Part 4

The effect was miraculous. Suddenly they were docile, grasping at the slender hope she offered them and content to have her bear the burden. Quickly they fell into line, with Vulc leading the way again. The men needed no urging; the knowledge that they only had one more hour of oxygen was enough.

* * * * *

If their trek up to now had been a nightmare, this latter stage surpassed even the most secret refinements of a Martian torture-chamber. In an agony of slowness the minutes lengthened and seemed to stand still. The low range of hills seemed to dance mockingly and recede into the distance beyond the horizon's endless rim. In addition now to the heat in their brains and the glare in their eyes, their lungs were tortured as they regulated the oxygen intake-valves to the barest minimum.

After an eternity in which even memory seemed to have fled, they were walking on rock and the heat began imperceptibly to abate. Directly before them, the hills rose out of the torturing blaze. Cries that were little more than miserable croakings echoed through the radio-phones as the men broke ranks; they staggered on, holding to each other for support.

Mark looked around for the Commander, and saw her clutching at Carston's shoulder for support, while his arm was about her waist, half-holding her up. The girl disengaged herself and by sheer will-power drove toward the base of the low-lying cliffs before them.

"Wait!" she ordered.

She stopped, and the men halted behind her, weaving on their feet. She stared around us as if desperately trying to recall something deeply imbedded in the matrix of the past; then she veered to the right, waving for Vulc and the men to follow.

Mark tested his oxygen tank and glanced at the dial again. It read "ten minutes." It was a race with time which now, perversely, seemed to be rushing by on flying feet.

Thirty yards further, the cliffs curved in sharply. Rounding it, the Commander gave a glad cry. In the center was a gigantic metal door, hermetically sealing what had once been the entrance to a cave. The men staggered forward, some of them clawing feebly at the barrier. Others sank wordlessly to the rocky ground. They weren't even sure that beyond that metal wall they would find life-giving air.

The Commander had drawn both atom-pistols, and stood there surveying the barrier as if paralyzed.

"What are you waiting for?" Mark pressed forward. "In minutes, the men will be dying! Blast an opening!"

For the very first time, Mark saw her hesitant, indecisive, as if unable to think. "But the air ..." she managed to gasp. "It will escape from the caves, clear back to the Base! All those men there ... and father ... their lives are more important than ours!"

* * * * *

In those brief seconds Mark admired her. Despite the deadly threat to the Earth she embodied, he admired her for her humanity and loyalty to the men at the Base. But there was no time to lose. He made her decision superfluous.

"We've got to chance it!" With a swift, darting movement he wrested an atom-blast gun from her hand and discharged it steadily at the metal door, at a point just above the ground. A second later she was helping him with the other gun. Instantly the metal turned fiery red, then white, and finally a circular section fell outward with a hissing rush of air.

"Dive in, men!" With the dregs of a strength he didn't know he still possessed, Mark grasped the men and pushed them toward the aperture, helped shove them through. "Throw your helmets back!" he shouted. "In you go," he told the Commander, and despite her protests he lifted her off her feet, almost handing her through the blasted entrance.

Only Vulc and Mark were left. As the Earthman crawled through, he motioned for Vulc to follow. The metallic being dropped to all fours and pushed in his arms, his head, his massive shoulders. His sides scraped the still hot edges of the aperture. And there he stuck. The men inside grasped his arms and pulled, but in vain. Vulc gazed ludicrously from side to side and heaved prodigiously, but in vain. The Vulcanian seemed molded to the hole.

"Wait! Tell him not to struggle, not to move!" Mark was exultant as he turned to the girl. "The air's no longer rushing away; if he'll only remain there until we can get back with equipment to seal that hole, the danger's over!"

Vulc seemed to be pondering; his limbs sprawled like a distorted swastika, and on his usually blank, fluid face was something like surprise. In the dim recesses of his alien mind he could find no parallel to this.

The Commander spoke to him slowly, with desperate emphasis; reaching into a pocket of her suit, she brought out another package of powdered metal which Vulc promptly stuffed into his mouth. "He understands," she said at last. "But I'll leave one of you here with him, to be certain he does."

