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Title: Martian Terror
Author: Ed Earl Repp
Release Date: March 29, 2020 [EBook #61696]
Language: English
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MARTIAN TERROR
_A Novelet of Revolution Among the Venusians_
By ED EARL REPP
Lolan, the Martian Sub-Commander, had no
choice. He sorrowed for Princess Mora's beaten,
X-ray starved subjects. But when the desperate
Venusians raised their empty fists, duty
commanded him to cut loose his force-bolts.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Lolan's pen made the only sound in the stuffy barracks room. The words
took shape reluctantly beneath the official army letterhead, even as
his mind had fought against framing them. He sat alone at his desk, the
open window behind him crowding in the dank heat of a Venusian summer
night. The collar of his ornate, iridite-crusted uniform was open, but
a dark ring of perspiration stained its top.
Lolan laid the pen down and looked at what he had written. His
violet-gray eyes became stony. This letter might mean demotion to the
ranks, or even court-martial, but the things in him had festered there
too long.
"Herewith I tender my resignation as Sub-Commander of the Martian Army
of Occupation on the planet Venus," he read. "If it is the wish of the
Council-Royal, I desire immediate transfer to some post on Mars. I can
no longer blind my conscience to the brutal treatment Venusians are
receiving at the hands of us, their conquerors.
"When I accepted this post two years ago, I understood that, under
Commander Arzt, I would be endeavoring to control a savage, half-wild
people scarcely more intelligent than beasts. I found them gentle,
intelligent, cheerful, demanding only the treatment we accord our
slaves at home. But do they receive it? No! We dole them food not fit
for swine. We work them fifteen hours a day in their own iridite
mines, in the sulphur holes, at whatever other work is beneath a
Martian soldier. Their population has been reduced twenty percent
during the twenty years since Mars conquered them. Disease is
prevalent in their poorer quarters--little better than the 'improved'
sections--to such an extent that few officers ever venture into these
pestilential streets except to put down an occasional uprising.
"Because I feel that to continue in this post would demean--"
Lolan scowled at the unfinished sentence. He went to the window and
stood staring out, his eyes not seeing the low clouds brushing the
barracks roofs, nor the jagged tracery of lights a half-mile below,
where Areeba sprawled in miserable squalor over the foothills. Before
him was the vision of a girl's sober face--the face of a Venusian,
high-caste woman. Princess Mora ... princess only in name, but beloved
of her people--and of Lolan.
But for her, that letter would have been written and handed in a year
ago. But somehow the young Martian could not leave Venus while she and
her father, old ex-Emperor Atarkus, were still here and under continual
threat of death. There could never be any more intimate relation
between them than that of master and slave--yet Lolan kept a forlorn
flame of hope guttering in his heart.
There were two good reasons why he was a fool to let Mora be a factor
in his staying on Venus. In the first place, inter-marriage was
strictly forbidden by Arzt, high commander of the army. Second--and
more important to Lolan--biology entered in. Years ago, a few Martian
soldiers had taken native wives, with tragic results. Although the two
races were almost alike in appearance, except for the deeper coloring
of the invaders, the children resulting from such unions were ugly,
half-witted little monsters. Fortunately, none of them lived for more
than a few years.
Lolan's lean young features hardened. Why fight it any longer? He
couldn't have Mora, couldn't help her people without being a traitor to
his own race. With an oath he pivoted from the window.
It was then that he saw the indicator on his tele-screen flashing
angrily. Quick strides carried him there, a flip of the thumb made the
silver screen a window to the outside world. The brutal face of Irak,
Captain of the Secret Service, took shape.
"--repeating:" came the tail end of his announcement. "Two minutes ago
the house in which Ars Lugo is hiding was entered by two persons. I am
in an upstairs room across the street. I could not be sure of their
identity, but I believe we are on the verge of breaking the secret of
the recent revolution rumors. Haste is imperative if we are to trap
them together...."
Excitement tingled through Lolan. Ars Lugo, a condemned revolutionary
lately escaped from the Sulphur Holes, had contacted friends. Arzt had
been right in deliberately letting him escape and tracking him to a
hideout. "Rotten meat draws flies quickly," was his way of putting it.
Now the flies had been drawn. But an unknown terror kept Lolan from
even guessing at their identities--swiftly he hurried from the room as
somewhere the officers' alarm began chiming.
A small, silent gravity-repulsion ship set eight men in the uniform of
high Martian officers down a few blocks from the slum in which Captain
Irak was tensely waiting for them. Lolan emerged with set face. Around
him on the flat roof of the building where they had landed were grouped
the others.
The voice of Arzt came harshly through the quiet. He was a short,
immensely powerful man, with reddish features stamped with the cast of
brutality. There was a slovenliness to him, a brutal arrogance that was
betrayed by every ugly twist of his mouth as he spoke.
"Lolan, you'll give the order," he snapped. "These filthy
revolutionists won't be looking for trouble if you handle it right.
We'll have them before they know what's happened. I told you Ars Lugo
would get in touch with his cronies as soon as he thought he wasn't
being watched. Come on!"
They left the ship on the roof and groped down an outside stairway
to the narrow street. A light fog hung yellowish in the streets. For
a moment after their feet touched the slimy cobblestones, the eight
Martians huddled together by a single impulse--revulsion at the
sordidness of the lower-class quarter.
Sickly gleams kindled on their uniforms where stray beams from dingy
windows found them. The stench of rotting offal insulted their
nostrils, mingled with the musty, revolting odors peculiar to the south
side of Areeba, principal city of Venus. A place of drunken, tottering
buildings and vice and sickness that festered like a raw sore, the
south side was the abode of the diseased, the degenerate, the lawless.
With a muttered curse, Lolan swung down the street. It didn't have to
be like this. It was commanders like Arzt who let the Venusians suffer
for their own enrichment. Inwardly, a resolution was taking possession
of the young officer that this was his last duty on Venus. Tomorrow ...
his letter of resignation would be handed in.
* * * * *
In a dark alley across the street from a crumbling, one-story hovel, he
slipped into the shadows. His eyes were riveted to the yellow cracks of
light opposite him, where bolted shutters guarded some furtive scene
within that house. Then he was moving swiftly backwards as two forms
reeled from the fog. His eyes narrowed to careful slits that raked the
pair.
They had not seen him, nor, apparently, the other hidden Martians they
had just passed. Their bellies were so full of cheap Martian _gyla_
that all they could see was the heaving stones under their feet.
