CHAPTER VII
_Prisoners_
From the garden where Tarrano was talking with Elza, the Mars manWolfgar led us to the tower in which we were to be imprisoned. Quiteevidently it had been placed in readiness for us. A tower of severalrooms, comfortably equipped. As we crossed the lower bridge and reachedthe main doorway, Wolfgar unsealed a black fuse-box which stood there,and pulled the relief-switch. The current, barring passage through everydoor and window of the tower, was thrown off. We entered. My mind wasalert. This man of the Little People could not again turn on thatcurrent without going outside. Once it was on, like an invisible wall itwould prevent our escape. But now--could not Georg and I with oursuperior strength overpower this smaller man?
I caught Georg's glance as our captor led us into the lower room--anapartment cut into the half-segment of a circle. Georg, at my elbow,whispered: "No use! Where could we go? Could not get out of thecity----"
The hearing of the Little People is sharp. Wolfgar turned his head andsmiled. "You will be quite secure here--do not think of escape." Hisbronzed fingers toyed with a cone at his belt. "Do not think of it."
Soon he left us, with the parting words: "You may use the upper circleof balcony. The current rises only from its rail." He smiled and leftus. A pleasant smile; I felt myself liking this jailer of ours.
We took a turn of the tower. There were three bedrooms; a cookery, withfood and equipment wherein evidently it was intended that Elza couldprepare our meals; and two bath-apartments, one of them fairlyluxurious, with a pool almost large enough for a little swimming; tubesof scent for the water and the usual temperature rods.
"Well," I remarked. "Obviously we are to be comfortable." I was tryingto be cheerful, but my heart was heavy with foreboding nevertheless."How long do you suppose they'll keep us here, Georg? And what----"
His impatient gesture stopped me. His mind was on Elza--alone down therein the garden with Tarrano--as was mine, though I had not wanted tospeak of her.
There was an instrument room, up the circular incline in the peak of thetower! We heard the hum of it; and when we went up there, the firstthing we saw was a mirror tuned in readiness for us to view the gardenwe had just left. This strange Tarrano, giving Georg the visible proofthat he would keep his word and not harm Elza. We could see in thismirror the image of the scene down there--Elza and Tarrano talking. Butcould not hear the words--those were denied us. We saw the culpritbrought in; the punishment with the white-hot wire-lash, and a fewmoments later Elza was with us.
During the hours which followed, we made no attempt to escape. Such aneffort would have been absurd. The current controls were outside, beyondour reach. Visibly, we were free, with open, unbarred arches andcasements. But to pass through one of them, the barring current struckyou like a wall, with darting sparks when it was touched. As Wolfgar hadsaid, we had access to the upper balcony; the waist-high rail there,with its needle-points of electrodes, sent up a visible stream of theNth Electrons--a dull glow by daylight; at night a riot of colors andsnapping sparks.
Through this barrage an inner vista of the city was visible; towers,arcades, landing-stages and spider bridges a hundred feet or so aboveus; the lower levels beneath, and through a canyon of walls we couldjust make out a corner of the ground-plaza, with its trees and beds offlowers.
A queerly flat little city--tropical with banana trees and vivid foliagein every corner plot of the viaducts. At night it was beautiful with itsromantic spreading lights of soft rose and violet tubes, and there was afair patch of open sky above us--a deep purple at night, star-strewn.
Under other circumstances our imprisonment would not have been irksome.But these hours, most critical of any in the history of the nations ofEarth, Venus and Mars, unfolded their momentous events while we wereforced there to helpless idleness. All sending apparatus of ourinstrument room was permanently disconnected. But the news came in to usfrom a hundred sources--rolled out for us in the announcer's droningwords; printed for permanent record upon the tapes and visible images ofit all constantly were flashing upon the mirrors.
We spent hours in that instrument room--one or the other of us wasalmost always there. Save that we were ourselves isolated fromcommunication, we were in touch with everything. A whim of this Tarrano;perhaps a strain of vanity that Elza should see and hear of theseevents.
So much had occurred already during those hours of our trip over thePolar ocean and back that we scarce could fathom it. But gradually wepieced it together. Underlying it all, Tarrano's dream of universalconquest was plain. In the Venus Cold Country he had started hiswide-flung plans. Years of planning, with plans maturing slowly,secretly, and bursting now like a spreading ray-bomb upon the threeworlds at once.
In Venus, the Cold Country had conquered its governing Central State.Tarrano's army there was in full control. The helio station in the GreatCity was now reinstated. The Tarrano officials had already set up theirnew government. With notification to the Earth and Mars that theydemanded recognition, they were sending the usual routine heliodispatches and reports, quite as though nothing had occurred. The mailswould proceed as before, they announced; the one due to leave thisafternoon for the Earth was off on time.
It was all very clever propaganda for our Earth public consumption.Tarrano--who was visiting our Earth at present, they said--had beenchosen Master of Venus. His government desired Earth's officialrecognition, and asked for our proclamation of friendliness in answer totheir own. The present Ambassadors of the Venus Central State to theEarth--there were three of them, one each in Great London, Tokyohama andMombozo--this new government requested that we send them back to theGreat City as prisoners of the Tarrano forces. Other Ambassadors,representing the new government, would be sent to the Earth.
