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 INGRID LEWIS

WOMEN in
EUROPEAN
HOLOCAUST
FILMS
PERPETRATORS, VICTIMS
AND RESISTERS
 Women in European Holocaust Films

“An impressive and overdue entry into Holocaust Studies literature. Lewis’
monograph interweaves the empirical and theoretical literature on women’s his-
tory, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, with hundreds of films on these top-
ics. This original book calls out the perpetual stereotyping that has obscured our
knowledge and understanding of how women perpetrated and experienced the
Holocaust.”
—Wendy Lower, Professor of History, Claremont McKenna College, USA, author
of Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (2013)

“This book fills a much-needed gap in the scholarship on Holocaust cinema.

Recognition that the Holocaust was indeed ‘gendered’ has come to inform con-
temporary Holocaust historiography, but Ingrid Lewis has provided the first
in-depth analysis of the representation and construction of female experience
in Holocaust film. Demonstrable expertise, clarity of writing, breadth of cover-
age and sophistication of approach are all notable features of this excellent and
important study.”
—Barry Langford, Professor of Film Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London,
UK, co-author of Teaching Holocaust Literature and Film (2017)

“This book gives a fascinating and invaluable account of over 300 films, and
traces the ways in which the representation of women in European Holocaust
cinema - as victims, perpetrators and resisters - has changed since the post-war
era. Ingrid Lewis maintains a balance throughout between detailed filmic analysis
and commentary on wider trends, placing celebrated films such as Kapò and The
Reader alongside lesser-known examples, to very convincing effect.”
—Sue Vice, Professor of English Literature, University of Sheffield, UK, author of
Holocaust Fiction (2000)

“Bridging the divide between gender and the Holocaust, this is a necessary book
that brings sharply into focus the experiences of women as portrayed in a vast
body of filmic work released from 1945 to date. In its impressive breadth, it
provides a formidable and discerning overview that profoundly alters our under-
standing of the forms and evolution of the representation of women and their
roles—as perpetrators, victims and resisters—in European Holocaust cinema.”
—Laura Rascaroli, Professor of Film and Screen Media, University College Cork,
Ireland, author of How the Essay Film Thinks (2017)
“Ingrid Lewis endeavours to investigate the representation of women across a
considerably diverse range of European Holocaust films, deftly exposing the mar-
ginalisation of women in the genre with great skill. Mapping the complex and
often problematic ways in which women are conveyed as victims, perpetrators,
and resisters, Lewis’ excellent research and exceptional writing make her work
a compelling addition to the growing literature on women’s experiences during
the Holocaust.”
—Adam Brown, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Deakin University, Australia,
author of Judging ‘Privileged’ Jews: Holocaust Ethics, Representation,
and the ‘Grey Zone’ (2015)
 Ingrid Lewis

Women in European
Holocaust Films
Perpetrators, Victims and Resisters
Ingrid Lewis
Dundalk Institute of Technology
Dundalk, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-319-65060-9 ISBN 978-3-319-65061-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-65061-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949185

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover credit: AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to my most beloved parents, Iosefina and Dumitru.
My father passed away just a few months before this book was published, yet
he continues to inspire my life and work. Thank you, Dad.
 Acknowledgements

This book emerged from my doctoral dissertation completed at Dublin

City University, Ireland. I am indebted to my Ph.D. supervisor,
Dr. Debbie Ging, for her insightful suggestions and exemplary guidance.
Her positive attitude and continuous encouragement throughout my
doctoral studies were invaluable. I would like to thank the staff from the
School of Communications, Dublin City University, Ireland, and espe-
cially the Head of Department, Professor Pat Brereton, who patiently
reviewed my doctoral thesis. Also, my Ph.D. research would not have
been possible without the financial support granted by Laois County
Council, Ireland.
I am extremely grateful to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Lina
Aboujieb and Karina Jakupsdottir, for their kind support and commit-
ment to this book.
I would also like to thank Professor Ronit Lentin, former Head of the
Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, whose writ-
ings and advice were inspirational for this research.
Particular thanks to the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust
Studies, Austria, which gave me the first platform for encountering
international researchers on Holocaust Studies, and to the many others
that followed. I am also grateful to the European Holocaust Research
Infrastructure (EHRI), the Shoah Memorial in Paris, France, the
Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, USA,
and the Holocaust Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of
London, UK. Over the past few years, these institutions credited me

vii
viii Acknowledgements

with participation in their summer institutes, which represented excel-

lent opportunities for me to outline, review, challenge and improve my
research.
Special thanks are due to Alessandro Matta, director of the Shoah
Memorial of Cagliari, Italy, who kindly made available for me several
rare Holocaust films. Also, I wish to thank all those who generously pro-
vided me with film stills: Hugo Productions (France), Studio Hamburg
Produktion (Germany), Jadran Film (Croatia) and National Film Archive
(Czech Republic).
My deepest gratitude goes to my wonderful parents, Iosefina and
Dumitru, sister Cristina and niece Irina-Brigita: I would certainly not
have arrived this far without you. Your deep love, ceaseless support and
life example were a constant motivation for me never to give up on my
dreams. I am indebted also to my extended Irish family, especially to
Peggie and Phil, for their generous, wholehearted affection. Last but cer-
tainly not least, heartfelt thanks to my husband and soul-mate Padraig,
whose love and patience made this book possible.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

Part I Women and the Holocaust: The Silenced Gender?

2 The Silenced Gender Paradigm 23

3 Breaking the Silence on Women Perpetrators 37

4 Idealised or Ignored: Female Victims of the Holocaust 53

5 Invisible Resistance: Women’s Contribution 71

Part II The Cinematic Representation of Women

as Perpetrators and Accomplices of Nazism

6 Violent, Erotic, Brainwashed: Stereotypes of Female

Perpetrators in Holocaust Films between 1945 and 2000 83

7 Uneven Representations: Complex Men and Poorly

Drawn Women 101

ix
x Contents

8 “Ordinary Women” as Perpetrators in

Twenty-First-Century Holocaust Cinema 113

Part III Female Victims in Holocaust Films: From

Universalised Portrayals to Recovered Memory

9 Universalised Victims: Jewish Women in Early

Holocaust Films 133

10 The Jewish Woman as the Epitome of Holocaust

Victimhood in the 1960s 147

11 Newcomers to Holocaust Cinema: Women in Crisis,

Second Generation, Sexual Abuse and Other Victims
of Persecution 161

12 The Trauma of (Post)Memory: Women’s Memories in

the Holocaust Cinema of the New Millennium 179

Part IV Gendering Heroism: The Role of Women in

Filmic Discourses About Resistance

13 Patriarchal Perspectives on Jewish Female Heroism 207

14 The Role of Heroines in Coming to Terms with the Past

in Germany and France 219

15 Gendered Disparities in the Portrayal of Rescuers 235

Part V Towards a Conclusion: Researching the

Representation of Women in European
Holocaust Films

16 Conclusion 251

Index 269
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 List of Figures and Tables

Fig. 1.1 Ideological depiction of Martha, a courageous Jewish resister,

who delivers a passionate speech under the gallows prior to her
death in Wanda Jakubowska’s The Last Stage (1948) 2
Fig. 1.2 Contemporary Holocaust cinema offers theoretically and
technically complex films that prioritise women’s perspectives,
such as Marceline Loridan-Ivens’ The Birch-Tree Meadow
(2003) 3
Fig. 6.1 Aleksandra Śląska in the role of a cruel, unnamed camp
overseer in Wanda Jakubowska’s The Last Stage (1948) 88
Fig. 6.2 Frau Häberle in the pose of an efficient secretary in
Rolf Schübel’s Gloomy Sunday (1999) (Courtesy of Studio
Hamburg Produktion Gruppe GmbH) 92
Fig. 7.1 A sadistic Nazi brutalises and humiliates a random victim
in Alfréd Radok’s Distant Journey (1949) (Courtesy of
Czech National Film Archive) 103
Fig. 7.2 The arithmetic of death: Rudolf Höss sums the daily
number of victims killed in the Auschwitz crematoriums
in Theodor Kotulla’s Death Is My Trade (1977) 107
Fig. 8.1 Emotionally charged scene in which Traudl Junge explains
her inner turmoil in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall (2004) 119
Fig. 8.2 Hanna’s puzzled face as she asks the troubling question
“What would you have done?” in Stephen Daldry’s
The Reader (2008) 125
Fig. 9.1 Universalised portrayal of Elisabeth Maurer, acquired by
blurring any stereotypical Jewish features, in Kurt Maetzig’s
Marriage in the Shadows (1947) 134

