deny to -himself the reality of this nightmare garden, to wish that he were -blind and deaf, or better than that, dead.</p> - -<p>In the seats above the protecting wall, rows of Martian faces looked -down. They were the faces of men and women who watch the antics -of creatures in a zoo—destructive creatures for which they have a -personal hatred.</p> - -<p>Then the gong called out, and Jill leaped away, pulling him by the -hand. All over the garden there was a moment of intense silence, and -then there rose a devil's chorus of roaring and screaming in voices -that were horribly human and even more horribly not, and close to him -Jill's voice chimed in, saying over and over,</p> - -<p>"Shanga! Shanga!"</p> - -<p>It came to Winters in a flash, then, what Fand had meant about Mars. As -Jill pulled him headlong between the trees and across the open grassy -spaces, he realized that this garden of Shanga was in fact a zoo, an -exhibit, where the people of Mars might come to see what manner of -beast their economic conquerors were. A hot and dire shame rose in -him. <i>Apeling, running naked through the trees, a slave to the fire of -Shanga!</i></p> - -<p>He yelled at Jill to stop!</p> - -<p>She only plunged on the harder, so that he had to fight her, setting -his heels in the earth. And she turned on him snarling, saying, -"Shanga!"</p> - -<p>A great anthropoid male came rushing toward them. He had slipped back -beyond speech, but ecstatic noises came out of his throat. Behind him -were others, males, females, and young on the same evolutionary level. -Winters and the silver she that was Jill were caught up and carried on -in their tribal rush. Winters fought to get away, but it was hopeless. -The wild hairy bodies walled him in.</p> - -<p>As they approached the center of the garden they were joined by more -and more, all apparently summoned by the sound of the gong. Looking -at them, Winters' stomach turned over. This was Walpurgis Night, a -festival of blasphemies. And he was trapped in it, inextricably joined -to destruction.</p> - -<p>The ones like Jill, who had only gone a little way as yet, were not so -bad. They were human. Winters knew that he himself had been like that, -and he felt no particular horror of them. But there were others. Back -through all the stages of the primitive, beyond the Neanderthaler, -beyond the Piltdown Man, beyond Pithecanthropus Erectus, beyond the -missing Link, back to the common ancestor.</p> - -<p>Shapeless, shambling, hairy brutes, deformed skulls and little red -cunning eyes, bared teeth grinning yellow. Things that even the -anthropologists had never seen or dreamed of. Things that were not -human, or ape, nor any form of life that had ever been classified.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p><i>All the dark secrets of Terran evolution were laid bare in this garden of evil, under that prism of hell!</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>All the dark secrets of Terran evolution were laid bare in this garden, -for the Martians to see. It made even Winters, the Earthman, flinch -to think that bodies like that had given ultimate birth to him. What -respect could the Martians have for such a race, that was still so -close to its beginnings?</p> - -<p>But he was to see more, much more, of those beginnings....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The gong struck a last booming summons. The tide of bowed hairy -shoulders and flat brows and ugly things that went on all fours swept -Winters and Jill out into the clearing at the center, where from the -palace window he had seen the lake. A strong musky reek hung in the -air. It had the same sickly taint that a snake-house does. And Winters -saw that the lake was agitated by the creatures who lived there, and -who were swarming out to answer the gong.</p> - -<p><i>Back to the common ancestor, and beyond. Beyond the mammal, back -to the gill and the scale, to the egg laid in the warm mud, to the -hissing, squirming, utterly loathly ultimate!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Jill panted, "Shanga! Shanga!", looking up, and Winters felt a darkness -swimming in his brain. A cold wet thing slithered between his legs, and -he swayed, retching. The surface of the lake rippled, but he would not -look. He could not.</p> - -<p>Grasping Jill, he tried to batter his way through the crowd, but it was -hopeless. He was caught, trapped.</p> - -<p>Looking up, he saw the prisms that were set high overhead on long -booms. He saw them start to glow, with the remembered flame.</p> - -<p>He had reached the end, now. The end of his search for Jill Leland, the -end of everything. The first sweet deadly thrill of the ray touched his -flesh. He felt the waking hunger in him, the deep lust, the stirring -of the beast that lay so close under his own skin. He thought of the -lake, and wondered how it would be to lie in its wetness, breathing -through the gill slits that had once opened in his own flesh when he -was an embryo in his mother's womb.</p> - -<p><i>Because that is where I shall be, he thought. In the lake. Jill and I. -And beyond the lake, what? The amoeba, and then...?</i></p> - -<p>He saw the royal box, whence the Kings of Valkis had watched the -gladiators and the flowing blood. Fand sat there now. She leaned her -slender elbows on the stone and watched, and it seemed to Winters that -even at this distance he could see the smile and the scorn in her -golden eyes. Kor Hal sat beside her, and the old woman, a muffled shape -of black.</p> - -<p>The fires of Shanga burned and brightened. There was a silence on -the clearing now. The sounds that came, the moanings and the little -whimpers, did not touch the silence. They only made it deeper. The warm -glints danced on the upturned faces, glowed in the staring eyes. Each -scaled or shaggy body bore a nimbus of beauty. He saw Jill standing -there, reaching up toward the twin suns, a slim shaft of silver flame.</p> - -<p>The madness already in his blood. Muscle and sinew taut with -it, arching, curving. Brain clouding with a bright soft veil, -forgetfulness, release. Jill and Burk, dawn-man, dawn-woman, happy -while they lived, done with everything but their own love, their own -satisfaction. Why not? They were both in it now, both marked with the -same stamp.</p> - -<p>Then he heard the laughter and the jeering of the Martians who were -gathered to watch the shame of his world. He tore his gaze away from -the wicked light and looked again into the face of Fand of Valkis, and -then at Kor Hal and the thousand other faces, and a bleak and terrible -expression came into his eyes.</p> - -<p>The ranks of the crowd had broken. The beast-shapes lay upon the turf, -writhing in the ecstasy of Shanga. Jill was on her hands and knees. -Winters felt the strength going out of him. The lovely pain, the -beautiful, wild, exultant pain....</p> - -<p>He grasped Jill and began to drag her, back toward the trees, out of -the circle of light.</p> - -<p>She did not want to go. She screamed and tore his face with her nails -and kicked him, and he struck her. After that she lay limp in his arms. -He kept on, stumbling over the twitching bodies, falling, crawling at -last on his hands and knees. Only one thing kept him going on. Only one -thing made him undergo the tortures of the damned, fighting Shanga.</p> - -<p>That thing was the scornful, smiling face of Fand.</p> - -<p>The touch of the ray weakened and was gone. He was safe, beyond the -circle. He dragged the girl farther into the shrubbery and turned his -back on the clearing because he wanted more than any drug addict could -conceive of wanting to go back into the light, and he dared not look at -it.</p> - -<p>Instead, he pulled himself erect and faced the royal box. It was only -pride that kept him standing. He looked straight into the distant eyes -of Fand, and her clear silvery voice carried to him.</p> - -<p>"You will go back into the fire of Shanga, Earthman. Tomorrow, or the -day after—you will go."</p> - -<p>Complete assurance there, as one is sure of the rising of the sun.</p> - -<p>Burk Winters did not answer. He stood a moment longer, his gaze level -on Fand's. Then even pride failed. He fell and lay still.</p> - -<p>The last conscious thought of his mind was that Fand and Mars together -had challenged Earth, and that it was no longer merely a matter of -saving a girl from destruction.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">IV</p> - -<p>When he came to, it was night. Jill sat patiently beside him. She had -brought him food, and while he wolfed it down she went away to fetch -water in a broad cupped leaf.</p> - -<p>He tried to talk to her, but there was a gulf between them too wide -to be bridged. She seemed subdued and brooding, and would not come -close to him. He had robbed her of the fire of Shanga, and she had not -forgotten it.</p> - -<p>The futility of trying to escape with her was obvious. After a while he -rose and left her, and she did not try to follow.</p> - -<p>The garden was still under the light of the low moons. Apparently the -beasts of Shanga, true to their ape heritage, were sleeping. Moving -with infinite caution, Winters prowled the arena in search of a way -out. A plan had taken shape in his mind. It was not much of a plan, and -he knew that very probably he would be dead before morning, but he had -nothing to lose. He did not even particularly care. He was a man, an -Earthman, and there was an anger in him that was deeper than any fear.</p> - -<p>The walls of the arena were smooth and high. Even an ape could not -have climbed them. All the tunnels were blocked off except the one by -which they had entered. He crept down it and found the barred gate -impenetrable. Beyond it was a little guard fire, and two sentries.</p> - -<p>Winters went back to the arena.</p> - -<p>He could see no sign of a guard in the empty tiers of seats. There -was no reason for one. In itself, the amphitheatre was a perfect -prison, and the creatures of the garden had no wish to escape from the -besotting joys of Shanga.</p> - -<p>Whipped before he started, Winters stood glaring bitterly at the walls -that held him fast. Then he caught sight of the booms from which the -Shanga prisms were suspended.</p> - -<p>Going to the nearest one, he studied it. It was high out of reach, -a long metal pole that stretched from the side of the arena above -the wall and, with the other one, centered the Shanga-rays over the -clearing.</p> - -<p>High out of reach. But if a man had a rope....</p> - -<p>Winters went in among the trees. He found vines and creepers, and -tore them away, and knotted them together. He found a small log in a -deadfall, big enough to weight one end but light enough for throwing. -Then he returned to the boom.</p> - -<p>On the third cast the log went over. He drew his flimsy rope down, -making a double strand. Hand over hand, praying that the vines would -hold, he began to climb.</p> - -<p>It seemed like a long way up. He felt very naked and exposed in the -moonlight.</p> - -<p>The vines held, and no challenging voice shouted at him. He clung to -the boom and worked his way along it, first dropping the telltale rope. -Presently he was safe among the tiered seats.</p> - -<p>Avoiding the guard by the tunnel, he made his way out of the -amphitheatre and circled out across the slope, keeping to cover -where there was cover, crawling on his belly where there was none. -The shifting moon-shadows helped him, because they made visibility a -treacherous thing. The palace loomed above him, huge and dark, crushed -under the weight of time.</p> - -<p>Only two lights showed. One, on the ground floor, he guessed would be -the guard room. The other, on the third level, was dim as though made -by a single torch. That, he hoped, would be the apartment of Fand.</p> - -<p>Up the slope and into the shelter of the palace garden, and then into -the palace itself. The great half-ruined pile could not have been -guarded, even if there had been reason to guard it. Padding silently on -naked feet, Winters glided through the vast empty halls, trying to keep -a plan of the place straight in his mind.</p> - -<p>His eyes were accustomed to the dark, and enough moonlight fell through -the embrasures to let him see where he was going. Room and hall and -corridor, smelling of dust and death, dreaming over their faded flags -and broken trophies, remembering glory. Winters shivered. Something of -the cold breath of eternity lived in this place.</p> - -<p>He found a ramp, and then another, and at last on the third level he -saw light, the weak flicker of it from the crack of a door.</p> - -<p>There was no guard. That was a break. Not only because it was a -difficulty eliminated, but because it confirmed his guess that Fand was -a person who would want no check on her comings and goings. From the -standpoint of safety in this place, a guard would be only a useless -adornment. Fand was on her own ground here. There were no enemies.</p> - -<p>Save one.</p> - -<p>Winters opened the door without sound. A tiring maid slept on a low -couch. She did not stir as he passed. Beyond an open arch hung with -heavy curtains he found the lady Fand.</p> - -<p>She slept in a huge carved bed, the bed of the Kings of Valkis. She -looked like a child lost in its hugeness. She was very beautiful. Very -wicked, and most damnably beautiful.</p> - -<p>Winters struck her, quite ruthlessly. Sleep became unconsciousness. -There was no outcry. With silks and girdles he found in the room he -bound and gagged her, and flung her light weight over his shoulder. -Then he went back the way he had come, silently out of the palace.</p> - -<p>It was as easy as that. He had not thought it would be easy, but it -was. After all, he thought, men seldom guard against the impossible.</p> - -<p>Phobos had gone on its careening flight around Mars, and Deimos was -too low to give much light. Now carrying the unconscious Fand, now -dragging her across the open spaces, Winters made his way back to -the amphitheatre. In and across the tiered seats to the wall. It was -a twenty-foot drop, but he made it as easy as he could on her. He -didn't want her dead. Then he slid over himself, hung briefly by his -fingertips, and fell into cushioning brush.</p> - -<p>When he got his breath back he made sure that Fand was not hurt. -Then he carried her swiftly into the shelter of the unholy garden. -Remembering a particularly dense patch of shrubbery near the central -clearing, he made for it and crept thankfully into concealment with the -heir of all the Kings of Valkis.</p> - -<p>Then he waited.