For a while they rested, lying prone, helmets thrown back, luxuriating in the comparative coolness and the draughts of pure air. All were thirsty, their throats parched and aching. But the nightmare was over. Presently the Commander rose to her feet and gave the order to march. She was almost her usual self again, detached, impersonal. But she was white to the lips and her eyes were electric as she said:

"Luhor will pay for this!"

She barely breathed it, but Mark heard her. And he knew what she meant. It was Luhor who had prepared the units of oxygen for the suits.

VII

Under the dim illumination maintained even as far as these outlying caves, the group went grimly on. Their passage through the tortuous corridors was dotted by discarded vacuum suits. But no echoes drifted back to them from the activity of the Base.

Twice they lost their way, ending up against blank rock walls and retracing their steps. But at last the inter-connecting tunnel chain became familiar to the Commander.

"She blames Luhor for the oxygen business!" Mark murmured to Carston walking beside him.

"Should!" Carston exclaimed laconically, grimly. "Aladdian warned us against Luhor, remember? There'll be hell to pay when we get back! Any monkey-wrench thrown into the machinery of their plans, helps the Earth. I hope...."

He broke off, staring moodily ahead.

"She's far more human than you think," Mark Denning said softly.

"Yes, I noticed that today." Carston's voice sounded glad. "It's only the Spartan training she learned while cruising the spacelanes with her piratical father that keeps her up--that, and the old man's insane will, driving her on through a sense of loyalty to him."

They were so near to the Base now that Mark expected momentarily to hear the clang of metal in the factories, the voices of workmen. His heart quickened at the thought of seeing Aladdian, and he forgot his weariness in embroidering upon that thought.

But the ominous stillness remained unbroken.

They entered the final corridor leading to the vast central chamber. The Commander ran forward, with the anxious men close behind her. They entered the grotto. The subterranean Base extended into the distance before their startled, unbelieving eyes.

"What--" Cynthia began bewilderedly.

It was a dead city, soundless and inert. Under the distant cavern roof it had the air of a ghost town drained of all life.

Mark's heart leaped into his mouth. "Aladdian!" he cried involuntarily, and his hands clenched in an agony of anxiety of helpless rage.

Commander Cynthia was already running toward the palace, a deathly fear mirrored in her eyes.

The men had stopped uncertainly, too weary and exhausted to understand. Then driven by a single thought, they staggered off to their building in search of water and food.

Scarcely had the echoes of Mark's cry stopped reverberating, when from the shadows of a transverse corridor emerged the elfin figure of the Venusian.

Aladdian gazed at Mark as if he had returned from the dead. She closed her eyes, swayed a little. Mark caught her in his arms. He too was silent. No words would serve.

"To the palace!" she finally breathed, gently disengaging herself. Followed by Carston, they hurried to the imposing building where old George Marnik reigned. Aladdian led them swiftly through the panelled outer hall, through the magnificent salon where the loot from many years was a fabulous welter of wealth. Mark had no eyes for it now. They did not stop until they reached the inner chambers and finally came to George Marnik's room, where no one but Cynthia was ever permitted.

* * * * *

Lying grotesquely twisted on the priceless Martian tapestry that covered the bed, the ancient pirate was dead. Cynthia Marnik was kneeling beside him, weeping softly. There was no doubt as to the manner of his death. The pencil-thin opening through his temple could only have been done by an atom-blast.

"Luhor," Aladdian said, indicating the wound with a gesture.

They withdrew, leaving Cynthia alone with her grief. The two men followed the Venusian girl to the immense palace dining-room. With her own hands she served them food and drink, asking no questions, uttering no words until their vast hunger and thirst were appeased. Then she sat down.

