Chapter 9: War!

A huge ornithopter came heavily out on the landing stage in the city of Rahn. Its crew took their places. With a creaking and rattling noise it rose toward the invading fleet. From its filigree cockpit sides, men waved green branches. A green light wavered from the big plane that carried the bearded Council man and Denham. That plane swept forward and hovered above the ornithopter. The two flying things seemed almost fastened together, so closely did their pilots maintain that same speed and course. A snaky rope went coiling down into the lower ship’s cockpit. A burly figure began to climb it hand over hand.

A second figure followed. A third figure, in the drab clothing that distinguished Jacaro’s men from all others, wrapped the rope about himself and was hauled up bodily. And Tommy had seen Jacaro but once, yet he was suddenly grimly convinced that this was Jacaro himself.

The two planes swept apart. The ornithopter descended toward the landing stage of Rahn. The freight plane swept toward the ship that carried Tommy. Again the snaky rope coiled down. And Tommy swung up the fifteen feet that alone separated the two soaring planes, and looked into the hard, amused eyes of Jacaro where he sat between two other emissaries of Rahn. One of them was half naked and savage, with the light of madness in his eyes. A Ragged Man. The other was lean and desperate, despite the colored tunic of a civilized man that he wore.

“Hello,” said Jacaro blandly. “We come up to talk things over.”

Tommy gave him the briefest of nods. He looked at Denham--who was deathly white and grim--and the bearded Councilor.

“I’ been givin’ ‘em the dope,” said Jacaro easily. “We got the whip hand now. We got gas masks, we got guns just the same as you have, an’ we got the women.”

“You haven’t ammunition,” said Tommy evenly, “or damned little. Your men brought down one ship, and stopped. If you had enough shells would you have stopped there?”

Jacaro grinned.

“You got arithmetic, Reames,” he conceded. “That’s so. But--I’m sayin’ it again--we got the women. Your girl, for one! Now, how about throwin’ in with me, you an’ the professor?”

“No,” said Tommy.

“In a coupla months, Rahn’ll be runnin’ this planet,” said Jacaro blandly, “and I’m runnin’ Rahn! I didn’t know how easy the racket’d be, or I’d ‘ve let Yugna alone. I’d ‘ve come here first. Now get it!

Rahn runnin’ the planet, with a couple guys runnin’ Rahn an’ passin’ down through a Tube any little thing we want, like a few million bucks in solid gold. An’ Rahn an’ the other cities for kinda country homes for us an’ our friends. All the women we want, good liquor, an’ a swell time!”

“Talk sense,” said Tommy, without even contempt in his tone.

Jacaro snarled.

“No sense actin’ too big!” But the snarl encouraged Tommy, because it proved Jacaro less confidant than he tried to seem. His next change of tone proved it. “Aw, hell!” he said placatingly. “This is what I’m figurin’ on. These guys ain’t used to fighting, but they got the stuff. They got gases that are hell-roarin’. They got ships can beat any we got back home. Figure out the racket. A couple big Tubes, that’ll let a ship--maybe folded--go through. A fleet of ‘em floatin’ over N’York, loaded with gas--that white stuff y’ can steer wherever y’ want it. Figure the shake-down. We could pull a hundred million from Chicago! We c’d take over the whole United States! Try that on y’ piano! Me, King Jacaro, King of America!” His dark eyes flashed. “I’ll give y’ Canada or Mexico, whichever y’ want. Name y’ price, guy. A coupla months organizin’ here, buildin’ a big Tube, then...”

Tommy’s expression did not change.

“If it were that easy,” he said drily, “you wouldn’t be bargaining.

I’m not altogether a fool, Jacaro. We want those women back. You want something we’ve got, and you want it badly. Cut out the oratory and tell me the real price for the return of the women, unharmed.”

Jacaro burst into a flood of profanity.

“I’d rather Evelyn died from gas,” said Tommy, “than as your filthy Ragged Men would kill her. And you know I mean it.” He switched to the language of the cities to go on coldly: “If one woman is harmed, Rahn dies. We will shoot down every ship that rises from her stages. We will spray burning thermit through her streets. We will cover her towers with gas until her people starve in the gas masks they’ve made!”

