Tarrano the Conqueror by Ray Cummings (book club suggestions txt) 📕

Georg turned the other way. People were closing in all around them—an excited crowd held back by the heat of the burning tower, the smoke and the falling blocks of stone. Someone swung a pencil-ray wildly. It seared Georg like a branding-iron on the flesh of his arm as it swung past. He pulled Maida toward the head of an escalator a dozen feet away. Its steps were coming upward from the plaza at the ground level. Half way up, the first of an up-coming throng were mounting it.

But Georg again turned aside. He found Maida quick of wit to catch his plans; and agile of body to follow him. They climbed down the metal frame-work of the escalator sides; down under it to where the inverted steps were passing downward on the endless belts. Maida slid into one of them, with Georg after her, his arms holding her in place.

They huddled there. No one had seen them enter. Smoothly the escalator drew them downward. Above them in a moment the tramp of feet sounded close above their heads as the crowd rushed upward.

They approached the bottom, slid out upon a swinging bridge which chanced at the moment to be empty of people. Down it at a run; into the palm-lined plaza at the bottom of the city.

Down here it was comparatively dim and silent. The alarm lights of the plaza section had not yet come on; the excitement was concentrated upon the burning tower above. The crowd, rushing up there, left the plaza momentarily deserted. Georg and Maida crossed it at a run, scurried like frightened rabbits through a tunnel arcade, down a lower cross-street, and came at last unmolested to the outskirts of the city.

The buildings here were almost all at the ground level. Georg and Maida ran onward, hardly noticed, for everyone was gazing upward at the distant, burning tower. Georg was heading for where Wolfgar had an aero secreted. A mile or more. They reached the spot—but the aero was not there. They were in the open country now—Venia is small. Plantations—an agricultural region. Most of the houses were deserted, the occupants having fled into the city as refugees when threats and orders came from Washington the day before. Georg and Maida came upon a little conical house; it lay silent, heavy-shadowed in the starlight with the glow of the city edging its side and circular roof. Beside it was an incline with a helicopter standing up there on a private landing stage.... Georg and Maida rushed up the incline.

A small helicopter; its dangling basket was barely large enough for two—a basket with a tiny safety 'plane fastened to its outrigger.

In a moment Georg and the girl had boarded the helicopter. She was silent; she had hardly said a word throughout it all.... The helicopter mounted straight up; its whirling propellers above sent a rush of air downward.

"These batteries," said Georg. "The guards in Venia can't stop us. An aero—even if we had it—I doubt if we could get power for it. They've shut off general power by now, I'm sure."

She nodded. "Yes—no doubt."

As they mounted upward, the city dwindled beneath them—dwindled to an area of red and green and purple lights. It was silent up here in the starlight; a calm, windless night—cloudless, save for a gray bank which obscured the moon.

Ten thousand feet up. Then fifteen. The city was a tiny patch of blended colors. Light rockets occasionally mounted now. But their glare fell short. Georg's mind was busy with his plans. Had the helicopter been seen? It seemed not. No rocket-light had reached it; and there was no sign of pursuit from below.

Maida crouched beside him. He felt her hand timidly upon his arm; felt her shy, sidelong glance upon him. And suddenly he was conscious of her beauty. His heart leaped, and as he turned to her, she smiled—a smile of eager trust which lighted her face like a torch of faith in the spire of a house of worship.

"You are planning?" she said. "You know what it is we must do?"

He said: "I think so. The volan[12] out there is large enough for two. You'll trust yourself to it with me? You're not afraid, are you?"

"Oh, no," she said. "What you say we must do, we will do."

"We must go higher, Maida. Then, you see...."

He told her his plans. And mounting up there into the silent canopy of stars, his fingers wound themselves into the soft strands of her hair which lay upon him; and his heart beat fast with the nearness of her.... Told her his plans, and she acquiesced.

Twenty thousand feet. The cold was upon them. Shivering himself, he wrapped her in a fur which the basket contained. At 25,000, they took to the vol plan. It was a padded board a dozen feet long and half as wide. Released, it shot downward; a hundred feet or more, with the heavens whirling soundlessly. Then Georg got the wings open; the descent was checked; the stars righted themselves above, and once again the earth was beneath.

They had strapped themselves to the board, and now Georg undid the thongs. Together they lay prone, side by side, with the narrow, double-banked wings beneath the line of their shoulders, and the rudder-tail behind them. Flexible 'planes and tail, responding to Georg's grip on the controls.

Fluttering, uncertain at first, like a huge bird of quivering wings, they began their incline descent. A spiral, then Georg opened it to a straight glide northward—rushing downward and onward through the starlight, in a wind of their own making which fluttered the light fabric of Maida's robe and tossed her waves of hair about her.

A long, silent glide, with only the rush of wind. It seemed hours, while the girl did not speak and Georg anxiously searched the sky ahead. Underneath them, the dark forests were slipping past; but inexorably coming upward. They were down to 5,000 feet; then Georg saw at last what he had hoped, prayed for, but almost despaired of. A beam of light to the northward—the spreading beam of an oncoming patrol. It was high overhead; but it came forward fast. A sweeping, keenly searching beam, and finally it struck them. Clung to them.

