Pirates of Venus

nameless girl of the garden, I asked Honan who Duare was.

'She is the hope of Vepaja,' he replied, 'perhaps the hope of a world.'

Chapter 9—Soldiers Of Liberty

CONSTANT association breeds a certain camaraderie even between enemies. As the days passed, the hatred and contempt which the common sailors appeared to have harbored for us when we first came aboard the ship were replaced by an almost friendly familiarity, as though they had discovered that we were not half bad fellows after all; and, for my part, I found much to like in these simple though ignorant men. That they were the dupes of unscrupulous leaders is about the worst that may be said of them. Most of them were kindly and generous; but their ignorance made them gullible, and their emotions were easily aroused by specious arguments that would have made no impression upon intelligent minds.

Naturally, I became better acquainted with my fellow prisoners than with my guards, and our relations were soon established upon a friendly basis. They were greatly impressed by my blond hair and blue eyes which elicited inquiries as to my genesis. As I answered their questions truthfully, they became deeply interested in my story, and every evening after the day's work was completed I was besieged for tales of the mysterious, far distant world from which I came. Unlike the highly intelligent Vepajans, they believed all that I told them, with the result that I was soon a hero in their eyes; I should have been a god had they had any conception of deities of any description.

In turn, I questioned them; and discovered, with no surprise, that they were not at all contented with their lots. The former free men among them had long since come to the realization that they had exchanged this freedom, and their status of wage earners, for slavery to the state, that could no longer be hidden by a nominal equality.

Among the prisoners were three to whom I was particularly attracted by certain individual characteristics in each. There was Gamfor, for instance, a huge, hulking fellow who had been a farmer in the old days under the jongs. He was unusually intelligent, and although he had taken part in the revolution, he was now bitter in his denunciation of the Thorists, though this he was careful to whisper to me in secrecy.

Another was Kiron, the soldier, a clean-limbed, handsome, athletic fellow who had served in the army of the jong, but mutinied with the others at the time of the revolution. He was being disciplined now for insubordination to an officer who had been a petty government clerk before his promotion.

The third had been a slave. His name was Zog. What he lacked in intelligence he made up in strength and good nature. He had killed an officer who had struck him and was being taken back to Thora for trial and execution. Zog was proud of the fact that he was a free man, though he admitted that the edge was taken off his enthusiasm by the fact that every one else was free and the realization that he had enjoyed more freedom as a slave than he did now as a freeman.

'Then,' he explained, 'I had one master; now I have as many masters as there are government officials, spies, and soldiers, none of whom cares anything about me, while my old master was kind to me and looked after my welfare.'

'Would you like to be really free?' I asked him, for a plan had been slowly forming in my mind.

But to my surprise he said, 'No, I should rather be a slave.'

'But you'd like to choose your own master, wouldn't you?' I demanded.

'Certainly,' he replied, 'if I could find some one who would be kind to me and protect me from the Thorists.'

'And if you could escape from them now, you would like to do so?'

'Of course! But what do you mean? I cannot escape from them.'

'Not without help,' I agreed, 'but if others would join you, would you make the attempt?'

'Why not? They are taking me back to Thora to kill me. I could be no worse off, no matter what I did. But why do you ask all these questions?'

'If we could get enough to join us, there is no reason why we should not be free,' I told him. 'When you are free, you may remain free or choose a master to your liking.' I watched closely for his reaction.

'You mean another revolution?' he asked. 'It would fail. Others have tried, but they have always failed.'

'Not a revolution,' I assured him, 'just a break for liberty.'

'But how could we do it?'

'It would not be difficult for a few men to take this ship,' I suggested. 'The discipline is poor, the night watches consist of too few men; they are so sure of themselves that they would be taken completely by surprise.'

Zog's eyes lighted. 'If we were successful, many of the crew would join us,' he said. 'Few of them are happy; nearly all of them hate their officers. I think the prisoners would join us almost to a man, but you must be careful of spies—they are everywhere. That is the greatest danger you would have to face. There can be no doubt but there is at least one spy among us prisoners.'

'How about Gamfor,' I asked; 'is he all right?'

'You can depend upon Gamfor,' Zog assured me. 'He does not say much, but in his eyes I can read his hatred of them.'

'And Kiron?'

'Just the man!' exclaimed Zog. 'He despises them, and he does not care who knows it; that is the reason he is a prisoner. This is not his first offense, and it is rumored that he will be executed for high treason.'

'But I thought that he only talked back to an officer and refused to obey him,' I said.

'That is high treason—if they wish to get rid of a man,' explained Zog. 'You can depend on Kiron. Do you wish me to speak to him about the matter?'

'No,' I told him. 'I will speak to him and to Gamfor; then if anything goes wrong before we are ready to strike, if a spy gets wind of our plot, you will not be implicated.'

'I do not care about that,' he exclaimed. 'They can kill me for but one thing, and it makes no difference which thing it is they kill me for.'

'Nevertheless, I shall speak to them, and if they will join us, we can then decide together how to approach others.'

Zog and I had been working together scrubbing the deck at the time, and it was not until night that I had an opportunity to speak with Gamfor and Kiron. Both were enthusiastic about the plan, but neither thought that there was much likelihood that it would succeed. However, each assured me of his support; and then we found Zog, and the four of us discussed details throughout half the night. We had withdrawn to a far corner of the room in which we were confined and spoke in low whispers with our heads close together.

The next few days were spent in approaching recruits—a very ticklish business, since they all assured me that it was almost a foregone conclusion that there was a spy among us. Each man had to be sounded out by devious means, and it had been decided that this work should be left to Gamfor and Kiron. I was eliminated because of my lack of knowledge concerning the hopes, ambitions, and the grievances of these people, or their psychology; Zog was eliminated because the work required a much higher standard of intelligence than he possessed.

Gamfor warned Kiron not to divulge our plan to any prisoner who too openly avowed his hatred of the Thorists. 'This is a time-worn trick that all spies adopt to lull the suspicions of those they suspect of harboring treasonable thoughts, and to tempt them into avowing their apostasy. Select men whom you know to have a real grievance, and who are moody and silent,' he counselled.

I was a little concerned about our ability to navigate the ship in the event that we succeeded in capturing her, and I discussed this matter with both Gamfor and Kiron. What I learned from them was illuminating, if not particularly helpful.

The Amtorians have developed a compass similar to ours. According to Kiron, it points always toward the center of Amtor—that is, toward the center of the mythical circular area called Strabol, or Hot Country. This statement assured me that I was in the southern hemisphere of the planet, the needle of the compass, of course, pointing north toward the north magnetic pole. Having no sun, moon, nor stars, their navigation is all done by dead reckoning; but they have developed instruments of extreme delicacy that locate land at great distances, accurately