xi
xii List of Figures and Tables

Fig. 9.2 Elisabeth Maurer observing the unleashed violence of the

Kristallnacht pogrom from the safety of her apartment in
Kurt Maetzig’s Marriage in the Shadows (1947) 138
Fig. 9.3 High-minded, elegant and kind: Hana Kaufmannová as a
“beautiful soul” in Alfréd Radok’s Distant Journey (1949)
(Courtesy of Czech National Film Archive) 143
Fig. 10.1 Croatian Ivo marries Ruth in an attempt to save her from
persecution in France Štiglic’s The Ninth Circle (1960)
(Courtesy of Jadran Film) 153
Fig. 10.2 Iconic close-up of Ruth, a prototype of the “beautiful
soul”, as she professes her ideals of humanity and love in
Konrad Wolf’s Stars (1959) 155
Fig. 10.3 Subjective camera from Karl’s perspective on Lakmé’s
face in Juraj Herz’s Cremator (1969) 156
Fig. 11.1 Close-up of Charlotte as the camera attempts to reveal
her innermost feelings in Frans Weisz’s Charlotte S. (1981) 165
Fig. 11.2 A desperate Rosa, halfway out of the cellar, begs Leon not
to move her to another hiding place in Agnieszka Holland’s
Angry Harvest (1985) 167
Fig. 12.1 Rebecca Cohen’s monologue in front of a funerary urn for
the Holocaust victims of Macedonia in Darko Mitrevski’s
The Third Half (2012) 180
Fig. 12.2 The “vicarious witness” experience in female-directed films 189
Fig. 12.3 Tomasz’s ghost from the past, dressed in a striped uniform,
invades Hannah’s present in Anna Justice’s Remembrance
(2011) 192
Fig. 12.4 The encounter between Myriam and Oskar, symbolising
the dichotomy between memory and history, in Marceline
Loridan-Ivens’ The Birch-Tree Meadow (2003) 198
Fig. 13.1 Two faces of the same coin: Racy Ellis de Vries (on the left)
versus modest Rachel Stein (on the right) in Paul
Verhoeven’s Black Book (2006) 213
Fig. 14.1 The frequent close-ups during the Gestapo interrogations
construct a detailed psychological portrait of Sophie
in Marc Rothemund’s Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) 221
Fig. 14.2 Kristin Scott Thomas as journalist Julia Jarmond in
Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s Sarah’s Key (2010) (Courtesy
of Hugo Productions. Photographer Julien Bonet) 226
Fig. 14.3 Julia breaks the spiral of silence concerning a past
overshadowed by the Holocaust in Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s
Sarah’s Key (2010) (Courtesy of Hugo Productions.
Photographer Julien Bonet) 229
 List of Figures and Tables xiii

Fig. 15.1 Hermann and Anni’s silent journey by cart marks her
transformation from a Nazi fanatic into a rescuer in
Ludi Boeken’s Army of Saviours (2009) 239
Fig. 15.2 The reconstruction of Lanzmann’s iconic image enhances
the significance of Annette Monod as a French rescuer
in Rose Bosch’s The Round Up (2010) 243
Fig. 16.1 Jewish Ruth Alkalaj as the epitome of innocent suffering
in France Štiglic’s The Ninth Circle (1960)
(Courtesy of Jadran Film) 253

Table 12.1 Holocaust films directed or co-directed by women 187

 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Female characters and the plight of women have been a significant

­presence in European Holocaust cinema since its inception and through-
out its seven decades of existence. From the aftermath of the war to the
present day, women have been portrayed in a multitude of roles in cine-
matic narratives about the Holocaust: as victims in hiding, in ghettos and
death camps; as wives, mothers, daughters or sisters of the persecuted;
as women who perished engulfed by the tragedy or women who sur-
vived; as women who gave shelter to the persecuted or denounced them;
as indifferent bystanders; as heroic women involved in the resistance;
and also as persecutors. While none of the female characters featured in
European films has succeeded in reaching the popularity of Anne Frank
in the American production The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), their
enduring presence has played an important role in shaping public images
and understandings of gender in the Holocaust.
From The Last Stage (1948), one of the earliest films about the
Holocaust, to contemporary productions such as The Birch-Tree Meadow
(2003), Nina’s Journey (2005), Sarah’s Key (2010) and Remembrance
(2011), there is a rich and complex trajectory of change and develop-
ment with regard to the representation of women, which both reflects
and responds to key socio-cultural developments in the interven-
ing decades, as well as to new directions in cinema, historical research,
politics of remembrance and memoir literature. Thus, for example, The
Last Stage (1948), directed by Wanda Jakubowska, a Polish filmmaker
and Auschwitz survivor, portrays a vast array of female prisoners from

© The Author(s) 2017 1

I. Lewis, Women in European Holocaust Films,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-65061-6_1
2 I. Lewis

Fig. 1.1 Ideological depiction of Martha, a courageous Jewish resister, who

delivers a passionate speech under the gallows prior to her death in Wanda
Jakubowska’s The Last Stage (1948)

different backgrounds held in the concentration camp of Auschwitz-

Birkenau, as well as female perpetrators. The film focuses on brave
women who gave their lives for the cause of the resistance, but also
features women who complied with the system or even worked for the
Nazis. Despite its realism in depicting the horrors of the Holocaust and
its pioneering role in “creating an iconography for the camps” (Loewy
2004: 180), The Last Stage has significant flaws, derived mainly from the
onus on narrative to suit the ideology of the post-war period (Haltof
2012: 37). As a result, the characters are flat and stereotyped, and their
key purpose is to provide commentary on the bravery of the inmates
or the inhumanity of the perpetrators, at the expense of more complex
portrayals of women that would facilitate deeper insights into female
­
experiences of the Holocaust (see Fig. 1.1).
Six decades later, multiple developments—among them second-wave
feminism, the incursion of female directors into the film industry, the rise
of memoir literature and first-person accounts of history and the voice that
these have given to women’s experiences—have resulted in more insightful
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

Fig. 1.2 Contemporary Holocaust cinema offers theoretically and technically

complex films that prioritise women’s perspectives, such as Marceline Loridan-
Ivens’ The Birch-Tree Meadow (2003)

and more theoretically and technically complex films. The Birch-Tree

Meadow (2003) by Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Nina’s Journey (2005) by Lena
Einhorn and Remembrance (2011) by Anna Justice are excellent examples
of how contemporary filmmakers have addressed women’s stories and per-
spectives related to the Holocaust (see Fig. 1.2). They not only cast women
in the protagonist roles, but offer a radically different portrayal in terms of
visual point of view, narrative voiceover and the prioritisation of a female
perspective on events. There has been a significant change, therefore, in the
way that women’s experiences of the Holocaust are narrated in old versus
new Holocaust films.
The present monograph explores how European cinema has con-
structed particular sets of images of and discourses on women in the
Holocaust over time. It focuses on three distinct categories: perpetrators,
victims and resisters. The study examines how and why the portrayal of
women in European Holocaust films has changed since the end of the
war, and traces the various patterns that characterise women’s represen-
tation throughout the intervening decades. Working with a corpus of
4 I. Lewis

310 films, this research presents an analysis of the dynamic relationship

between gender, film, and the history and memory of the Holocaust.
The journey that led me to this research is complex and sinuous.
Although I cannot claim any personal connection with the Holocaust
other than my passion for the topic, this study indirectly reflects my
own experience of how the Holocaust is remembered and/or silenced
in v­arious societies. I grew up in Romania, geographically close to the
traces of the Jewish persecution and yet, like most young Romanians
born during Communism, I was completely oblivious to it. It was only
while living abroad, when my Film Studies research intersected with
the subject of the Holocaust, that I started to be aware of the tragedy
that had unfolded in my own country, and also of the silence that still
pervades Romanian society regarding the Holocaust (Glajar 2011: 3).
Meeting Professor Ronit Lentin, daughter of Romanian-Jewish survivors
and lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, was a crucial turning point not
only in terms of determining the direction this research would take, but
also with regard to developing a full understanding of my own personal
motivation. Lentin’s inspirational writings about the Holocaust (Lentin
1989, 2000a, b, 2004) informed and enriched my research in refresh-
ing and unexpected ways. Importantly, most of her studies are perme-
ated with the topic of silence. Lentin (2000a: 693) claims that there is
a “deafening silence” that “envelops the link between gender and geno-
cide in relation to the Shoah”.1 Since this book is primarily concerned
with discourses about women in relation to the Holocaust, the theme
of silence is inevitably embedded in its structure and theoretical under-
pinnings. Indeed, the various ways in which women’s experiences are
silenced in mainstream Holocaust history and representation became a
key preoccupation of this monograph.
Significantly, the concept of silence points to the constructed nature
of Holocaust memory and, more generally, to the constructedness of
the Holocaust as a concept. This study addresses the Holocaust not
merely as a historical event consigned to the past, but rather as a com-
plex concept whose connotations are constantly revisited and challenged
over time. While the preference for the term Holocaust over analogous
ones such as Shoah and Judeocide is explained in detail at the end of
this chapter (see “Notes on Terminology”), it demands elaboration at
this juncture, as it is inextricably linked to the study’s epistemological
approach. Joan Ringelheim (1990: 141) claims that “the Holocaust
has been focused in our minds by the selectivity of many interested
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

parties: scholars, survivors, politicians, novelists, journalists, filmmak-

ers, perpetrators and revisionists”. What Ringelheim means here is that
our knowledge about the Holocaust is not based on direct access to the
past, but is rather filtered and shaped by a multitude of (f)actors and
within a variety of contexts. By acknowledging the Holocaust as a con-
struct, this study takes into account a twofold process: on the one hand,
how various factors reshape and influence the Holocaust memory; and
on the other, the way in which collective memory interacts with other
discourses within and beyond the subject of the Holocaust. Importantly,
historian Zoë Waxman (2006: 152) states that “the concept of the
Holocaust acts as an organiser of memory, not only for events contained
within its own description – how it shapes, what it excludes, and the
manner of its f­unctioning – but also for memories of other events”.
The Holocaust is therefore a term and a concept that is both prob-
lematic and needs constantly to be problematized. According to Lentin
(2004), there is a tendency to define all other contemporary catastro-
phes by comparison with the Holocaust. Lentin (ibid.: 5) claims that the
recurring use of the Holocaust trope to describe other conflicts such as
the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq or the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
has led to the transformation of the Holocaust into a “euphemism” and
a “‘unique, epoch-making’ metaphor”. Thus, the growing identification
of the Holocaust as a symbol for modern-day atrocity has “discursively
overshadowed all other modern cataclysms”, while “populating our col-
lective and individual imaginations with indelible images, which have
impoverished our vocabulary so that every catastrophe becomes a holo-
caust” (2004: 6). According to Lentin (ibid.: 12):

Telling and re-telling the Shoah has been employed not only in order to
construct a particular kind of memory, but also to justify certain acts, per-
haps because no other lexicon is available to Western imagination to nar-
rate catastrophe.

