by Don Wilcox
“Are you in trouble, Garritt?” the woman in the flashy red dress and white-wing cape asked in an elegant manner. “It’s all right. I’ve talked with the superintendent and he has consented to let us borrow sixty wingmen—for experimental purposes.”
CHAPTER XV
“I can’t figure that guy out,” Anna said to George the following day.
“He’s high strung,” George said. “He’s been through so much he can’t relax.”
“But that shouldn’t make him cuss us out the way he did last night when you stopped the wingman. You probably saved his life.”
They were sitting at an outdoor table near a mound-shaped pink marble building—one of the capital’s popular indoor and outdoor restaurants. The waitress brought their lunch and they ate hungrily as they talked.
“The thing is, he’s had so many close calls on that Mogo voyage,” George declared, “that the whole thing has got into his spine. He’ll not draw a free breath ‘til he explodes that giant off the earth.”
“That goes for all of us,” said Anna. “But I still say he gives me the Saturn whirl. Maybe he’ll calm down if everything goes well at the meeting.”
“Anyway,” said George, “he finally turned my space flivver back to me. Guess I needn’t have worried.”
“Have you checked it over?”
“First thing this morning. It’s in section 28 of the big hangar, all set to travel.”
“Swell.” Anna’s face lighted with inspiration. “Then we won’t have to take the Express back. We can—”
George turned a sharp look at her.
“I mean you,” she amended.
“You can go back in your own ship.” George nodded.
“And if you want company,” she added, “There’s Glasgow. He might be going back. Or Judge Lagnese—”
Her voice trailed off. George was mentally sorting the possible companions. You thought twice before choosing someone to share the long hours of space travel with you. Most of George’s cruising had been done alone, with only the consolation of a mental companion—Judy Longworth. And now that there was no longer a Judy Longworth, George realized he had never really known her. She had been a name. A game of make-believe around a name and a face that he had contacted a few times by television. Would she have been anything like Anna?
“You’re thinking about Judy,” Anna said abruptly. “Pardon me for intruding.”
“I was thinking about how you jumped on top of the dog-pile last night when I tackled the wingman,” George said. He forced a chuckle and went on gulping his food.
The meeting that evening, held in one of the government buildings, was an invitation affair. Whether that had been the plan of Glasgow or Judge Lagnese, George did not know. Both men sat at the table on the low stage. The ushers closed the doors and the small crowd of sixty men and women quieted.
“The greatest tragedy of all time has come to our beloved planet,” the red-faced little judge said as he began his presentation of Garritt Glasgow. “But we have not come here tonight to weep. We have come to act. I’m proud to present one of the world’s greatest explorers, who has a surer grasp of the earth’s troubles than any other living man. Garritt Glasgow.”
The crowd applauded lightly. George was tense with excitement as Glasgow rose to speak. Here was history in the making, George thought. After all, it was true that there was no one who knew quite as much about the earth’s catastrophe and the gigantic creatures behind it as did Glasgow. No one had a surer grasp—Grasp?
Glasgow stumbled just slightly on that word as he was beginning.
“It is true that I have a surer grasp on the earth—on the earth’s troubles, than any other living man.”
Anna nudged George. Glasgow’s eye swept over him and he felt a moment of discomfort, as if he had been caught reading for someone’s guilty secret. Garritt Glasgow’s grasp of the earth.
He crushed the thought out of his mind. Everyone was listening intently. Glasgow was telling the story of the Paul Keller expedition . . . Keller’s dastardly plan . . . Keller’s acts of murder . . . Keller’s awful bargain with the Mogo giants . . . the earth betrayed . . . the earth sold . . . the earth to be bombed and shattered and pulverized into a skyfull of dust.
Then—the first attack by one of the giant’s, according to plan—Paul Keller’s plan!
“And all the while I was fighting at the bars of my jail, helpless to prevent—”
The throb of Garritt Glasgow’s voice made you tremble. George had never felt the hideousness of Paul Keller’s treacheries so deeply before. Now it seemed as if everyone would want to race back to the earth and help hunt down the evil man.
“So I call upon you, you loyal colonists who have not forgotten that the earth was once your home—” Glasgow paused for just an instant, and it seemed to George as if every person present was right in the palm of his hand. “I call upon you to grant me the privilege of hunting down and destroying these two evil forces—the human traitor and the Mogo beast. I call upon you for financial support—”
“Just a moment, Mr. Glasgow.” The voice of the judge cut in, solid, like a barrier of marble.
“What’s the matter?” Glasgow snapped.
“Are you assuming that you have the right to destroy Paul Keller without a trial?”
“After what’s happened, yes,” Glasgow’s voice rasped with sarcasm. “How much of a crime, in your opinion, must a man commit before he deserves the death penalty?”
“You have no authority to administer the death penalty,” the judge said. His white moustache and goatee flashed whiter than ever against the angry purple of his face.
“I’m demanding that this meeting give me the authority!” Glasgow shouted. He waved to the crowd. “I’m asking you—”
“WAIT!” the judge barked. “These Venus people don’t own the earth. They haven’t the authority. They’re no longer legal residents of the earth.”
