E. Hoffmann Price

“ Before he could make up his mind, Falana said, "Turn around and see—I've got it."
As he twisted about, the horse shifted, moving out of the shadow and into light strong enough for him to see the ruby she had in her hand. It collected enough of the glow to pulse and flame as though in its own right. ”

“ I said, "Baby, I’ll save you and the kids of Palo Verde.” With a dramatic gesture, I bared my throat. "Drink deep!”
She slowly drew back. "But no. I love you, do you understand? It will kill you, and you are nice. You do not run and scream. Have you ever lived one hundred and twenty-nine years without any friends?”
"It’s been bad enough the past four years, going to school and being broke,” I told her, which was the truth. "But listen. Prof Rodman is inventing a tonic that builds blood. I’ll take a bottle of it. That way, it’ll be fine for everyone concerned. ”

“ By feigning a mortal wound, he had played the game as his brothers in raiding would have played it: and at the most he could not have hoped for more than a horse, and the weapons of the supposedly greedy and reckless one whose loot hunger had driven out ordinary caution. Moonlight on Verrill's face had given Dawson his moment of triumphant recognition—and then, sudden death which he might otherwise have avoided. ”

“ Your lips half part in a painted smile,
Hiding your thoughts, revealing but your guile;
Your dark-veiled, dusky, Saracenic eyes
Look down, and look but to despise
The fools who bend to kiss your dainty feet ”

“ The coffin wasn’t empty, but anyone could see that what was in it had been there for years and years. Now that that was settled, I sat down and bawled like a kid. Even when I learned that the epidemic of pernicious anemia was over, and Prof Rodman was the big scientist of the day, I felt rotten.
Anyway, I got the job with Judge Mottley. I’m a member of the firm. And in odd moments, I sit on that slab, closing my eyes and trying to bring Catalina’s face back in memory. Just what did happen to her is one for Prof Rodman to figure out. ”

“ Verrill had by now revised somewhat his notions on savages. "Then why do you put up with that wild-eyed fanatic?"
Ardelan smiled indulgently. "You people from the outside know many strange things. How to come down from the stars. How to make guns. But the few of you I've talked to are dog-ignorant when it comes to people. The fire god is something our neighbors don't have. It makes us stick together better, and keeps us from fighting among ourselves. Aren't any of your people smart enough to have gods?" ”

“ Her hair never got mussed up, and she never needed make-up, which is one of the handy things about being a vampire. I was getting awfully fond of her. A swell dame, and good-hearted. Tolerant of my plans for her future, just in case Prof Rodman’s blood-builder didn’t work out right.
"Baby,” I expounded, "the human organization is the most versatile thing on earth. Particularly when it comes to diet.” We were sitting on the tombstone when I went into my pep talk, as it wasn’t quite late enough for Catalina to get dressed for the ball. "Now, I’m standing these blood transfusions well enough. ”

“ Going to get dressed, huh? Oh, all right.
Someone inside was tossing, restlessly. I heard a kid make a funny little sound like it was going to wake up and cry, and then it decided not to. Someone was humming, though the lights weren’t on. A drowsy, sleepy sound. It made my eyelids droop, and my fingers began to relax from the fence.
SOMETHING startled me. It was Catalina. She’d come out of the house, and slipped right up on me. She caught my hand as if I belonged to her, and we set out across the fields and through the thickets. She hadn’t put on another dress. ”

“ Linda made her final appeal: "Leaving all this, to scramble around in that terrible waste and desolation—oh, do be sensible!"
Her voice, and the kiss that followed it, made Verrill at once aware of what generations of Venusians had taken for granted. He looked across the gardens and the lake, and up at the prodigious span of girders. The original purpose of the structure had been to house a military outpost that was to have outflanked a comparable one on Luna. ”

“ Being in a coffin doesn’t mean you’re a corpse. Maybe Prof Rodman, with all his biochemistry stuff, could have explained things. Only, there’d be too much publicity, and so I didn’t dare take it up with him.
We hailed a taxi at the S. P. Station. I’d told Mr. Hill I wanted the evening off, by way of getting in good with Judge Mottley, showing him I was public-spirited.
THE Civic Center is a low and rambling building with a red-tiled roof and arcades along the patio. Being California Spanish, it was strange and thrilling to Catalina. ”

“ Life under the domes was comfortable, with controlled climate, law and order, science and art. Comfortable, civilized, and sensible. While Terra—
"Be a sensible Venusian," was what Linda meant. "Don't go looking for trouble when you can do better without. Don't be a typical Terrestrian!"
The whole clash of the previous night had been silly. Irritated by Gil Dawson's giving Linda a ruby as a souvenir of his official inspection-tour of the Council-controlled Terrestrian trading-posts, Verrill had flung the trinket into the lake. ”

“ I said, "Watch me sell Judge Mottley a refill of Green Gold."
"You’d better, you chump," he grumbled. "I'm giving you another chance, maybe. I can't fire you today account me and the missus is going to a movie."
WHEN I closed the station and locked up the water and air hoses, so the public can’t steal them, I made the next move to reform Catalina’s diet. After taking on another bowl of chili, I had Mike put some in a carton to take along.
Catalina was sitting on the grave, waiting for me. "Everyone but you is frighten," she said, adoringly. "Now we will eat, no?" ”

