THE WAR-NYMPHS of VENUS
By RAY CUMMINGS
The voluptuous golden civilization of Arron was
doomed. Licentious laughter echoed through the
water-kingdom, unmindful of the relentless,
clanking invasion of the Gorts. What fools, this
handful of warrior-maidens led by a puny Earthman,
to pit their thin strength against Tollgamo's iron army!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I was fishing for tarpon, lolling back in the stern of my small boat.The outboard motor, running at trolling speed, was a puttering purr inthe drowsing watery silence. It was sunset of a summer evening of 1948.The Gulf of Mexico, out beyond the mouth of the little Florida bayouinlet across which I was heading, was a glassy expanse, blood-red inthe light of the huge setting sun.
To the south lightning was playing along the orange sky. I recall thata vague uneasiness was upon me. Because a storm might be coming? Surelyit was not that. I was within three miles of the small island whereyoung Jack Allen and I were camping. It was my intention to head forthere presently, especially as there had been no sign of tarpon. Allenhad been too lazy to come fishing; he had said he would loaf and havesupper ready for us at dark.
My name is Kent Fanning. Jack Allen and I were of an age—twenty-four,that summer. With our business in New York, we were here on vacation,having a permit to fish and to camp on the small, uninhabited island.
The intermittent lightning at the southern horizon rose higher. Faintmuttering thunder was audible. A massive grey-white cloud was downthere now, a thunderhead, coming northward with the storm behind it. Ihad decided to pull in my line and head for the island when suddenly Ihad a strike, the big reel humming as the line went out. A tarpon? Ihooked it, shut off the motor, sat erect with my stout rod braced inthe leather socket of my belt. I was prepared for a long struggle.
And then, two hundred yards or so from me, the water broke with afloundering splash. I gasped, stared numbed. A floundering, oblongpink-white thing was there at the end of my line. A slim white armflailed up as the thing turned, swimming on the surface franticallyaway from me. Pink-white limbs gleaming in the moonlight. Streamingtawny hair, like seaweed—hair in which my hook seemed to be caught.
A girl! I had her at the boat in a moment, floundering in themoonlight, gasping, still trying to twist around and disentangle myhook from her long streaming hair. A small, slim figure, white-limbedyet flushed like moonlit coral. There was a brief dangling robe wetlyclinging to her. It was of gleaming lustrous green as though perhaps itwas a fabric of softly woven metal, painted green by the sea.
An extraordinary yet very human girl.
Just a few seconds of my stricken amazement. I recall that I gaspedinanely.
"Well—why good Heavens—"
Her gasping laugh rippled like the splashing water in the moonlight."Sorry! I got some frightened to be confused."
English! Strangely intoned with little rippling liquid syllables. Likenothing I had ever heard before and yet my own language.
She had pulled my hook from the gleaming tawny tresses of her hair.Then she flung up a coral-white arm. I bent, seized her wrist, drew herup and she came with a nimble, skilled little leap and landed on herfeet in the boat beside me!
II