Together, the Earthman and the Jovian
outfought and outwitted the prison guards,
the Venusian jungle-hell, the cunning Chameleon
men. Together, they were invincible. But at
the Test for the Pearl they divided....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Far off in the steaming Venusian jungle, a band of the Chameleon menhalted, lifting their mottled faces in the direction of the sound.Closer in, a four-man jungle patrol of Earthmen broke as one man into arun along the trail, their swift-moving bodies swishing the clouds intoragged streamers.
At the edge of the viscous river circling the island an armed guardslipped on his infra-red glasses and began searching his areacarefully, his special light traveling slowly along the river and itsnear and opposite banks.
On the island, only a few yards from the high, thick walls of theInterplanetary Prison, a patch of ground, approximately eight feet byfive quivered once—and was still.
The deep-throated roar of the escape siren was thunderous. It carriedfor scores of miles through the steamy atmosphere of the planet,alerting both natives and Earthman patrols to a successful break fromthat most fabulous of prisons—The Hole.
Behind the oxygen mask he wore, lying under a foot of the thick spongysoil of the planet, Jarl Gare wiggled his itching body and chuckled.
He nudged Waltk, the huge Jovian who lay beside him. "Don't getrestless, now," he mumbled through the mask. "We have hours to wait.And somebody might spot this patch of ground if you keep wriggling."
The Jovian grunted, wriggled again, and then was quiet.
"Men have escaped from The Hole before," Jarl Gare muttered, "but theywere always caught before they got to the pearl-beds. Waltk's body andmy brain will get us through."
He envisioned one of the huge Venusian pearls—so rare and so preciouson Earth that it could buy a man's freedom, even from a murder charge.
Jarl Gare fell asleep, dreaming of a bauble as big as his head.
He was awakened by a nudge. "It is night," Waltk grunted. "I smell it."
Gare worked one hand up through the spongy earth, poked a hole in itand wiped the mud from his mask's eye-piece.
"Right," he muttered. "It's time to go." He worked his head out of theground and looked about.
There could be infra-red spotlights covering the very ground underwhich they lay. But they would have to take the chance.
His body made a sucking sound as he drew himself from the self-duggrave. He reached back in and tapped Waltk. The big Jovian virtuallyerupted from the ground, the weight nothing to his mighty thews.
Carefully they replaced the spongy earth. Then, with Jarl Gare in thelead, the pair walked upright, but quietly, to the great power-chargedfence.
It went up twenty feet and down the same distance underground—JarlGare had learned this depth from a prisoner who had tried to dig hisway out but failed and nearly drowned as liquid seeped into the hole hewas digging.
The big Jovian, his thick-thewed body glimmering with sweat in theground light, bent to pick up Jarl Gare's slight naked body.
"Wait," Jarl Gare warned. "We must wait until one of the river beastsstart plunging."
The Jovian grunted. He waited, flexing the great shoulder and backmuscles. Then he said suddenly, "I smell guards."
Jarl Gare's thin face jerked up at the seven foot figure of hiscompanion. "Where?" he asked tensely.
The Jovian with a quick movement shoved Jarl G