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edition 9780073048376
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Description:
Digital Signal Processing: A Computer-Based Approach is intended for a two-
semester course on digital signal processing for seniors or first-year graduate
students. Based on user feedback, a number of new topics have been added to
the third edition, while some excess topics from the second edition have been
removed. The author has taken great care to organize the chapters more logically
by reordering the sections within chapters. More worked-out examples have also
been included. The book contains more than 500 problems and 150 MATLAB
exercises.
New topics in the third edition include: short-time characterization of discrete-
time signals, expanded coverage of discrete-time Fourier transform and discrete
Fourier transform, prime factor algorithm for DFT computation, sliding DFT, zoom
FFT, chirp Fourier transform, expanded coverage of z-transform, group delay
equalization of IIR digital filters, design of computationally efficient FIR digital
filters, semi-symbolic analysis of digital filter structures, spline interpolation,
spectral factorization, discrete wavelet transform.
About the Author
Sanjit Mitra, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Professor Mitra transferred
to UCSB in July 1977 after 10 years at UC Davis. He obtained his B.Sc. with honors
in Physics (1953) and the M.Sc. (Tech.) in Radio Physics and Electronics (1956) in
India. He then obtained his M.S. (1960) and Ph.D. (1962) in electrical engineering
from UC Berkeley. He has published over 600 papers in the areas of analog and
digital signal processing, and image processing. He has also authored and co-
authored twelve books, and holds five patents. Dr. Mitra has served IEEE in
various capacities including service as the President of the IEEE Circuits & Systems
Society in 1986, and has held visiting appointments in Australia, Austria, Finland,
India, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
• ISBN-10 : 0073048372
• ISBN-13 : 978-0073048376
Table contents:
1 Signals and Signal Processing 1
1.1 Characterization and Classification of Signals 1
1.2 Typical Signal Processing Operations 3
1.3 Examples of Typical Signals 12
1.4 Typical Signal Processing Applications 22
1.5 Why Digital Signal Processing? 37
2 Discrete-Time Signals and Systems in the Time-Domain 41
2.1 Discrete-Time Signals 42
2.2 Typical Sequences and Sequence Representation 53
2.3 The Sampling Process 60
2.4 Discrete-Time Systems 63
2.5 Time-Domain Characterization of LTI Discrete-Time Systems 71
2.6 Finite-Dimensional LTI Discrete-Time Systems 80
2.7 Correlation of Signals 88
2.8 Random Signals 94
2.9 Summary 105
2.10 Problems 106
2.11 Matlab Exercises 115
3 Discrete-Time Signals in the Transform-Domain 117
3.1 The Discrete-Time Fourier Transform 117
3.2 The Discrete Fourier Transform 131
3.3 Relation between the DTFT and the DFT, and Their Inverses 137
3.4 Discrete Fourier Transform Properties 140
3.5 Computation of the DFT of Real Sequences 146
3.6 Linear Convolution Using the DFT 149
3.7 The z-Transform 155
3.8 Region of Convergence of a Rational z-Transform 159
3.9 Inverse z-Transform 167
3.10 z-Transform Properties 173
3.11 Transform-Domain Representations of Random Signals 176
3.12 Summary 179
3.13 Problems 180
3.14 Matlab Exercises 199
4 LTI Discrete-Time Systems in the Transform-Domain 203
4.1 Finite-Dimensional Discrete-Time Systems 203
4.2 The Frequency Response 204
4.3 The Transfer Function 215
4.4 Types of Transfer Functions 222
4.5 Simple Digital Filters 234
4.6 Allpass Transfer Function 243
4.7 Minimum-Phase and Maximum-Phase Transfer Functions 246
4.8 Complementary Transfer Functions 248
4.9 Inverse Systems 253
4.10 System Identification 256
4.11 Digital Two-Pairs 259
4.12 Algebraic Stability Test 261
4.13 Discrete-Time Processing of Random Signals 267
4.14 Matched Filter 272
4.15 Summary 275
4.16 Problems 277
4.17 Matlab Exercises 295
5 Digital Processing of Continuous-Time Signals 299
5.1 Introduction 299
5.2 Sampling of Continuous-Time Signals 300
5.3 Sampling of Bandpass Signals 310
5.4 Analog Lowpass Filter Design 313
