Land of the Burning Sea

Roy Glashan's Library
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MALCOLM JAMESON

LAND OF THE BURNING SEA

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First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1942

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-02-25

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Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1942, with "Land of the Burning Sea"

Chapter I. Prisoners of Perfection
Chapter II. Introduction to Efficiency
Chapter III. Flight in a Dustbin
Chapter IV. The Maid Does Penance
Chapter V. Prebendary Pardon
Chapter VI. New World
Chapter VII. Ambush
Chapter VIII. Escape by Sea
Chapter IX. Battle to the Death
Chapter X. The Golden Mean
Chapter XI. New Universe

Prescott leapt astride the frantic flying leopard's back.

The World Becomes So Perfect in the Distant Future That All Joy Is Lost—and
It Takes a Young Barbarian to Lead Humanity Back to Freedom and Happiness!

CHAPTER I
Prisoners of Perfection

THE cloud-filtered sunshine glinted softly off the superb bronzed shoulders of the young barbarian crouching on the ledge. It was a narrow ledge, high on the wall of one of Venus's deep mountain gorges, and was slippery with moisture, but the surefooted young tribesman did not seem to mind that. His eyes were narrowly probing the driving mists that swept the canyon below.

Once he let his hand stray down to touch the hilt of a skinning knife stuck in his girdle as if to make certain just where it was. Then he crouched lower, tense and eager. For already his keen ears had picked up sounds of approaching game, hidden by the swirling mists below. What he heard was the drumming of beating wings and the curious mewing cries of a flock of Venus's flying leopards—the fierce and untamable pterofelidae.

A moment later they broke cover, climbing now out of the fog and battling against the gusty winds of the gorge. "Wild Hal" Prescott thrilled at the sight, for to bring down one of those savage winged creatures meant more than mere meat and a good pelt—it meant a good fight, and there was nothing in his wild, carefree life that he loved better than a good fight.

His gaze sharpened, for he was shrewdly estimating the erratic approach of his prey. Then he chose one for his own—a magnificent animal, lithe and strong and beautifully spotted. It was winging its way along the face of the cliff a little below him and some distance out over the canyon.

He gathered himself tautly for the leap. Then he sprang—sprang outward in a flat, horizontal dive, with his empty hands outstretched before him. Out and down—the timing and muscular coordination must be perfect, for to miss by so much as a hand's breadth would plunge him headlong down through the mists onto the cruel crags below.

The leopard sensed his coming and swerved, but Prescott gave a twist to his flying body and swerved, too. He knew what to expect of the beast. He struck even as it was in the act of turning, and his strong hands clutched a wing.

In another instant he was astride the cat's back, gripping its flanks with his knees and its tough throat with his hands. The animal snarled a frantic scream, and down they went in a smother of beating wings, snapping jaws and slashing talons, twisting and turning as they fell.

Wild Hal hung on desperately. He managed to loose one hand and pluck the knife from his belt, but the time for the kill was not yet. To kill the cat in mid-flight would be to lose the support of the flailing wings. The death stab must be withheld until just before the tiring leopard crashed.

Prescott waited until he saw the canyon floor rushing up at them, then buried the knife to the hilt between the creature's shoulder-blades. As they struck, he leaped nimbly clear of the murderous claws and bounded to one side where he could watch as the cat thrashed out its life. When it had twitched its last, he threw its heavy carcass over his shoulder and started on the long trail home.

HAL PRESCOTT was pleased with himself, for he was the only hunter of his tribe who had the skill and the boldness to dive on a flying leopard in flight—the only way a man could approach one and not instantly be torn to shreds. His entry into the village would be the signal for a festival. That night there would be feasting on the green, merriment and dancing. By then the women would have prepared the leopard steaks and the small boys the skin. Later, after the other hunters had come in and the wineskins passed around, the dressed hide would be presented with appropriate ceremonies to the chief of their clan, Father Jedson.

At length, he came to the clearing made for their primitive vegetable patches. Beyond that, a little cluster of stone houses nestled among luxurious flower beds. Smoke rose idly from the communal kitchen hut. To Prescott's mind, it was the most beautiful of all places—colorful, comfortable and hospitable.

Every time he returned to it he was gladder than ever that he had been born a wild Sybarite, especially since now that he was a man and admitted to the tribal councils, he was learning something of the hated enemy race that lived in the lowlands.

Perfectionists, the hill men called them contemptuously, from the fanaticism with which they worshipped a god called Efficiency and strove for the Perfect Life. It was their idea of life which was so hateful to the wild men of the hills, for to them any life which was purely utilitarian and had no room for beauty, love or joy, would be intolerably drab and dull.

His thoughts were cut short by the rush of whooping children and excited women who had seen his approach. He laughingly let the small boys take his burden and carry it triumphantly ahead as the procession went on toward the houses. Father Jedson came out and beamed his congratulations. Then Prescott went through the carved portal of the chief's house and sat with him over a jug of mead until time for the festivities to begin.

It was well into the night before the merriment reached its peak. By then the feast had been finished, the crude instruments made from gourds and tough barml vine brought out, and the singing and dancing started. Wineskins lay about, and everyone was happy. But their fun came to an abrupt end. In the midst of the gaiety, a spent runner came dashing in and fell panting on the grass.

The dancers stopped in mid-stride, and the musicians laid down their instruments. They recognized the stricken man as a member of another rebel tribe living in an adjacent valley.

Consternation reigned. Could the Perfectionists be raiding again after so many generations of relative peace?

"I came in late from hunting," said the man when he regained his breath, "and found only ruins and ashes. There were no signs of my people. They are gone, too. If I had only been there earlier, I might have—"

"You would have gone also," said Father Jedson, quietly. "Spears and knives are useless against blast-guns and deadly rays. I fear your people have been carried off to Erosport for public execution. That is the accursed custom of our enemies. I know them well, I lived among them once."

It was the keen ears of Hal Prescott that first heard the strange whirring overhead. Something wide and black was slowly descending from the sky.

"Run for your lives—scatter!" shouted Father Jedson, looking up. "It is a war helicopter! They will ray you!"

THE warning was too late. There was a sudden burst of light overhead, and a green ray shot down and swept the revellers. They seemed to melt under it, slumping limply to the ground as the ray passed over them. Prescott was in the act of drawing his knife when it struck him.

To his surprise it did not pain him, for he did not know that it was a hypnotic ray. It did no more than turn his muscles to water and deprive him of all will to movement other than a languid rolling of the eyes. Like the others, he sank helplessly to the ground, utterly listless and weary.

The flying machine came down and grounded at the edge of the green. A group of armed monitors sprang out of it, led by a proctor in a glittering helmet. These at once began the systematic destruction of the village, house by house. And as they went about their fiendish work, three other men emerged from the helicopter.

They were garbed in the black robes of the Court of the Inquisition. Prescott knew that, for there were many legends about that court, a place where those who committed the deadly sin of Waste were tried and punished. For before the Perfectionist god of Efficiency, the most heinous of all crimes was a useless act. The three priests stood in the midst of the firelight and scowled disapprovingly at everything about them.

"Far worse than the other," snarled one, "a den of iniquity. Dancing, drinking, feasting on carrion! Fah!"

"With music and singing, too," said another scornfully, picking up a gambea or makeshift guitar that one of the musicians had left. He smashed the offending instrument and threw its fragments into the fire.

"Abominable, indeed," said the third of the black-robed ones. He was handling a wineskin gingerly as if it were a loathsome thing. Then he slit it and let its contents waste gurglingly onto the grass. "We have been remiss, brothers. This heresy must be stamped out, completely and ruthlessly."

The proctor came up and reported finding intricate carvings in stone over the doors of several of the huts, and carved beams within—strange useless designs of interwined leaves and berries with delicately cut birds and squirrel heads peeping out.

"Smash them! Smash them!" screamed the elder of the Inquisitors. "Oh, what villainy, what depravity. Such a frittering away of effort! We must make examples of these savages. Proctor, do your duty."

Hal Prescott looked on and saw all those things, helpless to stir a finger. He could only watch with impotent rage as they finally set fire to the houses, and then began carrying the numb victims of the ray into the helicopter. His fury knew no bounds when two undersized monitors picked him up and carried him along with the others, for it would have been but a second's work to wring both their necks if he but had his normal strength.

THE machine took off, leaving the smashed and burning village below. An hour later the prisoners were herded into Erosport's bleak jail, each staggering drunkenly, now that the effect of the ray was beginning to wear off. Prescott found he had at least a little luck. They put him in the same cell with Father Jedson.

"Tomorrow we die," said the old man calmly. "Let us hope it is by a humane instrument. They do not give quarter. They have not for several centuries—not since the rumors of what happened at Rizam got about. I know. I used to be one of them until I saw the light and ran away."

"I do not understand," Prescott burst out angrily. "Why should they persecute us? We have not harmed them. We just live in our own little valley for the sheer joy of living."

"That," said the grizzled chieftain, "is why we are punished. Our crime is to accept pleasure wherever we find it, and that, to a Perfectionist, is neither more nor less than sacrilege. Our feud began a thousand years ago, at the time of the Great Schism. That occurred following the unification of the human race at the close of the bloody Twentieth Century.

"Before then the principle of efficiency had been developed in industry and adopted to some extent by governments, but it was in twenty-one eighteen that the engineers and scientists elevated the principle to godship and assumed priestly titles. The opening of the planets to colonization by the perfection of space travel caused the idea to spread all over the Solar System. There was no escape from it.

"But there were some, such as your forefathers, who could not bear the rigid, joyless planned life of a Spartan society. They withdrew to the hills and founded villages like ours, where it was possible to really live. Subsequently, others, such as I, deserted the false civilization of Perfectionism to join you. At first the Perfectionists ignored us, but after the Rizam affair, they began a war of extermination. We were lucky to survive this long."

"Very far away. It is an Earthlike planet of the star Mizar, and was opened to settlement some five hundred years ago. At that time they took many of our people from concentration camps and carried them out there to do the rough pioneer labor.

"But a couple of centuries ago all communication with Rizam ceased and ships sent to investigate did not return. Many thought that there had been an uprising of Sybarites. At any rate, from that day to this the Perfectionists abandoned all effort to convert us. They killed us instead."

"Let them," exclaimed Prescott hotly. "I would rather die than lead the life of a robot!"

"Silence in the cells!" roared a harsh voice, seemingly at his elbow. "What you have said will be used against you." Father Jedson started, then laid a finger across his lips. He had lived in the hills so long he had forgotten there were such devices as scanners and microphones.

CHAPTER II
Introduction to Efficiency

IT WAS no trial, but a mocking farce. The smug inspectors of the Inquisition related with something like horror the vile evidence found in the village—hand-forge, looms and spinning wheels—inefficient, crude tools. But still worse and absolutely unpardonable was the frivolous waste of effort as evidenced by the cultivated flower beds, the existence of a winepress and musical instruments. The door carvings were the last straw.

"Death," shouted the Chief Inquisitor, "I can bear no more. Death under the ray for all but those two." He pointed an outraged finger at Father Jedson and Hal Prescott, who stood together. "The old one is a renegade from our own faith. Let him die in the Thanatope."

Prescott felt the old man flinch, and knew from that, that the thanatope must be an awful thing, for Jedson had always been a man of iron. Then he heard the last words spoken.

"As for the insolent cub beside him, a special fate is reserved for him. Even after apprehended, when he should have been repentant, he scoffed at our mode of life and blasphemed against it. But first, he shall witness the elder scoundrel's death."

The monitors sprang forward. But that time Hal Prescott had not been softened to helpless jelly by any green ray. The full force of his husky frame was behind the fist that crashed against the first one's chin and hoisted him clear over the bar of justice, as those presiding there chose to call it. A second swift blow felled another, and a third was in mid-swing when a proctor went into action. His tetanizer was in his hand and he let its dreadful stream of activating rays play up and down upon the raging Sybarite. Prescott fell twitching to the floor, his muscles set in the agonizing cramps of tetany. It was more than a living man could endure. He fainted.

When he came to he was in a bare courtyard. At the far end stood a group of men, women and children—his fellow tribesmen. Beside him was Father Jedson, waiting dejectedly for the executions to begin. Suddenly, from a tower overhead, a ray lashed down—a violet one—and the group at the far end sank silently to the ground.

The ray blinked out. Its deadly work had been done in a tenth of a second. Then Prescott understood what the old chief had meant when he spoke of humane means. He turned to look at Jedson, but found a couple of monitors were already strapping him into a strange machine.

It resembled an ancient set of stocks, having a seat and holed boards in which the hands and feet were locked. But sets of wires dangled from it, and curious jars and containers sat on the platform around it.

"This, my son," said Father Jedson, as they began attaching small sucker cups to the back of his neck, and connecting electric leads, "is the most diabolic invention ever achieved. It is the ultimate in efficiency, and therefore holy in their eyes. It produces the maximum of agony at the minimum cost of energy input."

"A small initial current from an exciter coil gives the first painful impulse. The victim reacts and thereby sets the neural currents of his own body into great activity. If the reaction is rigidly controlled, the pain will be severe, but not unendurable. But if it is extreme, excruciating agony ensues.

"In any event, after the first excitation, the outside current is unneeded. The victim proceeds to execute himself. Whether he is to have a long, lingering death full of milder pain, or torture of hours' duration is matter for his own will to determine."

STRONG arms pinioned Prescott from behind, and despite his struggles, forced him down into a chair that had been brought for him. He was bound to it securely and bade to watch. He could hardly avoid doing that, for he was face to face with the miserable Jedson and only a few yards distant.

