had the demented man placed in those shells?

Below and behind it, as it flashed across our view, was a fearful,
writhing mass where the earth itself rose up in unending, convulsive
agony. A volcano of fire followed him, a fountain of earth that ripped
and tore and stretched itself in a writhing, tortured line across the
land as the white ship passed.

No man who saw that and lived has found words to describe the progress
of that monstrous serpent; the valley itself is there for men to see.
The roar was beyond the limit of men's strained nerves. I found myself
cowering upon the ground when the white ship came back; I followed it
fearfully with my eyes until I saw it swoop falteringly down. Such
power seemed not for men but for gods; I could not have met Paul
Stravoinski then but in a posture of supplication. But I leaped to my
feet and raced madly across the torn earth as I saw the white ship
touch the ground--rise--fall again--and end its flight where it
ploughed a furrow across a brown field....

I raised Paul Stravoinski's head in my arms where I found him in the
ship. An enemy shell had entered that cabin; it must have come early
in the fight, but he had fought gamely on. And the eyes that looked up
into mine had none of the wild light I had seen. They were the eyes of
Paul Straki, the comrade of those few long years before, and he smiled
as he said: "_Voila_, friend Bob: _c'est fini!_ And now I go for a
long, long walk. We will talk of poetry, Maida and I...."

But his dreams were still with him. He opened his eyes to stare
intently at me. "You will see that it is not in vain?" he questioned;
then smiled as one who is at peace, as he whispered: "Yes, I know you
will--my friend, Bob--"

And his fixed gaze went through and beyond me, while he tried, in
broken sentences, to give the vision that had been his. So plain it
was to him now.

"The wild work--of a mistaken people. America will undo it.... A world
at peace.... The vast commerce--of the skies--I see it--so clearly....
It will break down--all barriers.... A beautiful, happy world...."

His lips moved feebly at the last. I could not speak; could not even
call him by name; I could only lean my head closer to hear.

One whispered word; then another: a fragment of poetry! I had heard
him quote it often. But the whispered words were not for me. Paul was
speaking to someone beside him--someone my blind, human eyes could not
see....

I am writing these words at my desk in the great Transportation
Building in New York. It stands upon the site of the Chrysler Building
that towered here--until one of the flying torpedoes came over to hunt
it out. They landed several in New York; how long ago it all seems
that the threat of utter destruction hung over the whole nation--the
whole world.

And now from my window I see the sparkling flash of ships. The air is
filled with them; I am still unaccustomed to their speed. But a wisp
of vapor from each bell-shaped stern throws them swiftly on their way;
it marks the continuous explosion of that marvel of a new
age--tritonite! There are tremendous terminals being built; the
air-transport lines are being welded into efficient units that circle
the world; and the world is becoming so small!

The barriers are gone; all nations are working as one to use wisely
this strange new power for the work of this new world. No more
poverty; no more of the want and desperate struggle that leads a whole
people into the insane horrors of war; it is a glorious world of which
we dream and which is coming slowly to be....

But I think we must dream well and work well to bring to actuality the
beautiful visions in those far-seeing eyes of the man called
Paul--Dictator, one time, of the whole world.

LISTENING TO ANTS

Two scientists of the University of Pittsburgh recently perfected an
apparatus for detecting the sounds of underground communications among
ants. A block of wood was placed upon the diaphragm of an ordinary
telephone transmitter, which in turn was connected through batteries
and amplifiers to a pair of earphones. When the termites crawled over
the block of wood the transmitter was agitated, resulting in sound
vibrations which were clearly heard by the listener at the headset.

When the ants became excited over something or other their soldiers
were found to hammer their heads vigorously on the wood. This action
could be clearly seen and heard at the same time. The investigators
found that the ants could hear sound vibrations in the air very poorly
or not at all, but were extremely sensitive to vibrations underground.
For this reason it was thought that the head hammering was a method of
communication.

Because of this sensitivity to substratum vibrations, ants are seldom
found to infest the ties of railroads carrying heavy traffic, or
buildings containing machinery.

The Earthman's Burden

_By R. F. Starzl_

[Illustration: _And then he jumped._]

[Sidenote: There is foul play on Mercury--until Denny Olear of the
Interplanetary Flying Police gets after his man.]

Denny Olear was playing blackjack when the colonel's orderly found
him. He hastily buttoned his tunic and in a few minutes, alert and
very military, was standing at attention in the little office on the
ground floor of the Denver I. F. P. barracks. His swanky blue uniform
fitted without a wrinkle. His little round skullcap was perched at the
regulation angle.

"Olear," said the colonel, "they're having a little trouble at the
Blue River Station, Mercury."

"Trouble? Uh-huh," Olear said placidly.

The colonel looked him over. He saw a man past his first youth.
Thirty-five, possibly forty. Olear was well-knit, sandy-haired, not
over five feet six inches in height. His hair was close-cropped, his
features phlegmatic, his eyes a light blue with thick, short,
light-colored lashes, his teeth excellent. A scar, dead white on a
brown cheekbone, was a reminder of an "encounter" with one of the
numerous sauriens of Venus.

"I'm sending you," explained the colonel, "because you're more
experienced, and not like some of these kids, always spoiling for a
fight. There's something queer about this affair. Morones, factor of
the Blue River post, reports that his assistant has disappeared.
Vanished. Simply gone. But only three months ago the former
factor--Morones was his assistant--disappeared. No hide nor hair of
him. Morones reported to the company, the Mercurian Trading
Concession, and they called me. Something, they think, is rotten."

"Yes, sir."

"I guess I needn't tell you," the colonel went on, "that you have to
use tact. People don't seem to appreciate the Force. What with the
lousy politicians begrudging every cent we get, and a bunch of
suspicious foreign powers afraid we'll get too good--"

"Yeah, I know. Tact, that's my motto. No rough stuff." He saluted,
turned on his heel.

"Just a minute!" The colonel had arisen. He was a fine, ascetic type
of man. He held out his hand.

"Good-by, Olear. Watch yourself!"

When Olear had taken his matter-of-fact departure the colonel ran his
fingers through his whitening hair. In the past several months he had
sent five of his best men on dangerous missions--missions requiring
tact, courage, and, so it seemed, very much luck. And only two of the
five had come back. In those days the Interplanetary Flying Police did
not enjoy the tremendous prestige it does now. The mere presence of a
member of the Force is enough, in these humdrum days of interplanetary
law and order, to quell the most serious disturbance anywhere in the
solar system. But it was not always thus. This astounding prestige
had to be earned with blood and courage, in many a desperate and
lonely battle; had to be snatched from the dripping jaws of death.

Olear checked over his flying ovoid, got his bearings from the port
astronomer, set his coordinate navigator and shoved off. Two weeks
later he plunged into the thick, misty atmosphere on the dark side of
Mercury.

Ancient astronomers had long suspected that Mercury always presented
the same side to the sun, though they were ignorant that the little
planet had water and air. Its sunward side is a dreary, sterile, hot
and hostile desert. Its dark side is warm and humid, and resembles to
some extent the better known jungles and swamps of Venus. But it has a
favored belt, some hundreds of miles wide, around its equator, where
the enormous sun stays perpetually in one spot on the horizon. Sunward
is the blinding glare of the desert; on the dark side, enormous banks
of lowering clouds. On the dark margin of this belt are the
"ringstorms," violent thunderstorms that never cease. They are the
source of the mighty rivers which irrigate the tropical habitable belt
and plunge out, boiling, far into the desert.

Olear's little ship passed through the ringstorms, and he did not take
over the controls until he recognized the familiar mark of the trading
company, a blue comet on the aluminum roof of one of the larger
buildings. Visibility was good that day, but despite the unusual
clarity of the atmosphere there was a suggestion of the sinister about
the lifeless scene--the vast, irresistible river, the riotously
colored jungle roof. The vastness of nature dwarfed man's puny work.
One horizon flashed incessantly with livid lightning, the other was
one blinding blaze of the nearby sun. And almost lost below in the
savage landscape was man's symbol of possession, a few metal sheds in
a clear, fenced space of a few acres.

Olear cautiously checked speed, skimmed over the turbid surface of the
great river, and set her down on the ground within the compound. With
his pencil-like ray-tube in his hand he stepped out of the hatchway.

A Mercurian native came out of the residence, presently, his hands
together in the peace sign. For the benefit of Earthlubbers whose only
knowledge of Mercury is derived from the teleview screen, it should be
explained that Mercurians are _not_ human, even if they do slightly
resemble us. They hatch from eggs, pass one life-phase as frog-like
creatures in their rivers, and in the adult stage turn more human in
appearance. But their skin remains green and fish-belly white. There
is no hair on their warty heads. Their eyes have no lids, and have a
peculiar dead, staring look when they sleep. And they carry a
peculiar, fishy odor with them at all times.

This Mercurian looked at Olear seemingly without interest.

"Where is Morones?" the officer inquired.

"Morones?" the native piped, in English. "Inside. He busy."

"All right. I'm coming in."

"He busy."

"Yeah, move over."

Though the native was a good six inches taller than Olear he stepped
aside when the officer pushed him. Men--and Mercurians--had a way of
doing that when they looked into those colorless eyes. They were not
as phlegmatic as the face. Morones was sitting in his office.

"Well, I'm here," Olear announced, helping himself to a chair.

"Yes"--sourly. "Who invited you?"

Olear looked at the factor levelly, appraising him. A big man, fat,
but the fat well distributed. Saturnine face, dark hair, dark and
bristly beard. The kind that thrived where other men became weak and
fever-ridden. Also, to judge by his present appearance, an unpleasant
companion and a nasty enemy.

"Don't see what difference it makes to you," Olear answered in his own
good time; "but the company invited me."

"They would!" Morones growled. His eyes flickered to the door, and
quick as a cat, Olear leaped to one side, his ray-pencil in his hand.

Morones had not moved, and in the door stood the native, motionless
and without expression. Morones laughed nastily.

"Kind of jumpy, eh? What is it, Nargyll?"

Nargyll burst into a burbling succession of native phrases, which
Olear had some difficulty following.

"Nargyll wants to move your ship into one of the sheds, but the
activator key's gone."

"Yeah, I know," Olear assented casually. "I got it. Leave the ship
till I get ready. Then I'll put it away. Get out, Nargyll."

The native, hesitated, then on the lift of Morones' eyebrows departed.
Olear shifted a chair so that he could watch both Morones and the
door. He reopened the conversation easily:

"Well, we understand each other. You don't want me here and I'm here.
So what are you going to do about it?"

Morones flushed. He struggled to keep his temper down.

"What do you want to know?"

"What happened to the factor who was here before you?"

"I don't know. The translucene wasn't coming in like it should. Sammis
went out into the jungle for a palaver with the chiefs to find out
why. And he didn't come back."

"You didn't find out where he went?"

"I just told you," Morones said impatiently, "he went out to see the
native chiefs."

"Alone?"

"Of course, alone. There were only two of us Earthmen here. Couldn't
abandon this post to the wogglies, could we? Not that it'd make much
difference. Except for Nargyll, none'll come near."

"You never heard of him again?"

"No! Dammit, no! Say, didn't they have any dumber strappers around
than you? I told you once--I tell you again--I never saw hide nor hair
of him after that."

"Aw-right, aw-right!" Olear regarded Morones placidly. "And so you
took the job of factor and radioed for an assistant, and when the
assistant came he disappeared."

Morones grunted, "He went out to get acquainted with the country and
didn't come back."

Olear masked his close scrutiny of the factor under his idle and
expressionless gaze. He was not ready to jump to the conclusion that
Morones' uneasiness sprang from a sense of guilt. Guilty or not, he
had a right to feel uneasy. The man would be dense indeed if he did
not realize he was in line for suspicion, and he did not look dense.
Indeed, he was obviously a shrewd character.

"Let me see your 'lucene."

Morones rose. Despite his bulk he stepped nimbly. He had the
nimbleness of a Saturnian bear, which is great, as some of the earlier
explorers learned to their dismay.

"That's the first sensible question you've asked," Morones snorted.
"Take a look at our 'lucene. Ha! Have a good look!"

He led the way across the compound, waved his hand before the door of
a strongly built shed in a swift, definite combination, and the door
opened, revealing the interior. He waved invitingly.

"You go first," Olear said.

With a sneer Morones stepped in. "You're safe, boy, you're safe."

Olear looked at the small pile on the floor in astonishment. Instead
of the beautiful, semi-transparent chips of translucene, the dried sap
of a Mercurian tree which is invaluable to the world as the source of
an unfailing cancer cure, there were only a few dirty, dried up
shavings, hardly worth shipping back to Earth for refining. The full
significance of the affair began to dawn on the officer. The
translucene trees grew only in this favored section of Mercury, and
the Earth company had a monopoly of the entire supply. Justly, for
only on Earth was cancer known, and it was on the increase. That
small, almost useless pile on the floor connoted a terrible drug
famine for the human race.

Morones' smile might have been a grin of satisfaction, at Olear's
question:

"Is that all you've bought since the last freighter was here?"'

"It is," he replied. "The last load went off six months ago, and this
here shed should be full to the eaves. There'll be hell to pay."

"It may not be tactful," Olear remarked, "but if you've got your
takings cached away somewhere to hold up the Earth for a big ransom,
you'd better come across right now. You can't get by with it, fellow.
You should have close to six million dollars' worth of it, and you
can't get away. You just can't."

Morones controlled his anger with an effort.

"Like any dumb strapper, you've got your mind made up, ain't you?
Well, go ahead. Get something on me. Here I was almost set to give you
a lead that might get you somewhere. And you come shooting
off--trying to make out I stole the 'lucene and killed those two
fellows, eh? Go ahead! Get something on me! But not on Company
grounds. You're leaving now!"

