Rod Damon uses the arts of love to expose a startling Neo-Nazi plot—

As head of the League for Sexual Dynamics, Rod Damon pursues pleasure in the name of science. And as a member of the Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation, America’s super-secret Intelligence operation, he pursues the enemy in the name of peace.

Damon has everything a top agent must have—brains, strength and courage. Women–the weakness of most men–are his greatest strength, for he also has a secret weapon–insatiable virility. And he puts it to its biggest test when he attempts to stop a band of Neo-Nazis eager to set off World War III.

CHAPTER FIVE

Anni was waiting for me in the salon when I left Bonnie’s room.

We small-talked awhile, and she assured me that the redhead whom I originally had selected would be available the next afternoon. Then she pressed a button on the arm.

of her chair and the oriental cutie who had greeted me at the door came to escort me back out.

For half an hour I strolled Sankt Pauli’s main street, Reeperbahn. I was hoping that Walrus-mustache’s people would make contact with me, but evidently they were as patient as I was impatient. Finally the cold weather got the best of me, and I decided that anybody who wanted to make contact would have to do it indoors.

The session with Bonnie had left me ravenously hungry, so I stopped at a restaurant on Reeperbahn for a plate of sauerbraten. The restaurant was uninteresting and so was the sauerbraten. But the guy who waddled in a few minutes after I started eating was very interesting indeed. He was none other than my friend with the big cigar, Herr Boering.

I watched him make himself comfortable at a table across the aisle from mine. He didn’t seem to notice me, but I wasn’t about to write off his sudden appearance as mere coincidence. Ships may pass in the night, but three times in less than twenty-four hours!

The waitress brought him his dinner just as I was finishing mine. I took advantage of the timing. Quickly paying my check, I scooted out of the restaurant and took a cab across town to the main post office. After writing a quick report to the foundation, I headed back to my hotel.

I was exhausted. It was only eleven o’clock, but I had had a rough day. I checked at the hotel desk for messages, found that there were none, and went up to my suite. I had only two things on my mind: a hot shower and a long night’s sleep. I got half of what I wanted.

Lightning, they say, never strikes the same place twice.

Well, that just goes to show you, don’t believe everything they say. The night before, I had stepped out of the shower and found a beautiful girl in my bedroom. Statistically speaking, the odds against finding another one now were something like four million to one. So much for the rules of probability.

She was tall, slim, and very sexy. Her eyes were green.

Her hair was coal-black. Her lips were curled up into a small smile. Like Katrina, she was waiting in the chair opposite the bedroom door. But she wasn’t holding a brandy bottle. She was holding a snub-nosed .38, pointed straight at my midsection.

“Good evening, doctor,” she purred. “You will please forgive the intrusion. I wish you to accompany me on a journey. Please put on your clothes, yes?”

I glanced at the .38. Her finger was on the trigger. But there was something about the way she held the weapon that told me she didn’t know how to use it. I decided to play things casual. “If you ‘re looking for love,” I told her, “put away the hardware. I’m an easy make. And don’t worry about going anywhere. We have all the privacy we need right here.”

Her eyebrows arched quizzically. “Love? Ah, you mean fornication. You Americans use the words interchangeably, do you not? Unfortunate abuse of language.” Her smile vanished. “But it is not love I seek, Dr. Damon. Not love and not fornication. I am far too busy for such bourgeois pursuits. Now your clothes, yes? You will please put them on. We are going for a little trip.”

I looked from the gun to her pretty green eyes. There was a softness there that didn’t match the hardness in her voice. I might have been an ignoramus as far as espionage was concerned, but I knew a frightened woman when I saw one. My sexologist’s intuition told me to string her along.

“I never go for rides with strangers,” I said. “Besides, if you don’t want love, what do you want?” The corner of her mouth quivered. Not much. Just enough to tell me that she was fighting a losing battle with her nerves. “Do as I say!” she commanded, waving the gun menacingly. “I do not wish to argue with you!”

I glanced at the gun again. Her finger was still on the trigger. But I noticed something else. The safety was on.

I grinned. “Shoot,” I told her.

Her face went pale. The corner of her mouth was quivering violently. “Please, doctor,” she said. “Do not make things difficult. If you do not put on your clothes and come with me at once, you will regret it. And so will I.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do not turn around. Just listen to me very carefully.

There are two men standing behind you. They do not speak English, so they have no idea what we are saying to each other. But they have pistols, too. The three of us have instructions to bring you with us. If you do not come voluntarily, you will be brought forcibly. It will be very painful for you now, and it will be very painful for me afterward.”

I didn’t believe that there were two men behind me. Even a novice at the espionage game like me has heard about that ruse. But I wasn’t brave enough to turn around and prove her a liar, either. I decided to take advantage of the language barrier and stall for time. “Okay, I’ll come with you,” I said, crossing the room to the closet. “But, before we go, how about telling me what it’s all about.”

She seemed relieved that I wasn’t putting up a fight. “I can tell you nothing for the present,” she said. “I can only say that it is imperative for you to follow my instructions.

If my comrades think I have lost control of the situation, they will take matters in their own hands.”

I took a shirt from the closet and started to put it on.

At the same time, I maneuvered in line with one of the windows behind her chair. She hadn’t been lying about her two accomplices. Reflected in the window were two of the meanest-looking gorillas this side of Walrus-mustache’s Cosa Nostra boys. They stood flanking the bedroom door like a pair of oversized parentheses. Each of them held a pistol. Both of the pistols were trained on me.

But that wasn’t all I saw reflected in the window. Standing in the center of the door-frame was a third man. One hand held a pistol. The other was poised over the light-switch.

In his mouth was a big, fat cigar. Evidently my would—be abductress was so shook up over her mission that she never saw him come in.

“Duck, Damon!” he shouted. Immediately the lights went out. There were two pistol shots, then a third, then a fourth. I dived into the closet and pulled the door shut.

Then I did my damnedest to crawl into the woodwork.

Outside, someone barked a few curses in German. I heard the scuffling of feet, then a dull thud. Next came a few more curses in German, the crack of splitting wood and a horrendous crash. Finally, a few more curses and silence.

The closet door opened and I found myself staring into the cigar-punctuated face of Herr Boering. “Don’t ask any questions,” he hissed. “Just grab your clothes and come with me.”

The bedroom looked like a cyclone had hit it. The two gunmen were sprawled out on the floor. One of them had a bullet-hole in the back of his head. Blood was pouring out of the wound, and along with the blood, some grey stuff that could only have been his brains. The other guy had two bullet-holes in his chest. He was clutching at them with both hands while his face was frozen in a grimace of terror.

A mirror was shattered, a chair was overturned and the bed was caved in two.

“What happened?” I gulped.

“No questions!” Boering snapped. He tugged a pair of pants off one of the hangers in the closet and thrust them into my hands, and picking up a pair of my shoes from the floor, he led the way to a window.

I followed him outside onto the fire escape. Slamming the window shut, he shoved me ahead of him. We went up a flight of stairs and in through a window on the next floor.

The room belonged to a blowsy brunette, who was sitting in bed reading.

“Mein Gott!” she gasped.

“Sorry to bother you again so soon, Hilda,” Boering told her in German. “But don’t worry. You’ll be well paid for your troubles.”

Her face was a portrait of exasperation. “Well paid, well paid,” she clucked. “But who will pay for my heart attacks?”

“Never mind that,” Boering replied. “I need another alibi. If anybody asks you, the two of us have been in your room for the past half hour, do you understand?”

“The two of you? But, mein Herr, think of my reputation!”

“Think of the money. And think of what’ll happen to you if the wrong people decide that you aren’t being friendly anymore.”

“But two, mein Herr! I never take two!”

“You just did.” He nodded toward me. “His name is Dr. Damon. The three of us have been together for the past half hour. Understand?”

“I—I—” she began weakly.

But Boering was through with her. “Put on your pants and shoes, Damon,” he told me, shoving them into my hands. “And be fast about it. Then get ready to sound indignant that your room was broken into during your absence.”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “I had nothing to do with those killings. I’m not going to—”

“You had a great deal to do with them,” he cut me off.

“Why do you think I killed the men if not to protect you?

You were going to be kidnapped, remember?”

“Then let’s tell that to the cops.”

“Do you think they’d believe it? The police would want to ask questions. Lots of questions. And they might even lock both of us up until they got satisfactory answers. It could be weeks before we were released, maybe months.” He smiled conspiratorially. “That would throw your sex survey way off schedule, wouldn’t it?”

“You have a point,” I conceded. The last thing in the world I wanted to get involved in was a murder investigation.

Besides, my assignment for Walrus-mustache involved getting as close as possible to the Nazi biggies.

What better way to establish a bond of friendship with Boering than by sharing the same alibi?

“If I’m not mistaken,” he went on, “the two men in your room won’t have identification papers on them. And nobody will identify the bodies at the morgue. Play it my way and the cops will take a statement from us, then let us go. A few days later the crime’ll be written off as unsolved.” He gestured impatiently with his hands. “Now put on your pants and shoes. We’ve got to hurry downstairs. And since you’re supposed to be my buddy, remember my name. It’s Boering. Hans Boering. “ I still had misgivings about playing things his way. But I realized that it was too late, even now, to deviate from the plan. If I told the truth about the killings, how could I explain why I had hightailed it out the window and up to the next floor on the fire escape? Obediently, I slipped into my clothes and followed him. out Hilda’s door.

The corridor outside my suite was jammed. Boering burrowed through the crowd and into my living room. The hotel manager, Brobst, was standing at the bedroom door, wringing his hands as he surveyed the scene.

“What kind of hotel are you running here?” Boering shouted. “Last night I was roused from my girlfriend’s bed by the screams of a dying woman, tonight by a shooting match.”

“And in my room!” I put in irately, playing the role to the hilt. “What do you do with your passkeys? Give them away as souvenirs?”

“Ah, Herr Boering,” the hapless manager moaned. “And dear Dr. Damon! I must apologize! I cannot tell you how distraught I am. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before! I run a respectable hotel! For twenty years, never so much as a stolen piece of luggage! And now this! This ! ! !”

Boering peered into the bedroom. “Who are these hooligans?” he snapped, gesturing with his cigar toward the dead men.

“And how did they get into my room?” I demanded.

Brobst sighed. He looked like he wanted to put his head on somebody’s shoulder and cry. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he groaned. “I don’t understand.”

“We were making love,” Boering continued, a wistful look in his eyes. “It was divine. Just the three of us—Damon, Hilda and me.”

“And a very complex position,” I added. “One which I’ve been studying for years. It’s from Koka Shastra, the ancient Hindu love manual. One of the men lies on his back, the girl lies on top of him “

“Don’t give this idiot the details,” Boering interrupted.

“He can’t even manage a simple hotel, let alone a complex coital position.” Jabbing his forefinger against Brobst’s chest, he added, “Now we’ll be inconvenienced by the police. They’ll want a statement by Dr. Damon about why the murders were committed in his room. They’ll want me to confirm the fact that he was with me. They may even bring us to the station-house. And why? Because you, you simple knot-head, don’t know how to keep murderers and hooligans out of your hotel, that’s why!”

“What can I say, gentlemen?” Brobst apologized. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. What more can I say?” He was still apologizing five minutes later when the police got there.

The interrogation went pretty much as Boering had predicted.

The cops wanted to know why I wasn’t in my room.

When I told them I had been upstairs with Boering and Hilda, they seemed satisfied. The two gunmen had no identification papers on them. No one in the hotel seemed to have any idea who they were or where they came from.

From all appearances, the crime was one of a large number of anonymous dark deeds which happen regularly and frequently in Sankt Pauli, and about which nobody really gives a damn so long as upstanding citizens of Hamburg aren’t involved.

The bodies were carted off to the morgue. Boering and I were told not to leave town without letting the police know where we were going. My room was dusted off for fingerprints, and the cops confiscated Boering’s gun, which they found under the bed. Then Brobst assigned me a new suite, the cops left, and life at the hotel reverted to normal.

Boering followed me to my new suite, helped himself to an armchair and poured a shot of my brandy for each of us. “I suppose,” he said, sipping his, “that I owe you an explanation.”

I raised my glass in a mock toast. “Congratulations.

You’ve just made the understatement of the decade.”

He smiled and leaned back in the armchair. “I’ll start at the beginning. As I told you before, my name is Boering.

Hans Boering. I used to manufacture shoes. Now I’m retired. But I’m far from inactive. I lead a busy social life, as our mutual friend Hilda can testify. Also, I’m in politics.

I’ll tell you more about that later.”

He snuffed out his cigar and carefully lit a fresh one.

His eyes looked at me for questions. I didn’t have any.

He continued talking. “When I heard you were coming to Hamburg, I was very interested. You’re a professional authority on sex. Several of my friends and I are—you should excuse the pun-lay authorities. I was sure that you’d be able to teach us a few tricks, and I thought that maybe we’d be able to teach you a few also.” His lips curled up in a small smile. “That’s one of the reasons I was following you. I wanted to meet you and set up an information exchange. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to proposition you. But you probably didn’t even know you were being followed, did you?”

I couldn’t be sure whether he was testing me or whether he actually believed I was that dumb. I decided to go along with his supposition. “Nope,” I lied. “Never guessed it.”

“Well, you’ve been followed ever since you arrived in Hamburg. And not only by me.” My forehead furrowed with genuine surprise. “Who else has been following me?”

“A lot of people. In fact, you’re sort of a one-man target for just about everyone in town.”

“For example?”

“When you were met at the airport by Brobst, there were two men who followed you on your tour around the city. I don’t know who they were, but they followed you to the hotel, then dropped out of sight. I haven’t seen them since.

But that doesn’t mean that they’re not still around.”

“Very interesting,” I mused. “And who else has been following me?”

“Next came the girl, Katrina. She didn’t follow you, actually. But she knew you were coming here, and she planned to meet you.”

“How did you find out about that?”

“Some of my associates have been following her. I myself saw her go into your suite while you were taking a shower.

Then I phoned one of my friends, who was waiting in a building across the street. He could see everything you were doing. Judging from what he tells me, you had quite a time with the girl”

“I should’ve pulled down the shades,” I admitted sheepishly.

“That’s what’s wrong with you academic types. You get involved in a project and you can’t think of anything else.

It’s a dangerous way to do business unless you have somebody looking out for you. Fortunately for you, I was on your side.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you later. Anyway, I know that Katrina went into your room, I know what you did there together and I know who killed her when she left. I also know who killed him.”

“You know who killed Jaeger?”

“Yes. I can’t tell you now, but I will eventually.”

“This is getting very confusing.”

“It’ll clear up before long. Just stay with me for a while and pay attention. Now, about Katrina. My associates and I haven’t been the only ones following her. There’ve been several others. Two of them were the men I killed tonight in your room.”

“Where do they fit into the picture?”

“I don’t know. I suspected at first that they were agents of the West German government, but now I think otherwise.”

“This is getting more confusing than a Chinese puzzle.

Why don’t you back up a few steps and give it another run through this time with a few more facts?”

His smile said that he appreciated my predicament.

“Okay, I’ll do that. But first let me ask you a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“What are your political views? Can I trust that being a Coxeman—yes, I know about that—they are militantly patriotic?”

“Those are pretty broad questions. How about narrowing them down a little?”

“Okay, what do you think of Communism?”

I remembered what Bonnie had told me about Walrus mustache’s people having passed the word that I was a far-right-winger.

I thought back on some of the speeches the Coxe Foundation contingent had made on campus during the last election. “A deadly menace,” I said. “A cancer that will eat away at civilization and destroy it unless the free world unites to stamp it out.”

“How far would you go in stamping it out?”

“As a Coxeman, if I had my way, the United States would drop the bomb on Russia and Red China without warning.

Destroy the cancer completely before it destroys the world.”

“Noble sentiments. Unfortunately, your government doesn’t agree with you.”

“True. But the Americans who share my thinking are making progress. We believe that we’ll persuade a lot more people to join our cause.”

“Will you persuade them soon enough?”

“That’s the question.”

“And as I see it, the answer is no. Your country today is completely in the hands of the far left. Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan—”

“Wait a minute! They’re not left-wingers!”

“They’re not? Permit me to demonstrate. Before the elections of 1964, didn’t Goldwater propose increasing the troop strength in Vietnam and bombing the North?”

“Yes.”

“And what did Lyndon Johnson do after he got into office? He increased the troop strength and dropped the bombs. Now, as everyone knows, Johnson is a left-winger.

And his program is identical to the program of Barry Goldwater.

Ergo, Goldwater is a left-winger.”

“Well—” I began.

But Boering was too wrapped up in his argument to permit an interruption. “And Ronald Reagan! “You call him a right-winger? Shortly after his inauguration in 1967, he asked all the civil service employees of California to work one day without pay. Talk about socialism! The man’s another Karl Marx!”

“I never thought of it that way.

“And the C.I.A.,” he went on. “During February of 1967 your newspapers revealed that the C.I.A. was supporting a number of student groups. Who were they supporting?

The National Students’ Association, for one. Leftists through and through. And how about J. Edgar Hoover?”

“Now wait just one moment! If there’s one American that no one can accuse of being a leftist, it’s J. Edgar Hoover!”

“Oh no? Are you aware of how many F.B.I. agents have infiltrated the Communist Party of the United States?”

“That’s my point. Quite a few—”

“Yes. And every one of them pays dues. If the F.B.I.

pulled out today, the Communist Party of the United States would go bankrupt tomorrow.” He sipped his brandy and shook his head sadly. “No, Damon, there’s no doubt about it. Your country is completely in the hands of the Communists.”

“You make it all clear. But what can we do to undo the mess?”

“There’s no doubt, Damon, that the United States is far along the road to ruin. And so is the rest of the western world—England, France, Germany, Italy. The day of a total Communist takeover is imminent. Free people must unite to stave off the Red menace while there still is a chance. We have nothing to lose but our chains. But we will triumph soon enough!”

“And this,” I said, groping for a transition, “is why half of Hamburg has been following me since my plane landed?”

“More or less. Let me explain. As I intimated, I’m active in politics. I work very closely with a number of associates who share my fears of a Communist takeover. We believe that such a takeover is so imminent that nothing short of an immediate confrontation between the world’s communist and capitalist powers will save humanity from total capitulation to the totalitarian state.”

“In other words, you advocate all-out war.”

“Absolutely.”

“But millions of people would be killed.”

“That’s the price you pay for freedom.” He took a long draw on his cigar, then blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “What’re a few million lives when the future of the world is at stake?”

I resisted the impulse to tell him what I really thought of his political views. The way the conversation was going, Boering seemed very close to giving me the word on the Berlin Wall job I was trying to find out about. I prodded him for information. “Your point is taken. But neither the communist nor the capitalist blocks seem presently disposed to war.”

Boering nodded sadly. “That’s the problem. Johnson and his commie cronies are sitting around Washington, Kosygin and his capitalist stooges are sitting around Moscow, Mao Tse-Tung is out putting up posters and the world is slowly going to pot. Nobody even makes angry speeches any more. Do you realize how many years it’s been since Khrushchev banged his shoe on the podium at the UN?” His eyes took on a wistful look. “You know the solution to the problem, Damon. You said it yourself just a few minutes ago. The United States should drop the bomb on Russia and Red China without warning. Destroy the cancer completely before it destroys the world.”

“Yes,” I reminded him, “but, as you pointed out, my government doesn’t agree with me. The Americans who share my thinking aren’t making progress fast enough.”

“That’s right!” he roared, waving his cigar like a sword.

“The damned commies’ll have us all in their hip pockets before America gets off its ass and does something about it.”

“Then what’s the solution?” I challenged, waiting for him to spill the beans about the Berlin Wall. “How do we stave off the Red menace while there still is a chance?”

Boering’s fat face brightened in a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “We have a plan,” he said. “I can’t tell you about it just yet, but believe me, it’s a humdinger. If it works, there’ll be bombs in the sky before you can say ‘Tovarrich Robinson.’ “ His eyes took on a dreamy, glazed look.

“Think of it, Damon! B-52’s winging over Moscow, over Peking, over Tokyo—”

“We’re not enemies with Japan,” I reminded him.

“What the hell, give them a shot too. Remember Pearl Harbor.”

“I almost forgot.”

“And guided missiles, Damon. Nikes, Ajaxes, Zeuses.

Whistling through the sky like Roman candles. Exploding all over the place. Boom! Boom! Bang! Bang!”

“An inspiring thought.”

“And machine guns!” He curled up behind an imaginary gun and sprayed the room with imaginary bullets. “Brrrrt! Brrrrt!”

“Good aim!” I cheered. “You wiped out a whole platoon of them.”

“And the bombs!” he sighed. “Oh, the beautiful, beautiful bombs! Poof! Puff! Pow!”

“Direct hit,” I congratulated him.

But he wasn’t listening to me. His eyes were glassy and fixed on a point somewhere in the distance. Like a bombardier surveying a target area, he swiveled from left to right. Suddenly and without warning he leaped from bis chair and thrust bis right arm stiff into the air.

“Heil, Hitler ! ! !” he screamed.

The sound of the late Fuehrer’s name snapped Boering back to reality. Grinning sheepishly, he lowered himself back into the armchair. “My apologies,” he said softly.

“Memories are strong, and I sometimes get carried away.”

“I understand,” I assured him. “But you were telling me about a solution. A chance to stave off the Red menace before it’s too late. Just what did you have in mind?”

“A plan,” he hissed conspiratorially. “I can’t tell you exactly what it is. But take my word for it. It’s a beauty.”

“And you think it’ll start a third world war?”

“One that’ll make the last two look like Sunday School picnics.” His eyes glowed again. “Just think of it, Damon!

The bombs—”

“Don’t get started on that again,” I cut him off. “You still haven’t told me enough about your plan. If Russia and the United States aren’t eager to fight, how do you propose to stir them up?”

“Not only Russia and the United States,” he chortled gleefully. “China too. Before this thing is over, we’ll have everybody from the South Africans to the North Laplanders in uniform.”

“But how?” I demanded impatiently. “How will you get them to fight?”

Boering wouldn’t be baited. He smiled self-satisfiedly.

“We have ways. And we’re going to use them. A lot sooner than you think.” I decided to change my tack. “Well, fine, going to start World War III. What does that have to do with why I’ve been followed by every kook and his cousin since I landed in Bamburg?”

“A great deal. You see, you could be instrumental in a lot of people’s plans.”

“For example?”

“For example, my associates and me. An operation of the sort we plan to pull off requires a lot of coordination.

There are movements to arrange, information to be exchanged, orders to be transmitted. Naturally, we have to operate in absolute secrecy, especially as D-day approaches.

This means we have to communicate with each other through agents who couldn’t possibly be suspected of being affiliated with us. Besides being a super-American, a Coxeman, you also are a sex investigator.”

“And you want me to be your messenger-boy?”

“At times we might use you in that capacity, yes. There’d also be other uses for you, of course.”

“For instance?” He smiled. “Let’s not get into for-instances right now.

Let’s just keep the discussion on a general plane. When the time comes that we want something done, we’ll tell you.

Then you decide what capacity we’re using you in.”

“And if I don’t want to be used in any capacity at all?” His smile broadened. “No hard feelings. You go your way and we go ours.”

“But aren’t you afraid I might reveal your plans to someone?”

“You don’t know our plans, so there’s nothing for you to reveal. If we ever trusted you with a mission, naturally you’d be pledged to secrecy, and you’d be killed if you double-crossed us. On the other hand, if we don’t trust you with a mission, there’s nothing for you to tell. You might mention the nature of your conversation with me tonight, but everything I’ve told you is already known by the West German intelligence people, so you wouldn’t be telling anyone anything new.”

“You say the intelligence people know what you’ve told me?”

“More or less.”

“Then why don’t they try to stop you?”

“How can they? So far we haven’t committed any crimes.

All we’re guilty of is wanting to provoke a war between the major world powers in order to stamp out Communism.

There’s no law against that.” He chuckled. “The only way they could stop us was if they knew exactly what we were planning. And of course we’re far too clever to let them find that out.” I nodded thoughtfully. “So they’re keeping an eye on you.

That explains why you said you thought the two men you killed in my room might’ve been West German agents.”

“I said I thought at first that they might have been West German agents. I’m pretty sure now that they’re not.”

“Why?”

“They spoke German with a heavy accent. I heard them talking in the hall outside your room when you were taking your shower.”

“And they didn’t speak English at all. So what kind of agents could they be?”

He shrugged. “Any one of a dozen kinds. Russian, French, Chinese—”

“They didn’t look Chinese.”

“You don’t have to look Chinese to work for the Chinese government, dumbkoff.”

“What do you think they wanted with me?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

“And how about the girl who was with them? Where does she fit into the picture? And what happened to her?”

“She got away after I killed the two men. I could’ve shot her, but there wouldn’t have been any point in it.

Besides, she’ll be more valuable to us alive. You never can tell when she may tum up again.”

“On the subject of the two dead men, what about your gun? The cops found it under the bed. Won’t they be able to trace it to you?”

He chuckled. “Don’t be naive, Damon. I wanted them to find it. That’s why I left it there. It’s an unregistered weapon. I bought it on the black market. If they trace it, all they’ll find out is that it was made in Italy before World War II.”

“How about fingerprints?”

“There won’t be any. You might not have noticed it, but when I was in your room I was wearing skin-tight surgeon’s gloves. I tossed them off the fire escape when we were climbing the stairs to Hilda’s room. If anybody finds them outside the building, they’ll assume that the killer got rid of them that way, but they’ll have no idea who the killer was. Surgeon’s gloves are too resilient to retain fingerprints.”

He smiled self-satisfiedly. “Now, any more questions?”

“What about Katrina Malinowski? Where does she fit into all this?”

“Right in the middle of it.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I’ll start at the beginning. Katrina worked in Anni’s brothel. My associates and I often have orgies there, and sometimes we discuss political matters. Katrina was present at a number of our orgies, so she heard a great deal of what we discussed.” He puffed his cigar, then studied the smoke rising from the ash. “I never suspected that she might be leaking some of the things she heard to the intelligence people—not at first anyway. Neither did any of my associates. Then one morning we spotted two men following her home from the brothel. We’re pretty sure that they were West German agents.”

“And that’s why you had her fired?”

“How did you know about that?”

“Anni told me she was fired for approaching a customer’s wife. It’s a pretty flimsy excuse.”

“Well, you’re right; we had her fired. One of my associates figured that the best thing to do with her was to get her out of the way as quickly as possible. He dreamed up the wife story, told Anni and that was that.”

“But then she was killed. And the man who killed her was killed. Why?”

“That’s a long story. I wasn’t going to tell you about it just yet, but I suppose I might as well. After she was fired, we assigned some people to follow her. We wanted to find out exactly how much she knew about us and who she might be sharing the information with. We didn’t find out much, only enough to realize that we weren’t the only people interested in her. West German intelligence agents were following her and so were the two guys I killed tonight. Also, for some strange reason, she made contact with you.”

“Her contact with me had nothing to do with intelligence activities.”

“I know. We had your suite bugged. We heard everything the two of you said to each other.”

“Well, you still haven’t told me why she was killed.”

“The man who killed her, Jaeger, was one of our men.

Not an important member of the organization. Just an underling. He was one of the men we had assigned to follow her.”

“Why did he kill her?”

“That’s a mystery. He wasn’t supposed to. He had instructions to report on every move she made. Period. We were astonished when he disobeyed our orders.”

“Who killed him?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I was in the hotel when he killed Katrina. I didn’t see him do it, but I knew he had to be the one. I followed him to his apartment. Sure enough, he had her blood all over his shirt. And the knife he killed her with was on his kitchen table. I asked him why he killed her. He said that he was afraid she had tipped you off about our plans. I didn’t believe him. I knew, of course, that she had told you nothing. And we had no reason to believe that you’d be interested in what she said even if she did tell you something.

Either way, Jaeger’s explanation was implausible.”

“You still haven’t told me why you killed him.”

“Self-Defense. When I confronted him with the facts, he tried to kill me with the same knife he had used to kill her. I struggled to get it away from him, but he was too strong for me. Finally I pulled my gun on him. He resisted and I had to shoot him.” I tried to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Individually, most of them made sense. Together, they were ridiculous. “So Katrina was being followed by West German intelligence agents. And you began following her.

And one of your men, for no known reason, killed her.

And you killed him in self-defense. Meanwhile, the two guys you killed in my suite tonight were following her also, and they weren’t West German agents. And you’ve been following me. And there were also two guys who followed me when I first landed in Hamburg, but now they’ve dropped out of sight, and you don’t know who they were.

This is beginning to sound like a game of musical chairs.”

Boering chuckled. “Espionage is a pretty complex business, Damon. Just be glad that I was following you tonight when those guys came into your room, or, who knows, you might be on a train to Czechoslovakia now.”

“Why Czechoslovakia?”

He shrugged. “Czechoslovakia, Iceland, Rangoon, who knows? Those two guys could’ve been agents for any country on the globe. What we’ve got to do now is find the girl who was in your room with them. Once we find her, I’m pretty sure we can make her talk.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Our methods have never failed yet.” He leaned back in the chair and yawned. “But it’s getting late, and you’ve had a busy night. Maybe I’d better leave so you can get some rest.”

I couldn’t tell whether he really wanted to leave or whether he was hinting for an invitation to stay longer.

Figuring that I had nothing to lose but my sleep, I asked him to stay.

“Thanks,” he replied, “but no thanks. To be honest with you, tonight’s murders have put me very much in the mood for some action. Violence always excites me. I’d never be able to rest if I didn’t have a woman.” He glanced at his watch. “If I hurry, I can just make it to Anni’s before she closes her doors.”

“Happy hunting,” I told him, rising to say goodbye.

“And pleasant dreams to you,” he said. At the door he added, “Tomorrow night’s orgy begins at nine. If you’d like to join us, we’ll reserve a place for you. We’re recreating a scene from Rabelais, so you should find it pretty interesting.”

The invitation was unexpected, but not at all unwelcome.

“Put me on the guest list,” I told him. Then we shook hands and he waddled out the door and down the hall.

I poured myself a brandy and took some writing paper from my briefcase. “Dear Coxe,” I began my letter to the foundation, “your contact still hasn’t made contact and I’ve got billions of things to report. Number one—”

But I stopped there. I didn’t plan to leave the hotel again before going to bed, and the way people had been popping in and out of my life over the past forty-eight hours, I didn’t want to risk having written evidence of my status as a spy lying around. Taking a pack of matches from the dresser drawer, I burned the letter and flushed the ashes down the toilet. Then I poured another brandy, lay down and tried to sort the situation out in my mind.

From where I stood, it seemed that Bonnie Bennett’s identity as an American agent was secure. Also, my own identity was pretty safe—at least as far as Boering and the rest of the Nazi fearsome foursome were concerned. But evidently somebody was interested in me. Now to figure out why.

Question mark number one involved the two guys whom Boering had spotted following me from the airport. Perhaps they had been Walrus-mustache’s boys. If so, it was conceivable that they would have backed off once the fireworks started with Katrina Malinowski and company.

On the other hand, if they were Walrus-mustache’s boys, would they have risked getting that close to me that early in the game? I’d hate to think that the guys on my team were playing that fast and loose with my security.

And if they weren’t Walrus-mustache’s boys, who were they? Certainly not Boering’s boys. And if Boering was to be believed, certainly not the boys whom Boering killed in my suite. But then, who? And what did they want with me?

Question-mark number two was Katrina Malinowski.

What was her interest in me? It was unlikely that she was trying to feed me information about the Nazis; she had no way of knowing that that’s what I was after. Was she really on the up-and-up about wanting to meet me for sexual reasons, as Bonnie Bennett seemed to believe?

Possible, but with all the spying and counter-spying going on, I wouldn’t want to bet on it.

Question-mark number three was Jaeger. Boering had identified him as a Nazi underling who was assigned to keep tabs on Katrina. But even Boering was dumbfounded as to why he had killed her. Maybe he was just being overzealous in the performance of his mission, but I doubted it. If that had been the case, he wouldn’t have attacked Boering.

Or maybe he was jealous rather than zealous. Bonnie Bennett had told me that he was always trying to date Anni’s girls. If Katrina had rebuffed him and then he saw her hop into the sack with me, he might have become enraged—enraged enough to kill her. But then why would he try to kill Boering?

Or did he try to kill Boering? I had only Boering’s own word on that score, and Boering could very well have been lying. But why would he lie to me? It would have been simpler not to tell me about it at all.

On the subject of Boering, why had he opened up to me so readily? He knew that spies were hovering around me like flies around sugar. If he felt that I was a security risk, would he have told me as much as he did about his plans?

And would he have invited me to the orgy?

Question-mark number four was the girl and the two guys who were waiting for me in my suite when I came out of the shower. What were they after? The guys didn’t speak English—or so the girl said. Who would assign two non-English-speaking goons to abduct an English-speaking target?

And why had Boering intervened? He had risked death and discovery to save my skin. What was in it for him?

Question-mark number five was Walrus-mustache’s boys. Why hadn’t they made their move yet? Assuming that the two men Boering had spotted at the airport weren’t on my team, where the hell was my team? I could understand that they might be reluctant to risk tipping their hand while I was the center of interest for just about every other spy in town. Yet, if they didn’t get in touch with me soon, how could I brief them about high-priority developments?

Besides, bullets were flying all over the place. Shouldn’t I at least know who held the aces in the poker game before the chips hit the fan?

The more I thought about it, the more confusing it became. Finally I decided not to think about it at all. I was scheduled to be a guest at the fearsome foursome’s next orgy. Maybe I’d get some answers then, assuming I was still alive to pose the questions.

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Rod Damon uses the arts of love to expose a startling Neo-Nazi plot—

As head of the League for Sexual Dynamics, Rod Damon pursues pleasure in the name of science. And as a member of the Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation, America’s super-secret Intelligence operation, he pursues the enemy in the name of peace.

Damon has everything a top agent must have—brains, strength and courage. Women–the weakness of most men–are his greatest strength, for he also has a secret weapon–insatiable virility. And he puts it to its biggest test when he attempts to stop a band of Neo-Nazis eager to set off World War III.

CHAPTER FOUR

If the guy recognized me, he didn’t show it.

His beady eyes were riveted to his girlfriend’s rubber trench coat. I watched the two of them make their way down the hall. She had the stride of a Prussian general. He waddled alongside her, looking very much like a disordered orderly. They stopped in front of a door, and the girl fumbled with the knob. Then they vanished inside.

I looked at Bonnie Bennett. Her expression told me to keep my mouth shut. Forcing a playful laugh, she threw her arms around my neck and bussed me wetly on the lips. Then she led the way to the door next to the one our friends had just entered. “My boudoir, doctor,” she cooed sweetly. “Won’t you come in?” The door opened to an immense, over-decorated bedroom.

The bed was a canopied, four-poster job big enough to accommodate three couples. with comfort. Alongside it was a marble-topped night-table, and on the night-table, looking like an immense wire-mesh eye in a plastic face, was the intercom Anni had told me to buzz if I ever needed anything. “Nice set-up you have here,” I complimented Bonnie, beaming my voice directly at the intercom.

“The perfect place to conduct my experiments. And Anni is such a marvelous woman. I’m delighted I selected her house instead of the many others I considered.” Bonnie locked the door, then crossed the room and planted herself sexily in front of me. Her long legs were parted, her hips tossed jauntily to one side, her arms folded prettily beneath her breasts. She wrinkled her nose deliciously and made a little pout. Then her lips soundlessly formed a word: “Music.”

I let my scowl tell her that I knew what I was doing.

“A lovely place,” I went on, pacing around the room.

“Nice, spacious bed. Soothing decor. All very important for the experiments.”

She caught up with me and draped her arms over my shoulders from behind. “I’m pleased that you’re pleased,”

she said louder than she had to. “Madame Anni always aims to please.” Then, wrapping her body around mine, she brought her lips to my ear. “Music, jerk,” she whispered urgently. “Music!” I understood her impatience, but after seeing the joker with the big cigar slip into the next bedroom, I wasn’t about to lose my cool by doing something too suspicious too soon. Disengaging the stranglehold she had on my neck, I pulled a paperback edition of Satyricon from my jacket pocket and resumed pacing. “Our experiment today,”

I announced professorially, “will be an attempt to recreate a well-known scene from Petronius’ immortal classic. It is a scene in which Encolpius, the first-person narrator, is brought to the chamber of a lady named Chrysis. He employs certain oral techniques to arouse her passions and she soon becomes so stimulated that she cries out for him to take her. But when he tries, he suddenly finds himself impotent. Nothing she can do will arouse him. Finally, he gives up in despair and slinks away, a portrait of abject misery.”

Bonnie sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at me with an expression of bewilderment. I could see that she still was peeved that I hadn’t asked her to put on the record-player. But at the same time, she was curious about the experiment I had just described. Her pretty brown eyes glowed with the carnal curiosity I had encountered so many times during my work on campus.

“The purposes of the experiment,” I went on, pausing in front of Anni’s intercom, “are several. First, I want to determine if the oral techniques which Petronius describes are sufficiently exciting to make an experienced woman like Chrysis, or in this case you—cry out for relief. Secondly, I want to test the hypothesis that a strongly-sexed man like Encolpius—or in this case me—could fail to be excited himself after such a vigorous round of sex-play. And finally, if the hypothesis is valid and I do remain unaroused, we must test the possibility that I can remain unaroused despite all your efforts to arouse me.” I cleared my throat and resumed pacing. “Now, are there any questions?”

The glow-lights in Bonnie’s eyes were glowing brighter.

“What am I supposed to do to arouse you?” she asked, seeming keenly interested.

I flicked through the pages of the paperback, then smiled. “Unfortunately, Petronius doesn’t elaborate on the techniques Chrysis used. You’ll have to improvise. Do you think you can handle it?”

She pouted prettily. “I can handle it,” she assured me.

“Now then, one more thing. In the interest of remaining absolutely faithful to the conditions described in the Satyricon, we must have some music. Chrysis had several lute players waiting in the wings to provide background sounds whenever they were desired. We can’t quite manage that, I’m sure, but do you suppose Anni might loan us a phonograph?”

