Latest / Captives of the Thieve-Star / Beast-Jewel of Mars-Leigh Douglass Brackett

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Beast-Jewel of Mars-Leigh Douglass Brackett · Captives of the Thieve-Star

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  Speaker 1: The Beast Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett. This is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Recording by Edith Kessic of Southern Ohio. The Beast Jewel
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of Mars by Lee bracket One. Burke Winters remained in
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the passenger section while the star flight made her landing
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  Speaker 1: at Cahora Port. He did not think that he could
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  Speaker 1: bear to see another man, even one he liked as
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  Speaker 1: much as he did Johnny Niles, handle the controls of
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  Speaker 1: the ship that had been his for so long. He
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  Speaker 1: did not wish even to say goodbye to Johnny, but
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  Speaker 1: there was no avoiding it. The young officer was waiting
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  Speaker 1: for him as he came down the ramp, and the
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  Speaker 1: deep concern he felt was not hidden in the lead
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  Speaker 1: by his casually hearty grin. Johnny held out his hand,
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  Speaker 1: so long, Burke, You've earned this, leave have fun with it.
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  Speaker 1: Burke Winters looked out over the vast ptarmac that spread
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  Speaker 1: for miles across the Ochre Desert, an orderly, roaring confusion
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  Speaker 1: of trucks and flat cars, and men, and ships, oarships, freighters, tramps,
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  Speaker 1: sleek liners like the Starflight, bearing the colors of three
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  Speaker 1: planets and a dozen colonies, but still arrogantly and predominantly terran.
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  Speaker 1: Johnny followed his gaze and said, softly, it always gives
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  Speaker 1: you a thrill, doesn't it. Winters did not answer. Miles away,
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  Speaker 1: safe from the thundering rocket blasts, the glassite dome of
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  Speaker 1: Cahora Trade City of Mars rose jewel like out of
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  Speaker 1: the sand. The little sun stared wearily down, and the
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  Speaker 1: ancient hills considered it, and the old, old wandering wind
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  Speaker 1: passed over it, and it seemed as though the planet
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  Speaker 1: bore Cahora and its spaceport with patience, as though it
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  Speaker 1: were a small local infection that would soon be gone.
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  Speaker 1: He had forgotten Johnny Niles. He had forgotten everything but
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: his own dark thoughts. The young officer studied him with
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  Speaker 1: covert pity, and he did not know it. Burke Winters
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  Speaker 1: was a big man and a tough man, tempered by
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: years of deep space flying. The same glare of naked
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  Speaker 1: light that burned his skin so dark, had bleached his
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  Speaker 1: hair until it was almost white, and just in the
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  Speaker 1: last few months, his gray eyes seemed to have caught
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  Speaker 1: and held a spark of that pitiless radiance. The easy
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  Speaker 1: good nature was gone out of them, and the lines
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that laughter had shaped around his mouth had deepened now
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  Speaker 1: into bitter scars. A big man, a hard man, but
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  Speaker 1: a man who was no longer in control of himself.
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  Speaker 1: All during the voyage out from Earth he had chain
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  Speaker 1: smoked the little Venusian cigarettes that have a sedative effect.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: He was smoking one now, and even so he could
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  Speaker 1: not keep his hands steady nor stop the everlasting tick
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  Speaker 1: in his right cheek. Burke, Johnny's voice came to him
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  Speaker 1: from a great distance. Burke, it's none of my business.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: But he hesitated, then blurted out, do you think Mars
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  Speaker 1: is good for you? Right now? Quite abruptly, Winter said,
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  Speaker 1: take good care of the starflight, Johnny, good bye. He
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  Speaker 1: went away down the ramp. The pilot stared after him.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: The second officer came up to Johnny. That guy sure
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: has gone to pieces, he said. Johnny nodded. He was
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: angry because he had come up under Winters, and he
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  Speaker 1: loved him. The damn fool, He said, he shouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: come here. He looked out over the mocking immensity of Mars,
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  Speaker 1: and added his girl was lost out there somewhere. They
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  Speaker 1: never found her body. A spaceport taxi took Burke Winter's
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  Speaker 1: into Cahora, and Mars vanished. He was back in the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: world of the trade cities, which belonged to all planets
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  Speaker 1: and none Via on Venus, New York, on Earth, Sun City,
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  Speaker 1: in Mercury's Twilight Belt, the glass sight refuges of the
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  Speaker 1: outer worlds. They were all alike. They were dedicated to
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  Speaker 1: the coddling of wealth and greed. Little paradises where millions
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  Speaker 1: were made and lost in comfort, where men and women
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  Speaker 1: from all over the Solar System could expend their feverish
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  Speaker 1: energies without regard for such annoyances as weather and gravitation.
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  Speaker 1: Other things than the making of money were done in
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  Speaker 1: trade cities. The love plastic buildings, the terraces and gardens,
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  Speaker 1: and the glowing web of moving walks that spun them
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  Speaker 1: together offered every pleasure and civilized vice of the known worlds.
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  Speaker 1: Winters hated the trade cities. He was used to the
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  Speaker 1: elemental honesty of space. Here, the speech, the dress, even
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  Speaker 1: the air one breathed were artificial, and he had a
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  Speaker 1: deeper reason than that for his hatred. Yet, he had
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  Speaker 1: left New York in a feverish haste to reach Cahora,
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  Speaker 1: and now that he was here, he felt that he
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  Speaker 1: could not endure even the delay cause by the necessity
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  Speaker 1: of crossing the city. He sat tensely on the edge
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  Speaker 1: of the seat, and whose nervous twitching grew worse by
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  Speaker 1: the minute. When finally he reached his destination, he could
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  Speaker 1: not hold the money for his fare. He dropped the
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  Speaker 1: plastic tokens on the floor and left the driver to
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  Speaker 1: scramble for them. He stood for a moment looking up
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: at the ivory sod before him. It was perfectly plain,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the epitome of expensive unpretentiousness. Above the door, in small
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  Speaker 1: letters of greenish silver, was the one Martian word Shanga,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the return. He translated the going back. A strange and
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: rather terrible smile crossed his face very briefly. Then he
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  Speaker 1: opened the door and went inside. Subdued lighting, comfortable lounges,
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  Speaker 1: soft music, the perfect waiting room. There were half a
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  Speaker 1: dozen men and women there, all Terrans. They wore the
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  Speaker 1: fashionably simple white tunic of the trade cities, which set
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  Speaker 1: off the magnificent blaze of their jewelry and the exotic
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  Speaker 1: styles in which they dressed their hair. Their faces were
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  Speaker 1: pallid and effeminate, scored with the haggard marks of life
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: lived under the driving tension of a supermodern age. A
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  Speaker 1: Martian woman sat in an alcove behind a glassit desk.
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  Speaker 1: She was dark, sophisticatedly lovely. Her costume was the artfully
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  Speaker 1: adapted short robe of ancient Mars, and she wore no ornament.
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  Speaker 1: Her slanting topaz eyes regarded Burke Winter's with professional pleasantness,
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  Speaker 1: but deep in them he could see the scorn and
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  Speaker 1: the pride of a race so old that the terran
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  Speaker 1: exquisites of the trade cities were only crude children. Beside it,
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  Speaker 1: Captain Winters, she said, how nice to see you again.
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  Speaker 1: He was in no mood for conventional pleasantries. I want
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  Speaker 1: to see cor Hall, he said. Now I'm afraid she began.
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  Speaker 1: Then she took another look at Winter's face and turned
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  Speaker 1: to the intercom. Presently, she said, you may go in.
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  Speaker 1: He pushed open the door that led to the interior
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  Speaker 1: of the building, which consisted almost entirely of a huge
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  Speaker 1: solarium glassite. Walls enclosed it around the sides were many
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  Speaker 1: small cells containing only a padded table. The roofs of
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  Speaker 1: the cells were quartz and acted as mammoth lenses, skirting
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  Speaker 1: the solarium. On the way to Korhaul's office, Winter's mouth
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  Speaker 1: twisted with contempt as he looked through the transparent wall.
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  Speaker 1: An exotic forest bloomed there, trees, ferns, brilliant flowers, a
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  Speaker 1: soft green sward, a myriad of birds. And through this
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  Speaker 1: mock primitive playground wandered the men and women who were
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  Speaker 1: the devotees of shanga. They lay first on the padded
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  Speaker 1: tables and let the radiation play with them. Winters new
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  Speaker 1: neuropsychic therapy. The doctors called it heritage of the lost
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  Speaker 1: wisdom of old Mars, specific for the jangled nerves and
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  Speaker 1: overwrought emotions of modern man who live too fast and
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  Speaker 1: too complex an environment. You lie there, and the radiation
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  Speaker 1: tingles through you. Your glandular balance tips a little, your
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  Speaker 1: brain slows down. All sorts of strange and pleasant things
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  Speaker 1: happen inside of you, while the radiation tinkers with nerves
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  Speaker 1: and reflexes and metabolism, and pretty soon you're a child again.
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  Speaker 1: In an evolutionary sort of way Shanga, the going back
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  Speaker 1: mentally and just a tiny bit physically back to the
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  Speaker 1: primitive until the effect wore off and the normal balance
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  Speaker 1: restored itself. Even then, for a while, you felt better
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  Speaker 1: and happier because you'd had one hell of arrest from everything.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: They're pampered, white bodies, incogruously clad in skins and bits
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  Speaker 1: of colored cloth. The earthlings of Kohora played and fought
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  Speaker 1: among the trees, and their worries were simple ones concerning
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  Speaker 1: food and love and strings of gaudy beads. Hidden away
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  Speaker 1: out of sight were watchful men with shock guns. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: some one went a little too far down the road.