The lean man in the tunic of Rahn snarled bitterly: “What matter? We starve now!”

Tommy turned upon him as Jacaro whirled and cursed him bitterly for the revealing outburst.

“We will ransom the women with food,” said Tommy coldly--and then his eyes flamed, “and thrash you afterwards for fools!”

He made a gesture to the Keeper of Foodstuffs. It was unconsciously an authoritative gesture, though the Keeper of Foodstuffs was in the state of affairs in Yugna the head of the Council. But that old man spoke deliberately. The man from Rahn snarled his reply. And Tommy turned aside as the bargaining went on. He could see Evelyn down below, a tiny speck of khaki amid the rainbow-colored robes of the other women. This had been a savage expedition, to rescue or to avenge. It had deteriorated into a bargain. Tommy heard, dully, amounts of unfamiliar weights and measures of foodstuffs he did not recognize. He heard the time and place of payment named: the gate of Yugna, the third dawn hence. He hardly looked up as at some signal one of their own ornithopters slid below and the three ambassadors of Rahn prepared to go over the side. But Jacaro snarled out of one corner of his mouth.

“These guys are takin’ each other’s words. Maybe that’s all right, but I’m warnin’ you, if there’s any double-crossin’...”

He was gone. The Keeper of Foodstuffs touched Tommy’s shoulder.

“Our flier,” he said slowly, “will make sure our women are as yet unharmed. We are to deliver the foods at our own city gate, and after the women have been returned. Rahn dares not keep them or harm them.

We of Yugna keep our word. Even in Rahn they know it.”

“But they won’t keep theirs,” said Tommy heavily. “Not with a man of Earth to lead them.”

He watched with his heart in his mouth as the ornithopter alighted near the assembled women of Yugna. As the three ambassadors climbed out, he could hear the faint murmur of voices. The men of Yugna, under truce, called across the landing stage to the women of their own city, and the women replied to them. Then the crew of the one grounded freighter arrived on the landing stage and the flapping flier rose slowly and rejoined the fleet. Its crew shouted a shamefaced reassurance to the flagship.

“I suppose,” said Tommy bitterly, “we’d better go back--if you’re sure the women are safe.”

“I am sure,” said the old man unhappily, “or I had not agreed to pay half the foodstuffs in Yugna for their return.”

He withdrew into a troubled silence as the fleet swept far from triumphantly for him. Denham had not spoken at all, though his eyes had blazed savagely upon the men of Rahn. Now he spoke, dry-throatedly:

“Tommy--Evelyn--”

“She is all right so far,” said Tommy bitterly. “She’s to be ransomed by foodstuffs, paid at the gates of Yugna. And Jacaro bragged he’s running Rahn--and they’ve got gas masks. We’d better be ready for trouble after the women are returned.”

Denham nodded grimly. Tommy reached out and took one of the black tablets from the man beside him. He began to draw carefully, his eyes savage.

“What’s that?”

“There’s high-pressure steam in Yugna,” said Tommy coldly. “I’m designing steam guns. Gravity feed of spherical projectiles. A jet of steam instead of gunpowder. They’ll be low-velocity, but we can use big-calibre balls for shock effect, and with long barrels they ought to serve for a hundred yards or better. Smooth bore, of course.”

Denham stirred. His lips were pinched.

“I’ll design a gas mask,” he said restlessly, “and Smithers and I, between us, will do what we can.”

The air fleet went on over the waving tree-fern jungle in an unvarying monotony of bitterness. Presently Tommy wearily explained his design to the bearded Councilor who, with the quick comprehension of mechanical design apparently instinctive in these folk, grasped it immediately. He selected three of the six-man crew and passed Tommy’s drawings to them. While the jungle flowed beneath the fleet they studied the sketches, made other drawings, and showed them eagerly to Tommy. When the fleet soared down to the scattered landing stages, not only was the design understood but apparently plans for production had been made. It did not take the men of the Golden City long to respond.