The planet of peril
that any one on Earth had succeeded in communicating with Mars, let
alone Venus, and as for this idea of interchanging bodies, it doesn't
seem natural or human. I have always felt that my body was a part of
myself, peculiar to myself, and inseparable from the me that is called
a soul, except by death. The question arises, what would become of my
body when inhabited by this Zarovian? I presume that if he should be
careless with it and die, it would be impossible for me to return."
"You need have no fear regarding the care of your body while you are
absent," answered the doctor. "It will not only be under constant
surveillance during your absence, but will have careful medical
attention as well. Then, too, the man who comes to inhabit it will
naturally be careful of it, for if he loses it there will be no return
for him, either to this world or his own. Now, Mr. Grandon, are you
game?"
"Yes! I will make the trip."
"Good for you, my boy. I can see that you are of the stuff from which
heroes are made."
"If you will not consider the question impertinent," remarked Grandon,
"I should like to know why it is that you have never taken any of these
trips yourself."
"Ah, would that I could," replied the doctor. "As far as I can learn,
unhappily, there is no man either on Mars or Venus who has a body like
mine."
Grandon could very well believe that there was no man like Dr. Morgan
on Venus or Mars. At least, he was quite sure he had never seen any one
resembling him on Earth. He was an extraordinary combination of mental
and physical power--a veritable superman.
* * * * *
"What do you, personally, expect to gain by sending me on this trip?"
Grandon queried.
"A thorough knowledge of the planet Venus as seen by earthly eyes, to
satisfy my own curiosity, and to be passed on to the people of the
Earth at my death. I will, at regular intervals, establish telepathic
rapport with you and Thorne while you are asleep. You will know nothing
of these telepathic communications unless I see fit to convey a message
to you which will probably come in the form of a dream, so vivid that
you will remember every detail. If you wish to communicate with me for
any reason whatever, I will learn the fact the first time I establish
rapport with you, for this will naturally come, along with the other
knowledge obtained from your subjective mind while you sleep."
"What do we have to do in order that this exchange of bodies can be
made?"
"You will simply lie down and go to sleep when the time comes. I will
attend to the rest. When you awaken you will be in Zarovia. Come with
me and I will show you around the place. You are on the peak of a
high mountain, more than a thousand miles from Chicago. This is my
observatory."
They were now in a huge, glass-domed room, in which stood the largest
telescope Grandon had ever seen.
"Perhaps you would like to have a look at the world to which you will
soon journey," said the doctor, leading the way up iron stairs to the
telescope platform. For several minutes Grandon gazed in awed silence
at the silvery sphere.
The professor touched his sleeve.
"Come," he said, "it is time for your journey."
Two cots stood ready in an adjoining room. Grandon lay down on one and
Thorne on the other. The doctor sat on a chair between them with a
hand on the forehead of each. As he was passing into unconsciousness,
Grandon heard the doctor say:
"Good-by, men, and good luck to you."
CHAPTER III.
A SLAVE ON VENUS.
Robert Ellsmore Grandon, ex-clubman, ex-idler, ex-social lion, was
awakened from a sound sleep by a shaft of brilliant sunlight which
shone through the mica-paneled window of the quarry-slaves' sleeping
quarters. He blinked, turned uneasily, then sat up and stretched
himself. To his surprise he felt numerous twinges of pain as he did
so. His muscles appeared stiff and bruised and his back smarted and
burned. He noticed that his sole articles of apparel consisted of a
scarlet breech-cloth and a pair of sandals of strange design. His skin
was browned, as if by constant exposure to the sun, and his hands were
rough and calloused. His face was covered with a thick, black beard,
and his hair was matted and unkempt.
He rose stiffly and walked to the window. The brilliance and size of
the sun, visible for a moment through a rift in the clouds, astonished
him. Never had he seen that orb appear so large. Then the explanation
dawned on him, Venus was only three-fourths as far from the sun as was
the Earth. Naturally the sun would appear larger as one approached it.
Here was incontrovertible evidence that he was indeed on the planet
Venus. He stared quickly about him, in eager curiosity.
Grandon had hoped for a clear view of a Zarovian landscape, but he was
disappointed, for in front of his window there stretched a solid wall
of black marble cliffs. The only visible vegetation consisted of a few
pink toadstool-like growths which grew from niches in the rock. They
were far larger than any he had ever seen, some of them being over
twelve feet in height.
He turned and glanced at his roommates. Fifty men were quartered in the
sleeping shed, which was built of black marble, thatched with the broad
leaves of a species of tree-fern which reminded him of imaginative
pictures of prehistoric swamps.
The bedding consisted of a coarse, dried moss, which made an
exceptionally resilient couch, but would undoubtedly have caused
considerable discomfort to one not accustomed to it, because of the
scratchy stems which protruded here and there. The men, who were
attired like Grandon, with the exception that their breechclouts were
gray instead of scarlet, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their morning
sleep. Their skins were sunburned like his own, and marked with scars
and open wounds that mutely attested the brutality of their drivers.
