For a stark instant, Tim was wrenched in a vise of indecision. To fight the winged demons without a weapon was madness. Wisdom lay in hurrying back to the ship, equipping themselves with new guns. But—but Lane had said these bat-men were vampires. The Vampires of Venus, he had said. And Tim had heard stories ... the word "vampire" meant the same in any language, on any planet.

But there was Dorothy to consider, too. He groaned aloud. His instinct bade him plunge forward, weaponless or not; common sense advised the other course.

And then, in a split-second, the decision became no longer his to make. For as if the victory of the first two bat-men had determined the action of the entire clan, out of the bronze gateway flooded a veritable host of the sickening winged creatures!

Then a battering-ram smashed him crushingly and he choked, gasped, felt the weakness of oblivion well over him like a turgid, engulfing cloud. He was conscious of raking talons that gripped his armpits, of sudden, swift and dizzy flight ... of a vast, aching chaos that rocked with hungry, inhuman mirth.

Captain Lane's voice was an aeon away, but it came closer. It said, "—be all right now. You must have been in a hell of a fight, boy!"

And Dorothy was beside him, too. There were tears in her eyes, but she shook them away and tried to smile as Tim pushed himself up on one elbow. Tim's head was one big ache, and his body was bruised and sore from the buffeting of the bat-men's hard wings. He looked about him dazedly.

"Wh-here are we?"

The room was a low-ceilinged, square one. It had but one door, a bronze one similar in design, but smaller, than the gateway that had led to the city of the Vampires. Elsewhere the walls were hewn from solid rock.

"Where are we?" he repeated. He started to unscrew his face port, but the skipper stayed his hand.

"Don't, Mallory! We tried that. It's impossible. The air's so ammoniated it would kill you. From that."

He pointed to a trough-like depression in the room. A curious arrangement. Probably for purposes of sanitation. Liquid ammonia, or something akin, entered the trough from a gushing tube set low in one wall, transversed the room, and exited through a second circular duct. These were the only openings in the chamber, save for—Tim glanced up, noticed several round holes. He studied these curiously. 

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