Bonnie’s smile told me she was relieved that I’d finally got around to that. “There’s one under the night-table,” she said. “What kind of music do you like?”

“I don’t suppose you have anything authentically Roman.”

“Nothing closer than O Sole Mio.”

“I’ll settle for Bach.”

She leafed through a pile of albums. “How about Rimsky-Korsakov?”

“Sold.”

While Bonnie set up the record player, I crossed the room to the wall separating us from the gent with the big cigar and his rubber-trench-coated girlfriend. The peephole wasn’t hard to find. In fact, it was set off with a pink plastic shield—the same kind you find around a light-switch I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I’d peer through it only to find another eye peering back. Then, figuring that I had just as good an excuse to peer as whoever might be on the other side, I decided to chance it.

Nobody was peering back. The peephole gave me a clear view of the Nordic giantess’ bed. She was standing in front of it, her rubber trench-coat wide open in front. Somewhere along the line she had shucked her black jodhpurs, because the only thing she was wearing under the coat was a pair of black leather riding boots. Her partner was lying on his back beneath her, one of the boots resting on his face. As she stood haughtily over him, his tongue lapped delightedly at the leather. One of his hands lovingly caressed the hem of her coat. The other was busily engaged in his lap.

The opening chords of Scheherazade thundered through the room, and I turned away from the peephole. Bonnie was sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for me. She watched with interest as I slipped out of my clothes. The glow-lights in her eyes were glowing brighter than ever.

I remembered Petronius’ characterization of Chrysis:

“Her beauty excelled even the flattery which painters gave their women . . . . Her forehead was oval and naturally inclined; her eyebrows eclipsed the glory of the brightest star; her mouth was such that Venus herself might become envious.” The old Roman rake could’ve been thinking of Bonnie Bennett when he penned the description.

Bonnie shrugged the nightie off her shoulders and got up from the bed. Smiling seductively, she started toward me. A familiar passion welled up inside me. Again I recalled the words of Petronius: “Her body was even more stunning than her face. White as Parian marble, the skin begged to be touched. The contours of her breasts were such that sculptors would gladly trade the rest of their lives in exchange for an hour in which they might use her as a model.”

At this point in the book, Petronius’ narrator, “taken in by her beauty,” recites “a brief, amorous poem designed to show my appreciation.” I wasn’t in a poetic mood, so I skipped a few paragraphs and took up at the point where he “seized her by the waist ... lifted her into the air (and) began the performance of love’s preliminaries most slowly.”

Bonnie yielded eagerly to my caresses. A tremor of delight raced through her body as I lowered her onto the bed and brought my lips to the soft, warm flesh of her breasts. Her fingers dug into my shoulders and her thighs scissored my waist.

My tongue burned hot circles around her nipples, then down the smooth, flat expanse of her belly. She groaned softly and squirmed under the force of the assault. I nibbled gently at the sweet, smooth skin on the insides of her thighs. Reaching behind her, I clutched her buttocks and urged her hips upward toward my waiting lips.

“Now, Damon!” she gasped desperately, sticking to Petronius’ script. “Take me now!” My tongue continued to tease her. Her fists pounded at my back, and her body thrashed about furiously beneath me.

“Now!” she repeated. “Now, Damon! I’m begging you! Take me!”

Maneuvering her into place beneath me, I wedged my knees between her thighs. At this point in Satyricon, the narrator becomes impotent and leaves his passion-crazed Chrysis in a state of fitful frustration. But Bonnie Bennett evidently had a lot more going for her than Chrysis ever did, because if there was anything that I wasn’t, it was impotent.

“To hell with the script.” I moaned as I blindly sought release.

“Ohhhhhh ! ! ! “ she sighed.

But I had more on my mind than sex. Bringing my mouth to Bonnie’s ear, I whispered, “What’s the story with Katrina Malinowski?”

I might just as well have been talking in Sanskrit. Bonnie dismissed the question with a quick, “Oh, darling,” then writhed against me with new vigor.

“Katrina Malinowski,” I repeated impatiently. “The hooker that got murdered last night. What do you know about her?”

Bonnie’s hips ground frantically against mine. Her arms clutched desperately at my back. “Oh, nothing!” she gasped. “Nothing, darling! Ahhhhhh!!l Don’t stop moving!

Please don’t stop moving!”

“She worked here,” I insisted. “You must’ve known her.

Tell me about her.”

“Later,” she said. “I’ll ooohhhhh ! ... tell you everything ... abhhhhhh ! ... later! Just don’t stop moving! I’ve never had it like this in my life! You’re a demon, Damon! Don’t stop! Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with her until she got the sex thing out of her system. Lengthening my strokes, I hammered into her like a pile-driver. In seconds the effort paid off. Her body throbbing with desire, her eyes squeezed shut in ecstasy, she surrendered to wave after wave of glorious release.

When it was over, she clung to me like a second skin.

Her face was flushed with excitement. Her eyes had the glazed look of a mystic who has just seen into worlds beyond. “You’re too much, Damon,” she panted. “You ought to get a Nobel prize.”

“They don’t have any in this category,” I reminded her.

“The Peace Prize is for a different kind of piece. Now let’s get back to business. Namely, Katrina Malinowski. What do you know about her?”

The taut, hot muscles of her womanhood tugged playfully at me. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “I’ll tell you,” she said, “but we have to start making it again. If we stop somebody’s liable to get suspicious.” For a minute I wondered if she’d ever get around to telling me anything. I’ve seen a lot of sexed-up babes during the course of my research, but she topped them all.

My hips ground back into action. “Okay,” I told her, “we’re making it. Now you start talking.” She pouted prettily. “All work and no play—”

“Yeah. Makes jack. Now talk.”

She winced to let me know what she thought of my pun.

Then, picking up the rhythm of my thrusting, she said, “Katrina was Heinrich Stiefel’s favorite girl. Stiefel is one of the four guys they told you about back in the states. I don’t know what happened between him and Katrina, but a few days ago he complained to Anni about her and got her fired. He told Anni something about Katrina coming to his house and speaking to his wife. I don’t believe it. I think she heard too much at one of the parties.”

“What parties?”

“The parties they have here every Tuesday and Friday.

Didn’t anybody tell you about them?”

“Not a word.”

“Then maybe I’d better start at the beginning.” Her hips began to gyrate more quickly, and I could tell by the expression on her face that her glow-lights were starting to glow again.

I was beginning to feel a little glow myself. But I knew that I’d shut off my source of information for good if I ran out of gas before she did. I bit my tongue and concentrated on the pain to take my mind off what was happening down below. Then I said, “Go ahead. Start at the beginning.”

“The four guys,” she told me, thrusting mightily, “are Stiefel, Wolff, Boering and Schlitz. They’re—ah, that’s good—in and out of here almost every night of the week.

But Tuesdays and Fridays are their special nights. That’s when the four of them get together with four of us girls in one room. There’s—oh, Damon, that’s terrific—stag movies, booze, switching partners, the whole bit. It starts right after dinner and lasts until morning. Between rounds they talk shop. That’s when I—right there, Damon; keep doing it right there—that’s when I pick up information about their operations.” I shifted position slightly to keep from setting her off on another explosion. “Aren’t they afraid that one of the girls might talk?”

She squirmed beneath me, trying to get back in the previous groove. Fortunately, she couldn’t find it. “They have a theory about that,” she went on. “The way they see it, it’s a calculated risk. They know that the West German government is keeping a close eye on them, so they can’t meet openly. Here they’re relatively safe. They arrive separately and leave separately, so the only people who know that they’re together during the night are Anni and the four girls. Anni is discretion personified where her customers are concerned, so they’re not worried about her.

As for the girls, they always pick foreigners like Katrina and me, and they use a lot of German slang so we can’t understand them. I guess they figure that if we do overhear anything we won’t tell anybody. After all, as far as they’re concerned, we’re just dumb whores.”

“Except for Katrina.”

“Except for Katrina. She must’ve heard too much. And she must’ve let Stiefel know it. Otherwise he wouldn’t’ve complained to Anni about her. I don’t think she approached his wife. That sort of thing just wasn’t her style.”

Bonnie’s frantic thrusting was beginning to take its toll on me. With each movement of her hips I felt new tingles of pleasure surge through my body. I shifted position again and bit my tongue harder. “But why would he get her fired?” I asked. “Why not just stop inviting her to the parties?”

Unfortunately, my last shift of position put Bonnie back into the groove she’d been searching for. “Ooh, that’s good, Damon,” she sighed. Then she added, “Maybe she asked him for money. Maybe she told him that she’d tip his hand to the cops if he didn’t pay off. Maybe . . . “

But she didn’t finish the sentence. Finding herself back in the groove, she had begun to gallop madly. The result was predictable. Her body throbbed with desire, then trembled ecstatically as the long, slow, warm waves of orgasm washed over her.

I almost made it myself. Almost, but not quite. What Bonnie had said before she went off the deep end was enough to wrest my mind away from all sexual concerns. If Katrina Malinowski had tried to shake Stiefel down, it was indeed likely that he would have arranged to have her fired. And it was also likely that he would have arranged to have her followed, just to make sure she didn’t carry out her threat. That would mean that when she came to my hotel room somebody was watching her. Now the question was, Why was she killed?

The more I thought about it, the more confusing it became.

If whoever killed her—presumably Jaeger, the bartender was afraid that she had tipped me off to Stiefel’s plans, why didn’t he kill me too? It would have been far simpler to burst into my bedroom and kill both of us than to wait until she left, then kill her and leave me running loose. Unless he had reason to believe that she didn’t tell me anything. But then why kill her? To make sure she wouldn’t tell me something in the future? And why did she come to my room in the first place? And why did she leave so abruptly? And what was that strange feeling I had during our second go-round, that strange feeling that somewhere, somehow, I had been through the whole experience before? And who was the leather fetishist in the bedroom next to Bonnie’s the guy with the big cigar who bad been in the corridor outside Katrina’s room when I first saw her dead body? And who had murdered Jaeger? And why?

The slow, grinding movements of Bonnie’s hips told me that she had finished her second orgasm and was getting ready to try for a third. My eyes met hers and I answered her smile with one of my own. “Jeez,” she sighed admiringly, “you really are an expert.”

I dismissed the compliment with a shrug. “Tell me,” I said, “what you know about Jaeger.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Is that all you want to do? Talk business?”

“Talk,” I said.

“Okay, but keep on moving.” Obediently I resumed my thrusts.

“Jaeger,” she continued, “is, or was, an A-number-one jerk. You’ve heard of stage-door Johnnies? Well, he was a whorehouse-door Johnny. He hung around here constantly, always trying to make dates with the girls during their off-duty hours. But he never sprung for a quarter. After a while, Anni began calling the cops whenever he came around. Finally he learned his lesson and stopped coming, but he still hounded all the girls at their hotels or apartments.

He must’ve tried to date me a hundred times.

Katrina, too, I guess. And all the rest of us.”

“The cops say he murdered Katrina.”

“So I heard.”

“Do you think he did?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“I haven’t the vaguest.”

“Do you think there’s any connection with Stiefel?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you think he killed her?”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you think of the cops’ jealous lover theory?”

“Well, he wasn’t her lover, I’m pretty sure of that. But if she turned him down often enough, he might’ve gone a little screwy and tried to rape her. The papers said he killed her with a knife. Maybe he tried to rape her and killed her when she resisted him.”

Throughout the exchange, her hip movements had continued to grow more vigorous. I found myself getting very close to the point of no return. Biting my tongue again, I said, “Anni told me earlier that Jaeger had never been here at the house. Why do you think she lied?”

“She probably didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about her clientele.”

“What would you say if I told you Katrina was in my room just a few minutes before she was killed?”

Her eyes widened, and for an instant she stopped thrusting.

“Was she really?”

“For nearly an hour. She slipped in unannounced while I was taking a shower, then made love to me twice and left.”

Bonnie seemed to think it over for a moment. Then she smiled wistfully. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised,” she said, resuming her hip movements. “She really was turned on over you. She read all your books, and when she heard you were coming here, she really was excited about meeting you. Probably she came to your room because now that Anni fired her she knew she wouldn’t meet you at the house.”

The new round of hip movements set off a wild wave of sensations somewhere inside me. I knew I couldn’t hold out much longer. Evidently Bonnie was feeling the same sort of sensations, because her eyes squeezed shut and her arms clamped tightly around me. “You don’t suppose she was killed because she visited me, do you?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she panted, increasing the tempo of her gyrations. “If Jaeger oh, that’s good—saw her coming from your room—ahhh, Damon, that’s beautiful—and got jealous be—because—oooooohhh, harder, Damon, harder—and—ohhhh, Damon, I love it—ohhhh! !”

She was off at a mad gallop now, and there was nothing I could do to hold her back. Or to hold myself back. I still had questions I wanted to ask her, but I let them wait.

Driving powerfully against her, I felt her body tense around mine. Ripple after ripple of ecstasy coursed through her.

At the same time, a volcano of excitement erupted inside me.

When it was over, we rested. In the background, Rimsky-Korsakov was thundering on as thunderously as ever. For more than a minute neither of us said anything. Then Bonnie kissed me tenderly on the lips. “I hate this spy-counter-spy jazz, Damon,” she said softly. “They roped me into it when I had no way to refuse them and now there’s nothing to do but play it out to the end.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I sort of got roped in myself.”

“But, Damon—” Her eyes blinked open and I could see that they were moist. “As long as I’ve got to play the game, I’m glad I’m playing it with you.”

It was an unexpected note of sentimentality, and I suddenly felt a strange warmth for her. “I’m glad you’re on my side, too,” I said.

Her fingers stroked my back. “Before you go I have a few things for you to include in your next report to the States.”

I chuckled quietly. “We’d better rest a minute first. I’m still pretty tuckered out from the last conversation.”

She smiled. “We don’t have to make it again. Just lie here, and I’ll tell you.”

I lay and listened.

“They’re coming along quickly with their plans for Operation Philadelphia. From what I could gather at the last orgy, they’ve got more than a hundred men in West Berlin right now, just waiting for the word to attack the wall. By July they’ll have a few hundred more. They’re going to attack with machine guns, mortars and maybe even artillery.”

“Where are they going to get the weapons?”

“The small stuff is being smuggled into West Berlin now.

They’re bringing it in in pieces and storing it in factories and houses owned by some of their pals. They’ll assemble it just before they’re ready to attack.”

“How about the big stuff? They won’t be able to get a howitzer past the Russian checkpoints no matter how far they strip it down.”

“They’re still working on that. There’s been some talk about a factory in West Berlin where the bigger parts of the weapons can be manufactured. There’s also been talk about capturing some United States weapons that’re already there, although I don’t know exactly how they plan to go about it.”

“I’ll pass the word in my next report to the states. Anything else?”

“Yes. So far nobody seems quite sure about what the guys who attack are going to wear. But there’s been talk about dressing them all in United States Army uniforms.

They’ve already figured out that they can buy all the uniforms they need at any P.X. If that doesn’t work, they have a clothing factory where they can make facsimiles.”

I pictured a detachment of troops storming the wall in U.S. uniforms. For the first time I began to appreciate Walrus-mustache’s fears. “What else have you found out?”

I asked her.

“That’s about it. There’s another orgy tomorrow night, so I may have more information for you the day after. But maybe you won’t have to get the word from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You might be invited.”

My eyebrows arched quizzically. “How’s that?”

“Stiefel and the boys are very interested in you. They’ve mentioned you several times since they heard you were coming. They want to meet you.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons. First of all, if there’s anything they hold as dear as the Nazi cause, it’s sex. They figure they can learn something from you.”

“Maybe they can. What’s the second reason?”

“They know you’re a Coxeman, a fanatic right-winger.”

“I wonder how they knew.”

“Someone spread the rumor. One of our people, no doubt. Anyway, you’re supposed to play along with it. With luck they may even take you into their confidence.”

I grinned again, this time not at all sardonically. As usual, Walrus-mustache and his crowd were leaving no stone unturned.

She glanced at the clock on the night-table. The time was eight fifteen. “Now it’s getting late,” she said. “We’d better not stay together too much longer, or Anni’ll begin to wonder what’s up.”

I started to get up, then lowered myself back into place.

“One more question before I leave. Did you happen to notice the guy with the big cigar who came through the hall while we were standing outside?”

“The one who went into the next room? Yeah. It was Boering.”

“Who?”

“Boering. One of the four. Stiefel, Wolff, Boering and Schlitz.” I gulped. “What would you say if I told you he was in my hotel last night?”

“It’s possible. He hangs around Sankt Pauli quite a bit.

He might’ve stopped in to see someone he knows.”

“What would you say,” I pressed, “if I told you he was standing outside Katrina Malinowski’s door when I found her murdered, just a few minutes after I left my room?” This time it was Bonnie’s turn to gulp. Her eyes widened, and her face seemed to grow pale. “I’d say,” she said after a moment, “that I’m getting a little scared, Damon. In fact, I’m getting more than a little scared.” I got up from the bed. “Welcome to the club,” I told her.

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Rod Damon uses the arts of love to expose a startling Neo-Nazi plot—

As head of the League for Sexual Dynamics, Rod Damon pursues pleasure in the name of science. And as a member of the Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation, America’s super-secret Intelligence operation, he pursues the enemy in the name of peace.

Damon has everything a top agent must have—brains, strength and courage. Women–the weakness of most men–are his greatest strength, for he also has a secret weapon–insatiable virility. And he puts it to its biggest test when he attempts to stop a band of Neo-Nazis eager to set off World War III.

CHAPTER THREE

When I woke up, it was afternoon.

The sun was bright, but the frost on my bedroom window told me that outside it was still colder than a witch’s bosom. I took a hot shower and a slug of brandy, then ambled down to the hotel dining room for lunch.

Topic A with the waiters was the murder of Katrina Malinowski. Like Brobst, they were puzzled. They all had known the raven-haired beauty for months, but no one had any idea who would want to kill her or why.

Or so they said. Whatever the case, none of them seemed aware that she was in my room a few minutes before she died, so I didn’t volunteer the information. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if there was some connection.

After lunch I took a stroll around Sankt Pauli. In fact, I took three strolls around Sankt Pauli. I figured that Walrus-mustache’s people should have heard about the murder by this time and that I’d be making it easier for them to get in touch with me if I stayed out in the open.

But no one made contact. I thought I might be on to something when two American sailors stopped me and asked me for directions to Herbertstrasse. But all they wanted was directions to Herbertstrasse. By five o’clock both my patience and my feet had had it, so I took a cab to the post office, mailed my letter to the foundation, and headed for Anni’s bordello.

The brothel was a gracious-looking, three-story mansion with Grecian columns supporting the porch room and talk about advertising!—a pair of ornate red lanterns flanking the front door. I lingered on the porch for a few seconds, looking at the architecture. Then I rang the bell.

The door promptly swung open, and a small oriental girl looked up at me. She wore an elaborate silk kimono and a smile that said I was very welcome.

“The name’s Damon,” I told her. “Madame Anni’s expecting me.”

Her smile broadened, and she executed a neat little bow.

“Ah, Dr. Damon,” she replied in faintly accented English, “the entire staff has been eager to await your arrival. If you please follow me, I will take you directly to Madame.” My eyes did a quick tour of her small, exquisitely sculptured body. I realized instantly that she was wearing nothing under the kimono. And she didn’t have to! If the rest of Anni’s dolls were as well-stacked as the cutie playing door-watcher, I was in for one hell of a swinging research project.

The girl pulled back a dark velvet drape, and I stepped into the main salon. It was the size of a theater lobby and twice as ornate. Clusters of provincial chairs punctuated the spacious marble floor. An immense crystal chandelier dangled from a cathedral ceiling two stories above.

My guide paused long enough for me to take in the grandeur, then led me down a tapestry-covered corridor to a baroque, gold leaf-bordered door. The whole scene was like something out of Zola, with shades of Oscar Wilde thrown in for kicks. “The salon of Madame Anni,”

the girl announced. “I trust you will find the meeting pleasant.”

The door was opened by a seven-footer with a face that looked like it had been put through a meat grinder. His shoulders were as wide as the door frame and his bulging muscles threatened to split the seams of his double-breasted suit. My eye picked up on another detail; on the left side of his well-tailored jacket was a bulge that could only have been made by a .45 in a shoulder holster.

The gunman stepped back and I found myself staring across an auditorium-sized room. At stage center was a jewel-bedecked mountain of female flesh poured into a low-cut evening gown three sizes too small. She was enthroned on a mammoth Louis XIV chair. Flanking it were two smaller chairs, both empty. In front of the three chairs was a marble-topped coffee-table, its surface cluttered with an array of books and scrapbooks.

“Dear Dr. Damon,” she said, rising to greet me, “I cannot tell you what a pleasure this is. I must say, you’re far more handsome than your photograph.” By way of demonstration, she held up one of my books and pointed to the photo on the dust jacket. “Won’t you sit down?”

The gunman closed the door, and I helped myself to the chair on Anni’s right. “Probably you will recognize the design of my house,” she beamed. “We’ve taken great pains to ensure that every detail was perfectly authentic.”

I glanced around and realized instantly the source of her inspiration. The room was an exact replica of the salon of Madame Fournier, described in Marquis de Sade’s Les Lournées de Sodome. “It couldn’t be more realistic if Francon Duclos were your premier putain,” I replied, alluding to Fournier’s chief hooker-in-residence.

Anni’s face lit up in a grin that revealed a full mouth of uneven, yellow teeth. “Ah, what a pleasure it is to encounter a man of refinement!” she sighed. “Most of the boors I service wouldn’t know Madame Fournier from Madame Butterfly.” Then with a Gallic shrug, she added, “Of course, they pay well, so one tolerates them.”

We exchanged a few more pleasantries, then got down to business. Anni pointed out that her house, like Fournier’s, was amply supplied with peepholes—at least two per bedroom. This would permit me to observe her customers and their girls to my heart’s content. Also, I had run of the house as far as personal participation was concerned.

Each of the hookers had been instructed to cooperate fully in any sex act I desired. Finally, mirrors were available in unlimited number, along with whips, canes, rubber hoses and all the other accouterments of sadomasochistic indulgence in the event that my tastes ran in that direction. I assured her that my research would be confined to sex of the less outre variety, whereupon she heaved a sigh not unlike that of a chef who has slaved all day over the ouefs Benedict and bouillabaisse only to find that the guest of honor prefers hot-dogs Then, quickly recovering her poise, she flipped open one of the scrapbooks on the coffee table. “These are my girls,” she said proudly. “I fancy that I have some to suit every taste.”

The claim was no idle boast. The scrapbook was brimming with photos of nude and semi-nude 24-karat beauties, all provocatively posed. There was a petite Mongol with long black hair and dark flashing eyes, a sultry redhead with breasts the size of coconuts; a Nordic giantess wearing thigh-high spiked-heel boots and wielding a long leather whip; a honey-haired honey into whose gold-capped teeth was engraved the name, “Ida,” and a long-stemmed American beauty who could only have been Bonnie Bennett. I did a double-take at the sight of Bonnie’s luscious curves, displayed to far greater advantage here in the nude than in the bikini snapshots Walrus-mustache bad shown me back in the states. Then, careful not to appear too interested, I turned back to the other girls. “Let’s start with this one,” I said finally, pointing to the big-breasted redhead.

Anni’s toothy grin bisected her face. “Ah, my good doctor,” she cooed, “like most of your American countrymen, you appreciate large breasts. Louise possesses a pair of the finest, firm, high and delectably malleable. They measure forty inches when she is relaxed, forty-four when she inhales.” Suddenly a frown darkened Anni’s features.

“But alas, doctor, she is not with us today. She is—may I be indelicate?—menstruating, and she bleeds profusely. I have given her permission to remain at home.”

I pretended great disappointment at this lucky break, then resumed leafing through the scrapbook. After going through all the photos twice more, I narrowed the choice down to two, the petite Mongol and Bonnie Bennett. The Mongol was a dish and a half, with delicate features, gently rounded curves, and creamy golden skin. I murmured approvingly.

Then, acting very much like a kid torn between his two favorite flavors of ice cream, I impulsively opted for Bonnie.

“A good choice,” Anni congratulated me. “Like yourself, an American. In fact, a member of one of your country’s most socially prominent families, the name of which I am forced to withhold only for reasons of discretion.

I assure you that you could not have made a better choice. She is by far one of my most popular girls.”

In the interest of making doubly sure that Anni wouldn’t suspect me, I turned back to the photo of the Mongol.

“Still,” I said haltingly, “this girl is very appealing. Her skin looks so smooth, her mouth so kissable .... “ I let the sentence trail off.

“She is available also,” Anni said quickly. “A charming creature, well-trained in the many ways oriental women bring their menfolk pleasure. Some of my customers insist upon her and no other. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with her.”

“Yet,” I hesitated, turning back to the photo of Bonnie, “the American is taller and more beautiful. Besides, we speak the same language. Perhaps it would be better to start with her.”

“All my girls speak English fluently,” Anni replied, “You needn’t let that factor influence your decision.”

I decided to quit while I was ahead. After dawdling over both photos for a moment more, I snapped the scrapbook shut. “No,” I said with an air of finality, “let me take the American. We have far more in common. Besides, there’ll be another day.”

“Many other days,” Anni agreed enthusiastically. “My facilities are at your disposal. You will have as much time as you like with all my girls.” She stood and told the gunman at the door to fetch Bonnie. Then she crossed to a tea service in one corner of the salon and poured each of us a cup. “It may be a few moments before our beautiful girl is ready,” she explained, glancing meaningfully at her watch. “Usually we don’t have too many visitors this early in the day.”

I took advantage of the delay to bring up the subject of Katrina Malinowski’s murder. Anni knew all about it. In fact, she even knew who did it—a Sankt Pauli bartender named Jaeger.

“Evidently you didn’t read today’s papers,” she explained.

“It was in all the late editions. Jaeger was found shortly after noon in his apartment, about eight blocks from your hotel. His clothes were smeared with her blood, and he still had the murder weapon in his hand.”

“Eight hours after the crime?” I asked, puzzled. “Funny he didn’t ditch it.”

“He couldn’t,” said Anni. “He was dead. Shot four times through the heart, point-blank range.”

I whistled. “It looks like you people really play for keeps over here.”

Anni scowled. “Don’t blame the entire city for a crime involving only a few people, doctor,” she said rather haughtily. “Remember, you Americans had your Boston strangler, too.”

“Of course,” I apologized. “It’s just that the whole thing with Katrina happened very suddenly, and just a few doors down the hall from where I was sleeping.” She smiled. “I understand. It’s all very shocking. I was quite shocked myself. As you may have heard around your hotel, she wasn’t the type of girl you usually find connected with violence of this sort.”

“What type of girl was she?” Anni sipped her tea, then stared thoughtfully at the cup.

“A strange girl, really. Not strange in the sense that she acted peculiarly, strange in that she was a very refined, well-educated young lady, not at all the type usually attracted to prostitution, even in a high-class house like mine.”

“What do you suppose made her decide to join the ranks?”

“I don’t know. She came to me about six months ago.

She said she had come from Munich, where she was given my name by several men who occasionally patronized my house. It was my impression that she had been a call-girl there, but not connected with a house. Perhaps an independent operator, offering her services to a small, select clientele. I didn’t question her about it. Faced with the prospects of acquiring a beauty like Katrina, a prudent madame doesn’t ask too many questions. Besides, it was none of my business. She wanted to work for me and I was eager to have her, so there was nothing more to discuss.”

“I heard at the hotel that she recently got fired. Is that true?”

Anni sighed. “Yes, and it broke my heart to do it. She had been such a good girl. One of the favorites. Never caused any trouble, and everyone liked her.”

“Then why did you get rid of her?”

“I had little choice. One of my customers, a very valued client, a man whose patronage is worth thousands of Deutschmarks per week, complained that she had attempted to visit him at his home. He is married and well-established in business. Her action naturally proved very embarrassing.

I had little choice but to dismiss her immediately.”

The explanation didn’t sit right with me, and Anni knew it. Not wanting to seem overly curious, I didn’t press the matter. But Anni volunteered an explanation.

“It seemed out of character for a girl like Katrina to do something like that,” she went on. “In fact, I'm not fully convinced that my customer wasn’t making the whole story up, for whatever reason he might have had. Still, he is a valued customer, and in a case like this, one always gives the customer the benefit of the doubt. If I didn’t fire her, who knows how many of my other customers he might have told about her. It could have been disastrous for my business.”

I nodded understandingly, then quickly shifted the subject.

“What about this bartender who killed her? Did you know him?”

“Jaeger? I knew who he was. He worked at the Pussycat, a bar some of my customers patronize. But he never had been to my house. I don’t encourage the patronage of the working classes.”

“Why do you suppose he killed her?”

Anni shrugged. “According to the papers, the police suspect some sort of love triangle. They theorize that Jaeger may have been her secret boyfriend, who killed her out of jealousy, then was killed by another of her boyfriends, who wanted to avenge her death.”

“That sounds reasonable,” I suggested, hoping she’d think otherwise.

She did. “Katrina had no boyfriends. And if she did, they weren’t bartenders. She had too much class for that.”

“Then what’s your explanation of the murder?”

Anni shrugged again, this time more expressively. “I have none, doctor. It’s a complete mystery to me.”

I let the matter drop there. There still were a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but for the present I was determined to play the role of the just—mildly—curious tourist. The other questions could wait until after my little tete-a-tete with Bonnie Bennett.

I shifted the conversation to Anni’s favorite subject—whorehouses.

She seemed to know every important one in the history of the world, from ancient Babylonia’s Temple of Mylitta to contemporary New York’s latest jet-set “in”

place. It was Anni’s theory that whorehouses prospered most not in societies of extreme sexual liberty, where they were unnecessary, nor in societies of extreme sexual suppression, where they were quickly shuttered by the law, but in societies whose sexual attitudes were uncertain and in a state of transition. As evidence she cited Imperial Age Rome, in which Christianity had just begun to take a foothold, and pre-Revolutionary France, where the foothold rapidly was being lost.

The theory was debatable, and we debated it for all of fifteen minutes. Then Bonnie Bennett made her entrance and all debate was quickly suspended.

Bonnie in the flesh surpassed anything I had seen in her photographs. She was tall, leggy and oh-so-lovely. She wore a pale blue nightie that revealed far more than it concealed, and the way she moved underneath it drew attention to every delicious curve and crevasse. I felt a flash of desire inside me, and I thought for a moment that I was going to have trouble finding my voice.

“Good afternoon, doctor.” She spoke in the same deferential tones that everyone else in Sankt Pauli seemed to use whenever they talked to me. “I’m told that you selected me for your very first partner. Needless to say, I’m flattered.” My eyes met hers and her lashes fluttered provocatively.

My desire grew greater, and it took all the self-control I could muster to refrain from glancing downward to see if my excitement was showing through my calm demeanor.

“The pleasure’s mine,” I gulped self-consciously. “You’re far prettier than your picture.”

Anni beamed over the two of us like an eager sorority housemother seeing one of her charges off on a first date.

“I’m so happy that you like her, doctor,” she cooed. “Now why don’t the two of you scurry off and enjoy yourselves.

There’s an intercom on each night-table connected directly with my office. If you need anything, just buzz.” And on that note of solicitude she ushered us to the door.

Bonnie Bennett led me down the corridor and up a wide, thickly carpeted stairway. Her succulent buttocks wriggled invitingly with each step. A tantalizing trail of sexy perfume wafted through the gauze-thin folds of her nightie. I glanced downward, and this time there was no doubt about it. My manhood was straining for release!

At the top of the stairs, Bonnie took my hand and planted a delicious kiss on my lips. Her breasts brushed provocatively against my arm as she did so. “I’m so pleased that you picked me for your first girl,” she purred prettily. “I hope you won’t be disappointed with me.”

Grinning sheepishly, I gestured toward my bulging manhood.

“Exhibit A,” I told her. “So far you’re doing just fine.”

She threw her arms around my neck and thrust her mouth against mine. Her hips strained against the proof of my passion. We kissed, hard and long. Then, glancing over her shoulder to make sure we were alone, she brought her mouth to my ear. Suddenly her sweetness vanished, and her voice went ice cold. “What’re you trying to do, Damon, blow the whole bit?” she hissed softly. “You were supposed to wait for me to make the first move.” I kissed her again. My hands traced a pattern down her sides, then came to rest on her buttocks. I clutched her to me. “I had to act fast,” I hissed back, peering over her shoulder at the empty corridor. No one was anywhere in sight. “Lots of things have been happening. Like murder.”

She sighed ecstatically as I caressed her, then twisted around in my arms until her back was against my chest. My hands caressed her breasts and the smooth curve of her belly. They came to a halt at the delicious V between her thighs. She rested her head on my shoulder, then tilted her face upward and nibbled at my ear.

“You still should’ve waited,” she whispered crossly.

“If you aren’t careful, you’ll get both of us killed too.”

My tongue made small circles on her throat. Then I worked my way up the smooth, sexy muscle on the side of her neck. When her ear was in range, I took another quick glance down the empty hallway and replied, “Let’s quarrel later. We’ve got more important things to talk about now. Is your bedroom bugged?”

She twisted around in my arms again and wriggled her hips provocatively against me. Her fingers worked loose the knot of my tie. “Oh, doctor!” she giggled extra-loud, evidently as a subterfuge. “You’re so naughty!” Then, leaning close to my ear, she sputtered hoarsely, “Of course it’s bugged. You heard what Anni said about the intercom, didn’t you? And there’s a peephole in each wall. For all I know she may even have movie cameras aimed at the bed.”

“You’re pretty naughty yourself,” I giggled back for the benefit of whoever might be listening. Then, tugging her to me, I whispered, “Where can we go to talk?”

Her mouth found mine and our tongues locked in a long, sensuous kiss. When it was over, she worked her way back to my ear. “We can talk in the bedroom, but we’ve got to be careful. As soon as we’re inside, ask me to put on the record-player. The music’ll drown out what we say. But don’t get too carried away with the conversation.

If anybody’s watching through the peepholes, they’ll expect us to be making love-non-stop!” Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps on the stairway behind us, and Bonnie quickly turned on the solicitous air with which she first had greeted me. “But, doctor,” she chided sweetly, “we’re blocking traffic. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the privacy of my boudoir?”

“By all means,” I giggled, playing the game. “By all means.” We broke our clinch just in time to let another couple through the hall. The girl was the Nordic giantess who had posed with a whip and spiked-heel boots for the photo in Anni’s scrapbook. This time she was wearing a rubber trench-coat and a pair of black jodhpurs. But I was far more interested in the guy with her. He was a short, squat businessman-type with horn-rimmed glasses and a fat green cigar. At first I didn’t recognize him; I just had the uncomfortable feeling that I’d seen him somewhere before.

Then I remembered where I saw him. He was one of the faces in the crowd outside Katrina Malinowski’s room when I bolted through the corridor and found her dead.

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Rod Damon uses the arts of love to expose a startling Neo-Nazi plot—

As head of the League for Sexual Dynamics, Rod Damon pursues pleasure in the name of science. And as a member of the Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation, America’s super-secret Intelligence operation, he pursues the enemy in the name of peace.

Damon has everything a top agent must have—brains, strength and courage. Women–the weakness of most men–are his greatest strength, for he also has a secret weapon–insatiable virility. And he puts it to its biggest test when he attempts to stop a band of Neo-Nazis eager to set off World War III.

CHAPTER TWO

It didn’t take Walrus-mustache and his Coxemen long to swing into action.

As he had promised, the acceptance letter from the foundation was on my desk the next morning, along with a very generous check. There also was a one-way plane ticket and a reservation for a Hamburg hotel.

In a separate envelope was a copy of the grant application which had been sent to the agency in my name. Whoever prepared it had to have been a pretty sharp boy. It was as well-written as any application I had ever seen. I reminded myself to tell Walrus-mustache that I had room for the writer in L.S.D. if the espionage business ever got slow.

The study I ostensibly was going to conduct was right up my alley. To quote from the application: “An examination of erotic practices in brothels of Sankt Pauli to determine the prevalence in contemporary European society of sexual techniques in Rome during the First Century A. D. as described by T. Petronius Arbiter (Satyricon), Tacitus (Annals) and Suetonius (Lives of the Twelve Caesars).” Along with a copy of the application my ghostwriter had supplied me with Latin editions of the three works and several good English translations of each. Since I was familiar with all the works both in the original and in translation, the precaution proved to be unnecessary. But it was nice to see that my sponsors were leaving no stone unturned in their efforts on my behalf. I only hoped that they’d be as solicitous when the bullets started to fly in Hamburg, if things ever got to that point. For some reason or other, I couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that that was exactly what would happen just as soon as my show got on the road.

I spent the next two weeks tying up loose ends on the campus. Since I didn’t have a new semester to prepare for, I decided to finish off the project on Book of Exposition in the Science of Coition. Judy Maple was as delectable as ever, and from the second night on she never said a word about being scientific. In fact, after a while she became reluctant to try new positions because she wanted to go back and repeat her favorites from the first time around. I persuaded her to do things my way, and eventually we wrapped up the project. But my heart wasn’t in it. I was thinking all the time about those Hamburg Nazis and what they’d be liable to do to my prize piece of research equipment if they ever found out the real reason for my trip. I thought about it right up until the time when I was on the plane for Paris, en route to Frankfurt, then Hamburg and Sankt Pauli.

Sankt Pauli. It translates into English as “Saint Paul,”

which is pretty ironic when you recall the famous apostle’s vehemently anti-sexual philosophy. But that’s only one of the ironies surrounding the vice quarter, which has made Hamburg a port of last resort for the more extreme among the sexual outre.

As European cities go, Hamburg is one of the most unspectacular. It’s efficient, modern, industrious and insufferably dull. There’s no theater to speak of, no smart nightclubs and few restaurants of any quality. Except for the language barrier, you might think you were in Omaha.

In short, it’s the last place in the world where you’d expect vice to flourish.

But flourish it does. Some years ago the city fathers were besieged by complaints about prostitution. Eager to peddle their wares to sailors whose ships were in Hamburg’s busy port, thousands of ambitious hookers had swooped down from cities all over Germany and set up shop in apartments along the waterfront. When the fleet wasn’t in, the chippies found customers among the local gentry. The police did their best, but try though they might, they couldn’t keep the streetwalkers off the streets.

