CHAPTER XV
GRAFF'S TREACHERY
"It's time," said Hulda. "Shall we start?"
Another hour had passed. Zetta had not mentioned her escapade into the city to meet Graff; nor had I. We were ready now to start for Graff's meeting. It was our first adventure abroad at night on Xenephrene. We had been twice before up this incline into the streets of Garla; but this time it seemed very different.
A sense of evil lay heavy upon me. It was a cloudless night, with Pyrena, the moon, a great purple round disk. The forest was full of purple shadows; the red murmuring things were abroad, and I blessed with a new understanding, this purple light which held them in check. We ascended the incline and came upon Garla's main street. The two girls were shrouded in cloaks of white. Father the same. Once, Hulda raised her cloak like a hood over her head until Freddie asked her to lower it.
"You look like a ghost in this moonlight." He laughed, but it was high-pitched and nervous, unlike him.
Dan whispered to me: "Kean is to join us at the stadium entrance. Do you think he will, Peter? If anything goes wrong—"
"We'll sit near the back," I whispered. "He'll find us. You and Freddie and I must sit together, where we can slip away."
Freddie edged toward us as we walked along; the street swayed and bent beneath us. "This cursed flimsy city! Where did Kean say he'd join us? Peter, give me my knife and revolver—thank Heaven for these dark cloaks—"
We three had seen cloaks of a dark woven fiber lying in one of the rooms of Under Gardens. We had wanted to wear them, and father had acquiesced.
I raised my cloak, surreptitiously handed Freddie the weapons. We each had a short, wide dirk—and an Essen soundless automatic—the only weapons we had brought from earth. They were very welcome now!
"Move back," I whispered to Dan. "Father will wonder what we're talking about."
We were determined to get into the grotto by whatever desperate expedient Kean would think possible of success. Father would approve—we did not doubt that. But he would want to go with us. That we did not desire. In the event of failure, we wanted him, at least, to remain in safety. He would not, very probably, be blamed by the Garlands for our attack. He would be left to look after Hulda. And—I added to myself—look after Zetta.
Shrouded in our cloaks, we hastened through Garla's tree-top streets. In the purple moonlight the dark houses seemed giant birds' nests; the giant leaves which occasionally hung over them were motionless in the still night air. A breathless silence brooded over everything. The houses showed occasional glows of light; but most of them seemed unoccupied. There were many pedestrians. All were going our way.
From a doorway a woman clutching a baby at her breast, gazed down on us with an obvious hostility. "A Braun," I thought. But she was not.
Hulda pointed her out—a Garland. From over us, as a crowd of young people went past in a leap, some one dropped a flower. A heavy thing—it struck Dan a blow on the shoulder which brought a startled curse from him. Hulda waved her white arm upward in a friendly gesture; but her face was very solemn.
"I don't like this," father murmured. "They're hostile—in all the months we've been here, it's never been like this."
Father had stopped. "I think we'll go back." He drew me aside. "It's only curiosity taking us here—we know what Graff will say to the people. The Garland government will decide against us to-morrow. The time is short, Peter—if we're going to do anything."
Father lowered his voice. "Look here, I want to get you three alone—without the girls. We'll have to try something desperate. Peter, if we let Graff get away from us—if he gets to earth—whatever we do, we ought to try it to-night."
I drew him along. Good old father—he would have plunged into the most desperate adventure with us. It went against me to let him down, but I thought it best.
"Let's go—just a little while. And Kean is to meet us—right ahead here, at the entrance." A Braun went sailing by with a menacing, derisive shout; but father did not notice him. I called to Dan and Freddie; warned them with a significant word and glance. They joined their urging to mine, and father yielded.
We went on. The crowd began pressing around us as we approached the stadium gate. Out of the moonlight Kean came sailing at us; landed lightly beside me. Dan and Freddie crowded up. I whispered: "It's all right, Kean?"
"Yes. They are remove most of the guards to atten' the meeting here. I will get you seated, then go back and see how it is. In half an hour, we will be ready to try it."
Father approached us. "You coming with us, Kean? The Garlands are hostile; I've never seen anything like it. Have you heard from the border?"
"No," said Kean. "Something is wrong. No Brauns have left. There are many, oh, ver' many, around here in Garla to-night—"
Freddie asked: "You seen Graff? Where is he now?"
"Inside," Kean gestured. "On the upper platform leap. The woman Brea is with him—and many Brauns." He whispered aside to me. "Are you guarding Zetta well? When we leave, only the professor will be with her and Hulda, so I order' your insects to come—yes, here is one."
An insect appeared upright at our elbows. Then another. Kean told father he had ordered them. "Good," said father. "Tell them to stay close to Zetta. But we'll be with her anyway."
The stadium was a great moonlit area on the tree-top surface. A high wall of latticed boards surrounded it. We passed through a gate. Inside, banks of seats swung around a great circle. They were jammed with people—tiers of seats, one above the other, with giant projecting trees serving as uprights to hold them.
The branches, too, were crowded. Upon a thick vine, swinging like a cable across one end, men clung like flies, dark blobs in the moonlight. The seats everywhere seemed built in disorderly array, banked high or low according to the contour of the growing vegetation. At intervals around the outer circumference small jumping platforms were set. They were all black with people.
An oval running track was perched on stilts at one side; another track stood vertically, as though races might be held on its inner surface like a squirrel cage. People clustered both structures. There was a single row of flimsy fifty-foot high poles, set upright in a line; ten of them, at intervals of ten feet or so. Gymnasium apparatus. A man clung now to the bending top of each of them.
Upon every point of vantage, people were clinging. The top of the lattice fence, which was at least fifty feet high, held a fringe of young men and girls perched precariously there, laughing. Occasionally one would fall off and come climbing nimbly back.