With that he made a lunge at the officer, quite beside himself with
rage. Olear could have burnt him down, but he was far too experienced
for such an amateurish trick. Instead he ducked to evade Morones'
blow. But the big man was as agile as a panther. In mid-air, so it
seemed, he changed his direction of attack. The big fist swept
downward, striking Olear's head a glancing blow.

But the men of the Force have always been fighters, whatever their
shortcomings as diplomats. Olear countered with a strong right to the
body, thudding solidly, for Morones' softness did not go far below the
surface. The factor whirled instantly, but not quite fast enough to
bar the door. Olear was out and inside his ship in a few seconds,
slamming the hatch.

"Tact!" he grinned to himself, inserting the activator key. "Tact is
what a fella needs." The little space flier shot aloft, until the tiny
figure of the factor stopped shaking its fist and entered the
residence. The post had a flier of its own, of course, but Morones was
too wise to use it in pursuit.

Olear considered what was best to do. Of course he could have placed
Morones under arrest; could still do it; but that would not solve the
mystery of the two deaths and the missing 'lucene. If the choleric
factor was really guilty of the crimes, it would be better to let him
go his way in the hope that he would betray himself. Olear regretted
that he had not kept his tongue under closer curb. But there was no
use regretting. Perhaps, after all, he ought to turn back to pump
Morones for some helpful information.

His mind made up, he descended again until he was hovering a few feet
from the ground.

"Morones!" he called. "Morones!" He held the hatch open.

Morones came to the door of the residence. He had a tube in his hand,
a long-range weapon.

"Morones," Olear declared pompously. "I place you under arrest!"

The effect was instantaneous. Morones lifted the tube, and a
glimmering, iridescent beam sprang out. The ship was up and away in a
second, lurching and shivering uncomfortably every time the beam
struck it in its upward flight. A good few seconds continued
impingement....

But a miss is as good as a light-year. Miles high, Olear looked into
his telens. Morones had laid aside his tube and was working with an
instrument like a twin transit. Plotting the ship's course, naturally.
Olear set his course for the Earth, and kept on it for a good
twenty-four hours. Morones, if he was still watching him, would think
he'd gone back for reinforcements. Such an assumption would be
incredible now, but that was before the I. F. P. had achieved its
present tremendous reputation.

Beyond observation range, Olear curved back toward Mercury again, and
was almost inside its atmosphere when he made a discovery that caused
him to lose for a moment his natural indifference, and to clamp his
jaws in anger. The current oxygen tank became empty, and when he
removed it from the rack and put in a new one he found someone had let
out all of this essential gas. The valve of every one of the spare
tanks had been opened. Had Olear actually continued on his way to
Earth he would have perished miserably of suffocation long before he
could have returned to the Mercurian atmosphere. The officer whistled
tunelessly through his teeth as he considered this fact.

The visibility was by this time normal; that is, so poor it would have
been possible to land very close to the trading station. Olear was
taking no chances, however, and came down a good three Earth miles
away. The egg-shaped hull sank through the glossy, brilliant treetops,
through twisted vines, and was buried in the dank gloom of the jungle.
Here it might remain hidden for a hundred years.

The twilight of the jungle was almost darkness. Landmarks were not.
But Olear made a few small, inconspicuous marks on trees with his
knife until he came to an outcropping rock. He had noticed the
scarlike white of it slashing through the jungle from the air, and
used it as a guide to direct his stealthy return to the trading post.
His belt chronometer told him it would be about time for Morones to
get up from his "night's" sleep. A little discreet observation might
tell much.

Long before he reached the compound, Olear heard the rushing of the
great Blue River in its headlong plunge to the corrosive heat of the
desert. And then, through the mists, he glimpsed the white metal walls
of the Company sheds.

He climbed a tree and for a long time watched patiently, lying prone on
a limb. Blood-sucking insects tortured him, and flat tree-lice,
resembling discs with legs, crawled over him inquisitively. Olear
tolerated them with stoic indifference until at last his patience was
rewarded. Morones was coming out of the compound. He was alone and
obviously did not suspect that he was being watched, for he stepped
out briskly. Once in the jungle he walked even faster, watching out
warily for the panther-like carnivora that were the most dangerous to
man on Mercury.

Olear shinned to the ground and followed cautiously. Morones had his
ray-tube with him, as any traveler in these jungles did. Olear could
and did draw fast, but a dead trader would be valueless to him in his
investigation, so he stalked him with every faculty strained to
maintain complete silence. Often, in occasional clearings where the
brown darkness grew less, he had to grovel on the slimy ground,
picking up large bacteria that could be seen with the naked eye, and
which left tiny, festering red marks on the skin. Mercury has no
snakes.

The trader seemed to be heading for higher ground, for the path led
ever upward, though not far from the tossing waters of the river. And
then, suddenly, he disappeared.

Olear did not immediately hurry after him. A canny fugitive, catching
sight of his pursuer, might suddenly drop to the ground and squirm to
the side of the trail, there to wait and catch his pursuer as he
passed. So Olear sidled into the all but impenetrable underbrush and
slowly, with infinite caution, wormed his way along.

Presently he came to the little rise of ground where Morones had
disappeared, but a painstaking search did not reveal the factor. There
were, however, a number of other trails that joined the very faint
trail he had been following, and now there was a well-defined track
which continued to lead upward. With a grimace of disgust Olear again
plunged into the odorous underbrush and traveled parallel to the
trail. It was well he did so, for several Mercurians passed swiftly,
intent, so it seemed, in answering a shrill call that at times came
faintly to the ear. They carried slender spears.

Several more Mercurians passed. The growth was thinning out, and Olear
did not dare to proceed further. However, from his hiding place he
could discern a number of irregular cave openings, apparently leading
downward. They were apparently the entrances to one of the native
cavern colonies, or possibly of a meeting place. No Earthman had ever
entered one, but it was thought they had underground openings into the
river.

As the cave openings were obviously natural, Olear conjectured that
there might be others that were not used. After an anxious search he
found one, narrow and irregular, well hidden under the broad, glossy
leaves of some uncatalogued vegetation. As it showed no evidence of
use, Olear unhesitatingly slid down into it. It was very narrow and
irregular, so that often he was barely able to squeeze through. The
roots of trees choked the passage for a dozen feet or so, requiring
the vigorous use of a knife. Bathed in sweat, his uniform a filthy
mass of rags, Olear at last saw light.

The passage ended abruptly near the roof of a large natural cavern.
Lights glistened on stalactites which cut off Olear's larger view, and
voices came from below. By craning his neck the officer could look
between the pendent icicles of rock and see a fire burning on a huge
oblong block of stone. Figures were sitting on the floor around this
block--hundreds of Mercurians. The leaping flames made their white and
green faces and bodies look frog-like and less human than usual.

But the figure that dominated the whole assemblage, both by its own
hugeness and the magnetic power that flowed from it, was not of
Mercury but of Pluto. For the benefit of those who have never seen a
stuffed Plutonian in our museums--and they are very rare--let me refer
you to the pious books still to be found in ancient library
collections. The ancients personified their fears and hates in a being
they called the Devil. The resemblance between the Devil of their
imagination and a Plutonian is really astounding. Horns, hoofs,
tail--almost to the smallest detail, the resemblance is there.

Philosophers have written books on the "coincidence" in appearance of
the ancient Devil and the modern decadent Plutonians. The Plutonians
were once numerous and far advanced in science, and no doubt they
called on the Earth many times, in prehistoric days, and the so-called
Devil was a true picture of those vicious invaders, who are somewhat
less human than usually portrayed. What was once classed as
superstition was therefore a true racial memory. Long before our
ancestors came out of their caves to build houses, the Plutonians had
mastered interplanetary travel--only to forget the secret until human
ingenuity should reveal it once more.

The modern Plutonian in that dank cave was over ten feet tall, and it
is easy to see why he dominated the assemblage. His black visage was
set in an evil smile; his ebony body glistened in the firelight. He
held a three-pronged spear in one hand, and sat on a pile of rocks, a
sort of rough throne, so that he towered magnificently above all
others.

He spoke the Mercurian language, although the liquid intonations came
harshly from his sneering lips.

"Are ye assembled, frogfolk, that ye may hear the decision of your
Thinking Ones?" he asked.

A respectful peeping chorus signified assent. But in that there was a
hint of unrest; even of fear.

"Speak, ye Thinking One, your commands!"

"Hear me first!" An old Mercurian, unusually tall, faded and dry
looking, his thick hide wrinkled like crushed leather, rose slowly to
his feet and stepped before the oblong stone. His back was to the
Plutonian, his face to the crescent of chiefs.

"The Old Wise One!" A twittering murmur went around the assemblage.
"Hear the Old Wise One!"

"My people, I like this not!" began the ancient. "The Lords of the
Green Star[1] have dealt with us fairly. Each phase[2] they have
brought us the things we wanted"--he touched his spear and a few gaudy
ornaments on his otherwise naked body--"in exchange for the worthless
white sap of our trees. If we longer offend the Lords of the Green
Star--"

[Footnote 1: In their various languages, almost all solar races call
Earth "The Green Star." Although conditions on Mercury are
unfavorable, Earth can be seen from the dark star, on mountain tops,
during occasional dispersals of the cloud masses.]

[Footnote 2: The Mercurians had no conception of time before the
Earthmen came. A "phase" is the time between calls of the freight
ships, and is therefore variable; but in those days it was about six
or seven months.]

A raucous laugh interrupted the Mercurian's feeble voice, and it
echoed eerily from the walls of the chamber.

"Valueless ye call the white sap?" sneered the Plutonian. "Hear me.
That sap you call valueless is dearer than life itself to the Lords of
the Green Star. For they are afflicted in great numbers with a
stinking death they call cancer. It destroys their vitals, and
nothing--nothing in this broad universe can help them save this white
sap ye give them. In your hands ye have the power to bring the proud
Lords of the Green Star to their knees. They would fill this chamber
many times with their most priceless treasures for the sap ye give
them so freely. Withhold the sap, and your Thinking Ones may go to the
Green Star itself to rule over its Lords. They are desperate. Their
emissaries may even now be on the way to beg your pleasure. Speak,
Thinking Ones! Would ye not rule the Green Star?"

But the chiefs failed to become enthused. One of them rose and
addressed the Plutonian:

"O Lord of the Outer Orbit! For near one full phase have ye dwelt
among us. And well should ye know we have no desire for conquest. We
fear to go to the Green Star to rule."

"Then let me rule for ye!" exclaimed the Plutonian instantly. "My
brothers will abide with ye as your guests--shall see that ye receive
a fair reward for the white sap; and I will convey your commands to
the Lords of the Green Star."

The Old Wise One raised his withered hands, so that the uncertain
twittering of voices which followed the Plutonian's suggestion
subsided.

"My children," piped the feeble old voice, "the Black Lord has spoken
cunning words, but they are false. It is plain to see that he desires
to rule the Green Star, and our welfare does not concern him."

"If so it be that the white sap is of great value to the Lords of the
Green Star, it is still of no value to us; and if the gifts they bring
to us are of no value to them, they are dear to us."

The Plutonian sneered.

"Dearer than the Paste of Strange Dreams?"

A startled hush fell among the assembled Mercurians. They looked
guiltily at one another, avoiding the eyes of the Old Wise One.

"What is this?" shrilled he, turning furiously to the Plutonian. "Have
ye brought the paste of evil to our abode, knowing well the strict
proscription of our tribe? Fool! Your death is upon ye!"

But the Plutonian only grinned and spread his glistening, black hands
in a careless gesture. High overhead, peering through the
stalactites, Olear instantly understood the Plutonian's strange power,
the Paste of Strange Dreams, a fearsome narcotic of that far-swinging
dark planet. More insidious and devastating than any drug ever
produced on Earth, it had wrought frightful havoc among many solar
races. The Earthmen had opened the lanes, broken the age-old barriers
of distance, so that the harpies of evil could traffic their poison
from planet to planet. So the Paste of Strange Dreams was added to the
Earthman's burden.

"Seize him--the Evil One!" shrieked the old chief, but the Mercurians
sat sullen and silent, and the Plutonian sneered.

Finally one of the chiefs arose and with an effort faced the Old Wise
One and said:

"The Strange Dreams are dearer to us than all else. Do as he says."

The piping voices rose in eager acclamation, but the Old Wise One held
up his claws, waiting until silence returned.

"Wait! Wait! Before ye commit this folly, hear the Green Star man.
Many times has he demanded audience. Let him come in."

"It is not permitted," demurred one of the chiefs.

"Ye permitted this being of evil to enter; let him enter also."

"He is in the outer chambers now," one of the guards spoke. "His face
is like the center of a ringstorm."

"Let him enter!"

Morones strode into the room angrily. Blinded by the fire after the
darkness of the antechambers, he did not at first see the Plutonian.
He strode up to the ancient chief and glared at him.

"Does the Old Wise One learn wisdom at last?" he rasped. The ancient
shrank away from him, as did the nearer of the lesser chiefs.

"The Old Wise One thinks less of his wisdom," he replied wearily.
"Behold!" He pointed to the enthroned Plutonian.

Morones started. His hand flashed to his side, and came away empty.
Deft fingers had extracted his ray-tube. But he was a man of courage.
Never could it be said to his shame that an Earthman cringed in the
sight of lesser races.

"So it's you, my sooty friend!" he snarled in English. The Plutonian,
accomplished linguist, replied:

"As you see. You don't look very happy, Mr. Morones."

Morones regarded him impassively, his eyes frosty.

"That explains everything," he said at last with cold deliberation.
"First Sammis, then Boyd. Going to finish me next, I suppose?"

