IV

It was still in the room when Kortha woke. He stared around, wondering.

Of course! Guantra had brought him here to seek repose. He chuckled.

You'd think he was a baby, the way Guantra humored him. Always giving

him the best. Well, that was the way of a friend for you. He clambered

to his feet and rubbed his arms with his big, brown hands. The candle

was spluttering in its golden socket. Kortha frowned. That candle had

burned for three days!

He must have been tired. He recalled it had been a new candle when

Guantra had shown him into this room. There had been some question

of his sleeping and leaving? No, that could not be. He would have no

reason to leave Guantra, now. But he must have been very tired. Three

days asleep!

Kortha searched among the drapes, seeking an exit. He found a tiny,

moon-shaped door opposite his couch. It opened creakily under his palm,

and he stepped into a tunnel. Lights switched on as though by the heat

of his body. He walked slowly, frowning. He did not remember this

passageway at all.

Water lapped at rock ahead of him. He was puzzled. There were no large

bodies of water on Mars, unless there were subterranean seas that

topographers knew nothing of!

He hurried forward; came to an abrupt stop, staring.

An underground cave widened before his eyes. Throughout its shadowy

length, the haze that filled it was tinted blue, and the waters of

this undersurface ocean blazed like blue fire in its reflection. Azure

stalagmites thrust up gnarled arms and heads in eerie grotesqueries.

Ahead of him for mile after mile stretched that limpid sea. Here and

there a rock rose, wet and clammy, above its blue surface. Shadows

gloomed in the distance.

Kortha fell to his knees at the edge of the stone floor, fascinated by

the water. He dipped a hand into it: felt it cool and soothing on his

flesh.

Startled, he stared into its depths. There was something moving down

among those bluish fires, something white and strange. Something was

flashing through the water, swooping up toward his kneeling figure.

He saw white flesh and tossing hair. He saw flanks and breasts, and

churning legs.

Her white hands and wrists broke water first. Then Ilse lifted her wet,

platinum hair and shook it, spraying drops. She put hands to his and

let him lift her to the ledge.

"Xax showed me a way through the mountains that the tumblies used to

know, long ago. I hurried here, Kortha, to get you away before--"

His green eyes were sullen, looking down at her. Ilse stopped her flow

of words, listening to him say, "Guantra will be glad to see you."

Kortha thought: this is the wanton in all her seductive flesh. See how

the silver hair brushes her smooth shoulders, look how her legs are

straight and shapely; that red mouth is ripe for kisses, and those eyes

of blue are looking at me with love and affection.

He turned his face away from her, staring down the long emptiness of

the sea cavern.

Ilse put her hand to her open mouth, staring in horror at the big

man's averted face. Her throat quivered uncontrollably, but she choked

back the cry rising to utterance. Her wet hands found his and squeezed

desperately.

"Oh, my darling! He's done it to you as I knew he would unless I

hurried. I thought I would be in time, but it was a hard trail up the

mountains. We had to go on foot. I'm too late, too late!"

Kortha shoved her away from him roughly, snarling, "Save your

blandishments, Ilse. You won't find them helpful with me. You belong

to Guantra. I do not find you attractive."

He lied, and he knew he lied. This white witch of a woman with the red

mouth and the blue eyes and the platinum hair was a draught to make

a statue hunger. Yet she was for Guantra. Well, Guantra deserved the

best. And yet....

"You must come with me, Kortha. Hurlgut--"

"Hurlgut is jealous of me. He slanders me. I have never given him cause

to do that. He claims I broke his back, but he does not tell the truth.

It was the guard, not I. The guard did it."

Eyes closed, Ilse bowed her head. Her heart was a thing of lead in her

bosom. This mewling, complaining thing was Kortha! Kortha, who would

spit in the face of a living Zut if he angered him. She bit her lip

hard, and tasted the drops of blood that welled to the surface.

She looked up. She said slowly, "We are going to surprise Guantra. You

see, if Guantra could learn that with you all Mars would be his friend,

he would like it. If he heard from your lips that you would back him as

Premier against Earth and Venus--"

"Is there any doubt of that?"

Ilse knew she had to feel her way here. Not knowing what Kortha had

been told, been made to believe in as truth, she must be wary; step

lightly in her speech, explore his knowledge with words.

"Yes. When you ran away to the desert," she looked at him curiously and

breathed again when she saw him nod curtly, "there were some who said

that you and Guantra had a falling out. That you ran from him as a sort

of protest."

