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Title: The Martian Cabal
Author: Starzl, Roman Frederick, 1899-1976
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Martian Cabal" ***
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories May 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine.
The pages have been renumbered.
The Martian Cabal
A Complete Novelette
By R. F. Starzl
* * * * *
Contents
Page
I Strange Intruder 2
II Scar Balta 10
III The Price of Monarchy 18
IV Torture 23
V The Wrath of Tolto 30
VI The Fight in the Fort 37
VII The Flight of a Princess 49
VIII In the Desert 57
IX Plot and Counter-Plot 71
X One Thousand to One 79
XI Giant Against Giant 86
XII "He Must Be a Man of Earth" 96
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Sime Hemingway, of the I. F. P., strikes at the insidious
interests that are lashing high the war feeling between Earth and
Mars.]
CHAPTER I
_Strange Intruder_
Sime Hemingway did not sleep well his first night on Mars. There was
no tangible reason why he shouldn't. His bed was soft. He had dined
sumptuously, for this hotel's cuisine offered not only Martian
delicacies, but drew on Earth and Venus as well.
Yet Sime did not sleep well. He tossed restlessly in the caressing
softness of his bed. He turned a knob in the head panel of his bed,
tried to yield to the soothing music that seemed to come from nowhere.
He turned another knob, watched the marching, playing, whirling of
somnolent colors on the domed ceiling of his room.
At last he gave it up. Some sixth sense had him all jumpy. It was not
usual for Sime Hemingway to be jumpy. He was one of the coolest heads
in the I. F. P., the Interplanetary Flying Police who patrolled the
lonely reaches of space and brought man's law to the outermost orbit
of the far-flung solar system.
Now he jumped out of bed and examined the fastening of his door, the
door to the hotel corridor. There was only one, and it was secure.
Windows there were none, and investigation showed that the small ports
were all covered with their pivoted safety plates. He extinguished the
light, swung aside one of the plates, and peered out into the Martian
night. It was moonlight--both Deimos and Phobos were racing across the
blue-black sky. The waters of Crystal Canal stretched out before him,
seemingly illimitable. Sime knew that the distance to the other side
was twenty miles or more. Clear-cut through the thin atmosphere of
Mars, he could see the jeweled lights of South Tarog, on the other
side.
* * * * *
The hotel grounds, too, were well lighted. Long, luminous tubes, part
of the architecture of the buildings, aided the moons, shedding their
serene glow on the gentle slope of the red lawns and terraces, the
geometrically trimmed shrubs and trees. They were reflected warmly in
the dancing waves of the canal, though Sime knew that even in this,
the height of the summer season, the outside temperature was very near
freezing.
Now a hotel guard came along. He carried at his belt a neuro-pistol, a
deadly weapon whose beam would destroy the nervous structure of any
living creature. He went past the port with measured stride, and Sime
slid back the safety plate with a puzzled frown.
Why was he so nervous? This wasn't the first dangerous mission on
which he had embarked in the course of his official duty. And danger
was the element that gave zest to his life.
[Illustration: Clinging like leeches to the wall, the two men resisted
the warped gravitational drag.]
He began a methodical examination of his room, peering under the bed,
into closets, a wardrobe. Yet there was no sign of danger. Carefully
he inspected his bed for signs of the deadly black mold from Venus
that would, once it found lodgment in the pores of a man's skin,
inexorably invade his body and in the space of a few hours reduce him
to a black, repulsive parody of humanity. But the sheets were
unsullied.
Then his gaze fell on the mist-bath. Travelers who have visited Mars
are, of course, familiar with this simple device, used to overcome to
some extent the exceeding dryness of the red planet's atmosphere.
Resembling the steam bath of the ancients, there was just enough room
in the cylindrical case for a man to sit inside while his skin was
sprayed with vivifying moisture. But his head would project, and there
was no head visible.
Nevertheless, so strong was Sime's intuition, he leveled his
neuro-pistol at the cabinet and approached. With a sweep of his
muscular arm he swung it open--and gasped!
* * * * *
The sight that greeted him was enough to make any man gasp, even one
less young and impressionable than Sime. In all of his twenty-five
years he had not seen a woman so lovely. Her complexion was the
delicate coral pink of the Martian colonials--descendants of the
original human settlers who had struggled with, and at last bent to
their will, this harsh and inhospitable planet. She was little over
five feet tall, although the average Martian is perhaps slightly
bigger than his terrestrial cousin. Her hair was dark, like that of
most Martians, drawn back from her forehead and fastened at the nape
of her neck, from there to fall in an abundant, rippling cascade down
her slim, straight back. Her figure was like those delicate and
ancient creations of Dresden china to be seen in museums, but
elastic, and full of strength. She was dressed in the two-piece
garment universally worn by both sexes on Mars--a garment, so
historians say, that was called "pyjamas" by our forebears.
And she was defiant. In her hand was a stiletto with long, slim blade.
Sime made a darting grasp for her wrist and wrung the weapon from her.
It fell to the metal floor with a tinkling clatter.
"And now tell me, young lady, what's the meaning of this?"
Suddenly she smiled.
"I came to warn you, Sime Hemingway." She spoke softly and sweetly,
and with effortless dignity.
"You came to warn me?"
"You are in grave danger. Your mission here is known, and powerful
enemies are preparing to destroy you."
"You talk like you knew something, kid," Sime admitted. "What is my
mission here?"
"You have been sent to Mars by the I. F. P. in the guise of a mining
engineer. You are to discover what you can about a suspected plot of
interplanetary financiers to plunge the Earth and Mars into a war."
"How so?" Sime asked enigmatically, concealing his dismay at the
girl's ready reply. Here was inside information with a vengeance!
"Several shiploads of gray industrial diamonds from Venus have been
seized by war vessels carrying the insignia of the Martian atmospheric
guard."
Sime nodded. "Go on!"
"Curiously enough, these raids were so timed that they were witnessed
by the news telecasters. All of the people on Earth were thus
eye-witnesses, and feeling ran high. Am I right?"
"Go on!"
"And of course you know about the raids on the Martian borium mines by
pirates armed with modern weapons. In the fights, some of the pirates'
weapons were captured. They bore the ordnance marks of the terrestrial
government."
"I'm way ahead of you, girlie!" Sime conceded. "Certain financial
interests would like to see a war. They're cookin' up these overt acts
to get the people all steamed up till they're ready to fight. I'll go
further, since you seem to know all about it anyway, and admit that
I'm here to find out just who's back of all this. And how does all
that tie up with you hiding in my mist-bath with a long and mean
lookin' knife?"
The girl dropped her dark lashes in a sidelong glance at the stiletto
on the floor. There was a little smile on her lips.
"My usual weapon. Don't you know most of us Martians go armed all the
time?"
"Yeh?" Sime grinned skeptically. "And is it a habit of yours to hide
in the bedroom of visiting policemen? Come on, kid. I'm going to turn
you over to the guard."
For a second it looked as if she would make a dash for the blade
glistening there on the floor. But she straightened up, and with a
look of infinite scorn said:
"So the mighty policeman of the Sun calls a hotel guard, does he?
Please! Believe me, I am myself working for the same object as
yourself--the prevention of a horrible war!"
She was pleading now.
"Believe me, you are against forces that you don't understand! I can
help you, if you will listen. Let me tell you, the Martian government
is itself corrupted. The planetary president, Wilcox, is in alliance
with the war party. You will have to fight the police. You will have
to fear poison. You will be set upon and killed in the first dark
passage. Yet if you help me you may accomplish your object. You must
help me!"
"What do you want of me?"
"Help me change our government!"
Sime laughed shortly. He began to suspect that this amazing girl was
demented. He thought of the powerfully entrenched rulers of this
theoretically republican government. For more than two hundred years,
if he remembered rightly, the Martians had been ruled by a small group
of rich politicians.
"You propose a revolution?" he asked curiously.
"I propose the return of Princess Sira to the throne!" she declared
vehemently. "But enough! Are you going to betray me--I, who have
risked much to warn you? Or are you going to let me go?"
* * * * *
Sime looked into her warm, earnest little face. Her lips were parted
softly, showing perfect little teeth, and she was breathing quickly,
anxiously. Sime was woman hungry, as men of the service often are on
the long, lonely trail. He seized her quickly, pressed her little
figure to him and kissed her.
For a thrilling instant it seemed that she relaxed. But she tore away,
furious, her eyes cold with anger.
"For that," she panted, raging, "you must die!"
She reached the door before he could stop her, and in a trice she was
out in the gallery. He raced after her, staring stupidly.
Surprisingly, when her escape was assured, she turned back. Her look
was still hurt, angry, as she called to him in low tones:
"Look out for Scar Balta, you brute!"
"Who is Scar Balta?" Sime asked himself after locking the door again.
The name was not unusual and did not bring any familiar associations
to his mind. The given name, Scar, once a nickname, had been in
general use for centuries. As for Balta--oh, well--
His mind reverted to the girl again. Her warm, palpitant presence
disturbed him.
He composed himself to sleep, strapping his dispatch belt around his
waist before crawling into bed. He did not believe that the girl had
hidden in his room with murderous intent; rather that she had hoped to
inspect and perhaps to steal any papers that he carried. But his last
conscious thought of her had nothing to do with her connection with
this planet of intrigue, but the soft curve of her throat.
CHAPTER II
_Scar Balta_
Sime breakfasted on one of the juicy Martian tropical pears, and as he
dug into the luscious fruit with his spoon he looked about the
spacious dining hall, filled with wide-eyed tourists on their first
trip to Mars, blissful and oblivious honeymooners, and a sprinkling of
local residents and officials.
Through broad windows of thick glass (for on Mars many buildings
maintain an atmospheric pressure somewhat higher than the normal
outside pressure) could be seen the north banks of the canal, teeming
with swift pleasure boats and heavily loaded work barges. Down the
long terraces strolled hundreds of people, dressed in garments of
vivid colors and sheer materials suitable to the hot and cloudless
days. Brilliant insects floated on wide diaphanous wings, waiting to
pounce on the opening blossoms.
But the terrestrial agent felt that in this scene of luxury there was
a menace. Out of sight, but instantly available, were frightful
engines of destruction, waiting to be mobilized against the Earth
branch of the human race. And on that distant green planet were people
much like these, unconscious still of the butchery into which they
were being deftly maneuvered by calculating psychologists, expert
war-makers.
His meal completed, Sime sauntered out into the wide, clean streets of
North Tarog. He purchased a desert unionall suit, proof against the
heat of day and cold of night, and a wide-brimmed Martian pith helmet.
Hailing a taxi, he relaxed comfortably in the cushions.
"Nabar mine," he told the driver.
The driver nosed the vehicle up, over the domed roofs of the city and
over the harsh desert landscape. The rounded prow cut through the thin
air with a faint whistling, and the fair cultivated area along the
canal was soon lost to sight.
* * * * *
After half an hour the metal mine sheds grew out of the horizon. But
even from a distance of several miles Sime could see that everything
was not as it should be. There were no moving white specks of the
laborers' white fatigue uniforms against the brown rocks, and no
clouds of dust from the borium refuse pile.
The levitator screws of the taxi sank from their high whine to a
groan, and the wheels came to the ground before the company office. A
man in the Martian army uniform came out. His beetle-browed face was
truculent, and his hand rested on the hilt of his neuro-pistol.
"No visitors allowed!" snapped the guard.
"I'm not exactly a visitor," Sime objected, but making no move to get
out of the taxi. "I'm an engineer sent here by the board of directors
to see why the output of this mine has dropped. Where's Mr. Murray?"
"All settled!" the guard retorted. "Murray's in jail for mismanagement
of planetary resources, and the mine's been expropriated to the
government. Now, you--off!"
The driver needed no further order from his fare. The taxi leaped into
the air and tore back toward the city. It was clear that the military
rules of Mars brooked no nonsense from the civilian population, and
that the latter were well aware of it.
"Fast work!" Sime said to himself with grudging admiration. Murray was
a trusted agent of the terrestrial government. It was he who had first
uncovered the war cabal. Sime knew his face well from the stereoscopic
service record--a bald, placid man of about forty, a bonafide
engineer, a spy with an unbroken record of success, until now. And a
fighter who asked no odds, who could manage very well on less than an
even break. Well, he was up against something now.
They passed the line of shield-ray projectors, North Tarog's first
line of defense against an attack of space, hovered over the teeming
streets and parks, and settled on the pavement at the Hotel of the
Republic. Sime wanted to go to his room and think things over.
* * * * *
From the concealment of a doorway an officer with a squad of soldiers
came up quickly.
"You are under arrest!" said the officer, placing, his hand on Sime's
shoulder, while the soldiers rested their hands on their
neuro-pistols.
"Would it be asking too much to inquire on what charge?" Sime asked
politely.
"Military arrests do not require the filing of charges," the officer
explained stiffly. "Come out of there now, Mr. Hemingway."
"I demand to see the terrestrial consul," Sime said, getting out.
"How about my fare?" asked the taxi-driver.
Sime put his hand into his pocket, where he kept a roll of
interplanetary script; but the officer restrained him.
"Never mind now," he said ironically. "You are a guest of the
government." Then to the driver he added:
"Get on, now! Get on! File your claim at the divisional office."
The driver departed, outwardly meek before the power of the military,
and Sime was hustled into an official car. He had little hope that his
demand to see the terrestrial consul would be complied with, and this
opinion was verified when the car rose into the air and sped over the
waters of the canal to South Tarog. It did not pause when it came over
the military camps there--the massive ordnance depots in which were
stored new and improved killing tools that had long been idle in that
irksome interplanetary peace.
They flew on, over the desert, until the Gray Mountains loomed on the
horizon. On, over the tumbled rocks, interspersed with the strange red
thorny vegetation common in the Martian desert.
Far below them, in a ravine, a cylindrical building was now visible,
and toward this the car began to drop. It landed on a level space
before the structure. A sliding gate opened, and the car wheeled into
a sort of courtyard, protected from the cold of night by an arching
roof of glass.
Sime was hustled out and led into an office located on the lower floor
of the fortification, or whatever the structure was.
As he saw the man who sat at the desk he gave a startled explanation.
"Colonel Barkins!"
* * * * *
The elderly, white-haired man smiled. He brushed back his hair with a
characteristic gesture, and his twinkling blue eyes bored into those
of the I. F. P. special officer. The colonel wore the regular uniform
of the service; his little skullcap, with the conventionalized sun
symbol denoting his rank, was on the table before him. He put out his
lean, strong hand.
"Surprised to see me, eh, Hemingway?" he inquired pleasantly.
Sime managed an awkward salute. "I don't quite understand, sir. You
gave me my instructions at the Philadelphia space port just before I
made the _Pleadisia_. She's the fastest passenger liner in the solar
system: I've barely landed here, and it seems you got here before me.
It don't seem right!"
Sime watched the colonel narrowly, a vague suspicion in his mind, and
he thought he saw a slight flicker in the man's eye when Sime spoke.
But the colonel answered smoothly, with a hint of reproof.
"Never mind questioning me now, Hemingway. The mission is important. I
want to know if you remember every detail of what I told you." He
nodded to the men, and they filed out of the room. "Repeat your
orders."
"Nothing doing, Colonel!" Sime replied promptly and respectfully. "In
fact, Colonel, you can go to hell! This is the first time that a man
of the I. F. P. has turned traitor, and if your men hadn't so
thoughtfully taken my neuro I'd be pleased to finish you right now!"
"But you observe I have a neuro in my hand," remarked the colonel
pleasantly, "and so you will remain standing where you are."
* * * * *
So saying, he slipped off the white wig he was wearing, wiped his face
so that the brown powder came off, and sat, obviously pleased with
the success of his masquerade, useless though it was. He was a typical
Martian, dark, sleek-haired, coral-skinned.
"I hate to send a man to his death mystified," said the Martian after
a moment, "so I'll explain that I am Scar Balta!"
"Scar Balta!"
"You've heard of me?"
"Uh--yes and no," Sime suddenly remembered the girl of the evening
before--the imperious little Martian. She had warned him of Scar
Balta.
"If I do say it," said the Martian, "I am the best impersonator in the
service of the interests I represent. I did not expect to get
information of great value from you, but we do not neglect even the
most unpromising leads."
He pressed a button; two Martian soldiers answered promptly.
"Take this man to the cell," Balta ordered. "Provide him with writing
materials so that he can write a last message to his family. In the
morning take him to the end of the ravine and finish him with your
short sword."
"Yes, Colonel!"
"The fellow's a colonel, anyway," Sime thought as they led him away.
They led him downward, along a straight corridor that evidently went
far beyond the boundaries of the ravine fortress. In places the walls,
adequately lit by the glow-wands the guards carried, were plainly cut
out of the solid rock; in others they were masonry, as though the
channel were passing through pockets of earth; or--the thought
electrified him--through faults or natural caverns.
At last they came to the end. One of the guards unlocked a metal door,
motioned his prisoner into the prison cell. A light-wand, badly run
down and feeble, with only a few active cells left, gave the only
light. As the door slammed behind him, Sime took in the depressing
scene.
* * * * *
The stone walls were mildewed, leprous. The only ventilation was
through small holes in the door. Chains, fastened to huge staples in
the uneven stone floor, with smooth metal wrist and ankle cuffs, were
spaced at regular intervals, and musty piles of canal rushes showed
where some forgotten prisoner had dragged out his melancholy last
days. Sime was glad they had not chained him down. Probably didn't
consider it necessary unless there were many prisoners, who might rush
the guards.
