Part 2

The wind shifted and blew from another quarter. The box kite soared, but the triangular kite faltered. Taking advantage of Park's loss of speed, I raced alongside.

The I. V. manager lifted his weapon frantically. But before he could use it a third time, Ezra Karn had whipped a lariat from his belt and sent it coiling across the intervening space.

The thong yanked tight about the manager's throat. Park did the only thing he could do. He shut off power, and the two cars coasted to a halt. Then I was across in the other seat, wrenching the weapon free from his grasp.

"What have you done with Miss Flowers?" I demanded.

The manager's eyes glittered with fear as he saw my finger tense on the trigger. Weakly he lifted an arm and pointed to the northwest.

"Val-ley. Thir-ty miles. Entrance hidden by wall of ... flagpole trees."

* * * * *

I leaped into the driver's seat and gave the kite its head. And now the country began to undergo a subtle change. The trees seemed to group themselves in a long flanking corridor in a northwesterly direction, as if to hide some secret that lay beyond. Twice I attempted to penetrate that wall, only to find my way blocked by those curious growths.

Then a corridor opened before me; a mile forward and the desert began again. But it was a new desert this time: the sand packed hard as granite, the way ahead utterly devoid of vegetation. In the distance black bulging hills extended to right and left, with a narrow chasm or doorway between.

I headed for that entrance, and when I reached it, I shut off power with an exclamation of astonishment.

There was a huge chair-shaped rock there, and seated upon it was Grannie Annie. She had a tablet in her hands, and she was writing.

"Grannie!" I yelled. "What're you doing here? Where's Mr. Baker?"

She rose to her feet and clambered down the rock.

"Getting back Jimmy's mine laborers," she said, a twinkle in her eyes. "I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of trouble." She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve. "Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you."

She led the way through the narrow passage into the valley. A deep gorge, it was, with the black sheer cliffs on either side pressing close. Ten feet forward, I stopped short, staring in amazement.

Advancing toward me like a column of infantry came a long line of Larynx miners. They walked slowly, looking straight ahead, moving down the center of the gorge toward the entrance.

But there was more! A kite car was drawn up to the side. The windscreen had been removed, and mounted on the hood was a large bullet-like contrivance that looked not unlike a search lamp. A blinding shaft of bluish radiance spewed from its open end. Playing it back and forth upon the marching men were Jimmy Baker and Xartal, the Martian.

"Ultra violet," Grannie Annie explained. "The opposite end of the vibratory scale and the only thing that will combat the infra-red rays that cause red spot fever. Those men won't stop walking until they've reached Shaft Four."

Grannie Annie told her story during the long ride back to Shaft Four. We drove slowly, keeping the line of marching Larynx miners always ahead of us.

Jimmy Baker had struck a new big lode of Acoustix, a lode which if worked successfully would see _Larynx Incorporated_ become a far more powerful exporting concern than _Interstellar Voice_. Antlers Park didn't want that.

It was he or his agents who placed those lens buttons in the Larynx barracks. _For he knew that just as Jupiter's great spot was responsible for a climate and atmosphere suitable for an Earthman on this Eighth Moon, so also was that spot a deadly power in itself, capable when its rays were concentrated of causing a fatal sickness._

Then suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove to head her off before she reached Shaft Four.

He did head her off and managed to lure her and Baker and Xartal into the Shaft barracks where they would be exposed to the rays from the lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague.

Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.

* * * * *

I listened to all this in silence. "But," I said when she had finished, "how did Park manage to have that image created and why did the mine laborers walk out into the Baldric when they contracted the fever?"

Grannie Annie frowned. "I'm not sure I can answer the first of those questions," she replied. "You must remember Antlers Park has been on this moon five years and during that time he must have acquainted himself with many of its secrets. Probably he learned long ago just what to do to make a cockatoo create a mental image.

"As for the men going out into the Baldric, that was more of Park's diabolical work. In the walls of the barracks besides those lens buttons were also miniature electro-hypnotic plates, with the master controlling unit located in that valley. Park knew that when the miners were in a drugged condition from the effects of the fever they would be susceptible to the machine's lure.... And now, Billy-boy, are you coming with me?"

"Coming with you?" I repeated. "Where?"

The old lady lit a cigarette. "Pluto maybe," she said. "There's a penal colony there, you know, and that ought to tie in nicely with a new crime story. I can see it now ... prison break, stolen rocket ship, fugitives lurking in the interplanetary lanes...."

"Grannie," I laughed. "You're incorrigible!"