CHAPTER XVI

A Friend in Need

For a moment while his blood seemed to halt in his veins, Stephen Duane stared at his friend. Then his heart resumed its interrupted tempo with violent resurgence, and he gripped Chuck's arm fiercely.

"Swamp-musk!" he choked. "Chuck--are you sure?"

"Listen," said Lafferty, "I ain't no surer of my own name. These swamps are simply _lousy_ with that stuff. There's so much of it that if it was poison ivy I'd be one big itch on legs!"

"And the Venusians don't know what it is?"

Chuck snorted. "They know what it is. They call it _klaar_, which is Venusian for 'nuisance weed.' But they don't know what it can _do_, or why would they have us destroying it as fast as we can clear it out of the bogs?

"Hell, no, Steve! They ain't nobody alive on these two worlds in this century that knows what _klaar_ can do except you and me."

That, knew Stephen Duane, was true. The anesthetic gas, methioprane, had been an invention of his own, one upon which, of all mankind, only he and Chuck had worked. Its secret had slumbered with them in the oblivion of subterranean Fautnox for fifteen centuries.

Now a great hope overwhelmed Duane. For the first time, a blazing shaft of light illuminated the murky fog of doubt through which he had stumbled, groping vainly for some means wherewith to overthrow Earth's rulers. The actual preparation of methioprane from swamp-musk was not a difficult feat of chemistry. It was one so simple, indeed, that a handful of men with but a few primitive pieces of equipment could create vast volumes of the potent gas. All needful now was to find the time, the place, the workers to perform this labor.

To Chuck he blazed, "That settles it! I've got to get you out of this camp! We've got to escape and find a hidden refuge where we can start manufacturing methioprane--and plenty of it. But, where? Where?" He beat his temple angrily with the heel of one fist, as if by so doing he could stimulate the duality of his Earth-Venusian brain to knowledge of some sanctuary.

But it was Lafferty who supplied the answer.

"Escape," he snorted, "your hat! What do we want to escape for? We got a ready-made laboratory all set up for us!"

"What?"

"Sure," explained Chuck. "The prison barracks. It's the perfect hideout, Steve. Right under the Daans' noses, where they won't suspect a thing. If we lammed, they'd be out on our trails chasing us with whatever they use for bloodhounds on this stinking planet.

"But the Daans never come into or near our barracks; not even to feed us. We're nothing but swine to them. Our sty ain't fine enough for their lordly feet. They just dump our food at the entrance to the prison area and let us find it or starve. When it's work time, they call us. When it's rest time, they kick us back into our pens and forget about us.

"All we need, Steve, is equipment. That's what _you've_ got to do for us. Keep on playing the part of a Daan nobleman, and somehow find a way to smuggle lab equipment in here. And--" pledged Chuck Lafferty grimly--"I'll supervise the manufacture of enough methioprane to put this whole damn planet to sleep till the crack of doom!"

Duane nodded happily. "That's the answer, Chuck. Yes, it's the perfect answer. But--yourselves? Beth, and the Mother Maatha, the others--can you endure this--?"

"Don't worry about us," grated Lafferty. "We've been enduring it with nothing to hope for. Now that there's a chance to fight back and do something, we'll be in there pitching." He grinned mirthlessly and paraphrased the staunch declaration of another fighting man in an earlier day. "Just give us the equipment, Steve, and we'll finish the job!"

* * * * *

So Duane left his friend. And when they had emerged from the tiny shack in which they had held the conversation which might decide the fate of the two worlds, Lafferty returned to the barracks and Steve called the waiting guard, Amarro, to lead him back to the higher, cleaner terrain whereupon were built the Daan administrative buildings.

Apparently Amarro had not presumed to eavesdrop on the conversation of a Venusian nobleman, but Steve felt he could detect an atmosphere of uncertainty or suspicion emanating from the prison guard. Several times as they wended their way through the treacherous barricades, Amarro seemed on the verge of offering some query. More than once his eyes scrutinized Duane with curious speculation. But Steve silenced all attempts at speech with curt, monosyllabic grunts, and they reached their destination without an accusation having been made or denied.