"Ho, there, sojer!"
The voice was startling, so hearty and natural in this sad place. Sime
saw something coming out of a far corner. It was a man in the blouse
and trousers of civilian wear; a bald and good-natured man, with a
shocking growth of beard.
"Murray's the name," said this apparition with mock ceremony. "And
you?"
"I'm Hemingway, Sime Hemingway. Sergeant Sime Hemingway, to be exact.
Suppose you'd like to hear my orders?"
"I don't get you," said Murray, shaking hands.
"I mean," Sime explained elaborately, "that I'd like to know if you're
Scar Balta, or really Murray, as you say you are."
The other laughed.
"I'm Murray, all right. Feel this scalp. Natural, ain't it? That's one
thing Balta won't do--shave off his hair. Too vain. He'd hate to have
the Princess Sira see him that way. Ever hear of her? Say, she's a
raving beauty. This Balta'd like to be elected planetary president,
see--to succeed Wilcox, who has bigger plans. There's always been a
strong sentiment for the old monarchy, anyway. The oligarchy never did
go big. Follow me?"
"Yeh; go on."
* * * * *
"Well, this Princess Sira has ideas. She wouldn't mind sitting on the
throne again. Her great-great-grandpa was jobbed and murdered, and the
nobles who did it formed a closed corporation and called it a
republican government. So Sira started holding audiences, and gained a
lot of power. Among the people--even among some of the nobles.
"Get the idea? Scar Balta is one of the electors. If he married Sira
he'd have the backing of the monarchists, and of course he's done a
lot for the bosses. They'd elect him to head off the monarchists,
anyway. Then heigh-ho for a war with the Earth, to kill off a lot of
the kickers--and soft pickins in a lot of ways. Neat, huh?"
"Very neat!" Sime assented drily. "But we won't live to see it.
Anyway, I won't. They're going to bump me off in the morning."
"As they have a lot of our men," Murray agreed. "But they won't do it
in the morning. Or for several days. Look here!"
He held up his hand. On the back of it was what appeared to be a boil.
"But it isn't a boil," Murray explained. "That was done by a stream of
water, fine as a needle, under a thousand pounds pressure. They held
it there for a minute at a time--I don't know how many times, because
I keeled over. Any time I was willing to give them the information
they wanted they'd turn it off. Wasn't important info, either. But
what is it to them, how much they make me suffer for a trifle?"
Sime couldn't help the lump that rose in his throat. Men like Murray
certainly justified the world's faith in the service.
"Listen, old man," Sime said in a low voice, "out in the corridor--"
But Murray squeezed his hand warningly, pulled him to the floor.
"Might as well get some sleep," the old man said in ordinary tones.
"Plenty cool here. Let's lie together."
He kept his hold on Sime's wrist, and, by alternately squeezing and
releasing, began to talk in a silent telegraphic code.
"Don't say anything of importance," he spelled out. "They have mikes
in here to pick up all we say. Probably infra-red telenses too, so
they can see what we do."
So Sime told him, as they huddled together in simulated sleep, about
the walled passages, and they speculated on the possibility of felling
the guards and breaking their way to freedom through some underground
cavern. But at last they slept soundly to await the tortures of the
next morning.
CHAPTER III
_The Price of Monarchy_
Had Sime been able to follow and watch the girl he had kissed under
such unusual circumstances on the night of his arrival on Mars, he
would have been both puzzled and enlightened. After her final warning
about Scar Balta she dashed into the luxurious gloom of the passage.
At an intersection a maid was awaiting her. She curtseyed as she threw
a cape over the girl's shoulder, and together they hurried out into
the night.
A magnificently uniformed hotel servant called a private car, drew the
vitrine curtains, and saluted as the car lifted sharply into the
chilly night air. The car sped across the canal to the jeweled city
across the water, to a residence district whose magnificence even the
pale night light revealed.
The two women entered a mansion of glittering metal and came to a
private apartment.
"Everybody's gone to bed," said the girl, addressing her maid.
"That's one thing we can be thankful for."
"Yes, Your Highness. Did you discover anything of importance in the
man's room?"
"No. Draw me a bath, Mellie. He--he caught me--and kissed me!"
The maid, with flasks of perfume and aromatic oils in her hand,
paused, discreetly impudent.
"You seem not displeased, Your Highness."
"But of that he had no inkling." And Princess Sira laughed. "I left
him standing, utterly at a loss. He took me for a common assassin, and
yet he wanted to kiss me. That pleased me. But if he had valuable
information he kept it. And I promised him death for his kiss."
* * * * *
As Princess Sira, claimant to the throne of a planet, slipped into the
tepid waters of her bath, Mellie stood by, her smooth little Martian's
face disturbed. For she loved her mistress, and could not comprehend
the things she did under ambition's sway.
"Your Highness, couldn't you let your royal friends do these dangerous
things for you?"
"For what? For fear? And how could a Martian princess who knows fear
lay claim to a throne? No, Mellie, one gets used to it. The enemies of
the house of Sira are ever alert. Didn't they murder my father and my
mother, and my only brother? My peril in this palace is as great as in
the room of a terrestrial detective. Only their fear of the people--"
She was interrupted by the tinkling of a bell. The maid left the
alcove, and returned a moment later with the news that Joro, Prince of
Hanlon, awaited the princess's pleasure in the ante-room.
"At this hour!" exclaimed the princess. "Did he say what brought him
here?"
"Something about a new plot."
"Plots! They fall thicker than rain on Venus. Bid him wait."
Fifteen minutes later, swathed in a trailing orange silk robe that
made her look like a Venus orchid, she greeted the prince.
"Greetings, Joro. We seem to have the unusual this night."
The prince, a thin, elderly man of medium stature, smiled admiringly.
His sharp features and bright little button eyes gave some hint of the
energy which suffused him. Here was a man both ruthless and loyal to
his royal house. He addressed her by her given name.
"The hour seems to make no difference with you; Phobos has set, but as
long as you are awake there is loveliness enough. I have come, dear
one, to tell you that success is ours at last!"
* * * * *
Sira smiled. "I will restrain my joy, my good Joro, until I hear the
price."
"Always the same!" Joro chuckled. "A price, 'tis true, but not too
heavy, since you are, in a manner, fond of him."
"I've had vague promises from Wilcox," Sira said, with a wry smile. "I
would rather trade places with Mellie than be espoused by that
madman."
"Not Wilcox, but Scar Balta. He is badly smitten, for which I can not
blame him. He has great political power, and the backing of the
military. He could have dictated better terms, but for love of you has
yielded, point after point. He wants nothing now but your hand in
marriage, and is prepared to cede to the royal cause all the
advantages he has gained--"
"Not to mention," Sira interjected, "the royal prestige he will gain
with the common people."
Joro laughed, a little impatiently.
"True, true! But after all, what does the support of the people amount
to? They are powerless. If you are ever to establish your royal house
you must have other help."
"And I suppose," Sira continued sweetly, "that you have also arranged
a deal with the central banks and the secret war interests?"
Joro coughed uncomfortably.
"As a matter of fact--you see, my dear princess, there are certain
commercial interests--transportation, mining, and so forth. They have
defied the power of the bankers. They are likely to upset our whole
order of society. They need a set-back. And the military men are
chafing at their inaction. The war will be ended before too much harm
is done, by agreement of the interplanetary bankers. You see--"
"No!" Sira interrupted him coldly. "No! No! No! Oh, I'm sick of the
whole thing! I'm sick of the men I know! I hate Scar Balta, and you
too. I would rather be the wife of a common interplanetary patrolman
than queen of Mars! I withdraw, now!"
* * * * *
Joro, struck by her vehemence, paled. The muscles of his jaw lumped.
From a pocket he took a portable disk-radio, an inch in diameter, and
spoke a few words. From outside there was a sudden uproar, shouts and
curses. The draperies moved, as with an outrush of air caused by the
careless handling of an airlock, and the temperature dropped suddenly.
Sira was irresolute only a split second. With a cat-like leap she
seized a short sword from the wall, made a lunge at the prince. But
Joro, the veteran of many a battle of wits and arms, parried the
stroke with the thick barrel of his neuro-pistol, caught the girl's
wrist and disarmed her. The screams of the maid went unheeded.
From the other parts of the palace came sounds of struggle, the
clashing of sword on sword.
"Sira! Sira!" Joro panted, struggling to hold the girl. "You must
give up your impractical ideas! Take the world as it is. Do as I tell
you and you'll not be sorry."
"I relinquish my claims!" the girl cried fiercely. "To-morrow I will
publicly announce that decision. All my life has been spent feeding
that hopeless ambition. Now I will be free!"
"I am loyal to the monarchy," Joro grunted, pinioning her arms at
last. "I will guard your interest against yourself."
He began to shout:
"Hendricks, Mervin, Carpender, Nassus! Here, to the princess's
chamber."
Several men, after further delay and fighting, responded. They wore
civilian blouses and trousers, but there was that something in their
alert carriage that proclaimed them trained fighting men. One of them
sat down with a grunt on the threshold, holding his hand to a bleeding
wound under his armpit. He appeared to be mortally wounded.
* * * * *
Most of the others carried minor wounds, showing that the palace
guards had put up a good battle in the sword-play. Both sides had
refrained from using the neuro-pistols for fear that the beams, which
readily penetrated walls at short range, might injure the princess.
"Let go!" Sira wrenched herself free. "Where is Tolto? Has Tolto
turned traitor? How did you get past Tolto?"
"Do not use that ugly word against me. I implore you!" Joro protested.
"What we are doing is out of loyalty to the monarchy--not treason. The
monarchy is of greater importance than individuals. Consider your duty
to the rule of your fathers! As for Tolto--"
He issued a curt command, and there was the sound of movement.
Presently four men staggered in, one to each leg, each arm, of the
most impressive giant Mars had ever produced--Tolto, to whom there was
no god but the one divinity: and Princess Sira was she. Slow of
perception, mighty of limb, he had come into her service from some
outlying agricultural region of the red planet. His tremendous muscles
were hers to command or destroy, as she wished. He would not have
consented to this invasion of her home, she knew!
And he had not. Joro had been too wise to try. A dose of _marchlor_ in
a glass of wine had done what fifty men could not have accomplished by
main strength. Tolto was in a drugged sleep.
Joro said: "He isn't hurt. We will simply send him back to his valley,
and you, my dear princess, will do your duty to your subjects!"
And there, though he probably did not know it, Prince Joro harked back
to the youth of the human race--the compensatory, atavistic principle
that gods, rulers, kings, must hold themselves in readiness as
sacrifices for the good of their subjects. Joro might have been a
tribal high priest invoking their dread rule in the dawn of time. The
Martians were, for all their scientific advancement, still the
descendants of those prehistoric human savages. Sira knew,
instinctively, that the people who loved her would nevertheless
approve of Joro's judgment.
CHAPTER IV
_Torture_
When Sime awoke it was to the rattling of the door. Murray stirred.
The light was even weaker than before.
"If they offer you a drink, drink hearty!" Murray muttered, sitting
up. "I've got an idea it's going to be a hard day."
But they were not offered any water. Instead they were again conducted
before Scar Balta, who looked at them morosely. At last he remarked
gruffly:
"If you tin sojers weren't so cursed stubborn, you could get yourself
a nice berth in the Martian army. Ever consider that?"
"Talk sense!" Sime said contemptously. "If I threw down the service
how could you trust me?"
"That'd be easy," Balta rejoined. "Once the I. F. P. finds out you
joined us you'd have to stick with us to save your skin."
He laughed at his prisoners' look of surprise.
"Come, come!" he bantered. "You didn't think that I was ignorant of
your purpose here? You, Murray; your spying was excellent, I'll admit.
You were the first to give away certain plans of ours. Well, well! We
don't hold that against you. Wheels within wheels, eh? It would
perhaps astonish certain braided gentleman of our high command to
learn that I, a mere colonel, control their destinies. As our
ancestors would say, it's dog eat dog.
"Now, how about it? I can make a place for you in my organization. It
seems to run to secret service, oddly enough. You will be rewarded far
beyond anything you could expect in your present career of chasing
petty crooks from Mercury to Pluto and back again."
"Is that all?" Murray asked softly, with a bearded grin.
"Oh no. You will turn over to me all the information you can about the
I. F. P. helio code. You will name and describe to me each and every
plainclothes operative of the service--and you should have an
extensive acquaintance."
"Before you answer," Murray said quietly at Sime's side, "let me
suggest that you consider what's in store for us--or you--if you don't
take up this offer."
"Why, you--" Sime whirled in astonished fury upon his companion.
"Didn't you--"
* * * * *
But he did not complete his reference to last night's surreptitious
conversation. It seemed that he saw the merest ghost of a flicker in
Murray's left eye.
"--Didn't you say you'd stick no matter what they did?" he finished
lamely.
Murray hung his head.
"I'm getting along," he muttered. "Not as young as I used to be. This
life is getting me nowhere. Why be a fool? Come along with me!"
"Why, you dirty, double-crossing hound!" Sime's exasperation knew no
bounds. For an instant he had believed that Murray was enacting a
little side-play in the pursuit of a suddenly conceived plan. But he
looked so obviously hangdog--so guiltily defiant....
_Crack!_ Sime's fist struck Murray's solid jaw, scraping the skin off
his knuckles, but Murray swayed to the blow, sapping its force, and
came in to clinch. They rolled on the floor. Murray twisted Sime's
head painfully, bit his ear. But in the next split second he was
whispering:
"Keep your head, Sime. Can't you see I'm stringing him? Take that!"
And he planted a vicious short hook to Sime's midriff.
Balta had squalled orders, and now Martian soldiers were bursting the
buttons off their uniforms in the scrimmage to separate the battlers.
Bruised and battered, they were dragged apart. Murray's one eye was
now authentically closed, and rapidly coloring up. Unsteadily he got
to his feet. With mock delicacy he threw a kiss to his late
antagonist.
"Farewell, Trueheart!" He bowed ironically, and the men all laughed.
Balta grinned too. "Still the same mind, Hemingway? All right, men,
take him up to the observation post. Here, Murray, have a drink."
* * * * *
Sime was led up a seemingly endless circular staircase. After an
interminable climb he saw the purplish Martian sky through the glass
doors of an airlock. Then they were outside, in the rarefied
atmosphere that sorely tried Sime's lungs, still laboring after the
fight and long ascent. The Sun, smaller than on Earth but intensely
bright, struck down vindictively.
"A good place to see the country," laughed the corporal in charge.
"Off with his clothes!"
It was but a matter of seconds to strip Sime's garment from him. They
dragged him to an upright post, one of several on the roof, and with
his back to the post, tied his wrists behind it with rawhide. His
ankles they also tied, and so left him.
It was indeed an excellent point of vantage from which to see the
country. The fortress was high enough to clear the nearby cliffs of
low elevation, and on all sides the Gray Mountains tumbled to the
horizon. To the north, beyond that sharply cut, ragged horizon, lay
the big cities, the industrial heart of the planet. To the south, at
Sime's back, was the narrow agricultural belt, the region of small
seas, of bitter lakes, of controlled irrigation. Here the canals,
natural fissures long observed by astronomers and at first believed to
be artificial, were actually put to the use specified by ancient
conjecture, just as further north they had been preempted as causeways
of civilization. Sime painfully worked his way around the post so that
he could look south. But here too nothing met his eye but the orange
cliffs with their patches of gray lichen. There was no comfort to be
had in that desolate landscape. Nevertheless, Sime kept moving
around, to keep the post between himself and the Sun. Already it was
beginning to scorch his skin uncomfortably.
By the time it was directly overhead Sime had stopped sweating. The
dry atmosphere was sucking the moisture out of his body greedily, and
his skin was burned red. His suffering was acute.
* * * * *
The Martian day is only a little more than a day on Earth, but to Sime
that afternoon seemed like an eternity. Small and vicious, with deadly
deliberation, the sun burned its way down a reluctant groove in the
purple heavens. Long before it reached the horizon, Sime was almost
unconscious. He did not see its sudden dive into the saw-edge of the
western mountains--knew only that night had come by the icy whistle of
the sunset wind that stirred and moaned for a brief interval among the
rocks. The keen, thin wind that first brought relief and then new
tortures, to be followed by freezing numbness.
Above, in the blackness, the stars burned malignantly. Drug to his
misery they were, those familiar constellations, which are about the
only things that look the same on all planets of the solar system. But
they were not friendly. They seemed to mock the motionless human
figure, so tiny, so inconsequential, that stared at them, numerous
tiny pinpricks of light, so remote.
There was no dawn, but after aeons Sime saw the familiar green disk of
Earth coming up in the east, one of the brightest stars. Sime fancied
he saw the tiny light flick of the moon. There would be a game of
blackjack going on somewhere there about now. He groaned. The Sun
would not be far behind now.
But he must have slept. The Sun was up before he was aware of it. A
man with a caduceus on his blouse collar was holding his wrist,
feeling his pulse. He seemed to be a medical officer of the Martian
army. His smooth, coral face was serious as he prodded Sime's
shriveled tongue.
"Water, quick!" he snapped,--"or he's done for."
