by Earl
This crown and this sceptre,
I wear them and sigh;
My love I’ll find somewhere
Before I must die!”
“How strange!” Elda murmured, at Perry’s side. “That song is from my time—” Her whisper trailed off into a sigh.
The play went on. Perry sat woodenly. This was all meaningless, farcical. Stuart and Leela sat stiffly, eyes straight ahead. Elda flicked her eyes amusedly from one to the other. Then at Perry, mockingly.
Aran Deen sat with fading expectancy. When the play finally wore to a falsely tragic conclusion, he shrugged.
“The green-eyed witch’s spell holds,” he whispered to Perry. “Well, nothing has been lost.”
THEY filed silently to the elevator, taking a cage upward. They stepped out on the metal bridge over the-elevator-well, separated from giddy depths by a low rail. Perry shuddered. The Narticans were used to this immense pit, but it always struck him with an icy chill.
“Enough of this!” Elda snapped suddenly, facing them on the metal ramp. “I like my battles in the open, Aran Deen!”
She turned to Stuart.
“Whom do you want, Stuart. Leela or me? Tell them!”
Stuart’s drawn face paled. His eyes went to Leela, then like a magnet to the green-eyed girl, in answer.
“You see?” Elda breathed triumphantly. “I win, in that. I win Nartica, too. Isn’t that true, Aran Deen? I don’t fear you and all your underhand doings—Ok!”
She gasped sharply and clutched with her hands in the same instant.
Standing nearest to her, Leela had fainted, swaying over the rail, over the teetering edge of the metal ramp. Elda’s hand caught the sleeve of Leela’s gown. It ripped. Leela’s limp figure toppled into the yawning chasm that dropped for a mile.
Horror-struck, the group stood frozen, not daring to look below. No one had had a chance to save the girl. Elda’s face was shocked, for her bland, cruel words had caused Leela to faint.
Perry broke from their trance and leaped to the edge.
“She’s still there!” his voice burst out.
Leela’s flowing gown had miraculously caught against a cage-stay of one of the long steel cables, twenty feet down. She hung there like a rag doll, dangling. Her gown ripped slightly, and further threads slowly parted under the strain of her weight.
“Perry!” It was almost a scream from Elda. “Perry—no—”
Perry felt the tug of Elda’s hand on his arm, but finished his leap—over the low rail and out. His body flew through the air. Ten feet beyond the ramp he caught the cable with his hands.
Arms nearly jerked from their sockets, he clung for an instant, then lowered hand over hand. He reached under Leela’s right arm just as the cloth of her gown ripped completely. The sudden load came close to tearing him away. But he held her, grimly.
Resting a moment, Perry tightened his legs around the cable till his calf muscles cracked. He grabbed Leela with both arms and raised her to his chest. The effort tore a sob from his throat. He held her.
It was not so bad then—for a while.
One arm around the girl, one hand clutching the cable, he felt himself slowly slipping. The wire-twists of the cable burned his palm. His legs turned to numb lengths of rubber. He hung there while eternities clicked by.
Fleetingly, he estimated how long it would take their two bodies to plummet down a mile. Why didn’t help come? He tried to look around, but everything was obscured in a red haze that hung before his tortured mind and body.
HANDS were suddenly touching him.
Leela was lifted away. It was like the release of a world he had supported on his aching shoulders since time began. He was dimly aware of men shouting, telling him to unwind his legs. That he wouldn’t fall; they had him.
Perry’s mind snapped out of its fog. His body one throbbing ache, his abraised palms bloody, his legs trembling, he was in a cage-lift. It had come up below them, taken them through a roof trap-door. Several Narticans carried Leela out, and supported Perry as he stepped back on the metal bridge.
“Are you all right?” Aran Deen was gripping his arm.
Perry nodded, then started.
Stuart knelt beside Leela, rubbing her wrists. The look on his face was little short of frantic.
Perry glanced at Elda. How would she take that? Elda’s face was pale, her green eyes dulled. Her slim hands clutched one another as though she had stood that way, frozen, all through the episode. It was the first time her composure had been so utterly shattered.
