Chapter V

The shocked hush seemed to reach to all parts of the room. Lolan's thoughts were bitter ones. They concerned the thing that had cursed his people for centuries. Their childish inability to think a problem through, their pathetic attempts to fight back against their aggressors. Now those qualities had doomed them again to misery.

Atarkus was muttering to himself. "We--we thought they would work if we could get within ten or fifteen feet of them."

"But how are you going to approach that close when _their_ guns are effective at two hundred feet?" Lolan countered. Idly he glanced at the piles and piles of ray pistols still being doled out. "How do they operate? Draw on the Martian power station, I suppose?"

Mora pointed at a massive apparatus at the upper end of the hall. "Electronic power," she told him. "We generate our own power. As long as the turbines are running, the guns will operate."

Lolan's eyes went a little wide at that. He scratched his head, scowled, then walked off a little. He whirled about and came back to them. "That gives me a clue! The Martian guns also draw from a central station. Only it's a radioactive type of power. Underneath the barracks there's a huge mass of _radite_. If that stuff were carried off, they'd have guns no more effective than water pistols!"

Irak snorted. "Who's going to carry it off? It weighs tons. I've seen it. It's like a great lump of radium. If you get too close, even, you'll be poisoned."

"We couldn't carry it off--in its present form! But there is a large, unused sewer hole in a room near it. If we could break it up, using workmen's lead suits, it might be possible to drop it into the underground river. Contact with the water would result in an explosion that would destroy its radioactivity."

Atarkus licked his lips. "Would this be possible? Could anyone get that close to it without being caught?"

"We could try!" Lolan gave back. "If the plan succeeded--well, we number twenty thousand in Areeba to the Martians' two. Once their weapons were destroyed, the city would be ours!"

"Then it must be attempted!" Atarkus raised his fist high. "Irak--call the leaders. We must lay our plans tonight, for the struggle tomorrow!"

They met in a little alcove off the main room, ten men whose grim countenances stamped them as men ready to die for the cause. Lolan sensed immediately, as they took places around a long table, that he was being looked to as their leader. And old Atarkus willingly fell away to make room for younger, more dynamic blood.

When all were quiet, Prince Lolan stood up. It came to him strongly, the feeling that everything, the fate of every soul on Venus, hinged on what happened in this little room tonight. His voice came gravely, freighted with importance.

"I won't try to deceive you for one instant that our battle is going to be easy," he told them sternly. "It isn't. The odds are a hundred to one against us. But I will tell you this: The game is worth it! If we win Areeba, all Venus is ours. With improved weapons, the Martians' own, we'll be able to descend on the smaller settlements and conquer them before they know what has happened here. Then there will be the task of building up a space fleet. We can do it. If Mars sends a new army out to re-capture us, they'll find us ready, trained in their own modes of warfare and as brutal as they themselves. I have a theory that once we have won our independence, progress on Venus will be different. My experience has proved that all the Venusian lacks for a complete, balanced fighting personality is an abundance of ultraviolet light. We can provide that artificially, in street-lights, in the nursery, everywhere. It will be the beginning of the greater Venus. Yes, the game is worth the risk. We have all to win ... nothing to lose!"

Vesh-Tu, a squat, hairy little man, leaned forward. "But how are we to do it, Prince? The _radite_ is guarded, is it not?"

"I have a plan--" Lolan murmured thoughtfully. "We can enter, I believe, by the sewers, following the river upstream to the holes and climbing them by their ladders. They will probably know immediately what we are doing, when their machines and guns begin to lose power. But by that time I hope to have the army mostly concentrated on the south side."

"How?" Irak demanded flatly.

"By starting fires, riots, dynamiting buildings--everything we can think of. Then, when the soldiers have been decoyed into the midst of our people, we will have destroyed the last of the _radite_ and the revolution will begin in earnest!"

Atarkus rubbed his hands. "Suppose we set a zero hour--say twelve o'clock, for the time for fighting to begin. It would make for a concerted, simultaneous outbreak all over the city."

Lolan nodded grimly. "Twelve o'clock. I will need three men to help me. Irak, Vesh-Tu, and you, Atarkus. The rest of you had better go back, now, to pass the word. We strike at high noon--and we strike hard!"

* * * * *

Dawn came, but only by their watches did those four who fought their way up the treacherous, slippery banks of the subterranean river realize it. They stumbled along in darkness complete except for the feeble glow of hand torches. At ten o'clock they reached a spot where refuse of all kinds had collected on the bank. They sent light spraying the roof of the cavern. A honeycomb of holes broke its rough expanse.

Lolan read the labels crudely painted beside each. His heart gave a bound as he found the one he sought. Nimbly he ran up the iron rungs in the wall, then swung hand over hand to the hole and paused in its entrance, over the roaring torrent below. The others were following more slowly. Atarkus came haltingly, handicapped by his years. At length all were ascending the inky tunnel.

Four times they were forced to stop and rest. It was gruelling work. Their hands were rubbed raw by the pitted surface of the iron ladder. Over an hour had elapsed when they reached a flat iron plate that covered the hole. Eleven o'clock! An hour left. Lolan trembled with impatience.

Wedging himself securely on the ladder, he forced upward on the plate. Dim light flowed into the tunnel. With his nerves crying for caution, he shoved the plate aside and crawled forth. Gun in fist, he shot his glance about the small room.

The others emerged with bloody hands and dirty clothes, tired to the bone, but eager for whatever lay ahead. Prince Lolan paced to the door. "We're in luck!" he hissed. "No guards around. Now to find protective armor and go to work!"

