Contents

I (untitled) 5

II Too Much Static 8

III Yuri or Formis? 14

IV The Coup D’etat 18

V Lost Amid the Rocks 27

VI The Vairkings 36

VII Radio Once More 42

VIII But Why Radio? 49

IX A Prisoner 60

X The Siege of Sur 69

XI Att the Terrible 80

XII Companions in Misery 85

XIII Further Progress 93

XIV Old Friends 101

XV Plans for Escape 108

XVI Afterthoughts 117

XVII The Battle for Vairkingi 124

XVIII The Fall of Vairkingi 133

XIX The Battle in the Air 142

XX The Whoomangs 149

XXI Souls? 160

XXII Flight 169

XXIII Luno and Beyond 180

XXIV The Lobsteroid Circuit 189

XXV All Kinds of Trouble 199

XXVI The Debacle 206

XXVII Peace on Poros 217

[Illustration: Venusian Ant]

I

“It’s too bad that Myles Cabot can’t see this!” I exclaimed, as my eye

fell on the following item:

_SIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD_

_Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The Harvard College Radio

Station has for several weeks been in receipt of fragmentary signals

of extraordinarily long wave-length, Professor Hammond announced

yesterday. So far as it has been possible to test the direction of the

source of these waves, it appears that the direction has a twenty-four

hour cycle, thus indicating that the origin of these waves is some

point outside the earth._

_The university authorities will express no opinion as to whether or

not these messages come from Mars._

Myles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance, was

competent to surmount these difficulties, and thus enable the Cambridge

savants to receive with clearness the message from another planet.

Twelve months ago he would have been available, for he was then quietly

visiting at my farm, after five earth-years spent on the planet Venus,

where, by the aid of radio, he had led the Cupians to victory over their

oppressors, a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven

the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had won and wed the

Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son to occupy the throne of Cupia.

While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio set and a

matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had (presumably) shot

himself back to Poros on the night of the big October storm which had

wrecked his installation.

I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented on Cabot’s

absence. Her response opened up an entirely new line of thought.

Said she: “Doesn’t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn’t here suggest to

you that this may be a message, not from Mars, but from him? Or perhaps

from the Princess Lilla, inquiring about him in case he has failed in

his attempted return?”

That had never occurred to me! How stupid!

“What had I better do about it, if anything?” I asked. “Drop Professor

Hammond a line?”

But Mrs. Farley was afraid that I would be taken for a crank.

That evening, when I was over in town, the clerk in the drug store

waylaid me to say that there had been a long-distance phone call for me,

and would I please call a certain Cambridge number.

So, after waiting an interminable time in the stuffy booth with my hands

full of dimes, nickels, and quarters, I finally got my party.

“Mr. Farley?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Professor Kellogg, O. D. Kellogg,” the voice replied.

It was my friend of the Harvard math faculty, the man who had analyzed

the measurements of the streamline projectile in which Myles Cabot had

shot to earth the account of the first part of his adventures on Venus.

Some further adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay on

my farm.

“Professor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the air,” the voice

continued.

“Yes,” I replied. “I judged as much from what I read in this morning’s

paper. But what do _you_ think?”

Kellogg’s reply gave my sluggish mind the second jolt which it had

received that day.

“Well,” he said, “in view of the fact that I am one of the few people

among your readers who take your radio stories seriously, I think that

Hammond is getting Venus. Can you run up here and help me try and

convince him?”

And so it was that I took the early boat next morning for Boston, and

had lunch with the two professors.

As a result of our conference, a small committee of engineers returned

with me to Edgartown that evening for the purpose of trying to repair

the wrecked radio set which Myles Cabot had left on my farm.

They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting apparatus, and

so—after the fallen tower had been reerected and the rubbish cleared

away—they had devoted their attention to the restoration of the

conversational part of the set.

To make a long story short, we finally restored it, with the aid of some

old blue prints of Cabot’s which Mrs. Farley, like Swiss Family

Robinson’s wife, produced from somewhere. I was the first to try the

earphones, and was rewarded by a faint “bzt-bzt” like the song of a

north woods blackfly.

In conventional radioese, I repeated the sounds to the Harvard group:

“Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah.

Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dit dit. Dah-dit-dah-dit

dit-dah dah-dit dit dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah

dah-dit-dit-dit dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah

dah-dit-dit-dit-dah dah-dah-dah.”

A look of incredulity spread over their faces. Again came the same

message, and again I repeated it.

“You’re spoofing us!” one of them shouted. “Give _me_ the earphones.”

And he snatched them from my head. Adjusting them on his own head, he

spelled out to us, “C-Q C-Q C-Q D-E C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T—”

Seizing the big leaf-switch, he threw it over. The motor-generator began

to hum. Grasping the key, the Harvard engineer ticked off into space:

“Cabot Cabot Cabot D-E—”

“Has this station a call letter?” he hurriedly asked me.

“Yes,” I answered quickly, “One-X-X-B.”

“One-X-X-B,” he continued the ticking “K.”

Interplanetary communication was an established fact at last! And not

with Mars after all these years of scientific speculations. But what

meant more to me was that I was again in touch with my classmate Myles

Standish Cabot, the radio man.

The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied by a

telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my farm.

During the weeks that followed there was recorded Myles’s own account of

the amazing adventures on the planet Venus (or Poros, as its own

inhabitants call it,) which befell him upon his return there after his

brief visit to the earth. I have edited those notes into the following

coherent story.

II

TOO MUCH STATIC

Myles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the latest developments

of modern terrestrial science for the benefit of the Cupian nation. He

was the regent of Cupia during the minority of his baby son, King Kew

the Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his

absence. The last of the ant-men and their ally, the renegade Cupian

Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt to escape by flying

through the steam-clouds which completely hem in continental Poros. What

lay beyond the boiling seas no man knew.

During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting

apparatus, with which he had shot himself off into space on that October

night on which he had received the message from the skies: “S O S,

Lilla.” A thunderstorm had been brewing all that evening, and just as

Myles had placed himself between the coordinate axes of his machine and

had gathered up the strings which ran from his control levers to within

the apparatus, there had come a blinding flash. Lightning had struck his

aerial.

How long his unconsciousness lasted he knew not. He was some time in

regaining his senses. But when he had finally and fully recovered, he

found himself lying on a sandy beach beside a calm and placid lake

beneath a silver sky.

He fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly, where he was and how he

had got here.

Suddenly, however, his ears were jarred by a familiar sound. At once his

senses cleared, and he listened intently to the distant purring of a

motor. Yes, there could be no mistake; an airplane was approaching. Now

he could see it, a speck in the sky, far down the beach.

Nearer and nearer it came.

Myles sprang to his feet. To his intense surprise, he found that the

effort threw him quite a distance into the air. Instantly the idea

flashed through his mind: “I must be on Mars! Or some other strange

planet.” This idea was vaguely reminiscent of something.

But while he was trying to catch this vaguely elusive train of thought,

his attention was diverted by the fact that, for some unaccountable

reason, his belt buckle and most of the buttons which had held his

clothes together were missing, so that his clothing came to pieces as he

rose, and that he had to shed it rapidly in order to avoid impeding his

movements. He wondered at the cause of this.

But his speculations were cut short by the alighting of the plane a

hundred yards down the beach.

What was his horror when out of it clambered, not men but ants! Ants,

six-footed, and six feet high. Huge ants, four of them, running toward

him over the glistening sands.

Gone was all his languor, as he seized a piece of driftwood and prepared

to defend himself.

As he stood thus expectant, Myles realized that his present position and

condition, the surrounding scenery, and the advance of the ant-men were

exactly, item for item, like the opening events of his first arrival on

the planet Poros. He even recognized one of the ant-men as old Doggo,

who had befriended him on his previous visit.

Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been naught but a

dream; a recurring dream, in fact? Were his dear wife Lilla and his

little son Kew merely figments of his imagination? Horrible thought!

And then events began to differ from those of the past; for the three

other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced alone. By the agitation of the

beast’s antennae the earth man could see that it was talking to him. But

Myles no longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he had

contrived and built during his previous visit to that planet, so as to

talk with Cupians and Formians, both of which races are earless and

converse by means of radiations from their antennae.

So he picked up two sticks from the beach, and held them projecting from

his forehead; then threw them to the ground with a grimace of disgust

and pointed to his ears.

Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian shorthand on the

silver sands the message: “Myles Cabot, you are our prisoner.”

“What, again?” scratched Myles, then made a sign of submission.

He dreaded the paralyzing bite which Formians usually administer to

their victims, and which he had twice experienced in the past; but,

fortunately, it was not now forthcoming.

The other three ants kept away from him as Doggo led him to the beached

airplane, and soon they were scudding along beneath silver skies,

northward as it later turned out.

Far below them were silver-green fields and tangled tropical woods,

interspersed with rivulets and little ponds.

This was Cupia, his Cupia. He was home once more, back again upon the

planet which held all that was dear to him in two worlds.

His heart glowed with the warmth of homecoming. What mattered it that he

was now a prisoner, in the hands (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies,

the Formians? He had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once

more he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla.

Poor girl! How eager he was to reach her side, and save her from that

peril, whatever it was, which had caused her to flash that “S O S” a

hundred million miles across the solar system from Poros to the earth.

He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since his departure, only

a few sangths ago. How was it that the ant-men had survived their

airplane journey across the boiling seas? What had led them to return?

Or perhaps these ants were a group who had hidden somewhere and thus had

escaped the general extermination of their race. In either event, how

had they been able to reconquer Cupia? And where was their former

leader, Yuri, the renegade Cupian prince?

These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in upon the

earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a captive, through the

skies.

He gazed again at the scene below, and now noted one difference from the

accustomed Porovian landscape, for nowhere ran the smooth concrete roads

which bear the swift two-wheeled kerkools of the Cupians to all parts of

their continent. What uninhabited portion of Cupia could this be, over

which they were now passing?

Turning to Doggo, Myles extended his left palm, and made a motion as

though writing on it with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

But the ant-man waved a negative with one of his forepaws. It was

evident that there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles

would have to wait until they reached their landing place; for doubtless

they would soon hover down in some city or town, though just which one

he could not guess, as the country below was wholly unfamiliar.

Finally a small settlement loomed ahead. It was of the familiar style of

toy-building-block architecture affected by the ant-men, and, from its

appearance, was very new. On its outskirts further building operations

were actively in progress. Apparently a few survivors of the accursed

race of Formians were consolidating their position and attempting to

build up a new empire in some out-of-the-way portion of the continent.

