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In Washington during those next few days, events of the Earth, Venus and Mars swirled and raged around Georg as though he were engulfed in the Iguazu or Niagara. Passive himself at first—a spectator merely; yet he was the keystone of the Earth Council's strength. The Brende secret was desired by the publics of all three worlds. Even greater than its real value as a medical discovery, it swayed the popular mind.
Tarrano possessed the Brende secret. The only model, and Dr. Brende's notes were in his hands. Washington had ordered him to give them up, and he had refused. But now the status was changed. Georg held the secret also—and Georg was in Washington. It left the Earth Council free to deal with Tarrano.
During those days Georg was housed in official apartments, with Maida very often near him. Inactive, they were much together, discussing their respective worlds. The Princess Maida was hereditary ruler of the Venus Central State—the only living heir to the throne. When Tarrano's forces threatened revolution from the Cold Country she had been seized by spies, brought to Earth, to Tarrano in Venia, and imprisoned in the tower from which Georg had so lately rescued her. Wolfgar for years had been her friend and loyal retainer, though he had pretended service to Tarrano.
In the Central State, Maida, too young to rule, had been represented by a Council. The public loved her—but a majority of it had gone astray when she disappeared—lured by Tarrano's glowing promises.
Maida told Georg all this with a sweet, gentle sadness that was pathetic. And with an earnest, patriotic fervor—the love of her country and her people for whom she would give her life.
She added: "If only I could get back there, Georg—I could make them realize the right course. I could win them again. Tarrano will play them false— you know it, and so do I."
Pathetic earnestness in this girl still no more than seventeen! And Georg, sitting beside her, gazing into her solemn, beautiful face, felt that indeed she could win them, with those limpid blue eyes and her words which rang with sincerity and truth.
They sat generally in an unofficial instrument room adjoining the government offices. A room high in a spire above the upper levels of the city. And around them rolled the momentous events of which they were the center.
The time limit of the Earth Council's ultimatum to Tarrano expired. Already Tarrano had answered it with defiance. But on the stroke of its expiration, came another note from him. Georg read it from the tape to Maida:
"To the Earth Council from Tarrano, its loyal subject——"
A grimly ironical note, yet so worded that the ignorant masses would not see its irony. It stated that Tarrano could not comply with the demand that he deliver himself and the Brende model to Washington because he did not have the model. It was on its way to Venus. He now proposed to recall it. He had already recalled it, in fact. He assured the Council that it was now on its way back, direct to Washington. He had done this because he felt that the Earth leaders were making a mistake—a grave mistake in the interests of their own people. Georg Brende was in Washington—that was true. But Georg Brende was a silly, conceited young man, flattered by his prominence in the public eye, his head turned by his own importance. Dr. Brende had been a genius. The son was a mere upstart, pretending to a scientific knowledge he did not have.
"Trickery!" exclaimed Georg. "But he knows the people may believe it. Some of them undoubtedly will."
"And you cannot thwart your public," Maida said. "Even your Earth Council, secure in its power, cannot do that."
"Exactly," Georg rejoined. He was indignant, as well he might have been. "Tarrano is trying to avoid being attacked. Time—any delay—is what he wants."
The note went on. Tarrano—seeking only the welfare of the people—could not stand by and see the Earth Council wreck its public. Tarrano had reconsidered his former note. The Brende model was vital, and since the Earth Council demanded the model (for the benefit of its people) the people should have it. In a few days it would be in Washington. Tarrano himself would not come to Washington. His doing that could not help the public welfare, and he was but human. The Earth Council had made itself his enemy; he could not be expected to trust his life in enemy hands.
The note closed with the suggestion that the Council withdraw its patrol from Venia. This talk of war was childish. Withdraw the patrol, and Tarrano himself might go back to Venus. He would wait a day for answer to this request; and if it were not granted—if the patrol were not entirely removed—then the Brende model would be destroyed. And if the publics of three worlds wished to depend upon a conceited, ignorant young man like Georg Brende for the everlasting life, they were welcome to do so.
A clever piece of trickery, and it was awkward to deal with. One had only to watch its effect upon the public to realize how insidious it was. Tarrano had told us—in the tower in Venia: "I shall have to bargain with them." And chuckled as he said it.
A series of notes from the Earth Council and back again, followed during the next few days. But the patrol was not withdrawn; nor was war declared. The Earth Council knew that Tarrano had not ordered the model back—nor would he destroy it. Yet if the Earth forces were to overwhelm Tarrano, and the model were lost, a revolution upon Earth could easily take place before Georg could convince the people that he was able to build them another model.
