Lankar of Callisto

Chapter 16 DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE

The moment I stepped into the wall I entered a zone of utter darkness. The transition was so abrupt as to be startling. One moment I stood in a barren vale illuminated by dull, gray light―the next moment the wall swung up before my nose, expanding into sharp detail―and then I found myself in a region of intense and absolute gloom.

For one giddy moment I became completely disoriented. I had forgotten from which direction I had come, and in which direction I had been heading. Just for an instant panic seized me at the frightful thought of how easily one could become lost in this zone of darkness, to wander forever in a blind world of unseen terrors … .

Then my groping fingers brushed the inner surface of the portal and the world rightened itself about me. I took another step forward and light glowed about me. Now I found myself at the mouth of a narrow tunnel, cut through the solid rock, and illuminated by a vague, sourceless glow. Beneath my boots the floor slanted sharply downwards; ahead, the tunnel angled steeply off to my right.

I walked forward, turned the corner, and found that. the tunnel widened beyond this point into a sort of square antechamber, hewn from the solid rock―an antechamber with three occupants.

The first of these was Glypto himself; the spry little Tharkolian capered nimbly, chortling with wicked glee at the sight which lay before us. .

Stark dead in a pool of spreading crimson lay the body of a man whom I had never seen before. He was small, even dwarfish, clad in clinging gray robes of some material like jersey. He was bald as an egg, his skin a vile, oily yellow, and his eyes―which were open and staring glassily into nothingness―were black and cold and oblique, slightly slanted. Near one limp hand lay a curious instrument shaped like some sort of pistol fashioned from a bright, silvery metal, with a muzzle which widened like the mouth of a funnel.

Standing over the corpse, hackles bristling stiffly, crouched the immense form of my beloved Bozo!

Never had the faithful Callistan hound looked so terrifying as at that moment. He crouched, goggle eyes glaring, great tusks bared in grim menace, and his wrinkled snout was smeared with crimson gore.

He had sprung upon the unseen watcher in gray robes; obviously the yellow dwarf had observed us from his place of concealment, perhaps scheming to employ that lethal-looking pistollike weapon to slay us from behind. Somehow, the alert, primal senses of the great othode had detected the lurking menace. He had sprung through the mirage and torn out the throat of the Kuurian in defense of my life!

There were tears in my eyes as I dropped to my knees and called Bozo to me in low tones. At the sound of my voice the blood-lust faded from his glaring eyes,’ his hackles fell. Like a puppy, eager for my praise, the immense othode crawled on his belly to me, butting his great head against me and thrusting his gory muzzle into my lap. His bulging eyes goggled up into mine, eager for my praise. I talked to him softly, rubbing the loose, wrinkled fur behind his ears. (How was I ever going to part with Bozo? It would break his heart if I deserted him, and I had become so attached to him by this time, saying goodbye would be a painful wrench. I could get him back through the Gate, surely, for living creatures can make the transition … and Noel would understand; indeed, she’d soon love him as much as I had come to … but I could imagine the faces of the customs officials and the airlines people as

I tried to pass through with a six-legged purple beast from another planet … .)

Abziz came wheezing and grumbling down the cavern to where we were, stopping short with a cry at the sight of the corpse.

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed feebly. He stooped to examine the body of the dead Mind Wizard, wrinkling his nose primly at the bloody mess Bozo’s heavy tusks had wrought.

“Carefully with that weapon, neighbor,” Glypto hissed as the Doctor bent to pick up the curious pistol. “We don’t know what it be … deadly, though, I’ll warrant!” Abziz cautiously decided not to touch the glittering thing.

I got up, stroking Bozo’s shoulder, and looked back at them.

“Shouldn’t we get back to the Xaxar?” I suggested. “Exploring on our own like this could be dangerous. And it is important that we inform Zantor we (lave discovered the entrance to Kuur.”

“Oh; aye, your lordship,” Glypto mumbled vaguely, his keen black eye glistening with eager curiosity. “But it won’t hurt to see a wee bit more … just beyond yonder curve, is all … it’ll help to know what we’re getting into, when the lads come down in force.”

The temptation to explore was irresistible. And, now that my loyal Bozo had disposed of the watcher by the Gate, there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. So, following the little Tharkolian, we went further into the tunnel. It turned at a second sharp angle, still sloping downward, and then continued on in one direction for a considerable distance.

I gathered that the citadel of the Mind Wizards was built underground, either in a natural cavern or in a sequence of chambers artificially hollowed out of the solid stone. This suggested that the Mind Wizards were nowhere near as numerous as we had originally thought, which also implied they were more vulnerable than we had even hoped.

The tunnel was illuminated by a dim radiance which glowed from square glassy bricks or ingots set into the roof. They seemed to be packed with a self-luminous powder, or what looked like powder, which reminded me of the eternally brilliant radium lamps in Burroughs’ Mars books. We saw no signs of life whatsoever.

“Really, I must insist we return to the ornithopter,” said Dr. Abziz tremulously. “What will we do if we are attacked? We should leave, ah, all this sort of thing to the warriors aboard the vessel … .”

“Keep your courage up, neighbor,” Glypto grinned wickedly. “If attacked, why, we’ll fight like forty fiends! His lordship here has a great sword by him, to say nothing of the beast, who’s worth a regiment of swordsmen all by himself; and, as for old Glypto, well ... he’s learnt a few tricks with this,” he said, showing us the vicious little hooked knife he was carrying in his hand under the rusty black cloak. Abziz subsided, grumbling.

The passage ended in a large open room, more rectangular than it was square, with doors leading off to side-tunnels, and stairways that coiled down into the depths. Here stood a great stone table and bench, a stoppered jug which perhaps contained water for the dead guard at the surface entrance, and a long, ragged-edged parchment scrawled in hooked scribbles unintelligible to me―perhaps a guard roster or a duty schedule.

We had little opportunity to examine these articles, and no chance of exploring further. For suddenly Bozo whined urgently and swung in front of me, blocking my path, staring up into my face with urgency in his bulging eyes.

“What ails the brute?” Abziz asked nervously.

Before we could speak or move or think a loud hissing came to our ears. From vents cut in the walls near the floor a colorless vapor flooded into the chamber, visible only as it eddied in the air, rippling like steam. I inhaled a lungful of sharp chemical odor, suddenly found myself dizzy and giddy, and leaned against the stone table for support. Abziz gagged and went down as if struck with a hammer. Snarling and showing his straggly teeth, eyes bright and desperate as a cornered rat, Glypto flashed his knife about, then stumbled and fell. I stayed erect longer than my companions. but all strength and vigor ebbed from my legs. Now I wished I had picked up that odd-looking ray gun, or whatever it was … .

Bozo whirled about, retreating back up the passageway by which we had come. He cast me one long, lingering, worried look, and whined deep in his throat.

“… go on, boy, get out … save yourself,” I croaked, and then my legs gave way and I sagged bonelessly to the floor, landing painfully on one shoulder, then rolling over onto my back so that I could no longer see the othode. He did not reenter the room; I hoped that he had gotten away before the vapors overcame him.

I was still completely conscious, but could scarcely feel my body. The gas we had breathed seemed to work like a local anaesthetic, paralyzing the motor nerves, but not causing loss of consciousness. I lay there, mentally cursing our rashness; we should have gone directly back to the gig and returned to the Xaxar with word of our discovery!

The hissing sound of gas escaping cut off sharply, and was replaced by the sound of a whirring fan. Above me the parchment stirred and rattled atop the stone table. I got the impression that powerful fans, creating a suction, were sucking the drugged vapor back through the vents.

Several interminable minutes later stone grated hollowly on stone. Within the angle of my vision an immense slab opened in the wall that had seemed solid a moment before, revealing a black doorway wherein stood three men virtually identical with the guard Bozo had slain in the outer passage. All the three were dwarf-like, standing no higher than children, the tallest of them no more than an inch or two above four feet.