As the earth-man was turning these thoughts over in his mind the plane

softly settled down upon one of the flat roofs, and its occupants

disembarked. Three of the ants advanced menacingly toward Myles, but

Doggo held them off. Then all of the party descended down one of the

ramps to the lower levels of the building.

Narrow slitlike window openings gave onto courtyards, where fountains

played and masses of blue and yellow flowers bloomed, amid gray-branched

lichens with red and purple twig-knobs. It was in just such a garden,

through just such a window, that he had first looked upon the lovely

blue-eyed, golden-haired Lilla, Crown Princess of Cupia.

The earth-man sighed. Where was his beloved wife now? That she needed

his help was certain. He must therefore get busy. So once again he made

motions of writing on the palm of his left hand with the thumb and

forefinger of his right; and this time the sign language produced

results, for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room.

It was a plain bare room, devoid of any furniture except a small table,

for ant-men have no use for chairs and couches. The sky outside was

already beginning to pinken with the unseen sun.

With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was to be Cabot’s

quarters. Then, with another wave, he pointed to the table, where lay a

pad of paper and stylus, not a pencil-like stylus as employed by the

Cupians, but rather one equipped with straps for attaching it to the

claw of a Formian.

Even so, it was better than nothing. The earth-man seized it eagerly,

but before he could begin writing an ant entered bearing a Cupian toga,

short-sleeved and bordered with Grecian wave designs in blue. Myles put

on this garment, and then quickly filled a sheet with questions:

“How is my princess and my son, the baby king? Whence come all you

Formians, whose race I thought had been exterminated? What part of Cupia

is this? What is this city? Where is Prince Yuri? And what do you intend

to do with me _this_ time?”

Then he passed the paper and stylus over to his old friend Doggo. They

were alone together at last.

The ant-man’s reply consumed sheet after sheet of paper; but, owning to

the rapidity of Porovian shorthand, did not take so very much more time

than speaking would have required. As he completed each sheet he passed

it over to Myles, who read as follows:

“As to your princess and your son, I know not, for this is not Cupia. Do

you remember how, when your victorious army and air navy swept to the

southern extremity of what had been Formia, a few of our survivors rose

in planes from the ruins of our last stronghold and braved the dangers

of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our leader was

Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne of Cupia, splendid even

in defeat.

“It was his brain that conceived our daring plan of escape. If there

were other lands beyond the boiling seas, the lands which tradition

taught were the origin of the Cupian race, then there we might prosper

and raise up a new empire. At the worst we should merely meet death in

another form, rather than at your hands. So we essayed.

“Your planes followed us, but turned back as we neared the area of

terrific heat. Soon the vapor closed over us, blotting our enemies and

our native land from view.”

For page after page Doggo, the ant-man, related the harrowing details of

that perilous flight across the boiling seas, ending with the words:

“Here we are, and here are you, in Yuriana, capitol of New Formia. But

how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have arrived here on this continent in

exactly the same manner and condition in which I discovered you in _old_

Formia eight years ago?”

When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he in turn took

the pad and stylus and related how he had gone to the planet Minos

(which we call the Earth) to learn the latest discoveries and inventions

there, and how his calculations for his return to Poros had been upset

by some static conditions just as he had been about to transmit himself

back. Oh, if only he had landed by chance upon the same beach as on his

first journey through the skies!

Wisely he refrained from mentioning the “S O S” message from Lilla. But

his recollection of her predicament spurred him to be anxious about her

rescue.

His immediate problem was to learn what the ant-men planned for him; so

the concluding words which he wrote upon the pad were: “And, now that

you have me in your power, what shall you do with me?”

“Old friend,” Doggo wrote in reply, “that depends entirely upon Yuri,

our king, whose toga you now have on.”

III

YURI OR FORMIS?

The earth-man grimaced, but then smiled. Perhaps, his succeeding to the

toga of King Yuri might prove to be an omen.

“So Yuri is king of the ants?” he asked.

“Yes,” his captor replied, “for Queen Formis did not survive the trip

across the boiling seas.”

“Then what of your empire?” Myles inquired. “No queen. No eggs. How can

your race continue? For you Formians are like the ants on my own planet

Minos.”

Doggo’s reply astounded him.

“Do you remember back at Wautoosa, I told you that some of us lesser

Formians had occasionally laid eggs? So now behold before you Doggo,

Admiral of the Formian Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.”

This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always regarded the

Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they performed in their own

country the duties assigned to men among the Cupians. Furthermore, all

Formians, save only the reigning Formis herself, were called by the

Porovian pronoun, which corresponds to “he” in English.

When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment, he warmly

congratulated his friend by patting him on the side of the head, as is

the Porovian custom.

“Doggo,” he wrote, “this ought to constitute you a person of some

importance among the Formians.”

“It _ought_ to,” the ant-man replied, “but as a matter of fact, it

merely intensifies Yuri’s mistrust and hatred of me. Now that I am

mother of the queen, he fears that I may turn against him and establish

Formis in his place as the head of an empire of the Formians, by the

Formians, and for the Formians exclusively.”

“Why don’t you?” Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be a bully good idea,

and incidentally a solution of his own difficulties.

But Doggo wrote in horror, “It would be treason!” Then tore up all the

correspondence. It is difficult to inculcate the thought of independence

in the mind of one reared in an autocracy.

The earth-man, however, persisted.

“How many of the council can you count on, if the interests of Yuri

should clash with those of Formis?”

“Only one—myself.”

And again Doggo tore up the correspondence.

Myles tactfully changed the subject.

“Where is the arch-fiend now?” he asked.

“We know not,” the Formian wrote in reply. “Six days ago he left us in

his airship and flew westward. When he failed to return, we sent out

scout planes to search for him, and we have been hunting ever since.

When we sighted you on the beach this morning we thought that you might

be our lost leader, and that is why we landed and approached you.”

At about this point the conversation was interrupted by a worker ant who

brought food: roast alta and green aphid milk. With what relish did the

earth-man plunge into the feast, his first taste of Porovian delicacies

in many months.

During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty of writing

and eating at the same time. But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and

stylus and wrote:

“Have you ever known me to fail in any undertaking on the planet Poros?”

“No,” the ant-man wrote in reply.

“Have you ever known me to be untrue to a principle, a cause, or a

friend?”

“No,” Doggo replied.

“Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as

in name.”

“It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he did not tear up

the correspondence.

“Treason?” Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he would have spoken

it with scorn and derision. “Treason? Is it treason to support your own

queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians?

Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia.

Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?”

This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo signified an

affirmative. And thus there resulted further correspondence.

“Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?”

The ant-man indicated that he could.

“If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will

assert herself, if given half a chance.”

So the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had the pink light

of Porovian evening faded from the western sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps

were lit. The night showed velvet-black through the slit-like windows.

And still the two old friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the

Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man

whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros.

Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators ceased

their labors. All was arranged for the _coup d’ etat_.

They tore into shreds every scrap of used paper, leaving extant merely

the ant-man’s concluding words: “Meanwhile you are my prisoner.”

Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered by a worker ant,

whom he inaudibly directed to bring sufficient draperies to form a bed

for the earth-man. These brought, the two friends patted each other a

fond good night, and the tired earth-man lay down for the first sleep

which he had had in over forty earth hours.

It hardly seemed possible! Night before last he had slept peacefully on

a conventional feather-bed in a little New England farmhouse. Then had

come the S O S message from the skies; and here he was now, millions of

miles away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the

concrete floor of a Porovian ant-house. Such are the mutations of

fortune!

With these thoughts the returned wanderer lapsed into a deep and

dreamless sleep.

When he awakened in the morning there was a guard posted at the door.

Doggo did not show up until nearly noon, when he rattled in, bristling

with excitement.

Seizing the pad he wrote: “A stormy session of the Council of Twelve! We

are all agreed that you must be indicted for high crimes and

misdemeanors. But the great question is as to just what we can charge

you with.”

“Sorry I can’t assist you,” the earth-man wrote. “How would it be if I

were to slap your daughter’s face, or something? Or why not try me for

general cussedness?”

“That is just what we finally decided to do,” the ant-man wrote in

reply. “We shall try you on general principles, and let the proper

accusation develop from the evidence.

“At some stage of the proceedings it will inevitably occur to some

member of the council to suggest that you be charged with treason to

Yuri, whereupon two members of the council, whom I have won over to the

cause of my daughter, will raise the objection that Yuri is not our

king. This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis. If

you will waive counsel the trial can take place to-morrow.”

“I will waive anything,” Myles replied, “counsel, immunity, extradition,

anything in order to speed up my return to Cupia, where Lilla awaits in

some dire extremity.”

“All right,” Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an end. The morrow

would decide the ascendancy of Myles Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the

new continent.

IV

THE COUP D’ETAT

The next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the council chamber

of the dread thirteen: Formis and her twelve advisers. The accused was

placed in a wicker cage, from which he surveyed his surroundings as the

proceedings opened.

On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by a scarlet

canopy, which set off the perfect proportions of her jet-black body. On

each side of her stood six refined and intelligent ant-men, her

councillors. One of the twelve was Doggo.

Messenger ants hurried hither and thither.

First the accusation was read, Myles being furnished with a written

copy.

The witnesses were then called. They were veterans who had served in the

wars in which Cabot had twice freed Cupia from the domination of its

Formian oppressors. They spoke with bitterness of the downfall of their

beloved Formia. Their testimony was brief.

Then the accused was asked if he wished to say anything in his own

behalf. Myles rose, then shrugged his shoulders, sat down again, and

wrote: “I fully realize the futility of making an argument through the

antennae of another.”

Whereupon the queen and the council went into executive session. Their

remarks were not intended for the eyes of the prisoner, but he soon

observed that some kind of a dispute was on between Doggo, supported by

two councillors named Emu and Fum on one side, and a councillor named

Barth on the other.

As this dispute reached its height, a messenger ant rushed in and held

up one paw. Cabot’s interpreter, not deeming this a part of the

executive session, obligingly translated the following into writing:

The messenger: “Yuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his command that

Cabot die.”

Barth: “It is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye, members of the

council, that when we fled across the boiling seas under the gallant

leadership of Prince Yuri, the man with the heart of a Formian, he

brought with him one of those powerful radio sets invented by the beast

who is our prisoner here to-day.

“Supporters of Yuri still remained among the Cupians, and he has been in

constant communication with these ever since shortly after our arrival

here. From them he learned of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet

Minos.

