PRINCESS OF CHAOS

Moljar planted his columnar legs wide apart beside the dying saurian and blinked blood and sweat from his eyes. Only slightly strained after three hours of the Red Moon Games, his seven foot height of Terran-Martian muscles gleamed damply in the blazing arc lights of the Colosseum. His lungs sucked hungrily at the dense Venusian air as he waited for whatever would next be sent against him, the champion of them all.

Through sweat-blurred vision he watched the climbing tiers of eager spectators, a high curvature outlined against the crimson mist. Red Moon Games! Bi-monthly slaughter, ordered by the Princess Alhone when the unnatural filtering of the reflected sun's rays spread a carmine glow through the fog.

The grey sands of the arena were daubed with sprawled forms of monsters and men alike. Out of the shambles, Moljar's black barbarian eyes shone as they swung up to fix on the Princess Alhone where she sat with a retinue in her private observation box. Her grey-furred, semi-human body glimmered softly beneath the blue-glowing effulgence that always bathed her in its royal cold light.

Her heavily jeweled paw raised, dropped. The signal.

A roar of sadistic anticipation swelled, echoing from the misty range of hills, beyond Venus Port, out across the Sea of Mort that washed its marble walls.

Moljar shifted toward the gates. His hands flexed about the alloy bar. At Princess Alhone's gesture, the gates across the arena lifted. The monstrous beast, somewhat resembling a Mesozoic saber-tooth tiger of Terra, charged out straight for Moljar in a blinding burst of speed and power.

The half-breed swung the pitiful weapon which had jokingly been granted him, a five-foot length of compressed alloy. It cracked against the giant cat's skull. Moljar leaped aside as the beast plunked on its face, rolled in a flurry of sand and blood. Tendrils of gore oozed from its shattered skull as it lumbered erect and charged again, erratically now, circling and leaping down toward the arena's far end, blinded and roaring in pain.

A sigh of ecstasy rose up in a long drone from the spectators—a polyglot of Solarians who had paid eighty credits for this night of vicarious blood-lust. Wealthy interplanetary aristocrats and cartel magnates, Mercurian and Martian speculators, Terran monopolists, adventurers and adventuresses from many worlds, muckers from the asteroid mines. All imagining themselves to be Moljar tonight. All hating him because he was a half-breed.

Of the half-thousand prisoners who had been marched into the amphitheatre—a few Terran mutants, many half-breeds, and space pirates who couldn't pay enough hush-hush credits—only three remained standing. The Terran girl mutant, Mahra, who had helped him slay the saurian and who had rare courage. Himself. And Gasdon, the Martian pirate, who, barehanded, was still battling the giant squid in the arena's synthetic quagmire. His yellow body was a panting, straining bulk beyond the tendrils of sulphur dioxide that bubbled up through the bog.

Moljar felt the Terran girl's hot breath on his neck as he waited for the pain-maddened cat to scent him down. His glittering eyes turned and met hers. Her silver mutant's hair glowed beneath the merciless glare of the flood lights. Her full, yet agile body wriggled in its brief trappings in nervous preparation for the cat's rapid return from the end of the arena. But when she spoke to Moljar her lips curled with obvious distaste.

"You fight well, for a half-breed," she said.

His teeth shone white in what might have been either a laugh or a snarl. "Go to your Martian outlaw. Gasdon's pure of blood. If he'll have you—mutant!"

She laughed sharply like shimmering glass. "I'm Mahra. I stand alone."

"You'll die alone," said Moljar, "if you stand by me."

She tossed her head. The cat was bearing down, shrieking in blind hate. "You think you've won, barbarian. Wait 'til the kristons are turned loose on us."

"I wait," said Moljar simply. "I've waited a long time, and I can wait forever. And someday I'll kill her. Alhone's pelt I'll have and give to my people to whom I pledged it."

His blood-spattered arm swept aside as the giant cat ploughed past in its sightless, pounding charge. He swung his bar again. It crunched through tissue and bone and brain, and the cat dropped suddenly like a stone. Its sleek gold and black body shivered and twitched as it died.

He planted a sandaled foot on the carcass and raised his face toward the Princess Alhone's royal booth. Reluctantly, a smattering of applause rose. Princess Alhone's silkily furred body was standing now. Motionless.

Moljar's voice rang out clear through the mist. "Moljar waits for worthy opposition. He is bored."

"Dirty half-breed dog!" howled a voice. Thousands joined in a thunder of obscene and filthy epithets.

Moljar laughed loudly. He saw Alhone's slim alien form tense as the saber tooth's had before a charge. And he began walking toward her across the blood-stained sands.

He paused as she raised a jeweled paw again. Moljar's eyes narrowed as the almost invisible vibrational force-wall rose up before the spectators and the rim of the vast arena.

"Kristons!" screamed Mahra behind him. "The wall protects the audience."

He heard the high whirring whine of the huge tri-winged, armor-plated insects as they were released into the arena. They dove and circled, maddened by the miasmic death vapor overhanging the stadium.

Like a trapped beast, the half-breed turned this way and that. Beads of sweat stood out on his heaving chest. He wiped his sweat-slippery hands on his leather tunic, then dried them in the sand, before he gripped his alloy bludgeon again. Then with the long eerie cry of the wild desert tribes he sprang into the air to meet the hurtling drive of the kriston that had singled him out.

The blinding speed of its wings distorted his perspective. The alloy bar, caught in their blurring motion, spun from his stunned hands. He cursed as he fell beneath its flight.

Dimly, he heard the joyous roaring of the throngs who watched him fall. As he rolled aside he heard Mahra's frightened scream. He felt the spearing slash of the kriston's poisonous barbed fang. His arms whipped out, hands closed on the horned tip. He was on his feet heaving outward. He felt tendons rip and a sudden freedom as the tongue tore from the kriston's throat. Its death cry sounded like escaping steam.

He was running toward the outcast Terran girl who was dodging the worrying darting movements of another kriston. He swung the grotesque whip-like tongue of the one he had slain as he ran.

He stopped. The creature attacking Mahra suddenly became a lifeless charred hulk. The other kristons were plunging into the sand, smoking, burning. His eyes swung up. The force-wall was gone. The heat ray on the roof landing above the catacombs had destroyed the kristons before their work was done. The heat ray was only used for emergencies. What had moved the Anghorians to save them?

Miraculously, the three still lived. Moljar, Mahra, and the Martian outlaw Gasdon who had blinded the squid by punching out its eyes. Having no scent faculties it was flapping tentacles helplessly in its phosphorescent bog.

An aimless hum of fear and hysteria exploded outward from the throng. They were fleeing from the stands, trampling, yelling frantically, some burning their way through the choked exits of the Colosseum. They were jammed in its elevators, blocking its corridors and archways.