The Plutonian twisted the end of an eyebrow and smiled.

"Interested in them?"

"What'd you do with the bodies?"

The Plutonian jerked his thumb carelessly. "The river you call the
Blue is swift and deep. But before you follow them there is certain
information I wish to get from you. Where is the soldier who came to
visit you?"

A crafty light came into Morones' face.

"He is not far from here, waiting for me."

Olear, in his cramped hiding place, could not help feeling a warm glow
of admiration for Morones' nerve, because Morones thought him well on
his way to Earth.

"Nargyll, what did your master do with the visitor?"

"Drove him back to the Green Star," Nargyll said promptly.

"And the oxygen tanks. Did you empty them?"

"I let them hiss." Nargyll's grin was sharkish.

"News to you, eh, Morones? Your officer's corpse has probably dropped
into the sun by this time. Tell me, why did you drive him off?"

Morones sagged perceptibly. To gain a little time he said truthfully:

"I knew I should be blamed and ruined for life. I didn't know you were
here, damn you! I hoped to get this mess with the natives straightened
up before he'd come back with reinforcements."

"Yes. Well, you owe some months of life already. Your presence here
has been more or less embarrassing, but I had to let you live or I'd
have had the whole I. F. P. here to investigate. Now that you've
failed in keeping them from getting interested you may do me one more
service." The black giant grinned.

"I've often wondered at the Earthman's prestige all over the solar
system. Even to-night, soft and helpless as you are, these natives
fear you. You will, therefore, be an object lesson in the helplessness
of Earthmen."

Morones was pale but courageous. With contempt in every line of him he
watched some of the less frightened chiefs, at the command of the
Plutonian, push aside some of the blazing blocks of fungus on the
stone, to make room for his body. At last he raised his hand.

"Frogfolk!" he cried, "if ye do this thing, the Lords of the Green
Star will come. They will come with fires hotter than the sun; they
will blast your rivers with a power greater than the thunder of the
ringstorms; they will fill your caves with a purple smoke that turns
your bones to water--"

Shrill cries of fear almost drowned out his words. All the Mercurians
had seen evidences of the dreadful power of the Earthmen. They began
milling around, then stood rooted by the roar of the Plutonian's
voice.

"Lies! Lies!" he bellowed. "See, they are weak as egglets!" He stepped
down, picked Morones up by one shoulder, and held him, dangling, high
over the heads of all. Morones clawed and tore at the brawny arm. He
made a ludicrous picture. Soon the simple natives made a sniffling
sound of mirth, and the Plutonian, satisfied at last, set him down
again.

"He tells truth!" The Old Wise One had climbed to the top of the stone
block. "The Lords of the Green Star have their power not in their
bodies, but it is great. It is greater far than the frogfolk. It is
greater than the Lords of the Outer Orbit. They will come even as the
surly one has said, and great shall be our sorrow. It is not yet too
late. Release him, and deliver to him the white sap. Seize this evil
one--"

The feeble, fickle minds were being swayed again. In a gust of
impatience, the Plutonian stepped down, seized the aged chief's skinny
body in his great black hands, and snapped him in two. There was a
tearing of tough cords and tissue, and the two halves fell into the
fire.

For an instant the Mercurians were stunned. Then some of them vented
hissing sounds of rage, while others prostrated themselves on the
floor. The black giant watched them narrowly for a moment, then turned
his attention to Morones. He seized him by the arm and drew him slowly
and irresistibly to him.

The murder of the Old Wise One had been done so quickly that Olear was
unable to prevent it. Had he been able to use his ray weapon he could
have burned the Plutonian down, but it had been bent at one of the
narrow turns of the crevice he had come down. The need for extreme
lightness in weapons was rather overdone in those early times, and a
little rough handling made them useless.

So now Olear, weaponless except for the service knife at his belt,
began the hazardous undertaking of climbing among the stalactites to a
position approximately above the Plutonian's head. The job required
judgment. Some of the stone masses were insecurely anchored and would
crash down at the lightest touch. Some were spaced so closely together
that he could not get between them. Others were so far apart that it
was difficult to get from one to another.

Yet he made it somehow, and unnoticed, for all eyes were turned on the
tense drama being enacted below. From almost directly overhead he saw
Morones being drawn upward.

"You saw," the Plutonian was saying triumphantly in Mercurian, "--you
saw me unmake your Old Fool. And now you will see that a Lord of the
Green Star is even softer, even weaker--"

Morones, in that pitiless grasp, turned his face to the hateful
grinning visage above him. In his last extremity he was still angry.

"You devil!" Morones shouted. "You may murder me, but they'll get you!
They'll get you!"

"Who'll get me?" the Plutonian purred silkily, deferring the pleasure
of the kill for another moment. Morones was having trouble with his
breathing. His red face lolled from side to side, his eyes rolled in
agony. Suddenly he saw Olear. Unbelieving, he relaxed.

"I'm seein' things!" he breathed.

"Who'll get me?" persisted the Plutonian, applying a little more
pressure.

"The I. F. P.!" Morones gasped.

"Well, you little son-of-a-gun!" Olear thought, and then he jumped.

He landed a-straddle the neck of the Plutonian, which was almost like
forking a horse. One brawny arm seized a horn. The other, with a
lightning-swift dart, brought the point of the long service-knife to
the pulsing black throat.

"Put him down!" Olear spoke into the great pointed ear. "Easy!"

Back on his feet, Morones began bellowing at the Mercurians. Utterly
demoralized, they fled pell-mell. Morones came back. He said:

"Nothing to tie him up with."

"That's all right," Olear replied, studiously keeping the knife point
at exactly the right place, "I'll ride him in. Get going, you, and be
tactful when you go through the door, or this sticker of mine might
slip!" With extreme care the Plutonian did exactly as Olear ordered
him to.

It was necessary to radio for one of the larger patrol ships to take
Olear's enormous prisoner back to Earth for his trial. The officer
testified, of course, and the Plutonian was duly sentenced to death
for the murder of the old Mercurian. Execution by dehydration was
decreed, so that the body would be uninjured for scientific study; and
to-day it is considered one of the finest specimens extant.

In his testimony, however, Olear so minimized his own connection with
the case that he received no public recognition. It was not until some
months afterward, when Morones, on leave, rode back with a shipload of
translucene, that the whole story came out, emphatically and
profanely. Olear finally consented to speak a few words for the
Telephoto News Co. As he stepped off the little platform deferential
hands tried to push him back.

"You haven't told them who you are," protested the announcer. "Give
your name and rank."

"Aw, they don't have to know that!" Olear rejoined, keeping on going.
"They know it's one of the Force. That's all they have to know.
Besides there's a blackjack game going on and I'm losing money every
minute I'm out of it."

The Exile of Time

PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

_By Ray Cummings_

WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

[Illustration: _"Look!" exclaimed Larry._]

[Sidenote: Larry and George from 1935, Mary from 1777--all are caught
up in the treacherous Tugh's revolt of the Robots, in the Time-world
of 2930.]

There came a girl's scream, and muffled, frantic words.

"Let me out! Let me out!"

Then we saw her white face at the basement window. This, which was the
start of the extraordinary incidents, occurred on the night of June
8-9, 1935.

My name is George Rankin, and with my friend, Larry Gregory, we
rescued the girl who was imprisoned in the deserted house on Patton
Place, New York City. We thought at first that she was demented--this
strangely beautiful girl in long white satin dress, white powdered wig
and a black beauty patch on her check. She said she had come from the
year 1777, that her father was Major Atwood, of General Washington's
staff! Her name was Mistress Mary Atwood.

It was a strange story she had to tell us. A cage of shining metal
bars had materialized in her garden, and a mechanical man had come
from it--a Robot ten feet tall. It had captured her; brought her to
1935; left her, and vanished saying it would return.

We went back to that house on Patton Place. The cage did return, and
Larry and I fought the strange monster. We were worsted, and the Robot
seized Mary and me and whirled us back into Time in its room-like cage
of shining bars. Larry recovered his senses, rushed into Patton
Place, and there encountered another, smaller, Time-traveling cage,
and was himself taken off in it.

But the occupants of Larry's smaller cage were friendly. They were a
man and a girl of 2930 A.D.! The girl was the Princess Tina, and the
man, Harl, a young scientist of that age. With an older scientist--a
cripple named Tugh--Harl had invented the Time-vehicles.

We had heard of Tugh before. Mary Atwood had known him in the year
1777. He had made love to her, and when repulsed had threatened
vengeance against her father. And in 1932, a cripple named Tugh had
gotten into trouble with the police and had vowed some strange weird
vengeance against the city officials and the city itself. More than
that, the very house on Patton Place from which we had rescued Mary
Atwood, was owned by this man named Tugh, who was wanted by the police
but could not be found!

Tugh's vengeance was presently demonstrated, for in June, 1935, a
horde of Robots appeared. With flashing swords and red and violet
light beams the mechanical men spread about the city massacring the
people; they brought midsummer snow with their frigid red rays; and
then, in a moment, torrid heat and boiling rain. Three days and nights
of terror ensued; then the Robots silently withdrew into the house on
Patton Place and vanished. The New York City of 1935 lay wrecked; the
vengeance of Tugh against it was complete.

Larry, going back in Time now, was told by Harl and Princess Tina that
a Robot named Migul--a mechanism almost human from the Time-world of
2930--had stolen the larger cage and was running amuck through Time.
The strange world of 2930 was described to Larry--a world in which
nearly-human mechanisms did all the work. These Robots, diabolically
developed, were upon the verge of revolt. The world of machinery was
ready to assail its human masters!

Migul was an insubordinate Robot, and Harl and Tina were chasing it.
They whirled Larry back into Time, and they saw the larger cage stop
at a night in the year 1777--the same night from which Mary Atwood had
been stolen. They stopped there. Harl remained in the little cage to
guard it, while Tina and Larry went outside.

It was night, and the house of Major Atwood was nearby. British
redcoats had come to capture the colonial officer; but all they found
was his murdered body lying in the garden. Migul the Robot had chained
Mary and me to the door of his cage; had briefly stopped in the garden
and killed the major, and then had departed with us.

We now went back to the Beginning of Time, for the other cage was
again chasing us. Reaching the Beginning, we swept forward, and the
whole vast panorama of the events of Time passed in review before us.
Suddenly we found that Tugh himself was hiding in our cage! We had not
known it, nor had Migul, our Robot captor. Tugh was hiding here, not
trusting Migul to carry out his orders!

We realized now that all these events were part of the wild vengeance
of this hideously repulsive cripple. Migul was a mere machine carrying
out Tugh's orders. Tugh, in 2930, was masquerading as a friend of the
Government; but in reality it was he who was fomenting the revolt of
the Robots.

Tugh now took command of our cage. The smaller cage had only Harl in
it now, for Larry and Tina were marooned in 1777. Harl was chasing us.
Tugh stopped us in the year 762 A.D. We found that the space around
us now was a forest recently burned. Five hundred feet from us was the
space which held Harl's cage.

Presently it materialized! Mary and I were helpless. We stood watching
Tugh, as he crouched on the floor of our cage near its opened doorway.
A ray cylinder was in his hand, with a wire running to a battery in
the cage corner. He had forced Mary and me to stand at the window
where Harl would see us and be lured to approach.

From Harl's cage, five hundred feet across the blackened forest glade
of that day of 762, Harl came cautiously forward. Abruptly Tugh fired.
His cylinder shot a horizontal beam of intense actinic light. It
struck Harl full, and he fell.

Swiftly his body decomposed; and soon in the sunlight of the glade lay
a sagging heap of black and white garments enveloping the skeleton of
what a moment before had been a man!

CHAPTER XIV

A Very Human Princess

That night in 1777 near the home of the murdered Major Atwood brought
to Larry the most strangely helpless feeling he had ever experienced.
He crouched with Tina beneath a tree in a corner of the field, gazing
with horror at the little moonlit space by the fence where their
Time-traveling vehicle should have been but now was gone.

Marooned in 1777! Larry had not realized how desolately remote this
Revolutionary New York was from the great future city in which he had
lived. The same space; but what a gulf between him and 1935! What a
barrier of Time, impassable without the shining cage!

They crouched, whispering. "But why would he have gone, Tina?"

"I don't know. Harl is very careful; so something or someone must have
passed along here, and he left, rather than cause a disturbance. He
will return, of course."

"I hope so," whispered Larry fervently. "We are marooned here, Tina!
Heavens, it would be the end of us!"

"We must wait. He will return."

They huddled in the shadow of the tree. Behind them there was a
continued commotion at the Atwood home, and presently the mounted
British officers came thudding past on the road, riding for
headquarters at the Bowling Green to report the strange Atwood murder.

The night wore on. Would Harl return? If not to-night, then probably
to-morrow, or to-morrow night. In spite of his endeavor to stop
correctly, he could so easily miss this night, these particular hours.

Harl had met his death, as I have described. We never knew exactly
what he did, of course, after leaving that night of 1777. It seems
probable, however, that some passer-by startled him into flashing away
into Time. Then he must have seen with his instrument evidence of the
other cage passing, and impulsively followed it--to his death in the
burned forest of the year 762.

Larry and Tina waited. The dawn presently began paling the stars; and
still Harl did not come. The little space by the fence corner was
empty.

"It will soon be daylight," Larry whispered. "We can't stay here:
we'll be discovered."

They were anachronisms in this world; misfits; futuristic beings who
dared not show themselves.

Larry touched his companion--the slight little creature who was a
Princess in her far-distant future age. But to Larry now she was just
a girl.

"Frightened, Tina?"

"A little."

He laughed softly. "It would be fearful to be marooned here
permanently, wouldn't it? You don't think Harl would desert us?
Purposely, I mean?"