Loala and the Chief Warden were awaiting his arrival. Apparently they had found subjects of mutual interest, for their heads were close together when Steve entered the administration building. They separated swiftly, and Grudo said in that greasy tone of semi-humility Steve loathed, "Greetings, O most noble Huumo! You have finished your questioning?"

"I have," grunted Steve disgustedly ... and shrugged. "I was wrong. The creature is an ignorant earthman, vulgar and loutish as all his race. He is no Slumberer. Methinks there have never been such thing as Slumberers."

Loala studied him from beneath long, veiling lashes.

"You lingered long enough with this 'vulgar lout', my Captain."

Steve snarled, "The man had complaints to make, and I tarried to hear them. To be truthful, some of his grievances seem justified. He complained that the water prisoners are forced to drink is vile and disease-ridden, pointed out that his companions sicken and die like lice."

Grudo laughed coarsely. "What matter? When these slaves die there are thousands more on our colony."

"Nevertheless," said Steve, "the human's point was well taken. Sick slaves are valueless. I told the man I would do something to assure them a supply of cleaner water. But--" he added hastily--"I also told him we would turn no hand to provide for their comfort. What they want done they must do for themselves.

"Still it will do no harm for us to provide them with the needed equipment. You can requisition a distillation unit, Grudo? Some vats, coils, storage containers ... that sort of thing?"

"Why," acknowledged Grudo frowning, "I suppose so. But--"

And he glanced at the Lady Loala questioningly. Her gray-green eyes had never left Steve's face. Now those eyes hardened to the color of frosted agate. She said slowly,

"Yes, Captain Huumo, that seems harmless enough, and can be done. Perhaps you yourself would like to help the earthlings install this unit?"

Duane said eagerly, "Why--why, yes. I should be glad to help in any way--" Then he stopped abruptly, warned by the note of sarcasm in the girl's voice. "_I_, my Lady? I soil my hands in labor for such as these? I do not understand."

"On the contrary," said Loala, her voice more harshly grating than Duane had ever heard it, "I think you understand too well, _Captain_ Huumo! So you learned nothing from the earthman, eh? You suspect there are no such creatures as Slumberers? But while you tarried, plotting with your friend--_we_ have learned otherwise! Grudo, call the informer!"

Her voice cracked like the bite of a lashing whip. Steve stared.

"What? I don't--"

Then the words of denial faltered and died on his lips. For Grudo had opened the door, and into the room now stepped one whose entrance was like that of a spectre of doom. An earthman with bandaged head who stared at Stephen Duane with eyes reflecting not only malice and triumph but--restored sanity.

To this one the Lady Loala spoke.

"Well," she cried, "is this he of whom you told us?"

And:

"Aye, it is he!" declared Eric von Rath. "Even beneath that disguise I know him well. He who stands before you is the Daans' worst enemy--that Slumberer known as Stephen Duane!"

* * * * *

In that moment of betrayal tottered and fell the dreamworld of freedom Stephen Duane had been building within his heart. This was the one blow he had feared, and it had fallen. Von Rath's mind had cleared at last of its amnesia, and his first act had been to align himself with humanity's foes.

This, knew Duane with dull, sickening certainty, was the end of the trail; the last act of a drama foredoomed to tragedy. Gone now was the last hope he might live to see Earth liberated.

But if he died, as he would surely die, there was one who would not live to gloat upon his passing. With a cry of rage Steve ripped his ray crystal from its pouch on his harness, turned it upon the suddenly blanching von Rath and fingered its press.

But even as its lethal flame spewed from the opening, his enemies moved. Grudo hurled himself forward, dragging Steve to the floor by sheer brute force, slashing the weapon from his grasp. The rays spent themselves aimlessly on adamant walls and ceilings. And Grudo cried, "A hand here, Amarro! Secure me this skulking spy."

Against two strong and determined foes Steve Duane was helpless. A few minutes later, bleeding and disheveled, hands lashed to his sides with coils upon coils of biting plastic cord, he stood staring defiantly at his captors.

