JASON TAKES THE TRAIL
At another door he stopped, wrenching it open and laying hands upon a
cord that hung within it. He jerked upon it, released it, and stood
waiting with hands clenched as though in impatience, until there rose
slowly into sight a platform, upon which he stepped. The platform sank
slowly, carrying him downward inside a rock-faced shaft, which ended in
a dimly lighted chamber, where blue men strained about a capstan and
windlass by means of which the primitive lift was controlled.
"Hai! The Mouthpiece of Zitu requires a motur and one to drive it,"
Croft addressed the man in charge.
The fellow saluted and turned away. I saw there were several moturs
parked against one of the chamber walls. And too, I recalled that Croft
had found a similar arrangement in the pyramid of Himyra when first he
called on Magur, save that then the room had been used to house the
carriages and gnuppas of the priests.
Croft strode toward one of the waiting cars, and a man appeared. As
Jason climbed to a seat he took his place at the wheel and the engine
roared. Blue men set open a heavy door and stood aside. Through it the
car darted out of the base of the pyramid to reach the street beyond
it.
"To the palace of Jadgor, and hasten!" Jason cried.
Then, as the motur fled between the white-walled houses of Zitra, he
leaned back, his face pallid in the moonlight beneath his plumes of
azure. His lips parted. "Zitu--Zitu," I caught a whisper, and knew that
to him in the urge of his need its progress seemed slow, no matter
how swiftly it moved. Yet in reality the time was very short ere the
official residence of the President of Tamarizia was reached.
Jason was out of the motur almost before it paused. And then for the
first time, save as he had described it, I saw the inside of the former
imperial palace, with its silver-sheathed beams supporting the roof of
varicolored glass above the inner court, its tessellated pavement of
sparkling crystal and silver and gold, across which, once he had gained
admittance, Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, strode toward the captain of the
guard.
The soldier came to attention, saluting with uplifted palm.
"Go," Croft directed. "Say to Jadgor, President of Tamarizia, and
Lakkon of Aphur, that the Mouthpiece of Zitu seeks speech with them
concerning a matter of importance."
"Aye, Hupor and Mouthpiece of Zitu." The captain saluted again and
departed at once.
We waited, Jason and I, Croft a commanding figure in his physical
presence, clouded of brow and set of lip, standing with bent crest
and deep-heaving chest while the guardsmen watched out of speculative
eyes this proud man of their nation who came on some urgent, undreamed
mission in the night, myself seeing it all but unseen by any save Jason
dimly, as he had said.
The captain returned.
"If my lord will follow...." He spoke in suggestive fashion, saluted
once more, and waited his superior's pleasure.
"Lead on." Croft lifted his bended head and followed his clanking
escort up a flight of crystal stairs and down a far-reaching corridor,
resplendent with scarlet hangings on walls of silver and gold.
Before a door of silver embossed with the circle and cross of Zitra,
the captain paused, striking three times against the metal surface with
the butt of his copper sword.
Jadgor himself set the portal open, peering at Croft from dark eyes set
on either side of a high-bridged, slightly aquiline nose. Seen so, he
seemed a less commanding figure than in official dress, for now he was
gowned merely in a shirt of silken fabric, reaching from his strong
neck nearly to his heels.
"Hai, Jason, what cause, in Zitu's name, brings you to disturb our
slumbers?" he began as Croft passed inside.
"Cause in plenty," Croft made answer, his glance sweeping the
apartment, "of which I would speak with you and Lakkon. Cause enough to
warrant the driving of sleep from your eyes."
Jadgor closed the door and turned.
"Come, then," he said, and led the way toward a farther room, hung in
scarlet, furnished with a silver bed and table and carven chairs of the
usual red wood, in one of which sat Lakkon.
Croft followed, and just inside the door of the sumptuous apartment he
paused.
"Behold in me, Jadgor, and Lakkon, father of Naia, my wife, a messenger
of evil tidings," he said hoarsely, "in that the house of Jason in the
mountains has been betrayed, and the light of it removed."
"Betrayed?" Lakkon stiffened.