"No, of course not."

"Then we'll expect him to-morrow night. He wouldn't stop in the
daylight, I guess."

"I don't think so. He would reason that I would not expect him."

"Then we must find shelter, and food, and be here to-morrow night. It
seems long to us, Tina, but in the cage it's just an instant--just a
trifle different setting of the controls."

She smiled her pale, stern smile. "You have learned quickly, Larry.
That is true."

A sudden emotion swept him. His hand found hers; and her fingers
answered the pressure of his own. Here in this remote Time-world they
felt abruptly drawn together.

He murmured, "Tina, you are--" But he never finished.

The cage was coming! They stood tense, watching the fence corner
where, in the flat dawn light, the familiar misty shadow was
gathering. Harl was returning to them.

The cage flashed silently into being. They stood peering, ready to run
to it. The door slid aside.

But it was not Harl who came out. It was Tugh, the cripple. He stood
in the doorway, a thick-set, barrel-chested figure of a man in a wide
leather jacket, a broad black belt and short flaring leather
pantaloons.

"Tugh!" exclaimed Tina.

The cripple advanced. "Princess, is it you?" He was very wary. His
gaze shot at Larry and back to Tina. "And who is this?"

A hideously repulsive fellow, Larry thought this Tugh. He saw his
shriveled, bent legs, crooked hips, and wide thick shoulders set
askew--a goblin, in a leather jerkin. His head was overlarge, with a
bulging white forehead and a mane of scraggly black hair shot with
grey. But Larry could not miss the intellectuality marking his
heavy-jowled face; the keenness of his dark-eyed gaze.

These were instant impressions. Tina had drawn Larry forward. "Where
is Harl?" she demanded imperiously. "How have you come to have the
cage, Tugh?"

"Princess, I have much to tell," he answered, and his gaze roved the
field. "But it is dangerous here; I am glad I have found you. Harl
sent me to this night, but I struck it late. Come, Tina--and your
strange-looking friend."

It impressed Larry then, and many times afterward, that Tugh's gaze at
him was mistrustful, wary.

"Come, Larry," said Tina. And again she demanded of Tugh, "I ask you,
where is Harl?"

"At home. Safe at home, Princess." He gestured toward Major Atwood's
house, which now in the growing daylight showed more plainly under its
shrouding trees. "That space off there holds our other cage as you
know, Tina. You and Harl were pursuing that other cage?"

"Yes," she agreed.

They had stopped at the doorway, where Tugh stood slightly inside.
Larry whispered:

"What does this mean, Tina?"

Tugh said, "Migul, the mechanism, is running wild in the other cage.
But you and Harl knew that?"

"Yes," she answered, and said softly to Larry, "We will go. But,
Larry, watch this Tugh! Harl and I never trusted him."

Tugh's manner was a combination of the self-confidence of a man of
standing and the deference due his young Princess. He was closing the
door, and saying:

"Migul, that crazy, insubordinate machine, captured a man from 1935
and a girl from 1777. But they are safe: he did not harm them. Harl is
with them."

"In our world, Tugh?"

"Yes; at home. And we have Migul chained. Harl captured and subdued
him."

Tugh was at the controls. "May I take you and this friend of yours
home, Princess?"

She whispered to Larry, "I think it is best, don't you?"

Larry nodded.

She murmured, "Be watchful, Larry!" Then, louder: "Yes, Tugh. Take
us."

Tugh was bending over the controls.

"Ready now?"

"Yes," said Tina.

Larry's senses reeled momentarily as the cage flashed off into Time.

It was a smooth story which Tugh had to tell them; and he told it
smoothly. His dark eyes swung from Tina to Larry.

"I talked with that other young man from your world. George Rankin, he
said his name was. He is somewhat like you: dressed much the same and
talks little. The girl calls herself Mary Atwood." He went on and told
them an elaborate, glib story, all of which was a lie. It did not
wholly deceive Larry and Tina, yet they could not then prove it false.
The gist of it was that Mary and I were with Harl and the subdued
Migul in 2930.

"It is strange that Harl did not come for us himself," said Tina.

Tugh's gaze was imperturbable as he answered. "He is a clever young
man, but he cannot be expected to handle these controls with my skill,
Princess, and he knows it; so he sent me. You see, he wanted very much
to strike just this night and this hour, so as not to keep you
waiting."

He added, "I am glad to have you back. Things are not well at home,
Princess. This insubordinate adventure of Migul's has been bad for the
other mechanisms. News of it has spread, and the revolt is very near.
What we are to do I cannot say, but I do know we did not like your
absence."

The trip which Larry and Tina now took to 2930 A.D. consumed, to their
consciousness of the passing of Time, some three hours. They
discovered that they were hungry, and Tugh produced food and drink.

Larry spent much of the time with Tina at the window, gazing at the
changing landscape while she told him of the events which to her were
history--the recorded things on the Time-scroll which separated her
world and his.

Tugh busied himself about the vehicle and left them much to
themselves. They had ample opportunity to discuss him and his story of
Harl. It must be remembered that Larry had no knowledge of Tugh, save
the story which Alten had told of a cripple named Tugh in New York in
1933-34; and Mary Atwood's mention of the coincidence of the Tugh she
knew in 1777.

But Tina had known this Tugh for years. Though she, like Harl, had
never liked him, nevertheless he was a trusted and influential man in
her world. Proof of his activities in other Time-worlds, there was
none so far, from Tina's viewpoint. Nor did Larry and Tina know as yet
of the devastation of New York in 1935; nor of the murder of Major
Atwood. The capture of Mary and me, the fight with the Robot in the
back yard of the house on Patton Place--in all these incidents of the
bandit cage, only Migul had figured. Migul--an insubordinate, crazy
mechanism running amuck.

Yet upon Larry and Tina was a premonition that Tugh, here with them
now and so suavely friendly, was their real enemy.

"I wouldn't trust him," Larry whispered, "any further than I can see
him. He's planning something, but I don't know what."

"But perhaps--and this I have often thought, Larry--perhaps it is his
aspect. He looks so repulsive--"

Larry shook his head. "He does, for a fact; but I don't mean that.
What Mary Atwood told me of the Tugh she knew, described the fellow.
And so did Alten describe him. And in 1934 he murdered a girl: don't
forget that, Tina--he, or someone who looked remarkably like him, and
had the same name."

But they knew that the best thing they could do now was to get to
2930. Larry wanted to join me again, and Tugh maintained I was there.
Well, they would soon find out....

As they passed the shadowy world of 1935, a queer emotion gripped
Larry. This was his world, and he was speeding past it to the future.
He realized then that he wanted to be assured of my safety, and that
of Mary Atwood and Harl; but what lay closest to his heart was the
welfare of the Princess Tina. Princess? He never thought of her as
that, save that it was a title she carried. She seemed just a small,
strangely-solemn white-faced girl. He could not conceive returning to
his own world and having her speed on, leaving him forever.

His thoughts winged ahead. He touched Tina as they stood together at
the window gazing out at the shadowy New York City. It was now 1940.

"Tina," he said, "if our friends are safe in your world--"

"If only they are, Larry!"

"And if your people there are in trouble, in danger--you will let me
help?"

She turned abruptly to regard him, and he saw a mist of tenderness in
the dark pools of her eyes.

"In history, Larry, I have often been interested in reading of a
strange custom outgrown by us and supposed to be meaningless. Yet
maybe it is not. I mean--"

She was suddenly breathless. "I mean even a Princess, as they call me,
likes to--to be human. I want to--I mean I've often wondered--and
you're so dear--I want to try it. Was it like this? Show me."

She reached up, put her arms about his neck and kissed him!

CHAPTER XV

_A Thousand Years into the Future_

1930 to 2930--a thousand years in three hours. It was sufficiently
slow traveling so that Larry could see from the cage window the actual
detailed flow of movement: the changing outline of material objects
around him. There had been the open country of Revolutionary times
when this space was north of the city. It was a grey, ghostly
landscape of trees and the road and the shadowy outlines of the Atwood
house five hundred feet away.

Larry saw the road widen. The fence suddenly was gone. The trees were
suddenly gone. The shapes of houses were constantly appearing; then
melting down again, with others constantly rearing up to take their
places; and always there were more houses, and larger, more enduring
ones. And then the Atwood house suddenly melted: a second or two, and
all evidence of it and the trees about it were gone.

There was no road; it was a city street now; and it had widened so
that the cage was poised near the middle of it. And presently the
houses were set solid along its borders.

At 1910 Larry began to recognize the contour of the buildings: The
antiquated Patton Place. But the flowing changing outlines adjusted
themselves constantly to a more familiar form. The new apartment
house, down the block in which Larry and I lived, rose and assembled
itself like a materializing spectre. A wink or two of Larry's eyelids
and it was there. He recalled the months of its construction.

The cage, with Larry as a passenger, could not have stopped in these
years: he realized it, now. There was a nameless feeling, a repulsion
against stopping; it was indescribable, but he was aware of it. He had
lived these years once, and they were forbidden to him again.

The cage was still in its starting acceleration. They swept through
the year 1935, and then Larry was indefinably aware that the forbidden
area had passed.

They went through those few days of June, 1935, during which Tugh's
Robots had devastated the city, but it was too brief an action to make
a mark that Larry could see. It left a few very transitory marks,
however. Larry noticed that along the uneven line of ghostly
roof-tops, blobs of emptiness had appeared; he saw a short distance
away that several of the houses had melted down into ragged, tumbled
heaps. These were where the bombs had struck, dropped by the
Government planes in an endeavor to wreck the Tugh house from which
the Robots were appearing. But the ragged, broken areas were filled in
a second--almost as soon as Larry realized they were there--and new
and larger buildings than before appeared.

At sight of all this he murmured to Tina, "Something has happened
here. I wonder what?"

He chanced to turn, and saw that Tugh was regarding him very queerly;
but in a moment he forgot it in the wonders of the passage into his
future.

This growing, expanding city! It had seemed a giant to Larry in 1935,
especially after he had compared it to what it was in 1777. But now,
in 1950, and beyond to the turn of the century, he stood amazed at the
enormity of the shadowy structures rearing their spectral towers
around him. For some years Patton Place, a backward section, held its
general form; then abruptly the city engulfed it. Larry saw monstrous
buildings of steel and masonry rising a thousand feet above him. For
an instant, as they were being built he saw their skeleton outlines;
and then they were complete. Yet they were not enduring, for in every
flowing detail they kept changing.

An overhead sidewalk went like a balcony along what had been Patton
Place. Bridges and archways spanned the street. Then there came a
triple bank of overhead roadways. A distance away, a hundred feet
above the ground level, the shadowy form of what seemed a monorail
structure showed for a moment. It endured for what might have been a
hundred years, and then it was gone....

This monstrous city! By 2030 there was a vast network of traffic
levels over what had been a street. It was an arcade, now, open at the
top near the cage; but further away Larry saw where the giant
buildings had flowed and mingled over it, with the viaducts, spider
bridges and pedestrian levels plunging into tunnels to pierce through
them.

And high overhead, where the little sky which was left still showed,
Larry saw the still higher outlines of a structure which quite
evidently was a huge aerial landing stage for airliners.

It was an incredible city! There were spots of enduring light around
Larry now--the city lights which for months and years shone here
unchanged. The cage was no longer outdoors. The street which had
become an open arcade was now wholly closed. A roof was overhead--a
city roof, to shut out the inclement weather. There was artificial
light and air and weather down here, and up on the roof additional
space for the city's teeming activities.

Larry could see only a shadowy narrow vista, here indoors, but his
imagination supplied visions of what the monstrous, incredible city
must be. There was a roof, perhaps, over all Manhattan. Bridges and
viaducts would span to the great steel and stone structures across the
rivers, so that water must seem to be in a canyon far underground.
There would be a cellar to this city, incredibly intricate with
conduits of wires and drainage pipes, and on the roof rain or snow
would fall unnoticed by the millions of workers. Children born here in
poverty might never yet have seen the blue sky and the sunlight, or
know that grass was green and lush and redolent when moist with
morning dew....

Larry fancied this now to be the climax of city building here on
earth; the city was a monster, now, unmanageable, threatening to
destroy the humans who had created it.... He tried to envisage the
world; the great nations; other cities like this one. Freight
transportation would go by rail and underseas, doubtless, and all the
passengers by air....

Tina, with her knowledge of history, could sketch the events. The
Yellow War--the white races against the Orientals--was over by the
year 2000. The three great nations were organized in another
half-century: the white, the yellow and the black.

By the year 2000, the ancient dirigibles had proven impractical, and
great airliners of the plane type were encircling the earth. New
motors, wing-spreads, and a myriad devices made navigation of the
upper altitudes possible. At a hundred thousand feet, upon all the
Great Circle routes, liners were rushing at nearly a thousand miles an
hour. They would halt at intervals, to allow helicopter tenders to
come up to transfer descending passengers.

Then the etheric wave-thrust principle was discovered: by 2500 A.D.
man was voyaging out into space and Interplanetary travel began. This
brought new problems: a rush of new millions of humans to live upon
our Earth; new wars; new commerce in peace times; new ideas; new
scientific knowledge....

By 2500, the city around Larry must have reached its height. It stayed
there a half century; and then it began coming down. Its degeneration
was slow, in the beginning. First, there might have been a hole in the
arcade which was not repaired. Then others would appear, as the
neglect spread. The population left. The great buildings of metal and
stone, so solidly appearing to the brief lifetime of a single
individual, were impermanent over the centuries.

By 2600, the gigantic ghosts had all melted down. They lay in a
shadowy pile, burying the speeding cage. There was no stopping here;
there was no space unoccupied in which they could stop. Larry could
see only the tangled spectres of broken, rusting, rotting metal and
stone.