“Then Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest to him suspected

that he had gone back across the boiling seas to claim as his own the

throne of Cupia. But we hesitated to announce this until we were sure,

for we feared that some of our own people would regard his departure as

desertion. Yet who can blame him for returning to his father-land and to

the throne which is his by rights?”

To which the messenger added: “And he offers to give us back our own old

country, if we too will return across the boiling seas again.”

“It is a lie!” Doggo shouted.

“Yuri, usurper of the thrones of two continents. Bah!” shouted Emu.

“Yuri, our rightful leader,” shouted Barth.

“Give us a queen of our own race,” shouted Fum.

“Release the prisoner,” shouted the Queen.

And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation, for his

interpreter at this juncture stopped writing and obeyed the queen. The

earth-man was free!

With one bound he gained the throne, where fighting was already in

progress between the two factions. Barth and Doggo were rolling over and

over on the floor in a death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to

the rear of the stage, closely guarded by Emu and Fum.

Seizing one of the pikes which supported the scarlet canopy, Myles

wrenched it loose and drove it into the thorax of Barth. In another

instant the earth-man and Doggo stood beside the queen.

Ant-men now came pouring into the chamber through all the entrances,

taking sides as they entered and sized up the situation. If it had still

been in vogue among the Formians to be known by numbers rather than

names, and to have these identifying numbers painted on the backs of

their abdomens followed by the numbers of those whom they had defeated

in the duels so common among them, then many a Formian would have “got

the number” of many another, that day.

As Myles battled with his pike beside Formis, queen of the ants, he

could well imagine the conflicting shouts of “Death to the usurper!”

“Formia for the Formians!” “Long Live Queen Formis!” “Long live Prince

Yuri!” which must have resounded throughout the chamber; but to him all

was silence, for he was without the antennae wherewith to pick up the

radiated speech of the contenders.

So as he wielded the pike in silence, he had opportunity to reflect on

the incongruity of his position. Here was he, Myles Cabot regent of

Cupia, the man who had driven the ants forever from their dominion over

his people, and yet now fighting side by side with their leaders

defending the life of their queen.

Yet was she not the daughter of Doggo his only friend among the ants?

And would not her victory mean the speedy return of Myles to his own

continent?

As the earth-man jabbed to right and left among the supporters of his

enemy Yuri there came to his human ears the sound of rifle fire. It

might prove a godsend or an added menace, according to whose paw held

the rifle. But no chances must be taken on the life of the queen. So

Myles made frantic signs to Doggo of impending danger.

The queen and her supporters, outnumbered, were fighting with their

backs to one of the walls of the room. A short distance along this wall

on the side where Cabot stood was a door; so he now began edging his way

along the wall to this door. This was not difficult, as the ant-men,

having only their mandibles to fight with, greatly respected his pike.

He gained the door and passed by, but not through it. The shots came

nearer and nearer. Then Doggo opened the door and slipped through with

Formis and the rest of her immediate supporters; the door closed, and

Myles Cabot stood guarding the exit with his pike—alone against the

hordes of antdom.

He had no difficulty in defending himself from those in front of him,

but the ants who began to close in on him from each side were a

different matter.

He received several bad scratches on his shoulders and hips, and his

toga was ripped and torn; but fortunately he was able to ward off their

paralyzing bites. Nevertheless, his enemies pressed so close that it was

difficult for him to manipulate his long weapon. In fact, it was only

the jamming of the ants upon one another and upon the dead bodies of

their slain comrades that kept them from him.

He now was holding his pike by the middle, with both hands, using one

end as a club and the other as a dagger. The black circle of the ants

was steadily closing in on him. A pair of mandibles from the left

snapped angrily within a few inches of his throat. Instantly he drove

the point of his lance home between horrid jaws. But at the same instant

its butt was seized by a pair of jaws to his right. He could not pull it

free.

At last he was weaponless, and not only that, but pinned to the wall by

the shaft of his own pike as well.

And then to his surprise the ants before him separated as at a command.

The butt of his lance was dropped. As Myles wrenched the point loose

from the dead body of the Formian in which it had been stuck, and gazed

expectant down the long aisle which had opened before him, he saw

confronting him at the other end an ant-man armed with the peculiar type

of claw-operated rifle which the Formians had adapted from those which

Myles himself had built for Cupian use in the first war of liberation.

Briefly the two surveyed each other. Then slowly the rifle was raised

until its aim settled squarely upon the earth-man’s chest.

Instantaneously the glance of Myles Cabot swept the black hordes which

hemmed him in on each side. There was no escape!

Yet how can man die better,

Than facing fearful odds?

With a wild warwhoop, which was utterly lost on the radio-sense of the

assembled Formians, Myles charged down the narrow way, straight into the

muzzle of the rifle of his antagonist. The astonished ant-man hastily

pulled the trigger. A shot rang out. But still the impetuous rush of

Myles continued, and before the rifle could be discharged a second time,

Myles had driven his spear deep into the leering insect face.

The Formian staggered back. The rifle clattered to the floor. The

earth-man, not waiting to withdraw his own weapon, stooped, seized the

fallen firearm, and wheeled to confront his enemies, who fell back in a

snarling arc before this new menace.

Myles stood now in one of the entranceways of the council chamber, and

thus was secure against flank attack. But not against an assault from

the rear. In fact, even as he stood thus irresolute, a rattling noise

behind him in the hallways revealed to his human ears the approach of a

new enemy. What was he to do? To remain as he was meant _carte blanche_

to this newcomer, whereas to turn about would mean that those within the

chamber would undoubtedly rush him.

In this predicament Myles grasped his gun firmly, and wheeled backward

to the left until he was flattened against the wall of the corridor in

which he was standing. From this position he could turn his head

slightly to the left and see into the council chamber, or to the right

and look down the long hall.

Directly opposite him was one of those narrow, slitlike windows, so

typical of Porovian architecture. It was too narrow for the passage of

the huge body of an ant-man, but a human being could conceivably squeeze

through. Thus it offered a means out, a way of escape.

The lone ant in the corridor was joined by the others. They and their

compatriots within the chamber slowly closed in on the cornered

earth-man.

There was no time to speculate upon the depth of the drop outside. With

a suddenness which caused his aggressors to recoil momentarily, Myles

dashed across to the window, forced his way through, and, still grasping

his rifle, plunged headlong two stories into a clump of gray lichens in

the courtyard below.

Hastily extricating himself, he looked up at the window which he had

just quitted. There, framed by the masonry, was the head of an ant-man.

A quick shot, and the head stared at him no more.

Before another Formian could take post at the window to observe the

direction of Cabot’s departure, the latter ran quickly from the

courtyard garden into the interior of the building again.

His first thought was to join Doggo, Queen Formis, and their faction;

so, taking a firm hold on his rifle, he hurried in the direction in

which they had made their escape.

The first ant-man whom he met within the building was Emu, one of the

three members of the council who had been a party to the original

conspiracy. This ant was fleeing from something in very evident terror,

so that it was all Cabot could do to stop him, but the threat of

rifle-shooting was finally effective.

Then, extracting a cartridge from the magazine of his firearm, Cabot

scratched upon the smooth wall the brief question: “What of Doggo and

Formis?”

Emu snatched the cartridge and quickly wrote the reply: “Dead, both

dead. The revolution has collapsed. Flee for your life!”

Then the ant-man clattered rapidly off down the corridor, taking the

precious cartridge with him. He had not been too flustered to think of

that.

Myles heaved a sigh of self-reproach at having brought his friends to

this sad end. But then, he reflected, Doggo had been in a situation in

which conflict with the authorities and then execution would have been

inevitable sooner or later. The revolution had been his one best bet,

and it was no one’s fault that it had failed.

Now that Doggo and Formis were dead, there was no longer any obligation

binding Myles to stay and fight. In fact, he owed it to his loved ones

in Cupia to preserve his own life until he could find some way of

rejoining them. So he set out to escape from the city.

For some time he threaded the corridors without meeting any ants,

although occasionally there drifted down to him the sounds of fighting

on the upper levels. But at last, as he rounded a turn, he saw before

him a Formian, and it was one whom he recognized, namely the messenger

ant who had brought to the trial the radiogram from Prince Yuri. The

ant’s back was toward him. Cabot cautiously withdrew a step; then

raising his rifle, he again advanced and fired full at his enemy.

But the hammer merely clicked. There was no explosion. The magazine was

empty.

Cabot’s first impulse was to throw the weapon away. Then he reflected

that even an unloaded gun might well serve to awe his enemies and hold

them at a distance; so he retained it.

By this time the messenger ant had disappeared around a turn farther

down the corridor, so Cabot hastened after him; for it had suddenly

occurred to the earth-man that this ant was undoubtedly returning to the

hidden radio set, whence he had come.

Radio! Means of a communication with his own continent, if he could but

reach the instruments!

The messenger had announced at the trial that Yuri was in Cupia and knew

of Cabot’s presence in this new land. Thus it was certain that complete

wireless communication had been established between the two continents.

But, equally, undoubtedly, this communication had been established at a

wave-length which kept the knowledge of Cabot’s return pretty much a

secret of Prince Yuri and his own followers. This information would

probably induce the renegade prince to speed up whatever nefarious

schemes he had afoot in Cupia.

But if Cabot could once get on the air and adjust the Formian sending

set to the wave-length of Luno Castle, or run it through all its

available wave-lengths, he could broadcast to the Cupian nation the fact

that he was alive and well, and would return again—though he knew not

how—to lead them. Such news should strengthen the hearts of the loyal

Cupians to rally to the cause of his wife, the Princess Lilla, and his

son, the baby king.

So he quickened his pace, and soon caught sight again of the messenger

ant. From, then on he stealthily stalked his quarry, who led him through

many a winding passage-way, before finally they emerged from the city

into the open fields.

Beyond the fields lay the rocky foothills of a mountain range. Caution

dictated that Cabot remain under the shelter of the city walls until the

Formian disappeared among the rocks. Then he ran lightly across the

plain to take up the trail once more.

As he, too, gained the rocks, he glanced back to see if his departure

had been noted. No, there was no sign of life. Evidently the fighting

had drawn all the inhabitants to the interior of the city. So, with a

sigh of relief, Myles hurried after the messenger ant.

At the place where Myles had noticed the Formian enter the rocks there

was the well-defined beginning of a trail; so up this winding trail he

sped, and soon caught sight of his quarry. From that time on more

caution was necessary, but nevertheless the pursuer was able to keep the

pursued always in sight until, just after a turn in the road had

obscured his view, Myles came upon a place where the way forked.

