Tarrano the Conqueror

  CHAPTER IV

  _To the North Pole_

  "You stand back! You do not touch me!"

  The Venus girl fairly hissed the words. Her eyes were dilated; her whitehair hung in a tumbling, wavy mass over her shoulders. She stoodtense--a frail, girlish figure in a short, grey-cloth mantle, with longgrey stockings beneath.

  We were startled. Georg stopped momentarily; then he jumped at her. Itwas a false move, for before we could reach her, with a piercing cry,she was tearing at the instruments on the table; her fingers, with burnsunheeded, ripping the delicate wires, smashing the small mirrors,flinging everything to the floor.

  A few seconds only, but it was enough. She was panting when Georg caughther by the wrists, and we others gathered around them.

  "Ahla!" Elza cried in horror.

  I can appreciate the shock to Elza, who had trusted, even loved thisgirl.

  Dr. Brende stood in confused astonishment, staring at the wreck of theinstrument table. From a naked wire a little black coil of smoke wascoming up. I fumbled about and switched the current out of everything.

  We were cut off from all communication with the world. It gave me aqueer feeling--made the small island we were on seem so remote.

  Georg was shaking the girl, demanding with whom she had been talking andwhy. But she fell into sullen silence, and nothing we could do wouldmake her break it. It infuriated me, that stubbornness; it was all Icould do to keep from harming her in my efforts to make her talk.

  Georg, at last, pulled me away; he led the girl to a couch and sternlybade her sit there without moving. She seemed willing enough to do that;she still had not spoken, but her eyes were watching us closely.

  Dr. Brende was examining the smashed instruments. "Ruined. We cannot usethem. Those messages--we must send them. I must talk to Robins----"

  We went into the corridor, out of earshot of the girl, but where wecould watch her. That we were in immediate danger was obvious, and weall realized it. Ahla had told some of her people that we were here onthe island; doubtless was planning to have them come here at once andseize us.

  How far away from us were they? I had seen in the mirror the interior ofa cave-like room. Where was it? Might it not be near at hand--over onthe mainland? Might not these enemies arrive on the island at anymoment?

  Georg suggested that we send our messages from the aeros. We had my owncar--and a larger car of the Brendes. More than ever now, Dr. Brende wasworried over the safety of his Siberian laboratory; but from the aero wecould talk to Robins.

  We went to the landing stage. I wanted to tie up Ahla, but as Georgsaid, she could do nothing now that the instrument room was out ofcommission. We admonished her sternly to stay where she was, and leftthe house.

  On the open landing stage my small aero was lying where I had left it;but a moment's glance showed us it was wrecked--its instruments and itsdriving mechanism demolished!

  There was no doubt about it now; Ahla had planned to keep us on theisland while her people came and seized us. Fortunately the Brende carwas well housed and barred. We saw that the gates had been tamperedwith, but with the limited time Ahla had to work in, she had been unableto force them. We swung them wide, and to our infinite relief found thecar unharmed.

  At once Dr. Brende called Robins. But the laboratory did not answer!

  "It may be your sending apparatus," I suggested. "Send your message downto Headquarters--with their high power they'll get Robins quicklyenough."

  He tried that--sending also his answer to the previous coded messageHeadquarters had sent him. It was now 11:45. We waited some eightminutes, during which time I rushed back to the house. Ahla was sittingobediently where I had left her.

  "You stay there," I told her. "If you move, I'll break every bone inyour rotten little body."

  Back at the landing stage I found Dr. Brende in despair. Headquarterscould not raise Robins. They had relayed the message to Wrangel andSpitzbergen Islands--but the stations there reported similarly. Dr.Brende's laboratory did not answer its call.

  This decided us. We had no wish to remain where we were. The Brende car,far larger than the small one of mine, was fully equipped andprovisioned. We rolled it out, and in a moment were flying in the air.

  Dr. Brende's car was large, commodious, and smooth-riding. A pleasure tofly in such a car! Georg was at the controls. I sat close beside Elza inthe semi-darkness, gazing down through the pit-rail window to where theisland was dropping away beneath us. It was a perfect night; the moonhad set; the stars and planets gleamed in an almost cloudless sky. RedMars, I saw, very nearly over our heads.

  It was now midnight, and for the moment we chanced to have the air toourselves. We rose to the 10,000-foot level, then headed directly North.It carried us inland; soon the sea was out of sight behind. Lightsdotted the landscape--a town or city here and there, and occasionally atower.

