THE STAR-MASTER-9
641 Words
I WAS ON MY FEET. OLD Prytan was trembling with the palsy of his confused terror. By what Jim and I had seen of the young men of the Forest City, there was not one who could be counted on to do anything constructive in this crisis. If the Venus-people were to have any leadership, it would have to be Jim and me.
“Send word that the women and children are to stay in their homes,” I said. “There must be no panic. Have the young men come here. Storm or no storm we shall have to get to the broken city, and get those Venus-weapons.”
“How far is it from here to Shan?” Jim put in.
“Twenty Earth-miles perhaps,” old Prytan stammered. “If Curtmann and his men should start now—”
“Maybe they won’t,” I said. “The storm is still going strong.”
“Where is Venta?” Prytan stared helplessly about the room. “She said she would bring us food. What use of that? We have no time to eat it now.” He suddenly raised his shaking old voice. “Venta. Venta, where are you?”
There was no answer from the nearby interior door-oval through which Venta had gone. Just blank, stark silence. Horror struck at me.
Jim and I were on our feet. Jim gasped, “I’ll go see.” But before he could move, we heard a woman’s moan, followed again by silence!
Jim broke it with an oath. I tossed little Meeta into the air with a flip of my hand as I ran toward the crude kitchen, out there beyond the dim door-oval.
Thank God, it was not Venta. On the packed loam of the floor an old serving woman lay sprawled. Her throat was a ghastly welter of crimson, and near her a Midge lay dead.
The old woman was still alive. She tried faintly to gasp in English as I bent over her.
“He—took her—Venta—”
“Who took her?”
“Jahnt—he—”
The blood choked her. But I had no interest in hearing more. Jahnt!
“Why—he’s got the secret of those weapons now!” Jim gasped. “Get the idea, Art?”
The commotion had brought others. They all stood milling, helpless, frightened. Jim and I shoved them away.
“He’d probably head for the broken city,” Jim said. “It’s much closer to here.”
“That he might do,” Prytan agreed. “And where is his Midge—you people—you have seen little Ort lately?”
“Jahnt could send that Midge flying to Shanga to tell Curtmann about the weapons,” I suggested.
Old Prytan could only stammer assent to the possibility. And if Curtmann and his ruffians got to that cache before we could get there, that indeed would be the end of any possibility of overcoming him.
“Where is Meeta?” I demanded. “Meeta knows the location of the broken city.”
She fluttered from behind me at the sound of my voice. “Master I am here. What I can do to serve?”
“We’re going after Jahnt,” Jim said. “He can’t have gotten far.”
“But you run so heavily,” old Prytan murmured. “My young men here—”
They were all standing looking frightened and confused. Jim swept them with a glance and drew me past them. It occurred to me that we might use the three spacesuits in which we had escaped from Curtmann. With their anti-gravity mechanisms and tiny rocket-streams we could propel ourselves over the forest. But we found now that they were gone.
Precious minutes were passing. We would have to go on foot. At the door we paused, appalled by the wind and a chromatic burst of glaring light. Meeta fluttered in the air beside my head, and as the wind hit her she was tossed back.
“You can’t fly out into that, Meeta?”
“No, I am afraid it’s not possible now. But you can carry me.”
She fluttered to my shoulder, crouching with a tiny hand gripping my coat collar. With Jim beside me we plunged out into the roaring riot of the rainbow storm.
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- Writer