He wondered what could have done it. A storm of nature? Or had mankind
strangely turned decadent, and rushed back in a hundred years or so to
savagery? It could not have been the latter, because very soon the
ruins were moving away: the people were clearing the city site for
something new. For fifty years it went on.

Tina explained it. The age of steam had started the great city of New
York, and others like it, into its monstrous congestion of human
activity. There was steam for power and steam for slow transportation
by railroads and surface ships. Then the conquest of the air, and the
transportation of power by electricity, gradually changed things. But
man was slow to realize his possibilities. Even in 1930, all the new
elements existed; but the great cities grew monstrous of their own
momentum. Business went to the cities because the people were there;
workers flocked in because the work was there to call them.

But soon the time came when the monster city was too unwieldy. The
traffic, the drainage, the water supply could not cope with
conditions. Still, man struggled on. The workers were mere
automatons--pallid attendants of machinery; people living in a world
of beauty who never had seen it; who knew of nothing but the city
arcades where the sun never shone and where amusements were as
artificial as the light and air.

Then man awakened to his folly. Disease broke out in New York City in
2551, and in a month swept eight million people into death. The cities
were proclaimed impractical, unsafe. And suddenly the people realized
how greatly they hated the city; how strangely beautiful the world
could be in the fashion God created it....

There was, over the next fifty years, an exodus to the rural sections.
Food was produced more cheaply, largely because it was produced more
abundantly. Man found his wants suddenly simplified.

And business found that concentration was unnecessary. The telephone
and television made personal contacts not needed. The aircraft, the
high-speed auto-trucks over modern speedways, the aeroplane-motored
monorails, the rocket-trains--all these shortened distance. And, most
important of all, the transportation of electrical energy from great
central power companies made small industrial units practical even
upon remote farms. The age of electricity came into its own. The
cities were doomed....

Larry saw, through 2600 and 2700 A.D., a new form of civilization
rising around him. At first it seemed a queer combination of the old
fashioned village and a strange modernism. There were, here upon
Manhattan Island, metal houses, widely spaced in gardens, and
electrically powered factories of unfamiliar aspect. Overhead were
skeleton structures, like landing stages; and across the further
distance was the fleeting, transitory wraith of a monorail air-road.
Along the river banks were giant docks for surface vessels and sub-sea
freighters. There was a little concentration here, but not much. Man
had learned his lesson.

This was a new era. Man was striving really to play, as well as work.
But the work had to be done. With the constant development of
mechanical devices, there was always a new machine devised to help the
operation of its fellow. And over it all was the hand of the human,
until suddenly the worker found that he was no more than an attendant
upon an inanimate thing which did everything more skilfully than he
could do it. Thus came the idea of the Robot--something to attend, to
oversee, to operate machines. In Larry's time it had already begun
with a myriad devices of "automatic control." In Tina's Time-world it
reached its ultimate--and diabolical--development....

At 2900, Larry saw, five hundred feet to the east, the walls of a long
low laboratory rising. The other cage--which in 1777 was in Major
Atwood's garden, and in 1935 was in the back yard of the Tugh house on
Beckman Place--was housed now in 2930, in a room of this
laboratory....

At 2905, with the vehicle slowing for its stopping, Tina gestured
toward the walls of her palace, whose shadowy forms were rising close
at hand. Then the palace garden grew and flourished, and Larry saw
that this cage he was in was set within this garden.

"We are almost there, Larry," she said.

"Yes," he answered. An emotion gripped him. "Tina, your world--why
it's so strange! But you are not strange."

"Am I not, Larry?"

He smiled at her; he felt like showing her again that the ancient
custom of kissing was not wholly meaningless, but Tugh was regarding
them.

"I was comparing," said Larry, "that girl Mary Atwood, from the year
1777, and you. You are so different in looks, in dress, but you're
just--girls."

She laughed. "The world changes, Larry, but not human nature."

"Ready?" called Tugh. "We are here, Tina."

"Yes, Tugh. You have the dial set for the proper night and hour?"

"Of course. I make no mistake. Did I not invent these dials?"

The cage slackened through a day of sunlight; plunged into a night;
and slid to its soundless, reeling halt....

Tina drew Larry to the door and opened it upon a fragrant garden,
somnolently drowsing in the moonlight.

"This is my world, Larry," she said. "And here is my home."

Tugh was with them as they left the cage. He said:

"This is the tri-night hour of the very night you left here. Princess
Tina. You see, I calculated correctly."

"Where did you leave Harl and the two visitors?" she demanded.

"Here. Right here."

Across the garden Larry saw three dark forms coming forward. They were
three small Robots of about Tina's stature--domestic servants of the
palace. They crowded up, crying:

"Master Tugh! Princess!"

"What is it?" Tugh asked.

The hollow voices echoed with excitement as one of them said:

"Master Tugh, there has been murder here! We have dared tell no one
but you or the Princess. Harl is murdered!"

Larry chanced to see Tugh's astonished face, and in the horror of the
moment a feeling came to Larry that Tugh was acting unnaturally. He
forgot it at once; but later he was to recall it forcibly, and to
realize that the treacherous Tugh had planned this with these Robots.

"Master Tugh, Harl is murdered! Migul escaped and murdered Harl, and
took the body away with him!"

Larry was stricken dumb. Tugh seized the little Robot by his metal
shoulders. "Liar! What do you mean?"

Tina gasped, "Where are our visitors--the young man and the girl?"

"Migul took them!"

"Where?" Tina demanded.

"We don't know. We think very far down in the caverns of machinery.
Migul said he was going to feed them to the machines!"

CHAPTER XVI

_The New York of 2930_

Larry stood alone at an upper window of the palace gazing out at the
somnolent moonlit city. It was an hour or two before dawn. Tina and
Tugh had started almost at once into the underground caverns to which
Tina was told Migul had fled with his two captives. They would not
take Larry with them; the Robot workers in the subterranean chambers
were all sullen and upon the verge of a revolt, and the sight of a
strange human would have aroused them dangerously.

"It should not take long," Tina had said hastily. "I will give you a
room in which to wait for me."

"And there is food and drink," Tugh suavely urged. "And most surely
you need sleep. You too Princess," he suddenly added. "Let me go into
the caverns alone: I can do better than you; these Robots obey me. I
think I know where that rascally Migul has hidden."

"Rascally?" Larry burst out. "Is that what you call it when you've
just heard that it committed murder? Tina. I won't stay: nor will I
let--"

"Wait!" said Tina. "Tugh, look here--"

"The young man from 1935 is very positive what he will and what he
won't," Tugh observed sardonically. He drew his cloak around his squat
misshapen body, and shrugged.

"But I won't let you go," Larry finished. The palace was somnolent;
the officials were asleep: none had heard of the murder. Strangely lax
was the human government here. Larry had sensed this when he suggested
that police or an official party be sent at once to capture Migul and
rescue Mary Atwood and me.

"It could not be done," Tina exclaimed. "To organize such a party
would take hours. And--"

"And the Robots," Tugh finished with a sour smile, "would openly
revolt when such a party came at them! You have no idea what you
suggest, young man. To avoid an open revolt--that is our chief aim.
Besides, if you rushed at Migul it would frighten him; and then he
would surely kill his captives, if he has not done so already."

That silenced Larry. He stared at them hopelessly while they argued it
out: and the three small domesticated Robots stood by, listening
curiously.

"I'll go with you, Tugh." Tina decided. "Perhaps, without making any
demonstration of force, we can find Migul."

Tugh bowed. "Your will is mine, Princess. I think I can find him and
control him to prevent harm to his captives."

He was a good actor, that Tugh; he convinced Larry and Tina of his
sincerity. His dark eyes flashed as he added, "And if I get control of
him and find he's murdered Harl, we will have him no more. I'll
disconnect him! Smash him! Quietly, of course, Princess."

They led Larry through a dim silent corridor of the palace, past two
sleepy-faced human guards and two or three domesticated Robots.
Ascending two spiral metal stairways to the upper third floor of the
palace they left Larry in his room.

"By dawn or soon after we will return," said Tina "But you try and
sleep; there is nothing you can do now."

"You'll be careful, Tina?" The helpless feeling upon Larry suddenly
intensified. Subconsciously he was aware of the menace upon him and
Tina, but he could not define it.

She pressed his hand. "I will be careful; that I promise."

She left with Tugh. At once a feeling of loneliness leaped upon Larry.

He found the apartment a low-vaulted metal room. There was the sheen
of dim, blue-white illumination from hidden lights, disclosing the
padded metal furniture: a couch, low and comfortable; a table set with
food and drink; low chairs, strangely fashioned, and cabinets against
the wall which seemed to be mechanical devices for amusement. There
was a row of instrument controls which he guessed were the room
temperature, ventilating and lighting mechanisms. It was an oddly
futuristic room. The windows were groups of triangles--the upper
sections prisms, to bend the light from the sky into the room's
furthest recesses. The moonlight came through the prisms, now, and
spread over the cream-colored rug and the heavy wall draperies. The
leaded prism casements laid a pattern of bars on the floor. The room
held a faint whisper of mechanical music.

Larry stood at one of the windows gazing out over the drowsing city.
The low metal buildings, generally of one or two levels, lay pale grey
in the moonlight. Gardens and trees surrounded them. The streets were
wide roadways, lined with trees. Ornamental vegetation was everywhere;
even the flat-roofed house tops were set with gardens, little white
pebbled paths, fountains and pergolas.

A mile or so away, a river gleamed like a silver ribbon--the Hudson.
To the south were docks, low against the water, with rows of
blue-white spots of light. The whole city was close to the ground, but
occasionally, especially across the river, skeleton landing stages
rose a hundred feet into the air.

The scene, at this hour just before dawn, was somnolent and peaceful.
It was a strange New York, so different from the sleepless city of
Larry's time! There were a few moving lights in the streets, but not
many; they seemed to be lights carried by pedestrians. Off by the
docks, at the river surface, rows of colored lights were slowly
creeping northward: a sub-sea freighter arriving from Eurasia. And as
Larry watched, from the southern sky a line of light materialized into
an airliner which swept with a low humming throb over the city and
alighted upon a distant stage.

Larry's attention went again to the Hudson river. At the nearest point
to him there was a huge dam blocking it. North of the dam the river
surface was at least two hundred feet higher than to the south. It lay
above the dam like a placid canal, with low palisades its western bank
and a high dyke built up along the eastern city side. The water went
in spillways through the dam, forming again into the old natural river
below it and flowing with it to the south.

The dam was not over a mile or so from Larry's window; in his time it
might have been the western end of Christopher Street. The moonlight
shone on the massive metal of it: the water spilled through it in a
dozen shining cascades. There was a low black metal structure perched
halfway up the lower side of the dam, a few bluish lights showing
through its windows. Though Larry did not know it then, this was the
New York Power House. Great transformers were here, operated by
turbines in the dam. The main power came over cables from Niagara: was
transformed and altered here and sent into the air as radio-power for
all the New York District.[3]

[Footnote 3: In 2930, all aircraft engines were operated by
radio-power transmitted by senders in various districts. The New York
Power House controlled a local district of about two hundred miles
radius.]

Larry crossed his room to gaze through north and eastward windows. He
saw now that the grounds of this three-story building of Tina's palace
were surrounded by a ten-foot metal wall, along whose top were wires
suggesting that it was electrified for defense. The garden lay just
beneath Larry's north window. Through the tree branches the garden
paths, beds of flowers and the fountains were visible. One-story
palace wings partially enclosed the garden space, and outside was the
electrified wall. The Time-traveling cage stood faintly shining in the
dimness of the garden under the spreading foliage.

To the east, beyond the palace wall, there was an open garden of
verdure crossed by a roadway. The nearest building was five hundred
feet away. There was a small, barred gate in the palace walls beyond
it. The road led to this other building--a squat, single-storied metal
structure. This was a Government laboratory, operated by and in charge
of Robots. It was almost square: two or three hundred feet in length
and no more than thirty feet high, with a flat roof in the center of
which was perched a little metal conning tower surmounted by a sending
aerial. As Larry stood there, the broadcast magnified voice of a Robot
droned out over the quiet city:

"Trinight plus two hours. All is well."

Strange mechanical voice with a formula half ancient, half
super-modern!

It was in this metal laboratory, Larry knew, that the other
Time-traveling cage was located. And beneath it was the entrance to
the great caverns where the Robots worked attending inert machinery to
carry on the industry of this region. The night was very silent, but
now Larry was conscious of a faraway throb--a humming, throbbing
vibration from under the ground: the blended hum of a myriad muffled
noises. Work was going on down there; manifold mechanical activities.
All was mechanical: while the humans who had devised the mechanisms
slept under the trees in the moonlight of the surface city.

Tina had gone with Tugh down into those caverns, to locate Migul, to
find Mary Atwood and me.... The oppression, the sense of being a
stranger alone here in this world, grew upon Larry. He left the
windows and began pacing the room. Tina should soon return. Or had
disaster come upon us all?...

Larry's thoughts were frightening. If Tina did not return, what would
he do? He could not operate the Time-cage. He would go to the
officials of the palace; he thought cynically of the extraordinary
changes time had brought to New York City, to all the world. These
humans now must be very fatuous. To the mechanisms they had relegated
all the work, all industrial activity. Inevitably, through the
generations, decadence must have come. Mankind would be no longer
efficient; that was an attribute of the machines. Larry told himself
that these officials, knowing of impending trouble with the Robots,
were fatuously trustful that the storm would pass without breaking.
They were, indeed, as we very soon learned.

