CHAPTER XI
_Giant Against Giant_
Although Princess Sira had promised to keep out of the way, she couldnot resist the powerful attraction of the executive hall, in which, onthis day, the fate of two planets was to be decided. As the crowds ofpeople began to drift toward the hall, she joined them, still dressedin her laboring man's shapeless garments, the broad sun-helmet hidingher face effectively. Her long, black hair was concealed under theclothing. Having nearly been drawn into a brawl the day before, shenow carried a stained but still very serviceable short sword that shehad purloined from a merclite-drunken reveler in a gutter.
Thousands were already on the terraces surrounding the governmentbuildings. They were milling about, for it was still too soon afterthe night's chill to sit down or lie on the rubbery red sward. Taxiswere bringing swarms over the canal from North Tarog, and watervehicles were crossing over in almost unbroken lines.
Already the merclite vendors were busy, making their surreptitious wayfrom group to group, selling the highly intoxicating and legallyproscribed gum that would lift the users from the sordid, miserableplane of their daily existence to exalted, reckless heights.
War vessels now began to course overhead, their solid, heavily platedhulls glinting dully in the sun. Their levitator helices moaneddismally, and as their long, slanting shadows slid over the assembledthousands, it seemed that they cast a prophetic pall; that there was ahush of foreboding.
But the psychological expert high in a nearby tower immediately notedthe slump in the psycho-radiation meter whose trumpet-shaped antennapointed downward. At the turn of the dial the air was filled withthrobbing martial music, and the expert noted with contemptuoussatisfaction that the needle now stood even higher than before.
Sira, caught like all the rest of the people in that stirring flood ofmusic, felt her own pulse leap. But she thought:
"This is the day! Wasil, could I only be with you!"
She thought sadly of Joro, whose shrewd observations and counsel shemissed more than she had ever thought possible.
"Poor, dear Joro! You would be a better king than any man you couldever find! I wish I could have done as you wished me to."
* * * * *
There was a stir near the main entrance of the hall. A large privateyacht was slowly descending. She was bedecked with the green and goldbunting of the terrestrial government, the green and orange of Mars.Her hull glittered goldenly.
"Back!" shouted the captain of a Martian guard detail, the soldiersrunning with pennant-decked ropes looping after them. The crowd surgedagainst the barrier, but more guards were sent out as reinforcements,until they had cleared a space for the ship and a lane to the hallentrance.
"Mars greets the distinguished guests from our sister planet!" boomedthe giant loudspeaker in the tower. Immediately afterward came thestrains of the song--"Terrestria--Fair Green Terrestria"--in a rushingtorrent of sound. But the frank and fluent melody was strangelydistorted, with unpleasant minor turns and harsh whisperings ofmenace, and the tower psychologist noted a further rise of the needle.
There was a diversion of interest now. The mob of first arrivals, aswell as the ever-freshening stream of newcomers, was moving toward theteletabloids and the more conservative stereo-screens. On thisoccasion they were both carrying the same message, however. Sira heardthe propaganda division's latest fabrication about her allegedkidnaping by terrestrial agents. She needed no radiation meter to tellher of the intense wave of hatred for the Earth that swept over thedensely packed area. And this was followed by another emotion--a waveof cupidity--set up by the offer of 100,000 I. P. dollars reward forher return. She saw about her faces greedy, faces wistful, evencompassionate faces. But outnumbering them by far were faces set intruculent mold.
* * * * *
Sira moved restlessly from place to place, feeling more deeplydepressed with every moment. She felt as if she had been left entirelyout of life, friendless, alone. Among all these thousands she had nofriend. It seemed to her that never before had there been such apaucity of monarchists. Sharp-featured, with a wire-drawn manner ofefficiency and resolution about them, they had constituted almostanother race among this practically enslaved people, maintaining forthemselves a tolerable position despite the opposition of theoligarchy. Now, however, they seemed to have vanished. All thatmorning Sira had not seen one. She would not have disclosed heridentity, but it would have been comforting to see one of thosefriends of old.
She was stopped by a jam. Looking between the bodies of two large andsweaty men, she realized that someone was standing on a surveyor'smarking block, delivering a speech.
"The great Pantheus has so decreed it," the speaker was shouting in acracked voice that at times dribbled into a whine. "We must shake offforever this menace from the green planet--this planet dominated bywicked women.
"Oh, my friends, last night they came to me in dreams, these palewomen of the green star. They tempted me and they mocked me. They laidtheir cold hands on my throbbing brow, and their cold hands burned me!