The universal metaphoric connotations embedded in the term

Holocaust, therefore, lead not only to an “impoverishment” of the
terminology available to narrate atrocity, but also to a homogenisa-
tion and politicisation of the knowledge about the Holocaust itself.
As Lentin (2004: 11) states, “the Shoah is transformed into a politi-
cal ideology, a code: the Shoah myth replaces the Shoah itself”. In
the same vein, Waxman (2006: 186) argues, “although we now know
6 I. Lewis

much more about the events of the Holocaust, the outcome has been
a diluted comprehension that accords with ‘official’ forms of Holocaust
representation”.
This book is situated within the theoretical frameworks of both
Holocaust Studies and Film Studies. It is therefore crucial to explore
the interaction between the two, as well as the unique parameters
that characterise Holocaust cinema. According to historian Lawrence
Baron (2005: 6), as the Holocaust recedes into the past, films acquire
a significantly increasing role in forming popular perceptions of
the event. Nowadays, along with history books, magazines and the edu-
cation received in schools, an important source of information about the
Holocaust is represented by television and cinema. Highly acclaimed
films such as the American Schindler’s List (1993) and many European
ones such as Life Is Beautiful (1997), Train of Life (1998), The Pianist
(2002), Rosenstrasse (2003) and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)—
to name but a few—provide unforgettable images that shape public
knowledge about the Holocaust for people who did not experience it.
In a similar vein, the scholar Anna Reading (2002: 100) acknowledges
that films are a “key medium in our social inheritance of the history and
memory of the Holocaust”. As she claims, the increasing role of films in
informing and fostering awareness about the Holocaust is a natural con-
sequence of the evolution of the film industry and the multiplication of
its forms of distribution. According to Reading (2002: 78):

The role of film in raising post-Holocaust awareness of the events is not

surprising given that the number of moving images related to and about
the Holocaust, and our access to these has increased enormously with the
diversification of broadcasting and the advent of satellite and cable televi-
sion resulting in the development of specialized channels, including those
for history.

Despite the passing of time since the end of the World War II, the
impact of the Holocaust is not diminishing but rather growing, as his-
torian Yehuda Bauer (2001: xi) points out. The Holocaust is still a sen-
sitive topic for many nations, who endeavour to wrest meaning from a
past whose memory lingers on into the present. Germany, the main per-
petrator nation, struggles between an ongoing process of “coming to
terms with the Nazi past” (Fuchs 2008: 1) and the more recent tendency,
since reunification, towards portraying Germans as victims of historical
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

circumstances (ibid.: 12). Also, over the last three decades France has
constantly revisited its past, by demolishing the post-war myth of wide-
spread resistance and acknowledging extensive collaboration with the
Nazis (Hewitt 2008: 2). Indeed, all of the countries involved in the war,
due to their varied positions as perpetrators, collaborators, victims or
Allied nations, encourage different discourses of remembrance that are
often promoted or reinforced by the nation’s cinematic output. In this
process, films act not only as vehicles of collective memory, but also as
producers and reinterpreters of it. As Leah Hewitt (2008: 4) argues, “in
the contemporary period, the media have frequently taken on the task
of transmitting and/or creating collective memories that confirm (but
sometimes challenge) national identities”. In the same vein, media scholar
Ferzina Banaji (2012) claims that films play an active role not only in
“creating” memory, but also in changing Holocaust memory according
to the concerns operating at particular points in time. As Banaji (2012:
1–2) further points out, even before we begin to address the substantive
content of films, “the very fact of cinematic revelation can often act as a
catalyst in shifting and engaging with perceptions and memories”. A case
in point is the documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1972), which chal-
lenged the myth of generalised French resistance and marked a watershed
moment in the memory of the Holocaust in France (Hewitt 2008: 3).
Given the importance of films in transmitting, creating and chang-
ing collective memories of the Holocaust, it is crucial to emphasise the
constructed nature of the latter. According to Anna Reading (2002: 5),
the concept of collective memory is intended to highlight how memo-
ries are configured to create “social cohesion through a broader con-
sensus about the past”. As she argues, despite the multitude of scholarly
works that focus on the role of media as a vehicle of collective memory,
there is a “gender memory gap”, meaning that very few studies take into
consideration the importance of gender in the “collective construction,
mediation and articulation of memories of historical events”. Reading
(2002: 100–101) further claims:

The more well-known socially inherited memories of the Holocaust

handed down through film tend to be those that in particular ways help
re-establish or confirm gendered roles and identities, and thus help main-
tain social cohesion. In this respect it is important to approach films about
the past, even “documentaries” of the events, in ways that are critical of
how these memories may be being mediated.
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8 I. Lewis

Understanding how Holocaust memory is mediated over time from

a gendered perspective, it is argued in this book, yields important new
insights into the complex mechanisms at play between gender, film,
­collective memory and historical representation.

Towards a Heterogeneous Approach to Women

It is important to flag here that gender is understood in this study not as
biological difference between men and women, but rather as a complex
and socially constructed set of norms, behaviours and relationships that
have evolved over time in the context of a patriarchal society. According
to sociologist Diane Richardson (2008: 10–11), recent developments by
scholars have challenged the universality of gender as a conceptual cat-
egory, claiming that the way we refer to gender is not the same in all
times and places, being tightly connected with the social and economic
positions of men and women in various societies around the world.
Richardson (ibid.: 11) further explains that more recent, post-modern
understandings of gender “shifted the emphasis away from definitions of
gender as fixed, coherent and stable, towards seeing gender categories
as plural, provisional and situated”. The key exponent of this thinking,
American theorist Judith Butler (1990), claims that gender is a reiter-
ated social performance (Richardson 1989: 11–13). Rethinking gender
theorisation, Butler (1990: 4) has questioned the universal category
“woman” used in traditional feminism and argued that gender is con-
stituted differently in various contexts because of its intersection “with
racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively consti-
tuted identities”. Butler (ibid.: 4–5) further claims that it is “impossible
to separate out ‘gender’ from the political and cultural intersections in
which it is invariably produced and maintained”.
In a similar vein, Lentin (1997: 5–6) states that, in studying genocide,
one needs to go beyond the universal binary equation of powerful male
versus powerless women. As she argues, gender analysis of catastrophes
should not approach women as a monolithic category, but instead move
beyond women’s victimhood to include “the routes of resistance available
to women” and the participation of women as perpetrators of genocide.
Furthermore, Lentin highlights the complex relationship between gender
and race. Taking stock of the writings of Floya Anthias and Nira Yuval-
Davis (1989), Lentin (ibid.: 9) acknowledges the numerous ways in which
women are “targeted by and participate in ethnic and national processes”
as producers of the next generations, as transmitters of culture, as symbols
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

of ideological discourses and as signifiers of ethical differences. In other

words, as Yuval-Davis (1996: 17) argues, “women reproduce biologi-
cally, culturally and symbolically their ethnic and national collectivities”.
In the context of Nazism and the Holocaust especially, Lentin (1997: 3,
9) explains that the Holocaust “was based not merely on anti-Semitism,
but on racist state ideology”. She argues that there was a direct connec-
tion between the Final Solution for the Jews, the mass murder of disa-
bled people and the Lebensborn breeding programme of Aryan children.
In all three cases, “women’s biological destiny” was targeted differently
within the Nazi ideology: young Jewish women were sentenced to death
because they could bear (Jewish) children, disabled people were sterilised
within the race-hygiene programmes, while “Aryan” women were encour-
aged to bear many “racially superior” children. Lentin uses this exam-
ple to emphasise the importance of addressing “women” not as a single,
homogeneous category, but in terms of the diversity of their experiences
and taking into account the intersection between race, ethnicity and gen-
der, which broadens the horizons of knowledge about the Holocaust.
According to Lentin (1997: 11):

Privileging women’s lived experiences as primary resources not only mili-

tates against universalising “womanhood” across contexts. It also enlarges
our understanding of any catastrophic event by reclaiming experiences of
women “hidden” in malestream historiography and scholarship, shaped,
among other things, by the gendered construction of knowledge itself.