Lolan's slim, dark fingers fell from the _sadon_ pistol at his side.
The fog swallowed the derelicts.
Ragged nerves leaping, Lolan strode across the street, knocked softly
at the door. Frightened gasps found their way through the portal.
Someone gruffed:
"Who is it? What do you want?"
Lolan pressed his lips against a crack in the door. "Lugo--you've got
to get out! They know you're here! I heard two of them talking. Let me
in, will you! I can't stand here shouting."
A bolt scraped in its bed and the door inched back the width of a man's
black eye. From both sides of Lolan, burly, powerful shapes lunged at
the door. The man behind it cried out a single shrill warning as he was
hurled to the floor.
Six Martian officers clanked inside. Arzt loomed up with Captain Irak,
gripped Lolan's arm. "Good work!" he grunted. "Now we'll have these
dirty Venusian rebels where we want them, eh?"
Hard-jawed, Lolan made no answer but strode in. One glimpse of the
room's interior sent shock through his vitals like a sword. A single,
whispered word parted his bloodless lips: "Mora!"
The girl across the room glanced at him in hurt surprise. Quickly
she looked away. She stood erect and pale under the soldiers' eager
glances. She was tall, for a Venusian, with slim, strong limbs and
golden hair lying soft about her shoulders. Her garments were of the
roughest cloth, but dignity and courage were in the flash of her eyes
and the spots of color in her cheeks.
During those first moments Lolan was conscious only of a growing ache
in his throat. He wanted to ask Mora and her father, standing there
beside her, why they had come here, since they knew it meant death to
consort with revolutionists. But he sensed that their kind of courage
would laugh at the question. In Lolan's breast, a cold, dead thing had
taken the place of his heart.
The ex-emperor stood fierce and tall, a shaggy-headed man of
sixty-five. He was a living skeleton dressed in hanging garments. Most
of the life in him seemed to be concentrated in his blazing eyes. There
was force in his countenance, but his voice came in the cracked accents
of an old man.
"What's the meaning of this? Can't a man and his daughter call on their
friends without being watched like criminals?"
Arzt swaggered close, his stubby legs moving stiffly. "Not when they'd
like to see a revolution as much as you two!" he taunted. "You admit
conspiracy with this rebel?"
Ars Lugo stood between two hulking officers, scowling at the Commander.
"Conspiracy!" he spat. "Don't hang that crime on them. I was out of
food and money and knew they could help me a little. I sent for them."
Arzt smashed a thick palm across the man's face. Contempt twisted his
ill-formed features. He jerked a thumb at the well-like hole, guarded
by a low rim, in a far corner, where refuse was thrown in such cheap
hovels as this. "Another of your filthy lies and you'll go down the
sewer. In the underground rivers you'll have plenty of time to think up
better ones. Now, you two--" He grinned wickedly at Mora and Atarkus.
"There's a little matter of a map I've heard rumors of. Who's got
it--one of you, or Lugo?"
"You talk like a fool!" raged Atarkus. "We've got no map, you vile
butcher."
Arzt's struggle for self-control was evident in the working of his jaw
muscles. Presently he relaxed. He drew on his feeble powers of sarcasm.
"The matter has been brought to my attention," he purred gutturally,
"that one of your esteemed countrymen, a garbage-boy in the barracks,
has been making a map of the buildings. I had the extremely painful
duty--painful to him--of cutting his body here and there and pouring in
burning sulphur; but the lad would not talk. But since he carried no
papers, I judge he passed them on earlier. Now, you bag of bones--" he
roared suddenly, "where is that map?"
"You are screaming into the wrong hole to get an echo," Mora replied
coldly. "We know nothing."
"Nothing, eh?" A small knife flashed into Arzt's fingers. He caught
Atarkus in a vicious hug and placed the blade just under his ear. "Then
remember it, before your father strangles on his own blood!"
Lolan stiffened, his hand dropping to the _sadon_ pistol. The weapon
was halfway out of its holster when a new voice intruded obsequiously.
"Commander--I wouldn't do that!"
II
It was scrawny little Captain Irak who had spoken. An apologetic smile
bracketed his lips and he was shaking his head slowly. Lolan knew a
warm rush of gratitude toward him. Ugly as he was, he was intelligent
and less sadistic than many of the officers. He said little--which made
the Sub-Commander suspect he knew much.
Arzt grunted, puzzled, "You wouldn't--? Why not, you grinning, ugly
little ape?"
Irak kept on smiling blandly. "Look outside," he advised.
Arzt did, but still kept his hold on the old man. There were a score of
shabby Venusians peering in from the dark street like wolves around a
fire on the high Martian steppes. They fell back under the impact of so
many eyes.
Irak closed the door. "Kill Atarkus tonight and by morning we'll have
a first-class revolution on our hands," he said. "These people worship
Atarkus and his daughter. If he is to die, it must be otherwise ...
secretly, perhaps, in the dungeons where no one will ever learn."
Arzt's hands fell to his side. "There's wisdom in what you say," he
begrudged. "Especially ... the last part. But if I find the proof I
need of their guilt tonight, there'll be no waiting. We can try, and
execute them, publicly. Search the woman, Lolan. I'll search this
ancient blasphemer myself."
Lolan hesitantly fell to the task. "I'm sorry!" he whispered. She gave
no sign that she had heard, no indication that it meant any more or
less to her that he must perform the job than anyone else; nor had
Lolan ever known if she returned his feelings. Their meetings had
been few, when they had come to Arzt's court-martial occasionally to
plead for their countrymen on some matter. With his pulses racing, he
searched her gown thoroughly and found no suspicious articles. He was
red-faced and perspiring when Arzt barked:
"Then that devil's got it! Search Lugo, men!"
That order was the cue for the lanky Venusian to hurl himself from the
arms of his captors. "The sewer!" Lolan gasped. Lugo was heading for
the black-mouthed hole to hurl himself into the underground river two
hundred feet below ... himself and anything he carried!
The young Martian did not stop to reason that Ars Lugo might be
carrying the evidence that would send Mora and her father to their
deaths. He acted purely by instinct, flinging himself upon the
revolutionary and dragging him to the floor. But Lugo was up again,
like a released spring. Lolan crawled frantically after him. He grabbed
a heel, brought the Venusian spinning about while he lurched to his
feet. A jabbing fist sent him reeling back. In the next moment Ars Lugo
was diving feet first down the hole!
