Chapter III

Atarkus was on his feet, shaking. Mora let the Martian place the bracelet in her hand before she gasped: "You--you knew! And didn't tell! Why?"

Lolan lowered himself into a chair. He sighed despondently: "I don't know. If I'd valued my own life I'd have turned it over to Arzt. But I've had my fill of watching you Venusians tortured."

The girl's eyes glowed. She said softly: "That was your only reason?"

Lolan's heart thumped. His face flamed, and he tried to hide his embarrassment by springing to his feet and pacing to a window. "It's reason enough," he muttered. He swung suddenly to face them across the room. "But that isn't why I came here tonight. It's something more important than that. You've got to leave Areeba immediately!"

Atarkus' face folded into grim lines. "You mean Arzt has decreed our death?"

"That's it. You might have expected something like this for being seen with men like Ars Lugo."

Mora looked up into the officer's face. "I can't understand you, Lolan. You're supposed to be second in command of the race that oppresses us. Yet you risked death to hide that bracelet, and undoubtedly you've taken the same risk to come here."

"Don't try to understand me. Simply do as I say. Arzt has appointed me to execute you within four days. I--I can't do it, that's all. So I'm going to try to dodge the issue by letting you escape. Beyond the city there's a pursuit ship loaded with food and a pair of pistols. With that outfit you can make it to Lyna or some other settlement where you won't be known. But you've got to do it tonight!"

Atarkus snorted. "Leave our people when they need us most? Never!"

Lolan's eyes narrowed. "When they need us most," the ex-emperor had said. Why were they needed especially now--because of a coming revolution? He drove the question from his mind. "Don't quibble!" he snapped. "I can't promise you more than a few hours' leeway. You've got to leave within the hour."

"It's no use," Mora smiled wearily. "Our people look up to us for the answer to every problem that arises. What would they think of us if we ran out now?"

"What good will you be to them dead?" Lolan argued desperately. "Arzt means to have you out of the way once and for all. You're dangerous and he knows it. Get your things together and let's go!" The flush of repressed fear colored the flat angles of his jaws. His mind was a whirlpool of hope and regret--regret at losing Mora forever, though he could never own her; a deep soul-sickness at the idea of sending a force-charge into her lovely body....

But Mora was shaking her head and Atarkus had smashed his fist on the table. "Arzt can't scare us!" the aged monarch scorned. "They say we Venusians are weak, that we don't know how to fight. Some day soon the butcher will learn differently." His eyes grew softer. He laid his bony hand on Lolan's hard forearm. "I know your position, young man. You have taken a liking to us for some reason--I think I know what it is--and the thought of killing us disturbs you. Perhaps you won't have to perform that duty--"

Suspicion and wonder blended into the creases of Lolan's forehead. "Then you won't go?" he breathed.

"We can't," Mora told him. "But you have our gratitude for all you've done."

Lolan straightened. He tried to keep his voice clipped and emotionless. "You are foolish--and brave. Good night!"

When he reached the boulder-hidden rocket ship it was still safely masked in its hiding place. The fog had torn apart for a few hours, and through the ragged holes in it he could see stars blinking solemnly down at him. The young Martian's heart leaped at the thought of leaving for one of those far-off worlds; no one would miss him before morning and he could stock up on supplies and leave right away. But a leaden despondency kept that idea from gaining much headway. Gloomily he climbed into the ship.

It was when his fingers had sent the rocket car tearing up into the low clouds that Arzt's voice, just behind him, made his blood turn to water and his lips go dry.

"You're heading the right way, Sub-Commander. Over the hill to the Sulphur Holes. Tonight's warning was my last."

* * * * *

In the gleaming black disk of one of the space-ports Lolan could see Arzt's reflection, then, looming squat and dangerous three feet in back of him. He had quietly removed Lolan's pistol and held it on the back of his head.

"Planning a trip, were you?" the taunting voice went on. "I found quite a store of food here. The only trip you'll be making now is into the bottom dungeon of the Holes. By the gods, Lolan, you're a fool!"

"Am I? It might as well be now as four days from now. You know I couldn't kill them."

"I knew this: That if you couldn't, you weren't fit to be a Martian officer. Now I'll have to do the job myself. Because you're going to die tomorrow!"

Silence piled up between them. Too soon the gaping slash on the planet's surface known as the Sulphur Holes was pivoting beneath them as they circled to a landing. Here, where subterranean forces had carved a series of natural dungeons and rock-bound gases still seeped through the holes in a stifling mist, the least fortunate of Arzt's prisoners were imprisoned.

Burly guards came running up to take charge of Lolan. Arzt stood back with fists on hips. "Take him to the bottom level," his guttural command came. "Watch him closely. The devil's been conspiring with Venusians for a revolution!"

