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

He summoned Argo and two other guards. Unceremoniously, and with more haste than I had ever seen in Tarrano, he led us from the building. A hint of his purpose came to me, as he bade Elza gather up her few personal belongings, and gave them to a guard to carry.

In a group, he herded us across the spider bridge. It was early evening, but night had fully fallen. The city was ablaze with its colored lights. We crossed the bridge, passed through a tunnel-arcade, and came out to a platform which was at the base of a skeleton tower. Its naked girders rose some seven hundred feet above us. The highest structure in the city. A waiting lifting-car was there. We entered, and it shot us upward.

At the top, the narrowed structure was enclosed into a single room some thirty feet square. A many-windowed room, with a small metal balcony surrounding it outside. Immediately above the room, at the very peak of the tower, was a single, powerful light-beam; its silver searching ray swept the cloudless, starry sky in a slow circle.

The room was crowded with instruments. Unlighted, save by the reflected glow of its many image-mirrors, all of which seemed in full operation. A dozen intent men sat at the tables; a silent room, but for the hum and click of the instruments.

Tarrano said softly: "We have been very busy while you below were engaged with your petty hates."

He seated himself at a table apart, upon which was a single mirror, and he gathered us around him. The mirror was dark. He called:

"Rax—let me see Mars—you have them by relay? The Hill City?"

The mirror flashed on. From an aperture overhead, a tiny beam of the blue helio-transformer came down to it. In the mirror I saw an image of the familiar Hill City. A terraced slope, dotted with the cubical buildings, spires and tunnel mouths. An empty channel[15] curved down across the landscape from the north.

A distant scene, empty and lifeless save for black puffs which rose in the air above the city.

Tarrano called impatiently: "Closer, Rax!"

The image dissolved, blurred; turned red, violet, then white. We seemed now upon a height close above the city. It was seething with confusion. Fighting going on in the streets. Animals and men, fighting; a crowd of the Little People thronging a public square, with beasts of war charging them.

The Hairless Men; I had heard of them, with their animals trained to fight, while they—the humans—lurked behind. A mysterious, almost grewsome race, to us who live on Earth—these hairless dwellers of the underground Mars. Dead-white of skin; sleek and hairless; heavily muscled from the work of their world; and almost blind from living in the dark.

They were swarming now into the Hill City of the ruling Little People. The beasts, at their commands, were running wild through the streets ... dripping jaws, tearing at the women ... the children....

I felt Elza turn away, shuddering.

Tarrano chuckled. "The revolt. It came, of course, as I planned. This Little People government—it was annoying ... Colley!"

"Master?"

"Send the message, Colley. Fling it audibly over Mars! Tell the rulers of the Little People that if they send up the green bomb of surrender—Tarrano will spare them further bloodshed. Tell them that I am not giving the Brende secret to Earth. In a moment I shall defy the Earth Council. Promise them that the Brende secret is going to Mars. Assure them they will have everlasting life for everyone.... Wohl!"

"Master?"

"Give me the Cave Station."

The mirror went dark. Then it turned a dazzling yellow. A cavern in the interior of Mars. A dark scene of wavering yellow torches. Around a table of instruments sat a score of hairless men. Tarrano snatched up a mouthpiece—murmured slowly into it. I could see the leader of the hairless men nod after a time, as the message reached him. And I saw him turn away to issue swift orders as Tarrano had commanded.

Tarrano said brusquely: "Enough!... Wohl!"

The mirror went dark. A voice called: "Master, the green bomb has gone up from the Hill City! Do you wish to see?"

"No.... Give me Venus. Olgan! Are they quiet on Venus?"

"Yes, Master."

"Congratulate them that we have conquered the Little People. Tell them Mars is ours now! Tell them I am coming to Venus at once—with the Brende model...."

"Master, you wish to see Venus? I have direct communication——"

Another voice interrupted. "The Earth Council, Master! They demand an explanation of why you say the Brende model is going to Mars. You have promised it to Earth. They demand——"

Tarrano rasped: "Tell them to wait ... I don't want Venus, Olgan.... Megar! Give me the Earth Mountain Station."

He turned to me, and his voice dropped again to that characteristic sardonic drawl:

"We must see how your friend Georg Brende is faring."

The mirror showed Georg, standing irresolute on the platform before the sending discs.

Tarrano called: "The Princess Maida—can't you locate her?"

The scene blurred momentarily, then showed us the outside of the Station. A white expanse of snow, with purple starlit sky above. From a side door of the building, as we watched, the figures of two women appeared. A woman leading Maida. As they came out, with Maida all unsuspecting, from the shadows a group of men pounced upon them—dragged Maida away.

Tarrano laughed. "Enough!... Show me Georg Brende again.... Hurry!"

We saw Georg waver and leap through the window, fall into the snow, where, from the shadows of the building, other men rushed out upon him ... hurried him away after the captive Maida....

Tarrano's laugh was grim and triumphant. "Ha! We win there, also! Enough! Nunz? Nunz—now you can give me the Earth Council! Where is it sitting? Washington, or Great London?"

"Washington, Master."

"Very well.... No, never mind connecting me. You speak for me. Tell them I've changed my mind. The Brende model is not coming to Washington. Tell them Georg Brende is lost to them, also. Tell them I declare war! Tarrano the Conqueror declares war on the Earth! Tell them that, with my compliments. Tell them to come down here and overwhelm me—it ought to be very easy!"