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Her eyes were looking up at him in the dim light, bitter gold above the -gag of scarlet silk.</p> - -<p>"Yes," he said, "you're here, in the garden of Shanga. I brought you -here. We have a bargain to talk about, Fand."</p> - -<p>He undid the gag, keeping his hand close over her mouth lest she should -cry out.</p> - -<p>She said, "There will be no bargain between us, Earthman."</p> - -<p>"Your life, Fand. Your life for mine, and Jill's, and the others here -who can still be saved. Destroy the prisms, stop this madness, and you -can live to be as old and crazy as your mother."</p> - -<p>There was no fear in her. Unbending pride, and hatred, but no fear. She -laughed.</p> - -<p>He put his hand on her throat, his fingers reaching iron-strong around -her neck. "Slim," he said. "Soft, and tender. It would snap so easily."</p> - -<p>"Break it, then. Shanga will go on without me. Kor Hal will take over. -And you, Burk Winters—you can't escape." Her teeth showed white in a -taunting smile. "You'll run with the beasts. No man can break free from -Shanga."</p> - -<p>Winters nodded. "I know that," he said quietly. "Therefore I must -destroy Shanga before it destroys me."</p> - -<p>She looked at him, naked and unarmed, crouching in the brush. Once -more, she laughed.</p> - -<p>He shrugged. "Perhaps it is impossible. I won't know that until it's -too late, anyway. It isn't really me I'm worried about, Fand. I could -be perfectly happy running on all fours through your garden. Probably -I would be perfectly happy hissing and wallowing in the lake. Now the -idea sickens me, but after a touch of Shanga it would be all right. No. -It isn't me that matters, nor even Jill."</p> - -<p>"What, then?"</p> - -<p>"Earth has its pride, too," he told her gravely. "It's a younger and -cruder pride than yours. It can become pretty ruthless and obnoxious at -times, I'll admit. But on the whole, Earth is a good planet, and her -people are good people, and she's done more to advance the Solar System -than all the other worlds put together. As an Earthman, I don't like to -see my world disgraced."</p> - -<p>He glanced up and around the amphitheatre. "I think," he went on, -"that Earth and Mars can learn a lot from each other, if the fanatics -on both sides will stop making trouble. You're the worst one I've -ever heard of, Fand. You go even beyond fanaticism." He looked at her -speculatively. "I think you're as mad right now as your mother."</p> - -<p>She did not flare up at that, which convinced him that she was not mad -at all, only twisted by the way she lived and the things she had been -taught.</p> - -<p>She said, "What do you plan to do about all this?"</p> - -<p>"Wait. Until dawn, or perhaps later. Anyway, until you've had time to -think. Then I shall give you a last chance. After that, I shall kill -you."</p> - -<p>She was smiling when he replaced the gag, and her eyes did not waver.</p> - -<p>The hours passed. Darkness into dawn, and then into full daylight. -Winters sat unmoving, his head bowed over his knees. Fand's eyes were -closed, and it seemed that she slept.</p> - -<p>The garden woke to life with the sun, and all around the dense thicket -Winters heard the padding footsteps and the growling of the beasts -of Shanga. The things in the shallow lake cried out, and their musky -taint soured the wind. Winters shivered like a man with fever and his -brooding eyes were haunted.</p> - -<p>After a while Jill came. Animal-like she had found him, animal-like she -came, slipping without sound through the brush. She would have cried -out at the sight of Fand, but he silenced her. She crouched beside him, -watching him. She was afraid of him and yet she could not stay away. He -stroked her shoulder. It was soft and strong and trembling under his -hand. Her gaze was doe-like, full of sadness and a bewildered yearning.</p> - -<p>Winters' face became as bleak and pitiless as the barren stars that -watch from outer space.</p> - -<p>The time grew very short. Jill began to look upward toward the prisms. -Winters sensed in her a growing nervousness.</p> - -<p>He shook Fand. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he knew what -her answer would be before he asked the question.</p> - -<p>"Well?"</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>For the first time, Winters smiled. "I have decided," he said, "not to -kill you after all."</p> - -<p>What he did after that was done quickly and efficiently, and there was -no one to see but Jill and Fand. Jill did not understand, the heiress -of the Kings of Valkis understood too well.</p> - -<p>People began to drift into the amphitheatre. Martians, coming to see -a show, coming to learn contempt and loathing for the men of Earth. -Winters watched them. He was still smiling.</p> - -<p>Suddenly he turned to Jill. When he rose a few minutes later, scratched -and panting, she was securely bound with strips torn from the bonds of -Fand. This time she would not bathe so helplessly in the fire of Shanga.</p> - -<p>The Martians gathered. Kor Hal came into the royal box, bringing the -old woman, who leaned on his arm.</p> - -<p>The gong sounded.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph1">V</p> - -<p>Once again, Winters watched the gathering of the beasts of Shanga. -Hidden in the thicket, beyond the reach of the rays, he saw the hairy -bodies rush and jostle toward the central clearing. He saw the shining -of their drugged eyes. He heard them moan and whimper, and all over the -garden the mouthing whisper went—<i>Shanga! Shanga!</i></p> - -<p>Jill writhed and thrashed in the agony of her desire, her cries muffled -by the wad of silk he had thrust into her mouth. Winters could not bear -to look at her. He knew how she was suffering. He was suffering himself.</p> - -<p>He saw that Kor Hal was leaning forward over the edge of the wall, -searching the garden. He knew what the Martian was looking for.</p> - -<p>The last notes of the gong rang out. A silence fell on the clearing. -Hairy anthropoid, shambling brute that ran on all fours, nameless -creatures beyond the ape, crawling thing with wet and shining -scales—all silent, all waiting.</p> - -<p>The prisms began to glow. The beautiful wicked fire of Shanga filled -the air. Burk Winters set his hand between his teeth and bit until the -blood ran.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that he could hear a faint thin screaming, rising out -of the flowering shrubs by the lake. Low, tough-stemmed shrubs that lay -under the full rays of the prisms.</p> - -<p><i>Shanga! Shanga!</i></p> - -<p>He had to go, into the clearing, into the fiery light. He could not -stand it. He must feel again the burning touch on his flesh, the -madness and the joy. He could not stay away.</p> - -<p>In desperation he flung himself down beside Jill and clung to her, -shuddering in torment.</p> - -<p>He heard Kor Hal's voice, calling his name.</p> - -<p>He steadied himself and rose, stepping out into the full sight of -the royal box. The Martians ranged on either side watched him with -interest, turning their attention momentarily from the orgy of the -beasts of Shanga.</p> - -<p>Winters said, "I'm here, Kor Hal."</p> - -<p>The man of Barrakesh looked at him and laughed. "Why fight it, Winters? -You can't keep away from Shanga."</p> - -<p>Winters asked, "Where is your high priestess? Has she wearied of the -sport?"</p> - -<p>Kor Hal shrugged. "Who knows the mind of the Lady Fand? She comes and -goes as she will." He leaned forward. "Go on, Winters! The fire of -Shanga is waiting. Look how he sweats there, trying to be a man! Go on, -apeling—join your brothers!"</p> - -<p>The shrill jeering laughter of the Martians fell upon Winters with the -sharpness of spears.</p> - -<p>He stood there, naked in the sunlight, his head held stubbornly erect, -and he did not move. He could not control the trembling of his limbs -nor the harshness of his breathing. The sweat ran in his eyes and -blinded him, and the fire of Shanga danced on the writhing bodies, and -he thought he would go mad with torment, but he stood there and would -not move. He thought he was going to die, but he would not move.</p> - -<p>And the Martians watched.</p> - -<p>Kor Hal said, "Tomorrow, then. Perhaps the next day—but you'll go, -Earthman."</p> - -<p>Winters knew that he would. He could not go through this again. If -he were still alive in the garden of Shanga the next time the gong -sounded, he would go with his brothers.</p> - -<p>The fire of Shanga died at last from the prisms, and the creatures of -its making lay still on the ground. The Martians sighed. The first stir -of departure ran through them.</p> - -<p>Burk Winters cried out, "Wait!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>His voice rang back from the empty upper tiers, and it brought every -eye upon him. There was desperation in it, and triumph, and the anger -of a man driven beyond the bounds of reason.</p> - -<p>"Wait, you men of Mars! You came to see a show. Very well, I'll give -you one. You, Kor Hal! You told me something, down there in Valkis. You -told me of the men of Caer Dhu who first made Shanga, and how in one -generation they were destroyed by it. <i>One</i> generation!"</p> - -<p>He stepped forward, finding release for his tortured nerves in this -denunciation.</p> - -<p>"We of Earth are a young race. We're still close to our beginnings, and -for that you hate and mock us, calling us apes. Very well. But that -youth gives us strength. We go very slowly down the road of Shanga.</p> - -<p>"But you of Mars are old. You have followed the circle of time a -long way round, and the end is always close to the beginning. In one -generation the men of Caer Dhu were gone. Our fibres are iron, but -theirs were only straw.</p> - -<p>"That's why no Martian will practice Shanga—why it was forbidden by -the City-States. You don't dare to practice it, because it hurls you -headlong down that road—toward your end or your beginning, who knows? -But you haven't the strength to take it, and you're afraid."</p> - -<p>A jeering, angry howl rose from the crowd. Kor Hal shouted,</p> - -<p>"Listen to the ape! Listen to the beast we drove through the streets of -Valkis!"</p> - -<p>"Yes, listen to him!" Winters cried. "Because the Lady Fand is gone, -and only the ape knows where she is!"</p> - -<p>That silenced them, and in the quiet Winters laughed.</p> - -<p>"Perhaps you don't believe me. Shall I tell you how I did it?" He told -them, and when he was through telling he listened, while they called -him liar, and he jeered in Kor Hal's face.</p> - -<p>"Wait," he shouted. "Wait, and I'll bring her to you."</p> - -<p>He turned and went toward the clearing. He went fast, because the -beasts were already beginning to stir and rouse from their temporary -stupor. He remembered from his own experience with Shanga that before -consciousness returned there was a period of delirium, so that even in -the Trade City solariums the people were not turned loose until it had -passed.</p> - -<p>Threading his way between the brutish bodies, leaping over them, -avoiding the touch of the scaly things, he came to the clump of -flowering shrubs by the lake and crawled in among them.</p> - -<p>He had not known. He had guessed from Kor Hal's statement that the -metamorphosis was swift, but he had not known. There were some things -that a man could not even guess at.</p> - -<p>In spite of himself, he cried out. He did not want to look at the thing -that lay there, did not even want to know that such a form of life had -existed, or could exist. But he had to look at it. He had to go close -to it, so that he might undo the silken bonds that held it to the roots -of the shrubs. He had to touch it. He had to lay his hands upon its -softness, lift its flaccid weight, hold its slippery squirming against -his own body.</p> - -<p>It had eyes. That was the worst of it. It had eyes, and it looked at -him.</p> - -<p>He went away from the thicket, carrying his burden. Back across the -clearing, where two great males were already fighting over a she, out -into the open space before the royal box, where all could plainly see.</p> - -<p>He lifted the thing over his head, high into the sunlight.</p> - -<p>"Here!" he shouted. "Don't you recognize her? Last of the royal house -of Valkis—the Lady Fand!"</p> - -<p>Around a portion of the wriggling anatomy that might once have been a -neck, the collar of golden plaques swung shining.</p> - -<p>For a moment he held her so, while the faces of the Martians stared -like the masks of dead men and Kor Hal rose and gripped the edges of -the stone. Then he laid his burden down and stepped back from it where -it moved horribly across the turf.</p> - -<p>"Look there, you Martians," he said. "That is your own beginning."</p> - -<p>In the utter, stricken silence the old woman rose. She stood for a -moment looking down, and it seemed that she was about to speak or cry -out, but no sound came. Then she fell, out over the wall and down the -sheer drop into the arena. She did not move again.</p> - -<p>As though she had led them, the Martians rose with one low terrible cry -and followed her. Not to death, as they dropped over the wall, but to -vengeance.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Winters ran. He had Jill free in a minute, dragging her away into -denser cover. The mouth of the tunnel was not far distant.</p> - -<p>The Martians swarmed in upon the clearing, and then the beasts of -Shanga saw them. With roars and screams, they surged out to meet their -attackers.</p> - -<p>Knife and short sword and spiked brass knuckles against fang and claw -and the powerful muscles of the brute. The scaly creatures darted here -and there, hissing, slashing with their rows of needle-sharp reptilian -teeth. Great hands ripped and tore, snapping bones like matchsticks, -cracking skulls. And the slim blades flickered in the sunlight, bright -tongues speaking death.</p> - -<p>Vengeance was done that day in the garden of Shanga. The vengeance -of Earth on Mars, and the vengeance of men upon the shame of their -heritage.</p> - -<p>Winters saw Kor Hal run his sword through the creeping horror that had -been Fand, through and through again until all motion stopped. Then he -shouted Winters' name.</p> - -<p>Winters went to him.</p> - -<p>Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say. Bare-handed, Winters went -against the Martian's sword. With the nightmare carnage of the battle -going on around them, they two were alone. They two had a special score -to settle.