The man who mastered time

spurts of yellow-red flame at closer range. George arrived to join them. It was ghastly but necessary work. He used his weapons until they were exhausted. The battle was won--all but the giant magnet. In the distance its blood-curdling scream still sounded. And then George saw Dee. She had been several thousand feet up, flying with another girl, when the magnet was first put into operation. They were not close enough to feel its pull. A whirling knife had approached them; struck the other girl, killed her. It was spent, but a corner of it had knocked Dee's motor-cylinder from her hand. She had begun floating down. Ever since, she had been trying to swim through the air; with arms and legs kicking, she had fought to sustain herself. She was almost at the surface when George saw her struggling, ineffectually, like a swimmer exhausted. He darted to her and gathered her in his arms. His cylinder drew them both upward. "Dee," he whispered. "My little Dee You're safe!" Loto had dropped close to the surface. The magnet was pulling him, but with his cylinder held against it, he could make headway. By now the magnet had done most of its work; those in the air had either succumbed or escaped beyond range. To one side, Loto could see the attack on the other two barges. Fahn's voice in his ear told him of the landing at Orleen. The Scientist ordered them all back. They were needed at Orleen; they must return. But the magnetic barge was heading down the channel. It would be used at Orleen. It must be stopped--_destroyed now_. Loto disobeyed Fahn. He headed for the little barge. It was a plunge of no more than a few minutes. Soon Loto was well within the field of magnetism; he could not withdraw now. He tried to think clearly. Those others of the Anglese who had met this death had lost control of themselves in the air. They had plunged forward, struggling, whirling so that they had not been able to use their weapons. Loto had no thunderbolts left. His only weapon was the flaming liquid gas which he could project some fifty feet. Just above the surface, head first, like an arrow, he slid forward through the air. He did not fight against the magnet; he used his cylinder only to keep himself from turning sidewise. He was conscious of the dark outlines of the barge rushing up at him. He fired his jet of flame; though he did not know it then, he had fired too soon. The flames fell short. A downward thrust of his cylinder power forced him upward. He barely missed the wire caging as his body shot over it, past it. The magnet's scream was deafening. The Noths on the barge had fired a small thunderbolt between the wires, but had missed the swiftly passing mark. Loto's momentum carried him a hundred feet or more beyond the barge. The magnet stopped him, drew him swiftly back. He was turning over now; he had lost control of himself. The sea, the sky, the approaching barge were mingled in whirling confusion. He knew he could never escape; he must strike the magnet with his flame, this time or never. A moment more and he would be electrocuted against the cage. A tiny bolt cracked past him. He turned over again, righted himself momentarily, and fired. The electrical scream died into abrupt silence; the flames had caught the magnet, burned out its coils. Released suddenly, Loto's body shot upward with the pull of his cylinder. The cage, with flames spreading under it, dropped away beneath him. He righted himself, and at a distance of about three hundred feet, hung poised in the air. The flames spread over the barge; a few Noth figures plunged frantically into the water. Loto mounted upward to join his comrades. Barely seventy-five of the original three hundred and twenty-eight, were left. Ten of them were girls. Loto found Azeela safe. George still carried Dee in his arms. The flames from the burning barges died out; the silent moonlit channel was strewn with floating bodies. It seemed almost futile to search for their wounded, but they descended, and for a time moved about near the surface. They found two still alive--one burned, the other, a girl, mangled by a flying knife. Silently, with their burdens, they took their way back through the air to the cavern. It was a night of confusion. The Noths were clustered around Orleen, waiting for the dawn before they entered the city. They were still coming across the channel on swimming dogs. All night they came. The puny garrison at the Orleen cavern was powerless to stop them. It exhausted its bolts and began sending out calls for help. The Bas around Anglese City were mobilizing with their dogs. Hastily, Fahn equipped them with weapons--hand thunderbolts and flame projectors. An hour-and-a-half before dawn, they were ready to start their almost hopeless attempt to stem the horde of invaders who now held the entire western end of the island. The little rag-end of the aerial army that returned from the battle was exhausted, but in a few hours, it too, was ready to start. Fahn, with his two daughters, and Rogers, Loto and George, took the Frazia plane. On its platform Fahn mounted a single projector, the most powerful he possessed. They started an hour before dawn--silent as they gazed down at the island of palms that was passing beneath them. They overtook their Bas army and left it behind them. In the air, back over Anglese City, tiny specks showed that the aerial army was starting. Above the hum of the Frazia motors they hear the aerial voices of Anglese City telling the Bas peasants who lived between the two cities to come eastward. They were obeying; little groups of refugees--old men, women and children--were moving along all the roads. In the sky ahead, occasional flashes shot up from Orleen. "The Arans went there to avoid the deluge," Rogers said suddenly, and his laugh was grim. No