He spun around.
Vermeer was toiling up the hill behind him. The agent of the Venusian
Export Lines had his dart gun drawn and levelled. He halted half a
dozen steps from Norman. He said, "There's always a reckoning, Saint
Clair."
Wildly, Norman speculated on his chance should he hurl himself at
Vermeer in the face of the poisoned needles. He knew there was none.
"You've had a remarkable run of luck," Vermeer smiled. "But by the laws
of chance, it was bound to turn."
Norman didn't reply. The explosion of a rocket shell suddenly rent
the air, followed by the crackle of dum-dum fire. It ascended faintly
unreal from the human colony below them.
"My men," Vermeer explained, "are attacking yours. But it doesn't
matter who wins. The real contest is being decided up here between us
two. It's rather like ancient times, with which you're so familiar,
Saint Clair, when battles were decided between two champions. You see,
I took the precaution to close the gate before I followed you."
Norman could feel the drag of his own dart gun at his waist, considered
throwing himself to one side, snatching for his gun. Vermeer, he
realized bitterly, had only to pull his trigger.
"I wonder," Vermeer went on, "if you realize the stakes we're playing
for? The man who remains alive within the force wall can control the
solar system." He laughed exultantly, drew a careful bead on Norman's
chest.
He's going to fire, thought Norman. Even at that distance, he could see
the knuckles of the agent's hand whiten as they contracted about the
pommel of the dart gun.
A fantastic hope crystallized in his mind. Conception and action was
simultaneous.
"Now!" Norman breathed, and fell as if dead.
He fell just a fraction of a second before Vermeer pulled the trigger.
He heard the poisoned dart whistle over his shoulder, then he hit the
street with a jarring thud and lay still. He daren't breathe, daren't
flicker an eyelash.
It would never occur to Vermeer that he could have missed at twenty
short paces. The very deadliness of the darts precluded any necessity
of administering a _coup de grace_. Norman could hear the shuffle of
Vermeer's approaching steps. Had the trick worked?
Vermeer's foot nudged him in the ribs.
Like the recoil of a spring, Norman grabbed the agent's ankles, threw
his weight against Vermeer's knees. The man toppled backward. Norman
swarmed on top of him.
Vermeer had been suspicious. He still retained the dart gun in his
hand. Norman seized his wrist. They struggled fiercely, silently in the
empty streets, their only audience the plant men covered with blight,
full of the indifference of death.
With a surge of exultation Norman felt Vermeer's wrist weaken. He threw
his weight on the weapon, bent it downward. His finger covered the
trigger. He squeezed.
Vermeer shuttered and lay still.
Norman crouched backward off the dead agent to his feet. The sound of
firing in the human colony was silent. Whatever the outcome of the
battle had been, he realized, it was over.
* * * * *
What was it Vermeer had said? "The man who remains alive within the
force wall can control the Solar System." He, Norman Saint Clair,
who had set out from Earth to lecture on Ancient History in distant
Ganymede, was as much master of the System at this moment as if the
battle had already been fought.
He had no difficulty locating the death broadcasting machine. It was
housed in a tremendous hall in the Dohlmite temple of science. It was
a delicate affair of tubes and wires. The cylinders, he saw, were fed
into it automatically so that it could broadcast its messages of death
with machine gun rapidity.
He seized a chair, savagely smashed the machine into fragments. It
was a weapon of enslavement. No good could come of it. At length, he
paused. The cylinders and the force wall remained, but they could wait.
With a growing sense of triumph, he left the temple of science,
retraced his steps down the hill between the silent houses.
While still half way to the gate, he made out hundreds of men crowded
just beyond the force wall. As he drew closer he recognized Koal and
Acpsahme in the front ranks. He went into the glassite shack, threw the
switch that shut off the segment of the wall. He forced himself to walk
across the silver track, say in a calm voice:
"The Dohlmites are dead, Koal. The machine is destroyed. We're free."
A savage cheer rang up from the men. Runners left to inform the rest of
the city. Koal seized his hand, nearly wrung it off.
Acpsahme said, "The men of the Venusian Export Lines attacked us. They
bit off more than they could chew."
"Pepperell? Where's Pepperell?" asked Norman.
"Here," replied the T.I.S. agent.
"Pepperell," said Norman. "Get in touch with the Terrestial
Intelligence Service over the radio at once. You know their code.
Tell them to send an accredited ambassador of the Earth Congress in
the Empire's fastest space ship toward Neptune, but don't reveal our
location. We'll contact the ship beyond the orbit of Jupiter. I want,"
he said with a sudden laugh, "to arrange a surprise for the ambassador."