CHAPTER II
A Strange Story
Shelby looked down at his companion. For a time she had been strangelyquiet. Could it be that there was just a hint of a troubled look on herbeautiful face? The young engineer felt himself drawn to her more thanever. He wanted to know more about his new Martian acquaintance, but hedisliked to ask a direct question concerning him, for he feared vaguelythat it might give her offense.
"Jan," he said, "you look worried. Is anything wrong?"
She shook her head, slowly, absently, without looking at him. "No, I wasjust thinking." She paused, and then in the same absent manner shecontinued: "Only Hekalu Selba is back, and I thought I was rid of him."
Reassured somewhat by her words, but still taking care to conceal anyhint of the menace he had sensed about the Martian, Shelby asked: "Whatpossible difference can his presence in Chicago mean to you? He seemedto me to be a very ordinary Martian nobleman--evidently supplied withplenty of money, and having no other motive in life than to enjoyhimself, and perhaps to help others enjoy themselves. A perfectlyharmless individual."
Janice's face grew serious. "You say those things because you do notknow Hekki," she said. "Shall I tell you about him? It would relieve meto share my knowledge with someone."
The young man nodded but made no comment.
"Two years ago," she began, "I went to Taboor on Mars to studysculpture. Not long after my arrival at school, in the company of anumber of other art students, I attended a ball given at a glorious oldpalace in the heart of the ancient Martian quarter. Our gracious hostwas Hekalu Selba himself. I met him, danced with him, and talked withhim. From the first he was attracted to me and I to him, and so we wereoften together.
"Though some of his peculiar affectations were obnoxious to me, Ithought that his good qualities far overbalanced his failings. He seemedalways kind and considerate in his dealings with all about him; he waswell informed on almost every possible subject; he painted pictures andplayed various musical instruments with a skill that was little short ofgenius, and his tales of his travels and adventures in the little-knownregion beyond the orbits of the minor planets could not fail to delightany listeners. Dreamer and brilliant artist--that was Hekki as I saw himthen. Effeminate--yes, but brave and resourceful too.
"Our intimacy grew. He made frequent proposals of marriage to me, but Iput him off, saying that I was not sure I loved him. I informed Fatherback here in Chicago of our friendship. His next letter showed plainlyhis enthusiasm over the idea of the possible marriage of his daughterwith this young noble of the ancient Martian house of Selba. 'Get him,Jan,' he wrote. 'He'd be the catch of a lifetime. Why, his total assetswould make the treasure of Croesus look like a little piece of twistedcopper wire.' Poor practical old Dad! For once his business judgment wasin the wrong. It was well that I did not follow his advice."
At this point Jan's story was interrupted by the sudden dropping of theplane. They had reached their destination. The craft descendedvertically and landed with a light impact in the center of a smallprivate roof garden at the summit of a great apartment building.
"Dad won't be home now," said Jan. "He was delayed in New York, and willnot appear until tomorrow. There isn't anyone else around here exceptold Rufus, so we needn't go down stairs. Let's sit over there instead."She pointed toward a quaintly wrought bench beside a splashing fountain.The moon was shining, and the solitary cypress tree cast a spear-likeshadow over the pool. There was a faint fragrance of flowers in thenight.
Janice and Shelby seated themselves and the girl continued:
"Shortly after my meeting with Hekalu Selba rumors began to come to me.Men died mysteriously, and there were people who made vague hints thatmy noble friend was responsible. An uncle of Hekki's had made him theprincipal heir to his fortune--shortly afterward the uncle contracted avirulent disease and passed away. On both planets men that wereobnoxious to Hekki were murdered--capable business rivals and people whoperhaps 'knew too much.' Always the circumstances of their deaths werepeculiar. Frequently they were found in locked rooms to which anassassin could scarcely have gained entrance without breaking his way.But such violent methods had not been used. Never was there a shred ofevidence to implicate the noble.
* * * * *
"But I was beginning to see Hekalu's true color. The lavish display ofhis wealth--his estates and his art treasures, and the endless round ofgood times he sought to provide, were merely an attempt to cover up hiswickedness. One afternoon that I was with him, he was under theinfluence of the Elar drug. His face was red and his eyes gleamed with awicked light. He proposed to me again, and when I made an angry refusalhe threatened me--said that if there was another whom I loved he woulddestroy him and me too.
"That, I assured myself, was the end. Hekki tried to make up, but whenhe found that I would have nothing to do with him he vanished. I thinkhe went off into the outer regions of the solar system again. He wasgone for a long time, and I devoted myself entirely to my studies.
"Then suddenly, out of the blue, I received a letter from Hekki. It camefrom a small village far to the west of Taboor. A gift accompanied it.Hekki informed me that in a valley far out in the unexplored Taraaldesert he had run across a ruined city built by the Melbar kings someseventy-five thousand years ago. He hoped to make an enormous fortunefrom the art treasures he had found there.