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  Speaker 1: Winters knew he had been knocked cold himself on his
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  Speaker 1: last visit here. He remembered that he had tried to
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  Speaker 1: kill a man, or rather, he had been told that
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  Speaker 1: he had tried to kill a man. One did not
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  Speaker 1: remember much of the interludes of Shanga. That was one
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  Speaker 1: reason people liked it. One was free of inhibitions, fashionable vice,
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  Speaker 1: made respectable by the cloak of science. It was a
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  Speaker 1: new kind of excitement, a new kind of escape from
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  Speaker 1: the glittering complexities of life. The Terrans were mad for it,
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  Speaker 1: but only the Terrans. The barbaric Venusians were still too
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  Speaker 1: close to the Savage to have any need for it,
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  Speaker 1: and the mar were too old and wise in sin
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  Speaker 1: to use it. Besides, thought Winters, they made shanga they know.
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  Speaker 1: A deep shudder ran through him as he thrust his
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  Speaker 1: way into the office of kor Hall, the director. Kor
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  Speaker 1: Hall was lean and dark and of no particular age.
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  Speaker 1: His national origin was lost in the anonymity of the
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  Speaker 1: conventional white tunic. He was Martian, and his courtesy was
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  Speaker 1: only a velvet sheathe over chilled steel. But beyond that
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  Speaker 1: he was quantity X. Captain Winters, he said, please sit down.
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  Speaker 1: Winter sat kor Hall studied him. You're nervous, Captain Winters,
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  Speaker 1: but I am afraid to treat you any more. Outasm
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  Speaker 1: lies too close to the surface in you. He shrugged.
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  Speaker 1: You remember the last time Winter's nodded, The same thing
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  Speaker 1: happened in York. He leaned forward. I don't want you
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  Speaker 1: to treat me any more. What you have here isn't
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  Speaker 1: enough now. Sar Cree told me that in New York.
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  Speaker 1: He told me to come to Mars. Kor Hall said quietly.
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  Speaker 1: He communicated with me. Then you will Winter's broke off.
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  Speaker 1: Because there were no words with which to finish his question,
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  Speaker 1: kor Hall did not answer. He reclined at ease against
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  Speaker 1: the cushions of his lounge chair, handsome, unconcerned. Only his eyes,
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  Speaker 1: which were green and feral, held a buried spark of amusement,
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  Speaker 1: the cruel amusement of a cat which has a crippled
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  Speaker 1: mouse under its paw. Are you sure, he asked finally,
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  Speaker 1: that you know what you're doing. Yes, people, her captain Winters.
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  Speaker 1: Those Mannikins out there, he indicated, The solarium have neither
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  Speaker 1: blood nor heart. They are artificial products of an artificial environment.
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  Speaker 1: But men like you Winters, are playing with fire when
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  Speaker 1: they play with shanga. Listen, said Winters. The girl I
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  Speaker 1: was going to marry took her flier out over the
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  Speaker 1: desert one day and never came back. God only knows
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  Speaker 1: what happened to her. You know better than I do,
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  Speaker 1: the things that can happen to people in the dead
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  Speaker 1: sea bottoms. I hunted for her, I found her flier
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  Speaker 1: where it had crashed. I never found her. After that,
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  Speaker 1: nothing mattered much to me, nothing but forgetting cor Hall
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  Speaker 1: inclined his dark, narrow head I remember a tragedy, Captain Winters.
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  Speaker 1: I knew miss Leland, a lovely young woman. She used
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  Speaker 1: to come here, I know, said Winters. She wasn't trade city, really,
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  Speaker 1: but she had too much money and too much time. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not worried about playing with your fire, kor Hal.
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  Speaker 1: I've been burned too deep with it already. Like you say,
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  Speaker 1: people differ, those lily whites out there in their toy jungle.
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  Speaker 1: They have no desire to go back any further. They
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  Speaker 1: haven't the guts or the passions to want to. I
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  Speaker 1: have Winter's eyes blazed with a peculiarly animal light. I
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  Speaker 1: want to go back, kor Hall, back as far as
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  Speaker 1: Shanga will take me. Sometimes, said the Martian. That's a
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  Speaker 1: long way. I don't care. Kor Hall gave him an intent.
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  Speaker 1: Look for some there is no return. I have nothing
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  Speaker 1: to return to. It is not easy, Winters. Shanga, the
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  Speaker 1: real Shanga of which these solariums and quartz lenses are
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  Speaker 1: only a weak copy, was forbidden centuries ago by the
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  Speaker 1: city states of Mars. There are risks and discomforts, which
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  Speaker 1: means that the process is expensive. I have money. Winters
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  Speaker 1: leaped up suddenly, his control breaking. Be damned to your arguments.
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  Speaker 1: They're all hypocrisy. Anyway, you know perfectly well which ones
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  Speaker 1: are going to take to shanga. You keep them coming
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  Speaker 1: until their attics half crazy to feel the real thing,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and you know damn well you're going to give them
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  Speaker 1: what they want as soon as they cross your dirty
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: palm with silver. He tossed a check book on kor
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  Speaker 1: Hall's desk. The top one was blank, but signed there
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: he said, anything up to one hundred thousand universal credits.
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  Speaker 1: I would prefer, said kor Hall, that you draw your
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  Speaker 1: own check to cash. He handed the check book back
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  Speaker 1: to Winters the full amount in advance Burke. Winter said
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  Speaker 1: one word. When tonight, if you wish, where are you
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  Speaker 1: staying the try Planet, have dinner there as usual, then
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  Speaker 1: remain in the bar. Sometime during the evening your guide
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  Speaker 1: will join you. I'll be waiting, Winter said, and went out.
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  Speaker 1: Kor Hal smiled. His teeth were very white, very sharp.
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  Speaker 1: They had the hungry look of fangs. End of section one,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Section two of The Beasts Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Edith Kessrick of Southern Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: The Beast Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett two Burke.
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  Speaker 1: Winters got his bearings finally when Bobos rose and he
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  Speaker 1: could guess where they were heading. They had slipped quietly
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: out of Khora. He and the slender young Martian who
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: had joined him unobtrusively in the triplanet bar A flyer
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  Speaker 1: waited for them on a private field. Kor Hall waited also.
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  Speaker 1: They took off with a fourth man who looked to
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  Speaker 1: be one of the big barbarians from the northern hills
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  Speaker 1: of Kesh. Kor Hall took the controls. Winters was sure
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  Speaker 1: now that they were bound for the low canals, the
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  Speaker 1: ancient waterways in ancient wicked towns Jakara, Valkis, Barrakesh, outside
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  Speaker 1: the laws of the scattered city states. Thieves, market, slave market,
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  Speaker 1: vice market of a world earth men were worn to
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  Speaker 1: keep away from them. Miles reeled behind them. The utter
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  Speaker 1: desolation of the landscape below got on Winter's nerves. The
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: silence and the flier became unendurable. There was something menacing
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: about it. Kor Hall and the big Keshi and the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: slim young man seemed to be nursing some common inner
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: thought that gave them a particularly vicious pleasure. Its shadows
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: showed on their faces. Winter spoke, finally, are your headquarters
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  Speaker 1: out here? No answer, Winter said, rather petulantly, There's no
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  Speaker 1: need to be so secretive, after all, I'm one of you. Now,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the slim young man said, sharply, do the beastlie down
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  Speaker 1: with the masters. Winter started to bristle, and the barbarian
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  Speaker 1: put his hand on the wicked little sap he carried
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: at his belt. Then kor Haul spoke coolly, you wished
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  Speaker 1: to practice shanga in its true form, Captain Winters. That
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is what you have paid for. That is what you
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: will receive. All else is irrelevant. Winter shrugged sulkily. He
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: sat smoking his sedative tobacco, and he did not speak again.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: After a long long time, the seemingly endless desert began
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to change. Low ridges rose naked from the sand and
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: grew into a mountain range of which nothing was left
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: now but the barren rock. Beyond the mountains lay a
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: dead sea bottom. It stretched away under the moonlight, dropping,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: always dropping, until at last, it became only a vast
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: pit of darkness. Ribs of chalk and coral gleamed here
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and there, pushing through the lichens, like bones through the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: dried skin of a man long dead. Winters saw that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: there was a city between the foothills and the sea.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: It had followed the receding water down the slopes. From
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: its height, Winters could see the outlines of five harbors,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: abandoned one by one as the sea drew back. The
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: great stone docks still standing. Houses had been built to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: fill their emptiness, and then abandoned in their turn for
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a lower level. Now, the straggling town had coalesced along
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the bank of the canal that drew what feeble life
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: was left from the buried springs of the bottom. There
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: was something infinitely sad about that thin, dark line, all
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that was left of a blue and rolling ocean. The
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: fliers circled and came down. The Cashi said something rapidly
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: in his own dialect, from which Winters caught the one
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: word Vucus kor Hal answered him. Then he turned to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Winters and said, we have not far to go. Stay
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: close by me. The four men left the flier. Winters
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: knew that he was under guard, and felt it was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: not entirely for the sake of protecting him. The wind
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: blew thin and dry dust rose in clouds around their feet.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Thuchus lay ahead, a stony darkness, sprawling upward toward the cliffs.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Cold in the eerie light of the twin moons winter
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: saw high up on the crest the broken towers of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a palace. They walked beside, still black water, on paving
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  Speaker 1: stones worn hollow by the sandaled feet of countless generations.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Even at this late hour, Thuchus did not sleep. Torches
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: burned yellow against the night. Somewhere a double banked harp,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: strange music. The streets, the alley mouths, the doorways, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the flat roofs of the houses rustled with life. Lithe
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: lean men and catlike women watched the strangers, hot eyed
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and silent, and over all. Winters heard the particular sound
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of the low canal towns, the whispering and chiming of
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the wanton little bells that the women wear braided into
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: their dark hair, hanging from their ears, chained around their ankles.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Evil that town, ancient and very evil, but not tired.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Winters could feel the pulse of life that beat there,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: strong and hot. He was afraid. His own civilian garb
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and the white tunics of his companions were terribly conspicuous
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: in this place of bare breasts and bright kilts and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: jeweled girdles. No one molested them. Coor Hall led the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: way into a large house and shut the door of
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: beaten bronze behind them, and Winters felt a great relief.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: He turned to kor Hall. How soon, he asked, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: tried to conceal the trembling of his hands. Everything is ready, Winters,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Hawk show him the way. The Keshi nodded and went off,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: with Winters at his heels. This was very different from
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the Hall of Shanga in Kohora. Within these walls of
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: kort Stone, men and women had lived and loved and
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: died in violence. The blood and tears of centuries had
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: dried in the cracks between the flags. The rugs, the tapestries,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and the furnishings were worth a fortune as antiques. Their
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: beauty was worn, but still bright. At the end of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a corridor was a bronze door pierced by a narrow grill.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Hawk stopped, he said to Winters Strip. Winters hesitated. He
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: carried a gun, and he did not like to leave
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: it behind. Why out here, I'd rather have my clothes
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: with me, halk said, Strip here, it is the rule.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Winters obeyed. He walked naked into the narrow cell. There
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: was no comfortable table here, only a few skins thrown
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: on the bare floor. A barred opening showed darkly in
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the opposite wall. The bronze door rang shut behind him,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and he heard the great bar drop into place. It