They were dressed in identical fashion, loose gray robes with full sleeves, leathern girdles lined with snap-fastened pouches about their waists like cartridge belts. They had skins of sour lemon yellow, bald pates, and cold, slitted black eyes. Chattering among themselves in a language of their own they entered the room, prodding us curiously with their feet, jabbering comments back and forth to each other.

Then the tallest of the three put a metal tube in his mouth and blew a piercing note. A huge naked man, a gigantic Hercules, muscled like a weight lifter, lumbered ponderously into the room. His skin was dead white, his closecropped hair lank and colorless, his heavy face slack and witless. He turned dull, incurious eyes upon us and in obedience to a shrill command from the leader of the three, bent and picked up Glypto and Abziz. They dangled limply. He tossed them over his massive shoulders and shuffled off back into the secret entrance, from which a second naked slave emerged a moment later to pick me up. This second man had skin the incredible tomato puree red of a Perushtarian, such as Glypto or Dr. Abziz. His pate was hairless and he was as naked as the zombielike white man, but not as heroically built. He picked me up and held me cradled in his forearms without visible effort. It was as if I were a rag doll. Then he shuffled into the black entrance, followed by the Mind Wizards.

The immense slab closed behind us. For a moment we were in total darkness; then a weird gray light bloomed from the dwarves behind us. I could not see what made the light, but as my bearer shuffled about a sharp turn in the passage I caught a glimpse of the tallest dwarf, the leader, who was immediately behind me. A shimmering and vaporous globe of luminosity floated above his right shoulder, wobbling insubstantially, like a soap bubble, exuding the leprous, dirty light.

We were borne into another chamber where several more of the vacant-eyed nude colossi sat along a stone bench against the wall, neither moving nor speaking. They were for all the world like so many robots awaiting the turn of a switch to activate them. Also in this room a yellow dwarf sat in an oddly-carved chair, doing something with glass tubes filled with brilliant colored light. He exchanged a few words with those who had captured us, then touched a knob on the low stand beside his chair, opening another rocky slablike door.

We were brought into a room outfitted like a laboratory in a movie about mad scientists. Fluids seethed and bubbled through coiling glass tubes, or simmered in fat-bellied flasks over glowing crystals that served as Bunsen burners. Long metal tables were crowded with complicated apparatus―metal cabinets faced with illuminated dials and studded with what looked like huge, old-fashioned vacuum tubes with red-hot filaments inside them. Whirling copper wheels spun in grooved blocks of milky glass; noisily spitting fierce orange sparks. I expected to see Bela Lugosi or Peter Coshing in a white smock come popping out of the adjoining room at any moment.

Instead there came into view a yellow dwarf, incredibly old, riding a few inches off the ground in a sleek metal car shaped like an ultramodern chair. The chair hummed, floating above the floor as if on an air cushion. The zombies set us down on long metal tables under luminous milky, spheres and the dwarf in the floating chair came over to peer down at us, one by one, with cold, deadly, cunning eyes.

He was the most horribly old human being I had ever seen, his sallow visage a gaunt skull on which the dry, withered skin hung in a thousand wrinkles. With a thrill of horror I saw he was plugged into the chair in several places: a coppery wire came from the back of the chair and entered into his heart through the dull gray robes that hung loosely upon his diminutive, dwarfish frame. From either side of his torso, just below the ribs, two rubbery, transparent tubes snaked away to either side, vanishing into the innards of the chair. One tube carried into his body a sluggish scarlet trickle of what looked to me like human blood thickened with some sugary sediment like glucose; the other tube carried out of his body a vile dribble of oily, yellow brown waste.

The sight was sickening. And suddenly I was horribly, horribly afraid. Afraid I would never get out of here; afraid I would never see my wife again, or my dogs, my books, my home … .

“Is it another of the sky-ships, then?” the old, old man asked in a high, thin voice.

“No, Yanthu,” the leader of the dwarves said in obsequious tones. “At least we do not think so. These are not Shondakorians.”

“Perushtarians, those two; this one … I don’t know. Odd color, the pigmentation of the iris; gray or blue gray. Notice the epidermis, Chune, the light, fair tint, pinkish bronze; bit of tan there, but the normal coloring very fair. A Zanadarian half-breed, I wonder? Pity the zoroon vapor renders telepathic probe difficult. Well, once the effects are counteracted, subject the captive to full depth probe. If there is another race on Thanator, we’d better know of it. Hand me the counteractive, slave!”

Another one of the naked zombies, this one an inhumanly tall, gaunt golden-skinned being with shaven pate-redhaired as a Shondakorian from the stubble-lumbered into view, clumsily picked up a cottony pad prickly with needlelike spines on the under surface, dipped it in a metal tray, and pressed it against the side of my neck. I felt a stinging cold wetness, but the sensation was oddly remote and detached from my immediate senses, like the memory of a touch. Whatever the anesthetic vapor was, it affected the nerves themselves; this may have explained why it was impossible to subject us to telepathic questioning until the effects of the gas had worn off.

My unfortunate companions were similarly treated and carried away. I did not see them again, for one of the naked zombies carried me through a warren of dark cells, finally depositing me on a stone bench. A metal door slammed shut, a lock clicked, and I was alone.

A tingle spread through my body, the return of sensation.

A tall man, younger than I, strikingly handsome, with a superbly lithe and sinewy physique, came over to where I lay and said something in a low voice, helping me to sit up. I could not see him very well in the darkness of the cell, but his words were comforting. He held a bowl to my lips, letting cold, fresh water trickle into my partially open mouth. I swallowed automatically: obviously, the zoroon vapor did not affect the involuntary functions of the body.

After a bit I found I could move and speak again, although clumsily, with numbness in my extremities and the beginning of a champion headache. My cellmate settled my limbs more comfortably and when he stepped back his face suddenly entered into a gleam of light that came from some source above my head. By this momentary light I caught a close-up glimpse of his features, which were unknown to me. Or were they? That fair, tanned skin, those piercing blue eyes, that shock of raw yellow hair

“Do you feel better now, friend?” he asked me in Thanatorian.

“Yes … much better,” I mumbled with stiff lips. Then, with excitement bubbling up within me, and a strange wild joy, I looked up at him and said, in English

“Captain Jonathan Andrew Dark, I presume?”

Chapter 17 MASTERS OF THE MIND

He began to answer me in Thanatorian, then started violently, realizing that I had addressed him in English.

“Great heavens!” he exclaimed in that language, “But―who are you?”

I told him my name, at which he exclaimed again, peering closely at my features through the dimness.

“But―this is amazing! Why, man―I’ve read your books!”

“I know,” I said, laughing. “Gary Hoyt told me all about it.”

That made him exclaim again.

“How do you know Gary Hoyt? And how did you get here?”

“There’s an awful lot to explain,” I said. “Before I begin―could I have some more of that water? I’ve got a cracking headache from inhaling that gas, and I feel pretty rotten … .”

“Of course, Mr. Carter! Forgive me for being such a lousy host―but you really set me back on my heels,” he admitted ruefully. “You’re about the last person in the world―in two worlds, come to think of it―I expected to run into in this place. Here: drink this; the aches and pains will go away.―You’ve been to Shondakor, I guess? My wife―?”

“Both the young prince and his mother are in excellent health … although they miss you terribly, of course. Everyone is fine, and working strenuously to find this country and free you, you and your friends. Ah, is this place bugged, do you know?”

“What?”

“Microphones, I mean. Or eavesdroppers hidden in the walls; that sort of thing.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry, sir! It’s been so long since I spoke English with anyone, I’m beginning to forget some of it. No, we can’t be overheard here, I’m certain of that.”

“Good. I came here in the Second Armada, you will, have already guessed. You must have known there would be a Second Armada: no one is going to give you up for dead before they have absolute proof of your demise. The ships are overhead now, anyway the Xaxar is: I came down in one of the gigs with Glypto and Dr. Abziz―”

“Glypto! The scrawny little rascal-bless him! But―there are so many questions! First of all, how do you come to be here on Cadisto, sir? In fact, how do you happen to know anything about me in the first place?”