It was at that point that Hamburg City Council passed an ordinance legalizing prostitution, so long as it was carried on within the confines of the mile-square Sankt Pauli sector. The reasoning was that since sexual commerce couldn’t be stamped out completely it would be far better to confine the traffic to a small, well-defined area where it at least could be controlled.

The plan worked—halfway. Today in Hamburg you couldn’t find a hooker outside Sankt Pauli if your life depended on it. So prostitution certainly has been confined.

But it hasn’t been controlled. Inside Sankt Pauli, a total stranger can get fixed up with anything from an eighty-year-old eunuch to a one-breasted teenager, sometimes for not much more than the price of a bottle of beer.

The main drag of Sankt Pauli is Reeperbahn, a miniature Times Square with a lot less neon and a lot more show.

Every door opens to a gaudy little cabaret, and the goings-on inside any one of them would be enough to give the average anti-vice crusader apoplexy.

The most popular joint probably is Bikini, where the featured attraction is Damenringkampf im Schlamm. That translates roughly as “lady-wrestling in mud,” which is pretty accurate except that the babes who wrestle hardly qualify as ladies. They range in size from extra-large to outrageous, and they perform in their mud-filled ring wearing only bikini bottoms. While the crowd roars its encouragement, they curse, stomp, pelt each other with mud, tweak each others’ bare breasts and toss each other onto the slimy floor. This jazz lasts until one of them has been pinned and counted out by the referee. Then another team comes on and the whole business starts all over again.

A few doors away is Tabu, where the entertainment is billed as a Wascheschau, or lingerie show. But the models show a lot more than lingerie. Three or four minutes after they come on stage they’re stripped down to a G-string and a beauty-contest ribbon. The ribbons identify them as 30 Miss Egypt, Miss Saudi Arabia, Miss Portugal and so forth. Most of them are blonde, and since the G-strings are extremely small, a man with good eyesight can determine quickly that they’re naturally so. But nobody seems to mind the duplicity.

Around the corner is Theater, where, as the name suggests, a dramatic performance is the main draw. The performance usually takes the form of a skit involving a lady and her maid. The lady comes on stage wearing a scanty nightie and nothing underneath, while the maid wears only a saucer-sized, crotch-covering apron. “I wish to be undressed,”

commands the lady. And after the maid has complied, she says, “Now I wish to undress you.” Neither of these operations takes very long, and, when they’ve been completed, the two naked dolls start kissing. From the movement of their mouths you can tell that they’re not faking it. Next they stroke each other’s breasts and thighs.

Then their tongues follow their hands, and, before long, both are on a couch performing the maneuver which Germany’s French neighbors describe delicately as “soixante-neuf.”

These attractions, of course, are designed to whet the appetite, not to slake it. But if slaking’s what you’re after, you don’t have to go far. Around the corner is Herbertstrasse, the sin street to end all sin streets. It’s fifty yards wide and half a mile long. At each end is a seven-foot steel barrier labeled: “Durchgang Fuer Jungendliche Verboten.”

That translates loosely as: “Young people keep out.” And if you walk around the barrier, you see the reason for the proscription: the adults want to keep all the action to themselves.

Lining the street, elbow-to-elbow, are narrow two and three-story houses. Each features a giant picture window.

Sitting in each window is a girl. Some wear slips and nighties, others are decked out only in net body-stockings which reveal far more than they conceal. As you pass her window, each doll does her damnedest to turn you on. They caress their breasts, moisten their lips and run their fingers provocatively along the insides of their thighs. If you show any interest, they quote a price, which is open to negotiation.

Then, once a deal has been agreed upon, you’re invited inside. After that, anything goes.

Of course, Herbertstrasse is strictly for lowlife types.

Johns with any class at all bypass the window girls in favor of the higher-priced doxies who staff the call-houses on the Reeperbahn side streets. Here the appointments are far more luxurious, the pace far less hurried and the girls of much higher quality. It was at one such call-house, presided over by an amazonian matron named Madame Anni, that I had a rendezvous with Bonnie Bennett.

Anni’s call-house was located a convenient block and a half from my hotel, one of the many niceties which Walrus-mustache, or someone, had arranged in the interest of keeping me happy. Upon arriving in Hamburg, I had been met at the airport by the hotel manager, a snappy-looking character named Brobst, who raved interminably about what a great honor it was for him to host such a distinguished scientist in his humble abode. I then was given a quick guided tour of the city, designed to remind me that there was a lot more to Hamburg than its vice district. At the hotel, I was taken to Brobst’s own apartment, where I was fed a steaming plate of schnitzel served up by his wife.

Then I was brought to my quarters, an elegant three-room suite, and told that if there was anything—but anything I wanted, I need only ask. This isn’t the kind of treatment the average sex researcher is used to, but I knew that I could get used to it very quickly if I gave myself half a chance.

Waiting for me in the suite was an envelope, addressed in a flowing European hand. The letter inside was from Anni, who said she was flattered I had selected her house as the site for my research, grateful for the large advance payment which I had sent her and eager to do my bidding as soon as I gave her the word. Also waiting was a letter from one of Anni’s competitors, a Madame Schmerz, who advised that her facilities were at my disposal in the event that Anni’s failed to meet my expectations. Amazing the kind of cooperation you get when you start throwing those American greenbacks around! And thanks to Walrus-mustache, I had plenty of them to throw, assuming that some trigger-happy Nazi didn’t step in and louse up my throwing arm.

After I was unpacked, I ordered a bottle of brandy from room service. I wasn’t due at Anni’s until the next day, and I was exhausted from the trip, so I had decided to make my first night in Hamburg a quiet one with a hot shower, a quick drink, and a long night’s sleep. The only thing that went as planned was the shower.

“Hello, Dr. Damon, welcome to Sankt Pauli.”

She was waiting in the bedroom when I got out of the tub. She had long, black hair and fiery brown eyes. Her skin was a gleaming olive, and there was plenty of it for me to see. She measured in at just a few inches shorter than my six-two, and the only thing covering her was a man’s white shirt. It was open at the throat, revealing the cleavage of a pair of creamy breasts the size of ripe melons. The shirttails were draped provocatively between her long, luscious legs, one of which was stretched out enticingly in front of her, the other of which provocatively over the arm of her chair. In one hand, she held a strange bottle with white liquid; in the other, a half-full snifter.

“I hope I did not startle you,” she purred in faintly-accented English, aware that that’s exactly what she had done. “I saw the bellhop approaching your room and I prevailed upon him to let me take his place.” She smiled seductively and shifted her weight on the chair. The movement of her hips hoisted the dangling shirttails high up her thighs. Another inch and I would’ve been able to see if she was wearing anything underneath. “I hope,” she added demurely, “you do not mind.” I gulped. “Not at all,” I assured her. I’d been welcomed to many cities during my travels for L.S.D., but I’d never had a welcoming committee like this. My eyes traversed the wild figure-four arrangement of her shapely legs, dawdling 33 extra-long over the shirttails which hovered maddeningly in between. “Won’t you have a drink?”

“I already have one, a special one,” she smiled, lifting her glass in a toasting gesture. “And I have poured brandy for you.” She nodded toward the night-table, where a second snifter was ready and waiting. “Will you join me?”

I picked up the drink and sat on the edge of the bed.

She shifted position until she was facing me, and this time the shirttails flopped open. Now I had my answer: she was not wearing anything underneath. My eyes riveted to the bright pink lips of her quivering womanhood.

“But doctor, you are staring,” she cooed coyly. “Does something displease you?”

“No, no,” I stammered hastily. “Stay just as you are.”

She chuckled. It was a low, throaty sound, pretty and enormously inviting. “You will observe that I am staring too,” she went on. “I am told that Americans consider it impolite to stare. But since you stared first, I do not think you will hold it against me, yes?”

I glanced down and realized instantly what she was staring at. I was reacting quite hard to her voluptuousness, and it was becoming obvious.

She chuckled again. “I am so glad you are not displeased with me. I have long been a fan of yours. As you know, your books are widely circulated. When I was a student at the university, I studied them assiduously. I had always hoped one day to meet you, but I never dared dream that I actually would.”

Her low-pitched, sexy voice was like a magnet, drawing me to her. I almost forgot to hold the bathrobe together. It was tempting to be careless, but I just continued to stare and said nothing.

“When I learned that you were going to conduct a study at Madame Anni’s house, I was thrilled beyond belief. I was a member of her staff at that time, and the thought of meeting you haunted my every moment. Alas, as chance would have it, I am no longer in her employment. We had a disagreement some days ago and I was dismissed. ‘Ach,’ I told myself, ‘the dream of a lifetime, and now I will not see it fulfilled.’ But then I decided to take things in my own hands. An opportunity like this, I could not permit myself to pass up. You do not think me too forward? I have been told that American men prefer passivity in a woman.” I shrugged. “Some men may. I like spontaneity myself.”

“Ah, I am so glad to hear you say so. But, doctor,” her eyebrows arched quizzically—”we are not being fully spontaneous, yes?”

“Come again,” I said, puzzled.

“’Come again?’ This expression I do not understand. I have not yet come once already.” Then her face lit up in a smile of recognition. “Ah, you mean you wish me to make myself more clear, yes? I will do so. We are attracted to each other sexually, yes? Therefore, if we would be fully spontaneous, we would bring this attraction to fruition immediately, would we not?” I got the message this time, loud and clear. Putting the brandy snifter back on the night-table, I crossed the room toward her. She got up from the chair and met me halfway.

Her lips were hot and hungry. They fastened to mine and her tongue darted about wildly inside my mouth. Her arms circled my neck, pulling me to her. Her firm, round breasts churned against my chest. Her hips rotated furiously against my straining sex.

I steered her toward the bed and maneuvered her into place beneath me. Her shirt fell open, baring a pair of gleaming, marble-smooth globes. The tips were tilted gently upward, with blood-red nipples thrusting proudly above the bright pink rosettes which cushioned them. I covered one with my mouth and made fast, frantic circles with my tongue.

“Ah, dear doctor,” she sighed throatily, “you are so proficient. So, so proficient.” As if to prove the point, she stretched languorously and wrapped her long, luscious legs tightly around mine.

I dropped my robe. Her fingers reached for me, holding me gently and then she began to tickle me. I tensed all over.

She anticipated every move of my muscles. Suddenly she shifted her position so that she was seated and crouched low and I was standing. I thought how wonderful it was that I suffered from priapism, and the only way doctors can describe it is “. . . a pathological condition characterized by a persistent and abnormal erection.” Though this is sometimes accompanied by lack of sexual desire, in my particular case, sexual desire was as much a part of this condition as the other.

Now our position was perfect for the union. Her arms circled my lower back tightly, urging me toward her moist, parted lips, which tilted upward to receive me.

I entered gently. The fire of her own passion beckoned me, swallowed me. I tried to hold back to stoke the flames even higher. But her own desire, the hot, moist lips was overpowering. Suddenly she jabbed her long nails into my back. I arched to relieve the pain and her mission was accomplished as I surged forward to the hilt.

She moaned but didn’t pause, her soft, supple body pressing tightly against me, her fingernails digging into me, paining me into an agony and ecstasy of desire.

It took but three minutes as we both exploded into a volcano of passion and tremor after tremor of glorious release encompassed us. I kissed the top of her head gently for she would not release me.

Slowly and deliberately she again moved me against her, withdrawing just to the point of removal, only to return to gobble me up completely. Before long we again moved in unison until once more the explosion of the blinding, glorious release.

All the while, I remained at the peak of arousal. The sensual involvement drowned my every thought.

Finally we parted. Her face was a portrait of desire. Eyes shut, pearl-white teeth glimmering beneath pink lips, she turned her head slowly from side to side. Her long black hair toppled over the smooth, soft flesh of her throat. Her breasts heaved delightedly with each slowly drawn breath.

She rinsed her mouth with my brandy and swallowed.

Took another gulp and another until the glass was drained.

She stood up and playfully pushed me down on the couch then leaned over me, her tongue flicking fire across my face, my lips my neck and my chest. Then her teeth began to nibble and with quick bites she nipped the skin. I was held in a seated position, and slowly swaying, she seated herself on my lap, impaled into position, her arms encircling my neck, her tongue kissing me with relentless passion.

I hammered against her. She matched the force and vigor of each thrust. Our bodies were like two machines gone mad.

The sound of flesh against flesh was an orgy of rhythm, punctuated only by our soft, throaty moans.

Suddenly she tensed, and I felt her arms and legs again wrap coil-tight around me. I thrust even harder, and the white lava inside demanded release. Her thighs were moving like frantic scissors. Her hips battered wildly against me.

There was an instant of glorious expectation. Then every cell of my body erupted in a soul-jarring flood of pleasure.

The tremors which convulsed her told me that she again bad shared the moment of ecstasy with me.

When it was over, we lay in position. For minutes neither of us said anything. Then her soft, brown eyes blinked open and the comers of her mouth edged upward in a small smile. “I am afraid, darling doctor, that I am not a very good hostess,” she said quietly. “I came to welcome you, but it was you who did the welcoming.”

“Come aga—” I started, then quickly corrected myself.

“I mean, explain what you mean.”

She chuckled softly. “Perhaps it is my European upbringing, but I have always believed that it is the woman who should satisfy the man.”

“But you did. You were wonderfully satisfying.”

“Ah, but you were even more so. This is not as it should be.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is I who came to welcome you.”

I started to reassure her that her fears were groundless, but she touched an index finger to my lips to silence me.

“You will not convince me otherwise,” she said. “I have failed in my mission, and there is nothing more to say about it.” Then, smiling prettily, she added, “But perhaps I will redeem myself. The night is—how you say?—young.

By your teasing manner you persuaded me to abandon my concern for you and think only of myself. Now, by the same teasing manner, I shall put the shoe on the—how you say?—other foot.”

I wasn’t quite sure about what she had in mind, but she didn’t give me a chance to ask questions. Bounding up from the bed, she scampered into the bathroom, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my brandy snifter.

I sipped the brandy and began to ask myself questions.

Question No. 1: Who was she? We’d had a pretty wild party together, but I didn’t even know her name. Was it possible that she was one of Walrus-mustache’s people?

Possible, but improbable. None of his operatives would make contact this quickly and under circumstances this likely to arouse the curiosity of any enemy agents who might be watching her. At least I hoped not! Besides, if she were playing the espionage game, wouldn’t she talk business before she got down to pleasure? Or wouldn’t she at least give me some sort of clue that we were in the same ballgame?

On the other hand, if she weren’t an agent. . . .

Question No. 2: Why did she visit me? Her story seemed logical enough, at least on the surface. More than one girl had read my books and wanted to find out if I could practice as well as I preached. If, as she said, she had heard about me at Anni’s call-house and had been fired before she could meet me in the line of duty, it wasn’t unreasonable that she might pull a stunt like bribing a bellhop to let her into my room. But the more I thought about it, the fishier it all sounded. She said that she had been a university student.

She spoke almost flawless English, with just the slightest trace of an accent. What was she doing in a Sankt Pauli whorehouse? European girls who have the wherewithal to go to college don’t wind up selling their bodies to every John who has the price. Then again, if she were lying about the whorehouse. . . .

Question No. 3: Where did she find out about me? It wasn’t exactly a secret that I was corning to Hamburg, but it wasn’t page-one news either. If she hadn’t found out at Anni’s and if she was on Walrus-mustache’s payroll, where did she find out not only that I was in town but also what hotel I was staying at? More important, why had she concocted the whorehouse story? And, whatever the case…

Question No. 4: Where did she get the crazy getup she was wearing when I spotted her sprawled across the chair? Not every girl goes traipsing around Hamburg in a man’s white shirt with nothing on underneath. So how come that’s all she was wearing?

I was still mulling these questions over when she came out of the bathroom. She had shucked the white shirt somewhere and had wrapped a bath-towel around herself.

It covered her breasts and hung to a point just a fraction of an inch below where her shirttails had been flapping when J first saw her. More interestingly, she was carrying something with both hands: a porcelain basin, filled with steaming—hot water.

“What’s up?” I asked, gesturing toward the basin with my brandy snifter. “Planning to do a little cleaning?”

“ ‘What’s up’?” she echoed. “The expression, doctor.

I do not understand.” Then her eyes brightened. “Ah, you wish to know why I am bringing out the water?” She chuckled. “As I have told you, dear doctor, you persuaded me to abandon my concern for you and think only of myself. Now, by the same teasing manner, I shall put the shoes—”

“Yeah, on the other foot. But what’re you going to do, wash it first?”

Her chuckle blossomed into a full-blown laugh. The bright pink inside of her mouth glistened as she threw her head back, and for a moment I almost forgot that I wanted to ask her some questions. She placed the basin on the night-table, then knelt on the floor beside the bed.

“Wait a second,” I said, sitting upright. “Before you get started on that, let’s talk awhile.” She touched her hand delicately to my chest and urged me backward. “We can talk,” she smiled. “My mouth will not be occupied—at least not for the present.”

I resisted the pressure of her hand for a moment, then yielded. When I was back on my back, she took a washcloth from the basin and wrung it out.

“Now then,” she said, “what would you like to talk about?” Propping myself up on my elbows, I watched her open the cloth, then apply it gently to my abdomen. It was hot, but refreshing. She scrubbed me carefully, washing away all evidence of our lovemaking. “First of all,” I asked her, “what’s your name?” She chuckled, the same low, throaty chuckle that sent shivers of desire through me every time I heard it. “Katrina,” she said. “Katrina Malinowski.”

“Polish?”

“In part. My father was a Pole, my mother Hungarian.

I myself was born in Italy. Our family lived there after the war.”

“Where do they live now?”

“They were killed in an airplane accident three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” She shrugged. “I too. But it is one of the things one must live with, yes?”

I watched her dip the washcloth in the basin again, wring it out and apply it to my thighs. She scrubbed one, then the other. Then she brought the cloth upward until it was covering the fast-rising evidence that her ministrations were not without erotic effect.

“Where did you go to school?” I asked, trying hard not to get carried away with what was happening south of the border.

“Salzberg.”

“What did you study?”

“Many things. Music, language, history, art—”

“No major?”

“ ‘Major’? I do not understand.”

“Major field of study.”

“Ah, specialization. No, I went for only two years. The specialization—the major, as you call it—one does not select until the third year.”

“Why did you quit?”

“The airplane accident. My father was prosperous in his business, but alas, not so prosperous that there were substantial sums remaining after his death. I had no wealthy relatives upon whom to rely, and so I was left to fend for myself.” Again I found myself saying I was sorry.

She shrugged, this time without comment. Then she re-immersed the washcloth in the basin, wrung it out, and resumed washing.

I knew what question I wanted to ask next, but I couldn’t find the right words to ask it. “Look, Katrina,” I fumbled, “you’re a fluent linguist, you have a two-year college background...”

“Yes.”

“Well—uh—I mean, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like Madame Anni’s.” She laughed, a high, tinkling laugh this time, like the sound of fine crystal. “You men,” she said. “The same questions, you always ask.” I felt a momentary flush at having been caught with my cliches down. Then I tried to press the point. “Couldn’t you get work as a translator? A secretary? A—” Her eyes met mine, and for the first time since I met her there was a trace of anger in them. “I could have been many things,” she said, trying to mask the anger with a shrug. “But I am not many things. I am what I am. Of what importance is it to you anyway?”

For a moment I said nothing, then, “No importance really, I guess. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

Immediately her face brightened. “Good,” she beamed, dropping the washcloth into the basin again. “Then we shall consider the subject closed, yes? It is far more pleasant to love than to talk, do you think?”

“Yes, I think,” I smiled weakly. Realizing that I couldn’t question her further without drawing suspicion about the nature of my mission, I decided to lay back and enjoy her ministrations.

“Fine,” she said, bringing the discussion to a close.

“Now I proceed to bring you teasing pleasures as you brought me, yes?”

Taking the towel from around her body, she vigorously rubbed me dry. Then, parting my legs slightly, she leaned over my thighs. Her tongue traced a slow, sensuous pattern upward, not stopping until it had gone as far up as it could go. My passions rose visibly to the occasion.

She knew what she was doing. Every movement of her deft, quickly flickering tongue sent new shivers of delight through my body. Her long, black hair toppled over my nakedness as she licked tantalizingly, circling the target area, pausing here, lingering there, then darting somewhere else.

My body was taut as a violin string. Almost involuntarily, my hips began to make grinding circular motions. She purred softly, obviously pleased with my response. Then she renewed her efforts, this time with considerably more vigor.

“Katrina,” I whispered. “Let me take you.”

“’Take’ me?” Her head bobbed up. Her wrinkled brow testified to her bewilderment. “I do not understand. Take me where?”

“Let me make love to you,” I amended quickly.

She chuckled softly. “Ah, you desire me. Then I must tease you more. You must desire me so badly that I will please you as you earlier pleased me. You must desire me so badly that you will make love to me forceably.” So saying, she fell back to her task.

The second go-round was even more exciting than the first. She played my manhood as if she were making beautiful music. Her lips knew all the stops, her tongue made a sensual rhythm as she worked her way up and down its length. Her teeth raked gently across the edges while her tongue flickered everywhere.

Despite the ferocity of my desire, I couldn’t help wonder at the feeling of deja vu which gnawed at the edge of my consciousness. It was as if somehow, somewhere, I had been through this exact same experience before. I knew that no other girl had done quite the same thing to me. If that had been the case, I definitely would remember it. At the same time, I couldn’t recall reading about it either. While many classics of erotic literature alluded to or described oral sexual relations, the only one which really spelled out the techniques was the fourth-century Indian love manual, Kama Sutra. Nothing described there matched what was happening to me now.

Katrina’s firm, ever-increasing pressure snapped me out of my reverie. She now was making not only a traversing motion, but a back-and-forth motion also. At the same time, her tongue followed her teeth’s spiral course, all the while flickering more furiously than ever.

It was all I could take. “Katrina,” I whispered hoarsely, “I want you!” Then, remembering her admonition, I clutched her by the arms and prepared to take her forceably.

“Ah, you desire me,” she beamed. “I have teased you successfully, yes?”

“Yes,” I gasped, struggling to maneuver her onto the bed.

Her body yielded to my manipulations until she was alongside me. But she refused to permit me to get on top.

“If I am to tease you better, I must be in the above position,”

she explained, tossing one leg across both of mine.

“It is the only way. Otherwise you will not have full pleasure.”

“You’ve teased me enough,” I argued. “I’m ready now like I’ve never been.”

“Then I must tease you even more.” With that, she mounted me.

Her strong, confident fingers moved my manhood into position. She hovered over it for a moment, then lowered her hips. I felt a hot, warm glow as her moist, succulent sex closed around me. But she refused to permit herself to be fully impaled.

I struggled for a firmer foothold. Chuckling delightedly, she squirmed out of my reach. I struggled again. She squirmed again. I struggled. She squirmed. It was a game of cat and mouse, with the mouse holding all the trump cards.

Before long, I’d had it. Hoisting myself on one elbow, I grabbed at her, determined to take her with the force she had said would be necessary. But she was ready for me. With one quick movement, she opened her knees wide and thrust her full weight against me. The action left me embedded completely inside her. Then she leaned so far backward that her head almost touched her heels.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t reach her. Every time I raised my shoulders, she twisted to one side, knocking me off balance. Every time I clutched at her for support, she batted my hands away. Each movement spurred my desire to new heights, but satisfaction was as far away as ever.

She kept this up for all of five minutes. Then, giggling gleefully, she abandoned the effort and threw herself into my arms. Frantically I rolled her over on her back and began hammering away at her. She matched me, stroke for stroke, until both our energies were spent in what was by far the most glorious explosion of the night.

Again we lay quietly in position. The only noise in the room was the sound of our breathing. After awhile, she urged my weight from on top of her. Then, taking the basin from the night-table, she scampered off to the bathroom.

When she came out this time, she was wearing the white shirt again. I waited for her to return to the bed, but she went instead to the door.

“Katrina—” I began. “I am sorry, dear doctor,” she said, “but I must leave now.”

“Where are you going?” She smiled. “Do not worry. You will see me again.” Then she was gone.

I bounded up from the bed. The door to the hallway slammed shut just as I reached the door to the living room. Remembering that I was stark naked, I dashed back to the bed, tugged my robe around my shoulders, ran through the living room and out into the hall. There was no trace of Katrina.

I checked the stairwell and the elevator. Still no trace of her.

I called her name. No answer.

Puzzled, I went back inside and poured a fresh snifter of brandy. My mind was a maze of unanswered questions.

Why did she leave so abruptly?

Where did she go?

Why had she visited me in the first place?

Why had she been so determined to please as well as to be pleased?

And beneath it all, coming on now much more strongly than before, was that strange feeling that her technique on the final go-round was totally familiar—not only the bit with the teeth and the tongue, but the whole routine, including the business about leaning backwards once she had me locked in position.

I knew that I’d never done it before.

I couldn’t remember reading it.

And yet, it was as familiar to me as if it had all been part of a well-rehearsed script.

Why?

I was still wondering when I heard the screams.

The first was high-pitched and brief. The second was just as high-pitched but longer, a lot longer. The third and fourth were like the second-horrible, torture-filled groans of fear and agony. The fifth was a soft, feeble moan.

I rushed out of the bedroom and into the hall. Half a dozen other people had beat me to it. They were all clustered around one of the doors near the head of the stairs. I made my way through the crowd and into the doorway. There was no need to go further.

Katrina was lying on the floor. There was a big red gash just above her left breast, and another one in the center of her chest. The floor was a pool of blood. Her mouth was opened wide. Her eyes were frozen in the expression of horror which she wore when she died.

There was nothing I could do, and I knew it. Trying hard not to puke, I turned away from the door. The hallway was teeming now with dozens of people babbling at each other in different languages. I edged my way through them and back to my room.

Her half-filled brandy snifter was still on the table where she had left it. I fingered it idly for a moment, then drank it down. It didn’t help much, so I drained my own glass, then poured another stiff one. That didn’t help much either.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.

It was the hotel manager, Brobst.

“I am terribly sorry, doctor,” he sighed. “Your first night here in the hotel, and to be subjected to a spectacle such as this. I hope you don’t think unkindly of us. This is the first time such a thing has happened in my twenty years here.”

“Who was she?” I asked, trying hard not to sound too interested.

“A girl. She has lived here for nearly a year. Never gave us a peep of trouble before.”

“A call-girl, wasn’t she?”

His face flushed with embarrassment. Then he apparently remembered the nature of my work and his embarrassment vanished. “Yes, a call-girl, and one of the finest. She worked for Madame Anni. Always in high demand. One of the favorites. Never associated with the vulgar type of person who would do a thing like this. I can’t understand it. I’m shocked. Totally shocked.” I offered him my condolences, accepted his new round of apologies and said goodnight. Then I poured myself another brandy and slumped down in the armchair where she had been sitting when I first saw her.

So she was one of Anni’s hookers after all. That part of her story was straight, so maybe the rest of it was too.

But if she was just a call-girl, why did somebody want to kill her? Because she knew something she shouldn’t know? And because somebody thought she’d blab to the wrong people? Like me, for instance?

I took the gun Walrus-mustache had given me from my suitcase and loaded it. Then I wrote a letter to the foundation.

“First night in town, welcomed by a beautiful hooker named Katrina, recently fired by Madame Anni. Much lovemaking, little conversation. Two minutes after she left my room she was stabbed to death. Awaiting your instructions. Your stud, Damon.

For five Deutchmarks, a bellhop promised to bring the envelope to the post office and mail it. I locked the door, put the pistol on the night-table, doused the lights and went to bed.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER IX

GLORY HAD been provided with adequate clothing—the harness Glory of a fighter—and she moved—with Tanton, Ron, and Caliban—at the head of a column that assaulted the bronze door to Tza-Necros’ underground palace.

The door was cut to pieces and a wave of misfits of the Universe, swept over all resistance in its onward surge.

Guarded by a circle of Undercity warriors, Glory saw Tza-Necros—his inner guard annihilated—battling like ten demons with his back to the wall.

The Undercity fighters lay in stacks around him. His more lethal weapons gone, he slashed a crimson circle with a short-sword clutched in each of his four hands. “Back—back, you foul scum!” he roared. “I am your king!

I am your master!” And he proved himself their master right up to the final, bloody moment when a zam-gun ray cut off his arms, one by one and left him a helpless, screaming maniac.

The scum of the Universe moved in on him then, to take bloody accounting for the years of pain and exploitation.

They gloried in tearing him to pieces, bit by bit—in inflicting savage torture until his last scream became a gurgle as life left his grotesque body. His last words were a bewildered plea: “I’m one of you, one of you, one of you. Have mercy.”

Then death.

The mob, aflame from the new freedom and the smell of blood, surged on through the palace, tearing Margot’s garden to pieces, brick by brick.

Then up into Venusia, along with the hordes of fellow exiles who were streaming out of the Undercity entrances to spread bloody destruction in all directions.

The astonished population of Venusia stared in flat-footed horror at the sudden egress from the depths;

many of them stared too long and went down to quick death as the waves of madness released, engulfed and destroyed them. The policing mechanisms of the city went into complete panic and chaos. The more experienced Secret Service and the City Police were unable to function because of the panicked populace. There was no room for maneuvering—no chance to assemble and deploy, so mad was the scene of carnage and so frenzied the attack.

Tanton, moving at the head of Caliban’s column, adroitly held the latter to the main objective—the ray projector.

Working through the giant Earthman, he displayed a skill which any great general would have envied.

Truly, the man seemed possessed of limitless talents.

Due to his generalship, the column was organized and thrown around the gray building with military precision.

The assault on the entrances was launched as one movement. The doors were beaten down and Glory, Ron, and Tanton, were among the first of the invaders to be swept inside.

Glory heard herself screaming, calling out to be heard over the din of battle. “Caliban! I saw him go down!”

“He was cut in two with a zam-gun,”

Tanton shouted. “Come„this way! Quick!” He pushed Glory roughly toward a stairway leading off into upper levels, and motioned Ron to follow. There was deep concern in Tanton’s voice because, again it seemed, ill-luck was besetting him.

OUT IN THE streets there had been panic and chaos, but not so in the ray-projector building. Here was the cream of Darrien’s vanguards—the picked soldiery of all the Universe—trained and briefed for only one job—the protection of the ray projector at any cost.

Their ranks had been dented by the first wave of crazed Undercity fighters, but they had stiffened and gotten down to their work. Like machines, they poured death into the invaders-like implacable robots, they reformed their lines and hurled back Caliban’s hordes. And in this action, Tanton sensed his own defeat.

He knew full well that the Undercity fighters would be beaten. When Darrien’s organized ranks gained their footing, they would move like a steamroller over the deceived and misled creatures from underground. Truly—though with much blood and rapine—it would be the end of the Undercity, but Tanton had gambled that during the upheaval, he could accomplish his purpose. Now he seemed doomed to defeat, as the elite guard of the gray building pushed the last of Caliban’s sorry army out into the streets and made fast their own defenses.

With the main action going on below, Tanton found no one to bar his way as he led the two Earthlings up the stairs. His hopes bloomed anew at the thought that possibly he could achieve his ends by stealth. The projector would certainly be located high up in the building. Maybe it could still be reached. Possibly even Darrien’s elite guard had made the mistake of depending on the first line of defense down below and had given no thought to the danger of infiltration through their ranks.

The infiltration had been accomplished, and as the three invaders went higher and higher without encountering resistance, Tanton allowed himself to hope anew.

They reached the top abruptly, coming to the head of a staircase and finding themselves on a circular platform just under the roof of the building.

The platform ran around a giant opening.

A steel railing was built thereon to keep the unwary from tumbling down into a great pit twenty floors deep.

In the center of this pit lay Tanton’s assignment; a tremendous silvery ray-tube, anchored at the bottom and extending upward to almost the level of the platform. Laid out horizontal, the tube would have covered over an acre of ground, and from its curved, silvery top, an invisible ray could be heard as it went out through an opening in the roof to blanket Venusian and explode any missile moving in that direction.

Tanton could not smother the shout of triumph that welled up in his throat as he saw the pile of anti-gravity discs piled on one side of the platform.

Certainly he could not have planned things better. Scanning the roof, he stepped to the wall and pushed a lever. Immediately another section of the ceiling drew back to make an opening large enough for comfortable exit. Evidently the platform was also used as a hangar for guards on sky patrol.

Tanton swiftly hauled three of the plates out onto the platform. From a pile lying near the wall, he tossed a pair each of gravity shoes to Ron and Glory.

“Put them on,” he shouted. “Then get on the plate and wait for me above the building.” As he spoke, he donned a pair of the shoes himself. “As soon as I give the signal,” he said to Ron, “send word to the Earth squadron out in space that the ray is destroyed.

And don’t wait for me. After they get word we’ve got to get out of here quick or we’ll be killed by falling bombs. This whole place is going up in atomic dust.”

RON SHOWED Glory how to guide the anti-gravity plate by moving her body. Then he threw the switch and steered her through the roof opening.

Swiftly, he set his shoes on his own plate and followed her.

It was after they had cleared the building and were hovering within sight of Tanton, that disaster struck.

It came in the form of a dozen guards who had crept up the stairs and were advancing on Tanton from three directions.

They came as silently as clouds because a quick glance at the situation had shown them their problem.

The blue Mercurian was there of course to destroy the projector. Therefore they must get their hand on him rather than blast him down, because he stood so close to the edge of the platform that he could easily fall into the pit.

Tanton, intent upon his work, raised his head and saw the men creeping in—but too late. Turning in the heavy gravity shoes, he heard Ron’s voice from above.

“Hold it I” Ron yelled. “I’m coming back to help I”

In a matter of seconds, Tanton took in the situation, estimated his chances and made his decision. “Don’t come back!” he yelled. “You can’t help. Take the girl away and give out the signal! That’s an order!”

Ron slanted his plate out of the dive and then, before his horrified eyes, Tanton made a last contribution toward the security of Earth.

Just as the hands of a guard reached out to seize him, he hurled the man backward with a single sweep of his arm and took a step forward.

Held down by the heavy shoes, it was a slow step, but there was just time for another.

The second step was into space and Tanton went plunging down into the pit to smash, with his own body, the great tube of the ray projector.

There was an explosion so loud and with such force, that it hurled Ron and Glory far up into the sky. When the plates steadied away Ron looked, grim-lipped, at the white-faced Glory—saw that she was unhurt—and pulled a small sender from his supply packet. He set the dial and a moment later his voice came in on the board of the California Queen, flagship of Earth’s Space Fleet Three:

“Ronald Kratnick—Earth Intelligence to squadron commander. Umbrella destroyed. Umbrella destroyed.”

Twice he sent the message and then the clipped, “Message received.”

Ron didn’t even bother to repocket his sender. He threw it from him and yelled to Glory: “Let’s get out of here-and fast! Straight up!”

They reached the glass dome of Venusia in a matter of seconds and now, with the projector destroyed, they were able to go safely through the opening in the dome through which the ray had been allowed to escape.

On they went, ever upward until Ron tilted close to Glory’s plate and clamped an oxygen cup over her nose.

He had only one cup available and when Venus was lost in the haze beneath them and the heat of the sun was searing their skins, Ron felt his Iight-headedness increase and a black curtain began its descent over his brain.

But before he passed out, there was the silver oval of the California Queen hove to, with space-suited rescuers issuing from a porthole.

The last thing Ron remembered was the thin atmosphere heaving and bucking about him as the fleet’s bombs smashed down on Venusia and left a great yawning hole in the red forests of the planet.

THE COMFORTS aboard the California Queen were such as to wipe away quickly, the horrors of the Undercity. Ron, seated in the lounge, holding Glory’s hand, had been silent for some time. Glory looked up at him and smiled.

“I’m going to leave Intelligence,”

Ron said.

“That surprises me,” Glory replied, “but I’m glad—very glad.”

“It’s because of him.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ron smiled and there was a sadness in the smile. “It’s hard to explain, but—well, be was a schemer, a liar, a master of intrigues and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to gain his ends. But over and above it all, he was great—that’s the only word I can think of to describe him. He was willing to give his life for any cause to which he pledged himself, and there is no sterner test of any man than that.”

“And that’s why you’re resigning, darling?”

“No, it’s because, after seeing him operate, I know I can never be better than second grade. I was a school child beside Tanton, and I won’t be a second-grade anything. If I can’t be the best, I’ll drop out.”

His smile deepened. “You know—I think I’d make a swell farmer. In fact, I think I could be a farmer second to none.”

After he’d kissed her. Glory said, “That’s wonderful, darling. And I think I could be the best farmer’s wife in the Universe.”

END

All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER VIII

TANTON was in deplorable shape.

Obviously, he’d borne the brunt of a vicious attack during which weapons far more destructive than whips had been used. The hard shell-covering found on all blue Mercurians in lieu of skin had been cracked in three places. The green life-sap which flowed in his veins had run freely from these wounds and from his nose and mouth.

As Ron pulled him into the light, Tanton opened his eyes and sighed deeply. “It was a great show while it lasted,” he said in a labored voice.

“I did some fast talking, but Tza-Necros went completely bats and refused to believe anything. Valcan was killed and maybe Margot too, for all I know. Mercurians are a lot harder to kill so I’m being saved for the hot hooks and the roasting pits.”

He raised a hand to his battered head and then noted the consternation and bewilderment of Ron and Glory.

“You don’t have the least idea what I’m talking about, do you? Well—it doesn’t make any difference. By the way, what happened to you two?”

In a few words Ron told him, whereupon Tanton sighed again.

“Couldn’t even walk down a tunnel without getting into trouble, eh? Well, it doesn’t matter. We’ll all be buttoned up in twenty-four hours. It looks as though this one certainly backfired on me.” He came to a sitting position. “Ouch! One of those guards used an iron club.”

“You—you mean there’s no hope?”

Glory faltered.

“We’re both sitting in the same spot,” Tanton answered tartly. “Can you see any?”

His sharp mood was generated, not by fear of what seemed the inevitable, but by the knowledge that he was being shown up as a failure before these two. ‘’Help me to my feet, will you? I want to see how bad a shape I’m in.”