Kortha laughed, looking at the girl, "That is ridiculous. _You_ know

why I ran away. Because you wantoned after me. I ran away from you,

Ilse."

* * * * *

So that was the reason Kortha had been given! Ilse held her eyes shut

tightly. Her left hand bit its long fingernails into the naked skin of

her flank. Pain! Pain would help to cancel the sodden ache in her heart.

"Yes," she whispered. "I know. But Mars doesn't know that, and Mars has

to be told. If Mars could hear the truth from your lips--

"Come with me to radio-city Ruuzol, Kortha. Broadcast to Mars. Be the

first to let the planet know you and Guantra are friends. You be the

first; you, his friend."

Kortha nodded slowly. He felt Ilse's hands squeezing his.

"It must be a secret, though. We can't let Guantra know, or the

surprise would be spoiled. You have to come with me."

She saw his eyes light after a moment, and she knew she had won;

that he would go with her away from the Blue Grotto and its magical

machine that could steal men's minds from them and give them something

different in exchange. She turned, dove for the water.

Kortha was beside her, sinking into the blue fire of water, dropping

down and down past coral growths and bannery weeds that slithered in

ripples as the currents wafted them to and fro. Following her threshing

legs, clinging to coral branches as did she, pulling himself along,

Kortha went under a ledge and rose swiftly in a tiny cave.

Ilse said as she treaded water, "My 'copter is outside. It will take us

to Ruuzol."

Ruuzol was the communication center of all Mars. A vast glassite

paraboloid was built on a flat mesa against a cliffside. It housed

vast turbines and generators, and the central controls, as well

as laboratories and rows of dwellings, where the men lived. A

fountain-dotted park gave the small city an air of leisure.

Their 'copter swooped in over the flat plains surrounding the mesa,

casting its shadow from the high cliffs all around the plain out across

the flatlands, up onto the mesa sides.

Flanking the great transparent paraboloid were the twin tubes, taller

than the dome itself, thrusting their glass-and-steel structures two

thousand feet into the air. At their tops, three metal planes were

inserted into their trunks; planes that were the secret of the Martian

radio beams, planes that sent the spacevox rocketing to Earth and

Venus, and the direct broadcasts out over the sandy wastes of Mars.

Ilse flashed her 'copter past a tube and spiralled gracefully to one of

the white landing strips beyond the dome.

They walked toward the paraboloid. Ilse showed credentials to the

guards at the entrance; then they were through and into the cool,

pleasant air of the paraboloid, moving on one of the glass walks.

The harsh tones of the communicator sprang to speech around them: "The

princess Ilse. The princess Ilse. The Emperor desires speech. The

Emperor desires speech."

Kortha muttered something under his breath, but Ilse pretended not to

hear him, saying, "It will only be a moment."

They found Hurlgut propped in cushions, flushed and worried. His eyes

opened wide at sight of Kortha, and the worry fled.

"Kortha!" he cried, putting out both hands, lifting a little where he

sat. "So Ilse did find you!"

Ilse stepped to one side, offering prayers to Zut.

Kortha looked at Hurlgut, saw him lying white and broken among the

striped pillows. He wanted to rage at this liar, at this mongerer

of scandal. He learned with a little surprise that he could not. If

Hurlgut wanted to blame him, let him. Kortha had never fought cripples

before. He would not begin now.

"--so good to see you, man. Give me your hand. Give it to me, man!

There! Let me look at you. The same, the same. Big. Strong. Unbending.

Mars' only hope. I need you, Kortha. Guantra has but now concluded

speaking on the radio beams. He knows you fled from him, came here. He

traced you in that cosmiclarifier of his."

Kortha remembered the black screen in the flagship stateroom.

"Guantra will be surprised when I broadcast. Eh, Ilse?"

"Yes," whispered Ilse.

Hurlgut looked surprised, exclaiming, "Why, Guantra will not let you

broadcast, Kortha. He will destroy Ruuzol first. He threatened to, in

fact."

"But he can't. Not until I've made my speech to Mars, told them how he

and I will unite--"

Ilse touched her temple and her heart, looking at Hurlgut, nodding

toward Kortha. Then Kortha was whirling on her, saying, "Get me to a

magnifone. I'll speak to Guantra's ship, tell him what I intend to do.

The surprise is off, Ilse--but the speech can still be made!"

