Chapter II

They were chained to a wall like dumb, dangerous beasts, though such a precaution appeared pitifully unnecessary. At frequent intervals, a contingent of Martian sycophants entered the narrow but high corridor and took a varied number of human slaves through a huge oval door. A door that had once been a gateway of learning into worlds devoted to peace and progressive research. This great structure, now in ruins from the Solar War between Mars and the rest of the System (except the world of the enigmatic Jovians who had remained neutral) had once been known as World Tech. Now it was a huge torture chamber made more hideous because of its modern scientific equipment used for such savage, barbaric research.

There was a terrible kind of silence between these episodes of the opening of the door, except for the half-crazed breathing of resigned humans. But when the oval door opened, screams came out. There were dim, quick impressions of steam and odors. And of shadows that seemed only partly human now, writhing on a wall.

Blobs of sweat rolled down the little man's red face. A thick two-week's beard itched. Venard brooded over the three-dim memory-sphere of Vale, when no Guards were close enough to detect his furtive actions.

"About two more trips and we're going to be taken in there," choked Larson. "Karl! Look at me an' listen now." His voice lowered, trembled. "It's against my religious principles to take my own life. I'd rather get mine fighting fair. If we fight, maybe we can make 'em blast us with them H-guns."

"We've tried often enough," said Venard. "They're too handy with those whips they call arms."

Venard looked sardonically into the three-dim photo-crystal at the beautiful blond figure floating in it, shifting among multi-colored clouds. Red lips smiled, and deep, impassioned eyes shone up at Venard from the incredibly realistic opening that might almost have been a doorway into another world.

"Karl," moaned Larson, wringing his hands like a frightened girl. "Don't waste the last mortal seconds of your life moonin' over that faithless female."

The oval door opened. A long cry fluttered out. It bounded down the hall and through dark shadows and hollows. It was like a long nerve of cloth torn in two. It was a tattered, terrible sound. Larson shook, his jowls quivered, his eyes bulged. "Gods, Karl! What do they do to people in there? It's like hell, ain't it? Just like Dante's hell!"

"Beautiful," answered Venard softly. "Lovely as freedom. Soft as a night in Theophilus Crater."

"Huh? Oh, you mean her? She did you dirt. Why can't you forget her? She walked out on you. She wanted to be a scientist, not Mrs. K. Venard. Forget her! Listen, I'm gonna make 'em blast me with their H's. You with me, Karl? Hey, she ain't worth a man's last thoughts."

The woman's face shifted, seemed to wink at Venard. His big, dirty hand caressed the cloudy dream stuff of the image. His ragged fingernail looked grotesque beside the cloudy loveliness.

"Ironic, isn't it, Kewpie Doll? She still lives, free and immune, I guess. Only traitors live and know freedom. But she loved me anyway, Kewpie Doll, even if she was only a passing fantasy. She was okay, just too intelligent for love. An I.Q. of 200. That's a lot of quotient. I said to her that night under the rim of Theophilus, 'Vale--this is it. Take your choice. Either me or your internship in Solar Science City. You either go into that science convent on Venus to wither away the rest of your unnatural life, or you and I take a honeymoon right here.' And, Kewpie Doll, you know what she said to me then?"

"How could I know?" slobbered Larson, eyes bugging at the oval door. It was opening again. "I heard it only eleven hundred and fifty-eight and one half times. Karl! I think they'll get us this trip. They--"

* * * * *

Venard continued softly, as if unaware of the approaching Martie guards. "She said, Karl, darling. I love science and what it means to the System. All Venus is a wilderness, except for the odd under-sea civilization of the Sea People, and the great domed University called Solar Science City. Something's terribly wrong there--I don't know what, but there's something. Solar Science City was established by the best mentalities and resources of the entire System, for the good of the System. But for almost a hundred years Solar Science City has been an isolated, mysterious, incommunicative shell hiding something dark and evil. Because of my I.Q. I've been given the privilege of going there, if I desire. And I've decided to go. I'm going to find out why S.S.C. has retreated into its own shell, and no longer serves mankind. I'm going to find out what happens to all the great mentalities that go there. When I find out, I'll be back, Karl. Back to you."