"Console yourself, my boy," were the old patriarch's last words, "the more I writhe and scream, the shorter will be my martyrdom. If I have the strength to carry out my will, that is the way I will do it."

The Head Proctor reached down and closed a switch. Jedson's spare body jerked madly and his face was twisted horribly. Then, as the fiery oscillations tore at his nerves, the agony of his ordeal found utterance. The old man shrieked without restraint, tearing at his bonds. Hal Prescott, sickened unspeakably, could close his eyes but not his ears. A murderous hate filled his heart, and at that moment he would gladly have presided at the execution of the whole Perfectionist race.

But Jedson could not keep it up, no more than any other man had ever done. It was unbearable, so he relaxed after a little, and sat for a long time doing no more than whimper and tremble. Then he would scream and jerk again. Hour after hour Prescott had to watch those terrible alternations until he wondered at what moment his last remnants of sanity would go. The day wore on into the night, but under the ghastly green of the floodlight overhead there was no diminution of the torture. Those who had initiated it cared not at all which way Jedson chose to conduct it. Either was the quintessence of cruelty.

It was well past dawn, and the third shift of monitors was on guard when Jedson's struggles ceased and they unloosed his body from where it sat.

"This big fellow," laughed one of them, touching Prescott, "ought to last three times as long. The old one was half gone before he started."

Prescott glared venomously at him, recognizing him. He wished now he had let go with his full strength, the day before, for it was the guard he had catapulted head over heels with his first blow. But the guards said no more—they only covered him with their tetanizers and indicated he was to follow them back into the court room.

"You have seen the Thanatope at work," sneered the Inquisitor, "you have also been quoted as saying you prefer to die rather than lead the Perfect Life. I now direct you to choose again. Conversion to our faith, or death?"

"Well, well," remarked the judge, as if secretly amused. "So you really meant it. Very well, following our rule of never pampering a heretic, you shall live. Higgleby!"

"This barbarian is to be sent on the very next transport along with our own penitents, to the Indoctrination Center on Mars. There he is to be inculcated in our faith and broken to our way of life. In view of his strength and agility, he may some day make us a good monitor."

It was only the memory of the effect of a tetanizer that restrained Prescott from a fresh outburst. He gritted his teeth and followed his captor down the hall. The orange clad one did not speak at all until they were at the door of the cell.

"I am glad you got a break," he said, pleasantly, "civilized life is not bad, once you are used to it. You are young and ignorant—that is all that is wrong with you—and full of pernicious ideas."

He sat down in his cell and stared vacantly at the floor. Father Jedson gone, all his tribe gone, his village gone. And he had still to live. His punishment was the severest of all.

A monitor came in and pressed a needle into his arm. Then Hal Prescott went out like a light.

HE HAD but the vaguest impression of what happened to him for the next several weeks. He knew that he had been carried on board a spaceship, and that men had come and talked to him from time to time. Nothing was said that stuck in his memory, yet he had the feeling that somehow an immense store of information as to how Perfectionists lived and what they expected had been injected into his subconscious mind.

Perhaps he had been wholly hypnotized. He was aware, too, of putting up a stout resistance to the intrusion of the propaganda. It must have been that that had prompted many painful needlings.

There was a stop en route—Grand Lunar Junction, someone said—where a batch of probationers from Earth were brought on board. They had all erred in some respect, but in the main their fall from grace was due to clumsiness or simple stupidity. Even the most devout fail at times to achieve ideal efficiency. Aside from that shadowy memory, Prescott knew little else until they let him regain full consciousness just before the transport shuddered down on backing jets into her receiving pit at Ares City Skyport.

By that time the fiery rage that had possessed him at the trial had cooled to a smoldering, calculating hatred. He had learned the futility of open resistance. Hereafter he would appear to be docile—even grateful, if it could be done—for the instruction offered him. Behind that mask he hoped to learn how to sabotage the system and avenge the atrocities perpetrated on his kind.

Consequently, when the monitors gave the signal, he went meekly with the others and climbed into the huge tractor that was to carry them across the sandy desert to the House of Penance. But it was only a seeming and temporary surrender, for the last sufferings of his beloved chieftain had burned themselves indelibly into his soul. He could not undo them now, but he would avenge.

When the tractor had lumbered over the yielding sands and drawn up at the gate of the Indoctrination Center, Prescott got out and lined up with the rest at the registration house. The others passed through quickly, as each was already provided with a fat dossier covering his career since birth. Hal Prescott was given the works.

"Hey, you, up onto the metabolometer there," called a novice in the green and white stripes of dietician. A Deacon of Dietetics looked on. Prescott did as he was told. At once his body was bathed in shimmering light and a queer feeling shot through him as the analytical machine probed his vitals.

The light faded and the machine coughed up a small white card curiously punched with symbols. The attendant glanced at it. Then he fed it into a slot and in a moment five smelly purplish capsules dropped out. He handed these to Prescott together with a small cup of yellowish, bitter liquid.

PRESCOTT nearly gagged, but managed to get the foul-tasting combination down. He was wondering when they would be given breakfast, especially since he had eaten no real food since his capture. In the prison and on the ship they had fed him hypodermically.

"Listen attentively," said the hygienist, crisply. "The first day probationers come here we explain things. After that they follow the routine without further instruction. This machine establishes your metabolic rate, your total available energy, your vitamin requirements and other data.

"The card it delivers is a prescription for your sustenance for the day. It contains exactly the number of calories you will need. More would be waste. Hereafter you will visit this machine at the beginning and end of each day and do as I have shown you."

"You mean we don't eat?" asked Prescott sullenly. But as he looked at the wasplike waist of the instructor atrophied from a lifetime of pellet foods, he knew the answer. It was no.

"You have eaten," replied the hygienist sternly. "For your information it has been more than two hundred years since the great Hinkle, Archbishop of Dietetics, decreed that animal carrion and broken bits of vegetation were immoral food.

"Moreover, the synthetics are cheaper and more compact. Less time is used in consuming them, and since they are unpalatable, there is no temptation to commit the unpardonable sin of gluttony. Understand? Now go into the next laboratory for your aptitude tests."

"Easy there," called a monitor. "Cut those strides down by two inches and take them a little slower. You will get just as far and not use so many calories."

Prescott flushed angrily, but did as he was told. Now he understood the shambling gait and listless manner of the lower class Perfectionists. It was another tribute to their vile god, Efficiency. But what he was to encounter in the next room made that admonition mild. This time he was placed in a complicated contrivance called the psychometer.

The examination took most of the day, during which he manipulated various levers, punched buttons at certain signals and performed a great number of other acts under the orders of his examiners. In the end that machine coughed up a card too. The examiner read it and shook his head mournfully.

"You are a fine animal," he said, but the tone was anything but complimentary. "However, your readings show a total lack of discipline. Everything you do is full of lost motion and the amount of wasted energy you put into every movement is deplorable.

"We would not think of assigning you to work until we have taught you to stand and move your arms and legs. Tomorrow we will start you in at Motor Training, doing simple things against a stopwatch and slow motion pictures."

"You have excess energy—too many calories," he added, "for what we want of you. We'll cut that down too."

PRESCOTT winced. It was bad enough to not have real food, but to be deliberately weakened by planned undernourishment was too much. Just then a gong began tapping.

"The hour of devotion," said the machine operator reverently. He pointed to several reclining chairs. Prescott had noticed them before and wondered about them since he had not yet heard of a Perfectionist doing anything the comfortable way.

"Lie while you listen," directed the instructor, "it saves energy. Every time the voice says 'Report!' punch the button on the arm. I warn you—if you fail, or are late, you will be punished severely."

Prescott was grateful for the rest, for the day had been a gruelling one, but in a few minutes found out that it was only another means of torture, mental this time. The voice was pompous and dry, and according to the announcement was that of Humbert, Deacon of Orthodoxy. The discourse was partly fulsome praise of the Planned Life, the rest bitter denunciation of the sinful Sybarites.

He charged they squandered their lives away in silly uselessness and were certain to degenerate into savages. It was very tedious and absurd and Prescott found himself nodding. But in a little he learned there was no evading listening. In one of his dozes he missed responding to the irregularly barked command to report, and on the instant a sharp voice rang out from another loudspeaker on the wall, "Four-eighty-seven-V inattentive—penalized by three tetanizations to be applied immediately after the lecture. For the second offense it will be double."

After that Hal Prescott listened, though to his mind what the sanctimonious voice was saying was pure drivel. It was dark when he had recovered from the painful cramps of his subsequent punishment and was led off to his sleeping cubicle. This was one of a long row of detached one-room huts whose gaping doorways opened out onto the desert itself.

As he stumbled into the place he noticed that there was no fence about the Center such as a semi-prison would have, nor were there any locks on his door. In fact there was no door at all. Nor could he see any sentries other than the monitor who had conducted him to his cell. It was a strange sort of prison—no doors, no walls, no guards. Then came the disillusionment.

CHAPTER III
Flight in a Dustbin

THE monitor was still outside the door. Like the other instructors of that first day, he occasionally spoke, though Prescott had noticed that the older probationers went about their work automatically and in silence.

"Your cell is doorless," the monitor explained to him, "because it has been found that the desert night air is restful and healthy. But don't think that because there is no door you are free to walk out. Look!"

He reached up above his head and did something with his hand on the outside of the little hut. There was a click.

"I have set the invisible trigger rays. They interlace your doorway and the least interference with them will set off an electronic blast that disintegrates everything in its path. At the reveille signal in the morning, the current will be shut off. Then you can come out. If you try it before, it will mean sure death. Some of you fellows have used that as a way of suicide. Well, if you can't stand the speedup in the apprentice shops, that's all right with us." With that, the monitor walked away. Prescott shivered, for the Martian desert turns intensely cold the moment the sun sets. By the lavender moonlight of Deimos he could dimly make out the contents of his cell. It was bare except for a thin, limp mattress lying directly on the flagstones of the floor.

There was something lying across it, and Prescott found that to be a heavily quilted sleeping coat. He put it on and lay down on the hard mat and for a long time stared out through that doorway with its false invitation to freedom. Outside he could see the bright, unwinking stars and all the yearning for liberty which was characteristic of a free soul surged up within him. In that instant he abruptly changed his plans.

He sat up and studied that tantalizing doorway. Was what the monitor told him a real warning or pure bluff? It was some time before he hit on the way to find out. With his strong fingers he ripped the seam of his mattress and extracted a handful of the long fibers with which it was stuffed. He crawled with them to within a foot of the door and from that point he cautiously probed the vacancy immediately above the sill.

It was at about six inches above the floor that the fiber encountered the first of the unseen rays. A bolt of miniature lightning lashed out from one jamb to the other and the tip of the fiber exploded silently but with a brilliance that was blinding. For a moment Prescott sat where he was, unable to see and badly startled by the abrupt violence of the force he had set off. His trembling fingers still held the stump of the fiber, now riven to a fine fluff. The guard was not bluffing. The doorway was barred by sudden death.

IN a moment he tried again and found the second of the rays—parallel to the bottom one and a little over half a foot above it. He knew what to expect that time and was not so shaken by the swift, starlike flare. Upward he went and located the rest of the rays. The topmost one was at the level of his chin. He sat back and listened, but apparently the bright flashes he had set off caused no alarm. There was only a slight smell of ozone.

For a long time he thought over the devilish mechanism of that door and of a way to beat it. Between the upper ray and the lintel, there was room for the passage of a man's body, but there was no way to reach it. It was tantalizing. For if the rays had been concrete and visible, an agile man might contrive to crawl between them. Since they were not, it would be little short of suicide to make the attempt, as the slighest brush meant extinction.

He recalled his resolve to conform, but what he had experienced and seen that day was discouraging. They were going to rob him of his strength. Worse yet, he had observed the older probationers dragging themselves hopelessly about the place, beaten and spiritless slaves, mere automatons. In time, the system would do that to him also. No—if he was to avenge his fellows, he must be free, and the sooner the better.

Hal Prescott arose, shed his sleeping suit and stripped to his pantlets. The biting air made him shiver, but he must not be encumbered. He walked to the back of the cell and squatted, sizing up the height of the door and its invisible barriers. Then, as a check, he hurled one sandal after the other through the unguarded upper space. One went through. The other was a trifle low and vanished hissing in a burst of dazzling fire.

"Hmmm," thought Prescott, observing the penalties of a miss. But at that the risks were no greater than diving down upon a flying mountain cat. So he went into his steely crouch, and without giving further thought to its danger, launched himself into the same javelin-like flight he had so often practiced in his homeland gorges. There was a swish of air, and he felt his back-hair lifted faintly as it narrowly missed the underface of the lintel. Then he was pitching, face down, into the gritty, ruddy sand outside, to plow a foot or so onward.

Prescott rolled over to a sitting position and began picking the grit from his eyes and nostrils. As soon as he could see and without regard for the many raw spots and abrasions on his chest and thighs, he got to his feet and ducked into the shadow of his sleeping hut where he would be out of the moonlight.

Apparently his captors had full confidence in the unbeatability of their door traps.

The cold drove him to activity. Before starting out into the desert, he must get some clothing. He could see but one light in all the buildings of the Center and that was in the guardhouse through which he had entered the institution the day before. He stole toward it, peered through its open door. There was only one monitor on watch, and he seemed to be following the iron rule that one must never be idle, for he was engaged in operating a calculating machine of some kind.

