_Last of the Rulans_
Bathed and fed and attired in dry clothing provided by Dantor, the
Earth man and Rulan maiden were much refreshed and heartened when,
together, they finally faced the aged scientist in the laboratory of
the secret apartment. He hadn't allowed them to talk as yet.
Blaine glanced at the ragged opening where the stone door had been
blown away. "We are safe from intrusion here?" he asked.
Dantor shrugged expressive shoulders. "The Tritu Anu is empty of life,"
he said; "a sepulchre. Those of our people who were not completely
disintegrated lie blackened corpses in the chambers and corridors
overhead. The gas grenades, you know. The guards went to Ianito with
Farley and reported you dead: lost in the jungle from which none
return."
"Farley!" Blaine shouted. "He is alive?" A wild hope sprang into being,
intensified to a certainty as Dantor nodded.
"Why, yes. I thought you knew. They captured him very soon after the
escape, but were unable to find you and Ulana. Ianito has mechanized
him; he is in a hypnotic state of complete subjection to the Dictator.
A quantity of k-metal has been taken to the laboratory at the breech of
the great rocket-tube, and Farley now works there with Ianito's crew,
initiating them into the mysteries of the metal's uses. Things look
very bad."
"Wh-a-at!" Blaine lost his elation over the knowledge that his friend
was alive. Tommy was doomed, anyway. They all were doomed. "Why did you
bring us back?" he asked, turning away. Blaine felt it was better to
have died in the jungle than to face this certainty of lingering
torture. Ianito had triumphed; the universe was fated for utter
annihilation and Ulana would suffer for weeks, perhaps months, before
the final swift dissolution.
* * * * *
Understanding, Dantor smiled gravely. "My boy," he said, "we still
live, and while we live there is hope. That is the reason I brought you
back. Tiedus' message came to me as his spirit left the body and I made
haste to come here as soon as the Zara released me and I knew the coast
was clear."
"What hope can there be?" Appalled by the enormity of the disaster that
threatened the solar system, certain of the ultimate fate that would be
meted out to Tom Farley, and convinced of their own helplessness,
Blaine was gloomily unenthusiastic.
"That remains to be seen, Carson. I confess it seems impossible of
remedy, but the situation must be faced and studied carefully.
Insignificant as we are in the vastness of the cosmos, we may yet prove
to be the ones to circumvent the mad plans of the Llotta and prevent
the catastrophe which is inevitable if they succeed. We must not give
up while we still breathe."
The indomitable spirit of the old scientist glistened in his keen eyes,
and he stepped to the controls of the crystal sphere.
"He will not give up, oh Dantor," Ulana exclaimed loyally. "He is with
us to the end. Do I speak truth, my Carson?"
Her arm slipped through his and he thrilled anew at her fragrant
nearness. Give up? Never! Not with Ulana to fight for. Blaine nodded
wordless agreement, silenced by the expression of Dantor's face as the
crystal vibrated to a musically throbbing note.
* * * * *
There in the crystal ball was pictured a vast underground workshop
somewhat like the one in the great dome through which they had entered
the copper-clad world. In place of the telescope there was the butt of
a gigantic cannon-like tube that towered and was lost in the shadows of
the vaulted chamber. Tom Farley, moving jerkily and staring with glazed
unseeing eyes, was working there with a cube of the glittering k-metal.
In the open breech block of the tube was a heaped-up cone of dry soil,
the material they would disintegrate in producing the blast of
electronic forces. Blaine groaned as his friend called for the
equivalent of a milligram of radium. Though his voice was listless and
his movements uncertain, Tommy knew what he was doing and was giving
away the secret, powerless to resist the command Ianito had implanted
in his completely subjective mind.
"Ah," Dantor breathed: "progressive annihilation of energy: a thing we
never have accomplished. You excite ordinary material such as this dry
soil by means of atoms exploded from this k-metal which is in turn
excited by ordinary radium that can be used over and over as the
primary excitant. Am I correct?"
"You are. There are precise ratios of atomic weights to be considered,
of course, but it looks as if my friend is being extremely accurate in
spite of his dazed condition. Man alive! There is enough material there
to provide power for the entire planet Venus for a month!"
"And enough to start Antrid from her orbit," Dantor returned. "Enough
to send her on her fatal journey sunward?"
"Only for the first acceleration. A vast amount of energy is needed,
Carson, since the gravitational attraction of the planet you call
Jupiter is enormous. Antrid will be speeded up in its orbit and the
increased centrifugal force will cause it to take up a new and larger
orbit where the forces will equalize. Several charges will be required
in order to free her entirely from the mother body."
* * * * *
"There's time then!" Blaine exclaimed excitedly. "What can we do to put
a stop to the thing? Something to counteract this control by Ianito; to
cause Tommy to err in his proportions."
"Yes, that would do it--temporarily at least," Dantor agreed, his brow
wrinkled in thought; "and there are the invisible cloaks. It is a bare
chance if you want to take it. I can show you the way to this
underground laboratory, and, in invisibility, you might even be able to
change the ratios yourself. Yes, yes, it is a very good idea." The
scientist brightened in renewed hope.
"Of course I'll chance it. When do I start?"
Dantor grinned in appreciation and Ulana looked up at him starry-eyed.
"I'm going with you," she stated simply.
"Not on your life! There'll be danger. I won't have it!"
"Nevertheless, I'm going. There's another cloak and besides the danger
would be greater if I were alone. Where you go I go, and if you die I
die with you--gladly." She twined her fingers with his and gazed at him
appealingly.
"Dantor! This can't be!" He turned to the scientist for support.