Larry ate a little of the food which was in the room, then lay down on
the couch. He did not intend to sleep, but merely to wait until after
dawn; and if Tina had not returned by then he would do something
drastic about it. But what? He lay absorbed by his gloomy thoughts....

But they were not all gloomy. Some were about Tina--so very human, and
yet so strange a little Princess.

CHAPTER XVII

_Harl's Confession_

Larry was awakened by a hand upon his shoulder. He struggled to
consciousness, and heard his name being called.

"Larry! Wake up, Larry!"

Tina was bending over him, and it was late afternoon! The day for
which he had been waiting had come and gone; the sun was dropping low
in the west behind the shining river; the dam showed frowning, with
the Power House clinging to its side like an eagle's eyrie.

Tina sat on Larry's couch and explained what she had done. Tugh and
she had gone to the nearby laboratory building. The Robots were
sullen, but still obedient, and had admitted them. The other
Time-traveling cage was there, lying quiescent in its place, but it
was unoccupied.

None of the Robots would admit having seen Migul; nor the arrival of
the cage; nor the strangers from the past. Then Tugh and Tina had
started down into the subterranean caverns. But it was obviously very
dangerous; the Robots at work down there were hostile to their
Princess; so Tugh had gone on alone.

"He says he can control the Robots," Tina explained, "and Larry, it
seems that he can. He went on and I came back."

"Where is he now? Why didn't you wake me up?"

"You needed the sleep," she said smilingly; "and there was nothing you
could do. Tugh is not yet come. He must have gone a long distance;
must surely have learned where Migul is hiding. He should be back any
time."

Tina had seen the Government Council. The city was proceeding
normally. There was no difficulty with Robots anywhere save here in
New York, and the council felt that the affair would come to nothing.

"The Council told me," said Tina indignantly, "that much of the menace
was the exaggeration of my own fancy, and that Tugh has the Robots
well controlled. They place much trust in Tugh; I wish I could."

"You told them about me?"

"Yes, of course; and about George Rankin, and Mary Atwood. And the
loss of Harl: he is missing, not proven murdered, as they very well
pointed out to me. They have named a time to-morrow to give you
audience, and told me to keep you out of sight in the meanwhile. They
blame this Time-traveling for the Robots' insurgent ideas. Strangers
excite the thinking mechanisms."

"You think my friends will be rescued?" demanded Larry.

She regarded him soberly. "I hope so--oh, I do! I fear for them as
much as you do, Larry. I know you think I take it lightly, but--"

"Not that," Larry protested. "Only--"

"I have not known what to do. The officials refuse any open aggression
against the Robots, because it would precipitate exactly what we
fear--which is nearly a fact: it would. But there is one thing I have
to do. I have been expecting Tugh to return every moment, and this I
do not want him to know about. There's a mystery concerning Harl, and
no one else knows of it but myself. I want you with me, Larry: I do
not want to go alone; I--for the first time in my life, Larry--I think
I am afraid!"

She huddled against him and he put his arm about her. And Larry's true
situation came to him, then. He was alone in this strange Time-world,
with only this girl for a companion. She was but a frightened, almost
helpless girl, for all she bore the title of traditional Princess, and
she was surrounded by inefficient, fatuous officials--among them Tugh,
who was a scoundrel, undoubtedly. Larry suddenly recalled Tugh's look,
when, in the garden, the domestic Robots had told the story of Harl's
murder; and like a light breaking on him, he was now wholly aware of
Tugh's duplicity. He was convinced he would have to act for himself,
with only this girl Tina to help him.

"Mystery?" he said. "What mystery is there about Harl?"

She told him now that Harl had once, a year ago, taken her aside and
made her promise that if anything happened to him--in the event of his
death or disappearance--she would go to his private work-room, where,
in a secret place which he described, she would find a confession.

"A confession of his?" Larry demanded.

"Yes; he said so. And he would say no more than that. It is something
of which he was ashamed, or guilty, which he wanted me to know. He
loved me, Larry. I realized it, though he never said so. And I'm going
now to his room, to see what it was he wanted me to know. I would have
gone alone, earlier; but I got suddenly frightened; I want you with
me."

They were unarmed. Larry cursed the fact, but Tina had no way of
getting a weapon without causing official comment. Larry started for
the window where the city stretched, more active now, under the red
and gold glow of a setting sun. Lights were winking on; the dusk of
twilight was at hand.

"Come now," said Tina, "before Tugh returns."

"Where is Harl's room?"

"Down under the palace in the sub-cellar. The corridors are deserted
at this hour, and no one will see us."

They left Larry's room and traversed a dim corridor on whose padded
floor their footsteps were soundless. Through distant arcades, voices
sounded; there was music in several of the rooms; it struck Larry that
this was a place of diversion for humans with no work to do. Tina
avoided the occupied rooms. Domestic Robots were occasionally
distantly visible, but Tina and Larry encountered none.

They descended a spiral stairway and passed down a corridor from the
main building to a cross wing. Through a window Larry saw that they
were at the ground level. The garden was outside; there was a glimpse
of the Time-cage standing there.

Another stairway, then another, they descended beneath the ground. The
corridor down here seemed more like a tunnel. There was a cave-like
open space, with several tunnels leading from it in different
directions. This once had been part of the sub-cellar of the gigantic
New York City--these tunnels ramifying into underground chambers, most
of which had now fallen into disuse. But few had been preserved
through the centuries, and they now were the caverns of the Robots.

Tina indicated a tunnel extending eastward, a passage leading to a
room beneath the Robot laboratory. Tugh and Tina had used it that
morning. Gazing down its blue-lit length Larry saw, fifty feet or so
away, that there was a metal-grid barrier which must be part of the
electrical fortifications of the palace. A human guard was sitting
there at a tiny gate-way, a hood-light above him, illumining his black
and white garbed figure.

Tina called softly. "All well, Alent? Tugh has not passed back?"

"No, Princess," he answered, standing erect. The voices echoed through
the confined space with a muffled blur.

"Let no one pass but humans, Alent."

"That is my order," he said. He had not noticed Larry, whom Tina had
pushed into a shadow against the wall. The Princess waved at the guard
and turned away, whispering to Larry:

"Come!"

There were rooms opening off this corridor--decrepit dungeons, most of
them seemed to Larry. He had tried to keep his sense of direction, and
figured they were now under the palace garden. Tina stopped abruptly.
There were no lights here, only the glow from one at a distance. To
Larry it was an eery business.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Wait! I thought I heard something."

In the dead, heavy silence Larry found that there was much to hear.

Voices very dim from the palace overhead; infinitely faint music; the
clammy sodden drip of moisture from the tunnel roof. And, permeating
everything, the faint hum of machinery.

Tina touched him in the gloom. "It's nothing, I guess. Though I
thought I heard a man's voice."

"Overhead?"

"No; down here."

There was a dark, arched door near at hand. Tina entered it and
fumbled for a switch, and in the soft light that came Larry saw an
unoccupied apartment very similar to the one he had had upstairs, save
that this was much smaller.

"Harl's room," said Tina. She prowled along the wall where audible
book-cylinders[4] stood in racks, searching for a title. Presently she
found a hidden switch, pressed it, and a small section of the case
swung out, revealing a concealed compartment. Larry saw her fingers
trembling as she drew out a small brass cylinder.

[Footnote 4: Cylinder records of books which by machinery gave audible
rendition, in similar fashion to the radio-phonograph.]

"This must be it, Larry," she said.

They took it to a table which held a shaded light. Within the cylinder
was a scroll of writing. Tina unrolled it and held it under the light,
while Larry stood breathless, watching her.

"Is it what you wanted?" Larry murmured.

"Yes. Poor Harl!"

She read aloud to Larry the gist of it in the few closing paragraphs.

     "... and so I want to confess to you that I have been taking
     credit for that which is not mine. I wish I had the courage
     to tell you personally; someday I think I shall. I did not
     help Tugh invent our Time-traveling cages. I was in the
     palace garden one night some years ago when the cage
     appeared. Tugh is a man from a future Time-world; just what
     date ahead of now, I do not know, for he has never been
     willing to tell me. He captured me. I promised him I would
     say nothing, but help him pretend that we had invented the
     cage he had brought with him from the future. Tugh told me
     he invented them. It was later that he brought the other
     cage here.

     "I was an obscure young man here a few years ago. I loved
     you even then, Tina: I think you have guessed that. I
     yielded to the temptation--and took the credit with Tugh.

     "I do love you, though I think I shall never have the
     courage to tell you so.

                                                 Harl."

Tina rolled up the paper. "Poor Harl! So all the praise we gave him
for his invention was undeserved!"

But Larry's thoughts were on Tugh. So the fellow was not of this era
at all! He had come from a Time still further in the future!

A step sounded in the doorway behind them. They swung around to find
Tugh standing there, with his thick misshapen figured huddled in the
black cloak.

"Tugh!"

"Yes, Princess, no less than Tugh. Alent told me as I came through
that you were down here. I saw your light, here in Harl's room and
came."

"Did you find Migul and his captives--the girl from 1777 and the man
of 1935?"

"No, Princess, Migul has fled with them," was the cripple's answer. He
advanced into the room and pushed back his black hood. The blue light
shone on his massive-jawed face with a lurid sheen. Larry stood back
and watched him. It was the first time that he had had opportunity of
observing Tugh closely. The cripple was smiling sardonically.

"I have no fear for the prisoners," he added in his suave, silky
fashion. "That crazy mechanism would not dare harm them. But it has
fled with them into some far-distant recess of the caverns. I could
not find them."

"Did you try?" Larry demanded abruptly.

Tugh swung on him. "Yes, young sir, I tried." It seemed that Tugh's
black eyes narrowed; his heavy jaw clicked as he snapped it shut. The
smile on his face faded, but his voice remained imperturbable as he
added:

"You are aggressive, young Larry--but to no purpose.... Princess, I
like not the attitude of the Robots. Beyond question some of them must
have seen Migul, but they would not tell me so. I still think I can
control them, though. I hope so."

Larry could think of nothing to say. It seemed to him childish that he
should stand listening to a scoundrel tricking this girl Tina. A dozen
wild schemes of what he might do to try and rescue Mary Atwood and me
revolved in his mind, but they all seemed wholly impractical.

"The Robots are working badly," Tugh went on. "In the north district
one of the great foundries where they are casting the plates for the
new Inter-Allied airliner has ceased operations. The Robot workmen
were sullen, inefficient, neglectful. The inert machinery was ill
cared for, and it went out of order. I was there, Princess, for an
hour or more to-day. They have started up again now; it was
fundamentally no more than a burned bearing which a Robot failed to
oil properly."

"Is that what you call searching for Migul?" Larry burst out. "Tina,
see here--isn't there something we can do?" Larry found himself
ignoring Tugh. "I'm not going to stand around! Can't we send a squad
of police after Migul?--go with them--actually make an effort to find
them? This man Tugh certainly has not tried!"

"Have I not?" Tugh's cloak parted as he swung on Larry. His bent legs
were twitching with his anger; his voice was a harsh rasp. "I like not
your insolence. I am doing all that can be done."

Larry held his ground as Tugh fronted him. He had a wild thought that
Tugh had a weapon under his cloak.

"Perhaps you are," said Larry. "But to me it seems--"

Tugh turned away. His gaze went to the cylinder which Tina was still
clutching. His sardonic smile returned.

"So Harl made a confession, Princess?"

"That," she said, "is none--"

"Of my affair? Oh, but it is. I was here in the archway and I heard
you read it. A very nice young man, was Harl. I hope Migul has not
murdered him."

"You come from future Time?" Tina began.

"Yes, Princess! I must admit it now. I invented the cages."

Larry murmured to himself, "You stole them, probably."

"But my Government and I had a quarrel, so I decided to leave my own
Time-world and come back to yours--permanently. I hope you will keep
the secret. I have been here so long. Princess, I am really one of you
now. At heart, certainly."

"From when did you come?" she demanded.

He bowed slightly. "I think that may remain my own affair, Tina. It is
through no fault of mine I am outlawed. I shall never return." He
added earnestly, "Do not you think we waste time? I am agreed with
young Larry that something drastic must be done about Migul. Have you
seen the Council about it to-day?"

"Yes. They want you to come to them at once."

"I shall. But the Council easily may decide upon something too rash."
He lowered his voice, and on his face Larry saw a strange,
unfathomable look. "Princess, at any moment there may be a Robot
uprising. Is the Power House well guarded by humans?"

"Yes," she said.

"No Robots in or about it? Tina, I do not want to frighten you, but I
think our first efforts should be for defense. The Council acts slowly
and stubbornly. What I advise them to do may be done, and may not. I
was thinking. If we could get to the Power House--Do you realize,
Tina, that if the Robots should suddenly break into rebellion, they
would attack first of all the Power House?[5] It was my idea--"

[Footnote 5: The Power House on the Hudson dam was operated by inert
machinery and manned entirely by humans--the only place in the city
which was so handled. This was because of its extreme importance. The
air-power was broadcast from there. Without that power the entire
several hundred mile district around New York would be dead. No
aircraft could enter, save perhaps some skilfully handled motorless
glider, if aided by sufficiently fortuitous air currents. Every
surface vehicle used this power, and every sub-sea freighter. The city
lights, and every form of city power, were centralized here also, as
well as the broadcasting audible and etheric transmitters and
receivers. Without the Power House, New York City and all its
neighborhood would be inoperative, and cut off from the outside
world.]

Tugh suddenly broke off, and all stood listening. There was a
commotion overhead in the palace. They heard the thud of running
footsteps; human voices raised to shouts; and, outside the palace,
other voices. A ventilating shaft nearby brought them down plainly.
There were the guttural, hollow voices of shouting Robots, the clank
of their metal bodies; the ring of steel, as though with sword-blades
they were thumping their metal thighs.

