CEASELESS rain dripped from the low-hanging clouds, only to rise again in wisps of steam as it struck the gleaming sidewalks. From the fetid green Venusian jungles that encircled the town, drifted brightly colored spores, like bits of confetti, fioat-ing lightly in the thick mist. Death to anyone whose lungs they entered, for the spores feasted on human tissue. Multiplying with frightful rapidity, they choked the lungs, the blood stream, causing swift, sure death.

Jim Weston, standing under the overhang of a grey crystalloid building, adjusted the spore-mask that covered his mouth and nose, eyed the opaque fog with a disconsolate shake of his head. Venus in all its doubtful glory! It made a man feel as though he had been tossed into a giant's cauldron of stewing spinach. Jim's hands touched the heavy lead container strapped to his belt. Twenty ounces of radium, his pay as chief engineer on the Jovian aqueduct job. Enough to take him to Earth a hundred times over. . . and he was forced to stay in this steaming hellhole until a terrestial-bound ship made port! Which might be months, with the Venusian grain trade so slack of late. Two years fighting mud, gravity, and methane gas on the oozy surface of Jupiter, the maddeningly long Jovian-Venus space trip, and now the prospect of months on this green hothouse planet. Jim sighed dismally, set out in the direction of the space port. Perhaps the captain of one of those rusty freighters now unloading at the docks might be persuaded to m a ke this trip to Earth. . . .

The space port was a desolate sight. Quick-rooting fennis weeds sprouted from between chinks in the sagging masonry, forced apart the massive stones of the docks. A few crystalloid warehouses and grain elevators, a wet, scum-covered administration building, several slatternly, patched-plated tramps, lying like huge grey slugs in the slimy mud of the landing field. The only signs of life about the spaceport emanated, in the form of tawdry multiphone music, from a little cafe sandwiched between two warehouses. Jim made his way toward it, pushed open the door, stepped into the cafe's tiny spore-lock. After a five minute soaking in germicide-laden air, he slapped the dead spores from his coat, stepped through the inner entrance.

The tavern was worse, Jim thought, than even the dives of Jupiter. Smoke from a dozen strange narcotics dimmed the light of the radite lamps; the too-sweet odor of Venusian thole mingled with the smell of Martian tong and Terrestrial whisky; pallid, overly made-up women, all but nude in their sheer cellosilk dresses, sat hopefully at tables, sipping apparently endless glasses of thole. The men who lined the bar were for the most part space-hands, tiny red-skinned Martians, squat Jovians, and nondescript waifs from the asteroids, the moons of Saturn. Jim stepped up to the rail, beckoned to the bartender.

"Where can I get information on those freighters outside?" he demanded. "I want to ship out of this green hell."

Before the bartender could answer, a heavy hand fell upon Jim's shoulder.

"Ship out?" a. deep voice boomed. "You've come to the right place lad. I'm Slane, skipper of the Astric. As soon as I can muster up a crew from among these rats, I'm leaving for Mars."

Jim glanced up at the owner of the deep voice. The man was huge, nearly seven feet tall and amazingly broad in proportion. His arms were long, gorilla-like, and the sweat-soaked shirt, clinging damply to his skin, revealed great rippling muscles that spoke of inhuman strength. The giant was, to judge from his narrow, reddish eyes, his absolutely hairless head, a Saturnian; his neck still bore the reddish chafe of a Swenson helmet. Most significant of all, his wrists were circled with wide silvery scars, scars that could only have been made by the tightly welded fetters of the Saturnian prison colony. Clearly the big man's past had been a checkered one.

"Well?" Slane's coarse features broke into an expansive grin. "Outward appearances don't hold for ships nor men. You'll find the Astric a tidy craft and me a thoughtful skipper. ('omc-, lad, I need men to replace those of my crew who were knocked off by these blasted Venusian spores. You're a bit scrawny" . . . his gaze swept Jim's slender, wiry frame . . . "but beggars can't be choosers. We'll sign articles, all fair and square, and you'll get fifty thaels when we land on Mars."

JIM eyed the man narrowly. There was something in his tone, a cunning persuasiveness, that did not ring quite true.