I sighed; my mouth felt dry as cotton and my head ached with a sharp throbbing pain just behind the eyes. The only thing I wanted to do was to lie down and close my eyes and wait till the pain dulled and faded away. But I began talking. I told him that the first manuscript, addressed to his friend Gary Hoyt, an air force major stationed in Saigon, had been found by friendly Cambodians and had eventually been received by Hoyt. Not knowing what else to do with what he cautiously decided was a work of fantastic fiction, and remembering how he and Jon Dark had often chatted about the relative merits of Burroughs, Carter and Norton (Andre), Hoyt had mailed it to me with an apologetic covering letter, saying I could do with it anything I wished-keep it as a touching tribute from a devoted reader of my novels, throw it away, even publish it if I thought it deserving of print. Jandar regarded me dazedly as I told him that, of the four manuscripts I had thus far received from the other side of the world, three had been published by Dell just as he had written them, and had been eagerly received by hundreds of thousands of readers.

“Hundreds of thousands!” he repeated in a stunned tone. “I never dreamed―”

I told him next that a distinguished British expert in Asian archaeology, following the clues in that first manuscript, had found the Lost City and was exploring its mysteries for science. Finally I told him how Noel and I had flown to Cambodia to visit Sir Malcolm’s dig, and how I had slipped and fallen into the Well just as he had done a year and a half before. I finished with a cursory account of my own modest adventures on Callisto, and the launching of the Second Armada.

“Mr. Carter, I don’t know what to say,” he muttered haltingly. “I certainly never wanted to drag anybody else into the middle of this mess … .”

“Forget it,” I grinned. “For an unadventurous man, I’ve got to admit I’ve been having the time of my life!”

“Since you read the last portion of the latest manuscript, then you’ll have already guessed we were caught by Jugrid’s jungle warriors while trying to scale the sides of the plateau,” he said grimly. “At thirty to three, it wasn’t much of a fight. We were not mistreated, just force-marched back to the caves where the Mind Wizards carried us off to Kuur. They fly on the gigantic winged reptiles the Thanatorians call ghastozars―something like pterodactyls, only a lot largerwhich they control by telepathy. We’ve been treated decently enough so far, no torture or anything like that, although it’s never been a secret that when they’re through with us we’ll end up like those flesh robots you saw. They do something to the brains of the poor chaps, with drugs or surgery, something that destroys their will completely.”

“Flesh robots―I like that! From Doc Smith, right? I’ve been thinking of them as zombies … .”

“Just like you, sir, I was surprised to find there are so few of the yellow devils. There were more when they came hereI think they traveled here from another planet, or maybe from another one of Jupiter’s moons. Their own world was dying, I gather. There must have been about fifty of them when they first got here, which was a dozen years ago. They found a snug hole in this uninhabited place to hide, and began plotting to conquer the world through the power of the mind alone.”

His tones were serious, his eyes brooding and grim. “Intellect is all that matters to them. Their chief, they call him `One’, is virtually nothing but mind. If you saw old Yanthu, the one in the antigravity chair, hitched up to the lifesupport system … he’s nearly a thousand years old, and he’s only `Three’ in their book. `Two’, a cold-eyed devil they call Koom Yaa, is the one who’s been interrogating me, over and over. They are fascinated to learn of Earth, and hungry for every tiniest scrap of information they can squeeze out of me about it. They want to go there, you see; they want to conquer it.

“They tried to take over Callisto, but a lot of things went wrong. They picked the Sky Pirates as the most perfect available tools―with their sky-ships, they were certainly the most technologically advanced civilization on Callisto, and, being a gang of cold-blooded murdering robbers, it didn’t take much to pervert them and to nudge them into the right path of action. They had two or maybe three Kuurians at Zanadar all the time, although I never guessed it. They got rid of the old Prince―you can induce heart attacks by telepathy, I have discovered, and also suicides and faial selfinflicted `accidents’―and elevated Thuton into his place. They had Thuton under their thumb all the while. Then something went wrong―one or two of the Kuurians were killed in an accident, maybe a sky-ship exploded―the gas is as explosive as hydrogen, you know. The one that was left turned renegade, got imperial dreams of his own, and pitted the Sky Pirates against Shondakor.

“The trouble was they were already running Shondakor by this time, having gotten the upper hand over Arkola, warlord of the Black Legion, who conquered the Golden City for them, forcing the Ku Thad out. The Kuurian at Zanadar, I don’t know his name, declared war on the Kuurian who was running things in Shondakor as the power behind the throne―his name was Ool; I killed him in the pits below the palace, or rather, he slipped and fell and killed himself. Anyway, my chance arrival here mucked things up for them. I came along at just the right time to be instrumental in breaking the Black Legion, and restoring Shondakor to Darloona and her people, and together we smashed the Sky Pirates, killing most of them when we detonated the vapor mines―the Kuurian died in the holocaust, too. I never even knew he was there.

“They started all over again in Tharkol. But by this time, twelve years had gone by and their numbers were greatly reduced. There’s only seventeen of them left alive―sixteen, by gosh, counting the one guarding the Secret Door, the one your othode jumped on. Well, you know what they tried in Tharkol. With the Sky Pirates eliminated from the running, the only major world powers left were Shondakor and the empire of the red men, the Perushtarians. They were going to manipulate Zamara into knocking over both countries, consolidating the new empire; then they would exterminate the Yathoon hordesmen and run the planet to suit themselves … .”

“For what reason, just the lust for power?”

“To live forever,” he said somberly. “You see, they’re the last of their kind in the universe, and they can no longer reproduce, since the last of their females died back before they left their home―world. To live forever they need an endless supply of healthy bodies wherewith to stock the organ banks―whenever they wear out a liver or a heart or whatever, they replace it with a healthy one―and a large supply of living slaves, under their mental thumbs, you know, to do the work. To be able to do this in complete security they want the comfort of knowing the entire planet is under their control, and that nothing can go wrong. A pretty picture, isn’t it? No rebels, no dissident factions, no guerrillas in the hills―the whole planet a mass of brain―dead zombies, to dig the fields and mine the metals and to just be there when somebody needs a new pair of lungs or a spinal cord.”

“You paint a grisly picture,” I said. “But surely, even with an infinite supply of organ transplants, you can’t keep a body going forever. What about the arteries? You can’t replace the entire arterial system, surely …”

“I told you they revere intellect alone,” he said. “They live for the life of the mind: pure mind alone, that’s their ideal. The senses, the emotions, these mean nothing to them. When they have the whole planet thoroughly pacified and running like a machine, then they’ll all end up like Number One. His name is: Quorll. He is nothing but a brain, a huge, swollen brain floating in a crystal sphere full of nutrient foam, with wires leading to the sensory nerve centers, attached to artificial eyes and ears and voice box. Just one huge, naked, living brain. I told you that Three, the old mummy in the life-support chair, is about a thousand years old. Well, Quorll is something else: they’ve kept him alive for twenty-three thousand years now, and they say there’s no reason he can’t exist forever in that glass ball … .”

He cleared his throat as if something had left an ugly taste in his mouth. “What a vision of the future, eh? The Kuurians’ idea of Callisto is a mechanical paradise, staffed by living zombies controlled by telepathy, and the whole thing geared to perpetuating for eternity sixteen naked brains, floating in slime, living a life of pure thought … forever.”

I shuddered. It was loathsome, like one of the grimmer pages out of Lovecraft, or the section in Stapledon’s The StarMaker about “the Great Brains.” …

“You―you said they were eager when they learned about Earth?”

“Yes; they’ve about given up on Callisto; Earth holds greater promise. You see, with its very much smaller population, and given the fact that the human race will go sour and thin out here, once we’re all zombies, they figure they can only keep Callisto going for a million years or so. But Earth has thousands of times the natural resources and the population. Earth they could keep going until the death of the Sun. And they’re already working on that problem, too! They got tremendously excited when they learned from study of my memories that the Earth-terminus of the dimensional portal lies in a part of the world inhabited by yellow men such as themselves, and the most heavily populated portion of the Earth, at that, and a part politically dominated by an ironstrong one-man dictatorship―Red China, of course. My God, sir, think of it! Once they got into the jungles of Cambodia they could merge invisibly with the people, lose themselves entirely … and once in China, of course, all they’d have to do is get within mental range of one man, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, and it’s all over. One quarter of the world’s population would be their absolute slaves, and they’d be in charge of an immense modern army, navy, and air fleet, already armed with the hydrogen bomb.”

