devils do that all the time? Plain cold-blooded murder?"

Zeeth nodded. "They have no emotions, you see. They are what you call hedonists. And they are gods. We are like animals to them. The moment we make a mistake, or are no longer useful, we are killed."

"And you submit to it!"

"There was a rebellion two years ago, I heard. Twenty slaves died to every Swamja. They are like reptiles—nearly invulnerable. And we have no weapons, of course."

"Can't you get any?"

"No. Nor would I try. Venusians cannot endure pain, you understand. To us, pain is worse than death."

Vanning grunted, and was silent as they passed through a curtained arch. Never would he forget his first sight of the Swamja city. It was like—

Like an ocean world!

He stood upon a balcony high over the city, and looked out at a vast valley three miles in diameter, scooped out of the heart of the mountains as though by a cosmic cup. Overhead was no sky. A shell of transparent substance made a ceiling above the city, a tremendous dome that couched on the mountain peaks all around.

Gray-green light filtered through it. An emerald twilight hazed the fantastic city, where twisted buildings like grottos of coral rose in strange patterns. It was a labyrinth. And it was—lovely beyond all imagination.

"Those—things—built this?" Vanning breathed.

"They knew beauty," Zeeth said. "They have certain senses we do not have. You will see...."

From the exact center of the city a tower rose, smooth and shining as metal. It reached to the transparent dome and seemed to rise above it, into the clouds of Venus.

"What's that?" Vanning asked, pointing. "Their temple?"

Zeeth's voice held irony. "Not a temple—a trap. It is the tube through which they blast the spores of the North-Fever into the sky. Day and night without pause the virus is blown upward through that tube, far into the air, where it is carried all over the planet."

The air was darkening, thickening. Here and there rainbow lights sprang into view. Elfin fires in an enchanted world, Vanning thought.

Through 

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