Frank Belknap Long

“ At the touch of his hands on her back and thighs a spasmed aliveness took possession of her and she writhed in his clasp with an ardor that drove the blood in torrents from his heart. Her lips were fire, her kisses a burning that dissolved the barrier of flesh where their tongues met in molten sweetness.
Her body molded itself to his, pressing against the hard muscles of his chest and thighs. His own passion equaled hers for an instant and then surpassed it, and in the fierce, unrelenting masculinity of his embrace she became suddenly passive, content to surrender completely to his guidance. ”

“ Tragor, staring through the view-glass, had missed nothing of the deadly, ten-minute struggle. He was pleased and almost beside himself with eagerness to take the captive whose beauty had so maddeningly aroused him from the arms of the warrior-caste brute and carry her to his own sleeping compartment.
The warriors had done well, but he had no intention of congratulating them. Discipline forbade it. A wave of revulsion swept over him again when he thought of how crude the warriors were in their lovemaking. They had no delicacy of perception, no true understanding of how to make love to a woman. ”

“ Why should you fear the kind of love I bring you? All life is uncertain; all men dwell in the shadow of the grave. But there is one supreme fulfillment, one joy that, once experienced, can never be taken from you. I am Lilith, all woman, all soft yielding flesh, and I have come to you alone, in a secret place, and in the joining of our bodies there is rapture unspeakable."
They were not the words of the woman in his arms. That Loring knew. ”

“ Human enough to make love, to embrace a human female and convince her in a hundred ways that in him she had a lover indeed. And every other Martian felt the same way. They had made a tragic blunder, but it was a blunder that could be wiped out, forgotten, and compensated for. It was not too late.
Had it not been, after all, a natural blunder, a credit to a male with pride? To conquer and colonize another planet was a hazardous undertaking. To expose females to so great a danger, to such unimaginable hardships, would have been unthinkable. ”

“ You killed a man I loved more than my own life. You've killed me too. I died with him. You are looking upon a woman who no longer places any value upon the mockery life that remains. That is why I do not fear you."
It seemed to Tragor that he, too, had died. At least a part of himself had perished. For a moment life had flamed so brightly in him that he had feared it might consume him. But now that vision of beauty, of desire's complete fulfillment, had been snatched away. There could be no rapture in the night with a woman who looked upon him with loathing and contempt. ”

“ Loring said, the lie making him tormentingly aware of how difficult it would be to tell her the truth. But she had to know.
The insect might attack at any moment. It was still close to him in the darkness, close to Janice now as well and when he strained his ears he could still hear the faint whirring of its wings. He was aware of its chilling odor too: acrid, and laden with a slight effluvium of mustiness and decay, as if it had just emerged from some airless, long-abandoned sepulchre deep underground. ”

“ The weapon leapt in the Martian's clasp and a sharp crack echoed like a pistol shot across the open countryside, from the hollow, metallic sounding board of the ship's hull to the distant cluster of trees.
The running man screamed, threw out his arms and crumpled at the edge of the grove. The spurt of blood from a severed artery was visible from the ship, a thin, crimson jet that spattered the grass and the foliage and gleamed brightly on the boles of the trees until the crumpled body began to smoke. ”

“ There was something rapacious about it, a deadliness that could be instantly sensed. It seemed intent on his destruction, its enormous eyes filmed with a malignancy that made his blood run cold.
Its attitude was just as terrifying, the body poised as if for attack, a rapier sharpness in the writhing mandibles, a wire-tight tension in the rhythmically vibrating thorax, the slender abdomen, and the long, hairy legs which terminated in rust-colored, cuplike disks.
Loring's thoughts went into a mind-chilling whirl. The human mind does not associate ferocity with an ordinary fly. ”

“ The full, ghastly truth dawned on Tragor then—the awful certainty that he was on trial for his life. He might never leave the compartment with the blood warm in his veins. He might never see another sunrise, on Mars or on Earth, never experience again all the joys of the flesh; never feast and dine and dance and hold a beautiful woman in a fierce and ardent embrace. He saw himself crying out in agony, his flesh blackened by the fiery blast of a hand-gun, blood streaming from a horrible, gaping wound in his chest. ”