This delay—while Tarrano was held virtually a prisoner in Venia—was decided upon at the instigation of Georg himself. He—Georg—would address the publics of the three worlds. With Maida beside him to influence her own public in Venus, they would convince everyone that Georg had the secret—and that he alone would use it for the public good.
Youthful plans! Youthful enthusiasm! The belief that they could win confidence to their cause by the very truthfulness in their hearts! The belief that right makes might—which Tarrano would have told them was untrue!
Yet it was a good plan, and the Earth Council approved it, since it could do no harm to try. And it perhaps would have been successful but for one thing, of which even at that moment I—in Venia—was aware. Tarrano's trickery was not all on the surface. He had written into that note—by a code of diabolically ingenious wording—a secret message to his own spies in Washington. Commands for them to obey. A dozen of his spies were in the Earth government's most trusted, highest service—and some of them were there in Washington, close around Georg and Maida as they made their altruistic plan.
The attempt was to be made from the high-power sending station in the mountains of West North America.
Our observatory was there; and the only one of its kind on the Earth. It was equipped to send a radio voice audibly to every part of the Earth; and by helio, also to Mars and Venus, there to be re-transformed from light to sound and heard throughout those other worlds. And moving images of the speakers, seen on the finders all over the Earth, Venus and Mars simultaneously. The power, the generating equipment was at this station; and no matter where in the sky Venus or Mars might be, from the Mountain Station the vibrations of mingled light and sound were relayed elsewhere on Earth to other stations from which the helios could be flashed direct.
To Skylan, as the Mountain Station was popularly called, Georg and Maida were taken in official aero under heavy convoy. Yet, even then, at their very elbows, spies of Tarrano must have been lurking.
The official flyer landed them on the broad stage amid deep, soft snow. It was night—a brief trip from the late afternoon, through dinner and they were there. A night of clear shining stars—brilliant gems in deep purple. Clear, crisp, rarefied air; a tumbling expanse of white, with the stars stretched over it like a close-hung canopy.
They were ushered into the low, rambling building. The attempt was to be made at once. Mars was mounting the eastern sky; and to the west, Venus was setting. Both visible from direct helios at that moment—Red Mars, from this mountain top, glowing like the tip of an arrant-cylinder up there.
In the brief time since the party had left Washington, the worlds had been notified. The eyes and ears of the millions of three planets were waiting to see and hear this Georg Brende and this Princess Maida.
The sending room was small, circular, and crowded with apparatus. And above its dome, opened to the sky, wherein the intensified helios shaded so that no ray of them might blind the operators, were sputtering as though eager to be away with their messages.
With a dozen officials around him, Georg prepared to enter the sending room. He had parted from Maida a few moments before, when she had left him to be shown to her apartment by the women attendants.
As she moved away, on impulse he had stopped her. "We shall succeed, Maida."
Her hand touched his arm. A brave smile, a nod, and she had passed on, leaving him standing there gazing after her with pounding heart. Pounding, not with excitement at the task before him in that sending room; pounding with the sudden knowledge that the welfare of this frail little woman meant more to him than the safety of all these worlds.
At last Georg stood in the sending room. The officials sat grouped around him. Maida had not yet arrived from her apartment. There was a small platform, upon which she and Georg were to stand together. He took his place upon it, waiting for her.
Before him was the sending disc; it glowed red as they turned the current into it. Then they illumined the mirrors; a circle of them, each with its image of Georg upon the platform. The white lights above him flashed on, beating down upon him with their hot, dazzling glare. The reflected beams from the mirrors, struck upward into the dome overhead. The helios up there were humming and sputtering loudly.
Beyond the circle of intense white light in which Georg was standing, the spectators sat in gloom behind the mirrors. Maida had not come. The Skylan Director, impatient ordered a woman to go for her.
Then, suddenly, Georg said to this Director:
"I—these lights—this heat. It makes me feel faint—standing here."
Georg had stumbled from the platform. Between two of the mirrors, shaded from the glare, the perturbed Director met him. Moisture beaded Georg's forehead.
"I'll—be quite all right in a moment. I'm going over there." He smiled weakly. A dozen feet away there was an opened outer casement. It looked down twenty feet, perhaps, to the deep snow that covered the station's grounds. The Director started with Georg; but Georg pushed him violently away.
"No! No! You let me alone!" His accents were those of a spoiled child. The Director hesitated, and Georg, with a hand to his forehead, wavered toward the casement. The Director saw him standing there; saw him sway, then fall or jump forward, and disappear.
They rushed outside. The snow was trampled all about with heavy footprints, but Georg had vanished. From the women's apartment, the attendant came back. The Princess Maida could not be found!
And in those moments of confusion, from outside across the starlit snow, an aero was rising. Silent, black—and no one saw it as it winged away into the night.