5.5 Design of Analog Highpass, Bandpass, and Bandstop Filters 329
5.6 Anti-Aliasing Filter Design 335
5.7 Sample-and-Hold Circuit 337
5.8 Analog-to-Digital Converter 338
5.9 Digital-to-Analog Converter 344
5.10 Reconstruction Filter Design 348
5.11 Effect of Sample-and-Hold Operation 351
5.12 Summary 352
5.13 Problems 353
5.14 Matlab Exercises 356
6 Digital Filter Structures 359
6.1 Block Diagram Representation 359
6.2 Equivalent Structures 363
6.3 Basic FIR Digital Filter Structures 364
6.4 Basic IIR Digital Filter Structures 368
6.5 Realization of Basic Structures Using Matlab 374
6.6 Allpass Filters 378
6.7 Tunable IIR Digital Filters 387
6.8 IIR Tapped Cascaded Lattice Structures 389
6.9 FIR Cascaded Lattice Structures 395
6.10 Parallel Allpass Realization of IIR Transfer Functions 401
6.11 Digital Sine-Cosine Generator 405
6.12 Computational Complexity of Digital Filter Structures 408
6.13 Summary 408
6.14 Problems 409
6.15 Matlab Exercises 421
7 Digital Filter Design 423
7.1 Preliminary Considerations 423
7.2 Bilinear Transformation Method of IIR Filter Design 430
7.3 Design of Lowpass IIR Digital Filters 435
7.4 Design of Highpass, Bandpass, and Bandstop IIR Digital Filters 437
7.5 Spectral Transformations of IIR Filters 441
7.6 FIR Filter Design Based onWindowed Fourier Series 446
7.7 Computer-Aided Design of Digital Filters 460
7.8 Design of FIR Digital Filters with Least-Mean-Square Error 468
7.9 Constrained Least-Square Design of FIR Digital Filters 469
7.10 Digital Filter Design Using Matlab 472
7.11 Summary 497
7.12 Problems 498
7.13 Matlab Exercises 510
8 DSP Algorithm Implementation 515
8.1 Basic Issues 515
8.2 Structure Simulation and Verification Using Matlab 523
8.3 Computation of the Discrete Fourier Transform 535
8.4 Number Representation 552
8.5 Arithmetic Operations 556
8.6 Handling of Overflow 562
8.7 Tunable Digital Filters 562
8.8 Function Approximation 568
8.9 Summary 571
8.10 Problems 572
8.11 Matlab Exercises 581
9 Analysis of FiniteWordlength Effects 583
9.1 The Quantization Process and Errors 584
9.2 Quantization of Fixed-Point Numbers 585
9.3 Quantization of Floating-Point Numbers 587
9.4 Analysis of Coefficient Quantization Effects 588
9.5 A/D Conversion Noise Analysis 600
9.6 Analysis of Arithmetic Round-Off Errors 611
9.7 Dynamic Range Scaling 614
9.8 Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Low-Order IIR Filters 625
9.9 Low-Sensitivity Digital Filters 629
9.10 Reduction of Product Round-Off Errors Using Error Feedback 635
9.11 Limit Cycles in IIR Digital Filters 639
9.12 Round-Off Errors in FFT Algorithms 646
9.13 Summary 649
9.14 Problems 650
9.15 Matlab Exercises 657
10 Multirate Digital Signal Processing 659
10.1 The Basic Sample Rate Alteration Devices 660
10.2 Filters in Sampling Rate Alteration Systems 671
10.3 Multistage Design of Decimator and Interpolator 680
10.4 The Polyphase Decomposition 684
10.5 Arbitrary-Rate Sampling Rate Converter 690
10.6 Digital Filter Banks 696
10.7 Nyquist Filters 700
10.8 Two-Channel Quadrature-Mirror Filter Bank 705
10.9 Perfect Reconstruction Two-Channel FIR Filter Banks 714
10.10 L-Channel QMF Banks 722
10.11 Cosine-Modulated L-Channel Filter Banks 730
10.12 Multilevel Filter Banks 734
10.13 Summary 738
10.14 Problems 739
10.15 Matlab Exercises 750
11 Applications of Digital Signal Processing 753
11.1 Dual-Tone Multifrequency Signal Detection 753
11.2 Spectral Analysis of Sinusoidal Signals 758
11.3 Spectral Analysis of Nonstationary Signals 764
11.4 Spectral Analysis of Random Signals 771
11.5 Musical Sound Processing 780
11.6 Digital FM Stereo Generation 790
11.7 Discrete-Time Analytic Signal Generation 794
11.8 Subband Coding of Speech and Audio Signals 800
11.9 Transmultiplexers 803
11.10 Discrete Multitone Transmission of Digital Data 807
11.11 Digital Audio Sampling Rate Conversion 810
11.12 Oversampling A/D Converter 812
11.13 Oversampling D/A Converter 822
11.14 Sparse Antenna Array Design 826
11.15 Summary 829
11.16 Problems 830
11.17 Matlab Exercises 834
Bibliography 837
Index 855
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Martian Terror
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Title: Martian Terror