"Mars?" he shook his head. "Earth's my destination. And I didn't figure on working my way. Small difference between Mar's red-hot deserts and this fever-ridden pest hole. What I've been dreaming of these three years is the cool sweet fields of Earth."

"A passenger!" Slane's red eyes became mere slits. "That smacks of money. Earth's none too healthy for me just now, my little friend. but perhaps for a price. . . ." He picked up his spore-mask from the bar, turned toward the door. "Hardly a matter to discuss in this thieves' nest. Outside on the decks we'll have privacy. Come along."

Jim hesitated, reached for his mask. No harm in hearing the man's proposal. Nodding, he followed the Saturnian through the doorway.

The space port was still deserted, dismal in the steady rain. Some twenty yards from the little tavern Slane paused.

"Well?" Jim's voice was muffled by the thin mask. "What's the proposition?"

"Just . . . this!" Slane's huge fist lashed upward with paralyzing force, caught the earthman flush on the jaw. Jim felt only the merest fraction of a second's pain before he lapsed into dark unconsciousness.

The first thing that Jim Weston saw, on opening his eyes, was a rusty, rivet-studded bulkhead. All at once he realized that he was lying on a rude bunk, that he was held there by some terrible, invisible force. And then an explanation surged through his cloudy brain. He was on a space ship, pinned to his bunk by the force of the vessel's acceleration! Jim lay back weakly, tried to piece together the puzzle.

It was perhaps ten minutes before the ship's speed became constant and the force of acceleration slackened, died away. Jim was just struggling into a sitting position when a door slammed and Slane entered the room.

"Still lolling in bed?"' The giant's voice was harsh. "Bah! You earthmen are all weaklings! Up, and get to work!" He seized Jim's arm, dragged him from the bunk.

Weston stood for a moment, unsteadily, shook his head in an attempt to clear it. Suddenly he noticed a heavy lead container strapped to Slane's belt, a container marked with the initials J. W.

"My radium!" he muttered. "You . . . you've stolen. . . ."

"Ugly word, stolen." The Saturnian laughed mockingly. "The radium's my fee for taking you to Mars. Of course, you'll have to work, with us shorthanded. A months chipping rust'll make a man of you."

Weston stared contemptuously at the captain of the Astric.

"Yes," he said coldly. "Just what I'd expect of you. A stupid Saturnian bully, with the brains of a. . . ."

Slane's hand, open-palmed. smashed across Jim's lips, sent him spinning across the room.

"Maybe that'll show you who's boss on this ship!" he bellowed. "Go forward, you lily-livered terrestrial scum, and report to the mate! Lively, now, or I'll break you like a matchstick!"

He grinned, hooking his thumbs over his belt, and shot a stream of blue teel in the direction of the sandbox. Legs planted wide, chin thrust forward belligerently, he glared at the earthman.

"I'm strong, see." he grated. "Stronger than you or any of these rats aboard! Just remember that!"

Jim Weston looked the big man over, broke into a sudden harsh laugh. "Sure," he murmured. "Sure. The stronger. . . ." Still laughing, he turned, made his way forward.

The weeks that followed were a cruel delirium to the members of the Astric's crew. Rotting food, filthy quarters, long hours of toil . . . and Slane. More than anything else the presence of the captain tortured them. Here a half-starved wretch, pausing for a moment after hours of chipping in cramped positions, would hear sudden oaths, feel the Saturnian's thorium-soled boot crash against his skinny chest. Here an emaciated oiler, complaining to his mates of the stinking food, the lousy, dirt-encrusted bedding, would find himself lifted by Herculean arms, shaken until his teeth rattled. And as, whimpering, they begged for mercy, Slane would taunt them, call them cowards, weaklings. Only once had there been a show of resistance to his brutality; a broad-shouldered Jovian engineer, goaded into sudden fury, had turned on him, brandishing a heavy slice-bar. Ten minutes later the Jovian's mangled body, back broken, arms dislocated, had been tossed from the airlock. And Slane, deliberately bending the slice-bar into a hoop, walked scornfully from the fo' castle. Even in sleep the men feared him, muttering brokenly in nightmares, tossing restlessly about, hall-awake, in dread of his voice calling them to new. sadistically conceived labors. Like some huge demon, the captain roamed the ship, distributing his oaths, his savage blows with grim satisfaction.

