"Princess Maida ... she ... in that other tower ... you, so much more important than the rest of us...." Phrases I heard; but only phrases, for in those few seconds I stood dumbly confused, fascinated by watching the blackness in which we had enveloped ourselves now breaking into lurid, angry sparks.

A distant corner of the room became visible; outlines of the wall-beams; the growing glare of a wall-light in a tube over there. And through the brightening gloom--the figure of a lone man standing. Tarrano!

I heard Georg mutter: "Jac! Make a show of fight! Hold him! But careful--careful of Elza!"

Behind me there came an electrical flash; the pungent smell of burning cloth. Georg was no longer beside us!

Elza was still clinging to me in fright. I shook her off. Wolfgar flung his smoking, useless cylinder to the floor. The blackness at once sprang into light; the sparks died. Tarrano was standing in the room, quietly, before us. Standing with a grim, cynical smile, regarding us.

But only for an instant did he stand quiet. Across the room, creeping for the balcony doorway, I was aware of the figure of Georg. Tarrano saw him also; and with a swift gesture snapped back to his belt the interference cylinder with which he had uncovered us; then plucked at another weapon, gripped it to turn it upon Georg.

Everything was happening too swiftly for coherent thought. I leaped toward Tarrano, with Wolfgar rushing beside me. Elza screamed. Tarrano's hand was leaving his belt. I reached him; flung out my fist for his face.

But in that instant the weapon in Tarrano's hand was brought upon me. My paralyzed muscles made my arm and fist go wide. My blow missed him; he stepped aside; and like a man drunk with baro-wine, I stumbled past him, halted, swayed and struggled to keep my footing.

Wolfgar had felt it also; he was reeling near me, holding himself from falling with difficulty. I was unarmed; but there were weapons hanging from Wolfgar's belt. His numbed fingers were groping for them. But the effort was too great. The blood, driven back from his arms, left them powerless; they fell dangling to his sides.

A few seconds; but we had occupied Tarrano during them. Georg was through the balcony doorway and beyond our sight. Elza was standing motionless, too frightened to move. I felt myself growing numb, weighted to the floor as though my feet had taken root. My arms were hanging like wood; fingers tingling, then growing cold, dead to sensation. And a numbness creeping up my legs; and spreading inward from my arms and shoulders. In a few moments more, I knew the numbness would reach my heart.

Tarrano had not moved, save that single step side-wise to avoid my onslaught. As I stood there now with my face like fire and my brain whirling with the blood congested in it, I heard his quiet voice:

"Do not fear, Lady Elza. This Jac Hallen--as I promised you--is quite safe with me."

His gesture waved her aside, that she should not come within those deadly vibrations he was flinging at us. And I saw his other hand lift a tiny mouthpiece from his belt; heard his voice say into it: "Argo? Argo!

That Georg Brende----"

He stopped; a look of annoyance came over his face. Argo did not answer!

Dimly to my fading senses came the triumphant thought, the realization that Argo outside, upon whom Tarrano depended to seize Georg--had failed.

Action had come to Tarrano. He snapped off his weapon. Released from it, Wolfgar and I wilted to the floor--lay inert. The returning blood in my limbs made them p.r.i.c.k as with a million needles. To my sight and hearing, the room was whirling and roaring. I felt Tarrano bending swiftly over me; felt the forcible insertion of a branched metal tube in my nostrils; a hand over my mouth. I struggled to hold my breath--failed. Then inhaled with a gasp, a pungent, sickening-sweet gas. Roaring, clanging gongs sounded in my ears--roaring and clattering louder, then fading into silence. A wild, tumbling phantasmagoria of dreams. Then complete unconsciousness.

CHAPTER X

_Georg Escapes_

I come now to recount events at which I was not present, and the details of which I did not learn until later. Fronted by Tarrano, in those few seconds of confusion, Georg made his decision to escape even at the cost of leaving Elza and me. He murmured his hurried good-bye. The moment had arrived. He could see Tarrano dimly through the sparks. He leaped backward, through that wall of electrical disturbance which surrounded us. The sparks tore at him; burned his clothing and flesh; the shock of it gripped his heart. But he went through; crept for the balcony. It was dark out there. He would have rushed for Tarrano instead of the balcony, but as he came through the sparks he had seen that the barrier surrounding our tower was momentarily lifted. Argo had cut it off to admit Tarrano a few moments before. He had not yet replaced it--absorbed, doubtless, in watching in his finder what Tarrano was doing with us. He must have seen Georg reach the balcony; and jumped then to replace the barrier. But too late. Georg was over the balcony rail with a leap. The insulated tubes were there--upright gleaming tubes of metal extending downward to the platform below. Tubes smooth, and as thick as a woman's waist.

Georg slid down them. The barrage, above him on the balcony, had been replaced. He saw below him the figure of Argo come running out. A weapon in each hand. The burning pencil-ray swung at Georg, but missed him as he came down. Had it struck, it would have drilled him clean with its tiny hole of fire. Then Argo must have realized that Georg should be taken alive. He ran forward, swung up at Georg the paralyzing vibrations which Tarrano at that instant was using upon Wolfgar and me.

