But he released the pressure as quickly as he had applied it. The sudden fear which had leaped into her eyes stunned him. Somehow he knew that a woman could be expected to resist, but that it was rather a matter of form than anything else.
The horror which he had seen in her eyes a minute before was wrong. And now this terror — that was wrong, too. Abruptly he realized that he wanted this woman to like him, to welcome his attentions. She mustn’t be afraid of him.
He released her entirely, letting his arms fall to his sides, a dumb look of hurt in his eyes.
“Mark,” Nona whimpered, “what has happened to you? Why don’t you know me? Why are you so old?”
Chapter 20: The Exchequer Blues
SHE covered her face with her hands and tried to get her thoughts in order. Things were happening too fast. The realization that the old man really was Mark had come to her the instant he had bent the cell door like a piece of wet spaghetti. No man could do that but Mark.
That thought had instantly brought to mind the cry she had thought she dreamed. That had been Mark’s voice, astounded at the sight of her in the prison cell. It had resulted in giving the guard a chance to shoot him.
Then she knew what had happened. The streak of blue blood in his snowy hair proved it. The bullet had grooved along his skull, knocking him senseless. The remarkable healing power of his radio-active blood had restored the power to control his body, but his mind was still fogged.
The concussion had not had time to wear off. The brain was shocked, and had forgotten all it knew. Mark was like a primordial cave-man, conscious of his own existence, but governed almost entirely by instinct. Reason was present, of course, but knew no facts with which to reason.
The shock would wear off, and memory return, but that would take time. And there was no time. She would have to get him out of the prison. She mustn’t wonder why her Mark was old or why he had come here. She would learn that when he recovered.
Nona, still sobbing from the shock to her own brain, placed a hand gently on the old man’s arm.
The hurt look left Mark’s eyes and he smiled. Then he grabbed her again, evidently satisfied that she had come around to his way of thinking. This time he was more gentle about it. But she pushed him away again.
He followed her when she left the cell and went into the one where he had killed the first man. He wondered briefly at the shudder she gave when she inadvertently looked at the distorted face of the man he had throttled.
Nor did he understand why she seemed to want the peculiar pieces of metal which she was trying to remove from their position under the man’s body. Obligingly, he lifted the dead man off the key ring, by shoving a foot under the shoulder and pushing. The body thudded against the wall.
Nona retrieved the keys and tried one after another in the lock of Gladys’ cell. Finally she found the right one and repeated the operation on the doors which confined Tolon and Forney.
Mark snarled a bit at the freeing of the others, but decided that they were friends of hers, and quieted down. He even contained himself when they led him out into a street filled with new people, all potential enemies.
Though possibly by this time he realized that other humans didn’t necessarily have to be enemies, for no one showed any sign of wishing him harm.
By a circuitous route Tolon and Forney led the way back to headquarters.
DAYS went by with little clearing of Mark’s mind. Attended solicitously by Nona, who shaved off his beard and removed the plastic skin which disguised him so effectively, he was quite content as long as she remained nearby.
The sight of Ira had momentarily given him a twinge of recollection, but it passed as quickly as it had come. Several times he experienced the same reaction when he saw familiar things or familiar faces, but his mind was not yet over the shock of the concussion, and the effect was fleeting.
The thieves had brought in the last of the caravan guards on the day of Mark’s return. The one hundred and five which he had restored mentally helped to capture the others. The new captives were confined in a warehouse, for Mark had lost his power of hypnotism as thoroughly as he had lost his memory.
Ira anxiously awaited his recovery, for he had received information to the effect that Vargo was reorganizing his army and would shortly be able to go on with his plans for conquest. And while Ira was a capable leader and was taking effective measures to circumvent Vargo, he knew that without Mark there would be no permanent solution to the trouble.
In spite of the swelled ranks of the fraternity, they were having plenty of difficulty. It wasn’t so easy to capture the new army leaders. Another trouble was the fact that Vargo’s nobles were renewing their efforts to stamp out the rebellion.
He expected any moment to be raided. Sooner or later somebody would crack under the double threat of hypnotism and torture, and reveal the location of the hideout.
Several of the fraternity had been captured in the last few days. One of them might succumb. Ira took steps to prevent any more captures. He ordered that none of them engage in any thefts until further notice. The treasury would take care of all the expenses of its members until they could again forage for themselves.
He guessed from the evidence of Tolon and Forney that the nobles had been able to make their captures only by the expedient of placing apparently easy victims within the reach of the thieves. Bait, as Baron had called the process. When a thief struck, he found himself caught. The logical answer was for them to cease their larcenous activities and confine themselves to the capture of as many of the new army officers as possible.
Gladys, though she didn’t want to at all, thought it her duty to return to her husband. Nona didn’t have much trouble talking her out of it. Tolon wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. He had been told of her plight, and had Nona’s assurance that as soon as Mark regained his mind, he would take steps to annul the marriage.