The vision was chilling. Horrible. But it was so lucid, so obvious, so easy! It was difficult to see how the Mind Wizards could possibly be stopped―especially since those few who knew the ultimate horror of their plans for mastery, were locked up here in these cells, completely helpless. Any time they wished they could come through the door and finish us off, and Callisto might not for years know the doom being spun for it by insidious, coldly evil, age-old minds. Earth might never know… until it was too late!

And then Jandar broke off suddenly, touching my shoulder for silence. Was that a footstep in the stone corridor outside our cell? The footstep of a living man, or the flaccid mechanical shuffle of a zombie, a flesh robot, his will destroyed, his brain dominated by the most fiendishly cunning band of devils that ever menaced a world?

“They know the effects of the vapor have worn off by now,” he said heavily. “They are coming to interrogate you―to dig into your brain for details that will corroborate the information they’ve learned from me!”

I was horribly afraid again, but this time not for myself, but for all the helpless millions behind me there on a tired and worn but still green world nearer the sun, men and women who had not the slightest chance of guessing the hideous, the unspeakable doom that hung over them … .

“Jandar, quick! I’m not particularly brave when it comes to pain, but tell me―is there anything I can do to resist the questioning?”

He shook his head dully.

“It’s nothing like that, Mr. Carter. There’s no torture or mistreatment, I told you. It’s not a question-and-answer session at all. They inject you with a mild soporific that weakens your willpower and sends your conscious mind drifting off somewhere in a daze, and then they simply read your mind by that insidious telepathy, of which they are the masters. It’s impossible to resist yielding up to their mental probe the information they desire―you won’t even be aware of the fact that you’re doing it. You’ll just doze and daydream for a time, and when you wake up you’ll find they’ve learned hundreds of facts from your memory-paths… : ‘

He broke off as a key clicked, startlingly loud, in the lock.

“Ssshh! It’s too late for talking now―they’re here.”

“There’s no chance of fighting them, I suppose? Making a break for freedom, somehow? I know we’ve got no weapons, but they look as weak and puny as children―”

“There’s no hope for that,” he said heavily. “Damn it, man, don’t you think I would have tried it months ago, if there were? They’ll send in the flesh robots first, and believe me, you haven’t seen the worst of those babies yet! They’ve a few special ones they’ve either bred genetically or tinkered together with surgery―there’s one lumbering horror thirteen feet high, weighs half a ton, and has six arms. Christ, he makes Frankenstein’s monster look like Porky Pig! Ssshh―they’re coming in!”

Hinges squealed; the door swung inwards suddenly, flooding the darkness of the cell with light from the illuminated corridor beyond―light that seemed dazzling to eyes by now adjusted to the darkness.

I blinked painfully, squinting in the glare―then gasped at the incredible figure standing in the open door

Chapter 18 RED SWORDS IN KUUR

It had a massive chest and burly shoulders, six, fat waddling legs and a blunt, homely visage, all gogling eyes and grinning, froglike mouth filled with blunt, powerful tusks. And once again its purple jowls and muzzle were smeared with fresh crimson!

Bozo hurled himself across the cell, whining with eager joy at seeing me again, and nearly knocking me flat with the enthusiasm of his greeting. Behind him, still in the doorway, stood the boy Taran, his face flushed and happy; behind him, holding a heavy, long-handled war axe dyed crimson, stood Ergon. The boy-sized sword that Taran carried ready in one small, capable fist was also red with gore. And from further down the corridor I heard a tumult: shouts and screams and thundering war cries.

Ergon’s gloomy visage lit up when he saw Jandar standing at my side. And Taran laughed happily.

“Hi, Lankar-jan!” he chirped (or the Thanatorian equivalent of the greeting). “I knew Bozo would find you first of all, so I let him go and we just followed.”

My arms were full of several hundred pounds of wriggling, snorting, ecstatic othode, so all I could do was gasp a hasty hello. Jandar strode into the corridor and clapped the beaming Ergon on the shoulder affectionately. Prying myself loose from Bozo, I followed him, the great othode pacing at my side as if unwilling to let me out of his sight again.

“How did you find your way in?” I asked Ergon.

“Did you think, when the gig didn’t return, we would let you stay down here forever, without coming after?” he growled. “We descended in two more gigs, found your craft abandoned by the cliff, and followed your footprints in the sand, finding they led smack into a wall of solid rock. Then your othode came bounding through the wall, proving it was not as solid as it had seemed. He caught Zantor’s cloak in the grip of his jaws and half dragged the Admiral through the wall; we followed at his heels, saw the situation, and dispatched a gig back to the Xaxar for reinforcements. The ship is moored to the cliff now, and warriors are swarming down on rope ladders. We are cleaning out this warren of tunnels with about forty or fifty fighting-men … .”

“Good old Ergon!” Jandar grinned. Then, soberly, “But do we have much of a chance with so few? The Mind Wizards are armed with weird and powerful weapons … .”

“Oh, aye,” Ergon shrugged without excitement. “They carry small glittering metal things that direct bright streams of sparks at you―sparks that paralyze your arms or legs―and glass tanks of sleep-inducing gas they spray from long nozzles―but, by the Red Moon, Jandar, they die easily enough, for all that. A sword through their black, putrid hearts or an axe laid alongside the head, and they be as mortal as any other men!”

“Bozo killed one,” Taran said brightly. “When he was leading us here! We came through a room filled with glass bottles and metal benches. There was an old, old yellow man riding a magic chair―”

“That was Yanthu―the third in their mental hierarchy,” Jandar said. “Quick, boy, what happened?”

The lad shrugged and laughed ruefully.

“He tried to make me go to sleep with his funny eyes on me, sucking out my spirit. But Bozo growled and sprang upon him, and tore out the wires and tubes that connected him to the chair he was riding in. And the old man just broke apart, like dusty bones wrapped in old parchment. He made a bad smell when he died, like something longdead and all rotten with decay … .”

“There’s another one we must be wary of a living brain preserved in a crystal sphere,” Jandar said urgently, taking the extra sword Ergon had been carrying. The boy tugged at his arm, grinning.

“Oh, that thing? But it’s dead, too, Jandar-jan!”

“What?” Jandar cried, staring down at the boy in amazement.

“Sure! I came upon it in another big room―a naked, wrinkled thing in a glass case? I didn’t know it was part of a man. I thought it was part of some poor animal they were keeping alive and tormenting with their experiments. So I smashed in the case with a heavy bench and put it out of its misery with my sword.”

Jandar and I exchanged a long stare of sheer astonishment. Then he turned admiring, appraising eyes on the young boy who stood there, gesturing excitedly with his dripping sword.

“You … put him out of his misery?” the Prince of Shondakor repeated dazedly. “Quorll, Number One … lord and supreme master of the Mind Wizards ... cut down by a child’s sword … a child who acted out of mercy and compassion for what he thought was a poor, tortured thing! Well, perhaps it was no more than that, after all. But the incongruity of it! A cold, insidious creature of pure intellect … plotting and scheming for twenty-three thousand years to conquer worlds and subjugate whole civilizations … and a child crushes it in passing, out of simple compassion!”

“We’re having trouble with the big, dumb giants, the ones who walk like dead men,” Ergon growled urgently. “But they can be killed, too. It takes some doing, and you don’t want to get within reach of their arms, but they be slow, clumsy swordsmen … .”

By now warriors in sky-boots and blue cloaks were crowding around us, trying rings of keys taken from the corpses of dead jailors, opening the other cell doors. Weary, dirty men with amazed expressions were emerging from their cells to be greeted by old friends and comrades. Among these were only two whose identities I could guess: a towering, gaunt, stiff-jointed insect creature who could only be Koja the Yathoon, and a vivid, beautiful red woman with imperious eyes who must be Zamara, Princess of Tharkol. Jandar excused himself and went to greet his comrades.