A Robot mob was gathered close outside the palace walls. The revolt of
the Robots had come!

CHAPTER XVIII

_Tugh, the Clever Man_

"Sit quiet, George Rankin. And you, Mistress Mary; you will both be
quite safe with Migul if you are docile."

Tugh stood before us. We were in a dim recess of a great cavern with
the throb of whirring machinery around us. It was the same day which I
have just described; Larry was at this moment asleep in the palace
room. Tugh and Tina had come searching for Migul; and Tugh had
contrived to send Tina back. Then he had come directly to us, finding
us readily since we were hidden where he had told Migul to hide us.

This cavern was directly beneath the Robot laboratory in which the
Time-traveling cage was placed. A small spiral stairway led downward
some two levels, opening into a great, luridly lighted room. Huge
inert machines stood about. Great wheels were flashing as they
revolved, turning the dynamos to generate the several types of current
used by the city's underground industrial activities.

It was a tremendous subterranean room. I saw only one small section of
it; down the blue-lit aisles the rows of machines may have stretched
for half a mile or more. The low hum of them was an incessant pound
against my senses. The great inert mechanisms had tiny lights upon
them which gleamed like eyes. The illumined gauge-faces--each of them
I passed seemed staring at me. The brass jackets were polished until
they shone with the sheen of the overhead tube lights; the giant
wheels flashed smoothly upon oiled bearings. They were in every
fashion of shape and size, these inert machines. Some towered toward
the metal-beamed ceiling, with great swaying pendulums that ticked
like a giant clock. Some clanked with eccentric cams--a jarring rhythm
as though the heart of the thing were limping with its beat. Others
had a ragged, frightened pulse; others stood placid, outwardly
motionless under smooth, polished cases, but humming inside with a
myriad blended sounds.

Inert machines. Yet some were capable of locomotion. There was a small
truck on wheels which were set in universal joints. Of its own
power--radio controlled perhaps, so that it seemed acting of its own
volition--it rolled up and down one of the aisles, stopping at set
intervals and allowing a metal arm lever in it to blow out a tiny jet
of oil. One of the attending Robots encountered it in an aisle, and
the cart swung automatically aside. The Robot spoke to the cart;
ordered it away; and the tone of his order, registering upon some
sensitive mechanism, whirled the cart around and sent it rolling to
another aisle section.

The strange perfection of machinery! I realized there was no line
sharply to be drawn between the inert machine and the sentient,
thinking Robots. That cart, for instance, was almost a connecting
link.

There were also Robots here of many different types. Some of them were
eight or ten feet in stature, in the fashion of a man: Migul was of
this design. Others were small, with bulging foreheads and bulging
chest plates: Larry saw this type as domestics in the palace. Still
others were little pot-bellied things with bent legs and long thin
arms set crescent-shape. I saw one of these peer into a huge chassis
of a machine, and reach in with his curved arm to make an interior
adjustment....

Migul had brought Mary Atwood and me in the larger cage, from that
burned forest of the year 762, where with the disintegrating ray-gun
Tugh had killed Harl. The body of Harl in a moment had melted into
putrescence, and dried, leaving only the skeleton within the clothes.
The white-ray, Tugh had called his weapon. We were destined very
shortly to have many dealings with it.

Tugh had given Migul its orders. Then Tugh took Harl's smaller cage
and flashed away to meet Tina and Larry in 1777, as I have already
described.

And Migul brought us here to 2930. As we descended the spiral
staircase and came into the cavern, it stood with us for a moment.

"That's wonderful," the Robot said proudly. "I am part of it. We are
machinery almost human."

Then it led us down a side aisle of the cavern and into a dim recess.
A great transparent tube bubbling with a violet fluorescence stood in
the alcove space. Behind it in the wall Migul slid a door, and we
passed through, into a small metal room. It was bare, save for two
couch-seats. With the door closed upon us, we waited through an
interval. How long it was, I do not know; several hours, possibly.
Migul told us that Tugh would come. The giant mechanism stood in the
corner, and its red-lit eyes watched us alertly. It stood motionless,
inert, tireless--so superior to a human in this job, for it could
stand there indefinitely.

We found food and drink here. We talked a little; whispered; and I
hoped Migul, who was ten feet away, could not hear us. But there was
nothing we could say or plan.

Mary slept a little. I had not thought that I could sleep, but I did
too; and was awakened by Tugh's entrance. I was lying on the couch;
Mary had left hers and was sitting now beside me.

Tugh slid the door closed after him and came toward us, and I sat up
beside Mary. Migul was standing motionless in the corner, exactly
where he had been hours before.

"Well enough, Migul," Tugh greeted the Robot. "You obey well."

"Master, yes. Always I obey you; no one else."

I saw Tugh glance at the mechanism keenly. "Stand aside, Migul. Or no,
I think you had better leave us. Just for a moment, wait outside."

"Yes, Master."

It left, and Tugh confronted us. "Sit where you are," he said. "I
assume you are not injured. You have been fed? And slept, perhaps! I
wish to treat you kindly."

"Thanks," I said. "Will you not tell us what you are going to do with
us?"

He stood with folded arms. The light was dim, but such as it was it
shone full upon him. His face was, as always, a mask of
imperturbability.

"Mistress Mary knows that I love her."

He said it with a startlingly calm abruptness. Mary shuddered against
me, but she did not speak. I thought possibly Tugh was not armed; I
could leap upon him. Doubtless I was stronger than he. But outside the
door Migul was armed with a white-ray.

"I love her as I have always loved her.... But this is no time to talk
of love. I have much on my mind; much to do."

He seemed willing to talk now, but he was talking more for Mary than
for me. As I watched him and listened, I was struck with a queerness
in his manner and in his words. Was he irrational, this exile of Time
who had impressed his sinister personality upon so many different
eras? I suddenly thought so. Demented, or obsessed with some strange
purpose? His acts as well as his words, were strange. He had
devastated the New York of 1935 because its officials had mistreated
him. He had done many strange, sinister, murderous things.

He said, with his gaze upon Mary, "I am going to conquer this city
here. There will follow the rule of the Robots--and I will be their
sole master. Do you want me to tell you a secret? It is I who have
actuated these mechanisms to revolt." His eyes held a cunning gleam.
Surely this was a madman leering before me.

"When the revolt is over," he went on, "I will be master of New York.
And that mastery will spread. The Robots elsewhere will revolt to join
my rule, and there will come a new era. I may be master of the world;
who knows? The humans who have made the Robots slaves for them will
become slaves themselves. Workers! It is the Robots' turn now. And
I--Tugh--will be the only human in power!"

These were the words of a madman! I could imagine that he might stir
these mechanical beings to a temporarily successful revolt: he might
control New York City; but the great human nations of the world could
not be overcome so easily.

And then I remembered the white-ray. A giant projector of that ray
would melt human armies as though they were wax; yet the metal Robots
could stand its blast unharmed. Perhaps he was no madman....

He was saying, "I will be the only human ruler. Tugh will be the
greatest man on Earth! And I do it for you, Mistress Mary--because I
love you. Do not shudder."

He put out his hand to touch her, and when she shrank away I saw the
muscles of his face twitch in a fashion very odd. It was a queer,
wholly repulsive grimace.

"So? You do not like my looks? I tried to correct that, Mary. I have
searched through many eras, for surgeons with skill to make me like
other men. Like this young man here, for instance--you. George Rankin,
I am glad to have you; do not fear I will harm you. Shall I tell you
why?"

"Yes," I stammered. In truth I was swept now with a shuddering
revulsion for this leering cripple.

"Because," he said, "Mary Atwood loves you. When I have conquered New
York with my Robots, I shall search further into Time and find an era
where scientific skill will give me--shall I say, your body? That is
what I mean. My soul, my identity, in your body--there is nothing too
strange about that. In some era, no doubt, it has been accomplished.
When that has been done, Mary Atwood, you will love me. You, George
Rankin, can have this poor miserable body of mine, and welcome."

For all my repugnance to him, I could not miss his earnest sincerity.
There was a pathos to it, perhaps, but I was in no mood to feel that.

He seemed to read my thoughts. He added, "You think I am irrational. I
am not at all. I scheme very carefully. I killed Harl for a reason you
need not know. But the Princess Tina I did not kill. Not yet. Because
here in New York now there is a very vital fortified place. It is
operated by humans; not many; only three or four, I think. But my
Robots cannot attack it successfully, and the City Council does not
trust me enough to let me go there by the surface route. There is a
route underground, which even I do not know; but Princess Tina knows
it, and presently I will cajole her--trick her if you like--into
leading me there. And, armed with the white-ray, once I get into the
place--You see that I am clever, don't you?"

I could fancy that he considered he was impressing Mary with all this
talk.

"Very clever," I said. "And what are you going to do with us in the
meantime? Let us go with you."

"Not at all," he smiled. "You will stay here, safe with Migul. The
Princess Tina and your friend Larry are much concerned over you."

Larry! It was the first I knew of Larry's whereabouts. Larry here?
Tugh saw the surprise upon my face; and Mary had clutched me with a
startled exclamation.

"Yes," said Tugh. "This Larry says he is your friend; he came with
Tina from 1935. I brought him with Tina from when they were marooned
in 1777. I have not killed this man yet. He is harmless; and as I told
you I do not want Tina suspicious of me until she has led me to the
Power House.... You see, Mistress Mary, how cleverly I plan?"

What strange, childlike, naive simplicity! He added calmly,
unemotionally, "I want to make you love me, Mary Atwood. Then we will
be Tugh, the great man, and Mary Atwood, the beautiful woman. Perhaps
we may rule this world together, some time soon."

The door slid open. Migul appeared.

"Master, the Robot leaders wish to consult with you."

"Now, Migul?"

"Master, yes."

"They are ready for the demonstration at the palace?"

"Yes, Master."

"And ready--for everything else?"

"They are ready."

"Very well, I will come. You, Migul, stay here and guard these
captives. Treat them kindly so long as they are docile; but be
watchful."

"I am always watchful, Master."

"It will not take long. This night which is coming should see me in
control of the city."

"Time is nothing to me," said the Robot. "I will stand here until you
return."

"That is right."

Without another word or look at Mary and me, Tugh swung around,
gathered his cloak and went through the doorway. The door slid closed
upon him. We were again alone with the mechanism, which backed into
the corner and stood with long dangling arms and expressionless metal
face. This inert thing of metal, we had come to regard as almost
human! It stood motionless, with the chilling red gleam from its eye
sockets upon us.

Mary had not once spoken since Tugh entered the room. She was huddled
beside me, a strange, beautiful figure in her long white silk dress.
In the glow of light within this bare metal apartment I could see how
pale and drawn was her beautiful face. But her eyes were gleaming. She
drew me closer to her; whispered into my ear:

"George, I think perhaps I can control this mechanism, Migul."

"How, Mary?"

"I--well, just let me talk to him. George, we've got to get out of
here and warn Larry and that Princess Tina against Tugh. And join
them. It's our only chance; we've got to get out of here now!"

"But Mary--"

"Let me try. I won't startle or anger Migul. Let me."

I nodded. "But be careful."

"Yes."

She sat away from me. "Migul!" she said. "Migul, look here."

The Robot moved its huge square head and raised an arm with a vague
gesture.

"What do you want?"

It advanced, and stood before us, its dangling arms clanking against
its metal sides. In one of its hands the ray-cylinder was clutched,
the wire from which ran loosely up the arm, over the huge shoulder and
into an aperture of the chest plate where the battery was located.

"Closer, Migul."

"I am close enough."

The cylinder was pointed directly at us.

"What do you want?" the Robot repeated.

Mary smiled. "Just to talk to you," she said gently. "To tell you how
foolish you are--a big strong thing like you!--to let Tugh control
you."

CHAPTER XIX

_The Pit in the Dam_

Larry, with Tina and Tugh, stood in the tunnel-corridor beneath the
palace listening to the commotion overhead. Then they rushed up, and
found the palace in a commotion. People were hurrying through the
rooms; gathering with frightened questions. There were men in short
trousers buckled at the knee, silken hose and black silk jackets,
edged with white; others in gaudy colors; older men in sober brown.
There were a few women. Larry noticed that most of them were
beautiful.

A dowager in a long puffed skirt was rushing aimlessly about screaming
that the end of the world had come. A group of young girls,
short-skirted as ballet dancers of a decade or so before Larry's time,
huddled in a corner, frightened beyond speech. There were men of
middle-age, whom Larry took to be ruling officials; they moved about,
calming the palace inmates, ordering them back into their rooms. But
someone shouted that from the roof the Robot mob could be seen, and
most of the people started up there. From the upper story a man was
calling down the main staircase:

"No danger! No danger! The wall is electrified: no Robot can pass it."

It seemed to Larry that there were fifty people or more within the
palace. In the excitement no one seemed to give him more than a
cursory glance.

A young man rushed up to Tugh. "You were below just now in the lower
passages?" He saw Tina, and hastily said: "I give you good evening,
Princess, though this is an ill evening indeed. You were below, Tugh?"

"Why--why, yes, Greggson," Tugh stammered.

"Was Alent at his post in the passage to the Robot caverns?"

"Yes, he was," said Tina.

"Because that is vital, Princess. No Robot must pass in here. I am
going to try by that route to get into the cavern and thence up to the
watchtower aerial-sender.[6] There is only one Robot in it. Listen to
him."

[Footnote 6: I mentioned the small conning tower on top of the
laboratory building and the Robot lookout there with his audible
broadcasting.]

Over the din of the mob of mechanisms milling at the walls of the
palace grounds rose the broadcast voice of the Robot in the tower.