Pausing, he scratched his head in dismay, then carefully examined the

ground for evidences of claw marks; but none were apparent. Dropping to

his hands and knees, the earth-man scrutinized the dirt with even more

care; and at last, imagining that he observed some slight scratches to

the right, he took the right-hand branch.

It was necessary for him to proceed with great rapidity, if he would

catch up with the messenger ant, so Myles broke into a dog trot. On and

on he ran; up, into the rocky mountains.

At last he sat down exhausted on a large boulder, just as the silvery

sky turned crimson in the west, and darkness crept up out of the east.

It was quite evident that he had taken the wrong road at the fork, and

also that he must now spend the night, half clad and alone amid the

rocks of the mountains of this strange new continent.

V

LOST AMID THE ROCKS

But although Myles Cabot was lost, he was free for the first time since

his return to Poros.

So not disheartened he arose and proceeded along the trail, looking for

food and a place to spend the night; and presently came upon a “green

cow,” as he was wont to call the aphids which are kept both by Cupians

and Formians for the honey-dew which they produce.

It made no objection to Cabot’s approach, nor to his manipulating the

two horns which projected from its back, with the result that the tired

man was presently regaling himself with a satisfying drafts of green

“milk” from a leafy cup.

The bush, which furnished the leaf to fashion the cup, closely resembled

the tartan bushes of Cupia, whose heart-shaped leaves are put to so many

uses in that country. Myles Cabot accordingly stripped off a

considerable portion of the foliage, and lay down in a bed of warm,

thick green for the night.

The morning dawned silver bright. Myles drew another meal from the

grazing aphid and then pressed on up the rocky defile. He did not dare

return for fear of meeting ant-men; and besides, now that a night’s rest

had to some extent tempered his chagrin at not catching up with the

particular ant-man whom he had been pursuing, he could not be sure he

had taken the wrong road after all. So on he went, up the rocky path.

Around noon the path petered out at the top of an eminence which gave

Cabot an opportunity to survey the surrounding scenery. To the westward

lay the city from which he had fled. What had become, he wondered, of

the supporters of his friend Doggo and of Formis, the ant-queen, whose

cause he had espoused? According to Emu, Doggo and Formis were both

dead, or Cabot would never have deserted them.

Cabot turned his attention next to the northward. To his great joy, on

the next peak to the one where he sat, there stood two rough wooden

towers, spanned by an aerial.

He decided to cut across country and attempt to approach the

installation by stealth. So he started scrambling down into the

intervening valley.

Never before had the earth-man traveled through such difficult country.

As soon as he had gone a short distance below the summit he encountered

a continuous expanse of boulders, ranging in size from a man’s head to

twenty feet or more in diameter, and piled aimlessly together. Lying

crossways in every direction, upon and between the rocks, were the gaunt

skeletons of fallen trees in all stages of decay.

The sharp edges of the rocks cut and tore the bare feet of the

earth-man, while the splinters of the fallen trees jabbed his body. Time

and again he slipped and nearly fell into one of the chasms which yawned

between the boulders, and on one of these occasions he must have

inadvertently let go the ant-rifle which he had treasured so far so

carefully, for presently he noticed that it was gone.

But to all this there was one extenuating feature, although Myles did

not realize it at the time, namely that his physical pain and the need

for constant vigilance on his part so occupied his mind as to spare him

from the mental pain which had been his almost constant companion since

his return to Poros. The attention necessary to avoid misjudging a jump,

or slipping into a dark deep hole, or being impaled by a tree-branch,

crowded out of his mind even his great love and anxiety for Princess

Lilla and Baby Kew.

Through the maze of obstacles Cabot toiled all day long.

Oh, to reach the radio station established by his enemy Yuri, and get

into touch with his own continent. Thus he could learn what was

happening in Cupia, and also give word of his own safe arrival on the

planet. Safe, hm! He smiled grimly at the word.

“I _must_ reach that station,” he thought, “and then, when I have talked

with Cupia, I must secure a Formian plane by hook or by crook, and brave

the boiling seas. If ants have crossed those seas safely, if Yuri has

safely crossed them twice, then why cannot I, the Minorian?”

As he communed thus with himself, a faint pink flush appeared in the

sky. Slowly, painfully he continued his way. Gradually the pink light

turned to crimson in the west and then darkened to a royal purple.

Gradually the black night crept up out of the east. But also gradually

the boulders became smaller and smaller as he clambered upward, until

just as darkness finally enveloped the planet, the tired man gained the

smooth rocks of the summit, and lay down amid some leaves.

He had had nothing to eat or drink since his breakfast of green milk

that morning. He had undergone an exhausting journey. His feet were

bruised and cut, his body covered with innumerable scratches, and he was

weary, thirsty and hungry. But he had almost reached the point which he

had been seeking, and this thought comforted him as his eyes closed in

healthy and dreamless sleep.

Next morning early he was up, rested, parched and ravenous. As the first

faint pink tinged the eastern sky Myles Cabot shook off the leaves and

completed the ascent.

It only required a few moments for him to reach the top, a narrow

plateau, about a mile in length, near the farther end of which there

stood a small cabin with its two towers and aerial.

With a cry of joy—which he knew the earless Formians could not hear—he

raced toward it. The huge chain and lock, which secured its door on the

outside, indicated that it was unoccupied, and a glance through the

narrow slitlike windows confirmed this.

The glance through the window also revealed the presence of a complete

radio sending and receiving set of the same general hook-up which he

himself had adapted for the use of Cupians and Formians on the other

continent.

“Imitation is the most insulting form of flattery,” as Poblath, the

Cupian philosopher, used to say. Yet Cabot was willing to brook the

insult, until suddenly it dawned on him that the set had no earphones

nor microphone!

Of course not, since it was designed for use by creatures who possessed

neither ears nor vocal speech! Gone then was all hope of news from home,

even if he could succeed in breaking in. At the most, he would merely be

able, by interposing an interrupter in the primary or secondary of that

aerial circuit, to send a dot-dash message across the boiling seas—I use

the term “aerial circuit,” because “antenna circuit” would be ambiguous,

as the latter term might have either its conventional earth

significance, or might mean the circuit in which the Formian operator

would place _his_ living antennae in sending and receiving.

Well, even a chance to send to Cupia a message to the effect that he was

free and safe, would be worth something. Myles Cabot tried the slitlike

windows, and finding them too narrow, slid quickly down the near-by

slope, soon to return laboriously with a twenty-pound rock, which he

heaved against the door.

Again and again he heaved the rock, until he had the satisfaction of

seeing the door crack and then give. Finally a large enough opening was

effected to afford passage for a man, although not for a Formian; and

through this breach Myles Cabot squeezed into the station.

A few minutes’ scrutiny familiarized him with the details of the

hook-up, the generator set, and the trophil-engine. Everything was in

running order and the fuel tank was full. So he fashioned a rude sending

key, broke one of the circuits and tied in the key. Then he warmed-up

and cranked the trophil-engine, clutched-in the generator, threw the

main switch, and sat down to flash across the seas the message which was

to hold firm his partisans in Cupia until he could join them.

But at that instant an arrow hummed through the hole in the door, and

struck quivering in the bench beside him.

Cabot sprang to his feet and slid home the huge beam which barred the

door on the inside. This was a precaution which he had neglected to take

before. Next he filled the hole in the door with some boards hastily

wrenched from the work-bench. Then picking up a Formian rifle and

bandolier which hung on the wall, he made his way to one of the slit

windows on the same side as the door and peeped cautiously out.

The result was immediate; an arrow sped through the window and passed

just above his head. But even as he ducked instinctively, he saw a dark

form moving behind a bush at some distance outside; so quickly rising

again, he discharged the rifle square at the bush.

There came a cry of pain, followed by silence. And there were no more

feathered incursions.

Not knowing whether his enemy had been disposed of, or whether the

cessation of the stream of arrows was merely a ruse to entice him from

his shelter, Myles did not dare venture forth to investigate.

From the first time the arrow had struck the work-bench until this final

squelching of the unknown enemy, Myles had been engrossed in action. Now

came the reaction, as he realized how narrowly he had twice escaped from

death in the last few minutes. He shuddered at the thought, and turned

pale; not, however, at the danger to himself, but rather at the danger

to his loved ones in Cupia. He must keep himself alive until he could

reach and save them from whatever peril it was that had caused Lilla to

send the SOS which had recalled him to Poros.

But being ever the inquisitive scientist, his attention was soon

distracted by the arrow which stood sticking to the bench.

Its shaft was of some hard and very springy wood. Its tip was of chipped

stone resembling flint, and bound to the shaft by vegetable fibers. Its

“feathers” were thin laminae of wood, doubtless because birds, and hence

true feathers, are unknown on Poros.

Why on earth—or rather, on Poros—were the ant-men employing such crude

weapons? Rifles they had aplenty, and powder was easy to manufacture.

Besides what did they know of bows and arrows, which had never been used

by them, even in the days before Cabot the Minorian introduced firearms

upon the planet?

Thus these arrows presented a perplexing problem. But a practical job

remained to be performed before Myles was to have any time for abstract

questions. The message to Cupia must be sent off.

The earth-man returned to the radio set. The trophil-engine and the

generator were still running. The whole apparatus appeared to be

functioning properly. And so Myles ticked off into space the following

message:

CQ, CQ, CQ, DE, Cabot, Cabot, Cabot. I have returned to Poros from

Minos. I am on the continent of the Formians. I am in complete control

there.

That was a lie, but it would serve to hearten his supporters, or throw

the fear of the Supreme Builder into the partisans of Yuri, whichever it

reached. The message continued:

Do not expect me soon, for first I must consolidate what I have gained

here. But when I do come, Yuri beware! My friends, hold out until

then. I have spoken.

DE, Cabot.

This message he sent again and again, at every wavelength of which the

installation was capable. He repeated and repeated it until he was

tired.

And then, for the first time, he remembered his thirst and his hunger.

Fortunately there was both food and drink in the shack; so Cabot

satisfied his wants, and then went at his message again.

When at last he paused once more for a rest, and shut off the

trophil-engine, his human ears caught a familiar rattling sound.

Instantly he realized the situation; one or more ant-men were

approaching. Sure enough, as he looked out of a window in the direction

of the sound, he saw two of these creatures trotting toward him across

the plateau.

