_Before the Council_
Pegrani lost no time in reporting the incident to the Zara. The Earth
men were hustled to the throne room of the palace where the leopard
woman sat in conference with her advisers. An ominous silence greeted
their entrance. Ugly faces leered at them from the long table.
"What is it, Pegrani?" The Zara's chalky face went whiter still.
"The Rulans, Your Majesty. They have endeavored to communicate with the
prisoners."
"Did they succeed?" Clyone's voice was terrible in its fury.
"They did not. I destroyed the messenger, and the message itself was
lost in the jungle where Carson flung it."
The Zara shot a fleeting glance in Blaine's direction and permitted
herself the ghost of a smile. "It is well," she breathed. "But it must
not happen again. Have Tiedor brought to me."
Pegrani hurried off to do her bidding and Blaine turned uncertainly to
follow.
"You will remain, Carson--you and Farley." The incisive voice of the
leopard woman halted him in his tracks.
Tiedor was chief of the Rulans, it developed. There was but a handful
of them in the realm and they were the last survivors of the
civilization of Europa; descendants of those original brave souls who
had settled on Io as a last resort in the effort to perpetuate their
kind.
He was a magnificent creature, this Tiedor, tall and straight in his
muscular leanness and with wide-set gray eyes in the face of a Greek
god. Olive-skinned like the messenger, he was, and with the high
forehead of an intellectual. He swept the assemblage with a haughty
gaze when he faced the Zara.
* * * * *
"Tiedor," she snarled, "it has come to my ears that a Rulan lad carried
a message to one of my guests from Earth. What means this?"
"I know nothing about it, Your Majesty." Tiedor gazed into the wicked
eyes, unafraid.
"You lie! There is some treasonable scheme in which you had hoped to
enlist their help. You will tell me the entire story, here before the
council."
"There is nothing to tell."
"You will confess or I shall destroy every Rulan in the Tritu Nogaru."
The Zara's words were clipped short with deadly emphasis.
Tiedor paled and his lips tightened in a grim line, but he stood his
ground. "I have nothing to confess," he said.
With a whistling indrawn breath, the leopard woman threw back her head
and motioned to one of the green-bronze giants who guarded the
entrance. There was a nervous stir around the council table.
At her command the guard drew back a heavy drape that hid an embrasure
in the far wall. There, on a stubby pedestal, was revealed a gleaming
sphere of crystal, a huge polished ball that shimmered a ghastly green
against a background of jet.
Slowly in its depths a milky cloud took shape, swirling and pulsating
like a living thing. Then it flashed into dazzling brilliance and the
globe cleared to startling transparency. It was as if it did not exist.
Rather they looked through an opening in the cosmos that carried their
gaze to another and distant point. It was a large open space that was
revealed to their eyes; a sort of public square where many of the
olive-skinned Rulans were coming and going to and from the entrances of
the circular tank-like structures that surrounded the area. They were
greeting one another in solemn fashion as they passed and watching
furtively the green-bronze guards who were everywhere. The sound of
their low voiced conversations came clear and distinct from the depths
of the crystal sphere.
"Your choice, Tiedor," the Zara hissed.
"There is nothing--nothing, I tell you!" The Rulan chief's voice was
panicky now.
* * * * *
Clyone's snarling command was carried to those guards out there in the
Tritu Nogaru by some magic of the crystal sphere. As one man they
snapped to attention. With deadly accuracy they released the energy of
their ray pistols. It was a shambles, that square of the Tritu Nogaru;
a slaughter house. Agonized screams of the doomed Rulans rent the air
of the council chamber. They organized hastily and rushed again and
again into the crackling blue flame of the disintegrating blasts of the
guards' fire. It was hopeless: unarmed and unprotected, they were at
the mercy of Clyone's minions.
[Illustration: _Sick and trembling, Blaine cried out against the
massacre_.]
Sick and trembling, Blaine cried out against the massacre. He was
seized instantly by two of the green-bronze guards who had been
watching his every move. Tommy, too, was in their clutches once more,
fighting valiantly but without avail. The sphere went blank and silent,
and the drape was returned to its place. Still muttering disapproval,
the members of the council gazed at their queen in alarm. There was no
telling what this vile creature might do.