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was completely dark. He was really afraid, now, terribly afraid.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: But it was too late for that. It had been
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: too late for a long time, ever since Jill Leland
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: was lost. He lay down on the hides high above,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in the vaults of the roof, he could make out
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a faint, vague shimmering. It grew brighter. Presently he saw
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: that it was a prism set into the stone, rather
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: large and cut from a crystalline substance that was the
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: color of fire. Korhu's voice reached him through the grill.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Earth Man, Yes, that prism is one of the jewels
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of Shanga. The wise men of caer Dow carved them
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: half a million years ago. Only they knew the secret
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of the substance and the shaping of the facets. There
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: are only three of the jewels left. Sparks that were
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: more energy than light flickered on the stone walls of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the cell, gold and orange and greenish blue, little flames,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the fire of Shanga to burn the heart because he
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: was afraid. Winter said, But the radiation, the ray that
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: comes through the prism, is that the same as in Kohora. Yes,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: this sacred of the projectors was lost with care do
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: presumably they used cosmic rays. By substituting ordinary courts for
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the prisms, we could make the radiation weak enough for
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: our purposes. In the trade cities, Who is we core Hall, laughter,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: soft and wicked earth man, We are Mars dancing fire, growing, growing,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: glinting on his flesh, darting through his blood his brain.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: It was not like this in the solariums, with their
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: pretty trees. It was pleasure there, tantalizing, heady pleasure. It
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: was exciting and strange. But this, his body began to move,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: to arch itself into strong, writhing curves. He thought he
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: could not endure the lovely, lovely pain. Kor Hall's voice
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: boomed downside huge fateful distance. The wise men of care
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: do were not so wise. They found the secret of Shanga,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and they escaped their wars and their troubles by fleeing
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: backward along the path of evolution. Do you know what
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: happened to them? They perished earth Man. In one generation,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: care Dew vanished from the face of Mars. It was
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: getting hard to answer, hard to think, Winter said hoarsely,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Did it matter? They were happy while they lived? Are
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you happy, earth Man? Yes? He panted, yes. The words
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: were only half articulate, twisting rolling on the hide rugs
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: in the grip of such magnificent, unholy sensations, such as
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: he had never dreamed of before. Burke Winters was happy.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: The fire of Shanga blazed down upon him like a
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: melting away, and there was nothing left but joy again,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: kor Hall laughed. After that, Winter's was not sure of anything.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: His mind rocked, and there were periods of darkness. When
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: he was conscious, he knew only a feeling of strangeness.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But he carried one memory with him, at least part
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: way down that eerie road. During a lucid period, a
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: space of only a minute or two, he thought that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: one of the stones had rolled back to reveal a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: courtzite's screen, and that through the screen, a face looked
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: at him, watching as he bathed naked in the beautiful flame.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: A woman's face, Martian, high bred, with strong, delicate bones
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and arrogant brows, and a red mouth that would be
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: like bitter sweet fruit to kiss. Her eyes were golden
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: as the fire, and as hot and proud and scornful.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: There must have been a microphone in the wall, for
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: she spoke, and he heard her voice, full of a sweet,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: cruel magic. She called his name. He could not rise,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but he managed to crawl toward her, and to his
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: reeling brain, she was part of the unearthly force that
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: played with him a destruction and a fascination as irresistible
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: as death to his alien eyes. She was not as
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: lovely as Jill, but there was a power in her,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and her red mouth taunted him, and the curve of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: her bare shoulders drove him to madness. You're strong, she said,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you will live until the end, and that is well,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Burke Winters. He tried to speak, but he could no
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: longer form the words. She smiled, You have challenged me,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: earth man, I know you've challenged Shanga. You're brave and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I like for men. You're also a fool, and I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: like fools because they give me sport. I'm looking forward,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: earth Man, to the moment when you reached the end
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of your search. He tried again to speak, and failed,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and the night and the silence came to stay. He
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: took the sound of her mocking laughter with him into
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the dark. He did not think of himself now as
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Captain Burke Winters, but only by the short personal name
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: of Burke. The stones upon which he lay were cool
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: and hard. It was pitch dark, but his eyes and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: ears were very keen. He could tell by the sound
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of his breathing that he was in a closed space,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and he did not like it. A low growl rumbled
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: in his throat. The hair stiffened at the back of
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: his neck. He tried to remember how he had come here.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Something had happened, something to do with fire, but he
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: did not know what or why. Only one thing he knew.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: He was searching for something. It was gone, and he
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: wanted it back. The wanting was a pain in him.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: He could not remember what the object was that he wanted,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: but the need for it was greater than any obstacle
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: short of death. He rose and began to explore his prison.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Cautious testing told him that there was a passage beyond.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: He could see nothing, but the air that blew into
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: him was heavy with strange smells. Instinct told him it
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: was a trap. He crouched resolute, his hand opening and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: closing in desire for a weapon. There was no weapon. Presently,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: he went into the passage, moving without a sound. He
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: went a long way, his shoulders brushing stone on either side.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Then he saw light ahead, red and flickering, and the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: air brought him the taint of smoke and the smell
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: of man. Very, very slowly, the creature called Burke padded
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: toward the light. He came close to the end of
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the tunnel, and suddenly a barred gate dropped behind him
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: with a ringing clash. He could not go back. He
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: did not wish to go back. Enemies were in front
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: of him, and he wished to fight. He knew now
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that he could not come upon them. Secretly, flexing his
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: great chest, he leaped out boldly from the tunnel mouth.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: The tossing glare of torches dazzled his eyes, and a
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: wild mob howl deafened him. He stood alone on a
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: great block, the old slave block of Valchus, though he
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: did not know that they stared up, jeering at the
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: earth man who had tasted the forbidden fruit that even
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the soulless men of the low canals would not touch.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: The creature called Burke was still a man, but a
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: man already shadowed by the ape. During the hours he
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: had bathed in the light of Shanga, he had changed physically.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Bone and flesh had altered under the accelerated urging of
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: glands and increased metabolism. Already a big, powerful man, he
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: had thickened and coarsened along the lines of brutish strength.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: His jaw and brow ridges jutted. Thick hair covered his
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: chest and limbs, and extended in a rudimentary mane down
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the back of his neck. His deep set eyes had
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a hard and cunning gleam of intelligence, but it was
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the intelligence of a primitive mind that had learned to
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: speak and make fire and weapons, and no more than that.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Half crouching, he glared down at the crowd. He did
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: not know who these men were. He hated them. They
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: were of another tribe, and their very smell was alien.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: They hated him too. The air bristled with their enmity.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: His gaze fell on a man who stepped out lightly
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: and proudly into the empty space. He did not remember
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: that this man's name was kor Hall. He did not
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: notice that kor Hall had shed the white tunic of
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the trade cities for the kilt and girdle of the
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: low canals, nor that he wore in his ears the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: pierced gold rings of Barrakesh, and was now honestly himself
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: a banded, born and bred among a race of bandits
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: who had been civilized for so long that they could
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: afford to forget it. Burke knew only that this man
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: was his particular enemy. Captain Burke Winters said, kor Hall,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: man of the tribe of Terror, lords of the spaceways,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: builders of the trade cities, masters of greed and rapine.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: His voice carried over the packed square, though he did
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: not shout. Burke watched him, his eyes blinking like red
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: sparks in the torchlight, weaving slightly on his feet, his
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: hands swinging loose and hungry. He did not understand the words,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: but they were threat and insult. Look at him, O
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: men of Valcus, cried kor Hall. He is our master.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Now his government kings it over the city states of Mars.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Our pride is stripped, our wealth is gone. What have
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: we left, o, children of a dying world? The answer
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that rang from the walls of Balcus was soft and wordless,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the opening chord of a hymn written in hell. Someone
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: threw a stone. Burke came down off the slave block
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: in a great effortless spring, and sped across the square,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: straight for kor Hal's throat. A laugh went up, mirth
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that was half a cat scream of sheer's savagery, like
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: one supple creature. The crowd moved. Torchlight flashed from knife
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: blades and jewels, and eyes of glittering green and topaz,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and the small chiming bells, and the points of the
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: deadly spiked knuckle dusters, long black tongues of whips licked
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: out with a hiss and a crack. Kor Hall waited
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: until Burke almost reached him. Then he bent and pivoted
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: in the graceful martian savat. His foot caught Burke under
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: the chin and sent him sprawling. As he rolled half stunned,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: kor Hall caught a whip from a man's hand. That's it,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: earth man, he cried out, grovel, belly down, and lick
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the stones that were here before the apes of Earth
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: had learned to walk. The long lash sang in bit,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: lacing the hairy body with red wheels, and the harsh
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: mob scream went up. Drive him, Drive the beast of Shapunga,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: as the invading beasts of old were driven by our forefathers.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And they drove him with whip and knife and spike,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: through the streets of balcus, under the racing moons, jeering,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: they drove him. He fought them, mad with fury, he
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: fought them, but he could not come to grips with them.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: When he lunged, they melted before him, and each way
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: he turned he was met by the lash and the
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: blade and the crippling kick. Blood ran, but it was
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: all his own, and the high, shrill laughter of women
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: pursued him as he went. He wanted to kill. The
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: lust of killing was more red and strong within him
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: than his blood. But he reeled under the pain of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: many blows, and his sight was dim, And where his
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: great hands closed on flesh to tear it, he was
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: himself torn and driven back, dragged down by the lashes
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: curled around his throat. At last there was only feet
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and the desire to escape. They let him run along
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the crumbling ways of Baluchus, up and down the twisting
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: alleys that reeked of ancient crime. They let him run,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: but not too far. They blocked him off from the
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: canal and the freedom of the sea bottom beyond. Again
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and again they headed the panting, shambling creature that had
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: been Burke Winter's captain of the starflight, and drove it
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: higher up the slope. Burke moved slowly now, he snarled,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and his head wove blindly from side to side in