Suddenly Kortha swayed a little. He put a hand to his forehead. This

was all wrong! Ilse and Hurlgut were his friends! No, no. It was

Guantra who was his friend. Guantra has always befriended me. He gave

me my start. It is with him that my fortune lies. I must tell him so.

_But Ilse?_

Look at her, man. Look at her blue eyes again. They are so serious, so

sad, as she watches you. There is naught of the wanton there. A wanton

would laugh and giggle and be gay. Instead there is yearning and sorrow

and love in her eyes as she regards you.

_And Hurlgut?_

He lay helpless in his cushions, unable to move below the waist. He

looked at Kortha, too, and there was pity in his eyes. Kortha did not

fight with men who could not walk to meet him. Did Guantra? He had the

sharp, hard conviction that he must know the answer to that. It might

help him decide incongruities.

* * * * *

Kortha sighed. He wished that he could solve this enigma that turned

him inside-out in puzzlement. He found himself liking Ilse and Hurlgut,

even knowing what he did to them; and learned he was close to hating

Guantra. Guantra had the power. Hurlgut was a cripple, and Ilse a girl.

Could Guantra fight them with the armies and the fleets of Mars, and

still hold his head high? Could--he?

Ilse stood at the open door, watching him. Kortha realized she had

been standing there for minutes, as he had thought. He scowled, and

muttered, "Get me to the magnifone. I'll speak to Guantra."

Following Ilse to the lift, Kortha brooded at her.

Zut, but she was lovely! If only she were not the wanton he knew her

for. And yet--always that ... and yet! And yet, there was nothing of

the wanton about her. The perfume from her fur bolero floated around

them in the lift. It reminded him of things, that perfume: of memories

that were stored so deeply in his subconscious that he had completely

forgotten them. Kisses over the canals in a drifting 'coptondola. An

Academy dance with Ilse wearing a black, filmy thing that made the blue

of her eyes and the silver hair weirdly beautiful. And those nights

when they had eaten cold fruit and drank of iced _bessa_-mead in the

palace gardens near colored-water fountains, before he had--before the

guard had crippled Hurlgut.

He could not square remembered happiness with other memories. There was

a leak somewhere. He had to learn more--

"Ilse," he said.

The lift was opening and the girl was going down the corridor. Kortha

shrugged and followed her. He was probably mistaken. Those memories

were the overflow from a forgotten dream.

In the big control room he stood watching Ilse punch buttons. A

beam-man stared at him from a corner panel-slot. Let him look. The

name of Kortha was legendary on Mars. He heard Ilse saying, "Guantra.

Guantra!" into a fine-meshed magnifone.

The screen above the panelling came alive with the Premier's sneering,

point-bearded face; and his voice was harsh, cold.

"So. You got to Kortha before me, Ilse. It is too bad. I would like to

know whether--let me speak to him."

Kortha stared up at Guantra's scowling face. The man was worried. The

way his tongue licked unceasingly at his thin lips, the hands tugging

at the crested metal buckle of his belt, the creases around his

narrowed eyes: they were signal flares pointing his anxiety. There was

something bothering Guantra, too, even as it bothered him.

What was it? Kortha had to know. Kortha sucked in his breath, realizing

that the duel was between him and Guantra. Each had knowledge, and

they had to trade to know where they stood. Guantra wanted to be sure

of what? Of his friendship? But--why? He himself sought to test that

elusive memory of his. It told him Ilse was wanton and Hurlgut a

danger; but his senses belittled that memory.

Perhaps Guantra could be persuaded to give him the knowledge he sought.

He put Ilse aside, placed mouth to the magnifone.

"Kortha on the beam, Guantra. Tell me something. Am I your friend,

Guantra?"

The man with the jutting beard licked at his lips for a split second,

but it was long enough. Kortha knew now that Guantra _did not know_!

That meant that his senses might be right, after all; that his memory

was wrong. And if his memory were wrong, then Ilse and Hurlgut were not

what he thought them.

He listened to Guantra bluster, calling out to him to recall and act on

their old friendship. Smiling grimly, he leaned closer to the image on

the screen. Test him, Kortha!

"Let me broadcast to all Mars, Guantra. Let me tell Mars that we are

friends."

"No," said Guantra swiftly. "That would not be politic right now.

Better that you and I should meet, Kortha. Come aboard my flagship."