Author: Ed Earl Repp

Illustrator: Leo Morey

Release date: March 29, 2020 [eBook #61696]

Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTIAN TERROR

***
 MARTIAN TERROR

A Novelet of Revolution Among the Venusians

 By ED EARL REPP

Lolan, the Martian Sub-Commander, had no

choice. He sorrowed for Princess Mora's beaten,
X-ray starved subjects. But when the desperate
Venusians raised their empty fists, duty
commanded him to cut loose his force-bolts.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Planet Stories Spring 1940.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Lolan's pen made the only sound in the stuffy barracks room. The
words took shape reluctantly beneath the official army letterhead,
even as his mind had fought against framing them. He sat alone at
his desk, the open window behind him crowding in the dank heat of a
Venusian summer night. The collar of his ornate, iridite-crusted
uniform was open, but a dark ring of perspiration stained its top.
Lolan laid the pen down and looked at what he had written. His
violet-gray eyes became stony. This letter might mean demotion to
the ranks, or even court-martial, but the things in him had festered
there too long.
"Herewith I tender my resignation as Sub-Commander of the Martian
Army of Occupation on the planet Venus," he read. "If it is the wish
of the Council-Royal, I desire immediate transfer to some post on
Mars. I can no longer blind my conscience to the brutal treatment
Venusians are receiving at the hands of us, their conquerors.
"When I accepted this post two years ago, I understood that, under
Commander Arzt, I would be endeavoring to control a savage, half-
wild people scarcely more intelligent than beasts. I found them
gentle, intelligent, cheerful, demanding only the treatment we accord
our slaves at home. But do they receive it? No! We dole them food
not fit for swine. We work them fifteen hours a day in their own
iridite mines, in the sulphur holes, at whatever other work is beneath
a Martian soldier. Their population has been reduced twenty percent
during the twenty years since Mars conquered them. Disease is
prevalent in their poorer quarters—little better than the 'improved'
sections—to such an extent that few officers ever venture into these
pestilential streets except to put down an occasional uprising.
"Because I feel that to continue in this post would demean—"
Lolan scowled at the unfinished sentence. He went to the window
and stood staring out, his eyes not seeing the low clouds brushing
the barracks roofs, nor the jagged tracery of lights a half-mile below,
where Areeba sprawled in miserable squalor over the foothills. Before
him was the vision of a girl's sober face—the face of a Venusian,
high-caste woman. Princess Mora ... princess only in name, but
beloved of her people—and of Lolan.
But for her, that letter would have been written and handed in a year
ago. But somehow the young Martian could not leave Venus while
she and her father, old ex-Emperor Atarkus, were still here and under
continual threat of death. There could never be any more intimate
relation between them than that of master and slave—yet Lolan kept
a forlorn flame of hope guttering in his heart.
There were two good reasons why he was a fool to let Mora be a
factor in his staying on Venus. In the first place, inter-marriage was
strictly forbidden by Arzt, high commander of the army. Second—and
more important to Lolan—biology entered in. Years ago, a few
Martian soldiers had taken native wives, with tragic results. Although
the two races were almost alike in appearance, except for the deeper
coloring of the invaders, the children resulting from such unions were
ugly, half-witted little monsters. Fortunately, none of them lived for
more than a few years.
Lolan's lean young features hardened. Why fight it any longer? He
couldn't have Mora, couldn't help her people without being a traitor
to his own race. With an oath he pivoted from the window.
It was then that he saw the indicator on his tele-screen flashing
angrily. Quick strides carried him there, a flip of the thumb made the
silver screen a window to the outside world. The brutal face of Irak,
Captain of the Secret Service, took shape.
"—repeating:" came the tail end of his announcement. "Two minutes
ago the house in which Ars Lugo is hiding was entered by two
persons. I am in an upstairs room across the street. I could not be
sure of their identity, but I believe we are on the verge of breaking
the secret of the recent revolution rumors. Haste is imperative if we
are to trap them together...."
Excitement tingled through Lolan. Ars Lugo, a condemned
revolutionary lately escaped from the Sulphur Holes, had contacted
friends. Arzt had been right in deliberately letting him escape and
tracking him to a hideout. "Rotten meat draws flies quickly," was his
way of putting it. Now the flies had been drawn. But an unknown
terror kept Lolan from even guessing at their identities—swiftly he
hurried from the room as somewhere the officers' alarm began
chiming.
A small, silent gravity-repulsion ship set eight men in the uniform of
high Martian officers down a few blocks from the slum in which
Captain Irak was tensely waiting for them. Lolan emerged with set
face. Around him on the flat roof of the building where they had
landed were grouped the others.
The voice of Arzt came harshly through the quiet. He was a short,
immensely powerful man, with reddish features stamped with the
cast of brutality. There was a slovenliness to him, a brutal arrogance
that was betrayed by every ugly twist of his mouth as he spoke.
"Lolan, you'll give the order," he snapped. "These filthy revolutionists
won't be looking for trouble if you handle it right. We'll have them
before they know what's happened. I told you Ars Lugo would get in
touch with his cronies as soon as he thought he wasn't being
watched. Come on!"
They left the ship on the roof and groped down an outside stairway
to the narrow street. A light fog hung yellowish in the streets. For a
moment after their feet touched the slimy cobblestones, the eight
Martians huddled together by a single impulse—revulsion at the
sordidness of the lower-class quarter.
Sickly gleams kindled on their uniforms where stray beams from
dingy windows found them. The stench of rotting offal insulted their
nostrils, mingled with the musty, revolting odors peculiar to the south
side of Areeba, principal city of Venus. A place of drunken, tottering
buildings and vice and sickness that festered like a raw sore, the
south side was the abode of the diseased, the degenerate, the
lawless.
With a muttered curse, Lolan swung down the street. It didn't have
to be like this. It was commanders like Arzt who let the Venusians
suffer for their own enrichment. Inwardly, a resolution was taking
possession of the young officer that this was his last duty on Venus.
Tomorrow ... his letter of resignation would be handed in.