Both carried rifles slung at their backs; so without waiting for their

nearer approach Myles opened fire. One of the Formians dropped, but the

other turned and fled; and in spite of the hail of bullets which the

earth-man sent after it, reached the crest in apparent safety, and

disappeared from view.

Cabot knew what that meant to him. It portended the early return of the

fugitive ant with scores of his fellows, to lay siege to the radio

station. Then a doubt occurred to him. What if these ants were members

of Doggo’s faction, and he had killed a friend?

And so at the risk of his life, he unbarred the door and rushed out to

inspect the dead body. But it was no ant whom he knew. Time would tell

whether the surviving ant would return with friends or foes. Meanwhile

Cabot must get busy with his message. So at it again he went, first

barring the door again.

From time to time he rested and listened for the approach of Formians.

Occasionally he ate and drank. During his longer rests, he carted the

rifle, the ammunition and some provisions to a point quite a distance

down the mountainside, and cached them there; for he had formulated a

plan of escape. But mostly he stuck to his signaling. All Cupia, or such

of it as might still possess long-distance radio sets in spite of the

renewed dominion of Yuri, must be made to know of the return of Myles

Cabot from the earth.

Night fell, and with it came a respite from the danger of Formian

attack; for these creatures would never venture forth in the darkness

without lights, and lights would betray them. Myles spent part of the

night in sending his message, part in watching for approaching lights,

and part in dozing.

Finally along toward morning he set about wrecking the set, for he did

not wish the Formians to get into communication with Cupia and undo the

effect of his own message by pointing out its falsity. Accordingly he

smashed the tubes, unwound the inductances and transformers, cut all the

wiring into little bits, bent the plates of the condensers, chiseled

through the coils of the generator, pounded the trophil-engine to

pieces, and drained the trophil tank. It would be many sangths before a

new radio set could be built, if indeed these Formians knew enough of

the art to ever build another.

His work of destruction completed, he sat down to wait; but the inaction

palled on him, and before he knew it he had fallen sound asleep.

He awakened with a start. It was broad daylight. He listened. There was

much rattling outside. So he walked to the door, unbarred it, and

stepped out.

He was not afraid; for on the evening before he had nailed above the

door two crossed sticks, the Porovian equivalent of a flag of truce.

At a short distance stood a band of thirty or forty ant-men, their

leader holding a pair of crossed sticks. Accordingly the ragged

earth-man advanced. Not one of them did he recognize, but this was no

indication of their identity.

Were these members of the Yuri faction, he wondered, or of the faction

recently captained by the now deceased Doggo? If the former, they were

conquerors intent on adding him to their list of conquests; but if the

latter, then they might be fugitives like himself. It behooved him to

find out.

So he proceeded to a slight depression in the mountain-top, very near

the group of Formians. This depression contained soil, and in it he

scratched in Porovian shorthand the words: “Yuri or Doggo?” Then pointed

to his message and withdrew for a slight distance.

One of the ant-men advanced alone to the depression, stared at the

words, rubbed one part of them, and returned to his comrades, at which

Cabot in turn advanced.

The one word remaining written in the dirt was “Yuri!”

So these were victorious enemies, rather than fugitive friends.

Waving a signal that the interview was at an end, Myles Cabot returned

with dignity to the shack and pulled down his crossed sticks.

But then, instead of entering, he suddenly dashed around the house and

slid down the mountainside amid a shower of pebbles.

Instantly the Formian pack rushed after him, but they were too late; for

by the time they had gained the crest he was safely under cover of the

bushes, making his way down the slope with his rifle, ammunition, and

provision. The ant-men evidently feared an ambush, for they did not

follow.

This side of the mountain (the eastern) was wooded, instead of the

almost impassable boulders over which he had climbed up the other side

two days ago. Accordingly the descent was easy, almost pleasant. Soon he

struck a path beside a little brook, and followed it until it led out

onto the fertile eastern plains which he had observed when first he had

topped this range of hills.

Beneath a large tree beside the brook, at the edge of the plain, Myles

Cabot stopped and sat down for lunch; and it was while seated thus, with

his back against the tree trunk, that an arrow suddenly whistled through

the woods and imbedded itself in the bark just above his head.

Startled, he sprang to his feet, seized his rifle, and looked around.

A second arrow sped through the air, and this one did not miss him.

In due course of time, Myles regained consciousness. He was lying on the

ground beneath the same tree. There was an ugly gash in his head. His

rifle, ammunition, and food were gone. His face and body were covered

with clotted blood, and he felt very faint.

With difficulty he dragged himself to the stream, tore off a piece of

his ragged toga, and washed away some of the gore. But it required an

almost superhuman effort. He lay on the bank and panted. His head swam.

His surroundings began to blur and dance about. And then he swooned

again.

After what seemed an interminable time he became dimly conscious that he

was lying on something less hard than the ground. Soft arms were around

him. Some one was crooning to him sweet words and low.

Was this a dream? Or was he back once more in Cupia with his loved ones?

VI

THE VAIRKINGS

Myles Cabot opened his weary eyes. Around him hung barbaric tapestries.

He was lying on a couch covered by the same materials.

Seated on the couch beside him was a creature human in form, but covered

with short golden-brown fur. It seemed to be a young woman of some

species. But of what species?

Myles threw back his head and studied the creature’s face, expecting to

see the prognathous features of some anthropoid ape. But no; for eyes,

nose, mouth, ears, and all were human, distinctly human, and of high

type. They might have been the features of an earth-girl, except for the

fact that the short brown fur persisted on the face as on the rest of

the body. The general effect reminded Cabot for all the world of a teddy

bear. Yes, that is what this creature was, an animated human teddy bear.

Seeing Cabot looking at her, the creature smiled down at him, and

murmured some strange words in a soothing musical voice. Also she

stroked his cheek with one of her furry paws.

At this moment the hangings parted, and there stepped into their

presence a man of the species, wearing a leather tunic and leather

helmet, and carrying a wooden spear. Bowing low before the furry lady,

he spoke to her in the same soft tongue which she had employed in

addressing Myles.

Not a single syllable was familiar to the earth-man, but he caught the

words “Roy” and “Vairking” repeated a number of times, and also made out

that the furry man had addressed the furry lady as “Arkilu.”

Arkilu now arose from the couch and, taking a tablet and a stick of

charcoal from a near-by stand, wrote some characters upon a sheet of

paper and handed it to the man, who bowed and withdrew.

The pad and charcoal gave Myles an idea. If he was to stay any length of

time with these creatures he had better start in at once learning both

their written and their spoken language.

And perhaps, when he had mastered it, he could persuade these kindly yet

warlike folk to assist him against the Formians. He judged that they

were kindly, because of the actions of the furry lady; and they were

warlike, because of the habiliments of the furry man.

Putting his idea into action, Myles sat up, gathering a gaudy blanket

about his shoulders, and pointed to the writing materials. With a furry

smile Arkilu brought them to him.

Having been through this game once before, he knew just where to begin.

He pointed to the couch, and handed her the pad and charcoal.

Whereupon the lady spoke some absolutely unintelligible sound, and wrote

upon the pad, in unmistakable Cupian shorthand, the familiar Cupian word

for couch!

Myles could hardly believe his senses. He stared at the paper, rubbed

his eyes, and then stared again. How was it that this creature employed

a written character identical with the word used by another race, far

across the impassable boiling seas, to designate the same thing? But

perhaps this was merely a coincidence.

So he pointed to another object. Again there came a strange sound,

coupled with the familiar Cupian symbol.

The experiment was repeated and repeated, always with the same result.

Then Cabot himself took the writing materials and inscribed a number of

words which sounded somewhat alike in Porovian antenna speech. To these

words Arkilu gave an entirely different set of similar sounds.

“Aha,” said Cabot to himself, “this language employs exactly the same

words as are used on our continent, but translates the sound-symbols of

these words into entirely different sounds!”

Cabot’s interpretation of the situation proved correct in the main,

which fact made it extremely easy for him to master the new language.

Already he could carry on a written conversation with his benefactress;

and before long it became possible, by dint of great care, for him to

talk aloud in simple sentences.

Of course, all this progress was not made at one sitting, for Arkilu

insisted that her patient take frequent rests. From time to time meals

were served by female attendants, meals abounding in strange meats,

mostly lobsterlike, but some resembling fish and flesh. Each night

Arkilu departed, leaving a furry man-creature on guard, with leather

armor and wooden spear.

As he mastered the language, Myles learned the following facts from

Arkilu. Her people were called the Vairkings, and she was the eldest

daughter of Theoph, their ruler. The Vairkings were a primitive race.

Apparently they knew nothing of any of the metals, but had made

considerable progress in the arts of tanning, weaving and carpentry.

The fact that they had made cloth accounted for the fact that they had

paper. Their leather they had obtained from the hides of a large variety

of nocturnal reptiles, known indiscriminately as “gnoopers,” and ranging

in size from that of a cat to that of an elephant, though all possessed

the common characteristics of small heads, long necks, stumpy legs, and

long heavy tails.

She explained as follows to her guest how he had been rescued: “Our home

is in the city of Vairkingi, far away, a little east of north from here.

We Vairkings stick pretty close to the cities, for the great open spaces

of our land are inhabited by predatory tribes of wild creatures very

like ourselves, called Roies. The leader of one of the largest tribes of

these, Att the Terrible, sought alliance with my father, and, as the

price of this alliance, a union between Att and myself. But I spurned

him.

“His hordes then attacked Vairkingi, but we repulsed them and drove them

to the southward. At present we are on a punitive expedition into their

territory. Our warriors are under the command of Jud the Excuse-Maker;

and my father (Theoph the Grim) and I have accompanied the headquarters,

so as to witness the downfall of Att the Terrible.

“It was undoubtedly one of the Roies who wounded you, but the approach

of our men drove them off before they had time to do you further harm.

It was I myself who found you lying beside the brook, and I would fain

possess you as my own, you who are unlike any man whom I have ever seen.

Whence come you?”

“I am from the planet Minos, O Arkilu the Beautiful,” replied Cabot.

But the princess incredulously shook her head, saying, “I know not

whereof you speak, nor know I the meaning of the word ‘planet.’ There

are no other worlds than this continent which we inhabit, surrounded by

boiling seas on all sides; though rumor says that strange beasts from

somewhere have landed and are building a city to the eastward of the

mountains.”

“Rumor has it right,” Myles laconically interjected, “for I had just

escaped from those beasts when I was wounded by the arrow of the Roies.”

Arkilu opened her eyes in wonder.

“Tell me about them,” she breathed.