Lolan's muscles had been leaned to spring-steel tautness in rigorous
Martian military exercises. It was only that whiplash power of them
that enabled him to grasp one of Ars Lugo's hands as he vaulted the low
rim. In a flash he knew his error. The Venusian's weight was hauling
him across the smooth floor and into the pit of death!
* * * * *
There was a moment of un-thinking panic, of hearing the distant roar of
tumbling black water and the savage grunts of the man dangling below
him. Someone grabbed his feet and his headlong plunge was arrested.
Arzt was shouting: "Hold him! Don't let him get away with that paper!"
Lolan fought the burning numbness of his forearm. Ars Lugo had ripped
off a belt-buckle and was slashing at his knuckles with it. The men
above kept shouting encouragement while they fought for leverage. Every
sinew in the Martian's body stood out in ridges and knots. Sweat
bathed his flesh, and he knew that moisture was causing Lugo to slip
still further. "Hurry!" he groaned. "I can't--"
With startling abruptness he was flying out of the hole, while Ars
Lugo, with strips of skin under his fingernails that he had ripped
from Lolan's hand, went spinning down into black nothingness. Pain had
beaten determination. Ars Lugo had won--death!
Horror held the officers around the hole like statues, staring down. It
was during that interval that Lolan felt a hard, slippery object in his
hand. He opened it to see the bracelet Ars Lugo had worn, which he had
somehow torn loose. A curious, heavy ornament of iridite crystals and
onyx, and on the inside of it strange scratchings, like--
Like a map! Some impulse caused Lolan's fingers to clamp on the
bracelet. Arzt was staring.
"And there goes our chance for a quick disposal of these other two," he
grunted sourly. "If you could have ... well, it's done now." Briskly
he gave an order. "Take them home. But remember this, Venusians--your
consorting with revolutionaries has marked you for death! At any day,
any hour, I may have you seized and brought back."
Atarkus paused scornfully on the threshold. Mora had already gone, her
head high and eyes straight ahead. "We don't frighten easily," the
old ruler flung back. "When you live in hell as we do, one more pit
of damnation merely serves to bore us. May you boil in your own lard,
Martian pig!"
Arzt swore at him and half-drew his pistol. Sneering, then, he relaxed
and turned to fix Lolan with a burning glance. "Your failure tonight
intrigues me," he offered suggestively. "You never seemed to be
hindered by pain to that extent before."
Lolan showed him his bleeding fingers, from which great drops of blood
were falling. "It was the shock," he murmured. "You don't think I let
him escape on purpose--!"
"I hardly imagine you could be so foolish. At any rate, you'll be given
a chance to redeem yourself. Sometime in the next three or four days I
want those two killed, very quietly and--very thoroughly. The honor is
to be yours."
Lolan's shocked eyes flashed to a pair of burning, amused ones. Arzt's
broad lips were smiling fixedly. The young officer tried to mask his
horror. "Let someone else do it," he countered. "Killing women is out
of my line."
"Killing _that_ woman, you mean!" the Commander pounced on him. "I've
known what was in your mind all these months. I hoped you'd see the
foolishness of it. You're too good a man to lose inside the execution
chamber. What's the matter with you, Lolan? Are you deceiving yourself
that these damned Venusian dogs are good enough for a Martian officer?"
Hatred swept Lolan suddenly like a flame. With difficulty he held his
voice to a flat, deadly hiss. "Good enough! Too good, if you ask me!
I'm sick of driving sick men into mines reeking of sulphur fumes, to
dig iridite for us to decorate our uniforms with. Tired of seeing
them live like animals, in filthy shacks ready to fall in on them or
in tenements crawling with vermin. If cracking a bloody whip is what
being a Martian officer means, I'm ashamed of being one. I'd change my
Sub-Commander's rank here for that of a private back on Mars!"
Arzt's face grew hot and red with a dark suffusion of blood. "The only
transfer I'll give you is to Rock Island, on the Fluorine Sea," he
grated. "Would that suit you better?"
Lolan's spine crawled. Rock Island was a tiny hump of land in the
middle of a sea perpetually blanketed in fogs--fogs laden with deadly
fluorine. But someone had to keep the light on that island to guide
incoming space-ships. The keepers usually lasted about six weeks. "In
other words, I stay here or I die!" he stated flatly.
"Exactly. So let's hear the last of this. If you complain again I'll
take it as treason. Remember my orders: In four days I want to see
their bodies in the dead-house. If I don't--it will be yours I'll see
there!"
* * * * *
Lolan's first chance to examine the bracelet was in the solitude of his
room an hour later. He drew all the shades, while a feeling of tension
built stiflingly within him. Under the soft glow of a lamp he studied
it.
Plainly he traced the outlines of all the buildings in the rambling
system of barracks that sprawled over the hill. Rooms had been marked
in by someone who knew the set-up. The Martian received a stiff jolt at
seeing his room, and Arzt's, marked with X's. Marked for death, he knew!
Lolan's fist closed on the bauble. He let his glance go to the
curtained window, seeming to see through and beyond it. A tumult of
jarring thoughts rang harsh discordance in his mind. But clear and
sharp sounded one note, that his hands must slay Mora and her father
or he himself would die. No night-long brain-wracking was needed for
him to know that he preferred death to carrying out Arzt's orders. But
perhaps ... there was another way!
Lolan stood rigid, letting the idea revolve in his mind. Abruptly, he
swung from the window, jamming the bracelet onto his own wrist. He left
his room silently, and through the dim corridors he found his way to
the commissionary. His private keys unlocked the dark vaults. Carefully
shutting the door, he switched on the lights.
Piles of goods were everywhere, looming in long rows before him and
filling great bins. The Martian's nerves set up a raw tingling as he
found a box and hurried to a bin. Five nervous minutes passed, with
Lolan piling preserved foods of all kinds into the box. As a last item,
he buried a pair of _sadon_ pistols in the mass of foodstuffs.
Grim resolution was in the hard set of his jaw when he switched off the
lights, re-locked the place, and left by a back entrance. He was able
to reach a pursuit ship in the hangar and load his stuff in without
being observed. Panic struck at him, then ... a sentry's running feet
sounded outside!
Lolan sprang to the door. He eased through it, to be speared by the
man's torch. Casually, he nodded to him.