</p> - -<p>Winters took one long gash above the heart before he caught Kor Hal's -arm and broke it. The Martian never whimpered. With his left hand he -reached for the knife at his girdle, but it never left the sheathe. -Winters laid Kor Hal backward across his knee and placed one thigh -across his loins and an elbow across his throat. After a moment he -dropped the broken body and went away, taking the sword.</p> - -<p>The guards came running into the arena through the tunnel.</p> - -<p>The fight was spreading outward from the lake. Locked in struggling, -swaying knots, the beasts of Shanga slew the Martians and were slain. -The waters of the lake were stained red, and the corpse of a Martian -was being dragged stealthily into it from the mud of the bank. There -was something hidden below the surface, something that could no longer -fight on land, but only lay quietly in wait, and fed.</p> - -<p>Now the guards had come with their long spears, and Winters knew that -in the end there would not be one creature left alive in the garden. -And it was well.</p> - -<p>He took Jill's hand and led her toward the tunnel, running in the -shelter of the trees. The fight was occupying everyone's attention. The -brute males were hard to kill, and they fought for the love of it. The -tunnel was empty, the gate open, the guards inside the arena, hard at -work. Winters and the girl fled through it, taking cover outside the -amphitheatre just before another group of guards came down from the -palace.</p> - -<p>From there, with infinite haste and caution, they made their way down -the cliffs through the dead ruins of Valkis, and then out across the -desert, skirting the living town by the canal. Kor Hal's flier was on -the field where Winters remembered it.</p> - -<p>He thrust Jill inside, and as he followed her he saw the angry mob -start to pour out of Valkis, where word of his crime and his escape had -been brought, a little too late.</p> - -<p>He took the flier up, setting a course for Kahora. And now that it was -all over, he felt a great weariness and an over-whelming desire to -forget the very name of Shanga.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But he knew that he could never forget. The golden fire had burned too -deep. He knew that he would always be haunted by the beautiful face of -Fand as it had looked when he shackled her in the clearing, and by the -memory of the high thin screaming as the light poured down from the -prisms. Even the psychos could never make him forget.</p> - -<p>The governments of Earth and Mars would see to it now that Shanga was -stamped out forever. He was glad, and a little proud, because it had -been his doing. But even so....</p> - -<p>He looked over at Jill. Someday, he prayed, she would be herself again. -The taint of Shanga would pass her, and she would once more be the Jill -Leland he had given his heart to.</p> - -<p><i>But will it pass entirely?</i> For a moment it seemed that he heard the -mocking voice of Fand, speaking in his soul. <i>Will it pass from you, -Burk Winters? Can one who has run with the beasts of Shanga ever be the -same again?</i></p> - -<p>He did not know. Looking back, he saw the smoke rising from the unholy -garden—and he did not know.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Beast-Jewel of Mars, by Leigh Brackett - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAST-JEWEL OF MARS *** - -***** This file should be named 63872-h.htm or 63872-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/8/7/63872/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Beast-Jewel of Mars - -Author: Leigh Brackett - -Release Date: November 24, 2020 [EBook #63872] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAST-JEWEL OF MARS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - THE BEAST-JEWEL OF MARS - - By LEIGH BRACKETT - - Burk Winters was a panting, shambling ape, - fleeting through dark and echoing pits of - horror. Behind him hissed the lashes of - the jeering mob, savagely exultant at - having debauched still another proud - Terran into something that crawled. - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Winter 1948. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Burk Winters remained in the passenger section while the _Starflight_ -made her landing at Kahora Port. He did not think that he could bear -to see another man, not even one he liked as much as he did Johnny -Niles, handle the controls of the ship that had been his for so long. - -He did not wish even to say good bye to Johnny, but there was no -avoiding it. The young officer was waiting for him as he came down the -ramp, and the deep concern he felt was not hidden in the least by his -casually hearty grin. - -Johnny held out his hand. "So long, Burk. You've earned this leave. -Have fun with it." - -Burk Winters looked out over the vast tarmac that spread for miles -across the ochre desert. An orderly, roaring confusion of trucks and -flat-cars and men and ships--ore ships, freighters, tramps, sleek -liners like the _Starflight_, bearing the colours of three planets and -a dozen colonies, but still arrogantly and predominantly Terran. - -Johnny followed his gaze and said softly, "It always gives you a -thrill, doesn't it?" - -Winters did not answer. Miles away, safe from the thundering rocket -blasts, the glassite dome of Kahora, Trade City for Mars, rose -jewel-like out of the red sand. The little sun stared wearily down -and the ancient hills considered it, and the old, old wandering wind -passed over it, and it seemed as though the planet bore Kahora and its -space-port with patience, as though it were a small local infection -that would soon be gone. - -He had forgotten Johnny Niles. He had forgotten everything but his own -dark thoughts. The young officer studied him with covert pity, and he -did not know it. - -Burk Winters was a big man, and a tough man, tempered by years of -deep-space flying. The same glare of naked light that had burned his -skin so dark had bleached his hair until it was almost white, and just -in the last few months his grey eyes seemed to have caught and held -a spark of that pitiless radiance. The easy good nature was gone out -of them, and the lines that laughter had shaped around his mouth had -deepened now into bitter scars. - -A big man, a hard man, but a man who was no longer in control of -himself. All during the voyage out from Earth he had chain-smoked the -little Venusian cigarets that have a sedative effect. He was smoking -one now, and even so he could not keep his hands steady nor stop the -everlasting _tic_ in his right cheek. - -"Burk." Johnny's voice came to him from a great distance. "Burk, it's -none of my business, but...." He hesitated, then blurted out, "Do you -think Mars is good for you, now?" - -Quite abruptly, Winters said, "Take good care of the _Starflight_, -Johnny. Good bye." - -He went away, down the ramp. The pilot stared after him. - -The Second Officer came up to Johnny. "That guy has sure gone to -pieces," he said. - -Johnny nodded. He was angry, because he had come up under Winters and -he loved him. - -"The damn fool," he said. "He shouldn't have come here." He looked out -over the mocking immensity of Mars and added, "His girl was lost out -there, somewhere. They never found her body." - - * * * * * - -A space-port taxi took Burk Winters into Kahora, and Mars vanished. He -was back in the world of the Trade Cities, which belong to all planets, -and none. - -Vhia on Venus, N'York on Earth, Sun City in Mercury's Twilight Belt, -the glassite refuges of the Outer Worlds, they were all alike. They -were dedicated to the coddling of wealth and greed, little paradises -where millions were made and lost in comfort, where men and women from -all over the Solar System could expend their feverish energies without -regard for such annoyances as weather and gravitation. - -Other things than the making of money were done in the Trade Cities. -The lovely plastic buildings, the terraces and gardens and the glowing -web of moving walks that spun them together, offered every pleasure and -civilized vice of the known worlds. - -Winters hated the Trade Cities. He was used to the elemental honesty -of space. Here the speech, the dress, even the air one breathed, were -artificial. - -And he had a deeper reason than that for his hatred. - -Yet he had left N'York in feverish haste to reach Kahora, and now that -he was here he felt that he could not endure even the delay caused by -the necessity of crossing the city. He sat tensely on the edge of the -seat, and his nervous twitching grew worse by the minute. - -When finally he reached his destination, he could not hold the money -for his fare. He dropped the plastic tokens on the floor and left the -driver to scramble for them. - -He stood for a moment, looking up at the ivory facade before him. It -was perfectly plain, the epitome of expensive unpretentiousness. Above -the door, in small letters of greenish silver, was the one Martian -word: SHANGA. - -"The return," he translated. "The going-back." A strange and rather -terrible smile crossed his face, very briefly. Then he opened the door -and went inside. - -Subdued lighting, comfortable lounges, soft music, the perfect waiting -room. There were half a dozen men and women there, all Terrans. They -wore the fashionably simple white tunic of the Trade Cities, which set -off the magnificent blaze of their jewelry and the exotic styles in -which they dressed their hair. - -Their faces were pallid and effeminate, scored with the haggard marks -of life lived under the driving tension of a super-modern age. - -A Martian woman sat in an alcove, behind a glassite desk. She was dark, -sophisticatedly lovely. Her costume was the artfully adapted short robe -of ancient Mars, and she wore no ornament. Her slanting topaz eyes -regarded Burk Winters with professional pleasantness, but deep in them -he could see the scorn and the pride of a race so old that the Terran -exquisites of the Trade Cities were only crude children beside it. - -"Captain Winters," she said. "How nice to see you again." - -He was in no mood for conventional pleasantries. "I want to see Kor -Hal," he said. "Now." - -"I'm afraid ..." she began. Then she took another look at Winters' face -and turned to the intercom. Presently she said, "You may go in." - -He pushed open the door that led into the interior of the building, -which consisted almost entirely of a huge solarium. Glassite walls -enclosed it. Around the sides were many small cells, containing only a -padded table. The roofs of the cells were quartz, and acted as mammoth -lenses. - -Skirting the solarium on the way to Kor Hal's office, Winters' mouth -twisted with contempt as he looked through the transparent wall. - -An exotic forest blossomed there. Trees, ferns, brilliant flowers, -soft green sward, a myriad of birds. And through this mock-primitive -playground wandered the men and women who were devotees of Shanga. - -They lay first on the padded tables and let the radiation play with -them. Winters knew. Neuro-psychic therapy, the doctors called it. -Heritage of the lost wisdom of old Mars. Specific for the jangled -nerves and overwrought emotions of modern man, who lived too fast in -too complex an environment. - -_You lie there and the radiation tingles through you. Your glandular -balance tips a little. Your brain slows down. All sorts of strange and -pleasant things happen inside of you, while the radiation tinkers with -nerves and reflexes and metabolism. And pretty soon you're a child -again, in an evolutionary sort of way._ - - * * * * * - -Shanga, the going-back. Mentally, and just a tiny bit physically, back -to the primitive, until the effect wore off and the normal balance -restored itself. And even then, for a while, you felt better and -happier, because you'd had one hell of a rest, from everything. - -Their pampered white bodies incongruously clad in skins and bits of -coloured cloth, the Earthlings of Kahora played and fought among the -trees, and their worries were simple ones concerning food and love and -strings of gaudy beads. - -Hidden away out of sight were watchful men with shock guns. Sometimes -someone went a little bit too far down the road. Winters knew. He had -been knocked cold himself, on his last visit here. He remembered that -he had tried to kill a man. - -Or rather, he had been told that he had tried to kill a man. One did -not remember much of the interludes of Shanga. That was one reason -people liked it. One was free of inhibitions. - -Fashionable vice, made respectable by the cloak of science. It was -a new kind of excitement, a new kind of escape from the glittering -complexities of life. The Terrans were mad for it. - -But only the Terrans. The barbaric Venusians were still too close to -the savage to have any need for it, and the Martians were too old and -wise in sin to use it. _Besides_, thought Winters, _they made Shanga. -They know._ - -A deep shudder ran through him as he thrust his way into the office of -Kor Hal, the director. - -Kor Hal was lean and dark and of no particular age. His national origin -was lost in the anonymity of the conventional white tunic. He was -Martian, and his courtesy was only a velvet sheath over chilled steel, -but beyond that he was quantity X. - -"Captain Winters," he said. "Please sit down." - -Winters sat. - -Kor Hal studied him. "You're nervous, Captain Winters. But I am afraid -to treat you anymore. Atavism lies too close to the surface in you." He -shrugged. "You remember the last time." - -Winters nodded. "The same thing happened in N'York." He leaned forward. -"I don't want you to treat me anymore. What you have here isn't enough -now. Sar Kree told me that, in N'York. He told me to come to Mars." - -Kor Hal said quietly, "He communicated with me." - -"Then you will ..." Winters broke off, because there were no words with -which to finish his question. - -Kor Hal did not answer. He reclined at ease against the cushions of his -lounge chair, handsome, unconcerned. Only his eyes, which were green -and feral, held a buried spark of amusement. The cruel amusement of a -cat which has a crippled mouse under its paw. - -"Are you sure," he asked finally, "that you know what you're doing?" - -"Yes." - -"People differ, Captain Winters. Those manikins out there--" he -indicated the solarium--"have neither blood nor heart. They are -artificial products of an artificial environment. But men like you, -Winters, are playing with fire when they play with Shanga." - -"Listen," said Winters. "The girl I was going to marry took her flier -out over the desert one day and never came back. God only knows what -happened to her. You know better than I do the things that can happen -to people in the dead sea bottoms. I hunted for her. I found her flier, -where it had crashed. I never found