CHAPTER V
_The Wrath of Tolto_
Tolto awoke from his drugged sleep in the cargo room of a pleasureship. He was thoroughly trussed up, for Prince Joro's servants had awholesome respect for the giant's strength. Even in his supineposition power was evident in every line of his great torso, revealedthrough great rents in his blouse. His thighs were as big around as anordinary man's body, and the smooth pink skin of his mighty arms andshoulders rippled with every movement that brought into play thebroad, flat bands of muscle underneath.
A chain of beryllium steel was passed around Tolto's waist, and closein front of him the smooth, shining cuffs of steel around his wristwere locked to the chain. Short lengths of chain led to cargoringbolts in the floor, holding fast Tolto's cuffed ankles.
To anyone looking at Tolto, just then, these extreme precautions mighthave seemed absurd. Prince Joro, however, was a good judge of men. Itwould have pleased him best if Tolto had been quietly eased from hissleep into death, but he knew that such a murder would have destroyedforever his chances of winning Sira to his plans. He meant to seeTolto safely and demonstrably returned to his home valley, and inorder to accomplish this the more surely, he had him loaded aboard hisown ship, and instructed his captain to take the little used desertroute.
Tolto lifted his hands as far as he could and looked wonderingly atthem. His child-like face, with the soft, agate eyes, expressed onlybewilderment. He lifted his voice, a powerful bass.
"Hi, hi! Let Tolto go! The princess may call!"
There was no answer, only the rhythmic hum of the levitators. AgainTolto cried out. But there was no answering sound. The Sun poured inthrough the ports, and when presently the ship changed its course, thelight fell full in his face, almost blinding him. The giant enduredthis without complaint.
* * * * *
Several hours later, however, his patience snapped, and he roared andbellowed so loudly that a door opened and a frightened face appeared.Back of it was the chromium glitter of the ship's galley.
"Be still, big one!" admonished the cook. "The captain is resting. Hewill have you chained standing if you disturb him with yourbellowing."
"I wanted only to know where I am," Tolto replied, subsiding meekly."I drank overmuch and some larksters tied me up like this. Release me,so that if the princess calls I may answer."
"The princess will have to call loudly for you to hear," the cookanswered jocularly.
"The princess need only whisper for Tolto to hear," the giant boasted,"Come now, shrimp, take these things off!"
"Are you really as dumb as that?" the cook marveled. "Why, sonny boy,the princess couldn't even hear you! Don't you know where you'regoin'?"
Vague alarm began to creep over Tolto.
"Where is she?" he asked anxiously. "Isn't she in this ship? PrincessSira never goes anywhere without Tolto. Ask her. Ask anybody."
"The princess may never go anywhere without you, you head of bone,"remarked the cook, rather enjoying his own humor, "but _this_ timeyou're going somewhere without her."
"You talk funny talk, but I can't laugh at it. Little bug, tell me nowwhat this is all about, or I will take you between my fingers andsquash you!"
The cook's coral face paled almost to white despite himself.
"Listen, big one," he said placatingly. "Have an orange?"
* * * * *
Tolto refused the gift, although he knew this rare and lusciousimportation from the Earth and was very fond of it.
"Once more I ask you, bug, where is she?"
"Aw, now, listen!" the cook whined. "Don't blame me! I'm only aservant around here. How can I help what they do? Don't glare at meso. Well, she's at Tarog."
"But why--why does she send me away?"
The cook failed to recognize his opportunity to lie in time.
"Well, the fact is--" he hesitated. "The boss--Prince Joro's sendingyou away. You see, she's going to get hitched up-big important guy.They didn't want you around, bustin' up things every time you turnaround. So they're sendin' you back home."
"The princess would not send me home like this," Tolto objected. Buthe held his peace, and the cook went back to his work, satisfied thathe had subdued this dangerous prisoner.
In this he was guilty of no greater error than Prince Joro and theother monarchists. For ages there had been an unfounded opinion thatbig men are generally slow and stupid. They may often act so, fortheir great strength serves as a substitute for the quick wit ofsmaller men. But in Tolto, at all events, this prejudice was wrong. InTolto's bullet head was a healthy, active brain, and a primitivecunning.
So instead of wasting his strength in vain struggles against the toughsteel, he rested, marshalling the facts in his mind.
He utterly rejected the thought that Princess Sira had consented tohis removal in this manner, or in any manner. That meant that she wasbeing coerced, and Tolto's eyes grew small and hard at the thought.
Presently he began to test the chains. They were of great hardness andtoughness, and so smooth that he could not twist them, for the linksslid over one another harmlessly. However, after much quiet effort hefound that he could shift his body several inches toward either sideof the narrow hold. Here there were a number of locked boxes. One ofthem, he reasoned, might contain tools.
His closely confined hands were practically useless. He found that hecould not reach any of the boxes with his fingers, strain as he might.But he grinned with hope when his head struck one of the handles. Hisstrong teeth closed down on it.
* * * * *
That would have been something to see! The box was of thin, strongmetal, but it was heavy. With no other purchase but his teeth, Toltodragged it to him, on top of him. Now his hands could help a little.He inched it down toward his knees, fearful each moment that a lurchof the ship might precipitate it to the floor with a crash. When hishead could push no longer his knees grasped the end of the chest, andmanaged to pull it down.