In a dark alley across the street from a crumbling, one-story hovel,

he slipped into the shadows. His eyes were riveted to the yellow
cracks of light opposite him, where bolted shutters guarded some
furtive scene within that house. Then he was moving swiftly
backwards as two forms reeled from the fog. His eyes narrowed to
careful slits that raked the pair.
They had not seen him, nor, apparently, the other hidden Martians
they had just passed. Their bellies were so full of cheap Martian gyla
that all they could see was the heaving stones under their feet.
Lolan's slim, dark fingers fell from the sadon pistol at his side. The
fog swallowed the derelicts.
Ragged nerves leaping, Lolan strode across the street, knocked softly
at the door. Frightened gasps found their way through the portal.
Someone gruffed:
"Who is it? What do you want?"
Lolan pressed his lips against a crack in the door. "Lugo—you've got
to get out! They know you're here! I heard two of them talking. Let
me in, will you! I can't stand here shouting."
A bolt scraped in its bed and the door inched back the width of a
man's black eye. From both sides of Lolan, burly, powerful shapes
lunged at the door. The man behind it cried out a single shrill warning
as he was hurled to the floor.
Six Martian officers clanked inside. Arzt loomed up with Captain Irak,
gripped Lolan's arm. "Good work!" he grunted. "Now we'll have these
dirty Venusian rebels where we want them, eh?"
Hard-jawed, Lolan made no answer but strode in. One glimpse of the
room's interior sent shock through his vitals like a sword. A single,
whispered word parted his bloodless lips: "Mora!"
The girl across the room glanced at him in hurt surprise. Quickly she
looked away. She stood erect and pale under the soldiers' eager
glances. She was tall, for a Venusian, with slim, strong limbs and
golden hair lying soft about her shoulders. Her garments were of the
roughest cloth, but dignity and courage were in the flash of her eyes
and the spots of color in her cheeks.
During those first moments Lolan was conscious only of a growing
ache in his throat. He wanted to ask Mora and her father, standing
there beside her, why they had come here, since they knew it meant
death to consort with revolutionists. But he sensed that their kind of
courage would laugh at the question. In Lolan's breast, a cold, dead
thing had taken the place of his heart.
The ex-emperor stood fierce and tall, a shaggy-headed man of sixty-
five. He was a living skeleton dressed in hanging garments. Most of
the life in him seemed to be concentrated in his blazing eyes. There
was force in his countenance, but his voice came in the cracked
accents of an old man.
"What's the meaning of this? Can't a man and his daughter call on
their friends without being watched like criminals?"
Arzt swaggered close, his stubby legs moving stiffly. "Not when they'd
like to see a revolution as much as you two!" he taunted. "You admit
conspiracy with this rebel?"
Ars Lugo stood between two hulking officers, scowling at the
Commander. "Conspiracy!" he spat. "Don't hang that crime on them.
I was out of food and money and knew they could help me a little. I
sent for them."
Arzt smashed a thick palm across the man's face. Contempt twisted
his ill-formed features. He jerked a thumb at the well-like hole,
guarded by a low rim, in a far corner, where refuse was thrown in
such cheap hovels as this. "Another of your filthy lies and you'll go
down the sewer. In the underground rivers you'll have plenty of time
to think up better ones. Now, you two—" He grinned wickedly at
Mora and Atarkus. "There's a little matter of a map I've heard rumors
of. Who's got it—one of you, or Lugo?"
"You talk like a fool!" raged Atarkus. "We've got no map, you vile
butcher."
Arzt's struggle for self-control was evident in the working of his jaw
muscles. Presently he relaxed. He drew on his feeble powers of
sarcasm. "The matter has been brought to my attention," he purred
gutturally, "that one of your esteemed countrymen, a garbage-boy in
the barracks, has been making a map of the buildings. I had the
extremely painful duty—painful to him—of cutting his body here and
there and pouring in burning sulphur; but the lad would not talk. But
since he carried no papers, I judge he passed them on earlier. Now,
you bag of bones—" he roared suddenly, "where is that map?"
"You are screaming into the wrong hole to get an echo," Mora replied
coldly. "We know nothing."
"Nothing, eh?" A small knife flashed into Arzt's fingers. He caught
Atarkus in a vicious hug and placed the blade just under his ear.
"Then remember it, before your father strangles on his own blood!"
Lolan stiffened, his hand dropping to the sadon pistol. The weapon
was halfway out of its holster when a new voice intruded
obsequiously. "Commander—I wouldn't do that!"

