The Return of Sathanas | Page 5

barely
making his escape.
# Footnotes #
^119:4 DERO: (See 'I Remember Lemuria")
^120:5 STIMMED BODY--ORNAMENTS: This use of girls and
women for ornaments is a particularly revealing angle on the opulence
and cruel disregard for the natural rights of man which has marked
ray-secrets since the earliest days. 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