  Dr. Brende was poring over charts, illumined by a dim glow-light besidehim. "Can we get power all the way, Georg?... Elza child, hadn't youbetter lie down? A long trip--you'll be tired out."

  "Call Royal Mountain[6]," Georg suggested. "Ask them about serving uspower; I'll stay 10,000 or below. Under one thousand, when we getfurther north. Ask them if they can guarantee us power all the way."

  [Footnote 6: Now Montreal.]

  The station at Royal Mountain would guarantee us nothing on this night;they advised us to keep low. Their own power-sending station was workingas usual. But this night--who could tell what General Orders might come?Everyone's nerves were frayed; this Director demanded gruffly to knowwho we were.

  "Tell him none of his business," I put in. My own nerves were frayed,too.

  "Quiet!" warned Georg. "He'll hear you--and it _is_ his business if hewants to make it so. Tell him we are the Inter-Allied News, father. Thatis true enough, and no use putting into the air that Dr. Brende isflying north."

  Royal Mountain let us through. We passed well to the east of it about12:45--too far away to sight its lights. The cross-traffic was somewhatheavier here. Beneath it, at 5,000 and 6,000 feet, a steady stream ofcars was passing east and west.

  We were riding easily--little wind, almost none--and were doing 390miles an hour. You cannot bank or turn very well at such a speed; it isinjurious to the human body. But our course was straight north. Dr.Brende showed it to me on his chart--north, following the 70th WestMeridian. Compass corrections as we got further north--and astronomicalreadings, these would take us direct to the Pole. I could never fathomthis air navigation; I flew by tower lights, and landmarks--but to Dr.Brende and Georg, the mathematics of it were simple.

  At two o'clock we had crossed the route of the Chicago-Great London Mailflyer. But we did not see the vessel. The temperature was growingsteadily colder. The pit was inclosed, and I switched on the heaters.Elza had fallen asleep on the side couch, with my promise to awaken herat the first sign of dawn.

  At two-thirty, the Greater New York-East Indian Express overhauled usand passed overhead. It was flying almost north, bound for Bombay andCeylon via Novaya Zemlya. It was in the 18,000-foot lane. The air upthere was clear, but beneath us a fog obscured the land.

  At intervals all this time Dr. Brende had been trying to raiseRobins--but there was still no answer. We did not discuss what might bethe trouble. Of what use could such talk be?

  But it perturbed us, for imagination can picture almost anything. Georgeven felt the strain of it, for he said almost gruffly:

  "Stop it, father. I don't think you should call attention to us so much.Get the meteorological reports from the Pole--we need them. If they tellus this weather will hold at 10,000 and below, we'll make good time."

  Soon after three o'clock we swept over Hudson Strait into Baffinland. Wewere down to 4,000 feet, but the fog still lay under us like a blanket.It clung low; we were well above it, in a cloudless night, with no windsave the rush of our forward flight.

  Then came the pink flush of dawn. True to my promise I awakened Elza.But there was nothing for her to see; th
e stars growing pale, pinkspreading into orange, and then the sun. But the fog under us still laythick.

  We were holding our speed very nearly at 380 an hour. By daylight--aboutfive o'clock, after a light meal--we were over Baffin Bay. I hadrelieved Georg at the controls. The headlands of North Greenland laybefore us. Then the fog lifted a little, broke away in places. The waterbecame visible--drift and slush-ice of the Spring, with lines of openwater here and there.

  And then the fog closed down again, lifting momentarily at six o'clockwhen we passed over the north-western tip of Greenland. The tower theregave us its routine signal, which we answered in kind. There was littletraffic along here; a few local cars in the lowest lanes.

  Shortly after six, when we were above Grantland, another of the greattrans-Arctic passenger liners went over us. The San Francisco Nightline, for Mid-Eurasia and points South. It was crossing Greenland, fromSan Francisco, Vancouver, Edmonton, to the North Cape, the Russias, andAfrican points south of Suez.

  At seven o'clock, with the sun circling the lower sky, the fog under ussuddenly dissipated completely. We were over the Polar ocean. Masses ofdrift ice and slush, but for the most part surprisingly clear. At eighto'clock, flying low--no more than a thousand feet--we sighted the steeltower with foundations sunk into the ocean's depths which marks the topof our little Earth.