Tolto had never heard of the wrestling hold known as the scissors, buthe applied it to that box. His mighty sinews cracked under the strain,and stabbing pain tore at his hips. But he persisted, and with aprotesting rasp the lid was telescoped inward, breaking the lock.
Breathless, he waited. After minutes he decided that the sound had notattracted attention.
Again he brought his teeth into play, and this time, when the boxstood open, Tolto's lips were lacerated by the jagged edges of twistedmetal. Triumphantly, he looked inside.
The box contained a set of counterweights for the hydrogen integratormotors.
No bar, nothing that might be utilized to twist off the eyebolts!
Again he set to work. The next box was longer, heavier. It was coatedwith unpleasantly rancid oil. Tolto's broad chest was covered withblood, partly from gouges in his skin, partly from his crushed lips.But this time he found a bar. It was in the bottom, under some extravalves, but eventually his teeth closed on it, and he fell back,nearly exhausted, for a moment's rest.
He heard a door slam beyond the galley. The words floated out:
"--better go see how he's coming along."
* * * * *
The horrified mate saw the wrecked boxes, the blood-covered giant witha thick steel bar in his teeth, the extra valves scattered about thefloor. He whipped out his neuro-pistol, pointed it at Tolto.
But Tolto made no move to resist when the shaken officer gingerly tookthe bar out of his mouth. He did not move when several shipmen, calledby the officer, moved everything out of reach. After half an hour,with many awed comments, they left him alone.
Tolto's battered lips opened in what might have been a grin. Painfullyhe rolled off the single valve that had been digging into the small ofhis back. He patiently resumed the tedious task of bringing the valvein reach of his locked hands.
The valve stem was stout, and a foot long. It was just long enough sothat Tolto, by lying on hi
s side, could reach one of the eyebolts.
Inserting the stem, Tolto pulled toward him.
The eyebolt turned without resistance. It was free to rotate, andcould not be twisted off. A groan escaped from the prisoner.
But in a few moments he tried bending upward. The leverage was highlydisadvantageous that way. Still, straining with the last ounce of hisstrength, he was just able to do it. Pulling down was not so hard.
It took fifty-four motions, up and down, before the tough metalcracked and one chain trailed free.
It was not long afterward that the cook, turning from his work at theelectric grill, stared into a face that had once been innocent andpeaceful. It seemed the face of a demon.
He would have shrieked, but Tolto took his arm between thumb andforefinger, saying gently:
"Remember, little bug, what I said!"
He was cast, dumb with fear, into the late prisoner's cell.
* * * * *
Tolto had not bothered to remove the chains, but only to twist themapart by means of such tools as he could find to permit free movementof his arms and legs. They dangled from him, tinkling musically.
Now he strode into the main cabin. The ship's crew, having no guests,were playing the part of guests. A man who was shuffling cards, wasthe first to see him. The cards flew up and showered all over theroom.
"He's loose!" this shipman croaked, diving under the table.
"Mr. Yens! Mr. Yens!" shouted the captain, a small, bristling Martianwith graying, stiff hair. He snatched the neuro-pistol at his side,pointed it at Tolto, pressed the trigger.
Tolto felt a numbing cold as the ray struck him. But his great bodyabsorbed the weapon's energy to such an extent that he was not killedat once. His flailing arms continued their arc, and one end of chain,whistling through the air, struck the weapon from the officer's hand.Tolto stumbled, recovered. He picked up the pistol and stuck it in hischain belt.
His impulse was to rend, to crush with his hands. The shipmen, exceptfor the officers, were unarmed, and they went down helplessly beforethe giant fists. Some of them found riot guns, but they might as wellhave pounded a Plutonian mammoth for all the effect they had on Tolto.
Mr. Yens, the mate, sitting at the controls in the glassed-in cabinforward, turned his head at the captain's cry, and, looking down theshort corridor into the main cabin, saw the blood-covered giant comingtoward him. Mr. Yens was a brave man; but he had been careless. Hisneuro-pistol was in his own cabin. He did the best he knew, andsnapped the lock.
But Tolto's great bulk smashed in the door as if it were nothing. Theunbreakable glass did not splinter, but it bent like sheet metal, anda blow of the giant's fist broke the mate's neck.
The mate had not engaged the gyroscopic control, and immediately theship began a series of eccentric maneuvers, so sharp and unexpectedthat no one on board could keep his feet. For a few seconds shestraightened, and one of the crew bethought himself of the pistol inthe mate's cabin. He sighted on Tolto, clearly visible ahead. Beforehe could release the ray the ship went into another breath-takingmaneuver.
A mountain peak came sliding toward them ominously. They scraped by.The ship dived, throwing Tolto forward, and his instinctive grab threwthe elevator up. The levitators screamed madly as they lost theirpurchase on the air, due to the ship's unstable keel.
"We're goners!" someone shouted. "Kill that fool!"
They bounced off a cliff, turned over and over like a tumbleweed. Acylindrical building, unexpected in this wilderness, loomed up. Theyseemed about to hit it, but floated past. The rock floor of the valleyrushed up. With a crash the ship rolled over, split wide open.