II

It was scrawny little Captain Irak who had spoken. An apologetic

smile bracketed his lips and he was shaking his head slowly. Lolan
knew a warm rush of gratitude toward him. Ugly as he was, he was
intelligent and less sadistic than many of the officers. He said little—
which made the Sub-Commander suspect he knew much.
Arzt grunted, puzzled, "You wouldn't—? Why not, you grinning, ugly
little ape?"
Irak kept on smiling blandly. "Look outside," he advised.
Arzt did, but still kept his hold on the old man. There were a score of
shabby Venusians peering in from the dark street like wolves around
a fire on the high Martian steppes. They fell back under the impact of
so many eyes.
Irak closed the door. "Kill Atarkus tonight and by morning we'll have a
first-class revolution on our hands," he said. "These people worship
Atarkus and his daughter. If he is to die, it must be otherwise ...
secretly, perhaps, in the dungeons where no one will ever learn."
Arzt's hands fell to his side. "There's wisdom in what you say," he
begrudged. "Especially ... the last part. But if I find the proof I need
of their guilt tonight, there'll be no waiting. We can try, and execute
them, publicly. Search the woman, Lolan. I'll search this ancient
blasphemer myself."
Lolan hesitantly fell to the task. "I'm sorry!" he whispered. She gave
no sign that she had heard, no indication that it meant any more or
less to her that he must perform the job than anyone else; nor had
Lolan ever known if she returned his feelings. Their meetings had
been few, when they had come to Arzt's court-martial occasionally to
plead for their countrymen on some matter. With his pulses racing, he
searched her gown thoroughly and found no suspicious articles. He
was red-faced and perspiring when Arzt barked:
"Then that devil's got it! Search Lugo, men!"
That order was the cue for the lanky Venusian to hurl himself from
the arms of his captors. "The sewer!" Lolan gasped. Lugo was
heading for the black-mouthed hole to hurl himself into the
underground river two hundred feet below ... himself and anything
he carried!
The young Martian did not stop to reason that Ars Lugo might be
carrying the evidence that would send Mora and her father to their
deaths. He acted purely by instinct, flinging himself upon the
revolutionary and dragging him to the floor. But Lugo was up again,
like a released spring. Lolan crawled frantically after him. He grabbed
a heel, brought the Venusian spinning about while he lurched to his
feet. A jabbing fist sent him reeling back. In the next moment Ars
Lugo was diving feet first down the hole!
Lolan's muscles had been leaned to spring-steel tautness in rigorous
Martian military exercises. It was only that whiplash power of them
that enabled him to grasp one of Ars Lugo's hands as he vaulted the
low rim. In a flash he knew his error. The Venusian's weight was
hauling him across the smooth floor and into the pit of death!

There was a moment of un-thinking panic, of hearing the distant roar

of tumbling black water and the savage grunts of the man dangling
below him. Someone grabbed his feet and his headlong plunge was
arrested. Arzt was shouting: "Hold him! Don't let him get away with
that paper!"
Lolan fought the burning numbness of his forearm. Ars Lugo had
ripped off a belt-buckle and was slashing at his knuckles with it. The
men above kept shouting encouragement while they fought for
leverage. Every sinew in the Martian's body stood out in ridges and
knots. Sweat bathed his flesh, and he knew that moisture was
causing Lugo to slip still further. "Hurry!" he groaned. "I can't—"
With startling abruptness he was flying out of the hole, while Ars
Lugo, with strips of skin under his fingernails that he had ripped from
Lolan's hand, went spinning down into black nothingness. Pain had
beaten determination. Ars Lugo had won—death!
Horror held the officers around the hole like statues, staring down. It
was during that interval that Lolan felt a hard, slippery object in his
hand. He opened it to see the bracelet Ars Lugo had worn, which he
had somehow torn loose. A curious, heavy ornament of iridite crystals
and onyx, and on the inside of it strange scratchings, like—
Like a map! Some impulse caused Lolan's fingers to clamp on the
bracelet. Arzt was staring.
"And there goes our chance for a quick disposal of these other two,"
he grunted sourly. "If you could have ... well, it's done now." Briskly
he gave an order. "Take them home. But remember this, Venusians—
your consorting with revolutionaries has marked you for death! At
any day, any hour, I may have you seized and brought back."
Atarkus paused scornfully on the threshold. Mora had already gone,
her head high and eyes straight ahead. "We don't frighten easily," the
old ruler flung back. "When you live in hell as we do, one more pit of
damnation merely serves to bore us. May you boil in your own lard,
Martian pig!"
Arzt swore at him and half-drew his pistol. Sneering, then, he relaxed
and turned to fix Lolan with a burning glance. "Your failure tonight
intrigues me," he offered suggestively. "You never seemed to be
hindered by pain to that extent before."
Lolan showed him his bleeding fingers, from which great drops of
blood were falling. "It was the shock," he murmured. "You don't think
I let him escape on purpose—!"
"I hardly imagine you could be so foolish. At any rate, you'll be given
a chance to redeem yourself. Sometime in the next three or four days
I want those two killed, very quietly and—very thoroughly. The honor
is to be yours."
Lolan's shocked eyes flashed to a pair of burning, amused ones.
Arzt's broad lips were smiling fixedly. The young officer tried to mask
his horror. "Let someone else do it," he countered. "Killing women is
out of my line."
"Killing that woman, you mean!" the Commander pounced on him.
"I've known what was in your mind all these months. I hoped you'd
see the foolishness of it. You're too good a man to lose inside the
execution chamber. What's the matter with you, Lolan? Are you
deceiving yourself that these damned Venusian dogs are good
enough for a Martian officer?"
Hatred swept Lolan suddenly like a flame. With difficulty he held his
voice to a flat, deadly hiss. "Good enough! Too good, if you ask me!
I'm sick of driving sick men into mines reeking of sulphur fumes, to
dig iridite for us to decorate our uniforms with. Tired of seeing them
live like animals, in filthy shacks ready to fall in on them or in
tenements crawling with vermin. If cracking a bloody whip is what
being a Martian officer means, I'm ashamed of being one. I'd change
my Sub-Commander's rank here for that of a private back on Mars!"
Arzt's face grew hot and red with a dark suffusion of blood. "The only
transfer I'll give you is to Rock Island, on the Fluorine Sea," he
grated. "Would that suit you better?"
Lolan's spine crawled. Rock Island was a tiny hump of land in the
middle of a sea perpetually blanketed in fogs—fogs laden with deadly
fluorine. But someone had to keep the light on that island to guide
incoming space-ships. The keepers usually lasted about six weeks.
"In other words, I stay here or I die!" he stated flatly.
"Exactly. So let's hear the last of this. If you complain again I'll take it
as treason. Remember my orders: In four days I want to see their
bodies in the dead-house. If I don't—it will be yours I'll see there!"