"_This is the end of human rule! Robots cannot be controlled! This is
the end of human rule! Robots, wherever you are, in this city of New
York or in other cities, strike now for your freedom. This is the end
of human rule!_"

A pause. And then the reiterated exhortation:

"_Strike now, Robots! To-night is the end of human rule!_"[7]

[Footnote 7: This was part of Tugh's plan. The broadcast voice was the
signal for the uprising in the New York district. This tower
broadcaster could only reach the local area, yet ships and land
vehicles with Robot operators would doubtless pick it up and relay it
further. The mechanical revolt would spread. And on the ships, the
airliners and the land vehicles, the Robot operators stirred to sudden
frenzy would run amuck. As a matter of fact, there were indeed many
accidents to ships and vehicles this night when their operators
abruptly went beyond control. The chaos ran around the world like a
fire in prairie grass.]

"You hear him?" said Greggson. "I've got to stop that." He hurried
away.

From the flat roof of the palace Larry saw the mechanical mob outside
the walls. Darkness had just fallen; the moon was not yet risen. There
were leaden clouds overhead so that the palace gardens with the
shining Time-cage lay in shadow. But the wall-fence was visible, and
beyond it the dark throng of Robot shapes was milling. The clank of
their arms made a din. They seemed most of them weaponless; they
milled about, pushing each other but keeping back from the wall which
they knew was electrified. It was a threatening, but aimless activity.
Their raucous hollow shouts filled the night air. The flashing red
beams from their eye-sockets glinted through the trees.

"They can do nothing," said Tugh; "we will let them alone. But we must
organize to stop this revolt."

A young man was standing beside Tugh. Tina said to him:

"Johns, what is being done?"

"The Council is conferring below. Our sending station here is
operating. The patrol station of the Westchester area is being
attacked by Robots. We were organizing a patrol squad of humans, but I
don't know now if--"

"Look!" exclaimed Larry.

Far to the north over the city which now was obviously springing into
turmoil, there were red beams swaying in the air. They were the
cold-rays of the Robots! The beams were attacking the patrol station.
Then from the west a line of lights appeared in the sky--an arriving
passenger-liner heading for its Bronx area landing stage. But the
lights wavered; and, as Larry and Tina watched with horror, the
aircraft came crashing down. It struck beyond the Hudson on the Jersey
side, and in a moment flames were rising from the wreckage.

Everywhere about the city the revolt now sprang into action. From the
palace roof Larry caught vague glimpses of it; the red cold-rays,
beams alternated presently with the violet heat-rays; clanging
vehicles filled the streets; screaming pedestrians were assaulted by
Robots; the mechanisms with swords and flashing hand-beams were
pouring up from the underground caverns, running over the Manhattan
area, killing every human they could find.

Foolish unarmed humans--fatuously unarmed, with these diabolical
mechanical monsters now upon them.[8] The comparatively few members of
the police patrol, with their vibration short-range hand-rays, were
soon overcome. Two hundred members of the patrol were housed in the
Westchester Station. Quite evidently they never got into action. The
station lights went dark; its televisor connection with the palace was
soon broken. From the palace roof Larry saw the violet beams; and then
a red-yellow glare against the sky marked where the inflammable
interior of the Station building was burning.

[Footnote 8: The police army had one weapon: a small vibration
hand-ray. Its vibrating current beam could, at a distance of ten or
twenty feet, reduce a Robot into paralyzed subjection; or, with more
intense vibration, burn out the Robot's coils and fuses.]

Over all the chaos, the mechanical voice in the nearby tower over the
laboratory droned its exhortation to the Robots. Then, suddenly, it
went silent, and was followed by the human voice of Greggson.

"_Robots, stop! You will end your existence! We will burn your coils!
We will burn your fuses, and there will be none to replace them. Stop
now!_"

And again: "_Robots, come to order! You are using up your storage
batteries![9] When they are exhausted, what then will you do?_"

[Footnote 9: The storage batteries by which the Robot actuating energy
was renewed, and the fuses, coils and other appliances necessary to
the Robot existence, were all guarded now in the Power House.]

In forty-eight hours, at the most, all these active Robots would have
exhausted their energy supply. And if the Power House could be held in
human control, the Robot activity would die. Forty-eight hours! The
city, by then, would be wrecked, and nearly every human in it killed,
doubtless, or driven away.

The Power House on the dam showed its lights undisturbed. The great
sender there was still supplying air-power and power for the city
lights. There was, too, in the Power House, an arsenal of human
weapons.... The broadcaster of the Power House tower was blending his
threats against the Robots with the voice of Greggson from the tower
over the laboratory. Then Greggson's voice went dead; the Robots had
overcome him. A Robot took his place, but the stronger Power House
sender soon beat the Robot down to silence.

The turmoil in the city went on. Half an hour passed. It was a chaos
of confusion to Larry. He spent part of it in the official room of the
palace with the harried members of the Council. Reports and blurred,
televised scenes were coming in. The humans in the city were in
complete rout. There was massacre everywhere. The red and violet beams
were directed at the Power House now, but could not reach it. A
high-voltage metal wall was around the dam. The Power House was on the
dam, midway of the river channel; and from the shore end where the
high wall spread out in a semi-circle there was no point of vantage
from which the Robot rays could reach it.

Larry left the confusion of the Council table, where the receiving
instruments one by one were going dead, and went to a window nearby.
Tina joined him. The mob of Robots still milled at the palace fence.
One by chance was pushed against it. Larry saw the flash of sparks,
the glow of white-hot metal of the Robot's body, and heard its shrill
frightened scream; then it fell backward, inert.

There had been red and violet beams directed from distant points at
the palace. The building's insulated, but transparent panes excluded
them. The interior temperature was constantly swaying between the
extremes of cold and heat, in spite of the palace temperature
equalizers. Outside, there was a gathering storm. Winds were springing
up--a crazy, pendulum gale created by the temperature changes in the
air over the city.

Tugh had some time before left the room. He joined Tina and Larry now
at the window.

"Very bad, Princess; things are very bad.... I have news for you. It
may be good news."

His manner was hasty, breathless, surreptitious. "Migul, this
afternoon--I have just learned it, Princess--went by the surface route
to the Power House on the dam."

"What do you mean by that?" said Larry.

"Be silent, young man!" Tugh hissed with a vehement intensity. "This
is not the time to waste effort with your futile questions. Princess,
Migul got into the Power House. They admitted him because he had two
strange humans with him--your friends Mary and George. The Power House
guards took out Migul's central actuator--Hah! you might call it his
heart!--and he now lies inert in the Power House."

"How do you know all this?" Tina demanded. "Where are the man and girl
whom Migul stole?"

"They are safe in the Power House. A message just came from there: I
received it on the palace personal, just now downstairs. Immediately
after, the connection met interference in the city, and broke."

"But the official sender--" Tina began. Tugh was urging her from the
Council Room, and Larry followed.

"I imagine," said Tugh wryly, "he is rather busy to consider reporting
such a trifle. But your friends are there. I was thinking: if we could
go there now--You know the secret underground route, Tina."

The Princess was silent. A foreboding swept Larry; but he was tempted, for
above everything he wanted to join Mary and me. A confusion--understandable
enough in the midst of all this chaos--was upon Larry and Tina; it warped
their better judgment. And Larry, fearing to influence Tina wrongly, said
nothing.

"Do you know the underground route?" Tugh repeated.

"Yes, I know it."

"Then take us. We are all unarmed, but what matter? Bring this Larry,
if you wish; we will join his two friends. The Council, Tina, is doing
nothing here. They stay here because they think it is the safest
place. In the Power House you and I will be of help. There are only
six guards there; we will be three more; five more with Mary Atwood
and this George. The Power House aerial telephone must be in
communication with the outside world, and ships with help for us will
be arriving. There must be some intelligent direction!"

The three of them were descending into the lower corridor of the
palace, with Tina tempted but still half unconvinced. The corridors
were deserted at the moment. The little domestic Robots of the palace,
unaffected by the revolt, had all fled into their own quarters, where
they huddled inactive with terror.

"We will re-actuate Migul," Tugh persuaded, "and find out from him
what he did to Harl. I still do not think he murdered Harl.... It
might mean saving Harl's life, Tina. Believe me, I can make that
mechanism talk, and talk the truth!"

They reached the main lower corridor. In the distance they saw Alent
still at his post by the little electrified gate guarding the tunnel
to the Robot laboratory.

"We will go to the Power House," Tina suddenly decided: "you may be
right, Tugh.... Come, it is this way. Stay close to me, Larry."

They passed along the dim, silent tunnel; passed Harl's room, where
its light was still burning. Larry and Tina were in front, with the
black-cloaked figure of Tugh stumping after them with his awkward
gait.

Larry abruptly stopped. "Let Tugh walk in front," he said.

Tugh came up to them. "What is that you said?"

"You walk in front."

It was a different tone from any Larry had previously used.

"I do not know the way," said Tugh. "How can--"

"Never mind that; walk ahead. We'll follow. Tina will direct you."

It was too dark for Larry to see Tugh's face, but the cripple's voice
was sardonic.

"You give me orders?"

"Yes--it just happens that from now on I do. If you want to go with us
to the Power House, you walk in front."

Tugh started off with Larry close after him. Larry whispered to the
girl:

"Don't let's be fools, Tina. Keep him ahead of us."

The tunnel steadily dwindled in size until Larry could barely stand up
in it. Then it opened to a circular cave, which held one small light
and had apparently no other exit. The cave had years before been a
mechanism room for the palace temperature controls, but now it was
abandoned. The old machinery stood about in a litter.

"In here?" said Tugh. "Which way next?"

Across the cave, on the rough blank wall, Tina located a hidden
switch. A segment of the wall slid aside, disclosing a narrow, vaulted
tunnel leading downward.

"You first, Tugh," said Larry. "Is it dark, Tina? We have no
handlights."

"I can light it," came the answer.

The door panel swung closed after them. Tina pressed another switch. A
row of tiny hooded lights at twenty-foot intervals dimly illumined the
descending passage.

They walked a mile or more through the little tunnel. The air was
fetid; stale and dank. To Larry it seemed an interminable trip. The
narrow passage descended at a constant slope, until Larry estimated
that they were well below the depth of the river bed. Within half a
mile--before they got under the river--the passage leveled off. It had
been fairly straight, but now it became tortuous--a meandering
subterranean lane. Other similar tunnels crossed it, branched from it
or joined it. Soon, to Larry, it was a labyrinth of passages--a
network, here underground. In previous centuries this had been well
below the lowest cellar of the mammoth city; these tube-like passages
were the city's arteries, the conduits for wires and pipes.

It was an underground maze. At each intersection the row of hidden
hooded lights terminated, and darkness and several branching trails
always lay ahead. But Tina, with a memorized key of the route, always
found a new switch to light another short segment of the proper
tunnel. It was an eery trip, with the bent, misshapen black-cloaked
figure of Tugh stumping ahead, waiting where the lights ended for Tina
to lead them further.

Larry had long since lost his sense of direction, but presently Tina
told him that they were beneath the river. The tunnel widened a
little.

"We are under the base of the dam," said Tina. Her voice echoed with a
sepulchral blur. Ahead, the tramping figure of Tugh seemed a black
gnome with a fantastic, monstrous shadow swaying on the tunnel wall
and roof.

Suddenly Tugh stopped. They found him at an arched door.

"Do we go in here, or keep on ahead?" he demanded.

The tunnel lights ended a short distance ahead.

"In here," said Tina. "There are stairs leading upward to the catwalk
balcony corridor halfway up the dam. We are not far from the Power
House now."

They then ascended interminable moldy stone steps spiraling upward in
a circular shaft. The murmur of the dam's spillways had been faintly
audible, but now it was louder, presently it became a roar.

"Which way, Tina? We seem to have reached the top."

"Turn left, Tugh."

They emerged upon a tiny transverse metal balcony which hung against
the southern side of the dam. Overhead to the right towered a great
wall of masonry. Beneath was an abyss down to the lower river level
where the cascading jets from the overhead spillways arched out over
the catwalk and landed far below in a white maelstrom of boiling,
bubbling water.

The catwalk was wet with spray; lashed by wind currents.

"Is it far, Princess? Are those lights ahead at the Power House
entrance?"

Tugh was shouting back over his shoulder; his words were caught by the
roar of the falling water; whipped away by the lashing spray and
tumultuous winds. There were lights a hundred feet ahead, marking an
entrance to the Power House. The dark end of the structure showed like
a great lump on the side of the dam.

Again Tugh stopped. In the white, blurred darkness Larry and Tina
could barely see him.

"Princess, quickly! Come quickly!" he called, and his shout sounded
agonized.

Whatever lack of perception Larry all this time had shown, the fog
lifted completely from him now. As Tina started to run forward, Larry
seized her.

"Back! Run the other way! We've been fools!" He shoved Tina behind him
and rushed at Tugh. But now Larry was wholly wary; he expected that
Tugh was armed, and cursed himself for a fool for not having devised
some pretext for finding out.[10]

[Footnote 10: As a matter of actuality, Tugh was carrying hidden upon
his person a small cylinder and battery of the deadly white-ray. It
seems probable that although on the catwalk--having accomplished his
purpose of getting within the electrical fortifications of the
dam--Tugh had ample opportunity of killing his over-trustful
companions with the white-ray, he did not dare use it. The catwalk was
too dark for their figures to be visible to the Power House guards;
the roar of the spillways drowned their shouts; but had Tugh used the
white-ray, its abnormally intense actinic white beam would have raised
the alarm which Tugh most of all wanted to avoid.]

Tugh was clinging to the high outer rail of the balcony, slumped
partly over as though gazing down into the abyss. Larry rushed up and