Gasdon came running toward Moljar and the girl. His towering body, dripping mucous from the squid battle, was as large as Moljar's, but lacked its agility and integration of movement. His ugly face was twisted in fanatical purpose.

"Now we fight!" he shouted, "for her! I've wanted to meet Moljar, the half-breed freak, before witnesses who will testify to your defeat."

Mahra laughed. "Morons. I'll choose my own lover. And I certainly can't imagine him being either of you!"

"What witnesses will see you, Gasdon?" asked Moljar. "They run for their lives. Their pure hearts pump thin water."

A loud speaker blared:

THE MISTMEN! VENUS PORT IS UNDER ATTACK. TAKE TO THE JUNGLES. MISTMEN HAVE DESTROYED VENUS PORT COMMUNICATIONS. THEY ARE SACKING, PLUNDERING, KILLING. FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES! THE MISTMEN! VENUS PORT HAS BEEN ATTACKED AND....

Mahra trembled with uncontrollable fears. Her mutant's mind clouded over with the significance of the descending terror. Gasdon, his egomaniacal feud with Moljar forgotten for the moment, shivered, and his green eyes probed the thick cloud blanket.

Moljar's intuitive senses stirred darkly. Mistmen. Scourge of Venus, super-scientific pirates, they appeared mysteriously out of the fogs to loot and kill. Protected by force shields of thick grey, impenetrable mists, they appeared in sudden ruthless violence, sacked, slew, and vanished into the unknown land that spawned them.

Now, they were actually attacking Venus Port!

The stands were empty, except for the dead and dying who had been trampled or burned by the stampeding crowds. They and the Princess Alhone, amid her personal bodyguard. She was standing now, her slender, evil grace swaying in the ever-present blue glow.

She motioned to Moljar. He trembled. "This is the time," he said very low in his throat like a growling dog. "I have waited long."

He strode across the reddened sands towards her. Her yellow cat-eyes veiled her study of his approach. Her feral body leaned tautly as it waited. The half-breed looked up. She was only fifteen feet above him; he could leap the distance.

Her high mewing voice said, "They have dared attack Venus Port! If they continue, they will soon be undisputed rulers of my planet. Soon, with such boldness, the Mistmen might even rule the System. Moljar, would you like freedom?"

He shrugged. "Can a half-breed ever be free?"

"On Venus, I have but to speak to make any being free."

"Try telling the Mistmen that," said Moljar boldly. "They'll soon be here."

"I've never, in all the places I have been, seen quite such a magnificent fool as you, Moljar. Anyway, our communications are cut off. If a man could get through to Anghore, bring back a force ... my scientists in Anghore have been perfecting a new vibro-generator as a weapon. Perhaps it is completed now. The Mistmen have never been attacked. They surprise, throw up detectors and shut off communications, and disappear before any reinforcements can arrive."

Moljar's fingers quivered for her slim throat. But his voice seemed calm. "Could one get through their detectors to Anghore?"

"You perhaps could. If you can, Moljar, I'll make you a Guard of Anghore."

Stolid as was the half-breed's neural circuit, the sudden statement momentarily shocked him. It was rumored that Alhone chose certain fighters to go to Anghore. But that he, a contemptible half-breed should be promised a position as Alhone's personal guard....

"Why me?" he was saying.

"In these games I have seen the best fighters of three worlds. But I have never seen anyone fight as you fought tonight."

A series of thunderous explosions rocked the stadium. A brilliant pyrotechnic display glittered fantastically through the thick cloud layers above Venus Port. The Mistmen were storming the city with customary thorough and savage efficiency. The crying of a helpless city in pain rose and fell in an aimless pattern of terror.

Moljar noted the energy guns held in the hands of the Anghorians surrounding their Princess. This was not the time. One aggressive move from him, and he would be annihilated on the spot. If he accepted her proposition, got through to Anghore and was rewarded as she promised, then he would surely eventually be placed in a fool-proof position to kill her. Time meant nothing. He had worked and waited many years. Many more would not matter—if they led to the fulfilment of his pledge. Only her death mattered. Revenge. Her pelt, well cured and soft, presented to his tribesmen.

The Mistmen were sweeping toward the Colosseum. The roar of their advance increased rapidly. He must decide.

Anghore. Over this outlaw world of blood-lust and savagery, ruled Alhone. Thousands of his kind who had migrated here had been slain under her sanction. But who, or what, was Alhone? What and where was Anghore? Out of the numerous strange and unexplored lands of Venus she might have come. No one knew. There was only a name. Anghore. Anghore that lay somewhere across the Sea of Mort.

A few claimed to have seen Anghore—from a distance. A jumble of towers spearing into the mist higher than the mountain peaks. Only Princess Alhone and her ferocious minions knew of it. And no one talked with them.

Alhone ruled slave followers with weapons of basic energies as strange in origin as Alhone herself. Followers who, in return for their unquestioning, dogged devotion, held positions of great personal power. In their rich trappings, they ruled over private little spheres of influence, answering only to Alhone.

Who was Alhone?—Where was Anghore?—What would he become should he accept this offer? None of these things mattered. Sometime, somewhere, he would have the opportunity to strip that soft furred hide from her quivering body—and no personal price he might pay would be too dear.

"Well, Moljar," she was saying. "Doesn't my offer interest you?"

He controlled himself well as he nodded. "I'll go to Anghore, wherever it is."

Her round pink face crinkled. "You are so certain, barbarian. Few have crossed the Sea of Mort. It is well-named."

"I will go to Anghore," he repeated.

"Then you should hurry. The Mistmen are outside the stadium now, and I'm sure they would like to find us here. At the other end of the stadium, above the catacombs, is the gyro-scout. For emergencies in the games," she laughed. "It has seldom been used. Take it. Its directional beam is already set for Anghore. It will take you directly there. If you have the key."

Moljar flexed his shoulders. His eyes were narrow, suspicious. No one ordinarily could break through the Mistmen's detector bands. Then how could he? He shrugged. At least he would be free for a while.

Alhone removed the gleaming yellow stone from one of her semi-webbed fingers. She dropped it to him. "This will open the gyro to you. It will function only under this stone's influence. It will also, if you reach my castle, open the gates into Anghore. You shall be rewarded, Moljar—bountifully."

His eyes fastened on her throat. "Yes," he said. "I depend on it." He slipped the vibrant, throbbing yellow stone on his smallest finger. He stepped back and then a tremendous blast of energy surged against him. The blue field which enveloped the Anghorians was beginning to fade. A stabbing pain lanced up his spine, up into his brain, to explode there in a flash of wrenching agony. He stumbled, went down.

The blue field blurred, swirled, deepened in color. It became a vortex of violently churning silver shot with fire. A nauseous weakness spread through him. The Anghorians, the stadium, the whirling blue fires, all faded.