So the earth-man sat up, swathed in the gaudy tapestries of the

Vairkings, and related to the furry princess the story of his adventures

on the planet Poros. It was difficult to put it all into words within

her comprehension, for neither she nor her people could know anything of

radio, of the solar system, of airplanes, or of rifles. Accordingly his

account ran about as follows:

“Know, O Princess, that there is another land called ‘Minos’, or in our

own language ‘the earth’, far above those silver clouds, one million

times the distance from here to your capital city, Vairkingi. Also there

is, beyond the boiling seas, another land much like this, where dwell

hairless men called ‘Cupians’, and also the black beasts to whom you

have referred. These beasts are called ‘Formians’.

“Cupians and Formians cannot talk with their mouths as you and I. Nor do

they have ears to hear with. Instead, they communicate by a kind of

soundless magic, called ‘radio’. But they write the same language as do

you Vairkings.

“On the earth I was master of this magic, radio. But one day my own

magic proved too strong for me, and shot me through the skies to Formia,

where the Formians captured me. I found that the Cupians were the slaves

of the Formians.

“By means of radio I was able to talk with both races. I escaped from

the Formians. By other magic, which could throw small black stones

faster than arrows and with more deadly results, I led the Cupians to

victory over their oppressors. Their princess, Lilla, became my bride,

and our son, Kew, now sits on the throne of Cupia. But Prince Yuri, a

renegade Cupian, rebelled against us, for he too loved Lilla!”

Myles continued: “Yuri and his allies possessed magic wagons which could

fly through the air—”

“What is ‘fly’?” Arkilu interrupted. “If you mean ‘swim’ it is

impossible, for no creature ever lived which could swim in air.”

“Ah, but this is magic, you must remember,” he assured her. “Have you

Vairkings never seen any peculiar black objects sailing through the sky

since the rumored arrival of the Formians on your continent?”

Arkilu pursed her lips in thought. “Yes,” she admitted, “there have been

rumors of that too.”

“Well,” he continued, “those were the flying wagons of the Formians.

When we finally defeated them and drove them across the boiling seas in

these wagons, I revisited the planet earth by means of the radio magic

of which I have told you. But on my attempted return to Cupia I landed

on your continent instead, by mistake, and was again captured by my

Formian enemies. Of my escape from them, my wounding by the Roy arrow,

and my rescue by you, you already know.”

Arkilu smiled ingratiatingly. “You are a pretty spinner of tales.

Therefore I shall keep you to amuse me. Methinks that even Theoph the

Grim will revel in your fantasies.”

And she leaned over and caressed Cabot’s cheek with one furry hand. He

cringed at the touch, yet strove not to offend her, whose continued

friendship might mean so much toward his return to his own country.

He wanted her good will and her influence; but, out of loyalty to Lilla,

he dreaded her love.

To change the subject he inquired: “When shall I be well enough to get

up?”

“You are well enough now,” she replied “Try to stand.”

At Myles’s insistence, a leather suit was sent for; he soon found

himself dressed like a soldier of the Vairkings. Thus arrayed he stood

and walked about a little inside the tent, but Arkilu would not permit

him to venture outside until he should be stronger.

Before leaving for the night Arkilu announced: “Tomorrow our expedition

starts back for Vairkingi. When we reach the city I shall marry you, for

I have decided that I love you.”

VII

RADIO ONCE MORE

So ARKILU, the furry beauty, planned to marry Myles Cabot, the

earth-man, he who already loved and was wed to Lilla of Cupia! A happy

prospect indeed! Yet he dared not repulse the Vairkingian maiden, lest

thereby he lose his chance of returning to his home and family.

For at last he had formulated a plan of action, namely to arm the hordes

of Vairkingia, lead them against the ant-men, seize an ant-plane and

with it fly back to Cupia. So, for the present, he appeared to fall in

with the matrimonial whim of the princess.

Early the next morning, however, as he was prowling around inside the

tent, testing his weak legs, he overheard a conversation on the outside,

which changed the situation considerably.

“But, father,” remonstrated a voice which Myles recognized as that of

Arkilu, “I found him, and therefore he is mine. I want him. He is

beautiful!”

“Beautiful? Humph!” a stern male voice sarcastically replied. “He _must_

be, without any fur! Oh, to think that my royal daughter would wish to

wed a freak of nature, and a common soldier at that!”

“He’s _not_ a common soldier!” asserted the voice of Arkilu. “He wears

clothes merely so as to preserve his health for my sake.”

“Well, a sickly cripple then,” answered her father’s voice, “which is

just as bad. At all events, Jud is the leader of this expedition, and

therefore this captive belongs to him. You can have him only if Jud so

wills. It is the law.”

Myles Cabot stealthily crossed the tent and put his eye to an opening

between the curtains at the tent opening. There stood the familiar

figure of Arkilu, and confronting her was a massive male Vairking. _His_

fur, however, was snow white, so that his general appearance resembled

that of a polar bear. His face was appropriately harsh and cold. This

was Theoph the Grim, ruler of the Vairkings!

The dispute continued. And then there approached another man of the

species. The newcomer, black-furred, was short, squat, and gnarled, yet

possessed of unquestionable intelligence and a certain dignity which

clearly indicated that he was of noble rank. He wore a leather helmet

and carried a wooden lance.

Theoph the Grim hailed him with: “Ho, Jud, what brings you here?”

Jud raised his spear diagonally across his chest as a salute, and

replied: “A change of plans, excellency. Upon reaching the river, I

decided that it would be wiser not to return to Vairkingi by that

route.”

“Really meaning,” Arkilu interposed, with, a laugh, “that you found it

impossible to throw a bridge across at that point.”

“Why do you always doubt the reasons for my actions?” Jud asked in an

aggrieved tone.

“You wrong me,” she replied, “I never doubt your reasons. Your _reasons_

are always of the best. What I doubt is your _excuses_.”

“Enough, enough!” the king shouted. “For I wish to discuss more

immediate matters than nice distinctions of language. Jud’s reasons or

excuses, or whatever, are good enough for me. Jud, I wish to inform you

that my daughter has recently captured a strange furless being, whom it

is my pleasure to turn over to you. I have not yet seen this oddity—”

“Father, please!” Arkilu begged, but at this juncture, Myles,

exasperated by Theoph’s remarks, parted the tent curtains and stepped

out.

“Look well, oh, king!” he shouted. “Here stands Myles Cabot, the

Minorian, beast from another world, freak of nature, sickly cripple,

common soldier, and all that. Look well, O king!”

“A bit loud mouthed, I should say,” Theoph the Grim sniffed, not one

whit abashed.

“Watch him crumple at the presence of a real man,” added Jud the

Excuse-Maker.

Suiting the action to the word, the latter stepped over to Myles and

suddenly slapped him on the face.

As a boy, the earth-man had often seen larger boys point to their cheek

or shoulder, with the words: “There is an electric button there. Touch

it and something will fly out and hit you.” But never as a boy had he

dared to press the magic button, for he could well imagine the result.

Such a result now occurred to Jud; for, the instant his fingers touched

Cabot’s cheek, out flew Cabot’s clenched fist smack to the point of

Jud’s jaw, and tumbled him in the dust.

Jud picked himself up snarling, shook himself, and then rushed bull-like

at the earth-man, who stood his ground, ducked the flying arms of his

antagonist, and tackled him as in the old football days at college. Jud

was thrown for a four-yard loss with much of the breath knocked out of

his body.

Theoph the Grim, with a worried frown, and Arkilu the Beautiful, with an

entranced smile, stood by and watched the contest.

The Vairking noble lay motionless on his back as Myles scrambled to his

knees astride the other’s body and placed his hands on the other’s

shoulders. But suddenly, the underdog threw up his left leg, caught

Myles on the right shoulder and pushed him backward. In an instant both

men were on their feet again, glaring at each other.

Then they clinched and went down once more, this time with Jud on top.

Theoph’s look changed to a smile, and Arkilu became worried. But before

Jud had time to follow up his advantage, Cabot secured a hammerlock

around his neck and shoulders, and then slowly forced him to one side

until their positions were reversed, and the shoulders and hips of the

furry one were squarely touching the ground.

In a wrestling match, this would have constituted a victory for Myles

Cabot, but this was a fight and not a mere wrestling match; so the

earth-man secured a hammerlock again and turned Jud the Excuse-Maker

over until he lay prone, whereupon the victor rubbed the nose of the

vanquished back and forth in the dirt, until he heard a muffled sound

which he took to be the Vairkingian equivalent of the “’nuff” so

familiar to every pugnacious American schoolboy.

His honor satisfied, Cabot arose, brushed himself off, and bowed to the

two spectators. Jud sheepishly got to his feet as well, all the fight

knocked out of him. Theoph stared at the victor with displeasure and at

his own countryman with disgust, but Arkilu rushed over to Cabot with a

little cry, flung her arms around him, and drew him within the tent.

As they passed through the curtains, Myles heard Jud the Excuse-Maker

explaining to the king: “I decided to let him beat me, so that thereby I

might give pleasure to her whom I love.”

Inside the tent, Arkilu bathed the scratches and bruises of the

earth-man, and hovered around him and fussed over him as though he had

accomplished something much more wonderful than merely to have come out

on top in a schoolboy rough-and-tumble fight.

Myles was very sorry that it all had happened. In the first place, he

had lost his temper, which was to his discredit. In the second place, he

had made a hero of himself in the eyes of the lady whose love he was

most anxious to avoid. And in the third place, he had fought the man who

was best calculated to protect him from that undesired love. Altogether,

he had made a mess of things, and all he could do about it was meekly

submit to the ministrations of the furry princess. What a life!

Finally Arkilu departed, leaving Cabot alone with recriminations for his

rashness, longings for his own Princess Lilla, and worries for her

safety.

The next day the expedition took up its delayed start homeward, Jud

having found a route which required no alibis. The tents were struck,

and were piled with the other impedimenta on two-wheeled carts, which

the common soldiers pulled with long ropes.

In spite of Arkilu’s pleadings, Myles was assigned to one of these

gangs, Theoph grimly remarking: “If the hairless one is well enough to

vanquish Jud, he is well enough to do his share of the work.”

Jud explained to Arkilu that the real reason why he had suggested this

was that he sincerely believed that the exercise would be good for

Cabot’s health.

During one of the halts, when Jud happened to be near Cabot’s gang, the

earth-man strode over to the commander, who instinctively cringed at his

approach.

“I’m not fighting to-day,” Myles assured the Vairking with an engaging

smile, “but may I have a word with you?”