“ I am a doctor."
"What for? People die anyway."
"A doctor," Verrill explained, concealing his dismay, "is not to keep people from dying. He is to make it more agreeable for them until they finally have to die."
Ardelan addressed his henchmen. The answers summed up to this: that if nothing much ailed a man, he'd get well by himself, and if something really incapacitated him, it would of course be something so serious that he could not last long at the best.
Ardelan digested this wisdom, then asked, "Verrill, can you make knives like these you gave that man?"
"I am a doctor, not a blacksmith." ”

“ Judge Mottley had awakened him from a sound sleep and that always made him peevish. Maybe he would fire me, though if he did, he'd make a liar out of himself. I boarded at his house, and only because he'd signed a certificate stating I was a distant nephew.
The catch is, students can't live off the campus these days, except with relatives. Nobody seems to marvel at the number of chain store clerks, truck-drivers, and the like who have collegiate kinfolk. But that's the way it is. ”

“ Dawson was not at the post. But while a head start was a happy omen, Verrill knew that it had its limits, since his plan to ingratiate himself with the barbarians until he could seize the fetish-ruby and return to the post involved so much time that the gain of hours or days meant little.
Ingratiate himself—steal the Fire of Skanderbek—and get out—infinitely simpler than Linda's suggestion, probably an utterly impossible one, of deserving it finally as a gift. His first look at the bearded mountaineers convinced him that no amount of do-gooding could ever move them to gratitude. ”

“ But Judge Mottley had to see me, out in front about the time I saw the law and checked out.
I shut off the gas pump and hung on for support. It is tough, being fired from a job one has not yet gotten. Then the boss came roaring out of the office.
"Judge," he yelled. "Oh, Judge——"
But Mottley was in high gear now, and not listening. Mr. Hill turned to me. "Eric, you jackass, if you insult another customer—by God, I'd fire you now if it wasn't for the prof's Packard—get busy and shine 'er up!" ”

“ For a moment, Verrill thought that the old fellow was a veteran of The War. His age made him fantastic in a colony where men over forty were scarce, and those over fifty, rarities; though old women were more than plentiful.
Verrill declined the gift of the pistol. "Give it to the holy man," he said. "I did not come here for pay."
Then he went with Ardelan to sit under the black awning where the chief settled disputes, and planned raids on neighboring tribes.
"Excellency," Verrill pointed out, "holding a pistol at a doctor's head is no way of making sure he'll help the patient." ”

“ WAXING Prof Rodman's spare Packard meant eight bucks more for the boss, and no sleep for me that night. Not a chance to study McKelvey on Evidence for that a.m. class. But when I saw Judge Mottley roll up to the gas pump in his big black bus, I dropped my polishing-cloth and put on my best Green Gold smile.
That's the one the division sales ager makes us wear when we sell a customer a quart of lube he doesn't need. Green Gold makes your motor smile. It plates the moving parts with oil. ”

“ While the judge was telling me how well he liked Green Gold, the tall and handsome snagged Catalina. By the time I got rid of the judge, I couldn’t find my date.
Not for a while, that is. I was worried. Suppose she had reverted to type and was taking a light lunch? Suppose her victim yeeped or started talking later? I was in a sweat, dashing around looking for her.
I got good and sore when I missed the tall and handsome. When a fellow is neither, he is inclined to be sensitive about such things. ”

“ To make his escape with the Fire of Skanderbek, he would have to ride on a few cattle- and sheep-stealing raids and so acquire sufficient skill for getting away with his loot.
It was Falana who explained the monstrous ruby's status as a tribal fetish. "Ages ago," she said, "the gods destroyed the world with fire, and after the flames had gone, the ghosts of the dead flames danced over the earth, and killed whoever came near. They killed without burning. The ghosts of the fire lived in the earth and air and water. And there were only small patches where men could live. ”

“ The most skilled cosmeticians of the Venusian Domes could not begin to duplicate Falana's glowing red-bronze hair.
IV
By the time medical supplies and equipment arrived—and also a message from Linda, who was thrilled from having heard of his good work among the barbarians—Ardelan's mountaineers had begun to accept Verrill as a man, and not a mere medico. His efforts to ride their half-tamed horses, time and again picking himself up from where they had thrown him, to mount and try again, amused them enormously, and gave them a comfortable feeling of superiority—and evoked a degree of respect. ”

“ But Catalina was alive, in a way, and even if I were licensed to practise law, it would take a lot of constitutional amendments before I could be judge, jury, and executioner. Anyway, I liked her a lot. Maybe I could get her to change her ways.
"Honey,” I said finally, “you’re a damn devastating menace, picking on kids. Whyn’t you tackle grown-ups?” ”

“ You haven't more than maybe one-two-three enemies on my account. But as long as you lived alone, doctoring all day while most of the men are out with the flocks, they'd all be suspecting and hating you."
There was nothing to explain to Ardelan. The chief seemed to have been expecting something of the sort. "Falana," he said to Verrill, "probably didn't get around to telling you this, but you can either send her home, or else take her to the fire temple to get Kwangtan's blessing. Then you won't be a stranger anymore, and you'll get along better." ”