The Golden Amazons of Venus Part 11

"We are about to enter the hidden realm of Luralla, the home of the Dragon's Teeth!" he said. "If you can prove your right to be here you will be welcome. Otherwise you will go back into one of these waterlocks--without any helmets on."

He grinned cheerfully.

The water dropped below the level of the door sills. The pumps sucked noisily on the last few foaming inches for a moment, and then they ceased. The inner door was opened by a sentry whose tight fitting green uniform with its black dragon was made of dry cloth instead of dripping rubber. He wore a plumed metal helmet, and carried a heavy sword instead of one of the thin water blades.

"Come in, Slag," he said, "who are these strangers?"

They were in a sort of guardroom, a square chamber where gla.s.s water helmets stood in long rows on metal shelves and many weapons hung in racks on the walls. The control levers of the pumps were just to the left of the door. There were half a dozen uniformed men standing about the room, one of them bearing the silver insignia of an officer on his chest. When Slag had given a hasty account of the coming of Gerry and the others, the officer nodded toward an inner door.

"Prince Sarnak has just returned. You will find him in the great hall.

Take these strangers there."

The sound of music and laughter, and the confused babel of many voices, came to Gerry's ears as soon as the far door was opened. They entered a vast hall. It was low ceiled, as were all the water-locked chambers of this strange place, but it was broad and s.p.a.cious. Heavy stone columns carved like giant sea-horses supported the roof. Patterns of sea-weed and star fish and other denizens of the deep were inter-mingled with rearing dragons in the painted designs along the walls. The room was filled with wide tables flanked by long benches.

The men and women who sat at the tables, or stood gossiping in noisy groups in corners of the hall, were nearly all of the Green People of Giri, but there were a few escaped Golden Amazons who came flocking eagerly around Closana. In outward appearance these green skinned men and women were similar to the folk who lived in the city overhead with their scaly masters, but there was a subtle difference. These people had none of the cowed and subjugated air of the citizens who lived above ground. There was a different look in their eyes, a more confident note in their voices, a firmer set to their shoulders. These folk had the air of free men and warriors, not slaves.

A stocky and merry eyed man caught sight of them and came striding across the hall. It was Sarnak, the man who had been tethered next to them in the field of the dakta hunt.

"Welcome to the halls of Luralla!" he boomed, "we are glad to have you come to the hidden realm of the Dragon's Teeth. _Hiziren_ and comrades, these are the outlanders from afar who freed me this afternoon so that I and a dozen more of our people escaped death at the hands of the Scaly Ones!"

"Thrice hail!" roared the crowd, while a hundred blades flashed in the golden light. Angus McTavish wrung the water out of his dripping beard.

"These look like men of spirit," he rumbled cheerfully, "I think I'm going to enjoy myself again."

A little later, wearing dry clothes, the three of them sat down with Sarnak and his officers at a table in the corner of the hall. Young girls brought them dishes of fried sea-urchins, and broiled steaks of the grappa fish, and other savory dishes.

"We who call ourselves the Dragon's Teeth are outlaws descended from outlaws," Sarnak explained. "Our ancestors were men and women who never acknowledged the rule of the Scaly Ones when they overran this once pleasant land of Giri. I was born in this hidden place, as was my father before me and his father before him. We live here in the water-locked Halls of Luralla, and hara.s.s the tyrants in what ways we can, and try to keep alive the traditions and glory of the old days when the Dragon Kings ruled in this city and the Scaly Ones were still lurking in their Vaaka marshes to the westward."

"Does Lansa know of this place?"

"He knows that the Dragon's Teeth exist, as all rulers of the Scaly Ones have known it, but the location of our hiding place has never been betrayed."

"Then," roared Angus, pounding his big fist on the table till the dishes rattled, "why don't you revolt? I'll go with you myself to strike a blow against those reptile skinned devils up above!"

"Count me in, too!" Gerry said quietly.

Angus' voice had boomed out through the big hall. It was answered by a lilting shout as men sprang to their feet. Hundreds of sword blades flashed clear of their scabbards. Only Sarnak himself remained seated, slowly shaking his head. There was a twisted smile on his broad and heavily lined face. His eyes held bitterness.

"It would only be pointless suicide, _hiziren_!" he said grimly. "We number only about a thousand all together, we hunted men of the Dragon's Teeth, against the countless thousands of Lansa's scaly hordes. It would be different if our countrymen up above could be inspired to a ma.s.s uprising, but the time is not yet. Too long have they lived under the rule of the tyrants. They are cowed. They have lost their spirit, and some of the younger ones have even become fawning satellites of the conquerors! If there comes a day when the forces of the Scaly Ones are engaged in some major war along the frontier, as in this suggested a.s.sault upon the barrier forts of Savissa that Lansa is said to be planning, then we may be able to do something. For the present we must continue to lie hidden and bide our time."

Gerry Norton was uncertain about his own course. Now that the _Viking_ and her crew had been lost, with all hope of a return to Earth cut off, he felt hopelessly adrift. Sarnak urged his visitors to stay in Luralla.