So the two withdrew a short distance out of earshot of the rest, and

Myles continued: “I do not love Arkilu the Beautiful. You do. Let us

understand one another, and help one another. You assist me _to_ keep

away from the princess, and I shall assist you _by_ keeping away from

the princess. Later I shall make further suggestions as to how we can

cooperate to mutual advantage. I have spoken.”

Jud stared at him with perplexed admiration.

“Who are you?” he asked, “who stands unabashed in the presence of kings

and nobles, who addresses a superior without permission, and yet without

offensive familiarity?”

“I am Cabot the Minorian,” the other replied, “ruler over Cupia, a

nation larger and more powerful than yours. A race of fearsome beasts

have landed on the western shores of your continent. They are enemies of

mine, and will become enemies of yours as they extend their civilization

and run counter to yours.”

“Impossible!” Jud exclaimed. “For how could these mythical creatures

cross the boiling seas to land on our shores?”

“By magic,” answered Myles, “magic which they stole from me. And they

held me prisoner until I overthrew their magic and escaped, to be found

by your expedition.”

“Then you are a magician?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, that explains how you defeated me in combat yesterday,” Jud

asserted with a relieved sigh.

“We will let it go at that,” Myles agreed, smiling. “But to continue,

let me frankly warn you that unless you destroy these Formians, they

will eventually destroy you.

“They now possess magic against which you Vairkings would be powerless;

magic methods of soundless speech; magic devices for transmitting that

speech as far as from here to Vairkingi; magic wagons which can travel

through the air and at such a speed that they could go from here to

Vairkingi and back in a twelfth part of a day; and magic bows which

shoot death-dealing pellets faster than the speed of sound, and which

can outrange your bows and arrows ten to one.

“But if you will give a workroom and materials—and keep Arkilu away from

me—I can devise magic which will overcome _their_ magic, and which will

make Vairkingi the unquestioned master of this whole continent, in spite

of the Roies and the Formians. Then I shall seize one of the Formian

magic wagons, fly back in it to my own country, and leave you in

peaceful dominion over this continent. What do you say?”

“I say,” the Vairking replied, “that you are an amusing fellow, and an

able spinner of yarns. But you talk with evident earnestness and

sincerity. Therefore I shall give you your workshop and your materials;

but on one condition, namely, that you entertain us likewise. I have

spoken.”

And thus it came to pass that Jud the Excuse-Maker attached the

earth-man to his personal retinue, and placed a laboratory at his

disposal upon the return arrival of the expedition at Vairkingi.

This city was built entirely of wood. It was surrounded by a high

stockade, and was divided by stockades into sections, each presided over

by a noble, save only the central section which housed the retinue of

Theoph himself. Within the sections, each family had its own walled-off

enclosure. All streets and alleys passed between high wooded walls. The

buildings and fences were carved and gaudily colored.

As the returning expedition approached the great wall, they were met by

blasts of trumpet music from the parapets. Then a huge gate opened, and

they passed inside. Here they quickly separated, and each detachment

hastened to the quarter of the nobleman from whom they had been drawn.

Jud and his detachment proceeded down many a high-walled street until

they came to a gate bearing the insignia of Jud himself.

Inside there were more streets of the same character through which Jud’s

retinue dispersed to the gates of their own little inclosures until Jud

and Myles Cabot were left alone.

The noble led his new acquisition to a gate.

“This inclosure is vacant,” Jud explained. “It will be yours. Enter and

take possession. Within, you will find a small house and a shop. Serving

maids will be sent from my own household to make you comfortable. Repair

to my palace to-night and tell me some more stories. Meanwhile good-by

for the present.”

And he strode off and disappeared around a bend in the street.

Cabot passed in through the gate.

He found a well, from which he drew water to fill a carefully fashioned

wooden pool. Scarce had he finished bathing, when a group of furry girls

arrived from the house of his patron bearing brooms and blankets and

food.

One of them also bore a note which read as follows:

If you love me you will find a way to reach me.

Arkilu.

“And if not, what?” said Myles to himself.

After he had rested and dined, and the place had been made thoroughly

neat, all the girls withdrew save the one who had brought the note. She

informed him that her name was “Quivven” and that she had been ordered

to remain in the inclosure as his servant.

She was small and lithe. Her hair was a brilliant yellow-gold, and her

eyes were blue. If it had not been for her fur, she would have passed

for a twin to his own Lilla. This fact brought an intense pang to him

and caused such a wave of homesickness that he sat down on a couch and

hid his face in his hands.

But the pretty creature made no attempt to comfort him. Instead, she

merely remarked half aloud to herself: “I wonder what Arkilu can

possibly see in him. Even Att the Terrible is much more handsome.”

Finally, Myles arose with more determination and courage than he had

felt at any time since his return to Poros.

Guided by Quivven, he set out for Jud’s dwelling, firmly resolved to

take steps that very night, which should result eventually in his

reaching Cupia, and rescuing his family from the renegade Yuri.

Jud’s palace was elaborate and barbaric. Jud himself was seated on a

divan surrounded by Vairkingian beauties. They all were frankly

inquisitive to see this hairless creature from another world, yet they

rather turned up their pretty noses at him when they found him dressed

like a common soldier.

Cabot regaled the gathering with an account of his first arrival on

Poros and of the two wars of liberation which had freed Cupia from the

domination of the ants. All the while he was most eager to get down to

business with the noble; yet he realized that he had been employed for a

definite purpose, namely story-telling, and that his first duty was to

please his patron.

Finally, the ladies withdrew, and Myles Cabot, the radio man, began the

first discussion of radio that he had undertaken since his return to

Poros.

VIII

BUT WHY RADIO?

Three fields of “_magic_” were open to him, rifle-fire, aviation, and

radio. The opportunity for building a workable airplane among people who

knew no metal arts was obviously slight. To make a radio set should be

possible, if he could find certain minerals and other natural products,

which ought to be available in almost any country. But easiest of all

would be to extract iron from the ore which he had observed on his

journey across the mountains, forge rifle barrels and simple breech

mechanisms, and make gunpowder and bullets.

Therefore it is plain why he did not attempt to build airships, but it

is hard to see why he did not make firearms rather than a radio set.

Firearms would have enabled him to equip the Vairkings for battle

against the Formians, whereas radio could serve no useful purpose at the

moment.

Yet, he took up radio. I think the explanation lies in two facts: first,

he wanted above all to get in touch with his home in Cupia, find out the

status of affairs there, and give courage to his wife and his

supporters, if any of them remained; and secondly, he was primarily a

radio engineer, and so his thoughts naturally turned to radio and

minimized its difficulties. There would be plenty of time to arm the

Vairkings after he found out how affairs stood at home.

So he broached to Jud his project of constructing a radio set, which

would necessitate extended journeys in search of materials. But the

Vairking noble was singularly uninterested.

“I know that you can spin interesting yarns,” he said, “but I do not

know whether you can do magic. Why, then, should I deprive myself of the

pleasure of listening to your stories, just for the sake of letting you

amuse yourself in a probably impossible pursuit? First, you must

convince me that you are a magician; then perhaps I may consent to your

attempting further magic.”

“Very well,” the earth-man replied. “Tomorrow evening I shall display to

you some of the more simple examples of my art. Meanwhile, I shall spend

my time concocting mystic spells in preparation for the occasion.”

Then he bowed and withdrew, thanking his lucky stars that he had learned

a few tricks of sleight-of-hand while at college.

Myles now recalled several of these, and devoted most of the succeeding

day to preparing a few simple bits of apparatus. Then he practiced his

tricks before the golden-furred Quivven, to her complete mystification.

That evening, he went again to the quarters of Jud the Excuse-Maker. The

same group was there as on the evening before, and in addition, several

other Vairking men and their wives.

After an introduction by his host, the earth-man started in. First he

did, in rapid succession, some simple variations of sleight-of-hand.

He had wanted to perform the well-known “restoration of the cut

handkerchief,” but unfortunately the Vairkings possessed neither

handkerchiefs nor scissors, and he was forced to improvise a variant.

Taking a piece of stick, which he had brought with him for a wand, he

stuffed a small part of one of the gaudy hangings through his closed

left fist between the thumb and forefinger, so that it projected in a

gathered-up point about two inches beyond his hand. Then pulling the

curtain over toward one of the stone open-wick lamps which illuminated

the chamber, he completely burned off the projecting bit of doth.

Evidently, this was one of Jud’s choicest tapestries, for the noble

emitted a howl of grief and rage, and leaped from his divan, scattering

the reclining beauties in both directions. If he had interfered in time

to prevent the burning, it would have spoiled the trick, but as it was,

the confusion caused by his onrush played right into Cabot’s hands.

Myles stepped back in apparent terror as Jud seized his precious curtain

and hunted for the scorched hole. But there was no hole there; the

curtain was intact.

Jud looked up sheepishly into the triumphant face of his protégé, who

thereupon stated: “You did not need to worry about your property in the

hands of a true magician.”

“Oh, I was not afraid,” Jud the Excuse-Maker explained. “I merely

pretended fear, so as to try and confuse your magic.”

“Please do not do it again,” the earth-man sternly admonished him.

The Vairking noble seated himself again.

His guests were enthralled.

This was a fitting climax for the evening. The amateur conjurer bowed

low and withdrew.

Quivven was waiting for him at his house, and reported that some one had

torn a small piece out of one of the tapestries. Several days later she

found the piece, but alas, there was a hole burnt in the middle of it.

The next morning Jud the Excuse-Maker called at the quarters of Cabot,

the furless. It was a rare honor, so Cabot answered the door in person.

Jud expressed his conviction that the earth-man really was a magician,

after all, and that therefore he—Jud—was agreeable to an expedition to

the mountains in search of rocks whose mystical properties would enable

the performing of even greater magic. It was soon arranged that Cabot,

with a bodyguard of some twenty Vairking soldiers and a low-ranking

officer, should start on the morrow.

Myles was thrilled. Now he was getting somewhere at last! The rest of

the day he devoted to preparing a list of the materials for which he

must hunt.

To make a radio-telephone sending and receiving set, he would need

dielectrics, copper wire, batteries, tubes, and iron. For dielectrics,

wood and mica would suffice. Wood was common, and the Vairkings were

skilled carpenters and carvers. For fine insulation, mica would be

ideal; and this mineral ought to be procurable somewhere in the

mountains, whose general nature he had observed to be granitic.