PRESCOTT slid into the room and selected a weapon of handy weight and size from the rack where the day monitors kept their guns when off watch. He did not know the proper use of the gun but it fitted the hand and made an excellent club. After that it was but the work of a moment to steal up behind the night sentry and strike him down.

A few swift turns of electric wire snatched from the machine he had been working on completed the trick. The fellow was neatly bound and gagged. Prescott stood back and admired his handiwork. If he knew anything about wallops on the head, the fellow would be out for the rest of the night. He helped himself to one of the heavy coats and a pair of sandals he found in a locker and then stepped out into the night.

The going was easier than he expected. At night the sand was easy to walk on. A light frost had hardened its surface into a thin crust that most of the time would support the weight of a man.

Prescott struck out boldly across it and took the back-trail to the skyport. He was unused to deserts and had no way of knowing how extensive this one was or what lay beyond its edges. Possibly he might stow away on one of the numerous spaceships he had noticed lying on the landing field the day before.

It was just dawn when he arrived at the edge of it, and he was relieved to see the ships were still there. One monster liner was a trans-galactic cruiser, carrying, he had been told, a relief expedition to Razim. Between him and it rose a huge timbered structure from which rumbling sounds came and clouds of reddish dust. A cranelike arm extended upward from it at a sharp angle and its tip rested on the dome-plate of the ship.

Prescott could see several men walking across the field, and to avoid being seen by them he cut in closer to the building. Perhaps by hiding among its frames, he could study the layout of the ship and plan a way to get aboard. He had taken only one step when something happened to jolt him into swift action. A siren wailed, and in the wake of its warning howl a battery of loudspeakers about the field began to blare.

"Proctors alert! A heretic escaped Center... heretic escaped Center... armed and dangerous... trail points toward skyport... seal and search all ships... report capture to Abbot-in-Charge, Indoctrination Center."

On went that braying chorus, repeating its message interminably. And over its clamor, Prescott could hear the ring of metal on metal as ships' entry ports were slammed shut, and he heard the shouts of men beginning to search the field.

He ran to the side of the structure near him and scrambled up it like a monkey, snatching at small projections and crevices for holds.

He was near the top when he heard yells below and looked down to see a group of monitors. Their leader was a red-faced proctor who was angrily bellowing orders. Prescott hastily resumed his climb and had already thrown an arm over the topmost beam when something hot flashed hissingly by his ear and burst with a sickening ping beyond. He did not expend an instant in seeing what was beyond the beam above him. He simply flung himself over it.

HE was surprised at what happened next. He was falling sheer. He had not recognized the structure for what it was, a fuel depot for interstellar ships. It was a row of huge hopper-bottomed bins fed by a roaring conveyor belt overhead from which tons and tons of floury ground desert sand were being dumped. He happened to have popped into a bin that had just been emptied, and consequently dropped a long way before his heels struck the smooth, inclined walls of the tapered bottom.

Prescott dived and fell into a hopper-bottomed grain bin.

He was helpless to check himself as he shot on downward to the yawning hole at the bottom. He struck it, went through, dropped another few feet, and then brought up in a soft bed of the red flour which at once splashed upward in a cloud of choking dust.

Prescott sneezed violently. Then he was aware that whatever he had dropped onto was moving and that the racket about him was deafening. The dust cloud dissipated partly and he saw next that he was in one of a chain of dust-laden buckets moving along beneath the spouts of the bins. And his glimpse over the side showed him that monitors were already in the tunnel, running up and down and looking for him.

He pulled his head down and snuggled deeper into the dust. Fortunately the dust was ground so finely as to be almost impalpable and therefore behaved much like water. The bucking and jiggling of the bucket quickly erased any surface irregularities. The mounds over where his legs were stuck levelled off immediately.

So he crawled all the way under, leaving only his face exposed. He felt that he was in a fairly safe hiding place, for the dust clung to everything it touched and his face was thoroughly powdered with it and therefore not likely to be noticed.

He was right in that. He had hardly dug in before a monitor stuck his head over the side of the bucket and gave its contents a swift glance. Prescott squeezed his eyes shut and waited. When he opened them again, the inquisitive monitor was gone. But something else was happening.

The bucket had changed its motion. It was rising sharply. In a moment, it was clear of the tunnel and in the open air. Again Prescott was faced with an acute dilemma. He knew now where he was going.

He was being carried slowly and bumpily, but inexorably, up the crane-borne incline to the dome of the big ship he had seen.

When the bucket reached the pinnacle, it would dump him and its contents into the ship's bunker. That probably would mean instant burial and suffocation. On the other hand, even above the din of the conveyor, the yells of the manhunting monitors could be heard. To stand up in the bucket would mean he would be skylighted and immediately blasted out of existence.

He decided to chance the hold. After all, his original plan had been to stow away on board a ship.

Suddenly the bucket tilted. Prescott slid out of it along with the rest of its contents and found himself plunging into dusty darkness in a cataract of fine sand.

CHAPTER IV
The Maid Does Penance

HE managed to extricate himself from the torrent that followed, only to find himself in a blind-walled compartment, filled with choking dust, with more of the fuel pouring in every minute. Presently the downpour ceased, and he could see the yellow square that marked the hatchway overhead. Two heads showed in it, peering down into the interior.

"Nothing doing," said the other. "I'm closing the hatch. We shove off right away—Rizam bound. If the guy's here, it's just too bad. This is our reserve bunker, and we may not open it all the way. You can burn that stuff down there, but you can't eat it."

"Gotta search," said the other doggedly. "It's the Abbot's orders, and no third rate Curate of Astragation is going to tell me—"

"Easy, buddy. The skipper of this bucket is a Prebendary. Get that? Where does a lousy Abbot get off telling him what he can and can't do? Outa my way. I'm battening down." The heads disappeared, then the blob of light as the hatch cover was put on and battened down. Then there was utter darkness. A little later the ship shuddered, leaped like a skyrocket. That was bad, for Hal Prescott had still to get used to sudden accelerations. But worse was to come. For he was on an interstellar liner this time and unprepared for the wild burst of acceleration that was to be applied when once the ship was clear of Mars and jumped to almost the speed of light.

A few shots of anti-traumatic serum might have saved him, but he was an unlisted and unwanted passenger. When that terrific surge came, he simply gasped, saw a demented whirling of bright lights against a bloody background, and fell limply against the bulkhead.

He lay there for a long time—a period measurable in weeks and months—in the curious state of suspended animation that any organism is subject to when it is suddenly catapulted forward at colossal speed without prior preparation.

But days later Hal Prescott came to in suffocating heat. He shed his thick coat and stared into the darkness. For a moment, the wild fears engendered by claustrophobia almost got the upper hand, for he was not used to being imprisoned in dark, tight places. But he mastered them and went fumbling about the walls. Then he remembered. There was no outlet from that bunker, unless far below, yards deep beneath the powdered fuel.

Then he remembered the heat gun he had, and tried it. It worked amazingly. In a little while he was grimly at work on a spot in the bulkhead, burning his way through the glowing metal. The cut went through, and he tore out the circular piece of steel and hurled it behind him. Then he crawled through the orifice into a dimly and mysteriously lighted room, dropped lightly to its deck and looked about him.

It was a store-room of sorts, contained nothing but heavy, tough crates, and numbered pieces of machinery. Nothing in it was edible, and Prescott craved food, for in his long slumber he had become emaciated and felt pathetically weak. So he turned his back on the contents of the room and tried its door.

It gave at the touch, and he found himself outside in a slick and shiny corridor. The door closed softly behind him and locked itself with a click, as he discovered when he attempted to push it open again. There was nothing to do, then, but go on. Which he did.

THE corridor was a short one and seemed to give onto another at right angles to it a little way ahead. Prescott proceeded down it with the utmost caution, because behind the next turn there might be a Perfectionist monitor with his accursed tetanizer in hand. So he walked silently, half holding his breath until he reached the intersection. There he paused and listened.

He was instantly glad he did, for strange, whiffling sounds could be heard. It was puzzling, for there seemed to be two separate ones, one superimposed on the other. One was a steady squishing, having an irregular rhythm of its own, quite distinct from the occasional spasmodic snuffling and choking sounds that accompanied it.

His first thought was that it was some small animal in distress, writhing in agony on the slick floorplate. He waited a bit, but the sounds kept up. At length he could stand the uncertainty no longer. He determined to risk a look, and prepared for almost anything, he thrust his head around the comer.

"Almost anything" is the phrase to use, for the quick gasp Prescott stifled told how unprepared he was for what he saw. It was something he had often dreamed of, but never encountered, even in the idyllic mountain valley he called home. Nor was it anything he'd thought he would ever see in the bowels of a Perfectionist galaxy cruiser.

Before him knelt a girl—an incredibly beautiful girl—and she was wielding a dirty wet rag and sobbing bitterly the while! He stared at her, dumbfounded. What was she doing in this lonely, empty corridor? Scrubbing the deck, obviously. But why?

The deck was burnished, rustproof metal and spotless as a polished mirror. No amount of work could make it cleaner. Moreover, no Perfectionist of whatever caste ever performed manual labor or permitted it to be performed when a machine existed that could do it quicker or better. Yet there she was, scrubbing away in the most primitive fashion, and grieving over it, too.

She must have sensed his approach, for when he looked at her she stopped her scrubbing motions. Without looking up or moving she said to him in a low voice full of scorn and resentment,

"I know you are there, but you needn't spy on me. I sinned. I confessed. The penance is being performed as the Bishop ordered. Go 'way. Leave me alone!"

She choked down a sob and went back to her scrubbing. He stood still, not knowing what to do or say.

"Go 'way, I tell you," she snapped angrily, "you give me the heebie-jeebies." She straightened up and sat back on her heels, glaring at him through tear-moistened, smoldering green eyes. The full view of her confirmed the vision he had already conjured up from the sight of her tousled honey-colored hair and the graceful lines of her back and arms.

The hill women he was used to were knotty-muscled tree-climbing creatures, jolly and companionable, but clothed in rough homespun and with skin roughened by the harsh gales of the upland country. Unless he had seen it with his own eyes, he would not have thought it possible for a girl to have the sinuous beauty of a ledge serpent and with it the unleashed vitality of a hill-cat.

THE look of resentment on her face suddenly changed to one of startled wonder. She struggled to her feet, still clinging to her rag, looking at him full in the eyes all the while.

"Oh!" she said, after a long, staring interval, "Now I know who you are. You are the barbarian who escaped from the Center. They said you were dead. But I see you aren't, so I'll have to do something about you."

It was his turn to be startled. A minute or so before he had been tense and ready to grapple with any human being that interfered with him and kill or be killed. But he felt utterly disarmed and helpless.

Moreover, the calm way she was studying him from his dust-powdered hair down to his rust-encrusted bare feet was most disconcerting, and all the more so for the reason that approval and disapproval seemed to be struggling for mastery of the expression of her face. For the first time since he had awakened he was keenly conscious of his unkempt and disreputable appearance. Red grit clung to him everywhere.

"Like getting you bathed," she said, cocking her head to one side and with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "You look like a cast-iron man that has been left out to rust. You are filthy. And what's worse, you're shedding that stuff all over the floor. I'll be blamed for that. They'll say I sulked and committed sabotage. And that'll mean more demerits for me."

He threw back his head and laughed. Her answer was so unexpected that the absurdity of it swept his tension away in one breath. And then be saw that his merriment was not shared by her, that she was regarding him reproachfully.

"All right, all right," he said, more soberly. "But what's this about demerits? What sin is it, anyway, that compels you to do penance by scrubbing floors and weeping?"

"I wasn't weeping," she flared, but she dabbed her eyes with the rag, just the same. "I was only snuffling a little."

"Pretty terrible," she admitted sheepishly. "The full charge was frivolous wastage of material and time with subversive intent. That's what the Prebendary called it. But it wasn't that way at all. I cross my heart. I mean—well, there wasn't any subversive intent. I just felt like doing it, that's all. I didn't mean anything by it."

"Fancy work!" She made the admission half apologetically, half defiantly, and looked up at him as if to see how he took it and how deep his disapproval was. "It was this way. One of the atomic blast gang backed into an electronic stream and it burned away part of his dungarees—part of him, too.

"The Dean of Hygiene patched him up, but he couldn't do anything about the breeches. There weren't any spares to fit the man and no machine to reweave the damaged part. Somebody said it could be done by hand, but nobody wanted to do it. Handwork is menial and low, you know. It was a silly thing to do, but I volunteered."

"Go on," he said, smiling at the appealing look in her eyes. She seemed thoroughly embarrassed.

"Well, I stitched 'em. I took a whole day at it. It was the first time I ever handled a needle, so I did my best. I put the patch in first. Then I went over the stitches again and again to make them strong. He was a big man, you know. I thought it would be better if I crisscrossed 'em some, so I put in circles and triangles, all interlaced—spirals, too, in different colors. It was beautiful, I thought, but—"

"You poor dear," he exclaimed, and forgetting all about his dustiness clasped her to him and kissed her tenderly. She had covered her face with her hands and was crying convulsively. Perfectionist be blowed! She was no Perfectionist, but a suppressed artist—one of his own kind, trapped in a hostile environment.

"Th-hey didn't like it," she moaned, clinging to him. "Th-they said it was unnecessary. Th-they said it was a scandalous piece of ex-exhibitionism. They said it was their duty to cure me of such pranks. So I have to do this now—four hours every day until I've fully repented."

HE kissed her again, and when he got his breath he kissed her some more. Suddenly she pulled apart from him and pushed him away with her arms.

