Part 2

"Up we go, Billy-boy." Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to climb slowly.

The silence remained absolute. We reached the door and pulled it open. There was no sign of life.

"Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble here," Ezra Karn observed.

Somebody had. Before us stretched a narrow corridor, flanked on the left side by a wall of impenetrable stepto glass. The corridor was bare of furnishings. But beyond the glass, revealed to us in mocking clarity, was a high panel, studded with dials and gauges. Even as we looked, we could see liquid pulse in glass tubes, indicator needles swing slowly to and fro.

Grannie nodded. "Some kind of a broadcasting unit. The Green Flames in the lower hold are probably exposed to a _tholpane_ plate and their radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process."

Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the glass wall. His arm jumped in recoil, but the glass remained intact.

"You'll never do it that way," Grannie said. "Nothing short of an atomic blast will shatter that wall. It explains why there are no guards here. The mechanism is entirely self-operating. Let's see if the Green Flames are more accessible."

In the lower hold disappointment again confronted us. Visible in the feeble shafts of daylight that filtered through cracks in the vessel's hull were tiers of rectangular ingots of green iridescent ore. Suspended by insulators from the ceiling over them was a thick metal plate.

But between was a barrier. A wall of impenetrable stepto glass.

Grannie stamped her foot. "It's maddening," she said. "Here we are at the crux of the whole matter, and we're powerless to make a single move."

* * * * *

Outside the day was beginning to wane. The Venusians, apparently unawed by the presence of the space ship, had already started a fire and erected the tents. We left the vessel to find a spell of brooding desolation heavy over the improvised camp. And the evening meal this time was a gloomy affair. When it was finished, Ezra Karn lit his pipe and switched on the portable visi set. A moment later the silence of the march was broken by the opening fanfare of the Doctor Universe program.

"Great stuff," Karn commented. "I sent in a couple of questions once, but I never did win nothin'. This Doctor Universe is a great guy. Ought to make him king or somethin'."

For a moment none of us made reply. Then suddenly Grannie Annie leaped to her feet.

"Say that again!" she cried.

The old prospector looked startled. "Why, I only said they ought to make this Doctor Universe the big boss and...."

"That's it!" Grannie paced ten yards off into the gathering darkness and returned quickly. "Billy-boy, you were right. The man behind this _is_ Doctor Universe. It was he who stole my manuscript and devised a method to amplify the radiations of the Green Flames in the freighter's hold. He lit on a sure-fire plan to broadcast those radiations in such a way that millions of persons would be exposed to them simultaneously. Don't you see?"

I didn't see, but Grannie hurried on.

"What better way to expose civilized life to the Green Flames radiations than when the people are in a state of relaxation. The Doctor Universe quiz program. The whole System tuned in on them, but they were only a blind to cover up the transmission of the radiations from the ore. Their power must have been amplified a thousandfold, and their wave-length must lie somewhere between light and the supersonic scale in that transition band which so far has defied exploration...."

"But with what motive?" I demanded. "Why should...?"

"Power!" the old woman answered. "The old thirst for dictatorial control of the masses. By presenting himself as an intellectual genius, Doctor Universe utilized a bizarre method to intrench himself in the minds of the people. Oh, don't you see, Billy-boy? The Green Flames' radiations spell doom to freedom, individual liberty."

I sat there stupidly, wondering if this all were some wild dream.

And then, as I looked across at Grannie Annie, the vague light over the tents seemed to shift a little, as if one layer of the atmosphere had dropped away to be replaced by another.

There it was again, a definite movement in the air. Somehow I got the impression I was looking around that space rather than through it. And simultaneously Ezra Karn uttered a howl of pain. An instant later the old prospector was rolling over and over, threshing his arms wildly.

An invisible sledge hammer descended on my shoulder. The blow was followed by another and another. Heavy unseen hands held me down. Opposite me Grannie Annie and the Venusians were suffering similar punishment, the latter screaming in pain and bewilderment.

"It's the Varsoom!" Ezra Karn yelled. "We've got to make 'em laugh. Our only escape is to make 'em laugh!"

He struggled to his feet and began leaping wildly around the camp fire. Abruptly his foot caught on a log protruding from the fire; he tripped and fell headlong into a mass of hot coals and ashes. Like a jumping jack he was on his feet again, clawing dirt and soot from his eyes.

Out of the empty space about us there came a sudden hush. The unseen blows ceased in mid-career. And then the silence was rent by wild laughter. Peal after peal of mirthful yells pounded against our ears. For many moments it continued; then it died away, and everything was peaceful once more.

Grannie Annie picked herself up slowly. "That was close," she said. "I wouldn't want to go through that again."

Ezra Karn nursed an ugly welt under one eye. "Those Varsoom got a funny sense of humor," he growled.

* * * * *

Inside the freighter's narrow corridor Grannie faced me with eyes filled with excitement.

"Billy-boy," she said, "we've got two problems now. We've got to stop Doctor Universe, and we've got to find a way of getting out of here. Right now we're nicely bottled up."

As if in answer to her words the visi set revealed the face of the quiz master on the screen. He was saying:

"_Remember tomorrow at this same hour I will have a message of unparalleled importance for the people of the nine planets. Tomorrow night I urge you, I command you, to tune in._"

With a whistling intake of breath the old woman turned to one of the Venusians.