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a pathetic attempt at defiance. His blood dripped hot on
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: the stones, and always the insolent, stinging lashes drove him
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: on up and up, past the great looming docks, with
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the bullards and the scars of moored ships still on them,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and the dust of their own decay lapping dry around
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: their feet. Four levels above the canal, four harbors, cities,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: four epochs written in fading characters of stone. Even the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: dawn man Burke was oppressed and frightened. There was no
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: life here. There had been no life for a long time,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: even in the lowest level. The wind had scoured and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: polished the empty houses, smoothing the corners to roundness, hollowing
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: the doors and windows, until the work of man was erased.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Only strange things were left that looked as though the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: wind had made them by itself out of little mountain tops.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: The people of Valcus were silent now they drove the beast,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and their hate had not abated, but was intensified. They
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: walked here upon the very bones of their world. Earth
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: was a green star, young and rich. Here the Martians
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: passed the marble pier where the Kings of Balcus had
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: moored their galleys, and the very marble was shattered under
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: the heel of time. High on the ridge above the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: oldest city, the palace of the Kings, looked down at
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: the scourging of the interloper, And in all of Balcus
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: there was now no sound but the whispering of little
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: bells that was like the sigh of wind. On another world,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: where the women ran on their small, bare feet, ankle
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: deep in dust, Burke climbed ape like up the history
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of Mars. His belly was cold with the terror of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: these dark places that smelled of nothing, not even of death.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: He passed a place where houses had been built within
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the curve of a coral reef. He clambered over the
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: reef and saw above him a sloping face of rock
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: with gaping holes that the sea had made. He climbed that,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: not knowing or caring what it was. On the level
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: space above, he passed the broken quays that had once
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: made safe mooring in the bay, and stopped to look back.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: They were still hunting him. His flanks heaved, and his
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: eyes were desperate. He went on scrambling up steep, narrow
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: streets where the paving blocks had fallen out, and the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: houses had come down in shapeless heaps, and his hands
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and feet left red prints where he put them down.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Then at last he was at the top of the ridge.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: The great bulk of the palace loomed above him against
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the sky. Primitive wisdom told him the place was dangerous.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: He skirted the high wall of marble that ringed it,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and suddenly his twitching nostrils caught the scent of water.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: His tongue was swollen in his mouth, his throat choked
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: with dust. His need was so great, with the salt
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: bleeding and the fever of his wounds, that he forgot
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: his enemies, and the menace of the mountain. Thing behind
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the wall. Breaking into a ragged lope, he went forward
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: along the cliff top until he came to a gateway
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and plunged through it. And suddenly there was turf under
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: his feet, soft and cool. There were shrubs and flowers
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: pale in the moonlight, heavily sweet, and dark branches against
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: the sky. The gate closed silently behind him. He did
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: not see it. He ran down a grassy ride between
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: rows of trees trimmed into fantastic shapes, guided by the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: smell of water. Here and there were strange gleams and
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: glints of statuary wrought in marble and semi precious stones.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Burke's skin crawled with an awareness of danger, but he
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: was too weary and too mad with thirst to care.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: The ride ended. Beyond was an open space, and in
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: the center of it was a great sunken tank, carved
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and ornamented. The water in it was like polished jet.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Nothing stirred in the open A wing of the palace
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: rose beyond the tank like a black wall, and it
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: seemed that nothing lived there but Burke's hair trigger nerves
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: told him otherwise. He stopped in the shelter of the trees,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: sniffing the air and listening nothing, darkness and silence. Burke
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: looked at the waiting water. It filled all his senses.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he ran toward it. He flung himself belly down
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: on the slabs of turquoise that paved the brink, and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: buried his face in the icy water and drank. Then
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: he lay there, panting, utterly, spent still. Nothing moved. Then
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: all at once a long howl rose on the night
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: from somewhere beyond the palace, wing Burke stiffened. He got
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: to his hands and knees, every hair on his body
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: bristling with fear. The howl was answered by a strange,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: reptilian scream. Now that he had satisfied his thirst, the
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: night wind brought him many odors. They were too numerous
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: and tangled to be identified, except for a strong, musky
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: taint that made his flesh crawl within still of loathing.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: He did not know what sort of creature gave off
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: that taint, but it filled him with horror because it
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: seemed that he almost knew, and did not want to.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: He wanted only to get away from that place that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: was so full of secret life, in hidden menace and silence.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: He began to move toward the trees, back the way
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: he had come, slowly because he was wounded and very weak.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: And then quite suddenly he saw her. She had come
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: without sound into the open space, out of the shelter
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: of huge flowering shrubs. She stood not far away in
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the shifting glow of the little racing moons, watching him.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: She was shy and large eyed, poised for flight. The
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: hair that hung down her back and the shining down
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that covered her body were the color of the moonlight.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Burke stopped. A tremor went through him. All his sense
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: of loss and his desperate searching came back to him,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: and with them a desire to be closer to this
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: slender she. A name spoke itself from some dim chamber
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: of his soul. Jill. She started. He thought she was
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: going to run away, and he cried out again. Jill. Then,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: step by step, uncertainly, she came nearer, lovely as a
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: fawn in spring. She made a questioning sound, and he
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: answered Burke. She stood still for a moment, repeating the word,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: and then she whimpered and began to run toward him,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: and he was filled with a great joy. He laughed
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: and mouthed her name over and over, and there were
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: tears in his eyes. He reached out toward her. A
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: spear flashed and fell quivering between them. She gave him
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: a cry of warning and fled, vanishing into the shrubbery.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Burke tried to follow, but his knees gave under him.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: He turned snarling. All cashi guards and resplendent harness had
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: come out of the trees circling him. They carried spears
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: and a net of heavy ropes. In a moment he
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: was surrounded. The spear points pricked him back until the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: net was thrown, and he went down helpless. As they
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: carried him away, he heard two things, the wail of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the silver shee, and from somewhere nearby, a woman's mocking laughter.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: He had heard that laughter before, he could not remember
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: where or how, but it filled him with such fury
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: that he was finally knocked over the head with a
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: spearbut to keep him quiet. And of section two, Section
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: three of The Beasts Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Edith Kesswick of Southern Ohio.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: The Beasts Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett. Three. He
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: came to himself, the self that was Captain Burke Winter's,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: in a room that was much like the one he
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: last remembered in Balchus, except that the walls were of
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: a dark green rock, and there was no prism. Winters
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: could not remember anything of what had happened since that
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: last room, except that he knew he had had a
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: strong emotional shock. Jill's name was uppermost in his mind.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: He began to tremble with the deep excitement. He got
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to his feet, and it was then that he realized
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: he was shackled. Chains ran from cuffs on his wrists
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: to similar cuffs on his ankles, passing through rings on
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: a metal belt around his waist. These constituted his entire clothing.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: He saw also that there were freshly healed scars on
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: his body. The heavy door was opened for him before
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: he could begin to pound on it. Four tall barbarians,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: their harness magnificent, with jewels and wrought metal formed up
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: a guard around him, and an officer led the way.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: They did not speak to Winters, and he knew the
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: uselessness of trying to get anything out of them. He
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: had not the faintest idea where he was or how
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: he had come there, beyond a vague memory of pain
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and flight that was like something he had dreamed, And
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: somewhere during that dream he had seen Jill spoken to her.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: He was as certain of that as he was of
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: the weight of his chains. He stumbled because his sight
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: was blurred with tears. Up to then, he had not
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: been sure he had seen the twisted wreck of her flier,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: and while he did not believe it, there was always
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the chance that she might really be dead and lost
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: to him beyond all hope. Now he knew she was alive,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and if Winters had been alone, he would have wept
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: like a child. Instead, he studied the corridors and the
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: great halls through which the guard took him. From the
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: size and the splendor of them, he knew that he
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: was in a palace, and guessed it might be the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: one he had seen on the cliffs above Balchis. This
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: was confirmed when he caught a glimpse of the town
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: through a window embrasure. The palace was older than anything
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: he had seen on Mars, except for the buried ruins
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: of lock in the northern deserts. But this was no ruin.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: It had grown old and somber beauty. The patterns of
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: the mosaic floors were blurred, the precious stones worn thin
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: as porcelain. The tapestries preserved by the wonderful Martian formula
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: that had been lost for centuries, like everything else on Mars,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: had grown frail and brittle, Their colors all softened, faint glows,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: infinitely sad and lovely. Here and there on the walls,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: with the soaring vault of a roof, were murals, magnificent
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: pageants of lost glory, dim as an old man's memory.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: The seas they pictured were deep and blue, and the
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: ships were tall, and the male of the warriors was
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: set with gems, and the captive queens were beautiful as
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: dusky pearls, proud architecture meeting beauty with strength, showing that
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: strange blend of culture and barbarism that is so typically Martian.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Winters reflected on how long ago these stones had been quarried,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and went on to reflect that at that time civilization
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: had already destroyed itself in a series of atomic wars,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: and the proud kings of Balchus were only bandit chieftains
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: in a world that was slipping downward toward the night.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: They came at length to doors of beaten gold that
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: were more than twice burnt six foot height. The cashi
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: guards who stood there pushed them wide, and Burke saw
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the throne room westering. Sunlight slanted in from the high embrasures,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: falling across the pillars and the tessellated floor. The pale
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: light touched vagrant glints from the shields, and the weapons
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: of dead kings warmed the old banners to brief life.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Everywhere else in the vast place was a brooding darkness,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: full of whispers and small, faint echoings. A shaft of
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: cool gold fell directly upon the throne at the far
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: end of the room. The high seat itself was cut
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: from a single block of black basalt, and as Winters
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: approached it, his swinging chains making a loud sound in