And presently the big patrol vessel was almost above them. It hung there, a dark winged shape dotted with colored lights. A signal flash—a sharp command to Georg, but, of course, he could not answer. Then the Director's finder picked him out. The volan was fluttering, spiralling slowly as Georg struggled to hold his place.

And then the patrol launched its tender. It came darting down like a wasp. A moment more, and Georg and Maida were taken aboard it. The volan fluttered to the forest unguided and was lost in the black treetops, now no more than a thousand feet below.

Surrounded by amazed officials, Maida and Georg entered the patrol vessel. Georg Brende, escaped safely from Tarrano! The Brende secret released from Tarrano's control! The Director flashed the news to Washington and to Great London. Orders came back. A score of other vessels of this Patrol-Division came dashing up—a convoy which soon was speeding northward to Washington with its precious messenger.

CHAPTER XI Recaptured

In Washington during those next few days, events of the Earth, Venus and Mars swirled and raged around Georg as though he were engulfed in the Iguazu or Niagara. Passive himself at first—a spectator merely; yet he was the keystone of the Earth Council's strength. The Brende secret was desired by the publics of all three worlds. Even greater than its real value as a medical discovery, it swayed the popular mind.

Tarrano possessed the Brende secret. The only model, and Dr. Brende's notes were in his hands. Washington had ordered him to give them up, and he had refused. But now the status was changed. Georg held the secret also—and Georg was in Washington. It left the Earth Council free to deal with Tarrano.

During those days Georg was housed in official apartments, with Maida very often near him. Inactive, they were much together, discussing their respective worlds. The Princess Maida was hereditary ruler of the Venus Central State—the only living heir to the throne. When Tarrano's forces threatened revolution from the Cold Country she had been seized by spies, brought to Earth, to Tarrano in Venia, and imprisoned in the tower from which Georg had so lately rescued her. Wolfgar for years had been her friend and loyal retainer, though he had pretended service to Tarrano.

In the Central State, Maida, too young to rule, had been represented by a Council. The public loved her—but a majority of it had gone astray when she disappeared—lured by Tarrano's glowing promises.

Maida told Georg all this with a sweet, gentle sadness that was pathetic. And with an earnest, patriotic fervor—the love of her country and her people for whom she would give her life.

She added: "If only I could get back there, Georg—I could make them realize the right course. I could win them again. Tarrano will play them false—you know it, and so do I."

Pathetic earnestness in this girl still no more than seventeen! And Georg, sitting beside her, gazing into her solemn, beautiful face, felt that indeed she could win them, with those limpid blue eyes and her words which rang with sincerity and truth.

They sat generally in an unofficial instrument room adjoining the government offices. A room high in a spire above the upper levels of the city. And around them rolled the momentous events of which they were the center.

The time limit of the Earth Council's ultimatum to Tarrano expired. Already Tarrano had answered it with defiance. But on the stroke of its expiration, came another note from him. Georg read it from the tape to Maida:

"To the Earth Council from Tarrano, its loyal subject——"

A grimly ironical note, yet so worded that the ignorant masses would not see its irony. It stated that Tarrano could not comply with the demand that he deliver himself and the Brende model to Washington because he did not have the model. It was on its way to Venus. He now proposed to recall it. He had already recalled it, in fact. He assured the Council that it was now on its way back, direct to Washington. He had done this because he felt that the Earth leaders were making a mistake—a grave mistake in the interests of their own people. Georg Brende was in Washington—that was true. But Georg Brende was a silly, conceited young man, flattered by his prominence in the public eye, his head turned by his own importance. Dr. Brende had been a genius. The son was a mere upstart, pretending to a scientific knowledge he did not have.

"Trickery!" exclaimed Georg. "But he knows the people may believe it. Some of them undoubtedly will."

"And you cannot thwart your public," Maida said. "Even your Earth Council, secure in its power, cannot do that."

"Exactly," Georg rejoined. He was indignant, as well he might have been. "Tarrano is trying to avoid being attacked. Time—any delay—is what he wants."

The note went on. Tarrano—seeking only the welfare of the people—could not stand by and see the Earth Council wreck its public. Tarrano had reconsidered his former note. The Brende model was vital, and since the Earth Council demanded the model (for the benefit of its people) the people should have it. In a few days it would be in Washington. Tarrano himself would not come to Washington. His doing that could not help the public welfare, and he was but human. The Earth Council had made itself his enemy; he could not be expected to trust his life in enemy hands.

The note closed with the suggestion that the Council withdraw its patrol from Venia. This talk of war was childish. Withdraw the patrol, and Tarrano himself might go back to Venus. He would wait a day for answer to this request; and if it were not granted—if the patrol were not entirely removed—then the Brende model would be destroyed. And if the publics of three worlds wished to depend upon a conceited, ignorant young man like Georg Brende for the everlasting life, they were welcome to do so.

A clever piece of trickery, and it was awkward to deal with. One had only to watch its effect upon the public to realize how insidious it was. Tarrano had told us—in the tower in Venia: "I shall have to bargain with them." And chuckled as he said it.

A series of notes from the Earth Council and back again, followed during the next few days. But the patrol was not withdrawn; nor was war declared. The Earth Council knew that Tarrano had not ordered the model back—nor would he destroy it. Yet if the Earth forces were to overwhelm Tarrano, and the model were lost, a revolution upon Earth could easily take place before