"Removed?" Jadgor repeated. "Jason, what mean you?"
"Sit, Jadgor," Jason suggested. "My heart is heavy within me, and there
is much to be made plain concerning the affair."
Jadgor complied without shifting the scrutiny of his keen eyes from
Croft's face. Croft himself drew a chair to the silver table, where
the other two men had taken place. And then he told them all that had
happened, from first to last, save that he omitted any mention of my
presence.
* * * * *
As he spoke, I watched each face. Plainly the men believed him. Their
expressions gave no evidence of doubt. They had been given sufficient
proof of his astral ability in the past, and they did not question the
truth of what he alleged he had discovered in the spirit while his
physical body seemed wrapped in heavy sleep. Jadgor held his thick-set
figure stiffly. He clenched his heavy hands. Horror waked on Lakkon's
sternly molded features. And at the end it was Jadgor, the soldier, the
patriot, the man who had labored to make strong his nation, who spoke
first.
"Now, by Zitu, and by Zitu," he roared the Tamarizian double oath,
and struck the burnished top of the table with his fist, "are the
affronts--the annoyances--the ceaseless schemings of these spawns of
Zitemku beyond Tamarizia's borders to never cease! And if not, what
duty lies to Tamarizia before that in the fulfillment of which Zollaria
shall be crushed? Jason, twice have you led the armies of Tamarizia
against them and their allies. Gather them once more together, with my
approval, and punish these treacherous beasts."
And if I had thought him more the man and less the statesman when first
I entered the room and viewed him in undress, I felt myself moved to
reverse my judgment now. This was no lesser spirit, stern of visage,
glaring half risen from his seat toward Croft, leaning slightly toward
him, still resting his weight upon the knotted knuckles of his heavy
fist.
Croft, too, I am sure, was momentarily moved by Jadgor's swift
readiness to resort to arms, since for an instant, as the president
faced him, his own eyes fired. But then he shook his head slightly,
setting the azure plumes on his helmet nodding.
"Nay," he said slowly. "Nay, Jadgor--I am a man, as thou art, and the
notion quickens my pulses, but--in my judgment this matter is less to
be settled by force of arms than by a resort to craft."
"Hilka!" Suddenly Lakkon's voice broke forth. "Hold! You would balk
the issue? You would seek by a use of trickery--a matching of wits--to
answer an insult to Tamarizia and thyself? Was it for this I gave my
consent to your union with my daughter--or that she went down to the
gates of Zilla's realm in the bearing of your child? Has marriage
softened you so much, Jason, that the blood turns to water in your
veins? Now, by Zitu--"
"Hilka! Hold!" Croft mouthed his own words at him. His face was pallid,
its eyes narrowed, its lips gone livid. "Father of Naia--I respect thy
surprise and grief, and therefore forgive your words. Yet speak not so
concerning my position in this affair, until you consider all sides of
the matter. Think you that, had I any suspicion of what was intended, I
had left her whose love is the crowning glory of my existence unguarded
in my house? Nay, by Zitu--she had lain in the house of Robur, son of
Jadgor--safe within Himyra's walls. And take thought on what I have
told you, Lakkon. Recall the oath of Kalamita. Consider, in judging
my position, that a resort to arms would forfeit the life of your
grandson and my child. Since you are a father, take heed of a father's
fears."
His voice faltered. He bent forward, resting his head upon folded arms
on the table. For the first time in all his life on Palos, Jason's
haughty crest was bowed.
Jadgor glanced at Lakkon. He nodded. "By Zitu, my brother, we were
overquick. It were well that Jason appears to have kept his wits."
The anger faded from Lakkon's face and he rose. Passing about the
table, he laid a hand on Croft's bended shoulder.
"Your pardon, my son," he stammered in the embarrassed fashion strong
men use on such occasions. "I was over hasty. What, then, do you
propose?"