"A nice speech that, Kewpie Doll. But she never came back. No one ever comes back if they go into S.S.C. as either a faculty or student-member. If the war hadn't come along I was going to S.S.C. and find out the score. I wonder what the mystery is, and what happened to Vale. Two years, and not a word from her. She probably never even knew the Martians attacked the System. Or, if she did, I'll bet she never cared."

"Why worry now!" howled Larson, mopping at his head. "What can it matter now?"

"It does matter, in a way," said Venard. "Because S.S.C. could have saved the System. On our side, S.S.C. could have enabled us to defeat the Martians. The fact that they never even considered helping us proves that they are, themselves, somehow allied to decadence and evil. And they're safe. Even the Marties don't have weapons strong enough to break into S.S.C. And S.S.C. has weapons of science perfected in its super laboratories that could have defeated the Martian warlords in a few days. Wonder what is the secret of S.S.C.? The barbaric Martian desert tribes say that it is now ruled by an alien god. Anyway, dear Vale knows. But she won't tell."

"Alien god! Prepare," admonished Larson, "to meet your own."

"I'm ready." Venard clutched the memory-crystal tightly in his hand.

* * * * *

Dim fluorescents high in the plastic ceiling of the lofty corridor shed faint cold night. The purplish hue of the Martian's body sacks reflected the light like radioactive matter. Stocked eyes wavered, yellowish pale, iridescent horrors.

Venard turned. His chain rattled gently, without malice. He looked with studied insolence at the writhing-eyed Martian Guard who was coming toward him. Now it was removing the chain from the galling iron band about his waist. Another was doing the same with Larson. Guards stood at a slight distance with H-guns waiting to be drawn. Beneath his sour-smelling clothes, Venard grasped the memory-crystal.

The tale behind the crystals flashed quickly through his mind; because it was rather a sorrowfully lovely tale, and the moment could use a touch of alien beauty. In the pre-Solar Federation era, colorful sea-women of Venus, members of that semi-human and empirically intelligent race, were said to have carried the crystals while love remained true, but always ready to utilize the destructive power of the crystal for suicide when the lover whose face was captured in the cumulus depths of the sphere proved faithless.

Long before the Solar War the Venusians, with the ancient custom only legend, had made the memory-crystals and sold them to a few hardy tourists for stupendous amounts of Solar credits. It had even been said that much of the vital life stuff of the one portrayed was imprisoned in the crystalline gadget. But horrified by the slaughter and barbarisms of the approaching war, the opaque Venusians had retreated to their under-sea cities and had remained hidden, far removed from war's madness. Venard didn't blame them in a way, any more than he blamed the Jovians who had remained neutral. The Venusian Sea People were a timid, shy, highly aesthetic species, with a strange kind of non-physical, non-mechanical science--more of a philosophical, empirical mental science such as was embodied in the evolving of the memory-crystals.

The explosive power of the spheres wasn't anything tremendous; but this one could certainly wreck this particular part of Concentration Camp 7.

Venard watched the chains sliding through the Marto-alloy bands. He saw the ragged, hunched shapes of broken men and women sagging in horror and weakness as they were herded toward the oval door. And the door was opening again, maybe for the last time. A red, roaring flame was visible in there; a long quavering cry ripped through.

Venard stood back against the cold wall, raised the memory-crystal. He thought fleetingly that the figure in the sphere was so life-like that to destroy it was like murder. But Venard didn't care about murdering now. Not even murdering Vale's memory. Even memories were born to die.

"Earthmen!" he yelled suddenly, his voice cracking sharply against dulled minds like a whip-lash. Glazed eyes shifted. Bowed backs moved apathetically. A few bony hands pawed the air. "We'll die like men!" yelled Venard. He flourished the memory-crystal.

The Marties fell away. Their eye stalks writhed in abysmal fear. The dejected mass of filthy human wrecks lifted sunken faces, stared. It seemed that their minds were too dulled by shock and fear to even comprehend the meaning of a quick, clean death.

"Earthmen!" Venard's voice lashed out again. How long would it take the fanatical Marties to plunge at him in suicidal fervor? Not long. "Let's sing," he said it suddenly, on a mad impulse. These creatures must die as men. "The Terran Anthem hasn't been sung for a long time. Sing!"

There was magnetic driving power in his words. The Marties were trembling with indecision. Appendages were creeping toward H-guns. Venard made a threatening gesture with the memory-crystal. And the appendages stopped creeping--for a little while.