* * * * *
His head was tipped back and water poured into his mouth, but Sime
could not swallow. The soldier with the bucket poured dutifully,
however, almost drowning the helpless man. It helped, anyway; and Sime
returned to half-consciousness. A few minutes later, when Scar Balta
came to inquire if he had changed his mind, Sime was able to curse
thickly. And around noon, when Murray, jauntily dressed in the uniform
of a Martian captain, bid him a cheerful good-by, Sime was almost
fluent.
His torture had now reached the pitch of exquisite keenness that made
it something spiritual. Solicitously they kept him alive, and far back
in his mind Sime wondered why they bothered to do that. Couldn't they
be satisfied with what they could learn from Murray?
So passed the second day, and the third.
On the fourth day Sime was able to drink water freely, and to eat the
food they placed into his mouth, a fact which the medical officer
noted. The torture was wearing itself out. Sime's body was emaciated,
stringy, burnt black. But his extraordinary toughness was weathering
conditions that would kill most men. Balta shook his head in
wonderment when this was reported to him.
"Can't wait any longer for him. Must get back to Tarog. You might as
well put him out of his misery. By the way, I'm convinced that Murray
is double-timing me. But I'll attend to that personally."
From his post of pain Sime saw the official car leave toward Tarog.
Had he known of Balta's remark he would not have been puzzled so much
by what he saw.
As the ship was about to disappear over the ragged northern horizon,
Sime's bleared eyes saw, or he thought they saw, a human figure
silhouetted against the pitiless sky. It was a tiny-seeming figure at
that distance, but it was clear-cut in the rare atmosphere. Then it
plunged from sight.
"Somebody taken for a ride," he muttered, half grateful for the brief
distraction from his own misery.
* * * * *
The medical officer, to whom the long climb was arduous, delayed his
mission to the roof, and that was why, several hours later, Sime was
still alive to see another ship appear to the north. It was large,
sumptuous, evidently a private yacht. Its course would bring it within
a mile of the fortress, and with sudden wild hope Sime realized that
if he were seen he might expect relief. He began to tug at his bonds.
They were tough, but they would stretch a little. His haphazard
movements had already worn them against the rough post, and now he
began to struggle violently. If he could only get his hands loose, he
could wave....
The thongs cut into his flesh, but his wrists were numb and swollen,
and he did not mind the pain. His muscles stood out hard and sharp,
and with a supreme effort, aided by the growing brittleness of the
rawhide in the dry atmosphere, he snapped his bonds.
The ship was now quite near, and he waved frantically. He fancied he
saw movement back of the pilot ports. Faintly he heard the hum of the
levitators. Now it turned--no! It yawed, now toward him, now away,
purposelessly, like a ship in distress. It made an abrupt downward
plunge that scraped a crag, and just missed a canyon wall.
Again it twisted, came down with a long, twisting motion, struck a
rock upside down, slitting a long gash in its skin, clattered to the
rocks so close to the fortress that Sime could not see it. Now
desperation gave the prisoner superhuman strength. Regardless of the
pain, he burst the thongs about his ankles, tottered to the edge of
the roof.
There was a battle going on below. Men seemed to be running, shouting.
Someone, using a massive plate of metal as a partial shield against
the neuro-pistols, was creating havoc. Sime tried to focus his giddy
eyes on the scene. It seemed always to be turning to the left, to be
circling around him. With tottering steps he tried to follow it,
keeping to the brink of that lofty tower--uselessly. Now it was
rocking, flying straight toward him, and, gratefully, Sime gave up the
struggle, closed his eyes.
CHAPTER V
_The Wrath of Tolto_
Tolto awoke from his drugged sleep in the cargo room of a pleasure
ship. He was thoroughly trussed up, for Prince Joro's servants had a
wholesome respect for the giant's strength. Even in his supine
position power was evident in every line of his great torso, revealed
through great rents in his blouse. His thighs were as big around as an
ordinary man's body, and the smooth pink skin of his mighty arms and
shoulders rippled with every movement that brought into play the
broad, flat bands of muscle underneath.
A chain of beryllium steel was passed around Tolto's waist, and close
in front of him the smooth, shining cuffs of steel around his wrist
were locked to the chain. Short lengths of chain led to cargo
ringbolts in the floor, holding fast Tolto's cuffed ankles.
To anyone looking at Tolto, just then, these extreme precautions might
have seemed absurd. Prince Joro, however, was a good judge of men. It
would have pleased him best if Tolto had been quietly eased from his
sleep into death, but he knew that such a murder would have destroyed
forever his chances of winning Sira to his plans. He meant to see
Tolto safely and demonstrably returned to his home valley, and in
order to accomplish this the more surely, he had him loaded aboard his
own ship, and instructed his captain to take the little used desert
route.
Tolto lifted his hands as far as he could and looked wonderingly at
them. His child-like face, with the soft, agate eyes, expressed only
bewilderment. He lifted his voice, a powerful bass.
"Hi, hi! Let Tolto go! The princess may call!"
There was no answer, only the rhythmic hum of the levitators. Again
Tolto cried out. But there was no answering sound. The Sun poured in
through the ports, and when presently the ship changed its course, the
light fell full in his face, almost blinding him. The giant endured
this without complaint.
* * * * *
Several hours later, however, his patience snapped, and he roared and
bellowed so loudly that a door opened and a frightened face appeared.
Back of it was the chromium glitter of the ship's galley.
"Be still, big one!" admonished the cook. "The captain is resting. He
will have you chained standing if you disturb him with your
bellowing."
"I wanted only to know where I am," Tolto replied, subsiding meekly.
"I drank overmuch and some larksters tied me up like this. Release me,
so that if the princess calls I may answer."
"The princess will have to call loudly for you to hear," the cook
answered jocularly.
"The princess need only whisper for Tolto to hear," the giant boasted,
"Come now, shrimp, take these things off!"
"Are you really as dumb as that?" the cook marveled. "Why, sonny boy,
the princess couldn't even hear you! Don't you know where you're
goin'?"
Vague alarm began to creep over Tolto.
"Where is she?" he asked anxiously. "Isn't she in this ship? Princess
Sira never goes anywhere without Tolto. Ask her. Ask anybody."
"The princess may never go anywhere without you, you head of bone,"
remarked the cook, rather enjoying his own humor, "but _this_ time
you're going somewhere without her."
"You talk funny talk, but I can't laugh at it. Little bug, tell me now
what this is all about, or I will take you between my fingers and
squash you!"
The cook's coral face paled almost to white despite himself.
"Listen, big one," he said placatingly. "Have an orange?"
* * * * *
Tolto refused the gift, although he knew this rare and luscious
importation from the Earth and was very fond of it.
"Once more I ask you, bug, where is she?"
"Aw, now, listen!" the cook whined. "Don't blame me! I'm only a
servant around here. How can I help what they do? Don't glare at me
so. Well, she's at Tarog."
"But why--why does she send me away?"
The cook failed to recognize his opportunity to lie in time.
"Well, the fact is--" he hesitated. "The boss--Prince Joro's sending
you away. You see, she's going to get hitched up-big important guy.
They didn't want you around, bustin' up things every time you turn
around. So they're sendin' you back home."
"The princess would not send me home like this," Tolto objected. But
he held his peace, and the cook went back to his work, satisfied that
he had subdued this dangerous prisoner.
In this he was guilty of no greater error than Prince Joro and the
other monarchists. For ages there had been an unfounded opinion that
big men are generally slow and stupid. They may often act so, for
their great strength serves as a substitute for the quick wit of
smaller men. But in Tolto, at all events, this prejudice was wrong. In
Tolto's bullet head was a healthy, active brain, and a primitive
cunning.
So instead of wasting his strength in vain struggles against the tough
steel, he rested, marshalling the facts in his mind.
He utterly rejected the thought that Princess Sira had consented to
his removal in this manner, or in any manner. That meant that she was
being coerced, and Tolto's eyes grew small and hard at the thought.
Presently he began to test the chains. They were of great hardness and
toughness, and so smooth that he could not twist them, for the links
slid over one another harmlessly. However, after much quiet effort he
found that he could shift his body several inches toward either side
of the narrow hold. Here there were a number of locked boxes. One of
them, he reasoned, might contain tools.
His closely confined hands were practically useless. He found that he
could not reach any of the boxes with his fingers, strain as he might.
But he grinned with hope when his head struck one of the handles. His
strong teeth closed down on it.
* * * * *
That would have been something to see! The box was of thin, strong
metal, but it was heavy. With no other purchase but his teeth, Tolto
dragged it to him, on top of him. Now his hands could help a little.
He inched it down toward his knees, fearful each moment that a lurch
of the ship might precipitate it to the floor with a crash. When his
head could push no longer his knees grasped the end of the chest, and
managed to pull it down.
Tolto had never heard of the wrestling hold known as the scissors, but
he applied it to that box. His mighty sinews cracked under the strain,
and stabbing pain tore at his hips. But he persisted, and with a
protesting rasp the lid was telescoped inward, breaking the lock.
Breathless, he waited. After minutes he decided that the sound had not
attracted attention.
Again he brought his teeth into play, and this time, when the box
stood open, Tolto's lips were lacerated by the jagged edges of twisted
metal. Triumphantly, he looked inside.
The box contained a set of counterweights for the hydrogen integrator
motors.
No bar, nothing that might be utilized to twist off the eyebolts!
Again he set to work. The next box was longer, heavier. It was coated
with unpleasantly rancid oil. Tolto's broad chest was covered with
blood, partly from gouges in his skin, partly from his crushed lips.
But this time he found a bar. It was in the bottom, under some extra
valves, but eventually his teeth closed on it, and he fell back,
nearly exhausted, for a moment's rest.
He heard a door slam beyond the galley. The words floated out:
"--better go see how he's coming along."
* * * * *
The horrified mate saw the wrecked boxes, the blood-covered giant with
a thick steel bar in his teeth, the extra valves scattered about the
floor. He whipped out his neuro-pistol, pointed it at Tolto.
But Tolto made no move to resist when the shaken officer gingerly took
the bar out of his mouth. He did not move when several shipmen, called
by the officer, moved everything out of reach. After half an hour,
with many awed comments, they left him alone.
Tolto's battered lips opened in what might have been a grin. Painfully
he rolled off the single valve that had been digging into the small of
his back. He patiently resumed the tedious task of bringing the valve
in reach of his locked hands.
The valve stem was stout, and a foot long. It was just long enough so
that Tolto, by lying on his side, could reach one of the eyebolts.
Inserting the stem, Tolto pulled toward him.
The eyebolt turned without resistance. It was free to rotate, and
could not be twisted off. A groan escaped from the prisoner.
But in a few moments he tried bending upward. The leverage was highly
disadvantageous that way. Still, straining with the last ounce of his
strength, he was just able to do it. Pulling down was not so hard.
It took fifty-four motions, up and down, before the tough metal
cracked and one chain trailed free.
It was not long afterward that the cook, turning from his work at the
electric grill, stared into a face that had once been innocent and
peaceful. It seemed the face of a demon.
He would have shrieked, but Tolto took his arm between thumb and
forefinger, saying gently:
"Remember, little bug, what I said!"
He was cast, dumb with fear, into the late prisoner's cell.
* * * * *
Tolto had not bothered to remove the chains, but only to twist them
apart by means of such tools as he could find to permit free movement
of his arms and legs. They dangled from him, tinkling musically.
Now he strode into the main cabin. The ship's crew, having no guests,
were playing the part of guests. A man who was shuffling cards, was
the first to see him. The cards flew up and showered all over the
room.
"He's loose!" this shipman croaked, diving under the table.
"Mr. Yens! Mr. Yens!" shouted the captain, a small, bristling Martian
with graying, stiff hair. He snatched the neuro-pistol at his side,
pointed it at Tolto, pressed the trigger.
Tolto felt a numbing cold as the ray struck him. But his great body
absorbed the weapon's energy to such an extent that he was not killed
at once. His flailing arms continued their arc, and one end of chain,
whistling through the air, struck the weapon from the officer's hand.
Tolto stumbled, recovered. He picked up the pistol and stuck it in his
chain belt.
His impulse was to rend, to crush with his hands. The shipmen, except
for the officers, were unarmed, and they went down helplessly before
the giant fists. Some of them found riot guns, but they might as well
have pounded a Plutonian mammoth for all the effect they had on Tolto.
Mr. Yens, the mate, sitting at the controls in the glassed-in cabin
forward, turned his head at the captain's cry, and, looking down the
short corridor into the main cabin, saw the blood-covered giant coming
toward him. Mr. Yens was a brave man; but he had been careless. His
neuro-pistol was in his own cabin. He did the best he knew, and
snapped the lock.
But Tolto's great bulk smashed in the door as if it were nothing. The
unbreakable glass did not splinter, but it bent like sheet metal, and
a blow of the giant's fist broke the mate's neck.
The mate had not engaged the gyroscopic control, and immediately the
ship began a series of eccentric maneuvers, so sharp and unexpected
that no one on board could keep his feet. For a few seconds she
straightened, and one of the crew bethought himself of the pistol in
the mate's cabin. He sighted on Tolto, clearly visible ahead. Before
he could release the ray the ship went into another breath-taking
maneuver.
A mountain peak came sliding toward them ominously. They scraped by.
The ship dived, throwing Tolto forward, and his instinctive grab threw
the elevator up. The levitators screamed madly as they lost their
purchase on the air, due to the ship's unstable keel.
"We're goners!" someone shouted. "Kill that fool!"
They bounced off a cliff, turned over and over like a tumbleweed. A
cylindrical building, unexpected in this wilderness, loomed up. They
seemed about to hit it, but floated past. The rock floor of the valley
rushed up. With a crash the ship rolled over, split wide open.
CHAPTER VI
_The Fight in the Fort_
Its coming had been observed. Men wearing the uniforms of the Martian
army dashed out, their pistols ready. A man dropped out of a gaping
hole in the ship's skin, sat down unsteadily. Others dribbled out.
"Crazy man in there!" one of them shouted. "Look out, he's murderous!"
The pistols came up. The soldiers began to close in, showing a certain
professional eagerness.
They were perhaps within ten feet when a metal plate, sheared off from
the pilot's cabin in the fall, lifted up. Barely visible under it was
a pair of large, running feet. One soldier, trying to oppose it with
his hands, was knocked senseless and bleeding. He might as well have
tried to stop an oncoming rocket ship.
Neuro-pistols, bearing from every side, spanged briskly. They partly
neutralized one another. Their charges were partly reflected by the
metal and partly absorbed by Tolto's great bulk. He was thoroughly
confused now. Every way he looked in this glaring wilderness of desert
and rocks were enemies.
* * * * *
But there! An opening loomed, cool and dark. The fortress entrance.
Tolto dashed into it. There was the sharp challenge of a guard,
unanswered; the futile hiss of a weapon.
The improvised shield wedged on a narrowing stairway. Tolto let it
stick, ran up alone. The stairway went round and round, climbing ever
higher. The fugitive's lungs were bursting.
At last he came to an airlock. He did not know how to operate it, so
smashed through. There was no rush of air, because the pressure had
already been equalized in the rush to the wreck at ground level.
Panting, listening for pursuers, Tolto looked around.
He found himself on a circular roof, bare except for the airlock and a
number of upright posts, whitened by the Sun.
It was some moments before he saw the unconscious figure of a man
lying on the very edge of the lofty tower on which he was standing--a
man naked and blackened. He was lying on his face, one arm and one
foot hanging over space as though he had fallen unconscious at the
very edge of the abyss.
Tolto collected his excited wits. This, at least was no enemy. His
enemies were in power here. This must be a victim, a possible ally.
The man was stirring. The overhanging arm was feebly trying to grasp
something. If he were to roll over--
He did not have time. Tolto dragged him in to the safety of the
airlock opening, where he could watch.
There were sounds of pursuit, faint and cautious.
Tolto grinned at the naked stranger.
"Who are you, little bug?" he asked.
Sime Hemingway tried to tell him but his swollen tongue would not
behave. Instead, he waved in the general direction of the Sun.
Tolto understood. "From Earth? Good guy, prob'ly. Want this dingus?"
* * * * *
Sime was able to take the neuro-pistol. He knew what was expected of
him, and strove to collect his faculties so he could obey orders. He
crawled a little way into the lock, where he could be in comparative
darkness, setting the little focalizer wheel at the side of the pistol
for maximum concentration. Such a beam would require good aiming,
being narrow, but if it touched a vital center would be infallibly
fatal.
Meanwhile Tolto appraised one of the posts on the roof. It was firmly
set in masonry, but he found he could loosen it a little by shaking
it. Presently he had it uprooted. It made a splendid battering ram, a
war club fit for a giant such as he.
"Here they come!" Sime croaked, and, peering around a corner, took
careful aim at the foremost attacker. At the first whispering impact
of the beam the Martian sprawled, dead.
The soldiers were caught at a disadvantage. They were expecting club
or fist, but not the neuro-beam. Nevertheless Sime had no more easy
opportunities. The Martians flung themselves down behind the bulge of
the curved stairway, and the air became acrid under the malignant
neuro-beams.
None of them reached Sime directly, but the stone walls reflected them
to some extent, and even under their greatly weakened power he become
cold and sick.
The situation was by no means to his liking. There were other weapons
to be reckoned with, and he tried to keep consciousness from slipping
away from him. When at last his breathing became easier and his
diaphragm moved without pain, Sime knew that danger was greatest. For
this relief meant that the Martians had withdrawn down the stairway.
