_Georg Escapes_
I come now to recount events at which I was not present, and the details
of which I did not learn until later. Fronted by Tarrano, in those few
seconds of confusion, Georg made his decision to escape even at the cost
of leaving Elza and me. He murmured his hurried good-bye. The moment had
arrived. He could see Tarrano dimly through the sparks. He leaped
backward, through that wall of electrical disturbance which surrounded
us. The sparks tore at him; burned his clothing and flesh; the shock of
it gripped his heart. But he went through; crept for the balcony. It was
dark out there. He would have rushed for Tarrano instead of the balcony,
but as he came through the sparks he had seen that the barrier
surrounding our tower was momentarily lifted. Argo had cut it off to
admit Tarrano a few moments before. He had not yet replaced
it--absorbed, doubtless, in watching in his finder what Tarrano was
doing with us. He must have seen Georg reach the balcony; and jumped
then to replace the barrier. But too late. Georg was over the balcony
rail with a leap. The insulated tubes were there--upright gleaming tubes
of metal extending downward to the platform below. Tubes smooth, and as
thick as a woman's waist.
Georg slid down them. The barrage, above him on the balcony, had been
replaced. He saw below him the figure of Argo come running out. A weapon
in each hand. The burning pencil-ray swung at Georg, but missed him as
he came down. Had it struck, it would have drilled him clean with its
tiny hole of fire. Then Argo must have realized that Georg should be
taken alive. He ran forward, swung up at Georg the paralyzing vibrations
which Tarrano at that instant was using upon Wolfgar and me.
Georg felt them. He was ten feet, perhaps, above the lower platform; and
as he felt the numbness strike him, he lost his hold upon the tube-pipe.
But he had presence of mind enough to kick himself outward with a last
effort. His body fell upon the onrushing Argo. They went down together.
Argo lay inert. The impact had knocked him senseless, and had struck his
weapon from his hand. Georg sat up, and for a moment chafed his
tingling, prickling arms and legs. He was bruised and shaken by the
fall, but uninjured.
Within our tower, Tarrano was still occupied with us. Georg leaped to
his feet. He left Argo lying there--ran over the spider-bridge; down a
spiral metal stairway, across another bridge, and came upon the small
park-like platform which stood at the bottom of the other tower. He had
passed within sight of a few pedestrians. One of them shouted at him;
another had tried mildly to stop him. A crowd on a distant terrace saw
him. A few of their personal flashes were turned his way. Murmurs arose.
Someone at the head of one of the escalators, in a panic pulled an
alarm-switch. It flared green into the sky, flashing its warning.
The interior-guards--seated at their instrument tables in the lower
rooms of the official buildings--had seen Georg in their finders. The
alarm was spreading. Lights were appearing everywhere.... The murmurs of
gathering people ... excited crowds ... an absurd woman leaning down
over a far-away parapet and screaming ... an ignorant, flustered
street-guard on a nearby upper terrace swinging his pencil-ray down at
Georg.... Fortunately it fell short.
For a moment Georg stood there, with the gathering tumult around
him--stood there gazing up at that small tower. The tower wherein the
Princess Maida was confined. It was dark and silent. Black rectangles of
doors and casements, all open--but barred by the glow of the electrical
barrage surrounding it.
Georg jerked from his belt the cylinder Wolfgar had given him. Metallic.
Short, squat and ugly, with a thick, insulated handle. He feared to use
it. Yet Wolfgar had assured him the Princess Maida was prepared. He
hesitated, with his finger upon the switch-button of the weapon. But he
knew that in a moment he would be too late. A searchlight from an aerial
mast high overhead swung down upon him, bathing him in its glare of
white.
His finger pressed the trigger. A soundless flash of purple enveloped
the tower. Sparks mounted into the air--a cloud of vivid electrical
sparks; but mingled with them in a moment were sparks also of burning
wood and fibre. Smoke began to roll upward; the purple flash was gone,
and dull red took its place. The hum and angry buzz of outraged
electricity was stilled. Flames appeared at all the tower casements--red
flames, then yellow with their greater heat.