“Lukor, you old rascal! Valkar, my friend! Tomar-Haakon!” he laughed. They crowded about us, talking excitedly, turning eyes friendly but curious on myself and Bozo and the boy.

“Time enough for explanations later,” Jandar’s voice rose above the joyous clamor. “Right now, our brave friends are fighting for their lives up the tunnel, and I am eager to join them. Lords of Gordrimator, it seems like ages since I last held a sword in my hand! Come, friends, we’ll find weapons for all of us on the way.”

It would take far more pages than the few allotted to me here, were I to describe all that happened during the hours which followed. But I saw such sights of gallantry and heroism as my eyes have never beheld, before or since. I saw Jandar of Callisto holding at bay three vicious swordsmen, his red blade flickering like a lethal shaft of light, his superb chest and naked arms scored with wounds and streaming blood, a grim smile touching his lips as the greatest hero of two worlds cut through his ancient enemies like an avenging god.

I saw that mightiest of warriors, Koja of the Yathoon horde, battling against the lumbering, deadeyed flesh robots. His terrible whip-sword, found in the armory of the Mind Wizards, whistled through the air as he cut a crimson path through the rank of giant zombies to the cowering yellow dwarfs who hid behind their mindless slaves.

I saw brave men fight and die that day, men whose names I knew and men whom I had never met, but whose deeds would not be forgotten while the world lasted and a single warrior of Thanator lived in freedom to venerate the memory of those who fought and fell in the Battle of Kuur.

And I fought too, as best I could, being untutored in the art of the sword, and no warrior. But I found a great wooden staff shod in bronze, not unlike the cudgel wherewith I had brained the savage vastodon in the jungle so many long days before; and armed with this I struck and struck until my muscles ached with weariness, and more than one of the Kuurians succumbed to my clumsy strokes. And ever at my side fought the mighty othode, defending me while I defended him. And that day the great, faithful, fearless beast slew and slew like a ferocious tiger. He sprang upon the greatest of the flesh robots and tore with terrible claws and crushed and mangled with those massive tusks, until he wrung a word of praise from even the noblest of the champions of Shondakor.

It was three hours later. We rested on the beach of Dragon River, some of us, weary and bloody but victorious at last. Bozo lay panting heavily at my side, while Glypto and Dr. Abziz and I shared between us a flask of quarra brandy fetched down from the Xaxar which hung above us like a stationary cloud, anchored to the crest of the cliffs. A hundred men were upon the beach, war parties venturing down into the warrens of conquered Kurr, others emerging with their wounded and their dead. I was bone-weary and battered and I ached from head to foot, but it was all over now but for the final mopping up, and I had come out of it. in one piece somehow, and I basked in a warm glow of satisfaction.

Beyond me, Jandar stood talking with Zantor and Thuron and the captains of the Zarkoon and the Avenger. The sisterships of the expedition had gathered at the prearranged rendezvous-point, found no Xaxar there, and had come searching for her. They were in time to join in the last fury of the battle, and to earn their share in the glory of our splendid victory.

“About over now, I think,” Zantor was saying. “How did so few manage to seize the Jalathadar and the Conqueress in the first place, my Prince? To say nothing of the Arkonna?”

“They had been forewarned of our coming, and maintained sentries on the mountain peak,” Jandar said. “Then they boarded the two ships, Princess Zamara explained, taking them by surprise in the darkness just before moonrise. Nobody suspected the Mind Wizards had a means of boarding a ship when it was aloft, you see; but they flew aboard on saddled ghastozars, controlling the winged monsters by telepathy. Seizing temporary command of the minds of the lookouts on the ships, they gained quick ascendancy through the advantage of surprise. Those flesh robots of theirs are formidable opponents. Luckily, however, the ships were captured with very little loss of life. They are still skyworthy, incidentally: the Wizards moored them in a huge cavern in the side of the triplepeaked mountain over there. The entrance is masked by another of those mentally induced illusions. We can all return home in one voyage, the six ships together. However, I think we had better leave a fair-sized force here to occupy Kuur on a temporary basis, until we are certain we have cleaned out this nest of vipers for all time.”

“Here comes Lukor with the death roster,” Zantor observed as the spry and elegant old swordmaster of Ganatol came up with a scrap of parchment in one hand and a gore-smeared rapier in the other. “How goes the count now, Master Lukor?”

“Fair enough, my Admiral,” the Ganatolian smiled cheerfully. “I have myself examined the corpses, and no fewer than thirteen of the yellow devils are accounted for.”

“I gather your total does not include the naked brain in the case, slain by the boy Taran, or the one in the floating chair struck down by Prince Lankar’s othode,” Zantor rumbled in his deep tones.

“Quite right,” the silver-haired master swordsman nodded. “That raises the total of dead Mind Wizards to fifteen. You said there were only seventeen of the fiends in all, lad?”

“Sixteen,” corrected Jandar thoughtfully. “Bozo the othode slew one at the Gates of Kuur just before Lankar was captured. That means there is only one Kuurian left alive … .”

“Well, lad, he’s down there in that nasty warren somewhere, and our men will smoke him out ere long,” Lukor said.

“Let’s hope so,” Jandar said wearily. “We’ll not be able to rest easy until the last of them is dead and the entire race has been exterminated. What about the flesh robots? Are all of them dead?”

“A half-dozen were taken alive, the poor creatures! Better if they had gone down fighting, for I doubt their minds can ever be restored to them. Mayhap we had best put the miserable creatures out of their misery … .”

“Well, we can decide on that later.”

A tall warrior of noble mien approached the command post where they stood. He was accompanied by Koja the Yathoon, Princess Zamara of Tharkol and two young officers, survivors of the capture of the First Armada, whose names were Sojan of Shondakor and Karan of Tharkol.

“Greetings; Valkar! What’s the word?” Jandar hailed the young noble, who was thus identified as Lord Yarrak’s son.

“What’s to be done with all the Kuurian weapons and instruments we have taken? We have thus far discovered an entire armory of the hand-weapons and the gas-receptacles.”

“I want them all destroyed,” Jandar ordered. “And all of the equipment in the laboratories, as well. The devilish science of the Mind Wizards must die with the last of their race. Never again must these devices be used against our kingdoms.”

“I agree;” Zamara said warmly. “The warriors of Thanator need no devil-magic to defend their cities against whatever foes shall rise to threaten us in the future. Our gallant fighting men have proved here this day that simple courage, armed with simple steel, can whelm even the evil science of Kuur. Let everything be destroyed!”

“Yes, but not until we have all left the caverns,” Jandar advised. “Some of the laboratories may contain deadly poisons or acids or powerful explosives. See to this, will you Lukor?”

“With great pleasure, lad!” the elegant old Ganatolian nodded. “Some of us had best remain here for a time, to see to the disposition of these matters, while the remainder of the Armada voyages home.”

“Zantor and I were just discussing this very point,” Jandar agreed. “Zantor, if the Jalathadar is still as skyworthy as I believe she is, let’s leave her here under Haakon, with Lukor in charge of the occupation force.”

Zantor nodded his agreement to this, and Koja and Ergon spoke up, requesting to remain at Kuur to assist Lukor in his task. It was soon decided.

By this time hundreds of warriors had emerged from the door in the cliff and stood about exchanging weary jests, binding each other’s wounds, cleansing the bloody blades. The men from the Second Armada had brought down wine and packaged field rations so that thirsty, hungry men might refresh themselves at leisure after the hard day’s work. Valkar flew in one of the gigs to the triple-crested mountain, and returned to announce the Jalathadar, the Arkonna and the Conqueress were safely moored, in a condition of fair skyworthiness, and ready to be reprovisioned for the return flight.

“Good news, but no more than I had expected,” Jandar said. “Are all of our people accounted for, Lukor?” The Ganatolian shook his head.