All this occurred during the first few hours of our imprisonment in thetower. And during the day previous, at 7 P.M. this night--70 deg. WestMeridian Time--the governments of our Earth met in Triple Conference inGreat London. Three rulers pro tem--White, Yellow and Black--to replacethe three who had been assassinated. The responsibility for theassassinations was placed by the Council upon Tarrano. But this--fromhis headquarters here in Venia--he blandly refused to accept, denyingall knowledge of the murders. Venia was the principal Venus immigrantcolony of Earth's Western Hemisphere. It had already been closed by ourEarth Council; its inhabitants interned as possible alien enemies,pending diplomatic developments. This was the meaning of that line ofofficial vessels lying there to the north on guard. No one could leaveVenia, and for a day Venus refugees had been ordered into it fromeverywhere.
At 8:40 this evening came from Great London our ultimatum to Tarrano. Aduplicate of it went to the Great City of Venus via the HawaiianStation. The Earth would not recognize the Tarrano government of Venus.We would hold to our treaty of friendship with the Central State. Wewould remain neutral for a time. But Tarrano himself we declared anoutlaw. His presence was required in Washington to stand trial for theassassinations, and the delivery in Washington of Dr. Brende's notes andmodel was demanded.
The ultimatum carried a day of grace; the alternate was a declaration ofwar by the Earth, and our immediate attack upon Venia. It was the sameproposition which our War Director had previously made unofficially toTarrano while he was there in the garden with Elza and which Tarrano sosummarily had rejected.
The ultimatum came to us in the tower as we sat listening to theannouncer's measured tones. Elza exclaimed:
"But why do they wait? Father's model must be here. Tarrano, the leaderof all this--is here. Within the hour those vessels of war could sweepin here--capture Tarrano--recover father's model----"
Georg interrupted quietly: "No one knows if the model is here. Thatother car from the laboratory--we don't know where it went. Theplundered laboratory has been found, of course. No station up there isnear enough to have eavesdropped upon our capture, but the whole thingmust have come out by now. But that aero with the model may have met aninter-planetary vessel--the model may be on the way to Ven
us by now."
"Georg," I exclaimed, "do _you_ know the workings of that model? Couldyou build another without the notes?"
He nodded solemnly. "Yes. And they know that, in Washington. I couldbuild another. But they know by now, that I, too, am in Tarrano'shands----"
"And he will kill you, of course, to destroy that knowledge and keep thesecret for himself----" I did not say it aloud, for Elza's sake; but Ithought it, and I realized that Georg was thinking it also.
Dr. Brende's secret of longevity was the crux of all this turmoil--thelever by which Tarrano was raising himself. Scores of facts amid thetumultuous news of these hours showed us that. For months, throughoutVenus, Tarrano had spread the insidious propaganda that he alone had thesecret of immortality--that when he was made ruler, he would use it forthe benefit of his followers.
Converts to Tarrano's cause were everywhere. In the Central State manywelcomed the coming of his army. And now from the Great City hispropaganda was being sent to the Earth. Murmurs from our own Earthpublic were beginning to be heard. The ignorant lower classes seemedready to swallow anything. A new beneficent ruler who guaranteedeverlasting life! Throughout the ages people have flocked to that samestandard!
In Mars, much the same was transpiring. At almost her closest point tothe Earth these days, Red Mars sent us constant helios from the midnightsky. The Little People had appointed a new ruler to take the place ofhim who had been assassinated. The Council there put the assassinationto unknown causes. Tarrano was held blameless. The Little Peopledeclared themselves neutral. But they gave prompt official recognitionto the Tarrano government of Venus. And everywhere throughout Mars thepublic was stirred by the thought of everlasting life.
"Fools!" muttered Georg. "That Little People government--they'll have arevolution of their own to fight at this rate. Can't you see whatTarrano is doing? Working everywhere with propaganda--working on thepublic--the gullible public ready always to swallow anything----"
On Earth, lay the crisis. Our own governments only had taken a firmstand. What could Tarrano do with this ultimatum? Either he must yieldhimself and the Brende secret, or a war in which he would be immediatelyoverwhelmed here in Venia would follow.
It was nearly ten o'clock that first night. Elza had gone to thebalcony. We heard her call us softly, but with obvious tenseness. Outthere we found her pointing excitedly. A few hundred feet away andsomewhat below us was a tower similar to our own. In one of its oblongcasements a glow of rose-light showed. And within the glow was thefull-length figure of a girl. We could see her plainly, though a smallimage at that distance with the naked eye, and our personal visioninstruments had been taken from us. A slender, imperial figure--a younggirl seemingly about Elza's age. Dressed in a shimmering blue kirtle,short after the Venus fashion, with long grey stockings beneath. A girlwith flowing waves of pure white hair to her waist--a girl of the VenusCentral State. She seemed, like ourselves, a prisoner. An aura orbarrage was around her tower. She stood there, back in the tower room,full in the rose-light as though surreptitiously trying to attract ourattention.
As we gathered on our balcony, behind the glow of our own barrage, shegestured to us vehemently. And then, with one white arm, she began tosemaphore. One arm, and then with both. Georg and I recognized it--theSecondary Code of the Anglo-Saxon Army. We murmured the letters aloud asshe gave them:
"_I am----_" Abruptly she stopped. A violent gesture, and shedisappeared; her rose-glow went out; her tower casement was dark. On alower spider bridge Tarrano had appeared. He was crossing it on foottoward our tower, his small erect form advancing hastelessly, with thefigure of Argo behind him.
He reached our lower entrance, cut off the barrage there, and entered.Argo replaced the barrage, lingered an instant, gazing upward at us withhis habitual leer. Then he retraced his steps across the bridge anddisappeared.
A moment more, and in our lounging apartment Tarrano faced us.