"Oh great Pantheus! How I have suffered! The creatress who in hermalice created this wicked world beyond the gulf--"
The Martians were entertained by the quavering denunciation. Somegrinned broadly at one another; others placed their thumbs in theirears and wiggled their fingers. But the old man continued. Finally,two of the foremost spectators, sensing the tiny body crowded betweenthem, stepped aside.
"Don't miss this, my little man. Listen, and maybe you will laughyourself a little bigger." He gave Sira a gentle shove, so that shealmost stumbled over the block on which the speaker was standing.
* * * * *
And that old man suddenly stopped talking, so that his toothless mouthsucked in, then stood agape. The rheumy eyes rolled, and a wisp ofdirty gray hair strayed across his gnarled face. He lifted a shakinghand, pointed a knotty finger.
"There she is!" he croaked. "There she is! I claim--"
"There she is!" guffawed a tipsy merclite chewer. "The creatress, cometo punish you! Cut off his nose, O creatress, and stuff it into hismouth!"
There were shouts of laughter, a surge to see better.
"No! No! I, Deacon Homms, claim the reward!" the old man screamed."She is the princess; I know her. She came out of the canal to temptme! She is the Princess Sira. Now shall I at last enter the Palace ofJoys! I claim the 100,000 dollars!"
But he still had to catch Sira. The crowd, suddenly sensing that thisold fanatic might be telling the truth, rushed in savagely, each eagerto seize the prize, or at least to establish some claim to a share ofthe award. Men and women went down, to be trampled mercilessly.Inevitably they got in one another's way, and soon swords were risingredly, falling again.
"Guards! Guards! A riot!" Some were fleeing the scene; others rushingin, grateful for the opportunity to expend excess pugnacity. A freshplatoon of soldiers tumbled out of a kiosk leading to an undergroundbarracks like ants out of a disturbed nest. They deployed, holdingtheir neuro-pistols before them, focalizers set for maximumdispersion, therefore non-fatal--merely of paralyzing intensity. Someof the rioters now turned to run, but others persisted, willing to berendered unconscious, just so it would be near the valuable princess.
A few moments later the captain of the guard surveyed the mass ofparalysed bodies and the sword-slashed corpses, all intermingled.
"What's this all about?" he demanded of a scarred, evil-looking fellowwho was the first to rise to his elbow.
"The Princess Sira! I claim the reward. In there! She stood rightthere!"
"Get out, you galoon!" the captain growled, knocking the fellowunconscious with the heavy barrel of his neuro. "Sort 'em out there.Moggins, Schkamitch. On the double. You will share, according torank."
But eagerly as they searched, they did not find Sira. Creeping betweenthe legs of the maddened reward seekers, she had fought clear, hadgained the shelter of a tall, red conical t
ree whose closely lacedbranches pressed her to the ground, clinging to the greasy trunk.
* * * * *
She realized that her sanctuary was none too secure. There wouldsurely be a methodical search after the first excitement, and shewould be discovered. She had lost her sun-helmet, but nevertheless shemust risk making a break. A large proportion of the people werewearing such helmets. Perhaps she could snatch one.
But before such an opportunity came, she saw a chance to dash to anearby clump of shrubbery. On the other side was a long hedge, leadingto an alley back of a group of warehouses. If she could gain thisalley, she felt sure she would be safe for the time being.
All over the park, which was thirty or forty acres in extent, therewere minor riots, as some unfortunate was mistaken for the princessand blindly struggled for.
Sira lost no time. She scuttered along the hedge like a frightenedkangrat. But as she crossed a small open space, a stentorian voiceshouted:
"There she is! That's her! The princess!"
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him, running toward herlumberingly, his great arms outspread. Tuman had been wrong in sayingthat on all of Mars there was no man as big as Tolto. This one was,and he looked more formidable. Instead of Tolto's normallygood-natured face, this one looked like an enraged terrestrialgorilla, although at the moment it was really expressing joy andeagerness.
Several other men joined the chase, and then scores. They were fleeterof foot than the ape-man, but as they passed him in the narrow alleyhe smashed them to the pavement with casual blows of his terrifyinghands. Thereafter he was undisputedly in the lead; the others contentto follow in his rear, although many were armed, and the giant wasnot.
* * * * *
This was an advantage to Sira. The whole mob was slowed by thelumbering pace of the ape-man, and she was able to keep in the leadwithout difficulty. Several times some of her pursuers ran ahead byother routes, intent on snatching her into some doorway. But each timeshe slashed at them with her sword, springing past.
