"That's what we _thought_," said Brian doggedly. "But he ain't dead.
Either he's still alive, or his ghost--" A strange look swept his
features. He stopped, glanced at the new leader of the group. "Neil,
could it have been a--"
"I don't know," confessed Hardesty. "I honestly do not know. We'll just
have to wait and see, Brian. But if he's coming here tonight, he'd
better come soon. It's almost midnight. After the curfew, we won't be
allowed to move on the streets."
"Particularly," interjected a new member of the Group, "now. The
Overlord's guards are watching the streets like a pack of hounds since
the theft of the Princess' jewels."
Hardesty said staunchly, "They can't blame that on us. We were all
at work when it happened. Still ... I'd like to know who did it. I'd
like to know what became of them, too. Disappeared into thin air, the
Princess claimed--"
"_The jewels_," said a familiar voice, "_have been distributed where
they will do the most good. Their wealth has been converted into food
to fill the bellies of those who hunger._"
All occupants of the refuge spun as one, seeking in vain the speaker.
Neil Hardesty cried:
"Dirk! Then Brian was right! But ... where are you?"
The voice from nowhere chuckled.
"That is what Garroway would like to know. I am beside you, Neil. Reach
out your hand."
Hardesty did so. Briefly he felt a strange, warm tingling ... then his
hand met and gripped the hand of Morris. Tears sprang to the Group
leader's eyes. He choked, "Dirk! Thank the gods you have returned! We
thought you were--"
He hesitated over the word. Morris supplied it.
"Dead? I am, Neil ... so far as you are concerned."
All members of the listening party stirred uneasily. Vurrth grunted,
and Brian Shaughnessey husked, "You see? I guessed it. A ghost--"
"That's right," laughed Morris in most unwraithlike tones. "A ghost. A
galactic ghost ... free to roam the System without hindrance or bar.
Fleshless at will ... but with a body if I so desire."
"You ... you mean," choked Neil, "you can make yourself visible if you
wish?"
"Not visible to your eyes, no. But I can render myself solid when it
is necessary to do so. It was thus--" Morris laughed--"I stole the
tax-collector's gleanings and the Princess Lenore's jewels. Thus, too,
I helped Brian destroy the munitions dump."
"I'm afraid," said Hardesty humbly, "I'm afraid I do not understand,
Dirk. You are fleshless ... yet you can make your body solid. You are
alive, yet you call yourself 'dead so far as we are concerned.' What
does it mean?"
"I'm not sure," answered Morris, "that I understand it myself,
completely. But here is the explanation as it was told me--"
* * * * *
He told them, then, of that which had followed his "execution" in the
teleport. Of his meeting with Ptan Slador and Rima, and that which
had transpired between them. To a group such as this, untutored and
unlettered, it was vain to speak in technical language; he told his
story as simply as possible.
"--thus," he concluded, "though the laws of Nadron forbid our using
that adjacent world as a gathering-spot for our forces, the Ptan
Slador and his fellows are sympathetic to our cause. They, therefore,
instructed me in the use of their visor, as well as in the employment
of certain strange faculties developed in me by my passage through the
teleport.
"I am, you see, no longer simply a man of Earth, but a creature of two
worlds. Through the machination of the teleport, my atomic vibration
was altered to that of Nadron's galactic universe. But in the greater
continuum of Space-Time, there remains a life-path which is mine, and
typically mine.
"To this ineradicable life-path I am always free to return. Could you
see me, you would note that I wear two odd bits of apparel. One, a pair
of visor-spectacles secured to my eyes; the second, a force-belt which
enables me to give my invisible body substance when such is needed.
"To reach any given spot on Earth, I have but to go to its matching
spot on Nadron, then turn the stud upon the force-belt. This sends a
magnetic flux through my body, diverting it from Nadron's vibration
to that of Earth ... and placing me on my home planet. But as for
visibility--" He shook his head sadly--"that I can never be again ...
to you. There are limits to the diversion of matter. My only _real_
existence now is upon Nadron; my visits to Earth can be made only as a
tangible and vengeful wraith."
"Then we can never see you again, Dirk?"
"Not on Earth. On Nadron, perhaps. The Ptan Slador has promised that
when we have rid Earth of its tyrant, intercourse may be opened between
our two worlds. Not before, though." Dirk pondered briefly. "There is
one other way," he said. "A way which I did not know of myself until
a few hours ago. But I shall not mention it, even to you. It was an
accident which happened in the Princess' boudoir. I must ask the Ptan
about it when next I see him. Meanwhile--"
"Yes?" said Brian eagerly. "What do we do, Dirk?"
"You," ordered Morris sternly, "get out of sight and lay low! All of
you! The incidents which have occurred today are but a mild beginning
to what is to come. There is about to burst loose a reign of terror
such as Graed Garroway in the depth of his infamy never dreamed
possible ... and I am its originator!
"When this begins, Garroway's first logical move will be to herd all
known living members of the Group together for questioning. You know
the manner of his interrogation. You must be spared the pleasures of
his rack and brand.
"So ... hide! Go where you can, as swiftly as you can, and forget you
have heard from me. But spread the word to all freedom-loving men that
the time approaches when Earth and the solar system will rid itself of
Garroway's shackles. You can do this from concealment?"
"We can," said Hardesty eagerly. "We can and will, Dirk. The hearts of
millions are with us. If you will but tell us when and where to strike."
"You will be told from time to time. When word does not come, you
will know to strike where a weakness has been driven in the enemy's
defenses."
The voice of Dirk Morris was not pleasant now. It rang with the bitter
hardness of forged steel.
"I will strike Garroway hard, and often, and everywhere! Where least he
expects attack, there will I strike him. His armies will be robbed of
leaders, stores, strongholds. I will make Earth a boiling hell for him.
And when Earth becomes too hot a cauldron for his tasting, to the far
planets of the System I will pursue him inexorably. This I vow by the
bond of comradeship we have pledged!"