one answered him. Behind them the eastern sky was brightening. Loto was piloting the plane, with Rogers beside him. The daylight grew, began reddening. "Look, Father, there's Orleen!" * * * * * The second largest city on the island, Orleen lay in a hollow, with twin peaks close behind it, the mouth of the channel and the gulf in front and to the sides. It was an Aran city, more beautiful even than the capital. The plane, flying high, was circling. Loto's gaze went to the dawn. The sun came up a huge, distorted ball of crimson fire, with lines of flame radiating from it to the zenith. A dark mass of rain cloud, hanging low above Orleen, lost its blackness as it soaked up the crimson light. The sky, even to the western horizon, was steeped in blood; the water reflected it; the air itself seemed to hold it suspended. "The day of deluge," murmured Loto. "The blood that will be spilled today--" As though in answer to his words, the clouds above Orleen began spilling rain. And as the water fell, it caught the crimson sunlight--myriad drops of blood falling upon the Aran city. The storm was transitory the rain cloud swept past, but the blood in the sky remained. In the hours that had passed since the plane left Anglese City, the Noths had occupied Orleen. Its cavern was taken. The Noth men and dogs stood in solid ranks around the mountain base; the beaches were black with them. They were still coming across the channel--riders mounted upon swimming dogs, an occasional barge. There were no sounds of thunderbolts in the city, no flashes. But as the plane descended, human sounds were heard--faint screams. And the city streets were in confusion. Fahn was staring down into the city through lenses mounted in short black tubes. He murmured something that his companions did not catch. His face was white and set; he was struggling to hold his composure. "Descend, Loto. They are not armed with thunderbolts; those are all with Toroh and his men in the cavern." The plane glided down, circling low above the city. The scene of carnage there became a series of brief, fragmentary pictures. Above the drone of the Frazia motors, they could hear the snarling of fighting dogs, the screams of men and women, the shrill treble of children--human screams of agony as the fangs of the brutes tore at them. The plane passed low above a city street, following its length to the blue water that lapped the white sand at its end. The street was full of dogs. A Noth rider--sinister, animal-like, with his black-bound head and his naked torso covered with black hair--arrived at a silent white house, with its white columns, splashing fountain, and vivid trellised flowers. The Noth dismounted, rushed into the house. He came out dragging an Aran woman--flung her white body to the eager, snarling brute. At the beach, hundreds of terrified Arans sprang into the water; the dogs followed them, pulled them under, released them at last, and the surf flung their mangled bodies up on the sand. There was a public square where a hundred or more Arans had gathered. The dogs charged them, tore at them, flung them into the air--fought over their broken bodies long after life had gone. The dogs spread to every corner of the city. A child climbed a pergola--a little Aran boy, white skinned, with long golden curls and a plump baby face. The dogs could not reach him; a Noth man climbed up, pulled him down. Loto had given the Frazia controls to his father. With a small thunderbolt globe at his belt he went to the platform outside the cabin. Presently he found Azeela beside him. Her arm was around him; together they clung to their insecure footing, watching the scenes below as the plane made its swift circle over the city. What could Fahn do? The thunderbolt projector, here on the platform, could kill a few Noths, a few dogs here and there. But of what avail would that be among these hordes? The Orleen Cavern? Could they attack that? Toroh was probably there in the cavern. If they could kill him, these Noth barbarians, without a leader... Confused and sick from what he was seeing, Loto tried to force Azeela into the cabin, but the white lipped girl would not go. The plane approached a house where an Aran woman crouched on the roof top with two little girls huddled at her feet. A Noth appeared from below, dashed at them across the roof. Beneath the eaves a dozen dogs stood with bared, drippings fangs pointed upward. The plane was almost over the house. Loto pointed his globe downward, pressed its lever. There was a flash, a miniature crack of thunder and the globe recoiled in his hand. On the roof top the Noth man and the Aran woman and her children lay dead. The woman's white robe was blackened, the children's bodies were burned, shriveled; a cornice of the building was ripped off and the woodwork was blazing. It was so useless! Loto flung the globe from him, loathing it for having killed that woman and her little girls. He drew Azeela back with him into the cabin. The king's palace in Orleen stood near the waterfront, in the midst of broad, magnificent gardens. A mob of Noths surged around it, into the lower doors, on the balconies and roof top. As the plane passed overhead, its occupants caught a fleeting glimpse of the queen and her children, the girl wives of the king and the king himself--in the face of death with petty barriers at last broken down--all huddled together in a corner of the roof. The Noths rushed at them, broad, heavy swords flashing. The plane swept past. The twin peaks of Orleen stood six hundred feet apart, just behind the city. The one that housed the cavern had a broad, circular base, with a ragged, volcanic looking cone above. The other peak was considerably higher; it looked down upon its fellow. Fahn had directed Rogers to fly the plane to the higher of the peaks.