As Tanton creaked and twisted erect, the sounds outside the prison deepened into a roar. “Something’s going on,” Ron said. “Maybe they’re coming for us.” He turned to face the door, his arm around Glory’s slim shoulder.

The door opened after some minutes of heated controversy outside, and Caliban strode in with Margot.

over his shoulder. Tanton’s eyes widened.

Without preliminaries, he asked, “Where did you get her?”

“A gift to the citizens of the Undercity by Tza-Necros,” Caliban said.

He was frowning and seemed bemused—far away—as though deep in thought. “I’m going to put her away until I can figure this thing out.

There’s more here than meets the eye.

Tza-Necros says she wasn’t faithful to him, but there’s more—a lot more and I don’t like it.”

No one saw Tanton’s eyes brighten as he watched Caliban place Margot on the hard floor. And it was, of course, impossible for the rest of them to know what was going on in his rapier-sharp mind—that he was even now formulating plans to turn defeat into victory.

GLORY, WITH a cry of pity, dropped to her knees beside the still Margot and cradled the golden beauty’s head in her lap.

Tanton ignored both of them, his eyes on Caliban. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” he said.

The other scowled at him. “My name is Caliban. I’ve lived in the Undercity for twenty years. Who are you and where do you come from?”

Ron opened his mouth to fill in with an introduction of his superior, but a quick motion of Tanton’s hand blocked off the young agent’s words.

“I am a gentleman of fortune,”

Tanton replied and there was a distinct note of sadness in his voice. “I garner information and go about selling it, making a creda wherever possible.

But now I’ve come to the end of my string.”

There was contempt in Caliban’s voice. “Oh—an informer. And Tza-Necros has condemned you to death?”

Tanton sighed as if in resignation.

“True, but I will not suffer in the roasting pit. I’ll die here in this hole along with the rest of the Undercity’s people. In twenty-four hours there won’t be a single living thing below ground in Venusia.”

Caliban snatched the bait and bolted it down-swallowed it whole. He advanced menacingly upon Tanton.

“What are you talking about, Blue man? Is it something about a ray that will destroy all life in the Undercity?”

Tanton was taken aback—at least his wide eyes so indicated. “You seem to know a great deal, Caliban. May I ask—?”

The huge Earthman frowned importantly.

“I have my sources of information.

I have ears and eyes.”

Tanton made as if to turn away.

“Then there is nothing I can tell you, except that I think we should both do the merciful thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Keep our knowledge to ourselves.

It will do no good to panic the Undercity by telling the people the truth.

So long as they must die, let them die quietly without knowing what hit them.”

Caliban strode forward and seized Tanton roughly by the shoulder. “You mean we should lie here like rats in a trap waiting for death?”

“What else is there to do?”

Caliban brushed aside all pretense.

“You know far more than I—tell me.”

Tanton nursed his cracked shoulder-shell

“There isn’t a great deal to it.

You know, of course, that Darrien swore long ago to clean out the Undercity.

But it was only recently that he found a means of doing so—a poison ray which will be turned into an entrance to the Undercity—an entrance which his men have found a ray which will travel into every nook and cranny of this place and not even the smallest microbe will be left alive.

I tell you when Darrien gets through, the Undercity will be the most sterile place in the Universe.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Getting such information is my business. In this case I corrupted a high official of Darrien’s Secret Police—promised him great wealth when Tza-Necros heard his story. The man I brought into the Undercity was the Secret Service chief himself—Valcan.”

Caliban clenched his great fist. Of course! The Earthman he’d seen lying dead at Tza-Necros’ feet. The face had seemed familiar. Now he knew!

The man had been Valcan. “What happened?” Caliban demanded.

TANTON shrugged. “I made a mistake.

I did not have direct access to Tza-Necros. I could reach his ear only through Margot, for whom I once did a service.” Tanton stopped and shook his head sadly. “But such an approach was a fatal mistake, because Tza-Necros found us in Margot’s apartment and accused us of being her lovers. We were dragged into the throne room and beaten. Valcan died under the lash and I’m to be roasted on hot hooks. But, as I say, that will never happen, because—”

Caliban waved an impatient hand.

“Stop babbling,” he shouted. “You said the ray will be used within twenty-four hours? Do you know the location of the projector?”

“Yes, but Tza-Necros would not listen—”

“The fool!” Caliban thundered.

“The thick-headed fool! Sacrificing the lives of all of us, because of his stupidity.”

“I’d hesitate to put it so bluntly, but that’s about it. Well—no matter now. The game has been played and lost.”

Caliban towered over the blue man and raised his fists. “What are you—a spineless jellyfish? Do you propose to cringe against the wall and wait for death?”

“What else is there to do?”

“Fight, man, fight! There are ten thousand creatures down here—ten thousand fighters who have groveled too long under the heel of Tza-Necros.

With their lives at stake do you think they’ll stand helplessly by?”

It was as if a great plan had suddenly blossomed in Tanton’s mind.

“Why, of course! Why didn’t I think of it?” His eyes lit up with a great hope. “I can see it now. Ten thousand citizens of the Undercity streaming up into Venusia, not only to destroy the ray but to avenge a hundred years of persecution! It’s—it’s magnificent!”

Caliban strode to the door and threw it open. His great voice boomed out, echoing and reechoing through the tunnels: “Citizens of the Undercity.

Hear me! Come and gather around if you value your lives! We have been betrayed and left to die I All of you who would strike a blow for your own existence, come and hear me!”

Inside, Tanton closed the door.

Then he crossed to where Margot was regaining consciousness, and knelt beside her. “I’m going to keep my word,”

he said. “In a matter of hours you’ll be on your way back to Earth. Things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned, but—”

He stopped speaking as Glory, who was still cradling Margot gave a low cry of wonder and horror. Ron also came close and knelt down. He raised his eyes to Tanton with a look of utter consternation, then lowered them again to where Margot was changing—magically—before their eyes. First, small wrinkles had appeared at the corners of her mouth and her eyes.

Now the flesh—the glorious golden beauty of her was shrinking visibly—drying up and falling away under-skin which was becoming gray and withered.

Margot’s mouth—now an ancient and toothless one-opened like the mouth of a gasping fish.

“The hormones,” she croaked. “I was supposed to take the hormones—I—”

The aging became swifter now. It was like some mad montage—a young and beautiful girl fading away and a hideous wrinkled crone taking her place.

“The hormones,” she gasped. Then the pitiful old mouth opened and hung slack; the gray-coated, sightless eyes became set in a ghastly stare.

SWIFTLY, Tanton reached down and closed the eyes forever. “She was very old, you know,” he said quietly. “Well over a hundred years. She was kept young by a secret hormone that Tza-Necros provided. With out it, she was doomed.”

“She’s—she’s dead!” Glory breathed in horror. So swift had been the transition from blooming beauty to dried-up skeleton, that the effect was chilling in its grimness.

Tanton lifted the wisp of a body and moved off into the shadows. “She lead a full life,” he said. “A very long life. But I have a feeling she’s happier now than she’s ever been.” He returned, empty-handed, to the wide-eyed Glory. “Maybe someone ought to say a prayer,” he muttered, then turned toward the door as the voice of the mob outside rose to a thunder.

The door opened and Caliban rushed in. “We’re on the move,” he shouted. “If you know where the ray is located, you’d better lead the way.”

But Tanton knew it was more than the nonexistent death ray that motivated this upheaval. His lie had been merely the trigger—the small thing that had touched off the revolt. True motivation lay far deeper. Here was an irresistible surge of outraged humanity—horrible humanity it was true, but humanity nonetheless—moving up in fury to right ancient wrongs.

And it was in Tanton’s mind where the first seeds of this violence had been sewn-long ago by the pompous voice of a politician: (”Let Venus be our penal colony—”). And there must have been a twinge in the Blue Mercurian’s conscience, because he told himself: One must weigh two evils and attack the greater with the smaller.

All is greed and hunger among men and their greed and hunger are the only effective weapons to be used against them. To defeat darkness, the tools of darkness must be used.

Then the roar of the mob rose to an even greater volume to bring Tanton back to the business at hand.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER VII

AFTER leaving the jail cavern, Caliban threaded his way unerringly through the tunnels until he came to a great bronze door over which glowed several over-sized levon tubes. He lifted in both hands the great iron knocker and allowed it to drop three times against the door.

Three claps of thunder boomed through the tunnels. A full five minutes passed, after which a small door cut in the great bronze barrier opened to reveal two repulsive creatures of the Planetoids standing alert with drawn guns.

The giant eyed them with a certain contempt as he folded his great arms and said, “I am Caliban. The Overlord knows me well from keeping the rats in check down here. Tell him Caliban brings good news and would have an audience.”

One of the guards stepped through the doorway to make sure Caliban was alone. Then he motioned the man inside and closed the door which Tza-Necros kept between himself and the scum roaming the tunnels of the Undercity.

One of the guards remained at his post while the other led Caliban through a maze of marble corridors to another closed door. Bidding Caliban wait, the guard opened the door and stepped through, closing it after him.

But during that brief moment, Caliban’s ears were struck by the surge of sound—the withering blasphemies roared out in a voice which would have put a bull to shame; the curses and oaths of ten planets spewing forth from the foul throat of a man beside himself with rage.

Caliban frowned. He knew that voice well. Tza-Necros was in a vile humor, to say the least. Caliban’s annoyance at this turn of events was plain to see. He cared not a whit as to the luckless victim of Tza-Necros wrath. The thought in his mind was that the Overlord would be in no mood to do business. had not all been that of the girl.

When contented in mind, Tza-Necros would not hesitate to pay a hundred thousand credas for so lush an object of his lust as the fair-skinned Earth-girl. This Caliban knew. But, in his present mood, Tza-Necros was unpredictable. He might even go so far as to have Caliban slaughtered in his tracks for no reason at all.

Frowning, the giant Undercity leader turned away from the door and began retracing his steps. He would return to the tunnels and wait for the storm to blow over.

But he had gone scarcely ten steps when the door opened and the guard called out. “Wait there! Where are you going? Tza-Necros commands your presence in the throne room.”

Reluctantly, Caliban turned back, cursing himself for a laggard and consigning his soul to the devils of Neptune. He marched into the throne room with his head held high, expecting the worst.

As the door closed upon him he stood transfixed at the sight he beheld.

Tza-Necros his four fists doubled, his arms held in rage above his ugly head, was standing on the dais in the center of the great room. On either side of him, a line of frozen-faced guards were at motionless attention, their eyes staring straight ahead.

On the floor before the dais, lay a naked, golden girl of breathless beauty; a beauty which could be seen even through the blood she had shed and the torturous lashings to which she had been subjected.

AS CALIBAN entered the room, the whip-master, a brawny Martian hillman, had stepped back and was running the whip through his closed hand to cleanse it of blood.

And Caliban could see the blood Nearby lay the still body of an Earthman, and Caliban was startled to note that the official harness of Darrien’s Secret Service on the back of the prone figure. A quick glance told Caliban the man had been beaten to death. The girl, however, was alive.

As Caliban entered the room, Tza-Necros beckoned with two arms and shouted. “Come forward, Caliban!

You arrive at an opportune time. I have a present for you and your underground scum! “

“A present, my lord?”

“A rare one. This unfaithful witch is gall to my eyes. Entertaining lovers under my very nose. Betraying me after I’ve laid the treasure of the Universe at her feet. At first I thought it would sooth me to see the vile little bitch flogged to death, but that is not enough and your coming has given me a happy thought.”

“I am yours to command, my lord.”

“Then take her down into the tunnels with you and sate yourself as only a bucko like you would know how to do.”

“I can only consider myself fortunate.”

Tza-Necros raised a hand. “That is not all. A stipulation, my faithful rogue. When you are through with her, I command you to seek out the most loathsome of your creatures and devise added tortures. And let the vengeance of Tza-Necros be seen by all. Take her.”

Caliban stepped forward and lifted the unconscious Margot to his shoulder. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, and turned to leave the throne room.

But he was brought to a halt by Tza-Necros’ voice. The Overlord, now somewhat exhausted by his rage, was passing a hand across his forehead.

“Hold until I release you,” he said.

Then in a milder, but petulant voice.

“There was something. All devils! but with all this chatter about rays to clean out the Undercity and rays to hold off the Earthlings and Margot consorting with two lovers at once—I can’t get my thoughts straight. But there was something.”

There was a moment of dead silence after which Tza-Necros said, “Oh yes of course—your business.

You did not wander in here by chance. What brings you up from the lower tunnels? Is there trouble—unrest?”

“No, my lord. I had business but it is of a trivial nature. I wouldn’t think of bothering you with it at a time like this when you are wrought up by ingratitudes. It can wait.”

“Good man, my Caliban. Come tomorrow and I’ll have a flacon of wine for you.”

Caliban went out as he had come and he was greeted in open-mouthed wonder by the guards. Old in experience, this was the first time they’d seen a man make his exit carrying a beautiful blood-soaked girl over his shoulder. They closed the door on Caliban and stood babbling between themselves.

Caliban was not happy. Far from satisfied with events, he went slowly down the tunnel, scarcely conscious of the girl he carried. What, he wondered, was all this talk about a ray to depopulate the Undercity. As to the troubles between Earth and Venus, Caliban cared nothing. He was content in the Undercity and that was where his loyalty and his interests lay.

He mulled over the snatches of information Tza-Necros had given out in his tirade and found them to be no information at all. Obviously the girl on Caliban’s shoulder had been untrue to Tza-Necros, and for that Caliban hardly blamed her. But had a portion of Tza-Necros’ wrath been generated by treachery of another nature? Who had that Earthman been—the one dead on the floor of the throne room? Obviously an official in the Secret Service.

Caliban shook his head in perplexity and went on his way.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER VI

WHEN RON KRATNICK opened his eyes· he was still not sure of having returned to consciousness.

Truly the scene around him could as easily have been something in a nightmare. It was unbelievable.

He lay in what appeared to be a vast cavern. An open fire in its center threw weird dancing shadows on the far-away ceiling and walls. The fire also revealed a circle of bodies and faces. Hideous bodies and faces which could have well been done by a painter gone mad. Crouching, lascivious, blood-lusting entities formed a circle, well back from the fire, and there was continuous, terrifying sound as they jabbered, cackled and snarled in a hundred languages and dialects.

Close beside Ron lay the still body of Glory Evans. Her lovely back was curved as—with her knees drawn up—she buried her face in her arms.

Ron slid a hand to her shoulder. She quivered from head to foot and Ron felt a sob run through her body.

Immediately the jabbering heightened as a thousand eyes saw that movement, and a giant voice roared out: “Be still, all of you! Stop this babbling or I’ll lash the hides off you!”

Ron turned his head to behold an Earthman standing close to the fire.

He was a giant in stature, close to seven feet in height. He wore a pair of tattered pants, sawed off just above the knees. His feet were naked and his great chest was covered with thick curly hair.

But it was the man’s face that held Ron. A face mirroring a thousand years of evil. It had been slashed and scarred in a hundred brawls but oddly the monster’s teeth were all in place-large, even, and white as Earth-snow.

The man held a zam-gun in one hand and a long black whip in the other, and his manner left little doubt that he was commanding the situation.

Ron lay motionless as the man’s voice boomed out;

“We’ve had a piece of luck thrown our way and you fools are too stupid to realize it. I don’t know if this man is worth anything, but the girl is a prize indeed.”

And a chorus went up from the shadows to show that all the fiends agreed. “Graaaaa yaoooo—ff fffttaaaa!” and a sound like sharp teeth cracking bones.

The giant cracked his whip. “Silence!

Listen to me! Listen to Caliban who can tear you apart a dozen at a time. Does anyone doubt that?”

The clamor subsided into a surly backwash and the one who called himself Caliban went on. “The trouble here is that none of you are equipped to think. The girl is a prize, yes, but what good is one girl when there are hundreds of us. We could only fight over her and many would be killed and the girl torn to pieces in the bargain.”

Somewhere back in the shadows was an articulate voice; “Then let’s start tearing. I’ll take an arm to put around my neck when I go to sleep.”

Another voice: “I’ll take—”

But coarse laughter drowned out the rest and Caliban was shouting again. “We know that Tza-Necros has an eye for beauty. We know that had we seen this girl first, she’d never have come our way.”

A shout of agreement.

“Then by all that’s holy—let’s sell her to him. If I’m any judge, Tza-Necros will pay us enough so that each man in the Undercity gets ten credas. Isn’t that better than maybe a shred of flesh and probably nothing at all?”

THERE WAS a change in the gibbering and cackling. The air was filled with whisperings now and many little conferences went on out in the darkness.

“If you agree,” Caliban shouted, “I’ll arrange a meeting with Tza-Necros, and I promise you I won’t come back empty-handed.”

A shout of approval went up. Immediately Caliban turned and prodded Ron with his foot. Ron came to a sitting position and Caliban bent down to sweep Glory Evans up into his arms. “I’ll put them in the prison,” Caliban said, “and then negotiate with the Overlord.”

Two willing lieutenants seized Ron by either arm and dragged him along in the wake of the striding Caliban.

The circle broke at one side of the cavern and the place was quitted for a low-ceilinged tunnel leading off at a slightly rising angle. Some few hundred yards of this and another cavern was achieved; a smaller one but still large enough to house a small stone building with room to spare.

Two guardsmen stood in front of the door but their attitude, far from hostile, was almost ingratiating as Caliban said, “We have two tenants for you. We want to leave them here while I seek an audience with the Overlord.”

The eyes of both guardsmen were on the body of Glory as Caliban cradled her in his arms like a child.

“You’re going to sell her?” one of the guards asked.

“If Tza-Necros will buy.”

“I’ll buy,” said the other. “I’ll give you a hundred credas-platinum.”

A roar of laughter went up from the citizens of the Undercity who were now pouring into the cavern.

“Come back when you have a hundred thousand credas to spend,” Caliban said. “Open the door.”

The guard did as he was bidden and Caliban strode into the building and laid Glory on the floor. The jail was apparently a one-room affair occupying the entire building. It was very dark inside, the only illumination coming from the levon tubes outside the small windows.

Ron was shoved inside with such force that he went to his knees. He heard the door slam and the key turn in the lock. Then Caliban’s booming voice directed, evidently, at the guards:

“You ‘re going to be watched pretty closely while I’m gone, so I’d advise you to keep the door locked and stay outside.”

A roar of understanding went up from the crowd. Quite obviously, the guards would not be left to themselves.

Then Caliban’s heavy footsteps faded away.

Ron got painfully to his feet and went to Glory Evans, who lay motionless on the floor. He knelt beside her and turned her so he could look down into her face. By the light of the levon tube rays filtering in, e could see the thick-lashed eyes open.

His hand, having dropped unconsciously to her breast felt the rise and fall of her breathing. He snatched it away instantly. Somehow it seemed like taking advantage of helplessness.

Glory did not draw back from Ron’s touch. In fact she did not seem conscious of it so much as the compassion in his attitude.

With sudden abandon and with a flood of tears, she threw herself into his arms and her manner was that of a child; a child searching for pity, tenderness, for something to keep from cracking up completely.

RON HELD her close in his arms as the explosion of tears and grief wracked her body. He said nothing, allowing her to cry herself out. And he was mute for another reason: he could think of nothing to say—no words of comfort for this harassed and tortured girl. There was only hopelessness, evil, and viciousness to be anticipated. Better that he remain silent.

He became conscious, now for the first time, of what Glory Evans really was. With her beauty held close in his arms, the perfume of her in his nostrils, he realized it had been more than a breaking point that had made him leap to her aid there by the cafe.

He’d heard, vaguely, that sometimes love is like that; it can come suddenly, without apparent reason, and not even be recognized for what it is.

She was quiet now. She raised her face to his and he could see her smile in the dimness. “I’m sorry,”

she said. “Sorry for being such a problem to you. You’ve trouble enough without a weeping female on your hands.”

Without thought, as naturally as taking a breath, Ron pulled her close and kissed her. An odd, tingling shock went through him at contact with her lips. She did not draw away. For a long moment she lay motionless, neither giving nor taking. Then she came alive with a suddenness that thrilled Ron and she accepted his kiss avidly, hungrily.

After an eternity, she drew away and nestled down into his arms. For a long time nothing was said. Then Ron’s bitterness of spirit returned.

“I’ve failed you,” he said miserably.

“Failed me? Don’t say that, darling.

You’ve done your best. It will be easier—whatever comes will be easier—knowing this—having felt your arms around me—your kiss.”

“I’m no good. Sure—I’m rated as a successful agent on Earth-nine assignments, but what were they? Local disturbances—things petty and unimportant beside an interplanetary project like this.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, fiercely.

“They wouldn’t have sent you if they hadn’t—”

“They sent me because they had no one else I It was a move of desperation. Why, I’m not in the same league with men like Tanton. It’s like comparing an advanced scientist and a—a school boy!”

She put her fingers over his lips.

“I won’t let you say such things!”

But he drew her hand away and there was sudden hope in his face.

“Tanton. I’d forgotten. Why, we aren’t lost! Far from it. With Tanton calling the turns, it’s just a matter of time. He’ll get us out. Good old Tanton. He’ll see that I get a chance to at least use my muscles even if I don’t know how to use my head.”

There had been faint sounds as of movement somewhere in the cell, but so intent had they been upon themselves, they hadn’t noticed them. Now the sounds came louder, hoarse breathing and the shifting of a body.

Ron tensed as he searched the shadows about him. “Did you hear that?”

Glory raised fearful eyes. “Yes.

There’s someone else in this cell.”

“A rodent of some sort maybe. I’ll look around.” He got slowly to his feet and sought to disengage himself from Glory, but she clung to him desperately.

“Don’t leave me,” she said. “I’ll go with you. Let me hold your hand.”

Together they moved softly in the direction from which the sounds came. The cell was a large one, running at least a hundred feet from wall to wall. It seemed miles until they finally caught sight of the figure lying prone in one corner.

“It’s—it’s a man,” Glory whispered.

“Another prisoner. It’s—a blue Mercurian!”

Ron bent swiftly down over the figure. His hands explored. Then he braced himself and pulled the inert body forward into the dim light sifting through the window.

“It’s Tanton!” he exclaimed in sheer unbelief.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER V

AFTER ridding himself of Ron and Glory, Tanton went cautiously back into the first tier of Venusia.

The going was easier now because night had fallen and he had the advantageous cover of darkness.

He left the alley at its far end and found himself in a deserted street some two miles from the intersection of Darrien Promenade and Antor Street. It was well into the sixteenth hour and Tanton covered the two miles by the process of flitting from one shadow to another, avoiding the main thoroughfares with their bright levon tubes for the dim residential ways.

Upon arriving in the vicinity of the Promenade and Antor, Tanton veered to the left and found an alley leading him along one side of a giant warehouse. It was not by chance that he’d selected the particular intersection for his meeting with Valcan. He knew this neighborhood well, as was proven by the manner in which he found the small, ground-level window into the warehouse.

Once inside, he lay hidden in a fuel bin until the watchman plodded past on his hourly rounds. Then Tanton commandeered an empty lift and rode to the forty-second floor. Quitting the lift, he let himself out on the roof and walked half a mile through a maze of ventilators until he came to the far side of the building. Time had moved halfway through the seventeenth hour.

Now, from his vantage point at the roof edge, he could look straight down upon the intersection at which he was to meet Valcan.

A scene of great activity was laid out below him. The section had been roped off and, under strong lights, a great many men were working feverishly.

They were operating in crews, digging into every nook, every suspicious corner which might house a hidden door into the Undercity. Brit-guns had been brought into play in order to cut passages through rock.

Every door in the vicinity had been broken open and even sections of the pavement had been eaten away by the Brit-rays.

Tanton did not even bother to congratulate himself upon finding he had forecasted Valcan’s move successfully.

There had been no doubt whatever in his mind as to how the Secret Service Chief would proceed.

The man wanted, above all, a safe entrance into the Undercity. The cunning with which these entrances were hidden, had been the main thorn in Darrien’s side. False entrances had been found from time to time, but they had invariably turned out to be death traps for Darrien’s men.

And upon the two occasions when true entrances had been found, it was almost as though Tza-Necros had given out the information himself, because the Undercity King’s men were waiting for the onslaught of Darrien’s warriors. And, in each case after the slaughter, the entrance and dozens of the tunnels lying beneath, were sealed solid with ray-contaminated rock which made sure death the price of further tampering.

Tanton chuckled to himself at the sight of Valcan himself pacing restlessly about down below, receiving negative reports from his squads and venting his rage by smashing one lieutenant to the ground with a single blow of his fist.

TANTON waited patiently and, as the eighteenth hour approached, he saw Valcan call his men in and send them away, a group at a time until the area was practically deserted.

The portable lights were extinguished and dragged away and finally, only Valcan himself remained, almost invisible now, in the deep shadow of a doorway.

Apparently-satisfied, Tanton left the building by the same route he’d entered it. He emerged from the alleyway and leaned casually against a wall on Antor Street, scanning the passers-by. There weren’t many. After a few minutes, Tanton selected a child of not more than ten years, collared him and pulled him close to the wall. He pointed down the street toward the doorway in which Valcan lurked.

“You see that entrance?” he said to the startled child. “You’ll find a man standing there.” Tanton thrust a folded piece of paper into the child’s hand together with a ten-creda piece. “Carry this note to him and then be on your way. He won’t hurt you.

Just hand him the note and then go and spend these credas.”

Released, the child was off at a dead run. Tanton watched as Valcan’s arm came out of the shadows to take the proffered note. He imagined the reaction in Valcan’s not-too-clever mind as he read:

Now that you’ve enjoyed yourself, let’s go on with our business.

Walk seven sectors down Antor street. If you have men following you I’ll know it. If you try any tricks I’ll probably have a chance to kill you.

Tanton The blue Mercurian watched as Valcan wadded up the note and threw it angrily to the pavement, then looked searchingly up and down the street. Tanton could see the indecision working in Valcan’s mind and was somewhat relieved when the latter finally quitted the doorway and strode down Antor Street with all the mannerisms of a sulky child.

Tanton did not follow Valcan. Instead he traveled swiftly up into the second tier of the thoroughfare and moved with long strides toward the rendezvous. His pace was such that, when Valcan had finished counting off seven sectors, Tanton’s voice greeted him from a dark areaway:

“I’m glad to see you’ve come to your senses. Here—let me put this blindfold on you.”

Valcan scowled and raised his hands in objection, whereupon Tanton said, “Don’t be a fool. This alone should convince you I’m sincere. If you were allowed to find an entrance into the Undercity, you know very well Tza-Necros would never let you return alive.”

The Secret Service chief made no further objection, allowing himself to be blindfolded and led back through the areaway by the crafty Tanton.

There followed now a period of what seemed aimless wandering. In truth it was just that, and eventually, Tanton brought Valcan back to the exact spot from which they’d departed.

It was the place of his first entrance into the Undercity four months previous.

There was the red, peering eye and, once inside, the plea: “A creda for food, my master. This miserable one starves while serving the great Tza-Necros.”

Tanton knew the wretch was well fed and that the money would go for a brief hour of drug-induced ecstasy.

He parted with a silver creda and led Valcan through the inner door and down into the first tunnel.

THERE he removed the blindfold.

Valcan rubbed his eyes and scowled down the long passageway.

“If I could bring Darrien information about this place—information with which to destroy it—I would soon sit far higher in his counsels,” Valcan said.

And in Tanton’s mind was a brusque, unuttered question: Doesn’t this fool know he’s going to die? How can a man allow lust of a woman and greed for prestige blind him to stark fact? How can men be so gullible?

“The vilest rats are the hardest to kill,” Tanton said, easily. “But now we must hurry. And keep your gun handy. We may encounter resistance.”

But there was no resistance—only eyes gleaming in dark places and the foul gibberings of creatures who had not seen sunlight for countless years.

Tanton left the Secret Service chief in the small anteroom to Margot’s garden—left him under the watchful eye of the hostile young Plutonian—and hurried on to find Margot.

She was resting on a fur-covered lounge in her apartments. As Tanton entered, she arose and drew a robe around her golden body. “I thought you’d been killed,” she said, and Tanton was elated to detect genuine concern in her eyes.

“It took longer than I thought,”

Tanton replied. “But nothing has changed. Aside from the time I spent in jail, the thing has gone off without a hitch.” He hesitated for a moment.

“You haven’t changed your mind have you?”

She came toward him, a tired smile on her face. “If you had returned in three hours you’d have found me in a different mind. But for three months I’ve dreamed of freedom—of the good green Earth—and now—well, I’ll do anything—anything to get away from this place.”

“Excellent. Let me brief you on what is to be done.” Seated beside Margot on the luxurious couch, Tanton explained very carefully what her role was to be. “And now I’ll bring the fool in,” he said. “Then I must seek an audience with Tza-Necros.”

At the door, he turned back. “By the way, what have you done with my two babes-in-the-woods? You’ve put them out of harm’s way I hope?”

Margot questioned with her eyes.

“Your babes-in-the-woods? What are you talking about?”

“An Earthman and a girl I took with me when I broke out of jail. I sent them to you with a note? You mean they didn’t get here?”

“Of course not. I would have been told immediately.”

The news saddened Tanton somewhat, but not too much. Obviously the two had been trapped—set upon out in the tunnels. By all odds they were dead now. Too bad. The girl was a raving beauty and the young agent was probably not beyond hope.

He’d have probably been a good spy with a little guidance.

But, so long as neither of the two had been included in Tanton’s original orders, he felt no responsibility for them. There were far larger things at stake than those two. With no further thought on the matter, he hurried across the garden to where Valcan was impatiently waiting.

“She is awaiting you,” Tanton said.

“And I must say, you are indeed a fortunate man. I regret that my own luck never exerts itself to such an extent in my behalf.”

Valcan wore his perpetual frown.

“Let’s get ahead with it. This place makes me nervous. I wish now I’d signed that execution order.”

“You’ll change your mind when you see her,” Tanton replied cheerfully.

He pushed Valcan through the inner door and closed it behind them.

“This way,” he said, and led Valcan down the yellow brick path.

“I can’t believe it!” Valcan exclaimed.

“I don’t understand how such a place could have been built.

It’s beyond conception!”

“Slave labor,” Tanton said, as if that explained the whole thing. “Margot is waiting over there. Come.”

HE PUSHED Valcan into Margot’s chamber, and when the latter saw Margot, reclining on the lounge, he stopped with a quick breath standing before her.

“Here is your new master, my dear,” Tanton said.

Margot arose from the couch. “My lord,” she murmured, and came forward, sensuous, languorous, her arms reaching.

Valcan took a step forward, but was brought to a halt by Tanton’s sharp words. “Just a minute. There is a small formality before I can leave you to your own devices.”

“I don’t understand,” Valcan said.

“I can understand why it slipped your mind—the matter of the projector’s location. I have demonstrated my good faith and that of Tza-Necros by bringing you here. The time has come for you to deliver. Where is the projector located?”

Valcan’s bedazzled mind was upon other things. Without taking his eyes from Margot’s lush body, he said, “It is in a gray stone building on Neptune Way near the intersection of South Plaza. The building is marked as a food processing plant—”

Valcan brought himself up sharply upon the sudden realization of what he’d done. He’d told the truth!

This crafty Mercurian had manipulated him into a trap. With devilish cunning, he’d asked his question at exactly the right moment—when Valcan’s guard was down.

Valcan had told the truth and he was certain that Tanton knew it.

In so doing, Valcan realized he’d divested himself of his one weapon—his sole means of defense now that he had walked blindly into what could be a trap.

Swiftly his suspicions returned to be resolved into dreadful certainties.

The blue Mercurian was no emissary of Tza-Necros! He was an agent of Earth Intelligence, sent to locate and destroy the ray projector. And—in league with this golden creature of the Undercity, he’d drawn information from Valcan which no method of torture, however fiendish, would have produced.

How could I have been such a fool? Valcan asked himself. His eyes darted, in desperation, toward the harness which lay on the floor near Margot’s couch.

But he was never to get his hands on the zam-gun holstered in the harness.

Margot, schooled by Tanton for just such a possibility as this, moved with swift grace to stoop and snatch the gun from its clip. She stepped backward, the gun ready for use, but her face showed both indecision and anger.

The latter was directed at Tanton, not Valcan, and her red lips framed an accusation. “You used me!” She said. “This talk about a ray projector. I don’t understand it, but I know there is something wrong. What sort of an intrigue is this, Tanton?”

Her sudden perception threw the blue Mercurian slightly off balance.

He hadn’t expected it at this point.

A MOMENT later he was fighting for his life as Valcan hurled himself across the intervening space and smashed the agent to the floor.

“You’ll never use that information!”

Valcan yelled. He locked Tanton’s arms to his side, thus preventing him from drawing his gun, and then wrapped his free arm around Tanton’s head seeking to twist it from the agent’s body.

Tanton managed to free his left arm as pain shot down his spine. He locked his hard, shell-covered hand around Valcan’s throat and heaved upward with his knees. Valcan flew through space, but unfortunately for Tanton, his own zam-gun, knocked from its clip on his harness, bounced away also and skidded well beyond reach.

Both antagonists dived for the weapon. Both laid a hand on it at once. Then Margot’s voice, so filled with fright and anguish as to freeze them both, cried out;

“Stop it! For God’s sake, stop it!”

They, too, had heard the heavy footsteps coming in from the garden through the open portal. As one man, they turned and stared at what approached.

A great hairy monstrosity with the body of a giant ape, yet more erect and with a certain dignity in its movement. Two pairs of long arms extended from the thick torso upon which sat the ugly head of a Planetoid misfit. Only the eyes of the creature commanded respect. They were large, liquid, beautiful, perpetually brilliant. And without doubt they mirrored the able brain within the skull of Tza-Necros.

He was accompanied by a guard of four Plutonians, each armed with two zam-guns and a Brit projector.

Both Tanton and Valcan got slowly to their feet, their personal differences forgotten at the approach of this greater peril.

“He’ll kill us all,” Margot whispered in terror. “He’ll kill us all.”

Tanton looked desperately around for a means of exit. There was none.

He lashed at his brain, demanding a plan of escape. But even Tanton’s agile mind could not work miracles.

It seemed his clever intrigue was to go for naught.

There’s always some little angle you can’t figure, he told himself sourly as Tza-Necros’ gross body appeared in the doorway.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER IV

TANTON, lying in comfort on the stone floor of his cell, was inclined to be philosophical about the whole thing. He had no fear of death, nor did he have any regrets. During all the years he’d played at his dangerous game, he’d known that, someday, this would happen. His wily intrigues, practiced to gain his own ends on practically every inhabitable planet, had always been successful.

But he’d known that, someday, one would miss, and that he would be finished.

He was aware of his mistake in this case. He’d misjudged the Secret Service chief. The structure of his intrigue had been basically sound except for one flaw. He’d banked too strongly on Valcan’s lust for the beautiful Margot—upon his greed for the prestige of acquiring her.

This he could only shrug off as a mistake and forget about it. It did irk him somewhat that he’d be marked in Earth Intelligence offices as having failed on an assignment.

But that too was of no great importance.

He wouldn’t be around long to suffer the humiliation.

With this thought in mind, he went to sleep.

The following morning he was awake to hear footsteps in the hall.

The roasting pit, no doubt, was now at the required high temperature. The footsteps stopped and the door opened.

But it was only a guard bearing a tray of food and a flacon of water.

The guard set the food down and retired.

Evidently, Tanton decided, they were going to feed him before roasting him. For this he was grateful and set to work upon the tray with gusto.

After eating, he went back to sleep. When he awoke the small window, high in his cell, was black. Night had come. The day of his execution had passed and he was still alive.

This surprised him. But as day after day passed in monotonous regularity and he saw no one but the silent guard with tray and flacon, his wonder increased with the time.

What had gone wrong? Then, suddenly, he knew and his faith in his own abilities shot sky-high. He hadn’t failed. Not by any means, and he could sense the struggle going on in Valcan’s mind-analyze it as accurately as though Valcan had come down to tell him about it.

The Secret Service chief was fighting between greed and fear. In the beginning, fear had been the stronger.

Because of this he’d thrown Tanton into a cell, but the greed stayed his fingers, day after day, from signing the death warrant.

Tanton took a new lease on life and began wondering how long Valcan would hold out. The weeks became months and the months became four, with Tanton waxing fat and lazy in his cell.

It must be quite a battle, he told himself. I wonder how long he can hold out? The next morning there were footsteps in the hall as usual but more brisk now, with a sound of more positive authority.

It was Valcan.

HE ENTERED the cell and stood down at Tanton who was stretched full length upon the floor.

“It’s been a long time,” Tanton said.

“I couldn’t make up my mind. I’m still not convinced that—”

“But you’re ready to go ahead with it?”

Valcan glanced uneasily at the door, then continued speaking in a lower voice. “It’s not as easy as you think. Especially now that you’ve been committed to jail. The best I can do is to see that you escape. I’ll give your guard an order to show you an escape-route—a passage to the second tier of the street behind the building. Then, after you’ve escaped, I’ll come down and kill him for negligence of duty.”

“A clever procedure,” Tanton said, and was entirely sincere about it.

He’d been guilty of equally treacherous deeds more than once in his career.

“But once you’re beyond the walls, you’ll have to fend for yourself. I’ll have to put every man on the alert.

And if you’re captured you won’t live long enough to make any accusations against me.”

“Don’t worry,” Tanton said, cheerfully.

“I’m not in the habit of getting caught.”

“Then where can I meet you after you’re clear?”

“What time is it?”

“A little after the thirteenth hour.”

“Meet me, at the eighteenth hour, on the first tier of Darrien Promenade and a small street called Antor.

And come alone. Otherwise we will not be admitted to the Undercity.”

Valcan was silent for a moment before he said. “I believe you said I could bring Margot out of the Undercity with me. Otherwise—”

“That will be your privilege. And you can also bring the million credas out.”

“That is of no consequence. I already have well over ten million credas.”

Tanton got to his feet. “Why don’t you give me the location of the ray projector now?” he suggested. “It might save time, and will put Tza-Necros into a good mood to receive you.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

“I was hoping you were, but I guess I’m wrong,” Tanton said.