"No, no," she said. "I mustn't do this, either. It's a waste of time, too, and that makes it a sin. You see, I'm rated as a class B female."

"I keep forgetting you are a barbarian," she said, dabbing at the dust on her silky plastic smock. "The Class B ones are the non-maters. I'm not the mother type. They say my genetoscope readings are terrible, rebellious chromosomes and all that. That's why I have to be a dietician."

At the word genetoscope his face darkened and he remembered where he was. Genetoscope readings, indeed! If hers were bad, he thought, with grim humor, his would blow the instrument's fuse.

"That bath," she reminded him, looking ruefully at the stains that still clung to her smock. "It's the fourth door on the right behind me. You'd better hurry. The inspector will be along any minute to check up on me."

CHAPTER V
Prebendary Pardon

"Well!" she said, looking his clean, glistening torso over with unmistakable favor, "you did a good job. But you're thin. I see I have to feed you. Come along."

Prescott followed her obediently. The feeling of apprehension he had had when he first emerged into the ship was gone. For once he was thankful for the rigidity of the routine followed by the Perfectionists since one could predict nicely what they would do and when—if one knew the schedule. He did not, but she did, and he trusted her.

They came to another door and she opened it by a quick manipulation of its dial lock.

"Sustenance storeroom," she explained, briefly. "It's lucky for you I issue the nutriment, or you wouldn't have any."

The thought of nutriment cheered him still more. She had already shown some symptoms of Sybaritism, maybe she had some real food in her lockers.

"I could eat a horse," he said by way of answer. By that time they were inside and the door locked behind them. She was appraising his gaunt ribs professionally.

"You'll eat eighty grams of omnivit," she said, firmly, "and two hundred of proteinax, with a half a liter of solution K-48 to round it out. And like it. No horse. I don't know what a horse is, but, we haven't any."

She counted out the capsules and dropped them into his hand. Then she drew a beaker of rose-colored liquid and handed that to him. She pushed him into a tiny inner storeroom and pointed to a chair.

"You'll be all right here. Eat your ration and be quiet until I come back. Nobody else is likely to come in. I've got to go back and finish my penance now."

He sniffed the foul-smelling pills and the equally obnoxious fluid. They might be loaded with pep and vitality, but they had a bitter taste and to a mountaineer's keen nostrils, simply stank.

He eased himself onto a seat and relaxed. For a bit he pondered the queer turn that had taken place in his affairs, but for a few minutes before he had been prowling the empty corridors of the ship hoping to come upon some vital part of it. In his desperation it had been his intention to destroy it and with it as many of the hated Perfectionists as possible.

But that resolve had to be altered now. He could not blindly wreck a ship and a creature like Nesa with it. And who knew? If there was one Perfectionist like her, there might be others. For the first time since his capture, doubt invaded his mind. He might do better to observe before striking.

Of a sudden Prescott's train of thought was interrupted. He heard sounds in the outer room. Nesa had returned! There was someone with her! For an instant his blood ran cold. Had she betrayed him?

HE listened to the voices. The other was a man's—a rasping, unpleasant voice, despite its owner's obvious efforts to conceal it by a syrupy, wheedling intonation. Then came Nesa's voice, low and frightened, but distinct.

"But," he pleaded unctuously, "all the obstacles are cleared away. The message came through today. I took it myself—I happened to be testing the long range receiver when it came. The Eugenics Board has rescinded its ban on your marriage. The genetoscope on which you were tested was discovered to be out of adjustment."

"But the board has overlooked that," he urged, "they have granted you qualification as a mater, and since my name is highest on the application list there is no more to do than go to the Prebendary and be married."

"You are lying, Deacon Kolb," she said with chilling scorn. "I know your uncle is Presbyter of the Eugenics Board and might have done it, but he did not. You received no such message. We are trillions of miles out by now and have received no communications from Earth in days. It is a deliberate forgery."

"Be careful, my pet," he said. His tone was ugly and ominous. "A layman dietician with a record like yours should think twice before using insolence toward a wearer of the blue. I have only to report it to have you sent away to the House of Penitents for years. On the other hand, if you rejoice as you should at my generous offer, I will guarantee to make you a priestess of the first rank. Come!" There was no immediate answer, but Prescott heard instead the sounds of a scuffle. Then there came a stifled scream. It was Nesa's.

"Stop! Take your slimy paws off me!" But the scuffling continued, and a heavy heel struck against the door behind which Prescott was listening. Prescott was raging inwardly, full of fury and itching to fling the door open and intervene, but he held himself. To do that would compromise Nesa hopelessly. If the blackguard now struggling with her were as thorough-going a villain as he sounded, it would give him the very lever he was looking for. But the next words and sounds galvanized Hal Prescott into action.

IT was the resounding smack of a heavy slap that catapulted the Venusian heretic through the door. Before him was Nesa in the clutches of a big brute of a man wearing the silver lightning-jagged blue toga of a radio expert, and she was fighting him back tigerishly.

Prescott's left hand grasped the reverend deacon by the scruff of the neck and whirled him around. Then his right drove forward like a battering ram and sent the amorous radioman reeling against the bulkhead on the far side of the room. The man leaned there groggily for a moment, spitting teeth and brushing feebly at his bloody lips with a hand that was obviously unsteady.

A terrific punch sent the Deacon reeling against the bulkhead.

"When I smack 'em, you dirty swamp skunk," said Prescott, standing firmly before the man, "they're my own size and sex. Here's more, if you can take it."

And he doubled up his fist and showed it to him. But the deacon evidently had enough. A deep triple scratch adorned one cheek, the other was swelling rapidly. He only shook his head, but his hand was groping the bulkhead back of him. Then it stopped, and Prescott saw the hand flutter.

"Oh, stop him!" cried Nesa, suddenly realizing what he was doing. She had just got up off the floor where she had been thrown when she was released from Kolb's clutch by Prescott's vigorous yank at him. "He's rung the alarm. The monitors will be here any second."

"What do you mean, we?" yelled Prescott, diving for him. The deacon cowered and threw an arm up to protect himself, but it was no use. His adversary knocked it aside with one fist and drove the other into his eye. Kolb did not wait for its mate, but sank whimpering to the floor.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Nesa, quietly, though she was rubbing her own inflamed cheek thoughtfully. "It only makes things worse."

There was no answer to that, and no time to deliver it if there had been, for the outer door swung open, and a proctor and a file of monitors stood in it. Blasters and tetanizers were ready in their hands.

"What's going on here?" asked the monitor, sternly, looking at the belligerent, half-naked man before him and the battered deacon struggling to get up from where he had fallen and at the same time trying to rearrange his disordered priestly garments. "Who is this man?"

"He is a heretic and a criminal," said Kolb, venomously. "He is the escaped probationer from Mars that you searched the ship for. Now you know why you didn't find him. She sheltered him! I demand her arrest, too. I tried to capture him, and would have, but she interfered with me. Take them to the Prebendary at once!"

Prescott laughed out loud. Nesa crept up beside him and slipped one of her hands into his. She lifted his hand so the proctor could see the scuffed knuckles.

"I see it," said the proctor, with a cold glance at the discomfited deacon. It was plain to see that his private opinion did not altogether square with what was expected of him officially. "But let's go."

THE Prebendary was a tall spare man with a flowing white beard and an abundant mane to match. Nesa and Prescott stood in the sinner's box before him, while the accusing deacon and the proctor had their place at the right. Prescott studied the old man's face and concluded that since he had to be tried, it was better to be tried by such a man than by any other.

There was something about the commander's mien that made him think of his old chieftain, Jedson. There were the same compelling eyes, eyes that could be either sternly commanding or genuinely understanding. The face also had that bland innocence of expression that often masks a keen and observant mind.

The proctor told his story. Just what he had seen and no more. Then the deacon stepped forward and told his, though his telling of it was somewhat impeded by having to talk through swollen lips and unaccustomed vacancies in his dental lineup. He had, he said, made an honorable offer of marriage and was astonished at his intended's sudden change of heart.

He had heard sounds inside the inner room and found there the reason for it. He recognized the man instantly as a stowaway and tried to seize him, but she attacked him from behind. During the scuffle that ensued, he inadvertently touched the alarm signal, and the monitors interfered before he could complete the capture. Having testified to that, he withdrew.

"I did my best, your reverence," said Kolb, meekly. "May I suggest that your reverence will save time by dispensing with the testimony of the two culprits. Only perjury is to be expected from heretics and abettors of heretics."

"A very shrewd suggestion, deacon," said the Prebendary, with elaborate politeness, and Prescott's heart sank as he saw the beaming smile that accompanied it. "But an old man with a proven record of rectitude may be indulged in small things. It has been a long time since I dealt with a heretic, and I am curious to hear what this one may say. You are excused."

Deacon Kolb muttered something and stepped back. He did not look happy. The Prebendary turned his face toward Prescott in an unspoken invitation to begin.

"Your reverence," Prescott blurted eagerly, for he was as hopeful now as he had been despondent the moment before, "she did not harbor me. She never saw me before until I burst out of that storeroom to save her from attack. She—"

"Just a moment, please," said the Prebendary, mildly. He beckoned a monitor. "Have the Curate in charge of Dietetics take stock of Nesa's stores." He turned to Prescott again. "Go on, but spare me these minor perjuries, if you please. One doesn't get into locked storerooms without either having the combination or wrecking the door."

FOR a moment Prescott was nonplussed, but the order to take stock of Nesa's stores gave him a cue. There would be a few pills missing, but not enough to make the charge of harboring him stick. He did not care much what happened to him, but he wanted to exonerate her and discredit the deacon. So he apologized for his first hasty words and went back to the beginning.

He told of coming aboard, of sleeping, and his escape from the bunker. He told of meeting her in the passage and demanding food. She fed him a few pills and locked him in, saying she would be back shortly. Then he related all that had followed, omitting nothing and adding nothing.

"Hmmm," said the Prebendary, stroking his beard. He beckoned another monitor. "Have both the signal logs brought me—the one in the communications room and my private one, the intercept one. Also the ammeter cards." Then he sank back dreamily in his seat, looked softly at the ceiling a moment, then closed his eyes as if resting. The deacon shifted uneasily on his feet, and the unmarred portion of his face was very pale. Presently both monitors returned, and for a time the Prebendary studied the papers they had brought. Then he called for Kolb.

"Deacon Kolb, I want to thank you for revealing a most deplorable weakness in our organization." The deacon brightened upon hearing that, and for an instant looked almost cocky. "I find it is possible to fake an incoming call by using a distant-control sending set mounted in another part of the ship.

"You knew of course that my master set intercepts all messages, but you did not know that it also recorded the range and bearing of the source. I am somewhat surprised to learn that the Board of Eugenics has a sending station in your sleeping quarters. I am even more surprised to hear that one of my senior priests should press a marriage offer on a young female on the authority of a permission forged by himself.

"I think that this case presents so many unpleasant ramifications that I shall hold it over until we arrive at Razim, where there should be a full court of the Inquisition. In the meantime, you will regard yourself as under arrest and not leave your quarters without my permission. You may now leave the chamber."

But the good deacon could not leave the chamber. He had fallen to the floor in a dead faint. The proctor made a sign and two monitors picked him up and carried him out.

She bowed, turned, and with the barest flicker of her glance as it swept by Prescott's conveyed a wealth of gratitude. A monitor made way for her, and the door clicked behind her. The Prebendary looked at Prescott, and that time Prescott could see that all the hardness was gone and in its place an infinite weariness, as if what had just passed had been painful to him.

"Do not be afraid, my boy. I have your entire record. It was sent me shortly after leaving Mars by the Abbot there. I do not blame you for your hostility to our order, for you are too ignorant of it, and none of us have gone about your conversion in the proper manner. I have long thought that the methods at the Indoctrination Center were unduly harsh.

"Therefore I am going to give you another chance. The events of today are forgiven, and you are reinstated as a probationary. I shall provide you with what you need and supply a tutor. In the meantime, the proctor will take care of you."

A reverent hush prevailed until the door had closed behind him. Then the proctor beckoned to Prescott to follow him the other way.

"Boy, what a break you got!" he exclaimed. He added, with a wide grin, "but you rated it. His ex-reverence Kolb has been overdue for a good walloping for one heckuva long time."

Prescott understood then something that had been puzzling him ever since the entry of the monitors into his little private scrap. On every other occasion when he had been rambunctious, the first thing any monitor did was cut him down with a shot of tetany.

CHAPTER VI
New World

TO Prescott's amazement, he was made a monitor. The job was not hard, as practically the entire complement of the Evangelist were handpicked people, chosen for their skill and reliability.

That was because the ship was going to Razim, where current conditions were unknown.

His hours were long, and at first the steady routine galled him, but as he became more used to rising and retiring at fixed hours and being at some one else's beck and call, he found it far from intolerable. In his own native habitat, of course, he had waked or slept as he chose like a wild animal, and acted only on the whim of the moment, hunting, fishing, or aimlessly rambling as he chose.

The one detail of Perfectionist life that irked him most was the total absence of what he regarded as proper food, but even that had been made palatable now, for it was Nesa who operated the metabolometer and doled out his daily ration to him. That morning contact was always a brief one, and they seldom spoke, but it gave him the courage to go on.

He found that the duties consisted chiefly of assembling in one of the several guard rooms and waiting for calls. Every compartment of the big ship had at least one alarm button in it, certain others had automatic scanners and dictaphones, so that an organized patrol was unnecessary.