The trim and interior of the tower was burning. The protons Georg had
flung at it with his weapon had broken the electrical barrage. The
interference heat had burned out the connections and fired everything
combustible within the tower. A terrific heat. It began to melt and burn
the _blenite_.[10] The upper portion of the tower walls began to
crumble. Huge blocks of stone were shifting, tottering; and they began
to fall through the glare of mounting flames and the thick black smoke.
[Footnote 10: A cement or mortar used in stone constructions--evidently
partially combustible.]
Georg had tossed away his now useless weapon--emptied of its charge. He
was crouching in the shadow of a parapet. The city was now in turmoil.
Alarm lights everywhere. The shrilling of sirens; roaring of megaphoned
commands ... women screaming hysterically....
A chaos, out of which, for a few moments, Georg knew no order could
come. But his heart was in his mouth. The Princess Maida, within that
burning building....
He had located the tiny postern gate at the bottom of the tower where
Wolfgar had told him she would appear. The barrage was gone; and in a
moment she came--a white figure appearing there amid the smoke that was
rolling out.
He rushed to her. A figure wholly encased in white _itan_[11] fabric
with head-mask, and tubes from its generator to supply her with air.
Wolfgar had smuggled the equipment in to her for just this emergency.
She stood awkwardly beside Georg--a grotesque figure hampered by the
heavy costume. Its crescent panes of _itanoid_ begoggled her.
[Footnote 11: A universal insulating fabric, as rubber insulates
electricity and asbestos bars heat.]
Behind him, Georg could hear people advancing. A guard picked them out
with a white flash. The mounting flames of the tower bathed everything
in red. A block of stone fell near at hand, crashing through the
metallic platform upon which they were standing. Broken, it sagged
beneath their feet.
Georg tore at the girl's head-piece, lifted it off. Her face was pale,
frightened, yet she seemed calm. Her glorious white hair tumbled down in
waves over her shoulders.
"Wolfgar--he----" She choked a little in the smoke that swirled around
them. Georg cut in: "He sent me--Georg Brende. Don't talk now--get this
off."
He pulled the heavy costume from her. She emerged from it--slim and
beautiful in the shimmering blue kirtle, with long grey stockings
beneath.
A spider incline was nearby. But a dozen guards were coming up it at a
run. With the girl's hand in his, Georg turned the other way. People
were closing in all around them--an excited crowd held back by the heat
of the burning tower, the smoke and the falling blocks of stone. Someone
swung a pencil-ray wildly. It seared Georg like a branding-iron on the
flesh of his arm as it swung past. He pulled Maida toward the head of an
escalator a dozen feet away. Its steps were coming upward from the plaza
at the ground level. Half way up, the first of an up-coming throng were
mounting it.
But Georg again turned aside. He found Maida quick of wit to catch his
plans; and agile of body to follow him. They climbed down the metal
frame-work of the escalator sides; down under it to where the inverted
steps were passing downward on the endless belts. Maida slid into one of
them, with Georg after her, his arms holding her in place.
They huddled there. No one had seen them enter. Smoothly the escalator
drew them downward. Above them in a moment the tramp of feet sounded
close above their heads as the crowd rushed upward.
They approached the bottom, slid out upon a swinging bridge which
chanced at the moment to be empty of people. Down it at a run; into the
palm-lined plaza at the bottom of the city.
Down here it was comparatively dim and silent. The alarm lights of the
plaza section had not yet come on; the excitement was concentrated upon
the burning tower above. The crowd, rushing up there, left the plaza
momentarily deserted. Georg and Maida crossed it at a run, scurried like
frightened rabbits through a tunnel arcade, down a lower cross-street,
and came at last unmolested to the outskirts of the city.
The buildings here were almost all at the ground level. Georg and Maida
ran onward, hardly noticed, for everyone was gazing upward at the
distant, burning tower. Georg was heading for where Wolfgar had an aero
secreted. A mile or more. They reached the spot--but the aero was not
there. They were in the open country now--Venia is small.
Plantations--an agricultural region. Most of the houses were deserted,
the occupants having fled into the city as refugees when threats and
orders came from Washington the day before. Georg and Maida came upon a
little conical house; it lay silent, heavy-shadowed in the starlight
with the glow of the city edging its side and circular roof. Beside it
was an incline with a helicopter standing up there on a private landing
stage.... Georg and Maida rushed up the incline.