In line with Lentin’s (1997) and Butler’s (1990) theorisations of gen-

der, this book does not focus on women as a unique and monolithic
category, but instead acknowledges the “multiplicity of cultural, social,
and political intersections in which the concrete array of ‘women’ are
constructed” (Butler, ibid.: 19). As the following chapters illustrate,
this monograph acknowledges an intricate web of Holocaust expe-
riences in which women are found at every possible intersection: as
women in ghettos, in concentration camps and in hiding, women who
perished in the Holocaust and women who survived, women who suc-
cumbed to despair and women who by their courage defied the crushing
Nazi system, women who were persecuted and also women who sided
with the persecutors. Due to the variety of their gendered experiences,
the category “women” is a highly heterogeneous and all-inclusive one.
Moreover, this study rejects the traditional binary opposition between
male oppressor/female victim by demonstrating that some women
10 I. Lewis

were also perpetrators. In doing so, it challenges essentialist discourses

that consider violence as a male domain against women seen as a “pow-
erless, unified group” (Lentin 2000c: 93), and proposes a “set of dia-
logic encounters by which variously positioned women articulate separate
identities” (Butler 1990: 20).
Most importantly, this book does not focus exclusively on women
who conformed to gender roles and identities, but excavates repre-
sentations that challenge mainstream historical knowledge by depict-
ing taboo topics such as sexual violence, rape and suicide. Significantly,
Butler (ibid.: 34) claims that identities are formed upon a set of “regula-
tory practices” of gender coherence. This implies that gender identity is
moulded upon “socially instituted and maintained forms of intelligibil-
ity” (Butler, ibid.: 23). Butler’s assertion is particularly important in the
context of this monograph because it resonates with Waxman’s (2006:
125) claim that the study of women and the Holocaust is organised
upon preconceived gender roles and rigid canons of “rightful behav-
iour”. Thus, this book goes beyond the commonly accepted norms
and regulatory practices traditionally embedded within gender, in order
to examine whether or not the memory of the Holocaust structures its
images upon a rigid gender stereotyping.
Also, despite the tendency of scholars to focus on the Jewish dimen-
sion of the Holocaust (Baumel 1998; Kaplan 1998; Ofer and Weitzman
1998), this monograph acknowledges other, understudied categories
of women such as Gypsies, lesbians and the disabled. This research is
aware of the complex intersectionality between gender, race and eth-
nicity, which was particularly relevant in the context of Nazism and its
eugenic policies. Although at times it might seem that the book adopts
an essentialist binary discourse by comparing the experiences of women
with those of their male counterparts, this is driven by the various ways
in which men and women were treated differently, and by the need of
this study to acknowledge the multitude of perspectives on women’s
­experiences during the Holocaust.

Why Focus on Perpetrators, Victims and Resisters?

This book is structured upon three distinct categories of women—namely,
perpetrators, victims and resisters—for a number of reasons. According to
the renowned historian Raul Hilberg (1992), the Holocaust was experienced
by three distinct groups of people: perpetrators, victims and bystanders. As
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

he claims: “Each saw what happened from its own, special perspective, and
each harboured a separate set of attitudes and reactions” (Hilberg, ibid.:
ix). While there is no doubt about including the first two categories in my
research, the third one is highly problematic. Firstly, Hilberg includes as
“bystanders” several groups, ranging from the nations in Hitler’s Europe
and the Allied countries, to individual rescuers who became involved in help-
ing the victims. In my opinion, this latter group does not fit very well into
the category of “bystanders”, who by definition choose to stand by and
therefore not to get involved. Within Hilberg’s three categories there is not
much room for the people who opposed the regime or resisted its policies.
Moreover, from a cinematic point of view, “bystanders” would generally be
included in an undistinguishable mass of uncredited characters and therefore
would not have much relevance for my analysis. By contrast, there are several
films that focus on the acts of resistance of organised groups or individuals,
both Jewish and non-Jewish. These films often place at the centre of their
stories a heroic character whose portrayal is well defined. I therefore chose
as my third category not Hilberg’s group of “bystanders”, but the people
involved in resistance and rescue activities. This category is particularly sig-
nificant for this research because, “as a subject, women and the Holocaust
poses a challenge to traditional definitions of heroism and resistance” (Baer
and Goldenberg 2003b: xxiv). This study focuses, therefore, on examining
the representation of women in Holocaust films according to these three
categories: perpetrators, victims and resisters. In relation to the category of
­victims, the research adopts an inclusive approach and explores the discourses
and cinematic representation of both Jewish and non-Jewish victims. Recent
studies on other categories of female victims, such as lesbians (Schoppmann
1996; Giles 2011) and Gypsy women (Milton 2003), play an important role
in this research and form much of the bedrock upon which the current anal-
ysis builds. However, given the broad canvas of female profiles to be analysed
and the limitations inherent in a book, some categories had to be omitted,
such as prisoners of war and political prisoners. The omission of these two
categories is justified also by the fact that they are often encountered dur-
ing wars or dictatorial regimes, and are not necessarily directly related to the
politics of extermination set in place by the Nazis.
Since this research considers only fictional texts, the question of h
­ istorical
accuracy and of how much these films represent what women actually lived
through is not what is at stake. Instead, I shall focus on the filmic discourses
on women, emphasising to what extent these ­ discourses coincide with,
reframe, reinforce or veil the Holocaust-related experiences of women.
12 I. Lewis

The comparison will not therefore be directly between cinematic and real
women, but rather between their filmic representation and the historical
knowledge prevailing at the time when the film was made. According to
Pierre Sorlin (2001: 45), many books on the filmic representation of history
do nothing more than compare the written description of historical events
with their cinematic portrayal. As he claims, such an approach is ineffective,
since films need to be compared with “the version of history given at the
time”. Sorlin’s comment is very useful, as it points towards the necessity of
taking into account the context in which the films emerged and the level of
historical knowledge at a specific time. For a study on the Holocaust such as
this one, it would therefore be significant to consider during the analysis the
following set of questions: To what extent did developments in historical
research on the Holocaust influence its filmic representation? What was the
impact of the Nazi trials on the cinematic depiction of the Holocaust? What
was the image of the Jew before the “Holocaust” had its name? How did
the collective memory of the Holocaust in a certain country exert influence
over its cinematic representations?
These questions highlight the importance of tracing the relationship
between the evolution of Holocaust historiography and its impact on the
cinematic depiction of the event. The same goes for the issue of gender
in relation to both the filmic representation and Holocaust research: it
is crucial to acknowledge the seminal changes in the way we relate to
gender that took place during the arc of time between World War II and
the present. What role did the feminist revolution and the emergence of
feminist film theories play in the representation of women in Holocaust
films? How did the emergence of gendered research on the Holocaust
shape the filmic discourses on the event? How and why does the repre-
sentation of women differ in the twenty-first century compared to the
immediate post-war period?
By taking into account all these questions, this book acknowledges
that the filmic representation of the Holocaust in general, and of wom-
en’s experiences as part of it, is shaped over time by a multiplicity of fac-
tors. Also, the research does recognise the importance of considering
the discourses formulated by Holocaust films as part of a broader set of
concerns existing at national and global level in a certain period of time.
Scholars noticed that Holocaust films are grounded in history, but also
closely connected to present-time discourses. Zoë Waxman (2006: 151)
claims that “the function of collective memory is not to focus on the past
in order to find out more about the Holocaust, but to use the past to
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The Ormoo flew steadily, strongly. Presently, the girl said:
"Does the Ormoo really understand your commands?"
"A few simple ones."
"Would it obey me?"
"Try it."
"Down," cried Mia.
The Ormoo plummeted toward the surface. Mia clapped her hands,
shrieked: "Up!" Its wings thundered as it gained altitude again.
She twisted around in the saddle. "It obeys me," she laughed
infectiously. She placed her hands, as if to steady herself on Cosmo's
shoulder. All at once, her gray eyes contracted. She gave him a
tremendous push.
Caught completely by surprise, Cosmo lunged desperately for the
saddle, missed. He felt himself slipping faster and faster on the bird's
wet back. There he went over with a rush.
His wildly grabbing hand slid down Mia's bare leg. Like a drowning
man clutching at a straw, his fingers closed about her ankle.
Mia gave a shriek of terror, rolled over on her stomach, hugged the
saddle.
"Let go!" she yelled. "You're pulling me off!" She kicked wildly at the
man dangling pendulum-like from her foot.
Cosmo grunted. He pulled himself up, grabbed her leg just above
the calf. Thrusting his free hand into the Ormoo's feathers, he seized
a large quill, inched himself upward.
Mia was too busy hanging to the saddle to kick at him. She lay
stomach down across the Ormoo's back clinging with the strength of
panic.
Cosmo released her leg, got a grip on her tunic. It parted halfway up
her back, leaving him dangling wildly from the huge quill. He caught
her leg again, strained upward until he could grasp the saddle and
heave himself astride.
He sat there, trembling with exhaustion, panting.
Mia still lay stomach down across the saddle sobbing with
frustration. There were red finger weals on ankle, calf and thigh
where Cosmo's iron fingers had dug into her flesh.
He flashed her his sudden grin. "You little devil," he panted. "I ought
to dangle you over the Ormoo's side. See how you'd like it."
A shudder passed through the girl. "I hate you! I hate you!" she
sobbed in frustrated rage.
There was a soothing tempo to the swish-lift of the giant Ormoo's
flight. Mia dozed as the miles fled past, slumped against Cosmo's
chest.
Then unexpectedly, the bird wheeled, flapped sharply upward. Its
huge wing tips brushed the face of a cliff. Fog swirled, whipped into
froth by the frenzied wings.
Mia MacIver awakened in terror, clung to Cosmo, pressed her damp
quivering body against him. The bird wheeled again and again,
always gaining altitude.
"We're in the Mountains of the Clouds." Cosmo's green eyes
glittered. "We'll be at the roost any moment."
It was colder. Mia shivered. Then the Ormoo began to settle. Wings
thrashing, it came to rest with a jar.
Nothing was visible but cloud, thick, clinging. The mountains,
thrusting up into Venus' cloud sheath, were perpetually mantled with
the gray vapor. The deep throated roar of a waterfall beat at their
ears like thunder.
Cosmo slid off the Ormoo's back, shouted at Mia to jump. His voice
was drowned in the waterfall. A dash of spray struck his face.
He felt for her ankle, yanked. She came tumbling into his arms with
a scream. Cosmo laughed, bore her lightly across the jumble of
sticks which was the Ormoo's nest, down a long slippery flight of
steps descending into the chasm. Spray drenched them both. The
roar was unbearable.
He paused, fumbled at a section of the cliff. A door swung inward,
revealing a long low chamber hewn from the living rock.
Cosmo carried the wet and shivering girl across the threshold.
Fog swirled about them like steam from a turkish bath. He set her
on her feet, shut the door. The roar of the waterfall was blotted out.
Only the hissing of gas jets which lighted the chamber disturbed the
silence.
"My private entrance." He surveyed his prize. The wet yellow tunic
revealed every subtle curve. "You're a handsome wench, Mia."
Mia MacIver frowned. "Entrance to what?"
"The Renegade's abode. The mountain's honeycombed with caves.
Come on."
But Mia hung back dubiously. "What are you going to do with me?"
He eyed the suspicious girl, said solemnly: "Oh, the usual thing."
"The usual thing?" She swallowed. "That's what I was afraid of!"
"You're easily resigned," he observed dryly, and urged her toward
the door at the rear of the chamber. "You need to get out of that
wet tunic." He grinned, regarded the rent in the back of the
garment. "It isn't doing its duty any longer anyway."
"I think you're horrible!" She grabbed the tear together, sidled
crabwise through the door, her cheeks hot.
Cosmo followed chuckling. A long narrow corridor burrowed ahead
of them straight into the heart of the mountain. Flaring gas jets
hissed at regular intervals along the walls.
All at once the grin was wiped from his face. He seized Mia's arm,
said: "Hold it!"
Mia bit her lip, gasped.
Three men had edged into the corridor from a bisecting passage.
They were huge, almost seven feet tall with skin a vivid blue. They
were quite naked and the muscles bulged beneath their blue hides.
"Jovian Dawn Men!" Mia whispered. "My God! They're running
amok!"
Cosmo felt the cold breath of death blow up his spine. His hand slid
automatically to his shoulder holster. It was empty. With a curse, he
remembered that it had been taken by the Blue Venus. Her dart gun,
he'd tossed aside, once free of the Bemmelman plantation.
The three naked giants minced daintily closer, nostrils flaring as they
caught their scent. "They're not amok," he said over his shoulder.
"The rutting season is months off yet. There's something else behind
this."
Mia said with incredulity: "Look at their left shoulders. See that scar.
The fern leaf! That's Hal Bemmelman's brand! Cosmo, those are
Bemmelman's slaves!"
The blue giants crouched. Their violet eyes were passionless, their
handsome faces calm, inscrutable.
"Back!" Cosmo suddenly shouted in a tone of authority, and took a
step toward them. A low snarl rumbled in their throats. Then like
cats on a mouse, they pounced.
Mia screamed.
Cosmo kicked one of them in the belly, heard him grunt. With balled
fist he swung at the placid handsome features of the second blue
giant. Pain, like a hot iron, shot up his arm from his bruised
knuckles. The Jovian shook his head, grabbed Cosmo's wrist, jerked.
His arm felt as if it were being torn from the socket.
He kicked, slugged the emotionless face with his free hand. The grip
never relaxed. He heard Mia scream again like a rabbit in a steel
trap.
Then the Jovian clouted him brutally alongside the temple with his
open fist. Cosmo's head snapped sideways like a punching bag. His
knees collapsed. He seemed to be falling into the chasm of the
waterfall, down, down into stygian blackness.