"Bring all our equipment in here," she ordered. "Hurry!"

She untied the ribbon under her chin and took off her cap. She rolled up her sleeves, and as the Venusians came marching into the space ship with bundles of equipment, she fell to work.

Silently Ezra Karn and I watched her. First she completely dismantled the visi set, put it together again with an entirely altered hookup. Next she unrolled a coil of flexible copper mesh which we had brought along as a protective electrical screening against the marsh insects. She fastened rubberite suction cups to this mesh at intervals of every twelve inches or more, carried it down to the freighter's hold and fastened it securely against the stepto glass wall.

Trailing a three-ply conduit up from the hold to the corridor she selected an induction coil, several Micro-Wellman tubes and a quantity of wire from a box of spare parts. Dexterously her fingers moved in and out, fashioning a complicated and curious piece of apparatus.

At length she finished.

"It's pretty hay-wire," she said, "but I think it will work. Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do. When Doctor Universe broadcasts tomorrow night, he's going to announce that he has set himself up as supreme dictator. He'll have the Green Flame radiations coming from this ship under full power. I'm going to insert into his broadcast--the laughing of the Varsoom!"

"You're going to what?"

"Broadcast the mass laughter from those invisible creatures out there. Visualize it, Billy-boy! At the dramatic moment when Doctor Universe makes his plea for System-wide power, he will be accompanied by wild peals of laughter. The whole broadcast will be turned into a burlesque."

"How you going to make 'em laugh?" interrupted Karn.

"We must think of a way," Grannie replied soberly.

I, for one, am glad that no representative of the Interstellar Psychiatry Society witnessed our antics during the early hours of that morning and on into the long reaches of the afternoon, as we vainly tried to provoke the laughter of the Varsoom. All to no avail. Utter silence greeted our efforts. And the time was growing close to the scheduled Doctor Universe program.

Ezra Karn wiped a bead of perspiration from his brow. "Maybe we've got to attract their attention first," he suggested. "Miss Flowers, why don't you go up on the roof and read to 'em? Read 'em something from one of your books, if you've got one along. That ought to make 'em sit up and take notice."

For a moment the old woman gazed at him in silence. Then she got to her feet quickly.

"I'll do it," she said. "I'll read them the attack scene from _Murder On A Space Liner_."

* * * * *

It didn't make sense, of course. But nothing made sense in this mad venture. Grannie Annie opened her duffel bag and drew out a copy of her most popular book. With the volume under her arm, she mounted the ladder to the top of the envelope. Ezra Karn rigged up a radite search lamp, and a moment later the old woman stood in the center of a circle of white radiance.

Karn gripped my arm. "This is it," he said tensely. "If this fails ..."

His voice clipped off as Grannie began to read. She read slowly at first, then intoned the words and sentences faster and more dramatically.

And out in the swamp a vast hush fell as if unseen ears were listening.

"... _the space liner was over on her beam ends now as another shot from the raider's vessel crashed into the stern hold. In the control cabin Cuthbert Strong twisted vainly at his bonds as he sought to free himself. Opposite him, lashed by strong Martian vinta ropes to the gravascope, Louise Belmont sobbed softly, wringing her hands in mute appeal._"

A restless rustling sounded out in the marsh, as if hundreds of bodies were surging closer. Karn nodded in awe.

"She's got 'em!" he whispered. "Listen. They're eatin' up every word."

I heard it then, and I thought I must be dreaming. From somewhere out in the swamp a sound rose into the thick air. A high-pitched chuckle, it was. The chuckle came again. Now it was followed by another and another. An instant later a wave of low subdued laughter rose into the air.

Ezra Karn gulped. "Gripes!" he said. "They're laughing already. _They're laughing at her book!_ And look, the old lady's gettin' sore."

Up on the roof of the envelope Grannie Annie halted her reading to glare savagely out into the darkness.

The laughter was a roar now. It rose louder and louder, peal after peal of mirthful yells and hysterical shouts. And for the first time in my life, I saw Annabella C. Flowers mad. She stamped her foot; she shook her fist at the unseen hordes out before her.

"Ignorant slap-happy fools!" she screamed. "You don't know good science fiction when you hear it."

I turned to Karn and said quietly, "Turn on the visi set. Doctor Universe should be broadcasting now. Tune your microphone to pull in as much of that laughter as you can."

* * * * *

It took three weeks to make the return trip to Swamp City. The Varsoom followed us far beyond the frontier of their country like an unseen army in the throes of laughing gas. Not until we reached Level Five did the last chuckle fade into the distance.

All during that trek back, Grannie sat in the dugout, staring silently out before her.

But when we reached Swamp City, the news was flung at us from all sides. One newspaper headline accurately told the story: DOCTOR UNIVERSE BID FOR SYSTEM DICTATORSHIP SQUELCHED BY RIDICULE OF UNSEEN AUDIENCE. QUIZ MASTER NOW IN HANDS OF I.P. COUP FAILURE.

"Grannie," I said that night as we sat again in a rear booth of THE JET, "what are you going to do now? Give up writing science fiction?"

She looked at me soberly, then broke into a smile.

"Just because some silly form of life that can't even be seen doesn't appreciate it? I should say not. Right now I've got an idea for a swell yarn about Mars. Want to come along while I dig up some background material?"

I shook my head. "Not me," I said.

But I knew I would.