“WHY?” Connor demanded.
“Differences are only grounds for future trouble, aren’t they?”
“Civilization grows out of differences. No race can produce a high culture by itself. There must be an exchange of ideas, and that means that there must be differences.”
“You’re very sure, aren’t you?” Connor taunted.
“I’ve spent centuries thinking of it. I’m confident I’ve found the truth. And I do the best I can.”
“I wish—” Connor paused. “I wish I could believe you!”
“You can. I never lie.”
“I almost feel I can. You’re not the mocking devil your sister is. I rather like you.”
A queer smile flickered on the Master’s lips.
“I have instructed her to cease tormenting you. I assume she has been, but she’ll keep away from you hereafter . . . Won’t you, my dear?” Connor spun around. Lounging carelessly in the far doorway, a half-smoked cigarette in her hand, was the exquisite form of Margaret of Urbs.
“Perhaps,” she drawled slowly and advanced leisurely into the room, seating herself casually on the desk regardless of its litter of papers.
“Joaquin,” she remarked, “this man neglects to kneel in my presence. In yours as well, I perceive. Shall I command him?”
“Try commanding the statue of Olin,” snapped Connor.
“We could persuade him,” insinuated the Princess. “After all, Evanie Sair is our hostage.”
“Be still!” the Master said sharply. “You know I never impose a custom on those who reject it.”
The Princess turned taunting eyes on Tom Connor and was silent. “With your permission I should like to retire,” he said. “We seem to have covered the ground.”
“Not entirely,” said the Master. “What more do you want of me?”
“Two things. First, your knowledge. Your understanding of the ancient mathematics, and whatever else we need.”
“Granted—on condition.” At the Master’s inquiring look he said boldly: “On condition that any knowledge I impart be made public. You have enough secrets—though some of them are apt not to remain so!”
“I’ll agree.” the Master said promptly. “That was always my intention. But what secret of mine is in danger of exposure?”
Connor laughed. “What else was it you wanted of me?”
“Your blood. Your strain in the race, like an infusion of bulldog blood to give greyhounds courage. I want you to marry and have children.”
“And that,” said Connor bluntly, “is my personal business. I refuse to promise that.”
“Well,” the Master genially remarked, “we’ll let Nature take its course. I’ll trade you that indulgence for the revelation of what secret you suspect.”
“Done! It’s the Triangle rocket-blasts.”
“The rocket-blasts!”
“Yes. I’ve heard your craft in flight. I’ve listened to the blasts.” He turned sardonic eyes from the Master to the Princess. “The blast isn’t steady. It throbs. Do you understand? It throbs!”
THE Master’s face was stern. “Well?”
“I know you can’t control the rate of power. You’ve had the whole world looking for a means of controlling the rate. That’s impossible. Hydrogen has its natural period like radium. You can release the energy at that single rate or all at once, as in our rifles—but you can’t control it other-wise!
There was silence.
“I know what you do in the blast. You detonate your water—a little at a time in an enormously strong firing chamber, and release the blast gradually. It’s no more continuous than the power of a gasoline engine!”
“You’re endangering your life!” whispered the Master. “You can’t live now!”
“With her Satanic Majesty, the Goddess of Mockery, to intercede for me?” Connor jeered, staring steadily into the gray-green eyes of the Princess. In her features now was no slightest trace of a taunt, but something more like admiration. “If I’m to die, it had better be here and now, else I’ll find a way to tell what I know!”
“Here and now!” said Margaret of Urbs.
“Not yet,” said the Master. “Thomas Connor, long ago m my youth I knew men like you. They’re dead, and it’s a great loss to the world. But you’re living. I don’t want to kill you. I’d rather trust the fate of my empire to your word. Having heard my side, then, will you swear allegiance to me?”
“No. I’m not sure of your sincerity.”
“If you were, would you?”
“Gladly. I see more with you than with the Weeds.”