PERHAPS it was because he knew Jim Weston to be superior to him mentally that Slane singled the earthman out for special attention. The dirtiest jobs. the most killing toil fell to Jim's lot; and when Slane discovered that he could not catch Weston resting or grumbling, his hatred of the earthman mounted. Determined to break Jim at all costs, he devised new and impossible tasks. Cleaning the carbon from the forward rocket tubes, the firing chambprs; shifting portions of the cargo back and forth at the captain's fancy; long hours in the near-zero cold of the void, clad only in a light spacesuit, patching the plates of the Astric's hull. A terrible ordeal, yet somehow Jim stood it.

Just how he kept going, he was never quite sure. His hands were raw with blisters, his body bruised by Slanes well-directed kicks, his every muscle ached in weary protest. There were times when he felt that he must lie down, rest, if it meant his death. Yet always there was something that urged him on, some hidden source of energy that was more of the mind than of the body. Through sheer force of will he kept on.

After what seemed an eternity of grey days and nights, Mars appeared below them, huge, red, ominous, its vast stretches of desert laced by a network of canals. Coasting in on a long slant, the Astric sped toward Psidis . . . called by earthmen Acherusia Palus . . . at the junction of the Bactrus and Acheron canals. Jim was polishing the chromium of the control panel as the ship raced toward the red planet. Slane, at the T-bar, was grinning.

"So," he rumbled, "your cruise is almost over. You'll admit, no doubt, that the comforts of our little luxury liner have made up for the high cost of the passage. And if such a ragged scarecrow as you should go to the Martian authorities with tales of robbery and kidnapping, they'd arrest you for drunkenness. Besides, they'll have the word of honest Captain Slane that you're space-crazy."

Jim laughed. That laughter, however, seemed to infuriate the Saturnian more than words.

"By all space!" Slane roared. "None of your impudence!" Lashing out with his huge fist, he caught Jim a glancing blow on the jaw.

Stunned, Weston staggered backwards, crashed into the control panel. Under his weight it buckled, gave way in a tangle of wires, of shattered glass. Blue sparks shot between short-circuited lead-ins; under the fierce heat delicate wires melted, ran.

Like a living thing the ship bucked, lurching crazily from side to side, climbing momentarily, then falling, sickeningly. Slane, his eyes bright with fear, twisted the T-bar desperately. Receiving no response, he ran to the companionway, shouted along it.

"Emergency stations! Open forward rockets, full! Quick, blast you! Lower rockets! Full power!"

Jim Weston, disentangling himself from the wreckage of the controls, peered out of the big Glassite observation port. Psidis, the canals, were lost in the distance. The Astric, whirling about madly, was dropping like a plummet onto the red, sandy desert. Jim watched the ground leap up to meet them. One second, two seconds, three seconds. . . .

Suddenly the ship steadied herself as the lower rockets burst into flame. For a moment it seemed that there might yet be a chance. The speed of the descent, however, was too great. With a splintering crash, the ship hurtled into the hard-packed sand.

A lump on his head the size of an egg, Jim Weston clambered to his feet. A miracle, it seemed, that he still lived; the ship was a tangled, twisted mass of wreckage, a confusion of bent beams, shattered plates, and sputtering wires. The pilot room, located on top of the ship and well forward, was the least damaged. Jim touched his head gingerly, glanced about. A smothered curse from the other end of the room reached his ears. Slane! Buried beneath a heap of wreckage!

Picking his way across the control room, Jim tore at the scraps of metal. A moment later Slane was staring up at him, helplessly.

"Trapped!" he muttered. "Can't move!"

Jim knelt beside the fallen giant. The massive T-bar assembly was wedged across Slane's chest, pinning him to the floor. Weston grinned, harshly.

"If I was one of your kind," he said, "I'd go on about my business, leave you here. Might even kick you around a bit before leaving."

"No!" Slane's voice was a hoarse whisper. "No, lad! You... you can't!"

"No, I can't," Jim said slowly. "I'm not your type! I'll get a lever...."