Grandon was startled by a hollow booming sound, and some one on the
outside opened a large door at the center of the shed. Instantly every
man sprang to his feet, and he saw that they were forming in single
file to march through the door. He joined the procession, which was
heading for a large building in the midst of a group of sheds similar
to the one he had occupied, and saw that the sound emanated from a
large cylinder of iron suspended from a steel beam in front of the
building, and beaten by a man who wielded a large club wrapped with
thongs.
Heavily armed guards stood at intervals of about fifty feet on either
side of their pathway. Each guard carried a tall spear with a broad
blade about four feet long, while a scarbo, a sword with a basket hilt
and a blade rather like that of a scimitar, hung from the left side of
the belt.
From the right depended a weapon which was utterly strange to Grandon.
It was about two feet long, oblong like a carpenter's level, and
apparently composed of blued steel. A rivet passed completely through
it about four inches from the end, holding it firmly to the belt,
although it could be tilted at any angle, and its wearer could point it
in any direction by turning his body.
Grandon had yet to learn the efficiency of this terrible Zarovian
weapon, the tork, which fired needlelike glass projectiles filled with
a potent poison that paralyzed man and beast alike almost as soon as
it penetrated, and had a range as great as the most powerful of modern
rifles. These tiny bullets were propelled by a highly explosive gas
ignited by an electric spark at the touch of a button.
The gas was compressed in a chamber at the rear of the tork, while
the glass missiles were held in a magazine near the muzzle. After a
shot was fired the weapon would automatically reload, a bullet sliding
into place in front while just the right charge of gas was released in
the chamber behind it. Each gun, or tork, held a thousand rounds of
ammunition.
* * * * *
The slaves passed through the building where each man had his ration
doled out to him: a bowl of stewed mushrooms and a steaming cup of a
colorless aromatic beverage which Grandon found to be very much like a
strong wine.
As he followed his companions through the building, Grandon noticed
that each man stopped before a small shrine and stood for a moment
with head bowed low and hand extended toward it, palm downward. When
he reached the shrine, he stopped as the others had done, then gave a
gasp of amazement, for there before him, illuminated by the brilliant
rays of the morning sun, was a life-size painting of the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen.
She wore a robe of scarlet, ornamented with gold and precious stones,
and a jeweled band of platinum imprisoned a mass of golden curls which
were piled on top of her head after a style different from anything he
had ever seen. She was seated on a massive golden throne with cushions
of scarlet, across the arms of which rested a scarbo, similar in shape
to those carried by the guards, but with a hilt of gold studded with
rubies.
Could this be the heartless Amazon ruler of whom Dr. Morgan had spoken?
As he looked into that lovely, girlish face, Grandon did not think it
possible that she could be otherwise than noble, kind and generous.
A sharp exclamation brought him to his senses none too soon, for as he
turned he saw an overseer advancing with cruel whip upraised. Quickly
bowing as the others had done, he ran forward to join his fellow slaves.
Once outside the building, the men seated themselves on the ground
in little scattered groups, for their morning meal. Grandon joined a
company of these who had occupied the same dormitory with him, and
attacked his food with gusto, for he was ravenously hungry.
He could not take part in the general conversation because the language
was unintelligible to him, yet the words sounded strangely familiar. A
recollection of their meaning was stored in the brain cells of the body
which had become his, but the true mind, or ego, which was Grandon,
being the only mind which really remembers, could not interpret them
because it had never heard them. He could, and later did, however,
learn with great rapidity because of the subconsciously stored
reflections. Meanwhile, he kept silent and listened.
The meal finished, the slaves were herded to the quarries by their
drivers. Each driver, who had charge of ten slaves, wore both tork and
scarbo in his belt and carried a whip, the five lashes of which were
woven from some coarse fiber and interwoven with short pieces of a
brittle, nettlelike moss, which broke off in the skin of the victim,
inflicting a pain like that of a thousand bee stings. A man struck
with one of these whips not only felt the momentary blow, but suffered
excruciating agony for hours afterward.
For the first time in his hitherto petted and pampered existence,
Grandon learned what it was to labor. Sweating, toiling, straining
every weary muscle, he managed to keep pace with his fellow slaves. The
intense heat of the sun would have made labor in the open impossible,
had it not been almost constantly tempered by the floating clouds of
vapor which are ever present in the dense, moist Zarovian atmosphere.
Such a thing as a clear sky is almost unknown on any Zarovian
landscape, and it is, indeed, this very fact which enables man to exist
on this planet with any degree of comfort in other than the polar
regions. At those rare intervals when the disk of the sun is fully
revealed, the heat is almost unbearable.
The marble was being removed from the hillside in large rectangular
blocks, by thousands of slaves working on a series of terraces, each