Chapter II

"Up you go!" Mark's long muscles corded as he heaved and Aladdo's body left the mud with a sucking sound, to sprawl on the solid ground of the island. Presently the Earthman joined him, and for a few seconds they rested silently.

All around them the vegetation surged, lush and matted, inextricably tangled with parasitic vines. Whereas the expanse of swamp was bare of the myriad growths of Venus, for some unknown chemical reason, the island itself was riotous with them. It was as if every inch of _terra firma_ were precious. The humid air was hot and stagnant, heavy with the overpowering fragrance of flowers. Even after two months of conditioning, Mark had difficulty in breathing, as the odors of this alien world increased as the temperature rose.

"Arrgh, what a world!" Mark said disgustedly, as he rose to his feet. "I'm going to bathe, before the gang arrives. You'd better come too." Together they went up the vine-entangled path toward the barracks, and, rounding a corner of the building, followed another path to where a small spring gushed from an elevation; it fell in a sparkling shower and then meandered a few feet to lose itself in the swamp.

Aladdo, as usual, merely let the water flow over the metallic suit that sheathed the slender body. By the time they had finished bathing, the rest of the convicts began to emerge from radiating paths, to dump their swamp pearls onto the growing heap by the side of their barracks. Some of the men threw themselves on the ground, exhausted in minds and bodies, and were almost instantly asleep. A few sat against the barracks wall and chewed the deadly _tsith_ stems, their eyes vacant, their faces gray. _Tsith_ was awful stuff, even if it did banish pain. Mark knew that these men wouldn't last long, but he wondered if perhaps they weren't the wiser ones after all!

Returning from his bath to the barracks, Mark found that Aladdo had disappeared. He entered, and donned a thin rubberoid garment from among his meager store of personal belongings. It resembled one of the ancient woolen suits that Earthmen had used against the cold many centuries before; but there was a great difference. Mark's garment was impervious to cold or heat, highly flexible, yet the interlining of allurium mesh could intercept anything short of a ray blast.

When Mark emerged, he found Aladdo talking in very low tones, with a tall, Martian-Venusian half-breed. This man was fantastic. He had the slenderness of the Venusians, and the finely chiseled features, but his eyes were Martian--deep purple and immense, far too large for the face. The breadth of shoulder and barrel chest was Martian too, ludicrous in comparison with the wasp waist and slender thighs.

Mark had seen this half-breed about the swamp before, and wondered who he was. Now Aladdo, glancing up, called to him. Mark walked over to them.

"This is Luhor, Earthman," the Venusian crossed both hands at the wrists in the immemorial Venusian gesture indicating that a friend was being introduced. "Luhor, the Earthman's name is Mark. He is the one I told you about. Note the muscular power of the body, the intelligence of the face, no less than middle-order. I think you shall find him most useful."

* * * * *

Mark felt as if he were on the auction block, as Aladdo calmly pointed out his physical attributes. He was mystified. At the back of his mind a vague memory strove to emerge; it was barely a sense of having seen this man Luhor before, moving among the torpid convicts and whispering to them briefly. Perhaps it had been an allusion of the swamp's night glow, and yet, the feeling persisted. Mark extended his hand to the Martian-Venusian, who eyed him silently, expressionless, without grasping the proffered hand. Around them, the atmosphere was electric.

At last Luhor spoke. "Only fifteen can go. They have been picked out!" His was a rumbling voice, emotionless--cold.

"Eliminate one then," Aladdo said imperiously.

"How? They'll fight like Ocelandians; they already know they've been picked, O Aladdian!"

Then Mark Denning understood. Escape was being planned. Aladdo was one of those to go, and was trying to induce Luhor to include him! Mark's heart was pounding, he knew that it was now or never; he must be among those who escaped. He would never again be so close to the solution of the mysteries he had been sent here to solve.

"I'm new here," Mark spoke hurriedly. "Look at my arms, my chest. I have tremendous strength and endurance. My vitality has not been sapped by the swamp as yet. Take me also, Luhor, I'll repay you beyond anything you can dream of!"

The half-breed's mouth twisted slowly into a cold sneer as he gazed at the Earthman, then he shrugged his shoulders. It might have meant anything, but Mark thought it meant denial. In silence Luhor bowed to Aladdo and strode off toward a group of several men. It was odd, Mark thought--a half-breed convict showing such a mark of respect to another convict. But perhaps it was because Luhor was half Venusian, and Bedrim had been Aladdo's father. Mark turned questioningly to Aladdo.

He was amazed to see sudden alarm leap into the Venusian's eyes, together with a warning cry.

Mark stepped lithely aside, but not in time to avoid a terrific blow between his shoulder-blades that left a burning point of fire in his flesh. He half fell to his knees, but whirled around to confront a bestial face, maddened now by blood-lust. In the attacker's hand was the haft and a piece of broken blade from what had evidently been a smuggled knife. It was useless now, shattered against the allurium mesh interlining of Mark's suit.