her. After that nothing mattered -much to me. Nothing but forgetting." - -Kor Hal inclined his dark, narrow head. "I remember. A tragedy, Captain -Winters. I knew Miss Leland, a lovely young woman. She used to come -here." - -"I know," said Winters. "She wasn't Trade City, really, but she had too -much money and too much time. Anyway, I'm not worried about playing -with your fire, Kor Hal. I've been burned too deep with it already. -Like you say, people differ. Those lily-whites in their toy jungle, -they have no desire to go back any farther. They haven't the guts or -the passions to want to. I have." - -Winters' eyes blazed with a peculiarly animal light. "I want to go -back, Kor Hal. Back as far as Shanga will take me." - -"Sometimes," said the Martian, "that's a long way." - -"I don't care." - -Kor Hal gave him an intent look. "For some, there is no return." - -"I have nothing to return to." - -"It is not easy, Winters. Shanga--the real Shanga, of which these -solariums and quartz lenses are only a weak copy, was forbidden -centuries ago by the City-States of Mars. There are risks, and -discomforts, which means that the process is expensive." - -"I have money." Winters leaped up suddenly, his control breaking. "Be -damned to your arguments! They're all hypocrisy, anyway. You know -perfectly well which ones are going to take to Shanga. You keep them -coming until they're addicts, half crazy to feel the real thing, and -you know damn well you're going to give them what they want as soon as -they cross your dirty palm with silver." - -He tossed a checkbook on Kor Hal's desk. The top one was blank, but -signed. - -"There," he said. "Anything up to a hundred-thousand Universal Credits." - -"I would prefer," said Kor Hal, "that you draw your own check, to -cash." He handed the checkbook back to Winters. "The full amount, in -advance." - -Burk Winters said one word. "When?" - -"Tonight, if you wish. Where are you staying?" - -"The Tri-Planet." - -"Have dinner there as usual. Then remain in the bar. Sometime during -the evening your guide will join you." - -"I'll be waiting," Winters said, and went out. - -Kor Hal smiled. His teeth were very white, very sharp. They had the -hungry look of fangs. - - - II - -Burk Winters got his bearings finally when Phobos rose, and he could -guess where they were heading. - -They had slipped quietly out of Kahora, he and the slender young -Martian who had joined him unobtrusively in the Tri-Planet bar. A flier -waited for them on a private field. Kor Hal waited also. They took off, -with a fourth man, who looked to be one of the big barbarians from the -northern hills of Kesh. Kor Hal took the controls. - -Winters was sure now that they were bound for the Low Canals. The -ancient waterways and the ancient wicked towns--Jekkara, Valkis, -Barrakesh--outside the laws of the scattered City-States. Thieves' -market, slave market, vice market of a world. Earthmen were warned to -keep away from them. - -Miles reeled behind them. The utter desolation of the landscape below -got on Winters' nerves. The silence in the flier became unendurable. -There was something menacing about it. Kor Hal and the big Keshi and -the slim young man seemed to be nursing some common inner thought that -gave them a peculiarly vicious pleasure. Its shadow showed on their -faces. - -Winters spoke finally. "Are your headquarters out here?" - -No answer. - -Winters said rather petulantly, "There's no need to be so secretive. -After all, I'm one of you now." - -The slim young man said sharply, "Do the beasts lie down with the -masters?" - -Winters started to bristle, and the barbarian put his hand on the -wicked little sap he carried at his belt. Then Kor Hal spoke coolly. - -"You wished to practice Shanga in its true form, Captain Winters. That -is what you have paid for. That is what you will receive. All else is -irrelevant." - -Winters shrugged sulkily. He sat smoking his sedative tobacco, and he -did not speak again. - -After a long, long time the seemingly endless desert began to change. -Low ridges rose naked from the sand and grew into a mountain range, of -which nothing was left now but the barren rock. - -Beyond the mountains lay a dead sea bottom. It stretched away under the -moonlight, dropping, always dropping, until at last it became only a -vast pit of darkness. Ribs of chalk and coral gleamed here and there, -pushing through the lichens like bones through the dried skin of a man -long dead. - -Winters saw that there was a city between the foothills and the sea. - -It had followed the receding water down the slopes. From this height, -Winters could see the outlines of five harbours, abandoned one by one -as the sea drew back, the great stone docks still standing. Houses had -been built to fill their emptiness, and then abandoned in their turn -for a lower level. - -Now the straggling town had coalesced along the bank of the canal that -drew what feeble life was left from the buried springs of the bottom. -There was something infinitely sad about that thin dark line--all that -was left of a blue and rolling ocean. - -The flier circled and came down. The Keshi said something rapidly in -his own dialect, from which Winters caught the one word, _Valkis_. Kor -Hal answered him. Then he turned to Winters and said, - -"We have not far to go. Stay close by me." - -The four men left the flier. Winters knew that he was under guard, and -felt that it was not entirely for the sake of protecting him. - - * * * * * - -The wind blew thin and dry. Dust rose in clouds around their feet. -Valkis lay ahead, a stony darkness sprawling upward toward the cliffs, -cold in the eerie light of the twin moons. Winters saw, high up on the -crest, the broken towers of a palace. - -They walked beside still black water, on paving stones worn hollow -by the sandaled feet of countless generations. Even at this late -hour, Valkis did not sleep. Torches burned yellow against the night. -Somewhere a double-banked harp made strange music. The streets, the -alley mouths, the doorways and the flat roofs of the houses rustled -with life. - -Lithe lean men and catlike women watched the strangers, hot-eyed -and silent. And over all, Winters heard the particular sound of the -Low-Canal towns--the whispering and chiming of the wanton little bells -that the women wear, braided into their dark hair, hanging from their -ears, chained around their ankles. - -Evil, that town. Ancient, and very evil, but not tired. Winters could -feel the pulse of life that beat there, strong and hot. He was afraid. -His own civilian garb and the white tunics of his companions were -terribly conspicuous in this place of bare breasts and bright kilts and -jeweled girdles. - -No one molested them. Kor Hal led the way into a large house and shut -the door of beaten bronze behind them, and Winters felt a great relief. -He turned to Kor Hal. - -"How soon?" he asked, and tried to conceal the trembling of his hands. - -"Everything is ready, Winters. Halk, show him the way." - -The Keshi nodded and went off, with Winters at his heels. - -This was very different from the Hall of Shanga in Kahora. Within these -walls of quarried stone, men and women had lived and loved and died -in violence. The blood and tears of centuries had dried in the cracks -between the flags. The rugs, the tapestries, and the furnishings were -worth a fortune as antiques. Their beauty was worn, but still bright. - -At the end of a corridor was a bronze door, pierced by a narrow grille. - -Halk stopped. He said to Winters, "Strip." - -Winters hesitated. He carried a gun, and he did not like to leave it -behind. "Why out here? I'd rather have my clothes with me." - -Halk said, "Strip here. It is the rule." - -Winters obeyed. - -He walked naked into the narrow cell. There was no comfortable table -here, only a few skins thrown on the bare floor. A barred opening -showed darkly in the opposite wall. - -The bronze door rang shut behind him and he heard the great bar drop -into place. It was completely dark. He was really afraid, now. Terribly -afraid. But it was too late for that. It had been too late, for a long -time. - -Ever since Jill Leland was lost. - - * * * * * - -He lay down on the hides. High above, in the vault of the roof, he -could make out a faint, vague shimmering. It grew brighter. Presently -he saw that it was a prism set into the stone, rather large and cut -from a crystalline substance that was the colour of fire. - -Kor Hal's voice reached him through the grille. "Earthman!" - -"Yes?" - -"That prism is one of the Jewels of Shanga. The wise men of Caer Dhu -carved them half a million years ago. Only they knew the secret of the -substance, and the shaping of the facets. There are only three of the -jewels left." - -Sparks that were more energy than light flickered on the stone walls of -the cell. Gold and orange and greenish blue. Little flames, the fire of -Shanga, to burn the heart. - -Because he was afraid, Winters said, "But the radiation, the ray that -comes through the prism. Is it the same as that in Kahora?" - -"Yes. The secret of the projectors was lost also with Caer Dhu. -Presumably they use cosmic rays. By substituting ordinary quartz for -the prisms, we could make the radiation weak enough for our purpose in -the Trade Cities." - -"Who is 'we,' Kor Hal?" - -Laughter, soft and wicked. "Earthman--we are Mars!" - -Dancing fire, growing, growing, glinting on his flesh, darting through -his blood, his brain. It was not like this in the solariums, with their -pretty trees. It was pleasure there, tantalizing, heady pleasure. It -was exciting, and strange. But this.... - -His body began to move, to arch itself into strong writhing curves. He -thought he could not endure the lovely, lovely pain. - -Kor Hal's voice boomed down some huge fateful distance. "The wise men -of Caer Dhu were not so wise. They found the secret of Shanga, and they -escaped their wars and their troubles by fleeing backward along the -path of evolution. Do you know what happened to them? They perished, -Earthman! In one generation, Caer Dhu vanished from the face of Mars." - -It was getting hard to answer, hard to think. Winters said hoarsely, -"Did it matter? They were happy, while they lived." - -"Are you happy, Earthman?" - -"Yes!" he panted. "Yes!" - -The words were only half articulate. Twisting, rolling on the hide -rugs, in the grip of such magnificent, unholy sensation as he had never -dreamed of before, Burk Winters was happy. The fire of Shanga blazed -down upon him like a wicked sun, and all his troubles were melting -away, and there was nothing left but joy. - -Again, Kor Hal laughed. - - * * * * * - -After that, Winters was not sure of anything. His mind rocked, and -there were periods of darkness. When he was conscious, he knew only a -feeling of _strangeness_. But he carried one memory with him, at least -part way down that eerie road. - -During a lucid period, a space of only a minute or two, he thought that -one of the stones had rolled back to reveal a quartzite screen, and -that through the screen a face looked at him, watching as he bathed -naked in the beautiful flame. - -A woman's face. Martian, high-bred, with strong delicate bones and -arrogant brows, and a red mouth that would be like a bitter-sweet fruit -to kiss. Her eyes were golden as the fire, and as hot, and proud, and -scornful. - -There must have been a microphone in the wall, for she spoke and he -heard her voice, full of a sweet cruel magic. She called his name. He -could not rise, but he managed to crawl toward her, and to his reeling -brain she was part of the unearthly force that played with him. A -destruction and a fascination, as irresistible as death. - -To his alien eyes, she was not as lovely as Jill. But there was a power -in her. And her red mouth taunted him, and the curve of her bare -shoulders drove him to madness. - -"You're strong," she said. "You will live, until the end. And that is -well, Burk Winters." - -He tried to speak, but he could no longer form the words. - -She smiled. "You have challenged me, Earthman. I know. You've -challenged Shanga. You're brave, and I like brave men. You're also -a fool, and I like fools, because they give me sport. I'm looking -forward, Earthman, to the moment when you reach the end of your search!" - -He tried again to speak, and failed, and then the night and the silence -came to stay. He took the sound of her mocking laughter with him into -the dark. - - * * * * * - -He did not think of himself now as Captain Burk Winters, but only by -the short personal name of Burk. The stones upon which he lay were cold -and hard. It was pitch dark, but his eyes and ears were very keen. He -could tell by the sound of his breathing that he was in a closed space, -and he did not like it. - -A low growl rumbled in his throat. The hairs stiffened at the back of -his neck. He tried to remember how he had come here. Something had -happened, something to do with fire, but he did not know what, or why. - -Only one thing he knew. He was searching for something. It was gone, -and he wanted it back. The wanting was a pain in him. He could not -remember what the object was that he wanted, but the need for it was -greater than any obstacle short of death. - -He rose and began to explore his prison. - -Almost at once he found an opening. Cautious testing told him that -there was a passage beyond. He could see nothing, but the air that blew -in to him was very heavy with strange smells. Instinct told him that it -was a trap. He crouched irresolute, his hands opening and closing in -desire for a weapon. There was no weapon. Presently he went into the -passage, moving without sound. - -He went a long way, his shoulders brushing stone on either side. Then -he saw light ahead, red and flickering, and the air brought him the -taint of smoke, and the smell of man. - -Very, very slowly, the creature called Burk padded toward the light. - -He came close to the end of the tunnel, and suddenly a barred gate -dropped behind him with a ringing clash. He could not go back. - -He did not wish to go back. Enemies were in front of him, and he wished -to fight. He knew now that he could not come upon them secretly. -Flexing his great chest, he leaped out boldly from the tunnel mouth. - -The tossing glare of torches dazzled his eyes, and a wild mob howl -deafened him. He stood alone on a great block--the old slave block of -Valkis, though he did not know that. Men and women thronged the square, -leaving a wide open space around the block. They stared up, jeering at -the Earthman who had tasted the forbidden fruit that even the soulless -men of the Low Canals would not touch. - -The creature called