The Man Who Mastered Time 10 – Cummings · Verses Across
Literature · Adventure
The Man Who Mastered Time 10Chapter 10
18
Literature · Adventure
The Man Who Mastered Time 10
Chapter 10
CummingsEnglish
George had been standing with his friends beside the pavilion, silently watching the festival reach its height. The bell tolled; the masks and cloaks were discarded. A bevy of nymphs draped in flowing gauze came dashing out. As they passed, one of them caught George by the arm, pulling him along a few steps; her eyes, half hidden by her tumbling hair, mocked him provocatively.
He jerked away. A tide of other figures flowed from the pavilion, following the nymphs to the beach. George fought his way back, seeking to rejoin his friends; in that crowd they could get lost so easily.
He was looking about, wondering just where they had been standing before, when he saw Dee. Her white cloak had fallen from her head to her shoulders. She was standing alone, apparently lost in reverie.
George hastened to her. "Where are--"
But her vehement gesture silenced him; again she seemed lost in thought. For a moment he stood wondering what was the matter with her. The music from the pavilion throbbed out into the moonlit grove; gaiety was surging all around them.
Finally George could stand it no longer. "Dee, what is it? What's the matter?"
She looked up with an anxious frown. "Something is wrong with Azeela. She's trying to tell me what's wrong."
"Oh?" George glanced hastily about. "Where is Azeela? She was here a minute ago. Where are the rest of them? Let's tell them."
What did Dee mean? The girl seemed to have forgotten him again. She was moving away, like one who walks under a spell.
"Wait. Dee--wait a minute!"
She kept on going. Figures were passing between them now. George hated to leave his place. He'd never find the others--never get back again. Even now he realized it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find them in all that crowd of masked figures. If he lost Dee, too... He had no choice; he darted after Dee.
When he had overtaken her they were some distance from the pavilion. It was more secluded here. George darted up and caught her by the arm.
"Dee! What's the matter with you?"
Her hand went over her eyes and she shook herself slightly. "It's hard at first--getting Azeela's thoughts. I have them now." She spoke swiftly, anxiously. "Toroh was here a moment ago. He seized Azeela and took her out of the grove--right near here."
Azeela's thoughts! George understood. He started forward, but she held him.
"Too late! Toroh had two dogs waiting for him--they're mounting them now. He has tied Azeela. They're starting--the dogs are running."
George stared at her blankly. "Where to? Where is he taking her? Can you ask her that? Can she tell you?"
The girl was hastening forward now, with George after her. "Yes. She says to Orleen. I have told her we are coming."
Abruptly, she stopped and faced him. "George, we have two dogs at home. Shall you and I get them and go after Azeela?"
"Yes," he exclaimed impulsively.
"And I know where father keeps his weapons."
"Good. We can't find Loto and your father in this crowd. Had we better try, Dee?"
They were hurrying forward again.
"No, we'd lose too much time. Father forbade me touching his weapons," she added as an afterthought, "but this is different, isn't it?"
"Of course," he agreed excitedly. "You know how to work them, Dee?"
"Yes, I experimented. He doesn't know it."
They left the grove.
"Dee, where's Azeela now?"
"Crossing the city. West toward Orleen. We won't be far behind them."
George was trembling with the excitement of it. "Is Toroh armed? Ask Azeela that."
"I did. She doesn't know. She thinks he is."
"Oh!"
"We'll do something. He won't know we're after him--that's our advantage. Hurry, George!"
There were a few figures in the almost deserted streets, but George and Dee did not notice them. She was telling him of this branch of science for which she and her sister were distinguished--this telepathy they had developed. Bound in a union of thought by an unusual devotion, they had perfected it until they could know, always vaguely, and, with effort, quite distinctly, what was in the other's mind.
"We mustn't waste any time getting started, Dee."
They had entered the silent garden of Fahn's home. The city behind them was humming with confusion now, but they did not hear it, did not know that a murder had just been committed at the festival.
Inside the house, Dee went at once to her father's room. George waited. When she returned she held two weapons out for his inspection. One was a crescent of transparent metal, with a tiny wire connecting its horns and a black bone handle by which to grasp it. There was a firing mechanism on the handle. It was the projector of the ray which caused muscular paralysis--the weapon Bool had used against Loto.
Dee described its operation briefly.
The other weapon was a small black globe the size of a man's fist. It also had a handle with a trigger; in the globe opposite was a tiny orifice like the muzzle of a revolver. This was one of the smallest models of the thunderbolt projectors. With it, a bolt of electrons could be thrown over a distance of some twenty feet.
