LOST CONFIDENCES
This is the story told me by the lips of the sorry wreck on the bed,
the spirit that looked out of its eyes--Croft's spirit, as I have
every reason to believe, since he so frankly admitted what he had
done, and because every detail of the narrative itself showed complete
familiarity with the events embraced in the story Croft in his own
earthly body had told me before.
"And that's all--or practically all--Murray," he said at last with a
sigh and laid his cigar aside. "I've done a lot of things since then,
and Tamarizia bids fair to develop into a very up-to-date nation; only
I needed information concerning a lot of things in regard to which
I was lacking. It was to gain this information I reversed my first
experiment in changing bodies. Will you help me to what I need?"
"I'll help you, of course," I told him; "but what about the Mazzerian
invasion?"
He gave me a glance, and the light in his eye was quietly amused.
"Lord, man, I was forgetting. To me it seemed that the moment in which
I knew Naia mine was the logical ending. But we beat them. Hadn't I
gained what I went to Palos to attain? Small chance that Zollaria's
blue rabble could accomplish the revenge for which she schemed.
"Rob and I went to work the next day. We put about a thousand riflemen
on the walls. And then we went outside and set up a lot of posts about
twenty feet from the base of the walls. Ugh!--it was nasty work--with
all those rotting corpses under foot. But we got them up while the
riflemen kept the blue men back out of arrow range, and then we hitched
one end of our wire to an armed motor and pulled it about the walls.
In the meantime, however, we had to repulse an attack. On the second
day Bandhor sent about ten thousand Mazzerians against our defenses,
and we rolled them back considerably less in numbers than when they
started, though I must say they fought like devils, and for a while it
was pretty warm work.
"We had quite a time getting the wire strung, too, because they used to
slip in and cut it down at night, so that finally, while I was rigging
up a motor to run the dynamo and generate the current I meant to charge
the wire, we gave it up. Then, when the motor was properly harnessed,
we took a couple of cars and ran half-way around the walls each way
between daylight and dark, and hooked the two ends up. And that night,
you can take my word for it, the Mazzerians found trouble when they
came up to undo our work. All you had to do was to stand on top of the
wall and watch the flashes when those blue men hit the wire. Robur
thought it was about the best piece of work I had accomplished yet.
"By that time, however, the eight thousand from Bithra had come up, and
we began to get ready to stage our own attack. Murray, the present war
was just started when I went to Palos first. But at the time I defeated
Helmor, of Zollaria, these tanks I've been reading about in the papers
the past few days hadn't been thought of, let alone used, on earth.
That's one instance in which Tamarizia beat this more advanced planet."
"It was a man of earth who did it," I pointed out.
"Well--possibly, yes." Croft laughed. "What I started to say, however,
was that I seem to have in a measure duplicated their performance
and manner of offensive use myself. We used them to break the first
resistance of the opposing line and pave the way for the infantry
attack. You will recall the success of their work against Helmor's army
in the Zollarian campaign. Well, they made good again.
"We sortied from Atla, with the motors in advance. Under a screen of
rifle fire from the walls, we moved them out of the gates and placed
them back of the wire, and filled them with men and grenades. And I
picked two men Naia had trained in flying better than I could have done
it myself. I suppose, Murray, fliers, like other men with some special
aptitude, are born as much as made. My wife is a born aviatrix--nothing
less. She'll do things with a plane I daren't attempt, and she'd licked
two of the hangar crowd into mighty decent shape. I took them, and we
used three planes and about a ton of bombs. Naia wanted to go along,
but I wouldn't let her, but I know she went up on the walls with Lakkon
and watched.
"Rob led the motor squadron and I the planes. We gave Bandhor's army
everything at once. Jadgor had charge of the foot forces. And when
everything was ready the sortie began.
"The motors advanced straight over the wire in which the power was
turned off. I took my planes over the walls from the concourse along
the Bith, and hit the blue army first with a shower of bombs. That
upset them more or less. I honestly think the sight of the planes
themselves shook them as much as anything else.
"And, of course, Robur made contact with his armored cars before they
had steadied themselves. They fought--oh, yes, they fought, but they
were beaten from the first. They tried to stall the motors and overturn
them as they had when Jadgor used them against their army first. But
this time they didn't stall, or not for long at a time--and what of
the enemy weren't shot by the men inside them either ran away or were
crushed. One did get stuck in the timber, and was in a pretty bad way
until Robur himself got to it and drove the Mazzerians about it off. On
the whole, however, they did splendidly, and tore some awful gaps in
Bandhor's line.
* * * * *
"The infantry, coming up to the attack behind them, finished the work.