With a cry of baffled rage the attacking Earthman hurled the broken weapon into Mark's face, and launched himself close behind it. Mark rolled slightly aside, then gained his feet and whirled to face his attacker. Mark was icy calm now. He awaited the convict's next rush, then sent a straight left unerringly to the man's head, driving him off-balance. Mark kept facing him, balanced lightly on his toes as the man came boring back in tenaciously. Mark's right arm was a peg upon which he hung the convict's blow, while he used the boxer's left, long and weaving, throwing it swiftly three times like a cat sparring with a mouse.

The killer rushed, aggressive and eager. Mark let his heels touch the ground this time, refused to give way. He took a murderous hook to the stomach without flinching, countered with a quick left to the face and then a vicious right-cross. The convict's face seemed to lose contour, its features blurred as the face went gory; his feet crossed and his knees went suddenly rubbery, he fell with a crash and didn't get up.

* * * * *

Mark towered above him, breathing heavily, only now aware of the little group of interested men who had watched.

"You fight like a Venusian Ocelandian--as ruthless, and as methodical." It was Luhor who stepped forward and spoke; he was grinning twistedly as he surveyed Mark's handiwork.

"Now I wonder why he wanted to eliminate me?" Mark gestured puzzledly.

For an answer Aladdo, standing close by him, tapped the spot where in a hidden, inner pocket reposed the purple pearl. The gesture went unnoticed by Luhor, but Mark suddenly understood.

"What do you care?" Luhor waved a hand as if dismissing the fallen foe. "He was one of the chosen. You may take his place, Earthman, since you have so neatly disabled him." His large weird eyes took in Mark's physique with a new interest.

To Aladdo he said, "You have your wish." Again there was that odd note of deference in his voice. He bowed slightly and turned away again to the gathered little group of men.

"When do we start?" Mark whispered eagerly to Aladdo.

But the Venusian's eyes were preternaturally bright. A frail hand was held up for silence. Mark stood tense, listening. The brightness of Aladdo's eyes seemed to increase.

And then Mark heard it. They all heard it. It was unbelievable.

The low, powerful hum of a repulsion beam rent the stillness. It was faint and far away at first, but became steadily louder. This, Mark knew, was not the hornet's hum of the tiny craft the Prison Bureau sent with supplies; this was the unmistakable vibration of a Spacer hovering above them!

Soon the immense bulk of the spaceship dropped slowly from the cloud banks above, like a silvery ghost descending. It hovered fifty feet above the islet, the powerful repulsion beam humming its deafening drone. An under-hull lock opened. A long flexible ladder rushed uncoiling through the murky atmosphere until it struck the ground a dozen paces from the barracks.

"Back!" Luhor's voice crackled like an icy javelin as an avalanche of humanity scrambled toward the ladder, clawing, tearing and screaming. In his hand he held an atom-blast capable of annihilating that entire snarling group. They saw it and halted uncertainly. Luhor strode calmly toward the ladder and again shouted, "Back, you vermin!" He brought the weapon up as if to fire, and the tattered dregs who had been human beings still prized life enough to retreat sullenly.

In a cold voice Luhor called names from a list in his hand. His huge purple orbs inspected each man to step forward, then he waved them toward the ladder. Aladdo was first, and Mark's heart leaped as the Venusian scrambled up the weaving ladder, grasping the metal rungs with fragile hands. One by one, fifteen convicts were called. Mark was among the last, and he heard Luhor ordering the remaining convicts into the swamp. Two disobeyed and leaped forward desperately. Luhor's atom-blast spat, one man dropped in his tracks and the other went scrambling back. Cries, imprecations, curses and pleadings dwindled as the men retreated to the mud.

It was then that Luhor himself began to ascend the rungs, as the ladder was slowly pulled up. A rush of maddened convicts clawed at empty air as the stairway to freedom rose above their heads. Luhor laughed mockingly down at them. Mark, just above, suddenly hated Luhor for that.

* * * * *

Inside the Spacer, with the air-lock closed, Luhor turned to the waiting men. His rumbling voice rose commandingly. "Anyone with weapons, whatever they are, throw them on the floor before you; if you refuse, or we have to search you and find them, you'll be dropped through the air-lock into the swamp. Choose!"

The absolute cold finality of his tone left no doubt. A veritable arsenal of sharpened rocks, crude metal knives, and bent wires coated with deadly poison from Venusian plants, showered down.

"All through?" The half-breed's purple eyes ranged down the line of men, as if he could see into their minds. There was a moment of silence, then one of the men hesitantly dropped an outmoded heat-gun, old-fashioned but deadly. Luhor's eyebrows went up, and he smiled thinly. "All right," he told a member of the crew, "gather up this junk and toss it out. You new men follow me. First you'll sluice off the mud and put on some decent clothes. Afterwards you'll see the _Commander_; and," he added, "the _Commander_ will see you!" A fleeting smile hovered on his lips as if he had a little joke all his own.