IV

Cosmo gradually became aware of a jolting swaying movement. At

each jolt, a flash of pain shot across his eyes. He sat up, cracked his
skull against something solid. A blinding pain jolted him into full
consciousness.
He was in a cage, he saw, swung on poles like a litter between two
of the blue giants. They were jogging along through a forest.
At once he became aware of warmth along his side, twisted his
head. Mia was regarding him from wide frightened eyes. They'd
been tumbled side by side into the cage. The girl was almost naked,
her yellow tunic in tatters.
"You hurt?" he asked.
She shook her head.
He closed his eyes against the ache in his skull. If the pain would
only let up. His mind felt fuzzy, his thoughts incoherent.
"Whew. That brute sure gave me a wallop. What happened?"
He could feel Mia shiver against him. "It was dreadful," she said.
"They grabbed me—ugh!—and stuffed me in this cage. They had it
hidden outside on the trail from the Ormoo's nest. Then they
dumped you in on top of me like a bag of flour. I—I thought you
were dead."
"So did I," said Cosmo dryly.
She regarded him dubiously, said: "They picked up the cage then
and began to run down the trail. They carried us over the most
impossible places, always down. I died with fright. Just a little while
ago we came out into the forest."
"I know the trail," he said. "Nothing but Jovian primitives could have
managed it. I wonder why Bemmelman didn't have me killed
outright."
"Bemmelman?" Mia looked puzzled.
"Sure. They're his slaves. You saw the fern leaf brand on their
shoulders. We walked straight into a trap."
"But that's impossible. How could they have found your hideout?"
Cosmo shook his head and immediately regretted it. "One of my
men must be a spy. Bemmelman's shrewder than I've given him
credit for being."
"A spy?" Mia's eyes grew round as saucers. "But why?"
"I don't know. Unless he's after that fifty thousand monad reward on
my head!" He frowned. "Bemmelman said something odd last night
when he caught me in his house. He said he'd been trying to get in
touch with me."
The blue giants swung effortlessly through the incredible forest. The
trees were like cathedral columns disappearing in the swirling cloud
blanket.
"You said we'd walked into a trap," insisted Mia. "How could
Bemmelman know when you'd get back. I don't understand."
Cosmo snorted. "Anybody could guess I'd head for my hideout after
the alarm at your place. Most likely, Bemmelman tipped that Judas
of his by radio when to expect me. The Dawn Men are animals. They
hunt by scent. That fellow must have given them a piece of my
clothing, planted them in the corridor. It was as simple as that."
"But what does Bemmelman want with me?" she wailed.
"Don't forget the Blue Venus. I told you he'd been trying to duplicate
that experiment."
"I don't believe it," said Mia in a shocked voice. "He wouldn't dare!
Would he?"
"What's to hinder him? At Venusport they'll think the Renegade
abducted you. Who'd suspect that the eminent Councillor
Bemmelman had hijacked me?"
"I don't believe it," she repeated indignantly. "You're just trying to
throw mud on him because you think he murdered your parents and
stole your plantation. It's—it's an obsession. You have no proof."
Cosmo regarded her with cloudy green eyes. "I had the Intersteller
Investigation Bureau dig out his past. I've a man in Bemmelman's
household right now. I know." He looked through the bars of the
cage. They were approaching the edge of the forest. He turned
back, said: "Something besides slave breeding is going on at
Bemmelman's. There are parts of the plantation where my man
never has been able to penetrate."
"What do you think it is?" Mia's voice was a whisper.
"I don't know. But hasn't it occurred to you that slave breeding must
entail a slow turnover. A child isn't marketable until it's sixteen or
seventeen at least."
"What are you driving at?"
"Suppose Bemmelman has discovered some way to speed up growth
—to hasten maturity."
"An aging process? It's—it's impossible."
He shook his head. "Plants are forced; why not animals?"
The blue giants, he saw, had broken through the last of the trees
into a lush meadow of mauve fen grass.
"Look, Mia!" he pointed toward the center of the meadow. "The
second lap of our journey is provided for. Our kidnapper shows
considerable foresight."
In the center of the meadow, a small surface plane rested on the fen
grass like a silver bullet. There was no sign of life inside or out.