"And so," she began without preamble, "the unpredictable has entered." At their rush of questions she held up a hand. "Let me explain," she begged. "I can do it briefly if you are silent. After you left, Luhor ordered every man here to go aboard the Spacer. He blasted down two or three who refused; you will find them in the air-lock. Previous to that, I heard him arguing with George Marnik. He atom-blasted Marnik from behind. I know, because I deliberately contacted his mind, although the effort nearly drove me mad; it is not easy for us to tune to an alien intellect, but Luhor being partly Venusian helped."

"The miracle is that he didn't take you with him," Carston ventured. "You were too valuable to leave behind!"

"When we came here yesterday," she said simply, "I studied the plans of these caverns. When I learned what was in Luhor's mind, I hid in a maze of abandoned corridors. They searched for me a while, but since he plans to return, he gave up the search for the present. He had no time to waste! The Patrol has been to the Prison Swamp; failing to find either of you, and learning of my disappearance, _Earth has mobilized its fleet_!"

"How--how do you know this?" Both men leaned tensely forward.

"Through the ethero-magnum George Marnik has in his laboratory here--the most powerful receiving and transmission instrument I've ever seen, greater even than the ethero-magnum we have on Venus!"

"So _that's_ how he kept always a step ahead of the Patrol," Carston mused. "The scientists he used to kidnap from space-liners--he must have forced them to perfect scientific inventions here!"

"Yes," the Venusian girl nodded, "but I haven't told you the most important part, Luhor's plan. If he succeeds, there will be no peace. He has taken the men to the asteroid where Marnik's new fleet of space vessels are to be assembled. But worse than that--_they are also to fit gigantic rockets to the asteroid itself_! It is very dense, and greatly pitted, which simplifies things. With the rockets of this new metal he can guide the asteroid's course! It will be the terror of space, literally invulnerable, with banks of immense electro-cannon and atom-blasts, and cradling a swarm of the new Spacers!"

Ernest Carston could only hold his head in his hands. Earth's greatest enemy had died in Marnik, but a greater, more ruthless one had arisen in Luhor!

"Go on, Aladdian, please," Mark's tones were reassuring.

"Luhor does not suspect that I contacted his mind. He believes all of you have died in the wastes--I got that from his mind, too. Since he will return, because Vulcan's to be the seat of his empire, and he wants me, we have time to plan how we are going to receive him. He's persuaded that the only living being on Vulcan now is a defenseless girl." She smiled enigmatically.

"But that asteroid! That hellish threat to Earth!" Carston was beside himself.

"And to Venus, and Mars," Aladdian reminded him gently. "It will take months for those rockets to be installed, Earthman. He will be here long before that, I am certain of it--as only a woman can be certain." She raised her eyes and gazed at the doorway.

* * * * *

Framed at the entrance to the dining-room, Cynthia Marnik stood looking somberly and dry-eyed. Aladdian rose swiftly and went over to her.

"My dear ..." the Venusian said softly, a world of compassion in her voice. Cynthia smiled wanly and took the tumbler of water that Carston extended to her. She drank dazedly and then sat down with the inexpressible weariness of one whose world has come tumbling down about her head. Aladdian darted to the kitchen and upon returning made the Earth girl drink a cup of concentrate, then led her away, to her bedroom. "You must sleep," Aladdian was saying softly, monotonously, with a hypnotic cadence in her voice.

"I wonder if it will be safe to arm the men?" Carston questioned thoughtfully, his mind grappling with the problem.

"That's a chance we'll have to take," Mark Denning replied. "A few among them are not really hardened criminals, but are _politicals_, as you know. I think they will all fight for us, provided we can offer them freedom when, and if, we win."

"I can make them no promises not sanctioned by the Earth Council," Carston said stiffly. "Remember, their lives are forfeit!"

"And so will ours be, if you don't snap out of that single-track rut in which you've grooved your brain!" Mark exclaimed acidly. "Council or no Council, the Earth, Venus, Mars and the colonies must be saved! This is no time to quibble about ethics. A hell of a lot will be left of your Council if we don't stop Luhor!"

"You startle me sometimes, Mark Denning. You do not sound as a true servant of the Earth State!"