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the silence, he saw that the stone had been already
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: half shaped by the sea. It was very worn and smooth,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: with the patient standing of the tides. And where hands
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: had lain on the arm pieces there were deep hollows,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: and on the basalts below, an old woman sat upon
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the throne. She was wrapped in a black cloak, and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: her hair wound into a sort of white crown on
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: her head, braided with jewels. She stared with half blind
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: eyes at the earth man, and suddenly she spoke in
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: sonorous high Martian, a tongue as antique on Mars as
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Sanskrit is on Earth. Winters could not understand one word
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: of it, but he knew from her tone and expression
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: that she was quite mad. Someone sat in the heavy
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: shadows by her feet, outside the shaft of sunlight, and
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: veiled by it. From winter's sight, he could catch only
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: a vague pallor of ivory tinted flesh, but for some
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: reason his nerves tingled with premonition. As he neared the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: high seat, the old woman rose and stretched out her
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: arm toward him, a wrinkled Cassandra, crying doom upon his head.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: The wild echoes of her voice rolled from the vaulted roof,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: and her eyes were full of a blazing hate. The
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: guards set the butts of their spears into his back,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: so that he was thrown face down before the basalt step.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: A low, sweet, mocking laugh came out of the shadows,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: and he felt the pressure of a little sandaled foot
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: on his neck. He knew the voice that said, greetings,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Captain Winters, the throne of Buchus welcomes you. The foot
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: was withdrawn from his neck. He rose. The old woman
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: had fallen back on to the throne. She was intoning
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: what sounded like a church litany, and her upturned face
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: had an exultant look. The remembered voice set out of
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the dimness. My mother is repeating the coronation, writes, Presently
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: she will demand the year's tributes from the outer islands
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and the coastal tribes. Time and reality do not bother her,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: pleases her to play at being queen. Therefore, as you see,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I fond rule Valchus from the shadow of the throne.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Sometimes winter said you must come into the light. Yes,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: a soft, quick rustle, And she was standing there in
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the shaft of sunlight. Her hair was the color of
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: night after moonset, intricately coiled. She was dressed in the
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: old arrogant fashion of the bandit kingdoms. The long, full
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: skirt slit to the waist at the sides, so that
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: her thighs showed when she moved, the wide jeweled girdle
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: collar of golden plaqux. Her small, high breasts were bare
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: and lovely, her body slender with a catlike grace. Her
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: face was as he remembered it, proud and golden eyed,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a mouth like a red fruit that mingled honey and poison.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: A lazy, slumbrous power behind that beauty, the fasten nation
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: of all things that are at once beautiful and deadly.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: She looked at Winter's and smiled. So at last you
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: have reached the end of your search. He looked down
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: at his chains and his nakedness. A strange way to
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: reach it. I paid corhoul well for this privilege. He
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: gave her a searching glance. Do you rule shanga as
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: well as balkis? If so, you're not very courteous to
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: your guests. On the contrary, I treat them very well,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: as you shall see. Her golden eyes taunted him. But
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you didn't come here to practice shanga, Captain Winters. Why
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: else would I come to find jill Leland. He was
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: not really surprised. Subconsciously he had known that she knew,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: but he managed a look of blank amazement. Jill Leland
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: is dead? Was she? When you saw her in the
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: garden and spoke to her? Fond laughed? Do you think
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: were such fools? Everyone who comes to the hall of
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Shanga in the trade cities is carefully checked and examined.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: We were particularly careful with you, Captain Winters, because psychologically
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: you were the wrong type to be drawn to shanga.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Men like you are too strong to need escape. You knew,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: of course, that your fiance had taken up the practice.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: You didn't like it and tried to make her stop.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Kor Hall said that she was terribly upset about it
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: on several occasions, but Jill had gone too far to stop.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: She begged to be allowed the full power the real shanga.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: She helped us plan her supposed death in the sea bottom.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: We would have done that anyway for our own protection,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: since the girl has influential connections and we can't afford
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: to have people hunting for our clients. But she wanted
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: you to believe she was dead so that you would
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: forget her. She felt she had no right to marry you,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: that she would ruin your life. Doesn't that touch you,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Captain Winters? Doesn't that bring tears to your eyes? It
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: brought more than that to Winters. It brought an overpowering
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: urge to take this lovely she devil between his hands
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and break her, and then stamp the pieces into the earth.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: His chains made one harsh, jangling sound, and then the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: spears came up and touched his flesh with sharp red kisses.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: He stood still and said, why have you done this?
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Is it for money or for hate? For both Earth
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: man and for something more important than either of them.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Her lips curved in brief amusement. Besides, I've done nothing
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: to your people. I built the halls of Shanga, Yes,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: but the men and women of Earth to grave themselves
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: of their own free will. Come here. She motioned him
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: to follow her to the window. As she crossed the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: vast room, she said, you have seen a part of
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the palace. Earth credits have rebuilt and restored the house
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: of my father's, the credits of apelings who wished to
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: return to their normal state because the civilization they have
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: forced on themselves is too much for them. Look out there,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: Earth money has done that too. Winters looked upon a
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: sight that had almost vanished from the face of Mars,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: A garden, the varied and jewel bright garden that would
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: have belonged with a palace like this, broad lawns of
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: bronze green turf, formal plantings, statuary. For some reason he
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: could not quite remember, that garden gave Burke Winters a cold,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: shuddering chill. But the garden itself was only part of
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: what he saw, a small part. Beneath the window. The
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: grounds sloped away into a vast bowl shaped depression, perhaps
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: a quarter a mile away, and Winters looked down into
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: an amphitheater. Ruined as it was, it was still magnificent,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: with tiers of seats rising like steps of hewn stone
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: from the inner walls. He thought of how it must
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: have looked when the games were held in the old days,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: with all of those thousands of places filled. Now in
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the arena there was another garden, a wild, entangled garden,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: closed in by the high, protected walls that had kept
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: the beasts from the spectators. There were trees in it
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: and open spaces, and he could make out moving forms
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: among the shadows, strange forms. It could not see them
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: clearly for the distance and the slanting light. But a
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: chill pang struck through him anyway, a cold breath of foreboding.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: In the center of the arena was a lake, not
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: a large one and probably not deep, but there were
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: creatures splashing in it, and he caught the faint echo
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: of a reptilian scream, an echo he had heard before.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Fond was looking outward to the amphitheater with an odd,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: slow smile. Winter saw that there were people already in
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the lower tears of the seats, and more of them gathering.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: What is this thing, he asked her, that is more
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: important than money or your hatred for the men of earth.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: All the ancient pride of her race and house flashed
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: out in her eyes. As she answered him. He forgot
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: his loathing of her for a moment, in his respect
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: for her deep sincerity. She said only one word, Mars.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: The old woman heard her and cried out from the throne.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Then she flung the corner of her black mantle over
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: her head and was silent. Mars said Fond quietly. The
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: world that could not even die in decency and honor
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: be cause the carrion birds came flying to pick its bones,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: and the greedy rats struck away the last of its
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: blood and pride. Winter said, I don't understand what has
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Shanga to do with Mars. You'll see, she turned on him. Suddenly,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you challenged Shanga earth Man, just as your people have
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: challenged Mars. We'll find out which is stronger. She motioned
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: to the officer of the guard, who went away. Then
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: she said to Winters, you wanted your girl back. You
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: were willing to go through the fire of Shanga for her,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: though you abhorred it. You were willing to risk your
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: identity though the changes of the ray, which after a
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: while earth Man never go away, and all for Jill Leland.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Do you still want her back? Yes, you're sure of that, Yes, yes,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: very well. Fawn glanced over his shoulder and nodded, there
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: she is. For a long moment, Burke Winters did not
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: turn around. Fond moved away a little, watching with a cruel,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: amused interest. Winter's back stiffened. He turned. She was there,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: standing in the sunlight, bewildered, frightened, a wild and shining
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: creature out of the dawn of the world, with a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: rope around her neck. The guards were laughing. Winters thought desperately.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: She has not changed too much, back to the primitive,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: but not yet to the ape. There is a soul
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: in her eyes still, and the light of reason. Jill, Jill,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: how could you have done this thing? But he understood
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: now how she could have done it. He remembered how
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: bitterly he had quarreled with her over Shanga. He had
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: thought it a stupid and childish thing, far beneath her intelligence,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and as degrading as any other drug. But he had
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: not understood. He did now, and he was filled with
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: a deadly fear because he understood so well, because he
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: himself was now numbered among the beasts of Shanga. And
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: beneath his horror, as he looked at the creature that
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: was Jill and yet not Jill, he was aware that,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: in some unholy way he found her more beautiful and
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: more alluring than he ever had before, Stripped of all
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: the shams and the studied unconventions of society, freed of
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: all complexity, her body strong and fleet as a doze,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: quivering with sensitive life. It would take two of a kind,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: John woman, john Man, strong, sinew, strong, passion, the guts
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that cities stole away, fond said She can still be
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: saved if you find a way to do it. Then,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: she added shrewdly, unless you now need someone to save you,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Captain Winter. A strong shock of revulsion rocked him, but
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: his eyes still held a strange light the silver. She
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: was coming toward him. Her gaze was fixed upon him.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: He saw that she was drawn to him, and struggling
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: to understand why she did not speak, And somehow Winter's
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: throat closed on an aching lump, so that he too
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: was dumb. The guard who held her rope let her
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: move as she would. She came close to Winter's hesitantly,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: as an animal does. Then she stopped and looked up
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: into his face. Tears gathered in her wide, dark eyes. Presently,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: she whimpered very softly and went down on her knees
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: at his feet. The old woman let out a shrill cackling.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Van's eyes were like cups of molten gold. Winter spent
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: over and caught Jill in his arms. He lifted her
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: to her feet and stood holding her to him in
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: a fury of protective, possessive love. He said very softly
