Owen Baarslag had brought terror to the swamp
people. Joha, the little Venusian maid, was
determined that he should not leave without it.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1949.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Joha, who was part Venusian, twined her translucent fingers through theEarthman's matted hair. She smiled. Strangely, from her light greenface, red eyes shone with a terrible hatred and a malignant purpose.But the man asleep on the couch of lizard-skin softened with layers ofwing-feathers from the Kuh-Kuri Swampbird, was unaware of that evil,almost lustful hate—for it blazed outward from her delicate face onlywhile he slept.
The greenish glow from her body seeming to alienate her from anythinghuman, she squatted cross-legged on the damp tamped-earth floor besidehim. His body was long and gaunt, his face angular with deeply sunkeneyes which were closed in exhausted sleep. Only a slight twitching ofhis facial muscles and an occasional jerking of his body signified thehorror of his growing nightmare.
She withdrew her hand. Her eyes blazed more brightly like evil jewelsinto his, piercing the closed lids with invisible beams of malignantand gloating resolve. Her voice was very soft.
"You do not sleep well, do you, Owen Baarslag? Every terrible thing youhave done to my people here in the swamps—the torture, the slavery,the subjection and the terror—it haunts your dreams. Your blightedconscience crawls, doesn't it, Owen?"
The sleeping man didn't answer. He was deep, deep down in the darkfastnesses of his nightmare, trying to escape, trying to awake.
Outside the synthetic shell of the hut, in the fetid heart of theVenusian swamp Sector 5, a serpent hissed as it raised its pointed headfrom the slime and sank back again. A gigantic flying Gruoon gurgledoverhead as it fell on its prey and flapped upward into the thick mist.Beyond these more abrupt sounds was the unceasing dreeing of millionsof insects and the loud croaking of the bloated albino tree-toads thatsagged heavily from the five-hundred foot crinoids.
Now she looked with even greater intensity into his nightmare-twistedface, probed far behind the lids covering his black Tellurian eyes.The cold light from the captured still-living Shnug-fly which dangledfrom the low raftered ceiling molded a weird shadow on the walls of thetiny hut. Joha's red eyes blazed brighter, brighter still. Her slightlywebbed hands gripped together with a tremendous tension of mentaleffort.
Owen Baarslag screamed. He sat up with a sudden heaving motion ofagonized fear. His eyes were wide and horror-filled as he stared atthe half breed creature beside him. Sweat streamed from his face madepallid by five years in the sunless swamp. His hands trembled over hisbearded jaw.
"Stith!" he choked harshly. "Get me Stith, quickly!" He raised an armto strike her, but she weaved away. She brought him a box of the Stithtablets crystallized from the fermented juices of the Venusian aukweed.He tremblingly swallowed three of them. He got to his feet and stoodthere, shuddering, eyes wild with the memory of the terror-dream.
He stared at her for a long time from fear-glazed eyes while the feargradually died into clouds of suspicion. He suspected her ability toprobe his mind during sleep and implant the seeds of nightmare there,she knew that. But it was only an intangible suspicion. He needed her.She was his only companionship in the vast global rain-forest of Venus.And he wouldn't let the suspicion grow to the stage where he would haveto