“When will the guard come?”

‘”Within an hour,” Valcan said.

“And remember, you’ll have not more than five minutes before the alarm will be sounded. Goodbye now—I hope we meet again.”

“At the Promenade and Antor Street. The eighteenth hour.”

Fifteen minutes later, Tanton was standing alone in the small alley behind the prison. Another five minutes and Valcan had personally slain Tanton’s guard and had sounded the alarm for the agent’s recapture.

Tanton moved swiftly in the few minutes of grace, but not swiftly enough. Before he could shoulder his way into a trans-city jet car, a master-switch was thrown at Secret Service Headquarters and every pilot obeyed the red signal to stop his car.

A cordon was thrown around a mile-square area with the prison as its center. With a smoothness indicating long practice, the Service went into action, checking people—out of the area, one by one, through turnstiles and ordering them not to return until the Service quitted the restricted area.

Tanton was neatly trapped.

And he knew what his fate would be if he were captured. Quick death.

Beyond doubt the Service men had been ordered to shoot him down instantly upon identification.

PAUSING on a side street to take his bearings, Tanton wracked his brain for a way out. But, while infinitely clever, he was not given to working miracles. His lightning brain reviewed the situation and gave a negative report. There was no way out. All the civilians in the area would be checked at the exits. Then the square mile would be combed by men walking elbow to elbow. No escape.

Tanton stepped back into a doorway as footsteps sounded on the deserted street. A moment later a lumbering giant of a man, a Martian, came around the corner and moved in Tanton’s direction. Pushing his head into view, Tanton saw, first the Martian, and then the practically naked Earth-girl he was dragging along by means of a rope around the latter’s slim waist.

Tanton cataloged the girl instantly.

Obviously an American, she was no doubt from some town recently raided by the Venusians. The droop of her smooth shoulders and the fear and utter hopelessness in her eyes, marked her for what she was. Loot.

A girl taken on a raid by the Martian, and now his property to do with as he saw fit.

Another point impressed Tanton.

This Martian was evidently looking for a place of seclusion—some deserted nook or alleyway, where he could examine his prize in privacy.

Then a plan for salvation—his own salvation—was born in Tanton’s mind. Had he been able to smile, he would have done so as he stepped from the doorway and moved toward the Martian and the captive girl.

The Martian, immediately suspicious, yanked the girl roughly forward and pushed her behind him as he scowled at Tanton. The latter walked up, a picture of innocent interest, and craned his neck to peer around the Martian. He noted, in doing so, the red welt of the rope completely encircling the waist of the lush Earth-girl.

“A rare prize,” Tanton said. “Is she for sale? I’ll pay two hundred credas gold. A hundred and fifty platinum!”

“Mine,” the Martian snarled. “I took her in a raid.”

“Of course she’s yours, but I want to buy her. I’ll pay.”

The Martian considered for a moment.

“I’ll sell, but not now. Two days from now I’ll return to this spot with her at the same time. Then I’ll sell.”

Tanton considered in turn, but the Martian had no idea what was in the Mercurian’s mind. He had no credas on his person and no intention of buying the girl. Also he had no weapon.

Hence the seeming thought on the Martian’s proposition which was in reality, a ruse to get a trifle closer to the man-close enough to jerk the zam-gun from his harness.

Finally, Tanton shook his head.

“No. I want her now—not after you’ve spoiled her. I’m not interested in second-hand goods. “I’ll pay three hundred—gold.”

The Martian did what Tanton had hoped he would do—turned his head to look appraisingly at the girl and consider whether he could find more pleasure with the money in some Venusian booze and flesh house, than with this slim brown Earth-virgin.

He turned his head just enough for Tanton’s arm to streak out and come back gripping the raider’s zam-gun.

The Martian whirled in alarm but bis brain probably hadn’t even time to form the fear-pattern because—in an instant—his head was gone, charred into a thimbleful of black crust by the ray from the zam-gun.

AS THE big body melted to the pavement, Tanton snatched the rope from the lifeless hand and said to the cowering girl; “You’re mine now. See that you come along peacefully and keep your mouth shut. Otherwise I’ll sell you in the first flesh house I come to.”

The girl whimpered and lowered her head in complete defeat.

A few minutes later, Tanton, now apparently half-drunk, weaved his way toward one of the turnstiles set up by the Secret Service. He was shouting a ribald Mercurian drinking song and seemed surprised and bewildered upon finding a barricade.

“What’s this?” he demanded of a young Service Lieutenant. “Who stands in the way of a soldier of Darrien? One Side or I’ll fry you.”

The lieutenant’s eyes were on the Earth-girl as Tanton had anticipated.

To the young Venusian, Tanton was obviously a triumphant and most fortunate raider who was parading his booty for all to see. Pulling his hot eyes away from the girl, and scarcely looking at Tanton, the lieutenant glanced at the record sheet in his hand and waved Tanton through. As the girl followed, her arms folded to cover a portion of her nudity, she felt the band of the lieutenant brush casually over her body. She shivered and responded to the jerk of the rope in Tanton’s hand. “Come on, girl,”

Tanton said “No one bars the way of an Earth-raider.”

Tanton gave the girl no rest as he hurried across the city. He was past the main danger now, but the whole Service had been alerted and he would possibly be challenged at any moment, though—thanks to his masquerade—it was doubtful.

He kept to the direct thoroughfare on the first tier, considering audacity to be a good thing and had no trouble until he was within a quarter-mile of his goal—the nearest entrance to the Undercity of which he had knowledge.

Thus, with safety almost in his grasp, he was intercepted by two swaggering Venusian fighters. Their lustful eyes brightened at sight of the girl and, as Tanton hauled her past them, their , hands were upon her.

Here , was possible trouble and had to be met head-on. Tanton snarled as he yanked the girl toward him. “Mine”, he spat, and gripped the butt of his zam-gun.

But the reaction of the Venusians was not as Tanton expected. They were in an amiable mood—rare for Venusians—and they laughed good naturally as they moved on. Tanton breathed a sigh of relief. A brawl at this point would have brought inquiries—inquiries fatal to Tanton.

Then, just as he was resuming his course, ‘trouble sprang at him from another quarter. This in the form of an apparently demented Earthman—a handsome young man in the harness of Darrien’s raiders, who dived straight at Tanton’s throat from a cafe table nearby. Tanton, unable to draw his gun, whirled to meet the charge and went down under the fury of the mad assault.

He heard a thundering voice in his ear:

“You turtle-faced son-of-a-bitch! Leggo that rope.”

Tanton’s head cracked hard against the pavement but that bothered him not at all. His skull could not have been split with a hand ax, so thick and hard was its shell-covering.

But he had a vulnerable point at his neck and the Earthman evidently knew this because he had Tanton’s head gripped in both hands and was twisting it. Too much of this and the head would snap off at the base of the neck. Then the crazy Earthman could lift it away like a disconnected doorknob.

TANTON strained—heaved upward—and his eyes came into line with the Earthman’s chest.

There, almost invisible, was the faint blue stitching which marked him for what he was—an Earth Intelligence Agent. It flashed swiftly through Tanton’s mind that this man was a disgrace to his planet. He’d lost his head while on an assignment.

But that did not change the fact that Tanton was also close to losing his own head. He jerked the Earthman close to him and gritted. “Stop it you fool! Look at my tunic! I’m an agent myself. My name is Tanton!”

His words pierced the Earthman’s brain and quieted the maniacal fury of his attack. His expression changed to one of bewilderment as he loosed his hold on Tanton’s tortured head.

“We’ve got to get away from here quick,” Tanton hissed. “The Service men will haul us to jail and we’ll be lost. A crowd is gathering already.”

Ron Kratnick saw that this was true. Passers-by had stopped to watch the fight and the walk was becoming crowded.

“I’ll throw you off,” Tanton whispered.

“Then I’ll get up and run with the girl. You follow us until you see me turn into an alley but don’t catch up with us till then.”

With this, the blue Mercurian executed a mighty heave, sending Ron Kratnick rolling into the gutter. Immediately, Ron doubled up as though in agony, as though a hidden blow had paralyzed him.

The Mercurian was on his feet instantly to gallop off down the street, dragging the whimpering girl behind him.

After a reasonable time, Ron got to his feet and ran after the fleeing Mercurian.

Ahead with the girl, Tanton found he could not travel very fast. The girl was bare-footed and was not used to running full-tilt through city streets. Then Tanton glanced back and found that the Earthman had developed a limp which retarded his progress. Thus the distance between them remained pretty much unchanged.

The second time he glanced back, Tanton saw something else. Two Venusians, obviously spotters who had been put on the Earthman’s trail, had recovered from their surprise at the swift turn of events and were now in pursuit. Fortunately Venusians were slow of foot, but even so, the distance between them and the earthman was fast diminishing.

Tanton was happy to see that the Venusians had not drawn their weapons.

Evidently they felt well able to catch the Earthman alive.

Tanton pulled cruelly on the rope, forcing the Earth-girl to increased speed and it was with a feeling of relief that he came to the alley toward which he’d been running. He pulled the girl into the narrow passageway, then pushed his head around the edge of the building and looked back down the street.

The Earthman’s limp had magically vanished and he was kiting up the street at a speed which caused the Venusians to claw for their zam-guns.

Then the Earthman was braking his speed to turn and slip into the alleyway past Tanton.

“What now?” Ron asked, gasping for breath.

“The spotters,” Tanton said, his zam-gun already in his hand. “You take the short one. I’ll cut the tall one in two.”

AS THEY approached and hurled themselves into the alley’s mouth, the two Venusians died instantly as rays from two zam-guns fried various parts of their anatomies into fragments of hard black crust.

As the men fell, Tanton stepped forward and sprayed the bodies with the zam-gun until there was nothing left of either one except a few fragments of crust.

Watching this brutal annihilation, the Earth-girl sobbed and swayed against the wall, close to the end of her strength.

“I’m not doing this because I enjoy it,” Tanton growled, “but we can’t leave any remains to be discovered later. This is too close to an Undercity entrance. By the way,” he said to Ron, as his zam-gun crackled out the consuming heat ray, “since when has Intelligence been hiring fools like you?”

Ron Kratnick flushed in the semidarkness of the alley. But he hurled back no defense at the insult because he had no defense. He’d acted the fool all right—the callow school boy—and the incident could easily end his career as an agent. “I—I don’t know why I did it! “ he said. “I knew those spotters were on me and I decided things were hopeless with all the other agents dead. I had to make one gesture of defiance before they killed me. This is my first assignment away from Earth and—”

“—and if you keep on the way you’re going, it will be your last,”

Tanton cut in. “What’s your name?”

“Ronald Kratnick. S-rating. Nine successful assignments.”

“You must have been a devil for luck,” Tanton observed sourly as he cleaned up the last of the unseared flesh on the ground. “And thank heaven I rate you so I won’t have to beat a cocky young superior down to his natural size.”

Ron felt heat rising within him at the Mercurian’s tone and words. But he dampened it swiftly with the knowledge that he deserved censure.

And too, this was the great Tanton.

One took criticism from Earth’s top agent and didn’t resent it—at least not outwardly.

“I’ll take your orders of course,”

Ron said, stiffly.

His work completed, Tanton turned and pointed to the girl.

“You’d better carry her,” he said.

“She’s about finished. You’ve got to get down into the Undercity before she can stop and rest. Better cut that rope off her.”

“The Undercity?” Ron asked in surprise. He’d heard of rumors of that horrible place—tales of its cruelties and obscenities, but he’d never been really sure it existed in fact.

He took a knife from his supply packet and sliced the rope off the girl’s body. As he did so, Tanton spoke to her;

“I’m sorry to have treated you so roughly,” he said, “but the act had to be convincing—for your sake as well as mine. What’s your name, girl, and where are you from?”

For a moment she did not answer, her expression indicating extreme confusion. Then she whispered, “Glory Evans. I was captured in a raid on Smithton, Tennessee.’‘

“Speak up, girl,” Tanton said in a not unkindly voice. “You’re among friends now. You’ll find clothing and safety down below.”

Glory Evans did not react with any degree of gratitude. Instead, her fear deepened. Even on Earth she’d heard the horrors of the Undercity.

To her it seemed little different from the fate from which she’d been rescued.

“Things will be better now,” Tanton assured her, “but we must keep moving. I’ll lead the way. You, girl, walk behind me, and Nine Successful Assignments here, will cover the rear.”

RON TOOK the sarcasm in silence and the three of them moved through the alley to stop at what appeared to be an abandoned plastic shack. Tanton tapped a code on the door panel.

While they waited, Ron wondered how the door, which opened outward, could be used before they moved the huge pile of ref use in front of it. He was soon to learn.

After a few minutes, during which time they had evidently been closely inspected from some hidden vantage-point, the door opened. But it moved inward, frame and all, on hinges cleverly covered by strips of plastic. Tanton motioned and they climbed over the heap of debris into the small room beyond.

A wizened little Earthman was the keeper of this Undercity entrance.

His mouth opened, revealing a toothless jaw, and he said, “You can go on down—on Margot’s order, but I have no escort for you.”

Tanton was relieved to hear the words as he feared the order allowing his entrance in to the Undercity accompanied by other persons had been canceled. He’d told Margot he’d be back in three hours. It had been almost four months.

The old Earthman pushed back a panel in what seemed to be solid rock, and Tanton stepped through into a tunnel lit by a pair of dust covered levon tubes. When the girl hesitated, the blue Mercurian grasped her by the arm and pulled her through. His manner was not rough, but was far more firm than gentle.

“We’ve no time to waste on timidity,” he snapped.

Once beyond the panel, Tanton turned and, with a gesture, forbade the doorkeeper from closing it.

“You’ll have to go on alone,” be said to Ron. “The two of you. I’ve got an appointment at the eighteenth hour that I’ve got to keep. I’ll give you a note to Margot and a map showing how to get to her. Don’t tell Margot you’re an agent. I’ll explain things in the note and she’ll give you sanctuary.”

Tanton wrote swiftly on a pad he took from his supply packet. Then he drew a map on another slip of paper and handed them both to Ron.

“Things aren’t tough enough, as it is,” he growled. “I’ve got to be saddled with a couple of babes in the wood on top of everything else.”

Ron flushed. “See here—” he began.

“Obey orders,” Tanton snapped.

“Follow this map and you’ll be all right.” He went out through the panel as he’d come—then turned back.

“And keep your zam-gun handy.

You’ll bump into some unsavory characters down there. A zam-gun speaks the only language they understand.”

With that he was gone. The panel slammed to, leaving Ron Kratnick and Glory Evans alone under a levon tube at the head of a long flight of stairs. Ron’s resentment at Tanton’s attitude was still in his voice as he said, “Well, we might as well get going.” He resented being humiliated in front of this lovely girl, and, unconsciously, he took it out on her.

“Give me your hand,” he said. “I’ll lead the way.” Glory made no answer as—her hand tight in his—she followed Ron down the long flight of stairs.

At the foot of the stairs, they found a tunnel, lit at irregular intervals by levon tubes, stretching off into seeming infinity. The silence around them was like a live, sinister thing, waiting to pounce at the first opportunity.

After traveling a hundred yards, Ron stopped and consulted Tanton’s map. “It shouldn’t be hard to find, but we’ve got to keep our eyes open. No telling what manner of creatures live in this cesspool.”

AS THEY moved forward, the silence was broken, not by any abrupt sound, but slowly, imperceptibly, like leaves stirred by a breeze in a forest. Then, gradually they could detect a new note which arose into a babble of sheer gibberish—the language and dialects of the Universe chuckling and babbling in the darkness.

The girl cringed against Ron. “I can feel them,” she whispered in terror.

“Eyes in the darkness, boring into me! What—what have we gotten into?”

“We’ve got to go on,” Ron said.

“It was Tanton’s order. I have to obey.”

“Will you make me a promise?”

Glory Evans faltered. “Promise to kill me if—if—”

“It’s not as bad as that,” Ron answered.

“These creatures down here know better than to face a zam-gun.

They’re probably just curious as to who we are.”

Ron, entirely inexperienced so far as Venusia was concerned, listened to the gibberings and decided they were motivated by fear. Thus did he completely misinterpret the rising tone.

They were possessed of a diabolical cleverness, these obscene creatures—this legion of the damned lurking in the Undercity of Venusia. Clever to the extent that Ron and Glory were already identified as two inexperienced Earthlings; and also, word was being passed up and down the tunnels that Glory was an Earth girl, fair game for the lusts nurtured in unholy darkness. The word was being passed along, and now the tone of the chatterings was one of exultation.

Ron and Glory walked on, came to an indicated turn on Tanton’s map, and moved into a new, broader tunnel.

Now, suddenly, there was complete silence, as though a great hand had been clamped over the myriad mouths in the Undercity.

“See,”

Ron said. “They’ve stopped.”

“Yes but why—why did they stop?” To the terrified girl it was like a lull before some deadly storm.

“It’s all right,” Ron said. “Tell me what happened to you. You said you were taken in a raid?”

“Yes,” Glory said. She was now walking close to Ron and, through sheer weariness, she no longer attempted to hide her lovely breasts from view. Worn and almost beaten, this futile attempt at modesty must have seemed a small thing to her, beside the horrors she had faced and was facing even now. Ron glanced down and his eyes caught the breathless contour of her young bosom and the smooth lines of her thighs and legs. He jerked his eyes guiltily away as she said, “It happened in the dead of night. We had guards in the town, but no one knew where the Venusians would strike next and it was impossible to cover every city and village. The space-ship flashed down and those fiends were screaming in the streets and dragging people out of their homes before we knew what was happening. I was pulled from bed by a Martian raider and dragged from the house. On the porch I saw my mother lying dead—”

“Don’t talk about it’ “ Ron said quickly. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

Then a trifle bitterly, “I seem to do the wrong thing and say the wrong thing with amazing regularity.”

Glory Evans reached up impulsively and laid her hand on his chest.

“Don’t condemn yourself,” she said.

“It’s all right. You’ve been good to me. I—I—you don’t know what that means after what I’ve faced.”

“I’ll see that no one ever hurts you again,” Ron said, warmly. “I’m going to—”

AT THAT exact moment, they were plunged into the middle of hell incarnate. From the balconies above, giving onto the tunnel—from out of dark crypts and passages—there poured a smothering army of pure horror.

In the light of the levon tubes Ron and Glory could see them; drooling, slithering, galloping, jumping from above—they came in such numbers as to make Ron’s zam-gun useless.

Creatures from the Planetoids some of which could have been classed as human and others undoubtedly lower animals—the products of places where evolution had run riot—had produced savagely and without regard to any known law.

Ron brought his zam-gun up and burned away three legs of a six-legged creature which had advanced upon him with a single great arm outstretched.

A bat-like entity with the face of an Earthman and wings, spawned on some Planetoid, came hissing down from above. Ron cut it in two. It fell with a screech of agony and then Ron’s gun was knocked from his hand. He saw a giant Plutonian reached out and pull Glory from a pile of furry, gibbering man-apes

But he could do nothing for her. He was held helpless in the iron grip of a shell-covered creature he couldn’t classify.

He heard Glory scream once in terror. Then he went down into feathery darkness, spinning-spinning-spinning, as a great weight crashed against his skull.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER III

AS RON KRATNICK watched the dark skies over Iowa, the fiery tail he’d observed, brightened, and a silver ship rocketed down out of space.

Immediately lights began flashing on in the village nearby; but not before the great shining globe from Venus, coming in a long, graceful sweep, had set down on the meadowland of Iowa.

Ramps shot out of the globe; doors opened automatically, and Darrien’s hordes spewed forth. They were as motley a collection of demons as Ron had ever seen gathered in one place. First came a contingent of Darrien’s pride—the evil, black-tailed Venusian fighting men, each carrying a zam-gun and armed also with the death-sting, swift and terrible, embedded at the end of those whipping, black posterior formations. Then came the blue Mercurian devils, the eyes in their shell-covered faces alight at the prospect—of Earth women’s bodies. Came the ferocious Martian hillmen, thirsting for pillage and loot.

Like an ocean wave they frothed across the level ground full of the weird, eerie cries of other planets.

The wave engulfed Ron and he rose up and went with it, became a part of it, and he told himself: Now I’m a renegade. I want a share of the loot Darden promised me; my share of white Earth-flesh. Think the part and I can better act it.

The invaders were smashing into houses now. There were terrified Earth-screams added to the din, as the scene took on the horrible proportions of something straight out of hell. Appalled at the sight, Ron found himself frozen while the action milled about him. From the house in front of which he stood, three persons came running; a very old man, a middle-aged woman and a girl of perhaps eighteen, fleeing from a Martian hillman.

The Martian passed the elder two in one long stride and caught the terrorized girl by the arm. In desperation, the elder woman struck out at him only to go down, her skull crushed by the butt of the Martian’s zam-gun. The old man stumbled and went headlong to receive a kick from the Martian which doubled him up in agony.

Ron’s stomach was revolting at the scene around him; women and girls dragged, partially clad or entirely naked, from houses; dragged by arms, legs, or hair; some thrown over the shoulders of the raiders to scream and twist and writhe helplessly.

I can’t stand much of this, Ron told himself through gritted teeth.

But I’ve got to stand it! I Hold myself in!

Then, at sight of two Venusians on down the street fighting over a cowering blonde girl, Ron realized there was something he could do—a small thing but it would keep him from going mad and blowing the whole deadly-important assignment.

He leaped at a Martian hillman who now had a shrieking girl in his arms and knocked him spinning with one blow of his right fist. The surprised Martian went down, only to come up with a roar of rage, mouthing again and again the word that could be heard from all directions:

“Mine—mine—mine!”

THE GIRL had fallen too and Ron caught her by the wrist as the Martian charged in, clawing for his zam-gun. Ron flung the girl behind him where she crouched, sobbing, with her face in her hands. He took the Martian’s head-on charge on his lowered right shoulder. He heaved, fiercely happy at the feeling of impact, and hurled the hillman backward.

“Mine! Mine!” Ron shouted into the hillman’s tusked mouth and jammed his zam-gun into the creature’s gut. He snapped the switch and a great hole appeared in the hillman—around, bloodless hole from which the Martian’s bowels, heart and lungs had vanished into a sharp crackle of atomized dust. The Martian’s lips came back off slavering teeth. He was dead but the horrible jaws still worked as he melted to the ground.

Ron whirled and slugged out at a blue Mercurian who was reaching for his night-gown-clad prize. The Mercurian snarled in protest, nursing the split shell on his right cheek. But he was not inclined to argue further and went hulking off in search of other loot.

Ron lifted the girl over his shoulder.

As he carried her along he could feel her breasts and the agonized pounding of her heart against his neck. “Mine! Mine,” he shouted in triumph as he passed other raiders intent upon their work. And it seemed to him that his smile must have resembled a leering, grinning skull.

The raid was in its final stages now. A horn had been sounded from the space ship and the raiders were streaming back toward the meadow.

Some with live loot—others who had to be content with inanimate plunder—and some with empty hands.

But back they went because life, after all, was the dearest thing, and to be left behind meant certain death.

Ron lagged behind the streaming mob, snarling at the envious, empty-handed raiders. He allowed them to pass him by as he swung in a circle toward the comparative gloom of the bushes. With only a few raiders left to board the waiting ship, Ron set the girl on her feet, held her erect when she would have slipped down in heap.

“Run,” he gritted in her ear. “Off that way into the darkness! For God’s sake—run!’‘ The stricken girl did not understand at first. Then she took a couple of faltering steps, tangled one foot in her torn nightgown, and went down, moaning.

Glancing desperately around, Ron yanked her to her feet. “Don’t you understand me? Run!” With a sweep of his hand he tore away the entangling night-gown, leaving her stark naked. He jammed the garment into her hands and whispered. “Put it on later, but get away from here!” He gave her sharp slap on her bare bottom and had the satisfaction of seeing her come to life and turn into a blurred white streak to disappear into the gloomy night.

Whirling around, Ron dived for the space-ship where only one ramp was still down. He scrambled up the ramp and got inside just as the door swung to and thudded into the heavy rubber jambs, leaving a smooth, unmarred surface on the outer shell of the ship.

Two Venusians pushed him aside and locked the inner door. Ron turned away quickly, hiding his face as much as possible, but it was evident the Venusians were paying him no attention. He hurried up the inner ramp, faced now with the first important hurdle of the assignment.

He was impersonating a genuine Earth renegade. His papers were in order, but that renegade had not been aboard this ship at the start of its journey. For all Intelligence knew, its previous seven agents may have been spotted for what they were immediately upon boarding the raider’s space-ships. The trip to Venus was something more than a suburban jaunt and while there was probably no check made until the ship reached its port, a masquerader could be turned up by the men themselves.

Associations were made on a trip of this sort. Men made friends with other men and were known. An unknown man would be a subject for investigation.

RON HAD a plan to at least partially overcome this danger.

From a foreknowledge, he knew the customs followed on such occasions as this. He knew the men were not allowed access to their booty during the flight back to Venus; at least not to the live booty.

The captive women were segregated in a separate compartment to be turned over to the soldiers upon arrival.

This forestalled possible fights and dead-struggles over the prizes en route.

It also allowed the officers much pleasure at their leisure. Things happened to the more desirable captives on the trip back-things. Ron didn’t dare think about.

And too the soldiers themselves were segregated in small groups for the better handling thereof. Although it was not mandatory, the men congregated with their own kind. Martians, usually traveled with Martians.

The Venusians hung together and the Earth renegades, the most clannish of all, usually congregated by themselves.

So Ron had decided to avoid the Earthmen who would no doubt turn him up as an interloper, and select other companions for his trip to Venusia.

He picked the most vicious of them all—the black-tailed Venusian warriors themselves. He followed a group of these into a compartment, tossed his harness on a bunk and prepared to snarl down any other claimant.

There were roughly twenty-five Venusians in the group, he estimated.

Also he saw one Martian and a single Plutonian. The Martian, his tusks still bloody from the raid, took the bunk next to Ron and sat down to wind a piece of dirty cloth around a small ankle-wound.

Ron stretched out in his bunk, closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. He had completed the first leg of his assignment. The ship was already in motion and soon there would be food for the victorious warriors.

Then the Venusians would pile into their bunks and put themselves into a dream-state, a drug-induced stupor, for which purpose each Venusian carried a small bag of dried leaves from the Jadic bush—that evil, red vegetation which could be found only in the stifling Venusian jungles.

I wonder if I’ll ever get there? Ron thought. I wonder how soon some alert officer will spot me?

I wonder how long I’ll live?

When he finally went to sleep it was with the feeling that he would be yanked at any minute from his bunk and made to face a blinding light, while voices barked questions into his ears and heavy fists maimed him for not answering.

But he slept on and awakened to find food on the table. The Martian and the Plutonian were seated at the table. They’d just finished eating and were conversing in some outer planet language unfamiliar to Ron.

At the other end of the table a single Venusian was gnawing on a leg of beef, cracking the bone with his strong teeth to get at the marrow inside. As Ron watched, the Venusian growled to himself and returned to his bunk.

Ron got up and went to the table.

The two from alien planets stopped talking and eyed him with hostility.

He ignored them, filled a plate and satisfied his appetite.

JUST AS he was finishing his meal, the door opened and a Venusian entered. The man wore the distinctive harness of a high-ranking officer. He walked straight to the table and stood looking down at Ron. He remained silent as Ron tensed his muscles for what appeared to be a payoff.

So this was what had happened to the other Intelligence men. Spotted even before they left Earth; they had each been jetted away to quick death in high space.

But the Venusian officer remained silent and made no motion toward Ron. He stood for a full minute staring down at Ron. Then he grinned a knowing, wolfish grin—and went out as he had come.

Reaction set in and Ron felt suddenly weak. The Martian and the Plutonian, who had sat silent, their eyes on the tableau, now returned to their conversation. Ron got up from the table and went back to his bunk.

The episode left him bewildered.

What lay behind it? He could have sworn the Venusian officer knew him for what he was. Yet the man had gone calmly about his business. Was it a cat and mouse game? Knowing they had Ron helpless, were they toying with him? Ron was inclined to doubt this. It wasn’t the way Venusians did business. One thing was certain to Ron, however. He would never reach Venusia alive.

At least a dozen times during the trip, Ron was clinically—but silently inspected by men from the officers’ quarters. Each time he prepared for the end and was set to do battle. But each time nothing transpired in the way of action. It was a bewildering thing and wore his nerves to raw edges. By the time the ship was ready to set down in its home berth he was as tense as a steel wire.

But again, nothing happened. He quitted the ship and mixed with the boisterous raiders in the bull-pen prior to numbering off. No one, apparently, was paying him any attention whatever.

Now was the time, he decided. Certainly he wasn’t going to stand around waiting for death. He moved casually toward a ramp, expecting, any moment, to be apprehended or shot down in his tracks.

No one barred his way. He achieved the enclosure beyond the ramp and mixed in with the Venusian citizens who were there to welcome the raiders home and feast their eyes on the white captives who would soon be led from the ship.

Ron moved through the crowd and toward the exit. He found no one there to bar his way, and drifted out into the street. Now he increased his pace and quick elation surged through him. Apparently it had all been his imagination!

Then he discovered the two Venusians on his trail and realized the reverse was true. He had been spotted.

He was definitely known as an Intelligence agent.

But what was the game? This question entered his mind after he had spent an hour moving around the city and knew, beyond doubt, the men were following him. Did they expect him to lead them to someone? If so, to whom?

He debated the wisdom of attempting to elude them at this point or to wait for a more favorable opportunity.

If he tried to get away from them and failed, they might arrest him then and there.

Mulling this question over in his mind, he found himself passing a sidewalk cafe on the first tier of a busy street. He dropped into a chair and saw his two spotters immediately stop and lean casually against a wall some fifty yards away.

When the waiter came, Ron ordered a bottle of Bizant liquor and drank a full glass without stopping. He had not slept well on the trip in from Earth, nor had had much of an appetite and the liquor tightened his already raw nerves.

His whole being writhed for action.

He was tired of the cat-and-mouse game. As a result of the liquor, he had a mighty urge to end this thing for good and all.

In short, he stopped thinking like an Intelligence agent, and when the blue Mercurian came along, dragging the white Earth-girl by a rope, Ron had to fight with himself as he’d never fought before. His liquor-heated rage flared brightly and he gripped the table-edge with both hands until his knuckles were white.

He sat with his teeth locked tight together as he watched the two Venusian soldiers paw the girl with obscene gestures. He waited for the explosion that didn’t come.

Then, as the trouble passed over, and the blue Mercurian jerked cruelly at the rope, Ron lost his battle. He was out of his chair like a projectile.

The hell with the assignment! The hell with everything. He had to twist off the arrogant head of that blue Mercurian or go completely berserk.

He heard a voice—his own—yelling, “You turtle-faced son-of-a-bitch! Leggo that rope!” as he dived straight at the blue man.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER II

TANTON’S greatest asset was a sixth sense which was uncanny in warning the blue Mercurian of danger. The moment he had set foot on Venusian soil, this sense rang a signal bell-told him point-blank that he was being watched.

Possessed of the azure, shell-skin of all Mercurians, he was incapable of facial expression, but his round eyes searched every face in the vicinity and finally settled upon two Venusian idlers in civilian garb who were lounging nearby in entirely too casual a manner. Had Tanton been capable of smiling, he would have done so now. What stupid ass had put these two dolts on his trail?

As he shuffled away from the Earth-raiding space ship after it had set down in its home port with its warriors and their booty, his mind went swiftly to work.

Starting with the knowledge that he was being watched, he began reasoning—building from that fact alone. First, it was obvious that he’d been spotted for what he was—an Earth Intelligence Agent. Therefore, his presence on the space-ship was known even before he left Earth with the raiders.

Armed with this knowledge, he moved into line with the raiders who were waiting to be numbered off before having their loot returned to them, and was struck by the fact that the two Venusians made no move to collar him. This gave him something more to build upon.

Obviously they had been told to watch him rather than to make an arrest. With this thought in view, he moved casually out of the line and drifted toward the gate of the enclosure, certain that no one would detain him.

The two Secret Service men drifted also toward the gate and followed Tanton up the street. Tanton, moving casually, and with no apparent destination, made it very easy for them.

He avoided crowded streets and wandered up into the second tier of the city and stood for a time gazing up at the vast glass dome which covered Venusia. This dome, one of the greatest architectural feats in history, covered twenty-five square miles and shut out the vast heat of the flaming sun, thus turning Venusia into an air-conditioned city. Tanton gawked up at it like the most naive tourist, keeping careful sight on his spotters the while.

Absolutely certain of his facts now, he returned to the first tier, had a leisurely dinner, and then moved off toward a certain intersection at the west end of the city. He knew exactly where he was going, although he certainly did not appear to.

So, when he was quite ready, he shook off the two Secret Service men by the execution of one quick maneuver, redoubled his pace, and went straight to an ancient stone building where he found a door; a door cleverly camouflaged with dust, debris, and apparent disuse.

He knocked on the door, his knock a staccato of taps, obviously in code.

Then he lounged against the wall and awaited results.

Ten years prior to this time, he had gone through exactly the same movements and now—as then—the results were identical. After five minutes, a small window opened in the door-panel and a red, hostile eye peered out.

“I’m Tanton,” the agent said. “I want to see the princess.”

These words he had also used ten years before and now the same, hideous misshapen creature drew back the panel and croaked that he should enter.

WITHIN, Tanton found a small room, lit by a dusty levon tube which, barring deliberate or accidental damage, would burn forever. The incredibly filthy one-eyed creature who acted as door-keeper apparently recognized Tanton—acted in fact, as though ten years was hardly longer than ten minutes. The thing held out a scaly hand and gave with what was intended to be a grin. “One creda,” it mouthed. “One creda for food.”

Tanton laid a silver coin—a three creda piece—into the hand and was rewarded with a frenzied little dance as the creature showed its appreciation.

As Tanton crossed the room and went down a flight of stairs into the murky levels below, the creature was still registering happiness.

Tanton moved swiftly, entirely sure of himself. He was in a tunnel now, which stretched off into the distance, illuminated at irregular intervals by levon tubes, and with other tunnels giving off it every few hundred feet.

This was the famed Undercity of Venusia, a tunneled and catacombed area of unmapped crypts and death traps with a history so gory as to make even the Casbah of olden times pale into positive respectability.

Here, like slavering rats in the darkness, lived the vermin that had been rejected by the greater body of vermin exiled from Earth. In these passages dwelt the absolute dregs of the universe. Even members of Darrien’s intrepid Secret Police had been known to resign rather than pursue a criminal into these deadly labyrinths.

A complete shadow-government was known to exist down here. The King of the Undercity was reputed to be a four-armed freak named Tza-Necros from the planetoids, where evolution sometimes went wild and produced all manner of fantastic animal forms. This monster, possessed of a fine brain in his repulsive cask of a head, had created the shadow-empire himself and stood out successfully against even the ruthless Darrien who was said to have recoiled in horror at accounts of what went on in the Undercity. Twice Darrien had attempted to clean out the foul nest, too strong even for his stomach, and as a result, several thousand of his men now lay rotting in the dark tunnels below.

Tanton, however, seemed entirely at home. He moved with a sure step from one passage to another. He walked with zam-gun in hand and coldly alert when coming abreast of a cross-passage or to a place where the tunnel ceiling vaulted away and left room for balconies giving on the tunnel itself.

He was entirely conscious of the hungry eyes that followed his progress but he found that no creature barred his way.

The passages were taking him ever downward and it seemed, finally, that he must be at least a mile under the first tier of the city above him. Then he stopped abruptly, examined a wall on his right, and tapped it sharply with the butt of his zam-gun. He waited for ten minutes, after which time, the routine at the first entrance, high above, was repeated, and again Tanton said;

“I want to see the Princess.”

There was no hesitancy on the part of this doorkeeper, a young Plutonian with a zam-gun of his own clutched in his fin-like hand.

The room inside was cleaner this time, and furnished with deeply upholstered chairs and a thick white yang-skin rug.

THE AGENT stepped inside, showing no hesitancy nor even a ghost of caution. “Tell the Princess Tanton is here. Make it quick or I’ll strip off your hide and push it down your throat.”

This was evidently language the young guard understood, because, with a surly growl, he pocketed his gun and went out through another door.

A few moments later he returned, and Tanton was ushered through the inner door.

There was the sound of tinkling fountains, the music of rippling water, an artificial sky of lazy blue with white clouds floating by. A pathway of yellow brick led off through this amazing paradise, winding through rows of palm trees and banks of carefully tended flowers.

Tanton hesitated for a moment and then a voice called out to him: “Here Tanton—over here.”

The blue Mercurian moved in that direction and came to a fem-rimmed pool out of which there arose a golden flame of a girl, completely naked, to stand on tip-toe in the lush grass and shake water from her long blonde hair.

Tanton sat down on a marble bench close by. As a sign of friendship, he removed his harness and dropped it in the grass.

“It’s been a long time, Tanton,”

the girl said. “Throw me the towel there, and my robe.”

Tanton picked up both articles and carried them to the girl. He stood by while she dried her brown body and slipped into a robe of fluffy gold-flecked material.

“You’re in trouble of course,” the girl said, laughing, “or you wouldn’t have come.”

“I’m in trouble—yes—but that’s got nothing to do with it. Your callousness wounds me.”

She laughed again as they made their way back to the bench. Tanton sat down and the girl dropped into the grass at his feet and sat looking up at him. “Tell me the news. What goes on on Earth and around the Universe?”

“He still keeps you cut off from things then?”

For a moment her mask of gaiety slipped and Tanton could see the bleak unhappiness underneath. He had met this girl, long years before, in a New York cafe. She’d been a dancer then and when this paradise in the heart of Venusia’s Undercity had been offered her—with certain strings attached—she’d taken it in lieu of a more strenuous life on Earth.

Margot had not changed one iota through the years. This, however, did not surprise Tanton. Rather, he’d have been surprised to find signs of age, what with Margot’s access to the youth hormones developed in Kordo’s Martian laboratories.

“Yes,” the girl said, “I’m trapped here, but he’s good to me. He’s kept his end of the bargain and I’ve kept mine.” She smiled and waved a hand in the direction of the pool and the glittering apartments beyond the garden.