In order to keep the monitor force on their toes, the Head Proctor spent most of his time prowling about the ship and ringing alarms at random, whereupon the nearest squad rushed to report. At other hours the monitors were drilled in marksmanship in the several weapons they carried, also ju-jitsu, wrestling, boxing and other arts of policemanship. These exercises suited Prescott perfectly, and he made a great showing at them.

HIS tutor was not an unpleasant fellow, though much he said Prescott disagreed with. But he was the sort of man who would permit argument and discussion, and that helped. He was a dried-up little man, well into middle age but still only a Curate of Orthodoxy. His low rank was due, in all probability, to the fact that he was not as dogmatic as the bishops thought he should be. His name was Stiver. He and his pupil had many spirited tilts on the pros and cons of their respective faiths.

In the end Prescott was forced to admit there was something to be said for Perfectionism. On Venus, he had eaten what he pleased and as much of it as he pleased, but not always when. There had been occasions when game was scarce, when the berries were eaten by the birds before he found them, or when the wild potato crops failed. Prescott had known gnawing hunger, had even gone through a severe famine that wiped out half his tribe.

On the Evangelist, no one ever truly ate, but no one ever hungered. There was the matter of disease, too. A sick Sybarite either got well or died, just as the pterofelidae did, depending upon his constitution. Every few years, the deadly swamp-pox took its heavy toll, and many of the old were blind. Prescott had yet to see a pockmarked or a blind Perfectionist.

"Yes," he would concede, "you have steady nutrition, sanitation, health. You have better shelter, not the drafty, leaky shacks we live in. You have good illumination, not the smelly tiger-fat lamps with handwoven cottonweed wicks. You have deadly weapons and communications and all that. But what for? You don't live, you just exist. Why not a little fun?"

"It won't work," the Curate would say, wearily, and start his arguments all over. The burden of his discourse was that it had been tried and failed. That had been in America, just before the Totalitarian transition period. Even in that distant age, there had been in existence nearly all the virtues of Perfectionism, though somewhat undeveloped, but there had also been the taint of the pleasure principle.

"They were vicious to the core, those Americans," the Curate said, sadly. "It seems incredible to us now, but history tells us that they used to congregate by the thousands in darkened halls and sit for hours hypnotized by the flickering of shadows on the wall.

"Thousands of acres of arable ground were let go to grass, and multitudes of men wasted their afternoons knocking little balls about so that they would fall into tiny holes. Just why has never been made clear, as they always promptly retrieved the balls. Again, great industries specialized in making small vehicles in which half the population ran about aimlessly over the countryside using fuel that would have powered countless factories for the making of useful things.

"There were many such vices, but perhaps the most pernicious was the time-wasting device known variously as courting—that term is found in the older texts—and necking, which is the later and more decadent version. The silly young creatures of that day did not know that a brief two minutes in a genetoscope would give them the correct answer to a question they often spent years of experimentation on, frequently to get the wrong result."

"Deplorable," Prescott would murmur, maliciously. He remembered some boyish experimentation of the sort with a hill girl from over the southwest spur. It was vastly preferable, in his opinion, to the somewhat unpleasant probing done on him by the genetoscope they used.

And so it went. Stiver registered some points, but Prescott was far from being converted. He kept thinking of Nesa and the ban on both of them.

"Pfui on the Eugenics Board, the stuffed shirts!" was his thought on that score. An ounce of instinct is worth a pound of science. That was Prescott's view, and he refused to change it.

"We don't know what to expect at Razim," he said, one day. "Earth lost contact with it about two hundred years ago. Something happened, but we don't know what. It may only be that the ships couldn't come back—the older ones had to have uranium and there wasn't much of it on Razim "This is the first one big enough for a trans-galactic flight that has been built since atomic power came in. It burns iron, and you can pick that up almost anywhere. That stuff you came aboard with is just reserve."

"Uh huh," said Prescott. They were ten months out now and they hadn't broached it yet. He was glad he got out of the bunker.

"We sent a good many ships out there in the old days, but it took ten years or so then to make the trip one way. So not many came back, ever. The last we heard they had built some fine cities and had a first-class civilization going.

"The planet is a lot like Earth, except it has no moon and it sits straight up and down on its axis. That makes the seas tideless, and the weather very regular. The place is ruled by a cardinal and it ought to be pretty well run. The capital is where we're heading." The proctor stopped and looked at Prescott questioningly, as if making a final size-up of him. Then, with a show of hesitation, he went on.

"There's something I think you ought to know, but I don't know whether I ought to tell you. But I'll take a chance—you've gotten to be pretty regular. The Prebendary is worried. He thinks maybe there'll be trouble. That's one reason he let you go. You're a big husky and a good rough and tumble fighter. You may come in handy. Then again, he might want an ambassador."

"I see," said Prescott, thoughtfully. He was more glad than ever he had taken that risky dive over the trigger rays of his cell at the Martian Center. On this planet he might find buddies.

Then it became a definite disk. A new star popped up beside it. That was the planet Razim. The Evangelist slowed to a quarter of the speed of light and prepared to cut still more.

All hands were called to assembly in the chapel, where a huge visiscreen showed all that was before and under them. It was during Prescott's rest period, so he was free to sit where he pleased. It pleased him to crowd into the dietetic section and jam himself down beside one of its lay workers.

"Oh, I dunno—as often as I see you, I guess. Hope that'll be a million times or more."

"Oh, look!" she said. A huge blue disk was cutting onto the field of the screen. That meant the ship had altered course and was diving straight at the planet of their destination. The bluish tint grew paler, turned to silver with green patches and white, showing where the continents lay and the polar ice caps. In a little it grew so large that only areas of the surface were visible, and those slid by rapidly. The Evangelist was circumnavigating the globe now, losing altitude all the while.

PRESCOTT'S keen nostrils dilated. He sniffed the air again to make sure. Ah, there it was more distinct than ever—air, genuine air, with the reek of pine scent in it. They must be very low, and the Prebendary had ordered outside air to be sucked in and distributed through the ducts. It was a welcome change from the sterile, odorless stuff of the long voyage.

Prescott looked more closely at the screen and saw they could not be much over a couple of miles up. A deep blue ocean now rolled beneath, colored here and there by greenish or yellowish patches where an occasional submerged island almost broke the surface.

He could not answer at once. Something was in his throat. The sight of the free rolling sea with white touches of foam where the bigger waves tumbled their crests, and the clouds floating above were too much for him. He had not seen water, cloud, a growing thing or beast since the day they dragged him drugged from his rude cottage among the Venusian crags.

There had only been steel walls—slick, flat, uniform, imprisoning. At the sight of that wind-ruffled sea, all the barbarian in him rose to the top, and he had nothing but contempt for the miserable automatons who sat docilely in serried rows all about him. For all but one, that is—he bent his head near her ear.

"That is just the beginning," he whispered. "When we get there, we'll run away, and I'll teach you things—what roast boar tastes like, how to cut a flute out of a reed, how to sing, dance and play and many other things. You will be my probationer then—no more pills and stinking solutions."

CHAPTER VII
Ambush

THE scene shifted. The ship was lower now, hardly more than a few thousand feet up. Ahead a drifting pall of black smoke blotted out the horizon. The ship swerved to the left, and the scanner that fed the visiscreen was cut out and another switched in. The view was from the starboard side. Ten miles away a curtain of black, greasy smoke boiled upward from the sea in angry billows, and as the ship closed with it and ran along parallel to its edge, the gasping onlookers could see rows of short, yellow flames rising directly from the water. The ocean was burning! The sea was on fire! It was incredible.

"That can't be water," muttered Prescott, as the ship drifted on, mile after mile, and the awesome conflagration continued to shut out the southern sky. "But then, if part of it burns, why not all?"

Others murmured, too. A dean of atomics sitting back of him remarked that he had read all the accounts of Razim and that no mention of such a phenomenon had been made in any.

"Now we know," said another voice, "what happened to our colony." But just then the ship came to the end of the smoke. Again there was only the blue sea to be seen. Apparently only a portion of it was on fire.

"Nonsense," said the atomics expert. But the scene had shifted again. The screen showed what lay ahead. Far off a serrated mountain range lifted its high peaks, pale violet in the distance. At its foot and nearer were the dark masses of vast forests, still nearer were inviting coastal plains, the bright green of its savannahs broken by small groves of trees. To Prescott's delighted eyes it was heaven. Then he caught view of the mass of multicolored towers rising from the very water's edge. Those were man-made unquestionably. The colony had survived, despite all rumors.

People rose from their seats and scurried for the exits. Prescott hung back long enough to grab one quick embrace and a tiny kiss. "I'll find a way," was his whispered farewell. Then he was off, too, and on his way to the guard-room.

"Blasters, double-charged, and knives," said the head proctor. "We don't know what's out there, and we can't take chances."

The forward way of the ship was checked with a lurch, then she began the dizzy, swaying business of settling down on her jets.

THE squad of monitors paused on the platform outside the amidship entry port. A sight of strange desolation met their eyes. Where they expected to see a broad, barren field glazed here and there with slag runs, they saw only masses of greenery. The jungle had taken the skyport.

Clumps of trees stood about, and between them was thick brush, tied together by a wild tangle of vines and creepers. But it had been a skyport, for the rusting hulls of three great spaceships rose from among the vegetation. Their entry ports yawned black and some of their plates had rusted through and fallen away.

One seemed to have exploded, for its curved outer plates were strewn widely about the pyramid of junk that had once been its interior decks and machinery. In the near distance stood the silent masses of a deserted and abandoned city, grey with the patina of age or spotted with patches of green moss.

Prescott pushed his way to the front, passing as he did another group preparing to land. That was the biological party, equipped with butterfly nets and specimen bottles, eager to sample the flora and fauna of this alien planet. Nesa was among them and gave Prescott a gay little wave as he went by. That was good, he thought. All that he needed now was to give the proctor the slip, join her, and then take her away with him into the wilderness that he knew and loved so well.

Rope ladders were dropped, and the advance party descended to the ground. It was clear beneath except for the still hot embers where the ship's blasts had seared away the underbrush, but a hundred feet away the going got hard.

In many places it was necessary to use the blasters to clear a path through the tangled growth, but in an hour's time they cut their way to what had been the edge of the field. Twice they came upon the bleached and chalky bones of men, but there was nothing near them to give any clue as to who they were or how they died.

After some casting about they found the old road to the city. It had been solidly paved, but now it was deeply fissured, and trees and bushes had grown up in the fissures, tilting huge slabs at such angles that detours were often necessary. But the going was easier on the whole, and the seeing better. Here they found many skeletons. Again there was nothing left to identify them, though most of the skulls were cleft or crushed.

"A massacre has been done here," commented the tutor Stiver, who had come along. "Invasion, I wonder, or rebellion?"

Prescott wondered too, though he said nothing. Had the Sybarites succeeded in throwing off the yoke? If so, he and Nesa might hope to find their settlements and join them. They would be welcomed if only for the reason they would be bringing warning of the arrival of a new expedition from Earth. With such thoughts in his mind he stumbled along after the others until they came out onto a spacious open plaza.

Like the road, its paving blocks had been disarranged by grass and bushes growing in cracks, but it could be traversed with little difficulty. On the far side of it ran a river or broad estuary lined with rotting docks. To the right rose the huge buildings of the city. The proctor led off toward the nearest and largest of them.

THE unnatural hush in a place that should be teeming with human life was uncanny. There was an ominous something about it, as if great disaster impended. The very air seemed charged with death. There was no member of the party that did not feel that, and as they climbed the littered steps to the gaping portal whose great bronze doors now sagged warped and battered from their hinges, the sense of apprehension grew.

There was nothing in the ghastly aspect of the interior to reassure them. Bones were everywhere, and among the bones was a profusion of smashed furniture and scientific apparatus. Whoever had taken and sacked this city had wantonly wrecked everything that they could not take away.

It was in the great hall that the evidence of vandalism was most abundant. The greatest butchery had been done there, for the bones lay thicker and the walls had been hacked and chipped and splashed with blood by the swords of the conquerors. But they had not contented themselves with slaughter and looting. The high altar now lay overturned and smashed to fragments.

Likewise the marble pedestals supporting the busts of early scientists had been cast down and the fallen sculptures indescribably mutilated. Above the altar, the glittering mosaic which bore the golden circle—the symbol of Perfection—had been pelted with muck. But as if even those acts of sacrilege did not give sufficient vent to their fury, the butchers had daubed the walls with lewd drawings and highly insulting scribblings.

The drawings were childishly crude and the scrawls spelled so abominably as to be hardly legible, but the essence of their meaning could be guessed at. Some gloated, some threatened, others were merely a senseless spewing of vindictive epithets, but the target of all that filth was unmistakably clear. It was Perfectionism.

Stiver gripped Prescott by the arm and pointed to the vilest of the outpourings.

"This is the work of your kind," he said coldly. "I have been trying to tell you to what depths unbridled Sybaritism leads."

Prescott stared at the damning script on the wall. It was a dull brown in color and the lines were thick, as if written by a finger dipped in blood. He read the last abominable sentence twice. "The wimmin we tuk" was what it said.

He had to concede glumly that the desolation about him was the work of Sybarites. It was a hard thing for him to accept, but there it was. He knew old Jedson would never have condoned such bestiality, but he had to admit to himself that all the hillsmen were not as mildly led. But the hardest blow of all fell on his immediate plans.

There could be no going to the hills with Nesa now. The orgy of destruction whose vestiges filled the charnel house about him must have taken place many decades before, perhaps a century. If the Razim Sybarites had degenerated to that extent then, what were they now?

