The man who mastered time
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!_"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Still side by side, George and Dee rode back toward Anglese City. It was
further than George had thought; then he realized that the girl had
turned into a different road. He shouted a question at her.
"A shorter way to the cavern," she explained.
The wind whistling past them made conversation difficult. George
understood that they were skirting the city to where the cavern stood on
the other side. They were still in the open country; a road of white
sand, palm lined, with a forest jungle all around, and only an
occasional house.
George's mind was in a turmoil. Toroh taking the other plane into time!
Memory came to him of all those greater civilizations he and Rogers had
seen though the centuries they had passed. Toroh was going back to those
civilizations to secure weapons! The thought turned George cold all
over. With the weapons from former, greater ages, Toroh and his army of
Noths would be invincible.
Words in the wind sweeping by startled George into sudden alertness.
"_Death to disloyal Bas!_"
It seemed as though some tiny voice had whispered it to him.
Dee had checked both the dogs abruptly.
"What's that?" George demanded.
It came again:
"_Death to disloyal Bas! Death to disloyal Bas!_"
The air was whispering it, then calling it; a myriad voices echoed it
everywhere.
"Look there!" cried Dee.
Ahead of them, a mile or so away, a blue light was standing up into the
sky. There was a house near at hand, a Bas shack. From it a woman and
two naked children came running out into the moonlight, panic-stricken
at the dread words with which the air resounded.
And then the words changed:
"_Bas women will not be exiled! Bas children will be free!_"
The woman in front of the shack clutched her children, listening,
rejoicing--almost unbelieving.
Dee had started the dogs forward again. Swiftly she explained to George
what she thought it might mean--a radio proclamation from Fahn. In a few
moments the light over the cavern had vanished; the voices in the air
died away.
George's mind reverted to their own situation; the incident had given
him an idea.
"Dee, where are Azeela and Toroh now?"
She thought an instant; momentarily the mental bond with her sister had
been broken.
"Very near Orleen, she thinks. They have heard the voices. Toroh is very
angry. He had hoped much that the Bas would rebel. It would have helped
him."
"Near Orleen!" George echoed. "Can't we get to the Anglese Cavern
first?"
"I think so." She had started Rotan into a run, but George called her to
stop. Even at the risk of losing more precious time, he questioned her.
"Dee, listen. Are the caverns of Orleen and Anglese City connected by
radio?"
"Yes," she said.
"Then listen. We'll get to Anglese City first and tell them to inform
the guards at Orleen. When Toroh and Azeela arrive they can seize
them--if we warn them ahead."
She nodded with instant comprehension.
"All radio isn't broadcast audibly, is it?" he added.
"No," she said. The dogs were running faster. She called back over her
shoulder. "We'll do that. I'll tell Azeela."
They swept forward, the dogs settling low to the ground as they ran.
A great weight seemed to have lifted from George. It would be simple
enough, after all--merely notify the Orleen Cavern by radio, and Toroh
would be seized when he presented himself with Azeela.
George contemplated the outcome. With Toroh in their hands, the Noth
attack would collapse. There would be no war.
It was a race then; the only thing that could go wrong would be if Toroh
got to the other cavern first. Rotan and Dee were ahead; the girl's
slight figure clinging to the dog showed in the moonlight. George
whispered to Atal, thumped the dog's flank with his hand.
As they caught up with Dee, he shouted, "Where's Azeela now? Will we
make it?"
"Yes," she answered. "I think so."
The mountain that housed the cavern loomed ahead through the palms;
houses lay to the right, the outskirts of Anglese City. Half a mile more
and they would be there.
Atal's upflung head brought George out of another reverie. The dog,
still running at full speed, was sniffing the air. George heard Rotan
growl, and Dee's sharp command for silence.
Another command from the girl, and both dogs stopped; Atal slid on his
haunches, checking himself so abruptly that George was flung to the
sand.
He was unhurt. He picked himself up to find Dee beside him.
"Someone is coming," she said sharply. "Someone the dogs know is not a
friend."
She spoke to the dog, and pulled George to the side of the road where a
cluster of banana trees cast an inky shadow. Together they stood there
in silence. Atal and Rotan had disappeared. The road was a white ribbon