* * * * *

They found the heavy suits used by workmen in a room near the ramp leading down to the _radite_ deposit. When they had crawled into them, they could hardly walk. Constructed of heavy rubber and slabs of lead, each one weighed over two hundred pounds. Helmets provided poor vision through thick, murky glass. But the outfits would be all that stood between them and death in the _radite_ pit.

Now they were staggering down the ramp and through a wide door. All four recoiled from the sight that struck their eyes. On gigantic insulators, a huge lump of blazing diamond seemed to repose. Even through colored glass it pained the eyes to look at it. The walls and floor all about it glowed with the same supernal brilliance. Tiny white flame ran ceaselessly over the jagged surface of the stone.

Lolan squinted at his watch. "Eleven-fifteen!" he blurted. "Can we do it in forty-five minutes?"

"We can if we've got to!" Vesh-Tu grunted. "How do we move the blessed thing?"

The prince drew his gun. "Stand back," he snapped. "This should break it down into convenient sizes!" He levelled the gun, squeezed the trigger twice.

A convulsive roar shook the very walls. For an entire minute, every man in the room was blinded. When they could see again, it was to regard the crumbled remains that strewed the floor. No pieces larger than a good-sized book remained. But when they tried to lift them, they discovered the chunks weighed as much as corresponding pieces of gold! Staggering under their burdens, they ascended the ramp with their small loads and hurried to the sewer opening.

One after the other, four pieces tumbled in. Tensely they waited for the detonation. It came, a rumbling roar that drove a blast of air into their faces. Lolan grinned bleakly. "Their guns are just that much less powerful!" he promised. "Now if we can just clear up all that stuff in time--"

At a wabbling run they staggered back to the job. It went like that for a half hour, while the litter of shattered _radite_ grew smaller and smaller. Lolan's watch showed a quarter to twelve. He thought of the thousands of Venusians out on the streets, waiting to act ... thought of Mora, ready to lead her little group. Then there came the sound that drove all other thoughts from his mind. The tramp of running feet!

Lolan acted instinctively. "Keep it up!" he shouted through his mask. "Irak and I have guns. We'll stand them off somehow!"

Fear shot through the pit like an electric charge. Lolan and Irak struggled for speed as they ran up the incline. The sound of voices and footfalls was louder. They made it past the room where the _radite_ was being disposed of. That door must be kept available, or Arzt's victory was certain. On down the hall they plunged, around a turn, into another.... Their running steps locked in a halt. Arzt and his crew were racing toward them a hundred feet ahead!

* * * * *

The shooting broke out simultaneously. Rock dust filled the tunnel from the battering of force-bolts. Arzt's voice struck through the sounds, bellowing orders. Lolan and Irak were back of the corner, now, waiting--

Two Martians raced up, prodded by their leader's hoarse screams. They never fired their guns, for the Venusians chopped them down in full stride. Lolan tore his mask off. "Won't need these any more," he grunted. "The job's up to them now. If I go out, it's not going to be in that smelly thing."

In back of them he could hear Atarkus and Vesh-Tu's labored breathing. From time to time there came the deep, thunderous explosions that meant the work was going on. Lolan darted a glance at his watch. Five minutes to twelve!

Now they pressed back against the wall in wait for another pair who raced up. The Martians plunged into their sights. Triggers were squeezed, guns steadied. But the shots, when they came, were feeble. Beside Lolan the wall shuddered slightly and a trickle of rocks slid down it. He watched the man he had hit stagger back, screaming. It took another shot to finish him.

A new tenseness came into the tunnel. Every man present, Martian or Venusian, knew what was happening. The last of the _radite_ was being disposed of. In another five minutes Arzt's hordes would be no more than a handful among an army of vengeance-driven natives.

The seconds slogged slowly through Prince Lolan. He was waiting, hoping--then his hopes were dashed as twenty-five Martians raced concertedly for the pair of them. Arzt was sacrificing everything to stop them.

Irak began to swear excitedly. "This gun--the thing won't work fast enough, Lolan! Can't stop them with these."

"Then we'll use the new guns!" The idea took him so swiftly he fumbled through two seconds getting his little copper disintegrator into position. A long blue serpent of flame licked out at the Martians. Where it touched, men withered and went down without a sound. Arzt roared his anger. He flung his useless weapon with all his might at his former subordinate.

"Damn your Venusian heart!" he screamed. "You can't stop us! Can't--"

The words choked off. Irak had cut him down with a single shot. Silence dwelt in the tunnel, and through it came a hoarse cry:

"Lolan! It's done! The last of it's gone. Were--were we in time?"

Lolan sank back against the wall. He let his eyes fill with the ghastly remains of his former underlings. "Yes," he muttered to himself. "Yes! They're--finished!"

* * * * *

There was jubilation throughout all Areeba that day. The scene in the tunnel had been duplicated everywhere. Martians, one minute brutal and ruthless, became craven cowards the next. There was not a man of them alive by night.

At sundown, Lolan stood with Mora, Atarkus, and the others high in command at the ruins of the palace. The sun had broken through the perpetual clouds to cast a golden fog over everything. The beauty of it seemed to hold them all.

"It's symbolic," Lolan told the Emperor. "Symbolic of the grandeur to come for Venus. I see a future for you as the greatest emperor our world has ever known."

Atarkus shook his head. "Not for me, my boy. For you! I am old, ready to leave the struggle to the young. Irak, who could be a more fitting ruler for Venus than the prince we lost and gained again?"

Irak's ugly face grinned. "No one. But an Emperor must have an Empress! Could that not be arranged too?"

Atarkus saw the flush on his daughter's face, the corresponding color in Prince Lolan's cheeks. "Arranged!" he grunted. "That's been done a long time. It was arranged the day Lolan came back from Mars!"