Lolan's first chance to examine the bracelet was in the solitude of his
room an hour later. He drew all the shades, while a feeling of tension
built stiflingly within him. Under the soft glow of a lamp he studied it.
Plainly he traced the outlines of all the buildings in the rambling
system of barracks that sprawled over the hill. Rooms had been
marked in by someone who knew the set-up. The Martian received a
stiff jolt at seeing his room, and Arzt's, marked with X's. Marked for
death, he knew!
Lolan's fist closed on the bauble. He let his glance go to the curtained
window, seeming to see through and beyond it. A tumult of jarring
thoughts rang harsh discordance in his mind. But clear and sharp
sounded one note, that his hands must slay Mora and her father or
he himself would die. No night-long brain-wracking was needed for
him to know that he preferred death to carrying out Arzt's orders. But
perhaps ... there was another way!
Lolan stood rigid, letting the idea revolve in his mind. Abruptly, he
swung from the window, jamming the bracelet onto his own wrist. He
left his room silently, and through the dim corridors he found his way
to the commissionary. His private keys unlocked the dark vaults.
Carefully shutting the door, he switched on the lights.
Piles of goods were everywhere, looming in long rows before him and
filling great bins. The Martian's nerves set up a raw tingling as he
found a box and hurried to a bin. Five nervous minutes passed, with
Lolan piling preserved foods of all kinds into the box. As a last item,
he buried a pair of sadon pistols in the mass of foodstuffs.
Grim resolution was in the hard set of his jaw when he switched off
the lights, re-locked the place, and left by a back entrance. He was
able to reach a pursuit ship in the hangar and load his stuff in
without being observed. Panic struck at him, then ... a sentry's
running feet sounded outside!
Lolan sprang to the door. He eased through it, to be speared by the
man's torch. Casually, he nodded to him.
"Oh! Sorry, sir, I didn't realize it was an officer," the sentry
apologized. "Taking your ship out this late?"
Lolan said crisply, "Official business down below. Go back to your
post. I can manage it alone."
The sentry clicked his heels, saluted, and departed. Lolan's knees
shook a little. He rolled the battered pursuit ship out and hurriedly
entered it. Hope that the guard didn't realize he wasn't taking his
private ship tonight kept him glancing around at the dim form of the
sentry. On that fact hinged his life.
Then he was slamming the accelerator on full. The ship screamed
upward, borne aloft on the green mushroom of flame. Almost
immediately he had crossed the city and gained the plains beyond. In
a broken expanse of rock and sand just outside the lower quarter, he
set the craft down gently.
No one saw him enter the city. He threaded the tortuous alleys of the
squalid section with his heart hammering in his ears. At last he was
stopping across from a large, five-story building. It was a ponderous,
gabled affair full of reminiscences of former glory—elaborate cornices
crumbling away, great, metal doors green with age, once white walls
now streaked with black and gray. In carved Venusian characters, a
plaque over the door lamented: "Hall of Justice."
Lolan was thinking of that sad commentary as he ascended to the top
floor. Justice—when the man who once ruled this entire planet now
lived on crusts in a tiny room in the tower!
It was Princess Mora whose hand opened the door at his knock. In
the dim light of the room, her face showed sad and accusing.
"What?" she asked bitterly. "Haven't you done with persecuting us for
one night?"
Atarkus looked up from a table where he had been poring over old
Venusian books, a pair of spectacles perched on his beak-nose. "Well,
speak!" he shrilled finally. "What miserable errand brings you here?"
Lolan's face was hard. He kept his glance on Mora's widening eyes as
he took off Ars Lugo's bracelet and extended it to her. "Ars Lugo died
trying to hide this," he growled. "I thought you might like to save it.
But as a favor—would you mind taking the black cross off my
quarters?"