She had not run very far when her fear of another danger was realized.There was a high, keen whistle overhead, and a scouting police carflashed near. Under the neuro-pistols both hounds and hare would beparalyzed, and she would be easily taken. Sira longed for one of thesehandy weapons herself, but they were too expensive: she had beenunable to secure one.
Now the police car was coming back. The sliding forward door wasdrawn back, and a man was leaning out, neuro alert. Judging thedistance expertly, he pulled the trigger, and a hundred men fellunconscious.
"Got 'em!" he snapped over his shoulder. "The princess as well. Downquick!"
Sira, spared because of the officer's unwillingness to take a chanceon injuring her, leaped through a gap in a wall and sprinted through agarden smothered with thick, leathery-leaved weeds, some of themhigher than her head. She almost laughed with relief, but as sheflitted around the corner of a house toward the street she saw thegorilla faced giant again in pursuit, and beyond the garden wall thepolice ship was just settling to the ground.
It just seemed to be raining giants that day. Sira ran out of a narrowgate at the front of the house into the street, to be stopped by atremendous human framework as solid and unyielding as a mountain. Shestepped back, drew her sword--
"Softly! Softly!" a rumbling bass implored. "Doesn't the Princess Sirarecognize her servant, Tolto?"
"Tolto!" All at once the tautness went out of her, and Sira leanedagainst the wall, divided between laughing and crying.
"Tolto and his good friends were looking for you," the big man rumbledanxiously. "The teletabloids said there was a riot coming--"
* * * * *
He got no further. The gorilla-faced pursuer catapulted himselfsideways through the portal, being too wide to go through in theregular way. He emitted a raucous shout of triumph:
"I got her! It's her, all right! I claim--"
As he reached out his enormous sun-blackened arm there was a thudthat seemed to shake the ground. Instantly enraged, the man's littlered-rimmed eyes jerked quietly to the dealer of that shocking blow.Then the conical little head sank between the bulging shoulders, thelong, thick arms bowed outward, and the ape-man launched himself atTolto.
That was a battle! On the one side devotion, simple-minded loyalty anda fighting heart in a body of such mechanical perfection as Mars hadnever seen before or since. On the other side a primal beast, just ashuge, rage-driven, atavistic, savage.
Fists as large as an average man's head, or larger, crashed againstunprotected face and body. Gigantic muscles rippled and crackled.Blows echoed from wall to house and seemed to thud against the heartsof the spectators.
It was as if time and memory had come to a standstill. The present wasnot, nor present ambitions and duties. The soldiers came plunging outinto the street, swords in their hands, but they stopped to watch.Sime, Murray and Tuman, used to instant and automatic battle, watched.A struggle so titanic, by tacit, by unconsidered consent, must be leftto decide its own course.
* * * * *
Tolto seemed to be slowly gaining an advantage. During his novitiateas a palace guard the other men had instructed him in the science oftheir pastime-fighting. Although he scorned to guard against the blowsof his savage antagonist, he placed his own punches more shrewdly,more effectively. The ape-faced one, through a red film, sensed thathe was being beaten, and that this fight would end in death.
Suddenly he changed his tactics. Rushing in, he threw his arms aroundTolto's great torso. He opened his jaws, and his long yellow fangsbit into the flesh of Tolto's shoulder.
Tolto, taken slightly by surprise, met this new menace promptly.Placing his powerful forearm against the battered, hairy face, heattempted to bend the head back. But it was so small, in proportion,and so slippery with blood, that he was unable to dislodge it.
So Tolto matched brute strength against brute strength. His armsencircled his enemy's body, and the tremendous muscles of hisshoulders and body began to arch.
So they stood poised for a few seconds, as if on the brink ofeternity.
"Go-o-o-wie!" exclaimed one of the soldiers, awed.
Slowly, like the agonizingly slow plastic creep of metal under greatpressure, the gorilla-faced giant was yielding. His dark skin becamemottled. His breath came gaspingly. His rope-knotted arms slipped alittle.
But it was not in him to surrender, which might still have saved hislife. With a vicious twisting motion of his head he tried to drag hisfangs through the thick muscles of Tolto's shoulder. The wound beganto bleed more freely, choking the savage at each labored breath.