To make copper wire, he would need copper ore—preferably pyrites—quartz,

limestone, and fuel. The necessary furnaces he would built of brick; any

one can bake clay into bricks.

For cement, Myles finally hit upon using a baked and ground mixture of

limestone and clay, both of which ingredients he would have at hand for

other purposes.

The Vairkings used charcoal in their open fires, and this would do

nicely for his fuel.

For the wire-drawing dies he would use steel. This disposed of the

copper questions, and brought him to a consideration of iron, which he

would need at various places in his apparatus. This metal could be

smelted from the slag of the copper furnaces, using an appropriate flux,

such as fluorspar.

Cabot next turned his attention to his power source. For some time he

debated the question of whether or not to build a dynamo. But how about

the storage batteries? He wasn’t quite sure how to find or make the

necessary red and yellow lead salts for the packing plates.

Thus by the time that Cabot reached the contemplation of having either

to find or make his lead compounds he decided to turn his attention to

primary cells. The jars could be made of pottery, or from the glass

which was going to be necessary for his tubes anyhow. Charcoal would

furnish the carbon elements. Zinc could easily be distilled from

zincspar, if that particular form of ore were found. Sal ammoniac

solution could be made from the ammonia of animal refuse, common salt,

and sulphuric acid.

Mass production of zinc carbon batteries should thus be an easy matter,

and they would serve perfectly satisfactorily, as neither compactness

nor portability was a requisite. The radio man accordingly abandoned the

idea of dynamos and accumulators in favor of large quantities of wet

cells.

The tubes, it appeared to Myles, would present the greatest problem.

Platinum for the filaments, grids, and plates had been fairly common in

nugget form in Cupia, and so presumably could be found in Vairkingia.

Glass, of course, would be easy to make.

Alcohol for laboratory burners could be distilled from decayed fruit.

But the chief stumbling block was how to exhaust the air from his tubes,

and how to secure magnesium to use in completing the vacuum. These

matters he would have to leave to the future in the hope of a chance

idea. For the present there were enough elements to be collected so that

he would be kept busy for a great many days. Accordingly he copied off

the following two lists:

Materials readily available:

Wood

Wood ashes

Charcoal

Clay

Common salt

White sand

Animal refuse

Decayed fruit

Materials to hunt for:

Mica

Copper ore

Quartz

Limestone

Fluorspar

Galena

Zinc ore

Platinum

Chalk

Magnesium

But that afternoon all his plans were disrupted by a message reading:

To The Furless One:

You are directed to appear for my amusement at my palace to-morrow.

Fail not.

Theoph The Grim.

“That puts an end to my trip,” he said to Quivven. “How do you suppose

his majesty got wind that I am a conjurer?”

“One of the guests at the show last night must have told him,” she

replied.

But something in her tone of voice caused Myles to look at her intently,

and something in her expression caused him to say, “You know more than

you tell. Out with it!”

Whereat Quivven shrugged her pretty golden shoulders, and replied, “Why

deceive you? Though you are so stupid that it is very easy. Who brought

you the note from Arkilu the night of your arrival here?”

“You did,” Cabot answered. “Why didn’t I put two and two together

before? Then you are connected in some way with Arkilu?”

She laughed contemptuously. “How did you guess it?” she taunted. “Yes,

one would rather say I am connected in some way with Arkilu; for I am

her sister, set here to spy on you by connivance with the chief woman of

Jud’s servants, who is an old nurse of ours. I am Quivven the Golden

Flame, daughter of Theoph the Grim, and it is from _me_ that he learned

of your mystic abilities. What do you think of _that_, beast?”

“I think,” Myles said noncommittally, “that although you truly are a

golden flame, you ought to have been named ‘Quivven the Pepper Pot’.”

Whereat she suddenly burst into tears and rushed out of the room.

“Funny girl,” Myles commented to himself, as he laid aside the list

prepared for his prospecting trip, and set about the concoction of some

stage properties for his forthcoming command performance before the

King.

It was a sulky Quivven who served his meal that evening, so much so that

Cabot playfully accused her of putting poison in his stew. This did not

render her any more gracious, however.

“If I did not love my sister very much,” she asserted, “I would not

stand for you for one moment.”

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence during which Cabot had an

idea.

So when the food had been cleared away he asked the aureate maiden, “Can

you smuggle a note to your sister for me?”

“Yes,” she assented gloomily, “and I shall tell her how you are treating

me.”

At which he could not refrain from remarking, “Do you know, Quivven, I

believe that you are falling in love with me.”

“You beast!” she cried at him. “Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

And she turned her face to the wall.

“Come, come!” said Cabot soothingly. “I don’t mean to tease you, and we

must both think of your sister. The note. How long will it take you to

deliver it and return?”

“Shall I hurry?” she asked guardedly.

“Yes.”

“Then it will take me less than one-twelfth of a day.”

That would be quite sufficient for his plans. Accordingly he wrote:

Arkilu The Beautiful:

Send word how I can see you after the performance. But beware of Jud.

Cabot The Magician.

This note he folded up, placed it in the palm of Quivven, and closed her

golden fingers over it.

Whereat she sprang back with, “Don’t you dare touch me like that!” and

rushed out of the house, sobbing angrily.

Really, he must be more careful with this delicate creature; for

although her intense hatred furnished him considerable amusement, yet it

was possible to go too far. He must at least be polite to the sister of

his benefactress.

But there was no time to be given over to worrying about Quivven’s

sensitive feelings; for the note had been sent merely to give him a

slight respite from her prying eyes, in order that he might sneak out

for a conference with Jud; of course he had no intention of any secret

tryst with Arkilu. Heaven forbid, when he loved his own distant Lilla so

intensely!

So he hurried to the quarters of the Vairkingian noble, who received him

gladly, being most interested in learning whether there was any rational

explanation to be given to the various magic tricks of the evening

before. But Myles blocked his inquisitiveness by the flat assertion that

all were due to mystic spells and talismans alone, and then got rapidly

down to business, for there was no time to be lost.

Myles told Jud of the note from Theoph the Grim requiring his presence

at the royal palace, and how he suspected that Princess Arkilu was

responsible. Also, he related his discovery that his maidservant was

Quivven the Golden Flame; but he had the decency to refrain from

implicating the head of Jud’s ménage.

“I shall have her removed at once,” the Vairking asserted.

“No, no,” Myles hastily interposed, “that would never do; for now that

we know she is a spy, it will be easy to outwit her. But a new one we

never could be sure of.”

Then he told how he had gotten rid of Quivven for the evening by sending

her with a note to Arkilu. Jud’s brow darkened.

“But,” Myles insisted, “that note will serve a three-fold purpose;

first, it has enabled me undetected to pay this visit to you; secondly,

it will allay Arkilu’s suspicions; and thirdly, it will stir you to

block my appearance before Theoph to-morrow.”

“Oh, I would have done that anyhow,” Jud insisted. “My plans are all

made. I shall send a runner to Theoph, and warn him to search Arkilu’s

room for your note. When he finds the note he will certainly cancel the

arrangements for your performance. Thus will the note serve a _fourth

purpose_.

“Return now to your quarters, and I will send you word of the outcome.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Myles admonished. “For a message from you

would reveal to our fair young spy the fact of my secret interview with

you this evening. Let Theoph himself send the word.”

“So be it. You may count on starting on your expedition to-morrow as

planned. Good luck to you.”

“Good luck to _you_, Jud the Great, and may you win Arkilu the

Beautiful.”

So the earth-man hastened back to his quarters, where Quivven, on her

return, found him placidly reclining on a divan.

For a few minutes they chatted playfully together, and then she suddenly

narrowed her eyelids, looked at him with a peculiar expression, and

asked: “Aren’t you the least bit anxious to know what answer Arkilu made

to your note?”

That was so; he _had_ written Arkilu a note; but now that it had served

its purpose he had completely forgotten about it. How could he square

himself with little Quivven? By flattery?

“Of course I’m anxious to know,” he asserted, “but I was so glad to have

you come back again that for the moment I neglected to ask you.”

Quivven the Golden Flame pouted.

“Now you’re teasing me again,” she said, “and I won’t stand for it.”

“But I really want to know,” he continued with mock eagerness. “Please

do tell me about your sister.”

“I gave her the note—”

Just then there came a loud pounding on the gate outside; so loud, in

fact, that the sound penetrated within the house. Quivven stopped

talking. She and Myles listened intently. The pounding continued.

“Evidently we are to have company this evening,” he remarked, glad to

change the subject.

Quivven replied, “Such a racket at this time of night can mean naught

but ill. Let us approach the gate with care, and question the

intruders.”

So saying, she took down one of the hanging stone lamps and opened the

outside door. It was a typical dark, silent, fragrant Porovian evening,

except for the fact that the darkness was broken by the glare of the

torches beyond the wall, and that the silence was broken by the pounding

on the gate, and that the fragrance was marred by the smoke of Quivven’s

lamp.

“Who is there?” Quivven called.

To this there came back the peremptory shout: “Open quickly, in the name

of Theoph the Grim!”

The golden girl recoiled. Even Cabot himself shuddered as he realized

the evident cause of the disturbance; his plot with Jud had produced

results beyond what they had planned; and Theoph upon seizing the note,

had decided not merely to cancel the sleight-of-hand performance, but

also to place his daughter’s supposed sweetheart under arrest.

“I am afraid your father has intercepted my letter to your sister,”

Cabot explained. “I tell you what! _You_ leave by the rear door, make

your way quickly to Arkilu, and see if the two of you can intercede for

me with your stern parent.”

So saying, he released her. The slim princess handed him the light, and

sped into the interior of the house.

“Cease your noise!” he shouted. “For I, Myles Cabot the Minorian, come

to unbar the gate in person!”

He strode down the path. Quickly he slid the huge wooden bolts, swung

the gate open, and stepped outside, shielding the lamp with one hand to

get a view of the disturbers. But his lamp was instantly dashed from him

and his arms bound behind him.

His captors were about a dozen Vairking soldiers in leather tunics and

helmets, some carrying wooden spears and some holding torches, while

their evident leader was similarly clothed but armed with a sharp wooden

rapier.

As soon as the prisoner was securely bound the guard hustled him roughly

off down the street.

Thus were his plans rudely dashed to the ground. On the preceding night

all had been arranged for his trip to secure the elements for the

construction of a radio set with which to communicate with Cupia and his

Lilla. That morning he had been forced to postpone his trip, in order to

perform before Theoph the Grim. And this evening he was Theoph’s

prisoner, slated for—what?