He opened his eyes slowly. It was raining. A few fat warm drops were spattering down, then a curtain of water spilled from the stadium wall. Shamefully he climbed to his feet, shook his head, looked about warily for Mistmen.

If he had blanked out it had only been for a few seconds. The blue field was gone. And with it, Alhone and her sycophants. Instinctively, he jerked his hand up. The yellow ring-key was gone. He bellowed bitterly. And a laugh answered. Gasdon!

He turned. The Martian outlaw had one arm around the struggling Terran girl. She was biting and striking and cursing, but with no effect. She writhed helplessly under his arm. There was a yellow flash on the outlaw's other hand as it raised, clutching an alloy bar. Gasdon had taken the key!

The half-breed swept a defense bar from a gladiator's stiff dead hand. Gasdon laughed fearless scorn, threw the girl from him, and met Moljar's rush with his own bar upraised. They crashed together with a dull clang, parted, struck again. They circled warily, feinting, parrying, thrusting....

Mahra's scream rang out. "The Mistmen! Coming into the arena!"

Moljar's eyes darted toward her. Beyond, far across the sands, were a number of grey vaporous spheres. Within their depths, dim shapes, indistinct, blurred, moved in a steady ferocious intent toward the three.

"Fight!" yelled Gasdon. He charged toward Moljar again. His face was twisted insanely. "We're doomed anyway. Defend yourself!" His broad yellow face glowed with obsession as he sprang. His alloy bar whirled in a singing arc, which was unwise. Moljar dropped beneath the level of the bar, punched savagely with the end of his own. Gasdon screamed hoarsely as the blunt end sank into his solar plexus. He staggered back, trying to lift the bar. Moljar swung downward, sank his bar halfway through the Martian outlaw's heavy skull.

Quickly Moljar retracted the yellow ring. He yelled at the girl. Then they were running together across the death-littered amphitheatre. Rays of force might have burned them down easily, but for some reason not then known to Moljar, the Mistmen did not fire.

They darted through an unguarded archway, up through level after level. They were still running easily when they reached the roof landing above the catacombs where the monsters of the games were kept. The long low hangar's panel slid open when the ring was applied to its invisible photo-electronic reaction mechanism. The gyro-scout's panel and instruments also were activated by the ring of Alhone.

Moljar hesitated, grinned at the girl. Her silver hair shone like dewed metal. "You are following me? A half-breed? A slave?"

"I'm not following anyone, not in the sense you mean. I'm with you, that's all. I'd have to fight alone, otherwise. That would hardly be intelligent of me, would it?"

"Hardly," he said. "Come on." The gyro-scout lifted automatically, straight up through increasingly thick cloud-layers, until it shot suddenly forward, straight like a bullet across Venus Port and above the Sea of Mort.

A radabeam and an automatic pilot was in complete control. Moljar turned to the Terran mutant. Her taut face was trying to pierce the dense sheath of cloud.

"This is a strange dream, Mahra."

"Dream?" She turned her weird eyes on him briefly.

"What else? A half-breed, child of a Terran woman and a Martian outlaw, travels across the Sea of Death with an outcast mutant." He shook his head. "And for Alhone we fly. For Alhone, the she-monster whom no one knows, to Anghore where no one has ever been and returned."

"Is it far across this death trap?"

"I've heard that in miles it is only perhaps a hundred. But in perils—"

The girl said abruptly, angrily, "For Alhone! You're crazy! If we can take control from the automatic pilot, we could—"

"We can not do that," said Moljar. "We would only crash down there. It's bad ... down there."

She fell silent. The atomic motor whirred almost silently, driving them toward Anghore.

"There is great mystery here," said Moljar. "We seem guided by forces beyond our control. Some powerful, invisible wind."

Curious, nervous, Mahra's rummaging uncovered weapons beneath the gyro's seats. Two electro-blasters and a duelling dagger. They each took a pistol, and she gave the half-breed the long slim knife. Then, when she sat down, her bare shoulder rubbed slightly against him. And remained there.

His flesh tingled. His hand gripped the electro-gun tighter in his hand. "Why do the Terrans hate you mutants so much?" he asked. "Are the rumors about you mutant's deadly powers true?"

She sighed. "Perhaps some of them are true. Anyway the Normals are very scared of us. That's why they isolate and scourge us. We can rule them when we decide we want to."

"Will you want to?"

"Perhaps, someday. When the time is right."

"I am neither ruled, nor do I wish to rule," said Moljar.

"You half-breeds are a strange tribe. Too bad you must all be such barbarians, such savages."

He smiled grimly. "We are what we were made. Somehow, the offspring of a Martian-Terran union results in much larger, much longer-living stock. We were envied. Much as you mutants are on Terra, blessed with double-life compared to Normals. We were driven into the deserts, reviled, imprisoned, beaten. There aren't many of us left. Of those thousands who sought to migrate here and find freedom, Alhone's games wiped out all but a few hundred."

Her voice sharpened. "You found her attractive! You know you did! You swore to avenge your people and bring her pelt back to Mars. Instead, you run errands for her!"

His shaggy black head turned. His eyes blazed with hate into hers. "That alien slut! It was a way out of Venus Port. It will lead me to her again. I could do nothing there."

She sulked. He sensed the slight trembling of her arm against his, and smiled. "My vows cannot change. Someday her pelt will hang in Ankhar's trophy cave."

She screamed. Her lips quivered as she raised a hand over her face. "Will you?" Her voice shrilled. "A gruoon!"

Moljar's stomach knotted. He had not even time to fire. The giant flying croc was plunging straight into them. There was a tearing impact. The gyro wobbled. Then the controls went dead. The little ship buckled, vibrated as though the winged crocodile was trying to devour it, rend it with its claws. Then the crushed blades released their hold, and the gyro spun down in a fluttering spiral.

Moljar had time to jam his electro-gun and a small magnetic compass into a bag of water-proof plastic and belt it to his waist before they crashed violently into the Sea of Death.

II

The tribes from which Moljar came were fatalists. Moljar accepted the fact that he was face to face with imminent death. Very well. If there was a way out, he would find it. If not, he would go on to Khles, where dead warriors go. And from Khles he would fight his way into the eternal paradise of Perlarh.

He had expected the gyro to float at least a few minutes. But it sank almost immediately. The shock of the crash had knocked Mahra unconscious; pulling her against the suction as the gyro went under was a herculean task. The crumbled wreckage went down. It left only a tiny whirlpool in its wake.

Mahra's consciousness returned quickly after a few dunkings in the tepid water. She was in his arms, her silver hair floating out over the dull glassy sheen of the water. He treaded easily, looking about. They could see a few hundred metres but beyond that narrow radius, the cloud blankets became an impenetrable fog. Patches of seaweed, lichen and rotting debris floated silently by on the torpid water, giving off a phosphorescent glow that reflected weirdly against the backdrop of mist.

