CHAPTER II
_Warning_
It must have been nearly nine o'clock when a personal message came forme. Not through the ordinary open airways, but in the National Length,and coded. It came to my desk by official messenger, decoded, printedand sealed.
_Jac Hallen, Inter-Allied News_. Come to me, North-east Island at once, if they can spare you. Important. Answer.
Dr. Brende.
Our Division Manager scanned the message curiously and told me I couldgo. I got off my answer. I did not dare call Dr. Brende openly, since hehad used the code, but sent it the same way. I would be up at once.
With a word of good-bye to Greys, I shoved aside my work, caught up aheavy jacket and cap and left the office. The levels outside ourbuilding were still jammed with an excited throng. I pushed my waythrough it, up to the entrance to the Staten Bridge. The waters of theharbor beneath me had a broad band of moonlight upon them, dim in theglare of the city lights. I glanced upward with satisfaction. A goodnight for air-traveling.
My small personal air-car was on the stage near the bridge entrance. Theattendant was there, staring at me as I dashed up in such haste. Hehanded me my key from the rack.
"Going far, Jac? What a night! They'll be ordering them off if many morego up.... Going north?"
"No," I said shortly.
I was away, rising with my helicopters until the city was a yellow hazebeneath me. I _was_ going north--to Dr. Brende's little private islandoff the coast of Maine. The lower lanes were pretty well crowded. Itried one of the north-bound at 8,000 feet; but the going was awkward.Then I went to 16,000.
But Grille, the attendant back at the bridge, evidently had his finderon me, out of plain curiosity. He called me.
"They'll chase you out of there," came his voice. "Nothing doing upthere tonight. That's reserved. Didn't you know it?"
I grinned at him. In the glow of my pitlight I hoped he could see myface and the grin.
"They'll never catch me," I said. "I'm traveling fast tonight."
"Chase you out," he persisted. "The patrol's keeping them low. GeneralOrders, an hour ago. Didn't you know it?"
"No."
"Well, you ought to. You ought to know everything in your business.Besides, the lights are up."
They were indeed; I could see them in all the towers underneath me. Iwas flying north-east; and at the moment, with a following wind, I wasdoing something over three-fifty.
"But they'll shut off your power," Grille warned. "You'll come down soonenough then."
Which was also true enough. The evening local-express for Boston andbeyond was overhauling me. And when the green beam of a traffic towercame up and picked me out, I decided I had better obey. Dutifully Idescended until the beam, satisfied, swung away from me.
At 8,000 feet, I went on. There was too much traffic for decent speedand the directors in every pilot bag and tower I passed seemed watchingme closely. At the latitude of Boston, I swung out to sea, off the mainarteries of travel. The early night mail for Eurasia,[4] with GreatLondon its first stop, went by me far overhead. I could make out itsgreen and purple lights, and the spreading silver beam that preceded it.
[Footnote 4: Now Europe and Asia.]
Alone in my pit, with the dull whir of my propellers alone breaking thesilence of the night, I pondered the startling events of the past fewhours. Above me the stars and planets gleamed in the deep purple of analmost cloudless sky. Venus had long since dropped below the horizon.But Mars was up there--approaching the zenith. I wondered what theMartian helio might be saying. I could have asked Greys back at theoffice. But Greys, I knew, would be too busy to bother with me.
What could Dr. Brende want of me? I was glad he had sent for me--therewas nowhere I would rather have gone this particular evening. And itwould give me a chance to see Elza again.
I could tell by the light-numerals below, that I was now over Maine. Idid not need to consult my charts; I had been up this way many times,for, the Brendes--the doctor, his daughter Elza, and her twin brotherGeorg--I counted my best friends.
I was over the sea, with the coast of Maine to my left. The traffic,since I left the line of Boston, had been far less. The patrols flashedby me at intervals, but they did not molest me.
I descended presently, and located the small two-mile island which Dr.Brende owned and upon which he lived.
It was 10:20 when I came down to find them waiting for me on the runway.
The doctor held out both his hands. "Good enough, Jac. I got yourcode--we've been waiting for you."
"It's crowded," I said. "Heavy up to Boston. And they wouldn't let me gohigh."
He nodded. And then Elza put her cool little hand in mine.
"We're glad to see you, Jac. Very glad."