Nona intended to help Mark in the reorganization of the city’s life, taking on the job of ferreting out such couples as were hopelessly incompatible. Mark could free the minds of these people, and let them seek their own mates. Those who were living happily would be left in the state of hypnotic subjection which kept them together.
It would be ruinous to do otherwise. The years, children, and a dozen other considerations made it inadvisable to risk the results of completely freeing the majority of the people who had been hypnotized by Vargo. Much of his work had been a blessing, though he had never meant it that way.
Nona came to develop a real attachment for the people who made up the fraternity. Their loyalty to each other, and the idealistic faith they had in the justice of their motives, aroused her admiration. Thieves they might be, but Nona knew they weren’t criminals at all.
In fact it was hard to say who were the real criminals. For the nobles were perfectly sincere in their desire to stamp out the menace to the plans of the great Vargo. They only acted as they did because of his hypnotic suggestion. The only real criminal was Vargo himself.
A WEEK passed and favorable reports came from the electrical experts concerning their work on the radio equipment. Progress had been quicker than they had expected.
Machines used for the manufacture of electric bulbs had been easily converted to the manufacture of radio tubes. Coils and condensers were simple to make. The apparatus was now ready to assemble and put in operation. Only a day or two would be required.
Mark had slept since the day of his accident — a thing he hadn’t done for years. Several hours a day, when the others went to bed, he did likewise. Possibly the cause lay in the shocked condition of his brain, enabling him to revert to a habit he no longer needed. But whatever the cause, the result was as normal as Nona’s deep slumber.
He awoke one evening, and looked up at the ceiling. For several minutes he lay there, gazing upward, trying to orient himself. He became conscious of someone beside him and turned his bead. It was Nona, of course, sleeping peacefully. That was all right, perfectly normal.
He sprang to his feet and looked out of a window. A dingy alley met his gaze. With the sight of it he remembered suddenly that he was no longer in Norway. He was in Detroit, and had an urgent task to perform!
Rigidly Mark stood at the window, as memory flooded back into his mind. In the space of seconds he reviewed all that had happened since Omega had dropped him in the ladies’ shop. It came back vividly, as if he were viewing it on a motion picture screen. Even to the details which had happened since his brain had been shocked.
Smiling happily, he turned to face the bed. Nona’s face was beautiful in repose, though as he watched her a frown passed fleetingly over it. Reaching over, he rumpled her hair. Her eyes opened and looked up at him in disbelief.
“You’re back!” she breathed. “Mark!”
SEVERAL hours were required to bring Mark up to the present. Things had happened during the time his mind was fogged. He was tickled at the progress made by the electrical experts, and wanted to see them immediately. When they arrived he closeted himself with them for quite some time.
Ira fidgeted outside the conference chamber. There were a thousand things he wanted to talk over, and most of them were urgent. Disposition of the captured men was the greatest of his problems.
So many of Vargo’s officers were prisoners of the fraternity that it was almost impossible to keep them confined any longer. A warehouse and several private homes were being used for the purpose, but because of the lack of proper facilities it was necessary to use a prohibitive number of the thieves to act as guards.
A point had been reached where no more could be captured because it would be impossible to hold them. Mark could solve the problem easily by hypnotizing the captives and making them members.
And even that was becoming a problem. The membership had reached a point where it was eating large holes in the treasury to support it. This, added to the feed bill of the prisoners, was rapidly bankrupting the fraternity. And there was nothing coming in!
Ira was in a decided dither, waiting to discuss plans with Mark. He didn’t welcome Jan Thomas, who joined him in waiting at the door of the chamber, announcing that Mark would want to see him next.
“Who’s boss around here?” Ira wanted to know.
“Mark,” Thomas answered.
Ira nodded. “So he is,” he said, looking a bit mystified as he realized that such was the case. He frowned at the guinea pig that Thomas held cradled in one arm.
Jan Thomas smiled enigmatically, but said nothing.
Eventually the experts trooped from the room. As before, they wore eager expressions as if they could hardly wait until they got to work at the thing which Mark had discussed with them. Ira pushed past Jan Thomas and entered the room. He tried to slam the door but the smaller man was too quick for him. And then too, Ira had to open the door wide to permit the passage of his own huge body. Thomas went in and darted around him to present the guinea pig to Mark.
“We’ve got it!” he cried, almost throwing the little beast at Mark. “The analysis was —”
“Mark!” interrupted Ira. “There are more important matters to be taken care of. You’ve got to —”
“Nonsense!” Thomas cried. “There’s nothing more important than science.”
It took some moments to quiet them, a thing which Mark accomplished by promising Ira to go immediately and take care of the captives, and while doing so to listen to the report of Thomas. The three set out for the warehouse where the majority of the prisoners were kept. The streets were dark and there was little danger of Mark being recognized.
Gently, as they left headquarters, he pressed the windpipe of the little animal. It didn’t struggle, even when he closed off its supply of air completely. It just stopped breathing, as if it were only doing it to keep in practice anyway.
