Pirates of Venus

cannot,' he said huskily. 'May my ancestors forgive me! I cannot kill my friend.

'Perhaps,' he added, seeking some extenuating circumstance, 'you should not be held accountable to customs of which you had no knowledge. I often forget that you are of another world than ours. But tell me, now that I have made myself a party to your crime by excusing it, what leads you to believe that you will marry Duare? I can incriminate myself no more by listening to you further.'

'I intend to marry her, because I know that I love her and believe that she already half loves me.'

At this Kamlot appeared shocked and horrified again. 'That is impossible,' he cried. 'She never saw you before; she cannot dream what is in your heart or your mad brain.'

'On the contrary, she has seen me before; and she knows quite well what is in my 'mad brain,'' I assured him. 'I told her in Kooaad; I told her again today.'

'And she listened?'

'She was shocked,' I admitted, 'but she listened; then she upbraided me and ordered me from her presence.'

Kamlot breathed a sigh of relief. 'At least she has not gone mad. I cannot understand on what you base your belief that she may return your love.'

'Her eyes betrayed her; and, what may be more convincing, she did not expose my perfidy and thus send me to my death.'

He pondered that and shook his head. 'It is all madness,' he said; 'I can make nothing of it. You say that you talked with her in Kooaad, but that would have been impossible. But if you had ever even seen her before, why did you show so little interest in her fate when you knew that she was a prisoner aboard the Sovong? Why did you say that you thought that she was my sweetheart?'

'I did not know until a few minutes ago,' I explained, 'that the girl I saw and talked with in the garden at Kooaad was Duare, the daughter of the jong.'

A few days later I was again talking with Kamlot in my cabin when we were interrupted by a whistle at the door; and when I had bade him do so, one of the Vepajan prisoners that we had rescued from the Sovong entered. He was not from Kooaad but from another city of Vepaja , and therefore none of the other Vepajans aboard knew anything concerning him. His name was Vilor, and he appeared to be a decent sort of fellow, though rather inclined to taciturnity. He had manifested considerable interest in the klangans and was with them often, but had explained this idiosyncrasy on the grounds that he was a scholar and wished to study the birdmen, specimens of which he had never before seen.

'I have come,' he explained in response to my inquiry, 'to ask you to appoint me an officer. I should like to join your company and share in the work and responsibilities of the expedition.'

'We are well officered now,' I explained, 'and have all the men we need. Furthermore,' I added frankly, 'I do not know you well enough to be sure of your qualifications. By the time we reach Vejapa, we shall be better acquainted; and if I need you then, I will tell you.'

'Well, I should like to do something,' he insisted. 'May I guard the janjong until we reach Vepaja?'

He referred to Duare, whose title, compounded of the two words daughter and king, is synonymous to princess. I thought that I noticed just a trace of excitement in his voice as he made the request.

'She is well guarded now,' I explained.

'But I should like to do it,' he insisted. 'It would be a service of love and loyalty for my jong. I could stand the night guard; no one likes that detail ordinarily.'

'It will not be necessary,' I said shortly; 'the guard is already sufficient.'

'She is in the after cabins of the second deck house, is she not?' he asked.

I told him that she was.

'And she has a special guard?'

'A man is always before her door at night,' I assured him.

'Only one?' he demanded, as though he thought the guard insufficient.

'In addition to the regular watch, we consider one man enough; she has no enemies aboard the Sofal .' These people were certainly solicitous of the welfare and safety of their royalty, I thought; and, it seemed to me, unnecessarily so. But finally Vilor gave up and departed, after begging me to give his request further thought.

'He seems even more concerned about the welfare of Duare than you,' I remarked to Ramlot after Vilor had gone.

'Yes, I noticed that,' replied my lieutenant.

'There is no one more concerned about her than I,' I said, 'but I cannot see that any further precautions are necessary.'

'Nor I,' agreed Kamlot; 'she is quite well protected now.'

We had dropped Vilor from our minds and were discussing other matters, when we heard the voice of the lookout in the crow's nest shouting, 'Voo notar!' ('A ship!') Running to the tower deck, we got the bearings of the stranger as the lookout announced them the second time, and, sure enough, almost directly abeam on the starboard side we discerned the superstructure of a ship on the horizon.

For some reason which I do not clearly understand, the visibility on Venus is usually exceptionally good. Low fogs and haze are rare, notwithstanding the humidity of the atmosphere. This condition may be due to the mysterious radiation from that strange element in the planet's structure which illuminates her moonless nights; I do not know.

At any rate, we could see a ship, and almost immediately all was excitement aboard the Sofal . Here was another prize, and the men were eager to be at her. As we changed our course and headed for our victim, a cheer rose from the men on deck. Weapons were issued, the bow gun and the two tower guns were elevated to firing positions. The Sofal forged ahead at full speed.

As we approached our quarry, we saw that it was a ship of about the same size as the Sofal and bearing the insignia of Thora. Closer inspection revealed it to be an armed merchantman.

I now ordered all but the gunners into the lower deck house, as I planned on boarding this vessel as I had the Sovong and did not wish her to see our deck filled with armed men before we came alongside. As before, explicit orders were issued; every man knew what was expected of him; all were cautioned against needless killing. If I were to be a pirate, I was going to be as humane a pirate as possible. I would not spill blood needlessly.

I had questioned Kiron, Gamfor, and many another Thoran in my company relative to the customs and practices of Thoran ships of war until I felt reasonably familiar with them. I knew for instance that a warship might search a merchantman. It was upon this that I based my hope of getting our grappling hooks over the side of our victim before he could suspect our true design.

When we were within hailing distance of the ship, I directed Kiron to order her to shut down her engines, as we wished to board and search her; and right then we ran into our first obstacle. It came in the form of a pennant suddenly hoisted at the bow of our intended victim. It meant nothing to me, but it did to Kiron and the other Thorans aboard the Sofal .

'We'll not board her so easily after all,' said Kiron. 'She has an ongyan on board, and that exempts her from search. It probably also indicates that she carries a larger complement of soldiers than a merchantman ordinarily does.'

'Whose friend?' I asked, 'Yours?' for ongyan means great friend, in the sense of eminent or exalted.

Kiron smiled. 'It is a title. There are a hundred klongyan in the oligarchy; one of them is aboard that ship. They are great friends unquestionably, great friends of themselves, they rule Thora more tyranically than any jong and for themselves alone.'

'How will the men feel about attacking a ship bearing so exalted a personages' I inquired.

'They will fight among themselves to be the first aboard and to run a sword through him.'

'They must not kill him,' I replied. 'I have a better plan.'

'They will be hard to control once they are in the thick of a fight,' Kiron assured me; 'I have yet to see the officer who can do it. In the old days, in the days of the jongs, there were order and discipline; but not now.'

'There will be aboard the Sofal ,' I averred. 'Come with me; I am going to speak to