"The slaughter continues. Tiedor," she gloated. "Soon your handful of
followers will be no more. And good riddance."
Swaying drunkenly, eyes glazed with the horror of the thing. Tiedor
went raving mad. In one wild leap he was upon her, his fingers sinking
into the white flesh of her throat. Woman or no woman, he'd have her
life.
But it was not to be. A quick move of jeweled fingers was followed by a
crashing report. Tiedor staggered and drew back, spinning on his heel
to face them all with distended, pain-crazed eyes. Astonishment was
there, and horror, but the fire of undying courage remained. His olive
skin turned suddenly purple, then black from the poisoned dart that had
exploded in his entrails. He collapsed in a still heap at the feet of
the Zara.
She stood there a moment in the awful silence, caressing her bruised
throat with fluttering fingers. She had faced death for one horrid
instant and was obviously shaken.
Then she recovered and flew into a rage. "Out of my sight, all of you!"
she screamed. "Out, I say! The Earth men are to be freed and Pegrani
will conduct them to their quarters. Go now!"
The councillors made haste to comply, jostling one another in their
anxiety to jam through the doorway. Blaine found himself released. He
took one step toward Clyone, murderous hatred in his heart. But he
recoiled from the expression in those red-flecked eyes; they softened
instantly and looked into his very soul, saw through and beyond him
into some far place where relief and happiness might be attained. And
then, suddenly, they were swimming in tears. The Zara dropped into a
seat and buried her sleek coiffured head in outstretched arms, her
shoulders shaking with sobs.
An incomprehensible anomaly, this queen of the Llotta; a strange
mixture of cruelty and tenderness, of cold hatred and the longing for
love. A dual personality hers, susceptible to the deepest emotion or to
utter lack of feeling as the mood might dictate.
Blaine tiptoed softly from the room.
* * * * *
They were in the corridor now, and Tommy was blowing off at a great
rate. Even Pegrani was stunned and shaken. But Tommy raved.
"Forget it!" Blaine growled. "Where do we go from here?" He couldn't
have explained his emotions then, even to himself.
"To our quarters, she said--damn her!" Tom Farley swore in picturesque
English. "And we," he wound up his expressive tirade, "are getting in
deeper and deeper. We can't do a thing. Why in the devil doesn't she
put us out of the way and get it over with? What's she keeping us
around for, anyway?"
Blaine was asking himself that very question. Pegrani regarded them
with something of understanding in his beady eyes. But he was nervous
and apprehensive and broke in on their conversation to urge them into
action. The Zara must be obeyed.
The corridor was deserted now and their footsteps echoed hollowly from
the bare metal walls. Pegrani was ahead, leading the way, when Blaine
was startled by an insistent tap on his shoulder. Another of the
Rulans, it was, repeating the gesture of the youth who had been killed
on the roof. But this one had no message; he was after something
else--telling them in pantomime to make a break for freedom and to
follow him.
Blaine caught Tommy's attention. And Pegrani, warned again by that
sixth sense of his, turned his head. With a bellow of rage he whirled
into action, ray pistol in hand. But Blaine was prepared for him this
time. He wasn't going to witness another murder--not now. Flinging Tom
Farley aside, he let loose a terrific jab that landed full on Pegrani's
mouth. The ray pistol crackled harmlessly, its deadly energy spending
itself in searing the metal of the ceiling.
* * * * *
Then he wrenched the weapon from the astonished Llott and was boring in
with body punches that quickly had the dwarf gasping for breath. These
creatures knew nothing of fighting with their hands except in the
fashion of clumsy wrestlers. The thud of hard fists against yielding
flesh was a new and terrifying experience. Pegrani was game, though,
and he flailed about with his powerful arms, endeavoring to get his
opponent in his grasp. Sidestepping to avoid one of his rushes, Blaine
brought up a terrible uppercut that ended flush upon the Llott's jaw.