The place was a remarkable engineering feat, completely under water and with its air constantly re-conditioned and preserved, but Gerry felt restless and cramped there. Though the outlaws carried on a constant guerilla warfare with the Scaly Ones, it was all on a small scale. Gerry felt that he would rather return to Savissa, where at least the people were free and the Amazon warriors kept ceaseless watch on their frontiers. Closana, of course, was very anxious to return home.

"Suits me, too," Angus rumbled, "in that country they at least show a proper respect for a man of my attainments."

"Meaning your whiskers?" Gerry asked.

"Look out, Angus," Closana warned with a smile, idly running her slender fingers along the keen edge of her dagger. "Some Savissan princess will choose you for her husband as I have chosen Geree here."

"I told you we wouldn't talk about that for the present...." Gerry began. Closana's hand moved swiftly as a striking dakta. The keen blade bit through the cloth of Gerry's sleeve and pinned it to the table top.

"You'll never get away from me, Geree," the girl said quietly. Angus McTavish burst out in a great roar of laughter.

"Might as well admit you're licked now, lad! These Venusian women seem to be verra strong minded la.s.sies!"

They started two days later. There was, of course, neither night nor day in the sub-aqueous halls of Luralla but the outlaws ran their lives on a normal schedule. Sarnak supplied Gerry and the others with rubber uniforms and complete equipment including the thin bladed water-swords in the long feathery scabbards.

"I will have you guided out to one of our exits that is a quarter mile off sh.o.r.e from the place where the dakta hunt was held," Sarnak offered.

"I thought that water was a lake," Gerry said. Sarnak shook his head.

"No. It is an estuary, an arm of the Great Sea. The chemical tanks on your water helmets will keep the air pure for several days travel, and the sentries at the last outpost will give you trained saddle-dolphins so that you will make better time toward the coastal regions of Savissa."

Sarnak went with them to the guardroom at the edge of the water filled pa.s.sages, and personally checked over their equipment.

"These are our new type of helmet with the audiphones that let the wearers talk to each other under water," he said, touching the tiny microphones set into the curved gla.s.s. "Well--you had better start. May the Dragon G.o.ds be with you!"

They strapped on their helmets and adjusted the valves. A uniformed guide stepped into the water-lock with them. Sarnak shook hands, saluted, and then stepped back through the door which closed behind him.

The guide lifted his hand in a signal, and a second later a torrent of water rushed out of the gratings to foam about their feet. They were ready to leave Luralla!

Again they went through the maze of water-filled pa.s.sages, pa.s.sing occasional sentries. After a while the character of the corridor changed. It was wider, and was arched instead of square, and there was a carpet of soft natural sand beneath their feet instead of a stone floor.

"We come to the last outpost of Luralla, _hiziren_!" the guide said.

They stepped out of the end of the pa.s.sage and found themselves in the open sea, many fathoms down. A broad and slightly sloping floor of smooth sand studded with lumps of coral and cl.u.s.ters of sea-weed stretched before them. Some were giant ferns stretching twelve and fifteen feet high, others were low and sponge-like growths. A school of tiny red fishes shot swiftly past them. Larger fish sailed majestically by overhead. The top of the water was a gleaming golden ceiling far above them, the greenish yellow light lessening in intensity as it came down to the depths.

The end of the pa.s.sage was surrounded by a barrier of piled coral.

Outlaw swordsmen stood on guard, also armed with a sort of compressed air cross-bow that shot a heavy metal needle with great force. From a corral at one side an orderly brought three saddle-dolphins.

The big fish were equipped with rubber saddles strapped around the body, and short stirrups. They were guided by a bridle similar to that used on Earthly horses. As Gerry swung up to the saddle his dolphin bucked once or twice with quick flips of his tail, then steadied down as he felt the tight pressure of his master's knees. When the other two were mounted, the officer commanding the outpost lifted his arm in salute.

"The Dragon G.o.ds be with you!" he said. At a distance of fifteen or twenty feet the sound of his voice was slightly muted, but the words were perfectly clear in the ear-pieces of Gerry's helmet. He lifted his own rubber gloved hand to his globular helmet and returned the salute.

They rode off at an easy pace, the dolphins rising above the tops of the tallest vegetation. Gerry found that it was easy to sit the saddle as long as he bent a little forward to overcome the resistance of the water against his chest. They were about thirty or forty feet down. On Earth such a depth would have been uncomfortable, but the lighter gravity of Venus made it easily bearable.

Gerry glanced back. Closana was riding a few feet behind him, slender and erect, controlling her restless dolphin as easily as though she had been accustomed to such steeds all her life. Angus was grinning broadly through his globular gla.s.s helmet as he sat astride a particularly big dolphin and swung his light bladed water-sword from side to side.

"If any of our friends back on Earth could see us now in some sort of an astral spectroscope," the big Scot cried, "they'd think themselves crazy. Maybe this is only a nightmare at that! Do you think we'll wake up soon and find ourselves safe back on board the _Viking_?"

"I'm afraid not," Gerry answered. He wondered in what part of this vast sea the twisted hulk of the _Viking_ was now lying.