"It's deserted," said Mia in surprise. Cosmo frowned, but didn't reply.
The Jovian Dawn Men trotted straight to the empty plane. They
opened a door in the side, shoved them within, cage and all. Cosmo
heard the door click shut. The Dawn Men had not followed them
inside.
He glanced curiously about the interior. All the seats had been
removed, even the pilot's chair.
"Where's the pilot?" asked Mia in a subdued voice.
He shook his head. Through the port, he could see the blue giants
disappearing among the trees.
Just then the plane gave a jerk.
"It's moving!" With a shriek, Mia flung herself onto Cosmo.
He felt the plane lurch again, then shoot upward. At a hundred feet
it leveled itself off, darted away on what he judged to be a southerly
course. There was still no evidence of a pilot.
Mia MacIver held onto Cosmo like a drowning man to a straw as the
pilotless plane hurtled southward.
He drew a long breath. "Robot pilot." He patted her shoulder.
"There's nothing supernatural about it."
Mia pulled herself away. "I didn't mean to throw myself on you like
that. I ... I...." She halted lamely.
"Don't apologize." Cosmo flashed her his quick wolfish grin. "I
enjoyed it. You've been hurling yourself at me at fairly regular
intervals all day."
"I think you're horrid." Mia's cheeks colored, but her gray eyes
twinkled.
"Mia," he said serious all at once, "if Bemmelman—er—disposes of
me, you'll have to contact my man yourself. I told you I had a spy
planted in his household. His name is Penang-ihtok."
She looked suddenly startled.
"He's a Venusian, an outcast Fozoql. You can recognize him by the
blue star tattooed on his forehead. Tell him that my orders are to
have the men raid Bemmelman's plantation and carry you to
Venusport."
"Penang-ihtok," she repeated.
"Of course," he added dryly; "I'm hopeful Bemmelman won't kill me
right off, and I can contact Penang-ihtok myself. In which case, you
won't need to bother your pretty head about it."
He yawned, stretched out as comfortably as he could arrange
himself in their confined quarters, closed his eyes.
"You're not going to sleep," exploded Mia in alarm.
"Certainly. Nothing else to do." He patted his shoulder. "Make
yourself comfortable."
She eyed him with suspicion.
"Go ahead. I haven't any designs on you," he said dryly.
"Well you don't need to be so assertive about it," said Mia, and laid
her head gingerly on his shoulder.
"Sure," said Cosmo. He was staring at the roof of the cage.
Presently, she said in a sleepy voice, "I haven't leprosy either, in case
you're worried."
"Of course not."
Mia muttered something unladylike under her breath.
"What's that?"
"I think," said Mia distinctly; "that you're a worm!"
Cosmo chuckled. The plane continued to steer itself arrow-like into
the South of Mu.
A faint jerk brought Cosmo wide awake as some jungle animal. The
plane, he realized had stopped, settled to Venus.
It was night. The green phosphorescent light of the luminous
vegetation flooded through the port holes. From somewhere, the
sound of a muffled bell, ringing, ringing, reached his ears.
Through the port, he could see a corner of a tower, part of a slate
roof. The grotesque arms of a telo-antenna sprouted from the peak
of the tower. He heard a door squeal open. The bell sounded louder,
then it stopped to be replaced by the mutter of voices approaching.
"Wake up." He shook Mia MacIver gently.
She opened her eyes, stared at him in bewilderment. "Where are
we?"
"Shhh!"
The door opened. Cosmo caught sight of Bemmelman's gross
features in the opening. He looked ghastly in the phosphorescent
glow. Beyond him reared an immense gray pile of a building.
The planter's jaw dropped in disbelief as he recognized his captives.
Then a tide of red swept up from his bull-like neck.
"You!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing in there?"
"Didn't you know?" said Cosmo dryly. "I'm trying to cure myself of
claustrophobia."
But already, a shrewd gleam of triumph had replaced the
disappointment in Bemmelman's pig-like brown eyes.
"You're the Renegade." He rubbed his hands together, began to grin.
"Yes sir, you're the Renegade. I should have guessed it before. And
you, Mia." He threw back his head, roared until the court
reverberated with his heavy laughter.
"Let us in on the joke," said Cosmo.
Bemmelman stopped laughing, wiped his eyes. "Two birds with one
stone. I didn't expect to catch both of you in the same trap. No sir,
that I didn't." He stepped back, clapped his hands.

Two naked Blue Dawn Men appeared, hauled forth the cage,
shouldered it. With Bemmelman following, they bore it across the
court, into a doorway at the base of the lichen covered tower.
"I feel perfectly ridiculous," whispered Mia, bouncing around in the
cage. "Thank goodness none of my friends can see me."
Cosmo chuckled, shot a glance after Bemmelman who was crossing
the floor to an intercommunicating telecast. The room appeared to
be a guard room. Weapons were racked against the walls, and a
dozen naked blue giants lay sleeping on the floor. These raised their
handsome, classical heads, surveyed the captives from incurious
violet eyes. Cosmo put his lips against Mia's ear and said:
"Remember Penang-ihtok."
He heard Bemmelman say: "Switch on the current in the tower. Send
Llana to me at once."
A voice from the audio replied: "Right."
From the corner of his eye, Cosmo saw a sheet of flame sear across
the door leading to the court beyond. Then it vanished.
"Force screen," he guessed.
Bemmelman approached, grinning amiably. He was wearing a snuff
brown suit which set on him like a sack.
"Don't try to escape," cautioned the planter as he inserted a slender
key in the spring lock, threw back the top of the cage. "You'd be
electrocuted if you went through any of the outside doors or
windows."
Cosmo and Mia stood up shakily.
"We won't bolt, if that's what you mean," Cosmo replied dryly. He
glanced at the handsome, impassive blue giants, discarded any idea
of attacking Bemmelman directly.
"I'm happy to see you're amenable to reason, Cosmo. I sure am." He
rubbed his nose. "Yes sir. I like a reasonable man. I'm going to be
able to use you, Cosmo."
"That's what you said last night," Cosmo reminded him, his face
blank. The palms of his hands were sweating. He wanted to run as
fast and far from the sly, red-faced man as he could. Bemmelman,
he was beginning to sense, was as slippery and dangerous as the
infamous Venusian swamp rath.
A door at the rear of the chamber opened suddenly. Cosmo jumped.
A glance assured him it was only a slave girl. She wasn't a Venusian,
though. He frowned. She was from Earth.
The Terran girl regarded the prisoners curiously, then faced
Bemmelman. "Rabaul said you wanted me." She was dressed in a
green sarong which reached from her knees to her breasts. On her
left shoulder was a small scar in the shape of a fern leaf:
Bemmelman's brand.
"Yes sir," said the planter; "so I do. So I do, Llana. Be so good as to
escort Miss MacIver to the tower apartment. Don't leave her."
Mia shuddered, clung tighter to Cosmo.
"Keep your head, Mia." He gently disengaged her hand. "If you don't
go, they'll drag you off willy-nilly."
Dispiritedly she followed the slave girl from the guardroom. She was
so woebegone that Cosmo felt a wrench at his heart. He faced the
planter, said in a hard voice, "What did you want with me?"
Bemmelman's eyelids drooped. He turned on his heel, said shortly,
"Come along, Cosmo," and started for the door. "I want to have a
talk with you. Yes sir, a very interesting talk."

Flanked by the two blue giants Cosmo followed his host down a long
corridor, up a flight of steps and into a sumptuously furnished
apartment. A yellow grass mat carpeted the floor from wall to wall.
The furniture was covered with a coarse, woven fabric, barbaric in
its color.
With a sigh, Bemmelman lowered himself into a lounge chair,
indicated another for Cosmo.
"You're tired. You've had an uncomfortable journey. I won't keep you
up long." He rang a bell.
With amazing promptness, a wizened Mercurian scurried through a
sliding wall panel.
"Krudo juice," said Bemmelman; "cold. And sandwiches. Better bring
a bottle of food concentrates, too."
The Mercurian disappeared.
Cosmo was staring at the bank of open windows. They gave onto a
Venusian garden of grotesque beauty, each plant and shrub
sparkling with a cold phosphorescence. Several insects, the huge,
bird-like insects of Venus, winged in from the garden. As they
reached the window, there was a sudden sparkle of flame. The
insects dropped dead to the floor.
"An excellent warning," Bemmelman said in a silky voice. "The force
screens, you know. Yes sir, not only do they discourage guests from
straying; but they keep intruders outside."
Cosmo repressed a shiver. "Ingenious gadget."
"Gadget?" The red-faced planter threw back his head, laughed
uproariously. "You're a droll rogue, you are. I like a man with a
sense of humor." He rubbed his nose, then pointed to a picture
above the sofa. "Recognize her, don't you?"
Cosmo saw a three dimensional photograph of a nude. Her skin was
pale blue, flushed with healthy rose, her hair like molten gold.
"Sofi," Cosmo said with distaste. "The Blue Venus. I should think,
Bemmelman, you'd have to wait rather long for your profits."
"So I do. So I do. But it's possible to harvest a yearly crop from a
forest. Trees grow even slower than people. I'll show you the slave
pens tomorrow. I've only the one Blue Venus, though. Unfortunately
the rest have been males."
Cosmo wondered why the planter had called attention to the Blue
Venus. He suspected that Bemmelman was subtly trying to find out
if he had learned anything from Sofi.
"What do you do with the males?" he asked, prompted by something
in Bemmelman's voice.
"They're interesting, but they've no market value. I have them
destroyed."
Cosmo bit his lip. Bemmelman was a monster. He wondered what
the sealed chambers held, the chambers where his spy Penang-ihtok
had never been able to penetrate.
"I suppose," said the planter unexpectedly; "you're curious about
what I wanted with you?"
Cosmo nodded.
"Well sir, I could have had you killed back in the caves of the Cloud
Mountains. I've had a spy among your men for some time." He
paused as the Mercurian returned, deposited a tray between them.
It held a silver pitcher of krudo juice, thin sandwiches, a bottle of
food concentrates.
"Go ahead," said Cosmo when the Mercurian had departed. He
popped two of the pills into his mouth.
"Where was I? Oh yes. I could have had you assassinated several
times, but you've some information I want?"
Cosmo's green eyes narrowed warily. "What information?"
The planter leaned forward, tapped him on the knee. "That bird. The
Giant Ormoo. Oh yes, I know how you escaped from the roof last
night. Yes sir, and very neat, too." He beamed amiably. "I want to
know where the Ormoos feed."
Cosmo sat back in surprise.
"Why?"
"That's my secret," said the beefy planter. "Yes sir, that's my secret.
But I'm a business man, Cosmo. Show me where the Ormoo feeds,
and I'll make it worth your while."
"Five thousand monad," Cosmo hazarded.
Bemmelman didn't blink an eye. "Five thousand monad," he agreed.
Cosmo sat back, his face blank. The planter, he realized, had no
more idea of paying him five thousand monad than he had of
adopting him. He'd agreed to the preposterous sum too readily.
Cosmo's green eyes hardened.
"And suppose I refuse."
"But you won't. You can't. No sir. If you refused, I'll be forced to kill
you and trace the bird myself."
"The devil you will." Cosmo could feel sweat starting from his
forehead. "That bird's savage as a tiger. You've already tried to trace
it to its feeding ground, haven't you? That's why you planted a spy
among my men, wasn't it?"
"Yes sir," Bemmelman admitted with a sigh. "I don't mind telling you
he was supposed to find out what and where the bird ate. But it
damn near tore him to pieces."
Cosmo didn't say anything.
Bemmelman leaned forward, tapped his knee again. "Unfortunately,
the birds are rare as the dodo. I've spent quite a bit of money trying
to locate another. The only one that's been caught is in the Solar
Apiary on Earth."
Mention of the Ormoo in the Solar Apiary stirred Cosmo's memory.
He stared at Bemmelman with narrowed eyes. The Ormoo in its wild
state matured to its full size in a few months. The one which the
Terran expedition had secured, hadn't reached adulthood until its
nineteenth year. The discrepancy had been puzzling ornithologists
ever since. Theories had flooded the scientific journals, but to date,
no one had explained satisfactorily why a wild Ormoo should mature
over twenty times as fast as the same bird in captivity.
"Well?" Bemmelman rubbed his nose, his eyelids drooping.
"If I show you where the Ormoo feeds, what guarantee have I that
you'll carry out your side of the bargain?"
"Just my word," said Bemmelman with a chuckle. "Just my word."
Two rouge-like spots sprang out on Cosmo's cheek bones. He came
halfway erect in his chair.
"No violence, please." The planter held up his hand. "Look behind
you."
Cosmo turned his head. The two Jovian primitives were crouched to
spring. He sank back in his chair, managed a tight grin. His lips felt
dry, his stomach hollow.
"I don't think you appreciate your position, Cosmo," said the planter
silkily. "No sir, I don't." He heaved himself from his chair with a
grunt. "I've something to show you. Come with me."
The two Jovian Dawn Men fell in beside Cosmo again as he trailed
the planter down three steps, along a short corridor to a sunken
court. Bemmelman paused, pointed to a huge wooden cross in the
center of the court.
"You weren't depending on him, were you," he smirked.
Cosmo felt his blood run cold. His fists clenched until the nails bit
into the flesh.
The body of Penang-ihtok hung from the cross. The outcast Fozoql
had been crucified upside down.
"You see," said Bemmelman, his voice heavy with assurance; "how
futile it is to oppose me."
Cosmo turned away from the cross with its grisly burden. He looked
coldly, speculatively at Bemmelman's beefy smiling face. At the look,
fright glimmered in the planter's eyes. He made a quick gesture to
the Jovians who seized Cosmo by either arm.
"Take him away," he ordered. "We'll talk it over tomorrow."
Cosmo was conducted into a plainly, but comfortably furnished
room. One of the blue giants immediately stretched himself on the
sofa and went to sleep. The other, though, took a stance by the
door, folded his arms, regarded Cosmo with the unwinking stare of
an idol. Obviously, the Jovian primitives intended to spell each other.
With a grunt of annoyance, Cosmo retreated into the bathroom. He
had grossly underestimated Bemmelman, he realized with chagrin. A
malignant genius, the slave breeder had no more scruples than his
Dawn Men.
Cosmo heard a soft step behind him, whirled around. His Jovian
guard was standing placidly just within the door.
"Damn," he snapped, nerves jangling. "I'm not going to crawl out
the drain."
The blue giant never changed expression by so much as a flicker.
Cosmo got a grip on himself, shot the giant his flashing grin. "What's
the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
He stripped off coat and trousers, hung them carefully over the
Jovian's shoulder, stepped under the shower.
Considerably refreshed, he returned to his sleeping chamber, crawled
raw into the huge bed. But sleep escaped him. That stark cross, the
body illuminated by the radiations of the lichens and mosses,
persisted in thrusting itself before his eyes. He clenched his fists,
trembled in an agony of impotent fury. Somehow, he'd trip up
Bemmelman, smash his disgusting racket.