“ Subject a man to struggle and hardship, you said—place his life in danger, and he will find an android woman impossible to resist! Well, did that fool of an artist find thirty android women irresistible? Did he? Answer me, Tragor."
It did not seem as though Tragor's face could have gone any paler. But suddenly it did. It seemed paler than pale, as if the receding blood had turned it into a thin tissue so hueless that the term "color" could not even be applied to it.
"His surrender would have been complete if the Earthwoman had not screamed," he said. ”

“ But how could love have any meaning when it was completely one-sided? Just to make love was not enough. You had to be loved in return, loved for yourself. He had never been able to endure a completely unresponsive woman, a cold shape of ice in his arms. The warrior-caste brutes felt quite differently about it. They preferred either complete passivity in a woman, or protests, tears, and wild strugglings. He had no great liking for either. He preferred a woman who was as passionate as himself and who could return his caresses with unrestrained ardor. ”

“ A male cannot live alone. The woman-need must be appeased, or unendurable frustration and wretchedness will result.
And on Earth there were women who, by a miracle that could not be easily explained, were even more desirable to a Martian than the females of his own race. If only—
Forget the "only" Tragor told himself with vigor. Their fear can be overcome, their resistance broken down. Ardor will do it, flaming ardor, all the delights of the dark, the words of love, the whispered reassurances. Limbs crushing limbs, with a passion irresistible, gentleness with fierceness intermingled.... ”

“ Directly below the disk the tiny moving vehicles which Loring had observed from the window darted to and fro, obscurely visible through its translucent glimmering.
Loring took Janice's arm and supported her firmly, and they started down with a heightened sense of togetherness. "Remember this," he said, with quiet reassurance. "It's some comfort, at least. There are few situations which are absolutely hopeless. They may look that way, but they're not. Escapes take place when every door to freedom seems bolted down tight. Not only in fiction—in real life. ”

“ Let me say what has to be said now, before I think about it too much and fear make a coward of me. If you who are a fool for love—I am only repeating what you told me and what they believe about you—if even you could resist me, more hard-headed, practical men who think of love only as a diversion, and often hate themselves when they succumb to it, men who sit in high places and rule the Earth with a humorless kind of harshness, may not succumb at all. ”

“ If you were not my superior I might be tempted—"
"Do not allow yourself to be tempted, Sull," Tragor heard himself saying, his bitterness and frustration giving way to rage. "I warn you. I am in no mood to countenance insubordination. I would be quite capable of silencing you, in a way that would cause you exquisite torment."
"I am not afraid of you, Tragor. My lineage is almost as high as your own. I have a right to speak my mind."
"Speak it then, and let us be done with it. I know where my duty lies. I have not neglected it in any way."
"You are trembling so I am concerned for your sanity. ”

“ Loring breathed.
"Lilith," she said. "As you have thought of what such a woman could be to you if you believed in her as a scientific reality. Lilith, in that sense. Your dark enchantress—if my hair were not silvery blonde and my eyes were not blue. Laboratory created. Yes, that's true. And the disk gives me life and warmth and fire. I am a telepath. ”

“ All men are little boys at heart. At least, there is a little boy in them, buried deep in their nature—the little boy they once were. In moments of stress and torment that little boy lives again. It does not make them less manly, less sure of themselves when they desire a woman as you now desire me. Make love to me."
It was no longer in Loring's power to resist or to care how completely he abandoned himself to the woman in his arms. His desire, in fact, had already surpassed hers and he could find no fault with her ardor. ”

“ The landscape beneath the Martian mother ship was changing rapidly now, but no Martian eyes watched a lake sweep into view and the dwarfed evergreens surrender their sovereignty to a forest of tall, straight pines, their boles dark against the pale, blue-gray sky. A speedboat came suddenly into view from behind a mile-wide island densely overgrown with scrub oak and hemlocks, and headed northward, throwing up a curtain of silvery spray that slowly blended with the haze that hung over the southern part of the lake. ”