Burk was still a man, but a man already shadowed by -the ape. During the hours he had bathed in the light of Shanga, he had -changed physically. Bone and flesh had altered under the accelerated -urging of glands and increased metabolism. - -Already a big, powerful man, he had thickened and coarsened along -lines of brutish strength. His jaw and brow ridges jutted. Thick hair -covered his chest and limbs and extended in a rudimentary mane down the -back of his neck. His deep-set eyes had a hard and cunning gleam of -intelligence, but it was the intelligence of the primitive mind that -had learned to speak and make fire and weapons, and no more than that. - -Half crouching, he glared down at the crowd. He did not know who these -men were, he hated them. They were of another tribe, and their very -smell was alien. They hated him, too. The air bristled with their -enmity. - -His gaze fell on a man who stepped out lightly and proudly into the -empty space. He did not remember that this man's name was Kor Hal. -He did not notice that Kor Hal had shed the white tunic of the Trade -Cities for the kilt and girdle of the Low Canals, nor that he wore in -his ears the pierced gold rings of Barrakesh, and was now honestly -himself--a bandit, born and bred among a race of bandits who had been -civilized for so long that they could afford to forget it. - -Burk knew only that this man was his particular enemy. - -"Captain Burk Winters," said Kor Hal. "Man of the tribe of Terra--lords -of the spaceways, builders of the Trade Cities, masters of greed and -rapine." - -His voice carried over the packed square, though he did not shout. -Burk watched him, his eyes like blinking red sparks in the torchlight, -weaving slightly on his feet, his hands swinging loose and hungry. He -did not understand the words, but they were threat and insult. - -"Look at him, oh men of Valkis!" cried Kor Hal. "He is our master now. -His government kings it over the City-States of Mars. Our pride is -stripped, our wealth is gone. What have we left, oh children of a dying -world?" - -The answer that rang from the walls of Valkis was soft and wordless, -the opening chord of a hymn written in hell. - -Someone threw a stone. - - * * * * * - -Burk came down off the slave block in a great effortless spring and -sped across the square, straight for Kor Hal's throat. - -A laugh went up, mirth that was half a cat-scream of sheer savagery. -Like one supple creature, the crowd moved. Torchlight flashed from -knife-blades and jewels and eyes of glittering green and topaz, -and the small chiming bells, and the points of the deadly spiked -knuckle-dusters. Long black tongues of whips licked out with a hiss and -a crack. - -Kor Hal waited until Burk almost reached him. Then he bent and pivoted -in the graceful Martian savatte. His foot caught Burk under the chin -and sent him sprawling. - -As he rolled half stunned, Kor Hal caught a whip from a man's hand. - -"That's it, Earthman!" he cried out. "Grovel! Belly down, and lick the -stones that were here before the apes of Earth had learned to walk!" - -The long lash sang and bit, lacing the hairy body with red weals, and -the harsh mob scream went up--_Drive him! Drive the beast of Shanga, as -the invading beasts of old were driven by our fore-fathers!_ - -And they drove him, with whip and knife and spike, through the streets -of Valkis under the racing moons. Jeering, they drove him. - -He fought them. Mad with fury, he fought them, but he could not come to -grips with them. When he lunged they melted before him, and each way -he turned he was met by the lash and the blade and the crippling kick. -Blood ran, but it was all his own, and the high shrill laughter of -women pursued him as he went. - -He wanted to kill. The lust of killing was more red and strong within -him than his blood. But he reeled under the pain of many blows, and his -sight was dim, and where his great hands closed on flesh to tear it, -he was himself torn and driven back, dragged down by the lashes curled -around his throat. - -At last there was only fear and the desire to escape. - -They let him run. Along the crumbling ways of Valkis, up and down the -twisting alleys that reeked of ancient crime, they let him run. But not -too far. They blocked him off from the canal and the freedom of the -sea bottom beyond. Again and again they headed the panting, shambling -creature that had been Burk Winters, captain of the _Starflight_, and -drove it higher up the slope. - -Burk moved slowly now. He snarled and his head wove blindly from side -to side in a pathetic attempt at defiance. His blood dripped hot on the -stones. And always the insolent stinging lashes drove him on. - -Up and up. Past the great looming docks, with the bollards and the -scars of moored ships still on them, and the dust of their own decay -lapping dry around their feet. Four levels above the canal. Four -harbours, four cities, four epochs written in fading characters of -stone. Even the dawn-man Burk was oppressed and frightened. - -There was no life here. There had been no life for a long time, even in -the lowest level. The wind had scoured and polished the empty houses, -smoothing the corners to roundness, hollowing the doors and windows, -until the work of man was almost erased. Only strange things were left, -that looked as though the wind had made them by itself out of little -mountain tops. - -The people of Valkis were silent now. They drove the beast, and their -hate had not abated, but was intensified. - -They walked here upon the very bones of their world. Earth was a green -star, young and rich. Here the Martians passed the marble pier where -the Kings of Valkis had moored their galleys, and the very marble was -shattered under the heel of time. - -High on the ridge above the oldest city the palace of the kings looked -down at the scourging of the interloper. And in all of Valkis now there -was no sound but the whispering of little bells that was like the sigh -of wind on another world, where the women ran on their small bare feet, -ankle deep in dust. - - * * * * * - -Burk climbed apelike up the history of Mars. His belly was cold with a -terror of these dark places that smelled of nothing, not even of death. - -He passed a place where houses had been built within the curve of a -coral reef. He clambered over the reef, and saw above him a sloping -face of rock with gaping holes that the sea had made. He climbed that, -not knowing or caring what it was. - -On the level space above he passed the broken quays that had once made -safe mooring in the bay, and stopped to look back. - -They were still hunting him. His flanks heaved and his eyes were -desperate. He went on, scrambling up steep narrow streets where the -paving blocks had fallen out and the houses had come down in shapeless -heaps, and his hands and feet left red prints where he put them down. - -Then, at last, he was at the top of the ridge. - -The great bulk of the palace loomed above him against the sky. -Primitive wisdom told him the place was dangerous. He skirted the high -wall of marble that ringed it, and suddenly his twitching nostrils -caught the scent of water. - -His tongue was swollen in his mouth, his throat choked with dust. His -need was so great, with the salt bleeding and the fever of his wounds, -that he forgot his enemies and the menace of the mountain-thing behind -the wall. Breaking into a ragged lope, he went forward along the cliff -top until he came to a gateway, and plunged through it, and suddenly -there was turf under his feet, soft and cool. There were shrubs, and -flowers pale in the moonlight, heavily sweet, and dark branches against -the sky. - -The gate closed silently behind him. He did not see it. He ran down a -grassy ride between rows of trees trimmed into fantastic shapes, guided -by the smell of water. Here and there were strange gleams and glints -of statuary, wrought in marble and semi-precious stones. Burk's skin -crawled with an awareness of danger, but he was too weary and too mad -with thirst to care. - -The ride ended. Beyond was an open space, and in the center of it was -a great sunken tank, carved and ornamented. The water in it was like -polished jet. - -Nothing stirred in the open. A wing of the palace rose beyond the tank -like a black wall, and it seemed that nothing lived there, but Burk's -hair-trigger nerves told him otherwise. He stopped in the shelter of -the trees, sniffing the air and listening. - -Nothing. Darkness and silence. Burk looked at the waiting water. It -filled all his senses. Suddenly he ran toward it. - -He flung himself belly down on the slabs of turquoise that paved the -brink and buried his face in the icy water and drank. Then he lay there -panting, utterly spent. - -Still nothing moved. - - * * * * * - -Then, all at once, a long howl rose on the night, from somewhere beyond -the palace wing. Burk stiffened. He got to his hands and knees, every -hair on his body bristling with fear. - -The howl was answered by a strange reptilian scream. - -Now that he had satisfied his thirst, the night wind brought him many -odours. They were too numerous and tangled to be identified, except -for a strong musky taint that made his flesh crawl with instinctive -loathing. He did not know what sort of creature gave off that taint, -but it filled him with horror, because it seemed that he _almost -knew_--and did not want to. - -He wanted only to get away from that place, that was so full of secret -life and hidden menace and silence. - -He began to move toward the trees, back the way he had come. Slowly, -because he was wounded and very weak. And then, quite suddenly, he saw -her. - -She had come without sound into the open space, out of the shelter of -huge flowering shrubs. She stood not far away, in the shifting glow -of the little racing moons, watching him. She was shy and large-eyed, -poised for flight. The hair that hung down her back and the shining -down that covered her body were the colour of the moonlight. - -Burk stopped. A tremor went through him. All his sense of loss and his -desperate searching came back to him, and with them a desire to be -closer to this slender she. - -A name spoke itself from some dim chamber of his soul. "Jill?" - -She started. He thought she was going to run away, and he cried out -again, "Jill!" Then, step by step, uncertainly, she came nearer, lovely -as a fawn in spring. - -She made a questioning sound, and he answered. "Burk." She stood still -for a moment, repeating the word, and then she whimpered and began to -run toward him, and he was filled with a great joy. He laughed and -mouthed her name over and over, and there were tears in his eyes. He -reached out toward her. - -A spear flashed and fell quivering between them. - -She gave him a cry of warning and fled, vanishing into the shrubbery. -Burk tried to follow, but his knees gave under him. He turned, snarling. - -Tall Keshi guards in resplendent harness had come out of the trees, -circling behind him. They carried spears and a net of heavy ropes. In a -moment he was surrounded. The spear-points pricked him back until the -net was thrown, and he went down helpless. - -As they carried him away, he heard two things. The wail of the silver -she, and from somewhere nearby, a woman's mocking laughter. - -He had heard that laughter before. He could not remember where, or how, -but it filled him with such fury that he was finally knocked over the -head with a spear-butt, to keep him quiet. - - - III - -He came to himself--the self that was Captain Burk Winters--in a room -that was much like the one he last remembered, in Valkis, except that -the walls were of a dark green rock and there was no prism. - -Winters could remember nothing of what had happened since that last -room, except that he knew he had had a strong emotional shock. Jill's -name was uppermost in his mind. He began to tremble with a deep -excitement. - -He got to his feet, and it was then that he realized he was shackled. -Chains ran from cuffs on his wrists to similar cuffs on his ankles, -passing through rings on a metal belt around his waist. These -constituted his entire clothing. He saw also that there freshly healed -scars on his body. - -The heavy door was opened for him before he could begin to pound on it. -Four tall barbarians, their harness magnificent with jewels and wrought -metal, formed up a guard around him, and an officer led the way. They -did not speak to Winters, and he knew the uselessness of trying to get -anything out of them. - -He had not the faintest idea where he was, or how he had come there, -beyond a vague memory of pain and flight that was like something he had -dreamed. - -And somewhere, during that dream, he had seen Jill, spoken to her. He -was as certain of that as he was of the weight of his chains. - -He stumbled, because his sight was blurred with tears. Up to then, he -had not been sure. He had seen the twisted wreck of her flier, and -while he did not believe it, there was always the chance that she might -really be dead, and lost to him beyond all hope. - -Now he knew. She was alive, and if Winters had been alone he would have -wept like a child. - -Instead, he studied the corridors and the great halls through which the -guard took him. From the size and the splendour of them he knew that he -was in a palace, and guessed that it might be the one he had seen on -the cliffs above Valkis. This was confirmed when he caught a glimpse of -the town through a window embrasure. - -The palace was older than anything he had seen on Mars, except for the -buried ruins of Lhak in the northern deserts. But this was no ruin. It -had grown old in sombre beauty. The patterns of the mosaic floors were -blurred, the precious stones worn thin as porcelain. The tapestries, -preserved by the wonderful Martian formula that had been lost for -centuries, like everything else on Mars, had grown frail and brittle, -their colours all softened to faint glows, infinitely sad and lovely. - -Here and there, on the walls or the soaring vault of a roof, were -murals--magnificent pageants of lost glory, dim as an old man's memory. -The seas they pictured were deep and blue, and the ships were tall, and -the mail of the warriors was set with gems, and the captive queens were -beautiful as dusky pearls. - -Proud architecture, mating beauty with strength, and showing that -strange blend of culture and barbarism that is so typically Martian. -Winters reflected on how long ago these stones had been quarried, and -went on to reflect that at that time civilization had already destroyed -itself in a series of atomic wars, and the proud Kings of Valkis were -only bandit chieftains in a