TURNING abruptly, he descended the companionway to the deck below. The lower part of the ship was smashed to flinders. Jim crawled over and through a crumpled heap of metal toward the engine room. Approaching it, he became suddenly nauseated. The room was a shambles, a slaughterhouse. The other members of the crew, caught below at the moment of the crash, had been reduced to charred, unrecognizeable bits of flesh by a bursting firing chamber. Snatching up a long durium bar, one of the compression plungers, he started back to the control room. In passing the remains of the storage compartments, Jim suddenly noticed that the floor was wet. Frowning, he dropped the plunger, followed the stream of water through a maze of broken crockery, sacks of space-biscuits, tins of meat. All at once he saw its source and his heart sank. The big water tank, tilted at a precarious angle, was spouting water from a crack in its lower side. Rummaging hastily among the debris, Jim came up with two quart-sized metal containers, filled them. By the time he had found a third bottle, however, the tank, low after the long weeks in space, was empty. With a shake of his head Jim picked up the two containers, the metal bar, and made his way back to the control room.

Slane stirred at the sound of the earthman's approach.

"So," he muttered, "you've come back. . . ."

"Yes." There was irony in Weston's voice; he slipped the rod under the T- bar assembly and, using a bit of the control panel for a fulcrum, raised the weight.

"Ah!" Slane wriggled free, stood up, once more his domineering boastful self. "Takes more than a wreck to kill a Saturnian! What of the others?"

"Dead."

"Good riddance." Slane chuckled hoarsely. "Weaklings, they were. But where are we?"

Jim motioned toward the observation port. Before them stretched an infinity of flat red desert, baking beneath a hot yellow sky. No hill, no tree, no sign of life broke the straight horizon. Rust-colored sand, hard-packed clay... and nothing more.

"Not pretty, is it?" Slane mopped his egg-like head. "Got any water? It's hotter'n mercury."

Jim handed him one of the metal bottles.

"Be careful," he warned. "The tank's empty. Only a quart apiece."

Slane drank deep. "Looks like we walk," he grunted. "No chance of repairing the radio, call-for help. I'll go below, rustle up some food to take with us." He turned to the companionway.

When he came back, Weston was making a rough attempt to shoot the sun. Noting down the results of his observation, he turned to Slane. The big Saturnian, in addition to two packages, of concentrated food, had the heavy radium container strapped to his belt. Jim grinned, sardonically.

"You'll sweat," he observed. "Come on."

CHAPTER II

THE sun beat down like a hammer of brass, pounding the two men, the endless stretches of wasteland. On all sides there was nothing but the faint black line of the horizon. an occasional cloud of flying sand swept up from the plain by sudden fierce gusts of hot wind. Barren, desolate, interminable... a sight that tore relentlessly at men's nerves.

Jim Weston, his face and arms burned to the color of raw liver, his eyes half blinded by the glare, the windblown sand, plodded automatically forward. Walking, always walking! Two days, yet they seemed two centuries! That terrible ache in his legs, that buzz-in his head as though his brains were aboil. And the sun, the damned, merciless sun! He glanced at Slane. The giant, accustomed to the cold ice-floes of Saturn, was reeling slightly as he walked. There was a nervous twitching about his jaw and a wild glint in his little red eyes.

"How much further?" he gasped, licking his swollen, cracked lips.

"Another day. Maybe two." Jim laughed, a hoarse cackle. "What's the matter, strong man? Turning soft? You're all alike, you Saturnians. Spoiled by your great strength, by always taking what you want by force. But when it comes to endurance, to a fight against something that's stronger than you are, you're not even close to us Earthmen. We're accustomed to struggling against hopeless odds; we've learned to use our brains. Endurance comes from the mind. Willpower, courage, guts . . . the something that keeps you from lying down and quitting when the going gets tough. And bullies like you are yellow, whine when you begin to feel pain!"

SLANE'S head snapped up at these biting words, as Jim had hoped it would, and he increased his stride. But at the end of half an hour he commenced to reel drunkenly once more, sucking in the thin, hot air with choking sobs. All at once he slumped to one knee. gasping.

"Water! Can't go on without water!" Jim paused, eyed the shaking hulk scornfully.

"Serves you right. I warned you yesterday about swilling the entire bottle. I've nearly a pint of mine left."

"A . . . a pint!" Sudden desperation shone in Slane's eyes. Lunging forward, he bore Weston to the ground, tore the water bottle from his pocket.