“ A look of decision came into Loring's eyes. "You stay here," he said. "Don't move or touch that wall. If there's an entrance I don't want you to be with me until I've made sure there's nothing dangerous inside."
Janice looked at him, startled. "You're not going inside?"
"I will if there's an entrance."
"But darling, don't you see? If anything happened to you I wouldn't want to go on living. You think of what could happen and all that unrealistic nonsense about shielding a woman, not letting her share a danger with a man she loves more than her own life, breaks down." ”

“ It stirred the imagination in a strange way, as a woman utterly abandoned, lost to all shame, may cease to be a capricious wanton, given to light-hearted amours and become so coldly lascivious that she repels the most passionate of men.
And suddenly, as Loring stared, he saw the woman-shape. He saw that the city, its entire circumference, its central mass, was shaped like a recumbent female with great wanton knees and flame-tipped breasts. ”

“ A woman that beautiful could hardly have escaped lovers, but it did not matter to him at all. It disturbed human males, sometimes even drove them to acts of violence, but he was not that kind of a fool. He could make any woman forget any lover in her past. He was sure of it. He could blot the memory from her mind, make it seem less than the shadow of a dream. ”

“ A thousand women with my lips and hair and eyes, and my white and beautiful limbs that almost brought you to your knees in adoration. A thousand women like me will be laboratory-created.
"A thousand women and a thousand men. Your Janice saw the man when she awoke this morning. There are men who only have to look once at a woman and she begins to tremble. Her breathing quickens and she knows only the insensate joy of immediate and complete surrender." ”

“ A Martian stretched out on an operating table, with sharp instruments of human science glittering in a cone of radiance above his strapped-down body. Pain, torment beyond endurance. Martian pride humbled, and dragged through the dust.
A dissecting laboratory. Would Earth display pity or stay its hand if it needed knowledge to forge weapons to combat an intelligent race bent on space conquest—a race so different from Man in some respects that it would be easy to think of its captive members as caged beasts or hideous and dangerous monsters? ”

“ For an instant nothing mattered except the almost hypnotic fascination which Nature imparts to everything colossal in scope and formidable in design.
Janice's voice broke the spell. "David, what are they? They're moving! They must be alive!"
Loring gripped her firmly by the arm and drew her close to him.
"No. It's just the light which makes them waver like that. We're looking at them through a shifting film of radiance. Can't you see? They're only skeletons. No flesh on the bones, no animation, nothing to become alarmed about. They must be gigantic extinct reptiles native to this world. ”

“ There was a drowsy hum in Loring's ears, as of bees in a woodland glade. Not the hum of long-bodied hornets, cruel and rapacious, but the gentler hum of golden, honey-seeking bumblebees. And bumblebees did not sting if you did not anger them. They did not paralyze their victims to provide food for their grubs.
He awoke to an awareness of sunlight and shadow, garlanded bowers, grassy slopes and the gleaming bright waters of a stream. He blinked sleep from his eyes and rose to a sitting position. ”

“ Loring said, trying to keep his voice steady, but not quite succeeding. "You can stop talking in insane riddles. You say you're not entirely human. But I can't accept that. I've the kind of mind that just can't adjust to a thing like that. Speculating about it and telling yourself that it's not impossible, not beyond the scope of what modern science could accomplish, isn't quite the same thing as out-and-out acceptance. You look too human, act too human, you're warm and alive. You're right here with me, and I took you in my arms and kissed your eyes and lips and hair. ”

“ She was still struggling and her red-gold hair had come unbound and fallen over her shoulders and he could see the entrancing curvature of her half-revealed breasts. She was slender and yet her beauty seemed full-blown in a pulse-stirring way, as the beauty of a young girl often seems in the magic mirror which draws no sharp distinction between a girl of twenty and a woman of thirty. If she is lovely enough, she becomes not one woman, but two, her youthful charms blending with the ripeness which will soon be hers and making that ripeness another aspect of her present self. ”