A small helicopter; its dangling basket was barely large enough for
two--a basket with a tiny safety 'plane fastened to its outrigger.
In a moment Georg and the girl had boarded the helicopter. She was
silent; she had hardly said a word throughout it all.... The helicopter
mounted straight up; its whirling propellers above sent a rush of air
downward.
"These batteries," said Georg. "The guards in Venia can't stop us. An
aero--even if we had it--I doubt if we could get power for it. They've
shut off general power by now, I'm sure."
She nodded. "Yes--no doubt."
As they mounted upward, the city dwindled beneath them--dwindled to an
area of red and green and purple lights. It was silent up here in the
starlight; a calm, windless night--cloudless, save for a gray bank which
obscured the moon.
Ten thousand feet up. Then fifteen. The city was a tiny patch of blended
colors. Light rockets occasionally mounted now. But their glare fell
short. Georg's mind was busy with his plans. Had the helicopter been
seen? It seemed not. No rocket-light had reached it; and there was no
sign of pursuit from below.
Maida crouched beside him. He felt her hand timidly upon his arm; felt
her shy, sidelong glance upon him. And suddenly he was conscious of her
beauty. His heart leaped, and as he turned to her, she smiled--a smile
of eager trust which lighted her face like a torch of faith in the spire
of a house of worship.
"You are planning?" she said. "You know what it is we must do?"
He said: "I think so. The _volan_[12] out there is large enough for two.
You'll trust yourself to it with me? You're not afraid, are you?"
[Footnote 12: A small winged board without power, used for emergency
descents by volplaning down from disabled aeros.]
"Oh, no," she said. "What you say we must do, we will do."
"We must go higher, Maida. Then, you see...."
He told her his plans. And mounting up there into the silent canopy of
stars, his fingers wound themselves into the soft strands of her hair
which lay upon him; and his heart beat fast with the nearness of
her.... Told her his plans, and she acquiesced.
Twenty thousand feet. The cold was upon them. Shivering himself, he
wrapped her in a fur which the basket contained. At 25,000, they took to
the _vol plan_. It was a padded board a dozen feet long and half as
wide. Released, it shot downward; a hundred feet or more, with the
heavens whirling soundlessly. Then Georg got the wings open; the descent
was checked; the stars righted themselves above, and once again the
earth was beneath.
They had strapped themselves to the board, and now Georg undid the
thongs. Together they lay prone, side by side, with the narrow,
double-banked wings beneath the line of their shoulders, and the
rudder-tail behind them. Flexible 'planes and tail, responding to
Georg's grip on the controls.
Fluttering, uncertain at first, like a huge bird of quivering wings,
they began their incline descent. A spiral, then Georg opened it to a
straight glide northward--rushing downward and onward through the
starlight, in a wind of their own making which fluttered the light
fabric of Maida's robe and tossed her waves of hair about her.
A long, silent glide, with only the rush of wind. It seemed hours, while
the girl did not speak and Georg anxiously searched the sky ahead.
Underneath them, the dark forests were slipping past; but inexorably
coming upward. They were down to 5,000 feet; then Georg saw at last what
he had hoped, prayed for, but almost despaired of. A beam of light to
the northward--the spreading beam of an oncoming patrol. It was high
overhead; but it came forward fast. A sweeping, keenly searching beam,
and finally it struck them. Clung to them.
And presently the big patrol vessel was almost above them. It hung
there, a dark winged shape dotted with colored lights. A signal flash--a
sharp command to Georg, but, of course, he could not answer. Then the
Director's finder picked him out. The _volan_ was fluttering, spiralling
slowly as Georg struggled to hold his place.
And then the patrol launched its tender. It came darting down like a
wasp. A moment more, and Georg and Maida were taken aboard it. The
_volan_ fluttered to the forest unguided and was lost in the black
treetops, now no more than a thousand feet below.
Surrounded by amazed officials, Maida and Georg entered the patrol
vessel. Georg Brende, escaped safely from Tarrano! The Brende secret
released from Tarrano's control! The Director flashed the news to
Washington and to Great London. Orders came back. A score of other
vessels of this Patrol-Division came dashing up--a convoy which soon was
speeding northward to Washington with its precious messenger.