The aged scientist studied the two a little while, and then said
quietly, "I'm afraid it is better as she wishes, Carson. I am unable to
protect her, my boy, and there is no one else who might give her
shelter. We are the last of the Rulans, she and I. The very last."
"Oh-h!" Ulana moaned, pale and distraught. "All--all are gone?"
"All, my dear. In his rage the Dictator destroyed the Tritu Deanu and
the Tritu Raortu when he had finished here. Those were the last
settlements remaining, you know. We alone are left behind, Ulana."
Dantor bowed his head and the girl sobbed silently.
"Good Heavens!" Blaine Carson was aghast at the revelation. A monstrous
deed, this last one of Ianito's. He was a fit master of a world gone
mad. A monster in the twisted semblance of human form.
* * * * *
"He will be searching for you, oh Dantor," the girl said with sudden
conviction. She had mastered her emotions and was instantly alert to
every angle of the situation.
"That is true," said the old man gravely. "For myself I have nothing to
fear, of course. Though insanely jealous of my accomplishments, he
maintains an armed truce with me. He dares not do otherwise as the
Supreme Council is aware of his shortcomings and cognizant of my
superior knowledge of science. But there is danger to you two. You must
make haste."
A trembling of the ground beneath them lent added emphasis to his final
words. A quick glance into the crystal told them that the initial
charge was at work in the huge rocket-tube. The laboratory there at its
base was in confusion indescribable, the workmen running hither and yon
in the effort to escape the terrific heat that radiated from the red
hot breech of the tube. They jammed the exits in their anxiety to be
anywhere but near this monster source of energy whose pulsating roar
drowned out all other sounds in the vast chamber.
Already Antrid was accelerating in velocity. Her vitals were wrenched
and twisted, groaning in protest.
"Quick now!" Blaine was adjusting one of the invisible cloaks for
Ulana. He'd _have_ to take her with him. And a silent prayer for
her safety was on his lips.
Invisible now, and hand in hand, they followed Dantor through the
deserted passageways to the lift which carried them quickly to the
roof. A drumming sound came to their ears as they stood there looking
up into the blackness above the blue-white lights of Antrid. Vibrating
to the tremendous roar of the rocket-tube, the copper shell emitted a
constantly increasing reverberation that was like a long drawn peal of
thunder on Earth or Venus. It was awe-inspiring, that sonorous
bombilation; deafening.
* * * * *
Dantor was fumbling with the mechanisms of the remote control which
Tiedus had used in returning the basket lift to the car that had
brought the two Earth men from Ilen-dar. Again and again he returned to
his manipulations after peering anxiously upward. But the basket did
not respond to the call. They were marooned atop the empty shell of the
Tritu Anu!
"Carson! Ulana! Where are you?" the aged scientist shouted above the
din, his face a tragic mask, his lips compressed with anxiety and
disappointment.
They grasped him to reassure him, each taking a hand. Carson, placing
his lips close to the old man's ear, inquired anxiously, "What's the
trouble?"
"The car does not respond. Something has happened to the motors,
probably on account of the vibration. I can do nothing."
And then, piercingly through the thunderings of the copper shell, a
voice broke in--Ianito's voice. "Dantor!" it shrieked. "At last I have
found you. I need your help immediately. Wait there for the monorail."
Dantor gripped them tightly to enjoin silence. Ianito had located the
scientist with the searching ray and was still watching and listening
at his crystal. He seemed not to know that Blaine and Ulana were there.
"Very well, oh Ianito. I shall wait," Dantor shouted.
"It is good. There is important work to be done." Ianito's words
trailed off into the maelstrom of sound that swirled about them.
"He's cut off," the scientist yelled. "There is but one chance now. You
must come with me, depending on absolute silence and your cloaks to
deceive them. It is the only way."
* * * * *
Ulana clung to him there in the terrifying bedlam and Blaine's fingers
strayed to the comforting butt of the ray pistol. Whatever happened
there were a few charges left; blasts of energy that would serve at
least to postpone the end for Ulana. Or, if worse came to worst--
The sudden rush of a monorail car high overhead interrupted his
thoughts. "Close to me now!" Dantor shouted; "but have a care lest one
of them touch you and discover--"
A cable-hung cage dropped swiftly to the roof and they crowded in
beside the scientist. Quickly it whisked them aloft to the higher
plane.
In the monorail car Blaine held the girl close, and they trod softly as
they dodged the guard at the porthole and stepped into the passenger
compartment. Two of Ianito's technical experts were there and a crew of
at least a dozen of the green-bronze giants. Unseen by any, the couple
tiptoed to the farthest corner of the compartment and took seats in a
recessed section.
With a quick jerk and the rising whine of motors, the suspended vehicle
started back in the direction of Ilen-dar. In earnest conversation with
Ianito's engineers, Dantor affected an air of nonchalance that was
artfully disarming. The Llotta suspected nothing as the car continued
on its way.
And then there came an ominous grinding sound from underneath the very
seat occupied by the invisible fugitives. A puff of dense black smoke
followed and Ulana coughed spasmodically, uncontrollably. They were
coming now, two of the green-bronze ones, to investigate. There was no
escape from this narrow space. And--Ulana was gone! She had slipped
from his grasp in the coughing fit and he could not find her with his
wildly searching hands. Another betraying cough over there. The
green-bronze ones were between them. He saw one of them draw back in
amazement, then clench his fingers and twist.
The ripping sound of torn material followed and the girl's head and
startled face appeared: floating there, unsupported, her body and limbs
as yet invisible. But they'd found her; she was lost!