"Very well," he groaned. "I _am_ Stephen Duane, one of the Slumberers. The masquerade is over and this scene of our little playlet is done. But the curtain has not yet fallen on the last act. Though I die, what I have fought for lives on. Others like myself will rise after me. And I tell you now, proud Overlords of Earth, the day will surely come when humanity shall overthrow your tyrannies as mankind ever in the past has destroyed those who set themselves up in omnipotence.

"And as for you, von Rath--" He turned blazing eyes to the German, smirking out of combat range--"if ever again these bonds are stricken from my hands, those hands will surely throttle the breath from your black throat."

Von Rath laughed uneasily.

"That is a vow you will never keep, _mein Leutnant_. The Daans, like myself, are realists. They are too clever to allow an avowed enemy to exist. We understand each other, I and they. Meanwhile, for your insolence--"

And he took a step forward, arm lifted to strike the bound prisoner before him. But the Lady Loala stayed his gesture with a command.

"Stop, earthman! Presume not over-much on your newly-won favor. The Daans need no human aid in handling their captives. Begone about your business until you are sent for."

* * * * *

The German wilted before her gaze. With a muttered apology he slunk away. Then turned the Lady Loala to her one-time favorite, and though she spoke imperiously still, her tone was edged with the faintest note of regret.

"Now this is a mad thing you have done, Steve of Emmeity," she said. "Have you no wisdom? Were you not content to leave things as they were?"

Steve said, "No, my Lady. I do not expect you to understand--quite. But perhaps you can if I tell you that in the day whence I came, earthmen were not the cringing, servile creatures you have known them to be. They were a strong race, proud and noble as your own. I did what I could to regain that lost freedom. No human worthy of the name would have been content to do otherwise."

"I am not speaking now of governments or empires, human Steve," said the silver lady softly. "Years change all things. No reasoning soul but realizes that some day Daan's dominion over Earth was bound to pass. But all this might have come in the fullness of time. It was not necessary you should hold yourself alone responsible for its accomplishment.

"So I speak not of empires, but of individuals. Did you not know when you espoused this foredoomed cause that your failure would spell an end to the dreams of intimacy you and I have shared?"

Even in the depths of his own darkest hour, Duane felt a shred of compassion for the Lady Loala. A Daan and an Overlord she was, but she was a woman, too, and one at this moment sadly forlorn.

He said quietly, "Aye, my Lady. Even this I knew."

"Then how could you, Steve of Emmeity? Why did you--?"

She stopped abruptly, her gray-green eyes narrowing shrewdly. "I begin to understand. Then these, too, your professions of admiration for me, they were all part of the plan. They, too, were insincere."

Steve said with perfect candor, "No, my Lady Loala, they were not altogether insincere."

"Not _altogether_!" The Overlord seized the words, hurled them back at him through clenched teeth. "But in part, at least! There is another woman, then, whose charms you find more alluring than those of the Lady Loala? Yes, there is! I read it in your eyes. Speak, I command you! Which is she who has so captured your fancy? Speak, that I may teach her the folly of pitting her fleshly wiles against the magnificence of a Daan princess.

"Is she perhaps that muck-begrimed slut who cried aloud your name in the prison camp? Or some other flabby creature, cowering in her hut on distant Earth? Speak, I say!"

But Duane said nothing, and after a tense moment the flame died from the Lady Loala's eyes. Her features tightened to a silver mask, and she turned to the guard Amarro.

"Remove this creature from my sight," she commanded. "He should die now, but the Supreme Council must be shown that there _were_ Slumberers, and that one was in our very midst. Turn him into the pens with his fellow swine."

And she turned her back. Amarro prodded Steve toward the door. "Move along, earthman," he commanded gruffly.

They left the administration building, started toward the prison camp. But when the door had closed behind them, and they two were alone, a strange thing happened. Amarro turned and stared at Steve, long and appraisingly, then spoke a sentence which sent a blaze of fire coursing through Steve's veins.

"You are a strange person," he said. "You arouse my curiosity, earthman. Tell me--_have you kinsmen on distant Terra_?"