"Oh! Sorry, sir, I didn't realize it was an officer," the sentry
apologized. "Taking your ship out this late?"
Lolan said crisply, "Official business down below. Go back to your
post. I can manage it alone."
The sentry clicked his heels, saluted, and departed. Lolan's knees
shook a little. He rolled the battered pursuit ship out and hurriedly
entered it. Hope that the guard didn't realize he wasn't taking his
private ship tonight kept him glancing around at the dim form of the
sentry. On that fact hinged his life.
Then he was slamming the accelerator on full. The ship screamed upward,
borne aloft on the green mushroom of flame. Almost immediately he had
crossed the city and gained the plains beyond. In a broken expanse of
rock and sand just outside the lower quarter, he set the craft down
gently.
No one saw him enter the city. He threaded the tortuous alleys of the
squalid section with his heart hammering in his ears. At last he was
stopping across from a large, five-story building. It was a ponderous,
gabled affair full of reminiscences of former glory--elaborate cornices
crumbling away, great, metal doors green with age, once white walls now
streaked with black and gray. In carved Venusian characters, a plaque
over the door lamented: "Hall of Justice."
Lolan was thinking of that sad commentary as he ascended to the top
floor. Justice--when the man who once ruled this entire planet now
lived on crusts in a tiny room in the tower!
It was Princess Mora whose hand opened the door at his knock. In the
dim light of the room, her face showed sad and accusing. "What?" she
asked bitterly. "Haven't you done with persecuting us for one night?"
Atarkus looked up from a table where he had been poring over old
Venusian books, a pair of spectacles perched on his beak-nose. "Well,
speak!" he shrilled finally. "What miserable errand brings you here?"
Lolan's face was hard. He kept his glance on Mora's widening eyes as
he took off Ars Lugo's bracelet and extended it to her. "Ars Lugo died
trying to hide this," he growled. "I thought you might like to save it.
But as a favor--would you mind taking the black cross off my quarters?"
III
Atarkus was on his feet, shaking. Mora let the Martian place the
bracelet in her hand before she gasped: "You--you knew! And didn't
tell! Why?"
Lolan lowered himself into a chair. He sighed despondently: "I don't
know. If I'd valued my own life I'd have turned it over to Arzt. But
I've had my fill of watching you Venusians tortured."
The girl's eyes glowed. She said softly: "That was your only reason?"
Lolan's heart thumped. His face flamed, and he tried to hide his
embarrassment by springing to his feet and pacing to a window. "It's
reason enough," he muttered. He swung suddenly to face them across the
room. "But that isn't why I came here tonight. It's something more
important than that. You've got to leave Areeba immediately!"
Atarkus' face folded into grim lines. "You mean Arzt has decreed our
death?"
"That's it. You might have expected something like this for being seen
with men like Ars Lugo."
Mora looked up into the officer's face. "I can't understand you, Lolan.
You're supposed to be second in command of the race that oppresses us.
Yet you risked death to hide that bracelet, and undoubtedly you've
taken the same risk to come here."
"Don't try to understand me. Simply do as I say. Arzt has appointed me
to execute you within four days. I--I can't do it, that's all. So I'm
going to try to dodge the issue by letting you escape. Beyond the city
there's a pursuit ship loaded with food and a pair of pistols. With
that outfit you can make it to Lyna or some other settlement where you
won't be known. But you've got to do it tonight!"
Atarkus snorted. "Leave our people when they need us most? Never!"
Lolan's eyes narrowed. "When they need us most," the ex-emperor
had said. Why were they needed especially now--because of a coming
revolution? He drove the question from his mind. "Don't quibble!" he
snapped. "I can't promise you more than a few hours' leeway. You've got
to leave within the hour."
"It's no use," Mora smiled wearily. "Our people look up to us for the
answer to every problem that arises. What would they think of us if we
ran out now?"
"What good will you be to them dead?" Lolan argued desperately. "Arzt
means to have you out of the way once and for all. You're dangerous
and he knows it. Get your things together and let's go!" The flush of
repressed fear colored the flat angles of his jaws. His mind was a
whirlpool of hope and regret--regret at losing Mora forever, though
he could never own her; a deep soul-sickness at the idea of sending a
force-charge into her lovely body....
But Mora was shaking her head and Atarkus had smashed his fist on the
table. "Arzt can't scare us!" the aged monarch scorned. "They say we
Venusians are weak, that we don't know how to fight. Some day soon the
butcher will learn differently." His eyes grew softer. He laid his
bony hand on Lolan's hard forearm. "I know your position, young man.
You have taken a liking to us for some reason--I think I know what it
is--and the thought of killing us disturbs you. Perhaps you won't have
to perform that duty--"
Suspicion and wonder blended into the creases of Lolan's forehead.
"Then you won't go?" he breathed.
"We can't," Mora told him. "But you have our gratitude for all you've
done."
Lolan straightened. He tried to keep his voice clipped and emotionless.
"You are foolish--and brave. Good night!"
When he reached the boulder-hidden rocket ship it was still safely
masked in its hiding place. The fog had torn apart for a few hours, and
through the ragged holes in it he could see stars blinking solemnly
down at him. The young Martian's heart leaped at the thought of leaving
for one of those far-off worlds; no one would miss him before morning
and he could stock up on supplies and leave right away. But a leaden
despondency kept that idea from gaining much headway. Gloomily he
climbed into the ship.
It was when his fingers had sent the rocket car tearing up into the low
clouds that Arzt's voice, just behind him, made his blood turn to water
and his lips go dry.
"You're heading the right way, Sub-Commander. Over the hill to the
Sulphur Holes. Tonight's warning was my last."
* * * * *
In the gleaming black disk of one of the space-ports Lolan could see
Arzt's reflection, then, looming squat and dangerous three feet in back
of him. He had quietly removed Lolan's pistol and held it on the back
of his head.
"Planning a trip, were you?" the taunting voice went on. "I found quite
a store of food here. The only trip you'll be making now is into the
bottom dungeon of the Holes. By the gods, Lolan, you're a fool!"
"Am I? It might as well be now as four days from now. You know I
couldn't kill them."
"I knew this: That if you couldn't, you weren't fit to be a Martian
officer. Now I'll have to do the job myself. Because you're going to
die tomorrow!"
