The Return of Sathanas | Page 5

This use is an old, and still extant, custom in the caverns that honeycomb this planet we call Earth but which the ancient ancestors of all of us called Mu. Down there in the great old ray mansions' salons are wall brackets where young women are hung, and the stim currents of too great pleasure flows make their bodies rigid with an overwhelming synthetic nerve-electric. The effect is one of great beauty for the girls' young bodies are then like forced flowers pouring out all the beauty and love of a lifetime in an almost visible and very sensual outpouring of energy--like the flower pours out its pollen in a single day. Thus a place can be decorated with human flowers--if one doesn't care how soon such human flowers wilt. When the custom began, it is probable that the wonderful old mech contained strong beneficial flows which made the experience of the human ornament one of benefit. They survived, stronger than before and better. But as the mech grows older, such strong subjections to great energy flows from the old mech are no longer supportable by the human frame.
In the caverns, the custom still survives of decorating the walls for a feast with these living stimmed ornaments, but the custom of surviving the ordeal of pleasure has perished, from what I hear.--Author.
CHAPTER III

Back on Mother Mu
The great sensitive needles of the ionic-trail-indicator [*6] became still and fell back against the pin marked 'O'--no more trail.
In the split second that the needle stopped, I leaped to my feet, stabbing the button opening the ship communicator.
"All hands! Attention! Reverse drivers! View screen open! Gun crews stand by!"
The great dreadnor braked to a tortured halt from full velocity. I could hear Tyron taking over control, alerting the crew for battle--action that might start immediately. Barked orders maneuvered the ship's immense bulk into the exact center of the "zone of weightlessness".
"--we might have to move fast."
"Where are we?" I asked myself, as soon as I had made sure that the enemy wasn't in the neighborhood.
"This constellation looks familiar," I mused. "Can it be... still... it is!"
Opening the communicator, I called, "Arl! Do you recognize that planet in your view screen? It's Mu!" Nostalgia gripped me. A homesickness I didn't think I could still feel smothered me at the sight of the familiar seas and green, white-topped mountains of my abandoned homeland of almost two thousand years ago.
Taking over the controls from the pilot who didn't even suspect that the planet under us was my former home, I tooled the mighty Darkome to a landing on Mu's satellite. For all of her tremendous mass, she slid gently to a stop in the glistening, liquid-air snow sheltered by the black shadow of one of the moon's mountains.
I ordered the tender broken out, then called to the control room.
"I am going to take Lady Arl to the surface of this satellite's planet. While I am scouting down there, keep the crew alerted."
Tyron saluted, looking a bit envious--envy, I guess, at the thought that he wasn't going to see his desired action. "Yes, sir," was all he said.
"Observe standard precautions for operation in enemy territory. Avoid using equipment as much as possible to cut down the chances for detection."
"Yes, sir," he nodded.
"I don't know where the Sathanas' ship or ships have gone, but I doubt if they would be apt to be close by and still be undetected by our mech. But, until you hear from me, take no chances. That's an order!"
Returning his salute, the Lady Arl, who had come to the control room, and I boarded the tender and took off. And not too comfortably, either. A tender is a small spacer for short flights--lifeboats for the crew, and on the Darkome the tenders were big, but two thousand years of Vanue's wizardy of growth had increased our height till we were well over fifty feet.
Both Arl and I felt the old excitement we'd experienced as youths using the small spacers for picnics from Mu to the Moon--felt excitement as I drove the little craft to the surface of the doomed planet for the first visit in a score of centuries.
Our excitement soon turned to sadness. This wasn't the same planet we'd left--no darting ships--no shining towers--no signs of civilized life.
"Oh, Mion," spoke the lovely Arl beside me, "this is all so sad and unreal. I feel like--Mion! Look! What's that over there?"
"It looks like... it is a city, Arl!" Her enthusiasm was contagious. "Shall we go over there?"
"Oh, yes, Mion. Let's see what man has done in all these years."
"All right, Arl, but remember we are not allowed to stay here long."
She nodded, silent.
We of the Nor are not allowed to stay long on a sunlit planet, for one's character soon becomes twisted--not necessarily into