"This whole city is a gun," said Kortha, and laughed again.
His mirth was infectious. The engineers grinned and looked at each
other and laughed a little. They hadn't the slightest notion of why
Kortha laughed, or why they grinned, but no one could resist such a
magnificent confidence in a city that was without a weapon, and yet a
gun all by itself.
* * * * *
Kortha spread his hands, asking, "This is a radio-city, isn't it? It
has every science necessary to perfect radio technique, hasn't it? Get
me Xax! He and I have work to do."
The tumblie shrilled a greeting, passing the engineers leaving the
room. He rolled across to the bronzed giant, clicking his needles,
eager, curious. Kortha grinned at him, dropped to a knee to speak to
him.
"You are the only one in all Ruuzol who can do this job, Xax. Any other
who left here would be shot by the guards Guantra will post before he
goes. It's up to you. Will you help me fight Guantra? I won't blame you
if you refuse."
"Tell me what you want me to do," said Xax simply. "You waste time,
talking nonsense."
Kortha took Xax to the tower window and showed him the red cliffs that
rose all around Ruuzol, towering toward the sky.
"Years ago, when I first came to Ruuzol from the Academy, I sank cables
into the metal of those cliffs. I laid them underground to the mesa,
here. I connected their vast bulk with the generators and tube relays
of the city. I have to know if those cables are still attached. You can
tell me. I shall let you know what tests to apply in the tiny caves
where the cable-controls are sunk. You can perform those tests with you
feelers, Xax."
"What tests, Kortha?"
The giant told him, repeating himself for emphasis. But the tumblie
understood, and said so. Kortha watched him click-roll out of the
tower, and rose, sighing.
To Ilse he said, "Let's go back to the laboratories again. I'll need
to make more diagrams. Get the engineers to meet me. They'll have to
change cable terminals and install them on a different hookup."
Down in the laboratories, Ilse sat for hours, watching Kortha as he
labored over charts and graphs, often without moving more than hands
and eyes for an hour at a stretch. When he was done, he stood up and
stretched like a waking tiger. He grinned, and handed the graphs to her.
Her eyes widened, looking down.
"Why, this is just--" she looked up, startled, beginning to smile.
"Something any modern housewife knows," he agreed. He laughed and said,
"Guantra will call it more magic."
"It is magic," Ilse said softly. "It is the magic of your brain that
can think of something like this at a time like this."
"Bah," chuckled Kortha, but he tingled meeting her eyes.
Hours later, the western sky grew dark with warships.
Kortha and Ilse stood once more in the tower over the paraboloid city,
their arms touching. Before Kortha lay a white metal box with a red
enamel switch disappearing inside it.
They watched the mighty battlefliers loom sullen and black above the
coppery cliffs, pointing their blunt noses downward, dropping one after
the other from the blue sky into the reddish plains below. They came
swiftly, in perfect echelon, masts flying the black panther banner of
Guantra. Their gunports lay open, the lean metal nozzles of their guns
glistening in the sunlight.
"Zut," whispered Ilse. "Guantra compliments you. He has stripped all of
Mars to capture you."