Nature seemed to have stopped breathing. The air was heavy, oppressive. And the high humidity and heat, unrelieved by any wind, was weighty and pressed on them.

"Can you swim?" he asked.

"Quite well." Her hands were on his shoulders. They clung a moment, then shoved away.

Treading water now as easily as he, she asked, "How long do you give us to live? Not that it matters."

"The future is a mystery to me," he said. "Maybe a second. Maybe a hundred years."

"But you'll admit we've no chance now! Soon hordes of sea monsters will scent us out. Surely you'll not deny that this time you will go to meet your barbaric gods!"

"Who knows?"

She cursed him thoroughly. "You're mad!"

"I am Moljar."

She sighed resignedly. "You say that like omnipotence would say, 'I'm God'."

"It is enough for me. Who can say they know of more than themselves? I simply know I am Moljar. I live. I have purpose. The pelt of Alhone. A pledge I must keep. Beyond that—nothing."

She tossed wet hair from her eyes. "Maybe your barbaric code is best after all. The System's returned to barbarism. Decay, ruin. Why not a philosophy to fit it? I rather like you. If you only weren't a half-breed."

He grinned. "If you only were not a mutant." His eyes caught a dark, flat floating object some distance away. A blurred, indistinct outline. He pointed.

"Looks like something large enough to float us," she said. Then she cried out suddenly and pointed over his shoulder.

His knife was in his hands as his legs churned him around in the brackish water. The sea-serpent's flat head arched high above them, dripping an avalanche of weed and water upon their upturned faces. Its sleek, sinuous body shot upward, a monster with fanged jaws and darting forked tongue, with bulging eyes, and bony head and snout.

"Keep diving," yelled Moljar. "It won't open its mouth under water." He watched her surface dive like a fish, then followed himself just as the bullet-like head of the hissing hydrophidian slashed down.

Its massive length coiled and uncoiled savagely about them. The water was a churning white foam. Moljar tried repeatedly to sink his knife into the under-belly of the serpent. But it was like soft but tough plastic, only slightly resilient.

Its massive length coiled and uncoiled savagely about them.

He broke surface, gasped great gulps of the dense air. He saw Mahra and pointed to the right toward the flat raft object they had seen floating there. He yelled. "Keep diving and swimming toward that." Then he went under again as the serpent's head slapped into the water where his own head had been.

It was a world of phosphorescent glimmerings like monstrous fireflies, bubbling and coruscating about his staring eyes as he battled the boiling currents stirred by the serpent. He swam until his lungs were shrieking with agony, then came up again for air. He was only a few feet this time from the floating area. It looked like a collected mass of debris now.

He swam frantically toward it. If he could get up out of the water, he could break out his electro-gun. He looked around for the girl. Her head bobbed up. But still some distance from him. The hydrophidian hissed angrily and struck again. Her silver hair disappeared beneath the serpent's mouth.

He drew himself up onto the raft. He had a quick second of appraisal as he tore the gun from its plastic wrappings. The raft was solid, very buoyant, and membranaceous. Its surface was glossy and veined like the broad leaves of the swamp lilies.

How thick this raft was, how it was made, or how much more of it there was Moljar had no time to think about. But he did know it was alive!

The girl came up a few metres from him this time. Her arms moved weakly. Her face was deathly pale and her eyes pleaded silently beneath the bizarre strands of her silver hair. She again started to sink wearily down as the serpent hissed hungrily and struck.

This time it would have feasted. However Moljar's electro-gun crackled, and its lethal charges burned the monster's glistening length into pieces. They fell writhing in separate anguish all around the girl, crimsoning the water to a thick red.

He lifted her easily up onto the raft-creature. She sank down in a dripping and exhausted heap.

"For a half-breed," she whispered between gasps, "you have courage." Then she closed her eyes. The raft rippled and bucked slightly as something huge stirred against its bottom.

The night hours before morning were illuminated, a strange twilight of phosphorescence. They sat in the middle of the organic raft and waited tensely. The stirring beneath it had grown more violent.

"Man isn't the only highly adaptable animal—not even the most ingenious." The girl's tone was pedantic, amazingly learned. Moljar nodded surlily, not so interested, apparently, in lectures. He edged toward the girl until their shoulders touched. She paused. Continued.

"The animal that build this raft for itself is hiding beneath it now. The serpent frightened it. Soon it will have to come up for air."

"How do you know so much," he growled.

"Earth University of Interplanetary Fauna," she said.

He sneered. "A mutant!"

"My parents dyed my hair, and with another name I got by for a while. I was going to be a field worker, but they caught up with me. They always do. Anyway, as I was saying, this creature is much like an ianthina, or snail, of earth. It breathes through a siphon, or tubular proboscis. It uses this siphon to suck in air with which it builds these rafts for itself, to keep its heavy body and shell afloat. It's an adventurer like you, Moljar. It spends its life floating or sailing about like a ship."

Moljar grunted. He moved one corded arm behind her. She shifted a little.

"Very interesting thing," she said. "Biology. When this ianthina decides to build its raft, it exudes a sticky mucous over the surface of the sea, layer after layer of it. Then it draws air into its siphon and permits the bubbles to escape beneath the mucous to which they cling. These air sacks imprison the air as the mucous hardens. And we have this very strong raft, a life boat with air tanks. Aren't we lucky?"

The raft jolted violently. "Are we?" said Moljar. "Maybe it does not want to share its raft."

A number of tentacles slithered up and over the edge of the raft. Two antenna with slimy knobs stood up and quivered at Moljar.

The girl tried to ignore the sight. "But this raft is better than any man has ever been able to build." Her voice tightened as more of the ianthina surged into view. "This snail can make more bubbles at will, and it can enlarge its raft whenever it wants to."

There was a sudden upsurging height of gigantic pink-fleshed bulk. It rose up until it towered over its raft. A little above the level of the water they could see its brilliantly colored spiral shell-house gleaming olive-green with streaks and spots of purple, violet and black.

The body of the ianthina continued to exude outward from its shell. From it a thick tendon of flesh spread out to either side to form the frame work of its raft, an integral part of its giant body.

"We've got to get this craft moving someway toward Anghore," said Moljar.

She stared at him, open mouthed, and then said, "Is that all? How will you summon your genii, or is that you?"

He shrugged. "It must be done. We are wasting time. First we must burn this shell away from the raft. It encumbers us."

She was shaking her head as he crouched on his knees, leveling the gun at a point beneath the ianthina's waving antenna. He was about to press the stud, then cursed and fell sidewise beneath the long descending squeal.

Attracted by the glow of the ianthina, a monstrous bat had dived suddenly toward them from somewhere up in that dense grey curtain. Neither of them saw its giant webbed wings until it fanned them like an abrupt deadly wind.

