No one had ever escaped from Venus'
dread Stellar Legion. And, as Thekla
the low-Martian learned, no one
had ever betrayed it and—lived.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Silence was on the barracks like a lid clamped over tight-coiledsprings. Men in rumpled uniforms—outlanders of the Stellar Legion,space-rats, the scrapings of the Solar System—sweated in the sullenheat of the Venusian swamplands before the rains. Sweated andlistened.
The metal door clanged open to admit Lehn, the young VenusianCommandant, and every man jerked tautly to his feet. Ian MacIan, thewhite-haired, space-burned Earthman, alone and hungrily poised foraction; Thekla, the swart Martian low-canaler, grinning like a weaselbeside Bhak, the hulking strangler from Titan. Every quick nervousglance was riveted on Lehn.
The young officer stood silent in the open door, tugging at his fairmustache; to MacIan, watching, he was a trim, clean incongruity in thisbrutal wilderness of savagery and iron men. Behind him, the eternalmists writhed in a thin curtain over the swamp, stretching for milesbeyond the soggy earthworks; through it came the sound every ear hadlistened to for days, a low, monotonous piping that seemed to ringfrom the ends of the earth. The Nahali, the six-foot, scarlet-eyedswamp-dwellers, whose touch was weapon enough, praying to their godsfor rain. When it came, the hot, torrential downpour of southern Venus,the Nahali would burst in a scaly tide over the fort.
Only a moat of charged water and four electro-cannons stood betweenthe Legion and the horde. If those things failed, it meant two hundredlives burned out, the circle of protective forts broken, the fertileuplands plundered and laid waste. MacIan looked at Lehn's clean,university-bred young face, and wondered cynically if he was strongenough to do his job.
Lehn spoke, so abruptly that the men started. "I'm calling forvolunteers. A reconnaissance in Nahali territory; you know well enoughwhat that means. Three men. Well?"
Ian MacIan stepped forward, followed instantly by the Martian Thekla.Bhak the Titan hesitated, his queerly bright, blank eyes darting fromThekla to Lehn, and back to MacIan. Then he stepped up, his hairy facetwisted in a sly grin.
Lehn eyed them, his mouth hard with distaste under his fair mustache.Then he nodded, and said; "Report in an hour, light equipment." Turningto go, he added almost as an afterthought, "Report to my quarters,MacIan. Immediately."
MacIan's bony Celtic face tightened and his blue eyes narrowed withwary distrust. But he followed Lehn, his gaunt, powerful body asramrod-straight as the Venusian's own, and no eye that watched him goheld any friendship.
Thekla laughed silently, like a cat with his pointed white teeth. "Twoof a kind," he whispered. "I hope they choke each other!" Bhak grunted,flexing his mighty six-fingered hands.
In his quarters, Lehn, his pink face flushed, strode up and down whileMacIan waited dourly. It was plain enough what was coming; MacIan feltthe old bitter defensive anger rising in him.
"Look," he told himself inwardly. "Books. Good cigars. A girl's pictureon the table. You had all that once, you damn fool. Why couldn'tyou...."
Lehn stopped abruptly in front of him, grey eyes steady. "I'm new here,MacIan," he said. "But we've been Legion men for five g