Cosmo awakened in the huge bed, sweating with terror. The echo of
some nameless horror still rang in his ears. He saw the Dawn Man,
motionless as a statue, watching him with animal patience. Then he
heard it again.
It was a girl's scream. It reached him faintly. It went on and on. He
leaped out of bed, tugged on his trousers.
The Dawn Man sprang across the room to intercept him. Cosmo
seized a metal chair, swung it with the same movement. It caught
the blue giant on his head and shoulders. The blow would have
felled an ox. The Jovian folded onto the carpet, lay still. Cosmo
thought he must be dead.
The second Jovian primitive jumped from the sofa at the crash. He
had awakened like an animal. With a low snarl, he leaped for
Cosmo.
Cosmo ducked under his first rush, crashed the chair down on the
back of his head. The giant staggered groggily, but didn't go down.
Cosmo measured the distance, walloped him again. The second blue
giant went over like a falling tree.
Without stopping for coat or shoes, Cosmo hurtled into the hall. The
screaming had been silenced. The building was quiet as a deserted
church.
He set out at a lope in the direction of the tower where Mia was
confined. That had been Mia screaming, he was sure. He'd
recognized the timbre of her voice.
His heart thudding, he reached a stair, took the steps two at a time.
It bent sharply to the left, went up another flight. He must be in the
tower itself. The silence was oppressive. He wished fervently he had
a dart gun, a ray projector, anything that would serve as a weapon.
The steps continued to wind upward.
Gasping for breath, he reached the fifth level. From beneath a door
seeped a crack of light. He sniffed. A peculiar odor impinged on his
nostrils. Then he heard Bemmelman's rough voice like the rasp of
iron.
"That's done. Take her to the slave pens."
Cosmo's heart contracted. A blinding rage swept him. He'd been too
late.
He rammed the door with his shoulder. It burst open as if exploded.
For a second he was poised in the doorway, big, rangy, naked to the
waist, his hands hooked like claws, his nostrils distended.
Without a word, he leaped on Bemmelman.
The planter was standing beside an operating table upon which Mia
MacIver was strapped. He fell back a step, raised his arm in a
gesture of defense.
Cosmo's rush bowled him over backward. He tried to scramble to his
feet, but Cosmo was on him like a cat on a mouse. Time after time,
he drove his fist into the planter's face. A blinding rage shook him to
the marrow.
As if from a distance, he heard Mia scream again.
"Cosmo! Look out behind you!"
He swung off the insensible Bemmelman, twisted to his feet. He saw
Llana, the Terran slave girl, directly behind him. Her arm was
upraised, her fist clutching a needle like dagger. With a sob, she
plunged it downward toward his heaving chest.
Cosmo caught her wrist in a grip of iron, tore the dagger from her
fingers. Contemptuously, he tossed the girl into a corner of the
room, turned to Mia.
"Mia, are you all right?"
She gave a sob of relief. "Yes, yes! But get me out of this iron lung
before I pass out."
He fumbled hastily at the clamps. Her hair was tumbled. One
shoulder of her tattered yellow tunic had been torn down to her
stomach. He paused suddenly, his eyes dilating.
There was an angry red scar above Mia's left breast. He realized
what the smell on the landing outside the tower room had been. It
was the odor of burning flesh.
Mia MacIver had been branded!
 VI

Cosmo said, "Mia, Mia," and gathered her to him. "What have they
done to you?"
Llana scurried past like a frightened rabbit.
"She's getting away!" Mia cried. "She'll rouse the house!"
"Never mind." Cosmo could hear her clatter down the stair. "We've
got a hostage." He gave Mia a wry grin, added, "that is, if I haven't
killed Bemmelman."
Mia shivered, leaned against him. He glanced down, saw she was
regarding him strangely. With a dry sob she buried her head on his
shoulder.
"Cosmo, Cosmo, don't ever leave me again." Her voice was almost
lost. "Take me with you—into the mountains."
He frowned, said: "You crazy kid. You don't know what you're
saying. I'm an outlaw. There's no way to prove Bemmelman
murdered my father and mother. And even if there was, that
wouldn't clear me. Every crime the Security Patrol hasn't been able
to solve has been laid at my doorstep."
"We could run away. We could go to Ganymede."
He shook his head. "It wouldn't make any difference. As long as the
Renegade is alive they'll hunt. They'd trail me, extradite me."
"I don't care. I don't care. At least—"
The brazen clamor of the alarm bells shrilled suddenly in their ears.
Cosmo tore himself away, knelt beside the unconscious planter. He
drew a dart gun from Bemmelman's pocket, said: "He's alive."
"What are we going to do, Cosmo?"
With a grunt, he hoisted the slack body over his shoulder. The alarm
bells were pealing louder.
"I saw a telo-antenna on the roof of the tower when we were in the
court. I've a hunch the telo-projector is somewhere above us."
Mia MacIver, clutching the tunic about her shoulder, asked: "But
can't we run for it?"
"Not while the force screen is operating."
Bent under his heavy burden, Cosmo strode from the room, up the
steps to the next level. Saying, "What's this?" he pressed the button
of a sliding panel. The door slid back in its oiled grooves. "Whew!"
he said. "My lady's chamber."
Mia MacIver peered around him wide-eyed.
It was a large room, octagon shaped and carpeted wall to wall with
the shaggy gray fur of the Polar Aard. But the most startling feature
was the mirrors. The walls were paneled solid in mirrors. It gave the
impression that the room stretched on forever.
"Well!" said Mia; "if this is the telecast operator's room, he's a
voluptuous creature!"
Cosmo snorted, stepped across the threshold. At once replicas of
themselves flashed in all the mirrored chambers.
"I feel wicked just being in a room like this," said Mia.
Cosmo heard a click behind him, whirled around. The door through
which they'd just passed was shut. In every direction, they were
faced by an endless vista of mirrored chambers.
Mia gasped. "I'm scared," she said.
"Who isn't?" said Cosmo shortly and dropped Bemmelman to the
floor with a thud. "What are you staring at?" He whipped around
again.
A second door in the mirrors stood ajar. Framed in the entrance was
a magnificently beautiful girl in skimpy shorts and bra. She was the
twin of the photograph below stairs.
"Well, if it isn't my old friend, Sofi," said Cosmo without enthusiasm.
There was no recognition in the Blue Venus' violet eyes. Her flawless
pale-blue features revealed neither shock nor surprise.
"That's Bemmelman." She indicated the planter. "Is he dead?"
"No. Only unconscious."
"Oh. That's too bad," she said in a calm manner, and swept up to
the prostrate slave breeder, planted a kick in the seat of his pants.
"There! I've never had the nerve to do that when he was conscious."
Mia gasped.
Cosmo said sharply: "Where's the telecast room?"
"The next floor. But you can't escape. Nobody ever escapes from this
house."