"Burn it!" scream Mahra, as the bat's hideous evilly grinning mouth opened to reveal rows of yellowed teeth, and its gleaming red eyes bored toward them through the mist. "I lost my electro in the water."

Moljar was shaking his head. He tossed her the blaster. "You. Burn the ianthina free from the raft." The bat had sped by, circled, was returning. "This bat can do us some good!"

Moljar stood up and met the sweep of the bat's flexing claws. Just in time he leaped upward between them, and clutched the bat's thick furred belly. He felt the ratty teeth clack shut behind him as he was raised upward into the swirling vapor.

His nose curled, and he choked with the stench of the beast's vermin-infested fur. Then, still gripping the coarse hair with one hand, he raised his knife with the other. A quick long slash brought a fearsome scream hissing in his face. He slashed again and again until the probing blade found the beast's heart.

Gore spilled over him as he clung to the now wet hair. It got too slippery to hold. He grabbed the flailing claws as the gasping, thrashing creature plummeted seaward. The bat's body flopped into the water not far from the raft. It beat futilely with one foot, spinning in weakening frothing circles. Suddenly it was dead.

Moljar worked frantically against time. The blood would attract every kind and condition of sea monster. He hacked and strained at the joint where the huge wing joined the body. The stench almost overpowered him as he floundered about. But finally the great ribbed wing came free. Moljar's breath was coming in deep gusts as he dragged himself up onto the raft and pulled part of the wing up after him. He sat on it to anchor it while he rested.

He looked at the girl. She nodded. "You're pretty brave, for a half-breed."

He grunted breathlessly.

She came closer and handed him his blaster. "I burned it away. I burned its ganglia first, which it used for a brain. Then I severed the tendons which fastened it to its float. Anything else?"

Moljar was up again now, hacking at the thick tough surface of one end of the raft. "Yes. Watch that bat wing. Don't let it slide away. It is what we must have to reach Anghore."

"What are you doing now? And what's the wing for?"

He answered carelessly, "I'm going to make us a sail from the wing. It is almost a perfect sail of its kind. I figure the gyro brought us halfway across the sea. Maybe we have a third of the way to go. I have a compass and I saw what direction we were following before we crashed. With a fair wind, and luck, we should reach shore within a day."

She stared with no attempt, now, to conceal her admiration for the barbarian. "For a half-breed," she said, "you've got a brain."

Moljar said nothing. He had finished digging the hole in the surface of the raft. He next cut long strips of leather from his tunic for rigging. The twenty-foot-high leading edge of the bat's wing, a high curving spar, he stepped deeply in the hole, like a mast. Soon they were moving through the fantastic sea before a slight, lethargic breeze.

Their blaster protected them many times from the countless varieties of sea and air creatures that constantly attacked them. Moljar devised a sea-anchor by cutting off one of the air sacks from beneath the raft, and tying it to one end of a long leather rope. When the wind blew in the wrong direction, he threw out the sea-anchor.

There was little difference between night and day, except that the phosphorescence dimmed and was replaced by a grayer, more sickly light. And the high, gracefully-curved membrane of the bat's ribbed wing arched above them like the bizarre rigging of the junks that ply the Martian canals between the ruins of Phreer and Sumph-Logan. Black, with veins of dried blood, it caught the wind and tautened like the black sails of ancient pirate craft.

But though they could fight the monsters that flew and swam about them they could not fight the sea itself. The sea is cunning. It can bide its time, and spring with more violence than the greatest beast. The wind was its ally.

It was late the following afternoon that Mahra's hypersensitive nerves detected the distant pounding of the surf against high crags. They both visualized the dark mountains of Maghrone where the dull spires and minarets of Anghore towered up from its granite sea wall thousands of feet into the mist.

The thunderous surf grew in volume to a steady roaring as their makeshift craft bore them shoreward.

Then, abruptly, Moljar's nostrils quivered. He leaped to his feet and his black mane matted and curled as his eyes strained upward. "The cloud layers," he said. "Look!"

Each cloud layer was moving rapidly in different directions. "A storm!" cursed Moljar. "The wind and sea will pulp us on the rocks!"

Mahra cowered down, clutching at the floor of the raft. One hand gripped the bone mast of the bat's wing. She reached up the other, and Moljar's broad yellow hand closed over it, and held it in a silent bond.

The sound of the descending storm came from afar. It rose higher and higher, reaching the pitch of a thousand shrieking giants. A colossal comber bore toward them, lifting up, and up. Their eyes followed its curling summit, helpless, bold pygmies. A wall of blue, foaming with white like a mad beast, translucent as they saw it towering up through the swirling vapor. Then it collapsed over them.

Moljar's hand gripped hers. A vise that all the frenzied pounding of the ocean could not break. As the tons of water crushed them down, shattered the raft, hurled it away like chaff, their hands were locked. Their ears rang. Their minds cried out and were smothered. Coughing, blinded, they were absorbed by the sea.

III

The desert tribes of Mars cling to ancient superstitions. When a warrior dies, his body can only go on to Khles. A grotesque land of trial by brute strength by which the victorious can move upward through succeeding plains, and finally into the fairer lands of Perlarh.

So when Moljar's battered consciousness returned somewhat, his cracked lips whispered it gently, with awe. "Khles ... Khles ... Khles...." Then he snapped open his burning eyes.

He was on his side on harsh gravel and grey sand. The sea, calm and glassy again, washed gently at his sandaled feet. He stiffened his aching legs, and a lassitude went through him, like one might imagine upon awakening from death. He raised his right hand and the brilliant, sentient aliveness of the yellow stone caught the filtered Venusian morning, and momentarily blinded him. He shifted his eyes and saw that he still gripped Mahra's hand.

Her long smooth body, bruised and lacerated and encrusted with salt, breathed with a slow, erratic rhythm. Her other arm lay across her high firm breasts and her slim fingers rested on his forearm.

He turned his head up the beach. It might well have been the hell-lands of Khles that towered there. The smooth sloping expanse of gray sand ended sharply in a wall of granite, cracked and hoary with age. It went straight upward, higher than Moljar could see.

The girl groaned, raised on an elbow. He turned. They looked silently at each other a moment, before turning their eyes back to the colossal sea wall. Simultaneously their eyes caught the broad towering gate of dull black metal.

"Anghore," she whispered.

His hand dug into the sand. His lips were thin lines of dark wire. "It is magic," he said. "Even the gods are prejudiced against half-breeds, or I'd say they lent their strength to ours."

"Only evil gods would guide us to this place," she said.

"We have our gods who are not known exactly for benevolence. Lumphoor. Ghyx."

Moljar climbed stiffly to his feet and lifted Mahra. They stretched sore, wrenched muscles. They ate the ample meat from the many types of shells strewing the beach, and all the time they had been eyeing the giant, formidable barrier. Then, with silent accord, they walked up to it and stood dwarfed before it.