They took me to the house. Dr. Brende was a small, dark man ofsixty-odd, smooth-shaven, a thin face, with a mop of iron-grey hairabove it, and keen dark eyes beneath bushy white brows. He was usuallykindly and gentle of manner--at times a little abstracted; at othertimes he could be more forceful and direct than anyone with whom I hadever had contact.
At the house we were joined by the doctor's son, Georg. My best friend,I should say; certainly, for my part, I treasured his friendship veryhighly. He and Elza were twins--twenty-three years old at this time. Iam two years older; and I had been a room-mate with Georg at the CommonUniversity of the Potomac.
Our friendship had, if anything, grown closer since my promotion intothe business world. Yet we were as unlike as two individuals couldpossibly be. I am dark-haired, slim, and of comparatively slightmuscular strength. Restless--full of nervous energy--and, they tell me,somewhat short of temper. Georg was a blond, powerful young giant. Ahead taller than I--blue-eyed, from his mother, now dead--square-jawed,and a complexion pink and white. He was slow to anger. He seldom spokeimpulsively; and usually with a slow, quiet drawl. Always he seemedlooking at life and people with a half-humorous smile--looking at thehuman pageant with its foibles, follies and frailties--tolerantly. Yetthere was nothing conceited about him. Quite the reverse. He wasgenerally wholly deprecating in manner, as though he himself were ofleast importance. Until aroused. In our days of learning, I saw Georgonce--just once--thoroughly angered.
"... Came up promptly, didn't you?" Georg was saying. He was leading meto the house doorway, but I stopped him.
"Let's go to the grove," I suggested. We turned down from the smallviaduct, passed the house, and went into the heavy grove of treesnearby.
"He's hungry," Elza declared. "Jac, did you eat at the office tonight?"
"Yes," I said.
"Did you really?"
"Some," I admitted. In truth the run up here had brought me a thoroughlyhearty appetite, which I just realized.
"I was pretty busy, you know," I added. "Such a night--but don't youbother."
But she had already scurried away toward the house. Dear little Elza! Iwished then, for the hundredth time, that I was a man of wealth--or atleast, not as poor as a tower timekeeper. True, I made fair money--butthe urge to spend it recklessly dominated me. I decided in that moment,to reform for good; and lay by enough to justify asking a woman to be mywife.
We reclined on a mossy bank in the grove of trees, so thick a grove thatit hid the house from our sight.
The doctor extinguished the glowing lights with which the tree-brancheswere dotted. We were in the semi-darkness of a beautiful, moonlit night.
"Don't go to sleep, Jac!"
I became aware that Georg and his father were smiling at me.
I sat up, snapping my wits into alertness. "No. Of course not. I guessI'm tired. You've no idea what the office was like tonight. Roaring."
"I can imagine," Georg said. "You were at Park Sixty when the Presidentfell, weren't you?"
"Yes. But I wasn't supposed to be. I wasn't assigned to that. How didyou guess?"
"Elza saw you. She had our finder on you--I couldn't push her away fromit." His slow smile was quizzical.
"On me? In all
that crowd. She must have searched about very carefullyto----"
I stopped; I could feel my cheeks burning, and was glad of the dimnessthere under the trees.
"She did," said Georg.
"I sent for you, Jac," Dr. Brende interjected abstractedly,"because----"
But Georg checked him. "Not now, father. Someone--anyone--might pick youup. Your words--or read your lips--there's light enough here to registeron a finder."
The doctor nodded. "He's afraid--you see, Jac, it's these Venus----"
"Father--please. It's a long chance--but why take any? We can insulatein the house."
The chance that someone who shouldn't be, was tuned to us as we satthere in that lonely grove! With the doctor's widespread reputation--hismore than national prominence--it did not seem to me to be such a longchance either, on this, of all nights.
"As you say, no use in putting private things into the public air," Iremarked; and I felt then as though a thousand hostile eyes and earswere watching and listening. "We can talk of what everybody knows,"Georg commented. "The Martian Ruler of the Little People wasassassinated an hour ago. You heard that coming up?"
"No," I said; but I had imagined as much. "Did they say--"
"They said nothing," Dr. Brende put in. "The flash of a dozen helioedwords--no more."
"It went dark, like Venus?"
"No. Just discontinued. I judge they're excited up there--the Bureaudisorganized perhaps--I don't know. That was the last we got at thehouse, just before you came down. There may be something in therenow--you Inter-Allied people are pretty reliable."