"Good-by, boys!" he thought, as he sprinted up into the comparative
safety of the open. He motioned to Tolto, who stood hopefully waiting
with his great war club, to stand clear.
* * * * *
There it was! Sime saw the faint phosphorescent reflection against the
stone where the stairway curved. He did not wait to see the tiny
pellet of the atomic bomb floating up, but threw himself flat on the
roof, tugging at Tolto, who understood and followed suit.
Even lying prone, and below the edge of the explosion cone, they were
nearly blown off the roof. Though no larger than a pinhead, the bomb
had the power of a thousand times its weight in fulminate of mercury.
When the rain of small stones and dust had subsided, they rubbed their
eyes and saw that the airlock was no more. In its place was a shallow
pit, ending with the top of the battered stairway.
"Down after 'em!" Sime husked out of a raw throat. "Before they think
it's safe to come after us!"
He led the way, the giant after him, carrying his club and a huge rock
fragment. Sime saw a cautious peering head, and that Martian died
instantly. Then they were around the bend and in the middle of a
fight. Sime deflected a hand that held a pistol, and its beam killed
another Martian who was about to let Tolto have it at close range.
There was a light-wand affixed to the wall a trifle further down.
Tolto waded through the ruck of smaller men, tore it from its socket
and hurled it up the stairs. A short sword bit into Sime's shoulder,
but there was no force in the stroke, for in that instant Sime
paralyzed his enemy's heart with the beam.
An officer barked a command, and the spang of neuro-beams ceased, to
be followed by the lethal rustling of swords. The passage was too
crowded for the neuro-pistols, giving the outnumbered prisoners the
advantage.
* * * * *
Tolto could not swing his club, but he hurled it, like a battering
ram, into the middle of twenty or twenty-five of the garrison who were
still below him on the steps, trying to get closer. The heavy timber
cleared a lane and the two stumbled down over crushed bodies. Sime was
now the only one to use his pistol, for he had no friends there to
kill accidentally.
The Martians, were putting up a game battle. They were heirs to the
traditions and the spirit of Earth's best fighting men. Science had
given them deadly and powerful weapons that could kill over long
distances, but they preferred to get close to their adversaries.
But Tolto was a Martian too. He had seized a sword from a dying hand
and was wielding it with aptitude and power. No formal thrust and
parry for him, but merely a savage sweep that sent swords, arms and
heads flying indiscriminately.
Sime, following him, his neuro hissing death from side to side,
marveled at his ferocity. He saw a bare-bodied, bleeding fighter leap
to Tolto's back, his sword poised for a downward stab for the jugular.
Kicking viciously at the man who was just then coming at him, Sime
tried to bring Tolto's would-be killer down. But Tolto himself
attended to him, dashing him to his death with the elbow of his sword
arm.
That diversion nearly cost Sime his life. Fortunately for him he
tripped, and the sword-thrust that was to disembowel him merely gashed
his side. Sime was beginning to enjoy the fight. The exercise was
loosening up his cramped muscles, and the shaky feeling due to the
reflected beams of the neuro-pistols was leaving him.
* * * * *
Tolto had smashed down the light-wands as they fought their way down
the steps, so that now they were in almost complete darkness. One
could still see the occasional rise and fall of a glinting sword and
the dark shadow of an arm or head. They were almost clear when Tolto
received his first serious wound, a stab in the abdomen that let out a
sticky stream of blood.
There was an interval of silence, broken only by the groans of the
wounded. The air was thick with the odor of raw blood and pungent with
ozone. They had fought their way down perhaps two hundred feet of the
stairway, and due to its curve they could see neither top nor bottom.
"I'm stuck!" Tolto muttered.
"Bad?" Sime edged to his side, stepping, in the darkness, on the body
of the man who had succeeded in delivering that sword-stroke before
Tolto's own blade had cleft him. He felt the edges of the wound, but
in the darkness could not tell how serious it was.
"Feel sick? Any retching?" he croaked anxiously.
"Tolto's all right," the giant assured him. "I just said I was stuck."
Sime managed to make a hurried bandage out of the slashed fragment of
Tolto's blouse, and again they resumed their descent. Strangely, their
enemies further up made no move to attack, although there were many
left alive.
Sime laid his hand on Tolto's arm.
"Something wrong here. There's somebody at the bottom of the steps,
and the fellows above want to give him elbow room. Well, we'll soon
see!"
* * * * *
They crawled up a short distance, began to haul inert bodies down,
dragging them as far as the last curve, until they had formed a
barricade of nineteen or twenty of their late enemies. It was
unpleasant work, but justified by following events.
"Can you just see the loom of it?" Sime asked.
"Yes."
"Watch!"
Sime felt about until he found a small fragment broken from the stone
steps. Keeping well within the shelter of the convex wall, he crept
toward the bend.
"Dig your fingers into a joint and hold on," he instructed Tolto,
locating a crack for himself. Then he tossed the fragment gently over
the barricade of bodies.
There was the click of its fall, and a moment later things seemed to
turn around. Clinging like leeches to the wall, the two men resisted
the warped gravitational drag that would have flung them down upon
their waiting enemies below. They seemed to be hanging in a well.
Sime had a confused impression of piled-up bodies hurtling down--down.
Thereafter everything was normal again, and they were running down the
normal steps. Both had swords in their hands now, and within a hundred
feet they were upon the "gravitorser" gun. It was a rather cumbersome
weapon, comprising a great deal of electrical apparatus, with a
D-solenoid surmounting, whose object was to twist the normal lines of
gravitation. It was intended for large-scale operations in the open;
the few men remaining below had tried a rather risky experiment, for
they might have brought the whole fortress down upon them. Now they
were untangling themselves from the corpses that had flown at them as
iron flies to a magnet.
* * * * *
Sime and Tolto struck them like a tempest. The light was good and the
battle short and sweet. Tolto was slowed up a little, but was
irresistible, nevertheless. There is nothing surprising about the
seeming immunity of a reckless man in battle. He fights by instinct,
taking short-cuts that are not as dangerous as they look because the
enemy is not expecting them. So Sime and Tolto fought their way down,
until there was no one able to oppose them.
Sime pressed a neuro-pistol into Tolto's hand, warned him to sweep the
stairs with it, while he coursed around for some of the pellet bombs.
He found them, and two of them closed that avenue of attack with a
mass of jumbled ruins.
Now they had a breathing spell. A combination of blind luck and
foolhardiness had given them temporary possession of this desert
outpost. That was their pawn in the game of life and death--the chance
to get back and hide among the millions in the cities of the
industrial belt. Certain routine precautions had to be taken. They
destroyed the radio apparatus, picked a few days supply of food, threw
a couple more bombs and made a search for means of transportation: for
there was a desert wilderness of four or five hundred miles to be
traversed.
They discovered the egg-shaped hull of an enclosed levitator car in
the covered courtyard. It was distinguished by the orange and green
stripes which are the Martian army standard. Like all army equipment,
it was in excellent condition. The hydrogen gages showed a full supply
of fuel.
"We're getting the breaks," Sime crowed to Tolto at they surfeited
themselves with water before starting. He had covered his nakedness
with an ill-fitting fatigue suit.
"Yeh," Tolto agreed, referring to their numerous wounds with sly
humor: "lots of 'em."
* * * * *
Nevertheless, they felt pretty happy when the levitator screws took up
their melancholy whine. The rocky valley floor dropped away, and the
windowless stone walls of the fortress slid down past them. Now they
were even with the top.
Through the ports they could see a group of their late adversaries on
the roof, standing in strained attitudes. Their immobility was
explained a moment later by an electric blue spark from something in
the shadow of their bodies.
Instantly Sime, who was at the controls, threw her hard-a-port, dived,
looped up. The first explosion of the tiny projectile tossed them up
like a monstrous wave, allowed them to drop sickeningly. The exhaust
tubes poured out a dense haze as Sime sought for distance. But they
were following him. He was five miles away when they finally got the
range. The vessel was jarred as if it had hit a rock. One of the
atomic pellets had exploded within a few feet of it. There was a
dismaying lurch. Sime picked himself up from the floor and dashed to
the controls.
"Everything's all right!" he shouted excitedly.
Tolto, however, was listening anxiously. There was a sharp crackling
at the stern, where, in a narrow space, the reaction motors provided
the forward motive power. In moments of excitement he referred to
himself in the third person. He did so now.
"Tolto's afraid that something's wrong! Smells hot, too!"
"Here, take the wheel!" Sime ordered. The explosions of the shells
were becoming less dangerous; they were getting too far away.
* * * * *
Sime burned his hand opening the narrow door. The paint was already
blistering off it. The trouble was immediately apparent. One of the
integrator chambers, in which atomic hydrogen was integrated to form
atomic iron and calcium (sometimes called the Michelson effect), had
sprung a leak. The heat escaping into the little room was not the
comparatively negligible heat of burning hydrogen, but the cosmic
energy of matter in creation. Sime slammed the door. The radiated
light was so intense that it stung even his hardened skin.
Looking through the rear range-finding periscope, he saw that they
were about twenty miles from the fort. They had ceased firing.
"Won't be long, Tolto," he said, taking over the controls himself
again, "before our tail's going to drop off. Got to make time."
It was, in fact, about ten minutes when, without warning, their nose
dropped.
"Tail's gone!" Sime announced.
Their momentum, under the destructive rate of speed they had been
making, was great, and as the levitators, with independent power
supply, still held them up, Sime continued to steer a course for the
twin cities of Tarog. He was aided by a light breeze, and the Sun was
nearing the western horizon by the time their rate of motion had
become negligible.
"Might at well land," Sime decided. "Conserve fuel. If we get a
favorable wind to-morrow we can go up and drift with it."
But Tolto, who had been narrowly scanning the terrain, advised
continuing a little longer.
"I thought I saw a little smoke, a few miles ahead. Seems to be gone
now. But we're still drifting slow."
* * * * *
Sime searched the indicated spot in the ground glass of the forward
magnifying periscope. After a few minutes he discovered a blackened
spot which might be the remains of a fire. It was surrounded by huge
blocks of orange rock, the igneous rock which is the outstanding
feature of the Martian desert landscape.
"Looks like he built the fire around there so nobody on the same level
would see him," he hazarded. He set the altitude control to fifty
feet. There was part of the globular skeleton of a desert hog in the
fire; whoever had built it had dined most satisfyingly not long
before, and as the fugitives looked their stomachs contracted
painfully.
"I could eat a whole one of them myself," Tolto said wistfully.
The urge to descend here was strong upon Sime too. He realized that
the fire might have been made by some dangerous criminal--a fugitive
from justice; but dangerous men are no novelty to the I. F. P. On the
other hand, there was a possibility that it was just some political
offender, driven into the desert by persecution. Or a prospector. At
any rate, he would have food, or would know where it could be
procured.
They had drifted some hundreds of yards farther and the ground was
getting constantly more broken, so the best time to land was as soon
as possible. Slowly the little ship settled, scraped on a rock and
arrested its slight forward motion, crunching solidly in the stony
soil.
"Take a neuro, Tolto," Sime advised. "Whoever's here, if he or they
are dangerous, we won't get close enough to touch 'em with a sword."
Tolto took the weapon without a word. They locked the door of the
ship. Men have been marooned for neglecting that little precaution.
They walked in a spiral course, making an ever-widening circle,
looking sharply from left to right. Presently they came to the remains
of the fire. The ashes were hotter than the ground, proving that they
had been recently made.
But nowhere was there any sign of men. They shouted, but only weird
echoes answered.
The ship was now out of sight, and solitude pressed upon them. They
felt an uneasy desire to get within comfortable constricting walls.
They found the ship without difficulty.
"Well, whoever it was has lammed," Sime concluded. "Tolto, you climb
on top of that rock. Watch me. If you see anybody after me, let 'em
have it. I'm going to see if I can scare up a desert hog somewhere."
Neither had stirred from his place, however, before they were suddenly
stricken to the ground. They felt the familiar sensation of cold and
suffocation--the paralysis caused by a diffused beam from a
neuro-pistol. Tolto was a little slower to fall, but he only lasted a
second longer. They knew that someone was taking the weapons out of
their helpless hands. Then life returned.
"Get up," said a languid voice back of them, "and let's have a look at
the looks of ye."
CHAPTER VII
_The Flight of a Princess_
The province of Hanlon, Prince Joro's hereditary domain, began about
fifty miles west of South Tarog. It was a region of thorn forests,
yielding a wood highly valued for ship-building, and the canal was
lined with shipyards, most of which belonged to the prince. The
so-called republic had been established before Joro was born, but the
reigning family of Hanlon had always been richly endowed with
astuteness. Deprived of their feudal holdings by a coup of state, they
had won back nearly all they had lost in the fields of finance and
trade. Joro was a monarchist for sentimental reasons, not for the
profits that might accrue to him.
It was the purity of Joro's devotion to his ideal that made him so
dangerous to all who might oppose him. Lesser men might be bribed,
frightened, distracted. Not Joro: he believed that the monarchy would
soothe the rumblings of internal dissension that continually disturbed
the peace and tranquillity of Mars. He drove forward to that
consummation with a steadfastness and singleness of purpose such as
have carried other fanatics to glory or to the grave. And in addition
to his zeal he carried into the struggle his exceptional ability, a
knowledge of government and of people.
* * * * *
He had need for all of his rare skill now. It had been an easy matter
to carry forcibly the Princess Sira to his palace in Hanlon. Tolto was
safely out of the way; Mellie had been dismissed. As for the other
palace servants, they had been silenced with bribery or the stiletto.
But Sira had remained adamant, and Joro, abstractedly toying with his
laboratory apparatus in the basement of his palace, tried to find the
key to her change of heart.
"Can't understand it!" he mused. "She always seemed to have all the
royal instincts: cold to suitors, with that delicacy and reserve one
finds ideal in a princess. She does all things well, handles a sword
nearly as well as I do. Her mind is as keen and limpid as a diamond.
She swims like an eel...."
He sighed. "I thought she and I saw eye to eye in this matter. Not
more than a week ago she seemed eager for news of the accord I was
arranging. She had no great aversion to Scar Balta. Now she says she
will die before she espouses him."
He paused, thought a moment, added, with that absolute fairness and
impartiality that was characteristic of him:
"True, Balta is not the ideal prince consort. He would not add kingly
qualities to the royal line. But he would confer cunning upon his
offspring; and energy--neither to be despised in a royal family that
must forever resist intrigue." He sighed again. "The responsibility of
king-making is a hard one!"
A sudden thought struck him. "She spoke warmly about the proposed war;
could that be at the root of her strange change of heart? After all,
she is a woman, and with all her fine, true temper she has a gentle
heart. To her the death of a few thousands of her subjects may not
outweigh the unhappiness that millions are now experiencing. But the
financiers demand the war to consolidate their position, and Wilcox is
solidly with them."
With new hope he set down the beaker he was toying with. "Perhaps we
can outwit them."
* * * * *
He left the laboratory, climbed a flight of stairs, entered the
spacious reception hall. This, like most Martian buildings, was domed.
It was richly furnished. The walls were hung with burnished, metallic
draperies of gorgeous colors, the floor a lustrous black, the
furniture of glittering metal. As the prince entered a servant stepped
forward.
"Go at once to the Princess Sira's chamber!" Joro commanded sharply.
"Request her to come here. Tell her I have thought of the solution to
our difficulty."
Impatiently he paced up and down, stopping at a window for a moment
and looking out into the night.
"Your Highness! Your Highness!" The servant was sobbing with
excitement. "Your Highness, Princess Sira has escaped!"
Joro left the man babbling, dashed up the broad stairs, unheeding the
servants who scattered before him. Their punishment could wait. Just
inside the princess's chamber, still unconscious from a blow on the
head, lay the guard whose duty it had been to stand before that door.
How long ago had she gone? Probably not more than a few minutes.
Joro saw to it that her start would not be much longer. In a few
seconds men and women were scouring the palace grounds, and radio
orders to the provincial police of Hanlon were crowding the ether.
* * * * *
Sira had contrived her escape without any particular plan in mind. In
fact, it had been initiated on impulse. The fellow on guard at her
door had excited intense dislike in her. High-strung, and excited by
her kidnaping, she had been further annoyed by his officiousness, his
fawning, which thinly disguised impudence. The third or fourth time
that he intruded on her privacy to ask if she wanted anything she was
ready, with the heavy leg, unscrewed from a chair. She felled him in
the middle of a smirk, and seized the opportunity created.
It happened that there was a service corridor close at hand. Down this
she sped, into the darkness of a boat-house. The doors were barred and
locked, of course, but the depths of the water showed a faint greenish
glimmer of light. Sira dived in, unhesitatingly, and after an easy
underwater swim she emerged in the open canal. There was a
considerable swell, for there was a slight breeze blowing from the
north across twenty miles of water, but this did not distress Sira at
all. She undulated through the waves with perfect comfort. Phobos was
just rising in the west, and orientating herself by this tiny moon she
struck out in a north-easterly direction, seeking a favorable current
to carry her toward Tarog.
Early explorers on Mars were astonished to find that the canals were
not stagnant bodies of water, but possessed currents, induced by wind,
by evaporation, and the influx of fresh water from the polar ice caps.
This was near the equator, however, and the water was not unreasonably
cold, although the night air was, as usual, chilly. After a few
minutes Sira discarded her clothing, and so settled down to a long
swim.