“Then there isn’t any authority. I’m free to do whatever I damned please!”
“Wrong again. There is an authority.”
“Who?”
“A committee.”
“A committee—where?”
“On the earth. At the new headquarters, in the Banrab Valley.”
The judge’s words caused disorder among the sixty guests. The importance which Garritt Glasgow had almost succeeded in bestowing upon them had suddenly been taken away by the fiery little judge.
“Listen to me,” Glasgow said, gathering himself up for a more conservative attack. “I’ve been through enough to know what I’m doing. Have any of you felt the hot breath of a Mogo giant pour over you like a Turkish bath? No, not you. But I have. I’ve seen it all, first hand. So I’ve come to Venus to mobilize your support. I want your backing. I want your money.”
To this much the crowd responded with affirmative nods. But when Glasgow added, “And I want your authority to destroy—” the judge stiffened again. Refusing to be stampeded, he sprang to his feet.
“We’re still Americans, Glasgow. We believe in trial by jury.”
For a moment the two little men glared at each other, one of them beet-red, the other almost ashen, his nervous fingers twitching.
“Trial by jury—on whose authority!” Garritt Glasgow was flinging the judge’s words back at him. “What right have you to say? There’s a committee at Banrab to decide such matters, I understand.”
“I am one of that committee,” said the judge. “Before I left the earth we agreed that Paul Keller, if he could be found, should have the right of trial by jury.”
Glasgow instantly turned his appeal to the crowd.
“Listen. We have one member of the earth’s committee present—a softie. He wants you to take his word for it—the rest of the committee not being present—that they’ve decided this menace is not to be shot on sight—”
The judge brought his fist down on the desk. “Your sarcasm is out of order. If you doubt my word, there are two other members of the
committee present.”
“Call them up,” Glasgow snapped.
“Miss Pantella and Mr. Hurley.”
Anna nudged George. He broke out of his paralysis somehow and came to his feet. Anna led the way, and he followed. The crowd was holding its breath. He didn’t quite stumble on the steps leading up to the low stage. He noticed that Anna was tall and graceful and had rather good-looking legs. This was history in the making, he thought, and how was it that he’d never noticed before that Anna had good-looking legs?
“Miss Pantella, are you a member of the newly organized committee for governing the new earth?” the judge asked.
“I am.”
“And you, Mr. Hurley?”
“Also.” George looked the judge in the eye, at the same time thinking of Anna’s calmness. And at the same time aware that Garritt Glasgow was walking around to take a position on the other side of him.
“What,” the judge asked, “did our committee decide, a few days ago during our first meeting in the Banrab Valley, concerning Paul Keller, Miss Pantella?”
“We decided if charges were brought against him for betraying the earth, he should have a trial by jury.”
“Mr. Hurley?”
“Trial by jury.”
The judge turned to face the audience, satisfied that he had swung his point. However, everyone was looking at Garritt Glasgow. George turned as Glasgow’s sarcastic smile broke into a laugh. He tossed his little head back and gave a loud, cackling guffaw.
“This is rich, ladies and gentlemen! This is rich! Can’t you just see this government of softies go to work?” He doubled up with laughter, pointing a finger at the judge. “I ask you, honorable committee, when the Mogo giants throw bombs at the earth, what about it?”
“What do you mean?” the judge asked, purpling.
“You wouldn’t kill the giants on sight, would you? No, you’d offer them trial by jury!”
The crowd laughed. The little judge’s eyes blazed and his moustaches twitched. Glasgow stopped the laughter to shoot the question with deadly seriousness.
“I’m about to ask for financial aid, so I can go back to the earth and put an end to the giant. Judge Lagnese and the rest of the committee knows that I came here for that purpose. I’m volunteering my services because I have an interest in the earth. I want to see it safe, I ask you, does the committee want that mile-high monster from Mogo killed on sight? Or have you decided to give it a trial by jury?”
The judge glared, speechless with rage. The fiery little space man had given his dignity an awful beating. The crowd was beginning to smile.
“I want my answer now,” said Glasgow icily. “Apparently I stand alone in my fight for the earth. At this moment I know how Washington must have felt at Valley Forge. But if I must fight alone—”
Anna Pantella spoke up sharply. “Aren’t you forgetting someone?”
Glasgow changed his tone. “No. No. I’m not forgetting you two friends. As long as I have two lieutenants like you, Anna, and you, George—” he stepped over to stand between them, placing a hand on the shoulder of each, much to the judge’s chagrin, “I can endure the chill of this Valley Forge. You two helped to rescue me. And you lent me your space ship. No, I’m not alone in this cause, I’m sure.”
He looked at the crowd again, and George knew that he had somehow restored their confidence in him.
“Sometime the committee will empower me to destroy the Mogo giant . . . And when I succeed, I shall have cleared the path for you people, if you wish to come back . . . to rebuild.”
The judge cleared his throat. He had been unable to rally, and had stood by, enduring a bad moment as best he could. Now, however, he turned to accept the situation gracefully. As if to restore the dignity of the meeting, he said, quietly:
“Three of the earth’s committee stand before you, Mr. Glasgow. If we three authorize the killing of the giant, I feel sure the rest of the committee will concur in our decision. Miss Pantella?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Hurley?”