"Ah!" His sun-scorched fingers fumbled clumsily with the cap. "You see who's boss now! You'll die and rot here in the desert, earthling. And I . . . I'll . . ."

"I've been waiting for this." Weston leaned forward, his sunken eyes gleaming intently. "Think a minute before you drink, Slane. Do you know where you are? Do you know which way the Bactrus lies? Aboard the Astric you called yourself captain, but I noticed the mate did all the navigation. All right, Captain Slane! Take the water, go ahead! In an hour you'll be walking in circles, lost! And in a day maybe two, you'll be face down on the sand, begging your Saturnian gods to strike you dead! You say you're the boss! Well, boss, find your way out of this!"

Slane hesitated, his eyes on the blazing red expanse of desert. In two days he had seen no change, nothing to vary the awful monotony of the plain. No difference between the place where they stood now and the places they had been an hour before. It was as though they were on a treadmill, walking, walking, getting nowhere. And the sun prodding them with its hot copper beams, and the terrible loneliness. and the mirages that drew you from your path, disappeared as you ran toward them.... Water splashed softly in the canteen as Slane's hand shook.

"You . . . you're sure you know the way?" he muttered. "My first job was working on the Martian canals." Jim wiped his gummed, rheumy eyes. "We had a. chance . . . a slim chance of reaching the Bactrus. Now . . ."

Slane's fingers tightened about the canteen until they threatened to crush it. So Weston knew the way out of this fiery hell! He'd noticed the earthman studying the stars, measuring the shadow of a little stick, consulting his watch. He, Slane, knew nothing of such matters. In space robot pilots charted your course, noted your position. But here . . . All at once the Saturnian dropped the water bottle at Jim's feet, turned away.

"Come on!" he croaked.

Jim picked up the bottle, unscrewed its cap, filled the tiny cup with water.

"Here," he said brusquely. "Meant to split it with you anyhow. It's going to be a tough pull."

It was. Daylight faded into deep, blu-eblack night and the red desert became a shadowy purple. The fiery sun gave way to the twin moons, two gleaming scimitars, slashing the star-studded curtain of darkness. Refreshed by the sudden coolness, the spacemen plodded forward, weary robots, dimly conscious of their own existence. Not until midnight did they pause for a swallow of water, then pushed on, afraid to rest lest they lack the strength to get up, to continue.

With dawn came the last mouthful of water. By noon Slane was delirious. He complained of faces, horrible, savage faces, swelling until they filled the entire desert, then dwindling away to grey nothingness. Babbling brokenly, he clutched Jim's arm, frightened as a child with a fever. Head bent, eyes on the eternal sand, Weston staggered on. Hours passed. Now Slane was mumbling of green trees, flowers. Jim hung tightly to the giant's arm, did not look up. The Saturnian was going fast. In another hour they'd both be . . .

Suddenly Slane began to shout, to call for help. Breaking free of Weston's grip, lie capered about awkwardly, waved his arms. Jim glanced up, caught his breath.

RACING toward them across the sun-swept wasteland was a cluster of dark dots, sharply outlined against the rose-colored sand. Closer and closer the moving figures came. sweeping across the plain with incredible speed. Wiry, dark-skinned little men. they were, clad in flapping white dust-robes. Mounted on shaggy-coated thaens, those ungainly, stumpy-legged beasts of burden which are found only on the Psidian deserts, the nomads made fantastic nightmare figures. Jim Weston, watching them, suddenly recalled tales he had heard at the Terrestrial Club at Mercis . . . tales of the desert men's savagery, of their fierceness in combat. Haunting the ruins of ancient cities, they preyed upon travellers. fighting fearlessly with antiquated heat guns purchased from canalboat traders. Even the Martian Alien Legion, composed of the toughest fighting men of every planet, re-spotted the wild little nomads for their reckless bravery. Jim remembered snatches of half-forgotten conversations . . . how the desert men, the Vens, had once captured mighty Mercis, sacked it . . . how their cruelty had made them hated by all other Martians . . . their curious customs, their strange language, their inhuman lack of emotion. And now . . .

"You fool!" He turned to Slane angrily. "D'you know who you've called to for help? The Vens, the aborigines of Mars! Torture's their main sport!"