Silence piled up between them. Too soon the gaping slash on the
planet's surface known as the Sulphur Holes was pivoting beneath them
as they circled to a landing. Here, where subterranean forces had
carved a series of natural dungeons and rock-bound gases still seeped
through the holes in a stifling mist, the least fortunate of Arzt's
prisoners were imprisoned.
Burly guards came running up to take charge of Lolan. Arzt stood back
with fists on hips. "Take him to the bottom level," his guttural
command came. "Watch him closely. The devil's been conspiring with
Venusians for a revolution!"
He watched coldly while they jostled his former chief officer into the
little rock house that housed the elevator. He stood there stolidly
until a deep-pitched sigh emanated from the structure, denoting that
one more soul had been carried down ... to hell. A fierce grin twisted
his lax features. He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did
not hear the closing of the storage-hatch on the pursuit ship they
had come in, nor did he see the spidery form that slid from it to the
shelter of some rocks. Deeply and sadistically satisfied, Commander
Arzt turned and departed.
For the first ten minutes after his captors had left him, Lolan sat on
the edge of a hard, filthy cot with his head buried in his hands. The
cell was low-ceilinged, with eroded sandstone walls studded with sharp
metal crystals. Through the barred door drifted stringy tendrils of
gas--sulphur smoke, belching up from the planet's bowels. From nearby
cells came horrible moans, a ragged scream, the rattling of a door as
some hapless prisoner shook it and shouted for food. The soft plod-plod
of someone pacing the floor like a caged beast reached the Martian's
ears.
Lolan's lungs seemed filled with acid. He coughed until tears streamed
from his eyes. Finally he fell back in despair on the cot. But even in
his desperate physical pain he was far more conscious of acute despair
over the failure of his plans to save Mora and Atarkus. He felt that no
torture could be worse than imagining what devilish end Arzt would find
for them.
The grating of a key in the lock brought Lolan to a sitting posture.
Then he had sprung to the door as Captain Irak, spindly, grinning
little imp that he was, flung the door open and dodged in.
"Irak--what the devil are you doing here?" Lolan coughed.
The other pressed something hard and cold into his hand--a gun.
"No questions now!" he rapped. "Follow me and use this if you need
it--which you will!"
"But the keys--how did you get them?"
Irak closed one shoe-button eye in a sly wink, and gestured with his
gun. "Come on!" he jerked his head. Roughly he shoved the younger man
into the tunnel.
Not understanding what it all meant, Lolan fled through the corridors
beside him. Hope was kindling like a fire in his breast. Once the
captain paused before a cell and through the bars tossed the bunch
of keys. "Use them yourself and pass them on!" he laughed at the
astonished prisoner.
Up ahead the elevator loomed out of the wisps of gas. Irak plunged into
it and Lolan followed. There was silence until they had almost reached
the top.
"Be on your guard," Irak snapped. "I killed the turnkey to get the
keys. If they've found his body--" The automatic door flew open, light
from the guard-house flooded their figures and they stiffened. The
shouting of angry men reached their ears from outside.
Irak looked at him in somber decision. "We'll try a run for it out the
back. There's a rocket car in the field. It's our one chance."
Lolan grinned boyishly, ready for anything. "Lead the way!" he offered.
"I'm with you!"
* * * * *
But they had not gone forty feet when a harsh shout arrested them.
"There they go--_get them_!" Five men sprang up from where they had
knelt about the body of a dead Martian.
Captain Irak stuck a skinny leg between Lolan's running feet and
sent him sprawling in the dirt. Lolan was puzzled, until he felt
the searing impact of force bolts inches over his head. The movement
had saved his life. Instantly he had twisted about to sight down the
chrome-steel shaft of his pistol. It roared, jarred heavily against his
hand. And one of the men staggered back with his head and shoulders
half torn off.
Irak chuckled fiendishly. His own gun blasted twice, destroying a man
at each shot. The remaining pair spread out and came at a low run for
them, with guns crackling blue lightning over the terrain. Lolan's
eyes were hard and narrow, his jaw was firm. The impact of deadly
charges exploded all around him, making his ears ring with the terrific
concussion. He cuffed at his coat-sleeve as blobs of molten earth
splattered on it. Some of the fiery stuff bit through to his skin.
The Martian's hate-twisted countenances were plain now, thirty feet
away. With a simultaneous impulse they flung themselves prone and
leveled their guns. Lolan squeezed the trigger of his weapon. He kept
it pulled back until the gun grew hot and smoking and the last bolt had
been launched. Irak had done the same.
A grisly silence came down over the field. Horror gripped Lolan as the
smoke drifted away and showed two shapeless masses of burning flesh on
the ground before them. Doggedly he turned away, getting to his feet.
From nearby came the clamor of hurrying guards. "Quick!" Irak's voice
crackled. "Into the ship."
They made it none too soon. Force charges were exploding under their
soaring ship like blue balloons that swelled to magnificent proportions
and then exploded. Not until they had gained thirty thousand feet
altitude did Lolan relax from the controls.
His face was sweaty and grinning. "Am I crazy or are you, Irak? I
thought you were Captain of the Secret Service, sworn to track down
rebels like me--not help them escape!"
Irak was lighting a Martian cigarette. He paused with the lighter held
to the cylinder's tip. "Quite true," he smiled. "That is my job. But
when the rebel is a fellow-Venusian, I am tempted to reverse the usual
order of things!"
IV
Lolan's mouth hung open. Had he heard aright? "You said--a fellow
_Venusian_? Didn't you mean...."
"I mean Venusian. And by the way--congratulations on your escape,
_Prince Lolan_!"
Somewhere in him a pulse began throbbing, as Lolan fumbled to put the
controls on automatic. Then he twisted about on the seat and gripped
his knees with his hands. "Let's get this straight," he suggested
impatiently. "I'm Sub-Commander Lolan--ex-Sub-Commander, I should say.
You're Captain Irak--also 'ex', I'm afraid. We're both Martians and
neither of us has so much as a drop of royal blood of any race coloring
his veins. Starting from that basis, would you mind explaining your
remarks?"
Irak leaned back in his chair. "Not at all. You are Prince Lolan, of
the House of Sarn. Twenty years ago, when you were two years old, all
of your people were killed in the Martian invasion. Among fifty other
Venusian children, you were taken back to Mars. The war chiefs wanted
to experiment, to find out what difference the Martian atmosphere had
on the development of a child of Venus. All of those other children
were killed due to lack of care on the return voyage. You alone
lived ... to become a high-ranking Martian officer!"