Afraid of what he might say, the Premier would not let him speak to

Mars. Kortha wanted to know the reason why Guantra doubted their

friendship. Looking at the cold austerity, the pride and ambition

of the man as marked in the lines of his face and the manner of his

bearing, Kortha rather thought the reason was not Ilse. A man like

Guantra would not bother so about a woman.

"I will broadcast, Guantra," Kortha said slowly.

"No. I will have to stop that, my friend. I cannot allow it, until I

have seen and spoken with you, face to face. I am coming in for you

now."

They saw the Premier reach out and break connection.

Kortha looked at the blank screen; he whirled on Ilse, and his big

hands went out to catch her by the shoulders and bring her up close to

him.

He said savagely, "Tell me! Tell me what I don't know. Why has Guantra

turned against me? Why does he doubt my friendship? It can't be over

you. He is not the man to endanger his power for a woman. What is his

reason?"

Her blue eyes were unafraid. She said, "Guantra was never your friend.

I dared not tell you before, but I can now because you have doubts of

what your memory tells you. You saw how indecisive he was. He does not

know whether his psychoanalyser in the Blue Grotto had time to change

you. I got you out of there before he knew, before he had seen and

spoken with you."

The giant released her; ran fingers that shook a little through the

thick mop of his yellow hair, frowning.

"I don't understand. What psychoanalyser? What Blue Grotto? Wait--I

remember the grotto, with the blue sea. But the rest is strange to me."

"And the room fitted with drapes? The couch with the ocemar pelts?"

"I slept there."

* * * * *

She told him then, hurriedly: of how the psychoanalyser was one of the

machines Guantra had taken from the tower of Zut in Yassa and set it up

in his hidden lair, and how he used it to turn key men into his friends

by giving them new memories that were so closely linked with their

old that rarely were they so much as hesitant about them. Only Kortha

doubted, and that was because Ilse had come to him before Guantra. She

picked up the thread of his life at the smithy in the desert and went

on with it.

Once he interrupted, with, "But it was Hurlgut who sent men to kill me

in the tower of Zut?"

Ilse scorned that, "Hurlgut send men? Who on Mars would serve a cripple

when Guantra rules the fleets? Would Hurlgut hide in Ruuzol if he could

put his banners in the air?"

When she was through, he whispered through stiff lips, "This

psychoanalyser. It changes men, then?"

"Guantra changed several men in council positions with it. He needed

their support. He got it. It can make a brave man a craven; or a

coward, a hero. It was built by the Ancients, who understood the mind

as well as other sciences. They realized that the memory cells that

govern many of our habits and thoughts could be altered by hypnotically

suggested alterations. They built a machine that would do that. We

learned of it, but could never do anything about it. People would have

laughed, said we fought Guantra with myths."

Kortha growled, "I'm still not sure. But I'll fight Guantra until I can

make up my own mind!"

Ilse's lips twitched wryly. Her shoulders sagged a little as she leaned

against a table, looking up at him.

"Fight Guantra? Here in Ruuzol? You are mad, Kortha. There isn't a

single gun in Ruuzol. No weaponry of any sort. It can't defend itself;

was never intended to. This mesa is one mass of radio laboratories and

generators, tubes and condensors."

No weapon. No gun. Just a lot of magnifones, and words never killed

anybody yet. Kortha bared his teeth in a silent snarl.

"I'll broadcast before he can stop me. Let him fire on us, then!"

"No. He won't fire, not yet. Have you forgotten the lightning guns?

They will cripple all our power. We couldn't broadcast past those metal

mountains without power."

The lightning guns. Kortha came up short on that. He cursed softly,

brows furrowed. Aye, he remembered the lightning guns, psychoanalyser

or no psychoanalyser! With them it would be as Ilse said. Guantra would

break their power; land men, and take over the city.

"The laboratories," he grated. "Get me to your laboratories. There may

still be a way to stop those lightning guns."

Ilse looked at him; gasped suddenly at the old, flaring lights in his

green eyes. She laughed softly, gladly, and turned and ran ahead of him.

The ceiling lights were blue and bright, flooding the long laboratory

chambers where chrome and steelite glistened and glass fittings

refracted rainbows of color against the scalloped walls. Black, short

shadows flickered where men stood at their places, staring.

"This is Kortha," said Ilse, head flung back, eyes blazing with azure

fire. "If anyone can stop Guantra, he can."