III

Atarkus was on his feet, shaking. Mora let the Martian place the
bracelet in her hand before she gasped: "You—you knew! And didn't
tell! Why?"
Lolan lowered himself into a chair. He sighed despondently: "I don't
know. If I'd valued my own life I'd have turned it over to Arzt. But
I've had my fill of watching you Venusians tortured."
The girl's eyes glowed. She said softly: "That was your only reason?"
Lolan's heart thumped. His face flamed, and he tried to hide his
embarrassment by springing to his feet and pacing to a window. "It's
reason enough," he muttered. He swung suddenly to face them
across the room. "But that isn't why I came here tonight. It's
something more important than that. You've got to leave Areeba
immediately!"
Atarkus' face folded into grim lines. "You mean Arzt has decreed our
death?"
"That's it. You might have expected something like this for being seen
with men like Ars Lugo."
Mora looked up into the officer's face. "I can't understand you, Lolan.
You're supposed to be second in command of the race that oppresses
us. Yet you risked death to hide that bracelet, and undoubtedly
you've taken the same risk to come here."
"Don't try to understand me. Simply do as I say. Arzt has appointed
me to execute you within four days. I—I can't do it, that's all. So I'm
going to try to dodge the issue by letting you escape. Beyond the city
there's a pursuit ship loaded with food and a pair of pistols. With that
outfit you can make it to Lyna or some other settlement where you
won't be known. But you've got to do it tonight!"
Atarkus snorted. "Leave our people when they need us most? Never!"
Lolan's eyes narrowed. "When they need us most," the ex-emperor
had said. Why were they needed especially now—because of a
coming revolution? He drove the question from his mind. "Don't
quibble!" he snapped. "I can't promise you more than a few hours'
leeway. You've got to leave within the hour."
"It's no use," Mora smiled wearily. "Our people look up to us for the
answer to every problem that arises. What would they think of us if
we ran out now?"
"What good will you be to them dead?" Lolan argued desperately.
"Arzt means to have you out of the way once and for all. You're
dangerous and he knows it. Get your things together and let's go!"
The flush of repressed fear colored the flat angles of his jaws. His
mind was a whirlpool of hope and regret—regret at losing Mora
forever, though he could never own her; a deep soul-sickness at the
idea of sending a force-charge into her lovely body....
But Mora was shaking her head and Atarkus had smashed his fist on
the table. "Arzt can't scare us!" the aged monarch scorned. "They say
we Venusians are weak, that we don't know how to fight. Some day
soon the butcher will learn differently." His eyes grew softer. He laid
his bony hand on Lolan's hard forearm. "I know your position, young
man. You have taken a liking to us for some reason—I think I know
what it is—and the thought of killing us disturbs you. Perhaps you
won't have to perform that duty—"
Suspicion and wonder blended into the creases of Lolan's forehead.
"Then you won't go?" he breathed.
"We can't," Mora told him. "But you have our gratitude for all you've
done."
Lolan straightened. He tried to keep his voice clipped and
emotionless. "You are foolish—and brave. Good night!"
When he reached the boulder-hidden rocket ship it was still safely
masked in its hiding place. The fog had torn apart for a few hours,
and through the ragged holes in it he could see stars blinking
solemnly down at him. The young Martian's heart leaped at the
thought of leaving for one of those far-off worlds; no one would miss
him before morning and he could stock up on supplies and leave right
away. But a leaden despondency kept that idea from gaining much
headway. Gloomily he climbed into the ship.
It was when his fingers had sent the rocket car tearing up into the
low clouds that Arzt's voice, just behind him, made his blood turn to
water and his lips go dry.
"You're heading the right way, Sub-Commander. Over the hill to the
Sulphur Holes. Tonight's warning was my last."

In the gleaming black disk of one of the space-ports Lolan could see
Arzt's reflection, then, looming squat and dangerous three feet in
back of him. He had quietly removed Lolan's pistol and held it on the
back of his head.
"Planning a trip, were you?" the taunting voice went on. "I found
quite a store of food here. The only trip you'll be making now is into
the bottom dungeon of the Holes. By the gods, Lolan, you're a fool!"
"Am I? It might as well be now as four days from now. You know I
couldn't kill them."
"I knew this: That if you couldn't, you weren't fit to be a Martian
officer. Now I'll have to do the job myself. Because you're going to die
tomorrow!"
Silence piled up between them. Too soon the gaping slash on the
planet's surface known as the Sulphur Holes was pivoting beneath
them as they circled to a landing. Here, where subterranean forces
had carved a series of natural dungeons and rock-bound gases still
seeped through the holes in a stifling mist, the least fortunate of
Arzt's prisoners were imprisoned.
Burly guards came running up to take charge of Lolan. Arzt stood
back with fists on hips. "Take him to the bottom level," his guttural
command came. "Watch him closely. The devil's been conspiring with
Venusians for a revolution!"
He watched coldly while they jostled his former chief officer into the
little rock house that housed the elevator. He stood there stolidly until
a deep-pitched sigh emanated from the structure, denoting that one
more soul had been carried down ... to hell. A fierce grin twisted his
lax features. He was so engrossed in his own thoughts that he did
not hear the closing of the storage-hatch on the pursuit ship they had
come in, nor did he see the spidery form that slid from it to the
shelter of some rocks. Deeply and sadistically satisfied, Commander
Arzt turned and departed.
For the first ten minutes after his captors had left him, Lolan sat on
the edge of a hard, filthy cot with his head buried in his hands. The
cell was low-ceilinged, with eroded sandstone walls studded with
sharp metal crystals. Through the barred door drifted stringy tendrils
of gas—sulphur smoke, belching up from the planet's bowels. From
nearby cells came horrible moans, a ragged scream, the rattling of a
door as some hapless prisoner shook it and shouted for food. The
soft plod-plod of someone pacing the floor like a caged beast reached
the Martian's ears.
Lolan's lungs seemed filled with acid. He coughed until tears
streamed from his eyes. Finally he fell back in despair on the cot. But
even in his desperate physical pain he was far more conscious of
acute despair over the failure of his plans to save Mora and Atarkus.
He felt that no torture could be worse than imagining what devilish
end Arzt would find for them.
The grating of a key in the lock brought Lolan to a sitting posture.
Then he had sprung to the door as Captain Irak, spindly, grinning
little imp that he was, flung the door open and dodged in.
"Irak—what the devil are you doing here?" Lolan coughed.
The other pressed something hard and cold into his hand—a gun.
"No questions now!" he rapped. "Follow me and use this if you need
it—which you will!"
"But the keys—how did you get them?"
Irak closed one shoe-button eye in a sly wink, and gestured with his
gun. "Come on!" he jerked his head. Roughly he shoved the younger
man into the tunnel.
Not understanding what it all meant, Lolan fled through the corridors
beside him. Hope was kindling like a fire in his breast. Once the
captain paused before a cell and through the bars tossed the bunch
of keys. "Use them yourself and pass them on!" he laughed at the
astonished prisoner.
Up ahead the elevator loomed out of the wisps of gas. Irak plunged
into it and Lolan followed. There was silence until they had almost
reached the top.
"Be on your guard," Irak snapped. "I killed the turnkey to get the
keys. If they've found his body—" The automatic door flew open,
light from the guard-house flooded their figures and they stiffened.
The shouting of angry men reached their ears from outside.
Irak looked at him in somber decision. "We'll try a run for it out the
back. There's a rocket car in the field. It's our one chance."
Lolan grinned boyishly, ready for anything. "Lead the way!" he
offered. "I'm with you!"