"The Terran Anthem!" yelled Venard again. There was a reckless, sardonic smile on his face that Larson had never expected to see again. "We'll sing ourselves to sleep. These Martie scum think our courage is gone, our spirits broken. SING!"

It was a magnificent miracle. Dull eyes slowly rose up through many levels of fear and defeat and shock. Bent bodies straightened beneath dirt-caked rags. Bearded faces of men and haggard faces of women glowed with surging inner fires, newly kindled. Hands and arms raised. Voices joined in the Terran Anthem. The song the Martians hated with all the power of their cold minds to hate. Bony arms raised, quivering with weakness, but not anymore with fear. And cracked voices that grew stronger with each surging note, joined in a last outburst of defiance.

Earth, Earth is mine.
No Gods destroy its soft green wine
Of verdant hills and sun-warmed summertime.
Earthmen we! Soldiers of the azure sea!

Pioneers had sung it when colonization of bitter worlds was only beginning. In the unending swamps of Venus, its turbulent strains had shattered the dreary monotony of loneliness. Over the deserts of Mars and the iceflows of Saturn the song had spelled unity of purpose, defiance of seemingly insurmountable barriers. Many an Earthman had died in the alien vapors of far places with its blood-stirring rhythm on his lips.

Unashamed tears cut the grime of Larson's face as he stood there on wide spread, stubby legs. But Venard laughed with animal joy and flourished the memory-sphere. A beautiful woman still laughed from its crystalline depths, smiled without care as though she were again meeting Venard in the synthetic spring gardens of Theophilus Crater.

* * * * *

The Martians shivered with indecision. They were fanatical, though; only a few more seconds would be needed to send them in an exulting suicidal charge. But louder the slaves sang.

Earth! Earth we know.
Immortal world where Solar dreamers go
To sleep among ice-peaks and sunlit snow.
Earthman I! Wanderer of space and sky.

The chorus was a swelling, deafening thunder of defiance in the towering expanse of corridor. Alarms clanged confusion in the background. Doors opened on the many tiers above Venard and Larson. Glaring lights swept frantically in sporadic circles. Marties appeared in hundreds of openings with H-guns poised, nervously, uncertainly; anxiety mucous flowed from pulsing pores.

"Sing!" laughed Venard wildly. He didn't feel quite sane, and he didn't care. "Earth isn't dead. Not while you can still sing, you're not dead, and your song will live forever!"

His wild laughter rang carelessly and madly up the towering heights of the partly-repaired corridor, down the lengths of it both ways, through the open oval door beyond which torture flames still glittered and shadowed, dehumanized bodies curled.

A thunderous moan spread up and outward. Chains clanged as awakened hope and honor and returning sense of dignity burned again in withered hearts. Then a number of H-guns burst suddenly into spontaneous, nervous slaughter.

"Sing!" Venard heard his voice echoing for the last time. He drew back the arm which held the memory-crystal. A beam of crackling power burned his side. Seared flesh was nausea in his face. He dodged, dancing in his gauntness and flapping rags like a grotesque clown.

On Earth, of Earth we die!
Her sweet, enchanted winds our requiem cry.
For our lost love her gentle south winds sigh.
Earthmen we--

Suddenly, Larson leaped at the nearest Martian. He whipped to one side as an H-gun hurtled to the plastic mesh of the floor. He dived for it. But power rays crackled around him, glanced off walls and smoked through trembling layers of human flesh.

Larson sank slowly to his knees. His lips, thick with awed pain, mumbled heavily, "Give me time to pray." He was looking in startled surprise and horror at the blackened stub where his left hand had been. It happened so fast. A second ago he had a left hand. Now he had no left hand. But that would be so unimportant in a little while. The H-gun lay untouched. Screams rose from writhing forms.

"Throw the damned bomb," yelled Larson weakly. "And let me finish a prayer."

Venard twisted, a slim and gyrating target for thirsting rays. The entire corridor was a carnal room. A streak of flame seared his chest. He cried out, "No time for prayers now. Go on down to hell, Kewpie Doll. At least it's better than the one the Marties had planned for us."

Then he murmured, "Goodbye, Vale, you served a good purpose after all." He hurled the coruscating sphere squarely against the wall beside the oval door. With the same movement his body fell sidewise in a dive to the floor where he was squeezing himself instinctively up against the wall as the concussion shook his brain into smothering dusty greyness.