"Because to you," Mark said slowly, "the State is the few decrepit members calling themselves the Council, and the top-heavy Government of Earth. But to me, the 'State' are the millions and billions of human beings whose destinies are ruled by a self-appointed few, and who are now facing even a worse slavery if we don't succeed in being what Aladdian calls 'the unpredictable!'"

Carston's face flushed with anger. He drew himself to his full height as he said, "I represent the Government of Earth, which rules the Planets--and I am your superior officer!"

"You're wrong!" Mark Denning countered, rising too. "I'm a free agent as of this moment, and recognize no superior. I'll not be hamstrung by rules and regulations which can't serve us now, Carston!"

"No need to quarrel," Aladdian spoke placidly from the doorway where, unnoticed, she had been listening. "Because only I and Cynthia can make terms with Earth, if we survive."

"You and Commander Cynthia?" Carston exclaimed. "Both of your lives have been forfeit. I doubt if the Council will be willing to listen to any terms coming from _you_."

Mark Denning's face was stained by a dull flush, and he took a step forward; but Aladdian laid her hand lightly on his arm and stopped him.

"The Colonel belongs to the old order," she said very softly, "it is difficult for him to adjust himself to a changing universe. But this time it is beyond his control."

"Why?" Carston uttered the word grimly.

"Because through the ethero-magnum I have already warned Venus and Mars. My planet is being mobilized. Mars will soon take the necessary steps. But the most important reason of all, is that Earth has no means of landing a fleet on Vulcan, does not know the location of Luhor's asteroid, and _does not even suspect the existence of the new allotropic metal_."

Carston looked baffled as the Venusian girl spoke, then turned to Mark Denning with the expression of a man who for once felt hopelessly lost.

"I can promise the men who aid us a fortune to each," Aladdian continued, "and the leisure to spend it--on Venus. As for the Earth," she said thoughtfully--"only Commander Cynthia and I know the formula for the new metal, and the location of the asteroid!"

* * * * *

"I will talk to the men!" Mark said with a finality that left no doubt. "Let them rest for a few hours, then I'll see to it that they're on our side. I know how to rouse them. Wait until they learn that Luhor short-changed them on oxygen! How much backing can you expect from Venus, Aladdian?"

"To the last man," she said quietly. "They have already seen me through the ethero-magnum, and heard my story. I intercepted the Tri-Planetary Beam as the Earth broadcast, and transmitted our beam along their channel. By the time Earth's Government set out their interceptor to neutralize my beam, it was already too late; the three planets are seething!"

"And Luhor? Wouldn't he have picked up your beam on the Spacer and heard you?"

Aladdian shrugged. "He knows I'm here. The confusion created by my broadcast only served to aid his plans for the moment. He has nothing to fear, as far as he knows. A war between the planets would only make his conquest simpler."

"And knowing that," Carston spoke bitterly, "you still broadcast your story and let your image be seen! Do you suppose Venus will ever be content now with anything short of war?"

"Yes, I do. We are intelligent beings, not Martian atavisms, nor do we have your Earth's insane will to _Power_. We only want peace and with it freedom. But the game is ruthless, Carston, the universe is the stake!" Aladdian turned to leave.

"Mark," she said gently from the doorway, "Cynthia can show you where the arsenal is located; you'll find every imaginable weapon. Also, you had better study the combination that opens the air-locks, and the synchronized degravitators. I suspect that Luhor will be back here soon--_very soon_."

Suddenly the terrific reaction of that day hit Mark with sickening impact. He was hardly able to rise to his feet. Carston was slumped over the table; Mark went over and shook him gently, and somehow aided the older man to his feet. Together they went into the fabulously furnished salon, and unable to go any further, threw themselves on couches piled with priceless rugs and embroidered scarves from the various planets. Carston instantly was asleep.

Despite his utter weariness, Mark slept fitfully, awakening and dropping back to sleep as the hours passed in their eternal caravan. Something clamored at the back of his brain, something he had forgotten because of the major crisis they'd had to confront on their return to the Base.