Inside thirty minutes there wasn't any real army before us so much as
the fragments of an army fighting where they fought at all, in small,
disorganized bands. Thousands ran away in bodies. Hundreds hid in the
woods. The riflemen mopped them up in droves. In a surprisingly short
time Rob broke clear through the line with three of the motors, and
got out of the fringe of forest between Atla and that great plain
where Bandhor had his tent. And as luck would have it, he was just in
time. Bandhor was about to leave. Rob"--the eyes of the man on the bed
twinkled--"suggested in a somewhat urgent fashion that he remain--and
his sister with him. I mustn't forget Kalamita at the last. He stuck
both of them into one of the motors under guard and sent them straight
back inside Atla's walls, and after that, what with the planes above
them and the two remaining motors--Rob's own and the other--the
Mazzerian army met a warm reception when it streamed out of the forest
upon that plain. The end came right there. Mazzer's organized force
broke up. It quit cold and ran. For a week we were hazing them in small
bands out of Bithur, but they never stiffened up enough to offer a real
fight again."
"And what about Bandhor and his sister?" I inquired.
Croft smiled. "I have every reason to think they were surprised to find
me alive. I know Bandhor swore when we met the first time, and Kalamita
turned a bit whiter that I had ever seen her before. We held them,
Murray. Zollaria found out two could play at the same ransom game.
Only Zollaria paid--a million sesterons, which, you may appreciate, is
equivalent to about a million pounds. I hardly think she'll care to try
conclusions with Tamarizia very soon again."
"And since then you've gone on introducing innovations, I suppose?" I
said.
He nodded. "Yes. Naia and I went to Lakkon's mountain house. He gave
it to us for our own. There were a lot of associations about it, and
I was glad to accept it for a dwelling. As I told you, Tamarizia bids
fair to come up to date. We're printing papers in Himyra and Zitra
now, my friend. We've established a system of free schools. Now I'm
after more rapid means of communications mainly--we've a sort of
telephone--short-distance lines which I want to improve, and I want to
establish telegraph and wireless. Astral communication may do between
harmonized minds, but it's too much to expect to educate a people into
anything like that.
"Also, I want to improve the medical caste. Oh, I've done a lot, but
I want to do a million things yet. So I talked it over with Naia, and
we decided that I should come back--reverse the experiment. We've been
back in the astral condition, of course, more than once. I've brought
her with me--shown her earth. She understands--and she's waiting for my
success in this matter even now, up there in the mountains where I told
her I loved her first. And see here--it may be that some attendant will
tell you I'm pretty sound asleep almost any night. If I take the notion
I'm apt to slip up to tell her how things are going along. So--if
that happens, don't let it fuss you--though, with your understanding,
I don't suppose it would. Anyway, I'll promise you now to give you
warning when the work I came back for is done."
"And you're happy?" I questioned.
"Happy?" He gave me a strange glance. "Man, the word's inadequate.
I've found the complement of my nature--speaking in that sense, I'm
satisfied. And--as though that wasn't enough--it's five Zitrans
now--six months about, as you estimate time, since Naia told me--that,
in the quiet of the night, she had heard the whisper of Azil's wings.
I--I don't know, Murray, both she and I hope it will be a boy--but
whether it is or not--boy or girl, it is ours--the final proof of our
love--of the blending of my life and hers."
I helped him. Of course I helped him. I did everything within my power
to furnish him with the information he required. A month went by, and
two, and nearly every night of that time we spent at least an hour in
confidential talk.
And then, one night, he caught me by the hand and looked into my eyes
and gripped my fingers hard. "I'm going, Murray," he said, smiling.
"I've got what I came for, I fancy--so don't be surprised. And see
here--Naia knows all about you. I've told her; and when I speak to her
first in the flesh on Palos, I'm going to tell her how much you've
contributed to the success of this undertaking. And if ever you give
us a thought, you can feel that there's a woman--a wife and mother--up
here on another star whose heart holds a warm spot for you--the one man
on earth who knows our story--big enough--broad enough to refuse to
balk at the truth."
I returned his gripping pressure, more than a little affected by his
words. "Naia of Aphur is as real to me as I am myself," I replied. "And
hang it, man--I--I wish I was up there with you. I'd like to be your
physician. I'd consider it a privilege to watch the light in her eyes
when they first see Jason Croft's son."
"Man," he said, "man, I could love you for that," and wrung my hand
again.
* * * * *
It was midnight when the night superintendent called and told me No. 27
had died.
* * * * *
The last story in this trilogy will be "Jason, Son of Jason."