Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 Part 45

"Yet Djorn," McGuire told himself slowly, "said they had no weapons.

He knows nothing of war. But, great heavens! what wouldn't I give for a regiment of sc.r.a.ppers--good husky boys with their faces tanned and a spark in their eyes and their gas masks on their chests. With a regiment, and equipment like this--"

And again he realized the futility of armament with none to serve and direct it.

It was a month or more before Althora consented to the tests. Djorn advised against it and made his protest emphatic, but here, as in all things, Althora was a free agent. It was her right to do as she saw fit, and there was none to prevent in this small world where individual liberty was unquestioned.

And it was still longer before she could get anything of importance.

The experiments were racking to her nerves, and McGuire, seeing the terrible strain upon her, begged her to stop. But Althora had gained the vision that was always before her loved one's eyes--a world of death and disaster--and he, here where the bolt would be launched, and powerless to prevent. She could not be dissuaded now.

It was a proud day for Althora when she sent for McGuire, and he found her lying at rest, eyes closed in her young face that was lined and tortured with the mental horror she was contacting. She silenced his protests with a word.

"The gun," she whispered; "they are talking about the gun ... and the bombardment ... planning...."

More silent concentration. Then:

"The island of Bergo," she said, "--remember that! The gun is there ...

a great bore in the earth ... solid rock ... but the casing of t.i.tanite must be reinforced ... and bands shrunk about the muzzle that projects ... heavy bands ... it shows signs of distortion--the heat!..."

She was listening to the thoughts, and selecting those that bore upon gun.

"... Only fifty days ... the bombardment must begin ... Tahnor has provided a hundred sh.e.l.ls; two thousand tals of the green gas-powder in each one ... the explosive charges ready ... yes--yes!..."

"Oh!" she exclaimed and opened her troubled eyes. "The beast is so complacent, so sure! And the bombardment will begin in fifty days!

Will it really cause them anguish on your Earth, Tommy?"

"Just plain h.e.l.l; that's all!"

McGuire's voice was low; his mind was reaching out to find and reject one plan after another. The gun!... He must disable it; he could do that much at least. For himself--well, what of it?--he would die, of course.

The guard he had been taught to place about his own thoughts must have relaxed, for Althora cried out in distress.

"No--no!" she protested; "you shall not! I have tried to help you, Tommy dear--say that I have helped you!--but, oh, my beloved, do not go. Do not risk your life to silence this one weapon. They would still have their s.h.i.+ps. Remember what Djorn has told of their mighty fleets, their thousands of fighting men. You cannot stop them; you can hardly hinder them. And you would throw away your life! Oh, please do not go!"

McGuire was seated beside her. His face was hidden in one hand while the other was held tight between the white palms of Althora's tense hands. He said nothing, and he s.h.i.+elded his eyes and locked his mind against her thought force.

"Tommy," said Althora, and now her voice was all love and softness, "Tommy, my dear one! You will not go, for what can you do? And if you stay--oh, my dear!--you can have what you will--the secret of life shall be yours--to live forever in perpetual youth. You may have that.

And me, Tommy.... Would you throw your life away in a hopeless attempt, when life might hold so much? Am I offering so little, Tommy?"

And still the silence and the hand that kept the eyes from meeting hers; then a long-drawn breath and a slim figure in khaki that stood unconsciously erect to look, not at the girl, but out beyond the solid walls, through millions of miles of s.p.a.ce, to the helpless speck called Earth.

"You offer me heaven, my dear," he spoke softly. "But sometimes"--and his lips twisted into a ghost of a smile--"sometimes, to earn our heaven, we have to fight like h.e.l.l. And, if we fail to make the fight, what heaven worth having is left?

"And the people," he said softly; "the homes in the cities and towns and villages. My dear, that's part of loving a soldier: you can never own him altogether; his allegiance is divided. And if I failed my own folk what right would I have to you?"