And suddenly he sat upright. The overhead lights had automatically dimmed, no one was stirring. With a shock, Mark had remembered Vulc and the man they had left to watch him! He leaped to his feet, aching in every bone, and ran to the building where the men were quartered.

"If Vulc gets tired of waiting and wriggles through that hole!..." He tried not to think of the rest.

He burst into the building and roused the men. "Up, on your feet, there's no time to waste!" His terrible urgency instilled them with a nameless fear, prodding them as nothing else would have done.

"Your lives are at stake," he told them bluntly, and reminded them of Vulc. "At any moment he might decide he's waited long enough. Who among you knows how to repair that breach?"

Three of the men came forward. "All right," Mark told them, "hurry to the shops and get what instruments and materials you need--but hurry!"

* * * * *

The men could not return to sleep now, knowing that at any moment the Base's life-giving air might go rushing away. This emergency, following so close upon the other hardships of the day, seemed too much. Mark saw that they were all very near the breaking point. Now was the psychological moment to speak to them, and by giving them the entire picture, lift them above the present crisis as well as inspire them with hope for the future.

Calmly he told of Luhor's treachery in giving them a short oxygen supply, with the intention of murdering them all. Deliberately, with calculated phrases, he aroused their hatred and thirst for revenge.

Mark paused, letting it sink in, giving time for their dark passions to reach a peak. Then he told of Luhor's asteroid, and the threat to the planets. He dangled before their eyes the promise of untold wealth, and freedom on Venus for the rest of their lives. To give his promises authority and weight, he made no bones about the fact that he was a high operative of the Tri-Planetary Bureau of Prisons--but he climaxed it with the guarantee of a blanket pardon from the Earth Council itself.

"You will see and hear the Council on the ethero-magnum, but we shall be making the terms," Mark Denning said forcefully. "There's no trick in this, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose! In the Swamp, your lives were forfeit; they were forfeit here on Vulcan too. I promise you wealth on Venus, and the freedom you'll never have any other way! Who's with me?"

He need not have asked, for the clamor that answered him was affirmative and unanimous. Gone for the moment was their fatigue, as they embroidered upon the possibilities of the days to come.

Not until the trio returned from repairing the breach, bringing Vulc with them, did the men return to their sleep with the first and only hope they had had in years. Only Mark Denning realized the trials to come. These few men had been won over easily. Not so easy would be the negotiated terms with Earth. The Earth Government had won its dominance over the System the hard way, only after a bitter ten-years' inter-planetary war, and it would not easily relinquish its position.

VIII

The days that followed were eternities to the little group left stranded on Vulcan Base. Nerves were taut and tempers were short. Every man there, as well as the two women, realized that their very lives as well as the fate of the System depended on the day of Luhor's return from the asteroid.

Mark had aroused the men too well. They were impatient and restless. They didn't want their freedom handed to them on a silver platter, they wanted to fight for it. Aladdian had said Luhor would be back soon--very soon. Mark questioned her about it.

"Even with that fast Spacer," Aladdian replied, "it will take him several days to get out to that asteroid and back again. Cynthia tells me her father sent a crew of men there a month ago, to assemble the new Spacers. Luhor will undoubtedly win them all to his side, and bring half of them back to continue the work here. Cynthia says--"

"Cynthia seems to have confided a lot in you!" Mark exclaimed with a sudden, unexplainable suspicion.

Aladdian smiled wearily, and slowly shook her head. "You are demoted back to the lower order, Mark Denning," she said with a hint of the same mockery Mark had known in the Swamp. "Cynthia Marnik needs our help now. She only carried out her father's orders, but now that the dynasty is crumbling about her ears, she's bewildered and a little frightened. Something else has happened to her too, for the first time in her life."

"What's that?"

"Never mind," Aladdian said enigmatically. "Ernest Carston knows. It will turn out all right. Meanwhile you had better put the men here to work, it will help pass the time. Goodbye ... Mark." Like an azure-winged elf she hurried back to the laboratory where she spent most of her time.

That was the first instance Mark could remember when Aladdian had called him by his first name, and he liked it.