CHAPTER XVIII

The Offer of Loala

What Duane recalled of the ensuing hours was a maelstrom of confusion, a phantasmagoria composed of incoherent snatches, peopled with creatures who moved before his vision fleetingly, lingered for a moment, then faded.

Later he dimly recalled once opening his eyes to find himself lying in the thwarts of a motor-skiff scudding through the tortuous channels of a marshland stream. He was conscious of dank mists choking his nostrils and the humid spray of fen waters drenching him as the tiny craft sped toward an unguessed destination.

When next he wakened all this had disappeared. His body, which had been wet, was parched and dry; his mouth was cottony with thirst, and his head hammered brassily. He lay in the cabin of an aereo flashing swiftly through the atmosphere of Venus. A covey of armed guards surrounded him. When he muttered a feeble plaint for water, one dashed a dipperful in his face and laughed harshly as Steve, bound hand and foot, attempted to gulp a few precious drops.

Then again merciful unconsciousness welcomed him, and he knew no more until he wakened for a third time to find himself lying on a crude pallet within a metal-walled room which was obviously a prison cell in the palace of the Daan capital.

Of this he assured himself when, staggering weakly to his feet, he lurched to a grilled opening in one wall and looked down across a great courtyard bristling with armed men over the rooftops of the Daan's mightiest city to the distant spacedrome which, even from this distance Steve could see, was swarming with a black host of humans and Daans performing indistinguishable tasks in, around, and about the spaceships of Daan's great Armada.

His head still throbbed terribly, but with each passing moment an iota of additional strength seeped back into his superbly conditioned body. And save for a weakness born solely of hunger and thirst, Stephen Duane was very nearly recuperated from the effects of his recent assault by the time his gaolers discovered he had come to.

Then one of the warders came with welcome refreshment and unwelcome tidings. As he pushed the first through a movable grill in the corridor door, he donated the second freely.

"Still alive, eh, dog of Earth?" he taunted grimly. "Well, eat and drink heartily; this may be your last meal. You must have a skull of bronze, human. I did not expect to find you on your feet when I came here."

Steve said, "I'm in the palace tower?"

"That's right," grunted his gaoler. "But not for long. The Supreme Council has ordered you be brought before them as soon as you waken. They have a few questions to ask before--"

He left the matter of Steve's fate dangling, but the smirk of malice on his lips was suggestion enough.

Steve asked, "And the excitement at the spacedrome? What means that?"

* * * * *

The guard grinned evilly.

"It means an end to all coddling of you Earth scum. We Daans have been too lenient with you, human. But now your rebelliousness has taught us the error of our ways. We like not the news reaching us from your miserable planet. The Armada is being fueled and equipped to give you earthmen such a lesson in Daan justice as was never before taught. Now, no more questions. Prepare yourself to visit those who will judge you."

Thus a few minutes later Stephen Duane found himself for the second time in the great council hall of the palace of the Daans, face to face with the effete three who ruled the Venusian empire.

If he had thought before the Masters of Daan were a decadent set, he saw now convincing proof of this belief. For strong men deal strongly with those who oppose them. Though they slay their enemies, they do so honorably and openly; oftimes even with a reluctant recognition of their foe-men's prowess.

But weaklings respect not even the dignity of death. And the Venusian masters were weak. There was a feral spitefulness in their attitude toward him who stood before them. Though they blustered and threatened as they questioned Steve, he could sense beneath their vindictiveness an uncertainty, a superstitious dread, which under any other circumstances might have been almost laughable.

For one said to him petulantly, "So you are one of those whom humans call 'Slumberers?' Well, where are the god-like powers you boast? Can you free yourself from these halls? Can you call down the lightnings of heaven to strike us on our thrones? Can you stay the slow death on the rack which is your sure payment for the trouble you have caused us?"

Duane said slowly, savoring the moment, "Nay, Lords of Daan. These things I would not do if I could. But there is this I can promise you. Your puny vengeance on me will prove vain. For each drop of blood you force from my veins, a Daan shall make payment with his life. As my bones crumble beneath your instruments of torture, even so shall the empire of Daan crumble, crushing you beneath its fall."

Another of the Masters bleated fretfully, "You mouth great boasts, earthman, for one whose carcass shall soon rot on the ramparts of this citadel. But as you die so will all rebel earthlings like yourself. One by one shall we find those who defy us and mete out to them the punishment they deserve."

Duane laughed in the Master's face.

"So, my Lord? Some you will find perhaps. But--_all_? I wonder. Only a short time hence you received me with great honors in this very hall as the proud Daan nobleman, 'Captain Huumo.' Does not the memory of this strike fear to your bosom?

"Look about you, my Lord. These 'friends and noblemen' gathered in this chamber--can you tell which are true Daans and which masquerading earthmen like myself who, at any moment, may bury an avenging dagger in your breast?

"Look sharply, my Lord. For truly I tell you your highest councils are laced with humans like myself who will carry on the work for which you have condemned me. Look closely at each face. Can you tell which face is truly Daan and which is the artificially bleached complexion of an earthman? Aye, even look at each other, you three who sit in the highest seats of judgment. Are you certain that not even one of your own august body is an interloper, a spy waiting his moment to turn against you?"