He dared to look at the girl who lay before him. That other vision was gone but he had seen a clear course charted, and now, with his mind at rest, he could smile happily at the girl who was looking up at him through her tears.

She rose slowly to her feet and stood before him to lay firm hands upon his shoulders. She was almost as tall as he, and her eyes, that had shaken off their tears but for a dewy fringe, looked deep and straight into his.

"We have thought," she said slowly, "we people of this world, that we were superior to you and yours; we have accepted you as someone a shade below our plane of advancement. Yes, we have dared to believe that. But I know better. We have gone far, Tommy, we people of this star; we have lived long. Yet I am wondering if we have lost some virtues that are the heritage of a sterner race.

"But I am learning, Tommy; I am so thankful that I can learn and that I have had you to teach me. We will go together, you and I. We will fight our fight, and, the Great One willing, we will earn our heaven or find it elsewhere--together."

She leaned forward to kiss the tall man squarely upon the lips with her own soft rose-petal lips that clung and clung ... and the reply of Lieutenant McGuire, while it was entirely wordless, seemed eminently satisfactory.

Althora, the beautiful daughter of Venus, had the charm and allure of her planet's fabled namesake. But she thought like a man and she planned like a man. And there was no dissuading her from her course.

She was to fight beside McGuire--that was her intention--and beyond that there was no value in argument. McGuire was forced to accept the insistent aid, and he needed help.

Sykes dropped his delving into astronomical lore and answered to the call, but there was no other a.s.sistance. Only the three, McGuire, Althora and Sykes. There were some who would agree to pilot the submarine that was being outfitted, but they would have no part in the venture beyond transporting the partic.i.p.ants.

More than once McGuire paused to curse silently at the complaisance of this people. What could he not do if they would help. Ten companies of trained men, armed with their deadly electronic projectors that disintegrated any living thing they reached--and he would clutch at his tousled hair and realize that they were only three, and go grimly back to work.

"I don't know what we can do till we get there," he told Sykes. "Here we are, and there is the gun: that is all we know, except that the thing must be tremendous and our only hope is that there is some firing mechanism that we can destroy. The gun itself is a great drilling in the solid rock, lined with one of their steel alloys, and with a big barrel extending up into the air: Althora has learned that.

"They went deep into the rock and set the firing chamber there; it's heavy enough to stand the stress. They use a gas-powder, as Althora calls it, for the charge, and the same stuff but deadlier is in the sh.e.l.l. But they must have underground workings for loading and firing.

Is there a chance for us to get in there, I wonder! There's the big barrel that projects. We might ... but no!--that's too big for us to tackle, I'm afraid."

"How about that electronic projector on the submarine?" Sykes suggested. "Remember how it melted out the heart of that big s.h.i.+p? We could do a lot with that."

"Not a chance! Djorn and the others have strictly forbidden the men to turn it on the enemy since they have given no offense.

"No offense!" he repeated, and added a few explosive remarks.

"No, it looks like a case of get there and do what dirty work we can to their mechanism before they pot us--and that's that!"

But Sykes was directing his thoughts along another path.

"I wonder ..." he mused; "it might be done: they have laboratories."

"What are you talking about? For the love of heaven, man, if you're got an idea, let's have it. I'm desperate."

"Nitrators!" said the scientist. "I have been getting on pretty good terms with the scientific crowd here, and I've seen some mighty pretty manufacturing laboratories. And they have equipment that was never meant for the manufacture of nitro-explosives, but, with a few modifications--yes, I think it could be done."

"You mean nitro-glycerine? TNT?"

"Something like that. Depends upon what materials we can get to start with."

The lieutenant was pounding his companion upon the back and shouting his joy at this faintest echo of encouragement.

"We'll plant it alongside the gun--No, we'll get into their working underground. We'll blow their equipment into sc.r.a.p-iron, and perhaps we can even damage the gun itself!" He was almost beside himself with excitement at thought of a weapon being placed in his straining helpless hands.