Chapter XXXIII: First Assault

Our spies had informed us that of recent weeks there had arisen about the City of Ice a huge wall behind which Tarrano would make his stand. It was our plan to approach within range of this and establish our power plant as a base from which to direct our offensive. The trip from the Great City was not long. After a few helans our girls ceased flying individually and boarded their appointed vehicles.

In a long single line, armament platforms, the towers, our instrument room, with the power plant bringing up the rear, we sailed forward. There were in our instrument vehicle, Maida, Georg, Elza and myself, the vehicle manned by two pilots and two mechanicians--a slaan, a Mars man, and two Earth men. We were in constant communication with Geno-Rhaalton. And though he enjoined upon us all the necessity for sleeping or resting during the trip, himself sat alert at his desk, unrelaxing. The little mirror on our table showed him sitting there, watching every move we made.

We laid down to rest, but sleep was impossible. Through the panelled transparent floor, I watched the country changing as we advanced; vegetation dwindling; the soil changing to rocky barrenness at the border of the Cold Country. And then the snow-plains, the mute frozen rivers of ice, the mountains.

In the twilight of the Cold Country autumn, we sailed up to the mountains and approached to the City of Ice. Alert, all of us now, as at an altitude of a few thousand feet we circled about, marking time until the power plant had selected its base and landed to make ready for the battle.

Throughout the trip we had expected--had anticipated the possibility--of a surprise attack by Tarrano; an ambush in the open air, perhaps by some means strange to us. But the vision magnifiers, the microphones--encompassing every known range of sight and sound--showed us nothing. Especially at the mountains we had thought to meet opposition. But at first none came. It seemed somehow ominous, this lack of action from Tarrano; and when the leader of our line--a tower vehicle--rose sharply to scale the jagged peaks of the Divide, the flare of a hostile electronic bomb rising came almost as a relief. From the instrument room--forewarned an instant by the hiss of our microphones--I saw the bomb start upward. Slowly as a rocket it mounted--a blurred ball of glowing violet light, quite plain in the dim twilight. I knew that the tower platform at which it was directed would have time to throw out its insulation; I knew that the insulation would doubtless be effective--yet my heart leaped nevertheless. At my hand was a projector; but in those few seconds the tower just in advance of us in the line was quicker. Its ray darted at the violet ball; the soundless explosion threw a wave of sparks about the menaced tower, like a puff--a pricked bubble of soap-film--the violet ball was dissipated. But I saw the menaced tower rock a trifle from the shock.

Geno-Rhaalton’s face in the mirror beside me was very solemn. I heard him murmuring something to the other towers, saw their light flash downward, searching the mountain defiles. And as I watched that little image of Rhaalton, I chanced to notice a mirror on Rhaalton’s desk. Rhaalton himself was looking at it--a mirror which had been dark, but which now flashed on. An outlaw circuit! The mirror imaged the face of Tarrano. Tarrano grinning ironically!