“Then will you swear not to oppose me until such time as you are sure? And will you swear to keep that knowledge you have to yourself?”
“Fair enough!” Connor said, and grinned. He took the bronzed hand the Master extended. “I swear it.” He glanced coolly at the Princess. “And by the three kinds of metamorphs, I’m glad to swear it!”
“Two kinds,” corrected the Master mildly. “Panate and amphimorph.”
But Margaret of Urbs caught his meaning. A faint trace of anger glinted in her eyes.
“The Immortals,” she said coldly, “do not consider themselves metamorphs.”
“Then I don’t consider myself Irish,” said Thomas Connor. “Any freak that comes out of Martin Sair’s ray is a metamorph to me.”
“Enough,” said the Master. “That’s all, Connor.”
But at the door the Princess halted Connor, and he gazed down into her upturned face.
“Do you believe,” she said coldly, “that Joaquin’s promise will protect you—or Evanie Sair—from me? I have my own debt to collect from you.”
He glanced back at the impassive figure at the desk.
“I traded my knowledge for your word,” he called to the Master. “Is it good?”
“I am the Master,” said that individual calmly.
Connor gazed again at the perfect features of the Flame. Slowly he raised his hand, holding her eyes with his. And then, with a sharp gesture, he snapped his finger stingingly against her dainty nose, grinned, and strode away.
At the outer door he turned. The Black Flame, her lovely face a pale mask of fury, held a beam-pistol in her hand, but she made no move as he grinned back at her. Behind her the Master smiled cryptically down at the point of his pen.
But back in his room, an amazing realization came to Connor. Under the guise of his mildness, the Master had won every single point! He had extracted from Connor the promise of his knowledge, the promise of secrecy concerning the Triangle blasts, his alienation from the Weed cause, and more than half an oath of allegiance to himself!
And all for—what? The right of Thomas Connor to bear his own children, and the same promise of safety given at their earlier meeting!
He swore softly and lay thinking of the mocking loveliness of the Black Flame.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Sky-Rat
CONNOR awoke fully rested, with the ache from muscles strained by Evanie’s weight almost vanished. He arose, bathed, donned his glittering Urban costume, and looked into Evanie’s room.
The girl was awake at last, and apparently well on toward recovery. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. At least in one matter, then, the unpredictable Princess had been sincere.
“Evanie!” he murmured. “Are you really all right? Are you better?” She smiled and nodded. “I feel almost myself.”
“Well, we misjudged the Princess in one respect, then. I’ll have to thank her for pulling you through.” Evanie’s eyes widened in horror. “Thank her! What do you mean? Tom—have you—did you see her while I—”
He was taken aback.
“Why, I had dinner with her.”
“After I warned you!” she wailed. “I tell you she’s like a madness that gets into your blood. A man can’t even look at her without suffering—and she’s cruel and utterly inhuman.” She compressed her lips firmly and whispered:
“There’s a scanner here—right under the light.
I mustn’t talk like this.”
“Who cares? She won’t get into my blood, Evanie. I’ve met only two Immortals. The Master I like. The Princess—I hate!”
“See!” she whispered. “You like the Master! Tom, he’s as bad as the Princess. He’s subtle, scheming, insidious! His charm is poisonous. Don’t let him talk you over—please!” He was startled at her vehemence. But the Master had his word now. Could he break it? He was more than half convinced of the great ruler’s sincerity. After all, Evanie was only a sweet, impulsive country girl whose grandfather had been killed. Something of his thoughts must have shown in his expression, for her face grew suddenly hard.
“If I believed you were turning away from us to them,” she said tensely, “I’d despise you, Tom. But I believe in you! Believe you’re strong enough to resist the trickery of the Immortals. Don’t fail me.”
He could not answer her then, for the maid, Sora, came in with a tray of food. She placed it on a cleverly constructed swinging arm that held it above the bed. It was a silent meal. Sora’s presence put a restraint on them, and Evanie was cold, eyeing Connor suspiciously.