The former weapon Dee kept; the little thunderbolt globe she handed to George.
Dee had discarded her white robe; a blue ribbon around her forehead held the hair from her eyes. She had another in her hand, and she tied it around George's head.
"It's hot riding, even at night," she explained. "Your hair gets moist--gets in your eyes."
They had been delayed only a moment.
"This way," she added.
They ran outside, across the patio, through a dark room and into the garden behind the house, where a small white outbuilding stood. A new misgiving overcame George.
"Oh, Dee--these dogs of yours..."
"Can you ride a dog?" she asked over her shoulder. Her expression was impish.
"I can ride anything," he said stoutly, but his tone was dubious. "If the dog is--"
She must have understood him, for she laughed.
"Wait! You will find these dogs your friends."
George said nothing more, and in a moment they were within the kennel. It was dark, very dimly lighted by the moon from outside. A gray-black shape came toward them; a shaggy dog whose shoulders stood nearly as high as his own. George's first instinct was to turn and run, but the dog padded up to Dee, and she put her arms up around it.
"Good, Rotan. Will you run fast for Dee?"
She called it toward George, and patted him to show the dog he was her friend. George impulsively put his hand up to the great shaggy neck, felt the dog's warm tongue as it turned to lick his hand. This huge brute was his friend.
The other dog, Atal was a male, larger than its mate; and standing beside it, George marveled at the power that its great body must hold. The dogs knew they were going out. They whined with eagerness, and leaping across the kennel, they came back to Dee with saddles in their mouths with which she was to harness them.
Rotan, which Dee was to ride, was saddled with a leather seat and a pommel with a small stirrup on one side. It was not unlike the sidesaddle for girls that had been in use just before George's time. On Atal she strapped a thick leather pad with a stirrup on each side; men rode astride. There were no bridles.
"You tell Atal which way to go," she explained. "Right or left, slower or faster. If you want him to run or walk or stop, he will understand. Since Loto came we have taught them your way of saying it."
It all took no more than a moment or two, for Dee was hurrying, and her eagerness seemed to communicate itself to the dogs. They had barked at first--barks of such volume that George was startled. But when Dee silenced them, they stood trembling with impatience, their heads turned to follow her as she adjusted the saddles.
George mounted Atal. It was almost like mounting a horse; and yet not like a horse either, for the dog's huge body under him was springy, supple. As it moved toward the doorway, George was reminded of the lithe grace and strength of a tiger. He missed the reins, and in lieu of them, twisted up two handfuls of hair on the dog's neck and clung.
Dee was ahead of him. "All right, George?"
"Right," he said confidently. "But we might as well take it slow for a minute or two."
They moved silently through the garden. George leaned forward and down to the dog's face.
"Nice dog, Atal. You go slow till I tell you different."
In the street, Dee was drawing away, and Atal broke into a run.
George clung desperately. But it was unnecessary. The dog's strides were even and long; its padded paws made no sound as they hit the ground; its legs, all its muscles, seemed to give to the shock and absorb it.
They were running faster now; the dog's body seemed to settle closer to the ground. The wind whistled by George's ears, but he felt curiously secure. There was no question of the dog stumbling, falling; and its gait, now at a steady run, was far easier to ride than any horse he had ever mounted.
Dee was still ahead; the ends of the ribbon band about her head fluttered out behind her. The white road was a blur; the houses and gardens of the city were flying past.
An exhilaration--a feeling of triumph and power--came over George. He was perfectly at home on the dog's back now. This little Dee was a daredevil, as Loto had said. Well, that was the sort of girl he liked. They'll overtake Toroh, kill him with a flash from the thunderbolt globes and rescue Azeela.
George leaned forward over the dog's neck.
"We might as well catch up with Dee," he said into the silky ear. "Faster, Atal!"
At once the dog increased its pace, overtaking its mate. Side by side, they swept through the city.
To George the ride soon became a blur: a white moonlit road passing under him, palm trees flashing by, occasional houses, thatched shacks; the wind whistling past his ears, and that lithe, powerful body beneath him, with its rippling muscles.
Dee rode gracefully and easily, leaning slightly forward into the rush of air. Often she would draw ahead, but a whispered word from George to the brute beneath him, and again the dogs were running side by side.
Presently Dee stopped them; the dogs stood panting, with tongues lolling out.
"What is it?" George demanded. "Where are we?"
The girl's face was drawn with anxiety. "Azeela had been trying to find out from Toroh why he takes her to Orleen."