His head snapped back and his knees gave way beneath him. Down he went
in a flabby heap. Suddenly ashamed, the young pilot turned to the
Rulan.
Tom's eyes were shining. It was easy to see that he felt better about
things now.
"I am a friend," the Rulan whispered in the Llott tongue, "sent by one
who would have conversation with you. It is of the highest importance,
but we must make haste. Will you trust me?"
Blaine saw deep concern and sincerity in the fellow's blue eyes. "What
do you say, Tommy?" he asked, looking to his friend for approval.
"I say, let's go. He seems okay to me."
Their new guide was familiar with the passages and especially so with
dark and little used stairways that connected the floors of the huge
building. They soon reached the roof through a hatch that opened on a
small penthouse which was in deep shadow and entirely hidden from the
runways where the green-bronze guards paced constantly.
A slender cable dangled before them, and at its lower end they saw a
basket-like car which their guide bid them enter. When they had done
so, he tugged on the cable, giving a rapid twitching signal. Instantly
they were soaring up into the blackness above the lights of Antrid.
* * * * *
The swift journey ended in a tiny enclosed vehicle where another Rulan
operated the cable drum which had made the trip possible. The car was
unlighted save for the faint glow of a hand lamp, and it was not until
the lower door was closed that they were permitted a view of the
interior of the strange vehicle and had a good look at the two Rulans.
"Now," the one who had brought them said, "I can explain. I am Tiedus,
son of Tiedor. My companion is Dantus, son of Dantor, the greatest
scientist in all Antrid. We are taking you to Dantor who has knowledge
of the mad plans of the Llotta and is in need of your help in thwarting
them. You are willing?"
"Why--why, yes," Blaine stammered, looking deep into the earnest eyes
of Tiedus. "You--you know of the fate of Tiedor?"
"I do." The young Rulan fell silent; then shook his head as if to clear
it of unwelcome thoughts. "There are but few of us left, oh Earth man,"
he said then, "and all expect a like fate sooner or later. But that is
beside the point. We have important work to do: work that brooks no
delay. We leave now for the Tritu Anu, with your consent."
Tom Farley was examining the machinery of the car with interest. "This
one of the monorail cars?" he inquired, when Dantus had seated himself
at the controls.
"Indeed not. The Llotta do not even know of the existence of this
vehicle. We could not get right of way on the rails, so this gravity
car was developed in secrecy. It is provided with variable repulsion
energies that can be adjusted to keep it at a fixed distance from the
inner surface of the copper shell. Thus it misses cross beams and
braces. It is drawn forward by similar energies, or more exactly, by
the component of a number of attracting forces. We do not display
lights, so are thus comparatively safe from discovery. They'll catch us
sooner or later, though, of course." Dantus indulged in a fatalistic
shrug of his shoulders as he concluded.
* * * * *
At his manipulation of a number of tiny levers that were set into the
control panels like the stops of an organ, the car lurched forward.
Silently, swiftly, they sped on through the gloom under the great
copper shell.
Through the viewing glass of a periscope arrangement that let no
betraying light escape to the outside, they watched the endless lines
of illuminating globes slip by beneath them. Weirdly vast and shadowy
in the upper reaches, the latticed supporting columns on either side
merged into continuous semi-transparent walls as the car gathered
speed.
The city of Ilen-dar was left far behind. Patches of jungle flashed by;
other cities. And always the endless rows of blue-white lights. There
was neither night nor day in the sealed-in world; only the artificial
suns that never set. Continuous subjection to the ultra-violet and
visible rays of the vast lighting system was necessary to the growth
and reproduction of the plant life that was so essential in keeping the
atmosphere breathable.
Tommy had forgotten everything save his interest in the mechanism of
the car. He and Dantus were fast friends already.
Chin in hand and eyes avoiding the pain of mourning in Tiedus' fixed
gaze, Carson lost himself in gloomy meditation. As he thought back over
the events of the past few days he could scarcely believe they had
actually occurred or that he was sitting here in a mystery car,
speeding through the rank atmosphere of an enclosed world a half
billion miles from his own. Home seemed incredibly remote and desirable
just then, and the future dark and forbidding.