The Saturnian stared at him stupidly, then turned his dull eyes to the desert men once more. They were near now: Jim could see the dust thrown up by the Thatens' hoofs, the sunlight winking on the Vens' polished heat guns. The desert men called to one another exultantly, waved their webbed, lizard-like hands. These membraneous fingers and their green bulbous eyes were all that remained to show that the Vens had once been amphibious, part of the mighty race that had ruled Mars before the drying up of the great seas and marshes. Jim gazed at them helplessly. No use in trying to fight. . . .

With fierce shouts the Vens drew rein, forming a semi-circle about the two spacemen. Jim felt nauseated by the overpowering stench of the unclean thaens. For a long moment the desert men studied them, fingering the heavy guns that hung from their embossed molat-skin belts.

"What... what do you suppose they want?" Slane muttered. "Maybe they got water . . ."

One of the Vens, his unblinking eyes cold, snapped a question in an unintelligible dialect. Jim's answer, mumbled in halting Martian, brought no response. Suddenly at a command from their leader, two of the desert men leaped to the ground, extended gourd-like bottles.

"Water!" Slane tilted the gourd to his lips, drank avidly. "They're friendly! Gods of Saturnl I feel alive again! Ask 'em if . . ."

He got no further. A dozen of the little Vens, springing from their mounts, bore him to the ground. For a brief moment Slane struggled, bowling the nomads over with sweeping blows of his fists. Exhaustion, however, and lack of water, had taken their toll; the big Saturnian disappeared under a squirming, savage mass of flesh. Weston, leaping forward to his aid, felt scaly, webbed hands grip his arms, his throat, drag him to the ground. An instant later the spacemen were securely bound, lashed hand and foot with stout rawhide thongs. Grinning exultantly, the nomads threw their captives over the backs of two of the thaens, sprang into their saddles. A word from their leader and the Vens were riding swiftly toward the west.

Neither Jim nor Slane remembered much of that wild ride across the desert. Dust from the thaens' hoofs blinded them, and the jogging motion made their tired muscles ache. Interminable hours went by. The sun was just sinking, a bubble of blood on the dark horizon, when the troop of desert men came to a halt, dismounted.

The camp of the Vens filled Jim with a species of awe. The vast and hoary antiquity of the place, the solemn grandeur of the fallen columns, the crumbling walls, were at once impressive and terrifying. Even before the glory of the Canal-Builders, this place had flourished, a great desert shrine to some forgotten god. Among the ruins of the outbuildings, the Vens had pitched their black, dome-shaped tents, surrounding the central structure, a huge, six-sided pyramid. Its massive blocks of stone, in spite of their great age, were firm. geometrically precise, though worn and pitted by the swirling, windblown sand. About the base of the pyramid marched half-obliterated bas-reliefs, grey granite ghosts, peering from the stone with blind, evil eyes. Wild, distorted faces, misshapen bodies, half beast, half human, worn by the sand to only faint outlines. At each of the six corners of the building crouched a hideous winged slug, those legendary monsters which, according to the ancients, once haunted the lowlands of Psidis.

BESIDE these majestic, forbidding ruins the encampment was incongruous. Ragged black tents, flickering camp fires, slinking molars, the tail-less, six-legged Martian hounds... a scene of squalor, of primitive savagery. Jim, lying on the ground next to Slane, watched little frog-like women and children emerge from the tents, gather about the warriors, laughing, chattering, admiring their bravery. The Saturnian's huge bulk seemed above all to impress them; they felt his muscles, examined his teeth, as though he were some strange animal. The triumphant warriors, swaggering, poured down cups of tong, bent over tiny braziers, inhaling the smoke of burnt fale.

All at once a barbaric beat of drums issued from the great temple. At sound of it a sudden hush fell over the crowd of Vens, the women and children covering their heads, the men kneeling. From the ruined entrance of the pyramid a baroque figure emerged, blinking his goggle eyes in the fading sunlight. Tiny and withered, he was, and dressed in brilliant feathered robes. A tall headdress, bright with jewels, precious metals, covered his hairless head; human teeth, hung in strings, adorned his neck, his wrists. A high priest, Jim decided, or perhaps a chief. Slane swore, straining at his bonds.

The priest glanced at the two captives, grinning, and spoke in a high, quavering voice. Instantly the two spacemen were seized by a score of small, eager hands, dragged into the pyramid.

