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

that she had ever conceived could be built of frozen water. Here, in the outskirts of the city, she saw indeed, quite similar huts. But further in—ornate buildings several stories high. She caught a vague glimpse of them only, as the platform flew above them and descended in the center of the city.

They had passed over great outer encircling ramparts—a huge wall many helans long—built entirely of ice blocks—fortifications like that fabled wall which in the dim history of our Earth had once encircled a portion of the domain of the Yellow Race.

The platform came down before a central building—the Palace of Ice. Even in this dim daylight of the Cold Country summer, the great building gleamed and glittered resplendent. A building of many levels, storied and winged, with spider bridges and aerial arcades connecting the wings. Frescoed everywhere! ornate with carved design chipped in ice blocks hard as marble. Rolling terraces of snow and ice surrounded it—lawns of smooth white, with winding paths of ice. A many balconied building; towers, spires and minarets crowning it. All blue-white. Glittering. Seemingly fragile; from a distance, a toy—a sample of the ultra-skill of some master confectioner, as though the whole thing were a toy of sugar for children to admire. But at close range—solid; in the cold of this terrible region, as solid as though constructed of blocks of stone.

With the flying platform landed, and its warming rays cut off, attendants rushed forward. Tarrano and Elza were wrapped in furs at once—heavy furs which covered them from head to foot.

"Well! Well, Graten!" Tarrano greeted his subordinate smilingly. "Things are in condition here? You got my message?"

"Yes, Master. All is in good fashion here. We welcome you."

In his furs, with face almost hidden, Elza could not see what manner of man this was.

They entered the palace. Frescoed; carved everywhere, within as without. The main doorway led into a palatial hall, carpeted with furs. It was warm. Tarrano discarded his fur, and helped Elza out of hers.

"You like my home, Lady Elza?"

"It's—beautiful," she answered.

His smile showed amusement at the wonder and awe which stamped her expression. He added very gently:

"I had in mind when I built it, the hope that you would be pleased."

A comfortable interior warmth. Elza noticed little blurs of red light behind wire cages here and there. The warmth came from them; and a glow of pale white light from the tubes along the wall.

A woman hurried to them. Tara! Elza recognized her at once. Tara, looking very pretty in a pale blue robe, with her hair done high upon her head. The woman who loved Tarrano; he had sent her on here to be rid of her, when he went to the Great City. She came forward. Pleasure was on her face at seeing Tarrano; but her glance as she turned it momentarily toward Elza, held again that smouldering jealousy.

Tarrano was evidently in a mood of high good humor.

"You welcome me prettily, Tara." She had flung her arms about him. "Tara, my dear is——"

"Master—you come but in time. They are working the Brende instrument. Already they have——"

"They? Who?" He frowned. His words were hard and cold as the ice-blocks around him.

"Woolff. And the son of Cretar. Many of them—using it now!"

Tarrano drew Elza with him. Tara led the way. Through glowing white hallways, an arcade; down steps and an incline—to burst at last through a tunnel-like passage into a room.

"So? What is this, Cretar?"

A room littered with apparatus. A dozen men were about. Men scantily dressed in this interior heat. Short, squat men of the Cold Country; flat-nosed, heavy faces; hair long to the base of the neck. In a corner stood the Brende instrument, fully erected. A light from it seemed penetrating the bared chest of a man who was at that moment standing in its curative rays.

He whom Tarrano called Cretar, took a step forward.

"Master, we——"

"Making yourselves immortal?" The anger had left Tarrano's voice; irony was there instead.

"Master——"

"Have you done that?"

"Master—yes! Yes! We did! Forgive us, Master."

The man before the instrument had retreated from it. Elza saw now that all the men were shrinking back in terror. All save Cretar, who had fallen tremblingly to his knees. Yet Tarrano showed no anger. He laughed.

"I would not hurt you, Cretar! Get up, man! I am not angry—not even annoyed. Why, your skin is turning orange. See the mottles!"

On the flesh of all the men—save the one who had been checked in the act of using the instrument—a bright orange mottling was apparent. Cretar exclaimed:

"The immunity to all diseases, master. It is itself a disease—harmless—and it combats every other." He laughed a little wildly. "We cannot get sick now. We cannot die—we are immortal. Come, Master—let us make you so!"

Tarrano whispered: "You see, Lady Elza? The orange spots! These men of medicine here have used the Brende secret to its full. Immune from disease!"

"Let us treat you, Master. This immortality——"

On Cretar's face was a triumphant smile, but in his eyes lay a terror. The man who had not been treated stood against the wall watching with interest and curiosity. But the others! They crouched; wary; alert eyes like animals at bay.

Tarrano laughed. "Treat me! Cretar, you know not with what you have been trifling. Immortal? You are indeed. Disease cannot touch you! You cannot die—save by violence!"

He swung to Elza. "These men, Lady Elza—they are strong-muscled. In health now more perfect than any other humans. You are frail—a frail little woman. And unarmed. I bid you—strike one of them!"

She stared; but as she suddenly faced about, she caught in part his meaning. Before her Cretar shrank back, his face gone white, his teeth chattering.

"What's that behind you?" Tarrano's voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, they cowered.

"What manner of men!" Tarrano's laugh was contemptuous. "Oh, Lady Elza, let this be a lesson to all of us! To cure disease is well. To prevent it—that too is good. But immortality—Dr. Brende never intended it, you know he did not, Lady Elza—the belief that we have everlasting life here on this plane—the Creator never intended that. With all danger of death gone—save violence—these immortals here fear violence so greatly that they are men no longer!