"You can leave me here," said Moljar. "I have pledged. I must return to kill Alhone. But you are free."

"In this jungle? Free for death! I'll stick a while longer, half-breed."

Her hand crept into his as he raised the yellow ring-key. A faint humming, a hollow metallic clang, and the gates slid to either side into their granite walls.

They stepped through into a massive cavern. A cold maw of twilight, green haze and smooth arching walls veined with ruby red and gold. Mahra cried out softly, and Moljar cursed as the two giant furred male Anghorians ran toward them.

Each wore a long straight sword and a slender dagger at his side. Their pink cat-faces masked cold, sadistic evil. Alien. One reached out a paw-like hand at Mahra. His almost lipless mouth slid open, and the incongruous whining speech mewed its travesty of human tones.

"This woman has not been called. She does not belong here." He turned to his fellow. "Take her to the Matrix. Ghils is experimenting with the seventh plain. She will be useful there."

"You are to come with me," he said, turning to Moljar.

The half-breed's hand rested on his dagger. He had fallen instinctively into a half-crouch. "How did you know I was coming here?"

"You will learn many things about Anghore. You have much to learn."

"I'm stubborn about my subjects, and my instructors," growled Moljar. And, as the other Anghorian stepped toward Mahra, Moljar leaped at his throat.

As his left hand clutched the corded body, his right hand whipped the cat man's dagger free. It rested harshly now against the furred man's broad silken chest.

"Do not touch the girl," he warned in the small pointed ear.

The other catman said evenly, "A dangerous act. But excusable. You have not yet learned the formalities of Anghore." He moved in a blinding blur of speed. Mahra gasped, as his body streaked across her vision like a flash of light.

Moljar went back. The catman thudded against him. His head cracked against the stone wall, and the red tint of the glowing stones deepened to a more personal crimson. He cursed harshly. These catmen could move! Shaking the dimness from his head, he tried to grip the Anghorian's writhing body. His dagger raised and fell, but only found hard stone. He blinked, trying to clear his eyes of fog, and his own blood.

He heard Mahra's savage, despairing yells, and caught a glance of her struggling in the other catman's corded arms. He heaved upward. The catman flew off him like a filthy conscience. Moljar flattened against the wall, his dagger crossed before him.

And when the catman leaped again, the half-breed was prepared. His clearing vision focused this time on its feral darting movements, and he met that pink snarling face with a long right slash. The pink face crunched, smeared. The big body sheared around, buckled, plunged down. It twitched, and its paws swept about searching for Moljar. Moljar kicked the face until the body stopped moving.

The other Anghorian released the girl. He drew his sword and eased toward Moljar.

A voice said with cruel, morbid interest, "Bring the half-breed to me alive, Akare. Or you will accompany the girl to the seventh plain."

Involuntarily, Moljar yelled, "Princess Alhone!"

Whining, squealing laughter echoed through the vaulted cavern. Baffled, the barbarian whirled around searching for the voice. It seemed without source.

"Alhone," he said again desperately. "You here! How?"

The gloating laughter again. "I have never left Anghore, mighty Moljar, since it was built for me. You and all the other fools outside Anghore have seen only my projections. You are foolish to fight now. Allow Akare to bring you to me. Leave the freak girl. I wait."

"Wait," said Moljar. "The girl stays with me."

There was a long painful pause before the Princess Alhone spoke again. "You have passed the many tests that only a few survive."

"Tests?" said Moljar.

"The Red Moon Games are but testing grounds. The survivors become my warriors here. You are welcome, Moljar. You will be the greatest among them. But this—this girl has signed herself away to the seventh plain by entering here. You had better accept this compromise, Moljar. You have much to gain. Otherwise, both of you will go to the seventh plain together. I would hate to lose you, Moljar. I would make you a Jehlak of my Guards. Forget the girl. Accept. You will be far greater than those who have scorned you. They will be your slaves."

He hesitated, then said, "I am Moljar. I only compromise when it pleases me. The girl stays with me. I care nothing for your plains, whatever they are. Send us to the seventh, the thousandth. It means nothing to Moljar."

The voice mewed merciless laughter. "Your rugged independence has ended, half-breed. You can be overpowered instantly by any one of many of our energy weapons. There is much duelling here, so, by decree, only swords are worn. Otherwise my warriors would soon decimate themselves. But for stubborn aliens we have other methods."

"Is talk and crazy laughter one of them?" said Moljar. "I am not impressed."

He turned. His eyes sought Mahra's. She stood proud and tall, her breasts moving with controlled breathing. Only her eyes held deep, crawling fear. Here was dirty mystery. Alhone and her minions who had watched the Red Moon slaughters—a three-dim projection from her eyrie here at Anghore. He remembered again that all her public appearances had been surrounded by the blue glow. His brains spun. He shook his blood-encrusted hair.

His decision was a natural projection of his own character. He could not have acted otherwise. He moved in a sudden leap sidewise. One arm encircled the startled catman's neck. The Anghorian could have eluded him, and offered battle. But he had not. Apparently he awaited direction from Alhone. He held his dagger to the quivering side. The fur was silky, soft beneath his fingers, inviting violence.

He raised his head and shouted, "Moljar waits. Does the girl stay with me? We will die before we part."

The voice was a petulant whine now. "Fool. You will not die. You are here to serve me. I am not served by corpses."

Akare made a quick, lightning-like jerk from Moljar's grasp. The half-breed sank his dagger in to the hilt, ripped sidewise. Then he leaped away, covering the girl against the wall. A stream of bright thin blood spurted from Akare's pulsing side as he crawled toward the far side of the cavern, mewing with pain.

Mahra's hands clutched Moljar's shoulders as they crouched against the coruscating colors of the veined granite. Her breath came in short, jerking gusts. "For a half-breed," she breathed, "you have honor."

Her hands stiffened, dug into his skin. Moljar's hair bristled on his neck. Intuitively, he raised his dagger, though it was a useless, silly gesture now.

From the far side of the cavern, moving ghost-like from a massive opening, a dense vaporous sphere floated toward him. It eddied and pulsed, and in its center was the dim outline of a human shape encased in plastic, its head helmeted by a faint glowing light.

"A Mistman!" Mahra gasped. "Moljar...."

The half-breed had no time to think. Capture or death would find him moving, though there seemed no hope in it.

A yellow beam of light slashed outward from the man in the sphere. Moljar dropped beneath it. But it caught the girl full. His eyes saw her stiffen into a hard stone mannikin and tumble forward. From his hands and knees he sprang upward like a maddened beast, straight toward the pulsing heart of the Mistman's vaporous shell.

There was one rending burst of pain. Then an explosion that seemed to shatter his brain. Its million floating fragments drifted through blackness.