* * * * *

His shrewd technique, his psychological employment of fifth column tactics borrowed from the masters of boring-from-within of his own era, found root in the suspicious hearts of the Masters. A bruit whispered about the council hall as Daan fingers sought weapons in Daan harnesses, and each listening nobleman edged cautiously from his nearest neighbor. Even the three Masters cast furtive glances at each other as though wondering if possibly--just possibly--there could be something in this man's taunts.

Then Steve's first accuser spoke again, his voice shrill.

"Enough of this! You were summoned hither to hear our judgment, not impugn the dignity and honor of the master race.

"Your efforts are fruitless, earthman. Even now the Armada is being readied. From every city and town, hill and fen, have been conveyed hither hordes of slaves to load our spacecraft. Before Daan turns again upon its axis our mighty fleet will be soaring Earthward to lash your miserable planet with such horrors as never you dreamed could be unleashed.

"When this has been accomplished will be time enough to weed out such few false Daans as, like yourself, may have managed to insinuate themselves into our midst. So when you writhe upon the rack, person of Earth, think not of those trifling successes your rebel mobs have made on your native planet, but of the devastating vengeance which will surely reclaim our tottering colony."

The unwitting revelation stiffened Steve Duane with joy. His eyes lighted, and his lips parted in a grim smile.

"Successes, my Lord? Then our fighters _have_ overthrown your strongholds as was planned?"

The Master's pale cheeks glowed with unaccustomed color as he realized his error. He said with sudden savagery, "It matters not. You came hither for trial, not triumph! Take him back to his dungeon, guard, until we have decided a fitting punishment for him."

And Duane was led away.

* * * * *

But judgment was not so swift in forthcoming as had been threatened. All that day Stephen Duane languished in his cell. Nor could he learn from his truculent guard anything more of that which was transpiring on far-away Earth. All Duane knew was that--apparently--Okuno's rebellion had been crowned with initial success. The Master's slip of the tongue had revealed this; further proof lay in the ever-heightening excitement at the spacedrome.

Its vast plain was like a mighty ant-hill upon which lay a hundred glistening metal eggs. To and from each of these objects filed streams of scurrying figures. One such column poured into a forward port of each ship, never afterward to emerge. These, Duane rightly guessed, would be the Daan warriors taking up transport quarters. The stern port was serviced by two files. One which approached slowly, heavy-laden with supplies, fuel, ammunition; the other of which streamed back to ordnance depots more swiftly to pick up new burdens. These would be the slaves, laboring to charge the fleet for its mission.

And watching these preparations, Steve felt his joy overshadowed with a sense of deepening sadness. The Master had spoken truly in claiming this Armada would overwhelm Earth's uprising. Soon these hundred rockets would blast from their cradles on flaming pillars to flash Earthward.

And that, groaned Steve, was his fault. His capture had made it possible for the Daans to quell this rebellion. He had promised Okuno the spacefleet would be immobilized, then had permitted himself to fall pitiful prey to a woman's ruse. Had he but waited within the underground refuge until Amarro returned to tell him all was well and in readiness....

The sound of footsteps approaching his cell brought an abrupt end to Duane's mournful reverie. He moved from the window opening and squared his shoulders to meet as bravely as possible those finally coming to convey him to his doom.

There sounded the murmur of voices, then the grate of metal upon metal. Slowly the door swung open, and a lone figure stepped into his cell. At the sight of this figure Duane's frozen mask slackened into lines of astonishment. For it was no warrior band which confronted him. It was, instead, she whose silver loveliness was surpassed on two planets only by the dust-gold beauty of one other.

It was the Lady Loala.

* * * * *

Then Duane's surprise coalesced into a tiny grimace of understanding. He said slowly, "So, my Lady, you could not resist this last opportunity to taunt my helplessness."

And--it was completely wrong, completely illogical. The Lady Loala should have flashed into instant indignation, lashed back at him with all the dignity and fury of her superior station. But strangely she did not. She said instead, in a mild and strangely troubled voice,

"You speak but half a truth, Stephen Duane. I could not resist this last opportunity to see you again--and to plead with you for sanity."

Duane stared at her starkly.

"Plead with me? You, Lady Loala? But this is madness. The Supreme Council has decided my fate--"

"Not yet," said the argent princess swiftly. "I have addressed myself to them, human Steve. I stand high in their council and in their favor. Even though you be the most dangerous rebel ever to set himself against the majesty of Daan, they have listened to my pleas. There is one last way in which I can save you."

"And that is--?" demanded Steve.

"We of Daan," said Loala simply, "have a great science. None surpass us in knowledge of mental and physiological change. You have seen how we inscribe electrical brain-images on metal cylinders. Similarly we can, if we wish, alter the entire brain structures of both Daans and humans.

"There is an operation that can be performed upon you, Steve of Emmeity. A simple and painless one. You need but place yourself in a certain chamber, and of your own free will permit that our apparatus activate the electrical network which is your brain pattern. Our delicate instruments can utterly erase every thought and recollection which is now yours by changing the contours of your brain. Then by superimposing _new_ forms upon this plastic gray matter, you can be given an entire new series of thought-habits and memories.

"In other words, human Steve, the Supreme Council has permitted this for my sake: that the human brain of Steve of Emmeity be expunged. And in its place you be given a new brain pattern; that of a true and loyal Daan. Well--?" She paused and looked at him breathlessly--"What say you, Steve of Emmeity?"