"Immortal terror! God forbid I should ever feel it! Or you, Lady Elza. A lesson for us all, who would be so un-Godly as to seek and think we have found what only the Creator Himself can bestow!"

CHAPTER XXVI Black Cloud of Death

I must revert now to that time in the gardens of Maida's palace at the Great City when we stood upon its roof-top, threatened below by that mob of slaans. Georg stood with the cylinder in his hand, waving it. The palm foliage was freezing. Down through the swirling snow fell the frozen bodies of the slaans who had climbed into the gigantic palm fronds. The thuds as the bodies struck the ground sounded horribly plain in the stillness. Georg was still waving his cylinder. Snow and ice were gathering everywhere. Incautiously he lowered the weapon; a brief, momentary chill—the congealing breath of the Arctic in this warm palm-laden garden—swept the horror-stricken crowd.

"Georg, have mercy!"

Maida's frightened, pleading words brought Georg to his senses. He snapped off the cylinder and dropped it behind him to the palace roof-top. He was trembling and white as he stood with his arm around Maida. Weapons so drastic as this one were seldom used. Indeed, it was law throughout both Venus and the Earth that no civilian should possess them. The power for wholesale death in his hand, and which without wholly meaning to, he had so nearly used to its full effect, had unnerved him.

Without the ray, the wind soon died. The warmer air mounting, melted the ice; the snow ceased falling. But the swath of shriveled foliage remained—a hideous scar cut into the luxuriant tropical growth.

The mob had forgotten its threats, its evil intent. Silent for a moment, it now burst into outcries. Motionless: then milling about, struggling aimlessly with itself—struggling to retreat. A panic of terror. The boats in the lagoon were retreating. The slaans along the fringe of shore began hurriedly to embark. The groups huddled at the palace steps were trying to shove the others back. In a rout they tumbled into their boats and scurried away. Maida's voice, striving to reassure them, was unheard.

And presently the scarred, trampled garden was empty and silent.

The rebellion, checked thus at its start, was quelled. Throughout the city that night—for the slaans to hear whether they would or no—the broadcast stations flung their stentorian tones to the people; a speech by Maida; her promise of better things to come for the slaans; the end of Tarrano's brief rule; a reorganization of past conditions. Maida herself had never been in control in the Central State. The luxury—the license-of the ruling class had been no fault of hers. She promised fair treatment now to the slaans. She was to marry Georg Brende, the Earth man.

Maida did marry Georg. With the many stirring events—a time when disaster and death threatened us all—so soon to follow, I shall not pause to describe the wedding. A quaint, yet magnificent spectacle. Maida in her regal robe; Georg looking every inch a ruler. Their barge of white leading the procession—a barge of white flowers, its sides lined with maidens to fend off the deluge of blossoms with which the onlookers assailed the bridal couple. The arrival at the marriage island, where on an altar the quaintly garbed holy man immersed them; and the solemn men of law united them as one.

It was a night of rejoicing throughout the Great City; and on every mirror in the Empire it was pictured for those who could not be present.

A time of rejoicing. Yet then—as always those days—my heart was heavy. Elza was held by Tarrano. We knew he had taken her to the City of Ice. There was of course, no radio communication with the Cold Country. We had tried eavesdropping upon it, but to no avail. Tarrano's close-flung barrage checked every wave we could send against it.

Time passed—a month or more. We were worried over Elza naturally. Yet the saving grace was that we knew Tarrano would treat her kindly; that for the present at least, she was in no danger.

Georg and Maida took possession of the Central State. Their rule started auspiciously, for by a series of speeches—a reorganization of money payments—the slaans seemed well satisfied. Loyal, and with a growing patriotism, an eagerness to help in the coming war with Tarrano. Georg—without actually saying so—made them believe that the only hope of everlasting life was the recovery from Tarrano of the Brende model. The model was in the City of Ice; it must be captured.

As a matter of fact, to us of the government, the Brende model was not indispensable. The greatest factor was that the threat of Tarrano's universal conquest must be forever removed. Like a rocket-bomb, this man of genius had risen from obscurity—had all but conquered the three greatest worlds of the universe.

I think that the height of Tarrano's power was reached that day on the eve of the Water Festival when he made his triumphant entry into the Great City. Venus was his at that moment; all of Venus. Mars was his; the Hairless Men—savages who had fallen readily to his wiles, had conquered the civilized, ruling Little People. And the Earth, over-run by his spies, deluged by his propaganda which, insidiously as rust will eat away a metal, was eating into the loyalty of our Earth-public—our own great Earth was in a dangerous position. The Earth Council realized it. The Almighty only could know how many of our officials, our men in trusted positions, were at heart loyal to Tarrano!

The thing was obvious. The assassination of our three rulers—leaders of the white, yellow and black races—with which Tarrano's campaign in the open had begun—those assassinations could never have taken place had not our military organization been diseased.

Facts like these were constantly coming to us now, here in the Great City. A brief time of physical inactivity. Yet underneath the calm, we realized there was a struggle going on everywhere; a struggle of sentiment, of propaganda, of public opinion.

Warfare, with modern weapons by which a man single-handed might destroy a city—is no longer a matter of men. The citizen—unarmed—united in sentiment and desire with a million of his kind—becomes the real ruler. You cannot—because you have a weapon—destroy a million of your brothers.

We realized this. And in the ultimate decision—the popular fancy almost—of our publics—lay our real success or downfall.

Tarrano in the popular mind had a tremendous hold. Dispatches from Earth made it plain that upon every street level the people were discussing him. From the Great City daily we sent bulletins of our progress toward checking—destroying—the menace of him.