He was relieved when they finished and the woman departed with the tray. He found a box of the magically self-lighting cigarettes, and puffed moodily, while Evanie watched him in siknee.
A rap sounded. A Palace guard entered, bowed, and handed Connor a tiny package and an envelope sealed with the imprint of the Midgard Serpent, and departed.
Connor broke the seal and slipped a card from within, read it, and whistled. There was a queer expression on his face when he handed it to Evanie. Written on it in script as fine and precise as engraving were the two sentences:
We desire your presence at once in our laboratory in the East Chambers. Show our medallion to the guard at your door.
Margarita, Urbis Regina, Sororque Domini.
THE royal “we.” It was no invitation, but a command. Connor stared at Evanie, who stared back with narrowed eyes.
“Well?” he said at last.
“Well?”
“What can I do? Ignore it and expose both of us to her anger—if she’s such a devil as you say?”
“Oh, go!” snapped Evanie. “You and your ancient strength and courage! You’re like any other man before the Black Flame of Urbs—just a fool! Go!”
“And leave you?”
“I’ll have Sora for company,” she retorted. “Go ahead. Burn yourself at the Flame, and see if I care.”
“I don’t see what else I can do than go,” he muttered unhappily.
He turned moodily to the door, stripping the wrapper from the tiny package. A beautifully cast golden disc lay in his hand, with the pure features of the Princess in high relief.
The guard outside challenged him at once. It gave him a grim pleasure to flash the medallion in the fellow’s face, to see him salute amazedly and step aside. Connor took the elevator to the ground floor, and passed moodily into the vast cavity of the Throne Room.
He passed through Martin Sair’s disorderly chamber and finally to his destination. Margaret of Urbs sat with a glass of purple wine in one hand and the inevitable cigarette in the other, her dainty sandaled feet on a soft footstool. She wore Urban dress of glistening silver, above which her black hair gleamed like metal. She gave him a sardonic smile.
“You may kiss my sandal,” she said. “Or the hem of your skirt,” he retorted. “Why did you send me that note?”
She gestured at the vision screen beside her.
“Mostly to watch you and Evanie quarrel over it.”
“Then you know my opinion of you.”
“Yes. I was rather amused.”
“Well, if you’ve ceased to be amused, may I go back?”
“Not immediately,” said the Princess. “Don’t you think I owe you a little amusement in return?”
“I’ll forgive the obligation.”
“But I’m very circumspect about my debts,” she insisted, with that maddening twinkle of mockery in the eyes that dared him. “Isn’t there anything about the Palace—or in the world—that interests you? I’ll take you sightseeing.”
IT was an opportunity, at that.
There certainly was much he would like to see in this world that had grown up a thousand years after he was born. He hesitated. The inky-haired girl gestured at a chair and he sat down. Without permission he poured himself a goblet of the wine beside her. It was quite different from the still wines of Ormon; sweet, sparkling, rich—and potent.
“I’d like to see Eartheye,” he said, musingly.
“Oh, Asia’s too far!” she quickly protested. “I’m only giving you an hour or so.”
“Let’s have something on the vision screen from Eartheye, then,” he suggested. “How about Mars?”
“Well, it’s night over Asia.” She snapped the screen on with a negligent hand and said, “Eartheye.”
In a moment a bearded face appeared with a respectful salute. “Put on Mars,” she drawled. “The central region of Solis Lacus.”
In a moment a rosy glow suffused the screen, resolving into focus as a ruddy plain with a greenish center. Connor gazed spellbound. The planet of mystery at a distance of two miles!
Enigmatical dark spots of strangely suggestive regularity were distinguishable, a lacy tracery of cabalistic lines, the flash of something bright that might be water. A pygmy civilization? He wondered dizzily.
“I’d like to see that at first hand!” he murmured.
“So would I,” said Margaret of Urbs. “I’ve tried to talk my esteemed brother into permission to make the attempt, without success so far.”
