The Greatest Works of Otis Adelbert Kline - 18 Books in One Edition. Otis Adelbert Kline

have told you the story of Robert Grandon in “The Planet of Peril,” and those of you who have read it will recall that Harry Thorne and Grandon met in the closing episodes of the story. You may remember that Grandon asked Thorne to tell him of his adventures between the time of Thorne’s arrival on Venus, and this meeting, as it was plain that much had happened and that the other man had found his place and the woman of his heart’s desire. Before Thorne could tell the story, they were interrupted by announcements that their airship had arrived at Vernia’s capital.

      Actually, the record shows that Thorne did tell his story to Grandon later, during the visit—although like nothing in the detail present in Dr. Morgan’s records. But it was impossible to give even so brief an outline in this place. It had no bearing on the story of Robert Grandon and his rise on Venus, his winning of Vernia, and the defeat and death of the traitor, Prince Destho. I decided to omit it entirely, leaving it for another novel.

      So now I offer you the story of Harry Thorne—and, with your permission, I shall stop calling him “Harry Thorne.” This is the story of Borgen Takkor’s adventures on Venus, Borgen Takkor, born on Mars, transferred to Earth for a decade, and finally finding his career and place on Venus.

      The Author.

      Chapter 1

       Table of Contents

      “Good-bye, men and good luck to you.”

      My awakening, after I lay down on the cot in Dr. Morgan’s observatory, was quite sudden and startling. It seemed that not more than a few seconds had elapsed since I had heard the doctor’s parting words to Grandon and myself.

      I opened my eyes and sat up abruptly with an inexplicable sense of impending danger. My first glimpse of my surroundings convinced me that I had indeed arrived on Venus. The magnificent riot of vegetation surrounding me —vegetation the like of which I had not seen on Mars, the red, barren planet of my birth, nor on Earth, the more recent planet of my adoption— was sufficient evidence.

      I was seated on a bank of soft, violet-colored moss which sloped gently to a limpid pool at my feet. The feathery fronds of a giant bush-fern arched above my head, some of them dipping to the surface of the water, where they were snapped at from time to time by playful, grotesque, multi-colored amphibians.

      I was dressed in garments of shimmering, scarlet material. There was a broad, golden chain-belt about my waist, with a jeweled clasp in front. Riveted to this belt on the right side was an oblong instrument about two feet in length, with a button near the upper end, a small lever on the side, and a tiny hole in the lower end. I had no idea what it was for; but I recognized the weapon which hung at my left side, as it resembled a scimitar. As I was examining the ruby-studded hilt of this beautiful weapon, a noise at my left attracted my attention.

      Cautiously, without turning my head, I glanced from the corners of my eyes across a stretch of shrubbery to where a high wall of black stone surrounded this estate, and hid the country beyond. Just on the other side of the wall a tall fern-tree spread its mighty fronds. It must have been the cracking of one of these that had attracted my attention, for a heavy-set individual with a coarse red beard, cut off square below the chin, had climbed out on it to a point where it would no longer sustain his weight, in an effort to reach the top of the wall.

      Someone in the shrubbery quite near me called a whispered warning to him —or such I took it to be, for the language was unknown to me, and I could only judge by the tones. The huge intruder was much more agile than he appeared, for he flung an arm over the top of the wall and drew himself up with catlike quickness. As he struck the wall there was a metallic clank which, I saw as soon as he came into full view, was from an edged weapon at his side, quite like my own but with a less ornate hilt and broader blade.

      As soon as the red-bearded man reached the top of the wall, the one who had whispered from the bushes cautiously stood up. He was smaller and more wiry than the first, and his beard, which was iron-gray in color, was trimmed in the same manner.

      Red-beard tiptoed stealthily along the top of the wall, glancing toward me from time to time as if fearful that I would hear him or turn toward him. Then he leaned out, caught his fingers in a tall cone-shaped growth, swung his sandaled feet out, and descended.

      I wondered if it could be possible that these two prowlers were bent on injury to me, a total stranger on Venus. Then it dawned on me that they could easily be mortal enemies of the prince with whom I had exchanged bodies, and that I—so far as their knowledge went—was that prince.

      I therefore drew my cutting weapon from its sheath in order to have it ready, and pretended to examine its beautiful, highly polished blade. For several minutes I neither saw nor heard anything of the two prowlers. Then I suddenly glimpsed, reflected on the polished surface of my blade, the red- bearded man standing directly behind me with his weapon upraised for a downward cut that would have sheared my skull from crown to chin. As swords of all kinds had been my principal playthings on Mars, and fencing my favorite amusement on Earth, I did the thing which any swordsman would have done instinctively in the circumstances. I raised the blade of my weapon above my head with a downward slant from hilt to point, and the descending blade of my would-be assassin, deflected by my own, buried itself in the mossy turf on my left.

      Springing to my feet, I whirled and attacked.

      My opponent proved to be a hammer-and-tongs fighter, no match for superior swordsmanship. I could have killed him any one of a dozen times before he realized that I was playing with him. Then he bawled out lustily, and the wiry fellow with the gray beard came rushing out of the bushes. Not knowing the caliber of the second assailant, I stopped the squawking of the first with a quick neck-cut that laid him low.

      The wiry graybeard was much quicker and far more elusive than his huge companion, and I did not play with him. He soon left me the opening I sought, and I stretched him beside his fellow with a bone-shearing cut.

      Having ascertained beyond doubt that both of my would-be assassins were dead, I carefully cleaned my blade, sheathed it, and set out to explore my surroundings.

      I had been walking for perhaps ten minutes along the mossy bank, when a monster, more hideous than anything I had ever seen or even dreamed existed, emerged from the water and came toward me.

      I whipped out my blade as it waddled forward on its thick, bowed legs. Its long, scaly tail dragged in the moss, and its enormous jaws were distended in a grin that disclosed huge, ivory-white tusks. It was so fearsome a thing that, although I am no coward, I knew not whether to stand and fight or take to my heels.

      A gust of laughter at my right caused me to turn. I beheld a tall man, apparently of middle age, smiling broadly at me. His garments were of purple, and he wore a beard that had once been black, now slightly streaked with gray, cut off square below the chin. His weapons were similar to mine, though his belt was of silver.

      “The ‘ikthos’ will not harm you,” he said in English. “It is one of the garden pets, and hostile only to strangers.”

      The thing he called an ikthos sniffed at my garments, rubbed its ugly muzzle against my thigh, yawned, and crouched at my feet.

      “You are surprised at my knowledge of English,” continued my new acquaintance. “After I tell you who you are and were, and also who I am, the thing will not seem so mysterious. You are he who was Borgen Takkor on Mars, and later Harry Thorne on Earth. You have now become Zinlo, the Torrogi or Imperial Crown Prince of Olba. I am Vorn Vangal, the Olban psychologist, and have been communicating telepathically with Dr. Morgan of Earth for several years.”

      “I have heard the doctor speak of you often,” I replied. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Vorn Vangal.”

      He acknowledged with a courtly bow. “I have but a few hours to spend with you. Grandon has already arrived on the other side of the planet and will shortly awaken to find himself a princely slave in the marble quarries of Uxpo. I must fly to his assistance. Come with me and see what preparations I have made for you.”

      I