“Two parties are still missing,” he recounted. “They were assigned to tracing the extent of the tunnels and have not yet returned. Also one of the ex-prisoners and one crew member of the Second Armada are missing. Neither had been assigned to the two search parties and I am unable to account for their whereabouts, unless they met and joined with one or another of the searching parties.”

“Oh? Who are these?”

“Ylana the jungle maid, and young Tomar,” Lukor said. “I last laid eyes on the boy when we were all mingling in the corridor, having just been released from our cells. As for the jungle girl, she was fighting near me when we cut our path through the second complex of laboratories and storerooms. She may have sought out young Tomar after we crushed that pocket of resistance, for I believe there exists, ahem, a certain fond ness between the young people?”

“Well, doubtless they will turn up soon enough,” said Jandar. “Let me know when the missing search parties return. Zantor, let us begin getting the men back to their ships―the wounded and the former prisoners first. The men need rest badly. Lukor, take Sojan and Karan here and notify those who will remain behind as part of your occupation force. We must get their gear down from the ships. Zantor, will you assign crews to the Conqueress, the Arkonna and the Jalathadar? We need to get them out of their moorings in the cavern, test them for airworthiness, and see them fully reprovisioned. Then, once these matters are attended to, I see no reason why the combined fleets cannot begin the long voyage home … home to Shondakor and Tharkol, with the good news of victory and of the destruction of the greatest menace that has ever threatened our world!”

Chapter 19 RETURN TO SHONDAKOR

Before very long it was time to depart. We bade farewell to Lukor and Koja and Ergon and the others who would remain here for a time to make certain the armories and laboratory facilities of the Mind Wizards were destroyed, and to ascertain that no hidden pockets of resistance lingered undiscovered. For me, of course, these farewells were final, for I must be getting back to Earth to take up the affairs of my own private life which for so long had hung in abeyance.

I would be missing these new friends and the marvels of their strange and exciting world. But everything ends, including my adventure on Callisto, and I made the best of it. My chief regret was that Tomar and the jungle maid had not yet been found, for I would like to have made my last goodbyes to them as well. At least their bodies were not among the slain, thank heaven, so the worst that could have happened to them .was that they had become lost in this interminable warren of subterranean tunnels and chambers, and it was expected that Lukor’s search parties would soon find them and bring them in.

The Jalathadar, under Captain Haakon, would remain here at Kuur until the occupation force was ready to depart for holne. The other two surviving. ships of the First Armada, the Tharkolian ornithopters Conqueress and Arkonna, somewhat battered during their capture by the Mind Wizards, but still skyworthy, were reprovisioned from the stores found in Kuur, and loaded with fighting men.

And so, the following dawn, we prepared to depart on the long voyage back to the known hemisphere of

Callisto. Led by the Xaxar, the Avenger, the Zarkoon, the Arkonna and the Conqueress made what must have been the mightiest aerial fleet ever to sail the golden skies of the Jungle Moon. What a grand and impressive sight the five stately galleons of the clouds must have made to the eyes of those who had gathered below to bid us farewell and safe voyage home! The skies of my native world have witnessed many a tremendous gathering of aircraft, but never, I feel certain, a spectacle more wondrous and superb than that we made as we spread our gigantic wings and soared over the valley and beyond the Peaks of Harangzar, dwindling to motes in the western skies.

Living conditions aboard the Xaxar were considerably more crowded on the voyage home than they had been on the expedition to Kuur. This, of course, was due to our having taken aboard a portion of the former prisoners whose release we had effected. Supplies of food and water would have been severely rationed, too, had it not been for the storerooms of Kuur from which we had appropriated according to our needs.

As before, I shared my small, crowded cabin with Dr. Abziz, young Taran, Glypto of Tharkol, and the faithful othode who would not leave my side. Our mood was greatly changed on this second voyage. During the flight into the unknown east an atmosphere of tension had existed: worries as to the nameless fate of our lost friends had exacerbated this suspenseful mood, and tempers had been short and easily frayed. The voyage home, however, was endured in a relaxed and jubilant mood, for we were victorious and all hazards and perils lay behind us now.

Even the vile-tempered little Soraban geographer and the rascally Tharkolian thief hit it off more comfortably. They had been more or less continually at each other’s throats during the first voyage, but now that they had shared a bold adventure and an heroic battle together, something in the nature of a bond of comradeship could be discerned between them. Or perhaps I exaggerate; but anyhow, there was less sniping and arguing, and a feeling of mutual tolerance of the other’s ways, however tenuous and temporary it might prove to be, could be observed.

With so many more hands aboard to share the various tasks and turn the great wheels that lent our vessel its motive power, there was less for all of us to do, and we had considerable leisure in which to become firmer friends. I spent many interesting and pleasurable hours getting to know Jandar and the other warriors who had been only names in a book to me. My fellow Earthling and I talked often together while the great wings of the Xaxar bore us effortlessly through the midnight skies of Thanator. We talked of our native world and of all the many exciting events which had occurred on Earth since Jandar had left it behind him forever to assume his adventurous career upon Callisto. And we discussed for hours the marvels and mysteries of this weird and strange and beautiful jungle world.

There were many things I did not know about Thanator, and I had many questions to ask. For while his narratives had revealed much about life on this planet in the recounting of his exploits and explorations and adventures, there still remained events he had not fully detailed and questions raised in the manuscripts which he had neglected to answer.*

Our homeward flight across the desolate wasteland was almost completely uneventful. We crossed the deserts and the mountains and soared above the great, jungle-girt plateau that was the homeland of Ylana’s primitive tribe without so much as a single adventure to mar the peaceful serenity of the voyage, which, in fact, had begun to verge on boredom.

We flew past .the Mountains of the Zarkoon for the second time, and again without so much as a single glimpse of the savage and monstrous winged cannibals which infested these peaks in such multitudes. As we approached the borders which separated the, two hemispheres without incident, the bleak and barren landscape became gradually forested with weird black and scarlet trees, the hills and plains became carpeted with crimson sward again. It was almost with a feeling of anticlimax that we sighted the red stone walls of Tharkol on the misty horizon, and spied from afar the distant shores of the Corund Laj, the greater of the two land-locked seas of Callisto.

We moored above the swelling domes and soaring spires of the Scarlet City, remaining in Tharkol for the better portion of one entire day while the Tharkolian warriors and nobles gathered up their gear, made their farewells to their Shondakorian comrades, and descended in gigs to their homeland.

Dr. Abziz, clutching his precious instruments and charts and notes to his bosom, made his goodbyes. He retained a stiff and formal dignity in bidding me farewell, but he unbent just a trifle in saying goodbye to Taran and even tousled the grinning boy’s hair with something approaching an avuncular affection. And I noticed with an inward smile that he ventured a tentative and gingerly pat on the head as he passed Bozo on his way out of the cabin. The great othode, who had long since become accustomed to the presence of the little man, seemed puzzled by his departure and whined a little, deep in his throat, as the Soraban left. I was thinking how unbearable would be the wrench of taking my own farewell of the faithful big fellow, and wondering if I could do it. I am unable to report what passed between Glypto and Abziz when they parted, for this scene took place on deck when I was not present. I’d like to think they parted as friends, but somehow I feel certain there was a final exchange of insults between them, if only just for old time’s sake.

That evening we were guests of Queen Zamara at a feast given in our honor in her palace. I could fill this chapter with a description of the sumptuous and splendid hall in which we feasted among furnishings and hangings and appointments of gorgeous and barbaric magnificence, but I know that my words would fall far short of adequacy. Suffice it to say that I gorged myself on succulently spiced, delicious delicacies to a degree which more than made up for the rather rough and unappetizing cuisine the Xaxar’s galley had been serving us. And I drained so many goblets of rare and exquisite wine in response to a succession of toasts in honor of our triumphs and victories that my memories of the last phases of this spectacular evening are, to say the very least, somewhat hazy.

We flew on later that evening, leaving two ships behind. Leagues of scarlet meadow-sward glided beneath our keels as the Xaxar and the Avenger and the Zarkoon floated through the night skies wondrously lit by the many colored moons.