Now Tolto began to walk forward. Always his antagonist had to yield alittle, unwillingly, grudgingly, just enough to keep the paralyzingpressure on his spine from becoming unbearable. And slowly,inexorably, Tolto followed. His arms tightened. His leg slippedsuddenly between the ape-faced man's supports. Tolto grunted. Thesound seemed to labor upward from his innermost being, his body'sprotest as he called upon it for its last reserve of strength.
Like an echo, there was a dull crack, a brief, agonized moan from theape-faced one; and the savage, unknown giant slumped to the pavement,dead with a broken back. Tolto staggered to the wall, breathingdeeply.
"Man, what a fight! What a _fight_!" The young Martian captain passeda shaking hand over his face. The battle had stirred him more deeplythan he wanted to admit. But in a few seconds he came out of hismental maze.
"Attention! All right, men, you're under arrest. As for the girl--"
"As for the girl," came a clear feminine voice, as Sira stepped outfrom the shelter of a buttress some dozen feet away, "--the girl tookadvantage of your preoccupation to relieve you of your neuros. As yousee I have two of them in my hand. The rest of them are over by thatwall. No! Don't try to rush! You are welcome to your swords, but theyare useless here."
CHAPTER XII
"_He Must
Be a Man of Earth_"
Friend and foe looked stupefied. But they were used to the give andtake of battle. That this girl should disarm a detachment of soldierswhile they and their own men were absorbed in such a common thing as afight struck them as humorous. They laughed.
"This is a better break then we deserve," Sime said, grinning with atrace of sheepishness. "Captain, you take your men across the streetand hold 'em there. We're going to borrow your car. No funny stuff!"Civilians were flooding into the streets. There would soon be a mob.
"We will not," replied the captain, "try any funny stuff. Some day, myfriend, I hope to open you up with my sword," he added.
"By all means," Sime agreed pleasantly. "My time is pretty welloccupied, but there's no telling when I may meet you again, in mybusiness. Good day, Captain!"
Tuman stayed at the front gate with his neuro while the othersstruggled through the weedy garden to the police ship in the alley,rejoining them as they were ready to rise.
* * * * *
A crowd had gathered. If they wondered at the appearance of theseragged, scarred and bewhiskered men; at sweat and blood-covered giantTolto; the obviously high-bred girl in the laboring man's garments,they wisely refrained from comment or action, in deference to theneuros with which the party was bristling.
Once inside and safely in the air, they had time to breathe. Murray,with a gallantry that sat ill on the scarecrow figure he was, clearedmatters up a trifle.
"Princess Sira? As I thought. Princess, or Your Highness, to beformal, I am your humble and disreputable servant, Lige Murray, of theInterplanetary Flying Police. Likewise this gentleman behind thebrush--Sime Hemingway. You know Tuman? You've missed something, YourHighness! And Tolto! Lucky man!"
Sira recovered quickly from her reaction following the fight. Shefound a first-aid kit, bandaged Tolto's wounded shoulder skilfully andquickly. She had given no sign of recognition as Sime awkwardly bowed,during Murray's introduction, but now, as Sime held a roll of bandagefor her, she gave him a sidewise look, agleam with mischief.
"But I have decided to remit the punishment--the sentence I passed onyou, Mr. Hemingway," she said, her sweet, child-like face innocent.
"What punishment?" Sime gasped.
"Why, the punishment of death! For kissing me that night!" shelaughed, turning her back.
Murray was heading back for the government park. It was a shortdistance with the police car. Soon the broad grounds, with theirscattered, magnificent buildings, lay below them. But the parks werestrangely bare of living creatures. Here and there lay the bodies ofmen or women.
"Something's happened!" Murray shouted excitedly. "Look out!"
* * * * *
He swerved the ship sharply. They escaped damage as an atomic bomb,unskilfully aimed, exploded far to one side.
"Funny thing, firing on a police car," Sime puzzled. "They might havegot news from that detachment we grounded, but how do they know thisisn't some other police or military car?"
"Those aren't soldiers," Murray decided. "There's been a riot, andsome civilian's got hold of an ato-projector."
"I know what's happened!" Sira exclaimed suddenly. "Wasil--atechnie--has managed to broadcast the secret session! That upset theirpsychology. Oh!" Her face was alight, and she threw up her arms inecstasy. As quickly she subsided, and tears came to her eyes.
"Wasil!" she cried. "If he is dead, Mellie will never forgive me!"
"Where is this technie?" Sime asked bruskly.
"In the broadcast room. But they have probably killed him."
"Never can be sure. Head her smack for the main entrance, Murray!"
Murray threw the car into a steep dive, and the hall portal rushed upto meet them. A soldier came partially out of concealment, waved asignal. Murray paid him no heed.
