Chapter 11: "Nothing to Be Done"

Unmoving, their ship seemed, through the long hours. Yet there were lights that passed swiftly and unnoticed, and the unending thunder from the stern gave assurance that they were not floating idly in the vast sea of space.

The sun was behind them, and ahead was Earth in midday glory; Harkness could not tear his eyes away from that goal. He stood always at the controls, not because there was work to be done, but for the feeling it gave him of urging the ship onward.

Diane ministered to Chet and dressed the wound. There were few words exchanged between them.

The menace that had emptied Earth’s higher levels of all aircraft was still there. No ships were in sight, as Harkness guided his ship toward the great sphere. His speed had been cut down, yet still he outraced the occasional, luminous, writhing forms that threw themselves upon them. Then the repelling area--and he crashed silently through and down, with their forward exhaust roaring madly to hold them in check.

A sea and a shoreline, where a peninsula projected like a giant boot--and he knew it for Italy and the waters of the Mediterranean.

“Vienna,” Diane was telling him; “go to Vienna! It is nearby. And I know of a surgeon--one of the greatest!”

And an hour later, a quiet, confident man was telling them: “But yes!--of a certainty he will live. It is fortunate that you were not very far away when the accident occurred.” And only then did Harkness catch Diana’s eyes in an exchange of glances where unbearable relief was tempered with amusement.

The great hospital had its own landing stages on its broad roof. Their ship was anchored there, an object to excite the curiosity of a gathering throng.

“Not a healthy place for me, here in Vienna,” Harkness remarked. He was lifting the ship from its anchorage, its errand of mercy done.

“Now where?” he pondered aloud. The strain of the flight was telling on him.

The girl recognized the strained look in his eyes, the deep lines that their experiences had etched upon his face. Gently she drew his hand from the controls.

“I will take it,” she said. “Trust me. Lie down and rest.”

Harkness had witnessed an example of her flying skill; she could handle the ship, he knew. And he threw himself upon a cot in the cabin to sink under the weight of overpowering fatigue.

He felt the soft shock of their landing. Diane was calling him, her hand extended to lead him from the open port. But he was wrenched sharply from the lethargy that held him at sight of his surroundings, and the memories they recalled.

They were in a park, and their ship rested upon a spacious lawn. Beyond were trees where a ship had shot crashingly through storm-tossed limbs. And, before him, a chateau, where a window had framed the picture of a girl with outstretched arms.

“Trust me,” Diane had said. And he did trust her. But did she not know what this meant? She was delivering him into the enemy’s hands. He should have kept himself from sight until he had rallied his forces ... He was stammering words of protest as she led him toward the door. Armed guards were already between him and the ship.

In a dark-panelled room Herr Schwartzmann was waiting. His gasp of amazement as he sprang to his feet reflected the utter astonishment written upon his face, until that look gave place to one of satisfaction.

“Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, “--my dear Mademoiselle Diane! We had given you up for lost. I thought--I thought--”

“Yes,” said Diane quietly, “I believe that I can well imagine what you thought.”

“Ah!” said Herr Schwartzmann, and the look of satisfaction deepened. “I see that you understand now; you will be with us in this matter. We have plans for this young man’s disposal.”

The puzzled wonder that had clouded the steady eyes of Walter Harkness was replaced by cold anger and more than a trace of contempt.

“You can forget those plans,” he told Schwartzmann. “I have plans of my own.”

“Poof!” exclaimed the heavy, bearded man. “We will crush you like that!” He struck one heavy fist upon the desk. “And what will you do?”

“Several things,” said Harkness evenly. “I shall rid the upper levels of the monsters: I have a gas that will accomplish that. I shall restore the world’s flying to normal. And, with that attended to, I will give you my undivided attention--raise forty kinds of hell with Herr Schwartzmann and the interests he represents.

“Forgery! Theft! The seizing of my properties by virtue of a lying document! You shall see what this leads to. Your companies will be wrecked; not a decent man or woman engaged in the business of a decent world will deal with you: that is a small part of what I plan.”

The dark face of Herr Schwartzmann was flushed with anger. “You will never leave this place--” he began. But Harkness would not let him go on: his voice was as hard as the metal of his ship.

“You and your assassins!” he said contemptuously. “You don’t dare touch me. There is another man who knows--and Diane, too.” He paused to look into the eyes of the girl, which were regarding him with an inscrutable expression. “I do not know why she brought me here, but Diane also knows. You can’t throttle us all.”

“Diane!” The exclamation was wrung involuntarily from Schwartzmann’s lips. “You speak of Mademoiselle Vernier so familiarly?”

The girl’s cool voice broke in. She had watched the meeting of the men in silence; she spoke now as one taking matters into her own quite capable hands.

“You may omit the incognito, Herr Schwartzmann,” she said; “it is no longer required. I have enjoyed a birthday since last we met: it was passed in a place of darkness and anguish, where strong men and brave forgot their own suffering to try by every means to bring comfort to a girl who was facing death. For that reason I say that I enjoyed it ... And that birthday was my twenty-first. You know what that means.”

“But Mademoiselle Vernier--pardon!--Mam’selle Delacoeur, surely you will support me. My trustee-ship during all these successful years--”