CHAPTER III
_Spy in the House_
The insulated room was small, with a dome-shaped ceiling, no windows,and but one small, heavy door through which we entered, closing itcarefully behind us.
"At last," Dr. Brende exclaimed. "Now we can talk freely."
But I was not satisfied. "That girl, Ahla--can you trust her?"
They all looked at me in surprise. When one is close to danger,sometimes one recognizes it least; with Ahla in this household for overa year now, they could not imagine her an enemy.
"I saw her looking up at the insulator," I added swiftly. "Out there inthe corridor. Am I talking wild? Perhaps I am. But she seemed startled;and she was standing just under the insulator, wasn't she?"
"But--" began Elza.
"Wait," I exclaimed. "When I first saw the President fall, at ParkSixty, I felt that a Venus man had done it. These other murders--they'reall the same. Done by Venus men of the Cold Country."
"Ahla's country," Elza murmured.
"Yes. Exactly. And the Venus Central State has been attacked and hasfallen. An assassination on Mars, and three here on Earth--allsimultaneously. It's one gigantic plot, I tell you--and the Cold Countryof Venus is at the bottom of it."
Georg jumped to his feet. "I'll see if the room has been tampered with."
He was back presently. "The insulator is intact. I set the alarm bell.If she touches it--"
"Where is she?"
"In the cookery, where she should be. I told her we would eat in anhour. That ought to keep her busy."
Dr. Brende made an attempt at a smile. "I think we are all a littleoverwrought--though with reason, no doubt. Sit down, Jac. Elza, comehere by me. Don't look so solemn, child."
He drew Elza to him, with his arm about her. I would have spoken, buthis gesture checked me. "I have much to say, Jac. I think I understandthese events, perhaps better than any of you. Let me go back twoyears--when I was in the Venus Central State."
I nodded my remembrance; and he went on:
"At that time the authorities there were greatly perturbed. They weremenaced by rebellion in the Cold Country. They would not let the ColdCountry people into the Central State, for it is already overcrowded.You did not know that, did you?"
"You mean the threatened rebellion?" I asked. "They were trying to keepit secret, but we heard rumors."
"Just so. And Jac, I will tell you why they kept it secret. The CentralState was encouraging emigration to the Earth. The Venus Cold Country isa poor place to live in--and on a whole its inhabitants are miserablepeople. Villainous, too, I should say. The Central State did not wantthem within its borders; and so it kept secret its troubles withthem--and encouraged emigration to the Earth.
"We--as you know--make no distinction between Venus people. We arefriendly with the Central State, and the Cold Country is governed byit--or was until tonight. Thus, you see, we have been in the position ofhaving to receive these renegade immigrants. Shut out from all the goodland and decent climate of Venus, they began coming here.
"But we did not want them, and of late we have been holding them off,cutting the quota allowed very materially. Last week, as you also know,in Triple Conference, our three races decided to allow at each InferiorConjunction of the Earth and Venus, so small a quota that the CentralState protested vigorously.
"The controversy has been hot; but the Central State--trying to foistoff its undesirables on us--knows it is in the wrong. And fundamentally,it is friendly to us--I think it has proven that in the last two hours."
Again I would have spoken, but he went on at once.
"I know you're familiar with most of this, Jac. But you news-gathererssometimes reason in too lurid a fashion. Let me go on. Mars was drawninto the affair. To extricate ourselves, we offered to admit--undertemporary guard--all Venus immigrants who would pass on at once--at thefirst astronomical opportunity--to Mars. This would have been very nicefor us--but not for Mars."
"They are hot-headed, in Mars," Georg commented.
"Quite so," said the doctor. "But very direct and forceful,nevertheless. They met our suggestion with a law excluding Venusimmigrants entirely. It was this, I think, that precipitated tonight'sevents--though of course they must have been brewing for a long time."
"This Tarrano--" I began.
"I heard of him when I was in Venus," said Dr. Brende. "He was at thattime a lower official in the Cold Country. Evidently he has risen in hisworld.
"I come now to conjecture--but I think it must be fairly close to truth.Tarrano, leading the Cold Country, has risen to open rebellion. Hisattack upon the Central State must have come suddenly--"
"You mean, just this evening?" Elza asked.
"No, of course not. But hoping to quell the rebellion, the Central Statehas suppressed news of it. At such a time--with this controversy goingon--such reports would only injure the Central State's inter-planetaryposition. That's obvious, isn't it? Then tonight, when things weredesperate, the Central State gave out its call. Tarrano has conqueredVenus, I'm sure. And at the last, before destroying its helio, theCentral State tried to warn us."
"Of what?" I demanded. "And what about these murders?"
"Done by emissaries of Tarrano, no doubt. For revenge, because of theMartian and Earth legislation--or for--"
"I think we should not speculate too much," said Georg. "At least, noton that line. They warned you personally, father. We were so careful tokeep everything secret--"
Dr. Brende mopped his forehead. He was trying to appear calm--I knew hedid not want unduly to alarm Elza; but I could see that he was laboringunder great emotion nevertheless.