Of our arrival, just before dawn, at Shondakor I shall say little here. The entire populace of the stone metropolis awoke to the exultant cry of golden trumpets as palace watchmen saw us winging through the night under the glorious moons. The streets became thronged with magical swiftness, and a mood of hilarity and joy filled the ancient city as thousands poured through the broad, tree-lined boulevard as if for some triumphant and long-awaited festival.

Darloona, radiant with tremulous joy, awaited us on the landing tier of the palace, which was crowded with happy faces. And a great cheer went ringing up against the stars from the throats of thousands when the lithe, bronzed, familiar figure of Prince Jandar appeared to their view. Still clad in warrior’s tunic, his long sword at his side, the Prince of Shondakor crossed the marble rooftop to sweep the slender form of his thrice-beloved Princess into his embrace and to erase her tears and to seal her eager, laughing lips with his own.

It was well after dawn before any of us sought our couches. Each lost hero of the ill-fated first voyage had to be displayed to the throng from a great balcony which overlooked the great plaza, and loud and long the cheers rang out for Prince Valkar and his companions in captivity. No less full-throated was the acclaim with which the people of Shondakor welcomed home again those who had effected their rescue and thus put an end forever to the shadowy menace of the Mind Wizards―and grim Zantor and grizzled Thuron and the rest were hailed with that enthusiasm and love which nations reserve for their conquering heroes. Even little Glypto was vociferously acclaimed, for the villainous Tharkolian had come with us rather than lingering behind in Tharkol, where he and Abziz might have made their way by overland caravan to Soraba to make their reports to the Seraan.

Somewhat to my discomfort, I, too, received a share in the acclaim, and was greeted with an enthusiasm which seemed to me immoderate, since I had taken so small and unheroic a role in the destruction of Kuur.

At last the greetings were done and we sought our couches where peaceful slumber claimed us. And it seems to me that all adventure stories should end as happily as had ours, in homecoming and festival and heart-felt welcome. My two servants proudly escorted me into my apartments, and yawning, heavy-eyed Taran took Bozo for an earlymorning stroll through the walled gardens which adjoined my suite, while I relaxed, wearily letting my valet remove my warrior’s gear, hang my weapons on their pegs, and help me into a sleeping robe. I sampled soma of the refreshments which they had hastily laid out against whatever appetite the returning adventurer might have, but I was too sleepy to do more than nibble at them and drink a bit of wine, and even then it was more from politeness than hunger.

The morning skies were brilliant with the gold of day by now. When Taran returned with Bozo I could see the boy could hardly keep his eyes open any longer, so, rather than make him find his way through the maze of corridors to his own quarters, I bid my servant prepare a bed for him. And before long I stretched out under the coverlets myself with a huge yawn. Bozo threw himself down by the side of my couch with a deep sigh of contentment and I reached down to scratch the loose folds of purple fur behind his ears, where he liked to be petted, but before the caress was half completed I was asleep.

Chapter 20 FAREWELLS AND GREETINGS

We set out the next day on thaptor-back, skirting the borders of the Kumala, and rode for the jade slab amidst the scarlet sward. The expedition had returned in triumph and the adventure had come to a happy ending. There was no reason to prolong my return to Earth any further, and I was anxious to get home. I knew my wife would be worried about me and that my agent would be getting anxious, too. Business decisions would be piling up, contracts were waiting my signature, and there were books I wanted to write=this one in particular. I wanted to set down my memories of these people and my impressions of their strange and wonderful world while they were still fresh in my mind.

Zastro consulted the ephemeris, if I may call it that, whereby the old sage was able to predict when the golden ray of force would appear next and the Gate Between the Worlds would be open. Studying the complicated tables wherein the history of the phenomenon was recorded, he announced a date two days hence.

I suppose my departure from Shondakor may have seemed a bit precipitous―after all, the Armada had only arrived a few hours before I made my farewells―but sometimes it’s best to do it thus. But to postpone my return to Earth until a later date would not make the farewell any easier.

And so we rode through cheering crowds and out the gates of Shondakor and across the stone bridge which spanned the gliding waters of the Ajand, and west across the grassy plains under the golden skies. Glypto and Taran and Zantor rode with me, and Jandar and Zastro and many more, and we were escorted by a contingent of the Jungle Legion, led by the stalwart young captain, Barin, who had first escorted me to Shondakor so many days before. Bozo loped along at my side, his short legs pumping furiously, looking up into my face from time to time with an unreadable expression in his bulging eyes.

“It will be hard saying goodbye to you, Taran, after all the adventures we have shared together,” I said to the boy who rode silently at my side, his face glum and downcast. He nodded mutely.

Jandar, who rode on my right, smiled understandingly.

“Taran has a home in Shondakor now,” the Prince said warmly, “and we will take care of him. He is old enough to become a cadet in the legions, and Lukor has promised to tutor him in swordsmanship. In no time at all he will be a. brave and gallant young officer in command of many warriors. And we shall see to it that he has a man-sized sword from then on!”

The boy brightened at this exciting news. At his age it is almost impossible to stay sad or gloomy for very long life is too filled with excitements and surprises.

“Really, Jandar-jan?” he chirped, “A sword of my own―and a place among the warriors?” Jandar solemnly assured him the promise would be faithfully kept. Thereafter, the boy rode along more cheerfully.

“I think you have one more goodbye to make, sir, which will be even harder,” Jandar said to me quietly, nodding his head at the great beast who waddled along beside my mount. I acknowledged the truth of his words with a sigh. It was going to hurt, parting with Bozo. I knew the poor othode could not understand why I had to leave him behind; my departure would hurt him and he would mourn. It might even break his great, loyal heart, for the faithful fellow loved and trusted me completely. It wasn’t going to make my heart comfortable, either, for I had grown very attached to him over all this time. But I had to leave him behind; I had no choice in the matter.

We rode along at an easy pace, talking little between us, and then only on inconsequential small matters. I felt downcast and morose―adventures ought not to end like this, I thought to myself sadly. But then I always hate goodbyes; anyway. Partings depress me. I love making new friends, but I hate saying farewell to them.

I was in such a glum, downbeat mood that I didn’t really notice Bozo’s peculiar behavior until it was pointed out to me later. The beast had been waddling along beside me during the beginning of our journey, but before long he began hanging back, staring into the jungle with intent interest and snuffling the air as if he sensed the presence of something which alerted his attention. The warriors of the Jungle Legion who rode behind our party as an escort said that while the othode seemed disturbed, he did not react as he would have to the presence of a dangerous predator. Had his sharp senses detected a danger he would have growled deep in his broad chest and his hackles would have risen.

He would linger behind, goggling eyes fixed on something in the underbrush, and he evinced a peculiar reluctance to turn aside from whatever it was in the jungle that had caught his attention. Many times Barin’s men had to call back to him in order not to leave him behind.

We halted for a brief rest and a meal and it was during this rest stop that Bozo vanished entirely. He stood near me, staring fixedly into the thick bushes, ears at the alert, his whole body tense with strange excitement. I spoke to him absently and at the familiar sound of my voice he turned mournful, pleading eyes upon me, and uttered a curious, eager whine. The next moment and he had gone. One leap carried him from the perimeter of our temporary camp into the underbrush at the edge of the Grand Kumala. The jungle swallowed him up. I called, but there came no answer.

When the time came for us to mount up and continue our journey, Bozo still had not returned. I lingered, turning a backwards glance toward the margin of the jungle, expecting at any moment to see that familiar burly body, those goggling eyes, and that froglike gash of mouth set with blunt, powerful tusks. But he did not appear.

“Perhaps it’s better this way,” Jandar said. “It’s easier, at any rate. Maybe Bozo knew you two must part; maybe he couldn’t bear it any better than you could.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “But I hate to go this way, without even saying goodbye…”

And so we rode on. There was nothing else to do.

That night we made camp at the jungle’s edge and ate our rations by firelight. Bozo did not return by the time we lay down, rolled into our cloaks, and slept. By dawn, when we arose to ride on, he still had not returned.