world that was slipping downward toward the -night. - -They came at length to doors of beaten gold that were more than twice -Burk's six-foot height. The Keshi guards who stood there pushed them -wide, and Burk saw the throne room. - -Westering sunlight slanted in from the high embrasures, falling across -the pillars and the tessellated floor. The pale light touched vagrant -glints from the shields and the weapons of dead kings, warmed the -old banners to brief life. Everywhere else in that vast place was a -brooding darkness, full of whispers and small faint echoings. - -A shaft of cool gold fell directly upon the throne at the far end of -the room. - -The high seat itself was cut from a single block of black basalt, and -as Winters approached it, his swinging chains making a loud sound in -the silence, he saw that the stone had been already half shaped by the -sea. It was very worn and smooth with the patient sanding of the tides, -and where hands had lain on the arm-pieces there were deep hollows, and -on the basalt step below. - -An old woman sat upon the throne. She was wrapped in a black cloak, and -her hair wound into a sort of white crown on her head, braided with -jewels. She stared with half-blind eyes at the Earthman, and suddenly -she spoke, in sonorous High Martian, a tongue as antique on Mars as -Sanskrit is on Earth. Winters could not understand one word of it, but -he knew from her tone and expression that she was quite mad. - -Someone sat in the heavy shadows by her feet, outside the shaft of -sunlight, and veiled by it from Winter's sight. He could catch only -a vague pallor of ivory-tinted flesh, but for some reason his nerves -tingled with premonition. - -As he neared the high seat, the old woman rose and stretched out her -arm toward him, a wrinkled Cassandra crying doom upon his head. The -wild echoes of her voice rolled from the vaulted roof, and her eyes -were full of a blazing hate. - -The guards set the butts of their spears into his back so that he was -thrown face down before the basalt step. A low, sweet, mocking laugh -came out of the shadows, and he felt the pressure of a little sandaled -foot on his neck. - -He knew the voice that said, "Greeting, Captain Winters! The throne of -Valkis welcomes you." - - * * * * * - -The foot was withdrawn from his neck. He rose. The old woman had fallen -back onto the throne. She was intoning what sounded like a church -litany, and her upturned face had an exalted look. - -The remembered voice said out of the dimness, "My mother is repeating -the coronation rites. Presently she will demand the year's tribute -from the Outer Islands and the coastal tribes. Time and reality do not -bother her, and it pleases her to play at being queen. Therefore, as -you see, I, Fand, rule Valkis from the shadow of the throne." - -"Sometimes," Winters said, "You must come into the light." - -"Yes." - -A soft, quick rustle and she was standing there in the shaft of -sunlight. Her hair was the colour of night after moonset, intricately -coiled. She was dressed in the old, arrogant fashion of the bandit -kingdoms--the long full skirt slit to the waist at the sides, so that -her thighs showed when she moved, the wide jeweled girdle, collar of -golden plaques. Her small, high breasts were bare and lovely, her body -slender, with a catlike grace. - -Her face was as he remembered it. Proud and fine, golden-eyed, a mouth -like a red fruit that mingled honey and poison, a lazy, slumberous -power behind the beauty, the fascination of all things that are at once -beautiful and deadly. - -She looked at Winters and smiled. "So at last you have reached the end -of your search." - -He looked down at his chains and his nakedness. "A strange way to reach -it. I paid Kor Hal well for this privilege." He gave her a searching -glance. "Do you rule Shanga, as well as Valkis? If so, you're not very -courteous to your guests." - -"On the contrary, I treat them very well--as you shall see." Her golden -eyes taunted him. "But you didn't come here to practice Shanga, Captain -Winters." - -"Why else would I have come?" - -"To find Jill Leland." - -He was not really surprised. Subconsciously he had known that she knew. -But he managed a look of blank amazement. - -"Jill Leland is dead." - -"Was she, when you saw her in the garden, and spoke to her?" Fand -laughed. "Do you think we're such fools? Everyone who comes to the -Hall of Shanga in the Trade Cities is carefully checked and examined. -We were particularly careful with you, Captain Winters, because -psychologically you were the wrong type to be drawn to Shanga. Men like -you are too strong to need escape. - -"You knew, of course, that your fiancee had taken up the practice. You -didn't like it, and tried to make her stop. Kor Hal said that she was -terribly upset about it on several occasions. But Jill had gone too far -to stop. She begged to be allowed the full power, the real Shanga. She -helped us plan her supposed death in the sea bottom. We would have done -that anyway, for our own protection, since the girl has influential -connections and we can't afford to have people hunting for our clients. -But she wanted you to believe that she was dead, so that you would -forget her. She felt she had no right to marry you, that she would ruin -your life. Doesn't that touch you, Captain Winters? Doesn't that bring -tears to your eyes?" - -It brought more than that to Winters. It brought an overpowering urge -to take this lovely she-devil between his hands and break her and then -stamp the pieces into the earth. - -His chains made one harsh jangling sound, and then the spears came up -and touched his flesh with sharp red kisses. He stood still and said, - -"Why have you done this? Is it for money, or for hate?" - -"For both, Earthman! And for something more important than either of -them." Her lips curved in brief amusement. "Besides, I've done nothing -to your people. I built the Halls of Shanga, yes. But the men and women -of Earth degrade themselves of their own free will. Come here." - -She motioned him to follow her to the window. As she crossed the vast -room, she said, - -"You have seen part of the palace. Earth credits have rebuilt and -restored the house of my fathers. The credits of apelings who wish to -return to their normal state because the civilization they have forced -themselves is too much for them. Look out there. Earth money has done -that, too." - -Winters looked out upon a sight that had almost vanished from the face -of Mars. A garden, the varied and jewel-bright garden that would have -belonged with a palace like this. Broad lawns of bronze green turf, -formal plantings, statuary.... - -For some reason he could not quite remember, that garden gave Burk -Winters a cold shuddering chill. - -But the garden itself was only a part of what he saw. A small part. -Beneath the window the ground sloped away into a vast bowl-shaped -depression, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, and Winters looked down -into an amphitheatre. Ruined as it was, it was still magnificent, with -tiers of seats rising like steps of hewn stone from the inner walls. He -thought of how it must have looked when the games were held in the old -days, with all of those thousands of places filled. - -Now, in the arena, there was another garden. A wild and tangled garden, -closed in by the high protective walls that had kept the beasts from -the spectators. There were trees in it, and open spaces, and he could -make out moving forms among the shadows, strange forms. He could not -see them clearly for the distance and the slanting light, but a chill -pang struck through him, a cold breath of foreboding. - -In the center of the arena was a lake. Not a large one, and probably -not deep, but there were creatures splashing in it, and he caught the -faint echo of a reptilian scream. An echo he had heard before.... - - * * * * * - -Fand was looking outward to the amphitheatre, with an odd, slow smile. -Winters saw that there were people already in the lower tiers of the -seats, and more of them gathering. - -"What is this thing," he asked her, "that is more important than money -or your hatred for the men of Earth?" - -All the ancient pride of her race and house flashed out in her eyes as -she answered him. He forgot his loathing of her for a moment, in his -respect for her deep sincerity. - -She said only one word. "Mars." - -The old woman heard her and cried out from the throne. Then she flung -the corner of her black mantle over her head and was silent. - -"Mars," said Fand quietly. "The world that could not even die in -decency and honour, because the carrion birds came flying to pick its -bones, and the greedy rats suck away the last of its blood and pride." - -Winters said, "I don't understand. What has Shanga to do with Mars?" - -"You'll see." She turned on him suddenly. "You challenged Shanga, -Earthman, just as your people have challenged Mars. We'll find out -which is the stronger!" - -She motioned to the officer of the guard, who went away. Then she said -to Winters, - -"You wanted your girl back. You were willing to go through the fire -of Shanga for her, though you abhorred it. You were willing to risk -your identity through the changes of the ray--_which after a while, -Earthman, never go away_. And all for Jill Leland. Do you still want -her back?" - -"Yes." - -"You're sure of that." - -"Yes." - -"Very well." Fand glanced over his shoulder and nodded. "There she is." - -For a long moment, Burk Winters did not turn around. - -Fand moved away a little, watching, with a cruel, amused interest. -Winters' back stiffened. He turned. - -She was there, standing in the sunlight, bewildered, frightened, a wild -and shining creature out of the dawn of the world, with a rope around -her neck. The guards were laughing. - -Winters thought desperately, _She has not changed too much. Back to the -primitive, but not yet to the ape. There is a soul still in her eyes, -and the light of reason._ - -_Jill, Jill! How could you have done this thing?_ - -But he understood now how she could have done it. He remembered how -bitterly he had quarreled with her over Shanga. He had thought it -a stupid and childish thing, far beneath her intelligence and as -degrading as any other drug. But he had not understood. - -He did now. And he was filled with a deadly fear, because he understood -so well. - -Because he himself was now numbered among the beasts of Shanga. And -beneath his horror as he looked at the creature that was Jill and -yet not Jill, he was aware that in some unholy way he found her -more beautiful and more alluring than he ever had before. Stripped -of all the shams and the studied unconventions of society, freed of -all complexity, her body strong and fleet as a doe's quivering with -sensitive life.... - -_It would take two of a kind. Dawn-woman, dawn-man. Strong sinew, -strong passion, the guts that cities stole away...._ - -Fand said, "She can still be saved, if you can find a way to do it." -Then she added shrewdly, "Unless you now need someone to save _you_, -Captain Winters!" - -A strong shock of revulsion rocked him, but his eyes still held a -strange light. - - * * * * * - -The silver she was coming toward him. Her gaze was fixed upon him. He -saw that she was drawn to him, and struggling to understand why. She -did not speak, and somehow Winters' throat closed on an aching lump, -so that he too was dumb. - -The guard who held her rope let her move as she would. She came close -to Winters, hesitantly, as an animal does. Then she stopped and looked -up into his face. Tears gathered in her wide dark eyes. Presently she -whimpered, very softly, and went down on her knees at his feet. - -The old woman let out a shrill cackling. Fand's eyes were like cups of -molten gold. - -Winters bent over and caught Jill in his arms. He lifted her to her -feet and stood holding her to him, in a fury of protective possessive -love. He said very softly to Fand, - -"You've seen it all now. Can we go?" - -She nodded. "Take them to the garden of Shanga," she said, and added, -"It is almost time." - -The guards took them, Burk Winters and the woman he had lost and found -again, out through the great echoing halls of the palace and down the -long slope of lawn to the amphitheatre. - -A barred gate of heavy metal covered the mouth of a tunnel. The guards -unlocked it and took off Winters' chains and thrust him inside with -Jill. The gate was locked again behind them. - -Holding Jill tightly by the hand, Winters went down the tunnel and came -presently into the arena--into the garden of Shanga. - -He stopped, blinking in the sudden light. Jill's hand tightened on his. -She quivered with a tense expectancy, and her head was tilted in an -attitude of listening. - -He had only a moment before the gong sounded, the mellow sonorous notes -that might have been calling some evil priesthood to its dark prayers. -Only a moment to glimpse the trees and the shambling anthropoid forms -that moved among them, to catch the rank beast taint in the air, to -hear the splashing and the hissing screams from the hidden pool. - -Only a moment to be filled with horror and a sick fear, to deny to -himself the reality of this nightmare garden, to wish that he were -blind and deaf, or better than that, dead. - -In the seats above the protecting wall, rows of Martian faces looked -down. They were the faces of men and women who watch the antics -of creatures in a zoo--destructive creatures for which they have a -personal hatred. - -Then the gong called out, and Jill leaped away, pulling him by the -hand. All over the garden there was a moment of intense silence, and -then there rose a devil's chorus of roaring and screaming in voices -that were horribly human and even more horribly not, and close to him -Jill's voice chimed in, saying over and over, - -"Shanga! Shanga!" - -It came to Winters in a flash, then, what Fand had meant about Mars. As -Jill pulled him headlong between the trees and across the open grassy -spaces, he realized that this garden of Shanga was in fact a zoo, an -exhibit, where the people of Mars might come to see what manner of -beast their economic conquerors were. A hot and dire shame rose in -him. _Apeling, running naked through the trees, a slave to the fire of -Shanga!