"Things get out, Georg," he said. "We have been careful--yes. But twoyears ago, when I visited the Central State, I told them there what Ihoped to accomplish. There were no grave inter-planetary problemsthen--I thought I had no need of great secrecy. And since then, though,we have been very careful--"
Careful! With a Venus girl from the Cold Country living in theirhousehold! Truly, humans are a strange mixture of sagacity and folly!
"The Central State has heard something concerning you," Georg said."That could easily happen--prisoners captured from Tarrano's forces, forinstance. With dispatches--or perhaps some intercepted aerial message."
What was this secret they were discussing? I was the only one in theroom who did not know it. And why had Dr. Brende sent for me tonight?
I asked him both questions. His face went even more solemn than it hadbeen before.
"I sent for you, Jac, because in a measure I anticipated what has nowbefallen. Danger specifically to us Brendes, I mean. We count you as ourfriend--"
How it warmed my heart to hear him say that; and to see the glance thatElza cast me!
"--Our friend. I am an old man--you are young. Yet you are wise, too. Weneed you tonight."
He raised his hand when I would have told him how glad I was to be withthem.
"You know something of my work," he said, as a statement, rather than aquestion. "I should say, mine and Georg's and Elza's, for they have bothhelped me materially."
I knew that Dr. Brende had for years been one of the Earth's mosteminent research physicians. It was he who discovered the lightvibrations which had banished forever the dread germs of several of themajor diseases. He did not practice; his work was research only.
He went on: "Jac, I have found what for years I have been striving tofind--a vibration of light, though it is invisible--which so far as Ican determine, kills every bacillus harmful to man. There is nothing newin the idea--I have been working at it all my life. Sunlight! Alteredand modified in several particulars, yet sunlight nevertheless. Howstrange that for countless centuries, man never realized the blessedboon of sunlight--the greatest enemy of all disease!
"Each year, as you know, I have conquered some of what we call the majordiseases. A few of them--cancer[5], for instance--persisted in eludingme. Its bacilli--you can easily recognize the tiny purplish, horned rodswhich cause what we popularly call cance
r--just would not die. No formof light or other vibration I could devise, seemed to hurt them--unlessI used a vibration harmful, even fatal, to the blood-contents itself: Ikilled the cancer--in the words of you news-gatherers--but I also killedthe patient."
[Footnote 5: A medical word, translated here as _cancer_, thoughpossibly not that.]
His eyes smiled at the jest, but his face remained intensely serious.
"Then, Jac, I solved that problem--just a few months ago. And upon theheels of it I solved another, of infinitely more importance." He pausedslightly. "I have learned how to kill, or at least arrest, the bacillusof old age. It is a bacillus, you know. We grow old because every day welive beyond the age of thirty--the bacillus of old age is attacking us.I call them the Brende-bacilli--these tiny, frayed discs that make usgrow old. I have seen them--and killed them!"
It dawned on me slowly, the import of what he was saying.
"You mean----"
"He means," said Georg, "that at present we cannot only banishdisease--all disease--but we can keep your body from aging. Notpermanently, doubtless--but with the span of life lengthened threefoldat least. Only by violence now need you die prematurely."
This then was the secret the existence of which Tarrano had learned. Hehad....
But Dr. Brende was quietly voicing my thoughts.
"It seems obvious, Jac, that this Tarrano at least suspects that I havemade some such discovery as this. That he would withhold it frommankind, for the benefit of his own race, seems also obvious. That he isabout to make an attempt to get it from me, I am convinced."
I remembered the wording of the message of warning from the CentralState. _"Your Dr. Brende, in Eurasia."_ I mentioned it.
"Our main laboratory is there," Georg said. "In NorthernSiberia--isolated from people so far as possible, and in a climateadvantageous for the work."
Elza spoke for the first time in many minutes.
"We have guards there, Jac--eight of our assistants.... Father, I calledRobins a while ago. He said everything was all right. But don't youthink we should call him again?"
The doctor had drifted into deep thought. "What? Oh, yes, Elza. I wasthinking we should go there. My notes--descriptions of how to build alarger apparatus--larger than the small model I have installed there--mynotes are all there, and I want them. And I don't think, at such a time,I should trust Robins to bring them."
"What shall I send to Headquarters?" Georg asked. "They wanted ananswer, you remember."
"I'm going there to the Potomac--tell them that. Tell them we will comethere for safety. But first I must get my notes, and the model."
As Georg went to the door, something in his attitude made us all startto our feet and follow him. No alarm from the insulator had come, yetfor myself I had not forgotten that Venus girl outside.
Georg was at the door, tense as though to spring forward as soon as heopened it. I was close behind him.
"What----"
"Wait, Jac! Quiet! I just want to see--in case she _is_ doingsomething."
He jerked open the door suddenly and bounded through, with me after him.
The corridor was empty. But there was a whirring coming from theinstrument room.
We leaped across the padded corridor. In the instrument room, Ahla themaid sat at the table with a head-piece clasped to her ears. She wastalking softly but swiftly into the transmitter. In the mirror besideher I caught a glimpse of the place to which she was talking. A sort ofcave--flickering lights--a crowd of dark figures of Venus men, seeminglyarmed.
She must have heard us coming. A sweep of her white arm dashed themirror to the floor, smashing it. Then she cast off the head-piece, andleaping to her feet, faced us, blazing and defiant.