* * * * *
Ten miles out she struck a brisk easterly current, flowing toward
Tarog, and she gave herself up to it. Floating on her back she saw the
lights of the prince's ships flying back and forth over the water in
search of her--or her body. But none came near her, and she was
content.
The abrupt tropical dawn found her in mid-canal, half-way to Tarog.
She had no intention of swimming all the way to the capital city, to
be fished ignominiously out of the canal by the police. She was in
need, not only of clothing, but of clothing that would disguise her.
Her coral pink body near the surface of the water would attract
attention for considerable distance, and would lead to unwelcome
inquiries.
She was glad when she saw a fishing scow anchored in the current ahead
of her. The man who owned it had his back to her, fishing
down-current. She approached the boat silently and worked her way
around it by holding to the gunwale.
Sira now saw that the fisherman was old, gnarled and sunburned so dark
that he was almost black, despite the dilapidated and dirty pith
helmet he was wearing. His lumpish face was deeply seamed and
wrinkled. His sunken mouth told of missing teeth, and his long,
unkempt hair was bleached to a dirty gray.
"Have you an old coat you can lend me?" Sira asked, swimming into
view.
The rheumy eyes rolled, settled on the water nymph. The old man showed
no surprise, but pious disgust. His eyes rolled up, and in a cracked
voice intoned:
"Wicked, wicked! O great Pantheus, thy temptations are great--thy
visions tormenting. In my old age must I ever and ever live over--"
"Foolish old man!" Sira snapped. "I'm not a vision!" She dragged down
an old sack that hung over the gunwale, washed it, and tearing holes
in the rotten fabric for her arms and head, slipped it on. It was a
large sack, coming to her knees; satisfied, she climbed aboard, where
she spread her black hair to dry.
"Not a vision?" the old man quavered. "Then thou art reality, come to
gladden my old age--nay--to return youth to me! In my hut there is an
old hag. She shall go--"
* * * * *
Sira did not answer. She was neither disgusted nor amused by the dark
torrent that stirred in this decrepit old fisherman. She saw only that
he had pulled in his nets and was bowing his long arms to the oars,
pulling for shore.
It took about two hours before they reached the fisherman's hut, a
nondescript, low-ceilinged shelter of logs, driftwood and untarnished
metal plates off some wreck. Several times they were hailed by other
fishermen, who addressed the old man as "Deacon" and asked jocularly
about what kind of a fish he had there.
The deacon's wife awaited them. The old man's description of her as a
hag had not been far wrong. She, was as diminutive and weakened as he
was ponderous and heavy. She was acid. Her skin was like a pickled
apple's; her expression sour, her voice sharp.
"Hoy there, you old hypocrite!" she hailed when they came in earshot.
"So this is the way you lose a day! Who's the hussy with you?"
The deacon nosed the old and evil-smelling scow into the bank. His
eyes rolled piously.
"The great Pantheus sent her. He said--"
* * * * *
The old woman came closer and inspected Sira, who endured her gaze
calmly. That look was like the bite of acid that reveals the structure
of crystal in metals.
"Why, she's a lady!" she exclaimed then. "Not fittin' to be on the
same canal with you! Come in, my dear. You must be nearly dead!"
She conducted Sira into the hut, which was far neater and cleaner than
its exterior suggested.
"A lady!" she repeated. "In that heat! Young woman, what made you do
it? Look at those arms--near burnt! Let me take off that old sack. But
wait!"
She tip-toed to the door, threw back the faded curtain sharply. The
deacon, too surprised to move, was standing there in the attitude of
one who seeks to see and hear at the same time. He lingered long
enough to receive two resounding slaps before fleeing to his boat,
followed by a string of curdling remarks.
Back inside, she proceeded to anoint Sira's body, exclaiming her
pleasure at its perfection. The oil smelled fishy, but it was
soothing, and it was not long before the claimant to the throne of
Mars was deep in restful slumber.
Late that afternoon the deacon returned and hung his nets up to dry.
He was dour, his fever having left him. But he had a strange story to
impart.
"I think that girl I picked up is the Princess Sira," he told the old
woman. "On the fish buyer's barge, in the teletabloid machine, I saw
the forecast of her wedding to Scar Balta. And I'll swear it's the
same girl!"
"And why," queried his wife, "would she be swimming in the middle of
the canal if she was getting ready to marry Scar Balta?"
"That's just it!" the deacon exclaimed, and his eyes began to roll
again. "They say it's not a love match! Oh, not in the teletabloid!
They wouldn't dare hint such a thing. But the men on the barge. They
say there's a rumor that she ran away. And she looks like the girl I
picked up, though I thought--"
"Never mind what you thought!" she snapped. "It may be, I served the
oligarchy and the noble houses--before I was fool enough to run away
with a no-good fisherman--and I can see she is a lady. Well, she can
trust in me."
"They say," the deacon hinted, "that if one went to Tarog, and
inquired at the proper place, there would be a reward."
The little old woman chilled him, she looked so deadly.
"Deacon Homms!" she hissed. "If you sell this poor little girl to Scar
Balta, your hypocritical white eyes will never roll again, because
I'll tear them out and feed them to the fish. Understand?"
Considerably shaken, the deacon said he understood.
* * * * *
But the next morning, on the placid bosom of the canal, he forgot her
warning. The fleshpots of Tarog called him. Tarog, where he had spent
youth and money with a lavish hand. Tarog, where a reward awaited him.
He hauled in his anchor, gave the unwieldy boat to the current and
bent to the oars.
Back in the hut, unsuspecting of treachery, Mrs. Homms and Sira were
rapidly striking up a friendship. A shrewd judge, of character
herself, Sira did not hesitate to admit her identity, and without any
prying questioning the old woman soon had the whole story. It thrilled
her, this review of the life she had once seen as a servant.
"I wonder if I will ever see Tarog again!" she sighed wistfully.
"You shall!" Sira promised, "if you help me."
"I will do what I can gladly."
"I need a workingman's trousers and blouse, and a sun-hat that will
shade my face. I have a plan, but I must get to Tarog. Can you get me
these things?"
"I have no money, but wait!" She rummaged with gnarled fingers in a
chink in the wall, withdrew a small brooch-pin of gold, with a pink
terrestrial pearl in its center.
"My last mistress gave me this," she said smiling sadly. "I will row
to the trading boat and buy what you need. There will be a little
money left to buy your passage on a freight barge."
And that was why, when the deacon arrived at the head of a squad of
soldiers that evening, there was no girl of any description to be
found. Ignoring the cowering and unhappy reward seeker, the old woman
delivered her dictum to the sergeant in charge.
"Princess? Ha! The deacon, sees princesses and mermaids in every mud
bank. His imagination grew too and crowded out his conscience. No,
mister, there ain't any princess here."
CHAPTER VIII
_In the Desert_
Mellie, Sira's personal maid, was too disturbed by her mistress's
kidnaping to seek other employment. She saw the teletabloid forecasts
of the wedding, made life-like by clever technical faking, but rumors
of the princess' escape were circulating freely despite a rigid
censorship. She imagined that lovely body down in the muck of the
canal, crawled over by slimy things, and she was sick with horror.
Mellie lived with her brother, Wasil Hopspur, and her aged mother.
Wasil was an accomplished technician in the service of the
Interplanetary Radio and Television Co., and his income was ample to
provide a better than average home on the desert margin of South
Tarog. Here Mellie sat in the glass-roofed garden, staring moodily at
the luxuriant vegetation.
She looked abstractedly at the young man coming down the garden walk,
annoyed by the disturbance. There was something familiar in the sway
of his hips as he walked.
And then she flew up the path. Her arms went around the visitor, and
Mellie, the maid, and Princess Sira kissed.
Mellie was immediately confused. A terrible breach of etiquette, this.
But Sira laughed.
"Never mind, Mellie. It is good for me, a fugitive, to find a home.
Will you keep me here?"
"Will I?" Mellie poured into these words all her adoration.
"Mellie, the time has come for action. Not for the monarchy. I am sick
of my claims. I would give it all--You remember the young officer of
the I. F. P.? The one who kissed me?"
"Yes."
"Well, that comes later. First I must consider the war conspiracy.
Have you heard of it?"
"There are rumors."
"They are true. Will Wasil help me?"
"He has worshiped you, my princess, ever since the time I let him help
me serve you at the games."
"One more question." Sira's eyes were soft and misty. "My dear Mellie,
you realize that I may be trailed here? What may happen to you?"
"Yes, my princess. And I don't care!"
* * * * *
As Murray parted from his brother-in-arms, Sime Hemingway, on the roof
of the cylindrical fortress in the Gray Mountains, he felt the
latter's look of bitter contempt keenly. He longed bitterly to give
Sime some hint, some assurance, but dared not, for Scar Balta's
cynical smile somehow suggested that he could look through men and
read what was in their hearts. So Murray played out his renegade part
to the last detail, even forcing his thoughts into the role that he
had assumed in order that some unregarded detail should not give him
away. He convinced the other I. F. P. man, anyway.
But Murray had an uneasy feeling that Balta was laughing at him, and
when the shifty soldier politician invited him into his ship for the
ride back to Tarog, Murray had a compelling intuition that he would
not be in a position to step out of the ship when it landed on the
parkway of Scar Balta's hotel.
Having infinite trust in his intuitions, Murray thereupon made certain
plans of his own.
He noted that the ship, which was far more luxurious than one would
expect a mere army colonel to own, had a trap-door in the floor of the
main salon. Murray pondered over the purpose of this trap. He could
not assign any practical use for it, in the ordinary use of the ship.
But he could not escape the conviction that it would be a splendid way
to get rid of an undesirable passenger. Dropped through that trap-door
a man's body would have an uninterrupted fall until it smashed on the
rocks below.
Murray then examined the neuro-pistol that had been given him. It
looked all right. But when he broke the seal and unscrewed the little
glass tube in the butt, he discovered that it was empty. The gray,
synthetic radio-active material from which it drew its power had been
removed.
Murray grinned at this discovery, without mirth. It was conclusive.
* * * * *
At the first opportunity he jostled one of the soldiers, knocking his
neuro-pistol to the floor--his own, too. And when he apologetically
stooped and retrieved them the mollified soldier had the one with the
empty magazine.
So far, so good. Murray noted that the wall receptacles were all
provided with parachutes. It would be simple to take one of these,
make a long count, and be on the ground before he was missed. Provided
that he could leave unobserved.
The ship was now well in the air, and beginning to move away from the
fort. But they were only ten miles away, and Murray had hardly
expected that Balta would be in such a hurry.
"You get off here!" Balta said, and Murray felt the muzzle of the
neuro-pistol on his spinal column.
A grinning soldier seized a countersunk ring and raised the trap-door.
"So you're going to murder me," Murray said, speaking calmly.
"I take no chances," was Balta's short answer. "Step!"
Murray stepped, swaying like a man in deadly fear. He lowered his feet
through the hole. Looking down, he saw that they were about to pass
over a bitter salt lake, occasionally found in the Martian desert. He
looked up into the muzzle of the menacing neuro-pistol.
"Balta, you're a dog!" he stated coldly.
"A live dog, anyway," the other remarked with a twisted grin. "You
know the saying about dead lions."
Murray's fingers clenched on the edge of the rug. It was thin and
strong, woven of fine metal threads. They were just over the edge of
the salt lake.
Murray dropped through, but retained his death-like grip on the rug.
It followed jerkily, as the men above tripped, fell, and rolled
desperately clear.
* * * * *
Murray's heart nearly stopped as he fell the first thousand feet. The
rug, sheer as the finest silk, failed to catch the wind. It ran out
like a thin rivulet of metal, following Murray in his unchecked drop.
But he had a number of seconds more to fall, and he occupied the time
left to him. He fumbled for corners, found two, lost precious time
looking for the others. He had three corners wrapped around one hand
when the wind finally caught the sheer fabric, bellied it out with a
sharp crack. The sudden deceleration nearly jerked his arm out.
Even so, he was still falling at a fearful rate. The free corner was
trailing and snapping spitefully, and the greasy white waters of the
lake were rushing up!
At any rate, the rug held him upright, so that he did not strike the
water flat. His toes clove the water like an arrow, and the rug was
torn from his grasp. The water crashed together over his head with
stunning force. After that it seemed to Murray that he didn't care. It
didn't matter that his eyes stung--that his throat was filled with
bitter alkali. All of his sensations merged in an all-pervading,
comfortable warmth. There was a feeling of flowing blackness, of time
standing still.
Murray's return to consciousness was far less pleasant. His entire
body was a crying pain: every internal organ that he knew of harbored
an ache of its own. He groaned, and by that token knew that he was
breathing.
As unwillingly he struggled back to consciousness he realized that he
was inside a rock cave, lying on a thin, folded fabric that might well
be the rug that had served as an emergency parachute. He could see the
irregular arch of the cave opening, could catch hints of rough stone
on the interior.
* * * * *
He sat up with an effort. There was a vile taste in his mouth, and he
looked around for something to drink. There was a desert water bottle
standing on the floor beside him. That meant he had been found and
rescued by some Martian desert rat who had probably witnessed his
fall. He rinsed out his mouth with clean, sweet spring water from the
bottle, drank freely. His stomach promptly took advantage of the
opportunity to clear itself of the alkali, and Murray, controlling his
desire to vomit, crawled outside into the blinding light of the
Martian afternoon. He saw that the cave was high up on the side of one
of the more prominent cliffs. There were many such hollowed places,
indicating that the sloping shelf on which he now lay had once been
the beach of a vast sea which at some time must have covered all but
the higher peaks of the Gray Mountains. It was, of course, the sea
that had deposited the scanty soil which here and there covered the
rocks. During geologic ages it shrunk until it all but disappeared,
leaving only a few small and bitter lakes in unexpected pockets.
There was a succession of prehistoric beaches below Murray's vantage
point, marking each temporary sea level, giving the mountain a
terraced appearance. A thousand feet below was the white lake,
sluggish and dead.
Murray was looking for the man who had saved him. He was able to
discern him, after a little effort, toiling up the steep slopes. He
was still nearly all the way down. He could see only that he seemed to
be dressed in white desert trousers and blouse, and that he wore a
broad-brimmed sun helmet. He was carrying something in a bag over his
shoulder. He was making the difficult ascent with practiced ease, his
body thrown well forward, making fast time for such an apparently
deliberate gait.
* * * * *
The desert glare hurt Murray's eyes. He closed them and fell asleep.
He awoke to the shaking of his shoulder, looked up into a
black-bearded face, a beard as fierce and luxuriant as his own. But
where Murray was bald, this man's hair was as thick and black as his
beard. He had thrown off his helmet, so that his massive head was
outlined against the sky. His torso was thick, his shoulders broad.
Large, intelligent eyes and brilliant coral skin proclaimed the man to
be a native of Mars.
The man's white teeth flashed brilliantly when he spoke.
"Feeling better? Man, you can feel good to be here at all! Time and
again have I seen Scar Balta drop 'em into that lake, but you're the
first one ever to break the surface again. He gave you a break,
though. First time he ever gave anybody as much as a pocket
handkerchief to ease his fall. That lake is useful to Scar. It keeps
the bodies he gives it, and none ever turn up for evidence."
Murray was still struggling with nausea. "Want to thank you," he
managed. "I got it bad enough. Ow! I feel sick!"
The Martian bestirred himself. He scraped up the ancient shingle,
making a little pillow of sand for Murray's head. The Sun was already
nearing the western horizon, and its heat was no longer excessive.
Murray watched through half-closed lids as the big man descended a
short distance, returning with an armful of short, greasy shrubs. He
broke the shrub into bits, made a neat stack; stacked a larger ring of
fuel around this, until he had a flat conical pile about eight inches
high and two feet in diameter.
* * * * *
From a pocket safe he procured a tiny fire pellet. This he moistened
with saliva and quickly dropped into the center of his fuel stack. The
pellet began to glow fiercely, throwing off an intense heat. In a few
seconds the fuel caught, burning briskly and without smoke.
"Wouldn't dare do this in the open," the Martian explained, "if this
stuff gave off any smoke at all. The pulpwood mounds down in the
flats make a nice fire, but they smoke and leave black ashes, easy to
see from the sky. Now you just rest easy. You'll feel better soon as
you get some skitties under your belt."
The skitties proved to be a species of quasi-shellfish, possessing
hemispherical houses. In lieu of the other half of their shell they
attached themselves to sedimentary rocks. They were the only form of
life that had been able to adapt themselves to the chemicalization of
the ancient sea-remnant. The Martian had left them thin flakes of
rock. Now he placed the shells in the red-hot coals, and in a very
short time the skitties were turning out, crisp and appetizing.
Following his host's example, Murray speared one with the point of his
stiletto, blew on it to cool it. It proved to be delicious, although
just a trifle salty.
"Drink plenty water with it," the Martian advised him. "Plenty more
about five hundred feet down. Artesian spring there. Fact is, that's
all that keeps that lake from drying up. You ought to see the mist
rise at night."
Murray ate four of the skitties. Then, because the sun was getting
ready to plop down, they carefully extinguished the fire, scattering
the ashes. The I. F. P. agent felt greatly strengthened by his meal
and assisted his host with the evening chores. Nightfall found them in
their darkened cave, ready for an evening's yarning.
