Chapter XV: Escape

That Tarrano should thus defy the Earth, when by every law of rational circumstance the move seemed to spell only his own disaster, was characteristic of the man. He stood there in the instrument room at the peak of the skeleton tower in Venia and rasped out to the Earth Council his defiance. Silence followed--silence unbroken save by the hiss and click of the instruments as the message was sent.

And then Tarrano ordered thrown upon himself the lights and sending mirrors so that his own image might be available to all of the public and Earth officials who cared to look upon it. Within the circle of mirrors he stood drawn to his full height; his eyes flashing, heavy brows lowered, and a sardonic smile--almost a leer--pulling at his thin lips. The embodiment of defiance. Yet to those who knew him well--as I was beginning to know him--there was in his eyes a gleam of irony, as though even in this situation he saw humor. A game, with worlds and nations as his pawns--a game wherein, though he had apparently lost, with the confidence of his genius he knew that the hidden move he was about to make would extricate him.

“Enough,” he rasped.

The mirrors went dark. He turned away; and still without appearance of haste he drew Wolfgar, Elza and me to the balcony. Together we stood gazing over the lights of the city below us.

A cloudless, starry sky. Empty of air-craft; but to the north just below the horizon, we knew that the line of war vessels was hovering. Even now, doubtless, they had their orders to descend upon us. Tarrano seemed waiting, and I suppose we stood there half an hour. Occasionally he would sight an instrument toward the north; and by the orders he gave at intervals I knew that preparations for action on his part were under way.

Half an hour. Then abruptly from below the northern horizon lights came up--spreading colored beams. The Earth war vessels! A line of them as far as we could see from left to right, mounting up into the sky as they winged their way toward us--a line spreading out in a broad arc. And then, behind us, I saw others appear. We were surrounded.

It was a magnificent, awe-inspiring sight, that vast ring of approaching colored lights. Red, green and purple--slowly moving eyes. Light-rockets sometimes mounting above them, to burst with a soundless glare of white light in the sky; and underneath, the spreading white search-beams, sweeping down to the dark forest that lay all about us.

Soon, in the white glare of the bombs, we could distinguish the actual shapes of the vessels. Still Tarrano did not move from his place by the balcony rail. He stood there, with a hand contemplatively under his chin, as though absorbed by an interest in the scene purely impersonal. Was he going to give himself up? Stand there inactive while these armed forces of the most powerful world in the Solar System swept down upon him?

Abruptly he snapped his instrument back to his belt. He had not used it since the hostile lights had appeared. Previously, I knew, he had been watching those lights, with the curved ray of the instrument when the lights themselves had been below the horizon.

He turned now to me. “They are here, Jac Hallen. Almost here. And I am at their mercy.” His tone was ironic; then it hardened into grimness. He was addressing me, but I knew it was for Elza’s benefit he spoke.

“I came here to Earth, Jac Hallen, for certain things. I find them now accomplished. I belong here no longer.” He laughed. “I would not force myself into a war prematurely. That would be very unwise. I think--we shall have to avoid this--engagement. I am--slightly outnumbered.”

He called an order, quite calmly over his shoulder. I suppose, at that moment, the Earth war vessels were no more than five miles away. The whole sky was a kaleidoscope of darting lights. In answer to his order, from the peak of our tower a light bomb mounted--a vertical ray of green light. The bomb of surrender!

Tarrano chuckled. “That should halt them. Come! We must start.”

He held a brief colloquy with a Venus man who appeared beside him. The man nodded and hastened back into the instrument room. The green light of our bomb had died away. The lights in the sky began fading--the whole sky fading, turning to blackness! I became aware that Tarrano had thrown around our tower a temporary isolation barrage. For a few moments--while the current he had at his command could hold it--we could not be seen on the image finders of the advancing vessels.

Tarrano repeated: “That should hold them--I have surrendered! They should be triumphant. And outside our barrage, our men will bargain with them. Ten minutes! We should be able to hold them off that long at least. Come, Lady Elza. We must start now.”

With a scant ceremony in sharp contrast to his courteous words to Elza, he hurried us off. Three of us--Elza, Wolfgar and myself, with one attendant who still carried Elza’s personal belongings. Hurried us into the vertical car which had brought us up into the tower. It descended now, down the iron skeleton shaft. Outside the girders I could see only the blackness of the barrage, with faint snapping sparks.

Silently we descended. It seemed very far down. And suddenly I realized that we were going lower than the ground level. The barrage sparks had vanished. The blackness now was a normal darkness; and in it I could see slipping upward the smooth black sides of the vertical shaft into which we were dropping. And the sulphuric smell of the barrage was gone. The air now smelt of earth--the heavy, close air of underground.

I do not know how far down we went. A thousand feet perhaps. The thing surprised me. Yet in those moments my mind encompassed it; and many of Tarrano’s motives which I had not reasoned out before now seemed plain. He had come from Venus to the Earth, possibly several months ago. Had come directly here to Venia and set up his headquarters. His purpose on Earth--as he had just told me--did not lie with warfare. While he was here his forces had conquered the Great City of Venus, and just now, the Hill City of Mars. He controlled Venus and Mars--but he was still far from ready to attack the Earth.