It was a sobering question. And the putting of it left him with but one choice. Willy-nilly he must accept the system of his captors. He detested both extremes, but the cheerless existence of Perfectionism seemed to be the lesser of the evils.

"We'd better go back and report to the Prebendary," said the Head Proctor, with a scowl. He was eyeing the Blaster hanging at Prescott's side with dubiousness. It was plain that he no longer trusted the semi-converted Venusian Sybarite. But he did not order the weapon surrendered. He merely jerked his head for his men to fall in and follow. Then he led the way back.

AS they emerged onto the plaza after the musty, dead odors of the building, they all experienced a lift of heart. Prescott glanced toward the river on the right and drew a deep breath of the warm noon air. And then his quick eye picked out a detail that he would have sworn had not been present when they entered the building.

Down by the quay, a row of tall poles bobbed and weaved about, trailing ropelike lines of dangling, twisted lianas. They could be but one thing—masts of boats! He had seen such often on the wide lakes of the lower mountain valleys at home. He mentioned them to the proctor.

He turned that way and the squad turned too. It was then that Prescott was favored with luck again, though he cursed fervently at the onset of it. A paving flag gave way beneath his foot and threw him heavily to the ground. He was just beginning to rise from the awkward prone position when there was a whizzing overhead and yelps and groans of pain came to his ears.

He heard the thudding of bodies falling all about him and the frantic gurgling of strangling men. He dropped prone again and as by instinct whipped out his blaster and flipped the trigger to ready. Then he peeped.

The monitors and the curate were all down, dead or expiring. Feathered shafts of arrows stuck out of their breasts, throats and limbs, together with longer shafted weapons as assegais or javelins. Prescott knew that a number of them would have riddled him if he had not fallen. He looked sharply at the spot where he estimated the volley to have come from, but saw only a heavy path of gentle waving bushes.

On the chance it might conceal the foe, he let a full blast go at it and held the button down while the leaves and branches curled hissingly into crisp carbon and dropped away. He heard screams of agony and saw several tawny savages spring into sight, only to be cooked out of existence.

Prescott heard screams of agony and saw
several tawny savages spring into sight.

Prescott kept the blast on until he had cut away a ten foot swath at the edge of the wood, but by then he knew the rest of his adversaries were out of range. Back under the trees he could see the underbrush in wild agitation as they fled through it from his avenging ray.

He clambered to his feet and examined his shipmates. It was too late to do anything for them. He unstrapped the portable receptor from the dead proctor's wrist and strapped it onto his own. Then he bounded away from the gruesome spot with but one idea in his mind. If bands of savage murderers were loose and ambushed in the brush, it was imperative that he find the biological party and give them warning. Nesa was with them, and that illiterate scrawl on the wall had burned itself into his memory as if written in letters of fire—"the wimmin we tuk."

CHAPTER VIII
Escape by Sea

PRESCOTT ran, but ran warily, as he knew that any tree or brush might hide a lurking savage. But no missiles came hurtling out of the brush at him. He was over halfway back to the skyport before the slightest sign of living humanity was manifest. That was a murmur of noise ahead of him, a mixture of groans, curses, taunts and coarse laughter, faint and jumbled. He went on, but more cautiously, listening and at half crouch as he went.

The growing loudness of the sounds and an obstruction across the road brought him to a full stop. A large tree had once been blown down and its bole lay athwart the road. The noises came from beyond it. The voices could not have belonged to anyone from the Evangelist, for they were harsh and guttural in tone and spoke in a language that resembled English only to the degree that a gorilla resembles a man. Prescott crept forward and climbed up onto the massive tree trunk to a spot where he could peer over it from the shelter of a clump of parasites that had grown up upon it.

What he gazed upon was even more ghastly than the dry relics behind him. for this new horror had been freshly wrought. A band of naked savages were busily engaged in stripping a number of corpses that lay arrow-riddled in the roadway. There were about thirty of the killers, tall heavy men with matted hair and unkempt blond beards, and their faces were coarse and brutal.

Their deeply tanned skins were splotched with gaudy-colored days, and the only trace of garments worn were girdles from which hung wicked barong-like knives and woven slings from which their quivers depended. They were white men, but utterly debased, as evidenced by the fiendish glee which they displayed as they further mutilated their dead victims.

Prescott glimpsed but one further detail before he pressed the button to unleash the deadly heat blast upon them. The dead-staring, upturned face of the nearest body to him was that of Deacon Bolling. The ambushed party was the one Nesa had gone out with, but no feminine body lay among the slain!

The first outburst of fire played on the nearest group of looters, and twelve men exploded like puffballs as the superheated juices of their bodies blew their charred fragments apart. Prescott did not pause to see the remnants fall, but shifted his fire to other targets farther off. A half-score fell, and then he leaped to his feet astride the bole and began the systematic cutting down of the stragglers missed by the first discharges.

"Take that—and that—and that, you murdering ghouls!" he yelled in his fury, for not only did he resent what he regarded as their personal betrayal of him and all sincere Sybarites by degenerating into beasts, but his anxiety as to Nesa's fate was increasing by leaps and bounds. Where was she?

"Z-zship!" sang the heat gun as the last of the howling savages screamed in the death agony and toppled his blackened torso across one of the victims in the road. Then there was a bitter silence while Prescott regarded the holocaust piled upon shambles before him.

In another second that silence was broken—broken by an unmistakable crashing in the brush yards off to the right. He had not got them all! Now he regretted giving way to his rage and shouting, for he must have warned other hidden savages.

A moment before he had had the advantage of surprise, but next time it might be the other way around. He was all alert again, narrowly watching the thicket for sign of movement, listening to determine just where the new foe was. And then he knew.

"Hal! Oh, Hal!" came the piercing scream. "They've got me. Come!" The voice trailed off into a stifled urp and a sputter as an unseen brutal paw stopped her mouth.

HAL PRESCOTT'S leap into the brush was like that of a spirited horse prodded by a cruel goad. He plunged headlong through it, heedless of the thorny creepers that tore at his hands and face and plucked at his garments. The momentary regret over his shouting had vanished—he was unspeakably glad he had, for Nesa had heard him and called back. He must not fail her!

A spiny branch lashed him in the face, and he ripped it viciously from its trunk and clawed forward. Then a mass of tangled vines caught an ankle and threw him heavily. He took the occasion of his enforced pause to listen again for the fugitives ahead of him, but this time there was only silence. Had they stopped to lay a trap for him, or had he lost the trail?

He jumped up and went on, following the last direction. In a moment he had the explanation of the silence. Before him was a natural clearing among the trees and only grass grew in it. On the far side of it was his quarry, just on the point of bursting into the brush beyond.

There were two of them, gigantic men, dragging Nesa between them. Prescott dropped to one knee and took careful aim, for this was a time when he must not miss. He pressed the trigger and watched the man on her right leap upward as the pencil of flame bored in between his shoulder blades. It was a leap that did not bring the leaper relief, for the searing blade of fire sheared downward, ripping him to the buttocks.

He pitched outward and down, and Prescott swerved the muzzle to cover his companion. That one had turned to look at the source of the attack when Prescott's gun zizzed again. But that time there was no obedient leaping tongue of flame. The gun sputtered and one thin blue spark was emitted, hardly more than enough to sting. Renewed pressure of the trigger brought no response. The gun was dead. Its charge was exhausted.

The giant hurled Nesa from him and charged, bellowing and brandishing a monstrous headknife. Prescott futilely pulled the trigger once more, considered the useless gun as a possible club, then disgustedly threw it from him. It was too badly balanced and too short.

He had to think quickly now, for the onrushing savage was far bigger than he and better armed. He knew that one smashing blow of that crude bolo could split him from crown to navel while a glancing blow would easily snick off head or arm. It was a situation that called for a stratagem, not direct resistance.

Not since he had matched skills with his boyhood opponents—the winged leopards of Venus and the rib-crushing, venomous ledge-serpents—had his mind had to work so fast or his judgment of distance and timing to be so acute. It was man to man now, both with the elemental training of savages, and his adversary was the stronger.

Prescott dropped to both knees and made a swift estimate of his foe's speed of approach. He was fearfully near and coming fast. On the instant, Prescott decided upon his course of action—to pretend to be what the savage thought him, a sheltered Perfectionist, helpless the moment his highly evolved scientific weapons failed him.

He crouched lower, cowering, and threw up his right arm in supplication or in feeble gesture to ward off the blow of the lethal blade. It was a desperate ruse, but it might work.

THE giant charged on, yelling triumphantly. Prescott waited until he saw the horny bare feet of the Sybarite come plunging out of the grass just before his eyes. He could even hear the swish of the downcutting bolo. Then he drew himself together and leaped, exactly as he had the night he beat the unseeable bars of the door of his sleeping hut on Mars.

But this time, when he sprang, his left hand was at his belt, and as he flashed past the roaring savage it snatched out the dagger that was hanging there and planted it in the other's heart.

Prescott plunged on, landed on his face, and took a quick tumbler's roll, heels over head. Then he jumped to his feet and looked back. There was no more to do. The huge Sybarite was down and through, gasping his last. With a lightning pounce Prescott retrieved his dagger and picked up the heavy sword besides. Then he turned to receive Nesa in his arms.

He wanted to prolong the embrace and soothe her, but there was no time for it. The receptor on his wrist was buzzing angrily and that meant an urgent broadcast message from the ship. He flicked it on to full power.

"Landing parties take warning," came the voice. "We are surrounded by thousands of armed savages and have been compelled to close our ports. Fortify yourselves in the buildings of the city and defend yourselves as best you can, but under no circumstances try to return to the ship at present. We are organizing a relief expedition which should come to your assistance in a few hours."

"A few hours!" snorted Prescott. "They might as well have said a few centuries. Come!"

There was no time to be lost, for fresh crashings were all about them, indicating the passage of yet more of the Sybarite tribesmen. The only quiet sector was toward the city. Prescott grabbed Nesa by the hand and led off in that direction. It was their only chance.

They paused at the edge of the plaza while he cautiously peered through the brush to see whether the coast was clear. His first glance brought two bits of bad news. He had hoped to pick up several charged blasters from the slain monitors, but he was too late.

They had already been stripped and looted. Moreover, the party of ghouls who had done the deed were still dancing and whooping on the spot. It would not be possible to reach the buildings beyond them. That left the river as the only possible avenue of escape.

Prescott withdrew a few yards into the underbrush, then began a long and tedious detour around the plaza to a point where it was safe to make the dash to the quay. Then they broke cover and ran for it. They were both panting when they got to the water's edge but were rewarded by finding a row of broad-beamed undecked sailing boats moored there, unattended by anyone.

"This is swell," he cried. "Jump in. We can go down the river and around the point and go back to the skyport from the ocean side."

SHE was right. Someone was coming. It was a large man in the nondescript grey of a layman worker and he was pounding across the plaza like the devil was after him, screaming for protection. In a moment a few arrows zipped by him, but luckily for him he was not hit.

"The fool!" muttered Prescott, watching the fellow scornfully. "Why does he have to advertise himself? We might have got away clean."

He jumped down into the boat after Nesa and began slashing the twisted lianas which held it fast to the dock. He wanted to be able to shove off the moment the fugitive reached them, for the savages were close behind. He did not take time to look again, and was just hacking the last line when the runner reached the dock and dived into the boat.

Prescott shoved the clumsy boat away with a thrust of an oar, then struggled with the line that ran to a crude block at the masthead. But the upper boom of the sail was heavy and he could not budge it. Already parties of the natives were charging down upon the dock and there was no time to lose.

"Bear a hand, here," snapped Prescott to the newcomer, who still lay panting on the bottom where he fell.

"Get up!" thundered Prescott. He recognized him now. The uninvited third member of their crew was the ex-deacon Kolb. He rolled over and sat up, and the expression he wore was a study in conflicting panics. For Prescott had jolted him with a swift kick and it was impossible to say whether Kolb feared him or the Razimites more.

They got the sail up just in time. There was a good breeze blowing downstream, and in a moment they were piling along at a faster rate than the howling savages on the bank could make as they ran along discharging arrows. Prescott steered the craft—an open galley not unlike those employed by the Vikings—while the other two lay in the bilges out of the way of the arrows.

The natives' aim was bad and the range rapidly opening. In a short time they gave up the chase on foot and contented themselves with shouting taunts and threats. Prescott looked up at the bellying sail, hoping fervently it would hold, for it was a strange patch-work of animal hides roughly sewn together. Nesa got up and looked back over their wake.

CHAPTER IX
Battle to the Death

THEY were being chased. Half a score of sails dotted the middle of the river, and each boat was crammed to the gunwhales with bearded Sybarites. The pursuing boats were gaining, too, for the savages understood the handling of their unwieldy craft better than Prescott.

It was out of the question now to attempt to turn up the coast, for not only did he not know how to sail against the wind, but that time lost in the effort would enable the savages to overtake them. So, when the last of the city's vacant buildings slid by and the mouth of the river was reached, he held the boat's head as it was—straight out to sea.

Once clear of the land, the breeze freshened. The galley plunged on faster and faster, gaining a lead. The boats behind hung on, though, and as they felt the brisker wind, they began to make up distance. The afternoon wore on that way, the chasing boats spread out in a fan behind and hardly a mile distant, gaining slowly. Toward sundown the land behind was lost in a violent haze. Ahead a great black pall stretched from horizon to zenith.

"It's going to storm," said Kolb, in some agitation. He had just gained nerve enough to stand up and look about him.