* * * * *
"I took the liberty of examining your effects," the Martian began.
"Sort of introduced you to myself. The fact that you wore the Martian
army uniform was no fine recommendation to me, though I once wore it
myself. Your weapons I hid, except for the knife you needed to eat.
But you'll find them in that little hollow right over your head. The
fact that you're an enemy of Scar Balta is enough for the present.
That alone is repayment for the labor of carrying you up all this
way."
Murray then told him of work on Mars. There was no use concealing
anything from one who was obviously a fellow fugitive, and who might
be persuaded to do away with his guest, should he have strong enough
suspicions. He told of the war cabal, of the financial-political
oligarchy and its opposing monarchists. He related his own discovery
and arrest; the pretended enlistment in Scar Balta's forces which
terminated in Scar's prompt and ruthless action. When he finished he
sensed that he had made a deep impression on his host. The latter
spoke.
"What you have told me, Murray, relieves me very much," he said. "I
know that we can work together. You might as well know how I came to
be here. Perhaps I look forty or fifty years old. Well, I'm thirty. I
was news director for the televisor corporations. I didn't have to be
very smart to realize that a lot of the stuff we were ordered to send
out was propaganda, pure and simple. Propaganda for the war interests,
propaganda for the financiers. Commercial propaganda too.
"Why, the stuff we put out was a crime! The service to the
teletabloids was the worst. You know how they outstrip the news; hired
actors take the part of personages in the news. Ever watch 'em? The
way they enact a murder is good, isn't it?"
* * * * *
"We got orders to bear down on your service too, the I. F. P. Your
crew has too many points of contact, hiking from planet to planet. The
high command couldn't see things the bankers liked, I guess.
"So whenever a man of the I. F. P. figured in the news we always gave
him the worst of it. We hired bums to play his part, criminals,
vicious degenerates. People believe what they see--that's the idea. I
had seen very few of your men but I knew we were giving them a dirty
deal. Orders were orders, though. We got lots of orders we didn't
understand. Then secret deals were made, and those orders
countermanded.
"But the order against the I. F. P. remained standing, and we
certainly did effective work against 'em. The people had no way of
knowing the difference, either, for the company controls all means of
communication, and the I. F. P. does most of its work in out of the
way places. Why just to show you how effective our work was--the
people, in a special plebiscite, voted to withdraw their support from
the Plutonian campaign! But that was going too far; the financiers
quietly reversed that.
"At the same time, we got orders to glorify Wilcox, the planetary
president. It was Wilcox signing a bill to feed the hungry--after
their property had been stripped by the taxes. It was Wilcox the
benevolent; Wilcox the superman. Wilcox, in carefully rehearsed
dramatic situations, reproduced on the stereo-screens in every home.
You know who put over the slogan, 'Wilcox, the Solar Savior?' We did
it. It was easy!" He laughed shortly.
"The only time we failed was, when they wanted to end, once and for
all, the prestige of the royal house. That was after they had bought
the assassination of the claimant, his wife and their son. Didn't dare
take Princess Sira too, because she has always been a popular darling.
It would have been too raw, wiping out the whole family. They left one
claimant, see? And then put it up to us to discredit her!
"Man! That fell down! The first attempt was very smooth, at that. But
it brought in such a storm of condemnation they had to drop that.
"You can guess how we boys at the central office felt about it. No
wonder we got cynical and lost all self-respect. We couldn't have
stood it at all, but sometimes we'd put on a special party, just to
let off steam. Did we rip 'em up high and handsome? The more
outrageous the flattery we sent out, disguised as news, the more
baldly truthful we were in those early morning rehearsals, with the
mikes and telegs dead. Wilcox was our special meat.
"Of course, it was foolhardy. One night a mixer in the room below us
got his numbers mixed, killing a banquet program on a trunk channel
and sending our outrageous burlesque out instead. When the poor fellow
discovered his mistake he made for the bottom of the canal. As for me,
I made for the desert. I never heard what became of the others, and
that was six years ago. I wonder if I've changed much."
"What's your name?" Murray asked suddenly.
"Tuman. Nay Tuman."
"The others must have been caught. As for yourself, orders have been
sent all over the solar system to kill you on sight. They hung the
killing of that electrician on you."
"That's their way!" Nay Tuman absented gloomily. "A price on my head.
They thought I'd stow away on some rocket liner, I suppose."
"Weren't you afraid some desert rat would give you away?"
"No danger. They're just about all fugitives themselves. They hid me
till I grew this foliage. They showed me how to find food and water
where seemingly there was none. The desert isn't sterile. Why, I know
of three or four men within fifty miles of here! Sometimes they stop
at my spring for water. As for the harness frames at the fort, those
sojers might as well be blind, considering all they miss."
"You asked a while ago if you've changed much. You have. I remember
your picture. All of us studied it, because there's a 100,000 I. P.
dollar reward out. You were a slim lad then, not the fuzzy bear you
are now. How would you like to go in to Tarog with me? They seem to
have us licked now--but did you ever hear that the I. F. P. is most
dangerous when it's been thoroughly licked?"
"I don't know--I'm used to the solitude," Tuman demurred. "In the city
I'd be lost."
But Murray won him over. He had a persuasive way with him.
* * * * *
The next morning they started, guiding their course by the Sun. They
made no attempt to travel fast, but the going was easy. Although they
rested during the heat of the day, and buried themselves for the
nights in the sun-warmed sand, they made about fifteen miles a day.
They saw no other human being. These desert dwellers did not meet for
mere sociability.
They left the mountains on the second day, descending to the lower
level of a broad, sterile plain which was studded by the low, greenish
pulp-mounds, that resembled mossy rocks more than vegetation. After
two days more they came to a region where huge blocks of stone, of the
prevailing orange or brick color, lay scattered around on the plain.
"They look good to me," Tuman said. "If some patrol comes along now
we'll have plenty of cover, at least. This belt is a hundred miles
wide, maybe a little more. Good hunting there. Plenty of desert hogs,
as fat and as round as a ball of bovine butter. I can knock 'em over
with a rock, and you can use your neuro, in a pinch."
They did, in fact, succeed in capturing one of the little creatures
soon afterward, and, dropping a moistened fire pellet on top of a
pulp-mound, soon were roasting their meat.
Not once, however, did either one relax his vigilance. Almost
simultaneously they discovered the little black dot that seemed to pop
out of the irregular southern horizon. They leaped to their feet,
kicked out the fire. They would have covered the ashes with sand but
for hundreds of feet in either direction there was nothing but bare
rock.
"Never mind!" Murray said. "Let's make for cover. They may think it's
an old fireplace. With rains only about once in three years that spot
will look like that indefinitely."
"Yes," Tuman agreed, running along, "if they didn't see the smoke!"
* * * * *
As the craft neared they could make out the orange and green of the
Martian army.
"From the fort," Murray guessed. "Scar Balta must have had his doubts
about me. He ordered them out to finish the job, if necessary."
"It's drifting," Tuman observed. "The driving tail seems to be
missing."
"Well, anyway, it's coming down, and where an army ship comes down is
no place for us."
They heard the scrape of her keel as she settled down. Murray gave a
gasp of surprise.
"Tuman," he muttered, "that fellow wearing the Martian uniform is an
I. F. P. agent named Hemingway. The uniform doesn't fit and I bet the
man he took it from is no longer alive. Do you know the giant with
him?"
"Under that dirt and blood, I'd say he's Tolto, Princess Sira's
special pet. No other man of Mars could be that big! Seven or eight
years ago--she was just a kid, you know--she picked him up in some
rural province. Kids just naturally do run to pets, don't they? And
the princess was no exception. But he looks like nobody's pet now. I'd
rather have him peg me with his neuro, though, than to take me in his
hands!"
They watched as Sime and Tolto slowly walked about in widening
circles, and when they were sufficiently far away Murray and Tuman
closed in. They had no expectation of finding the ship unlocked, and
wasted no time trying to get it. Instead they climbed a flat-topped
block of stone about ten feet high. From this position they could
command, with Murray's neuro, anyone who might seek to enter the ship.
"These fellows are our best hope," Murray told Tuman. "But we have to
convince 'em that we're friends first. Otherwise we're liable to be
cold meat, and cold meat can't convince anybody. Keep your head down."
The necessity of lying flat, in order to keep from silhouetting
themselves against the sky, deprived them of the opportunity to see.
Nevertheless, they could tell, by the sound of their voices, when Sime
and Tolto returned. When it seemed that they were directly beneath,
Murray risked a look. There they were.
Murray carefully set the little focalizer wheel for maximum diffusion.
He felt sure that it would not be fatal, considering the distance and
the physical vigor of the men he meant to hold. He pressed the
trigger.
"Get down quick!" he snapped. "I'll let up for a second; you grab
their neuros."
Tuman executed the order with dispatch. Stepping back, he trained the
pistols on their late owners, while Sime and Tolto, a little dazed,
stumbled to their feet. A man may argue, or take chances, when menaced
by a needle-ray, but mere bravery does not count with the neuros. All
men's nervous systems are similar, and when nerves are stricken,
courage is of no avail.
CHAPTER IX
_Plot and Counter-Plot_
As these four men faced one another in the slanting rays of the
setting Sun far out on the desert, the planetary president, Wilcox,
sat in his office in the executive palace in South Tarog, situated, as
were so many of the public buildings, on the banks of the canal.
Wilcox was in his sixties. A gray man, pedantic in his speech, his
features were strong: his nose, short and straight, somehow, expressed
his intense intolerance of opposition. His long, straight lower jaw
protruded slightly, symbolizing his tenacity, his lust for power. His
eyes, large, gray, intolerant, looked before him coldly. Wilcox was
the result of the union of two root-stocks of the human race, of a
terrestrial father, a Martian mother. He had inherited the
intelligence of both--the conscience of neither.
Now he sat in a straight, severe chair, before a severe, heavy table.
Even the room seemed to frown. Wilcox's face was free of wrinkles, yet
it frowned too. He seemed not to see the flaming path the setting Sun
drew across the broad expanse of the canal, for he was thinking of
bigger things. Wilcox was a little mad, but he was a madman of
imagination and resource, and he was not the first one to control the
destinies of a world.
"Waffins!" His voice rang out sharp and querulous. A servant,
resplendent in the palace livery of green and orange, was instantly
before him bowing low.
"Who awaits our pleasure?"
"Scar Balta, sire," answered Waffins, bowing low again.
"We will see him."
Waffins disappeared. Scar Balta came in alone, sleek as usual showing
no trace of his irritation over his long wait. He did not even glance
at the somber hangings that concealed a number of recesses in the
wall. Scar knew that guards stood back of those hangings, armed with
neuro-pistols or needle-rays as a precaution against the ever-present
menace of assassination. And of the loopholes back of these recesses,
with still other armed men, as a constant warning to any of the inner
guards whose thoughts might turn to treachery.
* * * * *
Scar Balta bowed respectfully.
"Your Excellency desired to see me?"
"I wished to see you, or I should not have had you called," Wilcox
replied irritably. "I wish to have an explicit understanding with you
as to our proceeding next week at our conference with the financial
delegates. Sit here, close to me. It is not necessary for us to shout
our business to the world."
Balta took the chair beside Wilcox, and they conversed in low tones.
"First of all," Wilcox wanted to know, "how is your affair with the
Princess Sira progressing?"
"Your Excellency knows." Balta began cautiously, "that the news
agencies have been sending out pictorial forecasts--"
"Save your equivocation for others!" Wilcox interrupted sharply. "I am
aware of the propaganda work. It was by my order that the facilities
were extended to you. I am also aware that the princess escaped from
Joro's palace. An amazing piece of bungling! Did she really escape or
is Joro forwarding some plot of his own?"
"He seems genuinely disturbed. He has spent a fortune having the canal
searched by divers, flying ships and surface craft. If Sira fails to
marry me Joro's life ambition will fail, for the hopes of the
monarchists will then be forever lost."
"True; but his Joro some larger plan? His is a mind I do not
understand, and therefore I must always fear. A man with no ambition
for himself, but only for an abstract. It is impossible!"
"Not impossible!" Balta insisted. "Joro is a strange man. He believes
that the monarchy would improve conditions for the people. And, Your
Excellency, wouldn't I be a good king?"
* * * * *
Wilcox looked at him morosely. His low voice carried a chill.
"Do not anticipate events, my friend! There are certain arrangements
to be made with the bankers regarding the election of a solar
governor!" His large gray eyes burned. "Solar governor! Never in
history has there been a governor of the entire solar system. Destiny
shapes all things to her end, and then produces a man to fill her
needs!"
"And that man sits here beside me, Balta added adroitly. Wilcox did
not sense the irony of the quick take-up. He had been about to
complete the sentence himself. But his mind was practical.
"The bankers must be satisfied. The terrestrial war must be assured
before they will lend their support."
"It is practically assured now," Balta insisted. "Our propaganda
bureau has been at work incessantly, and public feeling is being
worked up to a satisfactory pitch. Only last night two terrestrial
commercial travelers were torn to pieces by a mob on suspicion that
they were spies."
"Good!" Wilcox approved. "Let there be no interruption in the work.
Our terrestrial agents report excellent results on Earth. They
succeeded in poisoning the water supply of the city of Philadelphia.
Thousands killed, and the blame placed on Martian spies. Our agents
found it necessary to inspire a peace bloc in the pan-terrestrial
senate in order to keep them from declaring war forthwith. But these
things are of no concern to you. Have you made the necessary
arrangements with the key men of the army?"
"I have, Your Excellency. They are chafing for action. The overt act
will be committed at the appointed time, and the terrestrial liner
will be disintegrated without trace."
"And have you made arrangements for the disposal of the ship's
records?"
* * * * *
"Our own ship? I thought it best to have a time bomb concealed aboard.
That way not only the records will be destroyed but there will be no
men left to talk when the post-war investigating commission comes
around."
"Well managed!" Wilcox approved shortly. "See that there is no
failure!" He dismissed the young man by withdrawing to his inner self,
where he rioted among stupendous thoughts.
Scar Balta emerged into the streets, brightly illuminated with the
coming of night, and his thoughts were far from easy. The absence of
the princess was a serious handicap--might very easily be disastrous.
With her consent and help it would have been so simple! The people,
entirely unrealizing that their emotions were being directed into just
the channels desired, could most easily be reached through the
princess.
First the war, of course, and then, when the threatened business
uprising against financial control had been crushed, a planet-wide
sentimental spree over the revival of the monarchy and the marriage of
the beautiful and popular princess. As prince consort, Scar would then
find it a simple matter to maneuver himself into position as authentic
king.
But without the princess! Ah, that was something else again! For the
first time in his devious and successful career, Scar Balta felt
distinctly unhappy. He had schemed, suffered and murdered to put
himself in reach of this glittering opportunity, and he would
inevitably lose it unless he could find Sira.
In the midst of his unhappy reflections he thought of Mellie.
* * * * *
Sira knew well that Wasil adored her. He had for her the same dog-like
devotion that Mellie had. She knew she could ask for his life and he
would give it. And what she had planned for him was almost equivalent
to asking for his life.
She told him as much, sitting beside him on a bench in the garden. His
smooth coral face was alight, his large eyes inspired.
"I will do just as you have commanded me!" he declared solemnly, and
would have kissed her hand.
"You must not only do it; you must keep every detail to yourself. You
must not even tell Mellie. Do you promise?"
"I promise!"
She kissed him on the forehead. "Farewell, Wasil. I have been here two
days already--far longer than prudence allows. They will be here
looking for me. Have you any money?"
Wasil produced a roll of I. P. scrip; handed it to her.
"Kiss Mellie for me," she called, as she slipped out of the garden.
She was still dressed in the coarse laborer's attire that she had
bought on the trading boat, and mingled readily with the crowds in the
streets. She hoped she would not meet Mellie, for the girl's devotion
might outweigh her judgment.
The rest of that day Sira prowled about the city. Mingling with the
common people, she came to have a new insight in their struggles,
their sorrows. Passing the walls of her own palace, now locked and
sealed, she felt, strangely, resentment that there should be such
piled-up wealth while people all around lacked almost the necessities
of life.
* * * * *
She surprised herself, also, by a changing attitude toward the life
ambition of Prince Joro. The old man's discussions of social
conditions that could be corrected by a benevolent monarch had always
before seemed to her merely academic and without great interest. Such
co-operation as she had given him was motivated entirely by personal
ambition. Now she recalled some of Joro's theories, reviewed them in
her mind, half consenting.
Always she would strike a barrier when she came to Scar Balta. The
more she thought of him the more he repelled her. She puzzled over
that. Scar was quite personable.
Tarog, every industrial city along the equatorial belt, and even the
remotest provinces, were seething with war talk. The teletabloids at
the street corners always had intent audiences. Sira watched one of
them. Disease germs had been found in a shipment of fruit juices from
the Earth. The teletabloids showed, in detail, diabolical looking
terrestrials in laboratory aprons infecting the juices. Then came
shocking clinical views of the diseases produced. Men, on turning
away, growled deep in their throats and women chattered shrilly. The
parks were milling with crowds who came to hear the patriotic
speakers.
There was hardly anyone at the stereo-screens, where the news of real
importance was given.
