THE STAR-MASTER-8
725 Words
BUT WHATEVER WE COULD do, certainly must be done soon. The news from Shan every moment was more serious. Upon Curtmann’s return, open disorder had broken out in the capital city. As punishment, a thousand or more of the young Venusmen of the city had been summarily killed by the diabolic flash-guns of the Earthmen. “Only our men he kills,” young Jahnt put in ironically. “Why not? Our women are very beautiful. Like you, is it not so, Venta?”
I tensed at the glance with which he swept her. “I shall bring in the supper,” Venta said. His gaze followed her as she rose and left us.
“I tell you all this about our hidden weapons,” Prytan was saying to me in his cracked treble voice. “We can trust you, even though you are Earthmen?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Listen,” Jim put in. “These young men you’ve got here—well, no offense meant—on Earth we’d call them ladylike.” His gaze barely touched the gaudy figure of Jahnt and then went back to Prytan. “My business, sir, on Earth is to deal with criminals. I’m pretty good in a fight. You just give me some of your weapons.”
“I trust you,” Prytan agreed. “Never, until tonight, has anyone but myself known about the weapons. If Curtmann knew it—”
“He won’t,” I said. “We’ll get them tonight. We—”
I checked myself. The beat of wings sounded, and a Midge came through the window, and landed on Prytan’s shoulder.
“Well, Meeta,” he said, “you come with more bad news?”
A female Midge. It was the first one I had seen except at a distance. She was a fairylike little creature—a ten-inch high miniature of Venta. Her flesh was like pink-white satin, glistening in the insect-light. Her wings thrummed to balance her as she poised.
“English?” she said in her tiny voice.
“Yes,” Prytan nodded. “These are good Earthmen.”
Her pixie-like, tiny face turned toward me. I saw then, in those tiny glowing eyes, the leap of her instinctive adoration for my giant size. Here a new God for her to worship and serve.
“English, yes,” she agreed. “Master, there have been still more killings. They kill our men now for no reason; and those of the women who are young and beautiful they have herded together into a harem.”
Prytan’s old body trembled with anger. “We must stop it. And Meeta, have you told the Midge to meet us in the broken city?”
“Master, yes. They will be there when the storm is passed. We cannot fly in the wind, and even now it is very strong.”
I could hear it, crackling through the giant foliage outside. Then there was a monstrous flare of color as though a rainbow had burst around us.
“It gets bad,” young Jahnt muttered. He went to one of the windows; then sauntered to a door-oval and disappeared.
Meeta, I understood now, was one of the leaders of the Midge. It was her brother who had aided us to escape from Curtmann’s ship. I told her about it now as she perched on my hand, with her soft eyes roaming my face and her tiny lips parted with eager breath as she listened.
“Oh I am glad of that. Rahn so wants to do what is right in serving our Gods. But it is confusing, Gods here on Venus who fight with one another—”
Through the window, upon a blast of storm-wind another little figure came fluttering. Another female Midge, like Meeta. With beating wings she hovered a second and then fell to the floor at our feet.
“Mela!” old Prytan gasped. “What is it?”
The storm had tossed her against a tree. One of her wings was broken; blood was on her body. But she had struggled on to us, bringing her news.
“What is it?” old Prytan demanded.
“Curtmann comes! He and all his men—his army, coming now to attack the Forest City!”
Curtmann coming to attack us! A dozen little male Midges here on the floor of the room heard it and scurried away.
“Curtmann coming?” Prytan gasped. “Why—why we will not be ready for him.”
It stunned us. Within a minute, out in the city, the news was spreading with cries of the frightened people. A panic was beginning here. That would have to be controlled.
“They’ve left Shan already?” I demanded of the little Midge.
“No. Perhaps not. But they are ready—the storm may hold them off.”
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- Writer