"The gift and the small photograph he sent me, I shall show you at thefirst opportunity. They are packed away now. The former is a dagger witha flexible blade of a shiny black substance unknown to me. It does notseem to be metal. The hilt is a lump of platinum. It is carved torepresent some strange animal with scores of coiling tentacles. Hekkisays that the object is one of his treasures, found on the site of theancient city. But I have doubted this. I know something of the art ofthe Melbar kings, and certainly the dagger does not resemble theproducts of their craftsmen. The same is true of those wares of Hekki'swhich my friends have bought. They are strange--belonging neither toEarth nor Mars.
"The picture too is equally puzzling. It depicts a night scene in adesert valley. Jagged hills in the distance and the nearer moon of Marsin the sky. The floor of the valley is in shadow and things there areindistinct. There are shapes there--vast shapes, odd and grotesque. Andthere is something in the foreground which might be almost human!
"In his letter Hekki asked if he might see me again, and I immediatelywrote and told him that I would. To you, Austin, this probably seems acrazy thing to do, but like most everyone who is young, I had a genuinelove for intrigue and mystery, even though they might be dangerousthings to meddle with.
"Hekalu came to Taboor, but I saw comparatively little of him. He seemedalways to be tremendously busy. Sometimes he would be extravagantlyjubilant, as though he had met with some tremendous success, or again hewould apparently be worried almost to the point of madness. What theseemotional changes meant, he would never tell me.
"Several times old Alka, his favorite slave, spoke to me. 'The Master isnot as he used to be, Miss Darell,' he would say. 'He works feverishlywith odd mechanisms, and every night when he is at home he stares outinto space toward the farther planets with his new super-telescope.Always, what he sees makes his face turn white and hard; sometimes, hesmiles and sometimes his features look like a devil's mask.'
"And still Hekki's weird treasures continued, and still continue to comefrom the Taraal.
"A group of men was sent by the heads of the Place of Knowledge out intothe desert to investigate. They disappeared. The officials of thePlanetary Patrol made only a hasty and unsuccessful investigation.
"On the day of my departure from Mars, after having finished my course,I saw Hekki, believing that it was for the last time. He said he wasgoing back into the Taraal. And then he popped up on the liner. Andthat, Austin, is all I know about Hekalu Selba. What do you make of it?What is he trying to do out there in the desert?" She placed her handlightly on Shelby's arm and looked up appealingly into his face. "Can'tyou
offer some suggestions, Austin? You know that when suspicious eventsare troubling you, a plausible explanation eases your mind even thoughyou cannot know the truth. And I am afraid, afraid that he isdeliberately following me to Earth!"
While Jan had been telling of her acquaintance with the Martian, Austinhad been staring at a very large Sadu moth which hovered, and leisurelymoved about on thrumming gorgeous wings, which spanned fully eighteeninches. It moved from blossom to blossom in a nearby flower bed,delicately sipping nectar. Always its great luminous eyes, which glowedlike coals of gleaming fire, were turned toward the pair. Shelby hadscarcely noticed it, for he was absorbed with the girl's account; butnow, when it edged closer towards them, and then made a suddenmischievous swoop not six inches above their heads, its presence couldno longer be ignored. The girl gave an exclamation of revulsion andshrank involuntarily toward her companion. He leaped to his feet, andpicking up a pebble from beside the fountain, hurled it at the nightprowler.
"You dirty eavesdropper!" he shouted angrily. "The man who brought yourkind from Mars for ornamental purposes must have been crazy!"
* * * * *
The moth buzzed up into the cypress tree and squatted there, silently,apparently resting. Only its eyes continued to glare fixedly, almostmalignantly at the occupants of the garden. But they quickly forgotabout its presence.
"I don't know whether I can offer a sensible explanation for Hekalu'sactions or not, Jan," Shelby said. "However, as far as his activities inthe Taraal are concerned, it seems quite possible that he did discoverruins there, and is trying to keep other fortune seekers away. The ruinsmay of course not really belong to the Melbar dynasty. They might havebeen built by some contemporary race. Just what he is doing among theminor planets, we can't any more than guess at. Probably he's justadventuring like a few other people. And as for his following you toEarth--well, I admit that you _do_ seem to be popular!"
"You're making it sound awfully simple, Austin," said Jan. She pausedand thought for a moment, and then, with seeming irrelevance shecontinued: "Haven't you heard of queer clusters of luminous specksrecently seen by astronomers not far beyond Mars? They called themmeteor clusters, but they drifted about here and there, not followingdefinite paths as meteors should do."