He had been watching the cloud for some time but had not seen fit to speak of it. It could be nothing else but the billowing smoke rising from the burning area of sea. But, distasteful as the choice was, it was better to be immolated on those flaming waves than to let Nesa fall into the hands of the howling brutes behind. Prescott gripped his steering oar all the tighter, and held to his course, staring straight ahead. Then his attention came back to his unsought passenger, who until then had remained cowering in the bilge.

"How did you get loose?" snapped Prescott, suddenly. "I thought you were a prisoner awaiting trial."

"Do you think I'd be fool enough to wait for the Inquisition?" snarled Kolb. "What does a priest's parole mean to me? I skipped, that's all—Just as you and this girl planned to do. Oh, I knew your little scheme. I was sitting in the assembly hall directly in front of you the day we came in. I heard.

"Only it will be she and me, not you and she who will found the new tribe. I was a little rattled when I joined you, but now I remember this—" he flourished a small raygun suddenly produced from a pocket—"it makes a lot of difference."

Prescott glanced at the thing coldly. It was not a toy, even if it were not of the heavy-duty type carried by monitors. It could not blast a man to extinction in one swift whiff, but it could bum a hole through him at twenty paces.

"It makes a difference, yes," he replied, with deadly evenness. "The difference between a swamp-skunk and a ledge cobra. So what?"

"You'll see," snarled Kolb. "When we get back on land again, it will be the survival of the fittest—understand—you and I."

PRESCOTT'S raucous laughter rang out scornfully. Kolb looked uneasily up at the ominous, threatening sky, then backward at the pursuing galleys of the bearded spearmen, outward at the rolling processions of white-caps and lastly at the straining patchwork of their flimsy sail. He wet his lips.

Across their bows, from horizon to horizon, stretched a line of flickering flame from which huge volumes of heavy smoke mounted angrily skyward, blanking out the fiery orange disc that was the setting sun Mizar. That glimmering horizon resembled a bed of glowing coals awaiting ominously their coming. Behind, the vindictive Sybarites were giving up the chase, sheering out to right and left and bringing their clumsy boats about into the wind, as if fearing to go farther.

"Douse the sail," called Prescott, wanting to take some of the drive off the vessel. Nesa, who had been a silent onlooker all the while, sprang to help the now thoroughly frightened Kolb. In a moment the sail was down, but the boat still forged on, urged by the following sea and wind, and its own momentum. It lost part of its way after a bit, but still drifted on.

Utter darkness descended. The lights ahead flickered ever more ominously. Prescott tried vainly to steer the drifting boat, but there was little he could do. Inexorably they were being blown down into the fire. But in a little the flames grew more distinct, separating themselves from the mass.

It began to appear that it was not a barrier of solid fire, but a row of single flares. When, in time, the boat came down upon them and passed harmlessly close to one, the three staring figures in the boat had a good view of it. The flames were being emitted from wide-spread frog-like burners atop cylindrical steel pipes jutting up out of the ocean—to be quenched frequently by the surging swell, but as often mysteriously reignited.

The boat swept on past the row of burners and into their lee beneath the pall. Immediately the visibility closed down to nothing as swirling clouds of driving hot smoke immersed them. Behind them there was only a line of ruddy glows, quickly damped out by the thickening smoke.

Ahead were other glows, indicating that there were more flaming barricades to pass. Slowly and helplessly the boat bobbed on, passing through first one row of flares and then another, until at length the night was gone.

It was dawn and after when Mizar's rays, struggling to penetrate the murk overhead, revealed that they came to the end of their journey. There was a dull jolt and a grinding. The boat's stern grounded on a gritty sand bar.

Prescott leaped over the bow onto the jet black bank they had stranded on, then gave a helping hand to Nesa. Kolb jumped down beside them, too, and the awe-struck trio stared at the murky inferno about them. Everything was black except that overhead the turbulent, rushing billows of hot sooty smoke showed dark brown against the invisible sun.

The land, if land it were on which they stood, was carpeted with a foot or more of velvety soft soot, and they themselves upon looking at one another discovered that they had been turned to blackamoors by the driving clouds of greasy smoke. It was as hot as in an oven. The air was difficult to breathe, yet not intolerably so. The feature of the place that Prescott liked least was the impossibility of seeing more than a few yards through the rushing smoke.

"We can't go back," he said after a moment's thought, "and the boat can go no farther. The only thing we can do is walk inland and see what this smoke conceals."

HE led off, plowing through the deposited carbon that lay like somber snow on the soil beneath. The others followed without a word. Kolb's gun may have made him feel the stronger as an individual, but its possession did not endow him with the qualities of leadership.

They must have gone a mile when they realized they were hopelessly lost. The light overhead was too diffused to take bearings from and what they could see of the dreary landscape about them was all the same—yard after yard of slightly rising ground, uniformly buried under soot.

They rested a moment and let the sweat run down their blackened faces, channeling crooked little grooves of ghastly pink as it washed away the grime in its path. Then, since there was no other choice, they pushed on. But in a short time they came to a large, roughly rectangular mound looming up before.

The soft, floury carbon readily fell away under his hands. In a few minutes he had excavated enough to convince him his guess was right. It was a house, or a metal shed rather, and he had had the good luck to come upon its door. Kolb did not offer to help in the work, but stood well away, taking care not to get within Prescott's reach.

Prescott ignored him. He cleared away the last of the accumulated soot, and pushed the door open. To his astonishment it was not dark inside, but dimly illuminated. At one end, a small gas jet burned steadily, giving light enough to see by.

Prescott stepped inside and surveyed the place. He was grateful then for the hypnotic instruction given him on the trip to Mars, for without precisely understanding how, he knew in a general way what the shed was for. It was a valve house, and in a sunken pit there was a great pipe manifold, bristling with valve-stems. On a wall was a chart of some kind and Prescott went over to examine it.

It was apparently the diagram of a complicated pipe layout and bore many legends. Prescott stepped away from it and gave closer attention to the valves. He noticed that some of the pipes were encrusted with frost, and a faint rushing sound came from them.

He resolved to experiment and closed a valve, whereupon the hissing noise diminished.

He shut off others, until he had twisted them all down. There was no noise at all then, and in a moment the small light dwindled, gave one last flicker, and died. He knew from that that he had shut off the gas supply—but gas supply to what?

He groped his way to the door and looked out. To his amazement the air seemed to be clearing momentarily. Smoke clouds still rolled over high above, but the low-hanging ones were thinning rapidly. He glanced around for Kolb and Nesa, but they were not to be seen.

Alarmed, he sprang out onto the black ground and shouted for them. But there was no response. Then he saw their footprints in the carbon and by virtue of his early huntsman's training read them at a glance. There had been a struggle, but only one trail led away from the spot. It was the spoor of a heavy man—an unusually heavy man, and that meant a man carrying a burden.

Prescott did not stop to marvel at the change brought about by his shutting the valves, though his quick eye had caught a glimpse of a row of dark and now cold pipes a little offshore and parallel to it, but bounded up the trail like an eager bloodhound. He knew vaguely that he had shut off at least one row of burners by his act, but that meant nothing to him then except that it enabled him to see ahead a little better.

HE ran on, noting that from time to time Kolb had put down his burden as if to rest a moment, but Kolb was a powerful man, and the few stops did not seem to have delayed him any. Prescott pursued the chase relentlessly, stopping for nothing. Eventually he had to slow down, for once he was out of the area in the lee of the single row of burners he had shut off, the murk thickened again until he could see the trail for only a yard or so before. If he once lost it, it might not be possible to find it again.

It was an hour or more before he realized he was amongst other buildings half buried in soot. But this time it was no mere shed he discovered, but a town of some size. It was hard to see in the gloom, for the buildings were of the same type of construction as those of the dead city beside the landing field. It was another vestige of the former Perfectionist colony.

Kolb must have perceived that too, for the line of footprints turned sharply to the left and up a dusty staircase to the yawning black doorway of one of the buildings. Prescott swerved and dashed up the steps after them. He drew a deep breath and tensed for action, for he knew the end of the trail was near.

Kolb had said it was to be the survival of the fittest. Very well, the time has come for the trial. Prescott reached the doorway, then paused in the gloom to examine which way the trail led, for the door gave onto an anteroom of wide dimensions.

A hollow, mocking laugh rang out, followed by a spitting sound. A jet of thin, vivid flame lashed out from a far comer and struck Prescott in the shoulder, ripped downward, searing and cooking the flesh from ribs to hipbone. Prescott smothered the cry of pain and sidestepped swiftly out of the frame of the dimly lighted doorway.

Once in the dark he dropped to all fours and scurried deep into the room. There he lay for a moment in the soft carbon and listened. It was not for nothing that he had hunted the scaly bear in his den—his trained ears instantly picked up the sound of his foe's agitated breathing. After that it was but the work of a moment to crawl nearer and gather himself for the leap.

The two bodies met in smashing impact. Prescott's roasted side hurt abominably, but he gritted his teeth and wrenched at the arm that held the gun. He twisted it backward until it cracked and he heard the faint plop as the weapon buried itself in the dust of the floor.

But Kolb was fighting back with all the desperation of the cornered rat he was. He was gouging, kicking and slugging, and in a moment both were rolling on the sooty floor locked tightly in a clinch in which each was viciously jabbing the other. Once Prescott succeeded in breaking away for a better attack but Kolb dived at him in the dark, and the battle was on again.

They worked their way to the portal, and there Prescott managed to get a foot behind the other's heel and trip him. Locked together in fierce embrace, they rolled down the stairs to the bottom. Prescott felt a leg snap and knew that the ribs on the side away from the burn were caved in, but he hung on to the grip he had on the ex-deacon's throat.

It took minutes for the man to die, but die he did. Prescott relinquished his hold and tried to rise, but he could not. He called out for Nesa, hoping she was conscious and would hear. There was no answer.

Instead he heard the padding of many feet and looked up to see fresh enemies—as grotesque and fantastic a group of individuals the most fevered dream had ever conjured. Black imps from the nethermost hell, he thought, staring helplessly at them. For they were tall, stalwart beings, shaped like men, but half naked and black and with horrid faces.

In startling contrast to the dead black of their skins their glistening eyeballs showed white and glaring and sickly pink gashes marked where their mouths should have been. Then Prescott saw they actually were mouths, for when they spoke, their teeth gleamed in the same startlingly white way as their shining eyes.

He saw some of them enter the building, to reappear a moment later carrying the inert form of Nesa. They descended the stairs and vanished into the whirling smoke. Others then seized him by the feet and shoulders and started off at a quick trot.

He squirmed and cried out at the pain of it, but they did not abate their stride. There were times that his agonies almost drove him out of his mind, but after a seemingly interminable time his bearers halted. He heard a door being opened. Then he was inside a place where there was no smoke, but the sound of running water.

He was being bathed, and he saw hazily that the monsters that had captured him were bathing themselves too. And as the accumulated soot was washed away he saw that they were men like himself. Then, unable to bear the torture of his wounds longer, he slipped into the soothing blackness of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER X
The Golden Mean

IT was delightfully cool where he was, and the air was sweet in his nostrils. He moved a little and opened his eyes. He was in a softly lit room on a comfortable bed. A man was looking down at him, and a woman stood by. They could not be Sybarites, for they were dressed in filmy, beautiful garments such as not even the Perfectionists he had known wore.

"Yes, doctor," the nurse was saying, "I took the bandages off an hour ago. He is quite all right now. There will not be even a scar."

She had addressed him as doctor, not dean or deacon! What sort of Perfectionists were these? Where was he? Where was Nesa?

"You may bathe and dress now, Prescott," said the doctor quietly. "Later you will be shown our world. Then you will be taken before the Premier for final disposition."

He bowed pleasantly, went to the door and held it open while the nurse preceded him, then made his own exit. Prescott stared at the closing door in blank amazement. It appeared to be made of ivory and was richly carved in a sinuous, intricate design of interlaced lines and knobs.

Then he let his eyes rove the rest of the room, and everywhere they fell he saw other evidences of art of beautiful form and color. He started as he at length saw another man standing silently in a corner. The fellow wore a corselet of glittering gold, a kilt of rich material, carried a weapon resembling a blaster. That must be his guard!

Prescott arose and went into the adjoining room, much mystified by his surroundings. It was another gem of artistic triumph. It was lined with mosaic tile in silver, bright blue and green, and in the center was a pool of limpid water. Bronze bas-reliefs in the shape of dolphin heads and sportive fishes adorned the walls and on a rack hung some soft towels. He bathed, still baffled, but the water was just the right temperature, and every drop of it felt pleasant.

Then he returned to the other room and put on the clothes the guard handed him. There were high-laced sandals, metallic in appearance, but flexible as the tenderest leather. A wine-red kilt-like garment, held by a golden belt and buckle, was next. Then came a singlet of silky material and a jacket of richly embroidered deep blue to top off the costume. It fitted perfectly, it became him, and was of material finer than any he had ever dreamed of.

"Your meal, sir," said the guard, pointing to a small tabaret on which several silver covered platters sat. The guard pulled out a chair and whisked away the covers. Under them were dishes of food from which an appetizing aroma rose. Prescott at first tasted them cautiously, then ate voraciously. He could not know whether what he ate was meat or vegetable, but it was all delicious, satisfying to tongue, eye and nose. After a time he sat back, more contented with the world than he could remember ever having been.

"Now for the shops and laboratories," said the guard, walking toward the door and waiting.