He watched coldly while they jostled his former chief officer into the little rock house that housed the elevator. He stood there stolidly until a deep-pitched sigh emanated from the structure, denoting that one more soul had been carried down ... to hell. A fierce grin twisted his lax features. He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not hear the closing of the storage-hatch on the pursuit ship they had come in, nor did he see the spidery form that slid from it to the shelter of some rocks. Deeply and sadistically satisfied, Commander Arzt turned and departed.

For the first ten minutes after his captors had left him, Lolan sat on the edge of a hard, filthy cot with his head buried in his hands. The cell was low-ceilinged, with eroded sandstone walls studded with sharp metal crystals. Through the barred door drifted stringy tendrils of gas--sulphur smoke, belching up from the planet's bowels. From nearby cells came horrible moans, a ragged scream, the rattling of a door as some hapless prisoner shook it and shouted for food. The soft plod-plod of someone pacing the floor like a caged beast reached the Martian's ears.

Lolan's lungs seemed filled with acid. He coughed until tears streamed from his eyes. Finally he fell back in despair on the cot. But even in his desperate physical pain he was far more conscious of acute despair over the failure of his plans to save Mora and Atarkus. He felt that no torture could be worse than imagining what devilish end Arzt would find for them.

The grating of a key in the lock brought Lolan to a sitting posture. Then he had sprung to the door as Captain Irak, spindly, grinning little imp that he was, flung the door open and dodged in.

"Irak--what the devil are you doing here?" Lolan coughed.

The other pressed something hard and cold into his hand--a gun. "No questions now!" he rapped. "Follow me and use this if you need it--which you will!"

"But the keys--how did you get them?"

Irak closed one shoe-button eye in a sly wink, and gestured with his gun. "Come on!" he jerked his head. Roughly he shoved the younger man into the tunnel.

Not understanding what it all meant, Lolan fled through the corridors beside him. Hope was kindling like a fire in his breast. Once the captain paused before a cell and through the bars tossed the bunch of keys. "Use them yourself and pass them on!" he laughed at the astonished prisoner.

Up ahead the elevator loomed out of the wisps of gas. Irak plunged into it and Lolan followed. There was silence until they had almost reached the top.

"Be on your guard," Irak snapped. "I killed the turnkey to get the keys. If they've found his body--" The automatic door flew open, light from the guard-house flooded their figures and they stiffened. The shouting of angry men reached their ears from outside.

Irak looked at him in somber decision. "We'll try a run for it out the back. There's a rocket car in the field. It's our one chance."

Lolan grinned boyishly, ready for anything. "Lead the way!" he offered. "I'm with you!"

* * * * *

But they had not gone forty feet when a harsh shout arrested them. "There they go--_get them_!" Five men sprang up from where they had knelt about the body of a dead Martian.

Captain Irak stuck a skinny leg between Lolan's running feet and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Lolan was puzzled, until he felt the searing impact of force bolts inches over his head. The movement had saved his life. Instantly he had twisted about to sight down the chrome-steel shaft of his pistol. It roared, jarred heavily against his hand. And one of the men staggered back with his head and shoulders half torn off.

Irak chuckled fiendishly. His own gun blasted twice, destroying a man at each shot. The remaining pair spread out and came at a low run for them, with guns crackling blue lightning over the terrain. Lolan's eyes were hard and narrow, his jaw was firm. The impact of deadly charges exploded all around him, making his ears ring with the terrific concussion. He cuffed at his coat-sleeve as blobs of molten earth splattered on it. Some of the fiery stuff bit through to his skin.

The Martian's hate-twisted countenances were plain now, thirty feet away. With a simultaneous impulse they flung themselves prone and leveled their guns. Lolan squeezed the trigger of his weapon. He kept it pulled back until the gun grew hot and smoking and the last bolt had been launched. Irak had done the same.

A grisly silence came down over the field. Horror gripped Lolan as the smoke drifted away and showed two shapeless masses of burning flesh on the ground before them. Doggedly he turned away, getting to his feet.

From nearby came the clamor of hurrying guards. "Quick!" Irak's voice crackled. "Into the ship."

They made it none too soon. Force charges were exploding under their soaring ship like blue balloons that swelled to magnificent proportions and then exploded. Not until they had gained thirty thousand feet altitude did Lolan relax from the controls.

His face was sweaty and grinning. "Am I crazy or are you, Irak? I thought you were Captain of the Secret Service, sworn to track down rebels like me--not help them escape!"

Irak was lighting a Martian cigarette. He paused with the lighter held to the cylinder's tip. "Quite true," he smiled. "That is my job. But when the rebel is a fellow-Venusian, I am tempted to reverse the usual order of things!"