Mark was amazed at the spaciousness of the ship, and at the luxury of its appointments. It was apparent at once that this was no ordinary Spacer, for it was a fighting craft as well--a long, slim torpedo of death modern beyond anything he'd ever seen. He only obtained a glimpse of a few of the craft's weapons, but they looked formidable enough to tackle anything the Tri-Planetary ships could muster. He tried not to appear too curious, however; he knew that just now his best bet was to look dazed and docile.

He glanced around for Aladdo, but the little Venusian had disappeared. Mark wasn't too surprised. He was satisfied to know that Aladdo was on the ship, and that eventually he would appear.

The men scrubbed themselves with soap under needles of warm water, and achieved cleanliness for the first time in many months. Dressed in clean trousers and tunics, they were ready at last to go before the Commander. The men moved restlessly and whispered among themselves. None knew where they were going, or why. They only knew that a miracle had happened and they had been delivered from the great swamp. It didn't occur to any of them as yet that there could be a situation even remotely as bad as their living death in the swamp.

One by one, they were called, as they waited in the ship's comfortable leisure-room. At its far end was an automatic beryllium door, and as each man's name was called through an amplifier, the door would open to permit a man to go through. Already nine men had passed through, and none had emerged.

Mark could hardly restrain his impatience. Behind that door was the solution of a great mystery--a mystery which had grown in importance beyond anything the Prison Bureau officials had dreamed of, Mark realized, considering the perilous super-efficiency of this spaceship, now speeding away from Venus!

* * * * *

Mark's name was called last, and he tried to achieve a careless nonchalance as he walked toward the door that opened silently for him. He would not have been too surprised to find that Aladdo was the Commander of this ship; that thought had occurred to him. As he entered the huge compartment, however, he had only a confused impression of brilliant lighting and indiscriminate luxury. Magnificent, ceiling-high tapestries covered the metal walls; beneath his feet, the resilient pile of an imperial Martian rug was a splash of varicolored splendour. Ornaments from three planets were everywhere, some of them museum pieces, like the desk of extinct Martian _Majagua_ wood, inlaid with miniature mosaics of semi-precious stones.

"Loot from the spacelanes!" Mark exclaimed inwardly. And then he was beyond all amazement as his gaze went across the bright room, and he saw the two people present.

One was Luhor, dressed resplendently now, the shadow of a smile upturning the corners of his mouth. He was standing. Seated at a desk beside him was a girl. She was clad in a close-fitting uniform of a white, gleaming material like watered silk.

Mark slowly let out his breath, and then he crossed the room. He wondered if she were really that beautiful, or if it was just the garish lights and surroundings.

She spoke first. "If you must be amazed, please do it quickly. I am weary of these interviews."

Mark looked at her eyes that were blue but unsmiling, and lips that smiled thinly but didn't mean it. Her slightly turned-up nose would have been amusing ordinarily but wasn't now. Coppery brown hair was brushed smoothly back from her forehead, to fall in waves to her shoulders. Mark wished she would smile with her eyes as well as her lips.

His own smile faded, he took a deep breath and said, "I am sufficiently amazed."

"Good. Then we can proceed. Luhor, is this the last one?"

"Yes. He's the one I was telling you about."

She turned her cold blue eyes upon Mark again. Her voice was emotionless, almost a monotone. "Luhor tells me you were exceedingly anxious to leave the Venus swamp. Why?"

"Why!" Mark repeated in amazement. "Why does any man want to leave there? It's a living death--and I was slowly going crazy."

"You had only been there a few months?"

"That's right."

"Why were you sent there?"

Mark hesitated for a split second, and decided he had better stick to the same story he'd told Aladdo. "I'm a 'political'," he said.

She nodded, as though satisfied. "I have never been actually in the swamp. I understand that you worked hard there?"

"Yes, very hard. We had to, to stay alive."

"You will work very hard for me--for the same reason. Perhaps you will wish you had stayed in the swamp. What can you do?"

Mark brightened. "Around a spaceship? I can handle rocket-tubes, or controls. Also probably any weapon you care to mention. Calculations and differential equations are pretty easy. I could almost quote you the entire _Advanced Principles of Space Navigation_...." With a rush of nostalgia Mark was remembering all the mechanics and mathematics of his four years in Government Spacer School. He went on with cool confidence, "I could take one of your atomomotors apart, jumble the pieces and put it together again. I'm really a mechanic rather than a spaceman. Spacery's only a hobby of mine...."

She swung her eyes over to the half-breed. Luhor nodded, grinning with huge amusement. She said to Mark:

"You will work at the mines, where you are going. You can make _that_ a hobby of yours. I do not like men with me in space who know more about a ship than I do."

Mark slowly seethed, but said nothing. She waved a slim hand in dismissal. Luhor, still grinning, showed Mark the door by which to go out.