Inside, the great temple was dark, except where fallen roof stones admitted shafts of light. To Jim it was all a weird, disjointed dream. The green-eyed, scaly-skinned little Vens, the bizarre, evil figure of the high priest, the huge shadowy temple with its bloated, obscene statues, its hideous bas-reliefs. Beside him, Slane swore continually, more to keep his courage up than for any other reason.

After perhaps ten minutes wandering through long, dank corridors, they found themselves in a vast hall, a place of sacrifice in bygone years to judge from the big altar, the grinning idols. Before the altar were two cages, tall and narrow; the sight of their tough thaen-hide bars filled Weston with despair. The heavy strips of leather would bend, certainly. but even Slane's mighty strength could not break them. Disconsolately he stumbled forward, was shoved bodily into the little cage. When Slane had been forced into the other pen, the Vens lashed the doors into place.

Muttering incoherently, the wrinkled priest approached the cages. brandishing a long. curiously-carved, ceremonial spear. With a quick movement he cut his prisoners' bonds, thrust food, gourds of water between the bars.

"Good enough," Slane chuckled. "Kinds like being in the Solar System Zoo back on Earth, but as long as we eat and drink, I don't care. Good food, this." Wolfing down the slabs of meat, the water, he stretched lazily. "It's gonna be tough sleeping when you can't even sit down. but I'm tired enough to sleep standing on my head."

Leaning against the wall of the narrow cage, Slane closed his eyes. As he did so, the grinning little priest lunged forward, jabbed his leg with the spear. Weston watched his companion straighten up with a bellow of pain, and his face went white.

"Good God!" he whispered. "They . . . they're not going to let us sleep!"

CHAPTER III

JIM WESTON sagged against the wall of the cage, his face gleaming with sweat. He was fighting a fierce inner battle against a weary body that cried for sleep. His eyelids, it seemed, weighed a thousand tons; only by the most cruel efforts was he able to keep them from drooping. Squatting by the flickering altar fire, the withered priest eyed him expectantly, his hand on the ever-ready spear. Through a gaping hole in the roof of the temple Jim could see the big green star that was his home. Earth, with its green fields; its great cities! Here in the deserts of Mars it seemed only a dim dream . . . a dream . . . He caught himself just in time to keep from nodding off.

The priest, however, had not noticed. A howl of pain from the other cage told that Slane had dozed off again. Jim turned to look at the Saturnian. Slane was shaking the bars in madness, offering the container of radium for a minute's sleep. Vaguely amused, the toed-like Ven wiped the blood from the point of his spear. Jim glanced at Slane's legs; they were gory, clotted masses of flesh, marked by a hundred spear-thrusts. The giant's face was waxy in the firelight and his red eyes held an insane glitter.

"Slane! " Jim called. "You've got to stay awake! Got to! I'm trying to work out a plan. . . ."

"Plan?" Slane laughed hoarsely. "What can we hope to do? Why doesn't he kill me . . . kill me before I go crazy! Gods! I could break a dozen of these little devils with my bare hands! But this. . . ."

"Show some guts. The strength you were always boasting about on the Astric. Try to act like an earthman instead of a Saturnian bully. I'm going to pretend to be asleep. If I can hold still while he jabs my legs, make him go higher, I'll be able to grab the spear. The carved handle of it is pointed. Maybe. . . ."

"You can't." Slane's voice was a whimper. "You can't stay still while he twists that spear in your legs! The pain. . . ."

Weston shut his eyes, lay back against the wall of the cage. Chuckling to himself the guard thrust at his legs. A trickle of blood ran down his calf, but Jim did not move. Again the spear flashed through the bars, and again. The muscles of Jim's neck stood out like whipcords. The little Ven nodded. Real sport, he decided, was about to commence. The red blade of the weapon rose higher, cutting Jim's thighs, his waist. And still the earthman did not budge, although his face was like putty.

Now the spearpoint was digging at the tender flesh of his stomach. Weston's arm tensed, its muscles tightened. Suddenly, with the swiftness of a striking molat, his hand gripped the spear, drew it back for a crashing blow. The pointed butt of the weapon, with all of Weston's wiry strength behind it. entered the priest's bulbous green eye. pierced his brain.