That Tarrano should thus defy the Earth, when by every law of rational circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was characteristic of the man. He stood there in the instrument room at the peak of the skeleton tower in Venia and rasped out to the Earth Council his defiance. Silence followed—silence unbroken save by the hiss and click of the instruments as the message was sent.

And then Tarrano ordered thrown upon himself the lights and sending mirrors so that his own image might be available to all of the public and Earth officials who cared to look upon it. Within the circle of mirrors he stood drawn to his full height; his eyes flashing, heavy brows lowered, and a sardonic smile—almost a leer—pulling at his thin lips. The embodiment of defiance. Yet to those who knew him well—as I was beginning to know him—there was in his eyes a gleam of irony, as though even in this situation he saw humor. A game, with worlds and nations as his pawns—a game wherein, though he had apparently lost, with the confidence of his genius he knew that the hidden move he was about to make would extricate him.

"Enough," he rasped.

The mirrors went dark. He turned away; and still without appearance of haste he drew Wolfgar, Elza and me to the balcony. Together we stood gazing over the lights of the city below us.

A cloudless, starry sky. Empty of air-craft; but to the north just below the horizon, we knew that the line of war vessels was hovering. Even now, doubtless, they had their orders to descend upon us. Tarrano seemed waiting, and I suppose we stood there half an hour. Occasionally he would sight an instrument toward the north; and by the orders he gave at intervals I knew that preparations for action on his part were under way.

Half an hour. Then abruptly from below the northern horizon lights came up—spreading colored beams. The Earth war vessels! A line of them as far as we could see from left to right, mounting up into the sky as they winged their way toward us—a line spreading out in a broad arc. And then, behind us, I saw others appear. We were surrounded.

It was a magnificent, awe-inspiring sight, that vast ring of approaching colored lights. Red, green and purple—slowly moving eyes. Light-rockets sometimes mounting above them, to burst with a soundless glare of white light in the sky; and underneath, the spreading white search-beams, sweeping down to the dark forest that lay all about us.

Soon, in the white glare of the bombs, we could distinguish the actual shapes of the vessels. Still Tarrano did not move from his place by the balcony rail. He stood there, with a hand contemplatively under his chin, as though absorbed by an interest in the scene purely impersonal. Was he going to give himself up? Stand there inactive while these armed forces of the most powerful world in the Solar System swept down upon him?

Abruptly he snapped his instrument back to his belt. He had not used it since the hostile lights had appeared. Previously, I knew, he had been watching those lights, with the curved ray of the instrument when the lights themselves had been below the horizon.

He turned now to me. "They are here, Jac Hallen. Almost here. And I am at their mercy." His tone was ironic; then it hardened into grimness. He was addressing me, but I knew it was for Elza's benefit he spoke.

"I came here to Earth, Jac Hallen, for certain things. I find them now accomplished. I belong here no longer." He laughed. "I would not force myself into a war prematurely. That would be very unwise. I think—we shall have to avoid this—engagement. I am—slightly outnumbered."

He called an order, quite calmly over his shoulder. I suppose, at that moment, the Earth war vessels were no more than five miles away. The whole sky was a kaleidoscope of darting lights. In answer to his order, from the peak of our tower a light bomb mounted—a vertical ray of green light. The bomb of surrender!

Tarrano chuckled. "That should halt them. Come! We must start."

He held a brief colloquy with a Venus man who appeared beside him. The man nodded and hastened back into the instrument room. The green light of our bomb had died away. The lights in the sky began fading—the whole sky fading, turning to blackness! I became aware that Tarrano had thrown around our tower a temporary isolation barrage. For a few moments—while the current he had at his command could hold it—we could not be seen on the image finders of the advancing vessels.

Tarrano repeated: "That should hold them—I have surrendered! They should be triumphant. And outside our barrage, our men will bargain with them. Ten minutes! We should be able to hold them off that long at least. Come, Lady Elza. We must start now."

With a scant ceremony in sharp contrast to his courteous words to Elza, he hurried us off. Three of us—Elza, Wolfgar and myself, with one attendant who still carried Elza's personal belongings. Hurried us into the vertical car which had brought us up into the tower. It descended now, down the iron skeleton shaft. Outside the girders I could see only the blackness of the barrage, with faint snapping sparks.

Silently we descended. It seemed very far down. And suddenly I realized that we were going lower than the ground level. The barrage sparks had vanished. The blackness now was a normal darkness; and in it I could see slipping upward the smooth black sides of the vertical shaft into which we were dropping. And the sulphuric smell of the barrage was gone. The air now smelt of earth—the heavy, close air of underground.

I do not know how far down we went. A thousand feet perhaps. The thing surprised me. Yet in those moments my mind encompassed it; and many of Tarrano's motives which I had not reasoned out before now seemed plain. He had come from Venus to the Earth, possibly several months ago. Had come directly here to Venia and set up his headquarters. His purpose on Earth—as he had just told me—did not lie with warfare. While he was here his forces had conquered the Great City of Venus, and just now, the Hill City of Mars. He controlled Venus and Mars—but he was still far from ready to attack the Earth.

He had come to the Earth in person for several important purposes. For one—he desired the Brende model and Dr. Brende's notes. He had them now; they were, in reality, at this present moment in the Great City of Venus. Also, with the Brende secret—to control