“You?” He remembered his conversation with Evanie and Jan Orm. “But it’s two and a half years there and back!”
“What’s two and a half years to me?” She snapped off the screen. “Come on,” she said rising.
“Where now?”
“For a little flight. I’ll show you a Triangle”—she glanced at him with a mocking smile—“since you know their secret—and yet live!”
“No thanks to you!” Connor flashed at her.
“No. Were you frightened?”
“Did I seem so?”
She shook her head.
“Are you ever afraid?”
“Often. I try not to show it.”
“I never am,” she said, pulling a beam-pistol from a table drawer and snapping it to her waist. “Since we’re leaving the Palace,” she explained. “I intend to bring you back.”
He laughed and followed her through the Throne Room and up to a portion of the vast Palace roof below the South Tower. A Triangle stood there on a metal flooring. He noticed the pitting and excoriations where the blast had struck. The vehicle gleamed silver, far smaller than the giant ones he had seen in flight. Connor glanced curiously at the firing chamber at the apex, then at the name “Sky-rat” engraved on the wall.
“My Skyrat,” said Margaret of Urbs. “The swiftest thing yet made by man. Your bullets are laggards beside it.” She hesitated, and for a moment he could have sworn that there was a touch of shyness in her eyes. “I took one trip in this—not so long ago,” she said softly, “that I will never forget. The woods of Ormon are—lovely—don’t you think?”
He made no answer to that, and followed her in. The tubular chamber was luxuriously fitted, with deep cushioned seats and room enough for comfortable sleeping quarters. When they were seated she depressed a lever and the throbbing roar of the blast began.
Through the floor-port he watched the Palace drop away. Urbs Major unrolled beneath. There was a sensation of weight as the vehicle shot upward like an errant meteor.
“Frightened?” laughed the Princess.
Connor shrugged. “I’ve flown before,” he said laconically.
“Oh—airplanes! Wait!”
CHAPTER XIX
Death Flight?
MINUTE by minute the Earth receded. It seemed not so much to drop as to diminish, as if the surface were condensing like a deflating balloon. Urbs
Minor slipped smoothly into the square of vision and the whole panorama of the mighty city was below—Greater and Lesser Urbs with the gash of the canal between them, tiny as a toy village in the Swiss Alps.
Kaatskill slid into the square, and a dozen other previously unseen suburbs of the vast metropolis. The aspiring towers of the Palace were small as pins in a carpet, and already a little east of them, as their radial flight permitted the Earth’s rotation to gain on the craft.
The Earth began to seem hazy, and off to the north a snow-white plain of clouds glistened. The vast bowl of the planet began slowly to hump in the center. It was inverting, beginning to seem spherical.
Tom Connor jumped violently as a spark crackled off his thumb. A second stung the tip of his nose. The black silken hair of the Princess rose queerly in a cloud about the perfection of her face, and sparks raced along the metal of the hull.
“The Heaviside ionization layer,” she murmured. “Scared?”
“No.”
Margaret of Urbs glanced at a dial. “Thirty thousand now.”
“Feet?”
She laughed. “Meters.”
About twenty miles. And they were still accelerating. The surface below flowed continually inward. The sky darkened; a star appeared—another. Fifty stars; a thousand—all glistening in a black sky where the sun blazed blue-white. The Earth was decidedly globular now. The vast, inconceivable slope of the planet could be seen in all directions.
Unconsciously Connor jumped as suddenly there came a sharp patter like hail.
“Meteoric particles,” said the girl, turning a knob. “Paige deflector,” she explained.
“For meteors as well as bullets, eh?” he suggested.
“For the iron ones. A stone might get through.”
Uncomfortable thought. Minutes passed—half an hour. Suddenly the Princess moved something. Connor was nearly lifted from his seat by the sudden lightness.
“Deceleration,” she said, glancing down at the colossal convexity below. “Three hundred miles. Are you frightened?”
The Complete Margaret of Urbs Page 11