“What other girl has had what I’ve had? I live in the most beautiful place in the Universe. My every wish is granted. I have fifty people to fulfill my slightest whim. I’m the luckiest girl ever born.”

“You’re trying hard to convince yourself of that, aren’t you?” Tanton said. Margot dropped her eyes and Tanton went on: “Can anything compensate for the ordeals you go through with that four-armed monstrosity from the planetoids?”

MARGOT laid a hand on Tanton’s armored knee. Her eyes were still downcast. “Tza-Necros is good to me,” she said. But she could not hide the hopelessness in her voice.

“If it wasn’t for him I’d be an ancient hag by now. I was over a hundred years old when I stopped counting.

He got the hormones for me that give me eternal youth. I have complete mastery here in my buried Eden. He gives me what other girls only dream of having and all he asks in return is my—love.’‘

“He hasn’t got your love and he knows it. All he asks is your body.”

Margot raised her head in a flare of defiance. “Well—isn’t that little enough?”

Tanton put a hand under her chin and kept her from again lowering her head. He stared into her lovely face until she cast her eyes down. “Why don’t you stop trying to kid an old friend,” he said softly.

“It’s his body, isn’t it?” she whispered glancing down at her golden torso. “He’s kept it young.”

“Stop it!”

The girl held her poise for a few more moments. Then it cracked and she flung herself down to bury her face in Tanton’s harness and burst into a frenzy of weeping.

Tanton sat motionless watching her. Possibly a little pity was mirrored in his round eyes, but more probably not. Tanton came of a realistic race and was not given to emotion.

When her sobs had diminished, he reached down and lifted her to the bench and sat her down beside him.

“That’s better,” he said. “You’ve been a lot of things in your lifetime, Margot, but never a hypocrite. Now stop the blubbering and tell me about it.”

She looked at him—dry-eyed now—her face oddly expressionless.

“Damn you to hell-fire,” she said, dully. “May God spit in your stupid eyes. I should have you killed and use your skull for a flower-pot. But—I can’t.”

“Of course you can’t. One doesn’t kill old friends. Besides, my skull would poison the flowers. Tell me„ how long have you felt this way?

How long have you been fed up?”

There was utter hopelessness in her voice. “I’ve always hated it, but for the last five years it’s been horrible.

I can’t seem to steel myself against it any more. Those—those four hairy arms—that slavering mouth!” She lowered her head into her hands for a moment, then raised her head and there was a hard smile on her face.

“Sorry. I’m trapped here and there’s no escape. But tell me about yourself. What news of the outside world?”

But Tanton’s mind was not on world-events. He had no inclination whatever to turn himself into a walking newspaper. Instead, the wily Mercurian was evolving plans of his own.

Already, his brain was busy building a ladder of intrigue and double-dealing up which he could climb to his objective—the destruction of Darrien’s ray-projector. He was no lily-white crusader, this Mercurian. He had learned his business in a hard school and it wasn’t by chance that he was one of the cleverest agents in Earth’s employ. His one saving grace was utter loyalty to whatever cause he served. His reason for serving a cause was entirely a selfish one—for example he was an Earth Intelligence agent because it was the most lucrative proposition he could find for his peculiar talents.

Nor was there any high-mindedness in the loyalty he gave after casting his lot with a particular group. It was simply a matter of common-sense and good business.

An untrustworthy agent would soon find himself out of a job, whereas a loyal one increased his reputation and, it followed, his monetary value.

SO NOW, with a structure of intrigue forming in his mind, he laid his first groundwork. “Have you ever taken a lover?” he asked. “Some man a trifle more palatable than our four-armed friend?”

Margot shook her head. “No. I’ve lived up to my part of the bargain.

It’s the last shred of decency left to me.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,”

Tanton said. “Any man in Venusia would sell his soul for two hours with you.”

“That may be true,” Margot said without ostentation, “but it makes no difference.”

“If you’d be a little more reasonable, I think I could get you out of here. Back to earth where you’d be safe from Tza-Necros.”

The shot, fired at the girl when her guard was down, brought quick blood. She grasped Tanton’s hand.

“You—you could get me out?” In her eyes was wild entreaty. Then she caught herself and her shoulders drooped. “You talk foolishness , my friend.”

“You should know me better than that. I don’t babble for the sake of hearing my own voice. I said I could get you out and I can—safely.”

“But what would my taking a lover have to do with it?”

Tanton did not answer for a moment.

His mind raced up the line of Darrien’s bully boys until he came to Lars Valcan, head of the grim and bloody Secret Service. This branch of officialdom was vested with the duty of counteracting espionage and ferreting out dissenters in very form.

Also with the protection of government installations. Beyond doubt Valcan would know the location of the ray-projector.

“Would you be willing to spend a half hour with Lars Valcan?” Tanton asked. “That is if I could in turn promise you safe passage back to Earth?”

“How would that help?”

“It’s merely a matter of enlisting powerful friends,” Tanton lied glibly. “Valcan wouldn’t help us for any amount of money. But for the privilege of holding you in his arms.

To be able to talk of it later—”

Margot, even in her degradation, had the grace to flush.

“In less than three months you could be walking the street’s of New York City,” Tanton said. “Riding across the good green land-breathing. Earth air and bathing in the blessed sunlight.”

Even then, Tanton knew he’d won.

Even before Margot said, “I’ll try it.” Then, even more bitterly. “I guess I’m desperate enough to try anything.”

Swiftly, Tanton followed up his advantage. “I’ll be back in three hours at the most,” he said. “Send orders to all entrances that I’m to be admitted no matter who is with me. And you be waiting in the garden.”

While talking, he had been snapping his harness on. Now he turned away and left as he had come, quitting the hidden paradise for the foul passages beyond. A short time later he was across the city, standing in front of a tall marble building which housed the offices of the Secret Police.

He was entirely alone, his spotters not having picked him up after his exit from the Undercity.

HE STRODE boldly up the well-worn steps and into the lobby where a young Venusian with a builtin scowl and a zam-gun on either hip barred his way.

“I want to see Lars Valcan,” he said. “Take me to him.”

“You must be as stupid as you look,” the Venusian snarled. “No one sees Lars Valcan—except maybe over the lip of a roasting pit.”

“I’ll see him. Tell him that Tanton, Intelligence agent from Earth wants an interview. And jump to it or you’ll fry on a griddle before sundown.”

The guard’s mouth dropped open.

Here was something utterly inconceivable. It couldn’t be a joke because jokes weren’t perpetrated within the walls of the Secret Police Building. Here all was grimness and stark reality. The guard walked slowly away, backwards, his eyes still on Tanton. The guard waved a hand and immediately four uniformed soldiers moved in from various locations about the lobby and formed a square around Tanton. The agent ignored them.

The guard backed up to a counter behind which two other officials were seated. He spoke to them in a low voice over his shoulder. They came close to the counter, leaned over, and the three held a hurried conference, after which one of the officials snapped a switch and spoke into a mouthpiece.

After a few moments he got up and came around into the lobby toward Tanton. “This way,” he said sharply.

With the four-man guard still in entourage, Tanton was escorted to a small room and placed before a visiplate.

There was a whining sound and the plate lit up to reveal a heavy-set, handsome Earthman seated at a desk. The man, frowning, remained silent.

“Greetings, Valcan,” Tanton said easily. “When your two spotters got careless and lost me, I felt slighted. I’m certainly more important than that. I came to make inquiries and, incidentally, to do you a service.”

The paths of these two had crossed before and Lars Valcan had no reason to love Tanton. But Tanton knew his man. He knew that Valcan, sure of his own position, would grant him an interview out of curiosity if nothing more. An interview was all Tanton asked.

“Send him up,” Valcan growled and the plate went dead.

Tanton entered Valcan’s office, threw his harness on the floor and took a chair beside the Secret Service Chief’s desk. He was as much at ease as he would have been in the office of his own chief on Earth.

“Even though I’m going to have you tortured to death,” Valcan said, “I’ve still got to admire your nerve—walking in here like this.”

“I said I was here to do you a service.”

Valcan smiled coldly. “How stupid do you think we are, Tanton? Let me tell you a little about yourself. You infiltrated into a party of our raiders near a small town in Maryland. You used the papers of a soldier, an Earthman, named Brad Wilcox who was captured on an earlier raid—”

“I threw the papers away before I boarded the space-ship,” Tanton cut in. “I knew a man of your caliber wouldn’t be fooled so easily.”

“Don’t interrupt me. Two men were put on you the moment you stepped on Venusian soil.”

“And they lost me two hours later.”

“Do you know why you weren’t picked up? Do you know why all the Earth Intelligence agents who came before you weren’t picked up until we were quite ready?”

“Of course. Darrien wants Earth to keep on sending agents until they run onto something. The S. S. lets them wander about as they please. It’s Darrien’s method of stalling for time. And do you know where I went after I shook off your spotters?”

“No,” Valcan growled.

“I went down into the Undercity to report to my boss—to deliver him some documents from New York.”

VALCAN showed genuine surprise.

“Your boss? I Are you trying to make me believe you’re working for Tza-Necros?”

“Of course I am, and I don’t care whether you believe it or not—you will later. I got stranded in New York on an assignment when Earth suspended all flights to Venus. I had to get back, so what better way was there than to sign up with Earth Intelligence in order to get a ride?”

Valcan was no fool but his brain was not in the same league with that of Tanton. He smiled coldly and asked the question Tanton was waiting for. “Why did you have to join Intelligence to board one of our ships? You’ve slipped up, my friend.”

“Your raids weren’t exactly broadcast beforehand,” Tanton answered, suavely. “Earth Intelligence was getting information on a few of your landings and I had to join up in order to locate one of your ships. Any fool should be able to figure that out.”

If Tanton had been capable of smiling, he’d have done so now at Valcan’s dark discomfiture. However, he allowed the Secret Service Chief no time for a reply.

“But that’s not important. The important thing is that I’ve got a proposition for you for Tza-Necros. The old boy’s scared stiff.”

Valcan was entirely disarmed by surprise and interest. “Tza-Necros? Scared of what?”

Calmly, Tanton threw his bombshell.

“That new death-ray Clanton invented. The one Darrien’s going to use to clean out every living thing in the Undercity. Tza-Necros bought some information about it from a professional informer and he’s in a panic. I understand Clanton can turn it into the underground tunnels and annihilate all life in twenty-four hours. That’s true isn’t it?”

Valcan was thinking fast but still the clever Mercurian agent was able to follow the process of that thinking almost as easily as though Valcan had put it into words.

Up to this point, Valcan had been wondering whether or not Tanton had been lying about not being an Earth-Intelligence agent. Now, so long as he had Tanton in his power, the point no longer mattered, It was overshadowed by the new information.

Granting that Tanton was working for Tza-Necros, it was both logical and possible that some sharp-witted informer had sold the Undercity dictator some silly rumors about the Clanton Space Mine. The secret was closely guarded and not one man in ten thousand knew the location, there in Venusia, of the ray-projector. But rumors got about and it was entirely possible the thing had been rumored as a device to clean out the Undercity.

On the strength of this, and by some somewhat faulty reasoning, Valcan decided Tanton was also in the dark as to the true nature of the device.

“You mentioned a proposition,”

Valcan said coldly.

Tanton chuckled inwardly. “He’ll give you a million credas in gold for the location of the ray projector.”

“ In other words, he takes me for a traitor.”

Tanton sighed. “I didn’t think you’d do it for mere gold,” he said, “and neither did Tza-Necros. So he’ll throw in Margot. That will give you an idea of how scared the old boy is.”

“Then Margot really exists?” The golden girl who lived in an Eden under Venusia, was in the realm of legend. Tales of her beauty and her ability to please her four-armed lord, were legion, but no one was sure she was other than the dream of some hopped-up story teller.

“Of course she exists. I’ve seen her myself. If you agree, I’m to take you down into the Undercity and show you the place Tza-Necros built for her down there. You can visit her down there or bring her out, which ever you choose.”

Sore temptation beset Valcan just as Tanton knew it would. Valcan’s reasoning ran thus. What did it matter if Tza-Necros knew the location of the ray-projector? Once he, Valcan, got the money and the fabulous Margot, he could see that Tza-Necros was acquainted with the true facts—that the projector in reality guarded Venusia from Earth’s space-ships, and thus also guarded Tza-Necros’ Undercity.

But Valcan brought himself up sharply. It was absurd; entirely absurd.

But then again—Margot. The golden legend of the Undercity. Valcan yearned for the prestige that would go with acquiring her for himself—from parading her in the smart eating and drinking places of Venusia.

But—

Abruptly, Valcan pressed a button on his desk. Three heavily armed guards entered the room. Valcan pointed at the blue Mercurian agent.

“Put him in a cell,” he snapped. “I’ll make out the execution orders for early tomorrow morning.”

Tanton was lead away, and at that moment his faith in his own powers fell to zero.

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All that stood between Earth and final destruction was a creature from Mercury which no one trusted—

CHAPTER I

A BLUE Mercurian, arrogance in every line of his shell-covered body, was leading a white Earth-girl up the street. The Earth-girl was practically naked. She walked with head bent, shoulders drooping—a creature without hope. The rope around her slender waist, by which the Mercurian hauled her along, had raised a cruel, circular abrasion on her otherwise smooth brown skin.

The girl stumbled, and the Mercurian jerked ruthlessly at the rope just as a pair of Darrien’s black-tailed Venusian fighters paused in passing to grin and lay lascivious hands upon the girl’s body.

The Mercurian snarled and yanked the girl away. “Mine!” he spat, and laid a hand on the zam-gun at his belt. He pushed the girl behind him and faced the two Venusians, ready to kill or be killed in defense of his rare prize.

Ordinarily there would have been quick death here—either one Mercurian spilling out his green blood on the walk, or two Venusians stiff in death, their black tails twitching and snapping. The Venusians, who considered themselves the aristocrats of Darrien’s hideous army, had more than once taken loot from their fellow fighters from the other planets.

And this young virgin was a prize indeed.

But the Venusians were sated at the moment. Their bellies were full of raw flesh and warming Bizant liquor. So they laughed and moved on, much to the Mercurian’s surprise.

Seated at a cafe table nearby, Ron Kratnick was fighting with himself as he had never fought before; battling to hold his fury in check; striving to keep from leaping forward to tear the Mercurian’s dome-shaped head from his shoulders. Bright in Ron’s senses was the vision of what was going to happen to this girl. Apparently fresh from Earth, probably from America, she had no doubt been taken in one of the rapier-like raids of Darrien’s forces and, according to the code of Darrien, she was fair loot of the blue Mercurian soldier.

Ron Kratnick writhed inwardly as he thought of Darrien, that archfiend of the universe; thought of the man’s devilish cleverness in discovering the one thing which would make his interplanetary army fight like tigers possessed—the promise of Earth-women as their own property, to be used as they saw fit. The girl, beyond doubt, would be better off dead.

But Ron held himself in by conjuring up the words of Blake Wentworth, Chief of Universal Intelligence:

“You’ll see some terrible things on Venus, Kratnick. Things done to our women and to captive soldiers that will make your blood boil and well-nigh unseat your reason.

Your ability to control yourself will be the mark of your success or failure. When you see a girl raped or even tortured, you’ve got to remember that you can do nothing for her—that your allegiance lies with the millions here on Earth—that your success will mean salvation for them. When you get to Venus, you’ve got to ignore everything except your prime objective.”

“And what is that objective?” Ron had asked. He’d been called, completely unbriefed, from an assignment in Africa, and had come to Chicago with no idea whatever as to what his orders would contain.

BLAKE WENTWORTH, a highly capable, but sorely harassed Intelligence Chief, had smiled bitterly.

“I’ll come to that, but first, let me give you the background.” Wentworth’s smile twisted into deeper bitterness as he snatched a cigarette from the tray on his desk. “Most of it you know, of course, so we’ll just call it blowing off steam on my part. A man’s got to sound off once in a while, or the stuff piles up inside him and cracks him up.”

“I understand, sir.”

“To a certain extent, maybe, but you can’t know how I feel. You can’t know that because you haven’t been in the saddle—taking the abuse for the mistakes made by others.”

There was sympathy in Ron’s smile. “I’m a good listener, sir.”

“The trouble with this planet, Kratnick, is that they were too cocky. The chosen people and all that silly rot. It came on gradually of course. With the most advanced brains in the universe we naturally were the superiors of the barbaric peoples we found on other planets. Our technical know-how was such that we had no trouble controlling them. And as time went on we considered ourselves as the paternal lords of the universe. The High Council members got up off their fat lard buckets and spouted off about how the blue Mercurians and the Venusians and the Martians loved us and looked to us for guidance.”

This was evidently a subject close to Wentworth’s spleen because he mashed his cigarette into a tray and his eyes blazed. “Loved us! Any fool with half an eye could see they hated our guts, envied us our advancements and drooled down their tusks at thoughts of getting us by the throats.”

Ron had said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. Wentworth scowled at his subordinate much as though he considered it his blame and then went on;

“Then we came up with that foul scheme for getting rid of our own trash and scum. Send them to Venus! Take our mobsters and degenerates and murderers and foist them off on the Venusians, and if the Venusians didn’t like it—the hell with them! I remember when a pompous ass of a hypocrite named Lanson made the suggestion in the High Council. I can remember his very words!”

Wentworth had unconsciously burlesqued the voice and attitude of a typical well-fed politician: “Fellow citizens, why should the sweet air of earth be polluted by the breath of such as these? Let’s send them to consort with their own kind, the savages in the red jungles of Venus. Let that steaming red planet fulfill the destiny for which it was created—let it be our penal colony.”

The Intelligence Chief had stopped for lack of breath and Ron felt called upon to say something. “That was quite a while ago. I was just a kid then.”

“Yes and I was still a young man when that groundwork for today’s hellishness was laid. But I was in the Service when Darrien reared his rotten head and had to be dealt with.”

“That I remember clearly,” Ron said. “It was a big issue in the press. After his two attempts to overthrow the government I remember there was a great public clamor for his execution.”

“I was a part of that clamor,”

Wentworth replied grimly. “I went before a Council committee and testified that regardless of Darrien’s general rottenness, he had one of the greatest brains of all time; that by sending him to the penal colony of Venusia, we were sewing the seeds of our own possible destruction.”

“But they sent him there anyhow.”

WENTWORTH’S mood had changed from one of fire to one of moody defeat. “That’s right. My words meant nothing and the Council went along with the sob-sisters and the so-called humanitarians. As a result, we lighted a time-bomb that’s going off now. Darrien went to work immediately. Because certain men are criminals it doesn’t follow that they have no brains. Darrien combed the cesspools of the universe and came up with brains by the bucketful. In ten years he built a war machine that has us with our backs to the wall. He built the most ferocious army ever conceived by the simple process of offering his soldiers our women as prizes.”

It had been Ron’s turn to frown.

‘’But, sir, we aren’t exactly helpless. We have four space fleets, any one of which is capable of blowing Venusia out into the void. I’m just an agent and I don’t know what goes on on the inside, but I know that’s what the public’s howling about. They want to know why we haven’t done just that—blown Darrien’s rat’s-nest to Kingdom Come. Your talk of our having our backs to the wall surprises me. I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“And neither does the public,”

Wentworth said grimly. “They blame the Council for not stopping the Earth-raids of Darrien’s space-ships. That’s impossible unless we destroy Venusia.”

“Then why don’t we?”

“Because we can’t.”

It was equivalent to saying a man couldn’t slap a fly on his own wrist.

Ron allowed his expression to mirror surprise but he said nothing. Wentworth lit another cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke out through his nose. He then asked;

“Did you ever hear of the Clanton Space Mine?”

Ron shook his head and Wentworth smiled without humor. “If you had,” Wentworth said, “it would mean a leak in Intelligence. Very few people know about it. If the information got out, there’d be panic in the streets.”

He punched a button on his desk.

A door opened at the far end of the room and a young man entered. The young man had about him, the impersonal air of the scientist. He crossed the room and stood by Wentworth’s desk, staring at the Chief through calm, impersonal eyes. Wentworth closed his own eyes, evidently from sheer weariness.

“This is Corbett,” he said. “One of our brilliant young brains. Corbett, tell this man about the Clanton Space Mine.”

While Wentworth appeared to sleep, the young scientist turned to Ron and spoke in a flat voice as though he were reading his words off a sheet of paper:

“The Clanton Space Mine can be compared, for the sake of understanding its function, to the explosive land mines used in ancient wars to blow up a road over which the enemy was passing. It is used for exactly the same purpose relative to a ship passing through a given area of space. It is an entirely invisible and unregisterable—”

Ron held up a hand. “What do you mean by unregisterable?”

“That its presence cannot be detected by any instruments—at least by any instruments we have been able to devise.”

“I see.”

“This mine consists of a ray and was discovered by Andrew Clanton—”

WENTWORTH was evidently not asleep because he waved an impatient hand without opening his eyes and said, “The hell with that. Everybody knows Clanton is a scaly-legged genius Darrien picked up in a Martian booze house. Tell him how they use the mine.”

The youth went on: “To the best of our knowledge, the ray emanates from a central power plant located in the city of Venusia. It is projected so that it forms an umbrella over the city and about seven hundred square miles surrounding it. Functionally, this ray umbrella explodes any missile, lethal or otherwise, which comes down into its area of effectiveness.

That area, so far as we can ascertain, has a depth of about a mile and lies about two hundred miles above the city and surrounding jungles.”

“Remember that, Kratnick,” Wentworth said, still without opening his eyes. “Seven good men died getting us the information.”

There was a moment of silence, after which Wentworth said, “All right.

Tell him the rest.”

“We know also that there are entrances-tunnels so to speak, through this umbrella—uncontaminated passages in space through which Darrien’s ship can enter and exit safely.”

“But,” Wentworth cut in, “we don’t know where they are.”

“Is that all, sir?” the young scientist asked. Wentworth nodded and then Corbett left the room.

“You know the score now, Kratnick,”

Wentworth said. “You know why Darrien’s been holding us helpless.

If we can’t get through that umbrella with a bombardment squadron, these raids will continue until Earth is in panic and Darrien has recruited enough emboldened fighters from other planets to come down and annihilate us.”

“I see why you call the situation serious,” Ron said grimly. “What are my orders?”

“They’re pretty much equivalent to suicide. I want you to go in and locate that projection plant and put it out of commission.”

“Might I ask why I was picked for the job?”

“On your record.” Wentworth hesitated, then spoke with an added grimness in his voice. “You’re entitled to the truth, Kratnick. I told you seven men had already died in the project. They were all good, but that number includes Tanton, the Mercurian. I banked heavily on him but he’s been gone for over four months now, and we’re giving him up for dead. Anything Tanton couldn’t crack is—well, almost impossible.’‘ Ron was genuinely shocked upon hearing this news. Tanton I The blue Mercurian had been practically a legend among the men of Intelligence.

A master of over fifty languages, a graduate of Cambridge and the Harvard University of Advanced Theoretics, he was an unsurpassed nuclear physicist, a recognized composer and—this above all—an incurable adventurer.

Why, it was an honor even to be considered for a project on which the great Tanton had failed!

“And there were six others beside Tanton?”

“Our best men right up the line.

Three Earthmen, a Martian, and two Plutonians. It’s practically a certainty they’re all dead. Probably died in agony after being tortured. You may refuse the assignment if you wish.”

“How do I get through the umbrella?”

“As a member of a Venusian raiding party. At times we get information as to where a raiding party intends to strike. Not very often but when we do, we use that information pretty grimly—we allow the raid to be made and use it to plant an agent in Venusia.”

RON HAD understood instantly and his stomach tightened in protest at the seeming callousness.

Darrien’s forces were allowed to make off with a number of Earthlings in order that Intelligence could make a stab at winning this grim struggle.

The unfortunates who were captured became hapless pawns in a game that was for keeps—a game where the stakes ran into the millions of lives.

“I know what you’re thinking,”

Wentworth said. “I know it seems treacherous and rotten, but in this business you’ve got to weigh all the evils and condone the lightest in order to smash the heaviest.”

“I understand,” Ron said.

“The Raiders come in lots of about five hundred—usually only one ship—and are a mixture from every planet. Fortunately for us, Darrien has recruited a battalion of Earthmen-renegade exiles from our slums and cesspools. We’ve managed to capture a few of these and when the raid is staged, you’re to infiltrate into the marauders. If necessary in order to carry it off-snatch yourself a woman captive and take her back to Venusia.”

“I’ll be entirely upon my own of course.”

“Entirely. One of our space fleets is patrolling continuously off Venusia.

We’ll give you their wave length and you’re to notify them if you succeed in destroying the projector.”

Wentworth got to his feet and held out his hand. “And I promise you,”

he said grimly, “if you can do it, there’ll be a big hole in Venus immediately thereafter.”

“I’ll try my best, sir,” Ron said, and shook Wentworth’s hand. He had left, terribly sorry for this man who had to sit at a desk with the weight of the whole terrible affair on his shoulders; this man who perhaps saw in his dreams the faces of Earthlings sacrificed in a plan he himself had had to devise.

“Good luck, Kratnick,” Wentworth said.

“Thank you, sir,” Ron replied.

Crouched in some bushes two nights later on the outskirts of a small town in Iowa, Ron had listened to the chirping of crickets in a nearby swamp and searched the dark skies for signs of a space-ship. He was clad in the tight gray britches and red tunic of Darrien’s Earthmen Brigade. He wore the leather harness which distinguished those renegades, and he carried a zam-gun on his hip.

In a supply packet at his belt were papers-genuine enough—identifying him as Louis Diehl, a young St. Louis embezzler who had been exiled to Venusia, had returned as one of Darrien’s raiders, and was now safely put away in the cell blocks in Chicago.

Ron also wore, on his tunic, the tiny, almost imperceptible blue stitching which would identify him for what he was to any agent he chanced to meet.

But I won’t meet any, he had told himself. They’re all dead and I’m the eighth in line.

The red tail of a space-ship appeared in the sky. Ron crouched in the bushes and thought of Tanton.

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What would you do if you suddenly “awoke” to find you remembered nothing except that you were a murderess in a strange body?

PART 4

FOR an instant the pressure from This terrible hands increased, then the awful grasp relaxed and he stumbled back, reeling, numbed into complete confusion by the revelation of her sex.

With nerveless hands she massaged her throat, gasping and choking. As her breath returned, she saw that he had stumbled back over a big leather hassock and was sitting on it, still staring at her bared bosom. With some impish impulse to complete his discomfiture, she stood erect, tugged off the blond wig, shook off the jacket and shirt, ripped off the mustache, then spread her arms wide and made quite she he knew she was not Haber. She had grown to hate the thought of that name.

“Now perhaps you will let me ex plain myself, Mr. ... whatever your name is.” She stopped as a new realization struck her. “You must be Kyle Renison, the inventor of the Hammer!”

He shook his head like a swimmer coming up from a dive. “Well, for the love of Hannah! The coxcomb is a woman! And I never knew ...”

Irritated at his stupidity, she rapped out: “Wake up, you silly jackass! I am not Haber. I was never Haber. I never hope to be Haber. I don’t know my own name, but it is certainly not Clare Haber. If you will come to your senses, I’ll try to tell you what I know—what little there is to tell that makes sense.”

“And such a damned pretty woman too.”

She slipped on the shirt, ignoring him for a moment. But she did not snap the tight band in place again. She slid down onto the divan, the weariness sweeping over her in waves. Stumblingly her voice began her account, and as she spoke, memory was seeping back into her being, so that even her own voice held wonderment as it went on.

“Up to this minute I didn’t know who—or what—the Hornet was. My mind is numb, like a limb long unused, but I think it will get better quickly. I only know that I was dancing, somewhere, when he—it came. I can vaguely remember a glittering mist, a strange vibration, humming electrically. It hovered over me, settled about me, entered into me. Since then I remember nothing.

“But today I suddenly found my self in a strange room, standing shivering beside a strange bath of blue liquid and an electrical web of wires. I had apparently been in the bath, been shocked by some energy that had gone wrong. I knew that I had nearly been killed. I was standing naked, as barren of memory as a new-born babe. I didn’t know my name, didn’t recognize my body, did not even know the use of the various things about me. Apparently my clothes were beside the bath. They fit me, they were a man’s clothes, and they were obviously a disguise my body used regularly. I didn’t know how the weapon in my holster worked. I knew only that I was alive, was a female, and spoke in a man’s voice.

“I put on the clothes because it seemed that it was the natural thing to do. My hands went through motions evidently practiced, but totally new to my mind. Outside the door of that room a voice, identical with mine, urged me to hurry. Finally dressed, I went into that room and found ... him!” She shuddered at the recollection.

“Even then I had the eerie feeling he wasn’t human. Then began a confusion in my mind that hasn’t. cleared up yet. He said he’d been me, that I was Sue, and also Clare Haber, that Clare Haber was dead—”

Kyle tensed. “Dead!” he said. “Who killed him?”

Sue’s face grew pale. She faced him, lifted her chin. “I suppose I did,” she said. “In fact, I know I did, while the Hornet had possession of my body!”

He glared at her, his fists clenching and unclenching, but he made no move to get up from the hassock. “Go on,” he said hoarsely. “You are being very interesting, but I warn you, unbelievable.”

“How can I expect you to believe,” she murmured in horror, “when I myself cannot bring myself to believe what my memory is beginning to tell me? If I am to believe that, I have killed many men, poisoning them while I charmed them with my body...”

She slumped down and put her face in her hands, and sobs of terror shook her shoulders as the memories flooded in. But he remained seated, impassive, still staring at her with complete unbelief written on his face.

She went on: “I have not really been alive. It seems that I have been waiting, like a soul in a grave, waiting for life to start again. And now that it has, I cannot remember who I was. I remember a name, yes. I was Sue Tenet, I believe I am Sue Tenet. But who was she. I can tell you nothing more about me.

“But I can tell you two things important to you. One, the Hornet is not a human being, but some alien creature of pure force. Two, the Hornet means to destroy human rule here, and use the people of these three worlds for his own purposes.”

Her voice stopped, and they sat looking at each other with a kind of mutual animosity; she angry at his unwillingness to accept the story she had told him, as expressed by his un believing face; he by what he considered her clumsy effort to lie to him.

“All right,” she flared at him. “Believe what you will—but the least you can do as a gentleman is get me that drink you promised me!”

He flushed, got to his feet. “I need one myself,” he said briefly, going to pour it. He returned in a moment carrying a brimming glass with a square of ice tinkling in it. She sipped the liquid, her eyes watering with the sting of it. In a moment she felt the glow of the liquor in her stomach, her blood began to flow normally again, and her trembling nerves relaxed.

“HOW did you get here?” he asked. “Might as well embellish the story. If you’re telling anything of the truth, you’ll be consistent. If you talk long enough with out tripping yourself up ...”

“How can I be consistent when I can’t even be sure of my name?” she snapped. “But I came here on a sea-sled, and to the street where you found me in an air-cab ...”

“Some one shot at me from a sea sled this afternoon!” he interrupted suddenly.

“I was on the sea-sled that shot at you,” she continued, her mind fumbling blindly, wishing instantly she hadn’t said it. The anger began to flush his cheeks again, and he put his glass down abruptly, and his fingers twitched. She went on hurriedly. “With the man who was waiting for me to finish that strange electrical bath—he called it a vi-eng...”

He snorted, sardonically. “If you were taking a vi-eng bath, you needn’t act so innocent ...”

“Why? What does it do?”

“Do?” He stared at her, flushed again. “Never mind what it does ... if you don’t know, which you should, having been in one!”

“I told you I don’t remember any thing prior to finding myself standing beside it.”

“Go on,” he said. “Say that enough times, and I’ll begin to believe it.”

“The man outside my room seemed to think he might not have control of my mind, be able as before to command absolute obedience. So he seemed to be testing me. Because I was in such mental confusion, I pretended to agree with everything he said. I was desperate for any clue that would tell me what I was, where I was, and who he was, and so on. To test me, he said, we were to go on a sea-sled somewhere and kill a man named Kyle Renison, inventor of something he called the Hammer. I didn’t know what the Hammer was until he used it. He had it right in the sea-sled.”

“For a woman who wants to live, you aren’t telling a very sensible story,” he reminded her. “But maybe you’re not so dumb at that ...”

“You mean, if the lie is big enough...”

“Something like that. But so far, in the matter of the sea-sled and the attempt on my life, you’re strictly on the side of truth. For that reason alone, I’d be willing to believe you. Another is the stories I’ve heard of the Hornet. You have come closest to making sense out of them.”

“Telling the truth to you is dangerous,” she said. “Maybe if I went on, you’d kill me anyway.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t kill women.”

She felt of her throat and murmured, “My throat will be sore for weeks.”

He laughed suddenly. “Case of mistaken identity,” he said.

She laughed too, then picked up the blond wig. Unable to repress a shudder, she thrust it into his hands. Her voice took on a harsh note of horror. “All right, then. That, I’m sure, is the scalp of Clare Haber. The mustache I was wearing is also his. I suspect that I poisoned him, that I scalped him, that I tanned the skin, and that I practiced for months to pass myself off for him and when I did it, I was the Hornet. Now, with that horrible lie, you may want to kill me, woman or no! Oh, if it only was a lie!” Suddenly she broke down, and once more her shoulders shook with the horror that was in her, and dry sobs of terror shook her.

Suddenly his arms were around her shoulders protectingly, and his deep voice rumbled in dismay. “Stop it,” he said. “Don’t say another word. Unless you can lie! I’ve had enough of the truth! Enough to believe you to the hilt.”

She relaxed, letting her hands sink down on the white fur. He released her awkwardly, and sat beside her, staring at her. He was so tall, beside her, that he looked down at her. “Forgive me,” she said. “I’m just so scared ...”

“How’d you get away from the Hornet?” he asked suddenly.

She showed him the little shocker. “With this. I just pressed it against him in the air-cab and pressed the trigger. Then I had the cabbie take him to an address on a card I found in his pocket. I said he’d had an epileptic fit, but that it wasn’t any thing serious, and that he’d be all

“Do you remember the address on the card?”

She shook her head. “I never even read it, except to note it was an address...”

“What was the number of the cab?”

“I don’t know that either.”

He exclaimed in vexation. “Just like all women!”

She looked up at him, almost in tears again. She put her hands to her smooth-shaven head, at which he was glaring from his height. “T—tell me,” she said pathetically, “is ... is a bald woman as attractive as one with hair on her head?”

For an instant he looked down at her in surprise, then suddenly he grinned. His big square teeth were surprisingly white in his tanned face. His expression told her all doubt of her had been removed. He looked at her head critically. “If you want my personal reaction, it’s a damned intriguing innovation. But I hate to think of the stubble when you let it grow again! Ugh!”

She rubbed her hand over the smooth scalp in alarm. “It hasn’t begun to grow yet?” she asked. “I could have it depilated ...”

“Why?”

“I... I didn’t like the sound of that ‘ugh’,” she said lowly.

He laughed, then turned serious, his eyes on hers showing an intimate new acceptance she found very pleasant. “We don’t have time for this! That fiendish friend of yours is liable to recover from his shock “treatment and set out to do some of the things you were supposed to help with. By the way, what were they outside of killing me?”

She told him all the Hornet had said to her in the air-cab. He whistled. “He really means business, doesn’t he! We’ve got to stop him!” He got up, stood before her, thinking.

“How can you stop a thing like that?” she asked faintly.

He snorted. “I don’t believe he is a ‘thing.’ I think this invisible creature is a delusion, born of the shock of the vi-eng unit short circuiting. I think when you learn the truth, you’ll find you worked for a gang of murderers and cutthroats under threats. I could have your friend picked up, if I hadn’t thrown up my commission this afternoon. I’m sorry now, but what’s done is done. I can’t turn back ...”

She asked, “Why not? Changing your mind is legal, isn’t it?”

He looked at her, as if plunged into deep thought by her words. A thought struck her, too, and she trembled. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “But if this Hornet memory I have is a delusion, I’m mad! If I’m mad, I’ve been a tool of a gang, someway, and can’t remember what has happened. If I killed young Haber ...” her voice dropped into a hopeless resignation to an impossible situation. “If I am that kind of thing, I hope I never remember what really happened!”

He stared at her.

“I’m scared!” she said. “Very frightened. I could still be shot for having Haber’s clothes, for being a spy. I don’t want to be given the third degree for something I can’t even remember, which somebody else may, if it’s true. How could I deny it, even if I wanted to, if you’re right?”

His big voice became reassuring. “Don’t worry. You’ll not fall into Hannigan’s clumsy hands if I can help it. He’s our Chief of Intelligence and I’ve always felt distrust of him. Chiefly because of his stories of the Hornet, fantastic things, almost as fantastic as yours...” He stopped speaking and looked reflective, frowning slightly. He looked at her. “I don’t know ...” he began. Then abruptly he turned and switched on the visiphone against the wall. As he dialed a number, she got up suddenly, moved out of range of the pickup eye above the visiscreen.

ON the screen a whirl of rainbow colors showed the screens synchronizing. From the kaleidoscopic display a woman’s lovely face came into view suddenly. The lips moved, the machine said: “Kyle! My brother! I knew you couldn’t go through with it. We love you, Kyle! We were only trying to spare you unnecessary worry and strain...”

Kyle interrupted. “No time for that, Sis. Will you get over here right away? I’ve something important to show you. It will change the whole picture for us. Something damned important, Alfreya. Hurry!” He broke the connection.

Kyle picked up the blond scalp from the chair, handed it to Sue. “Prepare to receive visitors as Captain Clare Haber,” he said.

Sue put on the wig, shuddering as the cold, dead skin of the human wig touched her scalp. Her lips twisted into an involuntary grimace of horror as she faced the mirror, patting the grisly thing into place. Then she affixed the mustache, re moved her tunic, and rearranged her disarrayed blouse, careless of Kyle’s intent gaze beyond a slight reddening of her white neck. Swiftly she bound her full bosom into mannish appearance with the strap and replaced the jacket.

“I hope you don’t have to wear that much longer,” Kyle said. “I must admit that I like you as you really are much better. Now that I’ve got time to notice, I’m beginning to get impressed with your looks.”