The blood had drained from Lolan's face, leaving it a sickly color. His
hands shook a little. It was too much to grasp at once. "Irak, you're
telling the truth?" he gasped. "But you can't be. Look at me: I'm dark,
like a Martian ... so are you, as far as that goes. And why would they
let me hold such a responsible position?"
"Of course you're dark!" Irak laughed. "Who wouldn't be, after eighteen
years of blistering Martian suns? As far as their letting you gain
position is concerned, they had two reasons for doing it. In the
first place, they found that you were developing into a brilliant,
scholarly youth who could go far if allowed to. You had something no
other Venusian before you had: initiative and the ability to fight
like a bulldog on any problem you attempted. Perhaps the ultraviolet
rays so strong on Mars and so feeble here have something to do with
that. At any rate, you are strong and determined where the rest of our
race is vacillating, good-natured, and pliable. Their other reason for
letting you fight your way to the top in their own army was that, to
their cruel minds, it seemed a good joke to let a Venusian have partial
charge of his own down-trodden people. But the joke may backlash...."
"And you?" Lolan murmured. "Where do you come in?"
"I went back on the same ship that took you, but as a stowaway. I hid
in the upper part of the ship where the constant, harsh light of the
sun soon blackened my fair skin as dark as theirs. I killed a soldier
one night and took his uniform. It wasn't hard to take his place. They
were a motley crew from all over Mars, a sort of foreign legion, and
few knew each other. By the time we reached Mars I was able to mingle
safely with the men. And as years went on I completed my Martian
education, vied with others for honors. I gained those honors for one
purpose--to fight again in a Venusian army, to wipe the scourge from
the face of our planet. Now we are ready!"
Lolan sank back. He felt like a man who has had too strong a dose of
some powerful drug. "Now I can explain a lot of things," he murmured.
"I've had the feeling so many times that I've been a certain place
before, yet I never understood why." He got up, began pacing the tiny
cabin with restless tread. When he spoke again, at last, he seemed to
be talking to himself. "Then it must be true. I'm not one of Arzt's
bloodthirsty race, I'm a Venusian--one of Mora's race!" Abruptly, he
whirled on the little intelligence officer. "Well, what now? Where are
we going?"
Irak let a thin smile curve his lips. "To the old palace. There we'll
meet Mora and Atarkus and many others. You will see things you haven't
dreamed existed on this planet. Areeba is ready to strike for freedom!"
Lolan's eyes sparkled. But it was not entirely the revolution he was
thinking of. "They knew about me?" he jerked.
Irak nodded, made an adjustment in the flight. "But none of us ever
dared tell you of our plans until we knew exactly how you stood. If you
had become a true Martian, we wanted you always to remain ignorant."
Silence came into the rocket ship. They were soaring along above a
thick blanket of yellowish clouds. Irak's hand sent them plummeting
down into the clear air beneath. Directly below them a cluster of
crumbling buildings topped a hill in the north section of the city.
Ruin had laid its bony hand over all, tumbling towers and cornices back
into the dust from which they had sprung. Squarely in the midst of it
the ship settled to a landing. Memory troubled Lolan at sight of the
old palace.
Irak sprang out. "Follow me!" he shot at Lolan. They hurried into a
roofless room of magnificent size, passing through it into a small room
still partially covered. The captain found a ring in the floor, beneath
a litter of rubbish. It yielded to insistent tugging, to reveal a
flight of stairs sliding away into dim obscurity. Irak flashed a light
into the depths and descended. Wondering strangely, Lolan followed.
A half hour passed, while steps blended into winding corridors and
corridors changed back into stairs. Lolan's head was spinning by
the time they reached a heavy bronze door. Irak flashed a smile.
"Now--watch!" he breathed. His thumb flattened on a button.
Seconds dragged out. Nothing happened. But ... was the door moving? A
crack of light split down the middle of the portal. It widened, and
suddenly the two parts drew wide and light and sound flooded through
them. Lolan started. Dumbly he moved ahead. What he saw made his legs
wobbly with astonishment.
* * * * *
Below them, in a spacious, high-vaulted hall, thousands of men were at
work with various machines. At one end of the room a continual stream
of Venusians filed through one door, past a long table where workers
were doling out some kind of apparatus, and back through another door.
The clank of stamp machines, the scream of drill-presses, the whine of
lathes, blended into a confused wail. And over all was the roar of the
underground river, that flowed between black banks squarely through the
middle of the cavern.
Questions sprang to Lolan's lips, but Irak stifled them. "Come along,"
he ordered. "Others can explain better than I."
A winding path led down the wall of the place. At the bottom they
turned left and found their way to where a large crowd of men were in
noisy conference with two persons in their midst. Irak raised his voice
in a triumphant shout. Instantly the babble broke. Irak bowed low as
Atarkus emerged from the crowd.
"It is done, Emperor! I bring you--Prince Lolan!"
Unnameable feelings swept over Lolan as a great cry went up. Before he
could move, he was surrounded by a laughing, shouting crowd that grew
steadily larger. Their words were only a confused sound in his ears,
but he knew what they meant: That he was whole-heartedly welcomed back
into the race from which he had been stolen so long ago!
Mora came to his side, then, flushed and happy. "We sent for you," she
said, "as soon as we learned you had been imprisoned. We have wanted so
long to tell you of our plans. We--we need you."
"But we were afraid," Atarkus frowned. "It is with joy that we receive
you, Prince, but ... sadness has awaited your coming."
The exuberance that had buoyed Lolan up fled from beneath him and left
him on the rock-bottom of unpleasant reality. "For what part I've had
in your misery, I humbly beg forgiveness," he apologized. "But--this
cavern ... the machines: what do they mean?"
Atarkus' thin form drew up stiffly. His eyes swept the length of the
vast room. "They mean the revolution is here! Tomorrow--at high noon!"
Through the crowd ran a tremor of excitement. Faces that wore graven
looks of hopelessness flamed eagerly. Tired eyes sparkled.
"Revolution!" Lolan's word was a harsh, incredulous gasp. "But you have
no weapons! No--no chance, against Arzt's legions of trained murderers!"
"We have weapons," Atarkus grunted. "But I wanted more time. Now, word
has come that since your escape that butcher is running wild. Men and
women are being shot down in their homes while soldiers search for you.