"As yet I know not." Jason lifted his head and turned clouded eyes on
Lakkon. "Nor would I have you in this matter think me cold. Word I
will send to Robur, and myself shall depart for Himyra at once. Let
Jadgor give me orders for the captain of his swiftest galley. Even so
my man Bathos will reach the city ere I arrive. And since this Kalamita
proposes a meeting at which Zollaria's demands will be presented, it
occurs to me that as a first step she should be met."
Jadgor appeared to consider. "But not by the Mouthpiece of Zitu?" he
said at last.
"Nay?" Croft eyed him sharply.
Jadgor nodded. His first flash of spirit appeared to have passed.
"Think you Zitu's mouthpiece would be permitted to return from such
a meeting? And we are to match treachery by craft, we must guard
ourselves from traps. Ill as are the circumstances that confront us,
were they not a hundredfold increased with Jason in Zollaria's hands?
Then indeed would Tamarizia find herself in evil case!"
Lakkon's old eyes widened under his grizzled brows. "You suspect a
trap, then, Jadgor?" he questioned.
"Aye, and this lure of the flesh, this Kalamita, is connected with
it," Tamarizia's president declared. Warrior, he was prone to think
first of arms, but as it seemed to me now, not lacking in statecraft
either, once he gave his mind to it. "To me it seems she has taken into
account the hearts of men, in sending word of the meeting--deeming the
husband and father would rush to his and his country's undoing without
due consideration of where his act might lead. Against such an ending,
thanks be to Zitu and Jason's ability to obtain knowledge in his
death-like sleeps, we are forewarned, and Tamarizia keeps what yet she
has. What say you, Jason?"
"That Jadgor's words lighten my position somewhat," Croft made
answer. "Since, had his mind not so clearly seen what in my belief
was intended, it had been no easy task to make my stand in the matter
understood, and perchance I would have seemed to him and Lakkon rather
a man of milk and water, than one of blood--"
"Nay," Lakkon interrupted, his face gone haggard, "forget my words.
Horror of what had befallen had dulled my understanding, husband of
Naia. How mean you--that Zollaria's terms shall be refused?"
"By Zitemku, the fiend of the foul pit of damnation, what else?" Jadgor
roared before Croft could answer. "Does Tamarizia weaken herself or
yield one hand's-breadth to that northern horde?"
Croft nodded. "Zollaria's demands may not be granted. Let that be
understood," he replied to Jadgor's outburst.
Lakkon winced. "Thou canst say so, who having asked me not to think
thee cold, seem yet so little moved?"
* * * * *
For the second time Croft stiffened at his father-in-law's words. His
face flushed deeply, and he rose, towering, the splendid figure of a
man, against the end of the table, while Jadgor and Lakkon watched.
"Tamarizia must not be weakened," he reaffirmed his position. "Cold
I may seem to Lakkon, and little moved, and now, thanks to him, I am
cold indeed. Yet have I sworn an oath not to fail her who looks on me
to save her. And I shall succeed in what I am undertaking, without
forgetting the interests of this nation, or--by Azil himself I swear
it--let all men cease to speak of Jason as one among living men. From
here I go to send a message to Robur, and after that upon a galley.
Come, Jadgor, give me your order to its captain that he may prove
bidable to my commands."
For a moment as he ceased speaking silence came down in the room
where the lights pricked out the azure cross and wings of Azil on his
cuirass, as he waited. Cold he had said to me he would become and to
Jadgor and Lakkon cold--as cold as some deadly tempered weapon, in
all outward seeming now he was. Lakkon's expression altered, became
embarrassed. He glanced from Croft to Jadgor, and moistened his lips
with his tongue.
Jadgor moved. He left his seat, found wax-coated tablets and a stylus,
and returned. For a moment or two he wrote rapidly, cutting his
official mandate to the captain of the galley into the virgin surface.
Then, rising, once more he handed it to Croft.
"Go," he said, "and Zitu go with you. You will keep us informed in this
matter?"
"Aye, as it progresses." Croft accepted the tablet. "Zitu keep you,
Jadgor." He turned to leave.
"Jason," Lakkon quavered.
Jason paused.