But why? Perry’s mind staggered a little. Why was she looking at him! And looking at him as though seeing a ghost? Had the thought of one or two mere deaths so shaken her? Could this be the same Elda who, on the battlefield, watched men die indifferently?
Then Perry understood. She knew what it meant. She knew that an accident had done what Aran Deen’s elaborate planning had failed against. That Stuart and Leela—
Leela’s eyes opened, at last. Swift terror faded to relief as she saw Stuart’s face, not a bottomless cavern.
With a little sob, she flung her arms around him.
Stuart responded. Then he picked her up in his arm. His face turned slowly toward Elda, with a cold glance that spoke volumes.
Perry caught his breath. What fulminations, compounded by fate, were about to explode?
It was curiously undramatic.
About to speak, Stuart stopped as Leela’s fingers touched his lips. Her eyes were shining. She turned to Elda.
“I don’t blame Stuart—or you. It’s over, now. You can’t be bad, as I wanted to believe. There must be something in you he loved for a while—something fine.”
Then, flushing girlishly, she nestled in Stuart’s arms. He strode swiftly away, to put her in the hands of doctors.
Elda stared after them, her emerald eyes wide. Her face was a study of almost stupid incredulity. The words—“something in you he loved, something fine”—seemed to reverberate in the air. A scarlet flush washed beneath her ivory skin.
Then she straightened, almost with an audible snap of her spine. Her composure came back, as though she had whipped it about her like a cloak. She shrugged.
“So I’ve lost, in that,” she said coolly. “No matter. I still win Nartica. You can have your Stuart. In an hour the war-council will announce that Nartica joins Lar Tane against America.”
With a haughty smile, she left.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” Aran Deen muttered, as he and Perry went to their rooms. His eyes lighted. “Unless Stuart—”
He darted away.
“Get out!” Perry yelled at the Nartican doctor who came to treat his hands.
He wanted to be alone. All the previous episode faded from his mind. Stuart had at last broken from Elda’s evil spell. Brother once again united with brother, in aim. But at this eleventh hour, what did it matter?
In a little while Nartica would announce itself an ally to Lar Tane. Soon after, the thunders of war would come to life, engulfing a world. Lar Tane would win. The last flickering hope went out.
Perry held his head as though he had been pounding it against a stone wall.
CHAPTER XXV
Won or Lost?
HE SNARLED suddenly, and ran from his room.
Grinning evilly, he sought Elda in her rooms. He would have a last moment of revenge, taunt her as she had taunted him. Remind her that all her hellish charms and wiles had finally lost, against Stuart and the love she had torn him from for a while.
Elda wasn’t in her rooms. Raging, Perry took the private lift to the star-chamber above. She would be there, plotting and scheming the future hell-war about to be launched.
He flung open the door.
Elda stood with head lifted, looking up at the blazing polar firmament. She whirled, gasping, as though caught off guard. For a wink of time again, face flushed, hands squeezed together helplessly, her composure was gone.
Then, instantly, she smiled calmly.
“I thought you
might come,” she said mockingly. The moth to the flame.”
“But one moth got away!”
Her hands went daintily to her ears.
“Don’t shout. I hear you. Yes, Stuart did. But you, Perry—can’t resist the flame. You burn for me!”
Perry stood dumbly.
What had he meant to say? What torrid words that would shame her, make her cringe, gasp, fly at him while he would laugh? They were gone now, the words. His mind was blank. He only knew that she was beauty incarnate, and flaming desire.
He stood dumbly.
“Listen to me, Perry.” She was suddenly serious, earnest again. “My father will win, with Nartica. Why carry on a bitter war, needlessly? I’ve had enough of it. Too much of it in my time. Join us now, before it’s too late. Come to me! After my father is gone, we rule together, you and I—”
“No.” Perry was suddenly quiet, too. “Listen, Elda. There is only one way—my way. That’s the only one thing I’m sure of. You must see it yourself. The Magna Charta adopted, forbidding rule by one person, or one group, through might. I wouldn’t trust myself to rule. With you or without you. Don’t you see—can’t you see?”