"Gods of Saturn!" Slane muttered. "You . . . you've done it! Now if we can get out of these cages. . . ."

Jim, his face grey with pain, drew the spear back, hacked the rawhide lashings of the cage door. A moment later he and Slane were running along the shadowy corridors of the temple, groping their way toward the entrance.

"Quick! The thaens!" Jim gasped. "The little devils'll be awake in a minute!"

Already questioning shouts, cries of alarm, were echoing through the encampment. Against the pale sand Jim could see the squat silhouettes of the thaens, tethered near the temple. The two men ran toward them, unfastened the tether ropes.

"Hold these!" Weston extended two bridles to Slane. "I'll stampede the rest!"

FREED, the frightened thaens galloped off into the desert; the spacemen mounted the two remaining beasts, smacked them sharply on the Hanks. Dim figures ran toward them and heat guns lashed the air with red beams of light.

The red desert, the crumbling ruins behind them were lurid in glare of the heat guns. A patch of sand beside Slane's mount fused, ran. Jim, marvelling at the shaggy beasts' speed, glanced at the stars.

"Slane!" he called. "Keep going! Fast! We're almost out of dan . . ." His words trailed off into nothingness.

Slane glanced over his shoulder. Weston lay sprawled on the ground, very still. The thaen, its leg seared away by a heat gun's blast, rolled about, kicking up the sand in agony. Slane shook his head. No sense going back into that inferno of heat rays for a man who was probably dead. Besides, he had the chest of radium, and with Weston out of the way, there'd be no question of ownership. The Saturnian grinned. In a day or two he'd reach Psidis and with a pocket full of radium. Psidis with its tiny, rose-skinned girls, its bottles of tong, of thole, and he, Slane. . . .

The big man turned once more, glanced back. Weston lay still, surrounded by a blazing red fury of heat blasts. Slane frowned. Somehow he seemed to be back in the narrow rawhide cage, listening to Jim's quiet voice. "Show some guts. Try to act like an Earthman instead of a Saturnian bully." So the terrestrial thought he was better, stronger, than a man of Saturn! That he had more courage! Slane wheeled the thaen about savagely.

Bending low, he spurred the frightened beast back into the hell of lambent flame. Pencils of crimson light grazed his arms, his legs, searing them. It required all of his vast strength to force the wild-eyed thaen forward now. All at once he was beside the limp, sprawling figure on the sand.

"Slane!" Jim glanced up at him, smiling. "I . . . I knew you'd come!"

"Okay!" The Saturnian muttered gruffly. Leaping from the thaen's back, he bent to pick up Weston. At that moment the thaen, mad with fear from the stabbing rays, reared up on its hind legs, raced off across the desert.

Slane, the wounded man in his arms. gazed after the fleeing animal, his face beaded with sweat. Behind them the heat guns had ceased abruptly. The Vens, seeing an opportunity of capturing the two spacemen alive, ran forward across the desert, shouting exultantly.

"Leave me!" Jim sought to free himself from the giant's grip. "Run! Save yourself!"

Slane shook his head stubbornly, staggered on. With each moment his pursuers drew nearer. Glancing over his shoulder, the Saturnian could see their green icy eyes, gleaming luminously in the darkness, hear their hoarse, eager voices. Now the desert men were scarcely a hundred feet away, their webbed feet padding softly on the sand. Weston. slung over the big man's shoulder, sighed hopelessly. There was no escape . . . in another minute, at the most, two . . .

And then it happened. Like a flaming meteorite a sleek rocket plane swooped down, its proton guns hissing. Caught by the deadly blast, a score of the Vens crumpled lifeless to the ground; the others, panic-stricken, took to their heels in wild, insane terror. The plane landed lightly, its durium runners gliding softly over the sand.

"The Desert Patrol!" Jim watched four men in the familiar green uniform of the Martian Alien Legion climb from the plane. "Thanks, Slane! You . . . you saved me . . ."

The giant's deep laugh boomed triumphantly across the desert.

"Better than a Saturnian, eh?" he exclaimed. "Less guts than an Earthman? Huh! Like hell!"

Still laughing, he dropped the chest of radium into Weston's pocket and staggered toward the rocket plane.