They struck with a crash. The stout car crushed through the glitteringdoors of metal and glass, and before the fragments fell the four menwere in the thick of short, sharp and decisive battle. Their neuroshissed venomously, spanged as they met opposing beams. And theprincess, struggling through the wreckage, wept tears of rage as thecoarse fabric of her clothing caught, entangled hopelessly, and heldher.
"Something queer!" Murray said, as they halted for breath afterrouting what little opposition they had encountered. "Maybe it's atrap. But what an expensive trap for somebody! Where's thisbroadcasting plant?"
"This way!" Tuman called eagerly. "Maybe we can still save the poorfellow who turned the trick. Broadcast the secret sessions! Don't tellme that little girl isn't fit to rule!"
The heavy metal doors were open, and they hurried in. But Tolto,noting that the princess had not followed, hurried out in search forher.
* * * * *
Sime stumbled over a body. It had been a dark, sleek, youngish man. Ajagged burn on his throat told of the needle-ray. "Who's this fellow,Murray?"
Murray glanced at the body. He smiled a brief smile of satisfaction.
"That's Scar Balta. Got what's coming to him at last. Help me withthis bird: he's still alive. Cold, though!"
"Got a shot of neuro. Could this be the technie?"
Sime found a fountain of water. He filled a cup, dashed it over thestill face. The shock made the man's lips move.
"Mellie, I did it!" he whispered.
"Who's Mellie?" Sime asked.
"Mellie? Seems to me the princess mentioned her name, This is herbrother. He's the right guy! Take it easy, brother!"
But Wasil was able to sit up.
"I sure fooled him!" he gasped. "Mixed up the circuits. Scar Baltasat right here while I broadcast the secret sessions, and he waswatching a lot o' haywah in the control screen.
"When Wilcox got word from outside he knew he was done. He thoughtScar'd double-exed him, so came here in person and gave him theneedle-ray."
Despite his nausea, Wasil looked happy.
"Wilcox tried for me, but I dodged back of those frames. So he triedfor me with the neuro. The mob was getting wild outside; there was--"
He could not finish. There was an explosion that shook the building toits foundations. Tolto came running in. Sira close after him:
"Joro is coming. Joro has detonated the warships. The hall guards havesurrendered. The council is locked up. It can't escape!"
* * * * *
Events were transpiring too fast for comprehension. It was severaldays later, on a bench in Prince Joro's palace grounds, that Sirasummed it up for Sime Hemingway.
"I'm going to accept the throne!" she said. "I'm going to be a realqueen. Joro has convinced me that it will be a real service to Mars.The dear old man has schemed and worked so long, so unselfishly."
"Yeh, and he wasn't afraid to fight!" Sime added admiringly. "When hecame charging out of those ships with his gang of monarchists, swordsflashing, it was a pretty sight to see. And when they closed in onthat gang of cheap politicians! Talk about rats in a corner!"
"The prince can fight with his brains as well as with his sword." Sirasubmitted. "The whole thing would have been hopeless, if he hadn'tinvented the detonating ray that disposed of the warships. Youremember those heavy explosions, shortly after we dropped in thehall, as one might say? Those were the last of them."
A silence fell between them, and Sime was now conscious of thefragile-seeming, so deceiving beauty of this Martian girl. Somethinghad come between them, stripped away the masculine frankness that hadexisted during their short and dangerous time together. Perhaps it wasthe softly revealing drape of the thread-of-gold robe she waswearing--true queenly garb, donned by her for the first time.
"There is one requirement that Joro insists on," Sira said in a lowvoice.
"What's that?" asked Sime, marveling that such transparently pinkfingers should handle a sword so well.
"He says that I must choose a mate, to insure the stability of theroyal house."
* * * *
*
It seemed to Sime that this announcement gave him a pang out of allproportion.
"That should be easy," he managed. "Every Martian is crazy about you."
"He may not be a Martian. He must be a man of Earth," Sira statedfirmly.
"Is that so?" Sime asked, genuinely surprised. "Why does Joro insiston that?"
"It is not Joro who insists. It is myself."
Sime found himself looking into eyes filled with shy pleading. Hecould not, would not, for all of the solar system, have committed theunpardonable affront of rejecting the love so frankly offered. And yethe did not know how to accept this miracle. He did it clumsily,haltingly disclosing the secret recesses of his own heart and what hadtranspired there since the night he had taken the knife away from herand kissed her.
* * * * *
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