“I wish I didn’t have them!” she said furiously.

“Why?” He looked at her with astonishment.

“That memory of mine—that remembers only so—little does remind me how many men have died because they noticed the same things you now do!” All at once she was on the verge of tears once more.

He leaped to her side, grasped her in his arms and shook her gently. “Here, enough of that. How can Captain Haber convince a woman he is a man, with tear-stained eyes?”

“It is necessary?”

He shrugged. “Maybe not. I hope we don’t have to use you as any further decoy. But how am I going to convince Alfreya of your story without first showing her something unusual?”

“Wouldn’t she believe you?”

“Me, yes. But I want her to believe you!”

She looked at him bleakly. “Again, is that necessary?”

He considered her a minute. “You’re sure in a black mood,” he said. “Look at it this way. You’ve won me over, and maybe we can do something to uncover the gang back of you. If it is a gang ... And in that event, you’ll be clear, I guarantee it. And if it is that fantastic soul-stealer, the Hornet, as you believe, it may be that the entire re sources of this planet may be able to do something about it. If it wasn’t for Hannigan’s fantastic reports of the past ...”

“Then you do believe my story, and not your theory of a gang who has used me as a hypnotized slave?”

He grimaced. “Against my common sense,” he said. “Maybe I’m being hypnotized too—by your beauty.”

She winced and he looked annoyed at his lack of tact.

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What would you do if you suddenly “awoke” to find you remembered nothing except that you were a murderess in a strange body?

PART 3

SUE could hardly listen to the low-pitched voice, so low that the cabbie behind the protective shield of the cabin could not overhear. Clare Haber was a dead man’s name, and she was wearing his shoes! A dead man’s shoes and she was supposed to know enough about him to act like him perfectly: With a chill she became aware of the blond wig against her skin. Haber’s own skin! And she had killed him herself! But no! It had been her mysterious alter ego. A shudder of nausea ran through her; her stomach knotted in complete refusal of the monstrous plans of this man.

He had pulled a little vial from his vest, similar to the one she had in her own pocket. “If you get a chance give Alfreya one of these. I’ll try for Rysto. Most of them will have to die later anyway. It could save us a lot of effort to get rid of them right now...”

She was thinking: whatever had brought her under this man’s sway in the past, she couldn’t go on! In her mental condition of confusion, she was sure to betray herself. As a spy she would automatically be convicted and executed. Her mouth opened to give an emphatic objection to the projects he seemed to accept as simple, natural deaths ... and the grim fact of that face of his warned her, closed her mouth. Suddenly she knew something else. It had been he whom she had been! But he thought she was still in his mental grasp, as her body had been before the strange bath had somehow chased him out. That meant ... She almost gave herself away as she stared at his expressionless face with new interest. The man beside her was not the man he’d been when he had been waiting for her to finish her bath! He was whatever it was that she had been before the bath. Then who was he? Or did it matter? He—she—it...it was all so confusing ... had decided to kill him already. Was he as good as dead now? There would be no electric bath to bring him back to his own body!

She couldn’t tell this monster the truth now. He would simply kill her and go on with his plans anyway. Maybe, if she played her role to its end, she could somehow circumvent his plans. Her own life meant nothing anyhow, if she could not remember more than her name.

The air-cab began to settle, and her arm jerked nervously from the mounting tension within her. The man looked at her sharply. “No time to have nerves, Sue. Rysto will ask what makes you nervous. He might suspect ...”

She shifted in her seat, leaning against him heavily. Unconsciously she found the little shocker snapping from its concealed pocket into her nerveless hand—it must have been habitual movement taking precedence over her conscious control, due to her confused state of mind. But now that it was in her hand, she pressed the flat nose of the little weapon to his neck, pressed the trigger.

The man stiffened with sudden, horrible jerks, an iron-hard series of muscular cramps passed over him, leaving him sitting there like a man turned to metal, quivering slightly. His agonized eyes rolled helplessly. He was as ugly a sight as she could stomach. She turned her eyes away from his face. Swiftly she went through his pockets transferring the contents to her own. She’d have to examine them at her leisure.

She leaned forward, touched the cabbie’s shoulder after pressing aside the little hinged window of plastic. Not trusting her voice to sound masculine, she pointed down to the streets sliding below. He nodded; the air-cab sank swiftly down. As it lit

softly on the green turf beside the walkway, her confidence came back, and gruffly she explained.

“My companion has had an epileptic attack. It’s a mild recurrent attack he has once in awhile, nothing serious. But it means I will have to change my plans. Will you take him to this address?” she handed the cabbie a card she had taken from the man’s pocket. She hadn’t the faintest idea whose address was on it, but it would serve to get him out of the way.

She hesitated, fumbling with the green credit notes in her breeches pocket. She had no idea of the value of the notes, or what the cabbie expected. She peeled off two, handed them to the man without glancing at them. He looked startled, but she kept her eyes away from his, knowing she had overpaid him, not knowing what to do about it. Perhaps, if she seemed to have made a mistake, his cupidity ...

The man put the bills in his coat pocket, saying hurriedly: “Sure, officer, I’ll tend to your friend. Don’t worry about a thing...”

She stepped from the cab and he lifted it out of sight so quickly she knew he was afraid she’d discover the mistake she’d made in the amount she’d given him. Those credits must represent a lot of buying power. Not like ... her mind fumbled with a vague memory of another roll of bills, comparatively worthless, and of ex changing them for a tiny basket of food. But the memory faded before she could pin down the details,

She turned away, starting off with a brisk stride. Suddenly she realized her hips were swaying. How tell-tale the motion must look! She stiffened, paused, started over with a military heel and toe action, some dull memory repeating tonelessly in her mind: “... a little more pigeon-toed, not such short steps ...”

A tall, uniformed figure loomed suddenly from the gathering dark. A heavy hand gripped her staggeringly by the shoulder. “You ingrate! What did you mean by taking off without a word to me? You knew bloody well it was my invention!”

SUE looked at the heavy, muscled throat, her eyes somehow refusing to rise higher. She forced them up, up to the big, ruddy and angry face, handsome as the Devil, with heavy golden eyebrows shading the deep-set green-blue eyes. It was a face with flushed and angry cheeks that she knew was usually kindly, a face she could want to see very much.

She couldn’t stand the strain any more. Inadvertently she put out a shaking hand to his arm to support her quivering knees. He looked such an honest, reliable sort, even if he was angry, even if his eyes did bore into hers as if he hated the sight of her. She found herself muttering, whispering, words tumbling over each other desperately. “I’ve got to talk to someone; you’ll have to do. I know you’re my friend; and I’m sick, I need you. Can we go somewhere for a drink? I need a drink ... what is this place?”

The big blond face lost its flush of anger, a sudden sympathy struggling to replace it. Concern spread over the big-boned features and a huge hand gripped her hard.

“What’s happened to your voice, man? You sound like you’ve been through Hell! Don’t tell me any thing could happen to take the ginger out of Clare Haber? I never knew you to have any emotions but a thirst for anything to vary your fare of excitement. Sure, I’ll buy you a drink, just to find out what you did with the Hammer!”

“I know what happened to the Hammer,” muttered Sue. “But I don’t know how it happened. I don’t even know my own name, for sure. I’ll tell you all about it, but get me under cover. I’m scared ...”

The big man kept his grasp on her arm, piloted her along at a rapid pace, talking.

“I’ll take you to my quarters over on the square. We can be alone there, and it’s only a half-block away. No one’ll notice us in this gloom. The lights aren’t on yet.”

Sue said no more until they had reached the sanctuary of the officer’s quarters. It was a huge single dwelling. She wondered idly what he did to make use of so much space. As he let her in to the front door, the question was explained, for the whole first floor was taken up with a clutter of gadgets and machinery, mostly in a state of disassembly. Some of it was only half out of packing cases, the rest inexplicably dismembered and lying about in a jumble.

He led her through the maze without comment, seeming to think she knew all about the place, and up a flight of stairs to the second floor. Here she found a luxuriously furnished apartment, a man’s place with the skins of jaguars, leopards, the gray wolf of Wancir, and animals whose skins she had never seen before, littering the floor in lieu of rugs, thrown over big chairs, tacked on the walls. It was evident, even without considering the racks of rifles and other antique arms over the wide fireplace, that this man was an inveterate hunter and collector of fire arms of all kinds. She could only guess at what the insane assembly of apparatus on the lower floor meant in his pursuits, unless he was a gadget collector whose efforts were aimed at having one of everything the mind of man had ever produced.

THE big man closed the door, put I his back to it. Sue walked across the fur-littered floor, sank weakly into the depths of a huge divan covered with a great white fur of what animal she did not know. The weakness left her limbs after a long moment, during which the officer just stood there, his back against the door, watching her without expression. Then he paced across the room, swung about, paced back again, his big hands clenching as if some intense thought gave him pain.

“Why did you do it, Clare? I gave them the Hammer, and they, and you, sell me out without a word!

The three people on earth I love and trust, and they betray me!”

Sue looked at him blankly. Her lip quivered, her mind weary of puzzles. She felt the tears on her eye lashes and surprised in her vague mist of thought a strong desire to be a woman, to be glad she was a woman and could leave her troubles to some man to solve.

Slowly her lips moved, against a powerful fear impulse, and she managed to say: “I’m not. Clare Haber! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

With her hands still trembling a little, she fumbled a cigarette from “the plastic box on the table, managed to light it. Not until then did she glance up to see what impression her announcement had made on him.

He was standing there glaring at her like a crazy man. The words came out in a torrent—angry, hurt words. “I’ve been through a lot to day, Clare. I can’t stand any jokes right now! I want to know what you’ve done with the Hammer, and I don’t want any damned jests! I’ve just given Rysto my sword. I’m through with Lansea for good. But before I leave the planet, I want to know what you three are up to, and why you betrayed me? I might want to enlist with the Hornet myself! He might at least give be a square deal. That’s more than Rysto gave me!”

Sue blew a ring of smoke from the cigarette toward him, smiled slightly at his somehow very boyish and appealing attitude. She was more her self now, the stranger’s confused mental attitude steadied her. She was aware that her own thoughts were less clouded with emotion than his, what there were of them. The fact gave her confidence. That and something the word Hornet had suggested.

“I’m not Haber, and I can tell you that you do not want to go to the Hornet. I just quit the Hornet my self, I hope permanently.”

The officer seemed goaded to greater fury by her calm. “You lie!” he snapped. “The Hornet is a fiction, a monster that doesn’t exist. If he does, he isn’t what some say he is.” He bent over her, gripped her shoulder until she nearly shrieked with the pain of his steel fingers. “You sold out the Hammer to the Hornet?” he said hoarsely. “The Hornet has the Hammer?”

She was unable to answer against the fear of his fury. He shook her, snarling.

“Your silence is an admission! You sold out to the Hornet, and you dare to come to me as a friend! Haber, I’m going to kill you! With these two hands I’m going to choke the life out of you, here and now!”

Desperately she tried to wriggle from his grasp. Why did this thing keep getting out of hand? All she had to do was tell him who she was ... but she didn’t even know for sure.

The big hands closed about her throat, she felt the crushing force. Only one thing could save her—prove she wasn’t—

Clare Haber, the man whose hair and mustache she wore. Weakly she tore at her jacket and loosened the mannish shirt, then, with a convulsive effort, she threw herself back, spread the jacket wide.

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What would you do if you suddenly “awoke” to find you remembered nothing except that you were a murderess in a strange body?

PART 2

KYLE RENISON, taking his walk along the seawall of Kingsend, watched the sea-sled windmill down, circle, land on the long, soft swells of the bay. Some silly stranger who didn’t know it was dangerous to monkey around the seawall here near the palace. The mid-afternoon express flyer was due to zoom out of the underground hangars, through the big sea-gate and take off across those same swells! The air-wash alone would overturn the sea-sled. If the rockets didn’t burn them to death, the racket they made would scare them out of their wits. There was nothing he could do, he realized. If he waved, they would probably pull in closer to see what he wanted. Perhaps they’d move aside, now they’d landed ...

But they were scudding in closer, skipping from wave to wave, coming fast, right toward him. The man was monkeying with a small black mechanical device. It reminded him of his secret model of the Hammer! But that was a silly notion; the invention was safe in the Prince’s vaults under the palace behind him.

Quite suddenly Kyle decided it might be better to listen to his silly thoughts than to be dead. He turned and leaped from the top of the wall to the green sod twenty feet below, on the city side. He was out of sight of the pair on the sea-sled now, and he landed on all fours, scuttled along the bottom of the wall, straightening and running hard. His head twisted back to watch as he heard the familiar hiss and sudden blast. Impossible, but...

Three separate jagged bolts licked across the top of the wall he had just vacated. The light was blinding. The air crashed back together with a sullen, deafening thunder. Where he had stood as the man took aim was only a ten-foot smoking gap in the smashed seawall.

The Hammer was an excellent weapon!

Kyle, running hard toward the palace across the open lawn, realized that far better, now that his invention had been used against himself. But how had the model gotten out of the vaults and into a stranger’s hands? Somebody was going to get their ears burned! He had an idea he I would have to choose between telling the Prince what he thought of him and keeping his job.

Was the Prince trying to have him killed with his own invention? It didn’t make sense. Not Sten Rysto, the young ruler, his sister’s husband! But if not that, then what had happened to give the Hammer into an assassin’s hand? It wasn’t like Sten. He had known him all his life. It was out of character. Nevertheless, he had to know...

Swiftly he threaded his way through the under-corridors, up the wide, ornate stairs into the old palace itself. The Prince was probably closeted with some of his councilors, at this hour. Behind him he heard the roar of the express. Undoubtedly his would-be killers had departed, else be killed by the express. They had known where to find him, precisely; would know when the express was due...

AS he expected, he found the Prince with his five councilors and his wife. He strode angrily up to face the ruddy-cheeked, youthful scion of the old and noble Rysto line.

“What have you done with the Hammer?” he demanded, anger and shock making his voice hoarse.

The Prince looked surprised, and confused, “I meant to tell you today,” he said. “That’s why we were having this meeting.”

“You meant to tell me what?” Kyle’s voice became low and tense.

“I’ve arranged to finance our needed increase in armament. I sent Captain Haber—remember you asked what became of him?—to find out what he could raise on the sale of the Hammer. I sent him to the other side of Sirius, far enough that it is certain the thing will never be used against us. We should get enough out of it to stock our treasury as well as our arsenal for any eventuality that may arise.”

Kyle’s greatest fear was being realized, he understood swiftly. This youngster, who ruled in place of his superannuated father, the old King, had become over-ambitious. In possession of the Hammer, it had become possible to smash any resistance from his neighbors, change Lansea’s limited monarchy over subjects who could overthrow him any time the whim struck them, to an absolute empire over the three worlds. Why else would he want new armaments on such a vast scale? There was no “eventuality that might arise... !”

Kyle suddenly felt consuming anger. The Hammer was his own invention, a gift to his country. This smiling pipsqueak on the big chair behind the council table had no right to sell it without first consulting him! Kyle slowly removed the decorative small sword that marked his honorary rank as a Captain of the King’s Guard. He seldom wore uniform anyway, he found himself thinking as he flung the sword down across the table with a bang.

“I guess that does it, your Highness. You might as well know where I stand. I don’t like things I give to my country to be traded off without even consulting me. The Hammer was to be used only to protect Lansea and the three worlds, and for no other purpose. I didn’t want my work to be responsible for deaths through all the known universe. Now it will get into the hands of every would-be warlord, soon or late. Goodbye!”

As he turned away, he remembered what he had come for, turned back suddenly, his face still flaming with anger. “You have barely completed the sale of the Hammer, to a remote buyer, when, not fifteen minutes ago, somebody focused it on me from over the seawall. There’s a nice big gap where the next tide will inundate your lawn, Highness.” Kyle gave the title a sneering emphasis that brought a dark flush to the Prince’s already florid features.

The Prince leaped to his feet, his brown eyes amazed, his handsome face portraying mingled anger, embarrassment, confusion.

“Kyle! Captain—man! The Hammer isn’t sold yet! Haber only went to find out what it’s worth in trading credits. I meant all the time to discuss the matter with you before the deal was actually made, but I wanted figures and facts to show you, to overcome your objections. Clare Haber was a close friend of yours, would be the last man to betray you. If someone is using the Hammer, trying to kill you, it’s without the knowledge of either of us!”

Kyle’s disbelief showed on his face. He turned away, his heart heavy with a sense of betrayal that no words could dissipate. That weapon could have meant certain security and peace for Lansea. Instead it was already in the hands of murderers, was going to mean new wars across the galaxy as its use spread.

Only by harsh discipline and extreme care could they have kept its existence a secret. Yet, the ambitious young Prince, usurping his father’s powers, had flung it out into that whirlpool of greed, the crushing, warring rivalry of the big factory planets who owned the star-ships, exploiting and spoiling wherever they touched.

But before he could stalk angrily from the room, he saw his sister, Alfreya, moving to intercept him. His heart hurt even more, for she must have known! Her husband, the Prince, told her everything, usually. Yet she had not told Kyle what was afoot. This conspiracy against him of the two he trusted most gave him a deep nausea. He listened to her voice with difficulty.

“Kyle, wait! We didn’t tell you because we knew you’d object. We wanted to do the best thing for Lansea, for the people. There’s so much the traders can give us! We wanted to show you their offer before you refused the idea, and we didn’t want everyone knowing. We kept the secret, knowing it might hurt you, but waiting for Haber’s return. Only the Prince and I knew where he was going, or why. The fewer to know, the safer for all.”

Kyle thrust her aside with a slight push, went past her as if not recognizing her, not hearing her. He was about to make his way out of the room, but the picture of his sister’s face in his mind held him there, with his back to the ruler. His effort to hold his temper, to think clearly, brought the veins out on his temples, caused the muscles on his jaw—to quiver. He turned jerkily to the Prince.

“You could tell a woman your secrets, but not me! I only invented the Hammer. I’ve no right to decide what’s to be done with it. You’re not fooling me, Sten! You mean to have the traders equip you to take over the three planets under one rule, and that yours! You know I’d find a way to stand as a barrier, to thwart you. Well, have your damned war, butcher your neighbors, destroy the fifty years of peace on the three worlds! I hope you get your bellyful! I hope you stick to the advice of women, too. It’ll make your success certain. Goodbye, you would-be Emperor. You can start counting your enemies now with me as the first on the list!”

Renison, beside himself, turned a bitter face to his sister’s stricken countenance, standing beside him like a beautiful statue, her cheeks pale as death and her blue eyes full of hurt and held-back tears.

“As for you, Alfreya, you’ve worked against me for the last time. You’re no sister of mine! I’ll change my name! I hope I never have to look at you again.”

He took another long stride toward the big double doors, but Alfreya seized his arm, held him, her voice shaking with emotion. “You don’t understand, Kyle! You’re jumping to conclusions, and they’re as wrong as they can be. You just don’t know the circumstances. Hannigan said the Hornet would get the plans from the shops one way or another, sooner or later. This was the only way we could really make sure Lansea got adequate protection from the Hornet!”

Kyle laughed bitterly. “The Hornet, the Hornet! That bugaboo! He’s nothing but a ghost a tale with no substance. There’s no reality behind the things that attribute to his work. So Hannigan knows, too. But not me! Well, how would you like it if I looked up this alleged Hornet, and roused a Hornet’s nest around your ears? How would you like that, my so-called friends!”

He tore his arm from her grasp, wheeled, strode away. The Prince held out one hand in an ineffectual gesture,’ then called out: “When you cool off, Captain Renison, come back and get your sword! It will be waiting for you. I need you more than ever now! Haber is overdue...

But Captain Renison was gone, and his sword lay on the ornate royal council table. Beside it lay a medal the Prince had just had struck for him, but hadn’t time to bestow. It stated: “For services vital to the security of the sovereign state of Lansea the noble Captain Kyle Renison is given the rank of Baron and lands equal thereto, unto perpetuity.”

The Prince looked sadly at his queen, sister to the angry man whose scornful words still hung on the air like the smell of sulphur. The tears ran down her face unashamedly. One of the five bearded old men about the council table coughed, blew his nose loudly.

SUE TENET and her cruel-eyed companion in the sea-sled watched the big gap the beam weapon called the Hammer had knocked from the massive stonework of the seawall.

“He’s gone, damn the luck!” complained the man.

Sue wished she understood what was going on, where her sympathies should lie. She tried an indirect question: “You didn’t bring me along just to watch you practice ‘nocking holes in walls? So you missed him? So what?”

“So you’ll have to kill him later, my dear. He was a friend of Haber’s. Your get-up should gain his confidence long enough to ...” the man gave her a look which explained his meaning fully. The shivers ran down her back at the sudden venom in his glance, the cruel meaning, at the strange kind of vaunting evident in his bearing.

Shuddering inwardly at the matter-of-fact voice in which he announced that she herself would presently murder the man who had escaped, she considered it was no time to expose the fact she didn’t even know her role, or the name she was supposed to go by. It wasn’t Clare Haber, because Clare Haber was dead. Yet, strangely, she seemed to be Clare Haber. It was all so confusing... Whatever desperate game she had gotten embroiled in, she would get have to wait till the information came out spontaneously. She could guess what this hard-faced creature would do with a useless burden. Even the waves slapping the bottom of the sea-sled were ominous to hear, for she realized that if the man knew the situation, it was most probable that he would just push her overboard and forget her.

The sea-sled lifted from the water, settled a few minutes later into a lagoon where dozens of the things were parked in rows along the bank. They got out, the man gesturing to an air-cab cruising by overhead.

“You’ll have to attend the palace reception tonight, Sue, because Haber is already two days overdue, and we don’t want to arouse suspicion. You will carry off the impersonation perfectly. There’s no point in waiting. You might just as well step into Haber’s place now as later. It’s the only way we can make sure that there are no copies of plans for the Hammer lying around to escape our destruction. We’ve got to wipe out Renison and every bit of information about this weapon. Everything depends on it. We’ve worked too long to slip up on it now.”

So her name was Sue! Interesting, but it didn’t tell her a thing. Her memory was stirred no further. The man went on talking, and she brought her attention back with an effort.

“... closely, and I’ll brief you. I drop you off at the palace entrance. You walk in as if the place belonged to you. You’ll probably be taken at once to Rysto, and you will tell him that the model was approved by The Traders’ Board of Inspection, that the demonstration was successful. You know what the Prince expects from the Traders’ Interplanetary Bureau of Credit for the weapon. Tell him the model was seen by no one but the agent who approved the transaction, and the demonstration was seen by no one but the Board. Make sure he believes the deal was made exactly as he outlined it to Haber how much easier this would have been if I could have retained my original hold on your body! That damned bath...”

The man paused, looking at her questioningly.

“I’ve got all that,” murmured Sue, as if she’d heard it a dozen times before.

“Tell Rysto you are to take the complete data and plans and production details to the agent on Sair. He will turn in a requisition for the complete list of materials requested, which list has been gone over and approved. The agent is to give a receipt for their cost, marked paid...”

Sue looked out of the window of the air-cab at the peaceful city gliding beneath, wondering how long before the place fell before the efforts of such men as this one beside her. With divided attention she listened as his voice went on.

“The whole idea, Sue, is to get all the data they have in their hands, and leave. Bring the model away with you, say the agent asked for it. If you get a chance at the reception tonight, make an appointment with Renison. I doubt they could build another Hammer with Kyle Renison out of the way.” He laid emphasis on the last words.

Sue looked at him hating the sharp jaw, the arrogant beak like a curved sword bisecting his wide cheekbones, the thin, slightly smiling lips, the dark tongue that licked perpetually out like that of a lizard, the hard, black eyes that stared at her without a single emotion ever showing about them. She hated the wide muscular shoulders that gave the lie to the impression of ill-health conveyed by the lean, pallid face. It would be so easy to kill him when the chance presented itself, she thought again, without revulsion at the idea this time.

“The Prince will be glad to see Haber alive. Be sure not to betray your sex if he embraces you. He’s demonstrative and he liked the young officer. Haber was one man he trusted above all others. He knew him well. So don’t talk any more than you have to. Your voice is good, and I’ve made it almost a perfect imitation of Haber’s, just as my present voice is—key your ear to it.

“Also, there are rumors that young Haber had several lights-of-love among the palace ladies, high-placed women, wives of dignitaries who should have known better. If some body’s wife or daughter tries to invite you into her boudoir during the evening, plead illness or fatigue. Don’t be left alone with any woman longer than you can help. Their eyes are too sharp! Just keep circulating, and leave as soon as possible. I’ll be on hand to pull you out of any situation that might give you away.”

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What would you do if you suddenly “awoke” to find you remembered nothing except that you were a murderess in a strange body?

PART 1

SHE was nearly replete and restored, her nude body humming with vital energy, when the power pack blew. The wild surging of unpolarized electric power nearly killed her before she struggled out of the wet harness of fine metal webbing. Naked, she staggered across to the main switch, cut off the current that agitated the fluid in the tub to a mad froth.

She stood shivering, trying to collect her shattered mental bearings. But—the damage had been done. Somewhere in the infinitely complex neuron network of her brain an important connection had burned out under the sudden overload. She didn’t even know where she was!

She stared into the full-length mirror, beside which hung the freshly pressed uniform of a what?

Whatever rank she had held, she couldn’t recall it! Dazedly she sat down on the three-legged metal stool, fumbled with the objects lying on the low table before it. They had obviously been placed where she could see them during her... bath?

A strange bath that was! In a fluid not water, wearing an electrical metal harness that had robbed her of her identity! She looked blankly at the harness of woven wire and the full-length tub of blue fluid.

She picked up the objects on the table one by one: a ring, the green stone cut intaglio with a bafflingly familiar design—a stylized hornet; a small, gray, cloth-covered book which she opened. It contained her own handwriting; she made sure by using

the pencil attached by a tiny gold chain. Names, addresses scores of them. Men and women, and after each name was a little fleurs-de-lis, or a darkly penciled triangle. Running her eyes over the names, hoping her memory would catch some familiar hook to hang her identity upon, she sobbed in despair and terror. For all the names and addresses meant to her, they might as well be a list of A voice called from beyond the closed door: “Have you gone to sleep in that vi-eng unit? I’ve read every silly interview in this Telefan magazine. I’ve even memorized the recipes!”

It was a male voice, biting, impatient, a very dis-likable voice she decided. It would not be hard to kill him, when the chance presented. She sat there, studying the sudden impulse to kill in her mind, amazed at the intensity of it, increasingly aghast at the character of this strange person she had become who could calmly contemplate murder. For some reason, still beyond grasp of her memory, she knew she was going to kill that man waiting so impatiently! So, she was either a murderess or a would-be murderess!

Frantically she searched the blank pages of her numbed mind for other, similar thoughts. But for all she knew, she might have killed dozens of men! With growing horror she stared down at the names in the little gray book, suddenly grown ominous and heavy in her damp, chilled hand, They might be names of victims or of victims-to-be, or both!

She stood up, examining herself sharply in the long mirror. She called out: “Be with you in a minute or two—” as she stepped close to the glass, running her hands up over her sleek flanks, over her flat, clean stomach, touching her firm, round breasts. The long curves of her body were extremely beautiful, if too muscular. She could find no complaint with the care her unknown self had taken of her physique. Quite the reverse, she must be a very active, athletic sort of person.

Her face, a bewildered-eyed stranger’s face, was made particularly strange to her because the skull was smooth as an egg. The balanced neck, holding the small head so proudly and defiantly, as if facing peril had become a habit, told her she was a stubbornly courageous person. The full, wide-lipped mouth, the little scar on the high curve of the cheekbone. startled, she looked closer. There was no scar! The smooth planes of her pale cheeks ran unbroken by any blemish, up into the tiny dark points of almost invisible hair-roots.

Small ears, with long lobes pierced. She fingered the tiny holes idly. Strange they should be pierced. She was sure they had never been pierced still she knew the ears did not seem her own without ear-rings. It was confusing, trying to recall things, like trying to move a limb after amputation.

A good enough face, probably beautiful under the right circumstances. A woman could do a lot with that perfect cheek line, the delicious round point of the chin beneath the curve of sultry, generous lips. A nice mouth, a mouth that liked life and people and love... It told her too, that face couldn’t possibly belong to a murderess.

ABSENTLY she began to slip on the stockings that were not stockings, but a ballet dancer’s sheer, waist-length tights. Funny thing, a woman wearing a dancer’s tights for stockings. She must be a dancer-yet the rest of her clothing didn’t agree with that impression. The plain uniform skirt of burnt-orange with a blue side-stripe was not a skirt. It was a pair of breeches, and she found herself slipping them on with the ease of long habit. Her hand went automatically to the little, concealed pocket where a tiny shocker snuggled flatly, felt reassuringly of the fine chain that hung inside the waistband, by which she could pull the shocker into her hand without a fumble. The little thing would immobilize a man with one touch of the beam; a silent click and he would melt down into inert flesh. How did she know that and still not know why it was there?

The uniform blouse of gray looked too tight. Her breasts would never fit inside that. She held it up, found the breast-band inside which obviously was to compress her too obvious charms. She slipped it on, snapped the band tight around her bust.

A mannish tie completed the erasement of her most easily discerned difference from the opposite sex. The well-pressed jacket with the padded shoulders fit to perfection. The silver braid on the shoulder was meaningless to her, though she know it should tell her rank.

Bending forward, she rubbed her still damp scalp with a towel, then picked up the tiny, soft, blond wig. She slid it on with the ease of long practice, molded the edges into invisibility on her head with swift dabs of paste from a jar.

What in Heaven was she doing, making up like a man?

The little golden mustache was as difficult as false eye lashes, but no more so. It gave her a dashing, devil-may-care masculinity. She could love a man with a mustache like that! Suddenly she shuddered with revulsion. She had loved him!

That wig had been the human scalp of a man! The mustache itself was complete with the skin of a dead man underneath! A man it seemed she must have killed? Impossible! But the evidence was there; she did not have to tear the revolting scalp off and examine it. She knew!

“Clare” set the officer’s cap on the shining scalp of cropped golden hair with a sharp tap, just enough of an angle to be the real “Haber’s” rakish self, and her heart was turning over inside her knowing she had loved Haber, was now impersonating him. There was a horror and a fear in her with the knowing, but the curtain of her memory would lift no further.

Swiftly she pocketed the loose change lying there, the roll of green credits, the phial of transparent poison capsules, almost invisible in their terrible deadliness inside the little spring-top bottle. Just a touch, and one of the unseeable little deaths would slip into her palm. Deaths, each one could be! Probably would be, if she didn’t stop this creature she seemed to be.

With cold fingers she buckled the holster about her slim waist. Cautiously her hand touched the butt of the weapon. She drew it out, pondered the exquisite design on the silver butt plates, the mysterious double cylinder, the deadly looking muzzle. She hefted it gingerly, noting the perfect balance. It was an expensive, beautifully designed weapon. But what in the world was it? She’d never seen one before.

She stepped into the soft brown boots, tugged them up about her capable calves. Sue Tenet liked boots like that... Ah! There it was—her own name. But once more her memory balked. That was all. She knew her name, nothing else.

Disappointed, she turned for a last over-all inspection of her bewilderingly masculine regalia. Apparently she was a woman who habitually masqueraded as a man; she knew how so well!

Everything looked all right. She pocketed the little gray book and put on the strangely alien green ring. She walked to the door and opened it.

THE man on the chaise lounge dropped the magazine, stood up, buckled his own holster about a similarly uniformed waist. His voice was steady, a deep but cold monotone, and Sue noticed that his expression was a kind of vacuous, emotionless mask. She was unable to relate the new expression on his face with her past experience. She was lost in a daze of wonder, unable to remember why she was here. The man was saying in a voice vaguely and frighteningly familiar, like her own voice coming from another, a voice she knew she must obey, would obey, had obeyed since time began . . .

“We’re scheduled for an operation in fifteen minutes. I’ve hired a sea-sled for the job, one of those with helicopter blades for limited flying. Out next move must be to eliminate Kyle Renison. Do you understand?”

The man’s eyes glittered on her with a curious golden flickering in their black depths. She felt he was not at all sure of her, was only testing her out to determine her reactions and her obedience. She felt he must know she was different, but could not analyze why he should know anything had happened. She did not answer, her eyes refusing to linger on the singularly frightening face. She preceded him through the door and he locked it behind them.

As they moved down the corridor to the street, the man said: “You will obey me, just as before?”

Sue glanced at him. His voice had once been her own! More confused than ever, she replied with an involuntary reaction: “I will obey, Master, just as before.” Before what? Before the change in her bath! Before she had been he ... Before something of him had been her .. She reeled dizzily, trying to understand the complexities her memory was trying to thrust out at her, but so bafflingly as to be incomprehensible.

The man was nodding. “That is good. I was not sure your nature would still coincide with my will, now that I have been forced out of your body and into this revolting male’s. Obey, and I will reward you. I don’t understand the strange thing that occurred in your body in the vi-eng bath, or I would never have taken the bath. However, it shall change nothing.”

Inwardly Sue rebelled, her mind almost shouting: “That’s what you think, stranger! There’s been a change in me, never fear, and I understand it less than you, but when I do understand it...” Why was she so angry, so seemingly outraged? What imposition, so personal so intimate had he, no, it, made upon her? Inner mind raging, Sue walked calmly beside the man, schooling her appearance to acquiescence, her face registering only mild, unthinking acceptance.

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Step into a golden age of high adventure with Niall of the Far Travels, the ultimate Sword & Sorcery epic from legendary storyteller Gardner F. Fox (co-creator of DC’s The Flash and Hawkman). Masterfully crafted for the pages of Dragon Magazine, these thrilling tales are finally collected into one definitive volume.

Meet Niall: a towering, muscle-bound northern mercenary wandering a brutal world of decaying desert empires, ancient tomb-cities, and cosmic nightmares. Armed only with his wit and his lethal, cursed blade, Blood-drinker, Niall fights his way through a deadly gauntlet of sinister sorcerers, treacherous thieves, and extra-dimensional horrors that defy human reason.

Fox, a founding father of modern fantasy whose work directly inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, delivers pure, unadulterated pulp action. Every chapter reads like the ultimate tabletop campaign, bursting with relentless pacing, vivid world-building, and jaw-dropping supernatural encounters.

Perfect for fans of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, this is a masterclass in classic fantasy fiction. Draw your blade, brace your courage, and prepare to march alongside a true legend of the genre!

Buy eBooks & paperbacks directly from the official Gardner Francis Fox Library.

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Amazon Link to eBook & Audiobook

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SHADOW OF A DEMON

Chapter Three

Dead she lay, unmoving, with one arm flung limply over the edge of the altar, her eyes wide and staring upward at the low dome above that was marked with strange and alien signs and sigils. Her black hair was dark and wet, her skin the pallid hue of death itself. No! Even more! Her smooth skin was so white it almost hurt the eyes, as though every last drop of blood had been sucked from her flesh.

Niall glared about him, sword up and ready to thrust, to slay as Lylthia had been slain. Yet there was no foe, no enemy to cleave. It was quiet as a tomb, this charnel room, with only his own breathing to break the stillness.

His eyes went over that face, lovely even now in death. Her lips had lost their redness, her cheeks their tinting. But the traces of beauty lingered, and something inside the Sell-sword sorrowed to its sight. They had reaved her tattered leather tunic from her, her body was nude. As she had come into the world so she had gone from it.

“He’ll pay,” Niall whispered. “Somehow, I’ll find a way to make him pay.”

He touched her hand, squeezing the cold flesh just once, then moved on, past the altar to an iron-bound door that opened beyond it into another corridor. This passageway was lighted by torches at distant intervals, and as his eyes raked it, he saw that it was empty — or was it?

For as he walked he seemed almost to see a blackness in the darker shadows, a blackness that flitted ahead of him, that ran and curved and leaped, seemed almost to — beckon. Niall growled in his throat. He did not like such shadows, that went before him so enticingly.

He followed that shadow, dogged its fluttering steps, for the urge to slay Maylok was strong within him. He must pay the warlock with the same fate he had given little Lylthia. Nothing less would satisfy the barbaric urge to slay that rode him with his every heartbeat.

When he came to a curving stone staircase, he paused, but it seemed that the shadow was still before him, lifting an arm as if to urge him onward. With a grunt, the Sell-sword raced up those steps, his blade ready for instant use—

—and burst into a vast chamber.

He slid to a stop at sight of the lighted bowls about the room, at sight of the pentagram glistening red in blood, within which stood a tall man cowled in purple robe on which were stitched in golden threads the secret symbols of the demon worlds. Rigid stood the necromancer, his face pale and almost skull-like under the cowl that covered his head, a grim smile upon his thin, cruel mouth.

“Welcome, Niall of the Far Travelings. I have waited for you, even since you came through the land gate, two days hence.”

“You slew Lylthia. For that you die.”

Maylok chuckled. “Do I, Far-traveler? Behold!”

From beyond the blazing bowls men came rushing, big men in chain-mail and with swords and axes, maces and war-hammers in their hands. They rushed at Niall, and their weapons gleamed redly in the bowl-lights. Niall snarled and went to meet them.

This was why he had been born, to fight, to slay, to wield a sword as though it were a scythe of Death itself. Maybe he was allied to Death, for Death rode where Blood-drinker cut and slashed. With a roar, he fended off a blade and hewed his steel through a neck.

He was in the midst of his attackers, then, whirling, darting, dodging a blow from mace or ax, freeing Blood-drinker to this feast of flesh which had been provided for it. He did not fight as an ordinary man fights, with care and caution, as ready to ward off a blow as he might be to strike one.

Nay! When Niall fought, he sought only to kill. His eyes saw an opening, his arm controlled the sweep of his sword, and when that blade fell, it was already lifting to strike again.

Pantherish were his leaps, lion-like his bellowed challenges. Men fell away before the onslaught of his steel, men died where they faced him or backed away. Yet always the swords and maces hammered at him, though more often than not he avoided their blows.

From his eye-corners, he saw Maylok moving restlessly about the pentagram, crying out encouragement to his guards. Yet there was a palsied fear upon the wizard; never had he seen a man battle as Niall fought now, with a reckless disregard for his own safety, concerned only with slaying all those he could reach with that long blade.