"Yes?" he prompted. "And I wondered--"
"Toroh has told her now. Loto's old plane is there. He wants the plane!"
"Oh!" George's heart sank with dismay. "But the plane is in the Orleen Cavern. How can they get to it? Isn't the cavern guarded?"
"Yes. Wait. Toroh says he can get it. He has a spy there--a man whom we trust. One of the guards."
"Good grief! Dee, where are they now?"
"A few miles west of here. I can't tell how far--Azeela does not know just where we are, either."
"Does Toroh know we're after him?"
"No."
George tried to think coherently. "Can't we overtake them, Dee? Before they reach Orleen?"
"I don't know. Azeela says not. Their dogs are very fast--perhaps faster than ours."
Suddenly George had an inspiration. The other plane--the one he and Rogers had come in! It was back in the cavern in Anglese City. He and Dee could get that, and he could operate it--he'd have to, now. Then they could fly to Orleen, and perhaps by that method get there before Toroh and Azeela.
He explained this swiftly to Dee. "We're not so far from Anglese City, are we?"
"No," she agreed. "It's the best thing to do."
They turned the dogs, starting back over the road they had come.
A new thought occurred to George. "Dee, what does Toroh want with that plane? Is he going to take Azeela north in it?"
The dogs were already at a run, but he caught her answer.
"No. He will take the plane back into time! He wants to get greater weapons with which to conquer us!"
Fahn, Loto and Rogers hurried through the city streets. The faint distant cries of the mob ahead drifted back to them. There were no Arans to be seen, but the Bas men and women were everywhere, most of them moving in the direction of the palace.
As Fahn and his two companions advanced, the turmoil ahead grew louder. The palace stood on a rise of ground in the midst of a lavish garden, with its swimming pool, its trellised pergolas and its graceful palms. The building was a two story rectangular, with huge white columns from the ground to the roof. A broad balcony ran the length of the second story. The roof was flat, with palms growing upon it.
A crowd of Bas was surging up the hill toward the palace; in the gardens, the armed mob was already massed, shouting, threatening, but lacking, as yet, the courage to advance upon the building.
Fahn had turned into a side street at the foot of the hill.
"Where are we going?" Rogers demanded.
"We've got to get into the palace unseen, so we'll go through the tower," Loto explained. "There's a secret way into it that the Bas don't know."
The tower, which rose like the skeleton of a lighthouse, stood close beside the main palace building; a covered bridge connecting the two as the level of the second floor of the palace.
Swiftly Fahn led the two men to the beach that lay behind the bluff on which the palace and its tower stood. The moonlit strand was deserted. They came to a thick clump of palmettos in the heavy sand at the foot of the bluff--a green tangled clump higher than a man's head. Into this Fahn plunged unhesitatingly, forcing the fronds aside, pushing his way in with the others after him. Inside the palmetto thicket was a small tunnel mouth, leading downward.
It seemed an endless journey through a black underground passageway not much higher than their heads and so narrow that they could always touch both its walls with their outstretched arms. The air was heavy and fetid. They went down a slope, across on a level, then up. Once they arrived at an iron grating barring the way. But Fahn opened it in some fashion and it swung on a central, horizontal pivot so that they might crawl under it.
Ahead of them, up the incline, a tiny blue light shone. They reached it, found a small circular staircase and climbed upward into the tower.
The whole process had taken perhaps fifteen minutes. The mob was still in the garden; its shouts and mutterings sounded loud and ominous as the little party ascended the interior of the tower and hastily crossed the covered bridge.
Fahn was still leading the way. They pushed aside a curtained doorway and found themselves in a broad, second-floor corridor of the palace, dimly lighted. A white-bearded old man was crossing it hastily, disappearing into a room at its further end.
Another room was near at hand, with a latticed grating in its doorway that now stood open. A soft, blue-white light flooded out through it to the hall. The castle's interior was evidently in confusion; cries sounded, mingled with the threatening shouts of the mob outside.
A girl, shaking with fright, stood in the nearer doorway, the light from behind glowing through her soft draperies. Other girls crowded forward from the room--a dozen frightened young girls, no more than matured. They saw Fahn, and ran to him for protection.
"The king's wives," Loto explained to his father.
Fahn's face softened, and as the girls huddled round him, he tried to comfort them.
"The guilt within them," muttered Rogers. "They think the Bas are coming to kill them--only them."
Fahn caught the words and his eyes flashed. "There is no guilt here, my friend. They are women born to such as this."