Bemmelman stirred, opened his eyes, sat up groggily. His face was
puffy, swollen. Blood had dried on his chin. He didn't say anything.
The clatter of many feet resounded on the stair outside the boudoir.
Mia clutched Cosmo's arm, said: "They're coming!"
Cosmo took the dart gun from his pocket, narrowed his green eyes.
"You go first, Bemmelman, if they rush us. Understand?"
The slave breeder glared at Cosmo, moistened his battered lips.
"What do you want me to do?" He spoke with difficulty.
"Clear the tower. Order everyone into the rest of the house."
Bemmelman nodded sullenly.
Cosmo saw one of the mirrors shiver violently. Then the panel slid
back. The stair was jammed with naked blue Jovians and Venusian
serfs. The slave girl, Llana, was in the forefront. She pointed at
Cosmo, screamed: "There they are!"
The Jovians started to surge through the narrow door.
Cosmo drew a bead on Bemmelman's thick neck, smiled grimly.
Blood drained out of the planter's face. "Get out!" he cried in panic.
The rescuers halted, stared stupidly. The ones in the rear continued
to push forward causing momentary confusion.
"Get out!" Bemmelman raged. "Get out, you fools! D'you want to get
me killed? Clear the tower!"
They began to withdraw sullenly.
Cosmo stepped after them, slid shut the panel. He could hear their
footsteps retreating down the stair. He let his breath escape through
his teeth.
"Keep your eye on the Blue Venus, Mia. She's a shifty wench."
Mia seized a candlestick from a dainty Martian table, said, "This isn't
going to hurt me half as bad as it will you," to Sofi.
Cosmo dug the dart gun into Bemmelman's kidneys. "Let's go up to
the telecast room." He pushed the planter ahead of him through the
door.
The stair well was deserted, silent.
"I smell roses," said Mia.
Cosmo thought he detected a glint of triumph in the slave breeder's
eyes. "Up the steps," he said grimly. "At the first sign of treachery,
Bemmelman, I'm pulling the trigger."
They reached the telecast room without opposition. It was a small
square chamber banked with control panels. An opaque screen was
built into the left wall. There was only one chair.
Cosmo closed the door, motioned Mia and the Blue Venus to one
side. "Now, Bemmelman, call your head overseer; have him shut
down the force screens."
The red-faced planter laughed shortly, said: "No sir." He had
regained his composure. "No sir, you won't kill me. You'd be
throwing away your only chance to stay alive. The force screen stays
up."
"That's what I thought you'd say." Cosmo slipped the dart gun in his
pocket. His eyes became hard green stones. "What about the
Ormoo's feeding ground? Why do you want to know where they
eat?"
"That's my secret." A sullen note crept into Bemmelman's manner.
"You don't want me to mess you up, do you, Bemmelman?" Cosmo
asked softly.
The planter flinched, but didn't answer.
Cosmo knocked him sprawling against the wall. He heard Mia gasp.
He said evenly: "What about the Ormoo?"
Bemmelman tasted the blood in his mouth, said: "You'll never leave
here alive, Cosmo. You won't be able to carry tales.... Now wait a
moment! There's a plant the birds eat that contains a drug...." He
paused.
Cosmo's eyes narrowed. He had the impression that the planter was
listening, waiting for something to happen. He said, "Go ahead."
"The drug accelerates maturity. It acts directly through the glands."
"How did you hit on the discovery?" A feeling of revulsion made
Cosmo's hands tremble, but his features were inscrutable.
Bemmelman chuckled amiably. "This information won't do you a bit
of good," he said. "No sir, not a bit."
"Go ahead."
Bemmelman shrugged. "Well sir, I've been curious about how much
longer it takes for an Ormoo in captivity to mature than the wild
bird. The wild Ormoo, you know, reaches its full growth in less than
a year. That's an amazing phenomenon when you consider its size.
Yes sir...." He paused again, mouth open, then hastily went on: "Yes
sir. I wondered if it wasn't the wild birds' diet. I sent a man into the
Cloud Mountains to locate an Ormoo. He found your bird's nest."
Cosmo's green eyes were opaque. Revulsion for the slave breeder
welled in his throat.
Bemmelman's manner was derisive. He rubbed his nose, said: "One
day my man found a shrub in the nest. He sent it to me on the
chance that it might be what I was looking for. It was. The leaves
contain a drug, which, when injected into the bloodstream,
accelerates maturity at an unbelievable rate." His lids drew down. "I
injected it into one of the slave children in minute doses every
twenty days. The child reached adolescence in eighteen months. In
two years' time, she was full grown."
"You can breed slaves like guinea pigs now, eh Bemmelman?"
Cosmo's voice was low. "And in two years' time have them ready for
the market."
Bemmelman said, "Certainly," and paused.
"What are you listening for?" Cosmo asked suddenly.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." His little eyes darted about the room.
"Unfortunately," he went on hurriedly, "I used up all the drug on the
experiment, and I haven't been able to locate any more of the
plants. No sir, we've scoured the Cloud Mountains. They're difficult to
explore. Infra red rays help some, but not much."
"Who's the spy you planted among my men?" Cosmo interrupted in
a cold voice.
Bemmelman shut his mouth with a snap.
"Who is he? Tell me, Bemmelman, or by heavens, I'll work you over
until your own mother couldn't recognize you."
Still the planter didn't reply.
Cosmo hit him in the mouth. The planter's head struck the wall. He
slid down to the floor, said groggily: "It doesn't matter. No sir. I won't
need him any more. He's a Martian. His name's Natal."
Cosmo wasn't surprised. They'd found the Martian wandering
apparently lost in the mountains. A sly fellow, always curious, always
prying.
Cosmo turned to the telecast. He felt Mia's horrified eyes on him;
the child-like stare of the Blue Venus. He switched on the telecast,
signaled his headquarters in the Cloud Mountains. At the third
attempt, he got through.
To his surprise, the inscrutable mien of the Mercurian runaway
flashed on the visoscreen. His amber eyes twinkled, a smile split his
Buddha-like face, and he bowed three times until Cosmo could only
see the top of his head.
"I see you got through all right," said Cosmo dryly. A faint hiss
seemed to be coming through the audio. He tried to tune it out, but
the hiss persisted.
"Yes," said the Mercurian. "Delightful fellows. But blood-thirsty. You
should hear the tales they've been telling." He shuddered.
"I've heard them," Cosmo interrupted. "Often. Where's Big Unse?"
"Playing truk with the men. I'm on duty at the telecast."
Cosmo frowned. The hissing noise was louder. He said: "I haven't
time for you to call him. I'm at the Bemmelman plantation. I'm
holding Bemmelman himself as a hostage. Tell Big Unse to bring the
Ormoo. You follow in the surface plane with the men. Don't land.
Hang in the clouds above the plantation until I whistle for the
Ormoo. Oh yes. Be sure that Natal, the Martian, comes along. Got
it?"
"Yes."
Cosmo flipped off the telecast, frowned. The hissing had not
stopped. There was the faintest smell of roses in the air. He felt
suddenly dizzy. Mia gave a small cry and crumpled to the floor.
"Paralysis gas!" he thought and wheeled toward Bemmelman, almost
lost his balance as he did so.
The planter's head had dropped on his chest. He raised it groggily,
leered with triumph at Cosmo. "Concealed tubes," he muttered.
"Every room."
Cosmo swayed. He fumbled at his pocket. His hand emerged with
the dart gun. He strained to elevate the gun, send a poisoned needle
into the slave breeder. His muscles refused to obey him. The gun
sagged. His knees sagged. Then slowly, he toppled sideways.

VII

Cosmo opened his eyes in the office with the glassite desk. He sat
up. Chains rattled. He realized with chagrin that he was manacled
hand and foot.
Bemmelman was on the sofa. A serf, directed by the slave girl,
Llana, was working over him. Mia and the Blue Venus were stretched
out on the floor beside him, still unconscious. Both of them were
manacled. Two Blue giants watched incuriously.
In a moment, Bemmelman stirred. He sat up, swung his feet to the
floor. His eyes lit on Cosmo. With a grunt he crossed the room,
kicked the manacled man in the ribs.
Cosmo's face hardened, but he didn't say anything.
The planter swung on his servitors, barked: "Get out!" They left the
room, all except Llana. He turned back to Cosmo, said: "I'm through
playing around with you. Yes sir. Where's the Ormoo's feeding
ground?"
Cosmo said nothing.
Bemmelman's face went purple. He kicked Cosmo viciously in the
ribs. "Where's the feeding ground? Where is it? Where is it?"
Mia regained consciousness, sat up. She stared wide-eyed at the
berserk planter.
Bemmelman glanced at her, paused. He rubbed his nose, a fiendish
light shining in his pig-like eyes. He said in a sudden altered tone:
"I'm still willing to bargain, Cosmo."