_ - -He yelled at Jill to stop! - -She only plunged on the harder, so that he had to fight her, setting -his heels in the earth. And she turned on him snarling, saying, -"Shanga!" - -A great anthropoid male came rushing toward them. He had slipped back -beyond speech, but ecstatic noises came out of his throat. Behind him -were others, males, females, and young on the same evolutionary level. -Winters and the silver she that was Jill were caught up and carried on -in their tribal rush. Winters fought to get away, but it was hopeless. -The wild hairy bodies walled him in. - -As they approached the center of the garden they were joined by more -and more, all apparently summoned by the sound of the gong. Looking -at them, Winters' stomach turned over. This was Walpurgis Night, a -festival of blasphemies. And he was trapped in it, inextricably joined -to destruction. - -The ones like Jill, who had only gone a little way as yet, were not so -bad. They were human. Winters knew that he himself had been like that, -and he felt no particular horror of them. But there were others. Back -through all the stages of the primitive, beyond the Neanderthaler, -beyond the Piltdown Man, beyond Pithecanthropus Erectus, beyond the -missing Link, back to the common ancestor. - -Shapeless, shambling, hairy brutes, deformed skulls and little red -cunning eyes, bared teeth grinning yellow. Things that even the -anthropologists had never seen or dreamed of. Things that were not -human, or ape, nor any form of life that had ever been classified. - -[Illustration: _All the dark secrets of Terran evolution were laid bare -in this garden of evil, under that prism of hell!_] - -All the dark secrets of Terran evolution were laid bare in this garden, -for the Martians to see. It made even Winters, the Earthman, flinch -to think that bodies like that had given ultimate birth to him. What -respect could the Martians have for such a race, that was still so -close to its beginnings? - -But he was to see more, much more, of those beginnings.... - - * * * * * - -The gong struck a last booming summons. The tide of bowed hairy -shoulders and flat brows and ugly things that went on all fours swept -Winters and Jill out into the clearing at the center, where from the -palace window he had seen the lake. A strong musky reek hung in the -air. It had the same sickly taint that a snake-house does. And Winters -saw that the lake was agitated by the creatures who lived there, and -who were swarming out to answer the gong. - -_Back to the common ancestor, and beyond. Beyond the mammal, back -to the gill and the scale, to the egg laid in the warm mud, to the -hissing, squirming, utterly loathly ultimate!_ - -Jill panted, "Shanga! Shanga!", looking up, and Winters felt a darkness -swimming in his brain. A cold wet thing slithered between his legs, and -he swayed, retching. The surface of the lake rippled, but he would not -look. He could not. - -Grasping Jill, he tried to batter his way through the crowd, but it was -hopeless. He was caught, trapped. - -Looking up, he saw the prisms that were set high overhead on long -booms. He saw them start to glow, with the remembered flame. - -He had reached the end, now. The end of his search for Jill Leland, the -end of everything. The first sweet deadly thrill of the ray touched his -flesh. He felt the waking hunger in him, the deep lust, the stirring -of the beast that lay so close under his own skin. He thought of the -lake, and wondered how it would be to lie in its wetness, breathing -through the gill slits that had once opened in his own flesh when he -was an embryo in his mother's womb. - -_Because that is where I shall be, he thought. In the lake. Jill and I. -And beyond the lake, what? The amoeba, and then...?_ - -He saw the royal box, whence the Kings of Valkis had watched the -gladiators and the flowing blood. Fand sat there now. She leaned her -slender elbows on the stone and watched, and it seemed to Winters that -even at this distance he could see the smile and the scorn in her -golden eyes. Kor Hal sat beside her, and the old woman, a muffled shape -of black. - -The fires of Shanga burned and brightened. There was a silence on -the clearing now. The sounds that came, the moanings and the little -whimpers, did not touch the silence. They only made it deeper. The warm -glints danced on the upturned faces, glowed in the staring eyes. Each -scaled or shaggy body bore a nimbus of beauty. He saw Jill standing -there, reaching up toward the twin suns, a slim shaft of silver flame. - -The madness already in his blood. Muscle and sinew taut with -it, arching, curving. Brain clouding with a bright soft veil, -forgetfulness, release. Jill and Burk, dawn-man, dawn-woman, happy -while they lived, done with everything but their own love, their own -satisfaction. Why not? They were both in it now, both marked with the -same stamp. - -Then he heard the laughter and the jeering of the Martians who were -gathered to watch the shame of his world. He tore his gaze away from -the wicked light and looked again into the face of Fand of Valkis, and -then at Kor Hal and the thousand other faces, and a bleak and terrible -expression came into his eyes. - -The ranks of the crowd had broken. The beast-shapes lay upon the turf, -writhing in the ecstasy of Shanga. Jill was on her hands and knees. -Winters felt the strength going out of him. The lovely pain, the -beautiful, wild, exultant pain.... - -He grasped Jill and began to drag her, back toward the trees, out of -the circle of light. - -She did not want to go. She screamed and tore his face with her nails -and kicked him, and he struck her. After that she lay limp in his arms. -He kept on, stumbling over the twitching bodies, falling, crawling at -last on his hands and knees. Only one thing kept him going on. Only one -thing made him undergo the tortures of the damned, fighting Shanga. - -That thing was the scornful, smiling face of Fand. - -The touch of the ray weakened and was gone. He was safe, beyond the -circle. He dragged the girl farther into the shrubbery and turned his -back on the clearing because he wanted more than any drug addict could -conceive of wanting to go back into the light, and he dared not look at -it. - -Instead, he pulled himself erect and faced the royal box. It was only -pride that kept him standing. He looked straight into the distant eyes -of Fand, and her clear silvery voice carried to him. - -"You will go back into the fire of Shanga, Earthman. Tomorrow, or the -day after--you will go." - -Complete assurance there, as one is sure of the rising of the sun. - -Burk Winters did not answer. He stood a moment longer, his gaze level -on Fand's. Then even pride failed. He fell and lay still. - -The last conscious thought of his mind was that Fand and Mars together -had challenged Earth, and that it was no longer merely a matter of -saving a girl from destruction. - - - IV - -When he came to, it was night. Jill sat patiently beside him. She had -brought him food, and while he wolfed it down she went away to fetch -water in a broad cupped leaf. - -He tried to talk to her, but there was a gulf between them too wide -to be bridged. She seemed subdued and brooding, and would not come -close to him. He had robbed her of the fire of Shanga, and she had not -forgotten it. - -The futility of trying to escape with her was obvious. After a while he -rose and left her, and she did not try to follow. - -The garden was still under the light of the low moons. Apparently the -beasts of Shanga, true to their ape heritage, were sleeping. Moving -with infinite caution, Winters prowled the arena in search of a way -out. A plan had taken shape in his mind. It was not much of a plan, and -he knew that very probably he would be dead before morning, but he had -nothing to lose. He did not even particularly care. He was a man, an -Earthman, and there was an anger in him that was deeper than any fear. - -The walls of the arena were smooth and high. Even an ape could not -have climbed them. All the tunnels were blocked off except the one by -which they had entered. He crept down it and found the barred gate -impenetrable. Beyond it was a little guard fire, and two sentries. - -Winters went back to the arena. - -He could see no sign of a guard in the empty tiers of seats. There -was no reason for one. In itself, the amphitheatre was a perfect -prison, and the creatures of the garden had no wish to escape from the -besotting joys of Shanga. - -Whipped before he started, Winters stood glaring bitterly at the walls -that held him fast. Then he caught sight of the booms from which the -Shanga prisms were suspended. - -Going to the nearest one, he studied it. It was high out of reach, -a long metal pole that stretched from the side of the arena above -the wall and, with the other one, centered the Shanga-rays over the -clearing. - -High out of reach. But if a man had a rope.... - -Winters went in among the trees. He found vines and creepers, and -tore them away, and knotted them together. He found a small log in a -deadfall, big enough to weight one end but light enough for throwing. -Then he returned to the boom. - -On the third cast the log went over. He drew his flimsy rope down, -making a double strand. Hand over hand, praying that the vines would -hold, he began to climb. - -It seemed like a long way up. He felt very naked and exposed in the -moonlight. - -The vines held, and no challenging voice shouted at him. He clung to -the boom and worked his way along it, first dropping the telltale rope. -Presently he was safe among the tiered seats. - -Avoiding the guard by the tunnel, he made his way out of the -amphitheatre and circled out across the slope, keeping to cover -where there was cover, crawling on his belly where there was none. -The shifting moon-shadows helped him, because they made visibility a -treacherous thing. The palace loomed above him, huge and dark, crushed -under the weight of time. - -Only two lights showed. One, on the ground floor, he guessed would be -the guard room. The other, on the third level, was dim as though made -by a single torch. That, he hoped, would be the apartment of Fand. - -Up the slope and into the shelter of the palace garden, and then into -the palace itself. The great half-ruined pile could not have been -guarded, even if there had been reason to guard it. Padding silently on -naked feet, Winters glided through the vast empty halls, trying to keep -a plan of the place straight in his mind. - -His eyes were accustomed to the dark, and enough moonlight fell through -the embrasures to let him see where he was going. Room and hall and -corridor, smelling of dust and death, dreaming over their faded flags -and broken trophies, remembering glory. Winters shivered. Something of -the cold breath of eternity lived in this place. - -He found a ramp, and then another, and at last on the third level he -saw light, the weak flicker of it from the crack of a door. - -There was no guard. That was a break. Not only because it was a -difficulty eliminated, but because it confirmed his guess that Fand was -a person who would want no check on her comings and goings. From the -standpoint of safety in this place, a guard would be only a useless -adornment. Fand was on her own ground here. There were no enemies. - -Save one. - -Winters opened the door without sound. A tiring maid slept on a low -couch. She did not stir as he passed. Beyond an open arch hung with -heavy curtains he found the lady Fand. - -She slept in a huge carved bed, the bed of the Kings of Valkis. She -looked like a child lost in its hugeness. She was very beautiful. Very -wicked, and most damnably beautiful. - -Winters struck her, quite ruthlessly. Sleep became unconsciousness. -There was no outcry. With silks and girdles he found in the room he -bound and gagged her, and flung her light weight over his shoulder. -Then he went back the way he had come, silently out of the palace. - -It was as easy as that. He had not thought it would be easy, but it -was. After all, he thought, men seldom guard against the impossible. - -Phobos had gone on its careening flight around Mars, and Deimos was -too low to give much light. Now carrying the unconscious Fand, now -dragging her across the open spaces, Winters made his way back to -the amphitheatre. In and across the tiered seats to the wall. It was -a twenty-foot drop, but he made it as easy as he could on her. He -didn't want her dead. Then he slid over himself, hung briefly by his -fingertips, and fell into cushioning brush. - -When he got his breath back he made sure that Fand was not hurt. -Then he carried her swiftly into the shelter of the unholy garden. -Remembering a particularly dense patch of shrubbery near the central -clearing, he made for it and crept thankfully into concealment with the -heir of all the Kings of Valkis. - -Then he waited. - - * * * * * - -Her eyes were looking up at him in the dim light, bitter gold above the -gag of scarlet silk. - -"Yes," he said, "you're here, in the garden of Shanga. I brought you -here. We have a bargain to talk about, Fand." - -He undid the gag, keeping his hand close over her mouth lest she should -cry out. - -She said, "There will be no bargain between us, Earthman." - -"Your life, Fand. Your life for mine, and Jill's, and the others here -who can still be saved. Destroy the prisms, stop this madness, and you -can live to be as old and crazy as your mother." - -There was no fear in her. Unbending pride, and hatred, but no fear. She -laughed. - -He put his hand on her throat, his fingers reaching iron-strong around -her neck. "Slim," he said. "Soft, and tender. It would snap so easily." - -"Break it, then. Shanga will go on without me. Kor Hal will take over. -And you, Burk Winters--you can't escape." Her teeth showed white in a -taunting smile. "You'll run with the beasts. No man can break free from -Shanga." - -Winters nodded. "I know that," he said quietly. "Therefore I must -destroy Shanga before it destroys me." - -She looked at him, naked and unarmed, crouching in the brush. Once -more, she laughed. - -He shrugged. "Perhaps it is impossible. I won't know that until it's -too late, anyway. It isn't really me I'm worried about, Fand. I could -be perfectly happy running on all fours through your garden. Probably -I would be perfectly happy hissing and wallowing in the lake. Now the -idea sickens me, but after a touch of Shanga it would be all right. No. -It isn't me that matters, nor even Jill." - -"What, then?" - -"Earth has its pride, too," he told her gravely. "It's a younger and -cruder pride than yours. It can become pretty ruthless and obnoxious at -times, I'll admit. But on the whole, Earth is a good planet, and her -people are good people, and she's done more to advance the Solar System -than all the other worlds put together. As an Earthman, I don't like to -see my world disgraced." - -He glanced up and around the amphitheatre. "I think," he went on, -"that Earth and Mars can learn a lot from each other, if the fanatics -on both sides will stop making trouble. You're the worst one I've -ever heard of, Fand. You go even beyond fanaticism." He looked at her -speculatively. "I think you're as mad right now as your mother." - -She did not flare up at that, which convinced him that she was not mad -at all, only twisted by the way she lived and the things she had been -taught. - -She said, "What do you plan to do about all this?" - -"Wait. Until dawn, or perhaps later. Anyway, until you've had time to -think. Then I shall give you a last chance. After that, I shall kill -you." - -She was smiling when he replaced the gag, and her eyes did not waver. - -The hours passed. Darkness into dawn, and then into full daylight. -Winters sat unmoving, his head bowed over his knees. Fand's eyes were -closed, and it seemed that she slept. - -The garden woke to life with the sun, and all around the dense thicket -Winters heard the padding footsteps and the growling of the beasts -of Shanga. The things in the shallow lake cried out, and their musky -taint soured the wind. Winters shivered like a man with fever and his -brooding eyes were haunted. - -After a while Jill came. Animal-like she had found him, animal-like she -came, slipping without sound through the brush. She would have cried -out at the sight of Fand, but he silenced her. She crouched beside him, -watching him. She was afraid of him and yet she could not stay away. He -stroked her shoulder. It was soft and strong and trembling under his -hand. Her gaze was doe-like, full of sadness and a bewildered yearning. - -Winters' face became as bleak and pitiless as the barren stars that -watch from outer space. - -The time grew very short. Jill began to look upward toward the prisms. -Winters sensed in her a growing nervousness. - -He shook Fand. