The Venus Trilogy - Complete Sci-Fi Series: The Planet of Peril, The Prince of Peril & The Port of Peril. Otis Adelbert Kline
to produce various tones, and Grandon judged from his gestures that he was describing the combat.
Immediately one of the sabits made for the door, and shortly returned with the winged king. Then there was a further vibratory conversation, this time among the sabits. Grandon noticed that when they communicated with each other the vibrations were noiseless.
Momentarily expecting to be punished, Grandon was amazed when the four soldier sabits suddenly leaped to the prostrate man and tore him to pieces. These pieces were distributed among the nearby grubs.
Then the king sabit again vibrated his antennae, this time producing musical tones, and the slave translated for Grandon. “By order of the king sabit you are to assume immediately the duties of the man you just defeated; by vanquishing Od, greatest of all of us in the community, you have demonstrated your eligibility for the office.”
“But I know nothing of these duties,” remonstrated Grandon.
“It does not matter. The men know what is to be done. You are simply to maintain order and see that there is no idling. A soldier sabit will remain with you for a few days to teach you the tone language so that thereafter you may receive your orders direct from the sabits.”
The working day of the sabits and their slaves began at dawn and continued until darkness. The slaves were fed twice daily, once upon rising and once when the day’s work was completed. The diet was always the same—a mixture of the sweet, sticky stuff and edible fungi.
With the coming of darkness all members of the community were herded within the conical clay houses and the burrows which connected them. A sleeping room with bare dirt floors was set aside for the men and carefully guarded by soldier sabits. A separate dormitory for the women and children was similarly guarded. Men and women were not allowed to mingle during the day, and though they might see each other from a distance seldom had opportunities even for conversation.
Grandon watched carefully for an opportunity to escape and return to Vernia, but it seemed that his every movement was anticipated by the watchful sabits. He learned the tone language readily, and after several weeks had elapsed, became fairly familiar with his surroundings and the mode of life of the strange creatures who had captured him. His instructor told him how the fantas were hatched from the eggs laid by the roga. They were tended and fed by women and girls until they reached a size that made it necessary for the men to take charge of them. When they had grown larger than adults, they were taken to a dark room deep under the ground, where they spun great, tough cocoons that completely surrounded them, and lay dormant in these, finally emerging as full- fledged adult sabits.
Many days passed before Grandon was even permitted out of doors. Then, one morning, he was placed in charge of a crew of food carriers, and the white soldier sabits, taking their “cattle,” the green creatures, to their leafy pastures, led the way directly to the tree in which the airship was jammed.
Grandon had mounted to gather the sweet torlage. After a tedious climb he saw the craft directly above him. Slaves, sabits and the green “cattle” swarmed all about it without paying it the slightest attention.
Grandon moved cautiously toward the forked limb on which it rested, and peered within the cab. It was empty, and apparently open; he selected a knife and a small flashlight from the miscellaneous articles it contained, secreting them beneath his clothing.
As there were no signs of a struggle he assumed that Vernia had left voluntarily; but he was equally certain that she could not have gone far without being captured and enslaved by the sabits.
Having by this time become familiar with the fate of female slaves of marriageable age, Grandon resolved that she must be rescued speedily. There were hundreds of sabit communities in the valley, in any one of which she might be a prisoner; he must find a way to escape from his own community, then spy on all the others in turn until he found her.
That night when the men had been quartered in their dormitory he thought of a plan, and set about at once to put it into execution.
On the evening following her capture, Vernia was choking down a small portion of the sticky mess when she saw Rotha entering the women’s quarters.
The girl ran toward her and buried her face in her bosom, weeping softly. Vernia noticed several bruises on her shoulders and arms, and the bluish prints of huge fingers on her neck.
“Poor child,” Vernia murmured. “They have abused you shamefully.”
The girl looked up into her eyes, and there was a smile on her quivering lips. “I weep not with sorrow, Vernia of Reabon,” she whispered. “It is because of my great joy that I cannot control myself. I tremble with rapture and thrill with the memory of a wonderful experience.”
“But you have been choked and beaten.”
“You do not understand. The man who made those marks is dead.”
“Then you were rescued. Tell me of it.”
“When I entered the mating pens, Oro, whom I love, met me at the gate and conducted me to the man for whom I had been destined by the king sabit. On the way I besought him to take me to an empty room and leave me there until tonight, but he said such tactics would be useless—that we would surely be found out and the sabits would put us both to death with horrible tortures.
“When he led me into the room, a great, hairy man leaped up from the corner and seized me by the arms. I cried out and struggled to escape him. Oro had left, but he must have heard my cry, for I saw him enter the room just as the hairy giant hurled me to the floor.
“Would that you could have seen my beloved at that moment, my Vernia! He was magnificent. With blazing eyes and set lips he grasped my assailant, held him for a moment aloft, and then threw him to the floor with such violence that I could hear the snapping of his bones. He stood glowering down at the lifeless form for a moment, then lifted me tenderly in his arms, and whispered words of comfort, cuddling me as one would a little child. Presently he set me on my feet and would have gone away, but I begged him not to leave me.
“‘Tempt me not,’ he said, ‘lest I further transgress the laws of our masters, the sabits. Think you that I am fashioned of stone?’
“Then he swept me in his arms, and pressed his lips to mine, while I trembled and grew weak with the joy of that first kiss of love. And so it came about that Oro the Mighty made me his mate, and swore that I was his, and he was mine, forever and ever. Is it not wonderful?”
“It is wonderful,” said Vernia, “to have known your true love, though for only a day. But will Oro not be punished by the sabits?”
“If he is found out. But during the night he took the body to the river and, after weighting it with stones, sank it in deep water. The natural supposition will be that the man escaped.”
Vernia and Rotha worked side by side for many days, first in the incubator room, and later tending and feeding small fantas. It was due to this change in occupation that Vernia twice avoided the inspection tours of the king sabit.
She was feeding the sticky stuff to a voracious young fanta one day when Rotha touched her arm. “The king sabit comes. Stoop over that he may not observe you.”
Vernia bent low over the wriggling fanta, meanwhile watching the king sabit from the corner of her eye. He advanced slowly, pausing now and then to indicate a woman for the pens. At length he came in front of Vernia, stopped for a moment, then started on. It was her hungry charge that proved her undoing, for in her preoccupation she held her wrist too close to the keen mandibles and received a sharp nip.
With a cry of pain she stood erect. The king sabit stopped, turned back, looked at her fixedly for a moment, then vibrated his antennae. She would be conducted to the mating pens the following evening.
Chapter 11
Grandon’s plan of escape entailed