“Yes.”
“And I, Judge Lagnese, also vote yes. Therefore the immediate killing of the Mogo giant is hereby authorized.” The judge, his redness returning to a more temperate pink, made a polite gesture toward the triumphant Glasgow. “You may proceed to collect funds and take whatever measures you find necessary to destroy the giant as soon as possible.”
Garritt Glasgow bowed, matching the judge’s dignity.
“Thank you, Judge Lagnese. As a first step, I hereby appoint George Hurley as my assistant in this task.”
CHAPTER XVI
George Hurley had made a few previous trips to Venus, nevertheless the bright lights of the capital city were still a novelty to him. As he accompanied Anna down the steps of the government building, he stopped to gaze at the brilliantly lighted street lined with entertainment palaces.
“I need a good movie to calm my nerves,” he said.
“I should think so,” Anna said. “Well?”
“Just drop me off at my hotel, Big Boy, and you can run along.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. A little weary from the meeting, that’s all.”
“Don’t you feel the need of a movie or something?”
“Are you asking me for a date?”
“I’m just telling you, you can come along if you want to. It makes no difference to me.”
“If it makes no difference,” said Anna, “just drop me off at my hotel. Maybe I’ll call my brother. Maybe he’ll want to take me to a show.”
“Oh.”
They walked along the brightly lighted windows. George was in a heavy mood. There were new responsibilities weighing on him now. He wondered what Glasgow’s plan would be for getting rid of the giant. Tomorrow he and Glasgow would confer and he would have to be on his toes. “I’ve got an idea,” George said abruptly. “Why don’t you and your brother and I all three take in a show yet tonight?”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I haven’t even met him.”
“He’s a pretty busy man,” Anna said. She frowned, and George thought she was being strangely evasive. Earlier, when he had suggested a dinner with the brother, she had found some trifling objection. She added, “I’ve already had one visit with him today. He might not like if it I’d call him again—this late.”
“That settles it,” said George. “You’re coming with me. We’re going to an old time earth-made movie. It’ll be a long time before we have any movies on the earth again.”
“Okay. It’s a deal. Double feature?”
“Triple.”
It was the first show George ever attended in which his own name was flashed on the screen. Not as a part of the newsreel, though there was that, too—the landing of the Venus Express and a word from the good-looking girl who had somehow survived the earth’s disaster. But the flash of George’s name, just as the feature began, was a call to report to the box office at once.
“Keep my seat, Pantella. I’ll be back soon.”
Anna caught his hand. “Be careful.”
Then, “I’m coming with you.”
At the box office they found Madame Zukor.
“I happened to see you go in, Mr. Hurley. I’m sorry to deprive you of your show, but this is quite urgent. If I may talk with you alone—”
Madame Zukor was wearing a silver cape over her black jeweled gown. Her dark eyes shone with a mysterious light. She could do well as a fortune teller, George thought. He turned to Anna.
“Why don’t you go back and finish the show?”
“As your confidential secretary,” Anna said, “my first duty is to look after you. Where do we go?”
But Madam Zukor said no in no uncertain terms, and the best that George could do was to advise Anna to go and call her brother. Then he offered Madam Zukor his arm.
It was a small tea room. The air was heavy with incense. The red shafts of lights along the walls gave George the feeling that h
e was being hidden in some vale of mysteries.
The light was dim in the booth that Madame Zukor chose, yet it flashed sharply from her silver cape and jeweled black dress. She ordered tea. She smiled pleasantly across the table at him.
“Anyone can see that you are honest, Mr. Hurley.”
“I try to be,” George said artlessly.
“Even when there are temptations, you are honest. Aren’t you, Mr. Hurley? You would never be swayed by such a thing as a bribe.”
“I never thought much about it.” George stirred his tea with a steady hand. “What’s the matter? Someone figuring to bribe me?”
“My dear, I hope not. If I thought such a thing would swerve you, I wouldn’t have urged Mr. Glasgow to choose you as his assistant on this job.”
George looked up in surprise. ”You urged it?”
“Certainly. I guessed you to be a man of strong character, and so—”
“You and your brother work together on a lot of things, don’t you?”
It was Madame Zukor’s turn to be surprised. “Who said that he was my brother? How did you know—?”
Her tone had suddenly sharpened, and for an instant he wondered if all of her politeness was only a disguise. But at once she was smiling again, and her eyes were gleaming with the brightness of jewels. She reached over and touched his hand.
“You’re quick, aren’t you?” she asked. “That’s what I like about you.”
George edged his hand away and rubbed his cheek uncomfortably. “What’s this bribe talk? I don’t get it.”
“We want to be sure—my brother and I—that we have no further clashes with Judge Lagnese and the rest of the committee. Yes, I was listening to your meeting from the wings. We both realize how important it is that Paul Keller be brought back alive—so he can face the trial. You see?”
“Of course.”
“But suppose you can’t take him alive. Suppose he resists—”
“Could be.”
“And suppose he gets killed—just suppose. It could happen, you know.”