“THE analysis was easy,” Thomas told him. “We killed quite a few pigs, however, before we found the proper concentrations to change the blood of a living animal as this one is changed.”
“Does its present blood correspond with the sample, I gave you?”
“Precisely,” Thomas informed. “Not the slightest difference. We’ve noticed some peculiar things, however. The beast doesn’t eat. And it’s slept only once in the past four days.”
Mark nodded. “You’ve got it then,” he said. “I don’t eat either. I thought you knew that. The radio-activity supplies the energy normally furnished by the consumption of food. Sleep isn’t necessary because lactic acid doesn’t form. Did you try tiring the animal out?”
“Didn’t think of it,” said Thomas. “Don’t tell me it won’t tire!”
Mark shook his head. “Tiring is caused when physical exertion burns up energy faster than food and oxygen can replace it. This blue blood is able to supply energy from the slow breaking down of its radioactive element, faster than the body can burn it. The excess radiates away. And the element has a half-period, as you are aware, of more than ten thousand years.”
Jan Thomas stopped dead in his tracks. For a second Mark thought he was going to faint. Ira solicitously extended a steadying hand. But Thomas didn’t faint.
“Immortality!” he breathed. “The dream of man for ages!”
“Not quite,” said Mark, smiling, “The organism will die as the concentration gets down to about a quarter strength. At least, so I’ve been told.”
“But man! Think what it would mean if everyone had this blood. The earth wouldn’t be able to support the population in a matter of a few decades!”
“You forget that food isn’t necessary. Not even air. Only water. But don’t worry about it. Only a very choice few will be given the injections. Those who will work for the betterment of themselves and humanity as a whole. That is a sort of a trust I must keep. There won’t be any crowding for thousands of years to come. Perhaps never.”
It was significant that neither Thomas nor Ira said a word of suggestion concerning who might be worthy of the new blood. Men of lesser character would have immediately suggested themselves. But both men realized that the matter lay in Mark’s hands entirely, and that nothing they might say would influence him in the least.
THE warehouse was reached, and almost two hundred men were treated hypnotically to erase the suggestions of Vargo. They left as free men, only slightly under the influence of Mark’s counter-suggestions. These were of a benign nature and would tend to nullify any natural hankering that any of the men might have in the direction of a war of conquest.
Several private homes, temporarily serving as prisons, were next on the program. When the last call was made the fraternity had swelled until it numbered slightly over four hundred.
Back once more at headquarters, Mark closeted himself with Ira. The chief of the fraternity immediately went into a description of his many woes.
“... But the worst thing of all,” he concluded, “is the shortage of funds. We can’t go on any longer than another week, unless I send our men out to steal. And if I do, some will be caught. I had hoped —”
Mark caught at the hesitation. “Hoped what?” he prompted.
“I’d hoped that this thing would be settled before it became necessary to steal again,” he answered. “As you know, we steal because we must survive, not because we want to. Every man of the fraternity has a legitimate profession he would rather follow, but refuses as long as he must work under Vargo. Can’t we get this thing finished soon?”
Mark scratched his chin. “A week...”
“There’s also the matter of the men he’s captured,” Ira interrupted. “Any day now one of them might crack, and we’ll be wiped out. There’s nowhere we can go, or I’d change headquarters. But right now we’re so financially crippled that we can’t rent new quarters.”
Mark frowned. “That’s next on the program,” he said, thoughtfully. “And maybe I can do something about Vargo at the same time. Hold the fort till I get back.”
Chapter 21: Poosh ’em up, Mark
MARK eased himself cautiously through the window in the upper story of the prison. He had approached just as warily, half expected to find a trap. But neither the outside nor the inside of the place showed any sign of one.
The bars he had ripped from the window were still lying where he had left them, and the only footprints in the dust on the corridor floor were his own and those of the guard.
Could it be that Vargo didn’t know that he had once gained admittance to the prison?
Abruptly he realized that such could very well be the case. He had killed the guard, and if he remembered correctly the stone door which opened on the lower corridor had been closed when they left the prison. Vargo and his nobles probably thought that either Tolon or Forney had managed to get out of his cell and liberated the others.
There was no evidence that Mark had been there at all. The guard’s broken neck and the mangled cell door might be puzzling them considerably, but that still didn’t point in Mark’s direction.
For Vargo and his henchmen didn’t know of his extraordinary strength. The only other time he had used it since coming to the city, had been when he had bent the cell doors in releasing himself and Dodd. And that time he had hypnotized the guards and made them forget they had ever seen him.
Those conclusions, while reassuring, didn’t prevent him from exercising the utmost caution in reaching the lower cell corridor. He didn’t walk; he floated. Even the light patter of his sandals might be heard.
He smiled inwardly, realizing that he had forgotten his ability to soar, on the other occasion when he had come down these stairs. Even if he had remembered, the screech of the rusty-hinged doors at each landing would have nullified his own silence.
The Best of Argosy #7 - Minions of Mercury Page 15