The slightest word of reproach is sufficient to condemn a man to the
Holes, or to instant death. We can wait no longer. In a few days my
people will be so cowed even I cannot lead them to the battle."
"But your weapons?" Lolan inquired eagerly.
Atarkus led the way to where the line of hurrying Venusians were being
given small, copper-colored articles like tiny drum-majors' batons. He
picked one up and handed it to Lolan. "Try it!" he offered.
The prince regarded it curiously. He found a small trigger on one side.
Training it on the wall twenty feet away, he fired. After a moment a
round spot of phosphorescence appeared, that gradually turned red, then
crumbled away. Slowly he handed the gun back to Atarkus.
"Well?" the Emperor inquired eagerly. "Do you think we're unarmed now,
with four out of five Venusians owning one of these?"
Lolan drew his own weapon and directed it on the wall. He fired, the
charge instantly crashing against the wall and tearing a ragged hole
in it. He was white-lipped when he turned back. "There is your answer.
Against these--these toys of yours, the Martian guns will be like
long-range cannons. No, my friends. If this is the best you have to
offer, the revolution is doomed before it starts!"
V
The shocked hush seemed to reach to all parts of the room. Lolan's
thoughts were bitter ones. They concerned the thing that had cursed
his people for centuries. Their childish inability to think a
problem through, their pathetic attempts to fight back against their
aggressors. Now those qualities had doomed them again to misery.
Atarkus was muttering to himself. "We--we thought they would work if we
could get within ten or fifteen feet of them."
"But how are you going to approach that close when _their_ guns are
effective at two hundred feet?" Lolan countered. Idly he glanced at
the piles and piles of ray pistols still being doled out. "How do they
operate? Draw on the Martian power station, I suppose?"
Mora pointed at a massive apparatus at the upper end of the hall.
"Electronic power," she told him. "We generate our own power. As long
as the turbines are running, the guns will operate."
Lolan's eyes went a little wide at that. He scratched his head,
scowled, then walked off a little. He whirled about and came back to
them. "That gives me a clue! The Martian guns also draw from a central
station. Only it's a radioactive type of power. Underneath the barracks
there's a huge mass of _radite_. If that stuff were carried off, they'd
have guns no more effective than water pistols!"
Irak snorted. "Who's going to carry it off? It weighs tons. I've seen
it. It's like a great lump of radium. If you get too close, even,
you'll be poisoned."
"We couldn't carry it off--in its present form! But there is a
large, unused sewer hole in a room near it. If we could break it up,
using workmen's lead suits, it might be possible to drop it into the
underground river. Contact with the water would result in an explosion
that would destroy its radioactivity."
Atarkus licked his lips. "Would this be possible? Could anyone get that
close to it without being caught?"
"We could try!" Lolan gave back. "If the plan succeeded--well, we
number twenty thousand in Areeba to the Martians' two. Once their
weapons were destroyed, the city would be ours!"
"Then it must be attempted!" Atarkus raised his fist high. "Irak--call
the leaders. We must lay our plans tonight, for the struggle tomorrow!"
They met in a little alcove off the main room, ten men whose grim
countenances stamped them as men ready to die for the cause. Lolan
sensed immediately, as they took places around a long table, that he
was being looked to as their leader. And old Atarkus willingly fell
away to make room for younger, more dynamic blood.
When all were quiet, Prince Lolan stood up. It came to him strongly,
the feeling that everything, the fate of every soul on Venus, hinged
on what happened in this little room tonight. His voice came gravely,
freighted with importance.
"I won't try to deceive you for one instant that our battle is going
to be easy," he told them sternly. "It isn't. The odds are a hundred
to one against us. But I will tell you this: The game is worth it! If
we win Areeba, all Venus is ours. With improved weapons, the Martians'
own, we'll be able to descend on the smaller settlements and conquer
them before they know what has happened here. Then there will be the
task of building up a space fleet. We can do it. If Mars sends a new
army out to re-capture us, they'll find us ready, trained in their own
modes of warfare and as brutal as they themselves. I have a theory that
once we have won our independence, progress on Venus will be different.
My experience has proved that all the Venusian lacks for a complete,
balanced fighting personality is an abundance of ultraviolet light.
We can provide that artificially, in street-lights, in the nursery,
everywhere. It will be the beginning of the greater Venus. Yes, the
game is worth the risk. We have all to win ... nothing to lose!"
Vesh-Tu, a squat, hairy little man, leaned forward. "But how are we to
do it, Prince? The _radite_ is guarded, is it not?"
"I have a plan--" Lolan murmured thoughtfully. "We can enter, I
believe, by the sewers, following the river upstream to the holes and
climbing them by their ladders. They will probably know immediately
what we are doing, when their machines and guns begin to lose power.
But by that time I hope to have the army mostly concentrated on the
south side."
"How?" Irak demanded flatly.
"By starting fires, riots, dynamiting buildings--everything we can
think of. Then, when the soldiers have been decoyed into the midst of
our people, we will have destroyed the last of the _radite_ and the
revolution will begin in earnest!"
Atarkus rubbed his hands. "Suppose we set a zero hour--say twelve
o'clock, for the time for fighting to begin. It would make for a
concerted, simultaneous outbreak all over the city."
Lolan nodded grimly. "Twelve o'clock. I will need three men to help me.
Irak, Vesh-Tu, and you, Atarkus. The rest of you had better go back,
now, to pass the word. We strike at high noon--and we strike hard!"
* * * * *
Dawn came, but only by their watches did those four who fought their
way up the treacherous, slippery banks of the subterranean river
realize it. They stumbled along in darkness complete except for the
feeble glow of hand torches. At ten o'clock they reached a spot where
refuse of all kinds had collected on the bank. They sent light spraying
the roof of the cavern. A honeycomb of holes broke its rough expanse.
Lolan read the labels crudely painted beside each. His heart gave a
bound as he found the one he sought. Nimbly he ran up the iron rungs
in the wall, then swung hand over hand to the hole and paused in its
entrance, over the roaring torrent below. The others were following
more slowly. Atarkus came haltingly, handicapped by his years. At
length all were ascending the inky tunnel.
Four times they were forced to stop and rest. It was gruelling work.
Their hands were rubbed raw by the pitted surface of the iron ladder.
Over an hour had elapsed when they reached a flat iron plate that
covered the hole. Eleven o'clock! An hour left. Lolan trembled with
impatience.
