The days that followed were eternities to the little group left
stranded on Vulcan Base. Nerves were taut and tempers were short. Every
man there, as well as the two women, realized that their very lives as
well as the fate of the System depended on the day of Luhor's return
from the asteroid.
Mark had aroused the men too well. They were impatient and restless.
They didn't want their freedom handed to them on a silver platter,
they wanted to fight for it. Aladdian had said Luhor would be back
soon--very soon. Mark questioned her about it.
"Even with that fast Spacer," Aladdian replied, "it will take him
several days to get out to that asteroid and back again. Cynthia tells
me her father sent a crew of men there a month ago, to assemble the
new Spacers. Luhor will undoubtedly win them all to his side, and bring
half of them back to continue the work here. Cynthia says--"
"Cynthia seems to have confided a lot in you!" Mark exclaimed with a
sudden, unexplainable suspicion.
Aladdian smiled wearily, and slowly shook her head. "You are demoted
back to the lower order, Mark Denning," she said with a hint of the
same mockery Mark had known in the Swamp. "Cynthia Marnik needs our
help now. She only carried out her father's orders, but now that the
dynasty is crumbling about her ears, she's bewildered and a little
frightened. Something else has happened to her too, for the first time
in her life."
"What's that?"
"Never mind," Aladdian said enigmatically. "Ernest Carston knows.
It will turn out all right. Meanwhile you had better put the men
here to work, it will help pass the time. Goodbye ... Mark." Like an
azure-winged elf she hurried back to the laboratory where she spent
most of her time.
That was the first instance Mark could remember when Aladdian had
called him by his first name, and he liked it.
He called the men together and assigned them to posts at the furnaces,
where they continued to turn out the metal that would be fashioned
into the super rocket-tubes. Earth was massing its fleet and Venus was
mobilizing. Mark realized that if a truce could not be called, they
would need every one of the outlaw Spacers on the asteroid, and others
as well. He took a few of the men with him to the arsenal, where they
began to get every available weapon in readiness for the Tri-Planetary
showdown that was sure to come.
* * * * *
"Tell the men to stop work," Aladdian said to Mark two days later,
"then bring them to the laboratory. They have as much right as we
to know what is happening. I have been working on the ethero-magnum
sender, and I shall try to contact both Venus and Earth."
They gathered in the magnificent laboratory George Marnik had erected.
Here, various machines were arranged in preponderant array, but all
were dwarfed by the imposing ethero-magnum in the center of the room.
Hidden atomomotors hummed a smooth and powerful threnody. The control
panel, as tall as Aladdian herself, connected to huge coils of radical
design which themselves led to the televise, a huge sensitized sheet of
metal reaching clear up to the ceiling.
Carston, an Earth patriot to the end, watched these activities with
misgivings. But he was silent, curiously so, and Mark wondered at it.
Mark was soon to know the reason for Carston's silence, and to realize
that the Earth official did not give up so easily....
"I want you all to stand back against the walls," Aladdian said, "out
of range of the televise. Luhor may pick this up, and he must not know
there is anyone here but me."
She operated the dials quickly, surely, with tendril-like fingers. A
faint, far away voice was heard droning monotonously. "Earth is sending
to Venus now," Aladdian said, never once removing her gaze from the
dancing dials before her. "If I can intercept the Earth beam, I can get
my message to Venus through that channel, by drowning them out. I did
it once before."
The sound of the voice increased, and words became distinguishable.
They were haranguing, dictatorial--undoubtedly one of the Earth Council
speaking to Venus. At the same time the huge metallic sheet above
Aladdian's head took on a silvery glow, and a wavering scene began to
appear. The scene was a crowded city square, with thousands of faces
upturned to a televise screen atop one of the buildings.
"That is N'Vaarl, Capitol City of Venus," Aladdian murmured. "They
are listening to the Earth broadcast. Now I will let them see me."
Automatically her hand reached out, and grasped a lever which she threw
downward. The atomomotors shrieked as they absorbed the increased
power, and soon the sound rose above the audible. At the same time the
Earth voice was drowned out, and the scene at N'Vaarl became very clear
to the watchers in the room.
On the huge public televise screen at N'Vaarl, the image of Aladdian,
Princess of Venus and daughter of Bedrim the Liberator, became
visible. The crowd did not cheer, but awaited her message, knowing that
at any moment the Earth would throw off the beam when it realized what
was happening.
"Greetings, my people!" Aladdian spoke quickly. "As I told you before,
Earth is mobilizing its fleet and I know that you are preparing for any
contingency. That is well, but I entreat you not to act in any manner
until you have heard further from me! There is a greater danger than
that of Earth! I am safe and well, I cannot come to you now, but soon--"
* * * * *
In that moment the Earth beam ceased, and the scene on the televise
blanked out. Aladdian turned with a satisfied smile to Mark and Cynthia
and the others. "It is enough that they saw me. My people will not act
now without word from me. I hope I shall never have to give that word."
"Aladdian," Mark spoke worriedly, "isn't it a risk for you to broadcast
at all? The Earth Government doesn't know your present whereabouts, but
if they were to send out tracer beams and learn you were operating from
Vulcan ... well, it's true that no Patrol ship is equipped to land on
Vulcan, but they could bottle us up here--"
Ernest Carston, who had been silent but eternally watchful, became
suddenly tense at Mark's words.
"They _have_ sent out tracer beams," Aladdian replied, "but with
this instrument I can neutralize them all." Fondly she touched the
ethero-magnum by her side. "Anyway, the immediate danger is not from
Earth, but from Luhor. Let us not forget that! And I must warn Earth,
must make them understand."
She turned to the dialed panel again, and even as her fingers made
swift connections, she continued to speak. "It may not be easy to
establish a direct channel from here to Earth, but I think I have
completed a new trans-telector beam on which George Marnik was working.
It should do away with the magnetic disturbance caused by our close
proximity to the sun. We shall see."
Again the atomomotors whined and ascended the scale. This time, there
was a new exultant note. Minutes passed, then the overhead screen
began to take on a hazy, shifting blur. Aladdian's fingers moved
unerringly on the dials. The blur came suddenly, sharply into focus.
Carston, standing against the far wall next to Mark Denning, leaned
tensely forward, his eyes aglow. The scene on the televise was the
Earth Council. Carston almost leaped forward in his excitement, but
Mark gripped his arm tightly.
Aladdian was speaking to the Council. In slow, matter-of-fact tones she
told of George Marnik, of the new metal, of Luhor and Luhor's plans.
She told of the asteroid and the fleet being assembled there, without
revealing the asteroid's position. She described the properties of the
new metal but was careful not to hint of its source.
"I seek to warn you," Aladdian's voice came fervent and clear. "You are
plunging into disaster. It is not my people I think of now, but the
Tri-Planet Federation! If you continue to mobilize your fleet I am not
sure I can control the Irreconcilables among my people--I certainly
cannot control Dar Vaajo of Mars, who is headstrong beyond reason. It
will mean an hecatomb in space, with Luhor holding his asteroid in
readiness for the final blow!"
"This Luhor and the formidable asteroid of which you speak," came the
cold, sneering voice of the Earth Coordinator. "Tell us more of them.
Give us the location of the asteroid."