PRESCOTT got up, wondering what could lie outside. They were in a winding corridor, a corridor that curved, rose and dipped, not in the least like the mathematically straight halls of a Perfectionist ship or building. Its walls were covered with magnificently executed murals depicting scenes on the various Solar planets and others that Prescott took to be of early Razim. The passage was also softly lighted, but of an intensity and color that was appropriate to the particular sequence of the murals at any point.

"This," said the guide, opening a door, "is the hydroponic section." Inside, were row upon row of vats out of which grew a profusion of vegetation. First were sections devoted to fruits of every variety known to the eight habitable planets. Next came edible vegetables. There were flowers also, strictly for decorative purposes, and at last an immense hall rife with miscellaneous vegetation.

"In here," explained the guard, "we grow the staples which are the basis of our plastics. Some also serve as fodders for the meat-creatures."

"Surely. Look." The man took him to an adjacent wall and pulled aside a shutter. Prescott looked through and saw a vast cavern before him, paved with sod on which grazed scores of fat, strange animals. They were woolly beasts, but large and shaped like cattle.

They went down another corridor, passing a door from which the gay chatter and laughter of men and women drifted. Strains of sweet melody filled the air, but the guard did not pause. He walked on and pushed open another door.

"One of the work-rooms," he said, pointing to the tables at which several men and women sat, busy with their fingers. "Every one does something here—it is the price of living. They must devote five units of their time out of every hundred to the common cause. After that, whatever they choose to do is their own affair. Our purpose is to provide everything we need and be as happy as we can. It is a terrible thing to be shut up forever in a cavern." Prescott's amazement was heightened. All this in a cavern? He asked more about it.

"Yes, we are in a cave—not so small a cave as it once was, thanks to our atomic converters which gnaw continually into the rocks and transform their molecules to whatever chemical it is we want—but a cave, nevertheless.

"At the time of the great uprising, more than a hundred years ago, this island was the site of Razim's principal industries, powered by the inexhaustible resources of natural gas that lie below. Here were the cream of the Perfectionist technicians and the most cooperative of the captive Sybarites.

"Then came the horrid sack of the capital and many raids of the extremist Sybarites upon us. We withstood them for a time, but their numbers and the frightful weapons they had stolen from the arsenals of the capital were too much for us. We had to go underground—the more liberal of the Perfectionists and the more moderate of the Sybarites together. We have been here ever since, four generations without ever a sight of Mizar."

PRESCOTT listened, astounded. "But the smoke?" he asked. "Oh, that," said his mentor. "That is our defense. It was easy, since we had so much gas and the island is bounded by natural barriers of sunken reefs, to lay mains along the reefs with risers at intervals. We connected those to our producing wells and lit them off, giving us a perpetual smoke-screen. The barbarians thought the entire island was afire and thereafter avoided the place, while we dug in and erected another civilization here.

"You see, on this planet, that was easy to do, for its axis is not inclined to the plane of its orbit, and it has no moon. Hence the winds always blow from the same direction, and there are no tides. Platinum wire re-igniters insure that the burners will always keep burning, even if the ground swells occasionally snuff them out."

"Yes. That is how we got you. When you entered that valve shed, which controls one of the branches, you touched off an alarm, and our patrols went out at once. We have always been ready for a renewal of the attacks. The Sybarites are fearful people—numerous and well-armed. But here we are, near the door of the Premier's chambers."

At his guardian's sign Prescott went in, and found himself in the presence of a man of commanding appearance.

"The woman we found with you," he said, without preliminaries, "has told us you are a Sybarite with civilized tendencies. Our examination of her informs us that she is a Perfectionist with Sybarite tendencies. Here we are not one or the other, but a blend.

"We need new blood. You are invited to join us, but if you refuse, we cannot afford to let you go to inform your co-religionists of our hiding place. Which do you choose—to become one of us, or a painless execution?"

"Neither," Prescott said boldly, suddenly inspired by a thought that might regenerate all mankind. "I've seen your place, and it is delightful. But I've seen the outside, too. You live here in your hole—a gang of lotus-eaters. The well-armed barbarians you fear are nothing.

"They have degenerated into brutish savages. They probably have already been wiped out, for the Evangelist is equipped with super-blasters. Once her crew recovered from the first surprise, you can be certain that they will have exterminated the troublesome natives."

"We fear Perfectionists quite as much as we do Sybarites," said the Premier. "They are a stiff-necked and uncompromising lot. We are better off as we are."

"Without sun or natural trees or the sight of the mountains and the sea?" asked Prescott vehemently. "You have learned to combine efficiency with pleasure. Why not go all the way?"

"That is what the girl said," said the Premier thoughtfully. "Bring her out, guard."

Nesa appeared, gloriously gowned in clingy, satiny stuff, her golden head surmounted by a circlet of jewels. She smiled approval on the angry Prescott, but awaited the further pronouncement of the Premier.

"What is your argument?" demanded the Premier, addressing himself to Prescott. "Why should we take that chance?"

"Because," said Prescott, "you have found the golden mean. You can produce and yet relax. Billions of human beings are leading either the drab, drear life of Perfectionism, or the persecuted existence of heretical Sybarite tribalism. If we could but put your superb example before them, there might be compromise. That is what I ask."

"But this Evangelist—and the Prebendary in command of it?" asked the Premier.

"Very well. You shall try it. I will give orders that the flares be cut off and your boat equipped with power."

CHAPTER XI
New Universe

IT was a weird and desolate landscape that met their gaze when they emerged from the cave's soot-lock. Prescott and Nesa, hand in hand, stood in their arrow-proof glittering corselets and helmets of damascened steel and looked upon it. Hills and valleys rolled away from the cavern's mouth, uniformly black under the accumulation of a century's slowly settling carbon powder.

In places they could pick out vague, amorphous lumps that betrayed the existence of buried towns and villages. Then they turned and walked toward Northeast Cape, where their reconditioned boat was stranded. Other curious inhabitants of the hidden cave followed them out and beheld for the first time the glorious, unfiltered rays of Mizar.

A little later, Prescott was at the helm, heading eastward while the steady murmur of the boat's outboard motor told them they were driving on. One by one they passed the now cold and smokeless pipes sticking up out of the ocean, and they were able to see the breakers on the reefs. Then came a stretch of empty sea, and at last the towers of the ravaged ancient capital lifted themselves above the horizon.

But they were different towers—charred and partly melted down, seemingly, significant of the retaliation the Evangelist must have wrought. The ravaging rays of her super-guns must have eventually been brought to bear upon the besieging savages. However, strain his eyes as he would, Prescott could not find the silvery hull of the ship. Had she vengefully blasted the savage hordes and then returned to Earth?

He piloted his rude vessel up the river and at last brought it alongside the decaying mole. Then he helped Nesa across the same plaza over which they had fled before. It was strewn with charred lumps that might once have been men. Then, just as they were despairing of renewing contact with their own, the sleek, glistening hull of the Evangelist appeared overhead, settling down on her repellent jets. Both ran toward the landing field, waving their arms to attract attention.

Their jubilation at making contact with the ship was cut short. A shrill whistle sounded behind them, and Prescott wheeled, drawing his blaster. Then he as quickly holstered it, for the blower of the whistle was none other than Drazier, the Bishop of Astragation. Alongside him were several monitors, and others were stepping out of the brush from all sides. They held their guns threateningly.

"We must see the Prebendary at once," said Prescott, advancing with his hand outstretched. "It is of utmost importance."

"You shall see him soon enough," said Drazier sourly, and his lean face showed full of malice. He ignored the proffered hand, but snatched Prescott's gun from its holster. Then he stood back and surveyed the corselet with undisguised contempt. "Rip those vile things off of them," he barked to the monitors.

PRESCOTT was astonished for a moment at the animosity displayed, and angry at the rough way the soldiers snatched his and Nesa's armor from them. Then he recalled that they were orthodox Perfectionists and that what had excited the bishop's disgust was the exquisite damascene inlays on the breastplates. To devote such labor to a utilitarian appliance was a grievous sin—plain steel would have served better.

"So!" said Drazier, scornfully, "you did make good your threat to desert us for the Sybarites, as Kolb told us you planned to do. Well, it will do you no good, for the Evangelist is just returning from a trip to the hills where it has been burning out the nests where those savages breed. It appears you have discovered a more advanced tribe of them, judging from the immoral finery you are decked with. The Prebendary will be interested, I am sure. Before you two die, you shall lead us to their lair so that we can destroy them, too."

"Ah, but the girl? Is she so hardy?" Drazier laughed. Then his expression grew hard again. "Come. We waste words. The ship's ports are open now, and there is no need to prolong this farce."

Prescott looked at the white-faced Nesa, and the same fierce, consuming anger that had filled him at the execution of Father Jedson raged within him again. Why had he been so foolish as to allow her to risk herself on this absurd mission of his? For now he knew it was absurd.

There could be no compromise with Perfectionism. That was just why there were Sybarites and always would be. But though Nesa was plainly shaken by the bishop's words, her chin was still held high and firm, and she returned Prescott's glance with one that assured him there would be no weakening on her part.

THEY were jeered by some of the members of the crew as they passed through the port, but others regarded them in gloomy silence. The bishop strutted on ahead, obviously puffed up over his capture, and uttered no word of rebuke against the demonstration. They came to the door of the same chamber in which Prescott and Nesa had appeared once before as culprits in the sinners' box. Prescott wondered what the outcome would be this time.

The Prebendary entered and looked at both of them coldly. He was given the corselets to examine, which he did—and at some length. He was also much interested in the workings of the blaster, which was of a more advanced model than any the Perfectionists had.

Prescott told it. How the first landing parties had been surprised, how he had found Nesa and tried to return to the ship, of the necessity for taking to the boat, and Kolb's sudden appearance. Then he related what had passed after that in full detail, for as he spoke he could not fail to notice the Prebendary's growing interest.

Although he would not have revealed the details of the island under any amount of torture, that was only because of principle. He realized now that it would be impossible to conceal its existence, as the soot-stained boat lying at the mole with its outboard motor would give the clue. The persistent Perfectionists could be expected to follow through. So he told all except the exact location of the cavern entrance.

"Can't you see, Your Reverence, what a golden opportunity this is—for you, for us, for the whole human race?" Prescott's words tumbled from him in a torrent of eloquence. "What is the goal of Perfectionism? The Perfect Life! There it is. In that place there are no schisms, no rebellion, no strife, no persecution.

"There is orderly work and reasonable recreation. People are not jammed into an arbitrary mold and forced to become soulless automatons. They live! They have selected the best features of both our Solar cults—scientific procedure from yours, art and joy from mine—and combined them into true Perfection."

"Granted," said the Prebendary, his wise old eyes glowing. "It is a thing I have dreamed of all my life. But the human race is cursed with an enormous amount of inertia—conservatism, they call it. What can I do?"

"Everything!" shouted Prescott, overjoyed. "This ship is called the Evangelist. Let it be just that. You are a man high in the councils of the church. Your opinion will be respected.

"It is an accomplished fact you have to tell them of, not the fantasy of an idle dreamer. Come with me and see the place, then take us back to our own planets, where we can spread the good news. You will convince your people. I will seek out the wild hill tribes and convince them."

"Recall the men of the local garrison and prepare the ship to rise. We are going to this island at once."

"Good." Drazier's face was evilly triumphant. "What kind of rays shall I use on them when we get there?"

"None. We are going to learn, not destroy. Also have all hands called to the assembly hall. Prescott and I have something to tell them."

He rose. Nesa's hand had already found Prescott's, and she was squeezing it hard. Then she noticed that the Prebendary had not withdrawn, but stood beaming at them.

"I think you can forget about the genetoscope readings and the Eugenics Board," he said to them.

Prescott was never a man to need long explanations or urging. In that moment he took Nesa in his arms:

THE END

MALCOLM JAMESON

LAND OF THE BURNING SEA

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1942

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-02-25

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All original content added by RGL is protected by copyright

Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
Prisoners of Perfection

CHAPTER II
Introduction to Efficiency

CHAPTER III
Flight in a Dustbin

CHAPTER IV
The Maid Does Penance

CHAPTER V
Prebendary Pardon

CHAPTER VI
New World

CHAPTER VII
Ambush

CHAPTER VIII
Escape by Sea

CHAPTER IX
Battle to the Death

CHAPTER X
The Golden Mean

CHAPTER XI
New Universe

THE END

MALCOLM JAMESON

LAND OF THE BURNING SEA

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1942 This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024 Version Date: 2024-02-25 Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan All original content added by RGL is protected by copyright Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I Prisoners of Perfection

CHAPTER II Introduction to Efficiency

CHAPTER III Flight in a Dustbin

CHAPTER IV The Maid Does Penance

CHAPTER V Prebendary Pardon

CHAPTER VI New World

CHAPTER VII Ambush

CHAPTER VIII Escape by Sea

CHAPTER IX Battle to the Death

CHAPTER X The Golden Mean

CHAPTER XI New Universe

THE END

First published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1942

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-02-25

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All original content added by RGL is protected by copyright

Click here for more books by this author

CHAPTER I
Prisoners of Perfection

CHAPTER II
Introduction to Efficiency

CHAPTER III
Flight in a Dustbin

CHAPTER IV
The Maid Does Penance

CHAPTER V
Prebendary Pardon

CHAPTER VI
New World

CHAPTER VII
Ambush

CHAPTER VIII
Escape by Sea

CHAPTER IX
Battle to the Death

CHAPTER X
The Golden Mean

CHAPTER XI
New Universe