Tama Princes of Mercury Read online

  To Grenfell, cold with horror, it seemed an eternity; yet he had no more than time to order Ranee to lower the Cube. Another minuteor five at the mostthose reckless frenzied girls would all have sacrificed themselves.

  Grenfell stood breathless. And suddenly he saw a distant segment of the barrage go down. A single projector went dark, leaving a great hole above it. But why? The girls had not done it; there had been no attack there.

  Abruptly the dark projector flashed on again. Grenfell gasped at an incredible sight.

  . When she could find no trace of Jimmy, Rowena was alarmed.

  "He's gone. Jack! Jimmy Turk has gonel"

  "But he was with us a moment ago. Rowena, he" I leaped to my feet, standing in the bottom of the little hollow within the enemy camp, with the battle raging around us. Then I saw him; he was crawling on the ground a hundred feet away, his broken leg dragging after him. In three or four leaps I was with him.

  "What are you doing?" I flung myself down with him.

  "What in-"

  "Let me alone! Lie near the ground. You'll be safe in that hollow." He tried to pull away from me; but when I held him he told me his plan. Possible, at least.

  "Look, Jack, we're near it. Only three men there. We can end this war at once." The area here was comparatively quiet.

  "Look, Jackhow close" I had not realized how near we were to one of the barrage projectors. Jimmy had crawled to a little rise of ground.

  Ahead, not over a hundred feet from us, the projector stood on the rocks with its vertical spreading beam above ita three-foot metallic cone, mounted on a low wheeled carriage.

  Three men stood on the small low platform; their figures showed dark against the radiance. There was momentarily nothing between us and those men. And their attention was outward, not back toward us, behind them in the camp.

  It was black here save for the lightning flares. I bounded back to Rowena. She flattened herself down in the hollow against the rocks, as I directed, but turned her white face up to me. A lightning flash painted it with a flush of red.

  I was again with Jimmy. The men at the projector still had not seen us. A hundred feet to go....

  "I'll carry you," I whispered, "until we get within range."

  "No! Might see us. Takes a little longer, but I can make good speed." In a lull of all the screaming sounds of the turmoil, we could hear the steady hum and hiss of this projector as we got closer to it.

  "Jack, I'll give the word and well fire together." Our hand cylinders had a short range; we did not know bow far, but certainly twenty feet. We got almost that close, still undiscovered. I was aware of an increased turmoil outside the barrage. But not at this particular segment.

  The men on the projector platform turned to look back across the camp. But their gaze was in the air toward the rising Cube with the high-powered ray leaping up and striking it.

  We crawled a little farther. One of the men was looking our way. Then his attention seemed diverted. We went on again. We were doubtless plainly visible now.

  A rush for itJimmy went like a maimed crab on his hands and one leg.

  "Jack-nowl" Our little blue-green beams flashed. Two of the men went down. The other leaped over the platform edge. His shot went wide of us. He vanished. I ran for the projector, with Jimmy scuttling after me. From behind the platform the figure appeared. My shot exploded his weapon, but his insulated suit withstood it. My leap carried me into him. We fell, and rolled under the platform. He was a thickset man but frail. He lay inert under my blows.

  I rose from under the projector carriage. Jimmy had reached it, and pulled himself to the platform; he fumbled with the mechanism. By chance he turned it off. He was cursing, panting, as I jumped up beside him.

  "Blamed thingcan't" He pushed me away and tilled the projector down. "Got it! Now, Jack!" He flashed on the giant beam to horizontal. Not outward inward I A single slow, sideways oscillation, swept in one brief instant' the full width of the camp with a swath of destruction and death! For an instantthere was the gruesome sizzle and crackle of withering, blasting heat. The whole barrage, as the central controlling mechanism must have been struck, went black. Jimmy's beam vanished with it. Darkness everywhere.

  Then only the mounting yellow flames of the burning camp was left, the wrecked, half-fused silver ball lying broker in its center; and over the chaos the flying girls darted with harmless little search-beams now to see what might be left alive.

  We found Rowena safe in the little gully over which the blast had swept. Tama and Guy returned with the bodies of Toh and Roc on their flying platform, only in time to see the strangely abrupt, terrible end to the conflict.

  It was hours before the storm had passed and we were ready to return to Hill City. A few prisoners were taken, not many. They found Dorrek's body lying in the wreckage of his vehicle. And Muta's body, with her hands clasped about his neck.

  With the wounded crowding the Cube, we started back.

  The return of the victorious army I There is no greater misnomer than to call any returning army victorious. The Cube was jammed with a gruesome burden: The maimed; the living who, most of them, would rather have died. The platforms were heavy with wingless girls. Every cart in Arton's army was laden for the return; the young men tenderly carried stretchers.

  Tama and Guy were married in the Hill City. New laws were proposed regarding the clipping and mutilation of the virgins' wings. They had saved their nation, these fearless, recklessonce rebelliousvirgins. They had put aside their grievance against the men for the greater cause.

  There was as yet no enactment of the law to say that Tama could be married with wings unclipped, yet she was.

  And every man who saw the strange little ceremony raised his voice to cheer. Jimmy stood there beside them. And Tama turned and kissed him in Earth fashion before them alL Rowena, Jimmy and I are back on Earth now. Guy and Tama came with us for a brief visit. As Grenfell foresaw, a new era is at hand: the era of interplanetary travel. New worlds, but not to conquer.

  A few moments ago, Rowena, Jimmy and I witnessed what to us at least was the most emotion-stirring sight of our lives.

  The first broadcasted televised scene of Tama flying. It was why she made this second visit to the Earthto show herselfto cement the friendship of the two worlds.

  Here in my study we gathered before my mirror-grid. It showed the narrow vista of a woodland scene. From over the distant green trees, with the fleecy sky behind her, Tama came flying. Waving black hair and blue-white draperies; white limbs poised; vivid crimson wings outstretched.

  Guy was standing in the foreground. She came soaring like a graceful bird and landed upon tiptoe with back-flapping wings. She stood smiling, bowing, and kissing her hands to her vast unseen audience. And then turning, she ran and flung herself into Guy's waiting arms.

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