Wedging himself securely on the ladder, he forced upward on the plate.
Dim light flowed into the tunnel. With his nerves crying for caution,
he shoved the plate aside and crawled forth. Gun in fist, he shot his
glance about the small room.
The others emerged with bloody hands and dirty clothes, tired to the
bone, but eager for whatever lay ahead. Prince Lolan paced to the door.
"We're in luck!" he hissed. "No guards around. Now to find protective
armor and go to work!"
* * * * *
They found the heavy suits used by workmen in a room near the ramp
leading down to the _radite_ deposit. When they had crawled into them,
they could hardly walk. Constructed of heavy rubber and slabs of lead,
each one weighed over two hundred pounds. Helmets provided poor vision
through thick, murky glass. But the outfits would be all that stood
between them and death in the _radite_ pit.
Now they were staggering down the ramp and through a wide door. All
four recoiled from the sight that struck their eyes. On gigantic
insulators, a huge lump of blazing diamond seemed to repose. Even
through colored glass it pained the eyes to look at it. The walls and
floor all about it glowed with the same supernal brilliance. Tiny
white flame ran ceaselessly over the jagged surface of the stone.
Lolan squinted at his watch. "Eleven-fifteen!" he blurted. "Can we do
it in forty-five minutes?"
"We can if we've got to!" Vesh-Tu grunted. "How do we move the blessed
thing?"
The prince drew his gun. "Stand back," he snapped. "This should break
it down into convenient sizes!" He levelled the gun, squeezed the
trigger twice.
A convulsive roar shook the very walls. For an entire minute, every man
in the room was blinded. When they could see again, it was to regard
the crumbled remains that strewed the floor. No pieces larger than
a good-sized book remained. But when they tried to lift them, they
discovered the chunks weighed as much as corresponding pieces of gold!
Staggering under their burdens, they ascended the ramp with their small
loads and hurried to the sewer opening.
One after the other, four pieces tumbled in. Tensely they waited for
the detonation. It came, a rumbling roar that drove a blast of air into
their faces. Lolan grinned bleakly. "Their guns are just that much less
powerful!" he promised. "Now if we can just clear up all that stuff in
time--"
At a wabbling run they staggered back to the job. It went like that for
a half hour, while the litter of shattered _radite_ grew smaller and
smaller. Lolan's watch showed a quarter to twelve. He thought of the
thousands of Venusians out on the streets, waiting to act ... thought
of Mora, ready to lead her little group. Then there came the sound that
drove all other thoughts from his mind. The tramp of running feet!
Lolan acted instinctively. "Keep it up!" he shouted through his mask.
"Irak and I have guns. We'll stand them off somehow!"
Fear shot through the pit like an electric charge. Lolan and Irak
struggled for speed as they ran up the incline. The sound of voices and
footfalls was louder. They made it past the room where the _radite_
was being disposed of. That door must be kept available, or Arzt's
victory was certain. On down the hall they plunged, around a turn, into
another.... Their running steps locked in a halt. Arzt and his crew
were racing toward them a hundred feet ahead!
* * * * *
The shooting broke out simultaneously. Rock dust filled the tunnel from
the battering of force-bolts. Arzt's voice struck through the sounds,
bellowing orders. Lolan and Irak were back of the corner, now, waiting--
Two Martians raced up, prodded by their leader's hoarse screams. They
never fired their guns, for the Venusians chopped them down in full
stride. Lolan tore his mask off. "Won't need these any more," he
grunted. "The job's up to them now. If I go out, it's not going to be
in that smelly thing."
In back of them he could hear Atarkus and Vesh-Tu's labored breathing.
From time to time there came the deep, thunderous explosions that meant
the work was going on. Lolan darted a glance at his watch. Five minutes
to twelve!
Now they pressed back against the wall in wait for another pair who
raced up. The Martians plunged into their sights. Triggers were
squeezed, guns steadied. But the shots, when they came, were feeble.
Beside Lolan the wall shuddered slightly and a trickle of rocks slid
down it. He watched the man he had hit stagger back, screaming. It took
another shot to finish him.
A new tenseness came into the tunnel. Every man present, Martian or
Venusian, knew what was happening. The last of the _radite_ was being
disposed of. In another five minutes Arzt's hordes would be no more
than a handful among an army of vengeance-driven natives.
The seconds slogged slowly through Prince Lolan. He was waiting,
hoping--then his hopes were dashed as twenty-five Martians raced
concertedly for the pair of them. Arzt was sacrificing everything to
stop them.
Irak began to swear excitedly. "This gun--the thing won't work fast
enough, Lolan! Can't stop them with these."
"Then we'll use the new guns!" The idea took him so swiftly he fumbled
through two seconds getting his little copper disintegrator into
position. A long blue serpent of flame licked out at the Martians.
Where it touched, men withered and went down without a sound. Arzt
roared his anger. He flung his useless weapon with all his might at his
former subordinate.
"Damn your Venusian heart!" he screamed. "You can't stop us! Can't--"
The words choked off. Irak had cut him down with a single shot. Silence
dwelt in the tunnel, and through it came a hoarse cry:
"Lolan! It's done! The last of it's gone. Were--were we in time?"
Lolan sank back against the wall. He let his eyes fill with the ghastly
remains of his former underlings. "Yes," he muttered to himself. "Yes!
They're--finished!"
* * * * *
There was jubilation throughout all Areeba that day. The scene in the
tunnel had been duplicated everywhere. Martians, one minute brutal and
ruthless, became craven cowards the next. There was not a man of them
alive by night.
At sundown, Lolan stood with Mora, Atarkus, and the others high in
command at the ruins of the palace. The sun had broken through the
perpetual clouds to cast a golden fog over everything. The beauty of it
seemed to hold them all.
"It's symbolic," Lolan told the Emperor. "Symbolic of the grandeur to
come for Venus. I see a future for you as the greatest emperor our
world has ever known."
Atarkus shook his head. "Not for me, my boy. For you! I am old, ready
to leave the struggle to the young. Irak, who could be a more fitting
ruler for Venus than the prince we lost and gained again?"
Irak's ugly face grinned. "No one. But an Emperor must have an Empress!
Could that not be arranged too?"
Atarkus saw the flush on his daughter's face, the corresponding color
in Prince Lolan's cheeks. "Arranged!" he grunted. "That's been done a
long time. It was arranged the day Lolan came back from Mars!"
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