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and he knew what -her answer would be before he asked the question. - -"Well?" - -She shook her head. - -For the first time, Winters smiled. "I have decided," he said, "not to -kill you after all." - -What he did after that was done quickly and efficiently, and there was -no one to see but Jill and Fand. Jill did not understand, the heiress -of the Kings of Valkis understood too well. - -People began to drift into the amphitheatre. Martians, coming to see -a show, coming to learn contempt and loathing for the men of Earth. -Winters watched them. He was still smiling. - -Suddenly he turned to Jill. When he rose a few minutes later, scratched -and panting, she was securely bound with strips torn from the bonds of -Fand. This time she would not bathe so helplessly in the fire of Shanga. - -The Martians gathered. Kor Hal came into the royal box, bringing the -old woman, who leaned on his arm. - -The gong sounded. - - - V - -Once again, Winters watched the gathering of the beasts of Shanga. -Hidden in the thicket, beyond the reach of the rays, he saw the hairy -bodies rush and jostle toward the central clearing. He saw the shining -of their drugged eyes. He heard them moan and whimper, and all over the -garden the mouthing whisper went--_Shanga! Shanga!_ - -Jill writhed and thrashed in the agony of her desire, her cries muffled -by the wad of silk he had thrust into her mouth. Winters could not bear -to look at her. He knew how she was suffering. He was suffering himself. - -He saw that Kor Hal was leaning forward over the edge of the wall, -searching the garden. He knew what the Martian was looking for. - -The last notes of the gong rang out. A silence fell on the clearing. -Hairy anthropoid, shambling brute that ran on all fours, nameless -creatures beyond the ape, crawling thing with wet and shining -scales--all silent, all waiting. - -The prisms began to glow. The beautiful wicked fire of Shanga filled -the air. Burk Winters set his hand between his teeth and bit until the -blood ran. - -It seemed to him that he could hear a faint thin screaming, rising out -of the flowering shrubs by the lake. Low, tough-stemmed shrubs that lay -under the full rays of the prisms. - -_Shanga! Shanga!_ - -He had to go, into the clearing, into the fiery light. He could not -stand it. He must feel again the burning touch on his flesh, the -madness and the joy. He could not stay away. - -In desperation he flung himself down beside Jill and clung to her, -shuddering in torment. - -He heard Kor Hal's voice, calling his name. - -He steadied himself and rose, stepping out into the full sight of -the royal box. The Martians ranged on either side watched him with -interest, turning their attention momentarily from the orgy of the -beasts of Shanga. - -Winters said, "I'm here, Kor Hal." - -The man of Barrakesh looked at him and laughed. "Why fight it, Winters? -You can't keep away from Shanga." - -Winters asked, "Where is your high priestess? Has she wearied of the -sport?" - -Kor Hal shrugged. "Who knows the mind of the Lady Fand? She comes and -goes as she will." He leaned forward. "Go on, Winters! The fire of -Shanga is waiting. Look how he sweats there, trying to be a man! Go on, -apeling--join your brothers!" - -The shrill jeering laughter of the Martians fell upon Winters with the -sharpness of spears. - -He stood there, naked in the sunlight, his head held stubbornly erect, -and he did not move. He could not control the trembling of his limbs -nor the harshness of his breathing. The sweat ran in his eyes and -blinded him, and the fire of Shanga danced on the writhing bodies, and -he thought he would go mad with torment, but he stood there and would -not move. He thought he was going to die, but he would not move. - -And the Martians watched. - -Kor Hal said, "Tomorrow, then. Perhaps the next day--but you'll go, -Earthman." - -Winters knew that he would. He could not go through this again. If -he were still alive in the garden of Shanga the next time the gong -sounded, he would go with his brothers. - -The fire of Shanga died at last from the prisms, and the creatures of -its making lay still on the ground. The Martians sighed. The first stir -of departure ran through them. - -Burk Winters cried out, "Wait!" - - * * * * * - -His voice rang back from the empty upper tiers, and it brought every -eye upon him. There was desperation in it, and triumph, and the anger -of a man driven beyond the bounds of reason. - -"Wait, you men of Mars! You came to see a show. Very well, I'll give -you one. You, Kor Hal! You told me something, down there in Valkis. You -told me of the men of Caer Dhu who first made Shanga, and how in one -generation they were destroyed by it. _One_ generation!" - -He stepped forward, finding release for his tortured nerves in this -denunciation. - -"We of Earth are a young race. We're still close to our beginnings, and -for that you hate and mock us, calling us apes. Very well. But that -youth gives us strength. We go very slowly down the road of Shanga. - -"But you of Mars are old. You have followed the circle of time a -long way round, and the end is always close to the beginning. In one -generation the men of Caer Dhu were gone. Our fibres are iron, but -theirs were only straw. - -"That's why no Martian will practice Shanga--why it was forbidden by -the City-States. You don't dare to practice it, because it hurls you -headlong down that road--toward your end or your beginning, who knows? -But you haven't the strength to take it, and you're afraid." - -A jeering, angry howl rose from the crowd. Kor Hal shouted, - -"Listen to the ape! Listen to the beast we drove through the streets of -Valkis!" - -"Yes, listen to him!" Winters cried. "Because the Lady Fand is gone, -and only the ape knows where she is!" - -That silenced them, and in the quiet Winters laughed. - -"Perhaps you don't believe me. Shall I tell you how I did it?" He told -them, and when he was through telling he listened, while they called -him liar, and he jeered in Kor Hal's face. - -"Wait," he shouted. "Wait, and I'll bring her to you." - -He turned and went toward the clearing. He went fast, because the -beasts were already beginning to stir and rouse from their temporary -stupor. He remembered from his own experience with Shanga that before -consciousness returned there was a period of delirium, so that even in -the Trade City solariums the people were not turned loose until it had -passed. - -Threading his way between the brutish bodies, leaping over them, -avoiding the touch of the scaly things, he came to the clump of -flowering shrubs by the lake and crawled in among them. - -He had not known. He had guessed from Kor Hal's statement that the -metamorphosis was swift, but he had not known. There were some things -that a man could not even guess at. - -In spite of himself, he cried out. He did not want to look at the thing -that lay there, did not even want to know that such a form of life had -existed, or could exist. But he had to look at it. He had to go close -to it, so that he might undo the silken bonds that held it to the roots -of the shrubs. He had to touch it. He had to lay his hands upon its -softness, lift its flaccid weight, hold its slippery squirming against -his own body. - -It had eyes. That was the worst of it. It had eyes, and it looked at -him. - -He went away from the thicket, carrying his burden. Back across the -clearing, where two great males were already fighting over a she, out -into the open space before the royal box, where all could plainly see. - -He lifted the thing over his head, high into the sunlight. - -"Here!" he shouted. "Don't you recognize her? Last of the royal house -of Valkis--the Lady Fand!" - -Around a portion of the wriggling anatomy that might once have been a -neck, the collar of golden plaques swung shining. - -For a moment he held her so, while the faces of the Martians stared -like the masks of dead men and Kor Hal rose and gripped the edges of -the stone. Then he laid his burden down and stepped back from it where -it moved horribly across the turf. - -"Look there, you Martians," he said. "That is your own beginning." - -In the utter, stricken silence the old woman rose. She stood for a -moment looking down, and it seemed that she was about to speak or cry -out, but no sound came. Then she fell, out over the wall and down the -sheer drop into the arena. She did not move again. - -As though she had led them, the Martians rose with one low terrible cry -and followed her. Not to death, as they dropped over the wall, but to -vengeance. - - * * * * * - -Winters ran. He had Jill free in a minute, dragging her away into -denser cover. The mouth of the tunnel was not far distant. - -The Martians swarmed in upon the clearing, and then the beasts of -Shanga saw them. With roars and screams, they surged out to meet their -attackers. - -Knife and short sword and spiked brass knuckles against fang and claw -and the powerful muscles of the brute. The scaly creatures darted here -and there, hissing, slashing with their rows of needle-sharp reptilian -teeth. Great hands ripped and tore, snapping bones like matchsticks, -cracking skulls. And the slim blades flickered in the sunlight, bright -tongues speaking death. - -Vengeance was done that day in the garden of Shanga. The vengeance -of Earth on Mars, and the vengeance of men upon the shame of their -heritage. - -Winters saw Kor Hal run his sword through the creeping horror that had -been Fand, through and through again until all motion stopped. Then he -shouted Winters' name. - -Winters went to him. - -Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say. Bare-handed, Winters went -against the Martian's sword. With the nightmare carnage of the battle -going on around them, they two were alone. They two had a special score -to settle. - -Winters took one long gash above the heart before he caught Kor Hal's -arm and broke it. The Martian never whimpered. With his left hand he -reached for the knife at his girdle, but it never left the sheathe. -Winters laid Kor Hal backward across his knee and placed one thigh -across his loins and an elbow across his throat. After a moment he -dropped the broken body and went away, taking the sword. - -The guards came running into the arena through the tunnel. - -The fight was spreading outward from the lake. Locked in struggling, -swaying knots, the beasts of Shanga slew the Martians and were slain. -The waters of the lake were stained red, and the corpse of a Martian -was being dragged stealthily into it from the mud of the bank. There -was something hidden below the surface, something that could no longer -fight on land, but only lay quietly in wait, and fed. - -Now the guards had come with their long spears, and Winters knew that -in the end there would not be one creature left alive in the garden. -And it was well. - -He took Jill's hand and led her toward the tunnel, running in the -shelter of the trees. The fight was occupying everyone's attention. The -brute males were hard to kill, and they fought for the love of it. The -tunnel was empty, the gate open, the guards inside the arena, hard at -work. Winters and the girl fled through it, taking cover outside the -amphitheatre just before another group of guards came down from the -palace. - -From there, with infinite haste and caution, they made their way down -the cliffs through the dead ruins of Valkis, and then out across the -desert, skirting the living town by the canal. Kor Hal's flier was on -the field where Winters remembered it. - -He thrust Jill inside, and as he followed her he saw the angry mob -start to pour out of Valkis, where word of his crime and his escape had -been brought, a little too late. - -He took the flier up, setting a course for Kahora. And now that it was -all over, he felt a great weariness and an over-whelming desire to -forget the very name of Shanga. - - * * * * * - -But he knew that he could never forget. The golden fire had burned too -deep. He knew that he would always be haunted by the beautiful face of -Fand as it had looked when he shackled her in the clearing, and by the -memory of the high thin screaming as the light poured down from the -prisms. Even the psychos could never make him forget. - -The governments of Earth and Mars would see to it now that Shanga was -stamped out forever. He was glad, and a little proud, because it had -been his doing. But even so.... - -He looked over at Jill. Someday, he prayed, she would be herself again. -The taint of Shanga would pass her, and she would once more be the Jill -Leland he had given his heart to. - -_But will it pass entirely?_ For a moment it seemed that he heard the -mocking voice of Fand, speaking in his soul. _Will it pass from you, -Burk Winters? Can one who has run with the beasts of Shanga ever be the -same again?_ - -He did not know. 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