Towards nightfall of the second day after leaving Shondakor, we made our last camp. It was near the edge of the Kumala, just within sight of the jade slab. We ate a cursory meal of cooked meat, dried fruit, black bread and yellow wine. By the flickering light of the campfire we dozed, waiting for the hour of the appearance of the ray, when the Gate would open.

“Another hour, perhaps two,” Zastro said somberly. “A little after the rising of Ramavad.”

“I wish I could take my gear with me,” I said as I regretfully set aside my tunic and weapons, and my long sword in its scabbard, emblazoned with the weird hieroglyph that was my Shondakorian coat-of-arms. “Still, I suppose it’s better that I don’t.”

Jandar took up my sword, the one Darloona had presented to me after my investiture. “We shall keep these safe for you, sir. Perhaps you will come back another day…”

“Perhaps,” I smiled.

Suddenly Taran plucked at my arm.

“Look there, Lankar-jan! There, by the jungle’s edge―”

Jandar peered, shielding his eyes against the glare of the campfire. “I can’t quite―”

“Why, it’s Bozo!” cried Barin in surprise.

And so it was! The great beast stood, hesitating at the edge of the jungle, watching us.

“Aye, ‘tis the dear beast himself,” little Glypto croaked. “But what be that other with him?”

We looked. Beyond Bozo, where he stood a little ways down the slope, staring at us with goggling eyes, sad yet oddly happy, too, and oddly shamefaced, was another. A second othode, purple-furred and rotund, eyes goggling at us warily, lingered just within the margin of the underbrush. The second beast looked much like Bozo, but there were a few differences; for one, it was a bit smaller and more slenderly built, less broad in the chest, less burly in the shoulder. And for another―

“Why, it’s a female!” Jandar laughed. And so it was: and suddenly the glum, melancholy mood that had gripped us all this time broke in delighted laughter. Bozo had not fled because he could not endure to be parted from me; he had sensed a female othode in the woods, and had gone to her, obeying the age-old call of blood to blood, of male to female.

” `The call of the wild,’ I guess,” Jandar chuckled.

“Yes! Or maybe `springtime for Bozo’ says it best,” I laughed. I went towards the place where Bozo stood, and called him. He came waddling to me, growling over his shoulder to the female, who lurked timidly just beyond the brush, watching us. I got down on my knees and embraced him. The great brute sighed and rubbed his wrinkled brow against me, burrowing into my chest, and licked my face.

“Well, then, big boy; well, then! You’ve found a lady othode for yourself, have you? I guess she needs you more than I do, you old Bozo, you! Goodbye, now, old fellow. Be a good boy… .”

I rubbed the place behind his ears and he closed his great eyes in bliss and grumbled deep in his throat. Then his lady-friend whined from the edge of the shrubbery and, reluctantly, he pulled himself out of my arms and went trotting into the woods, but with many a backwards glance. He paused for a long moment on the edge of the jungle. Then the forest swallowed him up.

Behind me the night lit up with golden glory, and I turned away from my last sight of Bozo and said my farewells.

“It is time, Prince Lankar,” said Zastro.

I nodded, and began removing my garments.

The bottom of the jade-lined well was matted with fallen leaves which were crisp and sharp against my bare hide. Above me, the, circular opening was filled with brilliant stars. Soon, when my calls had roused the camp, it was ringed with staring faces which soon broke into delighted grins. The Cambodian native boys had seldom seen a naked white man at the bottom of a well, and I suppose it was an absurd spectacle.

They got me out of the well and Sir Malcolm tossed an old army blanket about my shoulders, wrapping it about me against the chill of the jungle night. And then Noel was there, laughing and weeping at the same time, hugging and kissing me, her cheeks wet against my face.

“About time you got back!” she smiled through happy tears. “I’d begun to think you’d settled down with some Callistan princess! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, “and the Callistan princesses are all spoken for already, so you didn’t have to worry. I’m sorry it took me so long to get back home, but I couldn’t manage it any quicker. Honey, I hope you didn’t worry about me too much … .”

Sir Malcolm broke up the circle of grinning natives with a roar, and sent them scurrying about their business. Noel and I went off to our tent, arms about each other’s waist, talking happily.

“We found your rings at the bottom of the well,” she said. “I have them safe. Your clothes, too.”

“So you guessed what happened to me, then?”

“Of course! And if that beam of light had come on again, maybe I would have come after you. I don’t know why you should have all the exciting things happen to you―I’d like an adventure or two, all to myself! You’ve got to tell me everything that happened … .”

“I will,” I said. We entered the tent and I exchanged the old army blanket for the clothing I had left behind me so many days before.

“You certainly look in fine shape,” my wife observed seriously, examining me with thoughtful eyes. “You’ve put on a few pounds; and you’ve even gotten a tan. How did you manage to stand it all that time with no cigarettes?”

“It wasn’t easy,” I laughed. “But when you’re three hundred and ninety million miles away from the nearest cigarette machine, you damn well get accustomed to doing without! Ahh―and here’s something else I missedl” Sir Malcolm’s native cook had thrust open our tent flap to grin his hello and to offer me a steaming tin cup of coffee. It smelled indescribably delicious, the aroma suddenly stimulating my taste buds, filling my mouth with saliva. I took a long swallow of the hot beverage, and it seemed to me that I had never drunk anything more delicious in my life.

My wife watched as I downed the coffee with gusto, relishing every drop. Her head was tilted a little on one side, so that her dark blonde hair fell over one cheek. She smiled fondly.

“The cigarettes are in the duffel bag,” she said, “if you want some.”

I was tempted powerfully; but the urge to smoke had died out many days ago, and I had long since ceased to miss the taste.

“I’ve gone without them for weeks, now, and I’ve gotten used to it. Guess I’ll keep it up for a while; you always wanted me to stop smoking, anyway, remember?”

She marveled at this display of willpower. Then she threw back her head and laughed, long hair tousling on her shoulders.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing … nothing at all! I was just thinking the way you smoke, it would take something as unprecedented as a surprise trip to the fifth moon of Jupiter, to get you to give ‘em up!”

Our return tickets had been bought and paid for before we had left New York, but we hadn’t made return reservations, not knowing just when we would want to leave. So we hadn’t forfeited the tickets or missed our flight. And when at last we did get home to take up the orderly confusion of our everyday lives, it was to be greeted by several hysterical dogs who had been wondering where we were and why the familiar routine of their lives had been so thoroughly disrupted, and by my sister-in-law who was grateful to be able to turn the care and feeding of the mutts back into our hands again, and by my agent who had been fretting over my prolonged absence while frantically stalling publishers whose contracts were sitting on his desk unsigned, awaiting my signature.

“Some vacation that was,” my wife grumbled one evening, sprawled wearily on the living room couch in front of the tv, after a day of housekeeping. “I’ll never be able to understand how I can work myself to the bone before we go away, getting the house cleaned up so we can leave it―then come back and work myself to the bone getting it cleaned up all over again. Mysterious stuff!”

“I guess so,” I said. “But it was fun, wasn’t it? The mysterious East―exotic Phnom Penh―the Lost City of Arangkor,”

“Sure,” she grinned. “There I was, stuck in the middle of the jungle, eating canned soup and fighting off mosquitos as big as horses, and looking my best in a set of baggy khakis splashed up to here with mud―and there you were, gallivanting around Callisto, fighting Mind Wizards and rescuing people, with a bunch of Callistan princesses giving you the eye!”

“I told you before, there weren’t any princesses,” I reminded her.

“Maybe! But when you get to talking about the trip, sometimes you get all musty-eyed and tendervoiced .

“I guess I do,” I admitted. “I can explain that, though. Remind me to tell you about Bozo, sometime.”

” `Bozo’? Well, that’s more like it. I can’t imagine a princess named Bozo. Is it this mysterious Bozo you miss so badly?”

“Yep.” And I began to tell her the whole story. And when I was finished her suspicions were allayed. After all, even wives can’t very well feel jealous of sixlegged, purple-furred othodes.