"President Wilcox announced to-day that an interplanetary conference
of financiers will be held in his office three days from to-day,
beginning at the third hour after sunrise. President Wilcox, whose
efforts have been unremitting to prevent the war which daily seems
more inevitable, declared that the situation may yet be saved unless
some overt act occurs." At the same time the device showed a
three-dimensional picture of the planetary president, impressive,
dominating, stern with a sternness that could mean almost anything.
Sira, hurrying home to an inexpensive lodging house, thought:
"Three days from to-day! I have done what I could. The hopes of the
solar system now rest with Wasil. I am only a helpless spectator."
* * * * *
Tarog awaited the conference on the morrow bedecked like a bride. The
Martian flag, orange and green, fluttered everywhere. On both sides of
the canal the brilliantly lighted thoroughfares were restless with
pedestrians, and the air was swarming with taxicabs. Excitement was
universal, and business was good.
The glare of the twin cities could be seen far out in the cold desert.
Four men, stumbling along wearily, occasionally estimated the distance
with wearied eyes and plodded onward.
After a long silence Murray remarked:
"It's just as well that the levitators gave out when they did. We were
drifting mighty slow--making practically no time at all. Probably we'd
have been spotted if we'd gone much further."
"Yeh?" Sime Hemingway conceded doubtfully. "But they may spot us
anyway. We have no passes, and none of us looks very pretty. As for
Tolto, we could hide a house as easy as him."
"But we must go on," said Tuman, the Martian. "Yonder lights seem too
bright, too numerous for an ordinary day. There's some kind of
celebration."
They trudged on for several hours more. Although weariness made their
feet leaden and pressed on their eyelids, they dared not halt. Each
one nursed some secret dread. Tolto thought of his princess, his child
goddess, and mentally fought battle with whomever stood between him
and her. Sime and Murray saw in those lights only war, swift and
horrible. Tuman imagined a city full of enemies, ruthless and
powerful.
Gradually, as they came closer, the lights began to go out one by one.
The city was going to bed.
* * * * *
An hour later they came to an illuminated post marking the end of a
street. A teletabloid was affixed to this post, buzzing, but its
stereo-screen blank. Murray found a coin, inserted it in the slot.
"Marriage of the Princess Sira and Scar Balta will be held immediately
after the financial congress," the machine intoned briskly, and in
time with its running comments it began to display pictures.
Sime, watching indifferently, caught his breath. It seemed to him that
he knew this girl, who appeared to be walking toward him up a stately
garden alley. She came steadily forward with a queenly, effortless
stride. And now it seemed as if she had seen him, for she turned and
looked straight into his eyes. It seemed that her expression changed
from laughing to pleading. And he recognized the girl with the
stiletto whom he had caught in his hotel room.
He said nothing, however. He could hardly explain the feeling of
sadness that came over him. He stood silent, while the others
commented excitedly over the overshadowing war news.
"It's all in the box," Tuman said gloomily. "Many times I've helped
cook up something like this. The boys in the central offices are
laughing, or swearing, as the cast may be. The poor devils don't own
their own souls, if they're equipped with any. I'd rather be here,
expecting to be thrown into a cell by daylight!" He shivered in the
night chill.
They ran into a little luck when they needed it most. A roving taxi
swooped down upon them, hailed them for fares. They flew the rest of
the way in. Their luck held. A city policeman, noting their stumbling
walk as they lurched into a cheap hotel, did not trouble them for
their passes. He had seen many such men that night, soldier and
civilian, with clothes bloody and torn. The excitement of the day,
coupled with the fact that nearly everyone carried arms, had led to
numerous fights, not a few of which ended fatally.
"Merclite!" grinned the policeman, suppressing a hiccup of his own.
"And besides, that big 'un would make two of me."
CHAPTER X
_One Thousand to One_
The scheme that Sira had imparted to Wasil was simple--simple and
direct. Moreover, it was sure, provided it succeeded. Its execution
was something else again. Its chances were, mathematically expressed,
about as follows:
If every single detail worked as expected, a great and smashing
success. Ratio: 1:1,000.
If one single detail failed, immediate and certain death for Wasil.
Ratio: 1,000:1.
The princess knew that the power of Wilcox, his supporting oligarchy
and the interplanetary bankers, was all based on the skilful use of
propaganda. If the people of Mars and of Earth knew the forces that
were influencing them, their revulsion would be swift and terrible.
There would be no war. There would be events painful and disastrous to
their present rulers, but a great betterment of humanity's condition.
The key to the situation was the news monopoly, the complete control
of all broadcasting--of the stereo-screens, the teletabloids--that
colored all events to suit the ends of the ruling group. The people of
Mars as well as of Earth were capable of intelligent decision, of
straight thinking, but they rarely had an opportunity to learn the
truth.
They had now, by a knowing play on their emotions, directed by
psychologists, been wrought to a point of frenzy where they demanded
war. Their motives were of the highest in many individuals--pure
patriotism, the desire to make the solar system safe for civilization.
The bright, flaming spirit of self-sacrifice burned clear above the
haze and smoke of passion.
What would happen if all these eager millions of two neighboring
planets were to learn the true state of affairs? Sira knew what
transpired in those secret conventions, when double guards stood at
all doors and at the infrequent windows; when all communication was
cut off and the twin lenses of the telestereos and the microphones
were dead. Prince Joro had told her, with weary cynicism. But Joro had
also told her that the oligarchs guarded this vital and vulnerable
point with painstaking care.
* * * * *
Sira had reached inside their first defense, however. Wasil was loyal
to his salt, but he had both loyalty and affection for Princess Sira.
As the day of the interplanetary financial conference leaped into
being, he was on his way to the executive hall that lay resplendently
on the south canal bank, ready to lay down his life.
The hall proper was really only the west wing of the magnificent,
high-arched building. Its brilliant, polished metal facade reflected
the light of the rising Sun redly. The east wing, besides housing
various minor executive offices, also contained the complicated
apparatus for handling the propaganda broadcastings. On the roof,
towering high into the air, was a huge, globular structure, divided
into numerous zones, from which were sent various wave bands to the
news screens both on Mars and on Earth. The planetary rulers had taken
no chances of tampering with their propaganda. The central offices,
where news and propaganda were dramatized, were in another building,
but as everything from that source had to pass the reviewing officer,
a trusted member of the oligarchy himself, in his locked and guarded
office, this did not introduce any danger of the wrong information
going out to the public.
When Wasil reached the broadcasting plant, he was admitted by four
armed guards. He locked the door behind him, to find his associates
already busy, testing circuits and apparatus. Stimson, the chief
engineer, was sitting at his desk studying orders.
* * * * *
A few minutes later he called the men to him. There were three others
besides Wasil: young Martians, keen, efficient, and, like most
technies, loyal to the government that employed them.
"Sure are careful to-day," Stimson grunted, scratching his snow-white
hair, which was stiffly upstanding and showed a coral tinge from his
scalp. "Must be mighty important to get this out right. Wilcox
personally wrote the order. If any man fumbles to-day, it's the polar
penal colony for him!" The Sun-loving old Martian shivered.
"And here's another bright idea. Only one man's to be allowed in the
plant after the circuits are all tested! How'n the name of Pluto will
he handle things if a fuse blows? But what do they care about that!
We're technies! We're supposed to know everything, and never have
anything go wrong!"
"But why only one man?" cried Scarba, one of the associate engineers.
"It's asking too much! I'll not take it on, far as I'm concerned. My
resignation will be ready soon's I can get a blank!"
"I too! I'm with you, Scarba!" "We work like dogs to get everything in
first-line condition, and then--" The hard-working and uncomplaining
technies were outspoken in their resentment.
"Oh, I see your point," Stimson agreed. "I could stand Balta, but
Wilcox is just one too many for me. But do you boys think for one
minute we could get away with a strike?" He laughed angrily. "I can
remember when the technies were able to demand their guild rights. But
you boys weren't even born then. Now, let's get this straight:
"We are going to do just as we are told. Wilcox, of course, never
explains an order, but the reason for having only one operator on the
job is simply to concentrate responsibility on that one man. There
will be no excuse if he fails. Before the convention starts, and after
it is over, there will be a message to send out. The convention itself
will be secret, as usual. During the convention, there will be some
kind of filler stuff from the central office."
"Yeh!" snorted one of the men. "That's the dope, all right. One of us
is stuck, but if it's me I'll walk out and head for the desert."
* * * * *
Stimson looked at him with a sardonic smile. "I forgot to mention: the
doors will be locked and barred, and of course there's no such thing
as windows."
Wasil whistled. "They're sure careful. Well, Stimson. I haven't a
thing to do all day. I'll take it on."
They all looked at him, not sure that they had heard him right.
"What's the matter, sonny?" Stimson said slowly. "Too much Merclite
last night? You're shaking!"
"It's an opening!" Wasil insisted.
"An opening to tramp ice at the pole for the rest of your life!"
"All right. I'll chance it!"
They consented, without very much argument, to let Wasil have the
dangerous responsibility. At 2:30, two and a half hours after sunrise
by the Martian reckoning, he signed a release acknowledging all
circuits to be in proper order, and was locked behind the heavy doors,
alone with a maze of complicated apparatus and cables that filled the
large room from floor to ceiling.
Now it was done! Chance had thrown Wasil into a position where he
could, without great danger of failure, carry out his plan. But at the
same time things had so fallen that he, Wasil, must now die,
regardless of the outcome!
If he succeeded in broadcasting the proceedings of the convention, and
if they had the effect of arousing the public against Wilcox, there
would still be no escape for Wasil. Wilcox, or Scar Balta, would come
straight for this prison, neuro-pistol or needle-ray in hand!
Even if he should fail, death would be his portion for the attempt.
* * * * *
So thinking, Wasil sat down and carefully re-checked the circuits. The
filler broadcast from central office must be sent to the twin cities
of Tarog. Otherwise the convention would learn too soon what was
happening, and would interrupt its business. The thousands who waited
outside on the broad terraces must be regaled with entertainment, as
had been originally planned.
But as for the rest of Mars, and Earth, they would get the truth for
once. Those bankers would speak frankly, in the snug isolation of the
hall. No supervision here. Conventions, empty politeness, would be
forgotten. Sharp tirades, biting facts, threats, veiled and open,
would pass across the table between these masters of money and men.
But this time they would be pitilessly bared to the worlds!
Feverishly, Wasil inspected the repeater. It was a little-used device
that would, an hour or two later, as desired, give out the words and
pictures fed into it. Although Tarog would not learn the convention's
secrets as quickly as the rest of Mars, or Earth, Tarog would learn.
Wasil threw over the links and clamped down the bolts with a grunt of
satisfaction. When a man is about to die, he wants to do his last job
well.
Suddenly a red light glowed, and a voice spoke.
"Special broadcast. Tarog circuit only!"
"Mornin', Lennings," Wasil remarked to the face in the screen. "All
set? Go ahead."
The central office man held up a thick bundle of I. P. scrip, smiled
pleasantly, saying:
"Somebody in North or South Tarog, or in the surrounding territory, is
going to be 100,000 I. P. dollars richer by to-morrow. How would you
like to have 100,000 dollars? You all would like this reward. It
represents the price of a snug little space cruiser for your family; a
new home on the canal; maybe an island of your own. It would take you
on a trip to the baths of Venus and leave you some money over. Of
course you all want this reward!
"Now, if you'll excuse me a moment--"
* * * * *
The man's picture faded, and the screen glowed with the life and
beauty of Princess Sira--Sira, smiling and alluring.
"You all know this young lady," the announcer's voice went on. "The
beloved and lovable Sweetheart of Mars, the bride of Scar Balta--"
The Martian's sleek and well-groomed head appeared beside that of the
girl.
"--Scar Balta, whose services to Mars have been great beyond his
years; who, in the threatening war with Earth, would be one of our
greatest bulwarks of security."
The announcer's face appeared again, stern and sorrowful.
"A great disaster has befallen these lovers--and all the world loves a
lover, you know. Some thugs, believed by the police to be terrestrial
spies, have kidnapped the princess from the palace of her uncle,
Prince Joro of Hanlon. It is believed that they had drugged her and
hypnotized her, so that she has forgotten her duty to her lover and
her country."
The green light flashed, and Wasil broke the circuit. The central man
lingered a moment, favoring Wasil with a long wink.
"What a liar you're getting to be!" Wasil remarked coldly. But the
central man, not offended, laughed.
So they were offering a reward! And urging further treachery as an act
of patriotism! Wasil was not too much excited, however. The disguise
the princess had chosen would probably serve her well. Besides, she
had promised to keep in retirement as much as possible.
_Clack! Clack!_ The electrically controlled lock of the door was
opening. Only Wilcox knew the wave combination. Wasil felt a chill of
apprehension as the door opened and Scar Balta strode in. He was fully
armed, dressed in the military uniform; but the former colonel was now
wearing on his shoulder straps the concentric rings denoting a
general's rank.
CHAPTER XI
_Giant Against Giant_
Although Princess Sira had promised to keep out of the way, she could
not resist the powerful attraction of the executive hall, in which, on
this day, the fate of two planets was to be decided. As the crowds of
people began to drift toward the hall, she joined them, still dressed
in her laboring man's shapeless garments, the broad sun-helmet hiding
her face effectively. Her long, black hair was concealed under the
clothing. Having nearly been drawn into a brawl the day before, she
now carried a stained but still very serviceable short sword that she
had purloined from a merclite-drunken reveler in a gutter.
Thousands were already on the terraces surrounding the government
buildings. They were milling about, for it was still too soon after
the night's chill to sit down or lie on the rubbery red sward. Taxis
were bringing swarms over the canal from North Tarog, and water
vehicles were crossing over in almost unbroken lines.
Already the merclite vendors were busy, making their surreptitious way
from group to group, selling the highly intoxicating and legally
proscribed gum that would lift the users from the sordid, miserable
plane of their daily existence to exalted, reckless heights.
War vessels now began to course overhead, their solid, heavily plated
hulls glinting dully in the sun. Their levitator helices moaned
dismally, and as their long, slanting shadows slid over the assembled
thousands, it seemed that they cast a prophetic pall; that there was a
hush of foreboding.
But the psychological expert high in a nearby tower immediately noted
the slump in the psycho-radiation meter whose trumpet-shaped antenna
pointed downward. At the turn of the dial the air was filled with
throbbing martial music, and the expert noted with contemptuous
satisfaction that the needle now stood even higher than before.
Sira, caught like all the rest of the people in that stirring flood of
music, felt her own pulse leap. But she thought:
"This is the day! Wasil, could I only be with you!"
She thought sadly of Joro, whose shrewd observations and counsel she
missed more than she had ever thought possible.
"Poor, dear Joro! You would be a better king than any man you could
ever find! I wish I could have done as you wished me to."
* * * * *
There was a stir near the main entrance of the hall. A large private
yacht was slowly descending. She was bedecked with the green and gold
bunting of the terrestrial government, the green and orange of Mars.
Her hull glittered goldenly.
"Back!" shouted the captain of a Martian guard detail, the soldiers
running with pennant-decked ropes looping after them. The crowd surged
against the barrier, but more guards were sent out as reinforcements,
until they had cleared a space for the ship and a lane to the hall
entrance.
"Mars greets the distinguished guests from our sister planet!" boomed
the giant loudspeaker in the tower. Immediately afterward came the
strains of the song--"Terrestria--Fair Green Terrestria"--in a rushing
torrent of sound. But the frank and fluent melody was strangely
distorted, with unpleasant minor turns and harsh whisperings of
menace, and the tower psychologist noted a further rise of the needle.
There was a diversion of interest now. The mob of first arrivals, as
well as the ever-freshening stream of newcomers, was moving toward the
teletabloids and the more conservative stereo-screens. On this
occasion they were both carrying the same message, however. Sira heard
the propaganda division's latest fabrication about her alleged
kidnaping by terrestrial agents. She needed no radiation meter to tell
her of the intense wave of hatred for the Earth that swept over the
densely packed area. And this was followed by another emotion--a wave
of cupidity--set up by the offer of 100,000 I. P. dollars reward for
her return. She saw about her faces greedy, faces wistful, even
compassionate faces. But outnumbering them by far were faces set in
truculent mold.
* * * * *
Sira moved restlessly from place to place, feeling more deeply
depressed with every moment. She felt as if she had been left entirely
out of life, friendless, alone. Among all these thousands she had no
friend. It seemed to her that never before had there been such a
paucity of monarchists. Sharp-featured, with a wire-drawn manner of
efficiency and resolution about them, they had constituted almost
another race among this practically enslaved people, maintaining for
themselves a tolerable position despite the opposition of the
oligarchy. Now, however, they seemed to have vanished. All that
morning Sira had not seen one. She would not have disclosed her
identity, but it would have been comforting to see one of those
friends of old.
She was stopped by a jam. Looking between the bodies of two large and
sweaty men, she realized that someone was standing on a surveyor's
marking block, delivering a speech.
"The great Pantheus has so decreed it," the speaker was shouting in a
cracked voice that at times dribbled into a whine. "We must shake off
forever this menace from the green planet--this planet dominated by
wicked women.
"Oh, my friends, last night they came to me in dreams, these pale
women of the green star. They tempted me and they mocked me. They laid
their cold hands on my throbbing brow, and their cold hands burned me!
"Oh great Pantheus! How I have suffered! The creatress who in her
malice created this wicked world beyond the gulf--"
The Martians were entertained by the quavering denunciation. Some
grinned broadly at one another; others placed their thumbs in their
ears and wiggled their fingers. But the old man continued. Finally,
two of the foremost spectators, sensing the tiny body crowded between
them, stepped aside.