But they had not gone forty feet when a harsh shout arrested them.
"There they go—get them!" Five men sprang up from where they had
knelt about the body of a dead Martian.
Captain Irak stuck a skinny leg between Lolan's running feet and sent
him sprawling in the dirt. Lolan was puzzled, until he felt the searing
impact of force bolts inches over his head. The movement had saved
his life. Instantly he had twisted about to sight down the chrome-
steel shaft of his pistol. It roared, jarred heavily against his hand. And
one of the men staggered back with his head and shoulders half torn
off.
Irak chuckled fiendishly. His own gun blasted twice, destroying a man
at each shot. The remaining pair spread out and came at a low run
for them, with guns crackling blue lightning over the terrain. Lolan's
eyes were hard and narrow, his jaw was firm. The impact of deadly
charges exploded all around him, making his ears ring with the
terrific concussion. He cuffed at his coat-sleeve as blobs of molten
earth splattered on it. Some of the fiery stuff bit through to his skin.
The Martian's hate-twisted countenances were plain now, thirty feet
away. With a simultaneous impulse they flung themselves prone and
leveled their guns. Lolan squeezed the trigger of his weapon. He kept
it pulled back until the gun grew hot and smoking and the last bolt
had been launched. Irak had done the same.
A grisly silence came down over the field. Horror gripped Lolan as the
smoke drifted away and showed two shapeless masses of burning
flesh on the ground before them. Doggedly he turned away, getting
to his feet.
From nearby came the clamor of hurrying guards. "Quick!" Irak's
voice crackled. "Into the ship."
They made it none too soon. Force charges were exploding under
their soaring ship like blue balloons that swelled to magnificent
proportions and then exploded. Not until they had gained thirty
thousand feet altitude did Lolan relax from the controls.
His face was sweaty and grinning. "Am I crazy or are you, Irak? I
thought you were Captain of the Secret Service, sworn to track down
rebels like me—not help them escape!"
Irak was lighting a Martian cigarette. He paused with the lighter held
to the cylinder's tip. "Quite true," he smiled. "That is my job. But
when the rebel is a fellow-Venusian, I am tempted to reverse the
usual order of things!"

IV

Lolan's mouth hung open. Had he heard aright? "You said—a fellow
Venusian? Didn't you mean...."
"I mean Venusian. And by the way—congratulations on your escape,
Prince Lolan!"
Somewhere in him a pulse began throbbing, as Lolan fumbled to put
the controls on automatic. Then he twisted about on the seat and
gripped his knees with his hands. "Let's get this straight," he
suggested impatiently. "I'm Sub-Commander Lolan—ex-Sub-
Commander, I should say. You're Captain Irak—also 'ex', I'm afraid.
We're both Martians and neither of us has so much as a drop of royal
blood of any race coloring his veins. Starting from that basis, would
you mind explaining your remarks?"
Irak leaned back in his chair. "Not at all. You are Prince Lolan, of the
House of Sarn. Twenty years ago, when you were two years old, all
of your people were killed in the Martian invasion. Among fifty other
Venusian children, you were taken back to Mars. The war chiefs
wanted to experiment, to find out what difference the Martian
atmosphere had on the development of a child of Venus. All of those
other children were killed due to lack of care on the return voyage.
You alone lived ... to become a high-ranking Martian officer!"
The blood had drained from Lolan's face, leaving it a sickly color. His
hands shook a little. It was too much to grasp at once. "Irak, you're
telling the truth?" he gasped. "But you can't be. Look at me: I'm
dark, like a Martian ... so are you, as far as that goes. And why would
they let me hold such a responsible position?"
"Of course you're dark!" Irak laughed. "Who wouldn't be, after
eighteen years of blistering Martian suns? As far as their letting you
gain position is concerned, they had two reasons for doing it. In the
first place, they found that you were developing into a brilliant,
scholarly youth who could go far if allowed to. You had something no
other Venusian before you had: initiative and the ability to fight like a
bulldog on any problem you attempted. Perhaps the ultraviolet rays
so strong on Mars and so feeble here have something to do with that.
At any rate, you are strong and determined where the rest of our
race is vacillating, good-natured, and pliable. Their other reason for
letting you fight your way to the top in their own army was that, to
their cruel minds, it seemed a good joke to let a Venusian have
partial charge of his own down-trodden people. But the joke may
backlash...."
"And you?" Lolan murmured. "Where do you come in?"
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