"Depart not from me in anger. I sought not truly to give you fresh
offense. And--and carry my blessing to my daughter when next you meet
her in the spirit, as she has told me thou canst."
For a barely perceptible interval Croft appeared to hesitate, and then
he caught a heavy breath.
"Against the father of Naia of Aphur it were hard indeed for anger to
find a place in my heart. Zitu be with you, Lakkon, also," he said, and
left.
Outside the room he made his way, outside the palace of Jadgor, once
more to a seat in the motur, and in it toward the city walls and the
foot of a mounting flight of stairs.
A sentry stood with sword and spear before them. Croft addressed him.
He saluted and permitted him to pass. Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu,
climbed up in the silvery moonlight, his shadow a purple blot beside
him, to reach the top at last. And there strangely in all that archaic
scene he paused before the door of a hut, above which towered the
spidery outline of a wireless mast. For an instant he turned his eyes
outward over the expanse of the Central Sea, and then he passed inside.
A man seated at a table, with the key of the wireless before him,
started to his feet.
"A message to Robur, Governor of Aphur in Himyra, and quickly," Croft
said.
The operator regained his seat and produced his headdress, clamping
it against his ears. Croft gave the message. There came the hissing
crash of the spark. Strange, I found myself thinking as I watched--an
anachronism surely that this youth of Palos, clad in plain tunic and
sandals and leg-casings of leather, above which showed the sinewy
flesh of his lower thighs and knees, should be sitting here on top of
the ramparts of a walled city, hurling forth across the ocean beyond
him the potential Hertzian waves. And yet it was no more strange than
that I should know it--than that the grim-visaged man in the metal
harness of a Tamarizian noble was the one through whose genius it was
inspired.
And then the thing was done. The crashing of the spark was silenced.
Croft tossed a coin on the table and passed outside and down the
stairs. And when next the motur paused he gave the driver another
coin and dismissed him. He stood before a galley, moored close to the
semi-circular quays of Zitra's inner harbor, stretching like a pool
of liquid silver beyond him to the mighty sea-doors that closed the
entrance to it in the overarching walls.
But though I thrilled to the massive grandeur of the picture, Croft
heeded it little. To him it was an old scene, and, too, he was ridden
with the spur of haste.
"Hai! Captain of the watch, aboard the galley!" he hailed sharply and
stood waiting until a head appeared above the rail of the waist and a
voice replied:
"Who calls?"
"Jason, Mouthpiece of Zitu, with the mandate of Jadgor from the palace
of Jadgor. I would come toward you," Croft made answer.
The head disappeared. For possibly two minutes nothing happened, and
then a gangway was shoved out to reach the quay.
Croft strode along it, presented Jadgor's tablet to a suddenly wide
awake captain, and was led to an apartment under the after-deck,
richly furnished in red woods and hangings of scarlet, the personal
color of Jadgor's house.
Life woke on board the galley. There was a tramping of feet, a sound
of voices bawling orders, suddenly the sibilant hiss of water past
the hull. The galley heeled slightly on the long arc of a circle,
straightened back to an even keel. Through the windows let into the
stern I became conscious of a graying of the eastern heavens, and then
a shadow fell upon us. It came to me that the monster sea-doors were
opened to permit our passing.
Croft sank down upon a couch of burnished copper and sighed. He turned
his glance about the apartment. "Are you still here, Murray?" he
questioned.
"Aye," I bent my thought upon him, and he smiled a trifle wanly as he
caught the form of my answer.
"Better be going," he said. "But give me the benefit of your thoughts
in the next few days. If you've waited until now, you've had recent
proof of how hard it is for the father to hold his personal interests
of lesser importance than matters of state."
"Nonsense, man," I returned. "We'll beat them. Once you're in Himyra,
you and Robur will get your heads together, and I'm going to work
collecting all the information I can obtain on the device I suggested
earlier tonight."
"Do so." He nodded and stretched himself out on the couch. "I'll use
it if we can think of nothing else. You and Rob--" All at once he used
a diminutive form of Robur's name, of which he had told me before.