“I see!” she breathed suddenly. “I see that you are human—and a man!”
She took a step forward, face oddly alight.
“But what if I told you I loved you? What if I told you that!”
“No tricks,” Perry said wearily.
“Trick? What if I meant it, just realized it! Standing there on the metal ramp, watching you dangle, slip—”
She was advancing slowly.
Perry wanted to back away, flee. He had been burned twice, listening to the worthless words with which she played her woman’s game. He tried to grip himself, lest he play the fool for the third time.
But his mind was a burning blank.
And in another moment, he had taken her in his arms, babbling. And in the next moment had ended up with the swordcut of mockery. For there it gleamed from her eyes.
“Again!” Elda shrugged wildly. “You’re my slave. This makes up for Stuart—”
THE door swung open abruptly. Aran Deen entered. He stared from one to the other. His old frame was strangely upright. He fastened his canny eyes on Elda, and slowly she paled. Perry’s pulses thundered, more violently than a moment before, when he had thought of striking the girl.
Aran Deen came with the council’s decision!
The world seemed to hold its breath.
“The council has voted,” the old seer said. “Nartica declares war on Lar Tane!”
Each word burst like a bomb in the still room.
“You lie,” Elda panted. “You lie, old man!”
He glared at her, and grinned toothlessly. Craftily.
“Listen. I saw Stuart, after he had brought Leela to a doctor. He told me of the war-fleet hidden in a harbor, as I once guessed—”
“What!” Elda half shrieked. “But he didn’t know of it—”
Instantly, she caught her breath, paling again. Her eyes wished that she could bite her tongue out.
Aran Deen yelped in pure joy.
“Do you hear?” he screamed to three Nartican men who now appeared beside the door. “Do you hear?”
They nodded soberly. By their uniforms, they were officials of Limerka.
Aran Deen turned back to the thunderstruck girl.
“We’ll report now—to the Council! They have not made their final vote!”
He prodded the men away.
Perry and Elda were alone again.
“Tricked!” Gasped Elda, sinking into a cushioned chair. “Tricked like a little child.”
Perry stood stunned. He heard the sudden drone of planes taking off, outside. Dozens of them. If the secret fleet were found—
He looked at Elda, and almost pitied her. She sat in a blind misery, hardly aware of his presence. He said nothing. Overhead, the polar stars blinked down, as though bewildered themselves at the swift turn of events.
Aran Deen was back again, in an hour.
This time his wild joy was genuine.
“We went to Lord Plaronne,” he recited in bubbling delight. “He sent out a fleet of scout planes. They found your war fleet, in the harbor within thrust of Limerka. The council, at that news, instantly voted for us. All Nartica is aroused, crying against Lar Tane, realizing that after America he would conquer Nartica, not give it corule. These are my people. I’ve saved them. I used trickery, as you would have. And you lose, green-eyed witch!”
“We win, anyway,” Elda contradicted. She had somehow pulled herself together. “There are a thousand ships, a million men. Nartica is unarmed. We’ll conquer Nartica now, America after. Merely a change of plan.”
“Less than a thousand ships now, Elda,” shot back Aran Deen. “And less each minute. The Nartican planes are dropping bombs. It seems that Nartica secretly made them in the last few months, alarmed over the world situation, trusting no one. Two hundred Nartican planes are even now bombarding. Your fleet will burn to the water’s edge in twenty-four hours!”
“Nartica already armed!” gasped Elda, utterly shocked this time.
Aran Deen gloated for a moment, then turned for the door.
“In accordance with neutrality ethics, Lord Plaronne gives you one hour to leave Nartica. If you are found here after that time, you are a prisoner of war.”
PERRY stood dizzied from the leap out of black despair to the heights of hope. Striving to leave all triumphant inflection from his voice, he motioned toward the seal-door that let out on the city’s metal cap.
