Free Donald A. Wollheim (ed) by The Hidden Planet Page A

you weren't
twisted before. You're only twisted now. You've gone soft."
    "Sure I've gone soft. I risked my life
time and again so that one day I'd have a chance to go soft."
    "Well, if you won't go, I must."
    He shrugged his shoulders. "Please yourself."
    She made a gesture of disgust. "Heaven
knows I never thought I'd appeal to chivalry. I never cried off or made excuses
because I'm a woman. But—"
    "It doesn't matter. The Greys will get
whoever tries it."
    "I
thought the war was over."
    "Sure it is. But out there you won't
find the civilized Greys . The Greys who will get you never signed any treaty. They won't attack the cities, but
they'll attack anything or anyone outside."
    She turned to the closet that contained the
oxygen suits. "I might as well go now."
    Warren watched her as she shook out the
plastic envelope, obviously unfamiliar to her, and tried to climb into it. Then
he put his hand on her arm.
    "I can't let you go without telling you exacdy why you shouldn't," he said.
    She
shook his arm off and struggled with the suit.
    "First of all, though it's only a
detail," he remarked, "you don't wear heavy clothes under that. You'd sweat off pounds before you'd gone a hundred yards.
Most of us used to wear nothing but the suit, but if you don't like that, wear
something light and loose."
    She
began to take off the suit again.
    "You'll have no difficulty in finding the city," he said.
"It's right up the hill. Keep on the incline and you can't go wrong. If
you have to make a detour, just get back on the slope as soon as you can."
    He paused. "You'll have even less
difficulty in finding the Greys ."
    She waited for him to go on, hating him but
utterly dependent on his knowledge of Venus.
    "No native Venusians have any sense of
smell," he said. "So to replace scent in hunting they have a sense
that feels thought."
    He saw her start, and grinned. "They can
locate anything that thinks. They're not telepaths. They don't know what you
think, any more than dogs hearing voices know what's being said. They just know
there's thinking going on in such-and-such a direction, and from the land of
thinking they know the kind of creature that's doing it. So it doesn't matter what
you think about, they'll pick you up."
    He smiled again, cruelly, she thought.
"When they do find you, they won't kill you right away. They'll follow you
and let you catch a glimpse of one of them now and then and harry you and
frighten you half to death. But they'll let you get right to the gates of Cefor . Ever seen a cat torturing a mouse? The Greys are just like that. At the very last minute, when
you think you're safe, they'll drag you off into the forest and torture you to
death. Maybe they'll let you escape two or three times. But at last they'll
tire."
    She twisted from him angrily, certain she had heard all that would be of any use
to her. She left the room to go to her cabin and change her clothes. But as
silently as a cat he had followed her.
    "Listen carefully to what happens
then," he said, "for it's very
important."
    She tried to pass him, but he leaned with one
arm on either side of her, holding her against the wall.
    "They won't let you die. They'll mutilate you with their knives so
that you're bound to die, so that the best doctors on Earth, Venus and Mars
couldn't save you, so that you're in agony but will still live quite a while.
Then they'll take you to the nearest city—in this case, Cefor .
They'll leave you there. It amuses them that we humans don't kill our own
people, even when they want to die. You'll die in a hospital bed, heavily
drugged but still not enough to stop all the pain."
    He let her go, for she was listening again,
in horrified fascination. "But that isn't important," he said
casually. "What is important is that you can tell them about us. We'll all
be grateful to you. We may erect a statue to you. You'll die, but in dying you
can save us."
    He turned and left her then. She stared after
him in horror, her horror for the