With the girls in a clinging group around him, the scientist proceeded down the hallway, followed by Loto and his father.
The room at the end of the hall--it seemed a sort of audience room--was in confusion; most of the occupants of the palace were gathered there. The king was pacing up and down near the entrance, his frightened councilors and advisors around him.
On a low divan sat the queen, a woman of forty, regal in a paneled robe, with her hair dressed high on her head. At her knees two children were huddled--the little prince and princess of the Arans. The queen was bending down over them as the strangers entered. When she saw Fahn with the girl-wives of her king, she frowned, stood up, and with an imperious gesture ordered the girls from the room. But Fahn, with a stern command, bade them stay. The queen seemed amazed at the scientist's defiance; the king looked undecided, but he did not interfere.
With Fahn's arrival, the room quieted; its occupants gained confidence. The king seemed utterly relieved. He spoke a few placating words to the queen, but she had withdrawn haughtily to a corner, her eyes flashing at the frightened girls who were huddled across the room.
The mob outside was shouting, surging about, but still lacking the courage for a concerted attack. Fahn went to a window, with Rogers and Loto after him. The moonlight outside showed the crowd plainly. The Bas were waving their weapons.
"Look!" Loto exclaimed.
A score or more of men were gathering in a group near the center of the garden. A man mounted the rim of a fountain, inciting the group with his shouts. His words had effect. The little knot of men waved their cane-knives and came surging toward the palace entrance. The crowd made way for them, following behind with shouts of triumph. Missiles were thrown upward at the palace windows; one or two at first, then a hailstorm.
Fahn quietly stepped out on a balcony that ran along the entire front of the building. Loto and his father followed. The moonlight fell full upon them, and the crowd recognized the Scientists' leader.
A great shout went up--a cry of defiance mingled with fear. The men rushing at the building wavered and stopped; the crowd near at hand began pressing backward.
Slowly, Fahn advanced to the waist-high parapet; with his hands upon it he stood like an orator facing a friendly throng and calmly waited for silence. A stone whistled past his head, struck the building and clattered to the stone floor of the balcony, but he did not heed it.
His calmness, the confident power of his demeanor, quieted the mob. In a little open space on the terrace, a leader of the Bas sprang into prominence--a giant man who shouted a brief sentence.
"Mogruud," whispered Loto. "He tells them to listen to what Fahn has to say."
Silence came at last, and then Fahn spoke, quietly, earnestly. He seemed to be winning them over, when from the palace behind the king suddenly appeared on the balcony. At the sight of him an angry shout rolled up from the crowd. A long, thin knife, with a tail of feathers on it, flew up from below and stuck, quivering, in the window casement beside the king's head. The king retreated.
Fahn continued speaking, but now the mob would not listen to him. A woman's shrill laugh of derision floated upward.
At once Fahn's tone changed. He rasped out a stern command, but a scattering hail of stones was his answer. Then, without warning, his hand went to his robe. He flung a little ball into the air. It burst fifty feet from his hand with a shrill whistling scream, and a shower of sparks scattered downward over the garden. They were harmless, but they sent a mild electric shock through every individual member of the mob. The Bas were frightened into silence.
"He does not want to kill even one of them," Loto whispered. "Never before have the Bas been in open demonstration. It might spread to other cities--anything might happen."
Fahn was now whispering into a tiny mouthpiece, talking to his guards at the cavern a mile or so away. From the cavern-mountain across the city, a blue-white shaft of light sprang into the sky. The Bas saw it and stared. And then suddenly the air seemed to be bursting with voices--four words, repeated by the audible radio that the cavern was sending out.
"Death to disloyal Bas! Death to disloyal Bas!"
A million aerial voices were proclaiming it everywhere. And then the words changed.
"We must win against Toroh! The Bas must help us win against Toroh!"
The threat and its so swiftly following appeal were irresistible. Mogruud shouted an enthusiastic answer to Fahn, and the crowd applauded.
The voices in the air were presently stilled; the light over the cavern disappeared. And, still with his hands quietly on the parapet, Fahn again addressed the people below him.
"Mogruud says the laws should be changed," Loto whispered swiftly to his father. "The Bas women should have their children without exile."
Fahn seemed to make a sudden decision. He spoke again into his mouthpiece. Again the light sprang over the cavern. From the air came the words:
"Bas women will not be exiled! Bas children will be free!"
Surprised, awed, then frantic with joy, the crowd in the palace gardens took up the cry, and all over the island the radio voices were proclaiming it:
"Bas children will be free! The Scientists promise Bas children will be free!"