"Don't miss this, my little man. Listen, and maybe you will laugh
yourself a little bigger." He gave Sira a gentle shove, so that she
almost stumbled over the block on which the speaker was standing.
* * * * *
And that old man suddenly stopped talking, so that his toothless mouth
sucked in, then stood agape. The rheumy eyes rolled, and a wisp of
dirty gray hair strayed across his gnarled face. He lifted a shaking
hand, pointed a knotty finger.
"There she is!" he croaked. "There she is! I claim--"
"There she is!" guffawed a tipsy merclite chewer. "The creatress, come
to punish you! Cut off his nose, O creatress, and stuff it into his
mouth!"
There were shouts of laughter, a surge to see better.
"No! No! I, Deacon Homms, claim the reward!" the old man screamed.
"She is the princess; I know her. She came out of the canal to tempt
me! She is the Princess Sira. Now shall I at last enter the Palace of
Joys! I claim the 100,000 dollars!"
But he still had to catch Sira. The crowd, suddenly sensing that this
old fanatic might be telling the truth, rushed in savagely, each eager
to seize the prize, or at least to establish some claim to a share of
the award. Men and women went down, to be trampled mercilessly.
Inevitably they got in one another's way, and soon swords were rising
redly, falling again.
"Guards! Guards! A riot!" Some were fleeing the scene; others rushing
in, grateful for the opportunity to expend excess pugnacity. A fresh
platoon of soldiers tumbled out of a kiosk leading to an underground
barracks like ants out of a disturbed nest. They deployed, holding
their neuro-pistols before them, focalizers set for maximum
dispersion, therefore non-fatal--merely of paralyzing intensity. Some
of the rioters now turned to run, but others persisted, willing to be
rendered unconscious, just so it would be near the valuable princess.
A few moments later the captain of the guard surveyed the mass of
paralysed bodies and the sword-slashed corpses, all intermingled.
"What's this all about?" he demanded of a scarred, evil-looking fellow
who was the first to rise to his elbow.
"The Princess Sira! I claim the reward. In there! She stood right
there!"
"Get out, you galoon!" the captain growled, knocking the fellow
unconscious with the heavy barrel of his neuro. "Sort 'em out there.
Moggins, Schkamitch. On the double. You will share, according to
rank."
But eagerly as they searched, they did not find Sira. Creeping between
the legs of the maddened reward seekers, she had fought clear, had
gained the shelter of a tall, red conical tree whose closely laced
branches pressed her to the ground, clinging to the greasy trunk.
* * * * *
She realized that her sanctuary was none too secure. There would
surely be a methodical search after the first excitement, and she
would be discovered. She had lost her sun-helmet, but nevertheless she
must risk making a break. A large proportion of the people were
wearing such helmets. Perhaps she could snatch one.
But before such an opportunity came, she saw a chance to dash to a
nearby clump of shrubbery. On the other side was a long hedge, leading
to an alley back of a group of warehouses. If she could gain this
alley, she felt sure she would be safe for the time being.
All over the park, which was thirty or forty acres in extent, there
were minor riots, as some unfortunate was mistaken for the princess
and blindly struggled for.
Sira lost no time. She scuttered along the hedge like a frightened
kangrat. But as she crossed a small open space, a stentorian voice
shouted:
"There she is! That's her! The princess!"
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him, running toward her
lumberingly, his great arms outspread. Tuman had been wrong in saying
that on all of Mars there was no man as big as Tolto. This one was,
and he looked more formidable. Instead of Tolto's normally
good-natured face, this one looked like an enraged terrestrial
gorilla, although at the moment it was really expressing joy and
eagerness.
Several other men joined the chase, and then scores. They were fleeter
of foot than the ape-man, but as they passed him in the narrow alley
he smashed them to the pavement with casual blows of his terrifying
hands. Thereafter he was undisputedly in the lead; the others content
to follow in his rear, although many were armed, and the giant was
not.
* * * * *
This was an advantage to Sira. The whole mob was slowed by the
lumbering pace of the ape-man, and she was able to keep in the lead
without difficulty. Several times some of her pursuers ran ahead by
other routes, intent on snatching her into some doorway. But each time
she slashed at them with her sword, springing past.
She had not run very far when her fear of another danger was realized.
There was a high, keen whistle overhead, and a scouting police car
flashed near. Under the neuro-pistols both hounds and hare would be
paralyzed, and she would be easily taken. Sira longed for one of these
handy weapons herself, but they were too expensive: she had been
unable to secure one.
Now the police car was coming back. The sliding forward door was
drawn back, and a man was leaning out, neuro alert. Judging the
distance expertly, he pulled the trigger, and a hundred men fell
unconscious.
"Got 'em!" he snapped over his shoulder. "The princess as well. Down
quick!"
Sira, spared because of the officer's unwillingness to take a chance
on injuring her, leaped through a gap in a wall and sprinted through a
garden smothered with thick, leathery-leaved weeds, some of them
higher than her head. She almost laughed with relief, but as she
flitted around the corner of a house toward the street she saw the
gorilla faced giant again in pursuit, and beyond the garden wall the
police ship was just settling to the ground.
It just seemed to be raining giants that day. Sira ran out of a narrow
gate at the front of the house into the street, to be stopped by a
tremendous human framework as solid and unyielding as a mountain. She
stepped back, drew her sword--
"Softly! Softly!" a rumbling bass implored. "Doesn't the Princess Sira
recognize her servant, Tolto?"
"Tolto!" All at once the tautness went out of her, and Sira leaned
against the wall, divided between laughing and crying.
"Tolto and his good friends were looking for you," the big man rumbled
anxiously. "The teletabloids said there was a riot coming--"
* * * * *
He got no further. The gorilla-faced pursuer catapulted himself
sideways through the portal, being too wide to go through in the
regular way. He emitted a raucous shout of triumph:
"I got her! It's her, all right! I claim--"
As he reached out his enormous sun-blackened arm there was a thud
that seemed to shake the ground. Instantly enraged, the man's little
red-rimmed eyes jerked quietly to the dealer of that shocking blow.
Then the conical little head sank between the bulging shoulders, the
long, thick arms bowed outward, and the ape-man launched himself at
Tolto.
That was a battle! On the one side devotion, simple-minded loyalty and
a fighting heart in a body of such mechanical perfection as Mars had
never seen before or since. On the other side a primal beast, just as
huge, rage-driven, atavistic, savage.
Fists as large as an average man's head, or larger, crashed against
unprotected face and body. Gigantic muscles rippled and crackled.
Blows echoed from wall to house and seemed to thud against the hearts
of the spectators.
It was as if time and memory had come to a standstill. The present was
not, nor present ambitions and duties. The soldiers came plunging out
into the street, swords in their hands, but they stopped to watch.
Sime, Murray and Tuman, used to instant and automatic battle, watched.
A struggle so titanic, by tacit, by unconsidered consent, must be left
to decide its own course.
* * * * *
Tolto seemed to be slowly gaining an advantage. During his novitiate
as a palace guard the other men had instructed him in the science of
their pastime-fighting. Although he scorned to guard against the blows
of his savage antagonist, he placed his own punches more shrewdly,
more effectively. The ape-faced one, through a red film, sensed that
he was being beaten, and that this fight would end in death.
Suddenly he changed his tactics. Rushing in, he threw his arms around
Tolto's great torso. He opened his jaws, and his long yellow fangs
bit into the flesh of Tolto's shoulder.
Tolto, taken slightly by surprise, met this new menace promptly.
Placing his powerful forearm against the battered, hairy face, he
attempted to bend the head back. But it was so small, in proportion,
and so slippery with blood, that he was unable to dislodge it.
So Tolto matched brute strength against brute strength. His arms
encircled his enemy's body, and the tremendous muscles of his
shoulders and body began to arch.
So they stood poised for a few seconds, as if on the brink of
eternity.
"Go-o-o-wie!" exclaimed one of the soldiers, awed.
Slowly, like the agonizingly slow plastic creep of metal under great
pressure, the gorilla-faced giant was yielding. His dark skin became
mottled. His breath came gaspingly. His rope-knotted arms slipped a
little.
But it was not in him to surrender, which might still have saved his
life. With a vicious twisting motion of his head he tried to drag his
fangs through the thick muscles of Tolto's shoulder. The wound began
to bleed more freely, choking the savage at each labored breath.
Now Tolto began to walk forward. Always his antagonist had to yield a
little, unwillingly, grudgingly, just enough to keep the paralyzing
pressure on his spine from becoming unbearable. And slowly,
inexorably, Tolto followed. His arms tightened. His leg slipped
suddenly between the ape-faced man's supports. Tolto grunted. The
sound seemed to labor upward from his innermost being, his body's
protest as he called upon it for its last reserve of strength.
Like an echo, there was a dull crack, a brief, agonized moan from the
ape-faced one; and the savage, unknown giant slumped to the pavement,
dead with a broken back. Tolto staggered to the wall, breathing
deeply.
"Man, what a fight! What a _fight_!" The young Martian captain passed
a shaking hand over his face. The battle had stirred him more deeply
than he wanted to admit. But in a few seconds he came out of his
mental maze.
"Attention! All right, men, you're under arrest. As for the girl--"
"As for the girl," came a clear feminine voice, as Sira stepped out
from the shelter of a buttress some dozen feet away, "--the girl took
advantage of your preoccupation to relieve you of your neuros. As you
see I have two of them in my hand. The rest of them are over by that
wall. No! Don't try to rush! You are welcome to your swords, but they
are useless here."
CHAPTER XII
"_He Must Be a Man of Earth_"
Friend and foe looked stupefied. But they were used to the give and
take of battle. That this girl should disarm a detachment of soldiers
while they and their own men were absorbed in such a common thing as a
fight struck them as humorous. They laughed.
"This is a better break then we deserve," Sime said, grinning with a
trace of sheepishness. "Captain, you take your men across the street
and hold 'em there. We're going to borrow your car. No funny stuff!"
Civilians were flooding into the streets. There would soon be a mob.
"We will not," replied the captain, "try any funny stuff. Some day, my
friend, I hope to open you up with my sword," he added.
"By all means," Sime agreed pleasantly. "My time is pretty well
occupied, but there's no telling when I may meet you again, in my
business. Good day, Captain!"
Tuman stayed at the front gate with his neuro while the others
struggled through the weedy garden to the police ship in the alley,
rejoining them as they were ready to rise.
* * * * *
A crowd had gathered. If they wondered at the appearance of these
ragged, scarred and bewhiskered men; at sweat and blood-covered giant
Tolto; the obviously high-bred girl in the laboring man's garments,
they wisely refrained from comment or action, in deference to the
neuros with which the party was bristling.
Once inside and safely in the air, they had time to breathe. Murray,
with a gallantry that sat ill on the scarecrow figure he was, cleared
matters up a trifle.
"Princess Sira? As I thought. Princess, or Your Highness, to be
formal, I am your humble and disreputable servant, Lige Murray, of the
Interplanetary Flying Police. Likewise this gentleman behind the
brush--Sime Hemingway. You know Tuman? You've missed something, Your
Highness! And Tolto! Lucky man!"
Sira recovered quickly from her reaction following the fight. She
found a first-aid kit, bandaged Tolto's wounded shoulder skilfully and
quickly. She had given no sign of recognition as Sime awkwardly bowed,
during Murray's introduction, but now, as Sime held a roll of bandage
for her, she gave him a sidewise look, agleam with mischief.
"But I have decided to remit the punishment--the sentence I passed on
you, Mr. Hemingway," she said, her sweet, child-like face innocent.
"What punishment?" Sime gasped.
"Why, the punishment of death! For kissing me that night!" she
laughed, turning her back.
Murray was heading back for the government park. It was a short
distance with the police car. Soon the broad grounds, with their
scattered, magnificent buildings, lay below them. But the parks were
strangely bare of living creatures. Here and there lay the bodies of
men or women.
"Something's happened!" Murray shouted excitedly. "Look out!"
* * * * *
He swerved the ship sharply. They escaped damage as an atomic bomb,
unskilfully aimed, exploded far to one side.
"Funny thing, firing on a police car," Sime puzzled. "They might have
got news from that detachment we grounded, but how do they know this
isn't some other police or military car?"
"Those aren't soldiers," Murray decided. "There's been a riot, and
some civilian's got hold of an ato-projector."
"I know what's happened!" Sira exclaimed suddenly. "Wasil--a
technie--has managed to broadcast the secret session! That upset their
psychology. Oh!" Her face was alight, and she threw up her arms in
ecstasy. As quickly she subsided, and tears came to her eyes.
"Wasil!" she cried. "If he is dead, Mellie will never forgive me!"
"Where is this technie?" Sime asked bruskly.
"In the broadcast room. But they have probably killed him."
"Never can be sure. Head her smack for the main entrance, Murray!"
Murray threw the car into a steep dive, and the hall portal rushed up
to meet them. A soldier came partially out of concealment, waved a
signal. Murray paid him no heed.
They struck with a crash. The stout car crushed through the glittering
doors of metal and glass, and before the fragments fell the four men
were in the thick of short, sharp and decisive battle. Their neuros
hissed venomously, spanged as they met opposing beams. And the
princess, struggling through the wreckage, wept tears of rage as the
coarse fabric of her clothing caught, entangled hopelessly, and held
her.
"Something queer!" Murray said, as they halted for breath after
routing what little opposition they had encountered. "Maybe it's a
trap. But what an expensive trap for somebody! Where's this
broadcasting plant?"
"This way!" Tuman called eagerly. "Maybe we can still save the poor
fellow who turned the trick. Broadcast the secret sessions! Don't tell
me that little girl isn't fit to rule!"
The heavy metal doors were open, and they hurried in. But Tolto,
noting that the princess had not followed, hurried out in search for
her.
* * * * *
Sime stumbled over a body. It had been a dark, sleek, youngish man. A
jagged burn on his throat told of the needle-ray. "Who's this fellow,
Murray?"
Murray glanced at the body. He smiled a brief smile of satisfaction.
"That's Scar Balta. Got what's coming to him at last. Help me with
this bird: he's still alive. Cold, though!"
"Got a shot of neuro. Could this be the technie?"
Sime found a fountain of water. He filled a cup, dashed it over the
still face. The shock made the man's lips move.
"Mellie, I did it!" he whispered.
"Who's Mellie?" Sime asked.
"Mellie? Seems to me the princess mentioned her name, This is her
brother. He's the right guy! Take it easy, brother!"
But Wasil was able to sit up.
"I sure fooled him!" he gasped. "Mixed up the circuits. Scar Balta
sat right here while I broadcast the secret sessions, and he was
watching a lot o' haywah in the control screen.
"When Wilcox got word from outside he knew he was done. He thought
Scar'd double-exed him, so came here in person and gave him the
needle-ray."
Despite his nausea, Wasil looked happy.
"Wilcox tried for me, but I dodged back of those frames. So he tried
for me with the neuro. The mob was getting wild outside; there was--"
He could not finish. There was an explosion that shook the building to
its foundations. Tolto came running in. Sira close after him:
"Joro is coming. Joro has detonated the warships. The hall guards have
surrendered. The council is locked up. It can't escape!"
* * * * *
Events were transpiring too fast for comprehension. It was several
days later, on a bench in Prince Joro's palace grounds, that Sira
summed it up for Sime Hemingway.
"I'm going to accept the throne!" she said. "I'm going to be a real
queen. Joro has convinced me that it will be a real service to Mars.
The dear old man has schemed and worked so long, so unselfishly."
"Yeh, and he wasn't afraid to fight!" Sime added admiringly. "When he
came charging out of those ships with his gang of monarchists, swords
flashing, it was a pretty sight to see. And when they closed in on
that gang of cheap politicians! Talk about rats in a corner!"
"The prince can fight with his brains as well as with his sword." Sira
submitted. "The whole thing would have been hopeless, if he hadn't
invented the detonating ray that disposed of the warships. You
remember those heavy explosions, shortly after we dropped in the
hall, as one might say? Those were the last of them."
A silence fell between them, and Sime was now conscious of the
fragile-seeming, so deceiving beauty of this Martian girl. Something
had come between them, stripped away the masculine frankness that had
existed during their short and dangerous time together. Perhaps it was
the softly revealing drape of the thread-of-gold robe she was
wearing--true queenly garb, donned by her for the first time.
"There is one requirement that Joro insists on," Sira said in a low
voice.
"What's that?" asked Sime, marveling that such transparently pink
fingers should handle a sword so well.
"He says that I must choose a mate, to insure the stability of the
royal house."
* * * * *
It seemed to Sime that this announcement gave him a pang out of all
proportion.
"That should be easy," he managed. "Every Martian is crazy about you."
"He may not be a Martian. He must be a man of Earth," Sira stated
firmly.
"Is that so?" Sime asked, genuinely surprised. "Why does Joro insist
on that?"
"It is not Joro who insists. It is myself."
Sime found himself looking into eyes filled with shy pleading. He
could not, would not, for all of the solar system, have committed the
unpardonable affront of rejecting the love so frankly offered. And yet
he did not know how to accept this miracle. He did it clumsily,
haltingly disclosing the secret recesses of his own heart and what had
transpired there since the night he had taken the knife away from her
and kissed her.
* * * * *
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Martian Cabal" ***
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