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: to Fond, You've seen it all. Now can we go?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: She nodded, take them to the Garden of Shanga, she said,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: and added, it's almost time. The guards took them Burke
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Winters and the woman he had lost and found again
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: out through the great echoing halls of the palace and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: down the long slope of the lawn to the amphitheater.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: A barred gate of heavy metal covered the mouth of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: a tunnel. The guards unlocked it and took off Winter's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: chains and thrust him inside with Jill. The gate was
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: locked again behind them. Holding Jill tightly by the hand,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Winters went down to the tunnel and presently into the arena,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: into the Garden of Shanga. He stopped blinking in the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: sudden light. Jill's hand tightened on his. She shivered with
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: a tense expectancy, and her head was tilted in an
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: attitude of listening. He had only a moment before the
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: gong sounded the mellow, sonorous notes that might have been
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: calling some evil priesthood to its dark prayers. Only a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: moment to glimpse the trees and the shambling anthropoi forms
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: that moved among them, to catch the rank feast taint
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: in the air, to hear the splashing and the hissing
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: screams from the hidden pool, only a moment to be
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: filled with horror and a sick fear, to deny to
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: himself the reality of this nightmare garden, to wish that
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: he were blind and deaf, or better than that dead.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: In the seats above the protecting wall, the rows of
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Martian faces looked down. They were the faces of men
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and women who watched the antics of creatures in a zoo,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: destructive creatures for which they have a personal hatred. Then
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: the gong called out, and Joe away, pulling him by
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: the hand. All over the garden there was a movement
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: of intense silence, and then there rose a devil's chorus
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: of roaring and screaming, in voices that were horribly human
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: and even more horribly not. And close to him, Jill's
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: voice chimed in, saying, over and over, Shanga, Shanga. It
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: came to Winters. In a flash, then what Fond had
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: meant about Mars. As Jill pulled him headlong between the
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: trees and across the open grassy spaces, he realized that
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: this garden of Shanga was in fact a zoo, an
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: exhibit where the people of Mars might come to see
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: what manner of beast. Their economic conquerors were a hot
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: and dire shame rose in him, apling running naked through
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: the trees, a slave to the fire of Shanga. He
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: yelled at Jill to stop. She only plunged on harder,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: so that he had to fight her, setting his heels
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: in the earth, and she turned on him, snarling, saying Shanga.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: A great anthropoid male came rushing toward them. He had
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: slipped back beyond speech, but ecstatic noises came out of
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: his throat. Beyond him were others, males, females, and young
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: on the same evolutionary level. Winters and the silver she
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: that was Jill were caught up and carried on in
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: their tribal rush. Winters fought to get away, but it
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: was hopeless. The wild, hairy bodies walled him in. As
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: they approached the center of the garden, they were joined
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: by more and more, all apparently summoned by the sound
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: of the gong. Looking at them, Winter's stomach turned over.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: This was Walpurgis night, a festival of blasphemies, and he
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: was trapped in it, inextricably, joined to destruction. The ones
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: like Jill, who had only gone a little way as
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: yet were not so bad. They were human. Winters knew
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: that he himself had been like that, and he felt
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: no particular horror of them. But there were others, back
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: through all the stages of the primitive, beyond the Neanderthal,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: beyond the Pythecamprus erectus, beyond the missing link, back to
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: the common ancestor, shapeless, shambling, hairy brutes, deformed skulls, and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: little red, cunning eyes, bared teeth, grinning yellow things that
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: even the anthropologists had never seen or dreamed of, Things
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: that were not human or ape or any form of
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: life that had ever been classified. All the dark secrets
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: of Terran evolution were laid bare in this garden for
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: the Martians to see. It even made Winters the earth
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Man flinch to think that bodies like that had given
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: ultimate birth to him. What respect could the Martians have
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: for such a race that was still so close to
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: its beginnings. But he was to see more, much more
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: of those beginnings. The Gong struck a last booming summons.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: The tide of bowed, hairy shoulders and flat brows and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: ugly things that went on all fours swept Winters and
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Jill out into the clearing at the center, where from
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: the palace window he had seen the lake. A strong,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: musky reek hung in the air. It had the same
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: sickly taint that a snake house does. And Winter saw
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that the lake was agitated by the creatures who lived there,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: and who were swarming out to answer the gong, back
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: to the common ancestor, and beyond beyond the mammal, back
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: to the gill and the scale, to the egg laid
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in the warm mud, to the hissing squirming, utterly, loathingly
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: ultimate Jill panted shanga shanga, looking up, and Winters fell
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: to darkness. Swimming in his brain. A cold wet thing
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: slithered between his legs, and he sway, wretching. The surface
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: of the lake rippled, but he could not look, He
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: could not grasping Jill. He tried to batter his way
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: through the crowd, but it was hopeless. He was caught trapped.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Looking up, he saw the prisms that were set high
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: overhead on long booms. He saw them start to glow
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: with the remembered flame. He had reached the end, now,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: the end of his search for Jill Leland, the end
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: of everything. The first sweet deadly thrill of the ray
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: touched his flesh. He felt the wakening hunger in him,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: the deep lust, the stirring of the beast that lay
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: so close under his own skin. He thought of the
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: lake and wondered how it would be to lie in
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: its wetness, breathing through the gill slits that had once
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: opened in his own flesh when he was an embryo
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: in his mother's womb. Because that is where I shall be,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: he thought, in the lake Jill, and beyond the lake,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: what the amiba? And then he saw the royal box.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: Whence the kings of Balcus had watched the gladiators and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: the flowing blood fond sat there. Now she leaned her
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: slender elbows on the stone and watched. And it seemed
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: to Winters that even at this distance he could see
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: the smile and the scorn in her golden eyes. Kor
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Hall sat beside her, and the old woman a muffled
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: shape of black. The fires of Shanga burned and brightened.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: There was a silence on the clearing. Now. The sounds
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: that came, the moanings and the little whimpers, did not
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: touch that silence. They only made it deeper. The warm
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: glints danced on the upturned faces, glowed in the staring eyes,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: each scaled. Her shaggy body bore a nimbus of beauty.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: He saw Jill standing there, reaching up toward the twin suns,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: a slim shaft of silver flame, the madness already in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: his blood, muscle and sinew, taut with it, arching, curving, brain,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: clouding with a bright, soft veil forgetfulness, release, Jill and Burke,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: dawn man and dawn woman happy while they lived, done
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: with everything but their own love, their own satisfaction. Why
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: not they were both in it, now, both marked with
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: the same stamp. Then he heard the laughter and the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: jeering of the martians who were gathered to watch the
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: shame of his world. He tore his gaze away from
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: the wicked light and looked again into the face of
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Fond of Valcus, and then at core Hall and the
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: thousand other faces, and a bleak and terrible expression came
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: into his eyes. The ranks of the crowd had broken.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: The beast shapes lay upon the turf, writhing in the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: ecstasy of shanga. Jill was on her hands and knees,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: felt the strength going out of him. The lovely pain,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: the beautiful, wild, exultant pain. He grasped Jill and began
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to drag her back toward the trees, out of the
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: circle of light. She did not want to go. She
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: screamed and tore at his face with her nails and
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: kicked him, and he struck her. After that she lay
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: limp in his arms. He kept on, stumbling over the
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: twitching bodies, falling, crawling at last on his hands and knees.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: Only one thing kept him going on. Only one thing
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: made him undergo the tortures of the damned fighting Shanga.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: That thing was the scornful, smiling face of Fond. He
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: was safe beyond the circle. He dragged the girl further
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: into the shrubbery and turned his back on the clearing
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: because he wanted more than any drug addict could conceive
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: of wanting to go back into the light, and he
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: dared not look at it. Instead, he pulled himself erect
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: and faced the royal box. It was only pride that
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: kept him standing. He looked straight into the distant eyes
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: of Fond, and her clear, silvery voice carried to him,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: you will go back to the fire of Shanga earth
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: Man tomorrow or the day after you will go complete
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: assurance there as one is sure of the rising of
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the sun. Burke Winters did not answer. He stood a
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: moment longer, his gaze level with Fonds. Then even pride failed.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: He fell and lay still. The last conscious thought of
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: his mind was that Fond and Mars together had challenged Earth,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: and that it was no longer merely a matter of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: saving a girl from destruction. End of section three Section
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: four of the Beasts Jewel of Mars by Lee Bracket.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Edith Keswick of Southern Ohio,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: The Beasts Jewel of Mars by Lee Bracket. Four. When
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: he came to it was night. Jill sat patiently beside him.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: She had brought him food, and while he woofed it down,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: she went away to fetch water in a broad cupped leaf.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: He tried to talk to her, but there was a
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: gulf between them too wide to be bridged. She seemed
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: subdued and brooding, and would not come close to him.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: He had robbed her of the fire of Shanga, and
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: she had not forgotten it. The futility of trying to
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: escape with her was obvious. After a while, he rose
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: and left her, and she did not try to follow.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: The garden was still under the light of the low moons.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Apparently the beasts of Shanga, true to their ape heritage,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: were sleeping, moving with infinite caution. Winters proud the arena
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: in search of a way out. A plan had taken
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: shape in his mind. It was not much of a plan,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: and he knew that very probably he would be dead
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: before morning. But he had nothing to lose. He did
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: not even particularly care. He was a man, an earth man,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: and there was an anger in him that was deeper
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: than any fear. The walls of the arena were smooth
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: and high. Even an ape could not have climbed them.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: All the tunnels were blocked off, except the one by
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: which they had entered. He crept down it and found
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: the barred gate impenetrable. Beyond it was a little guard
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: fire and two sentries. Winters went back to the arena.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: He could see no sign of the guard in the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: empty tiers of the seats. There was no reason for
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: one in itself. The amphitheater was a perfect prison, and
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: the creatures of the garden had no wish to escape
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: from the besoting joys of shanga whipped before he started winter,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: stood glaring bitterly at the walls that held him fast.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: Then he caught sight of one of the booms from
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: which the Shanga prisms were suspended. Going to the nearest one,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: he studied it. It was high out of reach, a
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: long metal pole that stretched from the side of the