A sullen giant hulked forward from a bench, arms dangling, scowling,

"Surrender to him, _I_ say. We have no chance against the fleet. The

rest of you--Guantra has no fight with us. Why do we do what one girl

and one man tell us?"

Kortha uncoiled, springing. His fist shot out like a flatheaded piston,

cracking the sullen man on the jaw. The _splat_ of the blow was loud in

the silence broken only by the brrring of the ceiling reflectors lazily

rotating.

Over the body of the unconscious man, Kortha snarled, "Anyone else

advise surrender?"

They looked at him, and dropped their eyes. Heads shook.

"Good. Get me blueprint papers, and diagrams of your ultraviolet

radiator batteries. I want relayed batteries set up, and I must know

how many I have to work with."

Ilse saw hope struggling for place in the eyes of the men as they

looked at Kortha. She laughed gaily, putting a hand on the big man's

arm, saying loudly, "This is Kortha. I told you. He can pull miracles

out of a hole in space!"

Feet pounded on the linoleotile flooring. Drawers opened, banged shut;

glass cabinets clinked faintly, and papers rustled. Ilse stood against

Kortha, touching him, smiling wryly.

"Only your name could make them hop like that against the power that

is Guantra. They're all loyal, but practical. They know to an iotagram

what chance Hurlgut has!"

"He has a good chance," growled Kortha. He did not look at her. He did

not dare: she was too lovely, with her blue eyes and platinum hair, and

the kissable mouth. He had not decided yet, and wanted his reason to

figure this out, not his emotions.

* * * * *

The men came and spread their diagrams and date-sheets and charts

before him. His keen eyes flicked back and forth, ran down columns,

studied hook-ups and relays.

"These batteries," he said suddenly, pointing. "Shift them there. These

others, over to this spot. Move those back, arrange them in arcs. They

must be distributed evenly around Ruuzol. Here, I'll work it out for

you."

He sketched quickly. With T-square and calipers he strove for

arrangements on the blueprints, and succeeded. The engineers and

physicists looked at his work and up at him, puzzled. Kortha snorted.

"The batteries will furnish ultraviolet rays, won't they? In the

patterns we set by grouping them like this?"

A young engineer nodded dubiously.

"Yes, but--"

Kortha rasped an oath, stood up.

"Do what I say. I'll explain to you later, when I bring the final

distribution sheets to you. You'll have to follow my instructions to

the letter. The radiator batteries must be set so, to make a pattern

thus. Any deviation will result in disaster. Hurry!"

Up in the control tower the red light was flickering. Kortha allowed

himself a smile. The ultraviolet batteries were in place, needing only

a fingerpress on a button beneath his hand to fire them. He looked up

at the flagship maneuvering in circles above the dome. They were ready

up there now.

Kortha depressed the button, and laughed.

An instant later, white fires burst from the guns of the flagship,

flaring zigzags that darted toward the upright tubes on either side of

the paraboloid. The metal planes would draw that lightning; it would

sear them, crack them, erupt into thunderous cascades of escaping

power--

The lightnings never touched their target.

As though an invisible mantle of veins were spread above the radio

city, the lightnings sprayed away, following the veins, grounding in

showers of tiny sparks on the plains below. They made eerie traceries

of light over the city as the guns spouted lightning again and again.

The glassite dome was bathed in a white, luminescent glow from the nets

of meshed zigzags in the air above it, that ran in streaks of jagged

white fire all around the city.

And always the lightnings grounded on the plains. The city lay

untouched.

Kortha chuckled. He laughed aloud. He bellowed his mirth, slapping a

thigh with his big hand, yelping, "A million _kofuls_ to see Guantra's

face I'd give right now. He must be swallowing his tongue in rage.

I'll bet he's hopping. He doesn't know what I've done. He thinks I'm a

magician!"

"A lot of other people think the same thing," said Ilse dryly.

"Including myself. And those engineers! They'll be sweating their

curiosity, now that they see how your diagrams are working. They

pestered me with questions, but I couldn't answer them."

"Summon them," grinned Kortha.

When they stood silent before him, he laughed them into smiles. One of

them echoed his laughter, and then they all were bellowing.

Kortha said when they were wiping tears of delight from their eyes,

"Lightning follows a pattern through the air, doesn't it? It follows

beams of ionized air that are everywhere. Those ionized air beams flow

down to Ruuzol, too. The only way to stop lightning from hitting us was

to form other ionized air currents that lead it away from us."