In the purple moonlight it was a scene of confusion. The audience was assembling, leaping from the gateway, climbing to where space seemed to offer. A man and girl leaped hand in hand. They missed their intended perch and fell a dozen feet in a heap. A great shout of laughter went up.
We entered with our heavy, dragging tread. People craned to see us. A murmur rose. A few girls called to Zetta, or to Hulda. Some shouted derisively. We were in a deep shadow of the gate. In the gloom, father stumbled, fell heavily. A flimsy empty seat broke where he went down; Dan kicked another seat to fragments as he jumped to pick father up.
"I'm all right, Dan. Thanks." His words were almost drowned in the jeers around us.
"We'll sit here," I whispered to Kean. "Here near the gate. Go ahead now, we'll wait here. Come back as soon as you can."
We took these first empty seats, just inside the gate. Platforms and poles partly obstructed our view; but we could see enough. The rostrum from which Graff was to speak was in clear sight—a platform in the center of the stadium, raised about a hundred feet. A bank of soft lights up there cast a lurid purple glow which did little more than intensify the moonlight. Brauns were crowded up there; among them I could see the towering figures of Graff and Brea.
We sat in a line; father, Hulda and Zetta were at one end, we three conspirators nearer the gate. Behind Zetta, our two insects were lying prone on the surface of a vine. The thought occurred to me then, as it had several times before—these insects were not armed. There were police guards all over the stadium; some seemed to have a single small weapon—it was the only weapon I had ever seen in Garla. I had my dirk in its sheath at my belt; and the Essen automatic in its holster—with the black cloak shrouding them. But I wondered what was the nature of the police guards' weapon.
Zetta was next beside me. In all the turmoil of my thoughts, I was wholly conscious of it. I leaned over her. "Zetta, when he begins talking, you'll have to translate for us."
"Yes," she whispered. Her long white hair lay on the seat between us. In the darkness my fingers found a lock of it and clung. She did not know it—or perhaps she did? I fancied her shoulder bent toward me.
"Peter," she whispered, "be ver' careful what you do to-night—keep out of harm if you can. I did not tell you, I have arrange' with Kean that if you are successful, your father, Hulda and I will meet you out in the open country, where your vehicle can pick us up—"
An abrupt hush had fallen over the audience. The towering figure of Graff had come to the edge of the platform facing us. Some one had turned a light full upon him; he stood etched in the darkness, a lurid purple figure. A hush. He raised his arms; he was smiling benignly as he regarded the sea of upturned faces beneath him. A very kingly scoundrel!
A moment; and then he began to speak. His voice, with its words unintelligible to me, rolled out over the silence. Soft, persuasive, yet powerful. It evidently carried to every far corner of the amphitheater. Sometimes he turned to regard those behind him. Speaking quietly. Then, with a sudden, explosive, thundering statement; then a gentle, persuasive question. All the tricks of the orator! A very kingly scoundrel! He was carrying them.
Applause broke out; his gesture was deprecating as he silenced it. I wondered when Kean would return for us. We could easily slip away from father.
My thoughts were roaming; Kean ought to come shortly. Now was our chance, with most of the guards here at the meeting. Graff was unconsciously playing into our hands—drawing all the guards away from the grotto to hear him talk.
Kean dropped before me! I looked up to meet his white, agitated face. "Peter, don't cry out! Get your father—all of you get out of here!"
Something was wrong! I recall that I felt a little tug as the lock of Zetta's hair pulled from my fingers. Just a little tug—I forgot it at once, gazing into Kean's horrified face.
"What—" Freddie and Dan were shoving toward us to hear. It made a slight confusion. I repeated, "What—" Half rose to my feet.
A shout stiffened me. It came from a small house by the gate, where officials as the crowd assembled had been directing the seating. A shout from there. An official's voice, bellowing. Accents of horror, and command.
Kean gasped his news: "The Infra-red Control! The crimson and purple globes—they have been stolen!"
The news was already here! The frightened voice from the gate was bellowing it. Graff's voice died away. There was an instant of horrified silence. Kean murmured: "I found the tunnel guards murdered! The controls are gone! These Brauns—"
The amphitheater broke into a pandemonium. Shouts; the thump and rattle of scrambling, panic-stricken Garlands. Figures leaping up. The official voice was bellowing. A police guard near me raised a weapon toward the platform where Graff was standing. But he did not fire. The lights up there were suddenly extinguished. A red glow took their place.
The crimson barrage Graff had used on earth! His Brauns had smuggled it into Garla—they had its apparatus now on the platform. A great circular red curtain enveloped the rostrum up there. From a dozen points about the amphitheater the police guards were firing their short purple stabs of flame at it.
A panic of confusion was around me. A sailing figure—a man trying to leave the stadium—came down and landed full on me. I was knocked sidewise; kicking, trying to disentangle myself from him. We crashed through a seat, and with my weight we fell half my height to a lower level. I got to my feet, fighting the press of frightened people who were shoving me. I could still see Graff's barrage; I could hear its squeals above the pandemonium of shouts.
Up there in the purple moonlight, over the barrage, a black object was descending from the sky. A vehicle? A flying platform—I could not see it clearly. It dropped swiftly down within the barrage circle. In a moment it came sailing up. It passed high over me. A flying platform. The escaping Brauns crowded its rails. The crimson barrage faded out; the rostrum was empty.
Graff's treachery was laid bare. He had stolen the globes of the Infra-red Control!
Without them, Xenephrene in a month or two was doomed. These frightened officials of Garla, these panic-stricken people, all knew it. A world gone mad! But my thoughts were not concerned with that; the cold horror within me sprang from another thought. A realization. Graff had stolen the Infra-red Control to use on earth! My shuddering imagination leaped ahead. A world, our blessed earth, gone mad!