"Murray, I thank Zitu for you both. I know I have your sympathy and
understanding, and--I'll find the same things once I am in Himyra. I'll
see you inside the next few days, of course."
* * * * *
From now on this narrative must become, until the end, an account of
Croft's efforts toward the rescue of Naia and Jason, rather than of
things experienced by myself. For now I was become little more than his
lieutenant on earth--a collector of knowledge to whom, when he came in
the astral presence to gain it, he told how that knowledge was to be
employed.
In the body he went to Himyra first. But astrally he willed himself
back that morning after I had left him, aboard Kalamita's gilded craft,
where rather than the tawny siren, the lure that led him was his wife
and child. Naia of Aphur--the love of her, as ever since first he had
seen her, was a flame in Jason's breast.
Gor he found sleeping within the passage, sprawled barrierlike inside
its door. Kalamita, too, lay wrapped in slumber, her scheming brain at
rest. Inside one of the curtained apartments Maia slept also on a couch
drawn crosswise of the door. Naia of Aphur alone was wakeful, brooding
with troubled eyes above the sleeping infant.
To Croft, as he saw her, she seemed then the embodiment of all the
meaning involved in the wonderful statue of Ga the Eternal Mother he
had seen once in the quarters of the Gayana--the Tamarizian vestals
brooding above the altar of the sacred fire, with the form of a babe on
her knees.
Thrilling at sight of her so, he stood before her.
"Beloved," he called her.
She stiffened to attention, lifting her head. Her lips moved.
"I have waited thy coming, Jason," she whispered, her fair face
lighting as she responded to his summons.
"You heard all, know all?" she questioned as Croft drew her wraithlike
form inside his yearning arms.
"Aye--golden woman--and marveled at thy spirit," he made answer, ere
he told her what he had accomplished and gave her Lakkon's message,
mentioning at the end the possible means of rescue I had suggested.
"Zitu!" Naia faltered. "It were strange indeed, were it not, if the
answer to this riddle be found by our friend of earth?"
"Aye, strange," said Jason, "yet not more so than that, despite their
knowledge, I stand here now before you."
"Yet he is wise," she replied, clinging closer to him, "in that he saw
quickly the true meaning of the meeting between you and herself this
Zollarian woman saw fit to propose. Myself have I promised throughout
the night that, once you had come again to me, I would see you warned."
Croft smiled in rueful fashion. "Jadgor, too, was against it. It would
seem that all perceived the motive of it, save only Jason alone."
"Ah, but"--Naia lifted a hand to lay it against his cheek--"Jason, my
beloved, was overwrought."
"Aye," he confessed; "and now it appears to him that it was on that
Kalamita counted to lead him into a trap."
"And will count," said Naia, "not knowing the strange power you have
taught me, by which we meet."
Croft nodded. "And through which their every move may be watched. To
my mind, beloved--this meeting on which she is bent at present must be
brought about."
"But not by Jason!" The fires of Naia's astral body paled in swift
alarm. "Not by you, beloved."
"Nay," Croft reassured her, "not by Jason, but another, in a fashion,
once I am in Himyra, Robur and I shall devise."
"Hold, then." Naia paused to consider before she went on quickly.
"Perchance against a woman, a woman's wits may aid you. Told she not
Bathos to say this meeting would be north of Cathur--and sought she not
once ere this, when before you fought to make me thine, beloved, to
work harm to Tamarizia through Cathur's prince, so that the succession
was lost to Koryphu, his brother, and in the elections for governor,
even though he sought to gain the station, he was ignored? Think you
not that in Koryphu, Scythys's younger son, you may find one with hate
in his heart for this woman and an agent to your hand?"
"Aye, by Zitu!" Croft cried, gazing into her lifted face out of
startled eyes. "Naia, you have said it. Koryphu, and he will consent,
is the man."
And so to Scira, capital city of Cathur, he willed himself.
Long familiarity with Scira made it easy for him to reach the
residence, which, after the overthrow of his family, had become the
home of Cathur's lesser prince. And there he found Koryphu, always
unlike Kyphallos, his brother, more or less of a student, already busy
with the tablets and scrolls that as yet in Tamarizia took the place of
books. Satisfied that his man would be easy to locate when needed, he
returned to the galley at once.