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: arena above the wall, and with the other one centered
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: the Shanga rays over the clearing. High out of reach,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: but if a man had a rope, Winters went in
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: among the trees. He found vines and creepers and tore
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: them away and knotted them together. He found a small
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: log in the dead fall, big enough to weigh one end,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: but light enough for throwing. Then he returned to the boom.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: On the third cast the log went over. He drew
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: his flimsy rope down, making a double strand hand over hand,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: praying that the vines would hold, he began to climb.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: It seemed like a long way up. He felt very
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: naked and exposed in the moonlight. The vines held, and
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: no challenging voice shouted at him. He clung to the
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: boom and worked his way along it, first dropping the
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: tell tale rope. Presently he was safe among the tiered seats.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: Avoiding the guard by the tunnel, He made his way
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: out of the amphitheater and circled out across the slope,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: keeping cover where there was cover, crawling on his belly
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: where there was none. The shifting moon shadows helped him
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: because they made visibility a treacherous thing. The palace loomed
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: above him, huge and dark, crushed under the weight of time.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: Only two lights showed. One on the ground floor he
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: guessed would be the guard room. The other on the
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: third level, was dim as though made by a single torch,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: that he hoped would be the apartment of fond. Up
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: the slope and into the shelter of the palace garden,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: and then into the palace itself. The great half ruined
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: pile could not have been guarded, even if there had
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: been reason to guard it. Patting slightly on naked feet,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: Winters glided through the vast empty halls, trying to keep
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: a plan of the place straight in his mind. His
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: eyes were accustomed to the dark and enough moonlight fell
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: through the embrasures to let him see where he was going.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Room and hall and corridor, smelling of dust and death,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: dreaming over their faded flags and broken trophies, remembering glory.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Winter shivered some thing of the cold breath of eternity
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: lived in this place. He found a ramp, and then another,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: and at last, on the third level he saw light,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: the weak flicker of it from a crack in the door.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: There was no guard. That was a break, not only
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: because it was a difficulty eliminated, but because it confirmed
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: his guest that Fond was a person who would want
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: no check on her comings and goings. From the standpoint
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: of safety in this place, a guard would only be
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: a useless adornment. Fond was on her own ground. Here
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: there were no enemies save one. Winters opened the door
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: without sound. A maid slept on the low couch. She
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: did not stir. As he passed beyond an open arch
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: hung with heavy curtains, he found the lady Fond. Winter
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: struck her quite ruthlessly. Sleep became unconsciousness. There was no outcry.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: With silks and girdles he found in the room, he
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: bound and gagged her and flung her lightweight over his shoulder.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: Then he went back the way he had come silently
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: out of the palace. It was as easy as that.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: He had not thought it would be easy, but it was.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: After all, he thought, men seldom guard against the impossible.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: Fobos had gone on its careening flight around Mars, and
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: Demos was too low to give much light. Now carrying
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: the unconscious Bond, now dragging her across the open spaces,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: Winters made his way back to the amphitheater in and
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: across the tiered seats to the wall. It was a
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: twenty foot drop, but he made it as easy as
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: he could on her. He didn't want her dead. Then
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: he slid over himself, hung briefly by his fingertips, and
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: fell into the cushioning brush. When he got his breath back,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: he made sure that Fond was not hurt. Then he
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: carried her swiftly into the shelter of the Unholy Garden.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Remembering a particularly dense patch of shrubbery near the central clearing,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: he made for it and crept thankfully into concealment with
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: the air of all the kings of Balchus. Then he waited.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: Her eyes were looking up at him in the dim light,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: bitter gold above the gag of scarlet silk. Yes, he said,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you're here, in the garden of Shanga. I brought you here.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: We have a bargain to talk about. Fond he undid
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: the gag, keeping his hand close over her mouth lest
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: she should cry out. She said, there will be no
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: bargain between us. Earth Man, your life, fond, your life
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: for mine and Jill's and the others here who can
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: still be saved. Destroy the prisms, Stop this madness, and
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: you can live to be as old and crazy as
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: your mother. There was no fear in her, unbending pride
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: and hatred, but no fear, she laughed. He put his
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: hand on her throat, his fingers reaching iron strong around
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: her neck, slim, he said, soft and tender. It would snap,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: so easily break it. Then Shanga will go on without me.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Kor Haul will take over, and you, Burke Winters. You
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: can't escape. Her teeth showed white in a taunting smile.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: You'll run with the beasts. No man can break free
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: from Shanga. Winter's nodded. I know that, he said quietly.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: Therefore I must destroy Shanga before it destroys me. She
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: looked him, naked and unarmed, crouching in the brush. Once more.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: She laughed. He shrugged. Perhaps it is impossible. I won't
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: know that until it's too late. Anyway, it isn't really me.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about fond. I could be perfectly happy running
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: on all fours through your garden. Probably I would be
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: perfectly happy hissing and wallowing in the lake. Now the
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: idea sickens me. But after a touch of shanga, it
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: will be all right. No, it isn't me that matters,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: or even Jill. What. Then Earth has its pride too,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: he told her gravely. It's a younger and cruder pride
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: than yours. It could become pretty ruthless and obnoxious at times,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I'll admit, But on the whole Earth is a good planet,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and her people are good people, and she's done more
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: to advance the Solar System than all the other worlds
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: put together. As an earth man, I don't like to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: see my world disgraced. He glanced up and around the amphitheater.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: I think, he went on that Earth and Mars can
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: learn a lot from each other if the fanatics on
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: both sides will stop making trouble you're the worst one
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: I've ever heard of. Fond you go even beyond fanaticism.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: He looked at her speculatively. I think you're as mad
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: right now as your mother. She did not flare up
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: at that, which convinced him that she was not mad
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: at all, only twisted by the way she lived and
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: the things she had been taught. She said, what you
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: plan to do about all of this? Wait until dawn,
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: or perhaps later anyway, until you've had time to think.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: Then I shall give you a last chance. After that
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: I shall kill you. She was smiling when he replaced
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: the gag, and her eyes did not wave. The hours
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: passed darkness into dawn, then into full daylight. Winter sat unmoving,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: his head bowed over his knees. Fawn's eyes were closed,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: and it seemed that she slept. The garden woke to
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: life with the sun, and all around the dense thicket,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: winters heard the padding footsteps and the growling of the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: beasts of Shanga. The things in the shallow lake cried out,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: and their musky teeth soured. The wind Winters shivered like
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: a man with fever, and his brooding eyes were haunted.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: After a while, Jill came animal like. She had found
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: him animal like. She came, slipping without a sound through
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: the brush. She would have cried out at the sight
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: of Fawnd, but he silenced her. She crouched beside him,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: watching him. She was afraid of him, and yet she
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: could not stay away. He stroked her shoulder. It was
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: soft and strong and trembling under his hand. Her gaze
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: was doughlike, full of sadness and a bewildered yearning. Winter's
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: face became as bleak and pitiless as the barren stars
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: that watched from outer space. The time grew very short.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: Jill began to look upward, toward the prisms. Winter sensed
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: in her a growing nervousness. He shook Fond. She opened
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: her eyes and looked at him, and he knew what
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: her answer would be before he asked the question. Well,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: she shook her head for the first time. Winter smiled.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: I have decided, he said, not to kill you, after all.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: What he did after that was done quickly and efficiently,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: and there was no one to see but Jill and Fond.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: Jill did not understand. The heiress of the Kings of
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: Balchus understood too well. People began to drift into the amphitheater.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: Martians coming to see a show, coming to learn contempt
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: and loathing for the men of Earth. Winters watched them.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: He was still smiling. Suddenly he turned to Jill. When
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: he rose a few minutes later, scratched and panting, she
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: was securely bound with strips torn from the bonds of fond.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: This time she would not bathe so helplessly in the
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: fire of Shanga. The martians gathered. Korhaul came into the
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: Royal Box, bringing the old woman, who leaned on his arm.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: The gong sounded and of section four Section five of
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: The Beast Jewel of Mars by Lee Bracket. This is
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: Recording by Edith Keswick of Southern Ohio. The Beast Jewel
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: of Mars by Lee Bracket. Five. Once again, Winters watched
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: the gathering of the beasts of Shanga. Hidden in the
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: thicket beyond the reach of the rays. He saw the
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: hairy bodies rush and jostle toward the central clearing. He
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: saw the shining of their drugged eyes. He heard them
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: moan and whimper, and all over the garden the mouthing
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: whisper went Shanga shunga. Jill writhed and thrashed in the
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: agony of her desire, her cries muffled by the water
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: of silk he had thrust into her mouth. Winters could
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: not bear to look at her. He knew how she
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: was suffering. He was suffering too. He saw that kor
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: Hall was leaning forward over the edge of the wall,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: searching the garden. He knew what the martian was looking for.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: The last notes of the gong rang out. A silence
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: fell on the clearing, hairy, anthropoid, shambling brutes that ran
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: on all fours, nameless creatures beyond the ape, crawling things
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: with wet and shining scales, all silent, all waiting. The
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: prisms began to glow. The beautiful, wicked fire of Shanga
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: filled the air. Burke Winter set his hand between his
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: teeth and bit until the blood ran it. It seemed
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: to him that he could hear a faint, thin screaming
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: rising out of the flowering shrubs by the lake, low,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: tough stemmed shrubs that lay under the full rays of
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: the prisms Shanga Shanga. He had to go into the clearing,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: into the fiery light. He could not stand it. He
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: must feel again the burning touch on his flesh, the
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: madness and the joy. He could not stay away. In desperation,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: he flung himself down beside Jill and clung to her,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: shuddering in torment. He heard kor Hal's voice calling his name.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: He steadied himself in rows, stepping out into the full
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: sight of the royal box. The martians ranged on either
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: side watched him with interest. Turning their attention momentarily from
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: the orgy of the beasts of Shops, Winter said, I'm here.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: Coor Hall, the man of Barrakesh, looked at him and laughed,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: Why fight it, Winters, You can't keep away from Shanga.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: Winters asked, where is your high priestess? As she wearied
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: of the sport, Poor Hall shrugged. Who knows the mind
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: of the lady fond She comes and goes as she will?