“Your plane is out there,” he said.
Shock changed to satanic rage, in Elda’s face. She reached within the folds of her gown. A short sword leaped into her hands from a hidden scabbard.
“I carried this after the assassination attempt.” She brought the sharp point up. Her voice was deadly.
“I’m going to kill you, Perry; Without you, the attack against us in Europe will be leaderless. Besides, that destroyer. I know what went on in your mind. You would use it. Without that against us, we’ll hold off attack, as I told you.”
Perry’s scalp prickled, as she came forward with the deadly blade. No use to call for help. The walls were thick. No use to leap at her—not Elda. She was as quick as any man. In her coldly analytical mind, it was necessary to kill him.
There was no escape.
“Three times before I had the chance to kill you, and didn’t,” she said swiftly. “At Vinna, when you were prisoner. In the first aerial dogfight. And with the heatbeam over New York. I spared you each time, as a gamble, and whim. Now I can’t gamble. This time you die!”
Her arm brought up the sword, for a quick thrust at his heart. Face flint-hard, eyes smoldering green, she was ready to kill as cold-bloodedly as though he were a wild animal.
But she hesitated.
“Why don’t you say something?” she cried.
Cold and sick, Perry shook his head wordlessly. What was there to say?
Her fingers tightened on the hilt. Her body tensed again for the thrust.
Again it did not come.
Her eyes were wide.
And the sword suddenly slipped from nerveless fingers. The green eyes widened still more. For a long moment she stared at him, as though she had never seen him before.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Do you hear, Perry? I can’t! What does it mean? What does it mean!”
She was like a little, puzzled child, asking a question. Her voice seemed to rustle through every atom around them, and out through the universe, asking that question. And as if some inner lightning had struck from the unknown, Elda trembled—reeled.
Her awed whisper filled the starlit chamber.
“It means—it means—you’re the man who doesn’t exist!”
WITH two little, stumbling steps she threw her arms around Perry. She clung to him, burning him with the fire of her lips. She wasn’t Elda, battle-queen, green-eyed witch who mocked. She was
a girl, a woman, trembling against him.
“Dearest!” she murmured, babbled. “I should have known, today, at the elevator. It wasn’t because of Stuart turning to Leela that I was pale, shaken. But because of you, and your danger! All the while that you hung there, slipping, slipping—oh, it was horrible! I nearly died. I bum for you, Perry!”
Her voice trailed away. Startled, she peered at him. He hadn’t responded.
“You must believe me,” she cried. “I swear it, this time. Look into my eyes. Can’t you see? This time I mean it, Perry. This time it’s I who come to you—”
Wild elation rocked Perry, filled him with a towering joy. The glowing light in her lustrous green eyes was meant for him. And there was no mockery, no trace of it.
She was his—his!
He caught her in his arms. Time ceased.
Then, with a groan, he pushed her away.
She fought to stay.
“You don’t believe me? I swear it, I swear it. You must believe me—”
She was near to babbling.
“I believe you,” Perry said in a strained, hollow voice.
“Then—”
She drew back, falteringly.
“I believe in your world, Perry—if that’s what you want. I swear that too. I lay awake nights, thinking, wondering. But always stubborn. Now I know your way is the right way. Perry, dearest—”
But he stood silent, stricken. The foundations of the universe slowly cracked beneath them.
“I think I know!” Elda’s voice was low, defeated. “What have I done? What horrible things? Plunged the world into war. Killed, lied, cheated, schemed. All because the world didn’t give me a man I could love. Now—is it too late, Perry?”
He nodded haggardly.
“If you stay, as a prisoner of war, you’ll be executed. If you go, and I win later—the same. God, it’s too late, Elda. You’ve earned your death a thousand times.”
She stared at him wordlessly, and the witchery of her in the starglow drove him mad. She was his, as a woman.
But as Elda, enemy commander, he had only one duty, in the eyes of all Earth and all history. He had won—and lost.
The maddening paradox of it ground his nerves to shreds. He laughed wildly, half a madman.