The ruler of the Venus Central State, the leading monarch of Mars, andour three chief executives of Earth--murdered almost simultaneously! Itwas incredible--any one of the murders would have been incredible--yetit was true.
There had been times--in the Inter-Allied Office, particularly--when Ihad been insulated from aerial eavesdropping. But never had I felt theneed of it more than now. A constraint fell over me; I seemed afraid tosay anything. I think we all three felt very much like that; and it wasa relief when Elza arrived with my dainty little meal.
"Any word from Mars, Elza?" her father asked.
She sat down beside me, helping me to the food.
"I did not look," she answered.
She did not look, because she was busy preparing my meal! Dear littleElza! And because of my accursed extravagance--my poverty--no word oflove had ever passed between us!
I thought I had never seen Elza so beautiful as this moment. A slimlittle thing, perfectly formed and matured, and inches shorter than I.Thick brown hair braided, and hanging below her waist. A face--pretty asher mother's must have been--yet intellectual as her father's.
I had taken Elza to the great music festivals of the city, and countedher the best dressed girl in all the vast throng. Tonight she wasdressed simply. A grey-blue, tubular sort of skirt, clinging close tothe lines of her figure and split at the side for walking; atight-fitting bodice, light in color (a man knows little of thetechnicalities of such things); throat bare, with a flaring rolledcollar behind--a throat like a rose-petal with the moonlight on it; armsbare, save for the upper, triangular sleeves.
It must suffice; I can only say she was adorable. Almost in silence Iate my meal, with her beside me.
Georg went into the house once, to consult the news-tape. It was crowdedwith Earth events--excitement, confusion everywhere--inconsequentialreports, they seemed, by comparison with what had gone before. But ofhelios from Mars, or Venus, there were none reported. Of Venus, the tapesaid nothing save that each of our westward stations was vainly callingin turn, as the planet dropped toward its horizon.
I finished my meal--too leisurely for Georg and the doctor; and then weall went into the house, to the insulated room where at last we couldtalk openly.
As we entered the main corridor, we heard the low voice of theInter-Allied news-announcer, coming from the disc in a room nearby.
_"And Venus----"_
The words caught our attention. We hurried in, and stood by theInter-Allied equipment. Georg picked up the pile of tape whereon theannouncer's words were being printed. He ran back over it.
"Another helio from Venus!" he exclaimed. "Ten minutes ago."
And then I saw his lips go tight together. He made no move to hide thetape from Elza, but she was beside him and already reading it. Herfingers switched off the announcer's droning voice.
_"Pacific Coastal Station,"_ Elza read. In the sudden silence of theroom her voice was low, clear, and steady, though her hands weretrembling. _"P.C.S. 10.42 Venus helio. 'Defeat! Beware Tarrano! Notifyyour Dr. Brende in Eurasia, danger.'"_
We men stared at each other. But Elza went on reading.
_"P.C.S. 10.44 Venus helio. 'Lost! No more! Smashing apparatus!' TheVenus sending station went dark at 10.44.30. Hawaiian station will calllater, but have little hope of re-establishing connection. Tokyohama10.46 Official, via Potomac National Headquarters. Excitement herecontinues. Levels crowded----"_
Elza dropped the tape. "That's all of importance. Venus Central Stationwarning _you_, father."
A buzz across the room called the doctor to his personal receiver. Itwas a message in code from Potomac National Headquarters. We watched thequeer-looking characters printing on the tape. Very softly, in a voicehardly above a whisper, Georg decoded it.
_"Dr. Brende, see P.C.S. 10.42, warning you, probably of Venusimmigrants now here. Do you need guard? Or will you come to Washingtonat once for personal safety?"_
"Father!" cried Elza.
Georg burst out. "Enough of this. We cannot--dare not talk in here.Father, come----"
We went out into the corridor again, across which was the small roominsulated from all aerial vibrations. In the corridor a figure wasstanding--the one other member of the Brende household--themaid-servant, a girl about Elza's age. I knew her well, of course, butthis evening I had forgotten her existence. She was standing in thecorridor. Did I imagine it, or had she been gazing up at the mechanismten feet above the floor--the mechanism controlling the insulated room?
"You wish me, Miss Elza? I thought I heard you call."
"No, Ahla, not 'til later."
With a gesture of respect, the girl withdrew, passing from our sightdown the incline which led to the lower part of the house.
It was a very small incident, but in view of what was transpiring, itgave me a shock nevertheless.
For Elza's maid was a Venus girl!