  We flashed by the tower in a moment, answering the director's signalperfunctorily. Southward now, on the 110th East Meridian, withoutdeviating from the straight course we had held.

  It was truly a beautiful sight, this Polar ocean. Masses of ice,glittering in the morning sunlight. A fog-bank to the left; buteverywhere else patches of green water and floes that gleamed likemillions of precious stones as they flung back the light to us. Oragain, a mass of low, solid ice, flushed pink in the morning light. Andbehind us, just above the horizon, a segment of purple sky where a stormwas gathering--a deep purple which was mirrored in the placid patches ofopen water, and darkened the ice-floes to a solemn, sombre hue.

  Elza was entranced, though she had made many trans-Polar trips. ButGeorg, now again at the controls, kept his eyes on the instruments; andthe doctor, trying vainly once more to talk with his laboratory, now soclose ahead of us, sat in moody silence.

  It was 9:38 when we sighted, well off to the right, the rocky headlandof Cape Chelusin[7]--the most northerly point of Eurasia. A long, lowcliff of grey rock, ridged white with snow in its clefts. We swungtoward it, at greatly decreased speed, and at an altitude of only a fewhundred feet.

  [Footnote 7: Now Cape Chelyuskin, Laimur Peninsula, Siberia.]

  This was all a bleak, desolate region--curiously so--and I think, one ofthe very few so desolate on Earth. As we advanced, the Siberian coastspread out before us. Mountains behind, and a strip of rocky lowlandalong the sea. There were patches of snow--the mountains were white withit; but on the lowlands, for the most part the Spring sun had alreadymelted it. The Spring was well advanced; there were many open channelsin the water over which we were skimming--drift-ice, and slush-ice whichsoon would be gone.

  Cape Chelusin! It was here that Dr. Brende had placed his Arcticlaboratory--as far from the haunts of man as he could find--a hundredmiles from the nearest person, so he told me. And as I gazed about me Irealized how isolated we were. Not a car in the whole circular panoramaof sky; no sign of vessel on the water; no towns on the land.

  It was just after ten in the morning when we dropped silently to thesmall landing stage a hundred yards or so from the shore. We disembarkedin the sunlight of what would have been a pleasant December morning inGreater New York; and I gazed about me curiously. A level lowland ofcrags with the white of snow in their hollows; a collection of broad,low buildings nearby, with a narrow steel viaduct running down to themfrom the landing stage. And behind everything, the frowning headland ofthe Cape.

  The buildings stood silent, without sign of life. There was no one insight anywhere. No one out to greet us; I thought it a little strangebut I said nothing.

  We started down the viaduct. Under us, in patches of soil, I could seethe vivid colors of the little Arctic flowers already rearing theirheads to the Spring sunlight. I called Elza's attention to them. A vagueapprehension was within me; my heart was pounding unreasonably. But thiswas Dr. Brende's affair, not mine; and I wanted to hide my perturbationfrom Elza.

  The viaduct reached the ground; a path led on to the houses.

  Suddenly Dr. Brende called out:

  "Robins! Robins! Grantley! Where are you!"

  The words seemed to echo back faintly to us; but the buildings remainedsilent.

  "You'd better wait here with Elza," Georg said.

  "I'll go on--see what----"

  He checked his words, and started forward. But Dr. Brende was with him,and in doubt what to do I followed with Elza.

  We entered the nearest building, into a low, dim room, with doors on thesides. In the silence I seemed to hear my heart pounding my ribs. Elza'sface was pale and perturbed, but she smiled very courageously at me.

  "Wait!" said Georg. "You wait here."

  He turned into a side door leading to another room, and in an instantwas back with a face from which the color had departed.

  "They're not in there," he said unsteadily. "Elza--you go outside withfather.... They must be around somewhere, Jac. Come, look."

  There was a rustle behind us. Arms came around me, pinning me. I heardElza scream, saw Georg fighting two dark forms which had leaped uponhim.

  I was flung to the ground, but I fought--three men, it seemed to be, whowere upon me. Then Georg's voice:

  "Jac! Stop--they'll kill you."

  I yielded suddenly, and my assailants jerked me to my feet. A group ofVenus men were surrounding us. Georg, his jacket torn to ribbons, wasbacked up against the wall with three or four Venus men holding him.

  And on the floor nearby Dr. Brende lay prone, with a crimson stainspreading on his white ruffled shirt, and Elza sobbing over him.