IV

He was aware of low chanting rhythms, the blood heating throb of unknown instruments. He stirred and found himself wallowing in a bed of incredible depth and softness. Heady scents that twisted his soul with sweet pain floated across his face, and his wild barbarian heart was instinctively repelled by the suggestion of sensual, soft decadence.

When he opened his eyes, oscillating lights bathed him in sense-drunkening sweetness that sickened even as it lured. He turned his head. A boudoir out of the abyss of a drug dream. Black drapes littered with flashing jewels. A black floor that seemed to undulate with sentient life, mosaicked in red veins. Weirdly-plumaged birds with serpent's heads hissed in a golden cage.

And Alhone stood by his couch and sang to him.

When she spoke, her voice had been unpleasantly whiny and shrill. But now, singing the dissonant cries of some alien song, it was high and piercingly sweet like a violin's cry. Small furred breasts rose and fell gently as she sang. Lithe hips swayed. Her cat's eyes searched his with a cruel dreaminess, and, for him, there was no malice there.

Small, delicate, fine-limbed monster from an alien hell. At her command thousands had died horribly during the Red Moon Games. Trampled, drained of blood, shredded by talons, poisoned by fangs, tortured, flayed and inflicted with unspeakable indignities worse than pain. Yet she possessed the sadist's love of beauty, of decadent riches, luxury, sensual surroundings, and love.

He arose with one fluid motion and faced her. His body had been bathed and scented with perfumed oils. His trappings were new, the grey leather of the Anghorians. A long sword swung at his side.

"The Mistmen are yours," he said. "And this has all been a trap to get me here?"

"Yes. You are mine now, as are all the others. We have ways here to control the heart and the mind of those who are not quite willing to accept me. I have employed these methods often."

He inhaled deeply. His chest swelled. And a wave of almost overpowering ecstasy swept him in a surging tide of passion. How many years he had waited for this one supreme, delectable moment of revenge!

And now he was alone with her. And there was nothing to stand in his way. Or was there? She was no fool. She must have protection. He could see nothing.

His eyes clouded as he looked at her. That haughty body would soon writhe and scream under his hands. And before she died she would know the full meaning of torture.

But first he would learn the nature of this mystery. "Where is Mahra?" he said. "And what is the seventh plain?"

"Our scientists call them plains," she ignored the first question. "But they are really worlds coexistent with this one. We have explored six of these worlds. This, Venus, is the sixth. I and my kind came here from the second."

Moljar blinked. His barbarian mind was quick to accept the strange and the marvelous. It was not at all unbelievable that these Anghorians had come not only from another world, but from another dimension of existence. A coexistent world. It was only unexpected.

"All matter and all chronosophy are one and concomitant," she said. She swayed toward him. "Our scientists perfected the Matrix which can synthesize matter to any of these various worlds or plains. It changes the consistency of the atom, much as a lens magnifies objects to fit the perspective of your eye."

No longer able to control himself, Moljar stepped to meet her, flexing his hands and trembling violently. She must not get suspicious until it was too late. Until he had her between his hands.

"And why do you stay on Venus? Why do you kill us, and ravish this world?"

"My world was drab, colorless, uninteresting. It was so dull there. Our civilization destroyed the past which was lawless and exciting. I came here. And from the Red Moon Games I have gathered about me here at Anghore all the greatest warriors in the System. It was wise of me, do you not think so, Moljar? The planets themselves helped me. Terra and Mars weeded out the best by isolating the half-breeds and mutants. Then out of these, I select the very best, by a process of elimination during the Red Moon Games. From the best among the survivors of the Games I choose the Mistmen. And from the Mistmen I choose you, Moljar, to rule by my side. The Mistmen can conquer the Universe."

"Many have dreamed of such a conquest," said Moljar.

"This is no dream. We have inexhaustible power on our side. Weapons we can unleash that would stun the System into passive madness. Defense they have no conception of. And, if we had to, we could fight from the vantage of other plains of being, of which the dullards of the Solar Worlds have no concept, though these countless worlds flourish all about them. Work by my side, Moljar."

"Why me?" said the half-breed. "I am not of your kind."

"No Anghorian could stand against you with equal weapons, Moljar. The best of two worlds flows in your veins. Your heart is metal fibre, and your brain has never known fear. Nor could it ever understand defeat. There is no other who could stand by your side. And when I tire of the empire we shall build, and move on to other plains of entertainment, you may stay and rule. You can be King of a Universe, Moljar."

"None of which is so important as keeping my pledge," said Moljar. He clutched at her slim, throbbing throat, but again he had forgotten the extra-system origin of these non-humans. Her body was an unspringing coil. She landed lightly ten feet away. A high piercing shriek of frenzied rage and frustration sputtered from her pink, snarling face.

"Savage!" she finally said as he came toward her. "You have gone too far!"

"Not far enough yet," said Moljar. He leaped after her. She eluded him as he dodged after her doggedly. She sprang this way and that like a forest cat. And finally she stopped and her fingers briefly touched the wall. Panels slid noiselessly apart.

"You asked about the girl," she spat. "Look!"

Moljar froze. There was a square there revealed. A mass of electronic equipment. Parts were vaguely familiar, but over-all arrangement completely beyond the grasp of his barbaric desert mind. Within a column of light, stood Mahra, looking at him. Fine glowing filaments imprisoned her.

Somehow, through the weirdly glowing strands that would send her into some hellish land only Alhone could name, she managed a wan smile. Beyond the glowing filaments, grey-furred catmen moved dials and studied gauges and charts.

"Wait!" cried Alhone's grotesque mewing face. "Turn off the matrix power. Do not send the girl yet. Moljar wishes to accompany her to hell!"

V

The three catmen complied without comment. They apparently were highly specialized brains, incapable of normal reaction. Their faces reflected mechanical minds, specially bred, unemotional. Moljar's narrowed eyes followed the motions of one as he turned dials. The light faded from around the girl. The filaments faded to a rusty brown. Mahra's eyes turned, looked directly into Alhone's. A shiver went through Moljar at the strange glow that emanated from them.

Clanking of steel spun him around. The Anghorians whom Alhone had summoned were crashing into the small room, and Moljar sprang to meet them. His sword whipped free, darted, an invisible arc. He killed the first one who came within reach before the Anghorian's sword could move, his straight blade splitting the pink skull.

He saw one raise a peculiar looking device like an electro-gun, though smaller. He heard Alhone's shrill cry, "Swords only! I would watch him fight once again. Before he goes away."

Others joined the Anghorians. Martians. Terrans. Half-breeds. Their eyes were dull, and they fought without heart.

Moljar sidestepped a thrust, even as he parried one slash, and slipped under a third. His black eyes glittered like a basilisk's and his lips froze in the Martian tribal smile without mercy.