* * * * *
Thereafter followed a weird four days and nights, during the lighted
portion of which Croft occupied himself as best he might, while the
galley plowed across the Central Sea toward the mouth of the Na, up
which lay Himyra. And when the daylight faded he stretched himself
on the couch in his apartment and joined Naia in the spirit, going
with her north to a Zollarian seaport, and from it in gnuppa-drawn
conveyances wherein the passengers reclined on deeply padded cushions,
toward Berla, discovering thereby that no matter what Kalamita may
have said to Bathos regarding the place of Naia's holding, she was to
be taken to the seat of the Zollarian government first. So much he had
learned both from his astral conversations with her and the remarks of
the guards which reached his ears, by the time Himyra was reached.
Himyra. Croft stepped upon its quays, where lapped the yellow Na, with
a feeling of relief. Himyra--home. It was so he regarded that red city
more than any other place on Palos outside his own house. Himyra--it
was here he had labored--here he had molded the present strength of the
Tamarizian nation--from here he had gone twice to make good his claims
of that strength--here, outside the circling walls towering like ruddy
buttes above the sands of the Aphurian desert, he had seen Naia of
Aphur, read love in the depths of her purple eyes first.
"Jason!"
He whirled, to behold Robur coming toward him from a motur.
"Rob!" He turned in his direction.
They met, and Robur clasped him to his breast.
"My brother in all but birth," he said with emotion. "Would Zitu he
had not sent this thing upon you. Gaya sends her greeting. Myself I
timed your arrival, and so soon as the gatemen reported your galley's
passing, drove down to carry you to a friendly house."
"Like thee, Rob," Croft said, his heart warmed by such a meeting. "In
Himyra, and thy presence, I breathe easier than for days. Bathos, my
servant, has arrived?"
"The sun before this," Robur returned as they moved toward his waiting
motur. "Himyra, Aphur, and Robur stand ready to aid you in all things
toward the rescue of our cousin. Jason need but say the word."
"Presently," said Croft, "when I sit in the presence of Gaya and Robur,
my true friends."
Suddenly he found himself yearning for the compassion of the gentle,
brown-haired matron, Robur's wife, who ere this had listened with
patient understanding to his troubles--had aided him more than she
knew herself in Naia's wooing. He laid a hand on Robur's knee as the
Aphurian drove the motur up the easy grade of the embankment to reach
the thoroughfare fronting the Na. "Then, Rob, must you aid me both as a
man and an avenger indeed."
"Zitu!" Robur eyed him. "Are you, then, so broken?"
Croft's expression hardened, his voice deepened.
"Aye--I am shaken, Rob, but--once let my course in this be plain, and
you shall find me far from a broken reed."
"Hai!" Robur nodded. "That is better--more like the old Jason. For a
moment you dismayed me."
He reached the top of the embankment and increased the motur's speed.
In through the wide doors of the palace, with their doglike guardians
of stone, and their weblike wings, to the red court where blue men
sprinkled water upon the ruddy pavement, he drove. Past sentries armed
with spears and short swords, who sprang to swift attention at sight
of Aphur's governor, and the Mouthpiece of Zitu--the wonder worker of
their nation, descending from one of his own creations--he led Croft
into a private wing of the palace, and through it to the inner court,
where Gaya waited on a couch beneath a striped awning, close to the
sun-kissed waters of the bathing pool.
Croft's heart swelled as he once more entered the well-known lounging
place. Here Naia and Robur and he had played at ball more than once
together. Here it was she had called him Aquor, when they bathed. And
in those shimmering waters he had caught his "little silver fish".
For a moment his eyes dimmed as he bent above Gaya's hand, in silent
salutation, not trusting himself to speak--so that, moved by a swift
emotion, the woman caught his face as he raised it between her palms
and kissed him on the cheek.