Georg felt them. He was ten feet, perhaps, above the lower platform; and as he felt the numbness strike him, he lost his hold upon the tube-pipe.

But he had presence of mind enough to kick himself outward with a last effort. His body fell upon the onrushing Argo. They went down together.

Argo lay inert. The impact had knocked him senseless, and had struck his weapon from his hand. Georg sat up, and for a moment chafed his tingling, p.r.i.c.kling arms and legs. He was bruised and shaken by the fall, but uninjured.

Within our tower, Tarrano was still occupied with us. Georg leaped to his feet. He left Argo lying there--ran over the spider-bridge; down a spiral metal stairway, across another bridge, and came upon the small park-like platform which stood at the bottom of the other tower. He had pa.s.sed within sight of a few pedestrians. One of them shouted at him; another had tried mildly to stop him. A crowd on a distant terrace saw him. A few of their personal flashes were turned his way. Murmurs arose.

Someone at the head of one of the escalators, in a panic pulled an alarm-switch. It flared green into the sky, flashing its warning.

The interior-guards--seated at their instrument tables in the lower rooms of the official buildings--had seen Georg in their finders. The alarm was spreading. Lights were appearing everywhere.... The murmurs of gathering people ... excited crowds ... an absurd woman leaning down over a far-away parapet and screaming ... an ignorant, fl.u.s.tered street-guard on a nearby upper terrace swinging his pencil-ray down at Georg.... Fortunately it fell short.

For a moment Georg stood there, with the gathering tumult around him--stood there gazing up at that small tower. The tower wherein the Princess Maida was confined. It was dark and silent. Black rectangles of doors and cas.e.m.e.nts, all open--but barred by the glow of the electrical barrage surrounding it.

Georg jerked from his belt the cylinder Wolfgar had given him. Metallic.

Short, squat and ugly, with a thick, insulated handle. He feared to use it. Yet Wolfgar had a.s.sured him the Princess Maida was prepared. He hesitated, with his finger upon the switch-b.u.t.ton of the weapon. But he knew that in a moment he would be too late. A searchlight from an aerial mast high overhead swung down upon him, bathing him in its glare of white.

His finger pressed the trigger. A soundless flash of purple enveloped the tower. Sparks mounted into the air--a cloud of vivid electrical sparks; but mingled with them in a moment were sparks also of burning wood and fibre. Smoke began to roll upward; the purple flash was gone, and dull red took its place. The hum and angry buzz of outraged electricity was stilled. Flames appeared at all the tower cas.e.m.e.nts--red flames, then yellow with their greater heat.

The trim and interior of the tower was burning. The protons Georg had flung at it with his weapon had broken the electrical barrage. The interference heat had burned out the connections and fired everything combustible within the tower. A terrific heat. It began to melt and burn the _blenite_.[10] The upper portion of the tower walls began to crumble. Huge blocks of stone were shifting, tottering; and they began to fall through the glare of mounting flames and the thick black smoke.

[Footnote 10: A cement or mortar used in stone constructions--evidently partially combustible.]

Georg had tossed away his now useless weapon--emptied of its charge. He was crouching in the shadow of a parapet. The city was now in turmoil.

Alarm lights everywhere. The shrilling of sirens; roaring of megaphoned commands ... women screaming hysterically....

A chaos, out of which, for a few moments, Georg knew no order could come. But his heart was in his mouth. The Princess Maida, within that burning building....

He had located the tiny postern gate at the bottom of the tower where Wolfgar had told him she would appear. The barrage was gone; and in a moment she came--a white figure appearing there amid the smoke that was rolling out.

He rushed to her. A figure wholly encased in white _itan_[11] fabric with head-mask, and tubes from its generator to supply her with air.

Wolfgar had smuggled the equipment in to her for just this emergency.

She stood awkwardly beside Georg--a grotesque figure hampered by the heavy costume. Its crescent panes of _itanoid_ begoggled her.

[Footnote 11: A universal insulating fabric, as rubber insulates electricity and asbestos bars heat.]

Behind him, Georg could hear people advancing. A guard picked them out with a white flash. The mounting flames of the tower bathed everything in red. A block of stone fell near at hand, crashing through the metallic platform upon which they were standing. Broken, it sagged beneath their feet.

Georg tore at the girl's head-piece, lifted it off. Her face was pale, frightened, yet she seemed calm. Her glorious white hair tumbled down in waves over her shoulders.

"Wolfgar--he----" She choked a little in the smoke that swirled around them. Georg cut in: "He sent me--Georg Brende. Don't talk now--get this off."

He pulled the heavy costume from her. She emerged from it--slim and beautiful in the shimmering blue kirtle, with long grey stockings beneath.

A spider incline was nearby. But a dozen guards were coming up it at a run. With the girl's hand in his, 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 pa.s.sing 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.