His sword darted past a blade that sought to parry. It sheathed a foot of its length in a Martian's belly. He gasped agonizedly and went to his knees. And another, a Terran, swept past him, lunging savagely, raining blow on blow so furiously that Moljar countered only with superhuman effort. He retreated warily before the cursing, sweating, yammering warriors, coolly parrying thrusts and strokes and watching for his chances to kill. When possible he kept articles of furniture between him and his attackers, while his sword circled, fluid light.

They were dying one by one. Moljar sensed something wrong. Why? Surely Alhone had seen enough of this final exhibition. Soon it would be too much. Already only two of her Guards remained. And they were wary, not aggressive, playing for time. They were waiting for Alhone's order to employ their energy weapons. But as he charged in, flailing, slashing, she was withholding that order. Why?

Moljar parried one wild catman's blade easily and, on the rebound, felt his sword crunch, saw the catman fall to the side with his neck cut half through. But move though he might, he was too late to defend himself completely against the second and remaining Guard. He parried slightly, the sword struck a glancing blow across his head, and bit deep into his shoulder. A red mist gathered over his eyes. He lifted his blade like heavy metal, very slowly it seemed, saw it sink as slowly into the Terran's skull. It stuck there. Moljar, through a welter of sweat and blood, tried to withdraw it as the dead man sank down to his knees. But his weight pulled the sword, gently, it seemed, from Moljar's nerveless fingers.

He turned and lurched toward the Matrix. The scientists were standing in shocked frozen stances. The filaments about Mahra's body were still cold. Her strangely bright eyes remained fixed on Alhone's. Moljar staggered around, shaking his head, fighting the whirling darkness that threatened to choke out the light.

The Princess Alhone's eyes were wide, staring, as though hypnotized. Her body was leaning forward in a taut arc. Her hands were spread outward as though attempting to ward off some invisible power. Her mouth was open, twisting, but only faint unintelligent gibberish spattered out. But there was still a mad fanatic fire as she sprang at him, her taloned paws outspread, slashing at his face. He scooped up a long sword as she screamed.

"The Matrix! Turn it on and go. Send the girl to hell alone!"

He swung her arms aside, agony lancing his bleeding shoulder. As she twisted off balance, he wrapped one arm about her, and swung her off her feet, just as another detail of Guards hurtled toward him.

"Tell them to get out," he said. "Or I'll kill you."

She knew he would anyway, but she preferred less immediacy. He lifted his other arm, thrust the dripping sword point against her breast. She coughed something from her straining throat, and the Guards retreated hastily. The panel closed behind them.

"Tell your scientists—" he began, and stopped as her mewing laughter interrupted him.

He looked into the Matrix. The filaments were glowing purple. But the scientists were gone! He dragged Alhone's writhing body after him into the mass of equipment. A gigantic maze of meaningless tubes, wires, bulbs, dials, buttons and switches and coils. He cursed blindly. He could not turn off the Matrix!

"Mahra! Mahra!" Her body was faintly stirring beyond the now singing and vibrating filaments.

Between peals of piercing whistling laughter, Alhone was shrieking, "She will go to the seventh plain! The she-devil!"

Moljar could destroy the Matrix, but only a burning cataclysm could result from such an act. At least, even in the seventh plain, she would be alive for awhile, and perhaps he could bring her back.

Mahra was on her knees, now on her feet, swaying. She turned. Moljar flinched. Those eyes. They blazed, and held. She had gone mad. With a savage roar of pent up blind hot rage, Moljar clutched Alhone's neck and began squeezing it slowly. All his suppressed hate, his frustration, the years and perils of his long, long quest, his longing for revenge, was in the terrible strength of his fingers ... but, without any logical reason, a thought entered his mind, restrained his hands ... a faint far sound, but one of screaming urgency....

Don't, Moljar. Let her live.

He sobbed in frustrated rage. It was deviltry. He tried again to squeeze that throbbing neck, but his fingers remained frozen. Then the mental voice in his brain repeated, Let her live, Moljar. This is Mahra. Let her live. She knows the Matrix. Mahra....

He staggered back, blinking, shaking his head. He dropped Alhone. Her body thudded on the crimsoned floor. She raised up stiffly, her eyes staring widely, her arms trembling. She walked stonily to the Matrix and turned a dial. The Matrix's shrill humming, now almost beyond his auditory range, died slowly as the glow of the filaments faded.

Alhone adjusted some other part of the complex panel. The filamented threads lifted slowly until Mahra could crawl beneath them. She ran sobbing, and Moljar took her easily into the folds of his red dripping arms.

Alhone had turned. She looked at Mahra with that indescribable hatred burning a raw-edged flame in her eyes.

"So you mutants, some of you anyway, are telepathic. That is why the Normals fear you so. I am helpless here. Now. There is nothing for me to do but escape." Her hands spun dials as she talked. "I go to whatever plain waits my pleasure. I am tired of this one." She looked at Moljar through veiled eyes. "I have seen all I can see here."

While the filament threads dropped down, she ran beneath them. They began to glow, rapidly now, for the last time.

"I won't let her escape me now," said Moljar. "Even if we have to die with her." He hurled his heavy long sword directly into the blazing heart of the Matrix.

There was a crackling, then a thunderous growing roar of stupendous unleashed power. A blinding, glaring explosion sent Mahra and Moljar hurtling backward. Stunned, they staggered to their feet, supporting each other, groped for the panel out of the room.

A globe of burning white energy was expanding rapidly, eating up wall and metal and air with thirsting ferocity.

It devoured its own base and plummeted downward through the towering heights of Anghore. Burning, blasting, eating, destroying. It ate straight down into the bowels of the Venus beneath the Mountains of Maghrone.

Through the trembling, smoking chaos, the tottering ruins of Anghore, Moljar and Mahra blindly fought their way. The towering gateway was blasted as though by a tremendous electronic charge; they ran through the cavern and over the twisted gates and far up the beach of grey sand before they finally paused, panting, and looked back.

Anghore was a smoke-belching crater. A thundering volcano of burning energy.

They stood breast to breast, looking at each other. Half-breed and mutant. Outcasts. Scourged. Excluded and estranged. The hated and feared. Her eyes half-closed beneath his. Her lips parted slightly, and her body was soft.

"No wonder the Terran Normals are so fearful of you mutants," said Moljar. "The rumors are true. You can control minds!"

She nodded, eyes still almost closed. "Some of us can, sometimes. It isn't easy."

"Then why do you not rule them? If you can."

"If we feel like it, maybe we shall. Some day. When the time is right. Besides, we only want to rule those who deserve to be ruled."

His arms tightened. She submitted with a strange, eager smile to the pressure of his muscles. "Well," he said softly. "Is the time right? And do I deserve the honor?"

Against his, her lips answered.

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