"Jason, my friend," she said softly, "take thought that the ways of
Zitu are past understanding, and that from this further ordeal now laid
upon you may come a double peace."
"Hai!" exclaimed Robur quickly. "Give heed to her, Jason. At times she
seems given prophetic vision. Perchance this double peace is for thee
and Tamarizia also."
"Zitu grant it," said Croft, deeply affected by Gaya's greeting. "It is
of that we must speak after I have made certain things plain."
Robur nodded. Gaya returned to the couch. The two men drew other seats
beside her, and Croft narrated his story.
"First in my mind comes this meeting with the woman herself. Since she
journeys first to Berla, it is certain some time must still elapse ere
she goes to her hunting lodge. And as regards the meeting itself, here
is what I propose." He rapidly outlined a plan for sending a Tamarizian
party into the mountains north of Cathur, and at the last he mentioned
Koryphu's name.
* * * * *
"Hai!" Robur's face lighted. "Now, by Zitu, Jason, you have found the
proper man. True is he in his heart, as I believe, and a sufferer
from his brother's treason. He should welcome this task as a means
of proving his loyalty to his nation and in so much reestablishing
himself--and where were a better agent to represent us before this
unclean woman, by whom his brother was disgraced?"
"Naia brought the man to my mind," said Jason, unwilling to appropriate
the credit.
"Aye"--Gaya smiled--"the step savors of a woman. Kalamita will gain
small satisfaction when she meets him face to face. It is a proper
choice."
"He lies at Scira?" Robur questioned.
Croft nodded. "Aye--I have visited him in spirit inside the last five
days--and found him busy with tablets and scrolls, more student than
man of affairs."
"Then," Robur declared with quick decision, "we go to Scira and lay the
matter before him without delay."
"Nay"--Croft shook his head--"first shall I be present in Berla in my
own fashion when Naia arrives. Meanwhile, Robur, you and I arrange
other details for the mission to this meeting, and prepare to reopen
the shops."
For a moment Robur regarded him out of narrowed eyes, and then he
nodded. "Has the Mouthpiece of Zitu some new device for the making, he
will find me ready to work with him upon it as in the past."
Jason smiled at his ready acceptance. There had been no time when
he had failed to find Robur's interest in the modern innovations he
had introduced on Palos lacking, or had been denied his aid in their
production. The Aphurian was of a most progressive mind.
"Nay," he said now, "I know not, nor will till after this meeting with
the Zollarian woman. And after that it may be I shall revisit earth."
"Earth!" Robur exclaimed. "When last you attempted such a matter, the
thing was an affair of Zitrans. Think you--"
"Hold, Rob," Jason interrupted. "Within the last cycle--I have visited
and conversed with a man of earth in the spirit rather than the flesh."
Gaya caught her breath sharply. Both she and Robur knew the history of
Croft's former mundane existence. Yet now she seemed shaken.
"Jason," she faltered, "as man I know you, yet are there times when to
me you seem more like to a spirit in man's form even as on a time Zud
of Zitra said." Her eyes were wide.
Croft turned to her.
"Man is a spirit, Gaya, my friend and wife of my all but brother," he
said slowly. "Yet now my spirit is heavy, in that I am a man bereft.
Wherefore, ere this thing be finished, I shall work in body and spirit
to regain what I have lost."
"Enough," Robur prompted. "This is between ourselves. Man thou art, and
husband and father. This visit to earth has somewhat to do with a new
device?"
"Aye--should nothing develop from the meeting after Koryphu's return,
if he accepts. Rob, have you stores in plenty of metals, rubber, and
cloth?"
"Aye, in plenty--and if not, since Koryphu's mission will take the best
part of a Zitran to arrange and carry out, it were possible to put
double shifts at the forges and send the weavers to their looms."
"Then do so," Jason accepted, filling his chest with a heavy
inhalation, "for it is in my mind that ere Naia and Jason, Son of
Jason, shall see Aphur again strange things shall be seen in the skies."
"In the skies!" Robur cried, his dark eyes flashing.
"Aye," said the Mouthpiece of Zitu, "in the skies."