More men rushed from behind the lighted bowls, they hemmed Niall in, they offered their flesh to his blade in order to bring him down. The flat of an ax took him across the side of his head, a mace thumped his sword-arm, numbing it.

When he had no more room to swing Blood-drinker, he -dropped it and clawed out his Onavian dagger and buried it in chest and throat and belly. His other hand he used to sink iron-strong fingers deep into throat-flesh and choke out life from the man he held.

Even his massive muscles tired, after more than three hours of such battling. There were dead men on the floor, and pools of their blood on which his war-boots slipped. Once more a mace thumped his arm, again the flat of a blade landed on his skull. He went to a knee, half-conscious, but still he fought. Not until hands caught his arms and held them and someone swung a war-hammer did he go down.

Half-dazed he lay there, held by bleeding, desperate men who panted and sobbed in their tiredness, seeing Maylok as through a rheumy veil approach, to stand above him.

“No man has ever fought like you, Far-traveler,” whispered the exultant wizard. “Your blood shall be a strong elixir in my vials and alembics. Take him below to the dungeons and chain him there against my need.”

They dragged and half-carried the still-struggling Niall out of the spell-chamber, down the worn steps and into the deep pits below the palace, where the stink of rotting flesh warred with the moans of men and women imprisoned here, kept for the torment and the blood-letting.

To huge chains inset in the stone walls they fastened Niall, his arms apart, so that they seemed almost to be torn from their sockets. He could stand only with difficulty, for those links suspended even his giant frame a little. And then they mocked him.

“The wizard will make you pay for what you’ve done,” one said with a grin, blood running down his gashed face.

“He’ll keep you alive a long time, torturing you from day to day, to test your ability to suffer.”

“I’ve known him to cook a man alive, over two weeks, burning a little of him at a time.”

“Another man he flayed over the period of a full month, to pay him for a slight.”

They hit him with their fists and kicked him with their boots, but he stood stoically, with his eyes wide and glaring. One man carried his dagger and Blood-drinker in his hands, and these he thrust into his scabbards with a mocking laugh.

“I’ll leave them here with you, but where you can’t reach them. So near and yet out of reach. It may add to your torment, having them so close yet unable to use them.”

They went away after a time and left him in the blackness where only a distant torch shed any light. His head drooped, he was feeling the cuts and slashes now, the batterings he had taken from mace and war-hammer. Pain was an agony along his flesh and veins, and a raging thirst dried his throat and tongue.

He tugged at the chains, but they were tight-set in stone, and massive. His arms were stretched to their fullest length so he could exert little or no strength. His legs were tired of standing, yet he could not sleep for the manacles about his thick wrists dug their steel into his flesh when he would have relaxed. He stared into the darkness and muttered curses beneath his breath.

He sought to doze but the rats came, gray monsters that stood on their hind legs and sought to bite his knees and thighs, bared above his war-boots These he kicked away, killing some by the force of those kicks, but they remained away for only a short time, being driven by starvation. He heard men scream, and women too, from somewhere off in these pits, and he knew that Maylok was supervising their torture.

His time for that would come, he supposed, and made a wry face. He did not mind a clean death, but torture was repugnant to him. Fury at the wizard burned inside him, and his body shook in his rage so that the chains rattled.

Something touched him, soft as thistledown, so that it seemed not so much a touching as a faint caress. And his tiredness welled up in him so that he hung in his chains and slept. No rats came now to nibble at him, he heard not the screams of dying men and women. Deep were his slumbers, and dreamless.

When he woke, he was refreshed. His wrists hurt him where the manacles had held his sagging body, but there was a renewed vitality in his great muscles and he stood defiantly, as though daring his captors to approach. He had no knowledge of the time, but that distant torch still glowed, though only fitfully, enabling him to see a little better around him.

Once more that thistledown softness touched him and now he glanced sideways, and his flesh crawled for a moment. The shadow was with him!

It was little more than a deeper darkness against the blackness of the dungeon, but he could make it out. Was this some fiend sent by Maylok to bring him some undreamed-of torment? But no. Or if it was, it did nothing but stare at him.

Niall stared back and now — but faintly — he could make out greenish eyes in that umbrageous shape. He shook himself, the chains rattled.

“What are you?” he rasped. “What?”

The shadow did not speak, but stretched out a slim arm at the end of which was a shadow-hand. And at the tips of slim fingers, greenish balls of fire began to glow.

His torture would begin now, the Far-traveler knew. Curse Maylok by all the eleven hells for —

The green balls touched a manacle, not his flesh.

And where the manacle had been was only — rusted powder. That powder fell away, the chain dropped and his mightily thewed left arm was free. Again those green balls moved, to touch the other manacle and Niall stepped away from the stone wall.

“My thanks,” he growled. “Whoever you are.”

The shadow danced before him as if to lead him away from the dungeon wall. Niall put hands to his sword-hilt and his dagger, lifting them half out of their scabbards, and then he went after that flitting shape.

It ran before him, dancing almost in its eagerness, luring him as once before it had beckoned him on. But there was a difference in the shadow-being now; it did not slink but cavorted, spiraled and swayed — more gracefully than any dancing girl he had ever seen. It reminded him almost of that dream he had had, in which Lylthia had danced for him.

The shadow moved and where it went, Niall followed. To a small chamber it led him, and touched the iron bars and locks of its vast oak door with the green balls at the tips of its fingers. Niall put a hand to those plankings and pushed the door inward.

Chests lay piled one atop the other here, with small coffers and caskets above and beside them. The shadow gestured and the Sell-sword lifted the cover of one and then another.

He saw diamonds piled high in one, emeralds in another, golden coins in yet a third. Again the shadow-being waved a hand and Niall filled his money pouch with jewels and golden coins until it overflowed. There were treasures here gathered during Maylok’s lifetime and the lifetimes of his father and grandfather, who had been famous sorcerers in their own right. He would have liked to take it all, but knew it was beyond his power to carry.

At the far door, the shadow waited, and finally Niall went with it, running after it as it picked up speed. Through winding passageways and up dusty stairways long forgotten did the shadow-being take him, until they came at last to a walled-up doorway.

With the green balls, the shadow touched those stones and the stones melted to run in molten slag down onto the floor. Beyond the opening thus made was a dark drapery. This, Niall pushed aside.

He stood on the rim of the necromantic chamber where Maylok could be seen through the smoke of the flaming bowls, head flung back and arms raised high, as he chanted in some Forgotten, phylogenetic tongue. He was not aware that Niall was in his necromantic chamber, he was engrossed in his incantation. The shadow danced forward, pointing to Maylok and gesturing the Sell-sword forward.

Niall went at the run, yanking out the Orravian dagger. He would not bother to use his blade on the wizard, deeming him not worth the trouble of lifting Blood-drinker. As he ran, the shadow went with him and now he felt again that thistledown softness of its touch, where it clasped his wrist.

Maylok whipped around, startled by the faint sound of war-boots on stone. His eyes opened wide, his lips parted to scream.

Then Niall was over the blood-wet pentagram and raising his dagger for the death stroke. But the shadow was ahead of him, reaching out with its dainty hands for Maylok and the wizard screamed indeed when he saw that graceful blackness reaching out to gather him into its embrace.

Niall could not move. He paused in mid-stroke, not wanting to harm the shadow — not even knowing if he could — but seeing that shadow now as that of a pretty girl.

“Lylthia,” he whispered.

“Not Lylthia, no. But once I was — yes,” hissed a voice. Laughter rang out, cruel and mirthless.

The palace swirled about Niall as he swayed drunkenly inside that pentagram, feeling feeling the floor shift under his war-boots, knowing a dizziness induced not by blow of weapon but by some demonaic spell. Faster the palace moved, faster, faster. He could not stand, but reeled and would have fallen but for the cool hand that caught and held him.

He stood in redness.

Beneath him the floor was of scarlet stone, faintly hot. Around him rose gargantuan walls of a brilliant carmine streaked with slashes of deepest ebony, on which were hung strange tapestries and golden vessels. Massive columns of black and vermilion rose upward toward a distant roof half-hidden by redly glowing mists.

A thin high squealing caught his ears. Maylok was groveling on the warm stone floor, beating at it with his fists and scratching with his nails. His purple cloak and cowl were already smoking, his body writhed as though he were in torment.

“Save me, Far-traveler,” he mewled. “Save me and my treasure is yours. All the jewels, all the gold that my forefathers and I have gathered together, shall all be yours. And I — Maylok the Mighty, the wisest wizard in the world, shall be your slave!”

Niall growled, “I ought to kill you, you foul slug.”

“Yes!” Maylok screamed, struggling upward to his knees and presenting his scrawny throat. “Slay me! Slay me and take my treasures. Only do me this favor, Niall of the Mighty Arms — kill me, kill me!”

Soft laughter floated through the vast room. It mocked and taunted and when it touched the necromancer he grovelled on the floor.

“Great Emelkartha — spare me,” he bleated.

“Too late for mercy, Maylok. Nah, nah. You pay the price.”

And Maylok screamed.

In the midst of that screaming, a woman came forward, clad in diaphanous robes of crimson streaked with jet through which Niall could see the flesh tints of her body. Long black hair floated down about her shoulders and her green eyes blazed with fury. On her full mouth was a cold, cruel smile.

“Lylthia,” he whispered.

The green eyes slid sideways from the cringing necromancer to touch the Sell-sword, and it seemed to him they softened. “Not Lylthia, no. Not any more. Know me, barbarian, for Emelkartha herself.”

Niall said boldly, “Too bad. I think I could have loved Lylthia.”

Her mouth lost its cruelty, grew softly amorous. “The woman part of me knows that, Niall of the Far Travelings, and — thanks you.

“At first I was angry with you for saving me from Maylok’s men. I wanted to be taken by them, to be drained of blood, so that I could become — a shadow being. Yet you did me a favor and for that I am not ungrateful.

“You could pass the pentagram. Not even I could do that, not as Lylthia nor as her shadow. Yet by touching you, your strength drew me along — to catch Maylok in my arms and bring him here to my eleven hells, as men name this domain over which I rule.”

She was silent and Niall scanned her features, finding them more beautiful than ever, with broad brow and tip-tilted nose and those full lips exerting a sensuous appeal that shook him to his marrow. He licked his lips. Old Thallia had been right. A demon-woman had carried him off the world and into her abode. He wondered if he would ever return.

The green eyes glanced at him slyly.

“Well, Niall? Would you stay with me and be my lover?”

He found himself nodding, and she smiled but shook her head. “Nah, nah, you may not — though a part of me would like to keep you here. This place is not made for — human flesh. It cannot endure the heat and mephitic vapors for very long — without pain.”

Maylok screeched and banged his head against the hot floor.

Emelkartha whispered and now eerie shapes to which Niall could not put a name ran from the walls to lay tentacles upon Maylok and lift him to his feet. He was sweating, gasping for breath, trembling as with the ague.

“You made a mock of me, magician,” whispered Emelkartha, and how her voice burned the eardrums with its rage. “For that you shall suffer. As you have made your fellow-man suffer, so now shall you, from the first to the last of my eleven hells. You shall be tortured to death, yet shall be reborn after each death so that you may suffer even worse torments. Eleven times shall you die, eleven times shall you be reborn, to begin anew — until the end of Time itself!”

Maylok screamed and screamed. His body contorted and twisted, but he was helpless in those rubbery tentacles that held him. In this manner he was dragged across that hot stone floor toward a distant doorway through which Niall could glimpse blazing fires and up-reaching flames.

They drew the wizard through the doorway.

For an instant he seemed to come to a dead stop, with his sandals digging in at the stone floor. Peal after peal of agonized fear burst from his throat when he saw what lay before him. Then he was gone and steam rose up to blot out the sight of what was being done to him.

The demon-woman looked at Niall inquiringly. “You do not approve,” she whispered. “Yet Maylok has sinned against the demon world for too long a time, holding us in thrall. Soon — he would have been too strong for me to act against him, for he intended summoning up mega-demons known to me who would have prevented my disposing of him. His incantations are incomplete, and so my world — and yours — is safe from him, forever.”

He nodded, he knew what wickednesses Maylok had done, of girls ravished and tormented, of brave men broken and tortured into mindless hulks, of treasures taken from rightful owners. Maylok deserved these eleven hells.

There was nothing he, Niall, could do about it, anyhow.

His eyes ran over her body, so much revealed in the black and scarlet transparencies she wore. He sighed, and with that sigh, the woman-demon floated closer, tilting up her head and lifting her bare arms.

Niall caught her in his embrace, held her a moment, and kissed her. He would never forget that kiss. It burned deep into him, seemed to lift him out of his flesh into another state of being where pleasure was almost unendurable. His arms held this lissome woman to him, and something inside him told him that no mortal woman could ever afterward affect him as did this one whom he had known as Lylthia.

“For now — farewell,” her voice whispered...

She was gone and he stood alone inside the pentagram in the palace of the doomed wizard. A cold wind was blowing through the building, that chilled and refreshed him. He shook himself, touching his sword-hilt for reassurance that he still lived, that he was back in his own world.

His heart still thudded with the excitement of that last embrace. Whatever else she was, Emelkartha was a woman, her mouth had whispered to him of indescribable delights in that kiss. He shook his head, telling himself that he had gained a rich treasure in the gold and diamonds in his money pouch, but had lost something worth much more.

“Lylthia,” he whispered as he walked through the forsaken halls of the ancient palace. “Lylthia...”

Would Emelkartha ever appear to him again — in human form? As — Lylthia? She had the power, certainly, being a woman-demon. But would she? He did not know, all he could do was hope.

He walked out into the gathering dawn and made his way to the wall-gate, unmolested. It was as if, with the wizard’s death, his servants had all fled away. Or — been destroyed.

A river breeze had sprung up. He moved along the street toward the Hyssop, which would carry him to Urgrik. Yet there was a sadness in him, despite the wealth in his pouch.

“Lylthia,” he whispered once again.

But the sea-wind caught the name and carried it away.

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Step into a golden age of high adventure with Niall of the Far Travels, the ultimate Sword & Sorcery epic from legendary storyteller Gardner F. Fox (co-creator of DC’s The Flash and Hawkman). Masterfully crafted for the pages of Dragon Magazine, these thrilling tales are finally collected into one definitive volume.

Meet Niall: a towering, muscle-bound northern mercenary wandering a brutal world of decaying desert empires, ancient tomb-cities, and cosmic nightmares. Armed only with his wit and his lethal, cursed blade, Blood-drinker, Niall fights his way through a deadly gauntlet of sinister sorcerers, treacherous thieves, and extra-dimensional horrors that defy human reason.

Fox, a founding father of modern fantasy whose work directly inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, delivers pure, unadulterated pulp action. Every chapter reads like the ultimate tabletop campaign, bursting with relentless pacing, vivid world-building, and jaw-dropping supernatural encounters.

Perfect for fans of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, this is a masterclass in classic fantasy fiction. Draw your blade, brace your courage, and prepare to march alongside a true legend of the genre!

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SHADOW OF A DEMON

Chapter Two

The tavern was warm and noisy, filled with seafarers of the Aztallic Sea, with wanderers from the western lands, with mercenary warriors and with women who plied their ancient trade between the tables, to sit where they were welcomed and join in the feasting and the drinking. A great hearth held a huge log that blazed with a sullen roar and threw a scarlet hue across those nearest it.

Niall pushed Lylthia onto a bench and waved an arm at a serving-maid.

“Thort steaks and Kallarian,” he ordered, then turned his attention to the girl. She was staring around her with wide eyes, almost as though she had never been in such a hospice before.

“So you seek vengeance on Maylok,” he murmured. “But why? What has Maylok done to you?”

The green eyes regarded him. “He has taken that which was mine. He has not offered to pay for it, nor will he.”

“What could you own that’s so valuable?”

Her leather tunic was stained and discolored, it hardly hid the swells of her breasts nor the lengths of her supple thighs. She was a poor girl, that much Niall would swear on the War-god’s sword.

She shrugged. “You would not understand.”

Something about those green eyes made him murmur, “If I can help you, I shall. Though I don’t fancy warlocks.”

She smiled suddenly, and those eyes lost their coldness. “I need no help. Though I thank you.”

Niall was not so sure that she could not use a blade like Blood-drinker to side her when she went hunting Maylok in his palace, and said so. “No man can take him by surprise, it’s rumored. He has set spells and cantraips on all the doors and windows so nothing can catch him unawares. At least, so I’ve been told. Only by his will can a man or a woman enter his stronghold.”

“That is true enough.”

“Yet you think you can gain revenge on him? Unarmed and — well, practically naked? Without coins with which to bribe a way in?”

“I need neither sword nor gold. Here’s your food. Eat it.”

Niall glanced at her in surprise. There had been an imperiousness in the way she had spoken that indicated she expected to be obeyed. It was almost as if she were a princess in disguise. Niall felt uneasy at that, he had no experience with people of royal blood. Serving maids and tavern wenches were more his familiars.

Still, he ate the savory meat, slicing it with his knife, using his fingers to wolf down the blood-dripping meat. He loaned his knife to Lylthia, watched how daintily she ate. He filled her leathern jack with wine, drank his own empty and then refilled it.

Lylthia drank sparingly, as if not quite trusting the Kallarian. There was suspicion in her, he knew; she expected him to take her into a bed and enjoy her body. Well, that was what he meant to do, all right; he didn’t blame her for eyeing him so watchfully.

By the War-god! She was a pretty thing. He liked her. And she had a body on her, he could tell that easily enough because of that scanty leather tunic. She would be fun when he got his arms around her. If she was enough fun, he would carry her to Urgrik.

An almost naked woman came into a cleared space and danced. Niall was torn between the dancer and watching the disdain that was so easy to read in Lylthia’s pretty face. As applause rang out and the girl sniffed, Niall leaned close to her.

“You can do better, I suppose?”

“I would drive you mad were I to dance for you.”

She said it calmly, but there was a ring of truth in her voice. Niall shifted uneasily on the bench. There was a mystery about this girl, he knew that much; she was not as other women he had met in his far travelings, willing to offer smiles and a soft body for a good meal and some glasses of wine, and a part of him regretted that. He thought of Lylthia in a warm bed with himself beside her, and stirred restlessly.

He asked, “Will you stay the night with me? It grows late, and Maylok may have other men searching the streets.”

She nodded. “I will stay with you.”

He paid for the meal with the last of his gold coins, accepting silver in change. Then he walked behind Lylthia’s swinging hips along the narrow stairway to the upper rooms.

There was a bed and a washstand in the room he selected, and a single window that looked out on the stars and the glittering ring of matter which wise men said was the remains of the moon which had circled this world once, and had been shattered many eons ago, to be caught and held by gravity in the sky. Niall unbuckled his sword-belt and hung it over the back of a chair, slipped out of his link-mail shirt and kicked off his war-boots

He lay down on the bed and beckoned to the girl. “Come here, Lylthia. I want to taste the sweetness of your mouth.”

To his surprise she walked toward him and sat on the edge of the bed. She leaned closer as if to kiss him, but his gaze was caught and held by her green eyes that seemed to swell and swell until they were all that existed in the room.

“Sleep, Niall of the Far Travels,” those eyes commanded. “Sleep!”

And Niall slept, and Niall dreamed.

He sat on a stone throne in his dream in a great hall, dark except where tall torches glowed in sconces, forming a pool of light in which Lylthia danced. Naked she danced, and her body was a pallid white and disturbingly sensual. She was all the lusts, all the sensuous dreams of man, every need he had for that which would satisfy his animal nature.

In that dream, Niall hungered for her flesh but he could not leave the stone throne which seemed almost to hold him back. His arms stretched out, he called to her to come to him. She was a dainty promise whispered in the ear, a shapely seduction with her white legs and quivering haunches. She turned and dipped, pranced and swirled, and always the need in him for her flesh grew more sharp.

Niall woke to the first pink rays of dawn, sitting up in bed and gasping. His dream was still strong upon him, his eyes went around the room hunting for the girl. She was not here, he was alone.

He shook himself as might a shaggy mountain bear roused from its winter sleep, Under his breath he muttered curses as he stumbled to the washbasin and poured cold water from the pitcher over his head. The water shocked him to full wakefulness and he lifted his head and stared out the window.

She was out there, in this city. He knew that. He thought he also knew where she had gone. He could not see Maylok’s palace but he would find her there. He reached for his sword-belt and buckled it about his middle. A flash of light from the corners of his eyes caught his attention and he stared into a cracked minor, seeing his face.

His skin was bronzed and his black hair hung uncut almost to his shoulders. A scar was white against the dark sun-darkened skin of his chin. A swordsman in the hire of the Great Kham had bloodied his face, and had paid with his life for scarring him. His shoulders were so wide they could scarcely fit between the lintels of a wide door, ridged with muscles standing out like ropes beneath his sun-burnt skin.

Niall was a mercenary, a sell-sword, but he had a code of sorts. Lylthia had made him a promise last night, or as good as. He would go find her and bring her back to this tavern and throw her down on that rumpled bed. The barbarian chuckled. But he must not gaze into her eyes. No. It might be best to blindfold that one.

Well, he was going after her. Now. No matter where his war-boots took him.

He ate sausages and eggs in the common room, making plans in his head. She wanted vengeance on Maylok. The only place she could get that would be in his palace. He, Niall, would go also to that palace and find her and bring Lylthia out of it on a shoulder.

Uneasily, he remembered old Thallia and her prophecy. Demons would carry him off in Angalore, she had said. No matter. Maylok would have to cast a spell on him before he could summon up demons to take him away, and by that time, Maylok would be dead.

He went out into the sunlight and walked the streets of this ancient city, angling his feet always toward the huge pile of masonry standing close to the river’s edge, that was the wizard’s palace. It was built against the outer wall, and had a wall of its own, but smaller than the city wall, surrounding it and its gardens. Niall stood a long time studying that wall.

He could go over it easily enough. But what would he find when he dropped down onto the other side? He was no fool to go rushing into danger when there was a safe way out of it. Maylok would have guards posted. And, probably, big Commopore hounds trained to drag down any intruder and fang-slay him.

There was a huge oaken door set flush with the cobblestones of the street. Niall studied it for a moment, hitched at his sword-belt, then walked toward it. With the pommel of a dagger, he rapped on the plankings.

After a time the door swung open and two men with naked swords in their hands stood scowling at him. “What want you at the walls of Maylok, stranger?” asked the larger man.

“Money to put in my pouch.” Niall grinned and rattled the little leather sack so they could hear his few coins clinking. “I’m told the wizard pays well.” His eyes ran over their fleshy bodies. “Men say also that those who work for Maylok eat only thort steaks and pasties, and drink wine instead of water.”

“Maylok has enough servants.”

“None like me.”

The man went to close the door but Niall put out his brawny arm and held the door open, using his eyes on the neat grass and carefully tended bushes that formed these outer gardens. He noted that the men grew angry, but he paid no heed to that, for he was noting the thickness of the walls and surmising that there would be rooms between outer and inner walls.

The other man came to add his muscles to the first, but Niall was a strong man whose full strength had never yet been tested, and he held that door open against both of them.

“Well, if he won’t, he won’t,” he muttered, and released the door.

It banged shut and Niall grinned. He had seen enough. When darkness was upon Angalore he would return. Somehow, he would find a way inside that palace.

He walked around the walls and noted that a big tree grew outside a portion of those parapets. A nimble man could climb that tree, move out along a thick branch. It would be a good jump from the branch to reach the wall, but he could do it.

Whistling, he moved off toward the river gate and through it to the quays where a dozen ships were loading or unloading cargoes. He watched them, savoring the hot sunlight on his back, and fell into converse with two seamen munching on some fruit.

“Your crew works hard,” he commented.

“This is Angalore. The sooner out of it, the better.”

Niall pondered that. He asked slyly, “Is it because of Maylok?”

“Aye. The mage is like a spider in its web, peering out and taking that which he covets, be it gold or silver or a man and a maid. Right now he may be listening to us.”

“I tried to gain employment from him.”

“Count yourself lucky you didn’t. He’d offer you up as a sacrifice to his demon-gods, in time.”

“I think I’ll sail with you, then. I’m for Urgrik to the north.”

“We lift anchor tomorrow, a little past dawn. Ask for the Hyssop, bound for the cold countries. We make a stop at Urgrik.”

Niall ate at a seaside tavern, using his ears to feed on words as he did his mouth to savor the kama-fish flavored with leeks and spices. He heard one man tell how he had seen a pretty girl being pushed into the wall-door of Maylok’s palace just before down, a girl in ragged leather tunic and with black hair almost to her haunches. Six men had hold of her, were forcing her along.

“She’s dead by now,” someone muttered.

“Too bad. She was a pretty thing.”

Niall did not betray himself by the slightest quiver of flesh, but fury was alive inside him. He had liked Lylthia. By the War-god! She had been a fool, but his flesh had lusted after her. If she’d been sensible and spent the night in his arms, she’d be alive, now. Aye, and happy!

It might be too late to save Lylthia, but maybe he could find a way to avenge her.

He sat on a piling and watched the sun sink, telling himself that he was as much of a fool as Lylthia herself. Old Thallia had warned him that demons would carry him off in Angalore. If he were sensible, he’d walk over to the Hyssop right now and get himself a good sleep in a hammock below-decks, and forget Lylthia.

Still, no one had ever praised his brains.

When the quays were in total darkness outside the faint starlight, Niall began his walk. He was in no hurry, indeed, he was rather reluctant to clamber onto that wall. He could think of better ways to die than to be captured by demons. Still! A man had to do what he felt was right.

The tree was big, but his muscles carried him up the thick bole and in between the heavy branches as though he were a monkey out of the jungles of Poranga. He ran out on the branch he had selected earlier in the day and paused.

The gardens were dark, the wall was empty. Lights were on in the palace, he could see flickering candles and torches through open windows, and once he thought to hear a scream of agony, dulled by distance and the palace walls. He trotted forward, swaying as the branch moved, and leaped.

For an instant he was in the air, then he was dropping down onto the parapet, clinging to its rough stone with both hands and swinging himself onto the wall-walk where he crouched, peering about and listening.

There was no one in sight, neither guards nor watchdogs, that he could discover. It might be a trap, but he had fought his way out of traps before. And if by any chance Lylthia were still alive, then he would bring her out of this pile of stones and carry her with him to Urgrik. His hand loosed Blood-drinker in its scabbard, made certain that his Orravian dagger was ready to his grip, and then slid forward between the merlon-shadows.

No sentinel walked these walls, as far as he could tell. Now why was that? Did some awesome fiend patrol these pathways after dark, lurking to attack and perhaps devour — or carry off — some luckless trespasser? It might be Maylok’s whim to use demons as his watchdogs. His hand tightened on the dagger-hilt as he moved.

At length he came to a doorway set into a tiny shed built against an inner wall. His hand opened that door, he stepped into Stygian darkness and down a flight of worn stone steps. His war-boots made no sound, nor was there any clank of sword-chain or link-mail, yet the hairs at the base of his neck bristled.

It was too easy!

There should have been an alarm, an attack, before this. The wizard was no simpleton, he must have known that the tales of his ill-gotten treasures would tempt thieves and foot-pads They would be protected, by what grim guardian he had no way of knowing.

Men and hounds he did not fear. His steel could handle those. It was the thought of demons which bothered him. Sooner or later he would meet some snuffling cacodemon in this blackness and be forced to fight for his life.

Yet he strode on, down the ancient steps and along a narrow corridor which must run beneath the gardens. From far away he could hear the dripping of water and nearer at hand the click of rats’ nails along a stonework floor. Rats? Or — devil imps?

He lifted out Blood-drinker and moved with the blade always before him, as a blind man uses a wooden stick. He saw nothing, the ebon gloom was everywhere, pressing in upon him. And yet — as he turned a corner of the passageway, he beheld a redness up ahead.

It was only a wink of light, shifting, quivering. It seemed like a tiny corner of the Eleven Hells of Emelkartha broken free of the barriers that kept them from this world. Yet it served as a beacon to draw his footsteps forward.

He came into a low-ceilinged chamber, the walls of which were purplish in the radiance of flickering torch-flames set into that stone. A carved and runed altar stood upon a dais reached by stonework steps, and on the flat surface of that shrine to devilry lay a naked woman.

Niall took a step forward, and another. He growled low in his throat. That lifeless body at which he stared belonged to—

Lylthia!

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Step into a golden age of high adventure with Niall of the Far Travels, the ultimate Sword & Sorcery epic from legendary storyteller Gardner F. Fox (co-creator of DC’s The Flash and Hawkman). Masterfully crafted for the pages of Dragon Magazine, these thrilling tales are finally collected into one definitive volume.

Meet Niall: a towering, muscle-bound northern mercenary wandering a brutal world of decaying desert empires, ancient tomb-cities, and cosmic nightmares. Armed only with his wit and his lethal, cursed blade, Blood-drinker, Niall fights his way through a deadly gauntlet of sinister sorcerers, treacherous thieves, and extra-dimensional horrors that defy human reason.

Fox, a founding father of modern fantasy whose work directly inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, delivers pure, unadulterated pulp action. Every chapter reads like the ultimate tabletop campaign, bursting with relentless pacing, vivid world-building, and jaw-dropping supernatural encounters.

Perfect for fans of Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, this is a masterclass in classic fantasy fiction. Draw your blade, brace your courage, and prepare to march alongside a true legend of the genre!

Buy eBooks & paperbacks directly from the official Gardner Francis Fox Library.

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SHADOW OF A DEMON

Chapter One

He came into Angalore from the eastern deserts, a big man wearing a kaunake of spotted fur over his link-mail, his legs bare above war-boots trimmed with miniver, with a sense of his own doom riding him. Niall of the Far Travels had not wanted to come to Angalore, for an old seeress had prophesied that he would be taken from this world by demons, should those war-boots carry him into that ancient, brooding city.

Yet he had come here because his fate had so decreed.

He was a mercenary, a sell-sword, a barbarian out of the forested mountains of Norumbria. A wanderer by nature, he earned his keep wherever he went by the might of his sword-arm, by his skill with weapons. He feared no living thing, man or animal, though the thought of demons put a coldness down his spine.

Now he paused on the crest of a hill and stared at the city. Massive it was, and old, so old that some men said it had been here since men had first learned to walk upright. It lay between the river and the desert over which the caravans came from Sensanall to the south and Urgrik to the north. Ships lay in the little harbor that was formed by the river, riding easily to the lift and fall of its tides.

Angalore was the city of Maylok the magician.

An evil man, Maylok. Niall had heard tales about him, over campfires and in the taverns where men drank wine and watched dancing girls perform. Rumor had it that he used demons as men used pawns when they played their games of chance. Gossips also said that in the dungeons and stone labyrinths below his palace, Maylok had stored the treasures of his world, gold and silver, diamonds and rubies and emeralds, and golden vessels carved and fashioned by famous sculptors.

Niall moved his heavily muscled shoulders, uneasy as a wild animal might be, walking into strange country where it knew nothing of the dangers to be faced. Yet he had to go to Angalore. There was no way out, if he wanted to eat and drink. The desert had offered no oasis, no plant from which to pull the roots to allay his hunger. He had been offered employment by a captain of mercenaries, and was on his way to join up with the black eagle banner of Lurlyr Manakor of Urgrik when he had been attacked by a huge mountain lion out of the Styrethian Hills. He had killed the lion but not before it had broken the neck of his horse.

On foot, he could never reach Urgrik. He had known that, and so he had set his feet to the westward, to reach the river that ran through these lands. On the river he might find a boat to carry him to Urgrik.

His wandering had brought him to Angalore, instead.

Niall hitched at his sword-belt and gave the city a hard grin. There would be food in Angalore, and cold wine. Niall had a need for both, maybe even a wench if he could find an agreeable one.

His feet carried him down the slope toward the landward gate. Niall was not a fearful man, nothing frightened him; still, that threat of demons made him wary. He was not one to put overmuch confidence in the babblings of soothsayers, but old Thallia was not your usual prophetess.

He had stumbled onto Thallia in Cassamunda, where he had met that mercenary captain. She was an old woman, clad in rags, but she carried a small bag that clinked as she moved, and two ruffians had tried to take it from her. Niall had been passing, had leaped to her protection, had buffeted the ruffians with his big fist and knocked them senseless.

Old Thallia had been grateful. Her bag held her wealth, such as it was, a few coins and some jewels which she kept by her to sell when she needed food. He had escorted her to the cheap little room above the tavern where she lived, and she had insisted on giving him some wine and a barley-cake.

She had read his fortune, too.

‘Beware of Angalore,’ she had whispered, her rheumy eyes wide and fear-filled. ‘There are demons there, who serve Maylok the wizard. They will snatch you away with them when they come. And — there is no return from a demon world.’

The landward gate was closed, at this time of day, with the late afternoon shadows black and ominous. No caravans were expected in before the morrow, and guards stood their watch on the walls, half drowsing in the sunset. Niall stopped before the wall and shouted upward that he was a stranger in need of food and drink, and desired also a cot on which to lay his body.

After a time, a small door inset in a larger one creaked open. Two warriors wearing the griffin insignia of Angalore scowled at him suspiciously. Niall grinned and moved forward.

“There is a fee to be paid,” one of them said, “It is after the hour when we admit travelers.”

Niall shrugged. He had no wish to remain outside these high stone walls, knowing that inside them he would find what his belly told him he so desperately needed. His big hand fumbled at his worn leather belt-pouch, extracted a few coins, and dribbled them into the outstretched palms. The stink of bribery was strong in his nostrils, but beggars had little choice.

He moved off along a cobbled street, his eyes hunting a sign that might tell him where a tavern waited with its warmth and merriment. These buildings past which he walked were warehouses where were stored the goods that came by caravan, with no hint of roasting meat nor smell of chilling wine.

Niall had never been in Angalore before and so he lost his way, moving down narrow little alleys and into cul-de-sacs, always aware that his hunger and his thirst were growing with the darkness. And then in a narrow passageway between buildings which seemed to lean their walls together, he saw the girl.

She was clad in leather rags that fluttered in the wind moving off the river. Her long legs were brown and shapely, and the hair that fell almost to her haunches was black as Corassian ebony. She was turning her head to stare back at him, shrinking against the wall behind her.

Niall grinned. “You seem as lost as I am.”

Green eyes studied him. “I am not lost. I know my way.” She added, almost ominously, “To where I want to go.”

“There’s no need for hurry.” His gaze took her in, seeing the tatterings of her worn leather tunic, its stains and spottings, the manner in which it failed to hide the curve of her breasts and revealed almost the complete length of a bare leg. “Come eat with me, I’ll pay the fare. And I’ll give you as much wine as you might care to drink.”

The green eyes softened, but her voice was cold. “Go your way, barbarian. Let me go mine...”

Niall shrugged. It mattered little to him whether she went with him or not, but she was pretty enough, with full lips and a tilted nose. She would have made a good bed-companion for the night. He might even have taken her to Urgrik with him and — if he could afford it — buy her some decent clothes.

He walked away, putting her from his mind.

And then he heard the clank of metal.

The Far-traveler turned his head. Behind him four men were moving out of a little alley toward the girl. She had seen them and was shrinking back, away from them. The men were grinning at her.

“Come along now,” one said, putting out a hand to grasp her arm.

The barbarian turned and waited.

“No,” she whispered. “I know you men. You serve Maylok.”

“And Maylok needs female blood for his incantations.”

They leaped, all four of them, and the girl disappeared behind their big bodies. Niall snarled and went on the run, not bothering to draw his sword. His big fist should be able to handle these carrion.

He caught a man, swung him about, drove knuckles against his face, pulping his nose. A second one he caught and rammed his head against the stone wall so that he went limp and crumpled.

The other two yanked out their blades, swung them at him. Niall laughed softly, put his own hand to sword-hilt and drew out Blood-drinker. The barbarian had little wealth, except for his sword, that had been forged long ago and far away and that Niall had found in a tomb which he had looted, early in his youth. He had been offered fortunes for that blade, he had always refused to part with it.

He fought swiftly and terribly, did Niall of the Far Travels. With parry and thrust and overhead blows he drove the two ruffians before him until their backs were to the building wall, and there he ran them through.

The girl had never moved, but stood erect and as coldly disdainful as ever. Niall felt surprise at sight of her, he was certain she would have run away when given the opportunity. He growled as he wiped his steel clean, “What are you waiting for? Why didn’t you run?”

“You fool,” she breathed. “You fool!”

She stamped her sandaled foot. Her cold anger beat out at him like a living entity, and the sell-sword stared. “Has Emelkartha the Evil stolen your wits? Or did you want to go with those men to be sucked dry of blood for Maylok’s wizardries?”

Her eyes lidded over and she drew a deep breath. “You would not understand. You are only a common warrior. Besides, what do you know of Emelkartha?”

“She is the mother of demons, that one. I’ve heard it said that all demons regard her wishes as commands.”

The girl shrugged. “I pray to her for vengeance.”

“She ought to hear your prayers, then. She’s malevolent, that one.”

The green eyes glowed. “Is she, warrior? I hope so. Perhaps she will grant me my revenge on Maylok then.”

He caught her bare arm, drew her with him. “Tell me about it. May-hap I can help a little, though I’ve no fancy for wizards myself, and usually I stay clear of them.”

She went with him readily enough, but cast a look behind her where two men were stirring and two others lay in pools of then-own blood. Was it only fancy, or did that face of hers mirror a faint regret?

“What’s your name? Where are you from?” he asked.

The green eyes slid sideways at him from under long black lashes. “Call me — Lylthia. And — does it matter where I come from?”

“Not to me,” he chuckled. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

His eyes ran over the cheap leather tunic that barely hid her body. She carried no money pouch, the only thing on her besides the tunic and her tattered sandals was a rope belt about her slim middle. As the river-wind grew cooler, she began to shiver.

“We’ll get you into a warm tavern and put some meat in you,” he said. “Also some Kallarian wine.”

“Little good it will do you,” she muttered.

Niall grinned. He had a way with wenches like this. Yet as he walked with her along the torch-lit streets, he failed to notice that while those torch flames cast his shadow, there was no shadow for the girl.

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