"You're trying to suggest that they are space ships, aren't you, Jan?"
She nodded.
"But they aren't," Shelby assured her. "They don't polarize thereflected light of the sun as space ships do. Besides, where could theyhave been built? Certainly not among the planetoids. And any place onthe planets, the Taraal desert for instance, would be an almost equallyimpossible site for their construction.
"Think of the enormous crews of men and the vast supplies of food andwater and materials that would have to be taken out there into thewilderness. Undoubtedly Hekalu could back such a project financially,but he would be discovered before he had made a fair start, and theMartian Planet Patrol would wipe him out of existence. Still, though Idon't think that the luminous specks are man-built vessels, I am equallycertain that they aren't meteors either."
"Then what are they?"
The young man smiled and shrugged. "I don't know," he said. Theintuitive feeling that unknown, and not too beneficient forces were atwork in the ether about, was troubling him again, making his scalpmuscles tingle.
For a moment Shelby stared at the ground. "Jan," he said, "I didn't tellyou what I saw on the liner. I didn't tell anyone because I don't wantto be called a lunatic. But I guess it's all right to let you in on thisnow. Briefly, during the sleep period, I came upon Hekalu Selba prowlingin a passageway aboard the _Ekova_, in the company of a vague thing thatmay have been similar to that shape in the photograph--long arms, bighead, squat and muscular. If we knew what that thing was, and where itcame from, the snarl might be half untangled."
Janice Darell's face took on a sudden surprised look. "You actually sawwhat you say you saw?" she cried. When her companion nodded, shecontinued excitedly with wide-open eyes. "I still believe that Hekaluknows something about the meteor cluster. And the beast figures insomewhere too. Austin," she cried, "what if Hekki is trying somethingreally great? I know you don't take stock in any such idea, but justsupposing he is--what if--"
"Let him try!" the young man cut in. "I almost wish he would! I'm afraidhe would get the surprise of his life." He was staring straight at theunwinking, malignant eyes of the Sadu moth.
"What do you mean?"
Shelby drew a small black case from his sleeve pocket and opened it. Hetook from it a device which looked like a tiny pistol. There wereseveral other odds and ends of mechanisms in the case. "For a year Ihave been working on a new weapon," he said. "All the parts arecompleted, and tonight I shall finish assembling them. This little gunis the projector for a new ray which I have discovered--an ethericvibration of extremely short wavelength. A portion of the atomic energyin any solid or liquid substance the ray touches is instantly released.
"You doubt whether it is effective? Well, I can't give you any proofnow; I can only say that when I was back on Mars, fooling with my firstcumbersome projector, which produced only the weakest of vibrations, Iblasted a big hole in the wall of my apartment, and nearly killed theMartian physician who lived in the rooms next to mine. I had a devil ofa time explaining the explosion, and narrowly missed getting myself intoserious trouble. In a few days I shall try to sell the weapon to theEarth Government. If they are convinced of its value, and I don't seehow they can help but be convinced, our friend from the Red Planet willhave to be very careful if he tries anything."
Shelby glanced at his wrist watch. "Eleven thirty--my bed time," he saidwith mock seriousness. "But Jan, there's one favor I want to ask youbefore I go. Try not to see anymore of Hekalu Selba, Akar."
Janice Darell made a valiant attempt to act the part of one whose prideand sense of freedom had been deeply outraged. "Mr. Shelby," she said,"what right have you to tell me what I shall or shall not do?" But alight laugh broke from her lips and spoiled her bluff.
"There are two reasons," replied her companion seriously. "First,because we both believe that Hekalu Selba is dangerous; second--becauseI love you." He leaned closer toward her with the light of eagerness inhis eyes. "Oh, I know I'm crude, Jan," he said passionately. "I'm just aclumsy engineer, not a poet or ladies' man. What I'm trying to say toyou must seem awfully trite, but anyway, I want you with me always."
"You mean--?"
He nodded.
"All right, Austin," she said quietly, looking straight into his eyes.
His arms crept around her, and now he drew her gently to him.
Some moments later, in the nearby pergola, the door which led to therooms below opened, and an ancient negro clad in gaudy pajamas andbathrobe peered out into the garden. He saw the pair and recognized thegirl. A happy grin came over his wrinkled black face. "Well, if datain't a mos' pretty sight to look at," he muttered. "My baby done comeback at las', and dat sho' am a han'some boy she got dar!" He turned,and leaving the door open and the light burning on the stair, descended.Very softly and wistfully he was crooning an old darky love song.
It was an hour later before Shelby's craft whirred up into themoon-bathed night over the winking lights of the city. And at the sametime the big-eyed Sadu moth which had been crouching in the cypresstree, rose on its velvety wings and sped away, as though some urgentmission had suddenly claimed its attention.