“I have to take it because Quorne has got to be destroyed. No world is safe as long as he lives. I don’t know where he is—so I fancy that if I go to Saturn he’ll make sure I find him because he’ll try to destroy me. It’s worth that risk to try to destroy him.”
Chris smiled a little and patted the Amazon’s steel-strong arm.
“I learned long ago not to waste time arguing with you, Vi, so it’s up to you,” he said. “All I can do is wish you good luck.”
With that he turned away and left the lounge. The front door opened automatically for him and closed again. The Amazon stood thinking for a while, her eyes bright at the thought of action again. Nothing was more calculated to bring her to virile life than a challenge.
A faint sound behind her made her turn suddenly. She frowned, not observing anything different in the lounge. Then she saw that something had been added to the big polished table in the room’s centre. It caught the incoming sunlight and reflected a myriad entrancing colours. Puzzled, she gazed down in wonder at a superbly wrought casket. But how it had got there was a mystery.
Picking it up, she turned it over and over in her hands, searching for the lock. She found it presently, a diamond stud inset into the basket’s metal. The stud clicked under pressure, the lid flew up—then from the casket’s interior there sprang something utterly incredible.
The Amazon jumped back as an object like a small snake fell to the carpet. She watched it in amazement. It was growing with tremendous rapidity, both in length and breadth. In perhaps a dozen seconds it was six feet long and six inches wide. There did not seem to be any distinct type of head, only a flattish extension of the main length with two vicious eyes, lidless and hypnotic.
The Amazon moved warily, and moving was the very thing she ought not to have done. With bewildering speed the serpent flew at her, its coils lashing about her, pinning her arms to her sides. Immediately the coils began to tighten with a force such as she had never known. She began struggling frantically, realizing that here was something of demoniac strength. With every ounce of her strength she tried to force her arms away from her body and so tear free of that strangling grip, but even her supernormal muscles were useless. The thing went on tightening relentlessly, tiny needle-like suckers biting into her flesh. Close to her face the mouthless head with the boring eyes waved fantastically.
Gasping for breath, the Amazon reeled helplessly against the big table, then battered herself upon its edge in the hope that the blows would dislodge the reptile. It had not the slightest effect. It seemed to be steel-hard, and it went on still constricting. The Amazon lurched, her arms feeling as though they were being telescoped into her body, her lungs no longer able to function. She tried to shout, and had not the breath to do it. Choking, she toppled to the floor and made a last frantic effort to tear herself free. And again she failed. The coils felt like white-hot wire slowly cutting her on two. She lashed out with her feet and knocked over a tall ornamental stand; then she could do no more.
Her last effort brought Relka from the adjoining laboratory to investigate. He looked about him, then caught sight of the Amazon half unconscious on the floor, her face and neck purple, her tongue protruding. She gave a quick, anguished movement of her glazing eyes toward the hideous thing that was breaking her in two—then the Jovian hurled himself forward.
Seizing the tail and head of the reptile, he extended his mighty arms with every vestige of his vast strength. And very slowly the inexorable coils had to loosen—until at last with a sudden jerk he had whirled the reptile free. Immediately he battered it with blinding force against the wall. When it had fallen to the floor he lifted the big oak table, swung it high over his head, then crashed it down on the squirming thing threshing on the carpet. It vanished under the ruined table. A small length of tail protruded. It quivered, then ceased moving.
Struggling for breath, her clothing ripped, her flesh feeling as if white-hot wire had been wrapped about it, the dishevelled Amazon struggled to her feet. For several seconds she could not speak. She motioned to Relka and he raised the remains of the table and tossed them aside. The snake was dead, apparently, part of it crushed.
“Where in cosmos did it come from?” The Amazon stared at it. “It was sent to me in that magnificent casket lying on the floor over there. It was on the table.”
Relka reached down his scaly paw and picked up the reptile by the tail. He contemplated it, then his thoughts reached the Amazon as she rubbed her aching arms gently.
“This is an estiron, Amazon,” he explained. “One of the most terrible serpents known to my world. It kills by sheer constrictive power. It doesn’t live by atmosphere—otherwise this air of Earth would have killed it. It absorbs energy, stores it, and uses it as needed. It has the quality of evolving from birth to maturity at tremendous speed.”
“So I noticed.” The Amazon was still breathing hard. “It was no larger than a worm when it fell out of the casket: the next thing I knew it had flown at me.”
“It attacks all living things and tries to absorb their energy.”
The Amazon turned in disgust from the dead reptile and picked up the fallen casket from the floor. With it in her hands she went to the window and studied its exquisite workmanship.
“Would you say this came from your world too?” she asked Relka.
“Possibly. Certainly the snake did. This was a deliberate attempt to kill you, Amazon, and had I not been close at hand it would have succeeded. It begins to look as though your theory about Sefner Quorne is not so far wrong. He must have sent that snake. But how did it get here?”
“It suddenly appeared—which suggests four-dimensional transit, in which Quorne is a master. As you say, it was an attempt to kill me, and only Quorne could be at the back of it.” The Amazon frowned. “The only thing I do not understand is why he should try to bait me with hypnotic dreams on the one hand, and on the other try to kill me with a serpent. The two are difficult to reconcile.”
“Possibly he believes you are not falling for his hypnotic bait, and so is trying to kill you by other means.”
“Possibly,” the Amazon admitted. “And he is either working from Jupiter with all the resources of the city which lies buried there under a broken dome, or else he is operating from Saturn, having had materials taken there. It would seem, though, since that thing is a Jovian snake, that he may be on the giant planet—which means I’m changing my plans. I am going to Jupiter first. If Quorne is not there, I shall go on to Saturn. He will find me only too ready to accept this challenge.”
She put down the casket on the window ledge and started attending to the minor injuries the reptile had inflicted.
“I hope I may come with you, Amazon?” Relka asked, and she looked back over her shoulder as she reached the doorway.
“Of course. I cannot imagine myself without you, much less so on the world from which you came.”
CHAPTER TWO
WRONG DECISION
An hour later the Ultra was on its way. The Amazon, clad in a close-fitting suit of black with a solid belt of gold about her waist, gazed intently through the port. Relka, taking on the job of navigator, and charting the fairly familiar course to Jupiter, stole a glance at her now and again. Her features were harshly set; a vindictive gleam lay in her violet eyes. He knew those signs. The fact that she had been nearly killed had resolved her to find Sefner Quorne this time, even if she travelled to the end of
