"Undoubtedly a Satorian spy sent to murder you Earthmen. I saw the
muzzle of his pistol as he was aiming and jumped in the way of the
bullet. There is not much damage done."
"We'd better get back to the city," Arcot said. "Fuller and Wade might
be in danger!"
They bundled the Satorian spy into the ship, where Morey tied him
further with thin strands of lux cable no bigger than a piece of string.
Torlos looked at it and shook his head. "He will break that as soon as
he awakens, without even knowing it. You forget the strength of our
people." Morey smiled and wrapped the cord around Torlos' wrists.
Torlos looked amused and pulled. His smile vanished. He pulled harder.
His huge muscles bulged and writhed in great ridges along his arms. The
thin cord remained complacently undamaged. Torlos relaxed and grinned
sheepishly.
"You win," he thought. "I'll make no more comments on the things I see
you do."
They returned to the capital at once. Arcot shoved the speed up as high
as he dared, for Torlos felt there might be some significance in the
attempt to remove Arcot and Morey. Wade and Fuller had already been
warned by radio, and had immediately retired to the Council Room of the
Three. The members of the Investigation Board joined them to question
the prisoner upon his arrival.
When they arrived, Arcot and Morey went in with Torlos, who was carrying
the struggling, shackled spy over his shoulder.
The Earthmen watched while the expert interrogators of the Investigation
Board questioned the prisoner. The philosophy of Norus did not permit
torture, even for a vicious enemy, but the questioners were shrewd and
ingenious in their methods. For hours, they took turns pounding
questions at the prisoner, cajoling, threatening, and arguing.
They got nowhere. Solidly, the prisoner stuck by his guns. Why had he
tried to shoot the Earthmen? He didn't know. What were his orders from
Sator? Silence. What were Sator's plans? Silence. Did he know anything
of the new weapon? A shrug of the shoulders.
Finally, Arcot spoke to the Chief Investigation Officer. "May I try my
luck? I think I'm powerful enough to use a little combination of
hypnosis and telepathy that will get the information out of him." The
Investigator agreed to try it.
Arcot walked over as if to inspect the prisoner. For an instant, the man
looked defiantly at Arcot. Arcot glared back. At the same time, his
powerful mind reached out and began to work subtly within the prisoner's
brain. Slowly, a helpless, blank expression came over the man's face
as his eyes remained fixed on Arcot's own. The man was as helplessly
bound mentally as the lux cable bound him physically.
For a full quarter of an hour, the two men, Earthmen and Satorian, stood
locked in a frozen tableau, staring into each other's eyes. The
onlookers waited in watchful silence.
Finally, Arcot turned and shook his head, as if to clear it. As he did
so, the spy slumped forward in his chair, unconscious.
Arcot rubbed his own temples and spoke in English to Morey. "Some job!
You'll have to tell them what I found out; my head is splitting! With a
headache like this, I can't communicate.
"Torlos was right; they were trying to get rid of all four of us. We're
the only ones who can operate the ship, and that ship is the only
defense against them.
"He knows several other spies here in the city, and we can, I think,
practically wipe out the Satorian spy system all over the planet with
the information he gave me and what we can get from others we arrest.
"Unfortunately, he doesn't know anything about the new weapon; the
higher-ups aren't telling anyone, not even their own men. I get the idea
that only those on board the ships using it will know about it before
the attack.
"An attack is planned, and very soon. He didn't know when. We can only
lie in readiness and do everything we can to help these people with
their work."
While Morey relayed this information to the Investigating Board and the
Council, Wade was talking in low tones to Arcot.
"They had a lot of workmen bring twenty tons of lead wire on board this
evening, and the distilled water tanks are full. The tanks are full of
oxygen, and they gave us some synthetic food which we can eat.
"They have it all over us in the field of chemistry. They've found the
secret of catalysis, and can actually synthesize any catalytic agent
they want. They can make any possible reaction go in either direction
at any rate they desire.
"They took a slice of flesh from my arm and analyzed it down to the last
detail. From that, they were able to predict what sort of food we would
need to eat. They can actually synthesize living things!
"I've tried the food they made, and it has a very good flavor. They
guaranteed it would have all the necessary ingredients, right down to
the smallest trace element!
"We're fully stocked for a long trip. The Three said it was their first
consideration that we should be able to return to our homes."
"How about their armament?" Arcot asked. He was holding his head in his
hands to ease the throbbing ache within it.
"Each city has a projector supplied by the regular power station on top
of their central building. The molecular ray, of course; they still
don't have enough power to run a heat beam.
"We didn't have time to make more than one for each city, but this one
will give the Satorians a nasty time if they come near it. It works
nicely through the magnetic screen, so it won't be necessary for them to
lower the barrier to shoot."
Morey had finished telling the Council what Arcot had discovered from
the prisoner, and the Councilmen were leaving one by one to go to their
duties in preparing for the attack.
"I think we had best go back to the _Ancient Mariner_," Arcot said. "I
need an aspirin and some sleep."
"Same here," agreed Fuller. "These men make me feel as though I were
lazy. They work for forty or fifty hours and think nothing of it. Then
they snooze for five hours and they're ready for another long stretch. I
feel like a lounge lizard if I take six hours out of every twenty-four."
They asked Torlos to stand guard on the ship while they got some much
needed sleep, and Torlos consented readily after getting the permission
of the Supreme Three. The Earthmen were returned to their ship under
heavy guard to prevent further attempts at assassination.
It was seven hours after they had gone to sleep that it came.
Through the ship came the low hum that rose quickly to a screeching call
of danger--the warning! The city was under attack!