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: He leaned forward. Go on, Winters, the fire of Shanga
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: is waiting. Look how he sweats there, trying to be
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: a man. Go on, apling, join your brothers. The shrill,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: jeering laughter of the Martians fell upon Winters with the
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: sharpness of spears. He stood there, naked in the sunlight,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: his head held stubbornly erect, and he did not move.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: He could not controlled the trembling of his limbs or
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: the harshness of his breathing. The sweat ran in his
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: eyes and blinded him, and the Fire of Shanga danced
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: on the writhing bodies, and he thought he would go
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: mad with torment. But still he stood there and would
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: not move. He thought he was going to die, but
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: he would not move. And the martians watched. Korhol said tomorrow, then,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: perhaps the next day, but you'll go earth Man Winters
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: knew that he would. He could not go through this again.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: If he were still alive in the garden of Shanga.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: The next time the gong sounded, he would go with
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: his brothers. The Fire of Shanga died at last from
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: the prisms, and the creatures of its making lay still
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: on the ground. The martians sighed, the first stir of
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: departure ran through them. Burke Winters cried out, wait. His
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: voice rang back from the empty upper tears, and it
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: brought every eye upon him. There was desperation in it,
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: and triumph and the anger of a man driven beyond
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: the bounds of reason. Wait, you men of Mars, you
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: came to see a show. Very well, I'll give you one.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: You kor Haul. You told me something down there in Balchus.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: You told me of the men of caer Do who
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: first made shanga, and how in one generation they were
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: destroyed by it. One generation he stepped forward, finding the
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: release for his tortured nerves. In this denunciation, we of
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: Earth are a young race, were still close to our beginnings,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: and for that you hate and mock us, calling us
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: apes very well, well, but that youth gives us strength.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: We go very slowly down the road of shanga. But
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: you of Mars are old. You have followed the circle
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: of time a long way around, and the end is
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: always close to the beginning. In one generation the men
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: of care Do were gone. Our fibers are iron, but
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: theirs were only straw. That's why no Martian will practice shanga,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: why it was forbidden by the city states. You don't
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: dare to practice it because it hurls you headlong down
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: the road toward your end or your beginning. Who knows,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: But you haven't the strength to take it And you're afraid.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: A jeering, angry howl rose from the crowd. Corhoul shouted,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: listen to the ape, Listen to the beast. We drove
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: through the streets of Balkus. Yes, listen to him. Winters cried,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: because the lady fond is gone, and only the eight
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: knows where she is. That silenced them, and in the
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: quiet Winter's laughed. Perhaps you don't believe me. Shall I
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: tell you how I did it? He told them, And
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: when he was through telling, he listened while they called
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: him a liar, and he jeered in Korhaul's face. Wait,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: he shouted, wait, and I'll bring her to you. Threading
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: his way between the brutish bodies, leaping over them, avoiding
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: the touch of the scaly things, he came to the
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: clump of flowering shrubs by the lake and crawled in
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: among them. He had not known. He had guessed from
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: coor Hall's statement that the metamorphosis was swift, but he
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: had not known. There were some things that a man
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: could not even guess at. In spite of himself, he
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: cried out. He did not want to look at the
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: thing that lay there, did not even want to know
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: that such a form of life had existed or could exist.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: But he had to look at it. He had to
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: go close to it so that he might undo the
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: silken bonds that held it to the roots of the shrubs.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: He had to touch it. He had to lay his
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: hands upon its softness, lift its flaccid weight, hold its
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: slippery squirming against his own body. It had eyes. That
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: was the worst of it. It had eyes, and it
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: looked at him. He went away from the thicket, carrying
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: his burden, back across the clearing, where two great males
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: were already fighting over a sheet, Out into the open
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: space before the Royal Box, where all could plainly see.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: He lifted the thing over his head, high into the sunlight.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: Here he shouted, don't you recognize her? Last of the
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: Royal House of valkis the lady fond around a portion
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: of the wiggling anatomy that might once have been a neck,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: the collar of golden plaque swung shining. For a moment
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: he held her so while the faces of the martians
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: stared like the masks of dead men, and coor hall
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: rose and gripped the edges of the stone. Then he
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: laid his burden down and stepped back from it, where
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: it moved horribly across the turf. Look there, you martians,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: he said, that is your own beginning. In the utter,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: stricken silence, the old woman rose. She stood for a moment,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: looking down, and it seemed that she was about to
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: speak or cry out, but no sound came. Then she
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: fell out over the wall and down the sheer drop
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: into the arena. She did not move again, as though
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: she had led them. The martians rose with one low,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: terrible cry, and followed her, not to death as they
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: dropped over the wall, but to vengeance, Winters ran. He
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: had jilfree in a minute, dragging her away into denser cover.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: The mouth of the tunnel was not far distant. The
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: Martians swarmed in upon the clearing, and then the beasts
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: of Shanga saw them with roars and screams. They surged
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: out to meet their attackers. Knife and short sword and
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: spiked brass knuckles against bang and claw and the powerful
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: muscles of the brute. The scaly creatures darted here and there, hissing,
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: slashing with their rows of needle sharp reptilian teeth. Great
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: hands ripped and tore, snapping bones like matchsticks, cracking skulls,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: and the dim blades flickered in the sunlight, bright tongues
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: speaking death. Vengeance was done that day in the garden
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: of Shanga, the vengeance of Earth on Mars, and the
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: vengeance of men upon the shame of their heritage. Winter
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: saw kor Hall run his sword through the creeping horror
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: that had been fond through and through again until all
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: motion stopped. Then he shouted Winter's name. Winters went to him.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: Neither spoke. There was nothing more to say. Bare handed,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: Winters went against the martian's sword. With the nightmare carnage
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: of the battle going on around them, they too were alone.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: They too had a spell scored to settle. Winters took
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: one long gash above the heart before he caught kor
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Hal's arm and broke it. The martian never whimpered. With
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: his left hand, he reached for the knife at his girdle,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: but it never left the sheath. Winters laid kor Haul
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: backward across his knee and placed one thigh across his
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: loins and an elbow across his throat. After a moment,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: he dropped the broken body and went away, taking the sword.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: The guards came running into the arena through the tunnel.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: The fight was spreading outward from the lake. Locked in
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: struggling swaying knots, the beasts of Shanga slew the martians
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: and were slain. The waters of the lake were stained red,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: and the corpse of a Martian was being dragged stealthily
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: into it from the mud of the bank. There was
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: something hidden below the surface, something that could no longer
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: fight on land, but only lay quietly in wait and fed.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: Now the guards had come with their long spears, and
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: Winters knew that in the end there would not be
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: one creature left alive in the garden, and it was well.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: He took Jill's hand and led her toward the tunnel,
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: running into the shelter of the trees. The fight was
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: occupying everyone's attention. The brute males were hard to kill,
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: and they fought for the love of it. The tunnel
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: was empty, the gate opened, the guards inside the arena
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: hard at work. Winters and the girl fled through it,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: taking cover outside the amphitheater, just before another group of
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: guards came down from the palace. From there, with infinite
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: haste and caution, they made their way down the cliffs
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: through the dead ruins of Aalkus, and then out across
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: the desert, skirting the living town by the canal. Kor
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: Hall's flier was on the field where Winters remembered it.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: He thrust Jill inside, and as he followed her he
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: saw the angry mob start to pour out of Balcus,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: where word of his crime and his escape had been
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: brought a little too late. He took the flier up,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: setting a course for Kohora. And now that it was
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: all over, he felt a great weariness and an overwhelming
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: desire to forget the very name of Shanga. But he
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: knew that he could never forget. The golden fire had
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: burned too deep. He knew that he would always be
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: haunted by the beautiful face of Fond as it had
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: looked when he had shackled her in the clearing, and
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: by the memory of the high thin screaming as the
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: light poured down from the prisms. Even the psychos could
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: never make him forget. The governments of Earth and Mars
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: would see to it. Now that Shanga was stamped out forever,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: he was glad and a little proud because it had
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: been his doing. But even so he looked over at Jill.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: Some day, he prayed she would be herself again, The
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: taint of Shanga would pass her, and she would once
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: more be the Jill Leland he had given his heart to.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: But will it pass entirely? For a moment it seemed
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: that he heard the mocking voice of fond speaking in
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: his soul. Will it pass from you? Burke Winters, Can
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: one who has run with the beasts of Shanga ever
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: be the same again? He did not know. Looking back,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: he saw the smoke rising from the unholy garden, and
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: he did not know. End off Section five and of
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: the Beast Jewel of Mars by Lee Brackett. This has
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: been a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org.